Pixel Scroll 9/22/16 Little Old Lady Got Pixelated Late Last Night

(1) SHINY. What’s the latest at Young People Read Old SF? Curator James Davis Nicoll has assigned them Arthur C. Clarke’s “Superiority”.

I knew I would be offering my subjects a Clarke story at some point, not because he is an old favourite of mine, but because Clarke was name-checked in the Facebook post that inspired Young People Read Old SF.

nobody discovers a lifelong love of science fiction through Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein anymore, and directing newbies toward the work of those masters is a destructive thing, because the spark won’t happen.

But which Clarke? A White Hart anecdote? (No bar stories in this series … so far). A Meeting with Medusa? His creepy “A Walk in the Dark”? The puritanical “I Remember Babylon”? After considerable dithering, I selected 1951’s “Superiority,” because I thought pretty much everyone has had some worthy endeavour undermined by someone else’s desire to embrace a new shiny, whether it’s a committee member using email options they clearly have not mastered (1) or simply someone who discovers Windows 10 installing itself on their once useful computer. Or, in the case that inspired Clarke, the V2 rocket program that undermined the German war effort….

(2) THE QUESTION. The B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog couldn’t be more right — “The Biggest Question in Sci-Fi & Fantasy: Series or Standalone?” Aidan Moher and Corrina Lawson take opposite sides in the debate.

Aidan: Very interesting. I was definitely raised on series and trilogies as I first discovered science fiction and fantasy, and I totally agree that there’s something exciting and comforting for a young reader to know that there are more books just like the one she’s finished reading. As I’ve grown older, though, my tastes have changed quite a bit.

Honestly, I think that downfall you mention is a serious one for me. My time for reading is limited, even more so as I’ve grown older, established a career, and started a family, so I want to know that when I commit to a story, I’m guaranteed some measure of satisfaction by the time I finish it….

Corrina: It’s the time commitment for a stand-alone that gets to me. I have to take that extra time to get used to the style of the book. I’m more likely to enjoy something that is fast-paced in that case, like Chuck Wendig’s Invasive, which really reads more like a movie playing in my head….

(3) MACARTHUR FELLOWS. The 2016 MacArthur Fellows have been named, recipients of the “genius grants.”

The MacArthur Fellowship is a $625,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more

Here are some of the fellows who are involved in the arts:

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, New York, New York
Playwright using a range of theatrical genres in subversive, often unsettling works that engage frankly with the ways in which race, class, and history are negotiated in both private and public.
Josh Kun, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
Cultural Historian exploring the ways in which the arts and popular culture are conduits to cross-cultural exchange and bringing diverse communities in Los Angeles together around heretofore unnoticed cultural commonalities.
Maggie Nelson, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California
Writer rendering pressing issues of our time into portraits of day-to-day experience in works of nonfiction marked by dynamic interplay between personal experience and critical theory.
Claudia Rankine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Poet crafting critical texts for understanding American culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century in inventive, ever-evolving forms of poetic expression.
Lauren Redniss, Parsons, The New School for Design, New York, New York
Artist and Writer fusing artwork, written text, and design in a unique approach to visual nonfiction that enriches the ways in which stories can be conveyed, experienced, and understood.
Sarah Stillman, The New Yorker, New York, New York
Long-Form Journalist bringing to light the stories of people usually invisible to mainstream reporting and providing new and compelling perspectives on even well-covered social justice issues.
Gene Luen Yang, San Jose, California
Graphic Novelist bringing diverse people and cultures to children’s and young adult literature and confirming comics’ place as an important creative and imaginative force within literature, art, and education.

 

(4) GENRE REALITY. Ann Leckie takes a swing at defining “Real Science Fiction” by looking at a negative definition.

It is notoriously difficult to define “science fiction” but a common attempt to do so–to wall off stuff that isn’t “really” science fiction from the proper stuff–is to assert that a real science fiction story wouldn’t survive the removal of the science fictiony bits, where, I don’t know, I guess “fake” science fiction is just Westerns with spaceships instead of horses or somesuch….

