(1) WELL WISHING. James H. Burns, the frequent File 770 columnist, is in the hospital – keep him in mind.
Hey, folks: Quite unexpectedly, I’m in Mercy Hospital, in Rockville Center, at least through the weekend. Cards and visitors welcome! Room 245A.1000 N Village Ave.Rockville Center, NY.11570
(2) NEW BEST FANZINE FINALIST. Lady Business acknowledged its nomination in “Hugo Ballot Finalist Announcement, or More Ladies and Queers on Your Ballot”.
We at Lady Business are excited to announce that we have accepted a place on the final ballot for Best Fanzine in the 2016 Hugo Awards.
This is a strange year to be be a Hugo finalist. If you’ve been following the Hugo Awards, you know that the last couple of years have been controversial. We prefer not to dwell on the controversy here, but if you’re unfamiliar and would like a summary, Fanlore has a good overview. After the 2016 finalists were announced, one of the original five Fanzine finalists, Black Gate, withdrew from consideration. The Hugo administrators contacted us to let us know that we were next in the voting tally, and offered us the open slot. After some conflicted deliberation, we decided that we wanted to acknowledge the people who voted for us in the nomination phase, and we accepted a place on the final list….
(3) KRITZER ON SHORT STORY NOMINATION.
I am delighted and honored to announce that "Cat Pictures Please" is a Hugo Award finalist. https://t.co/T3JgRP1XoQ
— Naomi Kritzer naomikritzer.bsky.social (@NaomiKritzer) May 6, 2016
To celebrate the Hugo nomination I've put my two short story collections on sale: https://t.co/3TKO25eZYb and https://t.co/MftdoKTZxI
— Naomi Kritzer naomikritzer.bsky.social (@NaomiKritzer) May 6, 2016
("Cat Pictures Please" isn't in either but THAT is free online at Clarkesworld! https://t.co/zimEnRPYq1 )
— Naomi Kritzer naomikritzer.bsky.social (@NaomiKritzer) May 6, 2016
(4) PARTY PLANNER. George R.R. Martin welcomes “The Replacements”. And contemplates their impact on the Alfies.
…((Though I am curious as to whether these two new finalists were indeed sixth. It seemed to take MAC a rather long time to announce the replacements after the withdrawal, something that could presumably be accomplished in minutes just by looking at the list and seeing who was next up — unless, perhaps, there were other withdrawals along the way? We’ll find out come August)).
Short Story and Fanzine were two categories where the Rabid Puppies had swept the field, top to bottom. Accordingly, they were also two categories that I had earmarked as being in need of Alfies. But the withdrawals and replacements broke the Rabid stranglehold, leaving me with a decision to make — do I still present Alfies in those categories, or no?
I am going to need to ponder that for a while.
(5) KNOCK-ON EFFECT. With SF Signal’s announcement fresh in mind. Adam Whitehead discusses “Blogging in the Age of Austerity” at The Wertzone.
…For bloggers who do have day jobs and families, it’s become clear that the lack of material reward for blogging means greater pressure to step away and spend that time instead with loved ones or doing other things. And that’s why it’s easy to see why the guys at SF Signal decided to step away. If I get one of the several jobs I’m currently going through the recruitment process for, the amount of blogging on the site will have to fall as I devote time to that instead.
Is there a way around this? Should there be? Kind of. For a lot of bloggers, blogging is a springboard into writing fiction and once they make that transition, the blogging is left behind. For me, I have no interest in writing fiction day in, day out. I may one day try my hand at writing a short story or a novel if a story demands to be told, but I’m never going to be a career fiction writer. I much prefer writing about the genre as a critic, but the paid market for that is much smaller. After over five months doing the rounds with my agent, A History of Epic Fantasy has failed to garner as much as the merest flicker of interest from a professional publisher, despite the people nominating it for awards (and in any year but this one, it might even have stood a chance of making the shortlist) and clamouring for the book version (look for an update on that soon). But even if that takes off, that’s just one project. Being an SFF critic isn’t much of a career path these days, especially with venues drying up (even the mighty SFX Magazine seems to be in financial trouble and may not last much longer)….
(6) WITHOUT MUMBLING. At Fantasy Literature Sam Bowring takes up the perpetual challenge — “Coming Up with Fantasy Names: A Somewhat Vague and Impractical Guide”.
