2012 Philip K. Dick Award Thoughts

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One of the highlights of Norwescon is the award dinner for the annual Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. For the second year running, I’ve purchased and read each of the nominated books. What follows are the brief reviews I posted to Goodreads as I finished each book.

  • Helix WarsHelix Wars by Eric Brown
    My rating: 3 of 5 stars

    First off, to borrow an old cliché, don’t judge this book by its cover. The cover, of a suited warrior firing a laser rifle against a backdrop of explosions, gives the impression that this is a military sci-fi novel (a genre which I’m not terribly interested in). Instead, this book, the second in a series, has much more in common with Larry Niven’s Ringworld, as it deals with the interplay between races on a giant helical constructed world, wrapped around a star like a slinky, with thousands of cylindrical worlds strung along like beads on a necklace.

    However much the construct may invite comparisons to Niven’s Ringworld, though, Brown’s worldbuilding isn’t quite so engrossing. The structure of the Helix allows for lots of variety in environments and races, but leaves a lot of the technical underpinnings (for instance, how do the individual worlds have gravity?) to be either entirely unexplained or brushed off as “technology so advanced we can’t understand it”. The concept sounds very hard-SF, but the execution leaves something to be desired.

    That said, the book isn’t at all bad, though it’s not likely to end up as my pick for this year’s P.K. Dick award (for which it is one of seven nominees). I just hoped for a little more Niven-like exploration of the hard-SF concept that instead acts as little more than an interesting background for the story itself.

  • Fountain of Age: StoriesFountain of Age: Stories by Nancy Kress
    My rating: 4 of 5 stars

    Impressive selection of stories; unlike many anthologies (both single- and multi-author), not a single story I’d consider a dud. Many deal with the not-too-far-future complications of genetic modification, and the whole book has a somewhat melancholy, moody feel to it that I liked a lot.

  • Lost EverythingLost Everything by Brian Francis Slattery
    My rating: 3 of 5 stars

    I almost gave this one two stars, but that wouldn’t have been fair to the book. It’s good, well written, and the style is…well, I want to say pretty, but “evocative” is probably a better word. The book was just too sad, too much of a hard slog through a broken country with broken people. Though described as post-apocalyptic, that’s not quite right, as the apocalypse is still in progress during the events of the book. There are moments of hope, but they’re always overwhelmed by despair. I know it’s good…I just didn’t enjoy reading it.

  • The Not YetThe Not Yet by Moira Crone
    My rating: 3 of 5 stars

    I had trouble getting into this one — it was interesting, and has some interesting ideas on mortality and the effects of enhanced longevity, but for some reason, it didn’t really pull me in until the last chapter when everything wraps up.

  • HarmonyHarmony by Keith Brooke
    My rating: 3 of 5 stars

    Three and a half stars would be more accurate. There’s a lot of fascinating worldbuilding here, presented very much in the “sink or swim” style where you’re simply dropped into the world and must figure it out as you go. Neat stuff, but the pacing felt a little off…there’s a lot of time spent setting the board, only to have the endgame sprung upon you faster than you expect. I’m not sure if I’d have preferred less setup (at the possible expense of less comprehension of the world) or more climax/denouement (which might remove some of the power of the “aha!” moment at the end), but it felt somewhat off-balance.

  • Blueprints of the AfterlifeBlueprints of the Afterlife by Ryan Boudinot
    My rating: 3 of 5 stars

    At times both fascinating and frustrating. While there was a lot to like in this, taken as a whole, it just didn’t quite mesh. Neat and very believable ideas (like the Bionet) mixed with wild absurdism (the Malaspina glacier gone rogue) mixed with I’m not sure what (a Mario-Brothers-meets-zombies video game sequence that I’m still not sure how to interpret). Interesting and, on the while, enjoyable, but perhaps a bit too absurdist.

  • LoveStar: A NovelLoveStar: A Novel by Andri Snær Magnason
    My rating: 5 of 5 stars

    This one, I really, really enjoyed. Frighteningly believable (if improbable) biotech-meets-marketing serves as a base for paired stories of lovers torn apart and a brilliant CEO on a reluctant quest for God. Frequently funny and sweet, this was easily my favorite of this year’s crop of Philip K. Dick Award nominees.

Me at Norwescon 36

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In just a few weeks, I will once again be indulging in four days of glorious geekery at Norwescon 36. I’m wearing more hats than ever before this year, so here’s a rough rundown of what I’ll be doing and where you’ll be able to find me…

DJ

I continue to coax my onetime alter-ego DJ Wüdi out of retirement, and as such, will be DJing the opening night dance on Thursday night! Here’s the program blurb:

Thor’s Day Night Dance!

