Elizabeth Sandifer

As the science fiction community mutters “I thought MidAmericon said nominations would open in early January” with baited breath, I note that certain fascist pricks have begun to ramp up their performative chortling. So I figured “why not write a mildly trolling open letter to someone else entirely?”

Ms. Paulk et al:

I note with some bemusement your efforts to reform the Sad Puppies movement from its oft-criticized 2015 form, stripping away its overtly conservative trappings, widening it to a ten-item recommendation list, et cetera. By and large, I have to admit, these seem like, if not strictly speaking good things, at least less bad things. So thank you for your efforts to be less odious than your predecessors. It’s genuinely appreciated. That said, there’s one rather large issue that you don’t seem to have addressed, and that I’d like to raise.

Simply put, why are you doing this?

I mean, I see your nominal explanation on the site – to increase Hugo participation. And while I think your assessment of the field is rubbish (science fiction, at least as a literary genre, that being the primary focus of the Hugos, is in no way “a field loved by millions,” and five thousand voters is absolutely massive given the current state of the publishing industry – and not just SF/F publishing), sure, I guess that’s a reasonable motivation. What’s rather less clear to me is why on Earth you’re adopting a brand that’s primarily known for its previous decision to actively ally with a fascist bully to do so.

Yes, I’m talking about Vox Day, who you so eloquently dismiss as “not our circus, not our monkey” and suggest that people “talk to him about whatever problem you have with him.” But, well, I have talked to him about many of the problems I have with him, and anyway, my problem here isn’t with him, it’s with the Sad Puppies movement that you’re actively positioning yourself as the direct successor to and that movement’s past relationship with an abusive, bullying troll motivated primarily by his passionate vanity and even more passionate hatred for women, ethnic minorities, and LGBT people.

Because let’s be very clear here: in both 2014 and 2015, your predecessors in running Sad Puppies made an active and conscious decision to ally with Vox Day. Indeed, that’s pretty much what your movement is best known for at this point – getting spectacularly hijacked by him last year such that you didn’t actually have a meaningful impact on the vote because his sidecar movement outperformed yours such that anyone who hadn’t looked closely at the precise nature of the fan politics mistook your movement ofr his. That’s your best-known accomplishment: allying with a sadistic troll who proved better at your own game than you were.

Now, of course, you’re not wrong in your basic sense that the sadistic troll’s moment has passed. Vox’s main talent in life is that he can marshall around five hundred people. Of course, given that Vox is steeped in GamerGate tactics, this means five hundred accounts, not five hundred actual flesh and blood people who might plausibly show up at MidAmericon II and affect any business that actually takes place at the con.…

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The Radio Times is reporting the not particularly suprising news that Series 10 of Doctor Who will kick off with a 2016 Christmas special and then run in 2017 and be Steven Moffat’s final series, and that Chris Chibnall will be taking over for Series 11 in 2018.

My immediate reaction is roughly that Chibnall is neither my first nor last choice, and that whatever my reservations, it’s hard to seriously argue that he’s not earned his shot. I can’t honestly say he’s written a story I consider great, or even very good, but in every case the flaws are generally ones of slight sloppiness – the sort of thing that could be worked out over another draft or two. Which is to say that I think he can be good, even if I’m not sure he’s going to be. Certainly I can’t think of anyone who’s inherited as strong a stable of writers as he’s going to be getting. So while I can’t imagine the next era of Doctor Who will be one I love as much as I’ve loved the past six years, well, that’s how loving an era of Doctor Who works.

Anyway, here’s your open thread. May the Captchas be kind to you.…

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When I cover it in Last War in Albion, I am inevitably going to have to suggest that Phonogram was a magical ritual to murder David Bowie. Part of this will be a straightforward and well-reasoned technical argument based on The Immaterial Girl’s meticulously rendered and devastatingly well-structured invocation of Michael Jackson’s death, and another part will be the fact that Bowie’s cancer diagnosis would have come right around when WicDiv #1 hit, with Lucifer’s death literally coming ten days after the debut of “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)” (“Sue, the clinic called /The x-ray’s fine / I brought you home,” although for the purposes of Phonogram the lyric you’d want is “Sue, I found your note / That you wrote last night / It can’t be right / You went with him”), and of course a big part is just going to be a big influence-based dig through the primary source material in a slightly self-parodic attempt to factually evaluate Gillen’s claims about Kenickie.

