Reading

Logopolis, by Jonathan Hay (and Christopher H. Bidmead)

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/logopolis-by-jonathan-hay-and-christopher-h-bidmead/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61564

I was glued to the screen for Logopolis‘s first showing in 1981, a month before my fourteenth birthday. The show I loved was being remade, with a total revamp of the TARDIS crew and last of all the leading man – just as Innes Lloyd had done in 1966. And here in 2025, we’ve just been through the same process again…

When I came back to Logopolis in 2008, I wrote at length:

I saw Logopolis (of course) back in 1981 and again when it was repeated later in the year. Its biggest problem is that the pacing doesn’t quite match the amount of Stuff that is Happening; the first episode in particular is alarmingly slow, episode two is incomprehensible in places, and it is not surprising that the ratings for the last two episodes were so low.

But the two million viewers who gave up on it between eps 2 and 3 were mistaken. Things I liked about it: the Watcher works really well, even though we never really find out the details of how he works. It generally looks fascinating – the nested Tardises, the streets of Logopolis. John Fraser as the Monitor is great. Nothing that the Master does actually makes sense, but it’s a great debut story for Ainley who does some high-class evil laughter. Nyssa may pop out of nowhere but it’s good to have her back (and out-acting Adric almost instantly). The music is super – the theme for the Watcher suggesting that he is not the Master (as Adric assumes) but something else, and that final chord sequence as it transforms into the Doctor Who theme.

The biggest problem I have with it now is that the Master’s grand plan simply doesn’t compute. How can he have known that the Doctor was headed for the Barnet by-pass? Or would then head for Logopolis? And how quickly will his message to the peoples of the universe reach them, indeed how will the radio telescope, sending messages at sluggish old light-speed, be able to affect the CVE in time? (And since Logopolis is out of commission, who will do this in future next time there is an entropy crisis?) We’ll leave out the fact that the Third Doctor survived a much longer fall in The Paradise of Death, since that story is of dubious canonicity.

Logopolis is not one of the great regeneration stories – there are four of those, and they are The Tenth Planet, The War Games, The Caves of Androzani and Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. But it is no way as bad as either Planet of the Spiders or (stretching a point as there is no regeneration) The Ultimate Foe. Good watching, with emphasis on watching rather than trying to understand what is going on.

The DVD is almost worth the cover price alone for the documentary on the transition between Doctors, “A New Body At Last”, featuring interviews with Davison, Baker (as hilarious as ever) and numerous other cast and crew.

When I came back to it for my Great Rewatch in 2011, I wrote:

Taken on its own merits, Logopolis is a bit unsatisfactory. The first couple of episodes have way too much exposition and info-dumping, and the last two episodes are basically about establishing the Master and the new Tardis team, and getting rid of the Fourth Doctor.

But actually, watched in context, I can see why it gripped me at the time; the revival of the Master, the role of the Time Lords, and the CVE’s all link back rather satisfactorily to the earlier stories in the season, and the episode and a half actually set in Logopolis, and then the final battle between the Master and the Doctor, ending in his regeneration, are effective. And it does make sense to have the departing Doctor bid farewell to all of his companions, as the Fifth and Tenth were also able to do; this is a story about goodbyes and it’s appropriate.

And the music is particularly good.

Incidentally, when we reach the police box on Earth in the first episode, this is after a run of 23 episodes set elsewhere – the last time we saw Earth was at the very beginning of The Leisure Hive. It is the longest sequence of non-terrestrial episodes in the show’s history.

Watching again, I want to particularly salute Paddy Kingsland’s music. That sequence at the very end of the story remains spine-chilling, 44 years on.

Watch on YouTube

The second paragraph of the third chapter of Christopher H. Bidmead’s novelization of his own story is:

In any case, there was something much more interesting to think about. In the Doctor’s temporary absence, Adric’s curiosity had drawn him towards the police box.

When I reread it in 2008, I wrote:

Bidmead’s write-up of his own story is reassuringly dynamic and exciting, if just a little over-written in places. In particular, Logopolis itself feels more like a real place, and the minor characters more like real people; the whole thing makes slightly better sense than what we saw on screen.

Nothing to add to that; a confident novelisation which does what it needs to do. There is no explanation of the means and motivation of the Master, but there never is. You can get it here.

Jonathan Hay’s Black Archive on Logopolis pays appropriate tribute to a story that marked a turning point in the show. At 119 pages it’s fairly brief. A brief introduction gives the context for the story in terms of the production history.

The first chapter, “Resetting the Scene”, looks at the changes to the show brought in by John Nathan-Turner, the scientific basis for the story, the reintroduction of the Master and the backgrounds of the two new companions.

The second and longest chapter, “Regeneration”, looks at the way regeneration is handled for both the Doctor and the Master, especially in Season 18 but also in later Doctor Who history.

The third chapter, “Entropy” looks at the concept of entropy and the character of the Watcher. Its second paragraph is:

As the laws of physics assert, energy within a closed system can neither increase nor decrease on aggregate; it can only change between forms. Hence, as time passes, more and more energy within a closed system inevitably transforms into the form of heat energy. Heat energy is a disordered form which is essentially unable to then transform back into any other form of energy². This principle is known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and applies not only on smaller scales, but also to our universe, the largest closed system we currently know of³. As time passes, the proportion of disordered (heat) energy within the universe increases. This tendency towards gradual disorder, which applies to any given physical system, is known as entropy.
² Maxwell, J Clerk, Theory of Heat, p93.
³ Maxwell, Theory of Heat, p153.

The fourth chapter, “Computers”, looks at the history of computers in reality, including the fact that the word used to mean a woman who does calculations, and the significance of Logopolis; it points out the importance of the computer-generated music. It’s not the longest chapter but I felt was intellectually the most substantial.

The fifth chapter, “The Singularity”, looks at the extent to which Logopolis anticipated Vernor Vinge.

The sixth chapter, “The TARDIS”, looks at the importance of the TARDIS as a plot element in Logopolis (though as I commented a few weeks ago, it’s actually interesting how often it had been a plot element in the show’s early history).

The conclusion, “‘It’s the end, but the moment has been prepared for'”, looks at the many ways in which the new Blu-ray edition of Logopolis improves on the original. It’s on my list…

Not the most ground-breaking of Black Archives, but as I said up top, a respectful and detailed analysis of an important story. You can get it here.

Last week, the Black Archives published their 77th and latest volume, on Castrovalva, and once I have read it, this reading project will have caught up to where I wanted it to get to when I started it in September 2021.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/logopolis-by-jonathan-hay-and-christopher-h-bidmead/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61564

The Hunebedden of Drenthe – megalithic Netherlands

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-hunebedden-of-drenthe-megalithic-nertherlands/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61885

I am up North this weekend, in the Dutch province of Drenthe, feeding my interest in matters megalithic by inspecting the hunebedden, the huge 5000-year-old stone structures which are dotted around the province. In fact, Drenthe has no less than 52 of them, and there are another two in Groningen; in the whole of the rest of the Netherlands there is one (1) surviving megalithic structure, a tomb near Maastricht.

Herman Clerinx, in his book Een Palais voor de Doden, tallies twelve dolmens and menhirs in Belgium, and one in Luxembourg. (I have been to all of them.) This means that 76% of all the surviving megalithic monuments in the three Benelux countries are in Drenthe, otherwise one of the least remarkable Dutch provinces.

Even though the hunebedden are not that different from each other (which itself is interesting; compare the variations among the Belgian monoliths, and their contrast with Wéris), they are still pretty spectacular. We looked at six of them today, which is more than 10% of the total number, and unusually for this blog, I’m going to lead with my video reaction to each one, since photographs just don’t capture the majestic structure.

D19 and D20

Each of the surviving hunebedden has been given a code number which you can actually put into your GPS. Several of them come in pairs. The first two that we looked at, like many of the others, were in a little glade off a side road, in this case near the village of Drouwen.

The farther off of the two, D20, has a ring of external stones around the entire structure.

D19 has a small entry port which I spotted after shooting the video.

