2015 Nebula Award Winners Announced (sfwa.org) 231
Dave Knott writes: The winners of the 2015 Nebula Awards (presented 2016) have been announced. The Nebulas are voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and (along with the Hugos) are considered to be one of the two most prestigious awards in science fiction. This year's winners are:
Best Novel: Uprooted , Naomi Novik
Best Novella: Binti , Nnedi Okorafor
Best Novelette: "Our Lady of the Open Road," Sarah Pinsker
Best Short Story: "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers," Alyssa Wong
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Mad Max: Fury Road , Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Updraft , Fran Wilde
Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award: Sir Terry Pratchett
Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Service Award: Lawrence M. Schoen
2016 Damon Knight Grand Master Award: C.J. Cherryh
Best Novel: Uprooted , Naomi Novik
Best Novella: Binti , Nnedi Okorafor
Best Novelette: "Our Lady of the Open Road," Sarah Pinsker
Best Short Story: "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers," Alyssa Wong
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Mad Max: Fury Road , Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy: Updraft , Fran Wilde
Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award: Sir Terry Pratchett
Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Service Award: Lawrence M. Schoen
2016 Damon Knight Grand Master Award: C.J. Cherryh
Cherryh didm't already have one? (Score:3)
She's been due for the Grand Master award for decades.
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If nothing else, she deserved it for the excellent Morgaine books from way back. Those make up what is still one of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy stories ever, alongside Zelazny's Amber books. Neither work was perfect, but both stand out to me as enjoyable, good stories even decades later.
Fury Road (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm surprised about Fury Road; I would have gone for The Martian.
Dystopias are still in fashion, I guess.
Re:Fury Road (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is a pity. Still, "Fury Road" was probably the second-best "Mad Max" movie, after "The Road Warrior".
I suspect Andy Weir will get the Campbell this year, and "The Martian" will likely get the Hugo for Best Long-Form Dramatic Presentation. . .
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... unless the trufens "no award" them
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"Fury Road" was probably the second-best "Mad Max" movie, after "The Road Warrior".
What about "Thunderdome"?
"Please, Crow, can't we just get beyond Thunderdome?"
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This is incorrect. The proper order widely acknowledged by Mad Max scholars is:
I don't have the time to get into the hows and whys of omitting this Thunderdome distraction from the list. Suffice to say you are reading an authoritative voice on the matter.
I would like to note that the Nebula award winners list is heavily dominated by female writers. This
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I'm surprised about Fury Road; I would have gone for The Martian. Dystopias are still in fashion, I guess.
I would call it more post-apocalyptic than dystopian.
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well, a post-apocalyptic dystopia.
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I think a "dystopia" refers to a more or less functioning society and civilization, according to some definitions I have looked up it, "describes an imaginary society that is as dehumanizing and as unpleasant as possible".
Post-apocalyptic implies that civilization is pretty much dead or shattered and people are picking up the scraps, if they are surviving at all. You could call that dystopic, or there could be surviving remnants that have survived as dystopias, but the terms don't necessarily go hand-in-ha
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"Oh yes, the rest of the world has gone to shit, radioactive wastelands, mutants, and so forth. But, it's just lovely here."
From the late '70s:
Genesis II.
Re:Fury Road (Score:5, Interesting)
Me too.
It could be the visuals on The Martian were so good, they were almost invisible. My suspension of disbelief was maintained throughout the whole movie - it looked like it was shot on location, and they never delivered anything that didn't look like NASA has been showing us since VIKING. And it didn't hurt that Matt Damon was able to pull it off magnificently, convincing everyone that his veins were filled with The Right Stuff. If those events ever happened in reality, this movie could plausibly stand in as a documentary, it was that believable.
With Fury Road, the stunts were absolutely amazing -- far and away the best stuntwork I have ever seen. But they were stunts performed strictly to be cool looking stunts. A story that abysmal could only have been written specifically to justify the stunts: "Show unbelievably ridiculous world ruled by even more ridiculous comic-book tyrant. Ragtag band of misfits drive away to promised land. Fight awesome battles against long odds. Discover promised land not as advertised. Fight even more awesome battles against even longer odds. Return victorious. Drop mic and walk off."
But sometimes you just want to see cool looking stunts, so you give them an award anyway.
