2010 Hugo Award winners announced

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Reminds me of Margaret Atwood trying to live down her Arthur C. Clarke award for The Handmaid's Tale by claiming that since Oryx and Crake didn't involve rocketships but instead portrayed a speculative post-apocalyptic near-future scenario based on genetic engineering technology we don't have yet going horribly, terribly wrong, it couldn't possibly be that nasty old *science fiction*.

I suspect that down inside, Atwood knows better. She's simply trying to avoid being tarred with the genre brush.

Part of it may be the nature of the Canadian market. It isn't big enough to support folks writing fiction solely from domestic sales. To encourage local writers, the Canadian government offers grants, so the goal of a writer in Canada is to qualify for the highest possible level of grants.

Atwood has garnered a market outside of Canada, and can make a living as a writer sans grants, but I suspect that "literary" fiction gets a bigger slice of the grant pie than genre fiction, and it's in her financial interest to claim that what she's writing isn't SF.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Writers who strike it rich/get literary acclaim by writing what's essentially a genre fiction book and then promptly try to deny that no-no-no-no *their* work was *never* meant to be part of said genre and they're shocked, *shocked!* that you could even *think* that make me laugh (and lose respect, but mostly laugh).

I don't know if Susanna Clarke ever made it to the bestseller lists in Canada, but she does get mostly filed in Fantasy in the libraries around here (those large enough to have separate genre sections for the hardcovers, that is).

She certainly made it to the best seller lists in the US, and won the 2005 Hugo Award. I don't recall hearing that she ever denied it was a genre work.

I do think that fantasy is becoming more mainstreamed overall, what with all the popular movies based upon fantasy classics (Lord of the Rings) and the books becoming movies and TV (HP, Twilight, Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood, and apparently a series based on Terry Goodkind's books) and thus perhaps becoming perceived as more socially admittable for public reading outside the teen years, one hopes.

The public perception of SF, on the other hand, seems to still be stuck in a kind of Star Wars-y space ship battles and laser blasters and aliens with funny prosthetics mode. And I don't think the rename of the "SyFy" Channel helps make it look like anything other than for illiterates, sad to say.

And it's an interesting observation. Out and out fantasy seems far more acceptable for the mass market than SF based on technological advances. The immense market for vampire fiction is an example.

I've certainly met people who read and enjoy fantasy but don't care for SF. It doesn't scratch their particular itch.

I suspect part of it might be the safety of distance: we know fantasy can't happen, so even the most terrifying stories are safely on the other side of a wall separating real life from the story. The throngs of girls getting vicarious thrills from Twilight can keep the imaginings safely in the realm of fantasy, where they can be enjoyed without risk.

Fiction based on advances in science and technology doesn't have that remove. At least the nearer term stuff could happen, and might even be happening.

I read both genres, and don't see a hard dividing line between them. There's a gray area where they overlap, and books where you can cheerfully argue about which category they should be placed in.
______
Dennis

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I suspect part of it might be the safety of distance: we know fantasy can't happen, so even the most terrifying stories are safely on the other side of a wall separating real life from the story. The throngs of girls getting vicarious thrills from Twilight can keep the imaginings safely in the realm of fantasy, where they can be enjoyed without risk.

Fiction based on advances in science and technology doesn't have that remove. At least the nearer term stuff could happen, and might even be happening.

I don't think it is that at all-- I think it is that the average person has a disdain for technical learning and poorly developed critical thinking skills (not that they are stupid-- critical thinking is something that must be learned.) In the real world, the majority of people base their lives on magical thinking, not critical thinking. The world is teeming with uncritical acceptance of every type of superstition imaginable-- fantasy is mainstream in life, so of course it is mainstream in fiction.

[ficbot]

Interestingly, Atwood got her start writing poetry at a time when few others in Canada were doing so. Therefore, when Governor General Award time came around, she was pretty much a shoe-in and thereby had immediate legitimacy

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Fbone

If Amazon doesnt offer a Kindle version, then there must be an exclusivity agreement with the publisher and Baen.

Bean has a Mobipocket version which works on the Kindle. So there is no problem. The problem comes in when you get an exclusive deal and the format you want/need is not available.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

She certainly made it to the best seller lists in the US, and won the 2005 Hugo Award. I don't recall hearing that she ever denied it was a genre work.

Sorry for the confusion, my remark about Susanna Clarke being filed in Fantasy was in response to HarryT's naming her as a possible example of a successful mainstream-crossovered writer; I certainly didn't meant to imply that she was engaging in the same silly genre-denial that the other authors mentioned before her were.

I think I need to learn to multi-quote better (or at all).

