John Hertz says:
I took this photo at Worldcon 76 and submit it for “Cats Sleep on S-F”. Brother Barnes is one of the coolest cats I know.
(Hertz adds that he explained the “Cats Sleep” series to him and has Barnes’ permission to publish the photo.)
Photos of other felines resting on genre works are welcome. Send to mikeglyer (at) cs (dot) com
(1) SPIDER STORY. Worldcon 76 GoH Spider Robinson’s hometown paper profiled him before the convention: see “Spider Robinson’s star shines in Worldcon’s sci-fi universe” in the Bowne Island Undercurrent.
In the waning charge cycles of a 12-year-old MacBook Pro, Spider Robinson is typing out his autobiography.
“I’m writing the serious, logical case that I’m the luckiest [person] who’s ever lived,” he said.
“My luck ran out, but all luck does.”
It’s extraordinary that a man who lost both his wife and daughter prematurely can still count himself as lucky.
But Robinson concentrates on the joy that his family and career brought to his life.
The well-known science fiction writer, winner of three Hugo awards and a Nebula award, has lived on Bowen Island since 2001.
This week, Robinson is one of the guests of honour at Worldcon, the 76th World Science Fiction Convention, this year held in San Jose.
(2) CANON FIRE. Foz Meadows’ “Trash and Treasure” column for The Book Smugglers does a recap on Worldcon 76, including thoughts inspired by the Author vs Fan Ownership panel there wasn’t enough time to unpack:
…Afterwards, multiple audience members asked for my thoughts about the recent trend in claims by some fandom extremists that fans literally own the stories they love, whatever those stories might be, just by straight-up virtue of passion.
To give an example of two of the more toxic examples of this sense of fannish entitlement, taken from both ends of the fan-political spectrum, consider both the MRA Star Wars fans who tried to crowdsource funding for a new, lady-free version of The Last Jedi, and the lone Voltron: Legendary Defender fan who tried to blackmail Studio Mir into making their gay ship canon. In both cases, there’s a belief that wanting a personal, idealised, specific version of the narrative to exist in canon should not only trump the plans of the creators, but effectively constitute a shouted BECAUSE REASONS! override of their actual, legal ownership….
(3) MAINTAINING TWEET SILENCE. Is Wil Wheaton coming back to Twitter? Eh, no. He turned it off one day in August, for reasons he explains in “The world is a terrible place right now, and that’s largely because it is what we make it.” Then he thought he found another social media home, but the administrators wearied of the flood of complaints (see post for explanation) and he left there too.
As most of you know, I deactivated my Twitter account earlier this month. It had been a long time coming, for a whole host of reasons, but Twitter’s decision to be the only social network that gives Alex Jones a platform to spew hate, hurt innocent people, and incite violence was the final straw for me. But I haven’t regretted leaving for even one second. Having that endless stream of hate and anger and negativity in my pocket wasn’t good for me (and I don’t think it’s good for anyone, to be honest).
I was on Twitter from just about the very beginning. I think I’m in the first couple thousand accounts. I remember when it was a smallish group of people who wanted to have fun, make jokes, share information and tips on stuff that was interesting, and oh so many pictures of our pets. It was awesome.
It started to get toxic slowly at first, then all at once, starting with the misogynist dipshits who were behing the gate-which-shall-not-be-named. That was clearly a turning point for Twitter, and it never really recovered from it. I watched, in real time, as the site I loved turned into a right wing talk radio shouting match that made YouTube comments and CSPAN call-ins seem scholarly. We tried for a couple of years to fight back, to encourage Twitter to take a stand against bad actors (HA HA LIKE ME BECAUSE I AM A BAD ACTOR RIGHT YOU GOT ME HA HA HA). Twitter doesn’t care about how its users are affected by themselves, though. Twitter cares about growth and staying on the good side of President Shitler’s tantrums….
(4) LIGHT IS THE BEST DISINFECTANT. An event called KekCon set out to publicize itself at Dragon Con and drew criticism on social media. Lura Groen’s thread starts here.
Hey @DragonCon, what’s up with the kek bullshit? Not ok! #DragonCon2018 pic.twitter.com/nfrRW0Y3ou
— Lura Groen (@lura_groen) September 1, 2018
For those who don't know. According to Southern Poverty Law Center, "Kek is the “deity” of the semi-ironic “religion” the white nationalist movement has created for itself online."
To reiterate: WTF #DragonCon2018? https://t.co/e0Qx1zM1Xk
— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) September 1, 2018
Groen, who received at least one threat after tweeting her thread, reports the KekCon reps left Dragon Con.
(5) PRESCRIPTION FOR ENTERTAINMENT. SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie thinks Filers may enjoy The Third Pill, which BBC Radio 4 has just put on iPlayer.
The Third Pill by James O’Neill
Greg works in children’s publishing but feels middle aged and out of touch. Then something pops up on his computer that will transform his life. A comedy about finding that elusive elixir of youth.
Surely it is a scam, or is it? And if it works, what are the consequences….
(6) A STROLL DOWN MEMORY ROAD. “A graphic tale: the visual effects of Mad Max: Fury Road” is a nuts-and-bolts of how many of the shots were built over bits of reality. From 2015 – but may be news to you!
But the intense Namibian shoot, and further filming in Sydney, was only half the story in the creation of Fury Road’s insane stunt action and post-apocalyptic landscapes. Hundreds of visual effects artists, led by overall visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson, would spend considerable time crafting more than 2000 visual effects shots and helping to transform the exquisite photography into the final film that at times feels almost like a single car chase. Even more plate manipulation would also be carried out by colorist Eric Whipp, weaving in a distinctive graphic style for the film with detailed sky replacements and unique day for nights.
(7) A STACK OF REVIEWS, AND A STACK OF WAX. Links to the reviews below at Patti Abbott’s blog: “Friday’s Forgotten Books, August 31, 2018”.
- Mark Baker. LOST LEGACY, Annette Dashofy
- Yvette Banek, MURDER MAKES MISTAKES, George Bellairs
- Les Blatt, AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW, Elizabeth Daily
- Bill Crider, EPITAPH FOR A TRAMP, David Markson
- Kate Jackson at CrossExaminingCrime, TILL DEATH DO US PART, John Dickson Carr
- Martin Edwards, THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, Minette Marrin
- Curtis Evans, THE MAN WITH TWO WIVES, “Patrick Quentin”
- Rich Horton, THE FOUR FEATHERS, A. E. W. Mason
- Jerry House, ELECTION DAY 2084, ed. Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg
- George Kelley, THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES AND NOVELS, 9th SERIES, T.E. Dikty and Earl Kemp
- Margot Kinberg, FACES OF THE GONE, Brad Parks
- Rob Kitchin, THE SHINING GIRLS, Lauren Beukes
- Kate Laity, SWITZERLAND, Joanna Murray-Smith
- Evan Lewis, WATERFRONT FISTS, Robert E. Howard
- Steve Lewis, SEEING IS BELIEVING, Carter Dickson
- Todd Mason, 1960s audio recordings: THE ZOO STORY, Edward Albee; NO EXIT, Jean-Paul Sartre (translated by Paul Bowles); LUV, Murray Schisgal; JUST SO STORIES, Rudyard Kipling
- Matt Paust, LAST BUS TO WOODSTOCK, Colin Dexter
- James Reasoner, THE WATER BEND FEUD, William MacLeod Raine
- Richard Robinson, A FALL OF MOONDUST, Arthur C. Clarke
- Kevin Tipple, BAD LITTLE FALLS, Paul Doiron
- Tomcat, FLASHPOINT, John Russell Fearn
- TracyK, DARK PASSAGE, David Goodis
Links to online archives of some of the recordings under discussion at Todd Mason’s post: “THE ZOO STORY, Edward Albee; NO EXIT, Jean-Paul Sartre (translated by Paul Bowles); LUV, Murray Schisgal; JUST SO STORIES, Rudyard Kipling”
(8) EC COMICS REMEMBERED. The Society of Illustrators in New York City will exhibit “Tales from the Crypt: The Revolutionary Art of MAD and EC Comics” from September 5 to October 27, 2018.
