Pixel Scroll 7/16/17 Doctor Whoa!

(1) SHE’S THE DOCTOR. The casting of Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor Who hit all the mainstream news outlets.

However, the reaction of some Daily Mail readers left a lot to be desired. But as they say, when you have lemons make lemonade. That’s what comedian Aaron C. M. Gillies did:

And just before the Whittaker announcement, this meme was getting a lot of play on Twitter.

(2) OH NOES! Matthew Foster has also been taking soundings and shared what he found with his Facebook readers.

Fun with sexism. So I just had to go looking to see what the dim set had to say about Doctor Who, and it is amusing. Most that I peaked in on want to keep their sexism on the down low, so while they always object to the Doctor being female, it is never due to her being female. No, no. That’s not the problem… exactly… So there’s lot’s of:

  • I don’t like the Doctor being a woman, but because that’s pandering. Yeah.
  • I don’t like the Doctor being a woman, but because it isn’t for a good story reason… You know, the way choosing a male for have been for a good story reason.

Plus 9 more…

(3) RIVER SONG. Radio Times reports actress Alex Kingston was given the news while onstage at a con in North Carolina: “Alex Kingston’s reaction to a female Doctor Who was SO River Song”.

“Jodie Whittaker? Oh my goodness!” the actress told the crowd, after making joke kissing noises. “God, I’m always the damn cradlesnatcher!

“Oh, that’s lovely. She’s a really great actress. She’s fantastic. Oh my God that’s so exciting! Ohhhh! How fabulous.

“Well, we’ve all discovered that together,” she concluded. “That’s marvellous.”

(4) THE FIRST WOMAN DOCTOR. Some argue there’s already been a woman Doctor Who. (Besides Doctor Donna, that is.) It happened in 1997.

Lily Savage (Paul O’Grady) is The Doctor in a comedy sketch from The Lily Savage Show back in 1997. Features Gayle Tuesday (Brenda Gilhooly) as her companion and a classic impression of Liz McDonald from Coronation Street.

 

(5) SCAMMERS LIVE IN VAIN. My latest strategy for finding news is to hang around Camestros Felapton’s blog. He had a bunch of good links in this post: “Is the Kindle store broken?”

And far from living in vain, the scammers are running away with the store, according to David Gaughran: “Scammers Break The Kindle Store”.

On Friday, a book jumped to the #1 spot on Amazon, out of nowhere; it quickly became obvious that the author had used a clickfarm to gatecrash the charts.

The Kindle Store is officially broken.

This is not the first time this has happened and Amazon’s continued inaction is increasingly baffling. Last Sunday, a clickfarmed title also hit #1 in the Kindle Store. And Amazon took no action.

Over the last six weeks, one particularly brazen author has put four separate titles in the Top 10, and Amazon did nothing whatsoever. There are many such examples….

How Clickfarms Work

As I explained in my post last month, unscrupulous authors and publishers are now adopting scammer tactics, and it’s pretty obvious this guy used a clickfarm to artificially borrow his book. Those fake borrows are equivalent to a sale for ranking purposes. A few thousand of them at the same time can be enough to put you at the top of the charts.

For those who don’t know what a clickfarm is, read this or this, but the basics are as follows. Clickfarms can do a number of things for those with flexible morals. Depending on what the author is trying to achieve, they can download free books, or borrow KU books, and/or page through borrowed books to generate reads – which will then be paid out of the communal KU pot. These services are easy to find, they are all over Google and Fiverr. They are especially popular in shady internet marketing circles and places like Warrior Forum.

We aren’t taking about the darknet here. These services are open to the public and incredibly easy to find. I’m not going to link to them directly, but here’s an example of the kind of services they offer:

  • 100 guaranteed KU borrows for $59
  • 200 KU borrows with a guaranteed Top 100 ranking for $109
  • 1000 KU borrows with a guaranteed Top 5 ranking in any category for $209

They also provide paid reviews, ghostwriting services, the works. Fake authors, fake books, fake borrows, all parlayed into real chart position stolen from genuine authors and significant funds paid out of the communal KU pot.