A stern notice warned against climbing on them, and also asked visitors to respect that this is a place of human burial.

D27

The largest of the hunebedden is in the grounds of the Hunebed Centre, which was well worth visiting.

The only photo I took here was of the entrance portal which again I found interesting.

It will be apparent by now that it was a very wet day.

D10

This was the smallest of the hunebedden that we visited today.

A bijou affair among the sand dunes.

Some kids had built a den nearby.

D17 and D18

We stopped for lunch at an Albert Heijn supermarket and found signs to more hunebedden beside the church. It was now raining pretty firmly.

I was so excited by finding D17 by the church that I did not realise that D18 was right beside it.

D18 is much more satisfyingly complete.

I had planned a much longer itinerary, but we had other things on our agenda, and I felt we had seen a representative sample of the hunebedden, so we drew a line there and moved on.

At first sight, the hunebedden may all look like random jumbles of stones, but it does not take very long to appreciate that each of them has its own special grace in its own special place; that there is a reason why they were built there in that way, even if we cannot know it.

The conventional theory is that they were all covered with earth which has eroded away over the years. I find this very difficult to believe; I think when you cover something with earth, in general the earth stays there, as with the Irish court cairns (and passange tombs such as Newgrange) and the French allées couvertes. I am sure that the gaps between the stones were covered over originally, out of respect for the dead, but I reckon it was with more perishable material: cloth, or straw, or a combination.

*Hunebed* reconstruction at the Hunebed Centre as they supposedly originally looked. But what would have happened to all the earth?

Shirshendu Sengupta has written a brilliant guide to visiting all 54 of the hunebedden, grading them as “Must-See”, “Should-See”, “Could-See” and “Wouldn’t-See”. We didn’t even get around all of his Must-Sees today, but I’ll keep it bookmarked for a future occasion.

Drenthe is remote (by Dutch standards) and doesn’t have a lot else to offer (but more on that anon). However if you have time and energy, the hunebedden are all free to visit, and instantly connect you with our ancestors of 200 generations ago. And apparently there are many more, just over the German border.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-hunebedden-of-drenthe-megalithic-nertherlands/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61885

The best known books set in each country: Niger

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-best-known-books-set-in-each-country-niger/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61537

See here for methodology. Books are disqualified if less than 50% of them is set in Niger.

These numbers are crunched by hand, not by AI.

Title	Author	Goodreads raters	LibraryThing owners
Shadow Speaker	Nnedi Okorafor	2,696	448
In Sorcery’s Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship among the Songhay of Niger	Paul Stoller	278	76
Don’t Spill the Milk!	Stephen Davies	226	54
Harmattan	Gavin Weston	242	26
Nomads of Niger	Carol Beckwith and Marion van Offelen	3,699	408

This was a very difficult tabulation. There are a lot of books about West Africa, or just Africa in general. There’s a certain amount of confusion between Niger and Nigeria. There are books about travelling to Timbuktu (which is in Mali), or the Songhay Empire (which was also mainly in Mali), or following Mungo Park (who did the whole river Niger). I excluded 28 books before I got to the fifth one actually set in Niger, and for once I’m not going to list them all; some of them have very spurious Nigerien connections indeed.

The winner – for the second time, see also Sudan – is Nnedi Okorafor, who very clearly sets Shadow Speaker in a future Niger.

The top book set in Niger by a Nigerien author that I was able to identify is Sarraounia : Le drame de la reine magicienne, by Abdoulaye Mamani.

Next up: Australia, North Korea, Syria and indeed Mali.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-best-known-books-set-in-each-country-niger/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61537

The Politics and Culture of Honour in Britain and Ireland, 1541-1641, by Brendan Kane

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-politics-and-culture-of-honour-in-britain-and-ireland-1541-1641-by-brendan-kane/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61572

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Let us set the stage with a brief exploration of perhaps the most famous example of the intersection of honour imperatives and high politics in sixteenth-century Ireland: the fizzled duel of 1571 between James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald and Sir John Perrot. Fitzmaurice was the instigator and initial leader of the so-called Desmond Rebellions that raged in Munster in the 1570s and early 1580s; Perrot was the aging English knight and ex-soldier sent by the Crown to suppress them. Fitzmaurice proposed to settle matters through personal combat, a proposal to which Perrot gladly agreed, even allowing Fitzmaurice to set the conditions of combat. They arranged to meet outside of Killmallock to fight with the sword and target while clad in ‘Irish tresses’. But if Fitzmaurice’s challenge represents the high point of the politics of honour in Anglo-Irish affairs, his failure to show on the day suggests its rapid demise. He justified his absence by saying that were he to kill Perrot, the Queen would simply send a new president to crush him.¹ Whether this was sincere or not, it certainly showed a concern for the limits of honour politics: how could Fitzmaurice be sure that the Queen would abide by the extra-legal agreement made between himself and Perrot, two gentleman commanders? Following a period of self-exile on the continent, the would-be-duellist returned to Munster and with the aid of a small papal force attempted to raise a holy war against the forces of the Crown – marking the first time that a mature ideology of faith and fatherland appeared on the Anglo-Irish landscape, an ideology that would dominate that relationship, arguably, into the present.² In his abandonment of honour principles for the stronger stuff of faith and fatherland as a basis of resistance, Fitzmaurice may not have shown himself the bravest of rebels, but he certainly demonstrated political vision.
¹ For an extended discussion of the honour principles at stake, see Palmer, ‘The insolent liberty’.
² Anthony McCormack’s analysis of the Earls of Desmond’s intrigues with Francis I of France and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, however, demonstrate the longer lineage of ‘faith and fatherland’ ideology in Ireland and in Anglo-Irish relations. Nevertheless, Fitzmaurice’s landing in Munster accompanied by papal troops and carrying a banner bearing the cross marks the first appearance of this ideological position in the field. See McCormack, Earldom of Desmond, p. 68.

I met Brendan Kane back in 2009 when I attended a conference that he organised about Tudor Ireland in Connecticut; it’s still a topic I hope to write about at some future stage, and this book helped to remind me why. It’s a treatment of the concept of honour and how it affected relations between and withing Ireland and England in the century between the start of the process of declaring Henry VIII King of Ireland, and the outbreak of the Confederate Wars (with subsequent spillover into Scotland and England).

I’m instinctively (and anthropologically) attracted to historical explanations that rely on more than economic self-interest, and the concept of honour turns out to be rather a good lens for examining the history of conflict and co-operation between the various strands of Irish and their English overlords. The analysis of Irish language literature is beyond my competence to assess, but I’m glad it’s there. I found the chapters on the Nine Years’ War and on the mutual difficulties of Wentworth/Strafford and his Irish counterpart forty years later particularly interesting.

I was also completely unaware of the liminal figure of Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde (1572-1635), who was also created Earl of St Albans and married Frances, the daughter of Elizabethan spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham (her first husband, the 2nd Earl of Essex, having come to a sticky end). One of their children married the very Irish Earl of Ormonde, and the other the very English Earl of Winchester. If I count correctly, his younger brother Ulick was my 7x great-grandfather. He was able to move between the two kingdoms and maintain his own set of identities at a troubled time, and I’d like to dig a bit more into his history.

Anyway, a good detailed book on a slightly obscure topic. You can get it here.

This was the non-fiction book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. On a related note, the next on that pile is Ireland in the Renaissance, c.1540-1660, eds. Thomas Herron and Michael Potterton.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-politics-and-culture-of-honour-in-britain-and-ireland-1541-1641-by-brendan-kane/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61572

Four modest amendments to the WSFS Constitution

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/four-modest-amendments-to-the-wsfs-constitution/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61684

I always approach amendments to the WSFS Constitution with some trepidation. The Business Meeting does not always make things better, and it is not always sensitive to the lived experience of Hugo Administrators or con-running volunteers. But Tammy Coxen and I, as Hugo Administrators for 2017, 2019, 2020, 2024, 2025 (for a time) and 2026, hope to make things easier for our successors by clarifying the rules and bringing them fully into line with current practice, as proposed below. All new business is somewhat burdensome on the Business Meeting agenda, not to mention on the poor volunteers running it, but hopefully these four items should be uncontroversial and can be dealt with speedily.

