Ansible 334, May 2015
From David Langford, 94 London Road, Reading, Berks, RG1 5AU, UK. Website news.ansible.uk. ISSN 0265-9816 (print); 1740-942X (e). Logo: Dan Steffan. Cartoon: Brad W. Foster. Available for SAE, 5 eggs, dangerous flags or a Cephalotron.
Dysprosium & Puppygate. The 2015 Eastercon at the Park Inn, Heathrow, was a lot of fun: I'm not much of a programme-goer these days but among other things appreciated the newsletter (Plokta team), real ale/cider bar (wrangled by Martin Hoare) and Hugo Horrors panel. The last discussed the Hugo shortlist, which as heavily foreshadowed had been successfully gamed by slate votes organized by groups calling themselves Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies. This is made possible by the huge spread of Hugo preferences: a relatively small percentage of voters following a party-line slate covering all five available slots in each category can swamp the usual unorganized vote. SP/RP candidates duly filled the entire initial ballot for Related Work, Short Story, Novelette and Novella, with just two non-slate options for Best Novel – at least one freed by a declined slate nomination. Two slate choices were then removed as ineligible; two more unprecedentedly withdrew after the shortlist announcement, Marko Kloos (novel) and Annie Bellet (short); later withdrawals, too late to affect the printed ballot, were Black Gate (fanzine) and Edmund R. Schubert of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (editor, short form). Novel finalists are now Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie, The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson, The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette), Skin Game by Jim Butcher and The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin, trans Ken Liu. Anderson and Butcher were slate choices; Cixin just missed nomination and moved up when Kloos withdrew. The online indignation level has been high since Easter. George R.R. Martin himself took time off writing for several long, sane blog posts on 'Puppygate'. I mostly burnt out on listing links at news.ansible.uk/misc/link15.html#hugonoms, but continue to link to Mike Glyer's heroic File 770 coverage. Since I consider slate voting a thoroughly bad thing, I expect to make judicious – though not indiscriminate – use of the No Award option on the final Hugo ballot. Meanwhile, all sympathy to John Lorentz's hard-pressed Sasquan Hugo committee; to Kevin Standlee and others who'll be running a perhaps overcrowded and fraught Worldcon business meeting at which anti-slate rules changes will be proposed; and to slate nominees who were unaware either that they'd been included or that this placed them in an exposed position on a new battlefield of the US culture wars.
The Puppies of Terra
Ramsey Campbell will receive an honorary fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University in July 'for his outstanding contribution to literature'. (news.cision.com announcement, 16 April)
Malcolm Edwards is to step down as Orion's deputy CEO and publisher at the end of the year, becoming chair of Gollancz and consultant publisher for Orion; he's glad to have found this 'way of stepping off the management roundabout.' (Bookseller, 29 April) [AIP]
H.R. Giger's name has been bestowed on a carnivorous Nepenthes pitcher-plant hybrid of 'nightmarish appearance' which in close-up looks like 'a frightening alien landscape'. (Telegraph, 10 April) [MPJ]
Jeet Heer on how the Hugos used to be: 'The nomination process works on the wisdom of crowds, which the final vote winnows to a winner. Slate voting undermines.' (Twitter, 18 April)
K.J. Parker, after much speculation (and a period of disinformation when this uncomic fantasy author was said to be female), has been revealed as the pseudonym of Tom Holt. (Pornokitsch, 21 April)
Lavie Tidhar summed up a great deal with his Hugo shortlist tweet: 'Truly it's an honour just to not be nominated.' (6 April)
Concepts
Click here for longlist with links • London • Overseas
6 May • Arthur C. Clarke Award presentation, Foyles, 107 Charing Cross Road, London. See clarkeaward.com and 'Awards' below. Tickets £12.50: www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Events/Detail.aspx?eventId=2521.
6 May • Telefantasy and Society (symposium), University of Lincoln, from 9am. £45 reg; students £25. See tinyurl.com/njbbw4z.
7 May • London First Thursday pub meeting. Upstairs bar, The Castle, 34-35 Cowcross St, London, EC1M 6DB, from 6pm – a temporary move while the Melton Mowbray is being refurbished in May and June.
8-10 May • Fantastiq (genre film festival), QUAD art centre, Market Place, Derby, DE22 3PN. £50 reg. See fantastiq.co.uk.
