Editor Neil Clarke has announced the finalists for the 2019 Clarkesworld Magazine Reader’s Poll for best story and cover art.
Clarke commented, “It was a close race from the start and once again it ended with ties. The story category was particularly close, with a six-way tie for fifth place. That’s more than we wanted, but the readers have spoken. If it doesn’t work out well, we’ll update the rules next year.”
…Going forward, we will bear these lessons in mind, and hopefully we will become better at fulfilling our responsibilities to our authors, and to our readers.
In the meantime I offer my sincere apologies to those who were hurt by the story or the ensuing storms. While our lives have likely been quite different, I do understand what it is like to be bullied and harassed for an extended period of time. I can empathize, even if I can’t fully understand life in your shoes.
I have also privately apologized to Isabel. She has chosen to sign over her payment for this story to Trans Lifeline, “a non-profit organization offering direct emotional and financial support to trans people in crisis—for the trans community, by the trans community.” They have been a vital resource for her and inspired by her actions, I have decided to match the gift.
Through the course of these events, I’ve encountered many deeply personal stories from readers and authors. I’d like to thank those people for sharing and providing many of us with further opportunities to learn from their experiences. Aside from getting to know Isabel, that has been the high point of this experience. I wish you all the best and appreciate you taking the time to share….
Isabel Fall’s short story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” in the January Clarkesworld, the subject of intense discussion on Twitter this week, was removed from the magazine’s website today at the author’s request.
Editor Neil Clarke tweeted:
Isabel Fall's story has been removed from our website at the author's request. A more detailed official statement will follow soon, but I'm still recovering from surgery, so please allow a little more time for that.
The story remains available to read at the Wayback Machine.
This roundup illustrates the sources of the discussion
within the sff community, and points to some of the more frequently cross-referenced
conversations.
IS THE STORY TRANSPHOBIC?
D Franklin challenges numerous passages as transphobic. Thread starts here.
All of that is straight out of the Reddit transphobes' playbook and it doesn't stop being offensive when done with an attempt at a knowing wink. It's still deeply unpleasant.
Lynn E. O’Connacht communicates that “there’s a pretty big difference between “this story makes me uncomfortable’ and ‘this story caused me harm’”. Thread starts here.
(Also: if you DON’T know the story? Yes, it’s the SF one based on a transphobic meme published this month. Yes, I’m subtweeting it.)
— S.L. Dove Cooper (mostly updates etc) (@dovelynnwriter) January 13, 2020
WIDER CONTEXT.
Bogi Takács sheds light on some matters that drive the reception of this story and works by and about other minorities.
Which is kind of the reverse of it, that ownvoices is not an absolution from criticisms.
But yes, one can have an ownvoices stance and still internalize various oppressive argumentation.
— Bogi Takács: POWER TO YIELD & OTHER STORIES Nov 7! (@bogiperson) January 14, 2020
POSITIVE RESPONSES TO STORY.
Phoebe North supports the story and author in “An Open Letter” at Medium, an autobiographical essay that concludes:
Whatever you decide to do with your story, Isabel, thank you for writing your story. Thank you for making me feel seen and heard. We don’t get a lot of ourselves in fiction. We often only get scraps. This was more than that. A mirror.
Berry Grass believes the story has shortcomings, but aligns more with those who consider it to be thought-provoking. Thread starts here.
The real shortcomings of the story (& of gender abolitionism as a whole!) is that the story's conception of gender as well as its dystopian, AI-driven world, totally eschews indigenous ways of being & thinking. It mistakes power structures of "the West" w/ the ONLY structures
The author is apparently asking Clarkesworld to take down the story because of the negative reaction its gotten. I think its an engaging read, even if (& maybe because) I disagree with its conception of gender. https://t.co/cuFCMsQNdH
Carmen Maria Machado wrote a long, thoughtful thread about provocative stories in the context of art and literature, but while I was editing this together she locked her tweets to all but followers so those are not available to quote.
Malcolm F. Cross criticizes the story as having shortcomings as MilSF, too, but marks out more territory on the art vs. harm map. Thread starts here.
Military Science Fiction is sometimes regarded as meathead right-wing fiction. And yet there are very progressive works of military fiction out there. The helicopter story is military science fiction, and MilSF is one of my favorites.
Should I not write that story? Like I shouldn't write the story with a problematic take on the value of women in society? Of course I should write those stories – But I shouldn't throw it at someone so they can't escape it, use it to justify harming them, use it to belittle them.
Warren Adams-Ockrassa’s thread seems to say that whatever the writer’s goal was, they should have handled it differently. Starts here.
That’s something more authors might want to consider when they’re taking on a hot topic or “controversial” subject, particularly one they may not be directly affected by:
And I’d urge anyone writing something outside their range of experience to ask for feedback — from people in those communities — about what they’ve written.
Cat Rambo is sorry the story was pulled. Thread starts here.
But for the author to be hurt to the point where they pull the story — where a piece of art is removed from our collective repository because of public reaction — how does that differ from other moments in history where people have been shocked and offended by it?
One of several eye-opening comments on Rambo’s thread:
this entire situation is, honest to god, a realization of one of my greatest fears as a queer content creator: a piece that lands, but produces hurt and a schism in my community.
Several people have been circulating screenshots of a statement that’s represented as giving background about the story and author. I have neither found the source of the original post, nor confirmation that it is from a Clarkesworld spokesperson, so I am not posting these but you can find a copy here.
Alexandra Erin on why she won’t read the story. Thread starts here.
Cheryl Morgan says she hasn’t read the story, however, offered advice for holding the discussion. Thread starts here. Some of her points are —
(1) A CENTURY OF THE GOOD DOCTOR. This week Asimov would have been 100. James Gunn marked the
occasion in an article for Science “Asimov at 100”.
A case can be made that, like H. G. Wells, Asimov came along at the right time. (Wells once commented that he made his writing debut in the 1890s, when the public was looking for new writers.) But Asimov also had a restless and productive mind. His early experience of reading, and then writing, science fiction gave his popular science writing a rare narrative model, while his fiction similarly benefited from his scientific training.
(2) NOW A JOURNALISTIC TECHNIQUE. [Item by Olav Rokne.] The Columbia Journalism Review, in “Journalism and the foreseeable future”, takes note of the trend in mainstream publishing to look at contemporaneous and emerging issues through the lens of science fiction. It’s a welcome trend that is producing excellent work we’ve seen featured on the Pixel Scroll several times, and I’m very glad to see this getting attention within journalistic circles.
