(1) SECOND OPINION. The President of Turkey is not a forgiving audience for social satire. So we learn from “Turkish Court to Determine if Gollum-Erdogan Comparison is Insult” at Voice of America.
The fate of a Turkish doctor is in the hands of experts who are tasked with determining whether he insulted the Turkish president by comparing him with the Gollum character from the “Lord of the Rings.”
Bilgin Ciftci could face two years in jail for sharing images on Facebook that seemed to compare President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the creepy character from J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels and film adaptations….
Turkish law states that anyone who insults the president can face a prison sentence of up to four years. Even stiffer sentences could befall a journalist.
Between August 2014, when Erdogan was elected, to March of this year, 236 people have been investigated for “insulting the head of state,” according to the BBC. Just over 100 were indicted.
(2) DIANA’S BOOK ON KINDLE. Now you can pre-order a Kindle edition of Bandersnatch, Diana Pavlac Glyer’s book about the Inklings. The release date is December 8.
You can also request a download of the first chapter at the Bandersnatch website.
(3) THESE THINGS COST MONEY! Destroying Death Stars is bad for galactic business. Or so claims a Midwestern academic. “Professor calculates economic impact of destroying ‘Death Stars’”.
Assistant professor of engineering at Washington University Zachary Feinstein recently published a study entitled “It’s a Trap: Emperor Palpatine’s Poison Pill” which posits that there would be a “catastrophic” economic crisis in the Star Wars universe brought on by the destruction of the Death Stars.
Feinstein’s research indicates that the two Death Stars constructed in the films cost approximately $193 quintillion and $419 quintillion respectively to complete. He calculated the cost of the planet-destroying space weapons by comparing them to the real life USS Gerald Ford.
According to Feinstein, the economic impact of both Death Stars being destroyed within a four-year period would cause an economic collapse comparable to the Great Depression.
Feinstein says the size of the Galactic economy would drop by 30 percent without a government bailout, which he doesn’t believe the Rebel Alliance would provide.
Well, there’s your problem. Rebel governments are notoriously reluctant to bail out recently overthrown tyrants.
(4) MONDYBOY TAKES STOCK. Ian Mond is “Moving Forward” at The Hysterical Hamster.
For the last three months I’ve had the nagging suspicion that I was a dead man walking when it came to writing reviews. As much as I’ve enjoyed the process of reading novels on shortlists and then sharing my thoughts, the time it was taking to write a half decent review meant I wasn’t keeping pace with my reading. And as the gap between reviews and books read widened that nagging suspicion became a cold hard reality.
I simply don’t have the time to produce reviews of a quality high enough that I’m happy to see them published. Yes, I could try to write shorter pieces, limit myself to 500 words, but every time I’ve attempted this my inner editor has taken a nap and before you know it I’ve spent five days writing a 1,500 word ramble. And, yeah, I could Patreon the shit out of this blog in the vain hope that asking for cash will compel me (more likely guilt me) into writing a review every couple of days. But fuck that. I’d rather enjoy the books I’m reading then feel weighed down by the responsibility of having to review them.
So I’ve made the mature decision to quit while I’m ahead….
Will it last? Will I be back in eight months with a similar post talking about how I no longer have the time to turn on my computer let alone snark about the Hugo Awards? Very likely. (I mean, it’s taken me three days to write this blog post).
(5) ROOTS. SF Signal’s latest “MIND MELD: The Influential roots of Science Fiction”, curated by Shana DuBois, asks:
“What genre roots have you found to be most influential and inspiring for you and your own writing?”
Providing the answers this time are Usman T. Malik, SL Huang, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Ferrett Steinmetz, Wendy N. Wagner, Kat Howard, Daryl Gregory, Amal El-Mohtar, Lesley Conner, and Jennifer Marie Brissett
(6) AH, THE CLASSICS. Cat Rambo says yes, the “classics” are worth reading, in “Another Word: On Reading, Writing, and the Classics” at Clarkesworld.
The point I want to make about my perspective on the “classics” is that I’ve read a substantial portion, both of the F&SF variety and the larger set, and made some of them the focus of study in grad school. (Again from both sets, since that focus was an uneasy combination of late 19th/early 20th American lit and cultural studies with a stress on comics/animation. You can see me here pontificating on The Virtual Sublime or here on Tank Girl. I’m not sure I could manage that depth of theory-speak again, at least without some sort of crash course to bring me back up to speed. But I digress.)
