(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.
When I walked out the door of my apartment building last Friday night there were three cop cars parked on the corner. I spotted at least 6 uniforms and a K-9. I dragged nervously on my cigarette, and told myself, “Ease up there, nothing to do with us. It’s probably just a drug raid.”
Then I thought of the chick I’d passed standing in the stairwell in her pajamas sucking on a pipe and coughing at the weed smoke. Not real comforting, huh?
The dog pricked up it’s ears and pulled toward me. My grin was sickly, but it was the best I could do.
“Ma’am?” one of the uniforms said, “We’ve been getting complaints about goats in the neighborhood. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
I swallowed hard. “I’ve heard about it.”
[Or goats that are police? That would be hard, since goats are the original anti-authoritarians.]
@George Phillies: “the original Wells Sequel, that rare hardback, Serviss’s “Edison’s War on Mars””
You mean this one-dollar ebook? 🙂
@redheadedfemme: “how could nobody remember why the Empire fell?”
I had that problem with the “mythical” Jedi in the original trilogy, in light of the prequels pegging the Clone Wars at only about 20 years earlier. It’s as if people today were going around wondering what 9/11 was. We still remember the Vietnam War, and that was twice that long ago. Steve Wright’s got a big point there; the Jedi were too well-known to be so quickly forgotten.
Granted, sixty years after Order 66, I can see where it’d be kind of hard for people born forty years later to credit the notion that people with magical powers were running around. Especially if Luke’s nowhere to be seen and hasn’t been training anyone in that time – which would really be massively irresponsible, as he’s the only Jedi he knows is left. I’m with Alex; I can understand Rey being skeptical of that aspect of the fight.
I would think most of the construction would have been done by droids. Huge, AT-AT sized or larger construction droids. Heck, given the scale of the project, I could see Star-Destroyer sized fabrication and construction droids taking continuous shipments from huge raw material movers.(It’s a good thing the novelization of Star Wars wasn’t written by Greg Egan, because a third of the book would be a detailed description of the construction of the death star by incredibly intricate self-assembling and dissembling droids. He’d also forget there were people in the book).
Books are so often written in reaction to prior books, it’s one of the biggest sources of inspiration out there. Robin McKinley wrote the Blue Sword as the book she wanted something called “The Sheikh” to be, and I’m pretty sure at least some YA fantasies starring women have looked at bitsd of McKinley that are now dated, and tried to go one further or more modern. Emma Bull’s Falcon (Or rather its second half) is a reaction to Bester’s the Stars my Destination. One T. Kingfisher specifically talks about Rose Daughter. Sometimes it’s obvious – has anyone heard the descriptions “Hornblower in space” or “O’Brien with dragons”? Sometimes it’s just one scene where someone riffs on an old trope with someone else finally having an attack of common sense, and the rest of the book is about something else.
But it’s not only impossible to have read it all, it’s not always necessary, to appreciate the shadows it casts. Sometimes knowing about the things being responded to is enough. I’ve laughed at Dune references for years without having read the book (Well, now I’m a short way in), seen the movies, or played the board game.
@Greg:
Shows, I guess, that the Tiptree Award’s remit of honoring works that explore new ideas about gender is still a marginal project. By far the most represented magazine was Lightspeed, which explicitly makes seeking diversity in gender and sexuality part of its mission. In contrast, the big-name print magazines don’t have any such mission statement and don’t publish a lot of works of interest to Tiptree nominators. Conclusion: if a magazine doesn’t go seeking such works, it won’t get many.
Me too — nine or ten that I’d rate 4 stars, though.
@Lauowolf:
I’m not trying to read everything (good heavens), just everything that anyone on the web has recommended (plus assorted other stuff). Even that is too much; your point about the necessarily collaborative nature of the nomination project, with different people reading different sources, is a good one.
I was thinking shed.
CKCharles on December 3, 2015 at 3:25 pm said:
When I walked out the door of my apartment building last Friday night there were three cop cars parked on the corner. I spotted at least 6 uniforms and a K-9. I dragged nervously on my cigarette, and told myself, “Ease up there, nothing to do with us. It’s probably just a drug raid.”
