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March 28, 2007

Hugo and John W. Campbell Award finalists, 2007
Posted by Patrick at 09:44 PM *

Complete list below the fold.

UPDATE, March 29: Quite a few small corrections, mostly entailing additional bibliographic information.

Novel
Michael F. Flynn, Eifelheim (Tor)
Naomi Novik, His Majesty’s Dragon (Del Rey; also, Voyager, 1/06, as Temeraire)
Charles Stross, Glasshouse (Ace)
Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End (Tor)
Peter Watts, Blindsight (Tor)

Novella
“The Walls of the Universe” by Paul Melko (Asimov’s, April/May 2006)
“A Billion Eyes” by Robert Reed (Asimov’s, October/November 2006)
“Inclination” by William Shunn (Asimov’s, April/May 2006)
“Lord Weary’s Empire” by Michael Swanwick (Asimov’s, December 2006)
Julian: A Christmas Story by Robert Charles Wilson (PS Publishing)

Novelette
“Yellow Card Man” by Paolo Bacigalupi (Asimov’s, December 2006)
“Dawn, and Sunset, and the Colours of the Earth” by Michael F. Flynn (Asimov’s, December 2006)
“The Djinn’s Wife” by Ian McDonald (Asimov’s, July 2006)
“All the Things You Are” by Mike Resnick (Jim Baen’s Universe, October 2006)
“Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter” by Geoff Ryman (F&SF, October/November 2006)

Short Story
“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman (Fragile Things, William Morrow)
“Kin” by Bruce McAllister (Asimov’s, February 2006)
“Impossible Dreams” by Timothy Pratt (Asimov’s, July 2006)
“Eight Episodes” by Robert Reed (Asimov’s, June 2006)
“The House Beyond Your Sky” by Benjamin Rosenbaum (Strange Horizons, September 2006)

Related Book
Samuel R. Delany, About Writing: Seven Essays, Four Letters, and Five Interviews (Wesleyan University Press)
Joseph T. Major, Heinlein’s Children: The Juveniles (Advent: Publishing)
Julie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon (St. Martin’s Press)
John Picacio, Cover Story: The Art of John Picacio (MonkeyBrain Books)
Mike Resnick & Joe Siclari, eds., Worldcon Guest of Honor Speeches (ISFiC Press)

Dramatic Presentation, Long Form
Children of Men. Screenplay by Alfonso Cuaron and Timothy J. Sexton. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. (Universal Pictures)
Pan’s Labyrinth. Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro. Directed by Guillermo del Toro. (Picturehouse)
The Prestige. Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan. Directed by Christopher Nolan. (Warner Brothers / Touchstone Pictures)
A Scanner Darkly. Screenplay by Richard Linklater. Directed by Richard Linklater. (Warner Independent Pictures)
V for Vendetta. Screenplay by The Wachowski Brothers. Directed by James McTeigue. (Warner Brothers)

Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
Battlestar Galactica, “Downloaded.” Writers Bradley Thompson and David Weddle. Directed by Jeff Woolnough. (NBC Universal/British Sky)
Doctor Who, “Army of Ghosts” and “Doomsday.” Written by Russell T. Davies. Directed by Graeme Harper. (BBC Wales/BBC1)
Doctor Who, “Girl in the Fireplace.” Written by Steven Moffat. Directed by Euros Lyn. (BBC Wales/BBC1)
Doctor Who, “School Reunion.” Written by Toby Whithouse. Directed by James Hawes. (BBC Wales/BBC1)
Stargate SG-1, “200.” Written by Brad Wright, Robert C. Cooper, Joseph Mallozzi, Paul Mullie, Carl Binder, Martin Gero, and Alan McCullough. Directed by Martin Wood. (Double Secret Productions/NBC Universal)

Editor, Long Form
Lou Anders (Pyr)
James Patrick Baen (Baen Books)
Ginjer Buchanan (Ace Books/Roc)
David G. Hartwell (Tor Books)
Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor Books)

Editor, Short Form
Gardner Dozois (The Year’s Best Science Fiction)
David G. Hartwell (Year’s Best SF / The New York Review of Science Fiction)
Stanley Schmidt (Analog)
Gordon Van Gelder (Fantasy and Science Fiction)
Sheila Williams (Asimov’s)

Professional Artist
Bob Eggleton
Donato Giancola
Stephan Martiniere
John Jude Palencar
John Picacio

Semiprozine
Ansible, ed. Dave Langford
Interzone, ed. Andy Cox
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, ed. Gavin J. Grant & Kelly Link
Locus, ed. Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, & Liza Groen Trombi
The New York Review of Science Fiction, ed. Kathryn Cramer, David G. Hartwell, & Kevin J. Maroney

Fanzine
Banana Wings ed. Claire Brialey & Mark Plummer
Challenger ed. Guy Lillian III
The Drink Tank ed. Christopher J. Garcia
Plokta ed. Alison Scott, Steve Davies, & Mike Scott
Science-Fiction Five-Yearly ed. Lee Hoffman, Geri Sullivan, & Randy Byers

Fan Writer
Chris Garcia
John Hertz
Dave Langford
John Scalzi
Steven H. Silver

Fan Artist
Brad W. Foster
Teddy Harvia
Sue Mason
Steve Stiles
Frank Wu

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (not a Hugo)
Scott Lynch
Sarah Monette
Naomi Novik
Brandon Sanderson
Lawrence M. Schoen

Comments on Hugo and John W. Campbell Award finalists, 2007:
#1 ::: Jon R ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 10:32 PM:

I sure hope Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica wins Best Dramatic Presentation.

Ah, er, I mean, uh.

If Downloaded doesn't win, I hope Girl in the Fireplace does. And I hope Army of Ghosts doesn't.

Sadly, I know little about the other categories and candidates, except that I liked His Majesty's Dragon.

#2 ::: Kate Nepveu ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 10:37 PM:

Congratulations, Patrick. Though I have to say that I nominated both you & Teresa for fan writer and am kind of bummed your names aren't on that list too.

An interesting list. I'll have to start reading.

#3 ::: Laurie D. T. Mann ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 10:39 PM:

Congrats Patrick, and thanks for doing what Nippon apparently didn't bother to do...grrr....

You missed Stargate SG-1 - 200. Actually the Stargate episode is also pretty good; there was quite a lot of good SF on TV last year.

And wouldn't Lou Anders be up for short fiction editor??

One of the main "fans have no taste" categories, though, was the Best Dramatic Presentation category. Amazing that Pan's Labyrinth missed the cut, but that POTC, a completely dreadful movie, is on the ballot.

Jim was especially happy to see Eifelheim on the ballot.

#4 ::: Kate Nepveu ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 10:39 PM:

(Is there a single Japanese nominee on this list?)

#5 ::: Andrew Lambdin-Abraham ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 10:52 PM:

I'm still not sure I like the fan writer category being open to professionals, although I've heard the arguments a dozen times. It just strikes my "odd" notion.

Also am very down with the Naomi Novik nominations. That was a really good book.

#6 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 10:59 PM:

I want to state my objection to any film set in a universe in which Port Royal has cliffs. That is just wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

#7 ::: Clifton Royston ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:08 PM:

Congratulations, Patrick!

#8 ::: Mike Kozlowski ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:10 PM:

As traditional at this time of year, I now feel insanely disconnected from the genre, as I haven't even heard of two of the novel nominees (never mind the short fiction).

Blindsight and Eifelheim -- worth reading, or inexplicably popular?

#9 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:13 PM:

"And wouldn't Lou Anders be up for short fiction editor?"

Not sure what you're asking. I think he's eligible in Editor, Short Form by virtue of anthologies edited--I haven't actually gone and counted--but he's definitely eligible in Editor, Long Form and that's where he got enough nominations.

#10 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:15 PM:

#8: Neither of them are my book. Both are very much worth reading. Blindsight in particular is one hell of a ride.

#11 ::: Laurie D. T. Mann ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:21 PM:

Eifelheim is reported to be a great book (by folks who read a lot, like my husband) - Jim's review.

Blindsight, I have no idea.

A bit sad there is only one woman nominee among all the fiction nominees...

#12 ::: Tehanu ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:26 PM:

Liked all the novels except haven't read Blindsight. Novik's book is more fantasy than sf but really good -- great imagination. Eifelheim would be my vote if I were voting.

#13 ::: Geri Sullivan ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:27 PM:

#3 Laurie -- My understanding is that Patrick posted correctly, that Lou Anders was nominated in the Best Professional Editor - Long Form editor category. I haven't seen the ballot, but I called into the NESFA clubhouse and asked that it be read to me just as the collation started. Then I was out for the evening and missed all of the fun that followed there tonight.

I look forward to seeing a formal announcement from Nippon and hope it comes soon. They asked nominees for URLs where available, so I expect they'll put up links, too.

Congratulations, Patrick! And congratulations, Tor!

#14 ::: Nina Armstrong ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:27 PM:

Congratulations Patrick!-I'm really glad about Blindsight which I love..

#15 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:33 PM:

#5: "I'm still not sure I like the fan writer category being open to professionals, although I've heard the arguments a dozen times. It just strikes my 'odd' notion."

Well, if you've actually heard all the arguments, I guess there's no point in trying to have a conversation about it, is there? Which leaves me wondering why you bothered to say anything at all.

For the benefit of other readers of this conversation, the Best Fan Writer Hugo has been awarded 40 times, 23 of those times to a working professional writer. In 2001, the award went to the same person who won Best Short Story. By and large, the SF world, pro and fan, doesn't find this extraordinary, because most of us are clear on the idea that "fan" and "pro" are terms for things we do, not for things we are.

Also: the fan Hugo categories are not junior-varsity versions of the pro categories, and "fan" is not the larval stage of "pro".

If these points don't make any difference, then we're talking across irreconcilable value systems. Or, alternately, you simply can't get past the idea that "fan" has to mean "spectator" or "aspirant" or "drooling wannabe." The best thing about the SF subculture is that, frequently, we do better than that.

#16 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:38 PM:

Laurie, #11: "A bit sad there is only one woman nominee among all the fiction nominees..."

Holy crap, you're right. That's really remarkable.

And remarkably stupid, considering how much good SF is written by women these days.

I didn't notice it until you pointed it out. The essence of sexism is that "male" is the unremarkable "default state."

#17 ::: Laurie Mann ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:39 PM:

Congrats to you, too Geri!

#18 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 28, 2007, 11:47 PM:

Yay, Geri!

I just want to say that I've always considered myself a fanwriter, and that I have no problem whatsoever with Hugo voters taking the same view of the matter.

I mean, hey. Terry Carr.

#19 ::: Geri Sullivan ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:31 AM:

Thank you, Teresa and Laurie! Yep, Randy Byers and I are thrilled that Science-Fiction Five-Yearly was nominated. It's also bittersweet; LeeH would have been utterly croggled by the nomination, and very, very pleased.

#20 ::: ethan ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:53 AM:

Congratulations, Patrick and anyone else on that list who might be reading!

I'll be severely unhappy if Children of Men doesn't win. For whatever record anyone might be keeping.

#21 ::: Heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:13 AM:

I liked Blindsight even though I totally disagreed with Peter Watts' conclusions. It's chock full (chockful?) of mind-blowing ideas, as good sf ought to be. It's worth reading for the vampires alone, really.

If you want, you can read the whole thing online, here.

#22 ::: Kathryn from Sunnyvale ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:40 AM:

Good to see Watts' Blindsight on that list, because if it wasn't there, I'd be worried about fandom.**

It's been over two months since I've read it*, but the sheer sharp beauty of it makes it feel like I just read it yesterday.

