aka Something Canine This Way Comes
Behind Kennel Door #3 we find Joshua W. Herring, Mary Robinette Kowal, Redneck Gaijin, Matthew Foster, Michele Lee, Nick Mamatas, Ian Mond, Spacefaring Kitten, Nicholas Whyte, Alexandra Erin, and Brian Z. (Title credit goes to File 770’s contributing editors of the day David Langford and Laura Resnick.)
Joshua W. Herring on The Only Winning Move
“When Fighting Fire with Fire Is Just an Excuse for Fire” – May 9
We are not under any delusions about how SJWs act. We’ve seen all the same evidence you have. It’s QUITE clear that the a great many feminism and/or “diversity” and/or gay rights activists don’t give a fig about tolerance or inclusiveness. Tolerance and inclusiveness are just tools they use to get what they really want; they aren’t virtues for them.
Thing is: they are for us.
It’s always the same problem with Vox. He claims to want to live and let live, but there’s never any evidence of it. And it’s always the same excuse: “they” won’t play nice, so why should he? This is sensible enough if reserved for extreme cases, but when absolutely every post on his blog that deals with SJWs is about the need to deny them a seat, the line between their tactics and his becomes impossible to draw.
Here’s the rub: if somebody doesn’t start playing nice, it just never happens.
And here’s the question: do you think it will be the SJWs who start playing nice? It won’t. We know that from all past experience. So, as the addage goes, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
If you want tolerance and inclusiveness, you start by being tolerant and inclusive. It’s not that it doesn’t matter that “they” aren’t tolerant and inclusive, because obviously it would be nicer if they were. The fact that they’re not makes our job a lot harder. But our job is still to get to a community that’s tolerant and inclusive, and you just can’t do that with purges.
Quite the contrary, the way you get there is by making purges taboo. What you start with isn’t “hey, you purged us, you opened the gate, guess purges are OK now, so we’re gonna have one of our own!” Because at that point you have two purges rather than one, and they start to become normal.
Mary Robinette Kowal
“Thoughts on manners: Being “reasonable” and being angry” – May 5
Manners are an outward expression of your opinion of others.
In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy is described as, “his manners, though well bred, were not inviting.” What this means is that though he was correct on all the points of etiquette, the way he executed those points made it clear that he disdained the people to whom he was speaking.
I’ve been thinking about this distinction a fair bit recently, in regard to a number of conversations going around on the internet. I’ve been getting emails from people, or comments on my blog, thanking me for being “reasonable” and “classy” in my responses to various upsets, most recently around the Hugo awards. What disturbs me about these is that the people writing to me don’t seem to understand that I am angry….
The thing is… the reason that I can be “polite” and “reasonable” is because other people are expressing the anger for me. I have the privilege of being quiet only because other people are bearing the burden of our shared fury. Without the people willing to shout, the concerns would be dismissed. Look at the suffragette movement. Women had been talking about equality for hundreds of years before that, and it wasn’t until the early 1900s when women began breaking windows and chaining themselves to buildings in protest that the cause was taken seriously. Then the “reasonable” women were able to negotiate, because their sisters had borne the burden of shouting to create a space in which their words could be heard.
Redneck Gaijin on Redneck Gaijin’s Pitiful Little Life
“My thoughts on the Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies, and Hugos brouhaha” – May 9
Why, then, do I oppose Sad/Rabid Puppies? (And I definitely do, by the way.)
Because Correia, Torgersen and Beale didn’t name one (or, if you want to uphold the pretense that they weren’t working together, two) exceptional work or creator per category. The Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies slates took advantage of the Hugos system (every nomination voter gets to recommend five choices, and five nominees are selected for each award). Their slates proposed three, or four, or even five nominees for most of the awards categories in a deliberate effort to flood the nominations and make sure that ONLY their works got nominated- and they were mostly successful.
In short: Sad/Rabid Puppies didn’t just try to give conservatives in sci-fi a voice; they tried to SILENCE ALL OTHER VOICES. They wanted to prevent any viewpoints not compatible with their own from receiving any recognition whatever- and they were very successful, as regards 2015.
That’s not just campaigning. That’s not even just rigging the results. That’s outright censorship. By gaming the system, the Puppies allowed a minority viewpoint to drown out and silence all others. And Beale in particular goes farther and demands that this effort be honored, and that those shut out sit down and accept it, or else he’ll destroy the Hugos outright.
