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.
I think Mike Glyer has done an admirable job keeping up on the Hugo discussion, but I wonder if it's time to stop those round-ups.
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) June 18, 2015
You're So Vain, You Probably Think This http://t.co/PfK5lI9f1D Hugo Roundup Post Title Is About You.
— Stefan Raets (@sraets) June 18, 2015
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
@Gabriel F
True. I’ll settle for hasn’t said anything racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobis/ableist since the Hugo ballot was released.
I just saw Jurassic Park tonight. That movie had a lot of problems. Even if you disagree with the sexism the plot holes, characters, dialogue, etc.
Yay dinosaurs, but that movie was so bad halfway through it I just started cracking up at some of the dumb BS in it. It’s prime MST3K (well Rifftrax now) material.
Rachel, feel free to point out the exceptions. From where I’m standing, there don’t seem to be any. Kary English, maybe.
I would add Gray Rinehart to that (admittedly very short) list.
@ Meredith
My complaint has been that they’re directing it at people. I’ve had plenty of “hey! You stepped on my foot!” moments, which I’ve done my best to apologize for and not repeat, no matter how mortified I was to be called out for it.
They don’t give a crap if they’re hurting people–indeed, that seems to be the purpose of the statements, though they claim otherwise (JCW is a prime example of the “that’s not what I meant” behavior.) And I haven’t seen even a single one of them apologize and try to walk it back. Which to me is where you cross the line from “said a racist/sexist/etc thing” to “you are a racist, misogynistic, homophobic person.”
Ed: That’s a book written by two men, about two heroic men, in a story where all the decisions are made by men, and all the heroics are performed by men, and all the women characters are so shallow they get one personality trait each…but one of the men is impetuous and makes mistakes….so it’s anti-man.
The claims were actually a lot worse than that. It was someone posting as “Opus”.
Opus on May 6, 2015 at 12:08 pm said:
One of the biggest publishers printed Leviathan Wakes, did a promotion of the book based on upcoming TV series, with glorious blurbs from Martin, who is the only bestselling author, because of his retelling of European history with dragons. So I bought the book, reading the foreign reviews that stated the book is inovative SF opera, comparing it to Hyperion Cantos and Hockenberry books, and besides it was the only SF in the last two years, except Maze Runner books which I do not find interesting because YA romance.
Upon reaching a third of it, I realizaed with dissapointment that people who compared it to previously mentioned masterpieces, obviously have not read either them or the book they were reviewing. Tedious prose, characterization that is summed as I said earlier, and hillarious deus ex machina plot points. I googled to see about the second book, stumbled upon authors views regarding men, and nodded, yes, I was right…
Every decision Holland makes is shown as stupid, and he comes on as a petty, pathetic pouty character, who needs constantly to be shown the errors and stupidity of his ways by Naomi, or Miller. Miller is explicitly called a failure, a drunk suicidalpsyhotic who changfes his morality on a whims, and makes decisions based on what plots various deus ex machinas writer needs to put in motion, Frank is amoral ass, with visions of grandeur, meanwhile, Naomi is perfect, Millers wife is perfect, disembodied female voice on intercom is perfect. Jullet is perfect even turning into a monster…
When I told him that was not how the characters in the book were portrayed at all and suggested that perhaps he’d not gotten a good translation of the book, he insisted
The translator is the best there is. Literrarly. He is a go to guy if you want a translation that match the beauty and intent of the original prose.
At which point I told him “Well, then, the problem is either in the translator, or in the reader. That you’re not seeing the credited intelligence, or the redemptive aspects, is a clear indicator that somebody is missing something somewhere.”
I personally hate the “uptight woman is taught to chill by man-child” trope because I see it as resting on the privilege of the man-child. You know, he gets to act like that because the women in his life pick up the slack. I mean, really. If she’s chilling with you, dude, WHO IS PAYING THE RENT AND DOING THE LAUNDRY AND STUFF?
Also, whatever charm Chris Pratt has, it’s lost on me. He strikes me as bland and vaguely annoying, like some frat dude who would try to pick you up in a bar with a “neg” and later you wouldn’t be sure if it was him or his frat dude friend who looks just like him.
And no, I didn’t like Guardians of the Galaxy. I think I’m one of five or six people in North America who can say that.
My purchases for TorDay:
Tina Connolly: Copperhead and Silverblind
Kate Elliott, Cold Fire and Cold Steel
Daniel Abraham, The Spider’s War (my one pre-order, because I thought I’d already pre-ordered it)
Kristen Simmons, The Glass Arrow
Alex Bledsoe, Wisp of a Thing
@ McJulie
I thought it was a fun popcorn movie, but wildly overhyped. I didn’t like Frozen at all despite a couple of catchy songs, so you and I can sit in the doghouse together on the movie front.
