(1) A LITTLE LIST. James Davis Nicoll returns with “Twenty Core Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Speculative Fiction Works Every True SF Fan Should Have On Their Shelves”.
As with the previous core lists, here are twenty Post-Apocalyptic Speculative Fiction Works chosen entirely on the basis of merit and significance to the field.
There are two filtering rules:
Only one work per author per list
Any given work can appear on only one list
(2) YOU’RE FROM THE SIXTIES! Sign up for video conference call from 1962 hosted by The Traveler from Galactic Journey.
Hello, friends and fellow travelers!
As some of you are aware, Galactic Journey is a frequent presenter at conventions around the country. In a mix of seminar and road show, the Journey brings the past to life with a personal appearance.
Well, this month, we’re going to take that to the next level — using Visi-phone technology developed for the 1962 Seattle World Fair, the Journey will be appearing live Coast to Coast (and beyond) at 11 a.m. [PDT] on June 17.
Tune in, and you’ll get a peek behind the scenes at the Journey, meeting the Traveler, himself, and potentially the Young Traveler and the Editor! We’ll show off some of our favorite vintage toys, answer your questions — and there will be prizes for the best ones!
RSVP for this no-charge event — The Traveler personally guarantees it’ll be worth every penny you spend!
(3) WORLDBUILDERS AND WORLDRUNNERS. Political lessons with John Scalzi, Charlie Jane Anders, Cory Doctorow, and Annalee Newitz at Inverse — “Here’s Why Sci-Fi Authors Will Always Tell You To Fuck Off”.
“People will visit my website or Twitter feed where apparently I have political opinions,” said Scalzi. “Then I get the sorrowful email that says, ‘I thought I was coming to you for entertainment, but you’re telling me how to think and regretfully I must not read your books anymore.’ They’re expecting me to say something like, ‘No, don’t leave.’ They’re not expecting the email I actually send, which is ‘Dear whomever: kiss my ass.”
(4) IF IGNORANCE IS BLISS. Discussions about cultural appropriation are not typically about the Irish, but they could be. Fantasy-Faction Brian O’Sullivan discusses “Wading in the Cultural Shallows: How Irish Mythology Became A Commodity for Fantasy”.
One night at a party I was introduced to a woman who proudly informed told me she’d named her baby daughter ‘Banshee’ in celebration of her Irish heritage. Even at the time I was pretty stunned by the announcement. For an Irish person (and I would have thought most people would have known this), this was the equivalent to naming her daughter — Death.
About two weeks later, at another party (I had a life back then!), I was cornered by a different woman demanding a translation for the chorus from Clannad’s haunting Theme Song from Harry’s Game. The Irish lyrics for the chorus had been written on her CD sleeve as ‘Fol dol de doh fol-de de day’!) which she thought was absolutely beautiful and must mean something mythically profound.’ Needless to say, she wasn’t particularly impressed when I translated it as ‘La, la la la, la la laaah!’
These are just two examples of the cultural disconnect between Irish people and those who dabble in Irish mythology. They are however only two of the hundreds I’ve personally experienced over the last twenty years or so and I know many other Irish people who’ve had similar experiences. It’s actually a source of continual bemusement to to see how bizarrely and inaccurately our culture’s been represented over that time.
…I don’t believe for a moment that it’s any author’s intention to be offensive when they use mythologies that aren’t their own. In fact, I’d suspect the vast majority of them would be dismayed if they knew their work was somehow considered offensive. Unfortunately, authors write stories based on their own experiences or what they’ve managed to learn and, frankly, sometimes you just don’t know what you don’t know. Different cultures aren’t easily transferable (although if you spend enough time living in them or studying them intensely you can certainly pick up a lot) and this makes wading in the mythological shallows that much more dangerous. This is particularly the case with Irish mythology as there’s so much misinformation already out there (many people, for example, through no fault of their own, still believe W. B. Yeats is a credible authority on Irish mythology!).
(5) WEIMER IN THE WILD. If this is what DUFF delegates get to do, everyone will be running next time. (Having lunch with Ian Mond and Likhain.)
