aka Crate Expectations
The Memorial Day roundup begins with Dave Freer and carries on with Cheryl Morgan, Jeff Duntemann, Sam Finlay, Adam-Troy Castro, Lisa J. Goldstein, Joseph Tomaras, Andrew Hickey, Rebekah Golden, Martin Wisse, Declan Finn, Steve Leahy and Dcarson. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day William Reichard and Jim Henley.)
Dave Freer on Mad Genius Club
“Making a living, and things that may interfere with it” – May 25
So far, to best of my knowledge, the Puppies, both sad and rabid, and their followers have avoided attacking things which make people a living. They’ve asked people to NOT take it out on the authors who have been pressured into stepping out of Noms. They’ve spoken out against punishing Tor Books despite the Neilsen Hayden’s and friends attacks on ‘Making Light’. No-one has called for a boycott or blacklist of David Gerrold, or Glenn Hauman, or to have their reputations tarnished and Amazon reviews deliberately lowered.
That’s of course NOT true in the converse. And while there’s been some passive-aggressive ‘semi-plausible-deniability’ ‘who will rid us of these turbulent puppies’ basically from the get-go it’s been attacks on the ability of the Puppy organizers and the nominees ability to make a living. We’re immoral destroyers (we obeyed the rules to letter. Patrick Nielsen Hayden broke the embargo rules with absolute impunity, not a word of criticism offered. Rules are only for little people.) who break every convention of good behavior (David Gerrold, the MC of the event, has been campaigning relentlessly against the Pups and the nominees – which is so far outside the canon of ‘acceptable behavior’ as to be a light-year beyond the pale). They organized smears on Entertainment Weekly to label us racists and sexists – which the magazine had to redact because they’re demonstrably untrue. It didn’t stop the smears mysteriously cropping up in ‘friendly’ outlets across the English Speaking world. Gerrold and TNH carefully listed all the nasty things –exclusion from Cons, denial of space in publications, editors closing doors to subs, reviews being denied… that just would happen to us. All things that would, had to affect the puppies ability to make a living. Not one of them said ‘hey, these people have families. They’re human too.’ In fact we had phrases flung about putting us down. Untermench. Then we have Glenn Hauman calling for people to use the Hugo package for a way to game the rankings against the puppies. “Oh, and to answer the title question: what do you do to rabid puppies? You put them down.”
Jeff Duntemann on Jeff Duntemann’s Contrapositive Diary
“Sad Puppies Summary and Wrapup” – May 24
Eveybody’s got a theory on how to fix the Hugo Awards process, but to me the process is fine; what’s missing is about 25,000 more involved nominators and voters. A large enough voter base is unlikely to be swept by something like a slate of recommendations. Whether so many new people can be brought into the Worldcon/Hugos community is unclear, but I doubt it.
That’s about all I’m going to have to say about the Sad Puppies topic for awhile. I’m turning my attention back to writing, to the concept of the Human Wave, and perhaps to a suspicion I have that fandom is in the process of splitting. The problems of fandom are caught up in the problems of publishing. Once Manhattan-style traditional publishing becomes more or less irrelevant, fandom may become an overlapping group of online communities centered on authors and genres. Each will probably have its own awards, and the Hugos will become only one among many. Is this a good thing?
You bet!
Sam Finlay on Return of Kings
“How Female-Dominated Publishing Houses Are Censoring Male Authors” – May 25
We continued talking about why the industry seems to be so focused on just playing to the tastes of upper-middle class women in New York City, and I then told him some things that Sci-Fi author Larry Correia had said recently in a podcast concerning the Sad Puppies-Rabid Puppies controversy, and how it struck me that by pursuing their current strategy the publishing houses are ignoring huge markets of people willing to buy books and are cutting their own throats.
He broke in saying, “I know, I know…But look, Sam…you gotta stop thinking. Just stop thinking! Thinking about all this will drive you crazy! Don’t go to bookstores, if they even still have any where you live. Don’t look at other books. You’ll just wonder how in the world this thing even got published,” and then told me some more anecdotes about how the sausage is made. He then quoted Otto Priminger, saying “Nobody knows anything.”
