A Whippet of Earthflea 6/18

aka “The Brand and Bark Concerto”

In today’s roundup are Larry Correia, Cedar Sanderson, solarbird, Jim C. Hines, Stefan Raets, Patri Friedman, Allan Thomas, Steven Saus, Amanda S. Green, Sarah A. Hoyt, L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright, Mike Flynn, Tim Atkinson, Lis Carey, Melina D, and Joe Sherry. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day JJ and RedWombat, and Anna Nimmhaus.)

Larry Correia on Monster Hunter Nation

“Sad Puppies are not calling for any boycotts” – June 18

I’m seeing this narrative pop up that Sad Puppies is calling for a boycott of Tor, but that is simply not true. Speaking as the guy who started the Sad Puppies campaign, I’m not calling for a boycott of anything. I’m not asking anyone to do anything. As far as I’m concerned this mess is between Tor and its customers. I’ve said very little about it so far, but I’ve been clear about that much.

The Sad Puppies Campaign is NOT calling for any boycotts.

[Continues with a discussion of recent history, and outlines Peter Grant’s background.]

After being a soldier, Peter hung up his guns and became a man of God. SJWs are saying that he’s a homophobe because he agreed with Sad Puppies, while in real life he volunteered at a colony for homosexuals who had been forsaken by African society, dying of AIDS. When I first met him, Peter was a prison chaplain, trying to help the fallen and broken, and victims of things you can’t even imagine. Basically, he’s an honorable man who puts his money where his mouth is, and now he’s offended.

Peter asked for a retraction from the Tor editor who flippantly dismissed thousands of fans as unrepentant racist neo-nazis. I don’t believe he’s calling for anything beyond that.

Again, this is between Tor and its readers who feel insulted, not the Sad Puppies campaign or the people who ran it. Yes, those Venn diagrams overlap, but sorry, you can’t blame this one on me. Many normal fans agreed with what Sad Puppies was trying to do, and shockingly enough, they eventually got sick and tired of employees of one of their favorite publishing houses calling them names. I’m not calling for anything, though I can certainly understand why some people are.

If any individual who felt insulted is satisfied with Tom Doherty’s statement saying that his employees don’t speak for his company, good for you. If any individual is unsatisfied and demands further action, that’s also up to you. I’m not going to tell anybody what to think.

For the other side who are saying that Gallo is the real victim here, and she was only speaking truth to power… Yeah, you guys run with that. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together can see she her comments were nonsense. The only thing she is a victim of is arrogance.

To the SJWs saying Tom Doherty is a hateful misogynist because he isn’t letting his employees libel people on the clock anymore? Double down. There might be some people left out there who haven’t realized I was right about you yet.

To the Tor authors I’m seeing post about this, the Sad Puppies campaign is not calling for a boycott. If you are upset why people are angry take it up with your art director about why she’s insulting your customers.

To the Sad Puppies supporters, do what you think is right. All I’m asking is that whatever you do, try to be as civil as possible in your disagreements. Stick with the facts. We’ve got the moral high ground, and the great moderate middle of this debate has seen we’ve been telling the truth all along.

 

Cedar Sanderson in a comment on Monster Hunter Nation – June 17

I have blogged extensively on this, in part because Peter Grant, who I am honored to call a friend, asked me to weigh in as a businesswoman. I have not been calling for a boycott or even a dismissal of Irene Gallo. It is simply a horrible example of unprofessional behavior, and an opportunity for Tor to show that they do respect their customers and vendors even though there is a lot of evidence that certain personnel do not.

 

solarbird on crime and the forces of evil

“this is just pathetic: puppy boycott, ahoy” – June 18

Anyway, the demands are ludicrous, but to summarise:

  • Tor must publicly apologize for writings by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Moshe Feder, Irene Gallo, and John Scalzi that “demonize, denigrate, slander and lie about the ‘Puppies’ campaigns”
  • Tor must “publicly reprimand those individuals for stepping over the line”
  • Tor must “publicly indicate that it is putting in place policies to prevent any recurrence of such issues.”

See, this is exactly what you get when you hang one of your own out to dry for making personal comments on their own Facebook page like Tor did. You get escalation. So I’m honestly having a hard time feeling sorry for Tor Books here; it was as predictable a piece of politics as one can imagine. And I’m not just saying that in retrospect; I said so at the time.

Now mind you, this “boycott” is pretty must sad-trumpet amateur hour for several reasons, not the least is probable inability to make visible economic impact. As Vox himself admitted, he hasn’t bought anything from Tor in years, and I doubt all that many of the others who are going to sign on to this thing have either. A few, sure, absolutely – with the hilarious side-effect that means the writers they might be able to hurt are the ones on their side.

 

 

 

Patri Friedman

[Seasteader, son of David, grandson of Milton…]

“Being intolerant of people you don’t like because they’re intolerant” – June 18

So, there is some kerfluffle about Tor books, because one of their employees (Irene Gallo) said on her personal Facebook page that the sad puppies (conservatives fighting a culture war to make SF less SJW-influenced) were racist, homophobic, neo-nazis. Sad puppy supporters like SF author Peter Grant, who has literally exchanged gunfire with neo-nazis in South Africa were understandably outraged at this characterization. And (not so understandably, to me) calling for firing/resignation/public abasement of these employees. Which is where I have a problem. This sounds a lot like:

“Your business must publicly apologize for the hateful speech of your employee which has offended a small minority of listeners by publicly abasing yourselves, and promising not to do it again. This will show the world that hate cannot be tolerated; the strong cannot abuse the weak; and (incidentally) that our tribe is powerful and can grind your tribe under our boot if you dare offend us.”

