The Scarlet Litter 6/21

aka Puppy on a Hot Tin Roof

Today’s roundup brings you Spacefaring Kitten, Gary Farber, Peter Grant, Tom Knighton, Sgt. Mom, Martin Wisse, David Nickle, Edward Trimnell, John Scalzi, N. K. Jemisin, Neil Clarke, David Gerrold, Ferrett Steinmetz, Jonathan Crowe, Andrew Hickey, Jason Cordova, Nicholas Whyte, Tim Hall, Mari Ness, Kevin Standlee, Mark Ciocco, Lis Carey, Vivienne Raper, and Jonathan Edelstein. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Daniel Dern and James H. Burns.)

Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words

“Having a successful boycott is not the point” – June 21

As I said before, Day is following the Tea Party/Breitbart Culture Wars playbook. Gin up outrage, energise your base, focus their attention on the designated enemy, then fleece the suckers. Vox knows how the game is played because he’d been working for Worldnet Daily one of the low rent rightwing clearing houses his daddy had set up until he became too loony even for them. What are the odds on the next instructions of Day, as “leader of the Rabid Puppies”, will next issue instructions that the only proper way to boycott Tor is to instead buy books by goodthink publishers like Baen or his own vanity press?

The key is not to win, the key is to keep the fight going and make some money doing so. That’s been the career path for whole generations of roghtwing bloviators: fart out articles and blogposts and books about the evil of libruls and blag your way onto wingnut welfare. But to do so you need that red meat to keep the suckers in line. Without the month late fauxrage at Gallo’s comments the Puppies wouldn’t have anything to talk about. But this? This they can spin out until long after this year’s Hugo results are revealed.

It’s hard to deal with this. Just ignoring it is one option, not giving the oxygen of publicity to these people, but can obviously backfire. You can’t deal with this thinking these are normal fans, and that just ignoring it will starve this “controversy” of the fuel it needs. People like Day (and Larry and Brad) are perfectly capable of keeping the fire stoked indefinitely. Not responding just cedes ground and helps them keep up the pretence that they’re speaking for some imagined silent majority.

 

Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring Extradimensional Happy Kittens

“Kittens Will Prevail” – June 21

The culture war in science fiction and fantasy fandom is practically over before it even began — and it sure was the lamest war ever. The thing that has been clear for everybody except the Sad Kennelkeepers is that an overwhelming majority of SFF fans, authors and editors are and have always been liberal, in the broad sense of the word.

Yes, a huge part of fandom consists of unpolitical SFF enthusiasts who may from time to time sneer at pro-diversity people who suggest things they find a bit hardline, such as not reading books by straight white males for a year or something, but they’re still open-minded and tolerant. And sure, there are political conservatives in SFF too, but very few of them are interested in really taking any part in the culture war project lead by Larry Correia, Brad R. Torgersen and Vox Day/Theodore Beale, because they’re aficionados first and political activists second or third (and they, too, are mostly open-minded and tolerant). Importing the culture war dynamic somewhere where the other side is missing is not going to end well.

 

Gary Farber on Facebook – June 21

I can barely skim the Puppy summaries at FILE 770 any more because I literally start to feel physically ill. These people and their utter lack of interest in facts, their lunatic paranoia, their rationales for justifying every kind of tactic and practice on the grounds of imagining and alleging that their enemies do it, their crazy tropes (the Nazis were really left-wing!; Planned Parenthood is genocidal!; Emanuel A.M.E. Church isn’t a black church!; Tor Books is an leftist ideological publisher!”), literally make me sick. John C. Wright: “The other side consists of people at Tor who regard Tor as an instrument of social engineering, an arm of the Democrat Party’s press department, or a weapon in the war for social justice.” That would be why they publish … John C. Wright. Thirteen of his books so far.

 

Peter Grant on Bayou Renaissance Man

“Latest developments over the Tor imbroglio” – June 21

Speaking of Vox, he’s taken note of speculation from SJW’s and their ilk that the individuals at Tor who’ve been named in connection with the boycott may be at risk of violence.  Since I’ve seen not a single reference to that – even the vaguest hint – from our side of the fence, I, like him, can only put it down to paranoia, or an utterly warped, twisted sense of reality (or the lack thereof), or deliberate lying.  It’s absolutely insane . . . yet they’re hyping it up.  (Edited to add:  James Sullivan absolutely nailed the process in a comment at Vox’s place.)

 

 

Sgt. Mom on The Daily Brief

“Making Blight at Tor” – June 21

And what ought to be the response of those who feel deeply and personally insulted by employees of Tor, such as MS Gallo, and those who clearly stand in agreement with her ill-considered remarks? And what ought Tor to do, over what they already have done? Clean house seems to be the basic consensus; leaving the precise details up to Tor. And to effect that? Some of the offended recommend and are participating in an outright boycott. Some of them – like me – have tastes that run to other and non-Tor published authors, and haven’t bought anything from Tor in years. Others favor purchasing their favorite Tor authors second-hand, and hitting the authorial tip-jar with a donation. I still have the sense that for many of us – after having weathered numerous comments along the same line as MS Gallo’s without much complaint – this was just the final straw.