It was sad. He’s a good man, and was just as frustrated about it all as anybody, but he’s stuck fighting a literati who only look for books that support the current narrative, and is left trying to sneak in what stories he can, however he can.
Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook – May 25
So if somebody unfamiliar to me wins an award I was up for, and more importantly gets a big contract while I’m left begging for more porridge at Mr. Bumble’s Workhouse, I honestly give serious thought to the premise that I have missed something that excels in a way my efforts do not.
By contrast, a glance at some of the rhetoric issued by {Gay-Basher McManly-Nuts} establishes a deep and unwavering belief that he, and those who work in his wheelhouse, represent the bastion of greatness against which the rest of us hammer in vain, like zombies trying to get past a boarded-up window.. To wit, if he hasn’t set the world on fire, if he is not met at the convention gates by a swarm of screaming groupies like the kids at the beginning of A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, if books that are nothing like the books he writes get more acclaim than his, the answer can only be that it MUST BE A CONSPIRACY, that justifies an EVEN MORE BLATANT CONSPIRACY. He has no doubts at all. He deserves this. He is angry, Mr. {Gay-Basher McManly-Nuts}. And it is not just regular anger. It is righteous anger, bringing us to the point that being righteously angry is not necessarily the same thing as being justifiably angry, not even close.
The difference between Mr. {Gay-Basher McManly-Nuts} and myself is therefore significant, and it boils down to the statement that while I am very capable of being an asshole about many things, I am not an asshole to that extent or in that particular way.
I also possess discernment about some things that apparently still confuse him.
For instance, I have absolutely no difficulty identifying my elbow. It’s the place in the middle of my arm that bends.
Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4
“The Hugo Ballot, Part 15: Back to Novellas” – May 25
Okay, I’m surprised. Tom Kratman’s “Big Boys Don’t Cry” actually reads in places like an anti-war story. Well, let’s not get carried away here — it’s more a story about the harm that fighting wars can do, the ways in which a personality can be twisted and perverted by the aims of those in command.
Maggie is a Ratha, an intelligent fighting vehicle who has been through countless battles, and been made to forget some of her more disturbing actions. She has been mortally wounded and is being taken apart for scrap — but the more the workers drill down, the more she starts remembering things that now seem to her to be problematic…..
Joseph Tomaras on A Skinseller’s Workshop
“Hugo Short Story Ballot” – May 24
“Totaled” by Kary English is too good a story to be tarred with the brush of a slate. It makes good use of not-as-far-future-as-those-unfamiliar-with-the-field-might-think neuroscience to explore the mind-body problem, the relationship of emotion to cognition, and the furthest limits to which careerist self-sacrifice can drive a person. I wish it had first appeared either in a free online venue, or a magazine with broader circulation than Galaxy’s Edge.
Lou Antonelli’s “On a Spiritual Plane” attempts to cover similar ground, but there’s a crippling contradiction between the short story form, which requires some measure of crisis for the protagonist, and the author’s evident desire simply to set up a world that is confirmatory of the narrator’s Thomistic metaphysics….
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Jeffro Johnson Hugo Nomination Fanwriter Sample” – May 25
This might be the best of the Puppy Fan Writer nominees. At the very least, I can see real substance in it that doesn’t work for me, but surely will for its intended audience.
Andrew Hickey on Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!
“Hugo Blogging: ‘Best’ Related Work” – May 25
For fairly obvious reasons, I am not going to give anything on those slates a ranking above No Award. Once again, however, I am grateful that my aesthetic instincts match my moral ones here — while these are (with one notable exception) much less incompetent than the fiction I’ve read so far, none of them are actually, you know, good.
Here’s how I’m ranking them.
Letters from Gardner by Lou Antonelli is half writing autobiography/how to break into SF manual, and half collection of short stories. Basically imagine The Early Asimov, but with Antonelli replacing Asimov and Gardner Dozois replacing John Campbell. Antonelli tells the story of how each of his stories was written, and how it was accepted or rejected. The difference is, though, that Antonelli has had an undistinguished career, lasting roughly a decade, while Asimov was one of the greats of the genre (at least in sales and critical status). There is an intrinsic interest in Asimov’s juvenilia which there just isn’t for Antonelli. The stories were pedestrian, and there were no real insights, but this might be of interest to someone. It’s not *bad*, just also not *good*…..
