Pixel Scroll 7/30 Gonna Scroll the Bones

A lot of material out there because of the Hugo voting deadline tomorrow but if you want more than the three items I included in today’s Scroll then Google is your friend.

(1) Today in History!

1932: Walt Disney released his first color cartoon, “Flowers and Trees,” made in three-color Technicolor.

1976: NASA released the famous “Face on Mars” photo, taken by Viking 1

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image by its HiRISE camera of the "Face on Mars". Viking Orbiter image inset in bottom right corner.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image by its HiRISE camera of the “Face on Mars”. Viking Orbiter image inset in bottom right corner.

(2) And Today’s Birthday Boy and Girl – what a coincidence!

Born 1965: J. K. Rowling

Born: Harry Potter (main character of Harry Potter series)

(3) “The Tom-cademy Awards: The Only Awards Show Exclusively for Tom Cruise Movies” is part of a weeklong Cruise-themed series on Grantland. The author anoints Emily Blunt as the Best Supporting Actress of any Cruise movie.

The wonderful thing about EoT is that it’s really funny. It achieves that by not pretending the audience has never seen a time-travel movie. Instead, Edge of Tomorrow claps the audience firmly on the shoulder and, smiling, asks (rhetorically), “Hey, wanna see Tom Cruise get iced?” And, as it turns out, watching The Character Named Tom Cruise getting killed in fun and interesting ways, ways that show just enough exposed cranium to make the exercise mean something, is pretty invigorating.

But! Do we not, paradoxically, also want to see The Character Named Tom Cruise succeed? To save the world and get the girl? Yeah, of course we do. This is Tom Cruise we’re talking about. And it’s Blunt, playing it straight the whole time while kicking a Ripley-in-Aliens level of xenomorph butt, who has to downshift from hero-on-a-recruiting-poster to woman-who-we-kind-of-want-to-see-kiss-Tom-Cruise in order to make Cage’s journey from charming coward to soldier/love interest believable. He’s the hero we deserve, that we also need to see die.

Genre films Minority Report (Best Visual Effects) and Interview With The Vampire (Best Costume Design) also take home the hardware.

(4) Janis Ian, who now writes in the sf field, has her own Bill Cosby story from when she was a teenager preparing to sing her hit song on The Smothers Brothers show in 1967.

“No, I was not sexually bothered by Bill Cosby,” said Ian in a Facebook post Tuesday, reacting to a New York magazine report featuring 35 women who accuse Cosby of sexual impropriety.

In her post, Ian accused Cosby of publicly outing her as a lesbian, based on a chance meeting backstage at a television show.

“Cosby was right in one thing. I am gay. Or bi, if you prefer, since I dearly loved the two men I lived with over the years. My tilt is toward women, though, and he was right about that.”

(5) On to tamer subjects – the Worldcon business meeting. Kevin Standlee hopes to discourage complaints while rewarding the reader’s attention with a good discussion of why meetings adopt Roberts Rules or the equivalent:

The reason that parliamentary procedure is complex is that it’s trying to balance a bunch of contradictory rights. If you’re someone who is convinced that your personal, individual right to speak for as long as you want and as many times at you want trumps the rights of the group to be able to finish the discussion and reach a decision in a reasonable time, well, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever be happy with any rules that allow for limits on debate. If you’re someone who has no patience with debate and just wants the Strong Man to Make Decisions, you’ll never be pleased with rules that allow for people to debate and reach a group decision through voting….

And he invites your help to improve how WSFS meetings are run.

WSFS rules are complicated because the people who attend the meetings have effectively voted for complexity, but also because some of the complexity is required to protect the rights of members, both individually and in groups, and including the members who aren’t even at the meeting. If you have a better way for deciding how we should run things, the onus is on you to propose something. As long as you just complain that “it’s too complicated,” without proposing something both easier and workable, don’t expect to be taken seriously.

(6 ) Russell Blackford on Metamagician and the Hellfire Club delivers “The Hugo Awards – 2015 – Summation”.

