Ayes Wide Mutt 7/3

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aka The Doxxer Rebellion

In today’s roundup: Malcolm ‘f.’ Cross, Tom Knighton, Dorothy Grant, Adam-Troy Castro, David Gerrold, Mike Resnick, Lawrence Person, John C. Wright, Nicholas Whyte, and Patrick May. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Will Reichard and Kurt (not Kent) Busiek.)

Foozzzball (Malcolm ‘f.’ Cross)  on Weasyl

“My ounce of bile: Yarn is cowardly” – July 3

….Here’s the thing. These guys (and a very, very few women) are all screaming, defensively, that they’re writing good old fashioned YARNS. Entertaining STORIES. Books with rocket ships on the covers instead of that inconvenient new-fangled social commentary. And they point at luminaries like Heinlein, and Asimov, and all those golden age authors.

Heinlein who was talking about contemperaneous issues like the cold war, the morality of total warfare, free love, the impact of new and changing technology and the need for retaining simple skills (such as the much loved slide rule), and was a man who spoke very much to the issues of his time. Asimov who attacked major issues of his lifetime like eugenics and social engineering through his work (what, you think Foundation’s psychohistory has nothing to say about the pursuit of social purity?), wrapping up issues of perception and belief and creation in rip-roaring stories.

These men were not writing yarns. They were products of their time, attacking the issues of their time. That they did so skilfully, entertainingly, and thought-provokingly is testament to their genius. They were not saints, their opinions are not sacrosanct, they, like any other person, held opinions agreeable and disagreeable.

You know who else wasn’t just spinning yarns? Orson Scott Card. Ender’s Game is fundamentally about the boundary between being a soldier and a human being. It’s implicitly about genocide, about hands on the big red button, about the ignorance required to perform such a terrible action and remain innocent. It was originally a short story written in 1977, in the middle of the cold war, and rewritten as a novel by 1985, just as the cold war got terrifying all over again. Attacking the issues of his day, OSC put together a masterpiece. And then, quite honestly, he started looking at his personal bugbears instead of the wider world, and never did anything so good again in his life. That’s when he started writing yarns.

Fiction isn’t about entertainment. It never has been. From the earliest stories we’ve told ourselves, the myths that grew into religions, Aesop’s fables, the fairy-tales you were told as a child, they’ve all been about communication. Discussion. Opening a dialogue. They are vehicles for exploring, and thinking about, the world. This is all fiction, not just science fiction…..

 

Tom Knighton on According To Hoyt

“On Villainy” – July 3

…Right now, the most popular villain is the turdnugget who decided to walk into a church in Charleston, SC and kill people for nothing more than the color of their skin. This is something that the vast majority of us are unable to comprehend. I mean, skin tone is as arbitrary a dividing line as hair color or eye color, so why kill people for just that factor?

We can’t grasp it, yet it happened. I refuse to actually write the turdnugget’s name anywhere, because I don’t want to give him any more press. He already got his fame, which I suspect was a factor in his attack, but I refuse to add to it. It’s a small effort to keep people from mimicking his efforts.

All too often, people think of “villains” as those who oppose them on whatever issue they hold dear. Monsanto is the villain to people like “Food Babe”. The NRA is the villain to the gun control crowd. The Sad Puppies are the villains to the Puppy Kickers. The flip side is also generally true as well.

The thing is, most of us have never truly experienced real “villainy”. We’ve never witnessed the pits of dead Albanians following the break-up of Yugoslavia. We never witnessed the Rwandan tribal slaughter. Many of us have never met a Jewish concentration camp survivor. To us, that level of villainy just doesn’t exist except as an abstract…..

And yet, there are those who are ready to ascribe such motives to us. They’re ready to link this turdnugget to us, despite the fact that most of us not only decry his actions, but we actually supported several authors who don’t fit the “white, Mormon male” narrative (to say nothing of the fact that authors were nominated that we may disagree with politically).

Look, I’m going to make this clear. Bigotry is stupid. Racism is beyond stupid. All we have ever wanted is people and works to be judged based on quality, both the quality of the person and the quality of the work. Anyone who opposes a work because the author is black, or a woman, or gay, or a socialist is a moron. Anyone who dislikes a work because the author is white, or male, or straight, or a conservative/libertarian is just as much of a moron.

There are real villains in this world. How about some of the people screaming the most about villains try something different and start looking at real villains for a change.

