Interesting Links for 24-02-2016
- Let’s not get nostalgic about Jeb Bush
- He lost because he was bad, not because he was decent.
(tags: uspolitics ) - What did the EU ever do for Britain?
- Good question; many good answers.
(tags: eu ukpolitics ) - Richard Corbett’s Mythbusters
- Veteran Labour MEP sets out the facts.
(tags: eu ukpolitics ) - Seas are now rising faster than they have in 2,800 years, scientists say
- *gulp*
(tags: climatechange ) - Why Professor Indiana Jones Was Hated By His Colleagues
- Hee!
(tags: sf funny ) - Against Big Bird, The Gods Themselves Contend In Vain
- Big Bird defeats a demon and defies Osiris. Canonical.
(tags: sf children )
Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver
A really lovely story, this, of three parallel narratives of lonely people finding their own paths in an Appalachian backwater community, the three stories turning out to be closely linked together (in a gutwrenching but joyful revelation on page 400). Lots of lovely observations about nature and human nature, with the core character a half-Palestinian, half-Polish widow who realises that she can adapt to her new environment and make it adapt to her. I was unaware that the American chestnut was all but wiped out by imported fungus in the early twentieth century; one of Kingsolver’s characters is striving to undo that historical mistake, but by producing something new and better rather than retreating into the past. Greatly enjoyed it.
This came simultaneously to the top of three of my reading lists – the most popular unread book that I acquired in 2015, the most popular unread non-genre fiction book, and the most popular book on my unread list by a woman. The next books on those lists are respectively 1491 by Charles C. Mann; Master Pip, by Lloyd Jones; and Selected Stories, by Alice Munro. (“Popular” in all cases means as measured by LibraryThing ownership.)
Interesting Links for 23-02-2016
- EU, U.S. Envoys: Macedonia Not Ready For ‘Credible’ Elections
- Strong stuff.
(tags: macedonia ) - Eight hours in airport detention for wanting to talk about a course? Welcome to the UK
- Britain’s war on clever foreigners.
(tags: ukpolitics migration ) - order amid chaos
- What order should you watch the episodes of The Prisoner in?
(tags: sf ) - How to register your vote in the UK
- …including if you left less than 15 years ago (alas, I left in 1997).
(tags: ukpolitics ) - Boris is a copper bottomed, double dealing hypocritical little shit.
- But what do you really think, @jerryhayes1?
(tags: eu ukpolitics ) - Major blow for Brexit campaign as US rules out UK-only trade deal
- Told you so.
(tags: eu ukpolitics ) - 22 Home Decor Pieces That Will Make You Wish You Were Dead
- A genuinely funny Buzzfeed list.
(tags: funny ) - The Shrinking Cockneysphere
- Maps of London’s sounds.
(tags: maps london ) - Fact or fiction? Boris Johnson’s Euro claims
- Mostly fiction. Surprise!
(tags: eu ukpolitics )
Shortlist season these days: the Kitschies are out. Here are the two novel shortlists, ranked by Goodreads ownership.
The Red Tentacle (Novel):
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
| owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
| The Heart Goes Last, by Margaret Atwood | 49,751 | 3.38 | 537 | 3.52 |
| The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin | 31,607 | 4.34 | 321 | 4.37 |
| The Thing Itself, by Adam Roberts | 689 | 3.98 | 81 | 3.52 |
| The Reflection, by Hugo Wilcken | 487 | 3.46 | 12 | 3.5 |
| Europe at Midnight, by Dave Hutchinson | 461 | 4.28 | 32 | 3.88 |
The Golden Tentacle (Debut):
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
| owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
| The Gracekeepers, by Kirsty Logan | 12,770 | 3.63 | 251 | 3.58 |
| The Shore by Sara Taylor | 4,428 | 3.55 | 131 | 3.81 |
| Blackass, by A. Igoni Barrett | 1,875 | 3.69 | 16 | – |
| The Night Clock, by Paul Meloy | 872 | 3.13 | 9 | – |
| Making Wolf, by Tade Thompson | 87 | 3.9 | 8 | 4 |
The Cosmonauts Exhibition
This is Vostok 6, the space capsule in which the first woman in space, 26-year-old Valentina Tereshkova, travelled out and safely returned to Earth in June 1963.