Even though it's available online (and for free), I highly recommend buying the book. If you read it online, you'll be tempted to read it at night. Bad idea.

This book should only be read in direct sunlight, preferably outdoors. You'll understand when you're done. Trees and tomato cages and happy unenhanced humans walking by, children laughing: these reminders that it's only 2007 will help keep the book's spiky memeseeds from sprouting too deep.

*My first reaction: "If a good novel is like a fine-crafted bottle of beer or wine, then Blindsight is a partially vacuum distilled eau de vie from the fruit of the tree of knowledge."

** And this year had strong contenders (I see 3/5 of my novel votes made it), but, wow, Blindsight. It now tops my list of novels that can singletentacledly represent exactly what SF is and does and should be. Sensawunda. Multiple Algenon moments. Big reference section. [also the ability to make me want to question / repudiate my major life's work and instead go hiding on the last EU feudal island, and, say, make organic bread for Sark tourists.] Anyways, deserves a Hugo.

#23 ::: cd ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:36 AM:

Kathryn, #22: I find Blindsight to be excellent before-bed reading, though last night I had the idea for a t-shirt along the lines of those "Joss Whedon is My Master Now", with "Jukka Sarasti is My Master Now"...

I also realised I have read 80% of the novel finalists, and not a single other one of the written ones.

#24 ::: Nabil ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:56 AM:

Regarding Pan's Labyrinth... yeah, I'm kind of surprised to not see it listed, either. It'd be interesting to find out whether it simply didn't get the votes, or if it was held back for next year, since while it was technically released in 2006, it didn't receive a non-limited US release until January.

Or maybe I'm just being hopeful because I think it totally deserves the nod.

Congrats to all of you nominated!

#25 ::: Mike Scott ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:00 AM:

Kathryn: Sark, like the other Channel Islands, is not in the EU.

#26 ::: Wendy Bradley ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:17 AM:

And in the Department of 'Gah!', received my nominating ballot for the 2007 Hugo Awards... yesterday! Too little postage on the envelope by five pence, cost me a pound and five pence to collapse the wave and find out what someone was trying to send me.

#27 ::: Soon Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:24 AM:

Shouldn't it be “A Billion Eves” by Robert Reed?

#28 ::: Alison Scott ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:35 AM:

Like all others surely, I'm delighted to see that Science Fiction Five Yearly has finally got a nod, after only, what, fifty years of publishing or so?

The fan writer category is beginning to improve markedly; I remember years when Langford was accompanied by other nominees whose writing was of such low standard that it was all I could do to struggle through sample articles. If part of what has enabled that improvement is the fannish blogs of professional authors, I'm all for it.

#29 ::: Alison Scott ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:39 AM:

Also, is 'His Majesty's Dragon' the same book as 'Temeraire'? Shouldn't the ballot list both titles? (Especially as Temeraire is such a much better title that actually credits the reader with a little intelligence, harrumph humph)

#30 ::: Heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:50 AM:

Kathryn: "Algenon moments"? Is this a phrase I ought to know?

#31 ::: Soon Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:03 AM:

Congratulations to nominees. I haven't read as many of the nominees as I'd like - actually there are more than a few I hadn't heard of - but all of the nominees I have read deserve to be there.

#32 ::: Heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:26 AM:

Temeraire. Now why, when I first saw that, did my fingers itch to ROT-13 it?

Now there's a fun idea. Write a fantasy novel all of whose characters all have amusingly ROT-13able names. Gur Ureb, the hero. Irelir Elnatel, the brooding warrior with a dark and mysterious past. Nybar, the distant and nomadic abjurer. Rys, the token elf. Join them as they fight Ungua B'shel, the vengeful she-witch! But will they anticipate their betrayal at the hands of Cherrivy, their deceptively adorable catgirl side-kick? Stay tuned!

#33 ::: Kathryn from Sunnyvale ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:38 AM:

Heresiarch @30

Algernon moments. I once could spell it.

That's my term for that Sensasmarta you get during a book, where for a few glorious pages you understand the science, because the author makes you feel it*. Not like a mystery, where you outsmart the author... the book makes you smarter. Until the temporary neural scaffolding built by and for reading the book starts to fade.

Greg Egan does good Sensasmarta: within his novels he makes exploring mathematical proofs of Riemann flat space manifolds fun and essential and seemingly doable, by you, the reader. And immediately after you finish the book you think you can. But then by the next day, when you wander over to the net thinking "today's the day I'm going to do some righteous proofs," you can't wrap your mind around it anymore. The only thing about Riemannian geometry that makes sense is that there is a Soul Theorem**. (And I have to love any article that ends with "See also Shape of the Universe.") i.e. to "build some geometric intuition [it'll be] usually by doing enormous amounts of calculations," but Egan can give you the temporary memory of having done just that.

* I also use the term to mean "I remember I once could do this."

** The soul is not uniquely determined, but any two souls are isometric

#34 ::: Zeborah ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:19 AM:

I personally prefer "His Majesty's Dragon" to "Temeraire". My ideal is titles like "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Tick-tock-man" and "Time Considered As a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones". Something with a bit of imagination.

I can cope with quotes from Shakespeare if they're particularly a propos: something that speaks both to plot and theme, for example. "His Majesty's Dragon" does that at least somewhat: yes, it's referring to a dragon who serves the king; but it also has notes, not quite as directly, of duty and honour and all that stuff which runs through the book(s).

Noun phrases, yeah, okay. And I'm resigned to those one-word titles like "Memory" or "[First] Contact" or any of those which have been used a hundred times before and will be used a hundred times after. I don't know why people think they're a good idea, honestly -- sure, it's easier to remember than "Time Considered [etc]" but then you've also got to remember the author's name to distinguish it from the rest of them.

But "Temeraire"? It tells you nothing about the book. It's just a name. It's just... "I couldn't come up with a good title so I named it after the dragon." Meh.

When I went to buy a copy of the book, the bookstore had both editions. I didn't hesitate: I went for "His Majesty's Dragon".

#35 ::: Bill Shunn ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:33 AM:

Ethan, #20: Congratulations, Patrick and anyone else on that list who might be reading!

Thanks!

And congratulations, Patrick!

There's a small error in the novelette category. "The Djinn's Wife" was published in Asimov's, unless I'm mistaken.

#36 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:54 AM:

Congrats, Patrick.

#37 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:58 AM:

Laurie @ 3... Amazing that Pan's Labyrinth missed the cut, but that POTC, a completely dreadful movie, is on the ballot.

I'm with you. And I'm surprised that The Fountain, flawed as it was, didn't make it either. Maybe fans of Hugh Jackman were upset that he didn't take his shirt off in that movie. (Yes, I mean you, TexAnne.) On the other hand, he didn't do that in the unpleasant Prestige. It's true that the latter had David Bowie as Tesla and you can't go wrong if you have Bowie in your film.

#38 ::: Niall McAuley ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:10 AM:

The Prestige managed to keep me interested despite the nastiness of all the characters bar Michael Caine's. I'm not sure if I was supposed to see each twist coming so easily, but they certainly put in enough hints.

#39 ::: julia ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:17 AM:

Congratulations, Patrick.

#40 ::: Dave Langford ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:24 AM:

I personally prefer "His Majesty's Dragon" to "Temeraire". My ideal is titles like "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Tick-tock-man" and "Time Considered As a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones". Something with a bit of imagination.

This anticipates my plan to retitle Ansible as The Zine That Shouted Factoids At The Heart Of The Web With Fear And Loathing In Its Gucci Luggage.

Congratulations all round, especially to the new influx of fanwriter nominees whom I encourage -- nay, urge -- to crush me like a bug!

I wonder how long it'll be before we get our official notifications from Nippon 2007?

#41 ::: Mike Scott ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:31 AM:

Zeborah: "Temeraire" is not just a name, it's the name of the "Fighting Temeraire", which was second in line in the Battle of Trafalgar, and was also the subject of one of Turner's most famous paintings, "The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken up". All of which tells you a lot more about the atmosphere and mood that Novik is presumably trying to evoke than "His Majesty's Dragon".

#42 ::: Heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:40 AM:

Kathryn: Oh, those moments. "Algernon moments," huh? Good word. Yes, Blindsight does have a lot of those, doesn't it?

#34 Zeborah: Agreed. I'm tired of titles that consist mainly of fictional character and place names: The Sword of This, The Redemption of That. Meh. Made-up words (because they're made up) just aren't very evocative. I like titles that have a lot of mythic resonance, and it's awful hard to pull that off with a made-up word.

#43 ::: Ken Houghton ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 07:06 AM:

Dr. Schoen is a new writer??

#44 ::: Neil Willcox ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 07:13 AM:

Mike Scott made my point about what Temeraire* made me think of as a title**, so I'll say there was one moment near the start of Temeraire that made me stop and ask if Novik had done her research properly. Other than that brilliant (also, Naomi Novik is a great name that also ought to rot13).

Anyway, my minor quibble: Grzrenver pbzrf bhg bs ure furyy naq vagebqhprf urefrys ol fnlvat "uryyb". V gura fcrag gur erfg bs gur obbx ybbxvat sbe zber nanpuebavfzf, ohg gur bayl bar'f V erzrzore jrer qentba eryngrq.

And congratulations.

* Of course in the book, Captain Laurence comes up with a name for the dragon by naming it after a ship.
**Plus it had a dragon AND a ship on the cover. How could it be bad?

#45 ::: jane ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 07:16 AM:

Had I read the list before going to bed, Patrick, I would have beaten Laurie to the draw on noticing there was only one woman print nominee. I don't usually count that way but this leaped out at me.

And no nomination for "Lost"?" Feh!

However, congrats to Our Genial Host and Geri both. Oh and Dave L, though that is such an annual event.

JaneY

#46 ::: Laurie D. T. Mann ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 07:19 AM:

About errors in the list...

Nippon2007 has yet to formally release a digital list to the Web, though the printed ballot is going out shortly. Someone listed all nominees on a mailing list - strictly alphabetically without the publication information. Patrick took that list and made the standard category list. I took the category list, found a few minor errors in titles, and added publication info for AwardWeb.

I made at least two mistakes (Billion Eyes instead of Billion Eves, because Billion Eyes showed up erroneously at a Web site or two, and put Ian Mcdonald's story in Analog rather than Asimov's--sorry, I was up way past my bedtime last night). I will continue to fix the list on AwardWeb.

Who knows, maybe Nippon 2007 will post a real digital list some day...

#47 ::: Laurie D. T. Mann ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 07:25 AM:

Ken H: I wondered about that, too, but Lawrence's best-known work is a "translation."

According to ISFIC, here's his short fiction publication history:

* Buffalo Dogs (2001) [[DNA]]
* Quantum Pen (2003) [[Artemis/LRC]]
* The Sky’s the Limit (2004) [[Wheatland Press]]
* Take Me to Your Liederkranz (2005) [[Analog]]

Maybe the first three stories were considered to be in "small" publications, but...

Jane, Lost pretty much jumped the shark - I know I didn't nominate anything from it.

#48 ::: Guy Lillian ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 07:37 AM:

This is the first listing I've seen of the complete list -- hail all! Special congrats to Chris (for scoring twice) and to Geri Sullivan -- very well deserved. I see Challenger is doomed again.

Glad this list shows on payday. Got some novels to buy.

Whoever endorsed CHILDREN OF MEN, I'm with you. Probably the best-directed movie of 2006, and the best Michael Caine performance I've seen since MONA LISA.

