Four is fantastic, two is good, but two divided by one can only be sad, all in today’s Scroll.
(1) The quartet’s comic book shut down in April. They have a movie but do they have a future? Alex Pappademas remembers the original future of the Fantastic Four at Grantland.
I am jealous of Reed Richards. I am jealous of his Thinking Room, which appears to have floor-to-ceiling tablet-screen walls on which to write Beautiful Mind–ish equations. I am jealous of his having had 100-plus ideas. But I also relate to Reed. Reed has a wife and a family, but in order to see to their safety and security, he has to absent himself from their lives and spend long periods of time in the Thinking Room. As a professional writer, I relate very strongly to all of this…..
I became a fan of the Fantastic Four and specifically of Reed Richards when I was 32, reading those Dark Reign issues for the first time. My wife was pregnant with our daughter and I was trying — in vain, it turned out — to finish writing a book before the baby came. It would be great to be able to tell you that Reed Richards inspired me to keep going even when all seemed lost, but this isn’t that kind of story. I never finished the book. But during those months when I was trying, I returned again and again to that “SOLVE EVERYTHING” panel and imagined myself as the Reed Richards of my own family, unshaven in the lab, too smart not to realize my situation was hopeless and too desperate not to keep going.
(2) SF Signal’s newest Mind Meld feature asks:
Q:Why is gaming important for the development of your other creative pursuits? Have any video games you’ve played been especially influential in your career?
And Beth Cato, James L. Sutter, Josh Vogt, Monica Valentinelli, Nathan Beittenmiller, Carrie Patel, and Jen Williams answer.
(3) Frankenstein style light switch plates.
Turn your room into a horror movie mad scientist lab! Perfect for Halloween Haunted House!
The single switchplate is $9.99
The dual switchplate is $14.99
(4) We still don’t know when winter is coming, and George R.R. Martin has once again teased the release date without actually saying when it is.
Author George R.R. Martin is just as excited as everyone else for the release of his novel “Winds of Winter.” The book is the sixth installment in the series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which is the basis for the hit HBO show “Game of Thrones.” Martin said in a recent interview he wants the book to be out as soon as possible and teased it holds a shocking twist for a major character.
Most of the material in the first five published books has now been used up and Season 6 of the TV series is already in production. Martin has constantly spoken about his desire to get the sixth book out as soon as possible, and a recent entry on his live journal Not A Blog has given fans hope the release date will be sooner rather than later.
In the blog, he spoke about traveling to a wedding and a baseball event in the East Coast. He signed off by leaving a faint hint the book may already be in the hands of his publishing house. “And while I will be travelling, my army of minions will be here at the old homestead, toiling in the paper mines,” he said.
(5) Arthur Chu, maybe the Puppies have a point about you after all.
https://twitter.com/arthur_affect/status/628747769453379584
(6) Yesterday’s scroll excerpted J. A. Micheline’s “Why I’m Boycotting Marvel Comics” at Comics Alliance.
Declan Finn decided to give it the Puppy treatment in “Boycotting Marvel: A Fisk” at The Catholic Geeks. Quotes from Micheline’s article are bold and underlined.
First, came your quiet decision to hand the new Blade book over to two white creators.
Um … Blade is about vampires. Not race relations, vampires. You do understand that vampires are less a #BlackLivesMatter problem and more an #AllLivesMatter problem, don’t you? Or are you one of those people who would storm the stage with outrage at such a hashtag? Yes, you strike me as a very hashtag person. Heavy on the hash — and I mean hashish, not corned beef hash. I’m saying you’re high, not fat.
To be clear, I have no reason to think either creator will do a bad job on this book,
Oh, I think you just did. You’ve quite implied already that because they’re white, this is a problem. Either their race is a problem, or it’s not — and since you went out of your way to say they’re white, this tells me quite clearly that this is a problem.
