2021 Young Reader’s Choice Awards

The Pacific Northwest Library Association has announced the 2021 Young Reader’s Choice Award winners.

Junior Division (Grades 4-6)

  • Wings of Fire. The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui. T Sutherland; adapted by Barry Deutsch and Rachel Swirsky

Intermediate Division (Grades 7-9)

  • City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

Senior Division (Grades 10-12)

  • Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott

Nominations came from students, librarians, teachers, and parents in the Pacific Northwest – Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.

Nominated titles must be published three (3) years before the award year (for example, for the 2022 nominees must have a copyright date of 2019), printed in the United States or Canada. Nominations may include fiction, nonfiction, and graphic format titles.

The voters are anyone in grades four through twelve in the Pacific Northwest, with ballots generally being cast in a student’s school library or a participating public library. The winners are judged based on popularity with readers and several other factors.

 [Thanks to JJ for the story.]

Pixel Scroll 11/10/17 As I Was Pixelating Over Barsoom, I Saw Dejah Thoris On A Coup DeScroll

(1) STAR WARS TV SERIES COMING. Inverse was paying attention — “So, There’s a Live-Action ‘Star Wars’ Television Show on the Way”. But it will only be available on Disney’s standalone streaming service.

Hidden in the weeds of Lucasfilm’s official announcement that Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson will be developing a new standalone Star Wars trilogy was news of a live-action Star Wars television show.

… The only thing we do know about the as-yet-unnamed live-action Star Wars television show is that it’s a part of Disney’s upcoming streaming service. In 2019, Disney will pull all of its titles from Netflix and other streaming services to launch its own streaming platform, which will include this live-action Star Wars series as well as “four to five original movies a year.”

(2) SHE CAN AFFORD TO SCINTILLATE. That didn’t take long. Jo Walton’s Kickstarter to launch a new Montreal convention fully funded in nine hours and since then has blown past several stretch goals. Scintillation will be held in Montreal from October 5-7, 2018, with program by Walton, and takes the place of another con she used to do:

I stopped doing Farthing Party because every year I suffered agonies of anxiety that we wouldn’t have enough members to break even and I’d go into debt to the hotel. It also ate a lot of my time, and in 2014 I decided to stop and concentrate on writing and organizing smaller events with friends. Scintillation is going to be different. For one thing, it’s going to be funded (or not) by this Kickstarter. We’ll know how much money we have. If there isn’t enough interest and it doesn’t fund, we’ll know now and give up. For another, I have more help. I’ll still be doing program, but other people are going to be doing everything else, including the dreaded badge printing. So we can all have more fun.

Walton set a goal of $2,366 and has already raised $4,457.

(3) BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTER F. Kristine Kathryn Rusch, in “Business Musings: The People in Your Office”, says doing this is bad for a writer’s business – not that you had any doubts.

So, it happened again. A big name fantasy writer made his fans angry because the next book in his series hasn’t appeared in years. And, in a passing remark, he compared the comments fans make on his overdue book to those comments people make to their unemployed adult child about getting a job or to their single grandkid about getting married.

Patrick Rothfuss made the foolhardy decision to let a reporter shadow him all day and of course Rothfuss had an unguarded moment. He said, on the record,

“[The fans] don’t realize this is so wearying,” he said with a sigh when we spoke a few weeks ago. “It’s like asking, ‘When are you going to get married? When are you going to go to law school?’ It’s like, just fuck off. Just die. I don’t need any more of that in my life.”

It’s not a good plan to tell your fans to fuck off and die. Nor is it a good idea to tell them that their favorite author “is not your bitch” the way Neil Gaiman did for George R.R. Martin several years ago.

It’s especially not a good plan to tell the reporter who is also covering the fact that The Kingkiller Chronicle superfan Lin-Manuel Miranda (of Hamilton fame) will be the executive producer on a version of your series that’s going to be aired on Showtime in the next year or two.

But writers are who writers are. And most of them (most of us) spend our time alone in a room, making things up. Writers tend not to realize that their fans are people. Nor do some writers—especially newer writers who have fast success—realize that the only reason they’re going to be remembered as artists is if they have fans of their work.

(4) SEE ORIGNAL RUSS TEXT. This weekend at the Boston Book Fair Lloyd Currey and John Knott will be at booth 426 with several unique items will be on display, including an important manuscript by Joanna Russ.

Russ, Joanna. HOW TO SUPPRESS WOMEN’S WRITING [Nonfiction]. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT (AMs). Rough draft handwritten on lined notebook paper, except for the three-page “Authors Note” which is typewritten (carbon copy), with Russ’s handwritten corrections. 245 leaves, most with footnotes written on the versos. The manuscript includes material that was not included in the published book. The book is a high point of feminist literary criticism, a witty and rigorous examination of the arguments used to marginalize and suppress writing by women historically and in the present, arguments that might easily be (and have been) adapted to any body of writing a dominant group might wish to marginalize. It is a work of enduring interest and application that might outlast even the best of this fine writer’s fiction. “A book of the most profound and original clarity. Like all clear-sighted people who look and see what has been much mystified and much lied about, Russ is quite excitingly subversive. The study of literature should never be the same again …” – Marge Piercy.” The book was published in 1983 by the University of Texas Press and remains in print, although the author did not live to grant permission for an electronic edition.

(5) THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES. Doctor Science explains “Why I need maps in fantasy novels”:

For me, a map is a type of memory palace, linking up all kinds of information for easy retrieval. Without one, I don’t just feel lost, I feel *dumb* — because my memories are disorganized and harder to recall.

The novel that started me toward this realization is The Ruin of Angels, the sixth book in Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence. Set in a complex world in which both gods and capitalism are real, the books have been mostly set in different cities, each with its own culture and gods/capitalism balance, where history, human minds, and the fabric of reality keep being re-written under pressure.

(6) ALSO KNOWN AS. Kim Huett tries to psyche out why the author picked that particular name: “Paul Linebarger – Cordwainer Smith: Pondering the Pseudonym”.

However Paul Linebarger chose his own pseudonym and given the care with which he wrote his stories I can’t imagine him applying anything less than the same degree of care to choosing a pen-name. In which case I think it reasonable to assume Linebarger chose Cordwainer Smith because it had some sort of significance to him. He wouldn’t be the first to do so, Robert Heinlein for example constructed the pen-name Lyle Monroe from his mother’s maiden name and a surname taken from one branch of her family.

In Linebarger’s case however just what that significance his chosen pen-name might have isn’t immediately apparent. As far as I’m aware Paul Linebarger never explained why he chose Cordwainer Smith and those words have no obvious connection to the man. But that’s alright because I have a theory (actually, I always have a theory, it’s my least endearing trait people tell me)….

(7) TOYS IN THE HALL. The 2017 National Toy Hall of Fame inductees were announced today:

The mystery has been solved! The simple, soaring paper airplane; game-changing Wiffle Ball; and murder-mystery favorite Clue today became the latest inductees to The Strong’s National Toy Hall of Fame. The honorees were selected from a field of 12 finalists that also included: Magic 8 Ball, Matchbox Cars, My Little Pony, PEZ Candy Dispenser, play food, Risk, sand, Transformers, and Uno.

About paper airplane: Artist and inventor Leonardo DaVinci sketched and designed flying creations using parchment in the 15th century. Later, in the early 19th century, Sir George Cayley identified four primary forces—lift, drag, weight, and thrust—which eventually helped the Wright Brothers first take flight in 1903. These defining moments helped lead to the purported invention of the paper airplane in 1909—but its exact origin is unclear. Experts can agree that the principles that make an airplane fly are the same that govern paper versions. Paper’s high strength and density make it similar, scale wise, to the materials out of which actual airplanes are constructed.

“Where some toys require financial investment, paper airplanes start with a simple sheet of paper, coupled with creativity and dexterity, to produce a toy with infinite aeronautical possibilities,” says Christopher Bensch, The Strong’s vice president for collections. “They allow the imagination to takeoff and soar!”

About Wiffle Ball: A retired semi-pro baseball player in 1950s suburban Connecticut noticed that his son and friend could not play a game of baseball in the cramped space of their backyard (especially without breaking any windows). He began cutting holes in spherical plastic containers and gave them to his son for testing, eventually developing a ball with eight oblong slots that allowed the ball to grab air, thus diverting its trajectory. With it, a pitcher could easily throw a curve, a slider, or a knuckle ball. The Wiffle Ball slowed the game, shrunk the playing field, and made it conducive to post World War II-suburbia. The family-owned Wiffle Ball Inc. opened in Connecticut and established rules for the game of Wiffle Ball. Soon, it was producing millions of Wiffle Balls each year and it continues to do so.

“The Wiffle Ball changed the outdoor play landscape, taking the basics of backyard baseball and transforming it into something easier for neighborhood kids to negotiate. In the more than 60 years since its introduction, generations of Little League, high school, college, and pro sluggers have begun their baseball careers swinging at a Wiffle Ball,” says Curator Michelle Parnett-Dwyer.

About Clue: A British couple designed Clue during World War II and based it on the murder-mystery dinner parties popular around that time. They patented the game in 1944 and successfully pitched it to Waddington Games, but material shortages kept it out of production for several years. Then, in 1949, Waddingtons released it under the name “Cluedo.” Gaming giant Parker Brothers purchased the rights and released it in America under the name “Clue” shortly thereafter. The game—in which players must deduce with available evidence the murderer of the luckless Mr. Boddy—became a quick success. It remains one of the top 10 best-selling games of all time.

(8) NO SPACE MARINES. CNN reports “Lawmakers scrap ‘Space Corps’ proposal”.

Congressional negotiators have rejected the House’s plan to create a new “Space Corps” — omitting the proposal for a new military branch under the umbrella of the Air Force from the final version of a nearly $700 billion bipartisan defense policy bill called the National Defense Authorization Act.

Despite support from House Armed Services Committee leaders — including chairman Mac Thornberry — the Space Corps proposal will not be included in the final NDAA for fiscal year 2018. Though the bill does contain language directing further long-term study of the issue, according to senior staff for both armed service committees, who briefed reporters on the contents of the bill Wednesday.

The proposal, which was included in the House’s National Defense Authorization Act, would have set up a Space Corps in the mold of the Marine Corps, which is a separate military branch that’s housed within the Navy.

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • November 10, 1969 Sesame Street premiered.
  • November 10, 1973 Slaughterhouse Five is burned in North Dakota. “Some found the book’s pessimistic outlook and black humor unsuitable for school children.”
  • November 10, 1989 Communion premieres in theaters.

(10) CASTLES IN THE TEAR. Jamie Hannigan keeps busy in a way that might make some booklovers cringe: “I Make Game Of Thrones Sculptures Using The Books From The Series”.

I make sculptures out of the pages of used books. Each piece depicts what the book is about in some way. I decided to do a series of places in the Game of Thrones universe, as shown on the show’s intro sequence. Each sculpture takes somewhere from 10- 20 hours to make.

The series is not yet complete. I’m working on another piece now (Dorne) and I have several more planned out. You can see additional views of the GoT pieces, as well as my other work on my website.

More info: jamiebhannigan.com

Here’s Winterfell.

The artist also has a series of paper sculptures of Harry Potter, Moby Dick and Don Quixote.

(11) THANKS. Entertainment Weekly describes how “Deadpool 2 poster brings the family (and Cable) back together”.

The foulmouthed, R-rated, unicorn-loving, Francis-stalking, fourth wall-breaking Marvel family is getting back together in the new poster for Deadpool 2. After debuting on Collider, franchise star Ryan Reynolds released the one-sheet, which spoofs the famous “Freedom From Want” painting by Norman Rockwell.

Our favorite Merc with the Mouth, presenting a Thanksgiving turkey, is seen standing beside Josh Brolin’s time-traveling psychic mutant Cable, while Dopinder (Karan Soni), Vanessa (Morena Boccarin), Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand), Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), newcomer mutant Domino (Zazie Beetz), Weasel (T.J. Miller), and Colossus (Stefan Kapicic) sit around the dinner table.

(12) CATCH OF THE DAY. As it says in the photo caption, “Nasty big pointy teeth.” — “Portuguese trawler nets ‘prehistoric shark'”.

Portuguese scientists have captured a “shark from the age of the dinosaurs” off the Algarve coast.

Researchers caught the rare frilled shark aboard a trawler, where they were working on a European Union project to “minimise unwanted catches in commercial fishing”, Sic Noticias TV reports.

The scientists from the country’s Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere dubbed the shark a “living fossil” because remains have been dated back 80 million years, making it one of very few species of such antiquity still around today.

The Institute said the male fish measured 1.5 metres (5ft) in length and was caught at a depth of 700 metres (2,300 ft) in waters off the resort of Portimao.

…It is rarely caught, and even then examples do not often make it to research laboratories. There is also little footage of the shark in its natural habitat.

(13) HERE KITTY KITTY. Roman SJW credentials under threat: “The cats who rule Rome”. (video)

It’s well known that the Romans love their cats – so much so that they have designated the felines as a biocultural heritage of the city. But how much longer will this last?

(14) DIVERSE COMICS. And speaking of…. Barry Deutsch criticizes those who seem to believe in insisting that everyone else enjoy things in the same way as they do. The Twitter thread begins here —

(15) FORGOTTEN EARLY MAN. Can’t remember if I ran this already, so let’s err on the side of not missing it –

(16) NEXT PIXAR FLICK. Disney’s Coco, final official trailer. The movie hits theaters November 22.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Mark Hepworth, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]

Pixel Scroll 9/21/17 A Pixel Walks Into A Bar And Orders A Fifth

(1) CELEBRATE THE RADCH. Ann Leckie’s new book Provenance comes out on September 26, and the Imperial Radch fandom on Tumblr is asking people to create thematic fanworks as part of the celebration.

Each day, fans are encouraged to post work under the #Imperial Radch tag, and if you like, a new #Imperial Radch Week tag. Any medium is encouraged, and we selected days that hopefully highlight a wide range of skills!

  • Tuesday, Sept 19th: Ship Day
  • Wednesday, Sept 20th: Music Day
  • Friday, Sept 22nd: Fav Friday
  • Saturday: Sept 23rd: AU Day
  • Sunday, Sept 24th: Favorite Scene Day
  • Monday, Sept 25th: What the Heck is a Geck Day
  • Tuesday, Sept 26th: Release day

See this post for details of each day’s featured topic.

(2) RAISE YOUR TBR HIGHER. James Davis Nicoll foresees you will want to read “Twenty Core SF Works About Psionics and Awesome Mind Powers Every True SF Fan Should Have On Their Shelves”. Three of those works are –

  • The Clairvoyant Countess by Dorothy Gilman
  • Ingathering by Zenna Henderson
  • Zero Sum Game by S.L. Huang

Next week – “Twenty Room Houses True Fans Need To Own To Accommodate All The Books True Fans Should Have On Their Shelves.”

(3) FINAL JEOPARDY REFERENCES LEN WEIN. Steven H Silver has the story: “Today’s Final Jeopardy question may be the first time there’s been a FJ question about the spouse of a former contestant.  The question asked about a character created by Len Wein.  Len was married to four-time Jeopardy! champion Christine Valada (2009).”

