Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Puppies 5/5

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aka The Puppy Who Mistook His Bark For A Hugo

Today’s roundup gathers together excerpts of Puppy-related thoughts from Mercy Pilkington, Paul St. John Mackintosh, Mike Glyer (who let him in here?), Deborah J. Ross, T.C. McCarthy, Kevin Standlee, Vox Day, Michael Kingswood, Tom Knighton, Lisa J. Goldstein, Jane Frank. Steve Davidson, Alexandra Erin and players to be named later. (Title credits go to File 770 contributing editors of the day Danny Sichel and DMS.)

Mercy Pilkington on Good E Reader

“The Sad Joke That Is the Hugo Awards” – May 5

Unfortunately, this year’s nominations have allegedly been shanghaied by a small collective of people under the name “Sad Puppies” and a rival group “Rabid Puppies” who are disheartened with the “touchy feely” decline of science fiction into a genre that allows gay couples and women who don’t have giant breasts to exist. The groups have garnered enough voting support to send their favorites to the top of the lists, then have seemingly been quite open about achieving their goals.

Paul St. John Mackintosh on TeleRead

“Locus Awards finalists show the power of open voting” – May 5

You’re either forced to assume that the liberal-left-loony conspiracy beloved of the Sad Puppies ringleaders extends across the entire internet – or that the SP promoters are just a bunch of histrionic opportunists who hijacked the voting process of a particular set of awards in the name of a particular ideological agenda. Which also makes you wonder what future history will make of the 2014 Sad Puppies Hugo list, if not a single one of them has made the cut in a more open ballot. Apologies to any fine writers besmirched by that comment, but in the circumstances, it’s understandable. And apologies too to the Locus Awards for casting their fantastic slate of contenders in the shade of the Hugos/Sad Puppies fiasco. All the same, people, compare and contrast.

Mike Glyer in Uncanny Magazine

“It’s The Big One”  – May 5

Does The Award Matter? The award was forged as a weapon in the original culture war—the battle to earn acceptance for science fiction itself.

Isaac Asimov gave readers a taste of the mockery early science fiction fans endured in his introduction to a collection of Hugo–winning short fiction:

“You can imagine the laughter to which we were subjected when sensible, hard–headed, practical, every–day people discovered we were reading crazy stories about atomic bombs, television, guided missiles, and rockets to the moon. All this was obvious crackpotism that could never come to pass, you see.”

….Openly campaigning for a Hugo has long been culturally discouraged in fandom, however, that old–school tradition has not survived a collision with some other significant forces. Individual authors have been forced to shoulder the publicity burdens once carried by their publishers and one aspect of gaining attention is through awards – an approach discussed by Nancy Fulda (“Five Things You Should Know About Award Nominations”) on the SFWA Blog in January 2015. Furthermore, people steeped in the social media culture of constant self–expression and self–celebration have been conditioned to feel reticence is unnatural: Why wouldn’t they recommend themselves for an award?

Deborah J. Ross on Deborah’s Journal

“In Which Deborah Learns A New Word” – May 5

Normally, this is a politics-lite zone. Growing up in the ’50s with the McCarthy nuts breathing down my family’s neck has not endeared me to rancorous public discourse. I have, however, been following PuppyGate because I know some of the folks who withdrew their stories from the Hugo ballot and/or Puppy slate. The online debate has at times been pretty vile.

One of the few delightful things to come out of this mess is a new word: Puppysplaining. Akin to mansplaining, it refers to “Explaining to you how you really have no idea how completely wrong you are about your own lived experiences.” It comes to me from Gamer Ghazi. If it follows you home, you have my permission to keep it.

Kevin Standlee on Fandom Is My Way of Life

“Scheduling WSFS Business” – May 5

Because of a comment on the File 770 web site, I find that I’d better write about the subject of when the Business Meeting in Spokane will or might consider specific items, because it would appear some folks are taking this spot as the journal of record on such things.

( Parliamentary Neepery about Business Meeting SchedulingCollapse )

So it’s possible for the meeting to put off consideration of proposals until Day 5, the morning after the Hugo Award Ceremony. How could it do this?

( Agenda-Setting MechanismsCollapse )

I hope this explanation makes sense. It gets into a number of the finer points of parliamentary detail, but given the complexity of the tasks we may fact this year, I think it important that people understand what tools they have at their disposal.

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Bi-discoursality” – May 5

The interesting thing about rhetoric is that it makes no sense to those who are limited to the dialectic. I didn’t fully grasp the way it worked until reading RHETORIC for the second time. It can be bewildering when people tell you that they have been convinced by something that you know can’t logically have persuaded them. In such cases, you know they have been persuaded by rhetoric, not facts, reason, or logic.

I wouldn’t expect an individual who only speaks one form of discourse to be any more able to follow me into the other than if I abruptly switched to speaking Italian or French after beginning in English.

For example, this was written for dialecticals. Rhetoricals only see “blah blah blah, I’m so smart, blah blah blah, Aristotle” and scan through it seeking to find some point of attack they can use to minimize or disqualify me. And if they can’t, that’s when they strike a bored pose or return to the snarky ad hom.

Michael Kingswood on Magic, Swords, and Laser Beams

“Myke and Brad” – May 5

Look, I’ve had to set fellow officers straight before because they were messing up.  Mostly those junior to me, occasionally a peer, and once or twice more senior officers, up to and including my CO.  It’s part of the job, and expected: forceful backup is a primary tenet of submarine operations.  So I have no issue with one officer correcting another.

That said, there is a way to do that sort of correction, and I do take issue with the nature, style, and content of Myke’s open letter.

The entire letter is condescending, and lacking in professional courtesy or respect.  Does he honestly think that Brad doesn’t know that, as an officer, he has a duty to all of his men, regardless of their personal situation?  Or does he just think Brad knows but doesn’t care?  Brad’s been doing this for a long time now.  I think he gets it.  And who the hell is Myke to lecture anyway?  He doesn’t work with Brad, doesn’t serve with him.  They’re not in the same chain of command, and neither has authority over the other.  Has he ever observed Brad’s professional behavior?  If not, he’s just speculating not even based on hearsay, and has no standing to judge or cast dispersions.

