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Anno Dracula – Dracula Cha Cha Cha, by Kim Newman

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Second paragraph of third chapter of Dracula Cha Cha Cha:

‘You saw the assassin?’ Silvestri asked. ‘Il Boia Scarlatto?’

Second paragraph of third chapter of Aquarius:

Before leaving, Timmy asked Kate something she’d heard before.

I had not read any of the previous books in this series, an alternate history in which vampires became visible in society in the late nineteenth century when Count Dracula married Queen Victoria, and history runs more or less along the same course as we know, except with added vampires. The first part of the book is a novel, Dracula Cha Cha Cha, set in Rome in 1959, and the second a novella, Aquarius, set in swinging London in 1968. Both feature vampire detective Kate Reed as a central character, and I suspect that both are pretty dependent on the events of earlier books in the series to the extent that I found it rather hard to get into. There are endnotes for Dracula Cha Cha Cha explaining all the cultural references (and there are a lot of them, including an undead Scottish spy called Hamish Bond). I actually enjoyed Aquarius a bit more, as I felt that Newman was focusing less on details of the setting and a bit more on plot. There are interesting characters in both.

One point that occurred to me: it’s interesting how often alternate histories are actually detective novels. I guess it’s a convenient device to allow the central character to find out more about their own universe and allow us to accompany them on the journey.

Anyway, I think I would have liked this more if I was more into vampire fiction, and if I had read the earlier novels in the series (there is nothing on the cover to indicate that this is not a standalone book). You can get it here.

I thought that this was my top unread book acquired in 2014, but actually it seems a lot further down that scale than I had realised. Be that as it may, the top book on that list as of now is Ginger Star, by Leigh Brackett.

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Fair Trade, by Laura T. Reynolds, Douglas L. Murray and John Wilkinson

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

This chapter locates Fair Trade as a manifestation of, and response to, shifting international trade and North/South relations. Fair Trade certification emerged and expanded most rapidly within the coffee sector, a tropical export arena defined by the history of colonialism. The historical polarization of the world along a North/South axis has profoundly shaped both conventional trade relations and alternative global visions like Fair Trade. Yet in the current era, Fair Trade markets and movements are being repositioned within the context of a new global architecture. As elaborated in this book, Fair Trade has grown to incorporate an increasingly complex array of commodities, production/consumption relations, and local and global politics.

A book of essays on the Fair Trade movement, which to be honest left me realising how little I know about the economics of food production; I think of myself as sympathising with Fair Trade, but don’t have enough knowledge or, frankly, interest, to really appreciate the content. You can get it here.

Since I still haven’t found the Eighth Doctor comic collection The Flood, this was the shortest book left on my shelves acquired in 2010. Next on that list is Putting Up Roots, by Charles Sheffield.

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Wroxeter

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AE Housman, A Shropshire Lad XXXI:

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
      His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
      And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
      When Uricon the city stood:
'Tis the old wind in the old anger,
      But then it threshed another wood.

Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
      At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
      The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,
      Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
      Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,
      It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
      Are ashes under Uricon.

Uriconium, by Wilfred Owen (opening lines)

It lieth low near merry England's heart
Like a long-buried sin; and Englishmen
Forget that in its death their sires had part.
And, like a sin, Time lays it bare again
      To tell of races wronged,
And ancient glories suddenly overcast,
And treasures flung to fire and rabble wrath.
      If thou hast ever longed
To lift the gloomy curtain of Time Past,
And spy the secret things that Hades hath,
Here through this riven ground take such a view.
The dust, that fell unnoted as a dew,
Wrapped the dead city's face like mummy-cloth:
All is as was: except for worm and moth.

Since Jove was worshipped under Wrekin's shade
Or Latin phrase was writ in Shropshire stone,
Since Druid chaunts desponded in this glade
Or Tuscan general called that field his own,
      How long ago? How long?

From "Rome and Turnips", by Charles Dickens:

Excavations at Wroxeter, the buried city of Uriconium. There was attraction in the news of these fresh diggings. Off we set, therefore. Let it be said, rather, off I set; for there was a time when I, too, was included in the toast of "All Friends Round the Wrekin." I have stood upon that large dropping from the spade of the arch enemy. He would block up the Severn with it, would he? I have stood on it in rainy and fair weather, at midnight and midnoon. I have threaded its needle's eye, dipped in its mystic eagle's bowl, seen from its top the spreading of the dawn on summer mornings; and on many a winter's night, when riding at its foot, laughed at the dismal failure of its very best efforts to look inhospitable. If there is a lump of earth in the inanimate world that I can call my friend, it is old Wrekin. Now antiquaries may read through their spectacles of ancient Uriconium. "What is that ?" I said to myself, "but old Wrekin over again." The Romans had no W or K, they were obliged to write down Wrekin Urecin; ium is only the addendum, which says there's the name of a place. Vowels are pronounced and altered in all sorts of ways : so ancient Uriconium is old Wrekinium. Alas! a nursling of my poor friend's lying dead and buried at his feet.

When I heard about the disinterment, I remembered the grave well. There was a sort of colossal ruined headstone over it, called the Old Wall, and that was all that marked the resting-place of my friend's first and only child. Wroxeter is but a puny little changeling. Merit it has; it neither sits upon nor comes too near the grave of the dead city.

The Romans had a sensible way of accepting all the names of places that they found in conquered countries, altering them as little as might be for the necessary adaptation to their Latin throats and tongues. Some of the legionaries in Britain, who had new cities to name, seem to have taken words that pleasantly reminded them of their own country; but the common rule was followed when a town at the base of an important hill, which was a landmark throughout the surrounding region, took the name of the hill, and became Uricon-ium or Wrekin town. More great hills than this one were called Wrekin by the British. Urachean means heaps of earth; and that was the first form of the word Wrekin. The Romans did not pronounce badly when they spelt it – for they had two forms Virocon or Uricon. And it happens that, when they called their place Uricon-ium, the British name and Roman ending, meant the town under a heap of earth. Prophecy was in the word. There is no doubt now about the heap of earth over the town shovels are in it ; and there is no doubt about the Roman ending.

That heap of earth, on the old Roman town concealing all its skeletons, except, as it may be, a bony index finger represented by the stones of the Old Wall, is resolute to speak. In spite of all the efforts made to stop its mouth with turnip-crops and com for it is arable land upon the surface it cries out, "Look into me. Pay the men for their turnips, and away with them. Dig me, I say, for the knowledge I contain."

