Hugo Related Works

[cahn]

I gave it a good try, anyway!

Becoming Superman: My Journey from Poverty to Hollywood, by J. Michael Straczynski (Harper Voyager US) - 4/5. This was very very good. This guy can WRITE and I was riveted the entire time despite not being entirely sure who he was when I started and never having watched B5 or anything else the guy has done. Content note for extremely severe spousal and child abuse. Like, it was so bad that in self-defense my brain was hoping that he'd made some of it up. (I don't think he made any of it up.) Voting this to win. and now I have even more reason to watch B5 (one day!)

I should also maybe mention that Harlan Ellison is one of his heroes and shows up several times in the book, and he doesn't treat Ellison being, er, problematic, really at all. This didn't blunt my enjoyment of the book, but if it would bother you just be aware that it's there.

Joanna Russ, by Gwyneth Jones (University of Illinois Press (Modern Masters of Science Fiction)) - excerpt in packet. I don't think I finished the excerpt. This was very dry, and I haven't read much Russ.

The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick, by Mallory O’Meara (Hanover Square) - Introduction in packet. I would have tried to read this if the book had been in the packet, but although the introduction was intriguing it didn't wholly convince me I was interested in it (not being really into monsters or movies).

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein, by Farah Mendlesohn (Unbound) - 3+/5. I enjoyed this a lot and it succeeded in what it set out to do, which was remind me how much fun Heinlein's SF can be, and inspired me to reread a bunch of it. I thought Mendlesohn did a great job of being balanced about Heinlein, never casting him as either perfect or perfidious, but a guy who had some interestingly progressive ideas and also had some hidebound ideas of his time, and could often not disconnect the two. And also who wrote some extremely readable stories :)

“2019 John W. Campbell Award Acceptance Speech”, by Jeannette Ng - I'm not totally sure how I feel about this. I think on the whole I would rather award actual books.

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, produced and directed by Arwen Curry - did not watch because for whatever reason it's hard for me to watch video on a screen right now. But if someone's watched it and it's good I might try it?

Rating:
1. Becoming Superman
2. Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein
...ugh, I don't think I can really rank anything else.

Comments

[kerithwyn]

Oh, yeah, JMS can write. B5 is one of my go-tos for "here's how to plan out a series, start to end, with set beats AND room for improvisation"--like actors leaving and serious network interference. It's a masterclass in script writing. (If you watch, the Lurker's Guide http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html is a spectacular reference to keep on hand.)

His comics are really good, too. ^_^

[cahn]

Ooh thank you for this!! I am definitely planning on watching, it's just that with TV that could mean anywhere from this year to... uh, years from now. But I am definitely going to keep this reference in mind for that day!

[selenak]

Yes, JMS' childhood downight makes the Hohenzollern version look better by comparison. I didn't have any idea before reading his memoirs,despite being a B5 fan. My take on the memoirs is here.

[cahn]

Yeah, I was definitely thinking of the Hohenzollerns!

Ooh, I missed that post, thank you! Probably skipped over it as not having watched B5 I figured the memoir wouldn't be interesting to me -- shows you how much I know :P

[sophia_sol]

I did watch the Le Guin movie back when the voters packet first came out and thought it was really good! It did a little too much plot recap of some of her books but overall I thought it was very strong and enjoyed watching it.

[cahn]

Ah, OK great! I may try to get over my TV block and watch at least a bit before voting ends.

[forestofglory]

You should read some Russ! I really enjoy her critical essays, and How to Suppress Women's Writing is classic, and sadly still very relevant. Her fiction is maybe a bit too post-modern and bit too angry for me to really love it, but it has lot themes about gender that I think you'd really enjoy.

[cahn]

I do want to read How to Suppress Women's Writing! I have read a couple of her short stories, like "When It Changed," but not any of her books, so far.

[brainwane]

I recommend How to Suppress too.

And I recommend her 1985 "Magic Mommas & Trembling Sisters" essay, "Power and Helplessness in the Women’s Movement". It assesses a dysfunction in the US feminist movement: "Magic Mommas" are allowed to be powerful, but only in the service of others, and "Trembling Sisters" are allowed to ask for and get help, but can never feel powerful. If "Magic Mommas" break from their assigned role then the "Trembling Sisters" trash them. "I believe that trashing, far from being the result of simple envy, arises from a profound ambivalence towards power."

