A Throne of Chew Toys 6/3

aka The Knights Who say Ni Award

In today’s roundup: Vox Day, Lindsay Duncan, Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag, David Gerrold, Sara Amis, Dave Freer, Chris Gerrib, Lisa J. Goldstein, Lis Carey, Rebekah Golden, Russell Blackford, Camestros Felapton, Mabrick, Will McLean, Alexandra Erin and cryptic others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day sveinung  and ULTRAGOTHA.)

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“In the SF world rages a war” – June 3

Markku Koponen

[The translation of an article in Finland’s largest newspaper profiling Markku Koponen and Castalia House.]

IN THE SCI-FI WORLD OF USA RAGES A WAR, IN WHICH EVEN THE GAME OF THRONES AUTHOR IS ENTANGLED WITH – AND IN THE EPICENTER OF IT ALL IS THIS KOUVOLA MAN

Sci-fi literature enthusiasts in USA are in civil war. A conservative mutiny is trying to push out of bestseller lists and awards the mainstream, “tolerant” sci-fi. The battle is already being called culture wars – and one of the headquarters is located in Finland.

There is a man in Kouvola, and before the man, a computer.

Together, the man and the computer are in the front lines of a battle that is shaking the entire world of sci-fi literature.

The man and the computer were revealed to the world, spring this year.

At the time was published “the Oscars of sci-fi books” – Hugo-awards – nominees.

The entire sci-fi world roared: lists were full of works by religious extremists and ultraconservatives.

The surprise was so big that even The New York Times and Washington Post wrote about it.

And behind the entire surprise were a man and a computer in Kouvola.

The name of the man is Markku Koponen, and on the computer runs a company called Castalia House.

 

Lindsay Duncan on Unicorn Ramblings

“Tuesday Thoughts” – June 3

Behind all this kerfluffle is a tension between the idea that the quality of fiction, like all art, is subjective; and the action of presenting an award, which gives the veneer of some objective quality.  Let’s add one more statement to the narrative:  diversity is a good thing and necessary in a genre that builds upon possibilities, but we don’t want to set up a forced, artificial diversity.  (Already, you can see the questions bubbling up.)  What am I thinking of when I say “artificial” diversity?  It’s when a work rises to the top not because of merit, but because its author or subject matter checks a particular box.  It would be like saying that every novel awards slate has to include one urban fantasy, two epic fantasies, one hard science fiction novel and one soft science fiction novel … even if there were three amazing soft SF books that year.

 

SF Signal

“MIND MELD: Genre Awards: What are They Good for Anyway?” – June 3

[Bradley P. Beaulieu:] I’m saddened by the tactics that were chosen by the various Puppy campaigns to game the Hugos, but I’m confident the award will live on, and I’m hopeful that in the end the voting base for the award will be broadened. After all, as long as everyone is given a fair shake, how can giving a voice to more fans be a bad thing?

 

Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag on Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog

“Oh dear, not the freaking Hugos again…” – June 3

On Facebook, David Gerrold nails the problem with the slate nominations in the Hugo awards. Namely, the people who participated have developed a narrative of “evil liberals” rather than “good works worthy of nomination for the Hugo Award.” Part of the post was also quoted at File770. Of note is the fact that Gerrold has asked these questions repeatedly, and he describes the “answers” he gets from slate-voting puppy-supporters….

…The last question, #6, is a no-brainer. The excellence of the story is the only thing that truly matters. There have been some fantastic works by authors that I wouldn’t want to sit at the same dinner table with. And I’m sure there are awful works by people who completely agree with me on every major political point. Politics are utterly irrelevant to the conversation. Or, at least, they should be.

 

David Gerrold on Facebook – June 3

As long as we’re still talking about the sad puppies and the rabid puppies, there is one question that has not yet been asked.

Will Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen be attending the Hugo award ceremony? Will Vox Day and John C. Wright be attending the ceremony? What about the other nominees and the various puppy supporters?

I have been told that none of the major architects of the slates have attending memberships. So the answer is no, they will not be there.

(Some of the slated nominees will likely be there, but that’s not the question I’m asking.)

