Pixel Scroll 6/24/16 Porcupine Tree’s Yellow Pixel Dreamscroll

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(1) BREXIT. J. K. Rowling’s response to the Brexit voting reports was –

“Death Eaters are everywhere,” said Micheline Hess.

(2) BRIXIT. Caption: “Live scenes from the Channel tunnel.”

http://i.imgur.com/izkGkPB.jpg

(3) BEAT THE RUSH. Buzzfeed found “19 People Who Are Moving To Australia Now That Britain Is Leaving Europe”. One of them is ours.

  1. This person who was so prepared to move to Australia that they already did it.

(4) AUF WIEDERSEHEN. So who’s cheering the outcome? Vox Day, naturally: “England and Wales choose freedom”.

The Fourth Reich is rejected by a narrow margin, 52 percent to 48 percent, thanks to the actual British people, who outvoted the invaders, the traitors, the sell-outs, and the Scots….

(5) IMPORT DUTY. And Marko Kloos has his joke ready.

https://twitter.com/markokloos/status/746346705054990336

(6) THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE. Darth Vader will be back in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and James Earl Jones will be back as Darth’s voice.

The original Sith Lord is back. A new cover story from Entertainment Weekly confirms plenty of details for this winter’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but there’s one long-rumored detail that’s sure to have fans breathing heavily: Darth Vader will return in the new film.

It only makes sense that Anakin Skywalker would once again plague the Rebellion in Rogue One. The plot of the film sees a band of ragtag Rebel fighters tracking down plans for the Death Star from the original Star Wars trilogy. The planet-sized weapon was Vader’s pet project, so seeing him again isn’t a total surprise. Still, it’s nice to finally have the information 100% locked in after months of speculation.

Update: It gets better. EW has also confirmed that James Earl Jones will be returning to voice Vader in Rogue One. Jones reprised the role for the animated Star Wars Rebels recently, but this will mark a big return to the silver screen. However, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy cautioned fans not to expect Vader to be a prominent presence in Rogue One. “He will be in the movie sparingly. But at a key, strategic moment, he’s going to loom large.” Well, he only had 12 minutes of screen time in the original Star Wars, and look how that turned out.

(7) PAT CADIGAN UPDATE. Yesterday Pat Cadigan told about a great doctor’s report in “Yeah, Cancer––Keep Running, You Little B!tch”.

My oncologist was smiling broadly  even before she called my name.

The level of cancer in my body has fallen again, this time very slightly. The rest of my tests are perfect. Unquote; she said perfect. She also likes my I’m Making Cancer My B!tch t-shirt. I am killing this cancer thing.

Maybe people’s reaction was too effusive. Pat thought they got the wrong idea, so today she wrote, “I Think I Have To Clarify Something”.

Which is to say, I still have cancer, and unless something miraculous happens, I will always have cancer. Recurrent endometrial cancer (aka recurrent uterine cancer) is inoperable, incurable, and terminal. There are something like four different forms (I think it’s four) and I have the one with the worst prognosis.

However, it is treatable. My cancer cells have progesterone receptors, which means that doses of progesterone can keep it stabilised at a low level. For how long? Impossible to say. Could be months. Could be a few years. Could be more than a few years. Nobody knows…just like someone without cancer. Technically, I’m still terminal but now the more accurate term would be incurable. My own preference is incorrigible.

(8) HE SAYS GIVE THANKS. Peter David has this take on the Star Trek fan film guidelines.

So thanks mostly to the efforts of the “Axanar” people, the guys who raised a million bucks to produce a “Star Trek” based film which resulted in a lawsuit, Paramount has now issued specific guidelines for anyone who wants to make a Trek fan film. And naturally fans are unhappy about it.

My response?

You guys are damned lucky.

When I was producing a “Star Trek” fanzine back in the 1970s, Paramount issued a decree: No one could write “Star Trek” fanfic. It was copyright infringement, plain and simple, and not to be allowed. At one convention I attended, Paramount lawyers actually came into the dealer’s room and confiscated peoples’ fanzines from right off their tables.

The fact that they loosened up to the degree that they have should be something fan filmmakers should feel damned grateful for….

(9) MEANWHILE CAPTAIN KIRK IS OUT OF WORK. At the Saturn Awards, William Shatner told a reporter he’s up for it.

Shatner, 85, spoke to reporters at the Saturn Awards in Los Angeles, and confirmed that he will not appear in “Star Trek Beyond,” according to the Belfast Telegraph.

