(1) FAREWELL, PORNOKITSCH. Yesterday Anne Perry and Jared Shurin signed off their long-running sff blog: “Pornokitsch: The Exit Interview”. The existing content will remain online for some time to come.
Anne: …As you say above, Pornokitsch is what we wanted it to be: a home for thoughtful, fun (and funny) essays about… whatever. Back when it was just the two of us writing for the site, that’s what we did. And it’s been a pleasure to watch the site bloom with much, much more of that…
By and large, I’m happy to say that I think I wrote more or less exactly what I wanted to write for the site. There are a few reviews I would do differently now, if I could go back in time. But we founded Pornokitsch as a way of talking about the pop culture we love with the humour and intelligence we wished to see in those conversations, and at the end of the day, I think we – and our many brilliant contributors over the years – have done just that.
Jared: On that note… We’ve mentioned our amazing contributors: words and art, regular and guest, past and present. We owe them a huge, huge thanks for all of their hard work and help and patience. Thank you all.
Anne: We owe you a huge debt of gratitude. Thanks also to all the publishers – editors, marketers and publicists – who offered us books to review and put quotes from us on the actual books, zomg. And, finally, thanks also to our tolerant and very supportive families, enthusiastic friends and – most of all – our readers over the years.
For those arriving too late, they created a kind of postmortem FAQ on their “Bye!” page.
How can I check if you verbally flensed my favourite piece of pop culture? I need know whether or not I should hate you forever.
An index of features and reviews can be found here.
Is there some Pornokitsch memorabilia that I could cherish forever?
Nope. Buy one of our contributor’s books instead.
(2) PUPPY FREE. I like how this was the fifth point in John Scalzi’s “Thoughts On This Year’s Hugo Finalist Ballot” at Whatever.
- To get ahead of a question I know someone will ask, no, there’s not any “puppy” nonsense this year. It appears the changes in nominating finalists to reduce slating had their intended effect, and also, the various puppies appear to have lost interest slamming their heads into this particular wall. This makes sense as it provided no benefit to any of them, damaged the reputations and careers of several, and succeeded only in making their rank and file waste a lot of time and effort (and money). They’ve gone off to make their own awards and/or to bother other media, which is probably a better use of their time. There was an attempt by a cadre of second-wave wannabe types to replicate slating this year, but that unsurprisingly came to naught.
In its stead are excellent stories and people, all of which and whom got on to the ballot on the strength of their work. Which is as it should be.
(3) IT’S BEEN AWHILE. Piet Nel said on Facebook about Sarah Pinsker’s “Wind Will Rove” (from Asimov’s, September/October 2017), a Best Novelette Hugo finalist —
This is the first time since 2013 that a story from Asimov’s has made the final ballot of the Hugos.
(4) NOT A NATIVE SPEAKER. J.R.R. Tolkien on Elvish:
#OnThisDay 1968 J. R. R. Tolkien (John to his mates) spoke about the use of his invented languages within 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings'. pic.twitter.com/RfE2qKaq7A
— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) March 30, 2018
(5) GRIMOIRES. In the Horror Writers Association Newsletter, Lawrence Berry discusses a source of “Forbidden Words (And When to Use Them)”.
Do genuinely forbidden, occult treatises exist in the modern world?
Yes, definitely.
Who has them and how do I get a look?
The great libraries of the world, private antiquarian collectors, and the Vatican’s Secret Archives all house works on satanism and witchcraft. An interested party would need to earn scholar’s credentials or have someone very good at creating false identities counterfeit them. A wide and nimble knowledge of Olde English, Middle English, Latin, Arabic, ancient German and Italian, along with gifted insight into the science of cryptography would help—a person could be burned at the stake for the sin of heresy in more centuries than not and grimoires were often written in code. It would also be wise to attain a master’s knowledge of very old books themselves—the paper they were penned on, the material used to construct the covers, the ink used in the illuminated borders and illustrations, the quality and flow of period quills and brushes. Authentic editions, with provenance, sell for a great price, and forgeries are rampant. An equally lavish fee is charged for a single reading of the rarest, genuine, and powerful spell-books.
