Musical Monday - True by Spandau Ballet

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: April 30, 1983 through May 21, 1983.

One of the dominant musical styles of the early 1980s was a kind of smooth jazzy music that grew out of the relatively brief New Wave movement. Spandau Ballet's True was more or less the apotheosis of this style of music. The song is a magnificent example of the kind of music that dominated the early 1980s.

In 1983, I hated this song. It was exactly the wrong style of music for my tastes and I loathed the song. I have mellowed a bit on it, but True was not one of my favorites back then, and it isn't a song that I intentionally go back to when I'm feeling nostalgic now.

Previous Musical Monday: Mr. Roboto by Styx

Subsequent Musical Monday: Candy Girl by New Edition

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Candy Girl by New Edition

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Spandau Ballet     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for August 23, 2020 through August 29, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 35 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 36.5 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 7 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 714.3 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 40 miles
Current Weigh-In: Not done (scale not usable)

I hit my mileage goal for the week again, so I am going to up the goal for this week. I will note that I reached the goal despite having to take a day off unexpectedly as we got some pretty heavy rains on Friday - the last vestiges of the recent hurricane working its way up the coast. I'm feeling pretty good most days on my runs - the last day of the week I pushed up to an 8 mile weekend run, which gets me back to where I was for weekend runs before my late-spring layoff. I'm about a week away from getting back to where I want to be as a baseline. If all goes well, the week after this one will get me back to where I want to be.

A fiends of mine asked me this week if I was training for something specific. The short answer is no, I am not. One reason is that pretty much every race in 2020 has either been cancelled, postponed indefinitely, or made into a virtual event. I have looked at a couple of races that theoretically might happen in 2021, but thus far the organizers appear not to have decided whether they are going to hold their events or not next year. The other reason is that I have never been a runner who really spends much time racing. In the past, I have gone years without racing. I just don't need the carrot of a race to keep going out and running every day, so I don't bother a lot of the time. I'll probably run a race or two in 2021, but right now I don't have any particular plans for any.

Previous Weekly Running Log: August 16, 2020 through August 22, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: August 30, 2020 through September 5, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - August 28th - September 3rd: Emperor Valens Defeated the Usurper Procopius at the Battle of Thyatira in 366 A.D.

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: Have you ever read a book that was suggested by another blogger?

No. Not consciously at least. I just have so many books in my backlog, and so many other sources of new book recommendations that I just don't really have the ability to add new books on a whim. On the other hand, it is certainly possible that I saw a book that I eventually read on a blog and simply didn't remember that was where I first saw it referenced. I don't know where I learned all the things I know, and as David Mitchell says, if I knew the source for all the things I knew, I would only know half as many things as I do.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: There Are 365 Days in a Common Year

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: GK Persei Went Nova in 367 A.D. No One on Earth Knew About This Until 1901 A.D.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Mr. Roboto by Styx

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of April 30, 1983.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

Mr. Roboto was the signature song of Kilroy Was Here, the concept album that destroyed Styx. The brain child of Dennis DeYoung, Kilroy Was Here told the story of Kilroy, the last rock star in a dystopian future in which rock music has been banned by the Majority for Musical Morality led by Dr. Everett Righteous. Kilroy has been imprisoned for his music, and as part of the story, he uses one of the Japanese-manufactured guard robots assigned to his prison to fashion a disguise and escape. This song details Kilroy's escape from imprisonment, which is the reason for the refrain "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto": He's thanking the robots for their unwitting assistance in his escape.

Despite the fact that the album debuted at #10 on the charts, and produced two top ten hits (this song and Don't Let It End), the tour supporting the album was a financial disaster for the band. DeYoung envisioned the tour as essentially musical theater featuring a lot of dialogue and other interstitial material connecting the songs. The band booked into smaller musical theaters for this, bringing with them a fairly expensive stage production, and they consequently hemorrhaged money. They then moved to arena shows, and tried to do a modified version of the musical theater routine, but it didn't match well with the venues, and despite the rest of the band pushing to discard the art theater routine, DeYoung was insistent that they continue.

This all came to a head at a music festival when (according to Tommy Shaw) DeYoung wanted the group to forge ahead with long acting sequences in front of what was, by the time they reached the stage, a restless and increasingly hostile crowd. Shaw walked off the stage in the middle of the show. The band disintegrated by the end of the tour. The live album that resulted from the tour was released after the band had already broken up for good.

