(1) OUT OF STEAM. Southern California will be without one of its Halloween traditions this year, and probably for the future. “Ghost Train Cancelled by Los Angeles Live Steamers Board of Directors”. The Griffith Park model steam railroad center will not be giving rides or decorating for Halloween. Jay Carsman, a members of LA Live Steamers, told the Theme Park Adventure blog the reasons.
“The LA Live Steamers Ghost Train’s popularity finally outgrew our volunteer club’s ability to manage it,” said Carsman. “Of course, there were other issues too. For 2015 [sic], we really did not plan to have a Ghost Train at all because of the water pipeline project underway on Zoo Drive. The pipe was huge and due to the tunnel boring and the collapse of part of the old pipe, a fairly long stretch of our railroad began to sink in the ground. Just a few weeks before Halloween 2015 [sic], the city’s contractor for the pipe project shored up the mess and injected cement into the ground to stop the sinking. We went ahead and did the Ghost Train but everything was very rushed and stressful. We managed to do it, but the small group of volunteers who really made it happen were exhausted.
“Compounding the problem for future Halloween Ghost Trains were some financial issues, the city advising that our Ghost Train had become a major safety issue for the park due to the crowds, traffic on Zoo Drive, and parking issues,” stated Carsman. Last, they said absolutely no more flames, torches, and exposed hazardous electrical wiring. Then there was the continuing problem of the scale-model railroad is just not designed for such concentrated heavy use. The trains are models, not amusement park machines and the track is a very small scaled-down version of real train track. Carrying ten or fifteen thousand people on the little railroad during a 10-day period is just brutal for such small machines….”
(2) MIDAMERICON II PHOTOS AT FANAC.ORG. They’ve started a photo album for MidAmericon 2 at Fanac.org. “So far there are 42 photos up, most of them courtesy of Frank Olynyk.”
Shots of the Guests of Honor and Toastmaster are here.
(3) AWARD PHOTO. This year Orbital Comics in London beat off fierce competition to win the Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. James Bacon who seems to collect opinions on good comic shops around the world took the photo and said; “First time at Orbital Comics since the win. The shop embodies an awful lot of what I consider to be just right in comic shops. Huge amount of small press, great events and a gallery, with a lovely attitude, and Karl and his team really deserve it.”
Spirit of Comics Retailer Award
(4) FOR ANYONE WHO HASN’T HEARD ENOUGH. Dave Truesdale appeared on the SuperversiveSF podcast today. He gives his version of the notorious MAC II panel beginning immediately after the intros.
“[The] theme of my opening remarks….was that science fiction is not for snowflakes, those people who are perpetually offended or microaggressed at every turn, these people are nothing but, they are intellectually shallow emotionally stunted thumb-sucking crybabies who are given validation by such organisations or platforms as the Incident Report Team at Worldcon, or places they can go such as safe rooms at WisCon or other safe places around the internet or social media. Science fiction is not the place for these people because SF is part of the arts and the arts should be always one of the most freeform places for expression and thought and instances of being provocative and controversial there should be. They have invaded science fiction to the point where we are not seeing the sort of fiction,, short fiction at least, any more that we used to, we are not seeing the provocative controversial stuff…”
A bit later he comments on the specifics of his expulsion
“…95% of the audience were probably somewhere along the snowflake spectrum and it was just anathema to them so they went crying to the IRT (the Incident Reporting Team) and a one-sided version of what happened got me expelled from the convention and I think it was a travesty that I never got to give my side and it was more or less just a kangaroo court and I think it was just abominable and set a very bad precedent for future Worldcons and just fandom at conventions in general”
(5) EXPULSIONS THROUGHOUT FANHISTORY. Alec Nevala-Lee, in “The Past Through Tomorrow”, discusses Dave Truesdale’s conduct at MidAmeriCon II, and ends by comparing it with the “Great Exclusion Act” at the first Worldcon.
Afterward, one of the other participants shook my hand, saying that he thought that I did a good job, and essentially apologized for taking over the discussion. “I don’t usually talk much,” he told me, “but when I’m on a panel like this, I just can’t stop myself.”
And this turned out to be a prophetic remark. The next day, the very same participant was expelled from the convention for hijacking another panel that he was moderating, using his position to indulge in a ten-minute speech on how political correctness was destroying science fiction and fantasy. I wasn’t there, but I later spoke to another member of that panel, who noted dryly that it was the first time she had ever found herself on the most controversial event of the weekend. Based on other accounts of the incident, the speaker—who, again, had been nothing but polite to me the day before—said that the fear of giving offense had made it hard for writers to write the same kinds of innovative, challenging stories that they had in the past. Inevitably, there are those who believe that his expulsion simply proved his point, and that he was cast out by the convention’s thought police for expressing an unpopular opinion. But that isn’t really what happened. As another blogger correctly observes, the participant wasn’t expelled for his words, but for his actions: he deliberately derailed a panel that he was supposed to moderate, recorded it without the consent of the other panelists, and planned the whole thing in advance, complete with props and a prepared statement. He came into the event with the intention of disrupting any real conversation, rather than facilitating it, and the result was an act of massive discourtesy. For a supposed champion of free speech, he didn’t seem very interested in encouraging it. As a result, he was clearly in violation of the convention’s code of conduct, and his removal was justified.
(6) BAD WOLF. Bertie MacAvoy had a science fictional encounter this weekend.