(6) STAR WARS LAND. You can learn preliminary details about Disney’s forthcoming attraction, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge from The Verge.

There will be two main attractions: one that lets guests captain the Millennium Falcon on a secret mission, while the other places thrill-seekers in the middle of a “climatic battle” between the First Order and the Resistance. The images released show rugged terrain, lush forests reminiscent of scenes on Endor in Return of the Jedi, and metal cantina structures. According to Bloomberg, the new Star Wars lands will cost about $1 billion each….

Bob Chapek, Chairman of Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, revealed the official name of the Star Wars-inspired lands that are currently under construction at the Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resorts, and shared details on the immersive experiences guests will be able to enjoy when the lands open in 2019!

 

(7) MARTIN LANDAU OBIT. He won an Oscar playing Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood, but Martin Landau, who passed away today at the age of 89, was first seen by fans in Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone (both the Sixties original and again in the Eighties relaunch). Having turned down an offer to play Spock in the original Star Trek series, the pinnacle of Landau’s science fictional success came while playing Commander John Koenig in Space:1999.

He worked constantly over the decades, and appeared in many genre productions — The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (one episode, 1966), Mission: Impossible (76 episodes as “Rollin Hand”, 1966-69), Get Smart (one episode, 1969), The Fall of the House of Usher, Meteor (both 1979), The Return (1980), The Being (1983), The Return of the Six-Million-Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman (1987), Spider-Man (voice, 1995-96), The X-Files (1998), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Frankenweenie (voice, 2012).

(8) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • July 16, 1952 Zombies of the Stratosphere flickered briefly through theatres.
  • July 16, 1955 — The TV serial Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe blasted into the popular consciousness.
  • July 16, 1958 — Audiences gasp for the first time at The Fly.
  • July 16, 1959The Alligator People was released.
  • July 16, 1969 Apollo 11 launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida, to become the first manned space mission to land on the moon.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born July 16, 1928 – Robert Sheckley

(10) AND THEY’RE OFF. With Game of Thrones Season 7 starting, the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog gets its kicks by imagining how each character will die. First up —

Daenerys Targaryen

After finally saying goodbye to noted hellhole Meereen, Dany will be cut down in a tragic boating accident, lest her plot line advance. The tragedy will be of Titanic proportions, with Dany and Missandei struggling to share space on a door before both drowning. Varys will float by moments later and note there was plenty of room on the flotsam for both women. 

(11) TOP TEN. And The Daily Beast it getting its clicks by publishing the list of “‘Game of Thrones’ Author George R.R. Martin’s Top 10 Fantasy Films”.

  1. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

The frightening thing about Holy Grail is that it may very well be the best version of the Matter of Britain ever put on film. King Arthur has not been well served by the movies, I fear. Yes, yes, there’s John Boorman’s Excalibur, a flawed film with with some great parts. Beyond that and Holy Grail, what do we have? Knights of the Round Table (some gorgeous spectacle, but a ham-handed script–the Timpo toy knights issued as tie-ins to the film were better than the movie), Prince Valiant (I liked the Singing Sword, and those pigskins full of boiling oil, but it’s hard to get past Robert Wagner’s wig), First Knight (gag), King Arthur (yes, let’s just let all the Saxons through Hadrian’s Wall and fight them on the other side, what a clever tactic)…. I do have a certain fondness for the film version of Camelot, but only because I never got to see the stage play. But back to Holy Grail. Back to Brave Sir Robin. The Black Knight. The Knights Who Say Ni. The Frenchman on the ramparts. The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. Castle Anthrax. Coconuts. (They still sell coconuts at Castle Doune in Scotland, where much of Holy Grail was filmed). What more do I need to say? Let’s go to Camelot! Yes, it is a silly place, but that’s what I love about it.

(12) WAIT UP. io9’s Germain Lussier’s post “This Mysterious New Droid Is Rolling Around the Star Wars Section at D23 Expo” has photos, though apparently they weren’t easy to get.

Disney loves a good surprise, and fans at the D23 Expo in Anaheim got plenty of those over the weekend. One of the more subtle ones featured a brand new droid, rolling around the display for the new theme park additions called Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge.