#49 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 07:51 AM:

To add a bit of detail to what Laurie reports: Nominees were asked to embargo the information until last Friday, the 23rd. On the "Smofs" list--a discussion group for people interested in the minutiae of running science fiction conventions--it was announced that there would be a work party at NESFA's headquarters at 6 PM on Wednesday the 28th, to collate and mail the club newsletter plus copies of the Hugo and site-selection ballots. The 23rd came and went. At Tor, we knew about Michael Flynn's and Vernor Vinge's novels being on the ballot, but while we thought Blindsight was a good bet, we didn't know, we hadn't heard from the author, and David Hartwell and I were increasingly curious. When the 28th dawned with still no word from the Hugo committee, I asked on the Smofs list if printed ballots were still expected at this party, and was told, firmly, yes.

A few minutes after 6, I posted to Smofs suggesting that if the party's attendees were in possession of the ballot, they were now in a position to scoop Locus, which generally gets the drop on every other SF newszine and web site because that they help Hugo subcommittees verify eligibility and nail down the bibliographic details. The fact that several party attendees were clearly checking their email should come as no surprise, nor should the playfulness of the responses ("Can't answer, too busy collating"; "Sorry, I'd post the ballot, but it's all in Japanese"). Finally, in a magnificent piece of fannish improvisation, party attendee Sharon Sbarsky posted a single list of all the nominees--in alphabetical order, stripped of their category headers. After resorting everything into its proper categories, I posted the list to Making Light.

#50 ::: Lila ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 07:58 AM:

I agree that everyone in The Prestige except Caine and the little girl was horrid. But the damn movie would not, and will not, leave me alone. If a genie would grant me three writing wishes, the ability to write plots that won't leave you alone would be #2. (Good editor, #1; Brust's ability to make reader sympathize with unsympathetic character, #3.)

#51 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:10 AM:

As it happens, even though I published the US softcover of The Prestige, Teresa and I only got round to watching the movie the night before last. We loved it. I want to re-read the book and then see the movie again.

Yes, neither of the magicians is a warm-and-fuzzy character you'd want to take home with you, but what a headlong piece of storytelling.

Googling around to read various things I'd avoided reading before seeing the movie (yes, I'd read the book, but I was also aware that the movie changed the ending), I was delighted to find an interview with author Christopher Priest in which he said that, in fact, he completely made up that bit about the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. Took me in completely! Reality is full of commonplace words that have some slightly off-kilter secondary meaning in some field's technical jargon, and using the word "prestige" that way had exactly the right weight and feel. In fact, Priest says, following his novel The Glamour he had the persistent idle thought that it would be nifty to call a novel The Prestige, and he also had a notion to write a novel about stage magicians. When he noticed that "prestige" and "prestidigitation" share a bunch of letters, the two ideas came together.

#52 ::: David Langford ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:13 AM:

Patrick (to whom, also, congratulations) writes: Nominees were asked to embargo the information until last Friday, the 23rd.

Not this nominee. In my official email from Hugo Admin, 23 March is not an end-of-embargo date but the deadline for refusing nominations: "if I don't hear from you before March 23, 2007 I will assume that you have accepted your nomination." Nominees were asked to keep quiet "until the official announcement of the entire ballot."

#53 ::: Tina ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:14 AM:

It is a sign of how little time I've spent in bookstores lately *stupid lack of money* that I missed the existence of a new Vernor Vinge novel. I must see if the library has it. I probably ought to see if the library has all of the nominees for best novel, actually -- a Hugo nomination is not a guarantee I'll like it, but it's sure an indication that there's a good chance I will. (Also should check if they carry back issues of Asimov's.)

Congratulations Patrick, and Kathryn, and Geri, and John Scalzi... and anyone else on that list who reads here that I missed, which I likely did. Also, woo, three Tor novels.

#54 ::: Nix ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:16 AM:

#23: Jukka Sarasti your master? Nah, predators don't do that master/servant thing very well. `I am but prey of Jukka Sarasti', perhaps?

#22: I think Blindsight is a nice happy book: the idea density sort of cancels out the downer parts. (Mind you everyone else thinks that opinion is cracked, including the author). If you want depressing, pick on another Hugo nominee and read Flynn's _The Wreck of The River of Stars_.

(The fact that I have long agreed with the author's thesis in Blindsight is of course *entirely unconnected* with my thinking it's not depressing to read. Naturally.)

Reading it in sunlight won't help, though: Wattsian vampires are unaffected by sunlight (and garlic). As far as I can tell a guaranteed defence against Wattsian vampires is to be female (since they're feeding on people to get access to a protein coded for by a gene on the Y chromosome, eating women is a waste of time).

(The more nifty the ideas in a book, the more I'm driven to pick holes in them...)

#55 ::: Aconite ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:20 AM:

w00t! Go, all you!

#56 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:21 AM:

Heresiarch @ 42... I'm tired of titles that consist mainly of fictional character and place names

Like The Sword of Sha-nah-nah, or is that Shannara ?

#57 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:22 AM:

In the dept of movies about magicians, I much preferred The Illusionist.

#58 ::: Laurie D. T. Mann ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:29 AM:

Serge, I'm with you (thought The Illusionist is completely non-speculative).

The Prestige is an interesting movie with pretty good casting, but the whole premise, at its end, is so unpleasant that I simply didn't like it. Jim has also read the book and says the book is better.

#59 ::: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:34 AM:

Should I read The Prestige first, or watch the movie first?

#60 ::: Heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:35 AM:

I give Terry Brooks a pass because of his stirring and heartfelt treatment of the perils of substance abuse--especially alcohol.

#61 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:41 AM:

As to why the official online ballot didn't go up before printed ballots started to mail: evidently the person responsible had a family medical emergency. The Worldcon is, after all, entirely run by volunteers...

#62 ::: Jakob ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:42 AM:

Nix #54: But as a Y chromosome is a truncated X, surely any gene that exists on a Y will also exist on an X somewhere? Disclaimer: It's been a long time since I looked at any biology...

#63 ::: Erin Underwood ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 09:15 AM:

Congratulations on your nomination, Patrick!

#64 ::: Kimiko ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 09:21 AM:

Do you suppose they will add a "comics" category anytime soon?

I ask because it seems likely that some really good English-language SF is likely to* (or has been**) produced in graphic novel format. Obviously, the Seiun Awards do comics - manga is a huge industry that has focused heavily on SF themes for the past fifty years.

*you do know that season eight of Buffy is coming out as a periodical, right?
**do translated works count?

#65 ::: Alison Scott ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 09:22 AM:

#34 Zeborah: A perfect encapsulation of why 'Temeraire' wouldn't work as a title for a US audience. For me of course (and presumably others), I knew I would have to read the book as soon as I heard that the dragon was called Temeraire.

Prior to that, my impression of the book had been, roughly "Aerial dragons fighting with British ships in the Napoleonic Wars! My goodness that woman is sitting on a limitless heap of gold which she can shovel out just as fast as she can write!" It may be the single best idea anyone has ever had for a series of commercially successful books (and no doubt movies).

#66 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 09:25 AM:

I think there'd be a lot of resistance to adding a comics category. Not because Worldcon people dis comics (we don't; many of us love comics), but because we don't feel our subculture is knowledgeable enough on the subject. And the comics world has a bunch of perfectly good awards anyway.

As various people have pointed out over the years, it's not the mission of the Hugo Awards to cover every imaginable manifestation of SF storytelling or fannish activity.

#67 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 09:28 AM:

Alison, #65: "[M]y impression of the book had been, roughly "Aerial dragons fighting with British ships in the Napoleonic Wars! My goodness that woman is sitting on a limitless heap of gold which she can shovel out just as fast as she can write!"

That was pretty much my take as well. Some ideas are just so good and so commercial that the only possible response is gobsmacked awe.

#68 ::: Susan ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 09:29 AM:

Kimiko @ #64:
I ask because it seems likely that some really good English-language SF is likely to* (or has been**) produced in graphic novel format.

I nominated Pride of Baghdad this year for Best Related Book, but it didn't make the ballot. (My more unusual nominees never do - I was 0 for 4 on the more obscure stuff this year.)

#69 ::: Kimiko ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 09:43 AM:

Thank you Patrick, that's an excellent explanation*.

...but I'll ask the question again in another ten years ;)


*and deuced fast too! I really didn't think it would rate a response! Whee!

#70 ::: Chryss ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 09:51 AM:

And a hearty, "Whoo-hooo! Rock wit' it, lean wit' it!" to all of the nominees.

Of course, rock wit' it, lean wit' it however you will. This is not an injunction, just a suggestion.

#71 ::: Nix ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 10:00 AM:

Jakob @54: Sort of: the X and Y diverged a *long* time ago, and several unique genes exist on the Y alone (the most important being SRY of course: not that the Y has many working genes left).
There is a paralog of the gene which I think Watts is referring to (PCDH11Y) on the X chromosome, but there are differences in gene regulation and sequence between the two (PCDH11Y is expressed in the male foetal brain and in the prostate; perhaps male vampires would need to eat specific bits of men to keep their fertility up :) anyway they'd be neurovores, not blood drinkers. I suppose obligate baby-eating is even *more* icky...)

#72 ::: Kathryn Cramer ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 10:32 AM:

To add a bit of detail to what Laurie reports: Nominees were asked to embargo the information until last Friday, the 23rd.

NOTE TO SMOFS: One again, though I am a nominee, I didn't get the memo on embargoing the info. But I was NICE, so even though I knew plenty, I didn't spill any beans.

HOWEVER, in future, if the Hugo committee chooses to notify according to the Napoleonic code -- notifying only my husband and not me -- I will happily blog everything I know, embargo or no.

Sending notifications only to my eminent & much-nominated spouse is not good enough.

#73 ::: Jeffrey Smith ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 10:37 AM:

Those who don't mind reading an occasional comic and like the idea behind Temeraire/His Majesty's Dragon might be interested in Arrowsmith -- not so much the Sinclair Lewis version, but the one by Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco, called in its trade pb version So Smart in Their Fine Uniforms. Alternate history World War I, farmboy goes to war, joins a unit that fights alongside small dragons (each soldier gets his own personal one). Well-done version of a standard story inside a nice piece of world-building. (Making Light connection: Lawrence Watt-Evans helped out on that aspect.)

#74 ::: TexAnne ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 10:47 AM:

Serge, 37: *grins unrepentantly*

Neil, 44: Temeraire is a boy dragon.

Someday I'll read The Prestige. Then I'll see the movie. I'll also read Blindsight and everything Vinge has ever written.

*sigh* Stupid grad school, making me fafiate like that. I don't think I'm ever going to catch up, am I?

#75 ::: Greg van Eekhout ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 11:00 AM:

Congratulations, Patrick! And how cool to see Viable Paradise alum Paul Melko nominated as well!

#76 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 11:10 AM:

TexAnne @ 74... *grins unrepentantly*

Why am I not surprised?

#77 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 11:12 AM:

Jeffrey @ 73... I was wondering if someone else had come across Arrowsmith. I haven't heard when Kurt Busiek is planning to publish the rest of the story. Have you?

#78 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 11:23 AM:

Congratulations, Patrick!

TexAnne #74: Grad school does evil things to us all.

#79 ::: Alexx Kay ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 11:26 AM:

Why on earth is David Lloyd being credited for the screenplay of V For Vendetta? The Wachowskis wrote that screenplay, and I don't think Lloyd had any input besides having been part of the team that did the graphic novel it was 'based on'.

#80 ::: theophylact ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 11:46 AM:

Well, Sacha Baron Cohen was nominated for an Oscar for "Best Adapted Screenplay" when there was no original at all.

#81 ::: Kelley Shimmin ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:19 PM:

"Congratulations!" to all those winners who might happen to read this (especially and including Patrick, who is the most likely one to read this but I realize there are quite possibly others).

