(1) DRAGON HATCHERY. Naomi Novik is interviewed on NPR, “A Writer-Engineer’s Historical Fiction Hack: Add Dragons”.
Almost a decade after she first went online, she says she was working as a programmer for a computer game “and something about that whole process of building the structure of that game turned into a real kind of light-bulb moment for me as a writer.” At the time, her fan fiction at was inspired by swashbuckling adventure novels set in the Napoleonic era. But something started happening to her stories — they were getting longer and more complex.
“Then all of a sudden I sort of started to feel that I was constrained by the characters, as opposed to enjoying them,” she says. “And that remains for me to this day the line … where it’s like: OK, you’re not writing fan fiction anymore.”
She also had an idea she wanted to run with: “What could make the Napoleonic wars more exciting? Dragons!” And one dragon in particular: Temeraire. He’s central in her 9-book “Temeraire” series, which opens with the dragon becoming the responsibility of Will Laurence, a naval captain fighting for the British against Napoleon. Laurence is chivalrous with a keen sense of duty, but he embraces the 19th-century conventions that Novik paints in faithful detail — even some that are distasteful to 21st-century readers, like class hierarchies and the roles of women. Temeraire, on the other hand, is newly hatched; he provides a more critical, modern voice.
(2) SUIT & NERD & TIE. AnimeCon.org CEO Ryan Kopf sued Nerd & Tie blogger Trae Dorn in December, claiming Dorn had defamed him. Now Dorn has amended his suit to include Dorn’s podcast co-host Pher Sturz.
So many of you already know that in December AnimeCon.org CEO Ryan Kopf filed a lawsuit in the state of Iowa against me for articles I published here on Nerd & Tie about his organization. After I was served, I quickly went public — starting a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for my legal defense (because, y’know, lawyers are expensive).
Pher Sturz, who co-hosts the podcast with me (and came up with the name for it — which is where the name of this site comes from), was very vocal in his public support for me. Pher did this because he’s a good friend, and wasn’t really any more inflammatory (and in most cases significantly less so) than most other people sharing the link.
….To make this worse, Pher, frankly, doesn’t make a lot of money. And I know he won’t point this out himself, but he has a young daughter as well. Lawyers are really, really expensive and he needs to hire one fast. His original attempt to secure aid fell through, so now we’re reaching out to you — the Nerd & Tie readers.
Pher has launched a GoFundMe campaign (Titled ‘The Ryan Kopf is Suing Me Too! Fund‘) to try and get money together to hire someone, and I hope you’ll consider contributing. He’s asking for $3000 right now because (after fees) that’s effectively what he’ll need to get started.
(3) BITES THE DUST. SF Site News reports “Samhain Publishing Closing”.
Samhain Publishing has announced that they will be closing. According to Samhain, the main cause of their decision is changes with their terms with Amazon. They are planning a controlled shut down and will continue to pay royalties to their authors and will be returning rights on a schedule.
More here.
(4) OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE. Deborah J. Ross knows about “Rejection, Discouragement, and How a Few Loyal Readers Can Save an Author”.
Being discouraged is part and parcel of a working writer’s life. Negative reviews, ditto. Some of us are naturally more thick-skinned about them than others, and most of us develop coping strategies over the years. This is where networking with other writers can be very helpful.
…. Reviews, ah reviews, and in this category I include feedback from critique groups and beta readers. So much has already been said about the power of a caustic review or harsh feedback of a work in progress that I won’t belabor the point here. Suffice it to say that the natural human desire for praise (for our creative “children”) leaves us vulnerable to interpreting criticism of the work with condemnation of ourselves. Or, having torn off our emotional armor to write from the heart, we’ve also ripped off any defenses against sarcasm, etc. I’m among those who, having received scathing feedback, went home, and cried. I never considered giving up (although on more than one occasion, I contemplated getting even and thankfully resisted the temptation). But some writers have.
Negative feedback, if consistent and prolonged, can have a devastating effect on a writer’s self-confidence and ability to work. Support and encouragement from our fellow writers can be our greatest asset in setting aside the nasty things people have written about our stories. A hiatus from reading reviews is highly recommended.
(5) THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES. Since Steve Davidson found a stash of mimeographed File 770’s on a freebie table at Boskone he’s been thinking how Ye Olden Times in fandom compare with Today. Steve distills those thoughts in “Ode to File 770 (and a note on our changing culture)”:
I then met Mike in person for the first (and last) time at Iguanacon in 1978. Where I had the disappointing task of having to inform him that the only part of Contact:SF (which by then had gone semi-pro) that I could show him was a tear sheet of the cover. (American Airlines lost every single copy I was shipping to the con, which ended up financially killing it.) Mike had offered to spread the news within the pages of his own (eventual Hugo Award winning) zine (after having a look of course) and I had been looking forward to a rapid climb within the world of fanzine fandom. A Hugo award was not that far away in my mind at the time. (Still isn’t, but I’ve got a warped sense of time.)
