aka The Puppy That Cried Love at the Heart of the World
Today’s roundup spans everything from legitimate beef to The Walking Dead, with visits along the way to James Worrad, Bob Mayer, Martin Wisse, Earl Newton, Brad Torgersen, T. L. Knighton and T.C. McCarthy. (Title credits go to File 770 consulting editors of the day Vivien and NelC.)
Todd VanDer Werff on Vox
“How conservatives took over sci-fi’s most prestigious award” – April 26
Do the Sad Puppies have a legitimate beef with the Hugos?
Not really.
In recent years, the Hugos have definitely taken a turn away from traditional pulp sci-fi toward more literary works. But science fiction has always had pulp and literary writers, and the latter crowd has traditionally been more successful at awards ceremonies — just as it has with the Pulitzers or National Book Awards, where Phillip Roth is more likely to win than Stephen King.
The Puppies’ claim here also ignores that the science-fiction community has traditionally backed all sorts of authors, of all sorts of political stripes.
“Robust conservative voices have always been part of the SF&F conversation.”
“What’s actually notable about the SF subculture is its heterodoxy, expressed by things like the Libertarian Futurist Society sometimes giving their Prometheus Award to the Scottish socialist SF writer Ken MacLeod, or MacLeod himself talking about the importance to him of right/libertarian writers like Robert Heinlein and Poul Anderson. Robust conservative voices have always been part of the SF&F conversation,” [Patrick] Nielsen Hayden told me.
The Puppies also insist there’s an unstated secret cabal running things behind the scenes of the Hugos, and that the only way to fight it is to push back against it.
Said Torgersen again: “Sad Puppies was necessary because everywhere I went in the field (as a young professional) I heard the same gripes: that the same predictable names always popped up in the same categories, that other names were always left out in the cold, or in the Hugo awards blind spots, and that the way to win a Hugo was not to write a fantastic story or book, it was to buddy up with and schmooze the right people.”
James Worrad
“Kicking Against The Pricks: Thoughts On That Vox Day Troll Fiasco” – April 26
I’d like to tell you it was a tough, valiant battle but it was more a pull-the-trigger-with-left-hand-smoke-with-the-right Somme-type affair.
The first wave had no comprehension of irony or satire and were thus tragically cut down in their knicker-sniffing prime. Second wave realized they should at least pretend to understand irony and satire and still got cut down. The third wave was more of a trickle by then, one that had no option but to criticize my weight and writing ability. This, readers take note, is the troll equivalent of boys and old men being sent out into the breach with rifles made in 1892. The last push. Not pretty.
Bob Mayer on Write On The River
“The Hugo Awards: Who Gives A Shit? Author Bullshit” – April 26
I’m a whore. I cash my check.
This highlights the bullshit of authors.
If the system works their way—GREAT!
But when it doesn’t it’s censorship?
Take indie bookstores. Love them. Was in one yesterday and it inspired me. But over half the indie bookstores I’ve been in over the years blew me off trying to place my books there, even when traditionally published and a NY Times bestseller. Didn’t even bother to ask the guy behind the counter yesterday. Just bought some books. But, by God, one of them starts going out of business, the hue and cry arises. Ever hear that for an author going out of business?
99% or more of readers don’t care. They read. I did buy a book with the badge of Hugo Award Winner once on the cover based on it—Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Great fucking book and series. Total dickhead as an author in person and in email. But who cares?
He wrote some great shit. Harlan Ellison supported him so he won a Hugo. Yeah. Still a dickhead. But who cares? You read his book, not marry him.
Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words
“Will 2015 see the end of the Hugo Voters Packet?” – April 26
This year we’re in a perfect storm. For the average non-Puppy voter, the Voter Packet is a lot less attractive with all that Puppy Poo on it, while publishers might be wary to put their books on it due to the rocketing number of supporting memberships bought since the shortlist announcement. Sasquan is on track to become one of the largest, perhaps the largest Worldcon ever and what’s more, most of the memberships are supporting, not attending.
So if voters are less eager for the Packet anyway and publishers less willing to include their books now the membership is getting bigger and bigger, does this mean 2015 will make the Packet obsolete?
Earl Newton
“The Victimhood of Bullies, or: The 2015 Hugo Awards” – April 26
You know what political correctness actually is?
