Erratica Reduex

Orson Scott Card, (who based on his writing is "So far in the closet he can see Narnia"), has published a novella called "Hamlet's Father", that purports to improve the language, and tell us "what's really going on".

To spoil a book that really needs to be spoiled, what's going on, is that Hamlet has no angst, but is morally certain (none of that angst or questioning what happened after death). He also has no problems with Claudius, who is an excellent king, and completely innocent of murder. And best of all, Hamlet's father is an evil, hellbound gay homosexual pedophile, who molested prettyu much everyone in the court except for Hamlet. Yeah. I kid you not.

Oddly enough, reactions haven't been that positive. Amazon.com reviews haven't been positive,  Twitter launched a buyabiggaynovelforscottcardday hashtag. Writer Scott Lynch did a "so much less gay" treatment of Henry V in the vein of Card's revision. It's spawned a long discussion on metafilter, and even the Guardian has picked up the story.

Personally, I am not surprised. Orson Scott Card has not only been hateful and disturbing in his anti-gay obsession, but I also noted that even his earlier books such as Ender's Game really are propaganda for his two other beliefs: that child abuse is OK, and that as long as the intent is rightous, any action is aceptable. the main difference I see between Ender's Game and Hamlet's Father, is that back in the day, Card was more adept at hiding his message. Either the rumors that Card had assistance on Enders game is rue, or the Brain Eater has completely destroyed his ability to write.

One of the great novelists of the 20th century has passed on.

More than merely a fantasist, Diana Wynne Jones had a keen grasp of human nature and the dysfunctions that can happen in addition to, not in spite of love. She also taught that one can survive such dysfunctions, even as she showed that story resolutions could be ambiguous as far as happy endings- bittersweet or simply a new phase of life. The young adult genre helped, not hindered her work; it allowed her a format for crisp dialogue and complex personalities, free of the fluff and padding adult novels require. She was absolutely brilliant at conveying exactly the amount of information the reader needed through dialogue and description, allowing readers to exercise their imaginations. Many writers (besides Rowling) owe a debt to her; I know that on rereading many of her novels as an adult part of my brain marvels at and analyzes her perfect, unpretentious style.

Diana Wynne Jones deeply influenced my life and my writing. My future wife and I grew closer as I recommended DWJ books to her. Today my wife was crying as she told me the news-which itself was like an ice-cold dagger through my chest. I wish I could have met her and thanked her in person, but at least I have her books.

For those of you who have not read her works, here's some recommendations:

The Homeward Bounders: a young boy sees what he shouldn't, and is put into The Game, wandering through parallel worlds, trying to find a way home. Possibly one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read.

Howl's Moving Castle: Made into a Miyazaki movie, the novel has far more depth of personality to it. Sophie, aged before her time deals with the notorious wizard Howl.

The Dalemark Quartet: the four novels span the history of Dalemark and it's hidden magic, while also being a meditation on family and the lies and truths behind heroism.

Time of the Ghost: informed by DWJ's own childhood, it speaks of neglectful parents, children surviving as best they can, and the hunger of ancient gods.

Fire and Hemlock: Possibly DWJ's most complex book, following a young woman as she tries to piece together her childhood memories of trying to help a man trapped in a terrible web of magic.

Tough Guide to Fantasyland: in this helpful guidebook for tourists, DWJ merclessly skewers fantasy cliches and tropes, from horses (evidently atomic powered), color coded eyes and hair, the evident lack of an economy for fantasyland, to the omnipresent stew and cloaks.

Dark Lord of Derkholm: Wizard Derk would rather be left in peace with his experiments, but it's his turn to play the Dark Lord. And as he finds out, meeting the expectations of fantasy tour groups isn't good for his family, or the land in general.

The Television Tropes wiki has introduced a new service, called Useful Notes, which is a collection of more-or-less factual articles designed to inform and educate readers, and "debunk common media stereotypes". In other words, it's to do much the same thing that TV Tropes was originally created to do.  It's interesting that TV Tropes has become so huge and unwieldy it needs a fact page, but not that surprising. I personally think that some time ago TV Tropes passed the point of usability and is now just about how many video game and anime series references one can fit to a given trope.

I've also been hearing from some writers that TV Tropes has become an active detriment to their writing anything. Some have told me that they develop a writer's block after reading TV Tropes, and others have mentioned that they get too depressed to write. In both case, they state thhe problem as being "WEll, all the tropes have been done before, so I can't do anything original.

I can't help but think this is a product of Television Topes own success. TV Tropes used to be useful both in describing some of the "Cheats" that writers used, and in pointing out the cliched, racist and sexist elements in TV shows. However I'm starting to see it used as a substitute for actually describing what's going on in a given piece of fiction. Believe it or not there IS a difference between Madmen and Supernatural, even if they share some tropes- which I know they do, because ALL shows share tropes. That's where I suspect the sense of depression really comes in, from knowing that one's work won't actually be judged for what it has to say or the quality of our writing, but merely cataloged on what tropes people can glom onto. It's description as a substitute for criticism.