One of the hardest aspects of writing a fantasy story, I find, is conjuring a bunch of made-up names that don’t sound like I spilled alphabet soup on a crossword puzzle. It’s important to get names right, of course. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has flung away a potential read in disgust because the blurb said something about a protagonist called ‘Nynmn’dryhl of the Xyl’turym’. Can I buy a vowel, please? I’m also guessing this is one reason why so few fantasy worlds include any equivalent of telephones, for everyone would be forever spelling their names over them.
That said, personal appreciation of fantasy names is about as subjective as it gets. One person’s ‘Nynmn’dryhl’ may be another’s ‘Bilbo Baggins’. It would be arrogant for me to sit here (I really must get a standing desk so I can sound more authoritative when I type) and tell you what does or does not make a good fantasy name, especially when I myself have created names I know for a fact that others find cringe-worthy. One of my good friends, for instance, never lets me forgot that I named a place ‘Whisperwood’. ‘Whisperwood,’ he will say, years later, out of the blue, shaking his head in dismay.
Thus instead I’ll merely tell you about general approaches I find to be useful. One such, which I imagine is a common starting point for many authors, is to simply diddle around with various syllables, rearranging them in different ways until striking upon a pleasing combination. I do not own the patent for this, and mind altering drugs are optional. Losara, Olakanzar, Lalenda, Elessa are all the results of such a ‘process’, as we shall kindly call it…
(7) SCIENCE TOO. The Traveler at Galactic Journey begins “[May 6, 1961] Dreams into Reality (First American in Space)” by connecting the dots.
I’ve been asked why it is that, as a reviewer of science fiction, I devote so much ink to the Space Race and other scientific non-fiction. I find it interesting that fans of the first would not necessarily be interested in the second, and vice versa.
There are three reasons non-fiction figures so prominently in this column:
1) I like non-fiction;
2) All the science fiction mags have a non-fiction column;
3) Science fiction without science fact is without context.
(8) SENSE8. From SciFiNow, “Sense8 Season 2 sneak peek photos give a look at what’s to come”.
Sense8‘s co-creator Lana Wachowski shared a tonne of brand new Season 2 production stills on the show’s official Tumblr page recently (sense8.tumblr.com if you’re bored…), and they are absolutely delightful. They also look potentially spoilerific, so browse through the above gallery with caution.
(9) TRIBAL THEORY. Damien G. Walter takes up the topic “Have the Locus awards been hit with ‘myopic sexism’” at The Guardian.
Taken as a whole, the Locus awards were broadly representative of a sci-fi field that is continuing to grow in diversity: 18 female to 17 male writers, with many upcoming writers of colour among the voters’ top picks. Placed in that context, the way the YA category has turned out seems less like myopic sexism, and more indicative of the older demographic of readers who read Locus magazine and see the YA genre from their own preferences. When I caught up with Joe Abercrombie, nominated twice in the category for his Shattered Seas trilogy, he agreed.
“I think this has much more to do with adult SF&F readers voting for the authors they recognise, and tending to read YA that crosses over into SF&F territory.” Abercrombie’s popularity among adult readers has carried over to his YA books, which in America have been sold and marketed as adult fantasy; it’s that adult readership, who recognise Abercrombie as one of their tribe, whose votes count in the Locus award. “I’m pleased people voted for me,” he says, “but I don’t think it’s ever a good thing when someone’s on the same shortlist twice.”
(10) SF IN PORTUGAL. Luis Filipe Silva’s new entry on Portugal for the Science Fiction Encyclopedia chronicles the past century of sf/f there. The focus is on fiction, as one would expect, with this being the only comment about the interaction between literature and national politics:
Nevertheless, if utopia bewitches the faithful, it frightens the unbelievers. A decade of political and social turmoil, following the Regicide in 1908 that turned Portugal into an uneasy Republic, inspires some highly pamphletary Dystopian fiction: in A Cidade Vermelha [“The Red City”] (1923) by Luís Costa, the misguided Portuguese people welcome a full Republican/Communist government, only to see the country devolve into absolute chaos; it is not surprising that the people then cry for the return of the unjustly deposed monarch, who comes back from exile and sets things right again. Amid such strong ideological trends, any text that pictures an ideal future based solely on the workings of science and technology becomes a rarity: in the landmark vision of Lisboa no Ano 2000 [“Lisbon in the Year 2000”] (1906), Melo de Matos (years) turns Lisbon into a major world economic hub thanks to advances in Transportation and Communication made by Portuguese Scientists.
