Jenny: Oh, I've got the whole universe. Planets to save, civilisations to rescue, creatures to defeat and an awful lot of running to do.
The Doctor’s Daughter, Doctor Who
In my opinion, there’s a certain cachet in being able to watch Doctor Who in England, but sadly the premier of the new season takes place one day after we get back to Canada from our honeymoon. However, it’s not all bad - I somehow doubt that any of the Airbnb’s (or regular BnB’s, for that matter) will have 65 inch HD televisions.
- Sid
P.S. The second trailer for the new season is out, and based on that cursory overview it all seems to fit into the standard format as per The Doctor’s Daughter: planet saving, civilization rescuing, creature defeating and an awful lot of running, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether or not you’re expecting new show runner Chris Chibnall to break the mold. Commenting on the new season, he said:
It’s not a reboot it’s just that great, unique thing which is built into Doctor Who: a fresh start happens every few years. This is no different to when Tom Baker changed to Peter Davison, or when the show went from black and white to colour, with Patrick Troughton handing over to Jon Pertwee. The show has a history of renewal, while also staying faithful to what it is.
It’s the amazing thing about Doctor Who is this fresh start every few years which brings a whole new jolt of energy to the show. And hopefully encourages the next generation of audiences to try the show, while also reminding existing audiences why they love it. Casting a new actor also brings in new opportunities to think about where the show is, think about where the world is, think about where you might want the stories to go. I hope we’ve got a fresh set of stories that are engaged with, and resonate with, the world we live in now.
It's a busy time for the show, with a new showrunner and a new Doctor, and the first episode, written by Mr. Chibnall, will be under a lot of scrutiny as the frontrunner for the new season. Will it manage to successfully combine tradition and innovation? As always, time will tell…
It's been just over a month since our wedding, and Karli and I are at last heading out on our honeymoon: we leave today for six days in London (with a day trip to Paris), an overnight stay in York, a quick Ryanair puddlejumper flight from Leeds to Dublin, followed by a four-day coach tour of Southern Ireland and then back to Dublin for the last three days of our trip.
We're very excited and eager for the trip: we've both been to London before, although it's been a while for Karli, but Ireland is unknown territory for me, so I'm quite looking forward to our time there. Really, though, it's all going to be a little more special this time because we're going to be there together.
In addition to just wandering hand in hand beside the Thames in the autumn rain, we do have some definite plans for our time in the capital of the Commonwealth. We'll be there for my birthday, which we'll commemorate with a trip to the Tower of London and a visit to London's geek shopping paradise, the Forbidden Planet megastore. We also have tickets for the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour, which will take us out of the city to suburban Watford for a visit to Diagon Alley and the Great Hall, among other locations. (Platform 9 3/4 can be found at King's Cross Station in London, if you're curious.)
But first, we need to finish packing and get ready to head out to the airport for our afternoon flight. Poor Jaq the Cat can sense that something's going on, and he's been roaming around meowing apprehensively while we stack up clothing, iPad chargers and toiletries. Sorry, little fellow - we'd love to take you with us, but I don't think you'd enjoy it quite as much as we're expecting to.
- Sid
* I've never really looked at the lyrics to the Clash song before this - it's an astonishing list of apocalyptic disasters:
The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in Meltdown expected, the wheat is growin' thin Engines stop running, but I have no fear 'Cause London is drowning, and I, I live by the river
"We creators are the engineers of possibility. And as this genre finally - however grudgingly - acknowledges that the dreams of the marginalized matter, and that ALL of us have a future, so will go the world. Soon, I hope."
N.K. Jemisin, 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novel acceptance speech
At the 76th Annual Worldcon on August 19th, the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novel was presented to author N. K. Jemisin for Stone Sky, the third novel in her Broken Earth series, and the third novel in the series to win the Best Novel Hugo. This makes her the only person to win the Best Novel Hugo three years in a row, and the only person to win for every book in a trilogy.
Her triumphant acceptance speech recognizes the barriers that she has had to overcome in order to stand at the podium. Unfortunately, not everyone has felt that she deserves to be recognized in this fashion. She has been insulted, harassed and dismissed, which makes her victory all the more laudable.
Her treatment reflects a larger problem in the science fiction community, which has been caught up in an unhappy conflict for the last few years. It is a conflict which in all ways defies and denies the fundamental truths of the genre.
The dispute is based on the contention of some writers and fans that too much of the science
fiction being recognized with awards is receiving that recognition solely
because of the race, sexuality or political convictions* of its creators
rather than the quality of the writing**. In the short-sighted view of these reactionaries, divided into the Sad and Rabid Puppies***, winners such as Jemisin are only winners because of liberal politics.
To protest this perceived
inequity, for the past few years the Rabid Puppies has been attempting (with some degree of success) to subvert or
ruin the Hugo Awards by gaming the voting process so as to load the list of nominees with their
choices, some of which are deliberate jokes rather than valid nominees.
The rest of the Worldcon membership has rallied in opposition to this unfortunate strategy, and Jemisin's third victory is a milestone that marks their ongoing success.
However, I'm puzzled and disappointed by the position taken by the Puppies in all their incarnations. For me, one of the core lessons that science fiction has taught me is acceptance of diversity.
Over the years, I've read books where the hero
was a six foot long alien centipede who was afraid of heights, books
where Martians eat the bodies of their dead as a sign of respect and
love, and books where an artificial intelligence the size of a planet
displays its penmanship by sending greeting cards.
