aka Muttropolis.
Last roundup tomorrow, July 6.
Banner art changes tomorrow.
What the future holds for File 770 arrives tomorrow!
Meanwhile, roundup content today is provided by Lou Antonelli, Joseph Tomaras, Jonathan Crowe, Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag, Mark Ciocco, Lis Carey, Len Schiff, and Bonnie McDaniel. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Will Reichard and Brad J. Book cover lifted from Will Reichard’s “Wishlist: Soviet Space Dogs”.)
Lou Antonelli on This Way to Texas
“Genrecide” – July 5
The dispute that arose when the Sad Puppy selections did so well in the Hugo nominations has probably created a permanent split of science fiction fans – not one created by the literature, but for social reasons.
Both sides have said such horrible things about each other that I doubt the rift will ever be healed. I wouldn’t be surprised if some semantic distinction arises later – such as the Sad Puppies’ type of fiction being called spec fic as opposed to science fiction.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden and her blog Making Light started the civil war when she realized her chums – the usual suspects – were not getting their Hugo nomination notice emails as usual. She blew up and started the vituperation a week before the actual announcement was made – proving the point, as Larry Corriea was pointed out, that there is an insider clique after all.
Mike Glyer, who’s been running his fan site File 770 since dirt was invented, unfortunately has kept the wildfires burning by collecting up Puppy posts and republishing them on his site. The comments threads there have become the clearing house for all Puppy Kicker resentment.
I don’t believe either side of completely right or completely wrong, but it really doesn’t matter anymore, because regardless of how or who started it, and how it ends, thanks to the internet too much has been said attacking too many people by so many people that there will probably be a long-term drop in readership and popular support.
Perhaps in the future people will say they read magic realism, or space opera, or dystopia, or alternate history – but as a result of the Puppy Wars, no one will actually want to admit they read “science fiction” because of all the negative connotations in the wake of the current unpleasantness.
Joseph Tomaras on A Skinseller’s Workshop
“I Lied: A Few More Words about the Hugos” – July 5
….As more people post their ballots and/or their critical response to the items on the ballot, I have been surprised at how critical judgment on Kary English’s “Totaled” has lined up. People who fault contemporary SF for leaving too little room for ambiguity have criticized it for unclear, unreliable narration in the early sections. (To which I respond: As if a recently revived brain-in-a-jar would be a reliable narrator.) People who have a habit of calling for “good stories” in the whiz-bang mode of military SF have praised the story for its emotional trajectory. It has scrambled the factional lines, and that, I think, suggests a few points in its favor. There is room for dispute over it, and is worth being revisited and debated on aesthetic grounds.
What I think is indisputable, unfortunately, is how thoroughly English herself stumbled over the politics of this year’s hyper-politicized Hugo. She went months after the announcement of the ballots before disavowing both the Sad and Rabid Puppies slates on which she had been placed: Long enough that most of the anti-canine wings of the Hugo electorate had already dismissed her as a fellow traveler, but not long enough to avoid the wrath of the Rabid Majordomo himself. I take this as an object lesson in how the center-right, quasi-depoliticized “common sense” that passes as “moderation” in the U.S. context can succeed, in a global context, only in pissing people off, whether in small matters (e.g. the Hugos) or in big ones (e.g. Guantánamo, drone bombings).
Jonathan Crowe
“Best Saga Proposal Revised” – July 5
So the proposal for a Best Saga Hugo Award (see previous entry) has since been revised: they’ve abandoned getting rid of Best Novelette, which was needlessly zero-sum, and have lowered the minimum word count. The proposal now says 300,000 words; the draft posted to File 770 at more or less the same time says 240,000. A series cannot win more than once, but it can certainly be nominated multiple times (so long as two new installments requalifies it) until it wins — I think of this as the “my favourite series better damn well win this time” provision.
I’m still not a fan: it’s going to be a popularity contest for very popular (if not always good) ongoing series. And any minimum word count is going to be exclusionary. A 240,000-word lower limit would have rendered ineligible the original Foundation trilogy — which won a one-off “Best All-Time Series” Hugo in 1966.
And as far as I can tell the amendment would still allow series to appear on the Best Novel ballot when the final installment is published, like The World of Time did last year.
Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag on Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog
“Hugo Blatherings” – July 5
Still, it means I’m going to be part of Worldcon for at least the next two and a half years. I’ll be voting in two more Hugos after this one. And I’ll be trying to actively look for things to nominate, as well. I’ll be checking out Renay’s Hugo Spreadsheet of Doom and the Hugo Nominees 2016 Wikia regularly once I’ve finished with this year’s packet to look for suggestions to read. I’ve already got a couple of things I plan to nominate, and a few more I haven’t finished reading yet but I think might make my list. I’ll post a few lists of possible nominations as I go, and once the deadline for nominations has passed, I might even post my actual nomination form.
The round-ups at File 770 have slowed down, mostly because there just isn’t that much to talk about the Hugos right now. Everyone is busy going through the packets or have finished voting and are just waiting for the convention. I fully expect another fake outrage to be manufactured soon, but I can’t guess what direction it will come from. I’ve been continuing to read David Gerrold on Facebook… he’s the guy that got me into this whole kerfuffle in the first place. I don’t think I would have cared as much if not for him.
Mark Ciocco on Kaedrin Weblog
“Hugo Awards: Novella” – July 5
The other shorter-than-a-novel-but-longer-than-a-short-story category, these tend to be longer reads, which is a shame because I didn’t particularly care for any of them. It’s also one of the weirder categories in that three of the five nominees are from the same author. Two of the stories are also significantly expanded versions of much shorter stories (which, given my complaints below, would probably have been much better for me). None of the nominees are particularly terrible, per say, I just failed to connect with them, and it makes me wish there was a little more variety here. I don’t want too dwell on this, so let’s just get to it:…
[Comments on all five nominees.]
For the first time this year, I’m actually thinking about deploying No Award on my ballot, if only to get past the ridiculous notion that one author wrote the three best novellas of the year or something. I mean, I guess such a thing is possible, but not with these three stories. That being said, Wright also wrote my clear favorite of the bunch, so I’m not slotting No Award very high.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
This is a Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form nominee for the 2015 Hugos. This is not a movie with any deep thoughts in its head. It’s pure, fun, over-the-top adventure, with colorful space battles and explosions…..
Bonnie McDaniel on Red Headed Femme
“The Hugo Project: Campbell Award” – July 5
(Note: This is the latest in an ongoing series of posts reviewing as many of the 2015 Hugo nominees as I can before the July 31 deadline, and explaining why I will or will not vote for them.)
The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer advertises itself, famously, as “not-a-Hugo,” celebrating what the Worldcon community decides is the best new science fiction/fantasy writer of the year. Unfortunately, like so much of the rest of the ballot, this category has been tainted by the shenanigans of the Impacted Canines.
(Forgive me for sounding testy. Several weeks of slogging through godawfully bad stories not worth their weight in puppy piss will do that to you. I mean, if you’re going to behave lawfully-but-unethically and game the awards, can’t you at least nominate something halfway decent? Apparently not, as most of the ballot proves.)
Listed from worst to best….
[Comments on all five nominees.]
Check out @CoraBuhlert's guest column "SFR and the Hugo Awards" in the free @SciFiRomance Quarterly #7 http://t.co/2EEdJ3p2L4 #scifiromance
— ThGalaxyExpress (@ThGalaxyExpress) July 5, 2015
[Nothing to do with Sad Puppies, but an interesting article.]
The Sad Puppies Desaturation Fund To Promote Whiteness In Science Fiction Awards #BadCharitiesToDonateTo
— Len Schiff (@Golem_of_Queens) July 5, 2015
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This is the best retitle of a film I have ever seen.
Yowzers! If Steinbeck pulled out your heart then he did his job as a writer. There is a reason the conclusion to Of Mice and Men is one of the most famous pieces of American literature. If Lamplighter’s version of hope is the thoughtless drivel free of reflection that her post describes, then she can keep it. What is hoped for is not a promise guaranteed by God or the universe. Hope has value because it is fragile and the world is indifferent.
That is the truth, and it is a hard truth. An easy truth ain’t worth a damn.
And from the other side there’s Jagi Lamplight’s mission statement for the Superversive movement.
Well, now we know two things:
1. Lamplighter can’t spell “disdain”.
2. Lamplighter doesn’t understand Steinbeck at all. And she doesn’t understand the literary purpose of tragedy.
Having read their drivel, it is amazing to me that Lamplighter and Wright are published authors.
My favourite Grey Goo story is Greg Bear’s Blood Music.
L. Jagi Lamplighter doesn’t have a clue what OF MICE AND MEN is about.
@ Tintinaus
I read The Pearl and Of Mice and Men in seventh grade, so about 13.
