Foster on Film

After a year and a half, I still hate grocery shopping. Nothing destroys me like grocery shopping. I’m sure other things could, but I do not do those other things.

Partly it is reminders. Shopping for food is filled with reminders. There is something Eugie would have enjoyed. That was a favorite snack of hers. Oh, I always skipped that because she didn’t like it. I used to buy two of those, but now I buy one. Yes, far too many reminders.

But more it is because it gives me time to think, and thinking is very bad. My mind wanders, and there is nowhere good that it will go. Other activities give me a chance to think as well. Driving is good at that. Any waiting or traveling excels in allowing my thoughts to flicker about. Which makes those things to avoid.

If I could cease thinking, that would be a gift. And at home I do a good job of just that. I am a master of self-distraction. I can take my mind on a thousand trivial journeys. Books and movies are good for that, as long as I choose carefully. The Internet is better. Ah, the Internet is a gem. Facebook alone is a giant gapping hole I can get lost in. All those angry people. All that rage. All the claims of offense and the far vaster number of pointless insults. All the politics that everyone finds so very, very important. Little of it is important to me. Little of life is, so it is a given, but that truth shines a bit brighter online. I never get angry in the midst of all that anger (although many have ascribed to me that emotion). I am an observer. Rage is left for those who care, and in any case, anger to me was always a personal matter. You don’t find rage in a thousand deaths—those numbers are statistics and you calmly find a way to fix the problem. No, rage comes with one death. One pain. Anger is always singular, and in the first person.

I don’t laugh at what I see either. That’s not the way of observers. And I don’t want to laugh. I have no interest in emotions of any kind, since emotions tend to grow, and when they become strong, they always go to the same place for me. And that defeats the point. The point is distraction. The point is to take me away from feeling. And as I said, I’m good at that.

I have to be good at that. In a year and a half, nothing has changed. People like to lie. They like to lie to me which I suspect allows them to lie to themselves: That things will get better. It is an absurdity. Why would things get better? By…forgetting? By abandoning what was? No, things getting better or worse here depend on actual, real things, and nothing actual, real, is going to change. Without a handy resurrection spell, things will not get better. And like anger and laughter, I have no particular interest in things getting better. People in recent years have adopted the philosophy that life is about happiness. That the goal of life is to be happy. This is a very new occurrence, but so many cling to it as if it has always been the case and it is natural and ordained by the universe. It is not. Far more people in the history of the world have spent their lives trying to “be good” or “be honorable” or any number of other things. Happiness is not the meaning of life, and while I have been happy most of my life, far more than most people I know, it is not my goal. It is a thing, like other things.

And some who see anyone not happy, or see themselves not happy, want to start giving their advice on depression. It must be clinical depression. There must be therapies and drugs to kick this sickness. But I was married for twenty-six years to a psychologist. I’m not allowed such self-deception. Depression is a mental illness. It has meaning. It has effects. It is not simply equivalent to a lack of happiness. Some people need the crutch of calling themselves sick, or more often, need for others to be sick. I do not need that. Depressed is not depression. Pain is not depression. Don’t mix them up. It is not fair to those who are sick.

Which leads me back to, I went grocery shopping today. And I hate that. And no, I do not intend to come up with some method to avoid that chore. I plan to distract myself again. Because that is what I can do. Hell, that is what most people do whenever they watch a game or go out to a bar or fiddle with a hobby—distract themselves from lives that are not what they wish they were. I didn’t do that. I didn’t need distractions. And now I do.

Time to read Facebook…

Eugie would be amused today. We had a rule in our house: Don’t hurt the spider people. Yes, Eugie called them spider people. Our home was not only a no kill zone for spiders, it was a “don’t touch them and let them have their own home in our home” zone. (This was brought into question when we got Hobkin, as he did not live by the same rules and thought spiders were delicious.) Part of this came from both of our tendencies not to kill things just for the hell of it, but much of it dates to our old home.