 

Dorothy Grant in a comment on Tom Knighton’s post “On Villainy” at According To Hoyt – July 3

I suspect that people who have very little life experience and not much in the way of bedrock principles shrink their scale of villainy to fit their experience.

The best example of this is the root of the Tor boycott; Irene Gallo was upset at people voting for the Hugos in ways that did not benefit her logrolling clique, and she started calling her customers and her own authors neo-nazis and the books she had even worked on “bad to reprehensible.” In her pampered, privileged world, someone not giving a plastic statue to the clique that was certain they deserved it is the worst villainy possible.

Then there’s my husband, who has traded fire with real, actual neo-nazis and dealt with their carbombs and terror tactics. He was working on ending apartheid and giving every human being in South Africa the vote and the recognition of their human dignity. The worst villainy possible that he’s seen… let us pray fervently to all our spirits and deities that we never see its like again.

 

 

John C. Wright in a comment on File 770 – July 3

“Putting this in perspective, John C. Wright is trying to stave off a boycott of the publisher who pays him, because of a creative director there who dared to suggest that some of his movement are neo-Nazis, and he’s doing this by applying the adjective “Christ-Hating” in part to an editor named Moshe who wears a yarmulke.”

What a vile and cowardly ort of feces this is. I see the method here is merely to make so many false and outrageous accusations that no one can possibly refute them.

Since I am an open philosemite, active supporter of the State of Israel, an unapologetic Zionist, and married the daughter of a Jew, and since I immediately ban any holocaust deniers who dare to show their subhuman snouts on my blog, the accusation that I am an antisemite is beyond libel, beyond madness.

Why not simply accuse me of being a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater while you are at it?

The Christ-haters hate Christ because they are Social Justice Warriors, which is a religion that is jealous, and excludes the practice of Christian and Jewish faith alike.

It was the God of Abraham, the God worshiped by all practicing Jews, who destroyed the city of Sodom and outlawed the practices which made that name a curse. I am being reviled precisely because I love and fear the God of Moses.

I am against the SJWs precisely for the same reason I am for the Jews. I hate bullies and cowards, and I hate liars, and I hate antisemitism with an unquenchable burning hatred, and I love the people that God loves.

Mr Glyer, for a while, you had won my respect, as you seemed to be an honest fellow, trying to maintain some sense of fairplay. I called your blog a wretched hive of scum and villainy as a joke, which you took up.

But this is beyond the pale, that you should print such things of me, or aid and condone these libels. I trust you will reprint these remarks of mine in a prominent place.

 

Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook – July 3

…I am aware that I’ve been cited in Larry Correia’s environs, though as far as I know not specifically by Larry Correia (I am careful to make that distinction), as the “stupidest man in science fiction.” Some of my friend Brad Torgersen’s pals have come here to spew rage at me and calling me a false friend for daring to tell Brad that on this subject, at least, he has his head so far up his own ass that he can’t see daylight. I had an illiterate crazy guy come here to slam me for my liberalism, and when the height of his wit was that I should put on my big boy pants, I pretty much plowed him under with a demonstration of how ploughboys should not draw on shootists. And then there’s Tom Monaghan, who has yet to discover the comma, but who has showed up at least one convention panel just to hop up and down in his audience seat and yell at me.

These are glimpses. It is possible that I have not been under any further discussion at all, by these people, because I am that much beneath their notice, and that would make me tremendously happy; it is also possible that there are extended exchanges about what a low-life idiotic liberal prick I am, and this I cannot care much about either, because aside from these manifestations I have not seen it…..

I don’t know. There may be entire threads out there, closed to me, about what a piece of shit I am.

This does not particularly please me. Making enemies can be fun, but having enemies is not.

So why do I persist in doing stuff like pointing out that a guy who uses the phrase “Christ-Hating Crusaders for Sodom” when talking about a Jew, and counts among his allies a lunatic who cheers on spree killers, has little basis for high moral dudgeon at the suggestion that the movement of which he’s a part extends to the realm of neo-Nazidom? Why would I put myself in the cross-hairs of those among his fans who are exactly as crazy in potential as he is in rhetoric?

Simply put: because the one discussion thread I cannot escape is between my ears, and the one troll I cannot block is my conscience…..

 

David Gerrold on Facebook – July 3

Because silence equals death.

I don’t know Brad or Larry or most of the others who have spoken up on the puppy side of the kerfuffle. I only know them by what they post online.