(7) Vice writer Cecilia D’Anastasio interviewed seven black cosplayers at Otakon for “What Black Anime Fans Can Teach Us About Race in America”. Chanel P. had this to say —
Were there any anime characters you identified with in particular?
I definitely identified with Sailor Jupiter [from Sailor Moon]. I was the tallest kid in my elementary school class. People would pick fun at me. She was shy, and so was I.
What do you think about the fact that there aren’t many black anime characters? Was that a barrier to engagement?
It was at first. When I first started coming to anime conventions, I was a bit afraid, actually, to cosplay any characters. I thought, They aren’t black, I can’t do that . I thought you had to actually look like the character in order to dress like her. But, I mean, I saw people of my skin tone dressing like the character they wanted and thought, I can do that too . I thought, I guess it doesn’t matter that there aren’t black characters. But I think we do need more black characters.
What’s it been like to cosplay?
The first time I cosplayed Sailor Moon was at Otakon last year. That was the first time I ever cosplayed. I got some pictures taken that were posted on the internet. I was excited, like, Hey I’m on the internet, yay! And then I read the comments. A lot of them weren’t good, at all. I got, “The cosplay is good, but she shouldn’t be black,” and “Oh, her skin is too dark,” and “Oh, her hair shouldn’t be blonde.” It was a lot of nasty stuff people should have kept to themselves.
(8) This may be the first time anyone resorted to Craigslist to dump surplus convention program books:
Did you miss taking home your copy of the WesterCon 68/2015 program? Or didn’t attend and want to pretend you did? Or really just wanna know what you missed? Three of them followed me home after the end of the con’. You can have up to three; pick up here.
(9) After reading today’s Robert Conquest obituary, Rich Lynch noted in comments that the famous Walt Willis carried on a correspondence with Conquest, and quoted from it in “I Remember Me” for Mimosa 17.
[Conquest:] Personally, I think it is clear that the Soviet system is, in all essential matters, as bad as the Nazi one, and that its theory that this system is suitable for imposition on the rest of the world is the greatest danger there is. On the other hand, I fancy that if we can solve our own problems and keep the Communist states from breaking out, while at the same time pointing out to them the advantages that would accrue if they ceased to exclude themselves from the world community, their internal tensions would finally force these states to evolve or perish.
[Wills:] As you’ll probably have noticed, I didn’t really appreciate Conquest’s importance. At the time, he was mainly known to me as an anti-Soviet polemicist, and my politics then were more pro-Soviet than anything, based on the assumption that whatever was wrong in the Soviet Union, at least their hearts were in the right place. I don’t have any recollection of further correspondence with Conquest, though I can’t say what might not turn up in the files, but as far as I know, my last reference to him was in my report of the visit of Madeleine and myself to the World Fair in Seattle in 1962:
[Willis:] “Even now there is such a cloud of fatigue in that corridor of my memory that I cannot believe there would be much of interest in it to you. Except possibly the still vivid recollection of seeing at the exit from the U.S. Science Pavilion, in great gold letters on the wall, a quotation from a Hyphen subscriber. Unaccountably they failed to mention this fact, mentioning just the name, Robert Conquest — presuming, no doubt, that his chief claim to immortality lies in his poetry and not in his letters of comment on Hyphen. Admittedly, he hasn’t written many of the latter recently, his subscription having lapsed, but let that be a warning to you. Let your Hyphen subscription lapse, and you may find yourself reduced to writing on walls in Washington.”
(10) Hollywood’s ultimate power couple has announced they’ve split!
Things got a little heated at the Television Critics Association panel for ABC’s new series, The Muppets, when Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, along with series executive producers Bill Prady (The Big Bang Theory) and Bob Kushell (Suburgatory), revealed more about their upcoming series and that the felt couple’s long-term relationship is done-zo.
“Piggy and I have gone our separate ways romantically,” Kermit revealed. “I think it’s just kind of coming out in the press now. It can be tough to work with your ex, you know. And it can be tough to be the executive producer on your ex’s late?night TV show, especially when your ex is a pig.” (We’re sure he meant that in a species identification way only.)
