(1) WHILE YOU WERE WAITING. Ann Leckie must be wondering if any of us are paying attention.
Quite frequently someone at a reading will ask me if I’ll ever explain about that icon Breq is carrying. And the answer is, I already have.
(2) JUST SAY THANKS. Joe Vasicek has some intriguing “Thoughts on series and perma-free”.
For the last five years, the conventional wisdom among most indie writers has been to write short books in sequential series and make the first book permanently free. It’s a strategy that works, to a certain extent. It’s what got me from making pizza money on my book sales to making a humble living at this gig. However, I’m starting to question that wisdom….
….Also, when you have a book that’s permanently free, it tends to accumulate a lot of negative reviews. It’s strange, but some people seem to feel more entitled to XYZ when they get it for free, as opposed to paying for it. Or maybe these are the people who try to go through life without actually paying for anything? Who hoard everything, even the stuff that they hate, so long as they can get it for free? I don’t know.
Certainly, that’s not true of everyone who reads free books. But when you have a perma-free book, it tends to accumulate more of the barely-coherent “dis buk sux” kinds of reviews from people who probably weren’t in the target audience to begin with. And over time, that tends to weigh the book’s overall rating down, which unfortunately can be a turn-off for people who are in the book’s audience.
(3) TIPTREE AUCTION. Here’s an advance look at an item in the Tiptree Auction at WisCon.
On Saturday, May 28, fans of the Tiptree Award will have the opportunity to bid on a genuine blaster that was once the sidearm of Space Babe, a legendary feminist superhero. (Blaster is modeled here by a Space Babe impersonator). This rare item will be part of the annual Tiptree Award Auction, to be held at at WisCon in Madison Wisconsin….
Blaster-wielding Jeanne Gomoll.
(4) MANCUNICON. Starburst brings you Ed Fortune’s 2016 Eastercon report.
Event highlights included interviews with the Guest of Honour John W. Campbell Award-winning novelist Aliette de Bodard, Hugo Award-winning author Ian McDonald, British Fantasy Award-winning creator Sarah Pinborough, and noted astrophysicist David L. Clement. Each drew a huge crowd, and coloured the event in their own unique way. Notably, Clement spearheaded a science-heavy approach to many of the panel items, and many of the talks centred on science and Manchester’s iconic research centre, Jodrell Bank. The iconic building, which has inspired many works of science fiction throughout its history, was thoroughly explored in many talks and lectures.
(5) NUMBER FIVE. Nina Munteanu, at Amazing Stories, continues the series — “The Writer-Editor Relationship, Part 2: Five Things Writers Wish Editors Knew – and Followed”.
- Edit to preserve the writer’s voice through open and respectful dialogue
Losing your voice to the “hackings of an editor” is perhaps a beginner writer’s greatest fear. This makes sense, given that a novice writer’s voice is still in its infancy; it is tentative, evolving, and striving for an identity. While a professional editor is not likely to “hack,” the fear may remain well-founded.
A novice’s voice is often tangled and enmeshed in a chaos of poor narrative style, grammatical errors, and a general misunderstanding of the English language. Editors trying to improve a novice writer’s narrative flow without interfering with voice are faced with a challenge. Teasing out the nuances of creative intent amid the turbulent flow of awkward and obscure expression requires finesse—and consideration. Good editors recognize that every writer has a voice, no matter how weak or ill-formed, and that voice is the culmination of a writer’s culture, beliefs, and experiences. Editing to preserve a writer’s voice—particularly when it is weak and not fully formed—needs a “soft touch” that invites more back-and-forth than usual, uses more coaching-style language, and relies on good feedback….
(6) KELLY LINK. Marion Deeds picked the right day to post a review of a Kelly Link story from Get in Trouble at Fantasy Literature.
“The Summer People” by Kelly Link (February 2016, free online at Wall Street Journal, also included in her anthology Get in Trouble)
“The Summer People” is the first story in Kelly Link’s new story collection Get in Trouble. Fran is a teenager living in a rural part of the American southeast. Her mother is gone, and she is neglected by her moonshiner father. While Fran is running a fever of 102 with the flu, her father informs her that he has to go “get right with God.” On his way out the door, he reminds her that one of the summer families is coming up early and she needs to get the house ready. However, that family isn’t the only group of summer people that Fran “does for,” and this is the point of Link’s exquisite, melancholy tale.
