Links I found interesting for 08-09-2012

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Links I found interesting for 05-09-2012

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September Books 3) The Very Last Gambado, by Jonathan Gash

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I’m beginning to get the hang of the Lovejoy books now: a richly described and usually mildly exotic setting; an utterly convoluted and insane plot (as in conspiracy); a moderately convoluted and insane plot (as in storyline); lots of antiques lore injected into the text with varying degrees of randomness; and many many women competing to get into our hero’s bed (though the sex is never very explicit). It’s quite a different Lovejoy from the TV series – younger, randier and frankly more criminal. It helps me get to sleep at night reading a few pages before lights out. (At least I think so; will continue the experiment for the five Lovejoy books still on the shelves.)

The Very Last Gambado is about a criminal raid on the British Museum, disguised as a movie about a raid on the British Museum (which is this book’s lovingly described exotic venue). It was written some way into Lovejoy’s TV appearances, and one wonders if the dissolute and past-it male lead was – no, never mind, that’s unfair. But there are a lot of interesting observations about the madness of a film set, particularly involving stunt men, and the thought experiment of trying to raid the British Museum is an intriguing one; anyone who knows that corner of London at all well will end up scratching their heads at the complexity of the problem.

Meanwhile we do also get a fair bit of Lovejoy on his home ground in East Anglia, fighting off amorous women with varying degrees of failure, and encountering a forger’s workshop located on a second-hand bus, which is an arresting image. And I’m glad to report that our hero has acquired two new budgies after the awful fate of the ones in Gold from Gemini.

This book also has a moment which makes the classification of the series as non-genre rather than fantasy very difficult. Lovejoy is a “divvy”; he has an astonishing ability to tell real antiques from fakes. One can usually handwave this away as well-honed observational skills and intuition – I can look at a tray of objects and guess how many there are to within 15-20%; I used to be able to date a medieval manuscript to the correct half-century at a glance; Lovejoy’s skill as an extension of that sort of thing seems OK. But here, Lovejoy actually detects a genuine antique within a sealed container, unable to see it, but it makes his heart beat faster just to be near it. It’s not all that important to the plot (well, it might be, but I had some difficulty following) so I will still classify The Very Last Gambado as non-genre in my end-of-month and end-of-year tallies. But I have a lingering doubt.

The internal chronology of the Lovejoy books must be pretty convoluted. This one was published between Jade Woman and The Great California Game, but cannot be set between them as one flows directly from the other via a trans-Pacific plane flight (which would not normally include East Anglia or the British Museum). It cannot even be immediately before Jade Woman, as Lovejoy’s sort-of primary partner here is Lydia, whereas at the start of Jade Woman it is Jane, and nor can it be immediately after The Great California Game which ends with Lovejoy still in America and still entangled with Jane. I suspect that The Very Last Gambado may be a jump back to an earlier point in the timeline. I will keep an open mind.

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September Books 2) Assassin’s Apprentice, by Robin Hobb

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I’ve known for some time that Robin Hobb is to be one of the Guests of Honour at Loncon 3, the 2014 Worldcon; and was rather guiltily conscious of the fact that I had never read any of her books. Even apart from the Worldcon connection, she has been recommended to me several times by you guys.

Well, if you did recommend her to me, you can feel very smug, because I thoroughly enjoyed Assassin’s Apprentice, the tale of the bastard son of a prince whose natural and supernatural gifts turn out to be useful to his grandfather in the twisted paths of statecraft in a fantasy kingdom desperately seeking allies against attack from a barely human, possibly inhuman, foe. The description of intersecting court politics and personal loyalty was intricate, fascinating and even moving. (OK, she uses puppies shamelessly as a way of engaging the reader’s emotions; but I am a sucker for small furry creatures with large trusting eyes.) I will go out and get the sequel, and probably the third volume; and then consider how much further to take it.

I am trying to identify why Assassin’s Apprentice worked for me, when the very similar (and much shorter) Yearwood totally did not. It may partly be the puppies; it may be the well-handled theme of education from many sources. But in general I think Hobb has a better political sense, and also after killing off a significant character or two in the early chapters there is a much greater feeling of suspense.

