(1) EMMA WATSON IS BELLE. The new Beauty and the Beast teaser trailer conveys the faintest hint of the movie’s remarkable cast.
Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” is a live-action re-telling of the studio’s animated classic which refashions the classic characters from the tale as old as time for a contemporary audience, staying true to the original music while updating the score with several new songs.
“Beauty and the Beast” is the fantastic journey of Belle, a bright, beautiful and independent young woman who is taken prisoner by a beast in his castle. Despite her fears, she befriends the castle’s enchanted staff and learns to look beyond the Beast’s hideous exterior and realize the kind heart and soul of the true Prince within.
The film stars: Emma Watson as Belle; Dan Stevens as the Beast; Luke Evans as Gaston, the handsome, but shallow villager who woos Belle; Oscar® winner Kevin Kline as Maurice, Belle’s eccentric, but lovable father; Josh Gad as Lefou, Gaston’s long-suffering aide-de-camp; Golden Globe® nominee Ewan McGregor as Lumiere, the candelabra; Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, the harpsichord; Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Plumette, the feather duster; six-time Tony Award® winner Audra McDonald as Madame Garderobe, the wardrobe; Oscar nominee Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, the mantel clock; and two-time Academy Award® winner Emma Thompson as the teapot, Mrs. Potts.
(2) POUNDED IN THE POUND. “Chuck Tingle” has registered therabidpuppies domain and put up a website.
Hello my name is CHUCK TINGLE (worlds greatest author).
sometimes devilmen are so busy planning scoundrel attacks they forget to REGISTER important website names. this is a SOFT WAY of the antibuckaroo agenda but is also good because it makes it easy for BUDS WHO KNOW LOVE IS REAL to prove love (all). please understand this is website to take DARK MAGIC and replace with REAL LOVE for all who kiss the sky. here are some links that make bad dogs blue very upset (as angry NORMAL men)
(3) FUTURE OF TREK FAN FILMS STILL CLOUDY. ScienceFiction.com feels that despite J.J. Abrams’ announcement that the Axanar lawsuit is “going away” it may not be that simple – and it may not clear the way for other fan films.
For CBS and Paramount, the issue seems to be far from over. Per reports from Tommy Kraft, creator of the ‘Star Trek: Horizon’ fan film, made on the project’s Facebook page, CBS has contacted him within the last 30 days with a cease and desist on a sequel project that he was preparing to launch.
Kraft’s statement on the Star Trek: Horizon FB page begins:
Yesterday it was announced by JJ Abrams and Justin Lin that the lawsuit over the Axanar project would be “going away.” I’ve had many people ask if Federation Rising, the sequel to Horizon, will now happen. As some of you may know, we had plans to launch a Kickstarter for Federation Rising on April 23rd, but just days after announcing our plans, CBS informed us that we could not continue. After fact-checking the phone number and email address, I can confirm that it was absolutely CBS I spoke to.
Repeated attempts to communicate with CBS via phone and email since that incident have gone unanswered. As of this time, we’ve received no indication that we would be allowed to legally continue our plans to create Federation Rising and the poor reception to our original science fiction space film, Project Discovery, has indicated a decline in interest for crowdfunded films. This whole experience has left me disenchanted with the Star Trek fan film genre and uninterested in moving forward on Federation Rising even if we were told it would now be okay. So the question is: why?
Quite frankly, I’ve been quiet on this for some time but feel the need to speak out. The Axanar case caused a rift in the community and has led to many folks feeling wary of new projects. With the announcement that the lawsuit was going to “go away”, I became quite frustrated, much moreso than when CBS told me I could not move forward with Federation Rising. The reason is two-fold: Axanar should not get off so easy and it has come to my attention that CBS/Paramount had plans to drop the lawsuit for sometime but still told me not to continue with my sequel due to the legal troubles with Axanar.
Kraft seems far more angry at Axanar’s Alec Peters than CBS, for his post continues with a detailed history of Kraft’s involvement with the earlier Axanar movie in which Peters is heavily criticized.
(4) SWIRSKY CONFOUNDS BULLIES. You can too. “Guest Post by Rachel Swirsky: Confounding Bullies by Raising Money for LGBTQ HealthCare” on Ann Leckie’s blog.
Since I’m here on Ann’s blog, I’ll point out that if we reach our $600 stretch goal, she and I, along with writers John Chu, Adam-Troy Castro, Ken Liu, Juliette Wade, and Alyssa Wong, will write a story together about dinosaurs. I really want this to happen, so I hope we reach the goal. We’ve got about a week left to go!
