Minneapolis

Jun. 12th, 2025 11:24 am
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[personal profile] sartorias
It's very poignant to be here again. I'm in Minneapolis so rarely that I can still distinguish each visit, but the overall sense is one of extended memory, that is not just of my own, but of anecdotes from my mother and grandmother about their lives here, my grandmother as a (very) young adult, and my mother as a kid.

Not all the memories of mine are good--the week we spent in Bloomington ranged from weird to horrific, the axis we kid spun around was the sound of my mother crying in the bathroom when my bio grandfather started his daily drinking and turned into a monster. We kids at least escaped with his bio kids (our age, his second marriage) but mom couldn't escape--we had the car.

The city that was best to them all (though mom only got to visit, never got to live there) was Red Wing. I adore that place! There's something so peaceful about Red Wing. And extended memory is very complete, as we heard ALL the stories about life on the farm, etc. But it wasn't idyllic--my grandmother and her older sister had to go--that was the conditions my great-grandmother accepted when she remarried in order to save the farm, around 1930, with the Depression really digging in. The man said he could abide the two younger girls but the sixteen year old (my grandmother) and her older sister had to get out and find their way on their own. Which they did, in Minneapolis, waiting tables.

Anyway I'm here for a con. I came a day early, knowing that getting in at one in the morning would leave me a zombie for a day. The weather is perfect--cool and cloudy. I think I'll go out for another walk.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Very nice and punctual but they've basically learned nothing in the year they've worked at the theatre. Not where to stand, not which row is which, or the general location of a given seat. The last two really matter during reserved seating shows. Whatever side that usher is on is going to have lines, and people may end up in the wrong seats.

So I was discussing the situation with my boss and I said my current approach was that each shift would be to pick one thing that usher does not know, and do my best to ensure they know it by the end of the shift. Last shift was "where to stand", for example. My reward is, I think, that usher is now _my_ special project who I will be working with whenever I HM.

I did assure my boss I do remember a previous HM who grilled ushers on seat location and would ding them a quarter hour for minor uniform infractions and that I wasn't going to use them as a model. Well, I do, but only in the sense of asking myself if the way I want to handle something is how that person would, and if it is, I do something else.
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An artisanal cheesemaker's attempt to save her precious cheese cave lands her in the middle of an interplanetary crisis.

The Transitive Properties of Cheese by Ann LeBlanc
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Have never worked a show run by human golden retrievers...
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Tales of dissidents, dissenters, and iconoclasts taking on the status quo...

Five SFF Books About Oddballs Resisting Conformity

From This Day Forward by John Brunner

Jun. 10th, 2025 09:00 am
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The sudden, shocking, return of Shockwave Reader. Will the living envy the dead?

From This Day Forward by John Brunner

Bundle of Holding: Fantasy AGE 2E

Jun. 9th, 2025 02:01 pm
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The 2023 Second Edition corebook, TECHNOFANTASY, and more

Bundle of Holding: Fantasy AGE 2E
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No rules, no bureaucracy, just some randos messing around with the past, present, and future.

Five Stories About Time Travel on a Limited Scale

Clarke Award Finalists 2000

Jun. 9th, 2025 10:21 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
2000: The theft of an Enigma Machine comes too late to play a significant role in World War Two, Sellafield highlight British dedication to nuclear saafety, and the Conservatives, informed polling has them 2% ahead of Labour, discover that they are actually trailing by 13%.

Poll #33234 Clarke Award Finalists 2000
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 53


Which 2000 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Distraction by Bruce Sterling
11 (20.8%)

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
39 (73.6%)

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
41 (77.4%)

Silver Screen by Justina Robson
8 (15.1%)

The Bones of Time by Kathleen Ann Goonan
4 (7.5%)

Time by Stephen Baxter
11 (20.8%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2000 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Distraction by Bruce Sterling
A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Silver Screen by Justina Robson
The Bones of Time by Kathleen Ann Goonan
Time by Stephen Baxter

Timing

Jun. 8th, 2025 07:06 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
I swung by Old Goat Books to pick up a book I ordered, which meant I was in the right place at the right time hear the confused customer next to me ask "What's speculative fiction?" Which, after I explained what it meant, was followed by the question. "Do you know anything about Andre Norton?"

It was only with great effort that I resisted shouting "BEHOLD! I AM Marshall McLuhan" before helping.

The Heirs of Babylon by Glen Cook

Jun. 8th, 2025 09:18 am
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A decrepit fleet sails from Germany to play its role in a futile war, crewed by sailors who seem more eager to kill each other than the perfidious Australians.

The Heirs of Babylon by Glen Cook

Nebula winners announced

Jun. 7th, 2025 11:15 pm
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Best Novel: Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (DAW; Arcadia UK)

Best Novella: The Dragonfly Gambit, A.D. Sui (Neon Hemlock)

Best Novelette: Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being, A.W. Prihandita (Clarkesworld 11/24)

Short Story: Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole, Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld 2/24)

Andre Norton Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction: The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts, Vanessa Ricci-Thode (self-published)

Best Game Writing: A Death in Hyperspace, Stewart C Baker, Phoebe Barton, James Beamon, Kate Heartfield, Isabel J. Kim, Sara S. Messenger, Naca Rat, Natalia Theodoridou, M. Darusha Wehm, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (Infomancy.net)

Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Dune: Part Two by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve (Warner Bros)

Kevin O'Donnell, Jr Special Service Award: C.J. Lavigne

Numamushi by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh

Jun. 6th, 2025 09:09 am
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A foundling boy raised by a great snake becomes intrigued by a reclusive calligrapher living near the river snake and boy call home.

Numamushi by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
When a woman looked around her for her husband, who had been right behind her on the stairs but was now nowhere to be seen. I was very worried I was facing a repeat of the time not too long ago when I spent an hour looking for a missing patron.

The missing husband turned out not to have been behind his wife on the stairs after all, so mystery solved. The missing patron I spent that hour looking for was found once I thought about where she had to be to have not been found where we looked: row H or J, somewhere near seat 26.
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An arduous journey in a prince's entourage offers a courier escape from immediate, judicial danger, at the cost of an entirely different assortment of dangers.


The Witch Roads (The Witch Roads, volume 1) by Kate Elliott

NDP display firm resolve

Jun. 5th, 2025 09:04 am
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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
Pursuing their vow to bring down the government, NDP ... do nothing of the sort.

I wonder if they got phone calls from voters expressing their displeasure at the prospect of an election so soon after the previous one?

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