And I can’t help noticing how often this particular criterion is used to delegitimize stories as “real” science fiction that by any other measure would more than qualify. It’s not just that the critic doesn’t really like this work, no, sadly the story is just not “really” science fiction, because if you take away the robots and the spaceships and the cloning and the black holes and the aliens and the interstellar civilizations and the fact that it’s set way in the future, well, it’s still a story about people wanting something and struggling to get it. Not really science fiction, see?

(5) SCHEINMAN OBIT. How “The Day the Earth Stood Still” became the impetus for the creation of assembly-line robots. From a New York Times obituary.

Victor Scheinman [1942-2016], who overcame his boyhood nightmares about a science-fiction movie humanoid to build the first successful electrically powered, computer-controlled industrial robot, died on Tuesday in Petrolia, Calif. He was 73.

His brother, Dr. Richard Scheinman, said the cause was complications of heart disease. He said he had been driving his brother to visit Dr. Scheinman’s home in Northern California when he apparently had a heart attack. He lived in Woodside, near Palo Alto, Calif.

Mr. Scheinman was part of Stanford University’s mechanical engineering department when, in 1969, he developed a programmable six-jointed robot that was named the Stanford Arm.

It was adapted by manufacturers to become the leading robot in assembling and spot-welding products, ranging from fuel pumps and windshield wipers for automobiles to inkjet cartridges for printers. Its ability to perform repeatable functions continuously equaled or surpassed that of human workers.

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY GIRL

Born September 22, 1982 — Billie Piper. Order your Rose Tyler action figure now!

billie-piper-rose-tyler-series-4-side

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

  • September 22 – Bilbo
  • September 22 — Frodo

(8) YOUR PATRONUS. “Now Pottermore Lets You Find Out Your Patronus (J.K. Rowling Got a Heron)”io9 has the story.

The latest feature on Pottermore, the ever-expanding home of Harry Potter content, is a quiz designed by J.K. Rowling to tell you what your Patronus is.

In case you’d forgotten, a Patronus is a spell conjured by a happy memory and the incantation “Expecto patronum!” The Patronus takes the form of a silvery animal that protects against the soul-crushing depression caused by exposure to Dementors.

The test on Pottermore, like all Pottermore quizzes, is multiple choice. Only instead of answering a question, two or three words pop up and you have a short time to click one instinctively. No thoughts needed or wanted.

(9) KEN LIU TRANSLATIONS. Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction from editor/translator Ken Liu will be released November 1, 2016. Here’s more information plus the Table of Contents.

Award-winning translator and author Ken Liu presents a collection of short speculative fiction from China.

Some stories have won awards; some have been included in various ‘Year’s Best’ anthologies; some have been well reviewed by critics and readers; and some are simply Ken’s personal favorites. Many of the authors collected here (with the obvious exception of Liu Cixin) belong to the younger generation of ‘rising stars’.

In addition, three essays at the end of the book explore Chinese science fiction. Liu Cixin’s essay, The Worst of All Possible Universes and The Best of All Possible Earths, gives a historical overview of SF in China and situates his own rise to prominence as the premier Chinese author within that context. Chen Qiufan’s The Torn Generation gives the view of a younger generation of authors trying to come to terms with the tumultuous transformations around them. Finally, Xia Jia, who holds the first Ph.D. issued for the study of Chinese SF, asks What Makes Chinese Science Fiction Chinese?.

Full table of contents:

  • Introduction: Chinese Science Fiction in Translation

Chen Qiufan

  • The Year of the Rat
  • The Fish of Lijiang
  • The Flower of Shazui

Xia Jia

  • A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight
  • Tongtong’s Summer
  • Night Journey of the Dragon-Horse (unpublished)

Ma Boyong

  • The City of Silence

Hao Jingfang

  • Invisible Planets
  • Folding Beijing

Tang Fei

  • Call Girl

Cheng Jingbo

  • Grave of the Fireflies

Liu Cixin

  • The Circle
  • Taking Care of God

Essays

  • The Worst of All Possible Universes and the Best of All Possible Earths: Three-Body and Chinese Science Fiction
  • The Torn Generation: Chinese Science Fiction in a Culture in Transition
  • What Makes Chinese Science Fiction Chinese?

