Saturday, March 30, 2019

Book Blogger Hop March 29th - April 4th: "300" Was a Stunningly Ahistorical Movie Ostensibly About the Battle of Thermopylae


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: Name one classic novel you have always wanted to read.

I would like to read The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Or possibly The Phantom of the Opera. Or maybe Ben Hur. I've read most of the other classic works that I really want to read, including Les Miserables, but I've never read either of those. I own a copy of all three of those books, so I suppose I could sit down and read them over the next couple of weeks, but as I am way behind on almost everything, that seems unlikely. I'll get around to it some time though.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: The Third Samnite War Started in 299 B.C.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Monday, March 25, 2019

Musical Monday - Jealous Guy by Roxy Music


#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.
#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: March 14, 1981 through March 21, 1981.

This should be subtitled "Manpain: The Song".

This version of Jealous Guy is a cover or John Lennon's original 1971 recording of the song. It appears that this recording was an attempt to either memorialize or capitalize upon Lennon's death in December 1980, as Roxy Music added a live version of the song to their usual set in the following months and recorded this version in February 1981. Whether this recording is a moving tribute to a fallen icon or a crass and ghoulish attempt to capitalize on a tragedy is probably in the eye of the beholder.

That said, this song is kind of creepy when you break it down. The lyrics seem to be an apology, but they really aren't. They are a series of excuses. The only thing the singer is explicitly sorry for is making his lover cry. When it comes to hurting them, the only statement made is that the singer didn't mean to do it, following by a series of reasons why they did, including the fact that they are a jealous person. The entire tenor of the song is more or less "I didn't mean to hurt you, but instead of dealing with your hurts, let's talk about my pain and insecurities for a while instead".

This centering of male anguish in stories that are ostensibly about male wrongdoing and the harm they cause to the women in their life is something of a recurring theme in popular culture. Songs, books, movies, and television programs in which a guy lashes out at a woman so frequently seem to move away from the pain caused to the victim and instead focus on how the incident disturbed the sensibilities of the aggressor and is now making him feel bad that it is difficult to get annoyed with Lennon for making a song that does the same thing. All the same, I am just so very tired of these sorts of stories of dudes whining about how causing harm to others is actually hurting them. If I never hear another "manpain" tale like this again, it will be too soon.

Previous Musical Monday: Keep On Lovin' You by REO Speedwagon
Subsequent Musical Monday: Rapture by Blondie

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Shaddap You Face by Joe Dolce Music Theatre
Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: This Ole House by Shakin' Stevens

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

Roxy Music     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Book Blogger Hop March 22nd - March 28th: The Third Samnite War Started in 299 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: Do you read along with your audio books?

Since I don't use audio books, the answer to this has to be no. I don't have anything against audio books, I just don't really have the ability to absorb books via that format, so I simply never use audio books.


Book Blogger Hop     Home

Monday, March 18, 2019

Musical Monday - Keep On Lovin' You by REO Speedwagon


#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: The week of March 21, 1981.
#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of March 7, 1981.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

The 1980s were the era of the power ballad, and REO Speedwagon's Keep On Lovin' You was one of the first of the big hit power ballads. Actually, I think this may be the first power ballad to reach the peak position on the pop charts, and as a result pioneered a music form that would come to dominate the decade. It seems odd that pretty much every hair metal band of the mid- to late-1980s would follow the musical lead of a band like REO Speedwagon, but that seems to have been what happened.

I recall seeing some interviews with the band members about the development of Keep On Lovin' You that essentially amounted to saying that REO Speedwagon stumbled on to the power ballad formula almost by accident. Kevin Cronin, the band's lead singer, was apparently a folk singer by inclination, which is one of the reasons that he left the band for a time during the 1970s. When he sat down to write Keep On Lovin' You, he wanted to merge the had rock style of the rest of the band with his tendency towards folk ballads, and the result was the power ballad. I'm not entirely sure that one can credit REO Speedwagon with the creation of the power ballad - this anecdote is based on my recollection of stories told in an interview by band members in a documentary that I only dimly recall - but they were definitely responsible for helping to make power ballads the signature sound of the decade.

Previous Musical Monday: Shaddap You Face by Joe Dolce Music Theatre
Subsequent Musical Monday: Jealous Guy by Roxy Music

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt
Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Rapture by Blondie

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton
Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Woman by John Lennon

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

REO Speedwagon     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Saturday, March 16, 2019

Book Blogger Hop March 15th - March 21st: 298 Baptistina Is the Namesake of the Baptistina Asteroid Family


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 use NetGalley, Edelweiss, both, or neither?

