50 Ways To Leave Your Rover 6/20

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aka “I love the smell of puppy in the morning.”

In today’s roundup, Ed Fortune, David Gerrold, T.C. McCarthy, Daniel Haight, Natalie Luhrs, John C. Wright, Morgan Locke, Mick, Carl Henderson, Vox Day, Tom Knighton, Rolf Nelson, Kevin Standlee, Melina D, Lis Carey, Kurt Busiek, Fred Kiesche, Brad Johnson, and mysterious others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day John King Tarpinian and Hampus Eckerman.)

Ed Fortune on Starburst

“Book Boycott Backfires” – June 20

An attempted boycott of publisher Tor Books by right-wing online activists has spectacularly backfired as booklovers across the world have responded by purchasing books from Tor to show their support. The activists in question are known as the Sad Puppies, or simply ‘The Puppies’. They recently gained notoriety by block voting in the recent Hugo Award nominations. The demands are in response to recent statements made by editors and authors who are associated with Tor in some way. Military sci-fi author Peter Grant issued a list of demands on behalf of The Puppies in a private letter that he then posted on his blog. The demands are:

Tor must publicly apologize for writings by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Moshe Feder, Irene Gallo, and John Scalzi that “demonize, denigrate, slander and lie about the ‘Puppies’ campaigns”

Tor must “publicly reprimand those individuals for stepping over the line”

Tor must “publicly indicate that it is putting in place policies to prevent any recurrence of such issues.” Despite original Sad Puppy campaigner Larry Correia stating on his blog “The Sad Puppies Campaign is NOT calling for any boycotts”, the letter was later endorsed by prominent members of The Puppies, including Theodor Beale (aka Vox Day) and John C. Wright. The Puppies now seem mostly leaderless, operating in a way similar to other online activists such as Gamer Gate and Anonymous have done in the past.

The response from the greater community has mostly been mockery, and to do their best to support authors by purchasing books from Tor

 

David Gerrold on Facebook – June 20

With the various escalations over perceived hurts, it seems that this is no longer about the Hugos — it looks more like an attempt to ignite a full-scale culture war within the genre.

Certainly, there is a lot of polarization evident in the various blogs and comment threads. But while the online discussions seem to present a picture of equal sides, I think that’s an illusion. It may turn out that the larger body of fandom will not be stampeded by the few who have become addicted to outrage.

Some of the most offensive posts — some of which are being widely circulated — will only serve to further marginalize not only the authors of those posts, but also those who are seen as comrades.

 

 

Daniel Haight on Flotilla Online

“Too Soon? How Should Sci-Fi Authors Deal with Tragedy?” – June 20

I felt compelled to speak up when another author linked to the above post made by the sci-fi author Michael Z. Williamson.  I found that Mr. Williamson’s Facebook is public and I was able to confirm that he did say what he said and that it’s still visible (as of today, 6/20 @ 10:05PDT)

I immediately felt a number of conflicting emotions: shock and revulsion at the tactless joke that was made. Sadness that we have become so inured to senseless violence that people are rushing to be the first one to find a way to joke about it. Confusion at whether I had a right to say anything, knowing I’ve made a few dark jokes from time to time. Uncertainty about whether it was my business to speak up.

And yet … a joke like that … made the same day the Charleston shooting occurred.  I can’t keep my mouth shut about that.  Innocent people died.  Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters … hundreds of lives ripped apart by a senseless act of violence.  That’s not hyperbole, those people’s lives are inexorably altered and potentially ruined. You … you can joke about that?

I can’t.

 

Natalie Luhrs on Pretty Terrible

“Documenting a Wannabe Supervillain” – June 20

I don’t care if you think they’re jokes. And I know full well what kind of context they’re coming from, when your Twitter feed is full of you taunting people who are grieving and angry over an act of terrorism perpetrated against their community and you have pictures of yourself with guns and your Facebook profile pic is pro-waterboarding. I know exactly what kind of asshole you are and you can’t slither out of responsibility for your words because you think they’re jokes. You are a hateful, vile, and pathetic human being, Michael Z. Williamson.

And Williamson’s Hugo-nominated work, “Wisdom from My Internet” is execrable. It should never have made it to the ballot–and it wouldn’t have, if the Puppies hadn’t gamed the system with coordinated slates.

