Dhalgren by Samuel Delany
I've admired most of Delany's books that I've read, but felt distant from them to a degree, that didn't happen here. The presence of language does a lot with this, it seemed. The text engages in some very ambitious use of represented mythology, boundaries of different genres, construction of racial and gender identities. This never came across as remote, though, in large part because speech effectively expressed a sense of lived in space, the way that people (particularly younger people) would plausibly think and talk about both race and sexuality. The sheer length of the book does play a major part in this (and it earns the right to its 800 pages more than about any other long novel I've encountered since Infinite Jest) building up impressions, sexual encounters and patterns of the city's dynamic such that it forces an impression. It still comes across as shocking, although not as much as it must have in '75, and not primarily due to the eroticism--yet it's still fascinating to see Delany be as unconcerned with describing the nature of the catastrophe and rebuilding process, instead centering on a bubble of lived identity in relation to the larger dislocating shift.
The irony is that in giving such a non-systematic view of the new community, so free of usual pattern of establishing big-scale assessments of community, it is a powerful structural challenge. It shifts the focus of science fiction pretty dramatically, onto an awareness of the body, the way that it is used, benefited and exploited through sex, violence, politics, and constructions of racial difference. In a lot of ways this forms a great companion piece to the near-contemporary The Dispossessed. Le Guin's book has a more elaborated pattern of political analysis, opening up of utopian alternates as well as questioning long-term tendencies of such patterns. Dhalgren goes further in looking at character within the limits of change and breakdown, in what I take to be a recognition of how pre-crisis systems were already virtually science fiction, already constructed and contrived across very precise narratives. That is to say the biggest point I take on this first reading is that there is no community or personal narrative, or science fictional narrative, without some kind of grappling with race, gender and sexuality, that our ability to even imagine these things is bounded. It's somewhat convenient to see that (and I'm sure that I am missing a lot in the book) as it's something I've been persuaded of for awhile, a bit through Delany's articles and from other academic texts more widely. It's still staggering to see that emerge as the push of a novel, particularly one of such raw power.
This is exactly the sort of book that needs to exist, and that demands more attention and general reworking of assumptions that it challenges. I have a great deal of respect for genre fiction of the '60s and '70s, particularly the New Wave, and even by this standard it's a stand-out. This is exactly the type of book that justifies the past and continued existence of science fiction. It also gives a rather sobering reflection on more recent take. Recently I've read a lot of science fiction and fantasy from across the last fifteen years, much of it very good. In recent years I'd have no hesitation in referencing Lavinia, The Dervish House, the City and the City, Windup Girl, In Great Waters, as indication that speculative fiction is still very much involved with issues of quality. Yet I don't think any of these are anywhere in the same league as Dhalgren, and I'm not sure that I've encountered anything from the past ten years which is. I wonder what that implies.
On the other side of the recognition, looking back I see that the Hugo voters didn't even nominate this book, although the Nebula's did, as one of the unprecedented before or since eighteen nominees. Only to give the award to The Forever War, also bypassing The Female Man. Forever War was a major work and an important statement on recent reality, but come on.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Vortex
Vortex by Robert Charles Wilson. 2011.
*This is the book that rounds things out, and gives a fuller explanation for the nature of the Hypotheticals and their long-term implications. Which in itself makes the biggest problem I had going into the book, and to an extent at the end, in that I found it difficult to be very invested in the Hypotheticals, the nature of the Spin and the wider mechanics of the universe. I thought that Spin itself was a decent exploration of those issues, and that the wider questions didn't need further answering. It's been a long time since I read Spin, and Axis didn't further whet my appetite on these matters---quite the contrary.
*Yet in the end Wilson proved a lot of his mettle and made a very good book, well worth reading. Not great, though, and in the final analysis I'd say it falls significantly short of Spin and slightly short of Julian Comstock. Partly it's a problematic evoking of the big-scale issues, partly the near-future Earth sections not being as compelling. A bigger issue is that characterization doesn't seem to be as good as is usual for Wilson, partly as a consequence of the jumps around in setting and point of view I felt far less engaged by the people and their particular personality issues. It took too long for me to care about the main people for the book to really click on that level.
*Still there does remain a lot of value. Wilson is great at presenting a sense of scale, creating a representation of massive spatial and chronological limits that is grander than any other fiction we're likely to see this year (Baxter is going small scale this year, Reed doesn't seem to have anything major coming out). The notion of interconnected worlds, the nature of the Hypotheticals themselves and particularly the last forty pages capture a sense of truly cosmic scale and drama.
*Also great is the outgrowth of some of the blander elements from Axis, particularly the politics of Equatoria. Vox Core is a great construction, and quite complex--on the one hand more genuinely democratic and egalitarian than current societies, but also far from a one-note utopia--they have a single linked conscience that makes it easy to tolerate the slaughter of rivals, and they are in basis a descendant of a fanatic faction that finds it easy to reinforce their own rather biased assumptions. The dynamic of how this plays out, from the slaughter of the Farmers to their own destruction through misplaced veneration of the Hypotheticals, is very strong material, and has a lot of value to say on religious both explicitly and symbolically.
*In the end I still can't say that Spin sequels were really needed, but there's a lot of pleasure and interest to see this series finish out. I'm quite interested to see where Wilson goes after this.
Grade: B+
*This is the book that rounds things out, and gives a fuller explanation for the nature of the Hypotheticals and their long-term implications. Which in itself makes the biggest problem I had going into the book, and to an extent at the end, in that I found it difficult to be very invested in the Hypotheticals, the nature of the Spin and the wider mechanics of the universe. I thought that Spin itself was a decent exploration of those issues, and that the wider questions didn't need further answering. It's been a long time since I read Spin, and Axis didn't further whet my appetite on these matters---quite the contrary.
*Yet in the end Wilson proved a lot of his mettle and made a very good book, well worth reading. Not great, though, and in the final analysis I'd say it falls significantly short of Spin and slightly short of Julian Comstock. Partly it's a problematic evoking of the big-scale issues, partly the near-future Earth sections not being as compelling. A bigger issue is that characterization doesn't seem to be as good as is usual for Wilson, partly as a consequence of the jumps around in setting and point of view I felt far less engaged by the people and their particular personality issues. It took too long for me to care about the main people for the book to really click on that level.
*Still there does remain a lot of value. Wilson is great at presenting a sense of scale, creating a representation of massive spatial and chronological limits that is grander than any other fiction we're likely to see this year (Baxter is going small scale this year, Reed doesn't seem to have anything major coming out). The notion of interconnected worlds, the nature of the Hypotheticals themselves and particularly the last forty pages capture a sense of truly cosmic scale and drama.
*Also great is the outgrowth of some of the blander elements from Axis, particularly the politics of Equatoria. Vox Core is a great construction, and quite complex--on the one hand more genuinely democratic and egalitarian than current societies, but also far from a one-note utopia--they have a single linked conscience that makes it easy to tolerate the slaughter of rivals, and they are in basis a descendant of a fanatic faction that finds it easy to reinforce their own rather biased assumptions. The dynamic of how this plays out, from the slaughter of the Farmers to their own destruction through misplaced veneration of the Hypotheticals, is very strong material, and has a lot of value to say on religious both explicitly and symbolically.
*In the end I still can't say that Spin sequels were really needed, but there's a lot of pleasure and interest to see this series finish out. I'm quite interested to see where Wilson goes after this.
Grade: B+
Fuzzy Nation
Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
The first line of dialog in the book is "I can't believe we have to go through this again". I concur. In the end this seems one of the more aggressively pointless works, largely due to its reboot qualiteis. In the introduction to the piece Scalzi tries to present it as all things to all people--it's a new version of the story to bring the main themes up to date, it's an autonomous story that happens to use some of the same characters, it's an homage to the original that can bring more attention and readers to a past classic. The result is to make me quite unsure on why Scalzi actually settled on this project.
My own connection to the original franchise is minimal, I've heard it mentioned a few places and read the last volume a long time ago. I don't feel that it's a betrayal to revive it again, and am not as critical as if it were, say, another butchering of the Foundation Universe. I don't much like the practice of taking over abandoned genre sand-boxes, and it's hard to fight the impression that Scalzi is doing this as a way of provoking more discussion and a sense of newness over his writing while at the same time is explicitly becoming less original.
All that aside, what emerges from the story is quite generic, even if it were rebranded enough to have no relation to the original series I'd still feel safe calling it heavily derivative. There's dynamics of colonization, alien contact, a bit of corporate intrigue, and a protracted high-impact legal battle. The story isn't terrible, but it doesn't do very much with any of these elements, or do more than slightly warm over the stock SF narrative of past decades. Scalzi has in the past brought a lot more humor and energy to proceedings that can push through his employment of cliches, here the plot is slow enough and the dialog labored such that it settles into mediocrity early, and only pushes past that in brief flashes across the book. For all that we were laboriously told about the impact of the proceedings on the planetary ecology, on the characters' finances and ideals, on indeed on the larger colonial economy, it was very hard to feel that there were real stakes at any point. I've read worse books from 2011, and even books less distinguished, but this had a sense of controlled mediocrity that felt particularly frustrating, like Scalzi was consistently hitting safe groundballs to push forward his story, and in the process draining it of real interest.