Tom Knighton

“An Open Letter to Myke Cole” – May 5

Dear Myke,

As a veteran who is now firmly ensconced in civilian life, I’m writing you to discuss your open letter with CWO Brad Torgersen.  This is not to defend Brad’s comments, because there is nothing I feel like defending.  Brad was out of line, and I think he knows that.  One thing I agree with John Scalzi on is that being gay is not anything to be ashamed of, so there’s no reason it should be categorized as an insult.  Thus far, we are in agreement.

However, you chose to address this issue in an open letter.  In and of itself, this wouldn’t normally be an issue.  Open letters are quite common in this day and age.  However, you opted to do so as a commissioned officer who is addressing a warrant officer.  This is where I must take issue.

You are a commissioned officer, a lieutenant in the United States Coast Guard Reserves.  You are addressing a warrant officer in the United States Army Reserves.  In essence, you are addressing a junior officer in a different chain of command.  As you are an officer, one would assume that somewhere in your training, you were instructed in how to address junior personnel while counseling them in matters such as proper execution of their duties.

If you were, then I am quite sure that the Coast Guard instructed you similarly to the way the Navy instructed me in such matters.  Simply put, you handle stuff like this behind closed doors.  A private message, an email, something.  You address it directly and privately and, if that doesn’t resolve the matter, you address it with his chain of command.

However, that’s not what you did.  Instead, you opted to put your disagreement with Brad’s comments out in public.  Again, had you done this as one writer addressing another writer, then so be it.  You didn’t.  Like most other things on your website, you couched it all under the color of your own uniform and did so publicly.

Font Folly

“Visions and Ventures: why I love sf/f” – May 5

As an adult, I’ve been attending sci fi conventions for decades. I’ve even been a staff member at a few. I’ve had some of my own tales of the fantastic published, even though most of my published stories have been in fanzines and other small semi-pro publications. I’ve had the good fortune to be the editor of a fanzine with a not insignificant subscriber base. I count among my friends and friendly acquaintances people who have been published in more professional venues, people who have run those conventions, people who have won awards for their sf/f stories and art, even people who have designed some of the trophies. Not to mention many, many fans. I have even occasionally referred to that conglomeration of fans, writers, artists, editors, and so forth as my tribe.

All of that only begins to scratch the surface of why I find the entire Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies mess so heart-wrenching. Yes, part of the reason the situation infuriates me is because the perpetrators are all so unabashedly anti-queer. For this queer kid, sf/f and its promise of better worlds and a better future was how I survived the bullying, bashing, hatred, and rejection of my childhood. To find out that there are fans and writers who so despise people like me that they have orchestrated a scheme whose ultimate goal is to erase us goes beyond infuriating.

Wikipedia  entry on “Science Fiction”

A controversy about voting slates in the 2015 Hugo Awards highlighted tensions in the science fiction community between a trend of increasingly diverse works and authors being honored by awards, and a backlash by groups of authors and fans who preferred what they considered more traditional science fiction

Sappho on Noli Irritare Leones

“The flames of the Tigers are lighting the road to Berlin” – May 5

This year’s Hugo Awards have proved more controversial than usual, with the sweep of several categories of Hugo Award nominations by two slates known as Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies.

I don’t mean this to be a post about Puppies. If you want to know more about puppies, you can check out the blog of, well, almost any science fiction author right now, or Google “Hugo Awards 2015? and look at all the Puppy posts and articles. But the debate about Puppies raised a meta-Puppies point that interests me: the relationship between politics and art.

You see, two things are true, at the same time. The first thing: Art has always been, and always will be, political, and in the sense in which “politics” is being discussed here, politics can’t be extracted from art. The second thing: What Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns, and Money likes to call aesthetic Stalinism – preachy message fiction where the message overwhelms the story, and preachy reviews that evaluate books, movies, music, or other art solely on their political implications – is really, really annoying.

Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4

“The Hugo Ballot Continued: Short Stories” – May 3

The next story up is “Totaled,” by Kary English.  English is the only woman to make it onto the ballot in the writing categories (short story, novelette, novella, novel) from the Sad Puppies’ slate, although another woman, Annie Bellet, made the ballot but withdrew her story from contention.  Elsewhere the Puppies tout the diversity of their nominees, but their record in this slate is pretty terrible, at least concerning women who write.

Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4

“The Hugo Ballot, Part 3: Short Stories” – May 5

The story after Diamond’s is John Wright’s “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds.”  Wright’s style here is deliberately archaic, in a stately, somewhat pompous, King James Bible vein, and for the most part this serves him fairly well.  Every so often, though, he will stray from purple into ultraviolet and become lost to human ken.  What, for example, is one to make of “All about the walls of the city were the fields and houses that were empty and still,” which seems to have one too many “were”s in it?  Or a description of leaves as “wallowing”?  Leaves may do a lot of things, but I’ve never seen one wallow.  And then sometimes Wright will leave this style altogether and use words King James would have a hard time recognizing, like “sangfroid.”  The effect for this reader at least is to be yanked, hard, out of the story.

[There should be a law that anyone who wants to write in this style has to read Ursula Le Guin’s essay “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie.”  Sorry, no exceptions.]

Jane Frank on Amazing Stories

“The Artful Collector: On the Topic of ‘Puppies’ from a Former ‘Loser’” – May 5

And It’s not that attempts to skew Hugo outcomes have been solely the province of that literary set.   Lobbying to get certain (overlooked) artists on the ballot has been attempted, as well. In years past I’ve been approached to participate in these efforts, to garner support (assuming I had such influence!) from other voters I knew, and get them to nominate one artist or another. I guess I was seen as the perfect lobbyist for such a cause, considering I was then selling original art for such well –known (but never nominated) artists as John Berkey, Paul Lehr, Darrell K. Sweet.  To name just three  . . that never enjoyed that honor during their lifetimes.

