(1) TAKING NOTES. I’d love to see more panel reports of this kind.
(2) FAN FUNDS AUCTION. Alison Scott announced that today’s CoNZealand Fan Funds auction raised 2190$NZD for GUFF, TAFF, DUFF and FFANZ.
(3) YOU GOT YOUR POLITICS IN MY FICTION! This happened to a CoNZealand panel participant yesterday.
Schluessel also reports getting dinged for having a Black Lives Matter background. Which is pretty bizarre, because there’s a Black Lives Matter banner in CoNZealand’s virtual Exhibit Hall, as seen in the screencap below. However, Schluessel says “CoNZealand has extended me a full apology, which I have accepted.”
(4) ROTSLER AWARD EXHIBIT. CoNZealand’s virtual exhibit hall includes many things, such as the Rotsler Award exhibit (membership required to access) with artwork from each year’s award winner. Click the link, select “Boldy Go,” select Exhibits, and once there, click on Displays. The Rotsler link is last on the bottom right.
(5) PLEASE UNSIGN THEM. When she saw her sff group’s name listed as a signer of the Open Letter to WSFS about the Saudi Arabia Worldcon bid, Fran Dowd, “Sofa” of the Sheffield Science Fiction and Fantasy society posted a denial on the group’s Facebook page.
I’d like to put it on record that I have no idea how this group appeared as a signatory to the Jeddah letter. Whatever our personal feelings might be, I would not expect anyone to sign such a statement on our behalf without consultation at the least.
I have spent this morning, when I would actually rather be at the current Worldcon, trying to spread the word. Apologies have been given to the NZ Chairs and to Kevin Standlee. Given the spread of social media, getting a retraction would be meaningless.
I apologise to any members of the group who have been dragged into this. If it is of any help, please point people to this statement.
Signed by me in my capacity as Chair When We Need One.
(6) RETRO SPLASHDOWN. Cora Buhlert takes stock of yesterday’s awards. Did they stick the landing? “Some Thoughts on the 1945 Retro Hugo Winners”.
Best Novelette
The 1945 Retro Hugo for Best Novelette goes to “City” by Clifford D. Simak. This isn’t a huge surprise, because the City cycle is well regarded, still in print and Clifford D. Simak was one of the best writers of the Golden Age. “City” is a pretty good story, too, though not the best City story of 1944 or even the best City novelette, because “Census”, which didn’t make the ballot, is better.
That said, this was not the category I wanted to see Simak win. In fact, I was hoping that C.L. Moore, either with or without Henry Kuttner, would win Best Novelette, because both “No Woman Born” (which finished second) and “The Children’s Hour” (which finished unfairly in sixth place) are great stories.
Though I’m glad that “Arena” by Fredric Brown was its “Genocide is good” message didn’t win, because I feared that it might.
(7) MORE OR LESS RETRO-HUGOS? Charles Stross thinks pausing the Retro-Hugos for about a quarter century might address some of the competing values now in conflict. Thread starts here.
Alasdair Stuart laments the Campbell and Lovecraft Retro wins. Thread starts here.
(8) PERSERVERANCE IS ON ITS WAY. “Nasa Mars rover: Perseverance robot launches to detect life on Red Plane” – BBC story includes video.
The US space agency’s Perseverance robot has left Earth on a mission to try to detect life on Mars.
The one-tonne, six-wheeled rover was launched out of Florida by an Atlas rocket on a path to intercept the Red Planet in February next year.
When it lands, the Nasa robot will also gather rock and soil samples to be sent home later this decade.
Perseverance is the third mission despatched to Mars inside 11 days, after launches by the UAE and China.
Lift-off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station occurred at 07:50 local time (12:50 BST; 11:50 GMT).
Nasa made this mission one of its absolute priorities when the coronavirus crisis struck, establishing special work practices to ensure Perseverance met its launch deadline.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s a challenge, it’s very stressful, but look – the teams made it happen and I’ll tell you, we could not be more proud of what this integrated team was able to pull off here, so it’s very, very exciting,” Administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters.
(9) SPEAK UP, MARS. NPR tells how “Microphone Aboard NASA’s Rover Aims To Pick Up Sounds From Mars”.
…BRENDAN BYRNE, BYLINE: When the Perseverance rover lands on Mars in February, it will unpack a suite of scientific experiments to help uncover ancient signs of life on the red planet – high-tech cameras, spectrometers, sensors and…
ROGER WIENS: This is the voice of Roger Wiens speaking to you through the Mars microphone on SuperCam.
BYRNE: Roger Wiens is the principal investigator of the rover SuperCam, a slew of instruments, including a camera, laser and spectrometer, that will examine the rocks and soil of Mars for organic compounds, a hint that there might be further evidence of past life. Tucked away inside the SuperCam is the Mars microphone.
WIENS: And so it is there to listen to anything interesting, first of all, on Mars. And so we should hear wind sounds. We should hear sounds of the rover. We might hear things that we never expected to hear. And so that’s going to be interesting to find out.
BYRNE: The mic will also listen as Perseverance’s onboard laser blasts nearby rocks.
