(1) OFF THE HOOK. Remember when she said she didn’t write sf? Now she is sf. Margaret Atwood makes a cameo in the game Zombies Run:
It's true – all of it! @MargaretAtwood has a fantastic cameo in one of our missions… https://t.co/lcxJDuMTE9 pic.twitter.com/7tLri7Rbmc
— Zombies, Run! (@ZombiesRunGame) April 10, 2017
Hampus Eckerman adds, “I do recommend that game as a very good way of activating oneself for jogs or long walks. There is an additional game called Zombies, Run! 5k Training by the same creators for people who aren’t fit enough to jog as yet. It works as a prequel and lets you do basic exercises and gradually increased walk/runs for eight weeks to get fit enough to hit the main game. The main game works as a radio theatre, where your progress is checked by GPS and where (configurable) zombies sometimes attack you, forcing you to increase your pace.”
(2) MAYDAY. On Obscura Day, May 6, Atlas Obscura plans an international self-celebration.
Join us at an event.
We’re hosting over 170 events in 36 states and 25 countries.
A kayak exploration through the largest ship graveyard in the Western Hemisphere. A private tour of the world’s original nuclear power plant. A classical concert in an abandoned hilltop spy station outside Berlin. What discoveries await you?
There are a bunch of events in the LA area, including a walking tour of The Kitschy Culture of Los Feliz Village, not far from Forrest J Ackerman Square.
(3) AN UNORTHODOX MOVE. Michael A. Burstein helped his Facebook readers translate the Four Questions. But not the way you might assume….
Once again, for those of you celebrating Pesach (Passover) as it begins tonight, here are the Four Questions in Klingon:
(4) MORE ABOUT CHINESE SF. Another interview with the author of “Folding Beijing” — “Award-Winning Sci-Fi Writer Hao Jingfang Sets Her Sights Closer to Home”.
When you first posted Folding Beijing for free on a Tsinghua university server, was that also for pleasure?
Yes, when I was in school, I had lots of time.
I am very surprised that studying physics, especially quantum physics, gave you a lot of time?
Perhaps that’s why I didn’t become a scientist! I was a good student, but not one good enough to become a scientist. Probably 95% of the physics students entered other fields after graduation. Only 5% to 10% of the top students became real physicists.
Is sci-fi an effective tool for investigating social issues?
I think science fiction is perhaps the freest genre for me to set my characters and everything else according to my opinion. Because in pure literature, I need to make sure I have the whole background and the reality of the people. You cannot just change the reality, if you do that the readers will be like ‘oh no! Life isn’t like that’. In science fiction you’re free, you can set the stage and tell readers, life is this, and you can form other stories on that stage. In my longer novel, I created one society on Mars and another on Earth, and then I can compare different policies and methods in these two places. The two societies can mirror each other. This is the kind of freedom I cannot find anywhere else.
(5) COODE STREET ADDRESS. The April 2 edition of The Coode Street Podcast promotes “A New Theory of Science Fiction.” The podcast is looking at Robinson’s New York 2140 which Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan claim is more in keeping with the Heinlein thesis that capitalism can fix Big Problems without a change in political and social structures. And they believe it’s also critiquing the controversial usage of info dumps and the belief that they’re particular to SF.
They also cover the history of the Crawford Award, the ICFA and Gary’s new History of Science Fiction.
(6) FIRST ON THE LIST. Popsugar ranks this café as “The 1 Place in Scotland that All Harry Potter Fans Should Visit at Least Once”.
Scotland is a veritable mecca for Harry Potter fans, considering J.K. Rowling herself lives there and wrote a large majority of the series there. Everywhere you turn, you can see Rowling’s inspiration or something that could easily be found in one of the films. While our Harry Potter travel bucket list can take you all over the world, it’s important to make a stop at where it all began: the Elephant House Cafe in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The cafe in the heart of Edinburgh touts itself as the birthplace of Harry Potter, because Rowling spent countless hours in this shop penning Harry Potter. She sat in the back of the restaurant, overlooking Edinburgh Castle and Greyfriars Kirkyard, where a grave for a man named Tom Riddell can be found.