1) Clarifying Best Graphic Story or Comic

Add to Sub-section 3.3.6:

3.3.6: Best Graphic Story or Comic. Any non-interactive science fiction or fantasy story told in graphic form appearing for the first time in the previous calendar year. An album/collection shall be eligible if less than half of its content has previously been published in collected format. But an album/collection will not be eligible if it contains material that has previously appeared on the Hugo ballot in this category.

Explanation: Most Hugo voters consume comics in album/collection format. There has been occasional controversy about allowing an album to qualify for the ballot when much of its content had been released in previous years in single issue format, or as a webzine.

In practice, most albums include sufficient new material to justify considering the content to have appeared “for the first time” in the year of eligibility, but it is better to have a clear instruction to consider albums of previously uncollected material as eligible, as long as that material is fresh to the Hugo ballot.

We propose a requirement that half of the content of a potential album nominee has not previously been published in album format, but we are open to amend that to be higher.

But we should collectively not lose sight of the main point, to allow voters to vote for the work that they have enjoyed.

In any case, this amendment will clarify the constitution and codify existing practice if it is passed.

2) Clarifying Best Series

Renumber Sub-section 3.8.3 of the Constitution to 3.3.5.2 (and renumber accordingly):

~~3.8.3~~ 3.3.5.2: If any series and a subset series thereof both receive sufficient nominations to appear on the final ballot, only the version which received more nominations shall appear.

Explanation: This subsection of the Constitution is clearly intended to help Administrators resolve a situation where two potential nominees in the Best Series category could potentially be in competition against each other on the final ballot, despite being by the same author and with one of them being a subset series of the other. In fact this situation has never come close to occurring, but the placement of these words in Section 3.8 has caused confusion to some commentators. Moving the section to Section 3.3 will not cause any practical change but will clarify the situation.

Some have misread this Section as a prohibition on any work appearing in both one of the written fiction categories and as part of a finalist in the Best Series category; it has been pointed out that mathematically speaking, a ‘subset’ can have a membership of just one. However, a ‘subset series’ clearly must have multiple members (or it would not be a series), so this argument is incorrect.

The Hugo Administrators of Chengdu Worldcon in 2023 cited this subsection in their disqualification of the Sandman television series. This was incorrect; it should have been disqualified (if at all) under Sub-section 3.2.11.

Moving this Sub-section to the rest of the Best Series rubric will reduce the potential for confusion.

Add new Sub-section 3.3.5.3:

3.3.5.3 If a series as a whole has qualified for the ballot in Best Series, and one or more elements of that series have also qualified for the ballot in other categories in the same year, all of those nominations will stand unless one or more are declined.

Explanation: This clarifies the constitution and codifies existing practice. Voters clearly enjoy celebrating both series and their constituent parts, and for instance in 2021 voted Hugos to both Network Effect and to the Murderbot stories as a whole.

An attempt to bar a series and any of its constituent parts from appearing on the ballot in the same year was decisively rejected by the 2022 Business Meeting, as was another, more extreme proposal to bar a series if any of its constituent parts had previously won a Hugo.

The above proposed wording (“other categories”) for Sub-section 3.3.5.3 is deliberately broad, and allows for the possibility that a series might include not only written fiction, but also graphic novels and/or games.

3) Clarifying the Best Dramatic Presentation categories

Insert new Sub-section 3.8.6 and renumber:

3.8.6 If an episodic series as a whole has sufficient nominations to qualify for the ballot for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, and one or more episodes of that series also has or have sufficient nominations to qualify for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, then the administrators shall exclude either the series from the Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form category or the potentially qualifying episode(s) from the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category.

The administrators shall take into account the number of votes both for the potentially excluded nominees and for those who would be brought onto the ballot in the event of an exclusion, and shall consider how best to reflect the wishes of the greater number of voters.

Add to Sub-section 3.9.4:

3.9.4: After the initial Award ballot is generated, if any finalist(s) are removed for any reason, they will be replaced by other works in reverse order of elimination; except that no episode in a dramatic presentation series shall be eligible to fill such a vacancy if it has already been determined that other potentially qualifying episodes of that series shall be excluded under Subsection 3.8.6 in the same category.

Explanation: While arguably this situation is already covered by Sub-section 3.2.11, “No work shall appear in more than one category on the final Award ballot”, there is some confusion on the issue, and it must be admitted that on its face, Sub-section 3.2.11 appears to be more relevant to the possibility of individual works potentially qualifying as such in more than one of the first four written fiction categories.

It’s clear however that Hugo administration in practice has evolved to the point that no series can appear on the Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form ballot if any of its episodes appears on the Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form ballot, and vice versa.

It has been suggested that in this situation, the Hugo administrators should be expected, or even obliged, to consult the show-runners of the TV series in question as to whether they prefer the series as a whole or the individual episodes to be on the ballot. We do not support that idea because:

i) the nominees for individual episodes are the writers and directors, who may not be full-time staffers of the studio, and it is unfair to let the studio make decisions on their behalf;

ii) votes cast by WSFS members, rather than the choices of studio executives, should in general determine what appears on the Hugo ballot;

iii) TV studios in general are notoriously slow to engage with Hugo administrators, and we should not make our procedures hostage to their (lack of) response.

The studio will have its own incentives, completely different to those of the author or director of an individual episode. It’s not wrong for them to have different incentives, that’s natural. But there’s no reason to give the studio’s incentive structure or decision making more power then the creators who are actually nominated. This should be between the nominated creators and the fans – or just the fans themselves, if the creators aren’t interested.

The second paragraph of our proposed amendment is deliberately advisory rather than detailed; one can envisage future circumstances where it is useful for administrators to exercise discretion.

Administrators have been consistent in adjudicating nominations for the Best Dramatic Presentation categories in the manner described above over the years; if passed, this amendment will not change anything, but will clarify the rules and codify existing practice.

If our other proposed amendment on Clarifying Nominee Diversity is also passed, the proposed changes to Sub-section 3.9.4 will need to be cumulated.

4) Clarifying Nominee Diversity

Replace Sub-section 3.8.6 of the Constitution.

3.8.6: If there are more than two works in the same category that are episodes of the same dramatic presentation series or that are written works that have an author for single author works, or two or more authors for co-authored works, in common, only the two works in each category that have the most nominations shall appear on the final ballot. The Worldcon Committee shall make reasonable efforts to notify those who would have been finalists in the absence of this subsection to provide them an opportunity to withdraw. For the purpose of this exclusion, works withdrawn shall be ignored.

No more than two works that are episodes of the same dramatic presentation series shall appear on the final ballot in any one category. No more than two written works that have exactly the same author or authors shall appear on the final ballot in any one category.

The Worldcon Committee shall make reasonable efforts to notify authors and creators who have more than two works among the top six nominees in any one category on the initial Award ballot when it has been generated, and will offer them the option to choose a maximum of two of those works to appear on the ballot. If the authors or creators cannot be contacted or do not reply, the two works with the most votes will appear on the ballot, and the other work(s) in question shall be excluded.

Add to Subsection 3.9.4:

3.9.4: After the initial Award ballot is generated, if any finalist(s) are removed for any reason, they will be replaced by other works in reverse order of elimination; except that, consistent with Subsection 3.8.6, no episode in a dramatic presentation series shall be eligible to fill such a vacancy if two episodes of that series have already qualified (and have not been withdrawn) in the same category, and no written work shall be eligible to fill such a vacancy if two works by exactly the same author or authors have already qualified (and have not been withdrawn) in the same category.

Explanation: the situation anticipated in Sub-section 3.8.6 has so far happened only twice. In 2017, the first year after Sub-section 3.8.6 came into force, three episodes of Game of Thrones were on the initial Award ballot for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form when it was generated; the show-runners chose to withdraw one of them. In 2019, three stories by Martha Wells were on the initial Award ballot for Best Novella when it was generated; she withdrew two of them.

