(1) SOLID NUMBERS. “So How Many Books Do You Sell?” is the question. Kameron Hurley dares to answer.
It’s the question every writer dreads: “How many books have you sold? ”
It’s a tricky question because for 99% of the year, those with traditionally published books honestly have very little idea. But two times a year – in the spring and in the fall – we receive royalty statements from publishers, which give a sometimes cryptic breakdown of what has sold where. So for those keeping track here with my “Honest Publishing Numbers” posts, here’s an update.
(2) HAND JIVE. “Star Trek 50th Anniversary Celebration Honors Leonard Nimoy’s Artwork”.
More than 50 pieces will be featured during a 50th-anniversary Star Trek art exhibit honoring a half-century of exploring the final frontier. That includes the final piece of art created by original series star, the late Leonard Nimoy.
The event, which San Diego Comic-Con attendees will arrive just in time for, opens on July 21 at the Michael J. Wolf Fine Arts in San Diego, CA. It will then travel to Las Vegas, Toronto, and the UK.
The official Star Trek site is rolling out all the pieces bit by bit, but the artistic work of the beloved Nimoy was one of the first released. The piece, which depicts multiple images of Nimoy’s hand giving the “Live Long and Prosper” salute, was created for the Star Trek Art Exhibit.
The red, yellow and blue motif is a nod to the uniform colors worn by the Star Trek cast of characters in the original show.
(3) LISTEN UP. In “These hearing aids aren’t just for show A.k.a. This message speaks volumes”, Swedish fan Feeejay describes how her being hard of hearing impacted her experiences at the 2014 Swecon, her coping strategies, and how we can assist them.
What can you do to help? In social situations:
Face me when talking.
Repeat or double check that I’ve got the important information.
Help me sit in the center so I can hear everyone.
Speak clearly, and if I ask you to repeat yourself, try to raise your voice just a tad, but mostly speak slower and more clearly.
If you have a induction loop in a facility, use it.
Microphones should always be used, and if an audience microphone is available, use it too.
Alternatively, have the moderator repeat the questions.When I’m at conventions, I always sit in the front row. If I’m in a panel I prefer to sit in the middle. This is what works for me — if you don’t know what works for someone else, try asking!
And how did it go at the Steampunkfestival?
Some panels went just fine, if I was placed in the center and didn’t get an audience question. Some panels worked less fine if the moderator forgot to repeat the audience question before someone answered it.
In one panel, I got an audience question and waited for the moderator to repeat it. My silence was interpreted as confusion or not having a good answer, so other panel members answered instead, while I looked like a question mark. I felt really stupid.
(4) THE MAGIC NUMBER FIVE. Lavie Tidhar, interviewed by Shelf Awareness, is asked a numerical question.
Your top five authors:
The writers who most influenced me (for good or bad) are probably Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler, Cordwainer Smith (the pen name of Paul Linebarger, who was an intelligence specialist and the godson of Sun Yat-sen and wrote the most extraordinary and peculiar science fiction stories). Tim Powers–I still remember discovering him for the first time and being so blown away. T.S. Eliot.
It’s a sort of Hardboiled Five, isn’t it? It’s more a list of people who directly influenced my writing in some way than anything else.
(5) READ COATES. Rachel Swirsky makes a “Favorite Fiction Recommendation: ‘Magic in a Certain Slant of Light’”
I met Deborah Coates when I was in graduate school at the University of Iowa. She and I were in a writers group together with a lot of other people. We called it Dragons of the Corn.
Deb writes beautiful magical realism, fantasy and science fiction. At one point, she was tossing around the term “rural fantasy.” Her prose is lovely, and the moods she creates are delicate and pervasive.
“Magic in a Certain Slant of Light” is one of my favorites of her short stories….
(6) HAMNER. Earl Hamner, Jr.’s family thanked everyone for their condolences on Facebook, and at the post provides addresses of charitable institutions he supported.
