Guest Post: Unite Sci-Fi Fans Around The World

We are pleased to share a guest blog post from Hugo-winning fanzine editor RiverFlow. 

Hello science fiction fans attending the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow. First of all, have you heard of Chinese sci-fi fandom? If so, what examples can you give?

Hugo-winning fanzine
Zero Gravity News.

Science fiction fans in China were excited when Zero Gravity News won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine last year. See “Introducing Chinese sci-fi fanzine Zero Gravity News” to learn more about the fanzine.

Yes, in fact, there is a very large group of science fiction fans in China, but few people have collected and collated their materials. I have been working on this since 2020, and have written some articles to introduce the collection.

The earliest Chinese Fanzine was born in 1988. In the 1990s, many science fiction fans were employed and writing in their leisure time, but in the 21st century, these contributions were mainly completed by students. Because workers are busy with their lives and families, it is difficult to find time to organize related activities. So I wrote a book, History of Chinese University Science Fiction Association, to introduce Chinese science fiction fans to the rest of the world. The thousands of photos and hundreds of thousands of words are enough to prove the rich history of this group.

The Chinese Science Fiction Fan Association organizes articles, comments and other activities, runs its own Fanzine (I have more than 200 kinds of statistics about this history), and initiates fan organizations (I have more than 350 records of the establishment of student groups and more than 200 social meeting groups). But like most organizations around the world, these organizations have a short life span, and although there are a lot of them, few are longstanding, which I will describe in several subsequent articles.

The magazine you are seeing now is machine translated from the 10th issue of Zero Gravity Newspaper, which includes many young Chinese science fiction fans’ review and understanding of their science fiction experience. How do Chinese science fiction fans discover and learn about science fiction? What did science fiction bring to them? What did they gain? You can read about it in their memories. Because time is limited, only a small number of articles are included, and they are all machine translated, but this is much better than before, so that Chinese science fiction fans are seen, which is important.

At the same time, I am also doing one thing, which is to collect science fiction information and materials from all over the world, translate them into Chinese, and introduce them to Chinese science fiction fans. After I finished my self-summary of Chinese sci-fi fans, I thought I’d look outside. Chinese scholar Sanfeng said in the first issue of World Science Fiction News, a magazine introducing foreign science fiction information in China, “View the world science fiction and build a science fiction world view”, which I think is very reasonable.

At present, I have found 202 articles from 108 countries and organized Chinese science fiction fans to translate them. Now I can say that every continent in the world has a wealth of science fiction conferences, science fiction works, science fiction organizations, science fiction magazines, etc. Most of the other half of countries and regions are either economically poor or have small populations.

In the context of the history of different countries, different languages and peoples will unite with each other/accept foreign languages for historical reasons. You can see the competition between Turkish and Russian in Central Asia, the prevalence of French and Arabic in some African countries, the exchange of Spanish in Latin American countries, and the anger of Southeast Asian countries over the loss of their own cultural traditions. The Dutch and Belgian languages are common, and the former Yugoslavia regularly hosts science fiction conventions to unite fans from several other countries.

The world science fiction center is probably found currently in the United Kingdom and the United States, since so many works are translated into English. Almost all science fiction writers in continental countries are seeking the English publication of their works, eager to be seen by the British and American world and incorporated into the mainstream discourse system.

The question of whether the world’s science fiction center will shift will take a long time to answer, but at this stage, the relationship between English-speaking science fiction and non-English-speaking science fiction is like the relationship between mainstream literature and genre literature, and genre literature is to be absorbed by mainstream literature, and that is the situation. That doesn’t change just because you have a World Science Fiction Convention (which is essentially a gathering of science fiction fans, right?). At best, it gives the authorities some reason to bring together science fiction institutions and science fiction awards that were originally scattered around the world to promote dialogue and cooperation.

In this world, there are many people engaged in science fiction organizations, science fiction conferences, science fiction publishing, science fiction translation, and science fiction research, including in languages other than those that are dominant. But in most cases, unless there is a British-American nationality/an international speaker of English who has connections in the United Kingdom and the United States, it is possible to use their status to make a voice for their own country.

However, after the relevant people step down, the situation may turn to another way, as the old saying goes, maybe this is how the world works, but if each person can leave something in his term of office, I think it will definitely be more and more rich. It should be said that the internationalization of science fiction in non-English speaking countries is currently dominated by established international communicators of British and American English.

The transfer of power over discourse is a long process, which requires writers with enough strength, readers and communities with enough interest, theorists with enough power to subvert the current system, and science fiction activities for writers, readers and scholars to communicate with each other. None of these things is easy.

