2018 Hugo Award dominated by women

2018 Hugo Award Winners: A great year for women in science fiction and fantasy

by Markbccl August 21, 2018

The World Science Fiction Convention* that was hosting the Hugo Award ceremony has finished, the results are in and this year’s Hugo Award winners have been announced.

Women dominated this year’s Hugo Awards in what has turned out to be a great year for women in science fiction and fantasy; a genre, that it is fair to say, has been dominated historically by men.

So without further ado, here are the winners of this year’s Hugo Awards.

Best Novel: The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin

This year’s Hugo Award for best novel goes to Book three of The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin. Books one and two, The Fifth Season and The Obelisk Gaterespectively, are both previous winners of the award. This also makes N.K. Jemisin the first author to win three Hugo Awards for best novel in a row as well as making The Broken Earth the only trilogy in which all three novels are best novel winners (the closest to doing so previously was Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy with two wins and a finalist position).

The Stone Sky

Best Related Work: No Time to Spare, By Ursula Le Guin.

Essentially, this is the award for best piece of non-fiction related to the world of science fiction and fantasy and understandably, recently deceased Ursula Le Guin, now six time winner of the Hugo Award and Science Fiction royalty, is the winner of this category. 'No Time to Spare' is a collection of Le Guin’s musings on various subjects from the mundane to the philosophical.

No Time to Spare

Best Graphic Story: Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

The best graphic novel of the year is the sequel to 2017’s winner: 'Monstress Vol. 2'. Monstress is an apocalyptic steampunk fable notable for its exceptional artwork (with artist Sana Takeda also winning this year's award for Best Professional Artist) and interesting world building.

Monstress

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Wonder Woman, screenplay by Allan Heinberg, story by Zack Snyder & Allan Heinberg and Jason Fuchs, directed by Patty Jenkins (DC Films / Warner Brothers).

What essentially amounts to the award for best film, Wonder Woman takes the cake for its adaptation of the DC Comic hero in a film that captures the essence of this year’s Hugo Awards winners.

Wonder Woman

Winners of all categories are as follows:

Best Novella: All Systems Red, by Martha Wells

Best Novelette: The Secret Life of Bots, by Suzanne Palmer

Best Short Story: Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™, by Rebecca Roanhorse

Best Series: World of the Five Gods, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: The Good Place: "The Trolley Problem,” written by Josh Siegal and Dylan Morgan, directed by Dean Holland

Best Editor, Short Form: Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas

Best Editor, Long Form: Sheila E. Gilbert

Best Professional Artist: Sana Takeda

Best Semiprozine: Uncanny Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, and Julia Rios; podcast produced by Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky

Best Fanzine: File 770, edited by Mike Glyer

Best Fancast: Ditch Diggers, presented by Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace

Best Fan Writer: Sarah Gailey

Best Fan Artist: Geneva Benton

Wellington to host SCFI/Fantasy conference

And that comes with the Hugo Awards.

From NZ Tourism

Thousands of science fiction fans will descend on Wellington in 2020 after the region won the rights to host the 78th World Science Fiction Convention.

CoNZealand co-hosts Kelly Buehler and Norman Cates

Among them will be the legendary Game of Thrones author George RR Martin who has been confirmed as the Toastmaster for the event.

Wellington Mayor Justin Lester says, “It’s great the city can attract such a high-profile convention and I’m sure it will be a roaring success that local businesses will benefit from.

“Wellington is home to some of New Zealand’s best creative talent and we will do our best to ensure the delegates find the city a home away from home.”

Tourism New Zealand’s Chief Executive Stephen England-Hall says, “The high profile event will showcase New Zealand as a fantastic host destination and a place where creative thinking is embraced. It is an excellent opportunity for Wellington and New Zealand to show how well we host large-scale global events.”

Co-chairs Norman Cates and Kelly Buehler put their hearts and souls into securing hosting rights for the convention over the past eight years. The pair enlisted the support of Tourism New Zealand and the Wellington Regional Economic Development Agency (WREDA) to help throughout the bidding process.

"We are utterly thrilled to bring some of the great names in science fiction to New Zealand to meet their Kiwi fans and to give our amazing creators here at home their time to shine on an international stage,” says Kelly.

WREDA Chief Executive Lance Walker says this is a huge feat for Wellington and the agency enjoyed working alongside Tourism New Zealand to make it happen.

