Pixel Scroll 6/25/17 One Click, My Bonny Pixel, I’m After A Scroll Tonight

(1) MORE, PLEASE. Here’s a provocative (in a good way) question:

(2) NOMINEE REVIEWING. Marco Zennaro is making progress in his Hugo reading, adding reviews as he goes along. Here’s the latest addition to “The Hugo Awards 2017 Finalists: Best Novels”.

Death’s End by Cixin Liu Death’s End is the conclusion of the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by world acclaimed author Liu Cixin. The first installment of the series won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel.

I finished reading the story a couple of days ago, but it is still stuck in my head. More I think about it, more I come to realize how adroitly woven it is. All the elements, themes, concepts from the three books fit together perfectly at the end, giving birth to a logically self-consistent, scientifically sound (and deeply terrifying) cosmology.

I also like how this third book manages to color what would have been an otherwise plot-driven hard sci-fi book, with very human, emotional, moments. Cheng Xin ethical struggles, and Yun Tianming love are some of the best elements of the story.

The story begins during the fall of Constantinople, and then moves backs to the event of the previous novels: after the Doomsday Battle, the uneasy balance of Dark Forest Deterrence keeps the Trisolaran invaders at bay. Earth enjoys unprecedented prosperity due to the infusion of Trisolaran knowledge. With human science advancing daily and the Trisolarans adopting Earth culture, it seems that the two civilizations will soon be able to coexist peacefully as equals without the terrible threat of mutually assured annihilation. But the peace has also made humanity complacent…

Hugo worthy? Yes! It was one of the books I nominated.

Was it part of a slate? No

Zennaro has also written about the nominated Novellas, Novelettes, and Short Stories.

(3) COMPELLED. In a review for Strange Horizons, Alexandra Pierce works hard to explain the complex world of Jo Walton’s novel Necessity.

On the philosophical side, the interactions of Apollo and Hermes demonstrate how gods are themselves constrained by higher powers: both by Zeus, father of all the gods, and Necessity. As the title suggests, the compulsion of Necessity is an important aspect of the novel. It’s a force that not even gods can avoid, and it can even be used to avoid the potentially damaging aspects of time travel, of getting stuck in difficult situations: if Necessity says you must do something later in your timeline, you can’t be stuck somewhere else. Complementing this is a strong focus on the free choices of humans to undertake either stupid or worthy actions, in politics and personal relationships and everything else—and the contention that this is a noble part of the human condition.

(4) BRONZE PLATE SPECIAL. The other day I Scrolled about the “Dendra panoply, the oldest body Armour from the Mycenaean era” – never suspecting my friend, archeologist Louise Hitchcock, has personally worn a replica.

After you’ve looked at the picture, check out Minoan Architecture and Urbanism: New Perspectives on an Ancient Built Environment edited by Quentin Letesson and Carl Knappett, which includes the co-authored article “Lost in Translation: Settlement Organization in Postpalatial Crete – A View from the East” by Louise A. Hitchcock and Aren M. Maier. The book is available for pre-order, with a release date of September 23.

(5) IMMORTAL CATS. No one can forget them once she’s told their story — “Mog author Judith Kerr, 94, to publish new book Katinka’s Tail”.

Almost 50 years after the appearance of one of the most famous felines in children’s books, Mog creator Judith Kerr is to publish a book inspired by her latest pet cat, Katinka. The much-loved author and illustrator, who celebrated her 94th birthday last week, is to publish Katinka’s Tail in the autumn.

The story of a “perfectly ordinary cat with a not-so-ordinary tail” was inspired by Kerr’s observations of her cat, the ninth in an inspirational line. “She is a ridiculous-looking white cat with a tabby tail that looks as though it belonged to somebody else,” she said. It was watching the “bizarre” behaviour of her first family pet, Mog – which included licking her sleeping daughter’s hair – that inspired the eponymous stories beloved by generations of children.

(6) BIGGER ON THE OUTSIDE. The Last Knight, an unimpressive number one at U.S. box offices this weekend, did better overseas — “No. 1 ‘Transformers’ hits new low with $69-million domestic debut, but is saved by global box office “.

“Transformers: The Last Knight,” the fifth installment in the blockbuster franchise from Michael Bay, may have topped the weekend, but all the robot-smashing has gotten a bit rusty at the box office.

