Discussion Dept Vol. 1: Heinlein, Vietnam Drinking Games, Sony, and Stupid Arguments About SF
Every once in a while I feel like complaining about a few things instead of engaging the issues in a more sustained manner. Usually I don’t blog about such complaints (which sometimes aren’t complaints so much as confusions or general “mehness”). And that’s why I’ve created the Complaint Department Discussion Department feature: to give me a little space to complain or babble about a few things without sustained thought (or to point out stupid things people say and do in the SF/F community). Here goes: Complaint #1 — Connie Willis and the Heinlein Award She won it. Alright. That’s fine. I haven’t read most of her work (though Jason Sanford tells me her latest novels aren’t very good). But then you read the mission statement of the Heinlein Award and the red flags go up: “For outstanding published works of science fiction and technical writings to inspire the human exploration of space.” I’m sorry? What do Blackout or All Clear have to do with that? Nothing, you say? Then why did she win this particular award? That’s like giving a major league baseball player an award for MVP in the Superbowl. He might be a great athlete, but the award is way outside his field. Does anyone have any insight on this? Did Willis write a short story set in space that changed the SF game or something? Complaint #2 — The SF Writer Vietnam Drinking Game Here’s how it works: Name as many science fiction or fantasy writers from before the 1980s in two minutes. Compare your list to the image provided below. For every person you named who is on the left, take a shot. For every person on the right that you should have named, take a shot. For every person on the left whose presence you are shocked by, take a shot. You see where this is going, right? Drink yourself into such a terrible stupor that the below image is wiped from your mind forever… Complaint #3 — Sony to Ban Users Who Refuse to Waive Right to Sue Because no corporation is immune to acting like a total and utter dickhole, Sony is apparently making it a requirement to waive your right to sue them if there is a security breach. If you don’t sign the new ToS? You get banned. That’s right: you will not be allowed to use their system unless you agree not to sue them in the event that your credit card and other sensitive information are acquired because their security system wasn’t good enough to fend off hackers. Who wants to bet that in a few years they’ll stop putting so much money into security? Thanks, Sony. You’ve just lost a customer for life. (Note: The new ToS does allow you to go through arbitration, but this is done via an arbitrator selected by Sony. How many red flags does someone in HR need at Sony to realize this is a really dickhole idea?) Complaint #4 — Science Fiction is About the Future You know, that stupid argument that people make about SF that completely handicaps the genre by claiming it is about something it can’t fulfill, no matter how good the writer may be. I’ve babbled about this topic before. In two parts. I don’t deny that a lot of the classic SF authors (and perhaps most of them today) believed they were predicting the fortune by writing SF, but using that as a basis for saying that the genre is about extrapolation (as opposed to saying extrapolation is sometimes a part of the form) is sort of like saying you buy your friend’s argument when he says “I only eat apples” while munching on an orange. SF is always about the present (with rare exception — and, as we know, exceptions prove the rule). This annoying focus on extrapolation does nothing but make the genre look like a silly game of “guess who.” Who cares if jetpacks came true? We got space shuttles, advanced medical technology, and smart phones instead. Who cares whether a prediction is “accurate?” Asking such questions seems absurd to me. The future is unattainable the further you move away from the now. Let’s worry about realistic stuff, like what tomorrow will look like and how we can make it better. You don’t need SF to do that for you. ————————————————- That’s what I’ve got. What about you? What has been bugging you this week?
The Video You’ve All Been (Not) Waiting For (a.k.a. That WISB Thing)
You all remember how I promised to make a video of me doing embarrassing crap? No? Oh. That’s depressing. Wait, you were just messing with me? That’s nice of you… In any case, that video is now made, with a lot of additional nonsense. Why? Because I was later than late on making it, and then a series of technological problems prevented me from doing it. But a promise is a promise, and now it’s here for your amusement. For the record, you will find the following in the video: The Electric Slide (performed poorly, of course) Peanut Butter Jelly Time (somewhat quietly displayed due to me being a nice person) The Truffle Shuffle (performed a little too well for my comfort…) You will also find me doing silly crap and one particularly amusing geek reference. If you know the reference, leave a comment! So here you go: Feel free to share it. You know you want to! Update: Some folks have said they are having issues using the above video. Below you should find a YouTube version for your amusement. Thanks! No YouTube version after all. The copyright bastards swarmed in and deleted all the audio simply because I used part of a song, despite giving it proper attribution. So…I deleted the video and will never upload anything there again. To those that had issues using the Blogger video above: sorry. I tried to provide an alternative, but the pricks at the music companies have apparently neutered YouTube. Post a song with music in it and they’ll cut the audio out. Meh. It’s crap like this that contributes to piracy.
SandF Episode 5.4 (Interview w/ Clay and Susan Griffith) is Live!
The lovely writing duo joins Jen and I on The Skiffy and Fanty Show to talk about their Vampire Earth series, alternate history, brash Americans, and much more. Check out the episode here! In other news: it poured rain outside my apart today in a way that makes me suspect flash floods have destroyed downtown Gainesville. This, of course, would be God’s justice for the city allowing such a seedy backwater hellhole to exist in the first place. Pah! In other other news: a video will hit this blog some time tonight. Look out for it!
Replacing Your Favorites: How Do You Survive When the Series Ends?
