aka Crate Expectations
The Memorial Day roundup begins with Dave Freer and carries on with Cheryl Morgan, Jeff Duntemann, Sam Finlay, Adam-Troy Castro, Lisa J. Goldstein, Joseph Tomaras, Andrew Hickey, Rebekah Golden, Martin Wisse, Declan Finn, Steve Leahy and Dcarson. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day William Reichard and Jim Henley.)
Dave Freer on Mad Genius Club
“Making a living, and things that may interfere with it” – May 25
So far, to best of my knowledge, the Puppies, both sad and rabid, and their followers have avoided attacking things which make people a living. They’ve asked people to NOT take it out on the authors who have been pressured into stepping out of Noms. They’ve spoken out against punishing Tor Books despite the Neilsen Hayden’s and friends attacks on ‘Making Light’. No-one has called for a boycott or blacklist of David Gerrold, or Glenn Hauman, or to have their reputations tarnished and Amazon reviews deliberately lowered.
That’s of course NOT true in the converse. And while there’s been some passive-aggressive ‘semi-plausible-deniability’ ‘who will rid us of these turbulent puppies’ basically from the get-go it’s been attacks on the ability of the Puppy organizers and the nominees ability to make a living. We’re immoral destroyers (we obeyed the rules to letter. Patrick Nielsen Hayden broke the embargo rules with absolute impunity, not a word of criticism offered. Rules are only for little people.) who break every convention of good behavior (David Gerrold, the MC of the event, has been campaigning relentlessly against the Pups and the nominees – which is so far outside the canon of ‘acceptable behavior’ as to be a light-year beyond the pale). They organized smears on Entertainment Weekly to label us racists and sexists – which the magazine had to redact because they’re demonstrably untrue. It didn’t stop the smears mysteriously cropping up in ‘friendly’ outlets across the English Speaking world. Gerrold and TNH carefully listed all the nasty things –exclusion from Cons, denial of space in publications, editors closing doors to subs, reviews being denied… that just would happen to us. All things that would, had to affect the puppies ability to make a living. Not one of them said ‘hey, these people have families. They’re human too.’ In fact we had phrases flung about putting us down. Untermench. Then we have Glenn Hauman calling for people to use the Hugo package for a way to game the rankings against the puppies. “Oh, and to answer the title question: what do you do to rabid puppies? You put them down.”
Jeff Duntemann on Jeff Duntemann’s Contrapositive Diary
“Sad Puppies Summary and Wrapup” – May 24
Eveybody’s got a theory on how to fix the Hugo Awards process, but to me the process is fine; what’s missing is about 25,000 more involved nominators and voters. A large enough voter base is unlikely to be swept by something like a slate of recommendations. Whether so many new people can be brought into the Worldcon/Hugos community is unclear, but I doubt it.
That’s about all I’m going to have to say about the Sad Puppies topic for awhile. I’m turning my attention back to writing, to the concept of the Human Wave, and perhaps to a suspicion I have that fandom is in the process of splitting. The problems of fandom are caught up in the problems of publishing. Once Manhattan-style traditional publishing becomes more or less irrelevant, fandom may become an overlapping group of online communities centered on authors and genres. Each will probably have its own awards, and the Hugos will become only one among many. Is this a good thing?
You bet!
Sam Finlay on Return of Kings
“How Female-Dominated Publishing Houses Are Censoring Male Authors” – May 25
We continued talking about why the industry seems to be so focused on just playing to the tastes of upper-middle class women in New York City, and I then told him some things that Sci-Fi author Larry Correia had said recently in a podcast concerning the Sad Puppies-Rabid Puppies controversy, and how it struck me that by pursuing their current strategy the publishing houses are ignoring huge markets of people willing to buy books and are cutting their own throats.
He broke in saying, “I know, I know…But look, Sam…you gotta stop thinking. Just stop thinking! Thinking about all this will drive you crazy! Don’t go to bookstores, if they even still have any where you live. Don’t look at other books. You’ll just wonder how in the world this thing even got published,” and then told me some more anecdotes about how the sausage is made. He then quoted Otto Priminger, saying “Nobody knows anything.”
It was sad. He’s a good man, and was just as frustrated about it all as anybody, but he’s stuck fighting a literati who only look for books that support the current narrative, and is left trying to sneak in what stories he can, however he can.
Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook – May 25
So if somebody unfamiliar to me wins an award I was up for, and more importantly gets a big contract while I’m left begging for more porridge at Mr. Bumble’s Workhouse, I honestly give serious thought to the premise that I have missed something that excels in a way my efforts do not.