(6) MAGAZINE KICKSTARTER. Three days left in Richard Thomas’ Kickstarter appeal to fund “Gamut Magazine: Neo-noir, speculative, literary fiction”. It’s raised $45,764 of its $52,000 goal to date.
Gamut will be a website (and eBook) with a wide range of voices—genre-bending stories utilizing the best of genre and literary fiction….
So I’m open to:
- Fantasy
- Science fiction
- Horror
- Neo-noir, crime, mystery, thrillers
- Magical realism
- Transgressive
- Southern gothic
- Literary fiction
- Weird / bizarro
- Poetry
Anything done with innovation, heart and emotion—that’s what I want. Everything I enjoy reading and writing typically leans toward the dark side, but I have been known to embrace lighter work, and humor, now and then.
(7) GOING VIRAL. Ernest Hogan’s High Aztech sounds intriguing. It’s available on Amazon.
High Aztech takes place in 21st century Mexico, Tenochtitlán, the metropolis formerly known as Mexico City, is the most exciting place on Earth. Stainless steel pyramids pierce the smoggy sky. Human sacrifice is coming back into fashion, especially on the new Aztechan TV channels, and everyone wants an artificial heart. Xolotl Zapata, celebrated poet, skeptic and journalist, starts receiving death threats from a cult he’s lampooned in a comic book. But soon he will have much worse problems and be running for his life. The government, the Mafia, street gangs, cults, terrorists, even garbage collectors will be after him. Why? He has been infected with a technological development that will changing human life as we know it Zapata is carrying a virus that can download religious beliefs into the human brain – a highly contagious virus that is converting everyone he meets, and everyone they meet, to the Aztec religion. This is Witnessing with a PUNCH! Since he’s a virulent carrier he infects a large part of the city all by himself, and the masses, filled with visions and portents, await the End of the World.
Decide how it sounds to you – Hogan’s reading of the first chapter can be heard on this video:
(8) HOMELESS GNOMES. NPR reports “Popular Gnomes Seek New Home” —
Officials at Little Buffalo State Park in Pennsylvania decided that dozens of tiny gnome homes tucked in trees around the park were a nuisance. The gnome homes were too popular, so they were evicted.
….Steve Hoke, with permission from the park, crafted teeny-weeny doors on hollow logs and built pint-size cottages on mossy tree stumps to the delight of children in the area, not to mention the families who drove hours to see them. The idea was to get kids out of the house, away from the electronics and go for a walk, Mr. Hoke told the media. But with so many visitors, state officials declared the itsy-bitsy abodes a nuisance and ordered them banished. So earlier this week, Steve Hoke carted off his Lilliputian village in his garden wagon. The evictions have angered many, hundreds have signed petitions to bring back the magic, and it appears there has been a reprieve for the homeless elves. Two neighboring towns have offered to take in the gnomes and their homes.
Full story in the New York Times
Little Buffalo told Mr. Hoke he had until Monday to clear out the gnome houses. Four days ago, he went to the park with a wagon and collected the dwellings scattered along about two and a half miles of trails.
“It was very emotional,” he said.
As he was leaving, he encountered a man and his daughter. They told him the girl had just finished her final round of chemotherapy and that her father had asked her what she wanted to do.
She said she wanted to go see the gnome houses.
“If I wasn’t so cold and wet, I probably would have stood there and wept,” Mr. Hoke said.
“That’s the part that the people who made this decision don’t get to see,” he added. “It was a mystery for the kids. It was magical.”
(9) THE CUSTOMERS MUST BE CRAZY. Gods Of Egypt received the not-especially-coveted “I’ve seen worse” rating from this reviewer at Birth. Movies. Death.
The most surprising thing about Gods Of Egypt was that I didn’t outright hate it. I have already seen worse movies this year, and I may yet see something even more abominable in the near future. The conceptual insanity of the movie could be the one selling point to it all, but the truth is unless you haven’t played a modern action-adventure game in the past ten years or so, this overbearing maelstrom of CGI bombast is rote and played out. I felt neither disdain nor schadenfreude during it, only boredom and a slight headache afterwards. I can’t even recommend “hate watching” this or checking it out for the morbid curiosity, since instead of being mesmerized by cinematic atrocity, you’ll be constantly reminded of fonder experiences you’ve had with other games and movies.