 

David Nickle on The Devil’s Exercise Yard

“Art Lessons” – June 21

It seems to me that the life of my father Lawrence is a good example to bring up right now, in this very political culture war about what is at its root, an art form.  The point of doing art, to paraphrase Neil Gaiman, is to make good art. It is not to chase awards, or other sorts of validation; it is not to look enviously at those who do receive those awards, who bask in that validation, and try to supplant them through forces democratic or otherwise.

It would be naive to say that such things don’t happen in communities of proper artists. They do, again and again, and are happening now in this science fiction and fantasy community of proper artists.

But I think my father would have said that the behaviour of the Puppies whether sad or angry, is the one sure sign of not being a proper artist. He would take it as a vulgar sign of weakness. It would earn his quiet but certain contempt.

 

Edward Trimnell

“Boycott Tor Books, you ask?” – June 21

A few readers have recently emailed me to ask if I plan to join the boycott of Tor Books, or if I publicly support the boycott.

The short answer is: No. But let me give you the longer answer—because this covers some important issues.

First of all: I am on record as disagreeing with the positions of Patrick Nielsen Hayden and John Scalzi. (I’ve taken Mr. Scalzi to task on this blog many times.) I’m not as familiar with Moshe Feder and Irene Gallo. But what I have seen of them so far, I don’t evaluate favorably.

That said, I think the boycott is a bad idea. And here’s why:

I dislike the Internet mob—whether it is a rightwing mob, or a leftwing mob. I dislike the Internet’s hive mindset, which says:

“If you say something we don’t like, we’re going to whip up all of our minions into a frenzy, and then destroy your livelihood, or harass you into silence at the very least. Oh—and we’re going to do all of this anonymously, hiding behind bogus screen names, avatars, and IP addresses! And aren’t we courageous!”

That is, of course, exactly what the SJW crowd does. But I’m not one of them—and I’m not a joiner, either. Just because I disagree with John Scalzi & Co. doesn’t mean that I’m eager to flock to the banner of Vox Day and others on the far right.

 

John Scalzi on Whatever

“Note to WSFS Members: Killing the Best Novelette Hugo is a Terrible Idea” – June 21

[Excerpts two of five points.]

  1. It is unnecessary to get rid of the Best Novelette category in order to “make room” for the Best Saga category. I’m unaware of the need in the WSFS constitution to limit the number of Hugo Awards given out; it’s not a zero sum game. Speaking as someone who has both emceed the Hugos and sat in its audience, I understand the desirability of not having an infinite proliferation of Hugo categories, because the ceremony can be long enough as it is. But that’s not a good enough reason to give one fiction category the axe at the expense of another, nor can I think of another good reason why the inclusion of the “saga” category requires the doom of another fiction category. It is, literally, a false dichotomy.

This false dichotomy is bad in itself, but also offers knock-on badness down the road. For example:

  1. It privileges novel writing over short fiction writing. Bud Sparhawk, a writer and human I admire rather a bit, complained to me once (in the context of the Nebulas) that calling the Best Novel award “the big one,” as many people often do, is an implicit disrespect of the art of short fiction writing, and of the skills of those who write to those lengths.

 

John Scalzi in a comment on Whatever – June 21

Now, if the Best Saga Hugo proposal hadn’t had tried to unnecessarily murder the Best Novelette category, is it something I could see my way toward voting for?

My current thought about it is “no, not really.” Here’s why: …

[Makes a four-point argument.]

 

 

 

David Gerrold on Facebook – June 21

You can have my Best Novelette Hugo when you pry it out of my cold dead hands.

 

 

Jonathan Crowe

“Some Initial Thoughts on a Couple of Hugo Award Amendments” – June 21

The [Best Saga] amendment points out that most sf/fantasy comes out in series nowadays — around two-thirds, they claim — whereas Hugo voters tend to vote for standalone books. According to the proposal,

for the past decade, the Best Novel category has been dominated by stand-alone works, with nine out of the eleven winners being such (and one of the two series novels is a first book in its series). The distribution of Best Novel winners is badly out of step with the general shape of the market, even though the nominees run close to the market trend.

I’d argue that a decade doesn’t give us nearly enough data points. Over the past quarter century, the split between standalone books and series books among Hugo winners is about fifty-fifty — and I’m including the first books of eventual trilogies, such as Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice (2014), Robert J. Sawyer’s Hominids (2003) and Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin (2006). Sequels to have won Hugos include Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls (2004), Vernor Vinge’s Deepness in the Sky (2000), and Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead (1987). Books two and three of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series won Hugos, as did the fourth installments of the Harry Potter and Foundation series. And that doesn’t get into the number of Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan books that have won Hugos as well.

So I’m not sure that the proposal’s premise holds up.

 

Andrew Hickey on Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!

“Hugo Blogging: Sagas” – June 21

Were the “best saga” award to be brought in *and all books in series to be removed from the “best novel” category*, I would be ecstatic, because that would give more exposure to the standalone novels the field should be producing. As it is, though, it seems likely that it will encourage even further the decline of the field into a niche of thirty-book series called The Chronicles Of The Saga Of Dullworld. When the playing field is already tilted in one direction, tilting it further seems a bad idea.

