(1) HARRY AND THE PIRATES. Your average author can only wish they got this level of service. Reuters has the story — “Defense Against the Dark Arts: UK spies guarded against Harry Potter leak”.
Usually concerned with top secret matters affecting national security, Britain’s eavesdropping spy agency GCHQ was also on the lookout for leaks of a yet-to-be-published Harry Potter book, its publisher has revealed.
Shortly before the publication of one of the volumes in J.K. Rowling’s seven-part wizarding saga, with millions of fans worldwide at a fever pitch of anticipation, publisher Nigel Newton received an unexpected phone call.
“I remember the British spy eavesdropping station GCHQ rang me up and said ‘we’ve detected an early copy of this book on the Internet’,” Newton told Australia’s ABC Radio in an interview last week that gained attention in Britain on Sunday.
“I got him to read a page to our editor and she said ‘no, that’s a fake’,” said Newton, founder and chief executive of Potter publishing house Bloomsbury, describing the spies as “good guys”.
A spokesman for GCHQ said: “We do not comment on our defense against the dark arts.”
(2) MORE EAVESDROPPING. R. A. MacAvoy lets us listen in on her “Conversations with People Who Aren’t There”.
The reason I was convinced my imaginary conversations were universal to the human condition was simply my embarrassment knowing that, since I had constructed my verbal respondents, when we had a difference of opinion – a necessarily frequent happening – I always won the debate. This, in itself, was so much a stacking of the deck, or loading of the dice of the disagreement, I would hate for anyone to know I was doing it. It was so much like playing chess with one’s self and cheating. And I assumed everyone else on the planet felt as I did about it, and so, from an attempt not to appear the scoundrel I was, I kept my mouth shut (for once) about the existence of this wild and crazy inner life. I was certain any other person would do the same. So I have continued, for approximately sixty years, to live this way, mumbling to myself or to the non-human creatures about me, or even the furniture. And thinking every other soul did also.
It was only perhaps a week ago I asked Ron whether he did not spend his hours as I did. I expected him to answer “Of course,” or simply smile knowingly and shrug. Instead he looked at me intently and said “No. Not so often.”
This was quite a surprise. It was, in fact, a re-set of my expectations. The human condition was not entirely as I had thought it was. Not for all these years.
So I must re-evaluate my life of inner debate. I have not just been rigging the game of internal conversation. It seems I invented the game before I rigged it. My ego-centricity is far more overwhelming than I thought. I am not proud of myself.
Nonetheless, there have been some interesting conversations over the years. If I must take the blame for doing the thing, I can at least describe how I have done it.
The most common repeated dialogue I have is with any film or television actor who pronounces words in a way I disagree with. Of course I am arguing with the character, not the real actor, but as no one is there, it doesn’t matter.
(3) CAPCLAVE 2017. WSFA has announced that Ken Liu will be a Capclave GoH in 2017.
(4) LOVELY ROOM, SLIGHT DRAFT. Supposedly this happened — “Tim Peake Leaves TripAdvisor Review For The International Space Statuion’s New ‘Space Hotel’” — although neither Steven H Silver nor I have been able to find it on the actual TripAdvisor site.
Bigelow Aerospace is trialling a new “space hotel” this week, attaching their new inflatable hotel room to the side of the International Space Station to test the possibility of having a holiday resort in Earth’s orbit.
The inflatable “BEAM” module is made of a top secret material that may make holidaying in space a reality, but first it’s being tested aboard the ISS.
Not one to ignore a chance at giving his two cents to the people on terra firma, British astronaut Tim Peake has left a review for the “space hotel” on TripAdvisor.
(5) KEPLER IN TROUBLE? From NASA — “Mission Manager Update: Kepler Spacecraft in Emergency Mode”.
During a scheduled contact on Thursday, April 7, mission operations engineers discovered that the Kepler spacecraft was in Emergency Mode (EM). EM is the lowest operational mode and is fuel intensive. Recovering from EM is the team’s priority at this time.
The mission has declared a spacecraft emergency, which provides priority access to ground-based communications at the agency’s Deep Space Network.