I gobbled down the Old Man War trilogy, a fun ride with a fair bit of substance below the surface, particularly in worldbuilding. Since then I've felt a deep sense of diminishing returns, Scalzi's contribution to the 2008 Hugo Shortlist meltdown with the breezy, inconsequential tie-in Zoe's Tale, the deeply inert God Engines, and in the 'real world' his own insistence on defending fandom against the whiners and critics--which is to say defending it as a zero-challenge exercise in mediocrity, among other things. I guess given that it shows an avoidance of hypocrisy to carry that into his own writing, in which the very reboot format declares his intention to boldly chart a story of change and revolution in an echo of past forms, staying strongly within a particular box. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, and I'm sure a lot of people will be pleased by Fuzzy Nation, but I'm not pleased by the way things seem to have gone. I think I'll add Scalzi to the category of Dropped Authors (with Stross, Sawyer, Martin, Bear and Haldeman) authors that I had followed pretty regularly, but are not delivering at a level to reward that attention, whom I'll avoid in the future unless I encounter a review or other reason to suggest things have significantly changed.
Grade: C-
Similar to and better than: God Engines by John Scalzi
Similar to and worse than: Newton's Wake by Ken Macleod
The first line of dialog in the book is "I can't believe we have to go through this again". I concur. In the end this seems one of the more aggressively pointless works, largely due to its reboot qualiteis. In the introduction to the piece Scalzi tries to present it as all things to all people--it's a new version of the story to bring the main themes up to date, it's an autonomous story that happens to use some of the same characters, it's an homage to the original that can bring more attention and readers to a past classic. The result is to make me quite unsure on why Scalzi actually settled on this project.
My own connection to the original franchise is minimal, I've heard it mentioned a few places and read the last volume a long time ago. I don't feel that it's a betrayal to revive it again, and am not as critical as if it were, say, another butchering of the Foundation Universe. I don't much like the practice of taking over abandoned genre sand-boxes, and it's hard to fight the impression that Scalzi is doing this as a way of provoking more discussion and a sense of newness over his writing while at the same time is explicitly becoming less original.
All that aside, what emerges from the story is quite generic, even if it were rebranded enough to have no relation to the original series I'd still feel safe calling it heavily derivative. There's dynamics of colonization, alien contact, a bit of corporate intrigue, and a protracted high-impact legal battle. The story isn't terrible, but it doesn't do very much with any of these elements, or do more than slightly warm over the stock SF narrative of past decades. Scalzi has in the past brought a lot more humor and energy to proceedings that can push through his employment of cliches, here the plot is slow enough and the dialog labored such that it settles into mediocrity early, and only pushes past that in brief flashes across the book. For all that we were laboriously told about the impact of the proceedings on the planetary ecology, on the characters' finances and ideals, on indeed on the larger colonial economy, it was very hard to feel that there were real stakes at any point. I've read worse books from 2011, and even books less distinguished, but this had a sense of controlled mediocrity that felt particularly frustrating, like Scalzi was consistently hitting safe groundballs to push forward his story, and in the process draining it of real interest.
I gobbled down the Old Man War trilogy, a fun ride with a fair bit of substance below the surface, particularly in worldbuilding. Since then I've felt a deep sense of diminishing returns, Scalzi's contribution to the 2008 Hugo Shortlist meltdown with the breezy, inconsequential tie-in Zoe's Tale, the deeply inert God Engines, and in the 'real world' his own insistence on defending fandom against the whiners and critics--which is to say defending it as a zero-challenge exercise in mediocrity, among other things. I guess given that it shows an avoidance of hypocrisy to carry that into his own writing, in which the very reboot format declares his intention to boldly chart a story of change and revolution in an echo of past forms, staying strongly within a particular box. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, and I'm sure a lot of people will be pleased by Fuzzy Nation, but I'm not pleased by the way things seem to have gone. I think I'll add Scalzi to the category of Dropped Authors (with Stross, Sawyer, Martin, Bear and Haldeman) authors that I had followed pretty regularly, but are not delivering at a level to reward that attention, whom I'll avoid in the future unless I encounter a review or other reason to suggest things have significantly changed.
Grade: C-
Similar to and better than: God Engines by John Scalzi
Similar to and worse than: Newton's Wake by Ken Macleod
Saturday, August 20, 2011
2011 Hugo Award Winners: Immediate Reactions
*Campbell Award for Lev Grossman*
Significant disappointment, both for Beukes not getting the recognition, and for it going to what seems a more tedious and generally unengaging fantasy author. I'll count this as the second year since I've been actively following that an exceptionally talented author has been nominated but not awarded it. Although looked at more broadly in the last decade a number of winners have been very far from best rising stars--Kowal, Scalzi, Burstein, Doctorow, and it seems the award has always has a pattern of missing some of the most significant genre-changing writers.
*Best Fan Artist for Brad Foster*
My third vote, out of five. I don't have terribly much memory or direct reaction, I recall him as being not terrible, but significantly less impressive than Starkey and Wayne. A relative shrug category, not sure we even need this.
*Best Fan Writer for Clare Brialey*
This is quite good, the only writer I voted for above No Award. In my view she had much better level of analysis than anyone else, literally any other pick would have been extremely dispiriting. A cheerful thought, at least. I still feel a bit disconnected from this, as none of the writers I've found most entertaining and informative made the cut--for a shamelessly fan-centric view it's not my extended fandom, and I feel less overall relation than with most of the more conventional categories.
*Best Fanzine for The Drink Tank*
Good. Again, this was the only nominee that I voted above No Award, the only installment that justified the existence of the category. This is proving somewhat encouraging as a run, albeit among the categories I least care about and am unlikely to even remember in a week's time.
*Best Semiprozine for Clarkesworld*
My third pick, above no award. I think it's a good zine, but didn't think based on the sample they had the strongest year, and am more than a little skeptical about the need for this category.
*Best Graphic Story for Girl Genius*
As I predicted. Very weak writing, carried unfortunately over the Unwritten in particular. The third consecutive time Girl Genius has won, in the three cases this award has been awarded. It shouldn't be hard to see a problem with this picture, particularly given the convoluted, overly jokey steampunk nature of the work in question. It continues with a huge fanbase, though, for some reason. Probably the steapunk thing. It seems at the awards ceremony the comic creators removed themselves from the running for next year. Decent as an act and a gesture, but also shows how ridiculously tight the circle of consideration is for this category.
*Best Editor Short Form for Sheilia Williams*
No reaction to this at all, I had no preference for votes in this category.
*Best Editor Long Form for Lou Anders*
Also no reaction.
*Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form for the Pandorica Opens/Big Bang"
Fairly pleased. That matched my top vote for the category, as well as my prediction for winner. Hardly a big surprise, the Doctor Who bloc has been really strong of late, there weren't many quality alternates last year, and few of them nominated. Glad that fandom can now hopefully get past the 'f--- me Ray Bradbury' fanvideo, and possibly regrow a little maturity. As well, hopefully next year one or more episode from Game of Thrones can challenge the Doctor Who monolith. G. R. R. Martin was presenting the award this year, foreshadowing?
*Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form for Inception*
Severely disappointing, but as I predicted. A lot of very strong nominees on this ballot, but also Inception--probably Nolan's weakest movie, and his film that's most focused on seeming cleverer than it is. Toy Story, and to a lesser extent Scott Pilgrim and How to Train Your Dragon, were robbed. For the most forceful rejection of Inception in a review I've seen, there's:
http://bigother.com/2010/08/08/seventeen-ways-of-criticizing-inception/
I voted to nominate but not to win, and the more I think about this the more unhappy I am with this film as cinema, as science fiction and especially as an inquiry into the nature of identity.
*Best Professional Artist for Shaun Tan*
Again, my third vote out of five. Above No Award, I don't have a great deal of personal or general reaction to this win.
*Best Related Work for Chicks Dig Timelords*
My second vote. Above No Award for me, but I consider it a lot below Bearings, so mixed reactions. Well, Valente's piece in it and a few others are good. On the other hand this does contribute to the dominance of Doctor Who and a type of more populist level of analysis that I'm not very thrilled at. This year's slot of Related Work nominees is a large step down from last year. Still, Chicks Dig Timelords isn't a bad book and at least the Heinlein biography didn't win, so on the whole I can be happy with this one.
*Best Short Story for 'For Want of a Nail by Mary Robinette Kowal'"
My second vote, one of only two above No Award. Didn't go for The Things, my (reluctant) pick as well as prediction for the award. Interesting to see things be kept a little unpredictable and the story wasn't terrible--but I can't pretend it was even close to being one of the best science fiction short stories of the year. Disappointing ballet, decent award-winner from that setup.
*Best Novelette for "The Emperor of Mars" by Allen Sttele
Infuriating, although what I feared in the lead-up to the vote. There was only one worse pick on the ballet and three substantially better, and instead the mass voters went for an unabashed recreation and celebration of all that's conservative in science fiction writing. This is a story that does not withstand even a minimal amount of thought on it, examined beneath the self-congratulatory aspect it falls apart. This is the first pick of the evening's ceremony to really get me angry. "The Jagaur House" should have won this in a landslide.
*Best Novella for "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang
Thoroughly predictable, but also completely deserved, and a relief to see an actual top-rate writer get the award recognition. This is his fourth piece of short fiction to win a Hugo. This is the type of fiction that should be encouraged--specific, forceful, ambitious while being low key, writing future forms of life in the spaces within which most SF narratives leap.