By contrast, a glance at some of the rhetoric issued by {Gay-Basher McManly-Nuts} establishes a deep and unwavering belief that he, and those who work in his wheelhouse, represent the bastion of greatness against which the rest of us hammer in vain, like zombies trying to get past a boarded-up window.. To wit, if he hasn’t set the world on fire, if he is not met at the convention gates by a swarm of screaming groupies like the kids at the beginning of A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, if books that are nothing like the books he writes get more acclaim than his, the answer can only be that it MUST BE A CONSPIRACY, that justifies an EVEN MORE BLATANT CONSPIRACY. He has no doubts at all. He deserves this. He is angry, Mr. {Gay-Basher McManly-Nuts}. And it is not just regular anger. It is righteous anger, bringing us to the point that being righteously angry is not necessarily the same thing as being justifiably angry, not even close.
The difference between Mr. {Gay-Basher McManly-Nuts} and myself is therefore significant, and it boils down to the statement that while I am very capable of being an asshole about many things, I am not an asshole to that extent or in that particular way.
I also possess discernment about some things that apparently still confuse him.
For instance, I have absolutely no difficulty identifying my elbow. It’s the place in the middle of my arm that bends.
Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4
“The Hugo Ballot, Part 15: Back to Novellas” – May 25
Okay, I’m surprised. Tom Kratman’s “Big Boys Don’t Cry” actually reads in places like an anti-war story. Well, let’s not get carried away here — it’s more a story about the harm that fighting wars can do, the ways in which a personality can be twisted and perverted by the aims of those in command.
Maggie is a Ratha, an intelligent fighting vehicle who has been through countless battles, and been made to forget some of her more disturbing actions. She has been mortally wounded and is being taken apart for scrap — but the more the workers drill down, the more she starts remembering things that now seem to her to be problematic…..
Joseph Tomaras on A Skinseller’s Workshop
“Hugo Short Story Ballot” – May 24
“Totaled” by Kary English is too good a story to be tarred with the brush of a slate. It makes good use of not-as-far-future-as-those-unfamiliar-with-the-field-might-think neuroscience to explore the mind-body problem, the relationship of emotion to cognition, and the furthest limits to which careerist self-sacrifice can drive a person. I wish it had first appeared either in a free online venue, or a magazine with broader circulation than Galaxy’s Edge.
Lou Antonelli’s “On a Spiritual Plane” attempts to cover similar ground, but there’s a crippling contradiction between the short story form, which requires some measure of crisis for the protagonist, and the author’s evident desire simply to set up a world that is confirmatory of the narrator’s Thomistic metaphysics….
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Jeffro Johnson Hugo Nomination Fanwriter Sample” – May 25
This might be the best of the Puppy Fan Writer nominees. At the very least, I can see real substance in it that doesn’t work for me, but surely will for its intended audience.
Andrew Hickey on Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!
“Hugo Blogging: ‘Best’ Related Work” – May 25
For fairly obvious reasons, I am not going to give anything on those slates a ranking above No Award. Once again, however, I am grateful that my aesthetic instincts match my moral ones here — while these are (with one notable exception) much less incompetent than the fiction I’ve read so far, none of them are actually, you know, good.
Here’s how I’m ranking them.
Letters from Gardner by Lou Antonelli is half writing autobiography/how to break into SF manual, and half collection of short stories. Basically imagine The Early Asimov, but with Antonelli replacing Asimov and Gardner Dozois replacing John Campbell. Antonelli tells the story of how each of his stories was written, and how it was accepted or rejected. The difference is, though, that Antonelli has had an undistinguished career, lasting roughly a decade, while Asimov was one of the greats of the genre (at least in sales and critical status). There is an intrinsic interest in Asimov’s juvenilia which there just isn’t for Antonelli. The stories were pedestrian, and there were no real insights, but this might be of interest to someone. It’s not *bad*, just also not *good*…..
Rebekah Golden
“2015 Hugo Awards Best Short Story: Reviewing L Antonelli” – May 25
“On A Spiritual Plain”, Lou Antonelli (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014)
If this had been longer than fifteen pages I would not have finished it. After I did finish it I looked up the elements of a story to see what was missing.
Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words
“Preliminary thoughts — Best Graphic story Hugo” – May 25
During the various discussions about the Puppies, the Hugo Awards and everything somebody, I think it was Erik Olson, made the excellent remark that new Hugo categories only make sense if there are enough good candidates each year for it. If there only one or two or even five different candidates in any given year, what’s the point? It occurred to me that the converse is also true: any given Hugo category only makes sense if the Hugo voters are knowledgeable enough to actually vote for more than just a handful of the usual subjects year after year. Otherwise it means you just have an even smaller than usual group of people nominating and most people either not voting, or only voting for names they recognise.
The Best Graphic Story category, which was first awarded in 2009, at first seemed to fail that second requirement. The first three awards were won by Girl Genius and you do wonder whether that was because people recognised Kaja & Phil Foglio from fandom, rather than for the comic itself. The Foglios themselves were gracious enough to withdraw after their third win and since then the category has improved a lot, having been won by three different comics since. I’m still a bit skeptical of how well it will work out in the long term, or whether it’ll become just another category most people won’t care about, like the best semi-prozine or best fan artist ones and just vote by rote, if at all.
