(1) LEMMY WAS A FAN. Lemmy of Motörhead fame died last night. But did you know about his love for Science Fiction and Fantasy? See “Parting Shots: Lemmy” reposted from a spring 2011 issue of Relix.
“I recently bought a complete set of the Elric of Melniboné fantasy books by Michael Moorcock. One of them is dedicated to you. Are you still friends with him?
Yeah, I haven’t spoken to him in years, though. He’s in Texas someplace. I did want to get in touch with him actually. Somebody was gonna text me his number but they didn’t do it. I must get ahold of him.
In addition to working with Moorcock in Hawkwind, you were in the 1990 movie Hardware. Are you a big science fiction fan?
Yeah, I always liked a bit of sci-fi. My favorite sci-fi author’s someone you’ve probably never heard of – Jack L. Chalker. Try him, he’s good.”
(2) JEMISIN BRANCHES OUT. N. K. Jemisin talks about the debut of her New York Times Book Review column “Otherworldly” in “My New Side Gig”. (The first installment is already online.)
I’m an eclectic reader, so the new column will obviously feature science fiction, fantasy, horror, some YA, some graphic novels, some anthologies, and even some nonfiction where it impacts the genre. I’ve got no problem with self-published or small-press books, although I believe the NYT has a policy forbidding selfpubs if they can’t be found in “general interest” bookstores, whatever that means. I like books that feature complex characters, period, but stereotypes piss me off and stuff I’ve seen too often bores the shit out of me. I don’t “believe in” the Campbellian Hero’s Journey, for pretty much the same reasons as Laurie Penny. Obviously I’ve got a thing for worldbuilding and secondary world or offworld stuff. I believe wholeheartedly in the idea that we all should get to dream, and I look for books that let me.
(3) FUTURE OF WHO. ScienceFiction.com gives a rundown on the major players signed for the next season of Doctor Who.
Leaving is a constant theme on ‘Doctor Who’ as even the role of the title character regularly shifts to new actors. This past season saw the departure of the longest running companion in the show’s history, Clara Oswald played by Jenna Coleman. And recently, the 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi has hinted that he wants to exit in order to focus on directing. But like Moffat, he is signed on for at least one more season.
Moffat wrote the latest Christmas Special as though it might be his last reports Digital Spy.
Steven Moffat hadn’t signed for a 10th series of Doctor Who when he wrote this year’s Christmas special.
The showrunner told press including Digital Spy that he thought the festive episode could be his last ever for the show.
“I hadn’t signed for next year at that point,” he confirmed. “I have now – unless they fire me, which would be quite sensible!
“I thought it might be the last one, so to get River (Alex Kingston) in – that was bringing me full-circle…”
(4) JANUARY FRIGHT SALE. Cthulhu bedding from Needful Things priced to go at $112.98.
Cozy up with Nyarlathotep on those long, dreary nights with this Cthulhu bedding by Melissa Christie. Set includes one Queen-sized duvet cover (86″x86″) and two pillowcases (20″x30″) printed on 100 percent cotton with eco-friendly inks. Available on white, blue or weirdo purple fabric.
(5) POLAR PUN. James H. Burns writes: “Our friends in Alaska and other areas up North have also long been familiar with ‘The Force.’
“They use their Inuition.”
(6) GROTTA OBIT. Daniel Grotta of Newfoundland passed away December 13 in Philadelphia. He was known for his 1976 biography J.R.R. Tolkien: Architect of Middle Earth, in print for more than 30 years.
(7) BUSINESS SECTION. John Scalzi’s new comment on “Very Important News About my 2016 Novel Release and Other Fiction Plans” also applies to arguments under discussion here.
I understand that one of my constant detractors is asserting that the reason the first book of my new contract comes out in 2017 and not 2016 is because I turned in a manuscript and it was terrible and now Tor is trying to salvage things. This is the same person, if memory serves, who asserted that Lock In was a failure and Tor was planning to dump me, shortly before Tor, in fact, handed me a multi-million dollar contract, which included a sequel to Lock In.
Now, as then, his head is up his ass and he’s speaking on things he knows nothing about. I haven’t turned in a manuscript; there’s no manuscript to turn in. They (remember I’m working on two) haven’t been written yet. To be clear, the only thing I’ve turned in to Tor since submitting my manuscript for The End of All Things is my contract for the next set of books. That was accepted without any additional revision, I would note.