But when asked about future movies, the actor was willing.

“We’d all be open to it, but it’s not going to happen,” he said. “”The fans would love to see it. Have them write to [‘Star Trek Beyond’ producer] J.J. Abrams at Paramount Studios.”

(10) COMIC BOOK ART. M.D. Jackson continues answering “Why Was Early Comic Book Art so Crude? (Part 3)” at Amazing Stories. By now, things are looking up –

[At Marvel] The artists excelled at creating dynamic panels. More than just men in tights who beat up bad guys, the Marvel heroes had depth and the art reflected that. Unusual angles and lighting effects were explored and the character’s expressions had to relay the complex emotions they were feeling (even when they were wearing a mask).

(11) WHERE THE BOYS ARE. Vox Day saw the Yahoo! Movies post about the Moana trailer disguising that it’s a princess movie (guess where?) and made a trenchant comment in “The Disney bait-and-switch” at Vox Popoli.

Boys don’t want to see movies about princesses. Boys don’t want to read books about romances either. But rather than simply making movies that boys want to see and publishing books that boys want to read, the SJWs in Hollywood and in publishing think that the secret to success is making princess movies and publishing romances, then deceiving everyone as to the content.

(12) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • June 24, 1997 — The U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier.

(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • June 24, 1947 – Peter Weller, of Buckaroo Banzai fame.

(14) TODAY’S TRIVIA

  • Bela Lugosi’s appearance in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) would be only the second time he appeared as Dracula on screen. It would also be his last time to do so.

(15) BY JOVE, I THINK THEY’VE GOT IT.

(16) RULES OF THE ROAD. Alexandra Erin, in “The Internet Is Not Your Global Village”, experiments with a solution to a chronic shortcoming of social media.

Now, I don’t have a detailed set of guidelines or proposed social mores for interacting with people online to go with this observation. I can tell you this: the ones we use for offline interactions don’t work, and any proposed rule needs to take into account the vast differences between online interactions and offline ones.

So let’s take a quick stab at formulating some….

You Having Something To Say Is Not The Same As Me Having Something To Hear

If you and I are having a conversation and what I say sparks some kind of personal connection with you, then by all means, you take that tangent and you run with it. I mean, there are nuances and shades… if I’m talking about the time my true love got caught in a bear trap along with a bear who mauled them to death while a swarm of bees enraged by the bear stealing honey stung them both, further aggravating the bear, and you say, “Yeah, speaking of pain, that reminds me of the time I got a paper cut. Hurt like anything, it did!”… well, I think most people would say that’s a bit boorish.

But if we’re just talking, and I mention a frustration and you’re like, “I know what that’s like, [similar experience]”… that’s a conversation.

(17) TESTING FOR TWANG. When an author decides to have nasal surgery, it’s always nice to have it reviewed in full multimedia fashion as Mary Robinette Kowal does in “What do I sound like after surgery? Like this…”

I’ve been very pleased that I still look like myself. The swelling will keep going down, albeit more slowly. The big question though is… what do I sound like? As an audiobook narrator, this was one of the things I was worried about since mucking about with the nose and sinuses can change resonance.

So, here, for your amusement, are four recordings of me reading the same piece of text….

(18) ANIME NEXT. Petréa Mitchell brings the harvest home early with her “Summer 2016 Anime Preview” at Amazing Stories.

Just when you’re all settled into the routine of one anime season, it’s time for another! Here’s what the sf world will get to see from the anime world in July.

(19) FRANK OR VITRIOLIC? the Little Red Reviewer asks a question to begin “On writing negative reviews” —

Hey blogger buddies – do you write negative reviews? And what I mean by a negative review isn’t “this book sucks”, it’s “this book didn’t work for me and let me tell you why”. A well written negative review tells you just as much information about the book about a positive review. When I write critical / negative reviews, it’s mostly to talk about why I bounced off a book, or why I though the book was problematic. Oftentimes, it’s a book that the majority of readers really enjoyed, perhaps the book even won a ton of awards, but really, really didn’t work for me. Any of my friends will tell you I’m not the kind of person to sugar coat. If I think something didn’t work on some level, I’m going to say so. If I was offended by something, or thought it was boring, or thought the POV switches weren’t clear, I’m going to say so. If a book made me, personally, feel like the world of that book is not a world I would be welcome in, I’m going to say that too.