(10) SOME SATURN AWARDS COVERAGE. Blastr had this comment –
As usual, the Saturns are so expansive and inclusive that we have to wonder at some of the nominees — like financial drama 99 Homes
India media reacts: “Baahubali to compete with Hollywood biggies” at Wishesh.
It is really a proud moment for the Indian movie audience, to know that even Baahubali was part of the nominations of these awards, that too in five categories – Best Fantasy Film, Best Supporting Actress (Tamannaah), Best Music (Keeravani), Best Production Design (Sabu Cyril) and Best Costume Design (Rama Rajamouli and Prashanthi Tipirineni).
India’s proudest epic and blockbuster, Baahubali-The beginning will compete with the popular Hollywood big films like Jurrasic World, Mad Max: Fury Road, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Hateful Eight and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
On the other side, Baahubali – The conclusion, is currently in the shooting stage and aiming the next Sankranthi release. After that, the makers are even planning for Baahubali 3, which does not include Prabhas, Satya Raj and most of the key cast of Baahubali 1 and 2 parts, as declared earlier.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Will R., Brian Z., and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day IanP.]
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First !
Charlie Jane Anders also reviewed GoE at i09 and was not too favorably impressed either.
Why didn’t somebody involved with the creation of Gods of Egypt realize what they were setting in motion, and that this movie was not just bad, but obscenely, devastatingly bad? I wondered this the whole time I was watching Gods of Egypt.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/murder-is-legal-and-torture-is-mandatory-because-gods-1761496886
Also of interest, the entire run of IF magazine is available at the internet archive.
http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-entire-run-of-if-magazine-is-now-freely-available-o-1761691317
::ticky::
(2) “Now Dorn has amended his suit…” Should this be Kopf has amended his suit?
With a pic pic here
And a pic pic there
Here a pic
There a pic
Everywhere a pixel,
Old Mike Glyer had a scroll,
Fi-sev-sev-en-O!
Also goddam tickybox.
@Kip
Yes! I knew there had to be a reason I had to read that twice before it made sense.
Second first.
As for the Saturn Aware, their credibility is completely destroyed by the omission of Penny Dreadful in any of the appropriate categories. That just stinks!
::god stalk::
9) I’ve seen worse.
Meh is indeed a kiss of death.
7) High Aztech
This sounded awfully familiar…and indeed was first published in 1992. I may have read and forgotten about it.
Oddly, I don’t seem to be able to subscribe to threads anymore. What’s with that?
::looks around sleepily::
What – already?.
Fair enough then.
(9) THE CUSTOMERS MUST BE CRAZY – reviews for this is… nuts. Looks like the whole whitewashing thing is gonna wind up being the least of this flicks issues.
(10) SOME SATURN AWARDS COVERAGE. – That’s…a lot of categories.
Oh, and double fifth.
@Shambles: I had an interesting Twitter discussion with John “Leverage” Rogers about the genuinely terrible American version of Low Winter Sun, which ran on AMC for a single eight-episode season, and he said the tragedy is that because of tight production schedules, the piecemeal sequence of filming, the lateness of the editing stage and optimism bias, you’re so deep inside the process that you often have no idea that you’re making something truly terrible until very near the end. So the answer to Charlie Jane Anders’ question would be, that’s just how it goes sometimes.
Taking down the gnome houses, that is some stupid sh*t.
I just can’t believe how much money Gods of Egypt cost, considering the trailers made it look like something off of SyFy Channel. $140,000,000! How? Where?
@Jim Henley
That is true, I have been on the inside of projects that you just don’t know how successful they will be until it’s done. I have heard movies can look pretty rough until the final edit.
Possibly the over-reliance on CGI blinded them to the defects early on because everything was placeholders for the final version until the final version and at that point it was too late. No one saw how it did not connect viscerally between scenes to recognize the lack of an emotional backbone.
Now contrast this with Deadpool and its reduced and then trimmed budget which forced them to rely on story and dialogue.
(3) BITES THE DUST.
Not my area of expertise, but some author friends were blindsided by this and are still in shock.
Pix a little, bark a little
Pix a little, bark a little
Pix, pix, pix,
bark a lot, scroll a little more.
@Shambles: Really good point on the CGI-heavy production making the quality of the work even more obscure throughout the process.
8) As a member of the Gnomish Liberation Front, I find this an outrage! Here we let people keep gnomes as prisoners in their gardens, but when a nice man builds houses in their correct habitat where they’ll be happy, they are evicted.
Heinous!!!
CKCharles
Well, it’s not an exact quote, but it’s there in spirit.
CKCharles on February 27, 2016 at 7:09 pm said:
Campbell!
Asimov!