Then I thought of the chick I’d passed standing in the stairwell in her pajamas sucking on a pipe and coughing at the weed smoke. Not real comforting, huh?
The dog pricked up it’s ears and pulled toward me. My grin was sickly, but it was the best I could do.
“Ma’am?” one of the uniforms said, “We’ve been getting complaints about goats in the neighborhood. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
I swallowed hard. “I’ve heard about it.”
[Or goats that are police? That would be hard, since goats are the original anti-authoritarians.]
There was the time the weird new people moved in upstairs and commandeered the building’s fenced garden space for their chickens.
Well, roosters really, but that is another story.
(“We got them for the eggs.”)
The guy carefully brought them inside every evening, where I seem to remember they were kept in the bedroom closet.
Then at some point Berkeley’s Finest showed up at my door at 8am in answer to someone’s noise complaint, obviously tagging me as the miscreant since my apartment was closest.
“Ma’am we have a report of chickens on the premises.”
Ten feet behind him, the chickens were already out in the yard scratching and muttering to each other, early birds, you know.
“I don’t know anything about any chickens,” i.e., crazy neighbor lives upstairs, you guys are only visiting.
They managed to spend at least twenty minutes explicating Berkeley City Code on the subject of chickens – they’re agin them, with some reservations – all without ever looking around.
I’m assuming they too just did not want to be involved.
I bet I could have straight-faced it through a goat just as easily.
I owned goats. My dad was a bit behind on putting up the fence and the shelter for them. When we brought the 2 kids (baby goats) home they lived in the house for a few days. The first night they were out in their new space I slept out with them because I was concerned they’d find moving for a 2nd time in a week traumatic (I was 8ish?). I woke up in the morning cover in goat shit. I was one unhappy goat owner and depressed kid. What ungrateful goats. 😉
No it wasn’t really a goat police story but I don’t get many chances to share The goats shit on me. I grab every chance I get.
Goat.
@Vasha
They also had an all-gay issue this year, so that probably helped. Unfortunately, in all but one of those stories, the fact there were gay characters had nothing to do with the story. I suppose I should be pleased; it’s what I spent so many years fighting for (to be accepted and treated like anyone else).
@Hampus Eckerman
Thanks for the bouncy goat. It behaved more like a rabbit with its hopping around. Made me laugh and smile.
Re:Baxter’s WotW sequel and its competition:
George Phillies got the title slightly wrong, and apparently read the 1947 hardcover reprint. Garrett P. Serviss beat all you guys back in 1898 with Edison’s Conquest of Mars, which first appeared as a newspaper serial. I first read an abridged version back in the ’70’s that appeared in the relatively commonly found anthology The Treasury of Science Fiction Classics. It’s been reprinted a few times in the last few years in trade paperback, and it’s online on Project Gutenberg. Check out Google images for ECoM, they’re fun.
@Hampus:
Now we are all The Men (and women) Who Stare At Goats.
This is outstanding. So many things we want to or should be doing. It’s the kind of list the crew of the Enterprise would load into one of those planetary computers they need to dumbfound. Sparks would fly.
Goats. We needz them.
What’s the point of constructing terraced roofs with lots of grass on the top of an office block, if you don’t do the sensible thing and add some mountain goats to take advantage of Mother Natures Bounty?
I look out my bedroom every morning to check on it, and all there is is grass; if they don’t want to have animals eating then I’m pretty sure there are plants better at photosynthesising than grass.
But really if I can’t have mountain goats then I’d be prepared to accept rabbits, provided said rabbits come from a strain known for their mountaineering skills, and better protection at the edges of the terraces so pedestrians needn’t fear accidental death by diving bunnies falling on their heads.
It’s really not much to ask, is it?
I thought that’s what people were going for. I know as a woman I’m looking for stories that contain women. Not stories that go on and on about the character being a woman and how we’ve been oppressed. One of the problems I have with Kate Elliot’s work is the world’s she writes always seem to have oppression and not-SWM are always fighting their oppressors. Her non-fiction is great and each time I pick up a new book I’m hoping to find something which matches her non-fiction views better. I keep being disappointed.
