It was a prolific day, with new posts from Sad Puppies’ Torgersen and Correia, and Rabid Puppies’ Vox Day, puppy supporters Dave Freer and Amanda S. Green, and detractors John Scalzi and David Gerrold. A host of new voices joined the exchange. And Adam-Troy Castro has penned something that is either a satire, or a candidate for the Sad Puppies 4 slate — decide for yourself.
Dave Freer on Mad Genius Club
“Battlers” – April 20
It’s been interesting to see how this has spun in the little circus that has been the Hugo Awards this year. The big guys, Nielsen Hayden, Stross, GRRM, Scalzi – you know wealthy, powerful white men who have won huge numbers of Hugo Nominations and indeed awards, are up in arms because some rag-tag bunch of uppity little battlers who’d never been there before, from across the social, political, racial and sexual spectrum got nominated, instead of a narrower group they approve of – including… just by chance, themselves and friends, many of whom who have multiple prior noms and awards. It’s taken away diversity and these nominees want women and ‘PoC’ (‘People of Color’ which bizarrely is not offensive, but ‘Colored People’ is just vile. It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?) Of course these rich, powerful white men are feminists and oppose racism. Are they leading the charge because they think white men are just naturally better at it?
Look, all we’ve really got is making fun of the bastards. I feel kind of guilty sometimes because it is so easy, but hell’s teeth, they’ve brought enough weight to bear against us. I’m kind of losing count at the rent-a-hit journalism (a plainly very ethical field, full of honest honorable folk) informing us we’re all rich white men oppressing everyone and winding the clock back. Is it daylight savings over there already?
Still, I’m glad to be learning my place from David Gerrold. I’d never have guessed that I was one of the little people otherwise.
John Scalzi on Whatever
“Keeping Up With the Hugos” – April 20
At this point Correia and Torgersen have to decide whether they want to be known either as Day’s fellow travelers, or his useful idiots. Or both! It could be both. Neither of these options makes them look good; nor, obviously, fits with their own self-image of being Brave Men Fighting the Good Fight™. But in fact, they aren’t fighting a good fight, and in fact, they got played. So: Fellow travelers or useful idiots. These are the choices.
* Also, can we please now stop pretending that this whole Puppy nonsense began for any other reason than that once upon a time, Larry Correia thought he was going to win an award and was super pissed he didn’t, and decided that the reason he didn’t had to be a terrible, awful conspiracy against people just like him (a conservative! Writing “fun” fiction!), as opposed to, oh, the voters deciding they just plain liked something and someone else better?
…(And yes, I know, Correia declined his nomination for the Hugo this year. Let’s talk about that for a minute, shall we. It takes a very special sort of fellow to allow himself to be on a slate to get nominated, marshal people to nominate him for the award as part of a slate, and then decline — and write a big ol’ puffed-up piece about why he was declining, social justice warriors, blows against the empire, blah blah blah, yadda yadda. Yes, nice he declined the nomination and let someone else on the ballot. But it’s a little like wanting credit for rescuing a baby squirrel when you knocked the baby squirrel out of the tree to begin with.)
To be clear, the Puppy nonsense now isn’t just about Correia really really really wanting validation in the form of a rocketship; Day’s stealing the Puppy movement right out from under Correia and Torgerson has changed things up quite a bit, and it’s certainly true at this point that this little campaign is about a bunch of people trying to shit in the punchbowl so no one else can have any punch. But at the beginning, it was Correia hurt and angry that someone else got an award he thought was his, and deciding that it was stolen from him, rather than being something that was never his to begin with. And I’m sorry for him that it didn’t go his way. But actual grown human beings deal with disappointment in ways other than Correia has.
Nick Mamatas in a comment on Whatever
If the Hugos have really been dominated by leftist material that prized message over story since the mid-1990s (Brad’s timeline), it should be very simple for members of the Puppy Party to name
a. one work of fiction
b. that won a Hugo Award
c. while foregrounding a left message to the extent that the story was ruined or misshaped
d. per set of winners since 1995.
That’s all. Just a list of twenty books or stories—a single winner per year. Even though a single winner per year wouldn’t prove domination, I’m happy to make it easy for the Puppies.
Any Puppy Partisan want to start naming some names?
Brad R. Torgersen
“Nuking the Hugos from orbit” – April 20
The chief sin of Sad Puppies 3 seems to be that we were transparent and we were successful beyond all expectation.
Many a red herring has been lobbed at us over the past three weeks. All of these are colossal distractions from the central question I’ve been asking my entire (short, so far) career: do the Hugos even matter anymore, and if they don’t, how to we get them to matter again?
My logic has been: get more people to vote, and bring those people in from diverse sectors of the consumer market, and the cachet of the award increases because more and more people from a broader spectrum of the totality of fandom (small f) will have a stake in the award, pay attention to what’s selected for the final ballot, and will view the award as a valid marker of enjoyability; or at least notoriety.
Especially since the Hugos have already been subjected to numerous manipulations (again, all behind the scenes) by authors, voters, and publishers, who all seem to want the Hugo to better reflect their tastes, their interests, their politics, and their pet points they want to make with the award.
Brad R. Torgersen
“Ringing the bell” – April 20
Picking up where I left off with my post on tribalism. Because I wanted to talk specifically about a recurrent kind of “broken” I am seeing in arguments all over the place — beyond the tiny halls of the Peoples Republic of Science Fiction. This “broken” is most commonly manifested among well-meaning straight Caucasian folk, but is often fostered and preached about by non-straight and/or non-Caucasians of a particularly aggressive “progressive” persuasion.
Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook
The irrepressible ensign, whose blonde hair and pale complexion had put him on the fast track to command from the very first medical determination that he was not gay, reported, “It’s a SJW vessel, Captain. They’re demanding our surrender!”
Captain Christian White grimaced, heterosexually. He remembered the last time a Federation vessel had allowed an SJW cruiser its way, sashaying across the universe at multiple times the speed of light. The Federation’s resolve had weakened, the rockets had sagged a little on their pads, and one of the medals for valor that year had actually gone to somebody with a slightly ethnic last name. Only the keen perception of Captain White and his fellow cabal had recognized that this was the sign of a vile conspiracy, and allowed the institution of safeguards to make sure that this would never happen again.