(The $600 goal was met today. Check the following link to learn what the $700 stretch goal is….)
If you want the whole story behind the fundraiser, you can read it here– https://www.patreon.com/posts/posteriors-for-5477113. But here’s what I have to say today:
There’s advice I’ve heard all my life. You’ve probably heard it, too.
In elementary school, it was “ignore the bullies.” It never seemed to work…..
Bullies can hurt people. That’s what “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” is about, and perhaps why it makes bullies howl. But you know what else it’s done? It’s inspired hundreds of people to come to me and tell me about their experiences being bullied as kids or being hated as adults, being pummeled or harassed, and how they’ve moved past it. How “Dinosaur” has been cathartic for them, has helped them realize they aren’t alone.
Bullies aren’t the only ones who can travel in groups. We have our bonding and our strength. And at its best, it can be fun, and silly. It can destroy hatred with humor and positive energy. It can emphasize kindness and compassion. I believe in the power of humor, and I believe in the power of people clasping hands to help other people.
Don’t get me wrong. Humor won’t stop the bullies either. We’re always going to have to spend our time walking carefully around some amount of crap on the carpet. But humor reveals that the emperor is not only naked, but not even an emperor—as often as not, he’s some poor, pathetic exiled criminal, dreaming of ruling the world with an army of poltergeists and toddlers.
(5) SCHOLARSHIPS FOR WRITING CLASSES. Cat Rambo is creating “New Plunkett Scholarships for my online classes”.
Going forward, each class has one slot that is the Plunkett slot, which is reserved for someone who couldn’t otherwise pay for the class. To apply for a Plunkett, mail me at catrambo AT gmail.com with the subject line Plunkett Application (class name/date). In the email, provide a brief statement regarding you want to take the class. Plunkett eligibility is self-determined and covers the cost of the class in full; it is based on whether or not you can afford to take the class otherwise. If you can’t but feel it would be helpful to you, I encourage you to apply. The name of the recipient remains private. I particularly welcome QUILTBAG and PoC participants. The Plunkett scholarships are named for Edward Plunkett, who wrote as Lord Dunsany.
Why am I calling them the Plunkett scholarships? Because it amuses me, and because that’s the name I gave the little press I’m using to self-publish some story collections. There’s some interesting class-based tensions coiled inside the Plunkett/Dunsany name and I figured that made it a good name for a scholarship whose criteria are economic.
Why am I doing it? Recently Keffy R.M. Kehrli paid for one of my classes for a student and it got me to thinking about it. F&SF has a rich tradition of paying it forward, and while I’m trying to do some of that with the SFWA Presidency, this is another way to help ensure a rich range of new voices in the field. I want these folks around to write wonderful fiction for me to read. So yep, this is a purely selfish move on my part.
(6) CATCH. There seems to be an extra page in Joe Hill’s encyclopedic knowledge of cinema.
Whenever I'm in Iowa I recall that film where a guy builds a library in a cornfield & and all these dead people bring back overdue books.
— Joe Hill (@joe_hill) May 22, 2016
(7) DESERT ISLAND BOOK. The question of the day from Baen.
If you were shipwrecked and could only keep one thing, which Baen book would it be? (Because who needs survival gear?)
— Baen Books (@BaenBooks) May 22, 2016
(8) ALTERNATIVE HISTORY. Editor Glenn Hauman has launched an Indiegogo appeal to fund the Altered States of the Union anthology filled with stories that ask questions like these —
What if
- New Amsterdam was merged into New Jersey instead of becoming New York?
- Freed slaves were given the state of Mississippi after the Civil War?
- Aaron Burr succeeded in invading Mexico?
- Joseph Smith and his religious followers settled in Jackson County, Missouri?
The authors who will supply the answers are Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald, Brendan DuBois, Malon Edwards, G.D. Falksen, Michael Jan Friedman, David Gerrold, Alisa Kwitney, Gordon Linzner, Sarah McGill, Mackenzie Reide, Ian Randal Strock, and Ramón Terrell.
The goal is $5,000
(9) TWO MISTAKES. Steve Davidson takes on Jim Henley and George R.R. Martin in “Hugo Gloom & Doom” at Amazing Stories.
The second mistake is in thinking that the Hugo Awards are a thing that is defined by its individual parts – the voting methodology, the ceremony, the lists, the shape of the award itself.
