Random Thursday Sasquan

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If I have to post all my comments pushing one key at a time on the Kindle I will but I won’t tackle that til later. The hotel business center computer has unusually limited capabilities (think — no right-click mouse commands). Perhaps an alternative will arise at the meetup.

Want to compliment Sasquan on the very lovely souvenir canvas bag the reg packet material came in. Green bag with a big black pocket which has the con’s bird logo in white.

And David Doering told me the shuttles intended to help moby riders have been suffering from freeloaders. So the drivers have been told to seek out those with mobys as a priority. As a result, the shuttles are now nicknamed Ahab…

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151 thoughts on “Random Thursday Sasquan”

  1. I predict THREE-BODY PROBLEM will win Best Novel. Although I think it’s a close race with The Goblin Emperor, my wholly subjective impression is that it has a little more support among regular voters. And since the ever-Rabid VD announced it’s his top pick on the final ballot, if his followers follow, which seems to be what they do, then that’s an added batch of votes for Cixin Liu.

    But I agree with Kyra’s predictions about Best Novella, Novelette, Related Work, Short Story, Fan Writer, Fanzine, Pro Artist, and the Campbell.

    I hope Kyra is right about best podcast, because I think Tea & Jeopardy deserves it. And since I hope I may call Emma a friend, I feel a person interest in this one.

    I particularly feel a personal interest in the editor Hugos, since my father is up for Short Form and Sheila Gilbert, who co-owns my publisher (DAW Books) and whom I have known and respected for years, is up for Long Form. I also think that their wins would be well-deserved in each case, and that neither one of these extremely accomplished professionals needed the Puppies to get what is, in each case, their third nominations for Best Editor in these two respective categories.

  2. But because I’m not a weasel, I do have victory and defeat conditions.

    I generally agree with those. The only thing I would change is that I wouldn’t consider a win for Gilbert to be a defeat.

  3. @Bruce: So very sorry about Montano. I believe animals know when they’re loved, so I strongly suspect he knew it right up until the end.

    @Ursula: LAWN CRAYFISH. You do understand these are going in my current fantasy novel.

    Highlights from Worldcon!

    *Kaffee Klatches w/ the Nielsen Haydens, literary beer with Pat Cadigan, Kaffee Klatch with Mike Resnick, who is a master storyteller. Mike’s description, in detail, of how the 1968 Worldcon went more and more awry was brilliant (this is the one back when the Guest of Honor gave a speech before they handed out the Hugos. No speech had been longer than 30 minutes… until that year’s guest, Philip Jose Farmer, decided to speak.

    For 2 hours.

    And then Harlan Ellison started interrupting Robert (Silverberg?), who was hosting, every time a Dangerous Vision nominee was read aloud as one of the finalists in the category to specifically auction off original manuscripts of the stories.

    I think they finished handing out the Hugos at 1 AM. In Arizona. In 90 degree weather. With no air conditioning.

    Favorite quote so far, from Pat Cadigan: “I was nominated for my first Hugo, and then 20 years went by… nothing. Then I was nominated again, and someone asked me how I kept going. I said, ‘because I’m not a p-ssy.”

    Mike, if that’s too vulgar, you can edit further, but it does come directly from a Hugo-winner. 🙂

    More highlights: Getting fiction-workshopped by 3 pros.
    File770 meetup.
    Making Light meetup.
    Meeting David Gerrold.

  5. Laura Resnick on August 21, 2015 at 7:19 pm said:

    I predict THREE-BODY PROBLEM will win Best Novel. Although I think it’s a close race with The Goblin Emperor, my wholly subjective impression is that it has a little more support among regular voters. And since the ever-Rabid VD announced it’s his top pick on the final ballot, if his followers follow, which seems to be what they do, then that’s an added batch of votes for Cixin Liu.

    I think that is likely and also that it would be a good win for the Hugo Awards. I should note that I don’t like the notion of something being ‘good’ for an award as a reason for voting for it but having said that (and as everything really is all over bar the announcement and shouting) I think it would be good for the award if a translation from a non-Western author wins. It shows how big the scope of the award can be.

  6. Lowlights:
    *They moved the location of the pitch session I was going to have without putting up a sign, or telling me in any way until *after* I’d left for the business meeting. Come on, guys. (At least they scheduled a make-up session tomorrow.)

    *The absolutely pointless opening slideshow under music in opening ceremonies on Weds. So pointless, and presented without context, that I was convinced they were having technical problems backstage, and was wondering ‘what the hell is going on?’

    *Getting a rejection letter, via email, for a play I submitted to the Lark immediately before my workshop. Timing! Aristotle!

    *The following conversation, on an elevator (not puppy-related):

    FELLOW WORLDCON-GOER: There looked like there were some great short films playing at Worldcon. I wish I’d had a chance to see them. Maybe they could release a DVD. Do you know if they’re allowed to? (ed–so far so good. Not a bad idea at all.)

