Genre Grapevine for July 30, 2023
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Twitter Goes X-Rated
Back in college I delivered pizzas for a place called Brand X Pizza. The store's whole branding was that this wasn't an "upscale" pizza like you’d get from Pizza Hut or Papa John's or Domino's – no, this was Brand X, damn it! This was cheap pizza for college students who were too drunk or stoned to care and needed late-night food. I delivered pizzas that everyone knew were crap but that didn't matter because the people ordering Brand X wouldn't remember eating our pizza the next morning.
As one frat boy told me when I delivered his double pepperoni, "I'd never eat this shit sober."
Which brings me to X, the rebranded name of Twitter.
I'm not saying Elon Musk was drunk when he renamed one of the most famous brands in world history, but perhaps the effects of a billionaire's ego on an entitled human psyche are similar to alcohol. Because how else do you explain the changes Twitter has gone through in recent weeks? These changes include forcing viewing limits on users, paying far-right users for tweeting, and launching possibly one of the worst rebrands in corporate history, all at a time when Twitter's ad sales are down 59 percent from a year earlier.
The end result is Musk's definitely aiming to be named "nimrod of the year" for the second time in a row.
Unfortunately, even if Musk's a nimrod he's still done massive damage to a platform that was the lifeblood for many people, especially in the creative arts, writing, and SF/F communities. As Michael Damian Thomas wrote in a must-read thread, "There is not a single Twitter alternative that makes me feel like the Twitter overlapping communities building small arts business synergy will ever happen again. This is such a disaster for SF/F publishing happening in slow motion."
Sadly, Twitter's new viewing limits mean people must log into the platform to read Thomas's entire thread. But another major point Thomas made in the thread is that "newsletters aren't replacing Twitter either. Twitter is still a sizable chunk of where our Kickstarter backers are coming from. Our newsletter… not so much. It would seem that our readers aren't our newsletter subscribers."
And as Eugenia Triantafyllou pointed out, "Seriously though, that Twitter getting worse each passing day thing is especially hard for people who don't have local writing communities they can turn to offline. If social media fails for example I will be seeing maybe three people from my Twitter mutuals up close."
So far, the alternatives to Twitter are a mixed bag. Meta's Threads gained 100 million users in the first five days after its July 5th launch. However, the app has since "lost more than half of its users." So we'll have to wait and see if Threads ends up being anything more than another billionaire's personal playground.
Mastodon appears to be holding solid as a Twitter alternative, but there are continuing complaints that the platform is too insular and hard to use, with the user experience varying greatly depending on which "instance" or server you're on. And while many people in the SF/F genre have flocked to Bluesky over the last month, the platform still doesn't have the reach of Twitter. And Bluesky was also strongly criticized for allowing people to create usernames containing racial slurs. While Bluesky has now fixed this issue, what kind of company allows that to happen in the first place?
As for other Twitter alternatives, Post and Tribel Social are respectively used mainly by people in the news media and political circles. And Hive is now a "ghost town."
I wish there was a simple answer to the continuing fragmentation of online social communication within the SF/F genre. Sadly, there isn't.
Assorted Takes on the Ever-Changing Tech and AI Landscape
SFWA and a number of other writing and arts organizations have signed onto a letter from the National Writers Union about the damage done by machine learning companies copying creative work. The letter states that "As creators of copyrighted works – including text, illustrations, photographs, lyrics, music, audio, and video – our economic and moral rights have been gravely harmed by the copying and ingestion of our work, without permission or payment, to compile generative artificial intelligence ("AI") language models – through the process disingenuously and anthropomorphically referred to by AI developers as 'training' – that reuse our works forever after to 'generate' derivative works as their output."
In addition, authors are urged to sign this letter from the Authors Guild calling on tech leaders and companies to "Obtain permission for use of our copyrighted material in your generative AI programs." To date more than 10,000 writers have signed the letter.
OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman is complaining about potential European Union regulations that would force them to disclose any copyrighted material used to develop their systems, with Altman calling this "over-regulating." OpenAI has been lobbying against these proposed regulations.
As Robert Kneschke said, if OpenAI is "not able to operate without violating copyrights they might just not have a sound business model."
Bestselling authors Mona Awad and Paul Tremblay have filed a proposed class action lawsuit against OpenAI over copyright infringement.
According to Maureen Johnson, "AI is ALREADY HERE in our work. I just spoke to a Very Famous Author who has to remain nameless for legal reasons. They are held up in a contract negotiation because a Major Publisher wants to train AI on their work. … This is an attempt by one of the Big Publishers to codify this into a contract. And I repeat, this person is a tentpole of publishing. So this can, and almost certainly will, happen to us all."
The strike by both the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA is shaping up to be a critical stand against the encroachment of machine learning into Hollywood and, possibly, everyone's lives. And in yet another example of why AI is a major focus of these strikes, it has emerged that Netflix is currently seeking to hire a machine learning product manager and pay them up to $900K a year. The job posting is here.
According to Cat Rambo, "Grammarly just announced that they've been using customer work to train their AI. If you still use their service, stop now if you care about your copyright."
Caitlyn Lynch pointed out in late June that "The AI bots have broken Amazon. Take a look at the Best Sellers in Teen & Young Adult Contemporary Romance eBooks top 100 chart. I can see 19 actual legit books. … The rest are AI nonsense clearly there to click farm."
Gizmodo's io9 recently published an AI-generated Star Wars article that was riddled with mistakes and errors. James Whitbrook, deputy editor for io9 and Gizmodo, called what the company did "fucking dogshit" while the io9 team also released a statement condemning what happened.
This article about the death of Mark Zuckerberg's Metaverse dreams provides an insightful glimpse into what these tech companies appear to be aiming for with both crypto and AI: "Consider what crypto looked like from the very top: not just a potentially promising area for investment, a modest but meaningful grassroots phenomenon among users, or an engine for wealth, but also the crude fantasy of total regulatory freedom, a path to a stateless, tech-centric world. AI, too, represents, among other things, a profound tech-exec fantasy: an endless supply of cheap and obedient labor and a chance to take ownership of the means, of, well, everything."
As Django Wexler said, "Scifi: jackbooted thugs demand retinal scans from all citizens, techno-savvy hackers form a resistance. Reality: people queue up to give their retinal scan for a few dollars of dubious crypto. Techno-savvy hackers first in line."
In amusing news, remember how NFTs were once the next big thing? Well, NFT prices are in freefall with the Bored Ape NFTs alone suffering a 89% price decrease. And celebrities like Justin Bieber who bought overpriced Board Ape NFT have filed a class-action lawsuit, crying over how they were "conned into purchasing the NFTs by their peers."
Samiha, a senior editor at Shaherazad Shelves, shared an insightful take: "It crossed my mind that the rise in AI for storytelling could be *directly* correlated to the formulaic book structure that Publishing has been demanding as of late. From the three-act structure to the Hero's Journey, these are all mechanical methods of writing. The fact that tech bros recognized this and are now profiting off writers is more telling on the industry itself."
Hugo Awards and Worldcon
On July 2, the list of Hugo Award finalists appeared on the Chengdu Worldcon website for a few hours before vanishing. As the Chengdu Worldcon twitter account announced, "The list was not final … but was exposed during its webpage construction."
The official list of Hugo finalists was released four days later. The lists were essentially the same except for some consolidations under Best Dramatic Presentation so works wouldn't appear in both the long and short form categories, along with minor corrections and additions of staff names in the Best Semiprozine and Best Fanzine categories. There was also a correction to a translation error for the title of Lu Ban's work in the Short Story category.