Dreaming About Other Worlds
“2015 Locus Award Nominees” – May 6
Comments: In 2015, due to the fracas surrounding the Hugo Awards instigated by the manipulation of the Hugo nominating process by the supporters of the Sad and Rabid Puppy slates, the Locus Award nominee list took on greater significance than it had in many previous years. Several people have already taken to calling the works on the Locus Award list the “real” Hugo nominees, and noting that none of the works or individuals promoted by either of the Puppy slates appear on the Locus Award finalist list. What I think this list, and the general reaction to it reveals, however, is simply this: Even in the best case scenario for the Puppies, they will never get what they want.
Matthew Foster on Foster on Film
“How I’m Voting For the Hugos” – May 7
I had hoped that the slate nominees would reject their nominations, and a number of them did. But not enough. I expected a few more would do the gentlemanly (or ladyly) thing. That was the only way to truly repair this year’s Hugos, but now we have to work with what we have. So, to voting. You have choices:
- Vote normally, as if the nominees were all legitimate
- Vote normally for non-slate nominees, and then No Award, leaving the slate nominees off your ballot
- Vote normally for a few mainly non-slate categories, and No Award for the rest, leaving the slate nominees off you ballot.
- Vote No Award for all, and leave all the others off your ballot
- Vote No Award for all, and list non-slate nominees after.
…With that in mind, what do I support? I disagree with what Brad and the Pups want you to do, which is also what some well known authors who do not support the Pups recommend: voting as if all the choices are legitimate. Obviously the Pups want this, to win (they are big on winning). I have to assume the others are going along in the hopes that it will all be OK and that will be the least damaging to the award. But things are not magically going to be OK, and nothing will make the Hugo less meaningful then it being taken by slate nominees.
My metaphor has been of a race. If in the Olympics it was discovered that most of the runners in the finals of a 10,000 meter race got there by doping in the semifinals, they would not just run the final as if everything was normal. They would boot out all those illegitimate finalists–and it doesn’t matter if the finalists might have gotten there without drugs, or that they didn’t know they’d been drugged by their coaches. How they did get there was with drugs in their system, so they are gone. In the case of the Hugos, it is your job to boot out those who are not there legitimately.
So, I strongly reject choice 1. It is the wrong message. It makes the award meaningless by legitimizing what the Pups have done….
Me? I’m going with choice 3, but I applaud those going with 5.
Michele Lee
”Bad Seeds” – May 8
If you’ve been paying even half a bit of attention in the SF/F writing world you know about the conflicts that regularly occur throughout the fandom. *Acchhsadpuppieschoooooo* Bless me. There’s plenty of other people talking about it, so you don’t need me to say much.
Here in Kentucky there’s been a recent case of a family who had 10 children removed from their “homestead” and put in state care. (These points are related, I promise.) ….There are lots of pictures of this homestead online, which boils down to a 250 square foot ramshackle shack covered in tarps with no electricity, running water or toilets. There’s a lot of people online (likely the same people who throw a fit when CPS fails to remove a child who has been physically abused before the ultimate tragedy strikes) going mad over CPS’s interference.
There are days I feel like I’m part of the homesteading community.
This family doesn’t appear to be good example of homesteaders, instead they seem to be hiding dangerous behaviors behind a community that shies from what people consider the norm.
So this is my point, as a member of both of these communities, what responsibility do I have to stand up and say, “Hey, no, these people do NOT represent me or the ideas that brought me to this community.”
This is something I have struggled with a lot, all through my life. In religion, in multiple religions actually, in my circle of high school friends, in the writing community, the autism activism community…I could go on and on. There are a whole lot of people out there who circle the wagons and protect, without consideration. That kind of support can certainly be nice. But can it be dangerous?
I think the Sad Puppies bit shows it really really can. We, as communities don’t have to protect deplorable or dangerous behavior.
Nick Mamatas on Nihilistic Kid
“Good Writing vs Bad – Hugo Edition” – May 8
I often use these two lines from Farewell, My Lovely in class, as an example of excellent writing:
“It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.”
I then ask what we know about the blonde? The older students know definitively that “it” is female—the e in blonde is the giveaway. The younger, more politically annoying aware students will often point to and object to the “it” in “It was a blonde.” They have good eyes—the narrator is referring to a photograph of a blonde. And she’s attractive, strikingly so, perhaps even archetypal in her blondeness.
