Pixel Scroll 8/2 Something Pixeled This Way Comes

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It’s a party. It’s a dog party! But don’t drink the punch. That’s the advice in today’s Scroll.

(1) Well, that was brutal. HitchBOT the hitchhiking robot met its fate in Philadelphia.

The now-destroyed robot hails from Port Credit, Ontario. It completed a successful 26-day journey in 2014 in which it “traveled over 10,000 km from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Victoria, British Columbia.” Then in early 2015, hitchBOT moved onto a 10-day German adventure, followed by a three-week jaunt in the Netherlands.

Three countries. Zero incidents. But once hitchBOT made it stateside, it didn’t even make it past the Mason-Dixon line before getting the wiring kicked out of him.

Buzzfeed linked to a vlog recorded in Philly made during hitchBOT’s final hours.

This video from YouTubers BFvsGF shows them discovering hitchBOT Friday night. The researchers said the vloggers are the last known people to have seen hitchBOT.

 

(2) Nichelle Nichols may wind up the Star Trek cast member who came closest to reaching outer space, all despite her recent health setbacks.

The actress who played Lt Uhura in Star Trek is to blast off on a mission for US space agency NASA aged 82 – and three months after suffering a stroke.

Nichelle Nichols, who has been an ambassador for NASA since portraying the groundbreaking character in the 1960s, will fly on the SOFIA space telescope in September.

While the telescope – housed in a specially converted Boeing 747 – doesn’t quite go to the final frontier, it makes it as high as the stratosphere, around 50,000 above the Earth.

(3) Numerous features of Pluto and Charon are being given names from science fiction and fantasy. Kowal Crater on Pluto, just north of the right side of the heart, is not named for Mary Robinette Kowal (which would have been cool), but rather Charles T. Kowal, who discovered a new class of object in the solar system (centaur asteroids, which cross the orbits of major planets).

Showalter told BuzzFeed Charon is the first solar system body to have features named after geography and characters from both Star Wars and Star Trek. Darth Vader got a dark rimmed crater, while Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker both got lighter-rimmed craters.

Doctor Who is well-represented. Gallifrey, the home planet of the Time Lords in Doctor Who, is intersected, fittingly, by a chasm named Tardis, the Doctor’s time machine and space ship.

On the Star Trek side of things, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Lt. Uhura, Lt. Sulu, and the Vulcans all get shout-outs in Charon.

“We felt strongly as a mission team that we stood on the shoulders of giants,” Alan Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission, told BuzzFeed Science, and that they needed to “honor the missions and the engineers and scientists who figured out how to do space exploration, because we could have never pulled off New Horizons without their experience.”

(4) Some of you should plan on going to Pluto – in person! That’s Brad Torgersen’s recruiting pitch on Mad Genius Club today.

Okay, kids, wake the hell up. I know you’ve been sitting in those desks since zero-four-hundred, wondering what the hell is going on, but never forget that you volunteered to be here. Nobody is making you do this. If you want to, you can go directly out that door in the back of the room, call your mommy or your daddy to come pick you up, then go home to your comfy little beds . . . No?

Right. Good. Now, pay attention. This is your official inprocessing brief.

A few days ago, the New Horizons probe did a close fly-by of the (dwarf) planet Pluto. Did you see the news? The pictures? I know, Pluto kinda gets lost in the shuffle — what with all the politicized, hyperbolic, narrative-laden bulls*** they cram into your brains all day. If it’s not the snooze news, it’s social media — where the way you change the world is by clicking your mouse, then giving yourself a hug. Because you care so much. No, don’t bother denying it. You’re children of your era, I know that’s how the game works. Virtue-signaling. Slacktivism. Never get your hands dirty.

Well, be prepared to get some soil under your nails, boys and girls. Because Pluto is where we’re ultimately headed. And beyond. Not with robots. But with human beings.

(5) The Radchaai do not believe in coincidences, and neither does Lou Antonelli.

(6) Inside Out – How It Should Have Ended.

(7) Hugo voting has closed and here is John Scalzi’s valedictory to the Puppy movment.

