Will George R.R. Martin accept Vox Day’s challenge to debate? John C. Wright asks, “Did I get too many nominations?” and names folks he thinks are guiltier of that than he is.
Kevin Standlee warns the future is now — while David Steffen proposes the Mulligan Awards to supply the do-over some fans already want.
Wil Wheaton says “Me, too” about George R.R. Martin’s “Tone” piece, then gets smacked by John Skylar for his trouble.
That and more in today’s roundup.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Show or skedaddle” – April 12
I think it would be more interesting to debate your demand for no tolerance of hatespeech and the proper limits of free speech. There is also the strange contention that Requires Hate and I “are twins. Mirror images of one another.” You made the assertion. You have neither recanted nor apologized for it. Therefore, it seems a reasonable subject of honest dialogue and debate, given that I very much disagree with the assertion. Alternatively, we could debate the long term ramifications of the No Award tactic, the quality of the 2015 Best Novel shortlist compared to past Hugo shortlists, or any other aspect of Puppygate that you might find interesting.
The point, Mr. Martin, is that you said debate and honest dialogue are important. You are one of the biggest and best-known figures who claims to be on the side of those you call “the good guys” in SF fandom. I am the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil and a rising figure in science fiction. If you cannot bother to engage in honest dialogue with me, then why should any of the less famous, less notorious, less influential individuals on either side of the ideological divide in science fiction bother to do so either?
I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of an open, all-out ideological war. War-War is intrinsically more entertaining than Talk-Talk, after all. Are you?
Now, it’s possible that you didn’t mean what you wrote. It’s possible that you are just another posturing SJW, who puffs and preens and bluffs until he is called out, then promptly runs away. Many of my readers, who are also your readers, believe that. But I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you transparently were not willing to give me.
John C. Wright
“Did I Get Too Many Nominations?” – April 11
I am not so impertinent as to dispute the tastes or judgment of the fans who ponied up the money and took the time to nominated me. They are my employers; their word is my law.
So far, in this tempest in a teardrop (it is too small for my teapot) there has been exactly one of my detractors who claimed my work was undeserving of notice, but countless detractors calling me a racist misogynist bigot ballotbox-stuffing flying purple people eater.
I will leave the flying purple people eating accusations unanswered for now, because they are trivial, irrelevant and stupid.
As to those who claim that we are introducing foreigners, gamergaters, or the unwashed masses into the pristine tower of science fiction, the numbers speak for themselves. We can take the Amazon rankings of books as a rough measure of the popularity of a work.
Aaron Hughes on Fantastic Reviews Blog
“IT’S MADNESS!” – April 11
I think the reason the conservative press has been so wrong about this is these are people used to analyzing political issues, and the Hugo Awards are NOT a political contest, at least they weren’t until this year. I offered this analogy:
For a lot of science fiction and fantasy fans, the Hugo Awards are a highlight of the year, like March Madness to a big college basketball fan. Imagine some right-wingers were upset because they believed the NCAA selection committee had disfavored conservative evangelical schools in the past. And they managed to get a group of their people on the selection committee. So all the fans eagerly awaiting the bracket announcement are shocked and outraged to see that the tournament doesn’t include Kentucky or Duke or Wisconsin or 23 of the AP Top 25 teams. They’ve all been left out in favor of Bob Jones U., Liberty U., etc.
There would be a giant controversy, and the people who caused it would claim that it’s all part of the liberal vs. conservative culture war. But it is not. It’s a war between college basketball fans and the fucking assholes who wrecked March Madness.
Peter Grant on Bayou Renaissance Man
“The Hugo Awards controversy: a personal response” – April 12
I find my overwhelming emotion over this whole fuss to be one of profound sadness. I honestly think that the extremists on both sides are callously and deliberately prepared to destroy the Hugo Awards – their credibility, meaningfulness and historical status – rather than see a different viewpoint win out. To my mind, this is far beyond any question of motive or political persuasion. It calls into question the basic sanity of those involved.
You see, I’ve personally experienced what happens when an entire society – an entire nation – gets caught up in ideological extremes. I’ve seen – with my own eyes – left-wing terrorist bombs that shattered the bodies and destroyed the lives of the innocent. I’ve seen right-wing terrorists respond in precisely the same measure. I’ve helped to pick up the pieces of the bodies afterwards (and I mean that literally). I’m not going to go into detail about the atrocities I’ve seen, heard, felt, smelled . . . the memories haunt me still, and sometimes move me to tears without warning as faces come flooding back into my mind. (I’m blessed beyond measure to have a wife who accepts me despite those memories, and does her best to help me deal with them when they rear their indescribably ugly heads.)
Kevin Standlee on Fandom Is My Way of Life
“You Only Get One Shot at the 2015 Hugo Awards” – April 11
Among all of the shouting over the 2015 Hugo Awards “Puppygate” and the calls to vote No Award is floating around something procedurally pernicious and that I encourage anyone who sees it to stamp out. That is the assumption that if the members of this year’s Worldcon vote “No Award” on everything or substantially everything on the Hugo Awards ballot, that’s okay because “the Retro-Hugos will cover it” or “Worldcon can hold a new election for 2015 next year.” Both of these wrong….
