Pixel Scroll 2/26/16 The Prisoner of Shadowban

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(1) SHORTLIST TRUTHS. At The Hysterical Hamster Ian Mond asks “What Are Award Shortlists For? No… really… please tell me… I want to know….”

What are award shortlists for?

Obviously their main purpose is to recognize and celebrate the best works published in a specific timeframe and a given context.  That celebratory aspect, in particular, is reflected in my Facebook and Twitter feeds moments after a shortlist is announced as friends, rightly, congratulate the nominees.

But once people have provided virtual pats on the back to the finalists, once the glow of platitude and praise has dimmed, what purpose does an award shortlist serve?  Is it there to be read?  Is it there to spark conversation?  Is it there to further the debate – what there is of it – about the genre?

I ask because this week the Kitschies, one of my favorite awards, announced its list of nominees.  When I reported this on my blog earlier in the week I applauded the diversity on the list – both in terms of gender and race – and the fact that there was a distinct lack of multi-series books present (a particular peccadillo of mine).  I also made the throwaway remark that given the winners are announced on March 7 I wouldn’t have the time to read the nominees

(2) THE LATEST AND EARLIEST NEWS ABOUT ELLISON. Mary Reinholz’ interview in the Pasadena Weekly covers “‘Fire-bringing’ Harlan Ellison, one of America’s greatest short story writers, on protecting his work, L. Ron Hubbard, Octavia Butler, and why he will never stop writing.”

“Since the stroke, my right side is still paralyzed, but I can still type with two fingers,” he says during a recent call to his hillside home off Mulholland Drive. “I still get around. I get up and get into the wheelchair. I went to a [science fiction] convention in St. Louis and they all seemed to take it well. No one stoned me, even though I have this reputation of being a tough old bagel that’s hard to chew. A couple of times, I’ve done (spoken word) recordings. But mostly I lie in bed and watch the ceiling.”

…Ellison also remains deeply wedded to his work. December saw the hardcover publication of “Can & Can’tankerous,” which includes previously uncollected short stories and a tribute to Ray Bradbury, and in September the ninth edition of “Ellison Wonderland” was released; the collection was first published 52 years ago.

A third Ellison biography is expected to be published next year. It’s an authorized one written by Nat Segaloff, who has penned several books about Hollywood royalty, the latest on director John Huston. In “Dreams with Sharp Teeth,” a 2008 documentary directed by Erik Nelson, there are interviews with Ellison who admits he once sent a dead gopher to a publisher in the mail and others with his deceased crony Robin Williams, who committed suicide in 2014.

…Ellison, whom the Washington Post has called “one of America’s greatest living short story writers,” joined the bloody 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He was a friend and mentor of the late African-American novelist Octavia E. Butler, the first black woman to achieve international prominence within the largely white male bastion of science fiction writing. She grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood of Pasadena. Ellison was one of three people to whom Butler dedicated her 1994 book “Mind of My Mind.”

Butler, who died in 2006 at 58, was an unknown young writer when she first met Ellison at a workshop. “She was one of my students and came to me as part of a (program) the Writers Guild had decided to put together to bring in Latino and black female outsiders,” he recalls. “She came to me with a story. I took a look at it and knew how good it was. We talked about it and workshopped it and it went on from there. I was just one step on her way up. She did it all herself. She was a stalwart woman.”

(3) FREDRICKSON OBIT. Star Trek scenic and graphic artist Anthony Richard Fredrickson died February 15 of a heart attack. Doug Drexler paid tribute to him on Facebook.

So Anthony and I would go to school together, run science fiction stores together, edit sci fi magazines together, live through car crashes and earthquakes together, do makeup effects together, make movie monsters together, help redefine science fiction graphic design together, create spaceships for Star Trek together, and win an Academy Award together. We conquered Hollywood together. And we should never forget that it all began with baby mice dipped in honey.

(4) FIGHTING IN YEARS TO COME. Learn more about the “Narrative of the future developed at Science Fiction Futures workshop” hosted February 3 by the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWF) and the Atlantic Council’s Art of Future Warfare Project and taught by Max Brooks, August Cole and Charles E. Gannon. The article is posted at Marine Corps Base Quantico.

The Marine Corps of 2035 will fight in megacities in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, deploying from an arid United States that has retreated to a defensive posture and directs little funding to the military.