For the avoidance of doubt, you should assume that any speculation about me or my career coming from that quarter is based on equal parts of ignorance, craven maliciousness, and pathetic longing for my attention, and almost certainly false. Anything said by that person about me is likely to be incorrect, down to and including indefinite articles.
(8) LOVE IN THE RUINS. Earlier in the day Scalzi scoffed at another rant in “I Ruin Everything But Mostly Science Fiction”
Here’s the thing: If I ruin the genre of science fiction for you, or if the presence in the genre of people whose politics and positions you don’t like ruins the genre for you — the whole genre, in which hundreds of traditionally published works and thousands of self-and-micro-pubbed works are produced annually — then, one, oh well, and two, you pretty much deserve to have the genre ruined for you. It doesn’t have to be ruined, mind you, because chances are pretty good that within those thousands of works published annually, you’ll find something that rings your bell. And if you do, why should you care about the rest of it? It’s literally not your problem. Find the work you’ll love and then love it, and support the authors who make it, hopefully with money.
(9) ANALYZING HUGO PARTICIPATION. Kevin Standlee is gathering data to help answer whether Hugo voter participation is expanding at the same rate as the eligible voter base.
The figures do show that, broadly speaking, nominating participation for 1971-2008 was generally static in a range of about 400-700 people per year. 2009 was the first year we see a significant up-tick in nominating participation from the previous few years.
What is unclear (and even now still is unclear) is whether the percentage of eligible members is actually increasing. WSFS has been steadily increasing the nominating franchise, bringing in first the previous year’s members and then the following year’s members, so that the eligible nominating electorate is he union of three years of Worldcon members as of January 31 each year, a group that could be more than 20,000 people at times, compared to the fewer than 5,000 previously eligible prior to the expansion of the franchise. It’s actually possible that the percentage of eligible members participating has gone down even as the absolute number of nominations has gone up.
(10) GRRM’S PRO ARTIST RECS. George R.R. Martin recommends four creators for the Best Pro Artist Hugo in “More Hugo Suggestions”.
First: JOHN PICACIO http://www.johnpicacio.com/ Yes, John is a past winner. Truth be told, he is one of the current crop of Usual Suspects. He was nominated for the first time in 2005, and lost. Thereafter he was nominated every year from 2006 to 2011, losing every year and winning a place of honor in the Hugo Losers party… until he finally broke through and won in 2012. He won again in 2013, lost to Julie Dillon in 2014, and was squeezed off the ballot by the Puppies last year.
(11) KEEP THOSE REVIEWS COMING. Another review of “The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers” by Federhirn at Bastian’s Book Reviews
It’s a well-written book. The prose flows pleasantly, there is a sense of fun and joyfulness about it, and the story plods along from one feel-good scene to the next. Unfortunately, there isn’t really much of an overarching plot. The story is episodic, with almost every chapter telling a different episode of their journey. It’s a cheerful road movie in space.
One thing which is very obvious is that the story was inspired by Firefly and seemingly created from a wish list of themes and ideas that the people derogatorily called ‘Social Justice Warriors’ might have come up with. (Social Justice Warriors are people who want a more equal world, with opportunities for all, and a more diverse, multicultural, multiracial, multisexual representation of life in fiction)….
(12) PUPPY CENSUS. Brandon Kempner at Chaos Horizons ends the year by “Checking in with Sad Puppies IV”. His count shows John C. Wright’s novel Somewhither currently has 12 recommendations, more than any other.
(13) EMPIRE BEAUTY PAGEANT. Jeff Somers at the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog nominates “The 6 Most Fascinating Galactic Empires Outside of Star Wars”.
Invariably, when the topic of galactic empires comes up, someone will reference Star Wars—the muddy details of the Empire’s economy and structure, maybe a few pointed jokes about trade disputes. Yet as cool as some of the principal officials of the Empire’s vast bureaucracy are (do we ever find out Darth Vader’s official title? Does he get a pension?), the Empire is actually only the eighth or ninth most interesting galactic empire in science fiction. Which ones are more exciting? Glad you asked: Here are the six most interesting empires stretching across time and space in SF lit.
