He Do The Puppies In Different Voices 5/9

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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:

  1. Vote normally, as if the nominees were all legitimate
  2. Vote normally for non-slate nominees, and then No Award, leaving the slate nominees off your ballot
  3. Vote normally for a few mainly non-slate categories, and No Award for the rest, leaving the slate nominees off you ballot.
  4. Vote No Award for all, and leave all the others off your ballot
  5. 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

 

 

 

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

Future Hugo by Taral Wayne

 

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376 thoughts on “He Do The Puppies In Different Voices 5/9”

  1. Brian: You’re still off on a tangent, but:

    “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.””

    That actually sounds pretty good. Let us know how you go about setting it up.

  2. snowcrash, well, I felt it was something related that is also important to talk about. There are a lot of repositories online and off, the question is one of curation the material. What is the Eaton collection doing? I was following that for a while but lost track.

  3. Brian Z:

    “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.”

    Thank you for giving such a good example of bad social competence and thus exemplifying what I was talking about. People coming in as know-it-alls into a new social group.

    You know perfectly well that WorldCon moves around to different parts of the world, which other conventions does not. If you want to criticize conventions for not being at every part of US, you should criticize the conventions that stay put every year. Not a convention that appears at a new place every year.

    Otherwise, nice snark about Nick Mamatas. Way to go, passive aggression!

  4. Hampus, I think you may have read some of those comments as critical which are not all that critical if you look at them a little differently. WorldCon can and should be proud of its ostrich-like stance, while (one might propose) engaging a little better with other parts of fandom. And it was snark at Leinster, not Mamatas.

  5. 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.

    You seem to miss the fact that most of the people who put on smaller cons like RavenCon are the same people who normally attend and support WorldCon. The “small con” culture you seem to think is out there is, in large part, a culture made up of the same people with the same priorities as WorldCon culture.

  6. Aaron:

    I would argue that it is Brian that has his head stuck in the sand.

  7. Hampus I was thinking specifically of this Hugo-nominated first paragraph:

    It was not mere impulsive action when Bron Hoddan started for the planet Walden by stowing away on a ship that had come to his native planet to hang all his relatives. He’d planned it long before. It was a long-cherished and carefully worked out scheme. He didn’t expect the hanging of his relatives, of course. He knew that they’d act grieved and innocent, and give proof that they were simple people leading blameless lives. They’d make their would-be executioners feel ashamed and apologetic for having thought evil of them, and as soon as the strangers left they’d return to their normal way of life, which was piracy. But while this was going on, Bron Hoddan stowed away on the menacing vessel. Presently he arrived at its home world. But his ambition was to reach Walden, so he set about getting there. It took a long time because he had to earn ship-passage from one solar system to another, but he held to his idea. Walden was the most civilized planet in that part of the galaxy. On Walden, Hoddan intended, in order (a) to achieve splendid things as an electronic engineer, (b) to grow satisfactorily rich, (c) to marry a delightful girl, and (d) end his life a great man. But he had to spend two years trying to arrange even the first.

  8. “You seem to miss the fact that most of the people who put on smaller cons like RavenCon are the same people who normally attend and support WorldCon.”

    Exactly!! Including the Puppies!!

  10. Exactly!! Including the Puppies!!

    Which makes the Puppies whining about “being excluded” seem quite silly, doesn’t it?

    However, I suspect that, while they haven’t been left out in the past, that in the future those at the heart of the Puppy movement will find invitations to participate in the various regional cons hard to come by. No one will organize it, but a thousand individual decisions will be made that simply leave them off the guest lists.

  12. Aaron, that is your intuition about what will happen, but so far it seems that at Ravencon at least, a splendid time was had by all. Come to think of it, I saw Lou Antonelli link (with praise) to a Gamergater who professed on his Youtube channel: “Hey guys, I sat down and actually talked to Frank and Brianna Wu for a while after a Ravencon panel, and now I realize they are really incredibly nice people. We were wrong and we should stop giving them a hard time.”