(7) BROWN OBIT. Chelsea Brown (1942-2017), best remembered as a cast member on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In in the Sixties, passed away March 27 at the age of 74. She also had a genre credit — as Rosey Grier’s love interest in The Thing With Two Heads (1972). As the New York Times explains —
In that film, the head of an ailing bigot, played by Ray Milland, is grafted onto the body of a death-row inmate played by Mr. Grier, a former defensive lineman in the N.F.L. Car chases, gunfights and bickering ensue.
Mr. Grier and Mr. Milland eventually reach Ms. Brown. At first undaunted by Mr. Grier’s second head, she moves in for a kiss, then quickly withdraws and deadpans, “Honey, I know you don’t like to answer a lot of questions — but, but, how did that happen?”
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY
- April 10, 1981 – The Howling was released in theaters.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born April 10 – David Langford
(10) TIME’S A-WASTIN’! There’s less than a week left to vote in the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards and Steve Vertlieb would like people to take a look at his nominated blog.
My blog, BETTER DAYS; BENNER NIGHTS, has been nominated for BEST BLOG OF 2016 in this year’s annual RONDO AWARDS competition. To vote for my series of articles, just send your selection (along with your name and E-Mail address) to David Colton whose voting address is [email protected] prior to Sunday night, April 16th, 2017, at midnight.
Thanks sincerely for your consideration of my work. It’s an affectionate remembrance of the Saturday Matinee and 1950’s television when classic cliffhanger serials thrilled and excited “children of all ages”… when careening spaceships and thundering hooves echoed through the revered imaginations and hallowed corridors of time and memory…and when Buster Crabbe lovingly brought “Flash Gordon,” “Buck Rogers,” and “Captain Gallant Of The Foreign Legion” to life in darkened movie palaces all over the world. Return with us now to “those thrilling days of yesteryear” when Zorro, Hopalong Cassidy, “Space Patrol,” Ming, The Merciless, and Larry “Buster” Crabbe lit the early days of television, and Saturday afternoon motion picture screens, with magical imagery and unforgettable excitement.
(11) LIADEN UNIVERSE. Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have posted their appearance calendar for the rest of the year.
We’ve had some queries about upcoming publications, and upcoming appearances, and, and — herewith an attempt to get them all in one place, for you, and for us. Please note that the list is probably not complete; it’s only as complete as far as we know, as of Right Now.
(12) MAKE SCI-FI COME TRUE. GeekWire claims “NASA funds ideas from science fiction”. Well, if they’re smart they do.
The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program, also known as NIAC, has been backing far-out aerospace concepts for almost 20 years. It started out as the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts, modeled after the Pentagon’s DARPA think tank.
NIAC’s latest crop of 22 tech projects was announced this week, and they include a few concepts that were virtually ripped from the headlines of science fiction’s pulp magazines. Here are our favorite five:
Flying airships of Mars: The idea of sending airships floating through the Red Planet’s skies dates back to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom novels of the early 20th century.
One big problem: Mars’ actual atmosphere is so thin that an airship would have to maintain a vacuum to become buoyant. That’s exactly what Georgia Tech’s John-Paul Clarke intends to do with an experimental double-shelled, reinforced vacuum airship….
(13) EVEN BETTER. The 2084 anthology of dystopian fiction hit its funding target and now is plowing through its stretch goals.
Stretch goals!
After an opening week like that there’s only one thing we can do… And what better way to make the anthology better than with more stories? We’ve got more great writers lined up – people who will bring a fresh angle to the theme, people whose writing we love – and they’re poised and ready to go, right now. The first target is nice and easy, as well…
£6,000 – we add another story – HIT!
£7,500 – we add a second bonus story – HIT!