Not that such efforts would have been without merit, or weren’t well-intentioned. But even I – an outsider who actually never minded the objectification of women AND men on the covers of books and magazines (how else are you gonna get young men to READ, duh?) – knew enough to know that such lobbying was simply NOT DONE.   Voting has always been an individual thing – and I never had any interest in influencing the votes of others. Indeed, I have always been able to act as has been suggested by others. That when I wasn’t familiar with the work, if I hadn’t read the story, if I never heard of the artist, saw the TV episode or movie, I just didn’t vote for it.

Steve Davidson on Amazing Stories

“OMG! That SJW Fannish Cabal is WAY Bigger Than They Thought!” – May 5

So lets get this straight.  Locus Magazine publishes the final ballot for this year’s Locus Poll – a poll of the readers of science fiction and fantasy, one that costs nothing to participate in*, one that doesn’t require special membership in a special organization, a poll of the READERS rather than just a poll of those nasty liberal WSFS Trufans and Message Fictioneers, a poll presumably participated in by the folks who really count – consumers!, the ones untainted by the crushing weight of 75 years of special cabal-think (libprog, social justice creep), the Goodread and Amazon four-star-review-unless-we-don’t-like-you crowd, the great unwashed masses of REAL FANS(tm), the folks who supposedly believe that sales figures and best seller lists are the only markers one needs to confer awards, the readers who the Suicide Puppy Squad claim want nothing more than entertaining adventures  (weirdly homoerotic broad chested man adventures at that) is published with NOT ONE SINGLE WORK BY A Puppy of any breed!  (Thank goodness for super lungs!)

Aaron Kashtan on The Hooded Ultilitarian

“The End of Comic Geeks?”  – May 5

This piece originated as a paper presented at the 2015 University of Florida Comics Conference. A slightly different form of this paper was incorporated into my lecture “Change the Cover: Superhero Comics, the Internet, and Female Fans,” delivered at Miami University as part of the Comics Scholars Group lecture series. While I have made some slight changes to the version of the paper that I gave at UF, I have decided against editing the paper to make it read like a written essay rather than an oral presentation. The accompanying slide presentation is available here ….

Now in other fan communities, the opening up of previously male-only spaces has triggered a backlash from the straight white men who used to dominate. The obvious example of this is Gamergate, where the inclusion of women in video gaming has led to an organized campaign of misogyny which has even crossed the line into domestic terrorism. SLIDE 6 A less well-known example is what’s been happening in science fiction fandom. In recent years, novels by liberal writers like John Scalzi and female and minority writers like Nnedi Okorafor and Sofia Samatar have dominated the major science fiction awards. SLIDE 7 When this started happening, certain mostly white male writers became extremely indignant that science fiction was becoming poiliticized, or rather that it was being politicized in a way they didn’t like. So they started an organized campaign known as Sad Puppies SLIDE 8 whose object was to get works by right-wing white male authors included on the ballot for the Hugo award, which is the only major science fiction and fantasy award where nominations are determined by fan voting. And this led in turn to the Rabid Puppies campaign, which was organized by notorious neo-Nazi Vox Day and which is explicitly racist, sexist and homophobic. SLIDE 9 And these campaigns succeeded partly thanks to assistance from Gamergate. On the 2015 Hugo ballot, the nominees in the short fiction categories consist entirely of works nominated by Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, and this has led to an enormous public outcry.

Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write

“Sad Puppies Review Books: THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK” – May 5

monster-256x300

The cover of this book promises a monster, which implies there’s going to be a battle. But there’s no battle. There is barely even a monster! Just some blue gamma male wimp who begs and pleads with you to stop reading the book on every page.

Looking at the obviously inflated Amazon reviews I can only conclude that a number of weak-willed liberal readers gave in to this blue cuck’s loathsome SJW bullying tactics and stopped reading before the disappointing reveal. Of course this doesn’t stop them from lavishing it with glowing reviews. These people care only about politics and demographics, not merit or value.

Well, I read it all the way to the end. The last thing you want to do is tell this red-blooded American he mustn’t do something or shouldn’t read something because I believe in the first amendment and I will read whatever the hell I want.

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474 thoughts on “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Puppies 5/5”

  1. Wildcat: “It does seem like Hugo voters tend to look for that extra “something” when voting in the fiction categories… something different or new or unexpected, a spark that attracted their attention in particular over the other works read in a given year. “Satisfying but expected” usually doesn’t win the rocket.”

    Well put.

    I tend to rank highly books which have a solid mix of innovative plot, character-building of significant depth, action (which I do not necessarily define by the hands on the knockoff Michael Baywatch I got from Rev. Bob, but by “keeping me on the edge of my seat”) — and I’m always a sucker for a solid mystery, which will get a novel big Bonus Points from me.

    I enjoyed The Three-Body Problem and The Goblin Emperor — but felt that they really only ticked the first box. Harry North, Ancillary Sword, The Magician’s Land, City of Stairs and Lock In did a fairly good job of ticking all 4 boxes for me, and they were my shortlist, followed by another 35 or so which were all good, some of which I’d have no problem seeing on the Hugo ballot, and others which were enjoyable, but not what I’d consider “Hugo-worthy”.

  2. Brian Z at 9:51 pm:
    I didn’t read many eligible novels this year but “Echopraxia” made my nominating ballot; I thought it was Hugo worthy. “The Peripheral” which I’ve yet to read is on my to-read list because of the good reviews.

    Maximillian at 9:54 pm:
    A close one but “Curse of Chalion” over “American Gods” for me, and it’s mostly because Gaiman had explored much the same themes in his Sandman comics previously whereas what Bujold was doing in Chalion was new to me.

    Rev. Bob at 10:17 pm:
    (Quietly) you might want to be more careful opening that jacket; your participle’s dangling…

  3. Big Boys Don’t Cry

    SPOILERS

    SPOILERS

    Summary of the Story:

    The story is told in reverse chronological order, until switching back at the very end, briefly, from the last battle a sentient Ratha tank (think monstrous powerful tank which is the equivalent of a normal human army) participates in (and is largely destroyed and sent to be scrapped) back through its various missions over the centuries and then the initial brutal training its synthetic brain receives.