Even if there is a legitimate grain of truth somewhere amongst the complaints of the Sad Puppies group, their actions have led to an exceptionally weak Hugo field this year and to some specific perverse outcomes. If the Sad Puppies campaigners merely thought that there is a “usual suspects” tendency in recent Hugo nomination lists, and that politically conservative authors are often overlooked in recent times, they could have simply argued their case based on evidence. Likewise, they could have taken far wiser, far more moderate – far less destructive – actions to identify some genuinely outstanding works that might otherwise have been missed. What we saw this year, with politicised voting on an unprecedented scale, approached the level of sabotaging the awards. I repeat my hope that the Sad Puppies campaign will not take place next year, at least in anything like the same form. If it does, my attitude will definitely harden. I’ve been rather mild about the Sad Puppies affair compared to many others in SF fandom, and I think I can justify that, but enough is enough.

I really can’t understand how Blackford processes the ethics of the 2015 situation, this being the third go-round for Sad Puppies, that “enough” had not happened already to warrant a stronger expression of his disapproval, but a fourth iteration will.

(7) The shortest “fisking” in history — Larry Correia strikes back at Sad Puppies references in The New Yorker’s Delany interview The boldfaced sentences below are literally 66% of what he had to say.

The ensuing controversy has been described, by Jeet Heer in the New Republic, as “a cultural war over diversity,” since the Sad Puppies, in their pushback against perceived liberals and experimental writers, seem to favor the work of white men.

Diversity my ass. Last years winners were like a dozen white liberals and one Asian liberal and they hailed that as a huge win for diversity. 

Delany said he was dismayed by all this, but not surprised. “The context changes,” he told me, “but the rhetoric remains the same.”

Well, that’s a stupid conclusion. 

Alert the bugler to blow “Taps” over the fallen standards of Correia fisks….

(8) Cheryl Morgan tells fans don’t give up.

Look, there will be some weird stuff in the results this year. There may well be a few No Awards given out, and possibly some really bad works winning awards. It is not as if that hasn’t happened before, though perhaps not in the same quantities. On the other hand, people are talking about the Hugos much more this year than they ever have before, and in many more high profile places. In addition vastly more people have bought supporting memberships, and we are looking at a record number of people participating in the final ballot. All of those people will be eligible to nominate next year. This isn’t the way I would have liked to get that result, but it is a result all the same.

(9) John Scalzi realized he would have a more restful day if instead of discussing the Hugos he spent his time doing computer maintenance.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, David K.M. Klaus and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit to File 770 contributing editor Soon Lee.]

372 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 7/30 Gonna Scroll the Bones

  1. 2. FROM YOUR SMALL HOME TOWN TO THE GREAT BEYOND?
    The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip?
    Stardust, Neil Gaman
    I have to vote Gaiman here, because everything else he’s written in the 1990s (and on)—Sandman, Neverwhere, the hidden wedding short story in the introduction to “Smoke & Mirrors”—is spectacular. Just… Stardust… meh. It does not make me happy to have to vote down the McKillip. I DO NOT LIKE THIS BRACKET.

    4. OF COURSE YOU REALIZE THIS MEANS WAR?A
    Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
    ?War for the Oaks, Emma Bull
    I’m surprised, too. But damn if the amazon preview of the Emma Bull didn’t hook me by the horns.
    I’m going to hell, I know.

    5. SERIOUSLY TARAN WHAT’S UP SHOULD WE SEND HELP?
    Taran Wanderer, Lloyd Alexander?
    Dracula, Bram Stoker
    Though let’s say the entire Chronicles of Prydain. Also, the bracket title is giving off a serious Allie Brosh/Kate Beaton vibe which is FULL OF AWESOME.

    6. ONE DAY YOU WAKE UP AND EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT
    ?Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny?
    The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
    I DO NOT LIKE COCKROACH WITH HANDS,
    I DO NOT LIKE IT, FRANZ THE MANZ
    “WOULD YOU LIKE IT WHILE DEPRESSED?
    WOULD YOU LIKE IT FULL OF STRESS?”
    I WOULD NOT LIKE IT WHILE DEPRESSED
    I THINK THAT YOU HAVE MADE A MESS
    YOUR CASTLE, TRIAL ARE JUST FINE
    BUT THIS ONE, FRANZ, I DRAW THE LINE!
    I DO NOT LIKE COCKROACH WITH HANDS,
    I DO NOT LIKE IT, FRANZ THE MANZ!

    8. 1990 VS. 1999?
    Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling?
    Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
    9. TALES OF THE SUBTLE FAE?
    Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones
    ?Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees
    Diana Wynne Jones, always and forever.