Initial indications are that Kepler entered EM approximately 36 hours ago, before mission operations began the maneuver to orient the spacecraft to point toward the center of the Milky Way for the K2 mission’s microlensing observing campaign.
The spacecraft is nearly 75 million miles from Earth, making the communication slow. Even at the speed of light, it takes 13 minutes for a signal to travel to the spacecraft and back.
The last regular contact with the spacecraft was on April. 4. The spacecraft was in good health and operating as expected.
(6) HOW MUCH IS THAT NOVEL IN THE WINDOW? Fynbospress has an intriguing post about indie book pricing at Mad Genius Club – “Know your reader demographics: Pricing”
2. The discount crowd ($0.99 – $5.99) Believe it or not, this is a different group from the Free Crowd. There’s plenty of overlap, but it’s a different crowd. Unlike the hardcore free-only, the 99 cent crowd will buy books cheap. If they’re long-term broke, they’re likely to use some of the tools to track your sales and only buy when the price drops. These are the people who keep all the used bookstores in business. At this price point, you’re competing with used paperbacks from McKay’s Powell’s, Amazon… you are NOT competing with new books from B&N or Book a Million.
How big is this market? I don’t know if there’s a way to tell – certainly it hasn’t been measured. But it’s been large enough to support thousands of used book stores across the US alone (much less the charity shops in the UK), and to propel low-pricing indie authors into millions sold.
You can develop fans here. If you stay in this price range, they’ll buy everything you put out the moment they discover it. (Not the same thing as the moment you release it, and that’s why a mailing list / social media presence / targeted advertising is a good thing.) You can also use this range to tempt people into impulse buying your works, in conjunction with targeted advertising.
(7) TO THE FINNISH. Today’s book review on NPR: “Frodo, Bilbo, Kullervo: Tolkien’s Finnish Adventure”.
In 1913, the 21-year-old Ronald Tolkien should have been studying for his exams. He was halfway through his Classics degree — the subject all the best students did at Oxford in those days. Getting admitted to Oxford on a scholarship was a great opportunity for young Ronald, an orphan who had always struggled to stay out of poverty. A Classics degree would have set him up for almost any career he chose. But he wasn’t studying. Instead, he was trying to teach himself Finnish.
Why would a brilliant student with so much at stake let himself go astray at such a crucial time? There were two reasons: love and the Kalevala.
Tolkien’s twin obsessions at the time were his future wife, Edith Bratt, and the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland.
(8) CLASSIC ZINE BIDS FAREWELL. Steven H Silver is retiring his fanzine Argentus, a three-time Hugo nominee.
I’ve decided that Argentus is no longer being published. I had planned on doing an issue last year (and didn’t) and then wrapping it up this year, but with chairing three conventions in 11 months, Worldcon programming, surgery, and life in general, I don’t see it happening this year either. If I do another fanzine, it will be a different creature.
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
- April 10, 1953: Feature length, full color, 3-D movie premiered in NYC: House of Wax starring Vincent Price.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY GIRL
- Born April 10, 1992 — Daisy Ridley
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- April 10, 1929: One of the all-time greats, Max von Sydow, is born in Sweden.
- Born April 10, 19?? — James H. Burns, prolific File 770 columnist.
- Born April 10, 1953 — David Langford, Ansible editor.
(12) DISTILLED WRITING ADVICE. Lit Reactor has compiled “22 of the Best Single Sentences on Writing”. The most contrarian comes from G. K. Chesterton: “I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.”
(13) FESTIVAL OF BOOKS. The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books wrapped up on Sunday.
Mercedes Lackey was on hand.
Huge crowd for @sabaatahir @RominaRussell @michaelwbuckley @mercedeslackey @TobieEaston at @latimesfob ! GREAT panel pic.twitter.com/rHni0skFwQ
— Kerry Kletter (@kkletter) April 10, 2016
"I didn't want to marry Spock, I wanted to be Spock." – @mercedeslackey at the YA Fantasy panel @latimesfob #Bookfest
— Nicola updates (@NicolaYoon) April 10, 2016
Not sf, but I’m a fan!