It’s just that there’s a chain of disdain that seems to be happening all over the world, first of all defining science fiction as a type of children’s literature, and then defining science fiction as secondary literature, so reading a recent comment from a Nepalese science fiction reader on a collection of their own science fiction, it’s not children’s literature, it’s science fiction, I think this kind of reflection is very good. When can science fiction literature really stand up and no longer be subject to contempt, but can be regarded as both adult literature and children’s literature.

Anyway, I hope that Chinese science fiction fans can be more united, but also hope that the world science fiction fans can be more united, there are really many people in the world who agree with science fiction, I hope that we can keep in touch, find each other, in the process of viewing the world science fiction to establish their own science fiction world view.

Have fun in Glasgow!

The Path Of Peace

Image via Goodreads

Given the timelines involved in publishing a novel, there was no way to predict that The Siege of Burning Grass would hit bookshelves at a time when the tensions it explores are playing out on North American campuses.

But Premee Mohamed’s philosophical and nuanced new book, which explores ideas of pacifism and to what degree citizens are responsible for the actions of their governments, is a novel that fits the zeitgeist. It is the right novel to read while contemplating the courage it takes for those with no political authority to speak out against state-sanctioned violence.

“I've said in more than one of my books that if you claim you’re not picking a side, you’ve just picked one: the side of the oppressor,” Mohamed says. “Those students are acting more nobly than anyone I can think of right now.”

The novel follows conscientious objector Aelfret, who has been imprisoned for refusing to take part in a war between his country of Varkal and the Empire of Med’ariz. After years of brutal treatment at the hands of his captors, he’s dragooned into an underhanded scheme to bring an end to the conflict. Having lost a leg during his capture, he’s confined to crutches and accompanied by wasps that tend to his wounds.

Along with a captor-soldier named Qhudur, Aelfret embarks on a journey across battlefields and conquered provinces to reach enemy territory on a secret mission. Throughout, Aelfret’s avowed pacifism is challenged and Qhudur is forced to confront the limits of his war-mongering ideology.

“I think it’s inevitable that no philosophy of any kind has ever had a completely ‘pure’ implementation of its ideals,” Mohamed says. “People are complicated, history is complicated, the physical world complicates things.”

This is Mohamed’s best book on almost every level. Her prose is elevated by subtle rhetorical twists, the world is engaging and distinctive, and Aelfret is likely her most memorable protagonist. While the crippled pacifist’s doubts, epistemological angst, and constant questioning of his own motivations can be occasionally frustrating, it also makes him relatable, believable, and an interesting foil to Qhudur, whose narrow worldview and military training have produced in him an implacable certitude.

“I didn't start off wanting to write a story about pacifism per se,” Mohamed explains. “I wanted to show Alefret (the main character) as someone still learning, still at the start of his educational arc, about pacifism, nonviolence, militarism, and his own relationship to those things based on his personality and history. If he had not been who he was, he would have been a very different pacifist.”

A government policy specialist with degrees in molecular biology and environmental sciences, Mohamed has become well-known as the author of science fiction and fantasy able to weave themes based on ecological challenges into her stories. The Siege of Burning Grass has some of these themes, but the book also revels in weirdness. This is a world in which war is fought with assault Pteranodons, talking birds are used as spies, and in which nurse wasps rend flesh in service of medical experiments.

In some ways, the book could be read as the exact mirror image of Starship Troopers. While many authors have written thinly veiled rebuttals of the controversial classic, they’ve usually been playing in the sandbox that Heinlein built; The Forever War, Old Man’s War, Ender’s Game may all critique Starship Troopers … but they’re still playing with the same toys. Mohamed has rejected the entire paradigm, and consequently is able to tackle the same subjects without being bound by the assumptions that underlie most military SFF. It’s worth remembering that Starship Troopers arrived at a time when Americans were just beginning to grapple with their country’s increasing military involvement in Vietnam, and many of the novels engaging with Heinlein’s classic were informed by campus protests.

The Siege of Burning Grass is a novel that matches its moment, and should inspire discussion, debate, and reflection about the moral responsibilities of citizens. Very few novels this ambitious succeed as fully. This book deserves your consideration for every award for which it is eligible.