    11. TI-JEANNE VS. BUTTERCUP
    ?Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson?
    The Princess Bride, William Goldman
    Another unhappy bracket, by which I mean both are deserving. And yes, you should read Which Lie Did I Tell and Adventures in the Screen Trade.

    13. EVERYTHING SLOWLY GOING DOWNHILL?
    One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
    The Dying Earth, Jack Vance
    WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME, KYRA. TIE!

    14. LEARNING THAT YOU’RE UNHAPPY?
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin?
    The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany
    To quote Roger Angell’s “Greetings, Friends!”:
    “…and hugs for Ursula K. Le Guin!”

    15. I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I AM?
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
    ?Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe
    ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
    We have to go Soldier in the Mist. BUT STILL. ARE YOU A DEMON, KYRA. ARE YOU HERE TO TORTURE US.

    17. VICTORY BY DROPPING STUFF ON PEOPLE’S HEADS?
    The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley?
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
    Terry Pratchett himself is, if not God, certainly a servant of God, or of the Gods.
    18. STRANGE DOINGS UP AT THE CASTLE?
    Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake?
    The Dragon Waiting, John M. Ford

    Hooray! An easy one! All I remember about Gormenghast is the PBS series with Ian Richardson screaming “GOR-MEN-GHAST! GOR-MEN-GHAST!” I was really excited for that series, and it was kind of a letdown. JOHN FORD ALL THE WAY.

  2. You’ll note, I expect, that when Brian’s doing his puppy apologias, he seems to find the wherewithal to post over and over and over, but when it comes to answering questions, suddenly he’s wary of posting too much. Lest he accidentally answer?

    And of course, even when he does pretend to answer a question, like when he was asked which recent novelettes he’s taken with, considering how concerned he is about the form, he couldn’t even name one.

    He is, of course, still willing to misrepresent the positions of others.

  3. Greg wins the special Five Minutes To Midnight Seussian Poetry Slam!

    The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
    I DO NOT LIKE COCKROACH WITH HANDS,
    I DO NOT LIKE IT, FRANZ THE MANZ
    “WOULD YOU LIKE IT WHILE DEPRESSED?
    WOULD YOU LIKE IT FULL OF STRESS?”
    I WOULD NOT LIKE IT WHILE DEPRESSED
    I THINK THAT YOU HAVE MADE A MESS
    YOUR CASTLE, TRIAL ARE JUST FINE
    BUT THIS ONE, FRANZ, I DRAW THE LINE!
    I DO NOT LIKE COCKROACH WITH HANDS,
    I DO NOT LIKE IT, FRANZ THE MANZ!

  4. THE COMPLEAT FANTASY BRACKET, FIRST ROUND (THE BIG ONE)

    1. EVERYONE LOVES AN ECCENTRIC WIZARD
    The Once and Future King, T. H. White

    2. FROM YOUR SMALL HOME TOWN TO THE GREAT BEYOND
    Stardust, Neil Gaman

    3. ADVENTURERS TWO
    Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart

    4. OF COURSE YOU REALIZE THIS MEANS WAR
    A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin

    5. SERIOUSLY TARAN WHAT’S UP SHOULD WE SEND HELP
    Dracula, Bram Stoker

    6. ONE DAY YOU WAKE UP AND EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT
    Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny

    7. TEA AND CACOASTRUM
    To Reign in Hell, Steven Brust

    8. 1990 VS. 1999
    Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling

    11. TI-JEANNE VS. BUTTERCUP
    The Princess Bride, William Goldman

    13. EVERYTHING SLOWLY GOING DOWNHILL
    One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

    14. LEARNING THAT YOU’RE UNHAPPY
    The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin

    15. I CAN’T REMEMBER WHO I AM
    The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

    16. ACROSS THE SCOPE OF HISTORY
    Silverlock, John Myers Myers

    17. VICTORY BY DROPPING STUFF ON PEOPLE’S HEADS
    Small Gods, Terry Pratchett

    Aside from the no votes, the closest decisions for me were Bridge of Birds over Lieber, and To Reign in Hell over Tea with the Black Dragon

  5. @Mike: Hooray! Thanks!

    @Kyra: Let me be the first second 2000th to congratulate you on a thoroughly entertaining, diabolical set of [ ]s.

    @BruceBaugh: That was a great, great mini-essay on Thomas Covenant, and something I hadn’t grokked about the series when I read it as a teenager. Superbly elucidated, and worthy of a much larger audience.