*Best Novel for Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis*
Well, the second worst novel on the ballot and the fourth worst book that I read from 2010 has won the Hugo, along with the Nebula. As I expected going into this voting, and clearly people do see real value in the text. I'm not one of them, and have to regard this as a terribly disappointing pick, for a work that I find less well designed than Anasi Boys, probably making the worst Hugo win since Hominids took the medal. As with The Emperor of Mars, I see this as a general tendency towards embracing sentimental, regressive, contrived science fiction over the other kind. A shame that a novel as intricate, ambitious and well written as The Dervish House lost to an exercise in tedious poorly designed historical recreation. Willis taking it over McDonald at this point is something I'd expected for quite awhile now, but it doesn't make me any happier at this point. A bit dispiriting that a process as corrupt as the Nebulas here echoes the decision of the largest gathering of Hugo voters in its history. More a shame that Willis can make such an over-sprawling account and be lauded by having made the best science fiction novel of the world. Even more unfortunate that the SF community finds it's measure of greatness in character through Willis' cutsey well-wishers, its guideline for worldbuilding a haphazard recollection of historians and its model towards the future in a return to the London Blitz.
Significant disappointment, both for Beukes not getting the recognition, and for it going to what seems a more tedious and generally unengaging fantasy author. I'll count this as the second year since I've been actively following that an exceptionally talented author has been nominated but not awarded it. Although looked at more broadly in the last decade a number of winners have been very far from best rising stars--Kowal, Scalzi, Burstein, Doctorow, and it seems the award has always has a pattern of missing some of the most significant genre-changing writers.
*Best Fan Artist for Brad Foster*
My third vote, out of five. I don't have terribly much memory or direct reaction, I recall him as being not terrible, but significantly less impressive than Starkey and Wayne. A relative shrug category, not sure we even need this.
*Best Fan Writer for Clare Brialey*
This is quite good, the only writer I voted for above No Award. In my view she had much better level of analysis than anyone else, literally any other pick would have been extremely dispiriting. A cheerful thought, at least. I still feel a bit disconnected from this, as none of the writers I've found most entertaining and informative made the cut--for a shamelessly fan-centric view it's not my extended fandom, and I feel less overall relation than with most of the more conventional categories.
*Best Fanzine for The Drink Tank*
Good. Again, this was the only nominee that I voted above No Award, the only installment that justified the existence of the category. This is proving somewhat encouraging as a run, albeit among the categories I least care about and am unlikely to even remember in a week's time.
*Best Semiprozine for Clarkesworld*
My third pick, above no award. I think it's a good zine, but didn't think based on the sample they had the strongest year, and am more than a little skeptical about the need for this category.
*Best Graphic Story for Girl Genius*
As I predicted. Very weak writing, carried unfortunately over the Unwritten in particular. The third consecutive time Girl Genius has won, in the three cases this award has been awarded. It shouldn't be hard to see a problem with this picture, particularly given the convoluted, overly jokey steampunk nature of the work in question. It continues with a huge fanbase, though, for some reason. Probably the steapunk thing. It seems at the awards ceremony the comic creators removed themselves from the running for next year. Decent as an act and a gesture, but also shows how ridiculously tight the circle of consideration is for this category.
*Best Editor Short Form for Sheilia Williams*
No reaction to this at all, I had no preference for votes in this category.
*Best Editor Long Form for Lou Anders*
Also no reaction.
*Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form for the Pandorica Opens/Big Bang"
Fairly pleased. That matched my top vote for the category, as well as my prediction for winner. Hardly a big surprise, the Doctor Who bloc has been really strong of late, there weren't many quality alternates last year, and few of them nominated. Glad that fandom can now hopefully get past the 'f--- me Ray Bradbury' fanvideo, and possibly regrow a little maturity. As well, hopefully next year one or more episode from Game of Thrones can challenge the Doctor Who monolith. G. R. R. Martin was presenting the award this year, foreshadowing?
*Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form for Inception*
Severely disappointing, but as I predicted. A lot of very strong nominees on this ballot, but also Inception--probably Nolan's weakest movie, and his film that's most focused on seeming cleverer than it is. Toy Story, and to a lesser extent Scott Pilgrim and How to Train Your Dragon, were robbed. For the most forceful rejection of Inception in a review I've seen, there's:
http://bigother.com/2010/08/08/seventeen-ways-of-criticizing-inception/
I voted to nominate but not to win, and the more I think about this the more unhappy I am with this film as cinema, as science fiction and especially as an inquiry into the nature of identity.
*Best Professional Artist for Shaun Tan*
Again, my third vote out of five. Above No Award, I don't have a great deal of personal or general reaction to this win.
*Best Related Work for Chicks Dig Timelords*
My second vote. Above No Award for me, but I consider it a lot below Bearings, so mixed reactions. Well, Valente's piece in it and a few others are good. On the other hand this does contribute to the dominance of Doctor Who and a type of more populist level of analysis that I'm not very thrilled at. This year's slot of Related Work nominees is a large step down from last year. Still, Chicks Dig Timelords isn't a bad book and at least the Heinlein biography didn't win, so on the whole I can be happy with this one.
*Best Short Story for 'For Want of a Nail by Mary Robinette Kowal'"
My second vote, one of only two above No Award. Didn't go for The Things, my (reluctant) pick as well as prediction for the award. Interesting to see things be kept a little unpredictable and the story wasn't terrible--but I can't pretend it was even close to being one of the best science fiction short stories of the year. Disappointing ballet, decent award-winner from that setup.
*Best Novelette for "The Emperor of Mars" by Allen Sttele
Infuriating, although what I feared in the lead-up to the vote. There was only one worse pick on the ballet and three substantially better, and instead the mass voters went for an unabashed recreation and celebration of all that's conservative in science fiction writing. This is a story that does not withstand even a minimal amount of thought on it, examined beneath the self-congratulatory aspect it falls apart. This is the first pick of the evening's ceremony to really get me angry. "The Jagaur House" should have won this in a landslide.
*Best Novella for "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang
Thoroughly predictable, but also completely deserved, and a relief to see an actual top-rate writer get the award recognition. This is his fourth piece of short fiction to win a Hugo. This is the type of fiction that should be encouraged--specific, forceful, ambitious while being low key, writing future forms of life in the spaces within which most SF narratives leap.
*Best Novel for Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis*
Well, the second worst novel on the ballot and the fourth worst book that I read from 2010 has won the Hugo, along with the Nebula. As I expected going into this voting, and clearly people do see real value in the text. I'm not one of them, and have to regard this as a terribly disappointing pick, for a work that I find less well designed than Anasi Boys, probably making the worst Hugo win since Hominids took the medal. As with The Emperor of Mars, I see this as a general tendency towards embracing sentimental, regressive, contrived science fiction over the other kind. A shame that a novel as intricate, ambitious and well written as The Dervish House lost to an exercise in tedious poorly designed historical recreation. Willis taking it over McDonald at this point is something I'd expected for quite awhile now, but it doesn't make me any happier at this point. A bit dispiriting that a process as corrupt as the Nebulas here echoes the decision of the largest gathering of Hugo voters in its history. More a shame that Willis can make such an over-sprawling account and be lauded by having made the best science fiction novel of the world. Even more unfortunate that the SF community finds it's measure of greatness in character through Willis' cutsey well-wishers, its guideline for worldbuilding a haphazard recollection of historians and its model towards the future in a return to the London Blitz.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Betrayer by C. J. Cherryh
2011 novel.
*Quite good, all in all, although it's only going to appeal to people already decently invested in the Foreigner series, who are also invested in the formula at play here--a political thriller rooted in conspiracy, intrigue, assassination and threats of anarchy in which the protagonist never discharges his gun, and works to enhance the alliance and power of who seemed the biggest threat two books ago. For my money the book does quite a lot that's effective and interesting. It has to be admitted that the advancement of the story and the wider setting is incremental--and I still wish Cherryh would followup on the plot points of Explorer and that book's greater pace--but the atevi are emerging as one of the most extensive, intricately designed alien species.
*The book isn't without problems. The leading one by far is the character of Barbara, consistently written as irritating, a danger to herself and those around her, a whiny plot-complication with continuing unrequited interest in Bren. Bizarrely, given the complexity elsewhere on display, Cherryh seems content to make Barbara a thoroughly one-note complication, who all the other character know no good can come of. She's portrayed as slightly more sympathetic and capable here than in the past, but it's still a pretty unengaging portrayal. At this point I also wasn't terribly interested whenever the perspective shifted from Bren, as it seemed to involve slowing down the action.
