Pixel Scroll 9/24 Do Not Feed The Scrolls!

(1) San Diego Rocket Race 2015 happens October 17. Entry fee is $40 per team (of two to four). The theme is —

post-apocalypse-now

The Rocket Race is an urban adventure competition where teams of up to four will be using their brains to solve science fiction themed clues that lead them by car and on foot all around the San Diego area. The theme for the 2015 race is Post-Apocalypse Now!

…The San Diego Rocket Race is a day-long adventure race for teams of two to four players, made up of two components:

In the first half of the race, teams will solve a clue that will lead them somewhere around San Diego, where they will pick up their next clue. When that clue is solved, it will lead to a new location, and the next clue will be given to the team, leading them to the next location, and eventually they will reach the midpoint of the race and a mandatory lunch break.

In the second half of the race, the game changes to a photo scavenger hunt. Teams will receive a checklist of clues and will have until the end of the race day to find as many places in the photo scavenger hunt checklist as possible and reach the finish line before the race deadline.

(2) Find out about “The Most Advanced Human Brain-to-Brain Interface Ever Made” at Motherboard.

Scientists at the University of Washington have successfully completed what is believed to be the most complex human brain-to-brain communication experiment ever. It allowed two people located a mile apart to play a game of “20 Questions” using only their brainwaves, a nearly imperceptible flash of light, and an internet connection to communicate.

Brain-to-brain interfaces have gotten much more complex over the last several years. Miguel Nicolelis, a researcher at Duke University, has even created “organic computers” by connecting the brains of several rats and chimps together.

But in humans, the technology remains pretty basic, primarily because the most advanced brain-to-brain interfaces require direct access to the brain. We’re not exactly willing to saw open a person’s skull in the name of performing some rudimentary tasks for science.

Using two well-known technologies, electroencephalography EEG and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), Andrea Stocco and Chantel Prat were able to increase the complexity of a human brain to brain interface.

(3) I’ve fallen behind in my coverage of the George R.R. Martin Deluxe Talking Plush toy. You can now listen to an audio sample from Factory Entertainment, and buy a copy for $29.99.

Dressed in his trademark fisherman’s cap and suspenders, our Deluxe Talking Plush features 10 exclusively recorded audio quotes delivered directly by Mr. Martin himself!

 

(4) I spent a random minute watching the opening sequence from The Prisoner on YouTube because I wanted to hear the music.

As any Prisoner fan knows after watching the opening a thousand times, the license plate on McGoohan’s Lotus is KAR 120C. And if you Google the plate number you get lots of Prisoner-related hits.

When the black limo that’s following him pulls up to the curb outside his home, there is also a good view of its license plate — TLH 658. I Googled that number, but what I mainly got were hits on The Lutheran Hymnal where TLH 658 is “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Make of that what you will.

(5) Speaking of conspiracies, a couple of weeks ago I fearlessly investigated the never-before-asked question: What determines who pops up as the “featured member” in the SFWA Blog sidebar?

I wanted to know because Lou Antonelli popped up when I logged on that day.

I asked the President of SFWA, “Is this based on paid advertising? Some algorithim that detects I just read about Antonelli on FB? Something else?”

Cat Rambo replied —

The sfnal answer would be that SFWA’s orbital mind control lasers determined made you look at it right then.

Unfortunately, though, it’s random.

(6) Leading up to the 40th anniversary theatrical re-release of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, co-director Terry Jones introduces lost footage and outtakes from the movie.

(7) Steve Davidson is up to “1941 Retro Hugo Awards (Part 6: Fanzines)”. It’s one of the more heavily populated categories, and Davidson warns —

This is, of course, an incomplete list.  Even in 1939/1940, those attempting to index the fanzines published up till then despaired of ever being able to compile a complete list.  And, of course, getting a hold of even a tiny fraction of what is listed here is nigh on impossible these days, making the selection of nominees for Best Fanzine of 1940 a particularly problematic task.

(8) In 1941 LASFS was still meeting at Clifton’s Cafeteria, which is about to experience an architectural rebirth of its glory days. The Thrillist has some great photos previewing the restored (and in some spots, remodeled) interior.

First off — and this alone would probably set Clifton’s apart from every other restaurant in LA — the space now features a three-story atrium that’s stacked around a massive redwood tree in the middle of the restaurant. But wait, there’s more.

