(1) A sweet new image for science fiction loving dogs!
Cool Corgi Dresses Up As All 13 Doctors From ‘Doctor Who’ —
(2) What brand of cigarettes did Godzilla smoke? I never wondered before. See behind-the-scenes photos from the Japanese movie productions, including the fellow who wore the monster suit taking a smoke break. At Dangerous Minds.
Actor Haruo Nakajima (pictured above) spent nearly 25 years inside the rubber Godzilla suit that he gleefully trampled over mini-Tokyo in for various Godzilla or monster-themed films from the early 50s through the 1970s.
(3) James Lileks’ satire for National Review, “The Twitterverse Strikes Back against the Phantom Menace of Anti-Star Wars Racists!”, begins –
According to my Twitter feed, gullible people are complaining –
I should just stop right there and wrap it up, right? After breaking news like that, where could I possibly go?
…Anyway. If Luke comes out in the new film wearing the Leia slave bikini; if Chewie marries Groot; if Han makes a big speech about how the end of the Empire means they can rebuild the galaxy along the lines of, say, Denmark; if the main villain is named Ben-Ghazi — then you might complain that you’re being Force-fed some political drivel. Even then it wouldn’t matter.
(4) A pretty fancy bookmark. A map of Middle-Earth annotated by J.R.R. Tolkien for illustrator Pauline Baynes is being sold by Blackwell’s for 60,000 reports the Guardian.
A recently discovered map of Middle-earth annotated by JRR Tolkien reveals The Lord of the Rings author’s observation that Hobbiton is on the same latitude as Oxford, and implies that the Italian city of Ravenna could be the inspiration behind the fictional city of Minas Tirith.
The map was found loose in a copy of the acclaimed illustrator Pauline Baynes’ copy of The Lord of the Rings. Baynes had removed the map from another edition of the novel as she began work on her own colour Map of Middle-earth for Tolkien, which would go on to be published by Allen & Unwin in 1970. Tolkien himself had then copiously annotated it in green ink and pencil, with Baynes adding her own notes to the document while she worked.
Blackwell’s, which is currently exhibiting the map in Oxford and selling it for £60,000, called it “an important document, and perhaps the finest piece of Tolkien ephemera to emerge in the last 20 years at least”.
It shows what Blackwell’s called “the exacting nature” of Tolkien’s creative vision: he corrects place names, provides extra ones, and gives Baynes a host of suggestions about the map’s various flora and fauna. Hobbiton, he notes, “ is assumed to be approx at latitude of Oxford”; Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University.
David Doering argues, “I feel that such artifacts need to be in public, not private, hands. This is a critical piece of our cultural history and is of immense value. It should not allowed to disappear into private hands.”
(Fifth 4) John C. Wright explains how “My Elves are Different; Or, Erlkoenig and Appendix N”.
When calculating how to portray the elves in my current writing project (tentatively titled Moths and Cobwebs) I was thinking about Erlkoenig and Appendix N, and (of course!) about GK Chesterton. There is a connected train of thought here, but it meanders through some ox-bows and digressions, so I hope the patient reader enjoys the scenic route of thought.
First, Erlkoenig. I had noticed for some time that there was many a younger reader whose mental picture of the elves (those inhabitants of the Perilous Realm, the Otherworld, whose ways are not our ways) was formed entirely by JRR Tolkien and his imitators. They are basically prelapsarian men: like us in stature and passions, but nobler, older, and not suffering our post-Edenic divorce from the natural world. This is not alien to the older themes and material on which Tolkien drew, but there is alongside this an older and darker version.
(5) Nancy Fulda outlines “What To Expect When You Start An Internet Kerfuffle” for the SFWA Blog.
And so you write a blog post.
It is the most difficult and most magnificent thing you’ve ever written, pure words of truth sucked directly out of your soul. You feel triumphant. Liberated. (Terrified, too, but that doesn’t matter now.) You have said the Thing That Must Be Said, and you have done so with courage and clarity. You click a button, and send your words winging toward humanity.
And then, of course, the internet does what the internet does best.
It starts kerfluffling….
Day 2: Negative feedback.
