Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 82

TT: A Serpent in Paradise?

JANE: So, last time you were talking about how a larger club can embrace numerous sub-fandoms.  Certainly, that can work but from what I’ve seen – and please remember, I’m not in any clubs — the biggest conflict seems to be at the convention level, when a sub-section of the group wants to have media guests.

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Sailor Moon!! at Bubonicon

Unlike author and artist guests, who attend for free or (in the cases of Guests of Honor) for expenses only, media guests are expensive and often do little more than a canned presentation, then sit and sign photographs of themselves (for which they charge even more).  The movie Galaxy Quest captures this very well.

I’ve seen more than one group fragment over this.

ALAN: We don’t have this problem – we have a national media convention called Armageddon which is run as a business (and which, I am told, makes a healthy profit).

The national SF conventions themselves are much smaller affairs, run by volunteers, and they seldom have media guests because Armageddon takes over that function for them.

JANE: There are media conventions here, too.  That isn’t really what I’m talking about.  The problem that can arrive is when a convention that’s more like what you describe as your national SF con develops a group of fans who can’t understand why a media guest can’t be added to the roster.

ALAN: Despite what I just said, there have been occasions when our national conventions have had media guests. If you are careful about who you invite, it can work out surprisingly well. One year our national convention had Danny Don Jules (the actor who played Cat in Red Dwarf) as the guest of honour. He turned out to be an absolutely wonderful guest – he was fun, he was funny, he was very approachable and best of all he was a very knowledgeable science fiction fan who was absolutely thrilled to have been chosen to play a part in an SF television show. It was one of our more memorable conventions – everyone had a ball!

JANE: How did Mr. Jule’s participation come about?

ALAN: I presume the organiser just felt like it and so she wrote to him care of the BBC. That’s just the kind of thing she would do, and she was astonishingly successful at persuading people to come and be guests at her conventions. She was very good at what Granny Weatherwax calls “Headology”.  She put together several excellent conventions by all by herself, with minimal help from other people.

JANE: She was lucky and I guess your national con must have a good budget!

ALAN: No. They are all self-funding from membership fees and the like. There are no external funds for the convention to draw on.

JANE: Impressive!

I’ve attended various conventions that featured media guests.  Most were, sadly, pretty unmemorable. Some didn’t even seem to know much about their own characters or shows.  Knowing that those people were being paid large amounts to smile and sign their name, when I was racking up expenses to be there and doing multiple program items for which I carefully prepared in advance…  Well, I’ll just leave it there.

However, some years ago, New Mexico Tech had a very small SF convention.  The organizer had a family relationship to Nichelle Nichols who played Uhura on Star Trek.  She was amazing.  Not only didn’t she mind being at a con that was small and without a lot of frills, she was thrilled to be free to walk around and be part of the event.  She went and watched the belly dancers, talked to anyone who wanted to chat, and – although I will always regret missing this – apparently went to a campus bar and tried to get the uptight students to dance.  I would have danced with her, no question.

But, as with your story about Danny Don Jules, Ms. Nichols had a lot to offer as a person.  Her speech was not only about Star Trek but about the responsibilities of being a role model.  Anyone further from the whining has-beens of Galaxy Quest could not be imagined.

George Takei was also delightful the two times I crossed paths with him.  So I think media guests may have something to offer – but only if they’re permitted to be more than talking heads for their fictional selves.

ALAN: Media SF/F invites another aspect of fandom to blossom forth – costuming. Some of the costumes can be quite elaborate and are often more than just a simple copy of what the characters wore on TV or in the movie. I remember once seeing a delightful pink dalek trundling itself down a hotel corridor.

JANE: Most conventions here have formal costume contests, as well as informal “hall costumes.”  Some conventions give prizes for both.

Costumes can be a great way for fans to shout out what they’re interested in.  Our local con has some pretty magnificent storm troopers from Star Wars who show up, as well as people meticulously costumed as characters from various anime and comics.

I’ve actually learned about various shows by asking what inspired a particular costume.

ALAN: Not all costumes are necessarily movie-based.  I remember one in particular…  But let me see if I can find a picture of it to share.  Then I can tell you about it next time.

Eighth Anniversary (Almost!)