You see Eugie hated millipedes and centipedes—which I shall call leggy worms from this point on. She was phobic of them. She’d scream like a little girl if one came upon her suddenly, and once being a little girl, she knew what that scream was like. One of my jobs in life was to keep them away from her. I took my job seriously.

Long ago now, unknown builders started a huge construction site near us, turning the farm land that surrounded our little subdivision into a lot more subdivision. When they did so, any animal that lived in that farm land raced through our subdivision, and sometimes, our home. It was the year of mice. But when they started, it was apparently the season of leggy worms, and millions upon millions of them swept over the neighborhood. A million is probably way too low. The streets were no longer grey, but had a solid red carpet of millipedes. If you drove, you killed hundred with each roll of your wheel. If you walked outside, you would leave pale shoe-shaped patches of death. There was no avoiding them.

And leggy worms can get into your house. And so they did. But we lived in a duplex, with everything but the garage and an, at that time, unfinished great room at ground level, so as the weekend of the leggy worm plague progressed, we saw none. That was till we went downstairs. The door to the garage was not so tight—enough of a gap for an army of the things to get in. Except they didn’t. A few spiders had set up shop. They had spun their webs along the bottom of that door, so any leggy worms that came through wiggled into a trap. And these were large and skilled spiders. Their web was less a piece of art and more industrial strength equipment. The leggy worms were big, but the web was stronger. The spider people didn’t catch one of two. They caught hundreds. The web looked like a leggy worm burrito—white silk on the outside around a thick tube of red. It was impressive. I can’t imagine what any of my neighbors without spiders must have experienced, but I’m guessing they had unpleasant nights.

Eugie looked at the burrito web, shuddered, and turned to me and said, “They [the spiders} get to stay.” They’d earned their keep. They didn’t get all of their prey (I wasn’t keeping that death tube in the house, and it was way more than they could eat in a year anyway), but they did OK. And our truce was made with the spider people. Well, until Hobkin.

So today as I walked about the house I saw a relatively large dark something by the front door, though hovering a bit off the floor. It seems a spider had set up there in the last day, and a leggy worm and slunk in. The spider won—or is in the midst of winning. I’ll wait a bit before intervening. The spider person has earned her prize so I can wait a day to neaten the field of battle. Perhaps I’ll play some song, something played by our accessories, or her accessories, after the great wars of olden days to commemorate what is and has been. A song to the spider people. We all need our myths.

Eugie’s ghost has been kept safe from the evil of the leggy worms by the vigilance of the spider people. Which is how it should be.

I’m a movie guy. I write reviews, run a film festival, speak on film panels, and have been a judge at numerous other fests. So the Dramatic Presentation Hugo categories are my thing. They shouldn’t be entirely, as far more is allowed than movies and TV episodes, but it is rare for anything else to show up. So OK, let’s deal with those two categories.

Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

The Short Form category… It is a mess. It is extremely annoying. Why? Because what should get nominated NEVER gets nominated. Never. It is a flaw of popular awards that they rely on what is popular, that is, what is easy to be seen by lots of people, and the best works do not necessarily fall into that group.

What should be on the ballot? What should everyone be nominating for Best Short Form Dramatic Presentation in 2016?

• Replika (Directed by Luc Walpoth)
• The Mill at Calder’s End (Directed by Kevin McTurk).
• Dust (Directed by Michael Grier)

The first is a French cyberpunk story of a mother who’s android child is failing and who needs a replacement. It is beautiful, emotional, and intellectual, doing what Ex Machina could not. It is pretty much THE state of the art in cyberpunk/AI cinema. The second is a gothic ghost story with a feeling of Poe and Lovecraft, brought to the screen with puppets. Dust is a quest for a cure in a post-apocalyptic world. All three are brilliant. And you’ve seen none of them. They are the short films on the film festival circuit. That’s where good short films go. They are the best of the best. And the best is supposed to be on the Hugo ballot. But they won’t be. And that is a fundamental problem with the awards. I could nominated them, but what’s the point? How many other film festival attendees vote on the Hugos? It’s sad, but that’s the way of things.