    The Ratha (called Magnolia or Maggie, by its former human crew) is accepting that it’s to be scrapped. It’s no longer serviceable, the battle damage is catastrophic and it this is the last duty it can perform to serve the cause.

    However, as it relieves its memory waiting for its power to reach zero it discovers memories which had been walled off due to its programming. Memories that belie or supplement its official battlefield memories. Memories of its human commanders ordering civilians, including children, killed. Memories of being used as a slaver to profit the ruling class. Memories of fighting desperate, and on the surface heroic, rear guard actions so the ruling class and its treasure could be safely lifted off planet, while the mass of humanity is left to be destroyed (unnecessarily so).

    A recurring theme is that the leaders, generals, politicians and merchants are only interested in their own enrichment. They sacrifice their troops and people and use the Rathas to maintain power, both against alien species and their own people. The sentient tanks are programmed to obey the laws of war, but back doors have been placed into their programming which allows the generals to override the tanks and seal off their recorded memories so they can’t be used as evidence as to their crimes, their greed or incompetence.

    The title takes itself from a recurring riff, that the sentient Rathas should act like “big boys and don’t cry” when the tanks protest, before their programming is over-riden.

    As Maggie is scrapped and relieves her new found memories, she is hurt, ashamed, and, gradually, hateful and vengeance driven. She now knows why she hasn’t been allowed a human crew in 73 years (her human crew would not have allowed her to engage in the atrocities the high command ordered- it was portrayed, while it lasted, as a mutually beneficial, respected, almost familial relationship). She knows why she was only allowed drones over the last several decades as support troops.

    Maggie transforms from a loyal soldier to an enraged woman (all the sentient tanks, except one, identify as one gender or the other- Maggie identified as a woman/mother and her crew were her boys). Maggie is, unfortunately, not in a position to do much about it until human greed brings a delegation into her scrap yard, seeking to profit off the rare medals within her structure.

    It’s almost karmic.

    My Analysis:

    The writing is very workman-like for the most part, with the occasional stray line which created an emotional response in this reader, from time to time. I give Kratman a solid B+/A- for his writing.

    The story itself is engaging. At first I thought I was re-reading Turncoat only with a tank, but about half way through it became very personal story, very limited in scope, even though its set against the back drop of Man’s expansion into space. A sentient tank discovers that is core values, both programmed and learned over centuries of service, have been betrayed by those she treated as almost god-like. Her vengeance is very personal and, despite changing nothing in the end, necessary for her own self-respect. There is no saving Maggie’s physical form, there is only extracting a price for the damage they caused her psyche. The story is a solid A.

    The world building is excellent for a novella. I felt it painted a potentially realistic (though depressing) view of human civilization 7-8 centuries down the road. I give it a B+.

    Overall, I give Big Boys Don’t Cry an overall A- score.

    I’ve only read two of the novellas so far, this and Wright’s One Bright Star to Guide Them, and I would rank them as follows:

    TBD Flow
    TBD Pale Realms of Shade
    TBD The Plural of Helen of Troy
    1. Big Boys Don’t Cry.
    2. One Bright Star to Guide Them.

  4. snowcrash @ 9:48 pm- I agree with you, to a very limited extent. But I don’t think slate authors are being given a fair shake by “fandom”, at least as to the bulk of which is present on this site. And I don’t think, in the end, that I will sit by and not react to those within “fandom” (the views stated here being pretty much in uniform agreement) torpedoing excellent authors merely because they and their fans aren’t part of the country club.

  5. Steve Moss: And I don’t think, in the end, that I will sit by and not react to those within “fandom” torpedoing excellent authors merely because they and their fans aren’t part of the country club.”

    You are mischaracterizing what the vast majority of people are saying, which is that they will “No Award” anything on the Slates, as a strong statement that Slates are inappropriate. The others I’ve seen talking about “No Award” are doing so on a quality basis, not on an “in-crowd” basis — and it isn’t only Puppy entries on which they are talking about using “No Award”.

    The “torpedoing excellent authors merely because they and their fans aren’t part of the country club” is the excuse Puppies are using to pretend that non-Puppies have nasty motives.

  6. There’s a country club?!

    HOW COME NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT THE COUNTRY CLUB?

  7. @Steve Moss-
    The thing is that with the exception of Skin Games, nothing I’ve read from the slates so far should even have been nominated. These aren’t excellent authors we are talking about. (Except for Butcher)

    For example, I was excited for Turncoat when I started it, I love exploding spaceships- but the characterization was just horrible. Spiritual Plain had an interesting idea, but didn’t really do anything with it, and the Wright story was a poor attempt at aping CS Lewis.

    I’ll give Totaled a try if I can find a free copy, but if it is like the rest, I don’t have high hopes.

    This isn’t because I’m part of fandom, never been to an SF con in my life. It’s because I’ve read a lot of good SF and this ain’t it.

  8. wildcat: because you’re a wildcat? we didn’t think that golf, and polite conversation over brandies, and shagging the tennis instructors would be your thing.

  10. Rev. Bob @ 10:17- In answer to your questions, my answers diverge from your’s.

    The correct questions are:

    (1) is Worldcon’s membership a fair cross-section of the SF community:
    Answer- I’m beginning to think not, as represented by the Old Guard (fandom). I have no idea as to the current membership year as it appears to be in flux.

    (2) does Worldcon’s membership include Butcher fans:
    Answer- So some claim among the Old Guard. As to the new members, such as myself, yes. The question being how many.

    (3) did the portion of Worldcon’s membership that likes Butcher’s work consider it not just Hugo-worthy, but in their estimation one of the top five Hugo-worthy books of the year?
    Answer- As the point has been repeatedly driven home, what one person or the other thinks are the Top 5 books of the year don’t always make the ballot. In fact that seems to be a common occurrence. Once the ballot is made, the question is not whether it is one of the top 5 novels in SF/F, but whether it’s: a) worthy of a Hugo; or, b) worthy of being placed above No Award.