This is Voskhod 1, the first spacecraft to take more than one person into space, Vladimir Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov being the three-man crew on its brief mission in October 1964. It looks to my eye even smaller than the Vostok capsule in the next case. There was not enough room for spacesuits.
This is Soyuz TM-14, the first Russian (as opposed to Soviet) space flight, launched in March 1993 with two Russian cosmonauts and a German. They docked with the Mir space station; the German stayed only a week, but the Russians stayed until August and brought a more recently arrived Frenchman home to Earth with them. When they landed, the capsule ended up upside down and they hung suspended in their seats until the recovery team reached them.
This is a memorial bust of Sergei Korolev, the Chief Engineer who made Soviet space flight possible.
Working in politics, my instinct is to provide an ideological critique of all of this (and there is plenty to critique). But sometimes one should take a step back and appreciate the achievements of humanity.
The Cosmonauts exhibition runs only until 13 March in the Science Museum in London. Worth a detour, as the Michelin guides used to say.
The Legends of Ashildr, by James Goss, David Llewellyn, Jenny T. Colgan & Justin Richards
Maisie Williams’ Ashildr didn’t turn out to be Susan as I had once hopedThousand and One Nights,in a story that both respects the original tradition of nested and linked narratives, but also throws in some gender subversion. Colgan’s story of the Black Death is surprisingly bleak. Llewellyn mashes up Columbus and the Hunger Games. Richards wraps it all up at the end. It’s a good collection, perhaps aimed at a more mature readership than is immediately apparent. Let’s hope for more.
Interesting Links for 22-02-2016
- Six Lies Told By Nigel Farage About The EU
- Only six?
(tags: eu ukpolitics ) - This can’t be left to the Tory party – it’s everyone’s country at stake
- Andrew Rawnsley nails it.
(tags: eu ukpolitics ) - How the Euro Crisis was successfully resolved
- Important to counter the narrative that the Euro as such “failed”.
(tags: eu euro greece ) - Peak paper
- Also Peak Oil, Peak Coal, Peak Steel and maybe Peak People?
(tags: economics technology )
The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin
Now on the Nebula shortlist (where it’s second among Goodreads, third on LibraryThing) this is one of the most buzzed novels of last year. I very much enjoyed the world-building, both the existence of a minority with powers of manipulating rock and other elements, and the politics of how that works out in practice. I was less excited by the plot and characters, and lost track once or twice. If it gets onto the Hugo ballot I shall give it another try.
Interesting Links for 21-02-2016
- The Opening Number of “Hamilton”
- In case you are wondering what the fuss is about.
(tags: music ) - The Subversive Women Who Self-Publish Novels Amid Jihadist War
- Kano market literature.
(tags: nigeria sexandgenderandsexuality writing ) - Profile of culinary historian Michael Twitty
- The African roots of American cooking.
(tags: food race ) - Here’s how to argue with a Brexiter – and win
- @fromTGA offers one possible line of argument.
(tags: eu ukpolitics ) - How “Operation Liza” failed
- The Russian propaganda campaign in Germany that backfired.
(tags: russia germany ) - Brexit and Northern Ireland
- As a Unionist politician said to me, “Just imagine, if they reinstated the Border!!!”
(tags: eu ukpolitics northernireland )
Nebula novels nominees, ranked by Goodreads/LibraryThing stats
The Nebula nominees are out. Full list is here. I've read three of the novels, four of the novellas, three of the novelettes, four of the short stories, and none of the Andre Norton nominees. (And seen two of the Ray Bradbury nominees.)
The novels, ranked by Goodreads ownership (which is almost the same as LibraryThing ownership except for a swap in second and third pace), are as follows:
| Goodreads | LibraryThing | |||
| owners | av rating | owners | av rating | |
| Uprooted by Naomi Novik | 97,850 | 4.18 | 761 | 4.25 |
| The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin | 31,351 | 4.34 | 318 | 4.37 |
| Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie | 15,719 | 4.25 | 448 | 4.34 |
| The Grace of Kings, by Ken Liu | 13,127 | 3.76 | 246 | 3.84 |
| Updraft, by Fran Wilde | 3498 | 3.71 | 81 | 3.52 |
| Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard, by Laurence M. Schoen | 2223 | 3.9 | 28 | 5 |
| Raising Caine, by Chuck Gannon | 258 | 4.17 | 14 | 4 |
I'll probably try to read the others, once I've finished my BSFA reading.
