Category: Blog

Skowhegan, Maine, October 3, 1988.  Early afternoon saw the arrival in town of a battered UHaul panel truck sporting New York license plates, being driven by a dark-haired, bearded man, and a grey-and-white cat.  The truck was followed closely by a dusty black 1986 Chevrolet Beretta, with Maryland tags.  The driver of the Beretta, a dark-haired woman, was seen to have an orange-and-white cat in her lap.  In the back seat of the car were a number of boxes, including a cat carrier.

The truck, followed by the Beretta, uncertainly made its way up North Avenue, and turned into a residential street, stopping about halfway down the block.  The driver of the Beretta got out, leaving the cat to guard the car, walked up the steps and rang the bell. The door opened and a man looked out.  A short conversation followed, in which the woman became visibly agitated.  The man left the doorway for a short time and returned with cash in his hand.  He gave this to the woman, said something else, and closed the door.

The woman stopped to speak with the driver of the truck, who had gotten out to stand on the sidewalk, watching the drama in the doorway.  He took the money from the woman and put it in his pocket.  They exchanged an embrace.  The man stepped back and pointed toward downtown.  The woman nodded.  They got back into their vehicles.

The truck next parked in the lot next to the offices of the Skowhegan Reporter, on Water Street. This time the man debarked, and entered the office, while the woman remained in the black car, eyes closed, head on the back rest.  The orange cat had climbed onto her shoulder and was watching out the window.

The man returned, knocked on the window of the Beretta.  The woman rolled it down.  A short conversation took place, during which the woman could be seen laughing, but not in a nice way.  The man pointed toward north.  The woman nodded.  He returned to the UHaul truck, which did not pull out immediately.  When it did, it made the left onto Water Street, and headed toward Madison Avenue.

The truck and Beretta were next seen in the parking lot of Mait Richardson’s Somerset Motor Lodge.  The man and woman entered the office together, and were inside about twenty minutes.  When they emerged, they drove into the campground, stopping in front of Cabin 5.

They debarked, transferred the contents of the car, including three cats, the grey and orange previously sighted, and a brown striped cat, in the carrier, into the cabin.  Both drivers then got back in to the UHaul and drove to the storage facility on West Front Street, and transferred the contents of the truck into a 10×15 space.  They then drove to the Madison Avenue Hannaford, where they bought two salads from the make-your-own salad bar, two bulky rolls and a bottle of cheap wine.

They then returned to Cabin 5, and closed the door.

# # #

And so began an adventure.  Speaking only for myself, I had thought we’d signed up for the Small, Tidy Adventure, but what we got was the Medium Sized, Messy Adventure, with a side order of Interesting Times.

Still, here we are 28 years later, and I really can’t think of any place else I’d rather live.

So, most of you won’t know — or care — that the World Science Fiction Society, which administers the Hugo Awards, decided at the business meetings in Seattle and KC (which all WorldCon members may attend, and may also vote on proposals) that they’d give a Hugo for Best Series (written) a whirl and see what happens.

For those who haven’t already run away screaming, here’s the nut of the definition, from the WFCS:

An eligible work for this special award is a multi-volume science fiction or fantasy story, unified by elements such as plot, characters, setting, and presentation, which has appeared in at least three volumes consisting of a total of at least 240,000 words by the close of the calendar year 2016, at least one volume of which was published in 2016.

There’s never been a Hugo for Best Series, which might strike some as odd, seeing as series is, and has always been, the backbone of science fiction and fantasy literature.  The thought, for many years, was that A Good Book Will Out, no matter if it was part of a series, or a standalone, and, indeed, many books which were parts of series have won the Novel Hugo (The most puzzling being the “second” book in the “Cyteen Trilogy” — which really wasn’t a trilogy, but a single novel broken into three when it was published in mass market.  But I digress.*).  In any case, the system kinda sorta worked most of the time, for most of the works involved.

Sort of like Ankh-Morpork under the Patrician’s rule, really.

However, the idea of a Series Hugo had been kicked around for a number of years, and the Collected Wisdom of the Business Meetings decided to go for it, despite the very real difficulties in administering — or even voting on — such an award.

What difficulties, you may ask?

Well, the sheer volume of works written in series is one difficulty (remembering that series are the backbone of sf/f, despite the sudden numbers of people who are now shocked, shocked! to learn that there have ever been any series books published in SF/F before, oh, last week).  For instance, here’s a list of the series which are eligible for award consideration for the 2016 Hugos.