(4) DONATIONS NEEDED. Mica Sunday Deerfield, Linda Bushyager’s sister, suffered substantial damage to her Houston home from Hurricane Harvey, and has launched a GoFundMe to raise money to make it habitable again.

When hurricane Harvey struck the Gulf coast, it filled over capacity the reservoir that is behind Mica’s house in West Houston. There was about 3 1/2 feet of water in the house and the neighborhood was inaccessible until yesterday, when our friend Dan courageously went there to see what happened. After 7 days of floodwaters, virtually all her possessions were dissolved, covered with mold, and lost to the flood. It will cost approximately $25,000 to empty the house, tear out all of the drywall, and remove the appliances, kitchen cabinets, insulation, furniture and everything else. Then they will do drying out and mold remediation. She will end up with an empty shell of a house. She will also then need money to fix the house back up. Any donation at all will be much appreciated. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

If you don’t know Linda Bushyager, she’s a long-time fanzine fan (Granfalloon, Karass) and fantasy author. More than that, when she shut down her fannish newzine Karass in the mid-Seventies, she passed the torch to File 770. And we’re still here!

(5) GATEKEEPERS. Martin Wisse defines a problematic culture in “The real trouble with comix”.

Supporting small business is important, but Amazon won’t ask you if you’re buying X-Men for your boyfriend every week. I’ve lost count of the women I know who stopped going to comic shops after being hit on or patronized too many times.

That small aside from a story about online harassment in video gaming perfectly illustrates the challenge the socalled mainstream comics industry has created for itself. Like videogaming, comics culture is steeped in rightwing victim culture, where you convince yourself both that you and your hobby are horribly oppressed and bullied by the jocks, the popular clique, riajuu and that your particular brand of pop culture is superior to what the brainless masses consume because they don’t spent their Wednesday evenings waiting for the new issue of whatever The Avengers is called this week. So you get a culture and industry that bemoans the fact that nobody loves comics anymore, but resents any step made to make people feel welcome. In fact, people seem to feel personally insulted if others enjoy the wrong sort of comics, as this fortuitous tweet demonstrates.

(6) SHOULDN’T SALES MATTER? Barry Deutsch addresses the same problem in a tweetstorm that begins here —

It runs 21 tweets and along the way observes:

(7) AGENT SPILLS THE BEANS. Fantasy-Faction scored an interview with agent Harry Illingworth.

When you’re reading all of those submissions, trawling through the slush pile, what is it you are actually looking for? What type of story, point of view, writing sets fire to your super-agent synapses and makes you request the full manuscript or sign them up there and then?

First up I’m looking at whether the author has followed the submission guidelines. It may sound obvious that you follow the guidelines when you submit, but you’d be amazed at how many people don’t. I then think about whether it’s a good cover letter as if it’s not a good cover letter I’m not inclined to be too hopeful about the book itself. I do find the authors I’ve taken on have all had really strong cover letters and the author knows their book and can express that in the letter. It all comes down to the actual writing though, and I’ll only ever call in the full manuscript based on my enjoyment of the first three chapters.

When writers search the internet for advice on how to create successful query it can be… overwhelming. So, help us out – what makes a good query letter, synopsis?

I think what makes a good query is research beforehand. You’ve written a book, so take care to find out who is writing similar kinds of books. Who can you compare to without saying you’re the next GRRM? Entice the agent but don’t tell the whole story of the book, and also carefully research the agent before you submit. Make sure you are putting your book in front of the right pair of eyes, and it doesn’t hurt to add a personal touch so the agent knows you haven’t just sent it out blindly.

(8) STINKIN’ BADGES. Jeff Somers names “Science Fiction & Fantasy’s Most Delightful Government Agencies” for readers of the B&N Sci-FI & Fantasy Blog.

SpecOps 27 (Thursday Next Series, by Jasper Fforde) What isn’t to love about a government agency charged with investigating literature-related crimes? Especially in an alternate universe where literature has the cultural heft of superhero movies, and the division between reality and fiction is so thin the two are easily mixed—with breathtaking results. All of the “Special Operations” units in the fictional world are pretty cool, actually, including SpecOps 12, in charge of investigating time travel-related events. For anyone who’s ever dreamed of falling into a book and waking up in their favorite story, SO-27 represents kind of the next best thing.

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • September 21, 1937 — J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit published.
  • September 21, 2005 Invasion premiered to those interested TV audiences.
  • September 21, 2015 — Fox TV dished out the series premiere of Minority Report.  The premise was culled from the Steven Spielberg movie of the same name, based on a story by Philip K. Dick. By the end of the first season it had been learned that few people want to see precogs go incog.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS

  • Born September 21, 1866 – H.G. Wells
  • Born September 21, 1912 – Chuck Jones, famous animator
  • Born September 21, 1947 — Stephen King

(11) COMICS SECTION.

Mike Kennedy found someone who probably should have asked for help earlier, in Real Life Adventures.

(12) SCARED TO DEATH. In October, Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) has filled their calendar with all things spooky and magical. Their movie lineup that includes Interview with the Vampire, The Dark Crystal, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, and a talk with Cheryl Henson (daughter of Jim and Jane Henson and President of The Henson Foundation).

Campout Cinema: Interview With the Vampire, October 6, 8:00 p.m. 21+ ($14, $11 MoPOP members)

A vampire tells the story of his life from widowed plantation owner to murderous immortal in this gothic classic based on Anne Rice’s best-selling novel starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst, Antonio Banderas, and Christian Slater. Includes admission to Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film and Infinite Worlds of Science Fiction.

Campout Cinema: The Dark Crystal, October 13, 7:00 p.m. All ages. ($16, $12 MoPOP members)

The last of the Gelfings must journey to find the crystal shard that will create order and bring peace to his world in this Jim Henson classic. Includes admission to The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited and a pre-screening talk with Cheryl Henson (Henson Foundation President, and Jim and Jane’s daughter).

The Art of Puppetry with Cheryl Henson, October 14, 2:00pm Free with museum admission.

From Sesame Street and The Muppet Show to The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson’s creative imagination and enthusiasm for new technologies expanded the art of puppetry. Join Cheryl Henson (Henson Foundation President, and Jim and Jane’s daughter) as she looks at her parent’s dedication to the art form through a discussion and showcase of their impressive body of work.

 Campout Cinema: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, October 26, 8:00 p.m. ($14, $11 MoPOP members)

The dream warriors must work together to try and stop Freddy Krueger for good in the third installment of this classic horror franchise starring Robert Englund, Patricia Arquette, and Heather Langencamp. Includes admission to Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film and Infinite Worlds of Science Fiction.

MoPOP After Dark: On Thursdays and Fridays throughout the month of October, MoPOP will host After Dark Happy Hours with exclusive after-hours access to MoPOP’s newest exhibition Scared to Death: The Thrill of Horror Film, plus MoPOP favorites Infinite Worlds of Science Fiction and Fantasy Worlds of Myth and Magic. Specialty, bone-chilling cocktails will be available for purchase. 5pm-8pm, MoPOP South Galleries. 21+, $15.

(12) ASGARD STYLE. About this time of year if I think of anyone wearing Marvel-themed clothing, I’m thinking about a Halloween costume. But no longer!

Josh Bennett, fashion designer and knitter extraordinaire, brings his passion for Marvel and its complex storytelling into a new sweater collection inspired by Marvel Studios’ Thor: Ragnarok. The new line will showcase Nordic influences, luxury fibers, and fantastical touches across a tight range of men’s sweaters available this holiday season.

…Bennett has always had a love for storytelling, and grew an appreciation for the robust worlds in Marvel stories as he immersed himself in Marvel films. When Thor: Ragnarok was announced as a November release, the unique settings, bold colors, and sense of wonder made it a perfect idea for a winter sweater collection.  Using references from the film, modern day trend influences, and new knitting techniques, Bennett has created a first-of-its-kind collection.

… The luxury limited edition collection includes four different styles, a chunky cardigan, v-neck tennis sweater, fisherman hoodie, and fair isle zip up, and uses yarns including 100% Italian cashmere and yarns from New Zealand, a nod to Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi.  Each sweater is extremely limited to no more than three pieces per size for each style and is numbered and dated.

The Josh Bennett x Marvel collection ranges from $1095 – $1495 USD and is available to shop online at www.joshbennettnyc.com  beginning November 10 with a pre sale October 10.

(13) HOW TO BREAK IN. The BBC reports that “Game of Thrones’ Ellie Kendrick wants to open up ‘closed shop’ film industry”.

“I’ve worked in the film industry on and off for about half my life and I’ve noticed that the worlds that are represented on our screens by no means mirror the worlds that we see around us in our everyday lives,” the 27-year-old says.

“Part of that is because it’s such a difficult industry to break into and often it requires huge financial support from parents or jobs. Or it requires contacts you’ve made in film school – which again costs a lot of money.

“So it’s a bit of a closed shop.”

The piece ends with this prime quote about her GoT role:

“But also, you know, I get to wield an axe occasionally and kill some zombies. So, all in all, she’s a pretty well-rounded character.”

(14) DIFFERENT BOUNDARIES. Mel Brooks, currently preparing for the opening in London’s West End of a musical version of his film Young Frankenstein, told a reporter, “Blazing Saddles would never be made today”.

He said Blazing Saddles, his Western spoof about a black sheriff in a racist town, could never be made today.

“It’s OK not to hurt the feelings of various tribes and groups,” he said. “However, it’s not good for comedy.

“Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks. It’s the lecherous little elf whispering in the king’s ear, telling the truth about human behaviour.”

(15) MICHELLE YEOH. A featurette with Star Trek: Discovery’s Captain Georgiou.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Steven H Silver, Carl Slaughter, Chip Hitchcock, David K.M. Klaus, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Niall McAuley.]

Pixel Scroll 4/24/17 Let Us Sit Upon The Ground And Scroll Sad Pixels

(1) UNORTHODOX APPROACH. Beginning July 18, a weekly podcast will be hosted by Sixth & I in Washington DC — “Harry Potter and The Sacred Text”.

What if we read the books we love as if they were sacred texts? What would we learn? How might they change us? Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a podcast the reads Harry Potter, the best-selling series of all time, as if it was a sacred text.

Just as Christians read the Bible, Jews the Torah, and Muslims read the Quran, Harvard chaplains Vanessa Zoltan and Casper ter Kuile embark on a 199 ­episode journey (one chapter per week) to glean what wisdom and meaning J.K. Rowling’s beloved novels have in store.

The chaplains read the beloved series through the lens of instructive and inspirational text and extract lessons that can be applied to our own lives.

At the end of 199 weeks will something more emerge from these readings?

(2) JUSTICE IS BLIND. At Sharps & Flatirons, Peter Alexander says blind orchestral auditions have leveled the playing field — “Women in Classical Music: Some Good News, Some Bad News” .

First the good news: professional orchestras are filled with women today, a vast contrast to 40 or 50 years ago when orchestras were almost entirely male. This is now a viable career for the most talented women instrumentalists.

The bad news is that the picture is not nearly as rosy for women composers, who are not well represented on orchestral programs. And women conductors are no better off than composers.

The growing numbers of women in professional orchestras at every level can be traced to a single innovation that began around 1970: “blind auditions,” where competing candidates for open orchestral jobs play behind a screen. The selection committee does not know if it is hearing a man or a woman. The rapid change in the makeup of orchestras since 1970—casually visible and backed up by the numbers—is compelling evidence of the opposition women orchestral players faced before that innovation.

… In an article titled “Orchestrating Impartiality,” published in 2000 in The American Economic Review, researchers Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse concluded that “the screen increases—by 50 percent—the probability that a woman will be advanced from certain preliminary rounds and increases by severalfold the likelihood that a woman will be selected in the final round.” Their conclusion is backed up by 25 pages of charts, graphs and statistical studies.

(3) CON OR BUST AUCTION. The Con or Bust annual fundraising auction has begun and runs until May 7 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern. Con or Bust, Inc., is a tax-exempt not-for-profit organization that helps people of color/non-white people attend SFF conventions.

The available items include a signed galley of Ann Leckie’s next novel Provenance (to be published in October.) When I last looked, bidding was already up to $120.

Here are a few examples of the wide variety of auction items –

The whole list of auction tags is here.

(4) EMOJI CODE. There are four summaries, and I didn’t understand even one. Your turn! “Can you guess the Doctor Who episodes told in emojis?”

Test your Doctor Who knowledge by deciphering these emoji plots and guessing the episode!

If you’re stuck, answers are at the bottom of the page…

(5) LOOK, UP IN THE SKY. Talk about timing! Carl Slaughter referenced Larry Page in the other day’s flying car roundup, and today the news is “Larry Page’s flying car will be available to buy before the end of the year”

The Kitty Hawk Flyer is an electric aircraft that, in its current version, looks a bit like a flying Jet Ski. Cimeron Morrissey, who test flew the aircraft, wrote in a review that the final version would look quite different from the prototype, which doesn’t look all that practical.

A New York Times profile of the Flyer describes it as “something Luke Skywalker would have built out of spare parts.” The vehicle weighs about 100 kilograms and, according to Morrissey, can travel up to 25 mph. She likened the Flyer to “a toy helicopter.”

(6) PETER S. BEAGLE. Initially Barry Deutsch was signal-boosting an appeal for funds — “Peter S Beagle, author of ‘The Last Unicorn,’ is in dire need! Here are three ways you can help.” However, Beagle’s fans immediately came through on the short-term goal, which still leaves two longer-term needs:

LONG-TERM:

Go to the Support Peter Beagle website and use the button there to contribute to a fund to help pay for Peter Beagle’s legal costs. You can leave a message for Peter in the paypal field; I am told he will receive and read all messages sent this way.

BUY THE HUMBLE BUNDLE!

Peter Beagle has curated a Humble Bumble of unicorn fiction, called “Save the Unicorns.” You can pay as little as $1 to get a ton of novels to read, and support Peter Beagle at the same time! Important: In “choose where your money goes,” pick 100% Tachyon Press. Peter Beagle will get royalties and such from Tachyon for these Humble Bumble sales.

To be kept up-to-date on Peter Beagle news, follow @RealPeterBeagle on Twitter.

(7) UNGRADED HATE MAIL. Margaret Atwood answers Patt Morrison’s questions in the LA Times.

I can imagine your fan mail. I can’t imagine your hate mail.

I’ve gotten lots of hate mail over the years. I’ll probably get more once the television series comes out. But I’m not advocating for one thing or the other. I’m saying that what kind of laws you pass — those laws will have certain kinds of results. So you should think carefully about whether you want to have those results or not.

If you’re going to ban birth control, if you’re going to ban information about reproduction, if you’re going to defund all of those things, there will be consequences. Do you want those consequences or not? Are you willing to pay for them or not?

Listen to the “Patt Morrison Asks” podcast and read the full interview at here.

(8) WHO’S THAT SHOUTING? Two writers here for the LA Festival of Books indulge in shenanigans. (Hm, just discovered my spellchecker has a different opinion of how shenanigans is spelled than I have – dang, it did it again!)

(9) CITIZEN SCIENCE. And they call the wind aurora whatever-it-is… Steve? “Aurora photographers find new night sky lights and call them Steve”

Relatively little else is known about the big purple light as yet but it appears it is not an aurora as it does not stem from the interaction of solar particles with the Earth’s magnetic field.