Lightspeed* was, IMHO, clear they were looking for positive visions/views. Just like in the women destroy issues women were seen in positive or “just there” ways. Kinda “nothing special going on here” except the entire issues were stories staring women. This year the special issues are all staring LGBT. Next year they’re doing POC. We** keep saying “ask why is the character SWM?”. The Lightspeed special issues are showing how many ways characters can be not-SWM and stories can still be totally genre.
*I backed both Kickstarters and plan on backing the POC one in 2016
**I’m not sure who “we” are but I know I was not the first to ask that question and I’ve seen/heard it on blogs and panels at cons
@Rev Bob
FTFY
“Dammit, Callahan!” the crusty old sergeant snapped. “Why I can’t I get it through your head that you’re off this case?”
Callahan stared at the sergeant, chewing his cud meditatively. “That’s the thing about us Goat Police, Sarge. We’re stubborn.”
@Tasha: “We** keep saying “ask why is the character SWM?”.”
Preach it. Question all the letters, down with defaults!
As I said some time ago – possibly on Correia’s blog, definitely where someone was ranting about the ADMcF “gender binary” article – the point of that “end the binary gender default” is to change an author’s approach to character definition. Rather than asking “is X male or female,” we should ask “what gender is X?” Open questions, not closed ones, and no “justifying” it when a character deviates from “the norm,” because the notion of some universal normal that requires permission from On High to be different from is a bad idea all the way around.
Humanity doesn’t fit into neatly-segregated boxes. Nature doesn’t work like that. It’s messy, and everywhere you look, you’re far more likely to see a spectrum than sharp divisions. Our past and present reflect that; why shouldn’t our future?
ETA, re: goats – I was going for the reference to this.
@Rev Bob
I did mention somewhere on file 770 today that I rarely get references. Thanks for quickly providing me a chance to prove it. 😉
@Mike Glyer
Thanks. I really could use help some days.
“Dammit, Callahan!” the crusty old sergeant snapped. “Why I can’t I get it through your head that you’re off this case?”
Callahan stared at the sergeant, chewing her cud meditatively. “That’s the thing about us Goat Police, Marge. We’re stubborn.”
There’s always the Charlie Stross novel where all the plot-significant characters are LGBT, and almost nobody noticed. (The Wikipedia article on the book doesn’t mention it, and neither do any of the Goodreads reviews I skimmed through.) It’s not quite a case of sexuality-simply-doesn’t-matter, because it does matter for a couple of the characters. But when Charlie mentioned on his blog about all the characters, I had to go back and check for myself, and sure enough…
Tasha Turner: Thanks for the bouncy goat. It behaved more like a rabbit with its hopping around.
Once upon a time, I had a neighbor who–for reasons I won’t try to explain–was hand-raising a miniature angora goat. She brought it over to visit one day, and it literally hopped sideways around the porch just like the goat-puppets in The Sound of Music. (Who knew that scene was realistic?) It was adorable.
Mike
This isn’t exactly within the posts you started with, but I’m presuming on your tolerance; tonight, in the Ronnie Scott’s jazz club, history was made in sacred music, as the choristers and the lay Clerks of Rochester Cathedral, conducted by Scott Farrell, got in the groove for James Taylor and his crew, performing his Rochester Mass.
James was drawn to composing this because he had visited the Cathedral on a number of occasions as his father was in the process of dying, and realised that there was a vast treasure trove of music he’d never even come across before. The Rochester Mass is the result…
Stevie: Whereas “Watchmaker” is on my list, and the St. Mary’s novels don’t have a hope in hell of ever, EVER getting there.
Sure, they’re cute popcorn fun, but ye gods are they ever formulaic. The lust and falling out; the “everything goes wrong as soon as I say it’s going well”; the destruction of property; near-failures caused by themselves, followed by amazing/dumb luck successes thanks to Plot Armor; the multiple repeated head injuries with no cognitive effects (really, they all should have CTE by now); the technology being exactly like today’s (or slightly worse!), even though the books are set in the near future; the juvenile running gags; the “Home Counties are the only civilised humans” attitude (yes I know it’s common — no, I don’t think it’s funny); the general gobsmacking incompetence. Perfectly fine for YA or beach reads, but not quality literature. It even has HUGE howlers in history: why ever would a professional historian think Boudicca would understand Old English?
