(1) RETURN OF INCOME. Jim C. Hines has posted the first results from his annual survey of novelist income.
Gross Income
Let’s start by looking at how much our authors made in 2016 before taxes or expenses. The total ranged from a few dollars to almost five million. Eight novelists made more than a million dollars (before taxes) in 2016.
- I admit, I was a little surprised by this, and wondered if maybe people were exaggerating or hit an extra zero. Fortunately, the survey also asked for an identifier (name or other) and an email address for anyone who wanted to be informed of the survey results. Looking at who was reporting these numbers, I believe they’re accurate.
Average Income: $114,124
Median Income: $17,000
(I think the median is more useful than the average, here. The average is pulled up significantly by those very successful outliers.)
Much more data, sliced and diced various ways, at the post.
(2) NEW AWARD FOR PAKISTANI SF. The inaugural Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction will be given this year. The new short story award, intended to “promote science fiction and related genres of writing in Pakistan,” is named for Dr. Albus Salam, one of the pioneers of science in Pakistan.
The website’s administrator says some Pakistanis may see pirated copies of sf movies, when it comes to written sf there’s little awareness —
I don’t know if science fiction as a genre even exist for Pakistani readers. When you go to book stores, you don’t find any books other than religous ones or text books needed for school curriculum. How can an average reader than get exposure to different genres of writing and specially fiction?
Eligible for the award are original, previously unpublished English-language stories of 10,000 words or less by persons residing in Pakistan, or of Pakistani birth/descent. (The complete guidelines are here.) Entries must be received by July 31.
The winner will receive a cash prize of Rs 50,000, a review by an established literary agent, a review from a professional editor, with the potential for publication by Tor.com.
The award judges for 2017 are sf writers and critics: Jeff VanderMeer, Usman Malik, and Mahvesh Murad.
(3) I LOST ON… Jeopardy! devoted a category to “Sci-Fi Books” on February 14. I only knew the $1,000 question – you’re bound to do better. (The correct reply will display if you scroll over the dollar amount.)
I didn’t get this one despite having read the damn book!
Thomas in this James Dashner sci-fi book awakens being “jerked upward like an old lift in a mine shaft”
(4) NANOWRIMO’S POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS. Tom Knighton, in an article for PJ Media headlined “Supposedly Nonpolitical Writers Group Goes Hard Left”, criticizes a message he received from NaNoWriMo .
Unfortunately, the minds behind NaNoWriMo don’t seem to appreciate what that word “apolitical” really means. How do I know? Because of this email the Internet-based creative writing project sent to its mailing list late last week.
Dear [Name],
As a creative writing nonprofit, we’re not a political organization. We don’t endorse candidates or support any particular party. In an ideal world, we would focus only on empowering people to write.
Yet we find ourselves in a time where people’s ability to tell their stories—and even to safely exist—is at stake….
So while we are not a political organization, we feel moved to take action.
In response to the executive order, as well as any future government efforts that threaten people’s basic freedoms, we will:
Celebrate creativity over apathy, diversity over fear, and productivity over despair.
Welcome all stories and continue to make NaNoWriMo a safe space for all writers.
Advocate for the transformative power of storytelling to connect people and build a better world.
If you have concrete ideas for how we can work toward these goals (or if you have feedback about anything in this message), please share your thoughts.
That wasn’t all. Oh, no, not by any means. They also took issue with President Trump’s desire to end the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
There are a few things about NaNoWriMo that one must consider before truly understanding the context of the above email. First, there are no prizes for NaNoWriMo. “Winners” are basically all who complete a book, and the prize is…well, you wrote a book. Not insignificant considering how few people who talk about books ever finish one, but that’s about it.
Further, since it is basically an internet writers group/contest, President Trump’s executive order will have precisely zero impact on it. None.
In short, there’s absolutely no reason for Grant Faulkner to put his name on an email about a piece of political hay that impacts his operation in no way, shape, or form.
The email is more about virtue signaling, a way to tell progressives that NaNoWriMo is with them — and screw the right-leaning members of the email list! Of course, it’s also possible they couldn’t imagine that anyone on their list actually leans right politically.
(5) THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION. The Shimmer Program has posted Sanfeng’s “Science Fiction in China: 2016 in Review”. I found it an interesting contrast with U.S. society – people generally were happy to hear about President Obama’s tastes as an sf fan, but what if he had announced a plan to co-opt science fiction to further his policies?
