Fantastika

immanentising the Eschacon at ABC

Amsterdam, fantasy, science fiction
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My local science fiction bookstore is holding its own convention:

Eschacon is a three-day festival from 5 to 7 November with panels, writing workshops and book signings. Featuring several of the most interesting and talented upcoming science-fiction & fantasy authors from around the world, Eschacon is all about World SF and the craft of writing speculative fiction.

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Thursday 5 November

18:30-21:00 Tribute to Chip Book Presentation and World SF panel discussion

Author and editor Bill Campbell will talk about his latest project The Stories For Chip, a tribute to Science Fiction Writers of America Grandmaster Samuel R. “Chip” Delany. Following the presentation is a panel discussion about World SF and diversity in the speculative fiction genre with authors Zen Cho, Corinne Duyvis, Marieke Nijkamp, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and Tade Thompson.

Friday 6 November

14:00-16:00 Speculative Fiction Writing Workshop
A workshop to kickstart your own writing under the guidance of professional author Rochita Roenen-Ruiz.

18:00-19:30 Q&A and booksigning with Zen Cho and Tade Thompson
Join us for an evening around the (imaginary) fireside with authors Zen Cho and Tade Thompson. Zen and Tade will discuss their new books, the art of writing and the business of getting published.

Saturday 7 November

10:00-11:00 Kaffeeklatsch
Getting up early has never been so fun. Enjoy a cup of coffee (or tea) while talking about books, stories and other geek-related subjects with authors Aliette de Bodard, Zen Cho, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Bill Campbell and Tade Thompson.

14:00-15:30 Q&A and booksigning Aliette de Bodard
Author Aliette de Bodard will talk about and read parts from her debut The House Of Shattered Wings.

ABC has been remarkably active in promoting science fiction and fantasy in the past year or so, with various author talks and other events, much of it due to its SFF buyer, Tiemen Zwaan. It has helped galvanise something of an sf scene in Amsterdam, of which is the culmination so far. What I like especially about it is that this going beyond just mere commercial considerations, but that ABC has done its bit to help make SFF more diverse, more plugged into developments outside its traditional heartlands. The line-up for the con reflects that, with people like Aliette de Bodard, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz and Zen Cho.

I hope this becomes a success, because it’s been a while since we’ve had a proper science fiction con in Amsterdam.

Discworld for the Best Novel Hugo?

Fandom, fantasy
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Charlie Stross has an interesting idea:

To clarify, novel series are currently eligible for the Best Hugo Award, as seen by the inclusion of The Wheel of Time last year, though it’s of course arguable whether or not the Discworld series could be seen as a single story under its rules. If not, one could also argue that with the last Tiffany Aching novel having been released, that particular sub-series should be nominated instead.

Should this be done? That’s a harder question to argue. Terry Pratchett himself declined at least one Hugo nomination some years ago and while a nice gesture, he himself is of course not around anymore to see it. Quality wise the Discworld series in parts is as good as anything that ever won a Hugo, while even its worst parts are nowhere near as bad as the worst novels to have won the Hugo. But still, should the Best Novel Hugo go to a sentimental gesture? Or would it be better to just nominate the last Discworld novel ever on its own merits?

I don’t think I would include the series on my ballot, as a) I don’t like the idea of having proper novels compete with series anyway and b) I’d rather see a living author get the recognition. Pterry really doesn’t need a Hugo, even if it is a nice gesture. However, I reserve the right to change my mind if I can’t find five worthy novels to nominate this year.

Get real. Jonathan Jones is just a professional troll

Art & Criticism, fantasy
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It doesn’t matter to me if Jonathan Jones’s latest column is cynical clickbair or literary snobbery. I have never read a single one of his columns and I never plan to. Life’s too short.

It’s only are still lingering collective inferiority complex that makes us want to defend Pratchett against such a dumb and pointless attack, to take his bait. A certain annoyance at seeing him attacked in such a cowardly and dismissive manner of course also plays a role, but in the end what does it matter? Jones can hurt neither Pratchett nor his reputation and ultimately all that happens is that the Grauniad gets a few more clicks on a bank holiday.