(7) HE’S FROM THE FUTURE. While Doctor Who can travel to anyplace and nearly any point in time, he invariably ends up in London. The Traveler at Galactic Journey seems likewise constrained always to arrive at the same opinion of John W. Campbell, although his fellow fans voted Analog a Hugo for this year’s work — “[April 18, 1961] Starting on the wrong foot”.
Gideon Marcus, age 42, lord of Galactic Journey, surveyed the proud column that was his creation. Three years in the making, it represented the very best that old Terra had to offer. He knew, with complete unironic sincerity, that the sublimity of his articles did much to keep the lesser writers in check, lest they develop sufficient confidence to challenge Gideon’s primacy. This man, this noble-visaged, pale-skinned man, possibly Earth’s finest writer, knew without a doubt that this was the way to begin all of his stories…
…if he wants to be published in Analog, anyway.
(8) ON MILITARY SF. SFFWorld interviews Christopher Nuttall.
Christopher Nuttall’s Their Darkest Hour has just been released as part of the Empire at War collection where four British Science Fiction authors have joined forces to show the world that British Military Science Fiction is a force to be reckoned with….
So what is different with British Military SF? Obviously in Their Darkest Hour you have the UK setting that probably will be more familiar to a Europeans than Americans, but do you also think there are other aspects where British authors are able to bring something different and unique to military SF?
I think that’s a hard question to answer.
There is, if you will, a cultural difference between American MIL-SF (and military in general) and British MIL-SF. Many American military characters (in, say, John Ringo’s work) are very forward, very blunt … I’d go so far as to say that most of them are thoroughly bombastic. Think a Drill Instructor screaming in your face. While a great many British characters are often calm, competent and basically just get the job done. We’re not as outwardly enthusiastic as the Americans; we’re more gritty endurance, stiff upper lip and just keep going until we win.
To some extent, I think that comes from our differing experiences. The Americans are staggeringly rich and, even as early as their civil war, had little trouble keeping their troops supplied. Britain, particularly in the years after 1919, had very real problems making ends meet, let alone keeping the troops supplied. We operate on a shoestring and know it. The Falklands was our most successful war in years, yet it was a very close run thing. We simply cannot afford to be as blatant as the Americans.
I think that is reflected in our SF too. Independence Day was followed by Invasion: Earth, a six-episode TV series set in Britain. Independence Day is blatant; the enemy is clearly visible, merely overwhelmingly powerful. Invasion: Earth has an enemy who hides in the shadows, at least up until the final episode. They both represent, too, a very different set of fears.
(9) OVER THE EDGE OF HISTORY. Jeff Somers considers “6 Historical Fiction Novels That Are Almost Fantasy” at B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog.
Hild, by Nicola Griffith Set in the so-called “Dark Ages,” after Rome abandoned Britain but before the squabbling kingdoms and tribes were unified under one crown, Griffith’s novel tells the true story of the Christian saint Hild, who would become Saint Hilda of Whitby, patron saint of learning. In 7th century Britain, she is the 6-year old niece of King Edwin of Northumbria, and becomes his seer and mystic upon arrival at his court. The reality of otherworldly forces is taken for granted as real in this brutal, violent land, and Griffith plays with the concept expertly as Hild becomes increasingly masterful at sniffing out plots and advising her uncle in ways that often seem magical. Anyone who has been awed by a brilliant mind’s ability to perceive what most cannot will witness that superpower at work in Hild, one of the most complex and deeply-drawn characters to ever appear in a novel—historical, fantasy, or otherwise.
(10) AN OP-ED. David Dubrow, in “David A Riley and the HWA”, criticizes how Horror Writers of America handled the recent controversy. And he’s announced he’ll be publishing an interview with Riley about it.
At times it’s interesting to get under the hood of the writing business and see how the sausage is made, to mix cliched metaphors. This issue happens to concern horror writers, so it has particular meaning for me at this time.
In short, an English horror author named David A Riley was set to be on the jury for the anthology segment of the upcoming Bram Stoker Awards. As it turns out, Riley was once a member of a far-right, nationalist political party in the UK called the National Front. A Tumblr blog was created to curate some of Riley’s online commentary, titled David Andrew Riley Is a Fascist. Wikipedia’s entry on National Front can be found here.
When outraged members protested Riley’s appointment to the jury, Horror Writers Association President Lisa Morton issued a tepid statement on Facebook that satisfied nobody. As is so often the case, the most arresting thing wasn’t the statement, but the ensuing discussion. Three distinct elements stood out and are worth examination….