The Hugo Awards are a concept. A self-referential celebration of Fannishness. Changing how, or when, the awards are determined doesn’t negatively effect its character, so long as well-meaning Fans continue to participate in good faith – and despite the actions of those who have negative intentions. The Hugo Awards are a belief in the rightness and goodness of Fanishness; if, at the end of time, there are only two Fans left in the universe and they decide to host a Worldcon and vote for Hugo Awards, it will still be Worldcon, the awards will still reflect the traditions and history of Fandom and they will still retain their Fannish character. (And it doesn’t take two Fans. It only takes ONE fan to make something Fannish.)
Right now, well-meaning Fans, for whom there is no question of the character of the awards, are exhibiting true Fannishness by voluntarily working on methods designed to address the issues that have arisen over the past couple of years. They do this out of love for the awards and, by extension, love for Fandom. NOTHING can change or diminish that. As long as that love remains, the Hugo Awards will retain their character.
You’ll need to read the post to find out what the first mistake is….
(10) SAY IT AIN’T SO. Can it be that some movie superheroes don’t look exactly as they do in comic books? Where is my forehead cloth?
The outfit featured in Deadpool set the new standard, and both Black Panther and Spider-Man’s costumes in Captain America: Civil War look fantastic. But for every comic-accurate costume, there are plenty more page-to-screen adaptations that are just…wrong.
(11) FINDING LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. Frontiers of Science and Science Fiction plans a live online panel May 27.
How will we discover life in the universe? What are the cosmos’ biggest unknowns? How do scientific discoveries inspire and transform the stories we tell? Join sci-fi authors Larry Niven, Kim Stanley Robinson, Connie Willis, Allen Steele, Charlie Stross, Joe Haldeman and Harry Turtledove and a panel of the scientists and engineers of the Hubble and Webb space telescopes as they explore the places where their worlds collide.
Get insight into the scientific and creative processes as they discuss topics ranging from why we can’t seem to find evidence of intelligent aliens to the ways that science happens in real life.
The panel will be livestreamed May 27 at 11:15 a.m. ET on Frontiers of Science and Science Fiction (YouTube), and archived for viewing later on the HubbleSite YouTube channel.
(12) YAY PLUTO. Continuing insights from flyby data: “Scientists make huge discoveries on Pluto”.
It’s been nearly a year since New Horizons blasted past Pluto and sent back incredible images and groundbreaking data, but because of its incredible distance from the Earth, data is still coming in at a trickle, and it’s leading to new discoveries about the planet on a regular basis.
For example, a new study published earlier this month in the Journal of Geophysical Research — Space Physics found that Pluto behaves less like a comet and more like a planet in the way it interacts with solar wind — a big deal considering the fact that just a few years ago Pluto was demoted from its former status as the ninth planet in our solar system.
(13) CLARKE CENTER. The La Jolla Light has a recap of the first lecture in the Clarke Center’s “Science Fiction Meets Architecture” series, which featured Kim Stanley Robinson and Usman Haque — “Sci-fi meets architecture in the Clarke Center. What would it be like to live in 2080 London?”
Robinson warned those gathered that sea levels are rising even faster than scientists thought they would. “This is one of the greatest problems that humanity faces,” he said, noting America might end up with some of its major cities — like New York and Miami — halfway under water, becoming a “Super Venice, Italy.”
Robinson explained that the problem stems from melting ice in western Antarctica and Greenland, an unstoppable process once it gets going.
He is also worried that the ice from eastern Antarctica will also begin to melt to compound the problem.
Robinson mentioned one possible solution; building 60 huge pumping stations that would pump the melting ice water back up onto the Antarctic bedrock for refreezing.
His presentation was followed by a “Telesmatic” lecture slideshow by architect Haque that came over the Internet from London in real time. Haque is a founding partner of Umbrellium and Thingful, and has won awards from the Design Museum UK, World Technology, Japan Arts Festival, and Asia Digital Art Association.
Haque prefaced his talk with the statement, “I tend to work in the here and now. I don’t usually speculate about many years into the future,” and went on to clarify that he doesn’t consider his work to be “speculative,” which typically produces ironic, tongue-in-cheek designs. He calls his type of futuristic architecture “participatory design,” because “it has no final images or outcomes, but rather designs a system that enables others to produce outcomes.”
