aka Time Enough To Read Even The Puppy Nominees
Today roundup hors d’ouerve includes Tim Hall, Adam-Troy Castro, Vox Day, Patrick McCulley and Jon Zeigler. (Title credit goes out to File 770 contributing editors of the day Will Reichard and Daniel Dern.)
Tim Hall on Where Worlds Collide
“Geeks, Mops and Sociopaths” – July 4
There’s an interesting post by David Chapman about the life-cycle of subcultures. He identifies three types of people who enter a subculture at different stages. First there are the “Geeks”, the creators and hardcore supporters. The come “Mops”, the more casual supporters whose numbers are necessary for a scene to grow big enough to be economically viable. Finally there are the “Sociopaths”, who want to exploit everything for profit without caring about the subculture itself, taking a short-term slash-and-burn approach that destroys the thing in the process…..
I certainly don’t agree with him on the necessity of gatekeepers to preserve the purity of a subculture; that smacks too much of elitism, and gatekeeping is one of those things that can so easily turn toxic. This is especially true when you have what amounts to a turf war between competing subcultures over a disputed space; the whole Sad Puppies/Hugo thing, and the ongoing Gamergate culture war are prime examples.
Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook – July 4
Wright is outraged that I would imply anti-Semitism in this language, and wants us to know that he loves the Jewish people and indeed angrily bans any holocaust deniers who show up on his blog. Well, bully for him. So what we really need to take from this is that he wasn’t targeting Jews, with those words, but simply and clumsily doubling down on his previously stated hatred for homosexuals. That’s much different.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Hugo Recommendations: Best Editor” – July 4
This is how I am voting in the Best Editor categories. Of course, I merely offer this information regarding my individual ballot for no particular reason at all, and the fact that I have done so should not be confused in any way, shape, or form with a slate or a bloc vote, much less a direct order by the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil to his 388 Vile Faceless Minions or anyone else.
Best Editor, Short Form
- Vox Day
- Jennifer Broznek
- Bryan Thomas Schmidt
- Mike Resnick
Best Editor, Long Form
- Toni Weisskopf
- Anne Sowards
- Jim Minz
- Vox Day
- Sheila Gilbert
Jon Zeigler on Sharrukin’s Palace
“My 2015 Hugo Ballot” – July 4
My sole motivation here is to read and appreciate genre fiction from (almost) any source. The dispute certainly motivated me to become involved with the process for the first time, but I’ve done my good-faith best to evaluate nominees as if the dispute was not taking place. In particular, for individual writers or editors I’ve deliberately avoided reading blog pages or social media, concentrating instead on neutral sources and the body of work.
[Lists everything on his Hugo ballot.]
https://twitter.com/panther_modern/status/617352254409043968
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Mao once said to China’s people;
“Let a thousand flowers bloom!” But,
Not all by John C. Wright, please.
Belatedly adding to previous thread’s recommendations for anime:
Kaiba, a weird looking skiffy anime about memories and the nature of self that’s a must see imho, surprised it wasn’t on any of the lists of must-see anime from the last thread.
Stuff that I’d recommend that I know is legally (and do mean actually LEGAL rather than fansubs or similar) watchable for free on Crunchyroll… if you can stand the ads:
Sound of the Sky, which is technically MilSF but is really a Slice of Life show about a small group of young female military trumpeters in a post-apocalyptic world. V. Cozy.
Coffin Princess Chaika, which is silly but very fun (and is done by the same people who did Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo and Wolf’s Rain, all three of which I’d suggest watching also, if you have time, but which aren’t on Crunchyroll) and is based around the rather interesting premise of a fantasy world recovering from the war waged when the standard fantasy story’s 5 Great Heroes defeated the great Evil Wizard Overlord, and follows the evil wizard’s good aligned daughter as she quests through lands that still remember her father’s evil reign and tries to retrieve all her father’s body parts so she can give him a burial.
Time of Eve, about a small cafe in near future tokyo where humans and android servants go to unwind without any distinctions between humans and androids being present, and the nature of what makes a human is explored in a quite asimovian fashion.
The JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure animes are also ALL on there (including the series that only finished last month in japan). I also notice that the anime of Phantom Blood does the blessed thing of condensing the childhood arc down from the 100 or so chapters it took in the manga to just one episode, so there’s none of that necksnapping tonal shift from being an entirely vampire-free gothic horror thing to having a main character who is made up of at least 110% muscles shouting “SUNLIGHT YELLOW OVERDRIVE!” while he tries to angrily poke vampires to death with one hand without spilling anything from a wine glass he’s holding in his other hand (the latter of which is the consistent tone of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures later parts – if you like that sort of silliness combined with largely naked and heavy muscled men in ridiculous clothing striking ridiculous poses JoJo is pretty much the apotheosis of such anime)
To be entirely frank though, Kaiba and Time of Eve are my two strongest recommendations; the rest are fun and worth a watch, but those two really reward you for watching if that makes any sense, at least imho.
Yes, I mean entire threads. Not everyone can partake in every moment of discussion here, people frequently have lives and stuff.
But yes, SotC gets mentioned any time discussion of Single Samurai comes up – by Red Wombat and I, if nothing else!
Also, I am pondering the results of the Greek referendum, since my Istanbul-Venice run in August stops at a fair number of Greek places.
Fortunately Malta next week looks good to go, though I will broil. I will broil even more in August, but last year, on the same small ship, I saw the sun rise over Mount Athos, and a dolphin leaping to greet the dawn. I even have a picture of it.
I cannot reasonably expect something as magical as that to happen again but it doesn’t exclude trying…
An entire thread on here might be asking a fair bit GabrielF, but it is possible to give it the benefit of lots of doubts, never mention SotC and still not be able to think it’s any good as-is 🙁
John Zeigler: I’m a semi lurker/occasional commenter here, and I _haven’t_ clicked on the link over to your blog (I generally go over to the blogs of between none and a half of the links for any given day, depending on how much free time I’ve got)
I’m not data, only an anecdote, but its interesting to look at your traffic bump and know that its only a chunk of the readers still following this dust-up via file770.
I’d also be interested in seeing how the traffic bump for a link in the comments turns out, it’d be nice to get an idea of the amount of comment lurkers vs people who just read the roundups.
Kyra: Agreed.
@Fred
I have already added Sound of the Sky to the list on my blog(the link is early on in the previous thread), and I did enjoy Coffin Princess. I shall have to add the others(which I haven’t seen).
My standout surprise anime from last year was Selector Infected WIXOSS. Some of my favourites I didn’t originally add because initially the convo was about feel good stuff and WIXOSS I would label a mix of Yugioh and Madoka Magica. Not at all feel goody, but a good watch none the less.
@ Mark
I am honestly perplexed as to what you’re trying to say here. I’m unaware that any of us who made the link between “A Single Samurai” and “boy, this reads like SotC fanfic” think it’s a good story that didn’t need a pass or three with a better editor before it was turned loose on the world. Thinking it’s fanfic doesn’t mean we have a higher or lower opinion of it, it’s just like thinking “that car is red.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with fanfiction – there isn’t – but it is quite funny to see two things that are arguably fanfiction on the ballot after all that noise about Redshirts being fanfiction. Redshirts is far more transformative!
(Still an oldschool transformative works fan who wouldn’t want fanfiction on the ballot, even though I’m really happy that I can nominate fic writers for Fan Writer – I’m trying to pick someone who also brings good meta to the table. Also slightly horrified at the movement to put Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality on there. It just isn’t that good, however much it panders to your nerd exceptionalism kink.)
@JJ
That’s one of the reasons I’ve been declaring, despite a certain amount of personal distaste for doing so (religion in the UK is a largely private matter). I refuse to have people like Wright be the main representatives just as much as I refuse to allow accusations of widespread anti-Christian prejudice to go unchallenged.
On the increasing influence of fanfic, I’m not sure that that’s not understating the previous influence of fanfic.
As noted earlier, Bujold’s Vorkosigan stuff got a start somewhere in Star Trek Fanfic, The cthulhu mythos has been touched by many authors playing with someone else’s world, and the movie, game and TV series tie in novels have been going strong for a while. And when it comes to explicit fanfic, written as a transformative/derivative work without enough filing off of the serial numbers to try and make a buck off, thats been going strong for decades.
About the only notable difference I can see is that a couple of works have been published with way less evolution from their fanfic roots to the final published “this honestly isn’t fanfic, look, we changed all the names” (50SOG, I’m looking at you), and have done noticeably well.
My two main issues with Single Samurai was that the author forgot to back into first person present tense in the final scene(and the Bean editor let it through), and that the Kaiju is basically a moving mountain so we get no feel for it as a creature.