    @Camestros: This is a threat and a promise. If you do not write an anthology using each of those, I might. Then again, it would be a lot of stories.
    Hmmm… anthology. Multiple writers. You know, if you didn’t want to write them all…
    Gee, if only I knew of a place where a lot of talented sf&f writers hung out… but first we’d need a title…

  6. Has it occurred to you that you haven’t seen Xanatos himself speak out against EPH? Why not?

    Because he knows damn well that doing so would guarantee that the Business Meeting would pass it.

  7. Greg on August 1, 2015 at 12:34 am said:

    @Camestros: This is a threat and a promise. If you do not write an anthology using each of those, I might. Then again, it would be a lot of stories.

    Well I’ve been cruelly shut out of the Hugo awards all these years by their inherently biased rules which mean only people who actually write things can be nominated. What about all those people who sometimes THINK about writing things? As usual the elites and cliques and CHORFS and the SMURFS just exclude those people. Particularly the SMURFS – they really like to keep the awards to themselves. Gargamel was much maligned.

    {Also please more Suess kafka…}

  8. David Goldfarb on August 1, 2015 at 1:05 am said:
    Because he knows damn well that doing so would guarantee that the Business Meeting would pass it.

    Also, and I’m guessing, maths is probably not his strong point but it isn’t an area he’d like to be seen to do badly in.

  9. In this edition of the bracket winners … thrills, chills, and a few massive upsets!

    First, the off-bracket votes. There were fewer this time, as the bracket settles into its final form, but there was still support for The Broken Sword, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Lord of the Isles, Dark Sun Rising, Solomon Kane, and two votes to bring back God Stalk.

    As for the bracket itself …

    WINNER, seeded: The Once and Future King, T. H. White – 38
    The Silent Tower, Barbara Hambly – 12
    In spite of some real love expressed for The Silent Tower, The Once and Future King led throughout. It will proceed to test itself against the sword in the stone as a seeded candidate, and The Silent Tower shall be imprisoned by the Seal of the Dead God and pretend to be mad until it cleverly escapes.

    WINNER, seeded: The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip – 36
    Stardust, Neil Gaiman – 27
    In the most astonishing come-from-behind victory yet, The Riddle-Master, which at one point was trailing by a double-digit margin, received a late surge of support and sailed ahead to become a seeded candidate. It will go on to seek the High One, and Stardust, though clearly much loved, will travel to the lands beyond the Wall.

    WINNER, seeded: Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart – 33
    Two Sought Adventure, Fritz Leiber – 24
    This one was tied for a long, long time, but Bridge of Birds pulled it out at the end. It will continue to look for the Great Root of Power as a seeded candidate, and Two Sought Adventure will lurk somewhere in the shadowy streets of Lankhmar.

    WINNER: War for the Oaks, Emma Bull – 31
    A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin – 29
    In the most astonishing come-from-beh – oh, I’ve used that one. In a truly surprising upset victory, the trailing War for the Oaks surges ahead to beat the best-selling powerhouse! Now it’s testing the sound system for the musical battles of the upcoming rounds. George R. R. Martin, in response to his loss, throws a MASSIVE BRACKET LOSERS PARTY.

    WINNER: Taran Wanderer, Lloyd Alexander – 30
    Dracula, Bram Stoker – 27
    Another one that was tied up until the very end, but the assistant pig keeper once again fights off the forces of darkness. He shall continue on his quest to find his heritage, and Dracula will return to his coffin until night falls.

    WINNER, seeded: Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny – 49
    The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka – 15
    The bracket votes have been showing a preference for genre fantasy over lit fantasy, and Zelazny is a powerhouse. The two factors combined made this an easy victory. Nine Princes in Amber will continue to walk the Pattern as a seeded candidate, and The Metamorphosis will scuttle about its room while its relatives try to forget it exists.

    WINNER: Tea with the Black Dragon, R. A. MacAvoy – 27
    To Reign in Hell, Steven Brust – 19
    Close until near the end, with the leader trading off a couple of times, MacAvoy eventually pulled ahead for a convincing win. Tea will be drunk in celebration. To Reign in Hell will go off to create new worlds.

