Rants, disenchants, and Peter Grant, in today’s Scroll.
(1) “The Taffeta Darling,” a guest brought in by the Dallas Gaming Expo to help direct games, says the whole thing was run so badly she quit and wrote “Where’s The Ball Pit? Or Why I Left Dallas Gaming Expo”.
This weekend is the Dallas Gaming Expo, a video gaming convention that had hired me to be their voice of the convention and help them run their gaming tournaments. For the first time ever as a guest, I left what would have been a paid convention gig due to disgust, disbelief and a good conscious [sic].
The Dallas Gaming Expo turned out to be a classic example of a promoter looking to make loads of money off of the gaming community without really knowing what the should be done. This expo was presented with huge expectations with loads of guests, arcade gaming, skeeball, video game tournaments and more! Unfortunately what attendees got Friday night was a ball room full of chairs, 4 wobbly projection screens and about 6-7 TVs with consoles. As a guest of the event I smiled, and hoped for the best and said I was having fun, well because that’s what ya do. I also wanted to see this event succeed. I thought maybe more would be coming and hopefully it will be better in the morning. I stayed through the night and ran the Super Smash Bros tournament along with guest Natalie Green, which honestly was a lot of fun for me to watch and engage in. On the flip side the tournament itself had quite a few snags including casual rules for tournament play, broken controllers, lagging screenplay, no official forms, and the reliance on a group of volunteers that tried it’s best to make things work.
After bailing on DGE, she went across town to Quakecon, another gaming event in Dallas this weekend.
A dissastified customer has even started a Change.org petition to ban the Dallas Gaming Expo from happening again (though only 29 signers as of this writing).
(2) I know in the world of sf&f there’s a tremendous competition to be the field’s biggest narcissist, but honestly, is anybody more stuck on himself than Michael Moorcock? The headline of his latest interview — “Michael Moorcock: ‘I think Tolkien was a crypto-fascist”.
“I think he’s a crypto-fascist,” says Moorcock, laughing. “In Tolkien, everyone’s in their place and happy to be there. We go there and back, to where we started. There’s no escape, nothing will ever change and nobody will ever break out of this well-ordered world.” How does he feel about the triumph of Tolkienism and, subsequently, the political sword-and-sorcery epic Game of Thrones, in making fantasy arguably bigger than it has ever been?
“To me, it’s simple,” he says. “Fantasy became as bland as everything else in entertainment. To be a bestseller, you’ve got to rub the corners off. The more you can predict the emotional arc of a book, the more successful it will become.
Nothing ever changes in Middle-Earth? Evil is defeated, the spirits on the paths of the dead are redeemed, all the elves leave, the Shire is trashed…. Never mind. I’ve read bales of Moorcock’s Eternal Champion novels. Entertaining, but he didn’t beat Tolkien at his own game.
(3) A radio dramatization of Iain M. Banks’ novella “The State of the Art” (45 minutes) is available free on the BBC for another three weeks.
The Culture ship Arbitrary arrives on Earth in 1977 and finds a planet obsessed with alien concepts like ‘property’ and ‘money’ and on the edge of self-destruction. When Agent Dervley Linter, decides to go native can Diziet Sma change his mind?
From Wikipedia:
The novella chronicles a Culture mission to Earth in the late 1970s, and also serves as a prequel of sorts to Use of Weapons by featuring one of that novel’s characters, Diziet Sma. Here, Sma argues for contact with Earth, to try to fix the mess the human species has made of it; another Culture citizen, Linter, goes native, choosing to renounce his Culture body enhancements so as to be more like the locals; and Li, who is a Star Trek fan, argues that the whole “incontestably neurotic and clinically insane species” should be eradicated with a micro black hole. The ship Arbitrary has ideas, and a sense of humour, of its own.
“Also while I’d been away, the ship had sent a request on a postcard to the BBC’s World Service, asking for ‘Mr David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” for the good ship Arbitrary and all who sail in her.’ (This from a machine that could have swamped Earth’s entire electro-magnetic spectrum with whatever the hell it wanted from somewhere beyond Betelgeuse.) It didn’t get the request played. The ship thought this was hilarious.”