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A story that abysmal could only have been written specifically to justify the stunts:
What do you mean abysmal? It all started when the turned left and, er... Well, OK the plot was kinda simple. But...
But sometimes you just want to see cool looking stunts, so you give them an award anyway. ... but basically who cares! The stunts WERE awesome. Wall to wall action with smooth, clear cinematic shots, none of that bullshit shaky cam crap that's been popular recently. Plus everyone kicked massive amounts of ass a
Fury Road isn't even Sci-Fi (Score:3, Informative)
IMHO the Mad Max movie, as good as it was (and I liked it), shouldn't even qualify. It's not Sci Fi.
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Dystopias are still in fashion, I guess.
I suppose this explains Slashdot.
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The Martian will definitely win "Best Sci-fi Film of 2016 To Be Ruined By Matt Damon's Terrible Acting"
Hey, you have to enjoy Damon's ridiculous Texas accent in the True Grit remake. As an off-topic sidenote Bridges made a much better Cogburn than John Wayne did too.
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The Martian will definitely win "Best Sci-fi Film of 2016 To Be Ruined By Matt Damon's Terrible Acting"
OK, I admit it. I was cheering for Mars during the movie. . .
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Anybody thats hung up about what gender the "hero" is should just stop watching films and go live with ISIS... Or move to Texas.
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Fury Road was lukewarm at best. It was good in that it was not quite so terrible as 'Thunderdome'. When one of the main characters is a peat bog, it cannot really compare with the truly dystopian 'Wasteland' (1) or the insanely violent 'Road Warrior' (2).
Too bad :-( (Score:2)
Nebula/Hugo (Score:2)
It would seem there is no Nebula equivalent of the Hugo's "Sad Puppies" campaign.
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If you look at how the Nebulas are nominated and voted for, you'd already know why that is: in fact, that's one of the Sad Puppy arguments, of a self-reinforcing in-group. . .
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There are plenty of SF authors who are NOT members of SFWA: either they let their memberships lapse, for percieved lack of value, or never joined.
I repeat my first statement: SFWA is a self-reinforcing in-group. It only very recently allowed Indie-published authors to join. . .
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But it also means that it's more difficult to stuff the ballot box, as it were. I mean, anyone can pony up the amount of cash it takes (what, something like $60, right) to be able to vote on the Hugos. If you don't meet the qualifications for SFWA membership, you CANNOT vote on the Nebulas.
So, yeah, it's a much more insular bunch, taken from a certain point of view. But it also means you don't have a rabble rousing idiot like Beale getting huge whacks of votes for a predetermined slate.
A question for those familiar with these novels: (Score:2)
Is there any hard sci-fi among them? I am starving for good hard sci-fi.
Re:A question for those familiar with these novels (Score:5, Informative)
Try 3-body Problem. It may be a slow start, though and I don't think it was a nominee. For that matter, I'm not sure it's a current-year book, but it was a good read.
I think The Water Knife was on the list, though.
In a sense, Dan Brown's Inferno is sci-fi, although like all his books, it's as much about arcana and action as about what-if. And mass-market writing, of course. Just heard it's coming out as a movie.
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Try 3-body Problem. It may be a slow start, though and I don't think it was a nominee. For that matter, I'm not sure it's a current-year book, but it was a good read.
I think The Water Knife was on the list, though.
In a sense, Dan Brown's Inferno is sci-fi, although like all his books, it's as much about arcana and action as about what-if. And mass-market writing, of course. Just heard it's coming out as a movie.
So none of the winners is hard sci-fi?
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"Try 3-body Problem. It may be a slow start, though and I don't think it was a nominee. For that matter, I'm not sure it's a current-year book, but it was a good read."
The second or third volume of Cixin's trilogy probably is, though.
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I don't know how "hard" your "hard sci-fi" definition runs, if 3-Body isn't hard sci-fi, then I'd probably have to strike off Robert L. Forward's "Dragon's Egg" and Clarke's "2001 A Space Odessy" for starters.
Brown is primarily action/adventure, but the prime motivator is more based on real-world science than the Andromeda Strain.
Water Knife has certain parallels with A Canticle for Leibowitz, although more immediate.
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The Three-Body Problem IS hard SciFi. Well... it starts as such. Sorta.
But then the supposed hard SciFi turns into science fantasy with deus ex machinae around every corner.