The Paramount film, which opened Wednesday, took in $45 million in the U.S. and Canada over the weekend, placing it in the No. 1 spot ahead of returning titles “Cars 3” and “Wonder Woman.” When factored into its five-day debut, “The Last Knight” grossed a franchise low of $69 million.

….The latest installment, which stars Mark Wahlberg and Anthony Hopkins and features a new mythology involving King Arthur and Stonehenge, cost $217 million to make. And however squeaky “The Last Knight’s” debut may have been domestically, the film took in an Optimus Prime-sized number overseas. It earned $196 million from its first 40 markets — with $123 million of that haul coming from China.

(7) TRIVIAL TRIVIA

“I’m Batman.”

Anyway, he was – Olan Soule (1909-1994).

Soule’s voice work on television included his 15-year role (1968-1983) as Batman on several animated series that were either devoted to or involved the fictional “Dark Knight” superhero

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • June 25, 1953 Robot Monster began stalking movie theatres.
  • June 25, 1982 The Omen arrives to terrify movie audiences.
  • June 25, 1982 Blade Runner was shown on some theater screens.
  • June 25, 1982 – Meanwhile, other screens played John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY DYSTOPIAN

(10) LINE DIRECTOR. While being interviewed about his new assignment directing the Han Solo movie, Ron Howard reminisced that right after he and his wife saw Star Wars they loved it so much they got right back in line and waited to see it again.

As news of the 1977 film Star Wars began to unfold, Howard said he became “so curious.” He and his wife went to see it on the first day of release and were “so moved by the movie. It was all the things you dream you’re going to experience in the movies.”

Although they had stood in line for two hours to see it, when Howard and Cheryl came out, they threw each other a look and decided to see it again immediately — standing in line for another 90 minutes.

Which made me wonder — how did Ron Howard not see this movie at a free pre-release screening? After all, I did — along with many other LASFSians.

(11) WHY IT HAPPENED. Carl Slaughter recommends, “For those in shock or scratching their heads over the Han Solo project shakeup, Mr. Sunday Movie offers an explanation that seems to make sense.”

(12) EQUIVALENCIES. Jesse Hudson makes clear there are some usages of alternate history that have worn on him, in his “Review of Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore” at Speculiction.

Its Jonbar point the American Civil War, Bring the Jubilee looks into the idea ‘what if the South won’?  The story of Hodge Backmaker, son of a poor farmer in what’s left of the United States of America (essentially the Union), the young man breaks free of his rural home at an early age and heads to New York City—an impoverished metro compared to the grand, lavish cities of the Confederate States of America.  Getting lucky and finding work with a book printer, Hodge spends the next few years of his life learning the trade.  And he learns much more.  The book printer’s essentially a front, namely that of printing propaganda and counterfeiting money, Hodge learns of ongoing secret operations to build a Grand Army and restore the United States to its former glory.

While many readers might expect such an early effort of alternate history to go the black and white route of vilifying the South by portraying them as tyrannical victors while glorifying the North as honorable victims, instead, the South is not portrayed as a slave-loving region which stamps the poor further into the ground, rather simply an economically and politically aggressive government bent on empire.  In other words, Moore spins the tables… to look something like the North.  This is all a convoluted manner of saying Bring the Jubilee is more interested in finding common ground between reality and the alternate reality, than it is putting the 8 millionth nail in the coffin of ‘slavery is bad’.

(13) EUROCON REPORT. Alqua shares the many highlights of “Eurocon 2017 (U-con) in Dortmund” at Fandom Rover.

The evening concert on Friday was called A night to remember. I was a little bit sceptical if it would be really a night I will remember for long, but I was wrong. There were few artists presenting their pieces. We were able to hear people playing guitar and theremin, reciting poetry or “interpreting alien poetry”. But the best pieces of this evening were songs played by Dimitra Fleissner on her harp and the ATS show by Gata. Music and dance were quite different but they both left me astonished and I will be looking forward for another possibility to see one of these artists performing.

(14) DISSENTING VOICE. Brad R. Torgersen deems “cultural appropriation” of no concern in his Mad Genius Club post titled: “If you’re not appropriating culture, you’re not paying attention”.

Clearly, nobody owns culture. So why do we worry about appropriating it?

(Cough, when I say “we,” I mean American progressives and Social Justice Zealots who clearly have too much time on their hands, cough.)

