(1) INDY 5 IS GO. Consequence of Sound has the story.
Walt Disney Company chairman and CEO Bob Iger, has confirmed that a fifth Indiana Jones movie is indeed happening.
During a recent interview with Bloomberg, Iger spent much of his time talking about the franchise possibilities that are opening up with the massive success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When he got to comparing Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm to that of Pixar and Marvel, however, he noted that taking on Lucasfilm’s intellectual properties also meant “Indiana Jones, by the way, which will be coming.”
(2) ABOUT FACE. Kameron Hurley posted a funny gallery of GIFS to illustrate the “Faces I Make When Reading Reviews”.
A lot of people think authors take reviews personally, and I suppose there are many who do. Those are the folks who should really steer clear of reader reactions to books, or rather, what some readers believe the books say about the author, which is always far more amusing.
There are great reviews with insightful criticism of my work, and glowing reviews about how it changed people’s lives.
But, this being the internet and people trying to poke an author for a meltdown, I’m often asked about my reaction when reading negative reviews of my work. What folks don’t get is that I find most negative reactions endlessly amusing. Not the real criticism that points out real flaws, no, but the reactions that say far more about the reader than the writer.
(3) MIND MELD. SF Signal’s latest Mind Meld, curated by James Aquilone, posts the question “What are your favorite new genre (SF/F/H) TV shows of 2015?” – with replies by Alex Shvartsman, Sarah Pinsker, Matthew Johnson, Robert Davis, Carlie St. George, Erin M. Hartshorn, Andrew Liptak, Rob H. Bedford, and Sally Ember, Ed.D.
(4) CHOOSE FEAR. Here’s how David Brin’s Mars mission would start.
Go to Phobos before landing on Mars itself? I have pushed this idea for twenty years and now some at NASA agree. Not only is the larger moon far easier to reach and might serve as an ideal research platform, it also has two advantages never mentioned in this article. It can serve as a logistics hub where supplies might be pre-positioned and tended without complex orbital management. It also might (some figure) be carbonaceous chondritic material, containing volatiles like water. If these could be mined and stored and prepared, subsequent Mars landing missions would find all the water and rocket fuel they need, lowering both cost and risk by an order of magnitude.
(5) ZICREE ON FAN-MADE TREK FILMS. Marc Scott Zicree on Facebook.
Science fiction has a long and honorable tradition of fan fiction — in fact, many of the top professional writers started out writing fan fiction — and these fan films are the logical extension of that tradition. More than that, speaking as a professional who’s written extensively for all the major studios and networks, the reason I chose to do “World Enough and Time” was that I felt Michael Reaves and I, along with our creative team, could bring as high a level of professional quality to that project as anything we had ever done for the studios and networks. I wanted to work with George Takei, the powers that be were never going to choose to do the ultimate Sulu story we wanted to tell, and it was something we could share with the whole world.
CBS/Paramount views Star Trek as a money machine, and that drives their decision on what or what not to make. This is perfectly justifiable. But it’s not what led Gene Roddenberry to create Star Trek, nor is it why Renegades or Axanar are being made. I think often taking a step back, gaining perspective and saying, “How can we create a win/win situation here?” is a good idea. It’s what led George Lucas to not only allow Star Wars fan films, but to hold an annual contest recognizing the best ones.
(6) GERROLD ON SUIT STRATEGY. David Gerrold on Facebook:
…But this lawsuit also suggests that CBS and Paramount might be missing the more important point. The fan productions are about the hunger for new Star Trek. They’re not competition as much as they are signs that the franchise is alive and well. Keeping the fans engaged is the best thing that CBS and Paramount can do to keep the franchise alive.
I understand the corporate desire to protect their rights to the franchise, but that cat got out of the bag a long time ago. If they weren’t going to shut down Star Trek New Voyages and Star Trek Continues and Star Trek Renegades and Star Trek Farragut for “copyright infringement” — and those productions use Kirk, Spock, et al, and the original enterprise — then they’re going to have a much harder case with Axanar which barely touches the same specific content of the original series.
I suspect that the lawsuit isn’t about copyright infringement as much as it’s designed to intimidate Axanar’s producers. I’ll be interested to see how this proceeds….