At the @latimesfob with @welliver_titus pic.twitter.com/GgKb746tCi
— Michael Connelly (@Connellybooks) April 10, 2016
A Sabaa Tahir quote —
"I have many, many wonderful Slytherin friends" – @sabaatahir at YA Fantasy panel @latimesfob
— Nicola updates (@NicolaYoon) April 10, 2016
(14) AWESOME ANIMATION. Official music video for Jane Bordeaux’s ‘Ma’agalim’. In a forgotten old penny arcade, a wooden doll is stuck in place and time.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Steven H Silver, JJ, Will R., and Michael J. Walsh for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day ULTRAGOTHA.]
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:::ticky:
(1 ) That first sentence looks to have been redacted. Waves to GCHQ.
Also ticky.
I have no idea what language #14 is in, or the meaning of what she’s singing, but the animation is cool.
Fifth – first.
And I really need to finish some books and write about them.
Fifth, I think?
I figure that since you first announced I would be doing Argentus in Locus, it was only fair that I let you announce that its run was over.
(14) AWESOME ANIMATION.
I also don’t understand the words, but what a beautiful, melancholy video. Thanks for posting it.
(13) With the close relationship of SF and mystery, this is acceptable and also a good photo of the gents, who both do fine work.
(14) Pretty sure this is Hebrew.
6) I’m price conscious, but it generally depends on the book. I do use the high-low price function to check out stuff by price.
14 Jane Bordeaux is based in Tel Aviv, so it’s probably Hebrew.
Second Fifth.
(6) For 99 cents up to about 2.99, I’ll take a chance on a lot of stuff. (The Evil River knows this, which is why I get all those Samuel Peralta anthologies in my Prime emails)
(12) Aww. My favorite Stephen King quote wasn’t listed–“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
This is my new Powerpuff Girls avatar–a bit closer to what I actually look like (cat included) since I wear my hair short and have just started wearing reading glasses. And yes, I’m obviously still a kid at heart 😉
(1) HARRY AND THE PIRATES. – Whatever else I think of GCHQ, that line by the spokesman is just gold.
(6) HOW MUCH IS THAT NOVEL IN THE WINDOW? – I really have no idea how this works in general, much less in the self-pubbed world. On Google Play, Brennan’s Labyrinth of Drakes by Orbit is currently retailing for about USD 18, while the same book by Titan is just over USD 4. Doesn’t quite make sense.
(6) – Ehh, I’ve turned away from the cheap ebooks. I have been burned far too often with minimal page count and what should have been a novel being sold as 8+ ebooks for $.99 each.
(12) DISTILLED WRITING ADVICE.
I am reminded of a recent comment by Kendall…
14 is beautiful, both vocally and visually. Thanks for posting it.
(6) For me, the limitation on reading isn’t money, but time. Stocking up on a pile of $0.99 books really doesn’t do me much good, since they’d just go to the tail end of my enormous pile of books to be read.
Clicky.
Well I have just binge read all of The Wicked + The Divine to date. The third volume, Commercial Suicide goes in a different direction, filling in background on the pantheon with hints and clues as to what happens at the end of Fandemomium, with the main storyline being picked up in issue 18.
Which I had to buy from Comixology after the “cliffhanger” at the end of the collection.
Wow.
One of the best modern fantasies I have read in a long time; all the better for its graphical form. It’s doing something really rather different, mixing godhood and pop stardom, saying very interesting things about celebrity culture and its roots.
A fascinating and highly recommended graphic story.
Definitely not regretting nominating it for the Hugos.
(Now back to the slow MilSF I was reading before I picked up the latest volume)
#13 big fan of Connelly and Titus Welliver playing Bosch. Also nice to see another Sawks fan make good
FYI, for those interested: my Short Story Squee and Snark reading club on Facebook continues, and we’d love to get some more members involved 🙂
A few times a week we (Vasha and I) pick a free online story, and the group reads and discusses. It’s fun, light, and a great way to have in-depth discussion of interesting stories from all over the place.