Algernon Moments is a good way to describe that phenomenon. I've often had the same sort of thing with regard to science or technology; I understood Van Eck phreaking, for example, while reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. I can only hope that when I get finished with what I'm working on people can similarly understand lock bumping and smart card eavesdropping.

#82 ::: Kevin Standlee ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:21 PM:

Many of the people here know this already, but for the benefit of others who do not: Every year's Hugo Awards is run by a different committee. Some semblance of consistency may have appeared from time to time when the Worldcon committee has selected the same person to do the job who has done it before; however, this can't be counted upon. And despite attempts to get people to coordinate their efforts, there's inconsistency from year to year. This is unfortunate, but as long as Worldcon is run the way it is -- something I don't see changing any time soon -- oddities in administration from year to year are likely to keep happening.

I also understand that in past years -- before the internet became such a way of life, I think -- a Worldcon committee that issued a Hugo Nominations announcement before sending out the ballots to its members (that was back when the only way to vote was to write things on a piece of paper, odd as this probably seems to some folks now) was raked over the coals for doing so.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to Worldcon committees, who are in a no-win situation here: someone will always be unhappy with them no matter what they decide to do.

#83 ::: Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:32 PM:

Congratulations to all! And...boy, does Asimov's ever do well on the short forms. Just LOOK at all those noms!

Kathryn 72: Did they really notify your husband (and him alone) of your nomination? The word 'offensive' doesn't even begin to cover that. What possible excuse could they have for that? It fairly boggles the mind.

#84 ::: Neil Willcox ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:35 PM:

TexAnne @74 - Sorry, dozy, also just read Eragon.

Which is no excuse for being unable to correctly sex dragons*.

* "How do you sex a dragon?"
"VERY Carefully."

#85 ::: David Thayer ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:36 PM:

Look what the official Nippon 2007 Web site has posted:

http://www.nippon2007.us/hugo_nominees.php

Someone must be joking around. The real list they have yet to post.

#86 ::: Sheila Williams ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:36 PM:

Hi Patrick,

Congratulations on your nomination! Here's a minor correction for your list. Mike Flynn's story “Dawn, and Sunset, and the Colours of the Earth” appeared in the October/November 2006 issue of Asimov's.

#87 ::: Ulrika O'Brien ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:43 PM:

I don't much care to argue that pros aren't eligible in the fan categories, but is there any evidence that John Scalzi actually is a fan, i.e. someone who participates in fandom? Does he participate in any fannish forum that doesn't happen to involve networking with other pros? Did he go to any conventions before turning pro? Does he ever engage in any fanac that is neither about John Scalzi nor his professional interest in science fiction?

#88 ::: straight ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:49 PM:

Sheesh, am I the only one who thinks putting Gur Cerfgvtr on this list is a major spoiler?

Jura V jngpurq Gur Cerfgvtr, vg qvqa'g bpphe gb zr gung vg jbhyq unir nal fpv-sv ryrzragf. Fb V jnf pregnva gung gur ungf ba gur uvyyfvqr jnf whfg n gevpx ol Grfyn gb fjvaqyr Wnpxzna'f punenpgre. Naq gung Wnpxzna unq ernyvmrq gur znpuvar qvqa'g jbex ohg pnzr hc jvgu n fbzr gevpx gb qb vg naljnl.

Va ergebfcrpg, V gubhtug gur fhqqra vapyhfvba bs fpv-sv jnf cerggl snve. Chyyvat n gevpx yvxr gung jbhyq or bhg bs punenpgre sbe Grfyn, naq ur jnf shyy bs cbegragvbhf jneavatf gung gur znpuvar jnf trahvaryl fbzrguvat Zna Jnf Abg Zrnag Gb Xabj. Gur zbivr bcrarq jvgu n fubg bs gur ungf, rzcunfvmvat gung urer jnf fbzrguvat rkgenbeqvanel. Naq Pnvar'f punenpgre gbyq hf gung gurer jnf ab jnl gb qb n gevpx yvxr gung jvgubhg n qbhoyr (juvpu jnf gehr sbe obgu zntvpvnaf).

V ybir jura n fgbel gevpxf zr ol gryyvat zr gur gehgu naq fbzrubj trggvat zr abg gb oryvrir vg (lrf, V ybir Trar Jbysr). Guvf zbivr jnf shyy bs gung. Gur tvey fcl gbyq Wnpxzna'f punenpgre gung fur'q frra gur bgure zntvpvna hfvat znxr-hc, ohg V gubhtug fur jnf ylvat gb uvz orpnhfr fur ungrq uvz.

Ohg naljnl, vs V'q xabja tbvat va gung guvf jnf n traer fgbel, vg jbhyq unir orra yrff sha. Fb cooyyygu! gb gur abzvangvat pbzzvggrr sbe gur fcbvyref.

#89 ::: Rob Rusick ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 12:54 PM:

Ulrika O'Brien @87: Does he ever engage in any fanac that is neither about John Scalzi nor his professional interest in science fiction?

He's a fan of Pluto (and AFAIK, it's not a professional interest).

#90 ::: Ulrika O'Brien ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:01 PM:

Straight-

Maybe everyone else here knew who wrote the book and what genre it was published in? Also, the Tesla element of the story goes sciencefictional the minute you've got Tesla working on a matter transporter.

#91 ::: Ulrika O'Brien ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:03 PM:

Rob-

In what way does that make him a fan?

#92 ::: straight ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:16 PM:

Maybe everyone else here knew who wrote the book and what genre it was published in?

Fair enough. I didn't know it was based on a story by Priest until I got to the end credits.

Also, the Tesla element of the story goes sciencefictional the minute you've got Tesla working on a matter transporter.

It's only sciencefictional if he's really trying to make one (instead of pulling a swindle to get funding for his actual research) and if it works. (Or maybe if, unlike me, you know enough about Tesla to know he never tried to make transporter. Or pretended to try.)

#93 ::: Dan Hoey ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:19 PM:

Well, Ulrika, according to a gafiated small-name-fan, when I read scalzi.com, it reads fannish. Maybe not corflu-twill fannish, but there's definitely sensawunda in there.

And he's passed the first test, which is getting nominated by fans. We'll have to see how the second test goes, won't we?

#94 ::: Jeffrey Smith ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:21 PM:

#77 Serge:

Busiek has said they definitely intend to continue the story, but not in the near future. He has four other books he's working on at the moment.

#95 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:28 PM:

That's what I thought, Jeffrey. He's got AstroCity and Superman he's working on.

#96 ::: Aconite ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:33 PM:

TexAnne @74 Temeraire is a boy dragon.

Nf nalbar jub erzrzoref gur fprar va bar bs gur yngre obbxf nobhg jul ur yvxrf jngre fbheprf jvgu ovt, ebhaqrq fgbarf jvyy erpnyy....

#97 ::: Aconite ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:38 PM:

Kathryn Cramer @ 72: That's...outrageous. I don't have words.

#98 ::: Dave Bell ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:43 PM:

Lloyd has, according to IMDB.com, a credit under writing for the V for Vendetta film, but it is an odd-looking one. It only takes a very little digging to find that he was co-creator, with Alan Moore, of the original comic. Alan Moore refused any credit for the film, and seems to be thoroughly fed up with what the film industry does with his work

I probably over-simplify.

But if Alan Moore doesn't want a credit for the film, what can we do?

#99 ::: Ulrika O'Brien ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:49 PM:

Dan-

Sensawunda is swell, but that doesn't make a person a *participant* in *fandom*. I'm not aware of Scalzi participating (as opposed to broadcasting) and that seems like a big road block to calling him a fan.

#100 ::: Chris ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:53 PM:

My first thought at the idea of dragons in the Napoleonic Wars is to wince at the potential intersection of dragon and chain-shot, grape or canister, but maybe I've just been reading too much O'Brien.

There is a part of my brain that wants to read it to see how the author deals with it, which I guess proves the point, as long as it isn't brushed off somehow.

#101 ::: Tina ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:54 PM:

Ulrika@87: I'm pretty sure I'd quantify anyone who blogs sometimes about (other peoples') fantasy or SF books a fan, and I rather don't think he only mentioned Boskone as being a cool convention because he was on panels there.

I think, personally, that defining fan rigidly does a disservice to a lot of people. I mean, my fiancé has never attended a convention in his life, let alone worked at one or put out an APA or anything of the like. But his book collection (and his interest in my book collection) makes him a fan as far as I'm concerned.

#102 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 01:54 PM:

The miscrediting of the V for Vendetta screenplay has been corrected.

#103 ::: Ulrika O'Brien ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:03 PM:

Tina-

I disagree that it's a disservice to make distinctions. As far as I can see, somebody who reads a lot of SF and never has any contact with other people of the community of fandom is a reader of SF, not a fan. Fandom is a culture.

I just read Scalzi's thoughts on the fanwriter nomination. It reads like a movie star collecting an Oscar -- all about how "What I do here" impacts "You guys, over there." This is not a man who considers himself part of something.

#104 ::: Dave Bell ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:12 PM:

I think "Girl in the Fireplace" is the strongest of the three Doctor Who nominations. "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" and "School Reunion" both have features that appeal to the long-term enthusiasts.

I wonder a little if US TV is now having to compete on a wider stage because of the P2P technologies used to pass around illicit copies of such programs. And how much are the highlights of non-US shows emphasised--would you bother with downloading every show, or just follow the buzz about the highlights?

#105 ::: Stefan Jones ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:15 PM:

#59: "Should I read The Prestige first, or watch the movie first?"

Play the video game! The sequence where Tesla gives you a broadcast power energized fighting suit is great.

#106 ::: Kimiko ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:20 PM:

Dragons? Hmm.

Alpha-Shade: Dragon-ish things vs. biplanes, in an alternate universe with WWI typical tech. (Aside from the airborne battleships.)

#107 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:20 PM:

Coming soon to a theater near you... Tesla's Transformers...

#108 ::: Tina ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:35 PM:

Ulrike: I disagree the Hugo category requires one to be "a member of fandom", even if I were to agree fully with you about the distinction of who belongs to it.

Starting with, my sweetie does have contact with members of fandom. For instance, me, assuming I still qualify what with having not attended a convention in 4 or 5 years. Also contact with other mutual friends of ours, some of whom are more active than others. And yes, we discuss books, and their writing, and movies, and basically all the other sorts of conversations I have with people "in fandom", including topics that are the focus of panels.

I'm pretty sure that ought to qualify as 'fandom'.

Moreover, I insist it is a disservice to be so rigid. Anytime any group -- particularly one for whom inclusiveness is supposed to be a practice or virtue -- starts labelling people as "outsiders" because they don't meet some precise definition of what qualifies, both those labelled and the group lose by it.

And, frankly, I don't want to be a part of the group that does it.

Nonetheless, I consider that all besides the point, as I read the category as being for a person who writes about sff in some capacity (including but not limited to: about books, about authors, about movies, about conventions) while not getting paid for that writing. Regardless of whether or not that is not true 100% of the time. The award does not read 'best amateur writer in fandom', and I don't think it should or should be taken that way.

#109 ::: Jp ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:41 PM:

As I see it, a community defines itself typically by:

a. Inclusion: This person does things that we do and/or looks like us in some fashion, and is therefore one of us
b. Exclusion: This person does things that we don't do and/or does not look like us in some fashion, and is therefore not one of us

The mix of which techniques are used depend on the community in question, but will normally contain a mix of both inclusion and exclusion. Different factions in a community may have different standards. Arbitrariness also applies.