On the other hand though, if there’s one thing the Hugos, as well as Worldcon needs if it wants to stay relevant, is to get in touch with wider fandom, to not just focus on the old traditional categories. And comics suit the Hugos well. There are plenty of science fiction comics published each year, even omitting superhero series and there does now seems to be a core of Worldcon fans invested in nominating and voting. Since there isn’t really a proper comics orientated sf award yet, haivng the Hugos take up the slack is an opportunity to make them relevant to a primary comics geek, as opposed to a written sf geek audience.
Cheryl Morgan on Cheryl’s Mewsings
“The Wages of Sin” – May 25
Yesterday Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, announced that they now have 9,000 members. Fannish mathematics thus makes it the first billion dollar Worldcon1.
On the back of this unexpected windfall the Commie Pinko Faggot Feminazi Cabal that controls Worldcon via Tor Books has announced the 10-year, $3.4 million deal for its primary gamma rabbit author, John Scalzi.
Scalzi’s editor at Tor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, explained the rationale behind this move. “It was a tough decision,” he said, especially as none of Scalzi’s books have sold more than a dozen or so copies, mostly to his friends and family. The convention revenue simply doesn’t cover the shortfall.” ….
Declan Finn on A Pius Man
“The Anti-Puppies (Sad Puppies Bite Back VI)” – May 26
[Putatively humor.]
[GRR Martin …gapes, blinks, then turns to NKJ] And you, hold on a second. You’re not content with having a personal vendetta and an online feud with Vox Day, but you want to deliberately taunt the Dark Lord of the Fisk!? Have you no sense of self-preservation?
[Scalzi frowns] I thought he was the International Lord of Hate
[Jemisin] Anything he says to me will prove that he’s a racist!
Declan Finn on A Pius Man
“Putting down the puppies (Sad Puppies Bite Back VII)” – May 26
[Three hours later, down the road, lying in wait, are the Evil League of Evil. Tom Kratman tirelessly watches the road, awaiting the dog catcher truck. John “Dr. O. No” Ringo, now that the sun is down, furiously taps away on his laptop, cranking out a rough draft of a 15-book series on an alien invasion. Larry Correia, the International Lord of Hate, is fisking the entire back catalog of The Guardian. The Cuddly Skeletor, Brad Torgersen, clutches the flamethrower on loan from Larry, looking like a kid waiting for Christmas morning.]
[LC looks up] I’m running out of Guardian articles. Are they coming or not?
[TK growls, frustrated] I don’t see them sir! We still have the Claymore mines ready and waiting to blow them straight to Hell at the first sign! Assuming the land mines in the road don’t get them first! Or the three backup snipers!
[LC] Geez, Tom, are you sure that we’ll even need to fire a shot, assuming they ever get here?
[TK] Better to be prepared than not, sir!
[LC sighs, closes the laptop, and stands up, taking care not to hit the flagpole above him] Okay, everyone, we’re packing up. Brad, sorry, no flamethrower for you tonight.
[Brad, frustrated that he never got to use his flame thrower on the self-destructed anti-Puppies, fires it off into space. The massive fireball makes it way to low orbit. It impacts and explodes against a low-flying alien spacecraft, a scout for the incoming armada. The armada, thinking their surprise has been ruined, turn around and retreat. The wounded ship hurtles in an uncontrolled descent, slamming right into Tor’s officers, taking out the entire suite of offices, and a few cockroaches — including an intern named Joe Buckley, but no one noticed one way or another, since interns are all disposable anyway. But Joe died happy. He FINALLY got to see an exploding space ship!]
Dcarson on Steve Jackson Games Board & Dice Forum
“Mars Attacks (Worldcon)” – May 24
Played Mars Attacks this weekend at Balticon. We noticed that the cities showing were all ones we had been to a Worldcon in. So for the next game we sorted through the city deck and if we allowed San Diego as the site of a Nasfic we had 16 city and monument cards. So a 4 player game of Mars Attacks the Worldcon.
I wonder if all those people trying to rig the Hugo Awards have one of these at home: https://t.co/evPJzSyK7Z
— Steve Leahy (@oz_penguin) May 25, 2015
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
It strikes me as bizarre that Sam Finlay is condemning publishers by claiming that they cater to these women. Do those women even have time to read?
Couldn’t he have picked a more plausible scapegoat? Or … Is this dog whistling about people presumed to be wealthy liberals …
(and now I will see if link tags work)
“I’m in agreement with Liz Carey about her take on Jeffro Johnson’s Best Fan Writer nomination. IMO, Johnson could deservedly win an ENnie at Gencon for his writing about games. But not a Hugo for writing about fandom and SF&F.”
I’ve been reading Johnson’s blog for years. Though his primary focus is gaming — and that’s why I began following him — he writes a lot of detailed SF/F book reviews.