Seeing the Tardis is always unexpected:
This weekend I drove to the nearest town for some Thai take-out. As I passed down the aisle of cars I saw a dark blue van on the other side of the row. It had decals on the top of its windows. They read: POLICE CALL BOX. Carrying my tubs of soup and cardboard boxes of food, I crossed over. Each rear door had a magnetic sticker on it, such as are used by people to signify that theirs is a company car. These said SAINT JOHN’S AMBULANCE SERVICE and all the rest of the usual Tardis markings. On the rearmost window had been scrawled in white paint: BAD WOLF….
(7) INFLUENTIAL BOOKS. The Washington Posts’s Nora Krug, getting ready for the Library of Congress National Book Festival next weekend, asked writers “What book–or books–influenced you most?” Here is Kelly Link’s response:
Kelly Link’ s books include “ Stranger Things Happen ” and “ Pretty Monsters .” Her latest collection, “ Get in Trouble: Stories ,” was a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist:
The short-story collection “Not What You Expected,” by Joan Aiken, is one of the most magical of all the books I found at the Coral Gables public library during one of my many childhood moves. I checked it out on my library card over and over. In it were stories about dog ghosts, unusual harps, curses and phones that could connect you to the past. Aiken could put a whole world into a 10-page story, and she was funny as well as terrifying. She made the act of storytelling feel limitless, liberating, joyful.
(8) LOSE THESE TROPES. Fond as we are of the number five, consider “Marc Turner with Five Fantasy Tropes That Should Be Consigned To History” for The Speculative Herald.
…Having said that, here are five tropes that I’d be happy never to see again. (Please note, I’m not suggesting that any book that contains these tropes is “bad” or “unimaginative”; I’m simply saying that I would be less inclined to read it.)
- Prophecies
When I was a teen, it seemed every other fantasy book I read featured a prophecy. You know the sort of thing: “The Chosen One will claim the Sword of Light and defeat the Dark Lord”, or “Upon the death of three kings, the world will be plunged into Chaos”. Now maybe it’s just me, but if I foresaw the precise set of circumstances that would bring about the end of all things, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to share it with the world. You can guarantee that somewhere a Dark Lord is listening in and saying, “Well, that is interesting.”
And why is it that whoever makes these prophecies never sees clearly enough to be able to provide a complete picture? It’s never an entirely useful prophecy. There’s always room for misinterpretation so the author can throw in a twist at the end.
Plus, there’s so much scope for abuse. It’s a wonder the bad guys don’t have fun with prophecies more often. “Ah, yes, paradise on earth is just one step away. All you have to do is destroy that kingdom over there. What’s that you say? If you attack, you’ll leave your border with my Evil Empire undefended? Purely a coincidence, I assure you.” *Whistles innocently*
(9) GRAVELINE OBIT. Duane E. Graveline (1931-2016), a doctor who did pioneering research in space medicine, and was briefly a NASA astronaut, died September 5. According to the New York Times:
In 1965, Duane E. Graveline, a doctor who did pioneering research in space medicine, was awarded one of the most coveted jobs the government can bestow: astronaut. But he resigned less than two months later without ever being fitted for a spacesuit, let alone riding a rocket into space. His tenure is believed to be the shortest of anyone in the astronaut program, a NASA spokeswoman said.
Dr. Graveline cited “personal reasons” for his resignation. In fact, NASA officials later said, he had been forced out because his marriage was coming apart and the agency, worried about tarnishing its image at a time when divorce was stigmatized, wanted to avoid embarrassment.
Dr. Graveline, who married five more times and became a prolific author but whose later career as a doctor was marred by scandal, died on Sept. 5 at 85 in a hospital near his home in Merritt Island, Fla.
In later years, Dr. Graveline continued to consult with NASA and wrote 15 books, including memoirs, science fiction novels and works detailing his research into side effects of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, which he blamed for his own medical decline.
Graveline also was a self-published science fiction author with numerous works available through his website.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY
- September 19, 1961 — On a return trip from Canada, while in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have been abducted for two hours by a UFO. After going public with their story, the two gained worldwide notoriety. The incident is the first fully documented case of an alleged alien abduction.
- September 19, 2000 — The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a novel by Michael Chabon about the glory years of the American comic book, is published on this day in 2000. The book went on to win the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
(11) TODAY IN PIRACY. It’s “Talk Like Pirate Day” and if you show up at Krispy Kreme and talk or dress like a pirate you can get a dozen free doughnuts.
Customers who do their best pirate voice get a free glazed donut. Dress like a pirate and you get a free dozen glazed donuts.
To qualify for the free dozen, customers must wear three pirate items like a bandana or eye patch.
If you’re not willing to go that far, but still want to get the free dozen, there is another option: Customers can digitally dress like a pirate through Krispy Kreme Snapchat pirate filter. Just be sure to show the photo to a team member
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- Born September 19, 1928 — Adam West
- Born September 19, 1933 — David McCallum in 1933. His was in arguably the best Outer Limits episode, The Sixth Finger. And then, of course, he was in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
(13) READING WITHOUT TURNING A PAGE. M.I.T. uses radiation to read closed books reports Engadget.
There are some books that are simply too delicate to crack open — the last thing you want to do is destroy an ornate medieval Bible simply because you’re curious about its contents. If MIT has its way, though, you won’t have to stay away. Its scientists have crafted a computational imaging system that can read the individual pages of a book while it’s closed. Their technology scans a book using terahertz radiation, and relies on the tiny, 20-micrometer air gaps between pages to identify and scan those pages one by one. A letter interpretation algorithm (of the sort that can defeat captchas) helps make sense of any distorted or incomplete text.
