(1) WEATHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET. “NASA reveals stunning images of Jupiter taken by the Juno spacecraft” – Yahoo! has the story.
The breathtaking images show swirling cloud belts and tumultuous vortices within Jupiter’s northern hemisphere.
Scientists said the photos allowed them to see the planet’s weather system in greater detail.
According to the space station, the brighter colours in the images represent clouds made up of ammonia and water, while the darker blue-green spirals represent cloud material “deeper in Jupiter’s atmosphere.”
(2) HOW TO MAKE MAGIC. Fantasy-Faction’s Aaron Miles advises writers about “Creating A Magic System”.
The naming of a thing gives you power over it. Sorcery is the will and the word. Cast fireball now and you won’t be able to again until tomorrow and have finished your revision.
Magic systems exist in scores of fantasy novels. Diverse in their rules, varying in complexity, they instruct us in how the magic of the world of the story works and in any rules that govern it. Some authors disdain them, preferring to keep their magical arts shrouded in mystery, while others will provide exhaustive explanation and runic charts in the back of the book. I’ve always believed that a good magic system can only enhance a book, serving to develop the world, engage the reader and open up the scope for storytelling. Clever use of such a system can create new plot opportunities, allow an author to foreshadow and enact hidden twists, not to mention being interesting creations in their own right.
A common stop on the road to worldbuilding, many authors love to craft their own systems with various casting protocols, methodologies and effects. It can be great fun to develop your own magic system but if the groundwork is poor it will quickly become difficult to manage or hard to understand for the reader. This article will cover the various aspects involved in creating a magic system and how to make it interesting and effective….
(3) BET AWARDS. Black Panther and its king won hardware at last night’s BET Awards, but another of the movie’s stars was responsible for a highlight of the evening:
[Jamie] Foxx brought “Black Panther” star Michael B. Jordan to the stage and asked him to recite the powerful line from the film, “Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships, cause they knew death was better than bondage.”
Best Actor Award
- Chadwick Boseman *WINNER
Best Movie Award
- Black Panther *WINNER
(4) PUPPY ADJACENT. N.K. Jemisin’s Twitter thread on bigotry and artistic mediocrity begins here.
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/1010980092464558086
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/1010980094620454915
(5) NO LONGER THE WILDER AWARD. BBC reports “Laura Ingalls Wilder removed from book award over racist language”.
The US Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) has removed Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from one of its awards over racist views and language.
The association had received complaints for years over the Little House on the Prairie author’s “anti-Native and anti-Black sentiments in her work”.
The ALSC board voted unanimously on Saturday to remove Wilder’s name from the children’s literature award.
The medal will be renamed as the Children’s Literature Legacy award.
(6) FANTASTIC POSTER. Yet another brilliant poster heralds Portugal’s Forum Fantastico, to be held from October 12 to 14 in Lisbon.
(7) WHAT TO CHARGE? Peter Grant’s comment at Mad Genius Club sheds new light on indie authors’ book pricing strategies.
Kindle Unlimited changes this equation dramatically, depending on the length of a book. I’ll be writing at greater length about this in a couple of weeks, but here’s a potted summary.
KU pays out just over $0.0045 for a single page read by a subscriber. If your book is (say) 100,000 words, that translates (in KENP, or KU equivalent pages, according to Amazon’s calculations) to about 360 pages. That means a KU “borrow” of your book will earn you about $1.62. If you sell that same book for $2.99 via Amazon, with a 70% royalty rate, you’ll earn about $2.00 after Amazon’s charge to download the book to the purchaser. In other words, a $2.99 price point is barely better, from an earnings perspective, than a KU “borrow”. It’s probably not economical. You’ll make more money pricing it at $3.99 or $4.99.
However, that brings up the question of what readers will pay. For a relatively unknown author, $2.99 might be all that most buyers are prepared to pay. For someone better know, $4.99 might be feasible. I’ve been charging that for my books for some years, and I’m getting sales at that level; but there’s also growing resistance even to that price from some readers. I’ve actually had e-mails saying that I’m being greedy to charge that much, and that I should price it much cheaper, otherwise they won’t spend their money on me – or they’ll use KU instead of buying the book. Even Amazon’s beta price recommendation service from KDP recommended, for my latest trilogy, that I price it at $2.99 per volume, to maximize sales income. Of course, it didn’t factor KU into that pricing equation.
I now take KU into my pricing calculations. If I won’t make much more per sale than I know I’ll earn on a KU “borrow”, it’s frankly not worth my while to sell the book at all! Why not just make it available in the subscription library?
(8) WHAT’S BREWING AT CAPE CANAVERAL? Galactic Journey’s Traveler popped back to the present long enough to inform beer drinkers about the Mercury program: “[June 25, 1963] It’s showtime! (A musical and educational performance on the Mercury 7)”.
We’ve a special treat for you, today! As you know, the Journey frequently presents at conventions and venues across the country. Our last event was at the science-themed pub, The Wavelength Brewing Co.
Not only was a fine selection of craft beers on tap, but also the Young Traveler, performing a suite of current musical hits. I followed things up with a half-hour presentation on the recently concluded Mercury program, discussing all of the flights and the folks who flew them.
(9) TRIVIAL TRIVIA
Max Brooks wrote The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. His parents are Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY
- June 25, 1976 – The Omen premieres in North America.