Here’s the ones I found from 2014:
Book review: The Last Witchking by Vox Day
Book review: Lights in the Deep by Brad Torgersen
Book review: The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Book review: Hard Magic by Larry Correia
Book review: The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson
Book review: A Throne of Bones by Vox Day
You may notice a pattern in his choice of authors that would make him attractive to the small group of anti-elitists that now decides our Hugo ballot.
MAY be of interest. Stupid tyops.
Link tags work!
The genuinely interesting thing is that some of them, at least, do not see what is bad in the nominees. (Others are more discriminating, and this isn’t meant to suggest that all Sad Puppy sympathizers have this sort of blind spot.) I think a good number of them respond to “the story in their heads” and pay little to no attention to actual prose (except if it shows any stylistic traits that would get in the way of their experience inside their heads), characterization, or details of worldbuilding. If the story the work plays on their internal screens is appealing, then they like it. If there’s stuff that conflicts with the way they want a story to be, they don’t like it (hence the dislike for “message fiction”, but the acceptance of stories where their own views are transparent to them).
That’s their aesthetic, and I’m sure some of them believe it’s the only possible real aesthetic, and that all other responses must be insincere.
Thanks for pointing Patrick’s comment out to me. I hadn’t noticed it.
Considering that Patrick only talked about the novel category and had no idea which three Puppies-slated books made the ballot, per his comment, it seems ludicrous that Freer would call that breaking an embargo.
You have to know what’s being embargoed to break it.
Pretty sure the Hugo nominees were discussed on the SMOFs listserv, which anyone can sign up for, and it was there that many people, not just P and TNH, first learned that the Puppy slates had succeeded in dominating the ballot. The ballot as a whole wasn’t published on the SMOFs list though, if I remember correctly.
Mark on 2011 nominations
I liked Zoo City.
The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack haven’t read it,
The Quantum Thief – I think I included this in my nominations
Kraken, Zero History – I concur with your assessment
The Fuller Memorandum – Stross. As much as I love the Laundry books I don’t think they are Hugo-worthy.
Others that were eligible (I think) and good enough were –
Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan. A very good zombie story.
Zendegi by Greg Egan. Quite different than his usual stuff. Probably missed out due to his reputation.
Above The Snowline by Steph Swainston.
I think a good number of them respond to “the story in their heads” and pay little to no attention to actual prose (except if it shows any stylistic traits that would get in the way of their experience inside their heads), characterization, or details of worldbuilding. If the story the work plays on their internal screens is appealing, then they like it.
Interestingly, this is how beginning writing students, and people who don’t read very much generally, read.
I am also confused regarding the idea of non-Hugo nominees breaking the Hugo embargo.
Surely, the largely right-libertarian Puppies aren’t claiming that a request (not even a contract!) from Party A (Hugo admins) to Party B (Hugo nominees) has any weight on influencing the free speech activities of Party C (anyone else).
“Untermench” seems like a really weird insult to attribute to people supposedly interested in social justice. I know they (sometimes) claim that those who oppose them are “elitist”, but “Untermench” looks like just repeating words that only their own side have used, or putting words into strawmen’s mouths.
Maybe it’s a callout to the post which compared Torgersen, Correia, and Beale to FDR, Churchill, and Stalin (I may have gotten the order of the first two wrong)?
@Ken Josenhans: If 25,000 potential nominators for short fiction is an impossibility, then short fiction as a category is in very, very, very serious trouble. I think you underestimate the potential for online distribution, especially now with mechanisms like Kindle Unlimited generally available. I’ll wager that most people who read SF have no idea whatsoever that the Hugo Awards even exist, much less that they can vote on them. To fix this problem, raising general awareness of the Awards and Worldcon should become a Manhattan Project-class priority for fandom. Young people in particular are ignoring fandom by the millions, and going to ComicCon instead. Demographics is a harsh mistress. Con-centric fandom as we know it today will die with the Boomers. What are we going to do about it?
Maybe it’s a callout to the post which compared Torgersen, Correia, and Beale to FDR, Churchill, and Stalin (I may have gotten the order of the first two wrong)?
Maybe. But wasn’t it one of the Pups that made that comparison?
If 25,000 potential nominators for short fiction is an impossibility, then short fiction as a category is in very, very, very serious trouble.
Only if you subscribe to the myopic view that the only thing that matters is numbers of nominators.
One pretty sure way to spike congoing fandom for post-Boomer generations would be to launch a slate of old-fashioned didactic wall-to-wall shit and pretend it’s the best science fiction of the year, a la this year’s Puppy slates.
@snowcrash; https://file770.com/?p=22740&cpage=1#comment-269178
1) If these ‘slates’ have achieved something; it is the often reported recent growth in the number participants in the Hugo awards. In fact not too long ago Worldcon reached nine thousand members, even if majority of them remain as supporting members.
As for the accusations of affirmative action, cabals, and etc. I hope that we have already established how the literary tastes do differ, and how that is perfectly alright.
