Hugo nominees 2013

Again! Another year, with the reading and the enjoying and the planet spinning and words coursing through my brain's word-processing centers.

Best Novel:

• Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, John Scalzi
• Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold
• 2312, Kim Stanley Robinson
• Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed
• Blackout, Mira Grant

Best Novella:

• The Emperor’s Soul, Brandon Sanderson
• After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, Nancy Kress
• “The Stars Do Not Lie”, Jay Lake
• On a Red Station, Drifting, Aliette de Bodard
• San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, Mira Grant

Best Novelette:

• “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi”, Pat Cadigan
• “In Sea-Salt Tears”, Seanan McGuire
• “Fade To White”, Catherynne M. Valente
• “Rat-Catcher”, Seanan McGuire
• “The Boy Who Cast No Shadow”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Best Short Story:

• “Mono no Aware”, Ken Liu
• “Immersion”, Aliette de Bodard
• “Mantis Wives”, Kij Johnson

[Update: the winners, announced.]


This post's theme word is chalcedony, "a milky or greyish transcucent to transparent quartz." My opinions are to the Hugos as chalcedony to diamond.

Scrap octopus Fabrice

One month of Saturdays spent, and --- lo! --- a large collection of worn and stained green shirts (plus one old spherical pillow) is transformed into one fantastic pillowcase octopus. 

Fabrice, my scrap octopus.

I quilted the "skirt" portion for fun, and also as an experiment in quilting t-shirt cotton. It was interesting. I will certainly take the lessons learned here forward in the next sewing project. One main lesson is: don't quilt t-shirt cotton, it's too stretchy. Another is: finishing touches matter. I spent a lot of time considering how to attach the tentacles and make the underskirt, and these things have much less of an impact than the shape of the head and the style of quilting.

The rest of my shabby old clothes have a reprieve now, while I focus on other projects. The other residents of the bedroom should beware, though... Fabrice's octopus head is stretchy, so he is quite capable of consuming other softies.

This post's theme word is celadon, "a pale green color," or "a type of ceramics having a pale green glaze, originally made in China." Fabrice's original habitat offers many mottled celadon backdrops against which he is camouflaged.

Moderately romantic gesture by a yeti rumormonger

This sign was publicly posted, and I pass it almost every day. Now I put it on the internet, for the enjoyment of ages to come:

Last line reads: "P.S. I dropped the class and my back is now unscathed, thank you for caring."

I want to know more circumstances.

Who is moderatelyromanticgesture@gmail.com? 

How does the sign writer know Anne's last initial but not some other way to find her (facebook, twitter, university directory)?

Why 68%? Is this some reference to the circumstances of their meeting?

Why is 68% in blue? The author really splurged on color printing there.

Why not take the brush-off? There's a story hinted at here, where some people meet (possibly in a setting with nametags, so everyone has firstname-lastinitial identifiers), the author is charmed by Anne R., and she is not reciprocally charmed, so she manages to sneak off without giving out her number. The author, undaunted, initiates a passive but hopeful campaign to get her number.

Is the postscript sarcastic?

How did the author's back get scathed? What class-related activity is physically scathing?

Is the entire thing a honeypot for some psychology researchers who want to know how many people would respond to a moderately romantic gesture targeting someone else?

Please write your hypotheses in the comments below. Bonus points for creativity, using citations, identifying the location of the sign (have you seen one like it?), or emailing moderatelyromanticgesture@gmail.com and reporting what you find.

This post's theme word is onomancy, "divination by the letters of a name." An anagram of "moderately romantic gesture" is "yeti rumormongers acted late," one possible explanation of both why Anne refused to give her number, and why the author didn't manage to ask for it.

The most inconvenient temperature for precipitation

The ground is frozen and the water on the ground is part ice, part snow. Solid water, that is. But the air is slightly warmer and the precipitation is rain. Liquid water, that is. The temperature is hovering right around freezing, and the rate of precipitation is not enough to wash away the solid. It is not cold enough to freeze into (easily trampled) snow or ice, and not warm enough to dissolve the matrix holding the liquid in place.

What results is that the solid water is supporting the liquid water in a scaffold of slush. A sodden barricade which prevents all city drainage from working properly. The sidewalks are cold, sticky reservoirs supported on both sides by ridges from plowing and shoveling.

My winter boots are warm but not waterproof on the tops, so the slurry oozes in and collects around my foot. It is cold. My waterproof boots would fare no better, because although dry, they lack the insulation to protect me from walking through several inches of thick, icy goo. (I didn't get any photos, but the car tracks made a compelling case for snow tires, which parted the slush and gripped the ground, leaving a cleared trail behind.)

And through this, I commute.

This post's theme word is paseo, "a leisurely stroll," or "a place or path designed for walking," or "a street or boulevard." To avoid the slush paseo, I walked in the slushy street whenever possible.

Guilt about racism

Racism is bad. We all agree on that. I want to mention two leisure activities --- the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and the movie District 9 --- which made me feel personally guilty about racism.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks describes Rebecca Skloot's journalistic and emotion-heavy research into the immortal cell line derived from Henrietta Lacks' unknowingly-donated-to-science cervical cancer cells. The book has two tones: the first, a factual historical narrative describing scientific research, blends via description of Henrietta Lacks' health and life into the second, a first-person account of Skloot's research efforts over many years, which extended to a very personal relationship with Lacks' descendents.

The science part was interesting. All the emotional parts --- and this includes parts with scientists being manipulative, deceitful, and exploitative --- made me feel guilty. As a child of privilege, as an educated person, as a scientist, as a human being, the story made me feel guilt. About my own luck, by chance of birth, to have avoided those circumstances. This contrition is reinforced by Skloot's own similar feelings, which she explores at length.