The droid definitely resembles other Star Wars droids you know, kind of a R5 droid’s body with 2-1B arms. But, according to Walt Disney Imagineers in the area, it does not yet have an official Star Wars distinction. In fact, the may not even be part of Galaxy’s Edge when it opens in 2019. It’s just kind of an experiment at how droids and humans who are just mulling around can interact. And let me tell you, it’s not necessarily a smooth relationship.

The Imagineers call this guy “Jake” and he would not stand still for a photo. You’d set up to snap one, and he’d just start going the other way. Here’s what it’s like.

(13) CONTAINS SOME NUDITY. In fact, that’s what it mostly contains. Chip Hitchcock is convinced fans could break the record at Worldcon 75 if they put it on the program — “Finland naked swimmers bid for biggest skinny dip record”.

Hundreds of naked swimmers have taken to the water in Finland in a bid to break the world record for the biggest naked swim.

Some 789 people at a music festival in eastern Finland went skinny dipping on Saturday, organisers said, beating the previous record set in Australia by just three, reports said.

Organisers were waiting for Guinness World Records to confirm the record.

It is the third Finnish attempt at the record, Yle news website said.

(14) KING’S SECRET IDENTITY. Mental Floss remembers: “Known Alias: How Stephen King Was Outed as Richard Bachman”.

King’s cover endured for a surprisingly long period. But the 1985 release of Thinner would usher in fresh suspicion about Bachman. Unlike the other four novels, Thinner was contemporary King, a hardcover written with the knowledge it was a “Bachman book” and perhaps more self-conscious about its attempt at misdirection. And unlike early-period Bachman, which often featured nihilistic but grounded scenarios—a walking marathon that ends in death, or a game show where prisoners can earn their freedom—Thinner took on more of a horror trope, with a robust lawyer cursed to lose weight by a vengeful gypsy until he’s practically nothing but skin and bone.

When Stephen Brown obtained an advance copy at Olsson’s, he had an innate belief he was reading a King novel. To confirm his suspicions, he visited the Library of Congress to examine the copyrights for each Bachman title. All but one were registered to Kirby McCauley, King’s agent. The remaining title, Rage, was registered to King himself. It was the smoking gun.

(15) IN THE ARCHIVES. The Verge tells you where to find Galaxy —“One of the greatest science fiction magazines is now available for free online”.

If you like classic science fiction, one of the genre’s best magazines can now be found online for free. Archive.org is now home to a collection of Galaxy Science Fiction, which published some of the genre’s best works, such as an early version of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man.

The collection contains 355 separate issues, ranging from 1950 through 1976. Open Culture notes that it’s not quite the entire run of the magazine, but it’s got plenty of material to keep fans occupied for years. It includes stories from science fiction legends such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford Simak, and Theodore Sturgeon. There are also some underappreciated authors who deserve re-discovery, such as Kris Neville, Alan E. Nourse, or John Christopher. (Sadly, like most publications of this era, female SF authors were underrepresented.)

(16) LAST-MINUTE VOTING. Spacefaring Kitten got in under the wire with a second set of Hugo recommendations.

(17) NAME ABOVE THE TITLE. Stan Lee is rebranding his Los Angeles convention. The Hollywood Reporter has the story: “Stan Lee Reintroduces His L.A. Convention: New Name, Even Greater Ambitions”.

Stan Lee is putting Los Angeles on the map in a new way.

The legendary comic book creator is not only getting a citywide day named in his honor (Oct. 28), he is also rebranding his popular pop culture convention Stan Lee’s Comikaze Expo and giving it a new name: Stan Lee’s Los Angeles Comic Con.

Comic book fans area rejoiced when Lee launched his convention in 2011, and for Lee, the name change makes sense when major cities from New York to San Diego have flagship conventions bearing their cities’ names.

“I felt that a lot of people didn’t know what Comikaze really meant or what it was. And I didn’t think we should hide under a bushel,” Lee tells Heat Vision of the con, which runs Oct. 28-30. “Los Angeles is, to me, the center of the world’s entertainment. It has to have a Comic Con.”