Frankly we, the movers of this amendment, disagree with the intent of Sub-section 3.8.6 and regard it as unnecessary interference with the will of the Hugo voters, punishing TV shows or authors who commit the offence of being too popular. Our preference is to repeal the entire sub-section.

If we are to keep it, however, it should at least be rewritten to avoid confusion. The current wording is ambiguous and does not completely match the reality of how the Hugo final ballot is determined. In particular, Sub-section 3.8.6 became part of the Constitution at the same time as E Pluribus Hugo, and is slightly inconsistent.

This amendment does not change anything in practice, but clarifies the Constitution.

If our other proposed amendment on Clarifying the Best Dramatic Presentation Categories is also passed, the changes to Sub-section 3.9.4 will need to be cumulated and the references here to Sub-section 3.8.6 will need to change to refer to Sub-section 3.8.7.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/four-modest-amendments-to-the-wsfs-constitution/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61684

Doctor Who: Warrior’s Gate and beyond, by Stephen Gallagher

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/doctor-who-warriors-gate-and-beyond-by-stephen-gallagher/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61534

Second paragraph of third story (“The Little Book of Fate”):

When he could get a word in, the Doctor thanked him and set off.

I wrote up the Black Archive on Warriors’ Gate two years ago, including the expanded and revised audio version of Stephen Gallagher’s novelisation which was released in 2019. A few months after my 2023 write-up, the BBC released a print version of the new audiobook, plus two more short stories by Stephen Gallagher set in the same continuity.

As I said before, the revised novelisation gives us a lot more background and characterisation of the slavers and the Tharils than did either the TV series or the 1982 text, and mixes up the plot quite substantially. Gallagher is probably the best known mainstream sf writer to have worked on 1980’s Doctor Who, and he clearly loves the story and can now shape it the way he wants.

The first of the two extra stories is quite a long one, “The Kairos Ring”, featuring Romana and the Tharils and aliens infesting an American Civil War battle. It was also originally released as an audiobook, as the first in a series of five of which the other four were all by Paul Magrs. I had not come across these before, and must look our for them.

The other new story is “The Little Book of Fate”, basically a vignette bringing the Eighth Doctor back into this particular continuity, but nicely done.

Sometimes the BBC tries to make money off us fans by putting old wine in new bottles, but this is very refreshing. You can get it here.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/doctor-who-warriors-gate-and-beyond-by-stephen-gallagher/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61534

WSFS Consultative votes – one more point

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/wsfs-consultative-votes-one-more-point/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61846

One thing that I should have mentioned in my post from yesterday – an important element of the WSFS consultative votes both last year and this year was that statements were published both for and against the proposed changes, written by people who already had skin in the game – the proposers and people who had spoken or written against each proposal.

I feel that this is a very important element of any future membership vote, and if that does become part of the process, something would need to be built into the rules about it. I wrote yesterday’s post before I had listened to Octothorpe’s discussion of the issue (starting at 40 mins in), and I was interested that one of the Octothorpe editors admits to having their opinion swayed by one of the published statements.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/wsfs-consultative-votes-one-more-point/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61846

Knowledgeable Creatures, by Christopher Rowe

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/knowledgeable-creatures-by-christopher-rowe/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61531

Second paragraph of third section:

She didn’t lead with that. First there was some obfuscation.

Story set in a world like today’s America except that there are talking animals. A dog detective teams up with a crow to Solve Crime. Nice idea, though maybe more could have been done with it. You can get it here.

This was both the shortest unread book that I acquired in 2020 (as part of Ellen Datlow’s submission to the Hugo Packet) and the sf book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next on both of those piles is Dislocation Space, by Garth Nix.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/knowledgeable-creatures-by-christopher-rowe/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61531

The 2025 WSFS Consultative Votes

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-2025-wsfs-consultative-votes/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61835

So, the numbers are out from this year’s WSFS Consultative Votes. 343 Seattle Worldcon members voted in total.

In the vote to amend the constitution so as to eliminate the Retro Hugo Awards:

Yes: 164
No: 167
Total: 331

In the vote to amend the Hugo Award categories for Best Fan and Professional Artist:

Yes: 124
No: 160
Total: 284

This is less than the 1260 who participated last year, but still two or three times more participants than the peak attendance at the average Business Meeting session.

It’s not surprising that the participation was a bit lower this time. Most WSFS Constitutional amendments are not in themselves interesting and are in themselves technical. Films attract more Hugo voters than the art categories or the Retro Hugos, so turnout was inevitably higher for a proposal on the former than for proposals on the latter. These votes are consultative and were always intended as such.

Also, this year’s timing was experimental. Last year we held the vote for ten days immediately before the convention, the point at which interest in WSFS is perhaps most intense. Turnout was gratifyingly high. But we were aware that some proponents of the consultative vote favour a longer, earlier voting period. So we tried that this year, and got a lower turnout. I’m no longer on the team that made the vote happen, but I consider it to have been a successful effort, with lessons learned.

I doubt that I will be personally involved in future exercises, but my advice to organisers would be to go for a 10-day voting period, rather than a whole month, and link it to one of the Business Meeting sessions, probably the first, having the vote conclude a few days before so that the results can be announced there. I would also be very wary of making the constitutional specifications around the timing too rigid.

I think also that a different Worldcon could devote a few more resources to publicising the vote. I counted all of one social media post about it from Seattle, on the day it closed. (I did a post of my own the previous day, as did David Levine.) It was also the last of several items in a newsletter to all members on 23 May, where it was not mentioned in the opening paragraph. I feel that more publicity would have made a difference. I am sadly familiar with some of the reasons why it didn’t happen that way this time.

It comes down to this though. Is it more legitimate for important decisions to be made by the couple of dozen people for whom it is convenient to meet in a room at a given time? Or by several hundred people in an online up or down vote? I am impressed by those who are very confident that they already know the answer. In my view, it’s still a work in progress.

Also: one more point.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-2025-wsfs-consultative-votes/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61835

Wednesday reading

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/wednesday-reading-103/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61830

Current
Ship of Fools, by Dave Stone
Not So Quiet…, by Helen Zenna Smith
Ireland in the Renaissance, 1540-1660, ed. Thomas Herron and Michael Potterton

Last books finished
The King in the North: The Pictish Realms of Fortriu and Ce, eds. Gordon Noble and Nicholas Evans
The Water Outlaws, by S.L. Huang
A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery, by Curtis Craddock
Irish Unity: Time to Prepare, by Ben Collins
Dislocation Space, by Garth Nix
Improbable History, ed. Michael Dobson (did not finish)
Terrorformer, by Robbie Morrison et al
A Restless Truth, by Freya Marske

Next books
Fear Death by Water, by Emily Cook
The Prince of Secrets, by A.J. Lancaster
The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire, by Bart van Loo

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/wednesday-reading-103/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61830

Amnesty, by Lara Elena Donnelly

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/amnesty-by-lara-elena-donnelly/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61528

Second paragraph of third chapter:

They stood in the courtyard of a family compound in the out-skirts of Dadang. A fat bottle palm squatted by a well, casting cross-hatched shade. Colorful tunics and shawls hung to dry on lines strung between semi separate houses. Aristide wondered who they belonged to. Surely no one lived here. Still, the illusion was admirable. And focusing on the tradecraft kept him from thinking about what he was about to do.

Third in a series (The Amberlough Dossier) of which I had not read the other two. I read the first hundred pages but couldn’t get into it on its own. Not anyone’s fault. You can get it here.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2020, in the Hugo Voter Packet as part of Diana Pho’s generous submission. Next on that pile is A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery, by Curtis Craddock, from the same folder.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/amnesty-by-lara-elena-donnelly/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61528

Hugo Short Stories 2025

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugo-short-stories-2025/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61526

6) “Three Faces of a Beheading” by Arkady Martine. Second paragraph of third section:

Okay okay okay, let me explain.

I just didn’t get this. I liked all the others.

5) “We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read” by Caroline M. Yoachim. Second paragraph(s) of third section:

You have a game with pictures, trying to spot
the differences, your eyes darting back and
forth between them. It is harder with text.
Don’t focus on individual words in each line,
but look at the space between them. Know
what both sides say. Hold it all in your head.
Perhaps don’t even quite focus your vision.

