Origins Game Fair Drops Larry Correia as Guest

Larry Correia won’t be one of the guests when the Origins Game Fair takes place June 13-17 in Columbus, OH. Shortly after publicizing that Correia had been added to the lineup, John Ward, the event’s Executive Director, received so many negative social media comments (on Twitter, particularly) that he announced Correia’s invitation has been rescinded.

Ward wrote on Facebook:

I want to discuss our invitation to Larry Correia a guest at Origins. By all counts he is a very talented author.

Unfortunately, when he was recommended I was unaware of some personal views that are specifically unaligned with the philosophy of our show and the organization.

I want to thank those of you that brought this error to our attention. Origins is an inclusive and family friendly event. We focus on fun and gaming, not discourse and controversy.

I felt it necessary to recend [sic] his invitation to participate in the show. I apologize again to those of you that were looking forward to seeing him at Origins.

John Ward, Executive Director

Many of the critical tweets mentioned Correia’s history with Sad Puppies.

Correia subsequently responded on Facebook with a statement that begins:

So I’m no longer the writer guest of honor at origins. My invitation has been revoked. It was the usual nonsense. Right after I was announced as a guest some people started throwing a temper tantrum about my alleged racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever (of course, with zero proof or actual examples), and the guy in charge (John Ward) immediately folded. He didn’t even talk to me first. He just accepted the slander and gave me the boot in an email that talked about how “inclusive” they are….

His statement also says “none of these people can ever find any actual examples of me being sexist, racist, or homophobic.”


BEFORE AND AFTER:


795 thoughts on “Origins Game Fair Drops Larry Correia as Guest

  1. Note how none of us started a Benevolent Airships campaign despite the direst provocation of Hugo Voters failing to choose Goblin Emperor. 🙂 (The logo would have been awesomely spangly.)

    (BTW, while Addison/Monette isn’t exactly the most prolific of fiction writers at present, I thoroughly enjoy following her mostly non-fiction book reviews on Goodreads. I believe she also publishes some work through Patreon.)

    @Snodberry Fields

    I saw someone say that last year most of the GoH were women so I tried to track down a list and I couldn’t find it anywhere. Seems like actually announcing them was a new thing that the concom are presumably sincerely regretting right now. 🙂

    @rcade

    I did think it was peculiar how many of the protestors opened with something roughly along the lines of “I’ve never even heard of your lame convention” – admitting that you were never going to attend isn’t going to be very persuasive, surely.

    @Camestros

    *eyes suspiciously*

  2. Now hang on, Kurt, the earwax itself could rise from humble origins to become a celebrity in its own right.

    That had better be some pretty talented malefactin’ earwax, is all I’m sayin’.

  3. Oh well. I’m sure the deluge of targeted harassment being aimed at the Con from the usually right wing sources will help clarify to people everywhere why not even thinking about inviting certain people is the wisest course.

    And frankly if my earwax comment means I’m never invited back to CelebrityEarCon then that’s their prerogative.

  4. I kinda like the idea of a Benevolent Airships campaign.

    Provided it did something, you know, benevolent, as opposed to overly entitled, whiny and destructive.

    Like, I dunno, buying Hugo-nominated books and donating them to school libraries, or something.

  5. Add me to the list of people who think TGE was robbed. Worse (from my POV), the book that beat it was a DNF for me. But that’s how awards go.

    @ rochrist: Only twice? I fell so hard into that book that I effectively didn’t stop reading it for about 2 months — I’d get to the end and then go straight back to the beginning and start over, and I found more interesting things to think about every single time thru. I’ve written 3 fanfics and produced a glossary/reference list for it. I have an idea marinating for a filk, but first I have to find the folk song I want to use for the tune. I think it’s fair to say that TGE took over my head in a way that very few books have ever managed.

  6. Dear Eric,

    “Please read more calmly. If the Olympic Committee did not give Jesse Owens his gold, that would be indecent, yes?”

    Oh my god, you are actually equating a literary popularity contest where some people may favor one sociopolitical point of view over another with racial prejudice. You really think they are on the same level, that they are even remotely deserving of direct comparison. You are a remarkable piece of work.

    “How she had to go indie in order to be honest as an artist.”

    Ah, the poor misunderstood artist. “They do not appreciate my greatness, my true genius. If the world were truly a fair and just place, I would be rewarded for my artistic brilliance, honesty, and integrity.”