Planet of Lysenkoism

Cover Design by Lauren Panepinto
Cover Illustration by Yuko Shimizu
(Image via Orbit Books)

Early in the 20th century, the Soviet Union’s government rejected the theory of natural selection and genetic heredity in favour of Trofim Lysenko’s pseudoscience which proclaimed a Marxist class-oriented evolution. Over the course of two decades, reaching into the 1950s, Russian scientists who disagreed with Lysenkoism were imprisoned — even executed — because their experiments and research provided data which contradicted the party line.

It’s a fact that kept coming to mind as we read Alien Clay, the impressive new novel from Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Set in a distant future in which the entirety of the human race lives under the yoke of a world government called “The Mandate,” the novel centres on exobiologist Arton Daghdev, whose research has led him to dispute orthodox theories about the human species’ place in the cosmos. The Mandate’s mantra — summing up their anthropic principle-driven view of the universe — is that “The universe has a direction, and that direction is us.”

“The Mandate in Alien Clay is the most irredeemably authoritarian State I've ever written about … that phrase ‘The universe has a direction’ conveys a point of view that is phenomenally self-important, this belief that Humanity must kind of be the point of everything,” Tchaikovsky explains. “For the main character — who was a scientist — that phrase is the core of why the Mandate is a personal problem for him.”

There’s a deceptive, corrosive elegance to a well-constructed thought-terminating cliche: “history conforms to a dialectical pattern,” “there is no alternative,” or “make America great again.” All these examples convey a worldview that is served by reducing complex issues to simple, misleading statements that dismiss analysis and intellectual exploration. “The universe has a direction,” fits well into this tradition. This sort of coded language helps reinforce the status quo by shutting down further communication and debate. It is implied that to disagree with the cliche doesn’t even warrant consideration.

Daghdev begins the novel having been put on trial for daring to challenge the central ideological tenet of the Mandate. In the opening chapter, he arrives at an extrasolar penal colony on the planet Kiln, dozens of light years from Earth. It’s a fecund planet filled with riotous, chaotic, life whose biology is utterly unlike anything humanity has previously encountered. An exobiologist by training, Daghdev had long sought to study alien life up close, though preferably under less dangerous conditions. It quickly becomes apparent that Kiln’s ancient and alien artefacts provide a counter narrative of experience that undermines the central myth used by the Mandate to justify its authority.

Robert Jay Lifton coined the term
'thought-terminating cliche' to 
describe how authoritarians
manipulate language.
(Image via Wikipedia)

“Authoritarian dictatorships have this colossal fundamental insecurity to them,” Adrian Tchaikovsky muses. “It doesn’t matter if they have the secret police and all the guns and complete control over people's lives … they feel the need to justify why that situation exists. They need some external Authority to show why they are at the top and why they are allowed to treat other people like they do.”

Much like the Soviet regime’s destructive dismissal of verifiable evidence for gene-based evolution, the Mandate punishes anyone with the temerity to challenge an unscientific worldview that shapes its social policy. This is the most compelling (and painful) theme in the novel, and one that seems particularly relevant at a time when many countries are seeing declines in democracy and a repression of fact-based analysis.

The ecology of Kiln revolves around horizontal gene transfer and complex chains of symbiosis, parasitism, and complex colonies of organisms. At times, it is difficult to wrap one's head around how this ecosystem is supposed to work, though this is a minor quibble, and intellectual puzzles won’t be new to Tchaikovsky’s readership. Kiln is a dangerous planet; all organisms are trying to infect or alter everything with which they come in contact. Consequently, Daghdev spends the novel caught between Scylla and Charybdis; on one side the danger of the planet, and on the other the danger of the authoritarian government and the prison institution that embodies it. This provides an interesting tension, and an excellent way to explore chaos and order.

This is among Tchaikovsky’s most interesting works to date, and also among his most timely. Alien Clay is a parable about the tension between scientific exploration and top-down government control; one imagines that Troyfim Lysenko would have been at home in the Mandate … as would too many of today’s political leaders.

The Age of Empire (Hugo Cinema 1981)

Star Wars was inescapable in fandom.
At the 1981 Worldcon, Paul Cullen
dressed up as Luke Skywalker.
(Image via Fanac.org)

This blog post is the twenty fourth in a series examining past winners of the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Award. An introductory blog post is here.

The sequel to Star Wars was a cultural juggernaut within fandom, anticipated with such intensity that whole issues of fanzines were dedicated to parsing out casting rumours and speculating about the plot. Most contemporaneous fan reviews hold up well today: “This movie moves so fast, is filled with so many delights for an SF fan, and is so well done that to tell about it is a disservice. See it!” wrote Richard E. Geiss in Science Fiction Review.

