Canine Princes in Amber 5/22

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aka Her Majesty’s Secret Puppy

On today’s docket: Vox Day, John C. Wright, Amanda S. Green, Jeff Duntemann, Lela E. Buis, Ken Liu, John Snead, Lis Carey, Spacefaring Kitten, Rebekah Golden, David Langford, and cryptic others. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Jim Henley and Kary English.)

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“Just a reminder” – May 22

And once again, SJWs have obediently responded to his call. Mr. Hauman’s actions strike me as a very good way to encourage publishers to stop participating in future Hugo Packets. I mean, why should we do so if it’s only going to provide the SJWs in science fiction with another means of attack? Mr. Hauman has demonstrated how the Hugo Packet can be destroyed in a single year; what publisher is going to even be willing to include excerpts when inclusion in the Packet means several hundred one-star reviews on Amazon within weeks?

 

John C. Wright

“Petty Puppy-Kickers on the March” – May 22

Alas, I am too busy today to comb through Amazon to downvote and report graffiti being left on my sale goods by malign Morlocks. I ask any reader impatient for my next work to be published to alleviate my workload by shouldering this task, please.

I ask any undecided onlooker who has noticed the kerfuffle to observe who has played straight, honest, aboveboard, and continually and openly identified their goals and platform, and who has lied, cheated, lied, slandered, lied, libeled, lied, betrayed, lied, invented falsehoods, resorted to dirsty tricks, lied, defamed, lied, called people racists, lied, organized defamation campaigns in major media, lied and lied again.

I ask any undecided onlooker who has noticed the kerfuffle to observe whether anyone on the Sad Puppies side of things has called for posting false and defamatory reviews of rival works, or attempting to blacklist or undermine the income of fellow authors?

 

Amanda S. Green on Nocturnal Lives

“Once again, the stupid burns” – May 22

How enlightened of the other side to paint us all with the same brush. How inclusive they are to try to construct a dialog — oh, wait. They haven’t. They don’t want to sully their reputations or whatever by trying to even listen to what we have to say or what our concerns are. They are too busy trying to shore up the bulwarks around their holy bastion of the Hugo. And, as they do, they completely prove our point that the Hugos are no longer an award of the fans but of a few self-appointed FANS. Hell, we’ve even been “schooled” by a Wolheim for not knowing our history of WorldCon or of the Hugos. Well, we do know the histories. We just don’t buy into the revisionist histories they have constructed.

Is controversy around the Hugos new to the Sad Puppy movement? Not only no but hell no. But to have folks who claim they represent the ideals of inclusivity to be doing their best to ruin careers through their personal attacks and through negative reviews based not on the quality of the work but the politics of the author takes it to a new low. What they don’t understand is that all they are doing is playing for a very small crowd. Those looking at the controversy from the outside aren’t impressed by their tactics. They are asking themselves when they last read a Hugo winner and enjoyed it. Instead of trying to keep the unwashed masses out, perhaps these authors and editors ought to be asking themselves why they have lost the faith of the readers. They should ask themselves if they would be able to make it as an indie author if they suddenly found themselves without a publisher to push their work. But that might take a bit of introspection they aren’t prepared to do, much less accept.

So, once again, I will repeat what I’ve said — what every other supporter of Sad Puppies has said. Read the material in the Hugo packet and vote based on the quality of the work (which will be more difficult than it should be in some cases because certain publishers pasted huge watermarks on each page and/or only included a sample of the nominated work. Once again proving that certain big publishers don’t trust readers, not even WorldCon members and think we are all pirates).

 

Jeff Duntemann on Jeff Duntemann’s Contrapositive Diary

“Rant: You Can’t Shame a Puppy” – May 22

The more important reason for authors not to withdraw is that withdrawing gives the anti-puppies (APs) this peculiar notion that they can use social pressure (shaming) to get authors to do things their way, up to and including refusing a major honor in the field. Note very well: I am not suggesting that either Kloos or Bellet withdrew because of social pressure. I take their explanations at face value. What I’m suggesting is that a certain nontrivial number of APs may assume it, and may further assume that social pressure is a tactic that can win, going forward. I’m already hearing that the 2015 Hugos need to be “asterisked;” that is, marked as disreputable, dishonest, and something that no upright fan or author will have anything to do with. The message is pretty clear: Any Puppy nominee who keeps their place on the ballot is to be shamed and shunned.