    And don’t forget that the Puppy movement, by definition is a subset of Members of the World Science Fiction Society.

  14. Since my comment didn’t resurface, just a note to say that it included links to a couple of rec.arts.sf.written threads (ones I found in google groups where the “what is SF” discussion popped up) and to the FAQ of that group.

  15. A couple of things about the VD/TB extract –

    (1) he sounds just like a teenager who has discovered Marxism, and sees no alternative but to crush the yellow running dog capitalists

    (2) I still find it amusing to no end that he, who claims to be so successful, wealthy and tech-savvy, is using, as his apparent pulpit, the free service hosted by Google (Blogger/Blogspot) for those of us either too economically disadvantaged or non-technically oriented to use platforms that give more control.

    I find this even more amusing given the fact the Google makes no guarantee at all that the Blogspot platform will continued indefinitely, that the Blogspot upp-level domain is blocked entirely in some dozen (or more) countries, and that Google may, at their own discretion, impose content controls. (please note that this would not be a “free speech” issue, as the Blogspot platform is owned by, hosted on and administrated by a corporate entity, not any government instrumentality)

  16. Aaron, that is your intuition about what will happen, but so far it seems that at Ravencon at least, a splendid time was had by all.

    This is your inexperience with how cons are run showing. The guests for RavenCon were likely decided months or even years ago. As an example, I am a member of an organization that puts on a local con, and at our last meeting we discussed possibilities for the con’s guest of honor for 2017. The 2016 roster has already been mostly set, although there are still gaps to be filled in. The 2015 roster is pretty much fixed at this point. My suspicion is that this next year is pretty much going to be the last hurrah for a lot of Puppy authors insofar as being invited to be program guests at local cons is concerned.

  17. Brian Z:
    “And don’t forget that the Puppy movement, by definition is a subset of Members of the World Science Fiction Society.”
    I was under the impression that at least one of the puppy instigators this year expressed no intention of joining Sasquan. I don’t think you can define the puppy movement (and, really, “puppy movement” sounds like what we find on the floor at work when the younger patients get nervous) in a way that excludes the people running it. Well, you could, I suppose, but it doesn’t make sense.

  18. Tuomas Vainio —

    “Yet what I do not have, what no one seems to have is the percentage of female and male SFF authors … But these are the findings based on the submissions to Tor: … 78% of submitted science fiction was written by men.”

    Oh, that’s getting dragged out again. You know, we do SEE that little bait-and-switch being pulled.

    You start by talking about the percentage of SFF (Science Fiction and Fantasy) authors, and then suddenly cut out that second F when discuss the numbers. EVERY time that someone references that link, that’s what’s happens.

    Amazingly, when you put that F back in, the contention that the Hugos are preferentially biased in favor of female authors suddenly collapses. Funny, that.

  19. Leslie C, I agree there isn’t any real definition, and don’t know why people throw around the epithet as if it really fit a group of people.

  20. Oh, and “excludes the people running it”: who’s running who? Some authors made recommendations on their blogs, some in more strident terms than others (which may or may not be a very becoming thing for anyauthor to do). Other people voted. That’s it. Nobody “ran” anybody.

  21. Aaron, we are just talking past each other. I never said panelists were not invited well in advance. I said it looks like they all had a great weekend.

  22. And don’t forget that the Puppy movement, by definition is a subset of Members of the World Science Fiction Society.

    A subset that seems to have almost no interest in actually doing the work required to put on WorldCon or any of the other local cons that take place around the world. Which means that their opinions really won’t matter that much. The decisions about a WorldCon (or any other fan run con) are generally made by the concom, which is generally made up of people willing to put in lots of unpaid work to make the con happen. Unless and until Puppy supporters are willing to do that (and thus far there is no indication that they are, and in at least some very public cases, they are resolutely not interested in doing so), they will have little, if any, influence.

  23. @ influxus: John Clute’s Encyclopedia of Science fiction – which is online in its 3rd edition, at http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com – is a good place to start. Try browsing the Themes entries, and look at the work involved in establishing any kind of rigorous boundary.

