To Your Scattered Kennels Go 7/6

aka Last and First Puppies

The Ultimate Roundup brings you Benjamin Domenech and Robert Tracinski, Samuel John Klein, T.P. Kroger, Vox Day, Doctor Science, Aidan Moher, Brandon Kempner, Martin Wisse, Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag, David Steffen, Lis Carey and Cryptic Others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Bruce Baugh and Milt Stevens.)

 

Benjamin Domenech and Robert Tracinski on The Federalist

“Welcome To Culture War 4.0: The Coming Overreach” – July 6

Culture War 4.0

Today we live in the early stages of that triumph, and as a small number of public intellectuals and media commentators predicted, it is a bloody triumph indeed. Culture War 4.0 brings the Counterculture full circle: now they have become the blue-nosed, Puritanical establishment. Once they began to achieve their goals and saw the culture moving their way, they moved from making a plea for tolerance and freedom to demanding persecution of anyone who dissents against the new orthodoxy in even the smallest way.

Whichever side believes it is winning will tend to overreach, pushing too far, too fast, and alienating the public.

In just the past two years, the Counterculture’s neo-Puritanical reign has made things political that were never thought to be: Shirtstorms and Gamergate, Chik-fil-A and Brandon Eich, Indiana and Sad Puppies, and don’t you dare say Caitlyn Jenner isn’t a hero.

History teaches us two clear lessons about the ebb and flow of the Culture War: first, that whichever side believes it is winning will tend to overreach, pushing too far, too fast, and in the process alienating the public. The second is that the American people tend to oppose whoever they see as the aggressor in the Culture Wars—whoever they see as trying to intrusively impose their values on other people and bullying everyone who disagrees.

 

Samuel John Klein on The ZehnKatzen Times

“The Sad Puppies May Have A Point” – July 6

One of the most juvenile, at least to me, of the Sad Puppies’ plaints about the trend of modern SF (you can fill in speculative fiction or science fiction, as is your wont) is elaborated by this point made by one of the leading opiners of the movement, Brad Torgerson: ….

And then it occurred to me that one of the cornerstones of this insurgency is apparently the right to judge a book by its cover. This is something that I was told never to do, that it was the sign of shallowness and unwarranted prejudice.

But then, I thought, what if there was a point to made here? Maybe I just work too hard at wanting an experience here. I mean, if I, as a consumer, should want to be guided with pretty shiny images, then who am I to complain? They do me a service, after all, in truth-in-labeling (as a liberal, I’m supposed to like that).

So, truth-in-labeling. Okay. We’ll go with that. I hold in my hand a Berkeley 1981 re-release of one of my favorite novels, written by an acknowledged master of the form, one who went on to create iconic works of SF that inform the genre to this day. But, book-by-its-cover now … okay, I see an organically-formed, liquid, almost-melting edifice on a horizon under a hot yellow sky, and that edifice appears to be a building … after all, there’s something that looks like a tiny figure standing in one of the openings (is it a window). On the whole, it looks like something Frank Gehry came up with in a fever dream.

In the sky, an eye orbits. Setting or rising, I can’t tell, but there it is. to the right of the building, a small thing resembling a misconceived volcano seems to launching a weather balloon, or maybe Rover from The Prisoner. It’s all on a purple plain resembling fused glass, with two rocks resembling rocketships in the foreground, and in the extreme foreground it appears that some poor soul has died, being embedded in the fused glass of the plain.

Needless to say, I expected a tripping-balls adventure about a science-fictional acid trip, but what did I actually get? Some lame story about an alternate past where the Japanese and Germans won WWII and divided up America between them.

Oh, by the way, here’s the book:

HighCastleCover

And, to fit the Sad Puppy profile of undeserving novels, it won the Hugo.

In 1962.

Clearly, this conspiracy has gone on way longer than any of us imaginers could have possibly imagined.

Wake up, sheeple!

 

 

 

Vox Day wrote in an e-mail – July 5

One of your commenters said this:

“Like the persecution they are always whining about, it doesn’t exist.  Claiming it does only makes them look foolish.”

You could read the FIVE Guardian pieces libeling me. Or the Entertainment Weekly piece, the Boston Globe piece, the NPR report, or the Popular Science piece. Note that none of them ever interviewed me, even though the Guardian guidelines require a subject to be interviewed if they are identified by name.