So, within that sad restriction, what should make the ballot this year? I admit a strong desire to put Super Power Beat Down, Batman vs Darth Vader (Alternate Ending version) on the list both because it is quite good, and because it has a much better version of Batman and Superman than what Zack is doing—really, go watch it. But I’ll leave it as an alternate suggestion. As I will also leave the three short films above, just in case somehow someone wants to show them a little love. Instead, I’ll offer what you can, and have seen. And it one case, I’ll escape the video trap that most voters are in. I’ll also keep it at four as I plan to stick in one of those alternatives

• Pseudopod 428: When It Ends, He Catches Her, written by Eugie Foster and preformed by Tina Connolly
• Doctor Who: Heaven Sent
• Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song
• Rick and Morty – “The Ricks Must Be Crazy”

The first I explained here, but basically it is a chance to give When It Ends, He Catches Her the nom it should have gotten last year, plus it is a really good presentation.

Then there is The Doctor. I doubt I’ll have to defend Heaven Sent. It was the deep and serious episode for the year, and I’ve already seen just about everyone suggesting it be nominated. It’s good that, for a change, the deep and serious episode deserves it. The Husbands of River Song, this year’s Xmas ep, is my favorite episode for the year, and in fact, for the past several years. It was painful for me to watch, as Eugie and I watched Doctor Who together and up to this point, I knew she wouldn’t have minded missing the eps all that much. But this one she would have loved, as did I. Not only was it fun and witty, but ended up having a far more profound point than any strictly serious episodes and programs have managed. I can’t express how important the concept that happily ever after exists, and is also framed by time is to me personally, and to everyone who thinks about it. It’s good to think about the fact that we did indeed live happily ever after.

Rick and Morty is a surprisingly good, and incredibly dark animated series. It had many brilliant moments over the season and multiple episodes came to my mind for nomination, including Auto Erotic Assimilation (about a Hive mind), Big Trouble In Little Sanchez (where the A story pales next to the incredible B story of marriage counseling destruction), and the tragic season finale, The Wedding Squanchers. But The Ricks Must Be Crazy tops them with great A & B stories. In the A, Rick and Morty are miniaturized and go into a battery, where Rick has created an entire civilization just to power his car. In the B, Summer is kept safe by car, that does the most horrific and heartbreaking things I’ve ever seen in a cartoon. The problem with Rick and Morty is that it will probably lose out from people going for different episodes. Besides the others I’ve mentioned, I’ve seen people recommending Total Rickall (dealing with mental parasites). All of them are good.

I expect episodes of The Flash and Supergirl to show up on some nominating ballots, and while those shows are fun, they just aren’t of the quality that should earn awards. Game of Thrones is likely to show up, but while I enjoyed it, no single episode really stands out. It would be better to nominate the entire season in Long Form, but to the best of my understanding, that is no longer possible (it has to do with the creator’s being able to say how a work should be treated).

Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

When I did my ranking of the best Science Fiction features of the year (and later modified it to be best Fantasy and Science Fiction), my number one ranked film was…nothing. I left it empty because nothing deserved the top spot. That would push me toward doing a No Award for the Hugo, but the Hugos are not equivalent to my rankings, and I can worry about final votes later. So, keeping in mind that nothing was quite as good as I’d have liked, and grading on a curve, what do we have.

• The Martian
• Predestination
• Avengers: Age of Ultron
• Ant-Man
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Martian stands out as both being an enjoyable few hours of entertainment and relatively smart, only doing a few things which defy science. Everything else on this list should be called fantasy. The Martian is science fiction. The award needs one true SF nomination.

Predestination is a clever time travel film based on Heinlein’s All You Zombies. It only made it to limited release, but as it is based on Heinlein, and the Pups drool over him, so I think it is likely to get some votes. It also is pretty good.

