433 thoughts on “I Am Not a Puppy, I Am a Free Man 5/15”

1. “This is one of those “nobody I know voted for him” moments. It also explains a lot.”

   Most people do not require an explanation to the effect of, “If you walk into a certain social space and start antagonizing people, you should not be surprised if they wind up disliking you. And you should further not be surprised that they don’t care to honor you with money or artistic recognition in light of that, unless your stuff is just so damned good it outweighs all other considerations.”

   Watching the way Larry — and to a lesser extend, Brad — decided to try to tie their professional success in with their political activism, I’m reminded of the absolute bafflement I felt back in 2012 when the Komen Foundation decided that it would be a GREAT idea to get political with funding for breast cancer research. Why would you take something that everyone agrees is bad — breast cancer — and deliberately antagonize half your supporters by stapling it to a divisive issue like abortion rights? In what universe is that a good idea?!? And Komen still hasn’t recovered from the blunder. So why would two SFF authors with very promising starts, one a Campbell nominee and one a double Campbell and Hugo nominee, choose to make their work part of a political war instead of just digging in and doing more of what fandom originally honored them for — writing good fiction? Why is this all about politics with them, and not about the writing? Are these guys primarily writers, or political activists? Apparently they are politicals first and writers second, so they should not be at all surprised when other people react to them as such.

   Given that Larry and Brad are both grown men, it’s astonishing that they’re having trouble with this concept. I suspect that they do get it, but they just don’t like it — again, they want to be able to be political animals without paying the piper for taking that approach in their professional lives. It’s cake-having-and-eating, as I said, and since they weren’t allowed to both have and eat, they decided to try and just swipe the cake and run so they and their friends could gorge on it and laugh about how clever and audacious they were. But they aren’t. These guys are not Ocean’s 11. They just walked into an unguarded bakery and helped themselves to the goods — they’re vandals of the sort who believe that someone leaving their door unlocked is actively asking to be burgled rather than simply expecting other people to observe the rules of civilized society.

   The way for Correia and Torgersen — and their Puppy Pals — to win Hugos was to dig in and write the best damned conservative fiction out there, SFF so compelling that people just wouldn’t care about the political leanings or bad behavior, if any, of the authors. OSC is still doing really well for himself, after all, despite his anti-gay political activities, although in his case he has benefited a lot from accumulated good will earned in the years when he was a much better writer and seemed to be a better person as well than currently. But, again, they just didn’t want to do the work.

   They were lazy, pure and simple. Correia in particular.

2. “Delurking – Perhaps you’re simply not aware of it?”

   Nah, I read everything. Including Larry Correia and Michael Z. Williamson.

   I admit I stopped after reading one of Williamson’s books. Did he get better after Freehold? That one was pretty awful.

   And I have quit reading OSC lately. I liked his early stuff, but his new books seem like he’s phoning them in. Still, I understand he’s been ill. I do like the essays he writes over there on Hatrack River, at least when he doesn’t get into the whack-a-loon conspiracy theory mode.

3. I promise I’m done. I know I’ve talked too much. Sorry, all…you make it too much fun.

4. @happyturtle +1

5. Delurking – if that’s your definition of conservative… Well, you’re actually just ignorant of politics. Mad Mike is a centrist libertarian, and Larry is a conservative-leaning libertarian (far more the latter than the former).

   And how did we get from “art” to “science fiction I’ve read in the last five years?”

   May Tree – Was that actually a response to me in any way? I was referencing the human tendency to assume that one’s personal thought bubble represents the norm. It’s a rather famous quote.

6. Most of the conservative fans and creators I know are complicated conservatives. They might not even be considered “conservative” by what passes for mainstream establishment Republicanism, Libertarian or Tea-party conservatism these days. They’re the kind of conservative that still embraces ambiguity while being told that ideological purity is the heart of conservatism.

   Now I don’t think they’re any worse at creative endeavors than moderates or liberals. I think they can tell the difference between “I want to explore this idea” and “I need to write a propaganda piece.” I also think they can actually explore an idea and express their perspective without turning out a propaganda piece.

   But I also see a lot of failed conservative propaganda coming from more mainstream sources. Someone tried to create a conservative alternative to The Daily Show, and it failed hard. Where The Daily Show lampoons anyone in politics who does something mockworthy, the alternative put the conservative message ahead of the comedy, and it failed to even draw a conservative audience.