Things that Scalzi does that fit an inclusive model of fandom community membership:

1. Attends conventions, and talks to people at them
2. Writes stuff about Star Wars, and fanfic controversies, and books by SF writers (not himself), and participates in discussions about them


Things that Scalzi does that might fall foul of an exclusive model of fandom community membership:

1. Writes books as a pro, and writes about writing books as a pro, and does some self-publicity as a pro.
2. Got into fandom as a professional first, then as a fan, and thus in some way didn't pay his dues.
3. Erm, I don't know, did he once say "Sci Fi" instead of "SF"?


Okay, that got a little sarcastic and possibly more than a little unfair.

However, writing as somebody not a member of fandom, I would think (based on a purely personal opinion that stronger communities tend to be based more on inclusive factors rather than exclusive ones) that the inclusive factors should outweigh the exclusive ones. Indeed, the nomination indicates that a lot of people who think of themselves as fans also think so.

#110 ::: Suzanne ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 02:42 PM:

Woooh! Congrats Patrick!

#111 ::: Alexx Kay ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:16 PM:

Dave Bell@98: Oh, I never meant to suggest crediting *Alan* for the screenplay! Good god, that would be a gaffe of monumental proportions. Your description of the situation with him, while indeed over-simplified, is not inaccurate.

Generally speaking, IMDB is not a reliable source, just a good first approximation. The Warner Bros Site for the film shows the film credits as including "Screenplay by THE WACHOWSKI BROTHERS [some other credits] Based on the Graphic Novel Illustrated by David Lloyd".

#112 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:26 PM:

I'm particularly pleased to see "Blindsight" in that list. (Despite having a dog in that race myself, and the presence of such a strong rival reducing my own chances.) It's probably one of the biggest sensa-wunda hard SF fixes I've had since, oh, "Diaspora"; it redefines one corner of the envelope that sadly doesn't get enough attention these days. Books like that don't come along anything like often enough, in my opinion.

#113 ::: Soon Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:32 PM:

Dave Bell@98 & Alexx Kay@111:

The end credits for the "V for Vendetta" movie states that it was based on the graphic novel *illustrated* by David Lloyd. No mention of Alan Moore. I am enough of a fanboy to have paid attention. It's a pretty concrete example of the screwy nature of the movie industry.

#114 ::: Alison Scott ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:52 PM:

Given how much of the cinematography of "V for Vendetta" was influenced, panel by panel, by Lloyd's art, a nod seems entirely appropriate.

#115 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:52 PM:

#109: And, of course, of your list of "things that Scalzi does that might fall foul of an exclusive model of fandom community membership", #3 is a joke, and neither #1 nor #2 have ever been widely held to disqualify anyone from being considered a "fan".

Most notably, the idea encapsulated in #2--that if you get into the SF subculture as a pro rather than as a fan you therefore haven't "paid your dues"--only makes sense if you really, truly believe that fandom is aspirational prodom and that "fan" is the larval form of "pro." In fact, of course, being a fan isn't about "paying dues" toward being a pro.

I'm having a hard time with Ulrika's #87 because:

(1) I like Ulrika, and I'm conscious that we've gotten one another very annoyed in online discussions in the past. I don't want to do that again.

(2) The tendentious way she's chosen to frame some of this--for instance, "Does he participate in any fannish forum that doesn't happen to involve networking with other pros?"--makes me very unhappy indeed. In fact 95% of what John or any other pro does at an SF con is exactly the same thing fans do--we hang out, we reconnect with friends and maybe meet new people, and we hope to have some interesting coversations. John does all of these things particularly well; he doesn't put on airs and he seems to be happy to chat with all kinds of people. Suggesting that his convention behavior amounts to nothing more than "networking" seems like a sneaky way to insinuate that something good is, in some hidden way, actually bad.

(3) Likewise, to ask "does he ever engage in any fanac that is neither about John Scalzi nor his professional interest in science fiction?" is to present a test that a lot of old-time dyed-in-the-stencil fans couldn't pass. I have whole twiltone fanzines that are about nothing more than their writers' own lives plus periodic digressions into discussions of SF and the SF industry. Those fanzines seemed pretty fannish to me at the time. Indeed, that kind of thing is practically a genre of fanwriting. That said, anyone who browses The Whatever can easily see that John writes about plenty of stuff that's neither directly self-centered nor focussed on professional SF. Indeed, before he started selling SF novels, there was even more such material, but it's hardly surprising that, having set forth on a career in a new field and enjoyed some early success, he finds it interesting to write about. This is different from the fanwriting careers of 5,271,009 other fannish pros exactly how? Answer: it's not different.

Basically, Ulrika's questions bother me because they seem to amount to a bunch of purity-of-essence tests for fannishness that a lot of fans, Teresa and me included, couldn't pass. Scalzi can take care of himself, but it makes me unhappy to see Ulrika, someone I respect, putting forth such a crabby and narrow definition of what "fan" means in the context of the SF subculture.

#116 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 03:58 PM:

I thought a fan was someone who loves science-fiction.

#117 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:17 PM:

Let us purify fandom! Anyone who doesn't have mimeo ink on their fingers and a Gestetner manual in their back pocket, not to mention a propeller beanie on their head, will be ceremonially banned from ever again attending a convention and using the club treehouse.

That'll show 'em.

#118 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:20 PM:

Does photocopier fluid count, Charlie?

#119 ::: Stephen Granade ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:21 PM:

A belated congratulations to Patrick for your nomination!

#120 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:24 PM:

Serge: photocopiers are far too similar to laser printers for the comfort of 1930s Wahabi Fandom. Laser printers may be connected to computers with internet thingies, and used for printing out those heretical "blogs". Thus, anathema is pronounced upon you. Out, foul revisionist!

#121 ::: Stephen Granade ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:27 PM:

Also, I'd missed that Geoff Ryman novelette. Time to correct the matter.

#122 ::: Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:32 PM:

'Purify fandom'. Oxymoron or contradiction in terms? You be the judge.

#123 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:37 PM:

Xopher, you have clearly succumbed to degeneracy because your words do not exhibit Correct Thought.

In penance, if you wish to be readmitted to right-thinking fandom, you must re-read "The Weapon Makers" by A. E. Van Vogt three times while reciting "Fans are Slans" repeatedly, then pub your ish in an edition of not fewer than 100 copies using an Underwood typewriter and a jello duplicator.

Only then may you be certified as a right-thinking fan.

Signed,

"Who elected him Pope?"

#124 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:49 PM:

Charlie... Out, foul revisionist!

You old keeper of the bourgeois order.

#125 ::: Chad Orzel ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 04:53 PM:

Patrick: (2) The tendentious way she's chosen to frame some of this--for instance, "Does he participate in any fannish forum that doesn't happen to involve networking with other pros?"--makes me very unhappy indeed. In fact 95% of what John or any other pro does at an SF con is exactly the same thing fans do--we hang out, we reconnect with friends and maybe meet new people, and we hope to have some interesting coversations. John does all of these things particularly well; he doesn't put on airs and he seems to be happy to chat with all kinds of people. Suggesting that his convention behavior amounts to nothing more than "networking" seems like a sneaky way to insinuate that something good is, in some hidden way, actually bad.

In fact, John spent a fair amount of time at the most recent Boskone hanging out and chatting with me and Kate, and neither of us is in a position to do his career any good. He's an outgoing guy, and happy to talk to lots of different types of people.

(This came up over in LiveJournal land shortly after Boskone, in somebody's report on a panel where people had complained that a bunch of new-ish authors were hanging out in the bar being pro-centric or something. Which struck us as kind of strange, as Kate and I were both part of the group in the bar, which certainly wasn't excluding anyone from the conversation based on an insufficient number of story sales to qualifying markets...)

#126 ::: Anonymous ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:04 PM:

According to his entry in Writertopia, Schoen published a story in the Low Port anthology back in 2003; the guidelines listed the pay scale at 5-8 cents a word and there were certainly enough copies printed to count as a pro sale.

When does Campbell eligibility start?

#127 ::: Anoyo ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:05 PM:

I have to say, this is a great list. Also, for perhaps the first year ever, I've read all but one of the Best New Author nominations. *laughs* I'm quite proud of myself for that one, I have to say. Honestly, I think this is a fantastic nominations list, and any of the authors nominated here deserve the awards. (Esp. Sanderson, Lynch, and Monette, in New Authors. And Children of Men was fantastically thought-provoking, and the DVD came with some lovely extras. ^_^)

#128 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:11 PM:

I don't actually know very much about the intricacies of Campbell eligibility.

#129 ::: JC ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:12 PM:

#126: Apparently, the rules for Campbell eligiibility changed in 2005 which caused some confusion. If I'm reading correctly, the fix for this is to consider pre-2005 sales that were not but are now considered eligible sales as if they were 2005 sales.

The Campbell Eligibility FAQ

#130 ::: Laurie D. T. Mann ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:23 PM:

Patrick - I guess I'm the one annoying Ulrika this time, but while I still think she's wrong, I have a low tolerance for never-ending arguments, so I'll probably stop now.

#131 ::: Andrew Willett ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:28 PM:

Soon @ 113: Alan Moore isn't credited for writing the original V for Vendetta because he didn't want to be credted. Moore refuses to have his name associated with any film made from his comics.

#132 ::: TexAnne ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:37 PM:

Charlie, 123: Don't you mean "more than" 100 copies?

#133 ::: Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:39 PM:

In penance, if you wish to be readmitted to right-thinking fandom

I guess that's just it. I've always been part of left-thinking fandom.

Denounce me all you like. The Lurkers Support Me In Email. FIJAGH!

#134 ::: Avram ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:41 PM:

Straight, I remember on the way out of The Prestige thinking to myself that one central mystery revolves around the question of what genre the movie is in. And so you can't bring that up without "spoiling" it. But I don't worry about it. It's just an example of how it's possible to fret too much about spoilers.

#135 ::: Xopher ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:43 PM:

TexAnne: he means getting at least 100 copies out of a Hektograph, which produces at most 100 copies, and then only under a full moon at the vernal equinox, aligned to true magnetic North, with a fresh animal sacrifice under it.

#136 ::: Kate Nepveu ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:52 PM:

Patrick articulated my reaction re: challenging Scalzi's fannishness in #115 much better than I could, so:

AOL.

#137 ::: Pfusand ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 05:55 PM:

The Hugo and Site Selection ballots were mailed (first class) from Framingham, Massachusetts at 3:00 today.

#138 ::: Clifton Royston ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:00 PM:

Hey I vote for purifying fandom too! Set up The Giant Blender for the Liquefaction of...

Oh, wait - that was "purify." Never mind then.

#139 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:07 PM:

Charlie Stross #117: I initially read that as 'a Gestetner machine in their back pocket'. That, thought I, is one hell of a back pocket. But then, given how the thread has developed, I came to the conclusion that there had to be a category for Hero of Fannish Labour (to be distinguished from Stakhfanovites, New Labour, or Mills & Boon).

#140 ::: Kate ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:11 PM:

#116 Serge - I thought a fan was someone who loves science-fiction.

Amen.

The simple act of enjoying a sci-fi/fantasy piece, be it writing, TV, or cinematic, should qualify you as being a fan.

I'm not going to sit here and defend John Scalzi, because frankly he's perfectly intelligent and capable of his own rebuttal.

However, by saying someone is better than you because they've got a 'limited edition leather bound signed copy of an out of print work by a dead author who they once met at a convention while dressed as fairy princess'... reminds me of my days in grade school.

Seems a bit childish to label what a fan really is, doesn't it?


#141 ::: Soon Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:21 PM:

TexAnne@132: I though he meant "no more than 100". This is fandom, right?

