(1) PRINCESS ON CAMPAIGN. A set of election posters help publicize a new Star Wars novel — “Leia’s Past Haunts Her In new Star Wars: Bloodline Poster”, at IGN.
Set in-between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, the upcoming novel Star Wars: Bloodline focuses on Leia Organa, and the shifting role she finds herself playing after the Rebel Alliance’s victory and key moments that will define who she is in Episode VII.
IGN has the exclusive debut of four posters for the novel, which will be given to fans at C2E2 and other upcoming conventions.
The posters are all variations on one another – starting with an in-universe campaign image of Leia and then showing how it has been defaced in different ways by some who seem none too happy with the Princess from Alderaan.
(2) DARTH BY THE HEARTH. Meanwhile, Dad’s lifestyle is no longer as glamorous: “This Ukranian man lives his life as Darth Vader – and the photos are incredible”
While many people would consider themselves serious “Star Wars” fans, one Ukrainian man is taking things to the next level.
Darth Mykolaiovych Vader legally changed his name in homage to the classic “Star Wars” villain. He spends his days dressed in a Vader costume, complete with black cloak, gloves, and of course, the iconic face mask.
Reuters caught up with Vader to see what life is like as one of the world’s most famous movie villains. Turns out, even mundane tasks, like showering and dog walking, look a lot cooler when the Sith Lord does them.
(3) CARNEGIE AND GREENAWAY SHORTLISTS. The shortlists for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals have been announced.
The Carnegie Medal, established in 1936, is awarded annually to the writer of an outstanding book for children. The Kate Greenaway Medal has been given since 1955 for distinguished illustration in a book for children.
Locus Online identified these titles on the shortlists as being of sf/f interest.
Carnegie Medal
- The Lie Tree, Frances Hardinge (Macmillan)
- The Rest of Us Just Live Here, Patrick Ness (Walker)
- Five Children on the Western Front, Kate Saunders (Faber)
- The Ghosts of Heaven, Marcus Sedgwick (Indigo)
Greenaway Medal
- The Sleeper and the Spindle, Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell (Bloomsbury)
The winners will be announced June 20.
(4) A MONTH OF MARCH. C. Stuart Hardwick thinks a writing career is a marathon. He means it literally. See “Stay Fit” at The Fictorians.
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how infirm! In action how like a potato!
…American’s should ditch the office chair and switch to a treadmill desk they said. We could loose a few pounds a week just by walking instead of sitting, and address all the other health impacts at the same time. We are not evolved to sit around, nor to stand around, but to hike.
So okay, I decided to give it a try. Treadmill desks are stupid expensive, though, so I made my own. I put a laptop and $10 worth of wire shelving on a $600 Horizon T101 treadmill. I learned to touch type while walking at 2.2 MPH on an incline—just enough to barely crack a sweat. I started loosing weight.
After two months, I was so impressed, I decided to splurge on an upgrade.
I bought a dedicated workstation and bolted it to the treadmill with a monitor arm and a theatrical clamp (I blogged about it here: https://cstuarthardwick.wordpress.com/2013/08/03/upgraded-treadmill-desk-2/). My weight kept falling. In addition to the treadmill, I also started spending time on the exercycle as well, and I used MyFitnessPal to track my net calories. In six months, I lost 45 pounds.
(5) WU ON SYFY SERIES. Brianna Wu appears in a new episode of The Internet Ruined My Life.
200 death threats later, online harassment is a new kind of normal for game developer Brianna Wu. But she refuses to let it silence her.
Wu is one of the subjects in the latest episode of the new Syfy Network series, “The Internet Ruined My Life.”
Wu is the cofounder and CEO of a gaming studio, Giant Spacekat, which make games that empower women, not objectify them.
(6) NOW WE KNOW. Pat Cadigan gives an assist to Philip K. Dick.
Well, that answers that question: pic.twitter.com/oY8hXW9RK1
— Pat Cadigan (@Cadigan) March 15, 2016
(7) IRISH SF. The Dublin 2019 Worldcon Bid has been given permission by author Jack Fennell to publish his bibliography of Irish Science Fiction, which describes hundreds Irish Science Fiction stories and books published from the 1850s to the present day. Download A Short Guide to Irish Science Fiction [PDF file].