(14) Yup, that’s Hebrew. “Ma’agalim” means “circles.”
“It isn’t me going forward; it’s time getting more distant.”
(6) I use BookBub to point me at cheap stuff I might want, particularly when it comes to e-book copies of books I won’t want to move my print copies of anymore.
@Simon Bisson: Really glad you enjoyed Wicked + Divine!
I noticed a tweet from Quilly_Mammoth trying to make Matthew Stover believe some shit happeing on Vox Popoli occurred here, where it was in fact never mentioned either in a post or comments.
Fun to hear that Tolkien was so nuts about something that probably 99% of Finnish school kids hate.
Here’s an early photo of the ill-fated bastard (who was also an influence for Moorcock’s Elric):
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gallen_Kallela_Kullervos_Curse.jpg
@Mike,
It appears to be a comment posted at Vox Day’s site* purportedly by “Matthew Woodring Stover”.
*Usual disclaimers: link is to Vox Day’s site.
ETA: Anyone who cares to can use Google to verify/debunk. But some people prefer to jerk their knees. So sad.
Mike Glyer: I noticed a tweet from Quilly_Mammoth trying to make Matthew Stover believe some shit happeing on Vox Popoli occurred here, where it was in fact never mentioned either in a post or comments.
I don’t think QM did that maliciously; he knew he’d read it somewhere and guessed the wrong source.
Soon Lee: Anybody can sign anyone’s name to a comment at Vox Popoli, or any other blog.
I’ve already famously fallen for that once. That’s why I left the story alone. Which still seems like a good idea to me.
JJ: I’m dubious. After all, Quilly_Mammoth calls this blog “Vile 770” (see https://twitter.com/Quilly_Mammoth/status/632388446611312640.)
I tweeted to someone purporting to be Matthew Woodring Stover on Twitter that someone purporting to be Matthew Woodring Stover posted the original comment at Vox Day’s site.
Disclaimer: I am a dog. Purportedly.
*woof* *woof*
Soon Lee: Then you must be a bird dog.
Mike Glyer: I’m dubious. After all…
Ah, you’re right. That’s what I get for giving some random the benefit of the doubt.
Soon Lee is right, it appears that some Anonymous Coward is trying to stir up trouble.
Going back to play production issues, I just recalled a deliberate one. A student group at Yale was doing a student-written musical comedy about Henry VIII and his wives titled “Divorced, Beheaded, Died”. I happened to wander through the performance space as preparations were made for the final show, and stopped to chat with an acquaintance.
He was busy cutting out nude photos from Playboy and similar. I asked what was up, and was told that at one point, Henry would be shown pictures of prospective brides. In the previous shows, the pictures (in a folder/book type enclosure, so the audience wouldn’t see the actual pictures) had been from fashion magazines. For the last show, they wanted to prank the actor.
Cut to the performance. The folder comes out, Henry opens it, and if you knew to watch for it, he made a *very* brief WTF expression but recovered before it was noticeable.
However, as the folder carrier was going off stage, he showed the pictures to the piano player (effectively on stage; this was a dorm performance space rather than a theatre) who came close to falling off his bench in reaction.
@Tom: Oh! Somebody pulled something similar during an HMS Pinafore I was in. There’s a scene where Captain Corcoran gives Josephine, the female lead a picture of her intended fiance:
Josephine looks at the picture and shudders.
–in our case, for the last night, our Lighting Director swapped it for a photo of an Israeli politician the actress despises. (Two, in point of fact – one for the matinee, another at the evening show…)
It was in the same production that I was playing Dick Deadeye, handsome young man that I am. One of the evenings my pants split at the back seam. I was extremely cautious of how I angled myself to the audience until I could finally make it offstage. Happily, our director is a dab hand with a needle and sewed it up in a minute flat before I had to get back onstage!
Reporting back on the July/August 2015 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which Cheryl S. was kind enough to lend me so that I could read “The Deepwater Bride”, a novelette by Tamsyn Muir, before the Hugo nomination deadline.
