U.K. SF Writers Dominate Hugos 290
gollum123 writes "The BBC reports that For the first time in its 63-year history, all the writers nominated for the prestigious Hugo award for the best novel are British." From the article: "Mr Stross says that what an author writes is a reflection of his society, and currently US genre writers are mirroring the 'deep trauma' that 9/11 wrought on America. 'What we write tends to reflect our perceptions of the world around us,' he says, 'and if it's an uncertain world full of shadows it's no surprise you get wish fulfilment or a bit downbeat.'"
Wait... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wait... (Score:2)
Re:Wait... (Score:4, Funny)
The skoy waz the colir of a teleevishin tewned to ded chennel ...
Re:Wait... (Score:3, Informative)
Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, The Moody Blues, UB40, Duran Duran, etc., etc.
Re:Wait... (Score:3, Funny)
Chavs definned for 'Mericans! Help? (Score:2)
Any feedback from any native Great Britainers who might be better at relating the subtilties of "chavs"?
Re:Chavs definned for 'Mericans! Help? (Score:3, Informative)
White, lower-than working class (they don't work), benefit scroungers. They are primarly interested in drugs, alcohol, hooded garments and have an intricate knowledge of the benefits system. Their language is a bizarre mixture of estuary-english and hiphop, with a bit of asian patois thrown in 'innit'.
Re:Chavs definned for 'Mericans! Help? (Score:3, Insightful)
what about non-english language stuff? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what about non-english language stuff? (Score:2)
As they note, french sci-fi tends to be 'different'. I can't quite put my finger on it, despite having watched plenty of made-in-france sci-fi animated stuff as a kid ("Il etait une fois
Maybe this will be helpful... (Score:3, Informative)
It may not be quite what you're looking for, but this may be helpful. Amazon.com has a buried section (why, I don't know, and I can't even remember how I found it) called Libros en español [amazon.com] that is nothing but Spanish language books.
There's a section under it called Ciencia ficción y fantasía [amazon.com]
I'm not necessarily pitching Amazon.com. Even if you don't want to buy off of Amazon.com because of patent issues [slashdot.org], it may give you a good list of titles to look for somewhere else.
Another po
Re:what about non-english language stuff? (Score:4, Informative)
From the official FAQ:
Are non-American works eligible?
Yes. Any work is eligible, regardless of its place or language of publication. Works first published in languages other than English are also eligible in their first year of publication in English translation.
Re:what about non-english language stuff? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what about non-english language stuff? (Score:2)
It sounds like it could have been, and that the last part was written first. I still remember the justifier:
"We had to be first with an atomic arms platform in orbit, because the Poles are the only gentle people."
I've never been able to decide whether that was hubris or lack of insight.
why the hard-on for China Mieville? (Score:2)
Re:why the hard-on for China Mieville? (Score:2, Insightful)
King Rat was an early work, haven't read Perido Street Station, loved "The Scar", thought "Iron Council" was good but flawed.
Agree about Richard Morgan, but I'd have thought the nomination would be for "Woken Furies".
Re:why the hard-on for China Mieville? (Score:2)
The British Are Coming! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The British Are Coming! (Score:2)
Re:The British Are Coming! (Score:2)
I slowed down on reading sci-fi books when the realism became too big a factor in the stories. For example, I like David Brin, but just didn't like "Earth" because it focused too much on science and not enough on the characters.
Re:The British Are Coming! (Score:2)
Yeah, spot on!
I think of it as "Suburban SF" -- in the early 90s or so, more and more stories (especially in magazines) seemed to be about near-future very slight variants on our own society, with characters that are basically the same boring white-bread SUV-driving bozos we see around us in real life.
Frankly when I read SF, I want to read about something different than what I can see out the window. I don't neces
Re:The British Are Coming! (Score:2)
The British Are Coming to destroy Caprica... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, that's probably because there are a lot of bad guys in Battlestar Galactica...
Actually, I'm not sure that was intended to be 'funny'. (Spoiler follows for those who haven't seen the first hour of the new Battlestar Galactica mini-series); I noticed that they had an English guy play the unheroic self-preserving computer geek who inadvertantly lets the Cylons into the defence computer.