Which is what anti-SJWers complain about the left doing. Sorry guys, but it’s bad when SJWs do it; and it’s bad when anti-SJWs do it, because, well, it’s bad. As I’ve previously posted, ideological diversity is important, and ideological intolerance is the enemy of ideological diversity and the progress that comes from having many opinions and beliefs working in parallel. Making people suffer professionally for their personal political opinions is stellar example of harmful ideological intolerance.

 

Allan Thomas on LewRockwell.com

“The High Church of Science Fiction and Tor” – June 19

I had heard, from several reliable sources, that it was next to impossible for a libertarian science fiction writer to break into the field.  I absolutely refused to pretend to be non-libertarian just to get published, and so I followed Larry Correia’s Sad Puppies campaign with interest.  Brad Torgerson and Vox Day were able to gather a core following of 360 voters and completely sweep the Hugo award nominations.  Yes, it only took 360 science fiction fans to completely overwhelm the existing system.

The fallout from that event still has not settled, and the awards won’t even be announced until August.  But the reaction makes it obvious that there is a sizable percentage of science fiction fandom that is “not satisfied with the products and services being offered.” Entrepreneurs have a name for this situation–”market opportunity.”

However, to date, it appears that only Castallia House is focused on providing science fiction for this segment of the market; they have even signed a new deal with legendary writer Jerry Pournelle.

For their part, Tor Books seems content to continue to ignore this dissatisfied segment of science fiction fandom.  And, in fact, Tor employees are content to insult them.

 

Steven Saus on ideatrash

“The Topical Changes In Science Fiction And Fantasy Has Nothing To Do WIth Sad Or Rabid Puppies” – June 18

The change in science fiction and fantasy over the last sixty years little to do with politics, and a lot more to do (ironically) with technology.

The current state of sf (science fiction) and f (fantasy) has a small vocal portion of its readership bemoaning the loss of “traditional” science fiction and fantasy. An oft-repeated quote is paraphrased as “Back in the day, when you bought a book with an astronaut on the cover, you knew what you were getting.”

The historical accuracy of this impression, like much nostalgia, is debatable. But more importantly, it is irrelevant.

To understand why, we must look to the Ferris Wheel….

 

Amanda S. Green on Nocturnal Lives

“Time to take a deep breath, stop and think” – June 18

… I’m going to part with one last comment. When I was growing up, I loved SF/F because there was a place for everyone, at least that is the way it seemed. Looking at it now, it feels like a house divided where those on the inside are doing their best to bar the door to everyone else, including a large faction of the reading public. That has got to stop and now.

 

L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright interviews Mike Flynn on Superversive SF

”Interview with Hugo Nominated Author: Mike Flynn!” – June 18

7) How did you come up with the idea for your current nominated story?

A supporting character in Up Jim River had a backstory in which he had journeyed across the face of his home world before making contact with an interstellar trade ship. That gave me the notion of telling his story. The idea is that as he travels east he encounters progressively more technologically advanced cultures. “In the Stone House” was the second of these stories and was originally was the first half of a longer story the second half of which (“Against the Green”) appeared in the succeeding issue of ANALOG.

 

Sarah A. Hoyt on According To Hoyt

“Of Pigs, Fights and Life” – June 18

When I said that I couldn’t mention the letters “H-u-g- and o” in the same paragraph without getting linked, I was right.  Or I might not mention the Hugos at all, or only in passing on the last paragraph.  But if the post supports the narrative the puppy-kickers are building, sure as shooting it will get linked.  Like my post about a new Golden Age, which got linked because in their blinkered little minds we’re calling for pulp.  (Sometimes one wonders about the minds that build this narrative.  You are aware someone who grew up on pulp would be 100, right?  You are aware that Heinlein not only wasn’t pulp, but was in many ways the anti-pulp.  I mean, I read Burroughs, but mostly Tarzan, and it wasn’t my favorite.  I read him because grandad had him, so I read him by 5 or 6.  Books were expensive and we had those. But his technique was outdated by then.)

But it supported the narrative, so it got linked.  The same way that its subsequent “Oh, for the love of frack, no one wants pulp” follow up wasn’t.  The same way my friend Sanford’s post over at Otherwhere Gazette, exploding their nonsense wasn’t.  The same way my post pointing out that I felt they were linking me to homophobia and how stupid this was wasn’t.

Oh, it’s very carefully done.  There is an image being built, and he links to those posts that support it.  Then when caught it’s not his fault and he can’t control his commenters, and he can’t see everything.

And, as I said, I have been conversant with these techniques since dealing with the cobbler’s son next door, while growing up.  (Weirdly he didn’t become a communist politician, and has instead racked up several jail terms.)

So Mike Glyer is smarter than the average bear, and much better at Alinsky techniques, and I’m an idiot to fall for them and come out swinging, which meant I had a spanking coming.

 

Tim Atkinson on Magpie Moth

“Kevin J Anderson’s The Dark Between The Stars: control, not mastery” – June 18

I also hadn’t realised – according to Wikipedia – that KJA has written more than 50 best-sellers. It’s easy to be sniffy about writers who tend to work in already established universes, but you don’t keep getting those gigs unless you are good at what you do.

