aka A Bark and Hungry Puppy Arises
June is bustin’ out all over which may account for one of the longest roundups ever. The pack includes lead dog Brad R. Torgersen, Alexandra Erin, Ian Gillespie, Jim C. Hines, John Scalzi, John C. Wright, Larry Correia, Dave Freer, Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag, Vox Day, Chris Kluwe, Lis Carey, Dave M. Strom, Pluviann, Chris Gerrib, Russell Blackford and Brianna Wu. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors May Tree and Soon Lee.)
Brad R. Torgersen
“Sheepdog staring at the horizon” – May 31
As my friend and author (and Sad Puppy critic) Eric Flint recently noted, he’s put his body on the line for what he believes. Other people spew a lot of hot air about being “warriors” for social justice. Eric’s a man who can actually claim that title, and be taken seriously; by allies and opponents alike.
So you will pardon me if I can’t spare much serious thought for those who think being some guy who gets pissed off on the internet, is somehow going to make a difference — a real, lasting, actual difference.
Which takes me back to a point Larry Correia and I have both made, about the Hugo awards: loads of people loved to complain about how the Hugos suck, and almost nobody was doing anything to make an impact. I say “almost” because there were interested parties working hard to effect the kind of change they wanted — Seannan McGuire didn’t get five Hugo nominations in a single year on accident — they just didn’t conduct their operations in broad daylight, nor on a scale to compare with Sad Puppies.
Which takes me back to a comment Michael Z. Williamson once made: we’re bad because we’re competent?
Well, whatever people have against Sad Puppies 3 — legit, or imaginary — it’s clear that the various narratives will continue without my input. I can only restate the obvious, in the hope that it sticks with people who have not decided to be dead-set against us. We (Sad Puppies Inc.) threatened nothing, demanded nothing, and closed no doors in any faces. We threw the tent flaps wide and beckoned to anyone and everyone: come on in, join the fun!
If someone can explain how promoting a slate hand picked by one man advances the cause of "anyone can nominate anyone", I'll join SP4.
— Alexandra Erin | patreon.com/AlexandraErin (@AlexandraErin) June 1, 2015
Ian Gillespie
“Blank Slate” – May 31
Putting aside the reasoning behind the Puppy slates – which is, admittedly, thoroughly objectionable to many of us all on its own – I’ve yet to see anyone offer a cogent, clearly articulated explanation for what makes the machinations of these melancholy mutts categorically different than what’s been done, without controversy, in years past.
I’d like to humbly suggest that the anti-puppies have been sucked into debating a strawman. While most of the prominent denunciations of the dispirited dogs have focused on their use of slates, the real problem with the pessimistic pups isn’t about slates at all, but rather tactical voting.
By linking their Hugo recommendations to a larger cause – namely, putting those insufferable progressives in their place – the Puppies have effectively encouraged their small-but-loyal pack of supporters to nominate works based on a political agenda – not the works themselves, not even their own individual preferences. That’s the issue. Not campaigning for particular works, but rendering the works themselves a meaningless consideration.
Ian Gillespie
“Paulk the Vote” – May 31
According to Erin, Kate Paulk has been tapped to take over the dog pound, and she’s already promised that next year’s puppy-approved slatecraft will be done in a “transparent and democratic manner”.
If this is truly the case, I have a modest proposal to make:
Let’s rock the vote.
No slates. No cheating. Just show up 7 months from now and vote for the same SJW message fiction, or the same gun-totting monster mashups, you were gonna nominate anyway. If it’s really democratic, then the outcome won’t be any different than a normal, unpuppied process anyway. Right?
Jim C. Hines
“Publishing 101” – June 1
In the wake of Scalzi’s Big Book Deal, folks have been saying some rather ignorant or ill-informed stuff about how publishing works. I wanted to address a few of those points here.
Let’s start with the easiest, in which folks over on Theodore Beale’s blog claim that by Tor giving Scalzi a $3.4 million advance, they’re “squeezing out” approximately “523 initial advances to new science fiction authors.” In other words, Beale claims that “Patrick Nielsen Hayden and John Scalzi have combined to prevent more than 500 authors from getting published and receiving paid advances.”
This is a particularly egregious bit of ignorance coming from Mister Beale, who fancies himself a publisher.
Publishing is a business. As a business, Tor not only spends money on things like acquiring and publishing books, they also earn money by selling said books. Assuming Scalzi shut out 500 authors assumes that Tor is simply pissing away that $3.4 million. This is a rather asinine assumption. John Scalzi has repeatedly hit the NYT Bestseller list, earned a Best Novel Hugo, and has several TV/film deals in development for his work. Tor buys books from John Scalzi for the same reason they buy books from Orson Scott Card: those books sell a hell of a lot of copies, and earn Tor significant profits.