Yep, there's always a 'British' actor with the required
Rowling (Score:2)
Just not that great? (Score:3, Insightful)
But lets get real: We're not talking about great literature or ground-breaking fantasy.
That said, I thought book #6 was the best since The Prisoner of Azkaban. A great read, but still not what I'd consider Hugo material.
Stefan
Re:Rowling (Score:2)
Also exciting to see that Lost (the pilot) and Battlestar Galactica (33, the first episode) garnered nominations for short form presentation.
Who cares where they're from? (Score:2, Insightful)
Who really cares? (Score:4, Interesting)
On a side note, a friend of mine for a very long time didn't know that Octivia E. Butler was a woman. I haven't told him yet that she's also African-American.
Re:Who really cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly the point. People buy good books, regardless of the author's nationality.
Right now, US SF authors are mostly churning out either glorified soap operas or thinly disguised political diatribes. So they're not popular.
On the other hand the UK, and particularly Scotland, has a set - clique, whatever - of novelists who are truly revitalising the genre. Their stories have the same spirit as (ironically) the great books which US authors used to produce. So they win awards.
Right now there's a definite correlation between nationality and quality of SF. I just hope the US writers get over whatever's bothering them and start writing the good stuff again.
(BTW, how on earth could someone read an Octavia Butler novel and *not* realise she's African-American.)
The Algebraist was definitely deserving ... (Score:2)
That said, I'm a little surprised Alastair Reynolds' "Century Rain" didn't get nominated, as it was also an excellent novel and, perhaps, especially relevant to the /. crowd. I've been meaning to write a review forever (since nobody else has) but I'm lazy, so I just write comments about it hoping someone else will.
Weird timing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that I'm not ready to see the soldiers doing their thing in Iraq. I was a soldier myself, so I appreciate watching soldiers going about their business without any "analysis" from those doing the filming. Rather, I avoided the film until now because I was so angry at the monumentally stupid way in which the war was approached, from its rationale and build up to the invasion, to the beginnings of the occupation stage, to the large-scale operations in Fallujah and elsewhere.
It is supremely frustrating to see American soldiers doing their jobs with as much humor and professionalism as they can, all the while knowing that the civilian leadership at the top of the pyramid has let them down in a monumental fashion. I experienced something like that on a much smaller scale myself, when my unit left Somalia after not quite three months in country. A few months later, all American forces left Somalia. We had done our job very well, but because the American government had no real plan of action beyond immediate food security operations, a few casualties was all it took to send the global superpower packing.
So every time I see video footage of Americans in Iraq, I think back to Somalia and the way in which our leaders profoundly misunderstood the situation there before, during and after my deployment. I'm not suggesting that we stay in Iraq indefinitely to "make all those sacrifices worth something." I do, however, think that the monumental planning failures at the top of the food chain have done a tremendous disservice to the men and women of the US armed forces.
What does all this have to do with Charlie Stross's comment about the "deep trauma" of America? I think that in different ways Americans have been avoiding complex issues in our movies, our fiction, and our music specifically because we have been more deeply affected by the string of events (9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq) than we care to admit even to ourselves. For me, that means avoiding footage of the war. For others the reaction might be keeping minute track of every skirmish and ambush. Some might prefer to ignore the war entirely and pretend it isn't happening.
Those of us who believe wholeheartedly in the manner in which we are fighting Islamic militants don't want to see anything that will shake our convictions. Subversion in the cultural sphere could easily spread to the political.
Those of us who are profoundly disappointed by our leaders' lack of imagination, failure of vision, ignorance of history, and misunderstanding of the ground truth don't want to see more of the same in our entertainments. We want to be comforted that somewhere, even if only in fictional worlds, people with power are capable of making the right choice.
For the majority of the American population, who sit somewhere in the middle, the constant bickering between those who know what to do but can't do it, and those who know what not to do but can't figure out what *to* do is infuriating. We're at a watershed in American history, and people know it, even if they don't articulate it. Decisive, capable heroes, preferably unrelated to the current reality, fit the bill.
A friend of mine once said that everyone remembers the cultural achievements of Athens, but not of Sparta. Why? Because Sparta was a completely militarized society, while Athens was not. Perhaps yet another part of the bill America must pay for our hamfisted approach is that as we become more militarized, the creative and free-thinking aspects of our society become isolated and minimized.
