(1) FARSCAPE ON BIG SCREEN. ComicBookMovie.com reports “Rockne O’Bannon Officially Confirms FASRSCAPE Movie”.
After years of rumours, Rockne O’Bannon has finally confirmed that a Farscape movie is actually happening. The show was cancelled back in 2003 and a mini-series titled Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars was aired in 2004 to provide closure to the fans but it appears we shall be getting more Farscape in the near future. Confirmation comes from TV.com’s Ed Shrinker who had a friend that attended the Showrunners panel at Wondercon which O’Bannon was a part of.
(2) BEAGLE COMING TO BALTICON. Peter S. Beagle will be a Special Guest of Honor at Balticon 50, taking place over Memorial Day weekend in Baltimore, MD.
“It’s Peter’s birthday, but the fans are getting the gift,” says Beagle’s attorney, Kathleen Hunt.
(3) AXANAR IS DOCKED. In “’Star Trek: Axanar’ Fan Film Docked After Copyright Suit from CBS/Paramount”, Elizabeth Howell gives Space.com readers a status report on the lawsuit.
… According to Peters, Winston & Strawn subsequently filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. CBS and Paramount responded, he said, by amending portions of the complaint. The new complaint alleges that copyrights were violated in matters such as the pointy ears and “distinctive eyebrows” of Vulcan, the gold-shirt uniforms of Federation officers, and the Klingon language, according to documents posted by The Hollywood Reporter on March 13.
New motion to dismiss
In the meantime, the production of “Axanar” is on hold pending the result of the lawsuit. If the lawsuit is resolved in the film’s favor, Peters said, production will still be delayed, as it would take a couple of months to organize everything, including coordinating the actors’ schedules and resuming work on elements such as the costumes.
Winston & Strawn filed a new motion to dismiss on March 28. CBS and Paramount have yet to file a response in court.
“The motion provides examples as to how CBS and Paramount overreach in what they claim are elements protected under copyright, and fail to be specific as to exactly which copyrights have been infringed upon; and, in the case of the potential feature film Axanar, claims of alleged copyright infringement cannot be made against a film that doesn’t yet exist,” read part of an Axanar statement on the motion to dismiss.
(4) A THOUSAND WORDS IS WORTH A PICTURE OF A CAT. At Camestros Felapton’s blog, Timothy the Talking Cat has his claws out: “Ctrl-Alt-Delete – A Reviewing”.
[Timothy] No sarcasm. Don’t forget, this time I control the narrative. I can make you say anything. Say “I’m a poo-poo head”
[Camestros] I’m a poo-poo head.
[Timothy] OK say I’m a fish’s butt.
[Camestros] You are a fish’s butt.
[Timothy] Oops – forgot the speech marks. So back to the book – naturally you hated it?
[Camestros] You know I actually enjoyed quite a bit of it.
Despite what you might assume from this exchange, they spend most of their time reviewing books. But as today’s Top Level Poster I can quote whatever part I like.
(5) ICE FIVE. Theory: Game of Thrones is science fiction, not fantasy: “This Is the Most Insane and Compelling Theory for How the Wall in Game of Thrones Stands”. Esquire’s John Maher delves into the ideas advanced by vlogger Preston Jacobs.
Let’s go back to the Wall, a prime example in the case of Game of Thrones. Maybe there is some sort of magic keeping it up. “Or maybe,” Jacobs suggests, “there’s some sort of refrigeration unit.”
It seems farfetched, until you start digging deeper—and Jacobs, an auditor for the U.S. State Department by day, is an expert at doing just that. After re-reading the series a couple of years ago, he jumped right into reading the vast majority of Martin’s extant works, including every story that’s taken place in the author’s most frequently visited setting, a shared universe called the Thousand Worlds….
The Long Night itself seems to hint at the explanation for how this world—as Jacobs and other theorists do, let’s call it Planetos—became the way it was. A winter that lasts for a generation seems pretty hard to believe, even in a world with seasons as crazy as those on Planetos. In the first season of Game of Thrones, Tyrion discusses with Maester Aemon and Lord Commander Mormont the longest winter he’d ever lived through, and mentions it lasted three years. But as Jacobs points out, there is such a thing as a generation-long winter in the real world: a nuclear winter.
In the Thousand Worlds universe, humanity is at perpetual war with multiple hive-minded species—a form of life that pops up in A Song of Ice and Fire as well, and which Jacobs explores in detail in one of his theories. During this endless war, the hive-minded races typically destroy human worlds using nuclear weapons, wait a hundred years for the dust to settle, and then invade and enslave the survivors. And in the interim, something familiar happens, as it does on High Kavalaan, a planet in Martin’s first novel, Dying of the Light.