Andrew@131: I'm enough of a fanboy to know. The following still saddens & infuriates:
"Mr. Moore says he was objecting to language in his contracts that would give him back the rights to "Watchmen" and "V for Vendetta" when they went out of print — language that he says turned out to be meaningless, because DC never intended to stop reprinting either book."

#142 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:25 PM:

This is not the place to open the can of dead, smelly wrigglers that is the FIAWOL vs. FIJAGH debate, but for the record, in case anyone is in any doubt, I support the right of the WSFS nominating voters to decree that anyone they like, even Barney the Purple Paedophilosaurus, is eligible for a best fanwriting Hugo, if they happen to like his writing.

(Just in case anyone thought I was, y'know, actually proposing a purge of fandom without irony in mind.)

#143 ::: Mary Kay ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:45 PM:

Prior to that, my impression of the book had been, roughly "Aerial dragons fighting with British ships in the Napoleonic Wars! My goodness that woman is sitting on a limitless heap of gold which she can shovel out just as fast as she can write!"

Yeah, and furthermore, she's on record as saying she considers 6K/day to be satisfactorily productive.

Eeek

MKK

#144 ::: Clifton Royston ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:58 PM:

BTW, I certainly wouldn't qualify as a fan under the fannish lifestyle, goes to cons, etc. kind of criteria. I think I went to one con when I was 14, and that's it. I just read the stuff. (In other words, "No, no - I'm not a junkie! Honestly, I'm just a heroin aficionado!")

Charlie: Do the fan purity arguments remind you, as they do me, of the various Free Software - no, Open Source! - no, Software Libre! - purity debates? Oh the horror if somebody were to write fine software and give it away, source and all, in the Wrong Way!

#145 ::: Kathryn Cramer ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 06:59 PM:

Kathryn 72: Did they really notify your husband (and him alone) of your nomination?

Actually, yes. I've lost of how many nominations I've gotten for NYRSF, but I think only once did the committee ever notify me personally. They just about always go through David.

However, when it comes to the reall;y important stuff, like the invitation to the nominees pre-Hugo party, they always do contact me directly.

#146 ::: Jp ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:26 PM:

Patrick @ #115
Judging by your “of course”, I’m probably clarifying something that doesn’t need clarifying, but exclusionary reasons #1 and #2 were intended as satire as well as #3, hence the apology for unfairness – I thought I might be setting up a straw man.

Having said that, I can see a way in which #2 could be applied without implying that all fandom is unfulfilled prodom, and having just read more of the debate elsewhere I suspect it's what Ulrika's getting at. It's an anti-carpetbagging mechanism - join us to be one of us, not to sell something to us. Which remains problematic, since if strictly applied, it could mean that somebody whose initial route into fandom is through prodom can never be fully accepted (this is where "talking" gets interpreted as "networking").

But it doesn't necessarily follow from that stance that a fan wants or needs to be anything other than a fan. Does it? (Serious question - I’m horribly out of my depth here.)

#147 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:29 PM:

You're making perfectly good sense, Jp. And I did grasp that those points were supposed to be satirical.

#148 ::: Aconite ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 08:57 PM:

Mary Kay @ 143: Yeah, and furthermore, she's on record as saying she considers 6K/day to be satisfactorily productive.

I hate her.

Passionately.

#149 ::: Bob Oldendorf ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 11:00 PM:

As somebody 'way out in the Oort Cloud of Outer Fandom, I just want to note that today I went to The Only Bookstore in my suburban town to look for the Hugo nominated-novels that I don't yet own:

Of the five novels, my local Borders had only the Novik on the shelf.

I mean, it's par for the course when books are returned to the publishers before the Nebulas are announced... but what does it mean when most of Hugo nominees are already difficult to obtain?

(Oh, and of course: congratulations to Patrick, and to all the other nominated writers who hang out here.)

#150 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: March 29, 2007, 11:33 PM:

Allison, #65, Zeborah is from NZ.

#151 ::: Heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 01:04 AM:

#101 Tina: "I think, personally, that defining fan rigidly does a disservice to a lot of people."

[insert comment injuctioning against strict definitions and arguing in preference of description here.]

Kidding aside, trying to define fan seems to be at least as foolish as trying to define sf. I mean, my desire to escape rigid definitions (in both life and literature) is a big part of why I'm a fan in the first place.

#152 ::: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 03:08 AM:

Kathryn from Sunnyvale @ 33

The soul is not uniquely determined, but any two souls are isometric

Am I being obtuse, or should that read "souls are isomorphic"?

#153 ::: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 03:24 AM:

Serge @ 107

Shocking, simply shocking.

#154 ::: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 03:31 AM:

Charlie Stross @ 123

"Who elected him Pope?"

And here I thought you were the anti-pope.

#155 ::: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 03:37 AM:

Clifton @ 144

Gives the title "Starman Jones" a whole new meaning, don't it?

#156 ::: Kathryn from Sunnyvale ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 05:50 AM:

Bruce, Spearer of Managers @152,

No, that's pure Soul Theorem. Riemannian geometry is my Algernon moment for maths: I recall that for one brief week in my college days- a week where I sweated caffeine crystals- I almost understood it. That's right about when I knew it was time to change my major from crunchy to squishy.

Reading it now, if I recursively unpack all the words of the theorem, I'll understand the subsection I'm thinking about, but certainly not the whole. It's almost like a personal version of Searle's Chinese room: am I conscious of the math or not? I don't know.*

(* similar to how there's some complex piano pieces I can 'play', but at 1/20th normal tempo. Am I really playing them? I'm not not playing them.)

ObSF- KSRobinson's "The Memory of Whiteness" (1985)-- gives the memory of having known how to understand music.

#157 ::: Nix ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 05:58 AM:

Clifton @144, your {book,fanzine,story,blurred mimeograph,autograph,restaurant bill} is not Truly Free under the One True Definition (subtype #44, variant #11) so I shall not read it, lo, I shall tell everyone not to look at it lest it contaminate them, and *burn* every copy I can get my hands on, *and the author too*!

That's the Only Reasonable Approach.


(sorry, I spent too much time on gnu.misc.discuss when I was young and stupid and it permanently scarred me)

#158 ::: Patrick Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 07:15 AM:

Incidentally, my #49 slightly misrepresents what the Hugo committee asked of nominees; Dave Langford's #52 is accurate. I should have acknowledged that earlier in this thread.

#159 ::: Laurie D. T. Mann ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 07:22 AM:

#149 - Bob

That's why Amazon should be your friend. We already had the other Hugo-nominated works, and ordered Blindsight yesterday.

Bookstores tend to return stock to the distributors/publishers very quickly. Borders didn't used to be quite that bad (I worked for them in the mid-90s for a year and for another year between 2001 and 2002), but now they return unsold material quickly as well. While books nominated for awards will sell a few more copies, it's just a drop in the bucket to the bookstores.

#160 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 08:23 AM:

Bob @149: I can't speak for the others but "Glasshouse" came out in hardcover last August 1st, and the mass-market paperback ain't due until August 1st this year.

(Although if you're willing to spring for a UK import, Orbit published the UK edition straight to paperback last month and it's all over the shops on this side of the Atlantic right now.)

#161 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 09:07 AM:

Bruce @ 153... Shocking, simply shocking.

I do try to go for spark-ling conversations.

#162 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 09:15 AM:

Kate @ 140... The simple act of enjoying a sci-fi/fantasy piece, be it writing, TV, or cinematic, should qualify you as being a fan.

Indeed. My first exposure to SF was the Buck Rogers comic-strip illustrated by George Tuska, circa 1960. As I grew older (if not wiser), I eventually discovered written SF (and wound up scarfing up on Asimov to Zelazny, with detours to Disch, Delany and everybody else) within a period of two years. Still, it never occurred to me to abandon the other media where SF appears.

#163 ::: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 09:34 AM:

Kathryn from Sunnydale @ 156

Yes, I follow. I have a similar problem with music: I understand a lot of the theory, and get enjoyment from listening to music in realtime, but I have a very poor memory for pitch, and a tin ear (well, silicon anyway), so I can't even hum the major theme of a piece an hour after I've heard it.

I've read The Memory of Whiteness; it's a book that sticks in the mind. For my money, a very, very well-written book which handles the themes and the description of music in a fascinating way, and also, because of the major theme of the philosophy of free will, one of the most irritating books I've ever read. There's not enough room on the margins of this webpage to get into that discussion, but let it stand that I not only don't agree with the resolution of the theme, I think it's so horribly wrong-headed that it makes me grate my teeth in exasperation.

Oh, well, it's good exercise for my jaw.

#164 ::: Doug ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 09:50 AM:

Indeed, the paperback of Glasshouse has even made it to southern Germany, where it fairly leaped into my hands over the weekend and has made suitably mind-bending company on the U-Bahn this week. Presuming those tunnels are in the same hab as the rest of the city above, of course.

#165 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 09:58 AM:

Serge #161 quoth "I do try to go for spark-ling conversations."

Wouldn't that cause fires on the heath?

#166 ::: Jo Walton ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 10:47 AM:

The only definition of fandom that I've ever seen that works is "Someone who enjoys science fiction and is no more than two steps from Jon Singer or Pat McMurray". By that, John Scalzi definitely qualifies as a fan.

There's also the definition that a fan is anyone another fan points at and agrees is a fan -- by which, I'm happy to point at Scalzi. (As Ulrika has published my fanwriting in her fanzine, I assume she'd be happy to point at me...)

As a longtime fan who has become a pro I've run into this thing where I meet neopros who think it's wrong to be a fan, that pros ought to dress differently from fans and hang out with each other to network instead of hanging out with their friends. I hate this with the passion that turns a thousand suns nova. Caring about your career is all very well, but what matters is your life.

I welcome Scalzi's nomination as best fanwriter while running for SFWA president as something that demonstrates vigorously to these misguided people that pros can be fans and fans can be pros -- it demonstrates it in much the same way as the story about Isaac Asimov coming out of the back room saying we were all out of page 17.

#167 ::: sdn ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 01:08 PM:

i wish i hadn't had to do this. and the point isn't to laugh at the funny names.

#168 ::: sdn ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 01:11 PM:

i wish i hadn't had to do this. and the point isn't to laugh at the funny names.

#169 ::: Bruce Cohen, SpeakerToManagers ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 01:29 PM:

sdn @ 168

Ok, that's politically much better. Just out of curiosity, why did you leave Vernor and Geoff alone?
Verna would have worked, though I'm stumped for something that's at all close to Geoff.

#170 ::: sdn ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 01:51 PM:

i simply ran it through the regender filter, which has its own ideas about names that can or cannot be changed.

i'd love it if we had a 50-50 balance ...

#171 ::: Jeffrey Smith ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 02:18 PM:

Regender.com doesn't affect Geoff, but I learned early on (well, when I first heard of it, about a year ago) that Jeff and Jeffrey become Jennifer.

Interestingly, I have a collection agency trying to get money out of an otherwise non-existent Jennifer Smith with my address and phone number.

#172 ::: Clifton Royston ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 02:20 PM:

The whole "is he a real fan?" thing bothers me more than I thought it would. I lay awake a while last night thinking about it.

I would wager that many SF fans have felt - at least in their youth - what it's like to be excluded from other social groups. I'm disappointed that some apparently feel it necessary to recreate that exclusion in reverse, by trying to exclude others from being fans, even when they clearly love SF. I'm not usually a joiner myself, and I am especially not a joiner of groups that set themselves up as exclusive, or where it is implied that membership depends on knowing the right people and conforming. That is far too much like high school for me. I reflexively choose to be on the outside of most such groups.

