It’s the First of April you know.
(1) PHAKE PHANS LISTEN UP. We predict there will be a journey in your future.
PHLEGMATIC PHLEAS ANNOUNCE TPP PHUND 2016 NOMINATIONS OPEN Nominations for the Phlegmatic Phleas’ TPP Phund (Trans-Planetary Phan Phund) are open. Note: Trip awards are one way only. Another note: Current funding is available for up to a dozen winners. Fifth note: You may nominate slates rather than individuals. Pre-Fifth note: Nominate someone you feel has earned the right to go far. Post-Fifth note: Sponsored by the “You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dog” Phoundation.
(2) A TALL TAIL. The Aurora Awards left a category out of today’s announcement: “Best Canadian Squirrel in a book, story or poem”.
- Squirrelly McSquirrelface in, An Icebreaker goes North, Nuts Are Us books
- Fuzzy Nutcracker in, The Galactic Safe, In Trees Publishing
- Digger Moreholes in, “A Tail of Nuts”, Rodent Magazine, issue 341
- Zippy Treeclimber in, “The Maze of Nuts”, Squirrel Poets, issue 1
- Warhammer Graytail in, A Song of Oaks and Pine, Random Tree Press
We are proud to announce this special new category. Stay tuned for more details.
(3) CONNIE THE DECEPTICON. Connie Willis’ April Fool’s Day blog post ends with a list of her dozen all-time favorite April 1 jokes. One of them is fake.
That’s another key to a good April Fool’s joke–details. The more specific the story is, the more believable, especially if it involves science. Or a technology that’s already in our lives. Like lasers or smartphones. Or digital watches. My favorite April Fool’s joke of all time was the one the BBC did where they announced Big Ben was going to go digital. A bright green digital readout was going to replace the four Victorian clock faces. You can imagine how that was received!
(4) A HAIRY PROBLEM. At the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum “Tribble Trial Trends Toward Trouble”.
Stardate 1604.01: At 12:01 am EDT this morning, the National Air and Space Museum began breeding tribbles. This bold, innovative, not-at-all-ill-advised experiment will run for 24 hours, until 11:59 pm tonight, allowing Museum specialists to study the galaxy’s most adorable ecological disaster in greater detail than ever before. The tribble trial utilizes five original specimens of the species Polygeminus grex from the original Star Trek television series, donated to the Museum in 1973.
(5) THE DECENT THING TO DO. You heard it here last: “National Geographic to Stop Publishing Nude Animal Pictures”.
The media group says that it will no longer degrade animals by showing photos of them without clothes.
(6) MIGHT CHANGE HIS MIND TOMORROW. Joe Vasicek explains “Why I stopped writing”, at One Thousand And One Parsecs.
This will probably come as a shock to most of you, but I’ve decided to give up writing. It was a good run while it lasted, but the time has come to pack it away with my other childhood dreams, like living on a houseboat or becoming a paleontologist.
Why did I give up writing? Because frankly, I just don’t have any new ideas anymore. Whenever I manage to come up with one, it turns out that someone else has already done it. Accidental marriage in space? Firefly. Trek across a desert planet? Dune. Colonizing an unexplored nebula? I don’t know off the top of my head, but I’m sure it’s been done before.
(7) IT IS THE END MY FRIEND. io9’s James Whitbrook declared “There Was Only One Decent April Fools’ Day Prank Today, and This Is It”
Friends, we’ve finally made it: The hellishly wearisome event that is April Fool’s Day is basically at its end. We at io9 despise this black day, but even our curmudgeonly souls got a smile out of this “prank” by the Canadian Library and Archives, which claimed to have dug up Wolverine’s military records from its collection.
The organization announced today that it had secured the declassified journals and military records of Canada’s most famous son: James “Logan” Howlett, better known to his legion of comic book fans a X-Man Wolverine.
(8) JOKES BECOME REAL IF YOU PAY ENOUGH. ThinkGeek offers a “Star Trek White Noise Sleep Machine” –
As effective as the Vulcan nerve pinch
- Drift off to sleep to a familiar low thrum
- 8 sounds from 5 different spacecraft
- Projects a moving starfield on your ceiling
Is this genuine? At a price of $149.99 it must be.
(9) TODAY IN FOOLISH HISTORY.