Not only has the situation become like that joke where prisoners simply say the numbers of jokes, TV Tropes is rapidly becoming prescriptive, not descriptive. I've actually heard writers say "Well, I'm doing a story about subject X, so according to TV Tropes, I need to have Tropes A, B, and G-R in it. Hell, I can practically do my writing by numbers now." It's like an author listening too much to what fans want to see- the end result is Piers Anthony.

I suppose the answer could be as simple as a writer not reading TV Tropes, but TV Tropes has had a valuable role to play in pointing out bad writing and cliches, especially those that are racist, sexist, or other-ist. And of course it leaves the problem of other people putting too much emphasis into TV Tropes. Maybe it's just time to start over, or do some vigorous editing of the site?

What do you all think?

Nicked from James Nicoll and a couple other blogs.

SO, if you start with Diana Comet's Periodic Table of Women in Science Fiction (PDF) from Sandra McDonald's blog. And then you list them out in no particular order, so you have 110 women that are considered important in the SF field.

NOW, bold the ones you own books of, italicised, the women you’ve read something of (short stories count) and star* those you've never heard of

*( this is a star, folks.)


So as for me, I ended up with this, rather disappointing list.


Andre Norton
C. L. Moore
Evangeline Walton
Leigh Brackett
Judith Merril
Joanna Russ
*Margaret St. Clair
*Katherine MacLean
*Carol Emshwiller
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Zenna Henderson
Madeline L’Engle
*Angela Carter
Ursula LeGuin
Anne McCaffrey
Diana Wynne Jones
* Kit Reed
James Tiptree, Jr.
Rachel Pollack
Jane Yolen
*Marta Randall
*Eleanor Arnason
*Ellen Asher
Patricia A. McKillip
*Suzy McKee Charnas
*Lisa Tuttle
*Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Tanith Lee
Pamela Sargeant
*Jayge Carr
Vonda McIntyre
Octavia E. Butler
Kate Wilhelm
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
*Sheila Finch
Mary Gentle
Jessia Amanda Salmonson
C. J. Cherryh
Joan D. Vinge
Teresa Nielsen Hayden (does reading the racefail diatribes in her blog posts count?)
* Ellen Kushner
*Ellen Datlow
Nancy Kress
*Pat Murphy
*Lisa Goldstein
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
*Mary Turzillo
Connie Willis
Barbara Hambly
*Nancy Holder
Sheri S. Tepper
*Melissa Scott
Margaret Atwood
Lois McMaster Bujold
Jeanne Cavelos
Karen Joy Fowler
*Leigh Kennedy
Judith Moffett
*Rebecca Ore
Emma Bull
*Pat Cadigan
*Kathyrn Cramer
Laura Mixon
Eileen Gunn
Elizabeth Hand
*Kij Johnson
*Delia Sherman
Elizabeth Moon
*Michaela Roessner
Terri Windling
Sharon Lee
Sherwood Smith
Katherine Kurtz
*Margo Lanagan
Laura Resnick
*Kristine Kathryn Rusch
*Sheila Williams
*Farah Mendlesohn
Gwyneth Jones
*Ardath Mayhar
Esther Friesner
Debra Doyle
Nicola Griffith
*Amy Thomson
*Martha Wells
Catherine Asaro
Kate Elliott
Kathleen Ann Goonan
*Shawna McCarthy
Caitlin Kiernan
Maureen McHugh
*Cheryl Morgan
*Nisi Shawl
*Mary Doria Russell
Kage Baker
*Kelly Link
*Nancy Springer
J. K. Rowling
*Nalo Hopkinson
*Ellen Klages
*Tanarive Due
*M. Rickert
*Theodora Goss
*Mary Anne Mohanraj
S. L. Viehl
Jo Walton
Kristine Smith
*Deborah Layne
Cherie Priest
*Wen Spencer
*K. J. Bishop
*Catherynne M. Valente
Elizabeth Bear
Ekaterina Sedia
Naomi Novik
*Mary Robinette Kowal
Ann VanderMeer

I suppose I could make excuses such as "look at all the male writers I've never heard of", or explain that it's partially because I've become so picky recently I'm not reading many authors at all. But really, the main thing I'm coming away with is that based on the minimal research I did, there's a number of writers in this list with novels I'd like to have a look at.

Also, I noticed there's a lot of authors who really need some help with their websites. Just sayin'.

"Midnighters: The Secret Hour" by Scott Westerfield, author of the "Uglies series.

