Ten stories, three videos and a partridge in a pear tree.
(1) It’s a privilege to be included in this Sasquan program item:
M. J. Locke [Laura Mixon] , John Scalzi , Mike Glyer , William Frank (Moderator) , Eric Flint
Since before the Great Exclusion Act of 1939, the science-fiction community has had its share of controversies, feuds and flame wars — between pros, between fans, between pros and fans. Maybe more than its share. Discussion about these controversies — whether in fanzines or online — has often generated more heat than light. How can we research and write about controversial issues in the field? Is it ever possible to just stick to the facts? Panelists talk about what they’ve learned about how to approach these issues.
August 23, 3:00 p.m., CC – Bays 111A
(2) Fraser Cain discusses what would happen if a black hole met an antimatter black hole.
Here’s the part you care about. When equal amounts of matter and antimatter collide, they are annihilated. But not disappeared or canceled out. They’re converted into pure energy.
As Einstein explained to us, mass and energy are just different aspects of the same thing. You can turn mass into energy, and you can turn energy into mass.
Black holes turn everything, both matter and energy, into more black hole.
Imagine a regular flavor and an antimatter flavor black hole with the same mass slamming together. The two would be annihilated and turn into pure energy.
Of course, the gravity of a black hole is so immense that nothing, not even light can escape. So all energy would just be turned instantaneously into more black hole. Want more black hole? Put things into the black hole.
Cain says if this is your rescue plan in case you fall into a black hole, you’re out of luck.
(3) You may need a break after science-ing the shit out of that last item. Here’s the comic relief.
[Bill] Nye recently read some unflattering tweets in support of a Kickstarter campaign for a documentary about him, which, to be honest, we kind of hope just turns out to be two more hours of tweets.
(4) Ken Liu’s novel Grace of Kings is available from the Kindle Store for $1.99 today, as I learned from SF Signal. So far I’ve only read his short fiction. Now I’m diving into his novels.
(5) I listened to five minutes of the Superversive Hugo livestream today, long enough to hear a male voice opine that No Award will not win any of the categories. And I thought to myself, that kind of boldly contrarian thinking is exactly what a livestream panel needs to pull an audience.
(6) Talk about a dog’s breakfast…
Via Larry Correia's post, apparently THE GREEN INFERNO is a movie for all Puppies, since SJWs get eaten by cannibals http://t.co/J9rHBROajS
— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) August 1, 2015
(7) Tempest Bradford has a modest proposal.
https://twitter.com/tinytempest/status/627553230747254785
Does she mean that literally, or is this another case where an idea suffers because it can’t be fully unpacked in a tweet? Think of all the minority/marginalized groups cishet white men belong to. Religious minorities. People with disabilities. Participants in 12 Step programs. (Do I need to say that I have seen convention panels involving each of these topics?) This rule needs to go back to the drawing board.
(8) August 2 is National Ice Cream Sandwich Day.
The modern version of the ice cream sandwich was invented by Jerry Newberg in 1945 when he was selling ice cream at Forbes Field. There are pictures from the early 1900?s, “On the beach, Atlantic City”, that show Ice Cream Sandwiches were popular and sold for 1 cent each.
And here is the ObSF ice cream sandwich content.
(9) I think it’s rather sad that the person who took the trouble of setting up this robotic tweet generator doesn’t know how to spell Torgersen.
Tor & File770 insiders say Torgerson's stomach is a graveyard…for Cthulhu. #SadPuppies
— finger chomper (@sadrbtpuppies) August 2, 2015
(10) File 770’s unofficial motto is “It’s always news to someone.” The Hollywood Reporter must feel the same way. Capitalizing on the imminent release of Fantastic Four, THR just ran a story about the first (1994) movie adaptation of the comic produced by Roger Corman.
If you haven’t seen the movie that’s not because it was a box office bust. It was never allowed to get anywhere near the box office. Sony exec Avi Arad ended up destroying every available print.