We have been asked about a memorial or service and all I can tell you at this time is that Dad was emphatically opposed to the idea. He even made my mother promise him not to even consider the idea! So, we are respecting his wishes, but at the same time trying to imagine a way to remember him that he would like. (I.e., we all meet at the James River in Virgina and go fishing and drink a lot of Jack Daniels.) In the meantime, if you feel you need to do something to honor him, you will find below a list of organizations that Dad supported. A charitable gift in his memory would make him proud.
(7) TODAY IN HISTORY
- March 25, 1956 — Lon Chaney stars as “Butcher” Benton, The Indestructible Man.
(8) RED MARS HITS RED LIGHT. Deadline reports “Spike TV ‘Red Mars’ Series On Pause After Showrunner Exits”.
Spike TV has pushed the pause button on Red Mars, its 10-episode straight-to-series drama adaptation of Kim Stanley Robinson’s best-selling “hard” science-fiction trilogy. The move comes as executive producer/showrunner Peter Noah has exited the project, produced by Skydance TV.
…. I hear Straczynski, who had written the pilot script out of his passion for the books, had the option to stay on as showrunner or leave and keep an executive producer credit. The writer, who had been busy in features and TV, opted for the latter, and Noah came in as showrunner. He has now departed too over what I heard were creative differences with Spike.
(9) THE MESSAGE. Chris Van Trump is “Back In The Sad-dle Again” at Shambling Towards Bethlehem.
…What bothers me about the whole Sad Puppies situation is how often the existence of talent in the opposition has been denied, by both sides in this small battlefield of the culture war. Obviously that was Correia’s point in kicking off the whole affair; to expose what he considered to be ideological filtering in the Hugo nomination and voting process.
Personally, I think he was right. Not because of some grand cabal of liberal hypocrites willing to trash good authors on the grounds of political dissent, but because communities develop specific cultures, and those cultures create preferences.
And WorldCon has its own subculture, and as a result its own preferences, and those preferences lean towards the kind of pretentious twaddle that bores me to tears. But hey, it has the right messages, and that’s what’s important.
Or is it?
You see, there’s something that bothers me more than the denial of talent on the grounds of ideology, and that is the degradation of talent in the service of ideology.
One of the problems you run into, and this is something I’ve seen in other mediums as well, is that when you place the perceived political and social value of a work over its artistic value when determining merit, you get, well, precisely what you deserve. Passive, politically-correct-for-your-critical-lens pablum. A checklist of boxes to be marked off, with the expectation of accolades if enough boxes are checked.
You get boring message fiction. Or games. Or art of any kind….
(10) ON THE DOGS. Lela E. Buis, in “Discrimination against the Puppies?”, applies the thoughts from her recent posts about multiculturalism to the Puppy dilemma.
But, is Kate Paulk telling it straight? I don’t quite think so. Unfortunately I’m not going to have time to read the whole list of recommendations before the award nominations are due, but I have worked through the short stories and some of the related works. I can’t speak for the novels, but much of what I’ve read are not neutral recommendations. If you’re keeping up with my reviews, these works are slanted to present the Puppies side of the recent conflict. That means they are written by SJW’s on the Puppy side.
Who’s right? I suspect the SFF community needs to consider the Puppies’ point of view. If you’re reading along on my social commentary, you’ll note that the 50-year era of multiculturalism has closed, and we are now entering a period where community is becoming more important. This means the actions of divisive activists will be less well received than in the past—on all sides. I know people like to fan the flames, but wouldn’t community building be time better spent?
(11) PERFECTION. Sarah A. Hoyt begins “Perfectly Logical” with an epic autobiographical introduction to justify her view about why people asked off the Sad Puppies 4 List.
….It wasn’t a stupid fear. It was real. Even though writers can’t control who reads them and likes them, if you’re liked by the “far right” you must be using “dog whistles” — and thus the blacklisting starts.
