Attack
of the deadline monster!
Things will be sporadic to nonexistent around these parts for the rest of the week.
Oh, and my literary pen name is: Karen B. Rabbit. Eh.
Sunday Hangovers
- I’d read John Crowley’s dream journal in a hot minute: "Northrop Frye says that one of the components of what he calls romance (along with dark journeys to underworlds, brothers and sisters parted in youth, and pirates, is talking animals, and intense human/animal relations. Dreams are fiction, or the reverse, or both."
- We’re in the market for a writing-and-nothing-else portable tippety-typer:
Dana or Quickpad? (Or another option I don’t know about?)We went with the Neo. - In which Pinky represents the rise of the machines. I’m betting on her for the win.
- Japanese crepe paper fairy tales.
- Jeff’s new design = excellent.
- Mr. McLaren on the unfair world of midlist authors taking on pseudonyms in order to keep publishing, and the difficulties of keeping track of who’s writing as who: "However, when authors are forced by the midlist computer-ordering death spiral to take on a pseudonym to keep writing in their chosen genre, that annoys me. It annoys me because it shouldn’t happen, and the fact that it does is the publishing industry putting a patch on a serious problem."
- Men who explain things. In science fiction, we consider this a primary pick-up strategy. (Are you hitting on me or just sharing a factoid about aardvarks in space?)
- Maud has a nice assembly of writing quotes.
- Erin on marketing and fiction: "At any rate…whether you get a bigass check from a luxury car company or not, marketability is interesting to think about from a fiction perspective. Would this story go better with Buddig ham? IKEA furniture? Pabst Blue Ribbon? A Volkswagen? Depends undergarments?" Funny, but I don’t remember anyone being upset when BMW financed those short films by major directors. I’m just surprised that Lexus thinks this will be an effective strategy.
A New Hope!
An excellent crop of Nebula winners:
Novel: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
Novella: "Fountain of Age" by Nancy Kress
Novelette: "The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate" by Ted Chiang
Short Story: "Always" by Karen Joy Fowler
Script: Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro
Andre Norton Award: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
Via Locus.
AND the election results are likewise promising.
Just Say No
The thing that really strikes me about Open Source Boob Gate* is its echoes with the previous discussions about the SF community’s groping problem. What a tin-eared approach to any kind of empowerment, given the history (and ignoring the fact that the whole thing was fraught with idiocy from the get go).
The LAST thing we need in science fiction is more groping. PERIOD.
(Sorry to have been MIA, but there’s a lot going on and I didn’t even realize this was happening until a day or so ago. And I think that’s pretty much all I have to say.)
*Good list of links at the end of this post.
Linkzilla
Back, busy, etc. A couple of links for now…
Roger Sutton is funny when he’s cranky:
I just picked up Katherine Applegate’s Beach Blondes: A Summer Novel (Simon Pulse) and boy are my arms tired. This sucker is 721 paperback pages long, and first in a series to boot. I’m guessing it’s so fat for some strategic marketing reason, or perhaps I just haven’t yet gotten to the chapter "This Is Summer Speaking," in which the heroine stops the motor of the world in order to expound for fifty-seven pages on the virtues of Vera Bradley bags.
Seriously, what is it with the Vera Bradley thing? I don’t get it.
And Ben Rosenbaum* waxes smart on schedulizing:
One thing related to that: there are many sub-agencies in my consciousness. Some want to lie on the couch. Some want to write fiction for the fun of it, others in order to be praised. Some want to go hang out with friends. Others want to be left the fsck alone. My task, I have found, is not to impose the will of the more "good, productive, noble" ones on the slacker ones, but rather to broker a compromise so that they are not constantly sabotaging each other. I find this actually increases even traditionally-measured productivity. If I try to only ever write, I find myself cheating on writing time in order to read and play. If I make it my goal to have time to write, to read, and to play, the agencies tend to respect each other much more.
Well said.
*Whose forthcoming collection is hotly anticipated–is this the year of the awesome short story collection or what**?