*The series as a whole also deserves commentary, now finishing it's twelfth volume and fourth trilogy. I found Foreigner itself somewhat awkward and unengaging, particularly around Bren, but it built up to be top-rate science fiction rapidly, each subsequent book shattering the past status quo, propelling structural change, disrupting expectations and forcing a wider network and state of perceptions. The second trilogy, Precurosr, Defender, Explorer, got very good, in multi-species negotiation-focused space opera with a fascinating focus on the way language and culture operate. The third trilogy was probably the least satisfactory, revolving around intrigue and atevi civil war. They were intimate, complexly crafted political scenarios, but the larger setup seemed like a divergence, an overly small-scale portrait that delayed the more interesting possibilities setup by Explorer. As well, the deeper drama of the series appeared based on a too stark division; in reading I never believed that Cherryh would break up the Western Association permanently or undermine the progression of atevi development, and the unwillingness to pull the trigger against any significant characters despite the continual flood of assassinations undermined investment in the drama. The fourth trilogy seems to have a lot of the same issues, but I found it more satisfying. Perhaps my expectations have changed at this point, but it also seems that the representation becomes more intricate. Conspirator, Deceiver and now Betrayar focus not on the familiar atevi political terrain but fragmented forces to the east, areas never brought into real acceptance of humanity, and with much deeper structural problems, ones that can't be solved in terms of thwarting individual powerlust. The recent books also encourage a greater degree of ambiguity towards longstanding atevi allies, an awareness of how fine-crafted their manipulation has been, of how dangerous they really may be.
*For all this effort, the world constructed seems oddly separate from our own climate, to a degree unusual for contemporary science fiction. Most works don't comment directly on current circumstances--and those that do are not terribly effective--but I've seen in most of the 2011 genre I've read and expect to find more of an underlying zeitgeist. In a lot of ways even more far-fetched work will show awareness of, if it does not directly comment on, the post-2008 economic situation, political fragmentation, impact of technological disorientation and ongoing geopolitical tensions. The Foreigner series is working off its internal timeline, setup in 1994, and continuing on without real adjustment to ways our world has changed since that point, it's the only long-running series I've followed that seems so disconnected from our own times. Which has value, certainly, escaping the short-sighted extrapolation or didactic settling of lessons that I've often found frustrating. And yet, this aspect gives me a bit of pause. Perhaps the pendulum has gone a bit too far in this
instance. While the series is certain attuned to the impact of structural poverty and grasping politivcal hierarchies, and has more of substance to say about the ways reactionary forces can fight on than most science fiction I've read, there are assumptions that seem a bit dubious. The notion of increased trade and global integration promoting a progressive moderanization of society, in particular. Of course the technology isn't our own and neither is the underlying psychology, but there are aspects of the series that feel a bit dated, or even tending towards an escapist alternative to the direction our planet seems to be taking. The Foreigner series certainly has a lot of grim elements, but I wonder in the end if it will fade towards a somewhat unfounded utopia of cooperation and effective political balance arranged by Bren, if it will tend to have less of substance to way than it's 3,000+ pages (and counting) could otherwise support.
*It's a pity that the larger series aren't going to get any award attentions, at this point despite a bit of introductory recap the whole venue is blatantly alienating for anyone not already a fan. Even if this book were perfection and the Hugo fanbase were a lot more conscientious than they are, you aren't going to have enough people drawn in. Perhaps if Cherryh were British there would be a chance that the series would get a nod at some point, but there doesn't seem a venue for that degree of off-brand nomination among major American-focused genre awards.
Overall assessment: A-. Unlikely to be a Hugo nominee for me, not just on the grounds of it having no chance at all, it's in the end not *that* good. If it were put up as some kind of Best Installment in a 4 Book+ Series I suspect I'd nominate it. In the past few years only the Psalms of Isaac and Culture series seem likely to give real competition.
After writing this I encountered the recent Strange Horizons review, which is worth a look. It's significantly harsher than I am, but it pretty well-formed and interesting.
http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2011/07/betrayer_by_c_j.shtml
*Quite good, all in all, although it's only going to appeal to people already decently invested in the Foreigner series, who are also invested in the formula at play here--a political thriller rooted in conspiracy, intrigue, assassination and threats of anarchy in which the protagonist never discharges his gun, and works to enhance the alliance and power of who seemed the biggest threat two books ago. For my money the book does quite a lot that's effective and interesting. It has to be admitted that the advancement of the story and the wider setting is incremental--and I still wish Cherryh would followup on the plot points of Explorer and that book's greater pace--but the atevi are emerging as one of the most extensive, intricately designed alien species.
*The book isn't without problems. The leading one by far is the character of Barbara, consistently written as irritating, a danger to herself and those around her, a whiny plot-complication with continuing unrequited interest in Bren. Bizarrely, given the complexity elsewhere on display, Cherryh seems content to make Barbara a thoroughly one-note complication, who all the other character know no good can come of. She's portrayed as slightly more sympathetic and capable here than in the past, but it's still a pretty unengaging portrayal. At this point I also wasn't terribly interested whenever the perspective shifted from Bren, as it seemed to involve slowing down the action.
*The series as a whole also deserves commentary, now finishing it's twelfth volume and fourth trilogy. I found Foreigner itself somewhat awkward and unengaging, particularly around Bren, but it built up to be top-rate science fiction rapidly, each subsequent book shattering the past status quo, propelling structural change, disrupting expectations and forcing a wider network and state of perceptions. The second trilogy, Precurosr, Defender, Explorer, got very good, in multi-species negotiation-focused space opera with a fascinating focus on the way language and culture operate. The third trilogy was probably the least satisfactory, revolving around intrigue and atevi civil war. They were intimate, complexly crafted political scenarios, but the larger setup seemed like a divergence, an overly small-scale portrait that delayed the more interesting possibilities setup by Explorer. As well, the deeper drama of the series appeared based on a too stark division; in reading I never believed that Cherryh would break up the Western Association permanently or undermine the progression of atevi development, and the unwillingness to pull the trigger against any significant characters despite the continual flood of assassinations undermined investment in the drama. The fourth trilogy seems to have a lot of the same issues, but I found it more satisfying. Perhaps my expectations have changed at this point, but it also seems that the representation becomes more intricate. Conspirator, Deceiver and now Betrayar focus not on the familiar atevi political terrain but fragmented forces to the east, areas never brought into real acceptance of humanity, and with much deeper structural problems, ones that can't be solved in terms of thwarting individual powerlust. The recent books also encourage a greater degree of ambiguity towards longstanding atevi allies, an awareness of how fine-crafted their manipulation has been, of how dangerous they really may be.
*For all this effort, the world constructed seems oddly separate from our own climate, to a degree unusual for contemporary science fiction. Most works don't comment directly on current circumstances--and those that do are not terribly effective--but I've seen in most of the 2011 genre I've read and expect to find more of an underlying zeitgeist. In a lot of ways even more far-fetched work will show awareness of, if it does not directly comment on, the post-2008 economic situation, political fragmentation, impact of technological disorientation and ongoing geopolitical tensions. The Foreigner series is working off its internal timeline, setup in 1994, and continuing on without real adjustment to ways our world has changed since that point, it's the only long-running series I've followed that seems so disconnected from our own times. Which has value, certainly, escaping the short-sighted extrapolation or didactic settling of lessons that I've often found frustrating. And yet, this aspect gives me a bit of pause. Perhaps the pendulum has gone a bit too far in this
instance. While the series is certain attuned to the impact of structural poverty and grasping politivcal hierarchies, and has more of substance to say about the ways reactionary forces can fight on than most science fiction I've read, there are assumptions that seem a bit dubious. The notion of increased trade and global integration promoting a progressive moderanization of society, in particular. Of course the technology isn't our own and neither is the underlying psychology, but there are aspects of the series that feel a bit dated, or even tending towards an escapist alternative to the direction our planet seems to be taking. The Foreigner series certainly has a lot of grim elements, but I wonder in the end if it will fade towards a somewhat unfounded utopia of cooperation and effective political balance arranged by Bren, if it will tend to have less of substance to way than it's 3,000+ pages (and counting) could otherwise support.
*It's a pity that the larger series aren't going to get any award attentions, at this point despite a bit of introductory recap the whole venue is blatantly alienating for anyone not already a fan. Even if this book were perfection and the Hugo fanbase were a lot more conscientious than they are, you aren't going to have enough people drawn in. Perhaps if Cherryh were British there would be a chance that the series would get a nod at some point, but there doesn't seem a venue for that degree of off-brand nomination among major American-focused genre awards.
Overall assessment: A-. Unlikely to be a Hugo nominee for me, not just on the grounds of it having no chance at all, it's in the end not *that* good. If it were put up as some kind of Best Installment in a 4 Book+ Series I suspect I'd nominate it. In the past few years only the Psalms of Isaac and Culture series seem likely to give real competition.
After writing this I encountered the recent Strange Horizons review, which is worth a look. It's significantly harsher than I am, but it pretty well-formed and interesting.
http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2011/07/betrayer_by_c_j.shtml
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Game of Thrones Season One
Twelve thoughts on HBO's first season of Game of Thrones, about ten years after reading the first book.
(1) This is a major accomplishment on multiple levels, succeeding far more than most television I've seen. I haven't seen better television from the past academic year outside of Mad Men, and unless I'm very much mistaken the show will deserve Emmy nominations on a wide number of counts, especially best Dramatic Series. I highly doubt it will get nominated, though, since there's a lot of precedent for dismissing out of hand unambiguous fantasy from serious consideration.
(2) It also rather dwarfs Lost a number of recent serials shows, with the claims of novelistic television. The pace was very brisk, plot movement changed things irreparably, the larger scenario made sense and transition happened. Above all, the show showed characters paying for their mistakes, with Catelyn's impetuous seizure of Tyrion and Ned's rigid commitment to his honour leading to full-scale civil war and thousands of deaths, including Ned's own. There's an effective momentum in the way things are handled that's very powerful, a willingness to go to very dark places.