“I think the book that really made me think Westeros could be post-apocalyptic was Dying of the Light,” says Jacobs. “When he started writing about nuking people, with everybody hiding in mines and founding their own houses and holdfasts, it just occurred to me that the Long Night could be a nuclear winter.”
(6) HEINLEIN ON THE LINE. At the MidAmericCon II site, Toastmaster Pat Cadigan has blogged her fannish origin story.
Forty years ago, in the spring of 1976 in Lawrence, Kansas, the phone rang in the late afternoon, about an hour and a half before I had to go and teach a belly-dance class. When I picked up, a deep, warm-as-a-woolly-blanket man’s voice said, ‘Hello, Mrs. Cadigan. This is Robert Heinlein.’
And I freakin’ died.
Seriously; I died. This is my afterlife. Isn’t it great?
Okay, let me back up a little….
(7) HUGO TIME. It’s no coincidence that Hugo Administrator Dave McCarty and staff are doing a lot of work just about now:
First, on behalf of the Hugo administration staff and all the rest of the folks making preparations to run MidAmeriCon II, I want to thank all of the people who participated in our Hugo and Retro Hugo nomination processes. There were over 4,000 of you and that is a new record participation by quite a large margin.
There’s a large number of tasks we have to do to administer the Hugos. Identifying eligible nominators and voters, setting up servers and web pages to handle secure nominations and voting, answering hundreds of questions about the process for the members, making sure everyone’s nominations are counted appropriately even if they don’t use the same name for something they loved that all the other folks who loved it used or nominated it in the wrong category accidently, locating and contacting the potential finalists to get their acceptance and inform them of how the process works and what to expect, coordinating with convention events staff to run the awards ceremonies and pre-receptions, and numerous other tasks. The previous run on sentence would be staggeringly large if we tried to give a full accounting of everything the awards administration entails. It can be fun, it can be exhausting, and it can even sometimes be frustrating. When we do a good job, though, it’s very rewarding.
(8) HUGO LOVE FROM WORDPRESS. Kevin Standlee’s The Hugo Awards website came in for recognition today —
Featured @Jetpack site — the site of @TheHugoAwards, sci-fi's most prestigious award: https://t.co/t37s12jSWf pic.twitter.com/Pm89fNIe2E
— WordPress Discover (@WPDiscover) April 20, 2016
(9) NEIL GAIMAN. Gaiman on mourning Pratchett — “Good Omens, Cheap Seats, and the Memorial”.
I haven’t blogged for a long time, but right now I’m on a train, and it feels like a good time to catch up. This morning I was interviewed by Charlie Russell for his documentary on Terry Pratchett. (Charlie made the previous BBC Terry Pratchett documentaries, Living With Alzheimer’s, Choosing to Die, and Facing Extinction.) We did it in a Chinese restaurant in Gerrard Street, because Terry and I had first met in a Chinese restaurant, in February 1985. It was easy and pleasant, and then suddenly it wasn’t. I was talking about the last time I’d seen Terry, and what we said, and I found myself crying uncontrollably, unable to talk. And then I pulled it together, and we carried on….
The memorial the other night was beautiful. I wore my mourning frock coat that Kambriel made for me, and I went out that afternoon and bought a white shirt and a black tie. (Actually, I bought four shirts, which, given how often I wear white shirts, should take me easily to the end of my lifetime.)
I read the introduction to A Slip of the Keyboard, which I’d written for Terry while he was alive. I got sad at the end but that was fine. And I held it together just fine when Rob, Terry’s amazing right-hand man, presented me with a big black author’s hat Terry had left me. I couldn’t put it on, though. I wasn’t ready for that. (I tried it on later, in the dressing room. I looked, to my mind, like a rabbinical cowboy assassin. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)…
(10) MORE LIKE INDIE FOR SMART PEOPLE. Sarah A. Hoyt, in “Going Indie For Dummies: You Lays Down Your Money” at Mad Genius Club, begins her survey of professional services available to indie authors with a warning –
I cannot emphasize enough that you should at all costs avoid paying money up front to have any of the necessary stuff done to your book. Particularly if your indie ebook is a short story or a novella, it’s QUITE possible you’ll never see that money again….
Then she follows with a lot of practical experience. (And no, I am not picking this quote as a setup for predictable comments about Baen copyediting, but because writers in general suffer through this.)
b) Copy editing: even houses confuse this with “editing” and I’ll get a list of typos or repeated words from editors who are supposed to be doing high-grade structural. It’s what most people think of as “editing.”