So don’t let people talk you into voting No Award solely because you think that there will be some sort of do-over in 2016 or 2065 or whatever. It’s not going to happen. As with any Hugo Awards election, I would encourage any member to use his/her right to vote No Award when you think that the candidates you rank below it or leave off your ballot don’t deserve to be on that ballot, but don’t do it just because you think you’ll get a second chance with a new set of nominees.
Tom Mays on the Improbable Author
“Labels, Libels, Hugos and the Future” – April 11
Ideologically and in terms of taste and preference in stories, I side with the Sad Puppies, but I’m not of the opinion all the Hugo and Nebula winners of the past won unjustly. I don’t necessarily agree there was a secret, organized cabal manipulating the Hugos from behind the scenes, but I have no evidence either way to refute the personal experiences many of the Puppies say they’ve seen and endured. My personnel belief is that there may have been some manipulation, but the main reason the awards have increasingly gone to “liberal” works (and a shit-load of Doctor Who) is that WorldCon is a self-selecting electorate. Con-goers and con-volunteers appear to skew progressive around the country. Sometimes SF/F cons represent the only place folks can safely let their freak flag fly. WorldCon may represent a convention which has allowed that skewing to become entrenched, with progressives taking and keeping leadership roles, then slowly pushing conservatives to the fringe, consciously or subconsciously making them unwelcome or unappreciated. Power concentrates. As that happens, votes for classic-plot SF/F fall off and votes for socially progressive SF/F that reaches past current norms and boundaries rises, especially if the voters can exhibit their sense of social justice and commitment to diversity by awarding them to authors of color, female authors, LBTGQ authors, etc. It was less a conspiracy than a clique, all trying to one-up one another. And if you look at the abysmally low number of voters that usually participate in the Hugos, it doesn’t take much to forever lock the awards into a one-sided bias as strong as a conspiratorial cabal.
George R.R. Martin on Not A Blog
“One Nice Night” – April 12
With all that being said, it’s nice sometimes to restore one’s faith in humanity, and I did some of that last night at my theatre. Magician Francis Menotti was performing at the Cocteau, and I went down to catch his act. Francis was wonderfully entertaining, and the crowd was great too. Old people, young people, kids, black people and white people and brown people, men and women, all ooohing and aaahing at the magic and laughing at the jokes, enjoying adult beverages (well, not the children) like our famous Burning Tumblewheel and our new White Walkers. They all came out smiling, and lots of them stopped afterwards in the bar to chat with me and Francis. One young couple were making their first visit to Santa Fe; they had just gotten engaged, and the two of them were bright-eyed and excited and glowing. Made me feel good just to meet them.
That’s what worldcons used to be like. Should be like. Could be like again.
Last night restored my faith in people, a little. It’s not fandom that’s toxic. It’s the internet.
PZ Myers on Freethought Blogs
“The Sad Puppies are goddamned idiots” – April 9
And science fiction has always been this way. It’s always been a genre of new ideas and experimentation. It’s not like all of a sudden in the 2000s a few social radicals have hijacked the field and sent it off into wild new directions, discombobulating all of their readers. They’ve always done that. It’s got a readership that loves being discombobulated and twisting their brains around strangeness.
I see someone accusing authors of “defrauding” their readership because they are creative and explore novel ideas and think about more than just the gobbledygook pseudomechanics they’ll use to make their spaceships fly, and I see the real fraud: that is a person who does not understand science fiction and fantasy in the slightest.
R. Jean Mathieu on R. Jean Mathieu’s Innerspace
“On the Hugos and Positive Censorship” – April 12
I have discovered that most of the Valiant Sixty, the original Quakers, were anti-Semite, Islamophobic, and anti-pagan. But they, too, like Dr. King, Bob Heinlein, Orson Scott Card, Tom Jefferson, and Woody Allen, like, if you wish, Malcolm X and Confucius and Sun Tzu and Gandhi, have an inner light. And while corrupted by their frailties, their work can and does transcend them, so that Jefferson can write “all men are created equal” and Card can write Petra and Barclay and Penington and Penn and Fox can write that “all who are brought into the world have that of God inside them, whatever their externals in creed or color.” Transcending the writer and the reader is what writing is for.
When Ender’s Game hit stores, I watched the very female clerk recommend it to a family, speaking knowingly of both the book and the movie. When I asked how she could, she shrugged and said “if I only read people I could agree with, I wouldn’t have anything to read.” Knowing her politics later, I concurred that she was right.
I do not care what the author has done, or what she believes, I care about the work. Is the work good? Does the author destroy the work by injecting ideology, as Heinlein does after Stranger in a Strange Land (and even Stranger gets iffy)? Does the author’s ideology befog their minds, so that Jack London can only write worshipful, inferior Peoples of Color or “credits to their race”? Does the author commit both errors at once, and so write Perdido Street Station?
Mark Ciocco on Kaedrin weblog
“Link Dump: Hugo Reactions” – April 12
This will most likely be my last post on the subject, though I suspect I’ll get pulled back in depending on how recklessly No Award is deployed in the final tally. For the record, I think Sad Puppies 3 was far more successful than anyone thought (which includes them) and as such, I’m going to be somewhat leery of slates in the future (my preference would be for Sad Puppies 4 to simply encourage participation and maybe include an open post about eligible books as opposed to a straight slate). I have a hard time believing most of the conspiracies being thrown around, and am emphatically against the abuse that’s been generated (which goes both ways). I don’t like guilt by association and generally assume good faith in participants. Many nominees are being thrown under a bus for petty reasons, and that seems silly to me. As always, I plan to read and vote accordingly.