(7) CAVEAT TWITTER. Business Insider reports “Mark Hamill is protecting fans from fake signed ‘Star Wars’ merchandise on Twitter”.
He apologized to fans who have spent money on fraudulent items and urged them to look at real copies to learn how to confirm his signature on their own. When asked why he wasn’t tired of responding to people, he said, “Because I owe it to all true fans to protect them from being victimized by dishonest dealers.”
(8) FORCE A FEW DOLLARS MORE. Steven Harper Piziks opines about writers who are “Riding the Coat Tails of the Force”.
These and other similar articles mean absolutely nothing, of course. They’re written by people who have no real cred. For example, Lili Loofbourow, who wrote the desperate-sounding “emotional blind spots” article above, is a freelance reporter. She’s not a professor of media studies, or an experienced film reviewer, or a film maker. She has a computer and a contact at Salon.com and ticket stub for THE FORCE AWAKENS. Same goes for all the others. They’re just riding along on TFA’s coat tails, trying to make a few dollars for themselves.
Well, at least I got a blog entry out of it.
(9) PICACIO PLUGS COMPETITION. Today John Picacio commented on George R.R. Martin’s pro artist Hugo recommendations and added six more names (with links to their work).
Thanks so much for the shoutout, George. It’s an honor to be be considered in any year, including this one. That said, winning any major award comes with responsibility along with hardware and glory. It’s always great to win, but as a past winner, I want the Pro Artist Hugo list to reflect the extraordinary range and evolution of the field. So while I’m not recusing myself, I would like to take this opportunity to shine light on some of sf/f’s art stars that have had an outstanding year and deserve Hugo consideration in this category:…
(10) HITCHHIKER’S HOMECOMING. Think how much more effective Lazlar Lyricon 3’s “about” statement would be if it hadn’t stopped with just four reasons for holding this convention? I hope the concom will treat themselves to one or two fifths as part of their launch celebration.
Dateline: The Old Kings Head Pub, London, 21 November 2015. Today, ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha (the Official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Appreciation Society) Annual General Meeting authorised a committee to run Lazlar Lyricon 3. This is the third (coincidentally) in a series of conventions celebrating The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Douglas Adams, the first having occurred in the 1980s.
Lazlar Lyricon 3 will take place on 9-11 June 2017 at the Quality Hotel in Stoke-on-Trent.
Committee members Stefan Lancaster, Emma J. King, David Haddock and Alan Sullivan, amongst others, were on hand to discuss plans, answer questions and receive the imprimatur of the AGM. They were also given ‘seed money’ of £500 towards the costs, which was greeted with much cheering!
The first two Lazlar Lyricons were part of a series of conventions in the 1980s, 90s and early 00s colloquially called ‘Fun Cons’, which also included the Incons, Dangercons, and several one-off conventions such as Year of the Wombat and Aliens Stole my Handbag. The aspiration is to ensure everyone has a great time (and not panic!), with fun, loosely Hitchhikers-inspired programme items such as crab stomping and towel-based martial arts. The announcement that the first and foremost in appointments will be a ‘beer liaison’ was greeted with more cheering!
(11) SPEAKING OF LAUNCHING. Gail Z. Martin on “Making the Most of Your Launch Day” at Magical Words.
Book launches are on my mind since Vendetta, the second book in the Deadly Curiosities urban fantasy series, just launched yesterday. So I thought it might be fun to pull the curtain back on what can go into a book launch, and let you pick and choose the elements you feel best suit your own circumstances.
Social media is is your biggest bullhorn to the world. Long before your book comes out, you should be creating a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Wattpad, a blog, and a web site. These are the places you can gather your tribe–the people who have read and liked your work, your friends and others who wish you well and are happy to help spread the word. Make sure you let your friends and followers know in advance when the book is coming out, and how they can help.
(12) ON RECONCILIATION. Joe Vasicek’s “Response to Steve Davidson on Reconciling with the Puppies” is a commentary on Steve Davidson’s Amazing Stories post “Reconciling with Puppies – ‘…to dram, the impossible dream, to reach the unreachable star…”.
