Editor’s note: A lean Scroll because I’m on the road overseeing my mother’s care and the motel wi-fi is deadly slow!
(1) DUANE AND MORWOOD APPEAL. Diane Duane and Peter Morwood have run into a financial shortfall, and are in danger of losing their house. Diane tweets about it, and points to an ebook sale:
An unexpected financial shortfall has left us in danger of losing our home. Would you consider buying a sale-priced #ebook to help us out? https://t.co/XcoFCcogpX pic.twitter.com/p1UZDakzcg
— Diane Duane (@dduane) February 13, 2018
Their ebookstore is https://ebooksdirect.co/
Duane details the background on her blog: “A Difficult Appeal” and concludes —
…What’s most infuriating (and mortifying) about all this is that if what’s happening now was instead happening in six or eight weeks, it’d be less of an issue, as Peter’s entire (newly revised) backlist will be coming online in paperback format at Amazon. But it’s happening now, and the truth is that without assistance, we won’t make it to the spring—not and keep our home. So, swallowing our corporate pride, it’s time to turn to the larger community and ask for help.
(2) FUNDRAISER FOR A BIG HEART FAN. Big Heart winner Samanda Jeude needs financial help – Marcia Kelly Illingworth explains —
Due to the recent passing of Don Dea Cook, and Samanda Jeude now in residence in a Canton nursing home, there will be a number of sales and auctions of their vast collection of books, art, and collectibles, with all proceeds going to the continuing care of Samanda.
For those younger fans who may not have known Don and Sam, they were very active in the Science Fiction community for many years. Don/Dea was the Chair of the Atlanta in 1995 Worldcon Committee. Samanda was the Founder of Electrical Eggs, which started the move toward access to conventions for people with different physical challenges. She spent the biggest part of her adult life working to help others. Now it’s our time to help her.
Sam has asked my husband Tim Illingworth and myself to coordinate the disposition of their collection. Our plan is to hold auctions at as many conventions as possible, as well as online auctions and fixed price sales. We are awaiting word from this year’s DeepSouthCon, ConCave in Kentucky later this month, where we hope to be able to hold the first auction. After all, Samanda is a past winner of the Rebel Award.
We welcome any suggestions for venues, and volunteers for assistance. With careful oversight and management, we should be able to take care of Samanda’s needs. If you have any further questions, please contact me via Messenger or email. This post is public, so please feel free to share it far and wide. Thank you.
If you, or anyone else, have any questions, or suggestions for venues or methods, please feel free to email me. My email address is no secret.
(3) TOLKIEN EXHIBITION. The “Maker of Middle-Earth” exhibit will be on view at the Weston Library, Oxford from June 1-October 28, 2018.
Journey into Tolkien’s worlds in this once-in-a-generation exhibition…
Wizards, elves, hobbits and creatures: the life and worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien are revealed in this unique exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford. Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth explores Tolkien’s legacy, from his genius as an artist, poet, linguist, and author to his academic career and private life….
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth explores Tolkien’s amazing legacy from his genius as an artist, poet, linguist, and author to his academic career and private life. The exhibition takes you on a journey through Tolkien’s famous works, The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings, displaying an array of draft manuscripts, striking illustrations and maps drawn for his publications. Discover Tolkien’s early abstract paintings from The Book of Ishness, the touching tales he wrote for his children, rare objects that belonged to Tolkien, exclusive fan mail; and private letters.
This once-in-a-generation exhibition runs from 1 June to 28 October 2018 at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.
(4) MILÀN OBIT. Victor Milán died February 13 of myeloma complicated by pneumonia announced Patricia Rogers on Facebook.
Mark Lawrence summarized his career on Reddit’s r/Fantasy section:
In 1986 he won the Prometheus Award for his novel Cybernetic Samurai. More recently he wrote the Dinosaur Lords books.
He was a regular contributor to the George Martin’s Wild Cards series and Tor.com will have one of his Wild Cards short stories on their site tomorrow morning.
(5) RAPP OBIT. Tom Rapp (1947-2018). Joel Zakem writes —
I was saddened to learn that one of my favorite musicians, singer and songwriter Tom Rapp from the band Pearls Before Swine, passed away on February 11. While I can only recall two songs that have SFF connections, I believe both are based on favorites of yours.
First, from their second album, “Balaclava” (!968) this adoption of some of Tolkien’s most famous lines (extra credit for knowing the meaning of the album title):
And this Bradbury-based number from 1970’s “The Use Of Ashes”.
(6) I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING. Rose Eveleth, in the podcast Flash Forward, has an episode called “You’ve Got Brainmail” where she interviews author Ramez Naam, sf scholar Roger Luckhurst, and the etiquette columnist of the Boston Globe about such questions as the history of telepathy, whether brain to brain interfaces are possible, and what happens when your first wedding invitation is sent telepathically.