 

 

Nicholas Whyte on From The Heart of Europe

“E Pluribus Hugo, and other proposals (long post)” – June 21

My conclusions on the various proposals: So with a slightly heavy heart – I regret that small-minded slate-mongers have killed off a large part of the wisdom-of-crowds aspect of the Hugo nominations process – I endorse E Pluribus Hugo as the best fix to prevent slates from dominating the process in future without irreparable damage to the credibility of the awards. Edited to add: I no longer think that a “large” part of the wisdom-of-crowds aspect has been killed off.

Three other proposals for reforming the Hugo process have been submitted to Sasquan. One is to abolish the 5% threshold; as I mentioned above, I agree with this faute de mieux, but E Pluribus Hugo removes the threshold requirement anyway, so I would only support it if E Pluribus Hugo is rejected.

I don’t support the proposal to merge two of the short fiction categories and create a “Best Saga” category. The multiple short fiction awards at present reward writers who express their ideas succinctly rather than at big commercial length, and I’m in favour of that. The “Best Saga” proposal doesn’t fix any existing problem but does create new ones – not least of which, who is going to have time to read all the finalists between close of nominations and close of voting?

I do support the “4 and 6” proposal, to restrict voters to a maximum of four nominations rather than five as at present, but to extend the final ballot to include six rather than five finalists. If E Pluribus Hugo is not adopted, the “4 and 6” proposal is a lesser safeguard against slates, in that it becomes much more difficult to marshall your minions to support six slated works if they have only four votes each. And if E Pluribus Hugo is adopted, voters who nominate five candidates will get less value for their nomination than those who nominate four, and so on; the first part of the “4 and 6” proposal seems to me a decent indication to voters that a slightly different nominating strategy is now necessary (even though it’s not actually part of E Pluribus Hugo). As for the second part, I do feel that good work is left off the Hugo ballot every year, and while Mike Scott’s proposal from April (1, 2, 3) would have designed a certain responsiveness in the system specifically in reaction to the slates, I’d prefer a broader, simpler and less slate-dependent change, and I think that expanding the final ballot to six rather than five does that.

 

Tim Hall on Where Worlds Collide

“E Pluribus Hugo” – June 21

Out of Many, A Hugo, the proposal from Making Light for changing the Hugo Awards voting system in an attempt to fix the problems that came to a head this year.

It uses a Single Divisible Vote, which is a form of proportional system rather than the first-past-the-post system used up to now, and is designed to prevent any well-organised minority from dominating the nominations out of all proportion to their numbers.

I like the system a lot, although the complexity of the counting system means the count must be computerised. It has many of the same advantages as the widely-used Single Transferrable Vote system, though a notable difference is that you don’t need to rank your nominations in any kind of order.

 

Mari Ness

“Proposed changes to Hugo Awards” – June 21

Moving onto the “KILL THE NOVELETTE CATEGORY ALREADY!” question, well, I’m a short fiction writer, so I’m an interested party here.

First, I’ll note that there’s some precedence for this, with the World Fantasy Award which does not offer a separate category for novelettes. Second, I am deeply sympathetic with the complaints of voters who do not want to check the word count for the short fiction they’ve read, and that the dividing line between novelette and short story has issues because of where it lands (at 7500 words) and that really, novelettes are just long short stories and should be treated like that. Not to mention the complaints that the Hugo ballot is waaaaayyyyyyyy too long as it is. I’ve made that last complaint myself. My understanding is that the novelette category has historically gotten fewer nominations than other categories, so even as a short fiction writer, I fully get the keeeeellll it! keeellllllll it dead! feeling here.

But.

The first problem is the number of eligible short fiction works versus the number of eligible works in most of the other categories. Novels possibly come close, and, with blog posts eligible for the catch-all category of Best Related Work (which this year includes a nominee that isn’t even particularly “related”), that category does as well. Novellas are currently experiencing a resurrection, so those numbers might creep up.

Otherwise – the number of eligible podcasts is in the double digits. The number of semi-prozines and fanzines is also in the double digits; the same names keep popping up in those categories for a reason. The number of eligible graphic novels probably in the triple digits. Films are in the double, maybe triple digits. Television episodes, including cartoons, might pop up to a little over 1000. The number of eligible short stories, in that category alone, is conservatively around 6000. Expanding that category to include works up to 10,000 words will just expand that number.

 

Kevin Standlee on Fandom Is My Way Of Life

“New Business Is New Business”  – June 21

The deadline for submitting proposals to the Business Meeting this year is August 6, 2015. The procedure for submitting proposals is listed on the Business Meeting page on the Sasquan web site under “New Business Submissions.” The WSFS Rules are published online and are distributed to the members in the progress reports. None of this is secret. And if you have questions about the process, you can write to me or to the entire WSFS business meeting staff through the wsfs-business address @sasquan.org.

I’ve written a Guide to the Business Meeting that tries to explain this. I’m available to answer questions. I just beg of people to not assume the worst of everything. It’s very frustrating to work this hard and to hear people assuming that it’s all rigged in some way. Well, it’s set up to allow the members who choose to participate in the process to come to a decision in a way that balances the rights of the members as a whole, of the members who attend, of majorities and minorities, of individuals, and of absentees, in a fair manner. However, “fair” and “I got what I personally wanted” are not always the same thing, and it would be wise to keep that in mind when approaching any form of deliberative assembly.

