Pixel Scroll 1/5/17 But You Scroll One Lousy Pixel….

Posted on by

what-would-carrie-do

(1) WWCD? Cody Christensen of Cedar City, Utah has a petition on Change.org  called “Make Leia an Official Disney Princess” which requests that Disney induct Princess Leia into the pantheon of princesses and that some sort of ceremony for Carrie Fisher be held at a Disney theme park.  He has over 40,000 signatures.

After the tragic lose of Carrie Fisher, we feel that it is only fitting for Disney to do away with the rule that an official Disney princess must be animated and make Leia a full-fledged princess. This would be a wonderful way to remember Carrie and a welcoming to one of Disney’s new properties that is beloved by millions.

What we are asking is that the Walt Disney Corporation hold a full ceremony inducting Leia as the newest Disney princess as well as a special service in memory of Carrie Fisher.

Christensen told Geek how he got the idea for the petition.

“I started the petition because it was something that bugged me since Disney bought the property. Disney had princesses and Leia was a Princess. Then I found out that Disney had set rules for who could and couldn’t be a princess. (Supercarlin brothers video) With Carrie’s death, I think that it’s time to change the rules.”…

“I actually have 5 daughters and there are constantly princess movies playing in the background.” he said “We are big fans of the current Princess line-up, but I think that Leia is a really strong, positive, awesome role model for my girls, and she would make a great addition.”

(2) SPEAKING OF DISNEY PRINCESSES. Abigail Nussbaum reviews Moana, The Lobster, Star Trek Beyond and Lalaland at Asking the Wrong Questions.

Moana – Disney’s latest attempt to reinvent the princess movie takes two novel approaches: drawing on Polynesian folklore and mythology for its story, and recruiting Hamilton wunderkind Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the film’s songs.  Heroine Moana (Auli’l Cravalho) is torn between her duties as the daughter of the village chief and her desire to roam the seas, but finds herself able to gratify both desires when she’s tasked with restoring the heart of creation goddess Te Fiti, aided by Maui (Dwayne Johnson), the demigod who originally stole it.  The plot is thus a picaresque, in which Moana and Maui encounter various dangers and challenges on their journey to Te Fiti, during which they also bond and help each other overcome their hang-ups.  It’s a similar structure to Tangled–still, to my mind, the best of the modern princess movies–but Moana lacks that film’s multiple intersecting plot strands and broad cast of characters, and ends up feeling simpler and more straightforward.  What it does have is genuinely stunning animation, especially where it draws on the scenery of the Pacific islands and the iconography of Polynesian cultures, and some excellent songs by Miranda, which pay homage to both the Disney and musical theater traditions while still retaining entirely their own flavor–I’m particularly fond of a scene in which Moana and Maui encounter a giant, jewel-encrusted lobster (Jemaine Clement), who sings a David Bowie-inspired glam-rock ballad, and then complains that no one likes him as much as The Little Mermaid‘s Sebastian.  But pretty much every song here is excellent and memorable in its own right.

(3) TAIL-GUNNER LOU. “Is there a blacklist?” asks Lou Antonelli, because the rejection slips he gets now are not quite as warm as they once were.

A colleague asked me the other day if I felt there is a blacklist in literary s-f against non-PC writers.

I replied I don’t know, there’s no way to tell for sure; that’s the nature of a blacklist – it’s a conspiracy.

I will say that before 2015, when I was a double Sad Puppy Hugo nominee, my rejections almost always included invitations to submit to that market again.

Now, that is very uncommon, and in fact almost all my rejections now end with “best of luck” or “good luck with your writing” – and no encouragement to submit again.

Someone wrote anonymously to encourage Lou’s suspicions, inspiring a follow-up post decorated with a photo of Senator Joe McCarthy:

I don’t often approve anonymous comments, but I did in this one case, since it sounded true, and given the subject matter, it’s completely understandable why someone would prefer to remain anonymous:

“Day after the election, when I posted a picture of myself with a Trump hat, a famous editor of whom almost anyone would know her name, had her assistant message me to tell me how awful I am, that I’m not going to be invited to write in anthologies again, coupled with the threat that the publishing industry is small and word travels fast.

