aka In a hole in a ground there lived a Hugo. It was a puppy Hugo, and that means discomfort.
Today’s roundup features Amanda S. Green, Deirdre Saoirse Moen, P. J. Pruhon, Andrew Hickey, Lisa J. Goldstein, The Staff of The New Republic, Steve Davidson, N.K. Jemisin, Larry Correia, Tom Knighton, Jim C. Hines, Rebekah Golden and Lis Carey. (Title credit belongs to File 770’s contributing editors of the day SocialInjusticeWorrier and Going To Maine.)
Amanda S. Green on Mad Genius Club
“Inspiration and remembrance” – May 24
I look at the Hugo controversy and wonder if those clinging to the award, willing to destroy careers if necessary in order to do so, and I wonder if they have given even a passing thought to how what they are advocating is the non-political version of censorship (and yes, I understand that technically only a government can censure something). They want to silence points of view they don’t agree with. They want to silence what they see as the opposition. Which, when you consider that science fiction should be the one place where all viewpoints should be welcome is not only ironic but sad.
So today, here is my challenge to each of us. Remember those who have sacrificed so much so we can read and write what we want (within limits. Remember, the Supreme Court will know pornography when it sees it). Now ask yourselves if what you are doing honors their sacrifice. For myself, I am going to be doing all I can to honor it.
Deirdre Saoirse Moen on Sounds Like Weird
“BayCon Panels and Notes” – May 24
The Hugo tug-of-war: Diversity of opinion among Worldcon voters
This panel [at BayCon] went really well, and I’m glad that Kate Secor had some details that I hadn’t researched. Also thanks to James Stanley Daugherty for moderating and Amy Sterling Casil for her contributions.
My general feelings:…
- The more that is done at this year’s meeting to “fix” things, it will become an outrage escalator, and I believe that would be counterproductive long term. While I think the 4 of 6 proposal (and a couple of others) have merit, what I’d actually like to see is more people nominating. Specifically, more people who realize you can’t read the entire field, so nominate what you have read and what you think is worthy.
Nothing that “fixes” nominations will change the fact that there are far fewer nominators than members, and far fewer nominators than voters.
P. J. Pruhon on Newsvine
“Sad Puppies and Paranoid Barflies” – May 24
The few words in my article mentioning Baen Publisher Toni Weisskopf were a commiseration for the reputation that the Sad Puppies have laid on her and Baen Books: “the vandals who wrecked the Hugos”. In my two days on Baen’s Bar, I was repeatedly attacked for having insulted Ms Weisskopf. I (politely) explained several times that there was no insult. Apparently Mr Cochrane finally understood… but he could not leave it alone: “This was interpreted by the conference owner as a slur on the owner of the site.” ….
Sometime during my second day on Baen’s Bar, I began getting criticism for “moving the goalposts”. I found this odd, since I was in fact just repeating what I had said earlier. Then I had my Eureka!! moment.
These folks had not misunderstood me.
They had not heard me at all.
What they heard was a voice in their heads: an “Anti-Sad Puppies” archetype telling them the things that “everyone knows that ASPs say”.
Me? I was not saying those things, but the Barflies did not notice, because they were not listening to me.
When I insisted loudly that I did not say that, they very honestly felt that I had moved the goalposts. The goalposts had started where those voices in their heads had stipulated, and here I was, daring to say differently! How dare I deviate from what they knew I must be saying!
Once we understand that Barflies and Sad Puppies are not listening to anything other than their own preconceptions, everything becomes limpidly clear. It becomes obvious that their outrage in not being recognized as the only true carriers of the “real SF” flame is genuine.
The Staff of The New Republic
“Science Fiction’s White Male Problem” – May 24
The conservative backlash isn’t entirely about attempts to diversify science fiction; it’s also motivated by nostalgia for an imaginary past. The Puppies factions argue that science fiction used to be a fun, apolitical genre but has now become too socially conscious and pretentious, due to a sinister leftist conspiracy…..
If leftism shouldn’t be conflated with literary ambition, neither should it be confused with demographic diversity. Torgersen assumes that stories exploring gender and race will automatically be boring left-wing propaganda. This flies in the face of history. For decades, science-fiction writers of both the left and the right, both popular entertainers and those writing more ambitious works, have made a point of trying to be inclusive. Heinlein started featuring nonwhite characters in his books from the very beginning of his career. His “Starship Troopers” (1959) can be read as a right-wing paean to military virtue; the main character is a Filipino.