 

John C. Wright

“Moshe Feder Speaks for Himself” – June 20

He has decided publicly to rebuff those customers Mr Feder calls our customers unhappy with the recent unprofessional antics at Tor Books by the charming epithet “idiots”:

As you may have heard, certain scoundrels have declared a boycott of Tor, starting today, to protest the efforts of some Tor employees to defend the Hugo Awards from attack. In response, some of our friends have declared today “Buy A Tor Book Day.”

I wouldn’t have the temerity to ask you to buy a book just because some idiots have declared war on us. But if there _is_ a Tor Book you’ve been meaning to get anyway, buying it today would be a a gesture I’d appreciate.

[As always here on Facebook, I’m speaking for myself and not the company.]

Ah… Well, thank you for your help mollifying our customers, Mr Feder. I am sure that being told they are idiots will make them eager to spend their hard earned book-buying dollars the product you and I are working together to produce for them….

Since I have a conflict of interest, I must remain neutral. Loyalty to my publisher demands I not take sides. Loyalty to my beloved customers demands I not take sides.

Mr Feder has taken sides. Loyalty to his political correctness outweighs, for him, loyalty to publisher. And he just called you, my dear readers and customers, idiots and scoundrels.

This has nothing to do with the Sad Puppies. We are only here for the Hugo Awards.

This particular fight is between, on the one hand, those at Tor Books who think political correctness outweighs all professional and personal loyalties, all standards of decency, all need to be truthful, and who damn their own customers; and, on the other, those who are thankful to the customers and who think the purpose of a business is business.

One side consists of those calling for the resignations that any professional worthy of the name would long ago have proffered for the damage they have done to the company name and public goodwill.

The other side consists of people at Tor who regard Tor as an instrument of social engineering, an arm of the Democrat Party’s press department, or a weapon in the war for social justice.

Without expressing any personal opinion, I can say that there is an easy compromise which our free and robust capitalistic system allows: we can all wish the best to Miss Gallo and Mr Feder when they day comes when they decide to take their interests and obsessions elsewhere, and leave the company in the hands of those of us who merely want to write, publish, and read science fiction told from any and every point of view, political or otherwise, provided the story is well crafted.

 

 

Mick on Mick On Everything

“I Support The Tor Boycott” – June 20

There is plenty of evidence that they’ve been lying to you internally, if in fact they are telling you that those of use who’ve been e-mailing the company are bots as has been rumored.

There is plenty of evidence that they won’t stop, and even though they are now careful to state they don’t speak for Tor, without their positions they wouldn’t have nearly the platform or audience they do. These people are trading on the status the company gave them to trash the customer base, and the authors who actually produce the work.

The originator of the Sad Puppies movement, the International Lord of Hate Larry Correia, has come out and said he does not endorse the boycott. I reiterate – I do. Those of us on the Puppy side have taken enough abuse from the other side, and it’s time we hit them in the wallet.

If someone starts a fight and you don’t fight back, you lose. They started it years ago. Now is time to fight back.

 

Carl Henderson on Offend Everyone

“In Which I Speak of Sad Puppies.” – June 20

I’m a supporter of free speech—which ideally extends beyond the 1st Amendment protections against Government interference or suppression of speech. We as a society and individuals need to cultivate tolerance for opinions we disagree with.

Ms Gallo should not be fired. While her original Facebook remarks were mean-spirited and showed contempt for Tor readers and Tor authors, employers should not purge employees for having unpopular views. They may have a legal right to (depending on state laws and contracts), but they should not because: 1) the organization becomes captive to the loudest and most easily offended of their stakeholders, and 2) free speech is an objective good that writers and publishers should support, even when that speech is unpopular, or even considered hateful.

I think that calls for Tor to fire Gallo to be are wrong. Her remarks on Facebook were hateful and intolerant. But contributing to the culture of demanding punishment whenever anyone says anything offensive is counter to the Sad Puppy goal of more intellectual/political diversity in SF and Fantasy (as well the main goal supporting the primacy of good story over message). If you like a book/writer published by Tor, buy it. If you don’t, don’t buy it. In the long run, the free market will prevail and Tor (like any other company that doesn’t get the government to bail it out) will either change or die.