But as difficult as it is to believe today, many of the arbiters of ‘higher’ aka ‘mainstream’ culture were dismissive of the sequel. “The Star Wars series, now in unpromising infancy, basically asks us to imagine and believe nothing – its technological sophistication does away with the need for the former, and its camp melding of myths in storyline and characters acknowledges the impossibility of the latter,” Sight & Sound Magazine bemoaned in a scathing unsigned review. Ralph Novak was more succinct, writing for People Magazine “it’s not up to the original.” The New York Times’ Vincent Canby opined that the movie was bland, and filled with hot air.

The Hugo best dramatic presentation win for Empire Strikes Back is another instance in which the prescience of science fiction fandom is revealed over time. Unfortunately, the rest of the shortlist in 1981 was remarkably uneven. While Cosmos, Lathe of Heaven, and Empire Strikes Back are excellent nominees, it’s difficult to see merit in either Flash Gordon or the Martian Chronicles.

Given the low quality of two of the finalists, it’s also difficult to explain the omission of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, Ken Russel’s Altered States, or the third-season premiere of Blake’s 7.

One of our group called The Martian Chronicles
“the last gasp of the Disco era of science fiction.”
(Image via IMDB) 

The most egregious inclusion of the year is The Martian Chronicles. Airing over three nights on NBC, the TV adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s short story collection is a meandering hot mess that should have had no place on a Hugo shortlist. Over the course of six hours, director Michael Anderson weaves together elements from the Bradbury stories “Silent Towns,” “Rocket Summer,” “I'll Not Ask for Wine,” “The Settlers,” and “The Watchers” (among others). His apparent need to create a cohesion between the stories not envisioned by the author ends in narrative disarray. Separately, it would be easier to forgive the shaky special effects if it weren’t for the fact that on the other side of the Atlantic Blake’s 7 weren’t doing significantly more interesting model work with fewer resources. The Martian Chronicles scripting is leaden, the acting campy, the plot unengaging. Bradbury himself summed it up best, describing the series as “simply boring.”

A big-budget flop based on a 1930s comic serial, Flash Gordon is somehow even campier and more difficult to sit through than The Martian Chronicles … but it does at least have the benefit of weirdly beautiful production value and a ludicrously great soundtrack by rock legends Queen. Although supporting actors such as Brian Blessed and Timothy Dalton bring a lot to their roles, the nominal star Sam J. Jones is excruciating to watch as he lifelessly enunciates his lines as if sounding them out one-by-one off a teleprompter. It has to be noted that because Flash Gordon is relatively faithful to the source material, the movie is weighed down with painfully regressive attitudes towards gender and race. It has not aged well.

With a slightly campier script and a worse lead
actor, Flash Gordon compares poorly to the 
1974 movie Flesh Gordon.
(Image via IMDB)

The Lathe of Heaven is the hidden gem of this shortlist. It’s a remarkably faithful adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel, made on a shoestring PBS budget by avant garde video artist Fred Barzyk. Given that Barzyk had previously directed the somewhat substandard 1973 Hugo Finalist Between Time and Timbuktu, some of our cinema club had gone into the movie with a bit of trepidation. Happily, many of us found it engaging and interesting, thanks to a script that retains much of the philosophical musings of Le Guin’s original, a strong cast, and thoughtful use of locations and other setting elements. The movie can be read as a rebuttal to utopian intellectuals proposing simplistic top-down solutions to all of mankind’s problems, ignoring the experiences of everyday people. It’s a genuinely clever little movie that holds up remarkably well — and probably would have ended up at the top of the ballot for at least one of our cinema club members.

Cosmos was a cultural juggernaut, the significance of which is difficult to appreciate today. Planetary scientist Carl Sagan’s 13-part documentary series tackles the vastness of the universe, mankind’s place in that cosmos, and speculates about what else might be out there. Built in part around Sagan’s own research into the possibility of extrasolar life, the documentary lays out an argument that we might not be alone in the universe. Because Sagan had evident love for science fiction and legitimized fandom’s embracement of these ideas, the documentary was beloved in science fiction circles. Sagan’s book of the same name, released in conjunction with the series, won him a well-deserved Hugo for best related work. But there are a few aspects of the show that have dated oddly; a lot of time is spent with Sagan looking off into space with a quasi-fanatical, beatific smile on his face, which is a bit off-putting. And while some current viewers might find the soundtrack by Vangelis to be oddly outdated and weirdly religious, others will enjoy the synthesizer-driven evangelism of it. At the time, there were complaints that documentaries shouldn’t be in the dramatic presentation category, but to our minds this is a creditable inclusion on the shortlist … and might have been a worthy winner.