A big part of the story is about aliens building a proton-sized computer by "folding-out" a proton to 11 dimensions, then folding it back in.
Which would not be such a huge problem - if the said alien civilization wasn't forced to invade Earth on account of its own solar system's inhospitableness reaching critical levels.
Said civilization
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And boy... if you have a short fuse for "everyone is stupid" episodes of Star Trek or some other SciFi show where every otherwise smart character acts like a complete idiot in order to serve the plot... well...
OK, I have enough data now to give the book a wide berth.
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Look up Carbide Tipped Pens. [amazon.com]
He has a story called "The Circle" in there, which he redid for Three Body Problem later.
It's about the emperor of China and his lead sage and building a computer made out of people.
Same thing happens at one point in the TBP... while the original story suffers from the same "Why is everyone acting stupid?" issues.
If you don't mind that story, you'll get through the books too.
He DOES have interesting ideas... but the reasoning behind how and why it all takes place is often straine
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Actually, there's a much more fatal flaw.
The whole proton-folding scheme (I loved that one, BTW, finally found a use for all those hidden dimensions in String Theory), involves a stage where for part of the process, the unfolded proton is large enough to block out the sun(s).
At that very moment, they no longer needed to invade the Earth. Or, indeed, go anywhere. They had the technology to focus and direct the energy of their own suns, blocking them when they were too strong, aiming additional sunlight when
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"The three body problem" was nominated but didn't win a Nebula award.
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You're looking at an award. Please. If you want something worth reading you're wrong here. This is about making people feel good, not telling you what's worth reading.
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... I feel dumber, just for having read that statement. I can award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
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Decent, yes. Best, no.
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How about, "This year, the best sci-fi was written by women"? Is that outside your realm of possibilities, you rancid little gerbilfucker?
You know, it would be nice if people would just avoid trying to outdo themselves with insults. I know, the idea is that nice guys finish last so you are working to be more obnoxious and crude than the other person, but, you know, you really aren't putting forward the idea that you have something useful to add to the discussion.
Or, to put this in kind of terminology that you apparently understand: quit acting like a fucking asshole, you fucking asshole.
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You must be new here.
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Don't opine from ignorance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Don't opine from ignorance.
You *must* be new here.
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I guess no men wrote anything decent this year?
I'm sure that George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nick Lathouris (winners, Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation) would be surprised to hear you say that.
Or, for that matter, Charles Gannon, Ken Liu, Lawrence Schoen (Best Novel nominees); Eugene Fischer, Usman Malik (Novella nominees); Michael Bishop, Henry Lien (Novelette); David Levine, Sam Miller, Martin Shoemaker (Short Story)....
But since you can't read more than four lines into a Slashdot blurb, I suppose it isn't surprising tha
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They wrote a movie featuring strong women that was very popular with feminists.
You keep saying that like it's a bad thing.
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No, it's just an explanation of why George Miller and friends in particular were chosen as the token males this year. The Martian is a MUCH better science fiction movie than Fury Road. And I say that as a huge George Miller and Mad Max fan. In fact, Fury Road, like the previous Mad Max films, is an action movie that only counts as science fiction in the most marginal sense.
But the Martian was about a white guy. And that sealed its fate. Had the star of The Martian been a woman or minority, it would have won
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I guess no men wrote anything decent this year?
I'm sure that George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nick Lathouris (winners, Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation) would be surprised to hear you say that.
No they wouldn't be surprised at all. They wrote a movie featuring strong women that was very popular with feminists. They know this is why they got to be the tokens this year.
So you're shifting the goalposts, then? It has to be men writing about men only. Got it.
(And I'm not sure why, even with your special pleading, you think you can ignore the inconvenient fact that men were amply represented among the nominees.)
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Considering that the Nebula's are determine by voting by the SFWA membership (ie profession authors) and the membership majority is male, what's a poor frightened MRA to do?
A quick googling tells me that the SFWA membership has very close to an even male:female ratio. Slightly more males-- but the data I have is a few years old. http://www.antipope.org/feorag... [antipope.org]
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So it looks like the Sad Puppies aren't able to influence the Nebula awards.
Well, considering that the Nebula is nominated and voted on by the members of the Science Fiction Writers of America, that stands to reason.