(9) Shockingly, an award given by a convention that has only twice thrice been held in a non-English-speaking country has in every case been voted to fiction published in the English language. Lynn E. O’Connacht has exposed the numbers in “Hugo Award Nominations by Country”.

So, initially, when the Hugos were announced I was thrilled along with everyone else. I am still thrilled because it is a great thing worthy of celebration. Diversity creates strength and fosters innovation. But something in the back of my mind was niggling at me. There was something about the celebration that felt off to me. Something about translated works and English-language awards and voting. Something that, as far as I can tell, no one has mentioned in any of their articles. Something that I expect most people wouldn’t even think to check. Either because they’re too thrilled that ‘one of their own’ won a prestigious foreign award or because they just don’t see that there might be something to look at.

It’s fairly common knowledge that, despite claims to the contrary, the Hugo Awards are a predominantly American award. But is it? After all, despite the slate voting this year saw a lot of diversity and it still won the awards. That’s what was niggling me: how completely different that focus is from my experience. Were the Hugos more nationally diverse than my gut was telling me? Was I wrong in thinking about the Hugos as an American award? Was I wrong to think of it as an award only native speakers of English stood a chance at winning?

(10) Wouldn’t people be more willing to see Victor Frankenstein if the actors traded the leading roles? Find out when the movie reaches theaters on November 25.

James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe star in a dynamic and thrilling twist on a legendary tale. Radical scientist Victor Frankenstein (McAvoy) and his equally brilliant protégé Igor Strausman (Radcliffe) share a noble vision of aiding humanity through their groundbreaking research into immortality. But Victor’s experiments go too far, and his obsession has horrifying consequences. Only Igor can bring his friend back from the brink of madness and save him from his monstrous creation.

 

[Thanks to Arnie Fenner, JJ, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Fin Fahey.]

269 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 9/24 Do Not Feed The Scrolls!

  1. Having risen from my bed at 4.10am, and now parked at my gate with a mere hour to wait, I should be able to add fascinating books which you really need to read.

    Sadly, getting up at 4.10 am deprives me of any form of rational thought processes, so I will confirm that I loathed Station 11, and heartily recommend Exiles Gate.

    If the Pret opposite ever opens I may return to consciousness, but they’re doing all the freshly made by human hand stuff.

    The swines.

  2. I’ve been working slowly through Dan Simmons’ The Fifth Heart. We’ve been talking about Aurora and Seveneves and others this year who tried to fly too close to the sun and fell back again. I suspect the Simmons will end up on my ballot.

  3. Brian Z on September 25, 2015 at 10:03 pm said:

    I’ve been working slowly through Dan Simmons’ The Fifth Heart. We’ve been talking about Aurora and Seveneves and others this year who tried to fly too close to the sun and fell back again. I suspect the Simmons will end up on my ballot.

    I enjoyed the Fifth Heart but aside from some meta-fictional elements (Holmes wondering if he is fictional) there isn’t anything particular F or SF about it, is there?

  4. Meta-fiction is what we call it when there’s no king mounted on a splendid stallion? My own thinking has changed on this, actually. For example, I used to be more dismissive of today’s steampunk, probably until I read Felix Gilman. Urban fantasy usually bores me to tears, but I’m slowly talking myself into having a more open mind. Compare The Fifth Heart to The Day the World Turned Upside Down. There is some point where weird fiction goes from gimmicky to deeply felt, one of those missed it by a mile, and the other might deserve a Hugo.

  5. Brian Z on September 25, 2015 at 11:00 pm said:

    Compare The Fifth Heart to The Day the World Turned Upside Down. There is some point where weird fiction goes from gimmicky to deeply felt, one of those missed it by a mile, and the other might deserve a Hugo.

    Well I didn’t like The Day the World Turned Upside Down much and I liked The Fifth Heart but The Day the World Turned Upside Down has a substantial fantasy premise whereas The Fifth Heart is a Sherlock Holmes story. Simmons mixes a famous fictional character with a famous historical person. I suppose ‘what if fictional people were real’ is a kind of fantasy premise but all works of fiction indulge in the premise to some extent.

  6. The Watchmaker of Filigree street is eligible this year I believe.

    Yesterday I went to a brick and mortar bookstore (Daunt Books on Cheapside) and came away with a sad sense of So many books, so little time.

