Praise, complaints and tales of derring-didn’t fill the Scroll today.
(1) George Barr, Fan Guest of Honor at MidAmeriCon, the 1976 Worldcon, unexpectedly popped up in a soft-sell blog entry for PR firm Signal Hill, “Science Fiction Illustrator Finds Home” —
Hugo award winner George Barr found his home, freedom and #passion in #sciencefiction. http://t.co/1AsXTJqs86 pic.twitter.com/1iyzLucNO2
— Signal Hill (@signalhillspot) July 17, 2015
Barr’s art, often marked by a distinctive watercolor-over-ballpoint pen technique, illustrated science fiction magazines for decades, including the covers of “Amazing Stories,” “Fantastic Stories” and “If.” Barr also brought books to life through his work with publishers like DAW Books and Ace Books.
Prior to compiling this impressive resume, Barr did a great deal of free work for “fanzines,” non-professional publications popular in the science fiction world. Not only did it help build his portfolio, but it was a way to get his illustrations out, he says. The work even earned him a Hugo Award for best fan artist at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1968.
Barr earned these achievements with only one formal art course under his belt. Though he says he learned a lot about color, harmony and composition, the emphasis on commercial art did not play toward his interests. The freedom of the fantasy genre spoke to him most, he says.
“There was absolutely nothing you could imagine that could not occur,” says Barr of the genre. “You can conceivably be drawing anything that ever existed or might.”
Barr is 78 and has good things to say about the retirement community where he lives.
(2) Was the late Christopher Lee’s illustrious war record a complete fabrication? The Daily Mail writer who penned Lee’s obituary is now deconstructing his claims.
Until the end of the war, the man who would be Dracula served with the air force as an intelligence officer, briefing and debriefing pilots, and liaising with other units.
It was during this time that he claimed to have served in some way with the Long Range Desert Group and the SAS.
As Gavin Mortimer has shown, there is simply no evidence to support this. Lee may have worked alongside these units in some way, but he was emphatically not a part of them.
‘Lee didn’t exactly lie,’ says Mortimer. ‘But he did lead us on, encouraging us to believe [his job] had involved more derring-do than it actually did.’
In an interview he gave to Belgian television to promote Lord Of The Rings, Lee claimed also to have served with a small special forces organisation called No 1 Demolition Squadron, better known as Popski’s Private Army (PPA) after its charismatic leader Major Vladimir Peniakoff.
Like the Long Range Desert Group and the SAS, the PPA was a raiding and reconnaissance unit, and its exploits are venerated by many.
Again, there is no hard evidence to support Lee’s claim that he worked with the PPA.
(3) It’s not so much the complaints about Comic-Con that drew me to Heidi MacDonald’s roundup of what the convention’s critics had to say, but what she revealed in passing about the support other cons give to fans with disabilities, which far exceeds anything I see at the cons I attend:
There were many complaints about Hall H this year as always. Was it different? Not sure. I do know at least one person told me he got in and found many empty seats inside while a huge line was still waiting to get in, but that could be due to safety measures for crowd control. I would like to draw your attention to this post by Nick Eskey on the Talk Back panel and the subsequent comment threads as it deals with disabled attendees and the line wait. While to some hearing a fellow complain about not having a place to plug in his CPAP machine while waiting for Hall H may seem the height of folly, but you know, physically challenged fans have the same right to experience whatever it is they want out of Hall H as anyone else.
This is that guy that only slept 16 hours and needed his CPAP machine. You apparently only caught part of what I was saying, which is, that if they had not removed the outlets I could have used my CPAP machine and slept outside just fine. Besides that, however, you missed the point completely which is not everyone with disabilities can sleep outside. Because of that they should be given special consideration for their placement in line. What other convention gives ADA this sort of consideration? Try Emerald City Comic Con and PAX Prime, both in Seattle and both allow ADA to ALWAYS be first in line. Try DragonCon in Atlanta, where ADA have volunteers that will guide them through the convention, hold their spot in line and generally assist them in whatever way needed. I was on the BoD for OkCon and we bent over backwards to assist our ADA. Maybe because we had people on the board with disabilities.
And there’s even more in the Nick Eskey post she links to.
(4) On the other hand, fans are responding skeptically to a blogger’s complaint to SDCC management that the nine-year-old Who fan in his party was traumatized by the horror-oriented displays near the items they went to see. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the complaint myself. As the parent of a 13-year-old, I have discovered my former ideas of what’s okay for kids were pretty out-of-touch.