    Hahahahahahahaha. And what universe do you (and does she) live in? Because, as someone who has been an artist for almost half a century and has often not receive the financial rewards I think I am due, I want to move there.

    Really big Clue:

    THE BUSINESS OF SELLING ART IS NOT A MERITOCRACY

    Never has been, never will be.

    The world of book publishing is even less so. Publishers buy buy books for two reasons, and these are ANDs, not ORs. They buy books that they think will make them money **and** that are the kind of books they are interested in publishing. “Kind” gets defined however they feel — subject matter, genre, politics. You can find a publisher for almost any niche you want. But none of them will buy everything, not even everything within a genre or subgenre.

    And if they don’t want what you’re selling, merit has nothing to do with it. My editor at Putnam’s loves me. We get along great, she thinks I’m a wonderful author to work with, entirely professional, and she thinks I’m a good writer. Oh yeah, and I sell well enough. So I pitched to her the natural disaster thriller I’m in the process of writing, and she loved the first 20,000 words, she thought it was likely to be a winner. Except… Natural disaster thrillers simply aren’t on her shopping list for the foreseeable future. So, best of luck elsewhere for me.

    And that is so utterly unfair. Because I am owed a book sale to her. I mean, right?

    There are plenty of mainstream publishers who will happily publish conservative authors, they will even publish science fiction if it’s of the sort that will appeal to a big enough audience. Which is a pretty damn big audience these days — a hell of a lot bigger than most of the science fiction novels can command. If you really want to write SF-F as a conservative and you want to make a lot of money at it, don’t mess with Tor or Baen, write what the Big Guys want.

    If you want to be “honest as an artist,” then take your lumps when it turns out that the people you’re pitching to don’t happen to care for your brand of honesty, and just STFU.

    – pax \ Ctein
    [ Please excuse any word-salad. Dragon Dictate in training! ]
    ======================================
    — Ctein’s Online Gallery. http://ctein.com 
    — Digital Restorations. http://photo-repair.com 
    ======================================

  7. “Do not play us for fools.”

    The phrasing you use with that link sounds just like the guy who whipped up that Internet mob aimed at Archon. He played that same game.

    You imply that the F770 page to which you linked was supportive of your beliefs when the reality is that it was mixed — and there were a lot more fans who personally testified to Mr. Bolgeo’s good behavior toward other fans than, ironically, I suspect ever have troubled themselves to personally testify to Mr. Correia’s behavior toward fans.

    That situation was similar but not identical to what I have been concerned with here, except that there one man made it his personal crusade to steamroller the convention committee against its earlier will. One man from Chicago who, if I recall correctly from his Facebook posts, had attended Archon just twice, came down to St. Louis with a Mission, the real-life version of the guy in the XKCD cartoon who proclaimed “Someone is wrong on the Internet!”

    He presented a case to the committee for the removal of a guest he begrudged. When the committee disagreed with him, he went home and whipped up the net equivalent of a lynch mob, including many other crusaders who agreed with him politically (“mundane” politics, not fan politics) but from what they wrote were noticeably unfamiliar with science fiction fandom — and the committee caved, even those who knew Mr. Bolgeo for his good works.

    Anyone following that link, I politely request to please be sure read all the comments, down to my own comment on the page. Mr./Ms./Mx. Eckerman’s (*) phrasing of the link is manipulative. I was then, as now, writing with regard to what I believed to be an injustice toward an individual, without the hidden-in-the-background, sinister motive implied.

    (“He disagrees with me, therefore he must be evil.” Sounds like a Puppy argument.)

    Whether it applies here or not I don’t know, but in past times I have encountered people who were so used to being lied to, that they couldn’t accept that someone might have a disinterested motive about anything. I hope that isn’t the case here, because that’s a lousy personal universe in which to live.

    I don’t really have anything more to say except again that I hope people will ignore the faint libel. I have been as clear about what I thought about this issue as I think I possibly could be, what’s done is done, and now that it’s come to insults about motive, the conversation is over, at least for me, as it has devolved in a fashion addressed by Mike Godwin’s Law.

    .
    (*) Having never seen the first name “Hampus” anywhere outside this website, I honestly don’t know which is the polite prefix here, and I’m sorry for that.)