    I gave up on A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet. The twee was setting my teeth on edge and I realised on a bus journey that I wanted to do something else than read, which hasn’t happened with any other book I have read recently. It wasn’t bad, but after two Clarcke finalists and one that I will bet my hat will be one next year, it was just too lightweight.

  7. Well, TDTWTUD has a dumb, poorly imagined weird fiction premise. TFH has an exquisite one that falls squarely within the SFF tradition. Had Holmes realized he was fictional in 1930 he would have written to Gödel and von Neumann; if in 1936, he would have gone straight to Princeton to see Turing. So it was 1893 and he was saddled with a James brother, but the worldbuilding is no less elegant for it.

  8. Brian Z on September 25, 2015 at 11:48 pm said:

    Well, TDTWTUD has a dumb, poorly imagined weird fiction premise. TFH has an exquisite one that falls squarely within the SFF tradition

    Holmes interacting with real characters isn’t new* and I still don’t see what is particularly SF/F about it. I guess if The Fifth Heart was primarily about Holmes wrestling with his functionality that would be interesting – but it isn’t. It is substantially less weird I think than Simmons’s other takes on historical writers (e.g. Drood with Dickens and Wilkie Collins).

    So it was 1893 and he was saddled with a James brother, but the worldbuilding is no less elegant for it.

    I wouldn’t call it ‘worldbuilding’ when it is a historical setting.

    [* e.g. for films consider Murder by Decree (Holmes solves the Whitechapel Murders) or The Seven PerCent Solution (Holmes is treated by Sigmund Freud)]

  9. Isn’t TFH about Holmes wrestling with his “functionality”? Holmes admitted that’s why he took the case, I’m reading it that way, and it’s working for me. Even if that’s wrong, how can you not call it worldbuilding? I admire how Simmons inserted just enough weird and no more.

    You are right most would not consider it SFF. But honestly, Aurora and Seveneves aren’t going to stick with me like this one, so I wonder.

  10. Brian Z on September 26, 2015 at 12:27 am said:
    You are right most would not consider it SFF. But honestly, Aurora and Seveneves aren’t going to stick with me like this one, so I wonder.

    I think Wolf Hall is a better book than The City and The City (which I loved) – I don’t think that means is should have won the 2010 Hugo.

  11. I didn’t read Wolf Hall, but will bump it up on my list on your recommendation. And a book where Raphael returns from Utopia to advise Cromwell might be interesting.

  12. @lurkertype

    I didn’t like Windup Girl either. I thought most of the characters were more charactertures than people.

    My (almost) innapropriate marriage moment was when my sister married and wanted to use Psalm 23 (The Lord is my shepherd…) in the ceremony. I pointed out all the death symbolism and suggested she pick something else.

  13. I’m looking forward to my sister’s wedding, as she has indicated she has no interest in a ceremony but has a lot of interest in a dance party.

    For novels: Archivist Wasp is at the top of my list. It may get bumped off, but it’d take some doing. Loved Last First Snow as well.

  14. lurkertype: I haaaaaaaaated “Windup Girl” (the physics of generating energy was all back-asswards, and humanity apparently forgets about waterwheels) so am NOT reading “Water Knife”. Newp.

    I hated Windup Girl because the whole sex doll thing seemed incredibly gratuitous to me — it was a gimmick, not a meaningful plot device. I’m clearly in the minority on this, but I still get a bad taste in my mouth thinking about that book and the fact that it unfathomably, to my mind, won a Hugo.

    I’ll probably read The Water Knife at some point — but it’s not even close to the pinnacle of Mount File770, and I doubt very much that I’ll be able to get through all the 2015 novels I’m actually enthused about reading in time for nominations, never mind that one.

  15. I really liked the other Morgaine books after finding an omnibus edition of the first three in a local sff specialist bookshop. Exiles Gate is out of print in the UK though and there’s practically none of her work available on Amazon for Kindle here so I eventually had to resort to Amazon’s 2nd sellers.

    It was pretty clear the setting was Clark’s 3rd Law in operation to me as although we see everything from the viewpoint of her low tech companion I was sure Morgaine at the very least had some type of energy weapon and other high tech tools.

    Bujold is another author who’s books I never seem to see in even specialist shops. That may be more to do with her being published by Baen though as their books n general have been uncommon to see. In Edinburgh anyway.