£9,000 – we add a third extra story
(14) SOUND OF HUGOS. Camestros Felapton can’t believe his ears. (I really want to make this a Spock reference. I’m sure you do, too.) “Hugo 2017 Review: Splendor & Misery by Clipping”.
Experimental Hip Hop group, Clipping are not a stereotypical Hugo nominee but I’d be hard pressed to name an album that is so tightly linked to the Hugo tradition. Science fiction themes are not new to popular music from David Bowie to Janelle Monae but Splendor & Misery approaches science fiction from a different direction musically. Rather than reaching for the broader aesthetics of SF visuals, Splendor & Misery dives directly into science fiction as both a narrative and as a distinct historical genre.
(15) THOSE TRAD PUB JUNKIES. Claire Ryan (intentionally) revives the Sad Puppies favorite argument in “The Hugo Awards are irrelevant”.
I went to Amazon.com, and I took a look at the current bestsellers for sci-fi and fantasy in Kindle. I found a couple of self-published authors immediately. Let’s not hash out the same tired arguments that the indies are somehow less worthy or less talented, please. Clearly the readers don’t think so. Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking probably have more readers than all the current Hugo Best Novel finalists put together, and they’ve never even been nominated.
(16) LONDON CALLING. Shhh! Please remember, Jonathan McCalmont abhors attention.
https://twitter.com/ApeInWinter/status/850314161557041152
https://twitter.com/ApeInWinter/status/850314483897688068
(17) KAEDRIN BLOG. Mark Kaedrin says the novel category of the final Hugo ballot looks pretty good.
The novel ballot looks pretty good and indeed, I’ve already read three of the nominees, all of which were pretty good (and two of which were in my nominations). Ninefox Gambit is the clear front-runner for me, with its intricate worldbuilding and simple, pulpy plot. A Closed and Common Orbit ranks a distant second, but I liked its focus and positive attitude enough to throw it a nomination. All the Birds in the Sky has a great, whimsical tone to it, but of the novels I’ve read, it’s the one that could fall behind some of the things I haven’t read yet. Speaking of which, Cixin Liu returns to the ballot with Death’s End, the conclusion to the story begun in the Hugo-winning Three Body Problem and the one I’m most looking forward to catching up with (even if it requires me to read the second novel, which I never got to last year). Ada Palmer’s Too Like the Lightning has been on my radar for a while, but I never pulled the trigger. It sounds like it has potential for me. N.K. Jemisin’s The Obelisk Gate rounds out the nominees. A sequel to last year’s Hugo-winning The Fifth Season, a book that I have to admit that I did not enjoy at all. Well written and executed, but it felt a little too much like misery-porn for my liking, and thus I’m not particularly enthused about reading the sequel. I realize this puts me in the minority here, but it’s got me seriously considering not actually participating this year. I really don’t want to return to that gloomy world of suffering and despair, as well written as it may be…
He’s able to restrain his enthusiasm about some of the others.
(18) RED, WHITE AND BLUE. But somebody in their comments says they use Russian rockets – “Building on ULA’s Heritage, Setting the Pace for the Future of Space Launch.”
As a new era dawns, ULA continues to set the pace in space launch. Building on a heritage extending to the early days of American space launch, ULA is bringing future innovations to the table to support human launch from American soil and next-generation technology that will create transportation infrastructure to support a permanent human presence in space.
[Thanks to JJ, Hampus Eckerman, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Carl Slaughter, Andrew Porter, and David K.M. Klaus for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Matthew Johnson.]
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(6) “Scotland” is spelled wrong in the linky bit of the headline para.
Ooh ooh: The Fandom Scrollbooth.
Kip W: Appertain the favorite Scotch beverage of your choice!
I went to Amazon.com, and I took a look at the current bestsellers for sci-fi and fantasy in Kindle. I found a couple of self-published authors immediately. Let’s not hash out the same tired arguments that the indies are somehow less worthy or less talented, please. Clearly the readers don’t think so.