I enjoyed the story — not enough for it to knock off one of my Top 5, but since I am not much a fan of Lovecraftian stories, the fact that I enjoyed it is pretty high praise.
The novella “Johnny Rev” by Rachel Pollack has gotten praise in some venues, but I only managed to read about 20% of it before deciding that it wasn’t working for me and declined to finish it.
“The Body Pirate”, a novelette by Van Aaron Hughes, has also gotten a fair bit of love from various reviewers, but even though I read the whole thing, I just wasn’t terribly wow’ed by it. I thought it had a promising premise, but failed to execute it successfully.
On the other hand, I really, really liked “Dixon’s Road”, a short story by Richard Chwedyk. Those of you who are poets, or aficionados of poetry, should hunt it down and read it.
“Paradise and Trout”, a novelette by Betsy James, was also a really pleasing folktale-type story.
And I quite enjoyed “The Curse of the Myrmelon” by Matthew Hughes and “The Silicon Curtain” by Naomi Kritzer; it’s my understanding that the authors have written several other stories in their respective universes, which I will have to hunt down.
Thanks again, Cheryl S., for so kindle-y lending me this issue to read! 🙂
(1) Sounds like a bit from one of the Laundry novels.
(2) I do this. Usually it’s alternate reality versions of actual conversations where I suddenly hit upon a point that I’d overlooked, and want to expand upon it on the car ride home. By myself, of course.
The tricky thing is I sometimes forget that that part of the conversation didn’t actually happen and reference it obliquely the next time I speak to the person, who of course has no idea what I’m talking about.
Worse, sometimes the hypothetical conversation gets a bit heated and I feel a residue of resentment the next time I speak to that person.
(6) This too applies to me. I’ll spend months considering a $9.99+ purchase but as long as the book in question doesn’t look to be flat out terrible I will buy several at a sub-$4.99 price point without blinking. If I see something cheap by an author I like, that is also an instant buy. In fact earlier tonight I saw George R.R. Martin’s Dreamsongs Vol. 1 was $1.99 and I did not hesitate(it’s back up to $12.99 right now).
I do end up with a virtual stack of books on my kindle but I don’t mind, I like having a large selection at hand. If a particular book stinks it’s not a big deal since I only spent maybe $2.99. Years of buying and reading bad comic books make that price point pretty painless.
And that bit about “If you stay in this price range, they’ll buy everything you put out the moment they discover it.” is very much true for me. If I find an author I like at the lower price point I’ll go back and buy all their books.
On the last night of a show, right at the end, one character is about to give a little demonstration of Irish dancing which I was supposed to cut short before it really started. Instead I folded my arms and waved him on. Oh the look of piteous pleading he gave me across the stage still keeps me warm on cold nights.
(2) I vaguely remember Gandalf saying he does it too, and commenting something like “talking with yourself is the best way to always get wise answers.” I’ve taken that to heart and talk with myself all the time.
***
JJ:
If QM is interested/concerned enough to reach out to Stover on Twitter and ask “did you really post that comment?”, it’s more than a little odd to not remember where he read the comment in question.
@Mike Glyer: I feel it’s my duty to point out that you’ve managed to sneak a ‘u’ into ‘station’ in item (4)
JJ: Thanks for reporting back on F&SF 🙂
Sorry you didn’t enjoy “The Body Pirate.” I felt it was weird and unusual; that it did a good job with a very weird premise; and I felt the parallel-column text worked well and made the story feel very much its own thing. For me, it touched on interesting themes of personal identity, and managed to twist it into a speculative SF-culture-development idea without hurting the themes.
But obviously, YMMV. If it didn’t grab you, it didn’t grab you.
I gave up on “Johnny Rev” at about the same point you did. Which is a shame; I liked the first story in the series.
If you enjoyed Kritzer’s Seastead story, definitely look up the others – quality varies, but they’re fun and engaging and it’s a fresh economic-SF-style story that I definitely enjoy.
@Mark Hopper, re (6):
I did that for a while, and ended up with a virtual tottering tower of TBR, not all of which I was terribly burning to get to.