It does seem to me that the all the Puppy bullshit ran down and out of steam there at the end; at a certain point there was nothing left to say, there was just the voting, and you voted or didn’t. The last bit of nonsense I saw from the Puppy environs was some of their nominees rage-quitting the Hugos and deciding to “No Award” themselves, and at least one of them saying that was the plan all along, because apparently when you have no idea what you’re doing, every outcome, no matter what it is, is a victory condition. At which point you just roll your eyes, pity the sad and meaningless sort of existence where being the turd in the punch bowl is a legitimate life goal for a presumably adult human, and move on.

Doesn’t “Floating in the punchbowl” scan about the same as “rolling on the river”? I won’t take that idea any farther…

[Thanks to Steven H Silver and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]

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292 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 8/2 Something Pixeled This Way Comes”

  1. 1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
    Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
    Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner

    TIE

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

    I haven’t read the Pratchett, but since the odds for McKillip look very long indeed I’ll give her this one last show of symbolic support.

  2. 1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    Vulcan’s Kittens for Steve Moss’s daughter

  3. 1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
    Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
    Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
    ARGH!!!!

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

    Despite being frustrating at times, the brackets have been a lot of fun, and have brought some classic books to the near-top of Mount To Be Read. Thank you, Kyra, for your hard work with this.

    I’m also glad to see love for Swordspoint and Silverlock out there!

    As far as the Hugos are concerned, I’m just waiting for the results and the just missed nominee list. I’m also jotting down ideas for next year, and in the spirit of sharing I really enjoyed Little Fox by Amy Griswold

    (Link to Little Fox)

  4. LeGuin, Beagle, Prachett, in whatever order those apply.

    Thank you, Brian, for finally answering! I was starting to suspect you were just grandstanding on novelettes being important and hadn’t actually read any, what with the weird evasions. Glad to know I was wrong and that you wouldn’t do anything so…bizarre…

    A novelette I quite liked last year was McFarlane’s “Written on the Hides of Foxes,” but of course any votes for that were bumped by Puppy slates. Haven’t picked up any this year that wowed me yet, but I’ve been back logged with book recommendations from file770 so I’m looking forward to the various Year’s Best lists to point me at some more.

  5. I missed most of the earlier rounds because I was away at Gen Con, but here are my votes:

    1. Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny

    2. The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

    3. The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip

  7. RedWombat,

    Sorry. In striving to keep my vow to not respond to every challenger, I’ve been forced to start giving a lower priority to answering questions that are disingenuous and that I’ve also already addressed earlier.

    Having said that, had I asked you what novelettes impressed you this year, “I’m behind on reading them and I look forward to getting some suggestions from the best of the year lists” would have been a cool response.

  8. Report at the end of the first quarter:

    If asked before this round which authors were the 800 pound gorillas in the room, I’d have said Le Guin, Zelazny, and Pratchett. If asked which other author had the greatest chance of pulling off an upset, I’d have said Beagle. If asked whether McKillip or Kushner stood a chance, I’d have said yes but the odds are long. That seems to be how it’s playing out.

    Right now, Le Guin, Zelazny, and Pratchett are in the lead, but Beagle is close behind Zelazny — very close. Not in “effectively a tie” range yet, but definitely in “could still easily flip” range. Beagle could yet overtake, or Zelazny could pull further ahead.

    Kushner and McKillip are further behind. Kushner, of course, is the biggest unknown quantity, not having been in a paired bracket until now. I’d give her better odds if there had been a strong rally behind her in the free bracket, but since the vote there ended up split, that suggests her backing is enthusiastic but not as broad as the support for the powerhouses. But that is, of course, basically a guess.

    McKillip has been tested more, and it shouldn’t be forgotten that one thing we’ve seen from her is a real ability to pull off a come-from-behind victory. If she pulls it off here, it’ll be surprising, but it was surprising when she managed it before. However, that being said, I’d have to go with Pratchett as the odds-on favorite here (even though McKillip is a personal favorite author of mine.)

  10. Quickly, before I look at the rest of the thread:

    1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner
    LeGuin might be the better work, but I reread Kushner more

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

  11. Linked from Foz Meadows (the original post is gone; curse you, Tumblr):

    Sci-fi often starts rambling at the dinner table and gets these really weird, convoluted ideas about something and Science really wants to reach out and squeeze its hand and explain where its logic is flawed, but Science does so love to listen to Sci-fi talk. Even if much of it is complete nonsense, it often articulates it so beautifully and then, occasionally, it will say something absolutely brilliant and Science will be struck speechless, standing up abruptly and wandering off to spend the rest of the night thinking. Sometimes, in the morning, Sci-fi will wake to Science pacing across the bedroom floor, breathlessly excited to show off what it has created – an astonishing approximation/translation of what Sci-fi had been rambling about the night before.

