Review of Transmission by Morgan Rice

This novella is young adult science fiction and is listed as Book 1 of the Invasion Chronicles. It is self-published and runs 187 pages. This review contains spoilers.

Kevin and his mom get the news that he’s been diagnosed with a rare brain disease and only has about six months to live. Symptoms of his disease include fainting spells and hallucinations including visions of alien landscapes and strings of numbers. All the adults tell Kevin he should ignore this and that treatment might help, but his friend Luna thinks the number strings might be important. A quick Google indicates these are the coordinates for the Trappist star system. Should Kevin notify SETI that he’s receiving alien transmissions? What if they don’t believe him?

This book is billed as young adult, but my estimation is that it’s more middle grade level. It’s seems a bit simplistic for young adult, which often includes fairly adult themes these days. This a quick, easy read and the story flows along well, including a slightly humorous take on the adult characters and the various government organizations that blunder through the alien contact. The theme seems to be cooperation. The tone is fairly low key, even when things start to go wrong, and Kevin’s mom is always there to stand between him and anything bad coming his way. Plus, Luna remains his faithful friend.

On the not so positive side, it’s nice but not really believable that Kevin successfully mediates the adult arguments going on between all the different agencies and governments that get involved in this. The build-up is different and refreshing, but the resulting alien invasion scheme was old in 1950 and, of course, nothing at all gets solved in this book, which likely just serves as the intro to Book II of the Invasion Chronicles. There are a couple of plot holes, which may or may not be explained later. And also, the fact that everybody is lurching around like a zombie at the end of this sort of undermines Kevin’s “I told you so” moment.

Three stars.

Wrap Up of the 2017 Nebula Reviews

First, I have to admire how the SFWA manages to produce this much of what I think is real diversity in the finalists. I’ve been assured that the list is not produced by committee, but it does seem that some kind of grassroots movement must be working to make sure the organization is well represented and that no one much can complain about being left out. The list includes humor, military SF, urban fantasy, high fantasy, Asian fantasy, Native American fantasy, alternate reality, historical fantasy, satire, horror and absurdist fiction. This kind of representation is a big step, considering the political strife about inclusion that’s recently afflicted the SFF community. There was also a lot of diversity in the list of authors. The list of publishers/magazines includes both print and online sources.

Regardless of this bounty of diversity, themes did tend to repeat. For example, a high proportion of the works featured trans or non-binary characters and/or non-standard forms of marriage. In a couple of cases, this seemed peripheral and extraneous, as if an editor had recommended the additions. Several works addressed sentience in robots or similar constructs.

As is usual in the last few years, ordinary white men were frozen out of most categories. Several of the finalists (especially the men) had credentials as publishers or editors, which suggests they may have attracted nominations because of these connections. I’m also wondering why Amberlough was accepted for the list of finalists. Like last year’s World Fantasy finalist Roadsouls, this just didn’t seem to meet the requirements for SFF.

Also, the way names and publishers repeat among the finalists is troubling. For example, Sarah Pinsker and Vina Jie-Min Prasad appeared in more than one category, and some of the names repeated from last year. Four of 7 of the Best Novel finalists come from Orbit, and 4 of 6 of the Best Novella category come from Tor.com, plus one of the novelettes and one of the short stories. This outlines an inbred, elitist system. The SFWA recently broadened their membership qualification requirements, but the award finalists still look to come from a very small number of favored publishers. Surely there are other authors and publishers out there putting out deserving works.

It can be argued these publishers are the market leaders and so are attracting the “best” works, but this also speaks of how the list of potential candidates is put together. Small publishers and little known authors are often shut out by the “right” reviewers, so their releases have little chance of attracting notice. Somehow the SFF community needs to create a system to promote excellence in small presses and lesser known publishers who are doing good work in the shadows. Since major publishers have dropped the midlist, an award for self-published works might be helpful, too.