Jack Fennel has also written a book, Irish Science Fiction.
When I started my doctoral research into Irish SF, I thought that I had picked a nice handy topic: there couldn’t be that many Irish SF novels and short stories out there, and whatever amount there was must be very recent. Over the course of the next four years, I was proven wrong over and over again. There were hundreds of texts out there, so many that I had to abandon my plans to write a comprehensive overview. What struck me as particularly bizarre, though, was the difficulty I had in finding this stuff when there was such an abundance of it. The reasons became apparent as I continued digging.
Firstly, it was just an accepted truism that Ireland was not science-fictional. The phrase ‘Irish science fiction’ would, at best, bring forth memories of irascible Irish engineer Miles O’Brien from the Star Trek franchise (to date, the only character to shout “Bollocks!” on a Star Trek episode); at worst, it would trigger traumatic flashbacks to Leprechaun 4: In Space. The idea of Irish SF in itself was somewhat ridiculous, and more often than not played for laughs. There was a general perception, among the ‘uninitiated’ anyway, that the Irish just didn’t bother imagining such things.
(8) UNMADE INDIANAS. Simon Brew at Den of Geek knows all about “The Indiana Jones Films That Never Were”.
Indiana Jones and the Saucermen from Mars
Following the success of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, George Lucas would develop an idea or two that could have seen a fourth Indy adventure in cinemas in the 1990s. One that got quite far into the writing process was Indiana Jones and the Saucermen from Mars, an idea that Lucas started working on in 1993. He originally hired Jeb Stuart to write the script for him before passing on the mantle to the late Jeffrey Boam (who had co-written The Last Crusade.)
In this one, Indy very nearly gets married at the start to a linguist by the name of Dr. Elaine McGregor. Amongst the guests at the wedding would have been Marion, Willie, Sallah, and his father, but instead of walking down the aisle, McGregor hops into a car on the big day and disappears. The search is thus on to find her.
Turns out she’s working on the discovery of alien bodies and a strange stone cylinder. Indy and McGregor crack the code on said cylinder, which turns out to be coordinates leading them to a mountain. Russian spies want in though, and as Indy tries to rescue Elaine from one of their planes, a flying saucer appears. A further alien encounter sees a truck being lifted off the ground. Meanwhile, a mysterious countdown clock ticks away, with the assumption being that it’s a bomb.
(9) EXCUSE FOR A PUNNY HEADLINE. Sometimes they have storms in Ireland, you may have heard. “Storm ‘troopers’ to inspect Star Wars site after winter weather causes safety concerns” reports the BBC.
An Irish island used as location in the latest Star Wars film is to undergo safety inspections after it felt the full force of winter storms.
Skellig Michael, off County Kerry coast, is a Unesco World Heritage Site that has played host to 8th Century monks and 21st Century film crews.
Parts of Star Wars Episode VII were filmed on the rocky landmass in 2014.
(10) STRING THEORY. Alastair Reynolds salutes Supermarionation in “Hey Joe” at Approaching Pavonis Mons by balloon.
After a military coup, a dictator misappropriates global aid funds to develop drone warfare technology to use against his own citizens. A stricken submarine ends up in the territorial waters of a Central American failed state, threatening to derail international peace talks. In a Middle Eastern Sultanate, a political assassination leads to a constitutional crisis, imperilling the progressive, democratic policies of the rightful successor to the throne. In the Arctic, a nuclear accident heightens an already tense East-West standoff…
Failed states. Democracies. Autonomous weapons. Middle East crises. Rising nuclear tension. The East and West at each other’s throats …
Sound familiar?
This is the world of 2013 – or rather the world of 2013 as envisaged in 1968, when Gerry Anderson began making Joe 90, the last of his series to be based exclusively around Supermarionation.
