(1) HANG ONTO YOUR TOWEL. Britain’s Radio 4 has provisionally ordered a six-episode Hitchhikers sequel.
Radio 4 has commissioned a new series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, over a decade since the last series aired.
It will become the sixth series for the sci-fi comedy on radio, with the show’s last run – Series 5 – having broadcast in 2005.
Expected to be titled ‘The Hexagonal Phase’, the British Comedy Guide understands that the new episodes will primarily be based around the book And Another Thing….
This news comes after Towel Day, the annual celebration of the work of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy creator Douglas Adams. The writer, who launched the hit series on Radio 4 in 1978, died in 2001.
In 2009 author Eoin Colfer was commissioned to write And Another Thing… featuring the same characters as seen and heard the previous radio series and books written by Adams. Although Colfer had the blessing of the creator’s widow, the announcement proved to be controversial at the time. Colfer has recognised that there was “semi-outrage” at the idea of another author contributing to the series, but he has been pleased by the reaction the book has since publication.
(2) THEY SAID NO. Esquire shows “This is What The Lord of the Rings Would Have Looked Like With Its Original Cast”.
7. Liam Neeson as Boromir
Details on this one are a little sketchy, so let’s file it under woulda, coulda, shoulda. “I have a particular set of skills… and a big ancestral horn.”
(3) HVP WARNINGS. Vox Day told his readers there will be warning labels on two items in the Hugo Voter Packet (the one for Tingle has already been reported here.)
The WorldCon convention has also issued at least two other “warning labels” to two other Hugo-nominated works in the packet, one a Best Related Work by Moira Greyland, the other a Best Short Story by Chuck Tingle.
(4) BEYOND CHARACTER POSTERS. ScreenRant has nice, large images: yesterday, “Star Trek Beyond: Jaylah & Bones Character Posters Released”, and today, “Star Trek Beyond: Spock and Chekov Character Posters”.
[The] the studio has unveiled two more posters that are obviously meant to highlight the film’s action quotient and its (new) cast of characters – two elements that have appealed to summer blockbuster fans over the series’ seven-year run thus far, and which Paramount clearly is banking on happening yet again. Karl Urban as Dr. Leonard McCoy is featured in one of the posters, while series newcomer Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service, the currently-in-production Mummy) as the mysterious Jaylah takes center stage in the other (see below).
(5) GENERATION HEX. At Observer, “A Millenial Reviews: ‘Star Trek’ Is a Blantant, Boring Rip-Off of ‘Star Wars’”.
I recently watched Star Trek because I never actually watched it growing up (I was busy having sex and hanging out with my friends after school) so I decided to marathon The Original Series. Let me tell you, good Yeezy almighty, Star Trek sucks earbuds. Now I’m a total geek, but I don’t understand how anyone can be expected to actually watch this stuff. Every episode is an hour long. Do you understand how long an hour is? That’s half of a podcast. If I don’t have 10 minutes to listen to Marc Maron talk about his dead cats then I don’t have 60 hours to watch a dudebro white-privilege his way across the galaxy in a deep V-neck. I tried though.
(6) ARISTOTLE! Atlas Obscura carries a Greek report that Aristotle’s tomb has been found.
A group of archaeologists in Greece say they have found the lost tomb of Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and likely world’s first true scientist….
The archaeologists had been digging for 20 years at a site in the ancient northern Greece city of Stageira, where Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. Aristotle died 62 years later in Chalcis, about 50 miles north of Athens.
Ahead of the official announcement, the Greek Reporter has some more details on the tomb, saying that “literary sources” say that Aristotle’s ashes were transferred there after his death. It is located near the ancient city’s agora, apparently intended to be viewed by the public.
From the Greek Reporter
The top of the dome is at 10 meters and there is a square floor surrounding a Byzantine tower. A semi-circle wall stands at two-meters in height. A pathway leads to the tomb’s entrance for those that wished to pay their respects. Other findings included ceramics from the royal pottery workshops and fifty coins dated to the time of Alexander the Great.
Will R. asks, “I wonder if the tombstone reads, ‘Here Truths Aristotle.’”
