(1) IT’S TIME TO PLAY: NAME THAT ELEMENT. You might remember the petition to honor the late Terry Pratchett by giving element 117 the name Octarine — “the color of magic” from Pratchett’s fiction. An article at Nature Chemistry reviews the competing names up for consideration for element 117 — and others.
SB: Petitions like this provide a lot of insight into how people grieve the loss of public figures, but it’s hard, if not impossible, to associate Lemmy with the periodic table or even chemistry and physics. While Lemmy’s death is still fresh in people’s minds, one has to wonder if future generations of scientists would have any connection to him. The petitioners also reference the large mass and expected metallic properties to connect the element with heavy metal music, which is clever on one level, but Lemmy considered Motörhead hard rock not heavy metal. Besides, lemmium would not fall under any of the acceptable categories outlined by IUPAC for naming elements.
KD: You’re probably right, although the petitions have turned out to be a fun way to get people from all areas of life talking about the new elements. We’ve also seen ‘starduston’ and ‘bowium’, in honour of David Bowie. Another example is the one I set up, to name element 117 ‘octarine’, after the colour of magic in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. Obviously I’m biased, but I still maintain that it would be rather appropriate for element 117, which will fall into the halogen group. Octarine is famously described as a sort of greenish-yellow purple, and these are, of course, all halogen colours. It even has the correct -ine ending for the group. According to the mythology of the books, it’s only visible to wizards, witches and cats, which also seems appropriate for an element that’s only been observed by a select few. The odds of IUPAC agreeing to this are probably a million to one but, as Pratchett himself wrote in several Discworld books, million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
SB: Once you described octarine, I can see how it fits into the halogen family. For an idea like this to gain traction though, someone on the research teams would need to be a fan of Discworld and advocate for it. So far, the mythological concepts used for element names have come from Greek, Roman and Norse sources. These classic mythologies tend to have more universal recognition. Is modern fiction the same as cultural traditions used to explain nature in the ancient world?
KD: Well, all stories have to start somewhere. IUPAC’s rules don’t put an age on the mythology rule, and indeed cobalt, named after the sprites that apocryphally lived underground where its ores were mined, might arguably be considered to be more recent. There are forty-one Discworld books, which have been translated into thirty-seven languages; I’m certain they’ll be remembered for many years to come. Likewise, the periodic table will probably be around for a while; any story we reference now will eventually be old…
(2) A VISIT TO THE SIXTIES. The keen-eyed Traveler at Galactic Journey argues that 55 years ago women were having an impact on the field greater than their numbers suggest.
1961. The year that an Irishman named Kennedy assumed the highest office in the land. The year in which some 17 African nations celebrated their first birthday. The air smells of cigarette smoke, heads are covered with hats, and men run politics, industry, and much of popular culture.
In a field (and world) dominated by men, it is easy to assume that science fiction is as closed to women as the local Elks Lodge. Who are the stars of the genre? Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Sheckley; these are household names. But if there is anything I have discovered in my 11 years as an avid science fiction fan (following another 20 of casual interest), it is that there is a slew of excellent woman authors who have produced a body of high quality work. In fact, per my notes, women write just one ninth of the science fiction stories published, but a full fourth of the best works.
(3) AND TODAY? This past year, according to William Shaw’s “The top 5 science fiction stories of 2015” in The Oxford Student, women wrote most of the best sf stories. (Three were published by Apex Magazine, and the other two by Uncanny Magazine.)
3. Pocosin by Ursula Vernon [http://www.apex-magazine.com/pocosin/]
The tone of story is best summarised by its central image of drinking whisky with Death. A contemplative tale about an old woman who takes in a dying swamp god, this is a slow, sad little number which nevertheless sparkles with the sense of wit and worldly wisdom that a story involving passive-aggressive banter with the devil really ought to have. Melancholy without being mawkish, funny without being daft, this is a gem of a story that highlights some important environmental concerns.
(4) WHAT MAKES A NOMINEE A NOMINEE. Brian Paone seems to be getting ahead of himself, but perhaps that’s an occupational hazard for the author of a time travel novel. See “Being nominated for a Hugo award is winning in itself”.
I found out this week that my time-travel romance novel, “Yours Truly, 2095” has been nominated by Hugo Award board member Christopher Broom for the most prestigious award a science fiction novel can receive: a Hugo Award. When I first started outlining the book, back in 2012, my goal was just to finish the book, without making it sound like a big pile of smoldering poo. I never expected 1) how happy I am with the finished product 2) then how many people have bought or read the book in the only 9 months its been out 3) then how many positive 4 & 5 star reviews its consistently receiving and finally 4) that I would ever be nominated for anything, never mind a Hugo!