I have so much to read and so little time to read it; I really don’t need to build up that much of a backlog. I’ve come to prefer to buy a $12 when I actually want it, over buying a dozen $2 books I’m not likely to get to in the next 6 months.
(Also, short fiction keeps me busy as hell, and there’s just so much of that that’s plain-out free.)
(14) Lyrics:
(amalgamated from some Reddit translations)
Standback: (14) Yup, that’s Hebrew. “Ma’agalim” means “circles.” “It isn’t me going forward; it’s time getting more distant.”
Thanks for that; my brain kept trying to make it French, picking out some French words here and there, but it kept refusing to compute.
What a gorgeous video. I’ve watched it several times now, and have seen new details each time.
ETA: And thanks for the lyrics, Bartimaeus.
Thanks for the mention! 10 April is also the birthday of SF artists Jim Burns (1948) and David A. Hardy (1936), and of the sadly missed John M. Ford (1957-2006).
I suspect (4) had been queued up for release since before Tim Peake was launched, and someone is now explaining why they forgot to change the release date to take account of the last slip or two in the Dragon launch.
yeah, I’m not the market for those .99 to 4.99 books either
I’d rather read on paper than a kindle, so a big eTBR pile is going to be ignored except in emergencies. And shortage of time is as relevant as price-sensitivity, so I’d rather buy one book that I think I’ll like (reviews, recommendations, author) than two shots in the dark. In practice, I add books to my Amazon wishlist when they catch my eye, and buy from there when I buy, rather than browsing the cheap lists.
There’s a big remaindered/discount and second-hand bookshop in the city that I get to once or twice a year. I’ll happily spend an hour or more in there and buy a dozen books, but that’s the only browsing I do…
Finished House of Shattered Wings. Ummm…
Didn’t really do it for me. Eight Deadly Words issues. There is a dreamlike quality to it, one drifts along, seeing what characters do without ever really bonding with them. If you like that sort of thing, you’ll like that sort of thing.
I’m always willing to grab a temporarily-free e-book — but if I’m not familiar with the author, it goes the the end of a very, very long TBR pile (hint: I’ve only ever read a handful of these, and I have at least several dozen just sitting there, which will probably just continue to sit there).
And I won’t shell out even $.99 for an e-book if I haven’t read something by the author that makes me think it’s worth it (although I did buy and read a couple of Novellas by unknown-to-me’s, because they were nominated for Nebulas).
The “If you stay in this price range, they’ll buy everything you put out the moment they discover it” only works if I’ve read, and liked, something by that author. If I haven’t read anything by you (or if I’ve read a freebie by you and found it to be “meh”), you can put out all the $.99 – $1.99 ebooks you want, and I still won’t be buying them.
But based on the things the Aviation Muso has said here in the past, there’s apparently a market of readers who prefer to buy ebooks of unknown quality by lots of unknown authors in the $.99 – $1.99 range, rather than a handful of books in the $3.99 – $6.99 range by authors whose works are known to be fantastic. I don’t understand that mentality — but I absolutely believe that there are people who have it.
Galloway: you want to talk pranks? I saw a living-room production of Burnand&Sullivan’s “Cox and Box”; the orchestra, on the side, was apparently tired of being where either C or B tossed the other’s breakfast (mistaken for the landlord’s breakfast cooking on the tenant’s fire), so all ~20 of them threw back English muffin halves at the last performance.
I do watch the various Amazon sales for works which are temporarily 99p, but don’t trust anything beyond novella length which is always 99p. Especially works which are eight volumes for 99p. Or indeed anything where the title is “Northgale: An uplifting story of how a mother overcomes tremendous hardship and the heart breaking disappearance of her child set in revolutionary France”.
Katherine Cross has an update on the “trans character in Baldurs Gate” thing that came up in yesterday’s scroll, along with some opinions on writing trans characters. Short version: this is a good outcome, and Amber Scott is a good choice of writer:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/270060/Opinion_So_you_want_to_write_a_trans_character.php
@nickpheas I wonder what a “child set” is? Think it’s giving me ideas for the horror game I’m running…