ADDIE DOVE: You might think we’re going to hear, like, pew pew, but we probably won’t.
BYRNE: University of Central Florida planetary scientist Addie Dove says the sounds of Martian rock blasts will help scientists determine if they might contain organic material, evidence of life on Mars. But it will actually sound more like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROCK BLASTS)
(10) JOSE SARAMAGO NEWS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the July 24 Financial Times, Sarah Hemming discusses a new adaptation of Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago’s sf novel Blindness at the Donmar Warehouse in London (donmarwarehouse.com). Donmar’s director, Michael Longhurst says the production will be a hybrid of theatre and “sound installation” that will let the theatre hold four shows a day. I can’t tell from the review how much actual theatre there is in the production. The only Donmar production I’ve seen was an all-female Julius Caesar on PBS that had an impressive performance by Dame Harriet Walter as Brutus.
Lockdown has emphasised the importance of sound for many of us from that early experience of hearing birdsong in unusually quiet city centres, to a keener awareness, prompted by physical separation, of the way we listen. And several online drama offerings, such as Simon McBurney’s The Encounter and Sound&Fury’s wartime meditation Charlie Ward At Home, have used sophisticated recording to steep their homebound audiences in other worlds and prompt reflection.
Blindness, in a sense, builds on that (there will be a digital download for those unable to get to the theatre). So why attend in person? Longhurst suggests the very act of being in a space will change the quality of listening–and reflect the way we have all had individual journeys through the collective experience of lockdown. And while this is a one-off piece about a society in an epidemic, created for an industry in a pandemic, that physical presence marks a move towards full performance.
(11) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.
- July 1987 — Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks was published by Ace Books. This urban fantasy would get its own trailer courtesy of Will Shetterly who financed it instead of running for Governor. You’ll no doubt recognize many of the performers here. Decades later, it was scheduled to have a hardcover edition from Tor Books but it got canceled after the books were printed. And the music in War for The Oaks would later be done by Cats Laughing, a band that includes Emma Bull and other members of Minneapolis fandom.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
- Born July 30, 1800 – Aleksandr Veltman. Order of St. Vladimir (bravery) while in the Russian army, eventually Director of the Museum of Armaments. Poetry praised by Pushkin, second wife’s novel praised by Gorky. The Wanderer in an imaginary journey parodies travel notes. Koshchei the Deathless parodies historical adventures. The Year 3448 is supposedly by Martin Zadek (who also finds his way into Pushkin and Zamyatin). The Forebears of Kalimeros has time-travel (by riding a hippogriff; “Kalimeros”, a nudge at Napoleon, is the Greek equivalent of Buonaparte) to meet Alexander and Aristotle. Tolstoy and Dostoevskyapplauded AV too. (Died 1870) [JH]
- Born July 30, 1873 – Curtis Senf. Four dozen covers and hundreds of interiors for Weird Tales, after which what the Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists modestly calls “a more lucrative career as a commercial artist in the Chicago advertising industry”. Here is the Oct 27 WT; here is the Jan 30; here is the Mar 32. (Died 1949) [JH]
- Born July 30, 1911 — Reginald Bretnor. Author of many genre short stories involving Ferdinand Feghoot, a comical figure indeed. It looks like all of these are available in digital form on iBooks and Kindle. He was a consummate SJW. He translated Les Chats, the first known book about cats which was written by Augustin Paradis de Moncrif in 1727. He also wrote myriad articles about cats, was of course a companion to cats, and considered himself to have a psychic connection to cats. Of course most of us do. (Did 1992.) (CE)
- Born July 30, 1927 — Victor Wong. I remember him best as the Chinese sorcerer Egg Shen in John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China. He was also The Old Man in The Golden Child, Walter Chang in Tremors, Dr. Wong in the “China Moon” episode of the Beauty and the Beast series and Lee Tzin-Soong in the “Fox Spirit” episode of Poltergeist: The Legacy. (Died 2001.) (CE)
- Born July 30, 1947 – John Stith, 73. Eight novels, a dozen shorter stories, translated into French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian. Wrote about John Kennedy (i.e. our JK; indeed John R.; 1945-2009) in 1992 (for the limited ed’n of “Nova in a Bottle” bound with “Encore”), interviewed by him in 1993 (SF Chronicle 164). Did his own cover for a reprinting of Death Tolls. [JH]
- Born July 30, 1948 — Carel Struycken, 72. I remember him best as the gong ringing Mr. Holm on Next Gen, companion to Deanna Troi’s mother. He was also Lurch in The Addams Family, Addams Family Values and the Addams Family Reunion. He’s listed as being Fidel in The Witches of Eastwick but I’ll be damned if I remembered his role in that film. And he’s in Ewoks: The Battle for Endor which I’ve never seen… (CE)
- Born July 30, 1961 — Laurence Fishburne, 59. In The Matrix films. His voice work as Thrax in Osmosis Jones on the other hand is outstanding as is his role as Bill Foster in Ant-Man. (CE)