7. >> Because I can’t really think of many things, as a writer, that would be worse to hear than that.>>

   You can’t? Geez, that seemed pretty mild to me. It’s pseudo-intellectual nonsense, and anyone with an ego healthy enough to write and submit things to market ought to be able to ignore that sort of thing easily.

   It’s right there with “people who had pleasant childhoods can’t be good writers” or “you can’t be a good writer ’til you’re over 40” or similar nonsense. And from there you can go on to the anti-genre snobbery in literary circles (except when they’re co-opting it) and the anti-literary snobbery in genre circles, and on and on and on.

   It’s dopey, but it’s hardly shocking.

   On another front — it seems that the bulk of the bad reaction the Puppies got is to the Slatening. Which seems to have occurred because their cheerleading for socially-conservative, action-oriented SF (by themselves and their friends) hadn’t paid off in two whole attempts.

   Imagine if feminists had decided to game the Hugos (complete with Sad Ovaries and Rampant Ovaries) with a slate back in the 70s. We’d still be dealing with the fallout today.

   I tend to think that if Correia, Torgersen et al had politicked for their causes, they’d have met resistance (as anyone does), but spread awareness, and might have slowly got more and more people who like what they like involved. By using the tactics they did, they pissed off a lot of people they might not have,* because they wanted not to persuade over time but to force their way into dominance.

   You don’t herd cats with a shotgun.

   kdb

   *that guy who kept going on about how Jim Butcher fans will rise up and wreak vengeance if he’s No-Awarded made me wonder what the reaction will be when the Hugos are done and we find out who was likely to have made the ballot without slates. What will their fans think? Welcoming? Not so much?

8. “I’m an atheist extreme leftie, and I don’t believe for 1 second that conservatives are less capable of creating or enjoying art than liberals.”

   Oh, I’m sure they are capable of it. The question, then, is why so many Conservative movies — like God Is Not Dead, and Heaven Is Real, and so on — are so ham-handedly awful. Not to mention what John C. Wright is putting out.

   That’s the question Rod Dreher looked at. He used Conservative art from the past, like Milton — who, while I don’t agree with his central message, I agree is a brilliant writer, who produced a classic work of art — and said, now look, where are the Conservative writers of today who ought to be doing this?

   Or even a few generations ago, when we had L’Engle and C.S. Lewis? I don’t like much of what Lewis has to say, either, but he could put together a story; he could write. You may or may not enjoy Correia and Ringo; you might even like their stories; you can’t claim either one is much of a writer.

   (Though I am not by any means saying they’re as awful as the people who created God is Not Dead. Don’t mistake me! John C. Wright, maybe, now…)

9. Andrew Tremblay – The opposite situation would be talk radio, where conservatives represent something like 90% of the audience. I think you’re also confusing what “mainstream” conservatives think with what liberal pundits *say* mainstream conservatives think.

10. Delurking – Larry Correia isn’t much of a writer? Huh. Well, he certainly has a whole bunch of fans who disagree with that assessment.

11. Not so much, actually. I’m listening to actual real-world conservatives, who I know in real life, talking over a few glasses of wine, about how the various conservative movements fail to represent them.

12. You would also need to factor in the fact that, on the whole, English speaking fans who do not live in the US are far more left wing than those who do live in the US. This is because our political parties in general are far more left wing.

    Thus, whilst I admire and enjoy John Scalzi’s work, the notion of him being a socialist is so ludicrous that I’m in danger of losing my eyeballs due to the speed of their rotation.

    I suspect that this fact has passed puppydum by; expecting Loncon voters to mirror US political divisions was simply ill informed, just as expecting Loncon voters to share puppydum shock horror perils of atheism was ill informed.

    There is a solution; the puppies could set up a U.S. only con which would exclude people from other countries who fail to comply with U.S. expectations. Of course, it wouldn’t be Worldcon, and Beale couldn’t attend, but they could still have fun and hand out awards and generally have a good time. All they need are people who know how to run cons.

    That might be a problem; do they have any people who know how to run cons?