9 May • BFS/BSFA Pubmeet, Brigantes Bar, 114 Micklegate, York. 4:30pm on. Free. With K.T. Davies, Mark Morris readings/Q&A.
13 May • In Conversation: Penelope Lively and Philip Pullman, Waterstones Piccadilly. 6:30-8:30pm. £20 online or £22 offline; £15/£17 for Society of Authors members. See tinyurl.com/qgma7ja.
13 May • Third Annual Tolkien Lecture, Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College, Oxford. With Lev Grossman. 6:30pm. Free, but you are asked to sign up in advance: see tinyurl.com/k6zxeyr.
17 May • Paul 'Gamma' Gamble wake, The Enterprise, 2 Haverstock Hill, London, NW3 2BL. 6-11pm. All friends of Gamma welcome.
24 May • Triffid Alley, named in honour of John Wyndham
(see A333):
unveiling 11:30am-12:15pm. Gather 11:30am at the drinking fountain,
South End Green, London, NW3 2DG. Then: '... speeches; walk over to the
Alley to unveil the plaque; maybe a band or costumes.'
27 May • BSFA Open Meeting, Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8ND. 5/6pm for 7pm. With Edward James. Free.
28 May - 6 Jun • Sci-Fi-London (genre film festival), London, various venues. See www.sci-fi-london.com/festival.
30 May • Conan Doyle Con, City Tavern, 38 Bishopsgate Street, Birmingham, B15 1EJ. Noon-8:30pm. £15. See tinyurl.com/pzwmpl7.
30 May • Wonderlands: The U.K. Graphic Novel Expo, Cityspace, Chester Road, Sunderland, SR1 3SD. Free entry to Publishers' Hall and all panels and talks. See www.wonderlands.org.uk for more.
4 Jun • London First Thursday at The Castle: see 7 May above.
4 Jun • Sci-Fi and the Future (Cheltenham Festival sf panel), Winton Crucible, Cheltenham. 8-9pm. £10. See tinyurl.com/nbeb3l3.
5 Jun • BFS Open Night, The Blacksmith & Toffeemaker pub, 292-294 Saint John St, London, EC1V 4PA. 7pm-11pm. Free; all welcome.
26 Sep • BristolCon, Doubletree Hotel, Bristol. Now £25 reg; £30 at the door. Cheques to 18 High Leaze Road, Patchway, Bristol BS34 5AF. See also www.bristolcon.org.
26 Sep • TitanCon, Wellington Park Hotel, Belfast. £25 reg; £5 supporting. See titancon.com.
16 Oct • Gollancz Festival, Waterstones Deansgate, Manchester. 6pm-9pm. Also online activity all day. More TBA at gollanczfest.com.
17 Oct • Gollancz Festival, Waterstones Piccadilly, London. 2pm-5pm. Also online activity all day. Again, more TBA at gollanczfest.com.
23-25 Oct • Fantasycon, East Midlands Conference Centre & Orchard Hotel, Nottingham. GoH (so far) John Connolly, Jo Fletcher, Brandon Sanderson. £65 reg; couples £110; under-16s £30; under-5s free. Rates rise 1 July. See fantasycon2015.org.
25-28 Mar 2016 • Mancunicon (Eastercon), Manchester. GoH Aliette de Bodard, David L. Clements, Ian McDonald, Sarah Pinborough. £60 reg; 13-17s £45; 4-12s £30; under-4s free. See mancunicon.org.uk.
28-29 May 2016 • Satellite 5, Marriott Hotel, Glasgow. Now £55 reg; 12-17s £20; 5-11s £5; under-5s £2. Rates good to 18 November. Membership forms and online registration at satellite5.org.uk.
14-17 Apr 2017 • Pasgon (Eastercon), Cardiff. GoH Jo Walton, Lyn Evans, David 'DC' Carlile, Judith Clute. See www.pasgon.org.uk.
Rumblings. 2017 Worldcon Site Selection is open, with contenders Helsinki, Montréal, Nippon and Washington DC. Ballots, though not as yet online payment, at sasquan.org/site-selection/. • Hugo Voting (member number and PIN required): sasquan.org/hugo-awards/voting/.
Infinitely Improbable
As Others See Us. 'If you haven't seen any of Game of Thrones so far, you might be wondering if it's worth ploughing through 40 hours of fantasy hokum to get you up to speed. It certainly looks, at first glance, like a load of old nonsense comprising bare breasts, fighting, dragons and not much else.' (Charlotte Runcie, Telegraph, 12 April) [MPJ] But after this cunning narrative hook, the article becomes a rave review.