In many ways this is the most international Hugo shortlist ever, although the Hugos still have a ways to go before truly representing the diversity of the world science fiction community. However, the Hugo shortlist also raised controversy related to concerns around the Chengdu Worldcon, in particular the Chinese government's ongoing genocide of the Uyghur people and the naming of Sergei Lukyanenko as a guest of honor. As I've previously reported, Lukyanenko has worked to ban Ukrainian translations of his books, threatened Ukrainian authors, and supported the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
While the Hugo Awards are essentially run separately from each year's Worldcon, these issues resulted in S. B. Divya declining her two Hugo nominations. C. L. Polk, a finalist for this year's Hugo Award for Best Novella, also pointed out these issues are why the Hugos should be more separated from each year's Worldcon.
"I have had this opinion for ages,” Polk said. “Yes, the Hugo Award is not Worldcon; it is only presented there, but that's a distinction that doesn't register for a lot of people who believe or assume that they are the same thing. They're not...but. The Hugo award is like the Aurora Award here in Canada. It has its own organization, just like the Aurora Award here in Canada. But the Aurora Award ceremony in Canada is hosted by different Canadian conventions each year. … It floats from place to place, year to year, and in that wandering, asserts that it belongs only to itself. Perhaps the Hugo Award should do that too, to reinforce that it's not Worldcon - it's simply that a worldcon bid, by tradition, includes the hosting of the Hugo awards and so they are associated in this way."
Two weeks after the Hugo shortlist was announced, finalists received emails from Ben Yalow, Chen Shi and He Xi, the co-chairs of the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon Committee. The email said "We sincerely invite you to attend the conference in person. We are more than happy to assist on your travel including the flights, accommodation and your Chinese visa. Your international flights to/from China along with the local accommodation and transportation during the Worldcon will be covered by the Chengdu Worldcon Committee."
I've also heard that this offer has been made to some fans in the science fiction and fantasy community who are not Hugo finalists.
I emailed the Worldcon co-chairs and they confirmed to me that this offer was sent to all Hugo finalists with the exception of those who'd already stated publicly that would not come to China at all. I checked with a number of Hugo finalists and this did seem to be the pattern on who received invitations.
I also asked where the money for the offer came from. The Worldcon co-chairs said, "We've got sponsors from China to support us running the convention so we have this opportunity to invite more guests."
As a finalist for this year's Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer, I received the offer to have my travel, accommodation and visa costs covered by the Chengdu Worldcon. As someone who supports greater cultural exchanges and discussions between SF/F fans from around the world, and especially between the Chinese and international SF/F communities, I fully understand why some finalists are accepting this offer.
However, I turned down the offer because of the issues mentioned above.
Awards
Finalists for the Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction.
Finalists for the 2023 Caine Prize for African Writing (not normally a genre award but two of the five finalists are from the Africa Risen anthology edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight).
Longlist for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association's Elgin Award.
Josephine Saxton won the 2023 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award.
N. K. Jemisin is among the 2023 inductees for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
On a final note, Gary Westfahl decided to push all the science fiction drama buttons with an essay on File770 where he declared most SF/F genre's awards "superfluous" since authors already receive "natural awards." What are these natural awards, you ask. Well, according to Westfahl they include authors receiving personal letters from fans praising their work, attending SF conventions as honored guests, signing copies of their books, and being paid for their published stories and novels.
Perhaps what we really need is an award for genre scholars who are jealous of authors being honored for their work.
Other News and Info
Acclaimed Ukrainian novelist Victoria Amelina was killed by a Russian missile strike. The Guardian shared a moving exploration of her life and writing while Olga Tokariuk created a great Twitter thread (again, must login to see) sharing examples of Amelina's powerful writing.
Complaints have been raised that the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF) is running late with contracts and checks, with delays ranging from six months to a year. Victoria Strauss spoke with F&SF publisher Gordon Van Gelder, who acknowledged the problems and said he's taking them seriously. Van Gelder is also evidently working with editor Sheree Renée Thomas to get caught up on contracts and payments, with Thomas reaching out to authors who've been waiting for a response. F&SF is also considering a switch to payment on publication rather than on acceptance.
