Santa Claus vs. P.U.P.P.Y. 6/25

aka Fetch-22

In the roundup today: Francis Turner, Greg Ketter, Kristel Autencio, Lyle Hopwood, Abigail Nussbaum, Ridley, Cheryl Morgan, Rachel Neumeier, Brandon Kempner, Kevin Standlee, Lis Carey, Spacefaring Kitten, JT Richardson, Laura “Tevan” Gjovaag, Rebekah Golden, Tim Matheson, Damien G. Walter and less identifiable others. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Dave Clark and Will Reichard.)

 

Francis Turner on The Otherwhere Gazette

“The Future of Tor” – June 25

The posts inspired me to take a look at my book buying habits and it turns out I jumped the shark gun on the boycott thing because it seems I’ve been boycotting Tor for a while now. Not intentionally, but that’s probably more serious for Tor and its owners than a straightforward determination to boycott. You see Tor don’t actually publish books I want to read and, Kevin J Anderson apart, haven’t done so for a few years.

 

Greg Ketter on Facebook – June 25

[Greg Ketter of DreamHaven Books is offering Tor hardcover books at 40% off through the end of July to show support for Irene Gallo. For locals, the store address is: DreamHaven Books, 2301 E. 38th St., Minneapolis, MN 55406.]

Alright. Enough’s Enough…

I’ve been following some of the Hugo controversy and the follow on Irene Gallo / TOR dust-up and I’m truly tired of the demands for Irene’s ouster as some mis-guided and some other downright evil people threaten boycotts. It’s completely disgusting and JUST PLAIN WRONG and, well, I can do something about it in terms of sales of Tor books.

From now until the end of July, I will sell all TOR hardcover books at 40% off cover price. If I don’t hav…e it in stock, I’ll order it. You can come in the store or you can order by phone or email. This should make it easier to support Irene and negate any minimal effect the boycotters may have. A letter in support of Irene to the very same people that Vox Day and Peter Grant and others are asking you to send hate mail to would also go a long way.

I’ve been quiet on the whole subject mostly because I just couldn’t be bothered to spend any time on it. I wasn’t worried about adverse effects on my own business since I sincerely doubt the kinds of trollish behavior I’m seeing is from any of my customers. I’m amazed that the biggest complainers would have bought any books from Tor, ever, since they admit their reading tastes are generally contrary to everything that Tor holds dear (this is a totally facetious statement since I have no idea what it could really mean – I’ve been buying Tor books for my store since they first started and from what I can see, they publish books that they can sell. Period.)

So, I’m declaring July to be TOR BOOKS MONTH around here and I wish you all good reading.

 

Kristel Autencio on BookRiot

“The Brave New World of Spec Fic Magazines: A Primer” – June 25

Tor.com

Let’s address the giant, unhappy elephant in the room. When I started building this primer early in June, I automatically rounded up some of my favorite short stories published on the Tor website, acquired by keen editors such as Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Ellen Datlow and Anne Vandermeer. I was going to talk about how each story is paired with some of the most arresting artwork in the genre, thanks in large part to the art direction by Irene Gallo. That was before Tor publisher Tom Doherty proceeded to throw Irene Gallo under the bus, succumbing to an extended campaign by so-called Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, whose reason for existence is their opposition to the fact that more people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and women are taking up space in the SFF landscape. Rioter Brenna Clark Gray goes more in-depth with this story.

This is not the recommendation I had wanted to write.

Some who are appalled by these developments are disavowing support for Tor, since it is an institution that would rather appease genre reactionaries than support their own employees who are doing vital work. This is a valid response.  But Tor (both the website and the publishing house) is also home to stories that Irene Gallo and other people like her are working hard to champion, the very voices that the Puppy Industrial Complex are saying should not be recognized by the Hugos or the Nebulas. It is your prerogative to not give Tor any of your money or your clicks, but I urge you to take note of these names, all of whom I first encountered through this publication: ….

 

Lyle Hopwood on Peromyscus

“’Do you mean to throw a level playing field under the bus?’” – June 24

In an impassioned argument against the proposal for a Hugo for “Sagas”, a professional SF writer writes:

Under the bus screenshot

“Do you mean to throw a level playing field under the bus?” I don’t know whether that fantastic image makes me more likely to buy their work or less. I’ve been thinking about the phrase to throw someone under the bus recently, as it was used approximately 16,993 times in the discussions about publisher Tor’s open letter disavowing Irene Gallo’s Facebook comment, which, since it referred to her by name, was widely considered to be throwing her under the bus.