So, before I talk you through The Dark Between The Stars, it’s hats off to an author doing very well for himself at the commercial end of the market.

Dark is more of what Anderson does – space opera on an epic scale – only in a sandbox of his own devising to play in. And what an elaborate, detailed, techno-baroque sandbox it is too, taking in psychic empires, gas giant mining, insectoid robot, gestalt forests, plague collectors and colours from out of spaaaaaaaaaace.

This world-bling – to borrow a phrase from China Mieville – is one of two main admirable qualities the novel has, the other being the plotting. Anderson juggles a huge cast and multiple plot-lines without breaking a sweat, like the hugely experienced pro he is.

But I’m essentially praising Dark as a feat of literary engineering rather than as a novel. These are virtues of control rather than mastery. The array of characters I found unengaging and rather one-dimensional, the action curiously flat. And the sheer size of the book and number of stories spreads Anderson too thinly, so that no single thread truly breathes in its own right.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“The Deaths of Tao (The Lives of Tao #2), by Wesley Chu” – June 18

Wesley Chu is a nominee for the 2015 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

…All in all, I nearly bounced off this book.

And then, thirty or forty pages in, the characters started to matter to me, and their problems became interesting, and a bit further in, I stopped caring that this is a story type I normally find really dumb and annoying. What can you do? I kept reading. Best New Writer? That seems a fair conclusion, even with the slates this year having possibly kept other good candidates off the ballot….

 

Melina D on Subversive Reader

“Hugos 2015 Reading: Novellas” – June 18

[Reviews all five nominated novellas.]

So today I got the Hugo Packet and decided I would start to read some of the fiction. I haven’t completely decided how I’m going to arrange my votes around the slate, but I was curious about why certain fiction was chosen to be part of the Sad/Rabid Puppy slate. I gave myself permission to give up on short fiction after at least 6 pages if I wanted to. But when I began reading the novellas, I started to get angry. Really bloody angry. So, of course, I decided to blog about them.

The novella category is one of those which was completely stacked by the puppies. I was expecting fiction which wasn’t my usual cup of tea, but still well written examples of fiction I might not usually choose to read. But, honestly, the writing was shit. I’m going to go into more detail on each of the novellas, but 4 out of the 5 of them shouldn’t have been published with such low quality of writing. The 5th was competent – which was a relief – but nowhere near award nomination quality….

 

Joe Sherry on Adventures In Reading

“Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Novelette” – June 18

The best of the bunch here is Rajnar Vajra’s “The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale”, though I’m really not sure what the “Golden Age” part of it is all about. Is it a suggestion that the story harkens back to the golden age of science fiction or is it part of a larger Golden Age milieu that Vajra is working in. If the second, I can’t find any other Golden Age tales. Regardless, “The Triple Sun” is a story with some space exploration, adventure, sass, and all in all good fun.

My Vote

1. The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale
2. Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium
3. Championship B’Tok
4. The Day the World Turned Upside Down
5. No Award
6. The Journeyman: In the Stone House

1,098 thoughts on “A Whippet of Earthflea 6/18

  1. Brian Z

    One thing we have learned about Puppydum is that whenever issues of principle are raised, Puppies both sad and rabid, seem to disappear. Rules which apply to the people at the bottom of the food chain don’t apply to the inner circle, which is why John C Wright is able to do lots of things which appear to be irreconcilable with the stated aims.

    The Puppies put together slates to stuff the ballots, having lost in Loncon in a fair fight. Having lost in a fair fight they decided to cheat. They also slandered the Loncon members who had devoted years to making Loncon happen. And then they demonstrated just how broken their morals are by making a series of offensive comments based on the assumption that all the British people who made Worldcon happen were, of course, fighting US culture wars, because the US is the world so naturally everybody must be doing so.

    I don’t think that puppydum has even the slightest inkling that people are uninterested in the culture wars of other countries; after all, in their own minds they are the most important people on the planet, so obviously everybody around the world must wake up desperate to know what exciting things have happened in the US.

    But we don’t. The U.S. isn’t that important. In claiming that Loncon was fixed so that Leckie won, Brad has happily accused us of fraud, apparently oblivious to the fact that fraud is a criminal offence, and that accusing someone of fraud is defamatory, and thus liable to civil damages.

    So at this point I’m asking myself if it would be sensible to report the facts to the police; the City of London has its own police force with heavy duty fraud specialists who are, for obvious reasons, very good at what they do. The higher the level of accusations mount, the more likely it is that the police should be involved. After all, Brad has asserted, without any evidence, that unnamed people here in London have committed fraud in order to ensure that a particular author won.

    So, for Brad’s supporters, it would be helpful if someone pointed him in the direction of a lawyer. He’s going to need one if he carries on accusing people of committing fraud; I would suggest that, at a bare minimum, Brad should apologise to the Membership of Loncon, and give an undertaking that he will never again assert that the Membership, or any part of it, conspired to commit fraud.

  2. Holy crap. That’s. I just. I mean.

    I think Aaron’s right, there are no words. I deflect with humor sometimes over depressing things but goddamn.

  3. That was disturbing and cruel. That is the most charitable thing I can think about it right now.

    I am starting to wish the Puppies had never happened just so that I didn’t have to know these people were in my industry.