Your post has reached people with opposing viewpoints. Many of them. Blog posts pop up across the internet, criticizing and often misrepresenting your stance. Angry comments multiply like weeds. Email conversations ensue. You become embroiled in a number of difficult and confrontational exchanges, often with people who seem incapable of understanding what you’re trying to say.
You may get hate mail. Depending on what you’ve said and who you’ve said it to, the content of those emails may be very, very ugly indeed. Your hands are trembling by the time you click the delete button.
By the end of the day, you’re afraid to check your email. Comments are still rolling in, and somehow, even the positive messages only make you more aware of the bad ones. You wonder whether this was all a mistake. At the same time, you can’t stop refreshing your screen. The rest of your life has ground to a screeching halt; deadlines missed, meals skipped, loved ones neglected. Even when you’re not online, your thoughts are spiraling around what’s happened there.
And people are still retweeting your post.
(6) Today’s Birthday Boy
- October 23, 1942 – Michael Crichton
(7) Last weekend the Iron Hill brewery chain in Pennsylvania offered Harry Potter-themed fare reports Philly.com.
The pub will serve Dumbledore’s Dubbel, a sweet Belgian ale; and Voldermort’s Wrath, a West-Coast style IPA with an intense bitter hop flavor. In addition to the limited brews, a Harry Potter-themed menu will be served for those hungry wizards. Items include:
- Aunt Petunia’s Mulligatawny Soup
- Slytherin Smoky Pumpkin Salad
- Ron’s Corned Beef Toasts
- Hogwart’s Express Pumpkin Pastry
- Dumbledore’s Cauldron Beef Stew
- Butterbeer-Braised Pork Loin
- Pan-Seared Chinese Fireball (salmon)
- Mrs. Weasley’s English Toffee Crumble
For the non-beer drinker: Butterbeer and autumn-themed mixed drinks will be available.
(9) Details about J.K. Rowling’s new Harry Potter play are online. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will pick up 19 years after the seventh book, and it will focus on Harry and his youngest son, Albus. Here’s a brief about the plot play’s website:
It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.
While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
(10) Here’s some artwork from the forthcoming production.
(11) The pilot and second episode of Amazon’s original series The Man In The High Castle can be viewed for no-charge here through 11:59 PM PST on Sunday, October 25 in the U.S. and UK.
The season launch of all episodes will be November 20.
(12) Andrew Liptak recalls the history of science fiction in Playboy magazine at Kirkus Reviews.
(13) Alastair Reynolds covers his trip to Russia on Approaching Pavonis Mons.
My wife and I are big on art, and we’d long wanted to visit the Hermitage. I can safely say that it was everything we’d hoped it would be, times about ten, and although we went back for a second day, you could cheerfully spend a month in the place and not see enough.
(14) Zombie George R.R. Martin will soon be on the air:
For all you Z NATION fans out there, and those who aren’t (yet) too, my long-anticipated guest starring role as a rotting corpse is scheduled for the October 30 episode, “The Collector.”
(15) At Teleread Chris Meadows pays tribute to prolific Amazon reviewer Harriet Klausner, who was an important part of the growth of online book sales via Amazon.
Harriet Klausner, at one time one of the most recognizable names on Amazon, passed away on October 15, at the age of 63. Klausner was a speed-reader who was one of the most prolific customer reviewers on Amazon, with over 31,000 reviews to her credit at the time of her death. According to a 2006 Time profile of her, she read an average of 4 to 6 books per day. Although the details of her death were not disclosed, it must have happened fairly quickly—the last review on her Amazon.com reviewer page is dated October 12.
(16) Jonathan R. Eller speaks about Fahrenheit 451 at Wisconsin Lutheran College on October 26.
(17) The wisdom of the Fred!
https://twitter.com/FredKiesche/status/657600422794915841
[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Robotech Master, Phil Nichols, Steven H Silver, David Doering, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day the indefatigable Will R.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
Congratulations to Cat Faber for winning a 2015 Pegasus Award for Excellence in Filk.
@Meredith @ Graydon
re: EPH
I think that EPH is a good change just on general principals. There’s been a recognized hole in the nomination process for decades. Just because this is the first concerted attempt to dominate the nominations, now that it’s been announced on the interwebs, there *will* eventually be others.