David Steffen on Diabolical Plots
“Announcing The Mulligan Awards” – April 11
HOW DO I NOMINATE FOR THE MULLIGANS?
You already have or haven’t. The nominations will be based on Hugo nomination numbers rather than being a completely separate procedure. Each year the Hugo committee publishes a list of the top 15 nominees with voting counts for each one. The Mulligan nominations start with the Hugo nomination list, but estimates what the top 5 would be in the absence of the voting bloc.
How will it do this? Well, since the bloc has succeeded so thoroughly in sweeping the ballot, this implies that the members of the group followed their leader’s orders and voted slavishly for everything suggested. This should make them easier to spot in the nomination numbers because there will be some things from the voting bloc’s slate that didn’t get votes from anyone else, or almost no one else. That lowest number will give an estimate of how many actually followed orders–the lowest rather than the highest because some of the voting bloc’s choices may have been popular in their own right, and perhaps could have made it on the Hugo ballot without collusion. Then, by subtracting the estimated bloc count from all of the nominees that came from the bloc’s slate, that will be a rough estimate of what the ballot would look like without the bloc’s effects.
Steve Davidson on Amazing Stories
“What A Mess” – April 11
This concerted, seemingly coordinated effort to attack the No Award idea suggests that the slate voting is vulnerable to it. In other words – if it weren’t a concern to the puppy folks (of whatever breed), they’d be harping on something else.
Let’s be clear, when I say the voting No Award idea I mean voting against slates: where a category is completely slate-derived, place No Award in the number one slot and nothing else on the ballot; where a category is comprised of both slate and non-slate works, give the non-slate works due consideration, place them on the ballot if you think they deserve to be, in whatever order you choose and then stick No Award immediately below them.
Jamie Todd Rubin
“To my friends and fellow fans who might not be able to afford a Worldcon membership” – April 11
Part of the fun of the World Science Fiction Convention is being able to vote on your favorite works from the previous year, and that $40 supporting membership is difficult for some folks. If you can afford, it, I encourage you to get a supporting membership. If you can’t afford one, shoot me an email at feedback [at] jamietoddrubin [dot] com with your contact information. Also, because of the controversy surrounding the Hugo Awards this year, I want to be clear that for folks who get these supporting membership: please don’t feel constrained in your vote. Participation in the fan process is all that I am hoping for.
Next week, I’ll pick the 5 names randomly from the requests that I get, and buy the memberships through the Sasquan website on their behalf.
Wil Wheaton on Wil Wheaton dot Tumblr
“George R.R. Martin is currently writing” – April 12
George R.R. Martin is currently writing an absolutely phenomenal series of posts about the Sad Puppy dickwagons who have utterly destroyed the Hugo Awards (at least for this year, and possibly forever) because they are self-appointed right wing culture warriors.
It is very much worth reading, especially as a part of the history of the culture wars being forcibly injected into literally everything in the world by time-rich and determined assholes who just can’t handle the reality that the world is changing to be more diverse and inclusive.
But even if you don’t read it (and you really should), look at this from a post on his Livejournal (it is a testament to how much I like and respect George that I am not making a single Livejournal joke right now). That’s George R.R. Martin using the Greyjoy icon in his post. He’s using it the same way any of us would use it, except that he’s George R.R. Motherfucking Martin and he invented it.
John Skylar on Talebearing
“wilwheaton” – April 12
Let me ask you, wilwheaton: DID YOU NOMINATE FOR THE HUGOS? If you did, more power to you. If not, stop calling the SPs dickwagons and own up to your responsibility for this outcome.
I’d also like to point out the irony of Wil appending the phrase “dickwagon” to his post here while linking a post by GRR Martin saying how we need to maintain a civil tone in opposing the SP objectives because it will better sell the message that the SPs are problematic. Good job missing the point. But I digress. I was discussing taking responsibility.
I’ll own up to mine: I didn’t nominate for the Hugos this year. I didn’t have the disposable income, or at the very least, didn’t have enough that I thought it would be valuable to nominate. And you know what? I’m hitting myself for it now, because I oppose the SP agenda and I think they’ve compromised the literary merits of the award.
Brad R. Torgersen
“Flaming rage nozzles of tolerance” – April 12
Remember, the doctrine of the self-blamers. They believe everyone is born to hurt. You hurt people even when you are not hurting anyone. Your very existence hurts someone somewhere — at least if you are classified (according to the heirarchy of hurters) as being a prime source of psychic wounding.
So, either you get on-script, rip your shirt, beat your chest, and go on the attack against others, or the commissars will turn you into a target.
Last week Larry Correia and I were caught being fatally off-script.
The commissars (always self-designated) and their media enablers, reacted with knee-jerk efficiency.