Age of Ultron and Ant-Man are fun superhero films. Nothing more, nothing less. And I expect Star Wars to make the ballot, although it barely does for me. It was less written than constructed by corporate committee out of previous Star Wars films. Still, in a weak year, it earns its spot.

I expect some are thinking of Mad Max: Fury Road, and it would be my sixth choice, but think about this before nominating it. The Hugos are one of the two major F&SF literary awards. That is, they are about writing. And what about the writing in Mad Max? The entire plot is, let’s drive across a desert and then turn around and drive back. The dialog is sparse because the title character barely speaks. And the only activities in the movie are driving and fighting while driving. Sure the movie was fun to watch, but it is incredibly stupid (just think about how water functions, or look here) and the script is not its virtue. If there was a special effects Hugo, or a combat Hugo, then yes, but there isn’t.

The other likely choice I am skipping is Ex Machina. Films can succeed in many ways (Mad Max wasn’t smart or have much of a script, but in action and FX, it was a winner). Ex Machina doesn’t have a lot of ways. It doesn’t go for action, or fun, or wit. It is trying to be a smart movie. My problem is that it wasn’t very smart. If all you have going for you is being smart, then you can’t have silly things like the key cards, and no weapons when you keep a robot in the house that you know could kill you. You can’t have characters make one stupid decision after another just to keep the plot going.

After that you’d be looking at Jurassic World or Terminator Genisys or Tomorrowland and I don’t think we want a world where those get Hugo consideration.

I’m afraid I didn’t finish Jessica Jones. It was a bit too down for my mood and already too many stupid decisions were being made by the characters, but it had a lot of potential. So if you liked it, I suggest nominating it here as a whole instead of choosing a single episode to put in short form.

My five suggestions under Long Form are all ones I think should make the ballot, but personally I am more invested in the Short Form, and this year, that means Eugie’s story (I doubt you are shocked), and The Husbands of River Song, as its theme really spoke to me.

If you are able to vote for the Hugos this year, then you both know about the Retro Hugos, and you know your time is running out. We’ve only days left to nominate in a lot of categories, and that’s tricky when besides 2016, we’ve got 1941 to deal with. So, if I can offer my humble assistance, here are my thoughts and recommendations for the Retro Hugos. I won’t be  talking about Semiprozine as I can’t even guess what counts in that category vs prozines vs fanzines. And also I’m skipping Related Work. I wish I wasn’t, so if anyone has some suggestions on Related Work, please let me know ASAP. Now, onward:

 

1941 Retro Hugos: The Fan Categories

Fan Writer:
Forrest J Ackerman
Ray Bradbury
H. P. Lovecraft
Donald A. Wollheim
Bob Tucker

Fanzine:
Futuria Fantasia (Ray Bradbury)
Monsters of the Moon (Forrest J Ackerman)
Science Fiction Progress (John Michel, Donald A Wollheim)
Sci-Fic Variety (Bob Tucker)
Snide (Damon Knight)

The fan categories do not work well in the Retro format, and I have left out Fan Artist and Fancast, and bet that almost everyone will do the same. Fan activates are of a time, and without context, they mean little. The zines mean even less because so few have survived. Fan writing is important for what it does to the fans that year, and it is hard to guess now. Even in 1941 is was uncertain as there was an attempt to index all the fanzines and it failed. Add in that they changed names from month to month, or the same person would do several, and you have a mess. The best we can do, if we really want to do anything, is give a nod to those where the people later became major movers and shakers in the fan community (like Ackerman and Tucker) or became important writers or editors (like Bradbury, Kuttner, Wollheim, and Knight). If any Fanzine stands out, it is Bradbury’s Futuria Fantasia which published short-shorts and flash from himself, Heinlein, and several other soon to be important authors.

