At midnight, the English language version of Wikipedia (along with reddit and a host of other sites) is going dark for 24 hours in response to SOPA and PIPA.
PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
Lifted/quoted from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:
The great people at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) have a new video out this week recapping one of their most prominent victories over censorship in Academia — prominent because this case found a ready-made constituency of activists for individual rights. Fans of Firefly rushed to defend University of Wisconsin Professor James Miller after he was accused by campus police of creating a threatening environment by hanging a Firefly poster on his office door, a case in which FIRE prevailed. The video interviews author Neil Gaiman and delivers a serious message: watch the video here.
Cheers to Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin for coming to Professor Miller’s defense, and especially to my fellow fans of Firefly and Serenity. I had to laugh at Gaiman's point:
"There are people you do not want to upset in the world. And big groups of people you don’t want to upset would obviously include the politically disenfranchised who feel they have nothing to lose. And those that feel that the time has come for revolution. Then out on the edges beyond any of those are science fiction and fantasy fans whose favorite show has been canceled in an untimely way."
Not The Giving Tree, but The Taking Tree...
2011 Novel Award Finalists
* For the Win by Cory Doctorow (TOR Books)
* Darkship Thieves by Sarah Hoyt (Baen Books)
* The Last Trumpet Project by Kevin MacArdry (lasttrumpetproject.com)
* Live Free or Die by John Ringo (Baen Books)
* Ceres by L. Neil Smith (Big Head Press: also published online at bigheadpress.com)
Read descriptions of the novels here.
2011 Hall of Fame Award Finalists
*"The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster (1909)
*"As Easy as A.B.C." by Rudyard Kipling (1912)
* Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945)
*"'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" by Harlan Ellison (1965)
* Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (1988)
Read descriptions of these works here.
He moved to Sydney around 2003 and began writing spy novels, one of which,"Fatal Weakness," is about espionage and corruption involving China and the U.S. It has been published on the Internet in China. Mr. Yang also contributes frequently to about 10 blogs, including some that run on Chinese portals that receive millions of hits daily.
Prof. Feng said he was sure that Chinese authorities were holding Mr. Yang and expressed concern that they would try to charge Mr. Yang with espionage because he had a foreign passport.
In Doctorow's words,"the world's oppressive regimes (including supposedly free governments in the west) are availing themselves of new technology at speed, and the only way for activism to be effective in that environment is to use the same tools."
Read"We need a serious critique of net activism."
It seems an appropriate day to revisit a quote or two:
"Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dûr. And then all the clouds rolled away, and the white sun shone, and at his command the vale of Gorgoroth became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be. In that hour of trial it was the love of his master that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
"My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) — or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inaminate real of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could go back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so to refer to people.… Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Letter #52 (1943, to Christopher Tolkien), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Today, StarShipSofa became the first podcast ever to win a Hugo Award.
To Tony, to the other StarShipSofa contributors, to all of our listeners and supporters, and to every member of the larger podcasting family, I offer heartfelt thanks and congratulations. History has been made!
Congratulations to all of the 2010 Hugo Award winners, as well.
Best Novel: The Unincorporated Man, Dani and Eytan Kollin (TOR Books)
Hall of Fame: “No Truce with Kings,” Poul Anderson
The winners will receive their awards at a ceremony at this year’s World Science Fiction Convention, Aussiecon 4.
From the LFS:
The Unincorporated Man is the first novel publication by the Kollin brothers. It is the first novel in a planned trilogy to be published by Tor. The Unincorporated Man presents the idea that education and personal development could be funded by allowing investors to take a share of one’s future income. The novel explores the ways this arrangement would affect those who do not own a majority of the stock in themselves. For instance, often ones investors would have control of a person’s choices of where to live or work. The desire for power as an end unto itself and the negative consequences of the raw lust for power are shown in often great detail. The story takes a strong position that liberty is important and worth fighting for, and the characters spend their time pushing for different conceptions of what freedom is.
Poul Anderson’s novels have been nominated many times, and have won the Prometheus Award (in 1995, for The Stars Are Also Fire), and the Hall of Fame Award (1995 for The Star Fox and 1985 for Trader to the Stars). He also received a Special award for lifetime achievement in 2001. This was the first nomination for “No Truce With Kings."
Poul Anderson’s “No Truce with Kings” was first published in 1963. Like many science fiction stories of that era, it was set in a future that had endured a nuclear war. Anderson’s focus is not on the immediate disaster and the struggle to survive, but the later rebuilding; its central conflict is over what sort of civilization should be created. The story’s title comes from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Old Issue,” which describes the struggle to bind kings and states with law and the threat of their breaking free. Anderson’s future California is basically a feudal society, founded on local loyalties, but it has a growing movement in favor of a centralized, impersonal state. As David Friedman remarked about this story, Anderson plays fair with his conflicting forces: both of them want the best for humanity, but one side is mistaken about what that is. This story is classic Anderson and, like many of his best stories, reveals his libertarian sympathies.
Listen here.
(On a side note, thanks to everyone who listens to and supports StarShipSofa. Thanks to you, SSS has become the first podcast ever to be nominated for a Hugo Award. We appreciate it!)
Read "The BP/Government Police State" (with updates).