I do not write negative reviews to dig at an author, or to convince others not to read that author’s books…

(20) SHOULD WE? Krysta at Pages Unbound Reviews asks “Why Aren’t We Talking about Religious Diversity?”

However, religious diversity is regularly glossed over in discussions of representations or is regularly dismissed by those who find a character of faith to be “too preachy” or don’t want religion “shoved down their throats.”  This attitude does a disservice to the many people of faith throughout the world who would also like to see themselves reflected in characters in books.  It assumes that the presence of an individual of faith is, by nature, overbearing, unwelcome, and oppressive–that is, apparently an individual is allowed to have a faith as long as no one else has the misfortune of knowing about it.

However, despite the lack of characters of faith in modern and mainstream literature, a majority of the world identifies with some form of religion.  The Pew Research Group in 2010 determined that 16.3% of respondents were not affiliated with any sort of religion.  The other ~83% identified with a religious group.  That is, in any group of ten people, you could theoretically assume eight were religious.  And yet religion remains absent in most YA and MG books.

But, for many individuals, religion is more than an abstract belief in a higher deity.  Religion is something that affects one’s philosophy, one’s actions, one’s daily life.

(21) MAYBE A LITTLE AFRAID. Yahoo! Movies describes the Ghostbusters theme remake.

Paul Feig’s reboot of Ghostbusters gives everything a full redo — including, it turns out, the classic, catchy, campy theme song by Ray Parker Jr. The theme song as revamped by Fall Out Boy with Missy Elliott, released this morning (hear it above), abandons the bright pop past in favor of a darker guitar-heavy dose of alternative/mid-2000s emo angst. Be prepared to hear this song in various Hot Topics for the next couple of weeks/months/years.

 

(22) THE MYSTERIOUS EAST. A surprising objective of Russian technological research? The BBC explains in “Beam me up, Prime Minister”.

A popular Russian paper said that a governmental working group was meeting up to discuss the national technological development programme. The programme envisages, among other things, that by 2035 Russia will develop its own programming language, secure communications systems and… teleportation.

For the initial stage of the programme development, 2016-18, the agency responsible is seeking about 10bn roubles (£100m) in financing.

There was an online reaction to this bold statement. Russian internet users reacted in all kinds of different ways, from disbelief, to amazement to sarcasm.

…In another typical comment, popular user “Dyadyushka Shu” joked about money being “teleported” away from Russia: “Experiments in teleportation have been going on in Russia for a long time – billions of dollars have already been successfully teleported to Panama offshores.”

Spoiler Warning: Chip Hitchcock explains, “Really only at the quantum level, but handled so clumsily that the satirists had a field day.”

(23) QUEASINE. Is this what Death Eaters snack on?

[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, and Dave Doering for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Simon Bisson.]

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208 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 6/24/16 Porcupine Tree’s Yellow Pixel Dreamscroll”

  2. First??

    Yeah, the Brexit debacle has really released Mr Beale’s id. He is just one nasty human being.

  3. Now VD is explaining to Disney how to advertise?

    Is it too soon to vote for a Voxite? At least here on File 770?

    I know, I know, he’ll declare a victory and salt my farmlands or some damn thing, but…

  5. Remember how hard it was to get boys to see “Sleeping Beauty?” And who among us but the ladies have ever been exposed to more than a frame or two of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?”

    ETA: I suspect that any drop in viewers of recent Disney movies has something to do with the difference in quality between the aforementioned films and current releases.

    EATA: First Fifth!

  6. 21) That song is not to my tastes. Perhaps I am now old.

    23) Fried mac and cheese is pretty good ….. I don’t think I trust burger king to make it.

  7. Considering that Disney’s made a lot of $$$ making films about princesses, starting back in 1937 through to now (and is worth a good deal more than the “empire” VD has forged link by link with his own scabrous paws) somehow, I doubt that The Mouse needs advice from him regarding their market and how to best target that market.

  8. @snodberry fields

    A few years back a friend says (with great enthusiasm):

    ‘You’ve got to hear the new Limp Bizkit song!!!’

    *PLAYS – Behind Blue Eyes*

    Says I: ‘Not bad but the original was better”‘

    Says They: ‘Original?!? That’s a new song!’

    Me: ‘Naw, it’s a cover. Umm, you know – The Who’

    Them: ‘The Who???’

    (Insert Abbot and Costello routine here)

  9. I’m not following this if-Vox-is-agin’-it-I’m-for-it logic. It’s a Disney “princess movie” where a non-title, male character is getting all the play in the teaser trailer. Why is that all right? (Also remember, I ran this item the other day, before Vox ever saw it.)