    Often, Science will work really hard and fruitlessly at something for no real reason other than because Sci-fi thought it was cool – and Science loves making Sci-fi happy. In return, Science will sit down in the evening and discover that Sci-fi was paying attention to it and has done it homage in its latest paperback – something that delights and flatters Science so much that they have steamy sex all night long and produce thousands of inspired scientists and writers as offspring.

  13. Ruh-roh, this means war, at least if the Puppies have anything to say about it:

    Why Aren’t There More Women Futurists?

    … When Byrne thinks about the term futurists, she thinks about a power struggle. “What I see is a bid for control over what the future will look like. And it is a future that is, that to me doesn’t look much different from Asimov science fiction covers. Which is not a future I’m interested in.”

    The futurism that involves glass houses and 400-year-old men doesn’t interest her. “When I think about the kind of future I want to build, it’s very soft and human, it’s very erotic, and I feel like so much of what I identify as futurism is very glossy, chrome painted science fiction covers, they’re sterile.” She laughs. “Who cares about your jetpack? How does technology enable us to keep loving each other?”

    Flying cars are right out too. Highly compensatory, even. No Baen book cover art for you in the future either!

  14. And that having been said, I’m going to put in a vote for

    3. The Riddle-Master of Hed

    I like Small Gods a lot. I like Pratchett a lot. Riddle-Master is a work by an author I love, and one I consider to be a particular classic, at that.

  15. Having looked at others’ votes, now, I find myself thinking I’ll be content if voting goes either way on the letter two brackets – but if Beagle loses to Amber’s endless runs of skies changing colour and pattern-walking*, I’m gonna cry. More than I would have if it lost to the luminescent Bridge of Birds.

    *And I don’t deny Nine Princes has merits of imagination and cleverness and intelligence. I’ve voted for it in some brackets.

  16. 1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

    Well, that was the easiest bracket for a while…

  17. ……TRICKY.

    1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
    Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny

    Really hard choice- it boils down to which book I’d like buried with me in my portions tomb.

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin
    Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner

    I was wondering how Swordspoint got on there- as a sacrifice?

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

    I know Pratchett has this category nailed, but honestly, when it comes to my “desert island reading”, I’ll choose McKillip.

    My suggestion for the next bracket, is to add an extra book in to make four. I propose Fire and Hemlock, or The Homeward Bounders, or Howl’s Moving Castle.

  18. Beagle, Kushner, McKillip

    More of protest votes for all because I don’t think they have the backing here against their opponents.

  20. 1. The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
    And this given I’m a big Zelazny fan and just reread Nine Princes. That was a tough vote.

    2. The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

    3. The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip
    There may come a day when I vote against Riddle-Master, but today is not that day!

  22. 1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

    Amber is great but TLU is poignant in a way few books are.

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

    If The Black Company had won the toss it would have won my vote. I will honour the process though and stick with Le Guin.

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

  23. I’ve been forced to start giving a lower priority to answering questions that are disingenuous and that I’ve also already addressed earlier.

    If there is one thing you know, it is how to be disingenuous. You’re the expert on that.

  24. Brian Z: I, for one, would rather you prioritize questions that involve talking about awesome books and stories period, over any that deal exclusively with EPH or the Hugos. For future reference.

  25. …I’m a little puzzled that you thought asking for story recs was disingenuous, but okay.

    Believe it or not, some of us would rather you talk about books and stories you love than…well, anything.

  26. Requested by snowcrash, and found here: http://sasquan.org/business-meeting/agenda/

    B.1.7 – Short Title: Two-Year Eligibility

    Moved, to amend the WSFS Constitution to make the eligibility time window for “specific work” categories two years rather than the current one year, and to eliminate the current automatic extension of eligibility of works originally published outside the USA, by striking out and adding words as follows:

    1: Add words to Section 3.2.1 to expand the eligibility time period for the Hugo Award:

    3.2.1: Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year in categories presented to individual persons or serial publications, and appearing for the first time during the previous two (2) calendar years in categories presented to specific works.