(14) SOMEWHERE OVER. This installment of What If by xkcd starts with a Star Wars-related question — “Tatooine Rainbow”.
Since rainbows are caused by the refraction of the sunlight by tiny droplets of rainwater, what would rainbow look like on Earth if we had two suns like Tatooine?
(15) SADDLE UP. Fast work by Camestros Felapton. Mere minutes after Castalia House announced its new Peter Grant western novel, Camestros was pitching a parody cover to Timothy the Talking Cat.
[Camestros] Look what I made you! [Timothy] Not interested.
[Camestros] But it is the new old-genre. The happening place for aspiring alt-right cat-based publishers.
[Timothy] It’s just not my thing….
[Camestros] Vox is doing one. See https://voxday.blogspot.com.au/2016/05/brings-lightning-by-peter-grant.html The Boycott-Tor-Books guy is writing it. Manly men with guns! Manly American men with guns!
[Timothy] (sigh) What’s that thing on the cover.
[Camestros] A walrus – you LIKE walruses. They’ve got whiskers.
(16) PETER GRANT. On the other hand, Peter Grant is delighted with Vox Day as his editor: “Why did I publish through Castalia House?” at Bayou Renaissance Man.
Vox was my editor in getting the book ready for publication. He stated up front that he wanted to ‘make a good book better’, not try to remake it in his image, or make it into something it wasn’t. I found him a very effective editor indeed. He went through my manuscript and made many proposed changes, averaging two or three per page, but did so on the basis that these were his suggestions rather than his demands. I was free to accept or reject each of his proposed changes. In about two-thirds of cases, I went along with his proposals. They did, indeed, make the book better. In the remaining third of cases, I went with what I’d originally written, or re-wrote a few lines, because I felt it fitted in better with my vision for the book and what I hope will be the series into which it will grow. Vox accepted that with aplomb. The man’s a gentleman.
There will doubtless be those who’ll be disappointed that I’ve chosen to publish with a man, and a publishing house, that they regard with the same revulsion as the Devil regards holy water. To them I can only say, go read what my friend Larry Correia had to say about Vox last year. I endorse his sentiments. I don’t share all – or possibly even most – of Vox’s opinions, but then he’s never asked me to share or support them in any way, shape or form. He’s merely tried to be the best editor he can be, and help me be the best writer I can be. I’ll be damned if I condemn him because of past history or exchanges to which I wasn’t a party, and in which I had no involvement at all. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I certainly won’t demand that he embrace political correctness. As you’ve probably noted from my blog header, that’s not exactly a position I embrace myself!
(17) MORE BOOM, MORE DOOM. Here’s the Independence Day: Resurgence official International Extended Trailer #1.
(18) RETRO RACHEL. Here’s Rachel Bloom at the 2011 Worldcon singing “Season’s of Love” …in Klingon!
Rachel Bloom’s performance at Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention. She was at the convention because her song “F*** Me Ray Bradbury” was nominated for a Hugo award.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Will R., Vox Day, and Tracy Vogel for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]
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For Westerns, try looking up some of Lee Hoffman’s old novels. Almost all are out of print, and I see only one ebook version on Amazon, so used books or libraries (WorldCat list of Hoffman books here) are probably the way to go.
Hoffman was an active SF fan in the fifties, and also wrote a number of SF novels. Of her Westerns, THE VALDEZ HORSES won a Spur award in 1967. I have a particular liking for her “comic” Westerns, such as THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CANNONBALL KID.
Looking over a list of other Spur Award winners, I see some other SF authors winning for Western work. Leigh Brackett won Best Novel in 1963 for FOLLOW THE FREE WIND, and Richard Matheson in 1991 for JOURNAL OF THE GUN YEARS.
I’ve also enjoyed Glendon Swarthout’s work in the Western field. (He’s best known for THE SHOOTIST.) THE HOMESMAN is… kind of a special case; the plot twist about three-quarters of the way thru is one even GRRM would hesitate to write and a lot of people loathed the book for breaking Western-writing tradition so completely (though it was also another Spur Award winner), but the background history (what did frontier towns do with women driven mad by the harshness and loneliness of the frontier?) was engrossing.