Here’s the trailer, uploaded to YouTube in 2006.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Anna Nimmhaus.]
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Robert Reynolds: I was going to write about what Lenora Rose did in response. So I’ll just say “What she said.” This in particular strikes me as relevant: “Name me one situation you are in regarding your condition where your circumstances would be improved, not made worse, by being black?” I’ve seen again and again that I get better responses at, say, Social Security offices or any place I need to deal with disability-related stuff than people of color who were ahead of me in line did. Likewise, I tend to get faster answers than someone presenting as female asking the same questions. The stuff that sucks about my situation sucks for everyone who has it, and then others get extra suckage for being marked in more ways.
So if there were a panel on, say, disabilities in fandom and I were on it, I’d be happy to follow the lead of someone else as moderator chosen with Tempest’s point in mind, on the grounds that they will know things I don’t.
Oh, my withers are decidedly unwrung.
I’m just kind of mildly boggled at a statement that would parallel to “Science fiction is a lot more than spaceships and bold captains, from MORE THAN HUMAN to STAR TREK.” But who knows, maybe Brenda has a point to make that bounces off it. Or if not, we’ll just hand wave it away.
I was going to write something along the lines that Kurt already wrote — a comics writer whose comic has an enormous female readership would be a quite understandable pick for a panel with this topic (in case the person putting it together doesn’t know that he can behave like an asshole).
There are some important power dynamics issues to consider if a non-minority member moderates a panel dealing with the said minority, obviously, but a categorical cis white ban feels a bit hyperbolic to me (but that’s how you get retweets, I guess).
I would say Astro City is Deep Space Nine in that analogy.
Tempest, I believe, subscribes to a principle that I’ve been drawn to more in recent years myself: It’s not your job as an individual to try to do justice to all points of view. Your priority should be to make your preferred viewpoint known. The task of dealing with the inevitable compromises and adjustments needed belongs to the system as a whole, and to people in positions of authority. I don’t think she’s laying down “this is how it must be” dicta – she’s saying “this is a good way for it to be” and hoping to get others thinking and acting.
In my part of nerddom, at least, there’s a very strong temptation to act as a pundit or authority charged with taking in all points of view and declaring from on high how you judge it all. But the thing is, we’re not those kinds of people in those kinds of positions. We’re just us, and our first responsibility should be to what we want to see happen. There’ll be plenty of time for losing pieces of that along the way later.
Not that it overlaps terribly strongly with her earlier point, but:
That is a principle that should be avoided in picking panel moderators. One could argue that Bill has that principle, too.
Bracket:
1. The Riddle Master of Hed
2. Small Gods
3. The Tombs of Atuan (although I loved The Once and Future King, in spite of that Disney movie).
4. Nine Princes in Amber. I read The Dying Earth for the first time quite recently (i.e. in the last 2 or 3 years), for one of John Hertz’s “classics of SF” discussions, and had a tough time ploughing through it.
5. This was the only really difficult choice for me: Bridge of Birds.
6. The Wealdwife’s Tale (1993, Paul Hazel). A neglected book by an underappreciated author. Reads like a compelling and inevitable folk tale.
1. Oh come ON! Are your dice hewn cold out of bones taken from the gallows by the dark of the moon or something?
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
2. Watership Down, Richard Adams
3. The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
4. Yup, definitely pure evil.
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
5. The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
6. A vote for Karl Edward Wagner is tempting, though I’d nominate Dark Crusade over Bloodstone, but in the end I have to go with The Black Company, Glen Cook
Kurt
I think there is a problem where ‘liberal politics’ seems to be defined as anything to the left of the Taliban; it certainly evoked a knee-jerk reaction in me which I had to work through to get a better grasp of your original comments. In most countries equal access to art forms in, for example, museums, galleries, theatres, opera houses etc. is taken for granted; it isn’t perceived as an act of generosity graciously allowing women to participate, provided, of course, that they are suitably grateful.
Part of this is because women pay, directly and indirectly, for access to those art forms, but there is also the belief that if something is really, really good then everyone should be able to see it; it is part of our common humanity.