The Pop Singer: Episode 7 of Here Come The Double Deckers
Whole episode dubbed in French (except the songs):
Episode 7: The Pop Singer
First shown: 17 October 1970 (US), 4 February 1971 (UK)
Director: Harry Booth
Writers: Harry Booth and Glyn Jones
Appearing apart from the Double Deckers:
Melvyn Hayes as Albert the Street Cleaner
Anthony May as Sidney, The Cool Cavalier
Ivor Salter as the Policeman
Plot
The gang find a man sleeping in their bus. He turns out to be an unsuccessful musician, a singer of protest songs; they rebrand him as "The Cool Cavalier" and hold a successful concert, ending only when Brains' musical machine explodes. But he decides that the musical life is not for him after all.
Soundtrack
"Life Is A Wonderful Thing", by Ivor Slaney and Glyn Jones. For me this is a rare musical mis-step by the show. The song is set too high for the kids to sing comfortably, and the political message is conservative – this is the point in the story where the gang persuade Sydney not to bother with protest songs. It's another example of the gang being Billie and her backing singers, but there is nothing wrong with that. Judge for yourself:
"Following You" (instrumental), by Ted Atking and his orchestra
This isn't listed in the end credits, nor wasa it included on the album of music from the show, but it's an amazing piece of orchestral groove. (You could probably date the episode to the month of 1970 in which it was filmed by the clothes of the dancers.) Full version on YouTube here.
"I Gotta Get Through", by Ivor Slaney and Michael Begg
I'm not well enough acquainted with 1970 crooning hits to know which other great works of pop culture this is paying homage to, but it's performed with sufficient confidence that it must be firmly rooted in the Zeitgeist.
Glorious moments
The efforts of the gang to rebrand the unfortunate Sydney are a great bit of youthful cooperation and ingenuity. The disco scene, a little beyond the ken of the episode's target audience, is rather well done for what it is. The ending, with Sydney deciding to give it all up and go home, is probably the saddest of any episode, but manages not to jar the overall feel of the series.
Less glorious moments
I don't think you could get away with a homeless man turning up in a children's den with such benign plot consequences today…
My radical heart is saddened by the notion that there is no place for protest songs in a well-ordered world.
It seems implausible that the police would a) take an interest in the gang's disco in the first place, and then b) let it go ahead if they were concerned.
What's all this then?
This is the first real attempt to get to grips with contemporary culture, apart from the hovercraft in Tiger Takes Off. The visual references are obviously Top of the Pops on the one hand, and the Three Musketeers (and perhaps the Royalists of the English Civil War) on the other. But at the same time, the message of the episode is to neutralise the threat of pop culture and demonstrate (to anxious parents?) the virtues of a retreat to traditional values.
There was a 1970 biopic of Oliver Cromwell, starring Richard Harris and Alec Guinness, but it came out in August which would have been after this episode was made. Cromwell's son Richard was played by none other than Anthony May, the Cool Cavalier. So he changed sides at some point in 1970.
Where's that?
All in the studio this time, apart from Albert handing out leaflets in Shenley Road, Borehamwood.
Who's that?
Anthony May (Sydney, the Cool Cavalier) was born in 1946; his biggest hit was a couple of years before Double Deckers as the unnamed male lead in cult short film Les Bicyclettes de Belsize. He hasa long string of TV, film and theatre credits, including the voice of the King of the Dead in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and had a bit part in Angelina Jolie's Maleficent in 2014. Apart from this episode of Double Deckers, he doesn't seem to have done much singing.
Ivor Salter (the policeman) was born in 1925, and had a string of minor parts, possibly peaking as a farmer in Crossroads in the late 1970s. He was in Doctor Who three times, first as the Morok Commander in Glyn Jones' story The Space Museum (1965), then as Odysseus in The Myth Makers (also 1965) and finally as another policeman, Sergeant Markham, in Black Orchid (1982). He died in 1991.
Peter Miller wrote two other episodes of Here Come the Double Deckers, Robbie the Robot and The Go-Karters, which are two of the best of the lot; he wrote various other comedy and thriller episodes for TV, but nothing since 1986. His peak was possibly a six-part early evening sit-com called The Square Leopard in 1980, which is panned here.
See you next week…
…for Scooper Strikes Out
A question of timing: what year is this?
You can answer using your Facebook or Twitter logins if you aren’t on Livejournal.
Once you have answered, check here for historical comparison.