  8. @Kurt Busiek

    That’s… actually not a bad idea. Hm. I’ll have to ask my mother* whether that’s something that would be helpful or a burden – I know they all got annoyed with having Important Classics That No Teenager Will Willingly Read dumped on them awhile back but modern sf/f might be alright, so long as it went through a quick inappropriate content check.

    *She’s a school librarian who is involved in pretty much all the major UK school librarian organisations. Relevant knowledge, etc.

  9. Dora the Alternative SJW credential here.

    I has a complaint to make.

    Lis is laying here, squeaking an gasping, because you bad people hadps made her laugh too hard, an I has to make her use her inhaler which is tricky when you only has dog paws anvnot hooman paws with those tricksy posable thumb thingies.

    So stops it!

  10. Despite his rabidly flatulent outbursts and (edited for sensitive feelings) not-to-my-taste fiction, Larry Correia has had a positive impact on me, because without him there would have been no Sad Puppy campaign, and without the Sad Puppy campaign I may never have discovered Godstalk, Francis Hardinge, Cliff Simak (shame on me, I know), or Ursula Vernon. Or Filers, or pretty much fandom, really, despite knowing fannish types and traveling in related circles (comic fandom, f’rinstance). I recognize this is a selfish viewpoint, given his nastiness (if you haven’t read his disgusting and undeserved diatribes against OGH, please don’t – just trust me that they are mean-spirited and inexcusable) and his failed attempts to discredit the Hugos because his big tough-guy feelings were bruised… but ultimately… Godstalk!

    I find it bizarre that such a mediocre writer of dull suburban fantasy was invited as a GOH for any reason other than that he’d be controversial. Goes to show how much tastes vary.

  11. Dear Ursula,

    Since we all know that Coke Zero is the favored beverage of The Devil Incarnate, it is not Pepsico who you should be distrustful of!

    Bwahahaha.

    pax / Ctein

  12. The Goblin Emperor ranked 1 on my ballot, The Three Body Problem third*. Make of that what you will.

    *And thanks to a particularly awesome Nebula Weekend that year, I have signed copies of both. *squee*

  13. The argument that no con should ever pay attention to things that have already happened elsewhere and just react once things go wrong on the day, seems to come up enough that it needs some sort of fancy name.

  14. I wasn’t keen about the book what won over “Goblin Emperor” either, but you don’t see me trying to rig awards so that its author will win everything ever. Nor that her pals will rack up endless unearned nominations. I haven’t even called for the abjuring of all foreign authors or men! Because, y’know, I’m not a baby.

    NB that even after Larry got a novel gamed onto the ballot, he still finished dead last, proving his people are a very small part of the Hugos.

    But since he’s all palsy-walsy with the Dragon admins (remember the first year, when he was the only one who knew the name of the admin?), he and his boys should do well there. Which is fine; they’ll be perfectly prestigious with people who don’t care that there’s no accountability about votes either before or after the ceremony. But boy are they shiny!

    @Oor Wombat: Ctein’s absolutely correct — PepsiCo is clearly not part of the thing Pups claim exists. (Of course, nobody and nothing is, but Pepsi for sure isn’t!)

    It’s 7565 here and I’ve still got to absorb some more Earth-human-assimilatible finalists for the upcoming awards. I’d tell you who they are, but spoilers sweetie!

  15. “game.

    You imply that the F770 page to which you linked was supportive of your beliefs when the reality is that it was mixed — and there were a lot more fans who personally testified to Mr. Bolgeo’s good behavior toward other fans than, ironically, I suspect ever have troubled themselves to personally testify to Mr. Correia’s behavior toward fans.”

    Do not move the goal posts. Behaviour at cons is not relevant with regards to the complaints against Bolgeo. You decided to bring this up and you made the claim that ut was only about one joke and that the joke was made by someone else.

    At the same time many people complained abouy many racist and sexist jokes in the newletters.

    You are pretending that the issue at stake was much, much smaller than what the sources say. Which is very disingenuous of you.

    And I prefer to be called ‘Hampus’ as I find titles insulting (we got rid of them a long time ago in Sweden). It is a male name.

  16. Good dog Dora! You are taking care of your hooman Lis very well. I hope she can breathe now. I would send you skritchies and bones but I’m not sure how to put them in email.

  17. Due to the volume of comments so far, I’m splitting my initial response into two (lengthy!) comments. This one deals with the “Correia’s a swell guy who wuz done wrong!” aspect of the discussion, with a side of “Hugos are participation trophies” and “publishing/awards are meritocracies” for spice.