Does anyone want to take bets on whether Ryan has a method for determining how many of those people who bought indie e-books actually read them? Or whether she did a comparison to see how many of those e-books were bought during the free promotional giveaways and $0.99 book deals that Amazon routinely runs?
No one?
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought.
(15) THOSE TRAD PUB JUNKIES.
Aaaaaaand… yet another person who cluelessly equates sales numbers with quality.
I haven’t read Amanda Hocking, but I’ve read several of Hugh Howey’s books, and I found them enjoyable but flawed and certainly not exceptional enough to be what I would consider worthy of a Hugo. That he has not been nominated for a Hugo is not a travesty. It’s totally understandable.
There are already a couple of awards for books that sell the most, Claire: they’re called the NYT and USA Today Bestseller Lists. The Hugo is usually given to works which are exceptional, innovative, or groundbreaking in some way — not to works which sell the most copies *cough*50ShadesOfGray*cough*.
She also complains that the Campbell Award is for an author who was traditionally published. All together now, say it with me:
The Campbell is not a Hugo Award.
(15)
Claire Ryan may think the Hugos are irrelevant, but her opinion is irrelevant to me. (Maybe she could have, I don’t know, bothered to learn something about them, before she decided to write about them?)
ticky
Howley is published by Simon & Schuster and Random House Century UK. Hocking is published by St. Martin’s Press.
@ Camestros
(14) Wow! Great review there. I already enjoyed how the album sounded, but you’ve persuaded me when it comes to the lyrics.
[godstalk]
The best “genre album” that I have ever listened to is the Lillingtons “Death by Television.” This is one of the best punk albums of all time and is also filled with songs about horror, monster, and SF movies.
Tracks include:
War of the Worlds
Invasion of the Saucermen
I saw the Apeman on the Moon
X-Ray Specs
Phantom Maggot (superhero)
Robots in my Dreams
Murder on My Mind (The best song about slasher movies that I have ever heard).
I Came From the Future
14 – My favorite concept album is going to go to God Forbid Constitution of Treason. World ends, people try to figure out what to do, start rebuilding, make the same mistakes all over again.
15 – If ignorance is bliss at least that writer is feeling good right about now.
16 – People read more than one book in a series? The gall.
There’s a lot of excellent sci-fi instrumental rock music, starting with the legendary surf band The Ventures. My favorites are The Tomorrowmen, Daikaiju, Man or Astroman?, The Atomic Mosquitos, Aloha Screwdriver, The Space Cossacks, and Laika and the Cosmonauts. Other bands have occasionally written sci-fi surf tunes, such as Pollo Del Mar with their great song “Ubik”. There also are some excellent sci-fi pop bands, such as The Phenomenauts and Destination: Earth!.
I’ll confess, Wizard of Earthsea was only middling-fair for me, but Tombs of Atuan is one of my all-time favorite books. Apparently this was wrong of me to discover and I should feel bad for having succumbed to peer pressure by having read it before discarding the series as a wash. How dare I derive great pleasure from a middle book in a series when the first one did not grip me?
Ah, well. One makes peace with one’s personal failings somehow. Wine helps.
(16) I guess he’s never run into a series that got better over time. That seems odd.
I pretty much nominate an album for a Hugo almost every year. In the recent past, I have nominated albums by Five Year Mission, and the Doubleclicks.
Aaron: Did you write reviews of all those albums? Or if you haven’t, would you like to? Either way, we could run a mini-roundup about sf music.
@Mike: I have not, but I could. I’m away from home this week, and my music collection is about six hundred miles away from me, but once I get back I could sit down and write up some reviews of the various genre-ish albums from the past couple of years.
(16) Ah, yes, the ever-classy “people with reading habits different than mine only have them because of (insert contemptible moral or social failing here)” argument. But of course they do, Jonathan. Of course they do. Shhhh. Here’s your bottle. It’s full of scotch. Not a popular scotch, of course. A suitably obscure one. Shhhhh. Good little critic. Nap time.
i … i prefer Dune Messiah to Dune….