In a very real sense, this song and the album it was on were not only the swan song for Styx, they were the nails in their coffin. The really annoying thing about this is that as interesting an idea a concept album that presents a science-fictional dystopian future is, the album itself is one of Styx's weaker efforts. Most of their previous albums were notably better, with better songs, than Kilroy Was Here. But it was this one that ended their run and destroyed the band.

Previous Musical Monday: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Subsequent Musical Monday: True by Spandau Ballet

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Beat It by Michael Jackson

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Styx     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for August 16, 2020 through August 22, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 30 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 35.8 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 677.8 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 35 miles
Current Weigh-In: 195.8

This week marks my entry into the 21st century, as I downloaded Strava onto an old cell phone we keep around for emergencies and started using it combined with the phone's GPS to track my mileage. It turns out that the running routes that I thought were 4 miles long and 5 miles long are actually 4.5 miles long and 5.5 miles long, so I've been running further than I thought. It also turns out that I;ve been running a bit faster than I thought - about a minute a mile faster. This seems to me to be good news, and it means that I don't have quite as much between my current status and my long-term running goals. It does, however, mean that I will not be able to deceive myself about my progress towards those goals.

In any event, I'm upping my mileage goal for the week, pushing to run the 5.5 mile route every weekday and running a new 6.3 mile route I've put together on the weekends. I'm basically going to keep pushing up the mileage for the next few weeks and then hold there for a bit before I decide how much more my body can handle and make an assessment from there.

Previous Weekly Running Log: August 9, 2020 through August 15, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: August 23, 2020 through August 29, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - August 21st - August 27th: There Are 365 Days in a Common Year

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: Do you look at your shelves and stacks and books and wonder how you have ever read so many?

No. I look at my shelves and stacks of books and wonder why I haven't read so many.

I've read a lot of books in my lifetime. If you include books that I read for my pre-college schooling, undergaduate degrees, my law degree, and my general reading, the total is in the thousands. And yet I still have many more thousands than that piled up waiting to be read. I doubt I will ever catch up. I will die with an enormous pile of unread books sitting beside me. That is the wonder - I have read a lot of books, and somehow I have an even larger pile still left to read.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: Pelopidas Died in 364 B.C.

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Emperor Valens Defeated the Usurper Procopius at the Battle of Thyatira in 366 A.D.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Let's Dance by David Bowie

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: The week of May 21, 1983.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of May 21, 1983.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: April 9, 1983 to April 23, 1983.

Let's Dance became the number one song on the U.K. chart the same day that I turned fourteen. I was living in Nigeria, I had my first real girlfriend (Sandy, if you are out there reading this, I still remember that year fondly), and I knew I was there on borrowed time as I would have to leave the next year for boarding school because the American International School only went through the ninth grade.

I've said that one of the things that propelled Michael Jackson to the forefront of pop culture in the early 1980s was his music videos, but the reality is that pretty much every musician who remained successful through the decade jumped into the music video arena with gusto. Those that didn't found themselves consigned to being cultural afterthoughts.

David Bowie, noted rock chameleon, jumped headlong into the music video world, and Let's Dance is an example of this. The song itself is decent, but really there's not much to it. It has a memorable hook, a good bass line, and lyrics that are pretty banal. There's nothing really special about the song itself that makes it stand out from other hit pop songs. It seems odd to say about a song that reached the top spot on the Billboard, Cash Box, and U/K. Charts, but Let's Dance is pretty mediocre.

What made Let's Dance memorable was the music video, featuring two Australian aboriginal teenagers who show up in a collection of circumstances pitting them and their traditional way of life against the encroachment of white Australian culture and society. They dance at a bar while white patrons make fun of them They find red shoes in the wilderness and are suddenly able to dance. They end up working jobs in civilized society - he in a factory and she as a cleaning lady. They get sucked in by western capitalism and the culture of consumption before rejecting it and walking off into the outback.

The only trouble with the video is that it makes the viewer think the song is saying something more significant than it is. Highlighting the fact that Australian aborigines are not treated well by Australian society is notable, as are the elements of the video that critique the exploitative nature of the capitalist consumerist society that they live adjacent to, but there's not all that much in the song itself that connects to these themes. The video wants to be socially significant, but the song simply is not, and as a result, it simply isn't as powerful a statement as it thinks it is. In fact, it comes off as somewhat pretentious, which is a shame, but there's not really anything that can be done about that.