Despite its dangers, [Sam] Greenspan sees the value of speculative journalism’s mix of the true and the fanciful. “I think the goal should be to use fiction or sci-fi to tell a better true story,” he says. “And I’m taking seriously the kind of emotional impact these stories have on people. By introducing even just the slightest amount of something fantastical, it gives your audience permission to have their minds wander a bit from what we know to be true, and really opens up this window into possibility and hope.”
(3) GUD LISTENING. On the latest Rite Gud podcast R.S. Benedict’s guest is Stephen Mazur, associate editor
at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. They talk about
whether or not originality really matters in writing. Stephen also gets into a
bit of inside baseball regarding F&SF publishing: the recent history
of the magazine, how many submissions they get, what kind of submissions they get,
the process, etc.
(4) ROMANCE WRANGLERS BEWARE. Who but Chuck Tingle would
add “no sex” as a selling point? Or need to?
enjoy new no sex tingler NOT POUNDED BY ROMANCE WRANGLERS OF AMERICA BECAUSE THEIR NEW LEADERSHIP IS FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE ENDLESS COSMIC VOID out now https://t.co/rT0bh3B6K6pic.twitter.com/EPDAQX9Agn
Gorblin Crimble is an aspiring romance author with a brand new novel that could be his first breakthrough hit. Of course, Gorblin is going to need some help getting his work out there, and starts by seeking likeminded creatives.
After attending a local writer’s group, Gorblin makes a new friend, Amber, who points him towards Romance Wranglers Of America. It sounds like this community is exactly the helpful, loving, supportive group that Gorblin is looking for, but when him and Amber arrive at the Romance Wranglers Of America headquarters, they quickly realize something is wrong. This once loving group has been taken over by a dark and mysterious force; lead by a man named Demon and his chanting coven of board members in jet-black robes.
Something horrible from the depths of the cosmic Void has taken hold, but is it too late to prove that romance is about love, not hate?
This important no-sex tale is 4,300 words of reasonable writers looking for a kind and supportive romance community that respects its members and treats them fairly.
Jason Sanford: I suspect most people in the SF/F genre don’t understand the difficulties of publishing a magazine. What’s one aspect of running a genre magazine you wish more readers and writers knew about?
Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas: We think it’s important that people know the financial margins for magazines to stay in the black are razor thin, and that most of the magazines are unable to generate income for their publishers. (And many aren’t able to pay the editors.) Almost all of the income generated by magazines are going to the writers and artists….
Jason Sanford: Amazing Stories was the first science fiction magazine, and helped launch the pulp fiction era of the 1920s and ’30s. What is it like publishing a magazine with such history? Has that history presented any difficulties to your relaunch of the magazine?
Steve Davidson: Well, you get unexpected support and assistance; a lot of people in the field are still very fond of both the magazine and its place in Science Fiction’s history. But that brings with it two difficulties. One, most younger fans among our potential market seem to assume that we’re publishing reprints of older works or new works in a golden-age style, despite the fact that promotion and discussion of the magazine – let alone our contributor’s own statements – clearly say otherwise. We’re an old, venerable name in the genre publishing new, ground-breaking science fiction from the current era. …
Jason: In many ways Clarkesworld helped birth the current movement in online and genre magazines. How have things changed since the founding of Clarkesworld? Would you say it’s harder or easier to run a genre magazine these days?
Neil: It was a very different world for magazines in 2006. Online fiction wasn’t particularly respected. I remember having established authors tell me point-blank they wouldn’t publish online because it was the domain of “newbie writers and pirates.” The year’s best anthologies and various genre awards rarely featured works from those markets. With two-to-three years, that started changing and today, the awards have heavily swung the other direction – something you could reasonably argue is just as problematic….
When Don Ashby caught a lift through town on Tuesday afternoon, he counted as many as 20 properties destroyed. One was his mother-in-law’s mudbrick cottage. Another was his own home of 20 years.
Ashby had evacuated his family to Melbourne and spent Monday night helping a friend to defend her house.
It had been an exhausting night and morning, punctuated by the rapid combustion of gas cylinders at a nearby storage business.
“It was like we were in the middle of the battle of the Somme,” he said.
When he returned to his own home, it looked unscathed. Then he realised it was just the facade that had been untouched by fire. The rear of the house was a blazing ruin. With no CFA tankers nearby and no water pressure left to fight the fire, he could only stand and watch it burn.
“It is all a bit grim really,” he said. “We really copped it.
“I have been in a few bushfires before but nothing like this. Nothing like this has happened before. The whole of Gippsland was on fire.”
(8) 2020 SIR JULIUS VOGEL AWARD NOMINATIONS OPEN. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Association of New
Zealand (SFFANZ) is taking nominations for the 2020 Sir Julius Vogel awards until
11.59 pm NZT on March 31.
The awards recognise excellence and achievement in science fiction, fantasy, or horror works created by New Zealanders and New Zealand residents, and first published or released in the 2019 calendar year.
…A nomination made by a SFFANZ member carries a weight of two nominations, where non-members’ nominations carry a weight of one.
Full information about the awards, including the
rules and criteria for the Sir Julius Vogel Award, can be found here.
Eligibility list is here.
(9) PRO-ROWLING. Megan McArdle’s opinion piece in the
Washington Post “Has
J.K. Rowling figured out a way to break our cancel culture?” says that Rowling’s defense of Maya Forstater and
her refusal to back down after social media protests shows that “the
opinions of officious strangers, possibly thousands of miles away, who swarm
social media like deranged starlings over and over again” can be safely
ignored.
The censorious power of Mrs. Grundys always depends on the cooperation of the governed, which is why their regime collapsed the moment the baby boomers shrugged off their finger-wagging. If Rowling provides an unmissable public demonstration that it is safe to ignore the current crop, we can hope others will follow her example, and the dictatorship of the proscriptariat will fall as quickly as it arose.
(10) TODAY IN HISTORY.
January 3, 1970 — Doctor Who’s “Spearhead from Space” serial started airing. The Third Doctor as played by John Pertwee first appears in this episode. It would also be the first appearance of companion Liz Shaw who’s played by Caroline John. She only lasted a season because the next showrunner decided she was too intelligent to be a proper companion.
January 3, 1993 — Star Trek: Deep Space Nine premiered in television syndication. As you know, it would have a seven-year run with one seventy-six episodes in total. S.D. Perry wrote a sort of authorized ninth season in her Avatar novels. She’s written a number of Trek universe novels including a Section 31 one.