This Saturday is the eighth anniversary of the Wednesday Wanderings.  In all eight years, I haven’t missed a single week.  Many of my posts specifically on writing can be found in my book Wanderings on Writing, but there’re also available on the site.

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Wanderings on Sofa

I certainly plan to continue with these Wanderings in 2018.  While posts will include announcements of new projects, interviews, and progress reports, doubtless I’ll wander on about whatever’s on my mind.

This brings me to the matter of memory foam.  Last week, Jim and I replaced the pad on our futon sofa.

Side note for cat owners: If you have a problem with cats using your sofa as a scratching post, you might want to consider a futon sofa.  Although the initial outlay is similar to that for a “real” sofa, the three basic elements – the frame, the pad, and the cover – can be replaced separately.  An added bonus is that most futon frames are made of wood or metal, which doesn’t look nearly as much like a scratching post to a cat as do the arms, legs, and backs of a standard sofa.  Best of all, you get an extra bed out of the deal, one that’s a lot more comfortable than most sofa beds.

Anyhow, the first pad we bought for our futon sofa had been built much like that for a “real” mattress featuring a combination of springs and padding.  It had a lot more bounce than the usual cotton batting futon, and did well by us for many years.

However, archeology is profession that is not particularly kind to backs.  Eventually, Jim hinted that he’d like to get a replacement pad.  When we went shopping, we discovered that there was a new option – a pad made completely out of memory foam.  We tried it in the store, liked it, made our purchase, and took it home.

After removing the old pad, we cut away the packaging that covered the folded memory foam pad.  We expected it to stay folded but, to our amazement, it slowly unfolded, flopping open flat.

No problem, right?  After all, we had to put the new cover on, and that could only be done with the mattress flat.  We worked the new cover around, admiring how tightly it fit, then shoved the frame and pad into the sitting position.  We arranged the pad into place and stood back to admire the effect.

The memory foam pad – still “remembering” that it should be flat – popped out of the frame, flat as a board.  After several more attempts to get it to stay in place, including sitting on the pad, we called the store.  The manager gave us a few tips, including suggesting that we position the pad then place something heavy on the seat while the memory foam set into its new position.

We were at a loss as to what to use to provide even weight.  Then Jim remembered that we had boxes of my out-of-print hardcover novels in the garage.  We brought in six boxes, positioned the pad once more, then – while I sat on the sofa to hold it in place – Jim set the boxes down.  We left it this way overnight and the next day all was well.

The behavior of the memory foam, especially its unwillingness to give up what it “remembered” as normal, made me think about my own life as a writer.  A lot changed in 2017, and I expect more to change in 2018.  No doubt, there will be times when my mental landscape will want to spring back into old patterns, but I plan to be stubborn and push back.

If I learned one thing in 2017 it was that while the new patterns can be tough, there’s a lot to like as well…

FF: Capering into Adventure

Over the holidays, I found myself enjoying books that were a little on the lighter side, but with the new year, adventure beckons.

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Ogapoge’s Desert Dream

For those of you just discovering this part of my blog, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

The Crown Jewels by Walter Jon Williams.

The Hammer of Thor: Magnus Chase and The Gods of Asgard, by Rick Riordan.  Audiobook. Reader did improve as he continued, but I might not have continued if I wasn’t already a fan of the author’s work.

Tricky Twenty-two by Janet Evanovich.  Audiobook.

House of Shards by Walter Jon Williams.  Much more of a farce than the first book, but still enjoyable.

In Progress:

The Wind in His Heart by Charles de Lint.  Just started.  This was one of my Christmas presents, much anticipated!

First Test: Protector of the Small, Book One.  Audiobook.  Re-read.  I don’t think I’ve done these as an audiobook, but I love this series.  I have a cat named Keladry for the heroine.

Also:

Wolf’s Head, Wolf’s Heart by Jane Lindskold.  Getting back into the flow.  The only problem with proofing is I can’t just snuggle down and enjoy.

TT: Fragmenting Fandom

JANE: Alan and I want to welcome you all to 2018!  Happy New Year!

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Fragmentation in Action

And now, Alan, you were saying that Fandom has changed a lot over the decades.  How so?

