Pixel Scroll 5/17/16 There and Gernsback Again

(1) I WONDER WHAT THE KING IS DOING TONIGHT. Kameron Hurley observes that fame and fortune don’t go hand-in-hand: “Dancing for Dinner: Fame, Publishing, and Breakout Books”.

In my own life, I find I have to remind people often that I have a day job. I actually had a client email me after a conference call one time and ask, “Are you THE Kameron Hurley?” and I had to admit that I was. I had to have a conversation with my boss about online harassment, and how the release of my upcoming essay collection, The Geek Feminist Revolution, might create some pushback at my job, and how we should handle that should it happen. The whiplash you get in going to an event where people literally scream with happiness when you walk into a room and back to private life where you’re just another cog is really weird (to be truthful, I greatly enjoy my anonymity in Ohio, and don’t want it another way, but the dissonance is weird).

Yet this balancing act between public and private life, or public personae and private day job, is something that many thousands of other writers and artists struggle with every day. I was reading that Joe Abercrombie kept his day job for a lot longer than you might have thought (and even then, picked up freelancing jobs until a few years ago), and Gene Wolfe has had a day job his whole career. Most of us have to do this. It’s just… increasingly awkward to find that the fame part comes so much faster than the money part (if the money comes at all). There’s this strange assumption that by being an artist, you have traded away your private life in exchange for money. But what about those of us who never have the money to keep ourselves safe from the fame?

(2) HILL’S DARKSIDE. Coming in October from IDW, “Joe Hill’s Terrifying Scripts For Tales From The Darkside Collected”.

Originally planned as a reboot for the storied series, Hill’s scripts for these never-broadcast television episodes allow the New York Times bestselling author to stretch his creative muscles, his effortless mastery of the twisted subject matter injecting new terrors into this silver screen legend.

Joining Hill in resurrecting this classic is Charles Paul Wilson III, known to many Joe Hill fans as the artist responsible for the nightmare vision made real in their most recent collaboration…

“When I was offered a chance to reinvent Tales from the Darkside, I leapt,” said Hill. “This was a landmark show for my generation: our Twilight Zone, our Outer Limits. Right away, I wanted to do something that honored the spirit of the original Darkside… and at the same time I wanted to go bigger, to do something fresh, something with scope. In the end I wrote three scripts and sketched a vision for a whole Darkside universe. I envisioned a series of individual horror stories that would, ultimately, turn out to be connected by a single mythology. I really wanted to do something with the scale of Locke & Key. TV is tough and in the end we didn’t quite make it to the little screen. But it’s a delight and a thrill to share the scripts alongside Charles Paul Wilson’s beautifully sick illustrations. Here’s the show that could’ve been, now playing in your imagination.”

Tales From The Darkside was created by George A. Romero.

(3) MONSTER CENSUS. Max Florschutz, in “Being a Better Writer: Micro-Blast #3”, answers the question “Do I Need Fantastic Creatures in My Fantasy?”

No, actually.

All right, let me explain a bit more. Usually when we think of fantasy we think of fantastic creatures: Beings like dragons, unicorns, monstrous beasts, etc. Such creatures fill the realm of myth and legend the world over, and are a common sight in fantasy stories. But do you need one in your story?

Well, no. There are plenty of stories out there where the fantastic and the incredible happen without any sort of mythical, shocking, or otherwise out-of-the-ordinary beasts and creatures entering the narrative. A lot of stories are about human interaction, no beasts needed. You can still write a fantastic fantasy without any indication or even mention of fantastic beasts, and there are plenty of fantasy books that prove this as well. For example, take the success of GRRM’s Game of Thrones books. Granted, they pull in dragons and other fantastic beasts as the series moves on, but such elements only, if I recall correctly, appear right at the end of the first book—the rest of that introduction to the series draws more on the characters and the goings-on of a political kingdom to keep you reading (as well as lots of incest and other elements, which is why I only ever read that first book and didn’t care to move on).

My disinterest in the series aside, the first title in the series shows that your fantasy doesn’t need to have fantastical beasts in order to be gripping. You can write a fantastic amount of drama, magic, and excitement without ever needing a fantastical creature.