The Puppies lost the Hugos. Again.

Fandom, Fantastika, science fiction
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The Hugo Award winners:

  • Best Novel: Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translation by Ken Liu (Tor Books).
  • Best Novella: No Award
  • Best Novellette: “The Day The World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, translation by Lia Belt in Lightspeed Magazine, April 2014
  • Best Short Story: No Award
  • Best Related Work: No Award
  • Best Graphic Story: Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt (Publisher).
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Guardians of the Galaxy written by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman, directed by James Gunn (Marvel Studios, Moving Picture Company)
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Orphan Black “By Means Which Have
    Never Been Tried” written by Graham Manson, directed by John Fawcett [Space/BBC America] (Temple Street Productions)
  • Best Editor, Short Form: No Award
  • Best Editor, Long Form: No Award
  • Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon
  • Best Semiprozine: Lightspeed Magazine, edited by John Joseph Adams, Wendy N. Wagner, Stefan Rudnicki, Rich Horton and Christie Yant
  • Best Fanzine: Journey Planet, edited by James Bacon, Chris Garcia, Alissa McKersie, Colin Harris, and Helen Montgomery
  • Best Fancast: Galactic Suburbia Podcast, Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts (Presenters) and Andrew Finch (Producer)
  • Best Fan Writer: Laura J. Mixon
  • Best Fan Artist: Elizabeth Legget
  • The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: Wesley Chu

Like last year, it has once again been proven that slate nominations can succeed but cannot win the Hugo Awards, yet do poison and disrupt them. We’ve had five No Awards votes previously; this year doubled that as voters rejected slating and the inferior works forced on the ballots that way. But it still meant that deserving people like Eugie Foster, for whom it would’ve been her last shot at a Hugo, were cut from the ballot to make way for assholes and chancers not good enough to get nominated on their own merit.

It also makes for mixed feelings about the first ever win of a Dutch person, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, whose story was …not good… to put it politely and somewhat on the sexist side and who won by default as the only non-Puppy nominee in that category. I wish i could celebrate his victory with a clear conscience and I’m happy for him, but going up against real competition there was no way he could’ve won.

Last year when the results had been made known i was convinced that the Puppies would’ve learned to leave well alone, to have realised that slating could get them nominated but not win the Hugos. This year I know there will be more shit, but fandom is mobilised now. Hopefully this means next years nominations are less of a trainwreck.

UPDATE: looking at the nominations data (PDF) makes clear what a waste the Puppies made of the Hugos. Just scroll through the short story, novelette and novella categories to see what could’ve been. For one thing, they cost Eugie Foster her last possible nomination.

Juniper Time — Kate Wilhelm

books and books review, science fiction
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Cover of Juniper Time


Juniper Time
Kate Wilhelm
296 pages
published in 1979

This got easier to read after the rape, which happened on page 88 but I could see coming from almost the first page. A late seventies science fiction novel, with a female protagonist and a near future setting in which America is suffering a long term hypertrophied economic depression, in a stalemate with the Russians and sliding off to an autocracy (aka standard seventies dystopia #1)? Yeah, there’s going to be a rape. It’s depressingly predictable and while it’s not the worst sort of plot motivating rape I’ve ever read and you could even argue that this time it’s truly essential to the plot, it’s still disappointing to see it used. But once it was out of the way it was much easier to enjoy what is otherwise an extremely interesting novel.

Juniper Time is a novel I first read sometime in the eighties, in Dutch translation, because of the recommendation in an old issue of the Holland SF fanzine. I remember liking it well enough at the time, but also that after I’d discovered cyberpunk, it struck me as the poster child of everything in science fiction the cyberpunks revolted against, as per Bruce Sterling’s introductions to Burning Chrome and Mirror Shades. It’s a political novel, a feminist novel that’s more focused on Earthbound matters than the conquest of space, slow moving and presenting a world that’s Disco Era America writ large, depressed, crime ridden and worn out. I can well understand how dated it superficially must’ve looked after Neuromancer came out. Thirtyfive years on, cyberpunk is just as dated, the glamour has worn off and it’s easier to see Juniper Time‘s strengths.

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