“Not only will the convention bring 2000 visitors to the region and significantly contribute to the local economy, it also gives our local creative sector the opportunity to connect and collaborate with the international science fiction community.

“It’s no secret that our local screen industry and filmmakers love science fiction. Who knows what will happen when you bring them together with the world’s greatest science fiction storytellers.”

The event is expected to deliver $4 million to the economy. Named CoNZealand, it will be held at multiple venues across the city, including TSB Arena, Shed 6, the Michael Fowler Centre, and Intercontinental Wellington from 29 July to 2 August 2020.

The secret mission of Lieutenant James Cook

From the Smithsonian

Portable astronomical observatory of Cook's time

It was 1768, and the European battle for dominance of the oceans was on. Britain, France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands had already spent several centuries traversing the globe in search of new land to conquer and resources to exploit, but the Pacific—and specifically, the South Seas—remained largely unknown. In their race to be the first to lay claim to new territory, the British government and the Royal Navy came up with a secret plan: Send a naval officer on a supposedly scientific voyage, then direct him to undertake a voyage of conquest for the fabled Southern Continent. The man chosen for the job was one James Cook, a Navy captain who also had training in cartography and other sciences.

Europeans already knew the Pacific had its share of islands, and some of them held the potential for enormous wealth. After all, Ferdinand Magellan became the first European to cross the Pacific Ocean way back in 1519, and by then it was already known that the “Spice Islands,” (in modern-day Indonesia) were located in the Pacific. Magellan was followed by a dozen other Europeans—especially Dutch and Spanish captains—over the next two centuries, some of them sighting the western shores of Australia, others identifying New Zealand. But the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, combined with the unreliability of maps, meant no one was sure whether the Southern Continent existed or had been discovered.

Even among the British, Cook wasn’t the first to set his sights on the South Pacific. Just a year earlier, Captain Samuel Wallis piloted the ship Dolphin to make first landing on Tahiti, which he christened George III Island. As for the British government, they had publicized their interest in the region since 1745, when Parliament passed an act offering any British subject a reward of £20,000 if they found the fabled northwest passage from Hudson Bay in North America to the Pacific. The British government wasn’t alone in its imperialist interests; the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman had already sighted an island off the south coast of Australia that would later be named after Tasmania him, and the Spanish had built fortifications on the Juan Fernández Islands off the west coast of Chile.

“For the Spaniards to fortify and garrison Juan Fernández meant that they intended to try to keep the Pacific closed,” writes historian J. Holland Rose. “The British Admiralty was resolved to break down the Spanish claim.”

But to do so without drawing undue attention to their goals, the Admiralty needed another reason to send ships to the Pacific. The Royal Society presented the perfect opportunity for just such a ruse. Founded in 1660, the scientific group was at first little more than a collection of gentlemen with the inclination and resources to undertake scientific projects. As historian Andrew S. Cook (no apparent relation) writes, “The Society was in essence a useful vehicle for government to utilize the scientific interests of individual fellows, and for fellows to turn their scientific interests into formal applications for government assistance.” When the Royal Society approached the Navy, requesting they send a ship to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus that would occur in 1769, it probably seemed like the perfect cover, Cook the scholar says.

The 1769 transit of Venus was the mid-18th-century version of the mania surrounding last year’s solar eclipse. It was one of the most massive international undertakings to date. Captain Cook’s crew, complete with astronomers, illustrators and botanists, was one of 76 European expeditions sent to different points around the globe to observe Venus crossing the sun. Scientists hoped that these measurements would help them quantify Earth’s distance from the sun and extrapolate the size of the solar system. The rare event was deemed so important that the French government, fresh off fighting the Seven Years’ War (French and Indian War) with England, issued an instruction to its war ships not to harass Cook. It wasn’t an undue precaution; French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil traveled to India to observe the 1761 transit of Venus but ultimately missed the event because his ship had to outrun English men-of-wars, according to historian Charles Herdendorf.

Captaining the Endeavour, Cook departed from Plymouth 250 years ago on August 26, 1768, in order to arrive in Tahiti on time for the transit, which would happen on June 3, 1769. His path carried him across the Atlantic and around the difficult-to-traverse Cape Horn in South America toward the south Pacific. He carried with him sealed secret instructions from the Admiralty, which he’d been ordered not to open until after completing the astronomical work. Unfortunately for the scientists, the actual observations of the transit at points around the world were mostly useless. Telescopes of the period caused blurring around the planet that skewed the recorded timing of Venus passing across the sun.