The business of the future (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't bring myself to visit the SF & F section of bookstores often these days.
When I do, I'm struck by the large amount of "comfort food" fiction: Either outright fantasy, or fiction nominally set in the future but whose society and technology essentially duplicate that of a familiar and understandable past.
I've quoted this before, but it fits:
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous, and it is amoung the benefits of science that it equips the future for it
Re:Weird timing (Score:2)
Course, history also remembers Sparta as having perhaps the single best infantry (ah the 300) the world has ever seen as
Re:Weird timing (Score:2)
(I'm leaving Macedonia out of this, because it was possible that Athens or Sparta could have revived after the death of Alexander. Didn't happen, but it could have.)
Re:Weird timing (Score:2)
Some of my favorite genre fiction when I was growing up was written by famous guys like Joseph Heller and not so famous guys like Brian Daley. Guys who were painfully aware of how much of a price this is to pay.
Labor Day weekend is the 3-Day Novel Contest [3daynovel.com], and November is National Novel Wr [nanowrimo.org]
Re:Elitist Cultural Failure (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm surprised that you posted this as an AC. You obviously have thought this through quite a bit. Personally I don't agree with your broad characterization of Slashdot as a vehicle for the "cultural elites" (for one thing, a much larger than average chunk of the Slashdot population are died in the wool libertarians), but if you want to change the Slashdot dynamic, why not post under a member name?
You make a solid point about the failure of cultural elites to adapt to the end of the Cold War, but I think you take it a bit far. Clinton cut and ran in Somalia, but he also pushed NATO into action in Serbia and assisted Croatia in booting the Serbs from Krajina. The Fukuyama "end of history" argument lost credence as soon as the first aircraft hit the tower, and nobody in the mainstream American Left would argue that the 9/11 attacks didn't profoundly alter our reality as a nation.
I also agree with your statement about the stupidity of being post-modern and ironic in a world where there is a very real conflict of worldviews. Hell, anyone who joins the volunteer military understands that being tragically cool is a farce, and I support America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines for putting themselves on the line for a belief in their country.
But one of the persistent threads I've encountered in discussion after discussion is that supporters of the Bush approach to fighting terrorists can't seem to separate the desire and intention to fight terrorists from the techniques used to do so. The failure of cultural elites to recognize that war is sometimes necessary is matched by the failure of many of their detractors to see that just because war is necessary doesn't mean that it has to be fought in the particular manner our President has selected.
It is no secret that the top military brass were very reticent about going into Iraq, in part because they'd spent the entire decade of the 1990s policing the world. The Bosnia mission, still one of the American military's most underappreciated successes, had been ongoing since 1995. We had the lessons of the Somalia and Haiti missions behind us. Many of the generals had been on the ground as junior officers in Vietnam. These guys knew their jobs inside and out and were part of the most professional and experienced "peacetime" military we'd ever fielded. But when Gen. Shinseki told Congress we'd need several hundred thousand troops to secure Iraq, Rumsfeld at best ignored him, and at worst hastened his departure.
Beyond the notion of whether there was any meaningful linkage between Saddam and al Quaeda, the difficult issues of how to handle the reconstruction, security, and political reconstitution of Iraq didn't spring up unforseen after the invasion began. Most of them had been planned for by the Pentagon, by experienced NGOs, and by other well-informed and nonpartisan entitites. That the White House chose to ignore that wealth of expertise to me betrays something beyond "knowing yourself," something that strays into a very dangerous hubris.
The culture war analysis only takes you so far. Cultural elites may not understand Middle America, but that still doesn't really have anything to do with the essential recklessness and lack of sophistication displayed by the Administration in its post-9/11 response.
For example, President Bush referred to the 9/11 attacks as a new Pearl Harbor attack, when it patently was not even remotely like Pearl Harbor. The Japanese attack on Pearl was a purely military move designed to wipe out the US Pacific Fleet, while the 9/11 attacks were symbolic attacks designed to cripple us economically, cause panic, and serve as a propaganda tool for the cause of militant Islam.