But suppose that there is an award that appears to go year after a year to works one does not like, for one reason or another. (It really does not matter why.) Thus you get curious to why some works win the award instead of anything else. After all, there is an unreadably large amount of new SFF coming out each year.
So to answer your questions, you start asking around, looking at things and those winning works. You will notice how the same author names tend to pop up every now and then, you start looking at who is friends with who, what they have said before and after the rockets are handed, what appears in media afterwards, in addition to that insightful look at the generally low nomination and voting percentages of Worldcons.
In other words, the right legal term to use here is ‘circumstantial evidence.’
2) I’ve known of the existence of the Hugo awards for decades. The phrase “Hugo Award Win-” is occasionally seen on the cover of works I have read. Not to mention how the winner of the best novel category tended to make a small buzz in the media I follow. More recently, how many women were nominated. Thus I knew that the award existed, but for very a long time, I had no idea of who or how it was decided. I would have wagered that something like the Oscars, and have expected to win.
For the large part, the whole Hugo nomination and voting process has remained in the dark. It probably was talked a lot during the 50’s, but how about since?
Sure, were someone to go to the official site of the Hugo awards, they would find out how to vote and take part in the whole process. But the important question is, how many of you have visited the official site for the Oscar awards? (It is a whole lot bigger award, and as I write this, I am not even sure if it has an official website. It probably does, but I am not sure.)
3) It is a perk worth mentioning if someone is wondering whether they should participate or not.
4) Alright. Let us assume that Terry Pratchett for reasons unknown had been behind the Sad Puppies 3. Author whose works have not left me disappointed. Author whose works I am willing to praise and recommend without a second thought. Author who now asks me to spend $40 for the right to nominate and vote… Terry Pratchett is a person I held in very high regard, but I still would not spend that $40 for the right to nominate and vote. I got better uses for that sum, even when I could easily afford it.
The only time I would actually really consider purchasing the supporting membership is if the recommendation was filled with works I have both read and enjoyed. And even still, I would probably demand that list to have something written by Terry Pratchett before I would bother.
So I ask, why would anyone act differently to a list of recommendations found online?
Thus for those who wish to keep the Worldcon as sour as lemons, I would like to clarify that Terry Pratchett has no intentions of running Sad Puppies 4, or any other slate for 2016’s Hugo awards.
5) Snowcrash, you are a member of this debate through your participation in the discussion. Are the aspects of your life, your other opinions, relevant to the discussion about the Sad Puppies? If not, I fail to see how those of Vox Day’s are. If you agree that they are, well, I can come up with a lot of unrelated off-topic questions.
6) I do not know where you come from. But were someone over here offering to cover transportation costs, or alternatively offering actual transportation to a number of people without asking for compensation, you would hear accusations of attempted ballot-box stuffing in no time.
7) What makes you sure that the reality actually matches your preferred narrative, or that the reported news are news? I mean, I could point towards the political division in American news reporting and how you kind of have to keep an eye on both, because both are blind to their own faults and things that are apart from their respective narratives.
8) Who are primarily interested in the Gamer Gate? Well, those who play games and actually care about their past time to an extend where they expect ethical games journalism. Now among these people, you can find a subsection of those who also read SFF literature, and among that group another subgroup of those who actually care what works wins the Hugo award.
This is the reality calling. If you choose to disagree with the reality, I suppose that you should have also pointed out how he happened to downplay the ‘aSP’ / ‘SJW’ link.
9) If the ‘No Award’ wins it will be the last nail on the coffin built out of circumstantial evidence. Hugo awards will no longer be the award for the best of Science Fiction and Fantasy, it will just be the “Fandom” award for the “Fandom.” Perhaps that is what you want, but it will strip the credibility for anyone who is not a member of the “Fandom.”
I mean, I kind of believe the award has a meaning and purpose. Even though that for my literature tastes, the categories for written fiction have been lacking in representation. Sour lemons!
Though in fairness, the Hugo awards for comic books and films have performed a lot better.
10) The whole “unreasonable backlash” drew me in here.
11) And yes, Terry Pratchett withdrew his own nomination. But it does not automatically mean he would have won it, had he not withdrawn. This like Hugo awards version of Schrödinger’s box.
What we know for certain is that he withdrew. Hence the phrase “Terry Pratchett never won a Hugo” is sound and valid, simply because in reality Terry Pratchett has not won a Hugo.
I think he should, and… in 2016, perhaps he finally might. And as I said once before, at least he is in no position to withdraw on the grounds of stress marring his Worldcon experience. *A sad chuckle.*
Nick Mamatas said:
All that made it to SMOFs before the announcement was oblique discussion of a couple of nominees that broke the embargo, with no names attached. To this day I still have no idea who one of the two was.
I also like the idea that “millions” of people are ignoring fandom and going to Comic-Con instead.