The justifications I hear from some people involved in Sad Puppies for supporting a Tor boycott or a campaign to have Gallo fired, generally run along these lines of “our opponents use these tactics, so we have to as well”. (I’m oversimplifying. Duh.)

But there’s an important point that those Puppies are missing. People like Gallo are good for your side. The louder and more extreme your opponents get, the better you look. And the better you look, the more support you gain.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Mr. Feder fans the flames” – June 20

It’s worth pointing out that we are not at war with Tor Books. We are merely asking Macmillan to save Tor Books from the observably self-destructive and unprofessional leadership of three of its senior employees, who have abused Tor’s authors and attacked Tor’s customers.

 

Tom Knighton

“Thoughts on the TOR boycott” – June 20

Tor, for some silly reason, is one of many traditional publishers that look at ebooks as a novelty and has them priced in a way to encourage you to buy the print book instead.  I hate that.  There are books I want to read, but I’m not spending more than $10 for a brand new ebook, and I expect that price to drop as time goes on.  Tor’s starting point, so to speak, is so much higher than I want to spend that I don’t really see me buying much of anything anyways.

Honestly, I can’t really boycott someone I don’t buy from in the first place.  I may have yet another reason to not buy Tor books, but it’s not like they’ll notice my lack of spending on their books.  Now, that’s not true for a lot of my Sad Puppy brethren, but it is for me.

Some are screaming that it’s not fair to try and “destroy” someone’s livelihood over comments they made a month earlier on their personal Facebook page.  I’ll buy that when the Left quits trying to destroy the livelihood of everyone who says something they disagree with.

I don’t want Irene Gallo fired necessarily.  I haven’t called for anyone from Tor to be fired.  The only person whose job I called for was the twit who wrote the Entertainment Weekly article, and that wasn’t because of her personal views, it was because she is an embarrassment to journalism.  It’s as simple as that.

That’s not to say that there aren’t a few people from Tor I’d love to see hunting for a job.  There are.  I hear those people get fired, and it’s party central at the Knighton household.  They’ve insulted me and my friends so many times that I really don’t care about how they’ll manage in today’s job market.

 

Wheels Within Wheels

“Boycott in progress” – June 20

I won’t be acquiring any more, though. Tor gives every impression of having a corporate culture that despises anyone who isn’t wholly on board with the left-wing causes of the day, and is more than willing to demonize them. As that applies to me, since they despise me, I’ll not force them to associate with me any longer.

 

Rolf Nelson

“Tor Boycott” – June 19

Gee, I can just feel the love from here. Details at Vox’s blog, Peter Grant’s place, Hoyt’s, and many other places in the SF/F blog-o-sphere. So, if you like SF, keep reading, but but use the library. If you think you just must buy your favorite Tor author, buy used and hit their tip-jar. Or, check out competing publishers like Baen or Castalia House, which don’t treat their authors and fan base like crap.

 

 

Kevin Standlee on Fandom Is My Way Of Life

“E Pluribus Hugo Submitted” – June 20

As presiding officer, I obviously won’t take a stance on the proposal; however, its very complexity requires me to be concerned about how to handle it technically at the Business Meeting. It will probably depend on how much more business gets submitted. It’s proposals like this that lead me to planning for WSFS to hold a Sunday (final day) business meeting for the first time since 1992.

 

 

Melina D on Subversive Reader

“Hugos 2015 Mini Review: The Lego Movie” – June 21

I was watching along enjoying it, but thinking that there wasn’t really anything deeper to the movie, and then it turns around and hits me in the feels.The ‘twist’ at the end was unexpected and definitely added another element to the movie, but it also raises some questions (for me anyway) about the purpose of adult collectors of toys. I come from a family of these (my grandparents actually ran a toy museum when I was a kid) so maybe I think about these things when others don’t, but should toys be played with or preserved?

 

Melina D on Subversive Reader

“Hugos 2015 Reading: Related Works” – June 20 So, the best of this category was better than I expected, but the worst was much worse than expected. I will use No Award in this category, because I don’t think any of the writing was polished or completely engaging enough to win an award as prestigious as the Hugo. However, I’ll list The Hot Equations next, as it was a mostly cohesive piece of writing which showed clear links to SF fiction.