The biggest controversy of the Hugo Awards that year, however, was the exclusion of Superman 2 from the shortlist. At the time, Hugo administrators lacked clarity on which year the movie would be eligible in, as it had a small number of showings in 1980, before a wider release in 1981. One of the greatest superhero movies ever made never appeared on a Hugo shortlist, and consequently the awards improved their rules on eligibility.

But even if Superman 2 had been on the ballot, we suspect that the Star Wars sequel would have bested it. Replete with iconic dialogue, memorably great locations, and some snappily edited action sequences, Empire Strikes Back is a movie that has stood the test of time and remains beloved by generations of Star Wars fans. On a purely technical level, The Empire Strikes Back was an impressive feat of cinema, featuring what could arguably be described as the greatest stop-motion sequences ever put to film. However, it does not have the streamlined narrative of the original movie and the plot suffers from a lack of focus. The story has no through-line, and as much as it’s a movie filled with truly great moments, some of us were left feeling that the whole is less than the sum of its parts.

Regardless of these slight quibbles, and regardless of what else might have appeared on the shortlist, it’s difficult to argue with The Empire Strikes Back as a winner. With the benefit of hindsight, fans were proven right and the mainstream critics were just … wrong.

Hugo Packet Translated (2024)

The editors of this fanzine are grateful for the Hugo nomination. Thanks to the Scots Language Centre, we were able to have our best blog posts of 2023 translated into Scots, which is an Indigenous language of Scotland, is recognized by the Scottish government, and which UNESCO has classed as a vulnerable language. According to the most recent census, 30 per cent of the Scottish population speak Scots (a total of 1,541,693 people).

Given that this Worldcon is taking place in Scotland, it is important to recognize that it is a country that has a rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and that its language and culture are distinct from those of the other nations found on the British Isles. As we have previously blogged, language is integral to culture, and the promotion and continuation of minority languages is valuable.

We would like to thank Dr. Dauvit Horsbroch of the Scots Language Centre, who conducted these translations, and who is a promoter of minority language rights.

• Aw Warlds In Aw Leids Is Metaphors (All Words In All Languages Are Metaphors - English Version)
• The Ill o Walin Amang Lessers (The Evil of Choosing Among Lessers - English Version) 
• The Un-American wey that a Lee-Science Fan fae the Left wis haunelt (The Un-American Treatment of a Leftist Science Fiction Fan - English Version)

Aw Warlds In Aw Leids Is Metaphors (Translated Blog Post)

Canadian media theorist an weel-kent cultural icon Marshall McLuhan aince descrived art as “a distant early warning system that can always be relied upon to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”

Babel – the split new novel fae Astounding Award winner R.F.Kuang – seems tae fit this defineetion. It micht be the maist McLunan-like leewark ever wrutten an-aw.

(Eemage bi gait o Goodreads)

 Set in 1830s Ingland, Babel follaes a Cantonee orphant cryed Robin Swift that’s taen on tae wirk for Oxfuird’s depairtment for owersettins, in a warld whaur the owersettin o words fae ae leid intil anither can hae an uncannie affcome. The glamourie aroond owersettin is at the hert o Ingland’s can tae colonise an daunton muckle o the warld, as siller baurs inscrived wi words in sindry leids can shaw the meaning that’s “tint” throu owersettin. Awmaist alane the Unitit Kinrik hauds this technological glamourie, an Oxfuird is at the hert o the Impire’s maucht.

The'r a lang tradeetion in genre leetratur o the Breetish historical leebuik as a pyntit wark o escapism. Stories set throu the Napoleonic Weir, or the Victorian Days, can gie’s a couthie setting that affen evites ony speirings anent the stauning atween racial groups, social clesses, an sexes. This isna tae be aff-luif wi thir warks – as escapism haes its place – but this orra kind o auld fernyears can whiles edit or lea oot important maiters o social justice. Hooanever, Babel isna blate aboot the injustices o its day, but raither gets tore in aboot. It wad tak mair nor magic, the buik seems tae say, for tae mak a fairer, mair just warld.

Here a novel that traivels the Regency times setting o the historical leebuik for tae warsle wi maiters o social justice that’s at the fore o cultural screivings in lee-science an leewarks the day. In short, it uses the cultural customs o Ingland at the heicht o its colonial maucht for tae airt oot an question hoo thir systems affectit society.