Samuel R. Delany describes himself as a “boring old Marxist” but loves the right-wing fiction of Heinlein. “Well, Marx’s favorite novelist was Balzac — an avowed Royalist,” Delany once explained. “And Heinlein is one of mine.” The largeness of soul and curiosity about differing ideas that Delany brought to his appreciation of Heinlein is sadly missing from all the resentment and angst of the Sad and Rabid Puppies.
Steve Davidson on Amazing Stories
“My Final Hugo Ballot” – May 24
Best Novel.
Only three works were eligible for consideration based on my determination not to reward the pupfans who thought it would be funny to poke the SJW’s in the eye by way of screwing with a 75 year old tradition.* They were:
Ancillary Sword, Goblin Emperor, The Three Body Problem
I gave the top slot to Ancillary Sword after having made it about a third of the way through Three Body Problem. I’d originally expected to be giving the top slot to TBP; I’d heard great things about it from the translator and I’ve been championing the community’s engagement with Chinese works for about a year now. Unfortunately, I found TBP to be slow to develop, and, at least for me, a bit off in its metaphor and simile. I found some of that to be jarring rather than descriptive.
Ancillary Sword, on the other hand, was an even quicker read for me than Justice (probably so at least partially due to being familiar and comfortable with the gender play), and I found it to be perhaps an even stronger story than Justice, and certainly a middle third that transcends the usual problems of middle thirds of trilogies.
I don’t do fantasy (my fault: I just can’t get past the initial premise that nothing in the story is potentially real) and have given it the third slot out of courtesy at this point in time. Now that I’ve gotten the Hugo Packet, I’ve had a chance to skim GE. I’m leaving it in the number three slot, despite its apparent love of faux ye olde englysh in the dialogue.
The fourth slot is, and will remain, for No Award, as the remaining two entries were slatened entries. I was hoping that Anderson and Butcher would at least state something regarding their inclusion publicly, though I understand their reluctance to screw with their successful careers by getting mired in the politics. At this point in time they’ll pretty much piss off a segment of their audience no matter what they say. Sorry guys, for whatever “guilt by association” may be present here, but you are on the slate, you’ve not written anything to disabuse me of the presumption that you are there willingly and I promised myself and everyone reading the website that I would vote ANYTHING on ANY slate below No Award – despite whatever personal feelings I may have about their individual worthiness….
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/602188201525129217
https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/602314553117044736
NK Jemisin tweeted she heard I was racist at GenCon. My fans said Huh? When? She blocked all. Today complains they were angry. Well duh. 😀
— Larry Correia (@monsterhunter45) May 24, 2015
Tom Knighton
“If you’re going to fling it, you better back it up” – May 24
Jemisin has, as of my writing of this post, revealed no evidence to support her assertion. Nothing. This is my surprised face:
Tom Knighton
Yeah, I look flabbergasted, don’t I?
This is just the latest — and lamest — attempt to try and paint Larry as a racist, all of which have failed miserably. You know why they have? Probably because Larry’s not a racist. Shocking, I know.
Of course, one of my own initial reactions was to say screw cons as a writer and just avoid them as much as possible. Personally, I suspect that Jemisin and company would see that as a feature, not a bug. After all, pushing people like me out of fandom could hardly be a bad thing, right? They don’t want “my kind” around.
Jim C. Hines
“Hugo Thoughts: Graphic Story” – May 24
Of the five nominees, the collection from The Zombie Nation was recommended by both the Sad and Rabid (SR) puppies. The rest of the category is puppy-free.
- Ms. Marvel: The first page includes Kamala Khan smelling bacon and saying, “Delicious, delicious infidel meat” and someone responding, “Chow or chow not. There is no smell.” I was officially intrigued. A few pages later, we discover Kamala writes Avengers fanfic. She’s also struggling with her own identity, torn between cultures and dealing with ignorance and prejudice. She dreams about being powerful and blonde and beautiful like Ms. Marvel…and then she gets her wish. Sort of. And discovers it’s not what she imagined. This is a superhero origin story that plays off of our expectations, because Kamala has grown up in a world of superheroes. She’s an Avengers fangirl. She has to unlearn what she has learned, in order to become, in her words, “a shape-changing mask-wearing sixteen-year-old super ‘moozlim’ from Jersey City.” There’s a lot of humor, and some good depth and complexity to Kamala and her family and friends. There’s also a supervillain, of course, but that’s secondary to the story of Kamala coming of age and learning to navigate and incorporate the different parts of her identity….
Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4
“The Hugo Ballot, Part 14: A Brief Trip Back to Short Stories” – May 24
And with the first of them, “A Single Samurai” by Steven Diamond, comes a problem I haven’t had in this read so far. Namely, that I didn’t like the story, but I can imagine people who would. If your idea of fun is seeing really big creatures — I mean really big — stomp past leaving a trail of destruction in their wake, if you’ve held onto that child-like joy that only a rampaging monster can bring, then this story might be for you.
Andrew Hickey on Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!
“Hugo Blogging: ‘Best’ Novelette” – May 24
However, I shall actually be placing all five below No Award. One of the more depressing aspects of the Sad and Rabid Puppy slates is that the people who put them together are pushing both a political and an aesthetic viewpoint, and the aesthetic viewpoint is just as toxic as the political one. Even were all the stories to have made it on their own merits without block voting, and even had the politics of the authors matched my own, the stories on the Puppy slates are just *bad*.
Some of that badness is a lack of craft — badly-written sentences, with no sense of the potential of language for beauty, of the rhythms of speech, or of the subtle nuances involved in the choice of one word over another. I would actually have some sympathy for this if the ideas in the stories were worth reading — after all, I hardly have the most mellifluous prose style myself, and there are reasons other than beauty of language to read.
But the ideas are, uniformly (bearing in mind I’m only two categories through, so they might yet surprise me) awful.
In the “Best” Novelette category, I’m ranking No Award first, and second I will be ranking The Day the World Turned Upside Down by Thomas Olde Heuvel (translated by Lia Belt). This is the one non-Puppy nomination, and is the kind of poor literary fiction that makes one almost wonder if the Puppies have a point. The protagonist, a tedious narcissist with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever, is moping because his girlfriend left him. Then, for no adequately-explained reason, gravity goes into reverse, with people being flung up to ceilings or into space. The world has turned upside down, just as his girlfriend turned his emotional world upside down. Do you see? It’s perfectly competently written, for its type (although don’t use it as a guide for the care and feeding of goldfish — but in a world where gravity can go into reverse, goldfish managing to survive in 7-Up is probably not the most unrealistic thing about the story), but it’s a story in which horrible things happen to a horrible person, and I find it very hard to care about those….
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Laura J. Mixon Hugo Nominee Fanwriter Sample” – May 24
This is a clear, well-supported explanation of Requires Hate’s multiple online identities, cyberstalking, and harassment, as well as her habitual deletion of hateful posts after the fact, making it hard for her victims to prove what happened to them. Mixon has included only episodes that she can document, and includes screen caps. Names are included only with the agreement of the individual. This was a major service to the sf community, and it’s well-written.
Rebekah Golden
“2015 Hugo Awards Best Professional Artist: Reviewing C Reid” – May 24
I am reviewing Carter Reid as a professional web comic artist based on what I could find since he didn’t submit anything for the [Hugo Voter] packet. That said I’m not going to read the whole year’s worth of comic. What I was able to make it through was tedious and uninspired. The plots seem to echo gleeful conversations between teenage boys. It’s really just not that interesting.
Rebekah Golden
“2015 Hugo Awards Best Movie: Reviewing Guardians of the Galaxy” – May 24
Overall every rewatch gives me more reason to favor this movie. It just improves under scrutiny.
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Eh, you can shoot at the eagles. (Though that should have been an explicit reason in the book.)
CPaca: I’m 56 years old. I read them 30 plus years ago…
Ageist…
MickyFinn: Matt Y: so far the only pattern identified is “Brian didn’t like them as much”
Yes, it’s like Steve Moss saying that a case could be made that nominated works in recent years were only nominated because the content or author were politically approved, just because he didn’t happen to like them.
I don’t like all works in all categories in any given Hugo year. I don’t assume that means that no one likes those nominees and they’ve just gotten on the ballot due to “Affirmative Action”. I figure it just means that there are people who share my tastes, and people who don’t.
The claim that the quality has “declined” because one does not personally like the nominees is staggering in its hubris.
Glenn:
GRRM definitely does what Nick calls “Roving POV”, where different chapters or sections have different 3rd-person (tight) PsOV. But does he ever do tennis-match or within-scene shifts?
In my experience, these work only for scenes of high interpersonal intensity: love scenes or duels.
Nick:
I’ve only seen tennis-match POV work when it’s between only two people and it’s in a developing love scene: that is, not just the shock of LAFS, but two people becoming closer and closer emotionally and physically over the course of the scene. That’s why it reminds me of the orbiting cameras technique.