PLEASE make sure you get a copy editor who actually knows what he/she is doing. Again it is too easy for a copy editor to screw with a book by making the wrong choices, and/or not getting what you’re trying to say. (I recently had a copy edit that suggested changing “calloused hands” to “callous hands” — yes, her hands are cold and unfeeling. What the actual F?) so several steps:
1- look for a copy-editor with references and call/email those references where the copy-editor can’t hear/read and ask for the real skinny and how hard they are to work with.
2- ask them what manual of style they use. If you get back “manual?” or “I just use sensible grammar” and this is a paid copy-editor it’s time to bail, ladies, gentlemen and fuzzy toys. There are many ways of doing things including punctuation (unlike what your grammar teacher told you.) I favor, for my own checking, Strunk and White which has a slightly British flavor. Most publishing houses use Chicago Manual of Style. Baen uses Words to Print (I think that’s the title.) You want to make sure your books are consistent, so make sure your copyeditor uses a style you can live with.
(11) TODAY IN HISTORY
- April 20, 1841 — Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” first appears in Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine. The tale is generally considered to be the first detective story.
(12) TODAY’S OTHER HISTORY LESSON. Hmm. Good point.
I always thought it was ironic Andrew Jackson was on a bank note, considering his opinion of the national bank.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) April 20, 2016
(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- Born April 20, 1937 — George Takei, age 79 today.
- Born April 20, 1964 – Andy Serkis
(14) IN BOOKS TO COME. “Andy Weir, Author of The Martian, Shares Details About His Next Novel” at The Smithsonian. Here’s a guy nobody will ever accuse of having SJW tendencies.
Your next book will have a woman as the central character. Given that “gender wars” in science fields is still a contentious topic, why did you decide to go with a lady lead? What kinds of challenges does your protagonist face, and does her gender play any role in those challenges?
I don’t take part in any political debates. So I’m certainly not trying to make a point by having a female lead. She’s just a character I came up with that I thought was cool, so she’s the lead.
The book is another scientifically accurate story. The main character is a low-level criminal in a city on the moon. Her challenges are a mix of technical/scientific problems, as well as juggling personal interactions—staying a step ahead of the local police, working with shady and dangerous people to do illegal things.
She doesn’t encounter any distinctly “female” challenges. There’s no love plot. And the story takes place in a future society where there is practically no sexism.
(15) NOT JUST TANG. The BBC discusses “Four ways NASA is teaching us how to live more sustainably”.
2. Clean water
In space, water is in short supply, so Nasa has developed an innovative way to filter waste water on the ISS using chemical and distillation processes. This lets it turn liquid from the air, sweat and even urine into drinkable H2O.
In fact, since 2008, more than 22,500 pounds of water have been recycled from urine alone on the ISS – something that would have cost more than $225m (£160m) to launch and deliver to the station from Earth.
“Most people are horrified when they see what we drink!” says Ms Coleman. “But the filtered water up there just tastes beautiful, it really is delicious.”
Nasa has since licensed the technology to companies on Earth, which have created portable filters for use in places where fresh drinking water is scarce.
Filters produced by US firm Water Security Corporation, for example, have been installed in villages across Mexico and Iraq, allowing residents to purify water from contaminated sources.
(16) RILEY INTERVIEWED. David Dubrow conducted an “Interview With David A Riley” after the author dropped off a Horror Writers of America award jury last week amidst controversy.
Why did you withdraw from the jury of the Bram Stoker Award for Best Anthology?
Because, as I saw it, that was the best thing to do for the good of the HWA. There is nothing prestigious or glamorous about being a juror. It does involve a lot of unpaid, unseen, arduous work reading an enormous number of books by authors or publishers or, in the case of anthologies, editors, keen to have their books included amongst the finalists for the Stoker awards. Of course the juries cannot add more than a few books, but it does mean reading all those submitted, good, bad or indifferent. I know from when I was a juror for First Novels this can be a hell of a chore. Standing down, therefore, was easy – it saved me a lot of hard work, some of it far from enjoyable. I only put my name forward because the HWA sent out a last minute email appealing for volunteers from active members for this position. I thought I was helping the HWA by stepping forward, never realising the reaction stirred up by certain individuals, some of whom already had a personal grudge against the HWA and are not even members….
Are you still part of the UK National Front?
I resigned in 1983 and have not been involved since.
A lot of people have characterized you as a fascist. Would you say that’s a fair description of your politics?
No. It’s an easy label to flash around, usually by those who are fascists themselves, particularly from the left. Fascists don’t believe in free speech and try to suppress it for their opponents. I have never in my life tried to do that. They are also prepared to use physical violence against their political opponents. I was never involved in anything like that. I would add that during the time I was involved in the party any member who associated with a neo-nazi group, either in Britain or overseas, faced expulsion. This, I can confirm, was enforced.