Interesting Links for 20-02-2016
- Thatcher’s poisonous legacy
- @RobinLustig on UK/EU relations.
(tags: eu ukpolitics )
Bektashi humour – repost from ten years ago
Originally posted by
In memory of the late Baba Tahir Emini, I’ve been reading up on his sect, the Bektashi. I was aware, from my conversations with him and with others, that they are of a mystical Sufist tradition, preach tolerance, love, and peace, and consider some of the traditions of orthodox Islam regarding the role of women and the use of alcohol to be distractions from the truth. I was unaware that they are also associated with a particular sense of humour, and that there are a whole set of Bektashi jokes told by the faithful about themselves. Some of them don’t translate awfully well, but one of them I feel sure I’ve heard in an Irish version:
One day the Sunni friends of a Bektashi dervish insisted that he go to the mosque to pray the Friday prayer. As he took his seat in the congregation the hodja spotted him. Wanting to embarrass the dervish, the hodja began to lecture on the evils of alcohol. He began describing in detail all of the natural and religious reasons why drinking any alcohol at all is bad. To prove a point that even animals won’t drink liquor the hodja asks “If you put a bucket of water and a bucket of raki in front of a donkey, which will it drink?” Someone in the crowd answered, “The water of course.”
“Why so?” enquired the hodja.
Unable to hold himself, the Bektashi exclaimed “Why so? Because it’s a donkey!”
There are other jokes that I think could not be told in any other context than an Islamic one:
A Bektashi was in a mosque one day listening to the hodja give a sermon. He was half asleep when the hodja began talking about the pure virgins that awaited the faithful in heaven. When he heard the word heaven, the Bektashi came to himself and asked the hodja excitedly, “Hodja efendi will wine and raki be served to the faithful in heaven?”
The hodja became furious and shouted back, “You pagan, what do you think heaven is… a tavern?!”
The Bektashi replied likewise, “Hah! What do you think heaven is… a whorehouse?!”
But I am particularly intrigued by the jokes with a certain universailty, but which also presuppose a very close connection between the Bektashi mystic and God, to the point that certain things are expected as of right from the relationship:
One day, the weather grew very hot. Burdened with thirst, a Bektashi dervish decided to buy a watermelon with some change he took out of his pocket. With watermelon in hand, he found a beautiful shade tree to sit under where he proceeded to slice up his watermelon with great appetite. However, after putting the first piece into his mouth, he found it so sour that it was difficult to eat. He began shouting complaints to the Creator, “Alas my God! Are you so stingy that you can’t even put a little sugar in this watermelon. You always bestow favors on Your servants, but never with what is really needed!” Thus swearing, he finished off the watermelon in spite of its tartness and threw the rinds to the side. After a while he saw a poor waif, half dead with hunger and thirst, approaching. Not wishing to be bothered, the Bektashi sat still and pretended to be asleep. The poor man came close, saw the watermelon rinds and began to eat them. Discreetly, the Bektashi observed the poor man out of the corner of his eye. He saw with astonishment how each time the poor man took a bite of rind he exclaimed, “My God, many thanks to You! You nourish me in spite of everything with this watermelon rind. You have ensured my subsistence!”
Hearing this, the Bektashi became furious and rose up. He shouted, “Enough of this! I ate the inside of that melon even though it was bitter and torturous and believe me, I let Allah know it. But you! You eat the foul-tasting rind and you thank Him for it? It’s this kind of cheap flattery that encourages Him to keep making poor quality watermelon!”
Anyway, my research will continue.
Friday reading
Current
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (a chapter a week)
Alif the Unseen, by G. Willow Wilson
Mother of Eden, by Chris Beckett
Last books finished
The Insurrection in Dublin, by James Stephens
The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin
The Legends of Ashildr, by James Goss, David Llewellyn, Jenny T. Colgan and Justin Richards
Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver
Last week's audios
[Torchwood] One Rule, by Joe Lidster
[Seventh Doctor] The Warehouse, by Mike Tucker
[Seventh Doctor] Terror of the Sontarans, by John Dorney and Dan Starkey
Next books
The Magic Cup, by Andrew M. Greeley
Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandand Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll
Books acquired in last week
(SF Humble Bundle, some of which I already have)
Damnation Alley, by Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny's The Dawn of Amber, by John Gregory Betancourt
Wild Cards Deuces Down, ed. George R.R. Martin
The Deceivers, by Alfred Bester
Dragonworld, by Byron Preiss
The Last Defender of Camelot, by Roger Zelazny
Robot Visions, by Isaac Asimov
Roger Zelazny's Chaos and Amber, by John Gregory Betancourt
Roger Zelazny's To Rule in Amber, by John Gregory Betancourt
Wild Cards Death Draws Five, by John J. Miller
The Computer Connection, by Alfred Bester
Isle of the Dead/Eye of Cat, by Roger Zelazny
The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth, by Roger Zelazny
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Robot Dreams, by Isaac Asimov
Roger Zelazny's Shadows of Amber, by John Gregory Betancourt
The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester
Arthur C. Clarke's Venus Prime 1, by Arthur C. Clarke and Paul Preuss
Interesting Links for 19-02-2016
- Memo to pro-EU campaigners: Get out the millennial vote if you want to win
- My colleague @GeoffSBeattie writes.