It’s treating strangers like your friends. One of the biggest predictors of whether someone will accept gay people as equal in society? “Do they have a personal relationship with someone who is gay.”
You might tease your best friend, but you don’t tease them in front of others. You don’t tease them behind their back (or maybe you do. Stop doing that.)
You don’t make them into an outcast. You respect their feelings.
“Feelings?!” comes the Sad Puppies / GamerGate / Men’s Rights Activist reply, swaddling itself in self-pity and righteous outrage. “What about our feelings?”
I care about your feelings, too. And I want to take your feelings seriously.
But you’re like a bully who, after shaking down a seven year old for their lunch money and pride, complains about the harshness of the reprimand.
If your only persecution is that no one will let you persecute others anymore, then I can’t help you.
T. L. Knighton
“Fisking Cat Valente” – April 26
And really, how in the hell do you know that that was what bumped the Heinlein biography off the ballot? You are talking about volume two of the biography that Tor has put almost no push behind, that has been largely absent from many book stores, and that a number of people didn’t even know was out? That biography?
Cat, we can’t nominate what we haven’t read and we can’t nominate what we don’t know is even out. Take that up with your buddies at Making Light, because the biography was published then not pushed by Tor.
Brad R. Torgersen in a comment to T. L. Knighton – April 26
Again, some of the chief plaintiffs (against SP3) have been the most obvious beneficiaries of the status quo. Cat tends to be a bit of a “queen bee” within the field, and has a lot of sycophantic admirers. She’s just mad that somebody is disrupting things, and falling back on the tired narrative of, “Everyone who upsets me is a [insert bogeyman words here] so I win!”
T.C. McCarthy
“Anti #SadPuppies/#GamerGate – Brianna Wu – has ‘Ralph Retort’ Reporter Ejected from Panel Discussion” – April 26
The SadPuppies did not hijack the Hugo Awards. They played by the rules and won a popular vote that resulted in many within the SFF community complaining (falsely) about how there had been ballot stuffing, etc. This is all disingenuous. It’s a bit silly to complain and write hit pieces that accuse Brad Torgersen and Larry Correia of being racist just because one lost a popular vote. Brianna Wu is one of the latest to make these false (maybe erroneous is less inflammatory?) claims; this is my assessment.
Barth Anderson on Con Gusto
“Sad Puppies, The Walking Dead, and Hunting for Conservative Science Fiction” – April 14
Saddest Puppy Brad Torgersen has said there was no political litmus test at play in selecting certain works for their proposed slate, and I tend to believe him. The works on their slate are mainly fifty shades of military science fiction. Tellingly, to me, the most exemplary conservative piece of science fiction in the last ten years didn’t make the Sad Puppies’ ballot for Best Dramatic Presentation: The Walking Dead. This isn’t a work that merely plays with the trappings and furnishings of conservative thought, as military sf does, saying “yay guns” and stopping there. The Walking Dead is conservative from individual scenes to the widest angle of its worldview and philosophy.
The big conservative idea behind The Walking Dead’s apocalyptic world is a pure, condensed Thomas Hobbesian scenario. Society and government have collapsed from a zombie apocalypse, but even if you aren’t killed by a zombie, your corpse will re-animate as one. Indeed, the situation is so bleak and horrible that there is no presumption of seeking a cause or cure for the outbreak in this story. We don’t even know if it’s really an “outbreak” at all. The Walking Dead narrative is reduced to the horrible choices facing the characters, who come to realize that other humans are even worse foes than the zombies could ever be.
And this is really the launching pad from which many conservative arguments spring in The Walking Dead. Each season takes on different “enemy attitudes” that the tribe of right-thinking characters (ha ha) must face, analyze, and ultimately overcome. These “enemy attitudes” (my term) take the form of long-term presumptions about what society is, but which are now delusional (liberal?) beliefs that stand in the way of people being what they really need to be in this hyper-Hobbesian horror. Such as:
- believing that the walking dead (zombies) still bear some humanity and must be treated humanely;
- forgiveness and reconciliation are crucial to surviving;
- motherhood and children are essential to society;
- arming and feeding ourselves are cornerstones of society
I'd never join a conspiracy that would have me as a member.