(10) BANDERSNATCH. Diana Pavlac Glyer’s book about the Inklings, Bandersnatch, was released in January 2016. Here was one of the ads from last year encouraging people to pre-order….

gilligan-bandersnatch

[Thanks to Carl Slaughter, Darrah Chavey, Dawn Incognito, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stores. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Bruce Arthurs.]

122 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 9/22/16 Little Old Lady Got Pixelated Late Last Night

  1. Bah and other words. Everyone knows the most important, most unforgettable song from Top Gun was Playing with the Boys.

    To quote my all-time favorite parody video that isn’t by Weird Al, “The gayest man on earth would call this over the top!”

    (Okay, I just posted that so that I would have an excuse to post the video.)

  2. @Cassy B

    I’ve had some success with fluffy dinosaurs, though getting one suitable for a one year old might be a bother, so many seem to think 18 months or 3 years is the minimum.
    Also, people I know get a book which will come in useful later, though you may have exhausted that with the first one. All children need to be prepared for life by a copy of The Elephant and the Bad Baby.

  3. In other Ken Liu news, there’s a short film currently in production that’s based on Liu’s short story “Real Artists.”

    Here’s a link to the film’s project page on Seed & Spark. They’re already 3/4 of the way to their funding goal, but even more important than donations is for them to get more followers. If they reach 1000 followers (signing up and following the project is free!), then they’re eligible for distribution on Netflix, Hulu, and iTunes, as well as for a grant worth $8000.

    The informational video about the project makes it look super exciting: both the film itself, and its commitment to having significant numbers of women and people of color involved in the film. I encourage everyone to check it out, and to follow it and/or donate if you’re interested, because I’m really looking forward to the film myself and would love to be able to watch it from the convenience of my Netflix account. 🙂

  4. 1) I am fascinated by the way 2 of the 4 readers missed “Superiority”‘s underlying theme: somebody above the top admiral was forcing each one to accept the new shinies without any thought for how the shinies would work in the field. (I wonder about Nicoll’s reviewers’ reading comprehension; I remember this being clear to me when I read the story, probably when I was in high school.) The conflict between theory and practice is one of the fundamentals of SF — see Asimov’s “Not Final!” for a very different but equally valid slant (reflecting Clarke’s First Law!) — but most stories today assume that all the shinies will always work (or that there was so much amazing tech so long ago that there’s nothing shiny left but somehow all the worn stuff still works). It’s also interesting to see Clarke taking such a one-sided position, given his own wartime experience developing GCA. (I don’t know how many of the glitches in Glide Path actually happened, but they’re all plausible — except that I’ve been told by pilots who tried to deal with it that Clarke fails to note that burners along the runway to dispel fog had a side effect: thermals that make landing almost impossible.)

    @Galen Bishop: Fisher has been dishing live on tour for some time — maybe more about the derailment her life turned into for a while, but the same look-back-and-laugh-so-you-don’t-cry attitude. Local reviews said it was a great listen.

    @Kip W: “I, uh, only meant to write the first couplet. Sorry.” Right. And you’ve got this bridge for us, only ever driven on by little old ladies on Sundays….
    But that is a fun parody (both verses). Have this internet.

  5. @Cassy B

    Kids clothing is a good gift for a toddler, but I think it’s hard to do right, especially if you’re not already a baby person. Sizing and style can be challenging, but it can be fun to pick out for the right person. (I have two kids and I would still have a lot of trouble picking good clothing for a gift.)

    Since you’re already the book aunt, you may just want to lean in on that and get a bunch of books for the little one. I highly recommend Sandra Boynton books for kids that age. The art is nicely whimsical for the kids and they’re pretty amusing for the adults, too. The Belly Button Book and Hippos Go Berserk are perennial favorites, but all of her books are great. Make sure you get board books.

    You can also get something battery powered, but parents hate those. My younger brother got something like that for my older son when he was that age and I plotted revenge for years. (I got my revenge by getting something equally annoying when he and his wife had a baby years later.)

  6. @ lurkertype

    On my Amazon list (b/c it’s $10 cheaper — does ANYONE buy from publisher’s web pages?).