Damien G. Walter
The Only Thing You Need To Do To Fix The Hugos – April 11
The Hugo awards do not need to be fixed. They are doing what awards are, in part, there to do. Providing an arena for the debates that in turn power change. Some rather loud, selfish men are shouting their half of the debate. Good. The mass of people who might otherwise have stood silent on the sidelines have been motivated to act against them. Let the Puppies shout and bellow as long and as loud as they like. The actual changes that will follow their actions are not likely to please them at all. Publishers aren’t racing out to buy more books with space rockets by right wing reactionaries. Quite the opposite. Readers aren’t being persuaded of the joys of old school sci-fi by having it rudely thrust in their faces. Quite the opposite. In contrast, the issue of diversity has this year been spot welded to the Hugo awards by the laser beams of focused outrage. And that’s no bad thing.
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John Skylar on Talebearing…way to miss the point yourself. One wonders if these threats of physical violence, and actual violence no less (“hurts people, and is frankly dangerous”), will be substantiated or is just high grade name calling.
Irony is lost on you people. I’ll go so far as to posit that if VD has mugged someone or otherwise jumped someone and physically throttled them without provocation I and a whole host of others will denounce him.
But I’m reasonably confident it never happened.
I don’t think you needed to have nominated to be annoyed at the ultimate ballot. For various reasons most of which involve too much real life I read exactly 2 SF novels and neither met the criteria I set for myself for qualifying what I vote for and read on the ballot.
This far those criteria hadn’t presented much of a problem when it came time to vote, last year it almost did, this year I’ve basically zero choices on the Novel.
As I’d not read any shorts, novellas or novelettes I didn’t think there was much to do.
I’m still amused by the irony that in order to break a secret cabal rigging the Hugo’s it was necessary to create a public one. Finally, for somebody who says he doesn’t care about the Hugo Awards Mr Beale seems very invested in breaking them.
“this year I’ve basically zero choices on the Novel”
Because you read them all? Look some of us take this seriously. I’m behind on Butcher’s work so I’m reading the WHOLE DANG SERIES to get up to “Skin Game” and judge it fairly.
I know, I know, reading is optional if you are on the other side.
I do take it seriously and have a set of rules I stick to on what I read and vote for… I’ve read 1 of the 5 and decided not to nominate as I happen to think we should be voting for original SF&F.
I read the first two Dresden novels and unless they’ve changed beyond all recognition they’re part of a sub-genre I don’t like.
I do not, generally, vote for books of a series, hence why I didn’t nominate the Book 2 of a series I did read, plus I’ve bounced off some off Andersen before.
The Amazon review of Kloos book says it’s as good as/like Old Mans War and given I thought that was a light Heinlein ripoff I’m not feeling impressed, plus, I don’t like MilSF.
Finally there’s the Fantasy. Again not my favorite sub-genre but I might give it a go.
Up until last year there hasn’t been a final ballot in the last decade where at least 3/5 didn’t fall inside my personal guide. Thanks for that.
Putting the most recent ones of Torgersen’s great metaphors together, we end up with a civil war where Communist comissars running a Gulag want the baby cut in two while the enterprise is being stolen by peasants whose revolt will be televised.
‘But I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt that you transparently were not willing to give me.’
Jesus. There’s a little child in there somewhere just crying out for validation.
“There’s a little child in there somewhere just crying out for validation.”
It would be a shame if GRRM gave Vox Day the credibility that would come with debating him directly. Day has made no secret that he hates the Hugos and wants to burn them down.
Its time to bring in the cosplayers. They should go to cons dressed as authors involved with this and argue with each other.
Instead of a debate, how about an Epic Rap Battle? Way more entertaining for fans.
Nerd War I continues…..
Oh, Mike, you left out the funny part of John C. Wright’s post. He claims that he didn’t get too many nominations by comparing his total (6 in one year) to the _career_ totals of people all but 2 of whom were mostly nominated in continuing Hugo categories, like Best Fan Writer. Only in noting that Seanan McGuire got 5 in one year does he have a point.
He also says that only one critic says that his work is unworthy. I haven’t even been looking, but I’ve seen several. And if I knew he’d say this, I’d have taken note of where they were.
George Martin is not running away from debate. George Martin has taken the time to respond at length to Larry Correia. Larry Correia, unlike Vox Day, is attempting to be civilized about this.
“It would be a shame if GRRM gave Vox Day the credibility that would come with debating him directly. Day has made no secret that he hates the Hugos and wants to burn them down.”
GRRM cannot give me credibility. In the words of one reader on Twitter, he would believe the sky was green if I said it was, because he has been reading me long enough to know that I ALWAYS do my homework before I say anything.
Look at what you just said. That’s not true. I don’t hate the Hugos. I don’t CARE about the Hugos. I never have, the award that was of interest to me was the Nebulas until they were corrupted. That’s why I recognized something had gone wrong with the Hugos, because I was there at the time. And if I burn the Hugos down, it’s only because the Nielsen-Hayden clique is hiding behind them.
“George Martin is not running away from debate. George Martin has taken the time to respond at length to Larry Correia. Larry Correia, unlike Vox Day, is attempting to be civilized about this.”
George Martin isn’t afraid of Larry Correia. George Martin is afraid of me. Which is why he is running away from me… not that it will help. It’s just another coward’s scalp for the Red Man.