I attended SDCC this year as part of a larger group. One of our party, a nine-year-old, is a HUGE Whovian (we are a large Whovian family), so the first day at the convention we immediately made our way to the BBC America booth for Doctor Who merchandise, photo ops, and chatting with the BBC America representatives onsite about Doctor Who and upcoming events. We found that the booth was sandwiched between a booth for AMC’s The Walking Dead and Starz’s upcoming series Ash vs Evil Dead. Though problematic on its own, we were extra upset to find that both horror booths had their walls covered in TVs playing, on loop, terrifying clips of zombie horror (The Walking Dead) and absurdly gory violence (Ash vs Evil Dead), of which the latter’s level of violence I, even as a 24 year old man, actively avoid because it’s an anxiety trigger to me.
That night our 9 year-old woke up screaming with nightmares about zombies attacking her, and the next day she burst into tears when we tried to enter the con floor (despite the fact that we were far from the horror booths). For the rest of the con, while we were able to get her onto the con floor without a meltdown, we had to make a wide berth around the BBC America booth because of its proximity to the Walking Dead and Ash vs Evil Dead booths, which was secondarily upsetting for her because she was previously extremely excited to be near the Doctor Who things (especially the TARDIS set up at the Hollywood Sci-Fi Museum booth, also placed next to the Ash vs Evil Dead booth – she wanted to take her photo with the TARDIS so badly).
…Thank you so much for all that you do to organize and present this convention every year. Beyond this, we had very little issues with the rest of the con and overall had a great time. It’s simply unfortunate that the experience was marred by the emotional trauma inadvertently caused to our child stemming from the placement of BBC America’s booth between two of the biggest horror booths at the convention.
(5) John King Tarpinian says Mystery & Imagination Bookshop in Glendale is getting a lot of people wanting to buy reading copies of To Kill a Mockingbird, which led to a surprising discovery. “They are running out of paperback reading copies. A good customer says she wants a copy, the bookshop has one paperback left but Malcolm remembers that Christine paid $2 for a 40th anniversary hardback the other day and figures he’d be nice by offering it to the customer for $5 when she comes in. Malcolm, as is his habit, opens the book to discover it is SIGNED by Harper Lee. This is how a $2 book becomes a $1000 book.”
(6) While analyzing how the Hugos fit into contemporary fandom, Karl-Johan Norén points out that everyone thinks he/she is at the center of fandom.
(Ur-)Fandom came to Sweden in the 1950s. In the early 70s Tolkien societies evolved here from it, in many ways similar to SCA in the United States. The ties between the Tolkien societies and fandom in Sweden are still strong, and we can mingle relatively easily. However, media fandom, cosplay, LARP, and lots of other stuff were direct imports from the United States. Here the cultural differences are much larger and more profound. Partly this is because of the direct import, partly this is because Swedish fandom after the disastrous feuds of the 80s closed in on itself and very much focused on the core of discussing science fiction as books.
Put another way, the splinter lines within all the various off-shoots, special fandoms, and so are much easier to see here in Sweden. But the same tendencies are very much present in the United States, I imagine.
Another thing which has happened, from the 90s forward, is that the Internet has made it much easier to set up special interest groups that can gain critical size and connectivity. Baen’s Bar is one early such example, but there are many more nowadays.
So which of these disparate groups do the label “fandom” belong to nowadays? All of them. However, there is a tendency to use the word “fandom” as a shorthand for “the specific fannish group that I happen to be a member of”. I believe this is especially true within “core” fandom, the one that evolved around the pulp magazines in the 20s and 30s, with a primary interest in written science fiction. Historically, I think that movement can claim having first dibs on the label, but it helps to remember that fandom nowadays is much bigger and diverse than “core” fandom is.
(7) And as a kind of postscript, here are John Scalzi’s, Cheryl Morgan’s and Fred Kiesche’s tweets inspired by the report Michael Z. Williamson is voting No Award in every Hugo category.
Apparently the hip new thing for the Puppies re: the Hugos is to vote your work below "No Award" before everyone else does.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) July 17, 2015
https://twitter.com/FredKiesche/status/622024711023788033
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First!
Also, I am twelve.
Oh ETA: I’m infamous around here for not thinking “Dinosaur” was much of a story. But the claim by MZW and others that one bad story (by my lights and theirs – I refuse to say “our”) winning a particular award somehow demonstrates the award is invalid forever now is ridiculous.
When are we going to do that SF bracket?
Mike, like you, I’m staggered to read about the level of support for disabled attendees at some cons. Never seen anything like it, and love to know.
Just my two cents, but I’ve never had any problems with cons and getting any help I may have needed, even before the ADA was passed. At the sole Worldcon I attended, every time I had a situation where I needed accommodation, the con staffers I spoke to were uniformly helpful.
DragonCon’s disability services team is amazing. I’m severely acrophobic and they put a sticker on my badge that lets me bypass crowd control check points so I can move between hotel floors in a way that makes me feel safe. They didn’t have to do it, and I felt silly asking, but they were very compassionate.