From Peter Grant’s page –
As someone who reads and enjoys Westerns that’s ignorant as all hell. Romance has always been a part of Westerns, Zane Gray and Max Brand’s story nearly always revolved around that, with the latter many of his books ending in the main character settling down and getting married. As for violence porn the genre is rooted in pulp fiction, shootouts and daring deeds. Louis L’Amour was terrible at both historical accuracy and even consistency in his own works (a pistol might suddenly become a rifle two pages later). Elmore Leonard and Elmer Kelton wrote a lot of great Westerns that were both great on accuracy and were focused on revenge or territory wars.
No clue where he’s getting the erotica stuff. He must be looking in the back part of the bookstore instead of what’s on the Western shelf.
as an adjective, it’s not got the same breadth of meaning as in French, since it’s not used in the “eastern part of something” sense of eg. “Alpes orientales”. it’s still fairly common in an academic context: here in Oxford the Faculty of Oriental Studies is housed in the Oriental Institute, and covers all of Asia, as well as the Middle-East, Egyptology, Hebrew/Jewish studies, the Islamic world and Eastern Christianity.
as a noun it almost inevitably comes across as massively racist. either way, it feels somewhat dated.
of course, what an English-speaker understands by “Asian” will also vary wildly. to someone in the UK it would be someone (with ancestry) from the Indian subcontinent, whereas in the US it seems to refer primarily to East-Asians. it’s almost as if a single term will struggle to encompass the wildly varying cultures of more than half the world’s population 😉
@Lorcan Nagle:
Well sure! “One Hand In My Picket” is just a natural fit for the Tingle oeuvre.
WHA-at?!
—–
The weird thing about Steve Davidson’s misreading of my blog post is that in his “second mistake” section he’s actually agreeing with me.
—–
Rachel Swirsky is a treasure.
Joe Hill–6- The idea doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever read. Could be a short graphic story, though. Would it involve George Washington?
Not a huge western fan. Too much formulaic in the form in most of them I’ve tried. I’ve really liked a couple shorts by James Warner Bellah though. I keep meaning to try some of his longer works but rarely remember to look for them when I’m at the used book store.
His works inspired John Ford’s cavalry trilogy of which Fort Apache is still a favorite movie. I’m pretty sure he was a (the?) screenwriter for The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, too.
SF connection: one off his shorts is in a volume of There Will Be War. I think it was Spanish Man’s Grave but wouldn’t swear to it.
Also not a big Western reader. However, there’s a novel called The Son by Phillipp Meyer that is out-of-this-world phenomenal and I continually claim that it is the single best book I’ve ever read. This is the only book where, if I see cheap copies of it, I buy them to give to people.
@Hampus: That line of clones would be expected here in the US since we mostly shelve by author in our bookstores. Baen publishes quite a few series, and all the books in a series will usually have a distinctive look to them. Looking at the bookshelf next to me, it took a while for the 163x series (Baen) to settle into a series “look”, but Taylor Anderson’s Destroyermen series (Roc) has been consistent since the first one was published in 2008.
Does Baen publish something like “Edible and poisonous flora and fauna of the south Pacific”? Because that’s the book I’d like to have with me if I’m stranded on a desert island….
17: Sometimes vile people have qualities you ignore. Mostly, in a fit of paying attention to the publicity over their baser selves, one overlooks qualities.
It doesn’t mean I support them though.
@ Ghostbird
Thanks for the reminder! Baen published The Armor of Light, by Melisa Scott and a person whose name I’ve forgotten. Read it so many times that the colour rubbed off the edges of the covers. Philip Sidney and Christopher Marlowe, with help from Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, use real and theatrical magic to end the wars of religion and save Scotland and England. Lovely …
(11) How will we discover life in the universe?
I’m pretty sure we’ve known about it all along.
Reading a review of The Son triggered me to remember some others I’ve read that might be worth checking out (none of them ‘oaters’ and maybe arguably not westerns):
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy – very dark, very dense subversion of the western. Still not sure I understand all of it to be honest.
The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter – a boy adopted into a tribe after an Indian raid finds himself caught between cultures. Had to read this one in Junior High(?). Don’t know if the suck fairy has visited but it left me thinking for quite awhile after reading it.
That Dark and Bloody River by Allen W. Eckhert – non-fiction if I remember right but told with a narrative voice. It very much brought the settlement of the Ohio Valley to life for me.
Steve Davidson comments that It’s interesting as I note that while I regularly see promotions and announcements from TOR and RandomPenguin (as well as smaller presses), I hardly ever see a promo or a push from Baen. (I’m registered with the site/Baen’s Bar).
