Yes But No But Yes presents...the ten worst Star Wars costumes!
That one's number 10, folks -- it gets worse from there...
Since yesterday was April 1st, I doubt any of these are meant to be taken seriously, but, just in case you want to know, the following people have announced their candidacies for the office of SFWA President (following John Scalzi's non-humorous example):
Paul Melko has set his sights lower, attempting to seize power as South-Central Regional Director.
Meanwhile, Gwenda Bond has declared war on SFWA and Paul Di Dilippo reports from the horrifying future.
For myself, I will continue to serve in my own small way as part of the Evil Publishers' Cabal, crushing dreams and blighting lives where'er I pass.
Locus Online, as usual, posted a few less-than-serious stories yesterday, to mark April 1st. Neither the SFBC nor Locus can take any responsibility for people who take any of the following seriously...
Neil Gaiman: One Step Closer to Sainthood
Excellence in SF Awards to Be Honored
Re-Creative Makes Genre Writers Useful
Rejection Makes Writers Sexier
Those with long memories, and too much time on their hands, may remember last year, when the tribulations of that year's World Fantasy Award judges (including me) were the subject of a similar article. As I said then, I don't want to talk about the beach house -- but watch MTV for the upcoming announcement of our new special, when we 2006 WFA judges battle the 2002 Clarke judges in a wacky cross-country competition!
Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on Steampunk Star Wars.
From Websurdity:
Uncomfortable Questions: Was the Death Star Attack an Inside Job?
Someone needs to say it: "Emperor Palpatine, when did you know that you knew what you know?"
Lo! There shall come upon the land an oracle of wondrous power and import, and it shall speak in the voice of Gaiman.
Ask a question, and the Oracle shall answer. Any defect of understanding can only be in the auditor...
Let us demonstrate.
Q: O mighty Oracle, will our favorite novel win the Hugo this year?
A: Everyone else is more or less the same weight, except for Lorraine, who is thinner.
Q: O wise and all-seeing Oracle, should we attend TuckerCon?
A: But Shadow's, well, Shadow.
Q: Thank you very much, o splendid Oracle, for appearing on the blog today.
A: Hoping that the rest of the signings of the tour will be inside.
You see its wonders? Try it for yourself, and be amazed!
Update, 3/2: The Oracle now hath its own dedicated web page, with design of fine and true snazziness. And one now must actually "shake" yon Oracle for a reply.
Let us ask the Oracle a new question, one of today's most weighty issue.
Q: Should the Nebulas return to a yearly eligibility?
A: Coffin and all.
John C. Wright is continuing to steam forward with The New Space Princess Movement, which is kind of a reaction to The New Comprehensibility (the movement I Svengali-ized John Scalzi into starting). Normally, if someone started a movement in opposition to my movement, I'd be a mite peeved. But who can resist Space Princesses? (I know I can't.)
Following up the initial manifesto, Wright has republished a piece he wrote for Meme Therapy about Space Pirates and their interactions with Space Princesses. But what about Space Ninjas?
Bruce Sterling linked to a great blog called Strange Maps today, and used the below map as an image.
I'm stealing that map (it's from 1897, so it's public domain) because I believe this could be the map for the mostly totally awesome -- and totally generic -- epic fantasy novel ever. You, too, could steal this novel and write the tale of the goat-boy Snerd and the fabulous lost Crochet-Hook of Enderby. (Or perhaps even the fabled tale of the Mace of Ake'fujji.) So go to it.
Jess Nevins brings us a perfect Friday lunch-time piece (the fact thet he wrote and posted it much earlier is irrelevant to my point here): an essay on the importance of fast food to the work and life of J.R.R. Tolkien.
In this corner: Justine Larbalestier, representing zombies.
In the other corner: Holly Black, fronting for the unicorn posse.
Justine came back with a follow-up, which also explains the current juvenile librarian kerfuffle about a scrotum. (And you can take that adjective "juvenile" whichever way pleases you.)
Jeff Edelstein, writing in The Trentonian, wants to know why SF and fantasy are mingled in the same bookstore section. So he asked Robert J. Sawyer.
Thought 1: Has Edelstein noticed that "fiction" and "literature" are also in the same bookstore section? What about "mysteries" and "thrillers"? Does he have any plans for these areas? (How about "travel" and "leisure"?)
Thought 2: Sawyer is awfully polite to random people who ask him odd questions.