The enemies of the future will be internal terrorists from both the extreme right and left, international mega-corporations that control the desalination of water, the Chinese mafia, and other established states with stable governments protecting their interests.

The weapons and equipment of the future will be autonomous robots, miniature electromagnetic pulse weapons, powered exosuits, and a proliferation of area denial weapons that limit access to trade routes.

But while the future Marines will be fighting in a different place, against a different enemy, and with different technology than they do now, they’ll still have a “boots on the ground” element and will still have to be flexible and think outside the box. And even in 2035, they’ll probably still be using masks from 2022.

(5) SFWA-SUPPORTED KICKSTARTER. “Star Project 3” at the SFWA Blog tells about the latest non-member Kickstarter project the organization is helping.

Projects are selected by the Self Publishing Committee, coordinated by volunteer Rob Balder. Selections are based on the project’s resonance with SFWA’s exempt purposes, and special preference will be given to book-publishing projects in the appropriate genres.

SFWA is delighted to announce support for our latest Star Project: The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy & Horror #6. We hope you will consider funding it as well.

From the project’s Kickstarter campaign:

The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror is over 150,000 words of the best fantasy and horror fiction written by Australians (and New Zealanders) and published all over the world in 2015. We’ve already done this five times for the years 2010-2014, and we’d like to do it again.

In addition to the reprinted fiction, The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror series features an extensive introductory essay on the annual state of the genre, obituaries, a recommended reading list, and a list of Australian and New Zealand award recipients.

It is the only volume of its kind being published in Australia at present.

(6) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • February 26, 1920 — The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premieres in Berlin.
  • February 26, 1963 — NASA announced that Venus is about 800 degrees F

(7) GUARDIANS ADDS FRAKES. Jonathan Frakes joins Guardians of the Galaxy animated series – Bleeding Cool has the story.

Marvel has tapped Star Trek’s own Will Riker… Jonathan Frakes… to voice J’Son, King of the Spartax in the Guardians of the Galaxy animated series. USA Today is reporting bringing the veteran actor on board to play the father of Peter Quill (Will Friedle). Frakes has spent more time behind the camera than in front over the last few years becoming a highly respected television director.

J’Son is Star-Lord’s father in the comics as well as in the animated series, but the live-action movie is going a different direction according to director James Gunn and it is believed that Kurt Russell will be playing that version of Quill’s (Chris Pratt) father.

(8) RABID SLATE. Vox Day has announced his slate for – “Rabid Puppies: Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form”.

The preliminary list of recommendations for the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category:

  • Grimm, Season 4 Episode 21, “Headache”
  • Tales from the Borderlands Episode 5, “The Vault of the Traveller”
  • Life is Strange, Episode 1
  • My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic, Season 5, Episodes 1-2, “The Cutie Map”
  • A Game of Thrones Season 5, Episode 8, “Hardhome”

(9) MYTHING HORSE REPORT. “Runaway Unicorn Leads Highway Patrol on Wild Chase” at Time.

A white pony dressed as a unicorn ran through the streets of Madera County, Calif., for over three hours on Wednesday night before she was caught by police. The costumed pony, named Juliet, first escaped from a child’s birthday party at about 2:30 p.m., but was soon recaptured. However, she got loose again around 5:30 p.m. and proceeded to lead California Highway Patrol on a long chase as she wove in and out of traffic. “We got a call of a unicorn running in the roadway on 12th avenue near Road 32,” Officer Justin Perry told KTUL. “I’ve been doing this for 14 years and this is my first call for a unicorn.”

(10) PIN POEM. Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little broke out in verse when she received her Hugo voting PIN…

On the evergreen topic of MAC II, and in honor of the completely unprompted email I got from Hugo Administration yesterday morning (I’m not patient, I’m just lazy and never got around to emailing them), I give you…

Pup’s in the Manger (TtTO)

My PIN arrived just the other day
With a letter saying “Friend, come and have your say:
Did you read a thing that just blew you away?
Are your socks now orbiting the Milky Way?”