(tags: eu ukpolitics ) - The Great Hugo Wars of 2015
- Matthew Surridge @Fell_Gard who was nominated by the Puppies but withdrew. )
- (tags: sf )
- Mice delay Brussels tunnel repairs by eating construction plans
- Belgium!
(tags: Belgium ) - ‘You Should Hear What They Say About You’ – what our European neighbours think of Britain and the EU
- Fascinating poll by @LordAshcroft.
(tags: ukpolitics eu ) - The heat goes on: Earth sets 9th straight monthly record
- Ow.
(tags: climatechange )
The Sword of Forever, by Jim Mortimore
I’ve seen some rather negative reviews out there of this Bernice Summerfield novel, but I really enjoyed it: Benny gets caught up in acnient Templar-style conspiracy theories involving a sentient velociraptor and her own mummified finger, across several timelines. Sure, it veers in a somewhat different direction of future earth continuity and Benny’s own marital life, but as I am reading these books in order I find it a refreshing difference. A bit bleak in tone, but that tends to be the case with Mortimore. Could be recommended to a tolerant potential convert to the Bennyverse.
Nest up: Another Girl, Another Planet, by “Len Beech” (Steve Bowkett) and Martin Day.
Interesting Links for 18-02-2016
- Woman accidentaly cosplays hotel
- Hee!
(tags: funny ) - Where the EU got a frozen conflict right
- The case of Transdniestria.
(tags: eu moldova transdniestria ) - China uproots 9,000 people for huge telescope in search for aliens
- SETI disrupting lives.
(tags: space astronomy China ) - Every Galaxy Needs More Than Three People of Color
- Few are up to the mark.
(tags: race sexandgenderandsexuality sf ) - David Cameron’s lost control
- @POLITICOEurope asks, shuttle diplomacy or scuttle diplomacy?
(tags: ukpolitics eu ) - Scientists discover new microbes that thrive deep in the earth
- Biding their time!
(tags: science geology biology ) - The Offer to David Cameron – Is It Really a Reform?
- ex-Taoiseach John Bruton thinks not.
(tags: eu ukpolitics ireland ) - Editor of Bild shreds German MP over refugee policy
- In German, well worth reading.
(tags: eu migration germany )
Citadel of Dreams, by Dave Stone
One of the Telos novellas whose quality was sometimes a bit variable, this one with the Seventh Doctor and Ace separately in a city with a timewarp and a deep hidden secret. It’s had some positive reviews but pretty much bounced off me; I’ve liked other work by Dave Stone, but won’t be recommending this other than to completists.
This was the next in the sequence of unread Seventh Doctor novels and novellas on my list after Relative Dementias. Next in line is an early Past Doctor Adventure, Illegal Alien by Mike Tucker and Robert Perry
Interesting Links for 17-02-2016
- My Friend Dave
- Great long piece about the cartoonist David Berg of MAD Magazine.
(tags: comics ) - Social services cuts could be ‘largest factor’ in rise in deaths
- UK Govt winning war against old, sick and poor.
(tags: ukpolitics disability ) - What I Want Out of Twitter
- @Scalzi on de-trolling your feed.
(tags: twitter )
Europe at Midnight, by Dave Hutchinson
I hugely enjoyed Europe in Autumn, which we shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award last year and which also got onto the BSFA shortlist. Here Dave Hutchinson returns to his future world of a fragmented Europe, but from a very different angle: rather than exploring the new frontiers that have been erected in our world, his spy hero finds himself exploring also parallel maps to societies which are liminally linked to us, there and yet not there. It's a book with One Big Idea, explored at leisure and in a way that made me care very much about the outcome of the main characters' investigations. Given the current febrile state of relations between the UK and the rest of Europe, it's a timely reminder that things could be very different. I loved it.
