Musical Monday - Cruel, Cruel Moon by Paul & Storm

So, it is Halloween. Have a song about love, lycanthropy, and for some people, looking up what "Julienne" means. For some strange reason I want to go watch An American Werewolf in London now.

Previous Musical Monday: Cabaret by Liza Minnelli

Subsequent Musical Monday: Holy Shit (You've Got to Vote) by Rachel Bloom (and friends)

Paul & Storm     Musical Monday     Home

2004 Hugo Longlist

One of the things that one can discover when looking through the Hugo Longlists is an author having a better year than the list of finalists would suggest. For example, in 2004, Robert J. Sawyer had one work place among the finalists for the Hugo Award, although he didn't win. This would normally be considered a decent, but not particularly notable showing for the year. However, when one looks at the longlist of Hugo nominees, one finds that Sawyer had an additional novel make an appearance, as well as a short story. Similarly, Charles Stross did well in the count of finalists for 2004, with a novel and a novelette on the final ballot, but when one considers the longlist, one finds that he also had a novella that was well-regarded by the Hugo voters. Then there is Lucius Shepherd, who had no works reach the list of Hugo finalists in 2004, but had three novellas and a novelette show up on the longlist.

A mildly interesting thing that shows up when one looks at the statistics for the 2004 Hugo Award nominations is that The Return of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov and Charles Ardai was ruled ineligible. The fact that it was ruled ineligible for a Hugo Award is not unusual - the Hugo Administrators are called upon to make eligibility determinations on a regular basis - but what is unusual is that The Return of the Black Widowers did not have sufficient support to reach the finalist list to begin with. Hugo Administrators don't usually make eligibility determinations for works that don't make the final ballot, because that is simply extra work for no real purpose, so one has to wonder why they did it in this case.

Best Novel

Finalists:
Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson
Humans by Robert J. Sawyer
Ilium by Dan Simmons
Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold [winner]
Singularity Sky by Charles Stross

Longlisted Nominees:
Burndive by Karin Lowachee
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
A Forest of Stars by Kevin J. Anderson
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
Hybrids by Robert J. Sawyer
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon

Best Novella

Finalists:
The Cookie Monster by Vernor Vinge [winner]
The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker
The Green Leopard Plague by Walter Jon Williams
Just Like the Ones We Used to Know by Connie Willis
Walk in Silence by Catherine Asaro

Longlisted Nominees:
Ariel by Lucius Shepherd
Curator by Charles Stross
The Ice by Steven Popkes
Jailwise by Lucius Shepherd
Liar’s House by Lucius Shepherd
Looking Through Lace by Ruth Nestvold
Lucky Luke by P.J. Plauger
Pictures from an Expedition by Alex Irvine
Tangled Strings of the Marionettes by Adam-Troy Castro
Welcome to Olympus, Mr Hearst by Kage Baker

Best Novelette

Finalists:
Bernardo’s House by James Patrick Kelly

Empire of Ice Cream by Jeffrey Ford

Hexagons by Robert Reed
Into the Gardens of Sweet Night by Jay Lake
Legions in Time by Michael Swanwick [winner]
Nightfall by Charles Stross

Longlisted Nominees
Almost Home by Terry Bisson
Anomalous Structures of My Dreams by M. Shayne Bell
Basement Magic by Ellen Klages
The Bellman by John Varley
Breeding Ground by Stephen Baxter
The Chop Line by Stephen Baxter
Dragon's Gate by Pat Murphy
The Hydrogen Wall by Gregory Benford
Only Partly Here by Lucius Shepherd
Still Coming Ashore by Michael F. Flynn
Vandoise and the Bone Monster by Alex Irvine

Best Short Story

Finalists:
Four Short Novels by Joe Haldeman
Paying It Forward by Michael A. Burstein
Robots Don’t Cry by Mike Resnick
A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman [winner]
The Tale of the Golden Eagle by David D. Levine

Longlisted Nominees
555 by Robert Reed
Ancestor Money by Maureen McHugh
Birth Days by Geoff Ryman
Closing Time by Neil Gaiman
June 16^th at Anna’s by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Lifeblood by Michael A. Burstein
The New Breed by Michael A. Burstein
Nimby and the Dimension Hoppers by Cory Doctorow
Oh, Come All Ye Faithful by Robert J. Sawyer
A Professor at Harvard by David Brin
The Siren Stone by Derwin Mak
Wild Thing by Charles Coleman Finlay

Best Related Work

Finalists:

The Chesley Awards for SF and Fantasy Art: A Retrospective by John Grant, Elizabeth L. Humphrey, and Pamela D. Scoville [winner]

Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert by Brian Herbert
Master Storyteller: An Illustrated History of the Fiction of L. Ron Hubbard by William Widder
Scores: Reviews 1993-2003 by John Clute
Spectrum 10: The Best in Fantastic Contemporary Art by Cathy and Arnie Fenner

Thackeray T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases by Jeff Vandermeer and Mark Roberts

Longlisted Nominees:
Cambridge Companion to SF by Farah Mendlesohn
Exploring the Matrix by Karen Haber
Galactic Geographic Annual 3003 by Karl Kofoed
How to Keep Dinosaurs by Robert Mash
Sandman: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman
Real Space: The Fate of Physical Presence in the Digital Age by Paul Levinson
The Return of the Black Widowers by Isaac Asimov and Charles Ardai [ineligible]
Sometimes the Magic Works by Terry Brooks

