A Fistful of Puppies 5/3

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aka The Puppy Sculptors of Coral D

Apart from “An Account of Juliette Wade’s Withdrawal from Sad Puppies 3” hosted on this blog, the highlights of the day come from Tom Knighton, Lisa J. Goldstein, Spacefaring Kitten, George R.R. Martin, John C. Wright, severian, Vox Day, M.C. Hana, Daddy Warpig, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Paul Cornell and Abi Sutherland. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Laura Resnick, plus yours truly.)

Tom Knighton

“Why they joke about ‘conspiracies’”  – May 3

Go to any CHORF or SJB science fiction site, and someone is likely to joke about conspiracies.  They think it’s funny, using the term to paint Sad Puppies as right-wing nut jobs prattling on endlessly about the New World Order and chem trails.  “No,” they say, “there’s no ‘conspiracy involving Hugo nominations.”

Of course, they’re full of it too.

 

Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4

“An Attempt to Come to Terms with the Hugo Ballot” – May 1

I have lots of time — except for proofreading my novel, and coming up with something for an anthology I promised to be in, and, you know, actually writing something … okay, I’m not sure why this seemed like a good idea, but I thought I’d read the ballot and comment on it. A few ground rules, then.  First, I don’t like military sf, and that’s what a lot of the ballot seems to consist of.  This isn’t even an ideological stance — I just can’t get into it, the same way I can’t get into vampire novels and mysteries where the cat solves the murder.  I will try to get past this and make my reviews as objective as I can, though I can’t promise anything.  Second, I reserve the right to quit reading a nominee at any time.  I’m not going to read an entire novel if the first few chapters leave me cold.  Oh, and spoilers. I’m going to start with short stories, because they’re, well, short, and with the last story on the ballot and then work my way up.  So the first story is “Turncoat,” by Steve Rzasa…..

…What I’m doing here is reading the Sad Puppies’ slate and commenting on it. This is something the Puppies said no SJW (Short Juggling Wombat?) would do, that instead we would vote a blanket No Award, and I would think the Puppies themselves would welcome my efforts. Commenting on the media is beyond the scope of this project, and not something I’d want to do anyway

 

Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens

“’Turncoat’ by Steve Rzasa”  – May 3

I’ve begun my Hugo reading with the short story and graphic story categories. Most of the short stories are available online, so maybe I’ll start with them.

I plan to keep track of what I’ve read and what I think about the stuff I’ve read here on this blog. Feel free to comment, whether you agree or disagree.

The first one I read was “Turncoat” by Steve Rzasa.

 

George R.R. Martin on Not A Blog

“Reading for Hugos” – May 3

Just finished THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM, by Cixin Liu, originally written in Chinese and translated by Ken Liu. This was the novel that just missed in the original round of nominations, only to secure a place on the ballot when Marko Kloos withdrew. In a half-century of Hugo Awards, there have been very few non-English originals ever nominated, and certainly never one from China, so THREE-BODY is a breakthrough book in that respect, and a sign that “worldcon” is (very slowly) becoming more global.

This is a very unusual book, a unique blend of scientific and philosophical speculation, politics and history, conspiracy theory and cosmology, where kings and emperors from both western and Chinese history mingle in a dreamlike game world, while cops and physicists deal with global conspiracies, murders, and alien invasions in the real world.

It’s a worthy nominee.

 

https://twitter.com/Paul_Cornell/status/594850392934064128

 

https://twitter.com/Paul_Cornell/status/594851239768260609

 

https://twitter.com/Paul_Cornell/status/594855367387021312

 

John C. Wright

“Reviewer Scorn for One Bright Star, Plural of Helen, etc.” – May 3

A reviewer is disappointed in my efforts:

http://secritcrush.livejournal.com/tag/pathetic%20puppies

In Wright’s hands Queequeeg remains firmly a noble savage with no depth of characterization at all. One person of color in the story and that’s what Wright goes for. That’s how the Pathetic puppies increase diversity.

Diversity, eh?

Discuss.

ADDENDUM: a reader brings to my attention links to a review site whose disappointment is markedly less. He asked whether both sites read the material, or only one?

http://superversivesf.com/2015/05/01/hugo-nominee-review-transhuman-and-subhuman-part-i-transhuman-and-subhuman/

http://superversivesf.com/2015/04/18/review-of-plural-of-helen-of-troy/

http://superversivesf.com/2015/04/17/one-bright-star-a-review/

 

severian on Rotten Chestnuts

“Perestroika and Puppies” – April 30

Admit one lie, you see, and you’ve tacitly admitted to all the other lies.  And when your whole system is built on lies….