For the first time in NYC, an exhibition of the EC comic book art that struck fear in the hearts of arbiters of good taste will see the light of day. Featured are more than 70 large original comic book art pages by comic art masters. On display September 5 through October 27 in the Hall of Fame Gallery….
A big business in the fifties, as many as 100 million comic books were sold monthly. Although the superhero and funny animal titles were popular in the forties the appetite had turned to subjects that reflected current trends and interests.
Perhaps the most prominent comic book publisher at the time was Entertaining Comics (EC), led by William M. Gaines. An aspiring high school teacher, Gaines found himself the 25 year old head of a struggling publishing company when his father died in a boating accident. Gaines knew little about the industry but hired young, creative editor/artists Al Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman to test new formats and launched a broad slate of revolutionary titles covering science fiction, horror, crime, war, suspense and humor.
The EC team would later be called among the most talented assembly of comic book artists and writers the industry had ever seen. While quickly copied because of their unprecedented success, EC stories were markedly different from the competition. They were expertly illustrated, written for an intelligent audience and offered an unexpected twist ending. Critics would point to the violence depicted in the crime and horror titles or the mature nature of the story subjects. Gaines had assumed an intelligent audience comprised of young adults and older readers and not children who would otherwise find little meaning in the work.
Titles presented in the exhibit include Aces High, Crime Suspenstories, Crypt of Terror, Extra!, Haunt of Fear, Frontline Combat, Impact, Piracy, MAD, Two-Fisted Tales, Tales From the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Weird Fantasy, Weird Science, Weird Science Fantasy, MAD 3-D art and more. Artists featured include Johnny Craig, Reed Crandall, Jack Davis, Will Elder, George Evans, Al Feldstein, Frank Frazetta, Graham Ingels, B. Krigstein, Harvey Kurtzman, Joe Orlando, John Severin, Marie Severin, Angelo Torres, Al Williamson and Wally Wood.
(9) TODAY IN HISTORY
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
(11) COMICS SECTION.
(12) A COOKIE WITH MORE BITE TO IT. Oreo has introduced two new cookie flavors — wasabi and hot chicken wing. For now, they are only available in China.
Innovation sensation: #TeamMDLZ @Oreo just launched two new BIG and BOLD flavors in #China: Hot Chicken Wing and Wasabi! pic.twitter.com/zntoTKbplE
— Mondel?z Intl (@MDLZ) August 22, 2018
(13) A LITTLE LIST. Kendall has read the comments here before and introduced this as “Another list for people to slam!”
Unbound Worlds, who posted a ‘100 Best Fantasy Novels of All Time’ list a while back, now has a 100 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time list. As before, they’re clear they just asked staffers for top sci-fi recs…
Hey, there are a bunch of books on this list I like, and if I’ve read 41 of them, your count probably will be even higher.
(14) IT’S NOT EPIC BUT IT IS FANTASY. Camestros Felapton reviews Matt Groening’s new series for Netflix, Disenchantment.
A new series from Matt Groening of Simpsons and Futurama fame was bound to generate some excitement. Using an epic fantasy/fairytale faux-medieval setting sounds like a fun premise for the kind of genre subverting humour that worked for Futurama. I’m up to the last two episodes and well, it isn’t great. It isn’t terrible but it isn’t great.
There are two issues:
- Quite a lot of Futurama wasn’t that great either but your brain edits in the best bits.
- Disenchantment leans too much on standard jokes and tropes used in its predecessors, making the show feel less fresh and novel.
It gets better, mainly because the characters start working on you and sometimes because of basic plot development.
(15) DOCTORDONNA IS IN. Sometimes the unexpected happens at Dragon Con. Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia Stacey Abrams encountered actress Catherine Tate.
ATTN world, @staceyabrams & CATHERINE TATE just met at #DragonCon (while I was meeting Stacey??? ????????) and it was the best experience of my entire life. pic.twitter.com/58CEWwATEF
— bmase (@BMase) September 1, 2018
(16) SIDEBAR. Cat Rambo found comic relief at the SFWA business meeting during Dragon Con.
Best part of SFWA business meeting might have been the guy standing in the doorway who refused to come in and said, "I'm just here to burn down the Hugos," at which point, several people mentioned that SFWA has no connection to the Hugos.
— Cat Rambo (@Catrambo) August 31, 2018
(17) RUGRATS. Airboy notes, “There was a ‘weird news’ story on the front page of August 31’s Wall Street Journal on the odd carpet design of the Marriott Hotel in downtown Atlanta that is one of the DragonCon Hotels. It had an odd carpet that was eventually removed due to age. Some fans obsessed over it creating dresses, camo outfits, and eventually a group of them marched together in the annual DragonCon parade in downtown Atlanta.”
The article is online behind a paywall at the Wall Street Journal, “‘We’re Spending Our Hard-Earned Money to Dress Up Like Carpet.’ The Tight-Knit World of Rug Fans”.
These are the people who are obsessed with carpet and rug patterns in hotels, airports and office buildings; Dragon Con at the Marriott
Disturbing on so. many. levels. 😉 “The Dragon Con group is just one thread of a tapestry spread out across the subcultures obsessed with carpet and rug patterns in hotels, airports, office buildings—even movies.” https://t.co/OCDcnsdGQz
— Lawmom (@Lawmom) August 31, 2018
Here’s a lot more material (free!) at the Dragon Con Eternal Members site: “Marriott Carpet Pattern”, including the famous photo of two prone cosplayers whose camo military uniforms blend almost perfectly with the rug.
(18) IN CASE YOU’RE CURIOUS. I’d never seen a photo of Dragon Con CEO Pat Henry before (not that they aren’t available). Writers of the Future’s John Goodwin posted a photo of them together.
He also posted a photo of the Writers of the Future panel with Contest judges Kevin J. Anderson, Robert J. Sawyer, Mike Resnick and Jody Lynn Nye.
(19) MORE CON HEALTH ADVICE. In advance of this weekend’s PAX West convention, the Seattle’s Public Health Insider warned con crud is a thing: “Gaming, Cosplay, and Con Crud, Oh My!”
PAX West opens on Friday and will bring tens of thousands of people to downtown Seattle. Be prepared for legions of cosplayers and badge wearers in downtown, even if you aren’t attending.
So… what is “con crud”?
“Con crud” is an artificial term that refers to the common cold, mild flu, or other non-threatening illness that may strike towards the end of a convention, or soon after leaving. You might have also heard it called PAX pox, festival plague, or even nerd flu.
The balance of the post advises ways to avoid getting it. [Via Ron Oakes.]
(20) AIR APPARENT. Fixing a flat: “Astronauts tackle air leak on International Space Station”.
Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are having to deal with an air leak from a possible collision.
It has been traced to a small hole in a capsule that was used to deliver a new crew to the laboratory 400km (250 miles) above the Earth in June.
It is thought the damage was caused by the impact of a high-speed rocky fragment flying through space.
(21) BACK ON THE RAILS. BBC tells “How the Hogwarts Express was saved from a Welsh scrapyard”.
Emerging from the clouds of steam engulfing platform nine and three-quarters, the gleaming Hogwarts Express commands a special place in the hearts of Harry Potter fans.