- Born July 30, 1966 — Jess Nevins, 54. Author of the superlative Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victorian and the equally great Heroes & Monsters: The Unofficial Companion to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which is far better than the film ever could be. I didn’t know he was an author ‘til now but he has two genre novels, The Road to Prester John and The Datong Incident. (CE)
- Born July 30, 1967 – Ann Brashares, 53. Famous for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (that’s the U.S. meaning of “pants”, in this case a magical pair of blue jeans), a NY Times Best-Seller, and its sequels, films, companions. Two more novels for us, one other. Indies Choice Book Award, Quill Award. Philosophy major (yay!) at Barnard, 1989. [JH]
- Born July 30, 1971 – Kristie Cook, 49. Nine novels, a dozen shorter stories (some with co-authors; publishes Havenwood Falls shared-world stories, some wholly by others). Loves cheese, chocolate, coffee, husband, sons, motorcycle. “No, I’m not crazy. I’m just a writer.” [JH]
- Born July 30, 1974 – Jacek Dukaj, 46. Ten novels, half a dozen shorter stories, translated into Bulgarian, Czech, English (he’s a Pole), German, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, Russian, Slovak. Six Zajdel Awards. EU Prize for Literature. Another writer with a Philosophy degree, from Jagiellonian University even. His Culture.pl page (in English) is here. [JH]
- Born July 30, 1975 — Cherie Priest, 45. Her southern gothic Eden Moore series is kickass good and Clockwork Universe series isa refreshing take on steampunk which has been turned into full cast audiobooks by GraphicAudio. I’ve not read Cheshire Red Reports novels so have no idea how they are. Anyone read these? (CE)
(13) NOW WITH MORE MASK. Ray’s playing it safe, I see. Incidentally, the Ray Bradbury Experience Museum is accepting RSVP’s here for entry during RBEM’s Ray Bradbury Centennial Celebration on August 22, 2020.
(14) OOPS. Marc Zicree has issued a video “Apology to the Science Fiction Writers of America,” for using their membership list to publicize Space Command.
(15) A DISSATISFIED CUSTOMER. And not only that, we line up for the opportunity!
(16) BACURAU. The Criterior Channel’s August lineup includes Bacurau on August 20, an exclusive streaming premiere, featuring an interview with directors Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles.
(17) SHELFISHNESS. The Washington Post’s Michael Dirda finds it’s not that easy: “In turbulent times, culling my book collection gave me the illusion of control. Then the dilemmas began multiplying.”
… After all, who doesn’t periodically yearn to flee the nightmarish world we now live in? A persistent feeling of helplessness, frustration, anger and mild despair has emerged as the “New Normal” — which is one reason my recent reviews and essays tend to emphasize escapism, often into books from the past. A similar impulse lies behind the pruning of my basement hoard. Going through my many boxes, I am no longer the plaything of forces beyond my control. I have, to use a vogue term, agency. I alone decide which books to keep, which to let go.
However, making these decisions has turned out to be harder than I expected.
Here’s an example of what I mean. I’m fond of a slightly overwritten travel book called “A Time of Gifts” by English writer Patrick Leigh Fermor. It recounts in striking detail a walk across half of Europe undertaken by the young Leigh Fermor in 1933. Somehow, I possess four copies of this minor classic: a Penguin paperback that I read and marked up, an elegant Folio Society edition bought at the Friends of the Montgomery County Library bookstore, a later issue of the original John Murray hardback, and a first American edition in a very good dust jacket acquired for a bargain price at the Second Story Books warehouse. Given the space-saving principle of eliminating duplicates, I should keep just one copy. Which one?
(18) WIZARDS OF THE COST. NPR finds that “In The Pandemic Era, This ‘Gathering’ Has Lost Some Of Its Magic”.
You draw seven cards. You look at your hand. It would be perfect if you had that one card.
Too bad it costs $50. And your local game store is closed anyway.
Depending on where you lie on the nerd spectrum, you may or may not have heard of Magic: The Gathering. It’s a trading card game that’s been in production for almost three decades. Even if you haven’t heard of it or played it, you probably know someone who has. It’s one of the most popular trading card games of all time, and that isn’t an exaggeration; there are millions of Magic: The Gathering players worldwide.
…Before COVID-19 hit the Magic community, players packed into local game stores to sling spells and blow off steam. Now, as players move toward the online versions, there are additional financial hurdles to clear.
There’s a reason it’s called Magic: The Gathering. Most of the fun comes from squaring off against other players, catching the clandestine tells of your opponent as they draw powerful spells. Game stores across the country offer opportunities to play; they host tournaments, stock up on new cards and teach new wizards how to play.
But even if veteran players and shop owners welcome new Planeswalkers with open arms, how accessible is Magic: The Gathering?
Players can craft a variety of decks, and if they’re playing the more common formats of the game, a deck can cost anywhere from about $275 to $834 or more. Not only are full decks expensive, but so are individual cards. The card Thoughtseize, for instance, has a current value of around $25 per copy. If a deck contains four copies of a single card (the maximum), just that one card would bring the price of a deck up by $100. And there are much more expensive cards on the market.