Kevin Standlee
“Combatting Hugo Despair” – April 20
If you don’t clean up graffiti, it typically spreads.
- Cleaning up graffiti is hard work.
- It is easier, when you see graffiti defacing something nice, to say, “Oh, what a shame. I loved that once, but now it’s defaced, so I guess we’d better abandon it” than to break out the scrub brushes and solvent and to organize the community to help clean it up.
- Initially, when you clean up graffiti, it’s not unusual for the vandals to consider it a nice clean slate for their next attack.
- If you consistently clean up graffiti attacks, after a while the vandals discover that almost nobody ever sees their works of destruction, and eventually they will give up and go away because they stop getting any egoboo out of defacing things.
My position with the Hugo Awards, the World Science Fiction Convention, and the World Science Fiction Society? Well, I’m putting on my coveralls, buying some heavy duty scrub brushes, picking up the box of old rags, and rummaging around in the garage for that industrial-sized can of solvent I know we had in there somewhere.
David Gerrold on Facebook – April 18
Some draconian measures have been suggested. Those cures would be worse than the disease and would pretty much hand a victory to the self-appointed super-villain. He would have succeeded in destroying the award.
I think there’s a simpler solution. I’m tossing it out here for discussion. What if we gave the Worldcon committee the discretion to create a committee of qualified individuals who would review the nominating ballots and set aside any that show strong evidence of ballot stuffing? So if a hundred ballots come in and they are all identical — and if they all contain nominations for works or individuals that are not represented or significantly under-represented on any other ballots, then that can be seen as evidence of a ballot-stuffing effort and those ballots can be set aside.
This would not disqualify recommended reading lists. Those would still be encouraged.
Notice the separate components. The Worldcon committee themselves will not have the responsibility for adjudicating — instead, they have the option of creating an independent committee of qualified individuals, preferably past Worldcon committee members. Second, they cannot set aside ballots willy-nilly, only those that show evidence of a slate. If the slate-mongering has been a public effort, it’s an easier job. But if a hundred ballots come in all voting for the same stories and there are no other ballots that also include any of those stories, then that’s evidence of a ballot-stuffing campaign and the ballots should be set aside.
Had such a rule been in place this year, the entire rabid slate could have been nullified, while still allowing the majority of voters their rightful opportunities to be heard.
Rogers Cadenhead on Workbench
“Brad Torgersen’s ‘Science Fiction Civil War’” – April 20
There’s a lot about this situation that gets me all het up, but I’m beginning to savor the insane grandiosity of Torgersen (pictured above), a previously obscure SF/F author who led the bloc-voting campaign this year and dubbed it “Sad Puppies 3.”
On April 8, Torgersen wrote a blog post on his personal site called “The Science Fiction Civil War” that he later deleted.
Here’s the text of that post, which offers a fantastic glimpse into the preening self-regard that inspired him to lead a culture war against a much-loved SF/F award that fans of all political beliefs have nurtured since 1953….
John C. Wright
NPR Upholds Morlock Journalistic Ethics – April 20
Well, well. The NPR weekend show ON THE MEDIA has joined the lynch mob, and done their level best to add hysteria and contumely and smother any trace of rational dialog in the little sortie of the Culture Wars known as Sad Puppies.
They were paid for by my tax money, my dear readers, and yours.
And before you ask, no, no journalist, no editor, no one contacted me or interviewed me or made any attempt known to me to hear from the counsel for the defense. At a real witch trial held by the real Inquisition, even the devil gets an advocate and someone speaks up for defendant being accused of witchcraft.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Puppies on NPR” – April 20
KW listened in and heard NPR doing their usual bang-up job on Sad Puppies. For me, the most intriguing aspect of the media coverage has been the near-complete lack of interest in actually talking to anyone involved in the actual news-making activity. I mean, I am about as cynical a media skeptic as it is possible to be, and yet somehow, these journalistic incompetents haven’t even managed to rise to my very, very low level of expectations.
Larry Correia on Monster Hunter International
“Catching up, then back to work” – April 20
Apparently there were a bunch more stupid articles and news reports this weekend, still running with the angry straight white men, anti-diversity slate angle. I don’t even bother reading them anymore. It is all the same script. I didn’t even know Popular Science was still around.
In the interest of full disclosure, none of the hit pieces tried to talk to us, but NPR’s On The Media did try to reach out. They sent me an email, they wanted to speak on the phone to gather info, but it was on a day when I was running around the wilds of Yard Moose Mountain and I missed their call. I sent them an apology the next morning.
I haven’t listened, but I heard they brought in professional outrage monger Arthur Chu to explain everything. Ha! But to be fair, they at least tried.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Black Gate withdraws” – April 20
Or rather, they have asked to not be considered for the Hugo award for which they will be on the ballot. While I disagree with John’s decision, I respect his right to make it. I find it ironic, however, that people are responding to a large group of people dictating the ballot by unilaterally dictating to people for whom they will not vote.
I also find it telling that a threat to support No Award next year is supposedly worse than a vow to do it this year. I am curious. Would they consider it better if I accepted what passes for their reasoning and announced that Rabid Puppies will join the No Award movement this year? Because that is certainly an option. (Settle down, you bloodthirsty bastards, I said no more than the obvious. It is an option.)
The goal is to improve the Awards, not destroy them. But if the SJWs would rather destroy them than relinquish their control, well, that will tell the world exactly what sort of totalitarians they are. That’s two birds for the price of one. We’ve already got them on the record stating that our views are invalid and should be suppressed by force; seeing them demolish the awards without our assistance will communicate that more effectively than we can do ourselves.
Joe Sherry on Adventures in Reading
Hugo News: Black Gate Edition – April 20
What I am most curious about here is that because the ballots are already at the printer, Sasquan is unable to remove Black Gate from the ballot (apparently some people still use paper ballots – because science fiction is a genre of the future…) – but will Black Gate’s request be honored? Will votes for Black Gate just not be counted? This might be the easiest solution.