(11) TODAY IN HISTORY
- March 16, 1966 — NASA astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott docked their Gemini 8 space vehicle with an Agena craft, a first in orbital history.
(12) THE FIRST TRUMP. Jeb Kinnison’s piece “Trump World: Looking Backward” is recommended as having a Canticle for Leibowitz illustratrion and flavor.
The Internet seemed to end the constraints on opinion, but a new sound of silence appeared when its two-way nature allowed crowds to join together to silence expression of ideas they found threatening. People lost their jobs because of one errant tweet, and politicians found it useful to stoke the flames of envy and resentment to gain votes. A new victim cult appeared, seeing racism and sexism in every element of US life, and command of the cult’s lexicon enabled entry to academic and government positions.
The left-behind grew angry, and simmered in disability payments and painkilling drugs while they saw their children discriminated against by the gateway institutions built by their forebears. They had supported the growth of the Federal government through costly wars and the building of a social safety net, only to be left out and denigrated by their ruling class. Federal agencies were taken over by progressives and affirmative-action hires, and wasted time and resources shuffling reports and holding grand meetings to write about working toward solving problems that barely existed while neglecting their core functions. The levels of incompetence tolerated grew and grew, until civil service employees could hold their jobs after being absent for years or being discovered spending most of their time viewing Internet porn. Major new government programs and projects failed and billions of dollars were wasted without consequence, those responsible for the failures being promoted to further damage the private economy by ruling from Washington.
And all that’s before Trump even appears.
(13) NUSSBAUM’S BALLOT. Abigail Nussbaum’s entry “The 2016 Hugo Awards: My Hugo Ballot, Short Fiction Categories” makes compelling reading for her honest admission that – like who knows how many Hugo voters – she’s allergic to paying for short fiction.
Before we get started, a few comments on methodology, and observations on the state of the field. Almost all of these stories were published in magazines that are freely available online, largely because that makes them easier to access whenever I have some free reading time. As I did last year, I ended up skipping the print magazines completely, as well as most of the for-pay online magazines. The one exception is the novella category, where the e-book boom continues to be extremely rewarding for both authors and readers, creating a new market for slimmer volumes and more contained stories that you can enjoy for just a few dollars apiece.
She also read the free fiction on Tor.com despite some misgivings – it was, after all, free.
Second, I should say that I debated for a long time over reading stories published on Tor.com, or in the publisher’s new novella line. The behavior last year of Tor editor Tom Doherty, in which he all but aligned himself with the Rabid Puppies and their leader Vox Day, was to me completely beyond the pale, and the fact that Doherty has not retracted or apologized for his words is a black stain on the entire company he runs….
(14) I’M SHOCKED. Via “Barbershops, Bookshops, Histories and Bad Math” by Jared at Pornokitsch, this link to the Observer post “Amazon Best-Selling Author” is a crock of shit”.
Last week, I put up a fake book on Amazon. I took a photo of my foot, uploaded to Amazon, and in a matter of hours, had achieved “No. 1 Best Seller” status, complete with the orange banner and everything.
(15) PHOTO TOUR OF LEGO HOGWARTS. From Popsugar, “A Supermom Created This 400,000-Piece Hogwarts Castle Out of LEGOs, and We Are Speechless”.
Finch’s absolutely epic 400,000 piece structure puts every single LEGO creation ever built — my tiny, school-bound Potter most of all — to shame.
The mother of two built a LEGO Hogwarts castle so full of detail, only a true fan could have lovingly pieced it together with such success. “I did quite a bit of research in the books and movies looking for the smallest of details, things like the old-fashioned slide projector in Lupin’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class, the location of the potions class, and the wood paneling in the charms classroom,” she told LEGO blog The Brother’s Brick.
(16) BITE ME. “’You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat’: ‘Jaws’ Writer Reveals Origins of Movie’s Famous Line” in The Hollywood Reporter.
The infamous line from Jaws, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” which landed at No. 3 on Hollywood’s Top 100 Movie Quotes, came about during those rewrites.