- April 1, 1964 — The Horror of Party Beach opens on April Fools’ Day.
(10) THE TRUTH WILL OUT. SciFiNow ranks “The Top 10 Avengers TV Episodes”. Number 1 is “The Hidden Tiger” (Mar 1967).
“Pussies galore!” Ronnie Barker’s cat-rescue home is the centre of a magnificently ludicrous plot to turn domestic moggies into man-eating killers. A feel-good feline frolic exemplifying prime Avengers.
(11) EDELMAN HOMES IN ON THE RANGE. Scott Edelman’s latest installment of Eating the Fantastic features Carolyn Ives Gilman —
Carolyn Ives Gilman
A new Eating the Fantastic is now live! Episode 5 was recorded with Carolyn Ives Gilman at Range in Friendship Heights, Maryland.
We discussed what’s kept her coming back to her Twenty Planets universe for a quarter of a century, how her first science fiction convention was “total sensory overload,” what it was like working with David Hartwell as an editor, why she’s not visible on social media, and more.
Edelman says, “If all goes well, the next will be Andy Duncan.”
(12) DOC WEIR. Winner of the Doc Weir award for unsung UK fan heroes is Kathy Westhead. [Via Ansible.]
(13) MYSTERY GATHERS. Deadline Hollywood says an MST3K reunion is in the works – “Full ‘MST3K’ Casts To Reunite For RiffTrax 10th Anniversary”.
In the 17 years since the cult TV series’ cancellation, the creative team behind Mystery Science Theater 3000 have never fully reunited in public. That changes this summer as part of the 10th anniversary of MST3K offshoot Rifftrax, with RiffTrax Live: MST3K Reunion Show, a live event to be performed in Minneapolis on June 28 and broadcast to theaters nationwide by Fathom Events. Tickets will be available April 15th from the official RiffTrax website.
(14) MORE FROM LEVINE. David D. Levine’s new Wild Cards novelette “Discards” is a free read at Tor.com. And more!
My superhero story “Into the Nth Dimension,” originally published in Human for a Day, has been podcast at GlitterShip — narrated by me!. The full text is also available on the web to read for free. You can read or listen here.
I will be appearing at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle next Friday, April 8 (one day only). I’ll be on the panel “Aliens and Airships and Authors, Oh My!”, followed by an autograph session. At other times you can most likely find me at the WordFire Press booth.
I’ve sold an essay, “How to Sell a Novel in Only Fifteen Years,” to the nonfiction anthology The Usual Path to Publication. It comes out in June and you can pre-order it here.
(15) BVS WINS BY LOSING. This was posted on March 30, just saying…. “Batman V Superman Sets Unwanted Box Office Record”.
‘Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice’ may have netted the fourth biggest opening weekend of all time, but according to business site Forbes, it’s broken a record that may be rather less welcome.
It’s recorded the worst audience drop-off over a weekend for any superhero movie in ‘modern box office history’.
Attendance has plummeted for the critically-hammered movie, which sets Henry Cavill’s Man of Steel against Ben Affleck’s Caped Crusader.
It dropped an eye-popping 55% between Friday and Sunday, a figure which even beats the 48% drop in numbers set by the much-despised ‘Fantastic Four’ last summer…
(16) POST TAFF STRESS SYNDROME. Wolf von Witting is still recovering from losing TAFF.
On the first day, it was grossly tear-jerking ballads. On the second day I went on to heavy metal and other music which blows the crap out from a brain (where there is one). But in the night before the third day, my scary godmother (she doesn’t like being called a fairy) came to me in a dream and announced that I was to become the pope of European sf-fandom. “You’re supposed to reform TAFF, not win it!” she said and hit me over the back of my head with her magic wand.
She had… a beaver sitting on her left shoulder, and suddenly it became so clear to me why I lost again. It was meant to be this way, folks. We’re not living in 1952 anymore. It’s EASY and relatively cheap crossing the Atlantic now. If the yanks wish to meet the pope of European fandom, there are two ways.
1) come to Italy – that’s where the pope lives.
2) I’d be absolutely delighted to accept any FGoH invitation they send (we have American guests all the time over here in Europe. You can afford it, if you care to meet the pope).