This is our story, simplified:
Life.
Loss.
Transformation.
Love.
Death.
Iteration.

I did understand this, but found it quite difficult to follow.

4) “Five Views of the Planet Tartarus” by Rachael K. Jones. Second (and final) paragraph of third section:

The last injection severs their voluntary motor pathways so nothing moves but their eyes. Before the final step, the prisoners feel young again, for a moment.

A very short, vicious, vivid portrayal of a prison planet.

3) “Stitched to Skin Like Family Is” by Nghi Vo. Second paragraph of third section:

“It was better before they put in the big road. The old road ran right by us, and we’d get people all the time. Now it’s just folks who already know we’re here. Or ones that get unlucky. It’s catch as catch can these days, I guess.”

Short story of a family quest and revenge.

2) “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim. Third paragraph (no internal sections):

So they (the first “they”) killed the kid again. They stormed the hole and broke the kid out and slit the kid’s throat on public television (as all television in Omelas was publicly funded), and they said, “Look at what sort of shit your beautiful city is built on!” and the kid bled out and it was extremely graphic to the point of being censored in later broadcasts. And one of the tracks of the free public transit system twisted loose, and a bunch of commuters were killed in a freak accident, and the stock market started shuddering downward, and a house collapsed on the south side of Omelas.

Update of the classic Ursula Le Guin story for today, including communications technology and general societal decay.

1) “Marginalia” by Mary Robinette Kowal. Second paragraph of third section:

Margery resettled the bag on her shoulder and the hammering of her heart got louder and harder against the walls of her ribs. Off to the side of the path, something gleamed in the sunlight. Too much sunlight, as if trees were missing.

Fairy tale involving giant homicidal snails. What’s not to love?

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugo-short-stories-2025/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61526

Coming of Age: The Sexual Awakening of Margaret Mead, by Deborah Beatriz Blum

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/coming-of-age-the-sexual-awakening-of-margaret-mead-by-deborah-beatriz-blum/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61522

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Straightening her eyeglasses, taking in the overall effect, she sighed.

I got this because I had been in contact with the author for a peculiar reason. Back in 2020, when The Canterville Ghost won the 1945 Retro Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, we had the usual difficulties in tracking down the heirs of the creators to send them the trophy. Eventually I found out that the writer of the script, Edwin Harvey Blum, had a living daughter, and duly got in touch with her and sent her the rocket. (In retrospect, we should have also considered the heirs of director Jules Dassin as potential recipients. I think we did contact MGM, and they were not interested.)

I also discovered that Deborah Blum had written this book, and given my vague general interest in anthropology, I bought it; but it then lingered on my unread shelf for five years, to the point that it was the non-fiction book that had been there longest. (Next on that pile is The Politics and Culture of Honour in Britain and Ireland, 1541-1641, by Brendan Kane.)

Anyway, I finally got to it. It’s a reconstruction of the love life of Margaret Mead, between her young marriage to schooldays crush Luther Cressman, her affairs with Andre Sapir and Ruth Benedict, and her meeting with eventual second husband Reo Fortune, basically the first third of her life (she lived from 1901 to 1978).

Other people’s sex lives are always interesting, of course, but I felt this missed several beats. Blum has chosen to write a novelistic reconstruction of conversations and other events, rather than a historical treatment of the surviving correspondence (of which apparently there is a heck of a lot), and I always wonder how much has been made up in cases like this. (See also Persia.)

More importantly, the most interesting thing about Margaret Mead is not who she did or didn’t sleep with in her early twenties, but her contribution to anthropology, and this is only briefly covered in the book, which ends with her return from Samoa in 1926 and lightly skips over her subsequent work and fame. It would be nice to be able to draw a line connecting her emotional and intellectual progress, but that isn’t really attempted here and may not in the end be possible.

Not Blum’s fault at all, but I’d also like to read more some time about Alfred Cort Haddon, one of the founders of anthropology, who popped up in my PhD research thirty years ago as a zoology professor at the Royal College of Science in Dublin, before he became famous as Haddon the Head-Hunter. He crossed paths with Margaret Mead a couple of times, but was forty-five years older and lived on a different continent, so it is entirely fair that Blum does not write much about him here.

Mead’s feminism is particularly interesting (and insufficiently explored in this book). I would like to know how many young women in early 1920s America, marrying at 21, refused to change their names to their husband’s. It would certainly never have occurred to my grandmother, born two years before Margaret Mead in the same city (Philadelphia). I got a much better sense of Mead’s personal mission from her first husband’s moving tribute to her.

All social science, but especially anthropology, owes Margaret Mead a tremendous debt. At twenty-three years of age she did what no woman in anthropology had done. She went on a poverty-level fellowship compared to the generous stipends now given. She violated the canons of the Establishment by writing a report that was interesting, readable, and relevant to the lives of people in our society. She popularized anthropology. The departments in which some of her critics, both friendly and hostile, now teach owe their existence to Margaret’s popularization of the subject matter. If what she wrote in Coming of Age in Samoa tended to produce an outburst of demand for greater sexual freedom among our young people, it did that because it was a lance puncturing the old pustule of hypocrisy. She became a celebrity, and having been made that by the media she cleverly turned it to her own use to support her programs.

Over a half-century ago, this twenty-three-year-old girl who had never before been out of the country, went to an isolated island under financial conditions a contemporary graduate student would probably reject as demeaning, and there made her first field study. She had the firm conviction that she could establish and hold her place in the profession with men. Her record proves she was right and in the doing she became a pioneer in the women’s movement. We all are indebted to her in some degree. Colleagues as scholars will correct her errors, the perspective of time will establish her scientific work, and we, her professional associates, will gain stature both personally and professionally, if we rightly honor the remarkable young girl and the woman Margaret became.

Anyway, you can get Coming of Age here.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/coming-of-age-the-sexual-awakening-of-margaret-mead-by-deborah-beatriz-blum/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61522

The best known books set in each country: Venezuela

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-best-known-books-set-in-each-country-venezuela/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61518

See here for methodology. Books are disqualified if less than 50% of them is set in Venezuela.

These numbers are crunched by hand, not by AI.

Title	Author	Goodreads raters	LibraryThing owners
Dragons in the Waters	Madeleine L’Engle	4,810	1,393
Green Mansions	William Henry Hudson	3,251	1,811
Doña Bárbara	Rómulo Gallegos	5,804	517
It Would Be Night in Caracas	Karina Sainz Borgo	7,368	241
The Sun and the Void	Gabriela Romero Lacruz	3,699	408
In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon	Redmond O’Hanlon	1,558	638
Ya̦nomamö: The Fierce People	Napoleon A. Chagnon	1,327	705
The Caiman	Maria Eugenia Manrique	2,393	120

This table sees one of the biggest variations between LibraryThing and Goodreads that I have yet seen. The top-ranked book on LibraryThing is fifth on Goodreads; the top-ranked book on Goodreads is seventh on LibraryThing; the winner on aggregate is second on one system and third on the other. Even bigger divergences would have appeared if I had gone further down the table.

And of all my childhood favourites, I did not expect to see Madeleine L’Engle, of A Wrinkle in Time fame, winning this week’s prize. But indeed, Dragons in the Waters is about a kid going to Venezuela to take over his inheritance, both natural and supernatural.

Venezuelan writers pick up half of the spots this week. Surprisingly, only It Would Be Night in Caracas is directly about the current political situation.

Of the others, The Sun and the Void is set in a fantasy country that as far as I can tell the author wants us to read as Venezuela. The Ya̦nomamö live in both Venezuela and Brazil, but Venezuela has adopted Chagnon’s book, so I’m happy to go along with that.

