(1) A postcard from the Baen beachhead at Dragon Con.
This #dragoncon photo goes out to my fiends at File770: pic.twitter.com/78ejOGHsRS
— Ray Radlein (@Radlein) September 5, 2015
(2) The Stanley Hotel in Colorado inspired Stephen King’s novel The Shining, a connection the hotel’s operators have used to market the resort for years.
But unlike King’s fictional Overlook it never had a hedge maze – until this summer when the owner had one built to placate his customers.
Missing from the experience, however, has been the hedge maze that Mr. Kubrick used as the setting for the film’s climax….
At a colleague’s suggestion, Mr. Cullen [the owner] opted to hold a contest for the design, a move that amplified the public-relations potential. A panel of judges received 329 entries from around the world, and the winner was a New York architect named Mairim Dallaryan Standing.
Mr. Cullen chose to form the maze from juniper trees that grow to just three feet high, making the Stanley’s maze far less imposing than the 13-foot labyrinth in the Kubrick film. Mr. Cullen said he was concerned about losing children in the maze.
This summer, that decision has caused some disappointment….
The owner of the real hotel builds a maze to please King fans, who then are not pleased because it doesn’t match the source. How fannish is that?
(3) John O’Halloran’s Sasquan photo album – mainly the Hugo ceremony.
(4) Lou Antonelli on Facebook
I’m going to write an alternate history set in a world where cloning was perfected in the 1920s and by the beginning of the television era in the 1950s entertainers are able to license copies of themselves for live performances.
The clones of bigger stars are more expensive than the clones of lesser ones. One man has to settle for a Teresa Brewer clone, but he bemoans the fact that he couldn’t afford a clone of the star he REALLY wanted.
The story will be called…
“If You Were a Dinah Shore, My Love.”
(5) The works of Karel Capek are being celebrated at a festival in Washington D.C. Celia Wren penned an overview in the Washington Post.
Prepare for rebellious automatons, a 300-year-old opera singer, and a pack of newts taking a page from Ira Glass. These and other inventions will unfold locally this fall courtesy of the Czech writer Karel Capek (1890-1938), with help from other artists.
Capek is the focus of the Mutual Inspirations Festival 2015, led by the Embassy of the Czech Republic and offering films, theater pieces, lectures, art exhibits, and — for children — a Lego Robotics Workshop. Now in its sixth year, the festival pays tribute to an influential Czech figure, such as Antonin Dvorak (2011), Vaclav Havel (2013) or Franz Kafka (2014).
The Mutual Inspirations website has complete details.
Running from September 3-November 21, 2015, the festival highlights events at select venues in the Washington area, such as the Kennedy Center, the Gonda Theatre in the Davis Performing Arts Center at Georgetown University, the Avalon Theatre, and Bistro Bohem. Highlights of this year’s festival include a jazz-age evening of music and dance, theatrical readings of the new work R.U.R.: A Retro-Futuristic Musical, the world premiere of War with the Newts adapted by Natsu Onoda Power, a robotics demonstration and lecture with Czech robotics expert Vladimir Ma?ík, a panel discussion on R.U.R. and the Rationalized World, and a Lego Robotics Workshop for children facilitated by the Great Adventure Lab. Additional noted speakers include Templeton Prize-winner Tomáš Halík, art historian Otto Urban, and theatre/ interactive media arts scholar Jana Horaková. The festival incorporates a variety of events, including theatrical performances, film screenings, a concert, lectures, and exhibitions. With over 30,000 people attending the festival over the last three years, the festival strives to reach a wide audience through its vibrant programming.
(6 George R.R. Martin, in “Awards, Awards, and More Awards”, encourages the Puppies who are talking about starting an award of their own.
He discusses how many different awards there are in the field and includes lots of pictures – which is easy because George has won most of them.
A great many of the awards discussed above were started precisely because the people behind them felt someone was being overlooked by the Hugos and/ or other existing awards, and wanted to give an “attaboy” to work they cherished.
There is no reason the Sad Puppies should not do the same. Give them at Dragoncon, give them at Libertycon… or, hell, give them at worldcon, if you want. Most worldcons will give you a hall for the presentation, I’m sure, just as they do for the Prometheus Awards and the Seiuns. Or you can rent your own venue off-site, as I did with the Alfies. Have a party. No booing, just cheers. Give handsome trophies to those you think deserve it. Spread joy.