    WINNER (TIE): Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling – 29
    WINNER (TIE): Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay – 29
    Rowling’s work was largely predicted to win, and it did, but so did Kay’s Tigana, in a surprising result that could justifiably be called another upset! Both shall proceed on to fight sorcerers who would be tyrants in the coming rounds.

    WINNER (TIE): Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones – 22
    WINNER (TIE): Lud-in-the-Mist, Hope Mirrlees – 22
    Another tie! Many of you had trouble choosing between Fire and Hemlock and Lud-in-the-Mist, and for now you don’t have to! Both will match wits against the mysterious in the coming rounds.

    WINNER, seeded: Watership Down, Richard Adams – 38
    The Sword of Conan, Robert E. Howard – 22
    Conan, at last, brought down by his greatest foe – rabbits. Watership Down will seek new lands as a seeded candidate, and Conan will travel on to other strange adventures.

    WINNER, seeded: The Princess Bride, William Goldman – 33
    Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson – 16
    Brown Girl in the Ring definitely had its supporters, but it’s The Princess Bride and not Ti-Jeanne that will go on to storm the castle as a seeded candidate.

    WINNER: The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman – 25
    Magic’s Price, Mercedes Lackey – 19
    Lackey’s book began lagging behind, surged up midway through the voting to pass Pullman’s, but in the end fell behind again. A close race, but it is the armored bears and not the herald mages who will do battle in the rounds to come.

    WINNER, seeded: The Dying Earth, Jack Vance – 34
    One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez – 16
    There was a great deal of love for One Hundred Years of Solitude, but more for the Vance. The Dying Earth will cram as many spells into its head as it can for the upcoming rounds.

    WINNER, seeded: The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin – 49
    The King of Elfland’s Daughter, Lord Dunsany – 10
    Early on, votes were tilted towards The King of Elfland’s Daughter, and I wondered if it was a work that was finally going to give Le Guin a run for her money. The answer? No.

    WINNER, seeded: The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle – 32
    Soldier of the Mist, Gene Wolfe – 24
    Another match that was extremely close for a long time, but The Last Unicorn carried the day. It will look for others of its kind as a seeded candidate, and Wolfe’s book shall … huh, I can’t remember.

    WINNER: Little, Big, John Crowley – 24
    Silverlock, John Myers Myers – 15
    Still another that was tied for a good long while, but Little, Big moved ahead for a convincing win. It will look for the fairies in future rounds, and Silverlock shall wash ashore on the Commonwealth.

    WINNER, seeded: Small Gods, Terry Pratchett – 37
    The Hero and the Crown, Robin McKinley – 15
    There was some vocal support for McKinley’s book, but the Pratchett was a force of nature. It will continue to seek truth as a seeded candidate, but that’s all right, The Hero and the Crown already slew the dragon halfway through the voting.

    WINNER: The Dragon Waiting, John M. Ford – 27
    Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake – 20
    In another close contest, The Dragon Waiting manages the win. The first off-bracket candidate to make it on will be the one moving forward, and Peake’s book will stay behind to make sure the rituals are followed.

  10. Your write ups of the brackets are a treasure Kyra ! Thank you, I assume Islandia waits in the wings ? Or is it Hobbits ? The audience wonders.

  11. 1. Work toward reconciliation.

    I’ve said something like this before, but I’m curious as to what a gesture towards reconciliation would look like coming from the Puppies.

  12. @Nigel:

    Some whiff of a hint of a clue that maybe, just maybe, they might have inadvertently screwed up this year. It’d be a very tiny step, but it’s more than I’ve seen so far.

    Even better would be a unified statement from the Lead Puppies saying that they never wanted to shut everybody else out, they’re very sorry, and they’re calling off their plans for a 2016 campaign so they can take stock, refocus, and find a way to promote works they like without being combative or shutting everyone else out.

    Of course, nothing even faintly resembling that is going to happen, because they’re too bound up in their identity politics to concede any wrongdoing or change course… but that’s an evaluation about which I would be most pleased to be proven mistaken.

  13. About Lord of Light. One of the many things that it’s about is changing perspectives. Things being brought to light, things being hidden, things being changed because of how they are perceived. It’s structurally beautiful, and not just because it’s built as a play within a proscenium arch, although that in itself is an elegant thing, and again about shifting perspectives.