Now we can get down to business. The first of my two points today is this: Shaming is bullying. Shaming is about fear. Shaming is thug tactics. I’ll tell you what I hear when I hear people talking about shaming authors: “Nice little career you’re starting up here. Shame if anything happened to it.” Or, another interpretation that’s pretty much the same thing: “Stay on the ballot, and you’ll never work in this town again.”

In other words, we’re supposed to use mafia persuasion to get authors to refuse nominations that just might have been influenced by slatemakers like the Sad Puppies. (What if the works are just really good?) That’s bad enough. However, if you think about it a little more, you come to my second point for today’s entry: Shaming only works on people who value the esteem of the shamer.

 

Lela E. Buis

“The Hugo Awards: Follow the money” – May 23

So, is all this talk about traditional SF versus the new diversity just smoke and mirrors? Is the real issue here about a small publisher versus the large publishing houses? It’s hard to separate the right wing content from the publisher, which puts Beale at a disadvantage in today’s market. Because of the current social climate, I don’t personally think he would prevail in getting any stories on the ballot even in a perfectly free market. Still, I have to admire his mouse with a sword attitude.

 

Ken Liu interviews Liu Cixin in Publishers Weekly

“China at BEA 2015: Coming to America: Liu Cixin” – May 22

How do you feel about the Nebula nomination?

A: I’m honored and overjoyed. As a science fiction fan, the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award mean a lot to me. If I had to choose between the Nobel Prize in literature and the Nebula/Hugo awards, I would choose the latter without hesitation—though I’m not so arrogant as to think I could win the Nobel Prize. But the ultimate goal of my writing has always been delighting readers, not winning awards. For me, the most valuable affirmation comes from readers. Thus, the best thing about being nominated for a Nebula is that perhaps more people will read my novel, and the award will build more publicity for the two sequels in English.

 

John Snead on Synchronicity swirls and other foolishness

Three-Body Problem Review + Musings On Hugo Award Novel Voting – May 22

Yesterday, I finished reading Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, a well done and interesting SF novel written by one of China’s premier SF novelists and translated in the English. I’ve looked at the covers of recent Chinese SF magazine (but not knowing Chinese, have only been able to read a handful of stories which have been translated). The covers remind me of tech focused US SF magazines from the 50s & 60s, but none of the stories have, until I read this book. There are a lot of ways that it’s entirely unlike US SF from that era, but there are also distinct similarities – some of which were clearly deliberate…. My votes for Hugo Award for Best Novel are as follows

  1. Ancillary Sword Ann Leckie: In addition to vastly better characterization than Three Body Problem, it didn’t fall down ½ to 2/3s of the way through and I enjoyed it more. I don’t think it’s as strong a novel as Ancillary Justice, but I also think it’s the best novel nominated
  2. Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu: Definitely a good novel and one I’m very glad I read, but not good enough to win.
  3. No Award: I don’t think any of the other three novels are all that good, and so No Award comes next.
  4. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison: As I mentioned before, I gave up in utter boredom a bit less than halfway through. I’m not a fan of passive and incompetent protagonists who remain that way and while I wanted to like this novel, it was impressively dull.
  5. Skin Game by Jim Butcher: I didn’t read the first couple of chapters – I’d previously read 2.5 of Butcher’s Harry Dresden novels, and that’s pretty much my lifetime limit. Butcher isn’t a terrible writer, but this series isn’t for me (and I’m someone who quite liked the first 8 of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter (they weren’t good, but I enjoyed them)).
  6. The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson: The previous two were novels I didn’t like, but wouldn’t go so far as to say were bad – this is a bad novel.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Dave Freer Hugo Fanwriter Nomination Samples” – May 22

There really isn’t much to say. A larger sample than Amanda Greens, 21 pages, but if anything there is even less here. All the hate-spewing at “SJWs” and “GHHs”, plus misogyny, plus a heaping helping of self-congratulation for being fair, open-minded, and helpful to aspiring writers.

Not recommended.

 

Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens

“’A Single Samurai’ by Steven Diamond” – May 22

“A Single Samurai”, unsurprisingly, tells the story of a lone samurai. He is traveling on the back of a mountain-sized kaiju monster that is demolishing everything in its way, and he intends to kill it.