    Me too.

    Well off to bed. I hope that *does not* make the roundup – ever.

  4. I wrote a very long post which seems to have disappeared into the cyber void. I hope it will turn up…

  5. I hope that *does not* make the roundup – ever.

    I hope it does. I want it spread far and wide that this is the kind of asshole whose crap the Puppies put onto the Hugo ballot and kept works like Patterson’s Heinlein biography off it. That tweet exemplifies who the Puppies really are.

  6. Apologies that some of these posts address those pages back, but I c&p things to which I’d like to respond, then wait until I’m caught up on the thread, because often by that point, other people have said what I wanted to say, and I feel no need to post it.

    Camestros Felapton: it is fascinating that some people (even moderate non-puppies like Hines) think that it is an aggressive or escalating act to watch what people are saying.

    It is almost an insult to prominent puppies to say that the round up are something that would upset them – except it seemed to be a common refrain at Sarah Hoyts blog during the recent incident. Fanning the flames apparently.

    MPMRommel: Totally agree. I can’t see why quoting someone’s exact words is insulting them.

    Peace Is My Middle Name: If fact-checking is an “attack”, there is something wrong with your position.

    Camestros Felapton: hmmm Hoyt is still going.

    Hoyt is comparing Mike Glyer to the bully at the beach who keeps kicking sand in her face simply because he keeps quoting and linking to her own words. Here’s a clue, Ms. Hoyt: if you’re insulted because having your own words quoted and linked makes you look bad, then you might want to consider not posting things that make you look bad.

    Hoyt says: I like physical fights about as much as I like emotional fights (not at all) but many times found them necessary

    Does anyone else find this normalization of physical violence engaged in by so many Puppies more than a bit horrifying?

    And Hoyt’s another one who is now engaging in mansplaining for Irene Gallo — claiming that her post resulted because she “was so immersed in the lies about the puppy sympathizers” instead of having formed her opinions of the Puppies from reading what they actually say.

    MPMRommel: she does mention that she’s very tired and that she and her family are engaged in working on their house

    But as someone else has pointed out, the irrationality and paranoia of her latest posts doesn’t appear to be in any significant measure from her blog posts going on for several years now.

    I try not to read any more over at MGC than necessary to pick up the gist and context of what’s been linked by someone else. It’s just painful to see that so many people are living in an alternate universe where everyone (except their special little group) is hateful and vindictive and out to get them, and where rational logic does not seem to exist.

  7. Oh my. So Williamson totally isn’t racist, but Salon is racist because here’s one tweet in which they say white America must answer for Charleston but here’s another tweet in which they say Muslims don’t need to apologize for the Boston Marathon. CHECKMATE, LIBERALS.

    No, Mike. You’re racist. And you’re sexist. And you’re a homophobe. You know how I know those things? I read your words. Please do retreat back into your lair.

  8. Nothing Firefly did was new, nothing it did was groundbreaking and none of the presentations of the issues and themes was done in a way that was particularly thought provoking or upsetting of the status quo with respect to science fiction.

    Plus it was basically Lost Cause propaganda polished up for the 21st. Whedon may not have intended that but Lost Causers noticed.

  9. Went to look at @eilatan’s twitter feed. I am not looking forward to having to explain to somePuppy in the near future that that’s racist.

    Also, for fuck sake. How many mass shootings and how many racist murders have to happen before people start changing shit? What the hell is going on over there?

    I’m very grateful that while we’ve got our problems (look up Stephen Lawrence or Mark Duggan), we don’t have anything like that. I’m scared that UKIPs influence might change that. Hate crimes aimed at disabled people have increased since the government and the media decided labelling us all as scroungers was a brilliant idea. I don’t want that to happen to anyone else or anywhere else.

  10. I am so very done with people making excuses for the Puppies. The core leaders of the Puppies are sexists, racists, homophobes, and calling them extremist right-wingers or even neo-Nazis is being too kind to them. And almost every day they give concrete written evidence that these things are all true.

  11. Belated response to Meredith-

    We’re just going to IReland, or I’d definitely visit Gosh! I last visited London in 86 for a semester abroad, and went to Gosh just about every week. Loved it!

  12. Well at least we have a preview for what the various Puppies are going to be having persecution complexes over the next few days about instead of their nominees. If so I think that’s my breaking point for even trying to try and get some mental consonance for what they might be howling about because that’s a level of ugly I don’t want to even read.

  13. Are there any major Puppies who haven’t said something racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist yet?

  14. Plus it was basically Lost Cause propaganda polished up for the 21st.

    Oh, it was definitely noticed. That was one thing that made the show uncomfortable – the obvious parallels between characters like Josey Wales from The Outlaw Josey Wales and Mal were pretty blatant, and of course, Josey was an ex-Confederate. It seemed like Whedon wanted to portray the Browncoat side as being the “good” one, but given his penchant for reversals, I always wondered if there was some sort of long-term plan to show the Alliance side to have morally just reasons for their actions, or at least make them less obviously the “evil” side. The show never really had time to develop any kind of moral ambiguity, which takes time – look at Babylon 5 – at the end of Season 2, would anyone have predicted the Vorlons would be anything but completely good guys?

  15. OK. Catching up after being away for 6 whole hours 😉

    @Camestros Felapton

    Jonathan K. Stephens:?I’ve watched both and neither were as good as Babylon 5 .
    Later, historians will trace back the origins of the apocalypse to this exact quote. ?