So here’s the question that brought me here: should fantasy and science fiction readers read the F&SF classics? And the answer is a resounding, unqualified yes, because they are missing out on some great reading in two ways if they don’t. How so?
- They miss some good books. So many many good books. At some point I want to put together an annotated reading list but that’s a project for tinkering with in one’s retirement, I think. But, for example, I’m reading The Rediscovery of Man: The Collected Stories of Cordwainer Smith right now (in tiny chunks, savoring the hell out of it) and they are such good stories, even with the occasional dated bit.
- They miss some of the context of contemporary reading, some of the replies those authors are making to what has come before. The Forever War, for example, is in part a reply to Bill the Galactic Hero; read together, both texts gain more complexity and interest.
(7) This Day In History
- December 2, 1939 – Laurel & Hardy’s The Flying Deuces is released, a movie without any science fictional content of its own (unless you count Oliver Hardy’s reincarnation as a horse in the final scenes), but figures strangely into an episode of Doctor Who. During “The Impossible Astronaut” (Doctor Who, S.6 ,Ep.10),Amy Pond, the Doctor’s companion, and Rory Williams watch the movie on DVD. Per the Wikipedia: “Rory sees The Doctor (Matt Smith) appear in the film running towards the camera wearing his fez and waving, before returning to dance with Stan and Ollie. This was achieved with Matt Smith dancing in front of a green screen.”
(8) BAXTER MARS SEQUEL. Gollancz has announced plans to publish Stephen Baxter’s sequel to Wells’ War of the Worlds.
The Massacre of Mankind is set in 1920s London when the Martians from the original novel return and the war begins again. However, this time they have learnt from their mistakes, making their attempts to massacre mankind even more frightening.
Baxter, who also co-wrote the Long Earth novels with Terry Pratchett, said it was an “honour” to write the sequel. “H G Wells is the daddy of modern science fiction. He drew on deep traditions, for instance of scientific horror dating back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and fantastic voyages such as Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. And he had important near-contemporaries such as Jules Verne. But Wells did more than any other writer to shape the form and themes of modern science fiction, and indeed through his wider work exerted a profound influence on the history of the twentieth century.”
It’s due to be published in January, 2017. This time, we’re told, the Martians have learned the lessons of their failed invasion: they’ll no longer fall prey to microbial infection.
(9) FASTER. Gregory Benford has posted John Cramer’s contribution to The 100 Year Starship Symposium, “Exotic Paths To The Stars.”
I was Chairman of the Exotic Technologies Session held on October 1, 2011, at the 100 year Starship Symposium in Orlando Florida. This chapter draws on the talks given in that session, but it does not represent a summary of the presentations. Rather, I want focus on three lines of development in the area of exotic technologies that were featured at the Symposium, developments that might allow us to reach the stars on a time scale of a human lifetime: (1) propellantless space drives, (2) warp drives, and (3) wormholes. With reference to the latter two topics, I will also discuss some cautions from the theoretical physics community about the application of general relativity to “metric engineered” devices like wormholes and warp drives that require exotic matter…
(10) HINES DECOMPRESSES. Jim C. Hines has “Post-Convention Insecurities” after his stint as Loscon 42 GoH.
I understand the phenomenon a bit better these days, but it still sucks. Partly, it’s exhaustion. You’re wiped out after the convention, and being tired magnifies all those insecurities. And the fact is, I know I stick my foot in it from time to time. We all do. It’s part of being human.
But I spend conventions trying to be “on.” Trying to be friendly and entertaining and hopefully sound like I know what the heck I’m talking about. Basically, trying to be clever. And I trust most of you are familiar with the failure state of clever?
Sometimes a joke falls flat. Sometimes I say something I thought was smart and insightful, realizing only after the words have left my mouth that it was neither. Sometimes an interaction feels off, like I’ve failed at Human Socializing 101. Or I get argumentative about something. Or I fail to confront something I should have gotten argumentative about. I could go on and on about the possibilities. That’s part of the problem.
The majority of the conversations and panels and interactions were unquestionably positive. But there’s a span when my brain insists on wallowing through the questionable ones, and I keep peeking at Twitter to double-check if anyone has posted that Jim C. Hines was the WORST guest of honor EVER, and should be fired from SF/F immediately.