Mr. Davidson’s post is interesting, and worth reading. We obviously don’t see eye to eye on a number of things, but it would be rather petty to go through our disagreements line by line. Instead, the part that I want to respond to is his call to action at the end:
Want to reconcile? Here’s what puppies must do.
1: Stop scamming the system. If you want to recommend works that you think are worthy of the award, go ahead and do so. But drop the political agenda (you’re dragons are imaginary) and eliminate the hateful, snarky commentary
If you’re looking for “hateful, snarky commentary,” I’m sure that you’ll be able to find it. On the fringes of both sides, there are a lot of people with blogs and strong opinions. I’d count myself as one of them—while I align with the Sad Puppies, I’m not a leader or organizer by any stretch, just another guy with opinions and a blog. Don’t be so quick to look for ammunition, because there’s a lot of it lying around.
Kate Paulk, one of the Sad Puppy organizers, has pointed out that Sad Puppies 4 is open to nomination suggestions from anyone, which appears to be what you’re calling for. And honestly, I think a lot of us don’t want to see conservative writers edge out everyone else so much as to see them go head to head with more liberal writers on a more equal playing field. It’s not about slaying imaginary dragons so much as breaking down walls.
So on this first point, Mr. Davidson and I tend to be in agreement. This seems like a reasonable step for reconciliation, and it’s one that the Sad Puppies 4 already appear to be taking.
(13) YOUR RANCOR MAY VARY. Brad Torgersen’s “Sad Puppies and the future”, prompted by Martin’s “reconciliation” post, says many familiar things.
Many people have already seen George R. R. Martin’s optimistic (and well-intended) commentary at his LiveJournal. However, just as with George’s hood ornament Alfie awards (also well-intended) there is more than one way for a thing to be perceived. My perception — and I am not alone in this — of George’s desire for an end to the rancor, is that George still seems to think that a) the rancor was flowing almost entirely one-way, from the Puppies’ side to the Trufan side, and also b) none of the Puppies are themselves fans. Not Fans (caps f) and certainly not Trufans. No. Puppies are still an outsider bunch, who carry an outsider’s stigma.
There is also a bit too much parentalism in George’s tone: dear kids, I hope you’ve learned your lesson, now wipe those dirty looks off your faces and come give your mother a hug!
(14) DO YOU FEEL SAFER? And in the comments, national security consultant Arlan Andrews, Sr. gives MidAmeriCon II members something to look forward to:
I for one will never forgive anyone who appeared in that pre-Awards “90-minute-hate-the-Puppies” TV show, nor anyone who called me a neoNazi. Though some were, I had thought, nice acquaintances if not actual long-time friends, their behavior before, during and after the Hugos simply meant that I shut them out of any future consideration of any kind, meaning no purchasing of their products, no voting for their works, no attendance at any function at which they are honored or prominent, no reviews of anything they are involved with, and no defense of any criticism of them. As a very minor player in fandom/prodom, despite 60+ years of fanlife and 35+ years of prolife, those people will seldom notice nor long remember what I do here, but if thousands of others do likewise, the effects may be meaningful. All of the SP3 experience this year has been enlightening, and a tiny reflection of the national schism between those who cherish Freedom and those banding together to enforce Collectivism. I thank Brad and Larry and the Jovians for graciousness in the face of fire. And next Worldcon, I will definitely attend. (Does Missouri have Concealed Carry?)
(15) HOOKY HEADLINE. “9 things ‘Starship Troopers’ totally nailed about today’s technology” is a pretty bold claim about a movie that showed space infantry fighting in shoulder-to-shoulder formations like at the Battle of Waterloo.
(16) CHRISTMAS CONFLATION. When I read the headline of io9’s post “Chewbacca Comic Finally Answers A Question Star Wars Fans Have Pondered For Years” I mentally filled the blank with, “Does Chewie sleep with his whiskers outside or in?”
(17) REEL CONSPIRACY. At Star Wars Minute, “How Kylo Ren Got Darth Vader’s Helmet.” A fan theory based on some events in Disney/Lucasfilm comics and novels.
(18) TONIGHT ON JEOPARDY! A Bradbury-themed question.