 

 

Ridley on Stay With Me, Go Places

“Doing Slightly More Than Nothing About The Hugo Awards” – June 24

For the first time in my life, I’ll be voting on the Hugo Awards this year.

I’ve been reading science fiction for several decades now, but this is the first time I’ve felt strongly enough about the awards to get involved. One vote isn’t much, but I feel like it’s important to do what little bit I can. I’ll share my ballot after I submit it.

 

Cheryl Morgan on Cheryl’s Mewsings

“Archipelacon – Day 1” – June 25

Thus far I have done one panel. It was about the Puppies and what to do about them. Hopefully I managed to convey the fact that there’s not much any individual can do because of the determined way in which WSFS refuses to give anyone any power. All that Kevin, or I, or anyone else can do is try to make things better and hope that sufficient people come along with us. No matter what we do, large numbers of people will think we failed, because so many people refuse to believe that there isn’t a secret cabal running everything.

 

Brandon Kempner on Chaos Horizon

“A Best Saga Hugo: An Imagined Winner’s List, 2005-2014” – June 25

I’m using the assumption that Hugo voters would vote for Best Saga like they vote for Best Novel and other categories. Take Connie Willis: she has 24 Hugo nominations and 11 wins. I figure the first time she’s up for a Best Saga, she’d win. This means that my imagined winners are very much in keeping with Hugo tradition; you may find that unexciting, but I find it hard to believe that Hugo voters would abandon their favorites in a Best Saga category. I went through each year and selected a favorite. Here’s what I came up with as likely/possible winners (likely, not most deserving). I’ve got some explanation below, and it’s certainly easy to flip some of these around or even include other series. Still, this is gives us a rough potential list to see if it’s a worthy a Hugo: ….

 

Rachel Neumeier

“Just about ready to vote for the Hugo Awards” – June 25

[Reviews all nominated fiction, movies, and pro artists. Then continues with comments about Hugo rules changes.]

The best post I’ve seen about the situation with the Hugos this year, incidentally, is this recent one by Rich Horton at Black Gate. I think he is dead right about the desirability of reforming the Hugo Award so that any one person can only nominate so many works per category, and then the categories contain more works than that. I don’t think I would say that anyone can nominate up to five works and then there will be ten nominees, though. Ten is a lot. I think it is too many. My preference would be: you can nominate only four works per category, and there will be six (or, fine, eight if necessary) nominees. That should really help break the power of both bloc voting and over-the-top fan clubs to put one author on the ballot five times in a single year.

I would also be in favor of a more specific reform: No author can have more than two works up for a Hugo in one year, or more than one work per category. If more than that make the cut, the author must choose two total, one per category, and the rest must be eliminated from the ballot. No one – no one – ever has or ever will write one-fifth of all the best stories produced in a given year. It is absolutely ridiculous to allow a ballot that implies that is possible, and worse to deny exposure to other works that might otherwise be nominated….

 

Kevin Standlee on Fandom Is My Way Of Life

“Procedural Notice: Recording Committee of the Whole” – June 25

I have mentioned a few times and in a few places that at this year’s Business Meeting, what I call the “technical” discussion of complex proposals such as E Pluribus Hugo (and possibly Popular Ratification) might best be handled by having the meeting go into what is known as “Committee of the Whole.” A proponent of the proposal would then hold the floor during the COTW and do a Q&A-style discussion. Such discussions are procedurally more difficult to do in the main debate because of the rules regarding who can speak and how often; however, the two proposals I’ve named (and possibly others to come) are sufficiently complex that I expect that many members simply want to ask the sponsors of the motions what the proposals mean…..

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Interstellar, screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, directed by Christopher Nolan (Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Legendary Pictures, Lynda Obst Productions, Syncopy)” – June 25

interstellar

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form 2015 Hugo nominee Interstellar is visually magnificent, exciting, thought-provoking, and a bit long. It pains me to say that last bit. I wanted to love every second of it. In the end, I couldn’t, though I did love most of it. Parts of it did just drag, and there’s no way around that.

 

Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens

“The Bondesque Superhero Action of Captain America: The Winter Soldier” – June 25

All Captain America is good for seems to be posturing and telling everybody what’s the moral thing to do (in addition to throwing his shield around which looks sillier in movies than in comic books). I almost rooted for the comically sinister Nazis.

Score: 4/10.