(4) STRAW WARS. Bence Pintér, editor-in-chief of the Hungaran SF portal Mandiner.sci-fi, recommends a funny video from Hungary. Public workers created Star Wars sculptures from bales of straw in Tiszaigar, a small village in the Great Hungarian Plain.

(5) PLANETARY SOCIETY. Robert Picardo’s Planetary Post, “A Visit to JPL.”

Welcome to the fourth installment of The Planetary Post, our monthly newsletter from Robert Picardo featuring the most notable space happenings. This month we head to JPL for a tour with two young friends.

 

(6) LONGLIST. Aaron Pound is gathering data for “The Hugo Longlist Project” at Dreaming of Other Worlds.

As I noted a few days ago, it does not appear that anyone is tracking the nominees on the Hugo longlist. There are plausible reasons for this, the most important of which is that it is entirely informal and unofficial. The Hugo administrators usually do not even bother to determine if a particular nominee is eligible in the category they have been nominated in unless it makes the list of finalists. This does not mean, however, that this data is not without value. Thus far, however, it has not been compiled into a coherent whole. This project is intended to fill in this gap by compiling all of the Hugo longlist data into a series of posts so it is all accessible in one location. Some notes:

  1. Though the Hugo statistical data that is released concerning the top fifteen nominees lists the total number of nominations each work received and ranks them accordingly, they are presented here in alphabetical order. Perusing the statistics, it is not uncommon for a work to receive the most nominations in the nominating round, but not win the Hugo award in the award selection round. This indicates to me that the raw number of nominations is not a worthwhile guide to whether one work is “better” than another in the eyes of the Hugo voters.

(7) NEBULA TRIP REPORT. Zak Zyz filled in readers about “My trip to the Nebulas, Installment 1: Cry Havoc and let slip the Blogs of War”.

I was sick as hell on Thursday but made a point to get out to see at least @MikeRUnderwood’s sales panel. Very valuable info, he first went into an explanation of a few retail-style presentation techniques useful for displaying books when working a booth at a con.

Two presentation points I plan to implement:

  1. Have bookstands, a tablecloth, and ideally a banner or a sign that complement your brand
  2. Have a stack of books underneath yours, so people know they aren’t taking your last copy.

Mike Underwood has a lot of sales and retail experience and it shows. He talked about a flowchart method to his sales pitch, favoring a soft-sell approach with a lot of emphasis on gauging the comfort and interest level of a prospective buyer. He talked about the importance of genre familiarity, knowing what’s popular for comparison not just to your own genre, but to build bridges to people who aren’t necessarily SFF readers (or even big readers at all) in larger conventions with a more diverse crowd. A final tip was offering people who were interested but not willing to commit to a sale a chance to join your email list.

This was a valuable panel that taught me a few things that will make it easier to sell books in person. He also fielded my question about selling books to independent stores, with some great advice about talking to book buyers. Just the information in this one panel was worth the price of admission to me.

I should also note Mike has an active Kickstarter going for Genrenauts.

(8) CAMERA ARTISTE. John Scalzi announced on Whatever that he posted an exquisite set of photos of the Nebula Awards banquet in this Flickr album.

(9) ZERO YOBS. Nigel battled Damien Walter on Twitter.

I don’t think Walter is actually wrong. Those looking for WSFS rules permitting an action should try the thought experiment of looking instead for rules that will prevent that action. The WSFS rules give great latitude to the committee in all matters that aren’t specifically addressed in the WSFS constitution. The necessary ingredient is for the corporate entity running the con to have the political will to act — I have no idea whether MACII has even discussed the idea. Also, it would cost money to refund memberships — don’t underestimate that issue.

(10) S.H.I.E.L.D. TRAVELS IN TIME. Comic Book Resources reports “ABC Bumps ‘Agents of SHIELD to New Timeslot”.

When “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” returns to ABC this fall, the show will air in a new timeslot: Tuesday nights at 10 pm EST. This pushes the show back an hour from its original 9 pm slot, which will now be filled by “Fresh Off the Boat” and “The Real O’Neals.”

The news follows the cancellation of “Agent Carter,” which aired during “S.H.I.E.L.D.’s” past two winter hiatuses, and ABC’s decision not to move forward with the Mockingbird-centric “Marvel’s Most Wanted” spinoff.