This can work in weird ways; the Mona Lisa will have a vast queue but just outside in the corridor people wander past the ‘Madonna of the Rocks’ without even noticing Leonardo’s greatest work, much less recalling the SF story based on it. Nevertheless, the idea that women shouldn’t look at paintings because women appreciating them spoils them in some way would raise more than eyebrows in the Louvre, and yet this is an argument advanced in all seriousness about comics and video games in the US.
I don’t know how this can be changed without people pointing out that there are some seriously strange assumptions which have to be challenged, unless the US decides to secede from reality altogether, in which case it will have bigger problems than working on making comics female friendly…
> “Are your dice hewn cold out of bones taken from the gallows by the dark of the moon or something?”
Is, um, is that unusual?
I’d probably disagree if I defined it that way, but, well, didn’t and don’t.
Kurt
Unfortunately, the people who believe that women shouldn’t read comics and play video games because it ruins them do define ‘liberal politics’ as anything to the left of the Taliban, though few of them admit to it with as much enthusiasm as VD…
@Lenore Rose, Bruce Baugh:
The following question was asked by LR and endorsed by BB:
“Name me one situation you are in regarding your condition where your circumstances would be improved, not worsened, by being black?”.
To which my reply is that my circumstances cannot be significantly improved or worsened by an alteration of the melanin in my skin. I would still be trapped in the same body and still be treated the way the disabled are treated whether I was black, white, male, female or whatever change you care to specify.
Would I get more or less condescension from person A depending on skin color? Yes, that might vary from individual to individual. Some would likely treat me marginally better because I’m white, just as some might treat me marginally better if I were black. But I belong to the minority which anyone can join. Name a sub-group and I’ve likely known someone who fit that sub-group and is also disabled.
Black, white, brown, male, female, permanently disabled or temporarily in the ranks, I’ve known and spoken about this to lots of people cutting across any line you can name and patterns clearly emerge. Waits come up to tables, turn to someone you’re with and ask, “What will (s)he be having?”, as though you are incapable of answering such a difficult question. People come up to you and start talking to you loudly and slowly. People assume someone you are with is a caregiver, not a friend, date, lover, spouse (fill in the blank).
Someone comes up to you and, without asking if you need help, they “help” you. People “congratulate” for just getting out and about in public. Or they come up to you and ask, out of the blue, if you’re lost. Or they talk about you to someone else, as though you aren’t there, even when they’re right next to you.
A dear friend of mine, an extraordinarily pretty girl, broke her leg once and spent several weeks on crutches/in a wheelchair. She told me that it was the first time in her life that not one guy hit on her or asked her for her number. Most people ignored her completely-cashiers, passersby, whatever-unless she drew attention to herself and then they almost invariably treated her like a rather dense five year old. Even some of her friends treated her differently. She’s not an isolated case.
I’ve had people do and say things to me they’d never for one minute do or say to someone they perceive as “normal”. The black people I’ve known who have a disability have the same stories to tell. One guy who joined the ranks by accident told me that he had more grief from people the first year of his being disabled than being black had caused him in five years. I asked him if he’d rather be able-bodied and black or disabled and white and he immediately said able-bodied and black.
When you are disabled, you get treated like garbage regardless of other factors. That you also get misery for other reasons on top of it is undoubtably an additional kick when you’re down, but that I may be treated marginally less badly because I’m white doesn’t change the fact that I’m still being treated like garbage.
Kurt Busiek:
Since we entered the discussion of program moderators from the angle of moderating panels focused in some way on marginalized groups I recognize that’s probably the context for your comment and I wanted to make clear that the response it’s inspiring here is not in disagreement with what you have to say about that case. It’s just a wider angle on the overall question of panel moderation.
I have programmed a number of Westercons and Loscons which at different times have had between 80-120 program participants. Writers/artists come to participate both as part of the community and to raise their professional profile — they are coming to talk, not to lay back and referee the process. So for any panel about a noncontroversial topic all I’m looking for in a moderator is someone who will do introductions and make sure the microphone gets shared around while making their own normal contributions.