(4) After a 17-year hiatus, W. Paul Ganley’s Weirdbook Magazine is coming back. A Stephen Fabian cover will be on the back and this artwork by Dusan Kostic will be on the front —
(5) Futurefen is a new WordPress site hoping to serve as a news and conrunning resource for kids programming.
I started this site because of frustration with getting timely and accurate info about kid programming from SFF conventions. I wanted to start a larger dialogue about how conventions can better serve ALL members of our community, and provide a centralized resource for information for fans with kids. For many of us, quality kid programs are a necessity to attend a convention. For us as a community, we need to foster and include and welcome kids to our gatherings because kids are our future. They’re the future fans, the future scientists, future writers and artists and inventors, future interesting people. Many of them are those things RIGHT NOW, and they have a lot of good they bring along with the energy they take.
I don’t really know if/how this site is going to work, but here we go. Let’s make a difference. 🙂
(6) Peter Grant scoffs at Jason Sanford’s announcement that the Tor Boycott has failed. Grant encourages supporters to ”Stay the course”.
I repeat what I’ve said before: the Tor boycott is a long-term effort. I know for certain, based on solid feedback from literally hundreds of individuals, that it’s already biting. It was an eye-opener at LibertyCon last month to have so many people come up to me, thank me for taking a stand, and confirm that they were part of the boycott. I’m certain that in 2015 alone, the boycott will have a six-figure effect on Tor’s turnover – not much for a multi-million-dollar-turnover publisher, but that’s just the start. As those involved in the boycott continue it and spread the word, the impact will grow. I fully expect it to reach a cumulative total of seven figures over time. Again, that may not seem like a lot to scoffers and naysayers; but I think in today’s publishing market, where margins are already razor-thin, such a loss of turnover may have an impact out of all proportion to its dollar value. Vox Day, who’s also called for a boycott of Tor, has more ‘inside information’ than I do, and he’s also confident that the campaign is having an impact.
Thank you to all of you who’ve taken a stand on principle and stood up for what is morally and ethically right. That has a value all its own, in a world that doesn’t attach much value to either morals or ethics. Stay the course. This will go on for years, and I think it will bear both short- and long-term fruit. (As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, there’s already convincing evidence of that.)
(7) Whereas all George R.R. Martin is saying is give peace a chance when you meet in person at Sasquan.
From talking and emailing with various friends and colleagues, however, I know that some of them will NOT be going to Spokane, mainly because the Hugo Wars have left a bad taste in their mouths. Others will attend, but not without trepidation. They wonder how much of the acrimony of Puppygate will spill over into the con itself… to the panels, the parties, the hallways. Will this worldcon be a celebration or a battleground? A family reunion or a family feud?
I wish I could answer that question, but no one really knows. I’m hoping for “celebration” and “family reunion,” and I think that’s the best bet… but we won’t know till the fat lady sings and the dead dogs howl.
And he has some gentle words for people he feels have been caught in the middle.
I don’t know Kary English. (It is possible I have met her or been in the same room with her at some previous con, but if so I don’t remember. I meet a lot of people). Until Puppygate and her double nomination, I had never read any of her work. But I agree with much of what she had to say in those posts, and I applaud her for saying it, knowing (as surely she must have) that by breaking ranks with “her side,” aka the Puppies, she would face the wroth of some of those who had previously championed her. I know that there are some on “my side” who have slammed English despite these posts, insisting that she spoke up too late in the game, that she was trying “to have it both ways.” No, sorry, that’s idiocy. Like Kloos and Bellet and Schubert before her, she’s opting out of the kennel and the slates. I will not fault her for not doing so sooner. This thing has been hard for all concerned, and these choices are painful… especially for a young writer who has just received his or her first Hugo nomination.