Second paragraph of third section of Wroxeter Roman City, by Roger H. White

THE BATHS BASILICA
Wroxeter's bathhouse is a large and impressive example of a design that could be found in other towns across the north-western provinces of the Roman Empire. Because of the cooler climate here, the usual open-air exercise yard, found in Mediterranean countries, was not appropriate. Instead, a large open hall — the baths basilica — was provided. This was an impressive space, designed to awe the visitor, its appearance can easily be reconstructed at Wroxeter because of the survival of the Old Work. This wall, standing 7m high, was the south wall of the basilica. In front of it, in the yellow gravelled area, are round pink discs that mark where the columns of the basilica stood. These were as high as the Old Work and timber beams ran from them to the Old Work wall, supporting a sloping roof above. Above the columns stood another wall, the height and thickness of the Old Work but pierced at the upper level by large, round-headed windows. These shed light into the interior of the basilica, just as they do in a cathedral of similar design. Above this was the pitched roof of the basilica, its apex two and a half times the height of the Old Work, or about 18m.

Me:

I have wanted to visit Wroxeter since I was a child, knowing that it was the end of Watling Street, the Roman road from London to what is now Wales. A gruesomely early start to our travel last Saturday meant that unusually we had some time to spare in the Midlands of England, and I realised that Wroxeter was only a few minutes off our route. Fortunately I persuaded the rest of our group that this would be a worthwhile excursion. (There are some advantages to doing most of the driving.)

Viroconium or Uriconium is reckoned to have been the fourth largest town in Roman Britain (I guess after London, York and Colchester). For many centuries the only visible remains were "The Old Work", the large wall which once stood isolated in a field, but turns out to have been part of the basilica containing the public baths. Since the 1850s, archaeologists have uncovered more details, including the foundations of many buildings and some impressive material remains, notably a big ornate silver mirror. Compared with, say, Tongeren near here, or other cities farther south and east, there isn't a lot in Wroxeter; but they have done a good job of presenting what they have.

Roger H. White's little guide book is a nice summary, explaining to the visitor what we are actually seeing and situating it in the wider context of our knowledge of Roman Britain. Contrary to earlier ideas, it is now thought (though not by everyone) that the city remained inhabited, if more sparsely, for two centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, before plague and war drove the last inhabitants out. The local church was built in Saxon times from Roman stone. Now the custodians have allowed a replica Roman house to be built across the road from the foundations of the city centre commercial building complex.

All slightly eerie, but very fascinating. Recommended, if you are in that part of England.

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Monday reading

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Current
Welcome to Night Vale, by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor
The Deer Hunter, by Eric Corner

Last books finished
Nobody’s Children, by Kate Orman, Jonathan Blum and Philip Purser-Hallard
The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
Wroxeter Roman City, by Roger H. White
Fair Trade, by Laura T. Reynolds, Douglas L. Murray and John Wilkinson
Anno Dracula – Dracula Cha Cha Cha, by Kim Newman
Missile Gap, by Charles Stross
Women and Power, by Mary Beard

Next books
Rare Unsigned Copy, by Simon Petrie
The Laertian Gamble, by Robert Sheckley
Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson

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The 2018 Hugo Awards in detail

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The results are here! The stats are here!

Headlines:

  • Closest result of the night was Best Editor Short Form – Lynne M. Thomas and Michael D. Thomas finished just 6 votes ahead of Sheila Williams.
  • Most crushing victory was File 770 for Best Fanzine, 20 votes short of a first-count win, easily getting there on the second count.
  • Missed being on the final ballot by a single nominating vote:
    • Archive of Our Own (Best Related), would have replaced Sleeping with Monsters
    • C.C. Finlay (Best Editor, Short Form), would have replaced Sheila Williams;
  • Yuko Shimizu (Best Professional Artist), would have replaced Kathleen Jennings;
  • Black Gate (Best Fanzine), would have replaced Rocket Stack Rank.
  • Declined nomination:
    • Best Series – The Broken Earth (N.K. Jemisin);
    • Best Editor Long Form – Liz Gorinsky;
    • Best Professional Artist – Julie Dillon;
    • Best Fancast – Tea and Jeopardy
  • For Best Series, N.K. Jemisin declined for The Broken Earth
  • the following were ruled ineligible, due to not having added enough to the series since last year:
    • The Expanse,
    • The Craft Sequence,
    • the October Daye books

In full:

Best Novel

The Stone Sky was well ahead at every stage, winning by 1263 to 974 for The Collapsing Empire, which took second place ahead of Raven Stratagem. Provenance, which had been sixth on the first count, rose to take third place; Six Wakes took fourth by 12 votes ahead of Raven Strategem, which came fifth with New York 2140 sixth.

At nominations stage, The Stone Sky was also far ahead, with almost twice as many nominations as Raven Stratagem. The Stars Are Legion, by Kameron Hurley, and Autonomous, by Annalee Newitz, both had more votes than New York 2140 but considerably fewer points. Edited to add Over on File 770, “Goobergunch” points out that The Stars Are Legion would have been nominated over New York 2140 if Raven Stratagem had received 2.58 more points, and that Autonomous was one vote away from being in the same position.

Best Novella

All Systems Red was far ahead, winning on the fifth count with 1021 votes to 554 for Down Among the Sticks and Bones and 457 for “And Then There Were (N-One)”. “And Then There Were (N-One)” took second place by 28 votes ahead of Down Among the Sticks and Bones, which took third. Binti: Home came fourth, The Black Tides of Heaven fifth, River of Teeth sixth.

All Systems Red was also far ahead at nominations stage. The nearest miss was Passing Strange by Ellen Klages, but it was well adrift.

Best Novelette

“The Secret Life of Bots” won by 856 votes to 697 for “Wind Will Rove”. “Wind Will Rove” came second, “A Series of Steaks” third, “Extracurricular Activities” fourth, “Children of Thorns” fifth and “Small Changes over Long Periods of Time” sixth.

Nominations were much tighter here, with “The Secret Life of Bots” top on votes but “Small Changes over Long Periods of Time” getting more points. “The Dark Birds”, by Ursula Vernon, narrowly missed and would have got on the ballot with another 3 votes worth 0.96 points, or another 4 votes.

Best Short Story

“Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” was ahead at all stages and won by 913 to 844 for “The Martian Obelisk”. “Fandom for Robots” took second place, “The Martian Obelisk” third, “Sun, Moon, Dust” fourth, “Carnival Nine” fifth and “Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand” sixth.