Heinlein!!
Steve Davidson’s article about File770 is quite nice. It honestly astounds me how long File770 has been going (38 years!) as well as just how many fanzines there are. I don’t know other groups of fans well, but it seems remarkable to me.
Damn it, Kip. I’m sorry! Especially because it was your “With a pic pic here” that set me off. (And I knew full well that somebody must have covered the Music Man before I got around to it.)
Hampus Eckerman: As a member of the Gnomish Liberation Front, I find this an outrage! Here we let people keep gnomes as prisoners in their gardens, but when a nice man builds houses in their correct habitat where they’ll be happy, they are evicted.
*snort*
CKCharles, thanks, but no apology was needed. Parallel inspiration. Great minds. I point with pride when I manage to get in first, but if that’s making me look competitive about it, I should maybe cool it a little, because I seem to be sending the wrong message.
Shao Ping: It honestly astounds me how long File770 has been going (38 years!)
I think that Mike’s deft adaptation to the Internet, and later to how blogging and social media have changed fan interaction, has a great deal to do with that. If he were merely producing a version of File770 in its earlier format and posting it on the Internet, it would not be nearly as effective (or popular).
Instead, he chose to learn new technology and media, and change the way he reported news to take advantage of the Internet and social media, developing this site into a basis for a vibrant interactive community — one which really blossomed when people realized what a great job he was doing covering the kerpupple.
The amount of effort he puts into thoughtfully gathering information and crafting commentary on it is staggering. I frequently send him news links and am impressed by the added context he digs up and the commentary he creates for it. And there are days that I read a lot of the items in the Pixel Scroll and think, “There’s no way I’d have been willing to wade through that muck, much less write coverage of it.”
So, yeah, Mike — here’s to you. 🍺
[ticky]
I have routinely have the same feeling about the daily scrolls: I simply couldn’t do that kind of work, let alone so regularly, and I’m so glad Mike finds it worth his while. Thanks, Mike.
Only two days left in a comic book Kickstarter I want to mention: BLACK – “In a world that already fears and hates them – what if only Black people had superpowers?” The art’s not my favorite (from what little I see, granted), but the concept interested me enough to back it. It’s already well past the original $30k goal and into some stretch goals.
Reading: I just got done reading Hao Jingfang’s “Folding Beijing“, and while I thought it was interesting, it didn’t make me go “wow”, and I don’t really understand all the love for it. Oh, well. Horses for courses.
In defense of probably beleaguered park officials, what I read awhile back was that the guy with the gnomes wasn’t the problem, it was visitors leaving stuff in front of the “homes.” I’m sure it was well intentioned by the visitors, but like coins in fountains that aren’t equipped to handle them, it gets out of hand in a hurry. People were leaving…stuff…for the gnomes. One family does it, it’s cute, a thousand families do it, it’s a major littering issue and wildlife are showing up eating candy bars and whatnot, and people are making mini-paths to go see things up close, en masse…they’ve apparently been saying it’s an issue for awhile, and this was a last resort. (I’m trying to remember where the article was–it’s all gnome eviction in Google now)
I feel kinda bad for the officials, honestly.
You get a big draw for a park not set up to
handle it and you’re kinda sunk. The government isn’t going to give you more money to clean up the litter. There’s no way you come out looking good when everybody’s going “you’re evicting gnomes that make children happy!” and you can’t very well say “well, if you people would act like it’s a wildlife preserve, we wouldn’t have to, would we?”
Shame for everybody involved. I hope that the artist finds a new home for them that can handle the traffic.
Doris Sutherland reviewed the related works.
Oh, here ’tis.
Doris V. Sutherland: I honestly do not see how someone who helped to get Wisdom From My Internet on the ballot is in a position to sneer at the likes of “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”.
Clicky.
Awwww…..
…it must have been the twiltone dust. Or maybe too much corflu in the air.
@RedWombat:
I read a very similar story in the last year about a forest preserve in the UK, except that there the tiny doors and houses were the work of many visitors rather than a single artist. Eventually they had to clear them out.
I’ll see if I can find it.
Found it!
A BBC story from last year, “‘Fairy control’ to halt tiny doors in Somerset Woods”:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-somerset-30687171
Hundreds of fairy doors have been attached to the bases of trees in Wayford Woods, Crewkerne… With elfin construction now including “more and more garish” plywood doors with “lots of tinsel and glittery stuff”, Mr Acreman said they have had to bring in “quality control” to remove the worst offenders.
Gah! This is why we can’t have nice things. People just have no sense. They are causing physical harm to those trees, including making them more vulnerable to pests and diseases. Never mind the trash aspect, which is bad enough on its own.