    Does that make me War, Famine, Pestilence, Death, or Really Big Flamewars? 😉

    Bablyon 5 wasn’t a real show. It was Bablyon 3.5 — because after that it became something else. I was a devotee, and fanatical fan, until JMS betrayed his characters, his world, etc. in the “attack on earth” section, before venturing into terrible “Great Man” theory, etc., etc., etc.

    And Season 5 — I never managed to finish, in part because of the way he whined about “trusting him” on alt.fan.tv.babylon-5 (IIRC)

    Kyra:

    “But was it MADNESS when I told them I loved The Wasp Factory but really kind of bounced off all the Culture novels?”

    Yes. Then again, I’d expect a madwoman to love the Wasp Factory. 🙂
    I will ask — which Culture novels did you read? I know people who’ve bounced off Excession and Use of Weapons, but then became hooked on Surface Detail or Player of Games.

    Happy Puppy: That story was very bigoted against working class men in the USA.

    Others have pointed out the facts about gin not being a lower-class signifier — but I will tell you, I know a lot of LGBT folk, and quite a few of them have stories not as severe as that — but where, yes, they were the victim of a group or gang’s assault, and it didn’t stop with one blow.

    So, no, it is not “bigoted against working class men” — unless portraying *any* member of *any* group as a villain is “bigotry” against that group.

    @Camestros Felapton — Sadly, there is no DVD of Frankstein, at least not the last time I checked. One of the principals apparently objects to its release.

    @McJulie: “your dad who’s gotten totally sucked into Fox News paranoia.”

    I am very proud of my mother — she had fallen into Fox Newsness, and then decided that it was seeming…off, to her — largely due to its science coverage — and switched to something she found better.

    Al Jazeera America.

    I think she may be the only person to have made that particular switch.

    @snow crash:

    ie, the existence of Mad Max Fury Road somehow invalidates or detracts from the existence of something like the Expendables,

    I don’t think it’s that, so much as “We were promised a Mad MAx Movie, and we know what a Mad Max movie is supposed to be, and this wasn’t it!”

    That Mad Max was not their property did not occur to them; indeed, I’ve heard comments going back decades about fans who felt an “ownership” of the works — I recall Harlan Ellison talking about it in one of the Glass Teat books, IIRC.

    I suspect it’s one of the reasons that people haven’t complained (that I’ve seen) about the Tiptree award in Puppydom; that was never theirs, so they don’t feel like it was “taken” from them.

  16. @Aaron

    That is getting perilously close to the one-size-fits-all rhetoric that so often comes from the other side (calling all opposition SJW/CHORF/puppy kicker whatever). There have been instances of hate-speech and bigotry from people associated with sad and (more often) rabid puppies, but please let’s not lose our ability to use and recognize nuances in an ongoing discussion.

  17. There have been instances of hate-speech and bigotry from people associated with sad and (more often) rabid puppies, but please let’s not lose our ability to use and recognize nuances in an ongoing discussion.

    I’ll note I specified the Puppy leaders. Are there any who have not made racist, sexist, or homophobic statements at this point? I’ve seen more than one such sentiment from Torgersen, Correia, Wright, Williamson, Hoyt, Williamson, Beale, Wright, and the Marmot. It would be easier to list who hasn’t, in part because I can’t think of any. Are there any?

  18. Rachel, feel free to point out the exceptions. From where I’m standing, there don’t seem to be any. Kary English, maybe. But the leaders and noisiest members? Aaron’s not really overstating things

    What’s really missing – and notable by its absence – is any condemnation of the garbage coming out of some of these people’s mouths. I can’t imagine any of them will have anything to say about Williamson’s racist crap except to condemn the people bringing it into the open.

    I would love to be pleasantly surprised though. Please, puppies, show us that you do actually care about this stuff.

  19. Guise I’m reading arch-SJW Edmund Hamilton’s The Star-Stealers (1929) now, and he is hitting me over the head with a message. We’re in the first chapter and the rocket – surely it was on the cover – is on its way back to Earth, and the Second Officer comes into the “bridgeroom” and – she’s a woman! “From a long line of distinguished pilots.” And she’s just there! He doesn’t even tell us if she’s hot, you know?

    If this kind of heavy-handed box-checking becomes a trend, the SF of the 30s is going to be almost unbearable.

  20. ” at the end of Season 2, would anyone have predicted the Vorlons would be anything but completely good guys?”

    I’m a Vorlon,
    you know I’m a Vorlon,
    I do my little float down the catwalk…

    I’m too cryptic for this station,
    too cryptic for this station,
    like all the Vorlon nation,
    I’m too cryptic for this station.

    (Sorry — sometimes old filk rises from the grave.)

  21. I vaguely recall that the slate was supposed to represent a diverse range of political viewpoints. Did all the liberals apart from Kary English jump ship (like Annie Bellet and Marko Kloos), or are they just keeping very very quiet either because they don’t internet or in the hope that they won’t be too strongly linked to any of this?

  22. I think part of the Puppy problem is that the Hugos really are a zero sum game. Inclusion is not, and they’re bastards for deciding they want all the pie and that sharing is a direct attack on them. But there’s only 5 nominations in each category. It’s a finite sum. If they perceive that the stuff they love (I’m talking about the rank-and-file Puppies, not the ELOE and their lying lies about conspiracy and affirmative action and all of that) is not making it into those 5 nominations, or at least not winning, time and again, then yeah, they’re going to feel like they’re shut out.