I love this idea, and it’s a shame Diamond only mentions it and never gives the reader any insight into what it’s like to be on a moving mountain (if we don’t count one earthquake). The milieu feels like any standard fantasy environment, really.

 

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best TV Show: Reviewing the Flash” – May 20

Retrospectively the pilot was good enough to continue watching another fifteen or so episodes.

 

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best Professional Artist: Reviewing J Dillon” – May 20

For this review I’m going to focus on works created in 2014 which include some that I have enjoyed in the past and am happy to highlight why I enjoyed them now that I have a chance to write more formally on the topic.

 

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best Graphic Story: Reviewing Ms Marvel” – May 21

This comic is delightfully playful and full of Easter eggs and small side details in the frame.

 

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best Professional Artist: Reviewing K DouPonce” – May 21

The issue here is not that he refers to himself as a designer rather than an artist or that he admits to using stock imagery. The issue is his work looks like it was made by a designer not an artist and that the images look like a vaguely pleasant arrangement of stock imagery.

 

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best TV Show: Reviewing Game of Thrones” – May 21

I just don’t see the point of this sweeping epic outside of some catharsis and the catharsis isn’t there for me.

 

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best Professional Artist: Reviewing N Greenwood” – May 22

Greenwood is obviously an artist of some scope and skill.

Cover art by Nick Greenwood.

Cover art by Nick Greenwood.

 

David Langford in a comment on Making Light  – May 22

A voice from the past. While tidying up the look of the TransAtlantic Fan Fund site (now with free ebooks!), I noticed the following prophetic remark in one of Patrick’s and Teresa’s newsletters, TAFFluvia 2 dated August 1985:

What we meant was that TAFF is an institution created for a specific purpose, with its own agenda — promoting greater transatlantic amity between fans — and should not be used as a mechanism for pursuing unrelated issues; no more than, say, the Hugos should be used as an exercise in block-voting by a group with an ideological axe to grind, rather than in recognition of the single outstanding work nominated.

 

 

 

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654 thoughts on “Canine Princes in Amber 5/22”

  1. David, what’s the timing on that? It is possible that both are correct, Bradlee’s take from Gallup at one time and the other at a later time.

    Nixon was perhaps a small loss…well…except to ARVN and RVN, but in his being hounded from office one can see the seed of most of the political problems we have today.

    The hilarious thing, too, is that Watergate, the break in, was totally unnecessary, McGovern was fated to lose and lose stinking. I doubt he’d even have taken Massachusetts but for the drop in voting age coupled to the high percentage of college students and a Supreme Court decision that tossed out Massachusetts’ previous lengthy residency requirements. And the cover-up…well, it’s usually the cover up that gets you.

  2. Max:

    Sometimes they’ll admit they haven’t read it; look at the comments to the one star from…Reese, I think it was. That one, and a couple of others, came from spacebabies. You can tell, in part, because of the very similar language. Sometimes they simply get an obvious fact wrong. Example: I think you can find a comment or two on ASOD to the effect of all democrats are bad. Hard to get there when the heroine of the book is a female democrat. Example: “Watch on the Rhine whitewashed the holocaust.” Au contraire, I went out of my way to display it as utterly vile.

    You will note, contrarily, that I didn’t have anything like the same issue with Lis Carey. She went in, I think, prejudiced to begin with (note that first line referencing puppies and not the work itself), but did read it and just came away from it hating it. It’s not objective, no, and it was probably probably prejudiced in a fairly normal SJW way, but she was being honest in her heart. Every story is a conspiracy between the reader and the writer; if the reader can’t or won’t join the conspiracy there’s not a lot to be done about it.

    As for politics in BBDC, I just don’t see it the same way they do. Most of my work does have a political undertone (though, as I think we’ve touched upon, it may not be quite the undertone the oblivious think it is), but not that one. Just claiming it’s strongly political suggests to me very strongly that the reviewer didn’t read it.

  4. Nixon was perhaps a small loss…well…except to ARVN and RVN, but in his being hounded from office one can see the seed of most of the political problems we have today.