Out of the group who come to Westercon or Loscon I probably have only a half dozen people with exceptional moderator skills. I keep them in mind to match up with controversial panels. Also, to keep things in balance on items where I have included a participant with a history of dominating panels. I certainly don’t want the dominator to also have the implied authority of being the moderator.
Generally, a program designed to feature participants from non-majority backgrounds is not inherently controversial. The audience comes to hear them, not to make a fuss. That kind of panel only becomes controversial if (intentionally or accidentally) it includes a panelist who is hostile to the featured proposition, or has an overly dominant personality (causing the behavior to take on overtones of intolerance). The choice of a moderator in that situation becomes important, however, before ever getting to that point the program organizer needs to respect all the participants by only putting them in situations in terms they have understood and agreed to. The program organizer ultimately should make choices that will help show everyone to their best advantage.
This probably sounds a little too pat, except if you have the time I can tell you about all the mistakes I made over the years that taught me why these things are important….
Stevie:
There, I do disagree.
Unfortunately, the people who believe things like that are not limited to such a group. It would be nice if they were, but they’re not.
Mike:
I imagine that’s a problem for just about any con.
Whenever I’m asked to be a panel moderator, I tell the person asking that I’ll serve if needed (if I’m available, that is), but I’m not a very good moderator because I like talking far too much.
If pressed into service anyway, I try to remember: Shut up and let other people talk too.
This is also a good rule of thumb if I’m on the panel but not a moderator, unless it’s a “Spotlight on Moi” panel. But I think few things wreck a panel quite the way a moderator who thinks theirs is the most interesting voice. Even if you agree with what they have to say. Heck, sometimes even if they’re right…
Mike: Honestly, I’m amazed that these things ever get done at all, let alone as generally functional as they are. 🙂
Bracketsessss, my precious…
1. The Riddle Master of Hed
2. Watership Down
3. The Tombs of Atuan
4. Abstain. Haven’t read Vance.
5. The Last Unicorn
6. Am torn between Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday and Graham Joyce’s Dark Sister. Joyce is criminally underappreciated, but Thursday is brilliant… Will resolve this in a later post. Sorry to be a pain in the ass, Kyra.
And I’d go for Susan Cooper over both, but I had the impression we were going to do a different bracket for children’s fantasy? The Grey King was written for a younger audience… No matter how well it holds up.
No love at all for Operation Chaos? Darn.
In terms of YA vs. children’s vs. hm-I’m-not-sure, my usual completely nonobjective where-does-this-go method for categorizing cases where I feel there’s a question has been, “Does this make more sense in a bracket with Lord of the Rings and Two Sought Adventure and Lud-in-the-Mist, or does it make more sense in a bracket with Alice in Wonderland and Wind in the Willows and The Phantom Tollbooth?”
In which case, I would personally put The Dark Is Rising in the genre fantasy bracket and The Thirteen Clocks in the children’s fantasy bracket.
Lunar:
Ultimately, the distinction made was that YA got lumped with the adult stuff and children’s fantasy did not.
So Susan Cooper (at least for most of the Dark is Rising sequence) would go with the stuff we’ve been voting on.
Susan:
I think it’s great. But maybe in one of the earlier brackets; I don’t think it’d get this far.
Well, I’m glad I missed the bracket where Terry Pratchett was put against Lloyd Alexander, because my head would’ve exploded from the pain.
Unrelated question: Is Kyra Satan? Asking for a friend. 🙂
And … the bracket!
1. EDUCATION
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
2. EXPLORATION
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
Watership Down, Richard Adams
I respect Watership Down, but I don’t love it the way I love Pratchett. ALSO WATERSHIP DOWN MUST BE PUNISHED FOR ELIMINATING DIANNA WYNNE JONES.