The True Knowledge of Ken McLeod by Andrew M. Butler and Farah Mendlesohn

Up Through an Empty House of Stars by David Langford

Best Dramatic Presentation: Long Form

Finalists:
Finding Nemo
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [winner]
Pirates of the Caribbean
Twenty-Eight Days Later
X-Men 2

Longlisted Nominees:
Battlestar Galactica
Big Fish
Bubba-Ho-Tep
Children of Dune
Matrix Reloaded
Matrix Revolutions
Peter Pan
Terminator 3
The Triplets of Bellville
Whale Rider

Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form

Finalists:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen
Firefly: Heart of Gold
Firefly: The Message
Gollums’ Acceptance Speech at the 2003 MTV Movie Awards [winner]
Smallville: Rosetta

Longlisted Nominees:
Angel: Home
Angel: Soulless
Brotronics Deathray Commercial
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Storyteller
Dead Like Me: A Cook
Farscape: Bad Timing
Farscape: A Constellation of Doubts
Farscape: Terra Firma
Futurama: Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Rube Goldberg Machine (Honda Commercial)
Star Trek Enterprise: Similtude
Star Trek Enterprise: Twilight

Best Professional Editor

Finalists:
Ellen Datlow
Gardner Dozois [winner]
David G. Hartwell
Stanley Schmidt
Gordon van Gelder

Longlisted Nominees:
Lou Anders
A.J. Budrys
Peter Crowther
Julie Czerneda
Shawna McCarthy
Beth Meacham
Mary Anne Mohanraj
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Sharyn November
David Pringle
Mike Resnick

Best Professional Artist

Finalists:
Jim Burns
Bob Eggleton [winner]
Frank Frazetta
Frank Kelley Freas
Donato Giancola

Longlisted Nominees:
David Cherry
Kinuko Craft
Vincent DiFate
Tom Kidd
Alan Lee
John Pierre Normand
John Jude Palencar
Darrell Sweet
Michael Whelan
Stephen Youll

Best Semi-Prozine

Finalists:
Ansible edited by David Langford
Interzone edited by David Pringle
Locus edited by Charles N. Brown, Kirsten Gong-Wong, and Jennifer A. Hall [winner]

The New York Review of Science Fiction edited by Kathryn Cramer, David G. Hartwell, and Kevin Maroney

SF Chronicle edited by John Douglas and Ian Randal Strock [ineligible]
Third Alternative edited by Andy Cox

Longlisted Nominees:
Absolute Magnitude edited by Warren Lapine
Annals of Improbable Research edited by Marc Abrahams
Artemis edited by Ian Randal Strock
Ideomancer edited by Chris Clarke and Mikal Trimm
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet edited by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link
N^th Degree edited by Michael D. Pederson
On Spec edited by Diane Walton
Spectrum SF edited by Paul Fraser
Speculations edited by Kent Brewster and Susan Fry
Strange Horizons edited by Susan Marie Groppi, Jed Hartman, and Karen Meisner
Talebones edited by Patrick Swenson

Best Fanzine

Finalists:
Challenger edited by Guy H. Lillian, III
Emerald City edited by Cheryl Morgan [winner]
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
Mimosa edited by Nicki Lynch and Rich Lynch
Plokta edited by Steve Davies, Alison Scott, and Mike Scott

Longlisted Nominees:
Alexiad edited by Joseph T. Major
Bento edited by Kate Yule and David D. Levine
Chunga edited by Randy Byers, Andy Hooper, and Carl Juarez
Devniad edited by Robert E. Devney
Fortean Bureau edited by Jeremy Tolbert and Sarah Tolbert
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet edited by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link
The MT Void edited by Evelyn C. Leeper and Mark R. Leeper
SF Commentary edited by Bruce Gillespie
SF Revu edited by Gayle Surrette
Trap Door edited by Robert Lichtman
Voyageour edited by Karen Bennett and Sharon Lowachee

Best Fan Writer

Finalists:
Jeff Berkwits
Bob Devney
John Flynn
Dave Langford [winner]
Cheryl Morgan

Longlisted Nominees:
Karen Bennett
Bruce Gillespie
John Hertz
Daniel Kimmel
Evelyn Leeper
Ernest Lilley
Guy H. Lillian, III
Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Lloyd Penny
Stephen H Silver

Best Fan Artist

Finalists:
Brad Foster
Teddy Harvia
Sue Mason
Stephen Stiles
Frank Wu [winner]

Longlisted Nominees:
Cheryl Birkhead
Kurt Erichsen
Alexis Gilliland
Bill Neville
Marc Schirmeister
Stu Shiffman
Dan Steffan
Mel Vavaroutsos
Taral Wayne
Allan White

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Finalists:
Jay Lake [winner]
David D. Levine
Karin Lowachee
Chris Moriarty
Tim Pratt

Longlisted Nominees:
Barth Anderson
Christopher Barzak
Elizabeth Bear
Greg Beatty
Patricia Bray
Michael S. Brotherton
Jay Caselberg
Ty Drago
Theodora Goss
Paul Melko
Meredith L. Patterson
Sarah Prineas
Caitlin Sweet
Karen Traviss

Go to previous year's longlist: 2003
Go to subsequent year's longlist: 2005

Go to 2004 Hugo Finalists and Winners

Hugo Longlist Project     Book Award Reviews     Home

Book Blogger Hop Halloween Edition October 28th - November 3rd: The Heinkel He 176 Was a German Experimental Liquid-Fueled Rocket Propelled Aircraft

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: You've been invited to a costume party and the theme is classic literature characters. Who would you go as?

If we are confining ourselves to classic literature characters, then I'd probably go as someone like Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo, also known as Hawkeye, Deerslayer, Pathfinder, and Leatherstocking, from The Last of the Mohicans and the other Pathfinder novels by James Fenimore Cooper.