If there is any hope for reconciliation post-Puppygate, it lies with voices of moderation and forgiveness on both sides, not with the extremists and the haters. It lies with Marko Kloos and Annie Bellet and Edmund Schubert. I hope they are all at worldcon. I would like to meet them, buy them a drink, shake their hands, and argue about books with them.
[Thanks for these links goes out to JJ and John King Tarpinian. Title credit to Brian Z.]
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Like Camestros Felapton, apparently I’m not as well-read in fantasy as I thought. I’ve only read six of these, and the only bracket where I’ve read both is the first. So my vote is cast for:
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
This was a difficult choice. Swanwick’s novel is more original, but I didn’t think it worked quite as well for me.
I actually resisted reading A Game of Thrones for many years for the same reasons Cassy B. did, and only gave in after the HBO show came out and even my non-genre-reading friends were watching it.
I’m still not caught up with either the shows or the novels.
Ah, so he’s tainted by association with Secret Juice Worship.
Neil W: The simplest answer would be that Weber is not a close enough acquaintance of Correia and Torgersen. Or he might be, but didn’t want anything to do with it.
Near as I can tell, Weber’s only eligible works last year were two collaborations in the Harrington universe: A Cauldron of Ghosts with Eric Flint, which was rather roundly panned by a sizeable chunk of Weber/Harrington fandom, and A Call To Duty with Timothy Zahn, which got a bit warmer reception.
I read and enjoyed both books; they were entertaining, which was all I asked of them. I don’t think that either is the best in that universe, or Hugo-nomination-worthy — but both of them are way better than anything on the Puppy slate.
I’m apparently the opposite of many. My desert island book stack contains exactly one series which is SF (And even that is complicatedly half fantasy), and virtually nothing that isn’t fantasy. If I expanded to a desert island bookshelf SF would fare better….
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick
I’m not a huge fan of either, but Swanwick did more that was different and interesting.
2. OFF TO SEE THE DARK, DARK WIZARD
Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
The Newford Stories, Charles de Lint
Not an easy or nice choice to make. This is a vote for Charles, but not against Rowling… The Newford Stories eventually hit a point where they get self-derivative, but it happens after the 90s, and the early ones have some truly luminous moments.
4. HAPEXAMENDIOS VS. RUDY
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
5. FAIRY STORIES, REINVENTED
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
oh, that choice hurt.
6. THE DUST AND THE GLOOM
abstain. I haven’t read The Night Watch and Pullman isn’t good enough to win with the competition unseen.
7. FULFILLING THE PROPHECY IN STYLE
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
8. THE RISELKA AND THE RABBIT GIRL
Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana)
owie owie owie. Another hard choice.
I thought that the 7th Safehold book (Like A Mighty Army) was eligible but I could be wrong.
JJ: If Weber were consulted it may be that he turned it down because he felt he had not published something award-worthy. Williamson’s explanation of how his work was selected (asked what he had published that was eligible) suggests that in at least one case the Sad Puppies were as interested in nominating people they felt deserving as in the works themselves; other selections also incline me to that opinion. So I would think it most likely that either he wasn’t considered or declined to be involved (for whatever reasons).
JJ @ 7:31 said “a bunch of mostly little fish in a little pond”.
I think you are wrong. I’ve bought a lot of those authors books. And they’re good.
Ringo, Weber, and Weisskopf are pretty big fish, unless they’re the exception referenced by the weasley word “mostly”.
Weasely as that would apply to just about every Con, as mostly “little” or “mid” fish authors.
Neil W @ 9:11 am- Well reasoned.
Torgersen seems to have believed that the Hugos were a circular back pat of the chamber of commerce sort, designed to raise the visibility of particular author “brands.” Perhaps he, or David, came to the conclusion that David Weber’s brand was doing well enough without that kind of exposure.
Otherwise it does look very strange that they nominated John C Wright six times but couldn’t find room for other conservative authors like Weber and Ringo.
I think you are wrong. I’ve bought a lot of those authors books. And they’re good.