My take: If you’re a science fiction or fantasy writer, you have more to say on this topic than anyone. Because you’re extrapolating futures, presents, and pasts. Alternative histories. Possible horizons. The “What if?” that makes SF/F so much fun in the first place. There are no rules which you aren’t automatically authorized to break. The entire cosmos is your paint box. Nobody can tell you you’re doing it wrong.

Are we really going to be dumb enough to pretend that SF/F authors of demographics X, Y, or Z, cannot postulate “What if?” for demographics A, B, and C?

We’re not even talking about homework — which is a good idea, simply because some of your best syntheses will occur when you take Chocolate Culture and Peanut Butter Culture — kitbash them together — and come up with the inhabitants of a frontier planet for your thousand-year-future interstellar empire.

We’re talking about authors voluntarily yoking their creative spirits to somebody else’s pet political and cultural hobbyhorses. A game of rhetorical, “Mother, may I?”

(15) WEIRD TECH. Labeling produce with lasers instead of paper: “M&S says labelling avocados with lasers is more sustainable”.

M&S will sell avocados bearing what look like pale tattoos, showing a best-before date and origin.

Peeling away the traditional labelling will save 10 tonnes of paper and five tonnes of glue a year, says M&S.

More of its fruit and vegetables may be laser-branded in future, the retailer says.

“The laser just takes off one layer of skin and instead of inking it or burning it, the skin retracts and leaves a mark,” says Charlie Curtis, senior produce agronomist at Marks and Spencer.

“What we’re putting onto the fruit is country of origin, best before date and there’s a short code so you can put it through quickly at the [checkout] till.”

(16) JUST WEIRD. The new Canadian Toonie glows in the dark.

Canadians may now have a slight advantage when it comes to digging for lost change in sofa cushions and car seats; the Royal Canadian Mint has unveiled what it described as the world’s first glow-in-the-dark coin in circulation.

The specially designed two-dollar coin, or toonie, as it’s known in Canada, features two people paddling in a canoe as the northern lights – vivid in green and blue – dance high above them. When the coin is put in the dark, the aurora borealis glows softly, thanks to a new ink formulation that contains luminescent material.

The coin, part of a collection created to mark the 150th anniversary of Canada’s confederation, also ranks as the world’s first coloured bimetallic coin, said a mint spokesperson. “Only the core of the $2 coin is coloured and the glow effect makes the aurora borealis part of the design look lifelike,” said Alex Reeves.

(17) UNABOMBER INVESTIGATION. Polygon’s article “The FBI kept a list of D&D players as part of its hunt for the Unabomber”.

It appears that in 1995 the FBI made a sincere effort to investigate a group of D&D players. It suspected them of having a connection with the Unabomber, a terrorist named Theodore Kaczynski who spent the better part of two decades mailing people explosives.

Step one was to dig back into the past of TSR and the role-playing hobby as a whole. In so doing, the FBI put together a pretty decent three-page history, if I do say so myself. It also came up with a list of armed and dangerous individuals who were “known members of the Dungeons & Dragons” that it pulled from TSR’s own computer system.

David Klaus sent the link along with his comments:

The fishing expedition into TSR as a cocaine front would appear to be sparked by cultural bigotry.  Unable to find real crime, to justify his existence, local FBI agent investigates legitimate business run by “weirdos” playing a game Pat Robertson says is Satanic.  (This would be in keeping with the Secret Service act of stupidity against Steve Jackson Games at about the same time.) Again, having no evidence of crime, just prejudiced opinion, the personal histories of all corporate officers are gathered, civil rights being violated, the company computers are invaded and lists of game purchasers are kept on file. And that Gary Gygax!  He answers his mail!  He ‘s a Libertarian Party member!  He had a difficult divorce!  He’s eccentric!  Somebody whose credibility can’t be judged says he’s “frightening”! His business makes money!  He spends his own money as he pleases!  The file included allegations he breaks drug and gun laws.  (If there were evidence, why didn’t they make an arrest?  Perhaps because there wasn’t?) We’re incompetent to find the Unabomber, and this guy uses a computer.  It might be him, yeah, that’s the ticket! Let’s drop some hints among his friends and watch them get paranoid about each other!  Since we couldn’t find evidence, let’s see if one of them will manufacture some out of fear!  Scare ’em enough, and they’ll say anything. These Flatfeet Keystone Cops are supposed to protect us from foreign terrorism.  Right.