ALAN: Fandom used to be a monolithic thing, but these days it has fragmented into a lot of special interest sub-groups, most of which have a vague connection to, and all of which are inspired by, Science Fiction and Fantasy. Such fans are very passionate about their interests. And some of their interests are influenced by things other than straightforward SF/F stories and novels…

JANE: One of the earliest subgroups of fandom reflects how important fandom as a way of life became to many people.  Can you guess what this might be?

ALAN: An early subgroup? I’d guess you are probably talking about First Fandom…

JANE: That’s it!

First Fandom has been around since 1958, when various people started realizing that they’d been involved in fandom for at least twenty years.  First Fandom members have their own shoulder patch and are very proud of their long-time participation in various fanacs.

First Fandom member Jack Speer, who was widely regarded as a historian of fandom, regularly attended Bubonicon.  He’d sit in the front row during panels, glowering at the panelists.  I really felt I had “arrived” when he complimented me on something I’d said, because the younger you were (and newer to fandom), the harder it was for you to please him.

But other than their shoulder patch, First Fandom wouldn’t have changed the general look or feel of SF/F conventions very much.  Indeed, one might argue that some members of First Fandom would have been dedicated to not having anything change.

You’ve been involved in Fandom for a long time and in several countries.  What sub-fandom began to change the look of conventions?

ALAN: I think there’s a couple of influences here. In the UK and (as I later discovered) in Australia and New Zealand, there are flourishing fan groups dedicated to the British TV programme Doctor Who. The New Zealand group is particularly active and has even discovered a couple of “lost” episodes lurking in private collections.  (In the early days, the BBC did not keep archives of their programmes and many programmes disappeared.)  Is the programme shown in America? Does it have an organised fandom there?

JANE: Absolutely!  The latest reboot of the show has invigorated the fandom quite a lot.

ALAN: And then we have Star Trek which was (and still is) a hugely popular TV programme that introduced a great many people to SF in particular and to fandom in general.  It wasn’t long before it had a dedicated fandom all of its own, though the overlap with what I suppose you might call “standard” SF fandom was large.

JANE: Star Trek fandom was the first one I heard about.  For a long time, I didn’t realize that SF fandom was anything else.

ALAN: When I first came to New Zealand I discovered a flourishing fan base that called itself STANZA – the Star Trek Association of New Zealand. It no longer exists (at least not under that name, which is a pity because I think it’s a clever name) but in its day it had a lot of members. In collaboration with a group of people who enjoyed building models, STANZA constructed a full size model of the bridge of the Enterprise which they used in role-playing scenarios. The bridge set was far too large to remain permanently assembled, and so it spent most of its life in small pieces in people’s cellars. But it appeared on special occasions.

JANE: That sounds cool!

ALAN: One year David Gerrold (who was a Star Trek scriptwriter) was a guest at our national convention and the set was assembled in his honour. A small play was written and performed. Gerrold was most impressed and he complimented the two groups responsible for the set. He even autographed a section of it…

I have no idea where the bridge set is these days. It seems to have faded away and I haven’t seen it for years. Pity…

JANE: From what I’ve heard, Star Trek fandom was one of the first fandoms here to separate itself from the main.  People would show up at cons wearing Spock ears and the like.  This would have been fine, but many of these people clearly had no interests in anything but the show, which alienated them from the convention at large.

ALAN: That’s a very real danger – and now that a lot of different fandoms have started to appear, many people believe that we really need to start thinking about how to handle the problem.

I don’t know how it works in other countries, but here in New Zealand we have a couple of SF/F clubs (for want of a better word) which have come up with a solution that handles this fragmentation in a very clever way. Special Interest Groups flourish under the overall umbrella of the club organisation so that people with minority interests can continue to indulge themselves in their obsessions without losing sight of the larger group of which they are also a part.

JANE: My impression is that this is the case here in New Mexico, as well.  But I think that in areas with larger populations, separate clubs flourish outside of the general organization.

ALAN: Perhaps we’re lucky that we have a small enough population to sustain the model.

The clubs also organise monthly, more general SF/F events which attract people from across these groups, to a greater or lesser extent. Though that, of course, depends very much on what the monthly meeting is about. But at least it’s a good opportunity for everybody to keep in touch.