Second, the thread has really big buts. The biggest but is, of course, “I believe in free speech, but…” A clever reader always ignores everything before the but in any statement containing a but. Anyone who puts his big but into the free speech discussion is not on the side of free speech, but is actually in favor of criminalizing speech he finds offensive (see what I did there?). As someone who worked at the bleeding edge of First (and Second) Amendment issues in publishing for over thirteen years, I find the big buts disturbing, but they’re there, and they stink like hell….
(11) THE FIRST RULE OF CHICXULUB. According to the BBC, this is “What really happened when the ‘dino killer’ asteroid struck”.
Where armies of trees once stretched skywards, seemingly escaping from the thickets of ferns and shrubs that clawed at their roots, only scorched trunks remain. Instead of the incessant hum of insect chatter blotting out the sound of ponderous giant dinosaurs, only the occasional flurry of wind pierces the silence. Darkness rules: the rich blues and greens, and occasional yellows and reds that danced in the Sun’s rays have all been wiped out.
This is Earth after a six-mile-wide asteroid smashed into it 66 million years ago.
“In the course of minutes to hours it went from this lush, vibrant world to just absolute silence and nothing,” says Daniel Durda, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado. “Especially in the thousands of square miles around the impact site, the slate was just wiped clean.”
Much like putting in all the edge pieces of a jigsaw, scientists have outlined the lasting impacts of the meteor strike. It claimed the lives of more than three-quarters of the animal and plant species on Earth. The most famous casualties were the dinosaurs – although in fact many of them survived in the form of birds….
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY GIRL
- Born April 18, 1976 — Melissa Joan Hart. She’s not a teenaged witch anymore.
(13) THE STARLOST. Created then disowned by Harlan Ellison, the 1970s series The Starlost can be seen here on YouTube. The link takes you to the entire series for Starlost (16 episodes plus the “sales pitch.”)
Complaining about how the show was dumbed down from the original concept, Ellison took his name off the credits and substituted his Writers Guild alias Cordwainer Bird.
(14) DUTCH TREATS. Wim Crusio reminisces about conversations with writers at the 1990 Worldcon, in “Writing science, writing fiction (I)”.
Synopsis: Whether writing a good novel or a killer scientific article, the process is much the same: What scientists can learn from science fiction authors…
Many years ago, back in 1990, I attended my first Science Fiction Worldcon, called “ConFiction“, in The Hague. An interesting feature that year was the “Dutch Treat”. One could sign up with a group of about 10 people and invite a science fiction writer for lunch and talk with them in that small circle. To me, these “treats” were the highlights of that particular meeting. I did as many of them as I could and have fond memories of speaking with John Brunner, Harry Harrison (a Guest of Honor, accompanied by his charming wife, Joan), Fred Pohl, Brian Aldiss, and Bob Shaw (I think that’s all of them, but I am writing this from memory, so I may have forgotten one). Of course, these conversations spanned many topics and I was not the only participant, but at some point or another I managed to pose the same question to each of them, namely: how do you write a story (be it a short story or a novel in multiple parts). Do you just start, do you write some parts first and only continue when you’re completely done with revising them, or something else entirely?
(15) REJECTION. Editor Sigrid Ellis’ post “On handling publishing rejection” tells things that can’t really be said in rejection letters. Some of them would be encouraging to writers!
Speaking from my work as a short fiction editor, I can 100% genuinely assure you — sometimes your story is fantastic, it’s just not what that venue needs at that time.
I hated writing those rejections. I knew that the writers would take them as a sign that the story wasn’t any good, no matter how much I tried to say “I swear to GOD it’s not you, it’s us! We just need something lighter/darker/fantasy/sf this month I SWEAR!!!”
Of course authors take that hard. Because — and here’s the secret — the generic blow-off letter is very similar to a genuine, personal rejection. That similarity is on PURPOSE. It permits everyone to save face. It allows everyone to walk away, dignity intact. But, then, if you get a personal rejection, you understandably might wonder if this is just the blow-off.
I know. It’s hard, and I know.
But here’s what I always wanted every author to do when they received a rejection, whether standard or personalized…..
(16) STRICTLY ROMANCE. The first romance-only bookstore starts in LA. (Strictly speaking, The Ripped Bodice is in Culver City.)
Romance novels are a billion dollar industry, vastly outselling science fiction, mystery and literary books.
And there’s only one rule for writing a romance – it has to have a happy ending.
Yet the romance genre has long been dismissed as smut or trashy by many in, and out, of the publishing world – a fact that mystifies sisters Bea and Leah Koch, who last month opened the US’s first exclusively romantic fiction bookstore.