Whether or not Jim had any influence on the result, I think it’s appropriate that in a year when he was GoH Loscon put together its most diverse range of program participants, probably ever – substantive speakers from all kinds of backgrounds.
(11) HOW GOOD WAS GOODREADS CHOICE? Rachel Neumeier browses the genre winners of the 2015 Goodreads Choice Awards.
If it’s a massive popularity contest you aim for, then the Goodreads Choice Awards is ideal. I dunno, I think in general I am most interested in the results of awards like the World Fantasy Award, which has a panel of judges; or the Nebula, which requires nominations to come from professional writers. In other words, not wide-open popularity contests. On the other hand, there’s a place for pure popularity too, obviously, and it was really quite interesting seeing what got nominated in all the Goodreads categories.
Of course I read mainly books that have been recommended by bloggers I follow and Goodreads reviewers I follow and so on, so these awards don’t much matter to me — no awards matter to me in that sense — but still, interesting to see what’s shuffled up to the top of the heap for 2015…
(12) SEE TWILIGHT ZONE WITH HARLAN. Cinefamily’s December events at the Silent Movie Theater in LA includes a celebration of the 30th anniversary of CBS’ 1985 version of The Twilight Zone, with Harlan Ellison, Rockne S. O Bannon, Bradford May, Michael Cassutt, Alan Brennert, Paul Lynch, William Atherton, J.D. Feigelson, Martin Pasko, Rebecca (Parr) Beck & Steven Railsback in person. December 5, starts at 5:30 p.m., tickets cost $14 (free for members).
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension-a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas-you just crossed over into the Twilight Zone…
Rod Serling opened his beloved, suspenseful, witty, and social commentary-filled drama with the same intonation every time, before presenting each delightfully formulaic science fiction fantasy, from 1959 to 1964. Those episodes will never cease to be replayed, but in 1985 CBS gave fans some new material to latch onto… an 80s revival of the series, created with the participation of writers, filmmakers, and actors for whom the original was a beloved memory. Join Cinefamily and the cast & crew of the 80s Twilight Zone at this 30th anniversary marathon and celebration, showcasing our absolute favorite 80s style sci-fi!!!
https://player.vimeo.com/video/146708899?title=1&byline=1&portrait=0&fullscreen=1&color=FFF685
(13) KUNKEL FOLLOW-UP. After last week’s post “Kunkel Awards Created”, I was able to ask some follow-up questions of the organizers. James Fudge, managing editor of Games Politics and Unwinnable, filled in some more background.
Most of the heavy lifting on this award needs to be credited to Michael Koretzky and the SPJ. Prior to AirPlay, Michael had talked to me about creating some kind of award to incentivize good games journalism. I thought this was a great idea. I also have a lot of respect for Bill Kunkel, and seeing how he is considered to be the very first “games journalist” (and helped created the first publication dedicated to video games) it seemed right and fair that he should be honored by having an award named after him. I didn’t know Bill personally but we talked a lot about journalism, the industry, and wrestling on a mailing list dedicated to games journalists called “GameJournoPros.”
After the criteria for the awards was sorted out I reached out to the widow of Bill Kunkel to ask for permission, She kindly gave us her approval.
(14) THE YEAR IN AFROSFF. Wole Talabi lists “My Favorite African Science Fiction and Fantasy (AfroSFF) Short Fiction of 2015”.
2015 has been a good year for African Science Fiction and Fantasy (or AfroSFF, as seems to be the consensus abbreviation). The year saw the release of Jalada’s Afrofutures anthology, Issues 2, 3, 4 and X of the new and excellent Omenana and Short Story Day Africa’s Terra Incognita. Still to come are AfroSFv2 (edited by Ivor Hartmann), African Monsters (edited by Margret Helgadottir and Jo Thomas) and Imagine Africa 500 (edited by Billy Kahora and Trine Andersen). So much good stuff to read and more to come….
So in the interest of fueling discussion and analysis of AfroSFF stories in general, here are my favorite AfroSFF stories of 2015 in no particular order.
(15) Filer Von Dimpleheimer has done some light housekeeping in the first two volumes of his Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos series.
I uploaded version 1.1 of Volume Two. I fixed some minor errors, but the main thing is that I put in the disclaimer page that was in Volume Three. I’ll do the same for Volume One as well.
The links should all be the same and still work. They worked for me after I had signed out of that account, but if you or any Filers have any problems, just let me know and I’ll try to sort it out.