So those people asking to be removed from the Hugo recommendations which were made by fan vote? Perfectly logical. Getting tainted by association is a thing in their circles.
The people proclaiming that we: Larry, Brad, myself, John C. Wright, I don’t know if they were stupid enough to include Kevin J. Anderson and Butcher in that, but definitely everyone else in the list, had “ruined their careers” are right. For their world and their definition of career. None of the big four will ever publish us again, except Baen.
They are stuck in the old push-model days in their head. They think that everyone down the chain will now boycott us. And they want to make d*mn sure it doesn’t splash on them.
Meanwhile we’re living in a different world. We’ve tried indie, and it worked. (Even though in my case it was just toe dipping. More to come once internet is fixed and bedrooms, kitchen and office unpacked. (It’s all we’re unpacking in this house.)
We’re living in a world where we can be rude to whomever we please, love our fans whoever they are, and have our own opinions. Because NYC publishing is NOT the boss of us….
(12) CASTING DUDES. “’Why Can’t We Have One White Superhero?’ Said No One Ever” is the topic today at Angry Asian Man.
Many of us who were following the casting of Marvel’s upcoming Iron Fist Netflix series were disappointed when news broke that some white dude named Finn Jones would play the title role of Danny Rand.
Inspired by this thoughtful plea by Keith Chow of The Nerds of Color, over the last two years a vocal fan movement had swelled and rallied around the possibility of an Asian American Iron Fist. While Danny Rand has traditionally been depicted as white in the comic books, there is no legitimate reason why he had to be played by a white actor. This could have been an interesting opportunity to cast an Asian American actor in the lead role, and complicate and reclaim some of the more problematic, orientalist elements of the character’s mythos.
It was a nice thought. But alas, Danny Rand will be white and it’s business as usual. Some people had some gripes about that. And of course, some people had gripes about the people with gripes.
Comic book creator Joshua Luna, best known for his work as a co-creator and writer of such books as Ultra, Girls and The Sword with his brother Jonathan Luna, recently posted a funny comic offering his take on the Iron Fist casting. Imagine, if you will, an alternate dimension…
(13) BEST SF TV. Adam Whitehead offers his list of the 20 Best SF TV shows of all time at The Wertzone.
In the grand tradition of Gratuitous Lists, here’s a look at the twenty Best Science Fiction TV Shows of All Time (that I can think of today). The list is in alphabetical order, not order of quality, nor is there a #1 choice as I’d probably have a totally different choice tomorrow. So rather than argue about arbritary placements on the list, you can instead yell at me at what got left off.
In case you’re wondering, the list contains only overtly science fictional TV shows. No fantasy (that’d be another, different list) and no anime, as I’m not well-enough versed in the field. After some debate, also no superhero stuff as the SF credentials of those shows can vary wildly and there’s enough of them now to make for another list.
(14) LEGO ACTORS. The LEGO Batman Movie – Batcave Teaser Trailer.
(15) DO YOUR DAMN DUTY. The Onion has a jaded view of the Batman v Superman experience:
Promising that it would be best to just buy a ticket and take care of the unpleasantness right away, a new Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice promotional campaign launched this week reportedly urged filmgoers to simply get this whole thing over with. “Listen, you all knew this day was coming, so just go sit your ass in the theater, stare up at the IMAX screen for a couple hours, and be done with this shit once and for all,” said Warner Brothers marketing strategist Elizabeth Harris, who encouraged fans to make plans with friends right now so they could all bite the fucking bullet over opening weekend.
(16) PRE-SUMMER HUMMER. No matter what you may have heard about the movie, Deadline says Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice set the cash registers spinning.
East coast registers are winding down and Warner Bros.’ Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is still on track to be the biggest pre-summer opening day with $80.5M (beating Furious 7‘s $67.4M) and weekend with $169.5M (outstripping The Hunger Games $152.5M) at 4,242 theaters. In sum, this is $20M better than where the industry originally estimated the film to be.