And what do we know of the narrator: he’s intelligent, creative, cynical, attempts to detach himself from his own animal nature, is irreligious but was likely religious at some point, likes to show off. We know more about him than about her. And there’s also a rhythm that carries us on—the second sentence wouldn’t work nearly so well without the first, which is a double iamb. (da DUM da DUM it WAS a BLONDE) Not bad!
And now, some sentences on a similar theme, from the Hugo-nominated novel Skin Game by Jim Butcher….
Ian Mond on The Hysterical Hamster
“Book Review: Skin Game by Jim Butcher” – May 9
What’s It About
While it’s book fifteen of the Harry Dresden series all you really need to know is that (a) Harry is wizard, (b) it’s essentially a heist novel and (c) the book mostly, though not entirely, stands alone.
Representative Paragraph
This more or less sums up Harry Dresden:
You know, sometimes it feels like I don’t have any other kind of day. Like, ever. On the other hand, I’m not sure what I would really do with any other kind of day. I mean, at some point in my life, I had to face it—I was pretty much equipped, by experience and inclination, for mayhem.
Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens
“Totaled by Kary English” – May 9
“Totaled” by Kary English is the first professional-level story on the Hugo ballot I’ve read so far. It’s well-written and well-edited (compared to the other finalists, at least), and English has been a quarterly winner in the Writers of the Future contest, so she seems like a writer who should be taken seriously.
You can read the story here.
Nicholas Whyte on From the Heart of Europe
“On the new Hugo voters” – May 4
After Sasquan’s spectacular intake of new Supporting Memberships following the announcement of the Hugo shortlists, I’ve seen a great deal of speculation on what this might mean in terms of votes. I think we can all be certain that most of these new members have joined with the intention of participating in the Hugos; how will they do so?
I thought one easy measure might be geography. Sasquan has published the geographical breakdown of its members as of 30 April; I have compared these with Loncon’s membership as of 31 July last year, the day when Hugo voting closed, looking only at the 50 US states and the District of Columbia. My intention was to see if I could detect a clear shift in Sasquan’s membership, as compared to Loncon’s, from “red” states to “blue” or vice versa. My reasoning is that if there has been a surge of membership from states where voters are generally right-wing, that might indicate a more right-wing electorate.
I have to say that this proved impossible to detect. I give the figures below, but there are only 11 of the 51 territories in question where Sasquan now has proportionally more members than Loncon did at close of Hugo votes.
David Gerrold on Facebook
I’ve created a new Facebook page, specifically for genre fans to discuss what they think are the best and most noteworthy works of the year.
Please visit and post.
Let’s have that discussion about what makes a book or a TV show or a movie award-worthy.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Recommendations/797389177024141?pnref=story
It's true, Sad Puppies. I don't understand humor. http://t.co/xXT2rBm1Nv pic.twitter.com/H3mAJnzcoB
— Alexandra Erin | patreon.com/AlexandraErin (@AlexandraErin) May 9, 2015
Nice Sad Puppies reference. Love it. #Stokers2015 #StokerAwards2015
— Agitated Spiders for Human Rights ???????????????? (@HorriblyJane) May 10, 2015
Brian Z. in a comment on File 770 – May 9
O Puppy! my Puppy! our nominations done,
Our blog has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The Hugos near, applause I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady slate, the ballot grim and daring;
But Hugo! Hugo! Hugo!
O rocket ship with fin,
Where by the stage my Puppy lies,
Clutching a losers’ pin.
O Puppy! my Puppy! rise up to claim your prize;
Rise up—for you the name is read—for you the emcee calls,
For you book bombs and starred reviews—for you the fans a-crowding,
For you they call, the graying SMOFs, propeller beanies turning;
Here Puppy! dear author!
The slated works shall win!
It is some dream that by the stage,
Clutches a losers’ pin.
My Puppy does not answer, his face is pale and clipped,
My author does not feel my arm, nor can of Reddi-Wip,
The publishers’ suite is safe and sound, its bar is closed and done,
Some other boor through victor’s door comes in with object won;
Slap a sticker on that cover!
But I with tonic and gin,
Walk the stage my Puppy lies,
Clutching a losers’ pin.