And that causes me to wonder —

Some of the puppy supporters have said this whole thing is about reclaiming “the real science fiction” from those who have hijacked it into the realm of literary merit. (Something like that.)

Okay — but if we take that at face value — then why aren’t the leaders of the movement coming to the award ceremony to cheer for their nominees? If this is really that important, why aren’t they coming to the party?

Not attending the celebration makes it look like this was never about winning the awards as much as it was about disrupting them.

 

David Gerrold in a comment on Facebook – June 3

I did not know that Brad Torgersen had been deployed. I’m sure he will serve admirably and I expect him to return home safely. I might disagree with him on some things, but I wish him no ill.

 

Sara Amis on Luna Station Quarterly

“Hugos, Puppies, and Joanna Russ” – June 3

I always intended from the beginning to write about Joanna Russ. How could I not? It just so happens, though, that she is particularly relevant right at this particular moment.

So, there are some shenanigans with this year’s Hugo awards. And by “shenanigans” I mean “cheating” in the finest, most self-righteous, letter-but-not-the-spirit-of-the-law, but-really-we’re-the-good-guys fashion.

“But some white women, and black women, and black men, and other people of color too, have actually acquired the nasty habit of putting the stuff on paper, and some of it gets printed, and printed material, especially books, gets into bookstores, into people’s hands, into libraries, sometimes even into university curricula.

What are we to do?” —-from How to Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ

I might add, some of it gets nominated for Hugos, and even wins. What are we to do???

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Hugo Recommendations: Best Fan Writer” – June 3

This is how I am voting in the Best Fan Writer category. Of course, I merely offer this information regarding my individual ballot for no particular reason at all, and the fact that I have done so should not be confused in any way, shape, or form with a slate or a bloc vote, much less a direct order by the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil to his 368 Vile Faceless Minions or anyone else.

  1. Jeffro Johnson
  2. Dave Freer
  3. Amanda S. Green
  4. Cedar Sanderson
  5. Laura J. Mixon

With regards to Mixon, I still don’t consider a professional writer with five novels published by Tor who also happens to be the current SFWA President’s wife to be what anything remotely recognizable as a proper “Fan Writer”, but that ship sailed back when John Scalzi, Jim Hines, and Kameron Hurley waged their successful campaigns for it. No sense in fighting battles already lost. The more relevant problem is that Best Related Work would be a more reasonable category for a single expose, and Deidre Saorse Moen’s expose of Marion Zimmer Bradley was a considerably more important work in that regard. That being said, I don’t regard the Hugo Awards as being the place to recognize investigative journalism, otherwise I would have nominated Saorse Moen’s stunning revelations about Marion Zimmer Bradley as a Best Related Work. But regardless, Mixon did publish a credible expose and she is a legitimate, if not necessarily compelling candidate.

 

Dave Freer in comment #58 on the same post at Vox Popoli – June 3

“Freer’s been an ass to me, and incoherent at length to pretty much everybody” sniff. I shall wear this with such pride, just because it comes from Crissy! I am amply rewarded for the time spent pointing out he was mathematically illiterate and logically incompetent.

To be fair to Mixon (I do not approve of her biased reporting, but still) 1)I have 20 novels published. 2) Both Amanda and Cedar are independently published – and both quite successful at it. I suspect they outsell Mixon, who IIRC has day job and a husband to share cost (he also has a day job). Strictly speaking she’s more of a ‘hobbyist’ than any of the three of us. 3) I am not, and never have been married to the pres of SFWA. Neither have Amanda or Cedar or Jeffro. Speaking strictly for myself, I hope to avoid that dreadful fate.

I raised the same objection to my being nominated Vox does on MGC when I was first put on recommended lists and, um, never found out my name was still there. I actually didn’t know I had been nominated (the Hugo Admins didn’t succeed in contacting me) until the nasty messages started popping up telling me I was going to suffer for it and should immediately abase myself. I don’t bully well, so despite the fact I didn’t want to be there, or feel I should be, I still am. Screw them and the donkey they rode into town on (the difference is hard to establish, but the donkey is the more intelligent and prettier).