No one said they don’t sell any books. But they are still relatively small fish in a little pond. The pool of “Baen book buyers” is not zero, but in terms of the science fiction publishing world, it is not large either.
Otherwise it does look very strange that they nominated John C Wright six times but couldn’t find room for other conservative authors like Weber and Ringo.
To be fair to the Sads, JCW was only on their slate twice. The Rabids, who are nothing more than TB nakedly marketing his tiny publishing house, are where JCW got most of his nominations.
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick — ABSTAIN, didn’t read Swanwick, couldn’t finish AGoT.
2. OFF TO SEE THE DARK, DARK WIZARD
Wizard and Glass, Stephen King(Not this time, Sir.)Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
The Newford Stories, Charles de Lint(Sorry, Rowling hooked my son like no other writer)4. HAPEXAMENDIOS VS. RUDY
Imajica, Clive BarkerBrown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
5. FAIRY STORIES, REINVENTED
Stardust, Neil Gaman
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean –ABSTAIN, didn’t read either.
6. THE DUST AND THE GLOOM
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
The Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko — ABSTAIN, haven’t read Lukyanenko.
7. FULFILLING THE PROPHECY IN STYLE
Daughter of the Blood, Anne BishopSmall Gods, Terry Pratchett
8. THE RISELKA AND THE RABBIT GIRL
Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana)
Terri Windling (The Wood Wife)Fantasy bracket-the 90s, my choices:
1)-The Iron Dragon’s Daughter-Swanwick. GRRM will likely win, but I consider the Swanwick a better book.
2)-Wizard and Glass-King. Lackey’s book isn’t a favorite of mine.
3)-The Newford Stories-de Lint. *SIGH* I figured someone would run into the buzzsaw that is HP. Consider this the mouse shaking a defiant fist at the hawk swooping down on him.
4)-Brown Girl In the Ring-Hopkinson. Imajica is one of the few novels by Barker I really like.
5)-Tam Lin-Dean. I absolutely love this book!
6-I’ve read neither. I abstain.
7)-I’ve read neither. I abstain.
8)-The Wood Wife-Windling. Kay will likely win, but I love Windling’s work and this is a fantastic novel.
12 of 16 read isn’t great, I suppose, but the 1990s was when my reading in fantasy became more sporadic.
I was at Libertycon, but did not tell anyone that I was boycotting Tor. Actually, I cannot ever recall deciding to buy or not buy a book because of the publisher, nor do I plan to do so in the future. In fact, I liked all three of the Tor-published novels on the Hugo nomination list, especially The Three Body Problem.
I’m not much of a fantasy reader, but I have read both the Rowling and the de Lint works:
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD – The Newford Stories, Charles de Lint
Is it evil to want to stick this in the same room as JCW’s Hugo-packet essays about how “high fantasy” is the One True Fantasy and wait for the explosion?
So that’s where he got the idea that people ought to know who he is – he’s a BNF at an itty bitty con.
But their rallying cry for Kevin J Anderson was “he’s got sooo many bestsellers and no rockets! Unfair!”
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick
– It’s been a long time since I read it, but I remember being impressed. GoT, OTOH – I put it down partway through and never picked it up again.
2. OFF TO SEE THE DARK, DARK WIZARD
I’d vote for King’s “The Eyes of the Dragon”, but that’s the wrong decade. Since I haven’t read Wizard and Glass, it’s no vote here.
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
– Everything works in this one – the first two had new-writer wobbliness, the later ones had bestselling-author lack of editing.
5. FAIRY STORIES, REINVENTED
Stardust, Neil Gaman
– I read Tam Lin. It started to drag in the middle. I can’t remember if I read it all or just skipped to the end.
6. THE DUST AND THE GLOOM
No vote: Saw the movies for both of these, but only read GC. When people complained that the GC movie skipped scenes, I was confused – and then I realized the scriptwriters and I had both skipped over anything that didn’t have Lyra in it (really, I don’t usually skip over parts of books. This bracket just hit a lot of them). Which may be why I liked it but book fans didn’t.