Rebekah Golden
“2015 Hugo Awards Best Short Story: Reviewing L Antonelli” – May 25
“On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
If this had been longer than fifteen pages I would not have finished it. After I did finish it I looked up the elements of a story to see what was missing.
Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words
“Preliminary thoughts — Best Graphic story Hugo” – May 25
During the various discussions about the Puppies, the Hugo Awards and everything somebody, I think it was Erik Olson, made the excellent remark that new Hugo categories only make sense if there are enough good candidates each year for it. If there only one or two or even five different candidates in any given year, what’s the point? It occurred to me that the converse is also true: any given Hugo category only makes sense if the Hugo voters are knowledgeable enough to actually vote for more than just a handful of the usual subjects year after year. Otherwise it means you just have an even smaller than usual group of people nominating and most people either not voting, or only voting for names they recognise.
The Best Graphic Story category, which was first awarded in 2009, at first seemed to fail that second requirement. The first three awards were won by Girl Genius and you do wonder whether that was because people recognised Kaja & Phil Foglio from fandom, rather than for the comic itself. The Foglios themselves were gracious enough to withdraw after their third win and since then the category has improved a lot, having been won by three different comics since. I’m still a bit skeptical of how well it will work out in the long term, or whether it’ll become just another category most people won’t care about, like the best semi-prozine or best fan artist ones and just vote by rote, if at all.
On the other hand though, if there’s one thing the Hugos, as well as Worldcon needs if it wants to stay relevant, is to get in touch with wider fandom, to not just focus on the old traditional categories. And comics suit the Hugos well. There are plenty of science fiction comics published each year, even omitting superhero series and there does now seems to be a core of Worldcon fans invested in nominating and voting. Since there isn’t really a proper comics orientated sf award yet, haivng the Hugos take up the slack is an opportunity to make them relevant to a primary comics geek, as opposed to a written sf geek audience.
Cheryl Morgan on Cheryl’s Mewsings
“The Wages of Sin” – May 25
Yesterday Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, announced that they now have 9,000 members. Fannish mathematics thus makes it the first billion dollar Worldcon1.
On the back of this unexpected windfall the Commie Pinko Faggot Feminazi Cabal that controls Worldcon via Tor Books has announced the 10-year, $3.4 million deal for its primary gamma rabbit author, John Scalzi.
Scalzi’s editor at Tor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, explained the rationale behind this move. “It was a tough decision,” he said, especially as none of Scalzi’s books have sold more than a dozen or so copies, mostly to his friends and family. The convention revenue simply doesn’t cover the shortfall.” ….
Declan Finn on A Pius Man
“The Anti-Puppies (Sad Puppies Bite Back VI)” – May 26
[Putatively humor.]
[GRR Martin …gapes, blinks, then turns to NKJ] And you, hold on a second. You’re not content with having a personal vendetta and an online feud with Vox Day, but you want to deliberately taunt the Dark Lord of the Fisk!? Have you no sense of self-preservation?
[Scalzi frowns] I thought he was the International Lord of Hate
[Jemisin] Anything he says to me will prove that he’s a racist!
Declan Finn on A Pius Man
“Putting down the puppies (Sad Puppies Bite Back VII)” – May 26
[Three hours later, down the road, lying in wait, are the Evil League of Evil. Tom Kratman tirelessly watches the road, awaiting the dog catcher truck. John “Dr. O. No” Ringo, now that the sun is down, furiously taps away on his laptop, cranking out a rough draft of a 15-book series on an alien invasion. Larry Correia, the International Lord of Hate, is fisking the entire back catalog of The Guardian. The Cuddly Skeletor, Brad Torgersen, clutches the flamethrower on loan from Larry, looking like a kid waiting for Christmas morning.]
[LC looks up] I’m running out of Guardian articles. Are they coming or not?
