Sunday morning linkage

[yendi]

Three posts worth reading for the sci-fi fan, on the topic of the rise of fantasy and the need for introductory-level science fiction: Benford and Schweitzer's original thoughts, and (of more interest), the responses from Elizabeth Bear and John Scalzi. At some point, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy a Scalzi novel, but I have this fear that, as with Mieville, I'll find him more interesting when writing about fiction than writing fiction itself.

Gamers might want to check out the old-but-new hullaballoo caused by EGM editor Dan Hsu with this editorial on the lack of journalistic ethics in the game reporting industry. It's not news to anyone with, well, a brain (especially since a similar controversy broke in the UK game magazine industry last year), but there's still some good reading there. Followups start here, here, and here.

Also for gamers (and anyone following the seasonal toy rush), Slate examines the X-Box 360 shortage, and asks some very obvious (and therefore often overlooked, especially by gamers) questions about why Microsoft is pricing things the way they do. The conclusion they come to -- incompetence -- is certainly one that many people associate with Microsoft, but few tend to apply it to their gaming division. That said, for once, the Slashdot mob tends to get things right, noting that M$ wouldn't be doing itself any good, image-wise, by jacking the price, and would probably undercut sales in the long run.

Finally, as noted in back-to-back posts on my FL by theferrett and muse0fire, today's Doonesbury is one of his funniest and most dead-on strips in years.

Overall, feeling better. Still not with the huge appetite, but I ate breakfast, at least, and I've had my first cup of coffee in nearly three days. So I'm definitely feeling more human.

Comments

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

i don't care for scalzi's fiction.
at all, really.

[scalzi.livejournal.com]

Yup. Some people like it, some people don't. That's being a writer for you.

Yendi, you can check out the complete text to my novel "Agent to the Stars" on my site for free (http://scalzi.com/agent); that way you can see if my fiction writing is to your taste. Indeed, I put it up so people could get a good sample before slapping down their cash. "Try before you buy" seems to work for me.

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

actually, i do have the sub press version of that.
(and it looks like it would interest me more than your other work 've read. i odn't really care for the whole 'war in space' hard science fiction stuff. it's more that i don't care for the subject matter more than i think you're in any way deficient as a writer.)

[scalzi.livejournal.com]

Heh. You'll want to skip "The Ghost Briagdes," then, as it's more space war stuff.

But it's a good point -- you can like someone's writing just fine (or at least have no problems with it) and just have the subject matter be not your thing. I've read quite a few books like that. Writing's fine, but what the writing's about just didn't click with me. I find that less frustrating than a book that's on a subject I'm fascinated in but the writing irritates me. Those are the books I want to throw against a wall.

[yendi]

John, thanks -- that technique is exactly what got me to bite the bullet and finally check out Stross, as well. I'll be reading this next week.

[scalzi.livejournal.com]

Cool. Enjoy!

[kizlj.livejournal.com]

Yay Slashdot. The Slate piece annoyed me by missing (possibly purpuosly, since it would mess up his central 'sellers always act rationally, and if they don't seem to be, look for hidden reasons why they actually are' argument) what I thought was the obvious point: Microsoft doesn't price differentially both because of the image backlash and because pricing diffentially is a selling model that still requires expertise and resources to make work. OK, maybe Microsoft could make an extra $25 million jacking the price of the first 500,000 Xboxses sold. I doubt it's worth $25 million to them to deal with reconfiguring their sales methods and dealing with the potential PR catastrophe.

I just read my first Scalzi, Agent to the Stars. I highly recommend starting there. It's a very funny B-movie-SFish romp. Dunno if I'll like his Heinleinesque novels (unlikely, since I dislike Heinlein), but I liked this one as a cute tossed-off novel.

[litch.livejournal.com]

I don't think "ill will" was really what M$ was concerned about. I think it's a lot simpler, at a 700$ price point the vast majority of people make a simple decision, that that's just too damn much for a buggy gameconsole.

And once people make a decision, getting them to reconsider it is increadibly difficult. Even when the prices drop to more reasonable levels (and 300$ is still not a reasonable level for game console in my book) they've already made their decision.

[litch.livejournal.com]

The racism in Benford's screed is pretty vile, and his inability to find any deeper cause for the decline of SF besides "Americans are too stupid and lazy to do math" is pathetic.

But then I never liked his work anyway.

I think a much bigger factor of why SF is on a nadir is that, if you look at it as speculative fiction, there is really not a lot of liklihood of change coming in our lives. In the acmes of the Sci-Fi swings, there was a sense of possibility and imminant change. The shockwaves of change that described so much of the 20th century just aren't happening like they used to, to speculate about what might happen at some point is immensely difficult or pointless. It depends on your scope of speculation either you have to limit yourself to the narrow day after tomorrow where everything is essentially like it is today, or you have to posit out to the next era of rapid change and progress and have no idea what is going to come of that.

SF of the thirites & fifties can from a world where the industrial revolution was still vibrant and sweeping technological changes were happening all the time. The world was full of mysterious places that had not been mapped to a farthing. There was still a vibrant frontier in the undeveloped backwaters where a man could go and discover new places, have room & untapped resources to build new things. Our culture was still in the sharp slope of aircraft and rocket travel and space would be ours tomorrow (or at least in the next decade)

Event the new wave movement of the seventies was a world where changes were still possible, not so much the technological changes of the earlier era but the sociological and personal changes. The world felt let it was transforming fromone paradigm to another.

Now, the paradigm shift has completed. There are no more new frontiers, there was a great hullabaloo about the possibilities of nano-technology a decade ago but like fusion power, it hasn't produced squat on its promises. Our society reacted with fear and loathing to the possibilites that were becoming available in the seventies and slammed the cultural gates shut. The conservative forces (both republican, democrat, & independant) have "traditional family values" are the only acceptable mode, and while it's possible there may be some room for wierdness in the coastal zones and isolated enclaves but they are not going to allow those to central cultural experiences.

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

'The racism in Benford's screed is pretty vile, and his inability to find any deeper cause for the decline of SF besides "Americans are too stupid and lazy to do math" is pathetic.'
i just read that and the racism is pretty damn nasty.
'good heavens, we must fear the brown and yellow folk for they bring forth DEVIL MAGIC!'

China Mieville

[curt-holman.livejournal.com]

Greetings:
I discovered Mieville this year and 'Perdido Street Station' knocked my socks off (although I wasn't as enthusiastic over 'The Scar' and haven't read his other stuff yet, although it's on my Christmas list). I take it you're ambivalent about him? Can you point to some interesting Mieville talk, and/or recommend comparable writers?

I probably shouldn't comment on the science fiction debate without reading those posts in more detail, but I've had a problem with reading recent books like Ken MacLeod's 'Newton's Wake' and M. John Harrison's 'Light.' When writers have the seemingly limitless possibilities of nanotechnology and quantum physics to riff on in their future settings, it's like there's too MUCH freedom, to the point where there doesn't seem to be any internally consistent rules or constraints. (Some very, very good writing in 'Light,' however.)

I'd contrast that with Richard K. Morgan's terrific Takeshi Kovacs books, in which the imaginative technological premise has clear rules and limits, but fascinating implications. (I *strongly* recommend Morgan's 'Broken Angels.' I'd call it a cyberpunk 'Three Kings,' but that wouldn't make it sound as good as it is.)

Re: China Mieville

[yendi]

Well, like I noted, I find Mieville's occasional online essays a lot more readable than his fiction, which I genuinely can't stand. I'm not sure I'm the one you want suggesting comparable writers. :-)

My wife adores Morgan, but I haven't read any of the books yet -- he's definitely high on my list of folks to read, though.