As such, the question
of race or sex is almost a joke - if you can empathize with an alien
insect's acrophobia, how can stories with gay characters or people of colour be a
challenge in terms of acceptance?
Similarly, it doesn't matter to me if the work is created by authors of colour, gay authors, gay authors of
colour, or gay authors of colour who worship Satan, worship God, deny
God, or believe in Bigfoot - it's all irrelevant other than as minor biographical information, like being from Seattle or having two
cats.
The thing that does matter to me is that I share a wider view of
the universe with these authors, something which is far more important to me than the colour of anyone's skin or the nature of their sexuality. That wider view makes us members of the same family, a family that I am proud to belong to.
I discussed this whole situation with my wife Karli, and she made an observation about the Puppies that perfectly summarized the
problem: "They're afraid of the future."
What a sad, sad state of mind for a group of science fiction fans and authors.
- Sid
* Or d), all of the above.
** I haven't had the pleasure of reading any of Ms. Jemisin's work
(although I certainly plan to) so in lieu of personal experience I looked at her resume, which turned out to be both extensive and
impressive. It's obvious that she has won her multiple awards by honing
her craft, by working really really hard, and by being a talented
writer - or, as she puts it, "Because I worked my ass off."
***
This innocuous sounding name comes from Sad Puppies founder Larry
Correia, who said that the omission of his work from the Hugo ballots "made
puppies sad".
One of the interesting things about George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is that we do not witness the transition to the totalitarian state of affairs described in the book. We enter the dystopian future of Winston Smith in medias res, rather than observing the process whereby the world of Newspeak and Ingsoc comes into being.
However, it's very easy to look at the current state of affairs in the United States and think that it could be showing us the first steps down the horrifying road that results in Smith's milieu, a comparison driven home sharply by the recent comment from Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Guiliani
that "truth is not truth".
Although Guiliani has since attempted to explain that he didn't mean that statement in the way that it's been interpreted, it follows hard on far too many similar examples from the White House such as the obvious doublethink of "alternative facts" - described by Orwell
as “an unending series of victories over your own memory” - which is matched by Trump's recent exhortation to a crowd in Kansas City that "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening." Or, as in Nineteen Eighty-Four:
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.
As with the government of Oceania, one-time allies become foes, and foes become allies. Members of the inner circle are cast out and demonized: a role played in Nineteen Eighty-Four by Emmanuel Goldstein, once a member of the government and now the Enemy of the People, accused of crimes such as "advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought”. (Remember Trump's announcement that the media is "an enemy of the people"?)
After a while, it starts to feel like Trump has based his rhetoric on some long-forgotten reading of Orwell's text. In 1984, "nothing is illegal, because there are no laws", and the government is opposed by " a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State."
One wonders if the Trump government would ever take the final step as described in the novel:
In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.
It seems unlikely, but then, they've certainly managed to nail the "ignorance is strength" part - once you have that, the rest must be easy.
In spite of more than a few jokes, there was not a word of Klingon at our wedding ceremony on the 18th. No one showed up in Jedi robes, regardless of my suggestion to Karli that, when asked about dress code, we should tell just one person that the wedding had a Star Wars theme. My friend Chris took a long shot at connecting the number of attendees with the total number of rings in the poem from The Lord of the Rings (Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky...) - sorry, 21 wedding guests, 20 rings. Our officiant's name, Kadee Wirick Smedley, would be completely acceptable for a faculty member at Hogwarts, but her degree is in Divinity rather than Defence Against the Dark Arts. In other words, to the best of my knowledge, there was not a single element of either the service or the reception that in any way involved science fiction or fantasy, although it was very definitely a magical day for both of us - as are all of the days that I share with Karli.
- Sid
Gratitude:
I'd like to thank Karli's parents and step-parents for all of their help and support throughout the wedding process, from helping us select our venue up to delivering the cake, and for their incredible generosity in helping us out financially. I'd also like to thank all of the friends and relatives who attended the wedding ceremony for sharing a very special event with us - your love and support was very much a part of what made it so special. And to all of the people who attended our reception/party, thank you for helping us celebrate being married, and for your equally incredible generosity. My sole regret from my wedding day is that I didn't talk to enough people at the party, I hope that no one was offended by that.
And, finally, I have to express my thanks to Karli for marrying me. As I said in my vows, I have never been happier in my life, and I owe all my happiness to her.
"Revolution is everywhere, in everything. It is infinite. There is no final revolution, no final number.
- Yevgeny Zamyatin
Yevgeny Zamyatin was a philosopher, author and dissident in a time and place that tolerated none of those roles - Stalin's Russia. His dystopian science fiction novel We, written in 1920, never saw publication in Russia. He died in Paris in 1937, exiled from Russia at his own request.
For me, his quote expresses the essential shared nature of science fiction and fantasy: a revolution that never ends - an infinite revolution.
Introduction
I've been reading science fiction and fantasy for as long as I can remember - in fact, my involvement goes back further than that, my mother used to say that she had read the Narnia books to me when I was a baby. I've maintained my interest over the years, and after my friend Colin started HIS blog (Campbell Brothers Winery), I thought to myself, hey, if no one stopped HIM*... I make no claim to being an authority in any way, shape or form, and since there are lots of lists, biographies and bibliographies out there on the net, this is just going to be a place for me to vent some of my thoughts and opinions.
*And the Campbell Brothers may be desperately in need of stopping, based on all evidence.