My plan is to go see it with camera prior to lunch with @Mondyboy and coffee with @likhain
— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) June 7, 2017
Of course, some things you can do without traveling 12,000 miles:
Sadly, it's not all fabulous photos and crazy adventures on the Princejvstin show
— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) June 7, 2017
(6) HERITAGE SPACE AUCTION RESULTS. Heritage Auctions released some sales figures from Space Exploration Auction #6173,which had total sales of $822,203 .
Vintage NASA photographs were strong, especially the nice Selection of “Red Number” Examples we were pleased to offer. The definite “star” of this category was the iconic Apollo 8 “Earthrise” Photo (NASA Image AS8-14-2383) of the earth above the moon’s horizon, taken by Bill Anders on Christmas Eve 1968 from lunar orbit. This is one of the most reproduced images of the twentieth century and one tenacious bidder laid claim to this early red number print for $10,625. Another exciting lot was a Collection of Sixteen Apollo 11 Photos (twelve red number and four blue number) which included an example of the famous Buzz Aldrin “visor” portrait. Six bidders competed for the group before one took it home for $7,812.
Robbins Medallions are always a popular category. In this auction, two examples made particularly strong showings. A beautiful Unflown Apollo 15 Medal partially minted with flown “treasure” silver from a 1715 Spanish treasure shipwreck ingot closed at $7,500. A rare Flown STS-6 Space Shuttle Challenger Medal (one of only sixty-seven carried on the mission) brought in $11,250. Of particular interest, a notarized presentation letter signed by the entire four-man crew accompanied this one. This was the first from this mission that Heritage has offered in ten years of Space auctions.
One-of-a-kind items are always difficult to estimate and there were a few in this sale that performed quite a bit better than our best guess. Project Mercury was represented in this category by a Capsule Flight Operations Manual that sold for $10,625. At what price would two sets of Gemini Spacecraft Crew Hatch Door Assembly Shingles and their associated blueprints be valued? The answer, supplied by six eager bidders, is $11,250.
(7) HELSINKI BOUND TRAVELER SEEKS ADVICE. Daniel Dern has asked me to put out his request for information, as in, “Seeking European SIM card suggestions for Helsinki Worldcon”.
I’m sure I’m not the only fan who’s not a frequent international (here, “not living in Finland”) traveler, trying to suss out a reasonable (as in “affordable” and “non-complex”) answer to having (moderate) cellular connectivity during and pre/post-Worldcon.
Here’s my particular constraints/deets (obviously, YMMV):
o Aside from Worldcon, looking at ~2 weeks in Denmark/Norway/Sweden.
o I’m in the US. However, since a) my carrier is AT&T, whose international rates are excessive, and/but b) not planning to bring my primary phone, so a) is moot. Yes, I know that being a T-Mobile’s customer would be a simple, goodly-priced answer, but that’s not an option here.
o I’ll be packing an unlocked Android phone. Probably my Moto G4, if I can find it. That’s what I’m looking for a pre-paid refillable SIM card for.
o Initial landing is Copenhagen.
o Main cellular uses: for brief local phone calls to restaurants, etc, and texting “where are you?” etc. Some data. Everything else can be done using Skype (and other VoiPs), etc over WiFi.
o Probably looking for a multi-country 30-day pass with 1 or 2GB data and some local phone, ideally unlimited texting.
Web search is turning up bunches of suggestions, but other than wading through comments, I have no clue. Experienced Eurotravellers, what say ye?
(8) TRIVIAL TRIVIA
There’s a lot to know about Forbidden Planet’s Robby the Robot/. Like, who was inside?
“One of the first things you do when you design a robot or monster,” [Art Director Robert] Kinoshita recalled in an interview, “is to try to confuse the audience as to where you put the guy inside. It’s difficult to completely fool an audience because they know there is someone inside. But if you make an effort to confuse them it can work in your favor and make the whole creation more believable. Robby was designed so that the man inside could see out of the voice box below the glass head.” Although many people were fooled by Robby’s disproportionate form, he was controlled by Frankie Darro from inside, and his voice was provided by talented actor and announcer Marvin Miller, who gave Robby that distinctive, sophisticated wit so loved and remembered by audiences everywhere.