SF as National Agenda
Historically, the trajectory of Chinese SF was heavily influenced by top-down political forces at times. Recently it begins to receive continuous and influential support from the governments at all levels. On the one hand, following the tradition of focusing on ‘science’ in science fiction, the government re-emphasizes SF as a useful instrument for popularizing science and improving citizen’s scientific literacy. On the other hand, due to the high popularity and penetration rate of SF media, it is conceivable that the so-called ‘SF industry’ is often adopted in governmental agenda for creative and cultural industry development.
In a central government’s paper regarding promoting citizens’ science literacy issued by State Council in February 2016, it is explicitly stipulated that the government shall support science fiction writing as part of popular science writing. More details were revealed in a later talk given by Han Qide, president of China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), announcing that CAST will set up a national award for SF and host international SF festivals. The story reached the climax when Vice Chairman Li Yuanchao attended 2016 National SF Convention held in September 2016 and gave a speech at the opening ceremony warmly encouraging SF writing.
The post also tells about the 30th anniversary Galaxy Awards, and the inaugural winners of a new set of Chinese sf awards.
At its 30th anniversary, Galaxy Awards were presented on the evening of September 8th. Best Novel was awarded to Dooms Year by He Xi. Three days later, the ceremony of 7th Chinese Nebula Awards was held in National Library of China. The top award Best Novel was awarded to Jiang Bo for Chasing the Shadows and the Lights, which is the final installment of his epic Heart of Galaxy trilogy.
A couple of new SF awards are noteworthy. First ‘Droplet Awards’, named after a powerful and terrifying alien weapon in TBP, were organized by Tecent to call for submission of SF screenplays, comics and short videos. Best Screenplay was awarded to Day after Day by Feng Zhigang and Best Comics to The Innocent City by Yuzhou Muchang. Besides, First ‘Nebula Awards for Chinese SF Films’ were presented at a ceremony held in Chengdu in August 2016. Best SF Movie was given to a 2008 children SF movie CJ7 directed by Stephen Chow. Best SF Short Film was awarded to Waterdrop, a highly praised fan film of TBP, directed and produced by Wang Ren.
The Shimmer Program has also compiled a list of works from China eligible for 2017 Hugo nominations.
(7) TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF, SET A SPELL. Co-Geeking’s Erik Jensen is an American married to a Finn (Eppu) and living in the U.S. He has written a column of advice to fans going to the Worldcon this summer: “How to Helsinki: Concerning Finns”. There are quite a few do’s and don’ts, for example —
DO give people space – Finns expect a lot of it and they will give you a lot of it in return. If you’re talking to a Finn and they back away, don’t chase them. They’re probably not trying to get away from you, they’re just resetting comfortable boundaries. (See previous points.)
DO take your shoes off if you visit a private residence – so you don’t track in dirt that your host then has to clean up. Most Finnish homes have places for taking off and putting on shoes right by the front door….
…DON’T suggest getting together unless you want to make concrete plans – “We should do lunch some time” is just a casual pleasantry in the US. It’s an expression of general good will with no commitment attached. In Finland it is a commitment to future plans and Finns will expect you to follow through.
DON’T make small talk – if you’re in conversation with a Finn and feel like there’s an awkward silence, don’t try to fill it. For most Finns, silence is not awkward at all, but comfortable. The conversation will start again when someone has something to say.
And Eppu has put together an index to cultural resources published by Worldcon 75.
- “Finland: A Very Short Guide For Your First Trip” (Facebook)
- “Finland: An Assortment of Notes and Information” (in Progress Report 1)
- “Finnish Fandom: Some Unique Characteristics” (in Progress Report 1)
- “Finnish Foods and Where to Find Them” (in Progress Report 3)
- “Hotels: Understanding the Differences between Countries” (in Progress Report 3)
- “Non-Fandom Things to Do in Helsinki, If You Have the Time” (in Progress Report 2)
- “Älä hätäile! Don’t Panic! A Short Guide for Pronouncing Finnish” (in Progress Report 2)
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY
- February 15, 1903 — The first Teddy bear goes on sale.