@IanP: (image search Nigel Farage) Um. Yes. Does look a bit squiddy. Doesn’t help that his name sounds like a Monty Python joke.
I really like Harry Harrison’s work. I don’t know if “Bill” is as funny if you hadn’t read the 50s-60s milSF, but tropes is tropes and people still recognize ’em. “The Stainless Steel Rat” books are terribly dated and fairly sexist, but the caper portions are amusing. “Technicolor Time Machine” made me laugh every time I read it; ditto “The Starcrossed” (also funnier if you know the backstory, but not by much), and I reread “A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!” this year and it still blows away much modern steampunk.
I’m not worried about whether my Hugo nominations stack up with everyone else’s, nor fussed that I might not pick the winners (final nominees or trophy winners). In fact, there are a couple things I’m nominating that I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if they get a dozen or less votes. But I LIKE them. I think they’re good and deserving. And I want them to be on the longlist. I don’t expect Valente’s “Radiance” to make the final ballot, but it’s the most mind-blowing novel I’ve read this year. So I’ll happily put it down, though I doubt it even cracks the magic 5% mark.
When it comes to The Men Who Stare At Goats, I am The Woman Who Stared At Clooney and McGregor. And even then I watched it on cable. I don’t overpay for my eye candy.
@Xtifr: I noticed, but only about 95% through the book and then I thought “Hey, neat.” Because it didn’t matter for much of the plot. I like that most people didn’t notice; it proves you don’t need A Reason for LGBT people to be there. They just are.
Here in Oakland some years ago, there was a question about whether a herd of brush-clearing goats should be required to join the Teamsters. (Tl;dr: not a serious proposal, but the union’s humorous way of making a point that they should have been notified before the goats were engaged.)
Bruce Arthurs—
In the story what I am writing at the moment, kind of MilSF/horror/Mythos thing, the narrator’s platoon works for a psychic agency they call “the goat-watchers”, a callout to Jon Ronson’s book, The Men Who Stare At Goats. Edit: Which book I now see has been mentioned numerous times already.
I didn’t see the movie Men Who Stares…, I read the book instead and found it kind of stupid with a reporter listening to people who were obviously lying Uri Geller-style about their history, then talking about non-existent connections with Iraq and Abu Ghraib.
Severely disappointed, just idiotic conspiracy theories.
Augh, little goats are adorable. Thank you, @Hampus.
Stevie: Infinite indulgence granted! (I am a big James Taylor fan, but it’s another James Taylor.)
Hampus Eckerman— It’s more than conspiracy theories, since the goat-starers (as well as all the hippy-soldier stuff) were an actual project funded by the government which imploded messily, and maybe left some residue in more concrete DoD projects. I found it fascinating the way that things devolved from batshit crazy ideas taken 100% seriously, funded by real money, to almost total discrediting, to a bunch of crazy veterans trying to walk through walls by tuning their vibrational energies (or whatever it was) and squabbling about whose idea it all was.
But if it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing.
Lurkertype
And yet a lady we are familiar with won two Hugos for historians time travelling; when the writer was so abysmally ignorant of England and its cultures, not to mention the geography, that it provoked the Dorothy Parker Review response:
Jodi’s far from perfect but she knows a great deal more about the English than her predecessor did, and you and lots of other people ignore that fact. After all, if it was happening in England it can’t possibly matter because it only counts if it’s happening in the US…
NelC, judging from the book, yes, some of it were actual projects. Some of it was totally made up by frauds. And the connections to Iraq was made up by the author. It was a mix.
Rose Embolism— I don’t know anything about the Star Wars EU, but in my head-canon there was very little fabrication and raw industry going on at the Death Star site, it was all modules being constructed elsewhere and slotted into the structure. At a thousand shipyards around the galaxy, there were star destroyer-sized, almost-self-contained accommodation blocks for admin staff being constructed, for example, to be hauled away by hyperspace tugs, tucked away in a holding orbit briefly, then towed into position by the giant construction droids, while another, smaller mega-droid cut lengths of standardised corridor tubing from a stack of such to connect it to the rest of the structure.