  10. Hey, my children’s book line, Hamster Princess (book three, Ratpunzel, out in October!) has Princess right on the cover–IN PINK GLITTER, MIGHT I ADD–and we’re still selling it to boys!

    Of course, I suckered ’em in with the whole previous series about dragons, and now the poor innocent little lambs are reading a story about a girl hamster with a sword and a battlequail. And Texas bought a copy for every kid in public school in second or third grade!* God knows what it’s doing to their testosterone levels. I anticipate an entire generation holding hands, singing Kumbaya, and taking up gardening, because, y’know, pink glitter has that effect. That’s just science.

    *puts feet up*

    *Technically this is because it was up for a Bluebonnet Award, and they do that, which I appreciate because it earns out my advance nicely, but I like the notion of Manly Man heads exploding because Texas and glitter.

  11. I’m going on the whole “Boys don’t want to watch princess movies, so Disney is disguising it as an adventure” thing VD is saying. Disney isn’t disguising that this is a princess movie in order to appeal to boys. The Mouse is “deceiving” no one.

    The Mouse has Maui front and center in the trailer for the same reason that Dwayne Johnson receives prominent billing-he’s the star of the film and his name will sell more tickets and generate more buzz. Moana is the title of the film because she’s the central character, but an unknown actress will not generate as much publicity.

    Robin Williams had a supporting role as the Genie in Aladdin, but the character of the Genie is very prominent in the original 1992 theatrical trailer. That’s a non-titular character. Was Disney misleading people there as well?

    Disney is marketing its film-and knows far better what it’s doing than VD does.

  12. @Mike Glyer

    I’m not following this if-Vox-is-agin’-it-I’m-for-it logic. It’s a Disney “princess movie” where a non-title, male character is getting all the play in the teaser trailer. Why is that all right?

    Clarifying my previous comments: It looks to me like Disney is blaming the wrong thing for possibly flagging attendance of their latest movies. They are doing what VD is claiming they’re doing – sweeping the princess under the rug in an attempt to appeal to some other audience. But he, and they, are wrong in their thinking that boys don’t like movies about princesses. I got sick of Disney-bashing years ago. VD is still actively attacking things I like in a very obnoxious manner. Disney, on the other hand, is a mindless corporation.

    ETA: Yeah, and what Robert Reynolds said.

  13. It’s a Disney “princess movie” where a non-title, male character is getting all the play in the teaser trailer.

    At least this character isn’t as annoying as the last one – I missed seeing Frozen in theatres because Olaf was such a turnoff.

  14. Camestros Felaptron: l I would put in so many votes for you if you entered Eurovision for Australia (and I was back in England when it happened)!! Doooo it. And let me know if you need any staging advice – I watch it every year and I think I’m getting preeeetty good at working out what looks cool to the average Eurovision fan.

    Not much else to say. I’m still reeling from the vote, and very much feeling the sting of having an older generation rally behind a decision that could severely restrict my future opportunities to live and work abroad. Even among pro leave voters, I don’t think many people are really going to get what they want from this :c

  16. @RedWombat

    Hey, my children’s book line, Hamster Princess (book three, Ratpunzel, out in October!) has Princess right on the cover–IN PINK GLITTER, MIGHT I ADD–and we’re still selling it to boys!…
    And Texas bought a copy for every kid in public school in second or third grade!*

    Good for you 🙂 Smarter than Disney.

    Disney needs to relook at their problem and see if it might be bad trailers, badly done movies, too much pink, giving their princesses an overhaul and let them have some character instead of so much sameness, and not blame their problems on boys don’t watch girls. Foolish and outdated marketing beliefs are not going to solve their problems. Hiding the princesses in their trailers is likely to turn off girls and not pull in the boys because the movie is still a princess movie. Why are they ignoring all the talk about diversity and representation… Or do they think their listening by focusing on the boys? If so, Oh Disney, No.

  17. I’ll add that in Frozen, I too was majorly turned off by Olaf in the trailers and it wasn’t until everybody on earth said “OMG NO REALLY GO SEE IT” that I went.

  18. Good for you ? Smarter than Disney

    (Sorry for serial reply, saw after posting)

    Honestly, it was dumb luck. Marketing changed the interior color scheme from pink to blue, supposedly to appeal to boys, even though I was yelling “it’s got Princess in the title! Boys who won’t read girly books are long gone! Own the pink!”

