Hugo if you want to...

[inamac]

From time to time, when lil_shepherd and I are out walking the dog, or getting the shopping, or doing some other activity that requires minimal engagement, we discuss The Importance (and fun) of Doing Research, with side-diversions into (for fanfic) the Importance of Brit/Yank Picking

Comments

[lukadreaming]

I've Tweeted and Facebooked Hickey's rant! I gave up on Willis after the Brit howlers in The Doomsday Book and the never-ending gags which needed editing with a pickaxe in the near-death experiences one (blanking on the name). Some time ago lil_shepherd warned me off the two that have just won the Hugo, and I prize my living room wall too much to inflict more dents on it from flying books!

[inamac]

The books are, apparently, being re-edited for British publication - but I suspect that the damage has been done (and I can't think how you could edit out a major plot point).

[lukadreaming]

There's a cabal of American publishers, of which Willis's is one, who really don't get that the presence of Amazon means people in the UK can and do buy American books. I've had spats with two crime fiction authors over reviews which pointed out their inability to either making their characters sound British or to carry the most basic of checks for British accuracy. One of them couldn't see the problem with having a hummingbird in the Lake District. The other seemed to think that it didn't matter that her characters sounded like boys from the 'hood or that she hadn't done the slightest research on how UK universities operate.

[phoebesmum]

Have the entire plot of your book depend on the idea that a historian, at Oxford University, whose specialist period is the Second World War, is completely unfamiliar with the names ‘Bletchley Park’ and ‘Alan Turing’.

I have just come over slightly faint. Or possibly sick. How?! And where was her editor??

[kellychambliss]

Hickey's essay is brilliant. As you say, he's nailed exactly why this sort of careless writing a) matters and b) is infuriating

[lil_shepherd]

She seems to have a massive problem with geography. This is apparently as true for an American city within driving distance of her home (Boulder in Bellwether, a book I enjoyed) as it is for London or Manchester. (This statement being made by a resident of said Boulder, who ought, one supposes, to know.)

[inamac]

It's really difficult to stand up for accuracy and research in fanfic when the pros get it wrong. Natural history is another problem - fond as I am on the armadillo in Dracula (1931), and the American robin in Mary Poppins (an AU universe if ever there was one) they do distract from the actual plot.

I got so involved in the research for a story (or was it a piece of artwork? I forget), involving the Titanic that I never did anything with the knowledge - except pick holes in Passage. I would have picked holes in the movie except that I have studiously avoided it (Kenneth More being so much more attractive than Leo -and able to act).

[rdmaughan]

Is the book set before the invention of the world wide web? I would have though even an incompetent historian could google the names and find out what they are about.

Good grief there has been at least one Hollywood film about Bletchley.

[abigail_n]

That's actually one of the main complaints about it - the book is set in a universe that Willis starting writing about in the late 80s or early 90s, pre-internet and cellphones. So even though the story (the framing narrative, that is, where the time travelers depart from) is set in 2060, these technologies are absent. Which might be forgivable if failures of communication weren't such a major theme in all of Willis's novels. In Doomsday Book Oxford is cut off from the world by a storm, and I gather than something similar happens in Blackout/All Clear, but in this case the problem is such that it could be solved if only cell phones existed in the book's universe.

[lil_shepherd]

I am told there is a line somewhere in Blackout/All Clear which attempts to handwave the lack of mobile phones on the basis that they have been banned as a health hazard. Or something.

I'm afraid my copy of Doomsday Book hit the wall less than a couple of chapters in and bounced into the waste bin. In my defence I did, somehow, finish Passage and quite enjoyed both Bellwether and Lincoln Dreams - though if anyone has figured out the meaning of the latter's title, I'd love to know what it was. (And I speak as a Brit who knew all about Traveller and Little Hen long before I read Willis.)

[darklotus1211]

Thanks so much for this post and the link to that ever so entertaining rant!

I was a big reader of science fiction in the 60s and 70s, but apart from the odd sojourn since then, I really haven't read too much so am sadly out of touch.

The description of this/these books and the deplorable marketing strategy (what bloody cheek!) makes me rather glad that in this instance I am.

I'm sure that this post and the linked rant are much more readable and enjoyable than the book.

[inamac]

Oh SF fandom isn't that bad (I've always been more of a fantasy fan), but it's just as prone as mediafandom to the 'cult of personality' - which is what this really is, rather than any critical literary impartiality.

All literary prizes are a combination of popularity contest and pretentious posturing (except possibly the Bad Sex Prize).