As for Mr. Bradbury, he has apparently in recent years been claiming that the Martian Chronicles are in fact fantasy, not sf, and while he does have a point that they're more representatives of wishful/made-up portrayals than plausible/known facts-grounded speculation, it's not like the two are mutually exclusive. Oh, and that Fahrenheit 451 is his one and only science fiction book (no idea how he counts short stories).

Here's a link to a B&N customer discussion re: Bradbury's stance on e-books, technology, and writing NOT REALLY SCI-FI, KTHNXBYE!

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Out and out fantasy seems far more acceptable for the mass market than SF based on technological advances.
[…]
Fiction based on advances in science and technology doesn't have that remove. At least the nearer term stuff could happen, and might even be happening.

I think it may not just be the sense of immediacy, but also the perception of prerequisite knowledge.

A lot of people think that science fiction has to be "science-y" and it'll have lots of hard figures and technobabble and make them do the math. Which admittedly the ability and knowledge helps for certain kinds of hard sf, and probably increases one's enjoyment if already so inclined.

Whereas fantasy, by comparison, looks easy. All you have to do is clap your hands and believe in fairies, and whenever you see something, a wizard did it.

My personal pet crackpot theory is that it's no coincidence that the times when SF seemed to be at its height of popularity and public acceptability were during the 50s-60s when the Cold War was on at its height and science education seemed to be better due to wanting to reap future recruits for the space/arms race, and also during that Jules Verne to H.G. Wells period when it was rather rare, but the entire Victorian/industrial Better Living Through Scientific Advances meme was in play and there were new significant inventions (telegraph, telephone, railway transit) coming out practically every decade.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I read both genres, and don't see a hard dividing line between them. There's a gray area where they overlap, and books where you can cheerfully argue about which category they should be placed in.

And there's the surprise switch books like

Spoiler:

Meredith Ann Pierce's Darkangel Trilogy

, where it turns out that the angels and the witches are the descendents/engineered creations of space colonists. I'd say good luck categorizing that one, but happily for the librarians, it can be safely placed in the YA section.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Sorry for the confusion, my remark about Susanna Clarke being filed in Fantasy was in response to HarryT's naming her as a possible example of a successful mainstream-crossovered writer; I certainly didn't meant to imply that she was engaging in the same silly genre-denial that the other authors mentioned before her were.

I think I need to learn to multi-quote better (or at all).

I didn't really think you were. I just wanted to clarify that she wasn't engaging in denial.

As for Mr. Bradbury, he has apparently in recent years been claiming that the Martian Chronicles are in fact fantasy, not sf, and while he does have a point that they're more representatives of wishful/made-up portrayals than plausible/known facts-grounded speculation, it's not like the two are mutually exclusive. Oh, and that Fahrenheit 451 is his one and only science fiction book (no idea how he counts short stories).

Here's a link to a B&N customer discussion re: Bradbury's stance on e-books, technology, and writing NOT REALLY SCI-FI, KTHNXBYE!

Bradbury has always been a master of creating a mood, and simply uses SF tropes in the process. I've encountered hard core SF fans who don't really think that what Ray does is SF, and by their standards, it isn't.

If you want, you can blame Ray Bradbury on the late Henry Kuttner. Ray credits Kuttner with the best advice he ever got. Kuttner told him to shut up.

Kuttner and Bradbury were both members of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society in the '40s. Bradbury was going on about these great story ideas he had. Kuttner told him his problem was that he spent all his energy in talking them out. He needed to keep his mouth shut, put them down on paper, and submit them to places that might buy them. All else followed from there...

I think it may not just be the sense of immediacy, but also the perception of prerequisite knowledge.

A lot of people think that science fiction has to be "science-y" and it'll have lots of hard figures and technobabble and make them do the math. Which admittedly the ability and knowledge helps for certain kinds of hard sf, and probably increases one's enjoyment if already so inclined.

And has some truth if the science involved is something like physics, but gets rapidly less true as you go farther afield.

Whereas fantasy, by comparison, looks easy. All you have to do is clap your hands and believe in fairies, and whenever you see something, a wizard did it.

Well, it looks easy. But if you postulate a world where magic works, said magic obeys rules, and you have to think about what the rules are and what the implications are for your story to do it well.

I was tickled by Rick Cook's "Wiz" Zumwalt stories, where a California programmer got transported to a world where magic worked. Part of the local's problem was that they didn't know the rules. They had simply learned by trial and (sometimes fatal) error that if you stood just so, made these gestures, and said those words in that tone of voice, something would happen. Get it the least bit off and the results were unpredictable but unlikely to be pleasant.

My personal pet crackpot theory is that it's no coincidence that the times when SF seemed to be at its height of popularity and public acceptability were during the 50s-60s when the Cold War was on at its height and science education seemed to be better due to wanting to reap future recruits for the space/arms race, and also during that Jules Verne to H.G. Wells period when it was rather rare, but the entire Victorian/industrial Better Living Through Scientific Advances meme was in play and there were new significant inventions (telegraph, telephone, railway transit) coming out practically every decade.

