(1) THANKED AND EXCUSED. Mattie Brahan, in a non-public post, said her husband, Darrell Schweitzer, was told he won’t be needed as a Readercon 28 program participant –a piece of news Barry Longyear exaggerated in his public post as “banning”.
Readercon has been banning (“disinviting”) former guests from being guests, Darrell Schweitzer being the most recent about whom I’ve heard. I originally thought it was for political reasons (I was part of the Northern Maine Rebellion), but apparently the reason was age, experience, having been around for too long. It’s sort of like having an AA meeting and forbidding the attendance of anyone who has more than one year of sobriety….
Is it really because Schweitzer is too old? There are any number of men and women listed as part of the forthcoming Readercon program who are not young.
(2) THE FOREVER QUEUE. Io9 reports yesterday at Disneyland “Lines Snaked Through Entire Park for Disney’s Guardians of the Galaxy Ride Debut”.
Looks like the hype was real. Disney’s ride for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy — Mission: Breakout! opened at Disney’s California Adventure on Saturday… and the effects could literally be felt everywhere in the park.
https://twitter.com/t_bruskie11/status/868495566954676224
The Pandora section of Disney’s Animal Kingdom also opened in Florida over the weekend. It took fans about two hours just to get into the Pandora park, and ride lines were averaging about three to four hours for rides. Hell, some people reporting three-hour lines to get into the damn gift shops. Insane amount of standing and slowly walking aside, fans seemed happy with both Mission: Breakout! and Pandora.
(3) OPEN CASTING. Yes, this needs to happen. Emily Asher-Perrin and Leah Schnelbach team up to answer “Who Could Play This Merry Fellow? Dreamcasting Tom Bombadil” at Tor.com.
Emily pointed out that there should have been a DVD extra of Bombadil material, and then, naturally, that led to a dreamcasting of Bombadil. We gave ourselves a few restrictions–these had to be people who would have fit the role in 1999-ish, when they would have been hired for The Fellowship of the Ring, and all of the actors have been cast on the assumption that supermodel Claudia Schiffer is playing Goldberry…
(4) NEGATORY, GOOD BUDDY. As for my own attempt to cast the next Doctor Who — “Would Hayley Atwell Take The Role Of Doctor Who? Here’s What She Says”.
Hayley Atwell is frequent on fan’s most wanted lists, and while Atwell would likely kill it in the role, what does she actually think of all this? She wants that particular role to go to someone else.
I don’t want to play it. No. It’s just not my thing, but I really respect it. I’m a big fan of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, though. She plays the lead in Fleabag. There were talks of her being the next Doctor, and she’s so funny and eccentric and unique; she’d be great. I can’t really see anyone other than her playing it.
Appearing at Heroes and Villains Fanfest in London (via Geekfeed), Hayley Atwell made it quite clear that she doesn’t want to be the next Doctor.
(5) WHAT YOU MISSED. Chaz Boston Baden reports on his party at this weekend’s BayCon:
“A Bear’s Picnic” closed at 3:30 am, when the last four people left. As far as I know, no noise complaints were received about out party, even when Diane Osborne started singing about her rooster being dead….
Curious as to what song that might be I Googled “lyrics dead rooster” –you’d be surprised how many songs feature them.
(6) BODY WORK. Camestros Felapton went to the movies. He has posted the autopsy —“Review: Alien Covenant”.
…Covenant and its predecessor Prometheus are both variations on the theme of the original Alien. The same elements have to appear (some of which are shared with Aliens films), the horseshoe ship and the undiscovered planet and the body horror. The tone is serious and visuals are striking.
Covenant’s cast is sufficiently good and the dialogue strong enough that while the characterisation is not deep there is at least a sense of these people having some depth of character –it’s just that we don’t get to see it before they variously die horribly. Looking back at the original film, I suppose the same could have been said of it –even Ripley….