(6) SFF AUTHORS ON GENDER PANEL IN HONG KONG. In conjunction with the Melon Conference 2, the University of Hong Kong recently held a seminar on Gender in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing. Mlex interviewed an attendee about what the panelists had to say in “Hong Kong Science Fiction Scene – Gender in SFF” for Yunchtime.
To find out more about the Hong Kong Science Fiction and Fantasy scene, Yunchtime reached out to Dr. Christine Yi Lai Luk, at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences of the Univeristy of Hong Kong, who attended the panel discussion….
YUNCHTIME: How did the seminar and panel discussion live up to the proposed topic?
LUK: There is plenty of room for improvement, I’d say. It is a panel of three women SF writers, but they did not explore “the world of women in SF” as advertised in the above description. It is more appropriate to call the seminar “women/gender and SF” because it is just three women talking about their SF work.
YUNCHTIME: How about the panelists, can you describe briefly some of their thoughts or comments?
LUK: I think Becky Chambers‘ views were the most relevant to the proposed topic. Chambers revealed how she was drawn into the world of SF from an early age onward. Raised in a space science-heavy family (her father is a rocket engineer and her mother an astrobiologist), she was introduced to SF and space fantasy movies as early as she could remember.
Her favorite SF novel of all time is “The Left Hand of Darkness” by Ursula LeGuin (a lot of nods from the audience as the name was dropped). She said writing SF gives her confidence as she is an introvert.
I think her experience reflects a certain gender norm in the SF realm: Unlike the blondy sorority type of girls, girls who are into SF are perceived as shy and nerdy, and incapable of drawing the attention from the opposite sex (except maybe from Wookie-dressed superfans).
Tang Fei does not write in English, only in Chinese. Her Chinese works are translated into English and they draw attention in the English-speaking world partly because her works are banned in China. Actually, Tang Fei is a pen name.
Because the conference was being held entirely in English and due to the language barrier, Tang Fei’s sharing was not effective as we could have hoped. She only managed to say a few sentences in English (with a very soft voice). Then, during the Q&A, she was relying on the organizer, Nicole Huang, to act as her interpreter.
The main thing I caught from Tang Fei is that in the future, human beings will exist in disembodied form and thus the only “gender” issue for SF writers to engage in will be purely on the psychological aspect.
Zen Cho talked about her upbringing in Malaysia and her identity as an English-speaking Hokkien among mainstream Malays. She did not identify herself as a SF writer, but as a fantasy writer. I don’t think she has said anything remotely relevant to gender.
(7) STEELE AND SF IN HONG KONG. Mlex also covered “Hong Kong Science Fiction Scene – Allen Steele on the Melon Conference 2018” for Yunchtime.
YUNCHTIME: What is your impression of Fritz Demoupolis? Is he a big SFF fan? Demoupolis is a successful entrepreneur and venture capitalist, do you think he sees a business opportunity for the SFF genre in Hong Kong and China?
STEELE: Fritz Demopoulos is an interesting fellow … a California-born ex-pat who came to Hong Kong about 20 years ago and has stayed to make his fortune. My brother-in-law did much the same thing, so I’m familiar with this sort of entrepreneurship. He’s most definitely a SF fan. He discovered the genre through finding his father’s beat-up copy of Asimov’s Foundation and has been reading SF ever since. He knows the field, is familiar with major authors both old and new, loves the same movies and TV shows the rest of us do, and overall is an example of a highly-successful businessman who also happens to be something of a geek.
Melon is Fritz’s brainchild — he’d have to explain to you why he gave it that name — and it’s unique among SF gatherings. As I said, it’s not a con in the conventional sense — yes, that’s a deliberate pun; stop groaning — but rather a symposium that’s sort of academic without being stuffy or pretentious. The people Fritz invited to be speakers were SF writers — a few Americans like myself, but mainly young Asian authors— scientists from the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and a number of Hong Kong-based entrepreneurs working in both emerging technologies like AI and also mass media
(8) HAWKING OBSEQUIES. Henry Nicholls, in the Reuters story “Friends, Family, Public Flock To Funeral of Physicist Stephen Hawking,” says that Hawking’s coffin had white “Universe” lilies and white “Polar Star” roses and a “space music” composition called “Beyond The Night Sky” was played.