Very often it’s those profits — the income from reliable bestsellers like Card and Scalzi — that allow publishers to take a chance on new and unknown authors.
Someone out there think the reason I don't write more about Hugos/Puppies is that I'm worried about being controversial. This is dumb. (1/3)
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 2, 2015
One, I write about it enough. Two, the idea that my positions on Hugos/Puppies are "controversial" is alternate universe fantasy. (2/3)
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 2, 2015
Three, unlike apparently some people, I have a life and career outside of Hugos/Puppies. There are other, more important things. (3/3)
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) June 2, 2015
John C. Wright
“You Got My Attention By Libeling Me and Desecrating What I Love” – June 1
With a combination of pity and dismay, I read this
https://file770.com/?p=22824&cpage=3#comment-272798….
I suspect the Rabids aren’t fans of SF so much as they are “members of the cult of Vox Day.” Partly, this is the only thing that truly seems to explain the works on the slate — the ones that aren’t published by Beale’s own press anyway — the point isn’t that they are any particular thing, the point is that he chose them, and there they are.
But to my infinite amusement, I read the reply: There are, as of last count, 367 vile, faceless minions of the Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil Authors.
https://twitter.com/damiengwalter/status/605445248924282880
Larry Correia on Monster Hunter Nation
“Back from New York, BEA Recap, and Updates” – June 1
I had some very interesting business conversations, many of which I can’t post about in public. I was worried that I’d catch flack because of all the negative media attention related to Sad Puppies, and the many CHORFs screaming about how I’ve ruined my career, will never work in this town again, blah, blah, blah. Basically, most of the publishing industry hasn’t heard or doesn’t care about the Hugos, it is a non-issue to them, and those who did talk to me about it were either on my side, or weren’t on my side but thought the stagnant little pond still needed a rock thrown in it.
There were also some interesting political conversations. The vast majority of the publishing folks live around and work in New York and are usually politically liberal. Everybody is nice, but at party conversations, people like me are a weird fly-over, red state curiosity. No, really, I do own like that many guns. I had a fascinating and too brief conversation about how Simon & Schuster realized after Bush’s reelection that there were actually lots of people in America who are not liberal and did not think that way, and maybe they should start some imprints to publish conservative political books, and New York publishing was all like no way, nobody believes that stuff. But S&S started some imprints aimed at conservative audiences and shockingly enough, made buckets of money.
Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write
“This JUST In” – June 1
So if you are a Puppy reading this, here’s how you convince the rest of the world that you mean all those high-minded ideals more than the snipping and sniping:
Next year, try actually spreading awareness of the open nature of nominations. Don’t buy into the slate. Don’t take your recommendations and hand them off to someone who may ignore them while assembling a slate of their own picks. Instead do what countless other people have done for years: post your own recommendations directly, as recommendations.
Add an explanation that anyone who buys a supporting membership to Worldcon can nominate their own picks, and bam… you will have just raised awareness of the nomination process.
What does participating in a slate do that furthers that mission? What does making vague, unfounded accusations that past nominees/winners benefited from some shadowy affirmative action program do to advance the cause? What does all the noise and mess and deliberate provocation and stirring up controversy have to do with anything? What does it add?
Dave Freer on Mad Genius Club
“Signals across the void –awards and other signs.” – June 1
Of course people can argue about what the signal meant in the first place. Take the various ‘literary’ awards. What were they intended to do?
1) A recognition of excellence by one’s peers?
2) A recognition of excellence by the public?
3) Promote such excellence – signal to others that that is excellent and they should look?
4) A pat on the back for one of the ‘in’ literary clique’s chums?Different awards have different purposes, and different values. As a reader and writer only (3) ‘Promote such excellence – signal to others that that is excellent and they should look at the work’ is worth much. Most awards, without careful custodianship, head for (4). At which point they lose their historical value and gradually vanish. They have less and less value as (3), and really (1) and (4) are something only the insecure want, unless they feed (3) – which (4) never does and (1) does badly. To put it brutally, if you need and support an award being (1) or (4) you’re a loser, not big enough for what is a tough profession.