(14) CLASSIC TREK. A 16mm print of the second Star Trek pilot preserves an experiment with a radically different style of introduction. The smiling Spock in the first scene is even more unexpected.
The original print from Star Trek’s 2nd pilot was never aired in this format. Had different opening narration, credits, had acts 1 thru 4 like an old quinn martin show and had scenes cut from aired version and different end credits and music. The original 16mm print is now stored in the Smithsonian oddly enough the soundtrack for this version was released with the cage.
[Thanks to Jim Meadows, Andrew Porter, Hampus Eckerman, John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day ULTRAGOTHA. ]
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I do. But, then, this applies to everything VD says, not just what he says about his favorite topic, John Scalzi.
Thank you for putting Lemmy in this roundup. I didn’t expect that, despite the early collaborations with Moorcock. His death hit me harder than I expected.
(13) Empire Beauty Pageant
I wonder if the Tim McDonald commenting there with
is the same Tim McDonald who was being obnoxious about burning down the Hugo’s on GRRM’s Christmas post. Same user icon.
Funny how often Puppy sympathisers declare other people as being wrongfans having wrongfun.
Pre-fifth.
Now going to sleep.
Clicky.
Kathodus: All thanks to Hampus for ninja-ing that one!
Second fifth.
I think I’ll listen to some Motorhead (and the Hawkwind albums he was on) this New Year’s Eve in honor of Lemmy.
Lemmy was also a character in the game “Brutal Legend”.
https://youtu.be/78rmyo6uw7w
[In the year 7746, it is still possible to be killed by Death.]
Two fifths?
ETA: Argh! Missed by one. Two fifths minus one.
First two-fifths then!
Lemmy was also a big fan of 2000AD, being one of the celebrities quoted in the 10th anniversary issue, and once posed for a promo photo for the comic tearing up a copy.
Moff should probably leave when Capaldi does. A new show runner can help give a new voice to the new Doctor.
Well, this being the end of the year, I’ve just gone on a significant book binge. I spent 410,500 Viggle points (still leaving me with over three million) on a mix of 18 books from my watch list. My reasoning is that their movie/TV reward shop has recently vanished, and they’re in the process of being acquired by another company. I wouldn’t be surprised if 2016 dawned with the ebook rewards selection either reduced or gone, so I figured I’d go ahead and grab some stuff.
The list is rather bizarre, ranging from a Lumley trilogy set in the distant past of the Cthulhu Mythos to a YA book about a girl who doesn’t want to be a witch, but I will say that The Goblin Emperor is on it. Half-price, solid recommendations, an impending deadline, free* points… what’s not to like about that combo?
Granted, the binge really started a bit earlier in the day, as a more definite deadline approached. I finally took the plunge on Humble Bundle’s BOOM! comics offering, which contains not only Lumberjanes, Steed and Mrs. Peel, and the full run of Irredeemable, but a good chunk of RoboCop – including the graphic novelization of Frank Miller’s (rejected) script for RoboCop 2. I’ll probably start with Irredeemable; its premise of a superhero who isn’t cut out for the job and slides into supervillainy looks intriguing. The first few pages are certainly compelling, in a “how did this happen?” kind of way. The fact that it’s a complete story (37 issues in ten volumes) is a big plus; I could probably guzzle it down in a weekend. Fifteen bucks for that was money so well spent that I bought two gift keys for friends as barely-late Christmas add-ons.
* I typically earn the maximum 12K points per day, meaning this binge ate just over a month’s worth of points… so, basically a book every other day.
Yesterday, I went to my local liquor shop and bought a bottle of Motörhead Whisky. Costs 666 swedish kronor which felt very right.
Damn, two members of Motorhead have died in two months.
Lemmy and Phil Taylor.
There was a great obituary for Phil in The Guardian, where they recounted his audition:
Lemmy : “What do you think?”
Fast Eddie: “He’s a horrible little **** …..he’s perfect.”
Burns’s pun should give him the agenbite of Inuit.
Re #3
Given that there usually is a continuity of Doctor or companion between seasons*, it suggests that if this next season is Capaldi’s last, then the companion will extend beyond him.
Who, sadly and most likely, will almost certainly be a young woman from modern day Earth. Even with the mystery girl aspect of Clara, DW can be awfully conservative about its companions.