I already understood that books often have downer endings by then.
I’m particularly confused by Hoyt’s use of Grey Goo, because what “grey goo writing” automatically evokes for me is writing where everything has the same emotional value and the sentences are all the same length & structure. I associate it especially with the kind of fanfic writers who don’t feel confident about commas, and deal with it by only using them for lists. It. makes. their. writing. feel. very. monotonic.
Jagi Lamplighter taking on Steinbeck’s prose is like literary cosplay of the samurai unnoticed on the kaiju. I mean, seriously, the manifesto is that the goal of the superversive is to speak about miracles and the power of positive thinking and we shall overcome but most of all, it’s to ‘tell the truth’.
So, I’m confused. Is the truth that if we talked about miracles and the power of positive thinking and we shall overcome that the Dustbowl wouldn’t have happened and those Okies could figure out how to grow corn on sand? Or that Lennie could have somehow unsnapped Curly’s wife’s neck? I actually cannot parse the meaning of this manifesto. Sometimes life is no-win and garbage, but if we avoid mentioning that and fill our works with miracles and happily ever afters for kids that will focus them on doing that and overcoming and that is truth?
I’m particularly confused by Hoyt’s use of Grey Goo, because what “grey goo writing” automatically evokes for me is writing where everything has the same emotional value and the sentences are all the same length & structure.
So, The Dark Between the Stars then.
One of the Puppy complaints, including Hoyt specifically, is the moral content of stories. By that, I mean, the lack of story’s which unabashedly reinforce their own moral standards. That is what she is referencing. Hogwash.
First thought: How on God’s green Earth do you read Of Mice And Men and not understand why George shoots Lennie?
Second thought: Oh, I see. You do it by skipping to the second-to-last page.
Third thought: Lamplighter thinks that this is being “careful”.
Aaron:
Pretty much.
@Fred
Hmm no surprise that Jagi Lamplighter doesn’t like Of Mice And Men. But asking “Why give a book like this to children to read? What are we trying to teach them?”. I can think of any of a number of reasons why that book is on a school reading list.
Her attitude to the assignment, of not letting her daughter finish the book but telling her to cheat and look things up on the internet stinks as well.
Third thought: Lamplighter thinks that this is being “careful”.
She also seems to think that she has to protect her teenager from ideas that are too dangerous. Like the idea that bad things sometimes happen and fiction isn’t always cake and roses.
In answer to Lamplighter’s question as to why we give books like this to children: To intellectually arm them so they can deal with vapid brainless idiots like Lamplighter.
@nightengale
The claim is not that Baen don’t proofread, but that they don’t have the kind of editor who will look for story problems and request rewrites.
Thank you Mike, for researching the roundups, and keeping commentary civil and generally productive… And for not insisting that we stay on topic.
@GSLamb: I love Wong Kar-Wai’s films. The cinematography of The Grandmaster is exceptional but the plot is… well, less than great, yeah. However, I’d still watch it again just for the prettiness.
I’d recommend Ashes of Time Redux or Fallen Angels as films before The Grandmaster though. In fairness, most of Wong Kar-Wai’s films are just really weird to watch, actually.
I’ve been picking up a bunch more Korean films of late, although they’re mostly of the “guys in suits & shades shoot each other in the head” variety.
For more period piece/martial arts stuff, I really liked Musa the Warrior; I also have (but haven’t watched) Kundo and The Pirates. And I desperately want somebody to release a decent edition of Bichunmoo.
Another fun one was The Returner — a Japanese film that combines The Matrix, Terminator and Transformers.
The claim actually was (a couple of threads back) a quote from Jim Baen, which I cannot now find to save my life, that they publish “the books that the authors meant to write” without editing them, and that they found David Webber sells the same whether he’s edited or not, so they don’t push him to meet his deadlines and have time for editing.
I have been earwormed by “Don’t You Want Me Baby” thanks to Hoyt – it still does get airplay, sometimes unavoidable. I may filk it later.
Only a page and a half? No, it would get a whole chapter.
I wonder if any Puppies ever read the Heinlein letter where he talks about reasons to write – in order of their importance to a writer, but not the reader: earn money, entertain, make them think. Seems like the last one is anathema to them, and judging from the slate the second isn’t coming off well either. But Heinlein also said that without the last two the first one isn’t going to happen.