(11) David Tormsen ranks Sad Puppies at #5 on a list of 10 Misguided Social And Political Movements Of Our Time on Listverse.
Every year, the Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy writers are voted on by paid members of Worldcon, the World Science Fiction Convention. Popular nominee books, movies, and commentators are placed on a shortlist of five, which are then voted on. The system is relatively easy to game, but this was not previously a problem as the majority of voters simply voted on individual taste, and popular authors knew campaigning for the awards would be in bad taste. That was until the Sad Puppy movement came along.
The Sad Puppies believe the awards have been taken over by excessively progressive authors and fans. Right-wing author Brad Torgersen describes them as “niche, academic, overtly to the Left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun.” The Sad Puppies believe science fiction and fantasy have lost their way and want to return to a sci-fi golden age. They see a liberal conspiracy to promote authors who are female or minorities, supposedly alienating a fan base of primarily white males. Their vision of the future has no place for social science fiction or the influence of feminists, LGBTQ advocates, or liberals.
[Thanks to Dave Doering, Rich Lynch, Michael J. Walsh and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat.]
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First!
Given what I’ve read of the new F4 movie, I’think I’ll give it a miss till it hits netflix/ bluray.
Second?
I am at Heathrow, and I hope it stops raining between here and Istanbul; I may have to miss the brackets but I’m sure everyone will do the right thing!
Have fun, people!
Crikey that Declan Finn character is further evidence that the link to the White Fragility paper is endlessly relevant. It’s certainly possible to disagree with Micheline, but Finn is really wrought up about it.
And yes, “#AllLivesMatter” is a BS hashtag, because context is a thing.
Also, if only I had a blog*. Because the term “fisking” is years overdue for a reconsideration.
*Shut up!
A bunch of interesting links. Thanks to Mike and his fellow editors.
The Anime article was neat, I liked the list of misguided movements, though putting Puppies at 5 seems to be giving them way too much credit or influence.
There are some books that might measure up to Tolkien and Pratchett
Thought I heard you mention my fave, don’t you treat it like rat shit!
Isn’t in a bracket, not the ones by Kyra
Makes me wanna say go die in a fyra
Oh, I-I-I just want to vote GOD STALK
‘Coz there’s a load of imagination in that novel called GOD STALK
So I can’t give the vote you want to see
I insist you’re going to have to give it to me
Right here and now
GOD STALK and I want to vote now
GOD STALK but you say it’s not allowed
GOD STALK, if real justice was done
It would surely have won by now…
That Frankenstein switchplate is fabulous! I must get one for my cellar.
I didn’t understand the bit about Arthur Chu. Did I miss a chapter again?
RE this one: ‘Right-wing author Brad Torgersen describes them as “niche, academic, overtly to the Left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun.”’
It’s been months since I first read that comment. And now, in retrospect, after months of wadng through their dreary rhetoric, I find it hilarious that Puppies would accuse anyone ELSE of lacking fun.
Laura Resnick: Larry Correia called Arthur Chu a “professional outrage monger” (quoted in the 4/20 roundup). And in an earlier roundup I gave Chu the side-eye for his Slate column decrying the irresponsibility of allowing the Hugos to be selected by popular vote!
@Kurt
One of us ! One of us !
We shout so loudly – we must be right 😉 That made me laugh, thank you.
All this fisk is making me hungry
Im surprised Gamergate didn’t get a shout out for the whole misguided thing, but so many movements, so few slots I guess…
@Jim, yeah, the Declan Finn is a shining example the point going over one’s head. Here’s the thing that his fisking seems to have utterly missed – Micheline was personally boycotting Marvel, because he didn’t like what they were doing. He’s not insisting that other’s should do it. He’s not saying that if you keep reading Marvel, you’re a terrible person.