Well I said, hooray! time to nominate–
We don’t want to have no slates, friends,
My vote’s not about those slates

And the pup’s in the manger with a bad review
And little boy Larry wants a rocket to the moon
Are we all gonna go to K. C., then?
We’ll get together then, friends, You know we’ll have a good time then

[Thanks to Will R., JJ, Andrew Porter, David K.M. Klaus, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]

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107 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 2/26/16 The Prisoner of Shadowban”

  2. To expand on that comment: I’m assuming that the incredible strategy is that we are all goaded into saying rude things about kid’s cartoons* and upset Pony fandom who then come and wreak their revenge on the Hugos i.e. a variation on last years plan but swapping GamerGate for the Bronies. Yeah, Gamergate didn’t come to the aid of the Puppies despite a more obvious overlap.

    *{I like cartoons but I don’t watch MLP]]

  3. So Vox Day is including in his slates works that will likely make the final ballot regardless (e.g. “Hardhome”) as part of his Xanatos gambit?

    I for one am happy to keep ignoring him and to nominate what I have read & seen & personally think is worthy.

  8. That picture of the unicorn is hilarious. I can see why she ran away, clever girl.

    Authorities were forced to employ a helicopter with heat-seeking radar to track down Juliet in an orchard. A nearby resident then used her own horse to lead the mythically dressed runaway into a pen where she was finally apprehended.

  10. A man ran a quick experiment to see what it takes to become an “Amazon bestseller”. It turns out that it took him: 3 dollars and five minutes.

    (I want to emphasize that I have absolutely nothing against self-publishing in general. Plenty of good authors have taken that route. But there’s also a lot of scammers on Amazon, which is why readers may have some doubts about the whole proposition.)

  11. Frances Smith: What a coincidence that Jordan179’s review was posted on the very day science fiction imploded.

  12. (8) RABID SLATE. – Heh. This is getting sadder and sadder with the whole desperate reaching out to other interested sub-cultures to join his…effort. Regardless, I don’t see how even the individual episodes of Life is Strange or Tales From the Borderland count as Short Form. A typical playthrough – not even a completionist one! – takes at least 2 hours for both of those.

    (9) MYTHING HORSE REPORT. – I’m deeply saddened by that the “unicorn” tag doesn’t have any other stories. C’mon fandom, quit horsing around!

  13. Never mind My Little Pony: I find the inclusion of Life Is Strange — a computer game with heavy LGBTQ themes — to be the most interesting part of that BDP Short group.

    How do you figure which BDP category a computer game should go into, anyway? Pretty sure that anything shy of a speedrun through Episode 1 would clock in at more than, say, two hours, right?

    ETA: @snowcrash Ninja Jinx

  14. Soon Lee

    So Vox Day is including in his slates works that will likely make the final ballot regardless (e.g. “Hardhome”) as part of his Xanatos gambit?

    It has been from the start. That way he can declare victory when Andy Weir gets nominated for the Campbell Award for Best New Contract, among others.

  15. JJ on February 27, 2016 at 1:24 am said:

    That picture of the unicorn is hilarious. I can see why she ran away, clever girl.

    :: looks at picture :: So, we can assume that highway patrol guy is a virgin, then?

  16. Frances Smith on February 27, 2016 at 1:30 am said:

    Camestros: the reasons why MLP is on the slate this year (and will probably make SP4 too, judging by the number of votes it has) are best elaborated on by this review by my nominee for Best Fan Writer.

    I see – Cutie Marksism. Dictatorship of Ponyteriat. The whinnying away of the state. The workers controlling the manes of production. Trot-sky. Adding materialism to Haygel’s dialectic. The Communist Mane-ifesto.*

    *[I think I’ve got most of them out – I’m trying to not prolong the agony for the rest of you]

  22. (8) Yeah, I don’t thing the logic for slating video games and MLP goes much beyond trying to rope in more GamerGaters and Bronies.

    (9) It doesn’t say if Juliet belonged to the family dressing her up or was being rented specifically for the party. If it’s the latter case, I disapprove. Animals aren’t toys. :/ And she clearly didn’t enjoy it, since she ran away twice.

  23. Listening to Magic & Manners by C.E. Murphy. A retelling of Pride & Prejudice, with magic. It’s fun, and restful.

    Sometimes I need restful.

    Nothing wrong with hiring horses, but I think Juliette has made it clear this type of work isn’t for her. If her objection is to the costume, easy peasy, no more jobs involving silly costumes. If it was the excitement level, she might be much better off finding a position with a family that wants a pony for a responsible child.