“Blackballing is real. But you are not alone.”

(4) BUMPER CROP. Mark-kitteh noticed that after SFCrowsnest’s brutal review of Uncanny Magazine #14 yesterday, Uncanny’s editors made some lemonade:

(5) UTES READ GEEZERS. At Young People Read Old SFF, James Davis Nicoll has set the table with Miriam Allen DeFord’s “The Smiling Future”.

Miriam Allen de Ford was a prolific author of both mysteries and Fortean-flavoured science fiction stories. She was also an active feminist, disseminating information about family planning in a time when that was illegal in many regions. Although widely anthologized while alive , since her death she seems to have lapsed into obscurity, at least on the SF side of thing. A pity.

“The Smiling Future” is perhaps not de Ford’s best known science fiction work but it does have the advantage of being on the internet archive, not true of much of her work (because her work was mainly for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, none of which is on the archive). Also, it has dolphins and who doesn’t like dolphins? Selecting it out of all the de Fords I could have selected is therefore something of a calculated risk. Will the risk pay off?

There was enough of a positive reaction to get a good discussion going.

(5) WARNING. It takes a long time to stop laughing at Camestros Felapton’s “A Poster for Timothy”.

(6) SECOND WARNING. Not that Camestros Felapton won’t be a nominee for his work published in 2016, but the first thing he should put in his Hugo eligibility post from 2017 is “A Cat Reviews LaLaLand“. Quite funny, though beware, spoilers abound! …I read it anyway.

(7) PUPPY THOUGHTS. Brian Niemeier  L.Jagi Lamplighter is delighted to be part of SuperversiveSF’s new collection Forbidden Thoughts, which boasts a foreword by Milo Yiannopoulos.

But what can you do with a super controversial story in this age of safe spaces and trigger warnings?

Then, in the midst of the Sad Puppy fervor, I caught a glimmer of an answer. Jason Rennie, editor of Sci Phi Journal and the brilliant mind behind SuperverisveSF, suggested in the midst of a flurry of Sad Puppy emails, that the authors involved get together and do an anthology of anti-PC stories, kind of a modern Dangerous Visions–putting into story form all those thoughts that the SJWs don’t want people to think. Basically, doing what SF is supposed to do, posing difficult questions.

Those of us on the email chain decided on the title: Forbidden Thoughts.

I LOVED this idea. Here was my answer to what to do with my controversial story.

So, I kept on Jason about this, and I kept on the other authors. When a few were too busy to be able to fit writing a new short story into their schedule, I convinced them to submit incendiary blog posts.

So we now had a volume with stories by, among others, John, Nick Cole, Brian Niemeier, Josh Young, Brad Torgersen, Sarah Hoyt, and, a particularly delightful surprise for me, our young Marine fan friend, Pierce Oka. Plus, non fiction by Tom Kratman and Larry Correia submitted some of his original Sad Puppy posts–the thing that started it all!

(8) THE FORBIDDEN ZONE. There probably are a few things The Book Smuggler would like to forbid: “The Airing of Grievances – Smugglivus 2016”

In publishing and on Twitter, advocates for equality, feminists, poc readers and authors were attacked left and right every time they called out racism and sexism in publishing. And folks, there was a lot of that this year. Like that one time when a publisher had a book of “parody” covers that was so racist it almost made our eyes bleed. White authors continued to be awful and show their asses, like that one who said that those who call out cultural appropriation are getting “too precious.” And just a few days ago, we all found out that racist nazi piece of shit Milo Yiannopoulos got a huge book deal with a major publishing house…

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

Born January 5, 1914 — George Reeves, TV’s first Superman.

(10) SOMETHING TERPSICHOREAN. Sparknotes explains Bradbury’s dedication of Something Wicked This Way Comes.