13. >> Well, he certainly has a whole bunch of fans who disagree with that assessment.>>

    To be fair, so do Dan Brown and Stephenie Meyer.

    They are probably more content that they have a lot of fans than they are upset by the fact that there are other readers who don’t think they’re very good writers. Or maybe they’re eaten up by bitterness at not being universally loved. Who knows?

14. Andrew Trembley – Yes, that’s my point. The typical conservative “movement” represents the view of the average conservative about as much as the green party or PETA represents the average liberal.

15. Conservative/Progressive and left/right are not absolute values. Their value is determined relative to each other, and to their respective extremes. People don’t fit into nice little boxes, no matter what color you paint the ticky-tacky.

    That is the trap that the Rabid Puppies, and to a lesser extent Larry and Brad, have fallen into. Since they are conservatives, those who disagree them with them must be liberals. Since Conservatism is based on the value of liberty and personal responsibility, the Liberals must value totalitarianism and personal weakness. Anyone who runs is an SJW. Anyone who stands still is a well disciplined SJW.

16. “Delurking – Larry Correia isn’t much of a writer? Huh. Well, he certainly has a whole bunch of fans who disagree with that assessment.”

    I’m going to invoke the ever-popular Argumentum Ad Portu: So does Michael Bay. But he will never win an Oscar for a Transformers movie.

    There’s also the Argumentum Ad Crepusculo: Look how many fans the Twilight series has. Meyer will never win a Man Booker prize.

    The prize you get for having a lot of fans is called the Plaustrum Monete — the “Wheelbarrow Full of Cash” award.

17. Kurt Busiek – Has it really been that long since people were praising Dan Brown as a brilliant writer? I certainly remember those days.

    Of course, Stephanie Meyer was tapping into a very large, yet unexplored, market. One can’t say the same of Correia.

    Now, here may be a significant point of debate: I find Correia to be a largely mediocre stylist, setting aside his humorous moments. But style ranks way, way below most other factors (storytelling, characters, concepts, readability, clarity) on my list of relevant factors. The others factors, the ones I care about, are excellent.

    —

    Stevie – Yeah, there are a lot of UKIP voters who disagree with that statement.

18. If S1L1 does not like my assessment of Correia and Williamson as Conservative writers, and he does, in fact, know some contemporary Conservative writers who are excellent writers, I suggest that S1L1 list some.

    So far all I am hearing is a lot of talk. Some citations, please?

19. Latin adjustment: Make that Plaustrum Pecuniosi Award, I think that’s a better fit.

20. @S1AL:

    Yeah, I’m sorry. I had a brain blurp and didn’t think about proportions. 19 in 20 years sounds good until you think how many that’s out of.

    I don’t know how “Conservative” is defined, though.

    Leslie C on May 16, 2015 at 12:27 pm said:
    As a woman who nearly refused to watch the end of WALL-E due to unexpected romance in the movie, I am mildly irritated at RAH’s comment. As the mother of a gay son, I’m pissed off.
    Honestly, this whole insistence that there’s just such an overwhelming amount SFF with gay characters and so forth is reminding me of those studies of how much women speak, and how much men think they speak, or at what percentage of women the men think there’s more women than men. The whining does not reflect any reality with which I am familiar.

    I heard about that. Women gauge how much women speak accurately, but men think that it is equal when women speak 15% of the time and that women are overwhelmingly dominant when they speak 30% of the time.

    So yes, has anyone pulled out hard numbers from anywhere but their own backsides when they claim so many new LGBT and women-centered and minority-centered books have come out?

21. >> Now, here may be a significant point of debate: I find Correia to be a largely mediocre stylist, setting aside his humorous moments. But style ranks way, way below most other factors (storytelling, characters, concepts, readability, clarity) on my list of relevant factors. The others factors, the ones I care about, are excellent.>>

    I doubt there’ll be much debate over the idea that you find those things excellent.

    I can’t judge, not having read any Correia fiction that I’m aware of. It just doesn’t look like my kind of thing. And that’s even allowing for the way Baen’s sense of package design results in them packaging even authors I like in books that look like something I wouldn’t. [It’s as if Baen’s art director has one overwhelming mission: To design covers that I personally would find ugly and off-putting. I do not know why this is, but it’s very consistent…]

22. Gene Wolfe? Timothy Zahn? Tom Clancy?

    That’s off the top of my head. I actually don’t know the politics of many of the authors of fiction that I read. It’s not hugely important to me.