Speaking of editors, two of the long form editors provided lists of works they had edited in 2014, which was really helpful since I recognized a couple of works on each list. Three did not. Two who did not, Jim Minz and Toni Weisskopf work for Baen. In order to fairly judge them, I’ve been trying to find a list of books they works on.
Since Toni Weisskopf had a note in the packet to visit Baen.com for more information, I did so… there was nothing useful there. I don’t know how many editors are at Baen, and I did not see any helpful link that would give me the information I need, so I’m beginning to think I’m going to have to leave them off the ballot due to lack of information.
It’s sad. I read and enjoyed a lot of Baen works in the past. I was a subscriber to their webscriptions program for quite some time, and still sometimes buy ebooks through them. I like MilSF to a certain extent. I was even a barfly for a long time. I stopped visiting sometime in 2006 or so, and stopped buying the books religiously about the same time.
As the TV Trope Death By Newbery Medal indicates, killing off beloved characters is a staple of “serious” children’s fiction. Did Lamplighter’s daughter never encounter this trope before she was assigned Steinbeck, or did the mother never notice it before then?
I got “The Pearl” at about age fourteen.
That is not a kind age to give kids slit-your-wrists fiction.
Any literary manifesto that excludes Steinbeck and exalts Chicken Soup for the Soul is one I simply cannot take seriously. Call me an elitist pretentious bitch, but that completely shreds my ability to take you seriously.
Of Mice and Men is on the GCSE curriculum in the UK – 14-16 year olds. I do sort of have a problem with giving kids (many of whom are reluctant readers) fiction which might put them off the whole idea, but I’m a bit horrified to see a parent say she told her daughter to cheat.
Gabriel F
Camilla Bacon-Smith, page 195, ‘Science Fiction Culture’, as I noted in my reply to Chris. She directly quotes Jim Baen and contrasts his position with Sheila Gilbert at Daw, who does edit.
The url is ridiculously long so the best way is to go in via Google Books…
Delurking to add to the pile of thank-yous to Mike for all the work he’s done in these recaps. Reading these has allowed me to form a pretty thorough understanding, as far as one can be reached, of the entire situation, and it’s turned me on to bloggers I might not have otherwise found on my own, and convinced me to buy a membership to Sasquan and to read as much of the nominated works as I can (or, more accurately, can get through without flinging the pages across the room).
Also, I realized that I was hearing Doctor Orpheus’ voice in my head any time I read a blog post by JCW, and that tickles me.
My favorite bit of Lamplighter’s outrageous essay is her claim that her daughter’s life is like Hansel and Gretel.
Gosh, if only she and her husband, both well-educated with four working limbs, could go out and get better jobs then. That’s the conservative answer, isn’t it? If one’s books aren’t selling very well, what is the market saying?
The frick?
Who the hell gives their kids things to read without reading them first? Or at the very least being aware what they are giving them.
I can — just barely — understand getting to adulthood and parenthood without being aware of Steinbeck as much more than a Great Literature author of the mid-20th century.
But knowing what I know about the 20th century, I sure as hell wouldn’t just hand something over without being familiar with it first.
A.k.a. Responsible parenting.
To be clear, I didn’t like reading Steinbeck because I was living it.
I *knew* that stories could end tragically by the time I was eight.
Briefly delurking to thank you for these round-ups, Mike, although I mainly delighted in the creativity appearing in the comments. (The dogs, to be blunt, did not generate delight; seeing them with their masks off was…educational, in the bacteria-under-microscope sense. The picture they paint of themselves with their own words is Not Pleasant.) Showing the various facets of the issues is what journalism is supposed to do.
(PS: WordPress doesn’t like my other email address. Pout.)
This quote?
GSLamb –
Ong Bak 3 and Tom Yum Goong 2 (sequel to The Protector) aren’t very good at all sadly. Ong Bak 2 isn’t that great either but has a couple of good scenes. If it says he was the director, skip it. Tom Yum Goong 2 was laughably bad and the action scenes suffered for them trying to film for 3D.
@Meredith
We were given Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to read when we were 12. For O level (yes I am that old) we had 1984, Macbeth and a book of short stories (which included There Will Come Soft Rains by Bradbury). Other reading at that time included a couple more Shakespeare plays (a history and a comedy to round things out).
@Joe H.: (RAH calculation anecdote)
Your recollection aligns closely with mine, as does your assessment of the Puppyfic equivalent.
