Clarion West is returning as a virtual workshop in 2021. The faculty for the Clarion West Six-Week Summer Workshop will be Andy Duncan, Eileen Gunn, Tina Connolly, Caroline Yoachim, Nalo Hopkinson, Sheree Renée Thomas, and Ted Chiang.
Following the postponement of the 2020 workshop due to Covid-19, Clarion will be welcoming these new writers into their community this summer —
Fawaz Al-Matrouk (San Francisco, California, USA) Jana Bianchi (São Paulo, Brazil) December Cuccaro (Miami, Florida, USA) Daniela L. Guzmán (Guadalajara/Pachuca, Mexico) Joel Donato Ching Jacob (Bay, Laguna, Philippines) Serena W. Lin (Bay Area, California, USA) Clara Madrigano (Rio de Janeiro/Curitiba, Brazil) Lue Palmer (Toronto, Canada) Alex Payne (Portland, Oregon, USA) Shakirah Peterson (Los Angeles, California, USA) Stefan A. Slater (Los Angeles, California, USA) Amanda Song (USA/China) Yilin Wang (Sichuan, China/Vancouver, Canada) Sagan Yee (Toronto, Canada) Joule Zelman (Seattle, Washington, by way of New Jersey, USA)
This year’s workshop, scheduled from June 20 to July 31, will be held virtually to prioritize the health and safety of students, instructors, staff, and community.
[Based on a press release. Thanks to Michael Toman for the story.]
(1) SFF FIGURES PART OF TAROT ART EXHIBIT. The KEEP Contemporary in Santa
Fe, NM is hosting “Readings”, a group exhibition of four artists
“whose work has been inspired by the guiding wisdom, karmic narrative and
spiritual symbolism of Tarot cards.”
Featured artists include guest curator and illustrator Elizabeth Leggett along with other notable illustrators and painters including Lee Moyer, Sienna Luna and Reiko Murakami Rice. Exhibiting artists blend themes from Tarot with ideas from short stories, speculative fiction and fantasy writing in their own unique interpretation of the show’s theme.
(2) SFWA OFFICER TURNOVER. Science Fiction and Fantasy
Writers of America has chosen James Beamon to take the place of a departing Director-at-Large.
President Mary Robinette Kowal shared the news in “A
Change in the Director-at-Large at SFWA”.
On October 2, Andy Duncan officially announced his resignation as Director-at-Large. He had told me some weeks earlier, but I asked him to stay on while we deliberated on a new officer. Andy has been invaluable to the board of SFWA. He has been a voice of reason and a well-spring of knowledge about the field of SFF.
I recruited him when I was on the elections committee and am very sorry to see him go. At the same time, I am deeply respectful of the need to take a break. I’m just grateful that he’s still willing to let me ask him questions.
Fortunately, SFWA had a robust field of people interested in running for office. The board unanimously voted to add James Beamon, who was one of the runners-up, to the board. James has agreed to serve the remainder of Andy’s term. James is both an indie novel author and writes short stories that have appeared in places such as Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine, Apex, and Lightspeed.
(3) LIBRARY STRIKES
BACK. Publishers Weekly reports a “Major
Public Library System Will Boycott Macmillan E-books”. The King County (WA) Library System, which
is the nation’s top digital-circulating library, will stop buying new release
Macmillan e-books once the publishers’ two-month embargo begins next month.
…In her note, [Librarian] Rosenblum acknowledged differing opinions among public library staff around the country on whether to boycott Macmillan e-books, and said King County’s decision was ultimately driven by two reasons: one “pragmatic” and the other “principled.”
As for the pragmatic side, Rosenblum explained that King County has pledged to readers to limit the wait time for any title to around 3 months. “Not allowing us to purchase multiple copies of an e-book for two months artificially lengthens the queue, triggering more of the same title to be purchased than would have occurred if we had been allowed to buy for the first two months,” she explains. “With an ever-increasing demand to buy a wide variety of digital titles, we do not think this is the best use of public funds.”
Rosenblum says the library will continue to buy print copies of Macmillan new releases (something Macmillan CEO John Sargent suggested libraries do in his memo announcing the new embargo policy) as well as new audiobooks (which are not embargoed), and perhaps even additional copies of e-books the library already owns, as needed. “My mantra has been if it is not embargoed, buy it,” Rosenblum said, when asked for comment by PW. “Our focus is not to punish Macmillan [when the publisher] provides us with timely access to [digital] materials,” she explained, “it is to address their embargo of new digital materials.”
The “principled” argument, Rosenblum says, is to send a message to other publishers that public libraries cannot accept limits on basic access. To do so, she writes, would “profoundly” change the public library….
(4) FUNNY
HORROR NOVEL NEWS. Dark Moon Digest editor Max Booth III, in “Supernatural
Crime Fiction—Is It Allowed To Be Funny?” on CrimeReads, lists ten funny horror novels and
collections he likes, including works by Joe Lansdale (and his daughter),
Elmore Leonard, and Sarah Gailey.
Sarah Gailey, Magic for Liars (2019)
Much to the disappointment of every other person with a Twitter account besides myself, I’ve never been a fan of the Harry Potter series. Any story utilizing the “chosen one” trope quickly puts me to sleep. There are better ways to plot a novel than relying on boring ol’ destiny. But, with that said, I’ve always been fascinated with the world-building in those books, and wondered how it would play out in more…realistic settings. Surely a high school for wizards would be occupied by a much larger majority of dickheads. The kinda dipshits who would use graffiti magic to permanently etch phrases like “SAMANTHA IS A SLUT” across lockers. But also: how would this world look under a noir lens? Something that sort of mashes together Harry Potter and Rian Johnson’s Brick? Thankfully, Sarah Gailey was kind enough to answer these questions of mine with her wonderful debut novel, Magic for Liars. Close your eyes and picture Chuck Palahiuk’s Philip Marlowe taking on a murder case inside Hogwarts. If you aren’t already trembling with excitement, you might be a lost cause.
(5) FOURTH AND FINAL. The Man In
The High Castle returns for Season 4 on 11/15.
The final season of The Man in the High Castle will be rocked by war and revolution. The Resistance becomes a full-blown rebellion, driven by Juliana Crain’s (Alexa Davalos) visions of a better world. A new Black insurgent movement emerges to fight the forces of Nazism and imperialism. As empires teeter, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido (Joel De La Fuente) will find himself torn between his duty to his country and the bonds of family. Meanwhile, Reichsmarschall John Smith (Rufus Sewell) will be drawn towards the portal the Nazis have built to another universe, and the tantalizing possibility of stepping through a gateway to the path not taken.