I was curious, after reading many posts by Sarah A. Hoyt.
(11) COMMONWEALTH SHORT STORY PRIZE. Locus Online reports a speculative story by Tina Makereti is one of five winners of the 2016 Pacific Regional Commonwealth Prize.
The 2016 Commonwealth Short Story Prize judges have announced this year’s five regional winners, including the speculative story “Black Milk” by Tina Makereti (New Zealand) for the Pacific region.
…The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded to the best piece of unpublished short fiction in English, and short stories translated into English from other languages (stories may be submitted in their original language if not in English). Five winning writers from five different Commonwealth regions receive £2,500 (USD $3,835), and the overall winner receives £5,000 ($7,670)….
(12) BLAME HARRY. Fantasy causes brain damage, according to a school headmaster in the UK — “Nailsworth teacher claims Harry Potter books cause mental illness”.
A headmaster has urged pupils not to read Harry Potter – claiming the books cause mental illness.
Graeme Whiting also said other fantasy titles such as Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games and Terry Pratchett encourage ‘difficult behaviour’. He told parents to steer clear of JK Rowling’s ‘frightening’ books and they should read classics like Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Shakespeare. Writing on his blog, Mr Whiting, head of the independent Acorn School in Nailsworth, Gloucester, thinks that people should have a ‘special licence’ to buy fantasy books. He wrote: “I want children to read literature that is conducive to their age and leave those mystical and frightening texts for when they can discern reality, and when they have first learned to love beauty….”
(13) AFTERMATH. Anne Heche and James Tupper have been cast as the leads in Syfy’s forthcoming post-apocalyptic series Aftermath. Deadline reports the former Men in Trees co-stars will reunite on screen as a married couple who “have to contend with supernatural creatures as well as their own teenage children after a series of natural disasters finally sticks a fork in life as we know it.”
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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As VD was kind enough to list and rank everything he read in 2015 we can be absolutely sure that for most of his nominees he either hadn’t read them or didn’t think they were award-worthy.
@ BrianZ. It looks more like Beale is experimenting:
1) He tries to run out in front of parades and pretend he is leading them to see if he can get credit for nominees that would have made the ballot without him.
2) He tries to see if we’ll give him a free veto over good stuff.
3) He tries to see if he can upset us with obvious crap. (I am so amused that this came back to bite Beale in the ass. I can hardly wait to see what Tingle comes up with next.)
4) And what the hell, he tries to see if we’ll give his schlock a Hugo (worth a try as long as he has spare slots; maybe the horse will sing this year.)
So, no, it doesn’t look like Beale was playing it straight. Because he wasn’t.
@Tasha:
The problem is that this exact pattern is so common in romance that it constitutes a system of expectations: if a smoking-hot guy acts like an asshole or worse toward the heroine it’s okay because he’s in love with her/she likes it/he’ll change. Never mind that it’s dubious to make such assumptions in real life, I do not think this is acceptable worldbuilding even in Romanceland, where a guy having traits coded as highly masculine and highly sexual mean that of course he and the heroine end up together no matter how awful his behavior, and in many cases awful behavior is one of the main ways he is coded as highly masculine. Now I’m sounding like someone who doesn’t like romance, but I really do! I just hate the gender and sexual patterns of many (not all by any means) examples, and was disappointed to find the so-popular Ilona Andrews using them. I’m glad to hear she sometimes subverts them, but I’d rather start from different basic assumptions altogether.
Meanwhile, here in sunny London we are celebrating the election of Sadiq Khan as our Mayor, which has the added amusement factor of VD foaming at the mouth about it.
London is a very big place, and Khan won by a hefty margin; sadly, at least for VD, my local supermarket was notable for the total absence of people panic buying booze.
It’s hugely difficult, if not downright impossible, to take anything VD says seriously; anyone bonkers enough to believe that it is possible for the Mayor of London to ban the sale of alcohol in London is so far detached from reality that there’s no way to communicate…
(12)
I think this headmaster is taking an un necessarily narrow view of the English Romantics. I think that good helping of Byron is really necessary to teach people the wonders of being young, really the best kind of behavior.
@Lela Buis, Re: Teddy and the Locus awards.