23. Kurt Busiek on May 16, 2015 at 2:04 pm said:
    >> Now, here may be a significant point of debate: I find Correia to be a largely mediocre stylist, setting aside his humorous moments. But style ranks way, way below most other factors (storytelling, characters, concepts, readability, clarity) on my list of relevant factors. The others factors, the ones I care about, are excellent.>>

    I doubt there’ll be much debate over the idea that you find those things excellent.

    I can’t judge, not having read any Correia fiction that I’m aware of. It just doesn’t look like my kind of thing. And that’s even allowing for the way Baen’s sense of package design results in them packaging even authors I like in books that look like something I wouldn’t. [It’s as if Baen’s art director has one overwhelming mission: To design covers that I personally would find ugly and off-putting. I do not know why this is, but it’s very consistent…]

    Baen is a perennial favorite over on goodshowsir.co.uk , the blog of atrocious SFF book cover art.

24. >> Baen is a perennial favorite over on goodshowsir.co.uk , the blog of atrocious SFF book cover art.>>

    It sells to their audience. Which is both good for them and good for their audience.

    It just is an astonishingly-consistent visualization that I’m Not the Reader They’re Aiming At. Nor do I need to be.

25. “S1AL on May 16, 2015 at 1:56 pm said:
    Kurt Busiek – Has it really been that long since people were praising Dan Brown as a brilliant writer? I certainly remember those days.”

    [citation oh so very much needed]

    All Brown’s Wikipedia entry has to say in regards to the critical reaction to his writing is this: “Brown’s prose style has been criticized as clumsy with The Da Vinci Code being described as ‘committing style and word choice blunders in almost every paragraph’.” (The actual WP article has the citations.) And Brown himself said, “I do something very intentional and specific in these books. And that is to blend fact and fiction in a very modern and efficient style, to tell a story. There are some people who understand what I do, and they sort of get on the train and go for a ride and have a great time, and there are other people who should probably just read somebody else.”

    At least Dan Brown, unlike some Puppies I could name, is aware of what his strengths are (storytelling, not wordsmithing) and is apparently unapologetic about making good use of them, as he should be. I don’t see him complaining that he has not a single literary award to his name — he’s undoubtedly too busy collecting up the 40-plus editions of his works that have been translated into different languages and doing lazy backstrokes in his swimming pool of Veuve Clicquot to worry about it.

    He sure as heck isn’t getting together with a group of similar authors and planning a campaign to hijack a Nobel Prize for Literature for himself. Because that’s just dumb.

26. What I said about men and women was not inaccurate. It was a generality. Of course there are more reasons men and women are attracted.I did not say homosexual attraction did not exist Just that the percentage is very small compared to the heterosexual.

    No, happy. Just because romance is very large field that is primarily written by women and that women read does not mean women do not read other genre. Man, do you rush to sexist judgment. I have known many men that read romance. If they are bored. My father used to call them his 50 cent books. A reader loves to read. We will read just about anything. My point is that SF&F competes against the entertainment time and dollar of teens and young adults. And it is losing.. Anything that does not target that audience is not selling the SF & F brand.

27. Of course, as Fred “Slacktivist” Clark and others have pointed out, when a conservative artist does work that doesn’t have the correct conservative branding on it, the work and/or the artist get dismissed as not actually conservative. This field does honor its great conservative members – Lafferty, Silverberg, Wolfe, Bradbury, and on and on. The contemporary conservative movement (of which American libertarianism is functionally a part, essentially always, when it’s time to decide how to exercise political power)’s fascination with the proper branding seems to flourish at the expense of making actually appealing art.

28. I really enjoyed Correia’s “Hard Magic”. It was witty, he leveraged his love of small details to characterize his characters as part of a larger world. Not what I would of nominated for a Hugo, but it was a fun read. “Warbound”, the third book in the series and Hugo nominee, was a let down. Correia has slid into the things I dislike about his style. His use of detail to build the setting had devolved into gun porn (nothing wrong with gun porn. It’s not my kink.), the political message had turned preachy, and his characterization of the Japanese had devolved into interesting take on history to full blown racism.