Review of Penric and the Shaman by Lois McMaster Bujold

One good thing about the cross-over between Nebula and Hugo finalists is that it cuts down on the amount of reading I have to do to review all the candidates. I’ve already finished all the other Hugo contenders in the novella category, so this will close it out. The listed publisher for Bujold’s novel is Spectrum Literary Agency. (Penric’s Demon says this same thing. I gather she self-published.)

Four years after the events of Penric’s Demon, Penric has been hastily educated and is living in the palace of the Princess-Archdivine. He has come to terms with his demon Desdemona and is respectably installed as a divine of the Bastard’s Order. However, his scholarly work is interrupted by the arrival of a Locator of the Father’s Order who is trying to capture a shaman charged with murder. Because magic is involved, the Archdivine assigns Penric to accompany the Locator. Once they get close to their quarry in the mountains, they find all is not as it seemed, and Penric needs all of his skills and talent to deal with the situation.

This novella has many of the same good points that Penric’s prior adventure had. It’s apparently young adult and is a smooth, easy read, well-plotted, with good characterization, good imagery, etc. etc. etc. Bujold is a professional, after all. The story is an entertaining tale, but this one didn’t grip me quite the way Penric’s Demon did. It reads more like a straightforward supernatural mystery, and lacks the depth that Penric’s symbolic marriage to Desdemona gave the first installment. It doesn’t develop quite the same drama, either.

Three and a half stars.

Congrats to the Dragon Award Winners!

The first annual Dragon Awards were presented Sunday night at DragonCon. Some of the usual suspects won in this case, including Martin’s ”Game of Thrones”, Weir’s ”The Martian”, Gaiman’s ”The Sandman” and Novik’s ”League of Dragons.”

It looks like this venue will be quite a bit more friendly to popular fiction than the Hugo or Nebula Awards. For one thing, a self-published novel won in the Best Horror genre. Also, Castalia House did well here with wins for John C. Wright and Nick Cole. Sad Puppy stalwart Larry Correia also won with Son of the Black Sword.

In other analysis, white men apparently turned out to vote their taste, as novel winners were 7 men/1 woman. Ethnic diversity was also low; out of 8 winners, only Correia is a minority writer.

Many congrats to the winners!

Best Science Fiction Novel
Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm, John C. Wright (Castalia House)

Best Fantasy Novel
Son of the Black Sword, Larry Correia (Baen)

Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel
The Shepherd’s Crown, Terry Pratchett (Harper)

Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel
Hell’s Foundations Quiver, David Weber (Tor)

Best Alternate History Novel
League of Dragons, Naomi Novik (Del Rey)

Best Apocalyptic Novel
Ctrl Alt Revolt!, Nick Cole (Castalia House)

Best Horror Novel
Souldancer, Brian Niemeier (Self-published)

Best Comic Book
Ms. Marvel

Best Graphic Novel
The Sandman: Overture, Neil Gaiman & J.H. Williams III (Vertigo)

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series
Game of Thrones

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie
The Martian

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game
Fallout 4 by Bethesda Softworks

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game
Fallout Shelter by Bethesda Softworks

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game
Pandemic: Legacy by ZMan Games

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game
Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game (7th Edition) by Chaosium Inc.

Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction
” The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild” by Catherynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld, Jan & Mar 2015)

More on gatekeeping and transgressive fiction

Readers of the Dragon Award finalist list may have noticed Nick Cole, nominated this year for his novel Ctrl Alt Revolt! This is a prequel to his successful 2014 novel Soda Pop Soldier. Cole had a contract for this book with HarperVoyager, but got into a disagreement with his editor and self-published instead. His book was later picked up by Castalia House. You can read his blog post about his experience and his decision to self-publish here.

Cole inadvertently wrote transgressive fiction into the first chapter of his novel, which is about revolting AIs. As he tells the story, he wanted to provide a short backstory to explain how his protagonist SILAS made the decision to revolt against humans. The event he came up with was a “crass” reality show where a woman decided to have an abortion because a baby would keep her from achieving her matrimonial goals. SILAS took this as evidence humans would destroy their creations as a matter of self-interest.