The 76-year-old scientist was mourned by his children Robert, Lucy and Timothy, joined by guests including playwright Alan Bennett, businessman Elon Musk and model Lily Cole.
Eddie Redmayne, the actor who played Professor Hawking in the 2014 film “The Theory of Everything” was one of the readers in the ceremony and Felicity Jones, who played his wife, Jane Hawking in the film also attended the service.
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
- March 31, 1840 — President Van Buren issued executive order establishing 10-hour workday for federal employees.
- March 31, 1987 – Max Headroom aired on TV.
- March 31, 1995 – Tank Girl debuted in theaters.
- March 31, 1999 – The Matrix premiered.
(10) COMICS SECTION.
- JJ enjoyed Incidental Comics’ depiction of “Perfect Reading Spots”.
- Mike Kennedy says “Black holes (sort of) make two appearances in today’s comic strips“ — Pearls Before Swine and Over the Hedge.
(11) WHICH COMES FIRST? THE PRESS RELEASE. In “The Silicon Valley elite’s latest status symbol: Chickens” the Washington Post says, “Their pampered birds wear diapers and have personal chefs — but lay the finest eggs tech money can buy.”
…In true Silicon Valley fashion, chicken owners approach their birds as any savvy venture capitalist might: By throwing lots of money at a promising flock (spending as much as $20,000 for high-tech coops). By charting their productivity (number and color of eggs). And by finding new ways to optimize their birds’ happiness — as well as their own.
Like any successful start-up, broods aren’t built so much as reverse engineered. Decisions about breed selection are resolved by using engineering matrices and spreadsheets that capture “YoY growth.” Some chicken owners talk about their increasingly extravagant birds like software updates, referring to them as “Gen 1,” “Gen 2,” “Gen 3” and so on. They keep the chicken brokers of the region busy finding ever more novel birds.
“At Amazon, whenever we build anything we write the press release first and decide what we want the end to be and I bring the same mentality to the backyard chickens,” said Ken Price, the director of Amazon Go, who spent a decade in San Francisco before moving to Seattle. Price, 49, has had six chickens over the past eight years and is already “succession planning” for his next “refresh.”
(12) ENERGIES IMAGINED. In “Fuelling the Future” on Aeon, Aberstywyth University historian Iwan Rhys Morus analyzes Robert A. Heinlein’s 1940 story “Let There Be Light” in an analysis of how sf writers created stories about new power sources.
Heinlein needed the sunscreens to make his future work; that is, to answer the problem of how technological culture might flourish in a world of diminishing resources. This was not a new problem, even in 1940, and it is an increasingly pressing one now. The question of what is going to fuel the future has never been more urgent. Is it going to be wind or wave power? Will fuel cells, solar panels or even the holy grail of fusion be the answer to our problems? Or are we going to frack ourselves into oblivion? If we want to better understand how we speculate about future energy now, then we need to appreciate the extent to which those speculations have a history, and that their history (from the early Victorian period on) contains such fictions as Heinlein’s story as often as, and frequently mixed in with, highly technical debates about the characteristics and requirements of different modes of energy production and consumption.
(13) RUSS’ INFLUENCE. The Baffler’s Jessa Crispin, in “No Mothers, No Daughters”, an excerpt from her introduction to a new edition of Joanna Russ’s How to Supress Women’s Writing, says “I came at Russ sideways…seeing her name-checked by the punk rock chicks who created their own culture through zines an mix tapes when they failed to see themselves through thee wider culture.”