But for Cook, the adventure was just beginning. “Cook left no record of when he opened the sealed packet of secret orders he’d been given by the Admiralty,” writes Tony Horwitz in Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before. “But on August 9, 1769, as he left Bora-Bora and the other Society Isles behind, Cook put his instructions into action. ‘Made sail to the southward,’ he wrote, with customary brevity.”

The gist of those instructions was for Cook to travel south and west in search of new land—especially the legendary “Terra Australis,” an unknown continent first proposed by Greek philosophers like Aristotle, who believed a large southern continent was needed to balance out the weight of northern continents. In their instructions, the Royal Navy told Cook not only to map the coastline of any new land, but also “to observe the genius, temper, disposition and number of the natives, if there be any, and endeavor by all proper means to cultivate a friendship and alliance with them… You are also with the consent of the natives to take possession of convenient situations in the country, in the name of the King of Great Britain.”

Cook went on to follow those instructions over the next year, spending a total of 1,052 days at sea on this mission. He became the first European to circumnavigate and meticulously chart the coastline of New Zealand’s two islands, and repeatedly made contact with the indigenous Maori living there. He also traveled along the east coast of Australia, again becoming the first European to do so. By the time he and his crew (those who survived, anyway) returned to England in 1771, they had expanded the British Empire’s reach to an almost incomprehensible degree. But he hadn’t always followed his secret instructions exactly as they were written—he took possession of those new territories without the consent of its inhabitants, and continued to do so on his next two expeditions.

Even as he took control of their land, Cook seemed to recognize the indigenous groups as actual humans. On his first trip to New Zealand, he wrote, “The Natives … are a strong, well made, active people as any we have seen yet, and all of them paint their bod[ie]s with red oker and oil from head to foot, a thing we have not seen before. Their canoes are large, well built and ornamented with carved work.”

“It would be as wrong to regard Cook as an unwitting agent of British imperialism as [it would be] to fall into the trap of ‘judging him according to how we judge what happened afterwards,’” writes Glyndwr Williams. “His command of successive voyages indicated both his professional commitment, and his patriotic belief that if a European nation should dominate the waters and lands of the Pacific, then it must be Britain.”

But the toll of that decision would be heavy. Cook estimated the native population on Tahiti to be 204,000 in 1774. By the time the French took control of the territory and held a census in 1865, they found only 7,169 people of native descent. And as for the British Empire, the 1871 census found 234 million people lived in it—but only 13 percent were in Great Britain and Ireland, writes Jessica Ratcliff in The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain. From the Caribbean and South America to Africa to South Asia to now, thanks to Cook, Australia, the aphorism “the sun never sets on the British Empire” was borne. Cook’s expedition to conquer inhabited territory had repercussions for millions of people who would never actually see the nation who had claimed their homes.

For centuries, the myth of Cook’s voyage as an essentially scientific undertaking persisted, although plenty of people had already surmised the government’s hand in Cook’s journeys. Still, a full copy of the Admiralty’s “Secret Instructions” weren’t made public until 1928. Today, Cook’s legacy is recognized more for what it was: an empire-building project dressed with the trappings of science.

By Lorraine Boissoneault

SMITHSONIAN.COM AUGUST 24, 2018 10:23AM

The War on the Press

Newspaper market, Paris 1848

"Answering a call last week from The Boston Globe," runs the editorial in today's New York Times, "The Times is joining hundreds of newspapers, from large metro-area dailies to small local weeklies, to remind readers of the value of America’s free press. These editorials, some of which we’ve excerpted, together affirm a fundamental American institution.

"If you haven’t already, please subscribe to your local papers. Praise them when you think they’ve done a good job and criticize them when you think they could do better. We’re all in this together."

It is not just American newspapers that are appealing for public sanity in the face of the current war on the press.  

"Over the next 24 hours," runs the editorial in The New Zealand Herald, "newspapers across the United States will run editorials decrying President Donald Trump's repeated attacks on the media. The Boston Globe has organised the campaign in response to what it calls a "dirty war against the free press". Today, the Herald stands with our US colleagues. 