And that’s the best case scenario, mind you.  If the Hugo Award TrueFans (or whatever the acronym is) are smart, they’ll go Gorbachev — grudgingly hold their noses while loudly proclaiming that they’re voting for the “”””””best”””””” of a very, very sorry lot…. and then the Puppies go away, because there’s no more shit to be stirred — all the drama queen antics cease.  That means there will forever be a year with a “wrong” Hugo, and the Hugo will never again be the Unsullied Pure SJW Award for Excellence in SJW Propaganda, but so what?  There’s always the Nebulas or the Galactic Vagina Trophy or whatever.  (If there’s one thing liberals are great at, it’s singing their own praises; they’ll come up with something).

But I’m betting they won’t, because again, Gorbachev’s the best case scenario.  Ol’ Mikhail himself would do it again in a heartbeat — he’s still alive and kicking, not buried two feet under the Siberian permafrost — but many of his kommissars got what was coming to them…. and, of course, the shining beacon of world socialism guttered and went out.  SJWs have no identity of their own; if they’re not shrieking about something, they wink out of existence like quarks.  So they’ll burn it down, No Award everything, because at least that way they can play the martyr role for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever….

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Patience is a strategic virtue” – May 3

Now let’s look at how fighting strategically applies to the Hugo 2015 situation. We know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the SJWs are going to vote No Award on most of the Puppy-recommended works. Some will claim to have read them all, some will proudly proclaim that they have read none, others will pretend to genuinely believe that there is not a single award-worthy work in the lot, and a few particularly foolish ones will even convince themselves they believe as much. That’s fine, we all know what their opinions are worth as the list of past winners are well-documented. The only relevant point is that they are going to do it.

So why shouldn’t we join them? Why not pour on the gasoline as they run around shrieking and lighting matches? After all, getting things nominated that the other side would No Award, then turning around and joining them to ensure no awards were given out was my original idea, which I set aside in favor of SP3 and Brad Torgersen’s ultimately futile attempt to save the Hugos from the SJWs. The reason to abandon this original objective now that it is firmly in our grasp is that the situation has developed in ways that I did not fully anticipate, thereby indicating a strategic adjustment. Why settle for burning Munich when Berlin may be within reach, especially if the munchkins are promising to burn Munich for us as we advance? Jeff Duntemann’s summary to which Mike Glyer directed our attention yesterday is informative in this regard….

The best possible outcome is not to see them nuke themselves, as amusing as that would be, but to see them try to nuke themselves and fail, thereby demonstrating that they don’t even possess the nukes they think they have. And even if Option 4 turns out to have been beyond our reach this year, its failure is still within the range of our victory conditions. This is what it means to successfully execute a Xanatos Gambit. If we fail, we win. If we succeed, we win even bigger. Why settle for victory when we can vanquish? Now that the science fiction SJWs have publicly declared No Award, the best possible outcome for us is for them to try to burn down the awards and fail. And that is why we should not help them do it. I very much understand the temptation to cry havoc, run amok, and gleefully set fires, but keep this in mind: while strategic arson is good, strategic occupation is glorious.

Translation: stow the flamethrowers. For now.

 

M. C. Hana on Blue night. Black iron. Golden rope.

“Intergalactic Medicine Show: free fiction” – May 3

I’ve witnessed some extraordinary discussions over the past month, as the Hugo Awards controversy continues in the science-fiction and fantasy community. Eventually, I’ll provide links (cribbed and cited from a couple of diligent AW sources) to the best explanations of what happened and why.

Part of the fallout? Free stories listed online by authors, editors, and publishers who have refused Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy nominations this year.

The latest is a collection of science-fiction and fantasy from Orson Scott Card’s ‘Intergalactic Medicine Show’, offered by its editor Edmund R. Schubert. Schubert recently gave a passionate defense of his magazine, pointing out that it does not share all of Card’s politics, and seeks diversity from all authors and stories.

Disclosure: I am one of the authors who recently avoided IGMS because of its perceived association. Schubert’s essay convinced me to take another look. I’m several stories in, and I’m pleasantly surprised. It takes me back to my teen years, and my mom’s subscription to the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

 

https://twitter.com/Daddy_Warpig/status/594958659815247872

 

 

Abi Sutherland in a comment on Making Light – May 3

Day is right, of course. We have not left him alone. You see, although we call the periodic threads we start “Open Threads”, that’s just to get the correct initials: OT.