 

1941 Retro Hugos: Professional Artist

J.W. Scott
Hubert Rogers
Virgil Finlay
Margaret Brundage
Ed Cartier

Going through cover art from the ‘40s, the works seem to only thrill me for a moment, and greater inspection leaves me cold. Even some of the “biggest names,” now largely forgotten, seem to have been just churning out simple quick pics. Still, a few stand out. I am taken by Scott’s work on Future Fiction and Marvel Tales (see the pic above). Roger’s work for Astounding is a notch above the rest as well. The rest are simply a bit better than the average. Brundage, one of the few women artists working in F&SF and frequent pinup painter, is my favorite artist of the five I’m recommending, but 1940 does not seem to be a great year for her.

 

1941 Retro Hugos: Editor, Short Form

Frederik Pohl
Raymond A. Palmer
Dorothy McIlwraith
John W. Campbell, Jr.
Mort Weisinger or Malcolm Reiss.

A pre-DC Comics Weisinger (Captain Future, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories) or Reiss (Planet Stories) are both solid choices for the final slot, with Palmer (Amazing Stories) and McIlwraith (Weird Tales) pretty much requiring their two places. But lets face it, this is a two man race, with one of them given a huge head start. Pohl would be my top choice, as Campbell has had a mixed effect on the field (see my comments under Short Story below). But both are important and are the obvious choices. Every nominating ballot should contain Pohl and Campbell.

A few of the editors others’ have suggested are unknown to me. I have no idea who Mary Gnaedinger, F. Orlin Tremaine, or Martin Goodman are, which makes me think their legacy is not equal to that of the others and I’m afraid this is mainly about legacy.

Note: Farnsworth Wright is not eligible, having turned over Weird Tales to McIlwraith in ’39.

 

1941 Retro Hugos: Editor, Long Form

I’ve no clue. Zilch. Got an idea? Let me know.

 

1941 Retro Hugos: Dramatic Presentation

Long Form:
Fantasia
The Thief of Bagdad
Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe
2 blanks

Short Form:
Night on Bald Mountain
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Pinocchio (88 min)
The Invisible Man Returns (81 min)
The Ghost Breakers (85 min)

I’ve explain this already here. Keep these in mind as people are suggesting films under 90 minutes for Long Form, and that’s not how the categories work.

 

1941 Retro Hugos: Best Graphic Story

Captain America Comics #1 (Joe Simon, Jack Kirby)
Batman #1 (Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson)
Introducing Captain Marvel! (Bill Parker, C.C. Beck)
The Spectre! (Jerry Siegel, Bernard Baily)
The Origin of the Spirit (Will Eisner, Joe Kubert)

Others to consider:
Buck Rogers: Forgotten Earth Colony
Flash Gordon: Ice Kingdom of Mongo
Flash Comics #1
Doc Savage Comics #1

With my suggestions in the artistic/literary categories, I’m saying what I think after reading/examining the works. But not here. In this case, I’m not going with my artistic feelings, but the level of importance the comics have, and the opinions of others. But those in the know seem to have general agreement: either it is the five above, or you go with comic strips that appeared in newspapers, specifically Buck Rogers: Forgotten Earth Colony and Flash Gordon: Ice Kingdom of Mongo. History says Captain America and Batman, and so shall I.

In any case, Captain America Comics #1 really needs to be up there, if just for the cover. It’s the one with Cap punching Hitler which was both important at the time and iconic now. Batman #1 is Batman’s first solo comic, and also introduces the Joker. So, yeah, history demands it be on the list.

The Spectre!, Introducing Captain Marvel! (that’s Shazam), and The Origin of the Spirit don’t have the same clout, but all are major comics. I suspect if one of these doesn’t thrill you, tossing in Flash Comics #1 or Doc Savage Comics #1 would be the move to make, but with Cap and the Bat keeping their places on the nominating list.