    I’ve started Terminal World a couple of times but normally when I’ve had other things part read too and drifted off. Setting seems to have some passing similarity to Vinge’s Zones of Thought concept on a smaller scale. I’d be hard pressed to pick between House of Suns and Chasm City as my favorite Reynolds. If Century Rain didn’t have the very slow chase sequence in the last third which IMHO spoiled the pacing it would maybe squeeze past them both.

    Bracket needs some post-cyberpunk. Richard Morgan, either Altered Carbon or Thirteen (aka Black Man in the UK), must be something by either William Gibson (one of the Blue Ant trilogy or the Peripheral though that’s still in my to be bought pile) or Walter Jon Williams (really liked Implied Spaces recently) in there too.

  16. If I had to sum up Windup Girl I’d just say, bleak and relentlessly so.

    I did think that it was well written in many ways, the setting was well realised even if some of the tech was implausible (but then wasn’t it a scam anyway?) But it strayed dangerously close to the eight deadly words for me too.

    I do think Bacigalupi shows a lot of potential though so I’ll be keeping my eye on his work.

  17. IanP: Bracket needs some post-cyberpunk. Richard Morgan, either Altered Carbon or Thirteen (aka Black Man in the UK), must be something by either William Gibson (one of the Blue Ant trilogy or the Peripheral though that’s still in my to be bought pile) or Walter Jon Williams (really liked Implied Spaces recently) in there too.

    The “small” list I sent Kyra includes Morgan’s Altered Carbon and Gibson’s Pattern Recognition (I did not duplicate any authors on the list, and tried to pick the best novel for each author from the last 15 years). As I sent her a list of 127 novels (mistakenly counting the label row as 128), it could probably include Williams’ This Is Not A Game or Implied Spaces as well. 😉

  18. Count me in that disliking The Windup Girl minority. I’ll happily apply the eight deadly words to the yellow card factory boss. We could have done without that viewpoint entirely and still gotten the same ending with a few minor tweaks.

    Most other complaints would be too spoilery, but I will add that I was 60% of the way though the book before I stopped complaining that I didn’t even have any idea what the story was supposed to be about.

  19. I’m in the Windup Girl majority, I’m afraid. I was aware the setting was somewhat implausible but it didn’t affect me unduly. I’m going to try The Water Knife soon-ish.

    +1 on This Is Not A Game. I prefer the follow-up Deep State, but it doesn’t stand alone as well.

  20. This is the small list I sent to Kyra. If you think I’ve picked the wrong “best book” for a given author, feel free to make your case. There are a few wonderful authors who have published in the last 15 years but I just didn’t feel they had a “best” book in that time period, so they’re not on this list. This is just my suggestion list; she has full discretion on what she picks for the brackets.