(9) STALKING THE WILD GANACHE. Gourmet chocoholic Camestros Felapton gives Americans an advance look — “Review: Kinder Joy — eating refined sugar so you don’t have to”.
For those of us outside of the US, the Kinder Surprise egg is a familiar sight. A thin chocolate egg which encases a plastic capsule within which is a small toy. Often you have to assemble the toy and sometimes they are themed collectibles. The chocolate itself — well it’s is an acquired taste. Mass manufactured chocolate is one of those paradoxically regional things.
Americans have not had ready access to Kinder Surpises because of the dangers of them eating the encased toy accidentally. However, the more recent Kinder Joy egg has sidestepped the problem. It retains the egg shape but has two seperate halves — one with chocolate (sort of) in it and the other with a toy.
Wednesday I saw one in the wild and bought one and ate the bits you are supposed to eat. This is my story….
(10) INVISIBLE COVER REVEAL. Jim C. Hines and Mary Anne Mohanraj have revealed the cover and contributors list for Invisible 3, the third volume of collected stories shared by authors and fans “about the importance of representation in science fiction/fantasy.” See the image at the link.
The introduction is by K. Tempest Bradford. The contributors are Alex Conall, Alliah, Alyssa Hillary, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Brandon O’Brien, Carrie Sessarego, Chelsea Alejandro, Dawn Xiana Moon, Fran Wilde, Jaime O. Mayer, Jennifer Cross, Jeremy Sim, Jo Gerrard, Mari Kurisato, MT O’Shaughnessy, Rebecca Roanhorse, Sean Robinson, and T. S. Bazelli.
There isn’t an official release date yet. Hines says that will be coming very soon.
(11) TO INFINITY. Bryan Thomas Schmidt’s space opera collection Infinite Stars is available for pre-order. I thought the table of contents looked pretty interesting — it helps that Lois McMaster Bujold’s Borders of Infinity is one of my favorite sf stories.
Coming soon. Available now for preorders.
Infinite Stars https://t.co/080ozip44F #scifi #anthology #newbook #spaceopera #milsf @titanbooks pic.twitter.com/fcdK8A8Jma
— Bryan Thomas Schmidt (@BryanThomasS) June 7, 2017
(12) BAD WRAP. Entertainment Weekly reports “The Mummy reboot slammed as ‘worst Tom Cruise movie ever’ by critics”. Quotes at the site.
After spending over three decades dazzling audiences across large-scale action-adventures on the big screen, Tom Cruise’s latest genre spectacle, The Mummy, is set to unravel in theaters this Friday. Movie critics, however, got a peek under wraps this week, as movie reviews for the blockbuster project debuted online Wednesday morning. The consensus? According to a vast majority of them, perhaps this romp should’ve remained buried.
(13) NAPOLEON DID SURRENDER. James Davis Nicoll sends along a link to The Watchtower restaurant website, a nerd-themed tavern in Waterloo, Ontario.
They have a fantasy-themed origin story.
Their plethora of monthly events includes Nerd Nite.
On the final Wednesday of every month, KW’s own Nerd Nite takes over the Watchtower. Join us for unique, informative, and entertaining presentations, trivia, and socializing in a fun, positive, and inclusive atmosphere. Presentations are done on a ton of nerdy topics!
They also have a series of YouTube videos of their barmaster making some of their signature drinks.
(14) ROLL THE BONES. One researcher says, “There is no Garden of Eden in Africa. Or if there is a Garden of Eden it’s the size of Africa. — “Oldest Homo sapiens fossils ever found push humanity’s birth back to 300,000 years” at USA Today.
Digging on a hilltop in the Sahara Desert, scientists have found the most ancient known members of our own species, undermining longstanding ideas about the origins of humanity.
The newfound Homo sapiens fossils — three young adults, one adolescent and a child of 7 or 8 — date back roughly 300,000 years, says a study in this week’s Nature. The next-oldest fossils of Homo sapiens, the scientific name for humans, are about 200,000 years old.