Lou Antonelli on Facebook – April 20
Got my annual Mensa membership card in the mail today. I’m not showing this out of vanity, it’s just I’ve found it’s a good idea to keep it handy because the first slur the Anti-Puppy snobs usually toss out when disrespecting you is “stupid”.
Amanda S. Green on Nocturnal Lives
“No winners?” – April 20
And that is the problem. They are making Vox the issue and are, in all too many instances, refusing to even consider a nominee he might have liked or recommended. That is, as I have said before, a disservice to all those authors and artists who have done good work, worthy work.
Look, here’s the truth of the matter. Vox is but one man. Yes, he might say things that make us uncomfortable. He might believe things that seem further out than left field. But, as writers and artists, we have no control over who reads/sees or likes our work. If you don’t like Vox and can’t bring yourself to read his work, that’s fine. But don’t condemn others who have no relationship to him except for the fact he nominated them. (Full disclosure here, I was one both SP3 and Rabid Puppies. I didn’t realize I was on Rabid Puppies until well after the nominees were announced.)
Doctor Science on Obsidian Wings
“Vox Day is exploiting the Sad Puppies for personal gain” – April 20
I don’t know the details of the rules, but I figure this is probably enough evidence for Sasquan’s Hugo Awards Committee to decide that Castalia House engaged in illegal ballot-stuffing under the current rules, and to remove all Castalia House-associated nominees from the Hugo Ballot. If it’s an option, I’d suggest that Vox Day and Castalia House be considered ineligible for nomination for at least a few years going forward, too.
Rjurik Davidson on Overland
“The Mad Puppies revenge” – April 21
How do we best understand this culture war? The immediate cause, it seems, is the fact that in recent years, the Hugo Awards have been transformed. In other words, there has been a slow, molecular, and very incomplete growth of progressive values within science fiction and fantasy, along with the concomitant breaking down of established racist, homophobic and patriarchal barriers. The number of women nominees, for example, reached rough parity between 2011-2013. In this way, again, it parallels the Gamergate controversy: games having been once the protected turf of white males.
https://twitter.com/johnmarkley/status/590293279545110529
My reaction to the #HugoAwards controversy? I just paid to attend @SasquanSF in Spokane Aug 19-23. There's too much I love about the field.
— Frank Catalano (@FrankCatalano) April 21, 2015
Jon F. Zeigler on Sharrukin’s Palace
“My first (and last) word on the Hugos” – April 20
[Here is the most novel approach to the voting process I have read (no pun intended.) (Well, maybe a little intended.) The decision to use a concrete example as a reference point sets Zeigler apart from most in the “I know quality when I see it” camp. And it is also a solution that is not obviously driven by an agenda. Very interesting idea:]
In each category, in so far as I am able and with only one general exception, I plan to examine all the works on the ballot and give them fair consideration. I will rank them in order of their quality, using my own tastes and criteria. So far I doubt I’m planning to do anything unusual.
Where my strategy may be distinctive is that I plan to examine six items for each category – the five on the ballot, and the item that I consider to have been the best eligible work that did not reach the ballot.
So for example, in the Best Novel category this year, on the final ballot we have:
- Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
- The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson
- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
- Skin Game by Jim Butcher
- The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu
I know some of those works got onto the ballot because of slate voting and some did not. At least one novel, in fact, was added to the ballot only after an author whose novel was on one of the slates withdrew it from consideration. I’m not going to take any of that into account. As much as I disapprove of organized slates, it’s still possible that a slate might have selected the best available work.
On the other hand, it’s also possible – even likely – that a slate will actually push some of the best available works out of consideration. In fact, the people organizing this year’s slates allege that this has already been happening for a long time – that other parties have (informally) manipulated the nominations process to exclude otherwise deserving work.
All right, so let me correct for that possibility. That’s where the sixth work under consideration in each category comes in. I’ll read and evaluate that work too, but it will hold the slot for No Award in its category. Thus, if I find that a work on the ballot is markedly inferior to the one that did not get nominated, I will have to assume that something went wrong. Either my tastes are really unusual, or some form of manipulation of the nominations process pushed the more deserving work off the ballot. In either case, I’ve identified a work that will rank below No Award in my selection.
To return to my example, the sixth work I’ll include in my decision-making process will probably be Echopraxia, by Peter Watts. I read that novel a couple of months ago, and it quite impressed me at the time. So any novel that I find is at least comparable in quality to Echopraxia will get ranked above No Award on my ballot. Any novel that I find is clearly not comparable will get ranked below No Award.
https://twitter.com/deirdresm/status/590345129199730689
Mark Ciocco on Kaedrin weblog
“The Three-Body Problem” – April 19
However, since this year’s Hugo awards are so weirdly contentious, one of the Best Novel nominees dropped out of the race. I’m not sure if this is unprecedented or not, but it’s highly unlikely nonetheless (authors often refuse their nomination, but are given a chance to do so before the finalists are announced – this situation where an author sees the lay of the year’s Hugo land and simply opts out was surprising) and many were expecting this to mean that the Best Novel category would only include 4 nominees. After all, adding the next most popular nominee would tell everyone who got the least nominating votes (info that is only published after the awards are handed out) and honestly, given the current situation, this precedent seems ripe for abuse. Nevertheless, the Hugo administrators opted to fill the open slot with The Three-Body Problem (a non-Puppy nominee, though from what I’ve seen, the Puppies seem to really enjoy this book). From left off the ballot to potential winner, quite a turn of events. Of the two nominees I’ve read, this is clearly ahead and could possibly take my number 1 vote. It is a bit of an odd duck, but I quite enjoyed it.
John C. Wright
“Not so much Dino-hate, Please!” – April 20
At the risk of alienated my beloved fans who voted either for Sad Puppies or Rabid and elevated my humble work to a world-record number of nominations, I would like to state something for the record.
A lot of us are ragging on Rachel Swirsky’s prose poem ‘If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love‘ which was Hugo nominated and won a Nebula for its category.
And, for the record, I for one do not think ‘If You Were a Dinosaur’ is bad. I do not think it is great, but tastes differ.
The author with admirable brevity of space establishes a gay and playful mood, using a stream of consciousness technique and adhere to a strict textual scheme (lifted from IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE) and then fishtailing into a surprise ending that is poignant and moving, all within less than 1000 words.