    Well, guess I’m still hungry for a bit more pedantry – Kissinger’s “peace with honor” that allowed the NVA to keep their forces in South Vietnam where they were at the time the Paris accords were signed in 1973 turned out to be disastrous for the RVN in the not so long run, but as far as Nixon was concerned that was a small price to pay for getting the U.S. out of Vietnam as he was courting Red China. It was clear that U.S. public opinion had long ago soured on the Vietnam War by then, and when Saigon finally fell in April, 1975 there was hardly any outrage expressed about it.

    Can’t say I agree with Watergate being a seed of future political problems. While it did help the Democrats greatly in the short run back then, the long term realignment of U.S. politics thanks to the shift of Southern Democrats to the Republican Party was hardly affected by that. The political problems we’re having today are due not to Watergate-related things, but to economic and social factors like stangant incomes and racial tensions.

  5. The next day, everybody got up
    Seein’ if the clothes were dry
    The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed
    Mama, of course, she said,hi
    Have you heard the news he said with a grin
    The Col. Kratman’s gone mad
    Where?
    downtown
    When?
    Last night

    Hmm, say, that’s too bad
    Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,said the neighbor
    It’s just something we’re gonna have to forget
    Yes, I guess so said ma
    Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet

  6. @Tom – “Example: I think you can find a comment or two on ASOD to the effect of all democrats are bad. Hard to get there when the heroine of the book is a female democrat”

    Hmmm. I just read the first two sample sections in your site. That is one of your earlier works, right? Membership in the Texas Democratic Party notwithstanding, the democrats appear to want evil things because they are eeeevuhl, scientists are lying about climate change, the villain is a lesbian while the main character is more conservative than many Republicans but a point is made that she took her husband’s name. And yes, I did notice the bit about a Republicans acquiescing in some of the changes, but even so, those few pages felt like being hit in the face with a two by four made of partisanship.

    I think I might wait for more Carerra instead, or maybe give the… Countdown(?) series a try. Was it the Carerra books or Countdown (or both) that had the bit with guys on an arms-purchasing mission to SE Asia buying sex slaves?

  7. trying again with something that got caught in the filter:

    The next day, everybody got up
    Seein’ if the clothes were dry
    The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed
    Mama, of course, she said,hi
    Have you heard the news he said with a grin
    Colonel K’s gone mad
    Where?
    Downtown
    When?
    Last night

    Hmm, say, that’s too bad
    Well, there’s nothing we can do about it,said the neighbor
    It’s just something we’re gonna have to forget
    Yes, I guess so said ma
    Then she asked me if the clothes was still wet

  8. @Tom – “Sometimes they’ll admit they haven’t read it; look at the comments to the one star from…Reese, I think it was.”

    I’ll take your word for it, you haven’t been running around yelling, “I don’t lie, I rhetoric!”

    It should go unsaid (but this is the Internet, sigh) that the people who are reviewing things sight-unseen suck.

    On Lis’s review, I could quibble about how objective she was, but I think agreeing that she considered it honest is a reasonable place to settle.

    “Example: “Watch on the Rhine whitewashed the holocaust.” Au contraire, I went out of my way to display it as utterly vile.”

    Sure. I went and read the first dozen pages of the RPG.net thread you recommended about WaR, I saw that you had answered my problem with the book there (only one WSS member was anti-Semitic). The former SS officers you knew didn’t seem to have a problem with you personally, so (if I’m remembering correctly) you felt that anti-semitism wasn’t as widespread as we assume.

    I’m not sure I buy that, though, as you presumably knew these men after they lived through 40-50 years of deNazification and under laws that restrict expressing opinions like that. They also knew you as an officer and someone over whom they had no authority. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that they may not have been entirely frank about their opinions back during the war.

  9. Didn’t say ASOD wasn’t political, Max; said that one indicator someone didn’t read it is the claim that it holds all dems as wicked. (And, by the way, I thought that Willie’s lesbianism was her only redeeming feature.) Moreover, aren’t those passages an extract from a plausible post-event non-fictive work? I cite to Niven’s Law as being a corollary.

    Arms purchasing mission buying sex slaves….hmmm…no, that’s not ringing a bell. There was a case of someone who needed a reliable translator, who purchased a charmingly foul-mouthed girl (singular) who was a Cochinese sex slave, freed her, and later married her. That’s in the Carreraverse, Volume 3 if memory serves.