 

Mark Ciocco on Kaedrin Weblog

“Hugo Awards: Novelettes” – June 21

[Reviews all five nominees]

Novelettes! Good old novelettes! What do you call something that’s longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel? A novella, of course, but that’s too easy. Let’s invent something between a short story and a novella, and call it a novelette! On the one hand, it is a bit odd that SF/F seems to be the only genre in literature that makes this distinction (something about a legacy of SF’s pulpy magazine roots, where different sized works had different pay scales) and it seems rather pointless and confusing for no real reason. On the other hand, it just means we get to read more fiction, which is actually a pretty cool thing. Once again, none of my nominees made the final ballot, but such is the way of short fiction awards. Last year’s Novelettes were pretty darn good (with one obvious and notable exception), and it looks like this years will rival that:…

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine” – June 21

Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine is a 2015 Hugo nominee for Best Semiprozine.

Visually, I found this a lot more appealing than Abyss & Apex, the only other nominated semiprozine I’ve looked at so far. On the other hand, I was not as impressed by the accessible fiction. Also, there seemed to be no means to access the relevant material, i.e, what was actually published during 2014.

 

Vivienne Raper on Futures Less Traveled

“Reading the Rockets – Best Short Story” – June 21

[Reviews all five nominees.]

First up, Best Short Story. The nominees are:

  • “On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
  • “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds”, John C. Wright (The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House)
  • “A Single Samurai”, Steven Diamond (The Baen Big Book of Monsters, Baen Books)
  • “Totaled”, Kary English (Galaxy’s Edge Magazine, 07-2014)
  • “Turncoat”, Steve Rzasa (Riding the Red Horse, Castalia House)

These range between dire and good. And only one of them, in my view, is even remotely worthy of being considered for a Hugo Award (if I’m being charitable). And that, surprisingly, is the military SF story Turncoat.

 

Jonathan Edelstein in a comment on File 770 – June 21

Officer Pupke

CORREIA:

Dear kindly Sergeant Pupke You gotta understand It’s just that we’re fed up-ke About our losing hand; The lefties run the ballot And us they underrate: Golly Moses, that’s why we’re a slate!

CORREIA AND PUPPIES:

Officer Pupke, we’re really upset Our writing never got the love that it ought to get. We’re not really rabid, we’re misunderstood – Deep down, our books are pretty good.

CORREIA:

There’s some good!

PUPPIES:

There is good, there is good There is unread good! In the worst of us, there is some good.

[Continues.]

 

Jonathan Edelstein in a comment on File 770 – June 20

[Parody of ”Guys and Dolls”]

…When you see a guy froth without knowing why You can bet that he’s angry about some CHORF. When you spot a dude sounding like he’s von Krupp Chances are he’s a Pup whose full-measured cup of outrage is up.

When you see Vox Day swear he’ll make Gallo pay And direct all his minions to cut Tor off Call it dumb, call it cloying But the thing that is most annoying Is that he’s only angry about some CHORF….

[Continues]

 

753 thoughts on “The Scarlet Litter 6/21

  1. @JJ

    I’m having problems with ‘Ancillary Sword’. I loved Ancillary Justice, but I’m having trouble finding the same enthusiasm.

  2. @Bruce Baugh: When it comes to small towns, rather than disabilities (though those can intersect of course), the internet can also be a great boon when it comes to meeting similar-minded people who live close enough to meet in person. My small-town feminist-minded stitch ‘n bitch is organized online, and I either wouldn’t have met its members or realized we had similar hobbies and opinions otherwise.

  3. As one who is a part of a sexual subculture, the internet has been pure magic. The numbers that finds the way to our meets and greets through internet is uncountable. Before that, they had to try to find their way by decrypting weird adds in newspapers, phoning answering machines, plan parties a year before.

    And now, a simple search lets people find their way. It is a joy to see new people coming and find a place where they can feel like they belong. I live in the capital, but we have people appearing from all parts of sweden. Always very nervous at first, then with relief in their faces, and then happiness.

    People who before thought they were sick, that they were alone. Now part of group. It has changed absolutely everything for me, from what I do on my spare time, who I have as friends, what we talk about, my view of others, my view of myself. Again, it is pure magic.

  4. I couldn’t get to Loncon because it was a bad month, so its pretty great to meet you all on here. 🙂 I sort of dropped off the map and out of contact with everything a few years ago when my physical stuff and mental stuff were interacting badly, so its very nice having a fannish place to be again.

    @Chris Hensley

    I always appreciate your perspective and level-headed comments, but I’m sad its put you in conflict with your people. That can be painful. 🙁

  5. Gabriel F: He already got a dose of Archer’s Goon. 🙂 DWJ is kind of in the same too-many-recent-rereads space as Pratchett. (those two are very high on my comfort reading list.)

    The only other one I’m likely to turn down right now for over-rereading is Robin McKinley.

    Bruce Baugh: Bisson – that’s Bears Discover Fire? I don’t have any handy but I am due a library trip this week (Three Body Problem is on hold for me). Any specific place to start?