Or maybe I'd go as Dr. Victor Frankenstein from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. I wouldn't go as the monster, for two reasons: (1) I don't have the imposing height or bulk that would be needed to pull that costume off, and (2) Victor is the real monster in the book.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: The Documentary "Flight 175: As the World Watched" Is About United Flight 175 Which Crashed into the World Trade Center

Second Book Blogger Hop: The Second Marcomannic War Started in 177 A.D.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Follow Friday - The Grand Canyon Is 277 River Miles Long

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and a single Follow Friday Featured Blogger each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the Featured Blogger of the week - Firebook Fiction.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: What are some of your favorite creepy/twisted/dark covers?


From left to right:

The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King
The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs
Flight 714 by Hergé
Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Collins

I could probably have made an entire page consisting of the covers of John Bellairs' books:


Once again, from left to right:

The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder by John Bellairs (with Brad Strickland)

The House with a Clock in Its Walls/The Ghost in the Mirror by John Bellairs (with Brad Strickland)

The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring by John Bellairs
The Mansion in the Mist by John Bellairs
The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt by John Bellairs

I know I have written some reviews of other books by Bellairs. I should try to get those posted some time soon.

Previous Follow Friday: The Roman Empire Had Three Different Emperors in 276 A.D.

Subsequent Follow Friday: OGE Form 278 Is a Public Financial Disclosure Form Some U.S. Executive Branch Officials Are Required to File Annually

Follow Friday     Home

Musical Monday - Cabaret by Liza Minnelli

So we come to the end of our metaphorical journey through the rise of Trump's brand of fascism, with the song Cabaret capping off the experience. In the movie, this is the final sequence, showing Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) desperately trying to stave off the realization that the Nazis have taken over Germany while she and everyone she knows was busy trying to ignore the world outside of the confines of the Kit Katy Klub. There is a frantic tone to Sally's delivery of this song, as if she could shut out the world around her and not have to deal with the harsh reality that is the line of Nazi Party members sitting in the front row. But the blunt truth is that evading the issue won't make it go away - the outside world continues to exist, and its machinations continue even without one's participation.

The theme of trying to make an unpleasant reality go away by ignoring it is not unique to Cabaret. In the Lord of the Rings, many of the hobbits happily work to erect metaphorical fences around the Shire - confident that if they don't stick their nose into the affairs of the outside world, the outside world will be content to leave them alone. What they don't realize is that they are not fencing the world out, they are merely fencing themselves in, a point that Tolkien makes quite bluntly when Saruman and his lackeys take over the Shire and turn it into an industrial dystopia. Closing your eyes to the outside world doesn't make the outside world go away. It will eventually turn its attention to your corner of the world, and your willful ignorance only means that you will be unprepared when it does.

I've used the movie Cabaret as a metaphor for the rise of Trump and Trumpism, because it fits all too well. To the extent that Trump has policies that he espouses, he is a fascist. To the extent that Trump's devoted followers have principles they adhere to, they align with fascism. As an unnamed New York Times reporter stated in 1938, "[w]hen and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism’". Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" is simply "Americanism" distilled into something pithy enough to be put on a hat. A slogan, by itself, does not make a movement a fascist one, but the continued insistence by Trump and his supporters that he and only he can save the country is in line with the messianic nature of the fascist movements that took over Germany, Italy, Hungary, and other nations in the 1930s. The scapegoating of Muslims, Latinos, and even Jews is, of course, reminiscent of the Nazi Party. More recently, Trump's attacks upon the media and the protections afforded by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are almost straight out of the fascist playbook. What Trump's campaign has shown us is that there is a sizable number of U.S. voters who will happily support an authoritarian strongman espousing fascist policies so long as he hates all of the same people they hate and promises all of the same promises that fascist dictators always promise.

When Sally Bowles sings Cabaret, the movie-viewing audience knows that it is already too late for her and the other characters in the film. The licentiousness that the Kit Kat Klub represents will be an anathema to the Nazis once they reach power. In all likelihood, the androgynous, often cross-dressing Master of Ceremonies (Joel Grey) will eventually find himself inside of the concentration camp, as will the Jewish heiress Natalia Landauer and the smitten Fritz Wendel, who revealed his Jewishness to win her love. Brian Roberts (Michael York) has fled the country and returned to England, but his bisexuality represented by his dalliance with Maximilian von Heune (who also apparently fled the country) would have gotten him condemned as well.

But it is not too late for us now. We can still vote against the rise of Trump's version of fascism. We can still work to defeat these pernicious ideas after Trump has been sent back to his gilded tower to sulk. The most important thing about this elections is the realization that the work of ensuring the U.S. remains a free republic does not end by defeating Trump's candidacy. That is merely the first thing that must be done. Even after Trump is defeated, we must all continue to diligently work against the forces that supported Trump - and that means the Republican Party as it is constituted today. It also means working against the forces that are part of what has come to be called the "Alt-Right", which is really just groups like the American Nazi Party and the Klan given a new coat of paint. Many people like to say "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance", but they don't really think about what that means when it comes to elections - it means showing up every election to use your vote to say no to those who espouse the toxic mixture of racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and authoritarianism that prospers among the far right in the country. This fight doesn't end this November. This fight will likely continue indefinitely, but it is a fight that must be fought, and must be won again and again.