Huh. I was receiving publicity emails from them on new books but I need to re-establish those emailing so as I lost that email when my domain was seized by my webmasters. They were generous with sending PDF galleys.
@Bruce Arthurs: I watched the movie version of The Homesman on Netflix (because Tommy Lee Jones), and then found that the book was available on Scribd, so I read it too.
I’m not really a reader of Westerns, but that one kinda got to me. Almost made me want to read more of the author’s work.
The movie’s pretty faithful to the book, BTW.
Elmore Leonard wrote quite a few westerns early in his career. I thought they were great back in the day, haven’t revisited them.
As for “erotic” westerns, ever heard of “Longarm”? (If you Google, you may be sorry.)
Which seemed to me to be a Hartwellism. Although one of the books in the TBR stack got there because a reader wants a review that mentions the book is a fragment, and it is a book edited by pnh….
I don’t recall which Golden Oecumene book it was but there was a howler that was going to get fixed in a later printing, which was that Wright didn’t know the black hole the bad guys came from had a bright companion. I was the one who pointed it out to him on rasfw. Someone else was kind enough to point out that Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem would kill sophotechs dead as soon as they were turned on, given how they were supposed to work. I was very amused to see in a more recent Wright book sent to me for review an offhanded comment that Godel had been disproved.
I do believe I, too, will nominate Chuck Tingle as Best Related Work in 2017. That website is a small, shiny treasure.
Vasha, I’m not completely certain, but I think at least some of the Longarm series of R-rated Westerns were written by Bob Vardeman, another old-time fan turned pro writer. (Bob’s THE GREAT WEST DETECTIVE AGENCY, written as “Jackson Lowry”, is on my B&N wishlist.) Somewhere I’ve got a cover flat of one of the Longarm books; the backcover blurb has one of the heaviest ratios of double-entendres I’ve ever seen.
Thanks for the Westermendations, guys. Forgot about Elmore Leonard, actually – I particularly liked Forty Lashes Less One.
Today’s Next Read — Every Heart a Doorway, by Seanan McGuire
Since there is something of an ongoing conversation about this one and it was sitting Right Over There, I figured I’d make it my next read and for once be able to discuss something when it was being discussed rather than a million months before or after.
I am something of a heretic in my view of Seanan McGuire. I read the first October Daye book when everyone was raving about it and found it utterly unmemorable. I tried the first Incryptid book and thought the same. I thought I simply didn’t think much of her writing, but then I read Sparrow Hill Road and *loved* it, and I devoured both of her Indexing books with great delight. So, it’s not that I don’t like her stuff, it’s just that I apparently live in oppositeland.
So where does Every Heart A Doorway fit into that? Somewhere in between. The characters and concepts are great, absolutely on the level of what I consider her best books. The plot? Well, it was (in large part) a murder mystery where the perpetrator was completely obvious to me right away. I know she can write a mystery where that isn’t the case, Indexing certainly didn’t have an obvious villain, so I’m not sure why it happened here.
I will be adding (most likely seconding or thirding or something) this novella to the 2016 recommended list, but with that caveat.
As to the multiple murder issue brought up by Dr. Science — didn’t bother me. It was necessary to the plot.
I hardly ever read Westerns, but one I love so much my paperback completely fell apart and I had to buy a hardback on Ebay is The Cowboy and the Cossack, by Clair Huffaker. Cattle drive in Russia! This book is a marvel of characterization; there are more than twenty to begin with, and all of them jump off the page as living, breathing people. And the ending will make just about anyone misty-eyed.
(I’m wondering if the attraction of the classic Western for Mr Grant and Mr Beale doesn’t have something to do with the fact that it’s pretty much an exclusive home for white men with guns. And women stay at the homestead where they belong. And let’s not mention what happens to the Natives.)
[tickybox?]
Westerns – as a couple people have mentioned, Blood Meridian, which is one of my favorite books of all time. I’ve only actually read it once, at first because I lost my copy for years before finally admitting it was gone forever and re-buying it, and partially because I don’t want to have the impact lessened by repeated readings. Maybe also a bit because I read it in my late 20s, and maybe it’s not as good as I recall?
Warlock, by Oakley Hall. Excellent book, a re-working of Western tropes. It was written in ’58, but it would almost certainly be too modern for Voxman and his legion of wannabe throwbacks.
(6) Joe Hill had never really been on my radar, just because I don’t really read horror, but he’s certainly getting some buzz right now. This tweet hit my funny bone (kind of hard, actually; ouch), and a public radio interview with him over the weekend was both charming and amusing.