So would that me TWO million Comic-Con attendees per annum, or THREE million?
Writing that wall of text took too long. I’m going away.
The comparison with Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt was made by Torgenson, as I recall; he was trying to explain that making alliances with bad people can be forced on good people.
I appreciate that the U.S. takes its culture wars seriously, but comparing SF awards to World War 2 was a horrible mixture of silliness and contempt for those who fought real wars.
People have been saying this about Worldcon and the Hugos for decades. The attendance at the con reflects the decision to keep it a global event by moving it around, but even then it has attracted more attendees in recent decades than it did from the 1930s to the 1970s.
Freer –
in re Wall-o-Text; Geez guy, learn how to use the {Enter} key!
Also, key paragraph length to the medium. When the display area for reading is a default 1/3 of the screen width, you need to allow for *more* white space between paragraphs. Break things up, allow for transitions.
I’ve found that being forced to use smaller gobbbets of text forces one to actually put things more clearly, being able to isolate elements of an exposition usually results in a clearer, more cogent explanation, as well as allowing for opportunities to be more forceful when tying things together to show your eventual conclusions.
The way you have structured the comment you put in here is just *begging* for the TL;DR label. I tried, really, but I can make neither hide nor hare of what you are trying to say. Whether or not that is due to the glazed-eye-stare I can’t say.
It was in fact Larry Correia who made the comment (http://web.archive.org/web/20150524170218/http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/16/im-not-vox-day/). I think the implication is that the ‘SJW’ or the ‘liberals’ are somehow Hilter, and that VD was the lesser evil. I don’t want to live in the world where VD is ever the lesser evil.
@ Peace –
Don’t sweat it. ‘Harara’ is still closer than some. ^_^
Don’t get me started on how many people manage to misspell/mispronounce ‘Nathaniel.’
Tuomas Vainio:
And using that factual statement to conclude that the Hugo Awards don’t reflect the will of Real Fans, as many have done, is either ill-informed or disingenuous. It’s like complaining that you’ve never won the Lottery even though you never bought a ticket, and that you tore up the ticket someone gave you. If you don’t play, you can’t win.
Nick Mamatas:
See the footnote on Cheryl Morgan’s article about the requirement to add extra zeros; it presumably applies to attendance figures in this context as well.
Other outlets including Salon, The Guardian, Io9, HuffPo, Slashdot etc. published accusations that were all suspiciously alike, as though someone had offered a pre-written summary for them to follow.
I find it kind of charming that people with this conspiracy-burdened victim mindset can’t conceive of either of these possibilities:
a) that in the brave new world of online journalism, lots of articles get churned out in short order by people who do their research by reading other journalists’ work
b) some people may have analysed the situation and independently come to the conclusion that the Puppy organisers may have been motivated by a desire to push back against ‘diversity’
Comicons aside, Young people in particular are ignoring fandom by the millions is quite true.
I hate my phone!
Many millions of people are not attending SF conventions—how could they all attend them anyway?
But they are participating in fandom via Tumblr, online communities, etc. And when they get together to meet in person, they often do so by replicating the convention structure. The smart ones replicate fannish cons as opposed to commercial autograph-collection-and-toy cons.
Exactly how is the retrograde semiliterate Puppy slate supposed to attract young people again?
Dave Freer at May 26, 2015 at 4:53 am:
Dave, thanks for including paragraph breaks in this post. Your focus on variance as a measure in and of itself, and as an indicator of prior Hugo gaming is *at best* weak. You have yet to show any actual evidence of collusion or block voting in prior Hugo’s. If you’ve done it in a post in your website, good – provide a link.
As to your claims on PNH – as others have pointed out, please see rcades post on this thread at 0739, Abi’s post at 0705, & Nick’s post at 0806 for a far more comprehensive rebuttal of your claims than I could manage.
As you’ve been asked, here and at your own site, where is the evidence that you have been blacklisted by a publisher? Where is the actual evidence that you are persona non grata at a Con?
Is a Con obligated to invite you, or are they free to choose who they invite? Is James *Nicoll* obligated to review books edited by Toni, or is he free to choose what he does?
Does a review of your work, that goes out to a new audience thanks to your inclusion in the Hugo packet, *have* to be positive, or is someone who is unimpressed with your aping of Seppo culture warrior antics and unsubtle messaging free to provide a negative review of your work?
You certainly have a right to earn your livelihood Dave. The way your post goes, you seem to believe that I’m obligated to support you on that. I don’t, and given my experience with your work, I will not.
Brian Z on May 26, 2015 at 8:43 am said:
Comicons aside, Young people in particular are ignoring fandom by the millions is quite true.
Has this not been true for the entirety of the existence of fandom?
It’s also an odd complaint to be made by the Puppies. If the demographics changed and more young people became involved, the general political tone would probably become more liberal.
Tuomas Vainio on May 26, 2015 at 8:27 am said:
Oh no worries on that, I didn’t bother reading it anyway.