Depending on the size and discipline of the slate you might need 15 or 20 (or more) times as many nominators to overcome the concentration power of a slate. So, imo, EPH (or something like) is just good sense.
The irony of JCW (who has admitted not having read Ancillary Justice, and who, based on the things he’s said, does not appear to have read The Left Hand of Darkness, either) telling everyone else that he just knows they have not read certain books, is utterly priceless.
I’d never read any KSR before 2312 — but I knew his books have received many award nominations and wins, and are highly praised by a lot of people. So I was really looking forward to reading 2312. It was a huge disappointment. The non-binary gender element was clumsy and contrived. The plotting was flawed, and the pacing poor. It wasn’t an awful book, it was okay — but it certainly wasn’t award-quality (though I will grant that it was less flawed than Seveneves).
Then I read Shaman — or tried to. That book was utterly execrable. I am informed by people whose judgment I trust that some of KSR’s earlier works are fantastic. The problem is that, like Jo Walton, KSR now has 2 strikes with me, I’m feeling no sense of urgency whatsoever to read any more of his works, and if the 3rd book of his I try is no better than the other two, he will go on my list of “only if I have vote on his work because it’s a nominee, otherwise I’d rather spend my precious reading time on other authors”.
@Meredith
re: sorting
I’d prefer alpha by title. I’ll be checking your list against what I’ve already read complete, read a sample but didn’t like, or read a description and didn’t think I would like. So random would be difficult for me as a user, too.
I f I worry about bias I’ll start in the middle and work out ;-9
junego: I’d prefer alpha by title. I’ll be checking your list against what I’ve already read
I’ll second this. And for all the gods’ sakes, please, PLEASE alphabetize works which begin with articles such as “A” and “The” by the first real word in the title. </librarianOCD> 😉
I hope you enjoy it!
Mike Glyer: Congratulations to Cat Faber for winning a 2015 Pegasus Award for Excellence in Filk.
Ooo, Cat, fantastic! Congratulations!
I’m announcing how I am going to conduct myself.
Let’s not pretend Kate Paulk is interested in my opinion, which is that she shouldn’t be running SP4 at all.
That all sounds reasonable.
Though let me ask — are you interested in covering every category? You could just do fiction, or the pro categories, or divide it up any way you like.
@junego,
This certainly hasn’t been the first.
Silly but True
Don’t lean too heavily on your evaluation of the livestream audio.
I was in the balcony and the audience reactions were loud.
@junego
Noted! Would moving the letters around (e.g. Kurt’s or Ita’s ideas) make it difficult for you or would it be okay so long as things were grouped within each letter, or perhaps if I provided the order at the beginning? I’m happy to avoid unintentional favour, but I don’t want to make it user-unfriendly, either – and I’d rather err on the user-friendly end.
@JJ
I think I’ve been doing that! I might have missed some. What I haven’t been doing is moving articles to the end and commaing, but that’s mostly because I personally have always found that a bit annoying to read or rewrite from someone who didn’t type it that way. The Lord of the Rings (in the L section) rather than Lord of the Rings, The. If you’d rather I comma’d as well let me know, but I make no promises to stick with it if it starts annoying me. 😉
I’ve done some data entry for my mother’s library off and on, so I can do it, I just… Prefer not to. But again: I don’t want it to be user-unfriendly, so opinions from anyone are welcome re: to move the article or not to move the article and which one is easier to read. If lots of people prefer moving the article I’ll move it, and if most people prefer to keep it at the beginning I’ll do that.
@Mike Glyer
I was planning to cover as many categories as people made suggestions for, so long as there were enough suggestions. I expect the ones that are guaranteed a presence are the fiction categories (possibly excluding novella – that didn’t hit ten for the Retro’s in the original list) and probably Related Work and Fan Writer, but I’m not sure about all the others yet. Still, recommendations allowing, I’d like to cover the whole thing. It would be a shame to leave out the less voted on categories and contribute in a small way to them being less voted on..!