(19) THE WAKING LAND. Strange Horizons reviewer Mark Granger finds much to like in The Waking Land by Callie Bates.

Callie Bates’s strength lies in how quickly and succinctly she lays down the plot without making it complicated, a great feat when you consider the story is told in the first person; Elanna’s view point restricts us to what she is seeing and hearing, but never distracts from the bigger picture—and Bates manages to cleverly insert plot points along the way without them appearing to be shoe-horned in. I was immediately sympathetic to Elanna’s plight, her confused and conflicted state: the fact that everything she has been taught—from history to basic morals—is falling down around her makes her someone you want to side with. In a lesser writer’s hands Elanna’s character could have easily become whiny, but Bates makes her a strong, opinionated woman, yet one who is forced to have her mind opened to something beyond herself.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, David K.M. Klaus, Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Paul Weimer, Chip Hitchcock, and Louise Hitchcock for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Stoic Cynic.]

144 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 6/25/17 One Click, My Bonny Pixel, I’m After A Scroll Tonight

  1. @Stoic Cynic: I’m not Oneiros, but thanks anyway. I read The Black Dahlia several years ago and didn’t like it well enough to continue.

  2. Black Dahlia is definitely (IMHO) the weakest of the L.A. Quartet, and is linked to the other three primarily by the setting rather than any common characters or story threads, if I remember correctly, and so can very easily be skipped. I need to revisit Ellroy at some point, but the books are so big, and so full of horrible, horrible people doing horrible, horrible things.

  3. @Stoic Cynic: I have fond memories of LA Confidential from my uni days (I took a module on American crime fiction, that and Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go [ by George Pelecanos] were my favourites.) Sad to hear Black Dahlia isn’t as good, but I’m gonna give it a shot anyway.

  4. Hey, perhaps a weird question, but has anyone had any experience buying single issues of SFWA Bulletins?

    I paid for one of the issues last Friday, and I thought I was supposed to get it as an email automatically… but I haven’t received anything yet (even checked my spam folder).

    I emailed the address in the Paypal receipt, but I haven’t heard back from them, either.

    I’m not an SFWA member, I was just trying to track down an article that’s published in the issue in question.

  5. Don’t forget Robot Monster features the Automatic Billion Bubble Machine by N.A. Fisher Chemical Products, Inc. Or so the credits say. Didn’t Arthur C. Clark write a story about the Automatic Billion Bubble Machine of God?

    “I will re-pixelate. Your scrolls will be indescribable.”

  6. (1) MORE, PLEASE. The fourth and final “Tale of the Five” (“Middle Kingdoms”) novel by Diane Duane would be a treat.

    She is, actually, working on it. (Real life doesn’t always co-operate with your plans.)

  7. ‘Black Dahlia is definitely (IMHO) the weakest of the L.A. Quartet, and is linked to the other three primarily by the setting rather than any common characters or story threads, if I remember correctly, and so can very easily be skipped’

    If you read all four, however, you can chart the course of his prose becoming increasingly allergic to the definite article and complete sentences.

  8. “I will re-pixelate. Your scrolls will be indescribable.”

    In the context of that post, shouldn’t that be “indescribabubble” ??

  9. Mike, is there a problem in the moderation system? I’m seeing posts appear as normal, but nothing I try to post.

  10. (1) Well… I’m reading a lot of series, but those are all eventually going to get sequels. Things that don’t have a sequel on schedule… I think the thing I’ve most often wished for a sequel to is “Magician’s Ward” by Patricia C. Wrede. (Which is itself a sequel to “Mairelon the Magician”.) I want to see what Kim and Mairelon’s children are like!

  11. (7) I grew up watching Super Friends, so Olan Soule’s Batman is as iconic to me as Casey Kasem’s Robin. When the final two seasons used Adam West, it just sounded wrong (I had never watched the live-action series at that point).

  12. Ryan Jones: Mike, is there a problem in the moderation system? I’m seeing posts appear as normal, but nothing I try to post.

    All first-time comments go through moderation. Also, if someone changes (or typos) their handle or email address, that will be treated as a first comment and b e held for moderation.

  13. The MST3k version of Robot Monster is on the you tubes. First season though so it lacks the frenetic pace of riffing later seasons acquire. Joel does play off the Automatic Billion Bubble Machine in the invention exchange.