(7) BIRDS OF A FEATHER. Scott Tyrell’s pictures of great authors as owls is heavy on British fantasy writers – Rowling, Tolkien, and Pratchett among them.
(8) BIRTHDAY BOYS AND A BAT-GIRL
- Born May 27, 1911 –Vincent Price
- Born May 27, 1922 — Christopher Lee
- Born May 27, 1934 – Harlan Ellison.
Jason Davis of HarlanEllisonBooks.com figures the celebration is incomplete without people buying Harlan’s books and here’s his encouragement for ordering the latest volume of unfilmed scripts, Brain Movies 7.
If you’ve popped by HarlanEllisonBooks.com in the last couple days, you’ll have noticed that I surreptitiously announced that the sixty pages of bonus BRAIN MOVIES 7 content for those who pre-order will be Harlan’s unfinished motion picture adaption of his first novel WEB OF THE CITY; it’s called Rumble, as the book was known when this movie—which was to have starred Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello—was in development. It’s a very interesting adaptation and illustrates that Harlan was not averse to having a little fun with his own source material.
- Born May 27, 1935 — Lee Meriwether
(9) PUPPIES FOR PEACE. The Huffington Post explains the TV host’s advice — “Samantha Bee Bets On Adorable Puppies To Reconcile Bernie And Hillary’s Feuding Supporters”.
So, in a bid to stop the “Democrat on Democrat violence” that’s been taking over people’s social media feeds, Bee’s team have created a new website: TotallyObjectivePoliticalFacts.org.
Clicking on the link brings up a picture of an adorable animal, alongside a salient quote — such as, “Why can’t we all just get long?”
“Just post that link in any thread where your liberal friends are tearing each other apart and end the argument,” Bee said in a YouTube clip on Thursday.
“Seriously, Democrats, just look at a picture of a puppy and hug it out before it’s too late…”
“She might regret going there….” says Steve Davidson.
(10) PREPARING TO VOTE. First-time Hugo voter and game writer Martin Ralya outlines his approach.
Will I be able to read 100% of the Hugo nominees? Realistically, probably not. I’ll do my best in the time I have, though.
I vote in the ENnie Awards every year, and I don’t even attempt to read/play every nominated work — doing so would entail giving up too much of my time. Instead, I play/read the stuff that interests me, and vote for stuff I feel familiar with. Unlike the Hugos, the ENnies don’t offer up a voter packet, but I make a point of visiting nominated blogs and checking out nominated free products.
I also don’t feel obligated to read every Hugo-nominated work, because fuck the Rabid Puppy agenda. I have a horseshit filter, and you know what? It didn’t stop working when I became a Hugo voter.
If a nominated work stands on its own merits, like Seveneves does, I don’t care if it also appears on the Rabid slate. If a slated work doesn’t stand on its own, or if it advances or supports Rabid Puppy horseshit, it’s going below No Award on my ballot.
(11) RECOMMENDED. Rachel Swirsky finds another story to love — “Friday Read! ‘The Traditional’ by Maria Dahvana Headley”.
I’m a big fan of science fiction that takes vivid, strange images into the future. I think, actually, I always have — and if you look at a lot of classic SF, that’s what it’s doing. That’s obvious when reading someone like Stanislaw Lem, but I think it’s still true about folks who we consider more traditional now. It’s just that some of the weird images they used have been carried on in the conversation so far now that they’ve become standard, and have lost their newness. Stories like this, and space opera by people like Yoon Ha Lee, bring a contemporary disjunctive strangeness to the genre. I look forward to seeing what happens when the next generation gets bored with it.
If you like odd surrealism and lyrical writing, Maria Dahvana Headley is worth perusing.
“The Traditional” by Maria Dahvana Headley….
(12) CHINESE SF MOVIES. Linus Fredriksson has posted the “Chinese Science Fiction Fimography (1958-2016) with lots of links to films, some with subtitles. He explains some of his idiosyncratic choices.