Note that three of the individuals on the SFWA Board were actually guilty of the charge that I was falsely accused of. I did NOT attack an SFWA member in an official SFWA forum, in fact, I didn’t even LINK to an attack on an SFWA member in an official SFWA forum. (@sfwaauthors is not the official SFWA Twitter feed, and the feed belongs to Twitter anyhow, not SFWA.) Stephen Gould, among 70 other SFWA members, did.

This is why no one on our side gives even the smallest damn about anything the other side says. We know they are all absolutely and utterly full of shit. And we also know that even when we prove something beyond any shadow of a doubt, they will not change their mind in the slightest, but will promptly move the goalposts.

We will never, ever talk to them. There is no point.

 

 

bloggingandcapturing

“Nerd Entitlement or: How to stop hating and accept diversity” – July 6

This phenomenon isn’t limited to gaming. Hell the term GamerGate was first coined by the actor Adam Baldwin, a man whose Twitter feed is a smorgasbord of right-wing rambling that would fit right in at a Rick Santorum dinner party. Then there’s this years Hugo Awards, which has managed to be hijacked by a group right-wing authors and their supporters calling themselves ‘The Sad Puppies’, even managing to raise the ire of George R.R. Martin. Whilst they’ve been around for a couple of years with very little effect, their sudden rise in influence has coincided with the emergence of GamerGate. And then there’s the YouTube channels that have jumped on the crazy train. I remember watching Thunderf00t videos to do with astronomy years ago. Imagine my surprise when swathes of his channel is now dedicated to bashing feminists.

It’s become a lightning rod for those who had their niche, a thing that they could call their own. Now that it’s become more inclusive they’re rallying against feminists, “Social Justice Warriors” and those who think that maybe, just maybe, having more equality is a good thing. Because everything in geek culture in the past was aimed at a smaller market to which they belonged, their sense of entitlement is so that they feel that should continue.

Do I think that the likes of Adam Baldwin gives a toss about video games, aside from being paid to occasionally be in them? No. But it helps to further their agenda and people who see themselves as victims get swept up in it.

Is there a solution to this? Can those of us who, through our fandom, hobbies and interests are inextricably linked to these people, do or say anything to turn people away from such hate? I would like to think yes. We need to support those game developers, film makers and creative types who are helping to diversify geek culture. It’s important to not be afraid to provide constructive criticism when they drop the ball from time to time.

It’s my hope that, given time, opportunists like Baldwin, the misogynists GameGate, the Sad Puppies and countless YouTubers will become increasingly marginalised. With the widespread critical acclaim of the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road and Her Story and the increasing condemnation of shows like Game of Thrones for its treatment of women, I’d like to think that perception is starting to change. Sadly, I feel that for the time being those that shout the loudest will continue to impinge on geek culture.

 

Doctor Science on Obsidian Wings

“Hugo voting: how, why, for what” – July 6

This is a guide intended for fans from the transformative works/Tumblr ends of fandom who are voting for the Hugo Awards for the first time.

There are two basic principles for Hugo voting:

  1. You do not have to vote in every category
  2. When you *do* vote in a category, you have to at least look at all the legitimate nominees. You don’t have to finish them, but you’re honor-bound to at least try…..

 

Aidan Moher on A Dribble of Ink

Aidan Moher: Well, I wear my Hugo Award on a platinum chain around my neck — Flavor Flav-style — so, that tells you all you need to know about my perspective on awards. If you got ‘em, flaunt ‘em. Life’s too short for humility.

 

Brandon Kempner on Chaos Horizon

“Inside the Locus Results” – July 6

My copy of Locus Magazine arrived today, and with it some interesting insights on how the Hugo nominees did in those awards. While not a perfect match to the Hugos, the Locus are the closest thing going: a popular vote by SFF “insiders” to determine the best novel of the year…..

You’ll notice that the Top 2 from the SF and the Top 1 from F make up 3/5 of the Hugo Best Novel ballot. Neither the Jim Butcher nor the Kevin J. Anderson made the Top 28 SF novels or the Top 21 fantasy novels. If you were going by Locus vote counts alone, VanderMeer and Gibson would have been next in line for nominations. Since Hugo voters have ignored Gibson since 1994 (seriously, no nominations since 1994), the 5th spot would have been a toss up between Scalzi and Bennett. Given Scalzi’s past Hugo performance, you might lean in that direction, although we’ll find out when the full nomination stats are released.