Once in a while, the plans are found to have be added the dimensions up wrong, or the accumulated errors of a thousand different shipyards not quite following the specs properly causes one of the construction droids to grab a module, cut it in half and jam into the gap. And that’s leaving aside the problems caused by the waste-heat management model for the Death Star being wrong enough that the droids have to drill an emergency thermal vent all the way through a hundred or so already-installed modules….
Mike
Thank you. It’s immensely exciting when people step out of the conventions and create something entirely new, contrary to the claim of Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun.
Sacred music in Rochester has lasted around 14-15 centuries; it carries on because it is the better side of our nature, and its beauty moves us. If you ever make it to England on holiday then I would be delighted to give you a warm reception in Rochester, plus escorting you round the City to its most elderly bits. Of course, many of its most elderly bits are churches…
Hampus Eckerman— It was long enough ago that I can’t remember clearly what was in the book and what was in the movie now, but my impression was, I think, that Ronson could have done a more solid job connecting it all to the occupation of Iraq, but maybe the vagueness of all that was the vagueness of real life. Yes, person X was probably lying about their employment by the US government, and person Y may have been an independent contractor actually employed, confabulating to a journalist asking about psychic research for their own reasons (or none at all), but the situation in Iraq was crazy (and not in a fun way) anyway.
Who knows now how solid the connection is between the psychic flower-soldiers and musically blasting Noriega and stressful interrogation (or whatever euphemism they employ now for torture) in Iraq? Maybe it was nothing more than some guy somewhere reading about the hippy-soldier stuff and deciding to employ something similar in Panama, having some success and refining the technique for Iraq. Or maybe it was a total coincidence, unrelated at all. Either way, I found the subject itself interesting, and the juxtaposition of that history with the wrong ideas surrounding the Iraq mess (ongoing at the time of publication).
@NelC:
You can’t blame the droids for the exhaust port. It was in the plans.
NelC:
The Men Who Stares at goats takes place around the end of the 70:s. By then, the greek junta had used music as torture for more than 10 years and CIA was heavily involved there.
So I have a problem with drawing heavy conclusions from an obsucre new age manual where there were much more real experiences on how to use music as a tool. Also, I think Apocalypse Now might have been a much more likely inspiration. 😛
We had a goat in Brazil. It had no idea how to butt things. Not until I taught it by nudging it with my head and then slowly increasing the force. Go me!
@James:
So… you’re saying that thanks to you, the force was strong with that goat? I hope he didn’t go baaa-aa-aa-aad… 🙂
Brian Z.: A Borrowed Man reads like a hardboiled crime novel.
Well, that knocks it down Mount File770 quite a few levels. Thanks for the warning.
Rev Bob— Well, of course, it was in the revised plans, documenting the change. The droids would have filed the proper paperwork, you can be sure of that.
Tangentially from The Men who Stare at Goats, The Pentagon Wars is apparently available in full on YouTube and although not SFF itself does star Cary Elwes.
@ Xtifr re: LGBT characters
There is also the phenomenon of novels with LGBT protagonists from major publishers for which the official publicity materials carefully avoid giving any indication of that attribute. My cynical suspicious mind reads that as “We wouldn’t want the narrow-minded people to avoid reading the book, and we can count on the LGBT-interested readers to find out through the grapevine.
NelC: I imagine that droids would actually file accurate as-builts, unlike some people. Not that I’ve ever tried to design updated traffic signals, gone out to the intersection(s) in question, and discovered that the as-builts didn’t even get the number of traffic system manholes (called handholes) right, much less the pole placement….
Wow, lots of responses from a throwaway comment.
What Hath Goats Wrought?
@Stevie: Well, if she’s so bloody expert about the English, how come she thinks Boudicca spoke English?! Even we ignorant Americans know better than that.