  6. @ Bruce – The corollary to that is probably that if you dig too far down the organic gardening rabbit hole, you run into people convinced that the government is coming not just for their guns, but for their seeds. I have had some VERY weird conversations with survivalists about gardening. I mean, it’s great we have a place for hippies and militias to swap tips about tomatoes, but I still feel the occasional moment of “wait, WHAT?!”

    I confess, I’ve always felt that science fiction tends to give short shrift to horticulture–if you wait until societal collapse to start the garden, you’ve waited much too long.

  7. Whichever group, the disabled members of it probably benefitted the most, but the internet has been amazing for anyone outside the mainstream and anyone otherwise disconnected from a variety of people. Transformative works fandom provided a fannish tribe for a lot of women who felt alienated from mainstream fandom, for a topical example. 😀

    @Dex

    I liked Justice better than Sword, too. I’m looking forward to Mercy, and I’m hoping it will be a wonderful combo of all the things I liked from the first two books.

  8. Hampus Eckerman: People who before thought they were sick, that they were alone. Now part of group. It has changed absolutely everything for me, from what I do on my spare time, who I have as friends, what we talk about, my view of others, my view of myself.

    I think that there are a great many people, like me, who would say this about SFF fandom.

    There isn’t a day that goes by that I am not very thankful for the Internet having come into being.

  9. @Meredith

    I hope so. I really thought Justice was good enough for all the awards it won; a real shakeup of modern sci-fi. Sword was just… decent enough. I don’t have that many negatives, but it felt a little reused.

  10. @Lenora Rose

    I confess I haven’t tried to read much of anything out loud since I read the first couple Harry Potter books for my older sister years ago (she’s dyslexic), so I might be wildly off-base, but have you tried anything by Tamora Pierce?

    The only other thing I have is a sort of anti-rec: I’ve seen a few people say that don’t mind reading Scalzi but listening to it annoys them because there’s a lot of he said/she said dialogue.

    @RedWombat

    I just finished a Dead Zone fanfic where they create a commune and get started planting in preparation for the apocalypse. 🙂

  11. @Gabriel F

    You will never go wrong with Lloyd Alexander. I gave the Prydain Chronicles to a girlfriend who delayed breaking up for months because she didn’t want to lose the book.

  12. Pluviann,

    I think we all agree about the facts then. When everyone else says that there was bloc-voting of a slate, this is what they’re describing. When you say slate-voting didn’t happen, but this did… well, you’re just disagreeing about the name not the facts.
    What do you call this? This is what everyone objects to:
    1. Lock-step voting
    2. By Beale’s fans
    3. Of his slate ‘as is’
    4. For their own reasons

    And I objected to it too.

    “Slate voters,” however, is neither here nor there. Try to think about whether it might be possible that most (clearly not all) of the stalwart volunteers in the puppy brigades have no interest in mindlessly voting a straight ticket. Perhaps they saw the puppy campaign as a way to raise interest and attention for a variety of authors, or to draw lots more people into the fan award process (not inherently bad!), so I feel the term “slate voter” unfairly tars them all with the same brush.

  13. RedWombat, I was fascinated by your comments about organic gardening weirdos in a recent Kevin And Ursula Eat Cheap. 🙂

  14. @ Dex

    My ex husband stole random books out of all my series when I moved out. He waited til I boxed them up, then went behind my back and did things like stealing books 1 and 3, or 4 and 5, just at random so I could no longer re-read my favorite series without re-buying the books. I was SO MAD. I’m one of those people who tries never to crease the cover or break the spine too, so replacing them with undamaged used books was a nightmare and my budget was very tight at that time.

    In the long run, compared to stalking me and killing our mutual pets, it wasn’t as big a deal, but it was just really crappy and petty.

  15. Gabriel F:

    (Yes, I am collecting books for my kids as we speak! 🙂 )

    Yay for Lloyd Alexander! Also Alan Garner. I loved “Elidor” as a kid. Susan Cooper was great too. Oh, and this book by Astrid Lindgren, “Most Beloved Sister”.

    http://www.amazon.com/Most-Beloved-Sister-Astrid-Lindgren/dp/9129655021

    It’s so sweet sad. I love the drawings by Hans Arnold. He also did a nice piece for The Hobbit.

    https://pagefiddler.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/hans-arnold-bilbo-hobbit.jpg

  16. @Gabriel F

    Um. Um. Holy fuck! I don’t even know how to respond to that other than wishing a flood of lava.

  17. @Cthulhim, Peace: (“The Cold Equations” and fault-tolerant systems)

    I finished a novel last night that had a distinct TCE vibe to it, but it did explain that aspect – the launch was rushed, and the unanticipated cargo was in the multiton range. Despite taking off four crewmembers light, the cargo and some unexpected maneuvering overwhelmed the ship’s margin for error. Granted, I’m not sure why the remaining crew didn’t jettison the excess cargo, so that part could have been explained better. (I can think of a couple of reasons that would make sense, but mentioning them in the text would have been a plus.)

    @Meredith: “Ableism is so deeply entrenched in slang and idiom its hard to avoid (idiot, dumb, “are you blind?”, crazy, spaz, retarded). Still worth trying, but hard to succeed.”