(17) EISNER AWARD MANGA. Brigid Alverson reviews six works in her post “This Year’s Eisner-Nominated Manga Shows What the Medium Can Do” at B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog.
Nominees for the Eisner Awards, the top honors in the comics industry, were announced on April 19. This year’s nomnees in the manga category (technically, “Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia”) offer a range of different types of manga, from genre comedy to poignant literary works. As a former Eisner judge myself, I know how hard the choices are, and this year’s slate is exceptionally good. All these series are accessible to non-manga readers as well as longtime fans. Let’s dive in and take a look!
Assassination Classroom, by Yusei Matsui This was the surprise nominee, because it’s not exactly a highbrow series, though it is wickedly funny. The setup is totally over the top: a class of misfit high school students are assigned the job of killing their teacher, Koro-sensei, an octopus-shaped alien who has announced he will destroy the earth at the end of the school year. Armed with weapons that are harmless to humans but deadly to their teacher, they study his weaknesses and plot new attacks, and new assassins join the class as the series goes on. What makes it so fun (and so weird) is that Koro-sensei is actually a really good teacher, and he uses his superpowers to help his students as much as to evade their attacks. He’s quirky, overly fond of gossip, a bit self-indulgent, and he often finishes a face-off with an opponent by doing something silly like giving them a manicure. This is a series that shonen fans will particularly enjoy, as there are a lot of inside jokes about the conventions of the genre, but it’s also a fun action comedy for anyone willing to go all in on suspension of disbelief. There is a darker side to Koro-sensei, and occasionally he lets the jovial mask slip, adding a bit of edge. The judges nominated volumes 2-7 of this series for the award.
(18) STEM INTO STEAM. Wil Wheaton has posted “My speech to the 2016 USA Science and Engineering Festival”.
Which brings me to funding.
You’re never too young for science – getting children interested in the world around them, and asking them to try and figure out how things work is a fundamentally good idea. Curious children will naturally gravitate towards STEAM subjects. Let’s encourage that and make sure that a child who wants to explore that particular part of our world has everything she needs to get there, and keep learning about and making awesome things when she leaves. This is and will continue to be a challenge. Despite the clear and undeniable benefits of a comprehensive education, including science education, not only to individuals but to our entire society, we have allowed the funding of our schools to become part of the culture wars. This is as disgraceful as it is predictable. When so many of our poorly-named “leaders” deny scientific consensus on everything from climate change to vaccines, a scientifically literate and well-informed populace can be tremendously inconvenient to them and theiir corporate owners. Well … good. Let’s be inconvenient to them. Let’s educate and empower a generation who will be real leaders, and carry our nation into the future.
We all know that it’s possible to fund STEAM education. The money is there, it’s just being spent on other things. Making enough noise and applying enough sustained pressure to change this will not be easy. It will actually be quite hard. But when has America ever shied away from doing things that are hard? Everything worth doing is hard, and President Kennedy said as much when he challenged our nation to go to the moon. Right now, decades later, every single one of us has benefitted in some way from that commitment. Right now, a generation of future scientists can look to MARS and beyond, because nearly fifty years ago, we did whatever it took to go to the moon.
Why aren’t we doing that today? Because it’s hard?
(19) 2016 SPECULATIVE FICTION EDITORS. The Book Smugglers are already “Announcing the Editors of Speculative Fiction 2016 & Call for Submissions”.
In which we announce the editors for the 2016 edition of the award-winning collection Speculative Fiction
As you probably know by now, we are the new publishers of the ongoing editions of Speculative Fiction: The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary – a collection that celebrates the best in online Science Fiction and Fantasy nonfiction. We are currently hard at work on the publication of SpecFic ’15 – edited by Foz Meadows and Mark Oshiro – and we feel it is time to move on to the next very important step for next year: announcing the two new editors for 2016.
Since its inception in 2012, the Speculative Fiction collection has been envisioned as an annual publication, curated by a new pair of editors each year. Each incumbent pair is also given the weighty task of selecting the next year’s editors.
Today, we are extremely proud to finally announce the editors of Speculative Fiction 2016: Liz Bourke and Mahvesh Murad!
Apparently items for the 2015 collection needed to be submitted to the editors? Well, I didn’t send in anything from File 770, so that’s that.
(20) CELEBRITY VERSIONS OF BB-8 AUCTIONED. Til April 24 you can bid on a variety of BB-8 droids that have been kitted up by celebrities. 100%* of the proceeds from this auction will be donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, on behalf of Force For Change.
The Londonist ran an article and a gallery of photos.