I think you can make a good case for it. You can also make a case that SF took one of two directions: a belief that science and technology could bring about a better world, and postulated possible utopias, and a belief that science and technology could be misused, with a variety of dystopian "If this goes on..." results. You can have more fun if you postulate that the two directions stemmed from underlying beliefs about humanity, with one camp assuming we'd make good use of our new toys and another assuming we wouldn't.

And there's the surprise switch books like

Spoiler:

Meredith Ann Pierce's Darkangel Trilogy

, where it turns out that the angels and the witches are the descendents/engineered creations of space colonists. I'd say good luck categorizing that one, but happily for the librarians, it can be safely placed in the YA section.

The librarians might not care in either case. In the library and in the bookstore, SF and fantasy gets shelved alphabetically by author name in the same section.. Some fans can get passionate about the distinctions.

One of my examples is Anne McCaffrey's Pern series. It's straight up SF: the people on Pern got there by starship, and the dragons are the result of genetic engineering applied to the indigenous fire lizards. Civilization was knocked back to a pre-technological state by the parasitic Thread, and the colonists forgot their origins. People encountering the series in the middle see a medieval level of technology and social structure and fire breathing dragons and say "Aha! Fantasy!" because those the the visible tropes, but it's not the case.
______
Dennis

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Kuttner and Bradbury were both members of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society in the '40s. Bradbury was going on about these great story ideas he had. Kuttner told him his problem was that he spent all his energy in talking them out. He needed to keep his mouth shut, put them down on paper, and submit them to places that might buy them. All else followed from there...

Well, it's certainly better advice than what L. Ron Hubbard got.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Well, it looks easy. But if you postulate a world where magic works, said magic obeys rules, and you have to think about what the rules are and what the implications are for your story to do it well.

Sad to say, I've run into books where the authors clearly didn't bother, and seemed to have simply transcribed their latest D&D session, on top of that. The Rick Cook Wiz books are some of my favourites, and I almost always recommend them as a Baen Free Library pick to people looking for light comedy/fantasy/free reads. It's a shame his health never let him finish the 6th book in the series, though he's put most of what he'd written online.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Part of the local's problem was that they didn't know the rules. They had simply learned by trial and (sometimes fatal) error that if you stood just so, made these gestures, and said those words in that tone of voice, something would happen. Get it the least bit off and the results were unpredictable but unlikely to be pleasant.

That's part of what made the story work so well, re: bringing in an outsider's perspective to solve their problem.

From the in-universe POV, random experimenting got people killed/worse and was understandably discouraged to the point where only the dangerously stupid among the native population would knowingly try it. And while Wiz was ignorant and naive, he did have relatively limited scope to do damage, and expert tutoring as well as Moira for a failsafe who could probably deal with most minor botches. Not to mention a computer programmer's mindset to begin with, so he wasn't going to try for the grand evil-defeating spell on the first go.

My favourite in the series is actually the 2nd book, where they had to deal with integrating the new magic system into the old social system and having to come up with solutions for the various cultural clashes that ensued. And also the 5th book, where, once settled, the now "establishment" programming wizards had to bring in yet another outsider to give them perspective on their problems.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

You can also make a case that SF took one of two directions: a belief that science and technology could bring about a better world, and postulated possible utopias, and a belief that science and technology could be misused, with a variety of dystopian "If this goes on..." results. You can have more fun if you postulate that the two directions stemmed from underlying beliefs about humanity, with one camp assuming we'd make good use of our new toys and another assuming we wouldn't.

Myself, I think it may not be not necessarily underlying beliefs about humanity, as experience with technological fallout and unintended consequences.

For example, Verne is generally pretty optimistic about exciting adventures and better, brighter results (except perhaps for the posthumously published Paris in the 20th Century, which is apparently one of the bleaker works [have not yet read it myself]). But he's solidly middle-Victorian, if I'm not misremembering my timelines.

Wells, on the other hand, seems to be personally optimistic regarding his main characters, but pessimistic regarding the surroundings and the "others", which may reflect the growing awareness of industrial pollution and the stresses of the sun slowly setting on the British Empire.

By a similar token, 50s-60s SF seems pretty bright and pulpy. Plenty of rocket ships and brave explorers and plucky youths saving the day, and that Dupont future of "Better Living Through Chemistry". All that post-war exuberance and Baby Boom prosperity buoying things up.

But then late 60s-70s SF does this abrupt drop into social/environmental dystopia, and again, that's the era of Silent Spring and and Civil Rights issues coming to the forefront, as well as Nuclear Winter fears.

The direction of the fiction seems to coincide with the widespread awareness of particular background facts. This could possibly explain why this year's Hugo noms for the Novel form mostly seemed so bleak.