(14) EMMY NOTES. Steven H Silver lists all the Emmy Award winners of genre interest at SF Site News. And he sent along this summary to File 770:
As I noted in my coverage of the Emmy Awards, with their nine wins earlier this week and their three wins last night, Game of Thrones now has the record for the most Emmy wins for a scripted prime time series with 38 (it took the record from Frasier, which has 37). The record for most Emmys of any type seems to be Saturday Night Live, with 43 (including Kate McKinnon’s win this year). It took GOT only six seasons to rack up that total, Frasier took 11, and SNL took 41 years.
(15) ALAN MOORE TALKS TO NPR ABOUT HIS NEW PROJECT. The writer of Watchmen is writing a book (without pictures) based on his hometown: “In ‘Jerusalem,’ Nothing You’ve Ever Lost Is Truly Gone”.
Recently, Moore said he’s stepping back from comics to focus on other projects — like his epic new novel, Jerusalem. It’s full of angels, devils, saints and sinners and visionaries, ghost children and wandering writers, all circling his home town of Northampton, England.
Moore still lives in Northampton, about an hour north of London. He rarely leaves, so I went there to meet him.
“This is holy ground for me,” he told me as we stood on a neglected grassy strip by a busy road. It doesn’t look like holy ground — nothing’s here now except a few trees, and a solitary house on the corner. But it wasn’t always this way.
“This is it,” Moore says, pointing to the grown-over remains of a little path behind the corner house. “This is the alley that used to run behind our terrace. This is where I was born.”
(16) OWN HARRY POTTER’S CUBBYHOLE. The house used to stand in for the Dursleys’ house in the Harry Potter films is on the market.
Until he went to Hogwarts, Harry was forced to live there with Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and his cousin Dudley, and returned there every summer.
The house in Bracknell, Berkshire, rather than the fictive Little Whinging dreamt up by J. K. Rowling, but is otherwise as it appeared in the films.
On the market for £475,000, it has three bedrooms, enough for a married couple, their over-indulged son, and their over-indulged son’s second bedroom. Whether there is room for a child to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs is unclear.
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Mark-kitteh, Martin Morse Wooster, Steven H Silver, John King Tarpinian, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint and Cadbury Moose.]
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@JJ: The good news is that if you liked Salvage & Demolition, you have sooo many delights ahead. Most of us Powers junkies found that one kind of on the weak side; he does that sort of thing a lot, but often deeper. Have fun. 🙂
As for The Dragon Waiting, I recall that what I did when first reading it was spend a little time with the encyclopedia then available on AOL for a few quick refreshers. These days I’d use Wikipedia for it, presumably. Then I charged ahead.
More on your other reviews later, but they were much pleasure to read. Thank you!
@Rob_matic: I use Kindle Unlimited a lot, but then I’m now comfortable abandoning books early on if they don’t work for me. Generally, what I do is take a Bookbub link to something I know I want on sale for a buck or few, then browse the “also liked this, insofar as they were real people” links and load up with a few Unlimited titles.
Leftover 2015 Reading
When all the ruckus about Chuck Wendig’s tie-in novel Star Wars: Aftermath occurred last year, I decided that I wanted to read it for myself to decide how much of what was being said was true. So I put my name on the wait list for the book (at something like #177) at my library, and my turn finally came around.
Of course, the fact that Wendig had BLASPHEMED STAR WARS WITH TEH GAYZ was a huge part of the ruckus — but I figured out at least one other reason why people were so much in arms: This is Star Wars For Adults.
What I mean by that is not that the book contains “adult” content — but that it is not written to kiddie level (or even YA level). It has plenty of action and adventure, yes — but it also has a great deal of examination of the numerous motivations, both individually and at an interstellar government level, which go into wars and conquests and revolutions.
The main characters — on both sides — are well-fleshed-out and shown in their various shades of gray. The fact that most people, even those who serve on the “evil” side, are in fact decent people just trying to survive or doing what they believe is right (whether or not that is actually the case) and some of the people on the “good” side aren’t terribly good, and the duality and the ambiguity of such conflicts and the people involved in them, are writ large here by Wendig.
So I can totally see why the manbabies had such a problem with this book: 1) it is not merely a pew-pew-pew non-stop action book, and 2) it actually examines human lives and motivations, in all their beauty and ugliness, where lines between “good” and “bad” are often not clearly drawn. Those with a preference for authoritarianism tend to have a problem with shades of gray and ambiguity of Good vs Evil, and prefer more simple, childlike representations in black and white — so it is not surprising that they would have problems with this book.
Also, I have a huge bone to pick about all THE WILD GAY SEXYTIMES I was promised by all those outraged people complaining about the way this book promoted “The Homosexual Agenda” — and the fact that my library apparently stocked an expurgated, G-rated version of the book. About a hundred pages in, one of the main characters is talking to a woman, and that woman’s wife walks into the room and joins the conversation. About a hundred pages later, a minor character thinks about the fact that both his dads were killed by the Empire. Another hundred pages later, a main female character suggests coupling to a main male character “when this is all over”, and the man says, “thanks, but I’m not into women”.