Nick:
Can you think of any examples of within-scene POV shifting from the 19th c? I’m drawing a blank.
Lori Coulson: If the Nazgul are available and in position — which they would be, there having been no battles — could an eagle safely fly to Mount Doorm with the Ring?
And another odd corollary — what if the eagle was seduced by the Ring as others were?
Dr. Science: GRRM definitely does what Nick calls “Roving POV”, where different chapters or sections have different 3rd-person (tight) PsOV. But does he ever do tennis-match or within-scene shifts?
I think he’s done so in Wild Cards, but it’s been a while (and for him too). And again, that’s 1) combining from a number of authors, and 2) originally from an RPG, on top of being inspired by comic book shared universes.
@Lori Coulson: “Teleportation? When it would just be simpler (and need little to no magic) to have one of the eagles drop the Ring into the volcano?”
No; this is why we need catapults. Intra-continental Ballistic Hobbits.
Set up giant catapults on, say, the Misty Mountains. Or even closer. Then start lobbing Hobbits into Mount Doom — I mean, they’re going to be scoured sooner or later, right?
Now, the Nazgul can be used as an anti-ballistic hobbit shield (ABH), but the question then becomes can such a shield be worn down? Say, by armoring the hobbits, or lighting them on fire, first. Flinging them until the Nazgul defense is down then permits either a) an Eagle attack or, more in keeping with the general theme, a single final ICBH strike straight into Mount Doom with the ring, with no pesky worries about the Ringbearer suddenly deciding against the process. In addition, he’ll be invisible as he goes, preventing non-Nazgul ABH defenses.
This would also approach the sheer bloody stupidity of much of World War I, making Tolkien’s novel an even better metaphor for the conflict.
(I cannot claim this is a new working-out; it came many years ago at a WisCon Dead Cow party; I blame lack of sleep and vigorous English encouragement.)
@Hauman: I head Lamont Cranston from my mother when I was a kid in the mid-60s. That’s how I know it.
He was The Shadow…I get it…humorless prick…
It’s a tossup as to who the biggest bunch of assholes on the internet are…the RP/SP or the SJWs….
@Hauman: You don’t need to reply if you don’t wish to…
I understand. I don’t belong here….
Lamont Cranston III: I understand. I don’t belong here…
There is no such thing as “not belonging on File770”. You just need to understand that while comment topics often range far and wide, this is a blog focussed on SFF, and the people who hang out here, for the most part, do so to geek out about SFF.
What JJ said. Lamont, you’re more than welcome to join in, but you do have to realize you walked into a science fiction and fantasy forum with the name of a known superhero. We all assumed you’d know the basics of the character. If you called yourself Peter Parker, we’d assume that you knew something about Spider-Man.
Apart from the Nazgul, it is said in the text of LotR that there is fighting in the north, so it can be assumed that the eagles would be busy sorting out their own orc/goblin problems.
JJ – I think it’s another good example of i don’t like it, therefore villainous intent must be behind the praise.
Also, to clarify, Lamont you said, “Am I not allowed to ask questions if I didn’t cast a ballot…I’ve asked questions about economics, not SF.”
You are certainly allowed to post questions about economics here. However, you should not be surprised if few, or perhaps none, of the people here are interested in a discussion about economics.
I personally find discussions about economics boring as batshit and, on the rare occasions when I wish to learn about or discuss that subject, I’ll go to a forum where a lot of knowledgeable people hang out for that purpose.
What science fiction or fantasy movies have you seen lately? What SFF books have you read, and what did you think about them? I’m quite happy to engage with you on that — and I suspect that a lot of other people here would be happy to do so as well.
Lamont Cranston III: “It’s a tossup as to who the biggest bunch of assholes on the internet are…the RP/SP or the SJWs….”
They love it when you abuse them but I don’t.
I dunno; a discussion of the biophysics and ecology of a guano pile (trophic cascades and webs! available energy reduction! coprophages and their predators!) could be interesting.
Heck, it could even be used to illustrate common economic scenarios in a more colourful manner!
(*crickets*)
OK, I’ll just shuffle off now.
Lamont Cranston III : CPaca: I’m 56 years old. I read them 30 plus years ago…
See, that’s the problem. I made a joke involving a really fundamental sf concept of the past couple of decades, and you missed it – whether because you lack a sense of humor or because you lack an understanding of the shared vocabulary of concepts that a sf community share. If you had played along with it, people might accept and respect you a bit more – but you just keep flubbing your chances.