Come on. This is Teddy scampering in front of the parade and attempting to lead it. The Locus list is a real who’s who of some really good and popular authors, without lots of manly war tales (as Locus categories deprive Teddy’s followers and apologists of obediently slating the libels and the child pornographer they obediently wrote on their ballots for the Hugo.)
I dislike the possessive alpha males that infest so much of romance and its subgenres/hybridisations, too, which is a pity, because I really like romance (with or without other genres added in), but even with reviews, it can be a slog to find romances with more equal gender relations. But I guess I’m in the minority here, because a lot of romance readers, particularly in the US (since most European readers I’ve talked to don’t like ultra-alphas), seem to go for ultra-possessive and controlling alpha heroes.
If anything, it’s gotten even worse in the core romance genre in recent years, because the controlling alpha male was definitely on his way out before the success of 50 Shades of Grey and its imitators brought him back with a vengeance.
Ilona Andrews is normally an author (or two) who subverts the gender dynamics somewhat. But then I haven’t read Clean Sweep yet, though it’s on my TBR pile.
@stevie Of course the election of Khan shows how diverse London is. We now have a mayor from South Of The River!
INCREDIBLE GOOD NEWS!
Jim Hines reports that Baen has published Janet Kagan’s out of print fantastic amazing superb YOWZA work in e-books:
http://www.jimchines.com/2016/05/ebooks-of-janet-kagans-work/
does not include her Star Trek tie-in but probably because Paramount owes the copyright.
BUT there is an ebook of it:
http://www.amazon.com/Uhuras-Song-Star-Trek-No/dp/0671652273
Amazing female protagonists, fantastic linguistic elements of plot (Hellspark), fantastic biology/genetic elements (Mirabile), great plots often involving some sort of mystery as well, and one of the BEST sentient computers EVAH (Hellspark).
*goes to buy just to have*
(I have all the novels in hard copy–but there is a collection of shorter work–but it will be great to have ecopies I can easily carry with me WOOT).
I don’t think you can plan cats. Every cat I’ve met has been decidedly Chaotic.
Ilona Andrews is pretty much a must read for me, but I’ve found the Clean Sweep books unengaging and I don’t think the romance elements work. The Kate Daniels series is far more satisfying, not least because its relationships are believable and not full of Me Man You Woman silliness, unless the characters have a point to make about how not to do it.
eta – my comment is in moderation due to my phone, which has edged over to the chaotic evil side, what with random character generation.
@Cat:
“3) He tries to see if he can upset us with obvious crap. (I am so amused that this came back to bite Beale in the
assbutt.”FIFY
Wow–Mirabile has a Baen cover I actually don’t hate! Possibly a tad spoilerish, and unquestionably misleding, though.
@ Stevie
Congratulations on London’s new mayor! I’m particularly glad to see how completely Goldsmith’s despicable tactics failed.
Meanwhile, an incredibly awesome pen, for those who still smear ink on wood pulp.
>Come on. This is Teddy scampering in front of the parade and attempting to lead it.
Testing the waters, I’d think. He’s watching to see how much effect his voting contingent has. Apparently it was enough that comments are flying on the gender breakdown of the finalists this year.
Nice that VD has finally managed to get people to talk about the gender breakdown of award finalists.
Oh, interesting! After seen the nth thousand alpha/omega tag scroll by on Ao3, I decided that if I ever had any interest in werewolf fic, the only alpha/omega stuff would have to be in the same kind of situation you get that with real wolves – those stressed out captive wolves in the early studies that gave us those tropes. Normal werewolf packs would behave like normal wolves.
Re: Ilona Andrews. I find that her books vary wildly in style and tone. She has even said that they try different things otherwise they stagnate. I found the romance in Clean Sweep to be unengaging but I thought the main plot was about Dina and her parents. The White Hot series was definitely more of an alpha romance. And she released a novella titled “Alphas: Origins” that I hated.
With that being said, I love the Kate Daniels books and I don’t think the alpha male thing is overdone there. I enjoy the Edge series too but Kate is the one that I will pre-order and buy sight unseen. I like the humor in her books and I do think she subverts the alpha male trope quite handily.
I also enjoy books that show equals in romance and healthy relationships and there aren’t many of them. I hate that. Bujold always done this but she is rare (in oh so many ways). More YA but I think the last Sabriel books show this. And the Korval books by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are space opera that generally have quite equal protagonists and healthy relationships.