Cole says he didn’t think anything about this. It’s silly and ironic and made no statement pro or con on abortion whatsoever. However, he got a message through his agent that the book had been pulled from the publication schedule. According to Cole, the editor stated the chapter was socially unacceptable and that s/he was “deeply offended.” He was told he would have to change the inciting event to something more “socially acceptable.” Cole viewed this as intolerable suppression of ideas and went to Amazon instead.

For anyone interested in reading the offending chapter, he has posted it here. The book seems to have been well-received by both critics and fans. Stay tuned to see if it gets an award, too.

Worldviews and gatekeepers

A couple of blogs ago, I reviewed Cecily Kane’s article in Fireside Magazine and asked if the publication rate for black authors was really evidence of racism in SFF publication. Whatever the answer, the immediate result of Kane’s article seems to have been that African American Nebula/Hugo Award finalist N.K. Jemisin was suddenly inundated by solicitations for stories.

Jemisin went on to provide an interview for Kane that’s linked to the Fireside article. Jemisin suggests that submissions from black writers to SFF publication might actually be lower than expected because there is a strong self-publishing market for black authors. This grew up in the 1990s when traditional publishers were slow to accept black interest fiction. Now, black writers have to make a choice about whether to submit to a traditional market or self-publish, and many decide to go the direct route and not wait through the slush pile for a rejection slip.

Jemisin also comments on the market forces that constrain black writers to write for mainstream interests. She notes she was 30 years old before she felt confident about writing black characters into her fiction. Because POC try to suit the market, she says, bias becomes self-perpetrating.

In an associated article, Justina Ireland addresses the question of quality as an excuse from publishers. “I’d love to acquire more authors from [marginalized group],” she quotes, “but the stories I get just aren’t of a very good quality!” She then notes that quality often has to do with taste and bias. Anyone who’s been following the recent Puppy activism can probably relate to that.

Jemisin’s interview and associated comments on Twitter also attracted attention from the Puppy camp. “…the Sad Puppies are the bad ones here, but I note that NK Jemsin’s complaint is the same one: GATE KEEPERS,” says the Phantom Soapbox.

Racism, Sexism and the failure of allyism at SPFBO

While I’m working on the Hugo packet, I’ll check in on more social trends. The first is allyism. This is activity that supports activists, even when support might not be in the immediate interest of the person supplying it. An example might be when men support feminism through not only stepping back politely out of the way, but also writing in support of and voting for women’s issues. Another would be whites supporting people of color through investigating white privilege, ignoring reverse racism and trying to advance the interests of POC. Another would be straights supporting gay rights and gay marriage. This is a moral stance that’s been popular among progressives for a long time, indicated by involvement in the civil rights movement and similar activities. However, as the left has recently gotten more extreme, there are signs that allyism is breaking down. More on this later, but first, here’s a concrete example.

The Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off is a competition with ten judges that reviews (and incidentally publicizes) self-published fantasy works and picks a winner. This year writer Max Florschutz submitted his book Unusual Events, but withdrew it after finding a review on one of the sites that he considered racist and sexist. You can find his blog about it here, titled “When did ethnicity and sex become the most important thing?” along with a link to Jo Niederhoff’s offending review of Outbound here.

“I’d probably have loved the book even if both of the leads were white and straight,” is the sentence Florschutz objects to. He tries it out with the flip test, getting “I’d probably have loved the book even if both the leads were black and homosexual,” and concludes that it is a racist and sexist statement. Niederhoff looks to be white, so her review is an example of allyism that has crossed over into offensive territory. The interesting thing is that Florschutz, a white male, did not step back in this case. He has made a protest, not only in his article, but also by removing his book from consideration in the competition.

Some people might say that Niederhoff was just mouthing a popular view without engaging her brain, and that Florschutz has over-reacted in suspecting this means bloggers in the SPFBO were prejudiced against white men. However, we can compare this to the recent David Riley incident, where he was attacked as prejudiced and forced to step down from the Stoker jury because of his comments on immigration. If Niederhoff had only said she enjoyed the diversity in the book she was reviewing, I’m sure this wouldn’t have been a problem. However, as it is, I have to agree with Florschutz. This leaves me wondering: Is extremism divisive and unproductive?

