The Hand We've Been Dealt

(Yes, the title references both The Walking Dead and Miles Naismith Vorkosigan.)

One of the recurring themes from the on-going Hugo kerfuffle is a sense of unfairness.  Among the charges:

a) There was a pre-existing bias against conservatives & libertarians (1) among the small (2) subsection of SFF Fandom (3) who nominate and vote for the Hugos.  The most vocal people expressing this pov are called by those who oppose them “SJW” – social justice warriors.  (It is not meant as a compliment.)

b) That there was a countering bias against women, non-Caucasians, and non-heterosexuals in terms of characters, authors, and fans.(Sometimes this is expressed in terms of matching the general issues of American society, other times it is described as unique to SFF fandom/ SFF creators.) The most vocal people expressing this pov are called by those who oppose them “fascist racist sexists homophobes”. (4)(Also not a compliment.) (They have employed the term "racist" against a Caucasian man in a twenty-year old marriage with an African-American woman, to which I can only say damn, that's dedication to the Cause.)

c) There was an active on-going cabal of influential people who habitually manipulated some if not all of the nominations in order to steer the finalist lists to include selected works and people. (5)

d) That Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies (SP/RP) (6) unfairly stacked the deck against all other parts of fandom in order to get a selected group of writers on the finalist list.

Noses are so far bent out of joint that it’s a wonder any of us can see straight.

Among many people who consider themselves defending the Hugos and SFF / SFF Fandom against the sorts of people and thoughts exemplified by the SP/RP, there has been an oft-repeated sense that The Hugos Were Fine Why Did You Have To Break Them?  As evidence for how The Hugos Were Fine, quotes like this one from Rcade are common:

“ What makes me bitter is the strategy of bloc voting, because it made it impossible for nominations I made as an individual in good faith to appear on the ballot. Out of 80 slots on the ballot, my nominations appear 0 times. That’s never happened before. Normally I see around 2-6.”

This is given as part of the justification for charges such as that put forth by such otherwise temperate and polite people as Connie Willis that the SP/RP were outright “cheating” and “ballot stuffing.” (7)

The purpose of this post is to demonstrate that such an assumption is inaccurate and – instead of being proof of cheating – is instead evidence in support of an insular common opinion amongst the historical voters for the Hugos.

***

As we’re talking about cheating, let’s talk cards.

Consider a deck of common playing cards. Take out the jokers and the extra cards with the name of the card manufacturer on them, and you are left with 52 cards.  Four suites – hearts, clubs, spades, diamonds (9) – of 13 cards – ace, 2-10, jack, queen, king. For the purposes of this example, face cards are ace, jack, queen, king. (And that makes four, oh best beloved.)

So.  We have 52 cards, and we want to know, what are the best two cards?

Differentiation depends on, well, differences. If there are no differences, then what appear to be varying levels of support are no more than random chance.

If all the cards are indistinguishable from each other in value of Bestness, and if we ask a large enough group (say, a bazillion gazillion) (8) of people, we would end up with 1326 different unique combinations of 2 cards from that group.  That number – 1326 – is calculated using a mathematical formula called the factorial – generally written like so: factorial of (n) = n!  The factorial of a number is equal to that number times all the whole numbers smaller than it.  Thus:

5! = 5*4*3*2*1 = 120

4! = 4*3*2*1 = 24

3! = 3*2*1 = 6

And so on. 

In our example we talk about “sets of two” – this is the smaller grouping drawn from a larger grouping.  The size of this set is k, so that k =2 if we mean, sets of two, or k = 3 if we mean, sets of three.  For every value of n and k, we can determine how many unique sets of size k are in that group numbering n, using the factorial formula.

The formula for determining the number of unique sets is:

  N!

_____

K! (N-k)!

So for a group of size n, choosing smaller groups of equal size k, we can calculate how many unique groups of size k there are in a group of size n.

If we also want to know how many groups of size k we find that include any one item, we imagine we have a group of size (n-1), pick our groups of size k from them, and then subtract.  The remainder is the number of unique small groups that were made up of ONLY the items not included in the second , smaller group.

(Wikipedia also has an explanation of the math, in case I have confused anyone.)

In our set of 52 cards, there 1326 unique sets of two cards.  If everyone’s opinion of the “Bestness” of cards was equal, we would find that each of these 1326 sets would have an equal representation in our poll, and that there would not be any one pair – either the 2 of clubs and the 10 of spades, or the ace of diamonds and the queen of hearts, nor any other pair – would be determined to be best by a greater number of people than any others. (Such is the power of large sample groups, to which all stats nerds burn incense daily.)

If I, as High Queen of the Universe, were to anoint two cards of my choosing from the deck of 52 and declare them to be The Best, no matter what two cards I picked, 92.4% of the people expressing an opinion on the cards would be unhappy, for neither of their cards would match the two I had picked.  The other 7.6% would be moderately pleased, as one of their cards would match one of mine, and 1/326 th of the people would be very pleased, as my choice would exactly match theirs.

But wait, one says – this is a stupid example, because everyone knows that not all cards are alike!  Face cards are clearly More Best than the rest, and so any example that ignored this difference is clearly useless.

Fine.  Let’s run the numbers for ‘two picked from 12 face cards’ – and we come up with 66 unique sets. Everyone of the bazillion gazillion sorts themselves along those lines – again, giving equal weight to any of the face cards – into 66 groups. I as High Queen of the Universe again pick The Best – and this time, there are 31.8% of the people who are moderately pleased, 68.2% who think I clearly suck as a universal monarch, and 1/66 of the people who think my opinions (at least in cards) are perfect.

However, for the people who didn’t share the opinion that face cards are CLEARLY More Best, my disapproval rate is much higher: only 1.58% of the people who were selecting from the whole deck had EITHER of their two cards match EITHER of mine.

With me so far? Good.

If you do the math out, you see that if one is picking sets from larger decks, the numbers get crazy large crazy fast.  More sets, larger decks, and the number of people who think it is clearly time to pick another universal hereditary ruler start to equal EVERYONE.