In “A Brief Afterword,” Bradbury explains why Something Wicked This Way Comes is dedicated to Gene Kelly and describes how the book was written. Bradbury met Gene Kelly in 1950 and they became friends shortly thereafter. In 1955 Kelly invited Bradbury and his wife, Maggie, to a private screening of his “collection of musical dance numbers with no connecting plotline,” Invitation to the Dance, at MGM studios. Bradbury and his wife walked home and along the way he told his wife that he desperately wanted to work with Kelly. She suggested that he go through his stories until he found something that would work, turn it into a screenplay, and send it to Gene Kelly. So Bradbury looked through many of his short stories and found The Black Ferris, a ten page story about two young boys and a carnival. For a little over a month he worked on the story and then gave Gene Kelly the eighty page outline of a script that he had created. Mr. Kelly called Bradbury the next day to tell him that he wanted to direct the movie and asked for permission to find financing in Paris and London. Although Bradbury gave his assent, Gene Kelly returned without a financer because no one wanted to make the movie. Bradbury took the partial screenplay, at the time titled Dark Carnival, and over the next five years turned it into the novel Something Wicked This Way Comes that was published in 1962. As Bradbury writes at the end of his afterword, the book is dedicated to Gene Kelly because if he had not invited Bradbury to that screening of his movie, then Something Wicked This May Comes may never have been written. When the book was published, Bradbury gave the first copy to Gene Kelly.

(11) CALLING ALL CARLS. An emergency session of internet scholars has convened at Camestros Felapton’s blog to help him identify “That difficult first novel”.

I was stumped by a trivia question which asked: “What was the first novel in English?”

The problem with the question is one of setting boundaries, specifically:

  • What counts as a novel? Do legends count? What about Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur? Is it a novel, a retelling or a purported (if fanciful) attempt at history?
  • What counts as ‘in English’? Does Chaucer’s middle English count? What about Malory’s middle English (which is more like modern English than Chaucer?)
  • Do translations count? Don Quixote is very like a novel, so might the first translation of that into English count?

(12) LOUDSPEAKER FOR THE DEAD. ScienceFiction.com has the story behind this particular effect — “Raising Cushing: New Video Shows Off CGI Work Done To Create ‘Rogue One’ Grand Moff Tarkin”.

Now, for those interested in how exactly they managed to bring Tarkin to life in the film, ABC News has released a new video on Twitter courtesy of ILM (check it out below) showcasing some of the work that went into building Tarkin, that shows in a handful of seconds what clearly took MONTHS of effects work to accomplish, giving us in brief all of the steps necessary to get the character right. They cast a man that already bore a striking resemblance to Peter Cushing, then digitally enhanced his features until he was Peter Cushing, animating all of his moments from that point onward to carry on the illusion.

 

(13) WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN? A reboot of Charmed is in the works.

The story hails from Jessica O’Toole, Amy Rardin and Snyder Urman with O’Toole and Rardin penning the script.

The original Charmed starred Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs, Shannen Doherty and Rose McGowan. Combs has already tweeted her reaction, saying “We wish them well.” Milano also took to Twitter. “#Charmed fans! There are no fans like you. You’re the best of the best,” she said.

(14) THEY CAME FROM SPACE. Here’s another job that pays more than yours — “These guys hunt for space rocks, and sell them for enormous profit to collectors”.

These ancient meteorites can be older than the Earth itself. The price tag is high: Just 100 grams of Mars rock, enough to fit in the palm of a hand, can demand $100,000.

For help tracking down such rare rocks, private collectors turn to professional meteorite hunters. These adventurers earn their living by crisscrossing the globe, searching for astronomic treasures. The risks are real, including prison and death, but so are the potential rewards — rocks that can be flipped quickly for fortunes.

The man who sold Jurvetson his Mars rock is 44-year-old Michael Farmer. Since the late 1990s, Farmer has traveled to some 80 countries looking for these precious rocks. Perhaps his best-known find is a nearly 120-pound meteorite discovered in Canada, which he and his partners sold to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto for $600,000.

“Any time you dig up a treasure worth more than half a million bucks, it’s a good day,” said Farmer, who works closely colleagues around the world tracking meteorite showers.