Their shop in Los Angeles is called The Ripped Bodice, and the store’s motto is “smart girls read romance”.
(17) DEFINING X. They say it’s the intersection of politics and Marvel comics: “A People’s History of the Marvel Universe, Week 9: The Mutant Metaphor (Part I)” at Lawyers, Guns & Money.
A lot of people have discussed the manifold ways in which the “mutant metaphor” is problematic, but what I’m going to argue in this issue is that a big part of the problem with the “mutant metaphor” is that it wasn’t clearly defined from the outset, in part because it wasn’t anywhere close to the dominant thread of X-Men comics.[i] While always an element of the original run, as much time was spent on fighting giant Kirby robots or stopping the likes of Count Nefaria from encasing Washington D.C in a giant crystal bubble. And this was always problematic, because in the shared Marvel Universe, you need to explain why it is that the X-Men are “feared and hated” and must hide beneath the façade of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in Westchester, whereas the Avengers and the Fantastic Four were treated as celebrities and could live openly on Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, respectively.
So what did the “mutant” metaphor mean initially?
One of the best ways to understand how the “mutant metaphor” was originally understood is to look at depictions of anti-mutant prejudice. In the early Lee and Kirby run, anti-mutant prejudice is described almost entirely as a mass phenomenon, a collective hysteria that takes hold of large groups of people. You can see this especially in the way that crowds of humans descend into violence in contexts that you wouldn’t normally expect them. Like sports events:…
(18) SKYWALKERED BACK. J. J. Abrams made a little mistake…. CinemaBlend has the story: “Star Wars: J.J. Abrams Backtracks Statement About Rey’s Parents”.
Earlier, J.J. Abrams sat down with Chris Rock at the Tribeca Film Festival to talk about the director’s work in television and film. During the Q&A segment, a young fan asked the identity of Rey’s parents and Abrams said “they aren’t in Episode VII.” This implies that just about every fan theory is wrong, but Entertainment Weekly caught up with Abrams after the show and he was able to clarify his statement:
What I meant was that she doesn’t discover them in Episode VII. Not that they may not already be in her world.
So, Rey’s parents could be somewhere in The Force Awakens as opposed to not being in it at all. That’s a pretty serious backtrack, but it opens the floor back up for fans to come up with theories on the heroine’s lineage. This potentially limits the amount of suspects, but most theories were already focused on Force Awakens characters. There are a few contenders that have risen above the rest, each with there own amount of logic and speculation.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Alan Baumler, Chip Hitchcock, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Hampus Eckerman.]
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As I read these comments about the hearing community versus the deaf community (and as my own slight to moderate encroaching age/genetically caused deafness becomes more and more a damned nuisance), I keep thinking of H.G. Wells’ short story “The Country of the Blind”, which appeared in an original and a revised, longer version, and with a radically different ending. Does this bring up any unsettling issues or comments for any of you as it does for me? And for those who do comment – have YOU read the revised version? It really does make a difference……
I apologize for my lack of clarity. I was referring to the magazine as a whole (i.e. the “Best Magazine” Hugo), which Astounding failed to win three years running as of April 1961 (where I currently reside when writing Galactic Journey)
Rea
Well Said!
Also, +1
I apologize for my lack of clarity. I was referring to the magazine as a whole (i.e. the “Best Magazine” Hugo), which Astounding failed to win three years running as of April 1961 (where I currently reside when writing Galactic Journey)
I don’t think that missing out on the Hugo for three years in one category (after winning it four times in a row prior to that) can count as “consistently fails to win Hugos”.
Watching The Starlost makes me feel better about my two amateur Doctor Who movies, “The Zombie Legions” and “Those Darn Daleks”.
John A Arkansawyer: And I feel bad for [Burnside] personally because (from what I’ve read) he handled both himself and the situation better than most of the people involved.
I don’t feel a bit sorry for him. He agreed up front to be part of what he was well aware was an attempt to stack the Hugo ballot.
Ken Burnside on 2015-02-03 at 12:22:24 said:
I understand the hesitancy of being anyone’s “political bludgeon.”
As this is the “make sure these titles get on the WorldCon ballot” phase, the odds of you getting a Campbell, or me getting a Hugo for “The Hot Equations” is slim. I doubt that anyone can read much of a political context into Hot Equations; if anything you can argue that it’s a fairly thorough evisceration and deconstruction of some SFnal tropes.
This seems to be the “in thing” in some circles, though it doesn’t delve into the tone-poems of existential angst informing the reader of the hopeless oppression of nonseptunary polyphase-fluidic gendered androids. And their love of dinosaurs. (You only recognize four genders? You sexist fascist, you.)