Environments like the GEnie SFRT made me feel comfortable to be a fan. Making Light makes me feel enormously comfortable to be a fan. I think I'm happier leaving it at that.

#173 ::: "Orange Mike" Lowrey ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 04:59 PM:

the Best Fan Writer Hugo has been awarded 40 times, 23 of those times to a working professional writer. In 2001, the award went to the same person who won Best Short Story. By and large, the SF world, pro and fan, doesn't find this extraordinary, because most of us are clear on the idea that "fan" and "pro" are terms for things we do, not for things we are.

Also: the fan Hugo categories are not junior-varsity versions of the pro categories, and "fan" is not the larval stage of "pro".

If these points don't make any difference, then we're talking across irreconcilable value systems. Or, alternately, you simply can't get past the idea that "fan" has to mean "spectator" or "aspirant" or "drooling wannabe." The best thing about the SF subculture is that, frequently, we do better than that.

AMEN!

Preach the truth, Brother Patrick, to all the assembled congregation! We may sin, and commit all manner of follies, but we try; and frequently, we do better!

#174 ::: Martyn Taylor ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 05:06 PM:

Discovering 'Whatever' (and this distinguished gathering) reminded me what I'd been missing about fandom while I was away.

Unfortunately, so does Ulrika's comment, which she is - of course - perfectly entitled to make and have considered without being regarded as a total - insert your own description - even by those who disagree with her vehemently (for the most part)

Those of us who can vote and want to vote for John, do so. Those of you who can vote and don't want to vote for John, vote for whomsoever you please, and the queue for the bar forms on the right, the way it always did (except when it formed on the left, of course)

Congratulations to all nominees. Enjoy your moments in the sun and - to those of you to whom this applies - may the nomination have only beneficial effects on your sales. If I drank alone I'd raise a glass to you all.

#175 ::: Neil Gaiman ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 05:43 PM:

One of the things I always loved, and love, about the field is that fans are in some cases pros and pros are in some cases fans. I found fandom and conventions because I was sent to interview Gene Wolfe and Bob Silverberg at the British Fantasy con in '83. And I liked this thing that I had walked into and kept coming. I remember long conversations with Charles Stross in the bar in Glasgow in (I think) 1985 about books we were going to write and worlds we were going to conquer, and have no idea if Charles had sold any fiction at that point or not, and I'd only written Ghastly Beyond Belief (a most fannish sort of a book anyway) and a very few short stories. I was also a journalist, and some of what I made my money from was interviewing SF writers. I went to cons because I wanted to and because I enjoyed the conversations, and not to make contacts or anything. Most of the friends I made back then are either famous and important professionals and suchlike these days, or they aren't, but that's just the effect of time, and wasn't because I was making contacts. I'm pretty sure my first published illustration was a Watchmen gag in an Avedon Carol fanzine, unless my memory has gone...

Which is a burble, mainly because I don't remember it ever occurring to me that fan and pro were mutually exclusive states or conditions. Nor does it now. They are quantum states. You can move between them, you can be both at the same time, even after they open the box...

#176 ::: Clifton Royston ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 06:24 PM:

Nix @ 157: Hah, you haven't lived the FOSS wars until you've seen RMS show up on one of the OpenBSD mailing lists to complain about characterization of the GPL, and Theo address him with the words "Get thee behind me, Satan!" It was rather memorable.

#177 ::: Bruce Cohen, SpeakerToManagers ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 07:29 PM:

Clifton @ 176

The only time I say RMS* in person was around 1985 or so. He gave a talk about Gnu which was sprinkled with phrases that made me hark back to my student days, when I played at socialist rhetoric. I've used Gnu software a lot since then, but I've never been able to get over thinking of him as a wild-eyed radical.

* I can't help it, everytime I see those initials I think "Root Mean Square". Somehow it seems like an insult.

#178 ::: Aidan ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 09:39 PM:

Bruce Cohen @ 163: and a tin ear (well, silicon anyway)

Bwahahaha! or perhaps, split the difference, a germanium ear?

#179 ::: Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little ::: (view all by) ::: March 30, 2007, 10:19 PM:

A non-spoiler way to premise The Prestige (which, btw, I loved, and which gave me good occasion to show off my Superhuman Ability To Be Surprised By Blindingly Obvious Plot Twists):

"So it's Wolverine versus Batman, right? As stage magicians. Oh, and David Bowie plays Tesla."

All credit for that goes to my friend Todd who came with me on my second time to see it.

#180 ::: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 02:59 AM:

Aidan @ 178

No, really, my two ears together now have more compute power than existed in the entire world before 1968.

#181 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 11:14 AM:

I posted yesterday that I discovered science-fiction circa 1960 thru the Buck Rogers comic-strip. Myy brain-rotting... er... love affair with science-fiction fermented further with fare such as the following...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-1AMrSzN40

#182 ::: John Houghton ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 12:02 PM:

Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) @177:
The only time I say RMS* in person was around 1985 or so. He gave a talk about Gnu which was sprinkled with phrases that made me hark back to my student days, when I played at socialist rhetoric. I've used Gnu software a lot since then, but I've never been able to get over thinking of him as a wild-eyed radical.

rms was and is a "wild-eyed radical". The world needs wild-eyed radicals, just not necessarily in the same room as you and I.

I can't help it, everytime I see those initials I think "Root Mean Square". Somehow it seems like an insult.

He used to sign some stuff with some varient of the RMS formula on occasion.

#183 ::: Kathryn from Sunnyvale ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 12:12 PM:

John @182, Bruce @177

A phrase I've heard from more than one OS guru:

"Do you know why I say 'Linux' instead of 'Gnu/Linux'? Because it makes RMS mad."

I once watched a newly-formed geek couple almost break up over a fight on this very phraseology. One was really into rms's philosophy.

Oy, Silicon Valley.

How do you know you have a diverse set of friends in Silicon Valley? You have both Linux and BSD programmers at your parties.

#184 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 12:32 PM:

Kathryn @184: my one overwhelming impression of RMS -- based on a not terribly happy meeting with him -- is that the man is a complete asshole. And I have enough flexibility to cope with the poor social interactions of Aspergers cases.

He's also a famous asshole, and like many famous people, he tends to get asked the same questions time and again, so I suspect he has a repertoire of pre-canned spiels to roll out at the first sign that he might be talking to ... well, anyone who isn't RMS.

Not my favourite person. I can envisage propping up a bar with ESR, despite our clear differences on some issues; not so with RMS.

#185 ::: Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 01:11 PM:

In #32, Heresiarch writes:

Now there's a fun idea. Write a fantasy novel all of whose characters all have amusingly ROT-13able names. Gur Ureb, the hero. Irelir Elnatel, the brooding warrior with a dark and mysterious past. Nybar, the distant and nomadic abjurer. Rys, the token elf. Join them as they fight Ungua B'shel, the vengeful she-witch! But will they anticipate their betrayal at the hands of Cherrivy, their deceptively adorable catgirl side-kick? Stay tuned!

In "Deadline," a story about atomic weapons on a distant planet which is famous without being good, Cleve Cartmill... well, I'll let Dave Langford describe it:

In Cartmill's version, the evil "Sixa" forces are prevented from dropping the bomb, and the good "Siella" are too moral to use it. What could those cryptic codenames mean?

#186 ::: Kathryn from Sunnyvale ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 01:23 PM:

Charlie @184,

Yes, agreed. RMS chooses to be as he is. (vs. an ESR, who knows that his presence/ volume / self-as-microphone goes to 11, and knows to turn it down at times, because it helps the cause.*)

rms has been told plenty of times by equally** dedicated os/fs folks that a few small and easily done changes would help. But instead he wraps himself in offensiveness like a flag: a Real True Believer ought not to care. If you are bothered, you aren't a RTB. The preacher mindset + rockstar groupie rtb's: bleh***.

Plenty of people in the tech world have Aspergers, are dedicated to a cause, and do fine.

All they need is to say "my heuristics don't cover these situations: I'll have and listen to people who understand these situations." Friend of mine is the ceo of a successful startup- interviews and all- with Aspergers. He doesn't feel pr but he hears his pr sensitive folks. That works.

---
* although, boy, that panel at ConJose. It's like the Woodstock of the ConJose generation- everyone was in the audience. I'm sure I was, even though I have notes from an entirely different panel at the same hour.

** from an outsider's perspective. for rms no one can be as dedicated.

*** and no sense of humor. The more important the cause, the more important to seem relaxed. The difference between a crank and a visionary can be as simple as a timely joke at ones own expense. Of course the crank in incapable of it.

#187 ::: Clifton Royston ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 02:41 PM:

It's important to remember that RMS is a zealot on only one of the several axes it's possible to be a software zealot and/or asshole about.

Theo de Raadt is often an unpleasant zealot (not to say asshole) over principle in a completely different direction than RMS. The "BSD-style" license fanatics view the GPL and the FSF nearly the same way that RMS and the FSF view Microsoft - an evil evil virus infecting the purity of their software. (I used to be a bit of a zealot in this direction myself, until I got cured by seeing people who were that much more zealous.)

Then there's Dan Bernstein a.k.a djb, who's off in his own direction, with his own license rules about what you can do with software he wrote. (And can also be something of a stubborn jerk, I have heard - but that has vastly helped in his lawsuits to free cryptography from US legal restrictions.)

I've long entertained the fantasy of a "steel cage deathmatch" with all 3 of them locked in a room until they came to agree on something. I think they'd all starve rather than agree.

All 3 of these people (and the groups behind the first two) have also written some incredibly valuable and widely used software: GCC, bison, the gnu file utils; OpenSSH, OpenBGP, OpenOSPF, and OpenBSD's security auditing; DJB's qmail mail server, DNS server/tool suite, cdb, etc. This is why I personally would cut all of them a great deal of slack. ESR... hasn't done so much other than "advocate".

This is all In My Humble Opinion of course. Just saying there's more than one front in the software wars.

#188 ::: Charlie Stross ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 03:24 PM:

Kathryn @186: Unfortunately I seem to have missed being in the audience at that panel. (Clearly I'm not the Woodstock type.) Was it any good?

Clifton @187: I think you'll find that ESR has written rather more software than you give him credit for, although he's not as obviously prominent as the other guys in that respect.

#189 ::: Christopher Davis ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 05:11 PM:

Bill Higgins (#185) notes Cartmill's use of Rilly Sekrit Codenames; there was a rec.arts.sf.written thread a while back about Bill Baldwin's Helmsman books that included this lovely quote from Doug Dawson:

The 'Space Nazis' were easy to identify, but hey, it's a fairly common bit. The fact that the big ally of the hero country was a race of bearlike aliens from a suspiciously Russia-like planet, well, I could take that. But when I realized that many planets were WW II place names spelled backwards... (Gee, how do you think the raid on the planet Eppeid is going to go?)

#190 ::: Alexx Kay ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 06:45 PM:

Soon Lee @ 113 writes

"The end credits for the "V for Vendetta" movie states that it was based on the graphic novel *illustrated* by David Lloyd. No mention of Alan Moore. I am enough of a fanboy to have paid attention. It's a pretty concrete example of the screwy nature of the movie industry."

Yes, though possibly not in the way that you think. Alan Moore specifically demanded that his name not appear on the film. He had originally planned to just ignore it, but then Joel Silver stated publically (and falsely) that he, Alan Moore, had read the script and was really excited about the production. Alan is a man of extremely firm principles, and demanded a public retraction of the statement, which he did not get to his satisfaction. He then, as loudly as possible, divorced himself from any connection to the film and demanded (successfully this time) that they take his name off it.

This is still a brief summarization of the situation. Alan has given interviews on the topic that run to dozens of pages at least...