This work is not for the faint of heart. In 2011, Farmer was kidnapped, beaten and nearly killed by Kenyan thieves. That same year, he was charged with illegal mining in Oman and imprisoned for two months. Farmer says his motivation is not purely monetary, but rather the thrill of the chase.

(15) GETTING THE POINT ACROSS. After seeing this cover some of you will find it hard to believe I am not the Washington Post’s copyeditor:

https://twitter.com/samthielman/status/817022669564551168

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Rose Embolism, JJ, Mark-kitteh, John King Tarpinian, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip Williams.]

Discover more from File 770

Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.

167 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 1/5/17 But You Scroll One Lousy Pixel….”

  1. (15) Bwahahaha! I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t see that error for quite some time, until I clicked through to the post in puzzlement and read the thread. :facepalm:

  2. The quote attributed to Brian Niemeyer above was written by me.

    (I see you left out me having written the story for a Charlie Hebdo tribute anthology. 😉

    Cheers,

    Jagi

  3. (3) TAIL-GUNNER LOU

    Is there a blacklist? Uh-huh, of course there is Lou. We circulate it on secrit sjw twitter, right after we send round the cat picture of the day but before we decide who wins all the awards.

    (7) PUPPY THOUGHTS

    Yup, Milo’s thoughts are so Forbidden that he’s got a book deal with major distribution. That’s some A grade forbidding right there.

  4. (7) Comparing Puppy SF with the stories in Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions is curious indeed. Piers Anthony’s “In The Barn” might be Puppyish, I suppose.

  5. L Jagi Lamplighter (Wright): Thanks for the correction.

    If it’s important for people to know the story was originally written for a Charlie Hebdo tribute anthology, now they do.

    To me the news is about the collection your story is in, not one that didn’t get published.

  6. Rob Thornton: (7) Comparing Puppy SF with the stories in Dangerous Visions and Again Dangerous Visions is curious indeed. Piers Anthony’s “In The Barn” might be Puppyish, I suppose.

    Excuse me while I’m busy not laughing.

  7. Yeah, they seem to have completely misunderstood the concept behind Dangerous Visions.

  8. @ Mike

    I wasn’t trying for funny, just musing out loud. I never liked In The Barn, mostly because it felt really sexist and lascivious for no really good reason. Sorry if you were offended. If I do not fully understand your complaints, I would be glad to learn more.

  11. @Rob

    I think I can point to a collection of Piers Anthony’s stories”In the Barn” was in as the point when I started to realize that, yeah, I was done reading Piers Anthony.

  12. @bookworm1398: The cover has the symbol for Mars (used to denote men) rather than the Venus symbol for women.

  14. Rob Thornton: Sometimes people think the way to count coup is to associate something with the lowest common denominator of humor. Now that you say you weren’t trying for funny…then what were you trying for?

  16. @bookworm1398
    Look at the symbol on the cover. And yes, it also took me a while to notice.

    @Paul
    My first experience with Piers Anthony, reading Cthon at the age of 16, was enough to put me off his work for life.

  17. 7). I went to Amazon to check out the anthology. For a group that’s always bitching about message fiction, this is about as ham-fisted as you can get. I couldn’t get part the first couple of paragraphs of Nick Cole’s ‘work’. It read like bad fan-fiction. And the fact that they’ve gleefully added Milos what’s-his-ass to do a foreword just makes it appear even more juvenile.
    And as for Lou’s story–either name names or shut up.

  19. @ Mike

    I was just going for thoughtful, not cracking wise. When I read In The Barn, it reminded me of the feeling I get from Puppy work–a sense that a trainwreck was imminent. As a technical writer and editor, I don’t think troubled documents are funny. They’re mostly sad–wasted potential in action. Honestly, I’m not sure why I came off as funny. But it happened. With some luck, I’ll get it straight.

  20. Mark: Is there a blacklist? Uh-huh, of course there is Lou. We circulate it on secrit sjw twitter, right after we send round the cat picture of the day but before we decide who wins all the awards.