(17) THEME SONG. Darren Garrison’s salute to the late Garry Shandling takes a peculiar turn:
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):
(18) FLAME ON. Stoic Cynic rocked this verse.
With apologies to BOC:
You see me now a veteran
Of a thousand Usenet wars
I’ve been living on the edge so long
Where the posts of flaming roarAnd I’m young enough to look at
And far too old to see
All the scars are on the inside
I’m not sure if there’s candy left in me…
[Thanks to Karl-Johan Norén, Michael J. Walsh, John King Tarpinian, Will R., and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Nigel.]
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Kyra: Delighted to hear about the progress on your book.
Wasn’t Hugh Howey’s Wool originally self-published?
lurkertype:Sure, I will send an email to Meredith when I get home tonight from helping my mother pack her house to move.
@JJ – Becky Chambers and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.
ETA: Andy Weir and The Martian.
Published by Harper Voyager and Crown, respectively. Good catch and I can’t believe I forgot them.
Although all four books mentioned so far are popular and high in readability, I don’t think that says anything in particular about what publishers do and do not buy. It does tend to spike any implication that Corriea’s experience was due in some part to his politics or that Baen is doing a unique rescue mission.
@Tasha and Kendall
I think I may not be a puppy after all – I shrug my shoulders when I don’t like the Hugo winners (as all above said, most of them are a taste issue rather than bad writing – with the possible exception of Blackout/All Clear). Which is a bit of a relief. And as Tasha said, some of the other finalists are more in line with my taste.
Instead of declaring that There is Something Wrong on the Hugo!1!!!!!1111!1 and going off tilting at imaginary windmills. For four years. With no prospect of success. Or even an end state definition of success
And I found you lot, who are helping find other books I should read – not all that I like, but many of which I find at least interesting.
Like, for example, House of Shattered Wings, which I am 60% of the way through and find it remarkable, if again short on likeable characters. I suspect the least awful character is going to end up with some deep dark secret which may be terrible within the next 100 pages, though.
I thought the rattlesnake story was a bore but quite enjoyed “Oral Argument”.
The rattlesnake story is an excellent example of the phenomenon.
Peter J:
I just accidentally double-posted and then somehow managed to double-delete a reply to this. So trying again now…
Yes, Wool was originally self-published–and still is. Hugh Howey’s self-published ebook of Wool became a bestseller. After multiple houses approached him, Hugh finally made a print-only deal with Simon&Schuster, retaining his ebook rights himself. The print editions of Wool made they NYT bestseller lists, but S&S nonetheless declined to make another print-only deal. And Hugh declined to surrender English-language e-rights to any of his work. So Wool is the only book of his (multiple books, a number of them bestsellers) that has been published by a major US house.
However, he has made many deals with traditional publishers overseas, where the contractual terms are more reasonable (and where he probably doesn’t want to deal with the time-consuming logistics of self-publishing in other languages), and he’s a traditionallly-published bestsellers in numerous other countries.
Worth noting that when it comes to self-publishing, sf/f is rather behind the curve. Whereas people in sf/f still tend to look down their noses at self-publishing or act as if success in self-publishing is a rare and almost mythological thing, writers in the romance and mystery genres have enthusiastically embraced self-publishing.
I have many friends who’ve left traditional publishing, are self-publishing full-time–and are making considerably more money then they did with publishers. In Ninc, an organization of career novelists, our conferences for the past few years have focused almost entirely on self-publishing (our 2015 con focused on how to expand beyond the US/UK market into the worldwide market of about a billion English speakers, and the various new companies that are moving ebooks into those markets). The Ninc conference typically has a program track for assistants, because so many members are doing so well in self-publishign that they’ve had to hire assistants to take over a lot of the logistical stuff so they can keep writing, as their self-pub businesses expand.