Sorry if this is a little scattered, I have to run….
Finished Aeronaut’s Windlass. Found it enjoyable but not great. Didn’t find it a waste of time. I wouldn’t have nominated it but at least it’s a good read.
Read the first 100 pages or so of The Grey Lensman. No characterization to speak of and not enjoying the plot. This novel doesn’t stand the test of time. Gjb tebhcf bs napvrag nyvraf unir orra znavchyngvat nyy bgure fragvrag yvsr vagb svtugvat n cebkl jne. Gur fvqr znavchyngvat uhznaf ner “tbbq” orpnhfr gurl unir perngrq Pvivyvmngvba juvpu nccrnef gb or 1940 Nzrevpn jvgu nyvraf. Bhe fvqr cenpgvprf trabpvqr.
I won’t be reading any further. Unless someone who has enjoyed it can give me a better perspective?
Aaaaaahhhh Kagan ebooks!
I’ve updated the post that measures the impact of the slate. I wanted Kendall to know. Just catching up with what everybody knows.
@World Weary: I think one reads Smith for the gosh-wowness of the space battles and the sheer size of the concepts on display… if you attempt any serious thought about the Lensman books, they do fall to pieces in a rather embarrassing manner. (Of course bhe fvqr cenpgvprf trabpvqr, they’re not going to get any good at it if they don’t practice, are they?)
I enjoyed the Lensman books a lot as an uncritical teenage reader. My fondness for them these days is… tempered, somewhat, by an awareness of their failings. Smith’s exuberance still manages to raise a smile or two from me, though.
Okay, I’ve been looking at some reviews of the Kate Daniels books and find one person writing that Kate’s mate Curran is “strong, driven, arrogant, sometimes needing to be taken down a notch or two but extremely loyal” (this is intended as an entirely positive description), and another wrote:
Do you Kate Daniels fans disagree with that characterization? How, exactly, does this series avoid the alpha trope?
Simon
I know. It’s really hard explaining it to people who are not Londoners.
Msb
Thank you! The dirty tricks backfired, and the LondonHasFallen mob are being ridiculed because they are ridiculous. VD will no doubt explain to his loyal followers that he intended Londoners to point and laugh at him, which is fine because we are enjoying laughing at him…
@World Weary – I grabbed The Gray Lensman a little while back – part of my reading through classic SFF material I missed before. Haven’t started it yet, though.
I’m working on magazines right now. Subscribed to digital versions of Nightmare, Asimov’s, Analog, and Galaxy’s Edge. Recent reads within those…
Lord of the Cul-de-sac, by Auston Habershaw – A fun short story, kind of on the lines of Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer. Enjoyed it, but probably not shortlist material.
Lazy Dog Out, by Suzanne Palmer – Somewhat noirish sci-fi set in a space station/habitat. Well-written, nicely paced, but a hurried ending. I don’t think I’ve read her before, but I’d be interested in reading more if it’s got that combination of outrage and fun.
Matilda, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch – Matilda is a sentient, living ship. Devi has to pilot her, and hates it. They go on a reconnaissance mission. I’ll leave it at that. Excellent story. I haven’t read anything by Rusch in a while, or much by her at all. She’s always just down there a couple books in my TBR pile. This story makes me want to read more.
Bookwise, I’m reading Pratchett’s The Truth, when I’m not in the mood for shorter stuff. I’ve only just started it, though.
I couldn’t decode ‘UF/PR romance’ at first as it looked like the slash indicated the two halves of a relationship 🙂 Finally it clicked that it was Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance. Now I want a book about an Urban Fantasy that falls in love with a Paranormal Romance.
OMG! The Tooting Popular Front clearly were playing a very long game.
Well done London 🙂
Pounded in the Butt by a Paranormal Romance in the Form of a Werewolf.
@ Cora: I used to like bodice-rippers, until I acquired enough life experience to recognize them for what they are: tools used to groom young women into viewing skanky and abusive behavior as “romantic”. Fortunately, it’s still possible to find romances without the creepy abusive alpha-male “hero”; you just have to look a little harder.
@ Soon Lee: *snerk*
@ Darren: I might buy Hellspark again just for the cover. Much as I like the Sternbach cover, this one is more interesting.
@ Stevie: This sounds like a good time to mention Fallen London. Might provide some further entertainment if you can push it at the right people.