    In 7633, we look back in horror at the failure in past ages to properly match talents and aptitudes to jobs, for the benefit of all.

  24. Is the episode from Tales from the Borderlands even eligible?

    And I am really surprised he’d pick that. There are lovely bits of diversity and stuff that Gamergaters would absolutely hate all through the Borderlands games.

    In the year 8879, we’re still playing the Borderlands games, because sometimes, shooting Scavs and Skags is still fun.

  25. @Paul Weimer:

    I suspect the thinking, such as it is, behind picking something with “lovely bits of diversity and stuff” is to be able to whinge about SJW hypocrisy when it gets No Awarded. Same as picking Cheah Kai Wai for the Campbell and Charles Shao for Best Short Story, rather than *cough* equally deserving *cough* Castalia Hut authors.

    ETA: sorry about the cough, I’m a little horse today …
    🙂

  26. I received my PIN on Thursday, and another email with it on Friday. Will test logging in a little later today. I’m reading Letters to Tiptree, which is very interesting but I can only read it in small doses. Very excited about participating as a nominator this year!

  27. I’m still mostly reading zombie stories, but have some on my plate that look to include some overt fantasy elements. If they bear mentioning, I’ll mention them.

    When I read some of Ellison’s reminiscences, I can’t help thinking that if I were an editor/publisher who got a dead gopher in the mail, I’d tell the sender to go and never darken my mailbox again. Yes, Ellison’s best work is brilliant…but I wonder who might have flourished in that space who was also brilliant, in a different way, and who didn’t set up sending dead animals in fits of pique as a thing to cheer, admire, and maybe even emulate.

    The older I get, the more I seem to value “plays well with others” as a criterion for judgment.

  28. Started reading The Darkest Part of The Forest by Holly Black. Only a few chapters in, but very happy with it so far.

  29. Oh yeah, I remember Jordan179. He’s the reason why I had to come up with the rules for commenting on my livejournal posts, named the Jordan limitations in his honor. (Up to 3 polite comments, which may be links to you being less polite elsewhere; I decide what is polite because it’s my LJ) He was completely taking over the comment thread(s) and growing more intemperate by the hour. Why am I not surprised he is retreading Puppy talking points?

    The MLP thing has also come up on …I forget if it was Mad Genius or Kate Paulk’s blog or what. Apparently Puppies have been latching onto it as demonstrating the horrors of SJWness or something. If I follow the recap of the plot–someone tries to force ponies to all be alike, ponies end up seeing the beauty of diversity?–that doesn’t sound like an anti-SJW polemic. But perhaps I am missing something.

    @Lis Carey Magic and Manners sounds fun. Thanks for mentioning it

    @Steve Wright: If I understand correctly, the unicorn was lured in by a horse. Presumably only the horse has to be a virgin. Or perhaps the concept doesn’t even apply when the lure is herding behavior rather than approaching a strange human.

    @Bruce Baugh

    When I read some of Ellison’s reminiscences, I can’t help thinking that if I were an editor/publisher who got a dead gopher in the mail, I’d tell the sender to go and never darken my mailbox again. Yes, Ellison’s best work is brilliant…but I wonder who might have flourished in that space who was also brilliant, in a different way, and who didn’t set up sending dead animals in fits of pique as a thing to cheer, admire, and maybe even emulate.

    In addition perhaps being told early on that he has now reduced the number of editors he can submit to by one would have induced him to clean up his act. I have had to draw the line in friendships sometimes, and say “if you improve the way you treat people I will be happy for you, from a distance, because then you can make friends with other people and stay friends. But you and I are done.” I hope it helps them figure out they need to change.

  30. I saw Deadpool last night. I like superhero movies, I like action movies, and from all the hype and positive comments I was expecting to enjoy it. But, man, was it awful. Just plain boring despite all the jokes and violence. Also, clearly written by Gen X-ers for 12 year-olds. I’m 44 and I think I was the only person in the theater who laughed at the promise to boombox “Careless Whisper” or recognized the opening chords to the song.

  31. I don’t think I’ve ever particularly admired people who engage in assholish behavior, even as a ?disaffected? teenager and whatnot. (It is very difficult for me to have any sympathy for the excusing of the viciousness of teenage bullies and trolls by saying that it’s because they’re teenagers, but I know it is a cultural narrative for some reason.)

