The Dingolarity 6/5

aka Is All of Time and Space Truly Curred?

Pawing through the roundup we find Juan Tabo, S. Harris, Glenn Hauman, David Mack, John Scalzi, Charles Stross, Nick Mamatas, Jeffro Johnson, Barry Deutsch, Mcjulie McGalliard, Russell Blackford, Lis Carey, Rhiannon Thomas, Rebekah Golden, Chris M. Neill and cryptic others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Kate and James H. Burns.)

We begin with dueling parodies of Rachel Swirsky’s frequently debated “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love.”

Juan Tabo and S. Harris on Vox Popoli

“If You Were an Award, My Love” – June 5

If you were an award, my love, then you would be a Hugo™. You’d be a big one, five feet, ten inches, the same height as human-you and twice the height of Regular Size John Scalzi, You’d be made of brass, and wood and plastic, and difficult to take on an airplane as carry on due to enhanced security precautions. Your eyes wouldn’t exist, because you were a rocket, stupid.

If you were a Hugo®, then I would become Taller, Stronger John Scalzi so that I could spend all my time with you. I’d bring you raw chickens and live goats, if you were into that kind of thing.  I’d make my bed right under the trophy case, in the basement where my wife lets me sleep. When I couldn’t sleep, I’d sing you lullabies. If I sang you lullabies, I’d soon notice how you were still a statue. You’d just sit there, because you were still a statue.

 

By Glenn Hauman and David Mack on Crazy 8 Press

“If You Were A Puppy, My Sweet” – June 5

If you were a puppy, my sweet, you would be a wild one. You’d be big and neutered, just like human-you. You’d bound from place to place, unburdened by any thought of consequences, full of energy and bereft of conscience. Some would delight in your antics, your perverse rejection of dignity. Others would quail from your manic slobbering and call you a nuisance, but you would be excused, because that’s just how puppies behave….

If you were sad and rabid, I would bring you with me to the wide-open rampart, and we would watch the mighty spaceships fly. I’d tell you to look up, and we’d see those ships break our world’s surly bonds to depart for alien shores. We’d wish their crews well as they explored great wonders yet unknown. Then you’d fill the lengthening dusk with your pitiful whimpers as the shiny rockets soared away … without you … never to return.

 

David Mack on The Analog Blog

“Speaking Truth to Puppies” – June 5

Though our story mimics the style of Ms. Swirsky’s, Glenn and I want to make clear that we intend no disrespect to her or to her story. Our reason for choosing it as our template was the story seems to have become a lightning rod for the ire of Rabid Puppy and Sad Puppy supporters — two of whom today published a far more mean-spirited parody of it on the blog of Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day.

 

 

 

Nick Mamatas

“Rocket To The Red Planet”  – June 5

It’s actually the Puppies who are the Marxists. Their agent of change is a subaltern proletariat—those workaday beer-money fans who have gone unheard and who must be organized by an intellectual caste into a fighting force.

 

Jeffro Johnson on Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog

“Withering Criticism for me Compliments of ‘Mark’ from File770” – June 5

Okay, I gotta say. It takes a lot of nerve to go over to File770 and say I’m willing to answer anything they want to ask. It seems crazy. I men, my gut feeling on that was that it would be sort of like attempting to have a rational discussion in the middle of a food fight.

But to be fair to those folks, there are more than a couple of people over there that notice the effort. Like Meredith, for instance:….

 

Barry Deutsch at Alas, A Blog

“Hugo 2014 Graphic Story Nominees” – June 5

Amptoons graphic story noms COMP

The Graphic Story Nominees are a nearly puppy-free category; four of the five nominees didn’t come from puppies. The five nominated works are (in order of my ranking):

  1. Sex Criminals Volume 1: One Weird Trick, written by Matt Fraction, art by Chip Zdarsky (Image Comics)
  2. Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal, written by G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by Adrian Alphona and Jake Wyatt, (Marvel Comics)
  3. Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery, written by Kurtis J. Weibe, art by Roc Upchurch (Image Comics)
  4. Saga Volume 3, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)

The remaining nominee, The Zombie Nation by Carter Reid, I’m going to regretfully rank below “no award.”

Although – as you’ll see – I have criticisms of all these works, I also think this is one of the best Hugo lists I’ve seen in this category. All four non-puppy nominees are standout mainstream comics, entertaining and well crafted.