(7) MORE 1976 WORLDCON VIDEO. The FANAC Fan History Project has posted another video from the Video Archeology project, “Fifty Amazing, Astounding, Wonderful Years, a talk by James Gunn.”
MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention, was held in Kansas City in 1976. It was also the 50th anniversary of the first science fiction magazine. In this video, Professor Gunn talks about the impact of the magazines on science fiction and the creation of fandom. There’s also an entertaining description of the responses of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne to each other, a brief account of how to create a science fiction writer, and a sense of what the field was like in the early days, all delivered with charming wit. This essay later appeared in Gunn’s “Inside Science Fiction”, published by Scarecrow Press. (1992). The material is brought to you by the FANAC Fan History Project, with video from the Video Archeology project.
(8) RESEARCH ALREADY DONE. I didn’t think this was news. In fact, I’m sure crusading journalist (and frequent blockee) Jon Del Arroz has written about it quite often, in the process convincing people it’s the right choice.
https://twitter.com/tcmccarthy_/status/963391490289479681
(9) NOT MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER. Marvel’s Thor will tee up a new hammer in the next Avengers movie:
Thor Ragnarok had Chris Hemsworth lose his trusty hammer, Mjolnir, but the God of Thunder will get a NEW one in Avengers Infinity War and we have our first look! Jessica has the reveal (WITH SPOILERS) on today’s Nerdist News!
[Thanks to Marica Illingworth, JJ, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, Joel Zakem, Rose Embolism, Danny Sichel, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]
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(8) RESEARCH ALREADY DONE.
It’s absolutely hilarious that he is shocked by, and indignant about, this. 😀
(8) RESEARCH ALREADY DONE.
What would you say if I told you that there isn’t a block list?
What would you say if I told you that different people are independently coming to the same conclusion: that certain people on Twitter are jerks & blocking them is a sensible move?
(8) RESEARCH ALREADY DONE
He’s compiling a list, but is he checking it twice?
I hadn’t actually heard of a block list vs those alt-marketing types going around but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if such a thing existed.
ETA @Soon Lee, that’s also quite a plausible explanation
Soon Lee: I’d say — do a Google search.
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/740563083349921792
@Mike,
I thought that was a gamergate blocklist. Is there enough of an overlap between gamergaters & conservative genre writers who are jerks, that it works for both?
(I see that @tcmccarthy_ is not a blocked user on that blocklist)
I’m blocked by SuperversiveSF and Paolinelli. I think this demonstrates that there is a conspiracy by authoritarian-leaning authors against regular fans.
I look around — I see Wil Wheaton has a blocklist which he makes available to share. The Jemisin tweet says that’s one she used to start — by now it’s a much more robust list. There are others.
I don’t doubt that blocklists exist. And I wouldn’t be surprised if @tcmccarthy_ is on one or more blocklists. But I wouldn’t be surprised either if Tweeters independently decide to block @tcmccarthy_.
A collection of blocklists can be seen here. Some of them have descriptors indicating the nature of the accounts on the list.
(8) Briefly scanned his feed and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take a conspiracy to explain why anyone who didn’t want a ration of extreme political ranting might block the dude.
I live in hope that one of these folks decides to stop being Mad Online and write one of those Real SF books they keep talking about. Maybe it would be good? Or maybe the horse would learn to sing.
@Soon Lee Is there enough of an overlap between gamergaters & conservative genre writers who are jerks, that it works for both?
ggautoblocker’s list is too big to easily search for specific name, but I’ve been using it for a long time time and I’ve noticed it does a pretty good job of keeping alt-right types and vocal Trump fanatics blocked, too. There’s a relatively small group of hobbyist trolls running most of the accounts and they reuse them a lot – though if it’s catching genre writers it’s probably more by association.
(As an aside, I’m a great believer in blocklists and a free hand with the block button in general, though moderated spaces are better. They make life bearable and there very few hardline free speech advocates I’d miss among the mass of bullies, bores, and terminally entitled who object.)
(1) I really hope Peter and Diane come through this okay and keep their home. They are lovely people and I’m sad to think of them in dire straits.
(8) I’ve blocked a few people on Twitter, but I mostly just “mute” jerks and creeps there. For precisely the reason demonstrated in the Tweets in no. 8 in the Pixel Scroll: they get their knickers in a knot when they find out they’ve been blocked; but they don’t ever know when they’ve been muted. When they’re muted, they can waste their time Tweeting at me without actually getting to pester me, since I don’t see their posts, and we elminate all that hand-wringing drama of “OMG, she’s blocked me–waaahhhh!”
Soon Lee: I thought that was a gamergate blocklist. Is there enough of an overlap between gamergaters & conservative genre writers who are jerks, that it works for both?