Yet there was a time when the only place this engine could call home, was a south Wales scrapyard where it lay rotting among the hulks of a bygone era.
That is because the locomotive that entranced millions of Potter viewers and now sits proudly in Warner Brothers Studios, was once earmarked to be dismantled for the furnace.
Written off, abandoned and forgotten for 17 years, this lowly engine’s final destiny was originally far from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
(22) MORE THAN JUST ONLINE. “Telepresence: ‘My robot makes me feel like I haven’t been forgotten'”. – about helping shut-ins keep up with school.
Internet-connected robots that can stream audio and video are increasingly helping housebound sick children and elderly people keep in touch with teachers, family and friends, combating the scourge of isolation and loneliness.
Zoe Johnson, 16, hasn’t been to school since she was 12.
She went to the doctor in 2014 “with a bit of a sore throat”, and “somehow that became A&E [accident and emergency],” says her mother, Rachel Johnson.
(23) CASTING CONTROVERSIES. ScreenRant analyzes “10 Superhero Castings That Caused Fan Backlash.”
(24) ALMOST TIME. The House with a Clock in Its Walls – in theaters September 21.
In the tradition of Amblin classics where fantastical events occur in the most unexpected places, Jack Black and two-time Academy Award® winner Cate Blanchett star in The House with a Clock in Its Walls, from Amblin Entertainment. The magical adventure tells the spine-tingling tale of 10-year-old Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) who goes to live with his uncle in a creaky old house with a mysterious tick-tocking heart. But his new town’s sleepy façade jolts to life with a secret world of warlocks and witches when Lewis accidentally awakens the dead. Based on the beloved children’s classic written by John Bellairs and illustrated by Edward Gorey, The House with a Clock in Its Walls is directed by master frightener Eli Roth and written by Eric Kripke (creator of TV’s Supernatural). Co-starring Kyle MacLachlan, Colleen Camp, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Vanessa Anne Williams and Sunny Suljic, it is produced by Mythology Entertainment’s Brad Fischer (Shutter Island) and James Vanderbilt (Zodiac), as well as Kripke.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Jonathan Cowie, Cat Eldridge, Todd Mason, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. And belated thanks to Joanna Rivers for an item the other day. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]
(1) IN TUNE WITH SPACE OPERA. Strange Horizons presents “’In The Far and Dazzling Future, People Are Still People’: A Round-Table on Domestic Space Opera” with Ann Leckie, Jennifer Foehner Wells, Judith Tarr, Joyce Chng, and Foz Meadows.
Foz Meadows: I honestly think you can’t have good SF without a degree of domesticity. There’s something sterile to the environments so often preferred by hard and military SF, where everyone is in uniform without a hint of how they live outside of it, that forgets that, even in the far and dazzling future, people are still people. One of the clearest visual examples that springs to mind was the ship Serenity, in Firefly—that show had a lot of problems, but the decision to lovingly render the spaceship as a domestic environment wasn’t one of them. There were hand-painted signs on the metal that Kaylee had done, scenes of the crew cooking real food together as a novelty, or making Simon a cake out of flavoured protein for his birthday because they didn’t have anything else; the difference between Inara’s quarters, with its lush decorations, and Jayne’s wall of guns. The Radchaii love of tea in Ann Leckie’s Ancillary series is another example of this.
But again, I find myself at odds with the assumption that domesticity is frowned upon in space opera, given that its presence is, to me, one of the defining qualities that separates it from traditional, “masculine” hard and military SF….
(2) DOCTOR IS IN. Variety says a former Doctor Who will be in Episode IX: “‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ Casts Matt Smith in Key Role”.
Sources tell Variety that “The Crown” star Matt Smith is joining “Star Wars: Episode IX,” which is currently in production in the U.K. It’s unknown at this time whether the “Doctor Who” alum will be on the side of the rebels or the evil empire.
(3) A SFF SPLASH. Scott Edelman interviews Rachel Pollack over a bowl of Vietnamese Seafood Noodle Soup in Episode 75 of Eating the Fantastic.
Rachel Pollack
We had lunch on the final day of Readercon at Pho Pasteur. This Quincy restaurant is a 2017 spin-off of the original Boston Vietnamese venue which has been open since 1991, and since that cuisine is one of her favorites, I thought we should give that venue a try.
Rachel Pollack is someone I’ve been connected to for a third of a century, even since I ran her story “Lands of Stone” in a 1984 issue of Last Wave, a small press magazine I edited and published. But she’s gone on to do so much more since then!
Her novel Unquenchable Fire won the 1989 Arthur C. Clarke Award, and her novel Godmother Night won the 1997 World Fantasy Award. Her other novels include Temporary Agency, which was a 1994 Nebula Award nominee. Her comic book writing includes an acclaimed run on Doom Patrol, as well as New Gods and Brother Power the Geek. She is also an expert on the Tarot and has published many books on the subject, including a guide to Salvador Dali’s Tarot deck. Her comics and Tarot loves blended when she created the Vertigo Tarot Deck with writer Neil Gaiman and artist Dave McKean.
We discussed why Ursula K. Le Guin was such an inspiration, the reason celebrating young writers over older ones can skew sexist, what Tarot cards and comic books have in common, how 2001: A Space Odyssey isn’t a science fiction movie but an occult movie, why Captain Marvel was her favorite comic as a kid (Shazam!), the serendipitous encounter which led to her writing Doom Patrol, how she used DC’s Tomahawk to comment on old Western racial stereotypes, the problems that killed her Buffy the Vampire Slayer Tarot deck, how she intends to bring back her shaman-for-hire character Jack Shade, and much more.
(4) MORE ON CARNEGIE LIBRARY THEFTS. The New York Times traces the fate of an individual stolen book to illustrate why the thefts could be carried on so long: “Vast Theft of Antiquarian Books Sends a Shudder Through a Cloistered World of Dealers”.
A rare books dealer thought he had gotten lucky in 2013 when he managed to acquire a 1787 French first edition — inscribed by Thomas Jefferson when he was ambassador to France.
“If someone else had seen it first, it would have been gone,” said the dealer, John Thomson, who owns Bartleby’s Books, an online shop.
He had no idea that his seeming good fortune was a byproduct of one of the most expansive rare book thefts in history.
The dealer at a book fair who sold it to him, John Schulman, is now accused of conspiring with a library archivist, Gregory Priore, to steal and sell rare items from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh….
… In this niche world based on trust, where confidants are currency and handshake deals are commonplace, the arrest of a prominent dealer is a shocking suggestion of deceit.
Mr. Schulman had served on the association’s board of governors and had even led its ethics committee, the organization said. His clients included some of the biggest names in the business. Prominent bookshops from New York to London bought stolen books, an affidavit shows.
…None of the buyers are accused of wrongdoing. But the booksellers’ association is taking steps to try to prevent a similar wide-scale theft from happening again.
We traced the path of one book, the edition signed by Jefferson, to explain how the theft is suspected to have worked — and why it went undetected for so long….
(5) BETHKE TRIBUTE. Bruce Bethke’s frank memoir “Family Matters” leads up to his announcement of the death of his first wife.
…What even fewer people have known until recently is that in December of 2012, my first wife, Nancy, was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma. After a five-and-a-half year battle, she left this world sometime between late Sunday evening, August 19, and early Monday morning, August 20. Her funeral was this past Saturday.
(6) VELEZ OBIT. Artist Walter Velez (1939-2018) died August 24 at the age of 78.
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction tells about his popular work, including covers for Robert Asprin’s books, such as the first Thieves World anthology.
His website is here.
(7) WAYNE OBIT. From Syfy Wire: “The Twilight Zone and Bewitched Actor Fredd Wayne Dead at 93” and The Hollywood Reporter: “Fredd Wayne, Who Played Benjamin Franklin on ‘Bewitched,’ Dies at 93”.