This is where the slate is once again doing themselves a disservice, because it’s possible in another year The Hot Equations might have been in their amongst the top pieces. It’s the kind of thing I was expecting/hoping to find in the nominations – work on topics which aren’t usually my cup of tea (milSF and thermodynamics) which are good enough to engage me and make me think. But because there’s nothing to compare it with, I have to judge it on its own – create my own criteria – which leaves a possibility that I’m being harder on it than it deserves. And there’s such a lot of energy spent on promoting the really bad writing which could be spent on promoting and polishing and presenting more work like this.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Abyss & Apex: Hugo-Nominated Magazine of Speculative Fiction” – June 20

Abyss & Apex is a 2015 Hugo nominee for Best Semiprozine. It’s a web-based zine publishing a mix of poetry and fiction. I was very pleased to see that they have organized and accessible archives that made it easy to look at their issues from 2014. i.e., the relevant ones for this year’s Hugos. Overall, the quality looks high, and the presentation is good. My one objection is that the body text font doesn’t seem to be completely consistent across the site, and for me, that makes it a smidge less reasonable. In total, though, I’m favorably impressed.

 

 

 

https://twitter.com/FredKiesche/status/612365679740760064

 

https://twitter.com/Cherokee_Viking/status/612373478335909888

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603 thoughts on “50 Ways To Leave Your Rover 6/20”

  1. Beyond Anon on June 21, 2015 at 4:23 pm said:

    Eg, West African males are better at running the 100M sprint than any other males, while Northern European males are better at mathematics and science …

    Citations please or I call bullshit. Seems to me I am recalling some thoroughly discredited pseudo-science here …

  3. Jonathan Edelstein on June 21, 2015 at 5:03 pm said:

    “West Side Story” is an old fave. Great job on the “Officer Pupke” filk!

  4. S1AL

    Well, not quite a random; I’ve been writing about SF under my own name since the glory days of Rec Arts SF Written, where you can find me from a simple search. It contains numerous comments of mine on MiLF, many of them uncomplimentary, but that’s hardly surprising…

  5. “The Neanderthals are real, the carbon-14 is rhetorical.”

    All I can say is, thank goodness there was a disclaimer at the top of that page.

  6. Stevie – No offense intended. I do not know who you are, and thus give no special weight to any opinion you have of me.

    Regardless, I am curious what it is that I said about war that offended you.

  7. The writer Wright always reminds me of is E. Gary Gygax: largely self-taught, contemptuously hostile of academic scholarship, condescending toward all the inferior beings who don’t share a taste for a particular kind of fantasy (and a particular approach to it), taking all outsiders’ puzzled lack of comprehension as proof of their intellectual superiority (rather than their poor communication skills), and striving to emulate much better writers like Vance and Wolfe. Relying heavily on obsolete, long-since-refuted scholarship goes with being an auto-didact when you’re doing it badly, too.

    In their heads, they’re as cool as someone like Jenna Moran is in reality. 🙂

  8. > “… Northern European males are better at mathematics …”

    Which is why the earliest evidence of mathematical thought comes from the northeastern Congo, and we still commonly measure time and angular degrees using a system developed in Babylon, using a numerical system developed in India, which when combined with the geometry developed in Greece, was expanded up to the point of algebraic calculus in the Middle Eastern Islamic Empire. While all the while a parallel system of mathematics was developed in China. (Don’t get me wrong, Northern Europeans made significant contributions to math, too. Eventually.)

  9. @Peace Is My Middle Name: I can speak directly to another Just So story from the opposite side of the African continent. People have tried to attribute the East African dominance of distance running – particularly the marathon – to genetics, everything from shin-bone length to oxygen uptake. Otherwise, many asked, how could a couple of poor countries like Kenya and Ethiopia produce such a disproportionate share of champions?

    But it turns out nurture, including path dependence, plays a massive role. Not only do the children in these countries grow up covering long distances every day just to get to school, distance-running is a huge business in those nations, with promising talent identified early, brought into formal youth training programs and the best prospects apprenticed to superstar coaches. It makes no more sense to ascribe East African dominance in distance-running to genetics than it does Canadian dominance of hockey. In each case, it is what the nation’s dominant sports industry is geared to cultivate.