TC was obnoxious enough during the Puppy debacle that he got a few of his, er… bon mots put into Scrolls, so I’m sure that he was also obnoxious over on Twitter. I imagine that all of the known Puppies were loaded en masse into somebody’s GamerGate/Nazi blocklist back during Peak Puppy.
“99 red pixels, scrolling in the summer sky”
I feel conflicted by block lists and block chain lists.
On the one hand, prematurely cutting off contact and debate feels, intellectually, like a very bad idea, Common ground, connections, shared joy across boundaries is stopped right off the bat. It does stop that right in its tracks, and that’s disheartening and depressing for our field, and our culture, and our society.
On the other hand…I saw firsthand that blocking a certain individual led to that individual telling all of their feed that I had done so, which led to a flood of that individual’s followers and friends demanding to know why I had engaged in such perfidy. So yeah…
@Paul Weimer
I see blocking as about freedom of association, which is a very necessary companion to freedom of speech. It’s the difference between choosing who you engage with and when and being obliged to serve as someone else’s audience-on-demand.
(And I mostly agree with Laura Resnick that muting is better, although muting doesn’t help with stalkers or people trawling your timeline for material to use in malicious reporting or orchestrating outrage.)
(1) The appeal was successful, there is an update:
“First of all… THANK YOU!!”
The book sale goes on.
Paul Weimer: prematurely cutting off contact and debate feels, intellectually, like a very bad idea, Common ground, connections, shared joy across boundaries is stopped right off the bat. It does stop that right in its tracks, and that’s disheartening and depressing for our field, and our culture, and our society.
Remember that this philosophy of being open to engagement with those of differing views, in order to be viable, requires the other party to be acting in good faith.
Those who are not acting in good faith will use the good faith of others against them to — as you’ve seen — harass, intimidate, bully, and / or waste the time and psychological resources of their targets. They derive pleasure from damaging other people and destroying the productivity of those people.
There is no reasoning with such people. They are not going to change, and all that attempts to engage with them in good faith will accomplish is damage to oneself.
One aspect of wisdom is being able to recognize when that point has been reached and then to disengage, to walk away, to mute the nonconstructive noise coming from a would-be wrecker. It’s not being mean, or rude, or unfair — it’s choosing to preserve one’s resources so that they can be allocated instead to constructive and productive endeavors.
Hi folks! Diane Duane here.
I noted this morning that visitors have been arriving at the Ebooks Direct store from here. I just wanted to let everyone know that the astonishing generosity of customers and donors has meant that our problem has been completely solved in A SINGLE DAY. To say that Peter and I are gobsmacked — not to mention amazed and overwhelmed and unutterably relieved by the sudden removal of a difficulty that’s been hanging albatross-like around our creative lives for what seems like forever — would be putting if mildly. If you were involved in assisting with this… THANK YOU! (And meanwhile we’re leaving the sale running, because what the heck, everybody likes a sale…) Best! D.
@JJ
To which I’d add that one person acting in good faith who never shuts up or a continuous stream of people all making the same easily-refuted points in good faith are just as effective at sapping energy and destroying productivity.
And on a much more cheerful note, Diane Duane reports that the house situation is solved:
https://twitter.com/dduane/status/963693344047206400
It was really smart of her to get control of much of her backlist and set up the ebook store, where sales revenues will go (sans overhead expenses) 100% to her. If she hadn’t already had that in place, it would have been much tougher.
I want the karaoke story.
Has anyone listened to the podcast, or read the novelization of, Tor Labs’ Steal the Stars? What did you think of it?
I’m interested in the alien part of the storyline, but I’m finding the whole Twue Wove part of it really tiresome, and the book is nearing a rendezvous with the trebuchet.
I’m with Laura Resnick. Don’t block; mute.
One downside of muting is that your followers still have to read the troll clogging up your replies.
1) Of course the books I’m most interested in (Diane’s Star Trek tie-ins and Peter’s books) aren’t on there.
(8) Even if there is a block (or mute) list, so what? Twitter (and Facebook) are the online equivalents of my living room. I’m not required to invite ANYONE in, or listen to them, if I choose not to. I looked at JDA’s feed (you can still do that on Twitter, even if you’ve blocked someone) and decided I didn’t want to waste my time with him. Other people can certainly decide to do the same with me. Again, so what?
I engage in recreational muting. When I see a stupid tweet from some angry dip with nine followers, I mute them away forever.
Darnedest thing, though: I still never seem to achieve the echo chamber they’re so sure I live in. Go figure! The world must be more complicated than they suppose.
JJ said It was really smart of her to get control of much of her backlist and set up the ebook store, where sales revenues will go (sans overhead expenses) 100% to her. If she hadn’t already had that in place, it would have been much tougher.