We have done very little under the Bush Administration to t
Re:Elitist Cultural Failure (Score:3, Insightful)
The Bush administration has almost certainly dramatically accelerated proliferation. They've adopted an obvious bifurcated policy in dealing with nations depending on whether they have nukes, or at least they say they have them, or they don't.
North Korea says they have nukes so the Bush administration negotiates with them,
Very scary nuke situation (Score:3, Insightful)
The most disturbing part of all this is not just that nation-states are getting
Re:Weird timing (Score:3, Insightful)
My point wasn't to go into a treatise about why the war was misguided, but since you're asking, I believe that al Qaeda attacked America in 9/11, and we wisely attacked its base of operations in Afghanistan. However, there has never been any convincing proof that Iraq had any real connection to al Qaeda, or that diverting essential resources to invade and occupy Iraq has helped rather than hindered the fight against al Qaeda. We sho
Lets face it the Brits rule SF... (Score:2)
We Americans have given a good effort, but....
Goodbye, Miss American Sci-Fi (Score:2)
Maybe a better explanation is the rise of "faith-based" fiction, and undereducated consumers of SF generally? That "science fiction" has become really just
Re:Goodbye, Miss American Sci-Fi (Score:2)
Re:Goodbye, Miss American Sci-Fi (Score:2)
The real reason is probably much simpler (Score:2)
Re:The real reason is probably much simpler (Score:2, Interesting)
Britains last 10 years were rosier than US? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit.
They're mirroring the "deep trauma" that being unable to write anything except "Lord of the Rings" ripoffs has inflicted them with.
Enough of this fantasy shit.
If you can't write worth a shit because somebody flew a plane into a building and killed a couple thousand people, then you couldn't write for shit before.
Am I supposed to claim I'm "traumatized" because 150,000 people got killed in the tsunami, or 100,000 Iraqi civilians got blown up by our illustrious warriors (over 1,800 of whom in turn got their asses waxed)? Is that why I can't make a buck?
Where is Thomas Harris - who can write wonderful satire about psychiatrists and cops urning into cannibals - when we need him?
Somebody needs to write a "Catch-22" or "M.A.S.H." or "Silence of the Lambs/Hannibal" about Iraq and/or Afghanistan.
I guess I need to get cracking on my "Transhuman" series of novels - more rabid sex and merciless gunning down of monkeys than anybody has seen since the Marquis de Sade...
I got your "deep trauma" right here, assholes.
DUH!! Worldcon is in Scotland this year... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2, Funny)
K.
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:3, Informative)
That, and 10 chapters deep I kept thinking "things should be picking up about now" but they never did. Almost the whole novel struck me as character-building setup.
It is a lot like an all uphill roller-coaster. You keep waiting for the dropoff but it never comes.
-Charles
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
Just jumble the words around : "In the city of York there was once a society of magicians."
If it helps at all, it's pretty archaic-sounding british english, probably done for stylistic effect
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
-Charles
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:3, Interesting)
Somebody does. Rule of thumb: The number of commas between the subject of a sentence and its verb must be either zero or an even number.
If you absolutely insist on adding commas to the sentence, which is probably better without them, it would be:
"Some years ago, there was, in the city of York, a society of magicians. "
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2, Insightful)
The second comma you added to the phrase from the book is an abomination of the highest order. Please do not correct archaic, albeit understandable, grammar with such monstrous modern miscarriages of language.
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
Commas reflect pauses in the sentence. If you're a native speaker, just speak the sentence; if it doesn't sound weird, then it's correct. This particular sentence sounds exactly right, like the beginning of a fairy tale.
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Funny, I base my comma placement on natural pau (Score:3, Informative)
(For the pedants, yes, I am aware that the list above is not fully comprehensive. I am also aware of the requirement for a coordinating conjunction in one of the above cases, but consider those additional cases to be
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
FWIW, I'm an American, and I didn't find it particularly bothersome. I haven't read the entire book yet, but up to where I am, the grammar hasn't really been something I've noticed.
Then again, I really enjoy British literature, TV, music, etc., so maybe I'm just conditioned to accept it?