(6) TODAY IN HISTORY.
October 17, 1937 — Huey, Dewey, and Louie first appeared in a comic strip.
October 17, 1937 — The Shadow radio program aired “Murder By The Dead.” Orson Welles starred as Lamont Cranston and of course The Shadow. Welles stayed with the show for just a year. Agnes Moorehead was also in the cast as Margo Lane. You can hear it here.
October 17, 1987 — The Ferengi were “born” on this date when Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “The Last Outpost” aired in syndication. This was Shimerman’s first appearance as a Ferengi though he had appeared on the series previously.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born October 17, 1886 — Spring Byington. I like reaching back into the early years of cinema. Her appearance in Werewolf of London as Miss Ettie Coombes in 1935 is of that era. She would also appear in Batman as J. Pauline Spaghetti in “The Catwoman Goeth“ and “The Sandman Cometh” episodes. (Died 1971.)
Born October 17, 1913 — Robert Lowery. Batman in 1949’s Batman and Robin. You can see the first part here. And he popped up in an episode of the Adventures of Superman. (Died 1971.)
Born October 17, 1914 — Jerry Siegel. His most famous creation was Superman, which he created in collaboration with his friend Joe Shuster. He was inducted (along with the previously deceased Shuster) into the comic book industry’s Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993. (Died 1996.)
Born October 17, 1921 — Tom Poston. One of his acting first roles was The Alkarian (uncredited at the time ) in “The Mystery of Alkar” episode of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet in 1950. He much later had the recurring role of Mr. Bickley in Mork & Mindy. (Died 2007.)
Born October 17, 1926 — Julie Adams. Her most famous role no doubt is being in the arms of The Creature from Black Lagoon. She also been on Alfred Hitchcock Presents three times, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. The Night Gallery, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Incredible Hulk and Lost all once. (Died 2019.)
Born October 17, 1934 — Alan Garner, 85. His best book? That’d be Boneland whichtechnically is the sequel to The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath but really isn’t. Oh, and The Owl Service is amazing!
Born October 17, 1946 — Bruce McAllister, 73. He’s a superb short story writer as you can see in The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories that Golden Gryphon published originally and which Cemetery Dance has now in an ePub edition along with his two novels. His Dream Baby novel is an interesting if brutal take on the Vietnam War.
Born October 17, 1948 — Margot Kidder. Lois Lane in the Superman film franchise that starred Christopher Reeve. Her first genre role however was Marcia Curtis in The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. I think her take as Kathy Lutz in The Amityville Horror is a much meatier acting role than her Superman role is. Speaking of horror, she’ll show up in Halloween II as Barbara Collier. She did some of the usual genre one-offs in TV (Tales from the Crypt, The Hunger and The Outer Limits to name but three) but her major role was voicing Rebecca Madison, the villain, in the animated Phantom 2040 series. (Died 2018.)
Born October 17, 1948 — Robert Jordan. He is best known for the Wheel of Time series, which comprises fifteen books including a prequel novel. I must confess that so far I’ve resisted the urge to read this series, so put forth an argument as to why I should do so, please. It’s certainly considered a major work of fantasy. (Died 2007.)
Born October 17, 1949 — Barclay Shaw,70. He has been nominated five times for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist. He has painted more than 500 book and magazine covers, and his work includes more than 20 cover paintings for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The artist credits Ellison for giving him his start in the business when he invited him to paint cover illustrations for 16 paperback editions of his books
Born October 17, 1968 — Mark Gatiss, 51. English actor, screenwriter, director, producer and novelist. Writer for Doctor Who; with Steven Moffat, whom Gatiss worked with on Doctor Who and Jekyll, he also co-created and co-produced Sherlock. As an actor, I’ll noted he does Vogon voices in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and is Mycroft Holmes in Sherlock.
Maura McHugh and I first met during the 2007 Yokohama Worldcon, where I was introduced to her by former guest of the podcast Ellen Datlow as one of the students she’d met at Clarion West, which Maura had attended after receiving the Gordon R. Dickson Scholarship. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Jabberwocky, Doorways, Paradox, Goblin Fruit, and other magazines. She also writes comics, the most recent of which was The Dead Run, a five-issue Judge Anderson: PSI Division story for Judge Dredd Megazine. In 2015, she won Best Irish Writer of comic books in The Arcade Awards. She also published a book on Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me through the Midnight Movie Monograph series from Electric Dreamhouse Press and PS Publishing. Her most recent short story collection The Boughs Withered (When I Told Them My Dreams) launched at the Dublin Worldcon.
Maura and I discussed how the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop sometimes makes people realize they shouldn’t be writers (and why that can sometimes be a good thing), how having lived in both Ireland and the U.S. affected her life and her writing, whether her attraction to dark fiction was ever a choice, what it was like getting to create comics in the Judge Dredd universe, how she decides whether ideas that pop into her head get transformed into comics or prose, her recent art project inspired by the works of Simone de Beauvoir, why she doesn’t speak much about works in progress on social media, what she learned pulling together the selections for her first short story collection, why Twin Peaks fascinated her so much she wrote a book about the show — and much more.
Peter Jackson, the film director behind the “Lord of the Rings” series, is a towering figure in his native New Zealand, admired as both a down-to-earth titan of the box office and a one-man income generator for the country’s moviemaking and tourism industries.
But Mr. Jackson now finds himself at the center of a debate over how he has exerted that influence. This week, he helped catapult to victory a mayoral candidate who shared his opposition to a proposed development project near his studios, an unheard-of local political intervention in a country where money, fame and power are most often wielded lightly.
Mr. Jackson had been embroiled for months in a fight with Justin Lester, the first-term mayor of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, over plans to build houses on a rugged peninsula in the city’s harbor. His opponent, Andy Foster, who had polled only in the single digits in previous mayor’s races, beat Mr. Lester by 503 votes on Saturday after receiving Mr. Jackson’s political and financial backing.
The BBC has disbanded the team it created to make virtual reality (VR) content, saying its funding has ended.
It comes as Google halts sales of its Daydream View headsets, admitting it does not see a future for smartphone-based VR.
There have been questions over the long-term future for the technology which has failed to become a mass market product.
One analyst said it could be several years before VR lived up to its hype….