(2) is a different kettle of tea. In real terms you could only get there by systematic polling. It does have a lot of (3) value too, because, true enough, we’re not that different. A book which is really the most popular book around, is worth a look-in. The nearest approximation in sf-fantasy is the Hugos. And it isn’t a great approximation (the sample of readers, by who attends/supports Worldcon is obviously inaccurate, and various problems in the nomination have been exposed by the Puppies. (they’re game-able, they’re not demographically representative of the sf readership) – but it’s the best we’ve got right now. As such it could do a good job for sf. It used to.
Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag on Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog
“The Hugos again” – June 1
Of particular interest to me is this notion of giving people who you don’t like bad reviews on books you haven’t read. Let me make this absolutely clear: This is bad behavior. It is wrong. If you have read a book and don’t like it, then it’s fine to give it a bad review.
If you attempted to read a book and found you couldn’t finish it because it was so bad, then yeah, give it a bad review.
But if you simply don’t like the author? Giving their book a bad review without reading it or trying to read it (in good faith) is every bit as bad as, say, nominating a bunch of works for the Hugo awards without reading them first because somebody put together a slate. Yeah, I’m comparing people who give bad reviews based on how they feel about the authors to the self-called “sad puppies” and “rabid puppies”. Both actions are bad faith. Both actions are wrong. Both actions are not worthy of intelligent people.
As David Gerrold says, “If you’re claiming to be one of the good guys, you gotta act like it.”
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“The descent of literary criticism” – June 1
Natalie Luhrs will be live-tweeting her feelz about THE WAR IN HEAVEN, beginning June 11. I wonder if she’ll like it?:
Before Theodore “Vox Day” Beale was the central figure in the Sad/Rabid Puppies Hugo Awards hacking, he wrote a series of religious-inspired fantasy novels for Pocket Books. And blogger Natalie Luhrs is going to live-tweet his debut novel, Eternal Warriors: The War in Heaven, for charity. Here’s how it works: You donate money to RAINN, a charity that operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline. (Or to a similar organization in your own country.) You send proof of your donation to Luhrs. And for every $5 you donate, Luhrs will livetweet a page of the book, starting June 11 with the hashtag #readingVD. She will also republish her tweets, with additional commentary, on a chapter-by-chapter basis, on her site, Pretty-Terrible. If people raise $2,000, she’ll do the entire book. (She is currently at $920.)
Yeah, probably not. I’d be considerably more impressed if she’d chosen A THRONE OF BONES instead. And it’s kind of a pity that she didn’t choose THE WORLD IN SHADOW, I would have been genuinely interested to see her reaction to that. I’m rather dubious that 300 tweets that alternate between snarking about how bad the writing is and how stupid the author is will prove to be very entertaining for long.
Chris Kluwe in a comment on io9 – May 29
As someone who livetweeted Milo Yiannopolous’ “poetry” book, Eskimo Papoose, all I can do is wish her the best of luck. That shit is more toxic than Godzilla poop on a radioactive dump site.
Geeky Library Voting Guide
[Combination infographic and voter survey, with a page for each category. Need to log into Twitter to vote.]
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Tangent SF Online, edited by Dave Truesdale” – June 1
One of the 2015 Best Fanzine nominees. This is a review zine, focused on reviewing science fiction and fantasy short fiction. I did not find that its style or judgments engaged me at all. However, that said, it’s perfectly competent and professional, and for those who connect better with the tone and approach of Tangent Online, this is a valuable service.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
The prose is pedestrian, and just to be absolutely clear: “Pedestrian” prose is not “transparent” prose. Transparent prose requires real skill and craft. The prose here is no more than adequate. It’s certainly no compensation for diffuse and distracting plotting and barely-present character development.
https://twitter.com/samdodsworth/status/605426485881663488
Dave M. Strom on Dave M. Strom: author of Holly Hansson, superheroine & writer
“Sad Puppies? Or Eye of Argon?” – June 1
At least the Eye of Argon was consistent about spelling out numbers. Although it violates hulls in a slightly grander fashion.
“The disemboweled mercenary crumpled from his saddle and sank to the clouded sward, sprinkling the parched dust with crimson droplets of escaping life fluid.”
There’s more. The same supposedly Hugo-worthy short story [Turncoat by Steve Rzasa] has this sentence. So much wrong in so little space.
“Disabling an enemy warship is not enough; they must be crippled, damaged, destroyed.”
I’m jerked from singular to plural. My sense of opposites is assaulted: in this context, disabled is a synonym for crippled and damaged. I offer this rewrite.
“Disabling an enemy warship is not enough; it must be destroyed.”
Simple, short, and direct. Even a Dalek would smile at that. As for these puppy stories, I urge a vote of no award.