    @DKMK: “I don’t read Mr. Correia’s weblog, so I don’t know what he writes there”

    You keep going back to that, as if your personal ignorance should affect what a convention does or excuse your continued defense of Correia’s multiyear Sad Puppies campaign to destroy an award revered by a large portion of not only fandom, but SF/F readers in general.

    This isn’t about Correia’s opinions. His actions – plural, deliberate, and taken over several years – have built the bed he now finds uncomfortable.

    @Eric Ashley: “Despite being surrounded by people who I had some reason to suspect were liberal, he and they were being charming, all smiles. Perhaps its a Southern thing….manners.”

    Let me tell you something about Larry Correia’s “manners.” I had the temerity to disagree with him on an issue online. He proceeded to put words in my mouth and severely mischaracterize my positions. Not long after that, I encountered him again at a convention – our second in-person meeting – and asked him about it. He said, straight to my face and with no trace of regret, that not only had he knowingly done so, but that he’d done it because he “knew what my real opinions were” and elected to cut to the chase. His “knowledge” was wrong, based on his conviction that liberals are duplicitous, sneaky liars.

    I’m a Southerner, born and bred. You insult Southern hospitality and manners by comparing them to what Correia exhibits. Correia is nice to “his people” and nasty to those he considers opponents. That’s naked tribalism, not manners.

    As to Nazi….please.
    As to Sad Puppies, he proved his point. There were certain Others who were never going to get the reward they were due because of bigotry. Some denied this, so he showed it to be true. QED.

    Conspiracy theory at its finest. No wonder you think he’s a nice guy – you’re part of his tribe. He used to think I was, too – and until he dragged politics and conspiracy theories into it, I was a fan of his work. I have the autographed books (and the PDF galley of the first Grimnoir book) to prove it; he asked me to read the latter to evaluate it in terms of whether it might serve as the basis for a good RPG, and I did so. (If you search Amazon, you can find my favorable review of that book.) He sure was quick to turn on me when he found that our politics differed, though…

    @Lanodantheon: “The Internet remembers…”

    Indeed it does. Fandom, too.

    @Eric again: “I’ve experienced bigotry in the things related to fantasy. I’ve heard it. Its one of the ways the PTB keep out unwanted ideas. Your sort aren’t acceptable. You can ask Sarah Hoyt about it, if you like. She speaks on it regularly on her blog.”

    I wouldn’t ask Hoyt if the sun rose in the east without getting independent verification. She sees “cultural Marxism” in every shadow, whether it’s there or not.

    Cora, yes, some people are due certain rewards as a matter of decent behavior.

    Mr. Dalliard, rewards is just as useable as awards, so no. Also, we clearly disagree on the main point which is that rewards are due or not. The laborer is worthy of his hire, the hero his wreath, and the astronaut his Omega Sportsmaster watch.

    Cora, I did not say awards are due for decent behavior.

    So, yes – you did say that. FYI, around here we generally find electric lighting to be more reliable than gaslighting. You may wish to keep that in mind.

    Bonnie, I’m being too poetic. The man who writes a book worthy of a Hugo deserves that Hugo.

    However, if I did write a Hugo worthy novel, then yes, I am due my reward, and my honor.

    False. The Hugos give one award per category per year, except in the rare cases where there are ties for first place. There are more Hugo-worthy works than that in any given year. The voters decide the nominees and, ultimately, the winner. The others weren’t cheated – they simply did not win. This is how awards function. Even the ones Origins gives out. You could write the best novel on the planet this year, with a perfect five-star rating on all review sites where it appears, but if the Worldcon members who nominate have never heard of you (or, for some hypothetical reason such as your behavior on this thread, elected not to spend their money buying your work or their time reading it), then you will not win. That’s life. Nobody is “due” SF’s most famous award.

    I understand quite clearly the simple point how voting works. What I allege is that the voting was prejudgiced by the forces Mr. Correia spoke about and corrupted by corporate power.

    Your allegation is not only false, but it has been proven so on multiple occasions. The Hugo’s voting tallies are public record. Go look. While doing so, remember that if the Hugos were genuinely rigged, as you claim, then none of the Puppy nomination campaigns would have ever succeeded. That they did proves that the administration of the awards was honest.

    @Lis Carey: “Mr. Ashley, you are confused.”

    No, Lis, he is lying.