Per the SYFY Wire story, genre roles included appearances on: One Step Beyond (1 episode); The Twilight Zone (2 episodes); Voyagers! (1 episode); Bewitched (2-part episode); Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (2-part episode); Wonder Woman (1 episode); Small Wonder (1 episode); The Phantom of Hollywood (TV movie); Chamber of Horrors.(feature film). There may be others they didn’t list. Depends, in part, on what you count as genre (Nanny and the Professor? Matinee Theatre’s “The Alumni Reunion” & “The Century Plant”?)
(8) TODAY IN HISTORY
Using a Mac Portable aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, the first e-mail from space is sent to Earth. Two astronauts on the spacecraft, James Adamson and Shannon Lucid, wrote, “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first AppleLink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here,…send cryo and RCS! Hasta la vista, baby,…we’ll be back!” The message was transmitted to the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
(10) COMICS SECTION.
(11) REASON FOR A SEASON. John King Tarpinian says he has already ordered his “Santa in Space” shirt.
(12) ABOUT W76. Alexandra Erin unpacks a host of feelings about attending a Worldcon in “Conventional Wisdom”, like these sentiments about awards:
And so here is my insight for this year: the awards matter because they represent genuine appreciation, and the appreciation is genuine because it comes from people, from real people, a real community of people, a community of communities — some old, some newer, each diverse in different ways, each with their own competing and conflicting and even occasionally complementary tastes. This community is here at the convention and it is distributed somewhat haphazardly across the globe, wherever people are reading and writing and appreciating science fiction and fantasy literature published in the English language.
WorldCon is a concentration of that community, and the Hugo Awards are a concentration of WorldCon. The community is people, the convention is people, the awards are people, Soylent Green is people, and it is beautiful and it is glorious, even when the community stumbles.
(13) OUT IN FRONT. John Picacio mentions that he won the only Alfie Award presented by George R.R. Martin this year, tells about the gatherings of MexicanX Initiative members, and how he felt while emceeing the Hugos, in his conreport “Worldcon 76: The End Is The Beginning”.
I always forget how applause makes me feel like I’m underwater. I knew I was going to ‘X-up’ centerstage in salute to my Mexicanx brothers and sisters, but from there, every word of my opening address was blank page. Unscripted. Pulled from the bright stagelights, the infinite sea of faces, the inky black, that primetime moment you can’t calculate no matter how hard you try. It’s right there in front of your eyes, beyond the dazzle, if you can stop your heart from exploding out of your chest. All of those struggling years, building to arrive at that moment….I remembered that kid who so desperately wanted to be a part of this business….that guy who appeared at his first Worldcon a mere twenty-one years ago. And he led me through the darkness, like he always does — because I’m still that guy. I still want it as bad as I did when I worked on my first book cover, when I resigned from architecture to be the person I am full-time, seventeen years ago. I don’t remember everything I said up there — it just comes out — and no, I don’t want to watch the video and find out. Once is enough.
(14) NEW WETWARE DISCOVERY. NPR reports on “What Makes A Human Brain Unique? A Newly Discovered Neuron May Be A Clue”. Breaks the use of mice as models for neurological problems, e.g. Alzheimer’s.
An international team has identified a kind of brain cell that exists in people but not mice, the team reported Monday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
“This particular type of cell had properties that had never actually been described in another species,” says Ed Lein, one of the study’s authors and an investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle.
The finding could help explain why many experimental treatments for brain disorders have worked in mice, but failed in people. It could also provide new clues to scientists who study human brain disorders ranging from autism to Alzheimer’s disease to schizophrenia.
“It may be that in order to fully understand psychiatric disorders, we need to get access to these special types of neurons that exist only in humans,” says Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which helped fund the research.
(15) PREEMPTIVE STRIKE ON CHOLERA. 21st-century pump handle: “Yemen cholera epidemic ‘controlled’ by computer predictions”. Rainfall predictions ID where sewers will overflow, telling where to concentrate treatment etc.
Last year, there were more than 50,000 new cases in just one week – this year, the numbers plummeted to about 2,500.
The system has enabled aid workers to focus efforts on prevention several weeks in advance of an outbreak – by monitoring rainfall.
It comes as the UN says it is concerned about a possible “third wave” of the epidemic.
(16) MAD, I TELL YOU. At The Onion: “New ‘Game Of Thrones’ Teaser Shows Cackling, Power-Mad George R.R. Martin Burning Completed ‘Winds Of Winter’ Manuscript”.
Shedding light on the much-rumored events of the upcoming eighth and final season, a newly released teaser for the wildly popular HBO series of Game Of Thrones that aired Monday centered around the image of a cackling, power-mad George R.R. Martin burning the completed manuscript of Winds Of Winter.
(17) COMING TO A BOOKSTORE NOWHERE NEAR YOU. Ferret Bueller shares a rarity:
This is a pic?ture I took of the official (I guess) Mongolian translations of the Game of Thrones books in Ulaanbaatar; they’re published by Monsudar, the leading publisher of translated books. These were on display at one of the little branches of Internom, their brick and mortar franchise, this one being near my office. I see by the stamp I took it on 1 April; I took the picture for a friend of mine who’s a GoT fanatic and didn’t even think that you might enjoy seeing it or putting it up on File 770 (it’s interesting enough SF news, I guess) until earlier today.
(18) YOU COULDN’T LOOK IT UP. Cameron Laux describes “Fourteen words and phrases that define the present” for BBC readers:
The new weird
An emerging genre of speculative, ‘post-human’ writing that blurs genre boundaries and conventions, pushes humanity and human-centred reason from the centre to the margins, and generally poses questions that may not be answerable in any terms we can understand (hence the ‘weird’). It is associated with people like Jeff Vandermeer and M John Harrison in fiction, but the approach is bleeding into television narratives (see Westworld or Noah Hawley’s innovative series Fargo and Legion). Vandermeer’s Annihilation is heavily influenced by recent ecological thinking which takes the view that humanity is a blip in geologic history: even considering the potential catastrophe of global warming, the Earth existed long before us, and it will exist long after (see the ‘hyperobject’ entry elsewhere here). In his 2002 book Light, Harrison imagines a universe where human physics is encroached upon by alien physics that coexist and are equally or more potent. Westworld posits machine intelligences that overthrow their masters, unleashing a radically non-human order.
(19) DEL TORO PROJECT. From Variety: “Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark’ Movie Sets Cast”.
Guillermo del Toro’s “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” adaptation has cast Michael Garza, Austin Abrams, Gabriel Rush, Austin Zajur and Natalie Ganzhorn with production to start this week.
Del Toro is producing the teen thriller with his “Shape of Water” producer J. Miles Dale. Sean Daniel and Jason Brown of Hivemind and Elizabeth Grave are also producing. CBS Films and Entertainment One are co-financing.
(20) NOT ENOUGH CONAN. Doctor Strangemind’s Kim Huett tells how Hollywood suffers for lack of his advice to guide them, in “Conan the Rebooter”.
What is best in life? To revive a franchise, to turn it into a success, and to hear the lamentation of your rivals!
I really do wish Hollywood would consult with me before embarking upon certain film projects. I’ve no doubt my sage advice could save them endless money and embarrassment in regards to the making of the more expensive science fiction and fantasy sort of films. “What’s that Mr Executive? You’re thinking about green-lighting a film based on the game Battleship? No. Just no.”