@microtherion: that was a rather refined and esoteric joke which I found very funny.
@Stevie
I read his invocation of the God of Moses as being a weak defense against claims of antisemitism, and to highlight the relationship between Christians and Jews. I do agree that it is an odd construction. A better reference would be to the God of Abraham, which is a more common term and what God refers to himself as when talking to Moses in Exodus.
@MickyFinn
Yes. Works have always existed in conversation with other works – its just that now there’s a stigmatised (ew, middle-aged housewives! say stupid and ignorant people) term people like to throw at things they don’t like. People have been filing the serial numbers off for as long as there’s been any reason to (copyright being the big one, I expect).
It may have some value as a criticism for Hugo works, though. If its that recognisably related to something that came before, and insufficiently transformative, it may not be Hugo-worthy. That being said, if you’re doing it really really well that might trump other concerns, so… *shrug*
Chris Hensley
That’s an interesting way of looking at it; unfortunately I don’t think it’s true.
Bear in mind that this is a guy who believes that all (presumably straight) guys want to murder gay guys. Do you really believe that he’s doing that because, much as he struggles, he cannot avoid that universal truth?
I am a straight woman and I have known a lot of guys; and none of them felt the irresistable desire to beat gay guys to death, and I am outraged by the way that he libels every guy I’ve ever known. So no, I don’t think we can shuffle off Wright’s responsibility for this.
Meredith: I think insufficiently transformative and badly written are separate (but not unrelated) criticisms. Its easy to figure out what to do with something that is poorly written (don’t nominate, or rank low on your ballot if it does get nominated), not matter how transformative it is. its when you get the combination of brilliantly written, but either obviously fanfic, or obviously poorly anonymized fanfic.I’m not sure what we do with this theoretical piece of work. It might depend on the work, since some fanfic is mostly a dialog with the original work, a commentary on the original, crafted in the story form, and some of it is more of a basic continuation of the stories of the original.
I should note, I’m borrowing trouble here, I don’t think we’ve been presented with the question of “how do we judge a great piece of writing which is obviously fanfic” this year.
I join you in the *shrug*.
Re: core Baen fandom — they actually run a Barfly Central at any convention where enough Barflies are in attendance, not just at Dragon Con. They do them at small regional cons, too. Of course at LibertyCon, which a lot of the Barflies and some of the sad/rabids think of as their home convention, they somewhat merge with the official con suite. At other cons, it’s more like a round-the-clock (minus a few hours for sleeping) room party.
Still on the topic of Moses, I was remarkable surprised to discover that apparently intelligent people, doing the Mumbai-Athens run, via Pirate Alley, and up through the Red Sea Pedestrians area, were utterly convinced that Moses actually existed.
Very few of them had even considered the possibilty that Moses was a mythical figure, and yet they were scientists. It’s no wonder that I spent most of the trip hanging out with the Marines; there comes a point where I really cannot handle people who will believe anything if it makes them feel good…
@MickyFinn
There’s no Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’s on there, that’s for sure.
I’d like to think people would judge theoretical awesome fanfiction on the same criteria as they would anything else – including deciding whether it brought enough new twists to the table. That works as a criteria for any piece of specualtive fiction.
Kyra,
RIGHT-ON! OMG, that was awesome! Practically the whole game was fixed in the first third of the match. Hey, U.S. won the World Cup.
OBSF Futbol matches in space stories?
Errg. Now I look carefully at McCulley’s tweet and realize that he is, in fact, not ambiguous at all. Sigh. Just put me down as agreeing with him emphatically, then.
In filk there is a certain thread of “works responding to other works” (sometimes practically in real time.) In filk you have the additional issue of using the same tune as a work you’re responding to, in addition to other ways you might indicate that it is a response.
I really like that about filk, and have been on both sides of that interaction.
Note that the God of Moses has very few requirements for J.C.Wright, and certainly wouldn’t object to him gathering sticks on Shabbat. The commandment to observe Shabbat is specifically for the Jews. According to Jewish tradition, the rest of you are free to ignore the Sabbath and all of the other 613 mitzvot, except for the seven Noachide commandments
Jack Lint on July 5, 2015 at 9:49 am said:
“Are the Hugo Awards a late summer or early autumn kigo?”