Even though we are faced with some small hindrance when setting a date for the birth of science fiction film in China we are facing an even bigger obstacle when it comes to defining what science fiction really is. According to me science fiction film is a film which uses some form of idea, invention, geographical discovery to convey an image of an alternative society different from the one were living in now. So the appearance of futuristic technical gimmicks and/or inventions in the film is not necessary for defining a film as science fiction. On the contrary, some of the films I’ve watched has not gotten in to the list much because the science fiction elements in the movie is merely a way to get the story going and in the end they’re absent of context and doesn’t bring any further narrative development of the impact that scifi-gimmick might have had.
Take for example Bugs … a catastrophe film from 2015 which begins with a foreign scientist trying to develop a protein, in order to end starvation in the world, by experimenting with insects. Instead of relief for starving people he creates a giant bug which sends out smaller bugs that eat human beings and then returns to its host to feed it. The entire movie, except for the first minute or two, is about escaping these bugs and then killing the big bug. It’s lack of motivating the science in the film and being consistent with it, made me choose not to have the film in my list. It’s pretty much the same when it comes to the rom-com film Oh My God … but here I reasoned differently mostly because the film has been advertised as a scifi-comedy whenever I read something about it. Therefore Oh My God is on the list.
Yes, the genre labeling for the films in the list might be a bit arbitrary and inconsistent at times but that’s also why I’m writing this blog post so that other people can have the chance to have a second opinion on the selection of films. At the end of the list I will add all those films which has been labeled as science fiction but which I personally didn’t consider to fulfill the requirements of falling under that category.
(13) THE TOUGHEST AROUND. The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog selects “6 of the Most Fearsome Warbands in Fantasy”.
Kailen’s Twenty, Snakewood, by Adrian Selby
This recent epic fantasy about a disbanded mercenary company plunged back into in their twilight years brings together an instantly iconic collection of gruff warrior types. The Twenty once turned back armies and toppled nations through chemical warfare, tactical cunning, and brute force, but the world has moved on. Kailen, their mastermind and leader, has gone into hiding, and the surviving members of this band of brothers are far past their prime, having retired to more peaceful pursuits or counting down their days working small mercenary contracts. When a shadowy assassin begins hunting them down, offing them one by one and leaving a single black coin on the bodies to signify an act of betrayal, and two of the Twenty, Gant and Shale, receive a desperate message from Kailen himself, they must embark on a journey to save their remaining friends from the legions of people who want their heads—but two past-their-prime swordsmen and an eccentric tactician may not be enough to turn the tide. The deeds of the Twenty were epic, but what truly makes them a warband for the ages is the chance to see what happens to a merc after the battles have ended.
(14) DESPERATELY SEEKING FRED’S TWO FEET. In Key West, they’re threatening to tow this car if they can’t find the owner.
The City of Key West, Fla., put out a call for help to find the owner of a most unusual illegally parked vehicle — a replica of a car from The Flintstones.
The city said in a Facebook post that a Stone Age vehicle resembling that driven by Fred Flintstone and company in the classic cartoon series (and live-action films) was found illegally parked without anyone around to claim the unique piece of property.
How long do you figure it’s been overparked, about 30,000 years?
[Thanks to Will R., John King Tarpinian, Alan Baumler, and Steve Davidson for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Matthew Johnson.]
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On the other hand, it’s not the kids fault they won’t get off your lawn…
About the Hugo packet:
Has anybody downloaded the “Best Professional Editor, Long Form” piece? It looks long enough to contain 40 novels, but I haven’t downloaded it yet, because of a slow connection.
And “If You Were an Award, My Love” seems to be missing, without any comment or link.
It is actually short form that looks long enough to contain 40 novels. 90% of that is Lightspeed Magazine. Not sure if there are 40 novels in it, but there’s A LOT.
Vigo Mortensen is stunningly beautiful, which he endeavours to disguise in most, though not all, of his films. He’s also a Method actor; he spent quite a lot of his time during the shooting living rough since that’s what Rangers did.
Compare and contrast with the characters of both Boromir and Faramir, whose lives had been spent in luxury as the sons of the Steward of Gondor; Sean Bean in particular did good work in conveying that, whilst he had been at war, he’d done so from a highly privileged position, and that his desire for the Ring is that of the indulged heir of a doting father, ruler in all but name of a great civilisation.