— Rachel Swirsky (@rachelswirsky) April 26, 2015
https://twitter.com/kjmiller12AM/status/592413519154253824
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Here is a conspiracy theory for you:
It looks mighty ridiculous the way Vox Day claims all outcomes as victory states. It’s stupid, but what little I have seen quoted by Vox Day here gives me the impression that he isn’t as stupid as people want to believe, he is extremely manipulative for one. This led me to the thought that maybe his goal isn’t to take over the Hugos, but to discredit SF as a genre in the eyes of the bigger masses.
Science Fiction has been gaining traction in the more popular mediums, film and television. It’s not hard for someone to assume that more and more people are getting over that “SF is just too unrealistic” feeling that you hear mentioned so often when asking a non fan if he has read any.
The thing is, SF by its nature helps you understand diversity, to become a more open to differences in culture and the unknown. Orson Scott Card is a prime example for me, his books made me more accepting and open minded, opened up my mind to accepting more possibilites. Knowing what I now know about Orson Scott Card I find that telling. I do not agree with him, and I beleive he is a terrible person, but this doesn’t change that his books made me more open to things that Orson Scott Card openly deplores.
Science Fiction literature is an eye opening genre by its very nature and diversity, even before looking at the enthnicity or gender of the author. An extremist conservative like Vox Day would find the whole concept deeply disturbing. I think he knows that he doesn’t represent the majority view, regardless of how much he claims that he does. So maybe the real purpose of the Rabid Puppy slate is to discredit SF as a genre in the eye of the masses. An attempt to make sure that when the crowd that previously said “SF is just too unrealistic” tries the genre out, the books on the shelf that have the prestiguos text of “Hugo winner/nominated for the Hugo award”, and thus perhaps more likely to be picked up by a first time reader, aren’t all that good. And then the word spreads that even the SF books that get an award kinda suck.
End Conspiracy Theory.
I don’t really care about the reasons for why trolls troll. Beale is your standard troll. If it wasn’t him blogging for his ego, it would be someone else. They are a dime a dozen and this isn’t the first contest that has been attacked by an organized mob.
Discussions regarding the Hugos shouldn’t be about one individual troll. They should be about how to protect Hugos from organized trolling, regardless of who is behind the current campaign.
It’s unfortunate to see a Compton Crook winner go full gater.
I also would be very interested in seeing the Puppies’ list of the wrong books and storied which unfairly received Hugos.
They performed an extraordinarily successful, *unopposed* effort to pack the ballot with their nominees.
After such a drastic action, I await their rationale, the actual forensic evidence of the conspiracy they strove to overwhelm.
Has any Puppy actually named the undeserving stories the shadowy cabal gave awards to? Even a couple, let alone the vast numbers they claim?
It should be a simple task. The Hugos are not exactly secret.
I can’t help but notice that every Puppy commenter here has dodged the question every time it is asked.
*snort* Let’s start by doing the Puppies the favor of assuming their slate worked as intended and influenced the outcome of the Hugo nominations. *rolls eyes* Given the state of the Hugo ballot, that seems a pretty fair assumption, right?
And Best Related Work is *entirely* Puppy noms. They certainly locked *something* out. Furthermore, Puppies diverted into reading and nominating works on the Puppy Slate(s)–they *did* read them, we are repeatedly assured–took that reading time, and those nominations, away from the honest favorites that they would normally have read and nominated.
*And* I saw Larry Correia admit in a comment on his own blog when the slate came out, that he would have included the Heinlein bio if he had known about it. Obviously he thought the work was excellent Puppy reading. Unless he was just picking random stuff he didn’t think was good, I mean. But that wouldn’t be the case, right?
Cat Valente is not a “chief plaintiff” against SP3, (and neither is Cat Rambo)–they are two among dozens of authors who have been less-than-impressed with Puppy behavior and excuses.
If the Puppies are getting that idea because there is a Cat who has been reading and commenting widely, that would be me, as far as I know. For the record I’m neither of those people, though given Puppy belief in secret cabals and so on, it’s probably pointless to tell them that.
@Cat:
Well, given that people are inclined to accuse others of their own sins, maybe the Puppies insinuating you are several other people says something about their approach to sockpuppets.
xdpaul-“Answer, part 1 (winners only – he had plenty of nominations that were unworthy, too – see also Zoe’s Tale):
Best Fan Writer.
Your Hatemail Will Be Graded.
Redshirts.
Answer, part 2:
Award Pimpage.”