There are reports that the group called it Steve in homage to a 2006 children’s film, Over the Hedge, where the characters give the name to a creature they have not seen before.

Roger Haagmans of the ESA said: “It is amazing how a beautiful natural phenomenon, seen by observant citizens, can trigger scientists’ curiosity.

“It turns out that Steve is actually remarkably common, but we hadn’t noticed it before. “It’s thanks to ground-based observations, satellites, today’s explosion of access to data and an army of citizen scientists joining forces to document it.”

(10) A CERTAIN GLOW ABOUT THEM. If you don’t already know this story, you should: “Dark Lives Of ‘The Radium Girls’ Left A Bright Legacy For Workers, Science”,an interview with the book’s author Kate Moore.

In the early days of the 20th century, the United States Radium Corporation had factories in New Jersey and Illinois, where they employed mostly women to paint watch and clock faces with their luminous radium paint. The paint got everywhere — hair, hands, clothes, and mouths.

They were called the shining girls, because they quite literally glowed in the dark. And they were dying.

Kate Moore’s new book The Radium Girls is about the young women who were poisoned by the radium paint — and the five who sued United States Radium in a case that led to labor safety standards and workers’ rights advances.

(11) WHILE YOU WERE OUT: One big step for…. “Astronaut Peggy Whitson breaks new space record”.

Peggy Whitson has broken the record for most days in space by a US astronaut.

Dr Whitson already holds records for the most spacewalks carried out by a woman astronaut and is the first woman to command the International Space Station (ISS) twice.

Now she’s beaten the record previously set by Jeff Williams, who had a total of 534 days in space.

President Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka have called Dr Whitson to congratulate her.

(12) AN EYEFUL. Forbes has a gallery of “The Top Cosplayers From Silicon Valley Comic Con”.

This weekend the second Silicon Valley Comic Con took place, featuring robotics, virtual reality and a wax statue of Steve Wozniak. But everyone knows that Comic Con is really about one thing, and that’s the jaw dropping cosplay. From menacing Jokers to an adorable Hatsune Miku costume, enjoy this roundup of some of the most eye-catching costumes at the show…

 

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My cape means business ??

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(13) DOC WEIR AWARD. British Eastercon members voted the 2017 Doc Weir Award to Serena Culfeather and John Wilson.

The Doc Weir Award was set up in 1963 in memory of fan Arthur Rose (Doc) Weir, who had died two years previously. Weir was a relative newcomer to fandom, he discovered it late in life – but in the short time of his involvement he was active in a number of fannish areas. In recognition of this, the Award is sometimes seen as the “Good Guy” Award; something for “The Unsung Heroes”.

(14) SCIENCE QUESTION. I thought you could only get hit by a meteorite? (Unless it’s being smacked by a wet echinoderm he’s worried about.)

(15) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • April 24, 1184 B.C. – Traditional date of the Fall of Troy, calculated by Eratosthenes.
  • April 24, 1990 – Hubble Space Telescope launched.

(16) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY SCHLOCK MEISTER

  • Born April 24, 1914 – Filmmaker William Castle

(17) CARTOON OF THE DAY. “Cat City” by Victoria Vincent on Vimeo explains what happens when a cat runs away from home to become a hairdresser and drinks too much!

(18) WILL WORK FOR CLICKS. Camestros Felapton renders another much-needed public service: “See how your favourite Games of Thrones Characters are related”. Go there to see the family trees.

(19) NOVELLA INITIATIVE. The Book Smugglers published the first 2017 entry in their Novella Initiative last week, Dianna Gunn’s novella Keeper of the Dawn.

In Keeper of the Dawn, the first novella from Book Smugglers Publishing, author Dianna Gunn introduces readers to strong-willed Lai. All her life she has dreamed of following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother and becoming a priestess in service to her beloved goddesses. But even after lifelong preparation, she fails trials and her next instinct is to run away.

Off in the north kingdom of Alanum, as she works to recalibrate her future, Lai becomes the bodyguard of a wealthy merchant, who is impressed by her strength and bravery. One night she hears stories about a mountain city where they worship the same goddesses she does. Determined to learn more about these women, these Keepers of the Dawn, Lai travels onward to find their temple and do whatever it takes to join their sacred order. Falling in love with another initiate was not part of the plan.

Keeper of the Dawn, rich with female empowerment, is a multi-layered LGBTQIA YA Fantasy story about fate, forgiving yourself, and the endurance of hope.

Gunn also wrote a post about her inspirations and influences.

In many ways Lai’s story also mirrors the story of my own career. I’ve dreamed about being an author since the age of eight, and as a child I stubbornly believed I would have my first novel published before my eighteenth birthday.

Well, my eighteenth birthday came and went some years ago, and only now is my first book coming out. But I have already been a working writer for six years, writing marketing materials for many different companies and non-profits. More importantly, my dream still came true—just a few years later than planned.

(20) CLARKE AWARD CONTENDERS. A couple of Shadow Clarke jurors take their turn discussing what have proven to be group favorites, while another visits less familiar ground.

Part of the way it reworks things is that it’s not about the Up and Out, but the ups and downs. The rigors of life are always present: people make decisions, those decisions impact life, and they rarely have anything to do with that giant monstrosity towering from the south that hurls people into outer space. The Central Station of Central Station is a mere landmark, an economic hub and cultural icon, but as Maureen K. Speller points out in her review, “…even in science fiction, that so-called literature of the future, nothing lasts forever. The symbolic tropes – space ships, robots, AIs – will all eventually be absorbed and become part of the scenery.” The Central Station of the future is the airport of today: not that big of a deal.

This is a difficult, intractable, Gordian knot of a novel, the kind you recommend to like-minded friends more out of curiosity to see what they’ll make of it than from any reasonable belief that they’ll enjoy the book. Whether this novel – formally and stylistically perfect though it is, a rare gem of a debut that hints at that rare beast, a writer who knows precisely where he’s going and what he wants – can be enjoyed on anything other than a purely intellectual level is a debatable point; whether it can be enjoyed as science fiction still more so.

The Underground Railroad is about as significant a novel as American literary culture is capable of producing in the first quarter of the 21st century.

If you care enough about books to be reading this kind of essay then chances are that you have either purchased or taken an interest in this novel. Far from being organic and spontaneous, your decision to purchase Colson Whitehead’s latest novel is the result of almost every facet of American literary culture coming into alignment and choosing to imbue a single work with as much cultural significance as those institutions can conceivably muster. Already a winner of many prestigious literary awards and a beneficiary of both the Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships, Colson Whitehead has now seen his sixth novel celebrated not only by Pulitzer and National Book Award judges but also by the – arguably more influential and economically important – face of Oprah’s Book Club.

(21) DOCTOR TINGLE AI. Applied Digital Studies Project uses a twitter bot to form new titles based on novels by Dr. Chuck Tingle. Not surprisingly, there is a good deal of butt and pounding in these titles. Still, some of them are funny.

(22) MYTHIC FIGURE. Today Chuck Tingle is busy burnishing his legend.

(23) READERCON. Tracy Townsend announced she will be at Readercon in Quincy, MA from July 13-16.

Guests of Honor:

Naomi Novik & Nnedi Okorafor

Memorial Guest of Honor:

Tanith Lee

Although Readercon is modeled on “science fiction conventions,” there is no art show, no costumes, no gaming, and almost no media. Instead, Readercon features a near-total focus on the written word….

(24) MOVIE RESTORATION. The Verge says those who have heard of it should be pleased — “Andrei Tarkovsky’s sci-fi classic Stalker is getting an HD restoration”. And those like me, who haven’t, will be intrigued.

Cinephiles, rejoice! Criterion Collection will be adding a major science-fiction classic to its roster this summer: a restored version of Stalker, directed by Solaris filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky.

Based off the 1971 Russian science-fiction novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Stalker was originally released in 1979. The film follows a man known as “the Stalker” as he leads an expedition into a mysterious, forbidden area known as “The Zone.” In the book, the mysterious Zone is the location of an alien visitation decades before the story, littered with fantastic pieces of technology and dangers; in the film, its origins are more obscure. But in both cases, reality there is distorted, and somewhere inside is a room that will grant visitors’ innermost desires. The journey to get there is physically and philosophically arduous, and it tests the trio of men traveling there.

(25) SUBTITLES IN I KNOW NOT WHAT LANGUAGE. The Justice League Official International Trailer dropped today.

Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy.

 

(26) A VISIT TO MARVEL. SlashFilm leads readers on a “Marvel Studios Offices Tour: A Behind-the-Scenes Look”. (Photos at the site.)

The Marvel Studios offices are located on the second floor of the Frank G. Wells Building on the Walt Disney Studios lot. When you exit the elevators, you are greeted by a wall-to-wall mural featuring the Guardians of the Galaxy, and a big Marvel Studios logo.

Marvel Studios began in a tiny office in Santa Monica that they shared with a kite factory. After that, the company moved to an office above a Mercedes dealership in Beverly Hills. They were based out of Manhattan Beach Studios for a few years before Disney asked them to move onto the Burbank lot in 2014. But it wasn’t until a few months ago that Marvel fully decorated their offices….

(27) BOMBS AWAY. A new record for a domino toppling specialty was set in March.

A group of domino builders in Michigan created the world’s largest “circle bomb” using nearly 80,000 dominoes.

The Incredible Science Machine team broke the Guinness World Record for “Most dominoes toppled in a circle bomb/circle field” by creating a series of 76,017 dominoes that toppled from the center of a circle to its outer edge.

“The Incredible Science Machine Team is very passionate about domino art and sharing it with an audience to amaze and inspire them,” team leader Steve Price, 22, said.

A total of 18 builders from the United States, Canada, Germany and Austria spent 10 days constructing the domino formation at the Incredible Science Machine’s annual event in Westland, Mich.

 

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Mark-kitteh, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Mart.]

Pixel Scroll 4/29/16 Dr. Strangelist

We’ll split the Scroll again today. Guess which part this is!

(1) NOMINEE STATEMENT. For those who are interested, Cora Buhlert sent a link to “What Price Humanity?” author David VanDyke’s statement regarding his nomination at Kboards.

Re: KBoarder David VanDyke is a Hugo Award Finalist

Thanks everyone.

I wrote this bit and posted in the other thread before I saw this one, so I’ll copy-paste it here:

As we poker players say, I’ve tried to put myself into a position to get lucky, and it seems I have. Or, as another quote goes, it takes years to become an overnight success. I submitted a story to a Jerry Pournelle anthology (There Will Be War X), got accepted, then suddenly got nominated for a Hugo in a relatively easier category (novelette – novels, novellas and short stories seem much more competitive), and boom, somebody notices me after 4 years and 25 books as an indie…

I’ll be going to WorldCon in KC, but I don’t think I have a snowball’s chance of winning…not with a Stephen King novelette in there. But the nom is nice, and the networking will be nice.

…and for those who might wonder, I’m apolitical about the whole Hugo process and on nobody’s side. I just submitted a story to one of the grand masters of military sci-fi and it got picked up for the anthology, and then nominated. That’s it. No investment in puppies, kitties, gerbils, tortoises or other animals. I’m not really a joiner of special interest groups or parties anyway. Hopefully my work stands on its own.

Thanks again for all the well-wishing.

(2) MORE VOTING ADVICE. WTF Pancakes makes a modest suggestion in “Hugo Awards 2016: Geez, not this shit again”.

I’ve read suggestions that this year’s troll-fest was a direct response to the Hugo voters’ failure to reward the Puppies to force the voters to give them trophies even if the voters didn’t actually believe they were deserved. No, really, that’s the argument (although it was phrased slightly differently.) The desire, then, is to receive an award, regardless of merit. The sort of thing that Puppy authors might call “affirmative action.”

Fortunately, I have a solution which I think every reasonable person will agree is wise and just: If what the Puppies really want is recognition, then simply reward every Puppy candidate with a “participant” award. You know, the kind they give to grade school children when you don’t want anyone to feel bad. This way, the Chuck Tingles and John C. Wrights of the world can have their recognition without having to try to abuse the nomination process. Then, simply discard any nominations which match the slate proposed by the Rabid Puppies. Problem solved…for a little while at least…maybe.

(3) IT’S DEAD JIM. Joe Follansbee conducts the autopsy in “The Hugo Awards are dead, and the xPuppies killed them”.

All this wouldn’t matter, except for the fact that science fiction readers worldwide depend on the Hugo Awards as a mark of quality. While some of the xPup-inees are worthy, such as Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, and sci-fi master Jerry Pournelle for his editing, the nomination ballot-stuffing by the xPuppies has permanently damaged the Hugos’ credibility. How can any discerning reader look at the phrase “Hugo Award-nominated” or “Hugo Award-winning,” not think of Butt Invasion, and not drop the potential purchase like a hot potato?

Likewise, how can any publisher associate itself with these kinds of brand-threatening shenanigans? They’re risk-averse enough as it is. Why take the chance with printing the Hugo rocket ship logo on its project without thinking of two years’ worth of Hugo train wrecks?

A second year of “No Award” winners will put the final nails into the Hugos’ coffin because it would demonstrate readers’ lack of faith in the award.

Hope is not completely lost, however. WorldCon, which manages the Hugos, has a chance to fix the problem with proposed nominations rules changes, though they won’t take effect until 2017, assuming they’re approved. If not, they might as well kill the awards program altogether. No one will believe in it anymore.

(4) TOO GRAPHIC. GamerGate Life responds to its nomination.

(5) AH SWEET. Russell Newquist boosts the Castalia House signal in “The Perversion of Science Fiction and Fantasy Fandom”.

The 2016 Hugo Awards are important, and not for any of that. There is a critical message this year that far exceeds anything else to do with the Hugos. It boils down to two specific works, both of which have been nominated in the “Best Related Work” category:

The first is “Safe Space as Rape Room: Science Fiction Culture and Childhood’s End.” Written by Daniel Eness for the Castalia House blog. The second is “The Story of Moira Greyland” by Moira Greyland.

These two works are not just the most important published works of the science fiction community of 2015. They are the most important works of this millennium….

(6) DEJA HUGO. Jim C. Hines presents his thoughts about the Hugos, and the difference between anger and abuse, in “A Few Hugo Requests”.

2. No asterisks, please.

I did make a crack about asterisks and the Hugo last year after the trophy was released. And I think a lot of people had a mental asterisk over the whole thing, because let’s be honest, last year was anything but normal for the Hugo awards. So yeah, I definitely get it.

But at last year’s Hugo award ceremony, they handed out wooden asterisk plaques, and later sold additional wooden asterisks.

I don’t believe this was done with malicious intent (though I obviously can’t read anyone’s minds). Maybe it was an attempt at humor, and/or to acknowledge the elephant in the room. I appreciate that the sale of the asterisks raised several thousand dollars for a good cause.

Whatever the intentions, it resulted in a lot of people feeling hurt and attacked. I know from experience how nerve-wracking a Hugo ceremony can be in a normal year. Last year, and this year, tensions and anxieties and fears are exponentially higher. And for many of the people in attendance, the asterisks felt like a big old slap in the face.