    I sure hope that there are people who buy from publishers’ web pages, because I know exactly how pathetic my books’ sales are on Amazon (pathetic enough that I know what a 1-book sale looks like in the sales ranking) and you’d be hard pressed to find them in a physical bookstore. (If the store has an LGBTQ fiction shelf — note: “shelf”, singular — that’s where you’d find them. If it doesn’t have such a shelf, it won’t carry anything from my publisher at all.)

  7. @ Cassy B. Do you want some book suggestions for that age? I manage our library’s children’s collection and could suggest some. I find that people tend to know classics and ones from when they were a kid, but don’t know as much about new authors/illustrator’s/characters so I’m sure I can come up with a few they aren’t as familiar with. Also, fwiw, my profile pic is a scene from David Wiesner’s Mr. Wuffles!, which is a recent Caldecott Honor book and SF. It’s a nearly wordless imagining of what happens when a tiny spaceship filled with tiny aliens have their first contact moment with a bored housecat (Mr. Wuffles) and some other creatures that live in fear of the cat.

  8. As someone who gave presents to a one year old just a week ago, I should have a better sugestion, than clothes, well unfortunatly I don’t…

    Well the cup was perhaps a bit early, and the swing the grandparents (all 3 of them) gave together is perhaps a bit expensive.

  9. @K8: What? Another David Wiesner book came out and nobody told me? His stuff is great. My son was born in 2000 and “The Three Pigs” was one of our favorite bedtime books.

    “The wolf huffed, and he puffed, and then a DRAGON comes out the door….”

  10. K8, I would LOVE book suggestions for a one-year-old! Bring them on!

    (My status as Book Aunt shall be preserved! Honestly, if it weren’t for me, my niece might have no books at all….)

  11. Cassy: For a one-year-old books are to early, my brother and his wife were told they shouldn’t read their daughters storys yet (she was born early, so there may be a difference), both are thinking the clasic farrytales are to brutal btw.

  12. @Cassy B

    Emerging from lurking to suggest books for a 1 year old. I have a 4 year old boy so it’s still pretty fresh:

    Anything by Julia Donaldson for rhyming fun – she’s got a new book about love of books “Detective Dog Nell” which is awesome.

    If you can push the SFness then Where’s My Cow? By Terry Pratchett has always been an enormous hit.

    The three Chu books by Neil Gaiman are beloved in our household too (and get a bit more sophisticated with each book).

    Moomin books. They do a series of moomin counting / list the flap books for very young children and “moomin and the …” (Birthday button / new friend / little ghost / etc) for toddlers.

    “The dinosaur that pooped a planet” if you want space rockets and don’t mind lots of poo jokes.

    “The adventurers” by Rachel Elliot is a lovely book about the imagination and role paying.

    I could go on. But I won’t! Hopefully not too UK-centric. Anyway, good children’s books are a thing of wonder.

    Good luck shopping.

    Edit to add: 1 yr old definitely not too early for books. We’ve been reading together since 1 week old! Even if they just look at the pictures it’s excellent for them.

  13. Hiding out in Dedham with three dogs and a bird.

    Pottermore says my Patronus is a snowy owl. Which is fine, but the Chinese Crested on my lap begs to differ.

  14. @Cassy B, I’m not a librarian of any stripe, but as a parent and preschool employee, I was a huge fan of Sandra Boynton board books. One year olds often chew their books, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love them. As a gift, I might combine books with a plushie suitable for infants.

  15. I was a preemie, and my parents started reading to me as soon as they took me home from the hospital. When they left me with my aunt and unclean from six months to three years this continued, with bonus extra holding and reading by the older cousins.

    Not harmed or traumatized at all.

    The only thing an infant would get out of being read to is being held and hearing mom or dad’s voice. Or aunt or uncle. Or siblings and cousins.

    Which, by the way, they also get in the womb. Though mostly from mom. 😉

    So I can’t see how that could be bad.

  16. I refuse to find out what my patronus is until I can conjure it for myself. Ruins the fun.

    (Also I’m not on Pottermore as it might ruin my eligibility for the Unseen University.)