It’s like you’ve come into a chess club and insist on referring to the knight pieces as “horsies”.
Here’s something I think Ms. Jemisin either hasn’t thought about or perhaps she has thought about and is doing by design. By using “of color” she is showing bigotry — yes, bigotry — by implying that the individual is (1) very important and whose opinion is therefore valid without question, (2) helpless and therefore should never be mistreated, or (3) better than any non “of color” person and should therefore be treated better than anyone else.
Or, you know, she understands that when you say “fan” or “person” or “man” or “woman” in Western society, they are always white in the reader’s mind because that’s our default.
Shame on her indeed for wanting to acknowledge that everyone is not a white guy.
Owlmirror: I dunno; a discussion of the biophysics and ecology of a guano pile (trophic cascades and webs! available energy reduction! coprophages and their predators!) could be interesting. Heck, it could even be used to illustrate common economic scenarios in a more colourful manner!
I appreciate your sincere attempts to make the subject of Chiroptera guano appealing as a discussion topic. However, my main interest in this substance is as fuel for the torches on my Puppy-gargoyle-decorated keyboard (the just-received new one not yet ruined by commenters here at File770).
So, going through Brian’s two posts on “why the hugos were fine pre 2011” and “why the hugos stank on ice from 2011 onwards”, I’ve tried to assemble an understanding of what brian likes, what brian doesn’t like, and why brian sees a pattern of the hugos going downhill.
Brian's Preferences*, 2007-2014
Disliked: Mira Grant, Stross's Neptune's Brood, Mieville's Embassytown (although he does like "that kind of stuff"), Bujold's ummm... minor works (probably the best way to describe them), Connie Willis, Redshirts, Ancillary Justice, Correia's Warbound, and The WoT tower of books, Sawyer's Wake, Leviathan Wakes,
Liked: Among Others, Throne of the crescent moon (although it is "uneven"), 2312, Rainbows End, Eifelheim, BlindSight, Yiddish Policemans Union, Brasyl, City and the City, The Windup Girl, Anathem, Little Brother, The Graveyard book.
Implied, but not specifically stated to like: Boneshaker, Palimpsest, Julian Comstock, Zoes Tale, The Last Colony, Sawyer's Rollback, His majesty's Dragon, Glasshouse.
Explicit ambivalence about: Saturn's Children (Brian seems to understand that other people like stross more than he does).
The tendency seems to be that a decent year requires 3+ works Brian likes to make the ballot. From 2011 to 2014, we’ve got 4 years of Mira Grant making it onto the ballot, so thats a strike for all those years. Bujold and Willis, both massive favorites of the hugos over the course of years, have a massive chance of getting on the ballot, even with lesser works, and Brian doesn’t seem taken with, at least, their later stuff. So thats two more strikes against 2011, making it a bad brian year, and one against 2013.
Warbound in 2014 was the beginnings of the puppy droppings, and a very understandable strike against it. WoT I can understand disliking the Hugo Nom for, but its enough to lodge a 3rd strike against 2014.
Thats what I’ve got so far, and as far as I can tell, the damage was mostly done by minor works by authors who had acquired enough love from the hugo nominators to get most anything they write on the ballot, and the rise of Mira Grant.
Add that to the yearly “I don’t understand why anyone likes this/these nominee(s)” that many of us see most years when the nominees are unveiled (there are usually one or two WTFs, and vigorous discussions between fans as to which works merit a WTF), and its easy to only see one or two “worthy nominees”.
*I’m not brian, so I might be wrong on some of these, but this is my best reading of his posts.
why not just teleport the ring into Mount Doom and be done with it three pages in?
Gandalf and Mount Doom have nothing to do with teleportation, whereas a samurai would in fact be thinking about the afterlife and have plausible reason to think killing a kaiju might have outcomes in the Japanese animist spirit world. Like others said, hard to pull off, just might be interesting to try it.
Brian, none of what you describe is in the story, even though there is plenty of room for it to be.
That’s the problem.
Judge the story on the page, not the one in your head.
First of all, I think Lamont is more interested in finance, rather than economics (though obviously there’s a lot of crossover).
Secondly, on economics/SF, c’mon, I (and Paul Krugman obvs) can’t be the only SF-fan who got sucked into Economincs because of Asimov’s Foundation….