Yesterday’s read:
Afterparty, by Daryl Gregory. Whoa. Just, whoa. The first jaw-drop moment came on page 24, and then it was a stay-up-all-night-to-finish kind of thing. A new drug causes those who take it to see God, and one of its creators is trying to keep it off the market. Brimming with ideas, great characters and a page-turner of a story. There are minor quibbles I could make (a shade too much action-adventure for its realism, for example), but very much highly recommended. A couple of scenes of torture may be difficult for some to handle, although I personally did not find them offputtingly graphic. Also, this one definitely goes on the recommended lesbian romance SFF list.
@Paul Weimer: “Who, sadly and most likely, will almost certainly be a young woman from modern day Earth.”
More specifically: a young, conventionally attractive, Caucasian woman from somewhere in the modern-day UK.
@Rev. Bob: I liked Irredeemable quite a bit. It did a good job with unfolding revelations.
@Bruce:
I’ve only read a few pages so far – just past the graveside scene in the first issue. There’s a strong JLA: Tower of Babel vibe so far, which shouldn’t surprise me as that was a Waid storyline. (That’s the story where a villain stole Batman’s contingency plans for dealing with any League member if they went rogue… and used them.)
(3) FUTURE OF WHO
Clara is the Doctor’s longest-running companion? Seriously?
The longest modern companion (which the article is unclear about). Rose was two years, Martha and Donna one each, Amy and Rory were two, and Clara was three.
My recommended lesbian romance SFF list, if anyone cares, now includes listings for 46 authors with books I have rated Good or better, and mentions about ~70 of their books total that have Good or better ratings. I’ve also tried to organize it a little better by category (True Romance, Major Romantic Elements, Minor Romantic Elements, etc.), since quite a few of the books I was listing were getting a little far from what is usually thought of as Romance.
Entries for authors I’ve added since the original list was made include ones for works I’ve read by Elizabeth Bear (Dust), Seth Dickinson (The Traitor Baru Cormorant), Daryl Gregory (Afterparty), Jacqueline Koyanagi (Ascension), Kirsty Logan (The Gracekeepers), Cherie Priest (Maplecroft), Ali Smith (How To Be Both), and Scott Westerfeld (Afterworlds). An unusual number of male authors among the new ones (3/8), since the list as a whole is more like 10/46 for that (which comes to about 1.7/8).
I’ve wondered if I should revise my rating system, since it’s idiosyncratic and an extra star would need to be added to just about everything to make it the equivalent I would probably put on Amazon or Goodreads or something. Literally the only books I have rated at 5 stars right now are Slow River by Nicola Griffith and The Child Garden by Geoff Ryman. (Authors who have books I rated at 4 stars and above include the inimitable Heather Rose Jones, as well as L-J Baker, Jacqueline Carey, Candas Jane Dorsey, Max Gladstone, Daryl Gregory, Rachel Hartman, Kameron Hurley, Laura Lam, Laurie J. Marks, Richard Morgan, Jennifer Pelland, Philip Reeve, Ali Smith, Catherynne Valente, and Elisabeth Vonarburg, so, you know, a pretty powerful bunch there.)
Oh, well. I have a hard time taking seriously discussion of Doctor Who which leaves out the original run.
So who is the actual longest-running companion then?
@Peace
Depends what criteria you use, apparently.
A quick scan of companions suggests a tie between the Brig and Benton, based on 4 years with Pertwee; Sarah Jane, who had one year with Pertwee and three with Baker I; and K-9, who had four years with Baker spanning two models.
Jamie, Jo, Romana, Tegan, and Ace had three years each.
So who is the actual longest-running companion then?
And in terms of weekly episodes…its still Jamie, right? All those long serials with the Second Doctor helped with that.
John C. Wright’s novel Somewhither currently has 12 recommendations, more than any other.
Okay, that’s one JCW. Bets on what categories his other five nominations will appear in?
1. Historical.
2. Historical Romance.
3. Historical Bromance.
4. Comedy Pairings of the 1950s.
5. Kitchen Appliances.
5. Faction.
(9) Kevin’s suggestion that the fraction of people nominating is shrinking is highly debatable; does he have any idea how many members successive Worldcons have in common? I’ve heard a claim that there are ~3,000 who get to every year, although I doubt the number is still this high given the fact that there’s been more world in Worldcon recently. I also don’t know the basis for that claim, but ISTM that 20,000 is very high for the pool of potential nominators. I might believe it for 2016 given the huge number of supporting memberships in both London and Spokane — but again, we don’t know how many of those overlap.