We enjoyed the recent Star Wars film. But, like many, we couldn’t help thinking that BB-8 would look far more fetching dressed up as the globus cruciger from the Crown Jewels, or else painted in the colours of the Union Flag, tarted up like a teapot, or made to look like one of the Beatles.
Our wishes are fulfilled at a new exhibition and charity fundraiser. The cutesy droid has enjoyed a makeover from dozens of artists and celebrities, with the best efforts on show at White Rainbow Gallery (47 Mortimer Street) until 21 April.
Contributing celebrities include Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Warwick Davis, Simon Pegg (responsible for the Beatles droid, above), Paddy McGuinnes, Jonathan Ross, Nicola Adams and the band Years and Years. Each has daubed the droid with a design celebrating an element of British culture, from Robin Hood to the Sex Pistols.
(21) LOOK UP IN THE SKY. Alastair Reynolds is in awe by the end of a session of starwatching (“Pattern Recognition”) —
The light I caught had travelled 25,000 years to reach my telescope. If there’s ever a day when that sort of thing doesn’t send a shiver down my spine, please feel free to shoot me.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Will R., Steven H Silver, and Martin Morse Wooster for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
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@nickpheas
The emdrive article was fascinating even if it does still sound like snake oil. At least some of the claims seem to have something that can be tested, like the effect of a dielectric lining.
@World Weary
I’m merely going to note that the Weir article was credited to Michelle Z. Donahue.
What you do is your own business, of course.
But this smells a bit of the Look-What-John-Green-Has-Done-For-YA issue, where a male author does something non-male authors have been doing for decades/centuries, but it’s hugely notable because OMG A MAN DID THIS LOOK HOW DARING.
If I’m being uncharitable in my reading of the interview question, I apologize.
As for women in STEM – I’m just recently out of the software industry after 27 years, and that’s an entirely different conversation than whether or not, in 2016, any interviewer should think “Wow, you’re writing a woman! …Why?” is a reasonable question to ask.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFNW5F8K9Y
Best guitar solo ever.
World Weary, I’m inclined to agree that it was struggling with a terrible question.
Dann, an interviewer asking about sarcastic-quotes “gender wars” and sad-lack-of-sarcastic-quotes “lady leads” is not asking about the realistic problems faced by women in 2016. That’s asking about the problems faced by women in 1966. What we’re supposed to do is not make women re-fight the battles of 1966 year after year for decades. Because, as you say, 2016 has plenty of its own battles. And, as that study indicates, having to re-fight the stereotypes of 1966 is part of 2016’s problem.
Amoxtli, you said it so much better than I did. So very, very true.
Damn, just heard that Prince was found dead this morning.
For fsck’s sake Prince dies now too, what the hell’s up with this year?
Victoria Wood’s death yesterday was a bit of a shocker too, a real ground breaker for women in comedy in the UK.
I have an issue with the wording of this, as it implies that love is strictly a “female” concern. I almost hear Fred Savage scornfully asking if this is a “kissing book”.
And kind of related to STEM and gender, I noticed this story yesterday:
Sexism in mouse research can lead to medical harm to women, scientists warn.
Turns out that medical studies usually use male mice, which can cause harm to women because males and females have biological differences.
….and I have no idea how to wrap this up.
*smoke bomb*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NN3gsSf-Ys
Make it rain harder.
…Yeah, this is where I maybe am cutting Weir more slack than I should. Because this is likely what the interviewer was getting at, and Weir did what he could to assuage the guy’s concerns instead of questioning the underlying assumption.
On the other hand, how does he answer the question without saying “Yeah, you’re asking me if there’s romance in the book? There’s no romance in the book.” Which sounds passive-aggressive, and he’s probably trying to be cheerful and friendly. (And possibly, in an interview setting, he’s just not that thoughtful or quick on his feet.)
On the third hand – anybody who thinks love is a “female” concern hasn’t read Shakespeare. Or even Frederik Pohl.
This, as your quote notes, isn’t new news. There were public discussions of the problem back when I was in college, in 198(mumble). It’s not just SFF that seems to have institutional amnesia around issues of gender.
I’m sad about Prince. An indispensable part of the soundtrack of my misspent youth. And too damn young to go.
http://uproxx.com/music/2015/09/watch-prince-purple-rain-original-1983
Going to stop crying and go feed my bewildered cats.
If there are people making music you love, support them, go see them now.
Liz Bonesteel on April 21, 2016 at 11:03 am said:
I have an issue with the wording of this, as it implies that love is strictly a “female” concern. I almost hear Fred Savage scornfully asking if this is a “kissing book”.