Nick, that’s a fair point and I’d think the author should have tried harder to think about samurai and animist creatures.
rcade: –
After going through LC’s “response” to the GENCOM article on TOR.COM, the damage he has to his own reputation in his own articles, on his own blog, far overwhelm any imputed slight that can be gotten from an out-of-context tweet.
And, yes, the concentrating upon the single tweet, ignoring that it was part of a series of tweets that chronicled what was going on in the panel, is certainly “out of context.”
And, no, I don’t think Jemisin has any need to be the “poster child” for “responsible journalism.” She is not under any obligation to have to always be the person who always has to put up with the sh*t gracefully.
Does anybody think that fandom is a place where we need to have a new Hank Aaron because fandom is full of bigoted fools, and we don’t want to scare the horses? I sure don’t. Instead of minorities being told “get a thick skin,” I say, to those who want to be able to insult with impunity: “act like a grown up and think before you act.”
We should indeed be well past the point where somebody has to smile and be all graceful and forgiving when bigots spit on them.
And when a person of color expresses that they had a poor experience with someone who has been, bluntly, an ass, on the subject of privilege and that he seemingly objects when someone says that there might be a problem with the way that minorities are represented in various fields?
Dudes/dudettes/dudes-whatever, it ain’t news, and trying to make it “news” just shows how shallow the pool he’s swimming in is.
You want something more newsworthy?
Well, my cat uses the litterbox. Film at 11:00.
MickyFinn I can’t reply at length now but you got most of it right except “implied likes,” which is a bit more complicated, a satisfying ballot would be “at least 2.5 that I thought seriously about” and I don’t dislike Connie Willis in general.
Pattern 1= 2011-15 ballots not satisfying for Brian (does anyone agree?); pattern 2= alleged shift in nomination practices in 2014 (being debated here); pattern 3 = undisputed shift in 2015. This is not alone conclusive evidence of shifts in membership and voting culture going back earlier than this year, but that is my subjective impression.
Brian Z.: pattern 3 = undisputed shift in 2015
Uh, yeah, that’s very disputed. A pattern shift doesn’t exist until it’s gone on for a few years. If the Puppies who nominated/voted this year are still around happily buying memberships and nominating and voting in 2020, after the nomination process has been changed to prevent gaming by slates, then it will be an undisputed shift.
Right now, it’s just somebody who dragged their buddies in to tip over tables and break crockery.
Brian:
The author definitely would have been well served to think and research more about samurai, and to write a samurai character who didn’t feel like a human shaped cardboard cutout with “Samurai!!!” scrawled on it. Also, some description of climbing a giant, moving, monster, which didn’t feel like someone ambling up a mountain and occasionally thinking “oh hey, I’m climbing a kaiju”. I think the author had an awesome set of visuals in his head, but they never made it onto the page.
snowcrash: First of all, I think Lamont is more interested in finance, rather than economics (though obviously there’s a lot of crossover).
Yeah, I think it’s pretty clear from his bafflement at references continually being made to his username, the fact that no one would discuss economics or finance, the fact that people kept asking him questions about SFF, and his comment “It’s a tossup as to who the biggest bunch of assholes on the internet are… the RP/SP or the SJWs”
… he didn’t come here understanding that this is an SFF forum. He came here thinking that it was the hangout of an organized group called “SJW”s, because over in VD’s forum for an organized group called the Puppies, that’s how they’re referring to File770.
And since over there they spend a great deal of time talking about anything (as long as the subject matter can be used deride the so-called “SJW”s), he thought that’s what File770 would be, too.
Lamont Cranston III —
If you don’t know about The Shadow, and you say you’re not knowledgeable about SF or Fantasy, just why *are* you here?
I mean, we’ll be glad to geek out over a whole lot of things, but just what did you think would be attractive about the conversation at this pub?
@JJ:
Have they taken up the definition challenge?
Because I don’t own a Siamese cat (nor am I owned by one).
@Owlmirror
Same shit, different Vox Day. *cough* Anyway…
There’s actually a really fascinating pile (and by “pile” I mean small mountain) of guano with its surrounding ecology in the Planet Earth episode “Caves”….
This is why they didn’t fly the eagles in (SFW, except for salty language)
http://oglaf.com/ornithology/
“Only three works were eligible for consideration based on my determination not to reward the pupfans who thought it would be funny to poke the SJW’s in the eye by way of screwing with a 75 year old tradition.”
Ahhh, tradition. Tradition for me but not for thee?
@rcade Thank you for the work in asking Jemisin for further info.
@Cpaca Oglaf references are automatically fun and relevant in all circumstances! (But I should mention for the unwary that at least 50% of Oglaf strips are spectacularly NSFW.)