I’m hoping that, once I’ve got a solid idea about which categories need a bit of a nudge (too soon to tell quite yet), I’ll be able to throw open the floor in a Pixel Scroll comment thread here and there and encourage people to give those categories a think. Hopefully that will be enough to boost the numbers up to acceptable levels for the list (and also just be generally a good thing to talk about).
Using “Lord of the Rings, The” at the end seems to be a relic from before the days when you could have an extra “sort by” entry on your data.
@Meredith
re: the listing
Don’t make any more work for yourself than necessary. Leave the articles at the front of the titles. We can figure it out.
On alphabetization, Starting at M, N, O,…A, B, C,… like Ita suggested is fine. Kurt’s will work, too, just not convinced we need to go to these lengths. I’m willing to go along with the consensus, though. Even if randomization is chosen, I’ll survive! :^0
Mike: I was impressed that you announced how you will promote Hugo recs in a way that you think maintains integrity and intellectual consistency.
If you posted your own recommendation list with a request that people refrain from incorporating it into any master list, it would be bad form to do that against your wishes. I’m less clear on the ethics of how one should or shouldn’t make use of information in statements by commenters on blog threads. I’m not saying you are wrong – but it seems murky.
Personally, if presented with an aggregate list of File 770 recs sans any information about the people endorsing them, I’d feel almost insulted that the consensus here is people are too easily brainwashed to be exposed to such dangerous information. And I’d feel more satisfied with a site that goes the NESFA route – add a column to the table naming the individuals who recommended each item.
The NESFA method has one obvious advantage. If Scrollwithered: the Unpixeled Realm received five recommendations, and that drew your eye, and on close inspection you noticed they were from Vox, Markuu, Big Gay Steve, Buwaya and Tuomas Vainio, you’d be able to say, phew! now that TBR mountain is one book lighter.
Secondhand bookstores and charity shops tend to be crammed with them, long-forgotten mass-market paperbacks and book club editions by authors who jumped on the Tolkien bandwagon back in the 70s.
Most of them are thoroughly forgotten. It’s why names are hard to dredge up.
People also may be referring to less blatant ripoffs than Terry Brooks’ feeble clones, possibly heavily-influenced not terribly original authors like David Eddings or all the Dungeons & Dragons tie-in novels.
Brian Z.: I’m less clear on the ethics
No truer words were ever written.
@Jamoche
Library systems often seem to me a bit behind the times. I just don’t want to dismiss the idea that some people might find that style easier to read,
@junego
Well, if I end up using Kurt’s idea I’ll definitely provide a key at the beginning so each letter is easier to find, and I hope that will help. 🙂
Oh… For the person-not-the-work categories, do you think I ought to sort by forename or surname? My natural inclination is surname, but I’m not fixated on it.
@Brian Z
As I would with anyone else, I will take your preferences into consideration.
The primary reason for leaving names out – I’m sure you will have seen the other lists I’ve done and you’ll be aware that I usually keep the names – is to avoid people being able to figure out that Editor A only got one nod, but Editor B got ten. To keep the names would, I feel, violate the spirit if not the letter of Mike’s wish not to host a list which notes frequency. I would also prefer the list not to influence opinions unduly, or create the appearance of a slate, or allow someone to use my work to form a list in order of frequency.
In particular, I do not want to make it easy for someone to do the last one. I’m not worried about a Puppy or other misguided individual trawling through File770 comment threads from March onwards and forming a list from that (it would be a lot of work for little reward, most people don’t enjoy doing this like I do), but going through a pre-made list with helpfully obvious names and counting them? That could happen, and I’d rather it didn’t.
I also feel Mike has the right to say what he will or will not host on his blog, and equally has the right to request people do not put elsewhere File770 specific things that he didn’t want to host. I don’t think its a hardship for me to follow those wishes. At this point in time feel the only sensible and workable option is to list the names separately from the items.
If you have any further comments on names or on the formatting (or any other aspect) I am happy to listen to those.
Oh dear. I remember that.
I think that if the Brothers Hildebrandt were so all-fired on painting still yet more Tolkienesque images they should have just focused on that and not tried to justify them with a clumsily-written pastiche.