But what the heck does this have to do with picking Hugos?

Firstly, consider that instead of a deck of 52, we have a deck of “all the novels published that year.”  And we have everyone vote on what they think the best five are….wait.

No, we already decided that there are cards which are clearly better than others.  Face cards, in our deck.  And for the Hugos we have…oh, every one of the novels nominated during the nomination round.  There.  We’ve narrowed the pool of “best SFF novel” from the tens of thousands published that year to…around 400 (it was 230 novels in 2005, and last year at LonCon it was 648.  We’ll use 400 because I’m High Queen of the Universe.)  At any rate, tens of thousands down to 400 is sorta like 52 to 12, except that it’s several orders of magnitude in difference, and so it’s not really the same. At All, because 52 to 12 doesn’t even come close to approximating the degree in change from tens of thousands to 400.

And as it turns out, my version of MS EXCEL crashes when I go over 170 for my n.  So we can’t even use that. Let’s use 160.  (See: High Queen of the Universe.)

If we pick sets of 5 cards from a deck of 52, that there are 2.598960 MILLION different combinations of sets of 5.  For [our 'face cards set' (slight edit)] 160, it’s 98,446,083,840.  Yes, that’s 98 BILLON. And change.  When the High Queen of the Universe comes down and anoints The Five Best Cards, out of those 160, 14.85% of the people see that at least ONE of their cards matches at least ONE of The Five Best.  (Remember, in our last example, we were talking sets of two.  Now we have sets of 5.  That changes the math.)

(Also?  “One out of five” is a lower standard of happy than “one out of two” – or at least I think so.  See: High Queen of the Universe)

And remember, we’re just talking the people who picked face cards.  The people who were picking from the larger set of the whole deck/all the books published that year, they’re much less happy.  (And I can not do that math because, again, when n > 170, Excel = miserable.)

So.  That’s how it is when we look at picking the five best novels from the 160 face card/clearly best novels that year.  15% of the people have gotten at least one of their novels selected.  The rest are unhappy, and collecting pitchforks.

But it gets worse.

What if instead of picking from all the face card novels, I only picked from diamond suite novels?  If instead of picking from 160, what if I had narrowed my selections down to only those which were the ace, jack, queen and king of diamonds, so now I (as High Queen of the Universe) was selecting from 40 novels, while everyone else was selecting from all the face cards (160 novels) or (even worse) all the novels selected (tens of thousands.)

In that case, there are 658,008 sets of 5, from the 40 diamond face cards. (Note the change from the 2.5 million sets of 5 from 52 cards.  Numbers don’t change geometrically here.) Now, 50% of those whose tastes also ran to just diamond face cards have at least one of five selections equal to one (or more) of mine.  Of those still picking from all the face cards, it’s less than one in a hundred.  In fact, it’s a lot less – it’s 4 in ten thousand.

For those picking from the wider pool of all the deck of published cards?  Doesn’t even register.

And remember that I’m talking about out of 160 novels.  It’s been a very long time since we had only 160 novels that someone thought was Hugo worthy.

So when a fan says Up until now, I generally agreed with the Hugo nominations…it means, I think, that their tastes agree with the tastes of the Queen of the Universe.  Or the average of the Hugo nomination voters, who – at less than 1K – are numerically indistinguishable from a single Queen of the Universe, when looked at on that scale.

When SP/RP say, Up until now, most of what I liked never made it to the Hugos…well, it *might* mean that they had a fancy for cards numbering 2-10.  But it could also mean that they liked face cards of suites other than diamonds.

If we were to imagine SFF as a deck of cards(note: Examples not chosen with any intent in mind) – with Literary SFF as diamonds, and MilSF&Space Opera as clubs, and Humor as hearts, and, oh, Movies&TV&Tieins as spades…well, it would easy enough to see that even if one really liked the most excellent work in clubs AND hearts, if the High Queen of the Universe (or the Hugo voters) were only picking from the 40 items in diamond face cards…well, you’d be SOOL(link).  And the High Queen of the Universe would be aghast at suggestions of bias, because She was selecting evenly from the 40 items in diamond face cards- and what could be wrong with that?

Likewise, if one were to imagine a revolt by people who liked just spades, who all gathered together to sacrifice fluffy kittens and blend puppies so that a pleasing aroma rose unto the sky, and the High Queen deigned to select from the spades face cards instead of diamonds…that would look very much like a betrayal to those who liked diamonds. (We are ignoring those who have objections to animal sacrifice of any sort, because they are obviously in league with the Elder Ones.)

To sum up, because it is too much to explain: the SFF field is huge.  The number of Hugo voters is small.  We need to fix this.

Notes:

(1) These two things are not the same.

(2) No matter how one slices it, WSFS members, WorldCon attendees, and Hugo voters are a very very small fraction of the total number of people who read, watch, write, draw, or play science fiction and fantasy.  Annual nominating membership was under 1,000 people for decades.   It’s only in the last five years that it has hit 2 thousand. Attending membership was under 10,000.  In comparison, Dragon*Con - held the same weekend - was 40,000 in 2010, and is projected to exceed 60,000 in 2015. 

(3) SFF Fandom: that portion of the global human populations who read, watch, write, draw, or play science fiction and fantasy.  At the very minimum, we’re talking 100,000 people – assuming we limit the number to those who can read or speak English.  This group HEAVILY overlaps with, but does not equal, those people who are SFF creators – writers, artists, directors, editors, etc.  (In much the same way, SFWA membership heavily overlaps with, but does not equal, “people who have published something in SFF in the last five years.”

(4) The author of this particular article is Kameron Hurely, two-time winner of the Hugo award, short listed by Chaos Horizon last November as an strong contender  for a Hugo this year for her novel The Mirror Empire.  Yet somehow neither the author nor the editor saw fit to mention this conflict of interest.  I suppose in a world where The Rolling Stone exists this is to be considered of no great note.

