An appreciation of Pauline Baynes at Tor’s website, apropos the sad news she died recently. Pauline Baynes was the first artist to illustrate J.R.R. Tolkien’s books and C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series, and like Tolkien’s pals said, her art reduces the text to commentary on the drawings.
John Scalzi: The New Comprehensible, or, This is Not a Literary Manifesto, Thank God.
Now, let’s say that at this point, some writer out there is saying “Hey, I want to be part of this New Comprehensible movement in science fiction that I’ve heard so much about in the last four paragraphs,” and wanted advice on how he or she might go about doing it. What advice should this person be given? Well, manifestos are not my thing, but basic, practical advice? I can do that. Here’s what I would suggest, and it’s really rather simple:
1. Think of an actual person you know, of reasonable intelligence, who likes to read but does not read science fiction.
2. Write with that person in mind.
That’s all you do.
From the portfolio of Jesse van Dijk, some pretty sketches of a vertical city in a volcano’s crater inside the sea. Lots of other fantastic landscapes in his gallery.
Dr. Horrible’s Singe-Along Blog is a 3-episode video thingie written by Joss Whedon and featuring some familiar faces. Because there aren’t enough supervillain musicals on the internet.
The first two episodes are up, the 3rd and final one will be posted on the 19th of July (this Saturday), and all 3 episodes will only be available for free until Sunday (the 20th), so watch now!
I was puzzled when I ran across a comment about him on William Gibson’s blog, but with further refreshing of the feed reader I learned that Thomas M. Disch commited suicide July 4th.
Darn.
I actually met Thomas Disch in the late 80’s. The US cultural attache(?) in Israel happened to be a Science Fiction enthusiast, and he organized a small convention – two days of academic-type panels at Beit HaSofer, with a single movie screening as the US Embassy as an extra event. The big attraction of the convention, however, were two American SF authors as special guests: Harlan Ellison and Thomas Disch. Lots of people showed up on the first day, eager to see the fabled Harlan Ellison speak. We were all dissappointed and annoyed to learn upon arrival that Ellison had cancelled his visit due to illness. Some people left upon hearing the news.
But the guest that we did have, Tom Disch, was marvelous. Witty, charming, friendly and gracious, enthusiastic and intelligently critical about SF. He did all the events both he and Harlan were scheduled to do, and was great fun to hear. I recall when a moderator asked him how he would translate the experience of his visit to Israel into his work, he responded that the wonderful thing about being a Science Fiction writer is that you don’t have to write about your personal experience. The average American novel, he said, was usually a dreary thing about coming of age, reconcilling with your father, shooting your first deer… and the glory of being an SF writer is that you can write about something else entirely than mundane existence.
I recall first encountering Brian McHale at that conference (the coolest lecturer Tel-Aviv University ever had), and Emanuel Lottem and Aharon Hauptman, and Deena Shunra (Ben Kiki in those days), who volunteered to start a fanzine and suggested having an Israeli SF Award in the form of a Dish (in honor of). Lots of proto-Israeli fandom, still lacking the spark of Freidman and Internet to get ignite it. But Tom Disch was the best thing there, I think.
I had him sign my copy of Medea (which he confirmed was already signed by Ellison, and which this year I got signed by Larry Niven), and (out of guilt for having read nothing of his stuff), I read his story in that collection, which was very strange and rather wonderful.
Meeting your heroes can be a let-down; they rarely surprise you for the better, because you know too much about them already. But some of the best meetings I’ve had as a fan with authors were with those I knew and cared little for before: You meet this guy whose name you’d heard of but whose work you’d not really investigated, and he (or she) turns out to be this brilliant person. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by meeting Ian Watson and R.A. Salvatore, for example. Thomas Disch was probably the first and most striking of those pleasant surprises.