@Myself – Funny, just read Greg Hullender’s 2-star review of the Rusch story, and he makes a lot of good points. Very fantastical story. I did think it was imaginative, though.
Camestros Felapton on May 7, 2016 at 1:20 pm said:
Sounds like a topic for Chuck Tingle! 😀
(Ninja’d by rob_matic)
—
Re. Lensman: I fear I waited too long to try to read these, and, no offense to those who love them, but by the time I’d reached my early twenties, I simply couldn’t get into them. I tried several times. At the advice of friends, I started with the first book of the internal chronology (Triplanetary) and with the first book of the main story (First Lensman), and in neither case was I able to sustain enough interest to finish.
I might do better with it these days, as I’m now old enough to have gotten past the “I’m not a kid any more!” attitude one develops in one’s late teens/early twenties, but it’s been a low priority.
It is one of the few major gaps in my personal reading of classic SF.
Your friends gave you bad advice. Triplanetary is a conversion of a non-Lensman book to fit into that universe after the series got popular. First Lensman is filling in backstory you only care about once you’ve read everything else, if then. Galactic Patrol is the proper beginning; it starts with a bang and doesn’t let up, and that’s what’s fun about the series.
I think I may be misremembering the advice. If Galactic Patrol is the first one with Kimball Whatzizface, then that’s the other one I tried starting with.
(12) Better start the classic reading with a classic quote:
@kathodus
I’m quite fond of The Truth one of the better standalone books in the series.
135th! Headache too bad to figure out which fifth that is!
Oh well, not quick enough.
The sample of Clean Sweep on Audible had me running away, sadly.
TYP:
>Come on. This is Teddy scampering in front of the parade and attempting to lead it.
Leila E. Buis:
Testing the waters, I’d think. He’s watching to see how much effect his voting contingent has. Apparently it was enough that comments are flying on the gender breakdown of the finalists this year.
me:
If you think comments on the gender breakdown of awards only started after Beale got involved I’m afraid you’re a bit late to the party.
The alternative being that Beale’s involvement was so mighty, so earthshaking, that it reached backward through time to create comments in the past–oh, wait, the alternative being that Beale’s efforts, though doubtless absorbing to Beale and his lapdogs, had no noticeable effect.
OK. If you start there and don’t like it, you won’t like it at all. That’s really the only entry point to the series; starting elsewhere is like starting Discworld from Color of Magic.
@Mark: That was Beale’s 2015 reading list. He could have read the other novels he slated between January and March 2016, before he posted his slate. (And if I’m interpreting the “Book List 2016” on the right-hand rail of his blog correctly, he is saying that he read them in 2016.)
One of the reasons I liked the Kitty Norville books is because in the first book it turns out the abusive social arrangements in Kitty’s pack are not because That’s Just How Werewolves Are but because her pack is made up of assholes, enablers and victims.
Now I have the awful urge to do an urban fantasy where the major conflict among vampires is between those who think vampire society should be based on Twilight, and those who think it should be based on Vampire: the Masquerade.
(The “it should be based on The Vampire Lestat” crowd managed to autodarwin themselves…)
I think it is entirely possible that some of the things on Mr Day’s slate, the things that have caused us some puzzlement over why he nominated them, are just there because he likes them. For instance, both last year and this year he nominated an episode of Supernatural. It obviously isn’t a Castalia product, nor does it seem to fit either the ‘human shield’ or the shock-causing pattern. Perhaps he’s just a fan of the series.
And I do think that on the whole he is a better slate-constructor than Mr Torgersen. Last year, he didn’t have to construct a whole slate; he just took the SP list and added or substituted his own things. This year, when he has had to build it from the ground up, he has come up with a better selection than last year’s (apart from the Castalia products and the deliberate trouble-causing ones). While some of this is clearly an exercise in co-opting what would have been nominated anyway, other bits (Pierce Brown, Shamus Young, etc.) are things he has himself pushed forward, and seem not altogether unreasonable; if Torgersen had done something similar last year he might have had more success.
That is awesome !! Goes and gets ebooks. Yay to Baen for reprinting this.
@Jamoche – I started Discworld at book one and went on from there. Aside from a 10 year delay between reading books 2 and 3, I have no idea why you’d say that. 😉
I found a free epub version of Galactic Patrol. I’ll go for that first.
@Andrew M
VD is a successful parasite.