That’s what awards are supposed to be about, after all. Giving some joy back to the writers and editors and artists who have given you so much joy with their work. Celebration.
Since RAH is already taken by the Heinlein Foundation for its own award, maybe you should call them the Jims, to honor Jim Baen, an editor and publisher that I know many of you admire. If you launch a Kickstarter to have a bust of him sculpted for the trophy, I’ll be glad to contribute. (It may surprise you to know that while Jim Baen and I were very far apart politically, we shared many a meal together, and he published a half dozen of my books. Liberals and conservatives CAN get along, and usually did, in fandom of yore).
(7) Kevin Standlee philosophizes about the relationship between a stable, democratically-run society and good sportsmanship.
A prerequisite of a stable democratic society is being a good loser.
If your definition of “democracy” boils down to “I get what I personally want or else the entire process is wrong and corrupt,” then you have reduced yourself to the spoiled child who throws a tantrum and overturns the table when s/he loses at a board game.
Could it be that our society’s over-emphasis at “win at any cost” and “second place is the first loser,” and a complete de-emphasis on learning how to be graceful in defeat is undermining the entire democratic process? After all, if you’ve been conditioned to think that Winning Is The Only Thing and that losing gracefully is for suckers and wimps, how can you possibly live with yourself when your “side” loses a political election, even if the process was demonstratively fair? In such a situation, you almost naturally are doing to insist that the process itself is wrong, because you’ve built up a self-image that requires you to win.
I’m also worried that we’ve overly emphasized not hurting people’s feelings when they are young by pretending that they can never lose. When they reach the real world where not every corner is padded for them, they can’t handle anything other than “I showed up, so I need to win.” I admit that possibly I’m just being old and crotchety about Those Darn Kids.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m disappointed that Popular Ratification, into which I invested a lot of myself, lost at the ratification stage. But I can see that the process was fair, and I neither consider myself a moral failure because my cause lost nor do I consider the entire WSFS legislative process invalid because I got outvoted. I get the feeling, however, that a whole lot of people out there can’t live with the concept of losing.
(8) Didact doesn’t care.
I really can’t make it any clearer than that, unless the good people over at File770 want me to break out a pack of crayons and draw them a picture. And I don’t speak any dialect of dipsh*t, so even that probably won’t help.
Didact, Vile Faceless Minion #0309, repeats:
WE DON’T CARE whether or not our nominees won awards. Not this year, not next year, and not in any other year. It matters not the minutest quantum of a damn for us. As far as I, personally, am concerned, the Hugo Awards have lost their point and purpose and need to be torn down and replaced wholesale.
I don’t know why I have such a hard time getting it through my thick skull that they don’t care. Really. It’s just embarrassing. As many times they’ve been forced to repeat this. Think of all the time they could spend on something they do care about if only I would just get it. All my fault. My bad. So sorry.
(9) And dammit, Jonathan M has uncovered another of this blog’s deepest secrets.
https://twitter.com/ApeInWinter/status/640547743925186561
(9) Great photos from a vintage computer exhibit.
(10) Megan Guess at Ars Technica – “I watched Star Trek: The Original Series in order; and so can you. Or, Filling the gaps in your cultural knowledge is equal parts boring and fun”
At the beginning, this is how I approached The Original Series. Despite how much everyone wants to talk about Star Trek‘s progressiveness in 1966, you can tell just by a quick glance at the costuming that womankind is not going to be treated as equal, with all the rights and responsibilities pertaining thereto.
But around the end of season one, I couldn’t help but become a little bit invested in the world of the Federation. I was always happy when Lieutenant Uhura was given real lines in an episode, because she was just what you’d want in a starship officer of the future—brave and serious, but with a human side, too. Nurse Chapel was also welcome—she had gravitas without being robotic and cold.