(3) The show is relentlessly realistic, in the end. Not just because the fantasy elements are at present relatively minor, but because it deals with political conflict in a way that is very credible on how poorly a genuinely idealistic ruler would fare in a setting like medieval Europe. There's also good things that come from the scale of the setting, showing a degree of interaction among the secondary cast. There's the way Jon is deeply impacted by all the events that transpire yet forgotten by everyone else, the different ways everyone reacts to Tyrion and his abduction, the way that Lannister power is experienced by people across Westeros. The show is very good at following through on its life and death premise fairly, and feels more honest in this matter than any show I can think of outside of Breaking Bad and the Wire.
(4) Above all, the show works in building an alternate setting to our own history in a complex and well-integrated manner. By the end of the season King's Landing, Winterfell and the Wall all feel like real places, and they feel like places with different core atmospheres and social geographies. The Dothraki exploits are a lot more isolated, but one of her close followers is show to be a spy for Varys, and the debate on assassinating Daernys or not does play into the clash between Robert and Ned. In the end it feels like a cohesive region, and moreover one with a deep history. Things like the war against mad king Aerys seem real and close to the present, for all that they haven't been directly seen at all, and Westeros feels like a complex, credible and engaging place, one on the verge of being torn apart by another political clash, in which regular people are disconnected from power yet will be the ones to suffer the most. If the show lacked the compelling storyline it had and just built up the setting, I'd still consider it a major success. First-rate worldbuilding is something that exists in a lot of fantasy and science fiction book series, but is much rarer in television--I'm not sure there's been anything as evocative and richly detailed before. There is a substantial additional pleasure in seeing this fleshed out to life. Ironic, given how much of this epic fantasy series involves monologues, storytelling exposition and quiet dialog, but there is a keen pleasure in itself from hearing characters talk about their shared past.
(5) In the seventh episode Renly gets two important speeches. The second is to Ned, outlining the failings with his refusal to be pragmatic, and flatly denying that Stanis will make a better king just because of birthright. Ned does eventually learn to compromise his honour a bit through kneeling to Joffrey, but by that point with Renly he wasn't ready. Littlefinger and Cersei also made excellent points on the politics of the situation, but both are more obviously corrupt and self-serving, Renly came across as a relatively decent if ambitious man who was a lot more clear-sighted about what needed to be done to prevent vile people from dominating. His first speech was an even more effective deconstruction, challenging Roberts' notion that there was a better past time, emphasizing that the legacy of abuse of power, bloody internal divisions and moral compromises went back a long time. Both very effective statements, forcefully stated. Renly as a character didn't get that much to do this season (and in casting was a little too physically similar to the far more central Littlefinger) but his character had enough believability to support these speeches, which in itself makes him a strong personality in my book.
(6) The Lannisters stand as a pretty effective addition to the ranks of television's crime families. Effectively when you strip through the crown, title and degree of relative wealth they are basically another mafia, focused on defending and expanding their position. I'm not very fond of incest as a plot device, here or more generally, as it seems too easy a way to signal depravity. Except for that, though, things are pretty much note-perfect, from Twyin's business-like longterm pragmatism to Joffrey's utterly monstrous egotism. Even Tyrion, although heroic compared to his family, has a very vested selfishness and privilege built into his identity. Characters like Jaime and Cersei, meanwhile, prove to have a lot more layers and a more compelling history than they first seem to. What's most interesting about the family is the way they work in relation to the wider society and within their own dynamic.
(7) Another sign of how effective this show is at building up its mythology is the way it gives a sense of character's shadows long before they appear on stage. Partly there's the presence of John Aeryn and the mad king, but even more forcefully the significance of Tywin Lannister. When Ned issues the order for his arrest we already have a very good sense of who this man is, the power he holds, the things he represents and the reasons why going after him is virtuous, but also utterly stupid. And then he shows up in the flesh and builds the sense of underlying menace perfectly. There's a similar position with Lord Stanis, yet to feature on-screen, but already a major character with his own well-defined set of interests.
(8) Not everything about the show works, though. There's all the naked women, for one thing, with so much open flesh shown around characters delivering exposition that it becomes practically a parody of itself, as well as by far the shallowest element in the show's appeal to viewers. The worst scene in this vein was the episode seven Littlefinger and two prostitutes scene, as you mentioned before. It went on and on, and was utterly dumb on about every level: why is one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom taking time to micromanage two of his prostitutes? Why is he risking everything by indicating in so heavy-handed a fashion that he's going to turn on Ned? Why does the show feel this necessary to setup his later betrayal, when the foundation for it had been laid pretty clearly already?
The scene in the finale with Roz and the Maestor was almost as bad, given neither character had, unlike Littlefinger, ever been important. It makes up for it a little in how utterly and openly bored Roz is at his diatribe.
(9) There's also the Daernys plotline. I have to say, this still doesn't work for me, seeming by far the weakest part of the show, an entire subarc that's not at the same level of writing, characterization, realism or basic interest. I don't see the ending as compensating for the problems I had with this earlier on, while there's stronger moments in her arc there aren't very many of them. Vaerys' death and the emergence of the dragons doesn't in itself make up for twenty scenes of relatively arbitrary violence, or become invested in Drogo and Daerny's relationship. I always knew his death was coming, but unlike Ned's I was actively looking for to it, as he had minimal appealing traits, and wasn't an interesting variant of human evil in the way that Joffrey or Lannisters more generally were. I also don't see any particular acting strength in this, save for the presentation of a couple scenes Emilia Clarke seems to play most scenes as overly blank and one note, not adding to the relatively basic dialog the series provides. She's the character that suffers the most from the loss of internal narration, I'd say, to expand on her adaptation, intelligence and more appealing qualities.
(10) There's another way of thinking about in, in comparison with Jon Snow. Jon was also one of my favorite characters from the novel, who I found far less impressive in the series. There's also a similar pattern of him following a more cliched story arc, and existing in a way that's largely isolated from the rest of the storyline and peripheral to the setting, which also contains the most direct supernatural legacy. Yet for all that Jon's storyline does work a lot better for me this season than Daerny's, for a couple reasons.
[a] it is closer integrated to the main fate of Westeros, Jon regularly hears of and is effected by events to the South. In contrast while Westeros activates spies and assassination, nothing that happens in Westeros beyond that is reported to Daernys, and it doesn't seem she'd care if it did. The disconnect is more considerable.
[b] Taken on its own terms as something of a show within a show, the Wall is a lot more interesting than the Dothraki land. It's better in atmosphere, creepiness and a sense of history, as well as being integrated into the history of Westeros' undesirables. The Dothraki are defined as being without real culture, and just exist as a crude barbarian caricature.
[c] The Wall features better people, the only community that is able to have some longer term perspective and to genuinely try putting duty above family. In contrast Daernys has minimal real connection for people, and her growing into more self-confidence and personal power is synonymous with her mobilizing the Dothraki to murderous aggression. Daernys seems considerably more morally blind in the series compared with the book, and with far less justification, to the extent that she is shocked Robert tries to have her killed when she was actively planning to invade Westeros with an army. She encouraged Drogo to move on the attack, with him explicitly rallying his forces with a call for rape and enslavement, accordingly her effort to halt some of the atrocities seems fairly half-hearted and inauthentic ethics. Basically everything that the witch said to Daernys was true, which works as a deconstruction of her heroism, but makes it very difficult to be invested in her. Arguably she's worse than the Lannisters across the season, since for all their abuses they mostly want to defend their current position of power. Darenys has the option of living out her life in comfort away from larger politics, but is focused on claiming the thrown, through an invasion of slavers and thugs that will kill tens of thousands of people at a minimum.
(11) I think there's a general joylessness over the universe, which has good and bad elements. It definitely plays into the realism of the setting, and the real bite given to the political intrigue. Life is nasty, brutal and short for people that are nobility, and even the most ethical of the upper-class individuals give no more than a brief moment of regret to the death of commoners as they needlessly occur, such as with Ned's minimal reaction to the butcher's son being killed. There's a socio-economics at work with that which plays very well with the whole aesthetic and plot. At the same time, though, it's a bit of a cheat. Grim as things were, it's not like there wasn't any fun in medieval Europe, but in Westeros no one except Tyrion and his crew seem to feel that way. That's part of the many reasons why he's easily the most appealing character, but it's an approach that could be taken a bit more widely. Does no one else in this world ever relax, engage in non-sadistic humor, play drinking games? There are ways of broadening the horizons of presenting other characters, and they're not taken, which shrinks the horizon of the show more than it needs to. This becomes a problem as the whole tendency of the series is to have things get progressively worse, more and more brutal even when it seems the characters can't fall any further. However at present there's not that much in the way of of good times to fall from.
(12) Another issues that's a bit weaker than it could be is on the Stark family themselves. On the whole what's been done with them is very strong as individual characters, although there seems to be some problems with storycrafting of both Bren and Jon which will hopefully improve as they're given more to do. (Special note of praise to Sansa, who went through some the period of wide-eyed naivete to a very effective portrayal of a crushed, disillusioned hostage). What's missing is a real sense of the family as a unit, how all the children related to each other, their dynamics to the extent the Lannisters operated. There are also broader political questions involved with them, as to the extent that Stark's unyielding honour translated into a over policies of justice and gain for the population at large. We don't have as firm a confirmation on many of the abuses common to the villain houses, and that makes the moral ambiguity of the piece a bit less effective than it might otherwise be. Still, that's a problem that's largely behind the series at this point, given how thoroughly the family is shattered.