3. MATURATION
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
T. H. White will survive.*
4. DESOLATION
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
The Zelazny is a shade more accessible, with a cool cold open.
5. RESTORATION
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
6. THE DARK IS RISING, Susan Cooper
For the great scene when they’re caroling, singing “Good King Wenceslas,” and the carolers all freeze, but Merry and Will don’t…
Honorable Mentions: FOOL ON THE HILL, Matt Ruff (Ruff doesn’t get enough love as an author– BAD MONKEYS and THE MIRAGE are also superb, with SEWER GAS ELECTRIC: THE PUBLIC WORKS TRILOGY just a shade behind them.)
WINTER’S TALE, Mark Helprin. So big. So good. Pity they never made a movie of it.
“Last Unicorn, I am honor-bound to warn you to stay to to the path through the castle. Straying from the path could mean your destruction. YOU KILLED HARRY POTTER, Last Unicorn. STRAY FROM YOUR PATH.
”
*As a zombie? “Um, Mr. White, your newest novel, “Arthur BLARRRRGHHHH chomp,” uh… did you… did you try to eat these pages?”
> “Is Kyra Satan? Asking for a friend.”
Would, um, would that be a problem?
> “WATERSHIP DOWN MUST BE PUNISHED FOR ELIMINATING DIANNA WYNNE JONES.”
She actually lost to zombie T. H. White, but (*checks your vote*) you’re still good, man, it’s cool.
Great, I thought, I’ve actually read all but one of these.
Then I thought, but that means I have to make choices that will be like having teeth filled without the benefit of anaesthetic.
So I went and hid under a large friendly dog for a bit.
But it wasn’t quite as bad as I feared. Maybe too many of my favourites have already gone out?
1. Abstain
2. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
That one was easy.
3. The Once and Future King, T. H. White.
That one wasn’t.
4. Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
That one hurt.
5. Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart.
Right, bring on the dentist …
6. The Merman’s Children (Poul Anderson), maybe? No – I’m going to opt for The Third Policeman, if only because I was introduced to it by a chemistry textbook.
Remember that Star Trek episode, Jerome Bixby’s ‘By Any Other Name’? The one where they turn a couple of crew members into Kyra’s dice, and then crush them?
Bracket time:
1. Morgenstern.
2. Pratchett.
3. Le Guin.
4. Zelazny.
5. Beagle, with cream cheese.
6. Tom Holt’s Odds and Gods, narrowly beating Wizard’s Bane, by Rick Cook.
Kurt
Oh, bugger! It’s disheartening to discover that we are in ‘climbed the mountain only to find it was a foothill’ territory, but thank you for breaking the bad news in a user-friendly fashion.
I appreciate that it was a very long time ago, but nobody ever told me that I wasn’t allowed to enjoy the Silver Surfer; admittedly the comics were mine and they wanted to read them, so good manners were sensible, but nobody seemed to think I was imperilling their manhood, or the Silver Surfer’s manhood for that matter. Obviously, somewhere along the line things changed drastically.
I can handle, just about, the absence of my sky car, even though my apartment has more than adequate balconies for parking my sky car(s) in easy reach; the Barbican itself is the great triumph of Brutalist architecture, and I suspect the architects also thought there would be sky cars, which is why they provided said balconies for parking them.
I can even deal with the absence of our moon bases and our failure to give Mars a whirl, but my generation failed to make people understand that we were trashing our planet, and that global warming is a wonderful way to bring our species to an end, because we are incapable of accepting that actions have consequences.
Of course, anybody who has talked to the microbiologists knows that antibiotic resistance will take us out before global warming gets its chance. In ten years we will have lost almost all of modern medicine, because we no longer have functional antibiotics, and without it we are screwed. The Chief Medical Officer pointed this out recently, but almost everyone ignored it; they have lost the ability to deal with hard facts, because it’s so much easier to ignore them.
So there’s an element of ‘nasty things are happening now, but maybe they’ll go away if we ignore it”.
As strategies go, that one doesn’t make any sense at all.
Unfortunately there are a lot of people who think ‘Aristotle’ is irrefutable proof of the vastness of VD’ brain, which is presently floating in a tank kindly donated by a fellow Hugo nominee, in the interests of science. Naturally, I will insist on him being returned to wherever he came from.
Mellowest Satan ever.
1. EDUCATION
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
2. EXPLORATION
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
Watership Down, Richard Adams
3. MATURATION
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
4. DESOLATION
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
5. RESTORATION
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
– no vote
6. GENERATION
The Black Company by Glen Cook
Mike —
I have nothing but time, and I’m interested because of my narrow escape. Please share!
Mike
Please accept my request also: I think it would provide food for thought?
Bracket votes!
1. EDUCATION
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
2. EXPLORATION
Watership Down, Richard Adams
3. MATURATION
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
4. DESOLATION
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
5. RESTORATION
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
At the end of the first half:
Riddle-Master of Hed and The Princess Bride are STILL TIED.
Bridge of Birds has crept very slightly closer to The Last Unicorn.
Small Gods, The Tombs of Atuan, and Nine Princes in Amber have somewhat extended their leads over Watership Down, The Once and Future King, and The Dying Earth.
The Black Company is is the lead for the new nominations. Just behind it are The Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, The Broken Sword, and Swordspoint. Right on their heels are The Dark is Rising and The Third Policeman, followed by Bloodstone and Something Wicked This Way Comes. It’s all very close.
Casey L,
I greatly enjoyed the music. Thank you.
1. EDUCATION
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
2. EXPLORATION
Watership Down, Richard Adams
3. MATURATION
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
4. DESOLATION
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
5. RESTORATION
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
6. GENERATION
Orlando Furioso, Ludovico Ariosto
I’d like to upvote Robert Reynold’s comment about the invisibility of the disabled. My wife (who’s had to use a wheelchair for many years) runs into this all the time. Could write much more, but have to leave for work shortly.
1. The Riddle Master of Hed
2. Small Gods
3. The Tombs of Atuan
4. Nine Princes in Amber.
5. Bridge of Birds.
6. Swordspoint
And remember, be sure to get your Official Certified Bracket Forehead Cloths Here. Accept no substitutes! A portion of all proceeds will go to the “Buy Kyra a Sledgehammer” fund, so get yours today!
People in wheelchairs (and blind people) are definitely treated as invisible, infantalized, etc.
But people of color who are in wheelchairs, or blind, or have other disabilities are very likely treated worse than white people.
To ignore the realities of intersectional oppressions can only be done by people with privilege.
http://dredf.org/healthcare/Health-and-Health-Care-Disparities-Among-People-with-Disabilities.pdf
Can I suggest that this is not a good time or venue to discuss the relative privilege of various flavours of disabled people? We have our hands full as it is with Kyra’s brackets, various Puppies, and discussing Bill Willingham’s valuable contributions to universal peace and love, without more peace and love breaking out here.
NelC,
Seconded!
Will not post any further then.
1. EDUCATION
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
There are very few contenders that could make me vote against this one.
2. EXPLORATION
Abstain. Damn, I must set aside some time to try Pratchett again.
3. MATURATION
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
I can still remember exactly where I was when I first read The Once and Future King, curled up on a ratty couch smelling of unwashed Dobermans and St. Bernards in the unfinished rumpus room of a staff writer for the TV show Bonanza. The adults were having a swinging 70s party in the main house while the kids were left to their own devices. I disappeared into Wart’s world and ignored what was happening around me until I was required to get in my parents’ car and go home. I loved the particularity of White’s prose style, the humor and streaks of melancholy, I loved Merlin and anguished over the love triangle (I usually hate love triangles) and over the fatal flaws in otherwise decent, sympathetic characters. I was delighted by the word ‘fewmets.’ Whereas my clearest memory of reading Tombs of Atuan was a somewhat puzzled, “I thought this was going to be better than it is.”
4. DESOLATION
Abstain
5. RESTORATION
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
6. GENERATION
Okay, I know this hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting votes, and it’s not actually marketed as fantasy, but I’m going to put it here anyway: Sinai Tapestry by Edward Whittemore
Bracket votes:
1. EDUCATION
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
(as an aside, I am currently reading — and enjoying very much — Cary Elwes’ “As You Wish” — even though I know how it will end (spoiler alert: film gets made, does modestly well at the box office, gradually becomes recognized as a classic, even if no one can quite agree on WHAT it is a classic OF))
2. EXPLORATION
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
3. MATURATION
(it’ll never happen to me! no vote)
4. DESOLATION
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
5. RESTORATION
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
* I call it a tie.
6. GENERATION
Since the 13 Clocks is relegated to the children’s bracket…. I will once again advance The Man Who Was Thursday (GK Chesterton). Not that it will help, against the quality of the competition that’s advancing.
1. EDUCATION
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
The Princess Bride, William Goldman2. EXPLORATION
Small Gods, Terry PratchettWatership Down, Richard Adams
Like I said, Small Gods is not my favorite Discworld.
3. MATURATION
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
The Once and Future King, T. H. White4. DESOLATION
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
The Dying Earth, Jack VanceI had more fun with the Zelazny than the Vance.
5. RESTORATION
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart6. GENERATION
The Traveller in Black, so that we can replace The Princess Bride‘s “As you wish” with “As you wish, so be it.”
1. The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
2. Watership Down, Richard Adams
3. The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. LeGuin
4. The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
5. Abstain
6. Seventh Son, Orson Scott Card (the work, not the author)
I’m not giving up my vote for The Wealdwife’s Tale, but I’ll second curious reader’s recommendation of Edward Whittemore. One must really read the entire Jerusalem Quartet, but if I had to choose, I think I slightly prefer Jerusalem Poker, the second in the series, over Sinai Tapestry, the first.
ETA: I notice that the books have been republished in this century by Old Earth Books. Thanks, Mike Walsh!
@Morris Keesan
It’s been a while since I read the entire quartet, but my preferences split it neatly down the middle – Sinai Tapestry/Jerusalem Poker are much better and more cohesive than Nile Shadows/Jericho Mosaic. But anyone coming to it fresh should definitely read the whole thing.
Sinai Tapestry, being my first Whittemore exposure, may stand out more, simply because I’m so tickled by the image of Strongbow/Sir Richard Burton striding across the desert in a loincloth. Also, the scenes from the Armenian massacre lingered for a very long time. And Wallenstein’s grotesquerie. And I love the tragic final paragraph of the book because it is absolutely the right way to end it.
Stevie:
My guess: That stuff Samuel R. Delany talks about, where it’s fine as long as the “minority” is there in minor numbers, but once there start to be a lot of them, and they make noise about what they might prefer, and companies might actually cater to them…aiee! Threat!
What annoys me particularly about this in comics is that comics, even in the US, were not a boy thing, not for a long time. Not until the comics industry chased off most of the casual readers and rebuilt the business around committed, largely-male hobbyists.
And now that we’re starting to see success in reaching wider audiences again…aiee! Threat!
Bah.
A few Lovecraftian subtitles (and one for the day after the Hugo results?)
At the Pixels of Madness (Sadness if certain someones feature prominently)
The Rats in the Scrolls
The Scroller out of Space
Beyond the Scroll of Sleep
The Lurker’s Fear
Scrolled Lang Syne
“Should Scrolls acquaintance be
forgot,
And never data-mined…”
1. EDUCATION
The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
2. EXPLORATION
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
3. MATURATION
The Once and Future King, T. H. White
4. DESOLATION
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
5. RESTORATION
Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
6. GENERATION
Rain in the Doorway, Thorne Smith
WT actual F?
The main characters in Jane Austen novels do not behave like that. In general the ones who cry, squeal, or swoon are either imbeciles or gold-diggers.
Not only is this quote insulting, demeaning and contemptuous, it is also bone ignorant.