 

1941 Retro Hugos: Best Short Story

Strange Playfellow aka Robbie (Isaac Asimov)
Beauty and the Beast (Henry Kuttner)
The Song of the Slaves (Manly Wade Wellman)
Revolt of the Ants (Milton Kaletsky)
Quietus (Ross Rocklynne)

Others to consider:
Homo Sol (Isaac Asimov)
The Pipes of Pan (Lester del Rey)
Threshold (Henry Kuttner)
The Uncanny Power of Edwin Cobalt (Henry Kuttner)
Clerical Error (Clifford D. Simak)
The Sea Thing (A. E. van Vogt)
When It Was Moonlight (Manly Wade Wellman)

Robbie is the closest to a sure thing there is. It is the first of Asimov’s robot stories. I can’t say I’m a big fan, but it is reasonably good and historically important. While I very much doubt I will vote for it on the final ballot, I think it does deserve a place on that ballot. Asimov’s Homo Sol is also worth considering, but is somewhat lesser in quality, and much lesser in importance. It also has some questionable racial elements, brought in not by Asimov’s choosing, but by his editor, Campbell (and brings up why Campbell is not the guy to win Best editor). After this, Asimov kept stories with aliens, that could be used as metaphors, away from Campbell. So if you are going with one Asimov tale, it should be Robbie.

I could fill my whole list with Kuttner. My favorite three short stories for the year are all his, but that might be too much for anyone but me. While Threshold (a man attempting to outsmart a demon) and The Uncanny Power of Edwin Cobalt (a man’s doubt makes things vanish from the universe) are both quite good, Beauty and the Beast is the best. It’s a Daikaiju (giant monster story), from the monster’s point of view. It also has enough elements in common with the Ray Harryhausen film, 20 Million Miles to Earth, that I am certain the filmmakers did a bit or “borrowing.”

Manly Wade Wellman has two horror-tinged fantasy stories up for the awards, one with vampires and one with zombies. The zombie piece, The Song of the Slaves, has a deeper theme while giving us a satisfying Twilight Zone-type story. A slave holder decides it would be fun to catch the slaves himself, but is none to happy when they begin singing about his death.

Revolt of the Ants is a satire, something all too rare in F&SF. It has aged well and fits with today’s society as well as it did with 1940s. And it was one I hadn’t read before, so a point to the Retro Hugos for introducing it to me.

Quietus reminds me of Kuttner, del Rey, and Van Vogt as it questions our prejudices and preconcieved notions. Alien birds pass by a mainly destroyed Earth in search of intelligent life and make a large mistake.

I suspect Simak’s Clerical Error would be on my list as I recall liking it a great deal, but it has been twenty-five years since I read it and the details escape me. My copy seems to also have escaped me.

What I haven’t listed, but will certainly rear up, are the stories of Heinlein. He has multiple (Requiem, Let There Be Light, Successful Operation), and people will tend to vote for them simply because he’s Heinlein. Luckily, they aren’t bad stories. But they also aren’t great.

Of note, Ray Bradbury self published a pair of stories in his fanzine. That’s enough to get the fanzine on my list, but these pre-professional Bradbury stories feel like what they are—a talented beginner’s work.

If you haven’t read these (and those that follow), some are available online with a quick Google search (like Manly Wade Wellman’s) and some can be found in free ebooks linked to over at File770.

 

1941 Retro Hugos: Best Novelette

It! (Theodore Sturgeon)
The Hardwood Pile (L. Sprague de Camp)
All is Illusion (Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore)
Vault of the Beast (A E Van Vogt)
Into the Darkness (Ross Rocklynne)

Others to consider:
The Smallest God (Lester del Rey)
The Roads Must Roll (Robert A. Heinlein)
The Elixir of Invisibility (Henry Kuttner)
Fruit of Knowledge (C. L. Moore)

* About half the people I’ve checked are putting Farewell to the Master as a novelette, but my count puts it as a novella. It certainly should be on your nominating ballot somewhere.

This is a hard category because there are so many great authors who published in 1940, and because many of the stories have been largely forgotten. There’s Theodore Sturgeon, L. Sprague de Camp, Jack Williamson, A. E. van Vogt, Clifford D. Simak, Robert A. Heinlein, Alfred Bester, Isaac Asimov, Clark Ashton Smith, C. L. Moore, August W. Derleth, and Lester del Rey. What eases it a bit is that some of it is pointless. With a lot of searching I might be able to find all of the del Ray and Simak stories, but it doesn’t seem like many people are trying. I’m seeing the same few stories mentioned by reviewers, usually involving the name “Heinlein.” I’ve read many, and tried to prep for this, but I know I’ve missed a bunch. So I’ve gone with great stories that also are ones others have likely seen.