 

JT Richardson on JT’s German Adventure

Hugos 2015 Read – Best Graphic Story – June 25

Zombie Nation

I am, and have long been*, a MASSIVE comics fan. My tastes generally run to superhero comics, though I’ve dipped my toe into the more “serious” waters — Maus, Persepolis, Blankets***, Logicomix****, and the AWESOME Cartoon History of the Universe. But this year’s noms are a pretty nice mix — One Marvel, 3 Image (Hooray for creator-owned!) and one webcomic. DC was too busy planning its semi-annual reboot to generate nominees*****. Best Graphic Story — As a long-time reader of superhero, especially Marvel, comics, I’m definitely biased toward the capes. But this year’s noms only have one (which I have already read, and loved). Here are my thoughts, in reverse alphabetical order: ….

 

Reading SFF

“2015 Hugo Awards Reading: Why Science is Never Settles – Tedd Roberts (Best Related Work)” – June 25

Apart from that, my main criticism of the article regarding its Hugo nomination is the fact that its SFF-relatedness is nothing more than a single reference to one of Eric Flint‘s novels. So, even though this is a good article, I don’t think it should be on the Hugo ballot as a “Best Related Work”, irrespective of whether it was published by SFF publisher Baen or whether it contains a SFF-al reference.

In conclusion, this nominee will not appear on my ballot, it should never have been nominated in this category as I don’t consider it to be a “Related Work”.

 

Reading SFF

“2015 Hugo Awards Reading: Turncoat – Steve Rzasa (Short Story)” – June 25

The plot is nothing special and unfortunately for me, the reader, it was predictable how things would turn out very early on (the title of the story was a big give-away, but even without that title the plot design would have been obvious).

Still, the story is good enough that I will place it above No Award.

 

Reading SFF

“2015 Hugo Awards Reading: Wisdom from my Internet – Michael Z. Williamson” – June 23

Wisdom from my Internet is a collection of very short jokes (tweets maybe?) on a variety of subjects, mainly US-American politics though. It self-published by the author in an imprint he fittingly named “Patriarchy Press”. I started reading, then skimming then fast-forwarding through it with short stops to see whether it had improved further on (it hadn’t) until I reached the end. That was fast. And easy to judge: not on my ballot will this thing ever be. No Award. Because:

Are you* serious?

*By “you” I mean Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies, and whoever gets to decide whether a given nominee is an eligible nominee.

 

Laura “Tevan” Gjovaag on Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog

“Hugo Reviewing – Professional Artist” – June 25

[Comments on all five nominees before concluding –]

It’s not hard to figure out that Dillon’s work impressed me the most, by a fairly large margin. I’d then go with DouPonce for my second-place choice. Pollack and Greenwood rank about the same and Reid is last, not because he’s worst, but because his art doesn’t seem to fit for me. I might even mix it up and put Reid above the other two. This is another one I’m going to have to sleep on.

With the exception of Dillon, whose subjects I enjoyed, and Reid, who had a wide variety of subjects, the choice of imagery was fairly standard for the artists. They were cover art for the most part, but they were fairly static. As a comic book reader, I like my art to flow and have some sense of movement… like your mind will fill in the next scene. Pollack, Greenwood and DouPonce had art that felt like it was posed. Dillon’s work was more natural. Reid, of course, is a sequential artist, so he didn’t have that problem.

 

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best Novel: Reviewing Ancillary Sword” – June 24

I’m glad I read Ancillary Sword. It was an interesting book with some very topical thoughts on oppression and distribution of wealth. Anyone who is familiar with the concepts of company towns will find similar motifs in Ancillary Sword. Anyone who read and enjoyed Ancillary Justice will find Ancillary Sword to be a fitting continuation of the story, well written, well thought out, well developed. The compelling questions behind it aren’t as striking as in the first novel which I think is why it falls a little flat comparatively. Still, solidly good military sci-fi in the tradition of Elizabeth Moon and Tanya Huff.

 

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best Graphic Novel: Reviewing Rat Queens” – June 24

I know there’s a lot of nostalgia over D&D right now but personally I’m tired of fictionalized D&D campaigns no matter how clever or well drawn. Throw in a little Lovecraft, add a college dorm element, top it off with some back story and potential for depth, it’s still D&D nostalgia. And nostalgia must be written let it at least have a twist. No twist. Fun, well drawn, nostalgia.

 

Tim Atkinson on Magpie Moth

“Hard science, hot mess: Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem” – June 25

The Three Body Problem was a late arrival to the Hugo ballot this year, being added after withdrawals due to voting slate politics.

The work of one of China’s most prominent science-fiction writers, Liu Cixin, it is actually nearly ten years old. In 2014, it finally penetrated the cultural myopia of the Anglosphere in translation, and is therefore eligible for a Hugo.