Toy store owner and inventor Morris Michtom places two stuffed bears in his shop window, advertising them as Teddy bears. Michtom had earlier petitioned President Theodore Roosevelt for permission to use his nickname, Teddy. The president agreed and, before long, other toy manufacturers began turning out copies of Michtom’s stuffed bears, which soon became a national childhood institution
- February 15, 1950 — Walt Disney’s animated feature Cinderella opens in theaters across the United States.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born February 15, 1950 — Matt Groening, cartoonist; creator of The Simpsons.
(10) FORD’S IN HIS FLIVVER. Stephen Baxter has an op-ed in the February 11 Financial Times, “Dude, where’s my flying car?” He looks at flying cars, based on Uber’s announcement that they are launching a flying car development project. Examining the way flying cars are portrayed in movies from Metropolis through Back To the Future and Thunderbirds Are Go, he concludes that it’s more likely that monorails and electric cabs will be the future’s preferred form of transportation and “flying cars will remain a plaything of the super-rich–and a dream (perhaps in virtual reality) for the rest of us.”
Note – you will probably hit a paywall using the direct link. I was able to access and read the article through a Google search.
(11) LITTLE BUNDLES OF JOY. And maybe not all that little, when you pop for the maximum sized bundle.
- There’s a Humble Bundle of sff books from Subterranean Press.
- And elsewhere, a Steampunk Storybundle, curated by Cat Rambo.
Both are limited-time offers.
(12) NEW BIMBO VERSE. Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff continues her Book View Café series with “There’s a Bimbo on the Cover Verse 8: Who Reads Reviews, Anyway?” and a story of the Analog Mafia.
They reviewed my book in Locus magazine.
They reviewed my book in Locus magazine.
The way Mark Kelly synopsized it,
I barely recognized it,
but they reviewed my book in Locus magazine.
True story. In fact, it happened repeatedly with my Analog stories….
(13) ETHICS BEYOND THE STRATOSPHERE. At Dreaming About Other Worlds, Aaron has reviewed Nobody Owns the Moon: The Ethics of Space Exploitation by Tony Milligan.
In Nobody Owns the Moon, Milligan begins his inquiry from the ground up, so to speak, starting with the fundamental question of whether space exploration itself can be ethically justified at all, specifically focusing on whether manned space exploration is justifiable. By starting at such a fundamental level, Milligan indicates that he is going to tackle the questions at hand without presuming that anything is justified. Instead, Milligan works through each issue with as few preconceptions as possible, examining both the arguments for and against the proposition being examined. This can seem frustratingly indecisive at times, because with most questions there is no clear cut answer one way or the other, because there are pros and cons to every position. The end result is that for most such questions, the answer lies in choosing which is the best of a flawed collection of alternatives, not in choosing the one that is clearly correct.
Milligan is also concerned with only dealing with questions that result from actions that are within the realm of possibility. To this end, he spends a fair amount of time examining the question of whether terraforming a planet to be more Earth-like is possible before he gets into the question of whether it is ethical. As he points out, examining a question that could never possibly come to pass is simply idle speculation. To a certain extent, almost all of the questions Milligan addresses in the book are somewhat hypothetical – no one is currently actually mining asteroids or terraforming Mars, but as he outlines in the book, they are all within the realm of reasonable possibility, and thus it is worthwhile to consider their the ethical implications.
(14) FIXING THE SCIENCE IN SCIENCE FICTION. Joe Stech, of Compelling SF, asks you to help him decide which of his guidelines to work on first.
Every so often I receive engaging story submissions that have wonderful writing and great human elements, but contain clearly implausible science. This can pull readers out of the story and potentially mar an otherwise excellent work.
I’ve been thinking about working with scientists to create a series of writer’s guides to help with this pain point, and I was hoping you could help me out by letting me know which subjects you’d find most useful in such a series. The idea is that we’d provide a general overview of the topic and then give some specific tips regarding common misconceptions that we’ve seen. If you have a moment please let me know what you think via the following survey:
A Survey About Science Fiction Writer’s Guides
Feel free to share the survey link with others that might have an interest.
(15) CHURCHILL’S LOST ESSAY ABOUT ALIENS. An unpublished essay by Winston Churchill about the possibility of life on other worlds is the subject of an article by Mario Livio in the latest issue of Nature. According to the BBC:
The document was uncovered in the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, by the institution’s new director Timothy Riley….