Literary Characters for $200
Answer: Beatty is the captain of the fireman in this Bradbury Novel
Question: What is Fahrenheit 451
(19) IF YOU WERE A DINOSAUR…BUT WAIT, I AM. “Retaliation for getting coal in my stocking!” says YouTube poster Ralph the Rex.
[Thanks to Will R., John King Tarpinian and Brian Z. for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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@Jim
I’m OK with #2, too. The closest the slate-mongers have come to so far was LC’s books – I wouldn’t go out of my way to read more by him, but they are reasonably competent, go along at a cracking pace, and are somewhat entertaining – so long as you don’t think too hard and ignore the Mary Sue’s. Glad he makes enough to keep his fans entertained and himself in guns’n’ammo off the books. If they were TV shows, they’d be some midbudget main network show that does OK.
The rest of it wasn’t up to that standard. I’m not holding my breath for 2016, either.
I’ve been running through the various short stories on the Hugo spreadsheet of doom the last few days, some nice work on there – some stunt writing, too (the AMA with the galactic conquerer was fun) and there was one on Baen (We Fly) that I was going to skip due to the publisher, but it was a good story, so I’d echo the sentiment of getting preconceptions out of the way and reading widely.
I’d actually be kind of happy if SP4 came up with some good less well known authors, but I suspect it will be Castilia House all the way down.
TheYoungPretender said:
What does Missouri say about the right of private property owners to disallow open carry on their property or remove people for doing so? Because if it gives the property owner any power, I guarantee you the convention center will have a standard contract clause requiring events to discourage it to the full extent permitted by local law, and it won’t even be MAC2’s decision to make.
I could see myself being interested in, or even caring about, the Jovian Awards under certain circumstances. If they could use the Sad Pups’ recommendation list to produce 5-6 finalists in each category and then vote directly on those, instead of dicking about with someone else’s awards, there would be few if any complaints from anybody (except perhaps the Rabids, and I don’t think many people here would lose much sleep over upsetting them). If they made a point of using them to celebrate the best in SF Entertainment, rather than making SJW heads explode, I’m sure many of us would take a look at the winners – after all, during the kerpupple, I went out and bought the Baen Best MilSF/space opera anthology, even though I’m not much interested in MilSF unless it comes with an added dimension, and I prefer my space opera at novel length. All awards are potentially valuable sources of new reading.
Which doesn’t sound like another reacitonary movement in nerd culture from recent times, oh no
http://chainsawsuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/20141015-theperfectcrime.png
@ Jim Henley:
In that case, just quote the response from Arkell v. Pressdram.
@Jonathan Edelstein:
Ah, the delightful “Private Eye” magazine.
@Mark, us members of the New Zealand contingent are two hours ahead of our trans-Tasman cousins.
Some may say we are ahead in other ways too but I couldn’t possibly comment…
@snowcrash,
As a boy person, thank you for the compliment.
I plan on attending the WorldCon this year, which reminds me I should start getting my ducks in a row now . . .
(14) Do you feel safer: They don’t really read what they write, to they? Andrews writes, “no attendance at any function at which they are honored or prominent,”, and then a few sentences later, “And next Worldcon, I will definitely attend.” Among the GoHs for MACII? Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
Lydy Nickerson: That is an awesome catch.
Shambles:
My wife and I will be there.
I find it difficult to take this stuff from Brad seriously; Kevin Standlee has written here and elsewhere about the weird misconceptions quite a few people have about Worldcon and the Hugos, and Brad has them in spades.
However, visiting MACCI when you’ve said you wouldn’t, notwithstanding the presence of much vilified GoHs, isn’t irrefutable proof of weird misconceptions; it may be that the establishment will have changed by then, and appointing Kate & Co. to be in charge of the biscuit tin as an act of rapprochement may surprise everybody by succeeding.
Of course, I shall then found my own movement because not only am I not a member of the Establishment now, but I won’t be a member of the Establishment then either, and this is clearly because I do not possess one or more guns in order to defend the biscuit tin. I shall have to spend some time working on the brand concept, but since I appear to be stranded in 9328 it will keep me occupied…
@Petrea Mitchell
Good news! You are almost completely correct. Most do!
Now here’s the bad news: Most people talking about their “Constitutional Rights” in this country don’t know what they are talking about. You usually see this with the 1st Amendment, where the prohibition on the government limiting speech is turned into their god-given right to use whatever slur they like without consequence.