Stevie Carroll in Women & Words
“This Year’s Hugo Awards, Diversity in SF and Fantasy, and the Bechdel Test” – April 20
Diversity in SF and Fantasy has been a major discussion topic at both the conventions I’ve been to this year as well as on a lot of author blogs in the genre that I follow (most of which fall into a group of bloggers that the anti-feminist, anti-diversity complainers derisively refer to as Social Justice Warriors because they’re somehow offended by the idea that straight white men might actually support feminism and other forms of equality campaigning). I think two of my favourite comments came from a discussion panel on Dr Who – one from a white woman who described her feelings of alienation when she moved in the 1980s (IIRC) from a typical inner city in the UK to Cambridge where the population was far less diverse than she was used to, and the other from an audience member who asserted that these days if the Doctor is to be invisible (in the sense of generally ignored by those around him) in a lot of places then he could do worse than being either a young black man or a woman in her fifties or older.
William Reichard on Plaeroma
“RE: Update on sci-fi & the ‘Hugo Maneuver’” – April 20
Just a quick update to let everybody know our plan is working better than we could have anticipated. “Debate” on the subject of the Hugo Awards has become a self-perpetuating firestorm that shows no signs of lessening. Writers on all sides of the issue are fully engulfed, and the conflagration even shows promising signs of spreading to the larger culture.
Rest assured, any dangerous minds on all sides will be doing nothing else of significance for months if not years thanks to this coup, and thus we are safe to continue our diabolical work with impunity for now as the discussion descends into ever more atomic and arcane levels.
Wikipedia adds section to entry for “Theodore Beale” – April 20
2015 Hugo Awards
In 2015 Beale’s slate of candidates for the Hugo Awards, which placed most of its nominees on the ballot, led two authors to withdraw their own nominations, and for one presenter to withdraw from the event.
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(adding to my last comment): In fact, I may be wrong about this, but I think I read that the opposite motion was approved the last Worldcon, forbidding any Worldcon from selling voting rights cheaply. It is up for ratification this year, if I’m not mistaken? I may be wrong, though. I’m not sure about it.
AG: Yes. It’s item A.4 in the Business Passed On to this year’s Business Meeting.
“Vox Day” isn’t the devil, “Vox Day” is Trelane. “Vox Day” isn’t a latter-day Harlan Ellison, “Vox Day” is the first clown out of the clown car.
I suspect he got his feelings hurt when his story came out behind “No Award”, which is a rare thing, up to now. It seems he wants more people to join him, so he or his supporters can say, “See, fans vote for “No Award” because they’re mad, not because a work is bad”. That would explain the threats of escalation, at least.
“Vox” isn’t Spartacus, “Vox” is Trelane.
I think AG:s way of thinking is part of the problem. He is not interested in going to Worldcon himself. He’s not helping arranging the convents, not spending his free time on administration, on reading mail, phoning potential guest speakers, trying to puzzle together panels. He is not interested in working at a conventin as a host, helping out.
But there are people doing that. That has put a lot of time and effort into keeping the conventions and the Hugos going. And still, still the only thing they require for you to get your say is to actually visit the convention. Show your interest.
The only thing they require for you to vote is to have read the proposed works which they even provide for all voters at a hefty discount. But that is not enough for you. You want slates to win where the voters doesn’t even know what they have voted for. Where the slatemonger just said “trust me”.
That is a weird sense of entitlement.
AG:
Yes, and people from “outside the Worldcon” by definition do not own it. Why is this so difficult for you to understand? If you care that much and can convince a majority of the members of WSFS (whose membership is defined by Worldcon membership) to consistently vote to change things the way you want them to be, then you get you way. But if you will not or cannot do that, then your primary option is to set up the Real Awards run the way you want it done. If your assumptions are correct, the Real Awards will be what everyone flocks to participate in and before long nobody will pay any attention to anything but the Real Awards.
Nobody is making you set up new awards, but nobody is forbidding you from doing so, either. And the people who do own the Hugo Awards might show some resentment at an aggrieved minority coming in and saying, “Change everything to suit us or else we’re going to burn your town to the ground.”
AG, this is probably what you’re remembering if you scroll to the end of this document:
http://www.wsfs.org/bm/bpo-2014.pdf
You can read the minutes of the WSFS business meeting at Loncon for more information about what was discussed about it, if you’re interested. My general impression is that some felt a Supporting Membership was not just to pay for things like published materials, but to support the WSFS as an organization as well.
Ah, I see Keven Standlee has already responded!
“Did you also tell Vonda McIntyre she was being paranoid when she posted that absurd ‘I’ll Walk With You’ piece?”
No. The reason I suggested Antonelli was being paranoid was because of the comparison to Lee Harvey Oswald being killed by Jack Ruby.
I see no reason to think that the people who travel to Worldcon in Spokane will be angry and abusive. It is a convention of pretty manageable size whose organizers are committed to making it a safe, friendly, harassment-free environment.
None of the Puppies organizers plan to attend. But if other outspoken pro-Puppies supporters do go, I expect they’ll enjoy the experience. It’s a lot easier to be hostile on the Internet than in a face-to-face social setting, particularly one with norms as long-established as those of Worldcon.
“Seeing a grace note from you is a surprise because you’re so often vicious on your personal blog in your remarks about gays, atheists, Democrats and any other group you dislike.
Your outrage over Legend of Korra prompted you to declare, “Men abhor homosexuals on a visceral level. … I have never heard of a group of women descended on a lesbian couple and beating them to death with axhandles and tire-irons, but that is the instinctive reaction of men towards fags.”
Pardon me for being blunt, but you lie.
I have never made a vicious comment about gays, and it is disingenuous for you to pretend I have. I made vicious comments about leftists who promote and encourage gays to ruin their lives. I had a death in the family because of such lies, and I freely admit I hate liars who tell them.
Liars, not gays. Leftists, not gays. Can you grasp the difference?
It is YOU who I declare my enemy, not them. Stop trying to hide behind them.
And, again you lie by quoting me mocking the thought process of the writers of Korra, that is, me stating what they think Conservatives think like.