Charles de Lint got dropped from his publisher after writing a novel they thought undersold what they expected it to. He now makes much of his entire living off his back catalog he controls and releases in ebook format on their Triskell Press.
His sales through the Amazon platform are overwhelming where he makes money.
Walter Jon Williams seems to slowly but surely regaining control of his back catalogue too.
I usually mute unless someone’s tagging me persistently so my poor followers have to deal with it but I know I blocked one person by accident so far this year instead of muting and they were so excited about it that I let it stand.
Blocklists are a decent counter to the strategy of the blocked person broadcasting your info and demanding that all their followers tag you to see if they’re blocked too, which I’ve seen being used against people using blocklists. Or you can play whack-a-mole and mute/block one by one. Please note though, that spam tagging is against Twitter’s ToS and can be reported.
4: That’s a shame. I haven’t read any of Milan’s novels, but I did enjoy listening to him when he guested on various podcasts I subscribe to.
I mean aside from block lists, there’s also block chain widgets where you can not only block a person, but block all their followers at once. I don’t know if one exists similarly for muting though.
@IanP: WJW’s re-issuing of his backlist as DRM-free ebooks is something that I’ve been delighted to see (and buy!).
@Cat Rambo Or you can play whack-a-mole and mute/block one by one.
Another advantage of a shared blocklist(*) is that it’s pre-emptive, so you don’t have to be exposed to distressing content while you play whack-a-mole. As someone who finds bullying distressing to watch, I find that very valuable.
(*) Which would also apply to muting, except that the best auto-blockers on Twitter were developed before muting was a feature.
IanP says Walter Jon Williams seems to slowly but surely regaining control of his back catalogue too.
Some publishers have interpreted the la k of language on decades old contracts as meaning they control ebook rights, others just don’t seem to care about them. I’m glad WJW is getting control of his back catalog as it’s an amazing collection of works that I’ve enjoyed a lot.
Whole lotta Meredithing going on:
Fifth Season
Leviathan Wakes
Ancillary Justice
Boy on the Bridge
New York 2140
Shadow of What Was Lost
Secret History of Witches
All $2.99, today only.
There are six pixels on this scroll: two at the rear, two at the front and two over the tick box.1) Good for DD. She’s done so much excellent work in the field, it’s painful to think she could have lost her home. I’m actually a little surprised that production companies haven’t started mining her IP for television and film options. It seems an obvious fit in this market.
8) One of the biggest pains with social media is the presumption that you owe people your time to engage until you have a specific individual issue with them. I’m not worried about debating with the alt-right. If someone is ranting like a loon on the internet about SJW conspiracies and the greatness of Beale, I already know I don’t want any part of them. I don’t care if in other sections of their life they are noble, kind hearted, wonderful people who are just the best. If you show your ass constantly in the medium in which I see and could interact with you, I’m judging you on that alone. During the height of GG, the block list was a huge help in clearing out the dross and garbage that was piling up in my feeds and getting in the way of the content that I wanted to read. I see a blocklist that rounds up the Beale fanboys, the rabble over on Correria’s boards, Paolinelli faux Guild and the SuperversiveSF crowd as a pretty useful resource.
There are three Pixels in a Scroll. The third Pixel is green.
In the unlikely event of a pixel landing, scrolls may be used for flotation devices.
All this discussion of blocking and lists has made me glad to have learned in my relative youth to be wary of the morass of general net access. I went cold turkey on the original Usenet twice(*) back in the mid-1980’s, as it was eating time I wanted to spend doing; I wonder occasionally what’s going on there (for random values of “there”) but not nearly hard enough to actually raise the lid and see.
(*) No, the first time didn’t take; “just one peek won’t hurt….”
Keep your pixel in a cool place away from direct scrolls.
@OGH: sorry this is piling up on you again; here’s hoping finding what works goes smoothly.
Not all pixels scroll up in value. Some may scroll down.
@Ghostbird Yeah, I’m moving to that line of thinking too.
@Joe H.: “In the unlikely event of a pixel landing, scrolls may be used for flotation devices.”
You made me think of this. A lot of things make me think of this. Your remark was one of the more pleasant ones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji0TgBy085U
@John A. Arkansawyer — Ha! I hadn’t seen that before.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Scroll.
@Andrew : I understood that reference!
Funny thing, Im not very active in SF fandom, but I was randomly added by Superversive somewhere (I really didn’t understand it at first, because I didnt know who that even was) and blocked by Antonelli, i think. Must be because I commented on Camestros Blog? Anyway, I dont mind and I dont know why you would complain to be blocked by individuals who dont like you (or even know you). Its not that its affect you in any way!
Thinking about it, the pups may have thought Im someone else, maybe cat Rambos daughter or Mike Godfather or GRRMartins uncle or something. You never know what theories they have!