…There is an online version of the game, but Magic Online isn’t cheap either. And while it isn’t as expensive as its cardboard counterpart, a player still has to buy new digital versions of physical cards they already own. On top of that, a Magic Online account costs $10 just to set up. And while a Magic veteran might jump at the opportunity to play online, a new player may feel less inclined to pay the fee when there are other online deck-building games, like Hearthstone, that are free to try.
In 2018, Magic’s publisher Wizards of the Coast released a free, digital version of the game called Magic: The Gathering Arena. It’s a more kid-friendly online option for new Planeswalkers, but it still has the same Magic charm for older players. Arena does include in-game purchases, but players can obtain better cards by grinding out a lot of games instead of spending extra money. And while Arena can be a great way to introduce a new player to the online format, if they don’t want to empty their wallets, they’ll have to get used to losing for a while.
[Thanks to John Hertz, N., Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Michael Toman, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Jeffrey Smith, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jayn.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
(12) The character “Fidel” was the Devil’s butler in “Witches”
7/8. I still wonder where everybody who complains now about Lovecraft and Campbell winning Retro Hugos made their recommendations for overlooked SFF authors of the 1940s. And in fact, a lot of them don’t even seem to have taken any notice of Retro Hugo winners not named Campbell or Lovecraft.
18) A while back I wrote up a brief discussion of Magic pricing problems aimed at people who had none of the context, and found that a very, very brief discussion of “what is wrong with the price of the most recent special set” still produced a fairly long essay, and that I was still leaving out, like, five interrelated issues that could have been similarly-lengthed essays all on their own. This article is missing a few essential pieces of context: for a long time Wizards refused to admit the secondary market exists because if cards have real value then opening booster packs is a form of gambling and exposes them to “selling a gambling product to a minor” lawsuits (like loot boxes!) but was incentivized to manage secondary-market prices anyway (just without admitting they were doing it) so people could buy into the game.
Then someone at Wizards had the brainwave that if they sold small groups of single cards with new art and claimed they weren’t suggesting individual cards had value but they were just selling special versions with cool art, they could have their cake and eat it too, and now they are incentivized to keep prices high. (There’s also a fairly popular theory that Wizards is deliberately trying to kill paper Magic because Arena is cheaper and easier to manage.) The high price to buy into Magic is deliberately orchestrated by Wizards.
Cora Buhlert says I still wonder where everybody who complains now about Lovecraft and Campbell winning Retro Hugos made their recommendations for overlooked SFF authors of the 1940s. And in fact, a lot of them don’t even seem to have taken any notice of Retro Hugo winners not named Campbell or Lovecraft.
Neither Campbell nor Lovecraft had anyplace at all on my ballot. Weird Tales was my choice for zine, and other than “City” which I’m delighted to see win, I’d have to dig out my ballot to see exactly how I voted.
About 7) Also Lovecraft won in Best Series and Campbell as best editor. This are not the first catagories everyone votes in.
The problem is also the personality not the quality/importance of they work. (Most of the heavy critics of the retros not people like Cora) Should it play a role if you judge the work? We all no cases were that is very dificult to ignore. Is it bad when people can ignore it. I don’t have answers for that.
@3: is that a Margaret Atwood Memorial Squid?
@11 niggle: Cats Laughing did a setting of a small number of lyrics that appear in the book. (I can only think of one but haven’t reread to check.) Most of the music in the book is covers; CL did a few covers (“White Rabbit” is on their oneshot-reunion recording), but IIRC none of the ones listed in the book.
@12: Bretnor was an SJW?!? Not by my recollection of his fiction — the older stuff hasn’t aged well, and “Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and All” has a deplorable portrait of a revolutionary Black poet being exposed as a fake — even in 1973 it read to me like Anderson’s “Critique of Impure Reason” rather than anything forward-looking. Does adoring cats override everything else?
@8 appended: The BBC also has a video of the helicopter — some parts are obviously simulations, but some look like real shots.
@Kit Harding: the article claims that WotC put a lot of effort into driving prices down; do you discount that? (I’m just watching from the outside and remembering “The Big Pat Boom”.)
Chip says niggle: Cats Laughing did a setting of a small number of lyrics that appear in the book. (I can only think of one but haven’t reread to check.) Most of the music in the book is covers; CL did a few covers (“White Rabbit” is on their oneshot-reunion recording), but IIRC none of the ones listed in the book.
You’d be wrong as there’s some original songs in the novel such as “For It All” that later got covered by Cats Laughing, mostly on Another Way to Travel. That’s the album most clearly of fandom, by fandom.
I’ve got the original Another Way to Travel cover art by Terri Windling which I really should get flamed. Pam Dean’s husband sent it my way decades back.
I do thank you as I hadn’t realised that I didn’t have a digital copy of it, so now I do as I purchased one off iBooks.
