Most of Those Color Quizzes are Total Crap

Because the magic system of my Lightbringer Series is intensely concerned with color and perception, and because I treat these in a mostly scientific fashion, I tend to get a lot of emails from readers pointing out the latest BuzzFeed or whatever quiz. “This woman can see millions more colors than the average person! Can you?” Or, “Are you a tetrachromat? Take this test and see!”

This link explains why most of those are complete garbage. And my thanks to Unreasonably Dangerous Onion Rings for taking the time to debunk this so that I could spend my time writing novels.

http://unreasonablydangerousonionrings.com/2015/03/03/you-are-not-a-tetrachromat-and-this-graphic-is-bullshit/

The TL;DR: It is physically impossible for these tests to tell if you a functional 4th cone because computer monitors make their colors by mixing only 3 colors, RGB.

This is not to say that all the information or all the quizzes on the internet are worthless. Ones like this are very interesting http://www.xrite.com/online-color-test-challenge, but still limited by the quality of your computer monitor, and how well you’ve calibrated it. So comparing your score to someone else’s is almost meaningless, unless you were both using the same computer. (Naturally, I got a perfect score.)

Or things like this are really closer to astrology, but are fun nonetheless: http://www.astro.com/cgi/atxgen.cgi?btyp=cf and the Lüscher Color Test: http://www.luscher-color.com/ is significantly more scientific from what I can tell, and is used as psychological diagnostic tool. But either to protect their intellectual property, or because of the flaws of RGB screens, it is only available in physical form. I’ve taken the test. Very interesting.

Sidenote for my own readers: in my world, I have 50% of women be tetrachromats. In the real world, it’s possible that 12% of women are tetrachromats. And most of those non-functionally tetrachromatic, because they’re never taught how to even distinguish those extra colors. I use this 1) there would be a competitive advantage for such women in a world with the kind of magic mine has and 2) because it makes for better fiction. It is genetically possible, though incredibly rare, for tetrachromacy to occur in men. It would, however, usually come with other unpleasant disabilities which I chose to elide. This series is reality-heavy as it is.

P.S. It’s totally fine to tag me when you find cool color stuff online. I most likely have already seen it, but it may be a new discovery, I certainly don’t mind when people tag me on things I’ve seen a dozen times, so don’t worry about it!

Posted on in Seven Satrapies

David Gemmell Legend Award: Shortlist

david-gemmell-award

The Broken Eye has made it to the shortlist of the David Gemmell Legend Award! A huge thanks to all who voted–and I mean that. All of you, not just all of you who voted for me. (Ok, a small place in my heart is significantly warmer toward the latter.)

The DGLA is a new award, and it’s a different kind of award. Every kind of award comes with certain limitations, but those limitations can either be ameliorated or exaggerated. In certain Hugo categories, there have been people who win the award 12 or more times, or categories where it seems groups simply trade the award back and forth. That kind of result shows the weaknesses not of the field of SFF, but of an award’s rubric for selecting its ‘best of’.

The Gemmell Awards have their own weakness–and no one has ever denied this. It’s an award decided by several consecutive popular votes. If Brandon Sanderson campaigned hard, he could likely win this award every year not featuring a Martin book. Brandon has chosen to not campaign–which I think is both honorable and wise.

With a new award especially, if too few writers win it, the award itself is weakened. As Mark Lawrence points out in his post, this year’s short list includes Sanderson, Lawrence, and me–each of whom has won before. Joe Abercrombie hasn’t won the Legend Award but has been on the short list four times now. On one hand, this isn’t surprising, nor is it a weakness:  OF COURSE writers who have moved readers previously will continue to do work that inspires readers to make a few clicks on a webpage.

But the goal of the David Gemmell Awards is “to recognise and promote writers and artists in the fantasy field. … Gemmell supported and encouraged new authors and artists as well as being part of the pantheon of great fantasy writers worldwide.” Certainly, the Gemmells honor the kinds of works that readers have long loved but that awards committees have either looked down on or decided didn’t need honoring because they thought selling a lot of books was reward enough.

But if readers only vote every year for their favorite author–rather than their favorite book–and they never even read the others, then the Gemmell Awards will have failed. The long list and short list should be a place to discover books that other fantasy fans are passionate about. The winner should represent the best of those as decided by fans. “Should.” But how close what the award is trying to achieve and what it will actually achieve is up to you.

All that to say, I absolutely believe you should vote for what you believe to be the best book on the ballot, regardless of whether its author has won before. BUT, if you think two books are equally good and one of them hasn’t won the award yet, I would urge you vote for that one.

That is, unless you’re stuck between my book and Abercrombie’s. I think ultimately, it’s in the interests not just of SFF fandom, but also in the best interests of Joe “Little Axe” Abercrombie himself to remain the Losingest Gemmell Nominee of All Time.

Click HERE to vote.  Voting ends Friday, July 17th at midnight.

Posted on in Contests