(16) Harrison Ford was hilarious on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
First, he tried explaining how he dislocated his ankle on the Star Wars: The Force Awakens set, using a Han Solo action figure.
Then, Ford and Jimmy downed Greedo shots and debuted a colorful drink created in honor of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
(16) IT’S ONLY ROCK’N ROLL BUT I LIKE IT. Bill Roper says an ancient filk mystery has been solved.
Over 40 years ago, at the Toronto Worldcon in 1973, a young man joined the filk circle, sang a song, and vanished without a trace. The song was a lovely piece based on Arthur C. Clarke’s story, “The Sentinel”. Anne Passovoy was there and ended up reconstructing the song as best she could and adding it to her repertoire, noting that the song wasn’t hers, but presumably was something written by the anonymous young man.
And that was where things rested until last weekend at Chambanacon, when Bill Rintz and Bill Furry pulled out a song at their concert.
It was almost, but not quite the song that Anne had reconstructed. It was clearly the song that Anne had heard. All of the bones matched.
And so, as it turned out, did the feathers. Because this song was on The Byrds 1968 album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, and titled “Space Odyssey”.
You can hear the original here. The lyrics are here.
(17) CARDS AGAINST WHOMANITY. io9 will let you “Print out the Doctor Who version of Cards Against Humanity right now”
Cards Against Humanity is the hilarious party game for horrible people, and now you can mix the game’s political incorrectness with your knowledge of Doctor Who thanks to a fan-made edition called Cards Against Gallifrey.
Because Cards Against Humanity is published under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike, anyone can make their own cards for the game, provided they publish them under the same license and don’t sell them. The comedy group Conventional Improv performs a game show based on Cards Against Humanity at different conventions, and this fall, in honor of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary, they played Cards Against Gallifrey and have made their version of the game available to the public. Naturally, it’s crude, offensive, and imagines most of the cast naked.
(18) GREEN ACRES. Kind of like living in a Chia Pet. “This kit lets you assemble your own green-roofed Hobbit home in just 3 days” at The Open Mind.
Magic Green Homes fabricates such structures using prefabricated vaulted panels and covers them with soil, creating flexible green-roofed living spaces with a Tolkienesque charm. And the kicker? They’re so easy to construct, just about anyone can build one.
(19) ZICREE. Sci-fi writer-director-producer Marc Zicree gives you a tour of his Space Command studio while shooting Space Command 2: Forgiveness — and shows clips
[Thanks to Hampus Eckerman, von Dimpleheimer, Alan Dorey, John King Tarpinian, and Steven H Silver for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
A science news story with tangential spec-fi content
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/meet-xenokeryx-amidalae-weird-prehistoric-beast-conjures-up-images-of-star-wars-queen/
There’s an EU novel about the building and destruction of the Death Star. Quite a lot of the inhabitants were there involuntarily.
I have figured out what bothers me about Ann Leckie’s US edition trade paperback “Ancillary” cover art, striking and handsome though it is.
All three covers look almost indistinguishable. They all use sections of the same spaceship painting.
In addition, the first two covers each have a mirror-reversed image of the next book’s cover on their back covers and the third book has a rotated upside-down image of the first front cover on its back cover.
While there is no mistaking the content, the covers keep saying to me “Oh, I’ve read this already.”
re: (9)
What kind of human lifetime is Baxter talking about? Getting to the stars in forty years? (Renaissance). Getting to the stars in sixty years? (Early Industrial). Getting to the stars in seventy-five years? (Now). And this is the extensions merely of more food, antibiotics, and vaccines, on the whole – inputs and the ability to correct some outward intrusions.
What’s getting to the stars in a lifetime when we start making the matrix live longer? A recognizable human brain in a body that will putter along just fine for several centuries? And likely could hibernate like a wood frog if they wanted some time away? These are things with much more definite paths to them than the warp drive – and lacking what seem to be some pretty hard barriers.
And time to read on the way.
I’m a bit annoyed with Baxter because my novel (mash-up) “Charles Dickens Martian Notes” both works as a 1842 prequel to War of the Worlds and sets up a 1914-18 sequal, which I was intending to write for 2017 when the copy-right on Wells work lapses.