…Yeah, this is where I maybe am cutting Weir more slack than I should. Because this is likely what the interviewer was getting at, and Weir did what he could to assuage the guy’s concerns instead of questioning the underlying assumption.
The interviewer is http://www.smithsonianmag.com/author/michelle-z-donahue/?no-ist.
As for Prince … jeeze … awful news. Here’s the first public performance of Purple Rain: http://antiquiet.com/music/2010/05/prince-purple-rain-1983-video/
Apologies for mis-gendering the interviewer. My own underlying assumptions on display. 🙂
Doesn’t change how I feel about the interview, though.
@Oneiros Chapter Fives all ’round!
Pixel Rain
Y’all do realize that the interviewer is a woman, right? [Update….I see you do.] Irony, no?
@Hampus
I agree. IMHO, the interviewer’s question was a respectful acknowledgement that sexism still exists and was therefore appropriate.
As am I….
@Liz Bonesteel
And perhaps I’m being overly charitable in my reading of the question.
Given the (mis?)use of the Bechdel test to evaluate fiction and the generic complaint about female characters only being presented in situations where romance is involved to some degree, I think Mr. Weir’s response is understandable. Perhaps, as you suggest, he might have had a more thoughtful/constructive way of saying the same thing if given a little more time.
—
Regards,
Dann
@amoxtli: 1776 is light musical comedy. Not in context; a song in which a battle death calls for its mother, was not typical when 1776 came out, and neither was a multi-sided denunciation of the slave trade. But that wasn’t my point, which was that both make history come alive. There’s also the fact that it’s not a Disney rehash, or heavily dependent on effects, or pompously overblown, or some combination of these; AFAICT this makes it unusual in recent Broadway.
I am completely freaked out by the number of hugely talented people we are losing, long before their time; Victoria Wood was in the year below me in the drama department in Birmingham, and her early masterpieces brightened my life. My particular favourite was her I’ve got the second spear carrier’s blues, which obviously didn’t make it to the outside world, because it’s about performing, but it perfectly summed up the angst of an ambitious actor ending up as an extra on stage.
She was so talented, and so gifted, but she’s gone. I know that there are a lot of women who would never have even contemplated doing stand up without her blazing the trail, and for that I am glad, but it’s still a hell of a wrench to know that she’s gone. All in all, this really is not good.
Irony? Why?
I must disagree that “why did you go with a lady lead?” is a respectful acknowledgement that sexism still exists. It’s more a demonstration that sexism still exists.
Is the interviewer asking why he wrote a Not-Me character? Is she asking why he’s risking killing his sales by making his protagonist a woman? Is she, in fact, asking if it’s a kissing book?
Forgive me if I’m misinterpreting, but you seem to be assuming she’s saying “Wow, how great of you, as a man, to write a female protagonist! Why did you choose to grace us with this amazing, groundbreaking choice?” Which…it’s not like he’s the first writer who’s ever done that, so what’s the point of the question?
Stevie: I’m sorry to hear your personal pain in this loss.
Somewhat changing the subject — I’m trying to remember what celebrities I went to school with. Several athletes who had pro careers that have all been over since the 70s….
@Dann
One of the more common misconceptions about sexism is that it is something men do to women. This is not true. Sexism is something that humans of both genders do to all humans including themselves. We are all part of the culture in which we are raised. This is why second wave feminism was so concerned with consciousness-raising. First, you have to recognize the trap of your own thinking. Then, you can work toward freeing yourself from it and then help others. I’m an old so I remember those days.
Celebrities I went to school with? I attended a performing arts school for several years and some of the people in my classes have had good careers in the arts. The best known being the actor Taye Diggs and the R&B singer Tweet. I could tell anecdotes about them, like Scott (as he was then) Diggs singing “The Rainbow Connection” when we dissected frogs in biology class, but on the whole, I feel out of place telling “I knew them when” stories. Some of the commenters here tell stories so well that it’s worth it for that.
These sort of connections matter though, they’re the reason I have listened to Tweet’s music despite negatve degree of appreciation for r&b.
When a scroll loves a pixel
Of course, ‘celebrity’ is a pretty relative thing. I went to school with Gareth Rees, who’s probably Canada’s most famous rugby player, and the only Canadian in the World Rugby Hall of Fame. That’s… still not terribly well-known.
What celebreties I’ve gone to school with… One classmate became a skilled saxophone player. Another produced the theatrical piece “Spiderman and The Werewolf” which I missed and has pissed me off since then. He started with childrens program afterwards. And a friend who was actor in some sitcoms.
Thats about it I guess.