This doesn’t appear to be evidence of a secret cabal taking over if over ten years and 130+ Hugos awarded that two awards went to a solitary author. That seems more like a personal bias against Scalzi. I know I’ve disagreed with award winner, not that I thought they weren’t quality works but that I felt that there were better out there (like last year The Golem and the Jinni I felt was better than even the nominations). But that’s not an indication at all that the Hugo awards have been hijacked or in need of rescue.
Hell Redshirts should be right up most Puppies alley. The cover isn’t misleading, there’s no ‘leftist elite message’ within, it’s a best selling space adventure. At least for Sad Puppies that checks all the boxes.
I mean if that’s your evidence, that seems more like a justification over a personal dispute with one author instead of a system wide problem.
Hampus,
“Dr. Who effect. Pffft. It is so stupid that only a gamergater could say something like that and pretend it really had some truth in it.”
First, it seems “gamergater” might be aimed at me and if so, gee, thanks. Second, John C. Wright is an author with a fan base, and a bunch of those fans have been drawn into the Hugo award process this year (if they weren’t already). I’m sure many readers of Vox Populi voted a straight ticket and I don’t like that any more than you do. But I wondered – just wondered in a blog comment, that’s all – whether fans of Wright’s work who don’t give a damn what Vox Day thinks also got excited by all the buzz online and nominated a bunch of his work, and whether that also helped create the result we see. (Which is kind of – a bit – like what happened with Dr. Who episodes, but I agree that one wouldn’t want to stretch that analogy too far.) It was just an impression presented as a simple point for discussion, and you are welcome to strongly disagree.
Here is our host Mike Glyer saying on February 10 that he thinks Larry Correia is sincere in wanting everyone to read before nominating, just like he wants them to look both ways before crossing the street. Mike says, “if people have read a story on Sad Puppies 3, another list, or nobody’s list at all, and loved it — then their opinion is as good as any other voter’s.”
https://file770.com/?p=20793
So is Mike the enemy too?
Nobody anticipated this outcome.
Oh, I’ve read Wright. He’s not a bad writer, even if his works aren’t really to my taste. But drawing the conclusion from him having fans to that all the fans suddenly appeared only this year, nominated the heck of everything because loved absolutely all he had written and nothing anyonelse wrote, nah.
It is not believable. There are a lot of writers out there, all of them with fans. Most of them with larger fanbases than Wright. Still, they have never managed to dominate the ballot in that way. And that they suddenly, as by pure chance, voted like that at the same time as 70% of the rabies slate was voted in? By pure magic the Wright fans was fans of exactly the same thing on the rest of the slate.
It is just stupid. Ridiculous. Only David Icke could believe in a scenario like that. Or gamergaters. They have the same amount of weird theoriers and strange thinking. A disconnect from reality.
Brian Z:
Honestly, do you honestly think that all people who don’t agree with each other have to be enemies? All this war talk.
I agree that the result propably was unexpected for the sad puppies. They couldn’t have known that the trolls would have chosen this year to jump into the fray. But still, what they were doing was slate campaigning. Special logo, campaign over several blogs, no difference in recommendation, and so on.
A big difference from recommending what you personally liked.
On a note of levity, I googled “nominate John C. Wright” and got:
9/05/04: I nominate John C. Wright as the “Official SFSignal Author”, and will hereby read everything he publishes.
3/09/11: I’d nominate John C. Wright or Peter F. Hamilton for the “Master of Modern Space Opera,” myself.
1/05/15: I nominate John C. Wright for biggest pseudo-intellectual.
I notice we haven’t done his titles yet.
“bully pulpits admonishing fans about how they should or shouldn’t vote in a fan award, and telling people what they should or shouldn’t read”
… the irony implicit in that statement is amazing.
Utter lack of self awareness is a key trait for the puppies/ gaters/ redpill division.
OK, I’ll bite. What’s the irony?
Utter lack of self awareness it was.
In that case someone’s gonna have to spell it out for me.
*Hampus casts level 5 irony cancellation on Brian Z*
Maybe you should go back and read what I wrote.
(Or, if that was meant in a nice way, thanks!)
Brian Z- John C. Wright is a very good writer, I agree.
For those who are upset that Vox Day organized his alleged minions to vote him onto the Hugo ballot, where were you when John Scalzi was “pimping” his work to his “massive” fan base? I fail to see any substantive difference between the two actions.