With regards to the 2nd Amendment, it’s people who say since the 2nd Amendment says the government can’t limit their right to own a gun, anyone who posts such a sign or any organization with such a contract clause is de facto illegitimate. Thus they often feel very proud of being warriors for the Constitution when they ignore such clauses.
I’m being overly broad, because I know we have many non US people here. Also, no, the blatant disrespect for contracts and other peoples rules for their private property that this constitutes does not strike any of these great libertarian believers in private property and contract as at all bad. So the convention can forbid it. The hotel can forbid it. Dollars to donuts, WorldCon will have several people still packing, regardless of any posted sign.
So we’ll have some of the come-and-take-them crowd, strapped up, wandering around, when American politics of the right is in full siege mentality, the takers are coming mode. Happy thought. But again – LARPers. Smart money is that they’d freeze up like the rest of us if they drew in an agitated situation. Small thing to trust in, I know.
TL;DR: American gun fanatics have all the subtly and nuance of the stone head in Zardoz, and theirs enough overlap of that group with Puppiedom that whatever rule the hotel or con makes, someone’s probably packing.
As the question of if I’m going, well I’ve been considering it, and after looking at some of the interactions some Filers have had with Lou and other puppies, knowledge of my real name combined with my smart mouth seems like a recipe for many one-star Avvo reviews. I will not argue that this doesn’t make me a coward. I will say that with a small practice it makes me a practical one.
Reading that stuff from Torgersen and others at his blog is pretty depressing.
JohanP
I am sure you are going to tell us that Brad dealt with this comment most harshly. He is so proud of being an army reservist I can’t imagine him tolerating anyone denigrating his Commander-in-Chief.
@Tintinaus:
::HA HA HA HA:: no.
Literally nobody found that worthy of remark, nor the same commenters reference to “queers” etc. in the same comment. They were much more interested in calling Camestros a cvn7. Euphemistically of course.
Also in waxing indignant that anyone had ever called any Puppies “racist, sexist and homophobic.” Also, weirdly, Brad wondered if “we’re living in a They Might Be Giants song” but he didn’t mean this one:
They don’t have one yet. I bought my membership yesterday so I could vote as well as nominate and went through the entire website. My understanding is they are working on the weapons policy.
The state does allow private places/events to have weapons policies and if police are called a fine may be levied. See PDF FAQ put out by the state of Missouri for details. It’s an interesting read.
@Stevie: I wasn’t making a claim of delusional misconceptions. Just of writing carelessly. Pup-prose often pursues emotional lines of logic without any regard to the actual, factual universe. That one could say that one would never do a thing, and then a couple sentences later state that one will be doing exactly that thing, without even noticing that they have done so suggests that they are not thinking in a holistic fashion, and completely ignoring the ways that things interrelate and interact. It’s an interesting mind-set.
@Jim thanks for mentioning my comment earlier. I find it interesting the number of people who responded to your posting of the same sections I posted which got no response except your comment and resposting of points. Some days I feel like a woman in a meeting where I make a point and a few minutes later a guy makes the same point & everyone is all over what the guy has to say.
Granted I’d put my commentary after each point so it was harder to read…
Our unconscious bias and institutional sexism at work everyday. 😉
Who does Torgersen think the “establishment” of the Hugo awards is? The committee, staff and volunteers for Sasquan existed for that convention only. That combination of people will never exist as a group again.
A different combination of people exist(ed) to run LonCon3, MidAmeriCon2, and WorldCon 75. Sure there’s some overlap of individuals. But very little overlap of same people, same role.
There is no establishment there.
I may give Vivenne the side-eye here more often than not, but by her comment over at Brad’s place, I do think I understand a bit more where she’s coming from, and it’s not where I had been thinking. Shall adjust brain accordingly.
Camestros, you have more energy than I do by orders of magnitude and I salute you for it.
I have come to the point where I will research whether an author is a puppy before I will read his/her work. Does anyone know if there is a comprehensive list of puppy authors?
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I will be here all week, and don’t forget to tip your waiter.