**Plus, Maureen’s awesome-tastic collection Mothers and Other Monsters is now available for download!
Calling All Aspies (And Family Members)
Christopher is trying to finish an end of the semester project for his Linguistics class, looking at the speaking traits of people with Asperger’s Syndrome. He has designed a quick, handy online survey and needs responses from folks with an AS diagnosis OR who live with someone with AS and are familiar with their conversational style.
Anonymous, of course, and you will earn both our undying gratitude — anonymously — for filling it out. Please pass on to anyone you know who fits the bill.
Calling All Aspies (And Family Members) Read More »
Monday Hangovers
- Annalee Newitz offers an insightful review of Karen Joy Fowler’s Wit’s End at io9: "Karen Joy Fowler’s unsettling, wistful new novel Wit’s End offers us a present-day world that is science fictional in the same way William Gibson’s recent present-day novels are: Her characters’ lives are so deeply bound up with technology that it’s hard to tell where human connection ends and internet connectivity begins." See also: Reuters q&a.
- CSI as science fiction. (Via Jenny D.)
- An excellent review of Sarah Hall’s The Carhullan Army/Daughters of the North. (Via Niall.)
- Fall in: The Fraenkel Gallery. (Via Sara Ryan.)
- Liz Hand on Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teeth in the WashPost.
- Midori has some good links about Ursula Le Guin’s Lavinia.
- Travel books without the travel?
- Evil Monkey’s Guide to Kosher Imaginary Animals.
Dr. Nice
In all the crazy of last week, I missed publication day for John Kessel‘s new collection, The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories.
John is one of my very favorite writers–his novel Corrupting Dr. Nice
(first chapter here) is on my all-time top five. He’s also one of my very favorite people in the world; he was part of the small coterie that attended my and C’s nuptials, and I keep a polaroid of me, Karen, Kelly, and Barb posing next to a toga-clad John* at Wiscon 2004 on the filing cabinet next to my desk. In fact, something that still makes me insanely happy is this little snippet of "It’s All True," which you can read in the collection:
The wall of my apartment faded into a vision of Gwenda, my PDA. I had Gwenda programmed to look like Louise Brooks. "You’ve got a call from Vannicom, Ltd.," she said. "Rosethrush Vannice wants to speak with you."
My Mac is named Lulu.
Anyway, all this by way of saying that you need a copy of John’s book. Stat. And Small Beer is even offering it for free download. I guarantee you’ll end up wanting to own your own copy**.
*It’s not every writer who would wear a toga to promote someone else’s book launch!
**Some of the content has even been the center of a bona fide censorship controversy!
Elsewhere!
Over at Amazon’s Omnivoracious, the indefatigable Jeff VanderMeer has kindly posted a recent interview he did with me about YA books I love–oldish, newer, and forthcoming.
As you may have noticed, I’m a bit MIA this week. We’re busy and also dealing with family illness and the like, so that may be the case for a few more days. Back with posts about recent fabulous reads soon, though. Have a good weekend, everybody. I leave you with a link to a truly stupendous fan art gallery (Snape! House! Spock! Elvis!), courtesy of RLB.
Tiptree’d
Needless to say, I am VERY happy with the work we jurors did this year. Go us!
PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION – 2008.04.14
JAMES TIPTREE JR. AWARD WINNER ANNOUNCED
A gender-exploring science fiction award is presented to Sarah Hall for The Carhullan Army (Daughters of the North)
The James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council is pleased to announce that the winner of the 2007 Tiptree Award is The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall (published in the United States as Daughters of the North). The British edition was published in 2007 by Faber & Faber; the American edition in 2008 by HarperCollins.
The Tiptree Award will be celebrated on May 25, 2008 at WisCon (www.wiscon.info) in Madison, Wisconsin. The winner of the Tiptree Award receives $1000 in prize money, an original artwork created specifically for the winning novel or story, and (as always) chocolate.
Each year, a panel of five jurors selects the Tiptree Award winners and compiles an Honor List of other works that they find interesting, relevant to the award, and worthy of note. The 2007 jurors were Charlie Anders, Gwenda Bond (chair), Meghan McCarron, Geoff Ryman, and Sheree Renee Thomas.