The Gods of fandom have resolved the issue to the best of all possible outcomings. Filkers are not stupid, mind you. They knew what they were up against. So they just did what was necessary to win and I have to both salute and bless them for that. Before my scary godmother went away, she uttered some magic mumbo jumbo in an obscure language I didn’t quite understand (could have been Albanian).I recall the final three words: “Nnn.. in come Pope!”
(17) HUGO PROBABILITY SEMINAR. Chaos Horizon’s Brandon Kempner reveals his prediction in “Estimating the 2016 Hugo Nominations, Part 5”.
By breaking these out into three groups and three turnout scenarios (40%, 60%, 80%), I produced 27 different models. To conclude, we can look to see if certain books show up in a lot models, and then I’ll make that my prediction….
So that makes the official 2016 Chaos Horizon Hugo prediction as follows:
- Seveneves, Neal Stephenson
- Uprooted, Naomi Novik
- The Aeronaut’s Windlass, Jim Butcher
- Ancillary Mercy, Ann Leckie
- Somewhither, John C. Wright
(18) CYBORG OLYMPICS. A video of people are competing in the world’s first “cyborg Olympics.” The Cybathlon competitors, called pilots, use technology to compensate for disabilities.
(19) VERTLIEB DOCUMENTARY GAINS MOMENTUM. Diabolique online magazine is getting behind the Steve Vertlieb feature documentary The Man Who “Saved” The Movies.
The first film from Gull Cottage / Sandlot’s newly minted “Gull Cottage & Flying Bear” banner, STEVE VERTLIEB: THE MAN WHO “SAVED” THE MOVIES is the feature-length documentary delving into the colorful life, career and ultimate legacy of cinema archivist, journalist, historian and film music educator STEVE VERTLIEB – who’s quiet, unassuming persona belies his growing status as one of the most respected of figures to a new generation of cinema buffs, filmmakers, and, surprisingly, even that most fickle and verbose of filmdom’s family tree – the genre fanboy.
A former on-air TV reviewer of film, and magazine writer, Steve’s learned and literate dissertations on cinema over the last near half-century have made him a much sought after consultant on numerous projects, including an appearance in the 2006 award winning documentary KREATING KARLOFF, and as consultant on TCM’s 75th Anniversary Restoration of Merian C. Cooper’s original KING KONG. Widely considered one of the nation’s foremost experts on the legendary “Great Ape”, his numerous articles on the subject (including that in the still definitive volume THE GIRL IN THE HAIRY PAW) is referenced to this day by film makers, teachers and cinema students alike.
(20) MY APRIL 1 INSPIRATION. Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Lt. Worf Bloopers.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Clifford Samuels, Glenn Hauman, Hampus Eckerman, Steve Vertlieb, and Daniel Dern for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
@ Kip W
Applause!
@ Kyra
Damn you Kyra. (Wanders off to the iBooks store.)
*looks at the recent posts by Paul Weimer and Tasha Turner*
*quietly adds a bunch of books to the TBR pile*
Er, one question about a couple of books on Tasha’s list, though … from the descriptions, The City of Woven Streets by Emmi Itäranta and The Weaver by Emmi Itäranta appear to be the same book. Anyone know why … (*thinks for a bit, decides to check the web in case this turns out to be a stupid question* *finds out it is a stupid question*)
Got it. It’ll be called The City of Woven Streets in the UK and The Weaver in the US and Canada.
@Kip W: Rainy Days and Pixels Always Scroll Me Down?
I”m a huge McKillip fan, to the point that Kingfisher is the so far only 2016 book I’ve read – but I thought this wasn’t one of her best. I’m not a lover of Grail quests in the first place (so take that into account) but the medievalish urban setting didn’t work for me and the characters and plot never seemed to cohere.
Currently working on my second 2016 book – I chose Borderline, based on the glowing reviews. Really good (as far as I can tell) at giving the inside experience of someone with borderline personality disorder – this is usually seen from the outside, with the character portrayed as unsympathetic, even destructive. She *is* still those things, mind you, at least some of the time, but you get to feel it from the inside. I wasn’t sure I would enjoy the “fairies in Hollywood” plotline, but so far that’s working for me too.
I also enjoyed Fire Touched after overlooking it several times because the cover art reminded me so much of what happened in the previous book. Best for people who are reading the series as a whole I think.
@Hampus oops–thanks for the reminder re: 21:00 being 9 pm.