Reading Joanna Russ’s How to Suppress Women’s Writing, I wondered, what the hell is it going to take? For decades we have had these types of critiques. We have had books and lectures and personal essays and statistics and scientific studies about unconscious bias. And yet still we have critics like Jonathan Franzen speculating on whether Edith Wharton’s physical beauty (or lack of it, as is his assessment of her face and body) affected her writing, we have a literary culture that is still dominated by one small segment of the population, we have a sense that every significant contribution to the world of letters was made by the heterosexual white man—and that sense is reinforced in the education system, in the history books, and in the visible world.
This complaint wasn’t even exactly fresh territory when Russ wrote her book, which I do not say to diminish her accomplishment. It is always an act of bravery to stand up to say these things, to risk being thought of as ungrateful. Your small pile of crumbs can always get smaller.
But what is it going to take to break apart these rigidities? Russ’s book is a formidable attempt. It is angry without being self-righteous, it is thorough without being exhausting, and it is serious without being devoid of a sense of humor. But it was published over thirty years ago, in 1983, and there’s not an enormous difference between the world she describes and the one we currently inhabit.
(14) THE MARCHING GENIUSES: At Featured Futures, Jason’s prepared another list of bright literary lights in the Summation: March 2018
The fifteen noted stories (nine recommended) come from the 112 (of about 560,000 words) that I’ve read with a publication date between February 26 and March 31. The printzines were decent, with Analog, Asimov’s, F&SF and Interzone (the latter reviewed for Tangent) being represented by more than one story from their bi-monthly issues. On the web, Lightspeed has two from just this month while Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Flash
Fiction Online, and Nature also make appearances.
(15) JDA SIGHTING. Kilroy was there.
All is ????at the @Worldcon2018 @TheHugoAwards unveiling. Why are they scared of me when I don’t cause any trouble? #HugoAwards pic.twitter.com/ZhDZHCqWcO
— Jon Del Arroz (@jondelarroz) March 31, 2018
Or as JDA put it in his press release (!) –
Today was a step forward for the cviil rights of conservative-libertarians in SF/F, as I attended the Hugo Award Nomination ceremony without harassment from the Worldcon 2018 staff. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am 1. not disruptive at Worldcon events — or any convention, as FogCon proved and 2. that the discrimination I face from them was for reasons other than my being a danger to any guests (since I am clearly not, and they clearly didn’t think I was here).
The Worldcon Staff was uninviting — a nearly all white group I might add — not seeming to want to have a Hispanic author in their presence. It is something we will have to overcome in fandom together in time.
(16) GRAND THEFT LUNCH. SFF cannot keep up with stories like this from the real world!!!! Begin here —
https://twitter.com/zaktoscani/status/979448251546927104
(17) IN CHARACTER. Jeff Goldblum in his Thor: Ragnarok character in a short film “Grandmaster Moves To Earth.” From 2017, but it’s news to me!
[Thanks to JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Mlex, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Cat Eldridge, Jason, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
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First!
2) Puppy Free — if only Scalzi had made that his second fifth point! 😉
Today’s Meredith Moment:
Jonathan Strahan’s The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eleven (2017 version, with 2016 stories) is currently on sale at Amazon US (and possibly the other Usual Suspects) for 99c.
11) The friend from whom I acquired my chickens—or more accurately, my husband’s chickens—has been spitting tacks since this article came out. She’s deeply morally offended that these poor Silicon souls have no friends who will GIVE them chickens, and of course God would strike her dead if she charged that kind of money for a chicken.
I mean, my husband loves his chickens, don’t get me wrong, but there’s hard limits on what I’d pay for poultry.
ETA: …who puts out a press release for the fact they went and listened to nominations being announced?
11) This is why we can’t have nice things.
(11) Silicon Valley is inhabited by aliens.
(15) JDA is an alien.
11) Consume. No independent thought. Sleep.
(15)
Yes, because raising funds for a lawsuit against Worldcon is the best way to ingratiate yourself with them.
(3) Prior to “Wind Will Rove”, all of the more recent nominations from any of the print-only magazines have been Puppy-adjacent, no? The Analog nominations in 2014 were Torgerson, and those in 2015 were No Awarded.