Previous Musical Monday: Beat It by Michael Jackson

Subsequent Musical Monday: Mr. Roboto by Styx

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Beat It by Michael Jackson

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Beat It by Michael Jackson

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Flashdance . . . What a Feeling by Irene Cara

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Is There Something I Should Know? by Duran Duran

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: True by Spandau Ballet

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

David Bowie     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for August 9, 2020 through August 15, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 25 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 29 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 642 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 30 miles
Current Weigh-In: Not done

Last week went well. I alternated three mile days with five mile days, and put in all the miles I wanted to for the week and then some. This week I'm going to bump up to alternating four mile days and five mile days and aim for slightly more total weekly mileage. I am tempted to try to push to my final "baseline" goal for weekly mileage, but patience is a key component of distance running, so I will hold off on that and continue to ease myself towards my hoped-for weekly mileage goals. I should get there later this month, but we'll see how that goes.

In other news, I've signed up for the Hoka One One "Run the L" virtual event, which consists of running the total distance covered by Chicago's "L-train" network, or 131 miles. The even runs until October 4, so I have until then to complete the total distance. I figured that since I was going to be aiming for 30+ miles per week over that time span anyway, I may as well get a medal out of it.

Previous Weekly Running Log: August 2, 2020 through August 8, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: August 16, 2020 through August 22, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - August 14th - August 20th: Pelopidas Died in 364 B.C.

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: How often do you visit your local library?

These days, not at all. Then again, I don't go much of anywhere these days. I haven't gone anywhere other than to purchase groceries or go for training runs for several months now. Sadly, given how badly mismanaged the response to the Coronavirus pandemic has been, I don't see this changing any time soon.

In more normal times, I generally visit my local library two or three times a year. One of those times is for the annual library book sale, and the others are usually for special events they are holding. I am lucky to be in a position where my book and information needs can be handled adequately at home, so I don't need to avail myself of the library's resources. Now that the littlest starship captain is three, I will likely end up going to the library more often when "normal life" returns to take her to activities there, but that's likely a ways off in the future at this point.

There was a time, not all that long ago, when my life was unsettled and my resources depleted such that the local library was very important to me, and I would go two or three times a week, because I needed to use their internet, and their book collection, and their other resources. I don't have to any more, so I don't, but I still appreciate that they are always there if they are needed.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: 363 Is the Sum of Nine Consecutive Prime Numbers

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: There Are 365 Days in a Common Year

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Musical Monday - Beat It by Michael Jackson

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: April 30, 1983 through May 14, 1983.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: May 7, 1983 through May 14, 1983.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

Beat It made Michael Jackson the King of Pop. Thriller in general was a huge titanic hit of an album that produced multiple top ten hits, and Billie Jean stayed at the top of the charts for longer, but Beat It was the extra kick that transformed Jackson from "successful pop star" to "biggest musical superstar on the planet".

Billie Jean is a good song, as are most of the rest of the tracks on Thriller, but when you get down to it, they are basically the same sort of thing that Jackson has been putting out for the better part of a decade. Most of the songs on Thriller aren't really any different in kind from previous Jackson hits like Rock With You and Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough or even Jackson 5 tunes like Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground). Had the album not had Beat It on it, it still would have been hugely successful, but it would have just been more of the same danceable R&B Michael Jackson music that everyone had grown familiar with.

Beat It, driven by a hammer blow of a synthesizer opening, an Eddie Van Halen guitar riff (which Van Halen provided for free, just because he was asked to), and a hard-edged rock beat, was different from anything else Jackson had done before. People who didn't particularly like Michael Jackson's music liked Beat It. Essentially, Jackson made a bold statement with this song: He could make a song that sounds like something a hard rock band would put out but that is still unmistakably a Michael Jackson tune, and make it into a huge hit. This song broke Jackson out of being just a superlative R&B performer, and made him into a superstar.