Like I said, I don’t think that was the intention. (Others will disagree, and have gleefully pointed to the asterisks as “proof” that “the other side” is evil and nasty.) In this case, I don’t think intention matters so much as the impact it had, including hurting some good, talented people.

(7) THE ESTIMATE. Rocket Stack Rank’s Gregory N. Hullender attempts an “Analysis of Slate Voting for the 2016 Hugos”.

Overview

I estimate there were about 205 “Rabid Puppies” this year, essentially identical to the estimated 204 Sad+Rabid puppies last year. The reason they did so well despite a doubling of the number of “organic” votes is that they managed much better slate discipline this year; last year, not everyone voted for all five candidates nor in every category, but this year it seems they did….

(8) THOUGHTS THUNK WHILE THINKING. How come nearly everybody titles their post “Thoughts on the Hugo Nominations”? Like Anthony M at the Hugo-nominated Superversive SF blog who is thoroughly okay with the reason that happened, so why should you have any problem?

Does this bother anybody? It shouldn’t. It doesn’t bother me. We’ve been growing a fanbase since we started, and the fact that the Sads AND the Rabids both had us on their lists does mean we’re leaving a mark. I don’t believe we were picked as a parody, for the simple reason that Castalia likes our work enough to give us a weekly column on their increasingly popular blog. An anthology unassociated with us recently opened up submissions for superversive stories. We’re doing very well, and this only gets us more exposure. This is great!

And yet, if we weren’t on the Rabid Puppies slate, we still probably wouldn’t be on the Hugo shortlist. So why doesn’t this bother me? My answer is simple: I agree with what Vox Day is doing.

(9) MY HUGO NOMINATED PONY. At anthropomorphic fiction blog Fayrah, Brendan Kachel reacts: “’My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’ episodes nominated for 2016 Hugo Awards as part of ‘Rabid Puppies’ slate”.

However, furries and bronies perhaps shouldn’t celebrate so soon; last year’s Hugo Awards were pretty controversial, and this year is apparently the sequel.

Looks like the ponies are actually Trojan horses. For puppies.

The Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies are “slates” of nominees designed to abuse a loophole in the Hugo Awards rules by which a group of voters can assure nominations for a pre-approved set of nominees by agreeing to vote for them. These slates were begun in order to fight what they describe as “political correctness” (and opponents would describe as “progressive social stances”) in the works nominated and winning at the Hugos. The politics of those running the “puppies” slate are frequently described as “neo-conservative;” the founder of the Rabid Puppies, Vox Day, is described by Wikipedia as a “white supremacist.” And the My Little Pony episodes were on his list.

The obvious question is how a children’s television show like My Little Pony (one created by feminist Lauren Faust known for its progressive themes, no less) came to be associated with someone like Vox Day. Part of the answer may be that Day is looking to further embarrass the Hugo Awards, especially after none of his slate won an award last year (even in categories where his slate swept the nominees, “No Award Given” received the most votes, leaving many categories unrewarded), and perhaps figured a nomination for a cartoon about magical horses was an embarrassment. This year, one of his short story selections was “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” by Chuck Tingle, a story of what Wikipedia delicately calls “niche erotica” (and, yes, is exactly what it sounds like). Or perhaps Day is just a legitimate fan of both ponies and “niche erotica”, after all.

However, the two episodes in question were praised by conservative sources as “anti-Marxist”, which may be on point about the episodes in question (and, admittedly, the show, being based on a toy line, can hardly be called anti-capitalist), but hardly holds up as a valid interpretation of the show’s ethos overall.

(10) DEDUCTIONS. Barry Deutsch at Alas! A Blog has his thinking cap on, too: “Hugo Nominations Are Out, And The Rabid Puppies Dominated The List. A Few Thoughts”.

1) My guess is that we’ll see Noah Ward win on at least a couple of categories this year, but most categories will have a named winner.

2) Next year, assuming the voters at this year’s Worldcon agree to this, there will be a change in the Hugo vote-counting rules – E Pluribus Hugo – which might reduce the ability of a minority of slate voters to game the process and unfairly dominate Hugo nominations. Early data may indicate that EPH won’t make as large a difference as people are hoping. If further changes are necessary to prevent the Rabid Puppies from gaming the system to dominate nominations, I expect further changes will be made.

3) By a wide margin, more people voted to nominate works for the Hugos in 2016 than in any prior year. And the Rabid Puppies still dominated the outcome. If there are hundreds of possible nominees, and if most nominators vote honestly, then a small group of slate voters can overpower the large majority of honest voters. I hope that this result will persuade people who have been saying “all’s that’s needed is for more people to nominate” to change their minds.

(11) PATRICK NIELSEN HAYDEN.

(12) ALTERNATE AWARDS. Adam-Troy Castro told his Facebook readers what else they can do for writers.

The Hugos are broken. These people broke them. I don’t see them going away and I don’t see it getting any better.

This is a sad thing, but you know what?

The Hugos were once fandom’s way of honoring that which touched them.

Today, the readership is more balkanized. Nobody reads everything published in fantastic fiction. Some of you only read novels about women in tight pants fighting vampires. Some of you only read novels about spaceships going pew-pew-pew in the asteroids. Some of you only read literary sf. Whatever gets honored in any particular year will leave the partisans of one kind of fiction feeling left out. The Puppies are nothing if not folks saddened by a couple of years of awards going to more diverse choices: people going boo-hoo-hoo because of not enough love for pew-pew-pew.

You want to honor your favorite authors with awards?

Telling others about their great books is an award.

Telling them you loved their books is an award.

Expressing your enthusiasm with online reviews is an award.

(13) THE OTHER HUGO. James H. Burns points out this ’70s toy that later was featured as “a guest” on both The Uncle Floyd Show, and Pee Wee Herman’s first stage show and HBO special!

hugo-man-of-a-thousand-faces-movieHugo

(14) GALACTIC STARS. The Traveler at Galactic Journey decided over 50 years ago that the Hugos were not the answer, and started giving out his own Galactic Stars every year. The latest set were announced last December.

The chill of winter is finally here, heralding the end of a year.  It’s time for eggnog, nutmeg, presents, pies, and family.  But more importantly, it’s time for the second annual Galactic Stars awards.

Forget the Hugos–here’s what I liked best in 1960.

In a tradition I began last year, I look back at all fiction that debuted in magazines (at least, The Big Four) with a cover date of this year as well as all of the science fiction books published.  Then I break down the fiction by length, choose the best by magazine, and finally the best overall.  All using the most modern and sophisticated scientific techniques, of course.

Last year, my choices mirrored those chosen at the Labor Day Worldcon for the Hugo awards.  We’ll see if my tastes continue to flow in the mainstream.  I break my length categories a bit finer than the Hugos, so there are bound to be some differences from that aspect, alone.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cora Buhlert, Jim C. Hines, and James H. Burns for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]

Pixel Scroll 3/26/16 Who Killed Morlock Holmes?

(1) WHERE THE DEER AND ANTELOPE PLAY. BBC’s report “Grand Theft Auto deer causes chaos in game world” includes a video clip.

More than 200,000 people have tuned in to watch the deer via a video stream on the Twitch site.

Best version

The project uses a modified version of GTA V that let Mr Watanabe change the player to look like a deer. The animal wanders around the virtual 100 square miles of the San Andreas world in which the game is set.

“The most difficult thing during the creation of the project was simply teaching myself to modify GTA V,” Mr Watanabe told the BBC. “There is an incredibly active modding community and I figured out how to programme the mod through a lot of forum searches and trial and error.

“The biggest difficulty was getting it stable enough to run for 12-14 hours at a time without crashing,” he said.

He made the deer impervious to harm so it can keep on wandering despite being regularly shot at, beaten up, run over by cars and trucks, shelled by tanks and falling off buildings.

The trouble it has caused on military bases, beaches and on city streets led, at one point, to it having a four star wanted rating.

The deer regularly teleports to a new position on the game map so it does not get stuck in one part and to make sure it samples the games’s many different environments and meets lots of its artificial inhabitants.

(2) JEDI EVANGELISM. Darren Garrison wanted to be sure I knew about “Jedism in the Wisconsin State Capitol”. I enjoy running Jedi religious stories more when the concept hasn’t been appropriated for the culture wars.

Around Easter every year, the Capitol rotunda becomes cluttered with numerous religious displays, mostly of a Christian nature. This year’s the rotunda features a large wooden cross, several Christian posters promoting Jesus’ death, and pro-life displays, among many others. This time, the Atheists, Humanists, and Agnostics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (AHA) have added a Jedism poster to the mix.

The poster, designed by AHA, is based on a modern, newer religion called Jedism. Its followers worship Jedis such as Obi-Wan Kenobi, from the Star Wars movies. Their poster reads “One Man Died for All”, referring to the Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi. The poster displays a portrait of Obi-Wan Kenobi as a Jedi, but is oftentimes confused as a portrait of Jesus. Their poster asks the following questions with respective answers: “Who is this man?” “Obi-Wan Kenobi”, “Why is it important that we remember him?” “To escape the death star”, and “How does his death help us?” “Because he comes back as a ghost at times and it can be quite surprising”.

(3) ORIGIN STORY. Andrew Liptak praises “The Innovative Jim Baen” at Kirkus Reviews.

Baen returned to Ace Books in 1977, where he began working with publisher Tom Doherty. Doherty had grown up reading Galaxy, and “I had kept reading both of those magazines,” He recalled, “I thought [Baen] was doing an exceptional job, and brought in him to head up our science fiction [program].”

At Ace, Baen continued his streak of discovering new and interesting authors. “He brought in a number of strong authors,” Doherty recalled. His time at Ace was short-lived, however: Doherty decided to venture out into the publishing world on his own, setting up Tor Books. Baen, along with Harriet McDougal, joined Tor Books, where he continued his work under Doherty editing science fiction

Baen followed “the same pattern that had revived Ace,” Drake wrote in his remembrance, “a focus on story and a mix of established authors with first-timers whom Jim thought just might have what it took. It worked again.”

In 1983, rival publisher Simon & Schuster began having some problems with their paperback division, Pocket Books. Their own SF imprint, Timescape Books, run by David G. Hartwell, wasn’t doing well, and was being closed down. They reached out to Baen, asking him if he’d like to run the imprint.

Doherty remembered that Baen wasn’t keen on joining Simon & Schuster: “Look, Jim doesn’t want to join a big corporation,” he told Ron Busch, Simon & Schuster’s president of mass-market publishing. “But he’s always dreamed of having his own company. How about we create a company which you will distribute. We’ll take the risk and make what we can as a small publisher, and you’ll make a full distribution profit on our books?” Busch agreed to the deal: he would get his science fiction line.

Baen formed his own publishing house, Baen Books, with Doherty as a partner, and began to publish his particular brand of science fiction.

(4) KEN LIU INTERVIEW. Derek Kunsken has “The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories: An Interview with Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award-Winner Ken Liu” at Black Gate.

You play with a lot of myths. Good Hunting and The Litigation Master and the Monkey King pull in Chinese myth. The Waves weaves the creation myths of different cultures into the narrative. State Change creates its own mythology of souls and famous people. What are your favorite myths? When writers use myth, do they only borrow that cultural and thematic gravitas, or do you think that writers today can bring to the table a new way of looking at older myths?

All cultures are founded on myths, and modern life hasn’t changed that at all. It’s important to remember that living myths are not static, but evolving, living tales we craft.

Our sense of what it means to be American, for example, depends on contesting and re-interpreting the foundational myths of America—our “Founding Fathers,” our original sins of slavery and conquest, our exceptionalism, our self-image as the city on the hill, the crucibles of the wars that gave us birth, the gods and heroes who laid down our republican institutions and democratic ideals like the bones and sinew of a giant upon whose body we make our home.

Or look at the myths that animate Silicon Valley: the idea that a single person, armed with a keyboard (and perhaps a soldiering iron), can transform the world with code; the belief that all problems can be reduced down to a matter of optimization, disintermediation, and “disruption”; the heroes and gods who founded the tech colossi that bestride the land while we scurry between their feet — some of us yearning to join them in a giant battle mecha of our own and others wishing to bring them down like the rebels on Hoth.

(5) COVERS UP. John Scalzi answers readers’ questions about writing at Whatever.

Listhertel: There’s an adage not to judge a book by its cover, but we all know people do. I know authors get little to no say in the cover art, but do you have any preferences? Painting versus digital, people versus objects, a consistent look versus variety? Are there any of your covers you particularly love or hate (including foreign editions)?

The book cover of mine I like least is the one on The Book of the Dumb, but inasmuch as BotD sold over 150,000 copies, meaning that the cover art worked for the book, this might tell you why authors are not generally given refusal rights on their covers. Cover art is advertising, both to booksellers and to readers, and that has to be understood. I’m at a point where if I really hate a cover, I’ll be listened to, but I also know what I don’t know, so I rarely complain. But it also helps that, particularly with Tor, the art director knows her gig, and they do great covers. I would probably complain about oversexualized covers, or characters not looking on the cover they way they’re described in the book, but in neither case has this happened to me.

(6) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • March 26, 1969 — Rod Steiger stars as Carl, The Illustrated Man.

(7) TWO SPACEMEN. From George Takei:

Crossed paths Thursday with Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the Moon, at Salt Lake Comic Con Fan Experience, where I am appearing Friday and Saturday. Buzz walked on the moon 47 years ago, back in 1969. Isn’t it time someone set foot on Mars?

 

Takei Aldrin COMP

(8) MORE FROM SALT LAKE. “Doctors and River reunite to celebrate the infinite possibilities of ‘Doctor Who’” in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Actors from “Doctor Who,” including Alex Kingston, left, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy and Matt Smith fielded fan questions and discussed the popular show among the Salt Lake Comic Con’s FanX 2016 at the Salt Palace Convention Center on Friday….

Even a fleeting moment is going to follow Smith for the rest of his life. A fan in Friday’s audience asked Smith if he would do the Drunk Giraffe. The Drunk Giraffe is a dance move Smith’s iteration of The Doctor does, during which he throws his arms over his head and waves them around like noodles of spaghetti.

Fans count the moment — which takes up just 3 seconds of screen time — as a favorite of Smith’s run. Smith, to uproarious cheering, obliged.

“For the rest of my life, I’m going to have to do that,” Smith said. Kingston joked that McCoy and Davison should join him; alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

(9) NEEDS MORE KATSU. BBC Magazine remembers “The octopus that ruled London” at the Crystal Palace in 1871. Several stfnal references.

“It would have been a bit like a freak show for the Victorians,” says Carey Duckhouse, curator of the Brighton Sea Life Centre, as the aquarium is known today. “They would have featured models of ships in the cases for the octopus to grab hold of. They would probably have loved that, as they enjoy playing.”

One possible visitor to Crystal Palace aquarium was the writer HG Wells, who was just five years old when it opened and lived in Bromley, four miles away. Several octopus-like creatures appear in his stories.

In his 1894 essay The Extinction of Man, Wells pondered a “new and larger variety” that might “acquire a preferential taste for human nutriment”. Could it, he asked, start “picking the sailors off a stranded ship” and eventually “batten on” visitors to the seaside?