That quote was an answer to a question from a reader asking me why I thought the writers decided to smuggle a lesbian into their children’s show rather than a homosexual man. I was MOCKING THEM, dullard, not agreeing with them.
And you have the gall to boast about reading my comments in context while deliberately reading them out of context. Good grief! Does your hypocrisy and falsehood know no bounds, no shame?
Odd that you and your continually scream about ‘homophobia’ (such a stupid word!) and yet when I (in jest) say such a thing exists and that all men have it, you call ME the bigot — for parroting you!!
I show no hesitation at all in boasting that I hate other things I find hateful — the nihilistic philosophy that has eaten away your brain and soul, not the least — and yet you must pretend that in this one area only I keep my true thoughts hidden, and will not admit the truth.
Hogwash. What motive do I have? Do you think I solicit YOUR good opinion?
‘Nobody is making you set up new awards, but nobody is forbidding you from doing so, either. And the people who do own the Hugo Awards might show some resentment at an aggrieved minority coming in and saying, “Change everything to suit us or else we’re going to burn your town to the ground.”’
Or insinuating that the only reason for the price is for nefarious reasons rather than administrative and conventions costs, plus considering the bulk of work provided for the voters it’s a very cheap cost for the content they give, an great value to any Sci-Fi/Fantasy fan, all out of wanting the voters to actually know the content they’re voting on.
They shouldn’t need to change that.
Well, legally you are right, of course: the Hugos belong to a private club called Worldcon. However, many people seem to believe that spiritually they belong to all fandom. If everybody agreed about what they are we wouldn’t have this problem. Perhaps it should be explained better. But make no mistake, what makes the Hugo awards important is that many people still think they represent or should represent the breadth of fandom. Are you sure you do not want them to be that? Because if they lose that, then the Hugos are irrelevant except for a bunch of people.
AG: Relevance is a subjective and variable quality. Especially because social media treats the award as a means of leveraging publicity for specialized concerns. For some it means how many stories are on the ballot that would have fit comfortably in John W. Campbell’s Analog. For others it means applying something akin to Micawber’s definition of happiness, counting every year how many women authors are on the ballot and if too few, “result misery,” regardless of the outcome in other years. And so on.
Anyway, as you can see, it is all the Worldcon can manage to keep the Hugo Award faithful to its mission of being a poll of people who take the trouble to join the Worldcon.
“I was MOCKING THEM, dullard, not agreeing with them.”
Here’s the comment we are discussing, absent the part you deleted after the Hugo ballot was announced (“but that is the instinctive reaction of men towards fags”):
http://www.scifiwright.com/2014/12/the-perversion-of-a-legend/#comment-108738
Some questions:
1. Where in your comment do you state that you are describing the thought processes of others, not expressing your own opinion?
2. Why do you use the first person “I” if you are instead talking about how you believe other people think?
3. The next paragraph after your use of first person begins with you answering a direct question: “So, yes, it is related to porn.” You state later in the same paragraph, “One cannot hold up a homosexual couple, not even Socrates and Alcibiades, which men will not find gross and unsightly.” Is it your opinion that gay couples are “gross and unsightly,” or did you shift back to describing the thoughts of others?
4. If you did shift, where in that paragraph do you make this clear?
To be honest, it really pisses me off that there is no respect for the organizers. I mean, I am an organizer for smaller events. Perhaps 50 – 100 persons. But have also been helping out on events for a few thousands. And let me tell you this.
It takes *months* of works with no spare time to arrange those. You neglect your friends and your family. You loose money on it. For a convention of Worldcons size there has to be work year around.
Most of this is unpaid work. People who makes this their life. Puts everything into this to make a good time for everyone. They are tired, falling a sleep on their feet, but still working. Usually you are totally gone the days after. But what you live on is the enthusiasm, the thanks, the happy faces.
And you puppies are destroying this. Just because you liked one book better than the other. You don’t want to help, you don’t want to put in any work. Just complain, complain, complain.
So I’m telling you this: Conventions aren’t made for people as you. If only complainers existed, there would be no conventions. And in this case, it would have meant no Hugo.
And thats it. The people you attack as “insiders” are the organizers. Without them, no Hugo. So whine away. Don’t expect anyone to listen unless you actually visit snd show you *yourselves* are prepared to work for change. Not only expect other people to work for you.
Apropos of “award pimpage,” I didn’t know how that term arose and looked it up (sorry if this is common knowledge).
In December 1998, it was reported: “I get mixed messages on my attempts to pimp for the Internet Websites Top 100. I got a bit bummed over a letter complaining about my (what I felt was) good natured lobbying for votes (I wish I could find it to repost here, it basically said look at all the visits and stuff you get, it’s not classy to pimp like that… So I’ll continue to keep an eye on feedback about this burning issue if anyone provides it. In the meantime, consider this the pimpage for the week…
By October 2003, it was about Google: “Heavy pimpage of castitas.com has also raised that site to a PR 4, as I expected.”
In November 2004, there was “Behind the scenes Magazine Pimpage” for Bungie.net. On livejournal, ship_manifesto did “self-pimpage” for “My Doggett/Scully music videos,” and pjammer wrote: “PS: Pimpage. If you enjoyed OCD & War-Dialing San Francisco, I’d like to ask you a favor and vote this entry in the ‘Best of Craigslist.’ 🙂 [/whoring].”
In February 2005, Scalzi posted “The S.L. Viehl Memorial Self-Pimpage Entry.” I gather Scalzi meant to give Viehl, primarily a romance author, a friendly ribbing for the habit of frequent self-promotion on her website. I wonder if there was a self-effacing subtext in there that self-promotion (of Old Man’s War) was slightly crass, tawdry or embarrassing.
In January 2006, he riffed on that theme with “The Full Extent of My Personal Award Pimpage for 2006.” The second comment on that post was “Well, as long as we’re up for shamelessly slutty awards campaigning, I’ve got some of my own going on here. (Also, my own suggestions as to Best Novel noms are therein.) Spread the love!”
I guess the rest is history.
“I was MOCKING THEM, dullard, not agreeing with them.”