Dex: I’m not surprised but I think Russ might have missed the point when he complained the convention is all about them. I’ve never attended a Worldcon, but my impression has always been that it isn’t a pseudo trade convention like comic cons or general sci-cons where people attend for dealers and collector tables. It’s about the attendees and the panel discussions, with the merchant space as a kind of add on, as opposed to the other way around. So, really, the allure of Worldcon is all about the people attending, as opposed to cosplay, collector auctions, merchant deals, and so on. Correct me if I’m wrong?
Ault’s rant totally makes no sense. At first he’s complaining about how expensive it is for dealers to participate, even though the potential customer base is much smaller than at the mega-cons. Okay, fair enough.
But then he veers off into a rant about how Worldcon committees have “the intent to make damn sure that the primary focus of the Worldcon is serving the needs of the Just Us League, i.e. themselves.” Does he think Worldcon’s primary focus should be on the Dealers? Seriously? Does he even know what Worldcon is?
Then he changes his rant to saying, that by focusing on what Worldcon members want their con to be, they have “set up the perfect environment for the subversion of the showpiece at the center, the Hugo awards… with definite and undeniable effect in causing the awards to become less meaningful in the process.”
Has he bothered asking many Worldcon members if they feel the Hugo Awards have become less meaningful? Because, apart from Puppies, I don’t know any Worldcon members who think that.
Then, he finally goes completely off in a different direction from complaining about how much it costs to be a dealer to saying that “The long-term solution is to make it possible for more fans to attend Worldcons. Setting the attending membership price at $210 isn’t conducive to that in any way.”
Solution to what? His perceived problem with the Hugos? His problem with the cost to dealers?
His rant is the equivalent of the Chewbacca Defense.
@JJ
It’s not the best written post but I think it’s more coherent than that. My read of his intent:
WorldCon charges dealers high fees relative to sales volume. Sales are low because the con remains relatively small. The con remains small because WorldCon isn’t pursuing growth and charges high attendee fees. Remaining small isn’t just bad for dealers. It also makes the Hugos (WorldCon’s central attraction) vulnerable to attacks by relatively small fringe groups like the pups. The pup subversion of the Hugos is hurting the credibility of the awards further hurting the marketability of WorldCon. Different policies would be good for both dealers and WorldCon itself.
How I read it anyways. Not in any way my endorsement of his post merely an attempt at blog-whispering…
@emgrasso
(My writing is hook-handed lefty, and apparently the hook-handed or not is also genetically influenced.)
Really? That’s interesting. Because I don’t write hook-handed; I write with a straight hand, just like a rightie. I always had a heck of a time in junior high (or middle school, I guess it’s called now) because the long arm of the desks was always on the right side, and of course my left elbow would just dangle off into midair. Still, I’ve never been able to write hook-handed.
Stoic Cynic: It also makes the Hugos (WorldCon’s central attraction) vulnerable to attacks by relatively small fringe groups like the pups. The pup subversion of the Hugos is hurting the credibility of the awards further hurting the marketability of World Con.
Read it again. He’s not talking about the pups.
I don’t write hook handed either which means I spend most of my middle-school days with blue ink stains on my fingers.
In high school very few teachers objected when I chose to use a mechanical pencil instead.
@JJ
Yeah, I can see plenty of room to read that part either way. I chose to give it the generous interpretation but the post itself is ambiguous enough to read the other way too (lions, sjw’s, and conspiracies, oh my!). Anything in his other posts or interactions with folks to indicate one way or another?
Stoic Cynic: Yeah, I can see plenty of room to read that part either way.
I think you’re right, he’s talking about the Puppies.
Interestingly, I see Burnside again playing innocent victim in that thread, as if he did not choose to join the slate or have any knowledge of its purpose.
Hahahaha… from a comment on that thread:
I assume their top-level poster(s) decide what goes in their Pixel Scroll, but linking to your rant in comments would be likely to bring it to their attention.
Filers: We’ve got Top Men deciding what goes in our Pixel Scroll right now.
Commenter: Who?
Filers: Top. Men.
@JJ,
Invoice for a new keyboard headed your way.
Hey, I’m going to have to dial in to tonight’s pixel-scroll-going-into decision meeting. What’s the bridge?
I dunno, Jim, whose turn is it to be the Glyer today? I lost my spreadsheet…
Jim Henley: Hey, I’m going to have to dial in to tonight’s pixel-scroll-going-into decision meeting. What’s the bridge?