I disqualified seven books. A Long Petal of the Sea, by Isabel Allende, is mainly set in Spain and Chile, and only in Venezuela at the end. The General in His Labyrinth, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is about the end of the life of Simon Bolivar, in what is now Colombia. Open Veins of Latin America, by Eduardo Galeano, is about the entire continent. Bruchko, by Bruce Olson, unpleasantly straddles the border with Colombia but seems to be more on the other side. When Time Stopped, by Ariana Neumann, is about a Venezuelan discovering her family’s experiences during the Holocaust. Bolívar: American Liberator, by Marie Arana, covers Simon Bolivar’s life and career all over the region. And Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln, by Margarita Engle, sounds very sweet but is set mainly in the USA.

Coming next: Niger, Australia, North Korea and Syria.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-best-known-books-set-in-each-country-venezuela/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61518

Winning at webDiplomacy

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/winning-at-webdiplomacy/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61586

I’ve spent some time recently revisiting a teenage enthusiasm for the game of Diplomacy, in which (ideally) seven players with differently matched forces try to dominate the map of Europe circa the start of the twentieth century. The webDiplomacy site allows you to test your mettle not only against human players, but also against AIs. This can go quite fast, at a move every minute or so.

I am horrified and fascinated that the AIs continually defeat me, a mere human player. The couple of times I’ve tried “Gunboat Diplomacy” (where there is also no communication) with real humans, I found the going much easier, as opponents with brains made out of meat are more likely to make mistakes. Out of a couple of dozen battles with AIs, I have won only two; one where as Turkey I managed to break out of my corner before the rest of the countries had properly got started (which I think is the least difficult way to win against the software), and another as Italy where I combined good luck with a couple of good tactical shouts and a coherent overall strategy.

I realise that reading about other people’s solo games is about as interesting as hearing about other people’s dreams, but heck, this is my blog and so I’m going to tell you about how I beat the robots as Italy, which is normally seen as one of the weaker of the seven Great Powers – the others being Austria (sic), England (sic), France, Germany, Russia and Turkey. In summary, I did it by waging aggressive war successively on Austria and then Turkey, and benefited from a prolonged stalemate between England, France and Germany and a curiously passive Russia.

Taking it turn by turn::

1901

Three builds as Italy in 1901! That never happens. At this stage I seriously began to consider the possibility that I might be able to win the game. That French fleet in Marseille was a bit worrying, though with Brest blocked I guess there was no alternative.

1902

Autumn 1902 retreats: the Austrian army in Budapest was forced to disband. (I think the arrows in Brest are to show that you could not retreat there.)

Winter 1902 builds: Only me and Germany. And the northwestern half of the board all looked rather stuck.

1903

Autumn 1903 (retreats): I crushed the Austrian army in Serbia, while Germany also eliminated the English fleet in Belgium – the only supply centres to change hands this year.

Winter 1903: again, only Germany and I had builds. This is the point where, in a human game, Russia and Turkey would have agreed that I was the common threat and combined to resist me. But the AIs didn’t realise that I was now quite far ahead.

1904

Autumn 1904: A gamble that Russia would not try and retake Rumania or stab at Vienna paid off, allowing me to consolidate forces on their border; but my attacks on Bulgaria and Smyrna both failed. Even so, I think this was the point of no return, with my six units in the southern theatre facing four Turks and two Russians who were unable to coordinate.

Winter 1904 builds: With stalemate in the north and resistant crumbling in the south, I was the only country with new units – two of them, in return for Greece and Rumania. An army in Venice of course just to keep an eye on France; but rather than build a fleet in Naples, I opted for another army, with an eye on swiftly overrunning Turkey.

1905

Autumn 1905: Thanks to the capture of Constantinople, my attack on Turkey was running ahead of schedule. However, I felt that the best way to consolidate would be a tactical move from Constantinople to Smyrna, combined with the attack on Bulgaria which was now unstoppable – in fact the Turkish army in Bulgaria moved to Constantinople, with support from the Black Sea, when it saw me coming. Meanwhile France captured both London and Liverpool.

Autumn 1905 retreats: massive annihilations, with the German army in Edinburgh, displaced by England, and the English fleet in London, displaced by France, both attempting to retreat to Yorkshire and both therefore destroyed; meanwhile further south, Germany kicked France out of Burgundy. And my attack on Smyrna eliminated the Turkish fleet there.

Winter 1905 builds: I got another two, for Bulgaria and Smyrna! Germany got a build to replace the lost army which had briefly occupied Edinburgh, and France had space for only one of the two builds that London and Liverpool would have given it. England was now down to two fleets clinging to the Scottish coast, and an undefended Norway.

1906

Autumn 1906: the main action for me was to finish Turkey off by capturing Ankara while securing Constantinople, with support from Smyrna and Armenia; and I now had enough wiggle room to try opportunistic moves to Ukraine and to the Gulf of Lyons. But I misjudged the Constantinople attack, and should have done it the other way round, with Smyrna supporting a move from the Aegean rather than vice versa.

Autumn 1906 retreats: My misjudgement allowed the last Turkish army to escape from Ankara to Smyrna.

Winter 1906 builds: despite losing Smyrna, I had gained Constantinople and Ankara, so I was still up one, and could now start looking around for how I might get to 18 centres. A fleet in Naples seemed a better option than yet another army in Venice.

1907

Autumn 1907: With the imminent elimination of Turkey, my troops were now ready to break north to Russia and west to Spain. Again, if humans had been playing Russia, Germany and France, they could have co-ordinated against me. In fact I see that the German army in Silesia did support the Austrian army in Warsaw, which I could otherwise have captured.

Winter 1907 builds: I couldn’t quite believe it, but with my three spring gains of Marseille, Sevastopol and Smyrna, I got three builds and a total of 16 centres, only two short of victory; and Spain, Portugal and Moscow were all hanging open.

1908

At this stage there is no point in being nice to people (especially if they are robots). I made sure of Spain and tried for the Mid Atlantic Ocean; the AI playing France was still fighting with England over Edinburgh and with Germany over Burgundy, allowing me to slip in on its western flank. To the East, I had enough firepower to capture a vacant Moscow. Down along the bottom, I slipped an army into Tunis for later use.

This was the end. The army which had started the year in Smyrna finished it in Spain, though France could have prevented it; my fleet strolled along the coast into Portugal; I grabbed Warsaw off the disarrayed Russians; and what the heck, I had a couple of spare armies and had an unsuccessful go at Munich too. Up north, France recaptured Burgundy and finally took Edinburgh, for what that was worth.

Three retreating units, but it made no difference.

So I ended the game with a massive 20 centres, which I don’t think I have ever managed before. None of the others had had more than eight at any stage.

So, I beat the AIs at their own game, which was rather pleasing; though I was helped by the French robot’s determination to keep attacking England rather than defend against me, and by the curious inaction of the Russians. Let’s have a nice little gloat chart:

I’ll finish with one more thing that happened after I had first written this post: I learned from Ansible that John Boardman, who started the entire postal Diplomacy hobby in the early 1960s, died a few days ago at the age of 92. I never had any direct dealings with him, but he was the source of much enjoyment for a lot of people.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/winning-at-webdiplomacy/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61586

Doctor Who, Series 2 / 15 / 41

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/doctor-who-series-2-15-41/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61771

Well.

THIS POST HAS SPOILERS FOR TONIGHT’S EPISODE OF DOCTOR WHO

It took me a couple of episodes to warm to this series, not really helped by being away from home for four of the eight Saturdays – and eight really isn’t enough, is it? I quite liked Joy to the World, but was concerned that the peaks of Season 1 / 14 / 40 were rather close to the troughs. On form, RTD is great; but he sometimes lapses into spectacle rather than story and we saw this a couple of times this year.

Something didn’t quite gel for me with the first episode, The Robot Revolution. Partly that the plotline wasn’t all that original, but somehow it felt like actors on a set in a way that even early 60s Who didn’t. I was watching it on a cramped screen in a B&B with ants in the floorcracks, so it may not have been the best circumstances, but it really felt like spectacle was being prioritised, and it was one of the weirder introductions for a new companion even by New Who standards.

Lux was the episode shown at Easter and I watched it with other fans in Belfast. The basic concept of yet another ancient deity emerging – which turns out to be rather easily defeated – didn’t appeal to me, and the acknowledgement of segregation felt a bit by-the-numbers, but I loved the episode’s fanservice, reminiscent of The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who. Everyone’s favourite episode is Blink, right?