One minor linguistic whinge: the words “flout” and “flaunt” are used the wrong way round!

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Links I found interesting for 04-09-2012

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2012 Hugo voting analysis

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Statistics are here.

Was slow to notice this, but three out of four fiction winners had also won the Nebula earlier this year.

Best Novel: Among Others was 100 votes ahead on the first count, and final transfers from Deadline took it even further ahead of Embassytown, which came second. Leviathan Wakes, despite being last on first prefs, came third overall; then Deadline; then despite the HBO hype A Dance With Dragons came last. The Quantum Thief missed nomination here by one vote, and Rule 34 by two.

Best Novella: In the closest result for any of the awards, “The Man Who Bridged The Mist” finished 35 votes ahead of “Kiss Me Twice”, having led at every stage. 2nd “Kiss Me Twice”; 3rd Silently and Very Fast; 4th “The Man Who Ended History”; 5th Countdown; 6th “The Ice Owl”.

Best Novelette: “Six Months, Three Days” finished 116 votes ahead of “Ray of Light”, which came second, followed by “The Copenhagen Interpretation”, “What We Found”, and “Fields of Gold”. Jay Lake’s “A Long Walk Home” missed nomination by one vote.

Best Short Story: “The Paper Menagerie” led by 100 on the first count and won by 210. “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” came a solid second, “The Homecoming” third, and “Movement” which came last in first preferences did at least manage to beat Scalzi’s spoof story for fourth place. (I am really puzzled that “Movement” did so badly; I know autism is a minority interest but I found it a good story on its own merits.)

Best Related Work: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction was solidly ahead of Wicked Girls for first place; interestingly, its votes then very much transferred against Wicked Girls so that The Steampunk Bible picked up second place (I know I myself did not vote for Wicked Girls in this category). Wicked Girls did come third, and Writing Excuses, which had been last in every count, picked up enough transfers to beat Jar Jar Binks Must Die for fourth place.

The Anticipation Novelists of 1950s French Science Fiction: Stepchildren of Voltaire by Bradford Lyau actually got the most nominations in this category but was ruled ineligible due to 2010 publication. Whedonistas and Evaporating Genres missed nomination by two votes.

Best Graphic Story: Digger was 200 votes ahead on the first stage, a gap that narrowed only slightly to 138 at the end. Second place went to Fables, ahead of Schlock Mercenary; third place went to Locke and Key, also ahead of Schlock Mercenary, which did at least take fourth place ahead of The Unwritten. (I am baffled both by the relative popularity of Schlock Mercenary and the failure of The Unwritten to capture voters’ imagination. But the win for Digger is good for the award, which apparently we will now have in future years as well.)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: GoT was more than 400 votes ahead of Hugo on the first count and crossed the 50% mark with both Hugo and Captain America still in the race, more than 500 votes ahead of either, the most one-sided result of the evening. The other places were fairly orderly: 2nd Hugo, 3rd Captain America, 4th Harry Potter 7B, 5th Source Code.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: nearly as one-sided, with The Doctor’s Wife 280 votes ahead at the start and 306 ahead at the end, Remedial Chaos Theory and  The Girl Who Waited still in the mix. Whovian transfers then secured second place for The Girl Who Waited and third for A Good Man Goes to War (which had actually been last on first preference); and Remedial Chaos Theory was comfortably ahead of the Drink Tank acceptance speech.

Three individual GoT episodes – Baelor, The Pointy End, and Fire and Blood – were ruled ineligible because the series as a whole was up for the Long Form award. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, which I have not heard of, missed nomination by one vote. (Edited to add: it won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film earlier this year.)

Best Editor, Short Form: Some very interesting transfers here. Stanley Schmidt lost the award to Sheila Williams by 138 votes; he lost second place to John Joseph Adams by 32 votes; he lost third place to Jonathan Strahan by 27 votes; and lost fourth place to Neil Clarke by 37 votes, before finally coming in fifth.

Best Editor, Long Form: Betsy Wollheim beat Patrick Nielsen Hayden by a hundred votes for the top spot; Liz Gorinsky third, Lou Anders fourth, Anne Lesley Groell fifth. Devi Pillai missed nomination by two votes, and Jeremy Lassen by three.