(7) FAN FILM. The Verge says “This Harry Potter prequel fan film looks even better than Fantastic Beasts” –and they’re right, it’s pretty slick.
The story follows a witch named Grisha Mac Laggen (heir to Griffindor and original character to this film), who suspects trouble when Hepzibah Smith, a descendant of the Hufflepuff family, was found murdered. The case goes cold, but Laggen suspects that there’s some sort of dark magic at play, and she believes that former Hogwarts student and future dark wizard Tom Marvolo Riddle is involved somehow. Visually, the teaser looks stunning, with visual effects and production design that feel like they fit alongside that of the official Harry Potter films.
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY
- May 28, 2012 — On this day in 2012, Ray Bradbury published this gorgeous short memoir/required reading list in The New Yorker about his early influences. [Via Blastr.]
(9) A BIT OF FAME. Contributor Francis Hamit’s letter to the editors of TIME Magazine got a mention:
May 25, 2017
HACKING U.S. DEMOCRACY
Massimo Calabresi’s May 29 story about Russia’s use of social media to influence Americans was a reminder to be “wary of the source of that liked/upvoted social post,” wrote Sanjeev Verma of Sunnyvale, Calif. However, as Francis Hamit of Sherman Oaks, Calif., pointed out, foreign attempts to sway American politics aren’t necessarily new. “It’s just that we are finally paying attention,” he noted.
Hamit adds, “What TIME used was the tag line of a longer letter about Soviet €˜active measures’ during the Vietnam War.”
(10) SHAZAM. Adweek tells about a recent public service campaign: “Shazam Suddenly Started Forgetting Song Titles to Highlight a Little-Known Fact About Alzheimer’s”.
We’re naturally inclined to attribute human characteristics to the apps that continuously follow us around, which is part of why Siri is so amusing and Alexa so charmingly useful. But for Alzheimer’s Research U.K., agency Innocean Worldwide U.K. brought a horribly human attribute to Shazam–the ability to forget…
The purpose of the campaign was to tell young people that Alzheimer’s disease doesn’t just concern seniors; it can affect people as young as 40 years old. Over 40,000 people under 65 are living with dementia in the U.K. alone.
The effort ran through the month of April in the U.K. In mere hours, the agency says, “The Day Shazam Forgot” yielded 2,018,206 impressions, with 5,096 visitors visiting the Alzheimer’s Research U.K. donation page. (Hopefully they remembered their credit card information.)
(11) HUGO SHORTS. Camestros Felapton continues sharing his ballot, and the reasons therefore: “Hugo 2017: Short Story”.
- “Seasons of Glass and Iron” Amal El-Mohtar It had a tough job against strong competition but I do think this one stood out. The story takes two elements from lesser-known fairy tales: a woman who has to live on top of a glass mountain and a woman who has to walk the earth in iron shoes until their soles are worn away. El-Mohtar captures the atmosphere of the stories but also turns them to her own purposes.
(12) HUGO LONGS. Ethan Anderton’s Twitter robots made me look, but it was later pointed out to me that the material had been thieved from Mark Kaedrin, so here’s the direct link to Mark — “Hugo Awards: The Dark Forest and Death’s End”.
Those ideas that evoke the fabled SF goal of Sense of Wonder are what make these books work. The more sociological and philosophical aspects of the story are a little less focused and successful, leading to some inconsistency in terms of characters and pacing that perhaps make the series too long and pull the books down a peg or two. I suspect some things are lost in translation here, but this is not meant as a slight on Ken Liu (who translated the first and third books in the series), just an acknowledgement that translations naturally produce, for example, awkward dialog and pacing. I’ll put this on me too, as reading a book from another culture always presents challenges that I’ll readily admit I’m not always equal to. However, most of my complaints are far outweighed by what this series gets right, and this will rank high on my Hugo ballot, though I don’t know that it will unseat my current frontrunner (which remains Ninefox Gambit).