OT really stands for OPERATION THEODORE, and the OTs are the coordinating place for the subtle campaign of intimidation we have spent years implementing.

To decrypt the plans, you must acquire the cryptographic key based on the distributions of the letters “V, X, D, and Y”* in the first thirty-three comments of each thread. Although those comments may appear to be posted by various members of the community and the general public, they are in point of fact all posted by Patrick, Teresa, and me‡, using our talents** as skilled textual mimics to produce the thin and unconvincing effect of conversation††.

Once you have the key, you too can join the carefully coordinated assault on the forces arrayed against us, carried out by means of no one from our community bothering to join his coterie even as a mole, a complete failure to discuss him unless he’s done something particularly dickish, and a total lack of interest in him until he damages an institution we care about‡‡.

Fluourospherians Form Up! This war of being bored to tears with Vox Day won’t fight itself!

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206 thoughts on “A Fistful of Puppies 5/3”

  1. @NelC:

    You don’t want to get me started. Trust me on this. I’ll come up with stuff like “I Have No Muzzle And I Must Bark” or “The Puppy Who Barked Hugo At The Hearts Of The Fans,” and then where will we be?

  2. Romeo and Puppy
    Much Ado About Puppy
    Two Puppies of Verona
    Puppy V
    Puppy of Venice
    Taming of the Puppy

  4. Apupaclypse Now
    The Puppy Syndrome
    The Puppy Whisperer
    The Puppies of Madison County
    One Flew Over the Puppies’ Nest
    Pups of Endearment
    The Goodbye Puppy

    Also, just a quick note re: fMRI – fMRI does not require cleanroom protocolsI. With the current tech, the patient in the machine has to be very still, so eating is impractical from a movement standpoint, but not from a contamination standpoint. I’ve been seated a few feet from the machine while a scan was being performed, and I was allowed to have a styrofoam cup of water at my side.

    You can’t have any metal on you when you’re in the room (fMRI = ginormous magnet) – no jewelry, no metal zippers, no rivets in your jeans, no hooks or underwires in your bra – so they give you a set of scrubs to wear, and if you’re not in the machine, you get to sit in a plastic lawn chair.

    The techs sit at desks with multiple monitors in an adjacent room with a heavy door and a large viewing window. The techs reading the screens can eat or drink at their stations subject to the protocols of the individual workplace.

  5. Rev bob: after you came out with those two titles, we very much do want to get you started!

  6. The Curious Incident of the Puppy in the Night-Time
    The Puppy Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure
    Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Puppy
    Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Puppy
    The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Puppy of Her Own Making
    The Puppy Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead

  9. The Fellowship of the Puppy
    The Return of the Puppy
    The Two Puppies

    yeah, I changed the order, it lines up better with the 3 years of puppy shenanigans that way.

  11. Okay, The Prisoner!

    A Change of Puppies
    The Puppy who was death
    Do not Forsake me, oh my Puppy
    The Puppies of Big Ben

    “I am not a Puppy, I am a free man!”

  14. Just got this….had to stop at Kitten’s post

    Evidently genocide should be morally ambiguous in anti-puppy land. Who, exactly, is the racist in this fight? Oh yeah…sorry, ’tis us.

  15. GK: reading comprehension failure again, I see. try re-reading kittens post.

  19. Did somebody already mention Puppy, Ask Not?

    Puppy 451
    The Illustrated Puppy
    The Puppy Chronicles
    I Sing the Puppy Electric

    The Puppy at the End of the Lane
    The Puppies Like Dust

  20. @MickyFinn:

    I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you, of all people, would like those. Thus:

    Callahan’s Crosstime Kennel
    Sad Puppies Strictly Cash

    However, I think I’d prefer to go with a TV episode or two. You like Star Trek? Second-season TNG, perhaps?

    Where Silence Has Leash
    The Measure of a Puppy
    The Schizoid Day
    A Matter of Puppies

    …and I don’t even have to change this one. 🙂

  21. “Who, exactly, is the racist in this fight? Oh yeah…sorry, ’tis us.”

    Truer words GK has never spoke.

  22. Re: GK Chesterton on May 4, 2015 at 5:07 pm said:
    “Who, exactly, is the racist in this fight? Oh yeah…sorry, ’tis us.”

    So, she didn’t say anything at all like that, or even mention the word ‘racist’.