(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born January 3, 1892 — J. R. R. Tolkien. I’m not going to waste my time detailing Tolkien to this group. My go-to book for him for him after over forty years of reading him remains The Hobbit. The book that still annoys me? The Two Towers. Best Tolkien experience? Seeing The Father Christmas Letters read live. (Died 1973.)
Born January 3, 1898 — Doris Pitkin Buck. She’s got my feline curiosity aroused. Wiki says “She published numerous science fiction stories and poems, many of them in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.” That’s fine but there’s little said about her or how she came to be a SF writer. ESF notes her “still unpublished tale “Cacophony in Pink and Ochre” has long formed part of the announced contents of Harlan Ellison’s The Last Dangerous Visions.” So what do y”all do about her? (Died 1980.)
Born January 3, 1930 — Stephen Fabian, 90. He specializes in genre illustration and cover art for books and magazines such as H. Warner’s The Werewolf of Ponkert which you can see here. I see he got a World Fantasy Award—Life Achievement, and was nominated seven times for Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist. Is that the most times for being nominated without winning? His collected works include Ladies & Legends and Women & Wonders. Of course, they’re genre.
Born January 3, 1937 — Glen A. Larson. Triple hitter as a producer, writer and director. Involved in Battlestar Galactica, Galactica 1980, The Six Million Dollar Man, Manimal, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and Knight Rider. He also was responsible for Magnum, P.I. which I love but I’ll be damned if I can figure any way to claim that’s even genre adjacent. He also did a lot of Battlestar Galactica novels, some with Ron Goulart. (Died 2014.)
Born January 3, 1940 — Kinuko Y. Craft, 80. She is a Japanese-born American painter, illustrator and fantasy artist. True enough. So why is she here? Because she had an amazing run of illustrating the covers of the Patricia McKillip novels until quite recently. I’m linking here to our review at Green Man of The Bards of Bone Plain for a favorite cover she did. There’s a slim volume on Imaginosis called Drawings & Paintings which collects some of her work.
Born January 3, 1956 — Mel Gibson, 64. I know the first thing I saw was genre wise involving him was The Road Warrior in a cinema which would be some forty years ago. Likewise I saw Mad Max 2 and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in cinemas, but I admit have mixed feelings about both of those films, though less about the latter as it’s at least fun. He’s in FairyTale: A True Story, a look at the the Cottingley Fairy photographs of the 1920s, and voices John Smith in Pocahontas. He plays Hamlet in Hamlet but I really don’t think I can call that genre, but I know some of you will.
Born January 3, 1975 — Danica McKellar, 45. From 2010–2013 and since 2018, she’s voiced Miss Martian in Young Justice. It’s just completed its third season and it’s most excellent! She’s done far, far more voice work than I can list here, so if you’ve got something you like that she’s done, do mention it.
Born January 3, 1976 — Charles Yu, 44. Taiwanese American writer. Author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and the short-story collections, Sorry Please Thank You and Third Class Superhero. His novel was ranked the year’s second-best science fiction novel by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas — runner up for the Campbell Memorial Award.
It was before 10 a.m. on a gray summer Sunday, but already a small crowd had gathered outside Penguin Café at the end of a block in residential Tokyo. A woman named Kyoko, dressed in a white T-shirt and apron, unlocked the doors and motioned for everyone to come inside.
Half a dozen or so people filed in, several with signature pink dog carriers slung over their shoulders. As more entered, the group clustered at the center of the café. Carefully, they unzipped the mesh panels of their carriers and removed the small white and silver dogs inside, setting them down on the wooden floor. One owner peeled back a yellow blanket over a baby carrier strapped to her chest where she held her dog, still asleep.
Some of the owners fussed with the dogs’ outfits before putting them down — straightening a necktie or pulling up the elastic band on a pair of shorts. One owner had dressed their dog in a Hawaiian shirt, while another was wearing aviator goggles and had a strong resemblance to Snoopy. Several had tiny straw hats affixed between their ears. All the dogs were plastic, powered by facial recognition and artificial intelligence….
6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome? Thor: Metal Gods is a Serial Box serialized novel by Aaron Stewart-Ahn (the lead writer), Jay Edidin, Brian Keene, and myself. It features Thor and Loki, both coming to terms with old sins and old friends, a Korean tiger goddess, and a genderfluid space pirate and astronomer. There are black holes, eldritch abominations, heavy metal, and mayhem. We had terrific fun writing it and we hope you’ll enjoy it too.
… The European Space Agency is about to pull one of the bigger hunks of garbage from orbit. But there’s a problem: The same tech that could help make space cleaner might, in the long run, also make it more dangerous.
That’s because the ESA’s ClearSpace-1 orbital garbage truck, as well as other spacecraft like it, could double as a weapon.
Swiss startup ClearSpace designed the ClearSpace-1 vehicle to intercept a chunk of debris, latch onto it, and drag it back into Earth’s atmosphere where it can safely burn up. The ESA has scheduled the clean-up mission for 2025 and has even identified its target: a 265-pound piece of an old rocket orbiting 310 miles above Earth’s surface.
The 2025 mission will involve what ClearSpace CEO Luc Piguet called “non-cooperative capture.” That is to say, the targeted piece of debris wasn’t designed with an interface or any other system that might help a clean-up craft grab onto it.
…In a landmark discovery revealed this month, archaeologists unearthed the remains of four female warriors buried with a cache of arrowheads, spears and horseback-riding equipment in a tomb in western Russia — right where Ancient Greek stories placed the Amazons.
The team from the Institute of Archaeology at the Russian Academy of Sciences identified the women as Scythian nomads who were interred at a burial site some 2,500 years ago near the present-day community of Devitsa. The women ranged in age from early teens to late 40s, according to the archaeologists. And the eldest of the women was found wearing a golden ceremonial headdress, a calathus, engraved with floral ornaments — an indication of stature.
(16) WORDSMITH ALSO TUNESMITH. Don’t say you never got the
chance to hear Norman Spinrad sing. Today on Facebook
he reminded people about the time he performed at the Cirque Electrique in
Paris.
Not that I’m planning to ever give up my day job, but I’ve had a long slow minor career with music, something around a dozen songs written or co-written, something less than that creating and recording, occasional live performances too such as this one, my best I think.