Future Hugo by Taral Wayne
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“Oh, there’s background, but not a story. A story requires a recounting of a sequence of events, i.e. progression. That particular work references one event (the beating). The rest of it is circumstantial description and a brief revenge fantasy. If reference to past events is a “story,” then every history textbook is a story.”
By that extremely limiting description, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” (Hugo winner for 1974) is not a story either. IMO, Hugo history would be much the poorer without it, though.
It’s difficult to even imagine a novel that doesn’t involve a fair amount of cultural pre-knowledge, since novels themselves are written by beings steeped in culture and are produced and distributed by cultures.
Rcade,
“I have a question about the Hugo Awards site…
Why don’t they identify the winners? I thought they did when I visited the site previously.”
I don’t think they ever have on the Hugo site…you have to download the pdf for results.
Nick: you can minimize the amount of cultural knowledge required, by using very simple, often repetitive language, and paring it with pictures to illustrate more complex concepts without having to make allusions or complex descriptions. Something like “See spot. See spot run.”
MickyFinn on May 10, 2015 at 7:29 pm said:
“Nick: you can minimize the amount of cultural knowledge required, by using very simple, often repetitive language, and paring it with pictures to illustrate more complex concepts without having to make allusions or complex descriptions. Something like “See spot. See spot run.””
That still won’t do it. There is no such thing as a neutral “picture.” All visual depictions, even photographs, are embedded in a tremendous number of cultural assumptions. Art from an unfamiliar culture is extraordinarily difficult to “read.”
@Mary Frances: I agree, again! It’s one of those cases where I wonder about different perspectives. For the most part, I grew up in small towns with public libraries that were awesome, but had limited resources. They did they best with what they had to work with. I attended a large state university and between the uni library and the SF club’s library, I could read anything in the genre, classic or current.
The only way I managed that before college was by the heavy use of interlibrary loans. I was that person. 🙂
Andrew:
General principle: don’t make a rule that’s impossible to enforce.
Given that it has been demonstrated that there are Mad Dog voters who nominated works they’d not read (so they could get the free e-book they appear to think is guaranteed, which it is not), I can’t see why anyone should complain if people vote No Award and do not rank works they did not read, either. I think it very likely that this happens all the time.
rcade:
They certainly did! The first of the finalists in each case should be highlighted, and indeed, when I look at the HTML under them, they still should be. You’re the first to spot a bug. It’s just a guess, but possibly the latest WordPress upgrade broke it. I’ll look into it and we’ll get it fixed when we can. Thank you.
John Carter:
If you personally did not think those works deserved to be on the ballot, or that they do not deserve an award, then you’re acting completely ethically to do so.
Andrew:
Not so. We always have identified the winners. In fact, the order of finish is the way they’re listed (once we remember to reorder them after the ceremony, which sometimes has taken some weeks). Something has gone wrong in just the last few days that has removed the highlighting from the first-listed works. We’ll work on in and get it fixed soon.
>> So I’m doing it to protest slates.
What’s your reason?>>
[ ] protesting non-slates
[ ] protesting non-compliance; you should surrender and be beaten!
[ ] we don’t care
[ ] what have you got?
[ ] naomi
kdb
Craig (2): “If you want to have fun with it, one could make a whole bunch of shows as SFF just because they use tech that doesn’t exist in the real world (“In a world where two people can cooperatively hack using the same keyboard at the same time…”).”
I’ve always liked the “same day DNA matches” as well as “security cam footage that is high-res enough to pick up reflections”
Oh and regarding good-but-not-fun…. there’s a whole bunch of works that I love and whole-heartedly recommend and are amazing. And which I will never read/ or see again, because they’re just too…intense maybe? Not sure of the best word.
A strong example would be the anime Grave of the Fireflies, and a weaker one would be Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow.
Just to point out – strong in my last post meaning “gouge my eyes out before seeing/reading again”.
WIll McLean: Nope. It’s alternate history. We don’t have an operational shuttle, the Chinese don’t have a space station, and the Hubble isn’t in that orbit. Also, the Soyuz doesn’t have a hatch there.
Remember, kiddies, it’s “Alternate History” not “I didn’t do the research”. that’s how you get to stay at the cool SF writers’ table.
Rev Bob. : I demand an objective definition of fun! 😉
Meet – The FunGod (oglaf, so NSFW)
Alexvdl: Craig (2): By far, my favorite handwavy science fantasy is the Deathstalker series by Simon R. Green.