(5) While the actions and words of a couple of editors associated with Tor had done a great deal to avoid disproving this perspective, it is my opinion that the fault lies most with a narrow pov on the part of Hugo voters, each of whom is voting their individual preferences, with perhaps some minor influence by those who are attempting to push specific works or authors. More specifically – we can’t get rid of people’s individual preferences and likes, but we can avoid choosing from people who only like one sort of things.

(6) Sad Puppies here. Rabid Puppies here.  These are two different groups who share some overlapping goals.  In combining them, I am unfortunately continuing the disastrously inaccurate lumping together of goals, membership, motivation, and nominated works that has characterized the “trufan” response to the whole mess.  For the purpose of this discussion, I think the shorthand is accurate enough to continue, although I may come to regret saying that.

(6.1) I am not Vox Day, either.  If you have a question about, or an issue with, something VD has said, go take it up with him.  If you have a question about, or an issue with, something I have said, I am willing to discuss that.  For the purposes of this post, the only opinion that VD and I share which is relevant is that the current Hugo process is broken.

(7) Urging other fans – who then purchase their own memberships to WorldCon, and then vote their own ballot - to support particular authors or works has been widely acknowledged as “within the rules.” There are those who disagree and/or who hold that having recommended 5 works on a five opening ballot constitutes undue influence.  Complicating this judgement is Vox Day’s verbage regarding the Rabid Puppy slate: “Those who trust my judgement will vote the slate exactly as it appears.”  Be that as it may, the range of votes even across Puppy dominated categories does not support the charge of lock-step voting. (Obligatory link to herding cats video.)

(8)In the most practical terms, one needs 40 “normal average” individuals to achieve a measurable range of values for any test (like blood pressure or lung volume) and that sample sizes of 100 individuals per data point is sufficient to get a good random distribution, but there are different schools of thought on this.

(9) Assuming traditional French suites, not the German.

Comments and critique of all sorts welcomed!  Please leave a note or drop an email - excel spreadsheets available on demand.

A renunciation of litmus tests

So. Hugo nominations got announced last weekend, and All Fandom Is At War.

One of the better attempts at bridge-building is being conducted by Mary Robinette Kowal, in a post here.  In the comments, Elizabeth Bear (*the* Elizabeth Bear, omg *flails*) responded to a comment I left.

Because I am lousy at saying things succinctly, I am expanding on my reply to Ms Bear here.

***

I appreciate Ms Bear's candid declaration concerning visible voting slates and her intent to reject all those works, writers, and artists as unworthy of an award.  That's her choice, and I respect her decision to do so.  (I also won’t hold it against her if in the future she changes her mind.) I do however disagree with the logic and utility of doing so, but wait on that until the end.

To me, the slate voting process *could* be discussed in and of itself – but that’s not what’s happening here.  As I have said to other members of fandom, though – I find it curious that rather than focusing on publicity efforts or the existence of slates, the focus keeps slipping to *who* is on the slates, and *who* might be recommending those works.

Bear said: Theo Beale first came after me for no good reason except that I was a woman writing SF in like, 2004–and I have no truck with the man (I’ve also spoken out publicly against Requires Hate’s bullying campaign, for what it’s worth.)

I remember a bit of that, and I remember being a bit surprised at the “going after a woman who wrote SF” bit, because dude – Cherryh? Bujold? Willis? Moon? Aren't you annoyed at them, too?  I don’t remember the details of that squabble, frankly.  (I imagine the incident is a bit more etched in Ms Bear's memory.)

But that does bring to mind 2004, and the ultra-awesomeness that it was to be conservative in on-line fandom during the US election season.  The allusions to Hitler (*see note at the end*), the hysterical accusations that concentration camps were being set up for Muslims and gays, the sneering, the wild exaggerations, the ranting, the accusations of intended genocide against minorities, of disenfranchisement of women – and that was before the Republicans won. Good times, good times.

Which have only gotten worse, of course.  The exaggerations and false accusations are present in the comments of multiple other fans in the comments to MRK’s post – despite it being the best attempt so far to build bridges between SP and trufans.

I expect everyone carries a bit of baggage from back then.  My way of dealing with it, and with the on-going hatchet jobs that have surfaced this week in mainstream media, is this:

Firstly, I pick my fannish interactions with care, I don’t go into liberal areas except in rare occasions, and I hang with fans who – even if they might like somewhat different things than I do – don’t openly disparage other people, and particularly not for their politics or religion.

Secondly, in terms of reading and judging works, I don’t care who people are, what their politics are, or what they approve of. I had me and my works judged on the basis of my politics and of lies and exaggerations about what I said.  I don’t do it to other people, to the best extent I can.  And to that end, I absolutely endorse what Ms Bear said at the end:

(I note that last year’s slate included Requires Hate *and* Vox Day. That’s so politically diverse it starts to come full circle.)

Because the Hugos should be able to do that. We must NOT make it so that the Hugos CANNOT do that.

I appreciate Ms Bear's efforts to reach across the lines with assurances that she rejects RH and all her works. But I don’t care. I’m not even going to ask if that speaking out came while Requires Hate was still just targeting Caucasian guys or after she started going after POCs.  Because I don’t care.

I don’t care if people reject RH.  I don’t care if they reject VD.  What I

reject are renunciations, litmus tests, and assurances of purity in thought or deed.

I strongly oppose all attempts to set up a pattern of public rejections, of dis-avowing, of assertion of rightthink, of the sort of quasi-Inquisitionesque  are you now or have you ever been a nasty person who said nasty things to other people, as a part, of any sort, in the process of assessing the quality of a particular work.

We should not be giving anyone the impression that people are reading, enjoying, and buying their works of art on the basis that the writer/artist “is a good person.”  Or that only “good people” can contribute meaningfully to society.  Or that a meaningful contribution makes that person (scientist, artist, bricklayer) a “good person.”

Being a crap writer does not make one a crap person any more than being a crap welder makes one a crap person.  And having a beautiful singing voice does not an angel make.