I’d like to salute everyone from here who made an effort to be civil, informative and engaged in that discussion at Brad Torgerson’s blog. I will never, ever have that kind of energy again.
Other than that, I’m surprisingly undisturbed that Vox Day and I will both be nominating Andy Weir for the Campbell.
Also, my partner and I got our attending memberships as a joint Christmas present, so we’ll be there.
There are two things stopping the Puppies from creating their own award that, even if it didn’t rival the Hugos, could honor works that the Hugos tend to miss. One is, of course, the work involved. The other is that they would have to define what kind of works the award was for, in terms that weren’t blatantly “my and my buddies’ books” or “whatever will upset the people we dislike.” (The latter not only requires a bit of mind-reading, but has the circular problem of getting their opponents to care.)
Do it right, and you get the Tiptree, the Prometheus, the Mythopoeic Awards–which have built up some amount of prestige without taking any from the Hugos, because admiration for good writing is not a zero-sum game.
Something like the Big Dog Award for Best Mil-SF* might be viable: but a lot of what the puppies have been pushing isn’t mil-SF. (Trademarks probably mean that they couldn’t name it after everyone’s favorite World War I flying ace.)
It was fun until it got dull. Mark and Snowcrash showed more quiet patience than I did.
The thing is, the points being raised were such old hat and so obviously at odds with what actually occurred that it was easy to write an essay on the level of wrongness. It comes back to the major problem common across Puppydom of them not-reflecting on what they said and trusting their own rhetoric over what they actually said.
But this is easily my favorite comment in that thread:
There is just so much revealing stuff there about how the whole kerfuffle is perceived and the cognitive errors employed to maintain those perceptions, that it is impossible to unpack it all. But yeah, that I’m conspiring with Cat Rambo to be nice to people at Christmas is such a cool idea that I sort of wish it was true.
@Tasha: Whatever the reason for its passing mostly unacknowledged, I liked your comment quite a bit. I mean, you made me click the link! That doesn’t happen often. 🙂
FWIW, I interpreted “CHORFholes” to mean the asterisks. Which I think a lot of us consider, with the benefit of whatever hindsight, to have been poorly thought through. But the only one who can apologize for those is David Gerrold. I’m glad the Puppies all got No Awarded, but even in the moment, I thought the asterisks were squicky. IMHO, Gerrold should apologize, but he prefers to derail the issue by talking about the money the asterisks raised for charity. As if, you know, that were the only possible way one could have raised money for charity.
(2) ABOUT FACE – I normally hate reaction GIF posts – they feel very teenybopper to me – but some of her choices were hilarious.
Tangentially, opinions on her “God’s War” series? I bogged down about halfway through – it seemed to be taking forever to get to where it was going. I enjoyed the grimdarkness of it, but eventually felt the call of other books and fell off.
RE various Puppy things – I don’t see a common narrative, or even a frequently intersecting set of narratives, happening between the Puppies and the rest of fandom any time soon. Some of the Puppy leaders are occasionally decent, some of the Puppy followers seem like good folk, but it’s a movement built on victimhood and reactionary politics. I do get the urge to correct the many *ahem* mistakes BT, LC, LA, etc., make in all their posts, but that’s what Snowcrash is for, and they do it much more patiently than I could hope to.
One thing – someone upthread mentioned JCW’s new novel and implied it was subpar. I recall someone here, most definitely not a Puppy from what I recall, claiming the book was quite good. Does anyone else recall that? I’m almost hoping it gets nominated and is in the packet so I can check it out (never giving Castalia any money, ever).
ETA
@Jim Henley
Totally agree.
Camestros Felapton: God forbid there should be many more occasions to quote Chupik. It’s bad enough reading him there.
Sort of like a fire hydrant, with Dalek weaponry attached?
So, a fire hydrant with a plunger and an egg whisk?
That was me on JCWs new novel – I read the bits available on Amazon and it seems very idiosyncratic in tone and really didn’t get me to want to read more. Seems very choppy to me. YMMV.
@Ita
Does anyone know if there is a comprehensive list of puppy authors?
Any that was compiled would draw cries of “blacklist” within nanoseconds, and I might actually agree.