They may be good people. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I disagree with them. I disagree with their perception of SF. I disagree with their interpretations. But I would never use that disagreement as a justification for behaving unethically.

I don’t speak for anyone else, but I think I know why so many others of merit in the field — George R.R. Martin, Eric Flint, Connie Willis, John Scalzi, Adam-Troy Castro, Mary Robinette Kowal, and many others — have spoken up. It’s why I have spoken up.

For those who missed it the first time, and who think I’m a terrible person — well, yes I might be, but I’ll say it again. I would have cheered a recommended reading list. I would have discovered books I might otherwise have missed.

But the slate-mongering was wrong. It wasn’t about the quality of the work. It wasn’t about excellence. It was about a political agenda. And the justifications that have been offered — “we’re creating diversity and inclusiveness” — are disingenuous. (That’s the polite word for pants-on-fire lying.) You don’t create diversity and inclusiveness by denying other people a fair opportunity.

And when I have asked for some discussion, for some explanation why the authors of the slates felt their nominated stories represented “best of the year,” how do these stories represent excellence in the genre, no one has stepped up to the microphone to answer that question, except the usual crickets to indicate an embarrassing silence. When we read the comments by those who are sludging their way through their Hugo packets, we do not find the joyous exhilaration of excellence. We see reactions that range from skeptical to hostile, confirming the perception that the slates were motivated by political bias.

So, yes, I have spoken my opposition to the slates. I have spoken my opposition to the name-calling (regardless of which side it’s coming from), and I have spoken my opposition to the political polarization of this community. I would call it a disastrous miscalculation — except that I wonder if perhaps this polarization is exactly what a couple of the people behind this mess intended from the beginning.

If you want to talk about what makes for a great science fiction story, I’m interested. I’m there. If it’s a conversation I can learn from, I want to be a part of it. If it pushes me in the direction of being a better writer, sign me up.

But all this other stuff — slates and name-calling, boycotts and shit-stirring? I’d say “include me out” except as I said above, silence equals death. ….

 

Mike Resnick in Galaxy’s Edge Magazine

“The End of the Worldcon As We Know It” – July 3

….Ah, but this year will be different, I hear you say. This year we’ll be voting No Award in a bunch of categories, and history will thank us.

Well, it just so happens that No Award has triumphed before. In fact, it has won Best Dramatic Presentation three different times. (Bet you didn’t know that Rod Serling’s classic “Twilight Zone” series lost to No Award, did you?)

But the most interesting and humiliating No Award came in 1959. The category was Best New Writer, and one of the losers was future Worldcon Guest of Honor and Nebula Grand Master Brian Aldiss, who actually won a Hugo in 1962, just three years later. That No Award was so embarrassing that they discontinued the category until they could find a sponsor eight years later, which is how the Campbell Award, sponsored by Analog, came into being.

Please note that I’ve limited myself to Worldcons. I haven’t mentioned the X Document or the Lem Affair or any of the other notable wars you can find in various pro and fannish histories (or probably even by just googling them). This editorial is only concerned with The End of Worldcon As We Know It.

And hopefully by now the answer should be apparent. You want to End Worldcon As We Know It? Don’t feud. Don’t boycott. Don’t be unpleasant. Don’t be unreasonable. Don’t raise your voices in mindless anger.

Do all that and none of us will recognize the Worldcon that emerges.

 

Nicholas Whyte on From the Heart of Europe

“2015 Hugo fiction: How bloggers are voting” – July 3

For three of the last four years, I carried out a survey of how bloggers were planning to vote in the Hugos. Last year this proved a fairly effective methodology, calling Best Novel and Best Short Story correctly and pinging the actual winners as front-runners for Best Novella and Best Novelette. In 2013 two winners were clear and two were missed (including Best Novel). In 2011, however, my survey failed to pick a single winner of the four fiction categories. So this should be taken as a straw poll, necessarily incomplete and this year earlier than usual. There is certain to be a selection bias in that people who feel more strongly are more likely to blog about it; so we have no insight into the preferences of less articulate or invested voters.

Having said that, the results are interesting. In particular, No Award appears to be leading in all the short fiction categories (though not necessarily decisively in every case), and there is no clear single front-runner for Best Novel….

 

Patrick May

“2015 Hugo Awards Novel Category” – July 3

[Comments on all five nominees.]