But that’s the content, which is entirely different from the reason I’m going to do this ridiculous but necessary thing, which is simply that in issue #2 of The Immaterial Girl Gillen says, and I quote, that he was “never a fan” of Placebo and that he “trolled their fanbase outrageously back in my evil days” before demonstrating that he’s referring to the present day by calling their debut their best album. And, look, I’m sorry, but there’s a girl named Mink I was trying to impress one year in college who’d sold half her personality to the devil for power (or something like that), and who introduced me to both Placebo and Bowie, and there are loyalties that never die, so Kickstarter backer or no, this does not stand. (Mink went on to marry the lead singer of a goth band, of course.)

Anyway, Meds is their best album, but let’s talk about their cover of “Running Up That Hill,” because it’s brilliant and deserved its overexposure, and also will probably annoy him more. The trick, of course, is that it’s a stupidly audacious choice of songs. Of course you can’t fucking improve on “Running Up That Hill.” It’s “Running Up That Hill.” It is literally the most perfect thing ever recorded. That’s the point. Placebo’s version of it is a desecration. It’s a staggeringly reverential desecration – a point demonstrated by the nine minute live cut, which fades in the ethereal synth line for a decadent minute and four seconds of anticipation before finally dropping the hook before building to a screaming crescendo in which Molko is audibly hurling himself at the very limits of his gender and sexuality, smashing himself bloody upon a prison whose walls are horribly and awfully more than flesh. (Note the addition of “God” before “tell me we both matter,” which slides in almost inadvertently, as though Molko could not stop himself from praying.)

But it’s a desecration never the less. It has to be.…

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From worst to best of what I bought. Digital codes will work at this link, but only for the first person to use them.

Silver Surfer #1

It’s not that this is a bad comic by any means, and the Fourth Doctor cameo is a hoot, but I have to admit, it’s hard to find much exciting about this particular “pick up exactly where we left off with no real changes” post-Secret Wars relaunch, and I kind of wonder if the Slott/Allred era of this title has said all that it has to say. This one in particular suffers from a hyper-compressed storytelling style that dispatches interesting ideas almost as soon as it comes up with them, which is fine and in keeping with the mad excess here, but it’s crossing into overwhelming such that I think the book really needs to slow down and give some breathing room for characterization instead of high concept. Tellingly, even when it does a low-key domestic scene there’s not much in the way of character depth; just a different sort of high concept joking. 

Digital code: THM3VRHI09XR

New Avengers #5

Ewing manages to make what should by all rights be a completely overstuffed issue work, which is impressive, but it’s also covering for the fact that this is a pretty standard array of parts that, at the moment at least, aren’t being assembled with any particular creativity. Ewing’s sense of character and humor keep it from feeling as tired as it easily could, but they don’t elevate this into anything particularly inspiring either, and Sandoval’s art eschews subtlety at every turn. Very much a “keep on keeping on” sort of issue.

Digital code: THMUAXU8ZW94

Batgirl #47

Not bad. I quite like the Spoiler/Bluebird cameo (they should really get their own book, but of course that ain’t gonna happen under the DC of 2016). Eleonora Carlini and Moritat step in for Babs Tarr and acquit themselves well, even managing a smooth hand-off within the issue, But the story lets it down a bit, underselling the sense of Batgirl losing her mind such that her anxiety over it seems misplaced and unearned, leading into a final page that is either unsatisfyingly cryptic or unsatisfyingly confident about the reader’s ability to identify a given DC villain on sight. Decent, but unspectacular. 

Ms. Marvel #3

Top-notch stuff, resolving the first arc and finally giving Mike a moment in the sun. She is, as you’d hope, charming and fun and full of heart, at once a character who makes you fist-pump with joy when she gets it right and smile at her anxieties and foibles. “Look out evildoers. Time to science” is sheer delight. Basically, she’s the best thing since Etta Candy. I also love “the key to his heart” being an unexpected answer instead of the obvious. And it still has evil gentrification to boot. As ever, we’re lucky to have this book. 

Digital code: THMFWYD6NTK2

Phonogram: The Immaterial Girl #6

I’ll have more on this soon, as I owe Patreon backers a bonus post on it, and so I’m not going to say much more than that there really isn’t a year of comics where this wouldn’t be a contender for best issue of the year.…

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Here’s the official description of this podcast, which James pinged me and told me existed last night:

In a replacement episode for the scheduled Pex Lives, James asked some people if they fancied a chat. Here are the results. 

I have no idea. And I am slightly scared. But you can download it here.…

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“Huh. I don’t want to casually torture her. That’s never happened before.”