@Jim Henley FWIW, I interpreted “CHORFholes” to mean the asterisks. Which I think a lot of us consider, with the benefit of whatever hindsight, to have been poorly thought through. But the only one who can apologize for those is David Gerrold.
Yeah agree on this point. I don’t think he’s going to apologize anytime soon though. 🙁
@Lydy
I don’t know whether there really is a Chinese curse translated to
but I regard the mindset in question as definitely not desirable, particularly when linked to the physical possession of guns. I’m sorry if I came across as criticising your points because that was most definitely not my intention.
@The Young Pretender
I do not regard a conclusion based upon a sensible appraisal of risks as cowardly; career military do that as a matter of course, for very obvious reasons.
It is civilians who think that they are demonstrating courage by doing stupid things; certainly the former marines who provided security when the cruise ship I was on ran Pirate’s Alley were a lot more concerned about one or more idiotic passengers getting in their way, than they were about dealing with anyone attempting to board the ship.
Camestros
I gather you are in
mode; I am awestruck by your ability to do this whilst drinking bottled beer. Alas, even though I’ve made it back to 3672 I’m still no further forward with my trophy design, but come 2016 I should be able to get to grips with it…
ETA
I’m still not sure what the problem is with the astericks; is this something which is different depending which side of the pond one is on?
@Cheryl S.
Other than that, I’m surprisingly undisturbed that Vox Day and I will both be nominating Andy Weir for the Campbell.
That was a bit bizarre, but even if it was actually VD and not just someone having a laugh then I don’t see too much to concern me either: Weir would have made the Campbell under his own steam this year without the slates, so I’d be happy to conclude he’s done the same next year and ignore VDs gambit.
@Tasha Turner on December 30, 2015 at 11:39 pm said:
Morbid curiosity is certainly one of my tragic flaws. Someday, I’m probably going to summon a demon or open a portal to a hell dimension or some such.
Well, you know, strangely enough, calling me, as a fan, names like “CHORF” and “crybully” do go a long way toward establishing lasting enmity between us. I realize I’m very unusual in this, that I don’t like to get called insulting names. It’s probably also unusual that I tend to assume anyone who calls me an insulting name doesn’t actually want to be friends, and I tend to behave accordingly by avoiding them in person, and sometimes by not buying their books either.
He seems to continue to labor under the weird illusion that there was some singular entity (capable of apologizing) that ensured a No Award win in slated categories, rather than it being the result of thousands of fans making their own decisions. Some of the most prominent Puppy targets — GRRM and Scalzi, anyway — specifically recommended against blanket no-awarding slated works. So is it their fault that No Award took the field? Are they they ones who should apologize? For what?
Does he want an apology from the thousands of fans who made No Award their top choice? Anybody who voted for No Award isn’t sorry. They voted for No Award because they wanted No Award to win, and it did win.
It’s a Schrodinger’s Puppy sort of deal. The Sads and Rabids are COMPLETELY different, until you say something potentially unflattering about the Rabids, in which case, the Sads reserve the right to take personal offense.
@ Stevie: We’re good. I think we were just expanding on different aspects of the phenomena. I’m a American, I worry less about the guns. This may be foolish of me.
For those of us without the spoons at the moment to read the reportedly draining pages and comments, any hope of a précis?
ETA: Also, I think Vivienne acquitted herself rather well the other day when she was brought up short by someone’s sincerity, which makes me inclined to view her a little more kindly.
Oh, is that what was going on.
Now I am half interested in going to see, except I don’t trust Torgersen to leave the comments as they were written, not after that one time he altered everyone’s comments to make it look like they were dogpiling him with spam.
Torgersen’s invocation of the Kurgan is amusing me right now because a couple weeks ago a friend of mine made a clever (and good) argument that among other things, Highlander is a metaphor for gay life.
The immortals all learn of their true nature at some point, as young adults or grown men. They can’t have children, and their relationships with women always end with them drifting further and further out of touch, if some calamity doesn’t intervene first. They seem to live as aristocratic connoisseurs, street-level hustlers, or both. And there’s Queen playing all over the place. 🙂 (Turns out director Russell Mulcahy is gay, too.)
So, anyway, this is my extra amusement, shared.