Ahh, the moronic cry of any bigot caught in the act: it was only a joke/satire.
Doesn’t work, mr. Wright. Nor does the frantic scrubbing of your internet history prove anything other than that you’re not just a nasty bigot, you’re a cowardly nasty bigot.
But than you knew that already, not even having the “courage” to assault a deadly ill man for his opinions, remember?
Mr. Wright has a habit of trying to weasel out of his words, but the internet never forgets:
https://file770.com/?p=20793&cpage=1#comment-246608
Note how Mr. Wright in his weaseling conveniently omits his overt coupling of “wholesome” with “deviant” when describing ‘normal’ vs. homosexual characters. So no Mr. Wright, you really are condemning gays directly. Shame on you for trying to pretend otherwise.
‘Odd, why, Nigel?
That is the way I always act. I am not a creature of emotion. You did not notice before this?
Ask yourself how much of your opinion about me is based on reading things I myself have actually written – when read in full and in context – versus how much is based on proof text, misquotes, and what others who do not know me have said about my motives.’
Odd because you mostly seem to write stuff like this, which is a lot of things, but not graceful. On the other hand your words about Swirsky were concise, insightful and fair. Kudos.
Do we really need so many insults flying around here?
“Vile”? I’d say using the word “vile” using Orwell’s dictionary where “compared to what” has been excised is problematic:
You have a multi-Nebula-nominated intersectionalist writing that Brad Torgersen “resorted to a lesser version” of Jim Crow voting (link) literacy tests “his forbears used to defend their hoarded privileges — like enlisting the aid of violent bigots” like Daddy Warpig.
For proof of Torgersen’s bigotry and racism our Nebula nominee links to a site where we find this about Torgersen:
“… a white man steps up and games the system to make it less diverse… the Internet’s vast stores of racists and misogynists have bought Supporting Memberships and started voting.”
Not only does Torgersen again default to a racist on zero evidence just like his racist daddy and his racist daddy’s racist daddy before him, but he can’t even push back in the first place considering that site’s comments policy:
“Comments that are… implicitly sexist, racist, or otherwise marginalizing are subject to deletion. Users can be banned on the first offense for… Posting comments that question or denigrate the value of marginalized voices.”
That does not preclude the possibility my comment will end up with cement overshoes.
As long as this community has such a massive gap in what is considered “vile” or acceptable behavior, namely that of one person being “vile” to and expelled from the community, while utterly racist and bootless remarks garner awards nominations and responses from other award winners and literary organization presidents like “Yes, to all of this” and “fabulous,” the Hugos will continue to get pranked.
“Vile”? In what community of WRITERS that ever existed can one reject Wright’s comments and embrace the other while adding in the jocularity the other can’t even be named and also the “marginalized” can’t even be disagreed with?
That’s not a literary community but a dead-from-the-neck-up cult of delusional Orwellian doublethink and hypocrisy that deserves every bit of pranking that can be brought to bear on it.
AG, just out of curiosity, suppose the Worldcon and the Hugos did not exist, and you wanted to establish a “Best SF Novel Of The Year” award, to be chosen by “all fandom”. How would such an award be chosen?
James May: It’s interesting that you would respond to a very specific criticism — that a particular comment about gays by Wright was “vile” — by trying to change the subject entirely to some other behavior you find objectionable.
You don’t engage at all on whether his comment was accurately characterized.
I had nothing to do with Day being ousted from SFWA. I am not a member of that group. I had nothing to do with Torgersen or Correia being portrayed as racists. I’ve never said that.
Is it your premise that no one is allowed to call out objectionable comments in the SF/F community until everything that was ever objectionable is criticized first? That seems like a daunting task.
James May’s word salad farts are the written equivalent of a squid venting ink: signifying nothing but the desire to cloud any discussion he enters.
Regarding the pricing of convention memberships: As many of you reading this know (but other may not), Worldcons are financially independent entities. They are obliged to stand or fall on their own. Consequently, they tend to be very conservative on their budgeting, because nobody is going to pick them up if they fall down. There’s no surplus from last year on which they can depend. They can’t “make it up next year.” Therefore, with a compelling reason to do so, no Worldcon is going to sell a membership that costs them more to service in marginal costs than the revenue it brings in. Furthermore, the fixed costs of a Worldcon are large, and that means that every membership class is expected to bring in more than its marginal cost to operate, because the surplus over variable cost helps pay for that overhead.
Supporting memberships’ variable costs can be calculated in many ways, but they do include the right of every member to request paper copies of all of the convention’s publications be mailed to them using postal mail. Those publications cost money to print and they cost money to mail. Indeed, there’s a fair expectation that for members outside of the USA, the convention does lose money on individual memberships, but chooses to let the US members cross-subsidize those memberships to make the convention more of a World convention.
I haven’t done the analysis recently, but while I was one of those people who beat the drum for lower membership costs, I was not asking Worldcons to lose money on their membership sales. I also think that in general a membership called “supporting” should, indeed, support the convention. Consequently, I doubt that under current conditions it would be wise for a Worldcon to charge less than $40 for a supporting membership, and I see that MAC2 next year has set theirs to $50, as they are certainly allowed to do.
The Supporting Membership is not a “poll tax” as some people have called it, because WSFS is not a government. The Supporting Membership is the minimum membership dues of a voluntary organization whose members have every right to set their own membership dues. WSFS is a self-funded group of people who voluntarily gather to pursue common, collective goals, and they get to make their own rules. Anyone who dislikes this can either get sufficiently involved that they can get those rules changed to suit themselves or go form their own club that works the way they want it. Why is this a difficult concept for people?
Worldcon is a private club, of which a sizeable minority (5%? 10%? Who knows?) are Sad and Rabid Puppies voters. I have yet to be shown how this is a problem in any way.
‘Why is this a difficult concept for people?’
I think it’s just plain ignorance of how Worldcon works and how it’s connected to the Hugo awards. So many are being driven by drama or agenda towards the awards this year that some are jumping to conclusions based on negative speculation. Plus it’s easier to say what they should do or not do when you don’t have to be the one to actually to enact or enforce such changes.
Worldcon does a fine job.