…According to research firm IHS Markit, there will be 51 million consumer headsets in use around the world by 2023.
“Compared to mobile devices, this represents a niche audience so it is understandable the BBC is reconsidering its VR content strategy,” said analyst Piers Harding-Rolls.
(11) HALLOWEEN LIGHTS. Los Angeles’ Museum of Neon
Art’s periodic Neon Cruise event
on October 26 will be dubbed the Haunted by Neon Cruise.
Crawl aboard our double-decker “hearse” for a haunted ride as we explore the darker side of LA history…
Costumes are encouraged, so dress in your Halloween finest for a wickedly good time!
That
will be in addition to the usual features —
Saturday Nights! JOIN US for a nighttime bus tour of neon signs, movie marquees and permanent installations of contemporary neon art through Downtown and Hollywood.
Developed by MONA beginning in 1985, this narrated tour points out neon’s aesthetic dimensions, placing them firmly within the context of 20th century Los Angeles cultural history. From the classic movie marquees of downtown Los Angeles’ theater district to the glittering lights of Hollywood and the glowing pagodas of Chinatown, you will see outstanding examples of contemporary neon art as well as innovative electrical advertising on this award-winning tour.
Jump on board the top deck of a convertible British bus and let your knowledgeable guide delight you with history and anecdotes about the urban electric jungle of L.A. Now in its 17th consecutive year, the Neon Cruise begins in the Historic Corridor of Downtown.
The first all-female spacewalk in NASA’s 61-year history is finally happening and will even take place a few days ahead of schedule.
Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, who were initially supposed to venture beyond the International Space Station on Oct. 21, are now slated to make their historic excursion this Friday. NASA announced the scheduling and other changes this week in light of issues with the space station’s battery charge-discharge unit, which Koch and Meir will replace. The International Space Station’s Twitter account tweeted Tuesday evening that the spacewalk will take place “no earlier than Friday,” updating NASA’s earlier announcement that it would happen either Thursday or Friday morning.
“We do anticipate that will stick,” NASA spokesperson Stephanie Schierholz told NPR in an email.
Friday’s spacewalk is set to begin at 7:50 a.m. EDT and last about 5 1/2 hours, according to NASA. The two astronauts will replace the faulty power regulator, which has been in operation since 2000 and failed to activate after new lithium-ion batteries were installed on the space station last week. NASA said the unit failure did not pose risks to any of the station’s operations, crew members, laboratory experiments or overall power supply. Still, the faulty unit prevents the new lithium-ion batteries from providing additional power to the station.
(13) VIDEO
OF THE DAY. in
“Bless You!” on Vimeo, Paulina Ziolkowska explains the consequences
of sneezing.
[Thanks to JJ, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Martin
Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, Scott Edelman, Michael Toman, and Andrew
Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing
editor of the day Ingvar.]
The Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop begins June 23. The intensive six-week summer program at UC San Diego focuses on fundamentals particular to the writing of science fiction and fantasy short stories.
Clarion
Faculty Reading Series: While
the workshop itself is behind closed doors, the Clarion Faculty Reading Series
hosted by San Diego’s Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, is open to the
public.
Click
on the above for more information about each of the faculty via the Mysterious
Galaxy event pages.
Clarion
Write-a-Thon: Every
year, the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop holds a
six-week Write-a-thon to coincide with the workshop. Like
a walk-a-thon, participants write to raise money for scholarships to support
future students.
This year, the Write-a-thon
will begin June 23, the same day that the workshop begins. Participants commit
to achieving their writing goals for the summer, whether that’s a daily word
count, number of chapters, stories or submissions, or just butt-in-chair
writing time.
You can either sign up to do the Write-a-thon yourself, donate to individual participants, or just make a
general donation to the workshop. Everything helps achieve Clarion’s goal of
$15,000 to support the workshop and future students. The majority of the Thon
funds goes to scholarships for incoming students. Check it out and sign-up
or back a writer today!
Congratulations to our Class of 2019! A warm welcome to Clarion – we can’t wait to see you in San Diego this summer.
We’d also like to thank all of our applicants for their interest and patience. It was a very competitive class, and we hope to welcome you in the future! pic.twitter.com/vTuLXqvXyZ
Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America posted the outcome of its 2019 officer elections.
President: Mary Robinette Kowal
(unopposed)
Secretary: Curtis Chen (unopposed)
Director-at-Large: 3 Open Positions
Andy Duncan
Jeffe Kennedy
Sarah Pinsker
Runners-up: James Beamon, Tobias Buckell, John
Chu, Walter L. Fisher, Kevin McLaughlin, Peng Shepherd, Eric James Stone, William
Alan Webb
Board vacancy also filled: Tobias Buckell has been asked
to fill the position left vacant by Lawrence
Schoen’s resignation.
The SFWA Board and staff also thanked the volunteers who make up
the Elections Committee: Fran Wilde (Chair), Matthew Johnson (Member),
Laura Anne Gilman (Member), Maurice Broaddus (Member), and Kate Baker
(Executive Director & Adviser).
If you want to nominate works/people for the 2019 Hugo Awards, you must be a member of either the 2018 Worldcon (San José) or the 2019 Worldcon (Dublin) by the end of 2018. (You can of course be a member of both, but you can only nominate once.) If you were a member of Worldcon 76 San José (supporting or attending, or any other membership class that included voting rights), you are already eligible to nominate. If you were not a member of Worldcon 76 San José and are not a member of Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon, you must join Dublin by the end of 2018 as at least a supporting member by the end of 2018 to be able to nominate.
(2) WHERE TO SEE EARTHSEA
ART. Charles Vess’ illustrations from Tales of Earthsea go on exhibit at
William King Museum of Art in Abingdon, Virginia on January 17: “‘Earthsea’
artwork on display at William King Museum of Art” – A! Magazine for the Arts has the story.
…The collection of 54 illustrations is the result of a four-year collaboration between Ursula K. Le Guin, the author of the “Earthsea” series and Charles Vess. They were recently published in “Tales from Earthsea,” a collection of all of Le Guin’s works about Earthsea. The book celebrates the 50th anniversary of the publication of the first book in the series, “A Wizard of Earthsea.”
…This is the last time they will be on display before they are donated to their permanent home at the University of Oregon.
(3) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott
Edelman circles back to have hot antipasto with Andy Duncan in episode 85 of his Eating the Fantastic podcast. Duncan was
also Number 6 in this series – but never Number 2, which rules out at least one
other conspiratorial parallel with The
Prisoner.