This takes us back to the Alternate History of the Hugos thread. It depends whether you are using the (Western-style) solar calendar that became official in Japan in 1873, or the (Chinese-style) lunar calendar in use before that. Compare Tanabata, a summer festival today but an early autumn one during the Edo period.
There must have been similar issues with the Julian and Gregorian calendars, but I don’t think that affects limericks.
And come to think of it, surely Takizawa Bakin deserved a Hugo. Didn’t Fred Pohl name a spaceship after him?
He might avoid the God of Abraham because that would mean bringing Muslims into the fold. I’m guessing that JCW would do his best to avoid that connection.
@Amina
But Moses is a prophet in Islam, too.
And yes, Chris Hensley is right: “God of Moses” is an odd designation. The traditional Jewish formulation is “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob”, although many modern more egalitarian congregations either add “God of Sarah, God of Rebeccah, God of Leah, and God of Rachel” to this, or include the matriarchs with their respective patriarchs, as “God of Abraham, God of Sarah”, etc. or “God of Abraham and Sarah”, etc.
Tintinaus on July 5, 2015 at 5:05 pm said:
Ah gotcha, and yes, anything that is in any part or admixture “like Madoka Magica” isn’t WAFF.
Also obviously reccing Puella Magi Madoka Magica as well, but that is not a show you watch if you need or want to smile for a week after.
Tintinaus on July 5, 2015 at 5:24 pm said:
To be fair, I’d honestly expect a story about a guy climbing a mountain to create a feel for the mountain – like with a lot of sad puppy picks, there’s again that element of “did neither the writer NOR the editor get that they’re kinda missing the story in the story” i.e. the samurai fighting a courageous battle up the giant monster is just an excuse for the Sensawunda of being on the back of a giant monster.
Picking a Christian prophet that is a Jewish prophet but isn’t an Islamic prophet would probably be quite tricky. There’s an awful lot of overlap and by the time Islam splits off so has Christianity.
Yes, Moses is a prophet in Islam and for Muslims. But Abraham is viewed, by Islam and others, as the shared progenitor of all three “Abrahamic” traditions. Moses descends from Isaac’s line, Muhammad from Ishmael’s. So a reference to Abraham is more inclusive than one to Moses. Given the widespread use of “Abrahamic” to refer to all three traditions, I’m pretty sure that JCW knows what he’s doing by referring to Moses in his defense of himself as a non-anti-semitic Christian.
@Amina
I don’t know what goes through his head, but picking a prophet for Muslims in an attempt to exclude Muslims sounds pretty unlikely to me.
@ Estee – But what we’re all really wondering is, when do the Hugos fall on the Jacobin calendar? (Happy Currant Day, everyone!)
Morris
Have you even bothered to read what Wright writes? Because I am getting very bored with people who can’t be bothered to do even the most elementary reading, before you leap in.
If you want to actually put some effort into then I’m happy to discuss. But so far it has been a series of comments made by people who can’t be bothered to do the reading for themselves. And I see no reason to waste my time for other people who can’t be bothered…
Just out of curiosity, I fed “God of Moses” usage into Google. In the first page of results, I find an anti-Muslim site, answering-islam.org, using the phrase to explain why Allah can’t be the God of Moses. It turns up in a Tertullian screed against Marcion, though there he’s explaining that everbody knows the God of Moses even if they never heard of Moses, since Moses is only carrying on a tradition that runs back to Paradise and Adam. I find the phrase used in a somewhat oddly toned rant from a bitterly right-wing site, and on a badly constructed Eastern Orthodoxy-promoting site in Tennessee.
I’m guessing there’s a parent usage I’m not finding at a quick glance.
Beat count not enough
Seasonal reference too
must haiku have. Spring!
@ RedWombat — sometime in Thermidor, I believe.
(I actually have a Metric Calendar Converter somewhere, for a story I did years ago, which was actually set around the time of this year’s Worldcon — time of year, anyway.)
I was raised in a tradition where a gentleman would of course simply abstain from any contest in which he was in contention; only a cad would actually stoop so low as to cast a vote for oneself.
How much lower than a simple cad must one be to not only vote for oneself, but to publicly announce one’s intention to vote for oneself?
That’s mind-boggling.
@Stevie, Chris Hensley, Morris Keesan
Honestly not sure why this is getting irritable? You all seem to be agreeing that using “God of Moses” is weird?
> “But what we’re all really wondering is, when do the Hugos fall on the Jacobin calendar?”