@Vasha:
Here’s a February blog post from Ilona Andrews’ site, titled “Brief Analysis of Alphahole Trope in Romantic Fiction.” http://www.ilona-andrews.com/brief-analysis-of-alphahole-trope-in-romantic-fiction/
She/they have series I DNFed in large part over alphole issues, and series I enjoy well enough, but they’re definitely thinking about the matter while they write. I’m sometimes reading them in spite of the relationship aspects, but that isn’t unusual for me on the paranormal fringe of things.
That being said, if the Sweep series isn’t working for you, you might not have the energy to wade a couple of books into Kate Daniels, which would be my other suggested starting point. Actually, I take that back – you might want to look up some of the shorts in that universe, maybe the stories with Dali as the viewpoint character (she’s a vegetarian weretiger).
Darren Garrison: Wow–Mirabile has a Baen cover I actually don’t hate! Possibly a tad spoilerish, and unquestionably misleding, though.
The book has a swimming giant llama? This is somewhere on my TBR list, but I may have to move it up now.
@Xtifr
I fear I’m in a similar situation, since I also didn’t find Doc Smith until I was in my mid twenties and by that point it was too late. I can see the huge impact his work had on science fiction in general and space opera in particular. But after reading/watching many later works that built on Smith’s ideas, I find that Smith simply doesn’t do it for me. If I had found him at 15, I might have appreciated him more.
BTW, I also started with Triplanetary, since it was the first book in the series, bounced off hard, tried again with Galactic Patrol and while I managed to finish it, it didn’t really wow me.
@Andrew M
VD’s insistence on slating Supernatural is one of the things about him that I really don’t understand. Yes, Supernatural has a strong fanbase, so one could suspect that VD is trying to tap into that fanbase (which is probably what he tried to do with My Little Pony). But Supernatural‘s fanbase are exactly the sort of people Vox doesn’t like, namely youngish tumblr users with SJW tendencies and a preference for slash. Besides, Supernatural is the slashiest show on US TV, extremely critical of religion and features men having emotions. Of course, it’s possible that he really is a fan, but I still wonder what he sees in it, since it doesn’t seem like his sort of thing at all.
A newly discovered text by Aristotle discusses Teddy Beale and his works:
http://crookedtimber.org/2016/05/07/aristotle-on-trolling/
Perhaps we should nominate Rachel Barney for a Hugo next year in the best related works category….
On the issue of Voxman and whether he is slating things he actually likes… I keep wondering what the deal is with Grimm. It’s not that popular a show and its executive producer is very out and proud Sean Hayes, who keeps putting out adorable lip sync videos with his husband, which I’m sure gladdens the heart of the Voxman’s right-hand man, you know, the one with the tire iron fetish. I don’t imagine Grimm will win, anyway, but if it did and Sean Hayes and his husband showed up and did their version of Iggy Azalea’s “Trouble” as they accepted the award, well, that would be awesome.
And speaking of songs… Is anyone else singing a certain Beatles’ song every time Chuck Tingle says Voxman?
Let me tell you how it will be
A Hugo for you, No Award for me
Cause I’m the Voxman, yeah, I’m the Voxman
Should my slate seem none too bright
I’ll blame it all on John C. Wright
Cause I’m the Voxman, yeah, I’m the Voxman
If Scalzi drives a car, I’ll stand in the street
If Scalzi tries to sit, I’ll take his seat
If Scalzi gets too cold, I’ll block his heat
If Scalzi wins an award, I’ll say he’s a cheat
Don’t ask me why my choices suck
I get a Tingle from a certain Chuck
Cause I’m the Voxman, yeah, I’m the Voxman…
What kind of blithering idiot advertises the fact that he thinks a book he published (and edited!) was only worth 3 stars?
Yes, an all-female finalist list in Fantasy this year is clear evidence that Teddy Beale had influence over the Locus ballot. Just like the all-male finalist list in YA (a category that he didn’t even try to fully slate!) must be due to his influence. After all, last year’s YA finalist list had one female writer to four male writers. Only the influence of Beale can explain the fall of such a fiercely feminist stronghold.