When I told a friend, and fellow author Randy Blazak, his response was, “this will shoot you into the stratosphere.” I appreciate his enthusiasm for what this might do for my career, but honestly, I’m just on cloud nine that I was even nominated. I’m not even thinking of the future yet.
The award ceremony is in Kansas City during the weekend of August 17. For the first few seconds, I contemplated not going, since being at the ceremony is not a prerequisite, but it was my wife (who I always say might be my worst critic, but my number one supporter) told me, in not so many words, not going wasn’t an option.
So now I will be planning (airfare, hotel, etc) over the next few week to attend an award ceremony–not only any award ceremony, but the most prestigious award ceremony of the year–waiting with bated breath to hear my name and book title called out from the podium. And if it doesn’t win, it will not be a loss. It’s already been a greater win for me than I could ever have imaged 4 years ago when I started writing the book.
Sounds like he poured a bit too much of that timey-wimey stuff into his coffee… The nominations won’t be known til after the first round of voting closes March 31.
(5) SUPERHERO MOVIE MAKERS MAY BOYCOTT GEORGIA. Variety reports “Disney, Marvel to Boycott Georgia if Religious Liberty Bill Is Passed”
The Walt Disney Co. and Marvel Studios indicated opposition to a Georgia religious liberty bill pending before Gov. Nathan Deal, saying that they will take their business elsewhere “should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law.”
With generous tax incentives, Georgia has become a production hub, with Marvel currently shooting “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” at Pinewood Studios outside Atlanta. “Captain America: Civil War” shot there last summer.
“Disney and Marvel are inclusive companies, and although we have had great experiences filming in Georgia, we will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law,” a Disney spokesman said on Wednesday.
(6) THE TITANOGRAPHY OF TOLKIEN. NASA has updated the Mountains of Titan Map.
This map of Saturn’s moon Titan identifies the locations of mountains that have been named by the International Astronomical Union. The map is an update to a previous version published in 2012 (see Mountains of Titan), and includes an additional mountain area (Moria Montes), along with several “colles” which are collections of hills.
By convention, mountains on Titan are named for mountains from Middle-earth, the fictional setting in fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. Unfortunately for “Lord of the Rings” fans, Titan’s highest peak is not Doom Mons (see Radar View of Titan’s Tallest Mountains).
(7) DOG HOUSE RULES. Kate Paulk’s latest policy statement, in “Why The Internets No Can Has Nice Things” at Mad Genius Club.
Those who have asked to be removed are being asterisked instead to indicate that they asked to be taken off. My perspective is that this is a list of people’s recommendations. There is no need to ask for permission, any more than anyone needs to ask for permission to post a review or purchase the work. Frankly, I think asking to be taken off anyone’s list of award-worthy pieces is an insult to the people who genuinely believe the work is that good, so unless someone asking to be removed is prepared to institute a policy that requires prior approval before purchasing their work, reviewing it, and so forth, they stay on the list.
If someone wants their very own asterisk on the list, they need only ask me. I’m not that difficult to get hold of, and I am asterisking those who ask on the two list posts. I’ll asterisk someone who asks here, too. There may be a delay, since I do have a rather demanding full time job, but it will happen.
(8) NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESSION. In the Playpen at Ferretbrain, Arthur B. asks:
How do you become the Sad Puppies organiser anyway? Divine right? Killing and eating the heart of your predecessor? Satanic pacts? Who gets to choose who drives the clown car?
(9) DOUBLE-THREAT. How It Should Have Ended not only corrects the illogical events in the The Force Awakens but does it with Lego characters.
(10) COVER LETTER. Karen Junker provided the text of the email she sent to We Are ALL SF members.
Dear We Are ALL SF patrons, I want to apologize to you personally for not getting in touch with you sooner regarding the cancellation of We Are ALL SF Con. Frankly, I have been very ill and I have not known what, exactly, to say.
The con was cancelled after I resigned from the convention board and without the knowledge or consent of the board. There was a lot of confusion and things became too difficult to save the situation. I was re-appointed back to the board and since my name was still on the legal docs, the bank, and the Paypal account, it fell to me to send refunds. I did so by selling a personal investment so that the funds would be covered. I got the refunds out, but was not able to do much more than that, and it has been so emotionally grueling for me to see a project that I had worked on for over a year and poured much of my own personal money into to be destroyed, out of what amounts to petty nonsense.