@Iphinome:
“One Ringworld to rule them all”? 😉
@Matt Y: “Crippled Avengers aka Return of the 5 Deadly Venoms”
Wow, Marvel’s really getting weird. Is that part of the Secret Wars storyline? 🙂
@Fred Davis: (“superversive” mission statement)
Wow, that’s some hardcore pretzel-twisting:
So… realistic plus depressing equals lying. Riiiight. And bonus points for “all fiction and education should be tailored to fit my daughter’s upbringing.” Her “mission statement” is all bright-line moralizing anecdotes with nothing underneath. Apparently the concept of learning by example has utterly eluded her, as has the fact that those “awful” books she uses as her examples were demonstrably cases of excellent writing. They made her care about the characters, which is no small thing.
just how small a pond the science fiction world really is was brought home recently in my encounters with the staff of our middling large local library. I asked about Robert Heinlein …. blank stare followed by “could you spell that?”
today I asked about Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book …. same blank look … “is graveyard one or two words?”.
sheesh
Even Lamplighter’s anecdote about the man that stops suicides includes the fact that sometimes people jump anyway. Sounds like a subject worthy of fiction, but would Lamplighter have us leave that bit out? Why did she keep it in then?
@Peace
Really? At 10 or 11 I was choosing books from the library with no supervision, I had an adult reader’s card too.
Plus if a book was set by the school there was really no way of challenging that. You either had to read it, or you had detention and you would read it there.
RedWombat: Be fair, about grey goo. The term was coined a mere 31 years ago by the most prominent writer about nanotech, one of the most widely known libertarian futurists, and only used repeatedly by a bunch of the most prominent conservative and libertarian sf writers since then. Of course the Puppies can’t keep up with any stories or essays by johnnies-come-lately SJWs like Vernor Vinge and Greg Bear, who have nothing to do with what real sf is all about, anyway.
I would add my “Thanks, Mike” to the pile, but I suspect that once the daily wrap-ups cease, traffic-hungry Puppies will come up with something to keep the fires burning till Sasquan.
Laura
Yes indeed, that quote: “Thou shall not edit”
I found the juxtaposition with Camille’s comments about Sheila Gibson, who does edit, helpful for the voting on long form editing; Baen editors don’t do it, so they can go.
The downside is that you have to read more – which is also the upside 🙂
Hmm, given everyone’s response to Lamplighter’s post, I’m expecting an indignation-bombing from Wright any moment now….
Jason:
Could you unpack your reasoning a little more? Having established which category it belongs in already, how do you figure next year’s Hugo administrator is going to let it through in a different category?
Nick: Oh yeah. They love and hate our witnessing and commenting as they love and hate themselves.
Hmm…
Three manifestos for “just honest bystanders”,
Seven for the Barflies in their halls of bytes,
Nine for anti-CHORFs doomed to slate,
One for would-be Lord on his small press throne,
In the Land of Finland where the tax dodge lies.
Does Wright even read the comments?
He flips out at stuff in the roundups but I’m not sure he reads any farther than that. If he does, I’d expect him to lecture Mike apoplectically more often than he does, because We Just Ain’t Got Our Minds Right.
@andyl
I had The Catcher in the Rye, The Tempest, An Inspector Calls, and assorted poetry (Carol Ann Duffy & someone else whose name escapes me, a selection of traditional poetry, and poetry from other cultures). Of Mice and Men is one of the options but not one I did – the school I was tagging along with for exams switched it up every couple of years. Everything but the poetry has multiple options for schools/independent students to choose from, and the two poets (in my case Duffy and whatshisface) alternate with another two poets depending on the year.
I give Hoyt more credit then that. I think she was referencing the concept as a way of trash talking fiction that doesn’t fit into her mold. It is also why they Puppies will never right truly award worthy fiction in the pulp or noir traditions, because those genres are built on setting where morality is a muddled grey mess and sometimes the hero’s just can’t win.
Speaking of depressing and grimdark endings, has anybody read “The Library At Mount Char”?
I am intrigued by the sample and the effusive praise, but it’s dark and nasty enough already that I can easily see it ending on a crushingly down note. I’m not currently up for nihilistic defeat and am wondering if anybody’s read it yet and can tell me if I should save it for when I’m a little more cheerful about the cosmos.
Do we know whether that quote (thanks for the link, Tegan) from Jim Baen still reflects Baen Books (non-)editorial policy? If so, what is it that Baen employees with the title “editor” do for their paychecks, and to be considered worthy of a Hugo award for editing?