If Fandom remains a single tent, we will have people inside it who are frightful to each other.  We will have – as we have had before, and doubtlessly do now – people who are rapists and child abusers.  We will have thieves, bigots, scoundrels, rabble rousers, trolls, malcontents and liars.  We will have our Mark Twains. We had Arthur C Clark and Isaac Asimov, and we had Harlan Ellison, Vox Day, and Samuel Delaney.  We had MZB, and we have Requires Hate, Kameron Hurley, and K Tempest Bradford.  And twenty more I could name, and forty more you could name, and a thousand people we don’t even know about yet.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if we storm Castalia House and drag Vox Day to the gallows to be hung, drawn, and quartered, or just shoot him in the street.  It doesn’t matter if we exile Requires Hate to the far Antilles or place her in the stocks and hurl rotten produce at her until she breaks down into a catatonic quivering sobbing mess.

Even if we were right in doing so, the blood and tears would scarcely have dried before the shout went up to do the same to John C Wright and NK Jemisin.

Fandom will not be cleansed by these actions.  We will always have despicable people amongst us. And unpleasant people. And people that others say are despicable, or not pleasant, or Communist, or evangelicals, or who chew with their mouths open.

Criminals should be arrested and charged with crimes. Rude people should be told that they are being rude, and not invited to tea by people who don’t like their rudeness.

Works should be read, or seen, or heard, and not judged based on their creators.

SP came about because a huge chunk of fandom is reacting to another huge chunk of fandom applying extraneous litmus tests of politics and lifestyle – approving of some, disapproving of others – to both authors and works in the course of assessing the quality of work. (And generally shutting out the authors and works now represented by SP.)  SP1 & SP2 demonstrated that this was happening.

SP3 is happening because we – we-as-fandom-we – failed to call for stopping the application of those litmus tests.

Voting No Award for anything other than the quality of the work on the slate is continuing the application of those tests.  And voting No Award is not going to stop SP4, because what we – we-as-SP, as far as I can speak for SP, which is not very far -  want is to be able to push for recognition of the work we like – just like everyone else, with everyone else – to get the awards we think it deserves.

And here’s why I reject the idea that No Award voting slate-sponsored works is in the best interest of Fandom.  Firstly, because even if a majority of fandom agreed with that, all it does is cement the use of extraneous litmus tests in the assessment of works.  I reject the utility of assessing works on the race or gender of the author, or on the skin color of the protagonist, or on the faith system (or lack thereof) in the work.  And I reject assessments based on who recommended it to me, or on what webpage I first saw it.

Secondly, because No Awarding works based on visible, known-to-you slates will only return us to the quasi-sub rosa conditions of 2012.  Slates will go underground, passed from hand to hand and not discussed openly – until someone wants to expose someone else for ‘slating’.  Or commit slander against someone else.  Or start a whisper campaign against someone else.

I’ve been there, done that.  I don’t want that sort of thing affecting “the most prestigious award in SFF.”

Let’s do what should have been done a decade ago, and reject the application of extraneous litmus tests to the Hugo process, and all other award processes.

Two notes:

1) I am not “equating” any authors mentioned by name in this post.  They each are singular persons who have enraged different parts of Fandom.  (There are many horrible people in Fandom.  Such is the crooked timber of humanity.) I think there is some value in publicly addressing assertions of the harm we do to each other.  We are not required to like or approve or tolerate all of each other, nor all that each other does.

I also think that when we have stooped to the point where we take seriously the assertions by grown writers and artists that “someone wrote a mean poem about me!!!!” we have gone well past the point where “harm” has any legitimate definition, and a serious look at what we are considering “intolerable” is in order.

2) I rejoice in the evolution of popular culture, fandom, and internet discourse that now references to Nazis are not only considered unserious, but required in any discussion of sufficient length.  Take that, you genocidal monsters – you’re now the punchline for every mockery of hysterical over-reaction, ever.

CSFFBT: "Merlin's Nightmare" by Robert Treskillard (II)

Day two of another Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Book tour.  Today I will continue my discussion of   Robert Treskillard's novel Merlin's Nightmare.

Yesterday I talked about technical aspects and today I'll hit on the Fantasy elements. Tomorrow, the last day of the tour, I'll deal with the book as a Christian piece.

And now we jump to save white space on the internets:

Getting things done, enjoying things

A couple of time management tools:

The Pickle Jar Theory of Time Management (pdf) - an oldie but still a goodie.  There are a million versions of this floating around the internets.  This one is that doesn't forget that the little things count too.

Pick your big rocks carefully - you can only fit in so many.

And so a couple tools for picking the right rocks:

How to Spend The First Ten Minutes of Your Day (h/t Passive Voice) - a technique for getting focused on the right stuff, so one is not milling about spinning wheels.

Recognizing Wealth (h/t Megan McArdle) - a mom inventories her kitchen.

And to bring it back around to SFF:

Larry Correia went to GenCon and had a blast. 

Hugo Ballot 2014: Short Stories

Nominees: “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”/“The Ink Readers of Doi Saket”/“Selkie Stories Are for Losers”/“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere”

Unlike some other voters, I did find some SF/fantasy elements in these stories and won't reject most of them for lack of being sff.  However, all of them took Campbell's "assume your tech marvel and then tell a story" a bit TOO literally.

I did find it frustrating that all the stories fit a particular subtype within the broader SFF universe.  There is nothing in this category for people who like exploding spaceships, or hetero action heroes. I don't have to prefer one type of story to recognize that others do.  That all of the nominated stories fit this same pattern is a problem, imo.

Tannhäuser (Marion Zimmer Bradley)

Some of this will be hard reading. It was not easy writing.

There is too much.

The short version: All of fandom has been plunged into war navelgazing over recent articles which highlighted what some already knew: the late Marion Zimmer Bradley, icon of SF feminism, SCA cosplay, and a multi-award winning author, had been complicit in covering up the sexual abuse of minors by her late husband Walter Breen.  Others suspected Bradley of committing some abuse herself.

And now the long version, below the cut.