That’s it. That’s the extent of “The Homosexual Agenda” in this book — in other words, the existence of such relationships is mentioned a few times, just as the existence (or death) of a man’s wife or a woman’s husband, or a character’s father and mother, are mentioned a few times. Which is to say that the book simply reflects real life. Anyone who complains about this aspect is, whatever denials they may make, a homophobe ostrich who’s trying to keep their head buried in the sand of unreality.
And finally, I had to admit that I approached this book with more than a bit of trepidation because of all the claims I’d read that the writing style was choppy and in a horrible third-person present-tense and totally unreadable.
In fact, the book is extremely well-written. I had no problems with the writing style, it read swiftly and smoothly, it was interesting and enjoyable, and it took me about 3-1/2 hours to finish the book — and I never had the slightest temptation to put it down and engage in the housecleaning I so despise and never do *cough*Skin Game*cough*. I can only presume that those who’ve complained about the writing being choppy and unreadable read very few books — and that the ones they do read feature protagonists named Dick, Jane, and Spot.
I give this book a very solid 3-1/2 stars (only because it’s not original worldbuilding, and yes, there are loose ends to set up for the next book in the series) — and add a bonus 1/2 star for massively exceeding my expectations for a media tie-in novel. If Star Wars and tie-in novels are your thing, I think you’ll really enjoy this book.
The people who threw a tantrum about Dinisaur and hid under the bed from Ancillary’s pronoun choice are saying what now?
There is real irony in Truesdale going on Superversive SF to complain about “special snowflakes” preventing “controversial” science fiction from being produced. Superversive SF is a podcast explicitly dedicated to promoting “superversive” science fiction, and one only has to read the “superversive manifesto” to see that the superversive movement is all about eliminating some types of controversial topics from literature.
I would be hard-pressed to find a movement more dedicated to sterilizing fiction than the superversive movement (such as it is). Here are some of the quotes from the “manifesto”: “We reaffirm writing that acts as a civilizing force, and reject current writing that openly seeks to subvert civilization” and “We reject the current mode of writing that is as artificial, anti-human, and sterile“, and “When we create worthwhile fiction, we offer our readers moments of joy, and possibly awe, at our affirmation that courageous striving can overcome injustice and suffering“. The real “special snowflakes” of science fiction would seem to be the superversives, who appear to reject any fiction that doesn’t fit their incredibly narrow preferences.
As far as Truesdale’s banning goes, I have noticed that the vast majority of those leaping to his defense (or at the very least saying “I don’t think what he did was worthy of banning”) have been white dudes. It seems to me that if we want to make the science fiction community a welcoming place for everyone, having a bunch of white dudes saying what another white dude did didn’t bother them isn’t really helpful, especially when there are several non-white non-dude voices that have been saying the opposite.
Krispy Kreme donuts have long been my proof that air is not free.
@JJ you are review royalty!
I’m a white dude who thinks that Truesdale very purposefully created a controversy and intended to become continually more offensive until there was no choice but to toss him. I would be in favor of preemptively tossing him in the future …
Re (4):
Mr. Truesdale, do you know what we call it when you make an agreement to do something with not only no intent to do it, but in fact a deliberate intent to do the exact opposite? Acting in Bad Faith. You sir are a Bad Faith Actor and absolutely deserved to be booted. This isn’t a case of “Oh, a moderator got out of hand and showed that he had no business doing the job.” This is you showing up to moderate the panel with malice aforethought.
And do you know what we call it when someone both breaks the rules as well as the reasonable social expectations put upon them and expects there to be no consequences? A SPECIAL GODDAMN SNOWFLAKE
I think Dave Truesdale could have come off better if he had not decided to call those who disagree with him “snowflakes”. I’d like the literary theories presented without name calling, please.
I’m a white dude who thinks that Truesdale very purposefully created a controversy
I just want to clarify that I am not saying that all white dudes have leaped to Truesdale’s defense, just that most of those people that I have seen doing so have been white dudes. I’ve seen plenty of white dudes who have come out against Truesdale’s actions as well.
Many books and many movies have that prophecy in it. The one one special day, that occurs every five thousands years, and it just so happens to be tomorrow.
re: The Dragon Waiting. Yeah, that’s a Ford novel which just didn’t do it for me. I think The Final Reflection is one of the great SF books of all time, and one where Ford’s habit of playing his cards close to his chest as an author makes perfect sense — in the kind of authoritarian police state which is the Klingon Empire in that novel, there are things you DON’T SAY to ANYONE, because ANYONE might betray you, no matter how much you think you trust them. The unspoken inferences throughout the novel add to the pervasive atmosphere of paranoia and really work. But to me, The Dragon Waiting and The Princes of the Air just felt like the first parts of trilogies where the next to books were missing, so to speak. (How Much for Just the Planet and Casting Fortune were both a lot of fun, though.)
re: Halfway Human. Yeah, that’s a gut-wrencher of a book. Great stuff. Also liked Dark Orbit. Has anyone read Arkfall or The Ice Owl? Those are apparently set in the same fictional universe as Halfway Human and Dark Orbit, but I don’t know anything about them other than that.
(8) The only quibble I have with Turner’s post is it failing to note that all of those tropes have worn out their welcome in science fiction too.
Not seeing any email notifications of anything on File770 today, including a new post. Just for grins, I’m tickyboxing another round. IT IS CHECKED. THERE. THERE’S THE CHECK MARK. IN THE BOX.
Cracked listicle: 5 Things You Learn Being Attacked By The Alt-Right
A certain hydrophobic canine gets a mention, so that’s his day made.