Best Pro Artist: John Picacio wins by 204 over Bob Eggleton; Eggleton loses second place to Stephan Martiniere by 8 votes, but then gets third by 9 votes over Don Dos Santos, who is substantially ahead of Michael Komarck at the end. 

Best Semiprozine: Locus 101 ahead of Apex for first place; Apex gets second place by 3 votes from Lightspeed, which is comfortably ahead of Interzone for third. Despite Interzone having been last in first preferences it picked up enough to overtake NYRSF for fourth place. Clarkesworld declined nomination; Beneath Ceaseless Skies was one vote short of nomination.

Best Fanzine: SF Signal 97 ahead of The Drink Tank for first place; The Drink Tank second, File 770 third, Banana Wings fourth, and Journey Planet (which got fewer first preferences than No Award) is fifth. Argentus missed nomination by one vote.

Best Fan Writer: Jim C Hines far ahead of the crowd, more than 200 votes ahead of both Steve Silver and Claire Brialey; Steve then takes second place from Claire by 2 votes, the closest result of the evening that I have spotted; Claire is third, Chris Garcia fourth, and James Bacon (who got fewer first prefs than No Award) fifth.

Best Fan Artist: Drama here as Randall Munroe (of xkcd) starts 70 votes ahead of Maurine Starkey but gradually sees his lead whittled away, until on the last count she gets massive transfers from Steve Stiles and wins by 40 votes. A similar story for second place where Stile lags Munroe until overtaking him on the last count. Munroe finally gets third place, 5 votes ahead of Spring Schoenhuth, who comes fourth. Brad Foster is fifth, Taral Wayne sixth.

Best Fancast: SF Squeecast is 129 ahead on the first count and 98 ahead on the last, SF Signal and StarShipSofa clearly taking second and third places. Coode Street takes fourth place from Galactic Suburbia by three votes; both had dipped below No Award at earlier stages. (I am sorry for Galactic Suburbia, and wonder if voters just found the Australian accents too unfamiliar?)

John W Campbell Award: Brad Torgersen was actually ahead by 19 votes here on the first count, but E. Lily Yu overtook him with transfers fro Mur Lafferty and consolidated with transfers from Karen Lord. Torgersen got second place 9 votes ahead of Lord, who got third place; Mur Lafferty beat Stina Leicht by four votes for fourth place.

Hugo Awards 2012

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I got three out of four in the fiction categories, and also voted for the winners in both Dramatic Presentation categories, and Best Related and Best Graphic, so that's a good Hugo awards ceremony for me. And a much better evening for Jo Walton, John Cluite, Graham Sleight, and the Who crowd. Congratulations to all the winners.

Best Novel: Among Others by Jo Walton (Tor) – Good heavens! Amazing!

Best Novella: “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” by Kij Johnson (Asimov's, September/October 2011) – Yay again!

Best Novelette: “Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com) – Hooray! Another one I voted for.

Best Short Story: “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2011)

Best Related Work: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition edited by John Clute, David Langford, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight (Gollancz) – more hooray!

Best Graphic Story: Digger by Ursula Vernon (Sofawolf Press) – hooray!

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form): Game of Thrones (Season 1), created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss; written by David Benioff, D. B. Weiss, Bryan Cogman, Jane Espenson, and George R. R. Martin; directed by Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Tim van Patten, and Alan Taylor (HBO) – another one I voted for

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form): “The Doctor's Wife” (Doctor Who), written by Neil Gaiman; directed by Richard Clark (BBC Wales) – first one I voted for!

Best Editor – Short Form: Sheila Williams

Best Editor – Long Form: Betsy Wollheim

Best Professional Artist: John Picacio

Best Semiprozine: Locus edited by Liza Groen Trombi, Kirsten Gong-Wong, et al.