Oh, Warlock. I searched through every used book store in town before buying it new, and when I finally picked it up I only got halfway through before some personal drama kept me from finishing it. I will pick it up again, though.
Joe Abercrombie’s deconstruction of fantasy and western tropes in Red Country nearly lost me partway through but I think he redeemed himself by the end. Still not one of his better books.
@Nigel
If you liked Daniel Woodrell: Winter’s Bone is worth a look. It’s the only book of his I read but I really enjoyed it. Not a western but a story of life and revenge in the drug culture of a poor rural community in the modern day Ozarks. Anyone looking for awesome female protagonists shouldn’t miss out on it’s lead: Ree Dolly.
There’s a reasonably good movie made of it too. It was Jennifer Lawrence’s break out role before Hunger Games.
Woodrell’s another author that’s on my I should read more by them list. Which NEVER seems to gets shorter…
@Xtifr and @PrinceJvstin:
It’s Baen. Go for one of the Vorkosigan omnibuses. Two, Two, TWO books in one.
My favorite Western is Firefly.
Westerns — been a while since I’ve read any pure Westerns, trying to remember them … I liked Shane (is it no longer a Big Thing? I’m not seeing it mentioned a lot). I loved My Ántonia, if that counts. I didn’t make it all the way through Blood Meridian; something about the prose made me bounce right off it.
I’ve definitely read more Western hybrids recently (just picked up what looks like a self-pub sci-fi Western called The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head; haven’t read it yet, so no idea if it’s brilliant or terrible or somewhere in the middle.)
Nosing through descriptions of books in light of the ongoing discussion made me put True Grit on my wishlist; sounds like my kind of thing.
> “If you liked Daniel Woodrell: Winter’s Bone is worth a look.”
I *loved loved loved* Winter’s Bone.
(I am somewhat irritated that they straightwashed the protagonist for the movie, though.)
Okay, what’s the Bean book that includes the complete works of Shakespeare, Chandler, Hammett, Smith, Twain, and Eco? That’s probably the one I’d take. We’ll just assume an ebook reader that charges in the warm, tropical sun while I dangle my toes in the perfectly clear water.
I doff my hat to those brave souls who eschew political correctness. It sort of chokes me up, you know? That they’re so courageous about it and all.
Hey, did you know that, since 1998, Kool-Aid has been the official state soft drink of Nebraska? Some scary facts about Kool-Aid here.
Scroll over, Beethoven! Tell Tchaikovsky to move.
Ugh, this thread is reminding me why File770 is such a dangerous place. It’s a lucky thing I’m feeling cheap today and most/all of the books mentioned have been $10+ for e-book versions.
ETA: I did just pick up two Melissa Scott novels, though…
I’ve only read two of Woodrell’s novels (his work appears only sporadically back home and I don’t think I’ve seen him often in SE Asia at all – maybe in Kuala Lumpur but then I’m extremely limited in what I can buy, and usually have a wishlist of books to pick up in advance of visa runs…) but they’ve both been excellent. I tracked down Winter’s Bone on the strength of the film, and found that it made an even better book.
(2)
So the soooper genius didn’t even register the domain name. Not at all surprised here. Chuck Tingle is a national treasure. Viewing this, along with (4) and the general incoherence of (16) has me in a much better mode than I was in one month ago. The Locus awards showed that the shields would likely be on the ballot regardless. Teddy didn’t bother to do his homework about doxxing, which I find utterly hysterical. Rachel Swirsky et al. have a lovely idea there. We’re having a lovely conversation here about how to set up a troll shield that doesn’t involve a jury.
Beale’s lost as long as we all keep it together, laugh at him, and toddler-proof the award. And each year, the set of writers and their themes get broader.
I’m a weak willed creature and True Grit and Winter’s Bone are now vying for the What I’ll Be Reading Next spot . I have just enough self control to not start another endless round of adding to the TBR mountain, but only just.
I’d like to echo JJ’s recommendation for Borderline , which I thought had some first book issues but was otherwise terrific. I’d also recommend Joe Hill’s The Fireman, for those who like their horror packed into character driven doorstops. You don’t have to have read King’s The Stand, but there are a few places where having done so will increase your enjoyment.
How much does it cost to register a domain? There are other obvious variations ones might want to buy and redirect towards Dr Tingle.