“Here’s a cool sounding character I’m not going to explore. And another. And another. And another. And anot- bugger, forgot a plot. Suddenly stuff happens, the end.”
oh, yeah, Simon R Green’s thing seems to be making sure that you know he has a universe full of interesting things that are happening off panel (In addition to what is happening on the page)
Deathstalker, The Forest Kingdom, The Nightside, they’re all slimish (by current standards) reasonably stand alone books that feel like they could blow out to standard fantasy doorstop size epics, if the loose ends were explored.
” I don’t think that a change in hair color fundamentally alters the connotations of the sentences, and I’ve provided an example of how one could follow it up to make it NOT about her being an “archetypal beauty.””
Adding hypothetical follow up text to something you’re reading is a cheat. You work with the text as given; that’s what you’ve been given. Chandler calls the photographed woman a blonde, so you work with the cultural definition of blondes.
Kevin Standlee is right. Even John Scalzi claimed that a set of voters voted for Redshirts without reading it to curry favor with him. Requiring reading of works voted for (or against) would be painful and counterproductive (I’m sure Google would be happy to conjure up a voter/reading app, or perhaps you could perform literacy tests).
The thing that makes Hugo voting so durable is its multi-level approach and its simple “skin in the game” membership requirements. Now, some people think that has been corrupted by this year’s campaigns, others think it was corrupted by past campaigns.
The voting approach for the Hugos are not only its strength now, and its strength in the past, but will be proven to be its strength in the future: all that it ever takes is a committed base to change the types of nominees should they begin to fall a little flat.
Now, its weakness is that you will occasionally get authors who turn down a Hugo out of mild embarrassment (as did Neil Gaiman and rightly so) when he feels his own work is not proper Science Fiction. And occasionally, you will therefore have works that are not proper Science Fiction – heck! hardly even SyFy – that take home a rocket.
But the point is that the Hugos currently can self-correct, which, frankly is more than can be said about the practice of science itself! This is due to the fairly elegant “buy a vote”/run-off combo.
“… currently can self-correct, which, frankly is more than can be said about the practice of science itself!”
*runs away*
By that extremely limiting description, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” (Hugo winner for 1974) is not a story either. IMO, Hugo history would be much the poorer without it, though.
It isn’t, really, a story. It is, however, a semi-parable and a dystopic fantasy, whatever it is. Dinosaur My Love is literary fiction. Possibly romance (the subtext suggests that the narrator is emotionally torn between two lovers – the mild victim of reality, and the monster badass of her fantasies. If so, that’s core romance.)
It isn’t by the furthest stretch a member of the Fantasy genre and is not Science Fiction. Swirksy’s Eros, Philia and Agape dealt with the same central issue (a woman’s disappointment in her love interest), but it at least used the vehicle of robotics and Artificial Intelligence as a central metaphor for masculinity and loss of identity.
http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-faq/#Can%20I%20vote%20for%20something%20I%20have%20not%20read/seen?
Neil Gaiman wasn’t embarrassed when he turned down the Hugo, he had already won four. Some of the slate authors would’ve been a better example if you’re looking for those who declined out of embarrassment.
A person doesn’t have to have read a book to vote for it to receive an award for best book, however voting for something on merit without actually knowing if it’s worth the recognition is silly. There’s no way of testing for it, but really there shouldn’t need to be.
Yes, we get it. You don’t care about the Hugo awards. You care that it is a tool used by your political opponents, and denying them that tool is just part of a greater culture war along with your allies #GamerGate. You are soldiers participating in a guerrilla war against the entrenched forces of the SJW’s and their totalitarian political philosophies.
Any one who runs is an SJW. Anyone who stand stills is a well disciplined SJW.
@xdpaul: “Even John Scalzi claimed that a set of voters voted for Redshirts without reading it to curry favor with him.”
[citation needed]
@snowcrash:
ObYoutube: Let’s Enhance!
“We don’t care. … We don’t care. … We don’t care.”
It’s rare to stand up for apathy so aggressively.
I’m sorry, I need to geek out about the fact that KURT EFFING BUSIEK is in the comments section. (Kurt, I love “Astro City.” It is awesome. Thank you for creating it.)
S1… regardless of the side you’re on, you DO KNOW who Kurt Busiek IS, right? There appears to be no recognition on your part of who he is, like ‘Hey, we may disagree but I loved ASTRO CITY.’