Thought 3: I'll go along with Edelstein's plan if he can solidly categorize the full list of borderline cases from rec.arts.sf.written and -- this is the tough part -- get everyone else to agree on them.
Just a few examples:
This isn't just a question about books of the past -- I hear that Justina Robson's upcoming novel has a near-future apocalypse in its backstory that brought elvish creatures to Earth. It is clear that Hal Clement is off on one side of the spectrum and David Eddings on the other, but a lot of writers do things in the squishy middle a lot of the time. Trying to consistently separate them out would be a big headache, and the main result would be that most SFF readers would have to check both sections to make sure they didn't miss anything.
At least, that's the my explanation as to why today he has brought us about a thousand words on Chester, the mascot for a local brand of cookie cereal.
No actual news here; I just wanted to note that this is the one thousandth post on the SFBC Blog.
It took me fourteen months to get to the thousandth post on my personal blog, but less than nine months to hit that same level for this blog. And why, you may ask? Because the SFBC Blog cares about you: we believe in giving value to the consumer -- and in inundating him with posts until he cries "uncle" and joins the club.
So, at this special time, won't you consider joining (if you haven't already)?
SF Signal, machetes in hand, are setting off on “The Great Pratchett Reading Project,” an attempt by two (or possibly three) men to read all of Pratchett’s “Discworld” novels in the order encoded in this mystic sigil. Godspeed to them…
Everything you didn't think you wanted to know about publishing and the life of an author, in two alphabetically organized posts by Paperback Writer, aka S.L. Viehl (aka several other writing names, as well).
Update, 1/8: Teresa Nielsen Hayden adds her own set of devilish definitions, from the other side of the editor's desk.
John Scalzi notes that the mass-market paperback of Old Man's War is replacing the trade paperback of Old Man's War, and memorializes the changing of the guard with a touching video tribute.
(But, if you're looking longingly at that hardcover Old Man's War, and wondering how to get a copy with that snazzy Donato cover on it, you can just click that link at the beginning of this sentence, and get it from your friendly neighborhood SFBC. Here, I'll give you a better view of it:
)
SF Signal has been asking authors about their favorite SF Setting -- one that they'd actually want to live in personally, and, as usual, John C. Wright responded at great and amusing length.
I won't spoil it for you by telling you where he wants to live, but he does make some good points. (Though I suspect he hasn't read much Iain M. Banks, whose "Culture" universe should also be mentioned in this context.)
No, literally -- he mixed up a bunch of ingredients, put it in a pie pan, stuck it in the oven at 375 and ate it afterwards.
Is there some competition for Oddest Writer Blog going on right now that I don't know about? Because John seems to be campaigning for it really hard.
Via SF Signal, here are the Top 176 Star Wars Lines Improved by Replacing a Word with "Pants."
Some personal favorites:
"I find your lack of pants disturbing."
"The emperor asks the impossible. I need more pants."
"I think you just can't bear to let a gorgeous guy like me out of your pants."
You thought hacking and hewing were easy, right?
Well, the Slush God is here to prove you wrong -- he recently witnessed a demonstration of Viking swordfighting techniques, and he's got the videos to prove it. Watch and learn.
If one might be so bold, one would like to draw the reader's attention to the very pertinent fact that today has been designated International Talk Like a Pirate Day, for the benefit of all.
One hesitates to be prescriptive in these matters, heaven knows, but one does urge all one's readers to indulge in the gaiety and frivolity of the day in the appropriate manner, and to pepper one's speech patterns with salty locutions and jocund cries usually only suitable for the most fierce of brigands hunting the briny deep.
One must, however, feel somewhat discomfited that the natural fraternal holiday, International Talk Like a Butler Day, has not yet been inaugurated. But that is a discussion for another time.
Please enjoy talking like a pirate, and do clean up after your parrots.
Neil Gaiman has discovered something appalling, and so, of course, he decides to share it with us all:
I present to you The Shire, a planned (horribly planned) community in Bend, Oregon. No, it's not as bad as you're thinking -- it's worse.
Yes, you heard me right. No, I don't know why. But he did it.
John Scalzi, over the weekend, posted a brief story about how a drunk kept bothering his wife in a bar and how she then dissuaded said drunk from further overtures. The story wandered off into cyberspace, was mutated and distorted, became the subject of various bits of commentary, and led to John issuing a follow-up yesterday.