Huh. I’ve reviewed two albums on my site (thought it was just one): Hope, and the musical War of the Worlds.
Aaron: That would make a great post, so keep the idea in mind.
Later Pratchett.
airboy:
Thank you very much for this tip! My own favourite is Plasmatics Maggot: The Record.
15 – “Let’s not hash out the same tired arguments that the indies are somehow less worthy or less talented, please.”
Okay, as someone who reads a lot of indie fiction, I’ll say it. The vast majority of indies ARE less worthy. As a group, they rely too much on perceived talent and neglect their skills. In doing so, they produce inferior work – even when they have excellent ideas. There are a few rare exceptions, as is always the case when discussing any group, but that’s what I’ve observed.
To take a recent example, the last tradpub book I finished had precisely three errors: one of hyphenation, one dropped word, and one simple typo (“it” for “if”). By contrast, the last indie book I finished had nine errors just in the epilogue: three dropped commas, two dropped words, one excess word, one hyphenation error, one numerical error (singular used where plural was called for), and one capitalization error. It also had several continuity errors and cases of what I’ll call “worldbuilding WTFery” – the latter being when a fictional item or quality is described as working one way and subsequently fails to do exactly that. An example would be a suit of armor that reflects all laser beams (worldbuilding) which is subsequently destroyed by a laser beam, with no explanation of how the vulnerability was created (WTF?).
One book is demonstrably of lower quality than the other, regardless of what one thinks of the stories or of the authors’ relative talent. Hell, for all I know, the tradpub book could’ve been as chock full of errors as the indie book was when it was submitted – but editing and proofreading matter, and the tradpub book is better as a result.
@airboy: I see your “Murder on My Mind” and raise you Alice Cooper’s “Roses on White Lace” (single) or Along Came a Spider (album). Honorable mention, of course, to “He’s Back (The Man Behind the Mask).”
(14) See, that’s what I have against this album. The first Afro-Futurist album nominated should have been Janelle Monae a few years back. Hmph.
(15) I’m sorry she felt like showing her ignorance of everything she opined about.
(16) I’m sorry he lacks patience and critical thinking skills, and thinks everyone’s as shallow as he is.
@Rev Bob: providing it’s a tradpub house that bothers to proofread.
@RedWombat,
Despite two attempts, I have never made it past fifty pages of John Crowley’s “Little, Big”…
(17) KAEDRIN BLOG. It’s perfectly reasonable to not like a book, and thus not bother reading its sequel, but still vote in the Hugos. I’m not sure why he’s considering not participating just because there’s a book he doesn’t want to read. So, don’t read it – leave it off your ballot. If you didn’t like the first one, you won’t like the sequel (shrug), so IMHO ignore it.
@Matthew Johnson & @Mike Glyer: I love this Pixel Scroll title so much!
@James Davis Nicoll: “i … i prefer Dune Messiah to Dune….” – Them’s fightin’ words! Or not. 😉
@Rev. Bob & @lurkertype: It’s only anecdata (but I like it, I like it, yes I do) (sorry, all the music talk upthread), but I was surprised by the number of proofreading errors in Rick Wilbur’s Alien Morning. I read mostly tradpub ebooks (and a very few indies, who happen to take craft and editing seriously). On the other paw, the errors in Alien Morning distracted me partially because it was so unusual. (Example: “short” instead of “shot.” Gah.) They really should re-proof it and update the ebooks. But again, IME this was very unusual. I expect a few errors in any book, but only a few.
(16) Reading for social reasons?
It happens, like watching the TV show everyone is watching. You want to see what the fuss is about. That being said however, I don’t really care if any of you happen to dislike a book I like, I’m not bothered if one people are gushing about doesn’t work for me and as far as reading into a series. I need books, lots of them, lots of distraction, lots of escapism and reading a book that’s just okay beats the hell out of spending hours watching the news and getting more stressed out.