Please, please, please tell me you have read ASTRO CITY. Or that you at least know what it is.
xdpaul at 8:35 pm: ” …you will occasionally get authors who turn down a Hugo out of mild embarrassment (as did Neil Gaiman and rightly so) when he feels his own work is not proper Science Fiction.”
Umm, what? You do realise that the Hugos are awarded to Science Fiction and Fantasy right? It even says so in the WSFS Constitution:
Whether you are or are not a Worldcon member this year, you might want to get more clued-up about the awards you’re spending so much energy commenting about.
The problem here is all these puppies who aren’t really into SFF. Xdpaul seems to be one of those. He just quotes talking points from other blogs, but seems to lack the knowledge to verify if there is any truth in them. Also, one of those puppies who never ever talks about works.
Hello, xdpaul, do you read SFF? How about having fun and talk about on what works you like, what you haven’t liked so much and such? You know, like fans usually do? I guess that is the difference between a fan and an outsider cultural warrior with no knowledge of his current “battleground”.
‘We’re doing what we’re doing. There is nothing you can say to stop us. You can’t control us. You can only control yourselves. And it would be novel… if you were to do so. For once.’
No-one likes you because you go on like this all the time. Shut up and talk about the books.
‘Hitting a window would would be more reminiscent of anger than a spasm of reflexive lust.’
I always thought it was because she could lead him off on a life of crime and depravity, but exactly why or how the bishop ends up kicking the window seems like the least important part of that line.
‘I’m guessing S1AL doesn’t have much experience with stained glass, particularly the older stuff, which is very likely to lose a couple of pieces of glass at the lead cames, rather than having the glass shatter or break, in response to a kick or similar impact.’
We’re in serious danger of kicking all the joy out of that line. ‘It was Butcher’s writing. Writing that would make you kick a hole in a Chandler line.’
‘If you have good reason to think that it might not actually be a story, I think you’re at the same point where you have good reason to not consider it to actually be SF.’
I don’t care how crabby everyone is, I just think it’s great we’re taking about stories and books and writing for a change.
I always thought that particular line (blonde-bishop-stained glass) was one of those figures of speech that is instantly comprehensible despite the literal meaning being nonsense-adjacent. The only other example I can think of at this hour is Dave Barry’s description of a Labrador as (I paraphrase) “a large enthusiastic dog constructed entirely of man-made materials”.
Nigel on May 11, 2015 at 2:45 am said:
“‘If you have good reason to think that it might not actually be a story, I think you’re at the same point where you have good reason to not consider it to actually be SF.’
I don’t care how crabby everyone is, I just think it’s great we’re taking about stories and books and writing for a change.”
Yes, but it’s all arguments that were hashed out, again and again, seventy, sixty, fifty, forty, thirty years ago.
“Define SF”? Yeesh. I wish there were some history archive somewhere to point the Puppies to and say “There. Go read that and don’t come back until you’re done.”
“Three Body Problem” is really picking up momentum past the halfway point. The characters are still pretty translucent, but it’s less obtrusive.
‘Yes, but it’s all arguments that were hashed out, again and again, seventy, sixty, fifty, forty, thirty years ago.’
I know, it’s like they put the training wheels back on.
@Peace Is My Middle Name:
‘Yes, but it’s all arguments that were hashed out, again and again, seventy, sixty, fifty, forty, thirty years ago.
“Define SF”? Yeesh. I wish there were some history archive somewhere to point the Puppies to and say “There. Go read that and don’t come back until you’re done.”’
It’s not like there is a definitive conclusion, surely being willing to have that argument with new people that show up is part of sustaining a community. But yes, a small library for the groundwork would be useful. Suggestions?
@Leslie C One of my favorite lines from Townes Van Zant — “well you’re soft as glass / and I’m a gentle man.”
Zandt. I have to slow down here.
influxus on May 11, 2015 at 3:52 am said:
“@Peace Is My Middle Name:
‘Yes, but it’s all arguments that were hashed out, again and again, seventy, sixty, fifty, forty, thirty years ago.
“Define SF”? Yeesh. I wish there were some history archive somewhere to point the Puppies to and say “There. Go read that and don’t come back until you’re done.”’
It’s not like there is a definitive conclusion, surely being willing to have that argument with new people that show up is part of sustaining a community. But yes, a small library for the groundwork would be useful. Suggestions?”