  10. Paul Weimer : As far as I can make it (and that’s not far) means that Nora is subhuman, but Brad’s wife is not, because I said so that’s why.

    Beale, in his usual idiotic fashion, appears to have seized on proposed models of interbreeding by modern humans with Neanderthals, Denisovans, and possibly others, to construct an elaborate hierarchy where Africans, Caucasians and Asians are determined by these admixtures and “differently human” from each other.

    To put it mildly, this overlooks a few bits of the actual science. Just from my own fairly ignorant perspective:

    i, What defines the species is a pool of genes, not those carried in any individual. If Neanderthals and Denisovans bred into this pool, then they’re as much part of “Homo Sapiens Sapiens” now as other ancestors.

    ii, Beale uses this for his typical bigotry against American blacks – who are, of course, admixtures of Caucasians and Africans and carry these genes as well.

    iii, All of these subspecies came from the same origins. Unless Beale can provide evidence relating to *specific* genetic mutations from a subspecies, saying (or rather implying, since he’s too much of a weasel to make his bigoted stupidity explicit) “Europeans have Neanderthal genes and Africans don’t, therefore Europeans are smarter” just doesn’t cut it. He has to point at specific genetic variations.

    iv, As Jared Diamond famously observed, Europeans aren’t objectively smarter to a trained observer. The differences in “intelligence” and historical success can be wholly explained by culture and circumstance, which is why Beale always turns to unrelated observable physical differences such as running ability in West Africans when challenged. His (again implied) bigoted thinking is “West Africans are genetically faster, therefore Europeans are genetically smarter”. Nope.

  11. @Kyra: And don’t forget the Mayans also had a sophisticated mathematical system which developed completely independently of anything in Europe and Asia.

  12. That’s a key question. Scalzi obviously has the luxury now of dialing it back a bit (who knows, he might even tweet less).

    Dial back from his single post every year on what is Hugo eligible? Or eliminate his open threads where he lets Whatever readers suggest works they think are Hugo-worthy?

    And why should he tweet less? He seems to enjoy it.

    This. The notion that Scalzi has been engaged in shameless campaigning for award is wrong and borderline malicious. He does nothing more than list what he (and many other folks) have eligible in a particular year. It’s just another bullshit puppypoint.

  13. But it turns out nurture, including path dependence, plays a massive role. Not only do the children in these countries grow up covering long distances every day just to get to school, distance-running is a huge business in those nations, with promising talent identified early, brought into formal youth training programs and the best prospects apprenticed to superstar coaches. It makes no more sense to ascribe East African dominance in distance-running to genetics than it does Canadian dominance of hockey. In each case, it is what the nation’s dominant sports industry is geared to cultivate.

    Indeed. a case in point is UK cycle racing, which improved vastly in just a few years to achieve considerable success in the 2012 Olympics, by dint of… spending a load of money on cycle racing facilities, training and technological development. To my knowledge, no one yet has hypothesised that some peculiarity of the Anglo-Saxon/Celtic genetic mix makes this island race strong-legged, light and aerodynamic.

  14. Fenella : Simon Bisson and Lorcan Nagle: he says he was specifically looking for books that addressed the Fermi Paradox so an extra BIG thank you to both of you for your suggestions. He’s been a happy man all evening, following up all the recommendations. There were only 3 that we already had so the odds are good that several suggestions will be just right for him.

    If you want something addressing the Fermi paradox, I strongly recommend “The Toolmaker Koan” – http://www.amazon.com/Toolmaker-Koan-John-McLoughlin/dp/067169779X

  15. re: the request for contact stories with no FTL:

    Poul Anderson’s “The Word To Space”.

    the planet Akron (yes, like the city in Ohio; yes, the characters acknowledged that the phonetic coincidence made it a little difficult to get people to take them seriously) is 26 LY away, so it’s a bit difficult to have a conversation with them.

    It’s even more difficult to have a conversation with them because they’re preaching at us. >90% of the Akronite content is Akronite scripture.

  17. BeyondAnon : There are only organisms that are better equipped (selected) for one environment or another. Eg, West African males are better at running the 100M sprint than any other males, while Northern European males are better at mathematics and science …

    Annnnnnd here’s where the bullshit starts.