I had been warned in advance that The Well would be a good episode, and indeed it was a good birthday present.

Midnight is (still) my favourite Russell T. Davis episode, and I must admit I was delighted when The Well turned out to be a sequel, with a real base-under-siege plot and a really scary monster. We had more mind-blowing stuff to come this season, but this was the scariest episode by far.

And then we had a couple of really unexpected steps. Lucky Day was more Doctor-lite than I think any other episode in New Who. But it gave Ruby a lot of character development, and also made some pungent points about social media and extremism, at a moment when this is all too real. It left a lot of us hoping for more Ruby / Doctor closure.

The Story & the Engine is the second episode of Doctor Who to be almost entirely set in Africa, after “Escape Switch” in 1965.

And OK, Rwanda is not Nigeria, but as I always say, one in six Africans in Nigerian, and we collectively need to be paying more attention to Nigeria. (OK, not you, I know you have been.) The plot is fairly straightforward, with the traditional spider / trickster figure, but I loved what was done with it. We went to a nearby friend’s apartment to watch this one.

The Interstellar Song Contest was shown the same evening as the real Eurovision Song Contest, which was somewhat fraught. An Asian friend thought it was actually a metaphor for Afghanistan (because of the poppies). Some of us thought it was a bit nearer to home, and that the metaphors were a bit mixed, and that racism and prejudice cannot be cured just by singing a sad song in your own language. I didn’t like the Doctor being cruel, though I could see where it came from. But at the same time, I’d prefer that Who address these issues than not. And I was delighted with Carole Ann Ford’s cameo, and the reveal of the Rani at the end. Not to mention…

Watch on YouTube

Last week’s Wish World was a whole load of bonkers exposition, which I generally loved. (Apart from the bloody Bone Beasts, which are testament to RTD’s love of spectacle above substance.) The whole Wandavision vibe of the John Smith / Belinda relationship was beautifully done, as was the sinister control by Conrad of not just his girlfriend but an entire society. (Though one wonders what is happening in countries other than England.) I was left knowing that RTD screws up the season finales more often than not, but hoping against hope that this would not be one of those times.

And, well. The Reality War is the best RTD season finale since The Parting of the Ways. It’s actually two stories. The return of Anita (hooray!) and the defeat of Omega takes up the first 40 minutes, which would be enough for a normal story – we had to explain to F why “It’s good night from me” was such a funny line – and then poor Ruby gets gaslit and minimised by the Doctor…

Until he realises that she is right. And at that point those of us who were unspoilered also realised that this was going to be a very significant episode indeed.

spolier warning

you have been warned

But it was a fantastic decision to soften the impact of Ncuti Gatwa’s impending departure by bringing back Jodie Whittaker, even if only for a couple of minutes, and for us to realise that the Doctor will sacrifice his life to save a child. The final scenes with Belinda were beautifully done. And as for the reveal of the Sixteenth Doctor – I had seen a couple of rumours, but thought it was such a ridiculous idea that I wouldn’t pay any attention. But I’m very glad that I was wrong.

Ranking the stories:

The Well
The Story & the Engine
Wish World / The Reality War
Lucky Day
Lux
The Interstellar Song Contest
The Robot Revolution

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/doctor-who-series-2-15-41/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61771

May 2025 books

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/may-2025-books/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61691

Non-fiction 9 (YTD 31)
Jean Dubuffet: Jardin d’Email, by Roos van der Lint
Silver Nemesis, by James Cooray Smith
Coming of Age: The Sexual Awakening of Margaret Mead, by Deborah Blum
Logopolis, by Jonathan Hay
The Politics and Culture of Honour in Britain and Ireland, 1541-1641, by Brendan Kane
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History, by Lea Ypi
The King in the North: The Pictish Realms of Fortriu and Ce, eds. Gordon Noble and Nicholas Evans
Irish Unity: Time to Prepare, by Ben Collins
Improbable History, ed. Michael Dobson (did not finish)

Non-genre 2 (YTD 19)
thirteen fourteen fifteen o’clock, by David Gerrold
The Return of the Soldier, by Rebecca West

SF 13 (YTD 57)
The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley
So Let Them Burn, by Kamilah Cole
City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Amnesty, by Lara Elena Donnelly (did not finish)
These Burning Stars, by Bethany Jacobs (excerpt only)
Knowledgeable Creatures, by Christopher Rowe
On Vicious Worlds, by Bethany Jacobs (excerpt only)
The West Passage, by Jared Pechaček
Sunbringer, by Hannah Kaner (did not finish)
Countdown for Cindy, by Eloise Engle
The Water Outlaws, by S.L. Huang
A Labyrinth of Scions and Sorcery, by Curtis Craddock
Dislocation Space, by Garth Nix

Doctor Who 3 (YTD 13)
Beyond the Sun, by Matthew Jones
Doctor Who: Warrior’s Gate and beyond, by Stephen Gallagher
Doctor Who: Logopolis, by Christopher H. Bidmead

Comics 4 (YTD 16)
My Favorite Thing is Monsters, by Emil Ferris
The Eleventh Doctor Archives vol 3, ed. Andrew James
Footnotes in Gaza, by Joe Sacco
Terrorformer, by Robbie Morrison et al

7,200 pages (YTD 35,300)
13/31 (YTD 52/138) by non-male writers (van der Lint, Blum, Ypi, West, Bradley, Cole, Donnelly, Jacobs x2, Kaner, Engle, Huang, Ferris)
3/31 (YTD 21/138) by non-white writers (Bradley, Cole, Huang)
2/31 rereads (Beyond the Sun, Doctor Who: Logopolis)

231 books currently tagged unread, down 20 from last month, down 78 from May 2024.

Reading now
A Restless Truth, by Freya Marske

Coming soon (perhaps)
Ship of Fools, by Dave Stone
Fear Death by Water, by Emily Cook
Doctor Who: Castrovalva, by Christopher H. Bidmead
Castrovalva, by Andrew Orton

Ireland in the Renaissance, 1540-1660, ed. Thomas Herron and Michael Potterton
The Prince of Secrets, by A.J. Lancaster
Would She Be Gone, by Melanie Harding-Shaw
The Impossible Contract, by K. A. Doore

The Burgundians: A Vanished Empire, by Bart van Loo
Ancient Paths, by Graham Robb
“The Faery Handbag”, by Kelly Link
The Green Man’s Quarry, by Juliet E. McKenna
Métal Hurlant Vol. 1: Le Futur c’est déjà demain, by Mathieu Bablet et al
The Wren, The Wren, by Anne Enright
The Coming Wave, by Mustafa Suleyman
Voyage to Venus, by C.S. Lewis
Feet of Clay, by Terry Pratchett
False Value, by Ben Aaronovitch
Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch
‘Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King
Final Cut, by Charles Burns
The Iliad, by Homer, tr. Emily Wilson

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/may-2025-books/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61691

Hugo Best Novelette

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugo-best-novelette/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61511

I felt that two of these were less good than the other four, but otherwise I found it difficult to rank them. However, you gotta start somewhere.

(Titles link to original publications where available.)

6) “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” by Thomas Ha. Second paragraph of third section:

We sat on a bench and watched the East River behind the slow-moving bodies on the walkway. I tried to show her the dead book, and she thumbed the margins before giving up when it wouldn’t brighten. It was clear she had no interest in the thing.

Books and technology and perceptions and truth. Didn’t quite have the emotional punch that I wanted.

5) “By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars” by Premee Mohamed. Second paragraph of third section:

There was plenty of night left; she knew she too could go back to bed. Instead, she wrapped up in her biggest cloak and stomped outside to empty her mailbox. It was almost—almost funny the way it kept coming, like a magic cauldron in a fairytale following a poorly worded command to make porridge, swamping the town. Finally she hauled the bag back inside and spread it out in front of the fire. Outside, the storm grumbled, receded, returned, filled the entire cottage inside the cave with the echoing sound of rain.