More famously, the invading Martians in Wells’s War of the Worlds have tentacle-like arms.

(10) UPSIDE DOWN IS UPRIGHT FINANCIALLY. The Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling Kickstarter appeal has successfully funded. A total of $23,206 was raised from 1,399 backers.

The anthology, edited by Monica Valentinelli and Jaym Gates, is an anthology of short stories and poems that highlights the long-standing tradition of writers who identify tropes and cliches in science fiction, fantasy, and horror and twist them into something new and interesting.

(11) SANS SHERLOCK. “WonderCon 2016: HOUDINI & DOYLE Screening and Q&A” at SciFi4Me.com.

During this year’s WonderCon, there was a preview screening of the first episode of the new Fox show Houdini & Doyle, “The Maggie’s Redress”, followed by a short Q&A with Michael Weston, who plays Harry Houdini, and executive producers David Shore, David Ticher, and David Hoselton.

The series follows the two men in 1901 as they go about investigating cases that involve supposed paranormal events. Houdini, riding high on his celebrity as a magician, is the doubter, wanting to bring reason and expose those who would take advantage of people who are looking for comfort from the great beyond. Doyle, on the other hand, has just killed off Holmes and is trying to get out of that shadow, and is the believer, wanting proof that there is something more to this life beyond death. We will be recapping the series when it premieres.

 

(12) GRAPHIC PREFERENCES. Barry Deutsch completed review of “2015 Science Fiction and Fantasy Graphic Novel Recommendations, Part 3: Crossed + One Hundred, and, Stand Still, Stay Silent”.

….Moore returns to the reinvention game with Crossed + One Hundred, a new graphic novel set in Garth Ennis’ awful Crossed universe. Crossed was Ennis’ attempt to make the zombie genre more disturbing and violent: the premise is that most of humanity population gets infected with a mysterious disease that turns them into torturing, murdering, rape-happy idiots. In many ways Crossed is the comics equivalent of the Saw movies; cheap, gratuitous, and compelling…..

(13) VOLTRON WILL RETURN. Engadget has the story and a gallery of images — “Here’s your first look at Netflix’s ‘Voltron’ series”.

As Netflix expands its suite of original programming it’s going to the nostalgia well once again. The good news here is that instead of another sitcom spinoff like Fuller House, we’re getting Voltron: Legendary Defender. Today at Wondercon 2016 its partner Dreamworks Animation showed off a teaser trailer and some artwork that confirm everything at least looks right to children of the 80s.

(14) BACK TO BASIC. The video “How to Send an ‘E mail’–Database–1984” is an excerpt from a 1984 episode of the ITV series Database where viewers learned how to send emails. Major retro future action is obtained where they get onto the net through a phone modem with a dial on the telephone… (Yes, I’ve done that, and I have the white beard to prove it…)

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Darren Garrison, JJ, and Barry Deutsch for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

Pixel Scroll 9/3 The Nine Billion Noms of Dog

(1) Digg has the best space images from the month of August. They are beauties.

As we tediously while away our days down here on Earth, satellites are zooming through space, snapping incredible pictures of Earth, the solar system and outer space. Here are the highlights from August.

(2) Answer just 4 questions, and the William Shakespeare’s Star Wars Sonnet Generator will create a unique 14-line love sonnet just for you!

What Is Lovely As A Summer Slate

Based on the William Shakespeare Star Wars series by Ian Doescher

When sorely press’d by Sith-like enemy,
I think on thee, and soon have no regret.
My heart is lock’d, yet thou dost hold the key,
Our lives are join’d in lovers’ sweet duet.
Let us unto Naboo, its shores of green,
There meet the call of passion at our best.
If thou wert droid, I’d love thee, though machine
If thou would claim mine heart, I’ll not protest.
Love, like a lightsaber, one’s heart can slay,
Love is the new-grown fruit sprung from the heart,
Love plunges one headlong into the fray,
Love is the canvas, passion is the art.
Let rivals come, who chase me at the rear,
Thou hast e’er been my solace, dear.

(3) Radio Times learned nothing from Christopher Eccleston about Doctor Who in a recent interview.

When asked if he’d been watching his successor Peter Capaldi onscreen recently, Christopher Eccleston replied in the negative – in a pretty big way.

“I never watched Doctor Who when I was a child,” he retorted. “I never watched MYSELF as Doctor Who!”

(4) Pat Cadigan on Facebook

After recent events in which Bryan Thomas Schmidt did a solid for both me and everyone else working on MACII, I’ve had some thoughts:

Whatever else happens on social media, on websites, in review columns, on Amazon, or anywhere else, I want a kinder, gentler worldcon.

Worldon is our annual gathering of the clans, not a field of combat. We go there to enjoy ourselves and to be among friends. For a few days, we get to hang out on Planet Science Fiction/Fantasy.

Worldcon is *not* a battlefield.

This is not to say that those with opposing perspectives can’t have a meaningful, even spirited dialog. But there’s a big difference between a heated discussion between people who feel strongly about their respective positions and gladiatorial combat in the Colisseum for the lurid amusement of people who didn’t even bother to show up and in fact never intended to.

I don’t care what your point of view is; I don’t even care if you don’t like *me*––you’re welcome at MACII and I will do nothing to make you feel like you aren’t. But worldcon isn’t a passive, static thing like a department store. Worldcon is interactive (worldcon was interactive before it was fashionable)––what you get out of if, for the most part, is what you put into it. If you go to the panels, check out the dealers’ room and the art show, meet some writers or artists or other pros at kaffeeklatsches, literary beers, or signings, go to the bid parties, and make a little effort to meet new people, you’ll have a great time…

(5) Can you tell this book by the cover?

(6) Tom Knighton gives his “Thoughts on Sad Puppies 4”.

For most people, the idea of tens of thousands voting for the Hugos should make you giddy.  For us, it has added benefits of rendering any small group influence on the awards non-existent.  No, our favorites may not win, but you know what?  That’s life.  What we want to see win is the stuff the actual fan–the people that [George R.R.] Martin may dismiss but who buy books by the truckload–actually reads.

While Martin doesn’t think it will add to the prestige of the award, more fans voting on them will do one thing from my perspective.  We’ll start to see some books win that actually look interesting and then deliver on the inside.  With the exception of Three Body Problem (which I haven’t read yet, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt), that hasn’t been the default position of the Hugos in some time.

(7) Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens – “My first (seven) reactions to the surprise announcement of Sad Puppies 4”

4 reasons to pet the Puppies:

  1. Tone

The Puppy organizers Kate Paulk, Sarah A. Hoyt and Amanda S. Green have written things that I consider stupid, hateful and obnoxious, but the Sad Puppies 4 announcement was phrased very un-obnoxiously. Civility is a nice thing.

  1. It’s not a slate, really

Listing more works than one can nominate for the Hugos and stating up front that one should read the stuff before suggesting it are good and play down the slate aspect.

  1. No more shady correct taste comissars

With Sad Puppies 3, Brad Torgersen had a somewhat similar nominee suggestion phase (that had humorously few participants). After that, though, he ditched most of the stuff people had suggested and went on with the things that were written by his chums. There will be no more of that, it seems.

  1. Focus on MOAR

The Puppy trio has promised to focus on participation instead of ideological screeds. It remains to be seen if that is a promise they are able to keep.

(8) Barry Deutsch – “Don’t Be Fooled – Kate Paulk’s Kinder, Gentler Sad Puppy Slate Is Still A Slate”

For instance, in 2012 (before the puppies), 611 Hugo voters turned in ballots for short stories. The most popular short story, E. Lily Yu’s amazing The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees, was listed on only 72 of those 611 ballots (about 12%). At least 60% of those 611 ballots didn’t vote for any of the top five nominated stories.

And that’s fine. That’s how the Hugo nominations are designed to work. 611 Hugo voters, acting as individuals, each nominate whatever short stories they think are award-worthy. From that list of hundreds of short stories, the five most-nominated make it to the final ballot.

Unfortunately, it’s an easy system to game, as the Puppies have proven. If you can form a voting bloc of just 100 people who will nominate an agreed-upon list, instead of voting as individuals, that’s enough to completely overwhelm the much larger number of Hugo voters who are voting as individuals. 100 people voting for just 5 works will beat out 500 people voting from among hundreds of works.

(9) Philip Sandifer – “Weird Kitties: An Organized Anti-Slate For The 2016 Hugos”

The good news is that there are five thousand of us, united, if nothing else, by the facts that 1) We voted in the Hugos, and 2) We are not Puppies of any stripe. We are not a campaign. We are not a political movement. We are not playing some elaborate game of four-dimensional chess in order to topple Christendom. Indeed we, in the sense of “me and everyone reading this,” are not even all five thousand voters. But nevertheless, we are a bunch of fans defined by the simple fact that we’re eligible to nominate things for Hugos next year, and we’re not Vox Day’s pack of rabid dogs.

One of the most helpful things, then, would be if all five thousand of us nominated, and if we nominated a full ballot. Among us, we’ve got 25,000 open slots on our ballots in every category with which to push a work over the slate-busting threshold of 541. That’s doable, but it’s also hard. A lot of us, myself included, don’t identify five eligible Hugo-worthy items in every category in a normal year’s reading. In many categories, a lot of us don’t identify one. We don’t all have writing Winds of Winter to be distracted from, after all. And we could use some help.

So I’m creating Weird Kitties for exactly that. It’s going to be an ongoing conversation about awesome science fiction and fantasy that’s come out and is coming out in 2015, conducted for people who want to fill in their Hugo ballots with things they love.

(10) Camestros Felapton – “How big should the Hugo Awards”

What is the ideal number of people to vote on the Hugo Awards? I’d say it should be around whatever the number of people is that feel they can make a reasonable decision on the least popular story category (Novelette? I haven’t checked historically) – i.e. how many people are taking an active interest in SF/F Novelettes published in English in a given year. I don’t know what that number is but those are the interesting people. Why? Because they are people looking at newer writers and people doing interesting things and who are interested in trends etc.

(11) John C. Wright – “Hugo Controversy Quiz Questions”

Theodore Beale, who writes under the pen name Vox Day, joined us as an ally, but disagreed with the goals. He thought the award could not be salvaged and restored to its former glory; indeed, the only thing that could be done would be to force the politically-correctness faction (which he calls by the mocking title Social Justice Warriors, at one time their own name for themselves) to reveal their true purposes. His plan was to make it clear to any honest onlooker that the awards were being given out not based on merit, but due to politics. For this reason, he promoted his own slate of suggested works for his fans to read and vote upon, called the Rabid Puppies.

The Social Justice Warriors did in fact react precisely as Mr Beale predicted, and after the Sad Puppies unexpectedly swept several categories in the nominations, the SJWs used their superior numbers to vote NO AWARD into that category rather than give the award to whichever work was most worthy among the candidates.

This was done purely and openly for political reasons. The mask is torn. No honest onlooker can doubt the motive of the Social Justice Warriors at this point, or ponder whether the claims made by the Sad Puppies were true or false.

(12) Sarah Mirk of Bitch Media interviews Ann Vandermeer in “’Sisters of the Revolution’ Collects Powerful Feminist Sci-Fi”

I was wondering what you think of the “puppies” pushback to the Awards and what that reveal.

Well I have to say I was really excited at the people that won. The best novel category, I was very, very excited about that, because I know both the writer and the translator, so that was—I mean the way that I look at the outcome of the entire awards ceremony is it was showing you that science fiction is bigger than just the United States and the U.K. That’s how I felt. The science fiction community is definitely making that outreach into the wider world. When you think about the Hugos, what you’re looking at is a popularity contest in a sense because the awards are going to be voted on by the people that buy the memberships. It’s plain and simple. It’s not a juried award, there’s no judge, it’s just who’s voting and how they’re voting. So it’s just by the numbers. When you look at it that way, the thing that was really exciting to me is that this past year they had more than double the average number of people voting than they’ve had in the past. I think they had close to 6,000 people who voted.

Did more people turn out to vote because they’d heard about the controversy over the awards?

Well, I think people were getting more involved in the discussion. If you take a look at the numbers, and you look at the number of people who are actually members of World Con, every single person who signs up for a membership, whether it’s supporting or attending, can vote. So, typically, only half of the people that have memberships, vote. Only half. It’s kind of like when you take a look at our Presidential elections, what’s the percentage of people that vote? Not everybody. But we had so many people that actually voted. Now, here’s the good thing about that. It’s not true for every voter, I’m not naïve, but a lot of voters went in and read the stories, which to me is amazing. So a lot of those stories got a larger audience than they ever would.

(13) Didact’s Reach – “So what now, Hugo?”

The detailed statistics behind the awards results showed very clearly that the voters at WorldCon and Sasquan were perfectly willing to undermine the legitimacy of their own award process in order to keep out those that they don’t like. LTC Tom Kratman, John C. Wright, Steve Rsaza, a number of Baen authors, and Toni Weisskopf herself, were all denied awards that they richly deserved and should have won for their respective categories.

Yet, instead of even bothering to consider the alternatives, five different categories were given “No Award”. The Hugo and Nebula Awards were, essentially, reduced to a farce. And all because politics overruled etiquette, courtesy, wisdom, and good judgement.

The SJWs who currently control the nomination and award process have made it perfectly clear that they intend to amend the (already incomprehensible) rules for next year’s ballot in order to prevent a similar uprising from happening again. Good luck with that; I have every reason to think that the Sad Puppies leaders for next year, Amanda Green, Kate Paulk, and Sarah A. Hoyt, will simply adapt, react, and overcome in order to get works by actual skilled authors that fans actually might want to read up for nominations.

(14) Jed Hartman on Lorem Ipsum – “Why I love the Hugos”

I acknowledge that the system is contentious and complicated and initially confusing, and I’m sad that people feel excluded, because I want everyone who’s interested to feel like they can be part of it. In general, I feel like bringing more people into the process means that the awards are more valid, because they’re less likely to represent the views of only a few people.

And there’s a whole lot of room for expansion. Even though I agree that the financial barrier to entry is high, that’s certainly not the only issue, because every year a large percentage of the Worldcon members who are eligible to vote don’t do so. So it’s great that the nominating and voting numbers have been going up and up in recent years, but there are still a lot of people who could vote but don’t, and a lot of other people who want to but can’t.

But even so. Despite all of the system’s flaws; despite my eye-rolling when an MC yet again does the “I’m going to make this ceremony last as long as possible” schtick; despite occasional bad behavior on the part of an MC or a presenter or a nominee; despite my personal disappointment that the magazine I edited for twelve years hasn’t yet won one (I’ve wanted a Hugo since I was a kid); despite the sometimes-contentious arguing about what should be nominated and what should win; despite my dubiousness about making nominees sit there tensely waiting to find out whether they’ve won, and about the basic idea of declaring one particular work or person to be the “best” of the year; despite everything—the Hugos are important to me.

And I especially love the Hugo ceremony itself, in all its disparate parts. The pause to honor the people in our field who’ve died over the past year, as their names scroll by on the screen. The awards honoring contributions to fandom, like the Big Heart award. The occasional very entertaining MCs. The beautiful designs for the Hugo award base. The passing-along of the Campbell tiara. The delight of most of the winners. The sometimes gracious and sometimes funny and sometimes overwhelmed acceptance speeches. The rush to analyze the stats afterward. The whole thing, flaws and all. It’s one of my favorite things about Worldcon, which is (despite its flaws) one of my favorite conventions.