    I would give much for a solid set of swear words that are readily understood, aren’t thinly disguised substitutes for existing curse words, AND don’t come with that sort of group baggage.

  18. Brian Z:

    ““Slate voters,” however, is neither here nor there.”

    No, they are most definitely here. Occupying the majority of the ballot with subpar works. You are arguing like a tobacco lobbyist, always trying to sow doubt regardless of facts.

  19. @ Rev Bob

    I would give much for a solid set of swear words that are readily understood, aren’t thinly disguised substitutes for existing curse words, AND don’t come with that sort of group baggage

    I always found the swears used in Farscape work well for that. I mean, yeah, they’re substitutive, but they work well. Plus, everyone should watch Farscape!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/farscape/swearing/

  20. @Gabriel F

    Your ex-husband is literally the worst. 🙁 I hope you’re safe and very, very far away from him now. And that you’ve got all the books again, and that any new pets you have (rats, I think?) are safe and happy.

    @Rev. Bob

    Very much me too.

  21. Birian Z: “Slate voters,” however, is neither here nor there.

    That line hasn’t worked in weeks.

  22. Chris Hensley,

    I am confident enough that there were a significant number of slate voters by that definition that if the anonyomized ballot data is released I am willing to wager you a beer (or other beverage of choice) at Worldcon that there is an identifiable bloc of slate voters.

    I will promise you that beer right now, since it seems clear there were a significant number of lockstep voters. I’m very interested to know the size of the lockstep voting block – and what specifically they nominated. And I am willing of course to revise my assessment based on new evidence.

    They are also not given with explicit instruction to nominate exactly that slate. Which is what VD did for the Rabid Puppies.

    That was a dumb move and he shouldn’t have done it.

    The claims of racism, misogyny and homophobia are criticisms of their actions, and have been backed up with evidence. Is that insulting? Yes, and it should be. But if we can’t speak the truth supported by evidence then what can we speak about? Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four.

    I don’t find anything wrong with expressing your opinions of authors/bloggers/etc.

    You know, this is a troubling part of the discussion for me. Is there a danger in sometimes making the “slates of works of science fiction and fantasy are bad for the health of fannish democracy” argument, and sometimes making the “by associating with or liking the writing of authors we think are racist misogynist homophobes you are supporting all of those things” argument? Can we find a way to talk about those two things so that they are not muddled together? I don’t mean to be glib. This is a troubling aspect for me, and I’d like to know your views.

    The fact is an orcehstrated campaign in the propose EPH system can garner one, two on the outside, nominations in each category.

    My question was 1) “yes, but at what cost?” (I’m not convinced it is reasonable to say none), and 2) your fannish foes (and their legendary internet mob should it exist, I have no idea) seem like they are a “revenge is a dish best served cold” kind of people. If you make it impossible for a single group of voters to get several things they like on the ballot, couldn’t they game the system in other ways, if they really want to? I support for looking for ways to mitigate the effects of lockstep voting. But at the same time I fear you are fighting the last war and not the next one.

  23. @ Meredith

    Your ex-husband is literally the worst. 🙁 I hope you’re safe and very, very far away from him now. And that you’ve got all the books again, and that any new pets you have (rats, I think?) are safe and happy.

    He is. He’s 20 years out of my life though (stupid marriage right out of high school) and my current husband is the best person ever 🙂 Also yes, many rats, plus dogs and cats. Took awhile to shake him but I am in a very good place in my life right now. Thank you!

  24. Perhaps they saw the puppy campaign as a way to raise interest and attention for a variety of authors

    A very small variety, mostly connected to Brad? And all these hypothetical puppies liked those stories? Occam’s Razor is not on your side.

  25. John Seavey,

    It made the beginning a bit of a slog–I found myself wondering if it wouldn’t have been better to abandon the alternating flashbacks and simply tell the story chronologically, since that would have made for rising action toward the mid-point and then rising action again towards the climax. As it was, you got long stretches of people wandering around, with action building in both narratives at roughly the same point in the novel. But I suppose Leckie was very attached to the idea of opening the story on the ice world.

    I also found some stylistic and structural things annoying. I wasn’t (at first) motivated to read the whole thing, though now that I have I can see better how people loved it. Best Novel Hugos for first novels should be for really exceptional cases and I’m not positive this was one of them.

  26. Brian,

    Both of these things are bad.

    Any slate, even one that somehow included a set of works and candidates which represented a broad political spectrum and were also actually well written and talented, would still provoke fannish ire as a violation of long-held if unwritten norms.

    Those who enable Beale’s political projects by allying with him will always be excoriated by right-minded people.

    This year, both phenomena coincide.

  27. @Gabriel F

    I’m very glad. If I were going to play favourites (I totally am), I would say you’re one of my favourite people here, and I was worried for a bit. 🙂

    @Brian Z

    I haven’t yet seen anyone come up with a way to manipulate EPH and force a slate, so I’m not worrying about that at the moment. Whether it causes other problems? I don’t know. I find it hard to believe it could cause more problems than a slate full of Castalia bloody House’s poorly edited work every year. Don’t forget that a lot of new voters are motivated by being anti-slate and therefore should not be insulted by an anti-slate change, too.