Pluviann on The Kingfishers Nest
“The Parliament of Beasts and Birds – John C. Wright” – June 1
The ‘The Parliament of the Beasts and Birds’ is a beautifully written work. It opens with some excellent scene setting. Look at how wonderfully crafted this description is: ….
So, all in all, it was a bit odd. There are some very minor quibbles I can make: the past tense of shine is shone when the verb is intransitive. And Fox trying to wriggle out being called a thief by protesting that he stole meat not animals doesn’t really make sense. But overall, it was well done. The story started strong, meandered along fairly slowly but amusingly, and then took a decided turn for the strange at the end.
Chris Gerrib on Private Mars Rocket
“Hugo Thoughts, Novels” – June 1
I’ve been reading my Hugo packet. Over the weekend I finished The Goblin Emperor and abandoned all hope of reading The Dark Between the Stars. I’ll discuss why and what that means for Hugos below.
My problem with Stars was that I lost track of who was who in the zoo. Nearly every chapter brought new characters, with new conflicts. There were at least three main plot lines opened, and no obvious link between them. Also, I kept feeling that I was missing important bits of back-story, namely the war and relationships between the humans and the aliens.
Now, Goblin Emperor is by no means light reading. It has name issues, in that characters have different names and titles based on marital status and age. Having said that, I found it much less opaque. This was for two reasons – one, Sarah Monette (Addison is an open pen name) kept the point-of-view to one character, who as an outsider needed to have stuff explained to him. Second, the story was not set in a world where there were seven previous books written.
Russell Blackford
“Some more on the 2015 Hugo Voting Packet” – June 1
2. Rat Queens Volume 1: Sass and Sorcery – written by Curtis J. Weibe and illustrated by Roc Upchurch (nominated for Best Graphic Story). This bawdy fantasy romp, set in a Tolkienesque secondary universe complete with elves, orcs, and trolls, entertained me from beginning to end. The characters who make up the eponymous Rat Queens – a band of magical (female) adventurers – are unfailingly fun to watch, and are strongly distinguished in their individual designs and personalities. The action is fast-paced, and I’m all for the non-stop violence and low comedy. It’s a hoot, but does it have sufficient gravitas to merit a Hugo Award? Debatable, perhaps… but I wouldn’t be wanting to stand in its way. I rate it a bit below the next item, but it has its attractions.
3. Saga Volume Three – written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated by Fiona Staples (nominated for Best Graphic Story). Here we have a potential winner. I rate it below Ms. Marvel, but an earlier volume of this complicated, engaging space opera has already won a Hugo Award (in 2013). The characters are worth caring about; the storyline is intriguing; and the overall narrative, when it’s complete, could become a classic of its kind.
Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write
“Sad Puppies Review Books: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” – June 1
Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (Aspired)
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is the tale of a young man persecuted past the point of all reason. Only in the sick world of so-called Social Justice would he be held up as a comic figure rather a tragic one to be rescued or, failing that, avenged.
Our story begins when the main character wakes up with gum in his hair. Yet when he went to sleep, it was safely and responsibly in his mouth, where gum belongs. I am sure the SJWs would say that it is his fault for chewing gum in the first place, that he was somehow “asking for it”. They hate victim blaming until the victim is a white straight “CIS-MALE” and then suddenly everything is the victim’s fault. I ask you, is this morality where a person is always wrong 100% based on the gender and race?
If you say it is Alexander’s fault that the gum wound up in his hair, then you are saying he shouldn’t have had it in his mouth. If you are saying that he shouldn’t have had it in his mouth, you are saying he shouldn’t be allowed to chew gum. Who are you to say that he shouldn’t chew gum just because he is a straight white male, or as normal people who don’t notice sex or race would say, a normal person?
My husband Frank has four Hugo awards. Half of everything he owns is mine.Ergo, Brianna Wu has two Hugo awards.
— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) June 1, 2015
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Characterizing SP as conservative populists is interesting, and is certainly spot on for at least some of their members. RP is, say it with me kids, a hate group parading around as conservative populists. In those terms their relationship makes sense. The two kinds of political groups have a long, intertwined and troubled history.
The thesis of Sarah Hoyt’s new post is that the “cool kids” think that Heinlein is a misogynist because he shows (some of his) women wearing aprons.
Hoyt then spends several paragraphs explaining why (some) women might wear aprons.
Hoyt can’t…really be this hapless? Please tell me someone who writes books and makes money at it isn’t THIS gullible?
@Peace: It is definitely frustrating.
I just assumed it was deliberate misrepresentation and strawman arguing.