Jeffro seems a good guy, and I can vouch for Amanda and Cedar.

 

Chris Gerrib on Private Mars Rocket

“Hugos, Fan Writer, Rant Regarding” – June 3

First, per section 3.3.15 of the WSFS Constitution, Fan Writer (like Best Editor) is an award for the person. It is not, like Best Novel, an award for a particular work. It is thus perfectly acceptable to say “fan writer X is a jerk” and use that as a critique of their nomination.

Actually, it is entirely within the rules to vote based on any criterion, if you want to be a stickler for the rules. Or, people who insist on following the letter of the law do not get to lecture me on the spirit of things.

Second, David Freer is a poor writer, at least with regards to his blog. His posts are lengthy, poorly-thought-out, (see, for example, his 1500 word post on Hugo probabilities, discussed and linked to by me here) and not to me particularly entertaining.

Third, in general the Hugo nominees are asking me and the other voters for a favor. They are asking that we take time out of our day, consider their material, and in the end give one of them an award. I don’t know how things work on Planet Puppy, but here on Earth, if one is asking somebody for a favor, normally the person requesting the favor attempts normal human politeness.

 

Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4

“The Hugo Ballot: All the Rest of the Novels” – June 3

I think the final vote on the novel will come down to what kind of sub-genre people like to read. Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword deals with galactic empires and planetary intrigue, but also plays with ideas about gender. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is charming and elegantly told, a tale of manners in a fantasy setting. Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem dances out on the far edges of scientific speculation.  Really, any one of these could win and I’d be happy, but if I had to choose (and I guess I do), for me the best of them is Ancillary Sword.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Adventures in SciFi Publishing — Best Fancast Hugo Nominee” – June 3

http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/

This is the first of the Hugo-nominated fancasts that I’ve listened to. Briefly — it’s good.

 

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best Movie: Reviewing Edge of Tomorrow” – June 3

Altogether a fun little movie, well handled and nicely plotted. I haven’t watched it, wasn’t planning to, but am happy I did. I will probably rewatch it before I decide how it stacks up against the other movie nominees.

 

Russell Blackford on Metamagician and The Hellfire Club

“Rest Related Work nominations reviewed & discussed – Hugo Awards Voting” – June 3

Antonelli’s Letters from Gardner seems, from what I’ve read, to be about the author’s development, at a relatively late stage of life, as a well-published author of (mainly) short stories. It includes a considerable amount of Antonelli’s fiction, with much commentary and reflection, and amongst it some perfectly sound advice on the craft of writing. If it were up for a lesser (perhaps regional) award, I’d have no difficulty in voting for it. From what I’ve read, however, I just don’t think the book is good, distinguished, or interesting enough to be worth a Hugo Award. It does not stand up well against past winners. Your mileage may vary. It’s not a bad book, and I’d have happily read the whole thing if it had been provided in the Hugo Voters Packet.

“Why Science is Never Settled”, by Tedd Roberts, is a well-written and thoughtful discussion of its subject matter. It popularises certain ideas in the history and philosophy of science, and does a workmanlike job of it. It was aimed at an SF-reading audience, and it was doubtless of interest to many people within that audience, but it does not seem to me to be sufficiently distinguished or relevant to deserve this award. There is some relationship to science fiction – enough that it would interest many readers who are also SF readers – but it’s a rather tenuous one.

 

Cirsova

“Hugo Art” – June 3

Fan artist category was rather disappointing; while I don’t want to say that any of these artists are bad, many artists I’ve seen on places like Deviant Art or here on WordPress have impressed me more; I really just don’t feel like many of these are ‘best of the best’ quality in terms of sci-fi art, at least by what I’ve seen. The lone exception is Elizabeth Legget, whose work, while not really blowing me away, is evocative and impressive enough that she easily rises to the top in this category….

In the Professional Artist category, I’d almost say that Julie Dillon wins by virtue of including a much larger portfolio to better display the range of her work….