Aaron:
I’m down with that. For instance, I reject Vox Day. I’m not sure that’s what they mean by it, of course.
That’s certainly a valid pont of view. I make an effort to consider my social location when I think about these things.
However, the thinness of the justifications for throwing him out is apparent. People were reaching for reasons to kick a puppy, just like the US government wanted to punish someone for 9/11. Since the actual perpetrators weren’t at hand, Iraq got wrecked and Truesdale got kicked. After all, Mary Robinette Kowal brought a prop to her panel and violated the corkage rules with it. By my understanding, that endangered the entire convention. She got a day’s suspension. It’s not equitable or proportionate. Maybe being a white dude is why I feel that way. Could be. I don’t think so.
I realize that social change is made by people unafraid of Going Too Far. More power to them! I’ve done it myself. And when they do Go Too Far, they should be called to account, just like everyone else. So who exactly made the decision to boot him? And to who exactly are they accountable?
Names, please, or it didn’t happen. And by “it”, I mean “accountability”.
So who exactly made the decision to boot him? And to who exactly are they accountable?
Names, please, or it didn’t happen. And by “it”, I mean “accountability”.
The decision to remove Truesdale came from the IRT as you would expect, and as Truesdale confirms. They are named at this link, and are under a named section head, who I assume reported to the chair (also named).
I don’t intend to rehash previous arguments about whether the decision was correct unless some actual new information comes out, but I think the CoC and decision making hierarchy involved is clear.
However, the thinness of the justifications for throwing him out is apparent.
On that I disagree. Truesdale proposed the panel, with himself as the moderator. He planned the disruption, showing up with a prepared speech and props. He intended to cause an incident from the start, and then spent his time insulting the other panelists and the people who showed up to the panel: He knew who would be showing up to a panel titled “the State of Short Fiction” and who would be chosen as panelists for it, and crafted his prepared remarks as attacks upon them. When others tried to get him back to the purported topic of the panel, he brushed them off and continued his assault.
I don’t find his complaint that he was ejected without being able to “present his side” particularly convincing either. First off, given his behavior since the convention, I doubt presenting his side would have helped him. Second, according to reports from people like Paulk, Truesdale spent the remainder of the day after the panel hiding out in the Puppy safe room and doesn’t seem to have bothered to check his e-mail (the only way for convention staff to reliably communicate with him), and so was inaccessible.
After all, Mary Robinette Kowal brought a prop to her panel and violated the corkage rules with it. By my understanding, that endangered the entire convention. She got a day’s suspension. It’s not equitable or proportionate.
The day’s suspension amounted to the balance of the convention. She also cooperated fully with the convention staff, acknowledged that she had violated the rules, and apologized for the error.
So who exactly made the decision to boot him? And to who exactly are they accountable?
That would be the incident response team, headed by Kris Snyder, and staffed by Mark Oshiro, Anna Bradley, Jaime Garmendia, Kris Pelletier, Kate Secor, Pam Burr, John T. Sapienza, Jr., Liz Gilio, Heather Urbanski, Linda Ross-Mansfield, Catelynn Cunningham, Judy Kindell, and Catherine Crockett. They would be accountable to the services chair Jesi Pershing, who would in turn be accountable to the overall convention chair Ruth Lichtwardt. This is not secret information – it can be easily found on the Committee List on the MidAmeriCon II website.
I read The Ice Owl several years ago and hated an authorial choice, although it really was not out of line with the story. It moved me enough that I am still miffed about it today, which means it was a good story, just… but I haven’t read snyyhing else in that universe.
JJ, thanks for the reviews! I read The Sudden Appearance of Hope, and found the start of it completely compelling. It seemed to bog down in the middle to me, though, and had to pick up energy again for the conclusion.
(11) So I’m guessing a lot of stereotypical bikers were eating free donuts yesterday. What if you wore your Pittsburgh baseball cap and jersey and also brought your glove?
@Lurkertype I thought that was Aspartamed drinks.
@me: augh, that’s James (D.) Macdonal\d/, coauthor of a series recently recommended here and of a number of other interesting works.
@JJ re Stevermer: if you liked When the King Comes Home, you must read A College of Magics and probably A Scholar of Magics; same background (although Aravis is very far in the background in the latter) but fits Aravis into 19th- (early 20th-?) century Europe — the College is cognate to Mont-Saint-Michel and Aravis is probably in the neighborhood of Ruritania.
@kyra: bear in mind that The Princes of Air is a very early work; at that time Ford was doing great work in shorter forms but was probably still learning about novels.
@arkansawyer: Kowal “endangered the entire convention”?!? As a long-time conrunner, I don’t think so. Yes, she broke a rule (as described; I wasn’t going, so I didn’t look at any such rules for clarity or brevity). However, even though Missouri is not a right-to-work state, I can’t see there being any sympathy for either labor or a contractor causing trouble over an incident of that size. (I know there have been cases of labor trouble — but the most significant I know of was the 1977 Hugo banquet, where a committee screwup might have made the servers liable for all the meals they served. Even that didn’t endanger the convention, and this case is orders of magnitude smaller.)