By the end of the book I was having flashbacks of District 9 every paragraph or so. That kernel of an interesting idea, that intriguing nugget of science (or science fiction) was the bait to lure me, yet again, into this abstract feeling of shame and iniquity. Yes, I see that thing you're showing me! It's bad! I want to change it! Yes, 30 seconds later I still feel bad about it!

What purpose does all this remorse-mongering serve? Highlighting awareness? We get it, we're aware of racism. I just wanted to read about cancer research, I just wanted to see alien technology; is there some need to crush me with guilt? Skloot seems to derive some catharsis from writing every twinge of contrition, every individual malfeasance; perhaps bringing unpleasant history to light can shape future history for the better.  District 9 is the bigger culprit here, because I guess the producers weren't sure the audience would pick up on the analogy that confining aliens to a ghetto was like apartheid confining people to a ghetto. So they drew the analogy in every. single. scene. Is this a movie about historical atrocities or about futuristic atrocities? I can only effect one of those. Sure, you're winning the battle for hearts and minds, but there's no opposition and you haven't told us what to do to win the battle for... you know, the actual battle.

In the end I'm forced to blame myself (touché) for enduring. I read the entire book, I sat through the entire movie, I caused myself to have the experience which gave rise to these feelings which I do not enjoy. I'd much rather live the life of the mind, where all recreational (and employment-driven) media consumption is stripped down to its essential ideas, without the dross of attendant emotions.

Of course this "dross" is a main purpose of recreational media. (Thank you, Prof. Lynn M. Festa's "Sex and Sensibility in the Enlightenment", for teaching me all about experiencing emotions as a cultural pastime.)

My recommendations: read some interviews with Skloot, you'll get the main points. And watch District 9 at home, with the fast-forward button handy.


This post's theme word is comminate, "to threaten with divine punishment" or "to curse." Those who have not watched District 9 are roundly comminated.

Chopstick technique

I am intrigued by the chopstick technique presented below.

How does a single tentacle control both chopsticks? It looks like it's a hunting tentacle, so maybe the hunting tentacles have extra abilities that the others lack. The configuration as represented looks instable. A small amount of squirming on the human's part would suffice to loosen from the ominous --- dare I say, eldrich? --- grasp of the squid's tentacles.

But a merry eldrich grasp it is!


This post's theme word is micturate, "to make or eliminate urine." The hapless human micturated in terror, but the ocean absorbed both his screams and that small embarrassment.

Winter storm Nemo

This morning I checked the weather, then unpacked my fancy spherical skiing goggles and deployed my full-head fleece layers in the Mom-Patent-Pending "seamless" arrangement. The only thing showing was the tip of my nose.

The streets and sidewalks were unplowed, thick fluffy white snow. Then I trudged --- faster movement not possible given the relative heights of my knees and the snowdrifts --- to work. What joy! What rapture! What shoulder-borne snow collections!

A delighted morning commuter!

If you look closely into my awesome fog-free goggles, you can see a double thumbs-up for the weather! Plus the wide snowy field outside this castle, whither I am bound.


This post's theme word is kyirked stoor, an Orkney term for snow when accompanied by wind which whirls the snowflakes. She skipped merrily through the kyirked stoor to her cold, windowless cinderblock cell. (See more delightful Orkney weather words here, where I"ve sent you before.)

Snow frolic!

This morning's ongoing snowfall is thick, fluffy, and marvelous. I peer out from the castle fortifications (and home of the gym, my morning ritual obeisance paid) and glory in the blanketed landscape.

Look at this magnificent framing. Look at this arch. Look at this naked tree. Look at ALL THIS SNOW. It's pure joy, damping the sounds of the city and encouraging the non-arctic people to scurry inside. This leaves all the delightful snow outside, with me!

Frolic.


This post's theme word is scrobiculate, "having many small grooves; furrowed." The snow plow rendered the street scrobiculate but not substantially safer, as snow continued to fall in its wake.

Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War

The board game Confusion is excellent for game afternoons with exactly two players. And two players in my vicinity have been enjoying it recently!  Confusion combines aspects of chess (each piece moves differently), checkers (the goal is the far side of the board), and Clue (there's lots of hidden information which you must query to investigate).

The setting: the Cold War. The pieces: Russian and US spies. The objective: obtain the briefcase of top secret intelligence, and sneak it to the opposite side of the board (while preventing your opponent from sneaking it to your side of the board). The gameplay: you can only see the names of your agents, while your opponent can see their move capabilities.  The twist: one of your spies (labelled by '?') is a double agent, who obeys or disobeys you orders at the whim of your opponent. The trick: very good recordkeeping, just as with Clue.

The delight: when strategic use of your double-agent causes the opponent's entire strategy to collapse in a single turn!

My set of pieces had a misprint, and the friendly support at Stronghold Games promptly emailed me a replacement piece. Thanks!


This post's theme word is vitiate, "to impair or spoil the effectiveness of," or "to corrupt." My entire spy agency was vitiated when C turned out to be a Soviet double-agent!

New year, same resolutions

I didn't do very well with last year's resolutions. The first was to be able to perform one pull-up, which aborted mid-year when I started having shoulder and neck cramps so bad they gave me splitting headaches. (So that goal is... on a back burner.) The second was to blog more consistently. You see how that turned out. If anything, I've sunk myself in a deeper hole, since I have another year's worth of drafted blog posts festering on my dashboard.

This year I'll do better at both: blogging and pull-ups. Plus I plan to end the year with an additional degree. That, and the usual maintenance of surviving a year, seems like plenty on my plate.


This post's theme word is nudiustertian, "of or relating to the day before yesterday." I'm a nudiustertian nudist, I believe in eschewing clothing only on the day before yesterday.