    I’m fascinated, BeyondAnon – explain to us how an ability with mathematics and science produced a consistent genetic push in Northern Europeans over tens of thousands (or even just thousands of years) – GIVEN THAT THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEM WERE ILLITERATE AGRICULTURAL PEASANTS OVER THAT TIME.

    You DO get that, right? Mathematics and science were the concern of a tiny few, passed along culturally, until technology created the conditions for them to bloom generally ONLY A FEW HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

  18. Peace —

    Wright doesn’t come across as particularly well educated.

    Well, say “self-taught beyond his level”, then. In which case, he really should have found a better teacher. 😉

  19. Kyra on June 21, 2015 at 6:16 pm said:
    > “… Northern European males are better at mathematics …”

    Which is why the earliest evidence of mathematical thought comes from the northeastern Congo, and we still commonly measure time and angular degrees using a system developed in Babylon, using a numerical system developed in India, which when combined with the geometry developed in Greece, was expanded up to the point of algebraic calculus in the Middle Eastern Islamic Empire. While all the while a parallel system of mathematics was developed in China. (Don’t get me wrong, Northern Europeans made significant contributions to math, too. Eventually.)

    But only after those low Neanderthal DNA containing populations in Africa, the ANE, and the ME also invented farming, metalworking, animal domestication, writing and, basically, civilization, and brought it to those primitive uncivilized Northern Europeans (with the highest Neanderthal DNA percentages). Or maybe, just maybe, it’s more complex than some people think it is.

    Maybe cultural norms, social pressures, access to education, diet, epigenetics, and more have fairly large influences on which groups are shunted into lower or higher social positions.

    There was a scientific study done a few years ago where the scientists intentionally removed most of the social downward pressures/markers (like stereotype threat) on a group of women and PoC before taking a tough standard exam (think it was one for calculus) and the average score of the women/PoC was 30 points above the white men who took the same exam at the same time and place. This doesn’t mean that women/PoC are smarter than white men, it just indicates that being socially dominant gives you a HUGE advantage over others in every sphere where your dominance is the norm/accepted. (They can induce lower performance among white men on tests requiring verbal proficiency or emotional sensitivity by introducing stereotype threats/reminders before the men take the tests.)

    I call BS on any claims to some genetic superiority of any group over another until and unless you can prove that all cultural and social differences have been neutralized.

  20. Stevie says:

    Of course, it is impossible to fit the Nubian civilisation into this, because the Nubians were most definitely black, and most definitely had an advanced civilisation long before the time he is referring to.

    Not to mention the Songhay Empire, the Hausa empire, the lot at Kanem and then Bornu, and many others… or the period when Egypt was ruled by the Nubians.

  21. @NelC:

    It ought to be possible to be self-taught without sounding like P. T. Bridgeport.

  22. @Aaron (On John Wright)

    …that was originally coined to describe Newt Gingrich: He’s a dumb person’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.

    Heh, I’ve always heard that line in relation to Stephen Fry.

    Regardless, whenever I read Wright, smart isn’t the word that comes to mind, it’s more “pompous buffoon”, as well as the sequence by Pratchett in Interesting Times about the antagonist’s ambitions

    The clothes felt uncomfortable and touched him in unfamiliar ways, but those were minor details. This was how a man looked in a society that breathed, that moved, that could go somewhere . . .
    He’d walk through the city on that first great day and the people would be silent when they saw their natural leader.
    It never crossed his mind that anyone would say, ”Ere, wot a toff! ‘Eave ‘arf a brick at ‘im!’

  23. Peace, it totally is. I mean, there’s a strong self-taught element in a bunch of us right here, for instance.

    Also, major props for a good Pogo allusion.

  24. I could write a book about all the ways Vox Day is wrong about evolution in general and human evolution in particular, but the very thought is exhausting.

    All I can say right now is that when you see things like Beyond Anon’s statement:

    West African males are better at running the 100M sprint than any other males, while Northern European males are better at mathematics and science …

    just recognize it for what it is, pseudo-scientific justification for racism. They did it in the late 1900s with the latest science of the day, they did it between the world wars, they did it during the Cold War. They dress it up in the intellectual fashions of the day, but it’s the same old crap.

    For instance, one refutation of Beyond’s last clause: Srinivasa Ramanujan may have been the most brilliant mathematician in the history of the world; he’s certainly in the top ten.