"The campaign is not about politics, Republican or Democrat, but a warning against increasingly dangerous rhetoric designed to undermine the media's credibility and to fan hostility towards it. At a rally in Pennsylvania this month, Trump told his audience the media was "fake, fake disgusting news". He has repeatedly called the press "the enemy of the people".  CNN's Jim Acosta illustrated how Trump's stance has been adopted by some American citizens when he posted a video from a Florida rally showing the President's supporters screaming curses at him and gesturing with their middle fingers. 

"In June, five people were killed when a gunman with a grudge stormed the offices of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, showing exactly how dangerous the threat can be. An ongoing concern is Trump's use of the term "fake news". The phrase was introduced into the political debate in 2016 not by Trump but his rival for the White House, Hillary Clinton. It described the use of completely fabricated "news" stories to influence potential voters on social media. Trump quickly weaponised the term to target stories that reflected badly on him, rather than those that were factually inaccurate. Unfortunately, the term has been adopted by some politicians and business leaders in New Zealand to discredit views that are unwelcome, dismissing stories outright without discussion. 

"The editorial campaign is not about the media being sensitive to criticism. Those working in the industry are subjected to strong criticism from readers, politicians and business groups every day — it is part of the process of reporting and debate. The fear is that Trump's broadsides are designed to shatter all public trust in the media, so the results of important reporting and investigations fall on deaf ears. This is against the backdrop of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 Presidential Election, which Trump described as a "Rigged Witch Hunt". 

"In New Zealand, Herald investigations in the past few months have raised serious questions about the appointment of a Deputy Police Commissioner, the cost to the taxpayer of Government subsidies to Hollywood film producers, and how a Catholic priest allegedly abused children for decades. These examples stand alongside others in the New Zealand media — as well as day-to-day reporting which holds government to account. The process of journalism is not perfect and errors of fact and judgment do occur. However, if we acknowledge that the information in our reporting and investigations is important, then we should not want it obscured by a pervasive mistrust in the media, promoted by the world's most powerful politician."

Orcas back in Wellington

From Stuff.co.nz

Last spring a pod of orca whales had a great time in Wellington.  Like the southern right whale that visited a couple of months ago, they enjoy the crowd attention.  Or so it seems.

Coincidentally, we were travelling up the western coast by train, and the orcas were travelling up the coast, too.  It was fun to watch the lines of stopped cars, as people hopped out to take pictures and generally enjoy the flipping and diving.  Then we left the train at Paekakariki and walked south along the coastal track, watching orcas all the time.

And now they are back.  They must like the harbor.  Or so (again) it seems.  However, unlike the southern right whale, they have not come to play.  Instead, they are following stingrays, which definitely like our harbor.   Displaying remarkable intelligence, the orcas dig in the muddy bottom to disturb the rays, then herd them into the shallows, where they can feed at leisure.  Accordingly, that flipping and diving is part of the hunt.  Success is hailed by an abrupt threshing in the water, as the ray tries to fly off.  Indeed, they have been known to "jump" onto piers and rocks in their desperation to get away.  Unfortunately (though luckily for the orcas), helpful passersby can be relied on to "help" the stingray back into the water.

Most people think that orcas are whales --  their common name is "killer whale."  But they are in fact dolphins, the largest of the family.

Square-rigger that was NZ's first WW1 maritime casualty

And it was all because the lamp was turned off in a lighthouse

Not to be confused with the Titanic ... but with a similarly sad fate.

The Dominion Post published this great story this morning -- a story that brought back memories, as I once had the pleasure of meeting Captain Holm's granddaughter, and listening to the wonderful stories of her childhood that she shared with me.  This story, however, was new, and this is how the newspaper relates it:

Anne Erwin grew up hearing the adventurous tales of her seagoing father and grandfather. One of the most memorable was the story of the day the Titania sank, unexpectedly becoming New Zealand's first World War I maritime casualty. As told to Ruby Macandrew.

The day the Titania left Fiji bound for New Caledonia in July 1914 there was no thought that World War I was imminent, but less than a month later the crew would find themselves in peril, watching as their beloved ship sank.

The 1107-tonne ship, a four-masted barquentine, was owned and captained by Captain Ferdinand Holm, who, in 40 years of sailing, had never had a serious accident.  All that changed on August 23.

SUPPLIED

Mariner Holm, the son of Captain Ferdinand Holm, served as third mate on the ill-fated ship Titania.

At the time, the ship, like many vessels of its kind, were not equipped with radios and Surprise Island had no regular mail, radio or cable connection with any other country.