Oddly, this is one of the few Michael Jackson songs of the 1980s where the song is actually better than the associated music video. The music video isn't bad, it just isn't all that groundbreaking. Billie Jean, for example, was a decent dance song with a really innovative music video. Beat It was a breakout song with a fairly ordinary music video. The idea behind the video - depicting two rival gangs getting into a rumble before Jackson the peacemaker shows up and stops the fracas - is fairly well-meaning, and fits the lyrics of the song, but there's nothing particularly notable about it other than the fact that they hired actual gang members as extras for the production. The video really dives into ridiculousness when Jackson more or less makes peace with the power of dance and no other explanation as to why these people who were ready to knife one another seconds before are now doing coordinated group body rolls.

Even though the video was kind of ordinary - well except for the fact that Jackson's dancing always elevated anything he was in - the song was what made Thriller into the life-changing event that it was for the pop star. It is odd to call something that happened to a music artist after he already had multiple number one hits a "breakout hit", but functionally, that is what this was. Beat It was the birth of the King of Pop.

Previous Musical Monday: Is There Something I Should Know? by Duran Duran

Subsequent Musical Monday: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runner

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Let's Dance by David Bowie

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Mr. Roboto by Styx

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Let's Dance by David Bowie

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Michael Jackson     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for August 2, 2020 through August 8, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 20 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 21 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 613 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 25 miles
Current Weigh-In: Not done

This week went very well. I alternated five mile runs with two mile runs and was able to stay on track for the whole week. I made my weekly mileage goal even though I had to miss one day of running due to some meetings I had to attend that extended pretty much all of one evening. I'm going to push up the mileage of my "short" runs for this week and aim for a twenty-five mile goal for the week. I still have trouble sleeping, because there really is no good sleeping position when you have a shoulder injury, but at least the shoulder has not been bothering me when I run - except for rare times when I stumble over something like a branch I didn't see on a dark running path or otherwise reflexively move my arm quickly.

One of the problems with dealing with my shoulder issues is that I pretty much know the pain doesn't signal anything real. Normally, pain is a signal from your body that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. You've broken something or opened a wound or something like that, and continuing to do what you are doing will result in more damage. Since my shoulder issues are basically arthritis, the pain is just pain with no underlying cause that can be fixed, and continuing to do what causes the pain won't result in any additional damage. The pain is just annoying and serves no useful purpose, and that is really quite frustrating.

Previous Weekly Running Log: July 26, 2020 through August 1, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: August 9, 2020 through August 15, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - August 7th - August 13th: 363 Is the Sum of Nine Consecutive Prime Numbers

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: Do you read books by diverse authors or books with diverse characters (such as LGBT, ethnic minorities, religious minorities, etc.)? If yes, do you have any book recommendations? Do you visit indie and/or used bookstores? Also, have you worked in any?

This is actually four questions, so I'll answer them each in turn.

First, yes, I do. It would be very difficult to be a participant in the modern science fiction conversation and not read books that are either by or feature LGBT, ethnic minority, or religious minority characters. It is certainly possible to be a science fiction fan and curate your reading selection to avoid such authors and characters, but you would not really be part of the genre's current conversation if you did.

Second, I recommend N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, which consists of The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky. I also recommend Zen Cho's Sorcerer to the Crown, R.F. Kuang's book The Poppy War and Wesley Chu's novel Time Salvager. I also recommend pretty much anything written by Sarah Pinsker, starting with her collection of short fiction Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea. I'll stop there, but I could probably give a list ten times this long if I spent even a modest amount of effort putting it together.

Third, as far as bookstores go, I visit indie and used bookstores more often than I visit the big retailers. As I have said in other posts, in normal times I do the bulk of my book shopping from convention dealers as science fiction conventions, although for obvious reasons that avenue has been foreclosed to me this year. For the most part, I would argue that the dealers who populate the various dealer halls at science fiction conventions count as either used or indie booksellers, although they typically aren't stores in the sense of having a permanent retail presence anywhere other than the conventions they deal at.

Even if convention dealers don't count as indie bookstores, I still patronize indie and used bookstores more than any other type of book retailer other than convention dealers. I have even tried to avoid patronizing places like Amazon during this pandemic by placing orders with a local game store and a local independent book store to satisfy my bookish needs.

Finally, I have never worked in a bookstore of any kind. The first job I got out of college was working for a bank, and then I went to law school. I have worked as a lawyer ever since then.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: 11 U.S.C. § 362 Provides for an Automatic Stay in Bankruptcy

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Pelopidas Died in 364 B.C.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

1945 Retro Hugo Award Longlist (awarded in 2020)

The Retro Hugos are a failure from almost every perspective. I have written about this extensively over the last couple of years, and I'm not going to rehash all of those arguments again here. I've laid out the evidence, I've made the arguments, and I think I've made the case.