Of course, for every Uhura or Chapel there was the endless supply of one-off Kirk foils planted on every strange new world, waiting for a strong-jawed spaceman to rescue them. Sometimes they were decent characters, like Edith Keeler in “The City on the Edge of Forever,” one of The Original Series’ most famous episodes. In it, Kirk and Spock end up in the 1930s and a depression-era charity worker—Keeler, portrayed by Joan freaking Collins—preaches futurism to a group of unenlightened hobos. (And then Kirk falls in love with her. Because of course.) Other characters were worse—you need only search “Women Star Trek Original Series” to find the lists of the show’s hottest, most vacant babes.
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Mark and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day James H. Burns.]
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@RedWombat
Tuomas himself is so utterly without preferences that he is incapable of expressing an opinion on scifi fiction, much less sullying his perfect impartiality by voting. He does nothing all day but smile at his own reflection and murmur “How non-preferentially perfect I am.”
“I think FFA is Fail Fandom Anon, “a community where fans could talk about fandom wank without the pressure to be politically correct” ”
actually, it’s just a place where people can talk anonymously without fear of *reprisal* from people like RH and other wankers. The mod actually come pretty down on racism, transphobia, fatwank and so on. As a point in its favour, they don’t like me much either.
The current RH eruption – which is likely based on RH creating the thing she’s whinging about – is discussed here
http://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/157768.html?thread=844549192#cmt844549192
Alexandra Erin makes me sad. One minute she can create parody of huge intelligence and humour, and the next minute, she’s talking crap. (And, propping up a woman who’s a massive transphobe to boot.)
@RedWombat
I know that it was a top down single PC RPG, with a character model that looked like they were skewed drunkenly to the side from the front, and leaning forward or back from the side. When you began you were on an overworld map that seemed to be mostly grass?
Uh… the dirk was a popular weapon?
Fixed it for you. If you think some random French named person wrote that report, just coincidentally referencing all of RH’s pals apologism, a report which just coincidentally was referenced in an ‘interview’ by one of RH’s most ardent supporters days later, I would like to interest you in a Nigerian inheritance that I could access if only you would send me $10000 and all your banking information.
@Meredith
You’re not wrong. Apologies for the grumpy post. And honestly, I’d try to figure out a way to save them both, then doubt my decision later.
Matt Y on September 7, 2015 at 2:04 pm said:
Once you get the meat into the smoker, you should have on the order of 8 to 11 hours to write at length, depending on what kind of meat you’re bbq-ing
@Ann Somerville
Edouard Briere-Allard doesn’t read like Benjanun Sriduangkaew to me. The style is a bit too clear and the spelling is generally good, which is not how BS operates. I agree the whole thing is a sock-puppet production, but I’d guess it is from (or, at minimum, heavily edited by) one of her cronies who obviously has access to the full archive of BS’s BS. My guess would be Alex Dally Macfarlane.
Athena said
Indeed. I mean, look at these tweets, quoted at FFA. This is typical of her rhetoric
BenjanunSriduangkaew ?@benjanun_s 7h7 hours ago
If you know anyone who’s a part of running FFA, please kindly let them know they’re a piece of shit and needs to stop breathing.
BenjanunSriduangkaew ?@benjanun_s 7h7 hours ago
Anyone who participates in or endorses FFA needs to gargle on raw sewage for the rest of their miserable, shitty lives.
Now imagine that kind of thing bombarded at you personally for weeks, even months. That’s what she did (not that it was all that she did) to people. And that was in *public*. Imagine what she did behind the scenes.
@Ann Somerville
It is fascinating, in a repellent sort of way, to see the carefully faked BS persona increasingly defaulting to the behavior and verbal thuggery of RequiresHate as this whole process goes on.
“it all just reads like a lot of she said-she said wank that at most amounts to RH being a jerk and a bully.”
FFS. Let’s ignore the people whose careers she destroyed. The people she drove to attempt suicide. The people she blackmailed. The people she frightened off the internet.
Yeah, she’s just a jerk. ::rolles eyes::
Okay, here’s a good not-recipe: Slow-roasted tomatoes.
Get as many large tomatoes as you can reasonably fit in one or two layers in your oven, cut them in half, and put them cut side up in an oven dish (you want enough of a lip that the juices won’t go everywhere, but otherwise it doesn’t matter much).
Add your preferred herbs and/or spices to the cut side of the tomatoes – I used a fairly generic Italian herb mix plus ground up dried garlic – you can use whatever you like the sound of but you want to use a lot of them, and then drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.