(11) INNOVATION. The Valley Forge in 2017 NASFiC bid has posted a new progress report on Facebook.

We’re pleased to announce the Valley Forge 2017 Mobie Fund!

Mobie Fund Mission: The Mobie Fund will provide monetary assistance to those fans who have difficulty attending NASFIC due to the financial burden of mobility scooter rental. We will seek donations from all who want to help make NASFiC accessible. Valley Forge 2017 will match donations to the fund, up to $500.

After the site selection vote at MidAmeriCon II, the 2016 WorldCon, we will accept donations in cash or through Paypal via our website. At the same time, those who wish to apply for financial assistance for mobility scooter rental can contact us through our website.

Please note: The Mobie Fund is first-come, first-serve. We will confirm that your spot is available, but it won’t be secured until we receive your registration for the con. Upon arrival at the hotel, you can pick up your pre-paid mobie at the mobie rental spot. If, at the end of the con, the Mobie Fund still has a balance, we will reimburse that money among the other mobie riders at the con.

(12) SUICIDE SPINOFF. According to Yahoo! Movies, “Margot Robbie Spearheads Proposed Harley Quinn Movie With More Female DC Comics Characters”.

Months ahead of the opening of Suicide Squad, Warner Bros. is already contemplating a spin-off for the DC Entertainment anti-heroine, Harley Quinn.

Margot Robbie, who stars as the villainess in Suicide Squad, is attached to reprise the character and would also produce the untitled spin-off, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

But in an interesting twist, the project is not a Quinn solo movie. Rather, it would focus on several of DC’s female heroes and villains.

Details are being closely guarded but names such as Batgirl and Birds of Prey have surfaced, although in what capacity, it’s not clear. Warner Bros. isn’t commenting.

There is also a scribe penning the script but those details, too, are being kept secret, although it is known that the writer is female.

(13) STANISLAW LEM HONORED. A Kraków Science Festival will be named after Stanislaw Lem says Radio Poland.

Late science-fiction writer, philosopher and futurologist, Stanislaw Lem, is the patron of the 16th edition of the Science Festival, which begins in Kraków, southern Poland, on Thursday.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Lem’s death. The slogan of this year’s festival is “Time and Space”. “Lem’s work strongly refers to the concept of time and space, which are also the domain of science,” the chairman of the festival’s organising committee, prof. Robert Stawarz, said.

(14) OLDIE BUT GOODIE. Just discovered this 2011 Robot Chicken video today: “Aliens Acid Blood.“

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Bence Pintér, JJ and Will R. for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Leslie C.]

131 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 5/17/16 There and Gernsback Again

  1. Re Damien Walter in (9): Based on previous tweets from Walter, he seems to be mixing up different senses of “legal”. In many of Walter’s tweet he seems to be talking about the law, rather than about bylaws specific to WSFS. And in that sense he is correct: Legally speaking, Worldcon is relatively free to make its own rules. Worldcon will not, as far as I can see, run into a discrimination lawsuit or anything similar if it “refuse service” to Rabid Puppies.

    Legally speaking Worldcon is probably also relatively free to break it’s own rules – in the sense that it is difficult to get far with a court case based on the claim “I was thrown out of an organization in a manner that wasn’t 100% correct according to that organization’s bylaws”. I absolutely do not recommend Worldcon to trust my judgment on that, though. And “sure, we’re breaking our own constitution, but we’re unlikely to be sued over it” is a rather poor defence.

    If we want to follow the WSFS constitution, the options are a bit more limited than Walter seems to think. While I agree with Walter’s basic principle of viewing the Rabid Puppies (and similar future groups) as harassers and kick them out, the sad truth is that this is poorly supported in the current rules. And writing it into the rules takes time.

  2. alexvdl, that looks very interesting. Thank you. Would you be offended if I asked you for a list of recent MilSF that you liked?

    (Or military fantasy, which is not as acronym friendly)

    Also, can I tap your brain on how affiliate links work? I’ve never used them because as embarrassing as this is to admit, I don’t understand the instructions and apparently also don’t know to convey “I have no idea how to do this” to Amazon in a way that results in an explanation.