    In Countdown, first volume, a group takes down an AQN freighter and finds a bunch of thoroughly abused Romanian girls, on their way to market, kills the crew en toto, and frees the girls, all of whom join the regiment as the best deal going in a world rapidly going to shit.

  10. Considerably less than 40-50 years. Mid-70s, early 80s, so about 30-35 years. If deNazification had much of an impact on their outlook, it was tolerably hard to see. And, the first instance was a guy who had been a PanzerGrenadier in 9th SS, while I was a Spec-4 in the 101st (which, for various reasons, like a severe addiction to pain as a character building tool, the Germans dubbed the “Amerikanische SS).

    I suspect the big things were that a) I was a soldier, not of the REMFish persuasion, and b) despite being a total mutt, whose family tree fairly bowed under the weight of non-Aryan genes, I looked “Aryan” as hell.

    Notwithstanding though, I went out of my way to mention I was part Jewish and they just didn’t have a problem with it.

  11. David: I refer mostly to the bitterness and hatred. It may have come to pass anyway, but I sense with each change of administration since then a determination to ruin the administration not of one’s persuasion…and that this all goes back to then, and Republican desires for revenge over Nixon. It never ends now and it always gets worse.

  12. Oh, and Max, we were signing sundry teutonic war songs, in the Gaesthaus zum Adler, Grosslangheim, Germany, I knew more of the songs than the Germans did, and we were all drunk as shit. I think “in vino veritas” applies and what I saw was what was there.

  14. @Tom “which, for various reasons, like a severe addiction to pain as a character building tool, the Germans dubbed the “Amerikanische SS).”

    Hah! Now that’s a comment that you really need to take in the intended spirit.

  15. @Tom & David “David: I refer mostly to the bitterness and hatred. It may have come to pass anyway, but I sense with each change of administration since then a determination to ruin the administration not of one’s persuasion…and that this all goes back to then, and Republican desires for revenge over Nixon. It never ends now and it always gets worse.”

    I’m not certain that it always gets worse- ‘I come not to praise Obama’ or to start a discussion of the merits of the decision, but the new administration did not make any attempt to prosecute anyone from Bush’s admin for anything to do with enhanced interrogation or the intel used to get us into Iraq.

    Again, without going into the merits, there were a lot of people who wanted to see that done.

  16. We’ve been fortunate, Max, that enough people either understand that prosecuting over what is essentially political action will be the death knell of the Republic. See, forex, Caesar, Gaius Julius, though the problem preceded him. We are unfortunate in that there are so many – and they are _just_ as prominent on the right – who don’t see it.

  17. @Tom – “Moreover, aren’t those passages an extract from a plausible post-event non-fictive work? I cite to Niven’s Law as being a corollary.”

    Franklin’s original is prettier, but yes, the passage does seem plausible, although the historian appears to be saying that the democrats did all these horrible things while the republicans, alas, failed to stop them.

    But as I said, I really have not read the book. Mostly, I can understand why someone would get the impression that all the dems in it are bad.

  18. Glen, could you clarify – when you said that “Amazon ratings can be gamed”, did you mean that a) you were encouraging people to submit false negative reviews for Puppy work, or b) you were accusing Puppies of having created sock accounts to falsely submit positive reviews for themselves?

    Thanks in advance.

  19. @Tom “… that prosecuting over what is essentially political action will be the death knell of the Republic… We are unfortunate in that there are so many – and they are _just_ as prominent on the right – who don’t see it.”

    Well, then, we need to make everyone read the First Man In Rome series or at least watch HBO’s Rome in their high school H&MP course.

  21. This the part you mean, from the Prologue?

    “Yet, despite this mutual interest in maintaining the balance of power, the rewards of attaining control were simply too great to be forgone. For the Democrats, control—could it but be achieved—would make the revolution begun in the 1930s complete. Control of the economy, control of education, control of the environment (difficult to understand now, with the then-common predictions of ecological disaster proven wrong, but a powerful concern at the time); could all three branches be made to fall to the Democracy, however briefly in theory, the Democrats could so arrange matters that no one and nothing could ever remove them from power, or alter their vision of America’s proper and just future.
    For the Republicans, however, the Democratic dream was a nightmare: thought control through linguistic control, micromanagement of the economy by those least suited to economic power, social engineering under the aegis of the most doctrinaire of the social engineers, disarmament of the population and the creation of a police state to rival that of Stalin or Hitler, at least in its scope if not by design in its evil.”