(13) THE DAMN DOGS DON’T LIKE IT. WIRED ponders “Why Are Colleges So Hostile to Fantasy Writers?”
For decades aspiring fantasy writers have been subjected to dismissive behavior from college professors who disparage genre literature, even though such professors often admit they’ve never actually read any fantasy or science fiction. This sort of hostility is unfortunately alive and well today, as college freshman Alina Sichevaya can attest.
“I’d heard everyone else’s horror stories, because occasionally this comes up on Twitter, and people will talk about their college experience,” Sichevaya says in Episode 257 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “But I definitely wasn’t expecting such a strong response from my professor about genre fiction.”
Sichevaya says she attempted to defend fantasy, and to recommend high-quality examples to her professor, but she’s not optimistic it’ll do much good.
(14) HOW TO LOSE THE SALE. Stay away from these if you want to sell to Dave — “Dave Farland’s 10 Points to Avoid in Writing Short Fiction” at Writers of the Future.
…Seriously, though, I sometimes wish that I could explain to a young writer why I’m passing on a story. So I’m going to talk about it here.
Here are ten reasons why I reject stories quickly–usually within the first page:
- The story is unintelligible.Very often I’ll get submissions that just don’t make sense. Often, these seem to be non-English speakers who are way off in both the meaning of words, their context, or in their syntax, but more often it’s just clumsiness. I’ve seen college presidents who couldn’t write. But this lack of care is on a gradient scale, from “I can’t figure out what this is about” to “I don’t want to bother trying to figure this out” to “there are minor problems in this story.” For example, yesterday a promising story called a dungeon the “tombs.” Was it a mistake, or a metaphor? I don’t think it was a metaphor. The author had made too many other errors where the “almost correct” word was used.
- The story is unbelievable. “Johnny Verve was the smartest kid on earth, and he was only six. He was strongest one, and the most handsome, too. But the coolest part was when he found out he had magical powers!” At that point, I’m gone, and not just because there were four uses of “was” in three sentences…
(15) TROLLING. Squawks over women-only screenings of Wonder Woman in Texas.
Now unimpressed men are lambasting the idea on Facebook, claiming they are being discriminated against.
“Great, let us know when you have guys-only screenings of Thor, Spider-Man, Star Wars, etc. Let’s see you walk the walk now that you set this precedence [sic],” one man wrote.
“Very sorry if you feel excluded,” came the reply on the [Alamo DraftHouse] cinema’s official account.
(16) ALL WOUND UP. Picture of cyclones on Jupiter’s south pole: “Juno Spacecraft Reveals Spectacular Cyclones At Jupiter’s Poles”.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft has spotted giant cyclones swirling at Jupiter’s north and south poles.
That’s just one of the unexpected and puzzling findings being reported by the Juno science team.
Juno arrived at Jupiter last summer. It’s the first spacecraft to get a close-up look at the planet’s poles. It’s in an orbit that takes it skimming close to the cloud tops of the gas giant once every 53 days.
(17) HOW TO TALK TO FILM CRITICS AT MOVIES. The BBC trashes the movie of Gaiman’s “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”: “This is one of the worst films ever made”.
It may seem harsh to say that How to Talk to Girls at Parties is one of the worst films ever made, given that it isn’t a cynical studio blockbuster, but an indie passion project with a budget that wouldn’t pay for the Botox on most Hollywood productions. But this shambolic punks-meet-aliens rom-com is directed by John Cameron Mitchell, the acclaimed auteur behind Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It’s also adapted from a short story by Neil Gaiman, it has costumes by the triple-Oscar-winning Sandy Powell, and it features Nicole Kidman and Elle Fanning. If nothing else, then, it should seem vaguely professional. Instead, it’s like a shoddy school play put on by a drama teacher who thinks he’s cool for liking the Sex Pistols.
(18) MONSTROUS HIT. Carl Slaughter notes: “The Munsters wasn’t just a horror sitcom. It was a cultural phenomenon. After only 2 seasons and 70 episodes, it was buried by another cultural phenomenon: Batman.”