Awards.
A. Bertram Chandler (Australia; life achievement): Donna Maree
Hanson.
• Arthur C. Clarke shortlist: M.R. Carey, The Girl
with All the Gifts; Michel Faber, The Book of Strange New Things;
Dave Hutchinson, Europe in Autumn; Emmi Itäranta, Memory
of Water; Claire North, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August;
Emily St John Mandel, Station Eleven.
• BSFA: NOVEL Ann Leckie, Ancillary
Sword. SHORT Ruth E J Booth, 'The Honey Trap' (La
Femme). NONFICTION Edward James, SF and Fantasy
Writers and the First World War (fantastic-writers-and-the-great-war.com).
ARTWORK Tessa Farmer, The Wasp Factory
(sculpture).
• Ditmar (Australia) novel category, a tie: Glenda Larke,
The Lascar's Dagger; Trudi Canavan, Thief's Magic.
• Doc Weir: Martin Hoare.
• Edgars (mystery) novel winner: Stephen King, Mr.
Mercedes.
• ESFS Hall of Fame: AUTHOR China Miéville;
ARTIST Manchu (France); MAGAZINE Fantastica
Almanac (Bulgaria); PUBLISHER Gollancz; PROMOTER
Mihaela Marija Perković (Croatia); TRANSLATOR
Ekaterina Dobrohotova-Majkova (Russia).
• James Herbert (horror; (inaugural award): Craig Davidson
as Nick Cutter, The Troop.
• James Tiptree Jr for gender-bending fiction (tie):
Monica Byrne, The Girl in the Road; Jo Walton, My Real
Children.
• Norma K Hemming (Australia; sf race, gender, sexuality,
class and disability): Paddy O'Reilly, The Wonders.
• Philip K. Dick: Meg Elison, The Book of the Unnamed
Midwife.
• Prometheus (libertarian) shortlist: Liu Cixin, The
Three-Body Problem (trans Ken Liu); Terry Pratchett, Raising
Steam; Marcus Sakey, A Better World; Daniel Suarez, Influx.
Hall of Fame: Harlan Ellison, '"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the
Ticktockman' (December 1965 Galaxy).
• Pulitzer Prize: the shortlist of five includes Jordan
Harrison's sf play Marjorie Prime. [AIP]
• Solstice (SFWA life achievement award): Joanna Russ,
Stanley Schmidt.
The
Wildest Link. Bradley Walsh: 'Who was famously
imprisoned in cell C33 in Reading Gaol?' Contestant: 'Nelson
Mandela.' (ITV, The Chase) [PE]
• Bradley Walsh again: 'The fictional land of Fantippo
features in books about which doctor?' Beth Tweddle, excusably:
'Who.' (ITV, The Chase: Celebrity Special, 5 April) [MPJ]
R.I.P.
Patrick H Adkins 1948-2015) US author, editor, publisher and fan
who wrote the Titan mythological fantasy trilogy (1997-1990) and the
sf/horror The Third Beast (2000), died on 7 April aged 67. [GHL]
• Karl Alexander (1944-2015), US film worker and author
whose novel Time after Time (1979) appeared in the same year as
the film based on his story, reportedly died in late March at age 70.
[SFS]
• James Best (1926-2015), US character actor seen in many
sf productions from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953); Riders
to the Stars (1954); Forbidden Planet (1956) and The
Killer Shrews (1959) to Return of the Killer Shrews (2012),
died on 6 April aged 88. [SG]
• Claire Gordon (1941-2015), UK actress seen in Konga
(1961; aka I Was a Teenage Gorilla), died on 13 April aged 74.
[MPJ]
• Günter Grass (1927-2015), Danzig-born German author
who received the Nobel Prize in 1999, died on 13 April aged 87.
Fantastic elements appear in some of his novels, in particular the
famous The Tin Drum (1959; filmed 1979) and the animal fantasies
The Flounder (1977) and The Rat (1986).
• Andrew Lesnie (1956-2015), Australian cinematographer
whose films include Babe (1995), the Lord of the Rings
trilogy (2001-2003), King Kong (2005), The Last
Airbender (2010), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and
the Hobbit trilogy (2011-2014), died on 27 April; he was 59.