For those who asked which work was not deserving of a Hugo, I would also name Red Shirts. But tastes vary and, as some pointed out, a fairly popular author “pimping” his work could probably get enough fans to carry him across the finish line. It was certainly enough to get his work nominated in 2006, 2008 and 2009.
If we’re into SP3 in 2015, that would mean SP1 would have started around 2013. I wonder if Red Shirts was the spark that started this mess?
Looking over the nominees I noticed something. Scalzi is not the only author who “pimps” his work and became a regular Hugo nominee. Charlie Stross did the same thing (though I think he refers to it as “shilling”) and shows up 2004-2009, then re-appearing in 2014. I only looked at the best novel category. There are many others in the novella, etc., which I believe are easier to influence with a dedicated fan base.
I don’t recall anyone lamenting about the good work that the shilling and pimping efforts of Stross and Scalzi pushed off the ballot.
Nathaniel Givens takes a very fair stab at trying to logically work his way through the SP, RP and other groups Hugo controversy. Here’s a link:
http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/04/14/sad-puppy-data-analysis/
I think Finding 3 is very telling. While tastes may very, the chart shows that starting around 2010 there is a divergence between the Hugo winners and the nominees rankings on Goodreads. At this time, Hugo winners were consistently ranked lower than the mass of nominees, at least in the general public’s mind. Prior to 2010 this was largely not the case.
And while the literary types may sneer at the common reader’s opinion on the best of sci-fi, they shouldn’t complain (but do) when the common reader sneers right back.
By the way, Nathaniel Givens did a good job but would be the first to admit his work is not conclusive. Some of the data needed to pin down the issues won’t be available until after voting closes. Some of it will likely never be available. But I give him props for giving it the good old college try.
Speaking only for myself, I am of the opinion that there has been a problem with the Hugo awards for the last decade or so, with some exceptions. Not that good works weren’t nominated and not that good works didn’t win (they did), but those works seemed to deviate from past greats. Is anyone seriously contending that the last decade’s winners rival the works submitted in decades past by the likes of Roger Zelazny? So while good works have been nominated and won, they lack the halo of greatness that prior decades produced. Which causes the common reader, such as myself, to scratch their heads and wonder.
All in my non-expert opinion, of course.
Also watch Chaos Horizon for deep Ives into the data as well.
The science is definitely turning up interesting longitudinal findings. Midichlorians?
Brian Z:
Sorry, was just a pun on “spell out for”. 😉 You know, like the bad joke of why there are no goblin wizards. Because they can’t spell.
Shilling and pimping one’s own works in one’s blog is now expected of mid-list authors by their publishers, as a substitute for having anything like a publicity budget. Only high-selling authors get anything substantial in the way of a budget these days. If your favourite author isn’t mentioning when they’re eligible, then they’re either doing very well indeed, or they’re so unsuccessful that even their agents don’t care. And if they’re doing so well, what the blazes do they need a tin rocket for? Money is its own reward, and also serves as a symbol of how much one’s work is appreciated. Dan Brown wins no awards or critical accolades, but as long as he’s got a swimming pool full of bank notes, why should he care?
Also, I cannot comprehend the depth of disengenuousness (is that actually a word?) that equates mentioning which of one’s works are eligible for awards, and maybe mentioning a couple of others’ that they consider are worth reading and maybe rewarding with a nomination, with publishing a list of five ‘recommendations’ for every category and exhorting followers to vote to the slate as part of a co-ordinated and misguided political action. The intent is different, the scale of the action is different, and the scale of effect is way different.
Journal of Impropriety is doing reviews of the puppy noms, for those who are interested.
Read it here: http://secritcrush.livejournal.com/
(John C. Wright is a very good writer? de gustibus non est disputandum, I suppose.)
Nice one, Hampus.
Thanks for linking the Givens article. Nice, fairminded overview at first read.
NelC- So shiling and pimping one’s work is expected of authors, but it’s wrong when Vox Day does it for himself? Or is it only wrong when he does it for others?
Scalzi: “[I]t is once again time to list out the works I have eligible for consideration this year, for Hugos, Nebulas and other awards…. I would be delighted if you would consider these episodes in the appropriate short fiction Hugo categories.”