(18) FUNNY AND DIE. Reason TV is getting in on the new season, too, with Game of Thrones: Libertarian Edition.

As HBO’s blockbuster series Game of Thrones returns for its seventh season, Reason offers its own freedom-filled parody. A libertarian paradise north of the wall? What’s happened to Westeros’ social security trust fund? Should it take low-income Dothraki four years to get a hair-braiding license? Watch!

 

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Carl Slaughter, Colin Kuskie, JJ, Cat Eldridge, and Chip Hitchcock for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Paul Weimer.]

99 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 7/16/17 Doctor Whoa!

  1. I don’t recall there being much fuss back when Voyager premiered. I suspect there was some fuss, but nothing compared with today’s fuss.

    There was definitely some fuss; I remember it getting airtime on some entertainment TV shows and in interviews and a few magazines, but there was no Twitter or Facebook, so even if the fuss was enormous we wouldn’t necessarily have actually seen it.

  2. I recall some comments like “Katharine Hepburn’s on the bridge!” (This never sounded like a negative to me, but I inherited my Hepburn fandom from my mother…)

  3. I’m going to need to devote some serious thought to sampling Worldcon…

    Coming with my wife, who’s, ummm, less likely to enjoy the thrill of WSFS Business Meetings than myself.

    I’m tickled by how many panels there are on translation. It’s a great topic; I’m just really curious how similar they’ll be to one another 😛 But Worldcon definitely seems to be the place for those.

    The panels and lectures on world fandom are what catch my attention most. They fall into that sweet intersection of “probably interesting” and “I cannot anticipate what they will say,” which I’m less confident on for a lot of other topics.

    Tips for a first-timer are most welcome. And, well, I hope we can get together some kind of Filer meetup 😀

  4. @Heather Rose Jones

    how to keep your Maine Coon Cat from barking

    Glad I finished my coffee already or I’d have spit it all over the cat on my lap. And then, oh the barking…

  5. Johan P: I notice in the credit section that File770 now have a “contirbuting editor of the day”. Does this new position herald more, or less, appertainment in the future?

    I see what I did there. (Now to undo it….)

  6. “Tips for a first-timer are most welcome. And, well, I hope we can get together some kind of Filer meetup ?”

    I’ll go through all programming to see if there are some obvious gaps where we can have meetups (say, when there’s no business meeting, no masquerade, none of us are in panels and so on…).

    More or less all restaurants around Messukeskus close at 19:00, so my recommendation is that we have our first meet on wednesday in the convention center. It is nice to have faces as soon as possible. Then we can compare where people live and see if there is any idea to have a pub meet outside of the center or not.

    I’ll mail Mike when I have some idea on the best gaps in the program so we can have a dedicated post to discuss Worldcon stuff (I guess that is ok with you, Mike?).

  7. kathodus: The version of Bester’s The Stars My Destination that appeared in Galaxy (1956-57) had many small differences from the version published as a Signet paperback original, possibly due to editor Gold’s reported propensity to tinker with accepted submissions.* I haven’t seen the Galaxy version of The Demolished Man, but I presume the same is true.

    *Yes, I know that the British version Tiger, Tiger published at the same time has further differences from both the Galaxy or Signet versions. This is all discussed in some detail in the endnotes of the Library of America edition that appeared about 5 years ago, the two-volume anthology of American SF novels of the 1950s.

  8. @Simon Butcher-Jones: and a huzzah to you, for being not only An Expert in the subject, but having a considerably less-aged view of it than people many decades younger.

    @Kathodus: for an indie recommendation site, you need go no further than Cora of this parish.

    Apparently Olivia Coleman was offered the Who job and declined. She would have been great, but I can understand not wanting to get into the goldfish bowl.

    @Meredith: that thread made me chuckle, out loud. And earworm.

  9. He, looking through the panels and finding some swedish friends on them. People I haven’t seen for 25 years or so. This will be fun.

  10. Daveon on July 17, 2017 at 12:13 pm said:

    While The Doctor can be either sex they MUST be British ?

    Which brings us nicely to the least unreasonable* complaint I’ve seen so far: “I only watch the show because British guys are hot!”