#191 ::: Bruce Cohen (SpeakerToManagers) ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 06:52 PM:

Clifton Royston @ 187

It's important to remember that RMS is a zealot on only one of the several axes it's possible to be a software zealot and/or asshole about.

Yes, but he makes up in volume, hysteria, and snide for what he lacks in range.

Also, I would question that list of software. I know that RMS had very little to do with the original development of gcc; I was working with the guy who did (Doug Hahn) for part of the time he was developing it (I wasn't working on gcc, but with him on another project).

I guess every generation of computer folk needs its own Jihad. In the '80s it was the big endians vs. the little endians (and most of them didn't have enough of a sense of humor to see just how scathing the names were). In the 90's I guess it was the Sun Java Alliance vs. the Microsoft Axis of Evil. So now it's Free Software (sorry, I mean GPL licensed software, no, make that ...). Makes me feel a little like Trotsky hiding out in Mexico before the assassin got him.

And it is a lot like the old Fandom Wars. Even I'm not old enough to remember the Futurians, but there are still people around who do. Now there was a Holy War.

#192 ::: Soon Lee ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 10:45 PM:

Alexx@190:

If you haven't yet read it, "Alan Moore's Exit Interview" by Bill Baker (ISBN 978-0-9724805-9-8) is an erudite summary of the situation and of much more. Recommended.

#193 ::: Heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: March 31, 2007, 11:17 PM:

Bill Higgins @ #185: *snrk* I guess we're just lucky that the 300 didn't rename the Persians "the Vendi."

#194 ::: ethan ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2007, 02:11 AM:

I haven't read V for Vendetta (though because of this conversation I remembered I want to and got it out from the library), but when I heard about Alan Moore's distaste for the movie I was all set for it to be terrible. But then it wasn't; I thought it was actually pretty great.

Er...I guess that's all I have to say.

#195 ::: Fragano Ledgister ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2007, 10:59 AM:

Heresiarch #193: In the mid-1960s, a US military exercise on Vieques Island was announced that had as its putative aim the removal of a tyrant named 'Ortsac'.

#196 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2007, 11:57 AM:

ethan @ 194... Sometimes the author of the original story may be the last person capable of judging an adaptation. In some respects, the movie of Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was better than his graphic novel (*). On the other hand, Stephen King thought that 1983's movie The Dead Zone was an improvement on his novel. Or words to that effect.

(*) Except for having the Nautilus navigate the canals of Venice, or the car chase in said city. Yes, ladies and gents, I remember the discussion we had last year.

#198 ::: Clifton Royston ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2007, 08:43 PM:

Well, that makes a hell of a lot more sense.

#199 ::: Stefan Jones ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2007, 08:56 PM:

Whew.

I liked "Pirates," but it was at best superior popcorn.

"Pan's Labyrinth" was a grim masterpiece.

#200 ::: Heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2007, 09:24 PM:

#196 Serge: "In some respects, the movie of Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was better than his graphic novel (*)."

...and what respects would those be?

#201 ::: Laurie D. T. Mann ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2007, 09:36 PM:

Stefan, the first Pirates movie was a great popcorn flick. The second one was a really bad, really loud video game on a movie screen. I nearly walked out of it, and I don't do that very often.

The description of Pan's Labyrinth as a "grim masterpiece" is spot on; however, Children of Men will have my first place vote.

#202 ::: Stefan Jones ::: (view all by) ::: April 01, 2007, 10:24 PM:

#201: Very tough choice indeed, between very tough movies.

#203 ::: David Goldfarb ::: (view all by) ::: April 02, 2007, 04:12 AM:

Charlie@188: Ha.

For myself, I was at ConJosé, but I missed the panel. If I'd known it was going to be a piece of fannish history, I'd have attended.

#204 ::: Jeffrey Smith ::: (view all by) ::: April 02, 2007, 01:41 PM:

ethan #194:

Alan Moore doesn't have any opinions about movies based on his works, because he just isn't interested in watching them.

#205 ::: Rob Hansen ::: (view all by) ::: April 02, 2007, 01:54 PM:

Neil Gaiman@175:


I'm pretty sure my first published illustration was a Watchmen gag in an Avedon Carol fanzine, unless my memory has gone...

That very illo has been pinned to my office notice board - about a foot from where I'm sitting - for years. You dated it, too - 29/9/86. I used to keep a diary back then, but a quick look at the appropriate page has no mention of you at all. Seems I spent the day visiting various museums with Stu Shiffman, over from the US. We used to see you pretty often back then so I suppose we could've all met up at a pub afterwards. Strange that my diary doesn't mention it if we did, though. The thing is, I was there when you drew that picture, and it was either in a pub or at a con. The nearest entry I can find that mentions you is a week earlier at UKCAC '86, the only comics con Avedon and I ever attended. Perhaps you drew it there and misdated it? Curious.

#206 ::: Nicole the Wonder Nerd ::: (view all by) ::: April 02, 2007, 06:23 PM:

OK, I'll bite: just what IS the difference between a Fan award and its corresponding Pro award? Is it a question of venue: publish work in a Fanzine -> Fan award? (This would seem to beg the question: is a Fanzine defined as a zine that publishes Fan work?) Is it a question of format: publish (e.g.) fanfic -> Fan award? Is it a question of renumeration: publish for free -> Fan award?
This is a totally honest question, by the way. I realize that this is a giant minefield; I'm just trying to figure out the best way to recon without being blown to bits. Thanks.

ObTopic (Hugos):
Wot, no love for Life On Mars? Blast. Maybe Series 2 will get a nod. Or maybe the coming American remake will not completely suck, and get a nomination.
And as long as I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony...

#207 ::: Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little ::: (view all by) ::: April 03, 2007, 05:42 PM:

Travel plans mean I'm destined to be about a day behind any conversation going on here. But I did want to say, on the subject of pro and fan, that one of my favorite things about going to conventions is hearing the pros I admire wax enthusiastic about the pros that they are fans of. That's the sort of thing that can shatter forever the illusion that there are two categories with no overlap. No matter how pro any writer gets, there's still going to be writers about whom they go, "OMG SO COOL!" even while I'm going "OMG WE'RE NOT WORTHY" about them.

Turtles all the way down, ain't it? Or up.

#208 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: April 03, 2007, 08:31 PM:

Nicole, that's not how we mean fans. Fans are participants in science fiction fandom. That doesn't require being a groupie for a pro.

#209 ::: Neil Gaiman ::: (view all by) ::: April 03, 2007, 08:32 PM:

Rob -- I remember meeting Stu with you, so my guess is that it was done in the pub that evening. I'm pretty sure I didn't do it at UKCAC. I interviewed Alan and Dave about Watchmen there, though. In a suit, as befitting the occasion.

I'm just glad the picture is still up on the board and being looked at.

#210 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: April 03, 2007, 09:38 PM:

Is there a way one can see that Watchmen cartoon?

#211 ::: Aconite ::: (view all by) ::: April 03, 2007, 09:47 PM:

Marilee @ 208, Nicole can speak for herself, but the impression I got from what she said was that the pro/fan division...isn't.

#212 ::: Rob Hansen ::: (view all by) ::: April 04, 2007, 01:11 AM:

Neil:
Rob -- I remember meeting Stu with you, so my guess is that it was done in the pub that evening. I'm pretty sure I didn't do it at UKCAC. I interviewed Alan and Dave about Watchmen there, though. In a suit, as befitting the occasion.

Yep. According to my diary: " 'Who's Watching the Watchmen?' with Moore & Gibbons, moderated by Neil Gaiman. Panel is excellent, the most thoroughly entertaining of the weekend, in fact." Lots of stuff in there I'd totally forgotten, including discussing the 'fascism' in 'The Dark Knight Returns' with Gary Groth and being told that Frank Miller regards it as a "liberal tract". Good grief!

I'm just glad the picture is still up on the board and being looked at.

Serge:
Is there a way one can see that Watchmen cartoon?

Well, the physical drawing may reside on my noticeboard but copyright of same is, of course, Neil's. Thanks to the wondrous technology we now all possess it would be simple enough to scan, but whether or not it should appear elsewhere is up to him.

#213 ::: Dave Bell ::: (view all by) ::: April 04, 2007, 02:22 AM:

Nicole. I reckon next week's concluding episode will be the clincher for Life on Mars. According to Radio Times, the majority of viewers are expecting some variation on "It's all a dream."

If that is the explanation-space, it feels like too much of a cop-out, and I wouldn't class it as SF.

#214 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: April 04, 2007, 07:37 AM:

Rob Hansen @ 212... Thanks. I asked about the Watchmen cartoon on the off-chance that there already was an authorized link to it in cyberspace. No such luck. Drat.

#215 ::: Neil ::: (view all by) ::: April 04, 2007, 06:23 PM:

Rob - be my guest. I remember it, but would love to see it again too.

#216 ::: Rob Hansen ::: (view all by) ::: April 05, 2007, 10:31 AM:

OK. I'm busy tonight, but I'll put it up tomorrow and post the link here.

#217 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: April 05, 2007, 10:39 AM:

Thanks, Neil and Rob.

#218 ::: Rob Hansen ::: (view all by) ::: April 06, 2007, 11:50 AM:

Right, it's finally up at:

http://www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/rob/blog.html

#219 ::: Rob Hansen ::: (view all by) ::: April 06, 2007, 06:22 PM:

Oops! Should've made that a link:

www.fiawol.demon.co.uk/rob/blog.html

#220 ::: ethan ::: (view all by) ::: April 07, 2007, 12:24 AM:

Bwah! That cartoon's hilarious!

#221 ::: Heresiarch ::: (view all by) ::: April 07, 2007, 12:31 PM:

I just saw The Prestige. What a marvelous puzzle-box of a film--everything fits together with such precision. My SO hated it, on the very sensible grounds that all of the characters are horrible people. And yet, what marvelous monstrosities they are!

#222 ::: Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little ::: (view all by) ::: April 08, 2007, 05:50 PM:

Aconite: yes, exactly. Thank you.

#223 ::: Serge ::: (view all by) ::: April 10, 2007, 09:59 AM:

Rob Hansen... Thanks for putting up the Watchmen cartoon.

"...The city is afraid of me. I have smelt its lampposts..."

#224 ::: Marilee ::: (view all by) ::: April 15, 2007, 04:04 PM:

Nicole, #222, but that's entirely orthogonal to what I said. The definition of fan that fandom uses is that the person participates in fandom. It doesn't matter if they're a pro or not.

#225 ::: DaveL ::: (view all by) ::: April 16, 2007, 04:56 PM:

Since this was posted (and because of it) I read both "Eifelheim" and "Blindsight," and can report that they are both excellent.

"Blindsight" reminded me somewhat of Sterling's Schismatrix stories (especially "The Swarm").

"Eifelheim" is harder to categorize, perhaps some of Michael Bishop's work comes closest.

Worthy nominees, both of them.

#226 ::: Clifton Royston ::: (view all by) ::: April 19, 2007, 04:06 PM:

Good lord, I just finished reading His Majesty's Dragon a.k.a. Temeraire. I devoured the book in the course of one afternoon and evening. As I'm a fan of both fantasy and Napoleonic naval fiction, this feels rather like what taking a hit of pure crack must be like.

I can do no better than quote Alison Scott far upthread: "Aerial dragons fighting with British ships in the Napoleonic Wars! My goodness that woman is sitting on a limitless heap of gold which she can shovel out just as fast as she can write!"

Well, I have a feeling that she will be getting some more of mine shortly - the more so as I'm especially impressed with how she has worked out all kinds of details of the world to provide interesting social tensions and plot drivers. Now off to find a couple of the other nominees...

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