Churchill was a prolific writer: in the 1920s and 30s, he penned popular science essays on topics as diverse as evolution and fusion power. Mr Riley, director of the Churchill Museum, believes the essay on alien life was written at the former prime minister’s home in Chartwell in 1939, before World War II broke out.
It may have been informed by conversations with the wartime leader’s friend, Lindemann, who was a physicist, and might have been intended for publication in the News of the World newspaper.
It was also written soon after the 1938 US radio broadcast by Orson Welles dramatising The War of the Worlds by HG Wells. The radio programme sparked a panic when it was mistaken by some listeners for a real news report about the invasion of Earth by Martians.
Dr Livio told BBC News that there were no firm plans to publish the article because of issues surrounding the copyright. However, he said the Churchill Museum was working to resolve these.
(16) SAME BAT CHANNEL, NOT SAME BAT. Carl Slaughter sent a link to “The Evolution of Batman in Television and Film, 1943 – 2016.”
(17) THE GOOD STUFF. Aliette de Bodard has put up her awards eligibility and recommendations post.
I feel like I should start with the usual call to action/disclaimer: if you’re eligible to vote for any of the awards (Nebulas/Hugos/etc.), then please do so, even if you felt you haven’t read enough. It’s a big field and few people can claim to have read everything that came out last year–and generally the people who recuse themselves from voting tend to be marginalised folks, which skews ballots. So please please vote?
Here is an excerpt from her recommendations.
Novelettes
I enjoyed Fran Wilde’s JEWEL AND HER LAPIDARY: set in a universe where gems hold magic but can drive people mad, JEWEL concerns itself with the fall of that kingdom, and the desperate straits in which it leaves its princess and her companion. This is a heart wrenching tale of power, friendship, and two women’s struggle to survive.
Marjorie Liu’s “The Briar and the Rose” (which I suspect is a novelette, from Navah Wolfe’s and Dominik Parisien’s The Starlit Wood) is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty with a twist: a swordswoman falls in love with Rose–but Rose is only herself one day of the week, when the witch who occupies her body has to rest… I loved the characters and their relationship, and the quest undertaken by the swordswoman to free Rose.
Alyssa Wong’s “You’ll Surely Drown Here if You Stay”: a weird Western with a lovely friendship at its core, a tale of the desert, magic, belonging, and the weight of the dead. Definitely sticks in the mind.
Christopher Kastensmidt’s Elephant and Macaw Banner is sword and muskets set in colonial Brazil, following the adventures of Gerard van Oost and Oludara in a land filled with strange creatures. It’s a series of linked novelettes (with gorgeous cover art), and it’s great fun. Two volumes came out last year: A Torrential Complication and A Tumultuous Convergence.
(18) SIRI. In “The Voice (Siri)–a 48 hr film” on Vimeo, Yonatan Tal imagines what Siri would do if confronted with too many inane questions, including knock-knock jokes and “Where can I get some drugs?”
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Andrew Porter, Steven H Silver, JJ, Mark-kitteh, Joe H., Peter J, John M. Cowan, John King Tarpinian, Aaron, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Dawn Incognito.]
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Happy Birthday Mike!
Happy birthday, Mike!
Happy birthday Mike!
(4) Maybe he should try to imagine what life is like outside his own head.
Related to 17), a question for anyone who might know: is there a word count anywhere for Tade Thompson’s story “The Apologists”? Rocket Stack Rank seems to think it’s a novelette, but both Aliette de Bodard and the author himself say short story. (My own impression was “long short story or short novelette”, which doesn’t help much. Well, doesn’t help at all, really.)
(5) Given how bad the science is in all of the Chinese SF stories that I’ve seen translated over the past two years, it’s rather funny that the Chinese government would promote it as a way to teach science to the public. Perhaps we can get (14) translated into Chinese at the earliest possible opportunity.
And happy birthday, Mike!
Happy birthday Mike!
(18) oh shit I didn’t think a little video about Siri would choke me up like that.
Also yay contributing editor for my silly joke! Ghost Bird gets the assist on this one for the setup 🙂
How about “let’s host a Worldcon so we can hear talks on interesting subjects, by people from all over the world.”
I like to chat with friends while I’m waiting for panel discussions to start, and sometimes raise my hand with questions or comments, but not everyone does, and that’s okay too.