Lastly, I’d like to note that it’s been interesting to see how the Fan Writer category is playing out. When I think of Fan Writing, I think of Algis Budrys and Baird Searles, who wrote on topic about notable books, movies and television that was relevant to fans of Speculative Fiction. One strange notion I’ve seen floated is that a Fan Writer should be writing ABOUT rather than TO the fandom, yet ironically those Fan Writers who have been writing more about the fandom than to them are paying the price, to an extent, for doing so. I enjoy the Mad Genius Club, but the rants about culture wars type stuff are going to come off to dedicated culture warriors about as well as Ann Coulter telling that Muslim girl to ride a camel. Meanwhile, many of those who don’t find pdfs an inaccessible format (sometimes grudgingly) acknowledge that Jeffro’s kept a laser-like focus on important works of Science-fiction and Fantasy, so we’re starting to see sort of a ‘man, we kind of want to hate this guy, but he’s actually writing about and bringing attention to some great authors!’ reaction. Given Jeffro’s decidedly apolitical approach (not ‘this is conservative/liberal’, ‘this is feminist/anti-feminist’, but ‘this is awesome’) to his subject matter combined with some of the backlash against Mixon (for myriad reasons), I think he has a pretty good shot in this category.

 

Adult Onset Atheist

“SNARL: Championship B’tok” – June 3

This novelette lacks several of the critical elements that any string of words needs to tie it up into a story; the most glaring of these exposes itself as a regular disregard for continuity. It is impossible to tell if this story is actually a chapter of a larger story, or it is just half-written. I get the impression that this author may be able to wrote, and write stories, but this is not one of them. I will eventually pull out a reasonably good excuse for awarding one whole star to this novelette.

 

Camestros Felapton

“The Puppy Works – Ranked from Bad to Okness” – June 3

So below the fold is an attempt to rank all the Puppy nominated works (not including dramatic, editorial or artistic) altogether from the worst to the least worst. I’ll spoil the suspense by revealing that “Wisdom From My Internet” not only came top but also provides a neat demonstration why rankings can be inadequate when what you need is some kind of measurement scale.

 

Mabrick on Mabrick’s Mumblings

“Skin Game A Novel of the Dresden Files Book 15 by Jim Butcher” – June 3

….That was a two paragraph introduction to the review of “Skin Game” by Jim Butcher, for which I am somewhat sorry to inflict upon you, but felt compelled to clarify for them that know of the Hugo Award drama. There are strong feelings on all sides of this issue and some will feel like I have somehow betrayed them by listening to and reviewing this book. Poppycock. Jim Butcher is a New York times best-selling author. He didn’t get there because of the Sad Puppies and he deserves a thoughtful and respectful review of his work just like I’ve done with all the other nominees so far (as part of my Nebula Nominee reviews.) Thinking otherwise is puerile behavior as bad as that exhibited by the Sad Puppies. I don’t believe this applies to all authors and publishing houses on the ballot, for some of them were self-serving in the extreme, but it does apply to Jim Butcher and Tor Books, his publisher.

 

Will McLean on Commonplace Book

“Nutty Nuggets” – June 2

“What are we looking for again?” said Liu, the technician from Mars Spacefleet.

“Ejecta from Perdita, of course.You saw the images we got from Alaunt. One of what hit Perdita shredded the cargo module and blew debris on a diverging course. The hydrogen tanks were holed too, but we’re not going to waste time looking for hydrogen in space. You have the cargo manifest.” Church, agent for Tranjovian and its insurance agency, was a stubby, thick-lipped, stocky man with heavy eyebrows. Perdita had gone silent on an unmanned low-energy trip to the Jovian moons and Alaunt had found what was left of her hull after a tedious search of her extrapolated course.

“Right.” said Liu,  as a document came up on his screen. “Spare parts and luxury goods: single-malt scotch, Napoleon brandy, macadamia nuts and cashews.”

“The liquids will have frozen that far out, so we’ll be looking for nutty nuggets. A pretty unique spectral signature beyond Ceres.” ….

