Science Fiction

Channeling the Other

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

One of the things I mentioned in the SMOFcon report is that a number of the attendees had a lot of difficulty with the “Words we use” panel because they tended to assume that if a word had negative connotations to them then it would have negative connotations to everyone. Marketing is, of course, about understanding how other people think, but fandom isn’t always very good at this.

We can see the same sort of thing in action in the “debate” about the Lifetime Achievement Hugo. I use the scare quotes deliberately, because while some people are talking seriously about how the award might work, many people aren’t making much sense at all.
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Galaxy Wars

~ Cheryl

Astronomers using NASA telescopes have discovered a galaxy that has opened fire on a near neighbor using a deadly jet of energy emanating from a super-massive black hole. Of course none of them have yet come out and admitted that this is clear evidence of a inter-galactic war being waged between two advanced alien civilizations, but we know, don’t we. It does, after all, sound just like something out of one of Robert Reed’s Marrow stories.

Travel: Present and Future

~ Cheryl ~ 4 Comments

So here we are back in California’s Central Valley, delivering Christmas presents to Kevin’s family. These trips always remind me of Ringworld. The land is very flat, and in the north-south direction it seems to go on forever. It certainly stretches much further than the eye can see. From where we started out it was maybe 100 miles north, and several hundred miles south. To the east and west, however, can be seen the Spill Mountains, which mark the rims of the ring. And as Kevin noted, the Sutter Buttes are presumably Fist of God. The only thing we can’t see is the other side of the ring glittering in the sky above us. (There’s also no sign of Speaker-to-Animals, which is probably just as well.)

There are times when we think it would be nice to live out here. Land is plentiful and cheap (at least compared to the Bay Area); so is the food (all-you-can-eat seafood buffet for $8); and the weather is generally good. But we’d miss the action. To return to the theme, we’d need a transporter booth so that we could get back to San Francisco quickly to go shopping and see our friends.

And then, because you always need something to while away the hours on a long road trip, we got into a little thought experiment about transporter booths. Suppose that the technology did exist; but suppose also that it was quite expensive. You, as President of Earth, have managed to secure sufficient funding to build 10 of the things for the entire planet. Where would you put them? Answers in comments, please. Let’s see if you come up with the same answers as we did.

December Locus

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

No photos of me in the World Fantasy Con Report. This is a great relief. It means that I am no longer a celebrity and therefore I no longer have to carry around a large paper bag so that I have something to pop over my head every time I see Beth Gwinn with her camera.

The cover, however, features the exceptionally photogenic Liz Hand. It isn’t obvious to the casual reader, but if you know what you are looking for then you can see very clearly that under her jacket she is wearing a Finncon t-shirt. Yay!

Small Politics

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Every so often Kevin and I meet people whose jaws drop in amazement at being told that WSFS is unincorporated and has no permanent officers. There are, of course, times when having such things would be terribly useful. However, watching the latest meltdown at SFWA here, here, and here (to give but a few examples) reminds me that there are good reasons for WSFS staying just as it is, because if it did have officers there is a serious danger it would turn into something very like SFWA.

Or, to answer a question raised elsewhere, SFWA is dumber than WSFS, Goddess help us!

A Lost Day

~ Cheryl

Today has been a complete bust. It is one of those days when you set out to do a small and simple housekeeping task on your computer and 12 hours later it is still unfinished. This is not the sort of thing you should be doing when you have urgent work projects to complete. Except of course that I don’t have all of the data I need right now so I can’t really make a lot of progress anyway. But it does mean that I’m unlikely to make BASFA tonight, and I’m probably looking at canceling any plans I might have had for Thanksgiving weekend.

Still, I did get to the SF in SF reading last night. Karen Joy Fowler and Molly Gloss were fabulous, and it was good to see a lot of friends.

Meanwhile, back to work.

Quick WFA Comment

~ Cheryl

I think this year’s WFA Awards were pretty much as expected. The only real question was how the short fiction awards were going to be divided up between Jeff Ford and Mary Rickert. Poor Mary was quite tearful, but she proved the value of winning two awards: having to come up a second time allows you to thank people that you embarrassingly forgot the first time.

Gene Wolfe’s book was on my Hugo list last year, so I’m delighted that it won. But the results that really make me happy are the wins for Shaun Tan and Gary Wolfe. Gary, sadly, missed out on a Hugo in LA, but he very much deserves his Howie. As for Shaun, next stop Best Related Book for The Arrival.