Since I wrote this (my bookblogging is running a few days behind at the moment) it was announced that Europe at Midnight is one of the shortlisted books for this year's BSFA Award. Congrats to Dave; it will be a tough choice.
Links I found interesting for 16-02-2016
- Trump Is Making Up His Opposition to Iraq War
Those damn facts again.
Interesting Links for 16-02-2016
- Trump Is Making Up His Opposition to Iraq War
- Those damn facts again.
(tags: uspolitics waronterror )
Hugo-eligible short fiction Oct-Dec 2015: my first take
As previously noted (here, here and here), I've been populating my potential shortlists of Hugo nominees by reading the output of Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Asimov's, Subterranean Press and Strange Horizons for the calendar year of 2015. I've now finished that process and also read a few other bits and pieces, including most of the stories nominated for the BSFA Award. I'm aware that my list varies quite a lot from other people's, but I'm also encouraged by recent reports suggesting that the best outcome for the awards is simply for lots of people to nominate lots of good stuff. So I'm not going to worry too much about nominating tactically; I'm just going to make sure that I have five good nominations in each category.
From the last quarter of the year, my favourite stories from my chosen venues were
Tor.com
[short story] "Some Gods of El Paso", by Maria Dahvana Headley – a great alternate history of emotional transfer.
[short story] "Points of Origin", by Marissa K. Lingen – a very nice story of parenting.
Clarkesworld
[short story] "Summer at Grandma's House", by Hao Jingfang, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan – gay granddaughter helps her grandmother's genetic engineering research.
[novelette] "So Much Cooking", by Naomi Kritzer – lovely story of escaping the plague.
Asimov's
[novella] "Citadel of Weeping Pearls", by Aliette de Bodard – relieved that I liked this after bouncing off her recent novel; splendidly intricate emotional tale of Asian space opera.
[novelette] “English Wildlife” by Alan Smale – wow, really unusual story of ancient English lion magic.
Strange Horizons
[short story] "The Game of Smash and Recovery", by Kelly Link – good story of what might happen to bright children in the future
[short story] "Liminal Grid", by Jaymee Goh – cybercrime in near-future Malaysia – rather good.
So my current set of long lists is
Novellas
Aliette de Bodard, "Citadel of Weeping Pearls" (Asimov's, Oct/Nov 2015)
Lois McMaster Bujold, Penric's Demon (Spectrum)
Paul Cornell, Witches of Lychford
Eugene Fischer, "The New Mother" (Asimov's, Apr/May 2015)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch "Inhuman Garbage" (Asimov's, Mar 2015)
Lisa Shapter, A Day In Deep Freeze (Aqueduct Press)
Allen M. Steele, "The Long Wait" (Asimov's, Jan 2015)
Novelette
Eneasz Brodski, "Red Legacy" (Asimov's, Feb 2015)
Paul Evanby, "Utrechtenaar" (1, 2 – Strange Horizons, June 2015
Naomi Kritzer, "So Much Cooking" (Clarkesworld, November 2015)
Sarah Pinsker, "Our Lady of the Open Road" (Asimov's, Jun 2015)
Priya Sharma, "Fabulous Beasts" (Tor.com, July 2015)
Vandana Singh, "Ambiguity Machines: An Examination" (Tor.com, Apr 2015)
Alan Smale, “English Wildlife” (Asimov's, Oct/Nov 2015)
Short Stories
Karl Bunker, "Caisson" (Asimov's, August 2015)
Nino Cipri, "The Shape of My Name" (Tor.com, Mar 2015)
Jaymee Goh, "Liminal Grid" (Strange Horizons, Nov 2015)
Hao Jingfang, tr Carmen Yiling Yan, "Summer at Grandma's House" (Clarkesworld, Oct 2015)
Maria Dahvana Headley, "Some Gods of El Paso" (Tor.com, Oct 2015)
L.S. Johnson, "Vacui Magia" (Strange Horizons, Jan 2015)
Marissa K. Lingen, "Points of Origin" (Tor.com, Nov 2015)
Kelly Link, "The Game of Smash and Recovery" (Strange Horizons, Oct 2015)
Jay O'Connell, "Willing Flesh" (Asimov's, Apr/May 2015)
Robert Reed, "The Empress in Her Glory" (Clarkesworld, Apr 2015)
Kelly Robson, "The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill" (Clarkesworld, Feb 2015)
Iona Sharma, "Nine Thousand Hours" (Strange Horizons, April 2015)
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, "Everything Beneath You" (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Wole Talebai, "A Short History of Migration in Five Fragments of You" (Omenana)
There are rather too many short stories, always an over-populated category, and I have a new understanding for why it has been so difficult to winnow down that particular corner of the field in recent years. Now I look forward to browsing other people's recommendations – looking particularly at the Rocket Stack Rank and Ladybusiness aggregations of ratings – and also seeing what the Nebula shortlist looks like before I finalise my choices.