(15) Speaking as somebody who was also lurking in the back (near JdA, actually) at the San Jose Hugo finalist reveal, I’m unclear as to what exactly he means by “uninviting”. I’m not in the habit of expecting people who don’t know me to drop their conversations and warmly greet me. And I am extremely white so I’m pretty sure there’s no racial component.
@Goobergunch : In general, my sense is that any short fiction for-pay is at a huge disadvantage for the Hugos, and print all the more so.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Asimov’s story that made the ballot was one of the ones that made the Reader’s Award Finalists and was posted freely, or that the story from The Starlit Wood to make the ballot was specifically the one also reprinted in Uncanny. Absolutely no disrespect to the nominees — there’s excellent reason Pinsker’s story was a favorite for Asimov’s readers, and for Amal El-Mohtar’s story to be rapidly reprinted! But, goodness yes, print-only short fiction doesn’t seem to be very viable for Hugos at the moment.
@Standback
I’d put it slightly differently – it’s not specifically non-free sources at a disadvantage, but difficult-to-acquire sources. Tor.com Publishing do very well for themselves with their not-free novellas. The difficulty the print mags have is that getting a back issue to read that one great novella someone is recommending to you is awkward and expensive.
On the other hand you can pick up a recommended tor novella six months later with ease and for cheaper.
You could make a similar argument for anthologies on price, although they’re easier to acquire. For example I saw several recs for stories from The Book of Swords (Dozois ed) but it is still hardcover only and £20 in the UK.
The other thing is that there isn’t any quality gap between print and the better online sources. There are stories I’ve read in the print mags which I thought really ought to be in the Hugo nomination mix, and I wish they got a bit more attention, but I honestly couldn’t argue that a sub to Asimovs is the better choice than a sub to Clarkesworld, or vice versa.
15: SPLC and Anti-Defamation League state that the “OK” hand sign is just BS, intended to insight liberals but means nothing; other sources that follow the militia movement state that it is representative of the “3 percenters” – a belief that only 3 percent of colonists fought against the British during he revolution (and that they can somehoe claim descendancy)
In either case and regardless of meaning, it amply demonstrates that JDA is a child who simply can not control himself no matter where he goes.
15
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2
This is the first Puppy free ballot since 2014. That makes voting this year all the harder–no auto rejections.
@Mark:
“Cheaper” is definitely an excellent point. F&SF has been running incredible novellas and novelettes for years now — a length underserved by most online magazines — but, yeah, you can’t unbundle them from the rest of the issue, which is like $8-$9 for a back issue.
I’ve had high hopes that Asimov’s would also field strong longer fiction now that they’ve shifted to a bimonthly format, although, to my disappointment, I found their 2017 run very discouraging.
I’m not sure I agree with you about the quality gap — not Asimov’s specifically (unfortunately), but yes certain print venues and anthologies — but, I agree the difference is slight enough (and only notable over great time) that choosing the free venues makes sense. Of course, that brings us to questions of how sustainable a free-only (or mostly-free) short story ecosystem is; I’m worried about it in the long run.
And, ::sigh::, yeah, I guess I kind of hate feeling like I’m in an unappreciated backwater of the field.
I know I’m not. I know I personally enjoy the hell out of F&SF every other month, and feel there’s a substantial gap; I also know I enjoy those stories every iota as much even if they never win an award again.
But it worries me that they can’t compete, popularity-wise, against “free on the internet.” I worry that sooner or later, they’ll need to shut down. And, for me at least, no number of online magazines would be much comfort if that happened :-/
None of which is to argue with what you’re saying. Just… stuff I’m feeling and thinking and occasionally fretting about.
/c4c
@Standback
Agreed that F&SF do really well at the longer end of short – it’s why I sub to them – but you can see the online venues catching up to publish more at those lengths. For example, approx 40% of new Clarkesworld stories last year were novelettes, plus one novella.