@JJ: I don’t think you need to know much about history to appreciate The Dragon Waiting; Ford is taking on the slanders that Shakespeare dramatized as much as the actual history(*). A larger issue for the reader is that tDW is uncompromising Ford; the Trek novels had to satisfy editors aiming for a mass audience, where tDW was published by Timescape (short-lived SF-specific imprint that published a number of major novels). Ford typically put his characters under stress and did not make things easy for the reader(**), but tDW is extreme even for him; I wouldn’t recommend it to a ~first-time Ford reader any more than I’d recommend Downbelow Station to a first-time Cherryh reader. Try Growing Up Weightless, or Last Hot Time, or Casting Fortune (probably harder to find, and easier to follow if you’ve read one of the Liavek anthologies that it connects to, but it has one of my all-time favorite theater stories).
Yes, he was a friend; yes, I’m seriously pissed that he died young — but I loved his work before I ever met him, and I’m not a fan of most of the (in?)famously complicated works of SF.
*: I’m not sure the alt-history is even plausible as such; a Roman presence in Gaul, even if it were a restoration rather than a continued presence (don’t ask me which Ford intended), would have had serious effects on English history — England’s repeated invasions of and entanglements on the continent (some of them within memory of some of Ford’s characters) would have played out differently (or not happened at all) if there were a Roman presence that far northwest. If you want to dig into details, there is a linear concordance (i.e., in book order rather than alpha order).
**: editor: “I think you need to make this clearer.” Ford: “I have a horror of being obvious.” editor: “You have no idea of what is obvious to the average reader.” Ford was incredibly bright (admitted to MIT at 16, and we still wonder how much we’d have missed if his parents hadn’t refused to deal with financial paperwork), and never underestimated his readers; it took me several readings to figure out all of the murders referenced in the title story in Casting Fortune — but it was worth the rereads.
My husband and I attended the “State of Short Fiction” panel that Truesdale repurposed into a “Has Political Correctness Destroyed SF?” panel. I’m not surprised that he was ejected from the convention, but I was a little surprised that it was on the basis of the code of conduct. The man clearly deceived the organizers and violated the trust they placed in him. He also deceived the attendees, who wouldn’t have showed up to listen if they’d known what he was planning. So of course he was thrown out of the convention. I had thought the CoC was for sexual harassment, or harassing people over race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. I didn’t think it also included “conspiring to disrupt the convention.” Does anyone know for sure?
@Aaron I think it’s a mistake to try to bring race into every issue. Race clearly had nothing to do with Truesdale’s performance.
Oh puh-leeze. I may be a white dude, but I still get to participate in fandom. I still get to have an opinion. And nowhere have I been endorsing Truesdale.
I may be a white dude, but I still get to participate in fandom. I still get to have an opinion. And nowhere have I been endorsing Truesdale.
I didn’t say you were. I said that most of the people who have leaped to Truesdale’s defense have been white dudes. I did not say that all white dudes had done so.
I think it’s a mistake to try to bring race into every issue. Race clearly had nothing to do with Truesdale’s performance.
I think it had a lot to do with it – he specifically called out those who talk about microagressions as being people he was going to offend. While there are a lot of microagressions associated with gender and sexuality, a large proportion of them stem from race.
But more to the point, my point is not about Truesdale’s intent, but rather the identity of those who have said they “aren’t offended” by his actions, and who are very concerned about his ejection. They have been overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male. As I said before, not all white males have taken his side – Jim Hines, for example, has not. Nor has our host. But virtually everyone who has done so has been a white male.
Thanks to all who detailed the decision-making hierarchy. That has, in my opinion, completely debunked the claim that the decision was made in an unaccountable manner. There may have been an equivalent earlier that I missed, or maybe I just didn’t do my own homework well enough.
I still believe the response was not proportionate. I could be wrong. Fandom is not my culture, so I may be missing the nuances.
And sorry if I sounded a little testy in what I wrote. I was a little testy, but I shouldn’t’ve let that show through so clearly. A lesson for me, at the very least.
ETA: @Aaron:
And that’s a fair observation to make. It was something I discussed on the bus on the way to work this morning, when one of my acquaintances asked me if I was done with the software I was coding. “You looked so focused,” she said. I was typing my reply.
She and I and another bus rider had a good and productive conversation about it.
It doesn’t mean I’m wrong, though. We’re in the land of opinion.
I hadn’t looked up who was on the incident response team, and I’m impressed. Thanks, Aaron. In particular, I have admired John Sapienza for his zine writing for (this will embarrass me to say) literally my entire adult life. His writing for sf and roleplaying apas had just always been calm but enthusiastic, illuminating, fun, and awe-inspiringly thoughtful, considerate, and decent. He’s exactly the sort of person I would wish to have judge my case, whatever that case might be – if I could pick a jury of 12 people I have ever interacted with, he would be on it pretty much every single time.
I am inclined to give my fullest trust to a committee with him on it.
I had thought the CoC was for sexual harassment, or harassing people over race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. I didn’t think it also included “conspiring to disrupt the convention.” Does anyone know for sure?
I think the relevant portion is here:
“Any action or behavior that is illegal or causes significant interference with event operations, excessive discomfort to other attendees, or adversely affects MidAmeriCon II’s relationship with its guests, its venue, or the public is strictly forbidden and may result in revocation of membership privileges.” [emphasis added]
I think that “conspiring to disrupt the convention”, as you put it, probably falls into the actions described by the bolded portion of the excerpt of the policy.
@JJ, thanks for all the reviews (actually, Amazon thanks you even more, since I think I just ensured annual profitability). My TBR is now a fourteener.