I wrote a Nink column last year about the flow of writers away from traditional publishing toward self-publishing because I was so tired of reading inaccurate comments online from various publishers and writers claiming that all movement is FROM self-publishing TO publishing. About half the writers I named in my article were NYT or USA Today bestsellers, CHOOSING to leave publishing, not being squeezed out and turning to self-publishing in desperation. A close friend of mine who was a midlist romance writer who had to have a dayjob for 20 years to stay afloat has been steadily making six figures per year with her self-publishing; she quit her dayjob and paid off her new house in 8 years. A friend of mine who was a NYT bestseller has gone self-pub full-time and is now making far more money than ever before HM Ward has famously turned down a number of publishing deals because none of them offer her as much as she’s making as an indie. And so on.
The question of what new writer came onto the scene via self-publishing and succeeded is an old-fashioned topic. The relevant questions these days are: How many successful writers are becoming hybrids (releasing new material in both venues) and how many are leaving traditional publishing altogether to focus fully on self-publishing? (Answer in both cases: A lot–though not so much in sf/f.)
Chris S
Welcome back 😀
inaccurate comments online from various publishers and writers
Typo. I meant “inaccurate comments from various publishers and literary agents”
@JJ – Oral Arguments is (really) short story, you may be able to get through it quickly.
@Laura Resnick – nonono. *Last* year people were getting out of Puppydom because they feared Teh Blacklist. *This* year they’re doing it because of something called “virtue signalling”. #themoreyouknow #somanynarrativestokeepstraight
@ Snowcrash – Virtue signaling?
The prospect of anyone involved in writing or publishing having virtue, let alone having enough of it to signal, may be the most preposterous claim the Puppies have yet made.
Mike: Thanks! Although it could wait till tomorrow if you need to collapse after packing up Mom.
Laura R.: Regarding overseas sales, ISTR from non-US Filers that Baen has very little overseas distribution. So people haven’t heard of Bujold even though she wins all the awards while being SJW with the sexing and the disabled hero. So indie might help if you can manage VAT and whatever — which must be tough if the energetic Howey didn’t bother.
I know Rusch and Smith distribute ebooks overseas, but a) they are experienced editor/publishers and b) they also have a whole staff hired at their company to do some of the work. Also, they both have a good rep for making deadlines with clean copy. And they aren’t rude/foolish enough to write insulting letters to people who give them bad reviews. Or to badmouth the readers. Or even to air dirty laundry in public (darn it — they never name names in their bad examples! 😉 Take note, Lady Pups.
The rattlesnake story is indeed bad message fiction, even though I agree with the message. I don’t need to be hit with the big stick. Whereas “Oral Arguments” by KSR is pretty amusing. Not award-worthy, but worth reading, and done in a style you don’t often see.
But here’s the difference: SJWs are willing to admit when the message fiction is bad. Like I just did, and so did others. We ain’t gonna die on that hill. It could tick every one of our non-existent boxes and if it sucks, we’re not going to pretend otherwise and go around nominating and lauding and SLATING it.
Puppies seem to be incapable of realizing this. Or realizing that herding Worldcon fen as a group is less successful than herding cats. Or the difference between SFWA and WSFS.
Other funny Willis work: Bellwether, Uncharted Territory, and many of the short stories. Like the classic and award-winning “Even the Queen”.
Lois: I wish thee luck with anyone who’s not an old Quaker. Thou has a mighty task ahead of thee (See, I didn’t say hast, b/c we’re talking in 2016). Thou’ll be fighting the force of custom and the forces of “you-y’all-all y’all”.
“Virtue signaling” is a phrase I have seen occasionally come up online recently.
It seems to mean “empty hypocrite doing things just for show” or something like that, and its primary purpose seems to be to pretend that everyone is only trying to score points in some abstract game and nobody could possibly be sincere.
I think it must be a popular buzzword of the moment in right-wing circles, since I have so far only seen it used against those expressing leftish positions.
I come from an old Quaker family and to my knowledge no one since the original emigration to North America in 1670 ever used “thou” or “thee”.