Re (1)
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
re (5)
Kind of off point, considering what Martin’s said. But really, how the f*ck do they get through the winter without scurvy for all hands? It was a huge problem in Medieval Europe, even with a normal length winter.
re (14)
I’d like everyone to remember that Weir self-publishes, and can’t alienate any potential market. That being said, I’d like everyone to picture every female character in that book, but Commander Lewis in particular.
Yeah, while Weir may want to sell books to the Puppies, it ain’t exactly OJRN material is it? Lewis is everything the puppies want to be saved from in terms of female characters. I think the Weir will probably shy away from anything social, but still produce a book that will have Teddy and the other puppies howling.
I mean, it’s right there in the interview. Female protagonist, and thus prime acid attack fodder (in all their views).
He initially self-pubbed (my spouse picked up a copy of The Martian at .99), but AFAIK he’s not self-pubbed now, and his new book won’t be, either.
Oh! And I remember now: The Martian *is* a kissing book, in the broadest definition of the term. I saw the film first, and Spouse said at the end “That stuff wasn’t in the book,” but when I read the book – it is indeed there, quite explicitly. And personally, I thought it added a nice bit of texture.
@Dann and @Liz:
I don’t mean to imply that Weir thinks “love plots” (that’s starting to sound ominous!) are only female concerns. I feel like he was trying to say that this book won’t be radically different just because it has a female protagonist. That he wasn’t trying to write an examination of sexism or gendered issues or whatnot. I just think that it is a valid reading of what he said.
(I have asked for recommendations here specifically for books with a woman protagonist that don’t feature a romantic storyline. I’m now more curious to read this forthcoming book than I am The Martian.)
Speaking extemporaneously is incredibly difficult! I wish we had had a follow-up question.
@Dawn
FWIW, I understood what you meant, and I tend to agree with you. I think the question was weird, and he handled it as best he could.
Dawn Incognito on April 21, 2016 at 1:02 pm said:
Have you discovered the Steerswoman books by Rosemary Kirstein?
I recently had a copy edit that suggested changing “calloused hands” to “callous hands” — yes, her hands are cold and unfeeling. What the actual F?
The usual US spelling when you’re talking about actual physical calluses is in fact “callused.”
@ULTRAGOTHA:
Yep! Also a little work called God Stalk 🙂
They’re somewhere in the TBR o’ Doom. So many books, so little tome. (Typo kept for amusement value!)
I can’t even remember what book was making me cranky at the time that prompted me to ask.
@Mike Glyer
So far, I think the only one of my classmates to become famous is Peter Shor, whose algorithm for using a quantum computer to factor huge numbers will eventually destroy the current system of Internet security, which depends on it being impractical to factor the product of two large prime numbers, assuming a large enough quantum computer is ever built. The mere existence of his algorithm has been a major contributor to interest in research on quantum computers.
Dawn, I LOVE those books but can’t say what one of my favorite points is without spoilers. I don’t know whether to urge you to read them all right away, or wait a bit in the hopes Kirstein might finish book 5 soonish. (Soon being in relation to geologic time. She’s a wonderful writer but GRRM is fast in comparison, alas.)
@Liz
Well irony. A fair amount of this discussion has been the tone check of a woman for being insufficiently feminist in her use of language. Based on a very brief check of her website and her twitter feed, I would think that she would be largely sympathetic with the general objective of equality for women. And there are the several mis-identifications of her gender.
So, yes. Irony. In modest proportions.
What no one really knows is the full context of the interview. The inflection and tone of voice when asking a question can certainly influence the intent of a question. Also, we lack any other discussion that may have occurred before the interview formally commenced.
What I assume is that, absent proof to the contrary, Ms. Donahue was looking for a reasonable/good faith method to acknowledge/demonstrate that sexism still exists and to give Mr. Weir an opportunity to comment on that issue relative to his work. Unless she has a record of overtly undermining equality for women, my preference is to presume good intentions on her part.
From my perspective, “lady” isn’t an unwholesome word. I fully appreciate that there are many historical examples where that word (or the lack thereof) has been used/not used with less than complimentary intent. Some people may not give that word the pass that it gets on this end of the wire. I’m OK with that, too.
Erm….do we still use wires?
@Dawn
I agree with that.
I have encountered other criticisms of media (film/books/etc.) that considers female characters that exist only insofar as they have a romantic relationship with a man to be a severe. I took Mr. Weir’s response to the question to be, in part, an inoculation against that sort of criticism that might be aimed at this book. (IMHO, sometimes it is a negative. Sometimes it isn’t. Depends on the story.)
Getting back to where I jumped in to this discussion, I like the fact that the character came to Mr. Weir naturally as female instead of being a forced choice. IMHO, progress exists when the question “well why not a woman” doesn’t even enter into an author’s mind.
