Patrick Nielsen Hayden

If anyone reading this has the texts of anything posted to Making Light since March 1--front-page posts, comment threads, anything--archived or in a cache somewhere, now would be a really great time to mail copies of them to us.

I understand in particular that some RSS readers, such as NetNewsWire, can auto-archive HTML of posts they've read. If you have such archives for Making Light, we'd be hugely obliged.

Yes, we're down; the whole server has crashed. Our ISP is trying to recover the data but they're not optimistic. And yes, usually we back up more frequently, but for the last couple of months backups have been failing, which probably we should have taken as a clue.

We've known for a long time that we need to find someone we can pay to renovate Making Light to be more managable and less server-intensive. We started with Movable Type when it was easy to use, and it's become progressively more complicated and difficult for non-technical users. I suspect, although I may be wrong, that we need to move to WordPress. But most to the point, we need to find someone we can get to figure it out, recommend a strategy, and implement it, and while we can't pay a lot of money, we can pay.

UPDATE: In the interim, we'd like to redirect the Making Light comment community over to Abi Sutherland's blog, Evilrooster Crows. She'll have a post up there shortly. In the interest of having one place to discuss these technical issues, I'm closing comments here and asking that folks post over there. Apologies for any inconvenience.

I dunno, call me crazy, but it seems to me possible that for some writers, blogging is a time sink and a creative drain, while for others it's a source of connection, energy, and inspiration. It might even be that human beings, not just writers, are all different from one another. I realize that this reveals me as prone to wild, nutty speculation, but that's probably why I work with that crazy rocketship stuff.

I'll give Keith DeCandido credit for one thing: he understands that writing doesn't become "professional" just because a professional does it. I assume that he also understands the implication: "pro" and "fan" are terms for things that we do, not things that we are.

That said, several things are silly about the fuss over the presence, on the final Nebula ballot, of the script of a Star Trek "fan film" written by Michael Reaves and Marc Scott Zicree.

First, there's the argument (ventured by Keith and echoed by several commenters) that SFWA ought not to have done this when no works of professionally-written media tie-in fiction have ever made the final ballot. This reads as little better than whining. I'll happily grant that some good books have been written in the tie-in mines (John M. Ford's Trek novels spring to mind), but the historical absence of such books from lists of Nebula finalists hardly comes as a surprise.

Second, DeCandido opines that "World Enough and Time" is a work of "fanfiction", and that therefore it "should be the opinion of everyone" that it must be removed from the ballot instantly. Unfortunately, Keith's certainty falls victims to some inconvenient facts. While the official Nebula rules for Best Script specify that nominated works must have been "professionally produced," in fact, no other Nebula category requires "professional" publication or production. (Your kid brother's xeroxed fanfic story is in fact eligible for a Nebula, as well it should be, unless what we're doing is giving out awards for Best Contract, Best Business Model, or Fiscal Publishing Arrangement We Approve Of Most. Instead of for, you know, stories.) And moreover, it turns out--unless SFWA President Michael Capobianco is just funnin' us--that Reaves and Zicree were paid for their script.

The third silly thing is the suggestion that "World Enough in Time" should have been excluded due to questions about how "authorized" by Star Trek's owners it may or may not be. Again, for the Nebula administrators to worry about such matters puts us right back into the business of handing out awards for deals, rather than for works. Emphatically, SFWA should be an organization of professionals, not of wannabes. But what professional writers give awards for is writing, not contracts. Nebula administrators should not and cannot be expected to police nominees for whether they do or don't meet particular levels of "professionalism" or "authorization," particularly at a time when these terms and the business models from which they derive are in extreme flux and no three SFWAns can be expected to agree on precisely what they entail.

Capobianco is to be commended for handling this matter with good sense.

I'm puzzled by Denvention's online Hugo-nomination setup. Specifically, it's not clear to me that people who were Nippon members but who are not yet Denvention members can nominate online.

As we all know, members of the previous Worldcon are eligible to nominate in the Hugos. Denvention's site says that you need a PIN number to use their online facility, and instructs us that "if you are a Denvention member and you need your Hugo PIN number, send your name and address to pin@denvention.org". But it says nothing about what to do if you're not a Denvention member.

I've asked this question in a couple of other places, and I've also emailed pin@denvention.org, but so far I've received no answer.

I don't think I'm imagining that, back in the day, people didn't refer to the release of the preliminary Nebula "long list" by saying that "the Nebula nominations are out," or refer to a work on that list being "nominated for a Nebula." I certainly know that, even now, if I see a novel referred to (say, on its paperback cover) as a "Nebula nominee," I assume that means it was one of the five or six finalists on the final ballot.