Nope. I don't use either of those services, or any other similar service.

Previous Book Blogger Hop: +297 Is a Restaurant in Aruba
Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: The Third Samnite War Started in 299 B.C.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Monday, March 11, 2019

Musical Monday - Shaddap You Face by Joe Dolce Music Theatre


#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Never.
#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Never.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: February 21, 1981 through March 7, 1981.

I can't even.

The only explanation I can come up with for this song is that every now and then the entire U.K. simply fucking loses its collective mind. Compounding the insanity, this idiotic song was number one in the U.K. for three weeks. This song rather famously kept Ultravox's Vienna from reaching the number one spot in the U.K., which doesn't really seem like that big of a loss until one considers that Shaddup You Face is insipidness personified while Vienna is only pretentiously ponderous.

After listening to this song I can kind of understand how Brexit happened.

Previous Musical Monday: 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton
Subsequent Musical Monday: Keep On Lovin' You by REO Speedwagon

Previous #1 on the U.K. Chart: Woman by John Lennon
Subsequent #1 on the U.K. Chart: Jealous Guy by Roxy Music

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

Joe Dolce Music Theatre     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Saturday, March 9, 2019

Book Blogger Hop March 8th - March 14th: +297 Is a Restaurant in Aruba


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 buy all your books? If yes, do you keep it all? If no, where do you source them?

No. I have bought most of my books, but I didn't buy all of them. The books I didn't buy, I obtained in a variety of ways.

Some of my books I have been given as review copies.

Some of my books I have obtained as "swag" at conventions. I suppose that since I paid to go to the conventions, technically I paid for the books, just in a roundabout way. There was no real obligation on the part of the convention to give them to me, so I think these count as "free" anyway.

Some of my books I have received as giveaways from contests.

Some of my books I have obtained via things like the "freebie" table at events.

And, obviously, I have received some books as gifts.


Book Blogger Hop     Home

Monday, March 4, 2019

Musical Monday - 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton


#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: February 21, 1981 and March 14, 1981.
#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: The week of February 28, 1981.
#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

The title track to the movie of the same name, 9 to 5 is yet another example of the synergy between popular music and movies. While the song is a pretty good song, it seems relatively obvious that it would have been a quirky entry on the country music charts without the movie to propel it to mainstream success. When attached to the movie - one of the most successful comedies of all time - the song became a number one hit on both the Billboard and Cash Box charts and transformed Dolly Parton from a county singer notable for being extremely busty into a crossover music star.

One thing that is interesting about this song is the extremely pro-working class tone this song takes. While more recent country music pretends to extol the virtues of blue collar work, the reality is that modern country music is firmly entrenched as the music of the establishment, essentially serving as the voice of management. Parton's song, on the other hand, definitely aligns with the hard-working people who live paycheck to paycheck while they dream about someday getting ahead and at the same time see the bulk of the fruits of their labor go into their wealthy boss's pocket. There is a very subversive undercurrent to both the song and the movie which seems especially interesting given that they more or less coincided with the opening of Reagan's presidency in the United States and the cultural and political shift away from labor towards management that took place under that administration.

Previous Musical Monday: I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt
Subsequent Musical Monday: Shaddap You Face by Joe Dolce Music Theatre

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Celebration by Kool and the Gang
Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt
Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Keep on Lovin' You by REO Speedwagon

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

Dolly Parton     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home

Saturday, March 2, 2019

Book Blogger Hop March 1st - March 7th: Constantius Chlorus Reconquered Britain in 296 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 made the switch from print to eBooks? Is either one exclusive?

No, I have not. I don't actually read very many e-books. Actually, while I have read some short fiction in electronic format, I haven't ever read a novel that way. I just don't like reading stories in that format. Sometimes I think about switching, mostly because it would allow me to reduce the size of my physical library, but I haven't and I probably never will. I like paper books too much to ever give them up. After all, I have about twelve thousand of them.

On a side note, I will say that a willingness to send a print copy of a book is one of the ways that I weed out offers of review copies. I get more offers of review copies than I could ever possibly read and review, so I have developed a couple of ways to cut down on the number of offers that I say yes to. I know that "offer me a print copy" is kind of arbitrary, but it works about as well as any other method I've come up with, so I use it.