(11) RINGO. As two departed Dragon Con staffers (Pixel Scroll 6/9/18 Item #3) anticipated, the con is inviting John Ringo as a guest. Ringo shared the news on Facebook along with a request:
My Letter of Agreement to Dragon Con has been sent in and the announcement will go out this week that I am, again, going to be a guest of the con.
Due to various ‘stuff’ the leadership of DCon already knows/suspects/has-been-informed there will be ‘push-back.’
I am hereby asking my fans to STAY OUT OF IT. Don’t respond on any page especially any DCon page. Let the (extremely professional) con management handle any response.
Rpt: STAY OUT.
DragonCon has handled far worse in their time and they’re not worried about this particular kerfuffle.
“Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.”
(12) HOWEY SHORT FICTION. Jana Nyman reviews Hugh Howey’s collection for Fantasy Literature: “Machine Learning: Thoughtful and thought-provoking stories”.
Odds are good that you’ve heard of Hugh Howey — whether you’ve read one of his novels or short stories, or even if you’re just aware of the runaway success of his SILO trilogy, which began with Wool. Machine Learning (2017) is the first collection of his short stories (and one novelette), most of which were published elsewhere in various times and places, and it’s an excellent display of his range, insight, and talent. Each story is followed up by a brief Afterword from Howey, giving him the opportunity to explain where the story came from and what his goals were in writing it. When necessary, I’ve marked stories that were previously reviewed at Fantasy Literature, so that you can compare/contrast my thoughts with those of our other reviewers.
“The Walk up Nameless Ridge,” previously reviewed by Kat Hooper. A mountain climber hopes to be the first to summit a frighteningly tall peak, thereby receiving the honor of having it named after him, which is something he cares about more than anything else in his life. Howey gets deep in this man’s head, examining what motivates him to keep going despite literal loss of limbs and the emotional and physical distance placed between him and his family….
(13) TAKEI V. TRUMP. George Takei compares his family’s internment during WWll to Trump’s family separation policy and says the situation on the Mexican border is much worse. He shares a lot of background, offers a lot of insight, and sets the records straight on many counts. From CNN: “George Takei: Donald Trump’s immigration rhetoric is ‘grotesque'”
(14) REDEEMING MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA. Future War Stories analyzes a controversial game: “FWS Video Game Review: MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA”.
Among the icons of military science fiction are some legendary video game titles that have reinforced the fans and forged new ones. One of the most beloved was BioWare’s Mass Effect series that spanned across three primary games, a number of DLCs, books, and comics. It was a beloved universe for its fans that caused them to cosplay, wear N7 gear, and even tattoo themselves. When 3rd and final Mass Effect game was released in 2012, we fans wondered if this was indeed the end of the journey after the mishandling of the ending to the trilogy. Then came happy news of a new game that was a fresh start with new characters and a focus on exploration in a new setting. When 29th century centered game was released in March of 2017, there was understandable disappointment and many fans felt deeply betrayed by EA and BioWare. But it is worth the hate and loathing? I decided to embarked on the journey to the Andromeda galaxy to see if it was a betrayal of the heritage of the Mass Effect games or a merely misunderstood entry into the franchise.
The GOOD
There is much made about the broken nature of ME:A and its ugly or underwhelming graphics…but under all of the noise and press is a semi-solid game that does delivery a long, relatively enjoyable campaign that becoming more and more rare these days. Overall, the concept of the Andromeda Initiative expedition to the nearest galaxy is maybe something that has been seen in sci-fi, but it a great way to separate this new ME game from the previous titles…
(15) SOUNDTRACKS. Courtesy of Carl Slaughter:
- Hobbit soundtrack
- Lord of the Rings soundtrack
(16) NAZIS IN SPACE – NOT. Revell has taken off the shelves in Germany a model kit for the Haneubu II aircraft because it is convincing customers that the Nazis had camouflaged-covered flying saucers with zap guns. Gizmodo reports: “Flying Saucer Toy Recalled For Teaching Kids That Nazis Achieved Space Travel”. The model kit has been recalled because it promotes the idea that Nazis not only had the capability for space travel, but could use their saucer-type spacecraft to blast Allied aircraft. Quoting the article:
If you’ve ever watched the History Channel at 3AM, you know that the Nazis had a secret program during World War II to develop flying saucers. The Nazi’s UFO experiments never actually flew, but the model toy company Revell recently released a set in Germany that makes it look like one of the Nazi saucers actually worked. And historians are pissed….
The toy company has pulled the 69-part set, known as the Haunebu II, from store shelves. But you can still find plenty of the toys available for sale online. The Nazi UFO is even seen on the box blasting Allied planes out of the sky—a disgusting image to promote, to say the least….
“Unfortunately, our product description does not adequately express [that the Nazi saucer program was unsuccessful] and we apologize for it,” Revell said in a statement.
(17) WESTWORLD’S FALLOUT PROBLEM. BBC says “Westworld game hit by Bethesda legal claim”.
Game publisher Bethesda is suing Warner Brothers over a game based around the HBO series Westworld.
Bethesda alleges the Westworld game, released last week, is a “blatant rip-off” of its Fallout Shelter title.
Included in the legal challenge is Canadian developer Behaviour Interactive, which helped Bethesda develop Fallout Shelter in 2014….
The Westworld game gives players the job of managing the titular theme park and its robotic inhabitants.
The facility managed by the player can be expanded underground and includes many of the locations seen in the TV series.
Many reviews of the game mentioned its similarity to Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter, which gives players the job of managing and expanding an underground facility….