 

Alexandra Erin on A Blue Author Is About To Write

Sad Puppies Review Books: THE POKY LITTLE PUPPY – June 3

poky-little-puppy-248x300Reviewed by Special Guest Reviewer James May

…Here’s the dividing line and the crucial issue: I don’t care what you do. I don’t care about any of your initiatives. What I care about is it is never expressed without dehumanizing men and whites as racist, women-hating, homophobes who have conspired and continue to conspire to keep everyone but the straight white male out of SFF. That is a lie we have proved with facts over and over again. The history of SFF as portrayed by SJWs is a hoax. It has never been any more exclusionary than Field & Stream.

433 thoughts on “A Throne of Chew Toys 6/3

  1. Rev. Bob: Sure, that may be a balance between ancillaries and non-ancillary soldiers, but you could have occupied people making the same request in a world where the ancillaries are robots following the Three Laws of Robotics. Which is to say, it still leaves unanswered the ultimate question of “why live bodies?”

  2. Oh and while I’m blithering about Ancillary Justice (which, if I haven’t said clearly, I think is fantastic), people asking about what a “conservative” is and why some of them have a hate-on for this seriously amazing book might want to look at some of the stuff psychologist Jonathan Haidt has done on the “moral intuitions” of conservatives versus progressives. It’s interesting stuff. The best starting point is probably his book “The Righteous Mind” though he’s updated his theories a bit since he wrote that.

    I bring it up because I was reading AJ with half an eye toward trying to figure out why the Puppies hate on it so much, and aside from the I-can’t-tell-who’s-what-gender distress, it occurred to me that the horrifying Radch Empire is founded on the three “moral foundations” that Haidt attributes to conservatives that progressives generally don’t value nearly as strongly: Authority, Loyalty, and Purity. (The three “progressive” moral pillars are Care, Fairness, and Freedom.) In the pre-reform Radch Empire, subversion, disloyalty, and impurity were all capital offenses that would swiftly get you shot or zombified. Seivarden is amazed that the modern Radch Empire is a place where people dare to speak criticism of the military or express strong disapproval of corruption in the higher-ups openly in restaurants with the space station AI listening in and recording everything, without fear of being “disappeared.” This made me wonder if on some level the Ancillary series makes devoted conservatives deeply uneasy because it comes right out and says basing a society on Authority, Loyalty, and Purity above all leads to horrifying results, and this is why they perceive it as “message fiction” — even if they can’t articulate it, the portrayal of the Radch empire might feel like a condemnation of the moral values many conservatives hold dear (at least according to Haidt.)

    Just a thought.

    Did I mention that this is a great book I’m sure I’ll be thinking about for a long time after I’ve turned the last page? Because it is. Can’t wait to get into Ancillary Sword now.

  3. Stevie: Jeffro: Well, I had a look at your most recent post and came to some conclusions

    You got more out of that than I did. It appears to start in the middle of a train of thought, as if the reader already knows what the author is going to talk about. After several paragraphs, I thought I had finally managed to figure out the author’s intended premise — and then that passage ends, to be followed by a complete non-sequitur which again, contains no context, but appears to be a discussion about whether great SFF authors of the past were considered radical in their day — but which then degenerates into an apparently unrelated rant about lefties. The piece closes out with a passage condemning someone (not sure who?) for… maybe for not using supernatural beings effectively in their RPG?

    I haven’t read the entries in my packet yet. I will be interested to see whether they are more logical and articulate than this piece.

  4. Nicole

    Thank you for your review, I think I’m going to pass on it.

    My brain is still trying to recover from ‘The Triple Sun’, which displays such mind boggling ignorance of science that I cannot understand how anyone could keep a straight face whilst typing the title in as a nomination.

    What really, really annoys me is that we have had two amazing anthologies from Gardner Dubois and George R.R Martin, ‘Old Mars’ and ‘Old Venus’, both deliberately predicated on the science of the early sixties, and there are really wonderful stories written by today’s great writers based on that premise.

    So why stick garbage like this in as Hugo contenders, unless you really, really want to destroy the Hugos as a worthwhile award? I really cannot imagine anyone thinking that this is ‘Golden Age’; at the very best it’s badly tarnished brass.