    I think now we can tell why you feel so persecuted all the time, if you somehow felt that this post had anything to do with you.

  24. Out of the Silent Puppy
    Puppylandra
    That Hideous Puppy
    The Allegory of Puppies
    The Discarded Puppy

    The Shape of the Puppy
    All Puppies’ Eve
    The Greater Puppies
    The Region of the Summer Puppies

  26. Sewer, Gas, Puppies
    All You Puppies
    How’re the Puppies On Cissalda
    Uncleftish Puppies
    Puppies are the Absence of God
    Why Puppies Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan

  28. The Puppies of Wrath
    The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Puppy
    The Heart is a Lonely Puppy
    All The King’s Puppies
    The Maltese Puppy
    Of Puppy Bondage
    The Day of the Puppy
    The Magnificent Puppies

  29. If we’re moving on to song titles 🙂

    A Puppy named Sue
    I walk the Puppy
    One Puppy at a time
    Don’t take your puppies to town
    Ballad of a teenage puppy
    Puppy on a Wire

    I may be listening to some johnny cash at the moment.

  30. I love the previously suggested ‘The Puppies That Fall On You From Nowhere.’

    The Puppies Who Circumnavigated the Hugos in a Slate of Their Own Making
    The Puppy With The Rocket Tattoo
    The Shining Puppies
    Never Let Puppies Go
    The Puppy Who Mistook His Bark For A Hugo
    One Hundred Yelps of Puppies
    The Puppy at the End of the Lane
    Through the Drowsy Bark: Slates, Fisking, & Puppies
    When Puppies Reach Me
    So You Want to be a Puppy

    Apologies to anyone who’s title was so brilliant I have mistaken it for my own.

  31. If All Men Were Puppies, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister

    How Odd – A Tiny Puppy

    Dechlorinating the Puppy

    The Puppies Come From The Voodvork Out

  32. Puppyhouse-Five
    Puppy’s Cradle

    and, if Mike is still posting these roundups seven weeks from now:
    A Midsummer Night’s Puppy

  33. What Mad Puppy
    The Lights in the Sky are Puppies
    Puppies, Go Home

  34. In honor of the old Doc Savage novels:

    The Puppy of Bronze
    Quest of the Puppy
    Puppies of the Pacific
    The Puppy of Fear
    The Sargasso Puppy
    Brand of the Werepuppy
    The Puppy Who Shook the Earth
    The Thousand Headed Puppy
    The Squeaking Puppy
    The Mystic Puppy
    The Puppy Legion
    The Puppies Who Smiled No More
    The Giggling Puppy
    The Puppy of Terror
    The Three Wild Puppies

    Considering the number of titles, you get the idea.

  35. Next thing we’re going to start on The Hardy Boys titles.

    The Tower Puppy
    The Puppy on the Cliff
    The Secret of the Old Puppy
    …

  36. Mike: or Famous 5 titles;

    Puppies on a treasure island
    Puppies run away together
    Puppies have a wonderful time
    Puppies go to Demon’s rocks
    Puppies have a mystery to solve

  37. @Mike:

    I thought The Secret of the Old Puppy was a Nancy Drew title…

  38. Rev. Bob: It’s that too, if you replace “Clock” with “Puppy” instead of “Mill”.

  39. Just read “Parliament” and “Spiritual Plain”, what is the deal with the editing for these stories? Did they decide to leave typos in as a statement of some sort?

  40. @Maximillian:

    Those aren’t typos. It’s artisanal spelling. Microbrewed, small-batch, craft grammar.

  41. Rev Bob: “Those aren’t typos. It’s artisanal spelling. Microbrewed, small-batch, craft grammar.”

    Damn, dude! You just made me spew Microbrewed, small-batch, craft beverage all over my keyboard!

    I am so going to be using the phrase “artisanal spelling” from now on.

  42. @Kary,

    Shouldn’t that be ‘Puppies and Prejudice’?

    ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an awardless writer in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of attention.’

  43. Based on my reading so far, I’ll certainly be using “No Award” in a number of categories–including editor. There are a couple of stories, among the few I haven’t read yet, that I hear are better than the stuff I have been wading through so far. (But, then, it would be hard to get much *worse* than the nominees I’ve read so far.) I still hope to like something in the remaining batch, since it’s disappointing to read so many bad, weak, and mediocre stories in a row–and from the Hugo ballot!