Best Fanzine: SF Signal edited by John DeNardo

Best Fan Writer: Jim C. Hines

Best Fan Artist: Maurine Starkey

Best Fancast: SF Squeecast, Lynne M. Thomas, Seanan McGuire, Paul Cornell, Elizabeth Bear, and Catherynne M. Valente

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: E. Lily Yu

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September Books 1) The Undertaker’s Gift, by Trevor Baxendale

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I’m getting to the end of the Torchwood books; this one has all the narrative problems of a book set between series 2 and Children of Earth – massive alien menace threatening to destroy the world starting with Cardiff, serious threat to Ianto’s life, both of which we recover from effectively with a giant reset button. It is well told, with great scenes from the blowfish and the visceral horror of the undead, but the framework is a bit predictable.

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August Books 30) Not A Creature Was Stirring, by Jane Haddam

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The Gregor Demarkian mysteries were recommended to me by some time back, and I have several on the shelves; this is the first in chronological order, an Armenian-American widower and FBI veteran who is co-opted by a wealthy family to investigate a suitably Byzantine series of murders. It was well described in beautiful detail of setting and character, but the family are almost all really unpleasant people (apart from one sister who is a best-selling fantasy novelist) and I guessed the culprit correctly at quite an early stage. I’ll read the ones still on the shelf but not sure that I will seek out any more after that.

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August Books 28-29) The Underwater War, by Richard Dinnick/Rain of Terror, by Mike Tucker

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One of the 2-in-1 Who volumes for younger readers produced earlier this year, with no particular thematic link between the stories other than that both happen on alien planets. The Underwater War is rather slight, an old-fashioned don’t-fear-the-Other tale with an implausible language made of colours, but some decent Rory/Amy character moments and a gratifyingly large number of Old Who continuity references (things have rather changed in that regard since the early years of RTD). Rain of Terror is more substantial, ‘orrible omnivorous voracious aliens, corrupt scientists and an epic train ride; but loses points for gender determinism, with two brave little boys and a frightened little girl helping / being rescued by the Doctor. Get it for a young friend or relative and then borrow it from them.

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August Books

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Non-fiction 4 (YTD 40)
The Battle for God, by Karen Armstrong
The Portable Greek Historians, ed. M.I. Finley
The Reign of Elizabeth 1558-1603, by J.B. Black
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, by Émile Durkheim

Fiction (non-sf) 8 (YTD 31)
Gold from Gemini, by Jonathan Gash
Watchman, by Ian Rankin
The Public Prosecutor, by Jef Geeraerts
Jade Woman, by Jonathan Gash
Emil and the Detectives, by Erich Kästner
The Great California Game, by Jonathan Gash
Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Not A Creature Was Stirring, by Jane Haddam

SF (non-Who) 7 (YTD 50)
Spectrum IV, ed. Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest
Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn
A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
Morgoth's Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien
The Quantum Rose, by Catherine Asaro
Yearwood, by Paul Hazel
The Poison Factory, by Oisín McGann

Who 7 (YTD 50)
Dark Horizons, by J.T. Colgan
Doctor Who: The Time Traveller's Almanac, by Steve Tribe
The Wheel of Ice, by Stephen Baxter
Warlock, by Andrew Cartmel
The Space Age, by Steve Lyons
Alien Adventures: The Underwater War, by Richard Dinnick
Alien Adventures: Rain of Terror, by Mike Tucker

Comics 4 (YTD 17)
With The Light vol. 5, by Keiko Tobe
Barbaraal Tot Op Het Bot, by Barbara Stok
The Book of Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley
Return of the Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley

~8,500 pages (YTD ~54,900)
7/30 (YTD 55/188) by women (Armstrong, Haddam, L'Engle, Asaro, Colgan, Tobe, Stok)
1/30 (YTD 8/158) by PoC (Tobe)
Owned for more than a year: 16 (The Quantum Rose [reread], A Wrinkle in Time [reread], The Battle for God, The Poison Factory, Spectrum IV, The Space Age, Yearwood, The Portable Greek Historians, Watchman, Warlock, Tender is the Night, Barbaraal tot op het Bot, The Public Prosecutor, The Reign of Elizabeth 1556-1603, Not a Creature Was Stirring, The Time Traveller's Almanac)
Other rereads: 0 for total of 2 (YTD 14/188)

Big 2012 reading projects:
August 31 takes me to Book XI, Chapter XV of War and Peace, and Ezekiel chapter 25 in the Bible.