    But somehow the cover went through in pink and purple glitter, thank god, and my art designer saved the day as far as I’m concerned.

  19. Well, as Shannon Hale well knows, too many people seem to think that boys won’t read books featuring princesses. It’s unfortunate when adults assume what children will and won’t read. The same goes for assuming that boys won’t watch a movie featuring a princess and that girls naturally crave princess stories.

  20. 4) If Vox really hates the EU so much, then why is he even living here? Why doesn’t he just leave and leg it back to the US? Oh right, because he can’t.

  21. Anyone remember that trailer that made it seem like Brian Cranston would be a big deal in Godzilla but then his character died at the end of the first act? Or a trailer for a foreign language film that mysteriously doesn’t contain any dialogue? Or the trailer for Batman v Superman that made the film look enjoyable?

    Actually, I don’t remember that last one either, but the point still holds. Trailers are advertising. Advertising is a bunch of lies and half truths. It’d be nice if it wasn’t, but here we are.

    PS – Boys don’t like ‘princess’ movies, but My Little Pony is… what? Masculine entertainment in the high pulp tradition, I guess?

  22. (4) AUF WIEDERSEHEN I wish I were confident that VD would be equally enthusiastic about a country rejecting an ACTUAL Fourth Reich.

  23. @BGHilton

    but My Little Pony is… what? Masculine entertainment in the high pulp tradition, I guess?

    (With apologies to Robert E. Howard:)

    “It was so long ago and far away
    I have forgotten the very name mares called me.
    The flank and cutie mark are like a dream,
    And quests and galas are like shadows. I recall
    Only the stillness of that sombre land;
    The clouds that piled forever on the hills,
    The dimness of the everlasting woods.
    Equestria, land of Darkness and the Night.”

  24. (20) Religious Diversity

    Even if one does not count the more ostentatious uses of religion (e.g. in Charles Stross’ Laundry novels, or the Cthulhu worshippers in Lovecraft Country), it does not seem all that hard to find religious characters. To name a few off the top of my head (and I’m atheist and not seeking out religious characters specifically):

    Breq, in the Ancillary… series. And for that matter, Leckie’s She Commands Me And I Obey also features religious characters, though not a religion of peace by any stretch of the imagination.

    Maia in The Goblin Emperor.

    Abelard in Three Parts Dead.

  25. @microtherion
    In the comments it’s concluded that religion shows up more in fantasy than elsewhere. I’d disagree with their conclusion as I find many, many books have Christian themes throughout them. My husband laughs at my grumbling complaints about the not so subtle Christianity I find in so many novels across genre. He and most of my friends don’t see it either because it somewhat matches their beliefs or they’ve been insulated inside their own religion if it’s not spelled out it goes over their head.

  26. (2) Hee. But doesn’t Thomas live on a feudal island where the old are cast off? (*cough*England*cough*) I read a great deconstruction of TTTE somewhere to that effect.

    (3) Slowly but surely, Camestros takes over the web. I hope he remembers us little Filers. Also, Brits: consider Canada. Very few killer animals, closer to the rest of the world, and hawt PM.

    (4) Another day, another thing for Teddy to be utterly, completely wrong about!

    I personally am looking forward to Scotland becoming independent and rejoining the EU, which should be pretty soon.

    The Empire is long gone, old people; you’re living on part of an island with lousy weather and few natural resources. Enjoy having your NHS cut further, no one to do the dirty work, and all that. I hope Jo Cox haunts each and every one of you.

    (6) Excellent.

    (7) Also excellent.

    (8) I remember those days — they went into the early 80’s. Even the new guidelines are way, way better.

    (11) So glad File 770 is here to keep Teddums informed of things. He probably spends more time here than most of the regulars. TWO things he can be utterly wrong about in one day!

    I’mma have to tell all the men I know/knew that they didn’t like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc. This is gonna come as a big shock to the guy who ended up in the NFL, even playing in the Super Bowl and many Pro Bowls. I’ll let him tell his son, currently in the NFL. Geez, then I gotta tell my friend the Army Ranger he didn’t like any of those movies either, but it’ll have to wait till he gets back from his umpteenth trip into the mountains of Afghanistan. Also gonna need a medium to deliver the message to my dad, who was in the Battle of the Bulge and took some Nazi shrapnel in his leg to his grave (And of course, all those horribly put-upon Texas kids, suffering from Oor Wombat’s delightful art and thoughtful writing).