@Chip Hitchcock: Where in the article does it say that? But yes, I do dispute that. A very large portion of the expense of those decks is often a particular one or two cards, and the most expensive of those are a cycle known as Fetchlands which players have been clamoring for Wizards to reprint to bring the price down for years, and Wizards has consistently refused, and Mark Rosewater, head designer of Magic, publicly said when people complained that he was open to suggestions, but that “making Magic not be collectible anymore” was not something he could take to his bosses– from context it was pretty clear that “collectible” is the polite corporate euphemism for “expensive”, since all that was being asked for was “put Fetchlands into any of the many reprint sets you do each year”. (They recently offered a very limited-quantity special edition of some of these at an absurdly high price point. Do a real reprint and the price of every absurdly expensive deck drops immediately by several hundred dollars.)
Also the Pro Tour, which the article mentions, was dissolved in 2018, so I’m a little skeptical of the article’s reporting on its face.
@Cat Eldridge
I wasn’t referring to you, but to the noisy folks who complain about Campbell and Lovecraft winning Retro Hugos on Twitter, but never suggested or promoted other candidates or even seem to have noticed that the Retro Hugos exist at all.
Dorothy McIlwraith of Weird Tales was also my choice for best editor, because Weird Tales had the most consistent quality of all the mags of the era. Meanwhile, both Campbell and Lovecraft were quite far down on my ballot, though I didn’t no award them.
12) Struycken also played the Giant in Twin Peaks – or, as the eventual third season officially named him, the Fireman.
14) I’m still facepalming here. And not in the amused way.
A zoom background is like a t-shirt, it both enhances and devalues what you have to say, depending on the POV of the observer, and is often a distraction. I do note that the person who made the complaint and left the CoNZealand programming team is probably not going to volunteer to help with programme again.
@17. Michael’s conundrum is easily solved by realizing that he does not have “duplicates” of that book, he has different editions.
@John Bray the person who made the complaint and left the CoNZealand programming team is probably not going to volunteer to help with programme again.
Under the circumstances, I’d say this is the opposite of a problem.
Every conrunner who gives up the hobby means that future cons are less likely to happen. If the expectations on organisers get ever higher, and the criticism for failure more extreme, no-one will volunteer. Eastercon is struggling to find committees, and Worldcon seem only to have one convincing bid at a time. You can demand too much of hobbiests.
Initial criticism of the convention is best done in private, not on Twitter. Only if it seems to be convention policy should the discussion be broadened. But tolerance and patience does not seem the modern way
(12j Bretnor also wrote “ The Craft of Science Fiction: A Symposium on Writing Science Fiction and Science Fantasy“ in the 1970s. It wasn’t one of the first books about writing SF I remember seeing, but it one was off the first. It might have been one of the first I saw that talked to then-contemporary writers.
ETA:I think the SJW line refers to love of cats? Cats = SJW credentials
@John Bray: When the criticism is “they demanded I remove a political statement,” leaving the criticism private until the con answers–which might be hours, or might be after the con is over–is accepting censorship. The default answer to “We want you to be part of our convention, but not if you talk about ongoing genocide” should not be “I’ll change that while you decide if it’s okay.”
“Don’t let one random con volunteer censor program participants” is not an unreasonably high bar, nor a new one–if anything, the new and unreasonable demand is “allow anyone working on the con to censor program participants.”
“Tolerance” doesn’t and shouldn’t mean “accept censorship,” and “patience” shouldn’t be expected of the victims of censorship rather than the would-be censors. Let the random con volunteer who objects to a Zoom background, or a T-shirt, go patiently to whoever on the con committee would be in a position to make a decision, and wait while they decide whether to ask the program participant to remove that political statement.
If you know you’re running an all-virtual event, and the concom cares enough to make rules on this, they can do so, and notify program participants. But there isn’t likely to be a formal message to all volunteers “Folks, someone suggested we censor Zoom backgrounds, and we decided not to do it” even if that decision is made on record in the meeting minutes somewhere.
There is apparently going to be a Brisbane Worldcon bid for 2025:
https://twitter.com/aus2025/status/1289172117079040000
@ John Bray. I sorta agree? This is a problem with a lot of things on Twitter. Each individual comment/ incident/ complaint is reasonable, but put together they are overwhelming. I don’t know what the solution is though, I don’t think making it harder for people to complain is it
@Paul Weimer
I selfishly wish they’d pick another year. Given the financial burden I can only go every second year at most and 2024 I want to go Glasgow. And Australia is very far away that takes even more founds. 2028 would sound nice.
@mouse Glasgow followed on by Brisbane would be hell on the budget, for sure.
@John Bray Every conrunner who gives up the hobby means that future cons are less likely to happen.
And every visibly racist conrunner means fewer future attendees. Take your pick, I guess… but I’d say the responsibility sits with the conrunners.
On a separate note, what do people think of the virtual con experience?
Personally, I find that the panels part is better than being there is person. You can make comments and have side conversations without disturbing the panel, and wander in and out.
But the casual hallway conversation and meeting people isn’t anywhere as good.
RE: 7) Delaying Votes When You Don’t Like Potential Results:
So, Charlie Stross and Alasdair Stuart join Donald Trump and Xi Jinping (viz, Hong Kong elections) in election theory. “But, but, this CAN’T be legitimate if it doesn’t go my way!!!” Thus, the HorseShoe Theory of Political Spectrums* holds true for SF as well as politics…..