7. Middlegame: Middlegame is perhaps the most ambitious novels from Seanan McGuire and is a showcase for her skill at telling a good and complex story. Twins, math, alchemy, murder, time-bending, family, secret organizations, impossible powers, and just about everything McGuire can throw into this wonderous novel. Seanan McGuire has blended together as much as she possibly could stuff into one novel and she makes the whole thing work. It’s impressive. McGuire goes big with Middlegame. Doubt Seanan McGuire at your peril. (my review)
Pilkey’s Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers, the ninth book in his popular children’s novel series, published in 2012, features a comic strip made by the book’s incorrigible pranksters George and Harold, the stars of the series. This comic-within-a-novel marks the first appearance of Dog Man, Pilkey’s lovable crime-fighting superhero, who is surgically constructed from the body of a cop and the head of his police dog companion after they were both injured in a typically Pilkey-style zany accident.
(19) VIDEO OF THE DAY. From
Savag Entertainment, “Timelapse Reveals How Clever This Billboard Ad For The
BBC’s ‘Dracula’ Is.”
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, SF
Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Cat Eldridge, JJ, Michael Toman, Olav Rokne, Contrarius,
Daniel Dern, Chip Hitchcock, R.S. Benedict, and Martin Morse Wooster for some
of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the
day Daniel Dern.]
(1) TWO CIXIN LIU MOVIES BATTLE
FOR TOP BOX OFFICE. A pair of films based on the work of Cixin Liu recorded
the top box office grosses in mainland China over the Chinese New Year.
Popular Chinese director Ning Hao has seen his comedy fantasy film “Crazy Alien” gross more than $100 million at the mainland Chinabox office after just two days on release during the Chinese New Year holiday period. It’s the highest two-day total for any film in the Middle Kingdom so far this year.
The milestone was passed at around 8 p.m. on Wednesday. By 10 p.m., the film’s accumulated gross had advanced to $101 million (RMB680 million), according to website China Box Office.
The film is about a zookeeper who finds an unusual animal and takes it home. There he discovers that the creature is in fact an extraterrestrial, but getting rid of it may be problematic.
China’s first homegrown sci-fi epic, The Wandering Earth, is continuing its upwards trajectory. After opening at No. 4 on Tuesday, the start of the Chinese New Year, it gained traction on Wednesday to move into the No. 2 spot, and today, it led the daily Middle Kingdom box office.
With an estimated additional RMB 342M ($50.7M) on Thursday, the increase from yesterday was about 33% for a local cume of RMB 800M ($118.6M). That still lags about $20M behind Crazy Alien‘s cume, though it should quickly make up the difference after Crazy Alien had led the first two days of the Lunar New Year period. The Wandering Earth‘s performance is testament to the positive buzz being generated by the $50M pic, which stars Wolf Warrior 2’s Wu Jing in a race against time to save the planet’s population.
The easiest way to add or remove details from a story is to undermine those elements that contradict the new canon. In Stars Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope¸ Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker that his father was a skilled pilot betrayed and killed by the evil Darth Vader. Later in the series, it’s revealed that Vader is Luke’s father and that Obi-Wan knew all along.
Creator George Lucas has claimed that he always knew Vader was Luke’s father, but fans point to a host of evidence that this wasn’t the case when the scene was written. If they’re right, Lucas had no problem retconning his decision later, since the information that stood in his way came from a single source. When it’s time to reveal that Vader is Luke’s father, Obi-Wan admits he lied, hiding the truth to try to influence Luke’s reaction.
This is the easiest way to retcon information out of a story – someone lied, omitted key details, implied something that wasn’t true, or thought they were telling the truth but were wrong. Sometimes, this means adding additional information to give characters a reason to have lied, but since all this takes place in the realm of character motivations and interactions, it can even serve to enliven a story, and it might inspire new directions, as in the Star Wars prequel films….
In May 2015, Clarkesworld published “An Evolutionary Myth” by Bo-Young Kim, translated from Korean by Gord Sellar and Jihyun Park. I am pleased to announce that Clarkesworld Magazine has now received a grant from the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) to translate and publish nine more Korean science fiction stories in 2019.
The process for selection and translation of stories will be similar to the model developed for Clarkesworld‘s Chinese translation project, which has recently celebrated its fourth anniversary. In that model, a group of people serve as a recommendation team that will provide story notes and details to Neil Clarke for evaluation and selection. Stories will then be confirmed for English language availability, contracted, and assigned to one of several translators.
(4) HOLD THE CAKE! In
theory a new edition of The Best of R.A.
Lafferty was released by Gollancz today. Except it wasn’t.
(5) READ THIS, NOT THAT. But yesterday Tor.com published Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut story “Articulated Restraint”.
He took a slow breath. “No one is dead. A ship returning from the moon had a retrorocket misfire while docking with Lunetta yesterday evening.”
“Oh God.” Scores of people worked on the Lunetta orbiting platform. People she knew. And Eugene Lindholm, her partner for today’s run—his wife would have been on the lunar rocket. Ruby played bridge with Myrtle and Eugene. She turned, looking for the tall black man among the people working by the pool. He was at the stainless steel bench, running through his checklist with tight, controlled motions. No one was dead, but if the Meteor had taught the world anything, death wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to someone. “How bad?”
(6) FANHISTORY RESOURCE. Peter Balestrieri, Curator, Science Fiction and Popular
Culture Collections at University of Iowa Libraries has announced —
McPhail was one of the earliest sf fans (1929). He co-edited a magazine called The Original Idea with Jim Speer (Jack’s older brother). In 1936 he founded the Oklahoma Scientifiction Association. An early member of the Fantasy Amateur Press Association (FAPA), McPhail introduced the Mailing Comment –which, if you’ve ever belonged to an apa, you know that’s what everyone hopes their contribution will inspire. File 770 published McPhail’s obituary in 1984.
(7) JOSHI FELLOWSHIP. There’s
a name I don’t associate with fellowship, nevertheless — The John Hay Library at Brown University invites
applications for its 2019-2020 The S. T. Joshi Endowed Research
Fellowship for research relating to H.P.
Lovecraft, his associates, and literary heirs. The application deadline is
March 15, 2019.
The Hay Library is home to the largest collection of H. P.
Lovecraft materials in the world, and also holds the archives of Clark
Ashton Smith, Karl Edward Wagner, Manly Wade Wellman, Analog Magazine, Caitlín Kiernan, and others.