    * I’m not defending this position, but among the complaints I’ve seen, this is the one which raised my hackles the least.

  11. (5) Kindle store
    I happen to know a group of writers who publish on Kindle; they function as a cooperative by copy editing and proofreading each other’s books and giving feedback on book covers. (They absolutely do not buy each other’s books, as none of them are interested in getting kicked off Amazon.). I know they all are on Kindle Unlimited, so I sent them the link to Camestros’ blog and asked them what they thought of it.

    So far, the reaction can be summed up as: “Whatever. Amazon and the scammers have always been in a cycle of perpetual compitition.” So they don’t seem to regard it as some dirty secret of Amazon’s; it’s just another thing they have to plan around.

  12. @gottacook – I wondered about that, and am thinking I may just buy the book. I don’t think I’ve ever read The Demolished Man. The Stars My Destination was one of the very first SF books I ever read. I found it in a stash of (mostly SF) books in the basement when I was in elementary school and read and re-read it several times. But I think that’s it for Bester novels for me.

    @lurkertype – Sheesh, now that you say that, I remember I’ve been pointed Cora’s way at least one other time when discussing this.

  13. While The Doctor can be either sex they MUST be British

    That was my position last time (when the choice ended up being Capaldi), with the provision that “British” is extended to anyone from any of the British Isles, including Ireland.

    I don’t care about race, gender or age–but the Doctor had better be British. 🙂

    (Jodie Whittaker is a superb choice. The only problem is that we won’t see her in action until sometime next year…)

  14. I’m fairly sure she’s slated to make her debut in the Christmas special.

  15. @Oneiros

    So anyway, tldr: are you saying you’d prefer to have a male Dr? ?

    No. Just making a lame joke.

    TBH I stopped watching New Who during Tennant’s run. It isn’t really my thing any more. It’s more a tonality thing, so I doubt it’ll matter who they cast. I did try watching the end of season double and liked the first part, suitably creepy. Second part fell apart for me though.

    I heartily agree on the should be British though, if only because the right wing press would use anything else to call for the end of the licence fee and privatisation of the BBC. Not that they need an excuse…

  16. @kathodus: I think The Demolished Man is still worth reading, even though the casual assumption of gender differences may grate. I’m not sure I can say the same for The Computer Connection (his first novel after coming back to the field); the later ones are IMO ignorable.

    @Johan P:

    I’ve also seen the comment “and the plot of the first several episode will be The Doctor struggling to convince everyone she’s not the nurse.”

    I don’t think the producers are going to be that dim, but I do wonder whether they’re going stop going into England’s past, or have her dealing with classes that don’t automatically ignore her, or just assume that she’s forceful enough that MCPs choices are limited to “follow” or “get out of the way”. (I’m thinking particularly of “Human Nature”/”Family of Blood”, and how Martha Jones was dissed at that Edwardian public school; some of that was skin color, but they wouldn’t have accepted her knowledge from Matron either.) I know this setting has been used in the post-revival shows (although probably not as often as when it was working with a smaller budget), but have only watched scraps; how common has it been? This is not much of a limitation given the extent of the time/space continuum, so maybe that microscopic slice will just be ignored for a while. The other cheap shot would be to drop her in parts of the historic world where eccentric British women were known.

  17. RIP Martin Landau. His character had the best description of Space:1999 — “Now we’re sitting on the biggest bomb man’s ever made”.
    While the show was certainly bad, I’m not sure it was that bad…

  18. (6) I read something yesterday about a full blown Star Wars hotel at Disneyworld, which is one of the few things I can think of that would tempt me to visit Florida.

    (9) Wow, I share a birthday with Robert Sheckley, my all time favorite science fiction writer! Too cool.

  19. Kendall: Random tidbit of interest to @JJ and anyone else who enjoyed Jennifer Foehner Wells’s Fluency and Remenance, like us. Wells’s latest book, Druid Gene (same universe; different story/characters)

    Ooh, and look at that cover by Galen Dara.

    Thanks for the heads-up!

  20. Chip Hitchcock; Usually at least one story per series is in historic Britain, usually but not always involving meeting some famous personage.