Most of the representations of Quaker “thee-thou” stuff that I have seen get the grammar totally wrong. I have no idea if that is true to life.
ETA: No, wait, I’m not sure. An anecdote involving the childhood of my great-great grandfather has, I seem to recall, an old lady neighbor using “thee” or “thy” to him, some time in the 1820s, I think it would have been.
He didn’t use ’em, though.
Random geekery moment:
I’m watching an episode of Polar Bear’s Café, and the penguins are trying to figure out how to sell more Penguin Cards. One of them suggests a penguin sentai show.
I would watch the hell out of a penguin sentai show!!!!!
(And no, Michelle Peng from Gekiranger doesn’t count.)
/random geekery moment
@Peace: I actually met an old Quaker at a wedding in the late ’80s who still used them! Of course, he’s gone by now too.
Maybe the SCA would like the effort, but then thou get several more cans of worms and politicking.
@Kyra: ::intrigued glance:: 😉 Best to you!
@Mike Glyer: Parallel lives! I’ll be helping my parents prepare to move in a couple of weeks.
@ lurkertype:
Most indie writers distribute ebooks overseas. Amazon, iBooks, and Draft2Digital are all examples of e-vendors who’ve made it relatively easy to e-distribute one’s own intellectual property across multiple English-language territories (and Amazon and Ingram are both working on making indie POD print distribution easier, too, in multiple English-language territories for self-publishers). New companies have emerged and continue emerging on this front, too.
The new challenge is self-publishing in a foreign-language market. It’s very complex. Finding translators and copy editors in a language you don’t read, getting promo copy and metadata written in a language you don’t read, promoting a book in a language you don’t write or speak, etc.–All examples of why, although some people are doing it, the foreign-language indie market is still a hurdle).
Most US publishers don’t have much distribution abroad, or have very limited distribution abroad, because the world is a complex canvas of print territories. Traditionally, writers get into foreign markets by licensing or sublicensing foreing-language rights and also, in many instances, non-North American English-language rights, to those territories–IF publishers in those territories want to acquire those rights. Far and away the best international distirbution my work has ever experienced was way back when I wrote for Harlequin, which was unusual in having worldwide and multi-language distribution through an extensive network of partner companies and subsidiaries. (But Hq also managed to allegedly cheat its writers out of a lot of money in international e-book royalties, which claim is the subject of a current class action suit, Keiler v. Harlequin.)
I think members of the Society of Friends living in the Southern United States should use the expressions “thou-all” and “thee-all” where appropriate.
Go. Make it so, thee-all!
I admit, the “be rude to whomever we please” thing threw me, too. As an occasional self-publisher I…uh…well, if that’s a perk for you, yay, I guess?
Frankly, I think if you’re going indie, you need to be more aware of how you come off in public–there’s nothing between you and the readers, after all. Few of us are talented enough that we can afford to be assholes! But even leaving aside the practical…well, I dunno.
Myself, I do not cavort across the savannah, screaming obscenities, to the strains of Born Free when I self-pub, but then, I also apologize to plants, cats, my truck, people with chainsaws trying to scare me in haunted houses, and on one notable occasion, a troop of vervet monkeys. I am probably not the best judge of the motivations of recreational rudeness.
The Quakers I’ve known of do it all as “Thee”, never “Thou”, regardless of case. A practice I don’t emulate.
@ Kip – It’d be th’all within a year. “Th’all come back now…”
Red Wombat
So mote it be! I’d be content to have the process play itself out.
Th’all seems so contradictory!
We contain multitudes.
@Dawn Incognito
The penguins are a hoot in that show. And I will just say keep on watching.
@dann665: Gay sex is “alternative gender”? Say what now?!
I’ve seen very mixed reviews about Dinosaur Lords; each meh or negative review reduces the odds I’ll pick it up. Still, I’m interested in your review when you post it (unless it’s full of stuff about StrawAuthors checking boxes on a mythical list; I doubt Milán, Brett, or almost any author does this in reality).