Why doesn’t she care about the other areas of the UK outwith the Home Counties? I really liked Edinburgh, and the scenery and people of the Highlands are both nice. Orkney and the Hebrides were breath-taking. Didn’t see much of Wales but am also told it’s nice. Just because she’s all up on her Southeastern England Rah Rah Ya Boo doesn’t make her a great writer, or her books anything but formulaic. You’re blinded to the lack of quality by the superficial bits. Which is fine; we all have guilty pleasures. But the books are provincial, isolationist, and insular.
You live in London, therefore everything Southern English is good, everything American is bad. The trappings appeal to you, so you overlook the long list of badly done things. Aren’t you or your family in the medical business — and yet you blithely ignore the ridiculous medical portrayal instead of throwing it across the room? Why do bits of sexism pop in so glaringly, if it’s the future? Why is the technology so crap? Why is everyone important straight? And why is everyone in the books so white? I was under the impression that rather a number of British professionals are Asian (all my doctors here in the benighted USA are either Indian or Chinese), and a few good Gurkhas would certainly be a boon to their security with less faffing around. Not to mention it would make them stick out less in much of the past if someone in the group had melanin.
It’s fine to like the books; as I said, they’re popcorn fun. But it doesn’t stop them from being formulaic and predictable fluff. It certainly doesn’t make them Hugo-worthy. Unless you’re voting on “I like how it represents my tribe” basis, which … is how we got the Kerpupple, although of better quality all around.
Tim and Ian are quite all right, though. Good chaps. I’d like to see them in better books. Or a book with just them, the boss, and his “assistant”.
I was kind of hoping the RWA ladies would do what they joked about and buy a whole bunch of supporting memberships to get this year’s J.D. Robb on the ballot. Also deeply formulaic, but not-bad near-future worldbuilding, ethnically and socially diverse characters, and a truly dreamy hero. The howls of Puppies forced to consider a whodunnit with competent prose, a tough cop who’s a woman, her various successful female friends*, her rich macho husband who worships her, no religious content, and sex scenes written for the female gaze would have been oh-so-sweet. Plus, beginnings, middles, and ends with clear plots! From the best-selling author of our day, a multi-award winner. Except she’s a woman.
Sounds like the music is a great idea which is the inverse of a class I took in Music History (Ancient Greek through Baroque). The professor devoted ALL his lectures to sacred music. Which is lovely, but apparently although he had a doctorate in music, he’d never done more than heard of the troubadours. Knew nothing about secular music from the Middle Ages/early Renaissance/late 20th Century*. I kept asking questions and referencing it, and the others in the class showed such interest that to shut me up he let me have one hour to do a lecture (with recorded examples, of course). It wasn’t on the exam, but the other students liked it; the boys particularly liked some of the naughtier ones.
Specialization is bad. Cross-fertilization is good. Good music is best.
*plucky right-hand woman, two doctors, a petty criminal turned pop star, in-laws…
**Despite the fact that he was a youngster in the late 1950s-mid 1960s. With mainstream American radio, television, schooling, and all the rest. Tragic.
A Borrowed Man reads like a hardboiled crime novel.
Well, except for the fact that gur gvghyne punenpgre vf n “erpybar” bs n snzbhf nhgube bs n praghel ntb, jvgu qbjaybnqrq zrzbevrf, jub vf bjarq ol gur yvoenel naq vf jbeerq nobhg orvat “ohearq” (ernq: rkrphgrq) orpnhfr erpybarf unir ab evtugf, naq bu lrnu, nyfb gurer’f na vagreqvzrafvbany tngrjnl gb nabgure jbeyq naq n qvfphffvba bs gur irel snoevp bs fcnpr.
In other words: Not.
@redheadedfemme: Not, indeed. But then I think JCWrong read a book titled “Home Fires” by a Gene Wolfe from another dimension, since his review bore no resemblance to the autographed copy of a book given to me by this world’s Gene Wolfe (earlier Brian Z. link which I deeply regret clicking on).
I imagine that droids would actually file accurate as-builts, unlike some people.
And maybe the plans would even be accurate. Not that I ever had to figure out where the pipe really was, given the tendency of the engineers in Transmission to provide stationing that was about a mile off from the actual location. (Guys, if the plans show a road, can you at least get the road stationed correctly? Especially when it shows up in Google Maps?)