29. >> My point is that SF&F competes against the entertainment time and dollar of teens and young adults. And it is losing.. Anything that does not target that audience is not selling the SF & F brand.>>

    I am happy that they choose to target some of what they do at me, then, even if that isn’t selling the brand.

    I’m a reader, not a brand manager. I expect many other readers feel the same way, including those teens and young adults who like stuff that isn’t targeted at the bulk of teens and young adults.

30. Heck, for that matter, as a writer I’ve made a pretty decent living largely trying to aim for something other than the conventionally-accepted sweet spot of the genres and artforms I work in.

31. Gene Wolfe I will give you, though I am not certain we can call him a contemporary author — born in the 1930s, he is contemporary to C.S. Lewis, RAH, and L’Engle.

    Tom Clancy? Seriously? That’s Stephanie Meyer level writing, at best. I read a couple of his books about ten years ago. They were pretty meh.

    I haven’t read Timothy Zahn. My local library has him — I’ll take a look.

32. Chris Hensley – I liked Hard Magic significantly more than Warbound and Spellbound. I’d rank Nemesis above it, but that’s it. My biggest complaint with Correia’s work is that he often takes “go big or go home” and dials it up to 11 when it doesn’t need to be.

33. @RAH: Except that science fiction is winning. Eight of the top ten grossing movies in the US last year were science fiction or fantasy. Worldwide the twelve top grossing movies were all SFnal. The SF literary market is a different issue, but to say that movies and video games are destroying science fiction as a genre runs contrary to the facts.

34. RAH: “Now among those demographics half of the market is male. Males are not interested in being lectured when they are being entertained. Hence the blowback with Gamer Gate. My son is an avid gamer. He says games are getting dumbed down. He likes first person shooter.”
    There are a whole list of reasons why big-budget video games “are getting dumbed down”. The major reason is that making a game these days costs in the tens or even hundreds of millions, so game publishers are less willing to take risks on new ideas. The result is that the same shoot-em-up gets made again and again.

    Nothing to do with overzealous liberals.

    Also, I thought GamerGate was about ethics in video game journalism, not some sort of political agenda. *snickers*

35. snowcrash @ 11:45 am- I have no idea as to Jim Butcher’s religion, politics or cultural beliefs. And that’s the way I like it, when it comes to authors.

    One thing I noticed about Jim Butcher’s characters is how diversely human and quirky they are. He has a black male atheist Knight of the Cross wielding a Holy sword. He might not believe in God, but God believes in him and, as humans, he doesn’t expect us to be perfect. He has another devout Christian white male Knight of the Cross who, from my perspective, is hen pecked by his former witch of a wife who he loves dearly.

    He has the main character, Harry, who declares himself in a state of armed agnosticism when it comes religion. And then gets sucked into one mission after the other by the two aforementioned Knights, and is ultimately entrusted to safeguard the last of the three Holy Swords until a worthy wielded is found.

    He has character, after character, including his Wiccan and pagan Paraneters, who are of diverse religions and political backgrounds, all acting toward the common good.

    He has absolutely evil vampires (Red and Black Courts) contrasted to less evil but incredibly self centered White Court vamps.

    He has werewolves that range from ravening monsters, to calculated bad guys, to selfless good guys.

    Harry has to tolerate that the White Council, Chicago PD and others think he’s in a gay relationship with Thomas, a White Court vamp. Thomas is actually Harry’s half brother who poses as a gay hair stylist so he can discreetly fed of his customers, and Harry can’t blow the cover.

    He has dominate women, not the least of which is Mab, his current boss, who think circles around Harry and put him in situations he must do as they command, no matter how stubborn he wants to be about it.

    He has a daughter he can’t associate with, both because he’s an emotional coward and because his many enemies would move against her for leverage and revenge.

    He has someone he’s clearly been in love with for 15 novels, Murphy, a former cop turned vigilante, but bad timing, bad luck and duty always conspire to keep the apart. And it’s becoming clear that nothing will ever come of it as she is mortal and aging while Harry is not (as a wizard he’ll live a few centuries).