At nominations stage, “Fandom for Robots” had a strong lead, and “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” was a strong second place. The nearest miss was “Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance”, by Tobias S. Buckell, which needed another three votes worth 1.83 points, or another four votes, to qualify.

Best Series

A second victory for Bujold as the World of the Five Gods beat InCryptid by 864 to 595. InCryptid came second, The Memoirs of Lady Trent third by 18 votes over the Books of the Raksura, which came fourth. The Stormlight Archive took fifth place by 5 votes ahead of the Divine Cities, which came sixth.

The Broken Earth topped the nominations poll but N.K. Jemisin declined nomination. In addition, The Expanse, The Craft Sequence and the October Daye books came second, fifth and seventh, but were all deemed ineligible due to not having added enough to the series since last year (this was a contentious rules question, but I agree with the approach taken by this year’s Hugo administrators). The Stormlight Archive therefore got onto the final ballot despite finishing tenth in nominations. C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series had more votes than The Stormlight Archive, but needed another 1.64 points to qualify for the final ballot.

Best Related Work

No Time to Spare was a close second to Crash Override on the first count, but picked up transfers to win by 760 votes to 660. Crash Override won a convincing second place. Luminescent Threads came third, Iain M. Banks beat Sleeping With Monsters by 2 votes for fourth place (the closest result of the night), Sleeping With Monsters came fifth and A Lit Fuse sixth.

At nominations stage, No Time To Spare came third, in a tight race with Crash Override, Iain M. Banks and Luminescent Threads. At the other end, An Archive of Our Own needed only 0.25 more points to qualify, the nearest miss of the lot; it would have displaced Sleeping with Monsters.

Best Graphic Story:

Monstress vol 2 was ahead at all stages and beat Saga vol 7 by 687 to 438. Saga vol 7 came second, Bitch Planet vol 2 came third; Black Bolt vol 1 came fourth; Paper Girls vol 3 came fifth by 11 votes; and My Favourite Thing Is Monsters came sixth.

Unusually, this was also the order at nominations stage, with Monstress vol 2 far ahead. Ms Marvel vol 7 was only one vote behind My Favourite Thing is Monsters, but was much further adrift in points so would have needed two more votes (of any value) to qualify. Ladycastle, The Wicked + The Divine vol 5 and Ms Marvel vol 8 were all in the zone as well.

Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form

Wonder Woman started only 4 votes ahead of Get Out, but extended that lead to win by 1307 to 971. Get Out won second place by only 20 votes ahead of Thor: Ragnarok, which came third. Star Wars: The Last Jedi came fourth, The Shape of Water fifth and Blade Runner 2049 sixth.

Wonder Woman was also substantially ahead in nominations. The nearest miss was Logan, but it was pretty far behind Blade Runner 2049.

Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form

The Good Place: The Trolley Problem actually started 34 votes behind Black Mirror: USS Callister, but picked up transfers from The Good Place: Michael’s Gambit and won by 750 to 709. USS Callister came second, Michael’s Gambit third, Doctor Who: Twice Upon A Time fourth, Star Trek: Discovery: Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad fifth and The Deep sixth.

Michael’s Gambit was actually far ahead on nominations, with USS Callister and The Trolley Problem trailing in second and third place. The Expanse: Caliban’s War needed another 9 votes to catch Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad.

Best Editor: Long Form

Sheila E. Gilbert was ahead at all stages and won by 437 to 368 for Navah Wolfe, who came second. Diana M. Pho beat Devi Pillai for third place by 14 votes, having trailed up to the last stage. Devi Pillai came fourth, Miriam Weinberg fifth and Joe Monti sixth. Worth noting perhaps that No Award got 112 first preferences here, its best result for any category.

Navah Wolfe was far ahead in nominations here. Liz Gorinsky declined, bringing Devi Pillai onto the ballot. Will Hinton, the next in line, was 5 votes and 6.24 points adrift.

Best Editor, Short Form

The Thomases started 5 votes ahead of Sheila Williams and finished 6 votes ahead, winning by 466 to 460, the closest result for the top spot on the night. Sheila Williams came second, Neil Clarke third, John Joseph Adams fourth, Jonathan Strahan fifth and Lee Harris sixth.

The Thomases were well ahead at nominations stage. At the other end, C.C. Finlay would have displaced Sheila Williams with another bullet vote, and Ellen Datlow was also in the zone.

Best Professional Artist

Sana Takeda started 15 votes behind John Picacio, but beat him in the end by 653 to 533. Picacio took second place by 13 votes ahead of Galen Dara, who came third. Victo Ngai was fourth, Kathleen Jennings fifth and Bastien Lecouffe Deharme sixth.

Victo Ngai got the most nominating votes. Julie Dillon, who came fourth in nominations, declined, bringing Bastien Lecouffe Deharme onto the ballot. Yuko Shimizu had more votes than Bastien Lecouffe Deharme, and the same number as Kathleen Jennings; she was far behind both on points, but with one more vote would have displaced Jennings from the ballot.

Best Semiprozine

Uncanny Magazine was far ahead and won on the fifth count with 627 votes to 309 for Strange Horizons and 280 for Escape Pod. Strange Horizons came second, Beneath Ceaseless Skies third, Escape Pod fourth, Fireside Magazine fifth and The Book Smugglers sixth.

Uncanny Magazine was also far ahead in nominations. FIYAH Literary Magazine was the nearest miss, but was some way behind Escape Pod.

Best Fanzine

File 770 pulled off the strongest win of the night, twenty votes off a first-round victory and beating the rest after No Award’s transfers. SF Bluestocking came second, nerds of a feather, flock together beat Journey Planet by 10 votes for third place, Journey Planet came fourth, Galactic Journey fifth and Rocket Stack Rank sixth.

File 770 was also very far ahead at nomination stage. At the other end, Black Gate would have displaced Rocket Stack Rank with one more vote.

Best Fancast

Ditch Diggers was only 8 votes ahead of The Coode Street Podcast on the first count, but extended the lead to win by 317 to 271. The other results were closely contested. Fangirl Happy Hour rose to take second place by a 6-vote margin over The Coode Street Podcast, which won third by 12 votes over Sword and Laser, which then lost fourth place to Galactic Suburbia by 18 votes but won fifth, Verity! coming in sixth.

Ditch Diggers topped the nominations poll, though The Coode Street Podcast was close behind. Tea and Jeopardy came fifth, but declined nomination. The nearest miss was The Skiffy and Fanty Show, but it was well adrift of Sword and Laser.