@Mark: “(But I should mention for the unwary that at least 50% of Oglaf strips are spectacularly NSFW.)”
And that the remaining 50% are just mildly NSFW….
The last couple of comment threads have brought about involuntary but very sincere sympathy for the authors of Turncoat and Samurai. This is some prolonged critical mauling they’re getting. If they can get past that, there’s some valuable critical commentary they might take on board, which might be some consolation. Of course, this goes with being nominated for the Hugo, the more so in such controversial circumstances, but still. Ouch.
Nick Mamatas:
No, I haven’t read “A Single Samurai” and probably never will (just as I haven’t read any of the other short fiction nominees, and probably never will). Mine was a general comment pointing to a well-known (I thought) example of a first person narration cut short by the narrator’s demise. I think Thompson is more clever than you give him credit for, but as his British publisher I do have a dog in that fight so I’ll say no more.
Nick, I would like to thank you for that excerpt. I am particularly enjoying this sentence:
“In the near distance, hulking concrete bunkers, ugly and indifferent, held back the jungle’s creep.”
Well, at least the bunkers have a purpose. You would definitely want the jungle’s creep to be held back. You would not want him, for example, lurking around the fountain scaring the pigeons, who have enough to endure with the random murders and heat and so forth without having to deal with creepy jungle guy.
“Vox Popoli” is neither English nor Italian, it’s Latin, and it means “the voice of the people”. As in the saying “Vox popoli, vox Dei,” “The voice of the people is the voice of God”.
I am unaware of Vox meaning noise in English, but I am not a native speaker of English.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan: I am unaware of Vox meaning noise in English, but I am not a native speaker of English.
“Vox” does not mean “noise” in English. Tuomas is not a native English speaker. He is Making Shit Up (MSU™).
You don’t see “vox” used much in English. On the rare occasions when “vox” is used by English speakers, it is used in the Latin sense, meaning “voice”.
MickyFinn, I’m back online, so let me correct and supplement your comments above. For 2007-2015:
Novels worthy of consideration: Among Others, 2312, Rainbows End, Eifelheim, BlindSight, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Brasyl, The City and the City, The Windup Girl, Anathem. Little Brother somehow squeaked in and I found Embassytown rougher than I expected but didn’t begrudge it or The Graveyard Book a place.
I was ambivalent about Julian Comstock, Palimpsest, Stross post-Accelerando (I know others see differently), perhaps Throne of the Crescent Moon and why don’t we The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms here too.
I wouldn’t have wanted to give a Hugo to the novels by Scalzi, Mira Grant, Sawyer, Bujold’s “ummm… minor works,” Blackout/All Clear, Redshirts, Ancillary Justice, Warbound, WoT, His Majesty’s Dragon, or Leviathan Wakes. I’m going to put Boneshaker down here too. I didn’t feel a special urge to give a Hugo to A Dance with Dragons, though I hope GRRM gets his Big One at some point. This year, I’m not rooting for Skin Game, Dark Between the Stars, or The Goblin Emperor, and although I haven’t read Ancillary Sword yet, it would have to up its game from book one.
So in 2007-10 there were usually 2.5-3.5 works that really made me really go “hmm…” In 2011-13, only 1 or 1.5. In 2014 there were zero (see Stross caveat), and in 2015 zero if you don’t count the book that arrived after others withdrew.
There is a “Scalzi effect” in 2008-09 and 2013, “Mira Grant effect” in 2011-2014, “Sawyer effect” in 2008 and 2010, “Willis later work effect” in 2011 and “Bujold later work effect” in 2011 and 2013.
Bag the rest as “works not to Brian’s taste.”
Was the “Scalzi effect” the result of a changing voter pool and/or nominating practices? Yes. He got big after putting a book on the internet, becoming a whizbang blogger and meme generator. (His books are fine reads, but is that alone what got him on the ballot?)
Were Mira Grant’s wins the result of changing voter pools and nominating practices? Complicated. Some existing likely Mira Grant fans jumped on the wagon as it rolled by. Did the voter pool expand in 2011-14 to include more Mira Grant fans? Probably. Did fans/author rely on novel ways to campaign/mobilize votes? Maybe.
How about the Sawyer, Willis and Bujold effects?
Part of this is the existing fan base nominating minor works. Sawyer can be fairly described as a talented self-promoter with a web presence, so that’s more complicated.
How about the bag of works not to Brian’s taste?