It says something, though I'm not sure exactly what, when the second-most optimistic novel of the lot was the frontier steampunk post-apocalyptic dystopia where the zombie invasion was still being fought off.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The librarians might not care in either case. In the library and in the bookstore, SF and fantasy gets shelved alphabetically by author name in the same section..

Really, it depends on the library and bookstore. The two branches nearest to me within walking distance shelve sf/fantasy a) in the general fiction section for lack of space, b) together in the same section. But the larger branches downtown and the local mega-chain bookstore and the local mini-chain mall bookstore all split sf and fantasy out into their own separate little sections. Same for horror, romance, and erotica. Which makes it amusing to see where they put the more blendy paranormal titles, sometimes.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

One of my examples is Anne McCaffrey's Pern series.

I think I've read somewhere the original core story of Dragonflight, the Weyr Search novella where Lessa is brought to Impress Ramoth, started out as straight fantasy, but the editor of Analog or whichever magazine it was published in asked McCaffrey to give it a more sfnal flavour, and so she ended up writing the little preamble about Rukbat and the colonists and all, and just went with it when she expanded things later.

The other major "mistaken for fantasy, or is it? (dun, dun, dun)" 60s-started woman-written series is Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books, which very definitely started out as SF, with the Terran/Darkovan conflict from the very beginning before she started exploring the backstory of Darkover's isolated development.

But they later moved into such a "fantasy" mode that Bradley at one point mentioned (in one of the intros to the Darkover fan anthologies she used to edit until the Unfortunate Incident of the Credit in the By-Line, I think) that some of her older readers were disgruntled that she was focusing so much on the laran powers as they were used during the medieval-ish Ages of Chaos and the Free Amazons instead of getting back to what they considered the core of the series.

Myself, I've always favoured the Clarkian notion of "sufficiently advanced technology", so I love it when either tech mimics magic or vice versa; preferably both.

One of my favourite stories is Ted Chiang's short, "Seventy-Two Letters", which is a great "what if Kabbalistic mysticism really could produce consistent golem-making etc. results, and how would the 'scientific' method that arose in such a world through observation and experimentation adjust to fit?"

Unfortunately, such settings tend to be relatively rare, as most writers seem to prefer a solid one or the other, but I suppose it does mean I end up financially rewarding those who do write entertaining examples of what I read, so I guess everything works out?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, it's certainly better advice than what L. Ron Hubbard got.

From what I've heard, Hubbard didn't get advice, he gave it.

Sad to say, I've run into books where the authors clearly didn't bother, and seemed to have simply transcribed their latest D&D session, on top of that. The Rick Cook Wiz books are some of my favourites, and I almost always recommend them as a Baen Free Library pick to people looking for light comedy/fantasy/free reads. It's a shame his health never let him finish the 6th book in the series, though he's put most of what he'd written online.

The issues get worse when you go to other media, like TV. I knew some folks trying to work up a role playing game based on Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. As near as anyone could tell, Whedon never really thought out his cosmology. He just pulled authorial rabbits out os his hat, and damn the consequences.

In the SF arena, a friend used to moderate message boards Pocket Books ran for their Star Trek tie-in novels, and was at pains to explains to posters that most things in Trek were a means for a script writer to get from point A to point B, or out of the corner he'd painted himself into. She talked about the main ingredients of the stories being Handwavium and MacGyverite, and I think it applies to a lot of genre stuff.

That's part of what made the story work so well, re: bringing in an outsider's perspective to solve their problem.

Made more fun for the outsider because the mage who brought him over got killed doing it, and hadn't told anyone what he was doing or why.

Myself, I think it may not be not necessarily underlying beliefs about humanity, as experience with technological fallout and unintended consequences.

For example, Verne is generally pretty optimistic about exciting adventures and better, brighter results (except perhaps for the posthumously published Paris in the 20th Century, which is apparently one of the bleaker works [have not yet read it myself]). But he's solidly middle-Victorian, if I'm not misremembering my timelines.

In that range. Verne and Wells were partially contemporaneous. But audience will be a factor. Verne was writing adventure stories for boys, and then, as now, publishers would not be pleased with bleak work aimed at a YA audience.

Wells, on the other hand, seems to be personally optimistic regarding his main characters, but pessimistic regarding the surroundings and the "others", which may reflect the growing awareness of industrial pollution and the stresses of the sun slowly setting on the British Empire.

Wells was a Fabian socialist. From my perspective, his later work suffers because he becomes more interested in preaching a gospel than telling a story, as his socialist beliefs come to predominate.

By a similar token, 50s-60s SF seems pretty bright and pulpy. Plenty of rocket ships and brave explorers and plucky youths saving the day, and that Dupont future of "Better Living Through Chemistry". All that post-war exuberance and Baby Boom prosperity buoying things up.