Previous Musical Monday: Tiller Girls featuring Joel Grey

Subsequent Musical Monday: Cruel, Cruel Moon by Paul & Storm

Cabaret     Musical Monday Playlists     Liza Minnelli     Musical Monday     Home

2005 Hugo Longlist

In 2005, pursuant to Article 3.3.17 of the constitution of the World Science Fiction Society, the Hugo Administrators elected to add the additional Hugo category of "Best Website". The interesting thing about this category is not its existence, or who won, but what it reveals when we look back upon it just over ten years later. Several of the websites nominated in 2005 are defunct of no longer in existence: Infinite Matrix and Trufen were last updated in 2008, and the Internet Review of Science Fiction was last updated in 2010, with a farewell message. Both Sci Fiction (the winner in the category) and SciFi Weekly were sections of the website for the Sci Fi (er, SyFy) channel that are no longer supported. The Alien Online went out of existence and its URL was taken over by a website that promotes "out of this world businesses". Out of the fifteen websites that made it to the Hugo Longlist in 2005, six are effectively gone.

The fact that six of the fifteen websites on the Hugo Longlist have faded from existence is not particularly damning for the category. After all, Semi-Prozines and Fanzines come and go with a fair amount of regularity and those categories are well-entrenched. To be perfectly honest, the fact that nine websites out of fifteen are still functional eleven years after the 2005 Hugo Awards is somewhat surprising to me given the attrition the internet experiences on a regular basis. This, I think, is a testament to the fact that not only did individuals within and related to the science fiction genre jump into the internet early, they did so with a determination and dedication that many others lack. On the other hand, many of the websites in question were essentially an ancillary effort attached to a previously existing work - Locus Online is simply an extension of Locus Magazine, Neil Gaiman's website is simply a means for him to communicate with his fans and promote his works, and the FANAC History and NEFSA sites are mostly just online iterations of their parent organizations. While many efforts were made to put science fiction related material onto the internet, the efforts were, it seems, aimed at merely translating what already existed into a web form. The websites essentially represent an iterative evolution of science fiction activity rather than a revolutionary change.

I have to wonder how many of these websites would be nominated now if the category were revived today. My guess is that the answer is "not many". Some, like Locus Online, have remained important outlets for news and information about science fiction and science fiction fandom, but many of the others, although still plugging away, have been eclipsed by other options. I suspect that many of the Best Websites in a 2017 version of the category would overlap substantially with the Best Fanzine, Best Semi-Prozine, and Best Fancast categories, as those are the websites that most of the Hugo voters seem to turn to on a regular basis. The evolutionary process has seen the traditional elements of science fiction short fiction publishing, news reporting, and fandom networking move onto the internet. To a certain extent, one could say that the voting in those categories mostly obviates the need for a free-standing Best Website category.

Best Novel

Finalists:
The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett [nomination declined]
Iron Council by China Miéville
Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross
Joanthan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke [winner]
River of Gods by Ian McDonald

Longlisted Nominees:
Air by Geoff Ryman
Camouflage by Joe Haldeman
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds
The Family Trade by Charles Stross
A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
The Last Light of the Sun by Guy Gavriel Kay
Light by M. John Harrison
Newton's Wake by Ken MacLeod
Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart
Stamping Butterflies by Jon Courtenay Grimwood


Best Novella

Finalists:
The Concrete Jungle by Charles Stross [winner]
Elector by Charles Stross
Sergeant Chip by Bradley Denton
Time Ablaze by Michael Burstein
Winterfair Gifts by Lois McMaster Bujold

Longlisted Nominees:
Appeals Court by Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow
Arabian Wine by Gregory Feeley
The Bad Hamburger by Matthew Jarpe and Jonathan Sheen
Between Worlds by Stephen Baxter
Keepsakes by Mike Resnick
Mayflower II by Stephen Baxter
Our Lady of American Sorrows by Jay Lake
Shadow Twin by Gardner Dozois
The Tribes of Bela by Albert Cowdrey
Under the Flag of Night by Ian McDowell
Viator by Lucius Shepard
The Wreck of the Godspeed by James Patrick Kelly

Best Novelette

Finalists:

Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes,' by Benjamin Rosenbaum by Benjamin Rosenbaum

The Clapping Hands of God by Michael F. Flynn
The Faery Handbag by Kelly Link [winner]
The People of Sand and Slag by Paulo Bacigalupi
The Voluntary State by Christopher Rowe

Longlisted Nominees
Dancer in the Dark by David Gerrold
Flat Diane by Daniel Abraham
The Fear Gun by Judith Berman
The Little Stranger by Gene Wolfe
Men Are Trouble by James Patrick Kelly
Pat Moore by Tim Powers
PeriAndry's Quest by Stephen Baxter
Q by John Grant
Quarry by Peter Beagle
Reports of Certain Events in London by China Miéville
The Third Party by David Moles
The Word That Sings the Scythe by Michael Swanwick

Best Short Story

Finalists:
The Best Christmas Ever by James Patrick Kelly
Decisions by Michael A. Burstein
A Princess of Earth by Mike Resnick
Shed Skin by Robert J. Sawyer
Travels with My Cats by Mike Resnick [winner]

Longlisted Nominees
Angel's Daughter by Jay Lake
Embracing-the-New by Michael Rosenbaum
Faces by Joe Haldeman
Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Dread Desire by Neil Gaiman
Opal Ball by Robert Reed
Pulp Cover by Gene Wolfe
Singing My Sister Down by Margo Lanagan
The Slow Train by Don Sakers
Ten Sigmas by Paul Melko
Tourism by M. John Harrison
The Wolfman of Alcatraz by Howard Waldrop

Best Related Work

Finalists:
The Best of Xero by Pat Lupoff and Dick Lupoff

The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn [winner]