Subsequent Book Blogger Hop: +297 Is a Restaurant in Aruba

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Friday, March 1, 2019

Biased Opinion - The Destructiveness of Voting Slates in Book Awards

Voting slates are inherently destructive.

As I noted in my post about the 2019 Nebula Award Nominees, a group called "20booksto50K" posted a very slate-like list of works to support that they kind of unconvincingly asserted was not actually a slate. Consequently, a number of works promoted by that group received Nebula or Andre Norton nominations, specifically Fire Ant by Jonathan P. Brazee, Going Dark by Richard Fox, Interview for the End of the World by Rhett Bruno, A Light in the Dark by A.K. DuBoff, Messenger by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and R.R. Virdi, and The Rule of Three by Lawrence M. Schoen. Anyone who wants to see the text of the Facebook post announcing the 20booksto50K "not-a-slate" should go see the excellent write-up about it by Camestros Felapton titled The Nebulas & 20booksto50, not-a-nudge-nudge-slate.

Subsequent inquiry has revealed that "20booksto50K" is a group run by (and trademark owned by) LMBPN Publishing, which is owned by Michael Anderle who appears to run the publisher in collaboration with Craig Martelle. This bit of information has pulled the mask back a bit on the "not-a-slate" because it seems to have revealed the intent behind its creation and some clues as to how it was created.

One of the problems of voting slates with respect to book awards is that by their very nature they focus the voting according to the preferences, knowledge, and diligence of those who construct them. Examination of the Sad Puppy slate in 2015 revealed that pretty much every recommendation on the slate was a work by an individual who has a close personal or professional connection to Brad Torgersen, the architect of the slate. The voting bloc that was guided by the Sad Puppy slate was reduced to essentially following the range of knowledge concerning the genre that was known by a single person. The problem presented is that no one person can keep up with the genre as a whole. There are simply too many books, stories, movies, and television shows produced in a given year for any one person to be able to be able to consume a sufficient range to be able to identify all of the good ones. In the case of the 2015 Hugo nominations, Torgersen wasn't even able to keep track of all of the fiction that he thought was good: After the finalists were announced, Torgersen attacked the Hugo electorate for not making Andy Weir's book The Martian a Hugo Finalist, which was ironic because Torgersen had not included the book on his slate, apparently having forgot about it when the time came to put his list together. Slates can prevent even the works that the slate-makers like from getting onto a ballot.

In the case of the 20booksto50K "not-a-slate", there seems to be a common connection among many of the twenty-four authors whose works appear on the list, and that connection mostly runs through LMBPN Publishing. Among the many books LMBPN has produced have been two anthology series: The Expanding Universe series and the BOB's Bar series. Fifteen of the twenty-four authors who appear on the 20booksto50K slate were published in one or more of the books of one or both of those series. For the record, the breakdown is as follows (each author is listed with the anthologies they have stories in):
  • Jonathan Brazee: BOB's Bar 1, BOB's Bar 2, Expanding Universe 3, Expanding Universe 4
  • Lindsay Buroker: BOB's Bar 1, BOB's Bar 2
  • Zen DiPietro: Expanding Universe 3
  • A.K. Duboff: Expanding Universe 2, Expanding Universe 3
  • C.C. Ekeke: Expanding Universe 3
  • Richard Fox: BOB's Bar 1, BOB's Bar 2, Expanding Universe 3
  • J.R. Hundley: Expanding Universe 3
  • Robert Jeshonek: Expanding Universe 3
  • Craig Martelle: BOB's Bar 1, BOB's Bar 2, Expanding Universe 1, Expanding Universe 2, Expanding Universe 3, Expanding Universe 4
  • Kevin McLaughlin: BOB's Bar 1, BOB's Bar 2, Expanding Universe 2, Expanding Universe 3, Expanding Universe 4
  • Terry Mixon: BOB's Bar 1, BOB's Bar 2, Expanding Universe 3, Expanding Universe 4
  • Nathan Mutch: Expanding Universe 4
  • Felix Savage: Expanding Universe 1
  • R.R. Virdi: Expanding Universe 4
  • Yudhanjaya Wijeranthe: Expanding Universe 3, Expanding Universe 4
Basically, one way to increase your chances of getting listed on the "not-a-slate"appears to have been "appear in an LMBPN anthology. It seems telling that of the entire universe of available "indie" fiction, two-thirds of the authors selected for a list of voting recommendations put out by an outlet controlled by LMBPN Publications were authors who had been published by LMBPN Publications. Looking at the construction of the list, it seems as though getting these authors Nebula nominees was essentially a marketing strategy.