Being on the preliminary ballot is a nice thing; congratulations to everyone who is. And I realize that nitpicking about the Nebula Awards is an offense against common sense (and mental health) deserving of at least decade in purgatory. But I feel compelled to note this bit of subcultural drift before it swirls entirely down the memory hole.

Wow, it's discouraging to see how many folks on my flist seem to be taking this Presidential-candidate "meme" as if it were remotely meaningful. Good grief, people, you're smarter than this.

First, the quiz is obviously and nakedly shot through with all kinds of assumptions, false oppositions, and quiet omissions. For instance, the idea that the argument over health care can be fairly represented as a dispute between these positions--

* We need a national health insurance system that makes sure everyone is covered

* Keep the current system, but cut regulation and give health insurers more control

* No significant changes are needed at this time

--is simply retarded. In fact, the real argument is between:

* Reformers who want to "mandate" that everyone has to purchase health insurance, along with certain guarantees and subsidies for people in dire straits (the Clinton and Edwards approach; also, roughly speaking, the approach passed by the Massachusetts legislature and signed by Mitt Romney)

* Reformers who want to offer more guarantees and subsidies without imposing a mandate (the Obama approach)

* Advocates of a "single-payer" system in which basic health care is simply financed directly by the government (the approach taken by most of the civilized world)

* Opponents of serious health-care reform (insurance companies, the AMA, the HMO industry, most Republicans, the legions of Hell, etc)

Likewise, the question about the "balance of business vs. workers" is simply crude propaganda for the view that the well-being of "business" and "workers" is a zero-sum game, a view not borne out by actual American history. If you want to talk about workers versus top-level managers, you can make a strong argument that the stratospheric salaries now being paid to CEOs are being financed by squeezing everyone else's pay. But the well-being of top managers isn't the same as the well-being of business, no matter how hard the Wall Street Journal tries to blur the distinction. (Look! Halley's Comet! Burly union organizers pushing pregnant women off sidewalks!)

Let's not even get into the "free trade" question, compared to which, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" is a model of rhetorical fairness.

Even leaving the quiz's tendentiousness aside, ultimately sensible people don't pick candidates for office based exclusively on a one-to-one correspondence on "issues." We also consider what we understand of the candidates' character and we make what we hope are reasonable guesses about how effective they'd be in office. Like most of my other friends taking the test, I got results suggesting I should support Kucinich or Gravel, which I'm very unlikely to ever do; Gravel is a silly man, and while I have some respect for Kucinich, I don't see him being an effective bulwark against the worst forces in our society. (I also don't trust his just-in-time-for-2004 conversion on the subject of abortion rights; prior to that, he was an ardent opponent of them.) Similarly, although the quiz bunches all the Republican candidates at the bottom for me, the one it tells me I ought to most prefer is Giuliani, whereas in real life I'd vote for almost anyone else, because I think Rudy Giuliani is a genuinely terrible human being. I also don't believe for a moment that I actually agree with him on all that many issues, and it's shocking to me to read a normally sensible person like davidlevine writing that "Giuliani's stated policies are, indeed, the closest to sane of the R's." As I've said before, this is a guy whose foreign policy team consists of the people who couldn't get jobs in the Bush Administration because Dick Cheney thought they were too crazy. Giuliani may have a non-insane "stated position" or two on a couple of social issues, but he's also very clearly and plainly promised, in so many words, to appoint more Supreme Court justices in the mode of Scalia and Alito. If you think this makes him "close to sane," or a "moderate," you're either not paying nearly enough attention or you're out of your flipping mind. What I know is that the last time a lot of Americans lazily assumed a Republican candidate was bearably "moderate" because all the wise-looking pundits said he was, we got George W. Bush. Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, people, wake up and start informing yourselves.

090-6498-6032

Dialing from the US, remember to use the country code for Japan--81--and drop the leading zero from 90.

I get in at about 2 PM Monday, which is to say, 1 AM Monday EDT. And I leave on Tuesday, September 4th, at 4:35 PM, arriving in Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday, September 4th, at 4:30 PM. Fourteen hours of work in order to travel five minutes backwards in time. It figures.

"We have always been strong supporters of free speech."

Sure, until you encountered any pressure whatsoever.

My own favorite fact about this kerfuffle is that Six Apart rolled over for an organization whose site masthead reads "WE ARE THE ONLY THING THAT STANDS BETWEEN EVIL AND THE INNOCENT." Right, you're Batman. And I'm Galactus, Eater of Worlds.

If Six Apart's management couldn't tell from "Warriors for Innocence"'s own self-presentation that this outfit might not be the most level-headed of reporters, Six Apart are very dumb bunnies indeed. I give them credit for now realizing that they've stepped in it, but nothing about this statement gives me confidence that they won't cave in to the next ridiculous demand.