And I’m jolly glad of this, since The Three Body Problem is one of the two stand-out novels on the shortlist, along with the very different The Goblin Emperor. Amid space opera and fantasy (urban and classic flavours) it sticks out like a tall poppy because it is full to the brim of ideas.

 

708 thoughts on “Santa Claus vs. P.U.P.P.Y. 6/25

  1. JJ, Google have been doing that for a while now with any LGBT search.

    It’s lovely. So pleased for the Americans. Now can someone come over here and do something about our resident Wanker In Chief, who is busily overriding our civil rights, and denying them to everyone whatever their claim?

  2. Well you know they’re going to claim credit for it if TBP wins, right? After all, Vox insists it’s on his non-existent ballot.

  3. Adding to The Goblin Emperor praise: it’s like answer to all my thoughts “Please just this once let something be good” during House of Cards and ASoIaF/Game of Thrones. TGE has all the politics, intrigue, “weird” social structures and complex relationships I love those things for without being dark.

    (I am currently watching second season of HoC and really feeling need to re-read TGE after ninth episode)

  4. Goblin Emperor is what I’m rooting for. 🙂

    @Gabriel F

    Its old, and its not sf/f, but I loved and adored everything by Noel Streatfield as a little girl, and since I occasionally reread them I know they haven’t been visited by the Suck Fairy. 🙂
    Redwall was a huge favourite (and a factor in my determination to get over fussy eating if that’s a concern)
    Diana Wynne Jones
    Susan Cooper
    Alan Garner
    The Cry of the Icemark is excellent (but I wasn’t so fond of the sequels)
    Anthony Horowitz’s Myths and Legends for a funny take on those stories (and its not just Greek or Roman)

  5. @ Jonathan K Stevens

    Bravo!

    I’m so proud I pushed “Bloodchild” into the Top 15!

    @ Steven Schwartz and everyone else – thank you very much for your replies. I’ll be offline, but will comment later. (Bingo!)

  6. As a test run, I’ll score Brian’s latest:

    In the early days of April, fandom was plunged into war and they were being attacked from Boing Boing to Entertainment Weekly

    Puppies ARE Fandom

    we have liberals, conservatives, moderates, and question marks…

    It’s Not About Politics

    But I think the SP3 leaders deserve some credit for acknowledging the situation while under fire.

    Our Fake Apologies Count

    But I did find the volley of incessant attacks (the pace has now mercifully slackened) appalling

    Wounded Innocence

    as was the apparent trend of holding SP3-slated organizers, authors, or fans, responsible for everything Vox Day…

    Vox Day Doesn’t Matter

    or John C. Wright…

    John C Wright Doesn’t Matter

    Should Addison withdraw because the unabashedly left-leaning Scalzi and GRRM plugged her work

    It’s About Politics

    slates in one form or another have been present since the dawn of time

    Words Mean What I Say They Mean

    I’ve raised specific concerns about EPH

    Concern Trolling

    if you want make the case that by nominating the work of, buying the work of…authors who have views that are found to be abhorrent, genre fans are endorsing or propagating those views, please go ahead and make that case. I’m listening.

    Smarm

  7. @ Meredith

    Redwall was a huge favourite (and a factor in my determination to get over fussy eating if that’s a concern)

    Oh yes, I’ve got e-copies of all my Redwall books because my husband and I are vegetarians (yes, careful and researched vegetarians who get proper nutrition, my husband actually has a disorder that makes red meat dangerous for him to eat) and it’s fun to make “Redwall style” meals… and they don’t contain any meat.

  8. In the early days of April, fandom was plunged into war

    Man, I don’t see how I missed this. It’s a double:

    You Started It
    Sneaky Passive Voice

  9. About to begin the long leg of my flight, but echoing the love for Noel Streatfeild and Brian Jacques.

    Also, adding to the YA/MG recs: Robin Stevens’ Wells & Wong mysteries. Nothing skiffy about them, unless you count the fact that the protags have good imaginations– but they’re standouts for me in terms of the seriousness of the plot, and what Stevens thinks kids can handle. In short: surprisingly complex murders solved by schoolgirls. It shouldn’t work, but it totally does. First in series is Murder Most Unladylike.