  17. Okay, so even nurses and doctors are sometimes talking rubish, good to know. (Don’t be afraid, that the kid wont get books, just a bit later)

  18. Where’s My Scroll?
    Is that my scroll?
    It goes WOOOARGH, gristle, gristle, gristle.
    That’s not my scroll.
    That’s a shuggoth with stomach ache

  19. Our great-nephew Henry (the first on Hilde’s side of the family) turns one in October. Going on the principle of “kids too young to read can be read to” (Henry’s mom already does that a lot), we’re sending an omnibus of Dr. Seuss classics.

  20. @Cassy B. I enthusiastically second Sandra Boynton board books for that age! We loved them. There are some CDs as well (never tried those) and you can get a plush toy to round it out. Love Boynton for this age. Clothes are also good but a little boring as well as fraught with size issues.

  21. My older son LOVED books practically from birth. When he was starting to eat solid food we had an unspoken (because he couldn’t speak) but nevertheless clear agreement that he would eat one spoonful of yogurt for every page I read.

    For that reason, you need to pick books that will still be fun to read on the thousandth go-round. Here are a few that are good for kids this age and don’t have a single bad rhyme or clunky metre:

    THE NAPPING HOUSE by Audrey Wood and Dan Wood
    JAMBERRY by Bruce Degen
    PEEPO by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
    LITTLE BLUE TRUCK by Alice Schertle and Jill McElmurry

  22. Another lurker here:

    @Cassie B. It’s great to be the book aunt–I am one myself! I also have my own kids and work with young kids and am happy to share some of the books that I have found little ones really enjoy!

    I third the recommendation for Sandra Boynton’s board books. Amazon has a collection of her board books that includes Doggies, Moo Baa La La La, Blue Hat, Green Hat which are among my favorites.

    Eric Carle is an old favorite with this age group, particularly Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? and The Very Hungry Caterpillar (especially in board Book form)

    Lift the flap board books are perfect for a one year old. My kids’ favorite was Dear Zoo

    And one more, featuring a SJW credential: Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes.

    For a one year old, look for books with not too much text per page and with engaging illustrations. Predictable books (that follow a pattern) are really good.

  23. Cassy B:

    I’ll second the Neil Gaiman/Adam Rex Chu books.

    What I’ve done with my newborn great nieces/nephews is given them a book with a fluffy animal to go with it.

    Those have included Knuffle Bunny or Don’t let the Pigeon drive the Bus by Mo Willems
    How do Dinosaurs .. books by Jane Yolen

    Also, Paul Cornell has blogged about books his son likes the last few years.

    http://www.paulcornell.com/2013/12/the-twelve-blogs-of-christmas-four/
    http://www.paulcornell.com/2014/12/the-12-blogs-of-christmas-six-toms-favourite-books-and-a-secret-preview/
    http://www.paulcornell.com/2015/12/the-12-blogs-of-christmas-three-toms-favourite-books-2015-edition/

  24. @Jack Lint– Aunt and uncle! I try to catch autocorrect’s more creative changes, but I foolishly thought that was a word I didn’t have to worry about. Silly me!

  25. Nothing wrong with giving books, of course, but at that age, sturdy physical design of the book matters almost more than the content.

  26. @Cassy B
    I’m the book grandma, great-aunt, but it’s been more than a decade since there was a 1 yo around (waiting for next gen in whole family right now 🙂 So, I say always give ’em books!

    BUT besides all the great book recs that people have suggested, you might add a puzzle suitable for that age, big wood or plastic shapes that fit in a board, many include words to describe the shapes – helps to start associating things with writing, too. They’re generally indestructible and will help with coordination over the next 18 months or so.

  27. HEARTFELT thanks for all the book recommendations for my infant nephew! I’m so glad I asked here; Filers can be counted on for the book recs! <grin>

    Now I’m off the the Great South American River to see what’s in stock. I’m not a fan of Amazon in theory, but in practice not having to get to a brick-and-mortar store, find, wrap, and ship the books makes my life so much easier. (It would be much easier to manage without Amazon if Amazon hadn’t driven the local Borders out of business. My feelings about Amazon are… complicated…)

    <>edit to add> Microtherion, that dachsund is adorable and will be added to the book order. KR, don’t worry about misspelling my name; my variant spelling is extremely unusual and it doesn’t bother me when people automatically use the more common version.

