Newspaper of (W)rec(k)ord

 If you're a member of a conrunning organization, you know you're in serious trouble when the Guardian - an internationally known newspaper of record, for crying out loud - starts paying attention to the gigantic mess you've created for yourselves.

 As somebody who's watched the Chengdu Worldcon Hugo Awards debacle unfold with an appropriate sense of increasing horror, one thing I can say about the situation is that any good that was engendered by having a Worldcon in the People's Republic of China has now been canceled out by the backlash among fans (just one example here) towards the way the Hugo Administrator handled (or rather, didn't handle) questions concerning Hugo nominees being ruled ineligible by the Chengdu Hugo Awards committee. The controversy is continuing to explode all over the place, and it's brought up other questions concerning the legal status of the Hugo Awards that are potentially just as threatening (if not more) to the WSFS than the negative publicity caused by the Chengdu controversy. 

As for the Hugo Awards Administrator himself, he's got a serious problem on his hands. I know him personally and have worked with him on more than one local convention. I know that he can get quite salty at times. Big deal - any number of us can, myself included. But his continual response to this situation has been a combination of obfuscation and outright hostility towards anyone asking questions he doesn't particularly like, and he's done it over and over again ad nauseum. At that point, you start wondering exactly what he's trying to prove - or trying to hide. 

The Hugo Administrator in question has dug himself quite a hole, and at the time of this post is continuing to dig it deeper and deeper still. He's done so well at generating negative attention for himself that I've seen commenters compare him to someone far more toxic in terms of the damage he's done to the Hugo Awards. That's not a comparison anyone wants, but there it is.

What he seems to have accomplished is the fannish equivalent of career suicide. I can't imagine him working for any other Worldcons or the WSFS in any capacity. I can barely imagine him working for Chicago-area conventions, for that matter. What he needs to do is either keep a low profile until at least some of the current anger blows over, and if that doesn't work, gafiate.  

To be honest, he doesn't seem to have much in the way of other choices left.

Now reading

 Chronopolis and Other Stories by J.G. Ballard, which is a restart from January 1st. The reason? I've been remiss in my reading habits (the last novel I finished was in July 2019), and real life has been so bizarre and even vicious over the intervening eitght months that I lost the urge to read anything except non-fiction, and usually online. So it was time for a change

On the subject of conventions during a crisis like this

My personal $0.02 on convention cancellations due to the pandemic:

Even if we're exceedingly lucky and this thing eventually burns itself out like the 1918 flu pandemic did, it took that particular disaster roughly two years to be over and done with. Even if it only takes a single year from now because of a variety of factors (including the fact that we have better medical and scientific knowledge and treatment techniques than in 1918-19), that still means that it might not be safe to hold conventions until May 2021. That means that cons running from Anime Central this year until Acen next year won't be able to be held - or held in the same way they used to be.

This also means that local events ranging from Acen through Gen Con, Wizard World, Windycon, Capricon next year and possibly Acen in 2021 might all be washouts. No one can entirely predict how the pandemic will play out by then, but if the Illinois rule holding public events down to 50 people or less continues to be necessary that would completely wipe out all of the aforementioned conventions that are held in Illinois. As for Indiana, their events have to follow state law as well. And large events held outside the area like San Diego Comicon, Dragon*Con and Worldcon would have to follow their respective local law - or just admit that the accompanying liability issues just aren't worth the risk. And, IMO, they're not.

With all of those factors laid out on the table, this much can be said - conventions may have to sit on their budgets until a time they can be held safely. Vendors may have to rely on online or mail-order sales instead. And fans may have to find new ways to network or hold online "conventions" until we get out of this mess. Yes, the situation is bad. Quite bad, as someone who both staffs and attends conventions. But it's still far better than the alternative.

Now reading

Chronopolis: the Science Fiction of J.G. Ballard (UK title Chronopolis and Other Stories) by J.G. Ballard

Now reading

First and Only by Dan Abnett.

Now reading

Pariah: Ravenor vs. Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett.

Now reading

Hereticus by Dan Abnett.

Now reading

Malleus by Dan Abnett.

Now reading

Xenos by Dan Abnett.

Now reading

The Legacies of Betrayal anthology (Graham McNeill, editor) from the simply upbeat Warhammer 40K blokes at Black Library/Games Workshop, who decided to add the phrase "let the galaxy burn" under the main title in case you didn't quite get the point.

In Memoriam: Harlan Ellison, 1934-2018

Harlan could be an incredibly prickly, combative individual - almost to the point of self-parody at times, especially when some of the fights were ones he probably shouldn't have picked - but he was also one of the SF authors who kept my interest in the genre going during my teenage years, and his short fiction (which was almost all of his output, since he wrote only a handful of novels) was easily some of the best I've ever read.

Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 21: The Fifth Season

Hugo winner: The Fifth Season, 2016, by N.K. Jemisin

My take: I had real trouble finding a copy of it around the time the 2016 vote for the Hugos came up, and there's a reason for that. Had a certain unpleasant incident involving the SFWA not happened, TFS might've been considered solely on its considerable literary merits without any outside controversy concerning issues involving racism in professional SF circles. Yes, there's tons of angst. Shitloads of it, in fact. But the angst fully flows from the plot and narrative and isn't ginned up for any easy sympathy with the characters on the business end of the book's events. I'll definitely get around to the two sequels.

Nuggety? Despite the fact there's plenty of action and more than a few nerve-wracking moments this just doesn't fit Torgersen's criteria. There's too much literary sensibility and not enough (or even any) kowtowing to supposedly traditionalist (read: space opera) SF conceits, which essentially means that TFS is far more a book about 21st century sensibilities than even some of the shiniest Bright New Future predictions of golden age SF. And like it or not, that's progress.