The Sad Puppies were primarily a fan movement. And the Rabids, a cult of personality. While I have liked some of Beale's (aka Vox Day) books, his insistence on complete, unswerving loyalty and obedience to him to become one of his "Vile Faceless Minions (VFM)" is more than a little creept. . .
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So it looks like the Sad Puppies aren't able to influence the Nebula awards.
SF is not supposed to be Beale's outlet. If the genre needs to take a political stand, it should be to defend science and its applications.
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WTF is it with this victimhood shit? Sorry kid but things are not playing out the way you are screeching about.
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Nominations look fairly balanced and reasonable so it's probably just a consequence of the membership voting as they tend to do. Literature isn't really easy to quantify so you always end up with certain social biases in time.
A bit heavy on the fantasy for my taste.
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Because there's less whining that way.
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...go start your own Male Power Fantasy award. You can call it the Broski.
Cease and desist. The name "Broski" is a registered trademark for my upcoming line of fraternity-themed vodkas pre-mixed with rohypnol.
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How about we just rename the Nebulas the "Female Power Fantasy Awards" instead?
What, and science fiction is never a "Human Power Fantasy" wank?
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
I see. You're one of those raving nutcases who is simply prepared to invent your own facts when the real ones don't support you point.
You see that nebula award winning film this year? Directed and created by a straight white dude.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. But are you aware that last year, four out of the six nominees were guys? And one of them one. Here's a thought (I know, that might be strange to you), maybe.... maybe the reason they won this year was because they were voted as the best?
That it's not some overarching conspiracy to make you feel frustrated and upset from the depths of your mom's basement?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Scroll down to 2015 (which is last year), chucklenut.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Informative)
FACT: Every Nebula Award winner this year was a female, except two separate specialty awards
Oh moving the goalposts I see. Typical nutjob reasoning. First make up facts, then when people point out that the so-called "facts" are in fact not facts you move the goalposts.
So first it's that no awards went to straight white men. Now apparently it's no awards that count in some abstract sense went to straight white men. Please do make up your mind.
which went to a movie that was popular with feminists
Mad Max was popular full stop. It did well with critics, audience reviews and overall gross. I think it was in the top 20 grossing films worldwide, and top 5(?) for R-rated films.
Did I make that one up?
You made up the bit about "separate speciality awards" since the Nebulas make no such distinction. Basically what that amounts to is you cherry picking results.
So, you know what I think of your reasoning?
MEDIOCRE!
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
Mad Max got some praise for not having the typical "helpless damsel in distress" stuff and instead having female characters who could actually do something for themselves. Same with Star Wars, because Leia was damseled in all three films (at least she fought back a bit).
Both were great films, not trying to make any particular point about women, just treating them like actual adult human beings rather than a mere plot device to give the male characters something to do. I don't see that harming men in any way, if anything it's good for us because we are starting to see the same thing with other character types who were previously just there for the plot, like geeks and engineers.
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I think of it as a stealth attempt to get Michael Bay viewers to watch something decent for once.
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Basically what that amounts to is you cherry picking results.
...Cherryh picking?
Sorry. I'll show myself out.
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
God forbid they ever give another award to a straight white male.
Like Sir Terry Pratchett, who is right in the list in the summary.
But please, don't let facts interfere with your butthurt. MRA teardrops taste so sweet in the morning.
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Well it is rather feminine to take male fluids into your mouth.
Re:Wow! (Score:4)
They couldn't rename the Solstice Award the "Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award" AND give it to a female in the same year, could they?
Yes they could.
Basically conversations with you go like this:
You: evil feminists are oppressing me by having different opinions. look, see: only women win. ...
Everyone else: you mean except for all the men that also won this year.
You: They don't count! Those must be TOKEN men because evil feminists are oppressing me.
Everyone else: oooookaaayyy [backs away slowly]
You: They gave an award named after a woman to a man! That only PROVES that feminists are oppressing me!
Everyone else:
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Even dropping the Christian doesn't help.
And don't try to be black, they REALLY hate it when you fake it.
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Back to the 1990s (Score:2)
It's not really SF anymore when Bruce Sterling put up stuff on the net for free in the mid 1990s!
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This actually isn't that hard at all. Goodreads makes it really easy to find new stuff to read based on the opinions of people who share similar tastes in books.
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The list of winners seems to be exclusively with female authors.