(15) NEST UNFEATHERED. The argument goes on: “Study casts doubt on the idea of ‘big fluffy T. rex'”
Primitive feathers have been identified in some members of the Tyrannosaur group, leading to speculation that the king of reptiles also sported feathers.
In the latest twist, researchers analysed skin impressions from a T.rex skeleton known as Wyrex, unearthed in Montana.
They also looked at relatives that roamed during the Late Cretaceous in Asia and other parts of North America, including Albertosaurus and Gorgosaurus.
Skin patches from the neck, pelvis and tail of Wyrex show scaly, reptilian-like skin, says a team led by Dr Phil Bell of the University of New England, Australia.
(16) BOND. 20 LB. BOND. Is your printer tattling on you? “Why printers add secret tracking dots”.
On 3 June, FBI agents arrived at the house of government contractor Reality Leigh Winner in Augusta, Georgia. They had spent the last two days investigating a top secret classified document that had allegedly been leaked to the press. In order to track down Winner, agents claim they had carefully studied copies of the document provided by online news site The Intercept and noticed creases suggesting that the pages had been printed and “hand-carried out of a secured space”.
In an affidavit, the FBI alleges that Winner admitted printing the National Security Agency (NSA) report and sending it to The Intercept. Shortly after a story about the leak was published, charges against Winner were made public.
At that point, experts began taking a closer look at the document, now publicly available on the web. They discovered something else of interest: yellow dots in a roughly rectangular pattern repeated throughout the page. They were barely visible to the naked eye, but formed a coded design. After some quick analysis, they seemed to reveal the exact date and time that the pages in question were printed: 06:20 on 9 May, 2017 — at least, this is likely to be the time on the printer’s internal clock at that moment. The dots also encode a serial number for the printer.
(17) A CLASSIC. Bruce Gillespie’s SF Commentary #94, 60,000 words of lively book talk and analysis, is available for download from eFanzines.com:
- Portrait (magazine-style) edition: http://efanzines.com/SFC/SFC94P.pdf
- Landscape (widescreen) edition: http://efanzines.com/SFC/SFC94L.pdf
[Thanks to JJ, Chip Hitchcock, David K.M. Klaus, Daniel Dern, Gideon Marcus, John King Tarpinian, Mark-kitteh, and James Davis Nicoll for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]
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First???
Yes! Perfect timing!
On another note, I consider “Forbidden Planet” a true classic that stands up well after all these years.
I once wrote a “Frozen” crossover fanfiction called “A Planet of Isolation” where Anna is the captain of the starship and Elsa is the secluded naif. Olaf played Robbie. Honest!
More Hugo reading: Before & after watching Byrne & Kelly play fine music, I finished up Penric & the Shaman and got about half way through This Census Taker. Penric I liked a lot — it took a chapter or two to ground myself, but then I really enjoyed the story; and I thought Bujold (amongst other things) did an excellent job of conveying different accents & dialects without going into ridiculous phonetic spellings, etc.
For Census Taker, right now pretend that I inserted a picture of a slightly puzzled-looking dog — what he’s doing, he’s doing well, but I’m not quite sure I’m grasping it yet. (And am I the only one who sometimes gets a sense of Gene Wolfe?) Still, I’ll finish it and see where that leaves me.
3) Someone’s expression of their opinion on a topic isn’t telling you how to think. That’s akin to thinking that someone saying, “I love Chinese food!” is telling you what to eat.
Forbidden Planet? Ah! Speak of “The Tempest”!
Well! Two nasty, naughty pixels gone! Three good, kind pixels left!
(5) WEIMER IN THE WILD.
I’m familiar with Melbourne enough to know that the big building on the right is the St Mary Star of the Sea.
And the rows of buildings in the midground are Melbourne’s famous Queen Victoria Market. You could probably triangulate Paul’s accommodation from that image (not that I’m going to).
The timing of our holidays has meant that we’ve been in Australia (Uluru was spectacular) while Paul’s been in New Zealand, and now that we’re home, Paul’s in Australia. Like ships passing in the night.
ETA: And Fifth!
@1: this may be my worst score yet: 5/20, and that’s guessing at one title.