There are also monthly parties which are, of course, just an excuse to eat, drink, make merry, and be sociable. The stereotype says that SF fans are not good in social situations. There may be a degree of truth in this, but I’ve always found that when they gather together as a group, they tend to feel less threatened and will often come out of their shells. These parties are very successful in bringing people from the Special Interest Groups together. Sometimes we even talk about science fiction at them!

The clubs publish a regular fanzine which reports on the activities of the Special Interest Groups, so there’s still a sense that we are all part of the same family. The model works very well.

JANE: What you describe sounds very similar to what I have seen here in the U.S.  However, there is a serpent, even in fannish paradise.  I wonder if it lurks there, too?

ALAN: Why don’t you whisper the secret in my ear? That way nobody will get scared.

JANE: Whisper. Whisper.

ALAN:  Ah!  Let’s talk about that next time.

Inspiration and Calendars

On New Year’s Day, I ritually opened my two wall calendars for 2018.  The one that’s going in the kitchen where I’ll see it every day and where it will serve as command central for Jim and my life over the next year is the annual Julie Bell and Boris Vallejo Fantasy calendar.

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This Year’s Selection

I chose this one for several reasons.  One is that Julie Bell is the cover artist for the Firekeeper novels, and much of this year is going to be centered around the Firekeeper Saga.  As many of you already know, I’m in the process of writing Wolf’s Search, the seventh Firekeeper novel.  I’m also preparing the first six novels for an updated e-book release.

Julie Bell very kindly offered me a deal that will enable me to use her artwork for both the e-books and for Wolf’s Search, so having her art where I can see it every day will remind me that unexpected good things can happen.

I’ve also had a liking for Boris Vallejo’s art since those days of yore when a bonus for membership in the Science Fiction book club included bookplates featuring “Golden Wings,” his wonderful painting of a warrior woman riding a winged horse.  I’m certain that looking at his and Julie’s artwork daily will remind me of that younger, dreamier, more optimistic me.  I’m going to need that this year.

My office calendar is completely different.  It features brightly-colored mosaic cartoons, mostly of owls, although several other forest animals are included.  Some pages incorporate brief inspirational sayings like “It Takes Courage to Fly” or “Have Patience and the Storm Will Pass.”  Since in 2018 I’m definitely flying in different skies – starting with the self-publication of my novel Asphodel either in late January or early February – I’ll appreciate the reminders that I’m not the only person who needs encouragement.

After all, sayings like these wouldn’t end up printed on calendars if the need was unique, right?

A bonus to my office calendar is that the mosaic approach is something I want to try in several of my own art/craft projects, so seeing these images every day will remind me of something I’m looking forward to pursuing further.

Last year’s experiment with using a bullet journal went very well, and I’ll be continuing using one this year.  One thing I learned is how important it is to date entries. I did some of this last year, but I’ll be doing even more in 2018.

For example, I was very down on myself for the lack of progress I was making in getting Asphodel out.  Then I went back to the page dedicated to that book in the journal and realized that at this time last year I hadn’t even finished my revisions, nor had I begun the final proofing, which included several months reading the manuscript aloud to a group of friends.  Suddenly, rather than feeling as if I’d been slacking, I realized how much I had achieved in a relatively short span of time.

When you work for yourself, it’s really easy to lose perspective.

Now it’s time for me to go write fiction…  Catch you later!

FF: Reading on the Road

As we were on the road this past week, driving to and from Arizona, we let audiobooks fill the long hours.

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Ogapoge Tries to Open the Box

For those of you just discovering this part of my blog, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Top Secret Twenty-one by Janet Evanovich.  Audiobook.  This one was pretty good.

The Long Sunset by Jack McDevitt.  Advanced review copy of the April 2018 release.  Should we let fear rule us?  Will aliens be truly alien?

In Progress:

The Crown Jewels by Walter Jon Williams.  P.G. Wodehouse meets Jane Austen meets crime caper.  Very amusing.

The Hammer of Thor: Magnus Chase and The Gods of Asgard.  Audiobook.  Just started.  New reader.  Not very good quality.  Let’s see if it improves.

Tricky Twenty-two by Janet Evanovich.  Audiobook.  Didn’t quite finish while on the road.

Also:

Wolf’s Head, Wolf’s Heart by Jane Lindskold.  One hour a day, proofing for new e-book release.  Didn’t get much done over the holiday on this.