I can now recall something or other I bought on the promise it was Tolkienesque, a book that made me uncomfortable right from the start when the author thanked “G-d” for making their talent possible. It seemed, like the Hildebrandt’s book, to have been written as an excuse to draw a lot of illustrations. As I recall it it started with a race of essentially hobbits, little peaceful people who lived in treehouses instead of underground, one modest specimen of whom got whisked off to Big Adventures.
These sorts of things came into the bookstores every week by the crate.
Even as a kid with a voracious book appetite and not too much discrimination, I could tell this was nothing worth reading again or remembering.
@stevie
Serpents Reach, looks like I’m back to trawling Amazon’s 2nd hand sellers then…
ETA Cyteen is awaiting some quality reading time, doubt it’d be easy commuting fare. Unlike the Martian which I got through a significant chunk on my phone on a bus to Glasgow on the way to a gig and therefor without kindle.
Meredith: To keep the names would, I feel, violate the spirit if not the letter of Mike’s wish not to host a list which notes frequency.
I think your approach is hugely appropriate. Anyone who is heavily interested in figuring out which Filer(s) recommended a given work can easily do so using Google searches; you don’t need to include that information with your list.
As far as alphabetization, my comment was only a general one based on my OCD-ness, and is not in relation to any of the yeoman listmaking work you’ve already done on File770. Book, The is not necessary (in fact, as you pointed out, it’s rather clunky). The Book, filed under “B”, will satisfy both OCD me and, I am sure, the Librarian Gods.
@brianz
Maybe you can tell me what the acceptable audience response to No Award would have been?
This is such a fair and accurate paraphrasing of everything I’ve said so far that I’m starting to feel redundant. It’s clear BrianZ could hold both sides of this conversation perfectly well without me.
The way you do it? Inevitably.
Meredith, thank you for the reasoned response. It makes sense that you’d like to follow Mike’s wishes. I’d like to keep the privilege of posting recommendations (“Folding Beijing,” “The Buzzard’s Egg,” Red Girls, Luna: New Moon) on File 770 and also keep the privilege of inviting people to look at what I wrote and cite, link, endorse, critique, tally, analyze, or argue with it. But I’m just one poster.
@JJ
Gotcha. 🙂 Everyone has been very helpful so far.
Nigel, all I saw was where you mocked the idea that JCW has fans, or they are capable of independent thought, or he might take their feelings into account, or sincere voters might be upset by accusation they were slavishly promoting their master’s ultra right-wing agenda, or something. I’ve seen you make good points before, but if you’ve made one here it’s not peeking out from under all that bluster.
I certainly wouldn’t have applauded it.
Did you notice where the applause got so out of control that the people feeling dismayed by it started booing in response, and after Gerrold shut the booing down the applause became more restrained again? That audience knew it was crossing a line – but they were enjoying the raw tribalism and anyway “the puppies” “deserved it.”
@Brian Z
And I’m sure that’s all fine on an individual level, but it gets more complicated once aggregation is involved. I would prefer to err on the side of caution.
Is that what you saw? I had wondered. What I mocked was your use of italics for emotional emphasis. Emotional emphasis. John C Wright and his fans set themselves up for a humiliation. Sincerity and independent thought, however much they had of either, couldn’t protect them from themselves. They really should stop blaming everyone else for it. And you should stop smoothing the rough edges off history. Nobody likes that sort of revisionism.
Yeah, damn those SJWs and Torlings and Chorfs and secret cabalists and gatekeeping trufans who read and award books they don’t like. How dare they have feelings? Unlike John C Wright and his fans. His fans.
@brianz
What though? Dead silence? Can’t see that having gone down any better. Though it would have made clear who was booing.
I can think of plenty reactions that would have been worse: slow hand clap; jeers and cat calls; filking…
Greg —
> “I suspect you have probably seen this, but it’s one of my favorites in the genre.”
I hadn’t seen that, actually!
Eerily familiar, isn’t it?
Tribble on tribble sex acts preformed live on stage.