(18) TURING TESTER. The classic WWII device has a new home: “Codebreaking Bombe moves to computer museum”. (Chip Hitchcock suggests it’s another tourism opportunity for people willing to travel a distance before/after Dublin 2019.)
The UK’s National Museum of Computing has expanded its exhibits celebrating the UK’s wartime code-breakers and the machines used to crack German ciphers.
On Saturday it will open a gallery dedicated to the Bombe, which helped speed up the cracking of messages scrambled with the Enigma machine.
The Bombe was formerly on display at Bletchley Park next door to the museum.
A crowd-funding campaign raised £60,000 in four weeks to move the machine and create its new home.
… The initial design of the Bombe was drawn up by Alan Turing and later refined by Gordon Welchman. The gallery is being opened on the 106th anniversary of Turing’s birth.
(19) BIRD IS THE WORD. Scientists say “Bird family tree shaken by discovery of feathered fossil”.
The turacos, or banana-eaters, are today found only in Africa, living in forests and savannah.
A beautifully preserved fossil bird from 52 million years ago is shaking up the family tree of the exotic birds.
The fossil’s weird features suggests it is the earliest known living relative not just of the turacos, but of cuckoos and bustards (large long-legged birds).
And the fact the remains were unearthed in North America shows the distribution of different birds around the globe would have been very different in the past.
(20) GOOD TO THE LAST PROTON. Ars Technica says the retirement party will be happening soon: “Russia’s Proton rocket, which predates Apollo, will finally stop flying”. With over 400 launches under its figurative belt (and about an 89% success rate) the Proton rocket family is nearing retirement. Dating from tis first launch, the Proton will turn 56 in mid July. That means it predates the Saturn V used in the Apollo program by more than 2 years.
The Russian-manufactured Proton rocket has been flying into space since before humans landed on the Moon. First launched in 1965, the rocket was initially conceived of as a booster to fly two-person crews around the Moon, as the Soviet Union sought to beat NASA into deep space. Indeed, some of its earliest missions launched creatures, including two turtles, to the Moon and back.
But now, Russian officials confirm, the Proton rocket will finally reach its end. In an interview with a Russian publication, Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said production of the Proton booster will cease as production shifts to the new Angara booster. (A translation of this article was provided to Ars by Robinson Mitchell, a former US Air Force Airborne Cryptologic Language Analyst). No new Proton contracts are likely to be signed.
…With a capacity of 22.8 tons to low-Earth orbit, it became a dominant player in the commercial market for heavier satellites.
It remained so during much of the 2000s, but as Ars has previously reported, the lack of technical oversight began manifesting itself in an increasing rate of failures. At the end of 2010, one Proton plunged into the ocean because too much propellant had been mistakenly loaded into its upper stage. In 2013, another vehicle performed a fiery dance seconds after liftoff because flight control sensors were hammered into the rocket’s compartment upside down.
…Whether the Angara booster can capture anything close to the Proton’s once highly profitable share of the global launch market remains highly uncertain.
(21) LIZARD WRASSLIN’. In this tweeted photo set, a T-Rex finds it’s no match for Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock (Dwayne Johnson)
https://twitter.com/FakeEyes22/status/1011057864838991873
[Thanks to Carl Slaughter, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day O. Westin.]
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Cassy B said Jayn, it makes it a memoir, and probably about as accurate as most memoirs.
Two of my favorite quotes in this vein–
“This is not what happened; it is what is remembered.” from the forward to “About My Life and the Kept Woman” by John Rechy.
“This is not to say that all this embellishment is untrue, because I HARDLY EVER LIE. I do, however forget, so here’s the naked truth as well as I can recall it.” from “A View From A Broad” by Bette Midler.
@Lis Carey: “More broadly, he’s saying the stuff we like is so obviously bad that even we can’t really like it.”
This is really the issue that would tick me off. When you have to do a close reading to tease the racism out of a statement–including racism that’s really there–it’s still at least a short leap from racism as systematic oppression to racist as bigot. Sometimes its so, sometimes it’s not, but it’s not enough for me to launch.
When you call people liars about what they love, you’ve flipped your butthole bit.
There’s also the problem of what he didn’t say!
I was willing to give Correia the benefit of the doubt at first–he seems to have come by his original nomination honestly (even if it’s a dick move to whine about “only” getting a nomination), and Scalzi has had positive things to say about him. But then he never ever addressed the issue of that racist, sexist, homophobic dillweed who leapt up to “help” with the whole mess.
It may have taken Trump a week to repudiation the endorsement he received from the Klu Klux Klan, but at least he did it. (Eventually.) Larry couldn’t even be bothered to pretend to distance himself from the RSHD who ran the actually-successful slating efforts. And that’s where he lost the last potential shred of sympathy I might had for him.
At some point, just ignoring the foaming madman ranting on the podium next to you becomes endorsing the foaming madman. Especially when he’s using a slightly modified version of your own brand to promote his madness.
He didn’t just fail to repudiate him. Larry is the one who called him in.
Lenore Jones / jonesnori: At the beginning Correia’s following was bigger than Vox’s, and Vox was working hard to get into Larry’s good graces. Each of them thought he was using the other, however, in the end the Rabid Pups took the play away from Correia and the Sads.
Oh, sure, I know. I’m just saying VD didn’t randomly attach himself. Larry included him intentionally, with malice aforethought.
Rev. Bob writes: Wrietrs hoo rite liek tish dew nought delver a kwaliti produkt.