Here, using Mr. Wright’s “objective” metric of quality — namely, amazon reviews — is the *real* Hugo ballot for best novel:
Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, Book 2)
The Witch with No Name (The Hollows Book 13)
Magic Breaks (Kate Daniels Book 7)
Revenant (Demonica series Book 11)
— so they got one right? Oh, and I suspect Mr. Wright would object to paranormal romance messing up his SF, but, well, that’s what’s popular according to Amazon, source of Objective Truth. 😉
GK Chesteton–Because you read them all? Look some of us take this seriously. I’m behind on Butcher’s work so I’m reading the WHOLE DANG SERIES to get up to “Skin Game” and judge it fairly.
“Skin Game” is not Hugo worthy if it can’t stand by itself. The previous 14 volumes don’t count. I read it and found it to be a cross between a fantasy novel and “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.” Butcher does a good job with the hard boiled formula, and it’s entertaining, but it is formula. I value novelty very highly in my Hugo selections, and this book doesn’t have much of it.
I don’t know about GRRM, but VD sure scares me.
Vox Day is a dillentante, a spoiled petulant child using daddy’s money to first dabble in science fiction and gaming, then to punish those who didn’t take him and his art seriously. He embodies all the worst cliches of the nerd mad at the world for his own failings, an internet hard man with little concrete other than the ability to spoil other people’s parties to back him up.
Why in hell would George R. R. Martin debate him? Might just as well wrestle a pig.
Not that Torgensen or Correira are any better, nasty little spiteful men who by their own measures of success completely fail to meet up to their archenemies, let alone Martin.
“Not that Torgensen or Correira are any better, nasty little spiteful men who by their own measures of success completely fail to meet up to their archenemies, let alone Martin.”
Martin published his first novel in 1976 and the novel he is best known for (GoT) in 1996.
Correia self-published his first novel in 2007. It reached the best sellers list while being self-published in 2008. Then it was republished with a professional publisher in 2009. And it is the work he is best known for (MHI). He was been on the Entertainment Weekly, NY Times, and Locus best sellers lists. He has more than a dozen novels published or under contract. And it has been less than ten years since he published his first novel, compared to almost forty years for GRRM.
So Correia still has thirty years to catch up to the success of GRRM, but I think he is doing OK.
‘GRRM cannot give me credibility.’
Only you can give you credibility. Maybe one day.
‘It’s just another coward’s scalp for the Red Man.’
Where Were You The Day Theodore Beale Declared Victory Over George RR Martin?
“Vox Day is a dillentante, a spoiled petulant child using daddy’s money to first dabble in science fiction and gaming, then to punish those who didn’t take him and his art seriously.”
Oh, for crying out loud. I didn’t use Daddy’s money. I didn’t NEED Daddy’s money. My best-selling game sold something like 5 million thanks to Intel. I don’t “dabble” in gaming, I was the second-ever nationally syndicated game columnist and I spent several years as the game expert with one of the world’s largest game financiers.
Larry Correia keeps talking about how badly he was mistreated at the Worldcon he attended in 2011 as a Campbell nominee. But that’s not what he said back then:
http://monsterhunternation.com/2011/08/23/worldcon-report
When you read Correia’s report from that Worldcon, it is a complete 180 from everything he’s said since then about what a miserable experience it was. I know he’s updated the post to claim he was hiding all his negative thoughts back then, but who is he kidding? He wrote a glowing review of the con and talked about how much he was looking forward to going to future Worldcons. People don’t sound as positive as he did about a con when they’re deeply unhappy about the event.
It’s a shame that the Correia who had good things to say about Worldcon and had a friendly rivalry with other nominees is no longer around. I think that guy would be having more fun than the one who thinks his science fiction career needs to be defined by an ongoing culture war.
@Milt,
““Skin Game” is not Hugo worthy if it can’t stand by itself. The previous 14 volumes don’t count.”
I’m sorry, where did I say it couldn’t? Oh wait, I said that to get everything out of it I was going through the trouble to read them all.
“I value novelty very highly in my Hugo selections, and this book doesn’t have much of it.”
I value a good story over false novelty. We are voting on stories right?
@Martin,
“He embodies all the worst cliches of the nerd mad at the world for his own failings, an internet hard man with little concrete other than the ability to spoil other people’s parties to back him up.”
Oh do tell. The publishing house? The band? The books? All daddy’s money eh? One wonders what you won’t believe in order to validate your world view. Look you don’t have to agree with him on anything remotely political, you just have to accept reality.
@Rek,
“So Correia still has thirty years to catch up to the success of GRRM, but I think he is doing OK.”
I know right? The historical perspective in most of these posts is just mind boggling frightening. Its like the world was created the day they were born. I have nothing personally against GRRM, other than the cowardice of calling for a debate then running, but it isn’t like he became famous in a day.
@rcade,
“It would be a shame if GRRM gave Vox Day the credibility that would come with debating him directly. Day has made no secret that he hates the Hugos and wants to burn them down.”
What does credibility in this case mean? The man is independently successful. He has “credit”.
He has also made it clear that he does not care. He is more than willing to let _you_ burn it down. Your kind has made it clear, in multiple articles quoted here, that you are OK with burning down via “no award” no matter what the consequences. Stop the projection.
Carfeul, Vox. Your facts are scaring NelC.