*In political science and popular discourse, the horseshoe theory asserts that the far-left and the far-right, rather than being at opposite and opposing ends of a linear political continuum, closely resemble one another, analogous to the way that the opposite ends of a horseshoe are close together.
(14) Four minutes of self-promotion before we get to the non-apology.
Its not unreasonable to wait a few hours for the convention to get back to you before shouting foul. People make mistakes, give them slack. And if someone says that something is political, it does not mean they disagree with those politics, just they think politics are inappropriate at that juncture. And we have no evidence the unnamed person was a racist.
Stephen Graham Jones talks to NPR’s Ari Shapiro about The Only Good Indians
John Bray says Its not unreasonable to wait a few hours for the convention to get back to you before shouting foul. People make mistakes, give them slack. And if someone says that something is political, it does not mean they disagree with those politics, just they think politics are inappropriate at that juncture. And we have no evidence the unnamed person was a racist.
What we do know is that they should have enquired of more senior staff just what the policy was before taking any action. That was not done. If they had done that, this entire unfortunate incident wouldn’t have happened.
@bookworm1398
My experience with another convention. I’d hope it’s offered in the future as a side option. Like as part of the attending membership and a new Virtual Attendee membership. But I’m not interested in virtual-only. And of course the stream has to be stable. I don’t particular care for chat and prefer a slower pace like in a forum if I can’t have in person talk. Discord is not something I’m interested in using. I have never used Zoom so far.
@John Bray–
“Don’t be an open racist” isn’t too high a bar.
And yes, objecting to a Zoom background that protests persecution of Uighurs and doesn’t violate the con CoC is openly racist. We are not currently at a point where authoritarian values hold so much popular sway that people are going to meekly accept the ludicrous notion that plain vanilla statements that oppression is bad, without any offensive images, are “offensive” and need to be policed.
The con could have made a rule banning any political Zoom backgrounds. It didn’t. Some random staffer made that up in their own head. And when the concom did respond to the complaint, they found the staffer, not the panelist, had violated policy.
It was the next day that the person went public with this–which would seem to be time for at least an initial conversation, even if it took longer to officially get the problem person out. I see no problem with them getting the word out at that point.
I suspect that your problem is with them getting the word out at all.
The odd notion that you can’t fire volunteers who are causing problems is pernicious, and fortunately not widely held in convention fandom, as far as I can tell.
(11) On a completely different note–Tor cancelled the hardcover of War for the Oaks after the books were printed?! Anyone know why? (Fully aware that at this point, it’s entirely possible that no one, or at least no one who wants to talk about it, may know.)
John Bray says Its not unreasonable to wait a few hours for the convention to get back to you before shouting foul. People make mistakes, give them slack. And if someone says that something is political, it does not mean they disagree with those politics, just they think politics are inappropriate at that juncture. And we have no evidence the unnamed person was a racist.
Nonetheless, this is not the sort of issue that a single volunteer should take action on. No matter what the politics are, if there’s a need to speak to someone about political behavior, attire, or screens, it should come from the concom, not an individual. That reduces the likelihood of mistakes like the one that was made in this situation.
And, frankly, if cons become dependent on volunteers with problematic points of view in order to function, then perhaps they should fade out. That said, I don’t think that’s an issue.
@Lis Carey
. . . unless the objection is based on a mistaken understanding of tax regulations, and has nothing at all to do with the racial content of the background.
Activision Blizzard does have a rule against political statements at their esports events and has still spent months being constantly roasted after penalising one of the competitors for using a Hong Kong protest slogan. If you’re going to prevent people from speaking on issues they care about, you’ve got to be prepared for the fallout.
Note: Sometimes, the fallout is worth it, and/or letting the statement stand would cause even worse damage to your reputation. But you need to be very sure before you do the thing, and ground level volunteers ought to just kick it up the ladder unless it’s so egregious (obvious racism, for example) that it absolutely must be shut down immediately.
@bill–
That’s possible.
But action still should come from the committee, not an individual volunteer, because the content is political and it’s obviously going to be a sensitive matter to say, “take it down.”
I think that interpretation is less likely, though, because either resigning, or being fired, is an awfully strong reaction, if it was just a misunderstanding of tax regulations. It appears to me that the volunteer must have gotten a bit hot-headed somewhere in the discussion with higher-up committee. If they got hot-headed about politics, that’s understandable, but a problem for a committee that wants its actual rules enforced, not individuals’ idiosyncratic interpretations of them. If they got hot-headed about either tax regulations, or being told they’d misunderstood the regs, that is, in some respects, actually more worrying.
@Lis — I agree with pretty much everything your most recent post says. I was reacting to calling something per se racist, when in this case I don’t necessarily think it was, and the provided story (which certainly isn’t the complete story) offers a plausible non-racist explanation.
@bill–I think it’s the most likely underlying cause, given how quickly we were told that the volunteer in question resigned. Also, the danger of it looking so to reasonable people, even if that isn’t the motivation, is precisely why it should have been elevated to more senior staff, rather than the one volunteer acting on their own.