Best Fan Writer

Sarah Gailey was only 12 votes ahead on first preferences, but won by 509 to 396 for Mike Glyer. Foz Meadows won second place, and Mike Glyer third by 19 votes over Bogi Takács, who came fourth. Camestros Felapton was fifth, Charles Payseur sixth.

Charles Payseur had actually topped the nomination votes, though it was a tight range – 67 for him, 54 for Bogi Takács with the rest in between. Natalie Luhrs, the nearest miss, was well behind.

Best Fan Artist

Geneva Benton started 9 votes ahead of Likhain and extended that lead to win by 436 to 342. Likhain came second, Grace P. Fong third, Maya hahto fourth, Spring Schoenhuth fifth and Steve Stiles sixth.

Likhain was far ahead at nominations stage, with more than three times as many votes as second-placed Geneva Benton. At the other end, Stephanie Law had more votes than Maya Hahto but far fewer points – Hahto’s support was much more concentrated.

WSFS Award for Best Young Adult Book

Akata Warrior was ahead at all stages and won by 616 to 496 for Summer in Orcus, which came second. In Other Lands came third, A Skinful of Shadows beat La Belle Sauvage by 7 votes for fourth place, The Art of Starving also beat La Belle Sauvage by 7 votes for fifth place, and La Belle Sauvage came sixth.

Akata Warrior also had a substantial lead at nominations stage. The nearest miss was Buried Heart, by Kate Elliott, but it was some way from displacing A Skinful of Shadows.

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Rebecca Roanhorse and Vina Jie-Min Prasad actually tied for first preferences, and were nip and tuck, tying again on the penultimate stage, until Rivers Solomon’s transfers pulled Roanhorse ahead to win by 561 to 523. Vina Jie-Min Prasad took second place, and Jeannette Ng then rose to take third, Rivers Solomon coming fourth, Katherine Arden fifth and Sarah Kuhn sixth.

Vina Jie-Min Prasad was substantially ahead of Rivers Solomon at the nominations stage. The nearest miss was S. A. Chakraborty, who would have needed 8 more votes to displace the winner, Rebecca Roanhorse.

I think that’s it!!!

The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

But expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.

Apart from the sampler submitted as part of this year’s Hugo packet, I think the only works by Sanderson that I had previously read were his Hugo-winning novella The Emperor’s Soul, which I voted for back in the day, and his Hugo-finalist novella Perfect State, which I didn’t vote for. His various overlapping series caused me a lot of head-scratching last year as Hugo administrator; judging by ownership on LibraryThing and Goodreads, which may of course reflect the heavy marketing push it was given by Tor back in 2010 when it first came out, the Stormlight Archive (of which this is the first volume) must be a front-runner for this evening’s award for Best Series (though my own vote is with Bujold).

The Way of Kings clocks in at 1007 pages in hard copy, which makes it the third longest book I have read so far this year (after Gone With the Wind and Islandia). It’s a decent epic fantasy, with three main characters – royal prince, disgraced but talented soldier, young woman who is deciding between theft and scholarship – in a world where humans battle non-humans atop very peculiar geology, with magic oozing from the pores of a lucky (or unlucky) few. The detail is good and the conclusion dramatic, with matters well set up for the next volume, but it’s a very long journey to get there, and it hasn’t changed my mind about my vote. If you didn’t already get it from the Hugo packet, Gollancz have actually published it in two volumes, which you can get here and here.

This was the top sf book in my unread pile. Next is the second in the series, Words of Radiance.

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Nobody’s Children, by Kate Orman, Jonathan Blum and Philip Purser-Hallard

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Second paragraph of third section of “All Mimsy Were the Borogoves”, by Kate Orman:

I pulled myself off her torso, which made her flinch, and took the form of a madder-lily once more – a harmless ornament on the phone room’s table.

Second paragraph of third section of “The Loyal Left Hand”, by Jonathan Blum:

And that was just the capper to the whole journey – at that time when you’ve had all the sleep you’re going to get, and the breakfast service is still an eternity away, and there’s just no cosmic point to freshening up for landing yet, and no matter what time it is at either end of the flight your internal clock is stuck at the 3am of the soul. Their shrieking neighbours weren’t helping either… As usual on a Draconian flight, they had a separate economy section for families with children, with extra running-about-room in the back and entertainments for rambunctious little lizards. A lovely theory, but this meant every single squalling infant within a third of a light year was right next to her ears.

Second paragraph of third section of “Nursery Politics”, by Philip Purser-Hallard:

It’s not that I forgot, exactly, I just got distracted. You would have too. No really, I guarantee.

Next in my readthrough of the Bernice books, this is a rather good collection of three novellas telling the story of Benny, the Draconians and the Mim, the last of these being a race capable of metamorphosis and mass reproduction. The particular issue is the destiny of a large number of infant Mim, captured by the Draconians in a recent conflict, at the same time as Benny and Jason are recomciling and thinking about having their own child (hitherto glimpsed as an alternate future possibility). The Whoniverse doesn’t always do big issues like parenting and relationships all that well; this is one of the better efforts in that direction, with plenty of plot to keep all three novellas going. I liked all three very much; maybe I can single out Kate Orman’s introductory piece, which sets the tone by observing human life (especially sex) from the point of view of a non-human. You can get it here.

Next on my list is a short story collection, Missing Adventures, edited by Rebecca Levene.

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1943 Retro Hugos: the detail

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The full results of the 1943 Retro Hugos have been released. As usual, below I am reporting the margin of victory for the winner, and the other placings, giving margins of victory where they were less than 20 votes. For the nominations stage, I am reporting the top vote-getters and the nearest misses.

Highlights: the closest result of the Retro Hugos was Best Fanzine, where Le Zombie won by only ten votes, and The Phantagraph won second place by only nine votes. The only closer races were Arthur Wilson “Bob” Tucker winning second place in Best Fan Writer by three votes, and Donovan’s Brain Darkness and the Light winning third place in Best Novel by a single vote.

At nominations, Best Editor Short Form, Best Professional Artist and Best Fanzine all had several candidates in contention for the final places, and a single vote more or a single vote less would have made the difference between being on or off the final ballot

The Screwtape Letters was disqualified for Best Novel due to the original publication date. “The Twonky” got enough votes to qualify in Best Novelette as well as Best Short Story (it won the latter category).

Detail below.