@4: good horror stories, but why is anyone surprised by this? US Irish culture is massively divorced from Ireland; witness St. Patrick’s Day, an excuse for drunkenness in the US but a holy day in Ireland. (30 years ago on a panel, Teresa Nielsen Hayden asked an audience how to prevent the flood of pseudo-Celtic fantasy inflicting the field of the time; I snarkily suggested that sending back a vaccine against the potato blight would be a good start — there might have been a steady stream of people keeping in touch with the non-emigrants, instead of a desperate uprooted mass.) cf the characters of the immigrants in American Gods, who we’re clearly shown are not the originals.
@8: the title “Trvial” is missing an ‘i’.
@12: fascinating, considering that the BBC had it on their ~”N films to watch for this month”.
@16: cute title.
second fifth? Yes!
Is (7) supposed to have a link?
Also, (8): “trvial?”
Hugo reading: I’m trying to get through Death’s End, and man what a slog. I don’t know if I’m reading a novel or an alternate history physics textbook. It would actually be better as the latter, as that might make up for the paper-thin characters, especially the female ones.
@Joe H.
You can read my review of “This Census Taker” for details, but I didn’t like it very much. It’s puzzling for such a bad story to be so beautifully written–usually a story this broken is broken in many ways–but I’d hazard a guess that this was an experiment that failed. Or maybe it’s a brilliant experiment, but I’m just too dense to appreciate it.
I’m not quite prepared to believe that VD is with-it enough to have deliberately chosen a substandard novella by China Miéville for the express purpose of embarrassing an openly Marxist author. Nevertheless, I put it below No Award with a clean conscience.
I’m very interested to hear whether anyone found a better explanation for it, though. (For the novella, not for VD!)
So T. Rex wasn’t feathered. Poor choice. No wonder it’s extinct!
@Bonnie McDaniel
Me too. Eric really loved it, so I’m doing it so we can talk about it, but Dear Sweet Jesus; I’ve been promised that nothing will be worse than the first half of “The Dark Forest,” so maybe there’s hope.
At the moment, I’m rooting for all the characters to die in alphabetical order. That’s probably a bad thing.
[Three fifths!]
@Greg Hullender — Thanks! I’ll check the review after I finish the novella — might help me get my own thoughts in order …
@Greg Hullender
Ah, that made me laugh. That gave me more enjoyment in thirty seconds than I’ve gotten out of the entire first half of the book.
I really don’t want to DNF a Hugo nominee, but it’s getting to be a pretty near thing.
“Kiss my ass,” Scalzi explained.
Any correlation with that attitude and why his latest novel didn’t make the NYT Bestseller List is purely speculative.
Bonnie McDaniel: I really don’t want to DNF a Hugo nominee, but it’s getting to be a pretty near thing.
I think that my tolerance level, after all the Puppy crap, has gone down. I find myself a lot more willing to DNF and/or No Award non-Puppy works. With the exception of the Puppy works, I absolutely believe that the nominators found the finalist works worthy of being on the ballot — but there are still several non-Puppy things going below No Award on my ballot this year. 😐
Re: The Watchtower’s menu, specifically the “West Philadelphia Cheesesteak”. As a former resident of West Philly*, I raise my eyebrow at the use of cheddar rather than provolone (my preference) or wiz. But my “That’s just *wrong*” reflex hit when I reached its last ingredient, namely mustard.
*As a side note, my oddest “That’s not how West Philly is” was the opening page of Joe Straczynski’s first issue of Superman, which the caption said was literally the block I’d lived on, namely the 500s of S, 48th St. and incorrectly ided as being in South Philly. As well as having lots of driveways, while the actual block has none, and the houses didn’t look right. The worst Philly bit though was Rob Liefeld’s Captain America, where he was supposed to be living in a suburban house with a lawn and white picket fence. Which the address would’ve put in downtown Central City…except that it was actually a street number that would’ve put it about 100 feet into the Delaware River.
(1) I bombed on the list, but I was tickled to see Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Yokohama Shopping Trip) heading it. Ashinano Hitoshi’s art is simply beautiful, and his story lines are wistful, humorous tributes to time and relationship. As for the rest, I remember the Andre Norton YA novel fondly, but nothing else rings a doomsday bell. “Alas Babylon” and “Malevil” are two books I might add.