[Thanks to Mark-kitteh, Mark Kaedrin, Chip Hitchcock, Francis Hamit, Carl Slaughter, Cat Eldridge, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Was the lack of links in #6 and #11 intentional?
[godstalk]
(1) THANKED AND EXCUSED.
One more time, for those who have difficulty understanding very basic concepts:
If you haven’t been invited to be on programming, you cannot possibly be “banned” or “disinvited” from something you weren’t on to begin with. 🙄
JJ: Hmm. Don’t know where those links went, but I’ve put them back in.
Good morning, Mr. and Ms. Fandom, and all the pros at work!
I saw a New Yorker cartoon I liked, with Roger Moore telling St. Peter, “Remember, if anyone else shows up claiming to be James Bond, he’s an imposter!”
I know! A “celebrity entering heaven” cartoon and everything.
Mike Glyer: Don’t know where those links went, but I’ve put them back in
Well, I was looking for an excuse to appertain. 😉
Also, apparently File 770 is now a member of the EU, and has converted to the €uro. 😉
1) I imagine every con has this issue – whenever you add new participants, you have to let go of some former ones. Noone wants a con with all the same panelists every year, unfortunately that means some people may have their feelings hurt.
Kip W: I saw a New Yorker cartoon I liked
http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon-052317-roger-moore
Ignore the menu prices — especially the ones in Euros.
(15) I’ve read the comments on a couple of those articles (not the BBC one) (yes, I know, I know). I’ve never seen such a bunch of crybabies. Honest to dog, it makes you want to slap them. “Yes, try living as a woman for a while. That’ll give you something to cry about!!”
(5) All I can think of is: “…but the hedgehog can never be buggered at all!”,
Nanny Ogg’s famous.English language version of Porcupinos Non Sodomy Est
(11) I agree, a great set of reads. My own decision about which ones I liked best were a bit different, but I’ll be happy no matter which short story finalist wins.
I fear my coming reviews in some of the other categories are going to be a bit harsher, though, starting with a best novel finalist I’ve got set up to post on my blog tomorrow morning.
17) It is a fact that you are cool if you like Sex Pistols.
Question for WSFS business meeting wonks:
I remember something about it being forbidden to mention anybody by name in a business meeting.
Can somebody point me to a precise definition or reference?
Standback: I remember something about it being forbidden to mention anybody by name in a business meeting.
I don’t think that’s true. They ask anyone who gets recognized to speak to show the WSFS Secretary their con namebadge (if their first time at the mic), and their name gets announced and put into the minutes.
@The other Nigel: Funny story about the Hebrew translation. The Hebrew translation, at least of the first few books, had some terrible, boneheaded mistakes.
In the particular case of the rousing drinking song which you here mention, “hedgehog” was translated as “bush pig” — i.e. a hog that lives in hedges. That’s a rather spectacular failure to get the joke…
(Another notable blunder was the translation was that the Librarian, in the original transformed into an orang-utan, was here instead transformed into orange jelly. I’m baffled. Rincewind gives him a banana.)
@JJ: Ah, I meant: If I’m speaking, I’m not allowed to talk explicitly about a specific individual. I remember it coming up re: the Puppy discussion and E Pluribus Hugo — you could talk about the need to change the voting system, but you couldn’t specifically mention Theodore Beale.
Standback: I meant: If I’m speaking, I’m not allowed to talk explicitly about a specific individual. I remember it coming up re: the Puppy discussion and E Pluribus Hugo — you could talk about the need to change the voting system, but you couldn’t specifically mention Theodore Beale.
I think what you’re thinking of is that you’re not allowed to speak about specific individuals in a manner that could be considered “defamatory”. For instance, I’m pretty sure that I could get up in the meeting and (presuming it were relevant to the discussion) say, “I think that [Standback’s real name] has been doing the Hugos a real service with his Short Story Squee and Snark website”, and that would be perfectly fine.