    HARM – Aldiss, Brian – 2007
    Genesis – Anderson, Poul – 2000
    In War Times – Ann Goonan, Kathleen – 2007
    The Quantum Rose – Asaro, Catherine – 2000
    The Skinner – Asher, Neal – 2002
    Oryx & Crake – Atwood, Margaret – 2003
    Heaven’s Queen – Bach, Rachel – 2014
    The Windup Girl – Bacigalupi, Paolo – 2009
    The Empress of Mars – Baker, Kage – 2009
    The Hydrogen Sonata – Banks, Iain M. – 2012
    Directive 51 – Barnes, John – 2010
    Lion’s Blood – Barnes, Steven – 2002
    Jennifer Government – Barry, Max – 2003
    Coalescent – Baxter, Stephen – 2003
    Carnival – Bear, Elizabeth – 2006
    Hull Zero Three – Bear, Greg – 2010
    Dark Eden – Beckett, Chris – 2012
    Moxyland – Beukes, Lauren – 2008
    Titan – Bova, Ben – 2006
    Kiln People – Brin, David – 2002
    Elysium – Brissett, Jennifer Marie – 2014
    World War Z – Brooks, Max – 2006
    Ragamuffin – Buckell, Tobias S. – 2007
    Diplomatic Immunity – Bujold, Lois McMaster – 2002
    Fledgling – Butler, Octavia E. – 2005
    Dervish is Digital – Cadigan, Pat – 2000
    A Darkling Sea – Cambias, James L. – 2014
    The Girl with All the Gifts – Carey, M.R. – 2014
    The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Chabon, Michael – 2007
    The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet – Chambers, Becky – 2014
    A Calculated Life – Charnock, Anne – 2013
    Regenesis – Cherryh, C.J. – 2009
    The Three-Body Problem – Cixin, Liu – 2014
    Ready Player One – Cline, Ernest – 2011
    Control Point – Cole, Myke – 2013
    The Hunger Games – Collins, Suzanne – 2008
    Leviathan Wakes – Corey, James S. A. – 2011
    Tangled Up in Blue – D. Vinge, Joan – 2000
    Little Brother – Doctorow, Cory – 2008
    In the Company of Others – E Czerneda, Julie – 2001
    Zendegi – Egan, Greg – 2010
    Eifelheim – Flynn, Michael F. – 2006
    Fire with Fire – Gannon, Charles E. – 2013
    The Martian Child – Gerrold, David – 2002
    Pattern Recognition – Gibson, William – 2003
    7th Sigma – Gould, Steven – 2011
    Feed – Grant, Mira – 2010
    End of the World Blues – Grimwood, Jon Courtenay – 2007
    Camouflage – Haldeman, Joe – 2004
    Fallen Dragon – Hamilton, Peter F. – 2002
    Generation Loss – Hand, Elizabeth – 2008
    The Gone-Away World – Harkaway, Nick – 2008
    The Native Star – Hobson, M.K. – 2010
    Catalyst: A Novel of Alien Contact – Hoffman, Nina Kiriki – 2006
    Midnight Robber – Hopkinson, Nalo – 2000
    God’s War – Hurley, Kameron – 2010
    Europe in Autumn – Hutchinson, Dave – 2014
    Never Let Me Go – Ishiguro, Kazuo – 2005
    Memory of Water – Itäranta, Emmi – 2014
    Nova Swing – John Harrison, M. – 2006
    The Summer Prince – Johnson, Alaya Dawn – 2013
    Ghosts in the Snow – Jones, Tamara Siler – 2004
    11/22/63 – King, Stephen – 2011
    Steal Across the Sky – Kress, Nancy – 2009
    Mainspring – Lake, Jay – 2007
    Mars Crossing – Landis, Geoffrey A. – 2000
    The Telling – Le Guin, Ursula K. – 2000
    Ancillary Justice – Leckie, Ann – 2013
    The Best of All Possible Worlds – Lord, Karen – 2013
    Song of Time – MacLeod, Ian R. – 2008
    Learning the World – MacLeod, Ken – 2005
    The Disestablishment of Paradise – Mann, Phillip – 2013
    The Quiet War – McAuley, Paul – 2008
    The Road – McCarthy, Cormac – 2006
    To Crush the Moon – McCarthy, Wil – 2005
    Polaris – McDevitt, Jack – 2004
    River of Gods – McDonald, Ian – 2004
    Nekropolis – McHugh, Maureen F. – 2001
    Soft Apocalypse – McIntosh, Will – 2011
    The City and The City – Miéville, China – 2009
    Cloud Atlas – Mitchell, David – 2004
    The Speed of Dark – Moon, Elizabeth – 2002
    Altered Carbon – Morgan, Richard K. – 2002
    Nexus – Naam, Ramez – 2013
    The Red: First Light – Nagata, Linda – 2012
    The Time Traveler’s Wife – Niffenegger, Audrey – 2003
    The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August – North, Claire – 2014
    Who Fears Death – Okorafor, Nnedi – 2010
    The Boy Who Would Live Forever: A Novel of Gateway – Pohl, Frederik – 2004
    Boneshaker – Priest, Cherie – 2009
    The Separation – Priest, Christopher – 2002
    The Quantum Thief – Rajaniemi, Hannu – 2010
    Marrow – Reed, Robert – 2000
    Revelation Space – Reynolds, Alastair – 2000
    Yellow Blue Tibia – Roberts, Adam – 2009
    2312 – Robinson, Kim Stanley – 2012
    Natural History – Robson, Justina – 2003
    Air – Ryman, Geoff – 2004
    Calculating God – Sawyer, Robert J. – 2000
    Old Man’s War – Scalzi, John – 2005
    Sun of Suns – Schroeder, Karl – 2006
    Ilium – Simmons, Dan – 2003
    The Highest Frontier – Slonczewski, Joan – 2011
    The Machine – Smythe, James – 2013
    Station Eleven – St. John Mandel, Emily – 2014
    Chronospace – Steele, Allen – 2001
    Anathem – Stephenson, Neal – 2008
    Zeitgeist – Sterling, Bruce – 2000
    The Peshawar Lancers – Stirling, S.M. – 2002
    Accelerando – Stross, Charles – 2005
    Bones of the Earth – Swanwick, Michael – 2002
    The Fresco – Tepper, Sheri S. – 2000
    City of Pearl – Traviss, Karen – 2004
    Ruled Brittania – Turtledove, Harry – 2002
    Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti – Valentine, Genevieve – 2011
    The Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance) – VanderMeer, Jeff – 2014
    Red Thunder – Varley, John – 2003
    Rainbows End – Vinge, Vernor – 2006
    Ink – Vourvoulias, Sabrina – 2012
    Farthing – Walton, Jo – 2006
    Blindsight – Watts, Peter – 2006
    The Martian – Weir, Andy – 2011
    Terraforming Earth – Williamson, Jack – 2001
    Passage – Willis, Connie – 2001
    The Chronoliths – Wilson, Robert Charles – 2001
    The Last Policeman – Winters, Ben H. – 2012
    Return to the Whorl – Wolfe, Gene – 2001