  3. @Anthony woah seriously?! I didn’t realise they were ever real outside being “scary things to put in the enchanted woods surrounding our snow covered tavern.”

    *googles* Though it turns out real direwolves were pretty much regular wolf size, rather than pony dogs, which I think puts ASoIaF direwolves firmly into fantasy animal territory – as does the apparent psychic bond with their respective Stark kids. Understandable that someone who only read the first book would not know that, though, as they’re still puppies in book 1 and most of the other weirdness is understated at that point IIRC…

  4. I think if I write a secondary world fantasy, the animals will drawn from the New World prior to the Big Die-ening, mixed to amuse. So Terror Birds and Hell Pigs. Which are like Pig with added Hell.

  5. Though it turns out real direwolves were pretty much regular wolf size, rather than pony dogs, which I think puts ASoIaF direwolves firmly into fantasy animal territory

    I don’t remember if the books had them that much larger or if it’s a TV special affects thing. I’m holding off a reread until the next book has a definite date…

  6. @james I’ve used Terror Birds in my RPG scenarios, much to the surprise and horror of my player characters. One planet had them as a very bad source of poultry ranching, the other showed up during a Feng Shui 2 excursion into the past…

  7. Leave SRBI aside as a slate marker. Even leave SSARR aside on the grounds that it is colorably a take on a real problem that we just don’t like. (This is not my view; it’s an argument someone might make in good faith.) “If You Were an Award, My Love” is a clear slate marker and clearly abusive of the process and a specific person. If the PTB had decided to look for a code-of-conduct “excuse” to toss works and ballots this year, it would give them at least an argument for deciding to do so.

  8. @James Davis Nicoll: So Terror Birds and Hell Pigs. Which are like Pig with added Hell.
    Actually, I think Hell Pigs (Dinohyus, to those not In The Know) are pretty much Hell Pigs with added Hell. There’s a full-size model at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It’s terrifying.

  9. I think if I write a secondary world fantasy, the animals will drawn from the New World prior to the Big Die-ening, mixed to amuse. So Terror Birds and Hell Pigs. Which are like Pig with added Hell.

    I’ve had a copy of this for years but never got around to reading it. (Anyone read it?)

    Terror birds were probably extinct long before humans were around, and–as mentioned–“dire wolves” would have been better named “somewhat urgent wolves”, but if paleoindians had had the foresight to domesticate and use glyptodons or giant ground sloths (if they weren’t as slow as their modern cousins) as mounts, I’m guessing the modern world would be somewhat different today…

  10. And, of course, if you go a bit more paleo, there are the mesonychians. (Be sure to check out the whole series of articles linked just below the text of the first one.)

    (Edit to add this comic I remembered and googled up http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/the-difference-could-save-your-life)

    Even more paleo than that, who wouldn’t want to ride a gorgonopsid? (Okay, no show of hands. Next you’ll be saying that you don’t want a pet hyena!)

  11. Speaking of extinct things, I have recently reached a decision. Given that:

    1. When confronted with an unfamiliar meat, people frequently liken its taste to that of chicken.
    2. Chickens are avians.
    3. Dinosaurs evolved into avians.
    4. Dinosaurs are way cooler than chickens.

    Thus let it be resolved that “tastes like chicken” shall henceforth be replaced with “tastes like dinosaur.”

  12. This terror bird/hell pig discussion reminds me that it’s been far too long since I watched Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Prehistoric Beasts and Chased by Dinosaurs.

    In fiction, Jeff Salyards’ Bloodsounders’ Arc trilogy has some nasty terror bird-like beasties. And in Jane Gaskell’s Atlan series, I think soldiers ride some kind of giant, prehistoric flightless birds.

  13. Thus let it be resolved that “tastes like chicken” shall henceforth be replaced with “tastes like dinosaur.”

    Ah, but that is a gross generalization. After all,not even all current dinosaurs taste the same–turkeys do not taste like chickens, for instance. (And those two species define the limits of dinosaur species that I have tasted, but I assume other commonly eaten dinosaur species like ducks, geese, pigeons, etc. have distinct tastes.) With much different diets and lifestyles, I’m guessing, for example, meat-eating tyrannosaurs, plant-eating hadrosaurs, and (probably) fish-eating spinosaurs would taste at least as different from each other as turkeys from chickens.