Dancing Naked: The Unexpurgated William Tenn, Volume 3 by William Tenn
Futures: 50 Years in Space: The Challenge of the Stars by David A. Hardy and Patrick Moore
With Stars in My Eyes: My Adventures in British Fandom by Peter Weston

Longlisted Nominees:

The Art of Discworld by Paul Kidby

The DC Comics Encyclopedia by Michael Teitelbaum and Scott Beatty
The Deceiving Eye, the Art of Richard Wescox by Randy Dannenfelser
The Gernsback Days by Mike Ashley and Robert A.W. Lowndes
Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman
Projections: Science Fiction in Literature edited by Lou Anders
Relativity by Robert J. Sawyer
Spectrum 11 by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner
The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod by Andrew Butler and Farah Mendlesohn
Up Through an Empty House of Stars by David Langford

Best Dramatic Presentation: Long Form

Finalists:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
The Incredibles [winner]
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Spider Man 2

Longlisted Nominees:
Battlestar Galactica: Pilot
Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars
Finding Neverland
Hellboy
Hero
I, Robot
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Shaun of the Dead
Shrek 2
Team America: World Police

Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form

Finalists:
Battlestar Galactica: 33 [winner]
Angel: Not Fade Away
Angel: Smile Time
Lost: Pilot
Stargate SG-1: Heroes, Parts 1 and 2

Longlisted Nominees:
Agatha Heterodyne, Girl Genius (Radio Play)
Angel: Damage
Angel: Origin
Justice League Unlimited: The Return
Lost: Walkabout
Noreascon Closing Ceremony
Smallville: Run
Star Trek Enterprise: E²
Stargate Atlantis: Rising
Wonderfalls: Karma Chameleon
Wonderfalls: Wax Lion

Best Professional Editor

Finalists:
Ellen Datlow [winner]
Gardner Dozois
David G. Hartwell
Stanley Schmidt
Gordon van Gelder

Longlisted Nominees:
Lou Anders
Ginjer Buchanan
Peter Crowther
Gavin J. Grant
Nalo Hopkinson
Kelly Link
Shawna McCarthy
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
David Pringle
Juliet Ulman
Sheila Williams

Best Professional Artist

Finalists:
Jim Burns [winner]
Bob Eggleton
Frank Kelly Freas
Donato Giancola
John Picacio

Longlisted Nominees:
David Cherry
Alan Clark
Kinuko Craft
Vincent di Fate
Les Edwards
David A. Hardy
Domonic Harman
Stephan Martiniére
John Jude Palencar
Omar Rayyan
Michael Whelan

Best Semi-Prozine

Finalists:
Ansible edited by David Langford [winner]
Interzone edited by David Pringle and Andy Cox

Locus edited by Charles N. Brown

The New York Review of Science Fiction edited by Kathryn Cramer, David G. Hartwell, and Kevin J. Maroney

The Third Alternative edited by Andy Cox

Longlisted Nominees:
Internet Review of SF edited by Stacey Janssen
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet edited by Gavin Grant and Kelly Link
N^th Degree edited by Michael D. Pederson
On Spec edited by Diane Walton
Portti edited by Raimo Nikkonen
Postscripts edited by Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers
SF Chronicle edited by John Douglas and Ian Randal Strock
Speculations edited by Kent Brewster and Susan Fry
Tähtivaeltaja edited by Toni Jerrman
Talebones edited by Patrick Swenson

Best Fanzine

Finalists:
Banana Wings edited by Claire Brialey and Mark Plummer
Challenger edited by Guy H. Lillian, III
Chunga edited by Randy Byers, Andy Hooper, and Carl Juarez
Emerald City edited by Chreyl Morgan
Plokta edited by Alison Scott, Steve Davies, and Mike Scott [winner]

Longlisted Nominees:
Alexiad edited by Joseph T. Major
Ansible edited by David Langford
Argentus edited by Steven H Silver
Bento edited by Kate Yule and David D. Levine
File 770 edited by Mike Glyer
The Prydonian Renegade edited by Gary S. Blog and Tom Beck
SF Commentary edited by Bruce Gillespie
SF Revu edited by Gayle Surrette
Trap Door edited by Robert Lichtman
Zoo Nation edited by Peter Young

Best Fan Writer

Finalists:
Claire Brialey
Bob Devney
David Langford [winner]
Cheryl Morgan
Steven H Silver

Longlisted Nominees:
Matthew Cheney
John Flynn
Christopher J. Garcia
Mike Glyer
John Hertz
Guy H. Lillian, III
Joseph T. Major
Teresa Nielsen Hayden
Mark Plummer
Pete Young

Best Fan Artist

Finalists:
Brad Foster
Teddy Harvia
Sue Mason [winner]
Steve Stiles
Frank Wu

Longlisted Nominees:
Sheryl Birkhead
Kurt Erichsen
Alexis Gilliland
Bill Neville
Marc Schirmeister
Sue Shiffman
Dan Steffan
Taral Wayne
D. West
Alan White

Best Web Site

Finalists:
eFanzines edited by Bill Burns
Emerald City edited by Cheryl Morgan
Locus Online edited by Mark R. Kelly
Sci Fiction edited by Ellen Datlow, managed by Craig Engler [winner]
Strange Horizons edited by Susan Marie Groppi

Longlisted Nominees:
The Alien Online edited by Ariel
FANAC History Site webmaster Edie Stern
Infinite Matrix edited by Eileen K. Gunn
The Internet Review of Science Fiction edited by by Stacey Janssen
Neil Gaiman's Site/Weblog by Neil Gaiman
NESFA
Science Fiction Weekly
SciFi.com
SF Revu edited by Gayle Surrette
The SF Site edited by Neil Walsh
Trufen.net/Victor Gonzalez edited by Victor Gonzalez