But no. To Mr Finn’s easily outraged and fragile self, someone else saying they didn’t like it is equal to censorship and oppression. Add that to his whole Blade is about vampires and vampire-hunting isn’t part of black culture so it’s fine for white people to write about it blatherations… makes me long for the days of concise, rational writing like that of Dave Freer.
Pretty sure J. A. Micheline is a woman, going by her twitter.
So over fisking. (I just bounce right off it!)
If you’re replying to an article that has an error of fact or of logic in every line, and it’s important to your point that the article is not just wrong in its conclusions, but wrong in its details, yeah, okay, maybe.
But too often it’s just lazy. Instead of finding the core idea of the piece and writing your own piece to address that, ‘fisking’ means copying the article out and writing “I disagree!” after every sentence
That Arthur Chu tweet seems to have a complicated context. Apparently there was a walkout at the ennies due to a win for A Red & Pleasant Land by Zak S. At the end of a conversation about that, Chu appears to be saying he might do the same at the Hugos?
I’ve always despised fisking, even before it was called that. It strikes me as a cheap tactic to win arguments through attrition, not a method with which to respectfully discuss ideas.
What is it with all these weird conservatives? Here, on grrms blog, we have a guy raging against consent culture because it is the opposite of rape culture.
http://grrm.livejournal.com/437229.html?thread=22236653#t22236653
How the heck can you rage against proposing a culture of consent? I don’t get this.
@Mark, urk Thanks for the heads-up on that. In my defence, that ancillary was kinda busted anyway.
There is a reasonable middle ground with fisking – if, like in any good discussion, you actually acknowledge and address the points being made, instead of running of a tangent or on an argument clearly no one but you is making, it becomes utterly useless.
Unfortunately, more often that not, it seems to be used in that manner though.
I’m going to post the final results of the fantasy bracket here because, hey, it’s the closing bracket thread!
I’ll start with Category Five, where people suggested what they personally thought should have won (or in some cases, thought should have done better). It was, unsurprisingly, not something I would call a clear consensus.
The lead was, in fact, The Lord of the Rings with nine votes. God Stalk came after it with six, and Bridge of Birds and Silverlock each received three.
Ones that received two votes apiece were A Wizard of Earthsea, Paladin of Souls, The Riddle-Master of Hed, Nine Princes in Amber, The Dark is Rising, The Third Policeman, and Little, Big.
And getting one vote apiece were The Compleat Traveler in Black, Beauty, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Sandman, Tower of the Elephant, Bazaar of the Bizarre, The Scar, The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, The Imaro Series, Last Call, Blood Meridian, Freedom and Necessity, The Last Unicorn, Historia Regum Britanniae, Bloodstone, A Fan’s Notes, The Phoenix and the Mirror, The Homeward Bounders, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, The Secret Country Trilogy, Tam Lin, Beowulf, The Drawing of the Dark, The Black Company, The Owl Service, Lords and Ladies, Good Omens, Gormenghast, Moonwise, The Broken Sword, Small Gods, The Worm Ouroboros, Zothique, Islandia, La Morte D’Arthur, Odds and Gods, Watership Down, and The Island of the Mighty.
@ Stevie, have a great trip. I will be at the Institute in 2 weeks, and will think of you.
@ Mike Glyer
David Tomsen wrote an interesting list; I agree that the puppies are placed too high. And that list is, as might be expected, a real outrage magnet.
And in the bracket pairings …
WINNER: The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien – 38
The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin – 36
WINNER: The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien – 36
Small Gods, Terry Pratchett – 35
WINNER: The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien – 37
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle – 34
WINNER: The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien – 44
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny – 27
Tolkien is the WINNER, AND STILL CHAMPEEN in all pairings, although in one of them it was by one vote, in one by two votes, and in one by three votes.
(The voting patterns that gave these results suggest to me — although they by no means prove — that the three-way battle of the previous round, in which Small Gods and The Tombs of Atuan tied and The Last Unicorn came in a very close second, was not, in particular, the result of vote-splitting; people here really do seem to favor those works in almost equal numbers.)