  5. @Mike Glyer: “Sure, that may be a balance between ancillaries and non-ancillary soldiers, but you could have occupied people making the same request in a world where the ancillaries are robots following the Three Laws of Robotics. Which is to say, it still leaves unanswered the ultimate question of “why live bodies?””

    Because corpsicles are dirt cheap.

    The Radch was built on an expansion model, and taking conquered people as ancillaries serves both to quell opposition and to replenish the ranks. They’re pre-built, disposable, self-healing drones, and if one of them doesn’t take well to becoming an ancillary when thawed, you just dispose of it and use another. They’re free, after all.

    Further, robots have to be designed and built. That requires supply lines and factories and labor and mining. Implants can be mass-produced much more easily and stored far more compactly, and often they can be recovered and reused. Compare that to the negligible cost of rations – most likely taken from annexed worlds as tribute – and ancillaries come out pretty far ahead.

    Speaking of rations… exactly how are decommissioned ancillaries disposed of, anyway? Perhaps they still have one last service to provide, and if so, that drives the cost down even further.

    It’s not a pretty picture, not by any stretch – but it’s not supposed to be.

  6. @revbob @mike That was my take as well–bodies are far cheaper, and more disposable. Now I want to talk to Leckie about this, about the economics of slavery in Empire…

  7. @Rev Bob

    I think Seivarden is grateful to Breq and thus loyal to her, but I don’t read love as part of that. Remember the scene in AS where Seivarden tells Breq that the crew think they’re sleeping together?

    That’s exactly where I get the idea, actually. It seems Seivarden keeps bringing up sex to Breq. It seems a lot like awkward nerd-flirting. “Hey, did you know people think I’m your boyfriend? …that’s pretty crazy, right? I mean, you and I, totally never. Right?”

  8. Also, a timely quote from an old story:
    “Damn the pups! You think Science City quivers every time those little mutts yap!”
    — C. L. Moore, Greater than Gods

  9. Gabriel F: Seivarden keeps bringing up sex to Breq. It seems a lot like awkward nerd-flirting. “Hey, did you know people think I’m your boyfriend? …that’s pretty crazy, right? I mean, you and I, totally never. Right?”

    That was pretty much the way I read that; Seivarden is broaching the possibility of a relationship to Breq.

  10. There’s something going on in Acilliary Justice and Sword about how the AIs were designed for loyalty to the Radch (originally) and later to Anaander Mianaai. The troops are either ancilliaries or human. Now this may be a quirk of the Radch, or their Lord, or it may be tied into the loyalty; AIs that have human troops (or human officers) may be more loyal.

    (This is speculation based on merest shreds that I picked up while re-reading the books.)

    Gabriel F.: Is Seivarden in love with Breq or is it just my little shipper’s heart?

    She has a big old crush on Breq. That may not be love and/or romance though; it could just as easily be along the lines of hero-worship.

  11. Stevie,

    Yeah, we should all be polite and thankful when people choose to pop by. I admit I was having a bit of a dig at those who come over and don’t “play nice” making the friendly people a refreshing change and worthy of note.

  12. @May Tree:

    the horrifying Radch Empire is founded on the three “moral foundations” that Haidt attributes to conservatives that progressives generally don’t value nearly as strongly: Authority, Loyalty, and Purity. (The three “progressive” moral pillars are Care, Fairness, and Freedom.)

    The Radch has its own triad: “Justice, propriety, and benefit”, which is brought up in the conversation between Breq and Strigan in AJ. The implication of this foundational triad is explored much more in AS, but even in AJ it looks like an extremely hawkish version of progressivism. The Radchaai use their military might to bring justice and benefit to the universe, as they see it.

  13. Rev. Bob: The argument that in the Radch bodies are cheaper to work with than robots is head-canon. That comparison would hold true on earth in 2015, or on Heinlein’s Venus in “Logic of Empire,” neither of which have the Culture-like levels of technology they have in the Radch, bringing with it the economies of scale. Whatever races the Radch may be enslaving, they’re apparently oxygen breathing, have vulnerable bodies (though the med tech is great) and so on. Why are bodies preferable when you have that high tech?