[cahn]

Oh wow. I read this today and that's... I mean, maybe it's not quite as relevant as when she wrote it, but the degree to which it is still extremely relevant is a bit disheartening.

[brainwane]

It is. I'm reading Sarah Schulman's Conflict is Not Abuse right now which also puts an interesting related spin on how people can construct our conceptions of power, the right to be believed and to deserve compassion, etc. The interest greeting Schulman's work gives me some hope.

[mildred_of_midgard]

Loved Straczynski's memoir, thanks for the rec! I also had no idea who he was, but that's true of most memoirs I read. I agree it was much worse than a Hohenzollern childhood! (Except maybe the brothers who possibly got poisoned by Evil Stepmom? I'm not sure whether we have a sense of whether scholars think the accusations are warranted, but that's a question for another post. ;) ) Marion Zimmer Bradley's kids come to mind as also having had a much worse childhood than even Fritz.

Anyway, aside from the Nazism, alcoholism, and physical violence* (admittedly all big deals!), Charles' personality profile reminded me very much of stories of my mother's mother's father. The frequent moves and job quitting/losing, the pleadings for how he was a victim of his childhood, the need to take credit for other people's success to compensate for his own failures, the need to control his family, the cheating on his wife, the illegitimate half-siblings his kids found out about later...The major difference is that my great-grandfather abandoned his wife and went total radio silence for twenty years in order to commit bigamy with another woman, whereas this guy would not let go. Also, I suppose, that one married a 14-yo from a brothel he could fully control, and the other married a confident 35-yo career woman who kept sneaking out of the house to go back to her job until he gave in.

Speaking of the wife, I've rarely felt so sympathetic to a woman killing/trying to kill her children! Especially when they were infants. If I had a baby in that situation, I might want to get them out the only way I could, too. Also, the repeated foiled suicide attempts...obviously I want her and the kids to be rescued, not die, but she wanted to escape one way or another, and they wouldn't even let her do that! It was frustrating to read. There really are fates worse than death.

Ugh. Anyway, good for the author for cutting the whole family off and practicing self-care. The most frustrating part of Tara Westover's memoir was how she kept getting sucked back in. Possibly the fact that her father was well-respected in the community where they'd always lived, and her family was very close-knit (dysfunctionally) contributed, whereas Straczynski was just totally isolated and didn't have either the same family and community ties, or the same problem with lots of people reinforcing his father's perspective and making him question his own judgment.

One of my favorite parts: he's having the involuntary acid trip from the spiked drink, his girlfriend suggests reading from the Bible to calm himself, he finds a torture and mass murder scene from Joshua and freaks himself out as he reads it, and she starts yelling, "NEW TESTAMENT! NEW TESTAMENT! Not the Old Testament!" over the phone.

He can write, that's for sure.

* I'm not sure about our source on this, but family history has it that the marriage to his final wife involved a lot of police getting called for "domestic disputes," so he may have ended up committing physical spousal abuse. Not on Great-grandma to my knowledge, though. The only story I know there is that the Other Woman tried raising her fist on her lover's wife, and Great-grandma Mildred, as the story goes, gave her husband's girlfriend a Dignified Victorian Lady (TM) "You have got to be kidding me" look, and the young lady half her age backed down, and nothing came of it.

Also, it may be relevant that his marriage that lasted until his death (even if not recognized by the law) was with a woman half his age who was fully dependent on him. Mildred brought him more prestige ("Look who I caught!") but couldn't be controlled nearly as easily.

[cahn]

I'm so glad you read this and liked it! I always get a kick out of people taking my recs :D He really can write. That childhood though *shiver* We were talking on selenak's review about how it was amazing he made it through sane, much less being able to accomplish anything.

Speaking of the wife, I've rarely felt so sympathetic to a woman killing/trying to kill her children!

Yes, I know what you mean!

Ugh. Anyway, good for the author for cutting the whole family off and practicing self-care.

YEP. I was cheering rather a lot for him there.

One of my favorite parts: he's having the involuntary acid trip from the spiked drink, his girlfriend suggests reading from the Bible to calm himself, he finds a torture and mass murder scene from Joshua and freaks himself out as he reads it, and she starts yelling, "NEW TESTAMENT! NEW TESTAMENT! Not the Old Testament!" over the phone.

I LOVED that :D