As folks said about Sad Puppies 3. But then, I suspect someone’s said it about almost every piece of fiction ever written. 😉 It was nice to see the list of books you loved and felt were better, on your blog post. I really need to read Brett’s series opener one of these days.
Hugo noms all nommed!
Ha, was kind of surprised that I had read half of the Hugo winners during the last 20 years without knowing they were Hugo winners. And I found them to be from good to very good.
Regarding Airboy, I’m mostly surprised by how little Science Fiction he seems to read. Baen has existed since 1983 and still he has only bought a bit more than 100 books from them.
Either he doesn’t really read much SF at all or he must be buying a very large majority of his books fom other publishers than Baen. 100+ books isn’t much to brag about.
Just got home from seeing Zootopia. I have my first BDP Long Form entry for 2016….
@JJ
If you’re not familiar with it, the Heavy Metal soundtrack is well worth checking out.
The movie itself I loved at one time but a rewatch a few years back didn’t spark for me the way it had originally. Still fondly nostalgic for it but not in love anymore.
The soundtrack, on the other hand, still pulls me in. Objectively none of the songs are in and of themselves great (though most are good). Somehow the combination of them sums to great for me though.
Obviously musical taste has a lot of variation, and your mileage may vary, but for a certain type of 70’s rock it’s an outstanding representation.
I have another video, this one of Sunset valiantly attempting to get at a spider on the other side of my bedroom window.
Is there any interest in some occasional commentary by me on noteworthy zombie and/or Lovecraftian stories I’ve re/read lately? I do realize horror is largely outside File770’s remit.
@bbz: Hugo noms all nommed!
Congrats. Go you. Must be a great feeling to have it done.
Bruce:.
Early on, Miles breaks a leg doing a military training test, and then there’s a bunch of woopery at a space mall, before we get into the terribly-conveniently plotted military stuff.
Lurk:
Yup. “Date me, date me, just give me three — no, five reasons, no — I don’t accept any of those reasons! Give me reasons I find convincing or date me, it’s only fair!”
Bruce:
I’ll keep that in mind!
kdb
@lurkertype:
Sorry, I meant no one in my family had used thees and thous, going by report and written records.
The way I said it made it sound like I was speaking for all Quakers.
(And I’m not a Quaker myself. My parents were determined irreligious and I was raised as ignorant of religion as a caterpillar.)
@Hampus Eckerman
Airboy could mostly read books from the library rather than buying books. Or borrow/get from friends.
Before I married my current husband I rarely owned 100 books at any given time while reading ~200/year. I read books, passed on to friends/family, turned in books to local used book store and picked up more. But number of books in my apartments during ages 19-31 was probably 25-50 at a time on a constantly rotating basis. At 32 number of physical books went up to ~4-5,000 when I moved in with my now husband.
@Bruce Baugh, thank you for the cat video. She was very determined. I can only speak for myself, but I love reading what others write about their reading and I’m not a genre purist.
I think one of the key take always from this stuff is how little most of the puppies actually read.
I’ve read about 2/3s of the Hugo Winners. Some I like. Some I don’t. It’s rather rare my nominations get on the list. I’m not sure why they get to be more special than me.
@RedWombat: “and on one notable occasion, a troop of vervet monkeys.”
I read that as “velvet monkeys” on the first pass and was heartily amused.
In other news, since I know there are some BBQ fans here, I’ll point out that Stickyfingers is doing an Easter BBQ Buffet from 11am-3pm. This bears mightily upon my intention to get to bed earlier than usual tonight, as their BBQ is quite tasty…
@Kurt Busiek – I have to third or fourth “Fire Upon the Deep.” That is one of my favorites. It’s one of the few books on my “re-read every few years” list.