    I would like to complain that, while I did receive the updated blacklist and awards selection form, I have not received my cat picture today. 🐱

  21. Good point, Mike. 😉

    I mention it because I thought the opening of the section you quoted kind of didn’t make sense otherwise. I wasn’t trying to be controversial for controversy’s sake. 😉

    Thanks!

  22. Lou could try sending stories to the various markets that use a “blind submission” process (this seems to be getting more common), where author’s names are kept separate from the story being submitted, and see if he gets boilerplate or personal rejections from them.

    It’s also possible that his sense of outrage over the Puppies/Hugo mess is leaking into newer stories, giving them a different, less-saleable tone than earlier stories.

    Lou’s citing an anonymous comment that talks about an unnamed editor with an unnamed assistant fails to impress.

  23. Bruce Arthurs: It’s also possible that his sense of outrage over the Puppies/Hugo mess is leaking into newer stories, giving them a different, less-saleable tone than earlier stories.

    It’s possible, but I think it’s far simpler than that. No blacklist is needed for this result; all of his extremely public, extremely bad behavior over the last couple of years explains it quite easily. His utter lack of self-awareness about that bad behavior is, at this point, just kind of sadly amusing.

  24. (title) I build this website. But do they call me Mike the Website Builder? Nooooooo!!

    (3) speaking as an editor myself (of a lit journal), I can say that, no matter the intentions at the inception of a periodical, over time submission volume can grow to the point that personalized letters must of necessity become rare beasts. And snarky contributor bios or notes included with a submission will ALWAYS count against the submitter.

    (5) It’s…beautiful!!!

    (7) Perhaps the *puppies should do something similar with sf/f awards and leave the Hugos alone.

    (15) I like that Obama has an “Are you kidding me???” look on his face.

  26. No blacklist is needed for this result; all of his extremely public, extremely bad behavior over the last couple of years explains it quite easily.

    There is also the fact that Lou’s stories aspire to mediocrity to explain the lack of interest shown in publishing them.

  27. Hey Aaron, old chum, I knew you’d show up. I wanted to (sarcastically) thank you for all you did to help Donald Trump get elected President. Your insults and jeers drove thousands to abandon moderation and elect someone they hoped would take revenge and get even for them. You and people like you are reason Trump will be taking office Jan. 20. Do you have your tickets to the inauguration? I hope you’re satisfied.

    Four months of abusing Sad Puppies in 2015 versus four YEARS with Trump as President. So who got the worse of the deal?

  28. Aaron’s here a lot more often than any Crazy Uncles, Lou, and he doesn’t just show up to smirk and pee on the carpet.

  29. Your insults and jeers drove thousands to abandon moderation and elect someone they hoped would take revenge and get even for them.

    Sure, you keep thinking that is what it was. I’m sure it keeps your dim-witted whiskey-addled brain at ease.

    I also find it quite amusing that you think Trump will last four years in office.

  31. Today’s recommended read: The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar

    Disclaimer: As I wanted to read this for Hugo eligibility purposes, I read it before getting to A Stranger in Olondria – from the synopsis of the earlier book, it looks like I missed background on the religious conflict that provides one of the pivotal elements of the later one, but that there is no significant character/plot overlap. That said, I did struggle initially with the denseness of some of the political, religious, genealogical and geographic information to begin with – perhaps not helped by the fact I started it on a day when I had a 4:40am flight, so was not at my sharpest.

    Once I got a handle on what was going on and who was doing it, this became a fascinating read. Based around a war of secession and the events leading up to it, it tells the stories of four women who experience the political upheavals in very different ways. The characters all have distinct voices which reflect their lives and upbringings while challenging the assumption, in this world as in our own, that women’s lives are worth recording only in the most exceptional cases. And the worldbuilding, while initially overwhelming, is undoubtedly some of the best I’ve seen.

    Clever, heartbreaking and well worth a read for anybody still filling out a 2016 longlist.

  32. @2: interesting reviews, even if I disagree with some of the throwaways (Tangled as best among princess films?).