Roof top shouting, and arguing with the other side

A very nice piece on the latest/on-going/this-is-the-way-of-the-world-now/SFFWA Hugo/politicsthingy by Brad Torgeson, whom I don’t think I had ever heard of before: http://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2014/04/27/shunning-and-radioactivity/

 I am in general agreement with most everything he has said, and am very impressed with the...maturity and evenhandedness of the saying.

 ***

Rule for Ranters: Recognize the Rant for what it is – an expression of one’s (someone’s, your, my) emotional reaction to something. It’s good for communicating irritation, anger, disgust, fury, etc, etc.

It’s important to express that kind of emotion in a way that fellow humans can understand – if one is really that upset, leaving fellow travelers ignorant of your reaction is not helpful. And everything all bottled up and fermenting without a proper functioning relief valve only leads to foam spraying all over the beer closet and that’s no good at all. (Alcohol abuse, doncha know…)

Rants can be good for emotional bonding amongst those who agree with one, as well – a mutual relief valve. I do emphasize here that the emotional expression has to be in a way that other people understand – chimp teeth barring grins, for example? Not happy things. Ranting needs to be done so that it is understood.

What Ranting is not, however, is an exercise in rational reasoning and logical persuasion.

Ranting is not a method for getting The Other Side’s assholes to agree with the Ranter. (They might agree with each other – that the Ranter is crazy – but not with the Ranter.)

 Ranting is not a way to understand The Other Side. (At all.) It’s a very lousy way to get The Other Side to understand one’s own view.

 Ranting can be used as a method of shutting down communication – or shutting up The Other Side. But silence is not assent, and forcing people to shut up is not the same as fostering agreement - or changing minds.

 Rants are also excellent at evoking emotional responses – with those who agree (as above) and with The Other Side – who rarely looks upon the Ranter with more respect, empathy, or positive energy after the Rant is over than they did before.

 Rants are very good tools for what they are designed to do. But a good tool user knows when to use a screwdriver and when to use a hammer. Posting a rant which any rational and adult wordsmith knows full well will have the effect of making the choir snicker in agreement and alienating The Other Side is the writing (or speaking) equivalent of opening a can of paint with the blunt end of a claw hammer.

 Yeah, the can’s gonna be open when you’re done, but you’re going to look like an idiot, feel worse, and there’s not anything you’re going to be able to do with the paint after that.

 ***
 A note on what appears to be a conflict between those who value work(s) done because it pays well and people like it and I enjoy doing it but mostly because money, dear boy, money and those who value work(s) done because it is a (holy) calling and an expression of ones immortal soul and may yet change the world - yes, there is a difference between the two. Between the works, between the people who value one over the other, and between the people who make them. Even when the same writer/artist/shootist/orator does some of both.

I get that some people see a difference between the two, I acknowledge the difference (even if I can’t always clearly define it) and I got no problem with there being a difference. What I don’t get, me, is acknowledging the difference, yet insisting that both be treated the same. Popular workmanship works get more money thrown at the author than does High Lit. *shrugs* High Lit gets people thinking and talking and generally sticks around longer. But it’s not as comfortable and isn’t as well loved. *shrugs* Want lots of accolades? Pick High Lit. Want lots of fans and dough? Pick popular works that are, well, popular.

It’s called Achilles’ Choice because it wasn’t Achilles’ Get-To-Have-It-Both-Ways-Deal. Granted - some people can manage to produce work with a high overlap between popular and quality. But even more of us can’t manage either one by itself. Better to pick one, do your best, evaluate, revise, lather, rinse, repeat until you get the popularity or quality you were aiming for. Floor sweeping, coffee grinding, book writing, fence fixing – it all works like that.

 Or so I get told.

August CSFFBT: Offworld, by Robin Parrish (I)

This is the first of three posts (in keeping with the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour guidelines) about Offworld. This one will focus on technical details, story-crafting, and characterization; in following posts, I intend to talk about the science and science-fiction aspects of the work and finish up with a post on the Christian elements.

(If I actually manage to do all those posts, it will be two months in a row, which is a trend. ooooo, I'd be trendy!)

What you need to know about Offworld: Space-exploration-centric SF/action, set on Earth. Multi-gender, multi-ethnic cast. (Well, kinda. Sort of. The characters aren't all Caucasian males! And the parameters of the story actually support those choices.) Part-Gulf-Coast traveloge, large part post-apoc thriller, small part X-files tie-in. Adult relationships, but nearly zero sex/erotica. Large amount of gunplay and skull-duggery. Fast-moving, once it gets going.

Packaging: - Slick. Very slick. About as proffesionally sf-ish as you can get. (The cover reminds me a great deal of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.) (Also of This Present Darkness). Tri-crome cover (black, grey-blue and ivory)shows an empty highway leading across a flatland to a skyscraper city. Back cover is mostly black. Title - and this is the kewl part - title is one word, centered over a sliver of a arc, as if a sphere (or a planet!) edged by an approaching dawn.

Short, non-spoilerly reaction - I liked this one. (Not loved, not adored, liked.) I didn't have to work at liking it. The action was uneven, and I would have spent more depth on the travelouge part of the book. The characters were engaging, if a bit stock, and I appreciated the fair-but-negative treatment of the villian(s). There were adult (note: term includes more than sex) aspects to the characters and their relationships that I greatly appreciated. Christian/faith elements were present but not overpowering.

Longer reaction, with spoilers

What I liked:

- I do like post-apoc books. And this one is all that in spades.

- And space exploration! On other planets!

- The plot managed to anticipate several eye-rolling moments (sample: oh, for crying out loud, why is the magic glowy cloud in the USA? there is the entire rest of the world to explore! and turn them around into integral parts of the story. Ditto the 'lost guy on the surface of Mars' subplot. Good job on that!

- I really liked the tensions and stupid fights and testosterone duels and saving-each-other-right-back of the crew. I really liked that. They were a team on a mission, and the story never lost track of that. Plus, they made me laugh more than once.

- The bad guys were trying to do the right thing. I appreciate that. They were very very wrong, but they weren't doing it to be rich or famous. (Just trying to be God. If you're going to fail, fail big.)

- I like traveloge stories, especially ones about the South.