  10. It’s always odd to read things like:

    “In the early days of April, fandom was plunged into war and they were being attacked…”

    As if the people being painted as victims here had not slated the Hugos, accused people of fraud and deceit and more. But somehow, we’re supposed to have sympathy for them because they were attacked. They, of course, need show no sympathy for those they attacked, some of whom they’re still trying to get fired for saying things they thought were too mean after an outpouring of insults and bile from these hapless victims who didn’t do anything to bring on such behavior except lie, insult, and try to bogart the Hugos for themselves and their pals.

    One of the other Puppy apologists here used to do this too — start his timeline with a non-Puppy response to Puppy attacks, as if it had come out of nowhere.

  11. Gabriel F. — You know this already, of course, but I think it’s worth making it explicit: Day only claimed The Three-Body Problem as a favourite after it crept back onto the ballot as other Puppy-nominees pulled out. It is not a Puppy nominee, and his endorsement after the fact of the nominations is neither here nor there.

  12. @Gabriel F

    I feel a little sad you had to disclaimer that! Vegetarianism isn’t that weird, surely? Lots of vegan and vegetarian restaurants in the UK these days. I’m not vegetarian, but I often eat that way because meat is damned expensive (and cheaper ways of eating it are spoon-intensive a lot of the time). As far as I know there’s only a few people around who need to get nutrition from meat. I only get ornery at meat-free diets for carnivorous pets, and that’s an animal welfare thing.

  13. Brad is fighting to make the awards relevant to more of fandom…

    In a very convoluted way you could definitely argue that. Just not in the way Brad and the SPs intended.

    Most of fandom was like a sleeping giant: happily reading books and comics, watching movies and tv shows, and talking about them. Some created their own fanworsk, other just consumed. Some went to cons, others didn’t. Some paid attention to the Hugos, others only noticed them once the winners were announced.

    Then the slate-thing happened and suddenly that sleeping giant stirred, blinked, and a lot of people all over the world said “Wait a moment. WTF are you doing?”

  14. @Octavia

    Yep, I’m a first-time voter this year in part because of their actions. (I wanted to last year but my budget didn’t work out.) Its not a compliment to them that I’m involved, though…

  15. I made a list of the short stories recommended here for my own purposes, but since some are incomplete references, I looked them up, and figured I’d share the results, in case anyone else wanted more info.

    (RedWombat)
    The Robin McKinley stories about the Frog Prince and the Twelve Dancing Princesses are, naturally enough, “The Princess and the Frog” and “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”

    “It Must Be Someplace” is by Donna Farley

    The one about “about cats with color vision seeing weird spirits” is probably “The Dreaming Kind” by C.S. Friedman

    The China Mieville story about feral streets is “Reports of Certain Events in London”

    No luck on the story about the Feegee mermaids made out of late-term fetuses

    (Greg)
    “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers” is by Lawrence Watt-Evans

    (Hampus)
    No luck on either the Sheckley about saving someone’s life only to discover that horrible death was an honor, or the maybe-Ballard about communicating with a city through patterns of color and motion.

    (Wanderfound)
    “Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal

    (Anna)
    “The Day Before The Revolution,” Ursula K. LeGuin

    (Jane)
    “Freezeframe,” by Gregory Benford, as suggested by David Langford, is about birthday parties, and speeding up/slowing down a child’s growth to accommodate busy professionals; it certainly sounds like the one you’re thinking of. WILDLIFE, also suggested, is from 1994 and is a novel.

    (Oneiros)
    Would the Peter S. Beagle story about Death be “Come, Lady Death”?

    (Sweet)
    Both “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings” and “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” are Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. “A Song for Lya,” George R.R. Martin

    Would the troll story be “A Troll and Two Roses” by Patricia Mckillip?

    (Nigel)
    The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
    The Monkey’s Paw, W.W. Jacobs
    An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose “Muss ‘Em Up” Bierce
    The Horla – yes, Guy de Maupassant
    No idea on the Ambrose Bierce with Pan and the stag

    (Kyra)
    Okay, I looked up Kyra’s wonderful references when necessary, just to make sure I had author and title names right, but it seems a shame to list them here, like spoiling a joke. Or in this case a poem.

    (rgl)
    Beyond Lies the Wub, Philip K. Dick
    The Available Data on the Worp Reaction, Lion Miller
    The War is Over, Algis Budrys, presumably
    Miss Omega Raven, Naomi Mitchison
    Thus Love Betrays Us, Phyllis MacLennan

  16. Do you mean Carrie Laben’s Something in the Mermaid Way?

    I love the story. It was one of my acquisitions when I co-edited CW. A debut story that ended up a Shirley Jackson nominee. I was thrilled when I found it in the slush, but almost didn’t buy it as I thought it might be too creepy for the magazine. (These days, it probably is.)