TT: Fact or Fiction? The SF Fan

JANE: What’s interesting to me is how the SF/F fan is perceived by those outside of the culture.  Many years ago, a friend who was not a fan came to get me after a World Fantasy convention.  As I climbed into her car, she said: “I knew I was in the right place because there were so many people wearing black.”

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A Random Bubonicon Moment

Well, the odd thing was, the reason so many people were wearing black had nothing to do with the fact that this was an SF/F event.  World Fantasy is one of the rare conventions that holds its awards ceremony on the last day of the convention.  The reason so many people were wearing black was because they were dressed up.  Much formal wear, including suits for men and the classic “little black dress” for women, is black!

ALAN: Ah! Clash of the Stereotypes!  SF and Fantasy fans. Now there’s a group of people who get stereotyped if ever there was one – especially since many SF/F fans are both nerds and/or geeks. Pelion piled upon Ossa! But I think that SF/F fandom also exhibits what I suspect is a unique social phenomenon – the fan who is obsessed with being a fan and who has little or no interest in SF/F itself. I like to think of these people as meta-fans.

JANE: I agree the meta-fan is unique.  When I attended my very first convention, Lunacon had a “Fan Guest of Honor” – Dave Kyle, if I remember correctly.  I had to have the concept of a Fan explained to me then.

However, I’m not sure I’d say these meta-fans have little or no interest in SF/F itself.  I’d say that their initial interest in some aspect of the genre has evolved to being an interest in participating in a special sub-culture.

ALAN: I suspect that’s probably true. After all, something has to bring you in to that world in the first place. But once you were there, in the pre-internet days at least, being a fan could take up the whole of your day. Fanzines circulated widely, and dedicated fans spent their time writing letters of comment (LOCs) to fanzine editors and publishing letters from their friends in their own fanzines. All this fannish activity left little time for reading new books or for watching new movies. I have a friend who is widely regarded as a Big Name Fan (BNF) from that era, but these days he seldom if ever reads an SF/F book. He actually spends his non-fandom time listening to jazz instead…

JANE: But did he start as a reader or movie viewer?  If he didn’t, what drew him into fandom?

ALAN: He started as a reader. His proudest possession is a first edition Gnome Press hardback set of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy which must be worth a small fortune now. I kept bumping into him at British conventions, though we only had a nodding acquaintance with each other then. I did notice that he seemed to be on first name terms with Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison, and he was constantly taking photographs.

When I moved to New Zealand, I found that he was living just down the road from me and that was when we got to know each other a bit better. He showed me his slides from British cons and, sure enough, he had photographs of me!

JANE: Something that fascinated me about fandom as I learned more about it was that it had an elaborate vocabulary of its own.  Let’s see what I can remember.  Fanac was short for “Fan Activity,” such as publishing a fanzine.  “Zine” was short for fanzine, which in turn was short for “fan magazine.”

ALAN: That’s right – and don’t forget LOC and BNF which I used (and interpreted) before.  Related to BNF is SMOF, or secret master of fandom.  These are the people who run big conventions, like Worldcon.

JANE: I know several SMOF.  Nice, hardworking people, overall.

Another interesting piece of fannish vocabulary is “egoboo.”  When I first heard, it I was completely baffled.  Was it a sort of ghost?  A side effect of catching con crud?

I then learned that “egoboo” was short for “ego boost.”  This, as one hard-working fan explained to me, is the only currency that the largely volunteer organizers receive for their hard labor.  She went on to say that egoboo (or the lack thereof, or someone stealing someone else’s) was the main reason for nasty feuds among fans.

ALAN: Smofs get lots of egoboo. I suspect that’s generally why they do it.

JANE: There was even a term for those who left fandom – gafiate – which was a semi-acronym for “getting away from it all.”  It’s still in use, at least among older fans.  When I was Guest of Honor at MileHiCon in October, I asked after a Colorado fan who always used to come to Bubonicon.  The response was, “Oh, I still see him every week, but he’s more or less gafiated.”

ALAN: And don’t forget fiawol (fandom is a way of life), a lovely word used to describe the meta-fans whose original interest in SF/F now takes second place to their fanac. The sneering response, of course, is usually fijagh – fandom is just a god-damned hobby.

JANE: Wow!  I’d never heard “fijagh.”  Arguments in acronyms.