Of those, It! is the big one. It is a highly influential horror story, and I suspect the only real competition for final votes for Heinlein’s The Roads Must Roll (which doesn’t quite make my list, but will be getting a political boost from the Sad Puppies). Besides It!, I really like The Hardwood Pile, which I first read many years ago. I’m fond of all of de Camp’s work, and this one is particularly amusing. And if the Retro Hugos are good for anything, it is giving me a chance to nominate Henry Kuttner. I am amazed at how many have forgotten him. He was one of the greats, and if I wanted to give multiple nominees to an individual (which I’d rather avoid), I’d also list The Elixir of Invisibility. But All is Illusion is the one to go with. It’s a touch better, no doubt due to his collaboration with C. L. Moore, another one of the greats. Also, if you are noticing the lack of women on this list—you should be, as their just weren’t many in the genre in 1941. But there was Catherine Lucille Moore, and she deserves a lot more recognition than she has received.

Vault of the Beast screams Van Vogt, which I take as a good thing. It could have been horror as easily as SF. It is sharp and a fun read. It seems to be a choice for anyone who has read it and I think the only reason it won’t make the ballot is that not enough people have.

Ross Rocklynne has almost entirely been forgotten, yet this is the second time I’ve put him on my list (he’s up under short story). Into the Darkness is a philosophical piece, and way ahead of its time. If you are tired of the pulp, here is a work of the 1940s that takes a deeper approach.

Besides my choices, and my stated “others to consider” I expect to have a few people vote for Asimov’s Half-Breed stories because they are available and he’s Asimov, but they are lesser Asimov which even Asimov acknowledged. Another often mentioned contender is The Voyage That Lasted 600 Years by Don Wilcox as it’s the first generation ship story. But while it is reasonably entertaining, the lack of vision is astounding. It has a simplistic American world with no eye to the future, which is something SF needs.

 

1941 Retro Hugos: Best Novella

The Mathematics of Magic (L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt)
The Roaring Trumpet (L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt)
Farewell to the Master (Harry Bates)
Some Williamson or Heinlein

Yes, I have two by de Camp and Pratt, but I love them both. They were later joined to become the novel The Incomplete Enchanter, and later still, another story was added to make it The Complete Enchanter. Anyway you read them, they are delightful, humorous, action fantasy and a must read. Either of the two would make a fine eventual winner. Farewell to the Master is another bit of history that demands to be on the ballot. An excellent story, it is also the source material for The Day the Earth Stood Still (bet you didn’t know it had a source).

After my top three, it is harder to find anything that really should get an award. Most of the rest of the novellas I’ve found have been pure pulp (and I don’t say that as a positive). There is a Lovecraft work (which might be a novelette), but I doubt even Lovecraft enthusiasts will be pushing for it. So that leaves the Williamson (Darker Than You Think, The Sun Maker) or Heinlein stories (Blow Ups happen, Coventry, The Devil Makes the Law, If This Goes On…). They aren’t bad, and wouldn’t be an embarrassment, except for the politics behind promoting Heinlein, but I’ll be sticking with three nominees. The Devil Makes the Law (later re-titled Magic, Inc) is probably my favorite of the six, though I haven’t read a few of these for many years. I expect Heinlein to end up winning this in the final vote, as a kind of life time achievement award—either for The Devil Makes Law or Blow Ups Happen. The Pup vote will edge it that way. In fact, with their political focus, I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up with four Heinlein stories. In that scenario, I imagine the lesser known Farewell to the Master being kept off the ballot, which would be a real shame.