Ah, but I sense you would like some proof of my ability to deliver such sage advice. Fair enough, let’s then consider that famous barbarian, Conan, by Crom! As a teenager I read at least eleventy-seven paperbacks featuring Conan stories (published by Sphere Books in the UK and by first Lancer and then Ace Books in the US) so I’m reasonably familiar with the source material. Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve read any of Robert E. Howard’s stories but I think I can unequivocally state that neither attempt to put Conan on the big screen was unflawed….
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, JJ, Ferret Bueller, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, Kim Huett, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Goobergunch.]
(1) ON THE GROUND AT WORLDCON 76. Raven Oak’s trip report about Worldcon 76 includes a fun photo of astronaut Kjell Lindgren posing with fans costumed (so I believe) as the GalaxyQuest alien crew members.
Kjell thanked me and said he was an astronaut because of science fiction authors like me. He read lots of sci-fi books as a kid, which made him dream of going into space. He signed the back of one of my coloring book pages, the one featuring Bay-zar from my sci-fi novella Class-M Exile.
Lots of good photos of hall costumes, too.
(2) RETRO HUGOS OF 1943. Chair Kevin Roche sent along a better photo of the Retro-Hugo award base he designed for Worldcon 76.
The block is solid cherry, in honor of the orchards once common in San Jose (cherries were still one of the top cash crops in the Valley of Heart’s Delight in the early 40s). The backplane is a laser-etched image I created of our SJ Galactic Tower, which is itself an homage to the historic San Jose Electric Tower, erected in 1881 and making San Jose the first electrified downtown west of the Rockies (the historic tower, alas, collapsed in 1915. I have photos from 1910 showing buses driving under the tower where it stood over the intersection of Market and Santa Clara Streets.)
(3) CHILDHOOD’S BEGINNING. James Davis Nicoll gives his opinions about “SF Books That Did Not Belong in the Kids’ Section of the Library” at Tor.com. He’s talking about his childhood, however, not whatever the current situation may be.
How Norman Spinrad’s The Men in the Jungle, which features drugs, violence, and infanticide, made it into the children’s section, I don’t know. Is there anything by Spinrad that is child-friendly? That was indeed a traumatizing book to encounter when I was prepared for something more along the lines of Blast-off at Woomera. If I think about that Spinrad book now (even though I am older and somewhat hardened) I still feel queasy.
(4) CAMPAIGN TRAIL WOES. Congressional candidate Brianna Wu was quoted in the New York Times campaign coverage: “For Female Candidates, Harassment and Threats Come Every Day”.
A different kind of normalization happens at the other end of the spectrum, where the harassment is so vicious and constant that it overwhelms the ability to react.
As an independent video game developer in 2014, Brianna Wu was the subject of abuse during GamerGate, when women involved in gaming were targeted for harassment.
Now a Democrat running for Congress in Massachusetts, Ms. Wu, 41, said death and rape threats came so routinely that she had ceased to feel much in response. Even when people threw objects through her window. Even when they vandalized her husband’s car. Even when they emailed paparazzi-like photos of her in her own home.
“I often look at it and I’m like: ‘I know I should be feeling something right now. I know I should be feeling scared or angry or stressed.’ And it’s at a point where I can’t feel anything anymore,” Ms. Wu said. “It’s almost like fear is a muscle that is so overtaxed, it can just do nothing else in my body.”
Many said it was a point of principle not to be intimidated into silence. Others said their political ideals were simply more important.
“For good reason, there’s never any shortage of telling stories about women being harassed on the campaign trail,” Ms. Wu said. “But I cannot communicate to you strongly enough: Over all, this job is fun. This job is exhausting, but this job is amazing.”
(5) ANOTHER BORDER ISSUE. Some artists on their way to a Dungeons & Dragons concept push were stopped from entering the US because their Electronic System for Travel Authorization waiver was not accepted as they expected.
This is what happened:
Please don't point fingers. It's a very complicated situation and we are figuring out what exactly went wrong and why. Mostly, we are tired, scared, glad and overwhelmed. A huge thanks to your support and love. pic.twitter.com/c9hadptU8f— Titus 'ÒwÓ' Lunter (@TitusLunter) August 27, 2018
Quick update, more when I'm back on my feet. Anna Magali and me were kicked out of the US due to visa issues. We were detained overnight at an ICE facility and on our way home. Please don't spam us with questions. We're fucking exhausted. Well share more when we can. Much love <3
— Titus 'ÒwÓ' Lunter (@TitusLunter) August 27, 2018
According to the government website about the ESTA program –
ESTA is an automated system that determines the eligibility of visitors to travel to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). Authorization via ESTA does not determine whether a traveler is admissible to the United States. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers determine admissibility upon travelers’ arrival. The ESTA application collects biographic information and answers to VWP eligibility questions.
(6) VOTING WISDOM. Brandon Sanderson delivers a brief conreport and some classy advice in “Worldcon Wrap-up and Dragon Awards”.
The Hugo Awards ceremony was a delight. We didn’t win the Best Series award, but to be honest, at only three books into the Stormlight series it might have been a little preemptive to give it any awards. We’ll see how things go as the series progresses. Many congrats to Lois McMaster Bujold (the winner), who is a favorite around the Dragonsteel offices. She’s a fantastic writer, well worthy of the award.
Oathbringer still has one shot at an award, the Dragon Award, given out at Dragon Con. This is a newer award, one I’m not as familiar with, but man…the award itself is gorgeous. (Seriously, you guys should go have a look at the thing.)
…As always, however, I strongly urge you to be a thoughtful voter when it comes to awards. Don’t vote for Oathbringer just because I wrote it—only do so if you think this book, in specific, deserves the award. And there are some other excellent nominees, so if you enjoyed one of those more, then vote for it!
(7) IT’S NOT LOOKING GOOD. P.N. Elrod hopes people can help, especially those who like Elrod’s Patreon and Facebook entertainment.
Crap. Having a blubbing panic meltdown. In a month my rent goes up by 63 bucks. At this point I don’t have even half the rent for September. I’m facing the ugly reality of eviction.
The complex offered to get me into a different apartment with slightly lower rent, but that means moving. (Bureaucracy Stuff.) I can’t afford that, either, and most of all, I do not have the strength or mobility to move again. I just don’t. I am sick. I am tired.
The ONLY thing I can think of at this point to prevent that is to increase subscriptions to my Patreon page. Right now, that income isn’t enough to cover my bills, so some go unpaid until and unless I sell books from my library.
(8) VOX FEATURES JEMISIN. N.K. Jemisin guested on the latest episode of Vox’s podcast The Ezra Klein Show. You can access it at “N.K. Jemisin recommends stories from fellow groundbreaking sci-fi authors” — which lists two recommendations from her:
While Jemisin finds it hard to recommend books, she does offer up two recommendations from fellow award-winning female science fiction authors.
1) The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells
Jemisin is “a giant fan” of Martha Wells’s Murderbot series, an “adorable little set of almost old-school science fiction.” The titular Murderbot is a rogue cyborg who works tirelessly to protect humans from themselves, though it would rather be watching soap operas. The latest novella in the series, Exit Strategy, will be released on October 2.2) Unexpected Stories by Octavia Butler
Groundbreaking science fiction author Octavia Butler died in 2006, but two of her stories were found posthumously and published as an e-book. One of the stories in the volume, “Childfinder,” was commissioned by writer Harlan Ellison to be included in a never-published anthology.
The podcast is available direct from Apple iTunes as well as many other sources.
(9) BALL OBIT. K.C. Ball died of a fatal heart attack on August 26 reports the SFWA Blog: “In Memoriam: K.C. Ball”.
…Ball attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 2010 and Launch Pad in 2011. She served as the publisher and editor of 10Flash Quarterly, an on-line flash fiction magazine. She also won the Speculative Literature Foundation Older Writer Award….