That said, there is one potential reason that could justify the Retro Hugos, and that is the list of works that are associated with the Retro Hugo longlist could be used as a guide to finding worthwhile works from an older era, highlighting overlooked or forgotten gems from a bygone era, and allowing modern readers to discover lesser-known older writers and their works.

The problem is, even in the longlist, the Retro Hugos are not particularly good at serving this purpose. Every year it seems like the same handful of authors dominate both the list of official finalists and the longlist as well. As an example, look at the longlist for the Best Short Story category: Two stories by Ray Bradbury and one story each from Isaac Asimov, Fredric Brown, Lester del Rey, Fritz Leiber, C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner, John R. Pierce,  Dorothy Quick, and Manly Wade Wellman. That's a list of eight authors that are already famous and well-regarded, and two who are somewhat obscure.

The question more or less boils down to: Is it worth keeping an award this flawed in order to provide a spotlight that will bring one or two authors in each category back into relevance? Is that enough to keep handing out awards to mediocre early work by authors like Asimov and Bradbury? Is that enough to justify handing another editing award to Jon W. Campbell? Is a list dominated by authors who one really needs no help finding worth creating on a regular basis? Seriously, all you have to do is mention that you are interested in science fiction and you will be offered a dozen suggestions penned by Asimov, Bradbury, Burroughs, and Heinlein, and only slightly fewer suggestions for works by authors like Brackett, Kuttner, Leiber, Sturgeon, and van Vogt. No one needs any "help" finding them or their work.

In the end, the Retro Hugos are nothing but a self-indulgent nostalgia fest for the tiny handful of Worldcon members who bother to participate. This is, for the most part, the reason why the retro Hugos have become the useless appendage on the actual Hugos that they are. Fortunately, they are limited by the rules that create them, so there are only seven more opportunities to go through this nigh- pointless exercise.

Best Novel

Finalists:
The Golden Fleece (Hercules, My Shipmate) by Robert Graves
Land of Terror by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Shadow Over Mars (The Nemesis from Terra) by Leigh Brackett [winner]
Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord by Olaf Stapledon
The Wind on the Moon by Eric Linklater
The Winged Man by A.E. van Vogt and E. Mayne Hull

Longlisted Nominees:
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Delicate Ape by Dorothy B. Hughes
Destiny Times Three by Fritz Leiber
The Golden Amazon by John Russell Fearn
Magic Moon by Brett Sterling
Miss Shumway Waves a Wand by James Hadley Chase
Renaissance by Raymond F.Jones
That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley
Le Voyageur Imprudent (Future Times Three) by René Barjavel
The World of Null-A by A.E. van Vogt
Worlds Beginning by Robert Ardrey

Best Novella

Finalists:
The Changeling by A.E. van Vogt
A God Named Kroo by Henry Kuttner
Intruders from the Stars by Ross Rocklynne
The Jewel of Bas by Leigh Brackett

Killdozer! by Theodore Sturgeon [winner]

Old Man in New World by Olaf Stapledon [ineligible]
Trog by Murray Leinster

Longlisted Nominees:
The Dead Hand by Isaac Asimov
The Dweller in Darkness by August Derleth
Giant Killer by A. Bertram Chandler
The Giant Runt by Ross Rocklynne
Judgment Night by C.L. Moore
The Mad Robot by William P. McGivern
Minions of the Crystal Sphere by Albert dePina
The Mule by Isaac Asimov (reviewed as part of Foundation and Empire)
Murder In Space by David V. Reed
Plague by Murray Leinster
The Return of Jongor by Robert Moore Williams
Star Base X by Robert Moore Williams
Strangers on the Heights by Manly Wade Wellman
Sword of Tomorrow by Henry Kuttner
Wanderers of the Wolf Moon by Nelson S. Bond

Best Novelette

Finalists:
Arena by Fredric Brown
The Big and the Little (The Merchant Princes) by Isaac Asimov
The Children’s Hour by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner

City by Clifford D. Simak (reviewed as part of the fix up novel City) [winner]

No Woman Born by C.L. Moore
When the Bough Breaks by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner

Longlisted Nominees
The Beasts of Barsac by Robert Bloch
Census by Clifford Simak
The Day the World Stood Still by Allison Harding
Deadline by Cleve Cartmill
The Dweller in Darkness by August Derleth
Plague by Murray Leinster
Ride the El to Doom by Allison Harding
Technical Error by Hal Clement
Terror Out of Space by Leigh Brackett
The Veil of Astellar by Leigh Brackett

Best Short Story

Finalists:
And the Gods Laughed by Fredric Brown
Desertion by Clifford D. Simak
Far Centaurus by A. E. van Vogt

Huddling Place by Clifford D. Simak (reviewed in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume I, 1929-1964)

I, Rocket by Ray Bradbury [winner]
The Wedge (The Traders) by Isaac Asimov

Longlisted Nominees
And Then, the Silence by Ray Bradbury
Catch that Rabbit by Isaac Asimov (reviewed in I. Robot)
The Gothic Window by Dorothy Quick
Hoofs by Manly Wade Wellman
Housing Problem by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner
Invariant by John R. Pierce
Kindness by Lester del Rey
The Lake by Ray Bradbury
Sanity by Fritz Leiber
The Yehudi Principle by Fredric Brown

Best Series

Finalists:
Captain Future by Edmond Hamilton
The Cthulhu Mythos by H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, and others [winner]
Doc Savage by Kenneth Robeson (mostly Lester Dent)
Foundation by Isaac Asimov [ineligible] (starting with Foundation)
Jules de Grandin by Seabury Quinn
Pellucidar by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Shadow by Walter B. Gibson
Venus Equilateral by George O. Smith [ineligible]

Longlisted Nominees
Buck Rogers by Dick Calkins
City by Clifford Simak
Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond
G-8 and His Battle Aces by Robert J. Hogan
The Golden Amazon by John Russell Fearn
John Thunstone by Manly Wade Wellman
Joseph Jorkens by Lord Dunsany
Robots by Isaac Asimov (starting with I, Robot and The Caves of Steel)

Best Related Work

Finalists:

’42 To ’44: A Contemporary Memoir Upon Human Behavior During the Crisis of the World Revolution by H.G. Wells

The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley [ineligible]
Fancyclopedia by Jack Speer
Mr. Tompkins Explores the Atom by George Gamow
Rockets: The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere by Willy Ley

The Science-Fiction Field by Leigh Brackett [winner]

The Works of H.P. Lovecraft: Suggestions for a Critical Appraisal by Fritz Leiber

Longlisted Nominees
Futurian War Digest edited by J. Michael Rosenblum
The Grey Mouser (poem) by Fritz Leiber
The Inner Ring by C.S. Lewis
Little Known Fantaisistes by Harold Wakefield
Marginalia: H.P. Lovecraft edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei
Panic: The Orson Welles Broadcast That Hoaxed America
Rockets: A Prelude to Space Travel by Willy Ley
The Story Behind the Story: Veil of Astellar by Leigh Brackett
A Treasury of American Folklore edited by Benjamin Botkin

Best Graphic Story

Finalists:
Buck Rogers: Hollow Planetoid by Dick Calkins
Donald Duck: The Mad Chemist by Carl Barks
Flash Gordon: Battle for Tropica by Don Moore and Alex Raymond
Flash Gordon: Triumph in Tropica by Don Moore and Alex Raymond

The Spirit: For the Love of Clara Defoe by Manly Wade Wellman, Lou Fine and Don Komisarow

Superman: The Mysterious Mr. Mxyztplk by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster [winner]

Longlisted Nominees:
Brick Bradford: Beyond the Crystal Door by William Ritt; art by Clarence Gray
Buck Rogers: Monkeymen of Planet by Dick Calkins
Buck Rogers: Planet of the Rising Sun by Dick Calkins
Buck Rogers: Plastic Percy by Dick Calkins
Captain Marvel Adventures: Monster Society of Evil by Otto Binder; art by C.C. Beck
Captain Marvel Adventures: Silvana's Twin by Otto Binder; art by C.C. Beck

Detective Comics #94 Batman by by Bill Finger and Jack Farr; art by Ed Kressy, Dick Sprang, Jack Farr, Howard Sherman, George Roussos and Louis Cazeneuve