Oh well – you can get my book here or on Kindle for £2.50.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/simon-bucher-jones/charles-dickens-martian-notes/ebook/product-22392449.html
@Peace:
Agreed. When I saw Ancillary Mercy on the shelves a few days before the book was officially released, I had to go through all three just to make sure I wasn’t confusing it with the earlier volumes.
The other thing was that both Death Stars were built entirely by the Imperial Navy, without involving contractors like Quat. Considering that the Empire had dedicated slave planets, automated asteroid mining facilities and extensive state owned factory complexes, a lot of the raw materials would come down primarily to labour costs from existing Imperial forces. Despite what Clerks said, somewhere in the Imperial hierarchy is a technician who specializes in space plumbing.
@Lexica – I think I can speak for T. Kingfisher when I say that’s exactly the level of success she’d like to have!
(Which I am actually rather close to–I live pretty modestly, though the pets have increasingly expensive ailments–but I’d like to spend more of my writing time as Kingfisher and less as Vernon, simply because the turnarounds on the comic kid books are seriously brutal. It’s fine now when I’m only 38, but I can’t keep this pace up indefinitely. Of course, I’ve got a kid brother about to start college next year, so I won’t be slowing down any time soon!)
I have a problem with Cat Rambo’s statement, “They miss some good books. So many many good books.” This is true no matter what you read. The sum total of human literature has long ago passed the point where a single person could consume it even given infinite time–humanity collectively produces books faster than any single person can read them. Even if you accept Sturgeon’s Law, and cut the input flow down to 10% of the total production, you’re still in a situation where you just can’t read everything good. (Especially because you also have to fit in eating, sleeping, working, watching all those really excellent movies and TV shows out there…)
@John Seavey: Right on. Even if I gave up all other reading, music, computer games, etc., I couldn’t keep up with the flow of good work just in science fiction & fantasy. (Maaaaybe in horror, if I made it my life’s work? Or has that boat sailed too?) In practice, we’re all going to be missing good stuff, all the time. It makes sense to focus on getting stuff we like and that enriches us, and being satisfied with that.
THESE THINGS COST MONEY!
Actually, this aligns with something I’ve been wondering since I saw The Force Awakens trailers. Specifically, the part where Rey asks Han (paraphrasing): “Were you there?” and he replies, “It’s true. The Force, the Jedi, all of it.”
If the timeline in Star Wars is roughly following our universe’s timeline (that is, approximately forty years after the events in Return of the Jedi) how could nobody remember why the Empire fell? If indeed there was a “catastrophic economic crisis” and the Empire splintered into hundreds or thousands of little fiefdoms, and the Rebel Alliance certainly wouldn’t be able to bail them out, that might explain it. All those people would be fighting for their survival, and to hold on to whatever technology they still had, and the memory of those events, as galaxy-shattering as they were at the time, would soon fade.
SEE TWILIGHT ZONE WITH HARLAN.
Maybe I’m misremembering, but didn’t the Twilight Zone revival have an adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s “Sandkings”?
There was a Sandkings episode of the Outer Limits revival.
@Jack Lint
Thank you. That’s right.
AH, THE CLASSICS ‘2. They miss some of the context of contemporary reading, some of the replies those authors are making to what has come before. The Forever War, for example, is in part a reply to Bill the Galactic Hero; read together, both texts gain more complexity and interest.’
I think this is a great point, often books are a response to the influences of the author which tends to be other books. From small references (there’s a random fun Hitchhiker’s Guide call out in Saturn Run) to just familiar what if scenarios looked at from a different angle, it often feels like a dynamic conversation of ideas and if you don’t read some of the classics it’s sort of like missing out on a part of that conversation. I mean you can miss it and be just fine, but you don’t get as much out of certain works.
How did the Empire fall? The Rebel Alliance mounted a successful attack on the second Death Star while the Emperor was still inside.
But the Force, and the Jedi? Most of that was behind the scenes, out-of-sight, or with few surviving witnesses besides close friends. Some people in the original trilogy actively disbelieved in the Force, so I could see it having trouble making it into the official history.
My pleasure in reading Cat Rambo’s essay was surpassed only by reading John Cramer’s.
::Waves to Mike::
It was nice getting to see you, albeit very briefly. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to say hi and chat a bit.
[sigh] I read ‘EU’ there as ‘European Union’ and stared blinking at the sentence in incomprehension. I’d imagine a EU Star Wars novel would be quite long, in multiple languages in parallel, contain many sub-clauses but have quite clear standards on the exact ratio of set-piece action scenes versus plot scenes.