@JJ: Cool, that makes sense 🙂 (and awwww)
I’m wondering if I can import the rule to a local organization I participate in, so I’m looking for the specific rule. Any idea where I might be able to find it? Is it built into Richard’s Rules of Order, or is it something specific the WSFS has adopted?
Standback, I suggest you tweet your request at this guy.
(15) Just wait until they find out this is the policy for every movie night on Paradise Island.
Home again, home again, jiggety jig.
Another great day at Baycon. Barely had time to eat, so many good panels. Learned to speak some Belter in one. Parties still going strong when I left the hotel at 12:30.
I said something facetiously about 24h ago that maybe Heather could introduce me to Charon, and darn if it didn’t happen! 🙂
(5) Chaz indeed throws a fine all-ages party, full of home-baked goods. There were all kinds of cookies, and some truffles, and lemon tarts and some candies. I missed the mac and cheese. Plenty of booze at the others.
Mike, File 770 got a mention in the obligatory hoax zine that came out tonight — can’t find it online right now.
(11) HUGO SHORTS
As I said in comments over there, I’m a long way from making up my mind on these stories. The JCW goes below NA – I was foolish enough to read it and it’s ughpassthebrainbleach level. Of the credible 5 finalists (and isn’t it nice to have 5 real contenders this year?) I think “A Fist of Permutations…” is my least-favourite because I more admired the writing than actually enjoyed it, but I can’t really decide on the ordering of the rest. Seasons is one I actually nominated, as I have a soft spot for reconstructed fairy tales and it managed to sketch out a real relationship between the two characters despite having backstory to tell as well, so I suppose it ought to be my front runner, but the others are all growing on me. “The City Born Great” is to my mind closer to the roots of urban fantasy than anything I’ve read for a while, “That Game We Played…” is quietly effective and gives its idea a proper SF examination, and Talons – although short, and almost slight – has some raw power behind it.
(I was hoping that typing that out would make my brain make some decisions, but no such luck)
A slightly different question would be – who is likely to win? Seasons took the Nebula, with Talons and A Fist of Permutations both finalists, but historically the Nebulas don’t seem to be much of a predictor in the shorter categories anyway. All five credible finalists were also in the Locus list so that doesn’t help either. The F770 straw poll for noms had Seasons, Games, and Talons within a vote of each other, but of course everything can change once you’ve read all the finalists. If I was forced to bet I’d put something on Seasons of Glass and Iron, but tbh I think it’s wide open, and I won’t be unhappy with any of the real five.
@bookworm1398 re @1: I’m not sure it’s a matter of making room for new participants; there will always be cycling as some program-interesting people won’t always come or will come once and conclude they can’t afford it (or justify the expense) regularly. I suspect some people reach the point where (at least in the concom’s view) they just aren’t saying anything new.
@The other Nigel: so we’ve descended from dog-Latin to hog-Latin? I wonder — how many translations get the spirit of “A Wizard’s Staff Has a Knob on the End”?
(12) I guess I’ve hit the big time since my work is being republished elsewhere. I wrote that (original link below).
http://kaedrin.com/weblog/archive/003518.html
XKCD is messing with Star Wars
(The pixel in Gods Stalk)
@Chip: I suspect you’re right that part of the issue is the risk of people, and program items, repeating themselves. That’s especially likely to be relevant if someone has a relatively narrow range of topics, or a narrow range of relevant ones. Thinking purely hypothetically, a writer who can talk about their own books, one other writer’s life and work, the history of college football, clam chowder recipes, skyscraper fire prevention, and their grandchildren isn’t likely to be put on programming at a book-focused genre con unless there’s a panel about that one other writer. That’s purely hypothetical because I don’t know how many topics Schweitzer can be interesting and informative about: but there have been a lot of Readercons, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s had a chance to talk about each of them more than once.