Notice she says some anonymous person on a panel said the apron thing, which she put into quotes as if it were something real.
She then proceeds to pummel that ol’ strawman.
It’s a classic technique.
Hoyt can’t…really be this hapless? Please tell me someone who writes books and makes money at it isn’t THIS gullible?
I’ve become convinced after reading several of Hoyt’s musings that Hoyt is either really just not very bright, or she is very comfortable with simply lying.
@delurking
Well, that’s pretty special.
I wonder if the Puppies will ever notice that their enemies are made out of straw?
@Peace
“I would hate to see all conventions mashed into one sort.”
I really, really, super-duper enthusiastically, agree with this.
Actually, back when I first got into fandom, *koff* more than 20 years ago oh my God I’m old *koff*, there certainly were for-profit conventions related to media properties like Star Trek and Doctor Who. Our college SF club made quite a bit of money staffing the merch table at a Doctor-Who-related convention, I believe.
I don’t know if those kinds of conventions have gone away — totally subsumed by not-for-profit media conventions like SDCC — or if they still happen and I just never hear about them.
One of my pet peeves is that whenever somebody starts handwringing about “the greying of fandom” — usually meaning Worldcon-style fandom — someone else will point to the huge and often younger-skewing demographic of something like SDCC and assert that’s “the future of fandom” as if such things are going to replace Worldcons. But they’re a completely different style of convention. You can like one or the other or both, but you’re not going to get the same experience at an SDCC that you get at a Worldcon.
SDCC-style conventions don’t really have a barcon. They don’t have the same kind of open-invite parties. They’re not really conducive to things like hanging out and meeting your potential future editor.
@delurking, given Hoyt’s complaints about “whole word readers” and her attempt to make Torgersen’s Nutty Nuggets post not be what it’s about, I think she just tends to write carelessly and expects that others do as well.
Hoyt can’t…really be this hapless? Please tell me someone who writes books and makes money at it isn’t THIS gullible?
She is just an ideologue, whose perfectly constructed logic blinds her to anything outside of it.
McJulie wonders:
Creation Entertainment and Wizard World are still chugging along. Also various smaller for-profit “comic cons” and “pop culture expos”.
@delurking
Don’t worry, Hoyt doesn’t make any money.
@McJulie
I don’t know if those kinds of conventions have gone away — totally subsumed by not-for-profit media conventions like SDCC — or if they still happen and I just never hear about them.
Wizard Con, which runs 13 regional cons a year, Wizard World Con annually in Chicago and a travelling con is for profit. As is Dragon Con. SDCC as a non-profit con is kind of an outlier. It’s more that the SDCC was already the gold standard that propelled it to the top. That being said, I was there in 2005, when it was still possible to buy a pass at the door. I can’t imagine what it is like now.
It seems like most of the smaller fandom specific cons, like the old Trek Cons and such have folded into ‘fan cons’ which follow the same kind of array as SDCC – books, comics, anime, movies, television, etc.
Ancillary Watchdog
Kelpie fur shirt
Among Hounds
Bark Loud/All Whimper
The Windup Pug
The Dog & the Dog
The Dogyard Book
The Canaan Dogs’ Union
Leashes end
Roll
Barker of Fouls
Caninids
American Dogs
Hairy Pointer and the Bowl of Fire
A Deepness in the Puppy
To Say Nothing of the Hugos
Forever Disagreement
Blue Mastiff
The Diamond Akita
Serialized novels predate our current SFF magazines, and even the 20th century. Dickens was serialized, as were the Sherlock Holmes novels. If I recall correctly, serialization is a 17th century invention, but don’t quote me on that.
In any case, serial novels in magazines and newspapers served the dual purpose of driving readers to the medium and encouraging subscriptions, as well as promoting the author and their works. It sounds like Analog has not been accomplishing either purpose through poor execution of the concept.
Is there a wildly popular serial novel currently being published in any magazine or paper, or are they all ebooks, ala Mr Scalzi’s recent experiment–anyone know?
I am pleased to report that there actually is a Science Fiction story titled “Nutty Nuggets”: a rousing adventure about space pirates:
http://willscommonplacebook.blogspot.com/2015/06/nutty-nuggets.html
THE LEMUR, a short crime novel by John Banville under his Benjamin Black name, was serialized in the New York Times in 2008.
Oh, and Andy Weir’s THE MARTIAN was originally serialized on the author’s website.
Aaron – One need only look to the current Hugo nominees Flow, Championship B’tok, and Journeyman: In the Stone House to see how poorly this can work when it comes to the individual pieces of these broken up novels.