    I will disagree with anyone who claims that Skin Game should be placed below No Award. Some will do so in good faith and some not. But if I see sufficient numbers from an identifiable group take the No Award position, I will question that group’s good faith. To me, it appears they are stuck up, imagining themselves as some sort of elite, protecting their turf, their country club, not that they are being open minded, even handed or judging the work on the merits as opposed to the pedigree.

    Today has been a bad day, reading the holier than thou responses of some. I should not have been surprised but I am. That’s on me. Live and learn.

  12. Soon Lee, The Peripheral is Mirrorshades meets Anathem meets A Winter’s Bone meets Nine Princes in Amber. Hope it stays on your list.

  13. @Steve Moss: “I don’t think slate authors are being given a fair shake by “fandom”, at least as to the bulk of which is present on this site.”

    When they agreed to participate in the slate, they robbed us of the ability to give them a fair shake. It has nothing to do with a “country club” or anything else like that, no matter how often that claim is made.

    Consider: Someone kidnaps you off the street, holds a gun to your head, shoves a bag into your hands, and tells you to eat what’s in it Or Else. How important are the contents of the bag to your decision-making process? Does it matter if you were on your way home to eat a PB&J sandwich and the bag contains a fine meal? Would the quality of the bagged meal affect your feelings about being kidnapped and having your freedom to choose your own supper taken from you?

    I, for one, would not feel warmly to the kidnappers or the cook, no matter what the meal. I would, in fact, express my displeasure in any way open to me. I certainly would not recommend the experience to others.

  14. Rev. Bob @ 11:50 pm- And I think those who protest against slates being different from recommendation lists are flat wrong. My reasoning has been stated before, so I won’t state it again, but I’d have more respect for the No Award position if you or yours had been doing the same to recommendation lists from the get go.

    So you think you’ve been robbed due to the slate. Well, I think I’m being robbed because you think a slate is different from a recommendation list and intend to No Award the authors on that recommendation list. So I guess that justifies me acting every bit as unilateral as some, when it comes to No Award.

  15. @Soon Lee @Mickey
    Thanks, read it. Not bad. I agree, it is the best of the shorts so far. I think I liked it more than Annie Bellet’s story, as well.

    That being said, did the main character really not wonder what had happened with her children??? Weird. It also shows lazy editing- ‘Pachelbel Cannon’?

  17. oh yeah, all composers traditionally dueled with artillery. Bach’s Howitzer was especially infamous.

  18. Steve Moss

    People keep saying “Skin Game is going below No Award because it was on a slate and as such got on the ballot unfairly” and “Skin Game is going below No Award because while decent, it’s not what a voter sees as Hugo-worthy”

    You keep insisting they’re saying “Skin Game is objectively terrible, and Butcher is not One of Us, so it’s going below No Award”

  19. Oh no! Mea culpa!
    No, the ‘Cannon’ vs ‘Canon’ is my error. The story just left off the possessive at the end of Pachelbel.

  21. Steve Moss, I’m not a Butcher fan but I feel for you. (I had imagined more would be willing to go on record that Skin Game is as good as some of the 2013 nominees.)

  22. @Steve Moss, to your direct reply: “Once the ballot is made, the question is not whether it is one of the top 5 novels in SF/F, but whether it’s: a) worthy of a Hugo; or, b) worthy of being placed above No Award.”

    Two things. First, you say this in response to the nominating process, which is absolutely (supposed to be) about the Top Five of the year. That’s what the nominating ballots ask for – the individual’s choices for up to five novels that he considers The Best Of The Year. The theory is that out of all the individual ballots, the cream will rise to the top, giving a voting ballot of five solid contenders.

    Second, turning to the voting process, I would agree with your quoted statement in all but one word. Rather than say A “or” B, I would go with A “and” B. But then, I really don’t consider A and B to be different propositions. If it is worthy of a Hugo, it should go above No Award, else it should go under or be left off the ballot. But then, I also consider slates to be automatic disqualifications; if the only way it could get on the ballot is by leveraging the power of a slate, the work shouldn’t be there. It’s like me trying to qualify for a foot race by riding a motorcycle – it’s not a fair qualification round, and it doesn’t matter if I would’ve been able to qualify on foot. I tried to use a motorcycle, that disqualifies me, so I don’t get to race. Sucks to be me.

    As to the question of whether Skin Game could have or would have gotten on the ballot on its own merits… we’ll never know. Blame the Puppies for that, because they’re the ones who robbed it of a fair chance to compete for the nomination.

  24. MickyFinn: “oh yeah, all composers traditionally dueled with artillery. Bach’s Howitzer was especially infamous”

    … but not nearly so impressive as Tchaikovsky’s Culverin.

  25. @Steve Moss-
    A recommendation list (which I’ve never seen, but will accept your assertion that they exist) is very different from a slate. Just look at the math on the results. Slate voting allowed a small number of voters to lock out almost everything except the pieces chosen behind the scenes by Brad and Vox. An author tweeting ‘Hey, I wrote X and it is eligible for the Hugo!’, does *not* have the same effect. Seriously, check out any number of posts on how the nomination process works.

    People aren’t just pretending that slates are different and that they don’t like slates in order to vote against books you like.

    If you don’t want to read the blog posts, just look at the recommendations in these threads here from Puppies saying that all the rest of the fans will have to form their own slates next year if we want to get anything nominated. This is a direct admission that any recommendation lists out there are NOT the same as the slates.

  26. @Steve Moss –
    And I’m not No Awarding Butcher, because he’s one of my favorite authors.

    As I said before on many of the shorts- I don’t have to decide whether to NA a good story because it was on a slate, because none of them are Hugo worthy to start with. (But I haven’t read Samurai yet)

  27. wildcat: because you’re a wildcat? we didn’t think that golf, and polite conversation over brandies, and shagging the tennis instructors would be your thing.