7. FULFILLING THE PROPHECY IN STYLE
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
– No contest. Small Gods is awesome in so many ways, but Black Jewels – I first was exposed to that world via a crossover fanfic on a kink meme, and I thought that even for a kink meme, controlling the men via magical cock rings was a bit silly. And then I saw the book in a bookstore, picked it up…
Speaking of fanfic and con disasters: imagine Dash Con in Night Vale and you have the excellent The Convention
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick
Read ’em both, loathe them both, and now that I think about it, perhaps for similar reasons. Not voting for them. Can we anti-vote, i.e. -1?
2. OFF TO SEE THE DARK, DARK WIZARD
Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
Maybe unfair since I didn’t read that King, but oh, well! I’ve read other King, and I like Lackey’s work better.
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
The Newford Stories, Charles de Lint
De Lint was my first introduction to “urban fantasy” and I adore his stuff—have it ALL (even the stuff he published under Samuel M. Key, though I admit to not liking that as much). De Lint all the way.
4. HAPEXAMENDIOS VS. RUDY
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
No contest! Heck, I’m a supporter of the Brown Girl in the Ring film project:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/brown-girl-in-the-ring-the-prequel–2#/story
5. FAIRY STORIES, REINVENTED
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
This novel is one of my top top top top top top top top top top favorite fantasy novels of all time—and it’s time for a re-read. It’s like the ultimate English majors fantasy!
6. THE DUST AND THE GLOOMThe Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
The Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
Hate the Pullman (well, I liked the first one enough to buy the other two in hardcover, but I hatehate hate hate hate how he treated Lyra). Haven’t read the other (or even heard of it, to be honest).
So not voting here.
7. FULFILLING THE PROPHECY IN STYLE
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
My first Pterry, recommended by a friend of mine who did this brilliant presentation on wizards and philosophers, and beginning of a years-long love affair.
8. THE RISELKA AND THE RABBIT GIRL
Terri Windling (The Wood Wife)
I’ve disliked all of Kay’s work I’ve read—given up even trying—so Windling!
Michael Moorcock. China Mieville.
Is there a male British sff author who doesn’t have to call Tolkien names????
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick
2. OFF TO SEE THE DARK, DARK WIZARD
Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
The Newford Stories, Charles de Lint
4. HAPEXAMENDIOS VS. RUDY
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
5. FAIRY STORIES, REINVENTED
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
6. THE DUST AND THE GLOOM
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
7. FULFILLING THE PROPHECY IN STYLE
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
8. THE RISELKA AND THE RABBIT GIRL
Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana)
That did look to strange to me too – especially Ringo. His books are all about Manly Men who shoot Scary Others before taking women in ways you puny gammas can’t appreciate. Far more airport-novel like, far more getting to judge the book by its cover, than John C. Wright’s novel length treatises of exposition on his particular philosophical bugbears.
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
2. OFF TO SEE THE DARK, DARK WIZARD
Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
Quite tempted by Nigel’s suggestion of Fortress in the Eye of Time. But I don’t quite think it’s top Cherryh whereas Magic’s Price is classic Lackey (the sort of thing you’ll like if you like that sort of thing). Also tempted to write-in Hambly’s Dog Wizard but I don’t think it’d get anywhere.
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
The Newford Stories, Charles de Lint
4. HAPEXAMENDIOS VS. RUDY
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
5. FAIRY STORIES, REINVENTED
A tough one but I’ll give my vote to
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
6. THE DUST AND THE GLOOM
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
7. FULFILLING THE PROPHECY IN STYLE
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
Sorry, no contest.
8. THE RISELKA AND THE RABBIT GIRL
Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana)
NelsC: Tolkien and issue of rape:
There are so few women in his oeuvre for rape to happen to, and I doubt that he had any concept of male-on-male rape.