 

 

Russell Blackford on Metamagician and The Hellfire Club

“Steven Diamond and Kary English stories – Hugo Awards Voting”  – June 5

I’ll be quite brief about these. “A Single Samurai” is a fantasy story involving a magical samurai warrior’s attempt to halt the path of a mountain-sized kaiju monster. Leaving aside a couple of small verbal infelicities, it is a well-written, well-crafted piece told in the first person by the samurai, whose character – one marked by honour, tradition, and invincible determination – is conveyed effectively. So vast is the kaiju that the samurai’s efforts appear ineffectual and futile, but read on… All in all, this is a solid short story, if marred by something of a deus ex machina style of ending. By all means give it a try and see what you think.

“Totaled” is a more innovative and sophisticated story, and I think it’s a genuine contender for the award. It’s difficult to describe this one without giving away too much and spoiling the effect. Suffice to say that it’s told – mainly in present tense, and for good reasons – from a very unusual point of view. Kary English was not previously on my radar but appears to be a noteworthy talent.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu” – June 5

The Best Novel category is going to be a tough decision this year. I loved The Goblin Emperor  I’m currently enjoying the Ancillary Sword audiobook. And now I’ve just finished this amazing novel by Cixin Liu.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Tea and Jeopardy, Emma Newton (presenter, writer), Peter Newman (presenter, writer)” – June 5

http://teaandjeopardy.geekplanetonline.com/

Another Best Fancast Hugo nominee.

Another sf-focused interview podcast. Emma Newman hosts, with Peter Newman playing Latimer, her butler. In the sample episode included in the Hugo Voters packet, some people may find the introductory segment a bit longer than necessary, and sadly lacking in any hint of what type of program this is, but it is charming. In this episode, she interviews Ramez Naam, one of last year’s Campbell Award nominees, about his fiction, movies, and the portrayal of science and scientists in both print and media fiction. It’s friendly, intelligent, interesting, and engaging. I really enjoyed this, I think more than any of the others so far.

 

Rhiannon Thomas on Feminist Fiction

“Hugo Nominees 2015: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie” – June 5

Ancillary Sword is an excellently crafted and compelling novel. It’s less complex than its award-winning predecessor Ancillary Justice, but it’s also far more accessible, making it arguably a better read over all.

Ancillary Sword has the same conceptual set-up as the first in the series. Our protagonist, Breq, was once the AI of a ship, built by a society without gender, that controlled hundreds of once-human ancillaries and became trapped in one of the ancillary bodies when the rest of the ship was destroyed. Breq dedicated herself to destroying the ruler of the universe in revenge for both her own death and the order that forced her to kill her beloved captain.

As far as unusual protagonists go, she’s pretty high up on the list.

 

Rebekah Golden

“Review: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie” – June 4

The short review of this book is it blew my mind and I loved it. Deep, transformative, and complex.

 

Marion on Deeds & Words

“The Hugos, 2015, Chapter Six; Novelettes” – June 4

The novelette category was heavily influenced by the splinter group(s). The challenge in this category is similar to the problem I had with the novellas. A couple of these are decent reads, or interesting stories, but are these really the best novelettes published in 2014?

 

Adult Onset Atheist

“SNARL: The Journeyman: In the Stone House” – June 4

I really wanted to like this story. It had some fun characters engaging in delightful dialog. It even provided some jokes for the reader to enjoy at the expense of the characters. I hope the author had fun writing this, because it read as if he did. Unfortunately this does not have enough story in it to make it a great story, and some of the failed experiments the author try to hold it back from even being a good story. However, I had fun reading this story, and that should count for something; actually it counts for quite a bit, and this story will get five stars (out of ten).

 

 

Puppy! Klaatu Barada Nikto! 5/10

Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still_1951aka Through the Drowsy Bark: Slates, Fisking, & Puppies

Today’s sled is drawn by David Gerrold, Vox Day, John Scalzi, Alexandra Erin, Damien G. Walter, Lisa J. Goldstein, Mark Ciocco, William Reichard, P. Llewellyn James, Jeffro Johnson, Jim C. Hines and Logan Brooker. (Credit for the subtitle goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day DMS.)

David Gerrold on Facebook – May 10

My irony meter is broken.