Best Novel: Beyond This Horizon won by 66 votes, 271 to 205 for Second Stage Lensmen, which crushed the competition for second place. Third place went to Donovan’s Brain Darkness and the Light, by a margin of a single vote over Darkness and the Light Donovan’s Brain. Fourth place went to is also currently listed as won by Donovan’s Brain, presumably in error. The Uninvited fifth, Islandia sixth.

Beyond This Horizon also had the most nomination votes by some way. The Screwtape Letters got the second highest number of nomination votes, but was ruled inelgible because of its serial publication in the Guardian in 1941, thus bringing The Uninvited onto the ballot. Closest also-ran was Grand Canyon by Vita Sackville-West, which would have needed another five votes worth more than 4.2 points to get on the ballot.

Best Novella: “Waldo” beat “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag” by 61 votes, 277 to 216. Second place goes to “Hoag” by a similar margin, then “Nerves” comes third, “The Complete Werewolf” fourth, “Asylum” fifth by 10 votes, and “Hell is Forever” sixth.

At nominations stage, “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag” was ahead of “Waldo”, and both were way in front of the field. “Recruiting Station” by AE van Vogt would have displaced “Asylum” from the ballot with just one more vote. The Screwtape Letters (which by my count is actually novella length, but of course was not eligible) was also not far behind and would have needed just over 1.02 points to get on the ballot (and then get disqualified).

Best Novelette: “Foundation” crushed the opposition with a first round victory, 338 votes out of 628 (53.8%). “The Weapon Shop” came second, “There Shall Be Darkness” third, “Star Mouse” fourth by 16 votes, “Bridle and Saddle” fifth and “Goldfish Bowl” sixth.

“Foundation” was far ahead of “The Weapon Shop” in nominations, and both were far ahead of the rest. “The Twonky” had the third highest nominations in this category but is a short story, enabling “Bridle and Saddle” to take the last place on the ballot. “The Sorcerer of Rhiannon” by Leigh= Brackett would have taken that place instead with 2 more votes worth more than 1.14 points.

Best Short Story: “The Twonky” won here by 47 votes, 268 to 221 for “Runaround”. “Proof” then picked up enough transfers to come second, with “Runaround” finishing third, “The Sunken Land” fourth, “Etaoin Shrdlu” fifth and “Mimic” sixth.

“Rumaround” topped the nomination votes. Second-placed was “Waldo”, eligible in a different category, which would have needed 2 more votes worth more than 1 point to get disqualified from the final ballot here. “Robot AL-76 Goes Astray”, by Isaac Asimov, needed only one more vote to displace “Mimic”.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Bambi beat Cat People by 59 votes, 274 to 215. Cat People came second, Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book third, I Married A Witch fourth, The Ghost of Frankenstein fifth and Invisible Agent sixth.

Cat People had a substantial lead at nominations stage, with Bambi only third. The only two other nominees reported, The Corpse Vanishes and The Mouse of Tomorrow, were far behind with only 5 and 4 votes respectively (to Invisible Agent’s 13).

Best Editor, Short Form: John W. Campbell crushed the opposition with 325 votes out of 490 (66.3%). Donald A. Wollheim came second, Dorothy McIlwraith third, Raymond A. Palmer fourth, Oscar J. Friend fifth (by 17 votes), and Malcolm Reiss sixth.

At nominations stage, Campbell was even further ahead, with 75 votes to 8 for McIlwraith, 7 for Palmer, 6 for Reiss and Friend and 5 for Wollheim. Frederik Pohl also had 5 nominating votes, but lost due to EPH; with one more vote he would have displaced Friend or Wollheim. The only other reported nominee, Alden H. Norton, had 4 nominating votes, and would likewise have had a good chance of being a finalist with another 2 vote.

Best Professional Artist: Virgil Finlay won by 49 votes, 199 to 150 for Margaret Brundage. Hannes Bok then beat Brundage by 16 points for second place. Brundage came third, Edd Cartier fourth, Hubert Rogers fifth and Harold W. McCauley sixth, all on the first count.

Hannes Bok and Virgil Finlay were also top of the nomination votes, with 34 and 28 respectively. The other five were far ahead of McCauley, who had only 4 to Brundage’s 15. Two other nominees are reported, J. Allen St. John and Earl K. Bergey, who like McCauley had 4 nominating votes but lost due to EPH; 1 more vote would have been enough for either one of them to replace McCauley.

Best Fanzine: This saw the tightest races both for nominations and final places. Le Zombie beat The Phantagraph by 10 votes, 122 to 112, having trailed up to the final count – the closest result for first place of the night. The Phantagraph beat Spaceways by 9 votes for second place, and Spaceways beat Voice of the Imagi-Nation by 16 votes for third place. Voice of the Imagi-Nation came fourth, Futurian War Digest fifth and Inspiration sixth.

The nominations report is confusingly laid out, but it’s clear that Le Zombie and Spaceways were far ahead of the field with 14 and 12 nominating votes respectively. Two finalists (Futurian War Digest and The Phantagraph) had only 4 nominating votes, two unsuccessful nominees had only 3, and Inspiration and three unsuccessful nominees had only 2. A single extra vote with the right value would have been enough for any of the five other reported nominees to get on the final ballot – The Acolyte, Fanfare, Fantasy Fiction Field, Madman of Mars and Fantasite.

Best Fan Writer: Forrest J. Ackerman won by 31 votes, 186 to 155 for Arthur Wilson “Bob” Tucker. Tucker then beat Donald A. Wollheim for second place by 3 votes, despite trailing at all stages before the last. Wollheim came third, Harry Warner Jr fourth, Jack Speer fifth and Art Widner sixth.

Tucker led at nominations stage by 11 to 8 for Warner. The only unsuccessful nominee reported is Ray Bradbury, who had only 2 votes to 4 for Speer, Widner and Wollheim. Speer and Widner were in fact tied on EPH points; if Bradbury had had two more votes worth more than 0.45 points, all seven nominees would have been on the final ballot.

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Time Lord, by Ian Marsh and Peter Darville-Evans

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Second paragraph of Part Three:

Players and the referee should read this chapter carefully, or have it explained to them by someone who knows the rules. Rules in subsequent chapters can be skimmed by players to glean some knowledge of the game’s workings; the referee needs to set aside time to read the rules at least once.