The real thing to worry about is here:

We never intended this policy to cause the removal of journals that were have perfectly valid discussions about literature, law or culture. We never intended the policies to take down journals or communities clearly opposed to illegal activities but clearly we did.

LJ appears to be claiming the right to arbitrarily delete content that's in favor of "illegal activities." But LJ operates in many jurisdictions, and in some of them, things are "illegal activities" which reasonable people might well discuss and even advocate. Is Six Apart going to delete my journal if I advocate the use of marijuana to treat glaucoma? Evidently so, if they get a hysterical enough set of threats from some group of self-appointed anti-drug caped crusaders.

I'm already unhappy with 6A for redefining Movable Type as a "business" product, so that in order to maintain security against new exploits, we have to keep upgrading to more and more complicated versions that we understand less and less. At this point I no longer have any faith in 6A's common sense, either. I certainly won't be giving them any more money, nor will I recommend any of their products to new users. They simply can't be trusted.

Okay, we're settled in at ConQuest in Kansas City. Last night, we accompanied a clatch of fans to local barbecue shrine Arthur Bryant's; not coincidentally, for breakfast this morning, I'm scarfing down a Bryant's sausage "sandwich," which is to say, well over a pound of meat covered in brilliant barbecue sauce and wrapped up in slices of bunny bread. The bread exists primarily to be used as silverware, and to mop up extra sauce. The entire object, prepared "to go," is roughly the size of a football and weighs about a pound and a half. Life could be a lot worse.

It occurs to me that whoever wins the 2009 site selection, it's guaranteed to be a delicious worldcon for unabashed devotees of protein and fat. Let's see, Arthur Bryant's or Au Pied de Couchon? Transcendently tart short ribs, or brain-killingly tasty lamb shank confit? So very many ways to rush headlong into an infirm old age.

SFWA vice-presidential candidate Andrew Burt warns of the growing menace of...argument:

When people feel that line has been crossed, and they're being urged to adopt the speaker's opinions as their own, that doesn't go over well.

"Socrates is committing an injustice, in that he enquires into things below the earth and in the sky, and makes the weaker argument the stronger, and teaches others to follow his example."

Read the whole amazing thread.

Not for the first time, I find that LiveJournal conversations about how We All Hate This Thing, OMG I thought I was the only person who hated this thing!, THANK YOU SO MUCH for reassuring me that it's okay to hate this thing!!!, annoy the living crap out of me.

Yes, I do realize the potentially recursive irony of this post.

Happy birthday, baldanders!

Is LiveJournal doing something clever with AOL Instant Messenger IDs? I have no idea why the AIM ID I have listed on my LJ info page is suddenly showing up in the "buddy" lists of people whose AIM ID I don't even know. Not total strangers, but...

“Of all the fab covers I’ve gotten from Tor, the trade pb Freedom and Necessity is the most top-drawer, table-at-the-front-of-the-bookstore, staff-recommendation, didn’t-I-see-this-in-the-New-York-Review-of-Books cover ever. That edition is so high-toned it refuses to have lunch with me.”
--Emma Bull

ISBN 0-765-31680-3, $15.95 ($19.95 CAN). An Orb Book. Larger cover image here.

Okay, I said, there's someone who's got an album of covers slated to release next month. I'm going to read you the list of songs, and you tell me who the artist is. Okay, Teresa said.

The list:
"Are You Experienced?"
"Everybody Wants To Rule the World"
"Helpless"
"Gimme Shelter"
"Within You Without You"
"White Rabbit"
"Changing of the Guards"
"The Boy in the Bubble"
"Soul Kitchen"
"Smells Like Teen Spirit"
"Midnight Rider"
"Pastime Paradise"

"Patti Smith," she said.

"Holy CRAP you're good," I said.

Under fire, tiresome Washington, DC insider pundit Joe Klein struggles to define what he means when he calls someone a "left-wing extremist."

Now you, too, can take the test!

What kind of extremist are you? Your Result: Rational Person   You consider these questions obvious straw men, designed to distract people from a meaningful investigation of facts and a serious discussion of relevant political issues. How boring.
Left-Wing Extremist
Moderate Extremist
Right-Wing Extremist
What kind of extremist are you? Make a Quiz

I meant to make it possible for anyone to comment on the last two entries, non-LJ-users included. Instead, being an idiot, I appear to have done the exact opposite. Fixed now, I think.

Email from Richard Horton about the subject of my previous post.

I truly apologize to Patrick and everyone at Tor for any offense I have caused. In a later post I made sure to mention Bantam and Ace and Baen--of course I did not mean that it is only all-powerful Tor that ought to be ignored by the jury.