And there you have it. Once again, a double digit number of people on the internet has registered its clearly immutable judgment! The Lord of the Rings shall receive this lovely pair of brackets: [ ], suitable for framing or using in its text.
And I … am going to take a break from bracketeering for at least a bit. It’s fun, but it does take up a surprising amount of time!
thanks for all the work Kyra
@Kyra
I shamefully failed to vote yesterday, due to extreme lack of making up my mind. However, in recognition of your sterling bracketeering efforts I wish to present you with this specially designed set of curly brackets { } . May I suggest you use the space in between to store your internets?
We’ll get you next time LotR! Thanks for all the fun @Kyra, and kudos on a job well done.
I assumed the Finn thing was parody, because, well…obvious. You’re saying he actually meant that?
Lord of the Rings – floats like a butterfly, stings like a…um Sting?
Hey! You are trying to pull a fast one – they ain’t brackets they’re braces!
You should give Kyra these instead ⁅ ⁆
Thanks, Kyra! As a token of my appreciation, I give you this picture of a happy fox.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lizemuZ2dq1qbs5d3o1_400.jpg
@Camestros
I can assure you that any similarity between my specially designed ornamental brackets, and cheap off-the-shelf braces, is purely coincidental.
Also, what the hell are those things that look like a mutilated E?
Thanks Kyra for running a great couple of comps.
Despite all the mental anguish, these were fun. Thanks for doing them, Kyra.
I’m very pleased to see the love for The Dragon Waiting; I was quite surprised at all the love for Gormenghast. I tried to read Titus Groan once but bounced off it. Probably I should try them again.
Maybe we need a bracket bracket to fill the empty space in our souls (or we have done that joke already?)
1. BRACE YOURSELF
( ) v { }
2. IT’S HIP TO BE SQUARE
[ ] v ⁅ ⁆
3. A NEW ANGLE ON THE PROBLEM
< > v ⟨ ⟩
4. WE’VE GOT YOU CORNERED
⌜ ⌝ v ⌞ ⌟
5. WE CONTROL THE VERTICAL
⎴ ⎵ v ⏜ ⏝
6. WHAT IS THAT THING?
⦓ ⦔ v ⦕ ⦖
7. UPSY DAISY
⎛ ⎠ v ⎡ ⎦
8. NO MORE BRACKETS THANK YOU (Ed.)
⟦ ⟧ v ⟬ ⟭
[oh just saw the picture of the happy fox – empty space in soul now filled again]
Thanks for all of your work, Kyra. It’s been quite the effort, and a lot more fun than looking at Puppy Droppings.
Heinlein was, once, the author everyone in SFF reacted to, or against. That’s no longer true. But Tolkien? Fantasy is still reacting to, and against, Tolkien. Still the Champion.
Bouncing off the point above–I think SF today is too diffuse to have a single polar figure anymore. Sure, the Puppies talk Heinlein and claim that the Anti Puppies hate Heinlein, but as an author that writers aspire to, or against, not so much anymore.
As a non-voter in any of the brackets, I’d like to thank all the people who made me think, and laugh quite a lot as I added yet more books to the bottomless pit that is the To Read pile. And to Kyra for the whole thing.
(Personally, I agree entirely that Tolkien, Pratchett, LeGuin and Beagle all belong on every shelf; my wildcard would be Wynne Jones although Willis would be jostling for position.)
@Kurt: As the ideal target audience for your Filkins across all dimensions, let me say, “Awesome.”
@Kyra: I really appreciate your bracket efforts. They “GOD STALK!” Filled this place delight and excitement.
Fisking started as a form of point-by-point rebuttal when dealing with a large screed of misinformation. It sees constant use (and the term was coined, iirc) in the Evolution vs Creationism “debates”.
As today’s example and Correa’s previous attempts show, the term now means to throw snark at someone else’s statements and make it look like a conversation. It is very hard not to hit “failure state of clever” when fisking.