@Brian Z
I just had a quick watch of the ceremony feed, and there doesn’t seem to be a material difference between the applause after the Short Story category (the one with the small amount of booing), the Novella category that got the next No Award, or the Editor Short Form category that preceded it but one. The Editor Long Form had slightly less than any of the others, presumably because it immediately followed Short (no other NA category immediately followed another NA category). None of those categories had applause equivalent to that which followed the Related Work category (the first NA), which was louder and more sustained. I don’t think you could reasonably describe the cheering that occurred in conjunction with the booing as getting “so out of control” since it was perfectly in line with Editor Short and Novella and considerably less than Related Work, nor could you describe it as getting more restrained afterwards.
It has been awhile and memories can be a little faulty. Mistakes happen. However, making assumptions based on faulty memory of cheering quantities and nothing else, about what a large group of people “knew” and were “enjoying” seems unwise.
No come on, that wouldn’t have been worse. I for one would have enjoyed it.
Although I understand they are partenogenic… Aw, ok, not as much fun.
Given the puppies’ general knowledge of the world and sophistication, they might not have understood that slow hand clap was not congratulatory.
Honestly, I am sorry for the Puppies who, having managed not to come into contact with base reality for several months, realised in a crushing moment of disappointment and hurt that reality does indeed have a liberal bias.
But then I feel sorry for the Puppies almost continuously. Living in that small trembling bubble of victimhood can’t be fun. Feeling always under siege by the hordes of feminazi and white-hating liberals. Constantly enraged. Being deprived of the joy of reading good books. Missing out on Ann Leckie.
@Brian Z From experience, I’d also warn against using constructions that sound conversational to the ear. The next worst thing, apparently, is using ellipses … despite their venerable history:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/20/unfinished-story-how-the-ellipsis-arrived-in-english-literature
Meredith, I couldn’t comment on the relative strength from one category to the next without rewatching it, but I heard booing which I gathered was in response to the wild applause for several No Awards in a row. The MC’s reprimand was followed by restrained applause, and then the volume of the cheering went right back up for the next category. I’m sorry, it sounded like the sort of tribal outburst you’d expect at a sports match, not a literary awards ceremony. Like the business with the asterisks, I think that at some point people could and should have realized what it was turning into, and toned things down.
@Will R.
I often edit out ellipses when I’m refining my comments. I quite like them, but I try not to over-do it because my writing is rough and ready and colloquial enough as it is without indulging in ellipses I don’t really need. I try to save them for when nothing but an ellipse will do!
Conversational language is tricky. It can work or fail, soothe ruffled feathers or offend with over-familiarity. I don’t like to avoid it entirely, but I do prefer to keep it to situations where the temperature isn’t already high. Joking around works the same way, although I have a bad habit of trying to defuse tense conversations with humour and that can backfire horribly.
Brian Z: Did you notice where the applause got so out of control that the people feeling dismayed by it started booing in response
Yeah, nah. I was there, in about the 30th row. The Puppies didn’t start booing in response to the applause, they were booing from the moment “No Award” was announced. Stop trying to pretend that they weren’t behaving incredibly badly, or that their bad behavior was in response to the applause.
Their incredibly childish bad behavior was in response to not being given the prizes they thought they were entitled to steal.
Nigel, at the time his fans had just been attacked across the internet as cheaters and neo-fascist minions for nominating a few books and authors they liked. Of course it was emotional.
Once can admire JCW’s loyalty to his readers, even when it reached the point they were boycotting his own books, without endorsing his penchant for rhetorical excess or thinking he helped his own case with all of that.
As for what went down at the ceremony, I just wish people could have got through a tragic situation without actively making it worse.
No, the booers weren’t helping either. I do think that if there had been respectful silence, or even a brief smattering of applause, things wouldn’t have degenerated into raucous cheers and boos from the peanut gallery. Maybe I’m wrong.
@Brian Z: Meredith, thank you for the reasoned response. It makes sense that you’d like to follow Mike’s wishes. I’d like to keep the privilege of posting recommendations (“Folding Beijing,” “The Buzzard’s Egg,” Red Girls, Luna: New Moon) on File 770 and also keep the privilege of inviting people to look at what I wrote and cite, link, endorse, critique, tally, analyze, or argue with it. But I’m just one poster.