My role-playing game days are very far behind me now, but in my late teens I was pretty absorbed in the linked fandoms of postal diplomacy and RPG design. One of the major figures of the latter was Ian Marsh, co-editor of the famous zine Dragonlords, solo editor of the less famous Year of the Rat, and briefly the professional editor of White Dwarf, which is of course still going. Ian himself now runs a tabletop miniatures business in the Isle of Wight. I only recently realised that he and Peter Darville-Evans, the original editor of Virgin’s New Adventures, had collaborated on this role-playing game. I am no longer enough of an RPG fan to really evaluate it; the points that struck me were:

  • No time needed for players to roll up characters, because character sheets for the (then) seven Doctors and their companions are already provided and players are expected to use them.
  • An interesting mechanism for invoking chance: the referee establishes the difficulty of a particular task on a scale of 0-5, and the player must then “beat the difference”, by rolling two dice and seeing if the difference between the two numbers exceeds the difficulty of the task.
  • Quite a strong time element, in terms of how long particular activities will take mattering a lot to the outcome of your scenario, perhaps deliberately echoing the time pressure of a 25-minute TV episode.

There are also two skeleton stories provided, one of the Doctor and Ace intervening in high politics of a spacefaring planet, the other an alien mystery in a contemporary shopping centre. I think for completists only, whether Whovians or RPGers, but interesting enough. (Not so sure about Colin Howard’s art here though. He has improved in the meantime.) I got mine in hard copy, but you can download it here, and I believe that more adventures are available if you hunt around.

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My tweets

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  • Fri, 06:14: RT @TheHugoAwards: 1943 Retrospective Hugo Award for Best Novel: Beyond This Horizon, by Anson MacDonald (Robert A. Heinlein) (Astounding S…
  • Fri, 06:16: RT @PEMatson: 1943 #RetroHugos award winner at #WorldCon76 for Best Novel is “Beyond This Horizon” by Robert A. Heinlein, writing as Anson…
  • Fri, 06:18: Name recognition and nostalgia seem to have helped a lot with Retro Hugos – two to Heinlein, one to Asimov for firs… https://t.co/JSzagUUaP7
  • Fri, 09:12: Human Rights activist banned from Schengen zone by Poland! Appalling! https://t.co/gIsQis4IFC
  • Fri, 10:45: RT @hhesterm: Project Fear is all over the press again, so let’s think about – Brexit preparation – an ongoing civil war – why propaganda h…

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Huawei Stories: Pioneers, ed. Tian Tao and Yin Zhifeng

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Second paragraph of third chapter (“A London Courtship”, by Victor Zhang):

This ‘London courtship’ helped us to get our foot in the door of the European sector, and was a milestone in Huawei’s progress into the global markets.

I attended a reception hosted by Huawei a few months ago, and they kindly handed out two books of essays by Huawei staff, of which this is the first. It opens with an introductory paean of praise for Huawei’s wonderful corporate culture, but then settles down into a series of first-person accounts by young Chinese people working in different cultures.

The growth of China is possibly the most important global economic trend right now, and I really did find it interesting to get this insight into some of the people who are making it happen. About half of the accounts are set in Africa, where those of us who have paid attention have noted the huge growth in Chinese investment over the last twenty years or so. Several stories emphasise the importance of access to Chinese food for company morale (one contributor was the chef of the Huawei office in Côte d’Ivoire). There is a memorably grim account of being stuck in Iceland (apart from anything else, Icelandic hairdresses were unable to cope with Chinese hair). The most spectacular chapter tells how a Huawei base station was set up in Medog County, Tibet, where there were no roads and every single piece of equipment had to be carried in by porters – I guess the landscape is too extreme for four-footed transport.

It is slightly propagandistic, but it is a fascinating insight into an important part of what’s going on in our world today. It was at the top of my pile of books by non-white writers; next on that pile is the other Huawei book, Explorers. If you want, you can get it here.

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Walls in Belfast

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We went to the Ulster Museum yesterday, where there is a very good and full exhibition about the Troubles. One of the exhibits is a map from the Roads Service from 1979 showing exactly which bits of Belfast were closed off for security reasons.

In the yellow zone, no unattended vehicles were allowed from 8 am to 6 pm Monday to Saturday; in the red zone, no unattended vehicles were allowed at any time; and within the barriers, on the cross-hatched streets, only “delivery vehicles etc” were allowed. There were only seven points where vehicles could enter the city centre, of the twenty-odd possibilities; the others were simply blocked off.

What I found interesting is the similarity with the wall built around Belfast in the 1640s, as mapped by Gillespie and Royle.

The gates marked on Castle Street and North Street are in exactly the same place as two of the security barriers of 330 years later. It would have been perfect if they actually coincided with vehicle access points, but they don’t quite – the North Street gate is next to (but on on) the site of the later access point at the northern end of Royal Avenue, and to reach Castle Street in the 1970s you would need to go in at the southern end of Queen Street. There was another gate in the 1640s on what was Corporation Street in the 1970s but is now the Dunbar Link.

I tried drawing the two on one map, but the 1970s security zone looked a little too phallic.

It is interesting that the commercial centre of Belfast had shifted so little in a third of a millennium. The core areas of economic activity in, say, London and Dublin would have moved a lot between the 1640s and 1970s. But I guess that is less true of some other cities I know well, like Brussels or Leuven. (Or Oxford or Cambridge, for that matter.)

There is no trace above ground now of the 1640s fortifications, and little enough from the 1970s. Long may it remain so.

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Doctor Who Files: 7) The Daleks, 8) The Cybermen, 12) The TARDIS, all by Justin Richards

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I read four of the books in this series soon after they first came out, and have been hanging onto these three for some time. They are cheerful pieces. Each consists of about two thirds recounting TV Who lore about the subject of the book, and then a relevant short story. Justin Richards (who, as I repeatedly point out, is the most prolific author of New Who) is on form here, delivering a Dalek Empire-style tale, a contemporary kids-deal-with-Cybermen vignette, and the story of how the Doctor and Martha influenced the construction of Stonehenge. If you spot these, they are worth picking up, here, here and here.

