May Books 14) Tickling the English, by Dara Ó Briain

Posted on 2 June 2012 by fromtheheartofeurope

A wise choice of Christmas present from , this is another in the sub-genre of books about the English and Englishness also pursued by Jeremy Paxman and Bill Bryson (and to an extent Stuart Maconie). It struck home particularly for me because Ó Briain is an Irish man married to a very intelligent Englishwoman, a situation with which I am not unacquainted, and because I like Ó Briain's sense of humour and occasional bafflement at the surrealism of life in general. (We also have a vague personal connection via the Byrne family.)

The framework of the book is Ó Briain's tour around England (with short excursions elsewhere, particularly to Dublin but memorably also to Jersey), with anecdotes of his interactions with the crowd on each show and reflections on local history and various aspects of Englishness, including race and diversity . There is also a rather moving conversation with Ken Dodd (the inventor of the tickling stick referenced in the title). His main conclusion is that the English actually rather like being gloomy; that England / the UK is fairly consistently about fifth in everything, but mourns not being top. Tho that he adds that the English have a peculiar paranoia about their young people (ASBOs, etc), and some very trenchant observations about the differences between England and Ireland (the contrast between St George's Day and St Patrick's Day is particularly telling).

Looking at on-line reviews I see several who are baffled because they don't get the Irish bit (some of whom are even more baffled because they don't know much about England and had hoped in vain to learn the basics here). I see others who know Ó Briain's work too well and are disappointed that the book reflects his stage show too closely. Fortunately I am in neither category and thoroughly enjoyed it. Paxman's book is probably better (and Bryson's certainly worse) but this is the most fun.

2012 Hugos: Best Fancast

Posted on 2 June 2012 by fromtheheartofeurope

I can be absolutely certain that I have never voted in this category before, because neither has anybody else. I'm not a big podcast listener – my audio enjoyment tends to be Big Finish plays, Doctor Who-related audiobooks, and the odd documentary or drama from the BBC. I did listen to the Big Finish podcasts regularly at one point but have lost track of them recently.

I'm therefore judging the Best Fancast entries largely – but not entirely – on the basis of what's in the Hugo voter packet – a single release from each of the series, though a more informed voter would have been listening to all of them all year and would be able to judge on the basis of the sequence as a whole. I'm therefore aware that judgements on the particular episodes in question may not be fair when applied to the entire series. But I'm afraid that's the breaks.

As with the Best Fan Writer category, I'm going to list them from top to bottom of my ballot paper.

1) Galactic Suburbia – specifically Episode 32 – worked really well for me; three Australian women discussing what they enjoy within the genre with tremendous humour and enthusiasm; also generally decent production values (only StarshipSofa is better on that score), and a varied and interesting agenda. If I take up podcasts as a habit I will start here.

2) SF Squeecast – specifically Episode 7. Very nearly as enjoyable as Galactic Suburbia, but slightly more difficult to listen to, and the discussion with five people all talking from different places gets a bit confused in places, reminding me of work teleconferences (and not really in a good way). Still, good fun.

3) The Coode Street Podcast – specifically Episode 65, included with the Hugo Voter Package, and Episode 77, which I listened to shortly after it was first released. Both feature the two regular hosts with a female interviewee, in one case author Jo Walton, in the other the ten-year-old daughter of one of the regulars. While the conversation is interesting enough, having a single guest means less variety of topic, and also less entertaining banter than one gets between a regular cast of contributors. Also the sound quality in the Walton interview was not always great (she is perfectly audible but her interviewers aren't).

4) The SF Signal Podcast – specifically Podcast #26 on e-book publishing, a subject which I have seen discussed much more satisfactorily in on-line formats (where one can easily link to supporting evidence and statistics rather than appear to be randomly quoting them). I felt it was using new technology to replicate the experience of being at a convention panel, which seems a bit like reinventing the wheel; the others listed above exploit the possibilities of the podcast format much more imaginatively. I note that the episode description says that the Podcast had "given our regular panelists the night off" and wonder if they might have been better advised to submit an episode which included the regular panelists for the Hugo Voter Package.

5) StarShipSofa – specifically Episode 201, which features a monologue by a biologist, a reading of half of a Geoffrey A. Landis story, and an interview with an author I hadn't read; much the longest of the files in the Voter Packet at 86 minutes. StarShipSofa won the Hugo for Best Fanzine two years ago, and it is basically an audio version of a fanzine, rather than a podcast, and really seems made for a different decade than the other nominees. The audio quality is better than any of the other nominees by far, perhaps because (apart from the interview) it consists of recorded sequences of single speakers put together. I was frankly disappointed – I had listened to the StarShipSofa interview with Fred Pohl and Jack Vance in 2010 and hugely enjoyed that, but this really didn't do much for me.

But if the Hugo voters want audio fanzines and/or audio versions of convention panels, then I guess my preferences will be outvoted.

2012 Hugos: Best Fan Writer

Posted on 2 June 2012 by fromtheheartofeurope

I'm a bit concerned that my write-ups of the Hugo nominations so far have been too grumpy. Perhaps it's due to my listing the nominees in reverse order of preference; writing about the ones I didn't like puts me (and possibly my reader) in a bad mood before I reach the ones I did like. So for the next few lists I'm going to apply the principle of listing the nominees in the order I intend to vote for them, and hope to say more nice things as a result.

Once again, Best Fan Writer is a category I don't think I have ever cast a complete ballot in previously. As someone whose fandom experience is largely on-line and occasionally in-person, I know three of the nominees as people rather than as writers, and had not read much by the other two at all. So I'm basing my vote entirely on the contents of the Hugo Voter Packet, rather than on any of their other writings that I may have seen, because with the exception of Steven Silver's livejournal entries, I haven't seen any. Anyway, I found it pretty straightforward to rank the candidates as follows:

1) Claire Brialey. Four solid pieces, three about fannish subjects, and one about last summer's riots in England. All well written and well presented, and felt to me like they described parts of my fannish and personal universe. Easy decision to give her my top vote. (NB that Brialey is the only female nominee in this category.)

2) James Bacon. One standout piece – "Hurt: A Dog Day Afternoon" – which is a brilliant and moving meditation on being a dog-loving train driver, the best single item of any of the nominated pieces. The other two pieces, on military sf and Irish-language sf, grabbed me less and had some imperfect editing.

3) Jim C. Hines. The only nominee whose entries are mostly blog posts. Best is the one on Jane C. Hines. Others include a parody of a song I don't know, complaints about genre-bashing, and dealing with sexual harassment.

4) Steven H. Silver. Three very short pieces (of which the best is the Anne McCaffrey obituary from The Drink Tank #299) and also the June 2011 news posts from SF Signal. All presented as a single document.

5) Chris Garcia. Four short pieces presented as a single document. The best is "The City of LA: A Love Story" from The Drink Tank #300. Other topics covered are the film Rollerball, what it feels like to win a Hugo, and the museum in one's head.

All entirely subjective, of course, and I think reasonable people can disagree about any of these rankings. I note, though I think it is coincidental, that the two writers I ranked last were the two whose writing is represented by single documents rather than by separate files for each article.