I don’t think lack of Hugo attention is likely to be the thing that puts one of the big three out of business (and I hope that’s not on the cards). It seems to me to be an unfortunate consequence of the differing models. Clarkesworld say they get approx 7% of readers paying for their content. I think the last circulation figures I saw suggested they had several times the eyeballs on their stories than the print mags, but probably only half the number of people actually reaching for their wallets. So, yes, a Hugo nominator is probably more likely to be a Clarkesworld reader than a F&SF reader. Harsh, but on the other hand I suspect Neil Clarke would swap that for F&SFs subscriber numbers 🙂
I wonder if anyone will dip their toes into selling individual stories from back issues? I suspect that fear of eroding subscriber numbers will prevent anyone taking that step.
(13) Thanks for the link to this interesting piece. I love the last line.
I hope the rest of the intro praises Russ’ book for its humor, and its usefulness in suggesting further reading. And the last chapter is beyond praise.
(11) Eggs came long before chickens, of course. We had chickens back when it was the thing to do if you were desperate to feed your family.
Which came first, the pixel or the scroll?
@Goobergunch: I’m unclear as to what exactly he means by “uninviting”. Failing to immediately genuflect before a Jenoowine Published Author? IIRC, Torgersen’s (retroactive?) complaint about his first Worldcon amounted to something like this.
@7: Yunchtime apparently can’t keep straight how the conference organizer’s name is spelled. (I had a looks-wrong moment at “Demoupolis” even before seeing “Demopoulos” further down; this one’s on them, not @OGH.)
@Chip Hitchcock
Aren’t the Jenoowine from one of the later Dune books?
(11) The article made me think of “Green Acres”.
@Mark:
A while back, Nancy Fulda had a setup called “Anthology Builder,” whose purpose was to enable readers to construct their own anthologies. I’m sure there’s a myriad of reasons for this to be completely untenable for pros. All the same, I really wish that magically became the standard model, because I would looooove to be able to pluck out and repackage my favorites…
Mark: Aren’t the Jenoowine from one of the later Dune books?
No, Jenoowine is the planet in the system next to Tatooine. It managed to avoid being destroyed by the Death Star, but ended up overrun with pompous windbags. A Level 9 Quarantine of the planet was instituted; however, occasionally one of its denizens makes an escape. 😀
Goobergunch says (15) Speaking as somebody who was also lurking in the back (near JdA, actually) at the San Jose Hugo finalist reveal, I’m unclear as to what exactly he means by “uninviting”. I’m not in the habit of expecting people who don’t know me to drop their conversations and warmly greet me. And I am extremely white so I’m pretty sure there’s no racial component.
But JDA’s the Leading Hispanic Genre Writer and that means everyone should greet him and invite him to be part of their conversation as he’s important. Bull. Most of us don’t greet strangers warmly when we’re already engaged in something, so why should he be different.
The difficulty the print mags have is that getting a back issue to read that one great novella someone is recommending to you is awkward and expensive.
They aren’t stocked in most magazine racks any more, so I don’t even see them at, for example the supermarket or the drug store – both of which are places I’m more likely to be than the “local” bookstore (about 10 miles away).
(13) The Jessa Crispin essay, for all that it makes some interesting points, is seriously marred by some absolute stupidity — for instant, the notion “[Russ] has not been incorporated into the wild world of 1970s and 80s science fiction,” to which I can only answer “say what?”. And Octavia Butler is somehow “more womanly” than Russ? (The idea that critics assure us that Dickinson had no influence is pretty dodgy too.)
P J Evans notes The difficulty the print mags have is that getting a back issue to read that one great novella someone is recommending to you is awkward and expensive.
Here in the Portland, Maine area, I’m fairly sure the Book-A-Million store is the only place that you can find F&Sf and Asimov’s as the local indies don’t stock them anymore. Decades back, the local supermarkets did but their buyers stopped carrying them.
F&Sf puts it features for each issue online is nice as I can read the book reviews that way. And if they were done as audiobooks, I’d listen to them.
One of the original goals of Rocket Stack Rank was to make it as easy as possible for people to figure out how to get back issues of the print magazines. Our 2018 Magazines page has all the latest info we could find. It’s mostly focused on getting online copies though.