But then late 60s-70s SF does this abrupt drop into social/environmental dystopia, and again, that's the era of Silent Spring and and Civil Rights issues coming to the forefront, as well as Nuclear Winter fears.

Yep. A great well spring of optimism following the end of WWII, tempered by the Cold War and concerns about the Soviet Union. There was dystopian stuff, but it took the form of satire. The VietnamWar xcan be seen as a turning point toward pessimism.

The direction of the fiction seems to coincide with the widespread awareness of particular background facts. This could possibly explain why this year's Hugo noms for the Novel form mostly seemed so bleak.

It says something, though I'm not sure exactly what, when the second-most optimistic novel of the lot was the frontier steampunk post-apocalyptic dystopia where the zombie invasion was still being fought off.

<chuckle>

An old friend of mine is hopping mad about it. He fondly remembers the days when SF was optimistic, and thinks it ought to get back to being so. I sympathize, but advised him not to hold his breath.

Really, it depends on the library and bookstore. The two branches nearest to me within walking distance shelve sf/fantasy a) in the general fiction section for lack of space, b) together in the same section. But the larger branches downtown and the local mega-chain bookstore and the local mini-chain mall bookstore all split sf and fantasy out into their own separate little sections. Same for horror, romance, and erotica. Which makes it amusing to see where they put the more blendy paranormal titles, sometimes.

I was in a store down south years back that was a card/gift/PB bookstore. I was deeply bemused. As far as I could tell, books were put in the racks however they came out of the boxes. It was pure random access, with no attempt at categorizing at all. It made me wonder whether anyone in that town actually read

And my SO has told an amusing story or two about things she's discovered shelved in the YA section at our local library branch, placed by librarians who obviously haven't read the books in question and are going by blurb or Publisher's Weekly thumbnail that doesn't mention the relative amount of spice...

I think I've read somewhere the original core story of Dragonflight, the Weyr Search novella where Lessa is brought to Impress Ramoth, started out as straight fantasy, but the editor of Analog or whichever magazine it was published in asked McCaffrey to give it a more sfnal flavour, and so she ended up writing the little preamble about Rukbat and the colonists and all, and just went with it when she expanded things later.

It was Analog, under John W. Campbell.

Campbell was responsible for another of my borderline examples: the late Randall Garrett's "Lord Darcy" stories. Darcy is Chief Criminal Investigator for the Duke of Rouen, in an alternate history where Richard the Lion-hearted settled down after being wounded in the Crusades to become a very good King indeed, founding a Plantagenet dynasty that still rules. Magic has been developed instead of science, and Darcy's partner, Master Forensic Sorcerer Sean O'Lochlain, uses magic to discover clues that help Darcy solve the crimes. But it's all worked up in hard SF fashion, with theoretical thaumaturges using sophisticated mathematics to design the structure of spells that will be cast by working sorcerers like Master Sean. And in a later story, Darcy is given a top secret instrument to assist him in his work that we would recognize as a primitive flashlight. His society is making the beginning steps in scientific exploration.

The other major "mistaken for fantasy, or is it? (dun, dun, dun)" 60s-started woman-written series is Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books, which very definitely started out as SF, with the Terran/Darkovan conflict from the very beginning before she started exploring the backstory of Darkover's isolated development.

But they later moved into such a "fantasy" mode that Bradley at one point mentioned (in one of the intros to the Darkover fan anthologies she used to edit until the Unfortunate Incident of the Credit in the By-Line, I think) that some of her older readers were disgruntled that she was focusing so much on the laran powers as they were used during the medieval-ish Ages of Chaos and the Free Amazons instead of getting back to what they considered the core of the series.

Myself, I've always favoured the Clarkian notion of "sufficiently advanced technology", so I love it when either tech mimics magic or vice versa; preferably both.

Yes, I read the Darkover books years back. They were another case that could be read either way, depending upon which book it was and what your own feelings were.

Unfortunately, such settings tend to be relatively rare, as most writers seem to prefer a solid one or the other, but I suppose it does mean I end up financially rewarding those who do write entertaining examples of what I read, so I guess everything works out?

I suppose. Other edge cases I point at are Mellisa Scott's "Silence Leigh" stories, and Patricia Kennealy's Kelts in Space series.

Silence Leigh is a sorceress who travels the stars with her two husbands in a ship powered by magic. In Silence's world, alchemy is the dominant paradigm. Science is also present, but they are mutually exclusive: if you use one, you can't use the other.

Kennealy posits that the Tuatha De Danaan left Earth and moved into space, forming a Keltic stellar empire, still locked in battle with their ancient enemies the Formorians. Magic and science both work, and computer controlled starships transport armies to other worlds, where naked, blue painted Fian warriors will charge into battle wielding broadswords while mages cast spells in support. Kennealy simply presents this as a given, and never attempts to explain it or justify it. She's a good enough story teller that you can live with it while you're reading, but it provokes a variety of "Now wait a minute..." reactions afterward.