We call it Thursday night, but we used to know it as Thor’s Day…and you can kick off your weekend of saving the world with a celebration worthy of Asgard itself! Join DJ Wüdi for an evening of tunes new and old for gods and mortals alike. Come dressed as your godlike representation or as your mortal alter-ego. Requests are not just welcome, but encouraged!

If you’re going to be at the con and already know that there are certain songs you really want to hear, good news! You can already turn in your song requests for me or any of Norwescon’s other DJs at the Norwescon website!

Lead Photographer

This will be my fourth consecutive year as lead photographer for Norwescon. Look for me running all over the convention space, taking shots of anything and everything that’s going on!

(Sadly, this will also be my last year as lead photographer, as I’ve found that living in Ellensburg makes it somewhat difficult to coordinate photography for a con in the Seattle area. I do hope to remain on the photography team in future years, however, so neither I nor my camera will be disappearing from Norwescon anytime soon!)

Panelist

I’m participating in one panel this year, as I am part of Norwescon’s new SAFE committee, tasked with investigating a possible official written harassment policy for convention membership. We’re hosting a panel on Saturday to address any concerns that the membership at large might have as we work on this. Here’s the program blurb for this panel:

Panel Name: Should Norwescon Adopt a Harassment Policy?
Time: Sat 1200
Room: Salon
Panelists: Kevin Black (M), Pat Booze, Alan Bond, Sika Holman, Michael Hanscom, Kate Mulligan Wolfe
Description: Some conventions are adopting policies against harassment, something Norwescon has not had in its 36 years of existence. Do we need this in our community? Please come give input to members of the committee charged with making recommendations to the executive team by the end of 2013.

Social Media Coordinator

For most of the year, anytime you see something pop up on Norwescon’s Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ pages, chances are extremely good that I was the brain behind the keyboard. While chances are looking quite good that I’ll have some assistance during the con itself this year, I’m the person overseeing all that, so if there’s something that our social media accounts aren’t doing to your satisfaction (or, of course, if we’re doing particularly well), feel free to let me know!

Webmaster

I’m also the person in charge of the official Norwescon website. There’s still a lot of information yet to go up over the next few weeks as we get closer to the con, and then by the end of April, I’ll be rolling us over to a new, fresh design for Norwescon 37! Just as with the Social Media side of things, if there’s anything that the website isn’t doing that it could do better (or if there are things going particularly well), I’d love to hear about it!

Difficult Listening Hour 06 (110BPM)

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After taking last weekend off (but hey, I gave you almost four hours in two mixes last time I updated), here’s another new practice mix. Every song in this mix is somewhere between 105 and 115 BPM. And as always, this was mixed “live” and has no post-processing or editing work, so while it may not be perfect, it’s all me!

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Gigs Music Theater 1998

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So this is a little bit of silly self-indulgence…but then, wouldn’t that pretty much describe this entire website? ;)

Back when I was DJing at Gig’s Music Theater, I was also running a website for the club (and though I have no way of verifying this, I’ve always assumed that we were one of the first clubs to have a website running). As part of the website, I kept track of my requests, and kept a running “top requests” list. Since I archived the website as it was when the club shut down, I still have the last “top requests” list that I posted, back in 1998. Looking at it the other day, it struck me that it could make for an entertaining playlist….

So here we are: Two hours and forty-five minutes of the top club hits in 1998, as determined by the requests at an all-ages, non-alcoholic, alternative club in Anchorage, Alaska. In other words, this list probably wouldn’t match a similar list anywhere and anytime else.

It’s a little rough around the edges in spots, but that’s cause it’s recorded “live”, with no post-processing or editing. It’s not perfect, but I’ve rarely been perfect, and I think it ended up an honest and pretty fun throwback to what you’d have heard at Gig’s “back in the day”.

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Difficult Listening Hour 05 (100BPM)

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Finally! The first (and hopefully not the last) of a new series of long-form mixes! There’s no real particular theme to this mix, and likely won’t be for the next few mixes — primarily, I’m working on getting back in practice and getting used to my new equipment. As I do this, I’m recording what I’m doing, both so I can later listen to it and critique myself and so, if I think they’re good enough, I can upload them here. This was mixed “live” using djay with the Numark iDJ Pro controller and has no post-processing or editing work, so while it may not be perfect, it’s honest! ;)

Well, okay, there’s one light theme: Every song in this mix is between 95 and 105 BPM.

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See Something? Check Snopes!