    He has Ebenezzar, Harry’s grandfather and a supposed good guy, who has done many good things, including saving innocents from White Council execution and forming the Grey Council to fight for the mortals the WC won’t, who has on multiple occasions murdered tens of thousands of innocents, both on WC orders and to protect Harry.

    Jim Butcher’s plots (an overarching series plot, a multiple book plot, a book plot, and minor subplots each novel) story telling, world building and characters are second to none.

    I could care less about his politics.

36. >>Gene Wolfe I will give you, though I am not certain we can call him a contemporary author — born in the 1930s, he is contemporary to C.S. Lewis, RAH, and L’Engle.>>

    His new novel comes out in October. That makes him a contemporary writer.

    It’s not who you’re a contemporary of, it’s whether you’re writing/publishing in the current time.

    >>Tom Clancy? Seriously? That’s Stephanie Meyer level writing, at best. I read a couple of his books about ten years ago. They were pretty meh.>>

    Plus, no longer contemporary due to his death a couple years back. That’s still close to contemporary, though.

    >> I haven’t read Timothy Zahn. My local library has him — I’ll take a look.>>

    Try NIGHT TRAIN TO RIGEL. It’s the first in a very enjoyable series.

37. Delurking – Some of Clancy’s stuff is phoned in, but some of it is fantastic. Net Force, The Hunt for Red October, or Without Remorse, for example.

    I liked Zhan’s Blackcollar works, and the Thrawn Trilogy single-handedly revived the Start Watts franchise.

    And yeah, “contemporary” is a bit odd for me, because most of what I’ve read is older than I am.

    —

    Kurt Busiek – Baen cover art isn’t really my thing, either. But hey, literally judging a book by its cover… 😉

38. “I actually don’t know the politics of many of the authors of fiction that I read. It’s not hugely important to me.”

    Oh, and this statement — I’m sorry, but what this signals, 99 times out of 100, is “I only read certain kinds of writers, and they *just* *happen* to be the kinds of writers whose politics I already agree with. Don’t know how that happens, but there we are!”

    It’s like the writers who say, “The gender of writers doesn’t matter to me! I just read writers I like!” Or “The color of writers doesn’t matter to me!” or whatever, and then, when you look at their bookshelves / reading list, eh voila! somehow they have read nothing but white guys. And when you point it out, they are just so astonished and offended.

    And it’s really not deliberate. They really did just read “writers they liked.” Odd how that meant writers just like them.

    What do I mean here? I mean if you never move past the same same — the writers you read when you were twelve, in other words — you will never discover that other kinds of writers can be good writers too.

    Read everything. Even if it upsets you, alarms you, disturbs you, shocks you at first. Even if it makes you say meh sometimes. (It’s why I read the second Tom Clancy. Maybe I was wrong!) Keep trying new stuff. And more new stuff.

    I read Milton, for instance! Yow, that was a ride. Well worth it, though.

    I even read Romances and Westerns now and then. I even read Stephanie Meyers — well, most of Twilight. It was too awful to finish.

    I even read John C. Wright. And I frequently read Vox Day’s horrible blog.

    I’m a far-left liberal, and an atheist, but I read Christian fiction, and Christian blogs, all the time. (You want to know where to find some good Christian fiction? It was written in the 1950s, in England.)

    Read everything.

39. If the universe wants to deliver a latter-day Charles Williams, I would fall on their work with glad cries and talk it up no end.

40. I’ll try the Hunt for Red October. Though it will have to be really good to change my opinion of Clancy.

41. Also in response to RAH: “Males are not interested in being lectured when they are being entertained.”

    I’m a straight white male in his mid-20s. I’d like it if you didn’t tell me what I’m supposed to be interested in, thank you very much.

42. >> Baen cover art isn’t really my thing, either. But hey, literally judging a book by its cover… ;)>>

    I don’t judge them, other than “That doesn’t look like something I’d want to read,” which is a judgment we all make when we’re deciding what to read.

    There’s a ton of stuff out there I don’t pick up and read; I can’t say whether it’s good or bad, because I haven’t read it. Just that it doesn’t look like it’s for me.

    And since the stuff that does look like it’s for me is currently piled so deep it’d take me several years to get through it all (plus they keep publishing new stuff, and I keep finding authors I haven’t heard of that I want to read)…

    …well, I try not to judge books by their covers, but I’m definitely willing to choose books by their packaging (including blurbs, excerpts, etc.).