    On an unrelated note, since in earlier posts I mentioned both sloths and exotic pets, I feel the need to point out these google images.

  14. @Darren: “Ah, but that is a gross generalization. After all,not even all current dinosaurs taste the same–turkeys do not taste like chickens, for instance.”

    Observing that “white grapes” and healthy grass are different colors does not prevent either from being green.

  15. Observing that “white grapes” and healthy grass are different colors does not prevent either from being green.

    I’ll tell you what–how about you eat a handful of grapes, then a handful of grass, then say they both taste the same?

  16. @Darren: “I’ll tell you what–how about you eat a handful of grapes, then a handful of grass, then say they both taste the same?”

    Considering that the grapes/grass comparison was about color, not taste, that would be an incredibly pointless exercise.

    The point, since it seems to have zoomed over your head, is that it’s perfectly fine to compare something to one example of a class without saying that every member of that class is identical in that respect. If rattlesnake tastes like chicken, and chicken and turkey are both of class dinosaur, it’s still valid to say that rattlesnake tastes like dinosaur. Says nothing about how the taste of either rattlesnake or chicken compares to turkey.

  17. If rattlesnake tastes like chicken, and chicken and turkey are both of class dinosaur, it’s still valid to say that rattlesnake tastes like dinosaur.

    Would you say that the rattlesnake “tastes like bird”, or would you think that sounds as silly as I think that sounds? And “bird” is an even less general category than “dinosaur.” You might as well say that it “tastes like tetrapod”, it “tastes like vertebrate”, or it “tastes like eucaryote.”

    Put it another way–if the rattlesnake tasted like pork. Would you say that it “tastes like mammal?”

  18. But if rattlesnake tasted like fish I doubt anyone would have a problem saying “this tastes like fish”. Sounds like some type of animal kingdom stereotyping could be going on!

  19. Jim Henley on May 18, 2016 at 10:27 am said:

    Leave SRBI aside as a slate marker. Even leave SSARR aside on the grounds that it is colorably a take on a real problem that we just don’t like. (This is not my view; it’s an argument someone might make in good faith.) “If You Were an Award, My Love” is a clear slate marker and clearly abusive of the process and a specific person. If the PTB had decided to look for a code-of-conduct “excuse” to toss works and ballots this year, it would give them at least an argument for deciding to do so.

    That makes sense. It would be relatively easy for VD to steer around in the future but at least it would remove a specific kind of problem (and a particularly harassing kind) from the list of obnoxious things they can do.

    Worth having a list of the main sh_tty things we are trying to prevent/discourage/whatever. While bad actors can think of new sh_tty things, it is still worth thinking about what are specifically the ones we are confronting.

    Can’t find the post you made earlier in response to my ‘two rewards’ comments, so feel free to add:

    Subgoals sought by bad actors (where the main goal is ‘attack the Hugos’)
    1. winning an award via slating (which the current voting system prevents)
    2. stopping a category being awarded by forcing No Award
    3. being distributed in the Hugo Packet (Jason Rennie is citing this as why he doesn’t care about a Hugo but is squatting on the ballot)
    4. blocking specific other nominees (e.g. Tropes vs Women)
    5. gaining the ability to claim ‘Hugo Finalist’
    6. general publicity for a work or publisher on the back of Hugo shenanigans
    7. promoting defamatory or harassing works targeted at members of the community (e.g. If You Were an Award…)
    8. promoting works intended to make the awards look ridiculous
    9. discouraging participation by other members in general
    10. radicalization of marginal supporters (e.g. exploiting the Sad campaign knowing it will crash and burn so as to recruit the disaffected)
    11. something for the mob to do

    Those aren’t all independent and I’m sure there are many more.
    I’d say, overall, it looks like chucking stuff off is a more important feature of any reform than getting good stuff back on.

  20. But if rattlesnake tasted like fish I doubt anyone would have a problem saying “this tastes like fish”. Sounds like some type of animal kingdom stereotyping could be going on!