At Short Story Squee and Snark, we’re discussing “Terra Nullius,” by Hanuš Seiner and published in Strange Horizons.
It’s a really eerie story, where the protagonist explores the formative bubbles where invading aliens learn how the world works. A weird piece, and I’d love to hear more thoughts on it! 🙂
Re Teddy’s nom of Miéville: he actually really does seem to admire Miéville’s writing chops, so I think it’s an earnest nomination on his part. There’s probably also an element of “I get it cos I’m a sooperjeenuyus” as well.
@1–
I’ve read five of them-although I had to look up the Carol Emshwiller story to remember it–and have at least heard of two others.
Andre Norton’s book is one of the first SF books I remember reading and both it and Judith Merril’s are on my shelves right now (in the post-apocalypse section). “The City, Not Long After” was there but didn’t survive a book purge to get more shelf space.
I’m not so sure about his definition of ‘core’ works. Unless you define that as “obscure YA”.
I’d add “Dear Devil” by Eric Frank Russell and “The Kraken Wakes” by John Wyndham
Bonnie McDaniel: (7) has no link but you get full appertainment privileges for catching the missing “I” in (8).
Chip Hitchcock: And since you noted the same error, you can dive into the appertainment center, too.
Oneiros: Re Teddy’s nom of Miéville: he actually really does seem to admire Miéville’s writing chops, so I think it’s an earnest nomination on his part. There’s probably also an element of “I get it cos I’m a sooperjeenuyus” as well.
I believe that VD has read and admired one or more past works by Miéville. But I don’t for a moment believe that he has actually read This Census-Taker.
Mike Glyer: Chip Hitchcock: And since you noted the same error, you can dive into the appertainment center, too.
You’re being mighty generous with those virtual drinks; careful, or you’re going to have to make another run to the virtual liquor store. 😉
I, unlike Scalzi, won’t tell my readers to eff off. Why would you want to do that to someone paying you money? Of course, making angry and incendiary political posts gets that effect. I don’t do that so much cuz I’m a generally happy person. Anything I post in that regard just tends to be funny or amusing.
@Bonnie: I’m new to actual Hugo-voting, but I’m having no compunctions about DNFing.
Partially because Mount Tsundoku — OMG so much to read and oh hey I’d like to be reading 2017 material for next year too and also maybe I’ll do some non-Hugo reading sometime, maybe aggggh.
Partially because I am 100% down with the fact that Not Every Hugo Nominee Is Something I Like. Forcing myself through it is not going to increase my appreciation of it. If I reach the 50% mark, and am suffering, wincing constantly, or still going “huh wtf,” that’s an initial barrier the second half is unlikely to overcome. At 50%-ish, I’ve got the measure of a piece, and if I stop there, it’s because I’m firmly persuaded I’ve got nothing to look forward to — if there were, I’d probably keep reading.
And, DNF-ing a book doesn’t necessarily mean No Awarding it. Just as an example, I knew from the start that All The Birds In The Sky was not my jam. Got it in the Hugo packet, waded in, and yeah — not my jam. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand why other people love it — I got a good sense of what it does awesomely, and I understand the enthusiasm. “I didn’t like it” is not a “No Award,” and I don’t think I’ll have any particular trouble ranking it among the others.
@JJ: Fair enough, that’s entirely possible for Ted. It could be that, or he’s read it and thinks (or pretends) he’s understood it.
[popcorn]
Jon Del Arroz: I, unlike Scalzi, won’t tell my readers to eff off. Why would you want to do that to someone paying you money? Of course, making angry and incendiary political posts gets that effect. I don’t do that so much cuz I’m a generally happy person. Anything I post in that regard just tends to be funny or amusing.
He’s not telling his readers to eff off. He’s telling assholes who think they have the right to tell him what he can and can not write about to piss off, because they’re not the boss of him. That’s a perfectly legitimate stance; I do it frequently. It’s the result of being self-confident enough to not need the approval of every moron on the planet. And since Scalz’s got a 10-year, $3.4 million guaranteed contract to write books, he doesn’t have to tolerate the bullshit that unknown writers frequently have to just grin and bear. That’s an awesome place for a writer to be.