I was reading Mike Glyer’s latest File770 report on the Hugos, and one of the sad puppy defenders said something about how intolerant those mean old SJWs are and how the sad puppies are really about building a more inclusive community. (ie. Including themselves, because obviously they’ve been locked out for like forever.)

I had to read it several times to make sure I had read it correctly.

Okay — if that’s truly how some of the puppies perceive the situation — that’s a very sophisticated iteration of the victim racket.

But it also shows something else that’s happening in the political arena. The conservative think tanks have been doing this for a long time — coopting the language of the left, so they can claim the moral high ground.

For instance, if a progressive leader talks about racism, the conservative opponent comes back with, “Now you’re playing the race card.” Another variation is how the democrats’ economic oppression keeps black people stuck in welfare. And of course, we’re also hearing how LGBT people are intolerant bullies.

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“We’re not fighting fire with fire” – May 10

An SJW is an individual who fundamentally rejects the Ellisonian vision of science fiction as a place that welcomes dangerous ideas. All dangerous ideas.

For example, if you think there is no place for racism in science fiction, you are an SJW. It is no different than if you think there is no place for atheism or for women in science fiction. Either all ideas, however controversial, are welcome and legitimate, or the science fiction community is engaged in a straightforward power struggle to determine whose morals will be imposed on everyone else in the field.

Science fiction can either reject the SJW ideology and abandon all the imposed diversity thought-policing or accept a long and vicious war over which moral code shall be law. Rabid Puppies is presenting the SF community with two choices: either embrace and defend the idea of complete intellectual freedom in science fiction or fight us over the shape of the Science Fiction Code Authority of the future.

John Scalzi on Whatever

“The Hugos Not Actually Being Destroyed, Part the Many” – May 10

It’s been a week or so since I’ve posted about the Hugos here, so that’s good. But there’s a persistent shibboleth I see bruited about, which is that the events of this year have in some way destroyed the Hugos (most recently here, in an otherwise cogent set of observations). I’ve addressed this before, but it’s worth addressing again. Here it is:

  1. No, the Puppies running their silly slates have not destroyed the Hugo Awards. What they have done is draw attention to the fact that the nomination system of the Hugos has a flaw.
  2. The flaw: That an organized group pushing a slate of nominees can, if the group is sufficiently large, dominate the final ballot with their choices.
  3. The flaw was not addressed before because, protestations to the contrary, no one had run a comprehensive slate before. No one had run a comprehensive slate before because, bluntly, before this year, no one wanted to be that asshole. This year three people stepped up to be that asshole and got some party pals to go along.
  4. The flaw is fixable by addressing the nomination process so that a) slating is made more difficult, while b) the fundamental popular character of the Hugos (i.e., anyone can vote and nominate) is retained. There are a number of ways to do this (the simplest would be to allow folks to nominate three works/people in each category and have six finalist slots on the ballot; there are more complicated ways as well), but the point is that there are options.

Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write

“A Critique of Impure Reason” – May 10

If you start a syllogism with rhetorical premises, you reach a rhetorical conclusion. Vox freely admits that his oft-repeated line of “SJWs always lie.” is only rhetorically true (which you might recognize is just a fancy way of acknowledging it isn’t true). It’s a statement of rhetoric. The act of labeling someone a “Social Justice Warrior” is also similarly an act of rhetoric. You’re slapping a brand on someone and hoping it affects the way people see them.

If you take two pieces of rhetoric and put them through the form of a syllogism, you arrive at a conclusion that is also nothing more than rhetoric.

Or to put it more succinctly: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

But to someone who is both invested in believing you and invested in believing themselves to be intelligent, reasoned, and calculating, it is elegant and attractive garbage. You’re describing what you’re doing with big, lofty words like “dialectic” and “syllogism” and “Aristotlean”, after all. You can show people the inescapable mathematical logic of if A and B, then AB, knowing that no one in your audience will bother to ask how you arrived at A and B. They’re taken as given. The form of the syllogism not only does not require you to question A or B, it doesn’t work if you do. As soon as you delve into examining the premises, you’re no longer engaging in syllogism.

