File 770 has an update on the effort to bring back Uncle Hugo’s. The bookstore was destroyed by a fire set by an unknown arsonist during last year’s Minneapolis riots. The article says, “Last month [Don Blyly] found three prospective buildings to consider – one would be satisfactory if he can get it for the right price.”
The fundraiser has raised nearly $200,000 and is still active.
The 2023 World Science Fiction Convention will be in China, a country notorious for suppressing dissent, persecuting minorities, restricting communication, and monitoring its citizens. Worldcon sites are selected among bidders by members of an earlier Worldcon, as just happened at Discon. It appears that the selection was the result of a large number of votes sent in from China from people who purchased supporting memberships. In other words, China bought the Worldcon.
Science fiction is the realm of speculation, exploration of ideas, and examination of alternatives. The idea of a Worldcon in such a repressive nation is absurd. Hopefully few fans in free countries will have any interest in this charade, and they’ll sit it out.
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This week, I’ve started rewriting the first draft of Spells of War. The first eight chapters went pretty quickly, without any huge changes. The biggest departure from the first draft, though, is that the action will now span 1556-1557, instead of all taking place in 1556. Things just got too crammed against the approach of winter and Ramadan. With the new timeline, the mages on each side will be able to develop more weapons and train the Landsknechte and Janissaries respectively in their use. This means adding material about what happens over the winter without letting the story drag.
A character who shows up late in the first draft will make his appearance earlier. This will let me build up his role in the story more effectively.
I’ll be putting out a call for beta readers before long, perhaps in early January.
According to an article by Natylie Baldwin on antiwar.com, the United States Treasury Department has threatened writers with fines of more than $300,000 if they write for the Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russia-based online journal.
The writers, Daniel Lazare and Michael Averko, reportedly got letters from the Treasury Department, delivered by the FBI, claiming they were in violation of sanctions against SCF and could be subject to a “civil monetary penalty of up to the greater of $311,562 or twice the value of the underlying transaction.” They say that other writers have received similar letters.
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Is the world going to hell? Are we all doomed? Steven Pinker has consistently argued that not only is this view mistaken, the long-term trends of the world show steady improvement in human well-being. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress provides many specifics in support of this position.
Alarm and disasters sell in the news media. People want to appear serious by citing problems rather than progress. Organizations looking to raise money or get people involved focus on what needs fixing. Taken together, they can create the impression that only terrible things are happening and they’re getting worse.
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