If you see any public statements about me, please disregard. They are patently untrue. I have a proven track record over the past 15 years in the literary and SFF community. Why someone would attack me or an organization I am attached to is beyond me. I have spent a large sum of my own money in the past few years, putting on writers’ events and workshops and conventions and conferences. We Are ALL SF was no different. I am heartbroken that this great con, which would have been so much fun, was destroyed. I hope to see you again at another thing, some day, somewhere. I wish you well in your work and in your life. Yours, Karen Junker, Chairman, We Are ALL SF Foundation
(11) GIVE THEM LIBERTY. As always, plenty of Baen authors will be attending Libertycon 29 (July 8-10) — Griffin Barber, Rick Boatwright, Walt Boyes, Robert Buettner, David B. Coe, Larry Correia, Kacey Ezell, Bill Fawcett, Charles Gannon, Sarah A. Hoyt, Les Johnson, Mike Massa, Jody Lynn Nye, Gray Rinehart (Master of Ceremonies), John Ringo, Tedd Roberts, Chris Smith, Brad Torgersen, David Weber, Toni Weisskopf, and Michael Z. Williamson.
(12) MISSED ONE. I could have included John Scalzi on the list of “Science Fiction Writers Who Were Never Drunk on Saint Patrick’s Day”. Here’s an excerpt from his post “Why I Don’t Drink or Use Drugs” at Whatever.
It’s true: I don’t drink alcohol except in very rare circumstances (like, half a glass of champagne at my wedding), I’ve never smoked cigarettes, I’ve never taken an illegal drug, and outside of Novocaine at the dentist’s office, I’m generally reluctant to take legal drugs either; my wife always expresses surprise if I go to the medicine cabinet for ibuprofen, for example. So what’s the story there?
(13) MOST FUN SINCE ADAM. Tor.com collects their favorite tweets from #TheInternetNamesAnimals in “Boaty McBoatface Inspires An Epic Naming Battle on Twitter!”
Starface Gassy McSmashy #TheInternetNamesSpace pic.twitter.com/RB84qOWPlw
— Dr. Jillian Scudder (@Jillian_Scudder) March 21, 2016
(14) AN INDISPENSIBLE CULTURAL LANDMARK. The Ukulele Batman vs Bagpipe Superman – Theme Song Battle.
(15) IT WAS BARELY MADE TO START WITH. A remake of Plan 9 From Outer Space? Too late! It was released in the US as video-on-demand last month.
Now the long awaited remake of the classic film is here! In this edge-of-your-set, visually stunning, re-imagination of the original story, “Plan 9” is a spectacular sci-fi/horror adventure with jaw-dropping effects and zombies galore! It’s the film Ed Wood wished he made!
No matter what they say, I was not waiting for this.
And despite all that’s holy, a novelization also came out in February.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Janice Gelb, Mark-kitteh, Hampus Eckerman, Taral, and James H. Burns for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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(5) SUPERHERO MOVIE MAKERS MAY BOYCOTT GEORGIA. Variety reports “Disney, Marvel to Boycott Georgia if Religious Liberty Bill Is Passed”
I really, really, really hate the phrase “religious liberty bill.” Variety, for god’s sake (!), please learn how to report accurately and more neutrally. At least they quoted the Disney spokesmouse, who accurately describes such legislation. /GrumpyInMD
(7) DOG HOUSE RULES. Asterisks make sense, but her false equivalence (between asking to be removed from the Puppy list and requiring approval for buying or reviewing) makes no sense. As per usual.
(9) DOUBLE-THREAT. & (14) AN INDISPENSIBLE CULTURAL LANDMARK. ::giggle:: 😀
@bloodstone75 @ 6:06 PM: “(7) Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!”
::snort:: ::giggle:: ::ROFLMAO::
Oh yes. 😉 BTW I’m in the middle of A Crown for Cold Silver and will be interested in your comments when you finish it.
@Lee Whiteside: I love John Picacio’s work! I’m trying to nominate some new faces, a couple of whom are IMHO oddly overlooked (like JON FOSTER), but I regret not having more slots to spare. Picacio’s one of my faves – superb artist, class act, and I love the Loteria work.
@Jim Henley: I’m gonna be dragged to the movie some time in the next week or two, and I’m basically only going for Wonder Woman and (IIRC) Aquaman. Resistance is futile; I am required to go to this movie. :-/
@Everyone who hates ebooks from the other thread, I mean, kidding! It’s for the 3 here who like ebooks. I mean…kidding! Uh, here’s an ebook sale! 😉
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s 2015 debut novel,Signal to Noise, is $1.99 at Kobo, Amazon.com, iTunes, and probably other U.S. outlets, from Solaris (uses DRM). I’ve heard good things about this contemporary fantasy, and things like “spells using music” intrigue me, but I haven’t read the sample yet.