Put in the oven at a low temperature (I think I usually use 120C, but whatever feels right to you) and leave them for four hours or until they’re soft and slightly shriveled looking. They will taste AMAZING, especially the next day, they’ll be sweet and intense and will have absorbed all the flavourings you put on.
Use them for sandwiches, shove one on top of a burger, whizz them up into a sauce, chop them up and thow them into a salad, eat them out of the bowl with your fingers. They last in the fridge for about a week
because I’ve always eaten them all by the end of it.Thank you to whoever filled in the goodreads links for the Fantasy Brackets! I’m putting together a webpage, and I want to know: what do I call us? Are we the File770 … denizens? commentariat? (sounds kinda pretentious) gang?
And Kyra, what kind of dice are the Dice of Doom? How many did you use, how many sides?
@Doctor Science
I believe the technical term is “wretched hive of scum and villainy”.
I like “commentariat” but I admit that’s because I keep thinking “Secretariat” instead of “proletariat” and it fits because y’all are SO GODDAMN FAST with the comments.
This thread looks like the best curated list of post-apocalyptic novels I’ve ever seen. My reading list just doubled.
Anyone bring up One Second After yet? EMP attack on America, grim but not overcooked.
I usually use commentariat, because I like the rhythm. 🙂
Nobody picked up on my Jackson Mac Low reference this morning. I am disappoint. Perhaps this place really is as terrible as apparently everybody else on the internet says it is.
SocialInjusticeWorrier:
We’re definitely “denizens” of the “wretched hive of scum and villainy”. I think I’ll default to “commentariat”, with DotWHoS&V for variation.
Trash-80 over here, with cassette tape drive.
Though I still have the E.L.F. my dad built. I bring it out at Christmas and put it on the mantlepiece.
I usually go with “Filers” though I have a soft spot for “Vilers” too. But it’s a bit conceptual.
“The File770 bibliophiles”?
“BenjanunSriduangkaew ?@benjanun_s 7h7 hours ago
Anyone who participates in or endorses FFA needs to gargle on raw sewage for the rest of their miserable, shitty lives.”
This is funny. It would make my day. Ok, I’m odd, maybe.
I want to see what VD’s mail looks like.
I’d probably be rolling on the floor.
Star Wars: Aftermath Amazon Rankings
#2 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Movies > Genre Films
#2 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > TV, Movie, Video Game Adaptations
#3 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Opera
Right now I’m imagining Chuck Wendig paraphrasing Kameron Hurley’s comment about making a $13,000 face.
@Doctor Science
I quite like ailurocrats.
I would go and add The Man Without Qualities to the re-read pile, but I’m too busy trying to work out how you’re supposed to vote on a popular award if you don’t have any preferences. Close your eyes and stick a pin in the ballot?
Oh, Filers is nice. I’ve seen Villains used, too.
I’ve been on this blog so long that back in RL
I’ve been taken for lost and gone
And unknown for a long long time
Fell in love months ago
With an SJW
From the wretched and scummy hive
Hive of the Filers and Villains
(I’ll see myself out.)
Just slogged through “Seveneves”. The opening line is a stunner:
“The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason.”
Unfortunately it’s headfirst down the gravity well after that.
– gur cnpvat vf nyy bire gur znc – fbzr guvatf ner qrfpevorq va rkpehpvngvat qrgnvy, bguref unaq jnirq njnl
– Nf bguref unir fnvq, vg vf guerr obbxf wnzzrq gbtrgure – vavgvny fprar frggvat, vasbqhzc zvqqyr, gura n 5,000 lrne whzc gb gur raq. Neetu.
– V’q engure unir arj punenpgref, engure guna n irel guvayl qvfthvfrq Wrss Ormbf naq Arvy Qrtenffr Glfba
– V thrff V fubhyq unir xabja sebz gur gvgyr, ohg tbvat qbja gb 8 erznvavat uhznaf vf gbb fznyy n onfr gb ohvyq onpx hc sebz, rfcrpvnyyl nf ur xvyyf bss 1500 va gjb lrnef gura gurfr 8 zvenphybhfyl fheivir (va gur zvqqyr unaqjnivhz frpgvba)
– Ubj gur uryy ner nyy gur nepuvirf fhccbfrq gb unir fheivirq sbe 2 gvzrf erpbeqre uvfgbel, jura rirelguvat vf qvtvgny naq lbh qba’g unir gur znahsnpghevat snpvyvgvrf gb erohvyq UQQf naq qhcyvpngr bire gur qngn, va beovg, jvgu pbfzvp cnegvpyrf xabpxvat uryy bhg bs rirelguvta
– Neeettuu, gur vasbqhzcf, gur vasbqhzcf, gura ercrngvat gur vasbqhzcf yngre.