“It was an overlap of a real-life problem combined with the dilemma of the characters onscreen,” [Carl] Gottlieb says of the origins of the line. The real-life problem being a barge (named by the cast and crew S.S. Garage Sale), which carried all the lights and camera equipment and craft services, was steadied by a small support boat that was too tiny to manage the job.
Gottlieb recalls: “[Richard] Zanuck and [David] Brown were very stingy producers, so everyone kept telling them, ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat.’ It became a catchphrase for anytime anything went wrong — if lunch was late or the swells were rocking the camera, someone would say, ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat.'”
Roy Scheider, who played Brody in the movie, ad-libbed the line at different points in his performance throughout filming. But the one reading that made it in to the final cut of the movie was after the suspenseful first look at the great white shark. Says Gottlieb, “It was so appropriate and so real and it came at the right moment, thanks to Verna Field’s editing.”
Gottlieb has heard the line pop up in a lot of strange places, but he says the most memorable time it was quoted back to him was in a casino: “I was playing poker and thought I had a winning hand, ’cause I had a full house, which is referred to as a ‘full boat,’ and the guy across the table from me said, ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat,’ and he put down a larger full house.”
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Nigel, Will R., and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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Blurst!
Twiceth!
Filer on a half-shell!
13– I have to admit that most of the short fiction on my ballot was from free sites.
(also: First Fifth!)
Fifth!
[13] I’m pleased that Nussbaum has picked some of my own overlooked favorites, perhaps none so undeservedly overlooked as the Parzybok.
However, I found the spate of pieces featuring “AI protagonists, ship’s minds, and people who have been turned into spaceships” has become overdone and tedious. One of the benefits of my retirement is liberation from this trope.
I suspect that her inability to find more good novelettes may be tied to her avoidance of the printzines, where this length is strongest.
The Kree-Scroll War!
(7) Ah, those improbable Irish!
(10) Those Supermarionation shows are right smack in the Uncanny Valley. They’re almost human until you realize that they never blink!
(Seriously, you should watch the link. It’s SUPERTHUNDERSTINGCAR!)
Ninth?
(14) So “Amazon Best-Selling Author” is a fake achievement open to manipulation and possibly being used by grifting narcissistic sociopaths to boost their ego and ratings to a bunch of sycophantic rubes too stupid to know better?
Who’da thunk?
(13) NUSSBAUM’S BALLOT
Zero overlap with mine, which is not that surprising given that although I appreciate her reviews, I rarely agree with them.
Also: Second Fifth!
(1) PRINCESS ON CAMPAIGN.- Oyyyy. I really hoped that they would’ve kept Leia’s parentage “secret” in-universe, but I suppose that would include keeping her relationship with Luke secret as well.
(8) UNMADE INDIANAS. – OK. That sounds terrible. But I like that the article shouts out to Fate of Atlantis though – fantastic story, and great game.
(12) THE FIRST TRUMP. – I’m liking this narrative building that’s happening, that the current self-destruction of the Republican Party (as I understand it) is happening because of (***SPOILER***) liberals/Socialists/ Obama. The more it goes on, the more I understand why someone had the whole “YOU MADE US DO IT” meltdown last year.
Also, good stroy, but I liked it better when Eric Smith(?) did it on the Twitter:
(13) NUSSBAUM’S BALLOT. – I’m having a similar problem. With two exceptions (Wylding Hall and Penric’s Demon) all of my short works are from free sources. I’d like to read more form other sources but….money.
Also, with all due respect to her, come on! Doherty’s open letter was a stupid thing for him to do, as it was unprofessional, an over-reaction, and (rightly!) created the impression that there was some very selective sort of policy enforcement/ outrage going on. But saying that “… he all but aligned himself with the Rabid Puppies…”? I’m not sure if that is merely an over-simplification for effect, or sincere and dumb. (goes without saying, but mileage, it may vary).
This is the Scalzi
BurritoWrap approach to scroll titles, isn’t it? Throw it all in there and call it dinner?@snowcrash,
I thought there was something off with the Doherty open letter which seemed a knee-jerk reaction, and then the silence that followed was poor PR I thought. There is maybe a story there that we we don’t know, and maybe will never know. I, like most people have since moved on from that episode.