Flannery O’Connor was a disabled, Catholic, National Book Award winning author, and is famous for her well-regarded Southern Gothic short stories. She has an ISFDB listing for one of her stories, so is presumably of some interest here.
Loyola University, which has a Catholic background, has a residence hall named after O’Connor. Her stories were, certainly for their time, and are progressive on race: Blacks are not caricatures, bigots are mocked, segregation is criticized, etc. But in some of her personal writings, including postcards written as a teenager, she used racist and racially insensitive language. In response to a petition by students, Loyola is removing her name from the hall.
@Cat Eldridge: read what I actually said. The few lyrics in the book (Can you cite any other than “For It All” and “Wear My Face”?) are original; most of the music mentioned in the book (outside of those lyrics) is covers.
@Kit Harding — late-night memory got confused between what was said in this article and what was said in <a href=”https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/04/16/400140583/how-success-almost-killed-a-game-and-how-its-creators-saved-it>a link in the article. OTOH, that link goes to a 2015 story, so I’m not surprised to hear that WotC has pivoted — there are times when I think the B-school interpretation of “long-term strategy” is one that doesn’t change every quarter.
It would be nice to have a Worldcon in Australia somewhere other than Melbourne (IIUC the other obvious choice, Sydney, is too expensive) — and it wouldn’t even be the first time to have two Worldcons in a row outside North America. I’m torn between wanting to be sure Jeddah in 2026 is opposed and wanting to be sure there’s a viable site for 2025, as the Q&A on Seattle’s site is a lot of handwaving and no certainty they’ll be able to get acceptable terms. (The Facebook page is similarly uninformative — aside from my prejudice against using a chat medium as primary communication.)
@Anne Marble: I acknowledged the cat loving — but ISTM that’s a characteristic in common, rather than a definer. It probably would have been amusing if I hadn’t choked on counterexamples.
I disagree with the blanket categorization of the CoNZealand program person’s action as racist, and wonder whether this could have been a learning moment for them.
Regarding War for the Oaks, you write “Decades later, it was scheduled to have a hardcover edition from Tor Books but it got canceled after the books were printed.” I don’t think this is true.
We published it twice, once as a trade paperback in our (now-superseded) Orb classics-backlist line, and once as a large-format mass-market paperback under the Tor Teen imprint. I see that the usually-reliable isfdb.org lists an unpublished 2016 Tor hardcover. Human memory is frail and that certainly includes mine, but I have no memory of us actually planning any such thing, and I think I would remember if we had. A chronic problem of modern book publishing is that our internal schedules are so thoroughly wired up to various industry-wide platforms like Edelweiss that a data-entry error, if not caught quickly enough, creates a ghost listing that then never completely goes away. My guess is that this may have been an instance of that.
The other way this sentence is certainly wrong is that books are almost never cancelled after they’re printed, unless there’s been some catastrophic legal problem or horrifying misprint. If we had printed a hardcover edition of War for the Oaks we would certainly have shipped it. (And I would have a copy! It’s a very good book.)
@Patrick Nielsen Hayden–Thanks! That makes a lot more sense to be than a book getting all the way to being printed and sitting in stacks in a warehouse, and then being cancelled. Especially when it is, in fact, a really excellent book!
I actually was the person who first mentioned this in public, during a Twitter conversation with Tempest Bradford about a separate incident, and have apologized to Edmund for raising it on Twitter without checking with him first. I was aware of it because we had been discussing it on my Discord server while Edmund waited to hear back from the convention. To ding him for mentioning it is not fair; any lack of grace is mine.
Patrick says The other way this sentence is certainly wrong is that books are almost never cancelled after they’re printed, unless there’s been some catastrophic legal problem or horrifying misprint. If we had printed a hardcover edition of War for the Oaks we would certainly have shipped it. (And I would have a copy! It’s a very good book.)
Except I dohave a hardcover edition, it being a library binding. Signed by Emma after she had her accident at the RenFaire. It’s got the same artwork as the softcover that Tor released. So it does exist. I’m in-hospital still or I’d dig it out of the moving crate it’s in. (I’m due to move shortly.)
Goodreads lists a hardcover edition of War for the Oaks published by Turtleback Books, who apparently sells to libraries and schools. That would make sense.
They also list hardcover editions for Tor Books, Tom Doherty Associates and Orb Books, which are all probably the same non-existent edition Patrick mentions.
Embarrassing confession: this came out in the period when I was not reading a lot inside the genre. I have a trade paperback edition of this somewhere that I have not gotten around to reading (unless it was given away [sigh] during my last move).
Michael Eochaidh says Goodreads lists a hardcover edition of War for the Oaks published by Turtleback Books, who apparently sells to libraries and schools. That would make sense.
They also list hardcover editions for Tor Books, Tom Doherty Associates and Orb Books, which are all probably the same non-existent edition Patrick mentions.
Embarrassing confession: this came out in the period when I was not reading a lot inside the genre. I have a trade paperback edition of this somewhere that I have not gotten around to reading (unless it was given away [sigh] during my last move).