Don’t bother. I’ve already decided what’s going to be in the next Pixel Scroll: A story by Me, a filk by Me, a list of My favorite books, and a photo of My SJW Credentials.
I want moar cat pictures in my puxel scroll. I’m telling you guys, stop ignoring my input OR ELSE.
@JJ
The link just takes me back to the original public Facebook post. I’m not getting any comment thread. I’m guessing because I don’t have a Facebook account. Oh well 🙂 I’m more than willing to take your word for it.
On Burnside: no one wants to admit to having been a party member after the regime has fallen in disrepute… (Can you Godwin a thread by inference?)
Stoic Cynic: The link just takes me back to the original public Facebook post.
Sorry about that. It’s a public post and comments, so I’ll quote it:
Russ Ault (responding to a comment about the Puppies): Not really. I disdain *them* even more. But I can see how and why their actions look plausible and justified to some, even though I affirmatively do not agree with much of anything they are promoting or doing. But I also think that the biggest reason that they have gained what appears to be so much traction is that the Worldcon structure has ensured that the Hugo puddle isn’t the bigger pool of active participants that it ought to have been all along. If anything, by raising their heads, the puppies have caused that pool to enlarge – and to their chagrin, they have been discovering that they are not speaking for the presumed nonparticipatory majority that they thought they represented, but rather a smaller and even more disaffected minority than they had feared.
I’m righthanded, but write hook-handed, which at least when I was in elementary school in Germany in the late 1970s/early 1980s was policed as stringently as, if not more so than being lefthanded. At least, the teachers usually left the lefthanders alone (retraining had recently been recognised as bad), but I constantly had my hand position corrected.
Coincidentally, my parents still blame my American kindergarten teachers (I went to kindergarten in the US for a year just before starting school in Germany) for the fact that I didn’t learn to write properly, because the American teachers never policed how I held my hand.
I thought I was a top-level poster but I’ve never been invited to Pixel Scroll Decision Meetings. Overblown ego again. I’m just a file770 minion. I’m devastated. First they take my gallbladder. Then they lock me out of the cabal meetings. Dare I ask what next?
Cora Buhlert: Coincidentally, my parents still blame my American kindergarten teachers (I went to kindergarten in the US for a year just before starting school in Germany) for the fact that I didn’t learn to write properly, because the American teachers never policed how I held my hand.
Is your parents’ definition of “didn’t learn to write properly” that you write hook-handed? Do you believe that’s true, or that it’s just how you naturally write?
(my personal opinion is that it is your natural method of writing, and trying to correct it is akin to trying to “correct” left-handedness)
And, just when is it MY turn to be Glyer?!? It’s always Glyer yesterday and Glyer tomorrow but NEVER Glyer today. It’s an outage I tell you. You’ll be hearing from my SJW credential. Probably about food or neighbor cats invading the yard but still you’ll be hearing…
I’m a Glyer, she’s a Glyer, we’re a Glyer, be a Glyer, wouldn’t you like to be a Glyer, too?
Oh this is interesting! I’m also a hook-hand writer but had no idea that it was influenced by genetics. I just thought I’d learnt to write in a weird way. Even if I consciously try to write straight-handed, it invariably curls up into a claw again.
I’d like to see if/how things like this translate to languages with right-to-left or vertical scripts, also…
ULTRAGOTHA: I thought only officers of SFWA get to post cat pictures on their blogs?
When I became a pixel-scroll decider I thought there would be way more links to my Bandcamp page.
Mike, that’s a myth perpetrated by people like you trying to keep the commentariat trampled into the dust.
“Didn’t learn to write properly” refers to the fact that I write hook-handed. My parents noticed that quite a few Americans write hook-handed, whereas writing hook-handed was pretty much unseen in Germany at the time (it’s still fairly rare, so I supposed they’re still retraining kids), so they assumed that American teachers weren’t properly training the kids. They quite liked the American kindergarten with its more intense focus on learning otherwise (German kindergartens were hands-off, all-play affairs in the late 1970s), but they didn’t like the fact that I came out of it writing in a way that looked strange to German eyes.
They probably also got some crap from my elementary school teachers about that, since at the time, conventional pedagogic wisdom believed that learning to read and write before starting first grade was harmful and that being bilingual (which I was) was even more harmful. German schools are more accepting of bilingualism these days, though writing instruction is still rather strange and focusses on having kids trace loops for weeks before they finally get to write letters and words. They also start off all kids writing cursive.