    Well, “fish” itself is a problematic term. If all birds are considered to be dinosaurs, then by the exact same logic, all birds are also fish (since a clade consists of a common ancestor and all descendants.) Most people, while happy calling birds dinosaurs, are less willing to call them fish. See this and this for a taste of the problem.

  21. For what it’s worth, I’ve heard that rattlesnake tastes nothing like chicken. But I haven’t tried it myself so I can’t judge.

    (I can say, definitively, that chicken tastes like dinosaur. And turkey tastes like a different kind of dinosaur. And duck is a somewhat richer, gamier dinosaur. And pigeon is small-dinosaur-with-bones-in….)

  22. @Aaron – I agree. There is a fine line between the Non-Joke Joke (which I still fail to find funny, but others find hilarious) and badgering someone to the point of thread derailing.

  23. …plus

    12. hostage taking – nominating stuff people like to sow confusions
    13. kingmaking (related to 12) being the marginal votes for something otherwise legit

  24. @James Davis Nicoll

    Not at all.

    Let’s see,

    Right now I’m in the midst of one of the Warhammer 40k omnibuses, which is about space Marines so technically MilSF?
    Before that Outriders, which has the review.
    Chains of Command by Marko Kloos, which I’ve also got a review up of.
    The Joe Ledger series by Jonathan Maberry isn’t exactly MilFan, but it’s a good pastiche of thriller/supernatural/paramilitary badasses.
    Of course Myke Cole’s Shadow Ops series.
    The Red trilogy by Linda Nagata

    That’s all 2016.

    Historically I’ve loved Jean Johnson’s “Theirs not to Reason Why” series, Jay Allan’s “Crimson Worlds” series, Harry Turtledove’s Alt History where he does WWII with alien invasion, Jackal of Nar by John Marco (MilFan), Weston Ochse’s Makaum War series, Sandra McDonald’s Outback Stars trilogy, the anthology Operation: Arcana for MilFan and the recent War Stories for MilSF/F.

    As for the other if you hit me up at my username at yahoo, I’d be more than happy to answer any of the questions I can.

  25. Rev Bob, I am going to use tastes like dinosaur from now on.

    If we are going to be pedantic about taste, I will point out that only old fish tastes like fish. Fresh fish tastes like the kind of fish it is.

    As far as ‘tastes like chicken’ goes, the only time that I had rattlesnake, it was in chili, so I was not able to distinguish a separate flavor. It was chewy like low quality steak, though.

  26. Darren Garrison:

    If all birds are considered to be dinosaurs, then by the exact same logic, all birds are also fish (since a clade consists of a common ancestor and all descendants.)

    Which means, of course, that whales are also fish. Melville was right!

  27. Today’s read — The Edge of Worlds, by Martha Wells

    This is a 2016 book, and I will be adding it to the 2016 recommendation page with an apology for the fact that every book I’ve been adding there for a while has been the umpteenth in a series.

    This isn’t exactly a return to the Three Worlds books for Martha Wells, since there’ve been two books of short stories set there after the initial trilogy. But it is the first full novel there’s been in a while. So how is it?

    It’s good. We get more of the brilliantly inventive world Wells has created, and she succeeds in ratcheting up the stakes while keeping them within plausible bounds. The story is propulsive and there’s a host of interesting characters both new and old. And of course, fans of Moon and Jade and Stone and Chime and the gang get to see them come back in all their complicated shapeshifting glory.

    If there’s a flaw, it’s that the central emotional dilemmas of the book aren’t quite as interesting as the early ones. Moon is pretty much settled the Indigo Court and accepted there, so the book lacks the fish-out-of-water tension that characterized the earlier books. Although Moon has some conflict around his status as a new father, it doesn’t inform much of what goes on.

    But anyway, thumbs up.

  28. @Rev. Bob: As dinosaurs were once postulated to be the ancestors of alligators, and alligators also “taste like chicken” (possibly other reptiles, I’ve never eaten croc or iguana), I think it’s doubly-perfect. It encompasses all our scientific hypotheses about dinos throughout history.