I think the real problem here is that people haven’t been paying attention to the biases of the Locus Recommended Reading list. The makeup of the Locus Awards Finalists can generally be tied to the makeup of the Locus rec list. This year was the first time in over a decade that the Locus Fantasy rec category had more female-authored works on it than male-authored works. (11 female-authored works to 10 male-authored works—so, not exactly overwhelmingly female in the same way that it’s been overwhelmingly male-dominated since 2004.) It’s also the first year ever that we got an all-female finalist list in Fantasy. The last time Locus had all-male finalists in the Fantasy category was 2014, when the rec list (the 2013 rec list) came out as 19 male-authored works to 9 female-authored works. Odd how that drew no attention—though I do note that 2014 wasn’t even the first time we got a set of all-male finalists in Fantasy.
(What I commonly hear is that Locus is just following the general publishing trend, and it’s been so male dominated because SFF is male dominated. But the Locus Fantasy rec list in 2000 had 19 female-authored books to 13 male-authored works. 2002 had near-gender parity–10 female-authored works to 11 male-authored works. 2003’s Fantasy rec list had gender parity, 9 male to 9 female. 2004 (with 15 male-authored works to 5 female-authored works) kicked off a decade of continuous male dominance. So women used to publish an even amount of fantasy, or more fantasy, but in 2004 men suddenly started publishing more? I find that unlikely.
And I realize the obvious argument is “well, women still published, but in YA, which moved them to a different category on the rec list”—but the 2004 Locus YA rec list had 8 male-authored works to 7 female-authored works. And while subsequent years have often had more women than men on the YA Locus rec list, not all of them have. And the idea that YA has been siphoning female authors from “general fantasy”, rather than just adding to an already-growing total, doesn’t seem at all plausible to me.)
The SF rec list this year is predominantly male, just as it always is. (Though this year’s 16 male authors to 12 female authors is, quite possibly, the closest the Locus SF list has ever come to gender parity. Last year had 23 male-authored books to 5 female-authored books. The year before that, it was 15 male-authored books to 5 female-authored books. The year before that, it was 23 male-authored books to 3 female-authored books. A glance at previous lists doesn’t seem to break this general pattern.) And this year’s SF finalist list managed 4 male authors to 1 female author. All-male finalists in SF are hardly unheard-of, though the “four men to one woman” we got this year is admittedly a more popular outcome. Looking at the gender breakdown of the books on the Locus rec list, which serves as a de facto longlist, that’s not unusual.
The YA rec list is different than the SF and Fantasy lists in that it is often (though not always) female-dominated. Not by female writers of adult SFF, though (with Cat Valente being the obvious exception). Male authors of adult SFF show up every year, and this year’s rec list left Valente off. If the voters want to pick adult SFF writers in the YA category—and clearly they do—Locus tends to make it quite easy for them do so, and in a way that skews the category male. Skewing it female (or even vaguely even) requires the voters to pick primarily YA authors, which is difficult in a system that gives twice as many votes to subscribers of a magazine that rarely covers YA. Or it requires Locus to put female writers of adult SFF in the YA list, which Locus generally chooses not to do.
I haven’t looked at the gender breakdown in the short fiction categories across the years, but a quick glance at this year’s data doesn’t show any obvious gender skewing. (Though it wouldn’t surprise me at all if men edged out women here, even slightly.) It did not escape my notice this year, however, that the editors contributing to the short fiction rec list had zero compunction in putting on works they’d purchased for anthologies. This is the first year I’ve actually paid attention to the short fiction sections, though, and I’m sure that if such obvious conflicts of interest were freely ignored this year, they were ignored in previous years.
My general point being: I think talking about the Locus Awards without discussing the Locus Recommended Reading List is problematic. The Locus Recommended Reading List has a set of biases that have nothing to do with subjective merit. Every rec list will be skewed due to the tastes of the people contributing to it, yes . . . but the SF and Fantasy book categories have a long tradition of skewing the recs heavily toward male authors. The YA list loves giving male authors of adult SFF a hand up. The short fiction categories are always sure to be stacked with choices that stand to promote the financial interests of those making up the list. These are structural biases that have little to do with subjective ideas about taste.
(It might behoove Locus to put a bit more thought into this list in any case—they tried to put Steles of the Sky on this year’s rec list, even though it won a Locus Award last year. I have no idea what sort of process is used to make the list, but it can’t be that rigorous, if this result can occur.)
Vox was also apparently a fan of Tanith Lee…which I found out by accident while googling articles about her after her sad and untimely death. Given her…broadmindedness,I’d speculate he either wasn’t exposed to her edgier writing or he’s a master of doublethink.