This is true of the HOBBIT and LOTR (mostly–there’s an issue of the torment of Celebrian, Elrond’s wife, when she was captured by Orcs, but it’s not in the present or the narrative, or shown), but there are a couple of episodes in the SILM that involve a rape (within marriage, or forced marriage)–but Edith Crowe in what I consider one of the first, if not the first, feminist scholarship on Tolkien’s work, makes an argument that those acts lead to negative consequences and are clearly marked as evil.
The article: Crowe, Edith L. “Power in Arda: Sources, Uses and Misuses.” Mythlore. 1996 Winter; (1995); 272-77
A very short and rough summary: Tolkien would not define himself as a feminist, nor consider his work feminist, nor would many readers, but some of his values, as shown in his work (including SILM) are similar to some values held by some feminist (in regard to power).
I had a PDF: if you would like a copy, feel free to email me at my name here, plus my favorite number which is 13, at the Yahoo place!
It’s not weird when you know how many of the authors nominated by the Sads had a personal or career connection to Torgersen, Correia and Beale. It was a logrolling exercise.
1. Haven’t read either, and I refuse to feel ashamed for it.
2. Lackey, Magic’s Price. Mostly for expanding the notion of what kind of person can be the hero.
3. De Lint, The Newford Stories. These are beautifully crafted, with far more more attentive world building and character growth than the Potterverse. This is a hill I will die on.
4. Hopkinson, Brown Girl in the Ring. This book hugely expanded my ideas of what the genre could be and do.
5. Dean, Tam Lin. But that was agonizing! Hardest choice of the bracket.
6. Pullman, The Golden Compass/ Northern Lights.
7. Oh my. Bishop is a guilty pleasure… Problematic in so many ways, but I don’t want to put her books down. I have called my version of “Oh, John Ringo, no.” She is doing something right, but do I want to award it? No. So… A vote against Bishop.
8. Kay, Tigana. Not my favorite of his works, and the Winding is beautiful, but I cannot choose otherwise.
I’ve read at most one of each bracket. I therefore vote for the ones I have read, which are:
1. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
4. Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
5. Stardust, Neil Gaman
6. The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
7. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
8. Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana)
MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
The Newford Stories, Charles de Lint
That’s the only bracket where I’ve read both books. Rowling wrote a very enjoyable series, but de Lint’s treatment of magic and the numinous creates such a compelling and often dreamlike world that Rowling’s solid, stolid and pun-based magic just can’t compete.
Except financially, of course.
I think it’s pretty clear that Moorcock is engaging in some hyperbole, here, but there is a point to his statements. Tolkien has always presented his work in terms of a call to a lost Golden Age in which men knew both how to rule and to be ruled, and Sauron is explicitly disrupting this order of things by using as his armies a group of dispossessed minorities.
Two of Pratchett’s last novels, “Unseen Academicals” and “Snuff”, both dealt with the way that orcs and goblins (respectively) were marginalized in Tolkien’s texts in ways that should make a modern reader extremely uncomfortable, and of course Captain Carrot has always been a rather pointed commentary on how utterly discredited the “return of the king” should be as a concept. It’s one of the reasons I love Pratchett so damn much. 🙂
They have a funny way of proving their point about there being all these overlooked but talented writers. They weren’t able to find very many who weren’t JCW.
Those writers were so overlooked that even the Puppies overlooked them. Double plus overlooked! Something something QED something and here’s Wright with the weather.
Pratchett, Moorcock, and also Pullman and Mieville. It is amazing how much fantasy writing by British men is essentially an Oedipal revolt against Tolkien.
6. The Golden Compass, Phillip Pullman
7. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
I remember going to Canada and buying Small Gods before it was out in the US, and being disappointed with it at the time. It has since grown in my estimation.
Mike Glyer: “Our experience with the 1996 Worldcon was that we only made the desired number of bases (which slightly exceeded the number of awards). The rockets had to be cast in sets of a dozen so by ordering adequate sets for our needs we ended up with extras which were passed on to the next Worldcon.”
Ah, so the rockets do get passed on to the next con. Every little helps. Look after the pennies…
Thanks for the info Mike.