Possibly but multiple sources including Amazon list the publisher for the hardcover edition as being Orb Books which is part of Tom Doherty Books. My hardcover copy looks exactly like the trade paper edition from them.
Steve Davidson on July 31, 2020 at 1:00 am said:
To me, unless there are substantial differences between editions, that’s a meaningless distinction. If you’re interested in the content, then you don’t care (I don’t care) about the form.
I’ve talked before about the difference between a collector and a “mere” reader. (As a “mere” reader myself, I’m allowed to say “mere”.) Granted, many (perhaps most) collectors are also readers, but it’s still a useful distinction.
To me, the first step would be to decide if I’m likely to want to re-read the book (this step is why my library contains nearly 2000 books). If not, then obviously, they all go. Otherwise I’d choose either the cheapest, the hardiest, or some reasonable compromise, and dump the rest. In a heartbeat. (With minor exceptions, i.e. I have both the oversized illustrated edition of Wee Free Men and a cheap paperback edition I can tuck in a pocket. They serve different purposes.)
Anyway, nothing wrong with being a collector–everyone needs a hobby, and collecting books is a pretty cool one IMO–but I think it’s important, or at least useful, to decide which you are and act accordingly.
I have a “hardcover” War for the Oaks, but it’s one of those where it looks like they took an actual Ace mass-market paperback, removed the cover, and put the text block into an after-market (Permabound) hard cover reprinting the Ace cover or with the actual Ace cover laminated inside — it even has the same ISBN. Doesn’t seem to be an ex-library copy or anything, though.
Ugh, forgot to tick the box.
“And I won’t forget to scroll pixels on your grave.”
@Xtifr —
It is, of course, entirely possible to be both.
For instance — I used to save allllllllllll my sff books. Had boxes and boxes. But thanks to both myself and my parents storing them carelessly, many of them got damaged in one way or another. And then ebooks came along, and I found myself converted.
Now I collect ebooks (and audio, of course), and I mostly don’t care one whit about saving my remaining hard-copy books.
BUT —
Just a coupla weeks ago, I spent a good bit of money (for me) to buy autographed first-edition fine-quality copies of four Dick Francis books. Why? Well, a few reasons — I mean, when I was in high school I had a “Dick Francis for President” t-shirt ;-). And those four particular books are my favorite subset of all his works. And they remind me of my mom, because we enjoyed them together. And so on.
And I wouldn’t mind at all doing the same thing for the first few Vorkosigan books. 🙂
So it’s entirely possible to cycle between “mere reader” and “collector” and back depending on specific circumstances.
Regarding War for the Oaks, there was a Science Fiction Book Club hardcover of the 2001 Orb trade paperback, which ISFDB states was similar to the Orb edition, but with no price and the SFBC number on the back jacket. That edition could also be contributing to the Tor hardcover confusion.
Anyone wants to post what they vote for first?:
Short Story: As the Last I may Know
Best Dramatic Long: Good Omens
Novelette: For he Can Creep
Best Dramatic Short: The Expanse Cibola Burns
Astounding: Sam Hawke
Best Related: Becoming Superman
Fan Artist: Grace P. Fong
Profesional Artist: Rovina Cai
Fan Writer: Cora Buhlert
Lodestar: Catfishing on CatNet
Novel: The Light Brigade
Best Series: Incrypt
Novella: Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom
Fanzine: Galactic Journey
Graphic Novel: The Wicked & The Devine
Fancast: Our Opinions are Correct
Best Semi-Pro: Uncanny
This isn’t strictly genre-related, but it was good enough….that is a vast understatement….and close enough in my book to be worth passing along.
Maximilian Uriarte just released his graphic novel Battle Born:Lapis Lazuli. It tells the story of a US Marine Sergeant stationed in the mountains of Afganistan. His unit is there to support local villages that are being victimized by the Taliban. The local Afghans are being terrorized into handing over their local resource, lapis lazuli, to the Taliban to help fund their operations.
I could go into several of the themes presented in the novel; colonialism, racism (global), racism (US-centric), conflict minerals, etc.
But this book is a breathtaking use of art in telling a complex story. I knew that this was going to be a different experience about 15 pages into this book when you get your first good look at lapis lazuli. The pages that follow are heart-stoppingly gorgeous works of art.
The end of the book had me holding my breath as I turned page after page after page of art that contained not a single world bubble.
Max is a fellow No-LOAD US Marine and creator of The White Donkey graphic novel along with the Marine-centric Terminal Lance comic strip. He wrote the story and created all of the art for Battle Born. This is truly a masterpiece.
In creating the central character, Sgt. King, Max was inspired by RE Howard’s Conan. So a fantasy element.
And there is a DARPA developed electronic mule functioning…or malfunctioning…in the field. Science fiction!
5) It is my understanding that the objection to being associated with the letter had to do with the fact that the letter’s author/co-signatories so clearly do NOT understand the WSFS site selection process and that the Sheffield Science Fiction and Fantasy society contains several people that clearly DO understand the process.
Regards,
Dann
The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection. – George Orwell