Rcade a moral ethos and strike zone is not a derailing tactic. Saying it is is the poison assaulting this community. This is a question of credibility rcade. Who do you call out and who do you not call out and why? How does that play out community wide? Do you understand what context is?
I do not know how many different ways I need to say this. We are adults in the 21st century. There is no such thing as Light without Dark. In baseball there is no such thing as a strike without a ball. Those things literally cannot exist independent of one another. That is what a moral ethos is. Whatever you think of Wright’s remarks they do not exist in a vacuum. They exist compared to what? You are talking about him in a moral vacuum.
As long as people pretend otherwise and we don’t share a language, a moral ethos, a strike zone, we will allow the real and true identity-bigots and supremacists to manipulate this community into the ground. Before you can call someone a bigot or supremacist you first have to agree on what that is and then call them ALL out, not just the short ones every other Thursday.
How do I know if Wright’s comment was “accurately characterized”? Based on what I’m reading community-wide I have no idea what standards are being invoked – NONE!
Given the issues in this community, your writing “Is it your premise that no one is allowed to call out objectionable comments in the SF/F community until everything that was ever objectionable is criticized first?” is semantic gibberish. You know as well as I do that power-privilege-punching up “I can’t be a racist” theory is brandished in this community like a suit of armor. Pretending that’s not so is a problem.
The truth is the very people continually calling out “objectionable comments” have a extremely high profile of NEVER doing that when another racial or sexual identity is in play. THAT is the real world issue actually in play in this specific community, not some hypothetical.
I’m not surprised Mr. Wisse darts in and leaves his usual incisive deconstruction of my comments. A thing as simple as a strike zone becomes a “cloud” – our Constitution, fair play and equal protection a mystery analogous to swimming through squid ink.
If you belonged to a club for years and an influx of 5-10% new members were led by someone who threatens to burn it down, it would be sensible for you to regard that as a problem.
@Kevin Standlee: It’s not a difficult concept. You are saying that the Hugos are the private property of your club and that you do not have to make it easy or even allow outsiders to vote if you don’t want to, and you are right about that. It’s very easy to understand.
What i’m saying it:
1) You have an award that has lost some prestige but still has quite a lot, because the brand still means something to the average fan.
2) You do not have to, but if you want you can sell voting memberships very cheaply without losing any money.
3) Implicitly, you’ll decide through your decisions whether the awards represent the breadth of fandom or the taste of club members.
4) If you decide that they represent the taste of club members then they will keep losing prestige.
Also easy to understand. Your mileage may vary.
“Based on what I’m reading community-wide I have no idea what standards are being invoked – NONE!”
I never claimed to be speaking for a community when I called his comment “vile.” It was my personal opinion.
You could figure out if Wright’s comment was “accurately characterized” by reading it.
@Seth Gordon:
That’s a question for a very long discussion, Seth. If it’s to represent fandom then it can’t be a jury award. it needs popular vote. It would need many more voters than the Hugos currently have. Dozens or hundreds of thousands.
Where are you going to find that many fans and why will they care? You would need something uniting them, some open community. And example of this is the Goodreads Awards. Goodreads is a book review site/database, and a social network of readers of all kinds. The awards are determined by several rounds of popular votes with hundreds of thousands of voters. No problem with slates or cliques there. They are very new, but people in a big community care about them, and they probably will become more important as time passes.
If we are to concentrate on SF&F, there should be several categories: urban fantasy, epic fantasy, dystopia, space opera, etc…
And your personal opinion is based on what set of standards? A disdain for generic identity supremacy, a fascination with the morality inherent in one’s own race, sex or sexual identity? A fascination with the immorality inherent in another set of identities? What?
“If it’s to represent fandom then it can’t be a jury award. it needs popular vote.”
The ideas you have are fine to explore, but the Hugos have a great deal of institutional weight behind using Worldcon membership as the only qualification for voting. The Hugos acquired their prestige while tying voting to Worldcon.
If an element of SF/F fandom wants a popularly voted award, I think those energies would be better spent on creating that award instead of trying to drastically change the Hugos.
There’s probably a con out there that would love to be the host each year of such an award.
“And your personal opinion is based on what set of standards?”
If you want me to answer any more questions, tell me whether you think Wright’s comment was vile.
*SIGH* The Hugos don’t “belong” to fandom. The Hugos are an award given out each year based on the opinions of those people who bother to take the time and expend the effort to vote, period! They don’t even “belong” to the full membership of a given convention. If you don’t nominate, your tastes may or may not be reflected in the resulting ballot of nominees. If you don’t vote in the final selection of the winners, your taste may or may not be reflected in the winners.
Want things to reflect your tastes a bit more closely? Then take part! The people picking things the last 20 years don’t need to be conspiratorial or organized about it-because they probably cared about voting more than you did, if you didn’t nominate or vote. Your membership is your share in the convention, just as buying stock in a company gets you voting rights if such rights are part of the purchase.
If you think your tastes aren’t being represented, then join and vote. If you think you need to jiggle the switch a bit to affect the outcome so that it more closely skews the way you want, then I suggest that perhaps your tastes don’t necessarily reflect the tastes of enough people to merit either ballot placement or an award.
‘They are very new, but people in a big community care about them, and they probably will become more important as time passes’
It sounds like many of your concerns are already covered by the Goodread awards. The Hugo awards gained prestige through being a fan driven effort through Worldcon. Goodreads is owned by Amazon. Worldcon exist as a creation of fans devoted to something they love.
If you just want a popularity contest that’s open to everyone, Goodreads has you covered. If you want to support Worldcon and the Hugo awards, that’s an option as well. If you don’t like Worldcon or the Hugo awards you can choose to either not support them or become a member, which they welcome, and try and make an argument to make changes.
But the Hugos aren’t Goodreads nor should they seek to be.
I was so excited to be quoted in the round-up and I was just so sure that the 83 comments were going to full of responses to the Puppy Challenge….but no.
I can’t believe I skimmed the whole thing.
Nick: Your challenge was brilliant. I’m sure the Puppies supporters have not said a single word about it here because they are diligently preparing their list of 20 such works and will post it upon completion.
‘I can’t believe I skimmed the whole thing.’