This has very little to do with science fiction, but it does resonate interestingly with the Ellison-Willis fracas from Worldcon, so I'll throw it out for the benefit of the three of you who haven't already heard about it.
SF Signal has discovered a secret repository of Terry Pratchett quotes, taken from all sorts of sources, and suitable for use both in everyday conversation and to spiff up a lackluster .sig file.
The only drawback: it doesn't include one of my maxims to live by: "Personal isn't the same as important."
I have no excuse for this one, except perhaps for the fact that it's Friday:
SF Gate rips open the veil hiding the secret, scandalous world of...female stormtroopers!
There was a photo I saw yesterday of several female costumers all dressed up in the famous "slave girl" outfit from Return of the Jedi. I missed linking to it at the time, so I tried to find it again. Well, I didn't (anyone want to add it in comments?), but I did find the previously-unsuspected motherlode: Leia's Metal Bikini, an entire website devoted to that outfit and the various women brave enough to wear it.
Pardon me while I go lie down for a little while; all this excitement is going to my head.
The Daily Mail ponders the question "What does J.K. Rowling do with her money?"
(They seem to have missed the secret underground gnome army, poised to conquer Zurich -- but I've already said too much.)
I learned, just two minutes ago (via Big Blog of Cheese) that David Langford's world-renowned "Thog's Masterclass" feature, which has shared samples of differently-good prose with the world for several decades now, proudly faces the world on its own brand-new website.
Writers everywhere are shaking in their boots in dismay; I just know it.
Elizabeth Bear has some good advice for writers, and Tobias Buckell adds some comments.
They are all excellent suggestions, but (speaking as an editor who hasn't had breakfast today), #10, Baked Goods, is the real winner here.
Sci Fi Wire reports that David Copperfield is claiming to have discovered the actual Fountain of Youth in Florida. By an amazing coincidence, it's right in the middle of land Copperfield owns, and is part of a private resort. Amazing how things work out sometimes, huh?
Oh, that reminds me: have I mentioned yet that I've discovered a small but easily accessible vein of pure cavorite in my back yard?
It's late summer and everyone is very tired and distracted, so it must be time to vote on the Hotties of Publishing: Women's Division!
[via Locus Online, which also notes that NAL/Roc editor Liz Scheier is one of the battlin' beauties]
If you send e-mail to the SFBC, please do not block e-mails from the domains "doubledayent.com," "bookspan.com" and "yessolutions.com" -- if you do so, we will not be able to reply to you.
It is quite possible that not receiving a reply to your e-mail may make you unhappy or upset, but there's nothing we can do if you can't even read our messages.
Cordially,
An Editor Who Has Tried to Fill Out a Stupid Web Form Three Times And Is Now Sick Of It
In honor of the new Eos blog, here's a quick round-up of SFFnal publishing folks who are blogging. (Or at least the ones I know about and can remember right now.)
I'm sure I'm missing some people -- so who did I forget? (Any British editors blogging out there, for example?)
(Oh, yeah, there's also me.)
Orbit in the UK is holding a contest to find the best (well, maybe that's not the right word) cover art for Tom Holt's upcoming novel, Barking. Full details are on the Tom Holt website.
I quote: "marks deducted for any artistic ability displayed." So I don't want to hear any "I can't draw" excuses!
[seen via Emerald City]
Why do you cut out a coupon from a decades-old magazine, fill it out carefully, and send it in to me?
Do you think sending a coupon from 1962 will magically transport you back to that year, or that we still have vast piles of A Treasury of Great Science Fiction that we're not selling?
Do you not realize that we don't enroll everyone who tries to join, anyway, so it really is no trouble to just throw your coupon away?
What on earth do you expect is going to happen when you do this?
I've gotten a whole bunch of these in the past month or so, and I want to know if there's someone out there encouraging this strange behavior...
Update, fifteen minutes later: Of the five pieces of white mail I just opened, two were moldy old join-the-club coupons and one was an indignant "why didn't you enroll me from my moldy old coupon" letter. Again, what are these people thinking?
Really eagle-eyed viewers will have noted that my by-line (below) now reads "Andrew Wheeler" rather than "Andy Wheeler." It's still me, and I'm not intending to get more formal, but I did want to use my full name rather than a nickname.
In related news, let me point out that I am the Science Fiction Andrew Wheeler, but not the Comics Andrew Wheeler (or any of the many other famous and semi-famous Andrew Wheelers running around the 'Net). Please adjust your exectations accordingly.