    @7: I see the DV analogy has already occurred to several Filers. I wonder if any of the Pups understand the difference between upsetting general taboos and reinforcing them.

  34. Your insults and jeers drove thousands to abandon moderation and elect someone they hoped would take revenge and get even for them.
    I’m sure that why he got nearly 3 million fewer votes than Clinton. I’d really like to know how honestly the votes were counted in those four GOP-run states that barely went for the #$%^&*().

  35. Lou Antonelli wrote: “Four months of abusing Sad Puppies in 2015 versus four YEARS with Trump as President. So who got the worse of the deal?”

    That would be everyone in your country (said the Canadian). We just got rid of Harper and you go for Trump? It’s like we can’t be either crazy or sane at the same time. Do you think we could petition your Tweeter-Elect to build a wall on our border? We’ll recycle it into snowshoes, ice-fishing huts, and maple syrup barrels when you’re better again.

  36. ([first] 5) That was the first DeFord story I’ve read. I’ve tended to disagree with the readers of this series – they seem unable to handle negative situations in the stories they read – but I’m with them on this one. The biology and geology are sub-liberal arts grad level. The story itself is primitively told, though maybe there were space issues that didn’t allow for proper development.

    I’m sure fellow Filers have read DeFord. Any opinions of her other work? (I ask as I head over to Amazon to see what, if anything, is available in digital form).

  37. @1 – Leia as a Disney Princess is one of the few things from fandom that might happen at Disney Corp. Disney might make money on this and they own the rights.

    @3 – Since Lou Antonelli is not a huge seller, I could see him getting blacklisted by traditional leftist editors. Correia or Ringo would not be blacklisted since they sell huge amounts – even if they were published by Tor.

    @7 – Might make money. Not surprising that it is being published.

    @8 – Milo Yiannopoulos got a huge contract because the publisher thought they could make money. BTW – one almost always gets tagged as an idiot when they start throwing around “Nazi” when describing people.

    @10 – Mr. Glyer – You seem to like Ray Bradbury. I got the audible copy of Something Wicked this Way Comes and could not get through it even listening while doing laps at the gym. I liked 451, but could not get through his slow pacing in his other works. To each his own.

    @12 – That was neat. Thanks for posting.

    @13 – A Charmed reboot is no surprise. People seldom get fired for trying reboots, spinoffs, or a sequel to anything. Still, a geek newsworthy item.

    All in all, a very newsworthy set of tidbits. Good job Mr. Glyer!

  38. @Lou – Why would Aaron persuade people to vote for Trump? Does Aaron’s views get enough readership to sway many voters?

    @Aaron – why “I also find it quite amusing that you think Trump will last four years in office.” Really? Why do you think he will not last 4 years? Health? Resignation? What?

  39. BTW – one almost always gets tagged as an idiot when they start throwing around “Nazi” when describing people.

    Only when the people being described aren’t acting like neo-Nazis.

  41. “In The Barn” is one of those stories that I’m glad someone wrote so nobody else has to bother. It astonishes me that a fandom that will frequently go to the mat over minute shreds of scientific accuracy hasn’t raked it over the coals a few hundred times for affronts to biology (nevermind the protagonist, about which the less said, the better.) Anthony could have maybe handwaviumed some things, but the fact he didn’t even know he had to wave hands about it…feh.

    Then again, probably more people in fandom wanted to be astronauts than dairy farmers, so maybe it’s not that surprising.

    As for the blacklist, Lord. I thought trying to read the entrails of rejections letters was something most of us outgrew. Rejectomancy lives!

  43. I have to admit the calling Milo a Nazi thing has me a bit confused, too. He’s a lot of very nasty things, and he goes into the same basket as brown shirts and their ilk (I’m sure he’d be thrilled, given his love of their fashion aesthetic), but nothing I’ve seen from him suggests he’s a Nazi. My understanding is the more Nazi-like elements of the Alt-right hate him because he’s so flamboyant and nihilistic. When I see people call him a Nazi, I assume they have hit Deplorable-exhaustion, and no longer care to split hairs (atoms?) to determine the proper adjective to describe a particular self-proclaimed villain.