    (Series; usually 13 episodes, with at least two storylines of 2+ eps, so one in ten stories on average, if not more.)

  21. Have to bear in mind the First Doctor’s response to being asked if he was a British citizen: “Your ideas are too narrow, too crippled. I am a citizen of the universe, and a gentleman to boot.”

  22. Oneiros: Overheard literally just this minute in a cafe: “they can’t call it Dr Who anymore, they have to call it Nursie Who!”

    That’s one of the squares on 13th Doctor Who BINGO
    (click “Not Now” to see it if you’re not logged into Facebook)

  23. I had just watched an episode (Guardian of Piri) of Space 1999 before hearing of Landau’s passing. Certain episodes of that show have stayed with me for a long time, especially Dragon’s Domain.

    Landau himself was a fine actor, I particularly remember his role in Without a Trace as the lead’s Alzheimer’s afflicted father for which he was Emmy awarded I think.

    First time I saw Drusilla on Buffy I even had a nagging feeling I knew the actress from somewhere then saw her name was Juliet Landau and went “ahhh”

  24. @ Msb: I like the Ladyhawke score, because I like Alan Parsons Project in general. My ex liked it too. Sadly, my partner is in agreement with you, and has banned it from the playlist I use at cons.

    @ IanP: That joke depends on the listener having the idiolect which does not distinguish between initial “w-” and “wh-“. Since I pronounce those sounds differently, it doesn’t fly for me. Which I wouldn’t have mentioned except that I suddenly wondered how people with that idiolect pronounce “who”. If “where” and “were” sound alike, does “who” sound like “woo”?

    @ Standback: The reactions, both positive and negative, were virtually identical.

    @ Matt Y: There’s tweet making the rounds in which Person A calls for “male versions of Wonder Woman, Miss Marple, Lara Croft, and Xena” and the response is, “Superman, Hercule Poirot, Indiana Jones, and Hercules. You’re welcome.”

    @ Dann: You apparently didn’t see the fuss I saw over Voyager. Honestly, you’d have thought the world was coming to an end. OTOH, it’s also true that this was when I was living in Nashville, and a lot of the local/regional fandom was Old Phart Phen even back then.

  25. Standback: I’d seriously love to see a comparison between reactions to female Doctor, vs. reactions to Star Trek: Voyager or Stargate: Atlantis

    I don’t know about SG because I didn’t watch that franchise, but oh gods, was there whining about the female captain on Voyager when that series debuted. 🙄

    Of course, that was before the internet and social media had really taken off, so most of the whining was done on Usenet and BBSes and at fannish conventions, and it was a lot less obvious to the populace at large than the female Doctor whining is today.

  26. It’s a bit of a nightmare finding anything off usenet nowadays, but this old thread gives a fair flavour of how people saw Janeaway a couple of seasons in – it’s pretty clear there’d been plenty of whining about her.

  27. Mark: It’s a bit of a nightmare finding anything off usenet nowadays, but this old thread gives a fair flavour of how people saw Janeaway a couple of seasons in – it’s pretty clear there’d been plenty of whining about her.

    Hoo boy, was there ever.

    I mean seriously, people were saying things like, “I’m not objecting because she’s female, I’m objecting because I don’t like her voice!”

  28. Lee: Where has a strong w sound. Who has a strong H sound. When (strong w) one of the sounds disappears, it’s the weak one. So who is hoo, not woo.

    (I have rarely heard anyone pronounce wh distinct from w or h separately, but I do know what you mean.)

  29. I’m fairly sure she’s slated to make her debut in the Christmas special.

    Debut, yes.

    But they rarely give the new Doctor more than 90 seconds of screen time when they show the regeneration on a Christmas special.

  30. I’ve chosen my sarcastic name to be Doctor Whooters.

    I’ve been expecting to see Doctor Ho, but haven’t seen it yet…

  31. Which brings us nicely to the least unreasonable* complaint I’ve seen so far: “I only watch the show because British guys are hot!”

    I expect there will still be British guys in it. Maybe even a decorative one traveling hither and yon with the Doctor.

  32. @John A Arkansawyer,

    It would certainly make it more challenging to tell believable stories, especially ones set in the past. I wish the writers well & hope they are able to find a way.