(1) This is a major accomplishment on multiple levels, succeeding far more than most television I've seen. I haven't seen better television from the past academic year outside of Mad Men, and unless I'm very much mistaken the show will deserve Emmy nominations on a wide number of counts, especially best Dramatic Series. I highly doubt it will get nominated, though, since there's a lot of precedent for dismissing out of hand unambiguous fantasy from serious consideration.
(2) It also rather dwarfs Lost a number of recent serials shows, with the claims of novelistic television. The pace was very brisk, plot movement changed things irreparably, the larger scenario made sense and transition happened. Above all, the show showed characters paying for their mistakes, with Catelyn's impetuous seizure of Tyrion and Ned's rigid commitment to his honour leading to full-scale civil war and thousands of deaths, including Ned's own. There's an effective momentum in the way things are handled that's very powerful, a willingness to go to very dark places.
(3) The show is relentlessly realistic, in the end. Not just because the fantasy elements are at present relatively minor, but because it deals with political conflict in a way that is very credible on how poorly a genuinely idealistic ruler would fare in a setting like medieval Europe. There's also good things that come from the scale of the setting, showing a degree of interaction among the secondary cast. There's the way Jon is deeply impacted by all the events that transpire yet forgotten by everyone else, the different ways everyone reacts to Tyrion and his abduction, the way that Lannister power is experienced by people across Westeros. The show is very good at following through on its life and death premise fairly, and feels more honest in this matter than any show I can think of outside of Breaking Bad and the Wire.
(4) Above all, the show works in building an alternate setting to our own history in a complex and well-integrated manner. By the end of the season King's Landing, Winterfell and the Wall all feel like real places, and they feel like places with different core atmospheres and social geographies. The Dothraki exploits are a lot more isolated, but one of her close followers is show to be a spy for Varys, and the debate on assassinating Daernys or not does play into the clash between Robert and Ned. In the end it feels like a cohesive region, and moreover one with a deep history. Things like the war against mad king Aerys seem real and close to the present, for all that they haven't been directly seen at all, and Westeros feels like a complex, credible and engaging place, one on the verge of being torn apart by another political clash, in which regular people are disconnected from power yet will be the ones to suffer the most. If the show lacked the compelling storyline it had and just built up the setting, I'd still consider it a major success. First-rate worldbuilding is something that exists in a lot of fantasy and science fiction book series, but is much rarer in television--I'm not sure there's been anything as evocative and richly detailed before. There is a substantial additional pleasure in seeing this fleshed out to life. Ironic, given how much of this epic fantasy series involves monologues, storytelling exposition and quiet dialog, but there is a keen pleasure in itself from hearing characters talk about their shared past.
(5) In the seventh episode Renly gets two important speeches. The second is to Ned, outlining the failings with his refusal to be pragmatic, and flatly denying that Stanis will make a better king just because of birthright. Ned does eventually learn to compromise his honour a bit through kneeling to Joffrey, but by that point with Renly he wasn't ready. Littlefinger and Cersei also made excellent points on the politics of the situation, but both are more obviously corrupt and self-serving, Renly came across as a relatively decent if ambitious man who was a lot more clear-sighted about what needed to be done to prevent vile people from dominating. His first speech was an even more effective deconstruction, challenging Roberts' notion that there was a better past time, emphasizing that the legacy of abuse of power, bloody internal divisions and moral compromises went back a long time. Both very effective statements, forcefully stated. Renly as a character didn't get that much to do this season (and in casting was a little too physically similar to the far more central Littlefinger) but his character had enough believability to support these speeches, which in itself makes him a strong personality in my book.
(6) The Lannisters stand as a pretty effective addition to the ranks of television's crime families. Effectively when you strip through the crown, title and degree of relative wealth they are basically another mafia, focused on defending and expanding their position. I'm not very fond of incest as a plot device, here or more generally, as it seems too easy a way to signal depravity. Except for that, though, things are pretty much note-perfect, from Twyin's business-like longterm pragmatism to Joffrey's utterly monstrous egotism. Even Tyrion, although heroic compared to his family, has a very vested selfishness and privilege built into his identity. Characters like Jaime and Cersei, meanwhile, prove to have a lot more layers and a more compelling history than they first seem to. What's most interesting about the family is the way they work in relation to the wider society and within their own dynamic.
(7) Another sign of how effective this show is at building up its mythology is the way it gives a sense of character's shadows long before they appear on stage. Partly there's the presence of John Aeryn and the mad king, but even more forcefully the significance of Tywin Lannister. When Ned issues the order for his arrest we already have a very good sense of who this man is, the power he holds, the things he represents and the reasons why going after him is virtuous, but also utterly stupid. And then he shows up in the flesh and builds the sense of underlying menace perfectly. There's a similar position with Lord Stanis, yet to feature on-screen, but already a major character with his own well-defined set of interests.
(8) Not everything about the show works, though. There's all the naked women, for one thing, with so much open flesh shown around characters delivering exposition that it becomes practically a parody of itself, as well as by far the shallowest element in the show's appeal to viewers. The worst scene in this vein was the episode seven Littlefinger and two prostitutes scene, as you mentioned before. It went on and on, and was utterly dumb on about every level: why is one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom taking time to micromanage two of his prostitutes? Why is he risking everything by indicating in so heavy-handed a fashion that he's going to turn on Ned? Why does the show feel this necessary to setup his later betrayal, when the foundation for it had been laid pretty clearly already?
The scene in the finale with Roz and the Maestor was almost as bad, given neither character had, unlike Littlefinger, ever been important. It makes up for it a little in how utterly and openly bored Roz is at his diatribe.
(9) There's also the Daernys plotline. I have to say, this still doesn't work for me, seeming by far the weakest part of the show, an entire subarc that's not at the same level of writing, characterization, realism or basic interest. I don't see the ending as compensating for the problems I had with this earlier on, while there's stronger moments in her arc there aren't very many of them. Vaerys' death and the emergence of the dragons doesn't in itself make up for twenty scenes of relatively arbitrary violence, or become invested in Drogo and Daerny's relationship. I always knew his death was coming, but unlike Ned's I was actively looking for to it, as he had minimal appealing traits, and wasn't an interesting variant of human evil in the way that Joffrey or Lannisters more generally were. I also don't see any particular acting strength in this, save for the presentation of a couple scenes Emilia Clarke seems to play most scenes as overly blank and one note, not adding to the relatively basic dialog the series provides. She's the character that suffers the most from the loss of internal narration, I'd say, to expand on her adaptation, intelligence and more appealing qualities.
(10) There's another way of thinking about in, in comparison with Jon Snow. Jon was also one of my favorite characters from the novel, who I found far less impressive in the series. There's also a similar pattern of him following a more cliched story arc, and existing in a way that's largely isolated from the rest of the storyline and peripheral to the setting, which also contains the most direct supernatural legacy. Yet for all that Jon's storyline does work a lot better for me this season than Daerny's, for a couple reasons.
[a] it is closer integrated to the main fate of Westeros, Jon regularly hears of and is effected by events to the South. In contrast while Westeros activates spies and assassination, nothing that happens in Westeros beyond that is reported to Daernys, and it doesn't seem she'd care if it did. The disconnect is more considerable.
[b] Taken on its own terms as something of a show within a show, the Wall is a lot more interesting than the Dothraki land. It's better in atmosphere, creepiness and a sense of history, as well as being integrated into the history of Westeros' undesirables. The Dothraki are defined as being without real culture, and just exist as a crude barbarian caricature.
[c] The Wall features better people, the only community that is able to have some longer term perspective and to genuinely try putting duty above family. In contrast Daernys has minimal real connection for people, and her growing into more self-confidence and personal power is synonymous with her mobilizing the Dothraki to murderous aggression. Daernys seems considerably more morally blind in the series compared with the book, and with far less justification, to the extent that she is shocked Robert tries to have her killed when she was actively planning to invade Westeros with an army. She encouraged Drogo to move on the attack, with him explicitly rallying his forces with a call for rape and enslavement, accordingly her effort to halt some of the atrocities seems fairly half-hearted and inauthentic ethics. Basically everything that the witch said to Daernys was true, which works as a deconstruction of her heroism, but makes it very difficult to be invested in her. Arguably she's worse than the Lannisters across the season, since for all their abuses they mostly want to defend their current position of power. Darenys has the option of living out her life in comfort away from larger politics, but is focused on claiming the thrown, through an invasion of slavers and thugs that will kill tens of thousands of people at a minimum.