“I didn’t like Frozen at all”
Me either, except for a couple of the songs. I haven’t seen GotG but everything I’ve read of it and the trailers make me think, this one ain’t for me.
A quick note to anyone who purchased Scalzi’s Lock In, I highly recommend reading his companion novella Unlocked first. It really provides a good background for the novel.
Unlocked can be read for free at Tor.com, or purchased for $1.99 on Kindle.
Aha! Mike has released from purgatory – thanks! – my response to Jim Henley, idontknow, Kevin Standlee, Peace Is My Middle Name and a number of others re: Gene Wolfe and EPH.
Guess we should’ve seen this coming. Someone bought a bunch of twitter bots and had them repeat a line Kurt Busiek posted:
https://goo.gl/4Gtj0s
Vox is trumpeting it as proof of something or other.
One of the vox popili commenters notes:
But this reflects badly on the dorks. As I was just telling my wife, if I were wicked, this is the kind of false flag I would perform to make the SJWs look bad.
Good thing no one is evil over there, I guess.
@Gabriel F.
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.
But even that perception doesn’t hold up. In 2004 and 2007 Vernor Vinge was nominated (and won), in 2005 Mike Resnick was nominated (and won), in 2013 Brandon Sanderson was nominated (and won, AND won for Best Related Work), in 2011 Larry Correia was nominated for the Campbell, and in 2012 Brad Torgersen was nominated for the Campbell AND for Best Novelette (and placed second, for both), and those noms for Correia and Brad were without the benefit of Sad Puppies, which hadn’t been born yet.
There’s really no excuse for “buying into easily-disproved rhetoric about why it’s happening” when you can easily disprove the rhetoric that it is happening in the first place. Since stuff they love got on the ballot, there’s no reason to suspect you’re wrong when you say campaigning for their stuff wouldn’t have brought them further successes, without this ugly business.
Conventional wisdom has it that Brad was genuinely surprised…shocked may not be too strong a word…at the makeup of the final ballot. That’s probably because evidence suggests that without the boost from Rabid Puppies, they’d have been no more successful than in previous years…
What Sad Puppies keep forgetting is that the Hugos this year have precious little to do with them. It’s not a Sad Puppy ballot; it’s a Rabid Puppy ballot. Feel free to prove me wrong after we all get a look at the nomination statistics.
I love Guardians of the Galaxy as it brought out some of that Star Wars vibe and it had a plant and a racoon that were great characters even if one was a deus ex machina and the other was a violent and selfish. Only thing I didn’t care for was the point that Drax called Gamora a whore for no reason I could understand.
Brian Z.: Te tragedy of “E Pluribus Hugo” is that it replaces the original goal of excellence – shortlisting the five works that the greatest number of fans identify as among the very best of the year – with the goal of fairness – selecting five works that make the greatest number of interest groups happy, while at the same time penalizing the voter quite harshly for choosing more than one thing should one of them be something that many others also agree should win. The creators, proponents, and cheerleaders will tell you it is not about fairness and nothing will change, but they are shading the truth, deluding themselves, and have not thought it through carefully, respectively.
This is not true at all. You’ve repeatedly made it clear, on here and at Making Light that you’d like to derail any possible rules changes which might diminish the effectiveness of slates (Any guesses why? Bueller? Anyone?).
The proposal has been hashed through quite thoroughly over a period of weeks — including advice from an expert in how voting systems works — as well as actually tested with real and mocked-up ballot data.
The proposal prevents a slate from being able to monopolize the ballot (as happened this year) while not compromising the integrity of any individual’s votes.
Anyone who wishes to understand the proposed changes and how they work is welcome to go here (under B.1.4 Short Title: E Pluribus Hugo (Out of the Many, a Hugo) and find out for themselves, as opposed to taking the word of a notoriously unreliable narrator with a Puppy agenda.
There is also a post for Community Questions and Answers and Discussion where anyone is welcome to participate.
Stevie at 9:29 pm:
Note that Peter Grant is not inner circle, and the Sad Puppy “inner circle” disagreed by saying they are not calling for any boycott. But they also affirmed that he is a man of principle and that they understand, even if do not share, his reasons. There seems to be plenty of scope for disagreement among the ranks.
@Matt Y
I liked it, but the whore joke bugged me too. I didn’t care for the har har taking disability aids away SO FUNNY stuff, either. The found family stuff was nice.
@Brian Z
I think Brad Torgersen is inner circle.