Vox: “[Rabid and Sad Puppies] have very different opinions concerning the optimal way to deal with the corruption and ideological rot that is rife within the world of modern science fiction and fantasy… I encourage those who value my opinion on matters related to science fiction and fantasy to nominate [these recommendations] precisely as they are.”
In other words, Scalzi announced that he wrote some stuff and asked his fans to consider that stuff for awards. Vox announced that he is a man with a mission and asked his fans to vote for his exact slate in order to advance that mission.
Well there’s the simplest mechanism for avoiding this problem; Limit nominations to only 3 nominations per category per member.
Then there’s the next simplest mechanism; increase the threshold for nominations to 20% or so and thus increase the number of nominees each year.
AFAIK either mechanism would put the kabosh on the Sad Puppy exploit of the nomination process and ensures at least some non-puppies will always make it into each category.
There’s also using a different voting system for nominations, say something using transferable votes and letting Condorcet sort it all out.
“It is very hard to discuss with gamergaters/puppies.”
You’re an optimist. I wouldn’t say it was very hard; I’d call it impossible.
The Puppies made a bad-faith effort to hijack the Hugos and they’re making a bad-faith effort to hijack every discussion board that allows them to participate.
“Well there’s the simplest mechanism for avoiding this problem; Limit nominations to only 3 nominations per category per member.”
There’s a proposal to be discussed at the Worldcon Business Meeting to increase the nominees from 5 to 6 and decrease the number an individual can nominate from 5 to 4.
Ideas like this will help, but if there are multiple popular slates they could still hijack an entire ballot and leave the rest of us with no voice in the process.
The interesting thing about Heinlein related non-fiction and the Hugos is that while it can get nominated for the Hugo*, it almost never wins and this has been true for a long time. The one exception I can think of is Panshin’s win in the 1960s, which I believe was due in large part to his Heinlein in Dimension.
* Has anyone pointed to the Heinlein fans centered on the Estate the covert War on Heinlein the Puppies appear to have declared? Yes, I know various Puppies claim they never heard of the second volume but if they were true Heinlein fans, wouldn’t they have made the effort to keep an eye out for the second volume?
There are some voting-theory wonks on the Making Light blog who have been putting together a more robust algorithm to apply to Hugo nominations, to make it harder for a minority (be it Puppy slatemakers or SJW tastemakers) to run the table. I personally like their proposal, but I don’t know if the voters at the WSFS Business Meeting will appreciate it or if their eyes will just glaze over.
Fred Davis on April 27, 2015 at 8:20 am said:
” Well there’s the simplest mechanism for avoiding this problem; Limit nominations to only 3 nominations per category per member”
What if there were two competing slates? Together, they would drive everything else off the ballot. We might end up with something like political parties. If we were really unlucky, they might act like the current US Congress.
Milt: only two?
@Seth Gordon: As a SP sympathizer, I like the voting proposals suggested at those Making Light threads (RAV or a similar algorithm), but like you I also doubt they will be adopted.
GRRM was completely opposed to changing the voting system, thinking that it’s a knee-jerk reaction and not stopping for a moment to consider whether it’s actually an improvement. I suspect his attitude will be typical.
If John C. Wright has a large fan base, it is of the very peculiar sort that doesn’t buy his books as the Bookscan numbers for his recent titles are in the low triple digits.
@James Davis Nicoll: It’s heartwarming how puppy-haters are suddenly so worried about the puppies not overlooking anything they might like. Kevin Standlee might appear now and remind you that not having read all eligible works is not a reason not to nominate, and that if you have read something that you think is award-worthy you should nominate it, even if there might be even better works you haven’t read.
Doesn’t say much for the strategy though, does it?
@Nick Mamatas: It just says they were not aware of every single book they might have liked. In that they are like any other voter.
By the way, classy way to talk about the sales of another writer. I, on the other hand, wish you the greatest success. The more writers who are successful the better.
Oh AG, we’re not talking about every single book, we’re talking about a Heinlein-related title being missed by a group of people for whom “Heinlein would not get a Hugo today” is both an article of faith and a call to arms.
Well, maybe, as it turns out, it is just the latter and the Lead Pups don’t give a shit. Sort of like how Strauss recommended elites use religion to motivate political behavior.