The Carhullan Army elicited strong praise from the jurors. Gwenda Bond said, “Hall does so many things well in this book – writing female aggression in a believable way, dealing with real bodies in a way that makes sense, and getting right to the heart of the contradictions that violence brings out in people, but particularly in women in ways we still don’t see explored that often. I found the writing entrancing and exactly what it needed to be for the story; lean, but well-turned.” Geoff Ryman said, “It faces up to our current grim future (something too few SF novels have done) and seems to go harder and darker into war, violence, and revolution.” Meghan McCarron said, “I found the book to be subtle and ambiguous in terms of its portrayal of the Army, and its utopia….The book became, ultimately, an examination of what it means to attain physical, violent power as defined by a male-dominated world. And it asserted that it could be claimed by anyone, regardless of physical sex, provided they were willing to pay the price.”
The book, which is Hall’s third novel, also won the 2007 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best work of literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama) from Britain or the Commonwealth written by an author of 35 or under.
The Tiptree Award Honor List is a strong part of the award’s identity and is used by many readers as a recommended reading list for the rest of the year. The 2007 Honor List is:
- "Dangerous Space" by Kelley Eskridge, in the author’s collection Dangerous Space (Aqueduct Press, 2007)
- Water Logic by Laurie Marks (Small Beer Press, 2007)
- Empress of Mijak and The Riven Kingdom by Karen Miller (HarperCollins, Australia, 2007)
- The Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (Hyperion, 2007)
- Interfictions, edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss (Interstitial Arts Foundation/Small Beer Press, 2007)
- Glasshouse by Charles Stross (Ace, 2006)
- The Margarets by Sheri S. Tepper (Harper Collins 2007)
- Y: The Last Man, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Pia Guerra (available in 60 issues or 10 volumes from DC/Vertigo Comics, 2002-2008)
- Flora Segunda by Ysabeau Wilce (Harcourt, 2007)
The James Tiptree Jr. Award is presented annually to a work or works that explore and expand gender roles in science fiction and fantasy. The award seeks out work that is thought-provoking, imaginative, and perhaps even infuriating. The Tiptree Award is intended to reward those women and men who are bold enough to contemplate shifts and changes in gender roles, a fundamental aspect of any society.
The James Tiptree Jr. Award was created in 1991 to honor Alice Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. By her choice of a masculine pen name, Sheldon helped break down the imaginary barrier between “women’s writing” and “men’s writing.” Her insightful short stories were notable for their thoughtful examination of the roles of men and women in our society.
Since its inception, the Tiptree Award has been an award with an attitude. As a political statement, as a means of involving people at the grassroots level, as an excuse to eat cookies, and as an attempt to strike the proper ironic note, the award has been financed through bake sales held at science fiction conventions across the United States, as well as in England and Australia. Fundraising efforts have included auctions conducted by stand-up comic and award-winning writer Ellen Klages, the sale of t-shirts and aprons created by collage artist and silk screener Freddie Baer, and the publication of four anthologies of award winners and honor-listed stories. Three of the anthologies are in print and available from Tachyon Publications (www.tachyonpublications.com). The award has also published two cookbooks featuring recipes and anecdotes by science fiction writers and fans, available through www.tiptree.org.
In addition to presenting the Tiptree Award annually, the James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council occasionally presents the Fairy Godmother Award, a special award in honor of Angela Carter. Described as a “mini, mini, mini, mini MacArthur award,” the Fairy Godmother Award strikes without warning, providing a financial boost to a deserving writer in need of assistance to continue creating material that matches the goals of the Tiptree Award.
Reading for the 2008 Tiptree Award will soon begin, with jurors K. Tempest Bradford, Gavin Grant (chair), Leslie Howle, Roz Kaveney, and Catherynne M. Valente. As always, the Tiptree Award invites all to recommend works for the award. Please submit recommendations via the Tiptree Award website at www.tiptree.org.
For more information, visit the Tiptree Award website at www.tiptree.org.