(11) I think there's a general joylessness over the universe, which has good and bad elements. It definitely plays into the realism of the setting, and the real bite given to the political intrigue. Life is nasty, brutal and short for people that are nobility, and even the most ethical of the upper-class individuals give no more than a brief moment of regret to the death of commoners as they needlessly occur, such as with Ned's minimal reaction to the butcher's son being killed. There's a socio-economics at work with that which plays very well with the whole aesthetic and plot. At the same time, though, it's a bit of a cheat. Grim as things were, it's not like there wasn't any fun in medieval Europe, but in Westeros no one except Tyrion and his crew seem to feel that way. That's part of the many reasons why he's easily the most appealing character, but it's an approach that could be taken a bit more widely. Does no one else in this world ever relax, engage in non-sadistic humor, play drinking games? There are ways of broadening the horizons of presenting other characters, and they're not taken, which shrinks the horizon of the show more than it needs to. This becomes a problem as the whole tendency of the series is to have things get progressively worse, more and more brutal even when it seems the characters can't fall any further. However at present there's not that much in the way of of good times to fall from.
(12) Another issues that's a bit weaker than it could be is on the Stark family themselves. On the whole what's been done with them is very strong as individual characters, although there seems to be some problems with storycrafting of both Bren and Jon which will hopefully improve as they're given more to do. (Special note of praise to Sansa, who went through some the period of wide-eyed naivete to a very effective portrayal of a crushed, disillusioned hostage). What's missing is a real sense of the family as a unit, how all the children related to each other, their dynamics to the extent the Lannisters operated. There are also broader political questions involved with them, as to the extent that Stark's unyielding honour translated into a over policies of justice and gain for the population at large. We don't have as firm a confirmation on many of the abuses common to the villain houses, and that makes the moral ambiguity of the piece a bit less effective than it might otherwise be. Still, that's a problem that's largely behind the series at this point, given how thoroughly the family is shattered.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
2011 Hugo Award Shortlist: Initial Reactions
Nominees have just been announced. This will be my second consecutive year as a Hugo voter. My initial response to each category:
Best Novel:
Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
Feed, Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
The Dervish House, Ian McDonald (Pyr; Gollancz)
Blackout/All Clear, Connie Willis (Spectra)
This is a terrible shortlist. I appear to be in the minority on my dislike for Blackout/All Clear, and am in the distinct minority for my objections to Feed. I retain objections, though, and don't see these works as at all representative of the best of the year, in ambition, writing, basic quality control or in using tools of the genre. Willis' work is profoundly boring and stylistically framed. Feed banks heavily on the thoroughness of its imaginative concept while failing to think through its setting effectively and indulging in the worst kind of political strawmen and idiot plotting. One can read the novel in a more effective sense in, as the recent Strange Horizons review has it[1], as a sharp media satire, and that takes a little of the bitter taste from my mouth. Not all of it, though, as I'm not at all convinced that was the book Grant wrote. Cryoburn isn't as bad as either, but is in some ways even more disappointing: a strong writer returning to a familiar setting and doing about the minimum effort to string together a conventional plot. At least Feed and Blackout/All Clear were clearly significant investments in their author's time, for all that I felt it was misapplied they were labors of enthusiasm. Cryoburn suggests quite strongly that Bujold was bored and making little effort, re-running familiar scenarios into predictable plot that doesn't challenge or grow the characters. The politics are simplistic, the only powerful moments come in a coda unconnected to the main story, and the whole thing looks very tossed together. It's very dispiriting that readers will be so eager to embrace a familiar author and setting that they'd give nominee status to such a weak return.
The Dervish House is magnificent and hopefully it can win, but nothing else on the shortlist comes close to meriting its place. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is pretty good and does approach some themes in an interesting manner, but it fails to follow through on the implications enough. And while there's no Sawyer here, the result remains a shortlist that's 60% mediocre. Much weaker than last year's novel list, and almost as bad as 2009's. Although there at least is something to be said that the list isn't as familiar, with a number of new authors and returning ones at least not nominated recently. I'll also note that it's an 80% female shortlist, for what I'm guessing may be the highest ratio. It's a pity that on the level of content the voters seem to have generally embraced a conentional style over substance, with a focus on familiar World War Two moralizing, a regurgitation of the Vorkosigan setting and yet another exploration of the zombie phenomenon. In part I'm reacting to the disconnect from my own top preferences and votes, but beyond that I do feel there are a number of objective problems with this as a set of best science fiction and fantasy of the year. At least there is Dervish House, and to a lesser extent the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
[1] http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2011/02/feed_by_mira_gr.shtml
Best Novella:
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Ted Chiang" (Subterranean)
‘‘The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon'', Elizabeth Hand (Stories)
‘‘The Sultan of the Clouds'', Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov's 9/10)
‘‘Troika'', Alastair Reynolds (Godlike Machines)
‘‘The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen's Window'', Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer 2010)
Three of these items I've read, two I voted for. Not at all surprised to see Chiang get in, am surprised and pleased that Reynolds made it. I've read the Swirsky and didn't vote for it, but I'm not too disgruntled it made it on, it's a decent enough story is not exceptional. Haven't read the other two, or their authors before, will look forward to this in the Hugo packet. Will have to see how they turn out, at present this looks like a stronger shortlist than last year's. 40% female shortlist.
Best Novelette:
‘‘The Jaguar House, in Shadow'', Aliette de Bodard (Asimov's 7/10)
‘‘Plus or Minus'', James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's 12/10)
‘‘Eight Miles'', Sean McMullen (Analog 9/10)
‘‘The Emperor of Mars'', Allen M. Steele (Asimov's 6/10)
‘‘That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made'', Eric James Stone (Analog 9/10
Haven't read any of these. Aliette de Boddard I was impressed with in her recent novel and I've heard good things about McMullen, beyond that it's a mystery. Look forward to diving into this, it seems the novelette category is usually pretty good and I don't see any glaring indications of clunkers. 20% female shortlist.
Best Short Story:
‘‘Ponies'', Kij Johnson (Tor.com 11/17/10)
‘‘For Want of a Nail'', Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov's 12/10)
‘‘Amaryllis'', Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed 6/10)
‘‘The Things'', Peter Watts (Clarkesworld 1/10)
No Resnick on this or the other short fiction! Somewhat disturbing indication of the low attention given to short fiction, though, as there were only enough votes with 5% to clear four nominees. I've read the Watts and viewed it as fairly weak, undermined by his usual failings and not offering as much substance as his short fiction usually delivers. I'm familiar with Johnson and Kowal, both have done good stuff and I've seen Johnson do great work. Not familiar with Vaughn. 75% female shortlist.
Best Related Work:
*Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve, William H. Patterson, Jr. (Tor)
*The Business of Science Fiction: Two Insiders Discuss Writing and Publishing, Mike Resnick & Barry N. Malzberg (McFarland)
*Writing Excuses, Season 4, Brandon Sanderson, Jordan Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells
*Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It, Lynne M. Thomas & Tara O'Shea, eds. (Mad Norwegian)
*Bearings: Reviews 1997-2001, Gary K. Wolfe (Beccon)
One of these works I voted for, the Wolfe reviews, which are really quite nice. Beyond that I've heard of the Chicks Dig Time Lords anthology, sounds a little shallow and fannish but has work by Valente and has an intriguing topic so I'm looking forward to it. I'm fairly indifferent to the Writing Excuses one at this time, but I'll leave room to be impressed by the voters' packet samples. The Business of Science Fiction looks actively irritating to me--a twist of fate that he's finally off the short fiction nominees but I'll have to read him regardless. I suppose I should reserve judgement, but given his business plan over at leas the last few years of getting sales and awards from terrible fiction, I'm not optimistic. And I'm almost certain I'm not going to like the Heinlein-focused work, I'm not at all interested in hearing more about him, and am pretty anti-Heinlein as a whole.
Best Graphic Story:
*The Unwritten, Vol. 2: Inside Man, Mike Carey; art by Peter Gross (Vertigo)
*Girl Genius, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse, Phil & Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio (Airship Entertainment)
*Grandville Mon Amour, Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse)
*Schlock Mercenary: Massively Parallel, Howard Tayler (Hypernode)
*Fables: Witches, Bill Willingham; art by Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
Not interested in this category at all. I do notice that it's largely the same comic lines as it was last year.
Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Toy Story 3
The most predictable category. I've seen Inception and Toy Story 3, and indeed voted for both, they're worthy nominees although I'm more interested in Toy Story 3 despite its weak genre content. Haven't seen the other three but they seem to be well regarded, I hadn't pegged Harry Potter getting in for some reason, but I'll take a look at these. There weren't a huge amount of options available for this category.
Best Dramatic Presentation Short
Doctor Who: ‘‘A Christmas Carol''
Doctor Who: ‘‘The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang''
Doctor Who: ‘‘Vincent and the Doctor''
Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
The Lost Thing
Not all Doctor Who as I'd expected, never heard of the other two. The majority that is Doctor Who is far from ideal. "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" is quite deserving, but I've never thought "Vincent and the Doctor" was worth the claim, and "A Christimas Carol" is incredibly low-stakes fluff with major plot holes. There were much better episodes to pick for the past season.
BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR LONG FORM
Lou Anders
Ginjer Buchanan
Moshe Feder
Liz Gorinsky
Nick Mamatas
Beth Meacham
Juliet Ulman
BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR SHORT FORM
John Joseph Adams
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Gordon Van Gelder
Sheila Williams
BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
Daniel Dos Santos
Bob Eggleton
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Shaun Tan
BEST SEMIPROZINE
Clarkesworld
Interzone
Lightspeed
Locus
Weird Tales
BEST FANZINE
Banana Wings
Challenger
The Drink Tank
File 770
StarShipSofa
Don't care about any of these.