Quite short; wizard and her apprentice awkwardly build a relationship and fight evil.

4) “Loneliness Universe” by Eugenia Triantafyllou. Second paragraph of third section:

Antonis could not believe it. In fact, he had probably stopped listening to her rant right about when his werewolf neighbor had sent him a new wallpaper pattern. A thank you gift for watering the roses outside the werewolf’s castle. Antonis said that he’d prefer to be paid in teeth, the currency of TinyCastle, but as he had explained to Nefeli, you have to roll with the game, that’s half the fun.

Splendidly creepy story of the protagonist (and eventually others) becoming gradually cut off from the rest of humanity, in parallel timetracks, with good sense of place.

3) “Lake of Souls” by Ann Leckie. (Title story of a collection which you can get here.) Second paragraph of third section:

“A dangerous time,” whispered one mother to the next. “Especially
for the old.” And the whisper scurried through the village.
And close behind it, a day or so later, another whisper, that Darter
Spine’s molt was not going well, and that many had over the years
wondered about Darter Spine’s soul, soul mark or no soul mark.
That elder had always been peculiar, so the mothers and mothers’
mothers had said. “What if ?” the mothers whispered. A good person,
who made beautiful gardens and was kind to all in the village,
but peculiar. “What if ? What if Darter Spine’s soul has died. What
if this elder dies and a soul does not emerge? This elder will be lost!”

This was the first of the novelettes that I read, and I was sure I was going to vote for it, so am slightly surprised to find myself putting it only third. Very well drawn story of a rather merciless alien society, whose first contact with humans brings change, but perhaps not enough.

2) “Signs of Life” by Sarah Pinsker. Second paragraph of third section:

“Hot stuff!” Her truck drifted in my car’s direction as she eyeballed it, then overcorrected. “No wonder you had trouble.”

Tremendous tale which starts off looking like it’s just a matter of a dysfunctional relationship between two sisters finding some common landing point after decades of estrangement, and then turns into something completely different. Loses a quarter of a point for last four paras, which are an unnecessary epilogue.

1) “The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea” by Naomi Kritzer. Second paragraph of third section:

I looked at the lease again and noticed something else: it was the simplest lease I’d signed since that sublet agreement in college that we’d made because everyone’s parents said we needed to “get things in writing.” Leases are usually full of rules and caveats—how to give notice at the end of term, how much you’ll owe if you damage something, whether you’re allowed to have a pet. This lease just said it ran from September through June, how much we were paying per month, and that we’d be paying utilities. The lead-based paint disclosure and the move-in checklist were paperclipped to the back.

Tremendous story of selkies, feminism, toxic relationships and the academic research treadmill. Charming and righteously enraging, with strong sense of the Massachusetts coast. Gets my vote.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugo-best-novelette/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61511

Beyond The Sun, by Matthew Jones

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/beyond-the-sun-by-matthew-jones/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61507

Second paragraph of third chapter:

I ran a finger down the side of his face and he shuddered and wrinkled his nose as if trying to discourage an insect. And then he turned on to his back and began to snore loudly.

When I first read this in 2009, I wrote:

I only realised after reading this that I had already heard the excellent audio adaptation which includes Sophie Aldred and Anneke Wills. The original book is very good too, and I think would be reasonably penetrable for someone who hadn’t previously followed the Bernice Summerfield stories. Nicely observed emotional politics between and among Benny and her students, and the various aliens with whom Benny’s ex gets them involved. To a certain extent I felt it was the story that Colony In Space should have been. A good one (only the second Benny novel I have read, the first being the equally enjoyable Walking to Babylon).

I reread it in 2015, but in the midst of Clarke and other obligations didn’t write it up that time. My original plan was only to revisit the Bernice Summerfield novels that I have never written up at all, but then I thought, I actually enjoyed this and I wonder if a return visit will work? And it did; as well as the nicely judged emotional and physical perils of Benny and her students, there’s a particularly wacky alien reproduction process which often results in hot-looking humanoids, and a deceptive Ancient Weapon. One of the good ones. You can (probably) get it here.

I had written of the audio in 2007:

Beyond the Sun is another archaeological dig-goes-wrong story but introduces the character of Jason, Benny’s ex-husband, and lots of emotional angst as well as the actual plot. I was completely absorbed in it, and yet failed to spot the voices of Sophie Aldred and Anneke Wills until I read the sleeve notes afterwards.

I spotted Anneke Wills this time, but failed to spot Sophie Aldred, who is actually a very versatile actor. But the star is Lisa Bowerman, really getting into her stride here as Bernice, with sarcasm and emotion, helping us through what’s actually a rather convoluted plot. The only one of the first season audios not adapted by Jac Rayner but by Matt Jones, the original author. You can get it here.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/beyond-the-sun-by-matthew-jones/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61507

Hugo Best Related Work 2025

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugo-best-related-work-2025/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61307

6) The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion, by Chris Barkley and Jason Sandford

What? I hear you exclaim. Given my own record on speaking out against the abuses of the Hugo process carried out by the organisers of Chengdu Worldcon, how can I possibly be ranking the Barkley and Sandford Report, which blew the bloody doors off the whole affair in February 2024, last on my Hugo ballot this year?

There are several reasons, which I will go into at greater length in due course. Most important, I don’t think one year’s awards should commemorate the previous year’s failures. But also, this Report misses a couple of vitally important issues revealed in its own detail and compensates with rhetoric. So I’m not voting for it, but it may well win the award anyway.

5) The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel, by Jenny Nicholson.

This is a four hour long video report on a bad investment decision by Disney, to create a Star Wars hotel in Walt Disney World in Florida. It looks nice, but I honestly think that the story is not worth four hours of vidding, let alone watching.

4) r/Fantasy’s 2024 Bingo Reading Challenge

I think it’s brilliant that Reddit users got together to challenge each other to read more broadly, and the enthusiasm for this project is great. I just prefer my Best Related Works to be written commentary.

3) Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics, by Camestros Felapton and Heather Rose Jones

Now this is more like it, cold hard numbers demonstrating why the published statistics from the 2023 Hugos simply cannot be trusted. I was relieved but not surprised to see that the statistics from the years that I myself was involved generally do pass the mathematical smell test. Lots of beautiful numerical details here, which I’ve been chewing on occasionally ever since it was published.

As noted above, though, I don’t think one year’s awards should commemorate the previous year’s failures, so it’s not in my top two in this category.

2) Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan S. Carroll

Second paragraph of third chapter (actually Chapter 2, “Whitey on the Moon”, counting the introduction as the first chapter):

[Richard B.] Spencer expounded upon this idea at length in an early podcast that explicated Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014) with alt-right essayist Roman Bernard. Interstellar caused a big stir among alt-right intellectuals because it expressed the widespread reactionary sentiment that the United States had undergone a serious social and technological decline. The country’s malaise, they suggested, could only be reversed by intrepid white explorers taking up where the Apollo missions left off. In the film, the United States has shifted all resources away from technological innovation and into food production after an environmental catastrophe reduces the planet to a dustbowl. Even as the government denies the possibility of spaceflight—they claim the moon landing was an expensive hoax—a secret NASA program strives to save humanity by sending settlers to colonize another planet.

A short, fascinating analysis of the extent to which the alt-right has drawn inspiration from science fiction, often from authors and works who would have been horrified that they were being used for these purposes. Alas, a very timely book given what has been happening in the USA of late. You can get it here.

1) Track Changes, by Abigail Nussbaum.

As its title suggests, 2312 is a novel driven less by story or characters, and more by the desire to capture a certain (fictional, futuristic) moment of human history. Robinson accomplishes this by trotting out all the best-known (and often-derided) tools of science-fictional worldbuilding, but also by referencing much of the work that has come before him. So 2312 often seems as much a commentary on visions of the future as one of its own.

Tremendous assembly of a body of work by the excellent Abigail Nussbaum, whose thoughtful dissection of form and substance is always a delight, and she is usually right about the books as well (ie often agrees with me). Gets my vote with enthusiasm. You can get it here.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/hugo-best-related-work-2025/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=61307