(15) Robert Bevan on Caverns and Creatures “Hugo Loss (Sad Puppies Can Eat a Dick.)”

  1. What do the Sad Puppies see as the problem? 

SJW, the all-too-often abbreviated form of the “Social Justice Warrior”. It’s most often used as a lazy means for bigots to dismiss opinions which differ from whatever they were told by their daddy/preacher/grand wizard.

Having said that, I will admit to being annoyed by people I perceive as SJWs (in the derogatory sense) as well. In fact, they were an entry in my Reviewers Who Can Eat a Dick post right up until the final edit. I ended up removing that entry because I felt it made me sound like a whiny asshole, and because it’s so hard to differentiate an actual advocate for social justice, which is something that I admire, from an obnoxious loudmouth who’s only interested in scoring sensitivity points by pretending to be offended by innocuous words. (If enough people read this, I’ll get a few comments calling me a misogynist, in spite of the SJW nature of this post, for using the phrase “Cry like little bitches.” in the above entry.)

The puppies’ stated problem was that these SJWs had already compromised the integrity of the Hugos by voting along the lines of authors’ race, gender, sexuality, or politics, rather than based on the quality of the actual books they were voting on. Books with “messages” and meaning were winning out over good old-fashioned fun space romps, like the kind Puppies like to write.

That last sentence is paraphrased from what I read on one of the puppies’ blogs. The implication seemed to be that their books were more deserving of a prestigious award specifically because they were devoid of anything important to say. By that metric, my books should be pulling in Hugos left and right.

(16) Vox Day declares:

John Scalzi can ban all the parodies he likes. The VFM [Vile Faceless Minions] will just publish more bestsellers. Strike one down and two pop right back up to the top of the category within 24 hours.

parodies_3

(17) Scalzi looked over the goods and said…

(18) Kevin Standlee is working on a proposal to drop some Hugo categories and add others.

I think we’ve reached a point, in small steps, where a significant proportion of the Hugo Award electorate doesn’t know how to actually nominate in at least three categories, and at worst derides those categories because they think they are so complicated or need specialist knowledge that they’ll never have. This is not good for the health of the Hugo Awards. I therefore propose that we should delete three existing categories that people find confusing and unclear and replace them with three new categories that, while not perfectly defined (it’s difficult to define things completely air-tight), are at least more accessible and understandable to the people picking up the ballot or reading the results list.

Categories to Delete

  • Best Semiprozine
  • Best Editor Long Form
  • Best Editor Short Form

Categories to Add

  • Best Professional Magazine
  • Best Anthology or Collection
  • Best Publisher

(19) Andrew Porter writes:

Couldn’t get to Smokane? The smoke made it to the East Coast … by the middle of last week, according to this report. That explains the haze and pollution so many places on the East Coast have been experiencing.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Steven H Silver, Mark, Barry Deutsch and John King Tarpinian for some of these links. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day John Seavey.]

The Hound and the Fury 6/22

aka Destination: Loon

Today’s roundup features Brad R. Torgersen, Paul Weimer, Vox Day, Edward Trimnell,John C. Wright, Barry Deutsch, N. K. Jemisin, Adam-Troy Castro, Jared Dashoff,  Jason Sanford, Rebecca Luella Miller, Spacefaring Kitten,  Melina D, Lis Carey, John Seavey, Rick Novy, Helena Bell and cryptic others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Kary English and Rev. Bob.)

Brad R. Torgersen on Mad Genius Club

“So you want to write an award-winning Hard Science Fiction story?” – June 21

[Begins with a series of insights about writing sf professionally.]

Now, for a few personal caveats. These are just my prejudices and biases speaking, so take ’em or leave ’em.

Endless polishing is death on productivity, and death on learning. I never learned anything from spending months or years tinkering with the same piece of work. Give yourself a personal rule, for when you’re going to stop on a specific work, and move on to something new. Either how many revisions you’ll do, or how much time you’ll devote to finishing touches once you’ve put THE END on the tail, etc. Just don’t get locked into thinking you can make any story perfect. I can speak from experience: good enough really is good enough.

Downbeat endings suck. They are ‘literary’ and some critics and aesthetes love them. But they suck. If you’re going to roast your characters in hell, at least give them a little silver lining at the end? Some kind of hope for a more positive outcome? Your readers will thank you.

Stories that demote humanity to being puny and insignificant, also suck. We may be small and/or not as advanced as other intelligent life in the universe, but we didn’t get to where we are now by being meaningless dullards. Humans are crafty and stubborn. Never say die. We should be reflected as such.

Some of the best HSF I’ve ever read, inspired in me the notion: Wow, this is how it could really happen! Be it space colonization, or warp drive, or first contact with another intelligent species from somewhere else in the galaxy. When you play by the rules — keeping the universe as we know it relatively intact, accessible, and consistent — you’re shining a light on a possible path. Not predicting the future per se, but illuminating a way that things might develop. That’s the kind of story that may inspire some teenager somewhere to become a rocket scientist.

Speaking of which, leave the “playground equipment” around for your readers to mess with. That’s a Niven-ism. If the reader gets to the end of your story and can imagine events continuing on — populated by your characters, the reader in character form, or both — then you’ve really won. Because you’ve made your world and your story so engrossing, the reader doesn’t want to leave! That’s a reader who will want to come back for more. That’s a reader who will be loyal, and tell others about your work.

 

Paul Weimer on Blog, Jvstin Style

“Campbell vs the New Wave, and Brad Torgersen” – June 22

I do think that Torgersen is missing a large bet on a lot of stories. And I am not sure that Literary=downbeat=suck is an equation that works. HEA and HFA are fine and dandy, but those aren’t the only stories. Hell, look at Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee stories as an excellent counter example. I’m sure Baxter would be surprised to be called literary. And he definitely does not suck.

What strikes me from this article is how it fights the whole Campbell vs the New Wave argument that I’ve opined was at the heart of the Sad Puppies.. One of the File 770 group called him Neo-Campbell. So there you have it.

Torgersen post shows that SF fandom and authors are STILL fighting the New Wave conflict, decades later. The past isn’t dead, its not even past.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“A necessary endorsement” – June 22

Refusing to take a side and trying to remain above it all will no more bring an end to the tactics he dislikes than the League of Nations prevented World War II. Misbehaving bullies can only be stopped with superior force. To stop the lynch mobs, Mr. Trimnell should help us bring them to an end by multiplying our force. We will abandon the tactic as soon as the SJWs do… like Ronald Reagan with the Evil Empire, we will trust, but verify. But until the SJWs give up their rhetorical tactics of name-calling, marginalization, and disqualification, we will continue play by the Chicago Rules and exploit every mistake they make and every opening they give us. The TOR boycott is nothing more than holding TOR Books accountable for the wholly unprofessional behavior of its SJW employees, behavior that would have gotten a minimum-wage Walmart greeter fired on the spot.

Furthermore, there is no symbiosis. The SJWs are not dependent upon anyone’s outlandish statements; if an opponent has not said something objectionable, they will simply lie and claim he did, then run their usual insult-isolate-disqualify routine. We, on the other hand, have a rich and continuously replenished pool of outlandish statements from which to choose to use against them.

 

Edward Trimnell

“Debating the Tor boycott” – June 22

I expressed my disagreement with Vox’s position on the Tor Books boycott…and Vox expressed his disagreement with my disagreement.

My dislike of boycotts remains.

I remember the mindless campaign orchestrated against Orson Scott Card a few years ago. Card’s sin was basically to express a view of marriage that was all but universal (including among liberals and Democrats) until ten years ago. Yet the SJW mobs did their best to silence Card, urging a nationwide boycott of the movie adaptation of Ender’s Game, and barraging the offices of DC Comics until Card was dropped from the company’s Superman project.

Ah, but that is exactly the point….say the forces behind the anti-Tor boycott. The SJWs do it.

I believe it is important to remember what separates the freethinkers from the SJWs. The freethinkers seek to outthink their opponents with a more persuasive argument in the marketplace of ideas.

The SJWs seek to silence their opponents through harassment and intimidation. (This should surprise no one, since the SJWs are almost all anti-market and anti-free speech.)

 

John C. Wright

“The Three Laws of Morlocktics” – June 22

[Quotes a long string of comments from File 770 but purports not to know the source, then says –]

The fear seems to be based on the grounds that her calling me and you neo-Nazi homophobic bigoted misogynist racists was cricket, but my accepting her lame apology like a gentleman (so she and I could get back to work) means that secretly I, and the other fine people called Sad Puppies who would like to reform the Hugo Awards, and return the award to be granted for merit of the work, rather than for the political correctness of the work, now have or may soon concoct an cunning yet dastardly plan!

The women who sound indistinguishable from phobia-afflicted delusional neurotic believe I and mine intend to send Daddy Warpig (the one Gamergater who expressed support for the Sad Puppies slate) to New York to blow up public monuments there with Vatican-made explosive rosaries, and dox and vox and vaporize Miss Gallo.

Because my expressions of neutrality and your letters to Tor asking for professional courtesy are so appallingly frightening that is creates an atmosphere of unsaferiffickness. Or something.

I would say that if women are that easily frightened, it is up to us men to make sure that no cad and no blackguard is ever allowed to speak to them. And if political argument over a pathetic space-yarn award gets the ladies this scared this quickly, it seemed that the Victorian standards for male and female roles were entirely correct. The poor, fainting, delicate damsels in distress must be keep safe from all the bumps and jars of the real world.

Either that, or these nags and termagants are a scandal and an embarrassment to their sex, because they are pretending to be frightened, when they are not, to arouse the very feelings of Victorian protective gentlemanliness that they at other times despise.

Which is it to be, ladies? Equality of the sexes in political matters? Or ultra-damsel-gushing, shriekingly school-girlish, play-pretend hysterical so beloved of the Left? The two are mutually exclusive.

Leftism or Equality?

Pick one.

 

 

N. K. Jemisin

“An open letter to the WSFS about unintended consequences”  – June 22

Whoa. Did you guys think this through? No, seriously. Beyond whether “The Wheel of Time” could get a Hugo, or whether you, personally, like short fiction or not. Did you consider how proposal B.1.3 looks, both within and outside SFFdom? What message it sends about WSFS priorities? Consider the context. In a year when there’s been intense mainstream-media coverage of an attempt to ideologically tarnish the Hugo Awards, effectively making them less representative of the genre’s current dynamism and way more representative of racist white guys’ vanity publishing, this proposal compounds that problem. Let me break down how this looks to people outside of the WSFS process….

So let’s review. In a year when misogynists, white supremacists, and homophobes have already managed to use the Hugos to advance their own interests, along comes this proposal making it easier for privileged white men to gain recognition, at the direct expense of the marginalized. I’m going to assume it’s an unintended consequence that this proposal effectively reinforces the Puppies’ efforts; there’s been no reason to think that anyone on the WSFS is anything other than professionally neutral on the matter. Until now. So, c’mon ya’ll. Did you really think this through? Is this the best time for B.1.3? Are you really willing to throw short fiction under the bus just to give bestsellers another accolade? Do you mean to throw a level playing field under the bus, to give more affirmative action to successful white men?

 

Adam-Troy Castro

“Spaying the Hugos” – June 22

The proposal to simplify the Hugos by eliminating the Best Novelette category and replacing it with a Best Saga category is an excellent start, in large part because it will completely eliminate any interference with those fresh young talents who nobody is ever interested in and who just complicate things.

But it doesn’t go far enough. A few more appropriate changes would certainly help usher the awards into the twenty-first century.

First, eliminate the short story and novelette awards as well. As everybody keeps pointing out, the short fiction markets are dying and the annual competition for an award not supported by the free market is unseemly. Short fiction has never produced anything of worth, anyway. Name just one time it has. I bet you can’t.

Make the contest all about novels, the big awards that really mean something, and make the smallest award the one for best stand-alone novel, because everybody also knows that stand-alone novels are for writers with no staying power…..

 

Jared Dashoff in a comment on Whatever – June 22

Over the years, long fiction in the greater speculative fiction category has moved towards publishing works in series, rather than stand-alone works. Stand-alone works are still published and are eligible for Hugos in various categories, but some of us thought that the expansive works, where the individual volumes may or may not stand alone and be worthy of a Hugo themselves, deserved recognition. So we set out to create a Hugo for them. Best Saga became the title mostly because as the work gets longer, the title of the Hugo gets shorter.

Having attended many WSFS Business Meetings between us, and personally having been on the Head Table before and being on it this year, we felt the sense of the Meeting (i.e. how many that generally attend the Meeting feel) was that another professional fiction category would throw off the balance if a category was not removed. Based on long discussions and floating the idea past folks, we settled on the Novelette category. This bumped up the maximum word count for a short story, and dropped down the minimum word count for a Novella. No work that had been eligible was no longer eligible, it was just eligible in a different category….

In response to this opposition to the Novelette collapse, we contacted Kevin Standlee, Chair of the Sasquan Business Meeting, to ensure we could amend our proposal so long as it was before the deadline for the submission of New Business. We are now in the process of doing that and amending the discussion text to remove any reference to the Novelette collapse. Some original proposers have decided not to join us in this effort.

Going forward, the proposal will only include the addition of the Saga Hugo and that will need to pass or fail on its own merits. If it fails, we will be sad, but we accept that it was not the Business Meeting’s want to create an award for such works. If others wish to submit a proposal related to the shorter fiction works, that is their prerogative, but I will not be submitting one nor supporting it.

 

https://twitter.com/jasonsanford/status/612748644379267072

 

Rebecca Luella Miller on Speculative Faith

“Awards And The Problems Behind Them” – June 22

The irony of the brouhaha is that the Puppies seem to be arguing against the politicizing of science fiction and it’s preeminent award by politicizing the method used to select the award winners.

Having been behind the scenes for the Clive Staples Award in the past, I know a good deal about the ways people try to game the rules in order to help those they hope will win. One reason CSA instituted judging the short list—the finalists—by a panel of qualified judges was to avoid this kind of deck-stacking which would reduce the award intended to honor good writing and storytelling to a popularity contest (or a philosophical statement).

Yes, there are diversities among Christian writers, and some would push the point by “gaming” an award if they could.

Other awards have bypassed readers altogether in order to steer away from the popularity contest approach (come vote for my book even though you haven’t read it, just because you know me, sort of). But those are susceptible to other problems—unqualified first round judges, high entry fees, sponsoring organization promotion requirements, poorly conceived judging sheets, and the like.

In short, no award is likely to be perfect, but one that combines readers’ choice with qualified judging evaluations seems as if it has a better chance of honoring the year’s best book.

The Hugos? Seems to me they have gone the way of the Oscars and in the process have opened the door to a horrible mess. This long-running award is in the process of making itself irrelevant to readers.

The Clive Staples Award, on the other hand, is a tool which can help readers learn about the books that other readers value.