Are all of these part of larger works? If so it’d make more sense, though Championship B’Tok definitively says THE END just as the story identifies the threat. All of those would make more sense given that they all feel like they end early of go nowhere. B’Tok also needed some heavy editing.
I try to be charitable and assume that many of the Puppies are neither lying nor intellectually challenged, but are simply naive. Ignorance is curable, so there is hope.
I have found another silver lining to the Puppy kerfuffle, though: with all the talk about books, stories, genre and pleasure, I’ve been inspired to start writing again, after almost 2 years of depression and writer’s drought. I was so focused on the novel, that I lost sight of the story. So, I’ll pare it down to a story, get back on the submission horse, and move on to another idea.
Coming soon to an SFF mag near you, a new story by Nom de Plume. Thanks, Kiddles and Bits.
Drive-by geeky music video rec: http://youtu.be/BHIo6qwJarI 🙂
Short Dramatic Presentation, or too much fact and not enough fiction?
*Reads those handful of comments on how Hoyt is either stupid or a liar.* Well, to speak about elves and fairies.
“In those terms their relationship makes sense. The two kinds of political groups have a long, intertwined and troubled history.”
Fascist, neo-nazi, racist and anti-immigrant movements often pitch their broader polices along populist lines – for example by claiming simplistic solutions to economic problems or proposing superficially appealing notions such as economic autarky. I don’t know if Beale advocates autarky but his economic views are a long way from ‘classic liberal’ libertarianism.
More generally you’ll find coalitions of groups that find themselves on the fringe, to have a similar self discipline: argue outward to avoid arguing inward. The alternative/complimentary medicine movement copes with both homeopathy and Chinese traditional herbal medicine even though one claims that an active ingredient needs to be diluted to the point of non-existence and the other claims that the active ingredient needs to be present in visible quantities. They get along because they have to and by uniting against the common enemy. [not trying to start an argument about medicine complimentary or otherwise – just an example]
@mintwitch:
And good luck to you!
I, as purely a reader of SFF, have been inspired to plunge into my to-read pile.
I met Sarah Hoyt about 10 years ago (maybe more) at some convention and we spoke a couple of times that weekend. It was very casual, just friendly people hanging out at a con, and I never saw her again and didn’t follow her career after that, though I saw her name once in a while (and was glad to see she was getting some recognition when I read she won a Prometheus award). Probably hadn’t thought of her for years until this Puppy thing caught my attention–and I saw her name popping up.
So I took a look at her blog, wondering how in the world the charming, pleasant, apparently grounded writer I met years ago got involved in this idiotic, toxic Puppy thing with a thug like Vox Day, a raging homophobe like John Wright, and whining hypocritical bullies like Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen.
And, whoa, the person posting as Sarah Hoyt on According To Hoyt seems so completely different from the person I met years ago, I did some googling to see if they were the *same* F&SF-writing Sarah Hoyt, because I had my doubts. (Yes, they’re the same person.)
The Sarah Hoyt that I met, talked casually with a few times that weekend years ago, and saw on panels was pleasant, charming, kind of intellectual, friendly, a little diffident, had a dry, self-deprecating sense of humor that came out a lot, and never once mentioned or alluded to anything remotely political (and certainly never mentioned Marxists). So I was really surprised to see, years later, her blog is being written by a toxically nasty, ignorant, hypocritical, humorless, paranoid hate-monger who sees Marxists everywhere (!) and can’t seem to go a day without shrieking about her (far-right) politics. (When I met her, she gave a cheerful, funny account of herself as a Western European who had emigrated to the US to marry the American she had fallen in love with (Mr. Hoyt). These days, she seems to have reinvented herself as someone who fled to the US as a refugee seeking asylum from an oppressive Marxist regime.)
The two personalities of Sarah Hoyt I’ve seen, then and now, seem so different I don’t think they could both have been present then or could both be present now. I know some people can seem very different in person compared to their online personalities (after all, people keep saying Brad Torgersen is a “nice guy” in person, though what I see of him online sure comes across as a vicious, self-pitying, self-righteous liar and opportunist)… but this is such a startling difference that I’ve got to think there’s been a change in Hoyt over time. I could be wrong, obviously, since I didn’t “know” her years ago, I only met her casually at one con, and maybe I just got a skewed or inaccurate impression back then. But I think, more likely, something changed. Since I don’t know anything about her, I’m not going to speculate on what. But the difference between the person I met years ago and the one I see blogging these days is pretty disorienting. My memory of the Hoyt I met is that she’d have rolled her eyes and (not too unkindly) made a joke about the sort of persona the current Hoyt-blogger is, and then shrugged and moved on.
@mintwitch
Well, at least its had some value. 🙂 I’m glad you’re writing again.
The comment threads here have prompted me out of perpetual lurkerdom, which has been a very cheering experience. I’m fairly isolated most of the time (mostly housebound), so having a community, even if it only lasts til after Worldcon, is quite nice.
Tuomas – *Reads those handful of comments on how Hoyt is either stupid or a liar.* Well, to speak about elves and fairies
Well, to make a comment that says nothing. Informative and relevant as always.
That was a weird post by her. Starts with writing about elves and fairies, moves on to how she does so and how that connects to what she sees in her live ass social status symbols, uses that to launch into a discussion of people accusing Heinlein of misogyny (and much like any Puppy argument fails to provide sources of the strawman they’re setting up), knocks down that argument by saying clothes are expensive, then moved on from there to say that the accusations are made mostly by people who’ve never read him and are under the glamour of the cool kids, how their power is fading and that’s why they’re made, and you could free yourself from their spell by just thinking for yourself.
Man she stretched from the beginning portion to the point at the end so hard that Mr. Fantastic was impressed.
I’m not fighting a war on the side of the establishment that has convinced me they’re the underdog. It’s arguing that people should vote as individuals instead of as slates. And it’s hilarious to see someone arguing that those fighting against slates are the ones not thinking for themselves.
@dela
I suspect this is what happens when hanging out in a political echo chamber, which is what Baen’s Bar largely appears to be.
It’s an error to think that people with politics you dislike will act in a manner you dislike when away from political discourse.
@Dex – “Brad: A Comedy of Excuses”
Very nice!
As my beta readers frequently remind me (because I so frequently fail at it), one of the big challenges in writing SF is getting the world-building details across efficiently—straddling the boundary between “I don’t understand what the hell is going on here” and “you are boring me to tears with all this exposition”. And a not-uncommon reader reaction to a good SF short story is “hey, I would love to see more stories set in that universe”.
So when a writer sells one popular story that’s set in a certain secondary world, I can see the attraction, both for the writer and his/her readers, of spinning out more and more and more fiction set in the same world.
I suspect this is what happens when hanging out in a political echo chamber, which is what Baen’s Bar largely appears to be.
Can one read Baen’s Bar without joining? It does seem to be a missing piece of the puzzle.
Not so far as I can tell.
I’m not going to sign up for any forum sight unseen, especially one that spits such toxicity out of its event horizon.
I suspect this is what happens when hanging out in a political echo chamber, which is what Baen’s Bar largely appears to be.
I used to hang out at MGC and all the Baen’s Bar contingent have gone from conservative/rational to raving loonies. I fear and pray for Eric Flint’s mind as I am sure there is some sort of brain-washing going on over there.
I try to be charitable and assume that many of the Puppies are neither lying nor intellectually challenged, but are simply naive. Ignorance is curable, so there is hope.
The problem with this theory is that most of the Pups have been presented with ample information that would cure their alleged ignorance, and it seems to have made no impression at all. In fact, many of the Pups seem to have dug in deeper and become even more vitriolic when presented with evidence that their claims are wrong, that their assumptions are incorrect, and that relatively few people find their position appealing. We’ve seen this on the comments of this very blog such as when, for example, Torgersen try to explain what Juliet Wade meant when she posted something, and then try to argue with her when she showed up to say that she could speak for herself quite capably and that he was wrong. The Pups seem to not only be wrong, but to also be immune to new information. The only conclusion one can come to is that they are either simply too dumb to learn, or they are not acting honestly.
uses that to launch into a discussion of people accusing Heinlein of misogyny (and much like any Puppy argument fails to provide sources of the strawman they’re setting up), knocks down that argument by saying clothes are expensive, then moved on from there to say that the accusations are made mostly by people who’ve never read him
I’ve read so much Heinlein that he would have to rise from the grave and write more for me to be able to read any more by him. Do you think Hoyt would accept me as being qualified to opine that Heinlein had some problematic sexism in several of his stories?
Tuomas Vainio: Well, to speak about elves and fairies.
Well apparently according to the post we are either the cool-kids or elves. I can’t say I’ve ever been a cool-kid before but I’ll go along with being a Gaiman-style inhabitant of faerie – one of the funny looking ones who lives under a rock or something.
