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May 26, 2015
E Pluribus Hugo: Out of Many, A Hugo
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 02:11 PM * 826 comments

In this thread we will hammer out the formal language of the proposal, any FAQs we wish to include, and strategize for the presentation at the business meeting itself. At this point, we’ll consider the system itself locked in, so we are really only looking at the language.

May 20, 2015
Reading for Rockets
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 03:18 PM * 682 comments

Sasquan tells me that the Hugo packet can be downloaded (pin lookup here.) So if you haven’t gone looking for it before, here’s what you need to make your judgments.

A couple of useful links:

Unsurprisingly, my own personal view is that everyone should vote according to their own personal views rather than, say, mine. I’m sure we all know not to take anyone’s views in this discussion as any kind of marching orders, but I thought I’d say it for the charity- or clarity-impaired.

Note that this thread will probably abound with spoilers. I’m not going to try to slice things up into different subthreads with layered spoiler policies. If you’re spoiler-averse, you might want to wait till you’ve read everything before jumping in.


* Obviously, there may be even more different approaches than Scalzi lists. Feel free to mention yours!

May 19, 2015
Mad Max: SPOILER Road
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 02:42 PM * 124 comments

This is the thread where the comments do their own stunts instead of relying on ROT-13. They’re badass and full of spoilers. You’ve been warned.

May 15, 2015
Shining, shimmering, splendid
Posted by Avram Grumer at 06:52 PM * 5 comments

If you like science fiction and comics, you should be aware that C Spike Trotman — creator of the webcomic Templar, Arizona, and editor/publisher of a number of successful comics anthologies, has just today announced the Kickstarter campaign for her latest: New World: A Sci-Fi/Fantasy Anthology, with 25 stories about culture clashes. As of this writing, the campaign’s been live for about five hours, and is already halfway funded.

Contributors include Carla Speed McNeil (writer/artist of Finder, long-running science fiction comic whose absence from Best Graphic Story Hugo ballots is baffling to me), Blue Delliquanti (writer/artist of O Human Star), Evan Dahm (writer/artist of Rice Boy), and holy crap she got something from Matt Howarth! And a couple of dozen other creators; there’s a list on the Kickstarter page. You can get a feel for the sorts of things that will (and won’t) be in the anthology by reading Spike’s pitch document for prospective creators.

If you hurry, you might be able to get in on the “Science Fiction Double Feature” reward level, which gets you both a copy of New World and one of The Sleep of Reason, her horror anthology from last year. It’s already too late for the “Early-Bird Special” reward which gets you the book with free shipping; those 50 reward slots went within the first ten minutes.

Open thread 205
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 06:56 AM *

So we were watching “The Princess Bride” last night.

It falls down in a few places: when Westley threatens to hit Buttercup “because where I come from there are penalties when a woman lies”, the depiction of an albino character, the degree to which disfigurement is treated as worse than death. (That last could be merely because Humperdink is so vain, but I’d be more comfortable if that were better spelled out.)

But what struck me more than anything else was the Machine, the Life-Sucker.

Last weekend, we went to the windmill park near our house. My parents are visiting, and my father is a letterpress printer in his spare time*. As it happens, there is a linseed-processing windmill near us that was used to power a printing press just after World War 2, and the local letterpress enthusiasts had recreated the whole assemblage for the 70th anniversary of the liberation. Naturally, we had to visit.

Dutch windmills are impressive† pieces of heavy equipment. We live near what is sometimes described as the first industrialized area of the world, where the wind was harnessed to supply the massive power needed to saw wood, make paper, grind linseed oil, and process chocolate on a grand scale. Visiting the mills now, one is still overwhelmed by the force they produce, despite the variability of the power source and the relative inefficiency of the wooden mechanisms.

The Life-Sucker is a water mill, but there’s a lot of the same feel to it. And it makes me think that we’ve missed out on a potential genre, in our desire to play with the shiny brass of Victorian technoliogy. Where are the stories about the creaking, grinding power of wind and water mills, the impersonal forces of nature incompletely harnessed by early technologists working in the flameless dark? Why is there no love for them?

I think I want to read some millpunk.


* It’s ironic, but my bookbinding does not come from his printing. Apart from a certain passion for craftsmanship, that is.
† Thanks to Joris Meijer for supplying the link when I mused on this a little on Twitter.

Dysfunctional Families: Boundaries
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 04:59 AM *

A lot of the conversations we’ve been having in recent Dysfunctional Families threads have been around a closely-linked set of very important concepts: boundaries, consent, and bodily autonomy.

May 12, 2015
Discussing Specific Changes to the Hugo Nomination Election: A Post Not By Bruce Schneier
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 02:36 AM *

After a couple thousand posts, here’s the current proposal, summarized in this comment by Keith “Kilo” Watt.

May 11, 2015
Hugo IV: A New Hope
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 03:03 AM * 701 comments

Moving the Hugo conversation here, if it wants to continue, because the previous Hugo thread has drifted and I’m minded to let it continue that drift uninterrupted.

May 08, 2015
The Three-SPOILER Problem
Posted by Abi Sutherland at 07:02 AM * 139 comments

You put on your V-suit and log in.

You stand on a desolate plain. Before you rises a great pyramid, standing like a tall mountain in the first glimmers of dawn. At its base there is a small door, standing open, and the light from the space beyond spills onto the sandy ground. The light dims as a stranger comes to stand in the doorway, then brightens as he passes through.

He approaches you, and says…what?

At least here in the game you don’t have to ROT-13 your spoilers.


ETA Extra credit points to Steve Wright @81 with “I am the very model of a modern Trisolarian”!

May 02, 2015
Avengers: The War of Orange vs Teal
Posted by Avram Grumer at 11:29 PM * 179 comments

Here’s a new thread for talking about the new Avengers movie with spoilers and without ROT13 so people can read it on their tablets.

Choose:
Smaller type (our default)
Larger type
Even larger type, with serifs

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