Interesting Links for 15-02-2016
- Finding BoShek
- Superb Star Wars sleuthing!
(tags: sf ) - RTÉ Journey Through Dublin City, 1966
- Fascinating.
(tags: ireland ) - Donald Trump finally went too far for Republicans
- …by telling the truth about Iraq and 9/11. This election just gets weirder.
(tags: waronterror uspolitics ) - What the In campaign is doing right and what it is doing wrong
- @KironReid dissects, quoting me.
(tags: ukpolitics eu ) - The real censorship in children’s books: smiling slaves is just the half of it
- @djolder on the real problem.
(tags: race freespeech books )
Short Trips: The Muses, ed. Jacqueline Rayner
The fourth of the Big Finish Short Trips anthologies, and the third edited by Jac Rayner, published in 2003. At that stage we had eight canonical Doctors, so it seems in retrospect a fairly obvious idea to compile a collection of nine stories, each featuring one of them, with one more featuring them all. And while there are many cultural uses of the number nine, the Muses make a pleasing link with ancient culture.
I liked most of these stories, three in particular: (Terpsichore) "Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing", by Robert Shearman, an unusually good Sixth Doctor story; (Thalia) "The Brain of Socrates", by Gareth Roberts, with the Fourth Doctor and Leela; and (Clio) "The Glass Princess", by Justin Richards, pulling together all eight Doctors in a rather moving story of inexorable forward time travel. Also a shout out for (Calliope) "Katarina in the Underworld", by Steve Lyons, as far as I know the only published spinoff fiction featuring Katarina, and a rare grappling with matters of the afterlife.
Next in this sequence: Short Trips: Steel Skies, ed. John Binns.
My BSFA votes: Best Artwork
Two of the four pieces that I voted for were among the three shortlisted candidates in this category. The third was Sarah Anne Langton's cover of Jews Versus Zombies, and though I do like its geometry, it doesn't seem to me to be saying much about science fiction, or anything else, so I will rank it last on my ballot once the form is up and running.
It's a very tough decision between the other two, though. In the end, I'm putting Jim Burns' cover of Pelquin's Comet second. It's an arresting composition, but perhaps just a little less adventurous with colour and shade than my top choice, and also rather traditional in its subject matter – not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that, of course.
Which leaves Vincent Sammy's illustration for "Songbird" in Interzone as my top choice. I haven't read the story (and indeed haven't read Pelquin's Comet either, though I did read Jews vs Zombies), but this is the kind of illustration that challenges the reader to find out what the story is about, whereas the Burns piece seems pretty clear on that score. I find the composition pretty fascinating.
Presumably there are only three nominees due to a multiple tie in nomination votes for fourth place – this happened also in 2013 (when I ranked the eventual winner third out of three). I'm a bit surprised to see it repeated with the new two-stage process. Perhaps there was less voter input in this category than the others; if so, an opportunity to celebrate more good sf art has been missed.
Edited to add: Am locking out anonymous comments on this because it's been getting a weird amount of Japanese spam. You can log in using other OAuth identities if you want.
Interesting Links for 14-02-2016
- Chestnut blight
- I hadn’t heard of this before reading Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver.
(tags: biology ) - Antonin Scalia’s death was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News. Here’s how the newspaper got the scoop.
- (tags: uspolitics media )
- Best Graphic Story Ballot for the #RetroHugos1941
- Some recommendations and links.