[MPJ]
• Miroslav Ondricek (1934-2015), Czech cinematographer who
filmed Slaughterhouse-Five (1972), died on 28 March aged 80.
[MPJ]
• Rex Robinson (1926-2015), UK actor seen in three Doctor
Who serials (The Three Doctors, 1973; The Monster of
Peladon, 1974; The Hand of Fear, 1975) and Superman IV:
The Quest for Peace (1987), died in April; he was 89. [SFS]
• Herb Trimpe (1939-2015) US comics artist who during his
long stint at Marvel drew The Incredible Hulk from 1968 to 1975
and co-created Wolverine, died on 13 April aged 75. [PDF]
• Art Widner (1917-2015), long-time US fan who was a 1940
founder member of Boston's first SF group The Stranger Club and
published over 160 fanzines, died on 17 April; he was 97. [AR/AIP] The
Stranger Club, including Art, was collective Fan Guest of Honour at the
1989 Boston Worldcon. Other honours included the 1989 Big Heart Award, a
1991 DUFF win and entrance to the First Fandom Hall of Fame. He was
widely loved and will be very much missed.
Magazine Scene. Neil Clarke reported the most popular story titles from the Clarkesworld slushpile (50,000+ submissions to date). Top of the list was 'Dust' (18 stories); then 'The Gift', 'Home', 'Hunger', and 'Homecoming' (all 16); 'The Box' (15); 'Monsters' (14); 'Lost and Found' (13).... (neil-clarke.com, 9 April) Now I need to think up a new title for my current work in progress, 'A Homecoming Gift of Lost and Found Hunger-Monsters in a Box of Dust'.
We Are Everywhere. Madeleine L'Engle was big news in The Wall Street Journal when her granddaughter found three pages cut from the draft of A Wrinkle in Time (1962). 'The excerpt is the most direct discussion of politics in her writing, the scholars said, offering a richer explanation of the author's political views. / They agreed [...] that cutting it was the right decision, one which strengthened the narrative. The section was too didactic, and would have dated the book, some said.' (Galleycat, 21 April) [PB] Will there soon be an Uncut Edition?
Random
Fandom. Fancy That: At the St Petersburg Eurocon in
April, the programme book listed all the Russian nominations for ESFS
awards but none from any other country.
• Hugo Finalists for Best Fan Artist (the one and only
unPuppied category): Ninni Aalto, Brad W. Foster, Elizabeth Leggett,
Spring Schoenhuth, Steve Stiles.
Outraged
Letters. David Redd on Terry Pratchett: 'In Charles
Platt's front room, 1965, I heard Terry observe sadly that he didn't
want to be known as "the thirteen-year-old author" all his
life. Well, I think he cracked that one. RIP.'
• Andrew Stephenson misses nothing: 'During a recent (in
UK) episode of TV's CSI, a dead man is revealed as having worked
for accountants "Baker, Smith, Capaldi".'
The
Dead Past. 50 Years Ago, Hugo controversy was not
unknown: 'The London Worldcon Committee, which originally followed the
lead of last year's Pacificon in dropping the drama award, have bowed
before the general feeling prevalent in fandom and have heeded what has
been a significant number of write-in nominations regarding this
category. The Committee is undoubtedly to be congratulated, not only
upon the reversal of its original decision, but upon the admirable
manner in which it has conducted itself in the entire matter.' (Skyrack
79, May 1965) The reinstated Dramatic Presentation Hugo had just
two nominees, The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao and Dr. Strangelove
(which won).
• 30 Years Ago there was a backlash in favour of good
old-fashioned sf: '"Do You Remember when humans were
heroes, androids didn't have social hang-ups and the only good alien was
a dead one?" Thus the flyer for Hamlyn's VENTURE SF
line, edited by Andromeda Bookshop stalwarts Rog Peyton and Rod Milner.'
(Ansible 43,
May/June 1985)
• 20 Years Ago, Stephen Baxter had a narrow escape: 'I've
come to an agreement with the H.G. Wells estate over approval for my
Time Machine sequel The Time Ships. The estate approved
publication in return for a modest share of the proceeds, and so the
huge pulping machines have been turned back from HarperCollins's Glasgow
warehouse.' (Ansible
94, May 1995)
• Hugos: 'Meanwhile, spies inform me that Shoemaker-Levy 9 was not
ruled ineligible for Best Dramatic Presentation but merely failed to get
enough votes.' (Ibid)
Fanfundery.