    —-

    Speaking of children’s cartoons, how’s about that Steven Universe? I’m planning to nominate a couple of the episodes for short-form. I did watch my share of live-action SFF shows the last year but none of them really stood out to me in that BOOM way that a few of the SU eps did, despite SU’s target audience and ultrashort episode length.

    (It’s possible to say that ultrashort length permits pinpoint honing of an episode’s quality, but then again, as I mentioned in a previous post, there have been more novels than short fiction pieces that really wowed me like that in the same time period — so that can’t be the whole story.)

  36. It’s nice to see the discussion going from somewhat volatile to a bit more … stable.

  37. (4) I think most of our gear will be from the decade (or three) before, in keeping the the Corps’ proud tradition of not having shit for gear…

    But as long as there’s power armor I’m totally going to reenlist anyway.

  41. And the Unicorn drama was almost a year to the day of the big Lllama Drama in Phoenix which happened late afternoon and took the world by storm without any magical elements.

    On another topic, but related to BDP SF, which current TV series would show a post apocalyptic world where a surviving group of humans is collecting artifacts of the old days (around 3,000 years ago), and to kick off a party/rave (using vinyl LPs), they would screen a short excerpt of Star Trek the Motion Picture on a projector?

    No, not The 100, but The Shannara Chronicles. Of course, the humans boo the pointy eared guy. Definitely not in the book. Depending on VDs strategy next year, possibly a RP nom?

  42. a distinct lack of multi-series books present

    What, no Honor Harrington and the Wheel of Time? No Jheregs of Pern? No Ancillary Monster Hunter?

  43. Brian Z: What a coincidence that Jordan179’s review was posted on the very day science fiction imploded.

    What a coincidence that Jordan179 is the raving Rabid Puppy loony who’s been ranting about the Tor Cabal and SJW Conspiracy all over GRRM’s blog and everywhere else on the Internet.

  44. The Gamergaters really liked that MLP episode (which was basically ‘Harrison Bergeron, but with ponies and with a happy ending’) when it came out. For example: https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/31g6ep/offtopic_my_little_pony_social_justice_is_not/

    Some mainstream conservatives liked it too; The Federalist ran an article praising this episode’s alleged denunciation of Marxism. http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/08/my-little-pony-to-children-marxism-is-not-magic/

    Vox probably picked it both to make the Gamergaters happy, and also so if it loses he can claim the SJWs aren’t supporting a show with female protagonists and/or a show for young girls.

  45. @nowhereman

    I’m not sure my first assumption about MLP fans in this day and age is that they are little girls…

  46. (1) SHORTLIST TRUTHS

    For me, shortlists are an acknowledgment that there is never a single objective “best” of anything, and that one can triangulate a notion of bestness more clearly from multiple angles. The ideal shortlist is one where any of the works might reasonably have won. Shortlists acknowledge the fact that any given book, no matter how good, will fail some set of readers (not that there’s a guarantee that every reader will find something they like on a shortlist).

  47. Yes, thanks for mentioning Magic & Manners–I just listened to an audio sample and have ut it on my wishlist. (I have such a backlog of audio files here that I Have Forbidden Myself to buy more audio until I finish listening to a bunch of stuff.) Is the book ONLY audio? I don’t see a print or ebook version listed on Amazon.

  48. @ Xtifr re: Amazon best-sellers

    I see the “I’m an Amazon best-seller!” phenomenon a lot on some of the facebook groups I frequent that have a high proportion of self-published and small press authors. I think the most egregious case that I bothered to check on was a perfectly ordinary contemporary romance novel that was being touted as an “Amazon #1 best seller” … because the author had cleverly tagged it into an obscure “scripts and drama” sub-category. I almost posted a snarky-naive comment on the thread asking if it was going to have a stage production. (The author hadn’t bothered to mention what category it was #1 in.) But it wasn’t worth the effort.

    I feel the same way about people who boast of what an honor it is that their novel has been “nominated for Award X” when “nominated” simply means you sent in some judges copies and paid a fee. Somehow the trappings of achievement mean more to them than the reality.

  50. @Laura– I haven’t found a print edition, either, and Goodreads isn’t aware of anything but the audiobook, either.

    I guess here in 3417, print has finally died.

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