SUPPLIED

Mariner and ship owner Pehr Ferdinand Holm (1844-1917), commanded the grand ship on its final journey.

As Titania approached the dangerous reef off Amadee Island  Holm asked the third mate, his 20-year-old son Mariner Holm, to go aloft and search for a light.

One was sighted and assumed to be from the lighthouse. But, unbeknownst to the crew, French authorities had already extinguished the lighthouse at New Caledonia.

The light they saw turned out to be a masthead light from HMAS Australia.

STUFF

Anne Erwin, in 2004, with the bell her father saved from the Titania when it sank. The bell is now used at the Wellington Central Fire Station. (file photo)

Unsure about the light, Captain Holm gave orders "to stand out till daylight", but it was too late as a swell violently caught the Titania, sending it on to the reef just after midnight.

The force was so great that no-one could stand and everyone on board was forced to take refuge in the bow.

The bottom of the ship was ripped out. The crew sent rockets up all night but to no avail. By daylight it was clear only two lifeboats could be launched – the others were damaged beyond repair.

The crew left in the larger boat,  leaving Captain Holm, his son and friend Harry Howden to check the damage, before the ship went down by the bow and broke in pieces.

Ferdinand Holm and Mariner Holm arrived in Noumea harbour in a small boat towed by a steamer.

"The battering the Titania took that night was the worst I saw in all my years of sailing," the younger Holm wrote.

"The fact that no lives were lost was nothing short of a miracle."

Mariner Holm and Howden later returned to the ship to save its cat, three pigs and the ship's bell.

The bell was brought back to Wellington, where it remains in use at the Wellington Central City Fire Station.

The Titania was not the only ship wrecked on the reef that night. By daylight the crew saw, not just the lighthouse nearby, but three other wrecks piled up alongside.

An inquiry was held and Captain Holm, along with the masters of the other ships, was exonerated.

"The real cause of the wreck was the mistake in regard to the light. The officers could not know that the Amedee light was out."

The French were ordered to pay compensation but as Germany refused to pay their indemnity to France, they, in turn, refused to pay up.

The Titania's sister ship made £70,000 carrying freights during the year of the sinking. Holm received no compensation.

The 70-year-old Holm suffered a stroke while in New Caledonia and died two-and-a-half years later.

Equanimity mega-yacht update

The latest from ABC

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Monday that Indonesia has handed over a luxury yacht allegedly bought with money stolen from the multibillion-dollar looting of a state investment fund.  In a Facebook video, Mahathir thanked Indonesia's government and President Joko Widodo for returning the $250 million yacht, Equanimity, which was seized by Indonesia off Bali in February in cooperation with the U.S. FBI. "We believe that this yacht belongs to the Malaysian government because it was bought with Malaysia's money that was stolen," Mahathir said, citing an investigation by the U.S. Justice Department.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the yacht has set sail from the Indonesian island of Batam near Singapore and is expected to arrive in Malaysia's Port Klang on Tuesday. "At the end of the day, the yacht must be sold off" so that Malaysia can recover as much money as possible from it, Lim said.

The Justice Department, one of several foreign agencies investigating the alleged looting of the 1MDB fund by associates of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, had listed the yacht among the assets it could seize and sell to recover stolen funds. Najib set up 1MDB when he took power in 2009 but it accumulated billions in debts. The 1MDB scandal led to his shocking electoral defeat in May and Najib is now facing charges. 

Malaysian and international authorities want to question Malaysian financier Jho Low, who the Justice Department alleges was a key figure in the theft and international laundering of $4.5 billion from 1MDB. U.S. investigators said Low bought the yacht with proceeds diverted from 1MDB. Low, who has so far evaded investigators, issued a statement through his U.S. attorney on Monday protesting the handover of the yacht as an "illegal act" for ignoring court proceedings in the United States. The yacht's registered owner, Equanimity Cayman Ltd., had filed a claim on the vessel and filed further proceedings following the handover to Malaysia, the statement said, without giving further details. Mahathir said anyone who wants to claim ownership of the yacht must show proof that the vessel was not bought with stolen funds. "We want to know where they obtained so much money to buy such an expensive yacht," he said. 

The Equanimity's lavish amenities include a helicopter landing pad, plunge pool, gymnasium and a cinema. It was built in 2014 by the Dutch yacht manufacturer Oceano, which received detailed instructions from Low about its outfitting, according to the Justice Department's asset recovery case.