A blurb about the novel:

Strange things happen at midnight in the town of Bixby, Oklahoma.

Time freezes.

Nobody moves.

For one secret hour each night, the town belongs to the dark creatures that haunt the shadows. Only a small group of people know about the secret hour -- only they are free to move about the midnight time.

These people call themselves Midnighters. Each one has a different power that is strongest at midnight: Seer, Mindcaster, Acrobat, Polymath. For years the Midnighters and the dark creatures have shared the secret hour, uneasily avoiding one another. All that changes when the new girl with an unmistakable midnight aura appears at Bixby High School.

Need a hint? No clue?

Try this:

The most I can say is hopefully in the novel, people don't have to put a gun to their head to activate their powers.

Kevin W. Reardon wanted to be a well-known writer. He is. He doesn't seem to have gotten the message though -- after telling an editor who gave him a negative review should kill himself and his cat -- that really, not all publicity is good publicity. Now he's moved on to calling up and harassing bloggers who pan him.  I swear, he must log onto the information highway using the short keyboard.

So, Mark Charan Newton has posted the latest iteration of the game SF fans like to play: doing a pre-death post mortum as to why Science Fiction (particularly hard SF literature) isn't as insanely popular as it was in the past. Since I've been hearing this sort of stuff for over fifteen years, I have little patience for this whinging, but I'll try.

In his article, Newton hits on all the Usual Suspects:

1. More women than men read books. And evidently, women's brains are unable to understand the complex concepts of Science Fiction.

2. Culture has caught up with our imagination: in other words, we're living in the future, and why bother reading Asimov or Analog, when you can read New Scientist...which is actually a SF magazine under false pretenses.

3. Literary fiction is eating up SF: Those villainous authors who get themselves placed in the general lit section of the bookstore are killing SF.

4. Modern Fantasy readers have seen Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, and have thus lost the capacity for a literature of ideas.

From my perspective the big, Number one major mistake that Newton makes (Besides considering Warhammer 40K SF instead of Fantasy) is that he insists on blaming external factors for the decline in SF. He refuses to consider the point that the traditional SF genre itself has a number of problematic elements. For one thing, much of the corpus of the subgenre it is extremely badly written; it has terrible characterization, simplistic plotting, atrocious use of conventions and voice...in short, it's bad literature. In fact the whole "Literature of ideas" nomenclature is basically sleight of hand, where we're supposed to be so enraptured by the concepts that we don't pay attention to the obvious flaws in the writing.

If there's any aspect that the greater presence of women readers has had an effect, it's the problem that SF has pretty much been a "boys club" for fifty years, reflecting the interests and views of a select group of elitist white males. It can be argued that relatively few women are going to be interested in how the bronze-thewed heroic spaceman triumphs in trampling the alien culture through dint of his superior intellect, and wins the beautiful woman to be his bride (or at least gets to boink her). When you have allegedly modern writers like SM Stirling talking about how once you take electricity away women will happily go back to being domestic slaves, when you have writers like Niven and Zelazney and Heinlein and Card regarding women as alien objects that can only be schtupped, not understood...well, that's not going to go over well in a somewhat more egalitarian society. And that's not even taking into account the generally reactionary, ethnocentric, and in many cases downright archaic views that a lot of SF writers have.

In other words, as writer Alastair Reynolds succinctly puts it: "Much of it is rightwing, reactionary crap."Fantasy seems to have a bit of an easier time meeting modern literary standards oddly enough, or rather it doesn't fall back on the "literature of ideas" excuse, and that's why it's been increasing in relative popularity.

If you ladies are still strapped for costume ideas at this late date, well, there's this original idea from a Japanese designer:





This is one of a collection of 15 chemograph plates from Military Costumes in Old Japan, by Kazumasa Ogawa, published in 1895.

Evidently some of the grognards in the SF field were grumbling, because YA books won the Nebula (Powers, by Ursula K. LeGuin), Tiptree (The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness), and have even been nominated for the Hugo. John Scalzi has a trenchant response that should send these grumblers back under their rocks, but don't stop there; the responses include a number of recommendations for new YA novels that adults may find interesting.

I find this particularly interesting, because YA books were what got me into reading Speculative Fiction, and some of the ones I read, I'll put up against any adult novel.  Books like have Spacesuit Will Travel, or The Star Beast, or The Homeward Bounders, or The Spirit Ring or The White Mountains are books I'll happily have on my shelf next to any "adult" novel.

I admit that I have a weakness for YA books, because they tend to have more of a straightforward concentration on character and plot, and they are one of the few groups of SF novels that actually adhere to the concept of putting everything in a reasonable length. And I admit my writing style is more in the line of YA writing.  But beyond that, YA books have been a gateway to a broader interest in SF for generations, and its nice to see them get recognition for that fact.