Not my circus, not my monkeys. I’m just a casual fan who walked into this without the time or space to do the groundwork you require.
The Puppies charged into an old, complex community with a deep and rich history and long, long traditions. They should have done the damn research first.
Peace,
30, 40, 50 years.
Now this is an interesting comment! At a quick glance I’ve read 78 percent of past Hugo winning Best Novels, which I hope is enough engagement with the past that my opinion might count for something, I don’t know. If a bunch of new voters becoming interested in the award are not as widely read, how to decide when they’ve become sufficiently educated?
(I think I have a comment in moderation – probably because of links)
Brian Z,
They must brave the Death Gauntlet of SMOFs.
I wasn’t talking about being widely read in SF, I was talking about being aware that the argument over “what is SF” has been going on since forever and has never yet been pinned down.
To be honest, I don’t mind if people have not read a lot of “the classics” or whatever of SFF, as long as they are willing to talk about what they have read.
And by “talk” I mean about more than just that it is cool, but with specifics and a willingness to turn it around from different perspectives and think about its implications.
Brian, Peace is referring to the cast of characters we currently have who are either proposing unenforceable requirements (ie proposing that every voter must have read the works) or things that have been dealt with previously and are a feature of the Hugos (no explicit limitation as to what is SF)
If they’re gonna go down the road, perhaps some awareness of what has gone before would be useful, no?
Brian Z:
It is not a matter of being sufficiently educated. It is the matter of respect for other people. It is the same when you join any social group. You start with listening, see how the conversation goes, take note on the people around and what is said. You don’t start with charging in as a know-it-all that disregards the experience of everyone else.
“respect for other people. It is the same when you join any social group”
We seem to have a wildly divergent mental picture of who the “sad puppies” are. I imagine them as a couple established authors (some earlier in their careers than others) and a lot of established fans who do participate actively in the SF community. Look at the recent RavenCon where six or seven of the usual suspects were invited writer and editor guests of the convention. Obviously not all Larry Correia fans go to WorldCon all the time, but he got hundreds of Hugo ballots more than once. They seem pretty well established within fandom to me.
Brian, doesn’t look like it’s the established fans showing up here then, does it?
Brian Z,
“invited guests” at fan run cons are those who get “GoH” appended to them. (There are exceptions, Balticon comps the incoming and outgoing Compton Crook awardees).
snowcrash lots of different kinds of people are showing up here. Which ones might have a sustained interest participating in the Hugos? One would think it might include Ravencon attendees who went to see and hang out with their invited panelists (“Programming Guests”) like John C. Wright, Michael Z. Williamson, Lou Antonelli et al. Some of whom go to WorldCons, especially when on the east coast so they can afford to spend the time and money, just like everybody else makes practical decisions about when they can go to WorldCon.
I think what snowcrash is getting at is a lot of SP might be congoing gandom, but it certainly isn’t the ones who have shown up here to say dumb shit.
“a lot of SP might be congoing gandom”
That seems fair.
Brian what are you talking about? Peace has already said that this was regarding a few commenters coming in with some fairly unaware sort of backing (ie trying to create an objective definition of SF as rule), and you seem to be off on a tangent.
Brian Z:
The leaders of the Sad Puppies might be that, but the puppies that randomly pop in here are obviously not established in any way.
snowcrash, Ravencon was just an example because it is a regional con in a part of the country that hasn’t seen a Worldcon anywhere remotely near it since 2004. Since then, as Worldcon continuing its admirable tour of other parts of the world/country, a whole generation of fans was busy growing up and reading and becoming steeped in “smaller convention” fandom traditions and general sciencefictional traditions. And many many others have not gotten so involved in “traditional” fandom because what do you know, its already Labor Day and here they are at Dragoncon in Atlanta.
I think is a great idea to set up a curated online repository of fannish tradition for newcomers to get quickly up to speed on WorldCon “culture.”
I also think reading more (literacy in the classics) is crucial, and that there should be a new edition of The Hugo Winners edited specifically with this new generation in mind. Which, by the way should definitely include a chapter where Nick Mamatas holds court on one of Murray Leinster’s opening paragraphs.
But it is equally true that the rest of fandom has also been busy getting on with building fandom in other original and creative ways, whereas WorldCon has kind of had its head stuck in the sand.