43. In exchange, y’all should read Eleanor Arnason, the best underrated feminist SF writer out there. Start with Woman of the Iron People.

44. “I could care less about his politics.”

    Your paean to the Beauties of Butcher is all well and good, and even mostly correct in my opinion or I wouldn’t own most of the Dresden File books in hardcover.

    The next one won’t get my money, though, because while Butcher may be okay with accepting an award that was gamed on his behalf, I’m not okay with him being okay with accepting an award that was gamed on his behalf. If Lance Armstrong had won the Tour De France because his fans slipped diuretics or tranquilizers into the drinks of all his competitors, I would feel the same way I do about Armstrong doping himself to win. If you cheat to win, you’re a cheater; if you accept an award you only got because someone else kneecapped a bunch of your competition at the qualifying stage, enabling you to make it into the finals race, you are also a cheater.

    Remember how popular Tonya Harding was after her buddies tried to cripple her competition?

    Yeah, it’s like that.

45. Delurking – I was quite serious about not knowing the politics of most of the authors I read, partially because it’s often hard to tell in fantasy and far-future SF. Heck, to this day I cannot parse what Heinlein actually believed. Asimov – same thing. People strongly disagree on the politics of the former, and I’ve never bothered to look at the latter.

    As for the gender or color of the authors – meh. The vast majority of works in which I generally take an interest (science fiction, fantasy, philosophy, political theory – preferably general) are written by people who are more-or-less white, and often male. It then come as no surprise to me that most of the authors I read are the same. I don’t see that as anything more than an accident of demographics. Which is another area of puppy contention, of course.

46. Just poking my head through the door every so often and taking a quick look …

    So yes, has anyone pulled out hard numbers from anywhere but their own backsides when they claim so many new LGBT and women-centered and minority-centered books have come out?
    Actually, yes, though not in supreme detail. But I stumbled across this post by Anthony Vicino which points out that of the 2014 Locus awards for Sci-Fi and Fantasy, 90% of them feature a homosexual primary character. Which as he observes, is actually really, really high. And, this is my own conjecture here, but especially for a movement that claims it’s being misrepresented or marginalized.

    Make of that what you will.

    I haven’t read Timothy Zahn. My local library has him — I’ll take a look.
    Definitely, definitely do. Zahn was one of the reasons I became a writer in the first place. I’d heartily recommend The Icarus Hunt, which is my all-time favorite book, and even his early stuff, like Spinneret.

    Oh, and The Conquerers Trilogy if you can find it. Early, but rollicking good fun with some really good exploration into alien culture and society (honestly much better than a lot of modern aliens, who tend to be completely homogenous as a culture and fall into one of two areas—super alien for the sake of being weird and Sci-fi enough, or loosely-based approximations of less common earth demographics with a few changes made like Star Trek makeup).

47. “I don’t judge them, other than “That doesn’t look like something I’d want to read,” which is a judgment we all make when we’re deciding what to read.”

    If it had been up to Baen’s covers I never would have read a Bujold book. I only picked up my first after Barrayar won a Hugo, because the award signaled potential value there. I’ve been a die-hard Dendarii ever since.

    This is one of the things that ticks me off so much about the Puppy Piddling. Until the holes the Puppies chewed in the Hugo process are patched, I can’t trust it as a recommendation of “something worth looking at” any more, because they’ve picked such terribly written exemplars of their taste. That’s not to say I’ve loved every author I’ve encountered due to the Hugo nominee and winner lists, but at least I never felt I completely wasted my time on any of them. Well, that assurance is out the window now, and I’m stocking up on rolled-up newspapers for Puppy Paddling because of it.

48. Apparently none of the tags work, sorry about that guys.

    Here’s the link to the post by Anthony for those curious: http://onelazyrobotblog.com/2015/05/07/science-fiction-has-gotten-a-little-gay/

49. ‘The market for stories that appeal to LGBT is very small.’

    You think LGBT readers don’t like action, adventure and milsf?

50. ‘ if certain segments of people vote based, at least partly, on the politics or cultural values of the work or author.’

    Is that why he thinks he lost? Is he sure it wasn’t because the winner was a better writer?

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