FTFY
Well, with the exception of George Miller and the specialized awards (which I believe are chosen differently). Because Fury Road was such a hit with feminists, the Fury Road writers got to be the token exception.
Re:Female SF authors (Score:5, Funny)
I learned decades ago to avoid science fiction written by females after reading some Andre Norton crap.
I learned decades ago to avoid science fiction written by males after reading some L Ron Hubbard crap. Oh no, I didn't because that would be fucking stupid wouldn't it?
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To put it bluntly, only male authors are likely to write something autistic enough with which I can identify. Female authors insist on including relationship crap.
That's fine in regular fiction, but in sci-fi I want spaceships and mayhem.
Whilst I'm on my soapbox, it bugs the hell out of me that when even
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Without wanting to pick a side in the sexism war, I had exactly the same impression regarding Andre Norton and whilst I have read thousands of SF books I cannot remember enjoying anything by female authors.
Tried any C.S. Friedman? It's been more than a decade, but I don't recall her books being particularly mushy. (The Madness Season, for instance, or there's another one about a near-genocidal space war that I can't recall the title to at the moment, and the trilogy with True Night Falls, though that's more fantasy with an SF framing story.)
Whilst I'm on my soapbox, it bugs the hell out of me that when even one of my favourite authors, e.g. Iain M Banks introduces a main character who is female, she is invariably stunningly attractive.
Books, movies, comics, you name it, they almost all do it. Related, one of my pet peeves is that stupid slow-mo reveal they do in movies when the female star comes on scre
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Length of story / number of words.
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A novella and novelette is the same thing; a story with a length somewhere between a short story and a novel.
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Length.
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What the difference between Novel, Novella, Novelette and Short Story? I guess all them translate to the same thing for me.
Length. Short story is less than 7,500 words, Novelette is 7,500-15,000 words, Novella is 15,000-40,000 words, and Novel is 40,000 words and up.
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BTW, has it ever occurred to you that what really fuels the anti-SJW movement is you guys insisting on labeling anyone who disagrees with you as creeps, harassers, neckbeards, racists, man-children, bigots, misogynerds, etc. when 99% of the time the targets of your rage ar
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Where else would the name have come from? Why would he pick the name gamergate if it had nothing to do with gaming? Of course it had to do with gaming, and games journalism.
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Stick to the space cows that app apps, buddy.
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There is nothing to address. These are spam posts, including the "rapid downmod shows" one.
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for PLOT in *
do
echo Hasn't these "$PLOT" plots been done to death?
done
By now, pretty much yes, so it's a question of how well it's done and what new takes on it and the twists that distinguish it.
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Thats bullshit.
No it's not, and given we're trying to have a discussion on literature, I find your response entertaining.
Not every plot has been written already.
Define: plot.
Really, I mean it. Once you get to a short enough description of the plot, then yes there's a whole hell of a lot of duplication. In fact almost every book would fall into one of a very small number of different plots.
The devil of course is in the details.
The fact is that all of the sudden we get these plots, and vampire and zombie plo
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It's what sells to the teen crowd.
There are some fantastic writers writing for the teen, and even younger crowd, so there's no need to be snooty about them. In fact being unable to hide behind literary pretensions makes them actually make sure that the book is entertaining to read...
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It's better than the plot summary suggests! The author has Polish ancestry, so some of her plot elements come from eastern European fairy tales. Since a lot of fantasy stories draw on western European/middle ages history, this made Uprooted more interesting to me. I also enjoyed translations of Stanislaw Lem's work when I encountered that for the first time.
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Then again, how many cop shows are there?
Personally, I like cooking shows. Like Hannibal.
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not after what the puppies showed to be true regarding the Hugos
The only thing the puppies showed was that the supposed "silent majority" which they (a) beleived existed and (b) believed agreed with them did not in fact exist.
While deeply crap stuff was nominated, it was by a conspiracy of unconnected people who could be arsed to vote, or in other words, not a conspiracy.
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This would never work, but I really think they should run an award where a significant number of books are nominated, they rip off the covers, leave out the titles and anything that would suggest who the author is, and then have people actually read them and vote on the one(s) they liked the best.
Awards like this are always going to be tricky, because there are biases on both sides that can affect things, not to mention groups can form that believe that they are being completely "equitable" in what they are