    (16) True, and well put.

    (19) I write bad reviews all the time, and I check them out first on Amazon, etc. They generally are much more informative than the 5-star OMG BOOK IS SO GOOD! They analyze what’s right and wrong about the book, instead of just speaking in generalities. Thoughtful 1 and 2 star reviews have saved me a lot of money and time. TL;DR: What the blogger said.

    (20) Religion could be handled well in books, but it isn’t. This blogger needs to get down on her fellow theists to NOT make it preachy and shove it down people’s throats, because that’s about 90% of the religious content in books. Particularly in YA, hoo boy. A story starts off as SF or fantasy and then BAM Jesus err’where. And none of those writers are CS Lewis quality. A subtler touch is always good. Make sure it’s not a Chick tract in disguise.

    Jan Karon’s Mitford books are about an Episcopal priest and his flock (and the town), but the stories are entertaining and the characters act like real people instead of screeching to a halt to deliver sermons the same way Ayn Rand characters deliver pages of selfish bullshit.

    Ms. Marvel spends her time out there saving the world and going to high school, not praising Allah. MCU movie-Cap is quite obviously a Christian (“There’s only one God, ma’am, and He doesn’t dress like that.”) and that informs his ethics and behavior — but he doesn’t go around trying to drag Tony and Natasha to church.

    And it’s not like Christians are being persecuted in the US anyway, unlike Muslims, PoC, LGBTQ, etc. (LSMFT, EIEIO… help!)

    Also? Catholics ARE Christians. They’re OG Christians. Same with Eastern Orthodox. Mote and beam, author lady!

    (23) And speaking of religion: that stuff must be from Satan.

  27. @Tasha Turner

    In the comments it’s concluded that religion shows up more in fantasy than elsewhere.

    I suppose I would agree with that, though Neptune’s Brood does feature religion, and, come to think of it, so does Too Like The Lightning.

    I’d disagree with their conclusion as I find many, many books have Christian themes throughout them.

    Interesting! Can you give some SFish examples? Would you say that (apart from Mel Brooks), there are no comparable Jewish themes in SF?

  28. Boys don’t want to read books about romances either.

    No, boys who want to read romances get beat up and made fun of for being gay until they learn not to do it. At least not in public. Boys in many other cultures aren’t indoctrinated into this way of thinking and enjoy romances just fine. I mean, right this instant on my to-read pile I have the following manga:

    Horimiya
    Your Lie in April
    Golden Time
    Evergreen
    Citrus

    Every last one of those is a romance series, and yet they all run in magazines aimed at boys, often appearing right next to action-adventure series.

  29. Remember how hard it was to get boys to see “Sleeping Beauty?” And who among us but the ladies have ever been exposed to more than a frame or two of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?”

    The only reason I ever saw those was because teachers always got lazy in the last week before Christmas or summer vacation and made the whole class watch them. I’ve never seen any Disney cartoon made after I got to high school. Not because I have anything against princesses (well, as a staunch anti-monarchist I do, but not because of their gender), but because I found the films to be insipid trash that left me rooting for the villains.

    The only Disney cartoons I ever enjoyed were the ones involving ducks and bears.

  30. “Sleeping Beauty” had some awesome, dark imagery.

    The Hyperion series by Dan Simmons had some Jewish themes. Kinda introduced me to the Jewish, more dialectic, relationship with God vs the Christian one I grew up with.

  31. (4) Not to rain on Beale’s parade, but Scots are “actual British people”. They aren’t English, but since they live on Great Britain, they are British.

  33. As a non-Hawai’ian from Hawai’i, I am very much looking forward to Moana and all that bright blue digital water (as well as a mythos that tends to get totally ignored by major media). I can’t really comment on Disney’s decision to showcase the big name star as opposed to the new discovery other than to say animated tattoos are pretty darn cool.

    It might be a princess film, named after the main character (who is named after the ocean), but it’s also a superhero film since before there was a Clark Kent, Maui was the Hawai’ian superman (cite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDuGWr0-MUA).

  34. microtherion: Would you say that (apart from Mel Brooks), there are no comparable Jewish themes in SF?

    On the contrary, there are many examples of that, by no means limited to the stories in Jack Dann’s Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction (1974) and More Wandering Stars (1981), a good place to start.