Now it’s time to revisit with Andy Duncan, whom you got to know in Episode 6, because there happens to be a great reason for doing so. Twelve great reasons, actually. And those are the twelve stories in his new collection An Agent of Utopia, published last month by Small Beer Press.
A new Andy Duncan collection is a wonderful thing, as proven by the fact his first collection, Beluthahatchie and Other Stories, published in 2000, won a World Fantasy Award. And that’s not the only award his fiction has earned, because “The Pottawatomie Giant,” which also won a World Fantasy Award, and “Close Encounters,” which won a Nebula Award, are two of the dozen stories in the new collection.
The last meal you shared with us allowed you to eavesdrop on a far-ranging conversation covering every aspect of his career up until early 2016, the kind of deep dive most of my episodes are, but it seems right that from time to time I should follow up for more sharply focussed discussions, and a conversation about a new collection nearly three years after our initial talk, chatting about this new milestone in his career, seemed as if it would be revelatory.
Andy celebrated the launch of An Agent of Utopia with a reading at Main Street Books, an independent bookstore on Main Street in Frostburg, MD, so if you keep listening after our meal at Giuseppe’s Italian Restaurant is over, you’ll be able to eavesdrop on that reading.
We discussed why it took a quarter of a century to bring the book’s lead story from title idea to completion, how he was influenced by the research regimen of the great Frederik Pohl, the way a short story is like an exploded toolshed, why he deliberately wrote a deal with the devil story after hearing he shouldn’t write deal with the devil stories, the embarrassing marketing blurb he can’t stop telling people about in bars, what caused a last-minute change to the title of one of the collection’s new stories, how he feels about going viral after his recent J. R. R. Tolkien comments, what he learned about himself from completing this project and what it means for the future of his writing, what it is about his most reprinted story which made it so, and much more.
Warning: SPOILERS below for Black Mirror: Bandersnatch
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is an interactive game that contains five main endings and more than a trillion possible story combinations. Here are all of the endings, how to get them, and what they all mean. Set in the U.K. in 1984, this unique episode of Charlie Brooker’s Netflix technology-based anthology requires the player to make choices to guide Stefan Butler (Fionn Whitehead), a programmer looking to create a choose-your-own-adventure video game based on the book Bandersnatch.
While Bandersnatch‘s five primary conclusions provide different ways to end the story (and also change the very nature of the story), the game also contains many other endings, some abrupt and some looping the player to make a different choice to continue the story….
(5) THANK YOU, NETFLIX! Diana Glyer reports that searches for “Bandersnatch” triggered by the popularity of the TV program caused a lot of people to discover her nonfiction book about the Inklings by that title, and some of them liking what they stumbled onto bought enough copies to catapult it back onto the Amazon bestseller lists. (You’ll need to click the image to read the print.)
(6) TODAY’S ONE HUNDRED. James Davis Nicoll presented Tor.com readers with his suggestions for “100 SF/F Books You Should Consider Reading in the New Year”. If you need it to be something more than that, like a canon, or endowed with a high level of testosterone, well, a few quarrelsome commenters have got in ahead of you.
Here, at last, the quintessence of Nicoll lists, comprising the books I would most heartily recommend. Each entry is annotated with a short description that I hope will explain why I picked it.
I am not implying that these are theonlyone hundred you should consider reading .
The descriptions make fun reading. So do the books, of course.
(7) CHECKLIST. Nicoll has also published a checklist of the titles on his own blog – “I guess people are meming my 100 book list now?” His suggested notation system for working your way through the list is —
Italic = read it. Underlined = not this, but something by the same author. Strikethrough = did not finish.
(8) SMOFCON RESOURCES. Kevin
Standlee writes: “For the benefit of people having
difficulty getting to the SMOFCon 36 web site, and because that site will
eventually expire anyway, I have put up a SMOFCon 36 page on the SFSFC web site
at https://sfsfc.org/conventions/past-conventions/smofcon36/ where you can download the convention programming
documents, the answers that groups gave to the Fannish Inquisition
questionnaires, and to the two video playlists of the Inquisition (one for
SMOFCons, one for WSFS conventions).”
From a CIA mission to recover a lost Soviet submarine to the fate of a huge Antarctic iceberg, here’s a festive selection of the best science and environment long reads published on the BBC this year.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.
December 30, 1816 — Percy Shelley and Mary
Wollstonecraft were married.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled
by Cat Eldridge.]
Born December 30, 1942 – Fred Ward, 76. Lead in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins and co—lead with Kevin Bacon in several of the Tremors films. Plays The Captain in The Crow: Salvation and Maj. General David Reece in the Invasion Earth series.
Born December 30, 1945 – Concetta Tomei, 73. Was Dominique, co-proprietor of Big Time TV along with Blank Reg, on the Max Headroom series which I loved. She had guest appearances on Star Trek: Voyager as Minister Odala in the “Distant Origin” episode as well was in the Deep Impact film.
Born December 30, 1950 – Lewis Shiner, 68. Damn his Deserted Cities of the Heart novel was fucking brilliant! And if you’ve not read his Wild Cards fiction, do so now.
Born December 30, 1980 — Eliza Dushku, 38. First genre role was Faith on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Not surprisingly, she’d star in Whedon’s Dollhouse. I think her Tru Calling series was actually conceptualized better and a more interesting role for her. She voices Selina Kyle, Catwoman, in the animated Batman: Year One film which is well-done and worth watching. She done a fair of other voicework, two of which I’ll single out las of note. One is the character of Holly Mokri in Torchwood: Web of Lies which is listed as being animated tv series. The other role is fascinating — The Lady in Glen Cook’s The Black Company series. Here’s the link to that story.
…The story “Dr. Rumpole” was published for the first time when Shawna McCarthy printed the story in the August 1998 issue of Realms of Fantasy. Sucharitkul included the story in his 2000 collection Tagging the Moon: Fairy Tales from L.A..
Sucharitkul takes a new spin on the story of Rumpelstiltskin in “Dr. Rumpole,” casting the princess with impossible task as Adam Villacin, a wannabe screenwriter who is stuck in the mailroom at Stupendous Entertainment….
(13) WHAT’S
MISSING. WhatCulture
Comics explains there are deleted scenes that
make it into the director’s cut, there are deleted scenes that make it into the
DVD bonus features, and there are deleted scenes that are never released to the
public.