- The inclusion of Mae, and who she was, was awesome. To top it off, I thought the topic (abortion) was very well handled, without demonizing.

- Low-key hand of God: Sometimes, like in the book of Ester, you see God most clearly when He's hard to discern. This book was like that.

- Multi-pov stories can be a pain. So can multi-threaded plots. Parrish handled both of them well, I thought. In particular, I was kept 'hooked' on the book by the bits that each character thought or did out of sight of the others.

What didn't work so well for me:

- Stock characterization: The characters seemed a hair too predictable: Hard-nosed commander, tough-as-nails loyal second in command, clown/younger brother, wildcard. There have been books where I *knew* what a character was going to say/do, because the author had made that character live so well for me. Offworld was a bit closer to knowing what the character was going to say because I'd read this book before a dozen times.

- Not enough science love. (I'll hit on this in more depth in a later post.) This was one of the big weakness of the book for me - mostly because it seemed to be a weakeness in characterization of all the astronaunts.

- I would really have liked more introspection from the characters on the landscape they passed, instead of just barreling down I-10. (But that's just my pref. I suspect it would have bored other people to tears.)

- While the action kept me reading, there were a couple points (like the jumping from the lighthouse) (heck, like the run for the lighthouse!) that had me just shaking my head, going it would never happen like that. Also, I never figured out how the storm surge/flooding was supposed to work. There were a couple of other places where the strength of the story was insufficent to overcome my disbelief of what I was being told.

- I loved The X-Files, back in the day. But TXF was not SF. Ancient mystical boxes that power universe-shifting machinery make my eyes roll. (Sorry.)

***

Hmmm. This is a bit shallower than I thought it would be. Might add more later, if deeper thunks happen.

Or I might just go check out what other people have to say.

***

Fine print:

Find Offworld at Amazon.

Robin Parrish’s Web site - http://www.robinparrish.com/
Robin Parrish’s blog - http://twitter.com/robinparrish

Other CSFFBT participants:

Brandon Barr
Jennifer Bogart
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Canadianladybug
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Todd Michael Greene
Heather R. Hunt
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Mike Lynch
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Stephanie
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Elizabeth Williams

July Book Tour: The Enclave, by Karen Hancock (I)

This is the first of three posts (in keeping with the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour guidelines) about this book. This one will focus on technical details, story-crafting, and characterization; in following posts, I intend to talk about the science and science-fiction aspects of the work and finish up with a post on the Christian elements.

What you need to know about The Enclave: near-future action-adventure centered around mysterious goings-on in a cutting-edge genetics lab. Post-apocalyptic elements. Set in southwest USA. Mild romance. Threat of sexual assault. Lots of gunplay and explosions. Military characters shown in sympathetic manner.

Packaging: Professionally presented trade paperback, with attractive cover (more on that in a sec) and larger-than-usual print face, making it a very thick book (500 pages.) Cover successfully combines suspense (two out of focus figures running down a tunnel) and characterization (pretty lady with rumpled hair, flawless skin, groomed eyebrows and expensive-looking complex earrings.) Back cover is much more subdued, includes a chain-link fence in a desert setting. All in all, I think the cover sells the book and does so accurately.

Overall Reaction (short version, light on spoilers): An engaging story (although slow to start) illustrating Christian principles and Creationist themes. Multiple storylines end up gelling nicely. Multiple POVs that sometimes switch in the middle of chapters, but are generally clearly delineated. Writing is competent throughout and frequently engaging. Sympathetic characters are vividly drawn, if somewhat more thought-driven than skin-driven. I was particularly struck with how the main characters were given to indecision and second-guessing - as well as fumbling through their plans in a fairly realistic manner. Opposing characters (ie 'the bad guys') were less completely handled. The author appeared to engage in anti-scientist stereotyping. Even though the setup is somewhat lengthy, the action, once it gets going, is engaging. There was far less science than I would have liked. Most of the science present was of the X-Philes variety (depending on intervention by aliens/ancient technology rather than the application of the scientific method.) The story was set in the universe of an actively interventionist God, but this due ex machina was believably presented.

More complete reaction, complete with SPOILERS:

What I liked:

The Enclave, while presented at CSFFBT as 'science fiction', to me seemed to be more along the lines of the present-day/near future techno-thrillers (or suspense-thrillers) of Tom Clancy, Micheal Crichton, Dean Koontz, etc. However, it worked better than many of that genre, in that the characterization was decent throughout and (esp) the multiple storylines came together well.

I have a particular weakness for stories in which the author speaks through a character vividly enough that the dual vision (character that has never seen a horse sees a creature that I the reader recognize as a particular breed of horse) is nearly seamless. Hancock is not stellar at this, but she is more than competent, and I enjoyed learning about Zoan's underground world through his eyes. There were parts that worked less well (sometimes having Zoan or his friends bring up something entirely new about the Enclave was interesting and refreshing, other times it seemed more of a cheat.)

The Enclave portions of the story also gave the book a bit of a post-apocalypse feel, which is another thing I tend to like in SFF. And it had goats! Goats always make a story better. (No, not kidding.) (Yes, I am punny sometimes.)

Our Heroine, Lacey McHenry, is a scientist! Woot! Well, not actually, but she is a female trained in life sciences.

Action, explosions and people creeping their way into dark tunnels: this book had it in spades, especially as the end got rolling. I'd love to see parts of this filmed.

Our Hero - Dr Cameron Reinhardt - that's Dr Reinhardt to you and me - is a likable guy, (although I have mixed feelings about his Tragic Past). I did like how the military part of his background was used to elevate his competence without making him into G.I. Joe, Super Special Forces Ninja Ranger. (I do believe that there are a couple science-minded guys out there who could rise to high levels in their branch of research AND still be deadly ninja rangers after a 10 year break...but no more than a couple. Cameron was much more realistically portrayed.

Connected to this: The camaraderie between Cam and Rudy worked well for me.