Jennifer, I love to hear stories like that.
Jim Henley: the claim by MZW and others that one bad story winning a particular award somehow demonstrates the award is invalid forever now is ridiculous
Small correction: “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love” won the Nebula for Short Story, and was nominated for Hugo Short Story but did not win — that it won a Hugo is an erroneous claim perpetuated by a bunch of Puppies who have not read it and don’t know anything about the Hugos.
To be fair, Williamson was using its Nebula win as a stick with which to beat the Nebulas.
Hey, does anyone remember where that wiki was, where people were gathering links to good stories that people might want to nominate for Hugos? I didn’t save the address, and Google is failing me. I recently read “It Brought Us All Together”, by Marissa Lingen. I think there’s a good chance it’ll be on my nominating ballot next year, and I want to make sure it’s on that wiki.
@David Goldfarb,
There’s a Wikia and there is also a Google doc.
Thanks!
Entirely fair. But you don’t think it got popular because if it’s thick SJW milk. I don’t know if I’d nominate it, but it is a hell of a brilliant manipulation of language.
I finished the Saving Mars books right before seeing Ant-Man tonight, and the series concluded with a really solid, amazing bang. I’ll put it this way: if I’d read the books six months ago, I would have nominated the series for a Best Novel Hugo without hesitation. (There may be six volumes, but it’s one coherent story that takes that long to tell.) As it stands, this is now my “Your teen likes SF? Give them THIS.” recommendation. Excellent mix of science, romance, adventure, heroism… pretty much everything I want from a YA series, including a definite end.
HIGHLY recommended.
Oh: Ant-Man was decent, but I thought it relied too much on the Iron Man plot structure to really shine.
I bought that gilt-edged, 5-novels-and-a-short, embossed-cover Bible-looking H2G2 edition for $20 at Borders a decade ago. I don’t see a way to upload a photo here, unfortunately. Four payments of $44? Really? I am not savvy in the way of omnibus rights, but this seems needlessly exclusive.
@Rev
Saw Ant-Man yest, and thought it was quite good as well. I’m thinking that know that superhero movies are their own genres, this is probably what an above average effort would look like – ie, the equivalent of stuff like Iron Man 2, Thor 2, and Man of Steel perhaps.
Really liked the light-hearted and humorous nature – I think that’s one of the MCU’s strengths, and Rudd is an excellent comedic actor.
Couple of bits I really didn’t like, but can’t get into it without spoilers. I’ll just say that Evangeline Lily’s characters complaints were very justified in-universe, and even more so out of it.
By the way, stay *ALL* the way through the credits – there are 2 post-credit stingers.
The Daily Mail story is entirely worthy of the Daily Mail.
In other news, that Fred Kiesche tweet nails it.
I like to pretend the 5th volume of Hitchhikers doesn’t exist so the new edition is a No Sale to me.
Dex, I thought “Dinosaur” was a pretty good story, but I didn’t think it was good SF, or even SF at all. Allegory, yes, but that’s not enough.
Christie Yant on July 18, 2015 at 1:33 am said:
I bought that gilt-edged, 5-novels-and-a-short, embossed-cover Bible-looking H2G2 edition for $20 at Borders a decade ago.
H2G2 ??
HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I personally think that if “Dinosaur” had been written by Ray Bradbury, it would already be considered a classic of SF. Though to be fair, Bradbury would have probably put in a few more “Lo!”s and “Oh!”s
Jenora Feuer on July 18, 2015 at 8:30 am said:
H2G2 ??
HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Ah, thanks.
I thought it might be Hitchhiker, but the comment:
I bought that gilt-edged, 5-novels-and-a-short, embossed-cover Bible-looking H2G2 edition for $20 at Borders a decade ago. I don’t see a way to upload a photo here, unfortunately. Four payments of $44? Really? I am not savvy in the way of omnibus rights, but this seems needlessly exclusive.
seemed to come out of left field, there being no previous comment about the book(s) or author. Unless I missed something …. which has been known to happen.
I am so glad there’s no purity test for the Hugos.
Can you imagine what a nightmare it would be to judge the SFF bona fides of a story? How on earth would you determine them? Who would decide?
Better to have open standards, leave the grumbling to cranks and malcontents, and read and enjoy the stories.
Michael J Walsh: seemed to come out of left field, there being no previous comment about the book(s) or author. Unless I missed something …. which has been known to happen.
It was in Pixel Scroll 7/16.
@Rose Embolism: I personally think that if “Dinosaur” had been written by Ray Bradbury, it would already be considered a classic of SF. Though to be fair, Bradbury would have probably put in a few more “Lo!”s and “Oh!”s
Hah! Excellent point, and I think you’re right.