@Alex
How did the Empire fall? The Rebel Alliance mounted a successful attack on the second Death Star while the Emperor was still inside.
But the Force, and the Jedi? Most of that was behind the scenes, out-of-sight, or with few surviving witnesses besides close friends. Some people in the original trilogy actively disbelieved in the Force, so I could see it having trouble making it into the official history.
Agreed. Ask your average non-avid-reading 18-year-old about the history of World War II and you’ll at best get the broad strokes, heavily focused on their own country’s experience.
And the Star Wars universe doesn’t seem to have much in the way of standardized education. I doubt Rey was reading history books while scavenging Imperial ships in the desert.
Don’t know. The resident YA reader had a low opinion of the book – and while I don’t want to imply she isn’t very discriminating in her taste, she isn’t usually dismissive. We saw the trailer prior to Mockingjay Part 2 and her reaction was doubly scornful (i.e. book not great, trailer gives away all the plot twists that made the book even remotely interesting – zero interest in watching it).
Ironically he is possibly one of the most reliable of Wolfe’s narrators 🙂 (assuming nobody has made that observation already)
I think it is a series that needs good uninterrupted stretches of reading – hard one to dip in and out of.
… which the French would ignore, except where it suited them.
(I read it as “European Union” as well. I find misreadings like this tend to make life more interesting, if a lot more confusing)
One of the (many) issues I have with episodes I-III is that the world they present – where Jedi Knights routinely assist in political negotiations and take command of military operations, where the Jedi Council has an organized child-stealing, err I mean junior recruitment, policy spanning the known galaxy, where Obi-Wan can walk into any seedy bar on Coruscant and claim to be on “Jedi business” – is completely incompatible with the original trilogy, where the Jedi are so obscure that a well-travelled type like Han Solo doesn’t even believe they ever existed.
If episode seven is leaning back towards “most people in the modern galaxy don’t know about the Jedi”, that’s a plus (for me) from the outset.
It went right over my head. I just assumed there was a special Euro-Star Wars fandom, sort of the way the Japanese put their own twist on Star Wars fandom.
@Steve Wright:
Well, in fairness there was probably an active campaign of suppression and propaganda between the prequels and the classic trilogy, quite possibly assisted by one of the most powerful Sith Lords ever to have existed. That goes some way to explaining things. Palpatine may well have portrayed the Jedi as a band of charlatans and con artists who wheedled their way into influence with those in the halls of power with false promises of mystical abilities, a la Rasputin. That’s the kind of lie that would appeal to a cynic like Solo.
I can’t remember, is it Jedi Solo didn’t believe in, or the Force? Maybe he thought the Jedi were just a special branch of govt/police – like the Texas Rangers or the Secret Service?
Yes, Book of the New Sun is definitely a series that requires some work on the reader’s part, but IMO, more than pays off if you’re willing to give it the time and attention it deserves. It also helps to recognize that there’s a lot of deadpan humor and wordplay that can just slide right past you if you aren’t watching for it. It made “logophage” a permanent part of my vocabulary. 🙂
—
Classics: I read both The Forever War and Bill the Galactic Hero years and years ago, and had no idea they were supposed to be at all related. I may have to re-read them before I can formulate a proper opinion on the hypothesis. But if I can have overlooked the fact for all these years, it can’t be that important to a reading of either one.
—
Rock’n’Roll: I had no idea there was a great mystery about a performance of the song, or I would have solved it years ago. The album in question is one I inherited from my mom.
—
Goodreads: second-guessing awards is a mug’s game. There aren’t any awards that perfectly reflect my tastes, but I find the popularity awards as interesting, on the whole, as the “professional” awards. Both introduce me to new things on a regular basis; both miss the mark on a regular basis as far as what I consider to be “the best”.
Re the too any books to ever read I note that File 770 makes matters even worse by deflecting me from my 2015 reading: someone recommended Alistair Reynolds’ series, and now I’m getting stuck into the first of a lengthy series instead of current novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories etc. etc. etc.
On the other hand I have been able to knock off a number of books with buzz from my shortlist; for example, I shall refrain from repeating my comments on Watchmaker in the interests of allowing people to approach it with an open mind, but it hasn’t a hope in hell of getting a Hugo nomination from me.