It's warth takkin tent that tho mony American screivars haes attemptit tae follae the style o historical Breetish prose, the feck haes failt, affen soondin like the proverbial bool in the mou. But insteid o haunless pastiche, Babel comes ower like a leebuik William Makepeace Thackery micht’a wrutten. Kuang gies us baith a pree o the times, an prose fae the region we can lippen on, that’s that skeely we haed tae twyce check tae find oot that she wisna hersel born an reared in Hertfordshire or Dorset. (We wad strangly airt awbody tae the “Author’s Note on Her Representations of Historical England, and of the University of Oxford in Particular.”, that comes afore the text o the novel). It is awthegither braw that a buik that’s insnorlt wi langage as a concept uses it wi sic skeel.

At the hert o the themes in the buik is the three guid freens that Swift maks at Oxfuird. Victoire Desgraves, Letitia (Letty) Price, an Ramiz (Ramy) Mirza is – like Swift – three students in hauns wi makkin owersettins. Thay’v taen a scunner anent the wey that thair peers haunles race, cless, sex, or aw thae cheils thegither. Caulcuttay-born Ramy an Haitie-born Victoire feels the ill-will airtit agin them bi rich, racist an cless-reekit white students, tho Letty, that’s white hersel, never seems tae unnerstaun or tae see whit her freens is haein tae thole.

“All words, in all languages are metaphors,”
wrate Marshall McLuhan – a souch that
the leaders-aff in Babel micht haud wi
(Eemage bi gait o University of Toronto)

Aboot a decade syne, speirars o psychology in Texas vizzied the pattrens o gremmar that fowk used as a strang sign o hoo siccar thair romantic an relationship fancies micht be. The possible explanation thay offert wis that same like pattrens an order o functional words (prepositions, airticles, quantifiers, gey common verbs, an the lave) likely reflect the same pattrens o thocht…an sae can be a pynter for hoo meaningfae relationships micht be. Intressinly, this seems tae haud true athort leids. Rami an Robin - that’s life stories mirra ane an anither’s in sindry weys – speak the same langage o love an o freenship, an pit some o us in mind o thae speirings. That thay are drew til ane anither, but it’s never said fair oot, gies an emotional backbane tae the buik. As muckle as mony readers (oorsels comprehendit) wad love for thair romance tae haud-gauin cantie like, the’r mense in shawin the characters raither as presonars o the 19t century’s narra-nebbitness agin same-sex airtit fowk.

Langage can astrict an-aw, even amang thaim that speaks the same ane. For muckle o the novel, warking-cless fowk is ill-quotit. Labourers on strike is depictit as speakin raivelt an thair concerns is dealt aff-luif like bi Robin, Rami, Victoire an Letty. But syne the novel daes a rare bit o narrative clearance, shawin that even the leaders-aff can be unkennin anent maiters o social justice, an that allies can be fund in less-expectit places. Labour unions – the Oxfuird Owersettars Union comprehendit – become uphauders o solidarity an for makkin brigs atween cultures.

Efter three braw novels, R.F.Kuang haes awready estaiblisht hersel as ane o the best young screivars o the leewark genre. Wi Babel, she haes taen her wark til a new heicht.

Set ower in Scots bi Dr Dauvit Horsbroch, 2024

The Ill o Walin Amang Lessers (Translated Blog Post)

This blog post is a pairt o the Hugo Book Club Blog’s picture-hoose club, that’s been wirkin year bi year throu aw the Hugo-finalist big screen an televeesion follae-ups.

In the early 1970s, NBC executive Paul L. Klein set oot hoo the muckle netwarks makkit televeesion programming. The three American netwarks at the croun o the causay in thae days (ABC, CBS an NBC) held that fowk didna watch parteeclar programmes, but raither televeesion jist, an sae the successfae ettle wisna tae mak heich-quality shaws, but jist tae mak shaws that scunnert the least nummer o TV watchers intae chengin sides.

TV watchers isna walin the shaws thay like, Klein said. Thay’r watchin the televeesion jist, an walin the least-scunnersome choice. It wis a ploy that haed televeesion watchers walin fae amang the lessers, gin ye like.

He cawed this the “least-objectionable programming” (L.O.P.) theory, an it’s a souch anent the braid media that dauntont the televeesion landscape for sindry decades (fae aboot 1958 until 1992), an media executives haes grundit thair walings on it tae this day.