Scary, right?  The amount of reading facing a conscientious voter is just. . .horrifying.  Nobody can read that much, even if you (as said conscientious voter) decide to “only” read the qualifying novel for each series, and allow it to be representative of the whole.

The series definition as given by the Society strongly favors trilogies.  Longer series, such as the Discworld, or, oh, the Liaden Universe® — while employing repeating characters and a consistent setting, and which, in simple numbers, far exceed a paltry 240,000 words — do not tell a single story, but many, many stories.  (To put that 240,000 words into perspective, Steve and I have published over 300,000 words of short stories just in the Liaden Universe®.)

This suggests a way to thin the herd, and make it (a little) easier for conscientious voters to actually read the field — rename the Series Hugo the Trilogy Hugo, and keep all else the same.

Of course, that puts the rest of us — and according to the File 770 list, there are many of us — kind of back out into the Outer Darkness; and I can hear the screams and the gnashing of teeth from here.

Let me say here that I applaud the effort to acknowledge the form that has been (she repeats tiresomely) the backbone of our field.  And I appreciate the work and thought that the drafting committee obviously put into the project.

But I think that, in the search for a nice, simple, compact award, much nuance has been lost, and real world complexity ignored.

How do we produce an award for long works that’s more reflective of the actual world of publishing?  Heck if I know.

One thing that I do think would help the Hugo Awards overall is One and Out.  This would allow room for more works to be considered, rather than allowing entropy to rule, as it has in the past.  I believe that there is a difficulty when the same publication can reliably win a Hugo Award for 30 years.  And there is strong evidence that the winners cannot be counted upon to recuse themselves.

This would, of course, take some of the fun out of the collection and display of multiple Hugo Nominee pins, but I’m sure another game will arise that will be just as much fun for the participants.

So. . .a rant without a solution for your Sunday morning.

Time for me to go to work.

_____

*Faulty memory department.  Thanks to Melita66 for straightening me out.

Yes, that’s right!  Tonight, Steve and I begin our annual, chapter-a-night read of Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October.

For those who are not familiar, the book is sort of an advent calendar for Halloween, with each chapter reporting on the events of a single day in the month of October, until we reach The Biggest Day of All.

Because this is not the story of just any Halloween.  No, the book describes the days leading up to one of the Halloweens, when there is a full moon on the night itself.  On this rare night, real danger arises, and the fate of the world is decided by a handful of odd people, and their companion animals.  Will the way be opened for change?  Or will it remain closed, and the world as we know it remain the same?

No, I’m not going to tell you.

People have told me that it’s impossible to read the book one chapter a day.  Steve and I have never had any problem doing so, across the decade or so since we’ve adopted the tradition — which was first brought to our attention by Vicky Brown of fond memory,  and other denizens of the Friends of Liad mailing list.  We alternate reading a chapter aloud each night, after flipping a dollar coin for the privilege of reading the introductory chapter, which takes place on September 30.

A Night in the Lonesome October was out of print for a number of years (our preferred copy is a slightly decrepit hardcover, published by AvoNova in 1993).  A couple years ago, it was reprinted in trade paperback by the Chicago Review Press, as part of its Rediscovered Classics series, so you can have your own copy, or, in our case, a back-up copy, for the sad day when the hardcover becomes too frail to read.

So!  Who’s with us this October?

So, Steve needed to be in Gardiner early this morning for Reasons, and I went with him.  For this outing, I for the first time, loaded All The Things into the Scott eJacket, including tablet, phone, camera, ID, money (forgot to try the water bottle pocket), pens.

The jacket worked pretty well, but I was surprised to find that my camera weighs more than my tablet.  Or, as Steve suggests, the tablet, being flat and thin, spreads its weight more cunningly than the little rock that is the camera.  In any case, the right side of the jacket was noticeably heavier than the left side, so I’ll need to work on balancing my load, so to speak.

While we were in Gardiner, and after Steve’s Mission was completed, we went over to Bridge Street and had a late breakfast at the justly famous A1 Diner, which has been serving at the same location — not only on Bridge Street, but on the bridge — for 70 years, this month.

After breakfast, we drove the long way to Rockland, and so to home.

Here’s a picture of me at breakfast.  Photo by Steve Miller.