  14. Has anyone heard from Dr. Abernathy (Airboy) in a while? I’m a bit worried about him with regards to his wife.

  15. (1) This question prompted me to seek out an update on J.V. Jones, whose Watcher for the Dead came out in 2010 (it seems like longer). From briefly scanning her Patreon page it looks like she had some major personal setbacks, but is writing again, which is welcome news.

  16. All first-time comments go through moderation. Also, if someone changes (or typos) their handle or email address, that will be treated as a first comment and b e held for moderation.

    Ah, understood. The context for my impatience was that I’ve spent the last week trying to post on Larry’s site expressing distaste for his recent conduct. Numerous posts that cheered the feud along were allowed in, but none of my posts suggesting that his conduct was going to lose him the support of people who, like me, are intensely turned off by abusive conduct.

    In that context, I was worried that the same thing was about to happen here- regardless of Larry’s poor conduct, and the unfortunate continuation of ill feeling, it’s still bad news to hear of his fathers’ death, and if such news were getting blocked… that would influence my feelings quite a lot. (They were not getting blocked, I’m just explaining why I got impatient, which was foolish of me)

  17. 14 – While I’ve seen the term Cultural Appropriation used in many different ways that’s the first time I’ve seen it used as claiming that people shouldn’t beg, borrow or steal ideas from each other.

    Also he says

    Are we really going to be dumb enough to pretend that SF/F authors of demographics X, Y, or Z, cannot postulate “What if?” for demographics A, B, and C?

    Which means he’s really dumb enough to pretend that is what people are saying when they say cultural appropriation.

    I take it more to mean that if you’re borrowing ideas maybe put some thought behind if you are presenting them in a respectful or accurate manner that doesn’t just rely on lazy stereotypes and if you’re taking something from a culture maybe give a little bit back to it as well in some way.

    This came about in a discussion over the aesthetics of the video game Horizon Zero Dawn, taking hundreds of thousands of years post apocalypse where people are back to living in tribes. The people game aesthetic for the people is drawn from Nordic and Native American cultures. The game came under fire for perpetuating the Native American Princess stereotype and also the people the main character comes from are described as primitives and savages by other tribes for not adopting some of the technology found in ruins. Contextually within the game this is shown as more of a good thing as it presents the cycle of people developing more and more powerful weapons until those weapons destroy us all, however there were those offended not just because it borrowed the appearance of another culture but because it also in conjunction had slurs commonly used against that culture, which gave the appearance of profiting off of the look of a culture while not trying to understand it at all. It opened a (mostly) good discussion about themes and look of the game.

    Which is what Brad is missing from his screed. Authors can ‘What if’ anything and do all the time. Sometimes it’s done well and other times it’s not. Art isn’t beyond criticism and if an author borrows from different cultures then they should maybe take an introspective moment to question how they are presenting them. As a Christian if he read a book where they used Christianity but only portrayed and reinforced negative stereotypes he’d be right to criticize how it’s presented in the same way others have a right to critique as well.

    It’s not a ‘you can’t do this’ it’s ‘do better’.

    But he’s absolutely right that people can choose to do whatever they want and have fun. But like every other aspect of writing from the plot, to the characters, to the setting, etc, once offered to the public put it at the mercy of it as well. You can respond to criticism by considering your own work and how to make it better or if you’re happy with it as it currently is, which if you’ve workshopped or been in writers groups should’ve already experienced the critical scalpel of people with sharp eyes and be scarred and calloused enough. Art is a dialogue between creator and audience after all.

    Or you can attack those criticisms. Though if you’re the type of person to claim ‘message fiction’ is ruining a genre and about the subjects, types of characters and other things people write about you kind of come off as a huge hypocrite for saying what the public can and can’t criticize.

  18. 4: When I click on the link to Minoan Architecture and Urbanism I get:

    This page is unavailable due to either geographic restrictions or other restrictions in place at this time. NOTE: other restrictions can be a result of our security platform detecting potential malicious activity. Please try again later as the restrictions may be lifted, or contact your service provider if the issue persists.

    Can’t tell if this is my problem or theirs.

  19. @Paul Weimer:

    I recently learned a sequel to a novel I liked a lot will probably not happen because book one did not sell as well as hoped. So asking for a sequel for that book and author would be rather mean spirited on my part, even if I really do want a sequel to that book!