My Hugo ballot for this category is:

  1. Skin Game
  2. The Goblin Emperor
  3. Ancillary Sword
  4. The Three Body Problem
  5. The Dark Between the Stars

I would really like to give “Skin Game” spots 1-3 and “The Goblin Emperor” and “Ancillary Sword” spots 4 and 5 to demonstrate my real preferences. The other two novels aren’t what I consider Hugo quality, but I’m leaving them above No Award because they’re no worse than some recent winners like “Redshirts”. (I’m not hating on Scalzi. I think all of the “Old Man’s War” series is Hugo worthy. But “Redshirts”? I’ve read better fanfic.)

If Kloos hadn’t declined his nomination, I would have ranked “Lines of Departure” just after “Ancillary Sword”.

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322 thoughts on “Ayes Wide Mutt 7/3”

  1. If you are a blogging writer & you give good blog, I am more inclined to buy your book that first time. Whether I buy a second book by you depends on how well I enjoy the first.

  3. Covers, I have fond memories of the Venture SF series published by Arrow in UK in the mid 80s. Many of these were the first paperback issues of the works in the UK, sometimes the first UK issue at all. All had a distinctive cover style with artwork by Eddie Jones (though not always original) Though they only numbered 25 published between 85-89 many turned up in my local library and were my first introduction to authors as diverse as Edmond Hamilton, John Brunner, Timothy Zahn, David Drake and Richard C Meredith.

    I’ve managed to pick a few up 2nd hand over the years since.

    I also preferred the early Orbit covers of Iain M Banks’ books (the ones that were mostly black with a widescreen style picture that spanned across the front and back cover) only have one of those left in my collection but at least it is the signed one.

  4. Just read Asaro’s “Under city”. Wow. The story starts off kind of small and jejune then keeps getting bigger and bigger.

  5. Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow Americans! And I hope everyone else is having a good weekend.

    Jamoche and Lori Coulson: another convert here. My experience was that I found the Catholic Mass spoke to me more than an Episcopal service ever did. So I switched from Catho-lite to pure quill. I’ll also cop to the fact the social justice elements of the catechism and my RCIA really helped.

    Brains in jars. An image that always creeped me out. I see someone already mentioned Mimir, who had a slightly more extreme version in David Drake’s North World, name of Dowson. And I can think of one in Alastair Reynolds’ Galactic North “Grafenwalder’s Bestiary” and it’s a grim fate for the victim. Would “Diamond Dogs” count?

    And J.C. Wright … wow. I’m southern so I can say this: “Bless his heart.”

  6. Puppies: You never give Hugos to our favorite books because you want to earn brownie points by awarding experimental left-wing message fiction written by traditionally marginalized populations!

    Rest of Fandom: No, we gave Hugos to the fiction we liked better.

    Puppies: You hate us because you deny our very right to exist in your precious elitist SJW spaces!

    Rest of Fandom: No, we’re mad at you because you gamed the Hugo nominations by slate voting and dominated the ballot.

    Puppies: You’re planning to No Award our Hugo choices because you’re totally prejudiced and completely unfair!

    Rest of Fandom: No, we’re No Awarding your Hugo choices because we didn’t like them very much.

    Puppies: You hate us because you hate conservatives and Christians!

    Rest of Fandom: No, we don’t like you because you’re being obnoxious.

  7. World Weary on July 4, 2015 at 11:47 am said:
    @Peace

    Most of my close friends are atheists. One of them is an evangelical atheist. While he is my friend, he is definitely an a-hole. He used to rope our friends into discussions about how delusional and/or stupid believers are. Those of us who are believers ignored these conversations as best we could. The funniest part was that he thought he wasn’t being offensive. I think one of the other atheists clued him in.

    This is the problem when you only hang out with your own kind. It’s easy to cross a line when everyone you talk with agrees with you.

    I’m sure atheists can be pushy obnoxious evangelicals the same as anyone else. It’s just that most of my atheist acquaintances are quieter about it, and pretty different from each other for all that.

    It may be a problem of hanging out with my own kind, though. Even my oficially evangelical friend, who is one of my closest and oldest friends, doesn’t evangelize.

  8. I’ve posted a new review, though not remotely Hugo-related. I needed some Guilty Pleasure reading. Or in this case, listening. Being read to was good.

    Not at the big annual family barbeque, because it was cancelled, because, you know, two days after the funeral.