Bryan Cranston and Jesse L. Martin are dandy ideas, but for more American Doctor Whos…
Matt Bomer
Kate Burton
Tony Goldwyn
Lauren Graham
Jon Hamm
Timothy Hutton
Lisa Kudrow
Robert Sean Leonard
A Martinez
Joe Morton
Jared Padalecki
John Slattery
Vanessa Williams
James Wolk
I suppose Lin-Manuel Miranda is busy.
How about CCH Pounder? She’s be an awesome Doctor on the more serious side.
@BigelowT: Hey, Timothy Hutton is a good call.
Or, if they could afford him, Kanye. It’d be one season and done like Eccleston, but man.
@Kyra
I’ve read a couple on Tasha’s list.
I will also add
The Core of The Sun by Johanna Sinisalo (I’ve already read this)
Hystopia by David Means
Version Control by Dexter Palmer
The Devourers by Indra Das
The Last Days of New Paris by China Mieville
Fair Rebel by Steph Swainston (and if you haven’t read the previous books fix that now)
Europe in Winter by Dave Hutchinson (ditto)
There will probably be more that stick their heads above the parapets as the year goes on.
Thinking about to-be-read lists…I keep thinking that if I get to a good pause in my writing schedule, it would be nice to take a whole month where I spend all my “free” time reading for fun. Then I think about when that would happen. Not until the end of June when I deliver Mother of Souls, and then not until I have the Skinsinger collection all put together and ready to go on the market, and that probably takes me up to the next round of edits on Mother of Souls, and somewhere in there I need to get started writing Floodtide, and…and…and…and I despair. I sure wish writing paid well enough that I could quit my day-job. Unfortunately [not serious about this] it would have to pay really really well to do that.
> “Fair Rebel by Steph Swainston (and if you haven’t read the previous books fix that now)”
Ooo, awesome. I’ve read the first three, but not the prequel “Above the Snowline”. Should I read that one before “Fair Rebel”?
@Kyra: Oh fine…
…I’ll look into this series. That sounds weird. 🙂 Thanks.
@Doctor Science: If Mr. Dr. Science has read Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic, the sequel’s out. I loved the first one, so this is high on my list to read. A friend at work recommended Jessica Chiarella’s And Again (he listened to the audiobook). I’m also looking forward to to the following 2016 books which are out already. In no particular order:
Snakewood – Adrian Selby (fantasy)
Steal the Sky – Megan E. O’Keefe (steampunk, I think)
Downfall of the Gods – K.J. Parker (fantasy)
Deep Sea Diver’s Syndrome – Serge Brussolo
The House of War and Witness – Linda, Louise, & Mike Carey (on the darker side???)
Every Heart a Doorway – Seanan McGuire (a bit pricey; out in a few days)
Burning Midnight – Will McIntosh (YA SF)
Lovecraft Country – Matt Ruff (on the darker side; some Filers rec this)
Worst Contact (SF anthology; amusing premise: stories of first contact gone wrong)
ETA: I omitted other 2016 books (a few of which I’m even more excited about) which aren’t out yet.
@andyl: I haven’t read Swainston’s yet, but wow, there’s another one out? It looks like the last one was in 2010. I got the omnibus at Loncon 3, as I recall, as a freebie, but it was on my RADAR a long time before that.
This is the dawning of the Age of Ascrollilus
We’re driving to MAC2 in a desultory way but should arrive Tuesday. I want to visit Rocky Ridge Farm which looks like it’s about 2 hours out of our way so we might do that Monday.
A slight but fun little story rec: 43 Responses to “In Memory of Dr. Alexandra Nako” is a flash piece told in the style of a comment section, which should amuse a comment section.
@Kyra
Thanks for info about book(s) on my list. I’ve been adding things as they are recommended here, iO9, B&N blog, and “also recommends” on Amazon.
Having international friends can cause things like your confusion. Why don’t they call the book by the same name in all English language releases, why?
@all
I’ll be adding books you’ve recommended to my Amazon wishlist. I use it as a placeholder of eligible books for others as well as a personal list.