And if you do get around to posting something that’s actually funny or amusing, please post a link to it; that would really be something to see.
“I have no link & I must Scroll.”
(1) I’ve only read 3, but the Norton was my first SF book …
(12) “The Mummy” trailer was more than enough for me. Looked like “Tom searches for woman who will never leave him & gets more than he bargained for, with extra portentous gibberish from Russell Crowe”.
I’m sure 16 was used to provide the smoking gun in an episode of Castle Possibly the one where Castle’s mentor/teacher is suspected of murdering his wife.
(7) HELSINKI BOUND TRAVELER SEEKS ADVICE
I can’t help on sim deals available in Finland, but on the issue of roaming: from this month onwards European providers are not allowed to charge premium roaming prices – if your package allows roaming you can use it in all EU countries in the same way.
Not Pixel me your best scroll?
(1) Oh man, I wore out my tweenage copy of the Norton book. Even wrote a book report on it.
(12) No surprise. The trailers I’ve seen make it look terrible. If they can’t even get one good two-minute trailer out of a movie, it must be bad. I went to Rotten Tomatoes and read selected bits of some reviews out loud to the husband. Many LOLs were had.
(14) People will shag anything, even if it’s not quite the same species. We’re all mutts thanks to rishthara.
@Greg: Yep, although you and I very frequently disagree on story ratings, I’m with you this time on “Census Taker”. But do you want the people in “Death’s End” to die in English or Chinese alphabetical/syllable order?
I’m finding a lot of stuff below No Award. Of course, I haven’t been afraid to use that option long before Puppies started writing, either. I agree with @Standback that “I didn’t like it” isn’t what puts something below “No Award”. But it helps. Even things I don’t like get above NA if they’re competent. Novel and Related Work look promising this year, even if there’s stuff I don’t like.
@JJ: snerk
@Tom: The worst
Philly bitthough was Rob Liefeld’s Captain AmericaFTFY.
Read “Ninefox Gambit” and loved it! Not confusing at all, even if I don’t think calendar differences change physics. Now off to Related Work.
(7) Euro-SIMs. This summer the EU is stopping carriers charging inter-EU roaming fees, so if a SIM roams, it will cost the same anywhere in the EU.
Chip Hitchcock @4: good horror stories, but why is anyone surprised by this?
As usual when this question comes up, I think it’s more “tired of” than “surprised by”.
(4) As an actual Irish person from the actual land of Ireland, I can confirm that many people get Irish culture wrong.
However, and again speaking as an Irish person who even lives in that far green country behind its grey rain-curtain, I can officially state that we do not generally take offense at cultural misappropriation of bits Irish mythology, because it is often really funny.
My own review of This Census-Taker described it as “maddeningly oblique”… I think it’s possible to infer a plot from all the hints and undercurrents, but it demands a lot of work from the reader, and there’s no guarantee the plot you infer will be the same one I’ve inferred….
(dons puce velvet smoking jacket, sips absinthe) It is possible, in fact, that there is no one true version of This Census-Taker, but many versions, one for each reader; that each reader creates, as it were, a palimpsest of their own upon the raw text….
(removes smoking jacket) Or it could be a failed literary experiment. Or it could be perfectly straightforward and obvious if you look at it the right way, and I might just be very stupid for failing to spot it.
Whatever. I thought it was… interesting. It was on my nominations ballot, and it’s figuring above “No Award” in my final vote, but it doesn’t get my number one slot. Too oblique for me.
Also, 1) I would totally take Daybreak – 2250 AD off that list and replace it with Star Man’s Son.
Alas, I am almost certainly going to DNF several works this year. You’re not really encouraging me to push Dark Forest up the reading list.
Fortunately I managed to delete Alien Stripper from the kindle before the ten year old found it. Got no qualms about DNFing that.
(7) Helsinki bound – both Copenhagen and Stockholm have excellent SF book and games stores. Book selection (in English) not so good when I visited Helsinki, but it’s a great city.
@Tom Galloway mustard?!?