According to the blog This is FYF," citing security concerns that bikes might be secret pipe bombs, NYPD officers clipped the locks of hundreds of bikes along Houston Street this morning in preparation for President Obama's speech at Cooper Union. The bikes were unceremoniously put in the back of the truck. Onlookers were not given information as to what would become of the bikes. Happy Earth Day!"
For pictures of the bike seizure, destruction of locks and chains, and more information, see here.
"[B]aking surveillance, control and censorship into the very fabric of our networks, devices and laws is the absolute road to dictatorial hell."
Read Cory Doctorow's article in The Guardian.
Best Novel
Hidden Empire, Orson Scott Card (TOR Books)
Makers, Cory Doctorow (TOR Books)
The Unincorporated Man, Dani and Eytan Kollin (TOR Books)
Liberating Atlantis, Harry Turtledove (ROC/Penguin Books)
The United States of Atlantis, Harry Turtledove (ROC/Penguin Books)
Hall of Fame
“As Easy as A.B.C.,” a story by Rudyard Kipling (1912)
Cryptonomicon, a novel by Neal Stephenson (1999)
“No Truce with Kings,” a story by Poul Anderson (1964)
“‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman,” a story by Harlan Ellison (1965)
Full details are available on the LFS press release page.
-- * From USA Today: "Storm Disaster for Sioux Flies under Compassion Radar."
-- * See a video of the storm damage here.
-- * This post includes donation links organized by reservation.
-- * The Native American Heritage Association (NAHA) provides food, clothing, heating assistance, etc. to the people on several South Dakota reservations, and it has a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator.
-- * See more here at MSNBC.
A number of contemporary Native American authors incorporate elements of fantasy into their fiction, while several non-Native fantasy authors utilize elements of Native America in their storytelling. Nevertheless, few experts on fantasy consider American Indian works, and few experts on Native American studies explore the fantastic in literature. Now an international, multi-ethnic, and cross-disciplinary group of scholars investigates the meaningful ways in which fantasy and Native America intersect, examining classics by American Indian authors such as Louise Erdrich, Gerald Vizenor, and Leslie Marmon Silko, as well as non-Native fantasists such as H.P. Lovecraft, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling. Thus these essayists pioneer new ways of thinking about fantasy texts by Native and non-Native authors, and challenge other academics, writers, and readers to do the same.
Praise for Intersection of Fantasy and Native America:
The essays in Sturgis and Oberhelman’s The Intersection of Fantasy and Native America open our eyes to the kinship between families of literature hitherto seen as separate-fantasy and Native American fiction-showing their interconnections in subject matter, in techniques of dream and trance and magical realism and post-modern meta-narrative, and most importantly, in their ability to penetrate appearances in search of underlying truths. The result is that we see each in light of the other and both as parts of the larger, so-called “mainstream,” and as essential to our understanding of literature, its writers and readers, in the 21st century.
—Verlyn Flieger, Professor of English, University of Maryland at College Park, Author of Interrupted Music, A Question of Time, and Splintered Light
With excellent and accessible scholarship, this book opens wide the door of Native American mythology and fantasy by connecting it with the fantasy many of us already know and love. I'm now convinced there's a vast treasure store of fantasy I haven't even begun to experience, and there's nothing more exciting than that for the lover of fantasy fiction!
—Travis Prinzi, Author of Harry Potter and Imagination and Editor of Hog’s Head Conversations
1. “Coming to America”: Fantasy and Native America Explored, an Introduction
By David D. Oberhelman
2. Meeting at the Intersection: The Challenges Before Us
By Amy H. Sturgis
3. The Racist and La Raza: H.P. Lovecraft’s Aztec Mythos
Marc A. Beherec
4. Lucy’s Sisters in the New World: The Native American Female as Seer in Modern Mythopoeic Fantasy
Grace Walker Monk
5. Vizenor the Trickster: Postmodernism Versus Terminal Creeds and Cultural Schizophrenia
Tripper Ryder
6. In Defense of Trickster Fantasies: Comparing the Storytelling of Innocent IV and Gerald Vizenor
Sean Corbin
7. Native American Myths and Legends in William T. Vollmann’s Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes
Michael Hemmingson
8. Artistic Form and the Supernatural in Pushing the Bear
Joe R. Christopher
9. Spirit Voices - The Fantastical Journey of Omakayas in Louise Erdrich’s The Birchbark House and The Game of Silence
Melanie Ann Hanson
10. Ceremony's Fantastic Stories
Lauren Lacey
11. Dreaming with the Dead: Convergent Spaces in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony and Aimee Bender’s “Dreaming in Polish”
Aaron Tillman
12. Tayo’s Odyssey: The Traits of Fantasy in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony
Punyashree Panda
13. Feminine and Masculine in Silko’s Gardens in the Dunes
Mark Holland
The book is now available at Amazon and directly from Mythopoeic Press.
Winners and finalists are as follows:
NOVEL
Little Brother, Cory Doctorow (Tor)
Matter, Iain Banks (Orbit)
The January Dancer, Michael Flynn (Tor)
Saturn's Children, Charles Stross (Tor)
Half a Crown, Jo Walton (Tor)
Opening Atlantis, Harry Turtledove (Penguin/Roc)
HALL OF FAME
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
Falling Free, Lois McMaster Bujold
Courtship Rite, Donald M. Kingsbury
"As Easy as A.B.C.", Rudyard Kipling
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
The Golden Age, John C. Wright
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