 

Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring Extradimensional Happy Kittens

“Kitten/Puppy Dialogues (on Pizza)” – June 22

In the comments to the last Wednesday’s post titled Answering Peter Grant, a Puppy supporter called Xephon has been vocally criticizing me for several things I’ve said. The arguments in his/her first few short comments made little sense to me, so I thought the discussion was going nowhere, but then this lengthy account landed on the comment section.

I’m still unconvinced, but Xephon brings up some points I want to respond to, and because this is going to take up some space, I’ll rather do it in a new post.

The sickening truth is that the anti-Puppies need Beale more than the Puppies do. He’s done nothing for my side except stir an increasingly rancid pot. Those of us who have distanced ourselves have learned that we are wasting our time, because all we hear from the other side is, “because Vox Day”. You need him to be your bogeyman, the focal point for your opposition. If he didn’t exist, someone would have invented him.

One of the funnies recent developments in the discussion around Hugos is that the second you mention Theodore Beale/Vox Day, somebody charges in and accuses you of “because Vox Day” fallacy. It sure is an interesting variant of “playing the ‘Playing the Hitler Card’ card”. Let me state once again that Beale’s Rabid Puppies slate swept the Hugo ballot. Your demand that everything related to him should be removed from the Hugo discussions does feel a bit odd — especially when we’re talking about his boycotts and other schemes.

 

Anony-Mouse on Cedar Writes

“Get out and Vote!” – June 22

Do NOT vote NO AWARD for anything. Yes, I know the temptation to make a statement by putting something below No Award at the bottom, but in the unlikely case of close races NA can have an adverse affect on outcomes because it’s a weighted ballot. And frankly, it’s a pet peeve of mine. NO AWARD is a political statement, and this isn’t supposed to be about naked politics.

Do NOT vote at all for anything you do not think is worthy, regardless of why you do not find it worthy. See previous.

DO try to vote for at least one good thing in each category rather than leaving the category blank. For example, some of the fanzine/semiprozine entries have been nothing but contemptuous of dissidents against the establishment. I will not vote for them. Others have been accepting of everyone, I will rank them.

 

World of Pancakes

“Retraction regarding the Sad Puppy John C. Wright” – June 22

I don’t do this sort of thing very often, but I’m retracting my last post. Let me explain why. In repose to charges of homophobia, Wright said the charges were a lie and responded in a fashion which could be described as equally “homophobic” and “bizarre.” I wrote a long-ish piece taking him to task for this. It’s a solid bit of work, but I’d like to disavow it as of now. Since posting this piece, I’ve read a good deal more of what Wright has written outside of his novels. I’ve come to the conclusion that Mr. Wright has enough going on his life that piling on like this is neither fair nor necessary. I stand by the content of what I wrote, but, given Mr. Wright’s situation, it was needlessly mean of me to write it.

 

Melina D on Subversive Reader

“Hugos 2015 Reading: Best Graphic Story” – June 22

[Reviews 4 of 5 nominees.]

It was so wonderful to read a category and understand why all the nominees (that I could access) were nominees. These had quality story telling, good art (and art telling stories which I appreciate so much), interesting plots and characters, character development, humour, and in some cases, extreme ‘feelings’. These are the things I want in all my fiction (except the art, of course) and they’re never restricted to one ‘type’ or ‘style’ of fiction – romance fiction can deliver these things as well as epic fantasy, historical fiction as well as apocalyptic fantasy.

When you hold the quality of this category – just the writing and story telling to start with – up against the others, you really see how bad most of the work in the short fiction and related fiction categories are. And you have to ask why? Why didn’t the slate people put forward work that is well written and engaging? (Or more of that work?) Is there a lack of well written and engaging work which is action oriented/classic age/milSF? Is there a publicity issue for works that are well written and action oriented/reminiscent of older stuff and? Or did this slate become a cynical/destructive force designed to reward certain writers/publishers while ‘punishing’ others?

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited by Scott H. Andrews” – June 22

This is a 2015 Best Semiprozine Hugo nominee. Beneath Ceaseless Skies is an online magazine of literary adventure fantasy. It’s visually attractive, and it offers some impressive fantasy fiction. I was pleased to find an archive that allowed me to check out the 2014 issues, the relevant issues for this year’s Hugos. An extra delight is that it offers audio fiction as well as print. This is an altogether fine magazine, and I’m very impressed.

 

Reading SFF

“2015 Hugo Awards Reading: Cixin Liu – The Three-Body Problem (2008/2014)” – June 22

I liked that the novel posed lot’s of mysterious questions and even answered them in a way that made sense, at least most of the times. While there are a lot of things in this novel that I liked a lot, there are a few things that I did not like as much. Mainly, this is not a character driven novel. This novel is about the science, not the characters. It’s very hard SF (which is fine), but it’s so hard, that at times whole passages read as if they were taken from a popular science text-book on futuristic physics. I guess it’s difficult to have everything: an imaginative and engaging story, cool science and great characters. The Three-Body Problem scores 2 out of 3 of these, which is a very good score.

 

John Seavey on Fraggmented

“Review: Ancillary Justice” – June 22

I think that’s why, despite appreciating ‘Ancillary Justice’, I didn’t really enjoy it all that much. There is a plot, and it’s actually a very clever one. But Leckie takes a lot of time in getting to it; she’s got a lot to say about the Radch, the empire that controls vast segments of the galaxy, and she wants you to really get a handle on the reality of living in the empire they’ve created. Vast chunks of the novel are taken up explaining customs, linguistics (yes, including the bit the book is famous for, that the default gender is “she”) and politics of the Radch, long before the plot ever kicks into gear.

 

Rick Novy on Entropy Central

“Lampooning the Hugo Awards – Free Short Story” – June 22

aka…The Bluegills, the Bream, and the Shiny Stones

Every once in a while, a writer will produce a piece of fiction with a short shelf-life. Such it is with a story i wrote a couple of months ago. The intention was to make a statement about the 2015 Hugo Awards, so I lampooned it. I shopped the story to three pro markets that I thought might be able to handle the expiration date. One market called it amusing but not right for the magazine. I happen to agree it’s amusing, and the editor is probably right about it not being a good fit.

I decided the shelf life of the story is now way too short to try to sell the story again, so I’m posting it here for free. I hope you enjoy it.

Without further ado…

 

Welpendämmerung 6/13

aka Operas in The Collar Cycle by Wagger, also including Das Whinegold, Die Walkies, and Sig-Flea’d

Saturday’s roundup brings you Matthew Foster, Gray Rinehart, Gary McGath, Allum Bokhari, Vox Day, Barry Deutsch, Adam-Troy Castro, A (W) Hendry, Tom Knighton, Eric Flint, George R.R. Martin, Lis Carey, Spacefaring Kitten, Russell Blackford and Ken Richards. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Octavia, Camestros Felapton and Kyra, as inspired by Scott Frazer’s original idea.)

Matthew Foster at Foster on Film

“What’s the Point? Human Minds and Sad Puppies” – June 13

So, how does this end? Not with Eric persuading or David Gerrold’s call for respect. Not with valentines saying “All is forgiven” and kumbayas. We, humans, are creatures of grudges. We should try to be better beings, but never forget reality while doing so. Those who forget history…

There will be no ending, no defined finish. But there can be, and almost certainly will be, a fading. There will be fewer articles, fewer rants, fewer votes cast for political reasons. It can gently drift away until it is a footnote. Or it can lessen, but still split fandom for years to come. How this works out depends on how it fades. If enthusiasm dies quicker from the anti-pups, the results will be less equality than in recent years, a continuation of the dominance of white authors, a touch less innovation in known writers, a reduction in the quality of writing, and a greater acceptance of minor racism and sexism in fandom, (keeping in mind those grand statements only apply to awards and to a corner of fantasy and science fiction fandom—the Pups are not going to be altering racism in general society—so how big a deal this is to you depends on how close you are to that corner). If it dies quicker in the Pups, things will float closer to how they were: increasing equality, a lessening of dominance of white authors, more innovation, and greater condemnation of racism and sexism (still just in our pocket of fandom—again, don’t get too excited by those lofty phrases). Either way, the effects will not be that large, except for The Hugos, where the awards will lose some of their prestige if the Pups end up more on top, and slowly gain most of it back if the Pups end up on bottom.

Of course things could get worse. New Pup leaders could arise who have the charm of Vox and the mouth of Larry. We could start getting death threats and rape threats.

I expect a very slow fade, with people snapping at each other for a few years at least, and grumbling when alone with their colleagues for many years. I hope the Pups will fade faster, but as it will be most likely determined by general fatigue, there’s no way to know. One “side” could fade faster (keeping in mind there really is only one side to this mess—the Pups are the side; everybody else are just fans who got stuck in a fight they didn’t ask for) if its leaders faded. If Vox or Brad or Larry were to go through some life change, or just get caught up in other matters, the Pups would fade faster and we’d have less Puppy smell. There are no leaders in the fans who dislike the pups, but some, like John Scalzi, David Gerrold, and George R.R. Martin might have more of an effect if they walked away in disgust.

So, what’s my point? Why do I write all these words over so many posts? Partly it is an obsession to support what I think is right, even when it will make very little difference. Partly it is because I know how she felt about the Pups, and would feel about their mess, though she’d have said a great deal less about it. Partly it is to help out friends. Partly it is to whip up the troops as I’d prefer less Puppy smell. Partly it is to be part of the community. But mainly, for me, it is a distraction. Because this was Eugie’s world, it feels a little important, and because it is not what I spent my time doing before, it doesn’t feel lonely, which makes it a good distraction. And that is the point.

 

Gray Rinehart on GhostWriter

“Halfway to the Hugos” – June 13

To aid the casual reader, here’s what I plan to cover in this overly-long post: – My disappointment, but also my ambivalence, at the way things have been characterized – The metaphor I’ve most recently developed to describe the situation I’m in – Some Scripture verses I am trying to hold on to as this process unfolds – My regret at being unable to attend the upcoming ceremony Forewarned is forearmed. Now, knowing what’s coming, if you don’t want to read the rest that’s perfectly fine…..

When the plane landed in Nomination City, some of us were surprised, because we expected to land in Passed-Over-Ville. (Every other time people have told me they nominated one of my stories, I haven’t even made the post-award long list, so I didn’t expect this time to be any different.)

It seemed that the plane had been hijacked. When the flight subsequently took off from Nomination City, en route to Hugotown, the reaction to the hijacking was loud and angry. Some passengers snuck off the plane during the Nomination City stop, and a couple bailed out later; I’m not sure yet if their parachutes worked, if they made safe landings, or if anyone has picked them up out of the wilderness. I hope they’re okay.

The more it looked like a hijacking, the more some people on the ground talked as if they wanted to shoot down the plane; some of them seem determined to do so, even if only with their own personal weapons. Just as worrisome, some of the hijackers have talked as if they want to crash the plane in the middle of Hugotown. My fellow passengers and I are left to wonder if there’s anything we can do to improve our chances of survival.

I’ve been in touch with my friends, both inside and outside the community of fans, throughout the ordeal. Those who contributed to my ticket or who like my work or who support me personally almost all told me that they want me to stay aboard, and ride it out. One person advised me to bail out, parachute or no. Outside my relatively small circle of family and friends, from what I can tell quite a few spectators are glued to their computer screens, watching every agonizing minute of the event; I don’t know if they care a whole lot what happens to me or the other passengers….

Some Closing Thoughts. Whenever we value something highly, when we have invested time or treasure in it and derived some reward (however intangible) from it, and that thing is threatened in some way, we rightly resent and are justified in trying to defend against the threat. That is true whether we are talking about our families and friendships, our homes and personal property, our reputations, or institutions with which we identify. I think sometimes we forget that others have the same right, to defend those things which they value.

Based on that, I understand the impulse on the part of longtime WorldCon participants and serious fen to protect the institution and its flagship award. I understand that barbarians storming the gates, brazenly and with unexpected success, is frightening and naturally foments resentment and anger.

I choose the barbarian example deliberately. Outsiders are labeled barbarians not because that is what they call themselves, but because their language is incomprehensible to the insiders — to the refined ears of the citizens it sounds like “bar-bar-bar” (which among science fiction convention-goers is not, in itself, damning). But the outsiders do have language and culture, however strange it may seem to the citizens: from their own point of view they are not barbarians but Goths, Visigoths, or Ostrogoths; Celts, Huns, or Vandals.

This year’s Hugo-nominating barbarians, unlike historical tribes characterized as such, brought alms with which they gained entry into the city and bought their citizenship: the $40 Supporting Membership. And they brought their own opinions — perhaps studiously formed, perhaps informed or even influenced by others – which they expressed in the nomination process. They joined the community, but some of the original citizens still see them as barbarians, as outsiders, and seethe. I understand that, and I have seen the results in some of the reviews and comments about my own nominated story.

So I offer this: Reading should be a pleasure and a joy, and if any Hugo Award voter is upset at the way my novelette wound up on the ballot and has not read it yet, I encourage them and give them my full permission to ignore my entry completely.

 

Gary McGath on Building My World

“On the Sad Puppies” – June 13

I’ve kept my distance from the “Sad Puppies” controversy in the Hugo Awards. I’m not registered for the upcoming World Science Fiction Convention, and I don’t follow a lot of current science fiction, so I couldn’t cast an informed vote without a lot of extra work. I have noticed quite a bit of nastiness from the anti-Puppy faction, including sniping at the people nominated because of the Sad Puppy and Rabid Puppy slates. If you dislike the methods of promotion, that’s fine, but attacking people for being nominated and failing to decline the nomination isn’t. It exemplifies the growing illiberalism and intolerance that I’ve seen in fandom….

There’s an outside chance that my Tomorrow’s Songs Today could be nominated next year in the category of “best related work,” and I’ve thought about whether I’d want that. Some people would very likely lump me, because of my views, with the Puppy faction, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few alleged friends turn on me. If it happens, I think I’d do more good by giving them reasoned responses than by running away from the situation.

 

Allum Bokhari on Breitbart.com

“TORpedoed! Media narrative on Hugo Awards incorrect, says Tor Books founder” – June 13

Because their chief opponents were a set of hard-line progressive authors hell-bent on ostracizing anyone who challenged their ideology, the Puppies were attacked by multiple media outlets as a force of ‘white male reaction’.

This panicked narrative has taken yet another blow after an intervention by Tim Dohety, the founder and president of Tor books, one of the most influential publishing houses in sci-fi. Writing on the Tor’s blog, the 43-year veteran of the publishing industry acknowledged that media stories portraying the Sad Puppies as a racist, sexist campaign aimed at promoting white men was entirely inaccurate.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Bokhari on the Tor debacle” – June 13

We are admittedly making some minor, if encouraging, dents in the ongoing SJW onslaught. But while we should be encouraged, we should not be complacent or think that what we have accomplished will not be undone in a heartbeat if we stop paying attention and slip back into pushover mode.

And while it’s great to see the Publisher at the largest SF/F publishing house disavowing the SJW thought-policing in which some of Tor’s editors have engaged for the last decade or more, that doesn’t mean that he is absolved of the need to get his house in order. I have heard, from different sources this time, that Tor Books is very much concerned about the prospect of a boycott, particularly one that is supported by SF/F authors.