WFC Program

~ Cheryl

Thanks to John Picacio I learn that the World Fantasy Convention program is now online. The good news is that the IHG Awards presentation doesn’t start until 9:00pm, so Amtrak can be 2 hours late getting me there and I’ll still be in time. (Non-American readers who think that being 2 hours late on a 4-hour journey is a bit excessive need to try Amtrak sometime.) On the other hand, I’m getting a bit worried about what sort of Internet access I’ll have. My hotel looks distinctly antediluvian (confirmation letter printed by dot matrix!), and the major events are in a convention center of sorts. We shall see how we go.

As to the rest of the weekend, the big bonus as far as I’m concerned is that Michael Dirda will be there. Am I star struck or what? I just hope I can get to meet him. Programming is, as usual, pretty light. I’ll probably go to the “Survey of the Field” panel on Saturday afternoon for old times sake. Much of the rest of my time will probably be spent in the bar with other reprobates such as Chris Roberson, Lou Anders, John Picacio, the Solaris lads and a bunch of Australians.

Reading Update

~ Cheryl

Dana Copithorne’s The Steam Magnate is one of those books that I would have loved to talk about in Emerald City. It is a bit slow, and none of the characters are terribly sympathetic, so I can’t see it having mass appeal, but it is very different from the run of the mill fantasy. It is set in a world that is in some ways more technologically advanced than ours, and in some ways less so, and a rather muted level of magic is an accepted technology. If you like interesting fantasy novels, this one is recommended.

In Borders yesterday I picked up Fugitives of Chaos, the sequel to John C. Wright’s Orphans of Chaos, which I have been looking forward to for some time. Love the cover – nice job, Irene.

Department of Evil Ideas

~ Cheryl ~ 8 Comments

At BASFA this evening it was announced that Further Confusion, San Jose’s annual Furry fan convention, is in desperate need of a committee. The convention is all ready to roll. It has a hotel and members and the like, but no one to actually run it. What, I wonder, can we do about this?

One possibility is that we could launch TAFF, the Trufen are Furries Fund. This would raise money to bring Trufen from around the world to San Jose so that they could reveal their true colors and run a furry convention.

Then it occurred to me that we have a fabulous piece of synchronicity. In the UK there is a convention committee that had to give up because it had a crap hotel and not enough members. Here in San Jose we have a convention with an excellent hotel that is already booked out with eager convention members (some coming from as far away as Sweden). All it needs is a committee to run it. So if someone in the UK can see to putting the Convoy committee on a plane to California in January, we have a convention that they can run.

Commendable Efficiency

~ Cheryl

Got my program-participant refund check from L.A.Con IV this weekend. I’m impressed. Some Worldcons have taken months, or even years, to get these sent out. The folks in L.A. have been very efficient.

Killer Fungi

~ Cheryl

Glenda Larke has further evidence that our world is being invaded by Ambergris.

Fear not, though, dear reader. Tomorrow I shall attend the Fungi Festival in San Francisco’s Ferry Building where I shall learn new and interesting techniques of combating these fearsome invaders (and eating them).

Reading Update

~ Cheryl

Having just uploaded a new “Currently Reading” image, I figured I’d better say a few words about those books I have read but will not be reviewing.

I covered Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox in Emerald City. The second half of the duet, Dreamquake, is now available. These books are YA, and there are parts of them, especially Dreamquake, that are clearly aimed at teenage girls. However, there’s some serious plotting going on too, and towards the end the books turn up to be surprisingly science-fictional. As YA books go, these are decent adult reading.

Guy Gavriel Kay kindly sent me a copy of his new novel, Ysabel. It isn’t out until the new year, but you might want to pre-order it now. I can’t say much without creating spoilers, but I will say that it is a major departure for Kay, being set in modern times, but it still oozes history and long-time Kay fans are going to be very happy.

Moles on Books

~ Cheryl

David Moles has done a fabulous post on classic SF&F books – how they were viewed then, and how they are viewed now. I haven’t read them all, but judging by what he says about the books I have read he’s done very well. (Thanks Jay!)

Beery Goodness

~ Cheryl

Small Beer Press have some great books due out next year, including the new Elizabeth Hand novel, Generation Loss, and John Crowley’s final Aegypt novel, Endless Things. You can pre-order here. Go on, you know you want to. (Thanks Jonathan!)

Eating the World

~ Cheryl

The BBC reports that Second Life has been closed down temporarily due to it being attacked by a worm called Gray Goo. Sadly the worm merely “planted spinning gold rings around the virtual world” rather than eating it wholesale. These virtual vandals have no respect for SF traditions.

Progress

~ Cheryl

The Dell desktop is working again.

The IKEA bed has been delivered.

Emerald City #134 is online.

Hopefully nothing awful is going to happen to compensate for this.