As a side note, there appears to be another connection: A publisher named Sci-Fi Bridge. Sci-Fi Bridge appears to specialize in putting out anthologies, and several of the authors that appeared on the 20booksto50K "not-a-slate" also appeared in one of the handful of anthologies published by sci-Fi bridge. Specifically, the following authors appeared in Sci-Fi Bridge anthologies: Jason Anspach, Rachel Aukes, Rhett Bruno, Lindsay Buroker, Zen DiPietro, Robert Jeshonek, Craig Martelle, and Felix Savage. As one can see, there is a lot of crossover here, as well as a couple of new names. Ten of the twenty-four authors who appear on the "not-a-slate" had works in a Sci-Fi Bridge anthology, including four who did not appear in an LMBPN anthology. The prime connection here appears to be Craig Martelle, who is listed as the editor for the Expanding Universe anthology series and also a crossover with Sci-Fi Bridge. Basically, the second best way to get your name on the "not-a-slate" appears to have been "have a story in a Sci-Fi Bridge anthology.

Someone, somewhere, has obviously told "indie" authors that getting an award for your book is a great marketing strategy. I've been reviewing books for several years, and have been handed literally dozens of review copies written by "indie" authors that prominently proclaim that they were a finalist for the USA Best Book Award, or the International Book Award, or the Moonbeam Awards, or the Axiom Award, or the Pinnacle Book Achievement Award, and so on and so forth. If you haven't heard of these awards before, there's a reason: Most of them aren't really awards. Mostly, they are part of an ecosystem that has grown up alongside publishing to try to bleed money from self-published authors by charging them money to enter their work in the award pool and then, usually, simply calling everyone who pays the fee a "finalist" (often so the company running the competition can sell a certificate or sticker to those entered). The authors then turn around and make the fact that one of their books has been a "finalist" for a book award part of their marketing efforts.

The reality is that slapping an award on the cover of your book (or the fact that you won an award at some point in the past) is generally a terrible marketing strategy. No one actually cares about any of these awards, because no one has ever heard of them, or if they have heard of them, they know that they are basically worthless. Every time I get a review copy of a book that trumpets the fact that the book or the author won some obscure award from an award mill, I roll my eyes a bit.

The Nebula Award, on the other hand, is a fairly well-known and prestigious award in speculative fiction. Putting the fact that the author has won a Nebula Award on a book cover has some cachet with speculative fiction fans, so it would seem natural that a group steeped in the idea that securing book awards as a marketing method would want to secure Nebula Awards. Alongside the sexism, racism, and ideologically driven culture war bullshit of the Sad Puppy campaigns aimed at securing Hugo Awards for the slate members, there seems to have been some tiny part that was intended to secure a presence on the Hug ballot as a marketing tool. The paradox inherent in the idea of trying to game awards in order to get oneself onto the ballot and possibly get an award is that as soon as an award like the Nebula becomes known to be susceptible to such marketing-driven manipulation, its value as a marketing tool will drop precipitously.1 Trying to turn an award into a marketing tool serves to destroy the usefulness of the award for that purpose.

The base fact is that voting slates in book awards destroy almost everything they touch, including their proponent's own goals. Using a slate to secure nominations for an award in order to enhance your reputation will probably serve to irreparably damage your reputation. The Sad Puppies thought that getting on the Hugo ballot would get a lot of people to read their work and impress them. What actually happened was the most damaging thing that could have happened to the Puppies: People read their work and judged them accordingly. Using a slate to manipulate your way onto an awards ballot can serve to block works that you would really have liked to have on the ballot. The slate put forward by Brad Torgersen served to block a book that Torgersen thought should have gotten a Hugo nod. Using a slate to manipulate your way onto an award ballot in order to use that nomination as a marketing tool will destroy that award as a useful marketing tool. If the 20booksto50K "not-a-slate" became a regular thing, it would destroy the reputation of the Nebula Award and make it useless for marketing purposes. And these are just examples of the damage that slates do to slate makers.

Simply put: Slates wreak terrible damage to everyone and everything around them, even their creators.

1 Right now, I would suggest that the Dragon Awards are in danger of fading into complete irrelevance due to these sorts of market-driven campaigns. Granted, the Dragon Awards seem to encourage this type of activity, but that doesn't make their presence any less damaging to the usefulness that readers will attach to Dragon Award nominations and wins.

Biased Opinions    Home