TAFF: the 2015 European
winner of the TransAtlantic Fan Fund is Nina Horvath, with 48
first-round votes to Wolf von Witting's 40 (Hold Over Funds 1; No
Preference 18). Nina will attend Sasquan, the Spokane Worldcon.
• DUFF: there will be no 2015 race. Julian Warner and
Justin Ackroyd are assisting Australasian administrator Bill Wright with
the Down Under Fan Fund. Lucy Huntzinger is now acting as North American
DUFF administrator, since the most recent NA winner Juanita Coulson is
unable to handle the work.
Media
Muchness. BAFTA TV Craft: special visual/graphic
effects, Doctor Who (BBC); original music, production design and
make-up & hair, Penny Dreadful (Sky Atlantic).
• Empire Film Awards: best film was Interstellar,
with Christopher Nolan as best director. Other winners included Game
of Thrones ('Hero'), Paddington (comedy), The Babadook
(horror) and X-Men: Days Of Future Past (sf/fantasy). [MPJ]
Thog's
Masterclass. Missing Link Dept. 'He was wearing a grey
cap, grey jacket, white shirt, navy-blue striped tie and white socks,
which he'd pulled up almost to his pink kneecaps.' (Claire North, The
First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, 2014) [AS]
• Dept of Fractal Physics. 'The fact is that such [black]
holes can be very small, as small as the size of their constituent
particles ...' (David A. Kyle, Lensman from Rigel, 1982) [BA]
• Hothead Dept. 'The human's brain began to function once
more; he could almost feel it sweating.' (Poul Anderson and Gordon R.
Dickson, 'In Hoka Signo Vinces', June 1953 Other Worlds) [CG]
• Dept of Interplanetary Phrenology. 'I was somewhat
startled, then, in looking at the head and center of the great military
system of Mars, to find in his appearance a striking confirmation of the
speculations of our terrestrial phrenologists. His broad, misshapen head
bulged in those parts where they had located the so-called organs of
combativeness, destructiveness, etc.' (Garrett P. Serviss, Edison's
Conquest of Mars, 1898) [JN]
• Running Off at the Mouth Dept. 'Dolusi let a smile drip
toward the scientist.' (Curtis W. Casewit, The Peacemakers,
1960) [CG]
Geeks' Corner
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Endnotes
Apparitions.
• 8 May 2015, Iain Grant talks to the Brum Group, Briar Rose
Hotel, Bennett's Hill, Birmingham city centre. 7:30pm for 8pm; £4
or £3 for members. Contact bhamsfgroup at yahoo co uk or rog dot
peyton at btinternet dot com. Future meetings: 12 June 2015, Stephanie
Saulter; 10 July 2015, TBA; 14 August 2015, Summer Meal; 11 September
2015, TBA; 9 October 2015, TBA; 6 November 2015, Emma Newman; 4 December
2015, Xmas Social.
PayPal
Tip Jar Thingy. Support Ansible, cover website costs
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http://ansible.uk/paypal.html
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Editorial.
I've been somewhat distracted from the noble labour of converting the
Langford backlist into ebook form. Almost ready for release are the
retrospective collection Different Kinds of Darkness (2004, now
expanded) [and now available!]
and my 1980 TAFF trip report The TransAtlantic Hearing Aid
(1985) – the latter with much help from Rob Jackson, who thirty
years later still has all the original artwork from the print edition.
More soon at:
http://ae.ansible.uk/ebooks.php
Still
More Awards. Links to ESFS Awards in full; Goldie
Awards (lesbian) shortlist – see genre categories; the final
Hugo shortlist.
http://esfs.info/esfs-awards/
http://www.goldencrown.org/2015_Finalists
http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2015-hugo-awards/
Ansible 334 Copyright © David Langford, 2015. Thanks to Brian Ameringen, Paul Barnett, Paul Di Filippo, Carl Glover, Steve Green, Martyn P. Jackson, Guy H. Lillian, James Nicoll, Andrew I. Porter, Private Eye, Alan Rosenthal, Andy Sawyer, SF Site, and our Hero Distributors: Dave Corby (Brum Group), SCIS/Prophecy, Alan Stewart (Australia). 1 May 2015.