The writing itself was well-crafted - while there weren't any parts that I re-read for the joy of the language itself, nor were there passages that I had to go through twice, scratching my head and muttering what did that mean? (Suspense and misdirecting the reader as part of the plot is okay. Confusing the reader because of poor sentence or paragraph structure is not okay.) While I would have liked language that was a bit less prosaic, less work-man, that's an individual taste thing, and it would have pushed the book out of its genre.

Aliens (the awakened Nephilim) were cool. Okay, in my head, they looked a great deal like Giger's Aliens, but still, they were cool.

Things that worked less well for me:

Despite the relatively active beginning (the first line, paragraph, and page were all solid as far as 'hook' went) it seemed to take forever for the story to get rolling. The introduction of the scientists and their work wasn't presented in a terribly interesting fashion and was made worse, I think, by the quick establishment of the 'bad guy' Swain. Perhaps some hesitation before he started threatening Cam would have helped.

Connected to this, I would have liked to have seen more of the other scientists and their personalities. I think that if the characters could have been divided into 'good guys' (or 'pov characters') and 'bad guys' AND 'other people whose part hasn't been established yet and might be good or bad but we don't know yet' that it would have helped draw me more into the book early on.

Which brings me to one of my major beefs with the characterization in the book - the relatively flat, simplistic and somewhat hostile depiction of nearly all the 'extras' among the scientists. The caricature of the scientists as being bitterly anti-Scriptural and bigoted towards Christians has not been my experience. (Yes, there are those individuals out there. And scientists have their share of egotists, and egotists tend to run their mouths and run people down.) The failure to make mention of any sort of spiritual leaning among any of the other scientists was a fault in the book, I think.

Connected to that, I'm not really crazy about the 'Christian as Lone Gunslinger' (meaning Shane, not X-File's Lone Gunmen) motif. (I'll go more into this when I talk about my take on the Christian elements of the story in a future post.)

Which brings me to the characterization of Cameron - I had mixed feelings about his Tragic Special Ops PTSD-Inducing Past. Especially with the child that died wrapt up into it. On the one hand, it worked because it helped justify Cameron's intellectual, overly-thinky decision processes. On the other hand, it made this reader aware that the author was female, writing a male character. Not so good.

A lot of the story focused on the glamorous nature of the bad guys - how pretty/handsome/well preserved they were, the cost of their clothes, the six-inch heels on the head bad gal. It gave me two impressions - firstly, it made all the characters seem overly concerned about surface appearances, and secondly, it was another form of stereotyping - rich beautiful people are evil.

In fact, to me, the main characters, even the 'good guys' seemed to be overly self-focused in their struggles and especially during the final sequences - bystanders, innocent or not, fall mangled and dead and are ignored in a manner more typical of the most mindless Hollywood violence. Even when our heroes are shown trying to save people, the attempted rescue happens 'off-screen' and then the story goes back, 'in real time', as our heroes run away.

Finally, I would have liked to have seen more actual science being performed. Testing, perhaps. Experimental design discussion. Heck, even feeding parameters of the frogs. (More on this when I talk about the book and science fiction.)

So. That's about all I had to say on the book structure, plot, etc. In my next two posts I intend to talk about science/science-fiction aspects, and then about the Christian aspects of the work.

The fine print:

Featured book, The Enclave - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764203282

Karen Hancock’s Web site - http://www.kmhancock.com/index.htm
Karen Hancock’s blog - http://karenhancock.wordpress.com/

Other CSFFBT Participants’ Links:

Brandon Barr
Jennifer Bogart
Keanan Brand
Grace Bridges
Canadianladybug
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Beth Goddard
Todd Michael Greene
Heather R. Hunt
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Mike Lynch
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Eve Nielsen
Nissa
John W. Otte
Steve Rice
Crista Richey
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Stephanie
Rachel Starr Thomson
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Elizabeth Williams

Book Review: Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, by Anne Rice

I did not think that I would like this book.

Back in the day, I read Rice's Interview with a Vampire slowly and painfully - the writing was hyper-Tolkienesque in density, the characters were not easily liked, and the action seemed excessively slow. I never saw an reason to pick up another book in the series. In addition, I heard enough third and fourth-hand about Rice's attitude towards fan-fic writers and towards editors ("I write and rewrite every page until it is how I want it to be, and I don't need editors to give me their feedback") to harbor a low level of hostility to the woman and how she conducted her craft.

And when word came out that Anne Rice had (re)found God, and was only going to write Christian fiction, I joined with other people in mocking and sneering at her pretension. (I regretted this since.)

It was a bit of that regret that drove, in part, my picking up the paperback from the rack in the department store. What the rest of my motivation was, I can't say. I will say that I bought the book practically without opening it, which is not usual for me. (Reading the first page is a decent litmus test to see if I will like the book at all.)

Starting on vacation, I pulled it out when I got to the airport. And by the end of the third page, I was hooked on the language and the voice Rice used for Christ.

If it were not for the name on the cover, I would not have know the book was written by the same person who wrote Interview - this book was written lightly, in spare language that was no less carefully chosen, but also infused with a joy and appreciation for the world that had been lacking in the vampire book.

Road to Cana is the second book in Rice's series, and covers a season in Christ's life just before and after he meets his cousin John at the Jordan.

Rice does some remarkable things in this book - she recreates the feel and rhythms of turn-of-the-age Palestine, she unravels what is known and guessed and proclaimed about the Holy Family and reweaves it into a cloth that is at once familiar and brand new, and she presents a Christ that is both God and human, and struggling with His role - and yet never ceases to be either.

This Yeshua can be seen as perfect, but he does not live in a perfect world. The faults and follies and festering anger of the people of Nazareth are drawn clearly, if sympathetically. (There are no hopeless evil things here - only humans who have done wrong.) The politics of the larger world still go on, and the ripples reach out to Palestine. The society of the time is closed in, dependent on manual labor, and tightly segregated by gender, family, and class, but the people who live in that society are not presented as caricatures. I was well satisfied not only by the world-building and the plot (which I did not guess all the details of before hand, even though most of the world knows how the story goes) but also by the care given to crafting all the secondary characters.