You seem entirely fine with discussing the size of a writer’s fanbase when it is limited to airy generalities and guesses. Facts don’t have to be classy, and spreading misinformation never is. Advise your pals not to make false claims about popularity if you don’t want me checking. It’s no sin to have low sales, by the way, and it wouldn’t have come up except for repeated appeals to imaginary fan bases.
Seth Gordon- Why not quote Brad Torgersen? Here are his words to the Sad Puppies:
“And here it is! After much combobulating, the official SAD PUPPIES 3 slate is assembled! As noted earlier in the year, the SAD PUPPIES 3 list is a recommendation. Not an absolute. Gathered here is the best list (we think!) of entirely deserving works, writers, and editors — all of whom would not otherwise find themselves on the Hugo ballot without some extra oomph received from beyond the rarefied, insular halls of 21st century Worldcon “fandom.”’
His list is clearly recommendations, not a call for mandatory voting. And I think his characterization is largely correct.
As to Vox Day, since when is his call for lock-step voting given him more power than Scalzi or Torgersen’s recommendations? Are you claiming his fans are mindless robots who obey his every command? Having visited his site over the last many weeks, I think this is a gross mischaracterization. They’re more like a pirate crew with Day serving as captain. Which means they can and do challenge him from time to time. They certainly think for themselves and generally don’t act en masse. If they didn’t and did, the numbers would be much higher.
Whether it is Day, Scalzi, or Torgersen readers, they are independent people. None of them have the ability to control their fans, either to buy memberships or for the works they vote. There may be a difference in the level of respect or deference they give, but that is an intangible difficult to quantify.
If we did attempt to quantify if, from what I can glean, the problem is that Day has more influence with his readers, than does Torgersen or Scalzi. And I’m not sure we can legislate against a writer’s influence.
And speaking of influence, GRRM recommended several novels for Hugo consideration in 2012. He’s probably one of the biggest guns out there. Where were the howls of outrage then?
Surprisingly, only two of his recommendations, Dance of Dragons and Leviathan Wakes, made the ballot. This limited comparison implies that Day (and maybe Torgersen) have more influence among their readers than does GRRM, which I would be surprised if true but it appears to be.
Fred Davis- I like the idea of limiting each person to three nominations in a field of five. It is simple and direct. It also avoids the cumbersome mechanics that have been proposed by some. And in my limited experience, the more complex the solution, the more exploits someone will discover to game the system.
Brad Torgersen’s announcement of SP3 could be read like he was abandoning the slate approach for a broad-based recommendation list, and look how that turned out. Best we wait for an explicit statement of how SP4 will work before getting our hopes up.
My “pals” can decide for themselves what they say, without me advising them. in any case, I have no idea about Wright’s sales. His series keeps getting published by Tor, which makes me think that he must be selling something. But I don’t know. Of his books I have only read the Golden Age trilogy, which was quite good. His latest seems to have a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Not that it is a guarantee of anything, but at least it seems that it’s not only puppies who like his works.
And I don’t know why you have such an obsession with puppies and Heinlein. He was used as an example because he was outspoken about ideas that would make left-wing fundamentalists have a fit, not because every puppy is a Heinlein fan. Asimov would not be a good example for this, would he? Not that it’s easy to just characterize Heinlein’s ideas as right-wing, though. His ideology was complex. I can only speak for myself, but if we have to talk about Golden Age writers I much prefer Asimov, whose works were the first to make me a SF fan. I have nothing against Heinlein, who was a very good storyteller when he wanted to. Besides, even if we were so obsessed with Heinlein as you seem to think, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we should love every biography of him.
Nick: Wright’s latest is also in the 20,000s in Kindle overall, which seems solidly midlist. Not a Correia or Scalzi, certainly not a Kloos (who is currently #73), but not unpopular. And lots of midlist authors have small but dedicated followings.
Also: Lots of people read very little nonfiction (even about authors they read). Humphrey Carpenter wrote a great biography of Tolkien; how many Tolkien fans, as a percentage, do you think have read it? 3%? 1%?
Honestly, if you can’t see the difference between:
“Let me make you aware of the writings I have writinated with my writinosity over the last the year, for you to considerate upon. Here what I have for you to consider for the 2012 nomination season:
Best Novel:
Fuzzy Nation, Tor Books, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, editor, May 2011”
…and…
“They are my recommendations for the 2015 nominations, and I encourage those who value my opinion on matters related to science fiction and fantasy to nominate them precisely as they are. I think it is abundantly evident that these various and meritorious works put not only last year’s nominations, but last year’s winners, to shame.