The Joshi Fellowship, established by The Aeroflex Foundation and Hippocampus Press, is intended to promote scholarly research using the world-renowned resources on H. P. Lovecraft, science fiction, and horror at the John Hay Library. The Fellowship provides a monthly stipend of $1,500 for up to two months of research at the library between July 2019 and June 2020. The fellowship is open to individuals engaged in pre- and post-doctoral, or independent research.
(8) HOW TO AFFORD AN EDITOR. Authors who want their manuscripts worked on by a professional an editor know they have to come up with the bucks to pay them. There have been a couple of threads recently filled with more-or-less serious advice about ways “broke” writers can foot the bill. C.L. Polk’s begins here.
February 7, 1940 — Walt Disney’s movie Pinocchio debuted. Guillermo del Toro’s
version might be slightly darker.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled
by Cat Eldridge.]
Born February 7, 1812 – Charles Dickens. Author of more genre fiction according to ISFDB than I knew. There’s A Christmas Carol that I’ve seen performed lived myriad times but they also list The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home, The Battle of Life, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain and The Christmas Books. Somewhere there being overly broad in defining genre perhaps? (Died 1870.)
Born February 7, 1908 – Buster Crabbe. He also played the title role in the Tarzan the Fearless, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers series in the Thirties, the only person to do though other actors played some of those roles. He would show up in the Seventies series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century as a retired fighter pilot named Brigadier Gordon. (Died 1983.)
Born February 7, 1913 – Henry Hasse. Best known for being the co-author of Ray Bradbury’s first published story, “Pendulum”, which appeared in November 1941 in Super Science Stories. ISFDB lists a single novel by him, The Stars Will Wait, and some fifty short stories if I’m counting correctly. (Died 1977.)
Born February 7, 1929 – Alejandro Jodorowsky, 90. The Universe has many weird things in it such as this film, Jodorowsky’s Dune. It looks at his unsuccessful attempt to film Dune in the mid-1970s. He’s also has created a sprawling SF fictional universe, beginning with the Incal, illustrated by the cartoonist Jean Giraud which is rooted in their work for the Dune project which is released as comics.
Born February 7, 1941 – Kevin Crossley-Holland, 78. Best known for his Arthur trilogy consisting of The Seeing Stone, At the Crossing-Places, and King of the Middle March. I really liked their perspective of showing a medieval boy’s development from a page to a squire and finally to a knight. Highly recommended.
Born February 7, 1949 – Alan Grant, 70. He’s best known for writing Judge Dredd in 2000 AD as well as various Batman titles from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. If you can find it, there’s a great Batman / Judge Dredd crossover “Judgement on Gotham” that he worked on. His recent work has largely been for small independents including his own company.
Born February 7, 1950 – Karen Joy Fowler, 69. Her first work was “Recalling Cinderella” in L Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol I. Her later genre works are Sarah Canary, the Black Glass collection and the novel The Jane Austen Book Club, is not SF though SF plays a intrinsic role in it, and two short works of hers, “Always” and ““The Pelican Bar” won significant Awards. Her latest genre novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, is being adored far and wide.
Born February 7, 1950 – Margaret Wander Bonanno, 69. She written seven Star Trek novels, several science fiction novels set in her own worlds, including The Others, a novel with Nichelle Nichols. In putting together this Birthday, several sources noted that she had disavowed writing her Trek novels because of excessive editorial meddling by the publisher. She self-published Music of the Spheres, her unapproved version of Probe, the official publication. According to her, Probe has less than ten per cent of the content of her version.
Born February 7, 1960 – James Spader, 59. Most recently he did the voice and motion-capture for Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron. No I did not enjoy that film. Before that, he played Stewart Swinton in Wolf, a Jack Nicholson endeavour. Then of course he was Daniel Jackson in Stargate, a film I still enjoy though I think the series did get it better. He then plays Nick Vanzant in Supernova andJulian Rome in Alien Hunter.
Born February 7, 1985 – Deborah Ann Woll, 34. She is known for her roles as the vampire Jessica Hamby in True Blood, and Karen Page in Daredevil, The Defenders, and The Punisher.she also played Molly in the horror film Little Murder and Amanda Harper in Escape Room, another horror film.
(12) QUARTERS, WITH MORE OR
LESS BITS. Writing for The Mary Sue—and
using floor plans that were on Angie’s
List—Kaila Hale-Stern takes a look at six different Captain’s quarters from
the various Star Trek series (“Let’s Judge These Star Trek Captains’ Quarters”). Welcome to
Kirk’s, Picard’s, Sisko’s, Janeway’s, Archer’s, and Lorca’s abodes.
We’ve had several beloved Starfleet Captains, but how are they sleeping at night? Journey with me into the final frontier of Star Trek Captains’ quarters, and let’s see who had the sweetest floor plan.
Courtesy of a post by home services site Angie’s List, we now have detailed layouts to pore over. They created floor plans of our Captains’ quarters, starting with Kirk’s in The Original Series to Archer’s on Enterprise. Discovery is a bit trickier Captain-wise, since we only have the late unlamented Lorca’s rooms for reference—but maybe Pike will show us where he lays his head in the future.
Library closing time is ringing out to the sound of Brian Blessed after a host of celebrities recorded their voices for the building’s loudspeaker system.
Manchester Central Library has recruited the Flash Gordon actor and other stars to bring a showbiz feel to its public information announcements.
Former Coronation Street actress Julie Hesmondhalgh and ex-England footballer Gary Neville are also onboard.
The quirky bespoke broadcasts will run for two weeks, the city council said.
A study has identified key tree species that are resilient to climate change and support critically endangered apes.
Planting them could help future proof rainforests, which are a key habitat for orangutans, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature – IUCN.
Researchers surveyed 250 plants in Indonesia’s Kutai National Park.
Over 1,000 orangutans are thought to inhabit the park, as well as other rare animals such as the Malayan sun bear.
“Selecting which species to plant is a significant contribution to restoring the health of this ecosystem,” said study co-author Douglas Sheil.
“Of course, the reasons why forest cover was lost in the first place must also be addressed for reforestation efforts to succeed.”
The UK-assembled rover that will be sent to Mars in 2020 will bear the name of DNA pioneer Rosalind Franklin.
The honour follows a public call for suggestions that drew nearly 36,000 responses from right across Europe.
Astronaut Tim Peake unveiled the name at the Airbus factory in Stevenage where the robot is being put together.