The fact is that Vox stoops to engage in the actual construction of syllogism fairly rarely, compared to how often he simply bloviates on in a purely rhetorical fashion while peppering his speech with whatever words best flatter his and his loyal readers’ intellects. But even when he does, he’s not engaging in actual dialectic but mere rhetorical sophistry. He starts with unvarnished garbage as a premise, and so he arrives at a similarly tarnished conclusion.

Vox Day at Vox Popoli

“SJW summarizes SJWism” – May 10

Tolerance does not demand toleration. Inclusivity justifies exclusion. Did Orwell have them pegged or what? Black is white. War is peace. We have always been at war with Eastasia. And notice the claim that it is “their society”. Not ours. Not the moderates. The SJWs.

Lisa J. Goldstein on inferior4

“The Hugo Ballot, Part 6: Novelettes” – May 10

I feel like singing.  Really, I’m giddy.  I found a story on the ballot that’s pretty decent.  Oh, what a beautiful morning….

Ahem.  Where was I?  Right, “The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale,” by Rajnar Vajra.  It’s from Analog, and it’s a typical Analog story — three EE (Exoplanetary Explorers) cadets get into a bar fight, and as punishment they are sent to a distant planet to help the scientists there dismantle their camp.  The scientists are returning home because they failed to establish contact with the planet’s intelligent species.  On the journey over one of the cadets, Priam Galanis, asks for a chance to salvage the project, and his superior grants him his request but with one condition: “If you can offer nothing new and useful… I will consider your triad as having failed this mission… Upon our return to Earth, you will all be discharged from the EE.”

This is how you do it, people.  Raise the stakes.  Give the characters something to be invested in.

Mark Ciocco on Kaedrin Weblog

“Hugo Awards: The Goblin Emperor” – May 10

Among high fantasy tropes, the goblin is not a particularly prized character. What you’re thinking of when I say “goblin” is probably some combination of attributes from J.R.R. Tolkien’s grotesque orcs in Lord of the Rings, the bumbling, low-level scamps from D&D (or, more recently, World of Warcraft), and maybe the terrifying codpiece of David Bowie in Labyrinth (amongst other, even more ridiculous 80s movies). Even more sympathetic portrayals, such as the goblins of Harry Potter, generally portray goblins as mischievous and greedy. For the most part, goblins are evil, villainous monsters that are, nevertheless, little more than cannon fodder in larger conflicts.

Katherine Addison’s novel The Goblin Emperor challenges this starting with the title of the novel itself. We’re clearly going to delve into the world of goblins here. While I’m not going to claim anything near a comprehensive knowledge of high fantasy, I know enough to be intrigued by the concept, and the possibilities are endless. The novel doesn’t quite deliver on that axis of potential, but rather tries for a more subtle novel of characterization. There is, of course, nothing wrong with characterization, but when that’s all there is, I’m usually left unsatisfied. This novel makes overtures towards a more gripping story, but generally seems content to stick with its character sketch.

William Reichard

“A new and improved Bistromatics? The power of Fandom” – May 10

I did not know about fandom until this week. It’s like finding out there’s an entire subterranean world beneath your feet–many such worlds, in fact. What goes on down there is just…dang. And it draws you in, because it’s about stuff you care about. You want to know. But you must be careful. You might never make it back to the surface.

It’s a primal place of demagoguery and mob dynamics and whispers and memes and shadowy monsters and a sense of what McLuhan called “moreness“–an insatiable need for the discussion to continue no matter what.

P. Llewellyn James on The Refuge

“Worldcon Loses Control of Hugos” – May 10

Presumably most of those have been drawn by the controversy over the nominations. Which side of the culture wars the new members are on isn’t known, but one thing is for sure. WorldCon attending members no longer control the Hugos.

Jeffro Johnson on Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog

“Hugo Packet Sent” – May 10

Hugo Packet Sent

The Hugo Packet Coordinater contacted me last week asking for “up to four short examples of your work from 2014?, so this is what I gave them:

Jim C. Hines

“Gender Balance in Hugo Nominees” – May 10

I’ve seen a lot of back-and-forth about whether or not the Sad and Rabid Puppy campaigns were racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. I highly doubt Brad Torgersen (leader of the current Sad Puppy campaign) was deliberately, consciously, and intentionally trying to favor men over women. That said, the effect of the campaigns is pretty clear here, and breaks a pattern of better gender balance going back at least five years.

https://twitter.com/woodenking/status/597564428049993728