[TK growls, frustrated] I don’t see them sir! We still have the Claymore mines ready and waiting to blow them straight to Hell at the first sign! Assuming the land mines in the road don’t get them first! Or the three backup snipers!
[LC] Geez, Tom, are you sure that we’ll even need to fire a shot, assuming they ever get here?
[TK] Better to be prepared than not, sir!
[LC sighs, closes the laptop, and stands up, taking care not to hit the flagpole above him] Okay, everyone, we’re packing up. Brad, sorry, no flamethrower for you tonight.
[Brad, frustrated that he never got to use his flame thrower on the self-destructed anti-Puppies, fires it off into space. The massive fireball makes it way to low orbit. It impacts and explodes against a low-flying alien spacecraft, a scout for the incoming armada. The armada, thinking their surprise has been ruined, turn around and retreat. The wounded ship hurtles in an uncontrolled descent, slamming right into Tor’s officers, taking out the entire suite of offices, and a few cockroaches — including an intern named Joe Buckley, but no one noticed one way or another, since interns are all disposable anyway. But Joe died happy. He FINALLY got to see an exploding space ship!]
Dcarson on Steve Jackson Games Board & Dice Forum
“Mars Attacks (Worldcon)” – May 24
Played Mars Attacks this weekend at Balticon. We noticed that the cities showing were all ones we had been to a Worldcon in. So for the next game we sorted through the city deck and if we allowed San Diego as the site of a Nasfic we had 16 city and monument cards. So a 4 player game of Mars Attacks the Worldcon.
I wonder if all those people trying to rig the Hugo Awards have one of these at home: https://t.co/evPJzSyK7Z
— Steve Leahy (@oz_penguin) May 25, 2015
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Brian Z: “Hoary old Mike Glyer is not doing too shabby a job himself.”
That’s the right answer — no coal in your stocking this Christmas.
Brian Z.: I’d rather not see the Hugo go to people recognized for a widely read “single post” or even to a series of posts on a “single issue,” but rather for a broad collection of work.
Then I suggest that you start by reading Laura Mixon’s other work as a Fan Writer.
Bloody hell, Brian, in that case just read what was in the packet – Mixon had more than the RH report in the packet.
@RedWombat in re: Conjure Wife
Are you sure? Mwahahahah.
In other news, I’m not a fan of Lovecraft, but I love Lieber. I like my horror a little closer to home, I think.
JJ do you realize that you sent me a link to a blog that was not updated between November 2010 and November 2014?
@Whym
I think that makes us pretty close together – my year of ceremony is Cyteen and my year of publication is Hyperion. 🙂 I haven’t read either of them yet, but I just might put them on my to-read list for once I’m done with the Hugo noms and assorted other to-reads.
Cyteen is wonderful.
As snowcrash says, Bloody hell, Brian, in that case just read what was in the packet – Mixon had more than the RH report in the packet.
But, Ultragotha, they didn’, even though they easily could have! And so I has a sad. 🙁
Re: Laura Mixon as Best Fan Writer
I do think it might have been better if the Requires Hate post had won a nomination under Best Related Work, but I won’t have any qualms about voting for her anyway. Its important to expose toxic elements in a community (it reminded me a little of the MsScribe thing, although less convoluted).
Besides, since three out of four of the other nominees decided to write introductions to their voter packets that insulted everyone who doesn’t like slates, the competition is slim pickings!
The first few chapters of Dark Between The Stars have not grabbed me.
I gave it two shots, and also looked at the last few chapters.
My opinion: Saturday matinee cast-of-thousands serial space opera, with an episode per chapter, and plot points you can see coming a parsec away. And dull. After the first try, I re-read Three Body Problem. (After the second, I started re-reading the Belisarius series. It’s far more interesting.)
@meredith Right on. It was a necessary service bravely done, and it gets this old former journalist’s applause. I could feel the courage required in every line of it.
that Dr Frances Kelly, who did not license it for distribution in the US was wrong
I remember that his editorial on that was that she was correct even though the studies said she was wrong.