    Oh no, now I feel excluded from the country club. You have made me a Sad Kitty. I suppose the only reasonable response is to BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND something something conspiracy cabal blah blah blah country clubbers always lie yadda yadda take back the golf courses for the common feline zippity skippity it’s about ethics in instructor-shagging!

  28. @TC McCarthy: One more afterthought: Just so you know, there is a widely held view in Worldcon fandom, which you can share or not as you please, but ought to know about — that ‘I’m voting only for Worldcon bids I can comfortably drive to’ is seen as something of a dick move.

    Why? Because the objective of Site Selection is to pick the site & committee you think will put on the best Worldcon. Which, like most things in life, isn’t actually all about you.

    Or about me, either. E.g., I voted for Aussiecon 3 for example because their bid seemed the better and most meritorious bid, even though I had no intention of going there. And I voted for Nippon in ’07 over Baltimore and DC, because they had the better bid, even though I didn’t go there, either.

    Rick Moen
    [email protected]

  29. (The phrase ‘better and more meritorious’ is brought to you by the William Safire Memorial Redundancy Squad Team, plus yr. humble reporter’s current need of sleep.)

  30. JJ / BrianZ

    I hadn’t read the Claire North or the Emily St John Mandel when I nominated otherwise they may have made it.

    I can’t remember if I nominated either the Gibson or the Watts although I enjoyed both. One of them may have made it.

    I think that Europe In Autumn by Dave Hutchinson, Wolves by Simon Ings, Bête by Adam Roberts, and Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor were either on or close to my nomination list.

    The one I can remember being on my list was Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.

    I think Wolves, Bête, and Lagoon were not, and still haven’t been, published in the US so were always unlikely to make it.

    This may also have hurt Empty Space by M. John Harrison in 2013. Empty Space was published in the UK in 2012 and didn’t get published until Mar 2013 in the US (by Night Shade) so unlikely to have had enough US readers nominating to make the final ballot in 2013 (it isn’t even on the nomination stats so got less than 55 nominees). The same situation holds true for lots of other strong novels that are first published in the UK which helps explain why a lot of Iain M. Banks’s works didn’t get the recognition they deserved.

  31. andyl:

    I’ve read Lagoon but was sadly disappointed, as it essentially ended up being a mashup of Close Encounters + X-Men + Lovecraft. I’m not a fan of either of the latter two, so my reaction was “meh”. I enjoyed the insight into another culture, but given that a large percentage of the dialogue was in a pidgin English which was difficult to read and parse, I finished feeling as though I’d put in far more effort than was warranted by the “payoff”.

    I’ve not read any of the others you’ve listed, but thanks for the recommendations! They will go on my ever-growing TBR list (which is already over 200 long).

    The only Banks I’ve read thus far is The Algebraist, which I quite enjoyed, and I thought it provided a nice little “payoff” at the end. I’m looking forward to devouring the rest of his works.

  32. andyl:

    Oh, and I have read the Southern Reach Trilogy, and quite enjoyed it despite it not really being my sort of thing. However, I felt that it kind of lost the path in the last book, which was why I did not have it on my shortlist. But it’s definitely one of those which I would not have objected to being on the Hugo ballot.

  33. @Rick Moen: I got an email notification about a post you made, and that post doesn’t seem to be here anymore – or my computer is whacked out, which is possible. Either way, I can’t see your post but here’s my answer:

    My motivation for posting the tweet and trying to get #sadpuppies to vote DCin17 is very simple: it’s not enough for people to stand up and say “hey there’s something wrong with the Hugo nom and voting processes” and then push a list of nominees. We have to meet fans, discuss this stuff, fight, whatever. I’ve already stated to Brad and Larry et al. what I’m going to state here: #sadpuppies and its supporters need to go to conventions and get involved at the business meeting level. We need to integrate with fandom and if that means yelling at each other across the room, fine – those are discussions/fights worth having. That’s how adults handle disagreements. That’s how diplomacy is handled and how issues are solved. I can’t make it to Sasquan but I will definitely be at Kansas City.

    Right now, most (not all?) of the people who have a problem with the Hugos are in the US and the next few years are going to be very important for WorldCon and the WSFS in terms of what gets decided in meetings. So a full list of my motivations for pushing DCin17 are as follows:

    1. It’s our nation’s capital and “it’s too hot” isn’t enough to convince me to vote no. I grew up in the DC area and it kicks ass. Great bar scene. Great metro. Great museums. Great restaurants. Diverse Culture.
    2. Washington DC is a large metro area with a huge draw for cons.
    3. Many important WSFS business decisions over all this will likely take place over the next 3 years; it makes sense to hold WorldCon where the principals involved on BOTH sides can most readily attend. My opinion: Helsinki does not meet this requirement.
    4. I have read your wife’s post on travel costs etc. and she’s done an incredible job; I believe we would get a lot of Finns interested in attending. But over the next few years I think getting the right people involved at the business meeting level (from BOTH sides of this argument) supersedes other issues – see 3, above.
    5. I did take your good old boys comment personally since it was in direct response to my original tweet. Now I’ve heard you out and understand that’s not what you meant. I too apologize for my tweet to MundaneBrains (sp?), made prior to your responses here.

    Sadpuppies aren’t going away and this isn’t going to be solved by blog posts, twitter wars, etc.; in fact, these things will make it worse. Instead, it’s going to need personal involvement, face to face, and if there’s one thing I’m critical of vis-a-vis Sadpuppies it’s this: not getting involved more heavily with WorldCon. I understand and believe Larry when he says he’s had bad experiences at WorldCon in terms of being insulted, etc., but that’s not enough to justify not getting involved at a personal level. To the contrary. I would have attended the business meetings, discussed my concerns with long time WSFS folks, and indicated that I intended to bring in a new set of fans in an effort to change the behavior I experienced, etc.

    Anyway, we are where we are, and those are my motivations.

    @alexvdl: if you really don’t want me to do a Youtube video about you, fine.