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Finalists:
Elizabeth Bear [winner]
K.J. Bishop
David Moles
Chris Roberson
Steph Swainston

Longlisted Nominees:
Barth Anderson
Tony Ballantyne
Jay Caselberg
Susanna Clarke
Karen D. Fishler
Deidre Saoirse Moen
Chris Moriarty
Amy Sisson
Jack Skillingstead
Isaac Szpindel

Go to previous year's longlist: 2004
Go to subsequent year's longlist: 2006

Go to 2005 Hugo Finalists and Winners

Hugo Longlist Project     Book Award Reviews     Home

Book Blogger Hop Halloween Edition October 21st - October 27th: The Documentary "Flight 175: As the World Watched" Is About United Flight 175 Which Crashed into the World Trade Center

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: Instead of giving out candy to trick-or-treaters, you're going to give out homemade bookmarks. What would the bookmarks look like?

Snickers bars. They would look like snickers bars. Because they would be snickers bars.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: Marcus Aurelius Wrote Meditations in 174 A.D.

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: The Heinkel He 176 Was a German Experimental Liquid-Fueled Rocket Propelled Aircraft

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Follow Friday - The Roman Empire Had Three Different Emperors in 276 A.D.

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and a single Follow Friday Featured Blogger each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the Featured Blogger of the week - Firebook Fiction.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: What are the most important qualities of a book boyfriend?

I have no idea. Really. None at all. Sorry.

Previous Follow Friday: Ptolomey II Founded the Museum of Alexandria in 275 B.C.

Subsequent Follow Friday: The Grand Canyon Is 277 River Miles Long

Follow Friday     Home

2016 Campbell Award Nominees

Location: MidAmeriCon II, Kansas City, Missouri.

Comments: The John W. Campbell Memorial Award always seems to go its own way when it comes to what works it honors. Radiomen, the winning novel for 2016, is a book that wasn't nominated for any other major award. Very few of the other shortlisted works were nominated for other awards either - The Water Knife and Aurora appeared on the list of Locus nominees for example, Seveneves was a Hugo finalist, and The Book of Phoenix was shortlisted for the Clarke Award. But the interesting fact remains that total volume of crossover between the Campbell Award nominees and the shortlisted finalists for other major awards is quite slight.

On the other hand, several of the finalists this year were written by authors who had previously won or been nominated for the award. Bacigalupi, McDonald, Roberts, and Robinson have all previously won this award. Robinson has been a finalist a further five times, and Roberts has been nominated three other times before. McDonald has been nominated two times before this one, and both Stephenson and Nagata have been nominated twice. James Morrow has never won the Campbell Award, but has been nominated four times. Hutchinson was nominated once before. The Campbell Award judges seem to go their own way when it comes to the type of books they prefer, and they seem to have recurring favorites as well.

Best Novel

Winner:

Radiomen by Eleanor Lerman

Second Place:
(tie) Going Dark by Linda Nagata
(tie) The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts

Third Place:
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

Finalists:
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor
Europe at Midnight by Dave Hutchinson
Galapágos Regained by James Morrow
Luna: New Moon by Ian McDonald
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Where by Kit Reed

Go to previous year's nominees: 2015
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 2017

Book Award Reviews     Home

Random Thought - The 2014 "E Pluribus Hugo" Revised Hugo Finalists

E Pluribus Hugo was passed largely in response to the results of the 2015 Hugo nomination process. I outlined the background leading up to this in my previous post about the 2016 E Pluribus Hugo Revised Hugo Finalists, and I'm not going to repeat myself here. Anyone who wants a summary of the Sad and Rabid Puppy campaigns, the responses from non-Puppy Hugo voters, and an outline of the mechanics of E Pluribus Hugo can go read about that there.

The E Pluribus Hugo system had several goals. One goal was to dampen the influence of bloc voting. A second goal was to create a system that presented a nominating voter with a means of voting that was substantially similar to the one that voter had under the old system. The third was to create a system that would return results that were as close as possible to those that the old system did in a year in which there was no bloc voting. To test this third goal, the system was used on the 2014 Hugo ballots, which was a year in which there was a Sad Puppy campaign, but no slate in any meaningful sense, and therefore no real bloc voting.

An ideal result would be that using E Pluribus Hugo would result in no changes to the final ballot. Applying the new voting system to the 2014 nominations doesn't yield an ideal result, although they are close. Three categories see their finalists change under the new system, with one finalist changing in one, and two changing in two others - although the changes in the latter two categories are mostly the result of the new system's antipathy towards tie results. Out of seventy-six finalists on the 2014 Hugo ballot, seventy-one are unchanged under the E Pluribus Hugo system, meaning that ninety-three percent of the results are the same under both systems. Given that the perfect is often the enemy of the good, this seems to me like an acceptable volume of change.