  9. David Goldfarb on July 4, 2015 at 12:05 pm said:
    @nickpheas: I read all of Zombie Nation through the end of 2014. It doesn’t get significantly better.

    Thank you for your yeoman service.

  10. Now I feel bittersweet. As awful as this controversy has been, I’ve loved my time here on File 770 and the little community we have built, and soon it will all be over.

    John C. Wright is very concerned about personal honor. So of course now he will apologize to Moshe Feder for calling him a Christ-hater in error. Feder will accept graciously and that exchange alone will do much to soften the tone. But it won’t stop there. In confession, Wright will mention that “I even called a man who has been a practicing Catholic for much longer than I [Patrick Nielsen Hayden] a Christ-hater. Please forgive me, Father.” The priest will remind Wright that atonement is the key to repentance, setting the next stage of the Great Reconciliation in motion.

    Wright posts a public, unsparing and perhaps overly florid account of his own excesses during the recent troubles and urges everyone, “but especially on ‘my side,’ because we are the ones who control our own behavior,” to cease the acrimony, the accusations, “and above all the unbecoming and nigh-boundless self-pity, which is an indulgence and a sin of pride.” Larry Correia’s family surprises him at dinner with his favorite dish and a little homemade crown. “You’re the king of our fandom!” they tell him. He cries. They are tears of joy. Brad Torgersen looks himself in the mirror and asks, “Do I want to be the anti-Scalzi? Or do I want to be the best Brad Torgersen I can possibly be?” Trembling, he turns to his desk and finally types out a long list of constructive criticism he’s been keeping bottled inside for years. He will send it to Carter Reid tomorrow. He will.

    Peter Grant spends an entire night wherever the hell he lives with the shakes. But at length he can start to accept that the wars of his youth were decades ago now. It is time to make something of the peace we enjoy. Sarah Hoyt stands before her computer, hands clenching and unclenching. Oh the things she would like to post right now! But she feels so lonely of a sudden! Upstairs she refinishes the floors until too exhausted to work any further, then collapses in her bed. She dreams she is a little girl, surrounded by smiling colonels in splendid white dress uniforms with epaulets like carrier decks.

    Only in Italy, or Switzerland or Finland or wherever the hell, does the fire still burn. This comity, this reflection, this obsession with the plank in ones own eye will not stand! There are so many specks of sawdust in the eyes of others to be removed! There are screenshots and emails and links to blog comments yet to put into play! And then comes a Skype call from America. He doesn’t want to take it and almost doesn’t. But the man is, after all, his author.

    “Theo,” John C. Wright greets him, “I think we should pray. Really pray.”

  11. @Lis Carey

    That sounds like a fun book. I don’t think I’ve read any of that series (or maybe one, so long ago I have forgotten how it went.)

    I’m sorry about the barbeque being canceled. I kind of understand how people would have thought it was inappropriate, but sometimes it’s a comfort to get together with family.

    I spent the day playing D&D with my brother and my husband. Not the best game I’ve ever run–I kind of think my best games have been puzzle-dungeons–but they seemed to have fun.

  12. Marshall Ryan Maresca on July 4, 2015 at 12:31 pm said:
    I will admit, I will quite often decide that a bad cover on a self-published work is indicative of bad prose inside. Far more so than a bad cover on a traditionally published work.
    My train of logic is this: the self-publisher made the decision to go with that cover. (The trad published author often has little-to-no say). So that decision of, “Yes! This image is an excellent representation of my work” says something specific about their skill in appraising the aesthetic value of something. They think the terrible cover is worth publishing. They also think the text inside is worth publishing, but we’ve seen hard evidence of their ability to judge that.

    I don’t necessarily agree. Judgement of writing is a very different skill from judgement of visual art or design, just as writing is a very different skillset from visual art (I am a professional visual artist).

    I haven’t seen that there is a direct correlation between quality of the cover art and quality of the interior writing in self-published works. Both can be bad, of course, but that seems to be Sturgeon’s Law writ large, not a direct connection between them.

  15. Agree with Peace about judging self-published books by their covers. There’s also a financial constraint. An author may lack the capital to secure the best available artists and designers.

  16. @Cat — Thanks. I would have liked to go ahead with the barbeque, to be with everyone, but prevailing opinion was clear. We are looking at other dates,in a few weeks.