1) Are first novels (or other novels by less universally acclaimed authors), rising to the top faster than in the past? Even though they might be flawed, as first novels often are, perhaps with uneven writing, storytelling or worldbuilding? Could these be getting more support more quickly through online means than was possible in the past? Do these novels have greater appeal to some of the newer fans that are joining up?
This seems likely. My instinct is to say there might be better ways to honor the author of a first novel, but others may disagree.
2) Are new thematic concerns/preferences emerging in the larger voting pool?
It seems so. A wave of renewed interest in diversity-related themes was discussed here, though of course women and authors of color have been among the giants in the field who are honored with Hugos for decades. In 2014-15 a preference for “ripping yarns” (or whatever they are) was announced, and a stated preference for works in which “lefty” messages don’t “get in the way” (whatever that means). Some cast this split in terms of the wider Culture Wars. I suspect political and ideological currents in fandom are more complex, and that some elements emerged from within traditional fandom and others through new online fandom.
Is the internet and/or the new voting practices of newly added members leading them to vote in novel ways?
Yes. An example in 2015 was the rise of “slates” accompanied by a message such as “vote precisely they are” or “here is a slate of recommendations you are urged to read and consider.” Tying a set of recommendations to an online campaign or movement seems fairly new in general.
There is a greater proliferation of “eligibility” posts, self promotion, and lobbying efforts (see: WoT). Authors are often expected (by publishers and fans) to blog and have an internet presence and the Scalzi effect has gone global. A Dance With Dragons was uniquely tied to GoT mass mania. The most undesirable part of this, to me, is that an author soap box may sway the decisions of fans at the ballot box, but we could be too far down this road to go back.
Some argued that interest in specific thematic concerns can coalesce and become a kind of “campaign” without specific marching orders. Some have asked whether widespread online celebration of diversity, particularly in 2013-14, had a noticeable impact. I don’t know.
In 2011-2014 I myself increasingly looked at nomination-season posts by critics I value and author/bloggers I enjoy, prioritizing what they recommend on my reading list. This took the form of reviews, recommended lists, or “here’s what I’m nominating.” This has a noticeable effect on me. I don’t know what effect it has on you.
That is my own impression of what might possibly be a pattern.
@Brian Z: “Tying a set of recommendations to an online campaign or movement seems fairly new in general.”
It doesn’t seem fairly anything. It *is* new. Larry Correia and crew did it new his year, blatantly. They invented the idea out of paranoid wish-fulfilment and implemented it.
No one as regards the Hugos has ever done anything even remotely like slates before. Credit where it is due. This is entirely Larry Correia’s, Brad Torgersen’s, John C. Wright’s, and Theodore Beale’s novel deed.
Peace, a campaign tied to a slate of about five recommended works per category is new this year. There were other forms of campaigning and self-promotion before that.
Brian,
Did you have anything new or not completely obvious to add, or are you just going over the same regurgitated puppy points to remain in practice?
Nigel on May 26, 2015 at 1:02 am said:
The last couple of comment threads have brought about involuntary but very sincere sympathy for the authors of Turncoat and Samurai. This is some prolonged critical mauling they’re getting. If they can get past that, there’s some valuable critical commentary they might take on board, which might be some consolation. Of course, this goes with being nominated for the Hugo, the more so in such controversial circumstances, but still. Ouch.
Perhaps their work may have been better equipped to withstand criticism if it had received more robust editing or evaluation by the authors’ peers before publication.
Craig R. on May 25, 2015 at 10:59 pm said:
Lamont Cranston III —
If you don’t know about The Shadow, and you say you’re not knowledgeable about SF or Fantasy, just why *are* you here?
I mean, we’ll be glad to geek out over a whole lot of things, but just what did you think would be attractive about the conversation at this pub?
He presumably wanted to do his part for his Fearless Leader in the Culture Wars against the imaginary enemy team of “SJWs”.
Alexvdl, I was asked to state explicitly the patterns I saw. I’d ask you to clarify what puppy points I’m regurgitating but that would be concern trolling.
Yes, which is why I emphasized the newness of the strategy in what I hoped was a clear and emphatic post.
I also hoped that I made clear just how different this new Puppy scorched-earth nomination policy was, compared to the relatively modest, but still frowned upon self-promo efforts of the past.
‘Perhaps their work may have been better equipped to withstand criticism if it had received more robust editing or evaluation by the authors’ peers before publication.’
Yeah, instead of being taken apart in the full glare of the public eye.