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So here’s a little contribution I made to the world today, after seeing yet another Facebook friend sharing yet another easily disproven bit of misinformation:

If you see something, CHECK SNOPES FIRST.

Please: Steal this image. Re-post it. Share it with your friends (you know the ones). Post it as a comment when they post whatever hoax comes around next. Get it out there.

Over and over, I see people–who in other situations seem to have at least two brain cells to rub together–sharing and reposting images on Facebook that are absolute junk. In most cases, disproving the information is as simple as googling “snopes” plus a couple keywords from the text. For instance, the image of a bunch of soda cans that talks about how someone died after drinking from a can that had been contaminated by rat urine? Yeah, that’s false, and not only is that link is the top result after searching for “snopes can rat urine“, but every other link on the Google results page is to a page debunking the information.

This stuff is not hard to find. The problem is, even the couple clicks and few words of typing are more work than simply clicking “share” on Facebook, and so when people see these things, their brains just seem to disengage. After all, it could be true…right? Well, no, not usually, but it gets shared anyway.

So, in a fit of pique, I created the image above (based off the “See Something Say Something campaign), and have now posted it publicly to Facebook, Google+, and this blog. It’s my (sure to be unrealized) hope that this image will get shared and, just perhaps, prompt a few people to actually put some small effort into thinking about what they’re posting.

Yeah, I know. Unlikely. But it’s worth a shot.

You’ve Got A Dirty Speech Synthesizer

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An amusing little anecdote about Watson, the IBM supercomputer that was featured on Jeopardy, that might seem a little familiar to those of my friends who are parents:

Two years ago, Brown attempted to teach Watson the Urban Dictionary. The popular website contains definitions for terms ranging from Internet abbreviations like OMG, short for “Oh, my God,” to slang such as “hot mess.”

But Watson couldn’t distinguish between polite language and profanity — which the Urban Dictionary is full of. Watson picked up some bad habits from reading Wikipedia as well. In tests it even used the word “bullshit” in an answer to a researcher’s query.

Ultimately, Brown’s 35-person team developed a filter to keep Watson from swearing and scraped the Urban Dictionary from its memory.

Gee, seems like parenting would be a little easier (if less embarrassing–and, of course, amusing) if the solution was that easy for people!

(via Techdirt)

This Far, No Further

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I do my best to be open-minded about just about everything, and accepting of outlooks and beliefs other than mine. I may not understand why someone might believe the things they do (republicans, for instance)…but if that’s what they believe, that’s what they believe.

A few months ago, I hit the first time when I decided to “un-friend” a Facebook contact (the ultimate arbiter of relationships in today’s world) because of their beliefs. I could deal with this person being a gun nut, I could deal with them being an uncomfortably far-right Republican. What I couldn’t deal with was when they outed themselves as a Birther. At that point, it was obvious to me that there was simply no way I was ever going to connect to this person on any rational level. If someone’s at a point where they can take that level of over-the-top racism-poorly-disguised-as-conspiracy-theories seriously, then they’re not at a point where I can even pretend to be able to relate to them. So, off the friend list they went.

Just this week, I found a second, similar line, when I discovered that another contact was a vaccine denier. This I find even more offensive than the Birther nonsense. Birthers are crazy and probably racist, but at least their paranoid fantasies aren’t likely to hurt anyone. Anti-vaccine people, though…that can be harmful, and not just to the person, but to others, as they could potentially end up helping to spread an otherwise preventable disease. The “research” that the anti-vaccine crowd relies on has been debunked so thoroughly that it’s mind-boggling to me that anyone can continue to try to believe it, and when you factor in the very real chance that by not vaccinating themselves or their children, they could spread diseases that we at one point came very close to having essentially eradicated…. Enough is enough, and off they went.

This kind of thing doesn’t happen terribly often. I don’t mind disagreeing with people, I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, and in the right circumstances, calm, rational discussions of disagreements can be quite good. However, the line has to be drawn somewhere, and I’ve now found two places where I’m quite comfortable drawing that line.

Give It A Crablouse

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For many years, I had the idea for a mashup bouncing around in my head. In fact, it had been rattling around in my brain for so long that it wasn’t even originally thought of as a “mashup” — just a mix I wanted to try. However, I’d been missing a crucial piece, so it never got beyond the conceptual stage…until a few years ago.

Here’s the second of my contributions to mashup culture: Give It A Crablouse.

Sources: The Lords of Acid‘s “The Crablouse” (“In Its Native Environment (Album)” and “Whatever You Do, Remain Calm (Instrumental)”) mixes, and The Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ “Give It Away“.

Download Give It A Crablouse (5.2 MB .mp3)