BTW it’s a 2015, so if you were thinking of reading it for the Hugos and want to speed read, here ya go.
iTunes has a couple of pages in the ebook section for Essentials – “Books everyone should read.” There’s a 10 overlaid on the word Fantasy, and for the SF one, over the phrase Science Fiction. But they list 18 fantasy and 23 SF. What’s the “10” mean?! There’s no explanation on the pages. Anyway, for the curious – we always like best of lists, right? 😉 – here’s a run-down. BTW there may be Essentials pages for other genres; I was just looking at the SFF page in iTunes.
Fantasy Essentials: The Fellowship of the Ring, A Wrinkle in Time, The Briar King, Under Heaven, The Sword of Shannara Trilogy (trilogy? that’s cheating!), Acacia (the first book, methinks), The Mists of Avalon, Perdido Street Station, A Shadow in Summer, The Wind in the Willows :-D, The Eye of the World, The Bone Doll’s Twin (yay, Flewelling!), The Wise Man’s Fear (uh…book 2?), The Grand Ellipse, Small Gods, Dragonflight (hey, that’s SF!), Gardens of the Moon, and Assassin’s Apprentice.
Science Fiction Essentials: Lilith’s Brood, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Foundation, Fahrenheit 451, The Doomsday Book, The Reality Dysfuntion, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Forever War, Dune, The John Varley Reader (30 years of short fiction), Brightness Falls from the Air, Barrayar, The Player of Games, Singularity Sky, Ready Player One, Grass, A Door Into Ocean, Old Man’s War, A Different Light, The Handmaid’s Tale, Dragon’s Egg, Red Mars, and Who Fears Death.
Some interesting picks; not all are what I’d think of as “obvious” choices to make (but I mean this in a good way). It is weird that they chose book 1 for series except in one case (Rothfuss).
ETA: I believe the Varley’s the only short fiction collection, so that’s another one that seems weird. Not that short fiction isn’t good to put onto an Essentials list, but when it’s all novels and one collection, it stands out.
(4) Is it likely that Alastair Reynolds has not been asterisked yet because he didn’t fill in the proper Forms:
“But the Forms were on display . . .”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a torch.”
“Ah, well the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Alastair, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard.”
@Jim, snowcrash:
I also saw BvS earlier, but I came away with a much more charitable reaction than Jim did. In fact, I liked this more than I didn’t, although it certainly had its flaws. My thoughts, which should be spoiler-safe:
– There’s no “credit cookie” scene, so go ahead and leave when the credits roll. Pay attention to that last shot, though.
– Although I could recognize several pieces of the source material, they were blended together (and sometimes upended) rather well.
– I really did not expect to ever see this closing sequence on film. (Animation, sure – but not in live action.) I thought it was done well.
– Lex Luthor is more Jokerish here than he’s normally portrayed. Whether that’s good or bad is open to debate, but at least it’s different.
– Speaking of Lex, I appreciated that he was a scary genius with zero interest in real estate. In several ways, this is a better depiction of Lex Luthor than any previous movie had, and I don’t recall any better live-action treatment. (I do wonder what Kevin Spacey would have done with this script, though. Spacey nailed the performance, but the stupid real-estate plot hamstrung him.)
– I have the strong sense that Darkseid is coming.
– Yay for no shoehorned-in origin stories! (Okay, we get the Wayne murder and Little Bruce falling into the cave, but that hardly counts.)
– I liked that we weren’t shown every single bit of character development. It’s okay for things to happen offscreen!
– Wonder Woman has her lasso, and it’s not cheesy.
– I want a better look at that Batmobile.
– Good take on Alfred. True to the comics in a way we don’t see often enough.
– There’s no magical “eruption” of superheroes, where loads of people decide to become heroes (or villains) at the same time. Big plus for me.
– They could’ve ditched some of the dream sequences, like the one in the desert.
– That scene with the guy in red… dream sequence or not? If not… interesting.
– Where’s the seventh traditional member of the League? At least there’s an allusion to that part of the universe.
Overall, I was curious to see how everything I’d seen in the trailers would fit into the same movie. It’s not the script I would’ve written, but that’s a good thing; movies should surprise you. Some of the edges were rough, sure – but I liked the attempt to do something different with the usual toys. DC’s been doing good “traditional” work in the animated space for a while now, and I was pleasantly surprised to see them go a different way here.
I kept expecting to think that they were making the Spider-Man 3 “too many bad guys” mistake, and maybe the hearing subplot could have been removed without too much damage – but it served a couple of useful purposes. Had it not been there, I would expect critics to lament its absence. All in all, I can’t think of a major element that could have been removed without the story falling apart. The stakes were justifiably high, as they had to be to turn the first part of the title into the second, and the movie blended (primarily) three landmark comic book stories in a way I didn’t see coming.
ETA, @Kendall: Do NOT go see this for Aquaman. He’s barely in it.
I know a couple of bloggers who’ve satirically claimed to be nominated for a Hugo Award on the strength of their own vote, but I’ve never known one to be nominated by a member of the Hugo Board.
(15) IT WAS BARELY MADE TO START WITH.
This is not ok. I wish to protest.
Kendall: @Lee Whiteside: I love John Picacio’s work! I’m trying to nominate some new faces, a couple of whom are IMHO oddly overlooked, but I regret not having more slots to spare. Picacio’s one of my faves – superb artist, class act, and I love the Loteria work.
Picacio does indeed do great work. But (with the exception of last year’s Puppy
hiccupburpbarf, he’s been a finalist for the last 10 years in a row and won twice, and I’m really trying have my nominations reflect just-as-worthy-but-less-nominated people this year. So I’ve been using Doctor Science’s list of eligible artists to draw up my shortlist.Galen Dara (Doctor Science has her in the Fan Artist category, but as Lightspeed is no longer a Semiprozine, her work for them qualifies as Pro Artist)
John Harris
Morgana Wallace
Elizabeth Leggett
Stephan Martiniere
Daniel Dos Santos
Also, I’ve still got some Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form slots to fill. I know that there’ve been lots of posts on this, but I’ve tried to go seek them out and they’re pretty scattered, so: What’s on your Hugo shortlist in this category?
1… 2… 3… go!
Alexandra Erin has a great little tweetstorm about Snyder’s Superman at https://twitter.com/alexandraerin/status/713010708779298816 .
BDP Short:
1. Kung Fury
2. Danny and The Wild Bunch
3. Uncanny Valley
All short films that are viewable on the net.
My current shortlist for BDP Short
Daredevil – “Cut Man”
The Expanse – “CQB”
Game of Thrones – “Hardhome”
Jessica Jones – “AKA Smile”
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell – “The Black Tower”
Kung Fury
The Man in the High Castle – “A Way Out”
Person of Interest – “If-Then-Else”
Sanjay’s Super Team
Sense8 – “I Can’t Leave Her”
nickpheas: I know a couple of bloggers who’ve satirically claimed to be nominated for a Hugo Award on the strength of their own vote, but I’ve never known one to be nominated by a member of the Hugo Board.
I’ve been seriously considering declaring myself a “Hugo Award Board Member” just to see if Kevin Standlee will show up at my front door — so that I can ply him with drinks and try to get good, risque Worldcon stories out of him. 😉
@bloodstone75:
I love “watching the book stuff a straw man in slow motion, and then set it alight at the end.” I get that it’s a criticism and I understand it as a criticism of the book, but I also love it 🙂
I saw it as rather more nuanced than that. I guess my question is: do you feel like the book made it explicit that it was a straw man being stuffed? Do you feel like the book was expecting you to buy into the straw man? It’s a book that fascinates me, but I’ve seen reactions similar to yours, and I’m curious to hear.
And, in any event, sorry it wasn’t your thing. So it goes.
(Not trying to convert bloodstone – if it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing – but for those who did find Just City intriguing, Ada Palmer has a fantastic piece on Crooked Timber, which goes into more layers and nuance than I picked up on during my first read.
Jonah Sutton-Morse was also kind enough to invite me onto an episode of Cabbages and Kings to talk about the book until every single one of you is sick of me, but that’s probably still a couple of months until the episode’s out 😛 Jonah’s reaction was similar to bloodstone’s, though, so: possibly pertinent? Particularly to those of you reading this comment several months from now!)
@JJ That would be quite the “Summon Kevin Standlee” spell, if you did.
(7) As someone who has Slow Bullets on their nomination ballot, I can honestly say that SPIV played zero part in my actions. SPIV scuttled their chances of being relevant by waiting so long before releasing their “list”*.
I do see this new kerpupple, however, as a way for SPIV to stay “on the radar” when it is a massive non-issue.
* Yes, I use scare quotes to describe a recommendation list “nominated by the people” when most listed works received fewer votes than the number of people living in my house.
pre-Sabbath conversation of Just City automatically merits a:
::ticky::
Oh great, I’ve already told the kid I’d bring him to batman superman, I was hoping it would be at least okay.
Of course there aren’t.
They should have made a Wonder Woman movie.
@Kendall:
As for iTunes “Fantasy Essentials”, the heat death of the universe is not too long to wait before I would consider any of the “Shannarah” books or “The Mists of Avalon” essential.
I prefer my books to be thoughtfully crafted, fairly original, and not slipping in sly casual normalizing of pedophilia and child abuse.
Has artist Kinuko Craft done anything eligible this year?
How about Jody Lee?
What the …?
@Mike Glyer and all the people quoted: I apologize for that mega-quote in my post three above.
I had only meant to quote the very last post, Jim Henley’s.
I am afraid I missed it until the edit window was past.
There seem to be a handful of books titled PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Some novelizations, a comic book adaption, an
“unedited” screenplay, a book about Plans 1 through 8,,,,And there was a puppet “remake” using the dialog from the film.
A bit too much for something so bad.
NIGHTFALL as a film, is very boring. Dullness is not a criteria of the “world’s worst”. It has to fail on other levels: acting, dialog, sets, pacing, an inability to keep the camera boom. out of sight, If the set keep moving after a door shuts. …many many factors. NIGHTFALL is boring because its so faithful to the story.
BIRDEMIC Is far far worse than the dullness of NIGHTFALL.
@Laura Resnick: Thank you for that. I couldn’t have said it better (could have said it longer though…)
@Tasha: I don’t think the distinction matters to them: WSFS, SFWA, 3F, 4E, WSFA, BCSFA, BSFS, BSFS, PSFS, LASFS, Minn-Stf,
they’re all the same: tired old gray hairs shuffling around in scooters, waving their canes at the kids on the lawn, desperately trying to gatekeep a has-been society that’s (shock!) dangerously liberal and no longer entitled to control the industry they control and have done a bad job of controlling since 1939 because otherwise we’d have entered the golden age of mainstreaming science fiction ages ago and spaceship covered novels would be selling so much better right now that no one would have to slate the awards so that the right works won….
***
I want to be a Hugo Bored Member too! I think the Hugo Bored ought to institute a new award – the ASStericks. Proposed categories could be:
The Everything You Wrote Couldn’t Be More Wrong Award
The Obviously Comes From an ‘Interesting’ Alternate Reality Award
The I Earned More Money Than You Best Claim Award
The Sour Grapes Award (for best argument for getting a Hugo Award you don’t want)
The ‘Not a Hugo’ Best (Pointless) Self-Promotion Award
The My Work Is Really Good Despite All the One Star Reviews That SJWs Gamed Onto Amazon Award
The Most Deserving of a Hugo Award You Didn’t Get Award
and the grand prize
The Hugo Bored Lifetime Achievement Award for Most Effectively Ginning Up Hate To Boost Your Sales Award. (Otherwise known as the Cynical Sales Techniques award).
I’ve mentioned before techniques for shrinking needlessly bloated ebooks. I have an extreme example from yesterday. The epub of Ken Liu’s The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories weighs in at an obscene 8.22 MB. Looking into the file, the bulk of that size is an embedded font named AdobeMingStd-Light.otf (nearly 7 MB, compressed.) I tried subsetting it in Calibre and apparently it is a file that Calibre can’t edit. So I replaced the offending font with the free Code2000.ttf (which Calibre can subset) and changed all font references in the epub. (The font is there to display a tiny smattering of Chinese characters in the book.) Then I went through and recompressed all the images with a quality setting of 80 percent. This almost always leads to a significant decrease in image size with no readily noticeable image degradation. The result? A new epub of 643 KB, a size reduction of more than 92 percent.
(As an aside, while browsing through the book to make sure my edit didn’t break anything, I noticed the term ChiCom used in the story The Literomancer, if you recall the kerfuffle over that term between Sarah Hoyt and Mary Three Names.)
@Robert Whitaker Sirignano:
I’m not 100% behind your police work there.
Re: (13) MOST FUN SINCE ADAM
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Spazzie McGee.
Nothing could be worse than Rutger Hauer’s Omega Doom.
15) IT WAS BARELY MADE TO START WITH – No. Just no. I had a faint hope that the trailer would be funny, but it’s mostly earnest. I may have to go watch the original to remove the bad taste, which is bitterness distilled.
I do not like brooding superheroes, so did not join the excursion to Batman vs Superman. The consensus was that it was fine, although I would have hated it, Lex Luthor and Wonder Woman were terrific (but the ten minutes of Wonder Woman wouldn’t be enough for me) and Jason Momoa’s brief appearance was exciting. That’s good enough and I don’t need to know any more.
My BDP Short list:
Agent Carter – Snafu
Agent Carter – Now is Not the End
Jessica Jones – AKA WWJD
Man in the High Castle – The New World
Kung Fury
(5) SUPERHERO MOVIE MAKERS MAY BOYCOTT GEORGIA
The Georgia bill is obvious bigotry, but amazingly ineptly drafted. One provision says that no one can be required to or prevented from attending a wedding against their will. Planning on getting married in Georgia? Be sure and order extra food for the reception . . . Homeless in Atlanta? Feed yourself by attending weddings . . .
In honor of the late Garry Shandling:
This is the theme to Glyer’s blog,
The theme to Glyer’s blog.
Glyer tweeted me and asked if I would write his theme song.
I’m almost halfway finished,
How do you like it so far?
How do you like the theme to Glyer’s blog?
This is the theme to Glyer’s blog,
The opening theme to Glyer’s blog.
This is the music that you hear as you read the comments.
We’re almost to the part of where he starts to Pixel Scroll.
Then we’ll read Michael Glyer’s blog.
This was the theme to Michael Glyer’s blog.
For those scratching their heads (starting around 30 seconds in):
re (7)
Could Slow Bullets presence on the Rabid list be a reason it hasn’t been asterisked yet? Looking at the list of people who’ve requested their removal, I think that Slow Bullets is the one point of overlap between the Sads and the Rabids amongst the people who’ve wanted off.
Now I think we’d all be exceedingly surprised if, say, Emma Newman, or any of her fans, ran a vicious doxxing and harassment campaign, and I think this goes for all the people who’ve requested an asterisk.
I don’t think Reynolds would run a doxxing campaign either, but because of the overlap, I could see the asterisk being seen as a slight not by Alastair Reynolds, but by the Rabids, because by asterisking one of the Rabid slate, the Sads will be viewed to have betrayed the Rabids, for reasons acceptable to a bunch of entitled man-boys (i.e., all of them). And I can see the Rabids running a vicious doxxing and harassment campaign, because they have already done so.
Whatever else we all may think of Paulk, the Impala, and the Other One – they’re still women on the internet, and thus heir to all the horrific bullshit that entails. I can think they are being utter children to Reynolds and everyone else who doesn’t want to be touched by the Puppy taint. But I have to say, if not asterisking is their way of dodging a ticket to the reality now occupied by Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, et al., because they’ll have been viewed as “betraying” the Rabids, I might just act the same way in their shoes.
An asterisk may seem like a little thing to inspire that but, well, look at the reality, of both Gamergate and Teddy Beale.
Darren Garrison
You either fixed it, or the tag you used for italics gets switched for a blockquote tag when these get sent to my email. There were these individual words, set apart, quotated, in italics, and the effect was a bit odd.
edited to add: Very nice tribute to Mr. Shandling. I like it.
Batman vs Superman
I’m reminded that I just watched BATMAN: The Dark Knight Returns, an animated version of the Miller-Janson miniseries from what seems to be more or less the team that did the animated series I loved so much. It’s surprisingly faithful. Some scenes and dialog are changed a little, but they don’t shy away from death, gayness, escort services, or Ronald Reagan (though they could have emphasized his similarity to the Joker more, IMO). Some of the characters seem a little clunky or off (Carrie seems a bit stiff and slow), but in exchange, there are some very effective translations of comic to screen. I do wish they’d given David Endochrine a gap in his front teeth, and it would have been swell if they’d had Letterman do his voice. Even knowing how it ends, I was caught up in it at times, and I cared about some of the characters. Spoiler: They cut the line, “Go screw, fat boy.”
All in all, it was worth checking out from a library. It was a nice surprise, as I had forgotten its existence. I have to renew it or take it back tomorrow, and I think I’ll take it back. It’s in two parts, but I can’t find out how long it is on the box anywhere.
Tick.
JJ on March 24, 2016 at 9:20 pm said:
Except that it’s not a false claim — it’s a meaningless claim, like being “nominated” for a Nobel Prize.
For example, I am a past “Hugo Award Nominee,” having come in something like 12th in the 1995 Hugo Awards nominations for Best Fan Writer, something I learned after the ceremony that year when my name came up in the “They Also Ran” top-15 listing. I could legitimately call myself a “Hugo Award Nominated Writer.” I don’t, because the claim is pointless.