 

Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words

“Best Novel Hugo vote 2015” – July 6

I don’t have to tell you I won’t be voting for any Puppy candidates, right, so the question becomes which of the three non-Puppy candidates will get my vote. Even diminished, this is a great shortlist:

The Goblin Emperor — Katherine Addison.

The Goblin Emperor at heart is a very traditional power fantasy, about the boy of humble origins who becomes emperor by happenstance and now has to very quickly learn how to survive in a world of political intrigue he’s completely unprepared for, filled with people who either want to manipulate him or replace him with a better figurehead. It’s one of those fantasy scenarios other writers can write multiple trilogies about to get to that point, but Katherine Addison has her goblin hero confirmed as the emperor within five pages, the rest of the novel being about him getting to grips with his new job, woefully inadequate though he feels.

 

Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words

“The Three-Body Problem — Cixin Liu” – July 6

If it hadn’t been for Marko Kloos doing the honourable thing and withdrawing his nomination, The Three-Body Problem wouldn’t be on the ballot for this year’s Best Novel Hugo. And that would’ve been a shame, since The Three-Body Problem is the first translated novel to make the shortlist. The start of a trilogy, it originally came out in China in serialisation in 2006, with the novel version coming out in 2008. The English translation was done by Ken Liu, who has won a Hugo Award himself. The sequels will come out this year and next.

 

Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag on Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog

“Hugo Reading – Related Work” – July 6

[Comments on all five nominees]

This entire category seems like a race to the bottom. “Wisdom” is clearly meant as an insult to anyone who actually cares about the Hugos, and none of the rest are award-worthy, though some are ok or even almost good. I feel like the time I spent reading this category was completely wasted. The only thing to do with this one is vote “No Award” and leave everything off the ballot.

 

David Steffen on Diabolical Plots

“Hugo Short Story Review: ‘A Single Samurai’ by Steven Diamond” – July 6

“A Single Samurai” by Steven Diamond was first published in The Baen Big Book of Monsters published by Baen Books.

In this story a mountain-sized kaiju has arisen in Japan, rising from beneath the land itself where the landscape had built up around it.  The monster is moving across the countryside, crushing everything in its path.  A samurai has survived its uprising where so many others haven’t by riding the kaiju as it rose up and climbing up its back even as the soil and trees and rocks shift off the kaiju as it walks.  To save Japan he has to finish his climb and find some way to kill the monster.

 

Familiar Diversions

“Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie” – July 6

Ancillary Justice has been on my TBR for a while, because books with prominent AI characters that aren’t evil are my catnip. Then the whole thing with the Sad Puppies and the Hugo Awards blew up. Ancillary Justice was one of two works that kept coming up again and again as one of the works most hated by the Sad Puppies, so I suppose I should thank them for reminding me I hadn’t read it yet…..

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Edge of Tomorrow, screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, and John-Henry Butterworth, directed by Doug Liman (Village Roadshow, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, 3 Arts Entertainment; Viz Productions)” – July 6

Groundhog Day meets every high-tech war movie you’ve seen. And, really, too violent for my tastes; I don’t do war movies. My nerves don’t handle the sound and images well. But this, honestly, is very good.

1,887 thoughts on “To Your Scattered Kennels Go 7/6

  1. @Morris Keesan

    Another vote for Deeds of Paksennarion and one for Heralds of Valdemar.

  2. I’m still trying to figure out how one could get to supporting the Mixon report means you must support a thing that happened–what, eight months later? That’s a head scratcher. I get people may want them to appear connected, because Reasons, but linear time seems pretty immutable on this one.

    RH seems to bring out the worst in people, which is reason enough to steer clear, as far as I’m concerned. I believe that people CAN change, but my own experience has taught me that in practice, they hardly ever do.

  3. Brian Z.: If the perfect is the enemy of the good, one possibility is to evaluate the work on its merits this year, and encourage everyone to nominate what they really love in the future.

    Great! You just go on over to all of the Puppy blogs, and get posted agreement from them not to run any more slates, and…

    Oh, yeah. People who don’t believe in Ethics can’t be trusted to keep their word, even if — IF — they gave it to you.

    Brian Z.: Who knows what might happen.

    I know what WILL happen. If the WSFS doesn’t pass EPH, the Puppies will just keep posting slates and gaming crap onto the ballot year after year after year.

    Why don’t you come up with a “possibility” which is actually viable? Because that one isn’t.

  4. TooManyJens: The watch in the snow is a lovely header image. However, the initial worldbuilding signals of this blog are all fantasy-adventure, so the sudden inclusion of the tagline “Mike Glyer’s news of science fiction fandom” threw me.

    So a File770 tavern is out of the question, then?

  5. Just a note that whatever you think of TNH, double-check anything you hear about her because there is some serious twisting of her words going on on twitter and that stuff tends to spread fast. (I would’ve thought the link to the doxx + RaceFail would be enough, but apparently its not enough until you’ve accused her of misusing the information she has professional access to to doxx people, perpetuating rape culture, and saying that everyone tweeting at her is secretly a RH sockpuppet.)

    @snowcrash

    RH is insinuating that Liz Williams might have been the person who confirmed the name, so that’s her first pick of targets.

  6. If the perfect is the enemy of the good, one possibility is to evaluate the work on its merits this year, and encourage everyone to nominate what they really love in the future. Who knows what might happen.

    Evaluating the work on its merits this year: done, and you know it because you’ve been here while it happened.

    Encourage everyone to nominate what they really love in the future: been done all along, until the Puppies decided to do something different.

    Who knows what might happen? We know. We’ve already been shown. The Puppies will continue to escalate, the way SP1, 2 and 3 have escalated, unless something it put in place to stop it happening.

    Luckily, EPH both stops them and does not prevent anyone from putting exactly the nominations they want on their ballot. Which again, you know.

    Why you feel the need to post things you already know in the form of questions is a mystery.

  7. Here at the End of All Things, are some answers/ things we’re still missing:

    – A honest explanation as to how the SP3 slate was created,

    – How the tactics of slate-nominations furthers *any* of the constantly changing rationales provided by the Puppies

    – Anyone taking on the Mamatas Challenge

    – Evidence of a previous slate/ bloc-voting effort. The Puppies keep saying that’s the only way Stuff They Don’t Like Could have won, but are strangely reticent at providing any evidence or proof of their allegations.

    – Why Wisdom of the Internet???? Seriously why? (And yelling about Scalzi is not a good answer)

  8. @RedWombat

    The evidence is that the source of the doxx also provided evidence for the Mixon Report. I’m still not sure why that would mean people have to support both, but that’s the connection.

  9. Too late to add: The screenshot on page 6 of Laura J. Mixon’s Hugo packet pdf is allegedly from the doxxer. Drawing attention to that screenshot doesn’t do Winterfox any favours, though.

  10. Brian Z on July 6, 2015 at 9:02 pm said:

    If the perfect is the enemy of the good, one possibility is to evaluate the work on its merits this year, and encourage everyone to nominate what they really love in the future. Who knows what might happen.

    Well how about we do that AND have the nerdiest, most-SF, futuristic, nominating algorithm we can. Short of covering it hologram flecked mylar I can think of no other way of making the nomination system more apt for Worldcon than EPH. Although you suggestion for a post-apocalyptic cage fight with bungee trapeze has some merit.

    EPH wins on pure aesthetic.

  11. TooManyJens on July 6, 2015 at 9:10 pm said:
    The watch in the snow is a lovely header image.

    However, the initial worldbuilding signals of this blog are all fantasy-adventure, so the sudden inclusion of the tagline “Mike Glyer’s news of science fiction fandom” threw me.

    I saw what you did there. (Well played.)

    snowcrash on July 6, 2015 at 9:24 pm said:
    Here at the End of All Things, are some answers/ things we’re still missing:
    . . .
    – Why Wisdom of the Internet???? Seriously why? (And yelling about Scalzi is not a good answer)

    I still want Torgersen to explain to us why he Slated Wisdom from My Internet – AND why he didn’t nominate the Heinlein biography.

    I mean, they claim to be All About The RAH. And then they snub him. WHY?

  12. snowcrash on July 6, 2015 at 9:24 pm said:

    Here at the End of All Things, are some answers/ things we’re still missing:

    – A honest explanation as to how the SP3 slate was created,

    – How the tactics of slate-nominations furthers *any* of the constantly changing rationales provided by the Puppies

    – Anyone taking on the Mamatas Challenge

    – Evidence of a previous slate/ bloc-voting effort. The Puppies keep saying that’s the only way Stuff They Don’t Like Could have won, but are strangely reticent at providing any evidence or proof of their allegations.

    – Why Wisdom of the Internet???? Seriously why? (And yelling about Scalzi is not a good answer)

    OK here are the answers:
    1. It was actually purgatory despite what the writers said mid-season.
    2. It was his childhood sled.
    3. It isn’t exactly clear when Newman has explained the whole plan to Redford but obviously they had it all worked out when they pretended to shoot each other,
    4. Soylent green is people
    5. It wasn’t actually an alien planet full of talking apes but was in fact Earth
    I appreciate that these aren’t the answers you were looking for but I suspect they maybe the only ones we will ever get…

  13. 2. It was his childhood sled.

    Funny story. We had to watch that movie in high school. It got split between two class sessions, since classes were only an hour apart, and there were 2 history classes in my year. I was in the second class, and as the first class was filing out after finishing the movie, and my class was filing in, one of the boys cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed “ROSEBUD WAS HIS SLED!”

    People everywhere were pissed, and that was pretty much my first encounter with the concept of a spoiler.

  14. I’d like to recommend the grey Walker series by Kat Richardson. This is a set of noirish urban fantasies-cum-mysteries set mostly in Seattle and environs with side trips to England and Portugal. The central idea is that the heroine was clinically dead for a couple of minutes and now she sees into the Grey and the Grey sees into her.

    The series has great plotting, vivid writing (Richardson gives good bleak) and her research and invention are fascinating. Sometimes I feel like she’s pushing anthropology in the guise of fantasy. The books also have a good sense of place. My personal favorites are the second book, Poltergeist, which doesn’t go where you think it goes; and a more recent book, Seawitch, which has a great mystery at its core and offers a new take on sea otters. The story The Third Death of the Little Clay Dog in Mean Streets is a good intro.

    The long term character arcs contain some dead ends, people and plot lines come and go. But that’s a small quibble.

    Ooh! The Annihilation Score was just added to my Google Play library! Bye now.

  15. Brian Z: Who knows what might happen? Why we do. And so do you. Until EPH or something similar is passed, 15% or so of the nominating population acting in lockstep or something close to it will be able to garner 90% or so of the nominations, instead of approximately 20% of them.
    You never answered in the other thread, though you did posture about other things:
    Do you think it is right and proper that 15% of the nominators can lock up 90% of the nominations?
    Do you think it’s ethical and honorable for 15% of the nominators to exploit a known flaw in what is supposed to be a fair election, in order to prevent 85% of the nominators from having a voice in that election?

    They’re both yes-or-no questions, and neither of them is a trick question. I’d be willing to bet that just about everyone here would be willing to answer them. What about you, Brian Z?

  16. Camestros, I give you the aesthetic grounds. Whatever happens, there definitely needs to be a cage match between finalists, perhaps concurrently with the masquerade.

    “Puppies” may be perfectly happy with EPH. I don’t know, I’ve tended to just read the File 770 roundups (sniff). Maybe they are expressing their views somewhere else. EPH isn’t the direction I’d like to go in, because: 1) it might appear mean-spirited; 2) it is a giant blazing neon sign informing thousands of new voters you don’t trust them; 3) in the best case, it perhaps knocks off a few perfectly respectable fifth-placers unfairly, possibly nudges some in the direction voting more defensively, and offends my poor fragile sensibilities; 4) in the worst case, should community relations go even further downhill, it will reward multiple slates and most ballot slots could be filled by Team This or Team That while we’re all renting telepresence robots to go attend the Goodreads Choice Awards banquet instead. I don’t agree with everything GRRM said, but I agree with what he said about the key here being turnout.

  17. Mike, thanks for all this, and whatever is to come.

    So Long and Thanks for All the Fisk!

  18. In realityville, of course, EPH is a big sign telling thousands of new voters, “Welcome! We want your vote to count! So we’re making it much harder for any small bloc to drown out your voice! Pull up a ballot and tell us what you thought the best of the year was.”

  19. @ Camestros Felapton on July 6, 2015 at 9:56 pm:

    You forgot: We’ve been dead this whole time (What a twist!)

  20. Brian Z on July 6, 2015 at 10:33 pm said:

    Camestros, I give you the aesthetic grounds. Whatever happens, there definitely needs to be a cage match between finalists, perhaps concurrently with the masquerade.

    Naturally.

    “Puppies” may be perfectly happy with EPH. I don’t know, I’ve tended to just read the File 770 roundups (sniff). Maybe they are expressing their views somewhere else.

    They don’t seem to have said much about it. Aside from Freer, they don’t seem very mathsy.

    EPH isn’t the direction I’d like to go in, because: 1) it might appear mean-spirited;

    I don’t see why. Sure people can read anything into anything. EPH lets your nomination count even if some of your picks are unpopular. It also lets you pick one work you really like. I think it tends towards generosity.

    2) it is a giant blazing neon sign informing thousands of new voters you don’t trust them;

    It is a giant neon sign saying “your vote wont get swamped by crazy slates like what happened in 2015.” I think that is good news for new voters. If you want to take part it is nice to know that your nominations will matter and won’t be sidelined by some club which you weren’t part of. And if you are part of some slate-nominating club your nominations will still count. win-win.

    3) in the best case, it perhaps knocks off a few perfectly respectable fifth-placers unfairly, possibly nudges some in the direction voting more defensively, and offends my poor fragile sensibilities;

    Well there will be some losers in any system – EPH is no more or less unfair on the near winners.

    4) in the worst case, should community relations go even further downhill, it will reward multiple slates and most ballot slots could be filled by Team This or Team That

    True but that worst case will more easily occur with the current system.

    Now Brian Z – I have answered your four questions true and by the rules of faerie you must now sing for us. Those are the rules as set down by Oberon and Titaninia.

  21. Scott Frazer on July 6, 2015 at 10:49 pm said:

    You forgot: We’ve been dead this whole time (What a twist!)

    And Paul Bettany isn’t really my room mate! And Keyser Soze is…

  22. Meanwhile, Harry Tuttle didn’t really make it to the Ministry of Information Retrieval in time.

  23. @Mike I really thought you were going to reveal that you were running a whole bunch of us as characters in some great metafiction.

  24. Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag on July 6, 2015 at 6:35 pm said:

    Ug. I’ve been quoted by VD. I need to go take a shower. *shudder*

    My sympathies. That happened to me fairly early on in my File770 comment thread adventures. I found out about it when my husband asked me, “did you get harassed on Twitter today?” Luckily my answer was “Noooooo….. why do you ask?”

    But the whole thing still made me feel creeped out.

    Oh, and ditto the rec on Kat Richardson.

  25. @ Bruce

    In realityville, of course, EPH is a big sign telling thousands of new voters, “Welcome! We want your vote to count! So we’re making it much harder for any small bloc to drown out your voice! Pull up a ballot and tell us what you thought the best of the year was.”

    Yes! Thank you!! As someone who’s coming back to voting this year after a long absence, that’s exactly how I feel about it. EPH will prevent a minority group from snagging everything and making people who are out-group not count at all.

  26. Jim Henley on July 6, 2015 at 6:46 pm said:
    So now is the time to reflect on what really matters. I had a piece of six roundup titles. At one point, I suspect that put me at or near the top of the contributing-editor-of-the-day rankings, but once I, er, resumed regular employment, I had a period where I couldn’t keep up with the threads as well. Bottom line, I haven’t had a hit in weeks. My career ended with a whimper, and I’m sure multiple people probably overtook me.

    No, it’s clearly an SJW conspiracy! Ethics in roundup funny names! SCALZI! GRRRRRR!

  27. Reguarding the RH doxxing, I’m generally on the anti side, as fine distinctions in identity and circumstance are generally not helpful. But at some point quantity has a quality of its own. Finding out that someone wielding their poor and disadvantaged status as a weapon is literally from a family of billionaires is newsworthy. And it’s RH’s own positions that have made it newsworthy.

    Let’s hope she never gets a significant inheritance. By all evidence she’s a singularly nasty person with a vicious streak like a cross-continental highway and an ability to hold a grudge that Beale could envy.

  28. Camestros,

    I don’t wish to give any ground by saying that “some slate-nominating” still “counting” would be a “win-win.” I think all slates, plus the whole culture of campaigning that has sprung up in general, are bad.

    Well there will be some losers in any system

    I prefer to see works reach the shortlist solely on the basis of how many people think they are worthy. Not on the basis of that factor combined with which people think that other works are also worthy. In other words, I believe that although voters are able to nominate up to five works, each work that reaches the shortlist should do so on its own merit, regardless of how the people who voted for it voted for other works.

    I understand that you are less concerned with that nuance than I am. We can disagree.

    worst case will more easily occur with the current system

    There has always been a risk that the Hugos might enter a Warring Slates Period. Should that happen, people do have the option of No Awarding until the darkness has passed. I believe that deliberately winnowing every slate or campaign down to one or two things, as if, in your words, that would be a “win-win,” is probably much worse, and it certainly can’t be better.

  29. Epic fantasy recs? Most of mine have already been mentioned, so let me give another thumbs up for the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Deeds of Paksenarrion, The Belgariad, and Codex Alera.

    After all the recommendations it got here, I’ve started reading The Steerswoman. I’m enjoying it so far.

    L.E. Modesitt has other fantasy series, the Corean Chronicles and the Imager Portfolio, that I prefer to his Recluce books.

    The Chalion series by Lois McMaster Bujold is excellent.

  30. For book recommendations, I like Garth Nix’s: Old Kingdom series: Sabriel; Lirael; Abhorsen. Also Diana Wynne Jones, especially the Dalemark Quartet and The Homeward Bounders. Also, when I was 15 is when I read Updike’s “Run Rabbit”. Which pernamently cured me of readng non-genre literature. ;’)

    As for RH- I have mixed feelings about this. It’s like the end of the film where the villain dangling off a cliff insists on trying to kill the hero instead. It’s probably inevitable, but damn do I wish there was a better way to handle it.

  31. Brian Z on July 6, 2015 at 11:44 pm said:
    I think all slates, plus the whole culture of campaigning that has sprung up in general, are bad.

    And you think the best counter to such is people participating. Yay! EPH provides a nomination process which lets social solutions work. Also you aren’t singing and that was the deal ever since the Tuatha DeDanaan took possesion of the sidhe.

    I prefer to see works reach the shortlist solely on the basis of how many people think they are worthy.

    Great! EPH does that! The top nominated works will genuinely be the works with the most support from nominators. And by the ancient compact between the upperworld and the lower I have answered your riddles six.

    I understand that you are less concerned with that nuance than I am. We can disagree.

    I love nuance. EPH has nuance coming out of its ears. It is said that if you answer the questions of boggart, pixie or blog-brownie then they must sing a mighty filk.

    There has always been a risk that the Hugos might enter a Warring Slates Period. Should that happen, people do have the option of No Awarding until the darkness has passed. I believe that deliberately winnowing every slate or campaign down to one or two things, as if, in your words, that would be a “win-win,” is probably much worse, and it certainly can’t be better.

    We still get to No Award slated stuff but people won’t be put off nominating for fear that a Dull Puppy slate will render their nominations moot. And I bind thee by thy true name RUMPLEFILKSTIN!!

  32. @Snowcrash

    Also:
    – A coherent explanation of their aesthetic that doesn’t exclude many of their own nominations while including stuff they claim to hate

    @Camestros

    Did Freer ever return to finish defending his red ball theory?

  33. And now they’re trying to pin some of the responsibility for the Winterfox doxxing on Rochita Loenen-Ruiz again, the person that has conducted themselves with the most tact and grace possible under the pressure they’ve heaped on her.

    It bears noting that RLR and Tade Thompson were the ones who offered safe spaces to Winterfox’s victims to speak out, and that RLR was one of the early attempted sacrifices by the Winterfox clique to draw attention away from their pal.

    So if you see claims of wrongdoing on RLR’s part, that’s where it’s coming from. Just read Rochita’s words on the matter from her blog and compare them to the attacks on her, and certain things become evident very quickly.

    For example, which of the two has a sense of empathy.

  34. Brian Z:

    “If the perfect is the enemy of the good, one possibility is to evaluate the work on its merits this year, and encourage everyone to nominate what they really love in the future. Who knows what might happen.”

    Not a problem. It takes two years of voting for EPH to go through. So if no slates are proposed for next year, it can be postponed before it gets acceptance.

  35. Did Freer ever return to finish defending his red ball theory?

    No 🙁 I was kind of hoping for an epic battle but…zilch.
    Mind you the Freer argument didn’t re-appear elsewhere, so I’m counting it all as a win 🙂

  36. Mike’s been misquoting Vox again. Luckily I have sourced the real version.

    This is why no one on our side gives even the smallest damn about anything the other side says. Well, we’ll read what they say, because how else do we know what we’re not caring about. But obviously not their actual words, we’ll read the misquotes on File 770. Because we don’t give a damn.

    We will never, ever talk to them. There is no point. Except we’ll occasionally comment and run away. (Works with doorbells too). And we’ll write blogposts in reply. Oh, and we’ll email Mike in the knowledge that he’ll publish it. But apart from that, never, ever.

  37. Brian Z:

    “in the worst case, should community relations go even further downhill, it will reward multiple slates and most ballot slots could be filled by Team This or Team That while we’re all renting telepresence robots to go attend the Goodreads Choice Awards banquet instead. “

    The worst case is then that multiple slates are rewarded instead of only one slate. Seems a lot better than the current system.

  38. Brian: I think all slates, plus the whole culture of campaigning that has sprung up in general, are bad.

    Great! Then I expect to see you immediately posting a bunch of comments over on all the Puppy blogs persuading them of that — because, otherwise, of course, no one will think you actually meant that statement.

  39. @Camestros

    I suspect it’s a long time since his assertions went in front of a critical audience, and he much prefers the other kind. He wrote another blog post using amazon rankings and so on to prove….something or other. Shockingly, he didn’t care to appear in his comments and tackle criticism of that either.

  40. Re: Vox and his libels.

    At this point he’s simply got no credibility left thanks to his rhetoricking about this stuff for the last 10 years. It’s well past time to put up or shut up. Prove it’s libel. In court.

    Or go away. That would be nice, too.

  41. If this is the last one (sniff), and as Ancillary Justice has come up, I’m just going to reiterate something that I – and probably hundreds of others – have said before, because it strikes me as the most pertinent thing that can be said about the puppies and their obtuseness, their intellectual and literary worthlessness, and their duplicity:

    Ancillary Justice is exactly the sort of thing the puppies claim can’t win Hugos any more.

  42. For the 15 year old boy, if he is okay with protagonists who are girls to young women, then how about Tamora Pierce. He might like to try the Beka Cooper series (Terrier is the first book) which is more polished writing and since it is set in Tortall a couple hundred years before the Lady Knight and related series’ it is less of a commitment.

  43. I completely back the rec of the Riddle-Master of Hed series, on which I cut my fantasy teeth.

    I cannot back the Belgariad, which I laboriously dug through in high school thinking that that much candy shell *had* to have some kind of center eventually, and even allowed myself to suckered into buying the exact same five books all over again when Eddings cynically re-wrote them as the Malloreon.

    In its place I suggest taking a look at the Deryni books by Katherine Kurtz; they can get a bit ponderous in places, but they’re very solid high fantasy.

  44. Camestros,

    I’m glad you love nuance. In particular I think you mean:

    The top nominated works will genuinely be the works, excluding those works selected for elimination rounds on the basis of being the two lowest scoring works when a single point is assigned to each nomination ballot and divided equally among all that ballot’s remaining nominees, and subsequently eliminated, with the most support from nominators. During the Selection Phase, if two or more nominees are tied for the lowest point total, all such nominees shall be selected for the Elimination Phase. During the Selection Phase, if one nominee has the lowest point total and two or more nominees are tied for the second-lowest point total, then all such nominees shall be selected for the Elimination Phase. During the Elimination Phase, if two or more nominees are tied for the fewest number of nominations, the nominee with the lowest point total at that round shall be eliminated.

    It’s OK, we can disagree on whether we support that, and I shall still sing for you again soon.

  45. Exarch Cathedra

    If you didn’t like the cynical rewrite of the Belgariad as the Mallorean, I can’t imagine how you’d have reacted to the Elenium/Tamuli. I was a massive Eddings fan in my teens, but even the dubious taste of teen-me spotted the shark being vaulted in that series.

  46. 1 – the Puppies block voted this year
    2 – There is no reason to believe they won’t do the same again next year, and the year after
    3 – The effect of their block vote this year was to see the shortlists dominated by a small minority of voters
    4 – If EPH passes, that won’t happen again
    All your wailing and FUD, Brian, won’t obscure that. None of your worst cases, however unlikely, are as bad as the crap we’ve seen this year. And all your air of wounded innocence can’t disguise the fact that you keep making the same arguments again and again, no matter how often they are addressed, and that the obvious result of following your advice would be to see more years of Puppy crap all over the ballot

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