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Monday reading

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Current
The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
Anno Dracula – Dracula Cha Cha Cha, by Kim Newman

Last books finished
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, by Marcel Proust
The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
Doctor Who Files 7: The Daleks, by Justin Richards
Doctor Who Files 8: The Cybermen, by Justin Richards
Doctor Who Files 12: The TARDIS, by Justin Richards
Huawei Stories: Pioneers, ed. Tian Tao and Yin Zhifeng
Time Lord, by Ian Marsh and Peter Darvill-Evans

Next books
Fair Trade, by Laura T. Reynolds, Douglas Murray and John Wilkinson
Welcome to Night Vale, by Joseph Fink
Nobody’s Children, by Kate Orman, Jonathan Blum and Philip Purser-Hallard

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The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

I’d begun to like the Ayreses for their own sake, too. It was Caroline I saw most. I discovered that she walked in the park almost daily, so I’d often catch sight of her unmistakable long-legged, broad-hipped figure, with Gyp cutting a way through the long grass at her side. If she was close enough I would stop the car and wind down my window, and we’d chat, as we had that time in the lane. She seemed to be always in the middle of some chore, always had a bag or a basket with her, filled with fruit, or mushrooms, or sticks for kindling. She might as well, I thought, have been a farmer’s daughter; the more I saw of things at Hundreds, the sorrier I was that her life, like that of her brother, had so much work in it and so few pleasures. One day a neighbour of mine presented me with a couple of jars of honey from his hives, for having seen his son safely through a bad dose of whooping cough. I remembered Caroline’s having longed for honey on my very first visit to the house, so I gave one of the jars to her. I did it casually, but she seemed amazed and delighted by the gift, holding up the jar to catch the sunlight, showing her mother.

I was disappointed by this, frankly. The best part of the book is a sensitive study of a landed gentry family under economic pressure immediately after the Second World War (the Labour Government is blamed by some of the characters, though I think not by the author), as told by the local doctor whose mother had briefly worked at the big house as a servant. Strange occurrences blight the health of the Ayres family and the doctor’s romance with the daughter of the house; and in the end I felt the book unsuccessfully tried to straddle the genres of horror fiction and Aga saga without really subverting either (though I also admit that neither horror nor Aga sagas are really my thing). Great characterisation and descriptions, shame about the fundamentals of the plot. If you like, you can get it here.

I thought that this was my top unread non-sf fiction book, but in fact I’m reclassifying it as sf. It was also my top unread book by a woman, and my top unread book acquired this year. The next book in the first two of those piles is Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively; next in the other pile is Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson.

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In The Shadow Of Young Girls In Flower, by Marcel Proust

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Only two chapters, both very long. The second paragraph of the second chapter is:

Mais cette souffrance et ce regain d’amour pour Gilberte ne furent pas plus longs que ceux qu’on a en rêve, et cette fois, au contraire, parce qu’à Balbec l’Habitude ancienne n’était plus là pour les faire durer. Et si ces effets de l’Habitude semblent contradictoires, c’est qu’elle obéit à des lois multiples. À Paris j’étais devenu de plus en plus indifférent à Gilberte, grâce à l’Habitude. Le changement d’habitude, c’est-à-dire la cessation momentanée de l’Habitude, paracheva l’œuvre de l’Habitude quand je partis pour Balbec. Elle affaiblit mais stabilise, elle amène la désagrégation mais la fait durer indéfiniment. Chaque jour depuis des années je calquais tant bien que mal mon état d’âme sur celui de la veille. À Balbec un lit nouveau à côté duquel on m’apportait le matin un petit déjeuner différent de celui de Paris ne devait plus soutenir les pensées dont s’était nourri mon amour pour Gilberte : il y a des cas (assez rares il est vrai) où, la sédentarité immobilisant les jours, le meilleur moyen de gagner du temps, c’est de changer de place. Mon voyage à Balbec fut comme la première sortie d’un convalescent qui n’attendait plus qu’elle pour s’apercevoir qu’il est guéri. However, this recurrence of pain and the renewal of my love for Gilberte did not last longer than they would have in a dream of her, for the very reason that my life at Balbec was free of the habits which in usual circumstances would have helped it to prevail. Such effects of Habit may seem contradictory; but the laws which govern it are many and varied. In Paris, it was because of Habit that I had become more and more indifferent to Gilberte. The change in my habits, that is the momentary suspension of Habit, put its finishing touch to that process when I set off for Balbec. Habit may weaken all things, but it also stabilizes them; it brings about a dislocation, but then makes it last indefinitely. For years past, I had been roughly modelling my state of mind each day on my state of mind of the day before. At Balbec, breakfast in bed — a different bed, a different breakfast —was to be incapable of nourishing the ideas on which my love for Gilberte had fed in Paris. There are instances, albeit infrequent, in which, the passing days having been immobilized by a sedentary way of life, the best way to gain time is to change place. My journey to Balbec was like the first outing of a convalescent who has not noticed until that moment that he is completely cured.

I enjoyed this more this time around than last time I read it – I think it helps that I now have a better appreciation of the overall shape of the story across the six volumes, and that I’m just more familiar with the Modernists than I was eleven years ago. I particular, I enjoyed much more the narrator’s interaction with art and artists, both in Paris and at the seaside, and could see both how he became attracted to Gilberte and Albertine and also how he makes mistakes in both relationships. I had forgotten the incident of the sofa and the brothel, and his erotic fumbles with the two girls. Sure, the sentences are very long, but I am finding it all pretty digestible.

I see that some Proust scholars see Albertine as a female version of Proust’s lover Albert Agostinelli. I must say that apart from the name, I’m not convinced so far. Albertine is very feminised; the real Agostinelli looks pretty butch in surviving photos. In any case, most fictional characters are an amalgam of the author’s experiences rather than being a direct fictionalisation. It should also be said that both Albertine and Gilberte are so very much framed by the narrator’s attraction to them that they don’t really come across strongly as characters in their own right.

OK, next comes The Guermantes Way. But not until September. You can get In The Shadow Of Young Girls In Flower here.

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Ill Met in Lankhmar, by Fritz Leiber, and other novellas of 1970

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The version I have of “Ill Met in Lankhmar” has no internal divisions, so the third paragraph is:

The two thieves also had the relief of knowing that, with the satisfaction of a job well done, they were going straight home now, not to a wife, Aarth forbid! – or to parents and children, all gods forfend! but to Thieves’ House, headquarters and barracks of the all-mighty Guild which was father to them both and mother too, though no woman was allowed inside its ever-open portal on Cheap Street.

This won the Hugo and Nebula awards for Best Novella presented in 1971 for work of 1970 (so the 1971 Hugo but the 1970 Nebula). Leiber had been writing both prose and poetry about the heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser since 1939. In 1970 he published two stories set very early in internal chronology: an origin story for Fafhrd, “The Snow Women” (the origin story for the Gray Mouser had appeared in 1962), and this tale of how the two first became a partnership in the city of Lankhmar. In these post-Pratchett days, we can forget that Ankh-Morpork is very firmly built on Lankhmar’s foundations, but it’s pretty easy to see the elements that Discworld drew from Leiber.