    2. Strike out Section 3.4.2, removing the automatic extension of eligibility to works originally published outside the United States:

    3.4.2: Works originally published outside the United States of America and first published in the United States of America in the previous calendar year shall also be eligible for Hugo Awards.

    Proposed by: Paul Carpentier and Julie McGalliard

    Commentary: Works of science fiction and fantasy have grown in length and in numbers. With smaller and fewer works, Hugo voters could reasonably be expected to be familiar with the field as a whole. The field has blossomed, and Hugo voters can no longer be expected to have familiarity with everything available for Hugo consideration.

    Note: Should a specific work receive sufficient nominations to appear on the final ballot in its first year of eligibility and should the author decline the nomination under Section 3.9, the work would not be eligible in its second year, because of the provisions of the existing Section 3.2.2 (“A work shall not be eligible if in a prior year it received sufficient nominations to appear on the final award ballot.”)

  27. Neil W: I can only assume that Mr Beale is too busy writing his various victory speeches. One for No Award.

    I eagerly await his announcement that he has secretly changed his name to “No Award” via deed poll.

  28. 1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

    All front-runners for me this time.

  29. over any that deal exclusively with EPH or the Hugos

    Hey, if I hadn’t been keeping a watchful eye on EPH, nobody would have mentioned that it doesn’t even work except for Best Novel.

    RedWombat, OK. Maybe people pursuing me across four comment threads for a “gotcha” on Chinese novelettes only seemed disingenuous. When you find some ballot-worthy novelettes, I’d like to read them, and if I like them too I’ll recommend them.

    I was tempted to add… *clicker* 😀

    ETA: Seriously, looking forward to your reading recommendations.

  30. 1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

  31. @Brian: I’m massively interested in reading more world literature, with a particular focus on: China, Japan & Thailand so if you (or anyone else in fact) ever has any recs of great world lit in almost any genre (especially if it’s from a) those countries, b) somewhere else in Asia, c) somewhere in Africa – although I tend to gravitate towards Nigeria there, so it might be good to broaden that out somewhat) I will add it to my evergrowing list of books to try and find. Translated into English would be necessary, but if anybody also happens to have some suggestions for children’s lit/graded readers in Japanese, those would also be very much appreciated (especially given that I’m currently maybe half an hour away from an absolutely vast Kinokuniya…)

  32. Zelazny
    Hughart instead of either, or Cherryh’s “The Paladin”
    McKillip

  34. Last Unicorn, Tombs of Atuan, Small Gods.

    Like everyone else, it seems.

    Why does Brad Torgersen think we’re going to put actual human beings on Pluto? We haven’t even put actual human beings on Mars yet.

    I suspect that the “puppies” started to lose enthusiasm after enough people had read enough of the stuff in the packet. They pretended not to, but they could tell the “what is this crap?” reaction from everyone else was genuine. And, truth be told, even they didn’t like most of it very much.

    Paulcarp proposed the two-year period to me at dinner and my instant reaction was “that’s brilliant!” I think this was because I was right in the middle of The Girl With All the Gifts, and was just thinking about how often I run into really good stuff only after it’s far too late to put it on a Hugo ballot. So it seemed to me like it would help fix MY problem of being perpetually behind.

    The general principle is — the nominating process is easy to game, because of a relatively small number of people voting for a huge variety of work. As I’ve said before, in a functioning Hugo year, there’s a lot of noise, and a strong signal indicates strong fan support. But slate voting artificially boosts a weak fan support signal.

    EPH addresses one aspect of the problem, by trying to dampen the artificial signal boost of slates. The two-year proposal addresses another aspect of the problem by giving the truly great stuff more time to generate fan support.

  36. @Soon Lee: given some of the matchups in earlier rounds, how about Kyra’s Dice Must Troll?

  37. @McJulie,
    The Nebulas used to have 2 year eligibility but they stopped. I’d be interested in why they stopped and switched to the same as the current Hugo eligibility period.

  39. 1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip

    Underdogs it is. If it had been Night Watch, the third would probably have gone the other way.