Poetic style, sf tropes but no actual science extrapolation, exploration of human psyche, etc–BAM. Bradbury.
Helped that he was a straight white male too, she says snarkily (and I love a lot of Bradbury).
It was in Pixel Scroll 7/16
Oops! I was catching up on too many posts at once. Sorry for crossing the streams.
Yes, but do you assume it was nominated for a Hugo and won a Nebula because of some super-secret cabal of secret juice warriors who must be defeated for the good of the empire, or do you just assume that other people really liked a story you didn’t particularly care for?
@Christie Yant at 12:06:
Great movie reference!! lol Did it win a Hugo? I’ll have to check.
Ghostbusters lost to 2010: Odyssey Two in 1985. (I was too late to edit my post!)
2010, seriously? I remember seeing it, but that’s all I remember about it.
JCW apparently just disowned Heinlein. The schism is fully upon us.
@McJulie: Exactly. A major failing of the Pups is they can’t accept that there can be honest differences of taste. An interesting – and disreputable – thing is they way they hedge their conspiracy theories so that sometimes this is all being done by a Sekrit Cabal within Worldcon fandom, but sometimes Worldcon fandom (“Fans” in the Torgersenian) is itself the Cabal within SF fandom writ large (Torgersen’s “fans”). Thus the open, evolving expressions of enthusiasm of a fuzzy group of perfectly decent, perfectly honorable people, mediated by a democratic process, is recast as inherently illegitimate, a kind of crime. It’s a disgusting rhetorical ploy.
@Will R.: Wait what?! I must – oh hang on. I don’t give a shit.
😉
Actually, it’s good to see this, in a way. Wright’s priors should lead him to disown Heinlein. And it does leave the old bastard for the rest of us to enjoy.
And can’t spell WATCHMEN.
Whatcemen?
I haven’t had much of my fiction published over the years, about a dozen stories, but I’m extremely pleased that two of those stories were illustrated by George Barr. (And one a cover story.)
Bradbury wrote “Besides a Dinosaur, Whatta Ya Wanna Be When You Grow Up?” about a small boy who wants to be a dinosaur…
Will R.: JCW apparently just disowned Heinlein.
Kurt Busiek: And can’t spell WATCHMEN.
And needs an editor DESPERATELY.
There might be some ideas of value in that huge mess. But if so, they’re mixed in with so much dross and extraneous wordage that looking for them is a negative cost-benefit exercise.
I admit to waiting for others to provide quotes. I don’t wanna go read it myself. 🙂
Are you talking about the post at JCW’s blog entitled, “Great Books and Genre Books”? Because that’s several columns JCW notes were first done in 2007, so this isn’t new. If he disowned anyone, he did so eight years ago.
I couldn’t read the whole thing. My eyes started to glaze over halfway through the section on the Foundation Trilogy.
It doesn’t work that way. VD can attack non-puppies for wanting romance elements in SF while Mad Genius Amanda attacks non-puppies for not wanting romance elements in SF. What they don’t do is attack each other 🙂
I admit to waiting for others to provide quotes.
Isn’t it amazing that the one “timeless” near classic he found was C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy (a work I found to be an almost unreadable misogynistic mess), which, coincidentally, happens to be the one that has a message he agrees with!
Also, he thinks Gone with the Wind is nearly great literature. That tells me he has awful taste even when not dealing with science fiction.
@Bruce: Same here.
Um…I read it and…well, it isn’t batshit crazy. It is one of the most coherent pieces of writing that I’ve read by him and his argument has some merit.
I think it relies on drawing too tight a circle around SF (1984, Brave New World I’d count as SF) and there is an odd implication when applying this argument to his own preferred genre of writing and his support for Puppy campaigns i.e. that he doesn’t WANT science fiction to be great literature but otherwise I think it is a creditable piece of writing.
OK, well that makes more sense. It is just a marker in the sad decline in his writing powers.
> “When are we going to do that SF bracket?”
I can probably put something together.
“first done in 2007”
Ah. All JCW is new to me, anyway.
Well, the schism continues as it was, then!
There was a time when you could read exciting rocket-ship-covered space romps without a message (such as CS Lewis’s Perelandra), but then affirmative action had to come and ruin it (see RAH).
And they call it puppy logic.
I will also note that when Ancillary Justice was announced for the Best Novel Hugo, it got a standing ovation. That’s one heck of a secret cabal at work.
2010: Odyssey 2 won in ’85? No kidding?
I saw it. It was a solidly Cold War era film. Within three years its future vision of American-Soviet tensions was obsolete, which may be why it is less remembered than Ghostbusters.