Cat Rambo’s tribute is here.
And now she’s gone, fallen to another heart attack, and she never really got the chance to “break out” the way many writers do, which is through hard work, and soldiering on through rejection, and most of all playing the long game. If you want to read some of her kick-ass work, here’s the collection I edited, Snapshots from a Black Hole and Other Oddities.
I’m so sorry not to able to hear your voice any more, K.C. I hope your journey continues on, and that it’s as marvelous as you were.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
[compiled by Cat Eldridge]
(11) COMICS SECTION.
(12) COLSON WHITEHEAD HONORED. “Writers with ties to Brooklyn named NYS author and poet” – the Brooklyn Eagle has the story.
Two renowned writers with Brooklyn ties have been appointed as the state’s official author and poet by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Colson Whitehead, Brooklyn resident for more than a dozen years, has been named New York’s 12th state author.
Alicia Ostriker, born in Brooklyn, has been named New York’s 11th state poet. Cuomo said the award recognizes their work “and the impact it has had on the people of New York and beyond.”
During their two-year terms the state laureates promote and encourage fiction writing and poetry throughout New York by giving public readings and talks.
(13) GATEKEEPING. I haven’t spent much time covering its peregrinations here, but in Camestros Felapton’s view, “’Comicsgate’ is the crappiest ‘gate’”.
The main focus of the campaign has actually been crowd-funding for comics by a rightwing creator, not all of whom use the term “Comicsgate” (Vox Day, for example, has been a bit more equivocal about the term because he thinks all these people should be joining his petty empire). So we have a ‘campaign’ that is just a collaboration of outrage marketing techniques following the standard Scrappy-Doo model: be as loud and as obnoxious as possible and then when people react, claim to be being persecuted.
(14) RAH IN CONTEXT. Charles Stross has a whole rant about what RAH was actually about, versus what his emulators seem to think he was about: “Dread of Heinleinism”.
…But here’s the thing: as often as not, when you pick up a Heinlein tribute novel by a male boomer author, you’re getting a classic example of the second artist effect.
Heinlein, when he wasn’t cranking out 50K word short tie-in novels for the Boy Scouts of America, was actually trying to write about topics for which he (as a straight white male Californian who grew up from 1907-1930) had no developed vocabulary because such things simply weren’t talked about in Polite Society. Unlike most of his peers, he at least tried to look outside the box he grew up in. (A naturist and member of the Free Love movement in the 1920s, he hung out with Thelemites back when they were beyond the pale, and was considered too politically subversive to be called up for active duty in the US Navy during WW2.) But when he tried to look too far outside his zone of enculturation, Heinlein often got things horribly wrong. Writing before second-wave feminism (never mind third- or fourth-), he ended up producing Podkayne of Mars. Trying to examine the systemic racism of mid-20th century US society without being plugged into the internal dialog of the civil rights movement resulted in the execrable Farnham’s Freehold. But at least he was trying to engage, unlike many of his contemporaries (the cohort of authors fostered by John W. Campbell, SF editor extraordinaire and all-around horrible bigot). And sometimes he nailed his targets: “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” as an attack on colonialism, for example (alas, it has mostly been claimed by the libertarian right), “Starship Troopers” with its slyly embedded messages that racial integration is the future and women are allowed to be starship captains (think how subversive this was in the mid-to-late 1950s when he was writing it).
(15) ROCKET MAN. In the wake of yesterday’s report that 10% of Hugo novel winners are named Robert, and someone else’s observation that being named Robinson helped, too, Soon Lee composed this filk:
So here’s to you Robert Robinson
Hugo loves you more than you will know,
Wo wo wo
Awards you heaps Robert Robinson
Rockets coming out your ears all day
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey
Then Cath could only exorcise the earworm by finishing the verse –
Hide your rockets in the hiding place where no cat ever goes
Put them on your bookcase with your cupcakes
It’s a little secret just the Robinsons’ affair
Most of all you’ve got to hide it from the pupsSitting in the green room on a Sunday afternoon
Feasting from the finalists’ cheese plate
Laugh about it, shout about it
When Hugo’s got to choose
There’s no way that you can loseWhere have you gone, John Picacio
A Worldcon turns its lonely eyes to you
Wu wu wu
What’s that you say, Robert Robinson?
Diversity shall never go away
(16) SUBTRACTION. Robert/Rob/Bob may be a statistically lucky name for a Hugo nominee, however, the odds won’t soon be improving in the astronaut program. Ars Technica has the info that, “For the first time in 50 years, a NASA astronaut candidate has resigned” — one of a class of 12:
A little more than a year ago, NASA introduced its newest class of 12 astronaut candidates. These talented men and women were chosen from a deep pool of 18,300 applicants, and after two years of training they were to join the space agency’s corps for possible assignment on missions to the International Space Station, lunar orbit, or possibly the surface of the Moon.
However, one of those 12 astronauts, Robb Kulin, will not be among them. On Monday, NASA spokeswoman Brandi Dean confirmed to Ars that Kulin had resigned his employment at NASA, effective August 31, “for personal reasons.”
(17) NAUGHTY GOOGLE. Fingerpointing: “Google is irresponsible claims Fortnite’s chief in bug row”. “Bug row” – there’s the Queen’s English for you.
The leader of the firm behind the hit game Fortnite has accused Google of being “irresponsible” in the way it revealed a flaw affecting the Android version of the title.
On Friday, Google made public that hackers could hijack the game’s installation software to load malware.
The installer is needed because Epic Games has bypassed Google’s app store to avoid giving it a cut of sales.
Epic’s chief executive said Google should have delayed sharing the news.
(18) BAD LUCK AND TROUBLE. Beyond the Sky trailer (2018). The movie is coming to theaters this September.
Chris Norton has been hearing about alien abductions his entire life but, in his gut, he knows they are not real. Setting out to disprove the alien abduction phenomenon once and for all, he attends a UFO convention to meet alleged abductees and reveal the truth behind their experiences. It is only when he meets Emily, who claims to have been abducted every seven years on her birthday, that Chris realizes there may be more to these claims than meets the eye. With Emily’s 28th birthday only days away, Chris helps her to uncover the truth as they come face to face with the reality that we are not alone.
CAST: Ryan Carnes, Jordan Hinson, Peter Stormare, Dee Wallace, Martin Sensmeier, Don Stark
(19) AN INTERPLANETARY ROMANCE. The restored 1910 Italian silent film Matrimonio interplanetario (“Marriage on the Moon”) is now online. Its antique delights include a very strange space launch facility that looks suspiciously like a samovar or maybe an espresso machine.
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Karl-Johan Norén , Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Camestros Felapton.]
Vincent Villafranca casting the 2013 Hugo Award base.
[[Editor’s Note: I wanted more people to see Jo’s story, left in comments, about her Homeric efforts on Hugo day, and got her permission to run it as a front-page post.]]
By Jo Van Ekeren: It all started when I made the mistake of whingeing to Mike Glyer about never getting to go to GRRM’s awesome Hugo Losers Parties.
“Well, you did a big favour for my blog,” he said. “If you want, you can be my +1 and go to the parties, as my way of saying ‘thanks’”.
“What a great idea!” I said. “What could possibly go wrong?” I said.
And we made arrangements to meet on Sunday evening outside the location for the Hugo Finalist pre-party.
So on Sunday morning at the WSFS Business Meeting, I got a phone call saying that Mike had been taken from his hotel to the medical centre and could I go see him. “Sure!” I said. “I’m sure that he’ll be up on his feet shortly, and everything will be just fine!” I said.
So I got to the hospital, where a little creative editorialising led the staff to believe that I might possibly be one of Mike’s errant blood relations who just happened to live on the other side of the world, and was delighted when I got to his room and discovered that he seemed to be back to his usual jovial self.