“So Correia still has thirty years to catch up to the success of GRRM, but I think he is doing OK.”
To be entirely fair, I do believe that GRRM has one of the most accessible and yet enveloping writing styles of any author writing today. OTOH – I actually *like* characters that Correia writes, he manages to do “apocalypse incipient” in half of his works without getting repetitive, and he makes me laugh. I stopped reading SoIaF after GoT because the bleak nihilism of the world is not something in which I wish to indulge.
So, eh.
“He is more than willing to let _you_ burn it down.”
Unlike Day and some of his outspoken supporters, I love the Hugos. The bloc voting tactic will destroy them, so I plan to use No Award above all slate nominees to send the strongest message I can against slates.
I’d love a better solution, but being forced to select a winner from categories that have nothing but bloc voting candidates goes against everything the awards represent. The majority of Hugo nominators had no chance to see any recommendations reach the ballot because of the game Day, Correia and Torgersen are playing. I saw 0 of my nominees reach the ballot for the first time ever.
People who support slate voting remind us often that it wasn’t against the rules.
No Award isn’t against the rules either.
“It’s a shame that the Correia who had good things to say about Worldcon and had a friendly rivalry with other nominees is no longer around. I think that guy would be having more fun than the one who thinks his science fiction career needs to be defined by an ongoing culture war.”
Its a shame you didn’t read the post you linked to. Or to Larry’s subsequent description. But it seems’s he’s gone through the trouble of adding a footnote to explain things for the slow.
I don’t know how you can read about “not having a chance” based on the “kind” of writer you are being a good thing.
Once again, anti-SP fail at reading. Which is why we want the award back.
Complain about burning things down and then…
“Unlike Day and some of his outspoken supporters, I love the Hugos. The bloc voting tactic will destroy them, so I plan to use No Award above all slate nominees to send the strongest message I can against slates.”
And of course this is explained by:
” I saw 0 of my nominees reach the ballot for the first time ever.”
I WILL TAKE MY BALL AND GO HOME! Pretty much anyway. You do realize how spoiled that sounds right?
“People who support slate voting remind us often that it wasn’t against the rules. No Award isn’t against the rules either.”
Indeed it isn’t. Feel free to do it. We predicted most of you would when you didn’t get your way so it isn’t a surprise. Sad, but not suprising.
I would ask you to be logically consistent though and do so for all of the nominees who showed on a slate. Which I believe is all of them even then non-SP ones.
@rcade
Read Dan Wells post. Third party collaboration of Correia’s experience. And from a liberal too, so I guess it is time for another neo-McCarthyism purge.
Thank you to Mike Glyer for reporting on both sides of the issue.
GRRM has done the right thing in not debating with VD. VD is the biggest troll I have ever seen. Don’t feed trolls.
I have read people saying that there are many insults coming from both sides, but reading the quotes in this article there seem to be many more from one of the sides.
Dan Wells doesn’t say he was at the Reno Worldcon and saw Correia treated badly. He just repeats Correia’s origin story: “he was nominated for a Campbell, came to WorldCon in Reno, and was treated like a pariah because he’s very, very conservative.”
@rcade
Again, from the link YOU posted.
‘Then Dan Wells gets in the elevator. “And I’m Dan Wells.” ‘
“
GK: Do you actually care about the Hugos, or do you just care about using them to stick it to “social justice warriors”? I’ve already explained my involvement in the awards. What’s yours?
I try to avoid debating this with hyper-politicized people who are just fighting a culture war and will quickly move on to something else.
Rek: Show me where Dan Wells says he saw Correia treated badly at Reno Worldcon.
Rek — I’m thinking you meant “corroboration,” not “collaboration”?
‘What does credibility in this case mean?’
Martin vs Beale? Being a decent human being. Don’t think you can use Amazon stars to measure that.
“Indeed it isn’t. Feel free to do it. We predicted most of you would when you didn’t get your way so it isn’t a surprise. Sad, but not suprising.”
I’ll do what I’ve done in years past when voting for Hugos; look at what’s there, see if any of it is worth voting for, and vote accordingly. If the other works nominated by the Puppy slate rise above the level of *ahem* quality that Vox Day’s work set last year, they might have a chance. If they don’t, I’ll vote “No Award” ahead of them because it would be an insult to far better work for them to be in the same category of “Hugo Winners”.
That’s not “blowing the Hugos up” — that’s protecting their credibility, to my lights. I haven’t read anything by Mr. Wright, for example, that was Hugo-worthy, yet. His stories might change my mind this year — we’ll see.
@rcade,
“Do you actually care about the Hugos, or do you just care about using them to stick it to “social justice warriors”? I’ve already explained my involvement in the awards. What’s yours?
I try to avoid debating this with hyper-politicized people who are just fighting a culture war and will quickly move on to something else”
Funny I don’t believe I’ve used that term here. And yes, I care, hence I post. I’ve read SF/F since I was very young via old paperbacks given to me by my dad. My first animated conversation was about R2D2. But do attempt to disqualify more. I find it amusing.
And for “hyper-politized people” that you aren’t digging up and misquoting Larry is evidently fair game.
@AG,
“…GRRM has done the right thing in not debating with VD. VD is the biggest troll I have ever seen. Don’t feed trolls.