    I disagree; what you’re looking for is an editor with vision and/or a marketer who can see what went wrong with marketing the first book, working for a publisher who is willing to back their employees’ convictions to the extent of offering a decent contract. Sales are a crapshoot; Rowling’s first Galbraith book was a disaster until the pseudonym was uncovered, but I thought well enough of it (after reading from a recommendation that didn’t uncover the author) to read the next two (and I’m not a Rowling nut; my reaction to the Potterverse has improved to “meh”). It’s true there’s a lot of sausage-making, but it’s far from universal; PNH et al have frequently stated that the prime thing needed to get a book published at Tor is an editor who believes in it. And vocal fan interest can help; look at what happened to Lee & Miller after their first publisher punted.

  20. @Lisa Goldstein: I just tried the link and it came up with no problem. (Although since the book is $130, I will not be preordering a copy, however interesting it may be.)

  21. Back at Sasquan, Gerrold promised the fifth Chtorr book real soon now. I’m guessing he originally wrote himself into a writer’s block, but I always thought it was mean for him/his publisher to include an excerpt from the fifth book having Jim and Liz face imminent death, and then never publishing it.

    I don’t know if this has been mentioned already, but a Hugo Meredith moment. If you don’t have any of the Peter Grant series except for the excerpt of the first book in the Hugo packet, you can buy the entire first novel in the US at your favorite ebook retailer for only 99 cents. The US title is Midnight Riot.

  22. (1) I think Seveneves would get my slot. All this World Building should be used! And more: All my time spend learning the lore (i.e. Reading infodumps) shouldn’t be for nought

    Put your pixels on top of your file! I repeat: Put your pixels on top of your file!
    And never scroll between a Nazghul and his Scroll, John Wick!

  23. I hope that I’ve been unobtrusive enough to be forgiven a promo comment:

    The LGBT+ SFF Storybundle that includes works by Melissa Scott, A.C. Wise, Catherine Lundoff and others (including yours truly) will be concluding in 3 days.

    I’ve pledged that if we make a particular (completely arbitrary) sales target, I’ll be giving away some additional Alpennia e-books to random interested Storybundle buyers. So you have a chance not only to get a great deal on up to 12 books, but a chance at a possible bonus!

  24. Continuing the Meredith Moment: Hugo Edition –
    In addition to Midnight Riot on sale for $.99, Too Like the Lightning, Death’s End, and The Geek Feminist Revolution are all on sale for $2.99 each.

    ETA: I know some of those are in the packet, but I figured some people may not have bought a supporting membership.

  25. @Lisa Goldstein

    There are a few possible causes. You might try a different browser though. We saw a spate of these last week related to old SSL certs on some websites. I can’t 100% remember which browser was having issues but am pretty sure IE was fine and Chrome wasn’t (or vice versa).

  26. Jim Parish on June 26, 2017 at 3:28 am said:

    1) I would love a sequel to McKinley’s Sunshine. Buffy done right….

    Yessss

  27. 12)

    That review is a masterpiece is trying to claim a false middle ground where none exists, trying to “teach the controversy” to avoid the historical record. In short, the reason so many books about the South assume that any independent CSA would be founded on militant, unrepentant white supremacy based on chattel slavery is because the historical CSA was in fact founded on militant, unrepentant white supremacy based on chattel slavery.

    It also permeated most aspects of life in the South – before the Civil War, it was common for Southern postmasters to open the mails and impound abolitionist materials. Papers or journals that published in support of abolition would be shut down, legally, or extra-legally with impunity. The one thing the CSA’s Constitution barred it from legislating on was slavery. And from 1820 on, almost every person of property in the South vigorously defended slavery as a positive good.

    So far from being a hackneyed “slavery is bad”, those writers who take that tack are simply taking the people who seceeded at their word, that the South was secededing over slavery, thought it was a positive good, thought that the other more elitist aspects of the South’s system were positive goods, etc. These writers then make the logical inference that a group of people who viewed slavery as positive good, worth seceding over, with having a war over, worth protecting when they founded their government, would build a society and government that this slavery that they’d shed blood in defense of was good.

    I always find it so very, very curious, when it comes to alt-histories about a victorious South, that the people claiming to tell the story of a “more realistic” South that happens to be more in line with our modern moral values have to ignore so many of the things the South stated as its goals for independence. That for some reason, they’d forget what they’d fought for to speedily move closer to or bring themselves in line with the values of people a hundred fifty years in the future.