I wonder what Wright’s weather report would look like? I’ve got as far as “the rainy rain will rain rainily this rainy season.”
1. Game of thrones
2. Fortress in the eye of time (this is the right place for this write in, right?)
3. Harry Potter – for whatever reason, I’ve never been able to get into de Lint, despite several tries
4 & 5 pass
6. Golden compass
7. Small gods
8. Tigana – though I like later books better
On another topic, I’m currently reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s Aurora, and so far really enjoying his take on the generation ship off to colonize a far planet – this sounded like a stale topic to me, but he’s really made it fresh.
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick
Bleaker than a bleak thing in the bleak midwinter, but pretty awesome at the same time.
Not read both in the other brackets.
I’m not sure Tor will notice a boycott that costs them $1,000.01, and that’s at the high end of the estimated impact range.
I just finished this last week. I thought it was brilliant.
He seems to have been really thoughtful about the biological science aspect of it, and the AI/narrator progressing through different narrative styles is very smart on a literary level.
Ansible‘s links column points out this reaction to the Moorcock article from Moorcock himself:
There will be wet and rainy precipitation that will fall like condensed damp moisture upon the wet houses and sodden fields and damp towns and saturated fanes and overhydrated roads and the lost atheist soul will look upon those spherical globular droplets and say unto themselves “it is just the water cycle” and with the arrogance of man assume that he now can control the climatic weather because in his spiritless soul he has deceptively deceived himself into thinking that he is a diety-like god. However in mid-afternoon showers will clear and it will be sunny through to the evening. Now back to Michael Z Williamson with the rest of today’s news.
Camestros, that was lethal. Good work.
With Ringo, I think a strong possibility might be because his eligible work is zombie apocalypse stuff, which didn’t fit the ‘whizbang’ SFF trope they claimed to be pushing. Plus, he’s already in their camp without needing to be part of their silly League of Evil or whatever name the D-listers are calling themselves.
From what I know, and this is all hearsay so if I’m wrong, feel free to correct me, Weber is a pretty quiet guy who doesn’t like engaging in anything controversial on-line. I’ve been told he’s happy to argue in person and at cons, but he doesn’t comment much on his own forum or blog or twitter anything beyond appearances, updates on writing, and the occasional thing about his family related to his works. He’s also stupidly more successful than anyone related directly to the Puppies, which suggests that he’s more interested in writing his books and selling them to as wide an audience as possible than engaging in culture wars over an award.
And yet, Jim Butcher.
I think a strong possibility might be because his eligible work is zombie apocalypse stuff, which didn’t fit the ‘whizbang’ SFF trope they claimed to be pushing.
Contra that are the slate nominations of Zombie Nation and to a lesser extent such tedious snooze-fests as Flow, Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium, and On a Spiritual Plain, not to mention Wisdom from My Internet.
Aaron beat me to it: one major quality of the Puppies’ actual slate entries is a lack of engaging action. Ancillary Sword has a bunch of intense action in it; The Three-Body Problem opens with a pitched battle during the Cultural Revolution; “The World Turned Upside Down” has the world turned upside down; and so on. The Puppies will all agree that sf has lost its sense of adventure, but in practice they vote against modern works that have it in favor of extended static talk pieces.
Re: David Weber and the Slates of Puppies
When the nominations were announced & I went looking for reasons, I read Torgersen’s posts. His words & deeds did not match, and in such a scenario, look at the outcomes. My conclusion then & now: Occam’s Razor says cronyism & self-promotion were the prime motivations.
Maybe Ringo & Weber (two obvious examples of the sort of writing Torgersen “says” he wants to promote if he says he wants to promote rip-roaring yarns ignored by Hugo nominators) were asked but declined to be on the slate. But Mike Resnick (37 Hugo nominations, 5 wins) is hardly unrecognized by Worldcon…
Kyra, I’d like to nominate China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station as a write in for slot #1 IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS. Sure, existing records show that it was published in 2000, which isn’t the 1990ies, but it developed a hole in itself and traveled through it just to participate in this bracket, and would you like to look at this moth it found?