As oor picture-hoose club haes been wirkin its wey throu Hugo-finalist televeesion shaws fae the heicht o L.O.P., we’v affen haed sair parallels atween the trends that led til Holmes & Yo Yo, an the airt that oor streaming services is heidit the day. In actual fact, the affcome o L.O.P. can be seen nooadays an is important for unnerstaunin whit wey parteeclar shaws is cawed-aff the air, whit wey ithers is makkit yet, an whit tae thole in the decades aheid.

Mony in the media haes been clawin thair heids in the bygane week anent the deceesion bi Netflix tae caw-aff the air the German lee-science follae-up 1899 efter jist echt pairts, in spite o guid write-ups in general an reportit heich nummers o fowk watchin. The deceesion haes been taen as teepical o the wey that streamers caws shaws aff efter jist ae season, an descrived as pairt o thair growin bing o deid, unfeenisht stories an a ‘void an redd’ wey o makkin TV.

Acause it stertit oot afore the lave, an sae is the biggest player amang the streamers gauin bi nummers o subscreivars, Netflix haes been steert first an foremaist tae jist haud fowk’s intress eneuch sae thay’ll no stop watchin – an that’s a gey different task fae the darg o gettin fowk tae sign up tae stert wi.

This ettle kythes as a focus on feenishing rates. Whit Netflix daesna want is a front-page shaw that fowk turns on, but, syne, daesna want tae watch ony mair. The Midnight Club wis ane o the tap shaws on this streamer, seein mair nor 90 million houres watcht whan it stertit in October. The Mike Flanagan YA horror wis weel-quotit amang critics, but wis reportit haein a feenishing rate o jist abuin 34 per cent, meanin that 65 per cent o TV watchers decidit thay haed better cheils tae tak in haun nor see the end. The ettle is tae keep fowk fae chengin til anither side, an sae this maks couthie programming a heid o the maist importance tae Netflix.

The shaw 1899 steert fans tae passion,
but confoondit ithers. Conform tae the
feenishing rate-driven rule that Netflix gaes
wi, dowf an foushionless is preferred
 tae thon that cuid’a been rare.
(Eemage bi gait o Netflix).

At Netflix L.O.P. is in guid fettle yet. This can be seen in the wey that thay haunle colour grading an cinematography. The streamer hauds til a hoose style o editin that seems tae be made sae as TV watchers haesna tae think muckle; the’r a foushionless feel grundit on thair steive rules for kind an uiss o camera. If a body faws asleep watchin the Netflix picture Adam Project, an waukens watchin Red Notice, ye michtna tent at it’s a different picture. The langage o the filmin is aye easy tae brek doun: the estaiblishin shot, follaed wi ower-the-shouder back an forrit crack. It’s aw couthie an maks it easy tae lowp fae ae Netflix picture tae the neist athoot devalin in atween, acause thay’r aw ae oo. This is gey like a phenomenon seen in NBC’s TV shaws o the 1970’s, that reused the same action stoonds, the same framing, an even the selfsame typefaces. The L.O.P. model lippens on cheils o the ae oo. This maks muckle o whit’s seen throu Netflix ideal for a TV watchin populace that isna fasht whit it’s watchin.

This wisna aye the case wi Netflix; back whan it wis the gallus cheil up agin the auld kind o televeesion, the streamer took a puckle chancy shots, an makkit a wheen o guid material that’s lastit. But sometime aroond 2018 Netflix remakkit L.O.P. fae foonding principles. An it is mensefae tae them in the short term: thaim that’s weel-tochert winna steer whan the’r reward in naething chengin.

In the 1980s, the deid haun that L.O.P. haed on televeesion netwarks stertit tae weir doun throu new technologies like pey-as-ye-watch an narra-cast cable netwarks. It’s ironic that Paul L. Klein wis ahin the stert o baith. The undemous growth o televeesion that follaed gied rise tae new kinds forby: TV watchin biggit aroond an aesome shaw; the direct mercatin machine; the netwark wi a narra intress. Ilk ane o thaim cawed in question L.O.P., an the mercat places that cam oot o this can be seen tae this day.

Noo, afore we speak o hoo ilk streamer is different, we shuid tak tent o whit’s weel seen: Neither Netflix, or Paramount+, or Apple+, or Amazon Prime, or HBO Max is yer freen. Thay are pendicles o warld-national corporations that’s ettles is jist tae mak profit for the sharehauders. If ony o thir corporations cuid heize thair margins bi a bittie o a per cent throu peyin Hunter Moore an Andrew Tate tae mak ugsome scud pictures, thay wad dae it athoot thinkin twyst.