    As far as Trump staying in office the full 4-8 years, I tend to bet on our system continuing to travel within its well-worn ruts (ie, we’d rather shift to Trump’s new normal than change course out of mere ethical, moral, or mortal reasons). On the other hand, Trump is the most wildcard President I can imagine, so who knows…

  44. @Lou Antonelli

    It’s telling that when you pop up here it’s not to substantiate your claims but to restart an old feud.
    If people are genuinely fighting shy of you* then it’s more likely to be about how you act than what you think.

    *(which I doubt; Occam’s razor suggests you’re just over reading things)

  45. Lou Antonelli: Your insults and jeers drove thousands to abandon moderation and elect someone they hoped would take revenge and get even for them.

    Oh, don’t be silly. That’s how 6-year-olds behave. Surely you’re not bragging about the fact that Trump voters are really nasty, badly-behaved children?

    They voted that way because they supported the racism, misogyny, and homophobia that Trump was promoting.

    (Leave it to Trump voters to blame their votes on others, instead of accepting personal responsibility for their choices.)

    And CUL is still not seeing the abundant reasons why editors might not want anything to do with him… 🙄

  46. I wanna know where Aaron got all those thousands of angry voters that he then personally drove off. Dude, share a little with the rest of us next time!

  47. (3) TAIL-GUNNER LOU. Other possibilities include (a) multiple people independently feeling that he’s done some horrible things and they’d rather not work with him (essentially what I believe @JJ said above, only I said it more rambly, heh), and (b) the much simpler and more likely explanation: if your writing didn’t do it for them, they invited you to submit again, and it still didn’t do it for them . . . hey, then maybe they just don’t see the point of encouraging you to keep submitting when your writing isn’t doing it for them. Whodathunkit.

    (5) UTES READ GEEZERS. Time for “Old people read young SFF”? (I’m just an ideas man. 😉 )

    (12) LOUDSPEAKER FOR THE DEAD. That was a little creepy.

  48. Meredith Moment a.k.a. ebook sales! Okay, technically the second isn’t a sale – it’s a free ebook.

    Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey is $2.99 from Tor Books (DRM-free!) at the regular U.S. ebookstores. I bought the weighty mass market paperback years ago, but haven’t read it. I heard a lot good and interesting and weird about it, back in the day, but I guess it just didn’t shift up the TBR stack (which wasn’t nearly so mountainous back then). Anyway, this starts the whole Kushiel saga.

    Also, the Tor.com ebook club free ebook is Off Armageddon Reef – first in the “Safehold” series. I know zero about this book/series, but, uh, suddenly I’m confused. They describe it as “combines medieval fantasy with spacefaring sci-fi” – really? Fantasy+sci-fi under one cover is unusual; I didn’t realize this series combined fantasy and sci-fi elements, although the description does make it sound more like just sci-fi with medieval-ish trappings, not actual non-SF fantasy. Note: Limited to U.S. & Canada for rights/licensing reasons, methinks.

  49. @Kendall

    IIRC, Off Armageddon Reef actually combines medieval fantasy with spacefaring sci-fi with alternate history, inasmuch as it uses an SF premise to set up a re-run of the Reformation and subsequent wars on a world that’s not Earth, with a few magical effects courtesy of sufficiently advanced technology.

    Some people find the series a comfort read – Weber’s taking the opportunity to write himself a “nice” version of the Reformation – but I found it slow and rather smug. Probably worth a try if it’s free, though, and if you don’t mind endless speeches about the need to “respect the sincerity of [the bad guys’] faith” or the witty touch of a chief villain whose name is a misspelling of “Clinton”.

  50. (3) Cant be right. I posted a picture of myself besides a trump sock and immediatly hundreds of well known editors, that you would all recognize, if I would post they names, ask me to write books for them.

    “A pixel a day keeps the puppies at bay”

Comments are closed.