THE NINETIES!
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick
AGoT hit me over the head, but images from IDD remain with me.
2. OFF TO SEE THE DARK, DARK WIZARD
Wizard and Glass, Stephen King
Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
The Newford Stories, Charles de Lint
I don’t know TNS (yet)
4. HAPEXAMENDIOS VS. RUDY
Imajica, Clive Barker
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
Abstain
5. FAIRY STORIES, REINVENTED
Stardust, Neil Gaman
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
But it was hard
6. THE DUST AND THE GLOOM
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
The Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
Abstain
7. FULFILLING THE PROPHECY IN STYLE
Daughter of the Blood, Anne Bishop
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
One of his best
8. THE RISELKA AND THE RABBIT GIRL
Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana)
Terri Windling (The Wood Wife)
Abstain
As others have said, there are more here I’ve not even heard of, let alone read, than in the SF rounds.
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick
2. OFF TO SEE THE DARK, DARK WIZARD
Abstain Haven’t read the King.
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
The Newford Stories, Charles de Lint
4. HAPEXAMENDIOS VS. RUDY
Imajica, Clive Barker
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
5. FAIRY STORIES, REINVENTED
Stardust, Neil Gaman
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
A bit unfair, as I attended the real Blackstock College, so I got the puns and knew which professors she was riffing on. Of course, I think this is where McKinley’s Deerskin would have ended up, which would have made things even harder.
6. THE DUST AND THE GLOOM
Abstain.
7. FULFILLING THE PROPHECY IN STYLE
Daughter of the Blood, Anne Bishop
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett Always.
8. THE RISELKA AND THE RABBIT GIRL
Abstain. Not my favorite Kay and haven’t read the Windling.
Can I defend ‘Gloriana’ by pointing out that Moorcock came to realise that the original ending was beyond the pale and rewrote it for later editions?
Petréa Mitchell: I read that (having stolen the other link from Ansible fair and square). I didn’t perceive Moorcock to be crying off the quote about Tolkien, which does nothing more than echo what he’s said before over the years, so I didn’t factor the follow-up comment into my excerpt.
It may not be fair to take the fact I’ve read one book and not another as evidence of the first book’s superiority (clearly that’s superiority in some characteristic but not likely a fit one by which to judge the quality of literature) but I’m left little choice – either I’m a lot better read in SF than in fantasy even than I would have guessed or a big part of the difference is that I missed the first round of the SF bracket. More for the TBR list regardless.
1. A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
2. Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
4. Abstain – haven’t read either of them
5. Abstain – haven’t read either of them
6. The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
7. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett – this or Reaper Man or maybe Men at Arms. Whichever one, the result would be the same.
8. Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigana)
Oh, Tolkien is definitely a crypto-fascist! In LOTR, everybody has its place in the great scheme of things, prophecies deliver ahistorical truths and there’s a grey-haired asshole who knows best and should be trusted. In non-fascist fantasy everybody is just damn lost with their lives.
1. IRON. DRAGONS. DAUGHTERS.
A Game of Thrones, George R. R. MartinThe Iron Dragon’s Daughter, Michael Swanwick
Swanwick’s book is one of my all time favorites. I enjoy the twisted play with fantasy tropes enormously.
3. MAGIC MEETS THE MODERN WORLD
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling
The Newford Stories, Charles de LintBest of the Harry Potter books, in my opinion. It’s the point where the saga starts to turn more serious. And there’s also Sirius.
5. FAIRY STORIES, REINVENTED
Stardust, Neil Gaiman
Tam Lin, Pamela DeanEspecially the Stardarst version with illustrations by Charles Vess is doubleplusgood.
6. THE DUST AND THE GLOOM
The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman
The Night Watch, Sergei LukyanenkoI like the excercise of doing away with every Narnial crypto-Christian aspect of fantasy literature, even though Pullman maybe got a little carried away with the idea and the end of the series feels preachy.