I believe Goodreads has started up their Hugo list and again it’s a moderated list so it shouldn’t have as many of the usual problems (books from wrong years, not SFF, tons of indie works by total unknowns, it will have some indie works as more of us are reading and adding). I noticed some of the new eligibility resources which popped up this year had links or mentioned links would be up soon for next year so start checking and adding. 😉
@Eve:
Question regarding Borderline. Necessary TMI, one of my current working diagnoses is Borderline Personality Disorder, and I have an abusive mother who has never been diagnosed but we wonder…
I see there’s a suicide attempt from the Goodreads description. That’s okay. But how much does it deal with suicidal ideation or methods? Are there any descriptions of self-harm such as cutting? Is there any abuse, particularly emotional? If so, is there a lot of justification for the abuse or gaslighting?
(None of these things are necessarily dealbreakers, but it helps to be prepared.)
Thanks!
@Kyra
Above The Snowline is a prequel to the 3 main Castle books. So I don’t think you need to read it before Fair Rebel. It is likely that there will be more Castle books as Swainston reported being halfway through writing another one last October.
Thank you, Jim Henley! I think it would be cool for him to have a franchise show like his dad did with the Ellery Queen thing. Some of my other choices go for “hot young doctor” or “fancy doctor,” but he would be in “really good actor doctor.”
Does anyone know of any good original anthologies coming out this year (i.e. with brand new stories, not Best Of… or reprints). So far I’ve spotted:
What the #@&% Is That?: The Saga Anthology of the Monstrous and the Macabre from John Joseph Adams
Clockwork Phoenix 5
Drowned Worlds: Tales from the Anthropocene and Beyond from Strahan
Bridging Infinity from Strahan
@Mark
Only six stories in it, but Ian Sales has Aphrodite Terra, which are SF stories about Venus
@Tasha: “Having international friends can cause things like your confusion. Why don’t they call the book by the same name in all English language releases, why?”
Indeed.
This has also caused occasional confusion over the years with my collecting old paperbacks from both US and UK sources. Double ups, etc.
To use some recently read examples from Michael Coney: Hello Summer, Goodbye (UK) is a much better title than Rax (US), to my mind, but it’s debatable which is the more lyrical out of The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch (US) and The Girl with a Symphony in Her Fingers (UK).
Also, sometimes books get named on re-issue, for example Bishop’s And Strange At Ecbatan The Trees getting re-issued as Beneath the Shattered Moons. I can hardly fault them for that one ;).
Some changes seem pointless. e.g. The Traitor vs The Traitor Baru Cormorant .
At least it leads to interesting discussion about who has the better title among friends (to go along with the “who has the better cover” ones), so maybe that’s a good thing. 🙂
@Jim Henley: Jesse L. Martin would be an AMAZING Doctor. He can be serious or funny, and can dance and sings like an angel.
@Bigelow T: Most of your list. Big vote for Tim Hutton — he’s perfect.
I liked “Lovecraft Country”. It’s a bit dark, but not grimdark. There’s a lot of humor and the main characters are good people, and good stuff happens. The chilling parts are not so much the eldritch horrors, but the reality of Jim Crow. Recommended.
I don’t favor blander titles. “The Weaver” is worse than “The City of Woven Streets”, and “The Traitor” is worse than “The Traitor Baru Cormorant”. More words is easier to remember for possible readers, and means less confusion. I mean, there have got to be a LOT of books titled “The Traitor” or having “The Traitor” in them, but there’s only one what says “Baru Cormorant” — which also signals secondary world.
> “I can hardly fault them for that one ;).”
I can …
And here face down beneath the sun
And here upon earth’s noonward height
To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night:
To feel creep up the curving east
The earthy chill of dusk and slow
Upon those under lands the vast
And ever climbing shadow grow
And strange at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange
The flooding dark about their knees
The mountains over Persia change
And now at Kermanshah the gate
Dark empty and the withered grass
And through the twilight now the late
Few travelers in the westward pass
And Baghdad darken and the bridge
Across the silent river gone
And through Arabia the edge
Of evening widen and steal on
And deepen on Palmyra’s street
The wheel rut in the ruined stone
And Lebanon fade out and Crete
high through the clouds and overblown
And over Sicily the air
Still flashing with the landward gulls
And loom and slowly disappear
The sails above the shadowy hulls
And Spain go under and the shore
Of Africa the gilded sand
And evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across that land
Nor now the long light on the sea:
And here face downward in the sun
To feel how swift how secretly
The shadow of the night comes on . . .