NickPheas: Surely Dr. Tingle wouldn’t want to do the same kind of joke over and over.
Has anyone mentioned that Tor, through its sister imprint Forge, has a Western line?
@OGH.
Perhaps he wouldn’t…
I’ve read two of his books: The Heart-shaped Box and Horns. The former is classic horror. It is good workmanship, but nothing exceptional. Not my thing.
Horns caught at the very first page and kept me there. It is such a nice concept, so well done, such a flowing language. I wouldn’t call it horror, more supernatural. Highly recommended.
@NickPheas: Depends on the domain – .coms usually go for around $10 per year (assuming they’re not owned by someone sitting on them waiting to sell to the right person… but this practice doesn’t seem to be as widespread or as profitable anymore)
You can use sites like namecheap.com to see if a particular domain is registered, and how much it’ll cost to buy it if it isn’t.
Right now I’m in rage mode. A theatre is putting up Mozart’s The Magic Flute, but without the music!
IT IS A CULTURAL RAGNAROK! MAY ALL THE FIRES OF HEL SWALLOW THEM!
*grumble, grumble*
> “A theatre is putting up Mozart’s The Magic Flute, but without the music!”
… You surely mean Schikaneder’s The Magic Flute, then, no?
Living in the US, the Orient (East) would be Europe, while Asia would be Occidental (West).
Plus Terry Gilliam is an Occidental alumnus while Barack Obama and Ben Affleck both attended.
Kyra:
cool, thanks for that! i’ve been really enjoying Vehlmann’s work on Spirou. Kerascoët are new to me, but i do rather love their artwork: distinctive yet varied, with beautiful stylistic references to some of my favourite artists.
The Locus awards showed that the shields would likely be on the ballot regardless.
Maybe. Beale did send his minions to go vote in the Locus poll as well, so their presence on the finalist list there may have been due to that influence.
A thing I love about one of my favorite novels, Frank Norris’ McTeague(1900), is that it becomes a western at the end of the book – unfortunately so for the protagonist and antagonist.
@ NickPheas
(Apologies for appearing to single you out. Mostly just using this as a hook to hang my comment on.)
For all those being gleeful about one specific domain name having been available for registration for joke purposes…I’m guessing that many of you have never contemplated how many different domain names it would be necessary to register in order to tie up even the most trivial variations of a phrase or name. When you add in all the possible means of internal punctuation in a phrase, multiplied by optional definite articles, multiplied by even the ten most popular top-level domain extensions, it can take a pretty hefty investment to “protect one’s brand” in that way.
As little empathy as I have for the target of this bit of satire, I have to say that if someone decided that my failure to register, say, “heather-rose-jones.org” meant that I deserved to be mocked if someone else bought that domain for the purpose of attacking me, I would assume bad faith on the part of the mocker.
There have been entirely too many occasions during the canine debacle when applying the “what if they were saying this about me?” test has made me uncomfortable about the company I keep. Means matter as much as ends. And I tend to be rather judgy about what means people use to make their point on the internet.
@james Davis Nicoll
Godel *disproved*? HOW?
I went and read Grant’s entire blog post linked in (16). For all its incoherence, OGH did Grant a favor by excerpting the portion he did, as that’s the most cogent part of Grant’s post. The rest is an almost glorious example of babbling gibberish. My favorite part is where he says that people who criticize Beale are intellectually dishonest if they do so without interacting with him personally, as if Beale’s public statements that are available for everyone to read, and his public actions, which are matters of public record, are an insufficient basis for criticism.
In fat, Grant’s assessment is the intellectually dishonest position. Beale helped Grant with his attempted boycott of Tor books (Grant is such a nonentity and his boycott was such a nonevent I had forgotten about Grant’s involvement until he mentioned it in his post) and offered Grant a three book contract. Grant’s defense of “he’s been nice to me in e-mails” rings hollow in the face of Beale’s public statements, and it takes a great deal of intellectual dishonesty to dismiss Beale’s public actions on the basis that he was a nice guy on the telephone.
I will also note that one of the accusations the Pups have flung about is that Tor (and other publishers) would “reward” those who toe the party line by giving them book contracts or honors: Anyone remember LA’s confident (and completely wrong) prediction that SFWA would name GRRM a Grand Master this year? Isn’t that exactly what Beale is doing with Grant? Grant organized a boycott in support of Beale’s ideological aims, and then offered Grant a book contract. That seems an awful lot like a quid pro quo is going on.