    Brian Aldiss’ book Trillion-Year Spree is a decent history of sf, and takes up various approaches to defining it along the way. Then contrast that with essays by Samuel Delany (The Jewel Hinged Jaw, Shorter Views, and Longer Views) and Ursula K. Le Guin (particularly The Language of the Night). Also look for essays by Damon Knight, who turned out multiple interesting definitions of sf along the course of a long, productive critical career.

    Those are some of the really major pillars in fandom’s collective sense of self.

  24. ” My suspicion is that this next year is pretty much going to be the last hurrah for a lot of Puppy authors insofar as being invited to be program guests at local cons is concerned.”

    Because…Tolerance?

  26. To be nitpicky, I guess it should be “puppy movements” also.

    And no, none of the movements are “by definition subsets of Members of the World Science Fiction Society”. Some of the puppies might be members (maybe even most), but that is not the same.

    The closest would be to say that “a subset of the members of WSFS define themselves as part of the puppy movements”.

  27. influxus,

    “running with it”

    Yes, it is good to know that Kate the Impaler is bipedal, in addition to knowing she although has frequent fits of insanity she nevertheless hates getting blood on things and needs to work on her evil cackle. That’s your evidence of an insidious and thoroughly well organized conspiracy? Try taking a deep breath.

  28. Because…Tolerance?

    Because the Puppy authors have spent the last several months crapping all over the fans who runs these cons. Why would anyone want to work with someone who has spent the last several months being assholes towards fandom, and have announced an intention to continue doing so? To be perfectly honest, most of the Puppy authors are easily replaceable on con panels. Most of them have modest enough resumes that among the hundreds of possible author options to invite, they simply won’t be missed.

  29. Hampus if the group of “puppies” being complained about ad naseum are not the same “puppies” who cast ballots in the Hugo nomination, perhaps you are talking about the ones guilty of wrongthink and thoughtcrime who should be punished for casting ballots next year? I mean, I’m mostly joking…

  30. Brian Z:

    As I’ve mentioned before regarding Wright, I’m not really interested in word diarrhea. Please go spew your puppy vomit somewhere else.

  31. Brian Z – but so far it seems that at Ravencon at least, a splendid time was had by all.

    I really do hope some attend local conventions and Worldcon. Seeing people having fun, realizing it’s broader than just the awards, and sharing a common interest with fellow fans I suspect will make many second guess what all the yelping is about.

    I agree there isn’t any real definition, and don’t know why people throw around the epithet as if it really fit a group of people
    …
    Nobody “ran” anybody.

    Aside from the group of people identifying with the goals of the Sad Puppies, run this year by Brad Torgerson, who stated what the intent of the group is/was. Of all the goofy things for people to hand wring the the definition of this one is right up there with the strangest.

  32. Brian: “What is the Eaton collection doing? I was following that for a while but lost track.”

    I don’t know. Perhaps you can find out and subsequently add or work with it to create your repository for new fans.

  33. snowcrash, I mean have they hired a dedicated librarian (full or part time) as was being discussed a while back? I wonder what current initiatives are afoot for, say, their fanzine collection, which would depend on their staffing and goals. That collection seems like a better starting (and ending) point for developing a “Portal to WorldCons Past”, rather than having an individual or three create some standalone website. But yes, I’d be glad volunteer time to help with such an effort.

  34. Andrew on May 11, 2015 at 7:00 am said:

    “” My suspicion is that this next year is pretty much going to be the last hurrah for a lot of Puppy authors insofar as being invited to be program guests at local cons is concerned.”

    Because…Tolerance?”

    Because assholes.

    “Tolerance” is one of those virtues ascribed by right-wingers to left-wingers, usually embedded in an argument about why left-wingers must put up with and shut up about all sorts of vicious behavior from the right-wingers.

    But “tolerance” is not a virtue of itself, it is a consequence of respect for human beings.