But you get all that. You get it when you post, “Say, guys, I just read this terrific book called “The Library At Mount Char” by Scott Hawkins. Really bleak, trigger warnings for torture (including child torture and references to rape off-screen), yet compelling. Not the sort of book I’d normally read; I’m really not into grimdark. Yet incredible well-written.”
You’re not just emailing Meredith. You’re making a public declaration on this site, and people will react, as they do, on this site with the sort of discussion and engagement Filers are known for.
@Meredith: Is there any way at all that you can include mini-reviews when posted, as per above? Maybe only one or two per book tops, so that it’s not obvious that forty-seven people are planning to nominate one book, and only one person is planning to nominate another. Hmm. Ok. Typing this out I can see it would be a lot of bother. How would you choose whose mini-review to put in? So maybe not…
The poor things. All because they cheated, threw in with a neo-fascist, were repeatedly horrible about the hugos and the people who run them and vote in them, and dismissed the books and authors those people liked as fakes and cheats and affirmative action. SO EMOTIONAL. Hmm, better add italics. SO EMOTIONAL.
It was a lot of things, but it was not a flippin’ tragedy. The closest it comes to tragedy is in the case of Eugie Foster losing out on a nomination, and we know who helped bring that about. Huh. The more I think about it, the more they deserved that applause.
@Meredith That sounds like a very sensible approach.
Eugie Foster’s story wouldn’t have passed the 5% rule, unfortunately. Which is one argument for efforts like Sad Puppies 4. Nigel, you know full well that it is an open question whether there was any “cheating,” and even if a bunch of people did vote straight down those lists, they were definitely in the minority. Nor does buying a supporting membership for the first time because you are a Baen books subscriber or Jim Butcher fan who read about it on Larry Correia’s blog mean that you “threw in with a neo-fascist.”
Brian Z.: it is an open question whether there was any “cheating”
Sure, it’s an open question as to whether there was cheating if you’re “not clear on the ethics”. If you’re clear on the ethics, the slates were a cheat.
The slated works could not have made it onto the Hugo ballot on their own merit. They only made the ballot because they were on a slate that a great many people chose to follow for political reasons. What was done may not have been prohibited by the rules, but it was still cheating.
Most people who nominated things from the SP3 recommendation list picked a few that they liked and filled in the rest of their ballot with other things. This was probably true all summer and we knew for sure after Sasquan. That’s no better or worse than joining the Wheel of Time campaign, or going to a Seanan McGuire fan site to find her five eligible things. There is no evidence that “most people” “chose to follow” for “political reasons.” That’s why they nominated “Goodnight Stars” and “Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer”? Because you have no way to support that accusation, you choose instead to spew ad hominem.
Still the closest thing to tragedy in the whole affair.
Of course there wasn’t cheating, there was gaming of the rules. We still call it cheating and the people who do it cheaters. Sucks to be a cheater.
It might. Ignorance is no defence. At best it makes you a neo-fascist’s dupe. But how did John C Wright’s his fans suddenly turn into Jim Butcher’s his fans? Dupes or no, nobody would argue Butcher’s followers (as opposed to his fans, of which there were plenty on all sides) were in any way a core part of either set of puppies. Are we wrong to be harshly critical of what the puppies did because of outliers like them?
But oh God why are we supposed to worry about this? They hate us. They despise us. They have from the start. The malice they attribute to the applause and the asterisk is grotesquely, vastly, laughably overstated. You have to know this, but somehow they always come off as the victims of our ill will in your little potted revisionisms.
Okay, Brian, explain how the slated entries would have made it onto the ballot on their own merits. Pick 1 of the slate novellas, and find 160 positive reviews or recommendations by different people posted online for that work prior to February 1, 2015. Or pick 1 of the slate novelettes, and find 55 different positive reviews or recommendations posted online for that work prior to February 1. Or pick 1 of the slate short stories, and find 59 different positive reviews or recommendations posted online for that work prior to February 1.
You can’t do it. You won’t come even close — because that kind of support simply did not exist in anywhere close to those numbers.
The slate entries would not have made it onto the hugo ballot on their own merits. That’s not ad hominem, it’s a fact.