Even if it makes sense to have a panel on the same subject every year, that’s not an argument for having it with the same five panelists, or even three of the same five, every time.
The old pro who doesn’t get the convention invite he expected used to be a young pro taking a spot that could have gone to an old pro.
I understand the impulse to treat these convention invites as an entitlement when you’ve been a well-respected part of the field for a long time, but if you have years of convention-going experience, you know a lot of people are seeking to be program participants and getting turned down. When it’s your turn to be rejected again you should handle it like all the people rejected when you got in.
The thriller author Steve Berry, one of the big-name writers around here, told an audience at the Amelia Island Book Festival he attended on his own dime for seven years before getting an invite.
Godstalky And Company
@Mark (non-kitteh version)
Wow, that’s a pretty blatant piece of plagiarism on their part. If it makes you feel any better, I had a quick look at another genre article from the same day and it was a copypasta effort as well!
Hopefully Mike will redirect his link back to your original once he spots your post.
@Mark
I keep seeing “Seasons of Glass and Iron” and “That Game We Played During the War” on almost everyone’s lists, so I’ll be surprised if the winner isn’t one of those two.
But then I’ve been surprised before . . .
Standback on May 29, 2017 at 12:39 am said:
There is no such rule. However, in debate, you shouldn’t be naming individuals and casting aspersions upon them directly. You may be thinking of people naming a certain Puppy Herder by name and being told they shouldn’t be doing so. A point of order was raised against the member’s debate, and I sustained it as Chair. As JJ said, it’s a matter of not being “defamatory.”
The book you’re thinking of is Robert’s Rules of Order. (The first edition was written by Henry M. Robert.) See references in the index to “Debate, Decorum in.” It’s certainly not a specific WSFS rule. It’s an extension of this: “As much as possible, the use of names of members should be avoided in debate.” (Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised, 10th ed., p. 380)
The key thing here is that debate is supposed to be about the proposal, not the motivations of the people involved.
Again, this is not some special rule that someone made up just for meetings of the World Science Fiction Society. It’s a principle of parliamentary procedure, and not just specific to a single work by a single author. It’s part of civilized debate and decision-making in deliberative assemblies.
11) Good assessment. I’d have put El-Mohtar’s behind Jemisin’s, but otherwise my ordering is identical.
14) If I roll my eyes any harder I’m going to see my brain. Some of these rules are fine (and are mostly just kind of “bro, do you even words”), but others are a recipe for making sure everything you publish is in the same style with no change or experimentation. If I was still editing fiction and every submission was written in the same style I’d probably quit out of sheer boredom.
18) Best sitcom theme song ever.
14) “Johnny Verve was the smartest kid on earth, and he was only six. He was strongest one, and the most handsome, too. But the coolest part was when he found out he had magical powers!”
Hmm. I am moved to try and come up with a better version of that:
“At age six, Johnny Verve was already the smartest kid on earth, and the strongest, and the most handsome, and then he found out he had magical powers too, the rotten little shit.”
@Kevin Standlee: Yes! Thank you so much 🙂
(Getting the name wrong could definitely be a factor in borking up my Google searches… ::sheepish:: )
I was looking for it, having just witnessed a debate (and an organization) that was sorely missing this guideline. Watching one of those can make it very clear indeed just how key a principle that is 🙁
Best sitcom theme song ever.
I do like the song a lot. A pianist I knew used to play a version of it that he worked out himself, with some shimmering boogie action. I played him the sheet music version and he said he’d never play his again. WHAT?? It was beautiful! I tried to get him to write it down. Maybe he has since then, but I wasn’t around town to see it.
Something that made me smack my forehead when I heard Los Straitjackets doing an insanely satisfying version of the tune (and it’s not a version I can find online, though I can find them playing it), and at one point, they did a straight-out Mysterioso Pizzicato, and I realized that the whole theme is nothing more than an elaborated version of the MP! If they hadn’t lampshaded it like that, I wonder if I’d ever have realized it.