  18. @John C. Wright: I suspect it is possible for a human being to not believe in your Christ without actually hating Christ. Good teacher, you know, had some uplifting ideas about tolerance, empathy, wealth inequality, and the like.

    Let he who first threw the epithet “Christ-Hating [Crusaders for Sodom]” take responsibility for his perception that all who do not hold his own personal beliefs hate him, hate his God. I can understand how living in a world, on an Earth, that so largely does not hold his personal beliefs causes him to feel besieged by hate, and how holding on to his beliefs can become so existential to him.

    Yet, all perception is narrative, a story told to explain what it is we have seen or experienced.

    All founders of (pre-printing press) religions had insights about human beings, the interconnectedness between humans, and between humans and the world they live on, and the wider universe beyond. Those founders had to explain their insights in terms of stories understood by the people and the times in which they were received.

    Followers, who focus on the stories not the insights, scaffold the stories about with the taboos, shibboleths, prejudices, and ignorance of their times. Religion becomes a ritual to separate an “us” from a “them” (and, concomitantly, provide a living for the hierarchies of intermediaries between humankind and the divine).

    The divine? Look within. If your God hates everything that you hate, and casts violent judgement against all that you fear, or makes you uncomfortable, then that’s your hate, not God’s insight nor judgement

    Mr. Wright, in Transhuman and Subhuman downgrades Heinlein for not accepting Revelation. Of course Heinlein rejected Revelation! That’s why he was able to ask the question that made his writing so transformative.

    People write SF because of: “Its scope; its flexibility. It is far and away the best medium for untrammeled, unbounded imagination”[EES], and “[b]ecause most other literature isn’t concerned with reality”[ACC], and “It gives me an almost complete freedom of speech, and absolute freedom of thought”[THS], and “…it affords a means by which thoughtful people can consider the possible effect on human beings of changes in the state of science and technology.” [IA], and “s-f presents to us … a great range of “as-if” views; the possession of these have the effect of making our minds flexible: we are capable of seeing alternative viewpoints as co-equal with our own” [PKD], and “… it’s one way of making concrete my own speculations and daydreams”[RS], and “I scratch where it itches.” [EFR]*

    [* quotes from author responses to The Double-Bill Symposium, 1964]

    I’m sorry, Mr. Wright. Neither in its history nor its present has SF ever been circumscribed by the outline of your religion, nor should SF ever be viewed through a lens demanding it conform the beliefs of your faith. To attempt to do so is to deny the histories of both science and science fiction.

    People are not just mad about the Puppies’s slate-vote cheating of the Hugo. They see that the Puppies’s grievances, their “fix”, and its subsequent justifications, display the Puppies’s complete indifference to what makes sf SF.

    If Mr. Wright feels increasingly disenfranchised by a world that has moved on from his beliefs, he can take solace from the advice offered by Misters Niven and Pournelle (good slam-bang adventure writers): “Consider it evolution in action.”

  19. John Varley’s Overdrawn at the memory bank is another brain in a box story. I just checked Amazon to see if there was an ebook version of his stories (yes!) and the blurb writer said something about his early promise petering out – ouch! – although the stories are still great.

    This makes me think of JCW. I don’t see him as a failure exactly, as ?Stevie suggested, but certainly someone who didn’t live up to the early hype (“Wright may be this fledgling century’s most important new SF talent” according to PW). Not sure that kind of early praise is good for a writer.

    And a belated thanks to all the suggestions for my bleak-reading son. However he’s requested his own Kindle (instead of borrowing mine) and a gift certificate for his birthday, so who knows if any of them will take.

  22. A fun bit of jargon I recently came across: “Outgroup Homogeneity” — the sense that people outside a group are more similar to one another people in a group. Aka: “they’re all the same, but we’re different”.

    Most people are guilty of it sometimes (File770, too, I guess), but the Puppies are the dictionary definition of the term. “You don’t agree with us? You’re a puppy kicker and SJW!” Not to mention a Christ-hating sodomy-lover.

  23. Darn it – I have a really good short story in mind which is pretty close to a Brain In A Jar piece – but I can’t even mention it because it would be a spoiler.

    Rot13 it is – gur fgbel vf “Fbaavr’f Rqtr” va “N Frpbaq Punapr ng Rqra” ol Crgre Unzvygba. Gur onpxtebhaq vf gung crbcyr hfr negvsvpvny gryrcngul gb pbageby oenvayrff znahsnpgherq zbafgref sbe tynqvngbevny pbagrfgf – n jbzna onqyl vawherq va na nppvqrag vafgrnq genafcynagf ure oenva vagb gur zbafgre naq erzbgr pbagebyf ure “npghny” obql.