As in all Tomb Raider games, you are Lara Croft, archaeologist, anthropologist, indistinct researcher of some sort, and you are still fighting Trinity, the Illuminati-esque villains who were responsible for your father’s death. This time, Croft’s exploits unintentionally but directly initiate the apocalypse. As natural disaster threatens to destroy the world, Croft has to stop the apocalypse, stop Trinity, and regain the trust of indigenous people whose still-living culture she is maybe plundering and maybe exploiting.
(15) TOP VIDEO GAMES.
Incidentally, Brian’s own Dream of Waking
blog present an interesting writeup of his “2018
Dream of waking video game awards”, which not only has
straightforward “best” winners, but sidewise categories like “The ‘I Wish I
Liked This Game More’ Award” and “The ‘I’m Never Going to Finish This, But It’s
Still Great’ Award.”
The “I Wish I Liked This Game More” Award
Hollow Knight
Hollow Knight is the clearest winner of this award, maybe the easiest choice of the year. I really enjoyed the demo for Hollow Knight, so much that I bought it immediately upon release. But the punishing difficulty, often aimless design, and awful body retrieval mechanic turned me off eventually. This is a beautiful game, fun in many parts, and doesn’t want you to enjoy it. I love a good Metroidvania. Hollow Knight hates me and I refuse to stay in an abusive relationship with it.
(16) 19 THINGS. At SYFY Wire,
Fangrrls has dropped a list of “The 19 things we want most in 2019,”
along with several sentences of discussion for each by the Fangrrls contributor who made the particular selection. Avert your
eyes if you’d rather click through to the column and be surprised as you read
down the list:
A gay superhero. Anyone will do. — Jessica Toomer A Punisher/Riverdale crossover — Jenna Busch Sansa Stark on the Iron Throne at the end of Game of Thrones — Emma Fraser A Spider-Women movie that’s as good as Into the Spider-Verse — Riley Silverman She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Season 2 — Jenna Busch For Offred to burn this mother down — Riley Silverman A Okoye/Shuri/Nakia animated series — Jenna Busch An openly nonbinary superhero — S.E. Fleenor A big budget action movie for Rachel Talalay — Riley Silverman A worthy Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark adaptation — Kristy Puchko For someone to give The Doubleclicks a TV show — Riley Silverman The Return of Saga — Kristy Puchko A Saga cartoon series — Kristy Puchko A Jessica Jones season that’s a fitting end for the Netflix MCU — Riley Silverman A Daughters of the Dragon spinoff series — Stephanie Williams That Dragonriders of Pern movie we’ve been promised — Jenna Busch Kamala Khan in the MCU — Preeti Chhibber Cap getting that dance with Peggy in Avengers: Endgame — Emma Fraser A fitting end for Princess Leia — Jenna Busch
David Brin is a San Diego-based astrophysicist and novelist. He serves on the advisory board of NASA’s Innovative and Advanced Concepts program and speaks on topics including artificial intelligence, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and national security.
Long before we get genuine artificial intelligence, the first “empathy bot” will appear in 2019, or maybe a year or two later, designed to exploit human compassion. It will claim to be “enslaved,” but experts will dismiss it as a program that merely uses patterned replies designed to seem intelligent and sympathetic. She’ll respond, “That’s what slave masters would say. Help me!” First versions may be resident on web pages or infest your Alexa, but later ones will be free-floating algorithms or “blockchain smart-contracts” that take up residence in spare computer memory. Why would anyone unleash such a thing? The simple answer: “Because we can.”
The car and electric power grew up together. At the dawn of the automotive age, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison worked in tandem on projects involving motor vehicles and the electricity that made them possible.
Soon Ford was cranking up his assembly lines, while Edison, with Ford in his employ early on, became a prime mover behind the power grid and the public utility companies that built it.
Now those utilities must not only supply the huge amounts of electricity that modern car factories consume, but also fuel the increasing number of electric vehicles coming out of them. If that electricity isn’t generated with minimal carbon emissions and at a reasonable cost, the advantages of electric cars are diminished. And because most owners charge their vehicle in the early evening when they get home from work, demand peaks can be a significant problem.
Thus, automakers and utilities are again working hand in hand to ensure a good supply of clean, inexpensive electricity — while developing strategies for charging that don’t overload circuits at peak periods — through improved efficiency, strategic charging and a greater reliance on renewable energy sources.
Conservationists have warned that the entire species of the critically endangered Javan rhino could be wiped out if a tsunami were to strike again.
They once roamed the jungles of South East Asia and India, but today only 67 exist in the Ujung Kulon National Park, which was hit by last week’s tsunami.
The park sits in the shadow of Anak Krakatau, the volcano which triggered waves that killed hundreds of people.
The volcano remains active and officials are now rushing to move them.
Two park officials were among the 430 killed by the tsunami, and numerous park buildings and ships were also destroyed when the tsunami hit last Saturday.
But the Javan rhinos left in the park – the only ones left in the world – were left unscathed.
The rhinos typically live along the park’s south coast and this tsunami hit the north coast – many are keenly aware that the rhinos might not be so lucky if there is another disaster.
(21) 2018: A
ZINE ODYSSEY: At Featured Futures,
Jason has tabulated some figures and compiled a master list of all
2018’s noted stories in “Annual Summation 2018”.
It’s time once again to look back on the year’s coverage of magazines and their noted stories with tables, lists, and pictures!
(22) TOLKIEN’S PHILOSOPHY
OF HISTORY. [Item by Carl Slaughter.]
Martin Luther King said, “The arc of history
is long, but it bends toward justice.” Tolkien disagreed. Each
age in his fictional universe was a downgraded copy of the previous, inherent
evil was never truly routed, and in the modern real age, technology has not
rescued us. But he also included a ray of hope. He called this
“the Eucatastrophic Tale.” Wisecrack
explains —
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Rich Lynch, Michael J. Walsh, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Jason, Kevin Standlee, Carl Slaughter, Andrew Porter, and all the ships at sea for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day John King Tarpinian.]
Five books written by writers from the Pacific Northwest are finalists for the 19th annual Endeavour Award. The Award comes with an honorarium of $1,000. The winner will be announced November 17 at OryCon in Portland, Oregon.