I also suspect that there’s a difference between going to a panel and, afterwards, talking about the subject further with someone else who is in the room, and walking up to someone who is eating their lunch and starting with “so, are you enjoying the con?” Sometimes the other person just wants to read their book, or plan what they’re going to say in half an hour.
4) Yeah, he can be perfectly right that none of this affects NaNoWriMo directly, but if you limit things NaNoWriMo can talk about to the things that affect them directly, well, would NaNoWriMo even exist? It’s basically nothing but a community and support group.
Also, yeah, anything disagreeing with Trump == ‘hard left’?? There are some Senate Republicans who might take issue with that.
7) We actually touched on the first one in one of my Geography classes back in high school, talking about cultural differences, and mentioning an American slowly backing a European across and around a room at a party due to different ideas of personal space.
And a happy birthday to our host from me, as well.
(4) The simple fact that this is a PJ Media article means it can be dismissed without further consideration.
@Steve Wright
It’s 8,604 words, which puts it over the 7,500-word boundary. However, the WSFS Constitution section 3.2.8 says:
So a story can be listed as a short story if it’s under 9,000 words. Accordingly, this one could be nominated in either category. In fact, anything between 6,000 and 9,000 words could fall into either category.
Finally got a chance to write down some thoughts on several books I’ve recently read (or, in one case, tried to read…). I’ll keep these non-spoilery.
To Say Nothing of the Dog
Seeing Connie Willis is almost the only reason you need to go to a convention. She is funny, personable, witty, and just a joy to watch in panels and discussions. I’ve only read some of her short stories (The Best of Connie Willis), Belwether, Doomsday Book, and now To Say Nothing of the Dog. I had heard that people really enjoyed this one and thought it was super-funny; and after Doomsday Book, I needed something lighter. (V nz fgvyy n zrff vafvqr jura V fvzcyl guvax nobhg Ntarf.) Overall, I really liked this novel, and thought the humor, the comedy of errors and etiquette, was really a lot of fun. I liked the characters and thought the dialog was great; although the constant quoting that some of the characters do definitely got on my nerves. I was sad not to see Kivrin or Colin (I really wanted to see Colin, as I loved him in Doomsday Book), but thought Verity and Ned were great fun and I really liked Lady Schrapnell. My biggest criticism, and this seems to be with a lot of Willis, is that the main issues could easily be resolved if her characters could just spit out a sentence to one another and talk to each other about what’s going on!
Overall, I thought this was a fun and well-thought out book. And while I might not agree it was worthy of winning the Hugo, it was a delight to read.
Of Sand and Malice Made by Bradley Beaulieu
This is a prequel novella to Twelve Kings in Sharakai, which I completely loved and cannot wait to read the sequel which just came out. The setting of this series, of a great city in the middle of a desert, is such a nice change for epic fantasy. I loved this little book, as it was tight, focused, fast-paced, and fun. The characters are all just as strongly written and fleshed out as the larger novels, even secondary ones. I thought the plot was interesting and helped build the world even more as well as show off some more magic, that the main novels didn’t get into much.
This will be on my Hugo nominations.
The Integral Trees by Larry Niven
I wanted to like this, I did. The setting was really intriguing, I’d never really heard or thought of anything quite like it! Plus, I learned a little bit about some astronomy that I hadn’t known before. But besides the overall setting, this was a huge disappointment and I have no clue how it was nominated for a Hugo. The characters were completely underdeveloped and just plain boring. There was no sense of tension, especially at moments of catastrophe for the characters. I don’t for a moment believe that evolution happens so quickly or that society would lose so much knowledge so quickly. I ended up dropping this one about 3/4 of the way through as I couldn’t stand it any longer.
Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn
I picked this one up after it was embedded in my brain after being the top page on File 770 for so long. What a fun, inventive, and complete joy of a read. The characters were fantastic, especially Evie and Aveda. I enjoyed how the male characters were secondary, and there was mention of how race and ethnicity played a factor in Evie/Aveda/Bea becoming what they did. All of the characters had very distinctive voices, which was nice to see and made it really fun to read. I couldn’t help but think that this would make a great audiobook. I’ll definitely pick up the sequel when it gets released.
Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton
I’ve been meaning to read Hamilton for a long-time, and finally got around to Pandora’s Star. On a whole, I enjoyed it and thought that the setting, the technology, the characters, and the plot was all well-done. But, honestly, it was kind of a chore to get through. There are not many books that I’ve read where I actively thought “Is this chapter really necessary?”, but I kept thinking that over and over and over again. Sure, there were neat planets and backstories, but there was way too much exposition for me and I don’t know if I will continue with this series. I much prefer Alastair Reynold’s Revelation Space universe for a longer hard-scifi series. If this book was cut to about 2/3 the length, it would’ve been a lot stronger, I think.
A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
I didn’t realize this was classified as “Young Adult Romance” when I picked it up. Honestly, the cover looked awesome and hooked me. And even though it isn’t categorized in a genre I would normally go for, I really liked this. Parallel universes, chasing a killer, pursued by a large corporation; it really was a lot of fun! I liked the different take on the multiverse and hopping between them. And while there was some discussion about the ethics of inhabiting parallel-you’s I think this was something that should’ve definitely been delved into a bit more. A fun read, and if I’m in need of a short, light book in the future, I might pick up the sequel.
@Greg Hullender: thanks! I guessed it was probably an edge case… I was impressed enough by this one to think about nominating it, and since I’ve already got a full roster of short stories, it will have to go into a novelette slot, I suppose. (I have very nearly finished my nomination form – just have some decisions left to make about the short fiction. Like that particular story, for instance….)
@k_choll
There are not many books that I’ve read where I actively thought “Is this chapter really necessary?”,
That’s such an apt description for PFH’s later works. I was a fan of his from the Mindstar Rising series, and stuck with him through the expanding word count of Reality Dysfunction etc, but I’ve rather lost my enthusiasm for trilogies where each volume on its own could be a bludgeoning weapon, and the full set could be used to weight the body down.
I’m told Great North Road is worth reading as a standalone though.
Happy Birthday, Mike!
(4) Well, this Tom Knighton person sounds nice. (not)
In short, there’s absolutely no reason for Grant Faulkner to put his name on an email about a piece of political hay that impacts his operation in no way, shape, or form.
What nonsense. How about speaking up against something blatantly unconstitutional (in the case of the Muslim ban), and morally wrong as well? Some conservatives don’t seem to care a fig for the Constitution except when it benefits them, or supports their hobbyhorses.
No, anyone disagreeing with Trump is in leagues with Satan himself.
@k_choll
That was my reaction to Pandora’s Star as well.
Heroine Complex sounds interesting.
Happy Birthday Mike! 😀
2) I hope the award goes well and goodluck to all the Pakistani writers involved!
4) you all said it better than I could, thank ye kindly.
Happy birthday to our gracious host!
I’m tickled by the term “broflake”, shall tuck it away for later use. It reminds me of a cafe sandwich-board I pass on my way to work which advertises “broffee”. I guess because plain old coffee has gotten too girly?
(4) On the one hand, he is technically correct–this is political. On the other hand, sitting on your hands while Trump dismantles the Constitution is also political. Why, it’s almost as though it’s impossible to be genuinely apolitical because silence tacitly supports the status quo!
Nah, it’s probably blah blah SJW cuck blah blah Obummer blah blah but her emails blah blah cancel my subscription if I have one.
k_choll, I also loved Of Sand and Malice Made by Bradley Beaulieu, for the same reasons you cite.
Unfortunately, it is well into novel territory, so you will not want to waste the novella slot. I’m sorry about making your novel choices harder. 😐
@JJ
Oh that’s too bad. Although I’ve read relatively few 2016 novels, so I still think Of Sand and Malice made will end up on my ballot.
Popping in to say Happy birthday, Mike!
12) That’s actually important information. It tells me that Mark Kelly is an unreliable narrator when it comes to reviews, frequently missing the point of the story to focus on a side issue, and that I probably want to look elsewhere for an idea of what the story is really about.
16) Whoa. I knew there had been a shitload of live-action Batman stuff, but I had no idea there had been so much animated stuff as well! And a couple of those clips looked like they were from video games.
RE: Tade Thompson’s short story. My bad. I assumed it was a short story because it was predominated for a BSFA in short fiction category but I forgot the BSFA short fiction category covers everything from short story to novella. Sorry. I’ll amend my post.
(and thank you for linking, Mike!)
@Steve Davidson you are so right, how silly of me!
@Mike Glyer happy birthday!
@Mike: Happy Birthday!