    Do you think that kind of control isn’t a Dem dream (or a Repub dream for that matter)? Do you think the Dem dream isn’t a Repub nightmare, and vice versa? Actually, I think it was fairly even handed, especially given that subsequent, “For, as a wise man of the times had once put it, ‘You should choose your enemies carefully, because you are going to become just like them.'” And, of course, I pinned the ultimate blame early on, with the Repubs criminalizing political actions. “This was brought home to all with the arrest, conviction and imprisonment of former President Thomas Jefferson Gates on charges of corruption, bribe taking, rape, aggravated sexual assault, unnatural acts, abuse of office, misappropriation of funds, and treason, the imprisonment itself leading to the former chief of state’s beating, homosexual rape and murder by strangulation after his Secret Service detail was withdrawn by presidential order. It could well be said that no national-level politician could any longer afford to lose an election; the consequences had simply become too dire.”

    It’s always seemed to me that to read my being pro either party in that section could only come as a result of being so far left (or right) that everything just blurred together, too radical to even have an objective opinion, IOW.

    Course, I could be wrong.

  22. Danny: To answer your question, take a look at this “Book Bomb” from February 18: http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/18/book-bomb-novellas-from-the-sad-puppies-slate/ and then look at all the glowing reviews that suddenly appear on Amazon for “One Bright Star To Guide Them” and “Big Boys Don’t Cry” starting on February 18th. (Don’t use the Amazon links on that page unless you want to give Larry Correia a kickback on your Amazon purchases.)

    Quoting Larry:

    How a Book Bomb works is that we try to get as many people to buy them off of Amazon in the same day. Because they have a rolling average best seller list that updates hourly, this causes the book to move up the list. The higher it gets, the more people outside the Book Bomb see it, and check it out too.

    Looks like gaming Amazon to me. How about you?

  23. @Tom – Oh, I guess I see the departure- so I wasn’t supposed to assume that the previous president was actually (in-story) guilty of that list of crimes, it was largely trumped-up? I misunderstood.

    And I really don’t think that either party wants to micromanage the economy. I hope that they’ve read enough history to know why that’s a bad idea. There’s a wonderful essay somewhere about the fall of the USSR being partly (largely) due to a screwed up centrally-planned oil industry, where an unofficial market developed that used favors and connections as currency and was *significantly* less efficient than our relatively free market.

  24. Left that ambiguous, Max. he might have been guilty of something or he might not, but guilty or not, when you criminalize political behavior, you are asking for trouble. And, yes, I feel the same way about calls to go after Obama or Holder.

  25. The problems with your theory, Glenn, you idiot, are that a) the number of reviews are not especially large, in the week after the book bombing (and book bombing are of very short effective duration) and b) they are by no means uniformly “glowing.” Now, conversely, your attempt at gaming things produced 7 negative reviews, and 20 positive ones, I think. Hence your attempt at assassination by “gaming” amazon got me more positives than the book bomb.

    Why, thanks.

  26. Tom, one more time: I never called for false reviews or negative reviews. Your publisher lied about that, and used that to rally your fan base. But sure, you’re welcome.

  27. @TK “but guilty or not, when you criminalize political behavior, you are asking for trouble. And, yes, I feel the same way about calls to go after Obama or Holder.”

    This, coming from the man who asserted the right to kill socialists if they came near to power, is truly rich.

  28. I don’t really believe you, Glenn. There was no call to call for any reviews on Amazon at all, for anything having to do with the Hugos, yet you called for those reviews. That call, therefore, came from a malice in your heart. The malice means that fraudulent reviews were in mind, and welcome. There was at least one fraud, I suspect more than one. This was predictable and predicted. And you, being an adult, albeit an idiotic adult, must be supposed to intend the consequences of your actions.

    Note that even if you’re an idiot, which you are, it is exceptionally idiotic for you to presume everyone else is an idiot, too.

  29. Krapman : We’ve been fortunate, Max, that enough people either understand that prosecuting over what is essentially political action will be the death knell of the Republic.