I am interrupting my Reynolds read because Genevieve Cogman’s
has just been published and I really enjoyed
if it’s anything like that good then it will be in my Hugo nominations.
Incidentally, the first in Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St Mary series is on Amazon UK for 99p; I discovered this series a couple of weeks ago and read the lot in quick succession. I’m vacillating about nominating
because it’s the sixth book in the series; it seems that a lot of people would hesitate to consider something that far into the story, even if the story changes a great deal…
@ Simon Bucher-Jones
I’m afraid both you and Stephen Baxter have been beaten to the punch by Willie Rushton’s sequel to The War of the Worlds, the self-illustrated W. G. Grace’s Last Case (1984).
I’m not sure whether or not it’s being an over-the-top parody excuses the scene in which Dr. John Watson (if I remember correctly – my copy is 8 miles away) accidentally rapes Queen Victoria (mistaking her for a maidservant), but one can argue he was satirising 19th-Century cultural values rather that using sexual assault to raise a laugh.
I took it as him not believing in the Force. After all, he’s expressing that disbelief to a self-proclaimed Jedi Knight carrying the Jedi’s primary weapon.
For the curious, the Outer Limits episode of George R.R. Martin’s “Sandkings” is on YouTube here (part 1 of 9). I found it interesting that Melinda Snodgrass wrote the script.
(Also, Beau Bridges was pretty cute, back in the day. 🙂 )
https://youtu.be/s5JdOnIUYhQ
Chances are even if I’ve read the previous stuff I’m going to miss 50-100% of the references. For some of us those conversations between books and authors aren’t happening unless we read others talking about them. Our brains don’t work that way. While we would still get something out of reading older books in the genre we aren’t all going to get the same thing out of them. For me it’s helpful in seeing how the genre has changed and how tropes started and changed or have been twisted.
I tell my husband “you’ll love this book and I think there are tons of geeky references you’ll get & enjoy” and I’m usually right. I can recognize the stuff is there but I don’t “get it”.
Why am I always pointed to straight white men as if no one else ever wrote anything? Do I want to be in an ongoing conversation with straight white men which consistently ignores all other writers? And why only 1920-present? How do I get my hands on the stuff that was written by women, POC, other minorities, and non-USA/Europe-centric which went out of print almost as soon as it was published? Did SFF spring to life in 1920? No.
I’m not saying don’t read what you consider the classics. Just consider they may not bring to others what they bring to you. Also look at your list and ask if it’s classics or genre cannon. Why do so few classic lists include the first European fantasy and science fiction books/short stories? The foundational work everything else was built on? This always puzzles me. I know we don’t include Frankenstein because it was written by a woman (/sarcasm) although I’d expect more women of today to include it on their lists. Varney the Vampyre (yes it’s a penny dreadful) and Dracula rarely make the classic lists. /rant
Bill The Galactic Hero was the kind of book that needs you to have read several other classics to enjoy. Or at least have knowledge of them. On the other hand, Bill was not a very good book, felt old when I read it 30 year ago, and the only reason to read it is if you have already read the classics.
The Forverer War on the other hand stands by itself. I have no idea why it would be better because of having read Starshiptroopers. Btw, I would tell people to skip Startshiptroopers as a whole and read the newer Armour by John Steakley instead. It was better.
Reading a much-imitated classic for the first time tends to be interesting even if the book does not appeal to you for its own sake; at least, that was my experience reading The Well of Loneliness: what a terrible book, but fascinating to see the embryonic form of cliches which were reiterated over and over through the 20th century. (I also sought out a variety of early lesbian literature; you get far too limied an idea of both the past and possibilities if you only stick to a couple of hyper-familiar texts)’
Vasha on December 3, 2015 at 3:38 am said:
Finding myself wide awake at 3 AM, I put the short works on the Tiptree recommendation list in summary form (here).
I was dismayed to find that I’d only read a third of the 2015-published items on it, in spite of making a steady effort to read widely and diversely in short fiction for the past 6 months or so. There’s no effing way that I’ll get through the several hundred more stories I want to before Hugo nomination deadline.
It’s so very easy to get down-hearted by the sheer scope of it all.
But remember that you don’t have to read everything to nominate something.
You, personally, are not responsible for knowing that your nominations are the five best things out of absolutely everything published anywhere in 2015.
Reading everything eligible, even just for a single category, is probably a task beyond any one person.