My year of birth Hugo was Way Station, so I will roll with that. Other nominees were Dune World, Witch World, Glory Road, and Cat’s Cradle. Apparently, I am the same age as Jo Walton. That’s kind of cool.
Looking through those Hugo entries brought me to 1954. How’s this for a Puppy title? They’d Rather Be Right. Heh. Works on so many levels. And supposedly the worst Hugo winner ever. It was an eminently forgettable story.
@mintwitch …well, yes. I mean, if I’m in a global female conspiracy of witchcraft, I didn’t get the memo.
@Ann Somerville
Gotta admit, Mixon, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, and Tade Thompson did more to safeguard the health of fandom as a safe space than everyone in that category combined. And they were under fire during that time too.
They demonstrated far more strength of character than any of the Puppy leadership for damn certain. VD only wishes he had as much backbone.
Morris –
You and I are of an age. And you are the young whippersnapper by virtue of about 3 months.
So, no Hugos awarded in my birth year, so I would have to contend with looking at works that appeared in that year.
‘Though it comes to some very strange cultural shock to see Phil Farmer awarded for the “Best New SF Author or Artist” in 1953.
Huh. The comment I wrote just now must have disappeared into the spam filter
[trying again]
And no insult intended to Mr Glyer, but the work over two months that Laura and more than a dozen dedicated, highly experienced members of the SFF community put into investigating a tiresome, tricky and delicate situation affecting the SFF community as a whole, must surely be comparable to running a blog like this one over a period of, say, a year.
Not to mention the fact that doing so exposed those people, and Laura herself, to real risks to their careers and reputations, and has meant they, and especially Laura, have come under sustained, vicious personal attack from not just Miss Hate and her cronies, but other members of the community who either haven’t absorbed the immensity what was done by RH, or don’t care. Those attacks are ongoing, by the way. If you think Miss Hate just rolled up like a hoop and went away, you’re very much mistaken. She’s still attacking her victims and still trying to cut down their defenders. The Mixon report is still very much needed.
In that way, it is comparable to what those women writing about G***rgate or hatemongers like Beale have had to endure. I don’t know what happens for most fan writers, but I suspect the risk of doxxing, blackmail and career death is somewhat less of a risk for them.
So whether you want to honour Laura herself, the work in the report itself, the whole team, or the exposure of an individual who has done some pretty specialised harm to a lot of people with the connivance of some previously well respected editors and authors, voting for her as Best Fan Writer is worth doing, even if you don’t agree she was nominated in the right category. She would have been, of course, except for some shenanigans of which you are undoubtedly cognizant.
P J Evans: I’ve not got a link to the original article, but here is a MST3K version of it. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc/NL7h2sibZ7s
He declares that “Dr. Frances Kelsey acted in a whimsical, arbitrary, illogical, and unscientific manner in failing to license thalidomide for distribution in this country.”
His article is a condemnation of her actions in not licensing thalidomide for distribution.
My comment has disappeared also. Its not showing up as awaiting moderation, just gone.
And now it shows up. Stupid computers.
MickyFinn: While there are things I have set for moderation, neither you nor Ann Somerville had any of them in your your comments.
Regarding the link between GG and the puppies, I have a small observation.
We have had quite a lot of pro-puppies dropping in here. Some of them claim to be affiliated with GG, some do not. The difference as yet has been that those who mostly defend GG aren’t interested in discussing SF&F. They wan’t to talk about sekrit cabals, SJWs, cultural war and Scalzi.
Those pro-puppies that aren’t affiliated with GGs might have a bit of the same language, but will have their fanboy enthusiasm and stop to talk about their favourite authors, what they liked in a book, and generally have fun. They are people that I can find a common ground with.
And that’s just my small obervation. Anyone else oberved the same?
MickeyFinn, when I find the box with the Analog editorial collection (ca 1966), I will be able to respond properly. But IIRC, he was not going after Kelsey. (I don’t know how seriously his editorials should be taken – I suspect a lot of them were written to get people riled up and thinking.)
If you think Miss Hate just rolled up like a hoop and went away, you’re very much mistaken.