David Wenham didn’t have much to work with in the script for the cinema release; there’s more of him in the extended edition, but I doubt that any actor could have done much better with that script…
@David Shallcross
The BPE-LF download includes a list of links from Liz Gorinsky to books she edited, a list of books with no links from Jim Minz and a list from Sheila Gilbert which states “I am including excerpts from one novel written by each author whose work I published in 2015. I hope that you take a look at these excerpts…”, but there are no excerpts or active links, just a list of works.
Best name of PDF in the packet is “Tales to Terrify Hugo Voter Links.pdf”.
If they only had removed “Links” it had been perfect.
I’m Generation X. Depending on the definition my Stepson from my 1st marriage is GenX or GenY/Millenial.
@Steve Davidson are so stupid that some of them will read this whole thing. If they can read….
LOL yeah I seem to make the mistake of reading a lot of your get off my lawn rants to the end
(5) GENERATION HEX.
I thought the full post was hit-and-miss amusing, but it did get me thinking about those seminal spec-fic shows of my own youth (’62-’72). I’m betting they wouldn’t have the same effect on a child of today as they did on me. CBC television showed dubbed versions of the original Astro Boy back then, and I loved all the courage, pathos, and humour. I still remember crying my eyes out at a scene where the robot is mourning his artificial nature while paper lanterns float down a river. (I’m actually tearing up now.) Why should I expect that to have the same effect on generation Z (Z+?, Z++?)? Maybe some things–even Star Trek–don’t age well, but I selfishly don’t care since it worked for me.
And get off my memories. Seriously, I’ve got both a broom and a hose.
It’s nice that they released the packet on a 3-day weekend (in the US anyway) so I can get a good jump on it.
Although I’ve already started on Seveneves, and man, Neal Stephenson seems to be in love with the sound of his own expositionary voice…
The silly thing (from the point of view of this old man) is to imagine that any “generation” is free of its own set of annoying traits, or that the demographic divides proposed by the “Generation [your least favorite age group here]” approach is any more reliable than the “I once knew a guy who” or “My neighbor’s barber saw” schools of rumor validation.
I’ve spent my entire adult life in the university world–including living three blocks from campus for the last 38 years–and the damn kids really do tramp across our yard, often at 2:00 a.m., conversing in what their primary-school teachers would have called their “outdoor voices.” Some have been known to pause to relieve themselves in the shrubbery. (I am not making this up.) The boomers (of which I am not one) were married, with their own ankle-biters and rug-rats, by the time we moved here, but I’ve watched Generations X and Y and the Millennials follow the same patterns, with minor variations, quite consistently. And as a former medievalist, I recognize those patterns from accounts of the behavior university students, idle apprentices, and the like. “That is no country for old men. . . .”
Hugo Packet — Oh, I see now. They just gave the size for BPE Long wrong on the download page. It is really 382.3 KiB, not 382.3 MiB. They did the same thing with the Fancast packet, which isn’t really 656.1 MiB, and doesn’t actually contain audio files. I suppose I should tell them.
@Hampus Eckerman: Thanks for the heads up about the packet! The Short Form stuff from JJA (and some others in the packet) has the same stuff in 3 formats, making it appear as if there’s a lot more than there really is. Although in JJA’s case, there is a ton in there; he’s good at supplying samples. 😉
@David Shallcross: Yeah, I was confused re. the Fancast packet and actually re-downloaded it, till I realized it wasn’t really 656 MB of audio files. I’m not sure why they say “MiB,” by the way – there’s no “i” in megabyte; were they trying (and failing) to be cute by referencing “Men in Black”?!
@SciFiMike: Weird, I wonder if something changed and she couldn’t include the excerpts, but forgot to edit her file; or if she or MAC II forgot to include the excerpts. Or maybe it’s just poor phrasing on her part.
@Kyra: LOL at your generation breakdown, thanks – makes more sense than anything else I’ve read about generations!
@Lela E. Buis: My other half, born in 1963, is very adamant about being part of the tail end of the Boomers, not a Gen X’er. I disagree, though; we’re only a few years apart, and aside from some musical tastes, clearly share a lot of cultural backgound based on when we grew up (not just where). And we’ve seen the same movies (nodes to @Kyra). 😉
Kendall — I had to look up MiB. It’s an attempt to distinguish between powers of 1000 and powers of 1024. So 1024 bytes is a “Kibibyte”, KiB, and 1024 KiB is a “Mebibyte”, MiB. From kilo binary byte and mega binary byte.