“I’m so relieved to see that you’re doing well!” I said. “It’s a good thing that you’ll still be able to go to the Hugos tonight!” I said.
“Yeah, uh… about that…” he said.
I gave him The Look.
“They want to keep me in the hospital overnight, just to be sure that I’m okay,” he said. “So I’m going to need you to stand in for me at the Hugos tonight,” he said.
< deep breath >
“Okay,” I said. “I can do that, but I’m going to need you to e-mail me a copy of your speech in case you win,” I said.
“Yeah, uh… about that…” he said.
I gave him The Look again.
“I haven’t exactly written my speech yet,” he admitted.
< another deep breath >
“Okay,” I said. “Tell me what you need me to say if you win.” And he proceeded to toss out his thoughts for an acceptance speech, which I avidly typed into my cell phone’s memo app.
I wanted to stick around until they got him taken from the evaluation area to an actual room. So we got a “here’s what’s going on” post put up on File 770, and I spent a few hours reading Filers’ responses to that to Mike, and relating the content of various tweets, Facebook posts, and the Business Meeting summaries to him. I’d missed the ceremony rehearsal which was early in the afternoon, but I talked to the Hugo staff on the phone, and they promised to give me a quick run-through whenever I got there.
FINALLY they got Mike moved to a room. At that point, it was getting very late in the afternoon, and I really needed to get home and take a shower and get ready for the ceremony. So I called an Uber, and walked out of the ER exit toward the pickup point. The Uber driver arrived, and seemed to have some sort of selective visual impairment, because they were looking at every one of the 16 compass points except at me. I put my arm up and waved it, while walking toward them. They still didn’t see me. So I kept waving and walking.
I never saw the curb that jumped up and hit me. (In my defence, there was construction going on, and the wide sidewalk area there had two sloping areas ramping down flush with the pavement. In between them was a curbed area which was not flush with the pavement.)
The next thing I knew, I was on the ground wondering where the truck that hit me had gone, and two people were urging me to go back into the ER and get my injuries checked. I looked at my watch. It was 5:10pm. The pre-party was supposed to start at 6:00pm. “I can’t,” I said. “I have a ceremony I have to be at in an hour.” So they helped me up, and I hobbled over to my Uber which was 3 fricking metres away — and my Uber driver had missed the entire thing, which had happened right in front of their car. “When did this happen?” they asked. “Just now?” they asked.
I didn’t bother giving them The Look.
Setting aside my perhaps well-founded concerns about their ability to observe possible obstructions and impending collisions in traffic, I had the driver take me back to my hotel. On the way, I called Helen Montgomery, told her what had happened, and said that I was probably going to need some wrangling from the staff at the ceremony. I hobbled up to my room, in a massive amount of pain, wondering how in hell I was going to make it to the ceremony. So I cracked open a cold Mike’s Hard Lemonade, took a few big swigs, and got in the shower. As I was washing my hair, I heard my roommate come in. “Heather?” I said. “What are you doing for the next hour?” I asked her.
“Nothing, as far as I know,” she said.
“Yeah, uh… about that…” I said. “How would you like to be a Hugo Finalist Wrangler?” I asked her. “Because I’ve sprained my ankle and I think I may have broken my arm, and I’m supposed to be down at the pre-Hugo party in half an hour. Would you be willing to help me get ready?” And she graciously agreed.
Heather Rose Jones, folks, is probably the only reason I wasn’t curled up on the bed crying from pain and exhaustion instead of going to the Hugo ceremony Sunday night. She kept talking to me and kept me going while I was getting ready, and helped with all of the things I couldn’t do by myself with a useless hand and arm. The hair and the makeup ended up being, shall we say, close enough only for Government Work. (But at least I had a tiara.)
I got to the pre-party late at about 6:45pm, which at least provided the benefit of allowing me to duck out of being brigaded into the posed finalist photos. I scavenged some food from the buffet, joked with Ursula Vernon about getting into a scuffle with her over something which involved her lying on the floor weeping and covered in quacamole, and sat down to write a speech — alternating between typing on my phone with one finger and shoving cheese and red wine into my mouth.
When the time came, the Hugo Ceremony staff ushered me out to the Grand Ballroom, where they had reserved for me a seat up front right by the stairs to the stage. They made sure that I had an arm and a good hand when I needed one, to carry a heavy rocket and avoid falling. Which was a good thing, because being given less than 12 hours of warning to make a speech under blinding lights in front of 3,500 people, which is being livecast to hundreds of fans all around the world, is pretty terrifying.
All I can say is that GRRM’s Hugo Loser’s Party is every bit as awesome as the rumours say — and that copious amounts of Blood Orange Cider apparently make a passable substitution for legal pharmaceutical analgesics, since I managed to stay to the end. And I have to thank Mike for giving me the opportunity to have what will be one of the most special experiences of my life. I am just sorry that he missed the opportunity to pick up his very last Hugo himself.
I figure that I must have some sort of Hugo record for “Trophy Accepter With Untreated Broken Bones”. Perhaps Kevin Standlee will give me a footnote in the official records.
At the WSFS Business Meeting on Sunday morning (August 19), the results of the 2020 Worldcon Site Selection voting were revealed.
The New Zealand in 2020 bid received 643 votes of the 726 votes cast. There were no other official candidates; however, votes were received for the following:
Total With Preference: 693
Needed to Elect (Majority): 347
No Preference: 33
Total Votes Cast: 726
CoNZealand, the 78th World Science Fiction Convention, will take place from Wednesday, July 29 through Sunday, August 2, 2020 in Wellington on the North Island of New Zealand. Details for the convention are contained in their Worldcon bid document.
The con chairs will be Norman Cates and Kelly Buehler.
Author Guests of Honour will be Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon. Lackey’s first genre publication was in 1985; she is best known for her numerous fantasy series including the Valdemar novels and the Elemental Masters stories. Dixon has collaborated with Lackey on numerous novels, and is also known for his genre artwork, especially his contributions to Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons source books.
NZ Artist Guest of Honour will be Greg Broadmore, a concept designer, artist, writer and sculptor with Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop whose work includes genre films District 9, King Kong, and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
Fan Guest of Honour will be Rose Mitchell, longtime fan, conrunner, and current President of the Australian Science Fiction Foundation.
Toastmaster will be George R. R. Martin, known for his Song of Ice and Fire saga which has been made into the HBO series Game of Thrones, and for his epic Hugo Loser Parties.
Supporting memberships for the convention will be $75 NZD (approx. $50 USD), and Attending memberships are currently $370 NZD (approx. $247 USD). Site Selection voters are automatically Supporting Members, and may upgrade to Attending for $300 NZD (approx. $200 USD). Kiwi and Silver Fern level Pre-supporters will receive discounts on memberships as well. There will also be special discounted membership levels for Young Adult (born in or after 2000), Child (born in or after 2005), Kid-in-tow (born in or after 2015), and Unwaged (NZ residents only).
CoNZealand links:
[Thanks to Jo Van Ekeren for the story.]
Worldcon 76 Chair Kevin Roche used his crafting and electronics skills to build a 1/10th scale model of the San Jose Electric Light tower.
By JJ:
(1) 2018 Hugo Ceremony Video
(the first half hour is a slideshow of author and fan photos; the actual ceremony starts at 0:29:22; the File 770 Best Fanzine Award is at 0:47:45)
(2) 2018 Hugo Ceremony CoverItLive Text Coverage by Kevin Standlee, Susan de Guardiola, and Cheryl Morgan (includes lots of photos!)