State of Play

The choir goes off. The board is laid out thusly:

Lions of King’s Landing: Tyrion Lannister, Cersei Lannister

The Lion, Jaime Lanniser

Direwolves of the Wall: Jon Snow

Direwolves of Harrenhal: The King in the North Robb Stark, Catelyn Stark

Roses of King’s Landing: Margery Tyrell

The Direwolf, Bran Stark

Stags of King’s Landing: King Joffrey Baratheon

Direwolves of King’s Landing: Sansa Stark

The Direwolf, Arya Stark

The Kraken, Theon Greyjoy

Tigers of Harrenhal: Talia Stark

The Stag, Gendry

Bows of the Wall: Ygritte

Archers of the Wall: Samwell Tarly

Bears of the Wall: Lord Commander Jeor Mormont

Flowers of King’s Landing: Shae

The Dogs, Sandor Clegane

Winterfell is in ruins and abandoned, Astapor is empty, Dragonstone has been vacated.

The episode is in thirteen parts. The first runs three minutes and is set in the North; the opening image is of Brandon Stark running with a bow in a dream.

The second runs two minutes and is set in Harrenhal. The transition is by family, from Bran to Robb Stark.

The third runs one minute and is set in the Dreadfort, though this is not made clear. The transition is by dialogue, from Robb and Catelyn talking about Theon to Theon.

The fourth runs four minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by image, from Theon bound on a cross to Jaime walking in chains with Brienne.

The fifth runs nine minutes and is sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is two minutes long; the transition is by family, from Jaime Lannister to Cersei Lannister and Joffrey Baratheon. The second section is seven minutes long. The transition is by theme, from Cersei and Joffrey talking about love to Shae and Sansa talking about the same.

The sixth part runs five minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by family, from Sansa to Robb Stark.

The seventh runs five minutes and is in sections; it is set north of the Wall. The first section is two minutes long. The transition is by dialogue, from Catelyn telling a story of Jon Snow to Jon Snow. The second section is three minutes long; the transition is by dialogue, from Sixskins talking about dead Crows at the Fist of the First Men to the survivors.

The eighth part runs three minutes and is set in the North. The transition is by family, once removed, from Jon Snow to Bran Stark.

The ninth runs four minutes and is set in the Riverlands. The transition is by family, from Bran to Arya Stark.

The tenth runs eight  minutes and is in sections; it is set in King’s Landing. The first section is three minutes long; the transition is by hard cut, from Arya and company walking to Tyrion entering his chambers. The second section is five minutes long; the transition is by family, from Tyrion Lannister to Joffrey Baratheon.

The eleventh part runs two minutes and is set in the Dreadfort, though this is not made clear.…

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Digital edition codes will work for the first person to try to use them at marvel.com/redeem.

Secret Wars #9

This is the way the world unends. Not with a bang, but with a monstrously delayed issue that’s basically the long lost final act of Hickman’s now four-year-old Fantastic Four run in which large swaths are conveniently set in a featureless white void so that Esad Ribic doesn’t have to draw backgrounds. This isn’t necessarily a bad conclusion to Hickman’s big Marvel story; indeed it’s a pretty good one if you’ve been following and committed to Hickman’s thing for the six years plus he’s been doing it in the Marvel universe. And if you’ve actually kept track of that, more power to you. But as a conclusion to Secret Wars it’s a soggy mess. 

Digital Code: THMBJBG0UQD2

All-New All-Different Avengers #3

Hobbled by the extent to which Waid is determined to reiterate both the classic Lee/Kirby Avengers #1 and the first Whedon film. When Waid is writing a team book about the specific characters he has here – and it’s one of the best Avengers lineups in memory - this is a real treat, but he doesn’t get to it nearly often enough to make up for the formulaic punch book it is the rest of the time. One of the most disappointing launches in memory, doubly so for Adam Kubert’s sleepwalkingly generic superhero art.

Digital Code: THMJUXG01VD2

Guardians of the Galaxy #4

There’s a part of me that just wants to say “dude, stop trying to make Yotat happen” at this point, but for all that the cliffhanger’s a bit of a swizz, the bulk of this book is the first real demonstration of the appeal of Bendis’s Guardians that this relaunch has had – a team book full of personalities and with the space for them to get multiple good moments per issue. Unpretentious and at this point a well-worn Marvel style, but as I often say about Bendis, when it works it is like slipping on your favorite pair of shoes. Actually I’ve never used that metaphor before because it’s an appalling cliche. But that fits too.

Digital Code: THMMALB8XVI9

Darth Vader #15

Vader Down ends strongly, if with an issue that suffers from having too many things to tie off. The limitations of the form are evident – most obviously in the way in which Vader and Luke can only ever have a near-miss encounter here – and at times the pull of restoring the status quo so this can still be “canon” between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back make the construction a little too visible. And I’m not entirely thrilled with Aphra ending up in the book I don’t read instead of the one I do. But on the whole, this was a glorious little Star Wars romp that was well-timed to coincide with when the cultural mood was right for a Star Wars romp. Interested to see what the book does once it gets its head down and goes back to its own plots, though. …

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