  25. Regardless, whenever I read Wright, smart isn’t the word that comes to mind, it’s more “pompous buffoon”

    I’m with you on that. I actually have an unhealthy fondness for purple prose, but he is just so damned pretentious about it.

  28. I like the Prometheus Awards.

    I thought the Unincorporated series by the Kollins was vastly underappreciated.

    EDIT: The power is mine!

  29. For instance, one refutation of Beyond’s last clause: Srinivasa Ramanujan may have been the most brilliant mathematician in the history of the world; he’s certainly in the top ten.

    Along with Ramanujan, there’s Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who did world-class work in several independent fields.

    Oh but they’re Tamil Brahmins and therefore the purest of Aryans, don’t you know!
    (No, I’m not saying that seriously. Though sadly it is something I have heard others say. There’s no monopoly on racism.)

  30. I don’t know how representative this year’s nominees were in this respect (and I suspect they were not all that representative), but to me, the Novelettes were a category where most works felt like they had undergone some procrustean process: Only “The Day the World Turned Upside Down” and “The Triple Sun” felt like they were written at the “right” length. “Journeyman: In The Stone House” and “Championship B’Tok” were clearly culled from longer works and while I kind of liked “Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium”, I had this nagging feeling that I would have liked it more as either a short story or a novel; at the current size it felt both too short and too long. Likewise, among the Novellas were two puffed up shorter works.

    It’s not clear to me that there is really a need for the current amount of granularity among short works. It seems to me having only Short Story and Novella, with looser size limits might reduce the amount of editing done just to fit particular weight classes.

  31. I’m against dropping one of the short fiction categories in the Hugo. And not a fan of the way the “Saga” category is written up.

    Will not vote for the current proposal at Sasquan.

  32. Microtherion, this is a completely unusual year. Literally, there’s no precedent for it. If you look at the short fiction awards for previous years, you’ll find talented writers whose work actually does make use of the length categories.

    For last year, for instance, Tor.com’s post announcing the winners links to all the works that first appeared there. The short stories, novelette, and novella are all very distinct. The Free Speculative Fiction Online site links to lots more at their page for award winners, 2010-2014. You will quickly see how rotten the work foisted on us this year was.

  33. Hey everyone, just popping in and can’t reply to each and every question/challenge, so just a special shout-out to those who have told me to shut the hell up, that I’ve added dishonor to dishonesty, that I’ll stop at nothing to give Vox Day a Hugo, and my favorite, “I can’t wait until you actually show up at a Worldcon, and a bunch of us get to look you in the eye while you try to explain that, no, really, you’re actually a good person.”

    For those objecting that Scalzi wouldn’t dream of promoting himself for awards, I like Scalzi and he seems like a good guy who didn’t have any way of knowing at the time what he was starting. But google “Self Pimpage”. That term made me curious enough to go look up its origins: https://file770.com/?p=22013&cpage=2#comment-252572

    I just left a reply to Kilo’s quite thoughtful comments on ML here.

  34. Bruce Baugh : Along with Ramanujan, there’s Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who did world-class work in several independent fields.

    A singular intelligence with no limits.

  35. Brian, I don’t want you to shut up, but I think you might benefit from taking some time away for a couple of days. You’re sounding very frustrated in the last couple of threads. Have some you-time and rejuvenate, the Hugo Awards and assorted proposals will still be here.

  36. Meredith, I very much want him to shut up. He has by now shown himself to be a dishonest concern troll. As someone else said, he’ll just continue to pretend to believe the puppy talking points, evade, ask loaded questions and all it does is make us waste our time. The discussion would be much better without him IMO.

  38. Brian Z.: For those objecting that Scalzi…

    And for those preferring that you respond directly and honestly — for a change — to the posts people have made challenging your false assertions?

    Oh, right. More deflection, on this occasion by invoking Scalzi (who didn’t “start” anything). No direct and honest response to be seen.

  39. @S1AL

    GRBs? I’m more impressed that Rzasa apparently thinks a “day” is defined by how long it takes a planet to circle its sun.

    Although if that wasn’t one of the issues Burnside addressed I can see why Ian didn’t bother with it.