Now then, as it happens I just finished A closed and Common Orbit and the reviews have not and cannot do it enough justice. See there on the floor, the white cloth things? Those are my socks, That book just fucking knocked them right off.
The first three Discworld books were dire. Later ones, very much not.
Splitting headache. Let me die now.
Iphinome: Now then, as it happens I just finished A Closed and Common Orbit and the reviews have not and cannot do it enough justice. See there on the floor, the white cloth things? Those are my socks, That book just fucking knocked them right off.
I know, right? I read it shortly after the election — and it really just made me smile and feel hopeful and optimistic, after weeks of hearing about the acts of hatred and contempt against women and gays and ethnic minorities, in the wake of the U.S. election. 🙂
I don’t think Janelle Monae counts as science fiction because she really is a future alien space android come to save us all just as St Bowie foretold.
I did like the ‘Jane’ story line but I just got impatient with the ‘Sidra’ chapters. Socks stayed on but they did feel better about people in general.
(15) THOSE TRAD PUB JUNKIES.
I am, I confess, a Trad Pub Junky. And if anyone ever wants recommendations for good traditional pubs in North Yorkshire (or indeed East Yorkshire) then get in touch. You can probably find me on Twitter very easily if you cared to look.
Ms Ryan though has a point, if not a very good one. There are advantages to traditional publishing, in particular a publicity budget. We get told when Scalzi publishes a new book. We eventually hear by word of mouth that someone as good has self published a work, but it’s very likely that this happens some time after publication.
Note to self: method for obtaining favourable review from Jonathan McCalmont – fill first hundred pages of book with stuff he approves of, use rest of book to tell story.
Second note to self: reason for obtaining favourable review from Jonathan McCalmont – err, I suppose there must be one.
@Camestros Felapton:
That is the first rational argument against a Hugo for Janelle Monae I’ve heard. I expect it will be the last.
4) “Probably 95% of the physics students entered other fields after graduation. Only 5% to 10% of the top students became real physicists.”
“Would you like quarks with that?”
@Lis
Discworld is another example of taking a while to find its voice, agreed. If one read 100 pages from The Colour of Magic, a very incomplete and incorrect impression of the series would be gained.
As far as Indie’s..they are subject to Sturgeon’s Law, in my experience, except even more so, mainly because content and line editing are so often neglected. That is where Trad Publishing usually has the advantage. And this is why Baen is so frustrating, I think, because the editing is where they so consistently fall down on the job, as has been pointed out by many here in many contexts.
I don’t want to get spoilery so I’ll just say while there was nothing wrong with Jane’s storyline there was nothing in it that spoke to me in a way a hundred other books haven’t already done. And that’s fine, I’m an easy date, I don’t need the fancy stuff to have a good time, maybe one day I’ll go to my bookshelf and caliber library and count how many of those books have the bog-standard hero’s journey.
Jane’s story works, Sidra’s was excpetional–For me. *shrug*
Bruce Arthurs on April 11, 2017 at 3:07 am said:
4) “Probably 95% of the physics students entered other fields after graduation. Only 5% to 10% of the top students became real physicists.”
“Would you like quarks with that?”
What flavour?
And it’s my scroll title today, whee! Glad you like it, Mike (& Kendall).
Fair point
(16) LONDON CALLING
I made the dubious mistake of reading twitter before F770 this morning, and so I found McCalmont being very unhappy about Scott Lynch’s comment before I had any context. Which was weird.
Anyway, I’m not sure who said they’d read several books without liking them. I’ll give all the Hugo finalist series a good go, but if I was to hate book 1 with a fiery passion then I’d be stopping right there. If someone recs a series with the promise that it gets good at book three then I might be persuaded to power through a sense of “meh” depending on how trustworthy I found the rec, but if I hated book one then that’d be that. I guess I consider a Hugo nom to be the equivalent of a pretty strong rec, and also want to be able to join in discussions, so I’ll be a bit more forgiving, but that’s a special case.
(It’s also a bit moot b/c I’ve already tried at least the first book of them all – bar the Expanse which I’m starting right now – and liked them enough to try another.)