There isn’t. It was reportedly invented by the translator / expat communiy in China around or after WWII. Interesting times, for sure.
For those of us without the spoons at the moment to read the reportedly draining pages and comments, any hope of a précis?
Eh. Brad Torgerson did a fine job of combining a massive sense of ill usage with an equally massive There Must Be a Leader of the Cabal With a Complete and Sincere Apology for Everything screed, with a side of I Am A Desperado or something or other. Various people chimed in, a few made sense (even one who wasn’t a File770 regular), one or two representatives of the crazypants brigade showed up to say crazypants things, Torgerson held tightly to his sense of ill usage, Vox Day (if that was an imposter, they have the whole Truman Capote as Rumplestiltskin tone down exactly right) says he’ll have Andy Weir on his Campbell ballot and, yeah, that’s pretty much it.
In other words, it isn’t worth using up any spoons.
@Kathodus: On God’s War my problem was that I probably went through it too fast, so YMMV. However, book 1 is the best, book 2 has great scenes (including the infamous well scene) but a lot of setup, and book 3 is stretching everything to tie it together. There’s some really neat world-building and character-driven bits in the final book, but also one crucial character that really didn’t work for me. I think if book 2 dragged for you, book 3 won’t help.
I should say that I’ve been aiming to re-read the whole series for a while now – just waiting to be in the right mood – to check that my impression holds the second time round. There’s two reasons for this.
First, on the initial read of Mirror Empire I thought it was ok; on the re-read I thought it was superb. There was just too much going on for me to take it in first time.
Second, one of the most impressive bits of book 1 of God’s War was the way the world was used as a character in its own right: it shaped and interacted with the other characters in crucial ways. In the later books I didn’t get this sense so much (in retrospect), but I wonder if I rushed it too much (in trying to find out where the plot was going) and missed these aspects. I also have a mental question linking the problematic character to the world in general I need to sort out.
Thank you for that precis, Cheryl. I’ve tried giving up reading Puppy blogs, for my mental health. I foolishly gave that up, on Christmas of all days, because my name came up on a Google Alert.
James May, he of the “Feminism is destroying SF” had unkind things to say about me in the comments of a post on Larry Correia’s blog. I read what he said, shouldn’t have done so, and it helped spoil an already unhappy Christmas.
Live and learn.
My apologies 🙂
And there we see VD in the actual act of hopping on a bandwagon. After the whole TBP thing, he wants to get a near-sure-thing in early rather than last minute. Of course if Weir wins and he tries to take credit for it, he’ll have to co-credit Mark, or he’ll be lying, and we know who does the lying, don’t we? Being on an RP slate might actually damage Weir’s chances of winning, but Weir’s just another pawn like the rest of us, and due no more human consideration than any other tiny piece of wood on a board.
@Paul:
I am sorry. Please be aware that many people like and respect your opinions.
Google Alert is … a mixed blessing, at best.
@Peace
Thoroughly ninja’d by Cheryl, but as I’ve just typed this I’m going to use it:
Umm, there was a lot about how NA was a slate vote, with some filers pointing out that they’d actually read and judged. Brad tripling down on the insults. Dave Freer, Brad, and Camestros having a lovely chat about politics. Camestros trying in vain to point out how damn silly the Torspiracy thing actually was. Dave Freer – again – repeating his political bias theory and – again – refusing to engage with criticisms of it. Me talking about why Weisskopf got No Awarded, and getting the reaction you’d expect. Me chasing Brad around for about a week about keeping Andy Weir off the Campbell ballot. Vivienne dropped in to snipe in all directions, and pleased none. A brief cessation of hostilities to agree that Folding Beijing was pretty good, with a cameo from BrianZ. Snowcrash pointing out that BDP wasn’t NA-ed about ten times. Steve Davidson. VD declaring he was going to put Weir on RP2 because of me.
My bookseller friend wisely and knowingly advised me to set one up for myself before my book came out in May. So I did – Maloney’s Magical Weatherbox, Nigel Quinlan. I braced myself a bit, expecting to have to take the good with the bad with the indifferent. I have gotten a single alert once a month since, every month, like clockwork, and each time it’s the same story about a Cork hurler named Moloney who’s having a magical year. I’m VERY happy for him.