People like that rarely do, but at least awareness limits their ability to influence people. The main excuse seems to be that her reviews were important and worth her excesses. Well, I think social justice ought to be just and her approach is anything but.
I’d heard the backlash was ongoing, and it doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen a few fannish exposé’s over the years (MsScribe, Andy Blake) and there always seems to be a nasty aftermath of whisper campaigns. At least the rest of us can help out here: If we see it happening, we can speak up and set the record straight.
I’m happy to vote for Laura J Mixon, category quibbles aside, and for next year I think I’ll be looking out for a better reviewer to put on my nomination ballot to show it can be done well and with no hate required.
Heh, I just realized I might have a obiwan (off by one) error. What I get for trusting memory. Dreamsnake is the best book published in my year of birth, given as the 1979 Hugo. Gateway (not a bad book!) won the 1978 Hugo.
Guess it depends on how you’re counting. Either way…
1978:
Gateway by Frederik Pohl
The Forbidden Tower by Marion Zimmer Bradley
Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Time Storm by Gordon R. Dickson
Dying of the Light by George R. R. Martin
Heck of a list of authors. I’ve read Gateway and Lucifer’s Hammer.
1979:
Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre
The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C. J. Cherryh
Blind Voices by Tom Reamy
(Huh, Jo Walton also lists Up the Walls of the World by James Tiptree, Jr.)
I haven’t read anything here yet. I have a copy of Dreamsnake around here somewhere for my on hiatus project to read all the Hugo winners. I never got into the Pern books.
Anyway. I’m still counting Dreamsnake as mine.
You younkers make me feel *old.* There weren’t any Hugos the year I was born–even the primitive hand-cranked ones wouldn’t appear for eight years. The novel Retro Hugo for my natal year went to Asimov’s “The Mule.” But I’ve had a birthday every year since, so I’m claiming all the best novels since ’53 for myself, except for the ones I didn’t like.
Russell Letson: “All your Hugo base are mine”?
@Russell FTW.
Russell, did you have integrating goniometers, at least?
If I don’t have a signed Ringworld (publication year), my signed Niven’s Laws will do just fine. 🙂
Here’s a link to the collected editorials of Cambell. It includes the thalidomide essay:
https://archive.org/details/collectededitori01camp
I review it here:
http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/the-evil-that-men-do-lives-after-them
I totally want to get a bunch of writers together and jam on a round-robin story of ‘Dirk Squarejaw, Unironic Space Hero’. And then stage a dramatic reading of it at cons.
John Seavey: For those who don’t know, I got Dirk Squarejaw from the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode where they did a fascinatingly bad movie called Space Mutiny. They gave the hero a lot of names, as seen in this collection of snippets. Just to help set the right tone. 🙂
@Bruce Baugh: No fancy instrumentation. Straightedge and string. Compasses were for rich kids. Ate a lot of dirt, lived in a hole, etc. Ask any collection of old Yorkshiremen–“You had Hugos? We would’ve given the world for a Hugo. We had LOCs and hectography and Bob Tucker, and glad to have ’em.”
Gotta go now–nearly time for the Early Bird Special, and then I have to count my pills and recalibrate my compression socks.
Russell: Gotcha. 🙂 (Dad used to use “integrating goniometers” as his example of E.E. Smith-talk taken too far.) You had no Hugos, but you had fanac, uphill, in the flamewars, to the mailbox, both ways, I take it?
@Kurt Busiek on May 26, 2015 at 6:23 pm said:
I envy you the opportunity to read it for the first time. And the second and the third…
It’s not an easy book but it is well worth the effort expended. After I finished it the first time, I was both confused and awed. I spent the next day in a daze, then picked it up again to reread. I’ve since reread it at least every other year and each time I discover something new or have a different understanding of the themes and text. Canticle is one of my favorite novels of all time, across all genres. I highly recommend moving it to the top of your pile; it will inform all your reading, after you’ve finished it.
Also, it is so influential that you will begin to discover things in other books that are directly influenced by Canticle. If there is a modern SF author that hasn’t read and been influenced by Canticle, well… I would be surprised, at the very least. It’s just a great book, period.