Also started:
The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser
The Very Last Gambado, by Jonathan Gash
The Undertaker's Gift, by Trevor Baxendale

Coming next, perhaps:
Assassin's Apprentice, by Robin Hobb
Independent People, by Halldor Laxness
Q, by Luther Blissett
Not of This World?: Evangelical Protestants in Northern Ireland, by Glenn Jordan
The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction 2007, ed. by George Mann
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 5, by Fumi Yoshinaga
Blood Hunt, by Ian Rankin
Powers, by Ursula Le Guin
Dagger Magic, by Katherine Kurtz
Representing Autism, by Stuart Murray
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
The War of the Jewels, by J. R. R. Tolkien
Adventures on the High Teas, by Stuart Maconie
The Twilight Lords, by Richard Berleth
A History of Christianity, by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Conquest of the Amazon, by John Russell Fearn
The Tomb of the Cybermen (Script), by Gerry Davis
The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James
Set Piece, by Kate Orman
The Banquo Legacy, by Andy Lane
The Invention of Childhood, by Hugh Cunningham
Sightseeing in Space: The Web In Space, by David Bailey
Sightseeing in Space: Terminal of Despair, by Steve Lyons
Kraken, by China Mieville

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Worldcon London Party 2 September

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For those who are interested in the proposed 2014 London Worldcon, and in reach of the city on Sunday (unfortunately I'll be on a plane going east):

Originally posted by at London Party

Originally published at London in 2014. You can comment here or there.

For anyone who will be in London rather than Chicago this weekend, we'll be having a party in London on Sunday afternoon for the announcement of the site selection result. It's at the Green Man pub on Great Portland Street, from 4pm. The result should be announced around 5pm UK time. Come and help us to celebrate or drown our sorrows.

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Links I found interesting for 29-08-2012

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August Books 27) The Poison Factory, by Oisín McGann

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Short kids’ urban fantasy novel, somewhat sub-Diana Wynne Jones with added toilet humour; the sinister factory in the neighbourhood is responsible for the horrors of modern food, and our heroes destroy it with explosive pee. (Sorry about the spoiler, but if you were going to buy this it was probably for someone else.)

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August Books 26) Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Sometimes great classics (often by American writers) fail to grab me and I’m afraid this was one of those times. The novel follows the dubiously named psychiatrist Dick Diver, his wife and former patient Nicole, and the young actress Rosemary who he falls in love with, over a period of several years in and around southern France. Most of the characters seemed frankly unpleasant people to me, and while there are some dramatically violent moments they don’t seem to lead to much. The Great Gatsby had much the same observations to make about society but I thought did it better.

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August Books 25) The Space Age, by Steve Lyons

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An Eighth Doctor Adventure that I felt might have worked better as a TV episode; in a dying city on a desolated planet, two gangs of mods and rockers, kidnapped from 1965 England many years before, are preparing for the final conflict, when the Doctor, Fitz and Compassion arrive and expose the computer and alien intelligences behind it all. OK but not all that much there compared with some of the other books in this range.

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Links I found interesting for 26-08-2012

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August Books 24) Warlock, by Andrew Cartmel

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I thought this was a particularly good New Adventure, a partial (though independent) sequel to the much earlier Warhead, taking the Doctor, Ace and Benny to very near-future England and America to deal with a peculiar new drug and a truly horrible animal experimentation centre. I was hooked, and felt that Cartmel managed to control the plot and characters in a very grownup Who story. Looking through my records I can see some of the themes from this and Warhead cropping up in Cartmel’s later Who work, but not as well co-ordinated as they are here. Really very impressed.

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HTC Desire for sale

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After two years, I've had enough; I have been using my loathed Android HTC Desire for videos and ebooks, and that's OK, but I think I may as well sell it on to anyone who wants to try out the Android way for themselves, and use the profits (if any) for something like a Nexus 7 which is actually designed for videos and ebooks. After all, the Blackberry is still perfectly usable for phone and email, and not too bad for social media.

Offering it here for $100 or local equivalent; I have tried and failed to root it, so the purchaser may well wish to experiment on it in turn. If no bites from livejournal I'll try putting it on eBay.