    This wasn’t a distracting question to me as I worked my way through the first novel, which is fascinating for many reasons. It became distracting once I realized the book was the start of a series. I can suspend disbelief and go along with the metaphor for one book, treat it as a poetic assumption that allows the author to illustrate some things about how people treat each other. However, there is also the MilSF side of the book in which obvious logistical questions require backgrounding.

  14. @JJ, Gabriel F.: “That was pretty much the way I read that; Seivarden is broaching the possibility of a relationship to Breq.”

    I’m not saying that’s an invalid read, just that it wasn’t mine. I saw it more along the lines of “if that’s what you want, I’ll do it” – which I realize sounds very similar, but I “hear” more of an owed-debt slant on it myself.

    Of course, I’ve never claimed to be a relationship expert (he says, as he considers suggesting some more edits to a contemporary-fantasy romance novel-in-progress).

  15. Mike

    Why live bodies?

    Consider the Athenian triremes, the creation of which made Athens ‘Lords of the Sea’ for 150 years; they were manned by free citizens, not slaves. The Athenians had plenty of slaves, but the Athenian navy did not use them; the Golden Age of Athens really did rest on free men, not slaves.

    The Athenians chose to do so because it was important to them as a culture; the Radch choice of ancillaries was important to them as a culture. As others have noted, zombified slaves bound to the ships AI were terrifying, and as I have noted the Radch obviously placed a very high premium on longevity, which could be achieved by cloning and mind to mind transfers. The body might age but the mind endured.

    Metal is expensive and heavy; there’s all sorts of research about its use for armour and weapons in Europe during the medieval period which underlines just how expensive it is. Pound for pound the human body is a great deal lighter
    than any metal; interestingly the Radch armour is not in fact armour at all. It’s a force field, and, without being too spoilerish, the existence of a weapon capable of penetrating it is extremely important.

    So, the question of how much metal was available in the Dyson sphere where the Radch culture originated may account for their preferences, but in the end I come back to the citizens of Athens making themselves Lords of the Sea by fighting their naval battles themselves. They did it because it seemed right and important to them…

  16. @Tintinaus

    I definitely appreciate Puppies being polite, especially from the Fan Writer category. They of all the Puppy nominees ought to be One of Us, but aside from Jeffro Johnson they don’t want to even consider it. Its depressing.

    Is it just Jeffro Johnson and Kary English who have been friendly or have we had any other friendly Puppies?

  17. Jeff Smith on June 4, 2015 at 10:17 am said:
    Those who have slogged through the short fiction nominees may find the existence of this new Baen book interesting: The Year’s Best Military SF and Space Opera edited by David Afsharirad. It actually looks like it might be worth reading. There’s a diverse group of authors and sources, and it looks like there might have been some real thought behind the selections. No Hugo nominees included. I’m ordering myself a copy.

    Yeah, no.
    I actually collect “Best of the Year” anthologies (in genre) and I won’t be buying this one (not new, anyway) … because I’m never going to send one red cent in the direction of Brad “The Fool Who Broke The Hugos” Torgersen.

    (For forty years I let the WSFS compile a short list for me, and they were doing a great job of it – occasionally, I’d disagree about a particular award here and there, but overall, a terrrific list of the best SF of the year. Except for THIS year, when ignorant assholes broke the Hugo process. I’m STILL pissed off about, after two months.)

  18. Re; AJ/AS and the ancillary-vs-robot arguement, the Radsch seem to have also reached some sort of technology plateau. Justice of Toren is what, 2000 years old? And still in service (well…) as are many other ships just like her, and they all seem to run on the same tech. Breq understand how to captain Mercy and interfaces almost perfectly with that tech because it’s the same tech. Even the Lord’s tech hasn’t advance past “make exactly this copy of my brain in exactly this copy of my biology” and doesn’t tweak well when asked to do something only slightly different. It’s entirely possible that they never explored making robots and thus the discussion never came up, since the Radsch seem perfectly happy to stick with one thing that works and never advance it.