If people had just had the sense to leave the first, really beautifully-done door there and leave it at that. 😐
I continue collecting Hugo-eligible art — please! make suggestions! especially of fan artists! — and I’ve got a year-of-publication question.
Does the “cover reveal” count as the publication date, for art purposes? Or is it only the actual publication that counts? e.g. these Jeffrey Alan Love covers revealed in October 2015, for January 2016 publication.
@Doctor Science
Hopefully not, for common sense purposes if nothing else. I’d argue that the “professional publication” hasn’t happened until the paid-for book displaying the art has been published.
Doctor Science,
Theresa Mather does beautiful work that she exhibits at conventions. I’ve coveted one (any one!) of her painted feathers for years (it’s not just the painting; it’s the matting and framing as well).
http://www.rockfeatherscissors.com/
I believe she falls under “fan artist” but honestly I’m not sure.
@Doctor Science
Or, since the original art can be exhibited at convention art shows or nowadays online, is it the year the work was done? Which could again be different, and since public exhibition is a qualifier for the Hugos, and the only way a 3-D artist like Tom Kuebler could be nominated, that needs to be a valid date as well or instead.
Hugo question: How important is it to fill out “publisher”? Many of the things I nominated, I just jotted down author/title. I got them from the library, or from a friend. When I google, say, “Bryony and Roses”, I can’t find a publisher listed….
Having said that, I’ve filled out and submitted my preliminary Hugo ballot, sans publishers. (I still have several things to read that may reshuffle the candidates.) Nice feeling of accomplishment there.
Here are the Society of Illustrator’s criteria for entry into their annual exhibition ( http://www.societyillustrators.org/Awards-and-Competitions/Annual-Exhibition/Call-for-Entries/Illustrators-58-Call-for-Entries.aspx ):
Cassy:
I can’t find any date info on Teresa Mather’s work, so I have no idea what counts as 2015 from her.
Naomi Novik’s many fans might be excited to know that she, along with Robert J. Sawyer (also the subject of a recent item in File 770), Rick Sternbach and the filk artists Murder Ballads, will be a Guest of Honor at Lunacon 2016, March 18-20 at the Hilton Westchester in Rye Brook, NY. The Convention’s Souvenir Program Book will include an excerpt from her upcoming Temeraire novel, League of Dragons.
Sometimes reading seem to cluster without intent. I remember one of those clusters for me being dystopian satires back in the 90’s. Even though I wasn’t actively seeking them out, they kept catching my attention at the used book store.
The two from that grouping that really stuck in my memory are High Aztec by Ernest Hogan and Out on Blue Six by Ian MacDonald. Without pulling them off the shelf there is even more similarity with those two particularly, as I recall, both having cartoonist heroes on the run.
High Aztec is well worth a check out. Cyber punk tinged, funny, and fast paced. My memory has it as if Hunter S. Thompson and William Gibson had a Chicano love child. An older book now, it also reflects on themes like geopolitics and ubiquitous surveillance that are still timely.
Possibly the hardest part of the read is it’s use of Nahuatl (Aztec) slang. It’s a key part to the flavor of the story but those odd consonant combinations threw me out at first. I ended up referencing the glossary a fair bit. Once through that though it ripped along.
Highly recommended for fans of cyberpunk with a twist.
@Cassy B
I’ve been using Amazon to find the publisher.
T. Kingfisher self-pubs so the publisher in most cases is T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon – it shows on Amazon as “Amazon digital publishing services” (or something similar) which 99% tracks to self-published.
@Cassy B.
From the copyright page, Bryony and Roses was published in the US by “Red Wombat Tea Company.”
I sent a message to the MidAmeriCon2 asking the same question. My own experience with pattern matching suggests that the extra field will hurt, not help, unless they’re using very sophisticated techniques. (Otherwise it’s just one more thing for people to screw up.) I suspect its value will be for helping human operators make decisions about obscure works (“what is this thing?”), and that they’ll generally ignore it for common books. They might have done better to ask for links to Amazon.com or Goodreads.
@Greg Hullender
Duh on opening the ebook/book to look at the copyright page if I have it. I am including links to Amazon pages in addition.
I’m including links in many categories. I’m not sure who else will be doing so and how we will screw up the database and matching stuff. I feel sorry for the Hugo admins. But if they need to confirm my first field or two is what others are saying I want them to have an easy way of checking. So links to works and links to people.
For Bryony, it’s self-pub–Red Wombat Tea Co. is the fake company I use whenever I’m in the mood to mock up a fake advertising poster, and is the sponsor of the short little podcast I do, The Hidden Almanac.
I’m not sure how much the Hugo admins care, though.