  35. @Mike Glyer: “Jack Dann’s Wandering Stars: An Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction (1974)”

    Is that the one that has ‘On Venus, Do We Have a Rabbi?” in it?

  36. Jan Karon’s Mitford books are about an Episcopal priest and his flock (and the town), but the stories are entertaining and the characters act like real people instead of screeching to a halt to deliver sermons the same way Ayn Rand characters deliver pages of selfish bullshit

    Aaaaugh, lurkertype, hate to disagree, but Jesus, I nearly pitched the first Mitford book out a window. I finally realized that I apparently had a major disagreement with the author re: prayer–I think prayer is a perfectly nice icing on the hard-work cake, and the author apparently thinks prayer counts as doing something all by itself. So I thought that a priest who did nothing but pray and have other people actually do all the work was a reprehensibly passive character–his DOG get stolen by crackheads and he PRAYS and that’s it. Doesn’t even put up freakin’ flyers! And his huge crisis point is about taking a vacation! Gaaaaaaahhhhh!

    …ahem.

    Meanwhile, I loved Brother Cadfael because he comes across as entirely sincere in his faith, and he still gets to solve murders. The way he speaks about “the little Saint” in the first book is touching and…I dunno, it feels like a real person. And if HIS dog got kidnapped, the kidnappers would wind up in the stocks. Or tending lepers. And they’d be glad to do it, too.

    I fully acknowledge that this may come down to the issue of prayer as action or not, but man, on the other side of that divide, it made me want to punch the Mitford hero. And I was raised Catholic and I’m pretty sure that if I punched a priest, my grandmother would return from the grave and call blessed Saint Anthony down on my head.

  37. Wow, RedWombat, are you allowed to talk about Mitford novels that way without endangering your North Carolina citizenship?

  38. BGHilton: Is that the one that has ‘On Venus, Do We Have a Rabbi?” in it?

    Yes, it’s one of the stories in Wandering Stars.

  39. Oh, Aaron, there you go using facts against Teddy again. You know how he hates it when people use objectively verifiable facts.

    And why DOES he live in the dreaded EU if he hates it so much? We know he can’t live in America unless it’s at the ol’ gray bar hotel, but there are a whole bunch of other countries, some of ’em even in Europe but not EU. Like Switzerland! Very slow on women’s suffrage, plenty of guns, all in favor of tax evasion, and no minarets allowed!

  40. @lurkertype

    Like Switzerland! Very slow on women’s suffrage, plenty of guns, all in favor of tax evasion, and no minarets allowed!

    All true, unfortunately, but we have laws against racist speech, and occasionally enforce them.

  41. @RedWombat: I said characters, not the main character. 😉 Fr. Tim is a huge dip, no question about it. He gets better later on, after exposure to lots of practical people, esp. the future Mrs. But he remains a dork. The rest of the townsfolk are pretty sensible, showing that you need plenty of work, rolling up their sleeves, tending to business. I mean, really, God’s got better things to do than guide dogs home and run the altar guild. Not relying only on prayer is kinda the point of the books, which is so refreshing. (But you remind me, I need to put my grandma’s St. Christopher medal in the car we’re using now. Hangs next to my R2-D2.)

    I have a hardback of “Wandering Stars” but have never gotten the follow-up. And “On Venus, Have We Got A Rabbi” is a great story.

    What really annoys me are people who read “Christian” (actually Evangelical/Born-Again) mysteries who complain if there’s a cuss word or sex entirely off-screen, yet they don’t mind reading all about serial killers, kidnapped children, and serial killers of kidnapped children. Like someone saying “damn” is going to ruin your soul more than contemplating the gory details of evil murders. But they think that’s a-OK as long as the story screeches to a halt repeatedly for preaching! I’d really like to find more historical novels and historical romances that aren’t thinly or not at all disguised Christian self-congratulations; the ones set in ancient Jewish times where the characters relate to YHWH just like evangelicals talk about Jesus are particularly offensive. Some decent pagan Romans would be neat too.

  43. Regarding religion, there is, of course, Marie Brennan’s excellent series which started with A Natural History of Dragons.

    Her Victorian England-expy, Scirland, has the national religion playing a prominent role in the proceedings, complete with dealing with enthusiastic vs nearly agnostic adherents and countries with other conflicting versions. It isn’t until you’re into the series a bit that you realize it isn’t an Anglican Christian-expy, but rather pretty much Reform Judaism with the serial number barely scraped off.