The final issue of the legendary magazine Black Static was released this month. Edited by Andy Cox, the magazine was founded in 1993 as The 3rd Alternative and renamed Black Static in 2007. The magazine published uniquely weird fiction, dark fantasy and horror along with excellent reviews and essays. In advance of Cox's retirement, the magazine has been winding down subscriptions over the last two years and wraps up with the double issue #82/83. A short editor's note in the issue thanks everyone who supported the magazine over the years and ended with the words "See you on the outside."
The magazine Anathema: Spec from the Margins, which publishes speculative fiction by queer people of colour on every range of the LGBTQIA spectrum, is looking for Q/2S BIPOC people who would consider running the publication. Co-editors Michael Matheson, Andrew Wilmot, Chinelo Onwualu explained in an essay that they are exhausted after running Anathema for seven years and the magazine needs new blood.
Lesley Conner is now editor-in-chief of Apex Magazine while Rebecca Treasure is managing editor. Jason Sizemore will be stepping back to focus on growing Apex as an overall business.
Penguin Random House announced a number of layoffs in late July, leading Publishers Weekly to say it was the "end of an era." At the same time, HarperCollins announced YA imprint Inkyard Press would be shuttered and staff laid off on August 1.
Fascinating article by Melanie Stormm on File770 covering discussions among SF/F editors and writers about the current wave of AI spam submissions.
Nnedi Okorafor announced a seven figure deal for her novel The Africanfuturist, which sold to HarperCollins/William Morrow. I believe this is the largest single-novel advance in the SF/F genre in at least two decades.
Congress is holding a series of "I'm Not Saying It Was Aliens But It Was Aliens" hearings. Fascinating stuff if true. The problem is the chief whistle blower who testified before Congress has no first-hand knowledge that the U.S. government actually has aliens spacecraft and bodies in its possession and instead is merely sharing what other people told him. Still, it'll be interesting to see where all this goes.
As previously reported, Amazon's ending of Kindle Newsstand is going to hit genre magazines hard. All current Kindle subscriptions will end in September and magazines have no way to reach out to these subscribers to urge them to switch to alternate platforms. Even the few genre magazines that were invited to stay on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited platform, like Clarkesworld, are reminding subscribers to switch over. Clarkesworld created an FAQ for Amazon subscribers about the change where it states Kindle Unlimited will be "paying us less than half of what we used to receive from Amazon. That's an unsustainable figure, so it's better for the future of the magazine if you subscribe at any of the (alternative) places. We understand that might not be practical for some of you. We just ask KU subscribers to remember to open and read (for at least a few minutes) each issue. If you don't open and read at least part of the issue, they won't pay us for your subscription."
In December the USA Today Bestseller List was placed on hiatus after Gannett laid off 200 newsroom employees including longtime editor Mary Cadden, who'd maintained the list for 15 years. The list is now back. However, the years of list archives are gone, with only the recent lists since the relaunch on June 28 showing up.
As this BookRiot article explains, a new law means that "Despite the age of consent in Mississippi being 16, no one under the age of 18 will have access to digital materials made available through public and school libraries without explicit parental/guardian permission."
The movement to destroy libraries across the country continues to grow, with the Houston school district planning to cut a large number of librarian positions and convert 29 school libraries into "disciplinary centers."
In the face of these spreading book bans and threats to public libraries, the Digital Public Library of America has announced the launch of the Banned Book Club. This new program “will enable readers in communities across the nation to check out e-book versions of banned books via the Palace e-reader app." The program also utilizes geo-targeting to allow readers to learn which books are banned in their area. Access the Banned Book Club here.
For some reason literary agent Leslie Varney of Prentis Literary has joined the well-documented harassment campaign against Patrick S. Tomlinson. As shown in tweets and comments shared by Tomlinson, Varney falsely accuses the author of sexual assault and self-diagnoses him with Borderline Personality Disorder and paranoia. Tomlinson shared more about what's going on in this Twitter thread. As Varney stated in letters on her Twitter feed, it appears the trolls harassing Tomlinson impersonated him and convinced her they were him. But even once this was pointed out she continued to attack Tomlinson. So far there is no comment from Prentis Literary on all this.