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August Books 23) The Great California Game, by Jonathan Gash

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Completely by chance, the next in the random selection of Lovejoy books I have picked up recently takes place immediately after Jade Woman, which I read earlier this month. Lovejoy has escaped Hong Kong and arrives penniless in New York, where he soon gets sucked into a group of sinister plutocrats involved with raising questionable money as their stake in the Great California Game. The first half of the book, in which Lovejoy tries to grasp the reality of New York and also gets entangled in the conspiracy, is very well portrayed – both the richness of the setting and our hero’s confusion in adapting to it. The second half was less good; en route to California Lovejoy and his rapidly acquired assistants encounter various American regional stereotypes, while Lovejoy demonstrates a hitherto-unseen talent for actually making money from his (possibly supernatural) gift for telling real antiques from fakes, and there is then a rather hard-to-swallow twist at the end. And surprisingly it is almost halfway through the book before Lovejoy gets together with any of the various women who as usual throw themselves at him. So, a book of two halves really. (And I am beginning to wonder how many of the Lovejoy books are actually set in East Anglia, or even England? So far I’ve had France, the Isle of Man, Hong Kong and now the US.)

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Geopolitics: Sweden vs the UK

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Blogging has been pretty light here for a while – I had almost no net access for my three weeks in Ireland, and last week has been spent catching up on other stuff. So I have missed my chance to write on the various controversies of the interim, and I will skip things like royal bums that do not interest me.

But I have been following the Assange affair with great interest. One thing that strikes me is that there has been a vast amount of excellent legal blogging explaining exactly how we have reached where we are from the lawyers' point of view. (There are too many to link to, but David Allan Green's writings have been particularly lucid, and Swedish legal bloggers have been doing their bit too.) There has also been a lot of passionate discussion of sexual abuse, with some moving personal testimonies (and also some disgusting commentary from people who obviously know no better).

I've seen rather less sensible commentary on the geopolitics, in particular Assange's claim that he is in danger of a extradition to the US to face trial, imprisonment and/or summary execution from the US government if he returns to Sweden.

Folks, this makes no sense at all. I am talking about the politics of this claim, not the legal issues (though the balance of analysis from legal blogs seems to be in the same direction).

Frankly if you are worried that the Americans are out to get you (and in fairness to Assange they quite possibly are), and you have a choice between the UK and Sweden, you should choose Sweden immediately.

Sweden ranks higher than the UK in any global ranking of performance on human rights which you may care to choose, particularly as regards the justice system. (Just a few such lists: here, here, here/here, here.) The UK is blessed with an articulate legal commentariat, but has a significantly flawed system which means that it normally creeps into the top twenty in such rankings, whereas Sweden is usually in the top three if not actually in the top spot. Swedish process is different from the UK, which confuses people, but it is clearly a better process by any objective measure. If you are worried about a fair trial and the respect of your human rights, and you have a choice, go to Sweden.

But more importantly, the UK is practically an extension of the US in geopolitical terms. The UK has been a full member of NATO since its foundation; the British government completely bought into the Iraq invasion; the UK has a rather one-sided extradition treaty with the USA (according to noted lefty rag the Telegraph and the House of CommonsLadies in White, a well-known human rights group of the kind that would obviously appeal to a lefty Swede with a long-standing interest in Cuba; it would be rather more surprising if she had no links with them at all.

The second particulary silly point is that Karl Rove is an adviser to the Swedish prime minister, and therefore Sweden must be regarded as an American satellite state. Apart from the points mentioned above about Sweden's geopolitical orientation, I would add that Rove has been out of office in the USA since 2009, and these days seems to be devoting his energies to attacking President Obama (I cannot imagine that he finds much time for political advice to the main centre-right political party in Sweden these days). Perhaps you can believe that while Rove heaps vitriol on the current administration in public he is secretly manipulating a foreign government on its behalf in private, but I have difficulty with that.

Any reasonable person must conclude that the political reasons given by Assange for his reluctance to return to Sweden are baseless. He is at greater risk of being whisked off to the US from the UK than from Sweden. His only rational grounds for not wishing to go to Sweden must be that he knows exactly how strong the case against him actually is.

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