What WSFS did was similar to the story about the private club who had a member accused of cheating at cards. Rather than going to the significant bother of expelling the member, all of the other members resigned and formed a new club and not inviting the suspected cheat to join it. In this case, the old club is “nominees” and the new one is “finalists.”
People who care about the Hugo Awards can help by using “finalist” instead of the older, deprecated term.
JJ on March 24, 2016 at 9:31 pm said:
If he were claiming to be shortlisted (finalist) for the Hugo Awards or to have won the Award, and the claim came to the attention of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee, one of us (probably me) would be requesting the claim be taken down, as it’s trying to trade on our registered service mark on a false claim. But by the so-called “plain meaning” test, you can be a Hugo Award nominee with one nomination, even if you cast it yourself for yourself. WSFS gave up trying to police this in any way; it’s impossible.
A troll is born:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/24/microsoft_ai_goes_troll/
Also, I’ve still got some Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form slots to fill. I know that there’ve been lots of posts on this, but I’ve tried to go seek them out and they’re pretty scattered, so: What’s on your Hugo shortlist in this category?
Right now I’ve got the following under consideration. I haven’t finished Sense 8 so another episode of that might go into the “consideration” list. I also want to watch The Expanse before the deadline to see if anything from that is worth nominating.
Daredevil: Condemned
Daredevil: Cut Man
Daredevil: Daredevil
Jessica Jones: AKA Sin Bin
Jessica Jones: AKA Smile
Jessica Jones: AKA You’re a Winner!
Justice League: Gods and Monsters
President Snakes by The Doubleclicks
Sense 8: What’s Going On?
Spock’s Brain by Five Year Mission
Supergirl: Human for a Day
I’ve resigned myself to going to see BvS with a friend. My argument was “look at the trailer” and her counter arguments were “Wonder Woman!” and “I’ll buy the drinks!”
Handy to know there is no after credits scene.
Is there an app that will let me know when Wonder Woman is going to be on screen so I don’t accidentally miss any of her scenes for a bathroom break?
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos update:
The Short Story and Novelette volumes are now both proofread. I removed “Satan’s Seamstress” from the Novellete volume as there was no SF/F or even supernatural horror element at all and it would have required multiple content warnings. Sorry about that.
I added “Isles of the Blest” by Frederic Arnold Kummer, Jr. to the Novella volume. And I changed the cover and title so it is in sync with the other two. I still haven’t proofread or even read any of the novellas. I’ve seen people recommend the ones by Wilcox, Page, and Palmer. Any other recommendations? Maybe I can proofread two or three and reupload it early next week.
Apropos recent news item:
Pixel McScrollface.
Today’s reading has been a Kyra recommendation, The Pyramids of London by Andrea K Host. I’m halfway through and it’s pretty decent – an alternate steampunk-y Celtic Britain with Egyptian vampires.
Anyone else read it?
Yesterday, I happened upon The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye at the book store, and it looks brilliant. I kind of want that in its binding, as an object to be held and leafed through, rather than on a tablet. It follows the development of an imaginary Singapore cartoonist (if I have that right) and uses a hundred different drawing styles to show his work, which recaps the 70 or so years of his life in comics culture. I hope to see it on next year’s noms (vicariously, as I’ve only been a Worldcon member twice, and didn’t nominate on either occasion, because I felt I didn’t know enough to consider myself informed).
Stoic Cynic
A troll is born
I just tweeted that, like yesterday. I thought I’d seen it on File 770 and was feeling mild guilt for not giving that as a source.
My current BDP-Short Form selections (as you can tell, I don’t watch a lot of genre TV….)
Welcome to Night Vale #79 – Lost in the Mail
Welcome to Night Vale #73 – Tryptych
Welcome to Night Vale #71 – The Registry of Middle School Crushes
Welcome to Night Vale #75 – Through the Narrow Place
Welcome to Night Vale #64 – WE MUST GIVE PRAISE
That’s coming out next year.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451279
The animated version of The Dark Knight Returns was on HBO this month. I was very surprised how faithful it was to the original source.
I think no discussion of Plan 9 is complete without a mention of Plan 9 from Bell Labs, the operating system:
(From Wikipedia)
Cassy B: All excellent choices! Myself, I went with Taking Off and Remembrance Day, but the nomination period isn’t over yet …
Has anyone else been watching You, Me and the Apcolypse? A TV show I actually like! It’s been a while since that’s happened.