<sh
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:3, Interesting)
Since when did commas in lists go out of vogue? The English I learnt (in England, and I'm only 30) definitely had commas. The way I learnt is different to both of the examples you gave: "apples, bananas and grapes are fruit." There are situations where a comma precedes an "and", but not in lists.
Talking of jarring and the word "and", I find this applies to American numbers. Take 104 for instance: en-US = "one hundred four"; en-GB = "one hundred a
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
UK: "That wasn't too hard a problem"
US: "That wasn't too hard of a a problem"
I've never noticed any instance of the latter usage by anyone from the UK, whereas the former is infrequently used by US speakers. I don't know why this has arisen, nor which is the more ancient form but I do find the US usage (as I have labelled it) grating.
N
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
Could you explain the inconsistency in the American version of 104? What I had been taught was that the "and" was reserved for the decimal (as in "one hundred fou
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
Brit: I would like one hundred six packs please: 100 six-packs.
Brit: I would like one hundred and six packs, please: 106 packs.
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:3, Funny)
But to be honest, I'd settle for one or two.
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:5, Interesting)
As an American, I learned that both are acceptable. However, I prefer the comma, as it adds the potential for an additional shading of meaning with reduced ambiguity, e.g.
"Food combinations that go well together are rice and beans, steak and potatoes, and liver and onions." (note the potential confusion from omission of the last comma)
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:2)
The general style of the prose is often deliberately old-fashioned and weighty, but nothing more than that. I'm sure that it's just a matter of getting used to it.
Re:Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Score:3, Informative)
That didn't bother me nearly as much as her use of the word, "chuse".
The sentence structure, the grammar, it all just appears very foreign. Is this a normal British thing? I'm honestly at a loss.
Her writing is not entirely in
See h2g2 (Score:2)
Personally, I would punctuate the above as "Some years ago, there was, in the city of York, a society of Magicians." - and I'm a Brit, and one who tends to be over-zealous when it comes to using commas, colons and periods. Maybe the author was trying to make it difficult to read in the same way that Shakespear is, but he/she should really have read Penny-Arcade [penny-arcade.com] if they wanted the likes of me to r
Re:SF Writers Dominate Hugos (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, I'll fix it in CVS. Oh, wait...
Re:SF Writers Dominate Hugos (Score:2)
Anyway, I've been losing respect for the Hugos for some time now. The Hugo voters seem to be increasingly insular and out-of-touch. My favorite genre awards right now are the Locus Awards [locusmag.com], which usually have more voters than the Hugo and Nebula combined. Plus, they have separate catego
Re:SF Writers Dominate Hugos (Score:4, Informative)
Section 3.3: Categories.
3.3.1: Best Novel. A science fiction or fantasy story of forty thousand (40,000) words or more.
3.3.2: Best Novella. A science fiction or fantasy story of between seventeen thousand five hundred (17,500) and forty thousand (40,000) words.
Etc etc.
I'm all for the World Fantasy Awards -- I won one in 1987 and I was a judge this year -- but they're not different from the Hugos in that they're for fantasy and the Hugos are "for SF". They're different in that they're a juried award and the Hugos are a popularly-voted one. You're mixing apples, oranges, prosciutto, and turpentine.
Re:SF Writers Dominate Hugos (Score:2)
Congrats on the WFA, though. I sure didn't expect to find a WFA winner/judge posting on slashdot!
I still pref
Re:but but but (Score:2)
There is one... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called the Nebula Awards [wikipedia.org].
I don't see the problem. There have been years when almost every author was American, and there have been years when almost every author wasn't. Statistically speaking, this isn't that unusual. Maybe it was just a really good year of British writing. I say congratulations to the British, don't sweat it, and maybe we'll do better next year.
Re:Disappointed (Score:2)
Oh please, not another Academy Awards... besides, the Hugo people got a point. I'm sick tired of american talks, TV shows, and even a movie about 9/11. Yes, it was shocking, but the world doesn't move around Uncle Sam.
Re:Disappointed (Score:2)
Re:Disappointed (Score:2)
You know its the Neo-Copurnicons like you who are comforting our enemies.