    @DKMK: (“Uncle Timmy” and Archon)

    I know Timmy. I’ve worked with him. I’ve dined with him. I’ve been to his house and played Spades with him. For years.

    And the allegations about his fanzine were completely accurate.

    I had a subscription to The Revenge for years. If I hunt, I may be able to find a couple of old issues in my old email archives. I discontinued my subscription, despite the content related to the convention I was at the time a department head for, because of its racist jokes.

    Like the one about the African-American airplane passenger who didn’t wear panties because, in the event of a crash, “dey always look for de black box.”

    He printed that. As the sole editor, he selected it for publication and distribution. That’s on him, and that is by absolutely no stretch of anyone’s imagination an outlier incident.

    Whatever kindnesses he has shown to other members of his tribe, those are facts. See above, re: “naked tribalism.”

  18. And now for my “Origins fucked up by inviting Correia without performing due diligence” comment…

    @cmm: “This is what people meant 3 years ago when they said the Sad Puppies were permanently damaging their careers.”

    Exactly so.

    @Ctein: “OGF fucked up royally. “Didn’t do their homework” is a gross understatement.”

    Agreed. Having served on LibertyCon’s staff for a few years, I can shed some additional light on their guest selection process. (At least, as of the time I stopped attending, but I have no reason to believe anything has changed since then.) TL;DR version: They don’t do any more vetting than Origins did, and possibly less. I say this not to imply a universal lack of vetting at all cons, only that I am unsurprised when it happens and moderately surprised that it isn’t more common.

    LibertyCon selects guests by having those present at a staff meeting propose names. A few get vetoed right away, usually when someone asserts that they’d be a bad guest. (This can be anything from “bad fit” to “bad person” and sometimes isn’t explained to the room.) Sometimes, if there’s a question of qualifications, someone will Google them – usually not. More often, but not much more often, the room may discuss a nominee before deciding. Those who don’t wash out get put on a list, and the room votes until the list gets winnowed down to a clear top three. Those become the first through third candidates, with #1 getting contacted first and the others being backups in case they decline.

    At no point is there anything like a “due diligence” phase in which the candidates are vetted before being put on the list or invited. It’s just not done. I’ve even been present for one occasion where the top choice was phoned a few minutes after being selected.

    Incidentally, the other local con I’ve “been in the room where it happened” for uses exactly the same process. It depends entirely upon those in the room being familiar with the candidates, and more specifically on those who know about scandals being willing to disclose them. That is by no means guaranteed, doubly so if ideology is a factor.

  19. @Rev. Bob

    While I’m loath to criticize your comments, you didn’t mention The Goblin Emperor at all.

    Posting from the year 862 where after several weeks people are still mourning the death of Donald King of Picts.

  20. @Lee: TGE forever. The book that beat it was such a DNF for me that I didn’t read the sequels, despite one being nominated.

  21. @Camestros: I suppose ear wax is probably the least objectionable eflluvia one could collect….

    @(mostly) all: why do we give these “punters” (Urban Dictionary definition #4, specifically the second sentence of that definition) paragraphs of response, let alone the time of day? They’re only here to count coup, to practice their BS, to build their Fugghead cred, to demonstrate pride in their ignorance and to try and make relative strangers feel as confused, crappy, worthless, depressed and useless as they feel every day.

    Also: screw-ups are not mutually exclusive. We don’t have to say “either OGC screwed up or Correia screwed up”. Both did and neither is an excuse for the other.

  22. It’s interesting to see some of the responses regarding Sad Puppies and the Hugo awards. Folks that are part of the Hugos decry the accusations about Correia’s politics and behaviors being why they won’t consider works by folks like him, but they also say that the whole Sad Puppies movement was wrong to say that politics have nothing to do with who wins and who gets nominated.

    That sounds a bit contradictory and a tad hypocritically self-righteous–at the very least it’s disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.

    I don’t care much for Sad Puppies, but I do agree that there was a huge anti-mainstream/anti-commercial push in Hugo nominations that seems to mirror the politicizing of movie awards.

  23. I myself don’t want to read any more Clarke than I have (Songs, Childhood’s End, and Rendevous) because I suspect he is a contemptible person.

    Eric Ashley … proclaiming one’s self as a published author and then making an egregious tense error … does not look good.

    Or perhaps you’re not aware that Arthur Clarke died in 2008?