The six-wheeled vehicle will be equipped with instruments and a drill to search for evidence of past or present life on the Red Planet.
Giving the rover a name associated with a molecule fundamental to biology seems therefore to be wholly appropriate
(16) A PERSONAL
CATASTROPHE. While trying to “upgrade their
toilet facility” there was a water leak on the International Space Station (“ISS Suffers Toilet Malfunction, Leaks
Water Everywhere”). Earthbound DIY plumbers can probably sympathize.
The toilet onboard the ISS was installed in 2008, during one of the last space shuttle missions. It’s based on a design that’s about as old as the ISS itself, so it was in need of some improvement. The ISS astronauts were trying to install that improvement when something went wrong.
According to a NASA blog, the ISS crew were trying to install the new Universal Waste Management System, a next-gen toilet system that’s supposed to be smaller, lighter, cleaner, and more efficient than what they have now. […]
The aforementioned 1 February 2019 NASA blog explains:
Universal Waste Management System (UWMS):
The crew successfully installed a new double stall enclosure within Node 3 today. During the activity, the crew experienced a water leak while de-mating a Quick Disconnect (QD) for the potable water bus. Approximately 9.5 liters leaked before the bus was isolated by MCC-H flight controllers. The crew worked quickly to re-mate the leaky QD and soak up the water with towels. An alternate QD was then de-mated in order to continue with the installation. The new concept, referred to as the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), includes favorable features from previous designs while improving on other areas from Space Shuttle and the existing ISS Waste Collection System (WCS) hardware. This double stall enclosure provides privacy for both the Toilet System and the Hygiene Compartment. The starboard side will provide access to the existing toilet and the port side will be used for hygiene until new replacement Toilet System arrives in early 2020.
Mopping up 2.5 gallons of water is hard enough with
gravity to collect it all on the floor for you,
(17) GET MY BETTER SIDE. NASA has taken a candid snapshot of the neighbors (NASA: “First Look: Chang’e Lunar Landing Site”).
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has
spotted the landing site of China’s Chang’e 4 lander on the back side of the
Moon. The LRO wasn’t close enough to picture the whole Chang’e 4 “family”—the
tiny rover is just too small for the camera to pick up.
On Jan. 3, 2019, the Chinese spacecraft Chang’e 4 safely landed on the floor of the Moon’s Von Kármán crater (186 kilometer diameter, 116 miles). Four weeks later (Jan. 30, 2019), as NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter approached the crater from the east, it rolled 70 degrees to the west to snap this spectacular view looking across the floor toward the west wall. Because LRO was 330 kilometers (205 miles) to the east of the landing site, the Chang’e 4 lander is only about two pixels across (bright spot between the two arrows), and the small rover is not detectable. The massive mountain range in the background is the west wall of Von Kármán crater, rising more than 3,000 meters (9,850 feet) above the floor.
Even if you’re not a huge fan of electronic music or have never heard of the EDM producer Marshmello, Fortnite’s live in-game concert was still a shockingly stunning sight to behold — it was also an unprecedented moment in gaming. It truly felt like a glimpse into the future of interactive entertainment, where the worlds of gaming, music, and celebrity combined to create a virtual experience we’ve never quite seen before.
At 2PM ET [2 February], every one of the likely tens of millions of players of Epic Games’ battle royale title were transported to a virtual stage. There, Christopher Comstock — who goes by the DJ name Marshmello and is known best for his signature food-shaped helmet — began a 10-minute mini-set, all while while up to 60 players across thousands of individual matches were able to watch live. Epic, having learned from past one-time live events like its iconic rocket launch and its most recent freezing over of the entire game map, smartly launched a special game mode specifically for the show.
Based on its team rumble mode, it allowed players to respawn if they were taken out by an especially rude enemy trying to spoil the fun. Going even further, however, Epic disabled the ability to use weapons for the entirety of the 10-minute event, which ensured that everyone could have a front-row seat to the spectacle.
(19) DON’T TELL ME. Matthew
Johnson’s song
parody is a mite long for a Scroll title, so I’ll salute it here:
Counting pixels on the scroll, that don’t bother me at all Playing D&D ’til dawn, with my twenty-sideds gone Eating soylent green and watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Now don’t tell me I can’t go back in time
[Thanks to Paul Weimer, JJ, Cat Eldridge, Lise Andreasen, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, StephenfromOttawa, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Paul Weimer.]
We held a two-day nomination period for the Clarkesworld Magazine Reader’s Poll in January. Similar to last year, the shortened nomination phase appears to have minimized the attempts at ballot-stuffing without any significant impact on the total number of participants. It was a tight race in both categories and the top five changed many times. In the end, there were enough ties that both ended with six finalists instead of the normal five.
The nomination phase for the annual Clarkesworld poll is open, but move fast — it closes Friday at 8 p.m. EST: 2018 Clarkesworld Survey – Nomination Phase. Readers are invited to nominate their three favorite 2018 Clarkesworld stories and covers.
The works with the most nominations will become the 2018 finalists and a winner will be determined by a second round of voting in February. All stories and artwork can be found here.
This song was inspired by Ann Leckie‘s Ancillary series. The main character had once been a warship, whose artificial mind had been distributed within the ship, and also within many ancillaries – prisoners who have had their minds wiped. The ship itself and all of the other ancillaries was destroyed, leaving just one fragment of the mind left in one body.
And here’s a section of the lyrics —
That I was designed as a warrior slave
When I was an asset
I think I remember
The communal song
Of curious pleasure
The many mouths
The single phrase
Compounded eye
And reflected gaze
I am the last
I am my remains
All of my others
Dissolved in the flames
Leckie (who also likes their previous album When the Kill Code Fails) told readers of her blog where to find the new song –
Please forgive the extreme delay of this letter in response to Nathaniel Rich’s review of Walter Kirn’s book about me [“A Killer Con Man on the Loose,” *NYR*, May 8, 2014]. To the whole business I can only say that I barely ever knew Mr. Kirn. … His reasons for wanting retroactively to insert himself so deeply into my life, calling himself a “close friend,” seem either purely commercially motivated or perhaps speak to a deeper pathology on which I do not have the expertise to comment.
(4) FUNDING FOR A PUNK ROCK FUTURE. Editor Steve Zisson and associated editors are in the final week of a Kickstarter appeal to fund publication of A Punk Rock Future, their anthology featuring sf/f/h stories mashing up genre fiction and punk rock music.