Though a line – by-line rebuttal of a filk would be a lute-fisk.
Tip your waiter, try the veal.
Mark Hopper on August 6, 2015 at 12:47 am said:
Well, it can be virulent and stupid, but the thing I sort of like about fisking is that you don’t get to misrepresent what your opponent said in the first place and make up your own straw men.
Incidentally, I just read Zelazny’s “Dilvish, The Damned” (I’d read some of the stories in it before, but never the whole thing), and it was really interesting to read the evolution of his style across a couple of decades.
Zelazny writing dialogue for Dilvish in 1964: “… And I could slay thee now, with a blade through the eyeslit of thy visor. But I will not, as I did not down thee fairly. When you recover, tell Lylish that Dilfar will be ready for his coming. ‘Twere better he withdraw.”
Zelazny writing dialogue for Dilvish in 1982: “Up yours!”
From Elfland to Poughkeepsie indeed …
@Camestros
Several of your brackets are defeating my browser, so they must win by default.
@ Kyra –thanks for the brackets; they certainly made this place –God Stalk!–lively!
And hey, look, I’m a contributing editor of the day!
As for gaming being important for other pursuits, I can’t speak to video games; I’ve played a few but only Myst managed to hold my attention all the way to the end. But roleplaying games like D&D have sparked an awful lot of songs.
@Hampus Eckerman Just as strange (if not as morally bad) as his disapproval of consent culture is the commenter’s horror at “panels on gender in SF.” Because if there is one thing sci-fi is never about, it’s gender.
Not to mention his somehow thinking a slate that nominated MZW’s collected tweets is ‘about the work and not the author’. Strange little bubbles these people live in.
An effective fisk should not only point out logical inconsistencies, factual errors, and unexamined assumptions, but, if possible, points of agreement.
If the fisk-er can write, “actually, I agree with this sentence” the fisk will be all the stronger.
Thanks Kyra for taking the time to give us so much fun! I think there should be presents for everyone, even the Sackville-Baggins. They couldn’t help running out of spoons, I suppose…
Addendum: Since I have too much free time, I looked at the Penguicon panels to see which panels he was specifically complaining about and found there were no panels on gender in SF. I’m fallible and could have missed something, but I suspect his complaint reveals more about him than it does Penguicon.
I did find three panels on polyamory though, which was nice but surprising. And there were some panels about gender, just not SF and gender.
Two panels definitely about gender:
a) “Gender Inclusion in Physical Activities”
b) “War on Cooties: Bringing Nerd Men and Women to the Same Game Board”
two panels maybe about gender:
c) “Rad Women in Music”
d) “Women in STEM Meetup”
and three panels if you squint could possibly be about gender:
e) “LGBT in Fandom”
f) “BoF: GamerGate — What have we learned?”
g) “How to Survive in the Corporate World When You’re Different”
Here is a link to Penguicon 2015 programming.
I suspect that any panel where the choice of panelists has been influenced by thoughts of panel parity becomes automatically about gender.
@NickPheas I suspect you’re entirely correct.
I’m fallible and could have missed something, but I suspect his complaint reveals more about him than it does Penguicon.
What struck me is how much he is complaining about things that essentially don’t affect him at all. There are panels at Penguicon that he doesn’t like! People are reading and voting for books he doesn’t like! There are posters about consent culture that he doesn’t like! None of these things actually affect him at all, and yet they are the core of his “grievances”. If I were running Penguicon and heard that he had decided not to come any more, my only response would be “Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out”.
Kyra, I’ve been amazed that you’ve been willing to put in the work on the brackets–surprised and grateful. It’s been fun and inflationary for the TBR pile.
Now I have Dave Edmunds’s God Stalk running through my head…
The interesting thing about the Misguided Social and Political Movements of Our Time is there are entries I’m sure most of the Puppies (both) would agree with. I’m sure they’re torn in how to respond. If they’ve noticed the were included, that is.