Best Novel

Unchanged Finalists:
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman [nomination declined]
Parasite by Mira Grant
Warbound by Larry Correia

The Wheel of Time (The Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, The Shadow Rising, The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, A Crown of Swords, The Path of Daggers, Winter's Heart, Crossroads of Twilight, Knife of Dreams, The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight, and A Memory of Light) by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Novella

Unchanged Finalists:
The Butcher of Khardov by Dan Wells
The Chaplain’s Legacy by Brad R. Torgersen

Equoid by Charles Stross

Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente
Wakulla Springs by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Novelette

Unchanged Finalists:

The Exchange Officers by Brad R. Torgersen (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Novelette)

The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Novelette)

Opera Vita Aeterna by Theodore Beale (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Novelette)

The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling by Ted Chiang (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Novelette)

The Waiting Stars by Aliette de Bodard (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Novelette)

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Short Story

Unchanged Finalists:

If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love by Rachel Swirsky (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Short Story)

The Ink Readers of Doi Saket by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Short Story)

Selkie Stories Are for Losers by Sofia Samatar (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Short Story)

The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere by John Chu (reviewed in 2014 Hugo Voting - Best Short Story)

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Nonfiction, Related, or Reference Work

Unchanged Finalists:

Queers Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the LGBTQ Fans Who Love It edited by Sigrid Ellis and Michael Damian Thomas

Speculative Fiction 2012: The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary edited by Justin Landon and Jared Shurin

We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative by Kameron Hurley

Writing Excuses, Season 8 by Mary Robinette Kowal, Brandon Sanderson, Jordan Sanderson, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells

Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction by Jeff VanderMeer with Jeremy Zerfoss

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Graphic Story

Unchanged Finalists:

Girl Genius, Volume 13: Agatha Heterodyne & The Sleeping City by Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio

The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who by Paul Cornell, art by Jimmy Broxton

The Meathouse Man adapted and illustrated by Raya Golden from the story by George R.R. Martin

Saga, Volume 2 by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples

Schlock Mercenary: Broken Wind by Howard Tayler [ineligible]
Time by Randall Munroe

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Professional Editor: Short Form

Unchanged Finalists:
John Joseph Adams
Neil Clarke
Ellen Datlow
Jonathan Strahan

Removed Finalists:
Sheila Williams

Added Finalists:
Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Notes: Applying E Pluribus Hugo to this category results in one change, removing Sheila Williams from the list of finalists and replacing her with Bryan Thomas Schmidt. This seems to me like a relatively minor alteration, and one that can be reasonably accepted as a side effect of changing the voting system.

Best Professional Editor: Long Form

Unchanged Finalists:
Ginjer Buchanan
Sheila Gilbert
Liz Gorinsky
Lee Harris
Toni Weisskopf

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Professional Artist

Unchanged Finalists:
Julie Dillon
Daniel Dos Santos
John Harris
John Picacio

Removed Finalists:
Galen Dara
Fiona Staples

Added Finalists:
Joey Hi-Fi

Notes: In the Best Professional Artist category, the application of E Pluribus Hugo results in two finalists dropping from the ballot and being replaced with one. In reality, this is only one change - Fiona Staples is pushed off of the list of finalists because E Pluribus Hugo makes ties much rarer, and as a result, there will be fewer ties for fifth place necessitating an expansion of the finalists in a category to accommodate those tied finalists.

The other change engendered by E Pluribus Hugo moves Galen Dara off of the final ballot, and replaces her with Joey Hi-Fi. In the original voting, Dara had 50 nominations, while Joey Hi-Fi had 48. This kind of switch is likely to happen every now and then under E Pluribus Hugo, especially when the difference between the number of nominators is as close as these two were. I will note at this point that we won't know what the vote "would" have been under the old system after the new one is implemented, so we won't know what the vote "should" have been. We will just have the list of finalists as voted upon by the eligible voters.

Best Semi-Prozine

Unchanged Finalists:

Apex Magazine edited by Jason Sizemore, Lynne M. Thomas, and Michael Damian Thomas

Beneath Ceaseless Skies edited by Scott H. Andrews
Interzone edited by Andy Cox
Lightspeed John Joseph Adams, Rich Horton, and Stefan Rudnicki

Strange Horizons edited by Rebecca Cross, Shane Gavin, Niall Harrison, Anaea Lay, Brit Mandelo, Abigail Nussbaum, An Owomoyela, Julia Rios, and Sonya Taaffe

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Fanzine

Unchanged Finalists:
The Book Smugglers edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James

A Dribble of Ink edited by Aidan Moher

Elitist Book Reviews edited by Steven Diamond

Journey Planet edited by James Bacon, Christopher J. Garcia, Colin Harris, Helen J. Montgomery, Lynda E. Rucker, and Pete Young

Pornokitsch edited by Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Fan Writer

Unchanged Finalists:
Liz Bourke

Kameron Hurley

Foz Meadows
Abigail Nussbaum
Mark Oshiro

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Fan Artist

Unchanged Finalists:
Brad W. Foster
Mandie Manzano
Spring Schoenhuth
Steve Stiles

Sarah Webb

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

Best Fancast

Unchanged Finalists:

The Coode Street Podcast by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe

Doctor Who: Verity! by Erika Ensign, Katrina Griffiths, L.M. Myles, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Deborah Stanish, and Lynne M. Thomas

Galactic Suburbia Podcast by Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce, and Tansy Rayner Roberts; produced by Andrew Finch

The Skiffy and Fanty Show by David Annadale, Shaun Duke, Stina Leicht, Julia Rios, Mike Underwood, Paul Weimer, and Jen Zink

Tea and Jeopardy by Emma Newman and Peter Newman

Removed Finalists:
SF Signal Podcast by Patrick Hester
The Writer and the Critic by Kirstyn McDermott and Ian Mond

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: The changes wrought by E Pluribus Hugo in the Best Fancast category aren't really changes due to moving some nominees up to the list of finalists and removing others, but are rather the result of the fact that ties are exceedingly rare under the new system. SF Signal Podcast, The Writer and the Critic, and Tea and Jeopardy all tied for fifth place under the old nominating system, and as a result, the category had seven finalists in 2014. Under the new system, there is no tie and both SF Signal Podcast and The Writer and the Critic fall below the cut off, and the category has only five finalists.