My current recommendation is Liz Williams "Inspector Chen" stories. Chen is a "Snake Agent" - the officer in his precinct responsible for crimes involving the supernatural. He lives in Singapore 3, in a future in which such things are franchised. And Chinese mythology is real and active in Chen's world. His wife is a rescued demon, he has a patron goddess who is displeased with him (in part, for marrying a demon), and his partner is a demon - a Seneschal of the Ministry of Vice in Hell, responsible for making sure Hell's rules are followed by those who live there. Chen's life is...complicated, and he finds himself caught up in events that could affect Heaven and Hell as well as Earth.
______
Dennis

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

From what I've heard, Hubbard didn't get advice, he gave it.

Well, I'm a little fuzzy on the details. It's the sort of mental self-defense move that someone who has to walk past the local Scientology centre in order to get to the central downtown library branch develops over time.

Thanks for the info on Verne and Wells. I've been starting the excellent annotated Barnes &Noble Classics versions with the essays and explanatory notes that B&N have offered as freebies recently, but I haven't dared read too much of the introductory material, because they have spoilers like whoa for people who haven't yet finished the story.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And my SO has told an amusing story or two about things she's discovered shelved in the YA section at our local library branch, placed by librarians who obviously haven't read the books in question and are going by blurb or Publisher's Weekly thumbnail that doesn't mention the relative amount of spice...

My personal favourite is finding a copy of Tintin in the Congo (version francophone) filed in with the younger childrens' books in the library.

Ahahahaha… even if the librarians who did that didn't speak French (unlikely, given the size and breadth of the French collection at that branch), a simple flipthrough of the comic would have shown violence and outdated racial stereotypes they certainly should have thought twice about shelving in the kiddie section.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Campbell was responsible for another of my borderline examples: the late Randall Garrett's "Lord Darcy" stories.

I've been meaning to read those. MZB mentioned it in one of her many anthologies and it always sounded very interesting to me. Plus, I not only love "sufficiently advanced technology" and its corollary, I'm also a sucker for alternate history.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Other edge cases I point at are Mellisa Scott's "Silence Leigh" stories, and Patricia Kennealy's Kelts in Space series.

I did read Kennealy at one point. Unfortunately, her later works seem to have been a way of working out her personal issues via writing therapy, but the first six Keltiad books (the Aeron and Arthur trilogies) are still fairly decently entertaining and I quite liked them, despite a touch of Mary Sue-ness on both Aeron and Arthur's parts and that handwaviness on the tech/tradition mix that you mentioned.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Silence Leigh is a sorceress who travels the stars with her two husbands in a ship powered by magic.

Well, I can see I'll have to at least check these out. Polyamory is yet another one of my fictional attractors. Thank you, Mr. Heinlein, for that and my redhead fetish.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

My current recommendation is Liz Williams "Inspector Chen" stories.

Sounds awesome. This was another one I was considering as a maybe at Baen's Webscriptions when I finally set a proper account up, and I'm still divided on whether to get the single-author bundle, or spend a little more and get the publisher monthly bundle and the cost of a couple of works I'm probably not really going to be interested in but might want to try anyway.

However it works out, I'll definitely have to get these. AH, near-future, sufficiently advanced magic, not-entirely-EU-based-cultural-backdrop, and sleuthing by agents meant to contain magical incursions?

The only way it could be better would be if the Chens were in an open relationship with hot, competent, gunslinging mathematical redheads and there was some time travel to an Important Historical Event, But Not As We Know It, Jim, involved. Also, dragons. Preferably fully intelligent, independent talking ones not being ridden by empathically bonded riders.

Thanks so much for the recommendations. And for anyone else who was looking for more tech/magic mixes, a couple of the more entertaining ones that are probably still available:

Diane Duane's Wizard series. Two versions, YA with teens, and "adult" with cats. The magic system exists in our "real" world perfectly alongside tech, and is treated in a mostly scientific manner, with current physics-grounded explanations for much of it.

Margaret Ball's Mathemagics, and the accompanying stories in the Esther Friesner-edited Chicks in Chainmail anthologies, all from Baen. Math is the basis of spells on a parallel traditionally clichéd sword-and-sorcery world, and solving equations etc. produces magical effects. Intentionally silly, but fun stuff.

As a special bonus, Ball is a mathematician herself, and titles the chapters of The Novel with little in-jokes.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, I'm a little fuzzy on the details. It's the sort of mental self-defense move that someone who has to walk past the local Scientology centre in order to get to the central downtown library branch develops over time.