    ME: Sure, if the filmmakers are okay with that.

    FWC: Someone should do that. (ed– uh-oh.)

    ME (having burned a lot of DVDs recently for LA BEER): Well, the problem with DVD burning is that it can take a long time. LIke, 3 hours per DVD.

    FWC: Not if they use one of those professional machines to burn a lot of DVDs at once! Like rock music studios!

    ME: Well, I think the issue, do the volunteers have access to one of those machines?

    FWC: Well, no. They’d have to pay for it out of the budget. (me: FACEPALM).

    ME: Yeah, but this is an all-volunteer-run convention. They don’t have the money to do that.

    (FWC is momentarily silent.)

    FWC (very irritated): Well, they would if they took pre-paid orders for it!

    (FWC flounces away, triumphantly, completely ignorant of the massive amount of expense and volunteer-hours this would involve, and with a massive sense of entitlement.)

  9. @Aaron: You mean Weisskopf winning, right? I thought about making her a tie after I posted, but it seemed a lame move. Plus, I have a notion, based on little more than her “fuggheads” essay, that she winked at SP3 behind the scenes.

  10. @Jim Henley:

    What’s up with “fuggheads” anyway? I know what it means and I know where it comes from, its history and all.

    But I get the weirdest impression it’s recently being used as a dogwhistle word, possibly as a sort of password to establish bona fides. I don’t wish to start an argument about who is using it and who they are using it against, but … I have seen and wondered at the use recently.

  11. You mean Weisskopf winning, right?

    No, I would consider that a marginal defeat.

    You listed English and/or Johnson winning as counting as a marginal victory. I’d probably put Gilbert winning in that category as well.

  12. “FWC flounces away, triumphantly, completely ignorant of the massive amount of expense and volunteer-hours this would involve, and with a massive sense of entitlement.”

    Dear god. One of the many reasons I would hate being at this convention.

  13. @Peace – I don’t think you’re imagining things, but hell if I know what to make of it.

    @Mary Frances – Thank you! Couldn’t do it without MCA.

  14. RedWombat: …on second thought, might lead to hypoxia.

    Kathodus: Great, now the Puppies are going to think you’re calling them homopoxic.

    Kathodus, Please accept your rocket-shaped Internet Trophy for the day.

  15. Peace, last year Toni Weisskopf had a guest post on, I believe, Hoyt’s blog, saying that those who disapproved of the SP2 antics were fuggheads. This is a rough paraphrase from memory, but that’s why the term will call me up in connection with her.

  16. @Aaron: I was thinking for a second that Gilbert winning counted as a victory by implication since I didn’t call her out as a defeat condition. I guess she was a slate nominee though, so at best her winning an award reads out as a tie the way I have it set up.

  17. Hey, by my calculations we’ll be in mid-ceremony this time tomorrow!

    (Oh please, let it end soon.)

  21. I was given a green badge ribbon which says:

    Social Justice Barbarian
    Literacy is optional
    Equality is mandatory

    The shirt at the dealer’s table has the letters “SJW” inside a Superman-logo-shaped frame and is pretty cool. I’ve already shelled out for 3 shirts and am debating whether to acquire one of these for myself.

  22. eh, SJW, SJ Paladin, SJ Wizard….

    …I long ago realized that these days I’m not much of a SJW – these days I’m more of a SJ REMF.

  23. Well, I can say with complete accuracy that I was the SJW before shifting titles to become the SJWC, and that predates the Puppies by a few years.

    (My business cards still carry the old “webmaster” title, though.)

  24. Since I can’t be at WorldCon, I’ve been showing my partner Star Trek’s “Errand of Mercy”. I’ve emphasized to her that the conflict is between Kirk’s orders from StarFleet, and his desire to protect the helpless Organians…

    She’s a bit annoyed at Kirk’s patronizing attitude…

  25. Question. Since some puppies came out strongly against Helsinki can we use site selection as a predictor of the percentage of puppy hugo votes?

  26. @Greg: While your account of the 1968 Hugo ceremonies tallies with others that I’ve read in most details, I find myself unable to avoid pointing out that the Worldcon that year was not in Arizona, it was in Berkeley. (I was living not far away at the time, and might have attended were it not that I was only about four months old.)

  27. As I’m away from reliable data connections for the next week or so, I think I need to play my God Stalk card.

  28. @Iphinome:

    Question. Since some puppies came out strongly against Helsinki can we use site selection as a predictor of the percentage of puppy hugo votes?

    Wait, isn’t Helsinki the home of Castrata House? Why would Puppies object to a Worldcon being held there?