  24. @Iphinome:

    There is a very good reason why I did not mention TGE.

    Speaking of books, I’ve finally gotten around to Scalzi’s Lock In and have just begun Who Is Killing the Great Capes of Heropa? by Andrez Bergen. (Yes, I know I’m tardy on both.) The latter looks dense and chewy, but I expect it will be rewarding. As to the former, while I enjoyed it, it raises a professional issue…

    As some of you may recall, I do some editing when I can – usually for a certain writer of explicit erotica. I’ve also done some writing of my own, but that’s been a while. Anyway, we’ve been batting around a setting idea for some time now, with the notion that we could both write in it – some stories explicit, others not, whatever was appropriate.

    A key piece of tech in that setting, which I developed in detail through six generations of market evolution back in March, bears strong resemblances to the “neural network” Scalzi describes in Lock In. So strong, in some ways, that I’m worried about my version being seen as a ripoff of his. It even started out as medical tech, but for a different purpose. (Ever been frustrated by the experience of describing symptoms to a doctor? What if you could both just put on helmets in his office, turn on a machine, and let him experience them directly? The tech evolves significantly from there.)

    Any thoughts from the hive on the relevant publication issues?

  25. Another here who put TGE first. It wuz indeed robbed.

    Origins: I would probably go if I didn’t live a continent and a half away. Larry C as GoH would be a big honking “we don’t want your sort” message. Inviting and then uninviting him is atrociously rude.

  26. @Rev Bob

    I have no doubt that is how Origins selection went down. Should it have gone down that way though? A Con ought to, in self defense at the least and possibly out of self respect, have at least some bloody notion of who it’s inviting to headline. If you want a Guest of Honor that aligns with your values maybe you should check that out before actually extending an invite.

    On Hoyt going Indy – I’m still amazed her narrative has traction. In her own telling the essential nub of it is – her trilogy was tanking and her publisher decided not to double down and continue it. That’s about as dirt plain, common occurrence as possible and has happened to many authors. The politics story comes off as either a cynical play for a certain market segment, an ego crutch, or maybe both.

  27. @Rev. Bob
    Similar ideas pop up independently from each other all the time. We can all name examples. So I’d say go for it and try to differentiate your version from Scalzi’s as much as possible.

    And The Goblin Emperor was robbed.

  28. I must second the statement of “Wait – Origins has Guests of Honor?”

    As much as I detest the man’s character and actions, it would have diminished my enjoyment of Origins not one bit (see above statement). Thankfully, I can see the world beyond my own personal bubble. I agree with OGF’s eventual disinvitation of Mr. Correa.

    In these years of far more instant and publicly visible “letter writing campaigns”, ConComs need to vet their Guest of Honor picks beyond the usual “can we get them”. They must also take a look at the makeup of the campaigns once they inevitably start up. In most cases, a group filled with regular attendees should be listened to more readily than groups consisting of those who “never attended and never will”.

  29. I will admit that I had Ancillary Sword first on my ballot, but I would have been happy if The Goblin Emperor won. The novel that did win was full of cardboard characters and dodgy science with some bonus sexism, and only just squeaked above No Award on my ballot. Whereas the other two were a pure joy to read.

    (There were only 3 novels on the ballot that year, there were only 3 novels. THERE WERE THREE NOVELS!!!)

  30. Yep. Goblin Emperor was indeed robbed.

    I finished that other book and wrote at least two, possibly more, blog posts about what I found so objectionable and why I ended up lothing it. It started out so promising and should have been exactly my sort of thing but made less and less sense and became more and more offensive to me. Sigh.

    So Benevolent Airships donating books to children’s libraries in the hopes of creating more fans? Sounds good. I like that idea.

    But perhaps it has the secret mission of building a time airship to go back and fix those egregious errors in Hugo history. Thus creating a paradox where there really was a cabal controlling the awards. Proving the conspiracy theory correct! But that can’t be true and it causes the space time bubble to collapse. Or something like that. Which is why I avoid time travel plots.

  31. @Stoic: “I have no doubt that is how Origins selection went down. Should it have gone down that way though? A Con ought to, in self defense at the least and possibly out of self respect, have at least some bloody notion of who it’s inviting to headline. If you want a Guest of Honor that aligns with your values maybe you should check that out before actually extending an invite.”

    Completely agreed. My intent was not to defend the method I described, but to show that Origins ain’t the only con susceptible to this sort of flaw.