  24. I suppose that Delany’s The Mad Dog begins, “I don’t have rabies. I am surprised that I don’t…”

  25. Jim Henley on July 4, 2015 at 3:29 pm said:
    Now I feel bittersweet. As awful as this controversy has been, I’ve loved my time here on File 770

    I like your ending.

  27. Finally got through reading the short stories section (parents do not get an excess of reading time you guys, it takes us a while longer). If I hadn’t known about the puppies kerfuffle, I’d have been *really* confused and angry right now at how god-awfully bad most of the nominees are and how unpolished and downright unfinished the ones that aren’t god-awful are. Seriously, a lot of us casuals who use the Hugos as reading list suggestions are going to be very pissed off over the coming months, these nominees range from barely average to being so bad that you question if the author has (a) english as a first language and (b) a decent school education (I don’t mean college, I just mean school – high school if you’re in the US, secondary if you’re Irish, O-levels if you’re in the UK).

    I mean, I saw bad reviews coming in but until I read them for myself… yeesh.

  29. Editor: That should read “why he was able to ask the questions”, not “ask the question”. (not sure how to post icon to accompany the comment)

  32. Soon Lee on July 4, 2015 at 2:23 pm said:

    If you are a blogging writer & you give good blog, I am more inclined to buy your book that first time. Whether I buy a second book by you depends on how well I enjoy the first.

    Precisely. I’ve found lots of new reading due to watching authors on social media. If they blog or tweet interesting stuff and what I see of their books looks interesting, I’ll read a story. But if that story is not the sort of thing I like, or it’s not well written, I will rarely read a second story.

    If the author is being horrible on social media that gives me negative incentive to try their books even if it’s one of my favored subgenres.

    This is how life works. For some authors to say ‘It’s not fair if you won’t read my stuff when I’m insulting you and all your friends, shitting all over WorldCon, the Hugos and you and all the other fans who created or sustained them, accusing you of conspiracy to commit fraud and telling you, oh so smarmily, that you don’t really like the books you like’ is just … alternate reality. You treat me like that and I’m not coming anywhere near you or your works. There’s no writing in the world good enough to be worth being treated like that.

  33. @CPaca:

    – Are there going to be any goblins or elves showing up in this fantasy fiction?

    The term I prefer is “prophecy.”

  34. Oh, right. Donovan’s Brain, by Curt Siodmak! The book, and the movie of the same name! And Larry Niven’s Becalmed in Hell, starring Donovan’s brain!

  35. The Henleyverse is a beautiful, happy place.

    Which makes me joyful, because the Hensleyverse is dark, scary and dangerous.

  36. The Henleyverse is indeed a fine place. As soon as the Great Reconciliation is ratified, puppies and others will join in an enormous barbeque party with much cooing and croquet and many beers. But no fireworks. My dog is scared.

  38. I actually have a human brain in a jar in my library. I bought it from a company specialized in props for movies. It had been used in some swedish Sci-Fi-series on TV.

    I’ve named it “Abe”.

  40. I’m not sure if it’s better to post this here or on the previous post, but I need to call attention to the fact that Mike Resnick’s discussion of the history of No Award is misleading.

    It is true that in 1963, No Award won for Best Dramatic Presentation, and The Twilight Zone was on the ballot. It is also true that The Twilight Zone won the award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1962, 1961, and 1960. While you would have to ask the 1963 voters for their reasons for voting No Award, it’s hard to argue that it was because the voters failed to recognize the quality of The Twilight Zone.

    It is also true that in 1959, No Award won for Best New Author of 1958, coming ahead of Brian W. Aldiss. Again, you would have to ask the voters why they voted that way. It may well be the case that Aldiss may have been a deserving winner, especially since he went on to win for Best Short Fiction in 1962. It may also be the case that his published work in 1958-1959 failed to demonstrate his future success.

    As for the claim that the No Award was so embarrassing that the category was discontinued, the awards given were not standardized year to year in the 50s. Previous similar awards included Most Promising New Author in 1956 (given to Robert Silverberg) and Best New SF Author or Artist in 1953 (given to Philip José Farmer). New Writer awards were not given in other years prior to 1959 (or subsequent to 1959 until the establishment of the Campbell in 1973).