1 Fructidor CCXXIII.
(Unless, of course, you are one of those traitors to the Revolution who determines leap years using the method proposed by Gilbert Romme on 19 Floréal III. But since Romme avoided the guillotine only by stabbing himself to death with a knife, I believe the National Convention might harbor some doubts about your loyalty to the cause should you choose to believe that the Hugos will be bestowed on 2 Fructidor CCXXIII, as he would have it.)
On preview: Thermidor?! The Committee would like to know what calendar are you are *using*, Citizen Johnson.
Bruce
I think what you found correlates well with the hysteria about Muslims; Wright certainly gets his knickers in a twist over that, as does VD.
But I think we may be being too subtle; the God of Moses was the one seriously into genocide; stoning people to death was a minor detail. Anyone who has actually read the Bible knows that very well. Being a voracious reader, I’ve read it too. One of the things which cheers me up is that the Bible says God demanded genocide, but there’s no archaeological evidence that he got what he wanted…
Meredith: Yeah. (Oh! Forgot to mention: I used DoNotLink for the links above. No point in giving traffic bonus to jerks.) I thought I might turn up a source in Dominionist writing – Rushdoony or North – but no such luck. Have to get someone else with more, or at least other, clues.
I just get curious about these things.
There seems to be some historical Christian anti-semitism associated with the phrase, but its very old indeed.
ETA There used to be a similar reference in the comment above, but I took it out while I was writing link html, in case anyone gets confused about what Bruce is replying to.
There’s a couple of more recent things, too, but nothing more than what’s alluded to in the link above.
Meredith
It’s not so much weird as that there are a number of knee jerk reactions involving religion. This seems to be one of them.
I’m not good at knee jerk reactions because I see no reason why we should abjure reasoning; clearly others differ.
Ok, I really need some sleep; good wishes to all…
Whenever I read too much of JCW or VD’s blog rantings and begin to track back certain concepts and ideas, I realize that there is a whole hidden world of ultra-right buzzwords and talking points that I never knew existed. (I made the error of trying to figure out what VD means by libertarian nationalism and found myself in very very unsavoury corners of the net.) I have no idea if “God of Moses” is a dog-whistle or not. But it wouldn’t really surprise me if it were.
Stevie, I have no idea what I’ve written to get your hackles up, but I apologize for whatever it was. Yes, I’ve read more of Wright’s writing than I care to, including as much of his Hugo-nominated work as I could stand, and the various rants that Mike includes here in the roundups. If you don’t want to “waste your time” responding to me, I have no problem with that. I’m not trying to have a discussion with you, I’m just contributing to the ongoing public group discussion here. I can’t even tell which of my comments you were responding to.
@Stevie
I’m still not clear what you’re disagreeing with them on. Thus far you all seem to be basically agreeing but with slightly different nuances. Your replies sound like there’s a depth of disagreement that I’m not seeing…
Ah… according to this article, the God of Moses is “an absolute monarch who rules, decrees, demands and punishes… a God patterned entirely on the principles of patriarchy, hierarchy and submission… a God of vengeance, a patriarchal absolute ruler” and that it is mainly (but not solely) “evangelical sects who promote the God of Moses“.
What JCW is doing with his “God of Moses” rhetorick is making clear that he does not subscribe to belief in the New Testament God who is “full of compassion, faithful forever, one who advises, counsels and encourages“.
As if that was a News Flash to anyone here.
Sooo as a subject much more interesting than Wright’s unusual take on theology, since we’ve had pizza and barbecue, how about:
Favourite cake? 🙂 Or dessert, for people who don’t like cake.
Favourite cake?
My mom makes a gooey chocolate cake with walnuts and a fantastic icing that she calls “Space Needle Cake” that I absolutely adore. Mmmm chocolate.
Favorite cake; I’m fairly open minded when it comes to cake, but a good caramel mud cake has a special place in my heart. And for other types of dessert, its a fight to the death between a good fruit crumble and a lemon delicious.
Meredith, I’m not seeing it either. Perhaps Stevie will elucidate after she wakes up tomorrow. And I’m off to bed now, as well, feeling old: at our annual backyard cookout* party this afternoon, one of the guests who showed up was the daughter of an old friend. Her father and I were in high school and college together, and I felt absolutely ancient when she arrived bringing beer. Even more so when I realized that she’s now older than my wife was when I got married.
*NOT a barbecue — everything was cooked quickly at high heat.