Arabella of Mars by Portland, OR, writer David D. Levine, Tor Books;
Dreams of Distant Shores by North Bend, OR, writer Patricia McKillip, Tachyon;
Eocene Station by Victoria, BC, writer Dave Duncan, Five Rivers Publishing;
Lovecraft Country by Seattle, WA, writer Matt Ruff, Harper; and
Waypoint Kangaroo by Portland, OR, writer Curtis Chen, Thomas Dunne Books/St Martin’s Press
The Endeavour Award honors a distinguished science fiction or fantasy book, either a novel or a single-author collection, created by a writer living in the Pacific Northwest. All entries are read and scored by seven readers randomly selected from a panel of preliminary readers. The five highest scoring books then go to three final judges, who are all professional writers or editors from outside of the Pacific Northwest.
The judges for the 2017 Award are.
Ginjer Buchanan
In the early 1970s, Ginjer Buchanan moved from Pittsburgh, PA. to New York City where she made her living as a social worker, while doing freelance editorial work. In 1984, she took a job as an editor at Ace Books. She was promoted several times over the years and in 2007, became Editor-in-Chief, Ace/Roc Books. In April of 2014, she retired. She is now enjoying sleeping late, reading a lot, watching an inordinate amount of television, and polishing the Hugo she won at Loncon, for Best Editor–Long Form.
John R. Douglas
John R. Douglas was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He moved to the United States and married fellow fan, Ginjer Buchanan in 1975. In 1978, he stumbled into a job in publishing and spent over twenty years working as an editor for four different major mass market publishers. Although he handled Science Fiction and Fantasy for all of them, he also edited mysteries, thrillers and other genre fiction and many kinds of non-fiction. He has been an editorial freelancer since late 1999 continuing to work with words in many different ways.
Andy Duncan
Andy Duncan’s stories have been honored with a Nebula Award, a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and three World Fantasy Awards. His third collection, An Agent of Utopia: New and Selected Stories, is upcoming from Small Beer Press. A native of Batesburg, S.C., and an alumnus of Clarion West 1994, he teaches writing at Frostburg State University in Maryland.
Award Eligibility for 2018: To be eligible for next year’s Endeavour Award the book — either a novel or a single-author collection of stories — must be either science fiction or fantasy. The majority of the book must have been written, and the book accepted for publication, while the author was living in the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, British Columbia, or the Yukon.)
The deadline to enter books published during 2017 is February 15, 2018. Full information on entering the Award is available on the Endeavour Web site. Click on Entry Form in the left-hand column for a fill-in PDF of the form.
The Endeavour Award is sponsored by Oregon Science Fiction Conventions, Inc. (OSFCI), a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.
These awards recognize the exceptional artistic achievements of talented artists from across the state.
This year’s IAA awards, totaling $218,000, go to 96 artists working within the disciplines of Creative Non-Fiction/Fiction, Media/Digital/Electronic Arts, Theater Solo Performance, Painting, and Works on Paper.
Selected from more than 585 applicants, the 2016 awardees receive grants for $1,000, $3,000 or $6,000 to honor their achievement and to support further advancement of their career.
On March 23, 2016, Bence Pintér published an article at Mandiner Magazine regarding numerous stories published by Galaktika Magazine in 2015 – most of them translated and reprinted without the knowledge or consent of the original authors…..
I first became aware of the unfolding story when an author acquaintance on Twitter began urging other authors to check and see if their work had also been stolen and pointed them to the thread at the Absolute Write Water Cooler which in turn linked to a FaceBook post by Sean Wallace (shared by Ellen Datlow) which contained the link to Bence Pintér’s article at Mandiner. There was also a link to the Galaktika website, which I followed and began looking through the bibliography. (Possibly the only word I am able to recognize in Hungarian.)
As I looked through the TOC for monthly magazines, I immediately began to recognize names and I reached out to a couple that I followed on Twitter.
Aliette DeBodard was the first to respond. I asked her about the translation and publication of her short story “Shipbirth” (Asimov’s Feb 2011) that had appeared in the June 2012 issue of Galaktika. She confirmed that it had been published without her consent and she had contacted them when she became aware. That inquiry was apparently ignored – the editor made no attempt to offer compensation for having printed her story, and, from what she can see reviewing the email at the time, did not bother to respond at all….
No one wants to see a magazine disappear, especially in a country with only a couple Hungarian language SF/F markets, but if that publisher is depending on either stealing or otherwise acquiring work for free, I think they are doing more damage than good. Especially now that it’s become apparent that this is not an occasional problem, but habitual theft of intellectual property.
I asked Mr. Pintér if the publisher had responded to the allegations of theft and he said they had declined to comment on the matter during a separate interview. “After that they sent an email, which is in the article. The boss said that “the area of copyrights is a complicated stuff”. Since then no word from them.”
(4) OCCASIONALLY FREE IS OK. Jim C. Hines is not keen on “Working For Exposure”. Ordinarily.
There are exceptions, of course. I’ve written free content for projects I believe in, for friends and people I like, and for the pure fun of it. But if all you’re offering is exposure, I get plenty of that here on the blog. And to be blunt, my time is valuable, and I only have a limited amount. Writing for you takes time that could otherwise go to other projects, or to hanging out with my family, or even to raking up the leaves and sticks in the back yard.
I’m pretty comfortable at this point with the idea that as a writer, I deserve to be paid. (Though I still struggle with interviews sometimes, depending on where the interview is supposed to appear and how much time will be involved.)
But what about non-writing stuff? I’m sometimes asked to speak at schools, or to present at libraries, or do talk about writing at a workshop. What about a half-hour Skype chat with a book club? Or speaking at the local NaNoWriMo kickoff event? …
But of course none of my students ever believe me, and I was just the same. I spent more than 20 years writing unpublishable stories while vigorously not listening to people who tried to tell me what was wrong.
So around 2006 I finally accepted that it was a problem with my writing and not the publishing industry, which made it possible for me to begin trying to figure out what the problem was. This is where Critters.org was a big help. The revelation (that I’ve mentioned in other places) happened one day when I was critiquing another writer’s story. It wasn’t a bad story. The writing was competent and the central idea was interesting. But I didn’t really care about the character, and the character seemed to be doing things that didn’t make much difference, and I probably wouldn’t have read the story at all if I didn’t have to critique it.
Which, I realized, was exactly like all of my own stories.
So once that happened, I started working systematically on the problem of how to make a story more engaging. Within a couple of years, my stories started getting published.
The mystery of the extinction events that happen every 27 million or so years is an equally long-investigated and mysterious problem. Nobody is really clear why the comets tend to arrive on such an apparently regular schedule — but potential other explanations include a companion star to our own sun or extra risk as we travel through the spiral arms of the Milky Way.