Why now for this anthology? A punk strain not only runs through music and art but right through the heart of SFFH (think cyberpunk, steampunk, solarpunk, silkpunk, hopepunk, ecopunk, or whatever punk).
…It is the forward-thinking science fiction and fantasy community that is propelling all things punk into the future.
Want a recent published example of the kind of story you’ll read in A Punk Rock Future? The Big So-So by Erica Satifka in Interzone. Or read Sarah Pinsker’s Nebula Award winner, Our Lady of the Open Road, published in Asimov’s. These influential stories were inspirations for this anthology.
The big news is that we will have stories from both writers in A Punk Rock Future!
The anthology will feature 25 stories by Erica Satifka, Sarah Pinsker, Spencer Ellsworth, Margaret Killjoy, Maria Haskins, Izzy Wasserstein, Stewart C Baker, Kurt Pankau, Marie Vibbert, Corey J. White, P.A. Cornell, Jennifer Lee Rossman, M. Lopes da Silva, R. K. Duncan, Zandra Renwick, Dawn Vogel, Matt Bechtel, Josh Rountree, Vaughan Stanger, Michel Harris Cohen, Anthony Eichenlaub, Steven Assarian and more to come.
The appeal has brought in $2,557, or 51 percent, of its $5,000 goal, with seven days to go.
(5) MUGGLES GOT TALENT. ULTRAGOTHA recommends this high school Harry Potter dance video posted by MuggleNet.com on Facebook.
The rapid transit tunnel that Elon Musk’s Boring Company is digging beneath Los Angeles will open on December 10th, and free rides will be offered to the public the following night, Musk tweeted on Sunday evening.
The two-mile test tunnel underneath SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, is a proof of concept for an underground public transportation system, which aims to transport passengers and vehicles beneath congested roadways on autonomously driven electric platforms called “skates.” The skates will theoretically transport eight to 16 passengers, or one passenger vehicle, along magnetic rails at speeds of up to 155 mph (250 km/h), Musk tweeted.
Fresh off his Best Picture and Best Director Oscar wins for The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro is ready for his next project — and it’s one he’s been working on for a long time. Netflix announced Monday that it’s teaming up with del Toro for a stop-motion musical version of Pinocchio that is the director’s “lifelong passion project.”
Although Disney famously created an animated version of Pinocchio in 1940 (widely regarded to be among the studio’s greatest artistic achievements), the fairy tale was first written by Italian author Carlo Collodi in 1883. Del Toro’s version in particular will draw heavily from illustrator Gris Grimly’s 2002 edition, but will still pay homage to the story’s Italian origins — this Pinocchio will be set in 1930s Italy, under the reign of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
In 1943, he led a top-secret raid on a heavily-guarded plant in Norway’s southern region of Telemark.
The operation was immortalised in the 1965 Hollywood film Heroes of Telemark, starring Kirk Douglas.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and JJ.]
Born October 22, 1919 – Doris Lessing, Writer, Poet, and Playwright born in Iran, who moved to Zimbabwe and later to England. Although considered a mainstream literary writer, she produced a number of genre novels, including the epic science-fiction quintet Canopus in Argos: Archives; about which, when it was disparaged by mainstream critics, she stated: “What they didn’t realise was that in science fiction is some of the best social fiction of our time.” She was Guest of Honor at the 1987 Worldcon, and received many literary awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature. She died in 2013 at the age of 94.
Born October 22, 1938 – Christopher Lloyd, 80, Actor with genre credentials a mile deep, including as Doc Brown in the Hugo- and Saturn-winning Back to the Future movies and animated series, as Uncle Fester in the Hugo- and Saturn-nominated The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, as the alien John Bigbooté in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, and as the relentless Klingon nemesis Commander Kruge in the Hugo finalist Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Other genre films in which he had roles include the Hugo-winning Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Angels in the Outfield, InSight, The Pagemaster, the My Favorite Martian remake, R.L. Stine’s When Good Ghouls Go Bad, and Piranha 3D (which, judging by the big names attached, must have involved a hell of a paycheck).
Born October 22, 1939 – Suzy McKee Charnas, 79, Writer who is probably best known for The Holdfast Chronicles, a series of four books published over the space of twenty-five years, which are set in a post-apocalyptic world and are unabashedly feminist in their themes. She was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1975 based on the strength of the first volume, Walk to the End of the World, which won a Retrospective Tiptree Award. The second volume, Motherlines, was delayed in publication because (this being the late 70s) several publishers would agree to publish it only if the main characters were changed to men – an offer which she refused. Her novella Unicorn Tapestry was nominated for a World Fantasy Award and won a Nebula, her other works have received numerous Hugo, Nebula, Mythopoeic, Tiptree, Stoker, Sturgeon, and Lambda nominations and wins, and she has been Guest of Honor at several conventions including Wiscon and Readercon.
Born October 22, 1939 – Jim Baen, Publisher and Editor who started his literary career in the complaints department of Ace Books, becoming managing editor of Galaxy Science Fiction in 1973, then a few years later returning to Ace to head their SF line under Tom Doherty, whom he followed to Tor Books in 1980 to start their SF line. In 1983, with Doherty’s assistance, he founded Baen Books. In defiance of ‘conventional wisdom’, starting in 1999 he made works available via his Webscriptions company (later Baen Ebooks) in DRM-free ebook format; he gave many ebooks away for free on CDs which were included with paper books, and made many books and stories available online for free at the Baen Free Library. This built a loyal following of readers who purchased the books anyway, and his became the first profitable e-book publishing service. He edited 28 volumes in anthology series: Destinies and New Destinies, and with Jerry Pournelle, Far Frontiers. He was an active participant on Baen’s Bar, the readers’ forum on his company’s website, where he discussed topics such as evolutionary biology, space technology, politics, military history, and puns. He received eight Hugo Award nominations for Best Editor and three Chesley Award nominations for Best Art Director. He was Publisher or Editor Guest of Honor at several conventions, including the 2000 Worldcon (where OGH interviewed him on the program), and was posthumously given the Phoenix Award (for lifetime achievement) by Southern Fandom. He passed away from a stroke at the too-early age of 62, but his legacy endures in the continued success of Baen Books.