I recently had a brief, but amusing discussion with one of my friends in my graduate program about surviving the end of a series. I’ve probably noted something like this before, but the completion (or cancellation) of some of my favorite series (books, TV shows, and movies) has left an endless void in my life. It’s like getting excited about going to Disneyland, finally going, and then having to cope with the knowledge that the event is over when you come home. But you can re-experience Disneyland in a variety of ways (returning to it when you’re older, taking your children there, etc.). Yet, the same could be said of creative series. I can still re-experience Battlestar Galactica, and just as Disneyland can change when they add new rides, so too can BSG when the producers add new material (Caprica and Blood and Chrome, for example — though the former wasn’t all that great). The same is perhaps less true for book series. Though J. K. Rowling can certainly return to her world, it’s not as likely that she will, or that her return will garner the same attention as before. We are notoriously overly critical of authors who return to their favorite worlds and try to tell new stories within them. The completion of Harry Potter, sadly, puts Rowling in a strange position as a writer: on the one hand, she wants to please her fans, who are clambering for more HP, but on the other hand, she wants to move away from that to new things (to make a new “name” for herself). But even if you can re-experience BSG or HP or Star Wars or Star Trek or whatever else you became obsessed with in your youth (or middle age, as the case may be), it’s not the same as experiencing the anticipation and love in the moment. So the question is this: how do you move on when your favorite series ends? How do you find something to fill the void? If you loved BSG, what did you replace it with when the show ended (the same goes for HP or Star Wars or whatever other thing you fell in love with)? I suppose another way to put it is to ask: how do you survive series withdrawal?
Book Giveaway: Awakenings by Edward Lazellari
I have an extra copy of Edward Lazellari’s novel (from Tor) to give away to one lucky reader. The competition is open to U.S. residents only (unless you want to chip in a couple bucks via Paypal to help cover shipping). Before I get to the book information, here’s how to enter: Leave a comment saying something other than “please enter me” or “give me the book” or whatever. Say something amusing or dumb or goofy or funny. I don’t care what it is so long as you do something other than tell me you want the book. Simple? Good. You can also improve your chances by doing any of the following (+1 for each): Share this post on Twitter (use @shaunduke in the tweet), Google + (link it), Facebook (link it), blog about it (link it), or put it up on any other social network or service (just give me a link). That’s it! The giveaway ends on Oct. 2nd, 2011. Winners will be chosen at random and announced on Oct. 3rd, 2011. Now for the book stuff. Here’s the cover synopsis: Cal MacDonnell is a happily married New York City cop with a loving family. Seth Raincrest is a washed-up photographer who has alienated even his closest friends. The two have nothing in common—except that they both suffer from retrograde amnesia. It’s as if they just appeared out of thin air thirteen years ago, and nothing has been able to restore their memories. Now their forgotten past has caught up to them with a vengeance. Cal’s and Seth’s lives are turned upside down as they are stalked by otherworldly beings who know about the men’s past lives. But these creatures aren’t here to help; they’re intent on killing anyone who gets in their way. In the balance hangs the life of a child who might someday restore a broken empire to peace and prosperity. With no clue why they’re being hunted, Cal and Seth must accept the aid of a strange and beautiful woman who has promised to unlock their secrets. The two must stay alive long enough to protect their loved ones, recover their true selves—and save two worlds from tyranny and destruction. Awakenings launches a captivating fantasy saga by an amazing and talented new storyteller. Ben Bova also says it’s a good book, according to his cover blurb.
Five Years of Mediocrity — How Did I Survive?
I was reminded of a very important fact today by SQT of Fantasy & Scifi Lovin’ News & Reviews and John Scalzi of Whatever (and writer of those funny things made of paper which we call books): my blog is old. But it’s not that old. SQT has been at this blogging thing a year longer than I and Scalzi has been doing it for thirteen years — which makes my five look rather pathetic, don’t you think? But in the interest of celebrating something good, I’d like to say how shocking it is that I’m still here after five years. Even more shocking is when and how I started. On September 3rd, 2006, I wrote my first blogger blog post entitled “Yes!” Apparently I was excited to have found it within myself the energy to put nearly incoherent words into a magic Internet box and press the “publish” button. I was also excited about having a mystical mission to entertain the billions of people who still don’t know I exist. And what followed? “Good News & Bad News,” in which I mourned the death of Steve Irwin and pointed out my supreme ignorance as a writer by stating that I don’t write outlines because they are oh so lame. Then again, I still don’t do outlines… After that, I wrote “Names and Things” — the first post where I had something coherent to say, but also the first post in which I proclaimed my love for reptiles. There are two pictures there of animals I either used to or still have (one of which was stolen by my evil, wicked mother from the West). But things picked up from there. I started a novel (The World in the Satin Bag), which turned out to be a piece of high fantasy YA garbage. I’m still working on editing that junkfest, and so far I’ve made it 100 times better — and, yes, there are short stories coming and a video (I swear). And in five years I’ve had a few “hits,” some of the “this is interesting” variety, and others of the “you stupid bastard, I hate you” variety. I’ve stirred up quite a lot of trouble, said some dumb stuff, pissed off a fair share of people, amused some and made at least one or two laugh. What do I have to show for all of this? 229,815 unique visitors from 178 countries (that leaves about 26 I’ve yet to touch) and 334,095 page views, 4,343 comments, and 1,884 published posts (including this one). What can I say? That’s not bad at all, right? But none of that could be done without you weirdos who have been following this blog, whether recently or since the beginning-ish. So I’d like to say thanks to all of you for your comments, page views, and link sharing. You all rock. Here’s to another five years! Maybe by year six I’ll have reached 500,000 unique visitors. Or not. Whatever…