The unofficial motto of the 2015 Hugos.
Nick, I must thank you. Your challenge led me to understand the true nature of what is going on with the Puppies.
You see, the puppies hate dinosaurs.
It makes perfect sense: It’s why “If You Were a Dinosaur…” is the text they all pick to rag on. It’s why people telling them that their preferred brand of SF/F is a dinosaur is so offensive to them.
I mean, Nebulas produce, in addition to stars, asteroids — and what do asteroids do? They impact on earth, killing off….the Dinosaurs. Hence the attack on the Hugos, instead of the Nebulas.
(And we all know about the Lizard People controlling things, like WorldCon, behind the scenes, right? And who are they descended from? Dinosaurs, I tell you!)
It makes so much sense, now….I have to go off and clean my talons, to be ready for the Great Feast on those mammals…
Wait; was that my outside voice?
That dinosaur theory (which I did not like and went below No Award on my ballot) is the bloody shirt being waved around by the Puppies.
But it never won the Hugo. It lost.
When you wish to speak of vile, divisive, insulting rhetoric, James May, or insults, AG, what do you think of the sort of person who says (and presumably, since I would not want to insult his integrity) believes:
“No one, no one, not one person on the enemy side able to disagree without devolving into a savage degenerate subterranean cannibal in the blink of an eye. “
@Nick:
I know. It’s quite literally the only short fiction nominee I’ve heard them complain about, however — and since the only other nominee I’ve heard them complain about at all was written by the Great Anti-Puppy, apparently, I figured that could be left out of my theory as being on the basis of spite.
OTOH, perhaps Scalzi is descended from a long line of therizinosaurs? Quick, check his hands for extremely long claws! (Then again, that might make it hard to type as much as he does.)
rcade and David W.:
I actually agree with John C. Wright. His blog is extensive. He’s not shy about sharing his opinion and debating ideas. He’s touched upon the issue of homosexuality many times.
Here’s a link to an article he wrote entitled Apologia Pro Opere Sui, Part 1. There are several parts, and later articles, if you want the entire gist of his opinion all easily accessible on his blog.
johncwright.livejournal.com/274771.html
I don’t want to speak for him, but my interpretation on his views on homosexuals in literature is simple- if it is integral to the story and good literature, it’s a good thing. If it is tacked on to fulfill some leftist political creed, it is a bad thing.
My interpretation of his views on homosexuals in the real world, away from writing, is that they are good and worthy human beings entitled to the same respect, fellowship and love that every other human being deserves. However, he despises the leftist homosexual lobby which he views as damaging to homosexuals on an individual basis, both spiritually and politically.
John C. Wright takes the position that homosexuals are sinners. But that is the same for every single other human being, so it sounds worse that it is. Everyone should struggle against sin and everyone should strive to get closer to Jesus.
If John C. Wright fails as a Christian, it is not due to an alleged hatred of homosexuals. He doesn’t hate them. He does appear to hate those who use their writing to advance a (what he believes to be) a harmful agenda that detracts from the story, but I think that’s more to do with being a demanding artist/writer despising those who make bad art.
My standards aren’t in question rcade. I have made them clear enough in the past and they directly address what I see as the main problem tearing at this community: hate speech.
My standard is so stringent probably almost 100% of the people in the world could easily pass it. And this way, you don’t have to ask me about every single person in SFF. No one gets a pass and there is no cherry-picking.
Any person who publicly obsessively (usually daily but at least once a week) singles out human beings as man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, Asian, Latino, Arab or Jewish and talks about them negatively 100% of the time.
There’s your strike zone. All you have to do is range outside the sites of Vox Day and John Wright and call ’em like you see ’em. The problem I see is that 100% falls quite a way when it comes to SJWs, who’ve written themselves quite the pile of excuse notes from teacher.
“I actually agree with John C. Wright.”
Then perhaps you could explain how his comment does not state a belief that men abhor gays on a visceral level and have the instinctive desire to murder them with tire irons.
Before I delve into his odd, paternalistic theory that gays are perfectly fine but pro-gay liberals are damaging them by being pro-gay, I’d really like clarity on that whole “men abhor homosexuals” thing.
4) If you decide that they represent the taste of club members then they will keep losing prestige.
You mean like the Academy Awards?
“if it is integral to the story and good literature, it’s a good thing. If it is tacked on to fulfill some leftist political creed, it is a bad thing. ”
John C. Wright is very good, much of the time, at retaining plausible deniability, especially when he is speaking to people outside his expected audience.
He has, in the past, described homosexuality as being as insane as being racist — and, judging from how loudly he complains if anyone describes him as racist, he finds that quite insane.
So, he is quite likely to find (and, indeed, I have failed to find any evidence against this) that the appearance of non-insane, indeed, perfectly happy and functional LGBTQ folk as an *inherent* sign of “tacked on to fulfill some leftist creed”.
This gets back to a point I’ve now made (I believe) here, and many other fora; that “messages” are in the eye of the reader, and so Mr. Wright’s division is one made, not in the work, or, indeed, in the author, but in his own head.
Which is a surprisingly post-modern position, I suppose, for someone like him to uphold, but that happens.
Mr. Moss, I think you wrote the following that was posted on MHN:
“I bought a supporting membership last night. I look forward to reading the nominees, then voting for whomever I think is best. But-
I will have a hard time not voting for Jim Butcher. The guy rocks.
I will have a hard time not voting for John C. Wright. He’s a class writer.
I will have difficulty not voting for Vox Day, just for the joy of seeing SJW heads explode. If his edited works are any good (and they are, I’ve read several), he may well be a lock.”
Did you write this?
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/06/a-letter-to-the-smofs-moderates-and-fence-sitters-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/#comment-58131
I foresee the publication of a popular novelty book based on File 770’s headlines throughout the Puppy mess.
‘I was so excited to be quoted in the round-up and I was just so sure that the 83 comments were going to full of responses to the Puppy Challenge….but no.’
Hell, I haven’t seen a puppy even list one winner. Apparently 20 winners was too high.
That secret cabal that exist with no supporting evidence of it really helped a short story get third place. Who knows what could’ve happened if the puppies hadn’t come along to save us all!