    I’m not surprised to see yet another case in the last year. Especially one which seems to have a frustration with just how much time is spent on the position of African Americans during and around the Civil War – like it was all about them or something! – but the special pleading about a realism that involves ignoring so much of the real is darkly amusing.

    But I suppose it has been a year to be putting a nice and positive gloss for that kind of Dixie…

  28. (1) I know it was already an 11 book long monster, but I’d love to see one more volume in Harry Turtledove’s Southern Victory series. Pick things up twenty years down the road, with parts of the former CSA still under military rule, Cassius Madison as a firebrand Congressman, and the nuclear-armed US and Imperial Germany racing to the moon.

    (8) Am I wrong for wanting to mash all these films into one epic mess? Shapeshifting demons, freed from the Antarctic ice, battle alien robots for control of the Earth while humanity makes replicant soldiers to kill both menaces . . .

  29. @Douglas Berry/(8) — I think you just described the plot of the sequel to Alien Covenant.

  30. NOTE: other restrictions can be a result of our security platform detecting potential malicious activity.

    This is why you don’t go to a Minoan site with a ball of string, a sword, and a recipe for ox’s tongue.

  31. Re. (2): I’ll second (third?) the next one in Diane Duane’s The Middle Kingdoms series. It’s nice to know that The Door into Starlight is at least being worked on, I guess. Looking forward to it.

  32. As far as Diane Duane, I’d also like the third cat wizard (Book of Night with Moon) installment.

  33. While I would buy and read a sequel to Robin McKinley’s Sunshine, because McKinley hits my “excessive optimism” button hard*, the ones I really want are the actually planned(ish) second half of Pegasus, and a sequel to Shadows, which didn’t have one planned but sure felt like another case of the first half or so of a story, and like a sequel might bring it from “entertaining red” to “damn good series”.

    * I have found her output in this century uneven in quality, but because at her best she is brilliant and amazing and because she was a formative influence on my childhood and writing, I still find myself panting after every book. Sunshine was one of the winners, but a sequel is not guaranteed to be so.

  34. While I really loved Robin McKinley’s Sunshine, I do not want a second part. Because I’m too nervous that it won’t be as good as the first. Because the it was so extremely good.

    Now, about a second part to GRRM:s Fevre Dream…

  35. (6)

    “No. 1 ‘Transformers’ hits new low with $69-million domestic debut, but is saved by global box office “.

    Damn you, global box office.

  36. James Moar – This is why you don’t go to a Minoan site with a ball of string, a sword, and a recipe for ox’s tongue.

    I was eating soup. I’m not sure how I’m going to get the green bean slurry out of the keyboard.

    Please accept this napkin and a slightly grubby internet.

  37. 1) SF-wise, I think it would be more League of Peoples books from James Alan Gardner. Though I’d really like more Bill Smith/Lydia Chin mysteries from S.J. Rozan. And at least there’s a new Gardner coming after all this time, so I can’t complain.

    And I’m finally getting my new Sigrid Harald mystery from Margaret Maron after making due with Deborah Knott for 25 years. I’m afraid this one is too late, but I can’t not look.

  38. @Hampus

    Now, about a second part to GRRM:s Fevre Dream…

    Oh! Yes!

    I bought Sunshine a while back, I believe based on Kyra’s recommendation, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I need to get to it soon.

  39. 2) For a stand-alone book, I would love to see a sequel to “I am Princess X” by Cherie Priest. Admittedly, it would be difficult, since the novel is very complete. and leaves few dangling threads to base a story on.

    For a series of course, I really want to see the next volume or two in Rosemary Kirstein’s Steerswoman series. I really want to see what the ultimate reason for what’s happening is.

  40. Owen Whiteoak: I never knew the Mycenaeans invented sneakers.

    No wonder Achilles got wounded in the heel. He wasn’t wearing bronze booties.

  41. (1) I would love a sequel to Barbara Hambly’s “Search the Seven Hills” (it doesn’t really need one, but still) or her “Bride of the Rat God” (ditto).

    I have actually IRL asked Harry Turtledove for a sequel to “The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump” but he said just finishing that one was hard enough.

    (14) blah blah, straw men, missing the point as usual.

    (4) Never knew they invented glasses and the digital watch either!

    @IanP: It’s a terrific bridge, but that WILL be a sight. Has been?

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