Follow up on weekend book sorting project!
All mass markets are sorted! YAY! Books I want to keep on hand are on the shelves, books for storage are in 9 clearly labeled bankers boxes, and books for donation are in 4 other boxes. I do need to go through the donation boxes, because the prison doesn’t take books with weapons on the covers. They are looking for F&SF! I also had doubles of some older and OOP books that I’m going to check in with a used bookstore about.
My library, sadly, only takes books for their book sale that are less than 10 years old. *sigh*
The database went out the window by “B”, so perhaps another time for that.
Thank you all for your suggestions! I appreciate them!
@Mark (kitteh version)
Yeah, definitely a content scraper. I guess stealing posts about SF is how they…. sell more wine? Yeesh.
4) Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a brilliant writer. As much as I like ‘Doctor Who’, the scripts can get more than a bit cheesy.
I can’t see a first-rate writer wanting to act long-term in second-rate material.
Finally get to this scroll. I was busy Not Sleeping last night. Moving this week. Exhausted.
So exhausted I had trouble spelling “exhausted” correctly.
I hope to still be here after the move. Reasonably intact. And getting more and better sleep.
Currently listening to A Door Into Ocean, and looking for the danged print galley that went missing when I was nearly through with it Ebooks are less likely to do that, just sayin’.
@ Kip
Godstalk and Sons?
I’ve rewritten the item and linked to your site now that I know.
Chip Hitchcock on May 29, 2017 at 6:17 am said:
@bookworm1398 re @1: I’m not sure it’s a matter of making room for new participants; there will always be cycling as some program-interesting people won’t always come or will come once and conclude they can’t afford it (or justify the expense) regularly. I suspect some people reach the point where (at least in the concom’s view) they just aren’t saying anything new.
So howcome this only happens to old white guys and not members of any other group? If it does happen to people in other groups, name a couple.
I’ve been doing some Hugo Reading and thought I would share my thoughts on the finalists for Best Related Work. I generally really pleased with the quality of the finalists in this category, especially given what’s been nominated for the past couple of years.
1. Words Are My Matter, by Ursula LeGuin.
LeGuin has spent a lifetime thinking about literature, science fiction and fantasy, language, myth, gender roles and feminism. I love reading what she has to say about all of those topics. The book is divided into speeches/ essays, book intros and book reviews. I really appreciate her insights into other authors’ works. There are several authors that she talks about that I had never heard of and now want to read. The essay in this book that I found the most moving though, was What It Was Like, which is a discussion of the abortion she had before the Roe v Wade decision, and the positive difference it made in her education, her future marriage and children, and her career.
2. The View From the Cheap Seats, by Neil Gaiman
I love Neil Gaiman’s non-fiction voice. It is dry, witty and wise. Similarly to the LeGuin book, this is a collection of essays, intros to books, and reviews of books, comics and music. I had seen a number of things from this book previously on the internet, but it was lovely to both read the new stuff and re-read the old stuff. The essay I find the most memorable is his review of the Dresden Dolls. As many of you know, Neil is married to Amanda Palmer, who is one half of the Dresden Dolls. The group had broken up before Neil and Amanda got together and Neil had never heard them play. This is his review of the first concert of their reunion tour. It’s a remarkable and personal piece of long-form journalism.
3. The Geek Feminist Revolution, by Kameron Hurley
I read this a year ago when it first came out. I enjoyed it very much, but am having trouble remembering specifics, even when I glance over the table of contents. She has a mix of political and less political essays, but her strength as an essayist is clearly in the more political pieces.
4. Women of Harry Potter, by Sarah Gailey
This a collection of six essays published on Tor.com, each essay talking about a different woman in the Harry Potter Universe: Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Molly Weasley, Dolores Umbridge, Luna Lovegood, and Minerva McGonagall. Gailey gets deep into the POV of each of these characters and relates the history of the Harry Potter books as seen by each of them. I loved this, and I’m distressed that it is as low as #4 on my list. It’s just a really strong year for this category.