“You, Andrew Marvell”, by Archibald MacLeish
(Always gives me chills.)
@Kendall:
Mr Dr hasn’t read “A Darker Shade of Magic”, because I got it out of the library and quit fairly early on. To use no more spoilers than are in the summary: I thought “Grey London” made White and Red London look simplistic and primitive (especially in Re: politics), and I didn’t get the feeling the narrative was going to recognize that. I didn’t feel like reading yet another fantasy that romanticizes hereditary aristocracy, especially when it’s put in direct contrast to a time/place when royalty was becoming merely ornamental. Was I wrong?
@Doctor Science: Politics-wise, you may be right; otherwise, Red London was more sophisticated. I’m not sure I’d say it romanticizes hereditary aristocracy, given Kell’s position (for one thing, ur’f na nqbcgrq zlfgrel puvyq) and how he’s treated (juvpu punatrf qhevat gur obbx, rfcrpvnyyl ol uvf snzvyl). Because of how the worlds work, in White and Red London, the actual kings/queens aren’t purely ornamental (especially in White London!), BTW.
Regardless, if it wasn’t working for you, I’m not trying to persuade you to pick it back up. I wish I’d read a 2016 book to rec; I’m not quite ready to read 2016 stuff at the moment. 😉 Soon!
@Mark (Kitteh): ROFL! Thanks for the “43 Responses…” link – that’s great! I’m making a note of it for next year. This and the movie “Deadpool” – yup, my ballot is shaping up nicely.
Also: “good original anthologies” – well, I can’t tell till I read them. 😉 But the Baen Worst Contacts has an amusing premise. I don’t know if it’s any good, though.
@lurkertype: Agreed re. blander titles. Maybe this explains my preference for The Painted Man (U.K.) over The Warded Man (U.S.); the U.K. title was a little more evocative, while the U.S. one felt a bit vague.
Has everybody received their 31/3 email for nominations? I’m clinging to the hope that the nominations I made that day will have gone through, since I haven’t received the 31/3 yet…
@Mark
We’ve been looking, but to be honest, we didn’t even have those yet, although we expected at least some “infinity” book later in the year.
I also haven’t seen any new 2016 novels to get excited about yet. Kind of scary 25% through the year.
@Stevie
I got mine on April 1. Earlier, I saw some of that problem you’re talking about where you make changes but the e-mail doesn’t reflect them. All of my changes were reflected in the final e-mail without my needing to do anything about it.
So I wouldn’t sweat it at this point. I guess you’ve already checked your junk-mail folder.
lurkertype: “I don’t favor blander titles. “The Weaver” is worse than “The City of Woven Streets”, and “The Traitor” is worse than “The Traitor Baru Cormorant”.”
I think I agree with this, in general.
@Kyra : Oh, I agree, that’s some powerful stuff, but I think that particular line in isolation is a jarring title for a novel, and can understand why they changed it (perhaps they could have chosen a different line :).
@Stevie: I haven’t gotten a Hugo Nomination confirmation e-mail in a week or so, maybe more. Each time I logged in, things looked right, although I regret not checking after my last change on the 31st.
Hopefully future Worldcons will use a more immediate and much more reliable system.
@Greg Hullender: “I also haven’t seen any new 2016 novels to get excited about yet. Kind of scary 25% through the year.”
I’m just curious, what kinds of SFF do you like best. There’s stuff I’m excited about, to varying degrees; a fair amount of it’s coming out later on this year, though.
@Kendall
I do like the sound of Worst Contact premise.
Also an immediate and reliable system rules out email for starters…
Keep your eyes out for Unidentified Funny Objects 5 for a SF comedic anthology due out in 2016. Check out previous versions to get a feel for what Alex Shvartsman likes to include. The shorts make great palate cleansers and cheer you ups after some of the well written but depressing themed books and stories we are likely to read this year.
I just received my first graphic novel anthology of 2016 Broken Frontier Anthology edited by Frederik Hautin & Tyler Chin-Tanner
If you’re going to cast an American as Doctor Who, there’s one clear choice, and that’s Michael Emerson.
Kendall on April 2, 2016 at 4:46 pm said:
@Stevie: I haven’t gotten a Hugo Nomination confirmation e-mail in a week or so, maybe more. Each time I logged in, things looked right, although I regret not checking after my last change on the 31st.