Not to mention that ‘fusion’ cons, which are hybrids that overlap SFF, comics, movies, collectibles, etc are popping up all over the place. Especially in smaller communities where there isn’t enough fan interest to make a dedicated event, but a amalgamated one can draw enough to be viable.
There would definitely be a lot more girls into a lot more characters having gay sex all over the place.
Freer’s article is a fun mess.
I believe it is Memorial Day in the US.
You’d think he would’ve been able to easily confirm so before writing this line. I’ve no clue why he included the words ‘I believe’ in that sentence at all.
I often notice these days it is those who have gained most, who treat that sacrifice with least respect. (Think about what the Nazi’s stood for, or the Communists. Women, ‘PoC’ and Homosexuals were not well treated. Neither were a lot of other minorities) Ironic, I suppose, that they are free to treat it with disinterest so as a fruit that sacrifice, of that service. Ah well. That’s the way of things.
Wow, that’s a large assumption and insult to make unattributed by nothing more than his say so and closed with that’s just the way things are as fact. That’s a helluva strawman.
Most of people then – as now – just wanted to live their lives. They were happy to let others do the same… well, except for the people who weren’t.
Hey I’m not sure why the Puppies weren’t happy to just let people let other do the same either man.
Behind me stand long generations of hard hunting men, who would consider me a pussy, but I can feed myself and my family quite well, thanks to them
Aside from the personal history lesson I’m not even sure how the ghosts of hard hunting men judging him has anything to do with the article.
So far, to best of my knowledge, the Puppies, both sad and rabid, and their followers have avoided attacking things which make people a living.
Because personal attacks are a-ok but once you’ve attack how a person makes a living, then you’ve crossed a line.
They’ve asked people to NOT take it out on the authors who have been pressured into stepping out of Noms.
Including making sure those authors know they were pressured out of the nominations regardless of what they say otherwise.
No-one has called for a boycott or blacklist of David Gerrold, or Glenn Hauman, or to have their reputations tarnished and Amazon reviews deliberately lowered.
That’s of course NOT true in the converse.
Citation needed
David Gerrold, the MC of the event, has been campaigning relentlessly against the Pups and the nominees – which is so far outside the canon of ‘acceptable behavior’ as to be a light-year beyond the pale
Geez, why would the MC of the Hugo awards might speak against a group that says Hugo voters were voting on the wrong things, were affirmative action awards in recent years, how they didn’t really matter, and in the case of the Rabid, that they wanted to burn it down. Puppies campaigned against the Hugos, it’s certainly acceptable behavior for the MC for the Hugo award to not take that lightly.
Gerrold and TNH carefully listed all the nasty things –exclusion from Cons, denial of space in publications, editors closing doors to subs, reviews being denied… that just would happen to us. All things that would, had to, affect the puppies ability to make a living. Not one of them said ‘hey, these people have families. They’re human too.’
That was a warning that acting like an rude and hostile against other authors and SFF institutions publicly might affect people wanting to invite or work with you. It’s called common sense.
Then we have Glenn Hauman calling for people to use the Hugo package for a way to game the Amazon rankings against the puppies.
I guess saying that he told people to read and review the works wouldn’t sound as impressive.
If you’re planning on making a living writing, being a Puppy nominee (even if like me you didn’t actually know you were one – yes, I should pay more attention. I had a book to write) is probably a bad choice,
Oof, sounds like one of your friends in the ELoE was more concerned with using your work in a political battle than about how it might affect your ability to earn money. You should really take that up with them.
In the Puppies’ world, campaigning to dissolve people’s marriages, deny them the vote, starve them, deny them medical care and shelter, and to make it licit to harass, abuse, stalk, attack, and kill them is all fine. So is explaining why it’s perfectly rational to throw acid in their face and shoot them in the head. But interfere with their right to make a buck selling fiction? That’s too far!
One is something less than impressed.
Tuomas Vainio:
Yes, Pratchett would have loved to team up with the christian fanatic that wanted to punch him in the face. Of course. Absolutely.
@Tuomas Vainio
No. No, no, no. That is not true. Those interested in “gamergate”(a name coined by notable non-gamer and asshole Adam Baldwin while posting a video slandering game designer Zoe Quinn) started off as a witchhunt by Quinn’s ex-boyfriend who whined to a bunch of misogynists (on Reddit? 4chan? I can’t remember.) that she slept with five men(wow, so many!) to get “good reviews” for her free game. Not free to play, but simply free.
When this proved to be easily shown false(with no reviews by the so-called lovers existing), they switched to the narrative that it was about “ethics in video game journalism”, and still attacked Quinn, adding Anita Sarkeesian(because they always do and Brianna Wu(an actual game developer). They somehow never expressed an actual interest in actual ethic concerns(unless you count “reviewing something and coming to a different conclusion than I would” ethics).