– gur jubyr Ntrag guvat ohttrq gur penc bhg bs zr – vg srryf yvxr vg jnf fhccbfrq gb or n cybg cbvag, V guvax, ohg frrzf gb unir orra nonaqbarq ohg gur fghof yrsg va vg. Vg jnf qvfphffrq n ovg va zlfgrevbhf grezf ng gur ortvaavat, qvfnccrnerq sbe 700 cntrf, gura cbccrq onpx ng gur raq, nyy jvgubhg erfbyhgvba.
– ribyivat vagb frn-tbvat znzznyf va 1,100 lrnef. V ubcr Arny vf va gur jvgarff cebgrpgvba cebtenz sebz nyy gur vengr ribyhgvbanel ovbybtvfgf.
– V qvqa’g ernyyl pner nobhg nal bs gur punenpgref, fb yvivat be qlvat bs
gur vaqvivqhny barf (ncneg sebz AqTG) qvqa’g nssrpg zr.
– Frr Puneyvr Fgebff sbe zvavzhz grpuabybtl yriry cbchyngvba fvmrf – vg’f whfg abg srnfvoyr gung uhznavgl pbhyq unir fheivirq.
At least, if it does manage to win a Hugo, a straight up fantasy novel will win it for the first time in a long time. I’m going to do all I can in my power to stop it winning, which is, er, not nominating or voting for it.
Chris S,
You consider 2012 to be “a long time”?
Wretches.
I would go and add The Man Without Qualities to the re-read pile, but I’m too busy trying to work out how you’re supposed to vote on a popular award if you don’t have any preferences
Go look up a bunch of Amazon reviews and vote their preferences. It is the time-honored Tuomas way.
I have surfaced from a day of copyediting (me being paid to work on someone else’s articles, not edits of my own writing) to find that Lucy and I have the same tomato preferences.
Unfortunately, the tomato farmer who sometimes comes to my local farmers’ market with Paul Robeson and Black Krim and Mortgage Lifter and numerous other named varieties hasn’t been here yet this summer. (Last year he only came to us late in the year, so I haven’t given up hope.) There are tomatoes at the market, but they’re not labeled by variety: at most it says “heirloom” or tells me whether they’re organic.
(No stfnal content here, sorry.)
But … what are the Amazon reviews based on?
My God. It’s preferences all the way down!
@ alexvdl I don’t understand your question.
Chris S:
Thank you for the more detailed spoilers. I *am* an evolutionary geneticist, so the title had already given me the feeling it wasn’t going to be pretty — but it’s worse than I thought. ugh.
Frirarirf vzcyvrf gurer ner bayl frira jbzra jub yrnir qrfpraqragf, evtug? Ubj znal zra? Vs gurer’f bayl bar gurl ner qbbzrq, trargvpnyyl.
If *I* were in charge of a “rescue humanity in space” project, here’s what I would do:
– the crew would be entirely made up of people with functioning uteri. That is, all biological women under the age of menarche. They would be chosen without regard to race, solely for criteria like healthiness, intelligence, psychological flexibility, training, etc. Astronaut-type stuff.
– they would be accompanied by a very large frozen sperm bank. The sperm bank would be at least 1/3 from sub-Saharan Africa, and one-third to one-half of that would be from Khoisan and related populations. This would maximize the amount of genetic diversity going into the future, and keep the effective population size as large as possible — basically, as large as the number of original crew.
– during the Years of Exile, the rules for children would be: only XX embryos. No full siblings — if you have two children, they must be from different sperm donors.
This scheme keeps each mitochondrial line separate — each of the original crew (who survives) is the ancestor of a matriline with her mitochondria only. So, when things improve enough that they can move back to Earth, then it would be best to have males again, once they’ve built up a population large enough for widespread recombination.