In the end, it comes down to different ideas of pedagogics. German schools were still very focussed on pretty handwriting and neatness in general at the time, though grading students for the neatness of their handwriting was gone by my time. Coincidentally, some German companies still employed graphologists to evaluate job candidates well into the 1980s and 1990s and even beyond. And in fact, I remember being told as a kid that I would have problems finding a job, if my handwriting didn’t improve. That’s probably why I have a violent dislike of graphology.
Personally, I believe that I naturally write hook-handed, especially since all attempts to correct my hand position failed in the end. I also believe that I was lucky to end up with the American kindergarten teachers who were more accepting of differences than the German teachers at the time.
Robert Whitaker Sirignano said:
Pining for Jurassic fjords and/or angel butts.
Who gets the bill for the keyboard?
@Milt Stevens – The phrase was “inflict consequences.” You usually don’t talk about inflicting language, even profane language. It suggests something beyond bad mouthing.
Gotcha. Merriam Webster, definition 2 b: to cause (something unpleasant) to be endured. I’d say that’s a fair approximation of my usage of the word and an accurate description of what happens when the internet falls on someone’s head.
I’m one of today’s 10,000, because I didn’t know hook handedness was a thing. I get it from my mother, but she’s a lefty and doesn’t have to deal with smeared ink.
JJ:
Burnside might have been a Puppy from the beginning and he might have known exactly what he did, but his behaviour afterwards at least shows he’s not very happy about the puppies now and that is good enough for me. People change and when they do it in the right direction, we should be happy.
Hampus Eckerman: Burnside might have been a Puppy from the beginning and he might have known exactly what he did, but his behaviour afterwards at least shows he’s not very happy about the puppies now and that is good enough for me. People change and when they do it in the right direction, we should be happy.
I would agree with you on that, Hampus — if he was saying, “Yes, I agreed to it, but I didn’t really understand it was wrong, and I’m sorry now that I agreed to do it”.
But that’s not what he’s saying. In that thread he is pretending that he didn’t know anything about the Puppy slate before he was put on it, and that he was an innocent victim. That’s dishonest — and it doesn’t indicate to me that he has changed.
ETA: Oh, you don’t have a Facebook account, do you? So you can’t see what he’s saying in those comments.
It’s hard for me to understand why people bang on about the ~$200 attending membership fee to Worldcon, complaining that they could go to 3 Comic Cons for that price.
Well, sure, you could, but when you’re going to be paying for 5-6 nights of a hotel room, you’re talking several hundred dollars more. How many Comic Cons last 5 days? Are you paying for a hotel when you go to a Comic Con, or are you going to one within an hour or two driving distance of where you live?
If you’d rather drive to a local Comic Con for a couple of days with no hotel than have an immersive experience elsewhere in the country for 5-6 days, then maybe Worldcon isn’t your thing. That’s perfectly okay.
But if you’re paying for flights/ road trip, and a hotel for several days, the membership fee difference is only a very small part of that.
And stop expecting Worldcon to be a Comic Con. It’s something completely different, and the people who like Worldcon like it for what it is.
@Tasha: No, it’s clearly Top. Men. who are the top-level posters who decide everything. That’s why you and I never get invited to the meetings.
I’m not sure why whiny huckster is surprised that volunteer, moving Worldcon isn’t the same as professional, fixed cons. It’s a free market, he can go to giant-ass comic cons (where everyone will have the same stuff as him, and the dealer’s room is so crowded that paradoxically people get less time per dealer — not to mention spend a lot of time standing in line for other things).
Why do he and the Puppies insist that people who have worked hard for decades to get things the way they like them suddenly need to change them? I don’t march into his house and complain about the decor and demand he redecorate to suit my taste, nor insist he needs to serve my favorite food and watch different movies.
@Cora: A German system is more regimented than an American one? Well, who would expect that? 😉
Burnside is trying to evolve, but still has some ginormous blindspots. All is not forgiven (he was still a willing Puppy fellow traveler), but he’s progressing.
lurkertype: Why do he and the Puppies insist that people who have worked hard for decades to get things the way they like them suddenly need to change them?
Exactly. There are zillions of comic/media cons — and I have zero interest in attending any of them. Why do they keep insisting that a con I *do* enjoy attending, because it’s not like those gigantic comic/media cons, must become just another fucking clone con?
Worldcon isn’t your thing? Fine. Don’t go. But stop insisting that Worldcon needs to change to suit you.
JJ:
Yes, I can. It is an open post. And I have a parallel story for you. We have voting surveys in Sweden. As to not have them fluctuate too wildly, there’s usually a question on what people voted for last year and the result of the survey is weighted against this. Usually it gives a better result.