Born October 22, 1952 – Jeff Goldblum, 66, Oscar- and Saturn-nominated Actor, Director, and Producer whose extensive genre resume includes the Hugo-winning Jurassic Park and its sequels, the Hugo-nominated The Fly and its sequel, and the Hugo-nominated Independence Day and its-very-definitely-not-Hugo-nominated sequel. Other roles include the genre films Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, Earth Girls Are Easy, The Sentinel, Threshold, Transylvania 6-5000, Mister Frost, Thor: Ragnarok, and Hotel Artemis. In July 2018, a 25-foot statue of him appeared next to London’s Tower Bridge to mark the 25th anniversary of Jurassic Park.
Born October 22, 1954 – Graham Joyce, Writer and Teacher from England whose works ran the gamut from science fiction to fantasy to horror. His novels and short fiction garnered an impressive array of award nominations in a 22-year span, and he took home trophies for six British Fantasy Awards, one World Fantasy Award, and four Prix Imaginaire Awards, as well as an O Henry Award. He served as Master of Ceremonies at Fantasycons in the UK, and was Guest of Honor at several conventions, including a World Fantasy Convention. His thriving career was cut short by cancer at the age of 59.
Born October 22, 1956 – Gretchen Roper, 62, Singer, Filker, Conrunner, and Fan. Growing up in a family where mutilating lyrics was a sport prepared her for joining fandom and filkdom at the age of 18. After meeting and marrying co-filker Bill Roper, they co-founded Dodeka Records, a small publisher of filk tapes and CDs which frequently sells their wares at convention Dealer tables. She has run the filk programming for numerous cons, and has been Filk Guest of Honor at several conventions. She received a Pegasus Award for Best Humourous Song, and was inducted into the Filk Hall of Fame in 2008. She was made a member of the Dorsai Irregulars, an invitation-only volunteer convention security team which has a lot of overlap with the filking community, in 2001.
Born October 22, 1958 – Keith Parkinson, Artist and Illustrator who began his career providing art for TSR games, and then moved on to do book covers and other art, as well as working as a game designer. In 2002, he became the art director for Sigil Games Online. He was a finalist for a Best Original Artwork Hugo, and earned 9 Chesley Award nominations, winning for each of his covers for the first two volumes of C.J. Cherryh’s Rusalka series. He was a recipient of NESFA’s Jack Gaughan Award for Best Emerging Artist, and was Artist Guest of Honor at several conventions. Sadly, he died of leukemia just after his 47th birthday.
(10) COMIC SECTION.
Half Full shows why a couple of Star Wars characters don’t hang out at the beach very often.
This classic Basic Instructions strip teaches one to be careful of books with forewords by Stephen King
There should be a prize for figuring out which sff story could have inspired this Bizarro joke.
(11) TIMELAPSE SFF SCULPTURE. On YouTube, artist Steven Richter has posted time-lapse videos of his creation of a number of genre sculptures. These include:
In 1985, a unique skull was discovered lying on Yamana Beach at Cape Shirreff in Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands. It belonged to an indigenous woman from southern Chile in her early 20s, thought to have died between 1819 and 1825. It was the oldest known human remains ever found in Antarctica.
The location of the discovered skull was unexpected. It was found at a beach camp made by sealers in the early 19th Century near remnants of her femur bone, yet female sealers were unheard of at the time. There are no surviving documents explaining how or why a young woman came to be in Antarctica during this era. Now, at nearly 200 years old, the skull is thought to align with the beginning of the first known landings on Antarctica.
(13) AIRPORT ANXIETY. John Scalzi has a growing suspicion that all glory is fleeting —
WAIT
SOMEONE IS BEING UPGRADED TO FIRST CLASS
NOOOOOO TAKE ME INSTEAD
DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM
I AM A VERY IMPORTANT PHOTOGRAPHER OF CATS AND BURRITOS
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Nielsen’s work, Taschen published all 21 of his original illustrations, reproduced directly from the never-before-seen original watercolors.
The extra-large coffee table book delivers an experience of its own — the prints are meticulously curated and presented in a blue velvet box, as if the book itself was a tale to unveil.
When the subject of magic is approached in any of Norton’s writing there is never any easy solution lying right below the surface. Her flaire for piecing out information and not revealing more than what the characters themselves know keeps the reader on edge, as well as humble. This sense that there are always bigger forces at play, yet are never fully explained, teases the rational mind of the reader and allows for there to be doubt that anything “magical” can be easily quantified by rational, scientific method. It’s very disquieting when Norton’s established and venerated forces, like the witchcraft of the Women of Power and the Axe of Volt, are threatened by something indefinable that is even older and more powerful – travel across dimensions.
(18) QUICK SIPS. Charles Payseur finds a thread running through the stories in the October Clarkesworld — “Quick Sips – Clarkesworld #145”.
The October issue of Clarkesworld Magazine is all about survival. Or, I should say, about finding out what’s more important than survival. These stories take settings that are, well, grim. Where war and other disasters have created a situation where just holding onto life is difficult. Where for many it would seem obvious that it’s time to tighten one’s belt and get down to the serious business of surviving. And yet the stories show that surviving isn’t enough, especially if it means sacrificing people. That, without justice and hope beyond just making it to another day, surviving might not be worth it. But that, with an eye toward progress, and hope for something better (not just the prevention of something worse), people and peoples can begin to heal the damage that’s been caused and maybe reach a place where they can heal and find a better way to live. To the reviews!
(19) CODEWRITERS CODE. But for Jon Del Arroz’ wholehearted endorsement — “SQLite Created a Code Of Conduct And It’s AMAZING” [Internet Archive link] – it probably wouldn’t have come to my attention that SQLite, a library of public domain resources for a database engine, posted a Code of Conduct based on a chapter from The Rule of St, Benedict.
Having been encouraged by clients to adopt a written code of conduct, the SQLite developers elected to govern their interactions with each other, with their clients, and with the larger SQLite user community in accordance with the “instruments of good works” from chapter 4 of The Rule of St. Benedict. This code of conduct has proven its mettle in thousands of diverse communities for over 1,500 years, and has served as a baseline for many civil law codes since the time of Charlemagne.
This rule is strict, and none are able to comply perfectly. Grace is readily granted for minor transgressions. All are encouraged to follow this rule closely, as in so doing they may expect to live happier, healthier, and more productive lives. The entire rule is good and wholesome, and yet we make no enforcement of the more introspective aspects.
(20) VIDEO OF THE DAY. “First Bloom” on Vimeo is a cartoon showing an Imperial Chinese love story, directed by Ting Ting Liu.
[Thanks to JJ, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Daniel Dern, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Cat Eldridge, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W – have we really not used that one before? It didn’t come up on my search.]