We’ve been talking about Fandom as if it’s a monolith but, while it started that way, it’s fragmented.  Maybe next time we can talk about some of the sub-fandoms and the way they have transformed conventions.

It’s Never Too Late

A belated Merry Christmas to you all…  We’re back from spending the holiday in Arizona with my mom, aunt, and a plethora of cousins.

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Cookie-Press Butter Cookies

Before Christmas – when I mentioned that I was trying a new (to me) butter cookie recipe – some folks asked whether, if it worked out, would I share the recipe.  It did and I will.

Sure, it’s after Christmas, but is there ever a wrong time of year for butter cookies?  These cookies are shaped using a cookie press.  Mine (a Wilton Preferred Press cookie press) includes disks for hearts, flowers, a pumpkin, and what I’m pretty sure is a Thanksgiving turkey.  If that isn’t a hint that it’s never too late to make butter cookies, then I don’t know what is.

One of the difficulties of cookie press cookies is that if the dough is too soft, the cookies will not hold their shape, and the dough will come out of the press in lumps and gobs.  For this reason, many cookie press recipes are heavy on flour and, consequently, taste like solidified library paste.  Therefore, the dough is often colored with food coloring, maybe so you’ll ignore the lack of flavor.

This recipe works best if you allow time for it to firm up for the fifteen to twenty minutes that puts it in the Goldilocks Zone of neither too warm (soft and sticky) or too cold (hard as a rock and certain to break your press).

The following recipe is adapted from an article published in The Washington Post, December 4, 2002.  Yes.  That’s the right date.  It took me over a decade to get around to trying these.  The author is Elinor Klivan, whose book Fearless Baking was a new release at that time.

Now, without further chatter…  Cookie-Press Butter Cookies:

2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature.

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt (Note from Jane: If you use salted butter, just skip this salt)

2 large egg yolks

2 tsp vanilla extract

Colored sugar for decorating (optional)  (Note from Jane: Go light on this to accent the cookies, not cover the details.)

Beat together butter, sugar, and salt until blended and smooth.  (I use an electric mixer, but this should be doable by hand as well.)

Blend in egg yolks and vanilla.  Gradually add the flour until dough is evenly mixed.   Don’t worry!  The completed dough should be slightly sticky.  Chill dough as noted above.

Preheat oven to 350. (If you’re going to chill the dough, then shape the cookies, time your oven heating accordingly!  Why waste energy?)

Get out cookie sheets.  Note: DO NOT grease, or cookies will not adhere to the surface when extruded from the cookie press.  Select your disk of choice.  Pack dough into cookie press, following instructions for your press.   Follow cookie press directions to shape cookies.

Sprinkle colored sugar on before baking.  (Note from Jane: My experience is that with shapes that have a holes in them, like the wreath, you end up with as much sugar on the cookie sheet as on the cookie, so I didn’t add ornamental sugar to those.)

Let cool, then enjoy!

FF: Visions of Sugarplums

Guess what?  Reading recipes is fun.  I took a book of cookie recipes to bed with me and dreamed of baking.  Does that qualify as “visions of sugarplums?”  In this case, visions of hermits.  I may have found a new favorite non-chocolate cookie.

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Ziggy Reads The Long Sunset

For those of you just discovering this part of my blog, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie.  Audiobooks.  Also two of her rediscovered short stories.

In Progress:

The Long Sunset by Jack McDevitt.  Advanced review copy of the April 2018 release.

The Hammer of Thor: Magnus Chase and The Gods of Asgard.  Audiobook.  Just started.

Wolf’s Head, Wolf’s Heart by Jane Lindskold.  One hour a day, proofing for new e-book release.  And, almost embarrassed to admit this, really enjoying!

Also:

I had to stop listening to the audiobook of All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater because some of the choices made either by the reader or the director drove me nuts.  I will be reading the book, but the audio…  I know I’m not the only one to be turned off by it!

TT: A Nerd Is A Nerd Is A…

JANE: Last time, when we were discussing stereotypes associated with people who are good with computers, I found myself reflecting how what people mean by “nerd” and “geek” has changed.