I have read people saying that there are many insults coming from both sides, but reading the quotes in this article there seem to be many more from one of the sides.”
Irony is dead to you all. Finding self-contradicting posts here is like shooting in a bucket.
And again, this is why we had to get involved.
@rcade
I never said what Wells saw or did not see. You are the one implying that Correia is lying. Wells was in Reno and says Correia was mistreated. Are you really now implying that Correia lied to his friend so he could blow up the Hugos years later?
@lampwight (sic)
Collaboration, corroboration.
Curse you, autosuggest!
Tho his corroboration will probably result in him being accused of collaboration.
“You are the one implying that Correia is lying.”
His Reno story in 2011 is a complete 180 to what he’s saying now. If you believe his explanation, that’s your prerogative. I think his grievances about that con have been embellished over time to justify his anti-Hugos campaign.
I met George R. R. Martin briefly in Kansas City in 1975, having heard of him as an up and coming writer. His first books were of such quality that he was invited to be Archon’s first Guest of Honor in 1977. I saw him once when he came to Los Angeles. I have no doubt that he has no memory of me.
I exchanged a an e-mail or two with Wil Wheaton before his load of mail became so great that he could no longer respond to people he didn’t personally know. I understand that. I’m sure he doesn’t remember me.
I read what of was packaged as a novel by Vox Day, based on an RPG with which he was involved, which ended half-way through the story (no mention on the cover that it was incomplete, part of a duo or trilogy or whatever). It was readable space opera, if slightly predictable in certain scenes, but so far as I’ve ever seen, part 2 has not been published. (If I’m wrong, I welcome correction.) Mr. Beale/Day and I exchanged a couple of e-mails after that, non-confrontational, about the book, and again, I’m sure he doesn’t remember me.
John Ringo, who I’m not sure is part of the Sad Puppies or not, is a mutual Facebook Friend, although we haven’t exchanged much in conversation — we did a fair amount of that on LiveJournal, though, cordially. I have noted his conservatism. As I’m a left-libertarian, we agree on some things, disagree on others. No huhu.
That’s the extent of my knowledge of the parties involved beyond what I’ve read here and in links from here.
I am disappointed that the T. Beale/V. Day who was polite if slightly brusque to me is being what he is being here. Frankly, trying to be as dispassionate as I can, it seems to me that his challenging George R. R. Martin to a debate is roughly the same as if I were trying to challenge Robert Heinlein to a debate on how to navigate a warship of the United States Navy. In both cases it would be an ant challenging an elephant to arm wrestling.
In the mid-’70s the Hugos survived a block vote attempt to win a Hugo for the Perry Rhodan books. Even if this is an off year, there are corrective mechanisms built in to the WSFS constitution and the Business Meeting to enable the ship to be set aright again in the future; the Hugos are not destroyed “forever”.(*)
As for this year, we live with it as best we can, vote for what we think is best of the possibilities allowed (including No Award if a voter considers none of the choices to be Hugo-worthy) and move on.
Alfred Pennyworth noted in The Dark Knight, “…[S]ome men aren’t looking for anything logical…. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
So the Hugos will be singed this year — but fires eventually burn out and men and women of good will shall take control of that which they love again.
(*) I am so tired of people saying something is changed “forever”. Do they mean until all life on Earth dies in about three billion years? Do they mean when Sol swallows Earth in five billion years? Do they mean when entropy wills out and all matter and energy in the universe is randomized heat in 100 trillion years?
“I think that word does not mean what they think it to mean.” — after Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride.
I met George R. R. Martin briefly in Kansas City in 1975, having heard of him as an up and coming writer. His first books were of such quality that he was invited to be Archon’s first Guest of Honor in 1977. I saw him once when he came to Los Angeles. I have no doubt that he has no memory of me.
I exchanged a an e-mail or two with Wil Wheaton before his load of mail became so great that he could no longer respond to people he didn’t personally know. I understand that. I’m sure he doesn’t remember me.
I read what was published as a novel by Vox Day, based on an RPG with which he was involved, which ended half-way through the story (no mention on the cover that it was incomplete, part of a duo or trilogy or whatever). It was readable space opera, if slightly predictable in certain scenes, but so far as I’ve ever seen, part 2 has not been published. (If I’m wrong, I welcome correction.) Mr. Beale/Day and I exchanged a couple of e-mails after that, non-confrontational, about the book, and again, I’m sure he doesn’t remember me.
John Ringo, who I’m not sure is part of the Sad Puppies or not, is a mutual Facebook Friend, although we haven’t exchanged much in conversation — we did a fair amount of that on LiveJournal, though, cordially. I have noted his conservatism. As I’m a left-libertarian, we agree on some things, disagree on others. No huhu.
That’s the extent of my knowledge of the parties involved beyond what I’ve read here and in links from here.
I am disappointed that the T. Beale/V. Day who was polite if slightly brusque to me is being what he is being here. Frankly, trying to be as dispassionate as I can, it seems to me that his challenging George R. R. Martin to a debate is roughly the same as if I were trying to challenge Robert Heinlein to a debate on how to navigate a warship of the United States Navy. In both cases it would be an ant challenging an elephant to arm wrestling.