  40. Re: Scalzi

    I haven’t seen him be over the top with self-promotion, and in this day and age self-promotion is literally part of his job. Its how he sells books, and artists need to eat and put their kids through university just like the rest of us.

    I see a brief reference to promotion for Old Man’s War, but I didn’t see any of that and besides, that was a long time ago. Even if there was the wrong kind of self-promotion (which I don’t know and aren’t willing to take on faith), then its lack of existence for the following books ought to make it irrelevant.

    @mk41

    I’m aware of his popularity levels. :p I only speak for me.

  41. thinks a “day” is defined by how long it takes a planet to circle its sun

    Oh dear sweet Ghu…. [facepalm]

  43. I read a Star Trek book where the Romulan home worlds were tidelocked to each other and to their star or at least definitely to each other and with a permanent day and permanent night side.

    (I spent a certain amount of time playing with equations to work out if you could get two worlds orbiting each other with a period equal to their year. Pretty sure it’s no. Very sure my math skills are very rusty, though)

  44. Brian Z, an author’s popularity being a plus when it comes to winning an award isn’t something Scalzi invented. In Ye Olden Times before there was even the internet and all we had to compute with was zeros and ones, and sometimes we ran out of ones, there were cons and authors certainly were happy to make the rounds having fun with fans, and sure, that helped win a few Hugos for some. But the authors still had to write decent books first, which Scalzi certainly has done. That Scalzi is also a prolific blogger is true, but so is David Gerrold, so is George R.R. Martin, Charles Stross, heck even Sarah Hoyt writes a virtual metric truckload on her blog. It still takes writing good enough SF&F to win a Hugo.

  45. CPaca, I want to tell you to be ashamed of those puns, but only because I didn’t think of them first.

  48. @ Meredith
    To me it isn’t about popularity levels. It’s about reasonable responses to bad faith actors.
    In a way it’s like the Hugo’s: If we were dealing with a group of otherwise reasonable people with legitimate grievances, compromise would be possible. Unfortunately that’s not what we are dealing with.

  49. Hearing these reactions I’m wondering if people simply don’t realize that until recently that stuff was not done, which is why Scalzi called his annual announcements “award pimpage posts” and “wholly unseemly self-pimpery.” Can you imagine Harlan Ellison saying “As for the rest of my fiction work, I’m proud of it all and would be delighted to be nominated in any category. But I do hope folks who are interested in voting will check out “The Sagan Diary,” because I think it contains some of my best writing to date. And in the short story category, I think people should know that the “Godfrey Winton” panel is actually a transcription of a convention panel, which means it’s live fiction improv from me, Nick Sagan and Sarah Monette. I think we did a damn fine job.

    Or can you imagine Harlan Ellison asking you to give him a Hugo with these words: “In the short story category, you may note me pointing out “When the Yogurt Took Over,” which is a very short piece (exactly one thousand words) about a ridiculous subject (intelligent yogurt) which I self-published here. I wrote it as a trifle but I have to say since I’ve written it, it’s grown on me, no pun intended. I could explain why but that’s the equivalent of leading the witness. So I’ll just say: Trifle though it was intended to be, check it out.”

    As I said, Scalzi is a great guy and I’m sure he didn’t realize where it was all going, but he was doing it first while taping bacon to his cat and getting a million hits or whatever it was, and winning some Hugos. Which makes it slightly harder to put ALL the blame on Larry Correia.

    Meredith, thanks for your kind words.

  50. I can’t help but think that Brian’s approach to solving domestic violence would start with telling the victim not to be so outspoken. Maybe try not to annoy the offender so they didn’t want to hit anyone.

    I mean, if he really thinks Scalzi’s perfectly normal for an author promotion of his own stuff – which is part of his contractual obligations as a pro-published author – is the reason for the mysterious sekrit slates which are affirmatively activating all over the Hugos, and therefore the reasons we have a bunch of near-Nazi thugs throwing their weight around, insulting all previous winners of Hugos who are not straight white men called John Scalzi, is because Scalzi made them do it….

    …his logic really does sound like your typical victim blaming.

    And Brian, that’s just bloody skeevy. It really, really is creepy as hell.

    Also, anyone who cites Harlan Ellison as their model for modest retiring authorial behaviour is probably losing their grip on reality.

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