Lankhmar is more sexy than Ankh-Morpork, and the story revolves around Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser attempting to impress their girlfriends by taking on the Thieves’ Guild. The Guild, however, has sorcerous support, and in a horrific passage the two women are killed by magic (or “fridged”, as we would say now) and the two heroes destroy the Guild in revenge. In an attempt to move with the times (and against his own past record) Leiber does give the two women a bit of intelligence and character, but it does not do them much good.

However, it’s well-written and entertaining, and fans who had been following the Lankhmar stories will have lapped this up just as Doctor Who fans enjoy Missing Adventures.

The title of course refers both to Oberon’s grumpy greeting to Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2 scene 1, and to Patrick Leigh Fermor’s wartime exploits in Crete. Neither has much bearing on Leiber’s story.

Since I had the time to do it, I read several of the other novellas competing with “Ill Met in Lankhmar” for the Hugo and Nebula that year. Two others were on both shortlists. One was “The Region Between”, by Harlan Ellison, whose third chapter is actually numbered 1¾; its second paragraph is:

And yet alive. More completely alive than he had ever been, than any human being had ever conceived of being. Alive with all of the universe, one with the clamoring stars, brother to the infinite empty spaces, heroic in proportions that even myth could not define.

I found this a fairly indigestible and self-indulgent piece. It is one of five stories by different authors which all started with the main character’s death; we cycle through confusing and disjointed fonts and prose to discover the meaning of God. Not the New Wave at its best.

The other story on both final ballots was “The Thing in the Stone” by Clifford D. Simak, the second paragraph of whose third section is:

At fault, Daniels knew, had been his obsession withthe creature in the stone. The past was nothing—it was the creature in the stone that was important and to tell of it, to explain it and how he knew that it was there, he must tell about his listening to the stars.

I liked this a lot more. It’s a story about an isolated man in rural America who finds himself eerily linked to another world, in this case past geological ages. It is therefore of course a fairly typical Simak story, and maybe doesn’t stand out all that much from the rest of his work, but it ticked a lot of my boxes.

Leiber’s Fafhrd story “The Snow Women” also qualified for the Hugo ballot, but he withdrew it. The other two novellas contending for the Hugo were therefore “Beastchild” by Dean R. Koontz, which I was not able to track down in its originally published form, and “The World Outside” by Robert Silverberg, now available as the sixth chapter of The World Inside, the novel about a future society living in immense tower blocks and reproducing like crazy. More specifically, it is the chapter about the man who decides to leave his home tower block and explore the surrounding countryside. The second paragraph of its third section is:

But in the end he goes without telling anyone.

It’s a rather brutal story – in the world outside the World Inside, people use birth control and women actually have the right to refuse sex, both things which shock the protagonist. On his return home he is immediately executed in case he should spread heretical ideas of how society might be different. I can see why it got onto the ballot, but I can also see why it didn’t win.

There were three other stories on the Nebula ballot. I did not bother tracking down “The Fatal Fulfillment” by Poul Anderson (one of the same set of stories as “The Region Between”) or “A Style in Treason” by James Blish. “April Fools Day Forever”, by Kate Wilhelm, was the only novella by a woman on either final ballot. (There were no works by women at all on the Hugo ballot for the written fiction categories; the Nebulas had one story by a woman in each category, two by Kate Wilhelm and two by Joanna Russ.) The third paragraph of “April Fools Day Forever” is:

What she wanted to do was call Martie, but she didn’t. His boss didn’t approve of personal phone calls during the working day. She breathed a curse at Hilary Boyle, and waited for Martie to call her. He would, as soon as he had a chance. When she was certain that there was nothing else she should do, she sat down in the living room, where one log was burning softly. There was no light on in the room and the storm had darkened the sky. The small fire glowed pleasingly in the enormous fireplace, and the radiance was picked up by pottery and brass mugs on a low table before the fireplace. The room was a long rectangle, wholly out of proportion, much too long for the width, and with an uncommonly high ceiling. Paneling the end walls had helped, as had making a separate room within the larger one, with its focal point the fireplace. A pair of chairs and a two-seater couch made a cozy grouping. The colors were autumn forest colors, brilliant and subdued at the same time: oranges and scarlets in the striped covering of the couch, picked up again by pillows; rust browns in the chairs; forest-green rug. The room would never make House Beautiful, Julia had thought when she brought in the last piece of brass for the table and surveyed the effect, but she loved it, and Martie loved it. And she’d seen people relax in that small room within a room who hadn’t been able to relax for a long time. She heard it then.

It’s a tremendously creepy novella, set in a 1970 society where the death rate has suddenly accelerated and the birth rate drastically decreased. The heroine and her husband, struggling with their own efforts to start a family, find themselves embroiled in a sinister conspiracy which seems to be linked to the bizarre demographic changes. Unfortunately I felt that the ending was a cop-out that undermined the internal logic of the rest of the story, but up until the last couple of pages I really enjoyed it.

So, did the voters of 1970 get it right? I’d have found it a tough call between Leiber, Simak and (for the Nebula) Wilhelm myself; but in the end I think I too would have voted for Leiber.

Next comes Ringworld.


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The mystery of the shy thinktank

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POLITICO alerted me earlier in the week to the existence of a Brussels thinktank called EU Policies, of which I had not previously heard. POLITICO complained, reasonably enough, that one of the stories on the EU Policies site had been copied from them wholesale and without attribution.

The mission statement of EU Policies declares, “EU Policies is a european [sic] Think-tank. / Our focus is to promote successful policies, at a european [sic] level, always putting subsidiarity ahead.” The postal address given is a co-working space on the far side of Brussels from the EU quarter, which also offers a virtual office among its services. The thinktank has a Twitter account dating from last October, but no Facebook presence that I could detect.

Oddly enough, not a single one of the named editorial staff appears to have their own social media presence, whether on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. Googling their names individually, combined with the word “Brussels”, produces no results apart from the EU Policies website itself, and a gig date for a musician (an American drummer) with the same name as the Executive Editor. (At least one of the other names looks like it has been misspelled, but trying some of the obvious variations produced no better results.)

The site features banner ads for Euractiv’s daily news roundup, but I think it is very unlikely that there is any real connection there.

It is surprising that such an industrious team has so little visibility outside their own website. All very mysterious.

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