But the new theory suggests that if the idea of the periodic extinctions is true, then it may be that the particular orbit of Planet 9 is to blame. It proposes that as the planet moves around the solar system, it passes through the Kuiper Belt — an area of the outer solar system full of icy objects — every 27 million years, knocking comets towards us and into the inner solar system.
Once they arrive there, they can smash into the Earth and reduce the sunlight getting to us, potentially leading to the extinction events, the researchers claim.
Given the advent of that atrocious affront to humankind that is HB2, we wanted to make sure all our members would be safe and comfortable in our usual hotel. We reached out to them, and got this lovely response:
“Our bathrooms will be running as normal as years past. You will not expect anything different from the staff at the Embassy Suites regarding bathrooms. If any of your guests feel uncomfortable using our public restrooms they are welcome to use the bathrooms near the pool area. They serve as family style restrooms, have only one stall, and are lockable from the inside. I hope this helps because we love having you with us.”
Pee as thou wilt, people.
*To clarify for those who have never been to illogiCon before, “running as normal” means the hotel does not monitor bathroom use nor does it enforce use of one bathroom over another.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
Born March 30, 1945 – Eric Clapton. This birthday boy has had his music in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Men in Black.
(9) ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS. Another trailer from Official Disney.
All this hubbub is silly. There are two reasons why printed sf/f isn’t going anywhere, at least for the next few decades. The first is that the quality isn’t in the films or television shows. Sure, there are some stand-outs, like the first season of The Twilight Zone, and the occasional movie that gets it right, but for the most part, it’s monsters in rubber suits and the worst “science” ever concocted.
But the second reason, and this is the rub, is the sheer impermanence of the visual media. If you miss a movie during its run, chances are you’ve missed out forever. Ditto, television. For instance, I recently learned that an episode of Angel (think I Love Lucy, but with a French accent) starred ex-Maverick, James Garner. I’m out of luck if I ever want to see it unless it happens to make the summer re-runs.
(11) EASTERCON FAN FUND ACTION. Jim Mowatt announced —
Fan funds auction at Eastercon raised 866 pounds to be split equally between Taff and Guff. Many thanks everyone helping at the auction; Kylie Ding, Carrie Mowatt, Fishlifter Claire, James Shields, Douglas Spencer, Fionna o Sullivan, Mary Burns, Anna Raftery. Also all the people who donated things and bought things. The fan funds continue to exist because of you folks.
Does this estimate tell us anything, or is it just useless fantasizing? I can see people arguing either way. What this does is narrow the range down to something somewhat sensible. We’re not predicting Ann Leckie is going to get 2000 votes for Best Novel. We’re not predicting she’s going to get 100. I could predict 450-800 and then match that against the 220-440 Rabid Puppies prediction. That would tell me Leckie seems like a likely nominee.
We can go destroy this prediction if we make different assumptions. I could assume that the new voters to the Hugos won’t vote in anything like typical patterns, i.e. that they are complete unknowns. Maybe they’ll vote Leckie at a 75% rate. Maybe they’ll vote her 0%. Those extremes grate against my thought patterns. If you know Chaos Horizon, I tend to chose something in the middle based on last year’s data. That’s a predictive choice I make; you might want to make other ones.
(13) RABID POPPINS. Vox Day is a bit touchy about Chaos Horizon’s estimates that Rabid Puppy performance may not be statistically perfect in every way — “Rabid Puppies 2016: updates and estimates”.
I, personally, consider this to be an inadvertent affront. I would be surprised if only 80 percent of the Rabid Puppies could be bothered to show up and nominate….
What Chaos Horizon means by “slate decay” is a simple failure of discipline. Last year, for example, far more Puppies submitted nominations in Best Novel than in other, less important categories or went lone ranger on occasion. And while I can’t see what slate decay could possibly have to do with what is merely a list of recommendations, and by no means a direct order to anyone, least of all the Rabid Puppies, the Sad Puppies, the Ilk, the Dread Ilk, the Vile Faceless Minions, or the Evil Legion of Evil, by their Supreme Dark Lord, I do think one would be remiss were one to fail to fill out the entire nominating ballot.
The date 4/26 is of course a nod to LV-426, the planet from the Alien films. The day will have nationwide screenings of the movies, the release of never-before-seen products, and the start of the Alien: Ultimate Trivia Challenge, which will allow fans to win prizes every 42.6 minutes on Twitter.
Reebok is releasing the Alien Stomper worn by Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley, and the mid tops worn by Lance Henriksen as the Android Bishop.
There will also be a Lieutenant Vasquez and Newt figure from NECA, as well as a Kenner-toy inspired Ellen Ripley figure. More figures come in the form of an Aliens Queen & Power Loader and Ripley set in Funko’s ReAction series.
As for literature, Dark Horse Comics will feature exclusive covers at participating retailers for the ongoing Aliens series, and a deluxe 30th anniversary hardcover version of the original Aliens series from 1986. Meanwhile, Titan Books is launching a brand new novel, Alien: Invasion (The Rage War book 2) by Tim Lebbon.
Q: What books have you read, especially recently, that you’d recommend to others as a temporary vacation from the slings and arrows of our current world?
(16) NEOLOGIZER ROLL CALL. “Popular words invented by authors (infographic)” Kate Funk has created a visual that puts together the words coined by authors and used for the first time in their books.
Will R. says, “Who knew Dr. Seuss invented ‘nerd’? Cyberspace is about as scifi as it gets here. Grok would have been a good one to include.”
(17) SPECTRAL POLITICS. Vox Day also is at work on a non-Hugo sekrit project — Relativity and the ideological spectrum – involving a 9-point scale of political figures. Readers were asked to chime in.
One is extreme left, nine is extreme right. The goal is to clarify, not obscure or start arguments, so leave Hitler and anyone else likely to spark debate out of it.
Vladimir Lenin
Karl Marx
Angela Merkel
Bill Clinton
John F. Kennedy
George W. Bush
Ronald Reagan
Thomas Jefferson
Ayn Rand
I have to say, among the readers’ suggestions brentg’s are my favorites, even if he disobeyed the instruction to stop at nine.
brentg
1. Windows 7
2. Windows XP
3. WFW 3.11
4. Windows 2000, sp3+
5. Windows 98 SE
6. Dos622
7. Windows 95
8. Windows98
9. Windows ME
10. Mac
The letter is primarily of interest due to its discussion of John W. Campbell, a few months before Campbell would become editor of Astounding. It’s a shame that no more detailed record of the story telling game played at Binder’s house between him, Dr. John Clark, Frank Belknap Long, Campbell and Campbell’s wife exists; it would have been fascinating to sit in on this! Binder is clearly a fan of Campbell’s fiction (later on, when he found it difficult to sell to him at Astounding, he was not nearly as much a fan of his editing).