One of the things I appreciated best about the book was the way the rest of Nazareth treated Yeshua - they called him 'the sinless', but it was as much a weary confusion and a mockery as it was a praise-name. Yeshua confuses and disquiets these people - as, I think, he would those who knew him in any age.

In flaws I have only three major items: one, that the first two paragraphs were not the best hook, and I didn't start getting intrigued until the second page; two, that the repetition of names (while not the fault of the author) was confusing throughout (too many names starting with 'J'!) and finally, that the book lost some steam in the last couple of chapters, as Yeshua started gathering disciples. But these are minor things.

I have ordered the first book (Out of Egypt) and am looking forward to the third in the series.

Roads Less Traveled

Ulvik is a small town in Norway, located on Hardangerfjord. It is a lovely place in early summer (heck, most of Norway is) with the quiet atmosphere of an out-of-the-way place.

Ulvik was our second walk, and our only 'walk to get there' trip. We got off the bus at Granvin and turned uphill. (This part - "turning uphill" - was a constant part of our trip. Really constant.)

The path began as a single-lane asphalt road, became a narrow unmarked asphalt road, twisted and turned, became gravel, and then we turned left off the road, and were on the trail.

It was called "the post road" because, until Ulvik got its own post office, the people used to walk over the mountian to check their mail (which came twice a week.) One way, the trip took three hours.

***

A few months back, a storm of protest arose on the internets in the space of 24 hours, because Amazon.com mis-labeled a whole stack of books, making them difficult to find on the webpages, and then (most horribly) failed to swiftly correct the problem. This storm arose on Easter Sunday.

***

As a long time reader of The Tightwad Gazette, I have found the recent spate of articles on 'living on a budget' interesting, and even occasionally helpful. Most of them echo the age old advice of "don't buy it if you don't need it' and 'pay your bills on time'.

Some articles go a bit further.

CNN linked earlier today to an article on 'disconnecting' - electronically, at least - and 'living simplier'. The thoughts shared in this article share a thread that keeps re-appearing in much of my recent reading on monks and other religious - that the distractions of modern life can help make us unhappy. You don't need stuff to make you happy.

I asked for all things so that I could enjoy life. I was given life that I might enjoy all things.

In the current economic situation - which many blame on the greed of lenders and bankers and/or the foolish materialism of those who bought things (including houses) that they couldn't pay for - not to mention the climate change debate which seems to hinge on condemning wasteful 'progress' and the pollution from industrial development - there seem to be many who agree. And yet...is it not a crisis because we don't have stuff? Because we don't have money to pay for stuff?

I think that one of the great gifts of modern civilization is all the 'stuff' we have - including the internet, post offices in our town, and paved roads. Oh, and open-heart surgeries, electric lights, and airplane travel. I think that having certain levels of 'stuff' - esp. food, shelter, physical security, and ways to learn more - makes us better people, and makes it easier to follow Christ, just as having a good night's sleep makes it easier to not scream at people who are annoying you. And let's hear it for things that make it easier to communication, like literacy, education, cheap paperback printing, telephones and the internet.

But I agree that the quest for getting more 'stuff' just to have 'stuff' is a distractor - and that it can make it hard to identify the most important 'stuff' for an individual person. And I think that individual choice is important. The publishers should go on printing tons of romance novels, even though I'll never read them, and there should be enough peas grown and harvested for people who like green peas to eat them. (I'll stick with SF and mysteries, and lima beans, thank you.) Ditto good cars for people who care what they drive, and big houses for people with big families.

We all, individually, need to pick what we need, and be willing leave lay what we don't. How learn this - and how to teach it, without denying access to things we don't think needful, but others might - that's a bit easier to say than to do.

***

Somewhat related: 100 Geek Skills. Also somewhat related: Heinlein's list of life skills.

JK Rowlings's Harvard Address, WSJ War Poetry

Via Instapundit - the text of Rowling's commencement address at Harvard.

My first thought was along the lines of "wow, that's *cool*." I'm not sure who it was cooler for - Rowling's, giving the send-off speech for 'the' premier American college, or Harvard, having a world-wide icon talking for them.

Probably cooler for Rowling. I imagine Harvard can get pretty interesting people most years.

What I found notable about the speech was the outward focus of it. I suppose that one might have guessed at this (would a British citizen really come to America and urge a group of graduates to ignore the rest of the world?). But Rowling did not stop there - she explicitly urged the graduates to "imagine" the lives of other people living under oppressive regimes. Granted, she framed this within the context of being exposed to first-hand accounts of oppression, but still - the idea that we can (and should) make assessments of the lives of people in other cultures (and, where applicable, judge those lives wanting) was refreshing.

Equally interesting was the supposition that those Harvard grads had not yet failed at much of anything. Which...might well be in the eye of the beholder. No matter how successful those students might appear to the rest of the population, I reckon there are more than a few who count their losses as legion.

As satisfying as it is to imagine the verbal smack-down to a group of over-wealthied, hyper-attaining, well-positioned Ivy League graduates - you have been blessed all of your lives, no matter if you admit it or not - I think it's not quite right to sneer at these kids for 'not failing like the rest of us have.'

I don't think world is not often changed by those who use an ordinary standard for 'good enough'.

***

Via Bookslut: Wall Street Journal's pick of war poetry.

Any list that includes Kipling is, I think, on the right track. Owens is another good choice.

I have noted a tendency in the poetry readings that I have attended these last few years - bright earnest college kids, college-bound kids, and a handful old enough to be grandparents to me. A few veterans. A few whose work - even when I disagree with the argument - is break-taking in impact.

Most though - most single a single note at the microphone.

The poet says , war is bad.

Really, say I. For I have heard this: war is bad, water wet, fire hot, and gravity makes things fall down. There's an insufficiency of poetry in that, and a paucity of fact. Even worse, though, is war poetry which states there is nothing worse than war, combining a grievous lack of imagination with the lesser sin of falsehood.

War is bad, the kids say. Very, very bad.

Indeed, I say. Tell me more.