In the spirit of nitpicking every statement especially the obviously true ones, Iain M. Banks wrote Feersum Endjinn, where maybe a quarter of the text looks like that:
Woak up. Got dresd. Had brekfast. Spoke wif Ergates thi ant who sed itz juss been wurk wurk wurk 4 u lately master Bascule, Y dont u ½ a holiday? & I agreed & that woz how we decided we otter go 2 c Mr Zoliparia in thi I-ball ov thi gargoyle Rosbrith.
@Niall:
Oh, there are absolutely times to break just about any “rule” in the book. Those are edge cases, though. Similarly, while it may be debatable whether a given color is best described as “blue” or “green,” that does not invalidate blue and green as useful concepts.
(Yes, someone actually tried that one on me.)
Sorry about the delay.
I think the food analogy is interesting for a couple of reasons.
I know people that eat out in nice restaurants but absolutely refuse to eat sushi. We have a top-notch sushi restaurant in the area. Friends that have traveled in Japan tell me that it is quite good. But some folks refuse to eat there due to their misconceptions about what is found inside. (I love it, FWIW).
The second reason has to do with how one defines “nice restaurant”. If someone limits that definition to the Michelin guide or some comparable organization, then they will miss out on a lot of memorable eating experiences.
Regards,
Dann
Popular opinions, on subjects not palpable to sense, are often true, but seldom or never the whole truth. – John Stuart Mill
Dann, certainly it’s perfectly reasonable to disagree on whether or not one likes sushi. But one can say, whether or not one likes sushi, that a place that serves fresh fish is going to be a better dining experience than one that serves unrefrigerated day-old fish.
There has been works on the Hugo ballot that I did not care for, but that I could still recognize as excellent writing. Most of the puppy stuff, alas, was only mediocre writing at best. And I read all of it before I ranked it on my ballot; I wanted to give it a fair chance.
You can also compare two sushi restaurants that serve impeccably fresh fish, one of which is nice but workmanlike in execution and aims at broad appeal, and the other one might not appeal to everyone but is superior in execution and innovation. The latter is better because they tick more of the boxes that are generally used to define excellence, but that doesn’t mean that the other restaurant is bad.
A Michelin starred restaurant being better doesn’t mean your favourite neighbourhood or chain restaurant isn’t nice. There are too many elements that factor into quality for it to be a simple good/bad ‘if something is better that must mean the other thing isn’t good or worthwhile at all’ thing.
A lot of the Puppy stuff was genuinely bad, but saying that other books are better doesn’t imply that. It just means that other books are better. Something can be not quite as good and still be good. And some of the Puppy works are perfectly decent fun reads. I have yet to read one that blew my socks off, though, so I’m very comfortable saying that most Hugo-nominated books are better. Even a few that I liked less.
Or, since we are talking about Puppies, we can talk about dog food.
Prior to 2007, when choosing food for the credentials and the alternative credentials, I would look at the formula, the general reputation of the company, and whether my animals liked a particular food. The the 2097 pet food poisoning happened, and I learned a lot more about how pet food gets made.
Now I have new metrics of quality.
What is the formula?
Do they own their own factories (usually not), and if not, how much control do they have of the manufacturing process?
What did they do in 2007?
When they have a recall (everyone will eventually have a recall; no matter how careful you are, no process is perfect), what do they do? Are they open and honest, or do the announce their recall late on a Friday afternoon, to miss the news cycle and get lost over the weekend?
There are pet foods out there that have truly lovely formulas, that have their food made in contract factories, got caught in the 2007 poisonings, and did everything right.
There are pet foods with similarly lovely formulas, that lied in 2007, about what was happening.
There’s a company that manufactures its main brands in its own factories, and some minor brands in contract factories. Their main brand formulas are just okay, but they have full control, and their main brands absolutely do contain what the bag or can says they do, and none of their major brands were found to have melamine instead of wheat gluten in 2007.
There are a couple of big companies whose formulas are decent but in my opinion very overpriced for what they are, but in 2007, they looked at the customer complaints they were getting, asked the contract manufacturer what was happening, and when it wasn’t resolved quickly, told that manufacturer, either you go public and announce a recall this week, or your Monday will start with us announcing a recall and telling the public that you refused to.
There’s a company with a fantastic formula, that claims never to have had a recall even though they’ve had quite a few.
Oh, and pets liking it? Palatability can be boosted cheaply with coatings that, at best, add calories, not nutrition. It still matters because the food your pets won’t eat has effectively zero nutrition no matter what the formula, but it becomes the final deal breaker, not one of the major ranking factors.
The thing is, all these quality metrics matter, and some of them are in conflict, in practical terms, and everyone makes their own balance on what is the first, most important factor to them. As long as the food is adequate and safe, no balance of factors is wrong.
Same with literature! What is important to one reader is not necessarily what’s important to another reader, and neither one is “wrong.” We all have our opinions and judgments, and the only wrong choice is to tell other people they’re lying about what they like and try to force what you like on them.
And no one is entitled to awards. The people who give the awards are entitled to their in system for deciding who gets them.
@Lis Carey: I wish I’d done a better job researching my last cat’s food. I think she might’ve had a better life if I had. I didn’t have a pet in 2007 and had no idea there’d been a poisoning problem. Not that it should take that for me to think a little more deeply about pet food, but still.