The story is that Hubbard created Dianetics in part to win a bet that he could con John Campbell. Campbell firmly believed there were all sorts of promising things that had been ignored or suppressed by the military/industrial establishment, and gave space to various of them, like the Dean Drive, in the pages of Astounding/Analog. Among other things, Hubbard told Campbell Dianetics could cure his chronic sinusitis. Campbell published his first article on Dianetics, and things took off from there.

Hubbard had also opined that a good way to get rich quick was to found a religion, and certainly proved his point.

I worked for a company owned and operated by Scientologists for a while. It was an interesting experience.

Thanks for the info on Verne and Wells. I've been starting the excellent annotated Barnes &Noble Classics versions with the essays and explanatory notes that B&N have offered as freebies recently, but I haven't dared read too much of the introductory material, because they have spoilers like whoa for people who haven't yet finished the story.

Verne was asked about Wells' work in an interview and was dismissive. Verne was careful to have his tales contain one scientific gimmick per story, and insisted that it be possible given what they knew at the time. His comment on Wells' invention of Cavourite, which got his protagonists to the Moon was "An anti-gravity paint? C'est tres joli pas. But where is this miraculous substance? Let him produce it!"

My personal favourite is finding a copy of Tintin in the Congo (version francophone) filed in with the younger childrens' books in the library.

Ahahahaha… even if the librarians who did that didn't speak French (unlikely, given the size and breadth of the French collection at that branch), a simple flipthrough of the comic would have shown violence and outdated racial stereotypes they certainly should have thought twice about shelving in the kiddie section.

It's not clear where else they might have shelved it. But I suspect they did not flip through it. It was, after all, a comic strip.

I've been meaning to read those. MZB mentioned it in one of her many anthologies and it always sounded very interesting to me. Plus, I not only love "sufficiently advanced technology" and its corollary, I'm also a sucker for alternate history.

They're a lot of fun. And if you read mysteries, too, you'll be tickled by _Too Many Magicians_, in which Darcy and Master Sean must deal with a thinly disguised Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

I did read Kennealy at one point. Unfortunately, her later works seem to have been a way of working out her personal issues via writing therapy, but the first six Keltiad books (the Aeron and Arthur trilogies) are still fairly decently entertaining and I quite liked them, despite a touch of Mary Sue-ness on both Aeron and Arthur's parts and that handwaviness on the tech/tradition mix that you mentioned.

I lost track after about the first six myself. These days, she's writing mysteries I haven't gotten to. The biggest stickler for me was the assertion that the star faring nations all agreed that combat must be mano a mano, and things like artillery could only be used against fixed fortifications, so she could have naked, blue painted, sword wielding Fian warriors charging into battle with the foe after being delivered by starship. I thought that agreement would last about as long as it took for one side or the other to realize they were about to be defeated, and decide to ignore the rules.

Well, I can see I'll have to at least check these out. Polyamory is yet another one of my fictional attractors. Thank you, Mr. Heinlein, for that and my redhead fetish.

I actually had a minor peeve over that. Silence spends a fair bit of time anxious about how she will deal with having two husbands when the idea of marrying them comes up, but it jumps from anxiety to all is well with no look at how she does come to terms with it. Melissa Scott is gay, and in a committed long term relationship with another woman. She once mentioned that if it wasn't otherwise specified, you could assume characters in her books were gay. It explained why Scott skipped over the details of exactly how Silence came to terms with having two husbands...

Sounds awesome. This was another one I was considering as a maybe at Baen's Webscriptions when I finally set a proper account up, and I'm still divided on whether to get the single-author bundle, or spend a little more and get the publisher monthly bundle and the cost of a couple of works I'm probably not really going to be interested in but might want to try anyway.

However it works out, I'll definitely have to get these. AH, near-future, sufficiently advanced magic, not-entirely-EU-based-cultural-backdrop, and sleuthing by agents meant to contain magical incursions?

The only way it could be better would be if the Chens were in an open relationship with hot, competent, gunslinging mathematical redheads and there was some time travel to an Important Historical Event, But Not As We Know It, Jim, involved. Also, dragons. Preferably fully intelligent, independent talking ones not being ridden by empathically bonded riders.

Chen isn't involved in an open relationship - being married to a demon is quite enough complexity. But there are dragons in the most recent book, _Precious Dragon_. Intelligent and talking. Lots of them.

Disclaimer: Liz is a friend, and we know lots of folks in common. But I recommend her because her work is good. That fact that I know her personally and can recommend work by a friend is a fringe benefit

Thanks so much for the recommendations. And for anyone else who was looking for more tech/magic mixes, a couple of the more entertaining ones that are probably still available:

Diane Duane's Wizard series. Two versions, YA with teens, and "adult" with cats. The magic system exists in our "real" world perfectly alongside tech, and is treated in a mostly scientific manner, with current physics-grounded explanations for much of it.