Brian Z
Who are the Sad Puppy “inner circle” that you refer to?
In re MZ Williamson
Gosh. I think that’s all I need to know about him.
Cmm: I really hope we hear whether Tor saw a noticeable sales surge today.
It would be cool to find out — unfortunately, I think that’s unlikely.
However, I did a little informal check on Amazon today:
Scalzi’s Amazon Author Rankings
7 hours ago
#23 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
#34 in Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
#54 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy
#74 in Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy
5 hours ago
#22 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
#30 in Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
#52 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy
#70 in Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy
2 hours ago
#17 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
#27 in Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction
#45 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy
#64 in Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy
So I would say that #TheTorYouKnow has had at least a small positive effect.
Meredith,
That wasn’t a call for a boycott, that was a picture of some books he bought from Tor on the basis of this request which was also not a call for a boycott:
http://www.ljagilamplighter.com/2015/06/15/i-am-not-a-robot-i-am-a-free-fan/
I was also tempted to post my Gene Wolfe collection and I’m not interested in a boycott in the slightest.
snowcrash:
Stevie used the term, and I’m assuming the usual suspects are meant (Brad, Larry, Kate, assorted Mad Genuises).
@Nick M
No. After all, she went the weaksauce way and apologised, when she should have just said that she was joking, and what’s wrong can’t you take a joke*, and folowed-up with a post about how sensitive these people are and blecccccchhhhhhhh.
*To which the best response is “I’ll take a joke when you actually make one”
Brad T on Michael Z. Williamson:
https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/love-one-another-its-the-only-way/#comment-15358
He still tries to spin it a few other ways, so probably best not reading the rest.
Camestros Felapton:
Yeah, the ‘too soon’ makes it so much better. If you post something racist and you know you’re being racist, the person who’s really at fault is the one who quotes you.
>> Guess we should’ve seen this coming. Someone bought a bunch of twitter bots and had them repeat a line Kurt Busiek posted:
https://goo.gl/4Gtj0s >>
Should anyone wonder if I did indeed buy the books I said I did:
https://twitter.com/KurtBusiek/status/612147096024543232/photo/1
That’s the three I purchased today. The pre-orders, naturally, aren’t here yet.
>> Vox is trumpeting it as proof of something or other.>>
The goofy part is, making it look like people were buying books without actually buying them doesn’t help Tor any, so its value would be…questionable, to say the least.
Making it look like Torsday Friday wasn’t actually happening, though, serves Beale’s increasingly-silly narrative. I leave the obvious conclusion to those who can grasp it.
@Brian Z
If the Sad Pups think their actions wouldn’t be in support of the boycott threat then they’re fooling themselves. Fig leaf at best.
JJ
Ad hominem.
Appeal to authority. And what on earth do 1984 ballots cast under old rules in a vastly different situation have to do with potential 2017 conditions and voter behavior?
Has it been tested against one to multiple slates and other attacks? I’ve already explained why I think it compromises the integrity of an individual’s votes – would you care to comment?
Meredith, how far do you want to extend that argument? Do you think my actions right now are in support of a boycott?
@Ann Somerville
The other thing about that bit you quoted, is that Torgersen is just wrong. Cd, the person who brought the tweet into his comments, quoted the whole thing including the ‘Too soon?’ part.
Kurt Busiek:Should anyone wonder if I did indeed buy the books I said I did:
https://twitter.com/KurtBusiek/status/612147096024543232/photo/1
I can’t tell what that shadow puppet is supposed to be. Also I really need to check out Poldark.
*wishes she had given her kindle a fancy Latiny name now*
By the way, Meredith got me to click over to Brad’s website and I noticed he has posted some reactions to Charleston.
https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/love-one-another-its-the-only-way/
Ann Somerville:Yeah, the ‘too soon’ makes it so much better. If you post something racist and you know you’re being racist, the person who’s really at fault is the one who quotes you.
The notion that “too soon” makes it better because it shows he was aware it was wrong is infuriating. If anything, having that awareness and going ahead with it anyway makes it worse.
@Brian Z
Why would I? You’re not engaging in an identical email campaign to someone who wants to boycott, so far as I’m aware. The Sad Puppies are.
Appeal to authority is only a fallacy if they’re not a true authority on the subject. An expert of voting systems would be a true authority (although still not necessarily correct 100% of the time) on voting systems. This is a great video about logical fallacies.
I’m a little concerned on the effects on future voting behaviour, but I think that’s more a case of explaining the system very, very well. I haven’t looked at the new FAQ so maybe they’ve managed that.