    @GSLamb: “In these years of far more instant and publicly visible “letter writing campaigns”, ConComs need to vet their Guest of Honor picks beyond the usual “can we get them”. They must also take a look at the makeup of the campaigns once they inevitably start up.”

    Absotively, posilutely correct. For one thing, excessive rouge is a Not Do. 😀

    More seriously, social media exists. Cons, guests, and fans do themselves no favors by pretending otherwise. Check a proposed guest’s online presence. See how they treat not only fans, but those who disagree with them, for they are bound to encounter someone at your event whose views are not theirs. Will their behavior in that circumstance tarnish your event’s reputation?

    If you’re a pro, expect a con to vet you. Employers do it; why shouldn’t conventions? Think twice before raising a ruckus, insulting large groups, or wading into a feud. Most importantly, and this applies to everyone… think more than twice before identifying with any group led by and/or populated by abusive assholes, for their reputation will destroy yours. Every time. No matter how eloquently you speak, you will not redeem them. The best you can hope for is that you are seen as merely clueless, rather than complicit… and the longer you align with them, the harder it will be to disentangle yourself from them.

    @Cora: “And The Goblin Emperor was robbed.”

    I really can’t speak to that.

  32. Elisa wrote:

    So Benevolent Airships donating books to children’s libraries in the hopes of creating more fans? Sounds good. I like that idea.

    But perhaps it has the secret mission of building a time airship to go back and fix those egregious errors in Hugo history. Thus creating a paradox where there really was a cabal controlling the awards. Proving the conspiracy theory correct! But that can’t be true and it causes the space time bubble to collapse. Or something like that. Which is why I avoid time travel plots.

    I am on board with both the public and secret goals. Where do I sign up to help?

    More importantly, who wants to register Benevolent Airships as a non-profit?

  33. “The Goblin Emperor” was my favorite book of that year, and I went back and checked my ballot to be sure! It is my comfort read, and I probably read it at least three times a year. It is excellent nighttime reading when the news is certain to give me nightmares.

    Definitely on board with Benevolent Airships!

  34. Elisa: I finished that other book and wrote at least two, possibly more, blog posts about what I found so objectionable and why I ended up lothing it. It started out so promising and should have been exactly my sort of thing but made less and less sense and became more and more offensive to me. Sigh.

    Thanks for mentioning that, I appreciated getting your insights! Obviously you’re a lot more knowledgeable than me in terms of the science, but thank you so much for pointing out that it was actually a four-body problem; the fact that almost no one seemed to notice that drove me crazy.

    I would be interested in knowing the title of the trilogy which blew everything up at the end.

  35. If enough people are actually interested I can talk to Project Flight to see if this is doable/a good idea in the US. I have to touch base with them about a nonfiction book donation anyhow. Other people have to take care of other countries though.

  36. @Eric:

    Jayn, Vox Day regularly refers to Stormfronters as ‘Fake Right’ and ‘Alt-Retard’.

    He denies being a neo-Nazi? So does Richard Spencer. I didn’t find it terribly convincing in his case, either.

    Aside from the fact that making fun of Stormfronters doesn’t in itself constitute a denial of neo-Naziism, I remember back in 2015 I spent a great deal of time arguing on Brad Torgerson’s blog about how wrong it was to ally with VD. I gathered a bundle of links to VD’s own various writings and interviews to show that he was anti-Semitic, racist, white-supremacist, misogynist in the ‘Kinder, Küche, Kirche’ style, anti-left-wing, and praised violence in the pursuit of such goals (as in the aforementioned praise of Anders Breivik, and of the shooting of Malala Yousafzai). I’m not going to gather the links again; it’s too disgusting to look, but Google it all if you please.

    To me he ticks all the Bingo squares on the neo-Nazi board, same as Richard Spencer, such that his denials carry no weight with me, regardless of the lack of an actual swastika armband. If it quacks like one and goose-steps like one…

    As for LC, I’d be willing to believe that he didn’t know the full extent of VD’s loathsomeness when he flung him in the public’s face in a fit of pique…but he surely can’t be ignorant of it now, and IIRC, he’s not shown any particular repentance for helping boost him to his current notoriety, so I don’t cut him slack for it. Not to mention that besides all VD’s sins above, he is ALSO an execrable fiction writer – which alone justifies his rejection by voters.