    Myself, I think that torturing people is a mortal sin, that all forms of torture should be condemned, and that Christians should collaborate towards its abolition and support the victims and their families. As a Catholic, what’s your response to that?

  30. Mr Kratman, as I recall, what Mr Hauman said was “Amazon reviews can be gamed too.”

    This is not, in and of itself, a request for the addition of false reviews.

  31. In the real world, Chewie, it’s a more complex question than you probably think. In the first place, pleasant myths aside, done properly it has a high probability of working, fairly quickly and reliably. In the second place, whatever various pros in the field may claim (and I assure you, the claims are not unanimous) torture is always working for them, because the people they interrogate are helpless and fear it. Those who do not see or admit to that are inherently unreliable witnesses. In the third place, condemn away, but if something sufficiently nasty happens that torture could have prevented, it will be demanded en masse from the public and the pols will, soulless bastards that they are, anyway, go along with that.

    If you want a personal opinion to rally around or, more probably, to rally against, my answer is that I am sure there are things that could or do happen in the world that would cause me to use it. That being the case, I cannot in good conscience issue a blanket condemnation. I think people who do issue blanket condemnations are emotionally and intellectually insulating themselves from the very real and very nasty world. Further, I don’t have the theological authority to call something a mortal sin. I doubt you do, either. And, while the Church could, I can ignore them for a sufficiently good reason, and trust my soul to God.

  33. Wow. There is so much mythology about torture there it’s scary.

    I … gather the actual “pros” have much more nuanced and varied opinions about torture and very low opinions overall of its efficacy.

  34. @Glenn “one more time: I never called for false reviews or negative reviews.”

    I didn’t see you calling for false reviews, but it was perhaps unwise to say that the system could be gamed in both directions, as that does not connote fair-dealing.

    On the other hand, the plan to buy a lot of books all on the same day to push the books up in mentions is explicitly gaming that system, but I find that it doesn’t bother me that much- After all, they really are buying the books, Amazon verifies it for us!

  35. We’ve been fortunate, Max, that enough people either understand that prosecuting over what is essentially political action will be the death knell of the Republic.

    The Republic is more resilient than you think. After all, it managed to survive the prosecution of Andrew Johnson.

  37. How many pros do you know, Peace?

    Let me give you something to chew on. You know, yes, that most criminal cases are resolved via plea bargain? What is a plea bargain? It is the reduction of suffering (in the form of a reduced sentence) in exchange for cooperation. That, Pax, is the _essence_ of effective torture.

  38. Krapman : If you want a personal opinion to rally around or, more probably, to rally against, my answer is that I am sure there are things that could or do happen in the world that would cause me to use it. That being the case, I cannot in good conscience issue a blanket condemnation. I think people who do issue blanket condemnations are emotionally and intellectually insulating themselves from the very real and very nasty world.

    Interesting – I was paraphrasing from here – http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/francesco-francis-francisco-angelus-34848/

    Maybe you’re right and the person I was paraphrasing is “emotionally and intellectually insulating themselves from the very real and very nasty world”. Let’s take a quick look…

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21794798

    Argentina’s last military government left a deep scar on Argentine society that has still not healed.

    Almost every day there is a judicial hearing where former officials are tried for human rights abuses. More than 600 have been convicted of charges including torture, the theft of babies, illegal arrests and murder.

    Pope Francis has testified twice in two separate cases, but has never been formally investigated. There is no evidence that he was in collusion with the regime.

    Well – he certainly sounds less isolated than a weekend warrior screaming “pussy” at people through the Internet.

    Further, I don’t have the theological authority to call something a mortal sin. I doubt you do, either.

    And Pope Francis…?

    And, while the Church could, I can ignore them for a sufficiently good reason, and trust my soul to God.

    Yes, you’ve already specified you’re not a very good Catholic.

    Ironically, this is the one comment of yours on which I’m sure nearly everyone here can agree.

  39. Why a fool? Because you asked a question and I gave you a more thoughtful answer than you either looked for or deserved. And, all SJW-like, the most you can hope to do with that is try to score cheap rhetorical points…and MISS? Fool, fool, fool.

  41. Krapman: Why a fool?

    I believe you mean “why a duck?”, but I guess if you’ve been reduced to spluttering non sequiturs rather than deal with your religious problems, we can forgive your memory being less than perfect.