  21. Williams is another author who seems ill served by the distributors/bookshops in the UK. I’d almost forgotten about him until I found a reprint of Hardwired in Waterstones and looked at the also by list. At least there’s more of his stuff available in Kindle than Cherryh.

    Oh and Brust too, I’ve got Hawk, 14th Taltos book on my to buy list but it is ~£10 for both Kindle and paperback for a 350 odd page book.

  22. Thanks for the recs everyone!

    @JJ

    I’ve read six of those and I have another three or four (I lost count) on the already-bought TBR pile (and another two or three that I’d already marked for future buying due to File770). Oh dear. I didn’t think the difference between my fantasy and sci fi reading was quite that marked.

  23. A quick note —

    Because, as I’ve mentioned, I’m not as well versed in 21st century SF as I have been for the other categories I’ve bracketed, I’ll be using a nomination system to make sure I start with a good set of titles. I’ll most likely repost JJ’s list as a jumping off point/reminder to people of some of what’s out there (and, of course, it will serve as JJ’s own excellent nomination list.)

    I’m still figuring out the exact rules I want to use for nominations, but I’m hoping to have something up maybe tonight or tomorrow night. I will mention that there will be a point when nominations officially start and a thread for them to go in, because trying to collect suggestions across scattered threads would drive me rapidly insane.

    That being said, in my case I’ve already thought of some favorites by authors that aren’t on JJ’s list, and in some cases I would support a different work by the an author that is on there, so I’m looking forward to a rousing good talk about some books during the nominations process. 🙂

  24. @JJ: I have personal preferences for Transition over Hydrogen Sonata and Embassytown over The City and the City for much the same reason: they’re brilliantly imperfect books, and they haven’t destroyed the brilliance by trying to make them perfect.

    Seeing Kil’n People on that list makes me sad, as it made me check that the last Brin I thought was worth any sort of award was written last millenium.

    I have a preference for Woken Furies over Altered Carbon as I think it does manage to tie up enough loose ends to be impressive. However, first book in the series and setting the world up is often better, so… I also hated Black Man but think that Market Forces has its moments.

    I would pick Lock In over Old Man’s War every time. In conjunction with Unlocked it covers a lot more ground in more interesting ways.

    Reynolds is difficult; my preference is Chasm City, but as with the Morgan I’d stick with Revelation Space. I have no strong reason for wanting the change either.

    Finally: I hate Never Let Me Go; it infuriated me in a way that few other books ever have.

  25. Never Let Me Go is sf written by a lit-fic writer who thinks that “science fiction” means it doesn’t have to make sense. Seriously. Avoiding all the spoilerific Things He Failed To Think Through, for a plausible set-up, he needed to take into account how very high the failure rate was in getting to Dolly. It could have been dealt with, but I suspect he wasn’t even aware of it. Why would he check in with plausibility in a form whose fans will swallow any old foolish thing in happy disregard of reality?

  26. @Kyra: FWIW, when I eventually do the Best TV brackets – likely a decent interval after the Best 21st-Century SF brackets wrap up, I plan to do nominations as follows: Everyone can name three things. I will collate and seed the results. Endless lists of “Hey, here’s all the candidates I can think of” I will cheerfully ignore, though others can use them as memory jogs.