    The problem the Puppy authors are having is that they have royally pissed off the very community they would have to be amicable with in conventions.

  35. “Why would anyone want to work with someone who has spent the last several months being assholes towards fandom, and have announced an intention to continue doing so?”

    Indeed.

    I’m bemused at Puppies with this odd persecution complex. I see exactly the same thing going on amongst the Gamergate crowd – not surprising, considering the overlap and the fact that both consist, at their heart, of ‘Internet warfare against [people they think are] SJWs.’ Who are apparently running the governments, controlling academia, shutting down freedom of speech, building a totalitarian New World Order, yadda yadda yadda…

    *yawn*

  37. One,

    That Leinster graf is great. Especially the words “long-cherished”—it shows us that the character thinks of himself as thoughtful and ambitious even though he’s a fuck-up. One might even say he’s a Brad Torgersen-like character.

    Two,

    It’s perfectly possible to be part of East Coast fandom and know that trying to create an objective definition of SF is a fool’s errand. I cut my teeth at Arisia, Lunacon, and Philcon in the 1990s and early 2000s. Larger regional cons also host tables for Worldcon bids. (PS: pretty sure Montreal is easily accessible via Amtrak from NYC, which is turn easily accessible via Amtrak from anywhere on the Eastern seaboard. 2009!)

    Three,

    Speaking of reinventing the wheel, the paradox of tolerance was pretty definitively handled by Karl Popper decades ago. Look it up.

  38. Matt Y,

    Seeing people having fun, realizing it’s broader than just the awards, and sharing a common interest with fellow fans I suspect will make many second guess what all the yelping is about.

    Great sentiment. Did you read Kate’s con report, by the way? Seems like that particular crowd has a blast every year.

    About “running,” remember, Brad Torgersen made mistakes in how he handled SP3, but he’s definitely not doing it again. I don’t know her personally, but it sure does look like Kate The Impaler is a very silly and generally nice person, though I am not pleased with the anti-SJW etc. rhetoric she has borrowed.

  39. Tried reading it but not a fan of a person using third person to reference themselves unless they’re The Rock. Too much Lo! and not enough Forsooth! for my tastes as well. Though I do like the term ‘seductive demoness of Stakes Escalation’.

  41. I hate it when silly, nice people take up hateful, vicious rhetoric.

  42. Andrew – There won’t be any “blacklist” involved – the organizers of the conventions will likely not be enamored of inviting panelists who have shown that they don’t want to actually associate with the fans who will be the *paying clientele*

  43. NYC to Montreal: yes, though to get there from Virginia you’d still have to sleep in Penn Station.

  44. “I hate it when silly, nice people take up hateful, vicious rhetoric.”

    Yep, that’s a fair point alright.

  45. It also gets tricky when some of the Guests of Honor at a con realize that other authors support a group that ran them out of their house, doxed them, and have stalkers show up at their events.

  46. I didn’t realize that people from Virginia were barred from either driving into NY or staying in a motel overnight or just staying up late and taking the 3:15am train from Washington Union Station. (You’ll be in Montreal by 7pm!)

    There are also only enormous numbers of reasonably priced flights out Dulles or Reagan, and even a handful out of Richmond. (BWI is sucky, as usual.)

    If there is still someone in the hinterlands of VA for whom Montreal is inaccessible, congratulations, you have finally figured out why Worldcon moves around every year!

  47. Nick,

    I fear, sir, that your words have aggrieved me. BWI is the best of the three regional airport, and I don’t like your impugning it. 🙂

  48. Surely the Puppies would only ever leave from Reagan! (Other airports are Marxist.)

  49. “just staying up late and taking the 3:15am train from Washington Union Station. (You’ll be in Montreal by 7pm!)”

    That sounds kind of magical.

  50. Geez, Nick, I agreed Amtrak to Quebec is workable, I was just shuddering at the thought of leaving Richmond to catch an 8am train from Penn Station. At any rate, I’m glad you liked the Murray Leinster.

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