Ibis the Invincible: Loki the Terrible by Otto Binder; art by C.C. Beck
Lady Satan: The Allied Assassination Plot art by George Tuska
Mandrake the Magician: The Dome by Lee Falk and Phil Davis
Mandrake: The Earthshaker by Lee Falk and Phil Davis
Mandrake: The Garden of Wuzzu by Lee Falk and Phil Davis
Mandrake: The Mirror People by Lee Falk and Phil Davis
The Phantom: High-Sea Hijacker by Lee Falk; art by Wilson McCoy
Plastic Man: The Gay Nineties Nightmare by Gary Wheeler
Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure by Hérge

Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form

Finalists:

The Canterville Ghost screenplay by Edwin Harvey Blum from a story by Oscar Wilde [winner]

The Curse of the Cat People written by DeWitt Bodeen [winner]
Donovan’s Brain adapted by Robert L. Richards from a story by Curt Siodmak

House of Frankenstein screenplay by Edward T. Lowe, Jr. from a story by Curt Siodmak

The Invisible Man’s Revenge written by Bertram Millhauser
It Happened Tomorrow screenplay and adaptation by Dudley Nichols and René Clair

Longlisted Nominees:
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves written by Edmund L. Hartmann
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street written by Dr. Seuss
The Mysterious Traveler: Beware of Tomorrow written by Robert A. Arthur
The Mysterious Traveler: The Queen of the Cats by Maurice Tarplin

The Lady and the Monster screenplay by Dane Lussier and Frederick Kohner, based on the novel by Curt Siodmak

The Old Gray Hare written by Michael Sasanoff
The Shadow: The Man who Dreamed Too Much
They Came to a City by J.B. Priestley, Basil Dearden, and Sidney Cole
Time Flies written by Ted Kavanagh, J.O.C. Orton, and Howard Irving Young

The Uninvited screenplay by Dodie Smith and Frank Partos, based on the novel by Dorothy Macardle

Best Professional Editor: Short Form

Finalists:
John W. Campbell [winner]
Oscar J. Friend
Mary Gnaedinger
Dorothy McIlwraith
Raymond A. Palmer
W. Scott Peacock

Longlisted Nominees:
Bernard G. Davis
William de Grouchy
Sam Moskowitz
Frederik Pohl
Babette Rosmond
Donald A. Wollheim

Best Professional Artist

Finalists:
Earle K. Bergey
Margaret Brundage [winner]
Boris Dolgov
Matt Fox
Paul Orban
William Timmins

Longlisted Nominees:
Rudolph Belarski
Hannes Bok
Chesley Bonestell
Virgil Finlay
Graham Ingels
Harry Lemon Parkhurst
Frank R. Paul
J. Allen St. John
Modest Stein
Lawrence Stevens
Vin Sullivan
A.R. Tilburne

Best Fanzine

Finalists:
The Acolyte edited by Francis T. Laney and Samuel D. Russell
Diablerie edited by Bill Watson
Futurian War Digest edited by J. Michael Rosenblum
Shangri L’Affaires edited by Charles Burbee

Voice of the Imagi-Nation edited by Forrest J. Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas [winner]

Le Zombie edited by Bob Tucker and E.E. Evans

Longlisted Nominees:

British Fantasy Society Bulletin edited by D.R. Smith

Centauri edited by Andy Anderson
Chanticleer edited by Walt Liebscher
Fanewscard edited by Ed Connor and Frank Robinson
Fantasite edited by Phil Bronson and Walt Daugerty
Fantasticonglomeration edited by Forrest J. Ackerman
Fantasy Fiction Field edited by Julius Unger
Fantasy Times edited by Sam Moskowitz
Guteto edited by Morojo (aka Myrtle R. Douglas)
Horizons edited by Harry Warner, Jr.
The Phantagraph edited by Donald A. Wollheim
Sappho edited by Bill Watson and George Ebey
Toward Tomorrow edited by James Kepner
YHOS edited by Art Widner
Zizzle-Pop edited by Louis Russell Chauvenet

Best Fan Writer

Finalists:
Fritz Leiber [winner]
Morojo (aka Myrtle R. Douglas)
J. Michael Rosenblum
Jack Speer
Bob Tucker
Harry Warner, Jr.