    The idea of travelling back in time has its attractions, but for someone like me, Asian, but who speaks only one language (English), there aren’t many places in the past I can visit without placing myself in grave danger from the locals. In English-speaking places, I’d stick out like a sore thumb. In places where my looks wouldn’t be out of place, I’d be fine until I open my mouth…

  33. @Arkansawyer: why? Don’t you know any down-to-earth women? Consider, for instance, Sybil Ramkin Vimes; Pratchett got her from a different model (source similar to Calendar Girls), but I knew a number of get-ON-with-it! types like that when I was growing up in DC-area horse country.

  34. @Meredith: ROFL plus LOL at some of the comments. This one had me clapping and cackling wildly:

    Are they bigger on the inside?

    Great Twitter thread!

  35. @JJ: Oh yes, excellent cover. Love the BINGO, BTW. The only thing missing is something along the lines of “Think of the children!” Although “Is nothing sacred?” comes close and made me LOL.

    @Lenora Rose: Well, Stewie from Family Guy has a problem with “w” and “wh” in one specific name. 😛

    @John A Arkansawyer: I presume you’re joking, but if I’m right, it didn’t work very well.

    (Obviously there have been many female Time Lords, including one as a companion, so women time-travelling and even being on the show as a major character works great. I liked Romana.)

    @Heather Rose Jones: Yes, joking, though I should’ve qualified it. I’m sorry your girlfriend got caught by a scammer…

    Contents like “how to keep your Maine Coon Cat from barking” were the tip-off.

    …OMGWTFBBQ! Sigh. 🙁

    Oh and yeah, I realize that getting eyes on one’s book matters. I think on some level, I was wondering why, with the huge mixture of Drek and Good Stuff on Kindle, gaming of Amazon ratings in general, etc. – why people would pay attention to Kindle or Amazon rankings (plus it’s just one platform). But I know they do, and more’s the pity. I wish Amazon weren’t such a free-for-all (so to speak!) that lent itself so, so readily to this sort of thing, and that they policed it better. (Of course, maybe it’s just impossible to effectively police.)

    moved the books to another shell with a new ASIN

    Oh, good grief! :-/

  36. It’ll stop being so down-to-earth, and start being all….wibbly-wobbly! 😀

    (I’m assuming that was the joke, and that JAA had his tongue firmly wedged in his cheek–but it is awfully hard to tell these days. Poe’s law and all…)

    ((I actually thought the stereotype in SFF was that women were too down-to-earth. You know, Mother Nature, Father Science…))

  37. One of these days, they’re just going to give in to the old pun and cast an owl.

    It will, however, be a British owl species.

  38. @JJ @Mark: Oooh. Thanks for digging those up!

    I’d remembered it being a flashpoint for some (as much as I had access to, a teenager in Israel). It’s startling-yet-not to see how identical, word-for-word, the objections are.

    (Well, there are some differences, particularly in how people respond to the “NO FEMALE CAPTAIN” and how they position their arguments. Difference of time, difference of medium. Also, at a quick scan I’m not seeing many women’s voices, even though there looks like a preponderance of scorn towards the “no women” complaints).

  39. @IanP: no worries, so was I 🙂

    I started watching NewWho with Matt Smith and then played catch up from the Eccleston series onwards. I ended up skipping a lot of Tennant’s run for various reasons and just picking back up with the start of Smith’s run. Capaldi was an interesting choice but I don’t think he was very well served by series. I’m glad Moffatt set the groundwork for a female Doctor but I’m also glad that he’s leaving and letting someone else take the reins from here; I think his best Who work is far behind him now.

  40. Huh. I mostly missed the kerfluffles about Janeway. Probably because my local fandom is the SF Bay Area (where the biggest complaint about Trek has always been the lack of gays), and because online I mostly hung out in rec.arts.sf.written. 🙂

    In retrospect, I’m not at all surprised that they existed, but I’m more than happy they managed to pass me by.

  41. I had a bit of a problem with Janeway: the character was horribly inconsistently written. Much the same as the rest of Voyager.

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