    Not that other stuff is on the ballot, but that they feel their stuff isn’t. Now add the conspiracy and “SJWs hate you” bile on top of it, and now they have a righteous cause and a reason to act like jerks, because the “other side” did it first. And if you’ve got a “reason” to believe that your stuff is being deliberately excluded, and not simply overlooked, then forcing it onto the ballot probably seems “fair” to you.

    I think it’s understandable they reacted that way. But that doesn’t make them any less jerks for buying into easily-disproved rhetoric about why it’s happening or entitled jerks about the fact that their stuff “deserves” a Hugo instead of simply being overlooked.

    Talking up the stuff you love gets results. How many people who hang out on 770 have bought or borrowed books that other people love, simply because the other people said “I love this, read it!” And how many of those people would take those books (if they occured in the right calendar year) and remember them, and possibly nominate them?

    They could have just “campaigned” for their stuff without forcing the issue with a slate, and at least some of what they love might have organically got onto the ballot. It’s a matter of getting people with so much clamoring for their attention to notice it.

  23. “From a long line of distinguished pilots.”

    Sounds like someone was pretty impressed by Amelia Earhart and her fellow aviatrices (?aviatrixes?)

  24. For sale: Puppy books. Never read.
    A sad story, so I’m told.

    Even sadder:
    For sale: Puppy books. Read once.

    Torsday purchases:
    Three Parts Dead, Max Gladstone
    A Natural History of Dragons, Marie Brennan
    Binti, Nnedi Okorafor (pre-order)

    My TBR pile has gone from 0 to omg, and I’ve figured out why: Analog and Asimov’s used to be my feeder into novels, but I can’t even remember when I stopped reading them, it was so long ago.

    The “gin soaked” line …

    In all the talk about that line the last time round, did anyone mention the Rolling Stones?

    like Sheridan in most of B5’s fifth season.

    /jedi wave. There is no 5th season.

    “Why do you (care about them)?”
    Mainly because they are people and because I’ve known people like them before.

    Great. You go convert them with warm hugs. I have more productive things to do.

  25. Rachel on June 19, 2015 at 9:52 pm said:

    That is getting perilously close to the one-size-fits-all rhetoric that so often comes from the other side (calling all opposition SJW/CHORF/puppy kicker whatever). There have been instances of hate-speech and bigotry from people associated with sad and (more often) rabid puppies, but please let’s not lose our ability to use and recognize nuances in an ongoing discussion.

    While nuance is useful, there comes a point when it’s entirely acceptable for people to drop it. I would point to GG. There are, even today, useful idiots who still haven’t quite grasped that GG is an anti-woman hate movement (TC McCarthy appears to be one of them). I see no reason to treat them any differently than the core misogynists driving the movement; they’ve had plenty of time to come to grips with the fact that they’re dupes supporting horrid actions by horrid people, and if they haven’t then I have nothing but contempt for them.

    Sad Puppies are nowhere near as toxic as GG (although they do keep escalating, so they may get there one day. And, of course, that ignores VD and the various gators that are already involved), and not as old as GG, but my judgment remains the same: they’ve had plenty of time to notice all the problems with their leaders and fellow travelers. If they haven’t, or if they those things don’t bother them, they too have my contempt. And, crucially, I’m not going to say anything that will sway them. They spend their time immersed in an echo chamber of angry resentment, and there is no post I can craft that will convince one of them to let go of that angry resentment and sever some toxic social connections.

  26. @ Meredith

    Sure it can be sexist. But frankly the uptight overbearing career *parent* is a pretty standard trope in fiction in general (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhenYouComingHomeDad). It’s also, as I pointed out, a theme which more or less parallels the themes the main male leads go through in the first 2 movies. In the first, Grant wants nothing to do with kids and is essentially a jerk ass to them. In the second, Ian is repeatedly shown to be struggling (and failing) as a father.

    In short, the adults being crappy with kids thing is sort of a running theme with the JP movies and it’s not surprising (or I think sexist) that it shows up in this JP movie too. And in general, if we’re going to see more leading women, and more leading women in powerful corporate roles (as we should) then we’re also going to see the “stuck up career parent neglecting kids” trope applied to women. And it’s not sexism, it’s equality. You take the good with the bad and the bad of being a corporate leader in a lot of movies these days is being a bad person to your loved ones (seriously, I’m trying to think of the last movie I saw where C-level execs of either gender weren’t portrayed as — at best unknowingly neglectful and at worst outright abusive — to their loved ones).

  27. @ Red Wombat

    Oh my god I wish you hadn’t even mentioned his facebook. About 10 seconds on there made my eyeballs explode. JFC.

  28. junego: I disagree with your characterization of IDK. AFAICS he has not shown any such beliefs or ideas. I don’t agree with some of what he says, but I believe him to be an honest and valuable contributer.

    I would agree with this.

    idontknow, I saw several people trying to explain what they felt might be a blind spot in your perception of how little discomfort and bigotry your friends experienced. I know that you perceived what they were saying was that you didn’t know what you were talking about, or that your memories were incorrect. But that isn’t what they were saying.