Actually the non-puppies are singularly failing in this regard:
1. new nomination rules for Hugos should include a contest of riddles
2. TOR should steal human books and replace them with changelings
3. If thoust consume any food offered to thee by a boggart or pixie whilst at a WorldCon thoust will be trapped there in forever – yay even unto when some other convention has taken over the venue
4. A Midsummer’s Night Dream is Pink SF message fiction by an obvious SJW CHORF
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufpup
@Matt Y; https://file770.com/?p=22869&cpage=5#comment-27419
Speaking of clothes, those used to be a lot more expensive. Not to mention how stain removal was so and so and the whole act of doing loundry was something that required physical labour. Thus wearing an appron made sense when handling materials that can stain and spill. So yeah… argument knocked.
‘Elves and Fairies’ are used as an allegory to describe the so called anti-puppies, and how their behaviour appears to Hoyt. Especially when everyone apparently has to choose their side and vehemently swear to repeat the talking points twice a day, or just flip the bird to it all.
Anyhow. Off I go. So who ever can claim whatever last word.
I see Hoyt is relying on another man’s antiquated essay to explain to the ladies why Heinlein’s women are not problematic (and it too uses the old strawman argument, as if sexist portrayals of women were only ever a single type, the “brainless cupcake” “helpless housewife”.)
Dela: Fascinating account, and is contributing to a longer piece I want to write up later. Thank you!
….and Tuomas ‘splains to us why we are wrong about aprons. AND he uses the exact same argument Hoyt used. Because we couldn’t read her argument ourselves, I guess? Because repeating that argument makes it LESS bizarre?
I retract my objection. Puppies are, in fact, this hapless. Or, you know, at least this one is.
The fact is that people can express contradictory view points. Heinlein had some positive things to say about women, and he had things to say about women which, in hindsight, aren’t. Thomas Jefferson wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”, while at the same time owning number of men as property. Being right about some things and wrong about others is part of the human condition.
Well apparently according to the post we are either the cool-kids or elves.
No, no. We are the lickspittles mentioned at the bottom, although the evidence for why we are lickspittles is sorely lacking.
P.S. OK, that’s me suitably chastised.
Thus wearing an appron made sense when handling materials that can stain and spill. So yeah… argument knocked.
The argument wasn’t that Heinlein contained sexism because women wore aprons. It was that they were depicted almost entirely in roles in which they would wear aprons. Yes, there were one or two exceptions, but secretaries, housewives, nurses, and women in other “traditional” female roles dominate the depictions of women in Heinlein’s work from the 1940s into the 1970s. Even in his later books when he began inserting idealized versions of Ginny Heinlein as the all-capable female companion to the book’s protagonist, other women were predominantly depicted in “traditional” roles, just with some added sexual skeeviness thrown in for good measure.
I’ve decided I’m all for slates. I’ve started one for 2016 on my blog. There are over a hundred novels on my first Hugo-eligible post. I haven’t read all of them yet, but I urge you to nominate one of them if you have and think a particular one to five are Hugo-worthy!
Or am I doing it wrong?
Aaron said: “The problem with this theory is that most of the Pups have been presented with ample information that would cure their alleged ignorance, and it seems to have made no impression at all. In fact, many of the Pups seem to have dug in deeper and become even more vitriolic when presented with evidence that their claims are wrong, that their assumptions are incorrect, and that relatively few people find their position appealing.”
That’s actually an entirely predictable response according to the theory of cognitive dissonance. It’s not so much “dumb” or “acting in bad faith” as it is “trying to rationalize behavior that’s inconsistent with their mindset”; they just can’t accept that their actions don’t make any sense, because if they didn’t make any sense, they wouldn’t have done it. So they continue to invent new rationalizations to avoid the trauma of having to confront that inconsistency.
I hate to use the word “crazy”, because it’s so ugly and pejorative, but certainly “irrational” is a better word than “dumb” or “malicious”.
In the The Cat Who Walks Through Walls that there was just one version, traveling backwards and forwards through time. Oh, RAH, you scamp.
I always portray capitalists as wearing top hats* because the top hat was a practical garment that allows the top of the head to breathe whilst providing an insulating layer of air to maintain an even temperature in hot or cold weather – and not at all because it is a cliched stereotype that makes them look funny and outdated. So yeah…argument knocked.
[*irony warning: I don’t really]
The author David Mack has written a take down of Amanda Green and why she shouldn’t have been nominated for Best Fan Writer. It relates to his Star Trek tie in series Vanguard.
http://www.davidmack.pro/blog/?p=5219
So much for the Puppies and their love for tie-in works and authors.