Hopefully future Worldcons will use a more immediate and much more reliable system.
I’ve only gotten the one scary email showing very little of my actual ballot as having gotten through.
I emailed them a reply in a state of High Panic.
They responded virtually immediately, explaining that the email system had become seriously overloaded, so that the what I’d received was from an earlier iteration of my nominations.
Presumably eventually I will get a confirmation that reflects my final changes.
I’m having tea, and fussing with the fish tank, and staying calm.
Behold the Marvel of My Calmness!
I do believe my nominations survive intact somewhere in the system.
Really.
Anyway, I’m taking the chaos as a sign that a large number of nominations, and therefore of revisions, were being dealt with.
Given how scattered even our own Filer noms appear to be, I take this as a good thing.
Lots of nominations!
Meanwhile, back to world-changing alterations of the fish tank.
Look upon my work, ye fishes, and despair.
Or, really, just settle down, it’ll be fine.
Mark Kitteh on April 2, 2016 at 2:17 pm said:
I think all or most of the POC Destroy… anthologies are coming out this year? casual Googling doesn’t uncover the release dates for me.
@Mark-kitteh: A great copy of comment sections. And it fit in perfectly with my current reading of Fgebff’ Ynhaqel frevrf.
@Kendall: Well, if there’s magic, I like “Warded” better. “Painted” might refer to tattoos, a sloppy artist, or a Pict.
@Iain Coleman
But would he have Jim Cavizel as his assistant?
@Kendall:
Worldcon/the Hugos have been using this system for at least four years: when I sent a complaint/bug report about entries on my nominating ballot having been replaced by duplicates of other entries in those categories, the person who wrote back said this was the first complaint he’d had in four years of using this software for Hugo nominations.
That doesn’t mean they won’t replace it, but suggests they’re less likely to than if this was its first time out and it was having a large number of problems.
Thanks for the suggestions. Worst Contact looks like it’s a mix of reprints and new so I’ll have to find the contents and check out what the new works are before I decide to pick it up.
UFO5 sounds good but it turns out I’ve missed the kickstarter by a few days, curses! It did remind me that I kickstartered another anthology due later in the year though, Upside Down from Apex.
2016 novels are perhaps looking a bit slow at the moment, although Lovecraft Country is proving good so far, and I have a new Tim Powers and City of Blades to get to.
@Dawn Incognito
I’m about halfway through Borderline. The suicide attempt is in the past, only described a bit, and the protagonist feels very strongly that she’ll never make another attempt. There is some self harm (cutting). Most of the characters have some form of mental illness, at least one with some so far undescribed childhood trauma.
This seems really grim, but it’s intermixed with the protagonist’s discovery of the fey world in Hollywood in way that makes it an engrossing read.
@Stevie: The last email I got for my ballot was March 28, and I made changes on the 29th, 30th, and 31st, so I’m sure it’s just overload.
ULTRAGOTHA: I think all or most of the POC Destroy… anthologies are coming out this year?
Yes they are due out this year. Previous SFFH Destroy have come out on time so I expect these will also.
@Mark-Kitteh
Never fear the UFO5 will be for sale at retailers. I will try to remember to share the news when they are officially released. Alex usually asks us to leave reviews and let’s us know when our friends who missed the Kickstarter can buy copies. 😀
I haven’t gotten any emails regarding my changes since the ones I made sometime in February. I did check the ballot (without touching anything) about an hour before the deadline, so I’m hoping the final result is OK.
Free indie books Sat. and Sun. Amazon US. No guarantees as to quality, but there’s a lot of them, they can’t all suck.
http://pattyjansen.com/promo/
Margaret the First does a scifi connection since she was one of the first women scifi writers. However, her utopian fiction plays a very minor part in the book. It’s a book of short, imagistic vignettes, giving tiny little bits of her life.
Now, Mr. Splitfoot… I really loved that one, but it’s not scifi. There’s a mild amount of (possible?) ghosts.
Mark: Worst Contact looks like it’s a mix of reprints and new so I’ll have to find the contents and check out what the new works are before I decide to pick it up.
According to ISFDB, it’s all reprints — with the possible exception of a story by somebody named Sarah A.Hoyt.