On the other hand, there’s this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkbiJYU4CNI
@John A. Arkansawyer–Even Saturday Night Live has its misses. I’m not sure why I needed to watch this fake ad, that, if its message isn’t “women are screaming hysterics,” then the only alternative is that its message is “people who care about the quality of their pets’ food are screaming hysterics.”
Incidentally, Blue Buffalo, whose packaging looks pretty similar to the fake Blue River, is one of those “really great formula and a track record of both lying, and burying their recall announcements late on Friday afternoon,” companies, including during the 2007 pet food poisonings.
I am very, very sick of “humor” where the “funny part” is “woman becomes screaming hysteric in circumstances that don’t remotely justify it,” which I’ve been seeing all my life. Also, of “humor” where the “funny part” is “people actually think their pets matter more than inanimate objects do.”
@Lis Carey: For me, when one of the people in that skit says, “We have kids, too,” and the other replies, “But the animals, we’ve had longer,” I hear these are people for whom I’m free to feel no sympathy whatsoever. I feel recognition when I see the guy utterly fail to understand his partner’s emotions, but no sympathy. I’ve spent money I couldn’t afford on pets before. I don’t regret it and I’d do it again. I also keep which I love more–my kid or my pets–straight in my head. So when I see two people with screwed-up values and too much money making fools of themselves, that’s really funny. I’d’ve preferred the man to lose it earlier and worse, but this still satisfied me.
Yes, it’s time for me to catch up on Pixel Scrolls! 😛
(9) TRIVIAL TRIVIA. News to me; I didn’t even know Brooks & Bankcroft were a thing.
(15) SOUNDTRACKS. I . . . is this even legal? (Not that I have a need to listen to background music from long movies, let alone via YouTube. I do own one of the movie soundtracks, though.)
(19) BIRD IS THE WORD. I love the map picture at the article, with all those birds looking from Africa to North America with expressions like “wut. WUT.”
@Joe H.: “I just got Diane Duane’s latest newsletter and it sounds like we may actually see Door into Starlight before we see Winds of Winter.”
Wut. WUT?! 😉 Thanks for the info. Granted, I’ll believe it when I buy it and read it, but I would be thrilled if that came to pass! Is this newsletter online anywhere? Her blog and News pages seem rarely updated and don’t mention it (or I missed it). I was on some kind of mailing list, but didn’t get a newsletter; hmm, I’m probably just on some kind of e-mail list for their ebookstore.
@John A Arkansawyer: LOL and thanks for link to that Onion piece.
@Various in re. Magic: @Lenora Rose and especially @Matt Y are closest to how I feel – at least, some overlap with me, depending on my mood and what I’m reading. 🙂
Magic with no rules or no logic just feels like an excuse for repeated deus ex machina. Also, it’s irritating when a world has only vague rules (keeping it more mysterious), yet still manages to break them.
Magic seems like an aspect of worldbuilding where the author should have some structure that the reader doesn’t necessarily need to be explicitly told. I don’t need a physics lecture in a SF novel for physics to be used well; similarly, I don’t need a detailed breakdown of magic rules in a world for magic to be used well.
But sure, I’m a geek; I like a good magic system, and I don’t feel that rules for it make it less magical. We can’t do it in our world; it’s usually not something anyone can do; the core reasons why it works, even with a structure behind it, are still utterly fantastical; etc.
Anyway, I enjoyed reading the comments in this sub-thread. 🙂
Interesting Twitter thread on Costco’s auditing of their supply chain
Check out https://twitter.com/SarahTaber_bww/status/1013280861855277057?s=09
@Lis Carey
I agree.
Also, I’m going to apologize in advance if it ever seems that I call you “List Carey”. I think I’ve caught it 100% of the time thus far, but perfection is beyond my reach and the odds will catch up with me someday.
@Meredith
Careful now. Allegations of check-box fiction can be poorly received. Trust me on this one….
Perhaps more seriously, we are big fans of the Food Network. Chopped is a personal favorite. The show repeatedly illustrates how there is a broad range of people with an equally broad range of experiences and perspectives performing at a very high level, culinarily speaking.
—-
Like everyone else, the finalists are what they are and I read them seriously. What I find troubling are suggestions that those works are the only ones worth considering. It isn’t a case of there being a handful of works that should be in the running. IMHO, the novel category probably has 20-30 works worth considering. Shaving it down to the finalists ends up relying a bit on marketing, a bit on popularity with the fraction of fandom that participates, and a bit on luck.
I simply keep coming across things that contain all of the elements that seem to be present in books that get discussed for various awards. Yet these other books are seemingly overlooked.
Of course, this year, I’m a bit underwhelmed by some of the finalists in the novel, graphic novel, and fancasting categories.
Here in the year 2193, we fancast using a trebuchet and a long section of rope.
Regards,
Dann
The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose. – Margaret Atwood
@Dann
Every year, there are always more potentialy award-worthy novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, etc… than there are Hugo/Nebula/Locus/etc… finalists. And every year, there is at least one, often more IMO excellent works that are overlooked. Sometimes, a mediocre work makes the shortlist, while an IMO much better work that is similar in theme and style is overlooked.
There are a few Hugo categories this year that I find underwhelming (novel, series, best dramatic presentation short) and a handful of cases where I feel a work was nominated more because of who the author/creator is than because of its actual merits. Sometimes, it’s just a case of differing tastes.
But then, my tastes don’t normally match those of the Hugo voters all that well. I got lucky last year that there were a lot of finalists that fit my tastes very well, but this year seems back to normal.