    At this point, though, the Puppy slate is overall such poor quality, if they get things on the Hugo ballot again in future, I don’t think I’ll bother reading any of those stories. I’m allowing the Puppies to waste this much of my reading time this year because it has always seemed right to read what I vote on… But such consistently bad picks from the Puppies this year means I’m not willing to let them waste my time again in future. Even if there’s one gem somewhere in their picks… I don’t want to wade through more drek next year to find it, and “drek” is the sum of what I’ve read so far on the Puppy slate. None of the stories I’ve read so far deserves to be on an awards ballot IMHO, and half a dozen of them are so clumsy and clunky, I’m surprised the writers are able to get published. Personal blogs and fanfiction are frequently written better than a bunch of the stuff on the Hugo ballot this year.

    I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, the Puppies recommending any stories from now on will be exactly like putting a big red warning sign on it: “Really bad writing! Don’t waste your time!”

  44. @Dela:

    The depressing thing, in my estimation, is that the quality of Puppy-slated works is only going to decline. With the reputation they’ve earned for “swill, as long as it’s Our Kind of swill” nominations, I don’t see the upside for a decent author in agreeing to appear on their slate(s):

    “Let me get this straight. I get to be on a ticket known for pushing crappy work, be used as a punching bag by people blaming each other – and now me – for contributing to the ruin of the most prestigious award in the field, and in exchange, the best I can reasonably hope for is to lose?”
    “You forgot the part where you get to be associated with Vox Day.”
    (click)
    “Hello?”
    (dial tone)

    Nope, I don’t see it happening.

  45. @ Rev. Bob

    I think you’re bound to be right. There may be some newcomers and also some established writers who are kind of out of touch who will, in January of 2016, not know about the whole Puppy controversy this year, and they might say “yes” without realizing what they’re getting into. But this has been so noisy and long-running already, and it’s made a bunch of media, I don’t think there will be many of those.

    I think the Puppies will mostly encounter people saying “no” if they asked to be on the slates, and people who are not asked and then find out will ask to be taken off the slates.

    That doesn’t leave a lot of writers left to choose from for next years Puppy slate except people who are Puppies and their friends and followers. Some of those are on the ballot this year (and I’m not going to read anything else by them after getting through this year’s selections; the writing is just too bad), some campaigned for the Puppies this year… And when your slate is “who was willing to be associated with our campaign,” I don’t think it has a chance of being a close match for anyone’s real idea of “the best sf of the year!”

  46. Rev Bob

    Don’t forget these:

    -Not only will you lose, there’s a good chance you’ll wind up below NO AWARD

    -The guys running it will happily throw you under the bus the moment it’s convenient for them to do so (i.e., Day is now touting 3BP as his number one pick, over SKIN GAME and DARK BETWEEN THE STARS, both of which were actually on his slate).

  47. @snowcrash:

    I figured the No Award possibility was amply covered by losing being the best option, and that being thrown under the bus wouldn’t get mentioned before the author hung up.

    That, and I think Victim vox Dumm has “adopted” 3BP in a weak attempt to discourage his opponents from supporting it.

  48. ” I don’t see the upside for a decent author in agreeing to appear on their slate(s)”

    Who said anyone is going to ask next time? I didn’t, for the obvious reason that one doesn’t need to ask anyone’s permission to recommend their work. And considering the way Brad has been treated, it should be eminently obvious that asking authors for their permission to recommend their work is a terrible mistake.

    Brad asked because he is a nice guy and didn’t want people to be attacked by SJWs for the crime of having their work recommended by badthinkers. I’m not a nice guy and see people being attacked by SJWs as a positive thing, because the experience tends to be very educational for them.

    More than a few people have told me that they believed the SJWs about me, until they came under SJW fire for one reason or another themselves. And now they know the truth: SJWs always lie.

    I will recommend whatever I happen to like, which is precisely why I will be voting for Three-Body Problem this year.

  49. That’ll show them, Teddy! Show them that even the person who made the slate thinks it was wrong! Great job, team!

  50. “I will recommend whatever I happen to like, which is precisely why I will be voting for Three-Body Problem this year.”

    As I’ve said elsewhere, go for it. Please also encourage your fellow travellers to do so. You’ll have effectively thrown works that were on your slate (SKIN GAME and DARK BETWEEN THE STARS) under the bus. You’ve dragged Butcher and KJA into your little front of the culture war, and now you’re not even willing to continue backing them. Just so you can do your eternal victory dance.

    I look forward to you nominating people next year. The speed at which they disassociate themselves from you and condemn you will be most illuminating.

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