BEST NOVEL
Monster Hunter Nemesis by Larry Correia, Baen Books
The Chaplain’s War by Brad Torgersen, Baen Books
Skin Game by Jim Butcher, ROC
Lines of Departure, by Marko Kloos, self-published
The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson, Tor Books”
AND then go on to list a bunch of stuff that you published yourself…
Then, you’re a flaming idiot with limited grasp of basic logic and comon sense. Please try to be careful when operating heavy machinary and I would counsel against trying to walk and chew gum.
I’ll also note, that in that year, Scalzi didn’t make the ballot, so his sekrit cabal skills must be dreadful.
As others have said, it’s not like you’ve discovered something new, you’re exploiting a bug that everybody knew about but didn’t exploit and now you’re asking me to congratulate you for finding it? Sod off.
As to Vox Day, since when is his call for lock-step voting given him more power than Scalzi or Torgersen’s recommendations?
Day got a higher proportion of his recommendations on the ballot than Torgersen. In the rare case that Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies competed for limited nominations in the same Hugo category, the Rabid Puppies won. Sounds like a pretty clear measure of influence to me.
(If Day’s slate had overlapped strongly with, say, the LOCUS recommended-reading slate, then we might wonder how much to credit Day’s recommendation and how much to credit the influence of LOCUS reviewers. But of course, the Puppies’ ostensible mission is to push works that the Worldcon would otherwise neglect, so we do not have to worry about such confounding variables.)
As for Scalzi, I couldn’t find his 2013 award-pimpage post, but in 2012 he called his readers’ attention to one novel and two short stories; one of those short stories was nominated, and it didn’t win. Not exactly demonstrating an iron grip on the process, there.
There are many reasons why Tor (or any publisher) might keep publishing a poorly performing author, such as sheer love of that author’s fiction. If an editor has enough in the “winner” column, he or she can indulge in a “prestige” or “personal” acquisition or two. Or maybe someone upstairs at the publisher had a stroke! Who can tell?
The point is that I *do* have some idea of what books and magazines sell, and when a Puppy makes an appeal to the size of an author’s fan base or the popularity of some book, I’ll always double-check. if you don’t like it, feel free to slap your hand over your eyes when you see my cute little picture on your screen.
Heinlein had many ideas that left-wingers wouldn’t like, and more than a few that left-wingers would like. His ideas changed over time—it seems to have depended primarily on whom he was fucking. So who knows what a HeinleinBot 2015 would be writing? Perhaps he would have fallen under the sway of a redheaded non-binary SJW! (Or three!)
Incidentally, I never said anyone was obsessed with Heinlein; in fact I intimated the opposite–that the Lead Pups don’t really give a shit, but know what gets their audience riled up. Indeed, that the Lead Pups plum forgot that the biography existed despite the fact that its author died right before release, making it a news story, suggests that they’re not really interested in Heinlein at all and just use him as a bloody shirt to wave.
“As to Vox Day, since when is his call for lock-step voting given him more power than Scalzi or Torgersen’s recommendations? ”
Well, lets look at the data. Scalzi hasn’t made a pimpage post since 2012, at least not one I can find, others might have better Google-fu than me – but that suggests that Beale and Torgersen haven’t been playing this game on the field you think they have. Not to mention, if we look at the Rabid v. Sad slates, it appears that actually people voted for Beale’s slate in the way he posted them without much additional thought.
Looking back at when Scalzi did make posts, I notice he didn’t propose multiple recommendations for any category, he posted the work that *he* wrote for the categories it would be eligable for.
That isn’t remotely the same as listing a pile of works your publishing house publishes.
“BEST NOVELLA
“One Bright Star to Guide Them” by John C. Wright, Castalia House (Spanish)
“Big Boys Don’t Cry” by Tom Kratman, Castalia House (German, Italian)
“The Plural of Helen of Troy” by John C. Wright, City Beyond Time / Castalia House
“Pale Realms of Shade” by John C. Wright, , The Book of Feasts & Seasons / Castalia House
“Flow” by Arlan Andrews Sr., Analog November 2014″
Unless you’ve got more than that then you’re done.