Re: 6 I do remember the episode where Data accidentally does start to dream, after an accident, although the programming was only intended for him to access once he had evolved/progressed to the point that it came naturally. I kinda liked the idea that it came by a random accident and chance. They should have done more with that and less with the execrable plotline in Star Trek Nemesis.
(12) contains some great kernels of narrative truth. The sad part is that you could swap Bernie for Trump for the most part and not change a thing. Particularly when it comes to protectionist trade policies and nationalizing health care.
Trump is scary. IMHO, Bernie is scarier.
Regards,
Dann
If by “kernels of narrative truth”, you mean “stuff that bears no relationship of any kind to reality”, sure.
If people are interested in sf about Donald Trump, you need to see the inevitable Attack on Titan-based political cartoon.
Hugo nominations are due March 31, so I’m closing my 2015 art collection now. I collected 35 Pro Artists and 34 Fan Artists.You can scan the tags here for Pro and here for Fan, or you may prefer to look at the archive. I hope everyone can find at least five worthy artists in each category.
Over the next week, I’ll make another few posts about art publications eligible for Best Related Work or Best Fanzine.
If you notice that I’ve left someone out, drop me an ask with the artist’s name, whether they’re Pro or Fan, and the titles of at least 2 eligible 2015 works. I won’t add an artist if I have to do the time-consuming task of figuring out which works are eligible.
I have already created @2016hugoart as a placeholder — I’ll start posting there in around November 2016.
@Lois Tilton
I found the four print magazines (Analog, Asimov’s, F&SF, and Interzone) had superior stories, on average, than any of the online sources. I also found that the novelette length seemed to be the ideal length for SFF stories. YMMV.
@snowcrash
You’ve probably already seen this, but there are lots of ways to borrow digital copies of online magazines for free: http://www.rocketstackrank.com/p/2015-magazines.html
If there were just one you were willing to pay for, it ought to be Asimov’s.
Soon Lee: I thought there was something off with the Doherty open letter which seemed a knee-jerk reaction, and then the silence that followed was poor PR I thought. There is maybe a story there that we we don’t know, and maybe will never know. I, like most people have since moved on from that episode.
My personal suspicion is that it was something cooked up by the Legal Dept and put in front of him to sign, and that he took their word for it and signed it (and that’s presuming that it wasn’t just put out in his name by them).
Given how well-known Ian McDonald is, I’m surprised people think there is no Irish science fiction.
That book sounds interesting…. and my university library has it.
Quibble: Ian Mcdonald lives in Belfast but was born in Manchester. So how does one define Irish SF? Produced in Ireland or produced by someone born in Ireland?
(7) I will defend Leprechaun 4: Leprechaun in Space as the very acme of the Leprechaun franchise. It may be the Platonic Ideal of the post-Corman, pre-Sharknado B movie. With Space Marines, even.
(1) Interesting. I’d wondered if in-universe, everybody knew who her father was.
(2) Yeah, but he kept the patronymic. If he was REALLY into being Vader, he wouldn’t have it, right? Either no father or Darthavych or Forceavych or Palpatineavych or summat.
(6) Glad that’s cleared up.
(12) Ending is good, but how he got there with all the counterfactuals leading up to it is a great mystery.
(13) Dafuq? Has she not been paying attention to how much Puppies hates Tor, yes precioussss they hates it? And most of my reading was free as well, but she and I have exactly 2 overlaps. And she has a few that I thought had a reach GREATLY exceeding their grasp and at the end I was “So what?”
People who didn’t read F&SF last year really missed out. So many good stories. One issue, I liked or loved every bit of fiction in it. I was unimpressed with the others. Asimov’s was okay but I wouldn’t pay for it, and the less said about Analog nowadays, the better.
(16) That’s delightful.
Petrea: Hee! Cleverly done, esp. the punny title.
Well, McDonald’s residence in Belfast has an influence on his writing; Sacrifice of Fools is set in that city, and the main character of “Botanica Veneris” is Irish, to name only two examples.