Gauin bi his cynical opeenion
anent TV watchers, it shuid
be nae ferlie that Paul L. Klein
wis, forby, a racist troker o
hard-richt scud pictures
(Eemage bi gait o Twitter)

The maist weel seen instance that gaes conter tae the L.O.P. model o televeesion is HBO, the pey netwark that’s service model fae 1992 onwards wis tae tairget a puckle o weel kent shaws that drew follaers. The material didna hae tae kittle awbody, an cuid scunner mony, as lang as it drew in eneuch peyin hauns. We jalouse haed thay gaed live on HBO Max in 2020, 1899 wad’a haen a second season, while Emily in Paris wad’a been forgot as quick. Until no lang syne, the model o TV watchin biggit aroond an aesome shaw governed HBO’s wey o streaming, tho wi the stoushie that’s owertaen Warner Media ower the bygane saxmonth the gait thay noo tak isna clear.

But the product differencing that rang ower narra-intress cable netwarks like SYFY, Legend, an Nick, is gey different fae baith the L.O.P. or TV watchin biggit aroond ae shaw wey o’t. Narra-intress netwarks maks products that’s ettle is tae tick boxes, an no necessar tae evite offendin, or tae caw the crack by watter coolers, but raither tae fulfil a mandate. It’s weel seen that Shudder an Crunchyroll is amang the mair kenspeckle instances o this pattren o corporate interteenment in the streaming landscape o 2023.

The’r twa mair models o streaming service tae speak aboot, baith o them gey kittlesome.

The first is video interteenment as a tool for howkin data; the kenspeckle instance o this is Amazon Prime that wirks in some weys as a loss-leader. The televeesion service daesna mak a profit in fact, but raither fleitches consumers sign up til Amazon’s free shipping programme an at the hinnerend (it is howpfae) order mair fae the online troker. But mair sleekitly, this big troker haes the can tae mak mair an mair pyntit profiles o its streaming service users bi recordin the parteeclars o whit thay watch, hoo muckle thay watch, an whan thay deval. We wad suggest that ane o the key reasons that Prime haes shaws that finds favour amang sindry political intresses as The Boys an The Handmaid’s Tale is as pairt o a slee prattick in psychological pruivin. The Venn Diagram o fowk that watches Reacher an Ms. Maisel haesna muckle owerlap, an noo thair algorithms kens whit data bucket ye faw intae.

The hinmaist model o data streaming micht seem the maist skaithless, but hit’s the ane that causes the maist suspeecion: Identity as a subscreiver service. This model is ordnar tae Disney+ an Paramount+ an wis weel seen fae the weys that thay’v biggit thair leebrars o material aroond parteeclar, organised media-franchise warlds o fans. The’r nae ‘anchor show’ for either o thir streamers but insteid an identity as a fan that a body is subscreivin tae. It’s a trauchle tae be a “true Star Wars fan” athoot peyin a $11.99 monthly fee tae Disney+ for tae be pairt o thair hoose o fans. Likewise, it’s a trauchle tae be a “true Star Trek fan” athoot peyin $9.99 tae Paramount+ ilk month.

Jeff Bezos kens whit scenes fae The Boys TV watchers
hovers ower a guid bit, sae daena ferlie if ye
get tairgetit adverts sellin caller ferm milk at ye
(Eemage screen capturt fae Amazon Prime)

While aesome shaws on thir services micht come an gae, thir services is amang the maist likely tae seem douce in thair choices til an ootside watcher, an thay are are unlikely ever tae forleit ony o thair cash-coo sindry-media properties. We can lippen on intellectual offerings that daesna fash, an daesna threiten the lang-term warth o the IP owners or sharehauders.

Self-identity as a key selling pynt o a subscreivar service michtna seem a problem, but it’s no hard tae picture a time whaur a muckle streaming service douks intae the conter sides in culture weirs in an ettle tae bigg an identity streamer that’s astrictit tae, an weel-quotit amang, aw thaim wi a growin richt wing identity. Gien the company’s lang history o uphaudin tradeetional sex roles an white maucht, a body micht jalouse that Disney+ is the streamer maist like tae follae the gait o zeelots as set oot bi Fox News. This micht cuid dae muckle skaith tae the braider culture.

Whan crackin anent trokers o video interteenment, TV watchers an critics shuid aye ask whit ilk company is sellin, hoo thay are sellin it, an whit anes thay’r sellin tae. The answers tae thir questions is important for unnerstaunin the media landscape the noo, streaming in time tae come, an sae whit like culture in forrit time.

Set ower in Scots bi Dr Dauvit Horsbroch, 2024