XS:
>> I can’t tell what that shadow puppet is supposed to be.>>
I think it’s a gamma rabbit. But it’s got a big ol’ Batman eye.
XS: “Also I really need to check out Poldark.”
Only if you like tedious moody soap opera and man pain. I don’t care how pretty Aidan Turner is, he’s in a remake of something too boring to contemplate
Hyperbolus:” Cd, the person who brought the tweet into his comments, quoted the whole thing including the ‘Too soon?’ part.”
I only saw Natalie Luhr’s tweet and she certainly included it. But what do facts matter to Brad?
Interesting. Our sour cherries aren’t ripe yet. They’re turning colors, but it’s going to be at least a week before they are ready to be picked. For us this is late, probably from the rain and cold.
@Hyperbolus, @Ann
I’ve said as much in Brad’s comments, just in case he saw it somewhere else that did exclude the Too Soon. I dunno who retweeted it first (I thought it was eilatan) as Twitter is a mystery to me.
Meredith,
I’ve read that several times, and I’m sorry but I still don’t see where it is true. Who are “the Sad Puppies” here? Peter Grant asking for a formal reprimand? He and Vox Day got 700-odd letters sent (we don’t know how many asked for a reprimand vs how many wanted someone fired), without involvement of Brad et al. There are thousands of fans sympathetic to the Sad Puppies. A few dozen sent in photos of their Tor books to show they are real fans and don’t think they should be insulted or written off. I’m not remotely a puppy and I almost sent in a photo. That’s not a boycott.
JJ’s “Appeal to authority” was deployed in order to avoid responding to the specific concerns I raised.
I’m glad to know you are concerned about impact on voter behavior. We all should be. And I’m no expert but I think this could result either in more mediocre final ballots, a direction I think we are already headed in over the past several years, personally – and it has nothing to do with cabals, puppies or left-right politics. I also think there are probably a number of ways it could be attacked that haven’t got full attention, and that’s something I’d like to see an independent groups of experts – not the ones who designed it or support it – look at and tell us more about.
Well, I did my Tor buying from Google Play, because it’s a lot easier for me to download a book I bought from them to back it up and import it to my Kindle library than it is to download a Kindle book to back it up and import it into my Google Play library.
For books from DRM-infested publishers, I go to Kindle for the convenience (since that’s what my wife uses); but for DRM-free books, I usually buy through Google.
Brian Z at 7:52 pm:
Brian, you brought up your opinion during the discussions and yours was very much in the minority (it might have even been a minority of one). This is democracy in action.
What’s your solution? More slates? The only people who want the status quo are the ones who have benefited from slates & who hope to benefit from them in future. Is that what you want? Or do you have an alternative to propose?
E pluribus Hugo has now been submitted to the WSFS Business Meeting where it will be voted on. That’s part of the democratic process. The discussions that led to it have been lengthy, open and inclusive.
Which is more accurately described as having been “conducted 100% in the open, democratically, using a democratic process”, “E pluribus Hugo” or the “Sad Puppy 3 Slate”?
“There are thousands of fans sympathetic to the Sad Puppies.”
[citation needed]
I had intended to search my (absurd) kindle library for tor books. And I what I found was that Amazon doesn’t let you search “your” library by publisher. Not in the kindle app, not on their website. And so I’m left, still, with no idea how many Tor books I own (well, more accurately, how many Tor books I’ve purchased since ~2011).
Did Monty Python make any Holocaust jokes?
Besides the Mr. Hilter bit with “lampshade time”? Well, kinda. But the circumstances demanded it.
Soon Lee, I’ve stated in this comment
https://file770.com/?p=23227&cpage=17#comment-290452
and my subsequent comments above what my specific concerns are.
Competing slates are not “a proposed solution.” They are a pattern of voter behavior that may or may not emerge and we may or may not have control over. It is certainly worth thinking about how voters will behave under these proposed conditions and in this general climate (rather than rerunning irrelevant 1984 ballots). I’m not an expert but hopefully there is an expert who was not involved in drafting EPH who can devise ways to attack it and give us a report on what might happen. Hopefully that will happen before ratification (at least).
What is this I don’t even.
I notice his response in his website is almost literally it was just a joke, you guys are so sensitive.
At this point I am not interested in anything Michael Z. Williamson has ever had a hand in.
MaxL: If you go to Advanced Search on Amazon, you can search by publisher.
Really? What I heard was Whedon thought he was being subtle and clever in his references to American history, but of course Lost Cause nutjobs can sniff a War of Northern Aggression dogwhistle like a camel can smell water from a hundred miles off and so they took to it like a lot of scary nutjob fans.