They could have attacked their beloved AAA companies for coercing good reviews by big name mags, or their new foray into paying youtube “Let’s Play” personalities. Instead, they just attacked various women(and the men who supported them) in various parts of the industry. These attacks included death threats and rape threats, leading more than one to have to flee their home with their families.
It was never, never just about people who “care about their pastime.” It was about the targeted harassment of women who spoke up about their views of video gaming and video gaming culture.
Remember last month when Puppies were spreading the rumor that Scalzi’s last novel has been unsuccessful, that his best-seller status was ginned up, and that he had been dropped by Tor Books?
Speaking of trying to damage someone’s career through loose chatter and all that. Really worked wonders too!
Yep. The conspiracy they don’t see is the one where online news sites can’t make money doing real reporting, but they can make money hiring interns and other total noobs to churn out 10 blog posts a day that consist of nothing but copied quotes and rewritten facts lifted from other sites.
The terrible Entertainment Weekly piece that the Puppies keep citing was written by Isabella Biedenharn, an editorial assistant who as of January was still a journalism student at New York University. Look through her pile of blog posts and it’s all stuff that looks like it was dashed off in a half-hour with no attempt at genuine reporting.
People, why are you reading Tuomas Vainio’s posts? He has admitted that he doesn’t read SFF and doesn’t know anything about much of anything but is willing to do huge drive-by posts of word dumps and argument anyway and then announce that he is going away without engaging.
Speaking of trying to damage someone’s career through loose chatter and all that. Really worked wonders too!
Based on their math and recent developments, it looks like Tor thinks Scalzi is worth paying over $300K for each copy of his book he sells.
The reason I did those reviews of the controversial 2014 Hugo Nominated works was (a) I wanted to know what the stink was about and hardly anyone was writing about the works in question so doing those pieces was the only way for me to find out; and also (b) I wanted to review GAME DESIGN by Lewis Pulsipher and I wanted that to sound more like a professional review than the stuff I had done previously so I did all of those fiction reviews in order to basically practice for what I really wanted to do. No one in the fandom’s Legion of Doom noticed me because of them.
@Brian Z (I spelt it right this time!)
I’m not sure I agree with your idea about blogs/online etc etc, but it’s true that there’s been a natural progression in where to hear about good books from magazines and reviews to social media and online reviews. Mind you, I see a review as a review no matter where it is.
The Sorcerer’s House is a good suggestion, and Gene Wolfe certainly isn’t getting much Hugo love these years. He does fit the bill for your theory of a good writer who doesn’t play the new blogging game. Mind you, I seem to be an outlier in not liking the early Wolfe that he won the most awards for – the character of Severian leaves me cold. Personally I don’t think I would have broken Wolfe onto my ballot for 2011.
I think Red Plenty might be a bit of a left-field choice, to put it mildly.
You are correct about Bank’s lack of Hugo noms – only one is appalling. I think the problem was that he didn’t get very well publicised in the US early on. Unfortunately I don’t see Surface Detail as the book to remedy that lack, but I’d retcon him a win for Player of Games in an instant.
@andyl
I haven’t read your three. Egan doesn’t do it for me, but the Sullivan and Swainston sound very interesting.
The Stross Laundry books aren’t everyone’s cup of (British Lovecraftian) tea, but I’d argue the clever historical details in Fuller makes it one of the best Laundry novels. I’m in no way surprised it didn’t make the ballot though.
Spring-Heeled Jack – thinking about it more I don’t think it even approaches consideration as a missed nomination – it’s fun in parts, but no more. I’m a bit of a sucker for clever uses of historical characters (hence my liking for Fuller Memorandum), which is probably why it came to mind.
@Kimberly K – Gods, did Tuomas try to dump a GG apologia? Sorry, his modus operandi is to dump a unsubstantiated comment, or state the bloody obvs as though it was a dazzling insight that only he has noticed, and then run away. He seems to be a fairly committed GGer as well, but until now has tried to keep that directly out of his comments.
In any regards, thanks for giving a reality-based definition of GG, and as Peace said, the best thing to do with Tuomas is to either ignore him or use him as a metaphorical pinata.
Tuomas – I would like to clarify that Terry Pratchett has no intentions of running Sad Puppies 4, or any other slate for 2016’s Hugo awards.
Man, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think anyone is going was ever going to come to that conclusion. Even if he was still alive.
@Jeff “Face” makes me think of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which might not be a totally imperfect metaphor for this situation.
On a tangent – Nicola Griffith has compiled some interesting data that says books about women win fewer awards than books about men:
http://nicolagriffith.com/2015/05/26/books-about-women-tend-not-to-win-awards/
I really don’t understand the pups’ desire for Hugo awards, seeing as they disapprove of the works that have been so honored. I also don’t understand their sense of entitlement to Hugo awards. The Hugos belong to the WorldCon community. No one is entitled to be honored by that community, not by sales, popularity, cultural affiliation or any other marker.