Which is interesting, because so far they have been unwilling to do the one thing that will end the matter. Indeed, Tor Books appears to have decided to stand by the broad spectrum insults of its Creative Director and its Associate Publisher. So, let’s see what Macmillan will do. And if they won’t do anything either, well, at least we will know that we gave them every chance to avoid what they apparently wish to avoid.

The key to Tor’s intransigence is their belief that the “thousands of emails” they have received are from “bots”. This is the same narrative #GamerGate has encountered to attempt to minimize its numbers. Therefore, we will need to find a way to demonstrate to Macmillan that those “thousands of emails” represent “thousands of bookbuyers”.

 

 

Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook – June 12

You know, there are an awful lot of people weighing in on this Sad Puppy situation, and it’s impossible to single out the very stupidest thing anybody’s said, not when some of the more stupid things actually qualify as signs of mental illness. But Edward Trimnell’s characterization of the kind of fiction the Sad Puppies think they’re advocating against, as excerpted on File 770 this morning, is certainly a monument.

 

A (W) Hendry

“Totally No Homophobe” – June 13

….Now, I’m not saying that straight white dudes don’t have it slightly easier than everyone else -we live in a society where the ruling class have fostered racism, sexism, and homophobia for centuries to suit their own ends- but the portrayal of heterosexuality, whiteness, or maleness as privileges has the effect of turning our focus away from the things we should be fighting -oppression, injustice, capitalism and class society- onto those things that we can not, and should not, fight -ourselves. The privileges identified by those who take an intersectional approach are unlike the privilege that 99% of the population think of when they hear the term: economic privilege. Unlike economic privilege these privileges can be neither given up nor adopted –no matter how hard some may try– and so, in practical terms, all a focus on them can do is turn introspection into a form of faux activism. It also has the effect of making those with the privileges the centre of attention -which is probably why it is so popular with white middle class kids- rather than the people experiencing the various manifestations of oppression…..

Now, to segue wildly back towards the topic of the Puppies and internet shit squalls, people like John C Wright and Theodore Beale serve a social purpose. They are there to be mocked and to have the piss taken out of them. That is their purpose and that is the full extent of that purpose. Engaging with them in any way beyond this is a distraction from engaging in actual political activity -something that suits them and their ilk down to the ground- and creating a society that has solidarity at its heart and which therefore would be a place unwelcoming of those who would seek to undermine that solidarity. If that’s what a person wants rather than merely wanting to have their ego stroked.

When people like the Puppies pipe up, as they inevitably will, just point, laugh, and carry on not buying their books.

 

 

Eric Flint

“BRING THE STRUCTURE OF THE HUGO AWARDS INTO THE MODERN WORLD” – June 13

…Today, that structure is hopelessly outdated. Short form fiction is now a very small part of fantasy and science fiction, whether you measure that in terms of money—where it’s now a tiny percentage of the income authors receive—or in terms of readership. It’s certainly a larger percentage of the readers than it is of income, but it’s not more than 10% and it’s probably closer to 5%.

People who are active in fandom are often surprised to hear this and sometimes think it’s nonsense, but that’s because reading short fiction is much more common in fandom than it is in the general audience for F&SF. There are many more people who only read novels than there are people who read any short fiction at all, much less do something like subscribe to a magazine or regularly read anthologies of short fiction…..

But there is a grain of truth lurking beneath their claim, because it is in fact true that there is a quite heavy bias against popular authors in the way the awards are determined—the Nebulas as much the Hugos. That’s not due to anything conscious on anyone’s part, and it’s not due to any sort of deliberate bias or discrimination. It’s simply inherent in the divergence between the reality of the market and the structure of the awards.

When most popular authors work exclusively or almost exclusively in series or multi-volume works like trilogies and quartets (and quintets, and sextets) and 75% of the awards are given out for short fiction, then it is inevitable that most popular authors will never get a Hugo or Nebula award….

I’d recommend replacing the existing four awards with seven, as follows:

Short Story. Anything up to 7,500 words.

Novelette. Between 7,500 and 17,500 words.

Novella. Between 17,400 words and 40,000 words.

Short Novel. Between 40,000 and 80,000 words.

Novel. Any length above 80,000 words so long as it remains within one cover, if it’s a paper edition. If only an electronic edition exists, it cannot exceed 300,000 words (which is pretty much the effective limit of a paper edition).

Multi-volume Stories. Any length above 80,000 words provided: a) it is divided into at least two volumes in paper editions none of which is shorter than 80,000 words or is more than 300,000 words if it exists only in an electronic edition. And b) it must be a completed work.

 

George R.R. Martin on Not A Blog

“Hugo Voting Continues” – June 13

Both supporting and attending members get an electronic “Hugo packet” that will enable you to read many of the works nominated for this year’s rockets. You should do that, no matter what side of the Puppy Wars you are on; we want informed voters. Yes, sadly, IMNSHO this is the weakest Hugo ballot in recent memory, thanks to the Puppy slates… but there’s still some damn strong work there, especially in Novel and Dramatic Presentation. And of course it is possible that your own tastes may differ from mine. So join, read, vote. And fifty years from now, when your fannish grandchildren ask you, “Say, gramps, what did you do in the Great Hugo War?” you’ll have an answer for them.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Departure Gate 34B, by Kary English” – June 13

Kary English is a nominee for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. This is a gentle, melancholy story about a ghost who doesn’t know they’re now a ghost, and the surviving spouse who still loves, but is ready to move on. Enjoyable, even if not a stand-out.

 

 

Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring Extradimensional Happy Kittens

“Dave ‘Cool Beard but Incoherent Rants’ Freer” – June 12

Okay, let’s start with something positive: Freer has managed to include in the Hugo package one blog post that is actually about SFF books and in which the acronym SJW is mentioned (in the comments) only once. Well done!

Freer seems passionate, and I do like passionate people. Too bad he’s passionate about things I find reprehensible, such as defending sexism with this incoherent rant which consists of satire quotes of nobody knows what and run-of-the-mill anti-feminist bullshit that never stops to make an understandable point. The post is turbocharged with obscure references to cases of supposed “misandry” I may not be familiar with. However, after reading the post, I wasn’t inclined to do any research.

 

Russell Blackford on Metamagician and The Hellfire Club

“’Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium’ by Gray Rinehart – Hugo Award voting 2015” – June 13

This is another work nominated in “Best Novelette”, and again we have a competent, thoughtful, but not especially distinguished, space adventure. The underlying theme involves conflict between humans and technologically advanced aliens, in this case the Peshari, a lizard-like bunch with a taste for open skies and a morbid distaste (or more than that) for anything to do with digging into the ground. By my standards, which are not binding on anybody else, “Ashes to Ashes” suffers from being far too talky.

 

Ken Richards on learning the world, one step at a time

“TOM Kratman’s anti war polemic” – June 13

Assembled as a blank slate, ‘newbie’ Maggie is thrust through a vile ‘Boot Camp’ experience, which manipulates and transforms her from an innocent lover of flowers, to a pitiless, immoral killer, always following orders, no matter how reprehensible her actions may be. The sequence recalls the Paris Island Act of ‘Full Metal Jacket’, as we Kratman tells how soldiers are broken as humans and remoulded into unquestioning killers and followers of orders in that age old practice of brutalisation, intended to strip away the since of self, and replace it with the sense of the machine. The final ‘Full Metal Jacket’ reference is saved for the final act, where the scrap metal dealer, the general and the politician (deliberately generic, one-dimensional characters, in contrast to the betrayed heroine) receive, like the brutal drill sergeant, their just reward. Bravo Sir.

The Dingolarity 6/5

aka Is All of Time and Space Truly Curred?

Pawing through the roundup we find Juan Tabo, S. Harris, Glenn Hauman, David Mack, John Scalzi, Charles Stross, Nick Mamatas, Jeffro Johnson, Barry Deutsch, Mcjulie McGalliard, Russell Blackford, Lis Carey, Rhiannon Thomas, Rebekah Golden, Chris M. Neill and cryptic others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Kate and James H. Burns.)

We begin with dueling parodies of Rachel Swirsky’s frequently debated “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love.”

Juan Tabo and S. Harris on Vox Popoli

“If You Were an Award, My Love” – June 5

If you were an award, my love, then you would be a Hugo™. You’d be a big one, five feet, ten inches, the same height as human-you and twice the height of Regular Size John Scalzi, You’d be made of brass, and wood and plastic, and difficult to take on an airplane as carry on due to enhanced security precautions. Your eyes wouldn’t exist, because you were a rocket, stupid.

If you were a Hugo®, then I would become Taller, Stronger John Scalzi so that I could spend all my time with you. I’d bring you raw chickens and live goats, if you were into that kind of thing.  I’d make my bed right under the trophy case, in the basement where my wife lets me sleep. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d sing you lullabies. If I sang you lullabies, I’d soon notice how you were still a statue. You’d just sit there, because you were still a statue.

 

By Glenn Hauman and David Mack on Crazy 8 Press

“If You Were A Puppy, My Sweet” – June 5

If you were a puppy, my sweet, you would be a wild one. You’d be big and neutered, just like human-you. You’d bound from place to place, unburdened by any thought of consequences, full of energy and bereft of conscience. Some would delight in your antics, your perverse rejection of dignity. Others would quail from your manic slobbering and call you a nuisance, but you would be excused, because that’s just how puppies behave….

If you were sad and rabid, I would bring you with me to the wide-open rampart, and we would watch the mighty spaceships fly. I’d tell you to look up, and we’d see those ships break our world’s surly bonds to depart for alien shores. We’d wish their crews well as they explored great wonders yet unknown. Then you’d fill the lengthening dusk with your pitiful whimpers as the shiny rockets soared away … without you … never to return.

 

David Mack on The Analog Blog

“Speaking Truth to Puppies” – June 5

Though our story mimics the style of Ms. Swirsky’s, Glenn and I want to make clear that we intend no disrespect to her or to her story. Our reason for choosing it as our template was the story seems to have become a lightning rod for the ire of Rabid Puppy and Sad Puppy supporters — two of whom today published a far more mean-spirited parody of it on the blog of Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day.

 

 

 

Nick Mamatas

“Rocket To The Red Planet”  – June 5

It’s actually the Puppies who are the Marxists. Their agent of change is a subaltern proletariat—those workaday beer-money fans who have gone unheard and who must be organized by an intellectual caste into a fighting force.

 

Jeffro Johnson on Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog

“Withering Criticism for me Compliments of ‘Mark’ from File770” – June 5

Okay, I gotta say. It takes a lot of nerve to go over to File770 and say I’m willing to answer anything they want to ask. It seems crazy. I men, my gut feeling on that was that it would be sort of like attempting to have a rational discussion in the middle of a food fight.

But to be fair to those folks, there are more than a couple of people over there that notice the effort. Like Meredith, for instance:….

 

Barry Deutsch at Alas, A Blog

“Hugo 2014 Graphic Story Nominees” – June 5

Amptoons graphic story noms COMP

The Graphic Story Nominees are a nearly puppy-free category; four of the five nominees didn’t come from puppies. The five nominated works are (in order of my ranking):

  1. Sex Criminals Volume 1: One Weird Trick, written by Matt Fraction, art by Chip Zdarsky (Image Comics)
  2. Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal, written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt, (Marvel Comics)
  3. Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery, written by Kurtis J. Weibe, art by Roc Upchurch (Image Comics)
  4. Saga Volume 3, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)

The remaining nominee, The Zombie Nation by Carter Reid, I’m going to regretfully rank below “no award.”

Although – as you’ll see – I have criticisms of all these works, I also think this is one of the best Hugo lists I’ve seen in this category. All four non-puppy nominees are standout mainstream comics, entertaining and well crafted.

 

 

Russell Blackford on Metamagician and The Hellfire Club

“Steven Diamond and Kary English stories – Hugo Awards Voting”  – June 5

I’ll be quite brief about these. “A Single Samurai” is a fantasy story involving a magical samurai warrior’s attempt to halt the path of a mountain-sized kaiju monster. Leaving aside a couple of small verbal infelicities, it is a well-written, well-crafted piece told in the first person by the samurai, whose character – one marked by honour, tradition, and invincible determination – is conveyed effectively. So vast is the kaiju that the samurai’s efforts appear ineffectual and futile, but read on… All in all, this is a solid short story, if marred by something of a deus ex machina style of ending. By all means give it a try and see what you think.

“Totaled” is a more innovative and sophisticated story, and I think it’s a genuine contender for the award. It’s difficult to describe this one without giving away too much and spoiling the effect. Suffice to say that it’s told – mainly in present tense, and for good reasons – from a very unusual point of view. Kary English was not previously on my radar but appears to be a noteworthy talent.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu” – June 5

The Best Novel category is going to be a tough decision this year. I loved The Goblin Emperor  I’m currently enjoying the Ancillary Sword audiobook. And now I’ve just finished this amazing novel by Cixin Liu.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Tea and Jeopardy, Emma Newton (presenter, writer), Peter Newman (presenter, writer)” – June 5

http://teaandjeopardy.geekplanetonline.com/

Another Best Fancast Hugo nominee.

Another sf-focused interview podcast. Emma Newman hosts, with Peter Newman playing Latimer, her butler. In the sample episode included in the Hugo Voters packet, some people may find the introductory segment a bit longer than necessary, and sadly lacking in any hint of what type of program this is, but it is charming. In this episode, she interviews Ramez Naam, one of last year’s Campbell Award nominees, about his fiction, movies, and the portrayal of science and scientists in both print and media fiction. It’s friendly, intelligent, interesting, and engaging. I really enjoyed this, I think more than any of the others so far.

 

Rhiannon Thomas on Feminist Fiction

“Hugo Nominees 2015: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie” – June 5

Ancillary Sword is an excellently crafted and compelling novel. It’s less complex than its award-winning predecessor Ancillary Justice, but it’s also far more accessible, making it arguably a better read over all.

Ancillary Sword has the same conceptual set-up as the first in the series. Our protagonist, Breq, was once the AI of a ship, built by a society without gender, that controlled hundreds of once-human ancillaries and became trapped in one of the ancillary bodies when the rest of the ship was destroyed. Breq dedicated herself to destroying the ruler of the universe in revenge for both her own death and the order that forced her to kill her beloved captain.

As far as unusual protagonists go, she’s pretty high up on the list.

 

Rebekah Golden

“Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie” – June 4

The short review of this book is it blew my mind and I loved it. Deep, transformative, and complex.

 

Marion on Deeds & Words

“The Hugos, 2015, Chapter Six; Novelettes” – June 4

The novelette category was heavily influenced by the splinter group(s). The challenge in this category is similar to the problem I had with the novellas. A couple of these are decent reads, or interesting stories, but are these really the best novelettes published in 2014?

 

Adult Onset Atheist

“SNARL: The Journeyman: In the Stone House” – June 4

I really wanted to like this story. It had some fun characters engaging in delightful dialog. It even provided some jokes for the reader to enjoy at the expense of the characters. I hope the author had fun writing this, because it read as if he did. Unfortunately this does not have enough story in it to make it a great story, and some of the failed experiments the author try to hold it back from even being a good story. However, I had fun reading this story, and that should count for something; actually it counts for quite a bit, and this story will get five stars (out of ten).