I’ll now have to drop my excoriation of Trump in favor of relentlessly denigrating that particular abomination!
“The horror. The horror!”
I am fairly sure that a book or story that can’t keep my interest isn’t worthy of an award.
The harder question, for me, is books that I don’t want to continue reading for some other reason, like a too-gruesome opening or a viewpoint character who I dislike enough to not want to spend more time seeing things from their point of view. Sometimes the answer would be to rank the stories I did like and stop there, omitting “no award”—but that only works if there’s nothing I am sure shouldn’t get an award.
If I think something is crap, I have no trouble saying it shouldn’t get an award. That doesn’t apply if my opinion after ten pages, or 150, is “this may be doing what it does very well, but I am really not the audience for this” and it’s possible that what it’s doing puts it within the very loose category “good science fiction or fantasy.”
I haven’t got a good answer for what to do if the choices are three things I think are good, one that I am sure belongs below “no award,” and one I bounced off for reasons separate from quality. But it’s a different question from “should I keep slogging through this even though I’m bored, in case it redeems itself later?”
[godstalk]
@Jon Del Arroz
So it’s okay for you to make political remarks and tell people who disagree to piss off, but not for John Scalzi?
Funny thing: I’ve never defined what, exactly, I mean by “core”. But I’ll happily put my lists up against “Twenty-Five Must Read Books” lists that contain multiple books by the same authors, as though the curator’s exposure to SF was very small, and which in some cases trail off into vague references to series.
Vicki Rosenzweig on June 8, 2017 at 6:04 am said:
There are thousands of Really Good Books that don’t interest me and that I have no desire to finish. Three Body Problem, is just one example. I read enough to realize how much it didn’t interest me, but I can see why other people liked it. Ninefox Gambit looks to be going the same way, as I’ve read 3.5 Toby Daye books and half of the first Craft novel since I put aside Ninefox Gambit. I hear it gets better so I may pick it up again, but if I don’t it still won’t go below No Award.
A book doesn’t have to appeal to my tastes for me to recognize it’s good but I just don’t like it (or the sub-genre, or the plot, or maybe I’m jut not in the mood right then). I’ll vote for a good book that doesn’t personally interest me.
Anything I post in that regard just tends to be funny or amusing.
Ow! My funnybone!
@James David Nicoll
Loving the lists. Such good range to add to my to read pile. Very tired of the same lists to slog through looking for gems
Also if you happen to have a list of great Southern Ontario used bookstores with good Sci fi/fantasy, we happen to live less than an hour from each other so anything you suggest is perfect Saturday adventure shopping. Haven’t found you talking about that on your website yet, but maybe I haven’t found it
I have found great stuff at the Old Mill store, The Write Bookshop in St Catharine’s, and Bookworm in Brantford/Hamilton, and Fernlea Books in Courtland
1- 2/20 and I call myself a fan of that subgenre. Some works I hadn’t even heard of and nice to see books to add to the pile. Others to consider; The Gone Away World will always be a personal favorite of mine and Metro 2033 is just a weird wild read.
3- Which is the right attitude if someone tells you to stop having an opinion. Voicing an opinion will always potentially alienate someone who disagrees with that, and if they disagree strongly enough to not want to support a creator’s work, no one is forcing them to buy it. Most of the time I separate content from creator but there are sometimes things a creator will say that will tarnish my ability to separate the two. If I can’t well there’s more books, movies, tv shows, music, art, etc that I want to experience than I’ll ever have time to experience so it’s not hard to move on.
People used to say ‘Never meet your heroes’ because the idea you have of them and who they are might conflict. But now we can easily see into the personal lives through social media of everyone we’re a fan of. If you can’t handle that the person you are a fan of is entitled to their own life that might not match up with what you think of them, well tough shit.
12 – Speaking of sometimes having a hard time separating content from creator: Tom Cruise. Really like him as an actor, not so much of what I’ve seen of him from personal interviews. He’s rarely in a bad movie but this one looked like a stinker from far off. The trailer looked like they took the last The Mummy remake and sucked all the fun out of it. Not a great start for the Universal Monster Extended Universe movies.