Best Fan Writer
James Bacon
Claire Brialey
Christopher J Garcia
James Nicoll
Steven H Silver
These are none of the people I voted for, and I'm not even sure I've heard about these.
Best Fan Artist:
Brad W. Foster
Randall Munroe
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne
The only name I recognize is Randall Munroe. Mixed feelings here, xkcd is a great strip, but not one that really deserves to have artwork as such lauded.
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer:
Saladin Ahmed
Lauren Beukes
Larry Correia
Lev Grossman
Dan Wells
Full backing for the Beukes, relative ignorance for the rest. Interesting that all of this shortlist are in their second year of eligibility.
Best Novel:
Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
Feed, Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
The Dervish House, Ian McDonald (Pyr; Gollancz)
Blackout/All Clear, Connie Willis (Spectra)
This is a terrible shortlist. I appear to be in the minority on my dislike for Blackout/All Clear, and am in the distinct minority for my objections to Feed. I retain objections, though, and don't see these works as at all representative of the best of the year, in ambition, writing, basic quality control or in using tools of the genre. Willis' work is profoundly boring and stylistically framed. Feed banks heavily on the thoroughness of its imaginative concept while failing to think through its setting effectively and indulging in the worst kind of political strawmen and idiot plotting. One can read the novel in a more effective sense in, as the recent Strange Horizons review has it[1], as a sharp media satire, and that takes a little of the bitter taste from my mouth. Not all of it, though, as I'm not at all convinced that was the book Grant wrote. Cryoburn isn't as bad as either, but is in some ways even more disappointing: a strong writer returning to a familiar setting and doing about the minimum effort to string together a conventional plot. At least Feed and Blackout/All Clear were clearly significant investments in their author's time, for all that I felt it was misapplied they were labors of enthusiasm. Cryoburn suggests quite strongly that Bujold was bored and making little effort, re-running familiar scenarios into predictable plot that doesn't challenge or grow the characters. The politics are simplistic, the only powerful moments come in a coda unconnected to the main story, and the whole thing looks very tossed together. It's very dispiriting that readers will be so eager to embrace a familiar author and setting that they'd give nominee status to such a weak return.
The Dervish House is magnificent and hopefully it can win, but nothing else on the shortlist comes close to meriting its place. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is pretty good and does approach some themes in an interesting manner, but it fails to follow through on the implications enough. And while there's no Sawyer here, the result remains a shortlist that's 60% mediocre. Much weaker than last year's novel list, and almost as bad as 2009's. Although there at least is something to be said that the list isn't as familiar, with a number of new authors and returning ones at least not nominated recently. I'll also note that it's an 80% female shortlist, for what I'm guessing may be the highest ratio. It's a pity that on the level of content the voters seem to have generally embraced a conentional style over substance, with a focus on familiar World War Two moralizing, a regurgitation of the Vorkosigan setting and yet another exploration of the zombie phenomenon. In part I'm reacting to the disconnect from my own top preferences and votes, but beyond that I do feel there are a number of objective problems with this as a set of best science fiction and fantasy of the year. At least there is Dervish House, and to a lesser extent the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
[1] http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2011/02/feed_by_mira_gr.shtml
Best Novella:
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects, Ted Chiang" (Subterranean)
‘‘The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon'', Elizabeth Hand (Stories)
‘‘The Sultan of the Clouds'', Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov's 9/10)
‘‘Troika'', Alastair Reynolds (Godlike Machines)
‘‘The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen's Window'', Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Summer 2010)
Three of these items I've read, two I voted for. Not at all surprised to see Chiang get in, am surprised and pleased that Reynolds made it. I've read the Swirsky and didn't vote for it, but I'm not too disgruntled it made it on, it's a decent enough story is not exceptional. Haven't read the other two, or their authors before, will look forward to this in the Hugo packet. Will have to see how they turn out, at present this looks like a stronger shortlist than last year's. 40% female shortlist.
Best Novelette:
‘‘The Jaguar House, in Shadow'', Aliette de Bodard (Asimov's 7/10)
‘‘Plus or Minus'', James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's 12/10)
‘‘Eight Miles'', Sean McMullen (Analog 9/10)
‘‘The Emperor of Mars'', Allen M. Steele (Asimov's 6/10)
‘‘That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made'', Eric James Stone (Analog 9/10
Haven't read any of these. Aliette de Boddard I was impressed with in her recent novel and I've heard good things about McMullen, beyond that it's a mystery. Look forward to diving into this, it seems the novelette category is usually pretty good and I don't see any glaring indications of clunkers. 20% female shortlist.
Best Short Story:
‘‘Ponies'', Kij Johnson (Tor.com 11/17/10)
‘‘For Want of a Nail'', Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov's 12/10)
‘‘Amaryllis'', Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed 6/10)
‘‘The Things'', Peter Watts (Clarkesworld 1/10)
No Resnick on this or the other short fiction! Somewhat disturbing indication of the low attention given to short fiction, though, as there were only enough votes with 5% to clear four nominees. I've read the Watts and viewed it as fairly weak, undermined by his usual failings and not offering as much substance as his short fiction usually delivers. I'm familiar with Johnson and Kowal, both have done good stuff and I've seen Johnson do great work. Not familiar with Vaughn. 75% female shortlist.
Best Related Work:
*Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve, William H. Patterson, Jr. (Tor)
*The Business of Science Fiction: Two Insiders Discuss Writing and Publishing, Mike Resnick & Barry N. Malzberg (McFarland)
*Writing Excuses, Season 4, Brandon Sanderson, Jordan Sanderson, Howard Tayler, Dan Wells
*Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It, Lynne M. Thomas & Tara O'Shea, eds. (Mad Norwegian)
*Bearings: Reviews 1997-2001, Gary K. Wolfe (Beccon)
One of these works I voted for, the Wolfe reviews, which are really quite nice. Beyond that I've heard of the Chicks Dig Time Lords anthology, sounds a little shallow and fannish but has work by Valente and has an intriguing topic so I'm looking forward to it. I'm fairly indifferent to the Writing Excuses one at this time, but I'll leave room to be impressed by the voters' packet samples. The Business of Science Fiction looks actively irritating to me--a twist of fate that he's finally off the short fiction nominees but I'll have to read him regardless. I suppose I should reserve judgement, but given his business plan over at leas the last few years of getting sales and awards from terrible fiction, I'm not optimistic. And I'm almost certain I'm not going to like the Heinlein-focused work, I'm not at all interested in hearing more about him, and am pretty anti-Heinlein as a whole.
Best Graphic Story:
*The Unwritten, Vol. 2: Inside Man, Mike Carey; art by Peter Gross (Vertigo)
*Girl Genius, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse, Phil & Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio (Airship Entertainment)
*Grandville Mon Amour, Bryan Talbot (Dark Horse)
*Schlock Mercenary: Massively Parallel, Howard Tayler (Hypernode)
*Fables: Witches, Bill Willingham; art by Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)
Not interested in this category at all. I do notice that it's largely the same comic lines as it was last year.
Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
How to Train Your Dragon
Inception
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Toy Story 3
The most predictable category. I've seen Inception and Toy Story 3, and indeed voted for both, they're worthy nominees although I'm more interested in Toy Story 3 despite its weak genre content. Haven't seen the other three but they seem to be well regarded, I hadn't pegged Harry Potter getting in for some reason, but I'll take a look at these. There weren't a huge amount of options available for this category.
Best Dramatic Presentation Short
Doctor Who: ‘‘A Christmas Carol''
Doctor Who: ‘‘The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang''
Doctor Who: ‘‘Vincent and the Doctor''
Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury
The Lost Thing
Not all Doctor Who as I'd expected, never heard of the other two. The majority that is Doctor Who is far from ideal. "The Pandorica Opens"/"The Big Bang" is quite deserving, but I've never thought "Vincent and the Doctor" was worth the claim, and "A Christimas Carol" is incredibly low-stakes fluff with major plot holes. There were much better episodes to pick for the past season.
BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR LONG FORM
Lou Anders
Ginjer Buchanan
Moshe Feder
Liz Gorinsky
Nick Mamatas
Beth Meacham
Juliet Ulman
BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR SHORT FORM
John Joseph Adams
Stanley Schmidt
Jonathan Strahan
Gordon Van Gelder
Sheila Williams
BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST
Daniel Dos Santos
Bob Eggleton
Stephan Martiniere
John Picacio
Shaun Tan
BEST SEMIPROZINE
Clarkesworld
Interzone
Lightspeed
Locus
Weird Tales
BEST FANZINE
Banana Wings
Challenger
The Drink Tank
File 770
StarShipSofa
Don't care about any of these.
Best Fan Writer
James Bacon
Claire Brialey
Christopher J Garcia
James Nicoll
Steven H Silver
These are none of the people I voted for, and I'm not even sure I've heard about these.
Best Fan Artist:
Brad W. Foster
Randall Munroe
Maurine Starkey
Steve Stiles
Taral Wayne
The only name I recognize is Randall Munroe. Mixed feelings here, xkcd is a great strip, but not one that really deserves to have artwork as such lauded.
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer:
Saladin Ahmed
Lauren Beukes
Larry Correia
Lev Grossman
Dan Wells
Full backing for the Beukes, relative ignorance for the rest. Interesting that all of this shortlist are in their second year of eligibility.
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