Margaret Ball's Mathemagics, and the accompanying stories in the Esther Friesner-edited Chicks in Chainmail anthologies, all from Baen. Math is the basis of spells on a parallel traditionally clichéd sword-and-sorcery world, and solving equations etc. produces magical effects. Intentionally silly, but fun stuff.

As a special bonus, Ball is a mathematician herself, and titles the chapters of The Novel with little in-jokes.

<smile> Esther is another old friend, and has been having a ball doing the Chicks anthologies. Seconded!
______
Dennis

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

It's not clear where else they might have shelved it. But I suspect they did not flip through it. It was, after all, a comic strip.

Well, before the Graphic Novels started getting a separate section of their own, comic strips and GNs and the like were filed in the 740s or so of the Dewey system, under "Art" in the adult/general non-fiction section instead of the "j"-marked junior children's section for the 5-11 set.

Some of it still is, as they never bothered to move the older stuff like the political cartoons and the Cathy/Garfield collections out, and the stuff considered too "graphic" to go under the YA-shelved GN section of that particular branch.

But you're right, they probably never looked.

Although that particular Tintin album is fairly notorious in Francophone circles because Hergé revised it a couple of times after the original over-the-top institutional colonial racism and violence were no longer socially acceptable and he was embarrassed that he'd ever been so ignorant as to script/draw it, but the popular demand kept people printing pirate versions, so he finally gave in to pressure to make an official one to satisfy the market.

Even then, still got complaints for the toned down version, which is sold these days with a special "old stuff from the unenlightened days, please forgive appalling attitudes, NOT FOR KIDS" note in the front in the English translation sold in the UK, and some guy in Belgium wants a similar warning sticker put on the French version now.

Ironically, it's apparently the most popular Tintin album EVER, throughout most parts of Africa. Especially in Congo itself.

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Disclaimer: Liz is a friend, and we know lots of folks in common. But I recommend her because her work is good. That fact that I know her personally and can recommend work by a friend is a fringe benefit
Dennis

OK, Dennis. Your mission should you choose to accept it (and even if you don't, really) is to pass on to Liz a request for more Inspector Chen, ASAP. Preferably five or six more novels, by, oh... yesterday seems reasonable.

And another request that she clone herself a few times. Or take whatever action is necessary to bump up her writing output by 2x or 3x or so. The Chen books are good enough to convince me that she's likely to have plenty more good stuff to write about.

Xenophon

P.S. Oh yeah... All that new stuff that'll be showing up any day now should be available through Webscriptions. I don't really care who publishes the dead tree editions, but I want those yummy crunchy attractively-priced bits!

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

OK, Dennis. Your mission should you choose to accept it (and even if you don't, really) is to pass on to Liz a request for more Inspector Chen, ASAP. Preferably five or six more novels, by, oh... yesterday seems reasonable.

And another request that she clone herself a few times. Or take whatever action is necessary to bump up her writing output by 2x or 3x or so. The Chen books are good enough to convince me that she's likely to have plenty more good stuff to write about.

She's had plenty of good stuff to write about. There are five of six extant novels that aren't part of the Inspector Chen universe.

And I think she wouldn't mind cloning herself. She lives in Glastonbury these days with her partner Trevor. They own three magick shops (Liz is a Druid), and the last I knew she was President of the Glastonbury Chamber of Commerce. She also teaches periodically (writing and pagan related stuff.)

Liz and Trevor have a radio program called The Witching Hour on Glastonbury Radio on Tuesdays that can be accessed over the Internet via http://glastonburyradio.com/listen_and_browse/ , and are both present on Facebook if you care to make your wishes known directly.

There's a mystery with pagan trappings in progress, but more Inspector Chen works are planned. She simply has to find time to write them.

P.S. Oh yeah... All that new stuff that'll be showing up any day now should be available through Webscriptions. I don't really care who publishes the dead tree editions, but I want those yummy crunchy attractively-priced bits!

That's up to her publishers, I fear. Nightshade Press does the Inspector Chen books, and they have a deal with Webscriptions. Her UK publisher for other things is Macmillan. Her US publisher for other stuff was Bantam Spectra, but she got dropped from contract. I'm not sure she has another US publisher these days. Neither Macmillan nor Bantam Spectra seems likely to do a Webscriptions deal.
______
Dennis

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

And I think she wouldn't mind cloning herself. She lives in Glastonbury these days with her partner Trevor. They own three magick shops (Liz is a Druid), and the last I knew she was President of the Glastonbury Chamber of Commerce. She also teaches periodically (writing and pagan related stuff.)

Glastonbury is a seriously wierd place - perhaps the last hold-out of the hippies (in the UK, at least). Absolutely full of strange little shops selling crystal balls, magic charms, healing crystals, etc. Great fun .