Well, my birth year appears to have given the Hugo to a book that changed my life, _Stranger in a Strange Land_, and so it was about 14 years old when I read it. For a fundamentalist preacher’s daughter, it is possibly ironic that the thing that I found so groundbreaking was not the sexual mores, but the frank discussions of what God was and why God was. As an adult, the argument seems weighted in favor of Jubal, and generally facile, but as an adolescent, it was mind-blowing. I had never, ever thought to try to put my religion to any sort of intellectual test that didn’t first assume its axioms.
I’m probably just a trifle odd.
@lydy Terrific personalization there.
@lydy Now I’m second-guessing everything I’m writing, so I want to be clear I meant that!
Coming back after a week I see far too many comments for me to reply to. The format of not being able to reply to a comment is confusing.
I don’t have a lot of spare time for this, I am a one man business, and let’s face it, most of the comments are not from possible customers. I apologize none-the less.
If you really want to follow something up, I do my best to answer all relevant comments on MGC on Mondays.
Snowcrash – if I’ve said this once I’ve said a thousand times – customers who don’t like your work are worse than no customers. Please don’t buy my books. You would hate them. I would give anyone a fair go, but that’s me.
Baen’s bar is a public forum, all you have to do is sign in. I forget who asked.
You all seemed to have missed the point about PNH. It’s HOW he knew. Not that he knew and shouldn’t have said. No one has yet explained that.
Sure they have, lots of times. Did you miss them? (and also pointed out that it was *Theresa* Nielsen Hayden, not Patrick Nielsen Hayded, who mentioned concerns.)
Puppy candidates, starting with Mike Williamson, blabbed publicly about their nominations as soon as they got them, long before anyone was supposed to.
People who pay attention to those who announce their Hugo nominations, of whom industry insider Theresa Nielsen Hayden certainly is one, connected the dots.
That’s all it took.
Peace Is My Middle Name on June 1, 2015 at 3:53 am said:
Puppy candidates, starting with Mike Williamson, blabbed publicly about their nominations as soon as they got them, long before anyone was supposed to.
People who pay attention to those who announce their Hugo nominations, of whom industry insider Theresa Nielsen Hayden certainly is one, connected the dots.
That’s all it took.
You’re forgetting that it is inconceivable that well-connected industry professionals could use their powers of inference.
Connected the dots means inferred. No special communication was needed. The only meaning to “industry insider” was “someone already incredibly familiar with the entire field of possibilities and thus in an excellent position to notice early if something strange was happening.”
@Dave Freer
Well, unfortunately Dave, in an open market you can’t really pick and choose and insist that you only have customers who like your work. You should be especially wary of that when you participate – quite happily it seems to me – in an effort to game the system (legally, to be sure) to raise your profile.
Thanks to that, I’ve seen your work, and I’ve given it a fair go, even after that atrocious foreword you decided to slip in. You’re right, it’s not to my taste. As far as your work goes, I’ll leave it at that.
Regarding your statistical analysis, have you seen the following:
https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/on-petunias-and-whales-part-9/
It’s a pretty good critique of your statistical analysis, and would be interesting to get your feedback on it. It’s being discussed in the latest (31/5) Hugo round-up here. Hope to see you there.
You’re forgetting that it is inconceivable that well-connected industry professionals could use their powers of inference.
It’s not inconceivable. The problem is, there’s simply no evidence to support the notion that it happened in this case.
I’m frankly dubious about Freer’s invite for us to all trot over to MGC and chat, particularly as one of his responses to a bad review was to get the writers details, google for his place of work, and then publish the info along with suitable insults.
Peace — I think rob_matic left off his [sarcasm] tags.
@Mark “one of his responses to a bad review was to get the writers details, google for his place of work, and then publish the info along with suitable insults.”
Wow, he’s one of those? Yeah, I’ll avoid going over to that site then, I don’t need to worry about keeping a short-fused doxxer happy.
After seeing this and his flawed attempt at a statistical analysis to prove his preconceptions correct, I think I’ll be able to skip his books as well.