In Memoriam: Gardner Dozois, 1947-2018

Dozois was considered was a giant of science fiction just in terms of his editing work, but this further elaborates how much of a giant:

He had a long career as an author and was one of the most influential editors the field has seen, publishing Year’s Best anthologies for more than 35 years, serving as the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction from 1984-2004, and editing or co-editing several original anthologies with Jack Dann, George R.R. Martin, and others.

He served as reprint editor for Clarkesworld Magazine and reviewed short fiction for Locus Magazine. A week before his death, Dozois received the Solstice Award from SFWA.

Dozois began publishing in 1966 when his story “The Empty Man” appeared in If magazine. His first novel, Nightmare Blue, co-written with George Alec Effinger, was published in 1975. In 1977, he took over editing Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year from Lester del Rey and began editing original anthologies with Dann in 1980. In the 1970s, he worked as an assistant on several magazines, including If,Galaxy, and World of Tomorrow. He took over as editor of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine from Shawna McCarthy in 1984.

Although he published less short fiction after taking over the editorial reins of Asimov’s, he did continue to publish new works as well as his own collections. He only published one solo novel, Strangers, but after he resigned from Asimov’s, he published the novel Hunter’s Run, co-written with Martin and Daniel Abraham.

He was the editor Guest of Honor at the Millennium Philcon, the 59th World Science Fiction Convention and in conjunction with his appearance, Old Earth Books published Being Gardner Dozois, a book length interview conducted by Michael Swanwick.

Dozois and co-editor George R.R. Martin received the World Fantasy Award for their anthology Dangerous Women. Dozois and Jonathan Strahan received the Ditmar Award for the anthology The New Space Opera, Dozois won the Readercon Award for his book Slow Dancing Through Time and the Sidewise Award for the short story “Counterfactual.” He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2011 and received the Skylark Award in 2016.

Stupid editing tricks

Someone might want to remind Declan Finn that beating someone senseless because of something insulting they said is still frowned upon by most law enforcement agencies in the US even if you claimed you did it "in self defense". 

As for the rest of the ConCarolinas kerfuffle, if this were really about John Ringo's politics and not his behavior at other conventions (reasons detailed here and here), he'd be just as welcome as, say, Larry Niven or David Weber. More flies with honey than with vinegar, etc.

In Memoriam: Kate Wilhelm, 1928-2018

It seems like all I do these days is post obituaries. This isn't the biggest one I'll post today, but there's no underestimating Wilhelm's influence on the SF community, both in terms of the fiction she produced and her involvement with the Clarion writer's workshops.

In Memoriam: Peter Nicholls, 1939-2018

His Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (co-edited with John Clute) will remain an indispensable guide to the SF-perplexed for decades after his passing; I can remember referring to a copy of it at the library at Northeastern Illinois University when I couldn't even buy a used copy, and the only book that might've caused me to check out the works of more SF authors was Baird Searles and Co.'s A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction, which I still own a badly dog-eared copy of somewhere; it's just that Searles' book comes off as a comparative light introduction while Nicholls' and Clute's comes off as definitive to the point of being obsessive.

Now reading

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.

Dave "Sherlock" Freer, Super Detective

The entire issue of Dave Freer's apparent obsession with the idea that Camestros Felapton is Toby Meadows (another hint that pseudonyms are practically mandatory when dealing with certain types of people online) has been written about more adroitly elsewhere (by Camestros himself, namely here, here and here, and Jim C. Hines, among others), the one thing that caused this to devolve from a almost comical wild goose chase to something repulsive and ugly is the borderline libelous statement that Freer makes (which is quoted in the Hines post) that Foz and Toby Meadows are involved in a relationship "reminiscent... of the situation between MZB and Breen" (i.e.,convicted pedophile Walter Breen and his wife Marion Zimmer Bradley, who was also accused of sexual abuse by her children and several others after her death). This was nothing but a crude, downright despicable personal attack on Meadows and her husband that was made because Freer is apparently so vewy, vewy angwy that he has no problem coming off as Elmer Fudd incarnate in human flesh in terms of emotional self-control.

This would all seem exceptionally pathetic, except that he accused two people he doesn't know personally of being in a relationship that promotes pedophilia. Without a single bit of proof to back that assertion up, of course. And all because one of them had the audacity to disagree with something he wrote. Apparently, Freer thinks that's so much of a crime that it's worth using the rhetorical equivalent of a tactical nuclear warhead to kill a fly. Foz Meadows has responded to this drivel herself, but here's a point I'd like to make:

If anyone can come off as the perfect combination of a paranoid conspiracy theorist and a sadistic turd with a truly fetid imagination, it's someone who turns to defamatory personal attacks when he has no proof for the former but plenty of proof as to the latter. And this, by the way, is over something as trivial and pointless as who the pseudonymous author of a blog devoted to science fiction really is.

If anyone can come up with an example of something as inane as this they've seen online recently, please post it in the comments. I need a cheap laugh. I'm certainly not getting one writing about this.

Now reading

The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny.

In Memoriam: Ursula K. Le Guin, 1929-2017

From the New York Times:

Ms. Le Guin’s fictions range from young-adult adventures to wry philosophical fables. They combine compelling stories, rigorous narrative logic and a lean but lyrical style to draw readers into what she called the “inner lands” of the imagination. Such writing, she believed, could be a moral force.

“If you cannot or will not imagine the results of your actions, there’s no way you can act morally or responsibly,” she told The Guardian in an interview in 2005. “Little kids can’t do it; babies are morally monsters — completely greedy. Their imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy.”

The writer’s “pleasant duty,” she said, is to ply the reader’s imagination with “the best and purest nourishment that it can absorb.”