  27. I am glad to join the Windup Girl hate. Since I posted a rant about it in rec.a.s.written when it won the Hugo. The book is the perfect example of an idiot plot in that if anyone in the book acted like a semi-rational human being not only would the plot not work but the entire universe would vanish in a puff of logic.

  28. Ian,

    I really liked Kil’n People and wish David would write more stories in that world. Of course I can’t say the same for his other book written this century,Existence, which was a turd of the greatest magnitude.

  29. @Lis Carey: When I read Never Let Me Know, I thought it was a beautifully written story of personal connections but the science fiction aspects didn’t make any sense. Then recently I saw an interview with the author where he said that writing this book, he started out with the characters and their interactions, and needed a suitably deadly trap to put them in; he spent a long time discarding different ideas such as diseases before coming up with this. That really fits my impression that any science fiction isn’t integral to the book and for that reason doesn’t need to be carefully thought through.

  30. @Lis: Agree with all you say. My main problem with the book was that it seemed that KI hadn’t read or even considered that these were issues that others might have looked at before, at great length, both in the scientific and genre literature. It’s like an author, in the 21st century, hearing of time travel and writing a book about it being bad to kill your own parent. And getting praised for originality. Whilst they should be engaging with the conversation, that has long since got past that.

    @Tintinaus: I didn’t think Kil’n People was bad, but after the Uplift Storm trilogy it just felt a bit fluffy, and I don’t think DB’s that good at fluffy, or humour. Existence felt like he was trying to update Earth (which, for various reasons, is a book I have a great attachment to) – in places Existence pretty much self-plagiarizes from Earth, I felt. I didn’t think it was so much bad, as twenty years too late to be interesting.

  31. So FWIW I’ve decided to go for Exiles Gate next. Probably followed by Terminal World as I think I’ll be wanting something more sci-fi than fantasy by then.

    I’m also resolved to do more reading beyond my usual hour and a half commuting dose, which may require less reading File440 comments while watching the telly in the evening.

    ETA: oh good another Ian, that’s not going to be confusing at all… We’ve got four in the office, and five or six in the extended group of friends and acquaintances. It got bad enough that I now go by my middle name in social circles.

  32. @Vasha —

    The problem with that is that if their “deadly dilemma” doesn’t make sense, the characters’ relationships and interactions don’t make sense. And, sorry, but the comments you describe sound like defensive backtracking on his part. When the book came out, he was patting himself on the back for taking an idea that some might think was “science fiction,” but wasn’t because he had thought seriously about the moral and social implications of human cloning. Except, of course, he hadn’t thought about it as seriously as frankly “popular,” light-entertainment writer Nora Roberts (writing as J.D. Robb.) One of her “In Death” mysteries, out at approximately the same time frame, did that far more effectively. So now he’s claiming that was never the point at all? Sorry, not what he said at the time.

  33. The 2014 Hugo hosts, while playing Mornington Crescent, took it absolutely for granted that Sherlock Holmes was science fiction. Now, two of the stories at least are (one is ‘The Creeping Man’; can’t remember the other), but treating the whole corpus as SF is very odd. But it seems to keep happening; I think it is an aspect of the tendency which fans have to co-opt stuff into our genre because we like it. In this case, of course, the fact that Simmons is an established SF author helps the co-optation (and I would argue that he has done this before, with Drood).

    But then, I haven’t read it, so I can’t say positively that it isn’t SF. Is the idea that Holmes might be fictional just a passing thought, or does it make a greater contribution to the work? If the latter, it might certainly be seen as speculative, something on the lines of The Eyre Affair. (On the other hand, Edmund Cripsin’s Gervase Fen sometimes refers to himself as fictional, and I don’t think anyone has suggested that that is SF.)

  34. Brian Z –

    I’ve been working slowly through Dan Simmons’ The Fifth Heart. We’ve been talking about Aurora and Seveneves and others this year who tried to fly too close to the sun and fell back again. I suspect the Simmons will end up on my ballot.

    I’m a big fan of Simmons and the Sherlock Holmes character but that’s not one that would enter my ballot. It’ll be interesting to see if you feel the same way after you finished but I thought one of the mysteries in the book wasn’t very interesting while the one I was reading the book for mostly sat on the back burner and wasn’t examined to the level I thought it might be. Hope you enjoy it more than I did.

  35. lurkertype on September 25, 2015 at 7:39 pm said:

    I haaaaaaaaated “Windup Girl” (the physics of generating energy was all back-asswards, and humanity apparently forgets about waterwheels) so am NOT reading “Water Knife”. Newp.