John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer

Unchanged Finalists:
Wesley Chu
Max Gladstone
Ramez Naam
Sofia Samatar
Benjanun Sriduangaew

Removed Finalists:
None

Added Finalists:
None

Notes: E Pluribus Hugo results in no changes to this category.

What Are the Hugo Awards?

Go to the 2014 list of Hugo finalists: 2014

Random Thoughts     Book Award Reviews     Home

Musical Monday - Tiller Girls featuring Joel Grey

Technically, Cabaret is not about the death of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party in 1930s Germany. The musical is about the lives of a handful of quirky individuals as they try to navigate the rocky terrain of relationships. It is about the somewhat tempestuous relationship between cabaret signer Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) and writer Brian Roberts (Michael York), and their mutual dalliance with Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem), and their friendship with Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper) and Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson). Throughout the movie, the musical numbers performed at the Kit Kat Klub provide commentary on the events of the lives of these character, and also commentary on the events of the wider world.

Although Cabaret isn't about the rise of Nazism in Germany, it uses this looming threat as a backdrop for the story in the foreground. As much as the characters try to ignore or downplay the dangers that are growing on their doorstep, they cannot escape the political realities that surround them. This plays out most strongly in the love story of Fritz Wendel, a German protestant, and Natalia Landauer, a wealthy Jewish heiress. Wendel is infatuated with Landauer, but she is disinterested until Bowles offers him some times for winning her love. But once they are infatuated with one another, the religious issue raises its head, and Wendel reveals that he is actually Jewish, but has been hiding his ethic identity because being a protestant was easier in Germany of the 1920s and 30s. But in the scene from the clip above set against the Tiller Girl routine of the Kit-Kat Dancers, the dangers of that revelation are made clear, as anti-Semitic hooligans vandalize Landauer's house and kill her dog. The message of this story is clear - anti-Semitism wasn't something the Nazi's created, it is something that already existed that the Nazi's exploited. Whether they choose to pay attention to the politics around them or not, the characters in the movie are affected by them all the same.

Trump did not create racism, misogyny, and xenophobia in the United States - he just exploited what was already there to gain enough momentum to win the Republican primaries. We have already seen the effects of Trump's violent rhetoric in the multiple mosques that have been vandalized, and the incidents of violence aimed at people who "look" Muslim. The Council on Islamic-American Relations reports that 2016 has thus far been the second worst year on record with respect to vilence against Islamic places of worship. Within the last week, three men were arrested by the FBI in Kansas for plotting to bomb an apartment complex that was home to a large number of Somali immigrants. When one considers the environment Trump and his supporters have engendered, is the United States so far away from painting "Juden" on a woman's doorstep and killing her pet? A blunt assessment says that we are not even at a distance from such behavior, but rather it is happening right now. There is a saying that "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom", and that vigilance must look towards political movements inside a nation consisting of those that would turn upon their fellow citizens. Trump's political movement is exactly that sort of movement.

In a certain sense, Trump is worse than the Nazis, since their ire was contained mostly to pursuing anti-Semitism, although they also persecuted homosexuals, Slavs, and the Romani. Trump's public persona has issued numerous anti-Semitic dog-whistle statements, such as his railing against "international bankers" and "the corrupt media", but he has cast a much wider net of hatred. Trump's primary focus has been on Muslim and Hispanic immigrants, famously calling for a border wall and "instant" deportation of all undocumented immigrants. He has also called for a complete ban on Muslims entering the United States, a proposal that is both frightening and almost certainly unConstitutional. One has to wonder exactly how far this proposal is intended to go - would a Muslim born in Norway be barred from entering the U.S.? For that matter, would a Muslim U.S. citizen who travels to Europe to visit Paris be barred from returning to the U.S.? How would customs officials determine that someone who wants to enter the U.S. is a Muslim other than demanding their religious affiliation, and how would they determine someone was lying? Would Muslims be required to carry identification that marked them as Muslims? Would non-Muslims have to carry such religious identification to prove they are not Muslim? Do we truly want to become a nation in which large numbers of residents must fear being stopped on the street and asked to produce their papers?

Even though Trump might be defeated in November, the problem of a nation that contains a noticeable number of citizens who are willing to vote for someone who espouses racism, sexism, and xenophobia is still there. I don't think that many Trump supporters actually fear the police state that his vision of the United States would produce, because they firmly believe that its terrors will never be pointed in their direction. Instead, they believe that the police state will be aimed at those they dislike: Muslims, Hispanics, Homosexuals, African-Americans, and Jews. They believe that their political enemies will be jailed, and that those who report news they don't like will be punished. But a police state is not something that can be contained in that way - to ferret out its enemies, all citizens must be placed under suspicion lest those enemies hide among the populace. A crusade to root out illegal immigrants will become a crusade that places all those who might possibly be identified as an immigrant under suspicion - even those who have been citizens for generations but "look" like immigrants. A crusade to perform "extreme vetting" on all Muslims entering the country will turn into a crusade to perform "extreme vetting" of all who enter, because that is the only way to ensure that one catches all of those Muslims one is after. In the name of security, Trump would transform the United States from the mostly free land that it has been through its history into a nightmare where people would fear the knock on the door followed by "papers please". And Trump is not alone in wanting to push this vision. Defeating Trump in the upcoming Presidential election is not the final step in defending the United States as a free nation, it is the first step.

Previous Musical Monday: If You Could See Her Through My Eyes by Joel Grey

Subsequent Musical Monday: Cabaret by Liza Minnelli

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