I kind of want to read a Historical Bromance novel. Or try and pester Kate Beaton into doing a Historical Bromance comic.
@Lorcan – it’s a shocking omission from her oeuvre if she hasn’t.
Would Nemesis count?
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=327
YES. YES IT WOULD.
Nigel:
5) Lingerie
6) There is no category 6!
7) two bags of cement and a sheet of corrugated iron
7+1) Books not to be tossed aside lightly. (Could someone open the window, please?)
9) Nein.
10) “Crash!”
It’s 877 here and Constantine has just been killed at Forgan.
(Cadbury, hiding from roving bands of Norsemen.)
@Lorcan
That is funny! Thanks for sharing …
I’m surprised super genius Beale hasn’t done the reductio ad absurdium and simply created books and stories of random words at the various category size length for the Rabids to nominate. Its a win win for him. They either get nominated, and he can laugh, or they get rightly kicked off the ballot by the Worldcon and he cries victimization. Aristotle would approve.
Even if he is a super-genius, he’s not self-aware.
@Paul
The anti-Scalzi ebooks his followers have been producing are sufficiently close to random spews of words as to make little difference.
Any day I introduce someone to Kate Beaton’s comics is a personal victory. I got my wife a print of her Wonder Woman strips for Christmas:
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=328
@Mark. True, although I doubt Beale would want to argue those are science fiction and thus eligible in the fiction categories. 🙂
If they did such a thing it’d be more likely that they’d crow about burning the Hugos down. There’s probably a balance of deniability whereby they want to destroy the Hugos but if they nominate stuff that’s utterly indefensible, not even the sads, who insist on some shred of literary credibility, will go along with it. They might be more willing to push the envelope with the fan writer, fan works or related works, if they really are going to push that revolting thing on child abuse, which is also idefensible.
After that question we had a breakfast table conversation and the consensus was Lethbridge-Stwart.
He first appeared in 1968 the Troughton era and (not counting when Nicholas Courtney wasn’t in the role) last appeared in 2008. (Oh wait, that was the Sarah Jane Adventures. Does that even count? If not his last appearance was in 1989 and I think that still manages to beat out Clara’s tenure a wee bit.)
Down in the comments of the GRRM piece, someone points out to him this hilarious article: GRRM Has No Pages. The theory is that GRRM has written absolutely no new words on Winds of WInter, because he’s too busy enjoying the high life, doing too much blogging about sports and the Hugos, too old, and can’t finish up the plotlines anyway.
I find the “too old” theory particularly silly. It’s well-established that the only thing that can stop a good SF writer is death, and even then there’s all that unfinished material to plunder.
Mind you, here in 4655 the book-v-show canon wars are still ongoing.
(@Paul: is that a little optimistic of you?)
@Peace
Pure chronology is a nice alternative measure. In an act of petty one-upmanship, what about Susan with 1963 to the tiny use of a clip in 2013? If you restrict it to appearances in new material then the Brigadier would seem to be the chrono-winner though.
Over at Torgersen’s response to GRRM’s Puppies at Christmas post, a commenter says this:
Now, I’ve looked through the comments at GRRM’s post and I can’t find anything where he even mentions libraries, let alone “very explicitly” excludes library readers from being a Fan, and every description I’ve seen from GRRM up to now about what it means to be a Fan has been about Fanac rather than anything else. Anyone know what this is referring to?
It just dawned on me that it may not be only C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton that our not terribly well read amateur theologian, history revisionist and cultural bluenose is trying to emulate.
May I recommend, if people are interested in reading the work of a politically conservative, very smart, very thoughtful roleplaying gamer with an excellent grasp of history and a good sense of humor, that the works of Kenneth Hite are not the worst place to start?
I’m gonna take “Someone else told me and it sounded good so I didn’t check to see if it was true” for 200.
No idea. It does not sound at all like Martin to me.
What seems likely is that either it is a total fabrication, or at some point Martin said that simply reading and enjoying books does not make one a member of the historic group identified as Fen and this person chose to interpret that statement in the ugliest way imagineable.