  37. JJ: Yes! I am glad to hear that someone else found that both boggling and annoying. It makes me feel better.

    It made me crazy that reviewers who would get obsessed with how faster than light transport systems were described in other books or god all that nosense about the tea … they totally gave the science in that book a pass. Just …argh! … Hulk range inducing.

  38. As for LC, I’d be willing to believe that he didn’t know the full extent of VD’s loathsomeness when he flung him in the public’s face in a fit of pique…

    What Larry said was, “I nominated Vox Day because Satan didn’t have any eligible works that period.”

  39. Definitely.
    TGE was robbed. And if the pupshenanigans had not made me a Hugo voter, I might have missed it!

  40. @JJ:

    thank you so much for pointing out that it was actually a four-body problem; the fact that almost no one seemed to notice that drove me crazy.

    I didn’t get far enough into the book to notice. I have a vague memory of a lot of verbiage about cigarettes at the point I closed the book for good.

  41. While it is difficult compared to Jesse Owen’s feat to suss out who deserves the Hugo, it is nonetheless, an objective fact that one SF book was the best that year, and thus is worthy of the Hugo, and thus that author deserves the Hugo. Its interesting that no one got that.

    Rev. Bob, I do believe you and I sat at a table one year, and you lectured me about how Paul reformed Christianity. I thought it was a conversation, but after an hour of you talking, I decided to essay a response, and you decided to leave.

    Clif, I do not pay much attention to contemptible persons such as Clarke. However, he is certainly still alive, in some sense, and sadly likely facing the judgment for his misdeeds.

    However it was not Mercedes Lackey who I was critiquing, but a different female author, which was my mistake.

    Ctein, bigotry is bad, right? Diversity good, right?

    You would have cause for complaint if your friend the editor and pretty much all the other gatekeepers chose not to publish you because your name begins with ‘C’. The argument of ‘Editors can do whatever they feel like without regard for profit or good writing’ works just as well for taking Jesse Owens award, err, reward, away from him.

    You would have cause for complaint if you knew there was a large market for disaster stories, and yet no editor would buy one because such would cast doubt that this was the most perfect of all worlds. Such would be a sociopolitical disagreement.

  42. I joined Worldcon that year *specifically* in order to nominate and vote for The Goblin Emperor.
    My voting ballot (I just went back and double-checked) read
    The Goblin Emperor
    Ancillary Sword (This would have been first in any year that didn’t have The Goblin Emperor in it)
    No Award
    Skin Game (A perfectly serviceable page-turner of an action-adventure fantasy, but not an award-caliber novel. Would cheerfully buy more in the series (and have) but it’s diner food competing against a Michelin restaurant.
    The Three Body Problem (barely finished, I could seen where some of the big ideas were Hugo-worthy but the characterizations were terrible. Perhaps it was better in the original Chinese)
    The Dark Between the Stars (My online reading-and-discussion group literally (not figuratively) could not finish this book. We stopped reading it by mutual consent about 1/3 of the way through; nobody in the discussion group, absolutely nobody, cared what happened to ANY of the cast-of-thousands. We started calling it The Dark Between the Pages. This has NEVER happened before or since. Even here in 2362 we remember how dire that book was. One person finished it out of a sense of completeness, and reported back that the rest of us didn’t miss anything…)

    Where do I sign up for the Benevolent Airships…?

  43. @OGH

    Larry has inappropriately aimed his outrage cannon your way far too many times. And yet you continue to provide credible and creditable coverage in this way.

    Good on you.

    also….

    Goblin Emperor was robbed.

    Regards,
    Dann
    This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. – Dorothy Parker

  44. I feel you, oh Goblin Emperor fans (says this fan of Anathem that lost to The Graveyard Book).

    HOWEVER Goblin Emperor was not robbed. It lost to Three Body Problem legitimately using the same rules.

    I also happened to have placed Three Body Problem third on my ballot of only three finalists for many of the above-stated reasons; but Three Body Problem won fair and square. It was a new hard SF book up against a Fantasy book and the second in a series. WSFS members tend to like novelty and also tend to like SF better than Fantasy.

    If Lev Grossman and Ann Leckie won legitimately, so did Cixin Liu and Ken Liu (no relation).

    .

    Camestros: In 2688 we have used your collection to make this:
    https://cdn.suwalls.com/wallpapers/artistic/melting-wax-sculpture-19436-2560×1440.jpg

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