Longlisted Nominees:
Forrest J. Ackerman
Robert Bloch
Charles Burbee
Ted Carnell
Russell Chauvenet
E. Everett Evans
F.T. Laney
David Langford
Sam Moskowitz
Elmer Purdue
Milton A. Rothman
Samuel D. Russell
Julius Unger
Harold Wakefield
Bill Watson
Art Widner
Donald A. Wollheim
Elsie Wollheim
T. Bruce Yerke

Go to previous year's longlist: 1944 (awarded in 2019)
Go to subsequent year's longlist: 1946 (awarded in 1996)

Go to 1945 Hugo Finalists and Winners

Hugo Longlist Project     Book Award Reviews     Home

Musical Monday - Is There Something I Should Know? by Duran Duran

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: March 26, 1983 through April 2, 1983.

Although Michael Jackson was the most iconic act of the 1980s, I don't think there was a band that was more firmly rooted in the decade than Duran Duran. Jackson had success with the Jackson 5 in the 1970s, and continued his solo career into the 1990s, but it is almost impossible to conceive of Duran Duran in any decade other than this one. There is simply no way that Duran Duran could have succeeded like they did except as a result of the perfect confluence of music and pop culture that propelled them to prominence.

A lot of Duran Duran's success was the result of the nascent art form of the music video. Much like Michael Jackson, Duran Duran dove headfirst into marketing themselves via music videos, and to a large extent the music videos was what they were known for - far outshadowing their actual music. I recall articles from the era talking about how it was strange that Duran Duran had become such a cultural phenomenon despite the somewhat mediocre chart performance - at least in the U.S. - of some of their best known songs.

The implied knock on Duran Duran's songs, including this one, is that the band was all style with little accompanying substance, and to be honest, it is kind of hard to argue with that assessment. Some of these complaints were just older music critics and commentators having trouble coming to grips with the idea that the video presentation of music was an important element of pop music in the 1980s, but some of these complaints were based upon the fact that Duran Duran made mostly meaningless pop with a good dance beat. Duran Duran was a pretty band that made pretty music videos featuring catchy pop melodies and often forgettable lyrics, and that pretty much sums up this music video.

Previous Musical Monday: Billie Jean by Michael Jackson

Subsequent Musical Monday: Beat It by Michael Jackson

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler

Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Let's Dance by David Bowie

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Duran Duran     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Running - Weekly Log for July 26, 2020 through August 1, 2020

Last Week's Mileage Goal: 15 miles
Actual Miles Last Week: 22 miles
Run/Walk Miles: 0 miles
Cumulative Mileage: 592 miles.
This Week's Mileage Goal: 20 miles
Current Weigh-In: Not done

So, this week I tried a new running pattern. I usually try running more or less the same distance most days, with maybe more distance on weekend days and one day of rest - basically one day a week of no running. This hasn't been working very well for my body in the last couple of months. Instead, this past week I alternated two mile days with four mile days, which seems to have worked out fairly well.

My goal is to up my weekly mileage over the next month or so, and this week I intend to alternate two mile days with five mile days. If this goes well, the week after I'll up the "short" mileage days and keep the "long" mileage days where they are, working my way up to consistently running more mileage per week. I am optimistic that this will help me get back to running longer weeks consistently.

Previous Weekly Running Log: July 19, 2020 through July 25, 2020
Subsequent Weekly Running Log: August 2, 2020 through August 8, 2020

Running     Home

Book Blogger Hop - July 31st - August 6th: 11 U.S.C. § 362 Provides for an Automatic Stay in Bankruptcy

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: If you haven't read a book in awhile and someone asks about a character or the plot, can you recall the details?

It depends on the book. In most cases, the answer is yes. In some cases, I can't remember the title of the book, or the author, but I can give a fairly extensive synopsis of the characters and plot. I am especially good at remembering the details of books that I particularly liked or disliked. Apparently, evoking a strong emotion one way or the other makes a book memorable for me. As much as I wish I couldn't, I vividly remember the excruciating twists and turns of the very worst books I have read. Sometimes, a good memory is a mixed blessing.

I also have his sort of recall for movies I have seen, although with respect to movies I also layer on a ridiculous amount of recalled information about the identities of the actors who appeared in them.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: 361 Degrees Is a Chinese Sporting Goods Company

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: 363 Is the Sum of Nine Consecutive Prime Numbers

Book Blogger Hop     Home