@k_choll: I read to say nothing of the dog AFTER Doomsdaybook and after blackout/all clear and was disappointed by it, because the themes are incooperated in the latter much better. I agree that the problems were mainly done to themselves, but I guess that was for comedic effect. I really recommend blackout/all clear, even if the build up is a bit slow (Doomsday book is tighter).
The ticky box fled across the desert and the pixel scroll followed.
HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY, Mike!
Happy birthday Scroller-in-Chief!
Further to previous discussion: I just got confirmation from Beaulieu that Of Sand and Malice Made is 49,845 words, so definitely in the novel category.
Greg H. has mentioned in the past the idea of changing the Novella/Novel boundary to 50,000 words. I can see a lot of merit in that idea; even 50,000 words is short for a novel. But I imagine that such a proposed change would prove to be highly contentious.
Happy birthday, Mike! Appertain yourself a celebratory drink! 🍻
@JJ
I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Hurricane Heels is another example of something at that sort of length that’s great but probably doesn’t stand much chance in Novel. Whether there’s any appetite for changes like that right now is another matter.
Happy birthday, Mike!
Lee: If you really want to calibrate Mark Kelly (or any reviewer or commentator), the optimal process is to read the text under consideration and check your reaction against the reviewer’s. Third-party comments–even those of a story’s writer–have their own sets of parallax issues. (I’ve seen a few authorial reactions to my reviews that were seriously off-base.)
Happy Birthday, Mike! Long may you appertain!
4. Tom is wrong here. Trump’s appointment to the FCC means that Net Neutrality and programs to help poor families access the internet are on the chopping block. Meaning that people who want to participate in NaNoWriMo may find it more difficult as their access to sites that don’t pay providers is slowed and their ability to use the internet for research and interaction with other writers is diminished.
Essentially, because it doesn’t affect Tom, it is nonsense and virtue signaling. The affect to people outside his ability to empathize with could be profound.
Happy birthday Mike! Thanks again for all you provide here!
@4
In short, there’s absolutely no reason for Grant Faulkner to put his name on an email about a piece of political hay that impacts his operation in no way, shape, or form.
The fun part is that you can replace Grant’s name with his and get pretty much the same result. My first thought was “What do you care?” Did he ask for money? Did he demand you agree?
And you’d think as a ‘writer’ he’d be concerned about the National Endowments being erased. But I guess they don’t have the correct visions.
And this is PJMedia. Now they’re trying to spin Flynn and why is everyone so negative about Russia?
Tried to look him up on Google but a couple of the sites were blocked by Firefox as “unsafe”. I was intrigued by one link that referred to him as a ‘gender studies best seller’. Turned out to be a podcast by Declan Finn. Went to Amazon which explained how he got the ‘best-seller’ image.
Didn’t make it through the intro. Alpha and beta males. Mean feminists have totally taken over the media to enforce their flawed standards of masculinity. All the usual crap.
@Lee
The post is six years old, though. I don’t think Mark Kelly reviews short fiction for Locus anymore.
@JJ
A good question would be what the number really ought to be. Is 50,000 still too small? Should it be more like 80,000?
I’ll ask around a little.
Another question is whether section 3.2.8, which allows 20% variation (or 5,000 words, whichever is less) is obsolete. Should it be 5% and 1,000 words, perhaps?
@Greg
If it got to the point where it looked like such an idea had traction, I think the thing to do would be to get some hard data on what sort of lengths novels were being published at. For example, we could crowd-source word counts for the last decade’s longlist, as I’m pretty sure that a big question being asked would be “would any previous winners have been excluded.”
I could also see a concern that as the magazine novellas tend to hover around the 20k mark, they could be pushed out by the much longer novellas coming from elsewhere.
I think there’s a strong case for raising the upper limit on novellas, so as to bring the rule in line with actual publishing practice. With the [re-]emergence of novellas as a publishing category, rather than just an awards category, and their tendency to become thin books (or the electronic equivalent) instead of just being published in magazines, it seems sensible to have an award that is actually directed to novellas as the world knows them. It might be a good idea to raise the lower limit too, since I have a feeling that the bottom end of novellas in the Hugo sense are not what are normally called by that term nowadays.