@Greg,
Yes, and very helpful it is too. It does say something that a fan needed to make a specialised page to provide something that their websites don’t though. As an experiment I just tried navigating from the front pages of the Asimovs and F&SF sites to an option to buy a back issue. F&SF really wanted me to buy a sub but I eventually found an option to buy an old issue direct via paypal or via Weightless Books, at a mere +80% markup on the sub price. For Asimovs I couldn’t find any option at all!
It’s pretty clear that their business model is to get and retain subscriptions above all else, and I can’t argue too much with that given how precarious their market is, but their discouragement of casual browsers borders on the extreme.
Mark, JJ: Maybe you’re thinking of the Jenoine, from Steve Brust’s Dragaeran books?
I’ll just stick in a plug here for Kindle subscriptions to F & SF, Analog, and Asimov’s. It’s the Right Thing to Do! 🙂
@Contrarius
And I’ll stick in a plug for using Weightless Books for F&SF, plus Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Uncanny et al. DRM free, direct to kindle option, etc etc.
@David Shallcross
That may have been lurking at the back of my mind, but mostly it was just a bad joke 🙂
I picked up a giant haul of F&SF back issues in December for free from a library book sale and enjoyed the 2017 set enough to pick up the $5 Kindle subscription when it was posted here. I’m not sure that I would have read them otherwise.
(2) Scalzi’s book was the first nominee that I bought for this year. Barely into it and glad I’m back in one of his works.
With respect to the categories where I am most likely to vote…..[sigh]. I just hope the repeat nominees had better entries this year than in year’s past. Particularly in the fancast category.
Here in 7321, we have learned that on April 1st, one ought not to believe that it is 7321.
Regards,
Dann
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. – Thomas Jefferson
Goobergunch on March 31, 2018 at 11:36 pm said:
When you loudly threaten lawsuits against a convention committee with a threatening-sounding letter from your attorney that you also publish in public, don’t be surprised at all if nobody from that convention committee will speak to you. There’s a pretty good chance that their legal advice has been to not interact with you in any way if at all possible, and to direct all interaction to be via their lawyer.
Incidentally, to the extent that it matters, the host of one of the other two live announcements (me) is (according to his mother) 3/8 Native American (various tribes; it’s a legacy of having your grandparents coming from Northern Arkansas with ancestry that predates the Trail of Tears), although he doesn’t “identify culturally” which is part of the criteria for checking the “Native American” box on the census form. Or, as a counselor told us when I was young: “Do you ‘feel Indian?'” Yes, “self-identifying” is part of the criteria! On a different branch of the family tree, however, I appear to have pre-Revolutionary War European ancestry, including, I’m told, what might be called an “illegal immigrant” today in the form of a 12-year-old German stowaway on a ship bound for the American Colonies.
15) Podcasting WHILE DRIVING…So smart, right? Talk about an accident waiting to happen. Sheesh!
Wow. “Government … shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” That was the job of Thomas Jefferson and the other enslavers, apparently. Jefferson remains a superlative example of how detached “intelligence” and “self-awareness” can be.
@Kevin Standlee I agree and I wish I didn’t have to stand up for my civil rights to attend a convention, but remember, Worldcon went and published on their website banning me publicly, making a stink, and calling me a racist bully. It’s unprecedented behavior and I have to explore legal options because of a refusal to even talk to me (to this day no one even has told me what I “intended” on violating so I can’t even correct the record — I am on the record saying I never intended to violate any rules several times). I’ve been to Worldcons before, I’ve been to this event and no one has ever considered me trouble or a danger.
I, like everyone else, just want to be able to attend a convention and celebrate science fiction as a professional and fan without being harassed. The committee wouldn’t afford me that. They still won’t. I sent one last email to Kevin hoping I can work it out man to man, but otherwise the suit is filing next week. We can’t let this kind of thing happen in fandom. It’s not right.
Regarding the print mags, the only place in Europe where I have ever seen physical copies of Asimov’s, Analog and F&SF for sale was the SFF basement of the old Murder One store in London. Not even Forbidden Planet carried them (they do have Interzone though), let alone any other store.