  34. @TC McCarthy: More than good enough for me. And I repeat, I do apologise for that ‘ballot-stuffing’ bit. Without any ‘but…’ clause, even (of the sort that creates the infamous ‘non-apology apologies’. It was unkind.

    I love DC, even in August. ;-> If Worldcon 2017 is there, I expect we’ll both have a really great time. The bid committee are the most amazing volunteers, for one, and you should make a point of meeting them.

    If it’s one of the other bids that wins, and my wife Deirdre or I have any useful tips about getting and staying there, we’ll be glad to share them.

    One point: You think Helsinki is not where ‘both sides of this argument‘ (emphasis added) are. WSFS isn’t about ‘this argument’. It just isn’t. You want to participate in WSFS, you don’t attempt to dictate where it meets (except, of course, you have one vote if you join the Society, but you have absolutely no moral claim on everyone else). Nor do you get to dictate the Society’s agenda and concerns. That is up to the assembly, and if they decide to defer your motion (whatever it is) indefinitely, you need to learn to live with how WSFS works, or (as the saying goes) die with it on your mind.

    And you seem frankly extremely unclear on the ‘world’ in Worldcon. This sort of thing, when I hear it, is lastingly embarrassingly to me as an American citizen, as it’s the sort of thing that makes me look provincial by association. I really do wish my countrymen would stop doing that.

    And saying you’ll vote for a site just because you can drive to it really is one of the classic dick moves, just so you know.

    Rick Moen
    [email protected]

  36. @TC: “We need to integrate with fandom and if that means yelling at each other across the room, fine – those are discussions/fights worth having. That’s how adults handle disagreements.”

    Adults handle disagreements by yelling at each other across the room and fighting? Like, as a goal rather than a regrettable “things got WAY out of hand” consequence that people apologize for later? (And I really hope you mean fighting in the figurative sense. Security doesn’t look kindly upon fisticuffs.)

    We must associate with different adults. The ones I know are capable of discussing differences of opinion, even deeply felt ones, without shouting at each other.

    I mean, we’re talking about awards here. Gold stars. Fancy statues. Desk clutter. It’s not like the Hugo Police are going to come in and take Baen out of bookstores. The SWAT team isn’t going to raid your house looking for Kratman books and forcing you to read paranormal romances instead. Your favorite authors are still going to write and get published, as are mine.

    What matters is what the award represents, and while any fan likes to see someone they like get that tangible expression of respect from the community, that’s not what the Puppies are giving out. You can’t rig the ballot and keep it legitimate – or are you claiming that the sham elections in a dictatorship actually show that the dictator is supported by 99% of the population? It’s also time to consider the possibility that maybe – just maybe – the stuff you love isn’t really as popular as you think. I read a fantastic book from 2009 that I might have nominated, but it didn’t even get a dozen nominating votes that year. That doesn’t mean the book got robbed – it means some of the stuff I read is Out There. Welcome to the club.

    One place I will agree with you is that if you want to change minds, there’s no substitute for meeting people in person. I just wonder what you’re trying to change their minds about. If you want them to like the stuff you like, a political campaign ain’t gonna do it. (Would that persuade you to abandon SF for cozy mysteries, or to forsake Correia for Scalzi? No, but maybe you can get Ringo fans to try Correia or cozy fans to check out Asimov’s SF mysteries.) The closest you can come in that regard is getting people with your kind of taste to get off their duffs and actually cast nominating ballots; that’s where campaigning pays off. It’s not going to win you any converts.

    What works for that is one thing the Puppies haven’t tried: acting like people who like books. Quit playing culture-war politics where you’ve already painted everybody else as The Enemy. Don’t shove numbers in my face to “prove” that what you like is better than what I like, so I should start liking it. Rave about how COOL it was when that guy did that thing in Chapter Ten, and how you were up all night because you couldn’t put it down. Whip out your Kindle and show me that page you bookmarked because you loved that turn of phrase. Show people how compelling the stories are, instead of telling them how popular the author is.

    See, that’s the key. Fans don’t win awards. Authors don’t win awards. Causes and checkboxes and messages don’t win awards. Books win awards. If you’re not in it to celebrate the stories, you’re Doing It Wrong. Awards are about showing the love, not spreading the hate.

    Oh, while I’m at it – take me off your “Imma rant about this guy on YouTube” list, too. If you’d rather fight and yell than think and talk, I want nothing to do with you.

  37. ‘ if there’s one thing I’m critical of vis-a-vis Sadpuppies it’s this: not getting involved more heavily with WorldCon.’

    And what do you think of Theodore Beale’s scorched-earth anti-SJW couldn’t-actually-give-a-shit-about-Hugos-or-Worldcon-or-fandom-because-they-like-the-wrong-things witch hunt? Because that’s the rhetorephant in the room when it comes to rapprochement with Sad Puppies.

  38. Bob: “Adults handle disagreements by yelling at each other across the room and fighting? Like, as a goal rather than a regrettable “things got WAY out of hand” consequence that people apologize for later? (And I really hope you mean fighting in the figurative sense. Security doesn’t look kindly upon fisticuffs.)”

    TC: Yes, Bob, sometimes adults yell, although I hope it wouldn’t come to that. And no, bob, I did not mean “fisticuffs.”

    Bob: “We must associate with different adults. The ones I know are capable of discussing differences of opinion, even deeply felt ones, without shouting at each other.”

    TC: Really, Bob? I think we must associate with different adults. I get in regular shouting matches with one of my best friends when it’s on a topic we’re passionate about. And then we laugh. I get in shouting matches over technical disagreements with people who are my competitors, and then we go have lunch together. Shouting != bad.

    Bob: “I mean, we’re talking about awards here. Gold stars. Fancy statues. Desk clutter. It’s not like the Hugo Police are going to come in and take Baen out of bookstores. The SWAT team isn’t going to raid your house looking for Kratman books and forcing you to read paranormal romances instead. Your favorite authors are still going to write and get published, as are mine.”