What the upper limit should be would depend on what is actually likely to be called a novella. The question shouldn’t be what is the typical length for a novel, but what is the minimum length at which we’d be likely to think of it as a novel. My intuitive sense is that 70,000 words would still be generally thought of as a novel, just a rather short one. (And I guess we don’t actually want to encourage novels to get longer.) How many pages would 70,000 words typically come to?
Mark:
I could also see a concern that as the magazine novellas tend to hover around the 20k mark, they could be pushed out by the much longer novellas coming from elsewhere.
Well, perhaps the answer to that is to reclassify works of 20,000 words or thereabouts as novelettes. The ‘thin book’ kind of novella and the magazine kind of novella seem to me to be different kinds of work, which it would make sense to have in different categories. (And I suspect that magazine novellas are getting pushed out anyway, because the stand-alone novellas reach a wider audience. The last few years’ statistics are hard to interpret, because of slates, but they don’t disconfirm that. So shorter novellas might actually benefit by moving to a different category.)
To be fair, it could go either way… and the author himself said it was a short story! It’s only nitpicking obsessive weirdoes like myself who ask these questions (and hard-working helpful types like Greg Hullender who answer them.)
It does seem to me that the various short fiction categories might have made good sense in the days when the Hugo Award was just starting up… but they’re irrelevant to online publishing, and (given advances in digital typesetting and so on) very nearly irrelevant to hard-copy magazines, these days. If I was looking for more meaningful categories, myself, I might divide up into “flash fiction” (short-shorts, say 1000 words or under), “short fiction” and “novella” lengths, with “novella” as, say, anything over 20,000 words. (I don’t know where I’d put a cut-off point for novels – what would you call, for instance, short Hemingways like The Old Man and the Sea? [I know it’s not SF, but the copy on my bookshelf says it’s a novel.])
@Andrew M
Based on a quick eyeballing of the magazine novellas listed in RSR’s 2016 novella category, I’m seeing a range from just over the minimum of 17.5k to roughly 23k for them, with plenty below 20k. I think defining novella in a way that excluded some that the magazines label as novella would get a lot of opposition.
In many ways I agree with you that having 18k compete against 50k is pretty tough, in the same way that 500 word flash fiction doesn’t usually do very well against 5000 word short stories, but I suspect that most people would want to follow the widely used market definitions – in the same way that an increase in the top limit would be following publishing practice that seems to be changing, staying at 17.5k would be following publishing practice that hasn’t yet changed.
Your point about them getting pushed out anyway could well be right though – this years results may well show us more clearly.
ETA: @Steve Wright – I think that any increase would inevitably go over the word count of various historic novels, but that just means that times have moved on.
I’m sort of toying with the idea, now, of suggesting we drop “novella” as a category and divide the field into “short novel” and “long novel” instead – say, anything from 20,000 to (picks a number by the time-honoured “colonic extraction” method) 75,000 as “short novel” and anything over that as “long”.
So my Hugo categories would go: flash fiction (1000 or less), short fiction (1000-20,000), short novel (20,000 – 75,000) and long novel (75,000+). And this is why no sane person would let me manage the Hugo Awards, probably.
Happy birthday boss, may the scroll be with you. Always.
Happy Mike-Day!
At 80,000 words, you’d be declaring that THE GRAVEYARD BOOK and STARDUST, by Neil Gaiman, weren’t novels.
And THE GRAVEYARD BOOK won the Best Novel Hugo.
Thanks to everybody who wished me a happy birthday today. It means a lot not just to have this day remembered, but that you are here so many days keeping the conversation interesting — what a great gift that is!
[INSERT JOKE ABOUT SIZE HERE]
Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever all agree on wordcounts, but it doesn’t hurt to keep talking about it.
At one point, I thought collapsing it down to two categories (Short Story vs Novel) would be a simpler approach. But there are so many stories published every year now, and having more rather than fewer categories & winners that we can celebrate is a good thing.
I think part of the problem is that Novel is the only open-ended wordcount category and these days can stretch to many many words.
Wordcount works because it is an objective measure. I guess if we want to increase the minimum length for a Novel, we’d also need to increase Novella length.
What about adding something at the upper end instead? Then Novel could go from, say, 40,000 to 100,000 words and over that would be Epic Novel.
(Side tangent: I think of myself as a short-form writer, drabbles to about 3,000 words. But when I looked at my fanfic list recently, I’ve written one novelette-length fic and one novella-length one. That feels weird.)