Clicky
@Lois Tilton,
Would you collect these pronouncements somewhere so we can slate you for fan writer and related work?
Doherty’s letter was the wrong moment to go into automatic corporate disclaimer mode, but automatic is what it was. I lost some respect for him but I never thought he was in any sense aligning himself with the Puppies.
I used to subscribe to F&SF electronically, until they decided that instead of being able to read it DRM-free on any device, you could only read it on a Kindle or on an Kindle app on an Android/IOS device. If I can’t get it DRM-free and be able to download it to my PC so I can archive it and copy it to my Nook, like every other SF magazine that I’m aware of, it’s dead to me.
@Brian Z – slate?
dann665:
Yeah, universal healthcare is scarier than open racism.
@j/LJ,
There are several theories. Either Lois Tilton is actually a cryptopuppy, I accidentally posted that with the wrong handle, or it’s a test to find out which word is considered most outrageous, “slate” or “we.” 😀
Actually, I was just thanking her for her pithy observations.
Nussbaum’s story picks are interesting ones. A definite preference for queer writers & characters. Most of those stories are what I’d call ambitious and interested in writing stories that haven’t been told much before. I have most of them noted down as intiguing. Not much overlap with my own award picks but not a single one I’d consider boring, either (except maybe “The Pauper Prince” and “Restore the Heart Into Love” — I just can’t manage to like John Chu’s brand of sentimentality).
Another thing all her choices have in common is expert control of style. I’m thoroughly in agreement that skillful wordcraft raises a story to a higher level. Take “Descent”, for example. It manages to create an unsettling atmosphere from the first paragraphs:
There is something detached about these descriptions; they’ve had the life and warmth sucked out of them. The emphasis on physical cold and dark is no more ominous than the hints of anonymity and uncertainty. The full extent to which things are not what they seem is not revealed until the end of the story.
@13 I seem to recall statements at the time that the Doherty press release was premature/not the version that was intended for release or some such. Can’t find any references to that to link to as it’s too early to wade through thousands of comments on tens of sites, but I do “remember” this.
Here’s the statement: http://www.tor.com/2015/06/08/a-message-from-tom-doherty-to-our-readers-and-authors/comment-page-3/#comment-526631
Doherty doesn’t align himself with puppies, but he also doesn’t support Gallo. As a statement, it could have been better.
Manchester counts as almost Irish
I’m a big big (big big big) fan of Nussbaum’s, and I’m also feeling a little… caught? trapped? … by her skipping print entirely.
Nussbaum’s been my go-to for fantastic finds for years now. If she isn’t going to read the print magazines, who is?
@Lois Tilton:
Exactly this.
F&SF’s double-length format lets them run fantastic novelettes and novellas. Standalone ebooks are a different option for the form, but discoverability is always going to be a huge barrier.
Just my own, very limited opinion, but this worries me :-/
I keep getting irritated by this line:
US has the absolutely worst health system in the western world. More expensive and still not everyone gets the help they need. It is abysmal. It is something to be ashamed of. And now people think it is scary that more people could get help for lower costs?
Oh, the humanity.
And on another note: Heathers reboot!
http://spinoff.comicbookresources.com/2016/03/16/dear-diary-a-heathers-anthology-series-is-on-the-way-from-tv-land/
A companion piece of sorts to the Irish SF link – Rob Maslen on two Irish fantasy writers, James Stephens and Lord Dunsany, and their involvement in the 1916 Rising. This is long but excellent.
http://fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/the-political-imagination-irish-fantasy-writers-and-the-easter-rising/
@Hampus:
I have been annoyed for quite some time by expressions of unthinking patriotism and “american exceptionalism”. They both can have the effect of blinding people to the truth that leads to inaction and an unwillingness to confront real problems.