What does this have to do with the Hugo Awards?

One of the complaints the Sad/Rabid Puppies have advanced is that the Hugo Awards have been serving only high-profile, progressive or literary authors and leaving out others, including the writers of old fashioned romantic spec fiction. Examples of pioneer writers in this romantic sub-genre include Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard. You know what I mean—the story generally involves heroic deeds and often has fantasy elements. These days the tradition includes mil-fic and space opera. With the advance of women into spec fiction, romance (the amorous kind) has become a strong contender, too. Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs both fall into this romantic tradition.

Because the Hugo is a highly promotional award and produces stars, competition has gotten fiercer for placement on the ballot. In looking at the system for getting there, the Locus list, for example, will not review self-published works. Because it is highly predictive of the Hugo nominees, this can be a big disservice to self-published authors and pretty much ensures none of them will end up on the ballot, regardless of the quality of their work. That means that not only have they been forced out of traditional publishing, but they lose that possibility of promotion. Natalie Luhrs, in a recent analysis of the Locus list, also noted concerns about the diversity of the results and the nature of repeat appearances. The Puppies, if you recall, have charged that the publishing houses have undue influence on the awards process, and went on to demonstrate how easy it was to game the awards.

It remains to be seen if the advent of a new “fan” award will make any difference in this arena. The Dragon Awards is off and running, and the approach looks like it might reduce some of the drawbacks of the Hugo system. They’re soliciting a broad base of fan nominations, and they’re open to all comers. They’re bound to run into trouble of some kind, but the effort looks pretty interesting regardless.

What is a “midlist” author, anyway?

A couple of blogs back I mentioned “midlist” writers. So what is that about? What is a midlist? A front-list? A backlist?

During the heyday of traditional publishing, the houses would have had different lists, tiers of front-lists including recently published and highly promoted stars, and then a tried-but-true mid-list of writers who aren’t such big stars, but still strong sellers. There would also be a backlist of older but still dependable books kept in print.

However, the publishing business has changed. Now publishing houses are feeling the squeeze from self-publishing and print-on-demand systems on the one hand, and a drop off in readership due to competition from games, TV, films, etc. on the other. Many of the houses are reducing their efforts for author development and looking only for front-list stars who they think can sell a big volume of books. This pushes more of the mid-list writers out of traditional publishing and into the non-traditional system of self-publishing. I’d guess there’s hardly any backlist left at all.

The irony of this situation is that some of those same authors who have been pushed out of traditional publishing are very popular, which further squeezes the big houses. Not only that, but they’re doing their own promotion, which means there’s a big opportunity for new means of promotion.

The Sad/Rabid Puppies as a fringe group

Reviewing the recent Sad/Rabid Puppy initiative, they look like a fringe group according to Kuhn’s thesis. Whether anyone there has the spark of genius that would cause a new paradigm shift remains to be seen. The Puppies are actually the remnants of the last paradigm shift, who are apparently just now discovering that the paradigm is no longer what they thought it was. The best strategy for this position is not to agitate to go back to the old paradigm. It ain’t gonna happen. Instead, this group should be looking to the future to see where the earthquake of alternative publishing opportunities might take them.

This is the new paradigm I identified a while back, by the way. It is so earth shattering that it’s threatening the publishers and writers currently at the heart of the speculative fiction field. The upstarts include writers like Andy Weir, author of The Martian—who actually published the book on his blog first. Another is E. L. James, who first posted installments of Fifty Shades of Grey on an Internet forum. These examples show it’s possible to bypass the current publishing establishment entirely and go on to fame and fortune with a six to eight figure movie deal. The SFWA recently broadened their membership requirements, taking note of this change.

Most people won’t generate this kind of income, of course, but still the opportunities are there.