—
Regards,
Dann
I thought the discussion has been about the hamfisted wording of an interview question. Obviously I missed some posts.
The way you phrase this suggests quite strongly that you’ve got your own agenda here, about which you’re not being entirely straightforward. In the interests of honesty, here’s my agenda: I think it was a stupid, sexist question, and I’m not willing to read much into Weir’s answer to a stupid, sexist question.
Well, God Stalk does have a bit of romance as an element of the plot. Thinking back to what I read recently, Dark Orbit does not.
Doris Sutherland reviewed the novels.
Mike
Yes, it is a personal loss; in my year there were 18 places in the Drama Department, and they may have hurled caution to the winds and expanded it to, say, 20 places in the next year, when Victoria came in. I don’t know the numbers for her year, but there were over 5,000 applications for the 18 places in my year.
In such a closed environment, with such small numbers, you know each other; we were very much aware of how lucky we were to have got a place, and our tutors made sure we didn’t forget it. We were all expected to be there at 8am to do the workouts, and I still recall the difficulties of trying to carry a six foot tall guy all the way to the end of the studio. He, on the other hand, enjoyed carrying me because I didn’t weigh very much.
I’ve read about sports jocks in the US, and, as a complete outsider, it looks as if there are people who do well as athletes in school but do nothing for the rest of their lives. Resting on one’s laurels is fine, but I think there’s a problem if the jock hasn’t grasped that there are important things which need to be done…
This Is What It Sounds Like When Pixels Scroll.
IanP: I am reminded that the one of the reasons I upgraded my camera early this year was to try and do some astrophotography. The new (Pentax) body includes a built in GPS with a specific function for using the camera’s anti-shake system to cancel out the effect of the Earth’s rotation by slewing the sensor. So you can take quite long exposures without star trails forming.
Oh, wow, technology. It’s just staggering, some of the amazing things that are being done with it.
It’s probably going to go largely unnoticed, but Prince was not the only influential musician who died today. Richard Lyons, a founding member of the audio collage band Negativland, also passed away.
What the hell, 2016?
Gladstone’s Three Part Dead, has a female lead who does not have a romance. Other people in the book have romances though, and it’s significant to the plot.
Re Delia Sherman’s “Porcelain Dove”
According to the publicist for her, the book is not currently in print.
May I recommend the novel she wrote with Ellen Kushner? The Fall of Kings which is part of Kushner’s Riverside Series and is one of the mannerpunk novels ever.
It is, however, available as an ebook. Only $2.99 on Amazon right now!
James Davis Nicoll: If I remember my Andre Norton correctly, and I do, when [female SFF writers] first dabbled in writing women they got serious pushback
I was shocked to find out that, when it was published, Dreamsnake was apparently considered controversial because its female protagonist had sex, was able to control her reproductive system psychologically, rescued a girl from being sexually abused by a man, and ultimately saved herself rather than needing to be saved by a man.
I’d like to hope that nobody would find such a plot controversial now. That may be too optimistic.
Prince-themed title candidates:
When Doves Scroll
Darling Pixel
Let’s Scroll Crazy
Starships and Pixels
JJ: Whatever was added to “Of Mist, Grass, and Sand” to make it Dreamsnake I obviously missed, only having read the novelette. The novelette was published in Analog (and won the Hugo) five years before the novel (which also won the Hugo). I wonder if any of the supposedly controversial bits were in the Analog story? The review you link to seems to say some things might have been presented in more allusory ways, rather than actually absent from the novelette.
The Analog version appeared in 1973, so I doubt I personally found anything controversial about the shorter story, not just because it was Analog, but that wasn’t so long after I had avidly read the two Dangerous Visions collections — that was the real measure of controversy in the early Seventies.
@Vasha:
My mistake! Maybe I worded my request a little differently at the time, or maybe I’m just remembering it wrong.
It’s not that I’m a bitter misanthrope who hates romance. (Though when I was younger I became quite disillusioned with romance novels. I was going to say “due to consent issues” but I would have been wrong. It was due to poor writing/plotting at the time.) But there’s an implication in a lot of things I see that a woman can’t have a truly fulfilling life without a man (and probably babies). It exists for men too, but I could think of a few more male protagonists who weren’t paired off and were perfectly fine that way.
…actually, I guess it’s the notion that a person isn’t truly happy without romantic/erotic love that bugs me. (I was going to say “that chafes” but immediately after a mention of erotic love? *snicker*) I’ve seen plenty of romantic tales. Let’s see something different!
Perhaps this is why one of my fave anime shows, Kino’s Journey, stars a young woman who appears to have no time or inclination for romance.