In the mid-’70s the Hugos survived a block vote attempt to win a Hugo for the Perry Rhodan books. Even if this is an off year, there are corrective mechanisms built into the WSFS constitution and the Business Meeting to enable the ship to be set aright again in the future; the Hugos are not destroyed “forever”. (*)
As for this year, we live with it as best we can, vote for what we think is best of the possibilities allowed (including No Award if a voter considers none of the choices to be Hugo-worthy) and move on.
Alfred Pennyworth noted in The Dark Knight, “…[S]ome men aren’t looking for anything logical…. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
So the Hugos will be singed this year — but fires eventually burn out and men and women of good will shall take control of that which they love again.
(*) I am so tired of people saying something is changed “forever”. Do they mean until all life on Earth dies in about three billion years? Do they mean when Sol swallows Earth in five billion years? Do they mean when entropy wills out and all matter and energy in the universe is randomized heat in 100 trillion years?
“I think that word does not mean what they think it to mean.” — after Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride.
@rcade
I am a college professor one year away from tenure with political views the exact opposite of ALL of my vocal colleagues and everyone in my chain of command. The two times I spoke up in public on political issues early in my career, I had people shun me and accuse me of lying. (I was told that wanting a refund on political monies the union took from my paycheck, which they are obligated by law to refund, was because I wanted the money and not because I actually disagreed with union politics). After that, I stayed silent.
So yeah, damn straight I believe Correia’s explanation.
@rcade,
“His Reno story in 2011 is a complete 180 to what he’s saying now. If you believe his explanation, that’s your prerogative. I think his grievances about that con have been embellished over time to justify his anti-Hugos campaign.”
One has a hard time believing your reading comprehension is that bad. This rises to pure “make stuff up” territory. That is not a con report that equals his more gushing reports elsewhere. In fact the digging through his site to find error, and that an error that doesn’t exist, proves his point.
@ David K. M. Klaus,
I came to read Vox long after reading Martin (I’ve only been aware of Vox for a few years). I think Martin destroys him on overall style but Vox is as good at characters if not better. Vox’s biggest weakness is he does love his battle scenes. Martin’s is that he appears to like killing characters for the fault of being good.
Frankly I find Vox’s “Hobblets” story (from “Witchking” which also contains his Hugo nominated “Opera”) one of the most heartwarming I’ve ever read and I would have gladly nominated it also had I been a supporting member that year.
Martin asked for an open debate on an issue. Vox responded. Martin decided to hurl insults. I’m sorry I can’t see any nobility there even if Correia has tried.
It’s weird because I’ve seen political discussions at conventions with no I’ll feeling. I’ve seen political discussions at panels which have got heated when somebody decided to hijack the proceedings and try to stop discussion. I’ve not seen people leave a room because of somebody and I’ve seen exactly 1 fight.
Larry managed to pack more into one fairly small convention in Nevada I must say.
I can’t speak for the live act as I don’t recall meeting him there but if it’s anything like the online version he’s got a gift…
@Nigel,
“being a decent human being”
How trite. Has he murdered someone? Robbed a home? Taken away food? These would all be the actions of someone who isn’t a decent human being. Pray tell what has he done? But again, name calling is something that we evidently do and so far in thread no one has called your side names but you’ve (the collective you that English unfortunately doesn’t have) managed to do it at least twice.
‘Pray tell what has he done?’
I think it’s mostly his racism and misogyny. The posturing and self-aggrandisement don’t help. Also the way he seems to share your conception of human decency as ‘trite.’
Mr Chesterton says that “I would ask you to be logically consistent though and [vote NO AWARD] for all of the nominees who showed on a slate. Which I believe is all of them, even the non-SP ones.”
Mr Chesterton (and, I suppose, Mr Day, Mr Torgersen, Mr Correia, Mr Wright, or whoever else can answer this), my Google skills are weak, so I’m not sure how exactly I should compose my search terms in this respect. Could you do me a favor and link me to the SJW slate (and/or the Scalzi slate, and/or the Nielsen-Hayden slate, the TOR slate, or… whichever), so I know what to vote against? Obviously it’ll be a bit of a noisy search, but since you’ve seen it, you’ll know what to look for.
Thank you in advance (and thank you to Mr Glyer for providing such a helpful forum for this discussion!).
Yes, me too…. I’d like to see a link to the SJW Slate and the Tor Slate and actually any others…
… crickets chirping…
Go look up the definition of the word “slate.”
As entered in the dictionary, it means – quite literally – ANY list of of works or nominees presented to consideration.
Ta-da. A dozen of those have been listed here and elsewhere.
Basic literacy is a requirement for these kinds of conversations.
‘Ta-da. A dozen of those have been listed here and elsewhere.’
You TOTALLY win if you completely ignore the very specific activity to which people are referring when they talk about ‘slate’ in this context!
‘Basic literacy is a requirement for these kinds of conversations.’
Completely ignoring what people have been saying is useful in certain approaches to conversation.
It’s not my fault if you choose to use the word to mean something it does not. If you mean “bloc-voting,” say so. And then I can proceed to point out that every indication thus far is that you’re completely wrong. I’m fine with that.
It’s your fault if you chose to ignore what people clearly mean. Then again, it’s about the only way your half of the conversation can proceed TO VICTORY.