Also, while I’d read a couple other Willis novels beforehand, “To Say Nothing of the Dog” won me over (and maybe influenced my love of the well-hated “Blackout”).
@lurkertype – tl;dr house-cats, yes! Another example of misandry – why are cats allowed to demand attention after they’ve been told to go away, to follow you for blocks demanding attention, even to jump in bed with you and loudly exclaim their need for food, etc., etc., and men are called “misogynists” and “jerks” for the same innocent activities?
In re my Hugo ballot: I got an email saying “The end of Hugo nominating is near!” and I wanted to double-check that my ballot was OK (in particular, I thought I had got wrong the title of the latest Girl Genius vollume). And when I logged in…nothing was there. Blank. I tried logging in again, still blank. At this point I have now re-entered my choices, and gotten confirmation emails with them (which I didn’t earlier in the month when I first filled the ballot out). And I tried logging in again now, and everything was there. Still rather annoying.
@Kurt: You read The Warrior’s Apprentice, which was Bujold’s second-published novel. If you want to try a better Vorkosiganverse novel, try Barrayar; if you want a non-V’verse, I’d recommend The Curse of Chalion. Bujold really is very good.
I also n’th the recommendation for A Fire Upon the Deep. Your interest might perhaps be piqued by the knowledge that it features a galactic-scale Usenet. (Then again it might not.)
(BTW, I don’t recall seeing you on Usenet recently. Has File 770 replaced it for you?)
In re “thou” and “thee”: People who want to get a grasp of how to do these could do lots worse than read Pamela Dean’s “Secret Country” trilogy. It’s a portal fantasy, and the people in the Secret Country of the title speak Elizabethan English, on which Dean has a rock-solid grasp. Plus, they’re really good books.
I’ll keep that in mind, too. I didn’t like Miles enough to want to try another Vorkosigan book; maybe after I read something else by Bujold, if I like it better.
Not so much replaced it as was discovered after I gave up on Usenet. By the time I dropped it I think I had more people blocked than unblocked, and nobody was talking much about books I had any interest in. Or, in many cases, books at all.
One I reason I recommended Barrayar is that it focuses not on Miles, but on his mother Cordelia (who as a character is justly popular).
Like I said, I don’t have any desire to read another Vorkosigan book at present — that there are some not about Miles doesn’t win me over, since I didn’t finish WARRIOR’S APPRENTICE thinking, “Man, I want to read more about this world just with a different character.”
Next Bujold I’ll try will be something outside that setting, so she has a clean chance to capture my interest.
Echoing Curse of Chalion, then. It was my first Bujold and I loved it. None of the Vorkosigan-verse books have done much for me either. (Except Falling Free, and I’m not sure that counts.)
Of the four books I just bought, three are space opera/MilSF. One from Roc, one from Solaris, and one from Orbit. And all three were on the new MMPB shelves at a fairly mid-range Barnes and Noble in a San Jose suburb.
If someone thinks that Baen or indie are the only ways to buy SF adventure stories, then they’re not going in any bookshops at all. And are also probably ignoring their Amazon recommendations page, as two of my purchases came off mine…
I actually think the best book to get started in the Vorkosigan stories is Cetaganda. It has a slightly more mature Miles, a more than intriguing look at the way humanity is diverging in the Wormhole Nexus, a huge pile of interstellar politics, and a nicely balanced cast from all sides of a political divide.
(Imagine humans deliberately constructing a society via genetic engineering to be like a cross between Niven’s kzinti and Herbert’s Bene Gesserit. That’s Cetaganda in a sentence.)
Re USENET:
As the Millennium Falcon hurtles through hyperspace, Ben Kenobi turns to Luke and hands him a VT220 terminal. Its green screen lights the dim spaceship.
Simon Le Gros Bisson ?@sbisson · Mar 9
“I have something for you”
He taps a key, and Luke looks at the screen.
“strn? What is it?”
“Your father’s USENET reader, an elegant weapon for a more civilised age.”