@Cora
I enjoy the privilege of being in pleasant company.
[“me too” just didn’t cut it.]
In the year 6915, I find that I am the fourth understudy for Scott Bakula…
Regards,
Dann
Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. – Calvin Coolidge
@Dann–
No worries! “List” Carey as a misspelling of my name has the great advantage of being obviously an autocorrect error. 🙂
As for there being many potentially award-worthy works that never get near the Hugo ballot–of course there are. There are now six slots in each category; until recently, there were only five. We are blessed with many thousands of potential nominees in at least all the fiction categories. There’s no possibility of anyone reading all of them anymore, unlike the early Hugo years, and so not all very good works get read by enough people likely to nominate and vote in the Hugos to get them on the ballot–even aside from the question of varying tastes.
This isn’t a special fault of the Hugo Awards. It affects pretty much every award in existence, to one degree or another.
Dann: What I find troubling are suggestions that those works are the only ones worth considering.
I would find that troubling, too — except that I have seen exactly no one saying, or even implying, that they are. Please provide links to where this has occurred.
Dann: IMHO, the novel category probably has 20-30 works worth considering. Shaving it down to the finalists ends up relying a bit on marketing, a bit on popularity with the fraction of fandom that participates, and a bit on luck. I simply keep coming across things that contain all of the elements that seem to be present in books that get discussed for various awards. Yet these other books are seemingly overlooked.
This happens to me every year; I have read books and stories which I feel should be recognized by the Hugos, but aren’t — and I suspect that many Filers feel the same way. That’s how it goes when there are only 6 finalist positions. It’s one of the reasons I have Mike put up a Recommended SF/F thread every year, so that Filers can highlight the works which they feel are deserving of attention, and there’s an easily-locateable place to which people can refer when they’re looking for new things to read, or trying to decide what to nominate.
Dann: Of course, this year, I’m a bit underwhelmed by some of the finalists in the novel, graphic novel, and fancasting categories.
This happens to me every year, too, in pretty much every category — and again, I suspect that many Filers feel the same way. I don’t know why you seem to think that you’re unique in this regard.
Dann,
There being more good works than make it onto the ballot is one sign of a healthy field/category. It seems unlikely that, every year, exactly five (or, now, exactly six) Hugo-worthy works would appear in each category. I’d far rather there be ten, or twenty, or ninety really good short stories, and two dozen such novels, and fifteen worthy short-form dramatic presentations, than have people struggling to nominate even in categories they pay a lot of attention to.
From my viewpoint, it’s good if I nominate five short stories I thought were award-worthy, two of them make the ballot, and I like or am impressed by some of the other four nominees in that category. “Like” and “am impressed by” aren’t always the same thing, both in the “light reading/brain candy” direction and in the direction of “this is well-done horror, but I still don’t like horror.” (In the food metaphor, the latter is like someone saying he believes me when I tell him that a restaurant makes really good beef stroganoff, but he’s allergic to both mushrooms and dairy, so no thank you.)
(Here in 9418, the beef is grown in vats in the same building as the mushroom farms, but allergies are still a thing.)
My personal best novel of the year didn’t make the ballot, and nothing I’ve read so far in the Best Novel category has topped it. There’s still good stuff there, though, although I think that this year’s Best Novel category is a touch weak in part because the year was a touch weak – I had a hard time finding stuff that blew my socks off when I was nominating and the final ballot is a bit, uh, favourite author-y? With the exception of Six Wakes, anyway. I’m quite curious to see what the longlist will look like.
Novelette, on the other hand, I’m tearing my hair out over ranking them. I want three of them to win, and not just in a, well I’d find that a very acceptable result way, but in a YES THIS ONE SHOULD WIN way, only it’s half the finalists, and I have to rank them somehow because it’s my top three. *clings to a stack of forehead cloths*
@Dann
Since I wasn’t talking about diversity, I doubt anyone so much as blinked at it.
Yes, the novelette category is really strong this year. They’re all good, even whichever of them will eventually end up at the bottom of my ballot.
Short story, on the other hand, is a tad weak. Several nice stories, but nothing that really knocks my socks off, and one story I really don’t like.
There are no weak points in the Novelette category. It’s been a joy to read, even if the ranking is going to break my heart. 🙂
I don’t want to seem ungrateful, because I got two of my nominations on Short Story, but my personal best short story didn’t make it*, and none of the stories I didn’t nominate inspired me to rank them above the ones I did (always something I sort of hope to happen). And I hate Carnival Nine**, for reasons which have already been explored pretty thoroughly here. I’m not unhappy with the short story category, I’d just… hoped to be happier?
Novella’s mostly good with a couple of sequels that I would have switched out, if I were Hugo Dictator (god, that would be a terrible idea). I read some really great stand-alone novellas last year, I’m sure there were more that I didn’t get to, and I have a reasonably strong preference for first volume and stand-alone works for Hugo ballots (YMMV; definitely a taste thing). Couple of real stand out stories in the category, and nothing I disliked though I haven’t read Binti: Home yet (I’m not expecting to dislike it but I was distinctly whelmed by the first one).
PS. Despite my moaning I’m still enjoying the heck out of the whole process, though. Hugo nominating and voting is a lot of fun, and I have been introduced to stories I liked very much either through my own nominations reading or through the finalists. There’s more good than bad by a wide margin, and it’s been very exciting to have a whole ballot free of slated works.
* Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S. Buckell
** Anyone heard tell of whether Caroline M Yoachim has personal experience with disability? It wouldn’t change my opinion, but I’m curious and I can’t find anything definitive.
@Meredith: So what was your personal pick for Best Novel? C’mon, don’t tease.
@David Goldfarb
The Power, by Naomi Alderman – it wasn’t a perfect novel, and I’m still not entirely sure I actually liked it (I’m not sure it’s the sort of novel you like), but it was very interesting. I was turning bits of it over in my head for weeks. Plenty of stuff on the final ballot that I like more, but nothing I find as interesting.
@Meredith
I think that hits the nail on the head. A strong read, but not necessarily an enjoyable one – a very impressive novel.
My suspicion is that the split release (2016 in the UK, 2017 in the US) rather messed with its chances though.
@Mark
Yeah, I think both the not-a-book-you-like thing and the release date thing hurt its chances.
Similarly, I think Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance was hurt by originally appearing in an anthology – it didn’t get an interwebs publication until 2018. I really picked ‘em this year. 🙂
@Meredith: That is the first review of The Power that makes me actively want to read it. It sounded interesting enough before; now I’m looking for it.
@John A Arkansawyer
I’d normally say I hope you enjoy it, but in this case I think I’d better say that I hope you find it interesting. 🙂
@Meredith: Interesting is good! I’m not expecting a laff riot. A riot, probably.
@Meredith
“Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance” is a great story and would have been a most worthy nominee. It was definitely on my longlist, though I can’t remember without looking it up whether it was on my shortlist as well. Ditto for The Power. It wasn’t one of my nominees, but I would have vastly preferred it to the very underwhelming Scalzi and the KSR, whose work just doesn’t do it for me.
Novelette is great this year, though. And novella has three great finalists, one that’s okay, but doesn’t knock my socks of, one that’s the sequel to a novella I didn’t care for and one that I keep forgetting as I’ve read it. There’s always at least one Hugo finalist like that every year, a story that I forget as soon as I’ve read it and have to ask myself “What was that one again?”, when it comes to voting.
I have no idea about Caroline M. Yoachim’s background, though I have read other stories by her that I liked. “Carnival Nine” strikes me as well intended, but saddled with all sorts of unpleasant messages that are probably unintentional. I’m actually surprised that neither the author herself nor the editor picked up on those messages and said, “Wait a minute, what is this story actually saying and is this what we want to say?”, especially since so many of us here picked up the subtext.
@Cora
I spent a good couple of weeks kicking myself for nominating The Collapsing Empire – which I enjoyed, but there are better books – books with endings! – published in 2017 – until I got around to looking back at my nominations and discovered that I had in fact recognised this beforehand and refrained from nominating it. Not sure what particularly sneaky brainweasel convinced me otherwise, but I’m very relieved that I didn’t fall into the previously-enjoyed-author trap I thought I’d fallen into. I haven’t read the KSR yet.
Novella… I’d say I loved two, enjoyed three (Binti pending). I ranked the two I loved according to buzz: I put the one with the most buzz second. Unfortunately Novelette has no such runaway hit for me to use as a tie-breaker. 🙂 Which were your great novellas?
Carnival Nine: The messages it has are ones that are widely, if not always consciously, accepted. I’m unhappy to see those messages in the Hugos but I’m not really surprised about the disability ones; the women’s work thing not getting caught by an editor is a bit more mysterious. Still quite deeply angry that the spoon theory was appropriated for a story about how disabled people are a near-unbearable and constant burden.
@Meredith
As I said over at Camestros’ blog, “Murder-Bot, Murder Sarahs and Murder Hippos” I liked Binti: Home all right, don’t much care for the Wayward Children books and Black Tides of Heaven seems to fall right into a black memory hole for me.
Cora: Black Tides of Heaven seems to fall right into a black memory hole for me
I had the same thing happen with that one. I think it was due to the large gaps of years in the story, and not feeling as if I really got to know any of the characters.
@Lis Carey
I agree.
@Meredith
I agree. In fact, I didn’t read The Stone Sky until after the shortlist came out in part because I knew that inertia for the series would result in it being on the shortlist. IMHO, the same sort of inertia put The Collapsing Empire on the short list.
FWIW, The Stone Sky is on the top of my ballot. The Collapsing Empire, while enjoyable, ended up below no award.
While I do not put extra effort into reading current year books, I do feel that all of my nominees for this year would have compared favorably alongside most of this year’s shortlist. I’d have a hard time separating The Core, Tyrant’s Throne, and The Stone Sky due to my experiences with the first two series.
All Good Things – Emma Newman – Diversion Books
The Core – Peter V. Brett – Del Rey
Tyrant’s Throne – Sebastien de Castell – Jo Fletcher Books
Wizard’s Sun Rising – Damien Black – Amazon Digital Services LLC**
**Caution on this one for those that have issues with depictions of rape.
Perhaps a couple of these might have improved your opinion of 2017?
———
I work at…and periodically fail…avoiding the sort of broad brush that Ms. Jemisin (and others) use/used. So I’m not perfect.
At the same time, it makes it harder for me to oppose the “Tor rigs the awards” (and other variations) arguments when the “puppies only support bad stuff” meme is still floating around. Pointing out specific individuals and specific works is fine. As we have all observed, works naturally impact individuals differently. Broad brush version of “all the stuff they ‘like’ is trash” is counterproductive.