5. The Princess Diarist, by Carrie Fisher
I enjoyed the Star Wars movies, but have never been a Star Wars super-fan. I had lost track of Carrie Fisher until her death last year. Since her death, I have learned to love the woman that she became; vulgar, vulnerable and wise. I had high hopes for this book, but found that I feel much less connected to 19-year-old Carrie than I am to 60-year-old Carrie. The book centers around her affair with Harrison Ford and 19-year-old Carrie figuring out herself, romance and how she interacts with the world. The book is fine for what it is, but in my opinion does not really rise above the general level of celebrity autobiography. My favorite chapter is the one entitled Forty Years On, in which older Carrie looks back with compassion on herself and the younger Harrison.
6. Traveler of Worlds: Conversations with Robert Silverberg, by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro.
This book consists of seven transcribed conversations between Silverberg and Zinos-Amaro. I bought this book to read during the nomination period because of the recommendation from GRRM, but bounced off of it. I picked it up again because it is a Hugo finalist.
I have read a few Robert Silverberg books over the years and enjoyed them, but I am not a fan of his the way I am a fan of, say, LeGuin or Bujold. I am not the target audience for this book. I think the ideal audience would be Silverberg fans and people who have a personal connection with him through cons, etc.
I am going to discuss each chapter separately:
Chapter 1: The Vividness of Landscape: This conversation is about his travels across the world and how that informed his writing. There are lots of lists of places he has been without a whole lot of detail. I found it pretty dull. This is where I bounced from the book the first time I attempted to read it.
Chapter 2: Aesthetics: A discussion of art, i.e. opera, paintings, great literature. I found this more interesting than the first chapter, though at the end of the chapter, the interviewer does go through a list of Nobel Prize winners in Literature from the last 100 years and ask Silverberg’s opinion on all of them.
Chapter 3: In the Continuum: A discussion of Silverberg’s daily routine. He stopped writing fiction about 10 years ago, though he still writes a column for Asimov’s. He is in his 80s and is feeling physically frail. My sense from this chapter is that he feels increasingly alienated from the world growing up around him. There is a discussion of his politics, which are Libertarian.
Chapter 4: Enwonderment: A discussion of books that produce a ‘Sense of Wonder’ in him. I am not really well versed in Golden Age authors, and with some exceptions, like Lovecraft and Jules Verne, I was not all that familiar with the authors they discussed.
Chapter 5: Libraries: a discussion libraries he has been to, which was less interesting, and a discussion of his own collection, which was much more interesting to me. He apparently has complete collections of several of the science fiction magazines, and he talks about how he acquired some hard-to-find copies to complete his collection.
Chapter 6: Potpourri: The interviewer asked some questions from fans. Silverberg talks about his early career and collaborations and how he sold his first book. At the end of the chapter, he explains, with examples, why Thomas Hardy is such a poor prose stylist and why Hemingway is a good one. I found this chapter much more interesting.
Chapter 7: After the Myths Went Home: A discussion of how he is experiencing old age and reflections back on his life. This is one of my favorite chapters in this book.
@ Mike Glyer, Thanks for the update, much appreciated!
* citation needed
1) How do you know it doesnt happen to them? Because they dont bitch about it? It did happen to Arroz, who is Latino (and he did complain avout it) so without research I know your statement is wrong. But
2) other groups might nit take these things for granted (just recently been invited) and dont complain so openly (See 1, you might just not look for their complaints though)
@stfg
Thanks for the detailed thoughts on BRW. The only one I’ve read myself as yet is Geek Feminist Revolution, which I liked but I’ve high hopes of the others. GFR is in very readable bite-sized chunks, and Hurley is a very passionate essayist, so I found it very readable.
It seems to be only guys we see complaining about it. Del Arroz is Latino, though. I don’t know what his age range is. Looks to me like some guys are just delicate snowflakes.