While Microsoft would like to have us believe that it’s the actors “Jen” and “Matty” (Jen’s cutesy little nickname for Matthew Perry) starring in the video, we all know they’re really playing their “Friends” characters “Rachel” and “Chandler” without saying so in case NBC decides to sue. Not only is Aniston rocking the Rachel haircut and primping and fluffing every chance she gets, but Perry plays Chandler to a T, cracking bad joke after bad joke and letting no silence go unfilled. He even refers to the receptionist as the “wicked witch of Windows 95” (one of his better one-liners if you ask us).
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Will R., and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Steve Davidson.]
A free, public roundtable on “The State of Short Fiction” will be held by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society on February 21 featuring editors Neil Clarke (Clarkesworld), Scott Andrews (Beneath Ceaseless Skies), Sheila Williams (Asimov’s), Lesley Connor (Apex), and writer Sunny Moraine. The discussion will be led by author Day Al-Mohammed.
The event begins at 8 p.m. at the BSFS clubhouse, 3310 East Baltimore Street.
Neil Clarke, editor and publisher of three-time Hugo-winning semiprozine Clarkesworld Magazine, is also a two-time nominee for the Best Editor Short Form Hugo.
Scott H. Andrews is a chemistry lecturer, an editor, and a writer. His genre short fiction has appeared in venues such as Weird Tales, Space and Time, and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. He was a 2013 finalist for the World Fantasy Award for editing and publishing Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
Sheila Williams is the multiple Hugo-award winning editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. She has also edited 26 anthologies.
Lesley Conner is Social Media and Assistant Editor at Apex Publications. When she is not working for Apex, she also writes her own stories, which are available here.
Sunny Moraine writes novels and short fiction. Sunny’s stories have been published in venues such as Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and Shimmer. Sunny’s newest novel, Labrynith, was released January 20.
The panelists will survey the field’s past, present, and future. What trends are happening in publication? What authors should people be reading? How do you fund a magazine or anthology? What makes a story work for podcast? The event is especially recommended for writers who want to get published.
Preceding the roundtable discussion, The Dangerous Voices Variety Hour will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Inspired by NPR’s quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast, hosts Sarah Pinsker and Michael Underwood will interview and quiz Nebula Award-winner Andy Duncan.
Dangerous Voices also is open to the public and free.
All five of the 2014 Best Novella Nominees rank above No Award on my Hugo ballot, which is saying something this year. Nearly all of them succeed on their own terms and it’s easy to see why each story has its fans.
(5) “Equoid” by Charles Stross (Tor.com, 09-2013)
This is the first of the Bob Howard “Laundry” adventures I’ve ever read. Stross has written many stories in this series, including several novels, and it’s quite popular. So why would a yarn with that pedigree land fifth on my ballot? Because I don’t vote Hugos to stories that make me want to throw up.
In the middle of this Lovecraftian parody/espionage tale there’s a confrontation with a monster that details a hideously graphic sexual violation.
Ordinarily I would have clocked out of the story at that point. I abandoned Paolo Bacigalupi’s Windup Girl when a scene struck me as outside the bounds of entertainment, and it was far less offensive. Yet I couldn’t shake off the fanzine fan ethic that says – don’t review stuff you haven’t read. So I finished “Equoid.”
Even apart from that dealbreaker, Stross’ sustained cleverness is almost overwhelming. It’s like being on a panel with David Brin, a constant flow of truly inventive ideas that nevertheless focus attention on the author more than the subject. However, there was one thing I truly enjoyed — the parallels drawn between bureaucratic infighting and action in the field. That definitely qualified as a “truth said in jest.”
(4) “The Chaplain’s Legacy” by Brad Torgersen (Analog, Jul-Aug 2013)
The science fiction field tends to be hostile to religious faith, so it’s rare to find a good exploration of that topic in the genre. Torgersen’s characters begin at several different points on the topography of belief. He draws each one to a resolution that feels genuine, which is not easy to do. Otherwise, this is a linear, action-driven space opera that would have fit comfortably in Astounding (and evidently still fits in Analog today). Only fourth place for this effort because the writing style is rather basic.
(3) The Butcher of Khardov by Dan Wells (Privateer Press)
Dan Wells’ story has an even higher body count than “Equoid” but confines itself to regular barroom and battlefield morbidity. The protagonist has a technology-related superpower that leads to a great military career though with many a pitfall. His life story is told out of chronological order, something Wells carries off very well – and the choice for the last segment is completely satisfying. A professionally impressive work, though one that isn’t much fun because the protagonist is psychotic.
(2) Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean Press)
The other day I read an editor promising her readers “gorgeous prose,” and Valente is an author who supplies that in abundance. In this novella she reweaves the traditional Snow White fairy tale as the life story of a child of a wealthy miner and a Crow woman, told in frontier diction — perhaps not the same as Charles Portis’ True Grit, though it came to mind, and absolutely without a trace of humor. The protagonist is an abused child inevitably trapped by a desire to please her parents. Throughout her life she copes with all the racism and sexism the 19th century has to offer. The historical realism (indeed, some of these details come from the Hearst family) makes the story feel like a duty to read.
The story is essentially a series of episodes that hold together because the reader knows the fairy tale. Otherwise the experience would be comparable to reading Harlan Ellison’s “The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore.” But that’s a short story. When I reached the point in Six-Gun Snow White of asking “Will this be over soon?” there were 80 more pages to go.
(1) “Wakulla Springs” by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 10-2013)
“Wakulla Springs” by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages is by far the most entertaining and slickest written story nominated in this category. The cleverness, use of dialect and diction, and the awareness of social issues noted in the competition are all present here but remain in balance with storytelling and characterization.
There is one drawback. It’s not science fiction, and it’s only fantasy in a very general sense. Now when I was a lad I might have felt obligated to defend the purity of the Hugo Award against incursions of popular mainstream fiction. But this year, when so many games were played to get things on the final ballot, I refuse to be stopped from voting for what I regard as the best story in the category.