    And if giving a No Award was embarrassing, one wonders why it did not have an effect on the Best SF or Fantasy Movie category, which was also given a No Award in 1959, the first time it was an award category. Best Dramatic Presentation appeared for the first time the following year in 1960, and this kicked off The Twilight Zone’s win streak.

    More generally, Resnick is calling attention to the previous times in which No Award was given to argue that No Award harms the Hugos. This argument depends on the idea that incorrectly giving out No Award uniquely harms the Hugos in a way that other incorrect awards do not. I think everyone agrees that the Hugo awards sometimes make mistakes. This is the basis for the Puppy complaints, after all. But recommending against No Award because it may turn out to be a mistake depends on the argument that an erroneous No Award is more damaging to the Hugos than other award errors. Even accepting Resnick’s claims at face value, he is a long way from establishing this conclusion.

    (Award data from the winner’s lists on nesfa.org, which initially led me to conclude that awards were given in 1946, 1951, and 1954 with the modern awards categories.) Also, this editor really does not play well with the iPad.

  41. O-levels if you’re in the UK

    Not for the last twenty years – we use GCSEs at 16 (replacement for O-levels), and A-Levels at 18 (or some other sort of training – people born after 1997 have to stay in education or training until 18).

  42. On John Varley’s early promise petering out:

    I did so love the early Varley. Those early books and stories by him were wonderful. And I have to admit his recent work has — while readable — been disappointing.

    I don’t think this is caused by age. So many SF/F writers get *better* with age. (Le Guin, Arnason, Octavia Butler.)

    I hold out hope he can turn it around. I miss that writer.

  43. I feel that Jim has a real gift for the utopian story line; I do wish we could get it working in real life.

    On the other hand, I am greatly enjoying my sojourn here as Mike’s guest so I’m not happy with any outcome which dispenses with that.

    Which brings us back to St Crispin’s day; next year we may well be launching ourselves into the breach once more, though my voting this year is definitely tilted to crying havoc, and letting slip the dogs of war…

  44. I feel that Jim has a real gift for the utopian story line; I do wish we could get it working in real life.

    So do I, but in my heart I know that next year it will get worse. The Puppies I’ve talked to are abuzz about attending Midamericon II next year, in Kansas City.

  45. I don’t mind Puppies at WorldCon. They are as welcome as anyone who’s come to enjoy themselves.

    If they wish to celebrate the fiction they love, well yay. As long as they aren’t crapping all over everyone else’s fun, they are welcome.

    WorldCon sci fi fandom has a history of tolerance, bumpy and imperfect though it may be.

  46. I don’t mind Puppies at WorldCon. They are as welcome as anyone who’s come to enjoy themselves.

    Nor do I. But I am worried about what an embolden Vox Day or John C Wright will try to do. Especially, if they think they can manipulate their followers at the business meeting.

  47. Not for the last twenty years – we use GCSEs at 16 (replacement for O-levels), and A-Levels at 18 (or some other sort of training – people born after 1997 have to stay in education or training until 18).

    It is possible I’ve dated myself there (it’s been 22 years since I finished secondary school) 😀

  48. Chris Hensley on July 4, 2015 at 5:29 pm said:

    I think Kevin Standlee should be given a big cake* in thanks for headache-enduring service.

    *or other suitable reward, if cake is not preferred.

  49. Stupid question, but I suspect this is the only forum I’m currently posting in where someone might have an answer. I’m looking at the “Professional Editor (Long Form)” category, and there are two Baen editors on it. For Toni Weisskopf it just says to go to the Baen website. There’s no information at all for Jim Minz in the notes. I can’t find any place on that website where it indicates who edited which works. Does anyone know where I can get a list of works edited by these two nominees?

  50. Catching up after Shabbat:

    Lis Carey on July 4, 2015 at 7:29 am said:

    @Rachel, you may not have known Moshe Feder is a Red Sea Pedestrian, but it is pretty widely known. As Nickpheas says, it’s hard to think of any Gentiles named Moshe, and also, well, Moshe wears a yarmulke

    As I said on some other thread, probably yesterday, I’ve known Moshe Feder for more than 40 years, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wear a yarmulke.
    And in spite of the persistent belief here, we don’t need to talk about Pedestrians: comments mentioning that someone’s Jewish go through fine.

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