@Kendall: “I’m not sure why they say “MiB,” by the way – there’s no “i” in megabyte”
The intuitive answer would be to note the difference between 1,000,000 and 1,048,576 and conclude that the one with the “i” refers to the round-numbered “million.” In truth, that’s precisely backwards.
The round number is so commonly used with the mega- prefix that a new set of “no, we really mean the powers of two version” prefixes has been invented to (hah!) make things clearer. Thus, “MiB” in this context stands for mebibytes, as in “mega (binary)” – see also KiB/kibibytes and GiB/gibibytes.
So, short answer: the “i” stands for “binary.” Take it from your local Man In Black.
(Yes, I do think the xxbi- prefixes are ugly, but they seem to be here to stay.)
@David Shallcross: Ah, thanks – I have heard of that. This is very silly of them. They use a term laypeople (even some in IT) wouldn’t be familiar with, to try to be precise about download sizes (which many sites simply round off anyway), and they wound up getting a couple of them off by orders of magnitude anyway. LOL.
Anyway, my snark aside, I appreciate all the work that went into this – many, many thanks to MAC II and the finalists! 😀
@Rev. Bob: Thanks. The intuitive answer to me has become: they were silly to use an uncommon term for something they’re rounding off anyway. 😉 The next Worldcon should just write out the total number of bytes, so it’s precise and clear. (Ow, stop, I’m just kidding!) 😛
Kendall: I recall that before there were all these newer divisions-by-alleged-characteristics, the Baby Boom (defined solely by a spate of births) was considered to have been 1946-1964; see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_baby_boom#Definition_of_the_boom_years (although note that including the early 1960’s and even the late 1950’s looks a stretch by the birth plot). IMO that’s way too wide to be covered by a set of beliefs or experiences; cf the lack of a threat of dying in Vietnam for the younger part of that range, or the contemporary professors’ complaints about apathetic students in the 1970’s (you’d think the profs didn’t appreciate boredom…).
I think I’ll hold off on downloading the packet for a week or so (fortunately I’ve already read almost all the Best Novel contenders) so as to let them fix or update any files that need it.
The Best Novel folder is interesting. There are two full novels, although one is labeled an excerpt; the latter even includes the traditional “Extras” from Orbit, so I’m not sure why it’s labelled an excerpt – it appears to be the full novel. Then there are three excerpts (two at 100ish pages and another at 200ish pages); the longer excerpt is Uprooted, and I encourage Hugo voters to check the last page before griping that it’s not the full novel. 😉
I am disappointed that the packet version of ‘SJWs always Lie’ only contains one chapter five.
@Bonnie McDaniel: I’m also reading Seveneves now and the interesting parts are pulling me through the infodumps.
But it is really irritating sometimes. At one point he namechecks 10 characters in one page – 10 first names and last names, crammed into 4 paragraphs – and promptly forgets about them for the next 100 pages.
@Chip Hitchcock: Yes, but depending on who you listen to/where you read it, the years are a bit fuzzy and sometimes the generations overlap. It’s not like the Boom just stopped one day (er, night?), right? There’s a tapering off and you could “call it” at various points. That’s where IMHO shared experienced/backgrounds/etc. can come into play. I may be weird in looking at it this way, but despite someone deciding there’s a bright line in 1964 or 1966 or 1962, my other half and I are really from the same generation; we’re only a few years apart and other than birth year, there’s not really much different between us. Again, maybe I’m weird in how I look at this.
@Cally: I didn’t think of that (but I like to get a jump on downloading). I hope they announce these to Hugo voters so we know certain parts have been updated.
Kendall: I’m vintage ’63 and I’ve always maintained that I am Gen X, not boomer, mainly due to my fascination with computers, synthesizers and videogames. Maybe the cutoff is somewhere in the middle of 1963 and demarcated by a Beatles record or something like that.
@Lela E. Buis: My other half, born in 1963, is very adamant about being part of the tail end of the Boomers, not a Gen X’er.