  29. @Camestros:

    Can’t find the post you made earlier in response to my ‘two rewards’ comments, so feel free to add:

    Subgoals sought by bad actors (where the main goal is ‘attack the Hugos’)
    1. winning an award via slating (which the current voting system prevents)
    2. stopping a category being awarded by forcing No Award
    3. being distributed in the Hugo Packet (Jason Rennie is citing this as why he doesn’t care about a Hugo but is squatting on the ballot)
    4. blocking specific other nominees (e.g. Tropes vs Women)
    5. gaining the ability to claim ‘Hugo Finalist’
    6. general publicity for a work or publisher on the back of Hugo shenanigans
    7. promoting defamatory or harassing works targeted at members of the community (e.g. If You Were an Award…)
    8. promoting works intended to make the awards look ridiculous
    9. discouraging participation by other members in general
    10. radicalization of marginal supporters (e.g. exploiting the Sad campaign knowing it will crash and burn so as to recruit the disaffected)
    11. something for the mob to do

    This is a great list. Thanks for pulling it together. I think you left off “12. kingmaking?” And I think we can usefully prioritize it since, as Kevin Standlee and Kenneth Arrow point out, no voting system will be perfect.

    Off the top of my head I would say the most important things to prevent or militate are, in order:

    7 – harassment/libel
    4 – blocking one’s declared enemies
    8 – (clusters of) ridiculous noms
    2 – forcing No Award
    12 – kingmaking
    5 – Finalist label-bogarting
    6 – publicity stunting
    3 – Hugo-packet ride-hitching

    Of the remaining four…

    1. winning an award, is handled by the existing NA provision. It works and should remain the general failsafe mechanism.
    9. member demoralization, I consider an outcome of the List of Eight and not something a change to the system can directly address.
    10. radicalization of sympathizers and 11. in-group bonding, are outside of our control. Those people are responsible for their own consciences.

    Obviously, the order of the List of Eight is just, like, my opinion, man, but I strongly feel that keeping abusive and libelous work off the ballot is Job One.

    ETA: Doh! Responded before I saw the post where you added kingmaking. Also hostage-taking. Hostage-taking is a great exhibit for the necessity of subjectivity: people have to make reasoned judgments about whether to hold Alastair Reynolds responsible for being on the RP slate, e.g. (As opposed to holding him responsible for writing a kind of dull and vaguely silly novella.)

  30. @World Weary:

    If we are going to be pedantic about taste, I will point out that only old fish tastes like fish. Fresh fish tastes like the kind of fish it is.

    Once I had kelp snacks for the first time I realized that fish doesn’t taste like fish at all. Fish taste like marine life.

  31. LOL Jim. So do I love sushi because I also love kelp or the reverse? I like shredded kelp on my popcorn.

  32. Jim Henley on May 18, 2016 at 7:28 pm said:

    @Camestros:

    Kingmaking is one that is worrying me in various ways. With the Sads I saw it as quasi-legit i.e. you can’t really legislate against factions and if you have factions that a minority one can exercise some power as kingmakers. They don’t need slates just a sort of aesthetic heuristic [the one with the most heroic engineer or the least amount of social-justice themes]. That is just a side effect of having a bunch of people vote. Assuming they vote in good faith (but perhaps poor or misguided judgement) that’s just the nature of democracy.

    With bad-faith griefers, Kingmaking is more than just the boast value (e.g. VD’s boast about 3BP last year) but the capacity to deny a specific worthy novel a top slot and then boast about that. Then the griefer-kingmaker gets to make a nasty and harassing boast – ‘We stopped XXXX winning a Hugo’ – with some credibility and then everybody feels shitty etc and makes people who didn’t vote for XXXX feel particularly shitty as the griefer tries to make it seem like they enabled the griefer etc.

    🙁

  33. I think if I write a secondary world fantasy, the animals will drawn from the New World prior to the Big Die-ening, mixed to amuse. So Terror Birds and Hell Pigs. Which are like Pig with added Hell.

    In my WiP, I have glyptodonts as beasts of burden, Terror Birds and Island Mammoths as riding animals, and Elasmotherium as the equivalent of a tank. And of course Paraceratherium as something to put a small house on. Because who wouldn’t want a giant, long-necked hornless rhinoceroses as the base for a nomadic city?

  34. Andrew M : Which means, of course, that whales are also fish. Melville was right!

    This new learning amazes me, Sir Andrew. Explain again how sheep’s bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.