    Uh…if you didn’t mean that story, Kurt, nevermind.

  17. Nick —

    I’m betting that’s it, but only Ursula can confirm it; she’s the one who invoked it.

    Cool story. _Very_ creepy.

  18. Thanks again to everyone for the wonderful short story recs, and to Kyra for the beautiful poetry! The survey results would make for an excellent little anthology, wouldn’t they?

    Actually, Kyra’s mention of Roald Dahl’s “Pig” – a very memorable slice of nastiness! – reminded me of a certain story I once read in an anthology of spooky tales more than 30 years ago, and have never been able to either locate or forget. But I just used some Google-fu and identified it: “The Troll,” by T.H. White. Now to track down the story and see if it’s really as strange and disturbing as I remember…

    A good night to everyone!

  19. @Kary English: I apologize for being unclear. When I said “a large-ish group” I did not mean a group of voters, I meant a group of works. So “large-ish” means “about as many as there are slots on the final ballot”. A group of 200 people that all just nominated one thing could almost certainly get it on the ballot — of course, the most they could then take would be one ballot slot. What EPH does is keep that group of 200 from taking all five slots, the way the Puppies did this year in the short fiction categories.

  20. I am very sorry to report that the dog in my avatar, Addy, was hit by a car Friday afternoon. Her injuries were so severe that she had to be euthanized.

    I am in shock. Eight years ago, we rescued each other. Now she’s gone.

    She was nine years old.

  21. Lis: Oh no. I’m so sorry to hear. 🙁 Condolences to you and all; the loss of an animal companion is such a hard thing. Best wishes for getting through the mourning.

  22. Lis: I am very sorry to hear about the loss of your dog. As you mention, she was your avatar, so I have seen her picture many times in the past few weeks.

  23. @Lis – I’m so sorry.

    @Kurt – thank you for that! I think I may be completely wrong about Bierce writing that story I’m thinking of, though.

    @GabrielF and @Peace – right, like RedWombat, I’m going to overcome my guilt and, possibly self-respect. I have a mid-grade fantasy coming out in the US in July called The Maloneys’ Magical Weatherbox. Relevantly, it’s from Roaring Brook Press, a Macmillan imprint, which has left me feeling a peculiar, if slender, connection to the recent unpleasantness.

    On the grounds that RedWombat has already established her awesomeness in no uncertain terms, I’m going to supplement my meagre share with a link to the (starred!) review in Kirkus, and let Mike decide if I’m out of bounds with the self-promotion. Sorry in advance, Mike, if it is.

    https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/nigel-quinlan/the-maloneys-magical-weatherbox/

  24. Ohh, no, I posted without reading the thread!

    Lis, I am so very sorry for your loss.

  25. I’m beginning to wish there was a block function on File 770, because at this point, Brian Z offers almost nothing of value to the discussion.

    I’d probably also block Kary because, quite frankly, her whiny posts about how she’s not going to be pushed around by VD while acting as his willing servant by keeping her third rate story on the Hugo ballot are getting quite tiresome.

  26. Can’t guarantee these are my *favorite* five, but here are some that occur to me right now:

    “Knapsack Poems” by Eleanor Arnason

    “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler

    “The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change” by Kij Johnson – http://www.kijjohnson.com/evolution.html

    “In the House of the Seven Librarians” by Ellen Klages – http://uncannymagazine.com/article/in-the-house-of-the-seven-librarians/

    “Magic for Beginners” by Kelly Link

    And, listed in shorter form, a few more: “Mono no Aware” by Ken Liu, “Fade to White” by Cat Valente, “Like Daughter” by Tananarive Due, “Immersion” by Aliette deBodard, “Flat Diane” by Daniel Abraham, Maureen McHugh’s “Necropolis”… honestly, I have to stop there because otherwise this is going to be so long. So, so long. (My annual favorites lists tend to be much more even than this in terms of gender, or rather I get the scatter I’d expect where if there’s disparity one year, it tends to even out the next. I wonder if the reason stories mostly by women are on my mind is because I was recently reading for the women destroy SF reprints section.)

  27. Thank you, everyone, for your kind words.

    @Peace, who would expect an announcement like that to be lurking in this thread? Whereas punning titles involving canines are expected, by me along with everyone else.

  28. @ Lis

    I’m so sorry. Dogs are so special, they just break your heart when they go. I offer you virtual hugs if you want them and I wish I could offer in-person hugs (if you want them) and tongue kisses from my current pair. So sad 🙁

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