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Geeking Out

When I was a kid, there was absolutely nothing complimentary about the term “nerd.”  It conjured an abstract image of someone who wore thick glasses; who dressed not just unfashionably, but with no sense of what would look remotely good; and who was completely socially inept.

Did the word have the same meaning in England?

ALAN: I don’t think so – but I’m not really sure. When I was at school we certainly knew people of that type, but I can’t remember if we had a word to describe them. Or maybe we called them “drips”. That rings faint bells…

The internet, that infallible source of all knowledge, tells me that nerd first appeared in American teenage slang in the 1950s. So it probably didn’t migrate to English slang until quite some time later, after I left school.

JANE: Then there’s “geek.”  I’m not really sure when that word started showing up.  Its meaning was slightly more complimentary than nerd, since “geek” usually implied some intellectual capacity.  Nerds could be stupid, as well as all the rest, but geeks were nerds with brains.

ALAN: Geek is a very interesting word. I first came across it in a short story (I think it was a Fredric Brown story, but I won’t swear to that) where it was used to describe a carnival sideshow where someone bit the head off a live chicken. Wikipedia tells me that the word derives from the Middle Low German work geck meaning a fool or a freak and that geek shows where performers used their teeth to decapitate chickens, rats, lizards and goodness knows what else were quite common in nineteenth-century North American circuses and travelling carnivals.

JANE: Urrgh…

ALAN: Quite how the word moved on from that rather disgusting origin to acquire its current meaning seems to be something of a mystery. Again, Wikipedia informs me that the only definition of geek in the 1975 American Heritage Dictionary was the carnival performer. So its current meaning must be a relatively recent formation. Perhaps from the early 1980s? Obviously I’m just guessing here.

JANE: Maybe some of our readers can fill us in on when and how the transition happened.

Going back to nerds for a moment, a few years ago, when I was comparing high school experiences with some friends who are a good bit younger than I am, one of them said, when explaining how their group had not fit in with the other students, “Basically, we were nerds.”

I was distinctly startled.  I’d known these people, at least in passing, at that point in their lives.  They certainly hadn’t fit my idea of what a “nerd” was.  Eventually, I realized that the word “nerd” had become conflated with “geek,” and that even “geek” was considered more complimentary than it had been.  The words remained the same, but the meaning, and therefore the stereotype, had shifted.

I’m not sure what words are currently used for the former nerds and geeks.  Maybe in this politically correct modern world, the stereotype has vanished.

ALAN: I don’t think the stereotype has vanished, it’s just gained a bit of respectability.

JANE: That does seem to be the case.  Even mainstream catalogs now have shirts with slogans that proclaim geek culture.

 A popular SF/F blogsite I follow is called Black Girl Nerds.  “Geeking out” about something simply means becoming very interested in it – rather as the word “fanatic” (which had very negative connotations) morphed into the more acceptable “fan.”

ALAN: The obvious area where this applies would be sports. When I was a child, my mother and father were fanatical watchers of the Wimbledon tennis tournaments. When the season started they drew the curtains to shut the world away, and huddled themselves around the television. We ate sandwiches for every meal because sandwiches were quick to prepare and therefore didn’t interfere with the tennis too much. Nobody thought my parents were strange for behaving like this…

Here in New Zealand both rugby and cricket are followed so fanatically that sometimes people joke that they amount to a religion – and the joke only works because there’s more than a degree of truth in it. Shortly after I first moved here, there was a crisis in the Middle East (just like always), and the Israeli air force bombed an Iraqi nuclear facility. The headline on the front page of the newspaper here was: “Young Man Dies of Rugby Injury”.

JANE: Fans, of course, are found in many areas of interest, although off the cuff I can’t think of any other area than sports that uses the term “fan” to identify its membership.  Knitters, for example, can be fanatical, but they don’t call themselves “fans.”

ALAN: People often have very strong feelings about the kind of music they enjoy. Personally, I have quite eclectic tastes, but nevertheless I would certainly describe myself as a folk music fan, particularly when it overlaps with pretentious progressive rock! I have a friend who is so fanatical about heavy metal music that he has been known to travel to the far end of the country just to attend a live concert.

JANE: Yes!  Fan definitely applies to music as well.  I’m certain our readers will have some suggestions as to other areas.

We’re into the dangerous TL/DR zone, so let’s save the engrossing subject of the SF/F fan for next time!