@Aaron – As far as Truesdale’s banning goes, I have noticed that the vast majority of those leaping to his defense (or at the very least saying “I don’t think what he did was worthy of banning”) have been white dudes. It seems to me that if we want to make the science fiction community a welcoming place for everyone, having a bunch of white dudes saying what another white dude did didn’t bother them isn’t really helpful, especially when there are several non-white non-dude voices that have been saying the opposite.
I’m not entirely certain what Truesdale did was worthy of banning, although the more he talks the clearer his intent to offend seems. However, I’m pretty sure that if you’re a white guy and you think what another white guy did wasn’t that big a deal (and consequently that others should stop complaining), you’re failing to understand that your viewpoint is not only not universal, it’s a minority view. Maybe start from the knowledge that you’re not representing the majority?
“Any action or behavior that is illegal or causes significant interference with event operations, excessive discomfort to other attendees, or adversely affects MidAmeriCon II’s relationship with its guests…”
Good to know that’s written in such a way that it could never be abused by anyone with an ax to grind.
4). I propose that the “snowflake spectrum” consist of the following “stages”
1. dust grain/pollen
2. water droplet coated
3. accretion, stages 1 – ?
N+1. decrystallizes (falls through “warmer air”)
N+2 Hits the ground
(Optional variations)
OV1: ends up melting on some kids tongue
OV2. ends up accumulating with other crystals, forming giant drifts, making life miserable for everyone affected
OV3: gets caught in an updraft, passes through warmer air, starts all over again.
10). OK. I’ve had enough of the “Betty and Barney Hill Bullshit”.
I happen to have, in my possession, multiple original slide photos of objects that were claimed to be taken by Betty Hill of the “UFOs” that abducted and/or visited with her (displayed at lectures and even on at least one television special report) that were actually taken by a close family relative. The provenance is 100% known and verifiable.
Those photos were taken by a UFO investigator who himself was featured on several television shows and even in a Saturday Evening Post article on the subject. He was very FIRMLY in the camp of “people are seeing things and we don’t know what they are” (not the “aliens live among us and kidnap random individuals for strange purposes” camp).
The photos in question were shown to Betty when she was interviewed by the individual in question. She “borrowed” them, later claiming that they were taken by her and depicted the various craft she was taken aboard, shown sky maps, etc. etc.
The whole story (if you all didn’t know by know) is complete bunk. (This was intended to be a chapter in a book about the investigator in question: we also have a “crystal” recovered from a UFO landing site given to the investigator and “examined by the Air Force”; stories of strange visits from what may have been “men in black”, a radio show debunking of Stanton Friedman and a death that “may have been related in some fashion” to “sticking ones nose into the secret box too far” (all of the preceding have received various levels of follow-up investigation for the aforementioned book).
There are only two reasons it has not been completed at this stage: 1. family members are still reluctant to talk/have expressed wishes that need to be honored and 2. a book that so thoroughly debunks two of the leading narratives in the so-called UFO Investigation field would, after causing an initial stir, be buried under follow-on conspiracy BS, the likes of which I do not want my family subjected to.
So, sorry if I stepped on any cherished fantasies, but that “first and most celebrated alien abduction” was complete and utter fabrication, followed by even more fabrication and out-right misrepresentation.
I guess that’s because being an egregious asshole doesn’t look good in leagalese.
Cheryl S.: It really strikes me as strange to watch the Truesdale discussion suddenly fall down the rabbit hole of implied racism. When Truesdale was imparting his wisdom about special snowflakes, that was not some kind of racial code, that was a broad-brush insult to people of any background whatever who embrace ideas about sensitivity to the situation and needs of other human beings and would like to see that reflected in the fiction they read.
Snowflake?
Good to know that’s written in such a way that it could never be abused by anyone with an ax to grind.
Systems in which judgment is called for when they are being implemented are often criticized by those who don’t understand that this type of system is pretty much the only way to actually ensure something approaching just results. They are also criticized by people who really want to try to rules-lawyer their way out of trouble.
It really strikes me as strange to watch the Truesdale discussion suddenly fall down the rabbit hole of implied racism.
I don’t think it is that difficult to figure out that was, at least in part, the direction he was going in. After all, who would be “those people who are perpetually offended or microaggressed at every turn” that he is referring to unless he is talking about people against whom microagressions take place? Women? Yes. Non-straight people? Yes. But also people of color? Yes.
I think you stepped on the internet’s robotic database that barfs up these things — and thank you for sacrificing your foot in that good cause.
Ford described TDW as “a masque of history,” which (I think) meant he wasn’t presenting it as a plausible alt-history. (Any alt-history that has historical characters more than a generation away from the alternate event is implausible, anyway.)
In some ways TDW is more straightforward than some of Ford’s other books: pretty much the whole plot is there on the page, not left to your imagination (as in The Last Hot Time) or defined by negative space (as in Growing Up Weightless.)
@Mike Glyer – It really strikes me as strange to watch the Truesdale discussion suddenly fall down the rabbit hole of implied racism. When Truesdale was imparting his wisdom about special snowflakes, that was not some kind of racial code, that was a broad-brush insult to people of any background whatever who embrace ideas about sensitivity to the situation and needs of other human beings and would like to see that reflected in the fiction they read.
It’s been falling down a hole all along, but I don’t think the hole is properly labelled “racism.” Instead, I think Truesdale and those who don’t see what the big deal is are using the lens of privilege to excuse his behavior and cavil at the ensuing penalty. In other words, privileged white men who don’t understand that there are other ways to see the world that are based on gender, color, sexual preference, etc., are using “I don’t see what the big deal is” as if it’s a universal truth.