I honestly do not feel, and did not intend to express, the slightest bit of contempt (much less a truckload) for what you do at Tor. I respect it greatly--Laurie Mann says in some years Tor books are the only one she nominates--I believe the same may be true of me.

My concerns are rooted more in what I believe to be problems with the Nebula recommendation/nomination/voting system, problems which certainly go beyond any issues with the jury. I sincerely believe that the appropriate role for the jury is to find "overlooked" books. I believe that the Nebulas are properly an award bestowed by the SFWA membership as a whole.

I am comfortable with the argument that it is entirely possible for a book from Tor or Bantam or Baen to be unfairly overlooked. Indeed, I can see the argument that Farthing might be one such--I recall that my first post about it to rasfw was titled something like "Why no more buzz about Farthing?".

And I agree that there is danger in suggesting that "rank and file SFWA voters" are "easily-led genre-only-reading sheep"...a look at the recent NAR shows a few recomendations for The Road and A Brief History of the Dead, after all, and The Girl in the Glass was not published in the genre.

That said, I sincerely believe that most books published by Tor (and Bantam and Baen and Ace and DAW and even newbies like Pyr) are more likely to be seen by a wide swath of the SFWA membership, and thus more likely to amass enough recommendations to make a preliminary ballot--even if not until the following year.

And so I think the jury's role should be (and was, I think, intended to be--but I'm not sure of its history here) to find "overlooked" books, however defined. And it seems to me that a good rough and ready definition of overlooked is "published in another genre or published in the small press". Sherwood Smith suggests alternately that it might be a novel from someone who has been pigeonholed as one sort of writer and might be ignored accordingly--she suggests Kate Elliot's latest novel (published by Tor) as a candidate. Fair enough.

So it comes back to this--should the jury see itself as picking the best book not on the preliminary ballot? Or the best book that seems overlooked? Are there any explicit instructions? I don't think so. But it truly seems to me that the second choice--best overlooked book--is a better choice, in the spirit of what I think the Nebulas are intended to be. But if anyone wants to argue that my notions of what is overlooked are terribly wrong, please do...I concede that is very possible.

I apologize for being quite so bug-eyed and table-pounding about this, but we do still disagree on some substantive points.

My biggest disagreement is that I think "best book that seems overlooked" is an unworkably subjective standard, liable to lead to absurd conclusions. Those of us with access to real sales figures for particular books and authors constantly boggle at the guesses made by even well-informed fans and commentators like Richard Horton about what is and isn't "overlooked" or "popular. Every decent house in the SF field carries a bunch of authors on their list whose reputations among our field's chattering classes vastly outstrip their actual sales. Or, even harder to parse, whose reputations in certain parts of the field vastly outstrip both their sales and their actual overall fame. All this is a recipe for incredibly bad guesses about what can and can't be justly said to be "overlooked."

Moreover, the idea that "most books published by Tor (and Bantam and Baen and Ace and DAW and even newbies like Pyr) are more likely to be seen by a wide swath of the SFWA membership" is just wrong. SFWA has over 1200 members. I doubt very much that most hardcovers and trade paperbacks published in a given year by Tor, Bantam, Ace, etc., are actually purchased and read by more than a few dozen SFWA members. The average trade book from us alleged genre titans has, in reality, just about as much chance of being "overlooked" (i.e., not read) by the overwhelming majority of SFWA members as anything from a small press or a mainstream house. Whatever advantages accrue to us as "traditional genre sources" are marginal at best.

Really, this year's actual Best Novel ballot pretty much tells the story. Among the finalists selected by popular vote of SFWA members, we see (1) one novel published by a small press, (2) one novel published in mainstream, and (3) exactly zero novels published by Tor. Of all the years in which to argue that the jury needs to favor books by small presses and mainstream houses over books published by "Tor, f'g'sake," this would not seem to be the one in which that argument is at its most convincing.

One more point: If, as Sherwood suggests, Kate Elliott's Spirit Gate would have been a reasonable jury choice because it's "a novel from someone who has been pigeonholed as one sort of writer and might be ignored accordingly", I'm baffled as to why the same logic doesn't apply to Farthing, a hardnosed political thriller set in an alternate 1949, by an author whose previous novels were all about knights, warriors, and dragons.

Shorter Richard Horton: Nebula juries should never pick a book published by Tor, because Tor is obviously all-powerful and everything it publishes is a mighty award-winning genre bestseller with review coverage from sea to shining sea. Nothing published by Tor could ever be something that deserves more attention than it's had so far.

One of the subsidiary points in my recent long and terrifyingly detailed post about defects in this year's Hugo nominating ballot was wrong. I have amended the post to note the error. I stand by my primary points.