Re:Disappointed (Score:2)
American education literally revolve around European history. I feel like we were only taught Hitler was the greatest leader of all time from highschool. I find myself doing research on the House of Saud and other foreign matters just to keep up on today's news. Who cares about the
Re:Creative Slump (Score:2)
You forgot to put the "Oh, wait..." in that phrase. Anyway it's still funny! Mod up!
Re:Creative Slump (Score:2)
Besides, I really don't think your argument holds up. All sorts of classics were written in the mist and aftermath of war - just look at Walt Whitman, or T.S. Eliot. Art is inspired by life, and when things are difficult, is when it is most inspiring. Conflict doesn't distract from art it puts the difficult questions into sharp relief. It is when we are fat and happy that we are most distracted from the deep issues th
Re:Creative Slump (Score:2)
It could also be argued that we are fat and happy even though we're at war. The volunteer military does all the fighting for us, and but for questions of policy, the only people who really feel the impact of the war itself are soldiers and their families. I'd argue that we're disturbed by what is happening, but it's not affecting our day to day lives to any great degree, unlike every other war in
Re:Creative Slump (Score:2)
Re:Creative Slump (Score:2)
Perhaps it's that America is more physically removed from the rest of the world. America hasn't been bombed or invaded at nearly the same frequency as Great Britain.
Re:Deep Trauma??? (Score:2)
Yes, it was a horrible circumstance, but I wonder how soon the laggards will quit obessing about it. Moving on isn't the same as pretending it never happened, I am just saying that there is a time for grieving, and there is a time to move on with life.
I do agree on your points of the knee-jerk reactions.
I don't know how this really deals with Hugo. I don't read much SF, so I am out of the loop.
Re:Deep Trauma??? (Score:2)
Re:Deep Trauma??? (Score:2)
I don't get the "brothers in arms" thing at all. Or how 9/11 effected anyone. Maybe I'm odd but I found it laughable at best. Lots of people running through the streets screaming like the sky is falling, so could you possiblely explain it to me too?
BTW, I'm English and not far from London but I had the same reaction. The bombings have changed nothing in my life so I don't see how/why Americans all freaked out over a couple of planes hitting some buildings when they're
History and temperment (Score:2)
That's why the use of 9/11 as a rationale for everything from the USA Patriot Act to the War in Iraq is so absurd. The government stoked the flames of fear and continues to do so to this day.
But there is more to America's reaction that just that. First, being a Londoner, you're familiar with the notion of an enem
Re:History and temperment (Score:2)
The government has not taken even one action as the result of it's "anit-terrorism" policies that would render any of the decision makers (presumably the chief targets) even a bit uncomfortable. But now people wanting to fly as passengers are subjec
Re:History and temperment (Score:2)
I never claimed their motives were honest and clean. I actually pointed out that the 9/11 attacks have been used as a rationale for many things that have nothing to do with 9/11.
That said, I don't buy the argument that the Bush Administration came in from Day 1 with a plan to invade Afghanistan, invade Iraq, set up an enormous new domestic security apparatus, restrict domestic freedoms, and so on. I'll accept the idea that Ira
Re:Deep Trauma??? (Score:2)
Ah, crap, I got sucked in. Must be a slow Friday night at work...
There's several explanations why 9/11 affected everyone so strongly here in America.
First, there's the fact that around 3,000 people all died. That's a hellova lot of people. They weren't soldiers, they weren't in a war zo
Re:Deep Trauma??? (Score:2)
That sucks. Talk about a great way to help the terrorists play up their acts. It's like free advertising, over and over and over... .
I truly hope the UK doesn't go down the road to stupidity that we here in the States did. I think the years of dealing with IRA attacks probably have helped you all maintain some perspective. Best of luck to you in holding off the fearmongers.
Re:Great News for Banks (Score:2)
Re:Two possibilities (Score:2)
ie the sort of person who organises SF conventions.
Re:Utter bullcrap. (Score:2)
Today's false axiom: Hugo award nominations are picked at random in an unbiased way.
Anyone looking at the history of the award would know that this is, or has not been, even close to true.
I agree that Sross' assertion would require some depth of research to make it anything more than idle speculation, though.
TWW
Re:9/11, the cause of every american failure (Score:2)
As for Asian writers, you may see more fiction in the region that relates to disasters because simply people write abo
Re:And the winner is... (Score:2)