Some authorities set the lower limit for Gen X at 1965. There’s also a Gen Y bracket, but less well defined. Gen Z picks up after the Millennials.
Here’s more on it:
The Interbellum Generation, 1901 – 1913
The Greatest Generation , 1910 – 1925
The Silent Generation, 1923 – 1944
Baby Boomer Generation, 1945 – 1964
@Steve Davidson – nice snark. That’s the direction it should be pointed – at the grumpy older generation (my generation, I guess) who has to tell the upcoming generation just how lazy, stupid, and illilterate they are.
Hey, wait, the Hugo packet has appeared?
*Goes and checks*. So it has.
I always get annoyed when people submit their work only in a format which requires a dedicated e-book reader; I note that this year it seems (so far: I haven’t checked every category yet) to be mainly the Castalia authors who have done this. Presumably they live in a world where no one reads printed books any more. Kids these days…
@Charon D.: “demarcated by a Beatles record or something like that” – LOL! Makes as much sense as a lot of the arbitrary cut-offs.
@Lele E. Buis: Thanks, and this illustrates some of the overlaps I was thinking of.
@Andrew M: I don’t recall seeing anything ONLY in an ereader-only format (if there is such a thing; there are epub readers on all platforms, including browser-based ones, and mobi readers for some platforms). Maybe I overlooked something, but I thought everything I saw was either PDF only (sigh), or had EPUB + PDF + mobi (choice, yay). If there was something only in EPUB, for example, though – that doesn’t require a dedicated ereader.
I wish everyone would include epub copies along with their PDFs. PDF is okay on a desktop screen, but on a tablet it’s a pain. If I want to see the whole page, it’s small; otherwise I’m constantly scrolling or zooming in/out. GoodReader can parse PDF text out, so it works like a normal document (scroll, set your own font size, text flows properly, etc.), but it depends on the PDF layout and/or format, so it doesn’t always work well (and sometimes it eats things like italics). One day hopefully people will stop using PDFs for long works of text we’re supposed to read; it’s a horrible format, since text doesn’t flow but works like a fixed print layout (what PDF was originally made for). /harumph 😉
(Yes, I do think the xxbi- prefixes are ugly, but they seem to be here to stay.)
It’s the first time I’ve seen them, and I hope they disappear. (As a longtime computer user, I’ve always assumed that bytes were measured in powers-of-2.)
Kendall (et al): as I noted, there was some fuzz at the time about where the boundary should be (although not 3 years of fuzz). But my point is that “Baby Boomer” originally had nothing to do with social divisions (e.g., tastes, cultural events); it was purely a bracket of a quantifiable phenomen. You and your girlfriend may have an unsettlable argument over who is Humpty Dumpty, Definer of Words — but she has history on her side. I won’t pretend to know what contemporary usage is; changes in meaning (cf “awful”) can have long gray area before they’re settled.
When we say Generation X here in Sweden, it has nothing to do with computers or videogames. The common thing is ironic humor. “Generation X – The Ironic Generation”.
Which is logical as the book really is heavy on ironic humor.
iedigo:
What!? NO AWARD!
I was just experimenting with throwing the pdfs into various formats to get them to approximate epub/mobi so they’ll display on my phone but I’m not having any success. I’m a little bit irate about the fact only one complete novel was provided in the packet (Seveneves) so I’m not going to bother translating all the the pdf excerpts.
I’m reading all the art-heavy pdfs, like the ones from File 770, on my laptop, but these days I do my text-only reading on my phone.
So far the most professional looking, device-friendly formatting has come from Dr. Tingle. I guess I should be more surprised.
@CharonD: “demarcated by a Beatles record or something like that”
Sudden vision: “SO…. which Beatles album were YOU conceived to?”
“Please Please Me.”
“… Boomer. I was conceived to ‘With the Beatles’.”
“Oh, you Gen Xers.”