    I loved the Windup Girl (and the shorts set in the same alternate Asia, and the two YA books–Ship Breakers and The Drowned Cities–set in America is what is likely the same universe) but I agree that the prospect of all energy being provided by springs wound by muscle-power requires some very serious suspension of disbelief. Not to reinvent the rantwheel, see my post (under the name ardeegee) at a different site a few years back:
    http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1007103

  36. Meredith on September 24, 2015 at 4:52 pm said:

    I also used to stay with my Godmother on holiday in Lyme Regis, another excellent fossils and dinosaurs location, complete with science-related inspirational historical woman, which was important to me growing up.

    Of course, pretty much any tangential mention here can read to a book recc, so here’s an excellent biography on Mary Anning (the “she” who sold seashells on the seashore.):

    http://www.amazon.com/Fossil-Hunter-Dinosaurs-Evolution-Discoveries/dp/0230103421

    (There are the better part of a plethora of other Anning-related books there, but I’ve read only the one.)

  37. Andrew M on September 26, 2015 at 9:26 am said:
    But then, I haven’t read it, so I can’t say positively that it isn’t SF. Is the idea that Holmes might be fictional just a passing thought, or does it make a greater contribution to the work?

    It keeps cropping up and the main (historical) character has reason to doubt whether the man who claims to be Holmes is actually Holmes or just somebody pretending to be the fictional detective. Also in the book Arthur Conan-Doyle is a real person and the Sherlock Holmes stories are real published things. So there is an overall sense of a fictional character intruding into a real historical person’s life…but it isn’t in the whole reality-questioning way that Simmons did with Drood.

  38. The reality questioning stuff in Drood was a pretty neat bit of mindscrew from Simmons. Sadly, that’s the last Simmons novel I’ve enjoyed in full.

  39. Kurt Busiek: Hm. I’ve only read 13. I guess those multiple rereadings of the entire Aubrey/Maturin series and the First Man in Rome series took more time than I thought… 😉

  40. Paul Weimer (@princejvstin) on September 26, 2015 at 1:33 pm said:

    The reality questioning stuff in Drood was a pretty neat bit of mindscrew from Simmons. Sadly, that’s the last Simmons novel I’ve enjoyed in full.

    I thought Drood was a definite high point for Simmons.

  41. Re: Simmons

    Both my non-sci fi reading 75+ year old parents really enjoyed The Terror, which surprised me greatly. Mum is currently reading my copy of Broken Monsters too.

    I’ve read about 13 of the books too, more like 20 of the authors and in most of those cases multiple works. My Asher, Banks, Hamilton and Reynolds collections take up at least three shelves by themselves.

  42. 29 here, although I counted Terraforming Earth on the basis of the stuff published in Analog, so if there’s significantly more there (or it was substantially rewritten) I might need to subtract one.

  43. I’ve read about 30 on JJ’s list. (I say “about” because there’s one or two on this list that I’m pretty sure I’ve read, but they didn’t stick with me.)

  44. Bracketses: please please include

    Empress of Mars
    A Civil Campaign
    Highest Frontier
    Anathem
    Ruled Britannia (even my mother loved this one; But Is It Really SF?)
    Mechanique
    Passage

    I am heartened to see so many right-thinking people here who didn’t like “Windup Girl”.

  45. I am realizing just how much less scifi than fantasy I was reading.
    Eyes reading pile, needs more scifi.
    Considers the need to keep access open to kitchen and bathroom.

    There was the charming old professor we knew.
    After his wife died, he just ate in restaurants and cafes.
    So since he wasn’t using it for food any more, his kitchen became just another place of books.
    I mean, cabinets have shelves.
    So do refrigerators.
    When you think about it, really, I have LOTS of room for books.

    Ah, what have I read and enjoyed.
    Remnant Population, Elizabeth Moon
    Antarctica, Kim Stanley Robinson
    Feed, Mira Grant
    Hammered, Elizabeth Bear
    Passages, Connie Willis
    (though why not other Willis books, just wondering?
    Doomsday Book?)

    I’ll keep thinking.

  46. Are we actually nominating for SF brackets now? My nominations are

    The Girl with All the Gifts, M.R. Carey
    Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
    The Steel Remains, Richard Mprgan (shut up! this is where it belonged!)

Comments are closed.