  35. Because who wouldn’t want a giant, long-necked hornless rhinoceroses as the base for a nomadic city?

    The people who have to do the rebuilding after mating season, that’s who.

  36. @Darren Garrison – If all birds are considered to be dinosaurs, then by the exact same logic, all birds are also fish (since a clade consists of a common ancestor and all descendants.)

    @ lurkertype – As dinosaurs were once postulated to be the ancestors of alligators, and alligators also “taste like chicken” (possibly other reptiles, I’ve never eaten croc or iguana), I think it’s doubly-perfect. It encompasses all our scientific hypotheses about dinos throughout history.

    This logic is irrefutable. Therefore, whenever asked, from now on I will say that everything tastes like everything else.

  37. @dave: “This logic is irrefutable. Therefore, whenever asked, from now on I will say that everything tastes like everything else.”

    Which explains why my local KFC is also a Long John Silver’s.

  38. The first convention that cans ballots is asking for a Beale-instigated law suit. Memberships are purchased with the expressly-granted benefit of being able to vote for the Hugos. If the convention accepts the money, they have to count the votes.

    And what if one year’s con deletes the votes of people who purchased the previous year’s memberships? They could sue the previous convention for a refund. Would one year’s committee really want to put the previous year’s committee personally liable for judgments like this?

    And whether or not the plaintiff actually wins isn’t the point — the very process of the suit will be just the sort of screwing around with the Hugos that they get off on.

  39. @Bill:

    You’re confusing nominating and voting. Voting is restricted to current-year members, so the “sue the previous con over a discarded vote” objection can never happen.

    Further, the multi-year process involved in changing the rules means that by the time a “we can discard ballots for X” rule ever got ratified, it would have been proposed and passed by the time anyone eligible to nominate or vote does so under the new rules. That, therefore, does away with the “expressly-granted benefit” objection.

  40. You’re confusing nominating and voting. Voting is restricted to current-year members, so the “sue the previous con over a discarded vote” objection can never happen.
    I took some of the “can the ballots” suggestions to refer to nomination ballots, in either the 1st or 2nd phase of a possible 3-phase process. Anyplace I said vote/votes, read it as “nominate and vote/nominations and votes”. But even if the suggestions refer only to final-round voting ballots, the general point still stands: The convention accepted the cash of the voter, and has an obligation to accept the vote. Doing anything else, especially when Beale is involved, is asking for some trouble.

    Further, the multi-year process involved in changing the rules means that by the time a “we can discard ballots for X” rule ever got ratified, it would have been proposed and passed by the time anyone eligible to nominate or vote does so under the new rules. That, therefore, does away with the “expressly-granted benefit” objection.

    At least one of the comments suggested that ballots be voided immediately, presumably from the powers Mike Glyer referred to in (9) above. But if it was a suggestion for a rule change, it would be interesting to see wording that accomplishes the goal (especially wording that doesn’t turn the process into what Beale has been saying that it is).

    Like Bruce Schneier and Jameson Quinn said in their academic paper, the process not only should be fair, it should be perceived as fair. Any process that seeks to void a group of ballots as suggested above, I submit, is not fair, and is obviously not fair. Particularly when it is preceded by a discussion of “how can we keep Puppy votes from counting.”

  41. The first convention that cans ballots is asking for a Beale-instigated law suit. Memberships are purchased with the expressly-granted benefit of being able to vote for the Hugos.

    Not if WSFS changes its constitution.

  42. Bill: The convention accepted the cash of the voter, and has an obligation to accept the vote.

    What I was talking about is membership revocation, with refund of payment.

    In the unlikely event that MACII took this up, they might have their own ideas about the effect. My thought is 2016 is already too far along to redo the nominations. The benefit of revoking memberships of those who want to destroy the Hugos would be to remove their eligibility to buy site selection memberships for 2018, and to exercise nominating rights in 2017 (at least, those rights conferred by a MACII membership).

  43. No doubt the rules can be changed such that some ballots can be voided and membership fees refunded. But any process which allows for this to happen, when the decision to void a ballot is based on what the ballot is cast for, just goes to validate the original puppy complaint — that the Hugos are selected by an insular self-validating group rather than a larger community.

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