Just as the Sad Puppies rigged the game last year and are still messing things up, we shouldn’t be surprised if the Scientologists get back into the game this year. They did it before (they are the proof of concept for the cheating that the Pups have adopted). Their founder, L. Ron Hubbard, has an eligible, and not poorly received story, The Indigestible Triton.

 

1941 Retro Hugos: Best Novel

Slan (A. E. van Vogt)
The Ill-Made Knight (T. H. White)
A Million Years to Conquer (Henry Kuttner)

The two biggies here are Slan (A. E. van Vogt) and The Ill-Made Knight (T. H. White). These two need to make the ballot, and I suspect they will. Frankly, the entire exercise loses all legitimacy without these two. After those two, it gets a little harder to choose. 1940 does not seem to have been a year that published a lot of books that I, or most F&SF readers, have kept on the shelf. Well over half of the books I’ve seen listed I’ve never heard of. Even many of the authors have slipped into obscurity. But some authors are very well know, though from either earlier or later books. E. E. Smith, Manly Wade Wellman, L. Frank Baum, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton, L. Ron Hubbard, H. G. Wells, and Edgar Rice Burroughs are all names I expect genre readers to know, but not for these books. Even when you know of the books, that isn’t necessarily a positive. Smith’s Gray Lensman is part of his Lensman series which is still well known, but most people agree this is not one of the better entries. Burroughs has a Mars book, but not the one you are likely to pick up if you want to dig into his Martian saga. Even Baum’s co-written Oz book gets little love. I wish I could be a bit more helpful, but three is all I can find that are award-worthy. I do like Kuttner’s A Million Year’s to Conquer (re-titled The Creature from Beyond Infinity for a ‘60s re-release). It is far from one of Kuttner’s best works, but Kuttner’s weaker efforts are equal to most writer’s best works. Kuttner is one of the masters of SF, and in his prime he’d have blown everyone else away. As is, this isn’t my top vote for the year, but it is worth nominating. I hope I am not stepping into the “life time achievement” arena that I think will be behind multiple of the final nominees this year.

As with the previous category (and short story, though I think it is less likely in that cagegory), there is the chance of Scientologists trying to play the system since L. Ron Hubbard has three works that could be nominated (Final Blackout, Fear, Typewriter in the Sky). I have not read the Hubbard works, and there is some disagreement on their exact length, so some might count as novellas.

Note: Robert A. Heinlein’s If this Goes On is not eligible. It is too short, even though the Pups are slating it in this category. It was later enlarged into a re-titled novel, but that was a decade in the future.

And that’s it. If you have any thoughts, let me know, and the quicker the better.

A few classic films have escaped me. One was Now, Voyager. I’ve seen bits before, but now finally I’ve seen it all. And my God what absolute crap—a painfully awful film. It is THE weepy—the Women’s Pictures of its day, which is a bit different than the now-called Chick Flicks. Like other weepies, the relationship is doomed from the start, because nothing says romance like gloom. It was another way that Eugie was spectacular in that she was as contemptuous of that as I am. Romance means getting your happily ever after, even if “ever after” is a short time indeed. She was annoyed at the repeated takes on Arthurian legend which to her was the opposite of romance. It’s important to share a vision of romance.

But Now, Voyager has far more wrong than that. The “inner monologue” that pops up only occationally when the script writters couldn’t figure out how to show feelings or thoughts is enough to ruin anything that might have been good, as if anything might have been good. If Bette Davis (playing the ugly girl because she wears glasses and does her hair poorly) had just stabbed her mother to death in the first scene, then maybe we’d have something.

As for the ending, well, it is really messed up. I think I am safe in saying the weird child-share plan it ends up with will fuel years of therapy. We do learn that a woman who is unattractive is not worth much, but as long as she can show real mothering skills, then she can overcome being ugly. Ugly, motherless women are worthless. So remember, if you are ugly (and considering both Davis at the beginning, and the cute “twelve-year-old” are considered ugly, it is a pretty common condition), then steal a child. It is your one chance.