@Jim Henley: Hey, I got it! I actually know his son pretty well.
Kurt:
Wretches! You’re right! how could I forget.
@Chris S,
You said it’s been a long while since pure fantasy won the Hugo Award. I would count Among Others in ’12 as fantasy, and before that Mieville’s City and the City in ’10, and Gaiman’s Graveyard book in ’09.
@Rail and others: you have to install the developer version of Firefox for Android in order to edit css scripts in-browser (rather annoyingly).
Will R: that’s exactly what I liked about Station 11 also.
Seveneves Spoilers:
Hz, npghnyyl, abar bs gur zra znxr vg. Ohg gurl qb unir n avpr trargvpvfg jvgu n pbzcyrgr yno naq n qngnonfr bs uhzna QAN fb fur pna juvc hc xvqf.
That wasn’t the most… er… difficult part of the story to buy. There were lots of bits that were a bit hard to handle. The suspension of disbelief has to be high to read this book through.
I don’t consider The City and the City to be “a straight up fantasy novel”, but The Graveyard Book certainly is, and it’s only been ten years since Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell won.
> “And Kyra, what kind of dice are the Dice of Doom? How many did you use, how many sides?”
The Dice of Doom are a full set of translucent polyhedral gaming dice in a variety of pleasing colors, including a four-sided die, two six-sided dice, an eight-sided die, two ten-sided dice, a twelve-sided die, and a twenty-sided die. The four-sided die was made from the heart of my most courageous victim, and the six-sided dice were crafted from the eyeballs of my most perceptive one. The eight-sided die I plucked from the gall bladder of a murdered god who now has no name, the ten-sided dice I fashioned from his hands and feet, and the twenty-sided die I forged out of the remnants of his head. The twelve-sided die I ordered off of Amazon.com. All eight dice were shaped in the tidal forces of a massive black hole that swallowed a galaxy the last of whose light reached your planet three billion years ago, and then tempered in the still-cooling blood of the last sabre-tooth tiger. They are alpha and omega, thesis and antithesis, creation and destruction. They are the rock and the chain and the lightning. They cannot be escaped, cannot be reasoned with, and know neither fear nor pity nor remorse. Their shake is the motion of the earth when it cracks, their roll is the sound of a stock market crashing, their numbers are the ineluctable pronouncements of a dreary deterministic universe that cares nothing, nothing, nothing for you. I normally use them to play Pathfinder.
Laura:
That might not have been the most difficult part for *you* to buy, but it’s very likely that I can’t make my brain go there. That plus the later evolutionary stuff, which, just, NO.
My assembly language class was *still* targeted at the 360 in 1985, and it was still something you’d have to do in the computer labs with long turnaround times (fortunately not keypunch, but you had to pick up your output from the printout desk), but I noticed that the macro instructions had nearly a one-to-one mapping with Integer BASIC, so I worked out all the bugs on my Apple ][ and then translated it.
Which reminds me – todays t-shirt is thanks to the wretched hivist who recommended Adventure Girls.
Kyra:
Thank you, mithreth. *lurches off*
Anyone bring up One Second After yet? EMP attack on America, grim but not overcooked.
I tired to get into it–I do like end-of-the-world books but kept getting hit in the face by the ‘liberals are weak and going to die’ theme.
i do prefer “Day of the Triffids”; “Alas, Babylon”–I read that in the late 60s and since I lived ten miles from Offutt in Omaha, it had an effect; ‘Triumph’ by Philip Wylie and “When Worlds Collide”.
@PhilRM:
Awesome! One of the things I did with an early computer (but not my first) was run Hugh Kenner’s compile of Travesty. (I think he wrote it in PASCAL.) My favorite single word that popped out of running it on my own poems was “endiscriming”. Ironically, I was something of a New Formalist wannabe. But then I learned about Mac Low from Henry Taylor, who certainly knew his way around a sonnet.
Post-nuclear novels? Level 7, by Mordecai Rushwald.
Yeah, everyone dies.
Post-nuclear novels? Barefoot Gen.
@ Kurt & Doctor Science:
Or Scum. As in:
“I am, in all modesty, a wretched scum, one of the most villainous working today.”