  28. The Red Wombat is going to force me to sign up for Tumblr, dammit.

    Seeing that Leckie article reminded me of the recent controversy about shouting “fifth!” at the beginning of a thread, because the first thing image that came to mind was a tavern in a snowstorm. I have some sort of problem where the half-life of any joke I like is something like twice as long as I’ll even be alive.

    Despite fears that it will do no good… ::Tbq Fgnyx::

  29. Order placed; thanks again. However, if anyone has further recommendations…. well, Christmas is coming!

  30. (It would be much easier to manage without Amazon if Amazon hadn’t driven the local Borders out of business. My feelings about Amazon are… complicated…)

    I love going in to brick & mortar stores to look at books … but when it comes time to actually purchase I have a hard time justifying $27.99 + tax (so somewhere around $30) for a new hardback when I know I can go to Amazon and pay $18 + free ship and have it 2-3 days later. Since I buy so many books … a 40% savings is just a little too significant to ignore whatever my feelings about Amazon as a company are.

    I’ll still drop a hundred dollars in a Borders or Schulers once in a while just to assuage my conscience.

  31. No real warp drive, antigravity, artificial gravity, transporter, tricorder, or universal translator? At least you can soon drink your worries away with synthohol</a!.

  32. When my smaller niece was one, her parents actually encouraged me to buy her a book, as I was good at picking books for my larger niece: so I got her a book of noises, incorporating marbles or the like in the spine, which could be used to make a noise.

    In fact, however, the thing that pleased her most was turning the pages.

    Andrew: ‘Look, here is a picture of an eleph-‘.
    Niece: *Turns page*.

  33. My patronus is a sphinx cat.
    Does that mean an actual sphinx, as in Egypt.
    Or a fancy kittycat with breeder papers and the like?
    I am confused.

    @Cassey

    The first lot of books will get chewed, and may not really survive, but they create a lot of goodwill for the reading process.
    Board books are good.
    No one mentioned the classic Pat the Bunny – though he may have already gotten one.
    A big durable Mother Goose is a good thing to have around as well.

    In a little while the Frog and Toad books are lovely, and non-Disney Winnie the Pooh.
    (It is utterly soothing – guaranteed to put both child and parents to sleep.)
    Oh, and The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher (gorgeous).
    And the Richard Scarry books.
    There is so much really good stuff out there.

  34. I have copies of Everfair and 1177 BC in my possession now. I have a couple of Endeavour books to read first, but I started reading the introduction to 1177 BC while in line, and discovered that it is first in a series called “Turning Points In Ancient History”. I will need to collect ’em all!

    Also elbowing its way to the top of my TBR pile shortly is Night Without Stars. It’s out now in the UK; in the US we have to wait for next Tuesday. (The US edition is actually titled A Night Without Stars, possibly the most baffling title change I’ve ever encountered.)

  35. My patronus is a sphinx cat.
    Does that mean an actual sphinx, as in Egypt.
    Or a fancy kittycat with breeder papers and the like?

    Probably one of these.

  36. A couple of decades ago when my nieces were that age, I loved getting them the Carl books by Alexandra Day. The story is always told in pictures, almost no words so the little one can tell it themselves. And surely leaving a Rottweiler to babysit an infant qualifies as at least SFF adjacent…

  37. Lyle: Carl books are great. I’d forgotten about them. My daughter loved them — a decade ago….

  38. @Kip W: perfect!

    @Cassy B: books. Board books for now, picture books for later.
    People with infants, I tend to send clothes in a larger size than they need right now. He’s 1, buy him 2 year old size clothes. I sent a toddler size T-shirt to a newborn girl, and she wore it as a dress till it became a shirt. The photos were adorable at all ages.
    Physical toys are really, really good, since The Kids These Days (and presumably in near-future days) spend so much time in front of screens. That Brio dachshund is a generational classic for good reasons. At what age are Fisher-Price Little People suitable? I forget, but those little guys are indestructible, come in so many different sets, and are kinda fun up to ages where you wouldn’t admit you still play with them. Maybe Duplo, to prepare him for proper LEGO geekness later.

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