    There’s a point at almost the exact center of the novel, just before a massive battle, that is a conversation between two peasants, never seen before or ever again. One of them is complaining about the smell coming from his neighbor’s house. The other explains that they’ve been saving up their effluent. They are going to get a new, wonderful technology, a flush toilet, but they are very worried about the karmic implications of same. The conversation is hysterically funny, and about very serious things. These are small people, terribly worried about shit. Worried about the production and disposal of shit, the technological implications of the disposal of shit, and how that shit will affect their future lives. And they are worried, rightly so, about how the massive powers that rule their lives, will perceive their desire to participate in this technology. They know they are helpless and in the hands of gods, and still they strive. They strive to please the masters of their fates, and they strive to please themselves. They care a lot about status. And what they’re talking about is shit. In the end, it’s all shit, isn’t it?

    The conversation neatly balances the arguments that the people with limited education and training should be entitled to the grand wonders of technology and the argument that maybe they’re not really sophisticated enough to make their own choices. The choice of subject matter is also interesting, too. There’s not much more basic and biological than the production of shit. At the same time, one of the major jobs of civilization is the job of a) providing sufficient material that it can be turned into shit by the populace and b) disposing of said shit in a fashion that it doesn’t kill all the people it just worked on feeding in the first place. It’s about both the necessary, biological basis of life, and the uses and wonders of technology to make our lives better. That battle, that huge battle that we’re in the run-up to? It’s all about shit. Nothing but shit.

  14. @Rev Bob – yeah, that’s hardly going to happen, but let us posit for a moment that we are indeed as Brian conceives us, two bitterly opposed parties with injustices and grievances on both sides and that by bravely staking out a middle ground, Brian is positioned to initiate a peace process. Never easy these peace processes. Long and tortuous. They require people of good will on both sides who are themselves moving away from hardline positions, moving forward, while using the hardliners as a kind of threatened stick should the process fail (‘they haven’t gone away, you know.’)

    But peace processes involve concessions and recognition. So what would non-puppies have to concede, assuming for a moment that you found someone with the authority to speak for a group that literally consists of everyone who isn’t a puppy? About the only thing that could be conceded and recognised is that non-puppies have said mean things about puppies. It’s true! They have! Said a few of them myself! Not sure I regret any of them. I may nearly have regretted some of the things being said to Tank Wombat, but then Tank Wombat kept on being Tank Wombat, and my regrets dissolved like tears in the rain.

    What else could be conceded or recognised? Nobody thinks their claims are valid, and nobody would want to grant them validity by pretending to recognise them in the name of peace. Likewise for them to recognise the grievances of non-puppies would be to concede that they were peddling nonsense.

    So what are the grounds for reconciliation? Love of the Hugos? They hate the Hugos. Love of SFF? Not so long as their love of culture war comes first. A common sense of fandom? They didn’t respect fandom enough not to throw all this at the WorldCon organisers, did they?

    You know what grievances are relatively straightforward to address? The real ones. The grievances of people upset or annoyed or discommoded by the puppy assault on the Hugos could be addressed by apologies and acts of goodwill, such as volunteering to help out and get involved in WorldCon or any available fannish activity.

    You know what grievances can’t be addressed? Imaginary ones. Like the ones that prompted the whole puppy project. I suppose somebody could try to negotiate with Beale and get the numbers of SJWs to be expelled from fandom down to a manageable size. Good luck with that.

    This doesn’t need a peace process. Reconcialtion will accrue after the power of slates has been blunted and time has passed and the bile and vitriol of the lead puppies has subsided to a dull roar and Beale gets his head stuck in some other golf bag.

  15. (The second most constructive thing we could do would be to kickstart Dangerous Visions, starting with the ones we haven’t read yet.)

    Few things date as hilari-badly as yesterday’s edgy fiction, and the stuff in the final DV has been composting for what, forty years?

  16. @Brian Z I’m sure you were not expecting me to defend that joke.

    Perhaps not, but – going by experience – we sadly expected you to defend the joke-repeater.

    @Greg
    I DO NOT LIKE COCKROACH WITH HANDS,
    I DO NOT LIKE IT, FRANZ THE MANZ
    “WOULD YOU LIKE IT WHILE DEPRESSED?
    WOULD YOU LIKE IT FULL OF STRESS?”

    Much agreement. I finished Metamorphosis, but not by choice – it was the only story in my English textbook that I hadn’t read within a week of getting the book.

Comments are closed.