  44. Boys don’t want to see movies about princesses. Boys don’t want to read books about romances either

    No boy in history has ever, ever, ever watched the Princess Bride – and I certainly have not viewed it multiple times. Such a thing would be.. inconceivable!

  45. 20. It seems a little disingenuous to cite a 2010 Pew figure of 16% “religiously unaffiliated” and to ignore the 2014 finding of nearly 23% and the clear trend in that direction. And that’s in the U.S., which still has stronger religious-affiliation numbers than Europe.
    (Must agree with Tasha, btw, about the amount of Christian thinking casually embedded novels of every genre. Yowza!)

  47. Item numbers. Can’t remember ’em by the time I get through the comments…you all need to stop being so loquacious (thought that was my job….)

    Religion in SF. Ahh, the subject that keeps on giving. First, I note that most responses referred to various strains of xtian being represented; I thought the poster was making an appeal for a wider diversity – islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Shintoism, Santaria, Druze….and I for one can not ever remember reading a story that even mentioned Rastafarianism (unless we credit pot smoking in general).

    My personal preference would be for someone to write a novel in which everyone in the world suddenly accepts logic and the scientific method as the basis of their rationalism and it ends with the dedication of a monument to all of the time, energy, resources and people lost on the altar of religion (and then the characters begin to wonder what kind of spiritual ‘thing’ inspired the sudden change, once again returning everything to a big, anthropocentric question….)

    Beyond that: it’s well known that the percentage of non-believers within SF is much higher than in the general population, and well known that most of its earlier writing stars leaned agnostic if not atheistic: religion was a foil for reason in a lot of earlier SF, so I’m not surprised that it is one of the last representational hold-outs – but I am kind of surprised to see calls to introduce more of it.

    On the diversity front: absolutely there should be more characters that represent wider religious affiliations than we’ve seen so far. Got to give them all a chance to bounce up against reality.

    On Judaism in SF. Dann’s original anthology was something of a breakthrough because, at least in Western civilization following WWII, the Jewish community has basically operated on two principals: 1. never forget 2. don’t make a lot of noise (because others so easily DO forget).

    There were a lot of Jews in early fandom (many of whom became authors) and a LOT of fannish culture is derived from Jewish diaspora culture – self-contained and able to remain intact while surrounded by alien cultures. There was seemingly no need to put judaism front and center in fiction because it permeates at other levels. You know that expression about putting three fans together and coming up with ten different viewpoints? It was originally said about rabbinical scholars. You know how fans consider themselves to be “special”, kind of like a ‘chosen people’? Want to see Jewish humor in action in an SF setting? Go watch Gerrold’s Trouble with Tribbles. I’ll leave it to others to discuss Golems and Dybbuks and the possible influence on everything from Frankenstein to robots and beyond.

    Jeez, now I don’t even remember the other subjects I wanted to comment on….

  48. There’s a Rastafarian character in Neuromancer, isn’t there? I feel sure I’ve come across some others, somewhere, but the details elude my poor fogged brain. But the space tug pilot in Neuromancer, definitely.

    Re.: the whole “boys don’t read books/watch films about girls” thing… I thought someone had done some statistics recently, and come to the conclusion that, statistically speaking, that was what we call, err, technically, not true?

    @lurkertype: hey, some of us got out on our walking sticks, struggled round to the polls to vote Remain, and tried to persuade an undecided neighbour along the way. We’re not all nitwits south of the Scottish border, you know. (Actually, my own local area voted Remain. Despite, or maybe because of, our local MP being a vocal Leaver.)

  49. Some thoughts on Vox’s thoughts on the British decision to leave the EU:

    Bad enough that we have our own idiots crowing about this victory for “freedom” – this is one thing we actually don’t need from Europe OR the US.

    @MilitantlyAardvark: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

  50. I see the little Elk herder has joined the long list of people bad mouthing the Scots from a safe distance.

    I wouldn’t like to be PM Boris having to come over the border either. Hell he doesn’t even look to be safe in London.

    @lurkertype

    Brexit actually complicates Scottish independence if anything. My initial reaction was like yours until I thought about some of the additional impact. The vast majority of our trade is with England. Cross border trade within the EU would have been easy, now it would have the same issues any other EU member will have. The Irish are also deeply worried about this, though are hoping to strike a bilateral deal about free movement of labour.

    The currency issue is still unanswered. We’re not able to go straight into the Euro. We don’t meet the accession criteria. We’d need our own central bank for a start. Using the pound in the current climate?

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