Coalescent

Inspired by:

Sarah Jane Adventures better than Torchwood? I'm a big fan of Torchwood's first season and I'm liking the second large. The ep of the Sarah Jane Adventures that I've seen was cool but not great so it's hard for me to judge relative merits. But, as The Evening Herald opined yesterday, I can't help but wondering if some of the "Torchwood is crap" sentiment springs from resistance to a show which is headlined by an openly gay man who is not camp and a career woman who is not girly.

[Poll #1127773]

Chance asked:

Have you ever examined how you stack up with regards to parity on people reviewed and people doing the reviewing?

The second "you" refers to sh_reviews. Several people said I should bump my answer up to a separate post, so here it is:

"As of tomorrow [now today], in 2007 Strange Horizons will have published 148 reviews (of 144 different things, due to "two views" pieces and other overlap) by 53 reviewers. Of the reviewers, 29 (55%) are men and 24 (45%) are women. That's where the good news ends. The 29 men account for 92 (62%) of the reviews, while the 24 women account for 54 (38%) of the reviews. Worse, of the 130 reviews of books (88% of all reviews), 93 (72%) are books by men and 37 (28%) are books by women.

I can tell you that this last figure roughly reflects the proportions of books we receive. At the moment, in on my list of books-we-have-that-I-would-in-principle-like-to-get-reviewed-sometime, there are 26 books; 6 (23%) are by women and 20 (77%) are by men. I haven't tried to count to see how this reflects sf publishing in general, though I'd love to know. I also haven't counted to see how SH compares to other reviews venues."

jamiam said:

Maybe you could get someone who prefers reading women/authors of color/what-have-you to occasionally shoot you a list of the stuff they'd like to see reviewed? And use that to supplement your own list?

All recommendations are always welcomed. (Several people do, in fact, already send me recommendations, although not on a formal/scheduled basis.) I try to chase up pretty much every book by a woman or author of colour on any given Locus list of forthcoming books; I note that the current list is about 22% such books (38 of 173 -- this is a quick count, so I would expect to be out by a few), and that I've already commissioned (or published) reviews of about a third of them. I also note that I've commissioned about half a dozen reviews of relevant books not on the Locus list, and that these tend to be YA books or books from non-genre publishers.

I would be particularly glad to receive suggestions of authors for "feature weeks", where we publish several reviews of books by the same writer; previous author-focused feature weeks have been for John Crowley, Justina Robson, and James Tiptree Jr. (Not that I'm short of ideas, of course ...) The major criterion is that the author should have a new book coming out on which to hang the week. Preferably their other books should be in print, so that I can get them for reviewers -- although Aegypt isn't all in print, so that's not a fixed rule.

Any other questions?

[Poll #1046886]

Actual answer here. Vote before you click.

EDIT: See also jlassen's two entries, and Andrew Wheeler here.

FURTHER EDIT: Commentary from rosefox here and cristalia here.

Once more unto the breach:

[Poll #1040140]

As ever, feel free to express your incredulity at others' choices in the form of a comment. For example: buymeaclue, why do you think it is GOOD that I have spilt tomato sauce on my copy of F100? despotliz, what have you got against mustard? Why do you all hate James Bond? And does anyone other than me even watch John From Cincinnati?

Based on the results of this, this and this:

1 2x04 The Girl in the Fireplace 95.2
2 1x09 The Empty Child 93.9
3 3x10 Blink 92.2
4 1x10 The Doctor Dances 90.0
5 3x08 Human Nature 88.5
6 2x12 Army of Ghosts 87.2
7 3x01 Smith and Jones 84.1
8 2x13 Doomsday 82.5
9 3x09 The Family of Blood 82.5
10 1x06 Dalek 82.0
11 1x03 The Unquiet Dead 80.8
12 2x03 School Reunion 76.2
13 1x02 The End of the World 75.0
14 3x11 Utopia 73.4
15 1x01 Rose 72.5
16 2x09 The Satan Pit 70.7
17 2x02 Tooth and Claw 69.0
18 1x12 Bad Wolf 68.6
19 2x08 The Impossible Planet 68.3
20 C1 The Christmas Invasion 67.4
21 C2 The Runaway Bride 66.0
22 1x13 The Parting of the Ways 65.4
23 3x12 The Sound of Drums 61.9
24 3x02 The Shakespeare Code 58.1
25 1x08 Father's Day 56.2
26 1x11 Boom Town 56.0
27 1x07 The Long Game 52.3
28 3x06 The Lazarus Experiment 50.8

<--------------- THE LINE OF TRUTH --------------->

29 2x10 Love and Monsters 48.7
30 3x03 Gridlock 47.6
31 2x07 The Idiot's Lantern 47.5
32 2x05 Rise of the Cybermen 41.5
33 3x07 42 37.7
34 1x05 World War III 35.3
35 2x11 Fear Her 34.2
36 2x06 The Age of Steel 32.5
37 3x13 Last of the Time Lords 28.1
38 2x01 New Earth 26.2
39 3x04 Daleks in Manhattan 26.2
40 1x04 Aliens of London 19.2
41 3x05 Evolution of the Daleks 6.2

Observations:

1. Steven Moffatt's four episodes take the top four slots comfortably; all his episodes have at least 90% GOOD; no other episodes do. For all the complaints about him, RTD has the next-highest number of episodes in the top 10.

2. Season three has the most episodes in the top 10, but has the lowest average score -- 56.7% GOOD, vs. 65.2% for season one and 60.0% for season two -- possibly because it also has the most episodes in the bottom 10.

3. These means exclude the Christmas specials, which both sit mid-table.

4. I'm a little surprised at how well the season two finale has charted; both parts made the top 10, much higher than either of the other finales charted.

5. Less than a third of episodes are officially BAD, which I guess means the show's doing something right.

[Poll #1008811]

Pursuant to this exchange ...

[Poll #999307]

Yesterday brought the news that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have teamed up to produce/direct a trilogy of Tintin films.

Spielberg and Jackson are said to have selected three adventures from the comic book series, but it is not yet known which ones they are.

The question, of course, is which three it should be. Hence:

[Poll #985701]

The reasons for my own votes are, of course, obvious: The Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham's Treasure has PIRATES, Destination Moon/Explorers on the Moon has THA MOON, and Tintin in Tibet is just all around great.

(I hope this extended poll works. I consulted ninebelow in matters of poll mojo, so if it doesn't work, blame him.)

EDIT (a) it worked! and (b) comment-spam of the day.

[Poll #980885]

Note: "An award" does not mean that you are indiscriminate and will read something just because it won A. N. Award. If you occasionally read books because they win the Whitbread, but couldn't care less about the Nebula winner, tick "yes" for "I have occasionally read a book because it was nominated for or won an award." Similarly, if you've been debating about picking up a book and then an award tips you over the edge, that counts as a yes too. Use your own judgement for what counts as "occasionally" or "often".

Inspired by this post, with which I have to admit I have some sympathy:

[Poll #976069]

EDIT: You all have a lot of anger in your lives, don't you?