    TC: So why are you debating the issue at all?

    Bob: “What matters is what the award represents, and while any fan likes to see someone they like get that tangible expression of respect from the community, that’s not what the Puppies are giving out. You can’t rig the ballot and keep it legitimate – or are you claiming that the sham elections in a dictatorship actually show that the dictator is supported by 99% of the population? It’s also time to consider the possibility that maybe – just maybe – the stuff you love isn’t really as popular as you think. I read a fantastic book from 2009 that I might have nominated, but it didn’t even get a dozen nominating votes that year. That doesn’t mean the book got robbed – it means some of the stuff I read is Out There. Welcome to the club.”

    TC: This is one thing that I think needs to be discussed in person.

    Bob: “One place I will agree with you is that if you want to change minds, there’s no substitute for meeting people in person. I just wonder what you’re trying to change their minds about. If you want them to like the stuff you like, a political campaign ain’t gonna do it. (Would that persuade you to abandon SF for cozy mysteries, or to forsake Correia for Scalzi? No, but maybe you can get Ringo fans to try Correia or cozy fans to check out Asimov’s SF mysteries.) The closest you can come in that regard is getting people with your kind of taste to get off their duffs and actually cast nominating ballots; that’s where campaigning pays off. It’s not going to win you any converts.”

    TC: I’m not trying to convert you or other current WorldCon members. My suspicion is that there’s a subset of authors who get read consistently by true WorldCon fans and that not all true fans have the time to read as widely as you do – resulting in many books being totally overlooked each year (e.g., Ready Player One, and I think we could all point to examples from each year). This is where broadening and growing fandom by bringing in other people comes in, and they may have the same or different taste than you.

    Bob: “What works for that is one thing the Puppies haven’t tried: acting like people who like books. Quit playing culture-war politics where you’ve already painted everybody else as The Enemy. Don’t shove numbers in my face to “prove” that what you like is better than what I like, so I should start liking it. Rave about how COOL it was when that guy did that thing in Chapter Ten, and how you were up all night because you couldn’t put it down. Whip out your Kindle and show me that page you bookmarked because you loved that turn of phrase. Show people how compelling the stories are, instead of telling them how popular the author is.”

    TC: Since I haven’t done these things, I have no response.

    Bob: “See, that’s the key. Fans don’t win awards. Authors don’t win awards. Causes and checkboxes and messages don’t win awards. Books win awards. If you’re not in it to celebrate the stories, you’re Doing It Wrong. Awards are about showing the love, not spreading the hate.”

    TC: Fans vote on awards. More fans should be involved in voting.

    Bob: “Oh, while I’m at it – take me off your “Imma rant about this guy on YouTube” list, too. If you’d rather fight and yell than think and talk, I want nothing to do with you.”

    TC: Lol. It would not have been a rant, Bob. It would have been a reasoned explanation of how asinine you were for comparing #gamergate to the kkk. With clips of Christina H Sommers (feminist), Milo Y (openly gay journalist), and others for added emphasis.

  40. @TC: “It would not have been a rant, Bob. It would have been a reasoned explanation of how asinine you were for comparing #gamergate to the kkk. With clips of Christina H Sommers (feminist), Milo Y (openly gay journalist), and others for added emphasis.”

    Ah, so it would have completely misunderstood the comparison by confusing the details. Glad we dodged that bullet, then!

    (Hint: If someone says that A doing B would be like C doing D, concluding from that that he said B equals D is an utter failure. The point is to shed some light on the A/B dynamic by comparing it to the presumed-familiar C/D dynamic. Thus, “Judy was as uncomfortable at the reunion as a hooker in church” neither implies that Judy has sex for money nor that the reunion is taking place at a church. Therefore, performing a detailed analysis of reunion pictures to prove that there was no church nearby completely misses the point.)

  41. To be fair, you mean Christina Sommers, employee of Conservative thinktank AEI, and Milo Y. , Breitbart journalist known for writing articles lambasting gamers and then pandering to them as soon as he realized they could be his audience. Oh, there was also that time he decided to not pay any of his employees.

    You going to be at Balticon this year?

  42. Bob: “Glad we dodged that bullet, then!”

    Ha! Somebody certainly dodged it but it wasn’t me. Gotta go. This seems to be one of your stomping grounds so have at it, I think I’m done with this thread.

  44. Alexvdl: “To be fair, you mean Christina Sommers, employee of Conservative thinktank AEI, and Milo Y. , Breitbart journalist known for writing articles lambasting gamers and then pandering to them as soon as he realized they could be his audience. Oh, there was also that time he decided to not pay any of his employees. ”

    I mean Christina Sommers, former professor, author of multiple books, member of the board for “Foundation for Individual Rights in Education,” former board member for “Independent Women’s Forum,” author of articles for NYT, Huffpo, etc. And Milo has openly apologized for those articles and I buy his explanation – that he didn’t really understand gaming or the controversy at the time. Gotta run.

  46. Alexvdl: Figures, that TC ran away before answering my question.

    No. I will not be at Balticon this year. And no, I did not run away from you – nor would I ever run away from you. But I am tired of this thread and have more important things to do.

  47. Snowcrash – ‘I suspect that Matt Y at 8:57pm has run afoul of Poe’s Law….’

    Yep, I’ve gotta start using a sarcasm tag.

  48. A bit late to the party I know, but it really is a pity Predestination missed out on a nomination this year. It is based on a Robert Heinlein short story, All You Zombies. I suppose time will tell if the Puppy Slate knocked a second chance to salute a great Master of SF.

  49. Right now, most (not all?) of the people who have a problem with the Hugos are in the US and the next few years are going to be very important for WorldCon and the WSFS in terms of what gets decided in meetings.

    If WorldCon is going to actually live up to the “World” part of its name, then choosing a site because of a need to address the incredibly parochial concerns of a tiny number of U.S. authors is a terrible idea.

  50. “Gotta run.”

    vs.

    “And no, I did not run away from you – nor would I ever run away from you”

    That’s… that’s a thing.

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