  29. @DavidGoldfarb: Yup. Apologies. I want to say Arizona was ’78, and PNH and TNH gave me the rundown on that disaster. They merge in the mind, you know…

    @Ann: There’s a reason that’s a *lowlight,* though, and the highlights are, like, 95% of the con. Even the Business Meetings have been bizarrely fun. If the worst things are a boring slideshow, *one* annoying conversation, and one changed location, the con is going pretty well.

    Side note: Mike Resnick is also passionate about helping young writers, and came up with an ingenious way to do so: publish a new magazine with 6 new short stories by new writers. Problem: nobody will buy new writers. Buy 4 *reprint* stories by famous authors and put famous author’s names on covers (reprints are much cheaper)–new writers get paid, magazine makes profit. Simple, yet genius.

    I would bet money Mike would’ve been nominated without the Puppies, and will be nominated again. That, and the fact that he’s already got, what, 8?

  30. @Ray Radlein There were some grumbles that Helsinki was a plot to hold worldcon outside the US and push through anti-puppy rules changes by people who have no clue how that process works and don’t care to learn because truthiness.

    Those people threw their support behind DC.

  31. Winter Soldier was top of my ballot, until I saw Tom Cruise is Repeatedly Shot in the Head

  34. @Ray: And run over by a truck, and….

    Same here.

    Well, and that Winter Soldier assumed a familiarity with the previous movies.

    And, honestly? Power armor. I saw the trailer and immediately went to my Starship Troopers-loving hubby and said “You’ll want to see this.”

    I assume the Puppies didn’t nominate it because he wasn’t a Manly Man from the beginning. Because seriously. Power armor.

  35. I assume the Puppies didn’t nominate it because he wasn’t a Manly Man from the beginning.

    Or they simply forgot about it. Like they forgot about the Heinlein biography. Or one of Williamson’s stories. Or they didn’t know about it until after the voting. Like they didn’t know about The Three-Body Problem.

    The slate makers seem to have been remarkably ill-informed.

  36. I think Tom Cruise was drawn to the materal because it was a story sbout a coward who redeems himself by becoming ….Tom Cruise.

  37. I think Tom Cruise was drawn to the materal because it was a story sbout a coward who redeems himself by becoming ….Tom Cruise.

    I think that they told him that he’d get to spend a quarter of the movie either running at the camera or doing the patented Tom Cruise smug grin/half laugh thing, and after he heard that he offered to pay them for his time.

  39. I think Tom Cruise was drawn to the materal because it was a story sbout a coward who redeems himself by becoming ….Tom Cruise.

    Every report I’ve heard over the years is that he really likes doing stunts. The scene in EoT where he mistimes rolling under the truck and gets squished? That’s there because someone on the crew noticed during dailies that Cruise mistimed the roll for the stunt and commented that if it had been real, he’d be dead. The director said “Let’s use it!” and asked Bill Paxton to do the reaction shot.

  40. Speaking of just finishing books, I just finished Simon R. Green’s latest-until-Tuesday “Ghost Finders” book, Voices from Beyond. I’m almost surprised it didn’t make the SP3 slate; it’s a faster read that stands alone better than the Butcher, apparently a better book than the KJA, the author’s published a ton of genre books (and not with Tor), it’s got guns and attitude a-plenty (although they’re just “guns” rather than being described in intimate detail), and it’s as much SF as Lovecraft is, what with beings from Out There encroaching on our dimension. There’s even (very limited) time travel! No spaceship on the cover (or in the book), but one can’t have everything. Still, it seems to be exactly the kind of book they’d like.

    I loved it immensely, but I would have been disappointed if it had appeared on their slate. I really admire the way Green infuses his specific attitude into this series, both in dialogue and description, and he has a knack for leavening Massive Dread with wit and innuendo that really makes the series work for me.

  41. Congratulations to Helsinki!

    I’ll admit that I was pulling for DC, if only for the prospect of a WorldCon I might have a chance to attend before I retire, but the Helsinki bid will be good for fandom and I don’t doubt the Finns will put on a great con.

  42. I saw today that Bradford stated she was happy the Helsinki bid won because the “shenanigans” of the DC17 sponsors meant she would never go to a DC WorldCon. Does anyone have any idea what she is talking about?

  46. Huh. Well, I haven’t heard anything untoward about the DC bid itself. Wonder what’s up.

  47. Well, I haven’t heard anything untoward about the DC bid itself. Wonder what’s up.

    I haven’t either, and I’ve been paying a fair amount of attention (I live near D.C. and am a member of an organization that officially supported the bid).

  49. I mean, sure, some people I wouldn’t care to associate with appear to have thrown their weight behind the DC bid for peculiar reasons.

    But that’s not the fault of the bid. The bid itself and the people involved in it seemed completely straightforward to me.

    I wonder what I’m missing. I’m kind of curious to know what Bradford is referring to.

  50. Since it’s Bradford, my first thought would be that the “shenanigans” have something to do with Requires Hate.

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