You only need to nominate stories that meet your own internal standard for excellence, stories that you believe would deserve a Hugo win.
If you miss a few, that’s what the other nominators are for.
Good points. I see that I accidentally enjoyed a lot of advantages as a reader when it came to that book. I read it less than 10 years after it came out. I had already read Starship Troopers, Foundation, and Dickson’s “Soldier, Ask Not.” And I was a teenager, so needed to make no excuse to enjoy Harry Harrison’s juvenile sense of humor….
@Camestros
Maybe that explains why I always think of Admiral Ackbar when I see Nigel “It’s a trap!” Farage.
If you want to read Harrison, I would recommend Make Room, Make Room, a great dystopian novel dumbed down into the movie Soylent Green. For humor, much prefer The Stainless Steel Rat. Bill the Galactic Hero struck me as a dated parody of Starship Troopers.
Ooh, like Margaret, the Duchess of Cavendish’s 1666 fantasy novel The Blazing World? I’ve been meaning to read that.
It’s also possible to be a female teenager and thoroughly enjoy Harry Harrison’s sense of humour; he was, after all, mocking the manly men who proliferated in so many of the SF novels of the period.
On the other hand I also liked the way he portrayed women as being just as capable of violence as men, which was also diametrically opposed to almost all of the representation of women in the SF of the time; life is very tedious when you are perched on a pedestal…
A fun book, although for me it falls into the category of “Novels about an Earth with a devastatingly, chokingly dense population considerably smaller than the current one.”
I’ve run into a lot of them, from 1950s horrors at an Earth stuffed to a standstill by a population of 3 billion to Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Lathe of Heaven” which if I recall is jammed to the rafters by a population of 7 billion, just slightly smaller than the current one.
For Harry Harrison, I’d recommend “The Hammer and The Cross”. An alternative history of what happens when one viking starts inventing stuff before its time. It is very good and have some interesting aspects on the norse gods. One of my favourites.
Yes, “Armour” is in some ways better than “Starship troopers”. More adult, more believable in terms of the humans involved.
@Peace: Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
There are a number of female philosophers who have traditionally been forgotten and ignored I’ve been meaning to read. She’s one of them. I’ll get to them some day. :/
Actually, learning that W.E.B. Du Bois wrote sci-fi reminds me there’s a lot of sci-fi I need to read.
I would not be terribly surprised to discover that the contracts for Expanded Universe Star Wars novels were quite specific about the total number of infiltrations and escapes each novel must have.
@Vasha
I was surprised how many of those stories were from magazines I’d never heard of before. Of the ones I did know about, there’s exactly one that I’d strongly recommend: Saltwater Railroad, by Andrea Hairston.
@Lauowolf
This is such an important point; we really need to hammer this one over and over for the next few months.
My last eye exam a week or so ago told me I need stronger glasses. Which may be why I read “govt/police” in an earlier comment as “goat police”.
Dammit, will someone please write a story titled “The Goat Police”? I need to read it.
(Part of the reason for that eye exam was doing that sort of misreading more frequently than usual. Despite the sometimes amusing results, it’s a mildly alarming thing. Would those misreadings be called “eyepos”?)
(My attempt to put a macron over the long o in “eyepos” failed miserably.)
Didn’t Sheep Trick do a song called “The Goat Police”?
I’m finding books put out Delphi Collections on kindle help finding really old foundation stuff. They do a specific author/poet/philosopher. But they focus strongly on white males and white women with a few males whose works are translated available. I wish they had more women and POC. They do try to collect all that’s available by an author in the public domain, updating as things roll over or are discovered, sometimes including letters, biographies, critics, and other misc. All for $0.99-2.99. My TBR really fell a part when I discovered Delphi Collections and I started snatching them up when they go on sale for $0.99. I may have over 20 of their books now.
Problems deciding what to read between daily is tough:
1. Favorite authors latest release
2. Hugo eligible works
3. File770 TBR mount of doom
4. My personal TBR
5. Classics/genre cannon
6. What my husband is raving about
7. What I just bought on Amazon
8. What my husband brought home from library
Every now & then I go on a binge reading of one of the following to cleanse my palate or pick me up: Georgette Heyer, Lois McMaster Bujold, David Weber/Honorverse, Louisa May Alcott, Ilona Andrews, Patricia Briggs
The Goat Police, they live inside of my barn?