(3) 2018 Hugo Nominating and Voting Statistics
(4) 1943 Retro Hugo Nominating and Voting Statistics
(5) Hugo Finalist Photos taken by Olav Rokne and Amanda Wakaruk
https://twitter.com/OlavRokne/status/1031587460931702791
(6) Masquerade Photos taken by Olav Rokne and Amanda Wakaruk
https://twitter.com/OlavRokne/status/1031204711838310400
(7) Hugo Ceremony photos by Neil Ottenstein
(8) Hugo Ceremony photos by Alyshondra Meacham
WorldCon76 con chair @kproche was GLORIOUS ina gold wrap shirt and gold shawl belt. #HugosRedCarpet pic.twitter.com/WfZvEQjmVc
— Alyshondra Meacham (@AlyshondraM) August 21, 2018
(9) John Picacio on Worldcon 76 and the MexicanX Initiative
FINALLY — HERE YOU GO, GENTE: My thoughts on @worldcon2018 and @TheHugoAwards w/ photos from various sources. Looooong post, but necessary. All ?? to my brothers and sisters of #TheMexicanxInitiative + @adriagonzales. #Xup #Mexicanx https://t.co/COg06JqQdH cc: @locusmag pic.twitter.com/HLqMnMuBZJ
— John Picacio (On Deadline Hiatus) (@JohnPicacio) August 24, 2018
(10) Worldcon 76 Recap Video by MexicanX Initiative Attendee Adria Gonzales
(11) WSFS Business Meeting Videos
(12) WSFS Business Meeting Summaries by Alex Acks
(13) 2018 Worldcon Photo Album by Kevin Standlee
(14) GRRM’s Hugo Losers Party photos from Best Novella-winning author Martha Wells
(15) Dancing Robots at GRRM’s Hugo Losers Party video by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
(16) Alvaro also says, “I spotted this bit of Worldcon hotel snark at 3:30 in the morning on Sunday night:”
Please feel free to add links to more Worldcon 76 goodness in the comments.
By Joe Siclari: What does 1,000 years of fandom look like? At Worldcon 76, FANAC.org tried to find out. The pictorial project, started by Mark Olson, captures photos of fans new and old, each holding a sign with their years of fannish activity. Two photos exceeded 1,000 years (one of which was the Worldcon Chairs photo). In all, the project collected 6,707 years of fandom. Photos from the “1000 Years of Fandom” project are available on FANAC.org.
Those who missed the start of the “1000 Years” can participate by sending us a photo of themselves and their friends holding a card with the number of years they have been in fandom. Send it to [email protected].
Warren Buff and friends, adding to 1,050 years of fandom. Photo by Lisa Hayes.
FANAC’s Fan History Project is dedicated to preserving and making available scans of original photos and publications from 1930 to the present, with a YouTube channel showcasing audio and video. The Fancyclopedia 3 website provides context and a Wikipedia like approach to fan history.
Photos from the project, with a running total at the bottom. Photo by Edie Stern.
Fan History Project links:
By John Hertz: Ctein told me at Worldcon 76 (incidentally, his name is pronounced “k’TINE”) he’d read my note here about his story “Bubble and Squeak” with Davd Gerrold.
I’d ended “It isn’t news for David Gerrold to publish science fiction. It’s still news for Ctein.”
He said “It isn’t science fiction.”
I turned to Nolly and the rest. “I’ve had two disagreements with Ctein,” I said. “When he wrote Saturn Run with John Sandford, I thought it was Hugo-worthy. He said ‘Naah.’ Now he says ‘Bubble and Squeak’ isn’t science fiction.”
So Ctein said “Now we can never speak again.”
I cried ”That’s three disagreements!”
Ctein cracked up.
Then I suddenly remembered I had to be somewhere else.
(1) WORLDCON 76 ATTENDANCE. Kevin Standlee blogged this first-cut attendance figure on Monday:
A tentative membership count (subject to clean up after the convention) of warm bodies on site for Worldcon 76 is 5,440 individual human beings who attended the convention at some time during the five days of the event. There are a bunch of other numbers I have, but I’m waiting for the post-con clean up before reporting them to the WSFS Formulation of Long List Entries (FOLLE) committee.
(2) PLANE SPEAKING. How did Cat Rambo convince TSA to let her on the plane after she lost her wallet and ID’s? She showed them this – her Walter Day trading card.
I made it through security and the ID that persuaded them was my sf writer trading card! pic.twitter.com/PTxPnaQKa8
— Cat Rambo (@Catrambo) August 20, 2018
(3) TOLKIEN MENTIONS AT W76. Kalimac reports on two Worldcon panels with Tolkien in them”:
The two best panels I attended at Worldcon 76 were both relatively sparsely attended, perhaps because they lacked famous names at the table. Instead, the panelists were young writers unfamiliar to me, representing a variety of ethnicities and gender/sexual identities. They were as articulate and interesting as any more famous names would have been, probably more so. The topics were intriguing, which is why I was there….
Details at the link.
(4) MOBIS AT CONVENTIONS. Seanan McGuire complimented Worldcon 76 on the number of mobis they arranged. She passionately argues for accepting them in convention space here.
We had a Worldcon! It was lots of fun! Lots of people came, from all over the world, and had a good time! I am super proud of San Jose for throwing an awesome, inclusive banger of a party! All these things are true.
Let's talk about something else true.
— Seanan McGuire (@seananmcguire) August 22, 2018
(5) FIVE SEVEN FIVE. John Hertz shared his unpublished submission to the Worldcon daily newzine:
Science, fantasy
Joining, jostling, we’re here to
Commune if we can.
(6) BOBBLEHEAD. Major League baseball has Game of Thrones nights. The Texas Rangers have capitalized on the name of their second baseman Rougned Odor with a new bobblehead that portrays him in a scene from the series: “The Rangers’ new Game of Thrones bobblehead for Rougned Odor will bring back painful memories”.
Hold the door! Hold the door! Hold the door!
Pick up your very own GoT Rougned hOdor Bobblehead with special ticket purchase on 9/17-19 vs. the Rays.
????: https://t.co/HCddYpBlQY pic.twitter.com/Jc41csJiwD— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) August 17, 2018
Martin Morse Wooster adds, “The Orioles’s Game of Thrones promotion was one with pitcher Kevin Gausman riding a dragon. Mr. Gausman was unable to be present for his bobblehead, due to his employment by the Atlanta Braves…”
(7) AS OTHERS SEE THEM. At Poore House, Cormac’s “Hate Speech: Perceptions and Responses in the SCA” models the reasons for different levels of obliviousness, denial, engagement, and hate in connection with a Society of Creative Anachronism coronation where the king and queen wore swastika patterned garments.
…Interactions
Each of these three groups have connections to the others, and discussions quickly became heated. Team Trust felt attacked by Team Vigilance when the latter accused the organization of institutional racism, and they grew frustrated by Team Familiarity’s refusal to recognize the dangers of public perception. Team Familiarity felt that Team Trust’s outrage was driven by ignorance of historical design, and that Team Vigilance was fueling the controversy due to unfounded oversensitivity. And Team Vigilance saw Team Trust as complicit for turning a blind eye to the warning signs, and they hold Team Familiarity guilty of normalizing and defending the display of hate symbols.
Some in each group became so frustrated that they walked away from the discussion, and from the organization. Members of Team Trust felt disillusioned at what the Dream had become, and stopped showing up. Members of Team Familiarity retreated to their research, and looked for more historically accurate organizations with whom to spend their time. And members of Team Vigilance turned their energies to letting as many people as possible know that there were white supremacists in the SCA, including reporting us to the Southern Poverty Law Center….
[Thanks to Chip Hitchcock, Mark Hepworth, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, rcade, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Matthew Johnson.]