Does that make it clearer? If not, then – at least in my opinion – what Truesdale did was crass, lacking in empathy (what is more special snowflake than highjacking a freaking panel and imposing your will without permission from even a bare majority of attendees?) and merited a negative response from MACII, but was not specifically racist, sexist or homophobic in intent.
ETA – But intent is not the only metric and the references to special snowflakes and microaggressions and the rest could be coded as “all people that don’t look and think like me,” which would include women, people of color, anyone who isn’t heterosexual or cisgendered, left wingers, etc.
I’m sure that Kate Paulk came out in his defence, and where she goes the other MGC women seem to flock in support.
In forensics, surrounding a strong argument with a bunch of weaker arguments does not strengthen the case, it dilutes and weakens it. That’s what I see you doing here. Did anyone doubt that Truesdale’s universe of special snowflakes included people of color? But it encompasses them because of ideas they hold, which are also held by a large number of people who are not of color.
Also, in pointing to the inclusion of women you seem to be getting back to the main track, which is not racism, but Truesdale’s abuse of his position as moderator, and the insulting content of his statement.
laaaate :;tickbox::
I registered him (and his late wife) at London, and only afterwards thought “Hang on, was that the man who’s design of RQ character sheet played a major part in my teenage life?”
(Spoilers: Yes, it was.)
I’m sure that Kate Paulk came out in his defence, and where she goes the other MGC women seem to flock in support.
I’m sure she did. That’s why I said most of those leaping to his defense have been white men, and not all of those leaping to his defense.
I see Truesdale defining his target more that way, too.
@Cheryl S.:
I am so in agreement with this that I can barely stand it. Seriously. That lays out the best case I can imagine for some negative response, which I agree was justified.
I get the need for special language sometimes, but I also sometimes wish people would dispense with “microaggression” and just say “rude”. The need for special language is, I think, often rooted in educational and class privilege, and is often just another form of, ironically enough, microaggression.
I think I see the Truesdale affair for what it was:
a person of privilege in the field, coming to believe that things are not going their way, feeling left behind, and deciding that they needed to make a grand gesture that would get them major points in the camp of those protesting the fact that they are members of a class that is losing its privilege.
I believe this was a conscious choice to gain a high profile position in the puppy hierarchy, which, if true, makes it all that more justifiable that he was expelled.
The man has serious “double-down” issues. About 18(+/-) months ago he decided that the Amazing News feature had too many articles about minorities – stories either showing the advancement of various minority groups, or the depredations of those who still cling to “separate but equal” think.
His solution was to demand that I STOP including a link to his weekly OTR show.
Let that sink in. I was giving him some space, sending people to his site to listen to Dimension X or X Minus 1 broadcasts, where they would undoubtedly check out the site and read other things, maybe even decide that Tangent Online was their cup of tea, but, rather than continuing to “poach” in the “enemies camp”, he wanted all links removed.
(This was also following my refusal to sign on to his petition to SFWA; after reading it, I had trouble believing anyone would sign it….).
I consider the preceding to support some of the contentions about his Worldcon performance. This is, apparently, someone who wants the walls of their bubble to be impermeable.
“I guess that’s because being an egregious asshole doesn’t look good in leagalese.”
I think I would prefer ‘being an egregious asshole.’ At least ‘being an egregious asshole’ would require some common agreement on the part of the group of people making the judgment about what being an asshole entails. Causing ‘discomfort to other attendees’ requires only that someone, perhaps more than 1 someone, lodge a complaint. By virtue of them lodging the complaint, they’ve already met the standard of proof required by the regulation, since they wouldn’t have lodged the complaint if they hadn’t experienced discomfort.
@JJ: I really enjoy Wendig’s writing style. Based on the Mookie Pearl and Miriam Black series’ I’d describe it as “brisk”. He’s almost the anti-JCW in many ways.
If the Aftermath books are half as good as his original works they’ll be a hell of a lot of fun, and based on your review they certainly seem to be.
@snowcrash: dear god the things in that article… I like Cracked, but there’s no way to make that funny and not horrific
But it encompasses them because of ideas they hold, which are also held by a large number of people who are not of color.
Sort of, but his presentation was such that he was attacking people who see microaggressions as affecting them, which necessarily includes women, LGBTQ people, and people of color. He wasn’t attacking “those people” (as he called them) for the ideas they hold, but rather for their reporting of the reality of their lives.
Also, in pointing to the inclusion of women you seem to be getting back to the main track, which is not racism, but Truesdale’s abuse of his position as moderator, and the insulting content of his statement.
Sure, but the fact that he was insulting women and LGBTQ people as well doesn’t mean that the insulting content didn’t have insults that were racist in nature. He was attacking a lot of people, and not merely for the ideas they hold, but for expressing the truth of the experiences of their lives.
Yeah, but what happens when the snowflakes go “Ice 9”?
I get the need for special language sometimes, but I also sometimes wish people would dispense with “microaggression” and just say “rude”.
The problem with that is that many things that are microaggressions aren’t something that some people would recognize as “rude”, but are often seen as “compliments”. Things like “you’re not like other girls”, or “you’re so smart for a black guy”, or “you’re not fat, you’re beautiful”, or “where are you really from?”, or “I don’t see you as black/asian/hispanic”, or “you’re Asian, can you help me with this math problem?” and so on.