(tags: sf hugos )
A horoscope cast by Dr John Dee
When I visited the John Dee exhibition last week, I managed to get a decent picture of the horoscope that he had drawn in the margin of his copy of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos:
It's a nice clear example of the astrological text. Starting at the left, and going clockwise (therefore backwards through the zodiac), I interpret it thus:
- The Ascendant (the part of the Zodiac on the horizon) is Leo ♌ 4°2', and Saturn ♄ at Leo ♌ 12° is about to rise.
- Jupiter ♃ is somewhere in Cancer ♋️.
- Venus ♀ is at Gemini ♊ 12°.
- The Sun ☉ and Moon ☽ are both at Taurus ♉ 15° – it's a New Moon.
- Mercury ☿ is at Taurus ♉ 5°.
- The Mid-Heaven (the part of the zodiac at the zenith, due south) is at Aries ♈ 27°37'.
- The Descendant, opposite the Ascendant, is at Aquarius ♒ 4°2'.
- Mars ♂ is at Scorpio ♏ 21°.
- A strange star-shaped glyph is marked as being at Scorpio ♏ 15° – I thought at first it might be the lunar node, which would mean that this was the chart for a solar eclipse, but I no longer think so for reasons described below.
- The lower mid-heaven, opposite the mid-heaven, is at Libra ♎ 27°37'.
That gives us the following set of planetary positions:
| Planet | Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Moon | Venus | Mercury |
| Longitude | ♌ 12° | ♋ ? | ♏ 21° | ♉ 15° | ♉ 15° | ♊ 12° | ♉ 5° |
| (numeric) | 132° | 90°-120° | 231° | 45° | 45° | 72° | 35° |
| Planet | Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Moon | Venus | Mercury |
| Longitude (Dee) | 132° | 90°-120° | 231° | 45° | 45° | 72° | 35° |
| Longitude (Alcyone) | 131°57'00'' | 100°37'34'' | 228°00'42'' | 44°38'33'' | 44°38'30'' | 72°13'15'' | 34°46'00'' |
This is, er, not a bad fit, if I say so myself. I really had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. So I cross-checked with Tuckerman's Planetary Tables which include a timestamp of midnight on 1 May 1006:
It's pretty clear that the software and Tuckerman are in close agreement. So a plausible hypothesis is that Dee – who, let's not forget, lived from 1527 to 1608 – was casting a horoscope for the new moon of 30 April 1006.
Why?
Well, the brightest ever supernova recorded in history, SN1006, was first seen from Cairo on precisely that day, 30 April 1006. (Cairo also fits with the mid-heaven and ascendant, whose relative positions vary considerably with latitude.) Specifically, Ali ibn Ridwan recorded the positons of the planets at the time when the supernova was first seen, and his account is quoted verbatim in the 1964 paper by Bernard Goldstein which first proposed that there might have been a forgotten supernova in 1006 (first page, second page). The planetary positions recorded by ibn Ridwan are exactly the same as Dee with a couple of additions:
| Planet | Saturn | Jupiter | Mars | Sun | Moon | Venus | Mercury | Asc node |
| Longitude (Dee) | 132° | 90°-120° | 231° | 45° | 45° | 72° | 35° | – |
| Longitude (ibn Ridwan) | 132° | 100° | 231° | 45° | 45° | 72° | 35° | 263° |
Ali ibn Ridwan was only 18 in 1006, so if these were his own calculations – the Moon and Mercury (let alone the ascending node) would not have been visible, so he couldn't have observed them directly – it's a jolly good piece of work. Goldstein basically did the same calculation as I did, with much more difficulty given the fewer tools available in the 1960s, and came up with the same answer. It is pretty obvious that Dee was drawing up a chart of his own to follow Ali ibn Ridwan's report. The clincher is that the longitude of the 1006 supernova is reported by Ali ibn Ridwan as precisely Scorpio ♏ 15°, which is where the odd star-shaped glyph is in Dee's chart.
So how did Dee get hold of Ali ibn Ridwan's observations? That is the easiest question of all to answer. The horoscope is drawn in the margin of the 1619 Venice printing of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, Quadriparti in Latin, which actually includes the commentary on Ptolemy’s text by Ali ibn Ridwan ("Haly" in the Latin tradition) in which he wrote about the 1006 nayzak. Dee was fascinated by the supernova of 1572, and may have spotted this account as relevant to his interests. Or he may have just relished the exercise of drawing up a horoscope for a different day and age. At any rate, I think the story behind this particular marginal note of Dee's is now clear.
Well, that was a pleasant way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon!