Tracks on The Puppy Trail 4/13

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What are Hugos for? These awards must have some value says Jim Van Pelt, and he proceeds to define it. Andrew M. offers an answer of his own.

There are peacemakers, and others more interested in the question Frank Capra once posed – why we fight. And if it burns, it burns.

Jim Van Pelt on A Place For Strangers and Beggars

“What Are The Hugos Good For?”

For me, the Hugo is the equivalent of Teacher of the Year. The Teacher of the Year award is part popularity, politics and service. It comes with no money or promotion, but it does pick one teacher to highlight. There were many other teachers that year who also worked hard and were deserving. Hopefully they will get their chance in another year, and it’s entirely possible that they will finish their career without the award. They weren’t teaching to win it in the first place. The good work is really the best reward. The Teacher of the Year recognition is just a bit of special icing.

For readers, the Hugo award can serve as a guide to reading, but not an infallible one.

 

Andrew M. in a comment on “Discussing Specific Changes to the Hugo Nomination Election: Another guest Post By Bruce Schneier” at Making Light – April 13

When the purpose is to reward diversity and independence, then when people vote in lockstep it doesn’t matter whether their intentions are evil. We should punish them the same.

I think there is a serious issue here which it would help to be clear about. There seem to be two views at work in this debate. On one, the Hugos have worked pretty well up to now, and the new practice of slate voting has disrupted this; the aim is to restore the Hugos to something like their historic way of working. On the other, the aim is to improve on the Hugos as they have been; there is a feeling that they are not sufficiently diverse, and a modification of the system would make them more so.

Are the Hugos diverse? Well, I think there is more than one kind of diversity, and one kind may be the enemy of another. Clearly, Hugo nominees are not all the same kind of work – they can be incredibly different. But they don’t reflect the full range of the field. There seem to be two factors which tend to make a work a Hugo nominee; one, which I mentioned in an earlier thread, is that they have, or at least might be imagined to have, cross-group appeal, rather than being in the core of a specific subgenre. The other, which someone else mentioned, is that they have a kind of uniqueness, rather than just being typical of their author. I think that these are good qualities for nominees to have; they help to pick out the most distinctive and significant work of the year; they mean that the final ballot does not consist of five works each of which is loved by 20% of the voters and hated by the other 80% [this is a rhetorical exaggeration], and that the winner, though not everyone’s favourite, is not just the ‘least hated’ but has fairly wide support.

I think some people are assuming that if a lot of people vote for the same five works (not as part of an organised slate), this will be because they are all similar works – as dh says, five space operas or five feminist works. But I think it’s quite likely that a fair number of people may vote for the same five works because they want to reward diversity and independence – because those works, diverse in nature, are the ones that stand out as significant. None of us knows what three works were knocked off the Novel ballot by the puppies, but I think we could name six or eight works and say with some confidence that the three missing works were among them; and a lot of ballots will have made their picks from among those works. I’m afraid that if the voting system positively rewards difference, we will end up with a duller set of nominees – the epic fantasy nominee, the urban fantasy nominee, the MilSF nominee and so on.

One other thing to bear in mind – I think this harmonises with some things that Brad Templeton has been saying – is the effect of the award as a recommendation. The voters are not the only beneficiaries of the process; we are sending a message to the wider world, about the most significant things in SFF. From the voters’ point of view, it may be fair that clumped preferences should have less weight, so as to give some representation to more people. But if we are sending a message to the wider world, I think we should be telling them about the works which have the most support, not leaving things out because those who like them like a lot of the same other things.

 

Seth Ellis in a comment on “Not to invoke The Manchurian Candidate” at More Words, Deeper Hole – April 13

I think there’s a feeling that if the Hugo were to contract—rolling back supporting memberships, for instance—it would be a tacit admission not only that the Hugo doesn’t currently represent the breadth of fandom, but that it’s no longer structurally capable of doing so. SFF is just too big now.

I’m not at all sure that’s an escapable conclusion, though. It does seem to me that if WorldCon wants to be more inclusive, it needs to attract a broader range of people to WorldCon, not to the Hugo. At this moment the award itself is the big thing driving membership, it seems. If the Hugo’s the thing, the obvious solution there would be to throw the nomination process, at least, open to the public, and make it a genuinely popular award. Right now the Hugo’s trying to have it both ways, club award and popular representation, and IMO this year is only one example, particularly egregious, of how it can’t really even pretend to do that any more.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Mailvox: refuting the rhetorical” – April 13

But it is entirely obvious that we’re not dealing with dialectical minds capable of logic, we’re dealing with rhetorical minds that are swayed solely by emotion. Such minds can be changed, but not by facts and reason. The more successful we are, and the more staunchly we stand, the more of them that will come over to our side for a whole host of “reasons” that will neither make sense to us nor withstand logical scrutiny.

 

 

Mary Robinette Kowal responding to Samuel Roberts in a comment on her blog post “Talk with me about being a fan of science fiction and fantasy” – April 11

Thank you for dropping by Mr. Roberts.

May I ask for the courtesy of seeing your article before it goes live? Sometimes quotes are misleading out of context, and I just want to be sure I’m being clear.

[Samuel Roberts] First, do you feel that it’s appropriate to give large gifts to potential voters in the Hugo elections?

I think it would be a conflict of interest if I had anything in the running. My current plan is to decline nominations next year, to avoid conflict of interest since these memberships will allow people to nominate next year as well. When it was just ten memberships, I felt like it wasn’t big enough to sway anyone, but forty-five absolutely could form a block and I think it would be unethical of me to take advantage of that.

Do you feel that voters who have been given such large gifts can be trusted to vote independently?

Absolutely. Science-fiction and fantasy readers are smart, and if you’ve spent any time with them, getting a consensus is like herding cats.

Second, you’ve written that the funding for a large portion of these free memberships are coming from the nominees themselves. Do you feel it’s appropriate for a nominee to give these memberships away like that, when they have a vested financial interest in the outcome of the elections?

That’s why they are donating anonymously, so that they don’t inadvertently influence the outcome.

There’s a reason you prominently describe yourself on your front page as a Hugo winner: it sends a message to potential readers that they should buy your books. Even if you aren’t telling your readers how to vote specifically, given the state of the slate this year (With Sad Puppies-promoted books comprising large numbers of the nominated works), and the demographics of your site (Which are not, to say the least, Sad-Puppies friendly), it must be obvious to the authors purchasing these memberships that many of the votes are going to go to them. Even if you’re not outright telling the people whose voting rights you purchased how to vote, do you agree that these authors are likely to experience a net gain of votes via the memberships they’re buying?

No, I don’t agree. Since there’s at least one SadPuppy among the donors, I feel fairly confident that they are aware that this is attempting to be impartial. I’m also avoiding stating any preferences about any of the nominees.

This $400; was it coming from you, or your publisher?

It is coming from me.

Do you feel it would be appropriate for them to offer to purchase Hugo voting rights for members of their site?

I don’t think it would be appropriate for Vox Day, since he is a nominee and his publishing house has several nominees as well. Larry has already said that he will decline future nominations that avoids conflict of interest. I think that if he makes a similar offer, and doesn’t make suggestions about who to vote for, that it would be a generous offer.

 

 

Dave Freer on Mad Genius Club

“Nostradumbass and Madame Bugblatterfatski” – April 13

Here is the first fact, easily verified. On the 11th of April 2014 Larry Correia got his notification of being shortlisted from the Hugo Administrators (very honest people, see quote 2) for LonCon 2014, a WorldCon held in the UK. On the same day the UK left-wing newspaper “The Guardian” – more famous for its typos than the quality of its journalism, but still a large newspaper, a reporter called Damian Walters launched a furious tirade at an American author he had never mentioned before….

The chance that this happened purely by accident – about the same as a fully armed nuclear missile turning into a Sperm whale a few seconds before impact….

Who ELSE had motive? You could make a viable argument that the editors and backers and loyalists of the other nominees had motive. Some probably have opportunity. But still you hit HOW DID THEY KNOW?

Gentlefolk, there are only two possible answers that don’t take Nostradamus or spirit communications from the future dead Hugo Awardees by Madame Blavatsky. The simplest is that quote 2 is incorrect and someone on the Hugo Administration leaked, possibly to someone with both motive and opportunity (A reporter with a major UK publication, willing to run the hit piece. Perhaps many Americans enjoy this situation, and it’s only the rest of us who don’t. Do tell me if this is the case.). Think about it: for someone to engage in this, not only destroys the credibility of the Hugo Administrators, but also reveals someone willing to try to deprive someone of a chance at the award by underhand means and the abuse of power. That’s going to take a very powerful public purge to clean.

Fortunately for the Hugo Administrators, there IS a second possibility, that leaves their hands clean. It’s a long shot, but there is some supporting circumstantial evidence.

 

Joe Sherry on Adventures in Reading

“If I Ran a Sad Puppies Campaign” – April 13

2. There would be a Mission Statement posted prominently either at the beginning or the end of any SP article I write, because I want it to be clear what MY campaign is all about.  The Mission Statement would include some of the following ideas, though it would be written in a much cleaner and concise manner

  • Sad Puppies 5 (hypothetically) is about building a wide ranging recommendation list of works that both individually and collectively we feel are shining examples of the best of science fiction and fantasy.  Many of these works have often been ignored when by the voters of the Hugo Awards and we feel these works should be considered.
  • Sad Puppies 5 is about bringing in the voices of fans who have not previously participated in the Hugo Awards and it is our hope that they will become a supporting or attending member of Worldcon and will nominate and vote for those works they feel are the best of the year.
  • We do not wish to dictate to anyone what to nominate and reject any attempts to do so.
  • This is not a slate.
  • This is not a campaign.
  • SP5 is a conversation.

 

sciphi on Superversive SF

“Nuke the Hugo’s?” [sic] – April 13

I have been following with some amusement the whole meltdown from certain segments of the science fiction world in response to the Sad Puppies sweep of the Hugos. As someone who snagged a nomination in no small part due to the publicity that this whole thing has generated and seeing an author I published snag one as well (for a really amazing and deserving story) I have pretty clearly taken a side. I agree with what Larry and Brad are trying to do and think it is a good thing. I’ve been following #GamerGate too and the recent freakout about “GamerGate being involved with SadPuppies” strikes me as extremely amusing. Who is really surprised to discover that geeks who play video games would also be geeks who enjoy science fiction and that many of them are sick and tired of being talked down to by the SJW crowd? You can tell the #GamerGate crowd isn’t heavily involved or the Sasquan organizers would be wondering what to do with all the money they received in voting memberships and the number of votes cast for the Hugo ballot would be an order of magnitude larger than it is.

 

George R.R. Martin on Not A Blog

A Reply to Larry Correia – April 13

I am just about blogged out on the whole Puppygate thing, having devoted half a dozen posts and thousands of words to it over the past few days. However, Larry Correia responded to some of those posts on his own blog, MONSTER HUNTER NATION, as several dozen of his followers immediately emailed me to point out, and I promised to reply in turn. So here it is….

To make it clear who is speaking, I will set off Correia’s statements with brackets and try to italicize them… though for some reason the italics on LJ have not been working well of late. We’ll see if they work here…..

[[CORREIA: I know I was. So I went out on the internet and started searching my name, trying to find out what the buzz was for the Campbell nominees. I started calling friends who belonged to various writer forums and organizations that I didn’t belong to, asking about what people thought of my books in there. You know what I found? WorldCon voters angry that a right-wing Republican (actually I’m a libertarian) who owned a gun store (gasp) was nominated for the prestigious Campbell. This is terrible. Did you know he did lobbying for gun rights! It’s right there on his hateful blog of hatey hate hate! He’s awful. He’s a bad person. He’s a Mormon! What! Another damned Mormon! Oh no, there are two Mormons up for the Campbell? I bet Larry Correia hates women and gays. He’s probably a racist too. Did you know he’s part of the evil military industrial complex? What a jerk. Meanwhile, I’m like, but did they like my books? No. Hardly any of them had actually read my books yet. Many were proud to brag about how they wouldn’t read my books, because badthink, and you shouldn’t have to read books that you know are going to make you angry. A handful of people claimed to have my read my books, but they assured the others that they were safe to put me last, because as expected for a shit person, my words were shit, and so they were good people to treat me like shit.]]

I don’t condone treating anyone like shit. And I have never been a Mormon or a conservative or a gun-shop owner, so I don’t know what that is like. But I do wonder… you say you were called a liar, that people were angry with you for being who you were, that they said not to read your books… well, no need to paraphrase, you just said it all. But WHO called you a liar? How many people said this stuff, where, in what context? One person, ten people, a hundred?

I don’t doubt you got some criticism, that people took shots (no pun intended) at you… but fandom is large, even worldcon fandom. There are always assholes. No doubt they were there in 1973 as well, in that first Campbell race. I mean, have there ever been two contenders as opposite as Pournelle and Effinger? That was a classic Old Wave/ New Wave showdown, with us other nominees just caught in the crossfire. However, the internet did not exist to magnify it all, and most of the sniping went on in room parties, with no permanent record of the drunken debates. I am not sure that what you suffered was any worse than what they did, way back when.

Also, all these things that people said about you… are those direct quotes, or are you paraphrasing? Because it seems to me that the Sad Puppies love to paraphrase, taking any challenge or criticism and tweaking it around to make it more offensive and insulting. Take this “Wrongfan” moniker I now see popping up on Puppy sites. Neither I nor any of the other SMOFs or trufans or worldconners that I know have ever called you or your friends “wrongfans.” You guys made that up and applied it to yourself. I wish that would stop. People are saying enough hurtful shit in this debate already without making up new insults and suggesting that the other side was throwing them at you.

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57 thoughts on “Tracks on The Puppy Trail 4/13”

  2. If work is its own reward, then why don’t creators and preformers do their thing in a cave to amuse themselves? But we are not “islands unto ourselves.” Unless you are independently wealthy and a sociopath, the reality is that you need either money or recognition to persist in the arts. Preferably both.

  3. GRRM really hit the nail on the head with that “paraphrasing” thing.

    And while I have no doubt someone once told Larry he wasn’t a real writer, because that’s the kind of thing every writer gets (even Lois McMaster Bujold) I can’t help but notice you can no longer find out who it was, because the person who says that the most about Larry (far and away)–is Larry himself.

  4. Correia’s decision to define himself as a victim of fan persecution is a pretty weird career move. He has a Campbell nomination, successful book series and avid online following of readers. But instead of those things, he’s turning a hyper-policitized, anti-Hugos gripe into the first sentence of his bio.

  5. You could see the seeds of Larry’s persuction complex already in his post on his visit to the 2011 Worldcon, where instead of being stoked he and so many of his friends were nominated, he was griping about how they didn’t win when they so clearly deserved to. Both Brad and Larry have massive entitlement issues and that is what’s driving their actions.

    And now they’ve seem to have decided that if they can’t build an audience beyond the hardcore Baen reader, the way an author like Weber can, they don’t need to even pretend anymore.

  6. I think it is awfully funny that people are giving Correia career advice when it is GRRM who has stepped in it. A lot of those people he dismissed as liars were fans of his waiting for the next book. Correia hasn’t lost a single fan over this, and his books have bumped up since SP.

    Day, as a matter of fact, has also been an advocate of Martin for decades – his reasonable critique of Dance notwithstanding. GRRM challenges his peer to a debate, he accepts, and then GRRM declines.

    Tell me again about these career limiting moves…

  7. So why is he so upset about the Worldcon and the Hugos. I get it, we’re greying fuddy duddies who don’t get the appeal of Urban Fantasy monster hunting with lots of guns and so on. Fine, he has lots of conventions he can go to and be lauded, he has a loyal fan base etc…

    He’s successful… lots of successful authors went their entire careers without Hugo Awards, I just don’t see them whining.

    Good for him getting a bump from this. I’m fairly sure George won’t be suffering either, what with the hugely successful TV show based on his work and all that.

    But for people who apparently are individuals who don’t care about the Hugos you don’t half go on…

  8. The percentage of GRRM’s reader base which has even heard of this kerfuffle is probably on the order of 1%, at most. Most of that base is probably pretty uncaring about anything to do with the Hugos, for that matter. (“What, there’s a sci-fi award called the Hugo? News to me.”) Regardless of their potential views on the Hugos, I don’t think that Martin has to worry about a CLM.

  11. One, GRRM could probably write down his “Things to do today” list and have someone option it for TV or film right about now. I doubt this little bit of stuff and nonsense is going to hurt him terribly much.

    Two, if what GRRM attributes to Larry Correia is relatively accurate and representative of what he wrote/said, then Correia needs a thicker skin. I’ve been disabled all my life, I’ve had people do and say things to me which make the things mentioned here look like compliments. If I were that sensitive, I’d be curled up in the fetal position and never go outside.

    I’m not going to mention the con or the writer, but I watched a “fan” come up to a writer at an author signing and say “I don’t like your work and this is why”. The guy proceeded to run through a laundry list of insults about the author’s work. When he ran down, the author THANKED him for providing feedback. The guy then said, “Well, I just thought you should know why I don’t like your work” and the writer thanked him for taking the time to express his opinion. The guy just wilted and slumped away The world is full of twisted and bent people who look to hurt anyone they can any way they can. You defeat that by not letting them get the reaction they want.

    The anonymity of the internets makes being an idiot easier and safer. To hell with all the anonymous morons out there.

  12. I completely agree that GRRM has nothing to worry about. My point is that our minders throw around “career limiting” as a soft form of thought policing. For those of us who know what it means, you just have to accept that your deep and thoughtful concern for our careers is noted and given the appropriate weight.

  13. I always wonder about SF Signal’s strategic decision to pretend File 770 doesn’t exist. How does zero content from this blog get into their April 14 roundup? And when they report the change to the Hugo ballot (which they haven’t yet) I think you can bet the house it will be linked to Locus.

  14. “My point is that our minders throw around ‘career limiting’ as a soft form of thought policing.”

    You’re the one who introduced the term “career limiting” to this discussion.

  15. I believe GRRM is a very talented writer who has lost the thread of his story. I believe Larry Corriea is a very talented writer at the beginning of his career and has a brilliant career ahead of him.

    I don’t think the debate has hurt GRRM in the slightest, as his base is so massive. Any losses he suffers will be self-inflicted and the result of not publishing the concluding volumes in a timely manner, not his politics. As a conservative, I was well aware of GRRM’s politics (just read his blog during election years) and cared not a whit. I’m interested in his stories, not his politics, morality, etc..

    Larry Corriea has also gained from this, I believe. He stood up when he saw a problem. Many readers, including me (I started reading SF/F as a child with the Lloyd Alexanders Prydain Chronicles), have long noticed the progressive trend in SF/F and the Hugos. My solution was simple; I stopped buying what they were selling. I limited myself to those authors I knew wrote good stories I would enjoy, whether because of past work or good word of mouth.

    I hope two things happen this year:

    1. SP/RP are sufficiently successful that some of what they nominated wins, effectively re-gaining a seat at the table for those who’ve been pushed out of the awards in recent years (i.e. those who write good stories, not preach).

    2. I get to read some great fiction as part of the voter packet, including fiction I would not normally buy due to its “messaging”, and maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised. Maybe.

    And I am most of the way through Riding the Red Horse (I bought it over a month ago and am now getting to read it). It is VERY good. I highly recommend it to anyone interested, regardless of politics. Regardless of what you may or may not believe about Vox Day and his publishing house, this collection is amazingly good and definitely Hugo worthy.

  16. Since Damien Walter is interested in gender politics and likes Alex Dally McFarlane . and Correia had written a blog post strongly criticizing her gender politics, I don’t think there’s anything unlikely about Walter writing an article critical of Correia entirely independently of Correia being shortlisted

  17. I read Larry Correia’s responses. He is enjoying this. He sees this as a war. Some people pissed him off and now he is getting even. He is dropping idle threats about doing worse next year. He calls his supporters his ‘people’ and sees being a jackass as somehow leading a movement. Anyone negative comment made about him is seen as making you a lifelong enemy. I would be surprised if it was more than a handful of people who said anything about him at his first Worldcon, but that was enough to set him off.

    Then you have John Wright arguing with GRRM on his forum. I didn’t realize this, but John was in one of his anthologies. Somehow he found a slight in there when GRRM meant having him in the anthology as a compliment. There are a vast number of SJWs who would love to be in one of GRRMs anthologies. Yeah George hates your work John… let the voices in your head keep telling you that.

    This will never end. This is a game to them. Larry’s wee little feelings got hurt and now he has taken names and is getting even. Any criticism makes you a blood enemy. Every response is about undermining the Hugos. He is like a nerd going Friday the 13th at the prom. They just want to piss people off and drum up publicity, then come back and go see look at me buy my books, I am your vicar.

    He isn’t a racist. He is a jackass. Post what he really is a big baby. A big picture with him in a diaper and teething toy strikes me as appropriate. Most of us didn’t do anything to him. I don’t even use social media. I’m not even a liberal. Don’t have to be to think these guys are jackasses.

    Just ignore them at this point , no award the whole slate, and change the rules. They will keep doing this because they enjoy it and its good for business. He is never actually going to go Worldcon because the enemy is apparently there.

  19. Mike: I just wanted to say thanks for all the work you’re doing to cover this. I was a casual reader of File 770 before this, but it’s fast becoming one of my favorite fandom-related reads.

  20. “Just ignore them at this point , no award the whole slate, and change the rules. ”

    Ah, the words of the true warrior. Do not read a literary award slate, junk it all and change the rules to fit. One wonders why our side feels the need to watch this at all. Every time we give you a chance to prove our case you guys just leap at the chance.

    “Then you have John Wright arguing with GRRM on his forum.”

    I know this is the internet age and links are hard, but could you provide them? I just went through the last couple of posts and couldn’t find anything by Wright on GRRM’s site.

    “He isn’t a racist. He is a jackass. Post what he really is a big baby. A big picture with him in a diaper and teething toy strikes me as appropriate. Most of us didn’t do anything to him.”

    Yes indeed. One wonders how he ever thought people would call him names.

  21. The idea that the Hugo Admin Committee was leaking the nominees is stupid libelous conspiracy mongering. That this year the Hayden’s had advance knowledge of two non-puppy novel nominees, and knew that there were three puppies but they didn’t know who is not consistent with that. It is quite consistent with gossip originating with the nominees themselves. Of course the puppies wanted to know how well they did. And they didn’t even have to tell the others that they had been nominated, they could just say if they weren’t.

  22. GK Chesterton: I don’t know if Wright had any comments on GRRM’s blog to begin with (didn’t see them myself) but Martin said he was going to delete a bunch because he couldn’t keep up. “I have only had to delete a handful of abusive posts. However, I am going to delete a lot more, starting now. For a different reason. Too many posts are wandering off topic.”

  23. “I just went through the last couple of posts and couldn’t find anything by Wright on GRRM’s site.”

    They’re here, in response to GRRM’s last Puppy post:

    http://grrm.livejournal.com/420090.html?thread=21120506#t21120506

    “One wonders how he ever thought people would call him names.”

    Correia is playing a game where he picks battles in public all the time and then uses the hostility he attracts as more evidence that fans treat him badly. The whole thing feels more like a self-marketing campaign than genuine hurt feelings.

  24. @GK Chesterson: Im going to read it since I am paying $40 for the slate. I am not voting for it. I did not state this last year. I thought it was a one time thing. If you had said hey here are a few candidates I like, I would not have that opinion. If Larry’s fans want to nominate him every year, I have no problem with that. Its the whole slate, stating you are going to do this every year… Larry stating he has no interest in even going to Worldcon. You are being dicks. Some people Larry’s feelings. So now he is getting even. Its obvious what this is. I like some of the authors on the slate btw. I won’t support a slate.

  25. @Mike Glyer: There was a back and forth between GRRM and John Wright earlier today. I couldn’t figure out what John was mad about. George was going ‘I liked your work enough to invite you to be in my anthology’ and John is going ‘you only read the one short story I had submitted for your anthology and then George went ‘I read quite a bit more than that and liked it enough to invite you’.

    John was offended by this or was just pretending to be so he could make another blog post. George’s criticism wasnt that John was nominated it was the number of times and the slate. George clearly likes his writing.

  26. Correia is playing a game where he picks battles in public all the time and then uses the hostility he attracts as more evidence that fans treat him badly.

    Yes, I get this feeling also. And his fans also use that “evidence.”

  27. In a post on his blog, Larry Correia gives this explanation for why he put a Vox Day story on his Sad Puppies 2 slate last year:

    “I knew he had a lot of blog traffic. Not to mention one of my stated goals was to demonstrate that SJWs would have a massive freak out if somebody with the wrong politics got on. So on the slate it went. I nominated Vox Day because Satan didn’t have any eligible works that period.”

    http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/14/george-r-r-martin-responds/

    So a guy who complains that the Hugos are being chosen for reasons other than artistic merit put Vox Day on his 2014 slate because (a) he gets a lot of traffic, (b) his political views offend people and (c) it would piss people off.

  29. True. He also said he liked the story. But if I told you I nominated a social justice warrior’s novel for a Hugo, and I told you one of my reasons was to piss off conservatives, would you regard my act as one of (a) good faith or (b) bad faith?

  30. Good faith, rcade. The fact that you are an SJW doesn’t necessarily mean that you are lying when you say you like an SJW book.

    If you think it is a good book that also happens to irritate your enemies, you absolutely can in good faith recommend it. In fact it would be bad faith not to.

  31. …and if Larry is so bent on revenge…why on earth did he decline his nomination?

  33. The original (facetious) insinuation from GRRM was that Mr. Wright is a foremost example of conservative “message fiction,” apparently predicated on the latter’s very outspoken sociopolitical views. Wright responded by saying, as he has elsewhere, that he does not “do” message fiction, to the point that people often mistake his pre-conversion and post-conversion work. As such, he questioned why he was the example used.

    This was all very clear and easy to follow in the comments made. If you didn’t catch that the first time around, you’re probably not looking at the conversation objectively.

    Also, it should be noted that Correia took offense at some things Glyer said about the SP campaigns. Glyer adjusted his coverage accordingly. Correia responded with respect and reconciliation. “Lifelong enemy,” indeed.

  34. Oops, I lost the house I bet that SF Signal would link to Locus for news of the Hugo ballot change. They linked to The Hugo Awards site instead.

  35. @Guess,

    “I won’t support a slate.”

    I doubt that. My guess is you’ve voted for slates before, as I would hazard a guess that every author has appeared on an internet slate somewhere for at least the last 20 years. What you won’t do is vote for slates who’s politics you disagree with. No foul there. Lying about it as a group? Troublesome.

  36. If SF Signal doesn’t link to you they must think you’re a serious competitor. And I have to say you’ve been doing yeoman work in keeping the Puppy story straight. Worthy of a Hugo nomination.

  37. as I would hazard a guess that every author has appeared on an internet slate somewhere for at least the last 20 years.

    No, that would be what we’d call a lie. The only true slates before the Puppies got started a few years back were run by the Scientologists (and they stopped) and allegedly the fans of a certain UK hack writer know for his love of synonyms to pad out his writing, to extend his prose until he hits his word limit, to string along enough words to make his novels the correct length.

    So own up to your achievements. Puppies succeeded in slating the Hugos in a way even the Scientologists never managed or attempted. Be proud.

  38. ‘And d) he actually liked the story.’

    That’s actually less to his credit than any of his other reasons.

  40. “My guess is you’ve voted for slates before …”

    Your guess is wrong. Before Puppies, the Hugo ballot never showed that a bunch of people were voting for the same nominees in multiple categories like a bunch of sheep. Correia has admitted he has zero evidence that ever happened in the past decade.

  41. Rcade – you have zero evidence it has happened this year.

    Nigel – tell me: what is the definition of a “slate?”

  42. A small flat piece of rock used to cover a roof? You’ll have to make the definition as expansive as possible to make every type or variation or tiniest hint of a flavour of a slate completely equivalent in order to downplay the gaming of the Hugos.

  43. In this context it’s a list of nominees for a particular position where there is a nomination for each slot in the ballot. Similar to voting for a party slate in politics where you’d vote Labour for all the positions.

    You didn’t do a single nomination i.e. “Vote for my novel I’m cool!”, nor did you list multiple options per category i.e. More options per category than their are slots, and you didn’t just present a list of what you published that was eligible.

    A slate was published with an exhortation to vote on slate grounds. That has not happened before, stop pretending you don’t know damn well what you did.

  44. S1AL – zero evidence? Apart from the blog post calling it the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies slates? Apart from the people who created them using the words and that sort of thing.

    FFS at least own what you’ve done, stop dancing around it if you’re so damn proud.

  45. Daveon at least defines a slate to his credit. In which case, we will note there were multiple slates published in an article here that were competitive with Puppies. I’m not the one lying. You three are either deranged or lying. I’m comfortable with either option.

    I can of course find examples from previous years and so can they. It really isn’t hard.

  46. So find some examples from previous years, because you keep talking the talk but still have to put on your walking shoes.

    I know it’s part of the wingnut mindset to always play the victim and project your own crimes on others, which is why it would be so fecking refreshing to see your lot own up to them for a change.

    It’s not like you have anything to lose. Outside of your coterie of losers, nobody is fooled by your protestations.

  47. Daveon – I was reposting to rcade’s assertion about people voting “like sheep.” For that, you have no evidence. Unless you somehow have access to all of the WorldCon nominating ballots, in which case this discussion will go in a whole different direction.

    What is the actual definition of a slate, as presented by the dictionary and applicable in this instance? Well, Merriam-Webster says: “a list of candidates for nomination or election.”

    So, slate have existed forever. It’s just a list. I’m not interested in your pusillanimous griping about how *you* are choosing to interpret the word. That’s completely irrelevant.

    Martin Wisse – Don’t you have some bias to insert into wiki articles?

  48. Having observed and sometimes participated in the process for over 50 years, I’ve always been of the opinion that it should be:

    A) nominate the best, award the best of the best, or
    B) nominate the best, award the favorite of the best.

    Sadly, now POLITICS has subsumed the Hugo Awards, making them meaningless as a gauge of quality, or even popularity with the majority of readers of the genre. But then, the voters have in the past reflected that majority, and that is no longer the case. The “puppy people ” have made a mockery of what was the most respected SF award. What a shame.

  49. To all of you people nitpicking the term “slate.” What everyone besides you means by “slate” is, I think, “a curated list deliberately targeted at concentrating an aggrieved minority of the electorate into a voting bloc that can overwhelm a five-largest-plurality nomination system with the intent of dominating the nominations with only those works listed on the list.” That long phrase is cumbersome to type repeatedly, so they’re using “slate” as a shorthand term and you’re obsessing over a dictionary definition.

    The other “slates” y’all keep bringing up are not and never have been the kind of “a curated list deliberately targeted…etc.” that the Puppies of both types appear to have done. If that were the case, they would never have more than five choices on them, and indeed they would always aim for having exactly five choices if possible, because having more than five recommendations (and to a lesser extent fewer than five) would defeat the purpose of having a small number of people stand on a single spot and pushing hard.

    I’d like to be generous and think that you’re misunderstanding a usage that seems pretty obvious to me and to many other people. If you want to prove this generosity of thought misplaced, continue to willfully misunderstand and obsess over technical dictionary definitions in defiance of having had it carefully explained to you what the people you’ve been contradicting mean when they talk about “slates.”

  50. Given that SP used the term slate originally, I don’t see why you would think it’s someone else’s place to define what it means. Given that a majority of the objections to it have been about “bloc-voting” and “sheep” and “voting in lockstep,” I do believe it’s the opposition that is sorely mistaken on intent and effect.

    So if I’m “nitpicking” over technical grievances, it’s because the opposition has chosen to denigrate, insult, and even lie about the SP slate. I am choosing to no longer accept the terms of engagement of such people.

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