  19. @Will

    That is truly the pinnacle of punny titles. Everything is better with cheese. 🙂

  20. The Radch has its own triad: “Justice, propriety, and benefit”, which is brought up in the conversation between Breq and Strigan in AJ. The implication of this foundational triad is explored much more in AS, but even in AJ it looks like an extremely hawkish version of progressivism. The Radchaai use their military might to bring justice and benefit to the universe, as they see it.

    The Radch triad is part of a made-up philosophy, though. Haidt’s moral pillars are derived from cross-culture research on conservative versus progressive modes of thought where “morality” is concerned. You can take quizzes to investigate your own moral stances on these various “pillars” at YourMorals.org if you’re curious.

    And I don’t seen anything at all progressive about the Radch. The fact that they say they are for “justice and benefit” has nothing to do with what they actually stand for, which is oppression and stagnation. I was struck in AJ by the fact that the Radch have apparently had roughly the same culture and level of tech for THOUSANDS of years — I thought this was weird until I read more and realized that absolute social and technological stagnation was fundamental to the Radch philosophy and a natural outgrowth of the way the Empire was organized and run.

    The Radch aren’t progressive any more than North Korea is Democratic.

  21. @Mike Glyer: “The argument that in the Radch bodies are cheaper to work with than robots is head-canon. That comparison would hold true on earth in 2015, or on Heinlein’s Venus in “Logic of Empire,” neither of which have the Culture-like levels of technology they have in the Radch, bringing with it the economies of scale.”

    I disagree (obviously).

    Regardless of the available level of technology, production of robots demands a supply line of factories and raw materials, and robots don’t heal damage. The raw materials for ancillaries are conquered humans, fruit that’s ripe for the picking. Implants take up a trifling amount of space; even assuming an extremely thorough implantation process, I’d say you can pack 5-10 sets of implants in the space it would take to store one robot. That gives you a lot of spare parts, even without reuse.

    Imagine that you’re going on a trip and want to keep tabs on File 770 while you’re away. Which would be easier, assuming they deliver at least similar functionality: packing your desktop rig, monitor and all, or stuffing a bootable environment on a USB stick and using a public computer wherever you are? Robot or implant?

    Basically, you’re talking about production at the source and I’m talking about supply lines and operational tactics at the front. Even stipulating that it’s equally easy to make robots as it is implants, it’s more efficient to transport “instant soldier kits” than robots.

  22. Regarding people not listed as members of Sasquan. They wouldn’t have needed to be members in order to nominate, LonCon members had nomination rights.

  23. @Mike:

    The argument that in the Radch bodies are cheaper to work with than robots is head-canon. … the Culture-like levels of technology they have in the Radch, bringing with it the economies of scale. Whatever races the Radch may be enslaving, they’re apparently oxygen breathing, have vulnerable bodies (though the med tech is great) and so on. Why are bodies preferable when you have that high tech?

    Mike, your assumptions about the benefits, manageability and perfectibility of mechanical tech to the Radch seems also head-canon-esk.

    I’m trying to remember do we have any examples of Radchaai AI existing in smallish automatons without network off-loading? It seems to exist only supervened on biological brains, in ships, and through massively networked entities.

  24. @Stevie: “the Radch obviously placed a very high premium on longevity, which could be achieved by cloning and mind to mind transfers. The body might age but the mind endured.”

    There is no evidence that cloning is a generally-available technology in the Radch. In fact, I only know of one person with access to it.

  25. influxus: “Mike, your assumptions about the benefits, manageability and perfectibility of mechanical tech to the Radch seems also head-canon-esk.”

    I’m sure that’s true. Just the same, the question remains unanswered why the Radch, who apparently have sophisticated systems for overriding the physical apparatus of sentient species in order to enslave them, find that more efficient than using the technology in a more durable machine body. Unanswered in the sense of the author’s own explanation.

  26. Rev Bob

    And that person is the ultimate power in the Radch, and has no intention of sharing it. On the other hand, ultimate power means there’s no need to share, right up to the point where they were stopped dead in their tracks by another culture which had exactly the same view.

    Have you read the short story ‘Night’s Slow Poison’ which is free on the Tor website? Without spoiling it too much, I hope, there’s an insight into the Radch culture which I think is very revealing…

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