    What they were saying is that, no matter how well you knew your friends, you simply do not know everything that went on in their minds. No matter how well you knew each other, and how comfortable you all were with each other, you can not assume that it never happened to them, simply because they never mentioned it to you. Everyone has things that they don’t necessarily mention to even their best of friends.

    People who frequently experience micro- and macro-aggressions based on minority status often choose their battles carefully. One of the first things they learn is that if they make an issue out of every single thing, they end up being perceived to be hypersensitive or a whiner, and they don’t really get listened to or accorded any credibility when they make an issue out of something that is really, really important.

    As an example of this, a while back I saw an exchange on Facebook where a guy (he appeared to be in his 50s) was responding to a link or a shared post by a woman in which she talked about how being called a “lady” was offensive. He made a remark along the lines of how this was absolutely ridiculous! and that “feminists” were intent on taking offense at everything, and that being called a “lady” was certainly NOT offensive, it was a sign of respect and courtesy.

    A couple of women commenters spoke up, saying no, actually, they disliked being referred to by that label because it had very negative connotations to them. One woman talked about how when she was growing up, the word was most often used in the subcontext of “sit down and shut up, expressing an opinion or disagreeing with someone is not ladylike, and you must behave like a lady”. The other woman said that when she was called a “lady”, it was often by men who were attempting to “put her in her place”, or infantilize her, or diminish her credibility.

    The man responded by claiming, “I have lots of female friends, and I refer to all of them as ‘lady’ to their faces, and not a single one of them has ever objected to me — therefore, none of these women has a problem with being called a ‘lady'”.

    One of the women pointed out that as much as she hates being referred to in that way, she doesn’t object, because doing so usually just results in dismissal of her feelings by the other person, as in “Well, you shouldn’t be offended! It’s a term of respect! It’s not offensive at all!” — and so, she has just learned not to object to it, because in her opinion, there are other battles more important to fight. She said to the guy, “It’s quite possible that some of the women you are calling ‘lady’ do actually object to it, they’re just not bothering to tell you, because they’re going to be told that it’s not offensive and that they should be happy that they are being called a ‘lady’ — and they just don’t have the time or energy to argue about it.”

    The man responded by indignantly insisting, no, he knew these women quite well, and they were very comfortable with him as a friend, and if any of these women actually objected, he was quite certain that they would have told him so — and since none of them did, quite clearly none of them had a problem with it.

    He finished by saying something like (apologies that this is not verbatim, it was a while ago) — and the utter obliviousness of his reply is still astounding to me — “Well, my wife doesn’t object to it. And since my son wants the same sort of woman who is just like his mother, I’ll be teaching him to refer to women using the word ‘lady'”.

    The implication, of course, being that a woman who does object to being referred to as a “lady” is clearly not the sort of woman his son would want to marry.

    It was shocking. I waited to see if any of the several women who’d been participating in the thread spoke up — and none of them did. Clearly, they’d all decided that it just wasn’t a battle worth fighting. And the guy went on his way, utterly convinced that he was absolutely right about it all, and utterly oblivious to the fact that he had just insulted these women who didn’t like to be called “lady” by implying that they weren’t the sort of women a guy would want to marry.

    TL;DR: It’s entirely possibly your minority friends were indeed experiencing moments of discomfort and just not telling you about them. This isn’t a criticism or a commentary on you; it’s a commentary on that if minorities mentioned it every time it occurred, they’d never have the time or energy to talk about anything else.

  29. Thinking of Mad Max as a series entirely devoted to the valorization of the Straight White Male in exclusion of everyone else, before now, is as bizarre as saying that of the Terminator or Alien

    The Road Warrior had Virginia Hey — latterly of Farscape to keep the connections going — debuting as The Warrior Woman. I had an action figure of her with her bow for inspiration on my desk once upon a time.

    Thunderdome had Aunty Entity — need I say more?

    Only the very first movie had a pure Damsel for the Fridging, and hardly anyone saw that one by comparison to the sequels.

    So now the Mad Max-verse has Farscape’s Noranti as a grizzled elder Warrior Woman leading her band of motorcycle-riding Amazonsto the aid of a battle-scarred younger Warrior Woman, across a post-apocalyptic hellscape devastated by war, environmental catastrophe, and resourse shortages?

    Well I never! You don’t say! What will that SJW George Miller dare next?

  30. MaxL: “While nuance is useful, there comes a point when it’s entirely acceptable for people to drop it.”

    Agreed.I’m open to the idea that some of the people voting for the Slates may disagree violently with the statements made by the slate makers and organisers, but until they show evidence of this – and they have had ample opportunity to do so – the assumption has to be that they agree and are happy for those RSHDs to represent them. Which makes the yelling over Irene Gallo even more hypocritical.

  31. @ JJ

    Does anyone else find this normalization of physical violence engaged in by so many Puppies more than a bit horrifying?

    Dear Og, me. I think I said it yesterday, but I find it just… yeah, horrifying. It shouldn’t make me “liberal” because I think that violence is a last resort that should never be a reaction to being “insulted.”

  32. So MZW used Monty Python as a defense in his blog post about his tasteless racist “joke”. He also referenced the Holocaust. Did Python ever do a joke or skit about the Holocaust? Did they do a bit making fun of the victims of some mass murder?

    I suppose one might raise their Spanish Inquisition routine, but I would see the difference there being that Python was making fun of the Inquisition and mocking them, and not the victims of the Inquisition.