In preparation for a forthcoming editorial on the subject (there is no special soil on the north american continent that confers superpowers upon those who touch it…my country right or wrong is a statement by and for idiots…) I have been looking at a host of comparisons. I’ll not put the data here (feels Mike’s eyes burning between his shoulder blades), I’ll sum up by saying that when you look at infrastructure, education, medicine, internet, lifestyle, and most other things that people agree make like livable and sometimes even enjoyable, the “greatest nation on Earth” rarely finds itself in the number 1 slot – and frequently (very frequently) doesn’t even make the top ten.
Detractors dismiss that anyway they can, but the truth is, if the US is “exceptional”, I’d rather have the humdrum ordinary being enjoyed in those other countries.
(If the US is “the greatest” it ought to be #1 in everything, with occasional exceptions until it manages to reclaim the top slot. But as we are learning more and more these days, the streets aren’t paved with gold, they’re paved with lead.)
@Standback
Rich Horton, Gardner Dozois, and Jonathan Strahan still do a fantastic job in sampling the diversity of short fiction, in my opinion, without such barriers as the one you worry about.
My favorite award shortlist is the Sturgeon, and to a lesser extent the World Fantasy, wich is assembled by similarly well-read people. And yes, while I am at it, I already sincerely miss Lois Tilton’s reviews.
But not so much people at the end of the day, sigh…
This is the reason I consider the Hugo shortlist as a fun exercize for fandom, but not so much an indication of what have been the best going on in short fiction, by the way. Slate voting or not, there is just too much sampling bias and not enough in-depth knowledge of what is going on. I don’t blame any one (I myself only read my short fiction long after it is fresh), but take note and pass on.
Greg Hullender – As I mentioned in my year’s summary, I consider 2015 to have been a particularly good year for the printzines relative to the ezines. Other years, I’ve thought the online publications relatively stronger. I did find the year relatively weak in novellas, but I didn’t see the Tor line.
But one weakness of the ezines, and unnecessarily so, has been the tendency to restrict word length to 5K words. Not a universal tendency, fortunately. The lamented Subterranean Online did a lot of longer works, and Tor.com has, even before the novella line came out. I also note that Clarkesworld has recently raised its word length. Strange Horizons has done some novelette-length works but then splits them up – a reader-unfriendly practice.
Brian Z – I have no such plans.
Greg Hullender – As I mentioned in my year’s summary, I consider 2015 to have been a particularly good year for the printzines relative to the ezines. Other years, I’ve thought the online publications relatively stronger. I did find the year relatively weak in novellas, but I didn’t see the Tor line.
But one weakness of the ezines, and unnecessarily so, has been the tendency to restrict word length to 5K words. Not a universal tendency, fortunately. The lamented Subterranean Online did a lot of longer works, and Tor.com has, even before the novella line came out. I also note that Clarkesworld has recently raised its word length. Strange Horizons has done some novelette-length works but then splits them up – a reader-unfriendly practice.
Brian Z – I have no such plans.
Vivien – appreciate it.
I wish this had been published a month ago, but SPIV has posted the collated list – top 10 recommendation getters except in instances of ties of 1 recommendation.
Looks well done and reflective of the people who were participating.
It isn’t yet up on the SPIV website, but a note at the beginning mentions it’ll be crossposted.
There’s a fascinating article here about the growing idea that the ancestors of the Irish, Scots, and so forth have actually been in the British Isles for a very long time, and are genetically unconnected with the post-Roman Celts.
With bonus Tolkien quote! (Tolkien the scholar, not Tolkien the fantasist.)
(1) I really like that Leia poster. I think I’m just a sucker for the ship silhouettes in the background; I think they’re pretty cool.
I don’t know many Irish authors (although I did read a kind of depressing and pretty book called “Shannon” by Frank Delaney that made me want to revisit that country) and definitely don’t know if I’ve ever read any “Irish SF” or know what that means. Although, I will say, that if I could have any accent in the world, it would be Irish.
Annnnnnnnnnn Declan Finn’s do-violence-to-Scalzi fanfic turns up in two places on that rec list.
And if they get any negative media coverage it’s a conspiracy. Do they not realise how things like that will come across to people outside their little clique?
I don’t think that has ever been a puppy strength.