Regards,
Dann
A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright. – The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
Dann; it makes it harder for me to oppose the “Tor rigs the awards” (and other variations) arguments when the “puppies only support bad stuff” meme is still floating around.
I don’t know why it would make that more difficult for you. The two things have nothing to do with each other. It sounds to me as though you’re just looking for an excuse to repeat that ridiculous Tor conspiracy theory. 🙄
JJ: No, this is just another page in the Arguments of the Internet playbook — where “I have to pretend to believe something stupid to model for you what it looks like to believe the stupid thing you advocate.” Which Dann has done so well I just had a lightning-like moment of satori forcing me to reverse my opinion and admit that all the stories on the Rabid Puppies slate were really amazing works of art. Not.
Mike Glyer: forcing me to reverse my opinion and admit that all the stories on the Rabid Puppies slate were really amazing works of art. Not.
Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? I’m perfectly willing to grant that Puppies may like works which are good reading — but the stuff that they put on their slates doesn’t support that idea. And given how vocally they defended the works on their slates, which ranged from mediocre to execrable, why would I be willing to give anything else they suggest a try, unless it’s also suggested by someone who’s actually previously demonstrated some good taste?
The biggest tell for me was that Puppies weren’t able to say why the works they nominated onto the ballot were any good.
I mean, some or any of the preceding put forth as an argument in support of what they thought worthwhile would have been at least *something*. But that didn’t happen, so I concluded that they either hadn’t read the works they nominated or they nominated them even though they weren’t any good…
I still believe that what happened in the three short-fiction categories was that Torgersen failed to realize what a huge project it was to get it right, and rather than just abandon those categories and focus on best novel, he (probably together with Larry and Vox) put together a list off the top of their heads. (Or, in Vox’s case, off the top of his list of things he himself sold.) When the other two balked at padding out the lists with Vox’s stories, he broke off and created his own group. (I can’t prove this, but I like how it explains the actual results.)
I do know that Brad called at least one author and said, “We need one more story by a woman; which of yours would you suggest?” As she told me, it was kind of hard to believe it was about the quality of the stories after that.
In the end, I don’t think the Puppy lists ever reflected even the works the puppies themselves would have chosen, had they had the time. Not because they just loved crap, but because they were in a rush to produce something after they realized plan A (ask all puppies to nominate their favorites) wasn’t going to work. I’m sure Brad thought few or none of these would get on the ballot anyway. (The belief that your efforts are futile really reduces the amount of time you’ll put in.) If he’d known that all of Fandom would be reading those works and saying, “This is what Torgersen thinks deserves awards?!” I suspect he’d have either done something else or else dropped those categories entirely.
Greg Hullender: Well, sure, that’s what was lacking, more retconned explanations that make Brad Torgersen’s lack of integrity sound like just a poor guy pressed for time.
@Cora & JJ
Murder-Bot and Murder-Sarahs are my greats (not in that order: see buzz comment). I shifted Murder-Hippos down a bit since as much as I really, really liked it (and I did!) I didn’t think it quite matched up to the other two.
I made the mistake of reading Black Tides and Red Threads back-to-back and I keep having to check which one is which when I’m revising my rankings. *checks for the 27th time* I liked Red Threads more, to be honest. More of a complete, single story, less disjointed. More of a plot. I don’t think I like time jumps much in the shorter fiction categories. I wasn’t thrilled by it in Down Among the Sticks and Bones, either. (I’m betting there’ll be an exception next year that I’ll rave about now I’ve typed it on the internet.)
@Dann
Those are all mid-series works, and like I said, I prefer works that stand on their own two feet when I’m looking to nominate. It isn’t that mid-series works can’t work for me as Hugo finalists – I have few quibbles with Leckie’s Provenance or Bujold’s numerous mid-series nominations – but I really prefer them to bring something new and exciting to the party (new ideas, specifically, not just plot- or character-developments) and also to be reasonably self-contained, and most mid-series works don’t and aren’t intended to be. Best Series works better than Novel for those; my eternal grumbling over the category aside, that’s what it’s for.
Re: Tor, their Best Novel finalist numbers.
2018: One
2017: Three
2016: Zero
2015: Three (one a Puppy finalist and one adopted by the Rabid Puppies during the voting stage)
2014: One
2013: One
2012: One
2011: Zero
2010: Two
We saw the results of the Puppy slates. We know what rigging looks like. This ain’t it.
@Mike Glyer
Grin. Obviously it was something he shouldn’t have been doing at all. However, I think it’s reasonable to ask, “given his goals, how did he fuck it up so badly?” That’s all I’m exploring here.
Oh, I’m also trying to say that calling the SP3 nominees “trash” doesn’t really amount to saying that anything conservatives like is trash. I don’t think the slate actually represented what conservatives like.
@JJ
When I’ve talked to Puppies in person, I’ve usually been able to get them to admit that most of the short-fiction nominees in 2015 were a mistake. You can’t get that from them online, I think, because they’re afraid of being attacked by their own side, but in one-on-one conversations, I’ve found people pretty willing to concede that point.
That still doesn’t mean you’d want to read their recommendations, of course. It just means that things aren’t quite as bad as they appear. If they really did think most of those works were award-worthy, we’d be talking about entirely alien mindsets, and there’d be no hope of any reconciliation ever.
@Greg
But we know how Brad put the majority of his slate together, he asked supporters for recs, rejected some he didn’t like, and jammed in some extras to suit himself. You don’t need to speculate.