  40. Soon Lee: maybe you can put felice’s full results in the FAQ. Unless there is more testing I’ve not heard about, it is clear EPH is not effective enough to keep a bloc vote from taking three or four slots in most categories. Certainly, even if people recognize that, they can still choose to follow Jim Henley’s dictum “better to rush through a solution that doesn’t work than to wait until you have one that does.” What I’m more worried about at present is how easy or hard it will turn out to be to no-award things going forward.

  42. 1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner

    Not a perfect or particularly deep book, but I’ve read it three times and the LeGuin only once.

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip

    Apologies to Sir Pterry, but I re-read the Riddle-Master trilogy recently, and McKillip’s gift for magic and beauty still wrings my heart. Since Little, Big was given the boot, I have to carry the torch for my other personal fantasy favorite.

  43. My general sense of where the puppies are:

    I don’t think the sad puppies ran out of steam so much as they ran out of new things to say or even fresh ways to rehash their talking points. Not many seemed interested in discussion so much as opportunities to harangue in language that is loaded with off-putting invective and, let’s say, “plotholes”.

    As an aside, I don’t deny that there was some invective from those who disliked the puppy slates (and the works), but it seemed, I don’t know, more focused — Irene Gallo’s faux pas notwithstanding. I don’t remember seeing anyone making up cutesy names for them like Delusional Intransigents Making Waves in Trophy Selection. ETA: that’s a joke.

    Worst of all, after all that noise, the top SP* questions — the ones that might have stimulated SOME productive back-and-forth — never got answered (that I saw):

    Where is the evidence of a SMURF (secret manipulators undermining rugged fiction) conspiracy — beyond the same three iffy-sciffy stories + the Demon Scalzi?

    How exactly was the SP slate created? What does “the best list (we think!) of entirely deserving works” mean — unless he actually meant to say “list of [what] we think [are] the [year’s] best works, [each] entirely deserving [of a Hugo]” (because that isn’t actually what he said, when you parse it)? Why couldn’t/didn’t you fill every spot on the ballot (speaking of conspiracies)?

    Why exactly were these the best stories, since a lot of them don’t match your description(s) of what you wanted (beyond the “stick it to the CHORFs” objective)?

    Is watching the RPs eat your lunch really something you’re happy with? Are you really saying you think six JCW works hogging the ballot (200% more than you asked for) is the right result?

    Absent that, I think Mike was right to move on. And since without his digests I won’t wade through their blogs (and I suspect I’m not alone), here we are.

    *I don’t think anyone has any questions for Mr. Smoking Hole.

  45. Long time lurker decloaking for a sneaky vote.

    1. UNICORN VARIATIONS
    Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny

    2. THE DISPOSSESSED
    Swordspoint, Ellen Kushner

    3. FOOL’S RUN
    The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip

  46. I’m massively interested in reading more world literature, with a particular focus on: China, Japan & Thailand

    Oneiros, Ken Liu’s website has a bibliography of his translations, which is a great place to start. For Japan, start at the place Mamatas works, Haikasoru. Thailand is an interesting one… before getting into writers more active at present, have you read S.P. Somtow’s backlist yet?

    ETA: “children’s lit/graded readers in Japanese” – sorry, can’t help you there.

  47. Ask Not, dammit, Ask Not. Is that too much to Not Ask?

    Award not for whom the puppies troll.

  48. Brian Z: Unless there is more testing I’ve not heard about, it is clear EPH is not effective enough to keep a bloc vote from taking three or four slots in most categories.

    More FUD, I see.

  49. Bloodstone, SMURF is a very worthy addition to the lexicon. 🙂

    Ursula, you might be able to pull recommendations out of the File770 backlog by searching for Nick Mamatas and Japan – he’s done work on English translations of a bunch of recent sf/f/h from Japan. If not, flag him down with a request whenever he next shows up here. He does recs well.

  50. PJ: Oddly enough, that one tidbit from Brian isn’t entirely FUD, only the use he makes of it.

    A slate that folks vote across the categories with enough votes to matter to Best Novel will have enough votes to drown out much if not all of the signal in less popular categories. Fewer people vote on them, and in some of the categories like Best Short Story, votes are spread across more candidates than in Best Novel, Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form), and the like. EPH alone can’t solve that. It’ll take a concerted effort to get more people to read/watch/etc. and nominate in less popular candidates. It is not, of course, reason to abandon EPH, nor to think that its proponents are trying to cover this up.

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