But one year there was a large gap between the survey and the real vote. Turns out that people, even in an anonymous survey, was too ashamed to admit what they had voted on the year before (as the elected government was kind of despised) which made the survey go haywire.
I do believe that you shouldn’t push peoples faces i what they have done. To make a small leeway for people to be able to change while in some way save faces for themselves. The alternative is to continue to push them in to the opposition camp where they don’t want to be anymore.
Which is just plain stupid.
Hampus Eckerman: I do believe that you shouldn’t push peoples faces i what they have done.
I haven’t posted on that thread, even though I could have done so.
I agree with you, but I would also say that I expect grown adults to be willing to accept personal responsibility and acknowledge mistakes.
And you know what, in my mind, Burnside wouldn’t even have to do that — he should just stop pretending that things happened differently. That’s not moving on, that’s just dishonest.
Ok, english is my second language, but could someone please tell me why people call Ault a huckster? Isn’t that more or less an insult? Is there a special reason why he should be insulted because he feels that WorldCon is not a place he can afford to go to as a seller?
He seems to have been a seller who have visited several times before. Why is there a problem with him voicing his opinion of what would make WorldCon a better place for him? I think it is kind of good to hear other opinions, even if their view might not be mine.
Not everyone is a puppy and their barking shouldn’t drown out other voices.
Actually, it is moving on. As a lot of people move on. That you think it is dishonest doesn’t change that.
Hampus Eckerman: Actually, it is moving on. As a lot of people move on. That you think it is dishonest doesn’t change that.
No, “moving on” is (or can be) just ceasing to speak of something.
Speaking of something and claiming that it was different than it really was is just dishonest.
@lurkertype: @Tasha: No, it’s clearly Top. Men. who are the top-level posters who decide everything. That’s why you and I never get invited to the meetings.
Figures no girls allowed. Maybe that’s why our cabal of 2 failed to take over the world this past year? Maybe as @Soon Lee pointed out within the last month: the pen-is mightier.
Hampus Eckerman: Ok, english is my second language, but could someone please tell me why people call Ault a huckster? Isn’t that more or less an insult?
Checking Wikipedia, apparently it is considered an insult in general in the U.S. But the only way I’ve ever seen it used is in the SF sense, where it is not a pejorative, just a description of a role.
I don’t think anyone here is intentionally using it as an insult, it’s just a common name in fandom for a dealer.
I can, at least, tell you how it works in fanspeak.
Huckster, in mundane conversation, is a pejorative. And no longer a commonly used word in the mundane world, so far as I can tell, though I imagine most people would still know what it means.
Fans used it in a bantering way — somebody who was selling wares to fans would also be humorously accused of raking in filthy lucre, and have other slang applied to them.
In the early days of fandom, it was treated as immoral to try and profit from fanac. Dealers who sold stuff to fans they wanted, like magazines and books, were immune to that complaint, yet some of the jokes about them were designed to create a little tension between their immunity and the general rule.
Also, people sometimes embrace what started out as a negative term. SMOFs, for example. I think huckster worked the same way.
But a couple of decades ago I started to hear people didn’t want it called the huckster room anymore, they wanted it called the dealers room, and themselves dealers. So the word huckster is also fading out of fandom. However, some people who have been around fandom a long time may still be comfortable using it. Or might even feel it would be pretentious to stop using it.
Mike Glyer: But a couple of decades ago I started to hear people didn’t want it called the huckster room anymore, they wanted it called the dealers room, and themselves dealers. So the word huckster is also fading out of fandom.
Thanks for that history, Mike. I’ve always just called them dealers or vendors, but I appreciate hearing their perspective, and will be mindful of that in my interactions.
In re “huckster”: I agree that in most mainstream use it’s a (somewhat old-fashioned now) insult, and in fandom it was an affectionate we-don’t-take-ourselves-seriously affectionate insult which got to be a neutral term for merchants. It might be funny that “dealers” is considered more respectable, considering that the mainstream use of dealer is drug dealer.
I was surprised to find, when I moved to Philadelphia, that huckster can be used as a neutral term for someone who sells fruits and vegetables. Maybe specifically for someone who sells fruits and vegetables on the street rather than from a store.
luckertype, It’s been a while since I’ve seen Russ Ault’s table, but he sells his own products, not the same thing a bunch of other dealers carry.
Is there any way to download File770 comments to a post as a single page? It would be much easier to search and follow discussions if I could.
Thank you for the explanation, Mike!