    @Rev. Bob

    Bloody! There’s a swear word which I don’t think has anything terrible associated with it. Perhaps too British to be used by anyone wishing to avoid the appearance of anglophilia though.

  28. Reading out loud? I haven’t done so for years but I read all of the Series of Unfortunate Events books to my children when they were younger and I enjoyed that on multiple levels.

  29. @Brian Z: if there is an organized movement whose leaders and prominent figures (ie Torgersen, Correia, Williamson, Wright, Beale) all express clear opinions on race, gender, and sexual preference you don’t agree with, then you should stop identifying as a member of that movement. This isn’t like still enjoying ‘Ender’s Game’ even though OSC is a jerk, this is like saying, “Well, I’m still a member of the Klan, but I’m mostly in it for the picnics.” After a certain point, you just have to concede that the number of noisy asshole speaking on your behalf is large enough that you’re going to be drowned out.

    @everyone else: Thanks for reading the review. I’m sure I’ll get to ‘Sword’ eventually, but top priority now is ‘Severed Streets’ by Cornell because he’s in town next week for a con and I want to be able to attend his panels without worrying about spoilers.

  30. Camestros,

    Self-reference Engine… So you put a review on your blog and chat about it at other blogs and recommend it on threads like this one…
    The Hugo Awards arose out of a culture if people talking about books they liked long before the Internet. That culture of sharing what you like is intrinsic to why the Hugo Awards are a thing worth having.

    My point was that a voter under EPH might be legitimately swept along with the groundswell for (in a 2014 example) things like the WoT campaign, omnipresent buzz for Ancillary Justice, and a love of all things bacon – nothing wrong with any of that and it’s not slate voting to like those things. But what would be the unintended consequences of EPH, should such a voter also have read and loved Self-reference Engine? And can we really say that his or her behavior won’t change? I was objecting to the implication in the EPH FAQ and discussion that it is obvious that strategic voting will never work and therefore everybody will vote in the manner deemed “correct.”

  31. Brian Z:My question was 1) “yes, but at what cost?”

    Short of it having some Laundry level computational dangers, the only obvious danger is that somebody had to do all the number crunching.
    Is there a nefarious exploit? Maybe. The only one I could thing of had a pointlessly silly level of organisation to achieve very little. Doesn’t mean there isn’t some other exploit that would be a real problem. When you think of it you should definitely tell everybody.

  32. @ John

    Can’t say I agreed with your review – honestly, I thought the flashbacks and time as One Esk the most interesting and compelling part of the book – but I love reading other perspectives.

    Personally, I found Sword even better, but I loved seeing Breq adjust to interpersonal relationships and other cultures. YMMV

  33. @Peace Is My Middle Name
    I am not entirely sure that the TV or movie producers even notice the Hugos.

    And to previous responses may I add that Gary Kurtz also came to Denver in 1981 to accept for The Empire Strikes Back, and Frank Marshall came to Boston in 1989 to accept for Who Framed Roger Rabbit? In 1992, one of the visual effects guys from Terminator 2, Van Ling, came to Orlando to accept the award.

    @Dawn Incognito
    When John C. Wright receives…was it six?…nominations, three in one category, it’s pretty clear that people were voting a slate.

    Not only that, it’s pretty clear which slate it was.

  34. Goodness, apparently “crikey” is a veiled way of saying “Christ”. I had no idea.

  35. @Brian Z.
    Well it is true that individuals will make different linds of choices when presented with different rules. Stuff that is popular with a lot of voters will still win with EPH.
    I guess what EPH might penalise is what we could call coincidental common voting. I.e a lot of people all nominating a very similar group of works without any prior collaboration . Even that sounds more like a feature than a bug (e.g. a high participation from a particular subfandom without prior planning in a year when there are many works related to that fandom eligible.)

  36. Meredith,

    Anyone who criticises Scalzi’s relatively low-key eligibility posts and then elides all the evidence that this year was about cementing a right-wing fanbase via creating an enemy

    I don’t think you’re a troll, but boy are you barking up a tree in the wrong forest.

    I’m in no way picking on Scalzi (and I share his love of yogurt) – but he was an early trendsetter in pimping self for fan awards, and it is in no way new or controversial to say that not everybody likes that. Why do people find troubling the perspective that if we are going to castigate awards campaigning it might be good for everyone to back away from it?

    Meredith, FWIW, I feel you are barking up a right tree!

  37. @Dawn Incognito

    I got foiled by zoning issues for Cardcaptor Sakura, but I have Polar Bear Cafe loaded and ready to go!

    ETA
    @Brian Z

    I think its the equivalence that bugs me. Its a bit too much like saying this is just as bad as that – but if you didn’t intend that then I’ll accept that. 🙂

    I personally want eligibility posts to stay (especially ones that invite other people to comment on their own or their favourites) because I lose track of what was nominated when and enjoy fannish conversations. I understand that isn’t universal, though.

  38. Gabriel F. –
    I am so sorry that you had to endure that. Internet hugs if you want them.

    Meredith –
    I am USian, but had the pleasure of visiting the UK in January, and as I wandered through London and Edinburgh, I kept wondering how anyone with physical disabilities could get around. Not that I could see a way to fix that without massive renovations that would be costly and completely eradicate the history and character of the locales… (But really, given that 90% of the loos seemed to be accessible only via tiny, twisty stairs, disabled Brits must have iron bladders.)