Good morning, everyone! I’m here for the peer-group uptake + conformity meeting!
And for those (like me) who have never heard of “the four questions”, here they are translated into English.
@Mark – ..and so I found McCalmont being very unhappy about Scott Lynch’s comment…
I take it that, unlike me, he didn’t laughsnort. That’s probably not a surprise to people who are familiar with his work.
I’ve bailed on series at book three and book seven and even book ten. It happens when the narrative arc, or my desire to know what happens, stops being sustained by the writing. Or when the author’s quirks exceed my level of tolerance.
@Mark:
My copy of Leviathan Wakes/The Dragon’s Path is freshly out of surgery, so I’ll be reading right along! There were a couple of complications that required resectioning the TOCs and repairing a map rotation injury, but both patients are now resting comfortably on my Kobo.
It’s true that LW doesn’t look too great at the moment, but that’s only because the reduction to grayscale turned the title the same shade as much of the background on the cover. Its insides are ticking along just fine. 🙂
@ Rev Bob … yes I’m sure that was MUCH easier than the 3-second font adjustment required … unless your reading device is somehow set up differently than mine … /eyeroll
in case you wonder why I’m poking at you on this issue … one of the MAJOR selling points of the kindle/whatever reading device you have was that you COULD simply adjust the font size to whatever works for you. Complaining about having to do so seems … well …
Re: Discworld
I decided to try out Discworld a few years ago. Went to the library, got a copy of The Colour of Magic (I’m a big believer…or I was, at least, of reading series in published order). Read about half of it. More accurately, I struggled through half of it before returning it to the library. I didn’t get it and didn’t understand the fuss. I guess Discworld wasn’t for me.
Then I go to a con and start talking to a bookseller in the dealers room. I tell him my issue with Discworld (as that was about half of his stock) and he told me to try out either Wee Free Men or Guards Guards. Got them both and was suitably entertained. Still have a lot to read and discover with Pratchett, but at least I’m not anti-Discworld anymore.
@ k_choll … mirrors my experience with The Colour of Magic. Tried it after hearing friends and booksellers gushing about Pratchett. I haven’t picked up another but maybe I should …
Scott Lynch on April 10, 2017 at 10:08 pm said:
Now, Scott. That’s just mean. And he’s so obviously smarter and more sophisticated than anybody else in the room–you can tell by the sneers, not just at work he doesn’t find worthy, but the fools who don’t share the perfection and sophistication of his taste and vision. The whole point of reading (not to mention criticism) is to separate the Truly Good from the garbage, and to be sure you got the categories right. It’s an intelligence test, with unambiguous Correct Answers. And the smarter a person is, the less they like* and the more dismissive and even openly contemptuous they are of anyone who actually likes anything not on the (very short) JM Approved Catalog of Art.
He’s better than the rest of us, see. It’s just scientific fact. Why can’t you admit that obvious fact and offer him the agreement and unstinting praise he is obviously due?
___
*We won’t even talk about things lots of other people might like at the same time! That just disqualifies you entirely from the whole “intelligence” thing.
**I totally didn’t cut and paste the whole comment because I found it funny. Why would I even.
***When I find a website engenders nothing in me but anger and contempt, I generally stop reading it. I certainly don’t keep close tabs on the comments there. I guess it’s just an intellectual failing of mine.
****If everyone here suddenly decided he was cool and right about everything, would he have to hate himself because his old stuff was better but now he’s sold out?
@Iphinome —
The thing I liked best about that book (which I enjoyed but was not blown away by) was the thematic interaction of the two stories. There’s a reason why the book was called A Close and Common Orbit — both characters are on the same journey, in their own way.
Unfortunately for my own personal appreciation of the book, I’m just not a fan of Chambers’ narrative voice. I liked this one much better than book #1, but in bother cases Chambers is a somewhat clunky and unsubtle writer. Just a bad mismatch of her writing style with my personal tastes.