  43. @Aaron “The Republic is more resilient than you think. After all, it managed to survive the prosecution of Andrew Johnson.”

    Not a high point, but you are correct. Those darn Republican Social Justice Warriors!

  44. Uh, folks- I don’t want to be ele Kratman-apologist here, but can we avoid insulting people’s religious beliefs?

    Now, if JCW shows up, feel free to pile on, he uses his beliefs as a bludgeon and is a hypocrite about them, but for non-horrible people, I think we should not do that.

    And no, if it matters, I am not a huge supporter of torture.

  45. obligatory literature reference:

    I remember a techno thriller of some sort from back before 2001 where a German neofascist of some sort had concealed a nuclear weapon on a timer in DC and was going to allow it to go off even after being arrested. There was a minor side plot/digression where some German security folks offered to take the terrorist to their embassy and “interrogate him rigorously” to determine the location of the bomb. In the story they found some other way (it was prior to 2001, after all), and yes, of course it was a bit contrived, but I can imagine being willing to torture in that case.

    Having said that, I did follow the links and read what Pope Francis had to say, and I am willing to raise my hand and swear that he is a better man than I.

  46. @Peace

    I … gather the actual “pros” have much more nuanced and varied opinions about torture and very low opinions overall of its efficacy.

    That is the understanding I’ve gotten from the fomer military interrogators I have known, yes. One of them was utterly *livid* about the torture that had gone on in Iraq, because it made his own job much, much harder.

    As for the classic justification for torture — the “ticking time bomb” — I’ve seen numerous refutations of that particular point. Because unless you are prepared to go *way* beyond the limits of what most people would consider even vaguely acceptable — and have the credibility to make it stick — the person you’re interrogating knows that all they need to do is wait, is endure; and then they win, when you don’t get what you want. Or they give you red herrings until time ticks away.

    Saying “We did everything we could do” might be a salve for the emotions, but it’s not likely to be effective in the real world — and you will have given away a bit of what, in theory, separates you from the enemy you’re fighting in order to get it. There’s a reason that the French reviled Paul Aussaresses, even as they debated whether the guilt should be more evenly spread around.

  47. @Maximillian: Having said that, I did follow the links and read what Pope Francis had to say, and I am willing to raise my hand and swear that he is a better man than I.

    I think it’s in the job description…On a more SF note, I’m really liking the meme going around at the moment noting the visual similarity between Pope Francis and the High Sparrow from GoT.

    On one hand, it’s a little unfortunate. On the other, it’s still better than the SF icon that his predecessor most resembled….

  48. @snowcrash – wait, I failed my ‘SF fan’ check (rolled a 12), who did the predecessor resemble?

  49. @Steven Schwartz “Saying “We did everything we could do” might be a salve for the emotions, but it’s not likely to be effective in the real world — and you will have given away a bit of what, in theory, separates you from the enemy you’re fighting in order to get it. There’s a reason that the French reviled Paul Aussaresses, even as they debated whether the guilt should be more evenly spread around.”

    Well, because I am almost pathologically compelled to be the Devil’s advocate, I will say that is easy for the modern French to say that they deplore his work. Not as easy for the contemporary people to say.

    Having said that, have any of you watched the Criterion Collection release of The Battle of Algiers? That was a fascinating view of the conflict, which *appeared* to be from a neutral point of view.

  50. @Maximillian

    Well, because I am almost pathologically compelled to be the Devil’s advocate, I will say that is easy for the modern French to say that they deplore his work. Not as easy for the contemporary people to say.

    True enough — though many of his contemporaries did say that, and the upheavals in French politics show that *something* was going on there.

    Of course, Aussaresses lost, in the long run, which also doesn’t help.

    Having said that, have any of you watched the Criterion Collection release of The Battle of Algiers? That was a fascinating view of the conflict, which *appeared* to be from a neutral point of view.

    As it happens, it’s sitting in my DVD player as I type this. I’m not sure I’d describe it as “neutral”, but I think it does an excellent job of portraying both sides…vividly. Pontecorvo had a position, I think, but he doesn’t let it overwhelm his film. However, I do also think the film makes it clear that no matter the tactical outcome, the strategic outcome was disastrous.

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