Varney has also attacked Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, with Ekpeki sharing what he called a "racist manifesto where she said I only get attention cuz of political correctness." In the tweets shared by Ekpeki, Varney is seen interacting with a troll who created a Twitter account impersonating Ekpeki's dead father. As an example of the hatred trolls try to stir up, all of this took place around Father's Day. The website of Prentis Literary, where Leslie Varney is an agent, claims they represent "Diverse, Inclusive Voices in Modern Literature."
TikTok has proven to be a major promoter of books, as "Sales driven by more than 100 authors with large BookTok followings reached $760 million in 2022, a rise of 60 percent over 2021." And so far in 2023 "sales have gone up nearly 40 percent over last year." Eager to get a slice of this money, TikTok is now launching its own publishing company called ByteDance. Concerns are already being raised, including that "ByteDance could boost its own authors at the expense of others and make BookTok less organic and user-driven, a prospect that worries many TikTok users and authors." And as Isobel Starling pointed out, "Not only (is TikTok) already censoring romance author tags, the contract for this is dreadful."
After John Scalzi's The Kaiju Preservation Society won the Locus Award, the editor of Seize The Press Magazine said "Mainstream SFF is in a bad place man" because Scalzi used the phrase "did a thing" in the novel and paraphrased the film Pitch Perfect in a scene. The editor's tweet went viral, with Scalzi defending himself in multiple tweets. Scalzi also turned the phrase "Did a Thing" into a t-shirt. As Thomas of SFF180 said, "Here's an example of what I'm starting to call Scalzi Derangement Syndrome, because seriously. The 'did a thing' part is part of the protagonist's first person narration, and reflective of their personality. This guy thinks it's Scalzi writing in 3rd Omniscient." But Indrapramit Das had a different take on the whole thing, saying, "If someone criticises a hugely popular, bestselling author's work on their own TL without tagging them, they're not being a 'jerk' or a troll to that author, they're tweeting a personal opinion that the author and their fans might find displeasing. There's a difference."
Nerds of a Feather, a finalist for this year’s Hugo Award for Best Fanzine, is running a fundraiser to help translate their Hugo voter’s packet into Chinese. The English edition of the packet is available here.
The thing I'm going to miss about Twitter is the platform’s pure serendipity. As an example of this, Matt Wallace asked who will "dolphins side with in the coming war" between whales and humans and added a throw-away comment about how he can't "learn biological things until @UrsulaV draws me an illustration explaining them it's just how my brain is wired." In a wonderful moment, Ursula Vernon responded to Wallace's tweet with a beautiful, informative, and funny drawing about the differences between whales and dolphins.
Victoria Aveyard shared that Stanford has a website "that will calculate travel times through the Roman Empire based on your manner of transport, cost, and season of departure." The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World is a true marvel and extremely addictive for anyone who loves history.
Authors who are also academics must be careful to never mix up their grant and science fiction novel proposals.
More editors should lock writers in escape rooms until they finish their manuscripts.
We should have known cats were the secret masters of the Daleks.
Opportunities
Strange Horizons is accepting fiction and nonfiction submissions for their Caribbean special issue, edited by Suzan Palumbo and Marika Bailey. Deadline is August 15. Details>>
Flame Tree Press seeks submissions for African Ghost Short Stories, "a chance for African writers around the world to explore their culture of ghostly folklore and offer fresh stories." Deadline is August 27. Details>>
The Off-Season, an anthology of "disquieting and disturbing New Weird horror set in landscapes and communities on the edge of the sea," will open for submissions in an early window from July 31 to August 6 for marginalized voices and then from August 7 to 28 for all submitters. Details>>
The bi-annual horror magazine Ghoulish Tales seeks submissions for issue 2. Deadline August 31. Details>>