    ObHugo talk… The experience of watching The Day After Tomorrow is much enhanced by tequila-containing beverages. Other alcohol is too… Civilized to enjoy while watching Tom Cruise’s smirk get repeatedly annihilated. Just don’t make it a drinking game.

    Huh. Tornado spotted in our county. Time to take the kitties to the basement.

  39. Brian Z:

    “My point was that a voter under EPH might be legitimately swept along with the groundswell for (in a 2014 example) things like the WoT campaign, omnipresent buzz for Ancillary Justice, and a love of all things bacon – nothing wrong with any of that and it’s not slate voting to like those things.”

    If that is your fear, you should discuss it at Making Light where there is a Q&A for that. This time without your victims cardigan. You should then listen to the answers, be prepared to answer back to questions and stay for the whole discussion.

    http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016283.html

  40. Brian Z:Why do people find troubling the perspective that if we are going to castigate awards campaigning it might be good for everyone to back away from it?

    Well part of it maybe the point I made earlier – the Hugos are an award based on a broad community of people who read and share their opinions and that community has always contained writers. We want writers to talk about their work and in particular their recent work.

  41. Brian Z:

    “I’m in no way picking on Scalzi (and I share his love of yogurt) – but he was an early trendsetter in pimping self for fan awards, and it is in no way new or controversial to say that not everybody likes that. Why do people find troubling the perspective that if we are going to castigate awards campaigning it might be good for everyone to back away from it?”

    Translated:

    “I’m in no way picking on Scalzi, but I’m picking on Scalzi. Also, I’m doing it by comparing rowboats to transantlantic ships.”

  42. Brian Z.: I will promise you that beer right now

    Oh, don’t be ridiculous. You’ve already stated more than once that you won’t be going to Sasquan.

    Which is no doubt why you’re becoming increasingly shrill and desperate with your pathetically transparent lies, in an attempt to discourage people from voting in E Pluribus Hugo.

    Oh, and I see you’ve dropped another one of your Trolling Puppy Turds in an old thread — no doubt in the hope that no one will notice it and it will just sit there unrefuted.

  43. Camestros,

    Doesn’t mean there isn’t some other exploit that would be a real problem. When you think of it you should definitely tell everybody.

    That’s why I said it would be good to have an independent review of the amendment before ratification. And that’s really all I said. (I came up with a couple blue sky ideas for hacking 2017 off the top of my head, like organizing for or against certain publishers, but I won’t belabor those again.)

  44. @Brian Z.
    …claims something didn’t happen and then goes on to describe what really happened, which is exactly what he claims didn’t happen.

    I don’t think his thoughts are “confused,” I just think he’s arguing entirely in bad faith. It’s hard to believe anyone could be so naive as to actually believe the interpretations he gives of some events, particularly those which inevitably attribute the best of intentions to everyone involved.

    Or to attempt to rob words of all meaning. I’m pretty sure everyone here would agree (well, everyone except Brian Z., obviously), that anyone using the term “slate voters” would be using it to refer to “people who voted for slates.” Their motivations not being identical still wouldn’t make them anything other than “slate voters.”

    @Brian Z.
    Try to think about whether it might be possible that most (clearly not all) of the stalwart volunteers in the puppy brigades have no interest in mindlessly voting a straight ticket.

    My vote for best weasel-wording of all time. Why suggest considering whether something is possible, when you can just ask us to think about whether it “might be possible”?

    God damn, Brian, I’m right with you. When I considered whether it was possible, I said “No way.” But when you asked whether it might be possible, I had to admit, yeah, you have a point there. It might be possible that I was born yesterday, after all. It just isn’t, that’s all.

    I’d rather not waste my time. Why ponder what might be possible about most but clearly not allof them? I mean, it might be possible that hundreds of voters independently determined that John C. Wright wrote the three best novellas of the year. It could happen, right?

    Instead of vague and remote possibility, how about we consider a fact instead?

    It is a fact that as soon as one story which had only been on the Rabid Puppy slate was disqualified, a story which had only been on the Sad Puppy slate rose to take its place

    This suggests your hypothetical might be possible, but is rather less than likely. It suggests that while Sad Puppies didn’t have the voting strength to overwhelm Rabid Puppies’ picks on the ballot, but they had enough followers voting in concert to be nipping at the Rabids’ heels.

    While it might be possible that some Sad Puppy followers had no interest in voting a straight ticket, I suggest that the voting results are not possible without most of them voting the straight ticket.

    (What’s the opposite of “mindlessly voting the straight ticket”? Mindfully doing so?)

    Shorter answer: I tried, Brian, really I did. I tried to think whether it might be possible. I failed miserably. Sorry.

  45. @ Brian Z

    2. I don’t generally share VD’s tastes but I noticed he put The Three Body Problem at the top of his ballot. It is also at the top of my ballot. So there is that.

    No he didn’t. As has been pointed out multiple times, he is not listed as a voting member. I have no trouble whatsoever believing that he didn’t bother to waste $40 when he has so many drones willing to do it.

    Frell. Responding to Brian Z’s trolling again.

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