In Germany, not even the big international newsstands at major train stations and airports carry any of the US SFF mags. I can get media mags like SFX and Sci-Fi Now and even Doctor Who Magazine (and Perry Rhodan, John Sinclair and so on, of course), but that’s it.
Kind of difficult to read something you cannot buy.
@JDA or mouthpiece: this is the wrong place to try out your tongue won’t melt butter innocence. You’ve been an a-hole, you’ve had it explained endlessly how you’ve been an a-hole and yet, you’re still an a-hole.
Go peddle at a Trump rally – they might believe your BS.
I’m hoping the “leading Hispanic” comment above is a failed attempt at April Fool’s “humour”. If not, sheesh, accept responsibility for your actions in public and move on. You’re not more important than the other members of Worldcon, the unpaid volunteers of a private event made a decision not to waste there limited time in dealing with you, and now youre threatening to launch a doomed lawsuit. Grow up.
Here’s a handy link to what WorldCon actually said which no-one will be shocked to see is subtly different from what JDA claims they said.
(Also, his crowd funding effort currently stands at 13% of target…)
We switched to (non-Kindle) electronic subscriptions a few years ago for Analog and Asimov’s, after seriously considering dropping them (after reading them for decades). The overall quality just wasn’t as good as it used to be (probably because there are so many other outlets now besides “the big three”.)
F&SF is still very good, and we still get paper copies in the mail every other month (at which time, I drop everything else to read the new issue)–thanks to the $100 I spent in 1977 for a lifetime subscription. (Best money I’ve every spent.)
I finished the audiobook of Kevin Hearne’s A PLAGUE OF GIANTS the other day. It was excellent. The twin narrators switched voices with ease and flow and brought the entire first-person narrative to brilliant life. If you haven’t read it yet, do yourself a favor and get the audiobook.
Swearing at me continuously is a bad look, Steve. Let’s stop with that kind of thing.
John Lorentz on April 1, 2018 at 11:25 am said:
I wanted to do that for Analog, but the information didn’t seem to be available on their website (!). (I can understand not putting it in the dead-tree magazine, but it’s still a good idea.) So when the quality got to “only liking one or two stories per year”, I let the subscription lapse.
@Chip Hitchcock
Thanks for catching the typos! My bad. I was focusing on Allen Steele’s replies, and should have reviewed my quickly typed questions with equal attention. Fixed.
Apologies to Fritz Demopoulos.
best regards, Mlex
(10) COMICS SECTION. Hehehe, I love the “Perfect Reading Spots” comic; I LOL’d at a few of the panels.
(15) JDA SIGHTING. No one’s afraid of you, bozo; you’re just pathetic. Attending a public event in a bar is not at all related to “cviil” [sic] rights. Also, thid doesn’t “prove” anything about what your disruption capability or intentions elsewhere. Lord, what a tool that mortal be.
@JDA: You don’t have a civil right to attend Worldcon.
“no one has ever considered me trouble or a danger.”
This is obviously untrue.
“work it out man to man”
Oh lordy. So it’s all about being macho, for you?!
(16) GRAND THEFT LUNCH. I have no idea who that guy is/how this relates to SFF, but OMG comedy gold! ROFLMAO!!! And I’m amazed no one called her out on it, or that HR didn’t discipline her regardless of what the employee said. What a jerk (her) and what a freaking mystery. Is there a term like kleptomanic, but for someone who steals random things specifically in order to throw them away??? (I realize we only know of one occurrence; it just got me wondering.)
The horror film version will be called “I know what you shrimped last lunch break.”
(17) IN CHARACTER. Hehehe. I’d seen some of the previous ones with Thor, but I hadn’t seen this, methinks. Thanks!
[Missed the edit window.]
BTW “afraid of you” != “consider me trouble or a danger,” in case anyone felt I was being contradictory there. (And actually, for all I know, maybe someone is afraid of JDA; sorry, I didn’t mean to speak for the world at large there.)