    I’ve seen a lot of Python, and I don’t remember seeing any kind of skit that would be even remotely in the same category as MZW’s “joke”. I could have missed something though. So, anyone? Does such a joke from Python exist?

  33. The show never really had time to develop any kind of moral ambiguity

    It had the movie so JW could have done that there. Instead it had the almost parodic plot where an attempt by the state to induce happiness resulted in indolent-to-death plus drugged crazed rioters. A loonietarian take on the welfare state, really: everyone who isn’t a layabout is out rioting.

  34. Aaron, this is as close as it got:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlmGknvr_Pg

    And you will note it’s making fun of the nazis, not their victims.

    “Does such a joke from Python exist?”

    I don’t know their entire oeuvre, but I’m familiar with quite a lot of it, and no, that’s not really a Python thing, and I can’t think of anything that comes close.

  35. It had the movie so JW could have done that there.

    Yeah, I had a lot of problems with the movie. The thing that I think might have developed more is that Book clearly had connections to the Alliance. They killed him off in the movie, which kept his story from going anywhere at all. Its all water under the bridge at this point. We have what we have and it has brilliant points and a lot of flaws.

  36. JJ:Does anyone else find this normalization of physical violence engaged in by so many Puppies more than a bit horrifying?

    It’s definitely been a running theme. John C Wright alone accounts for quite a lot of it.

    It only reinforces my opinion that many of the Puppies are Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s spiritual kin too. She certainly loved indulging in violent fantasies about reel people that had done her little to no wrong. A lack of empathy and rage addiction would seem to be the biggest common factor between them.

  37. All that keeps going through my head is, “Hey, here’s some wisdom from my Internet: Don’t say that shit on it.”

    Well, that and a lot of very rude things I will forbear from saying.

  38. XS: “It only reinforces my opinion that many of the Puppies are Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s spiritual kin too.”

    It’s common to cowardly bullies, regardless of political leanings. There is very little empathy among the people who rage the hardest in public about the sins of everyone else.

  39. Maximillian: I just read a couple of stories from Baen’s new MilSF collection, the one they are using for their (rather presumptuously named) ‘best MilSF of the year’ contest. Both of the stories were by Linda Nagata and quite good. Has anybody read anything else by her?

    Matthew Johnson: Her self-published novel The Red: First Light, a very thought-provoking piece of military SF, was nominated for a Nebula in 2013. It’s scheduled to be reissued by Saga Press/Simon and Shuster this month, soon to be followed by two sequels.

    I’ll second the rec for Nagata’s First Light. It’s great MilSF and I’m waiting for the second book The Trials to come out. IIRC, the two short stories you liked are also set in her universe of The Red.

  40. XS –

    It only reinforces my opinion that many of the Puppies are Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s spiritual kin too. She certainly loved indulging in violent fantasies about reel people that had done her little to no wrong. A lack of empathy and rage addiction would seem to be the biggest common factor between them.

    Someone pages a go said that VD and BS were extremists on different sides, but to me the tactics and stuff seem the same, they just have different excuses If anything I’d hope if there’s a side it’s those who are addicted to inflating their own self worth using rage tactics and the rest of us.

  41. @ Meredith

    Are there any major Puppies who haven’t said something racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist yet?

    To be scrupulously fair, I don’t believe that anyone, including me, hasn’t said something racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist.

  42. A loonietarian take on the welfare state, really: everyone who isn’t a layabout is out rioting.

    I had a lot of problems with Serenity but didn’t take that from the plot of the movie. It seemed to me that Whedon was painting in broad strokes to make the Alliance as evil as possible (and cartoonishly so). The fate of Miranda seemed to me to be trying to ramp up the evil quotient by showing the callous government experimenting upon its own citizens without their knowledge or consent, making the government seem even more Nazi-like. (And their idea of a happy-inducing drug seemed to me to be a reference to Brave New World as an Easter egg for long time science fiction fans). I think that Whedon felt like he had to crunch a lot of stuff into just a couple hours, and got sloppy with his brush strokes.

  43. Aaron –

    I think that Whedon felt like he had to crunch a lot of stuff into just a couple hours, and got sloppy with his brush strokes.

    That’s my take as well. I liked the show. Hated the movie.

  44. @TM

    That’s fine, but I’m not objecting to “career person ignores their kids” now being applied to women. I’m objecting to a plot, career woman is taught by a man to loosen up and want children, which has been around since men started panicking that women with careers wouldn’t be good mothers. It is not new, it is not rare, and it is based in sexist assumptions about women.

    Until we have more storylines with women who are passionate about their careers and are great mothers, and more women who don’t want kids and that’s treated as okay, that storyline will get my hackles up. It can still be done in a way that isn’t awful… But it doesn’t sound like Jurassic World is that film. Otherwise people wouldn’t be upset about it.

    I think it would have been more interesting if she was the mother (divorced? widowed?) and had a babysitter or family member fall through. We’d feel her fear for the kids lives. There could be a lull in the action where she opens up about how hard its been balancing work and family by herself and making people respect her despite her single motherness, he could say something about doing a decent job keeping them alive, maybe he could help in the future, you know, sometimes, or a lot. Lots of drama potential. It would also be rare and totally awesome for a love story to happen in a big budget action film which involved a single mother.

    … Damn, now I’m really sad that isn’t the movie that actually got made. BRB lobbying the owners of the IP in case of a new JP film.

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