Kendall on May 28, 2016 at 12:11 pm said: One day hopefully people will stop using PDFs for long works of text we’re supposed to read; it’s a horrible format, since text doesn’t flow but works like a fixed print layout (what PDF was originally made for). /harumph
Oh yes. It also requires the PDF producer to make all those fiddly decisions about page layout which reflowable text eliminates. But every time I release something free of charge in the usual reflowable formats (such as ePub and Mobi), I get a small chorus of “Oh woes! I can only handle PDF and you are spurning me!”. There’s another small chorus of fans who berate me for the gross moral failure of not doing all the extra work to provide a printed edition …
Speaking of which: I’m holding a POD proof copy of Rob Hansen’s THEN: SF FANDOM IN THE UK: 1930-1980 — much expanded from the original fanzine version of long ago, with many corrections too — and hope to be able to send that nice Mr Glyer a review copy before too long. For I cannot conceal that, wearing my Ansible Editions hat, I am the publisher. “Reader, I remaindered him.”
So, I was already wanting to make and sell some buttons for another project I’m doing, but I think I may actually die if I don’t have an “I am Chuck Tingle” button to wear now and then.
If I offered “I am Chuck Tingle” and “I am not Chuck Tingle” buttons for sale on Zazzle, would Con or Bust seem like a good place to donate any profits? With their permission obviously (And good Doctor Tingle’s, if I can get it.)
I really, really hate reading PDFs. I hate reading anything story-like on my computer. I recently read a .doc version of Pratchett’s short story “The Sea and Little Fishes” on my computer and, literally, died.
I’m attempting to convert de Castell’s PDF file to MOBI via Calibre right now. That was one I feel guilty hoping would get on the finalist list, because I’ve seen it highly recommended by some of the more apparently nerdish/readery Puppies.
If I have any success, I’ll let y’all know.
@jedigo
I am disappointed that the packet version of ‘SJWs always Lie’ only contains one chapter five.
Presumably a change required for jurisdictions where possession of more than one chapter 5 is evidence of intent to distribute…
I’ll go for PDF because I like the fixed format.
AUGH! s/phenomen/phenomenon/
@Stoic – Hah!
@Chip – Nice (and not very surprising) to see sed-like syntax on File770.
In the packet for Best Fan Artist, when you unzip KuKuruYo’s files there is a dodgy looking file called ‘untitled’ that my Mac looks at with deep suspicion (i.e. throws up a message which doesn’t literally say ‘You might what to open that but I’d really rather not’). Anybody had the same issue?
I have a trade paperback of Red Rising by Pierce Brown; the copyright page says copyright 2014. The Amazon “Look Inside” for the hardback says copyright 2013. 😉 Since it was published in January 2014, I presume Pierce Brown is eligible for the #NotAHugo Campbell Award (unless someone knows of other professional publications pre-2014 for him), but that’s kinda weird. I guess it’s just a typo in the hardback version or something?!
ETA: I got my copy, IIRC, at World Fantasy a couple of years ago. Oh boy, another novel to read with a deadline! 😉
We have the packets going back to 2012, and this is the first year it’s been PDF-only for best novel SINCE 2012.
I wonder why no .mobi or epub files in that category this year.
Hard drive manufacturers have always been the most annoying when it’s come to the MiB vs MB thing as they will always use it to make their device sound like it is bigger. As drives have got bigger the discrepancy has grown more and more obvious as most operating systems report the lower figure.
I’ve taken to submitting my CV as PDFs if necessary to stop it being messed up by whatever word processor the reviewer or recruiter uses.
@Camestros
The Kukuro Yo untitled file just throws up a window with code showing various messages, such as ‘file not found’ and ‘no such file or directory’. Looks like it must have been included by mistake.
… and to answer my own question about why no ePub or Mobi files this year:
It looks like three of the five are excerpts. One of them has a note in the back, “for a full version, e-mail us at … “
@Camestros: I wasn’t going to bother with KuKuru Yo, but for you I checked it out.
I opened it in a text reader (Notepad++) and got four lines of text that look like a sig file from an MA2 admin mailing list:
The file doesn’t have an extension, so without scanning inside it, the various flavors of Windows don’t know what to do with it. I’m guessing MacOS was similarly confused?
@SciFiMike and @Rail and @Kendall
Thanks 🙂
@Camestros Felapton: I found 2 or three of these in various folders; I looked at one and it was someone’s e-mail signature. I just deleted all the Untitled and Icon files I found.