aka The Curs of Chalion
Today’s roundup offers the collected wisdom of Sarah A. Hoyt, David Mack, Paul Weimer, Adam-Troy Castro, Alexandra Erin, Lis Carey, Brian Niemeier, Lyle Hopwood, Chris Gerrib, David Langford, and Less Identifiable Others. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day JohnFromGR and KestrelHill.)
Sarah A. Hoyt on According To Hoyt
“Glamor and Fairy Gold” – June 2
We’ve seen the same effect over and over again with people who comment on blogs (clears throat) both cultural and political, and even historical and that, no matter how often they’re proven wrong, keep coming back and stating the same thing they said in different words, as though that would make it true. They seem incapable of processing challenges, doubts, or even factual disproof of their charges.
Glamor. They’re under an enchantment. Something has affected them so hard, they can’t think, but can only repeat what they were told.
It’s not true, of course. Or not quite.
The enchantment of the “cool kids” is the glamor of social approbation and of opinions as positional goods.
People who have bought into an hierarchy of opinions, with some of the opinions “politically correct” no matter how factually wrong, have agreed to put themselves under the arbitrary power of others, and to subsume their reason and thought to them.
David Mack on The Analog Blog
“Write back (not) in anger (#SFWApro)” – June 2
Last August, I received an e-mail from a reader who was so offended by my inclusion of a same-sex relationship between a Vulcan woman and Klingon (disguised as human) woman in my novel Star Trek Vanguard: Harbinger that he swore off all my books forever. My public response, which I admit in hindsight was born more from passion than from reason, got noticed by a few sites.
When that post went wide, I expected to encounter some blowback and some criticism….For the most part, I deemed those uninformed responses unworthy of my attention or response.
Until this past weekend, I would have said the same about this piece by Amanda S. Green on the Mad Genius Blog: “Don’t break canon without good reason“.
For the impatient among you, here is a quick summary of her post: Amanda S. Green, an author and blogger who appears to have no professional experience writing or editing media tie-in fiction, tried to school me on the importance of adherence to canon when working in established universes, and on how I should have answered my homophobic critic.
Though Ms. Green provides absolutely no evidence to support her assertion, she accuses me of “breaking canon” vis-a-vis Star Trek for no reason other than to be “politically correct.” Her feeble attack on my professionalism and on my novel was published the day after my original post. Because Ms. Green did not mention me by name or link to my post, I didn’t learn of her essay until this past weekend, when a friend brought it to my attention…..
[Mack then analyzes the topic at length.]
Now, all this might seem to some folks like a lot of noise for very little signal. But I think it’s important to remember that as a nominee in the Best Fan Writer category, Ms. Green was offered the opportunity to submit self-selected examples of her work for the Hugo Voter Packet, to demonstrate which of her writings from 2014 show her to be worthy of taking home a Hugo award. That she chose to include the post I dissected above — an unresearched, factually deficient essay in which she lacks the basic courtesy even to name me as the author of the piece she tries (and fails) to deconstruct, never mind link to it so that readers can review the original materials and arrive at informed conclusions with regard to her arguments — speaks volumes.
I grew up knowing the Hugo awards stand for excellence in the broad and ever-changing field of science fiction and fantasy literature. Nothing I have seen in this essay from Ms. Green persuades me her work contains the insight or intellectual rigor that would make her worthy of being honored as a member of that longstanding tradition.
I also suspect she doesn’t know as much about Star Trek as she thinks she does.
I'm out of Nutty Nuggets
— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) June 1, 2015
Adam-Troy Castro
Open Letter To The Ants At the Base Of The Monument – June 2
Few things mark you as a schmuck faster than attacking a master for being “old.”
You can have great differences with a master. You can argue bitterly with a master. You can even think a master is an asshole.
But the second you start using his age and past accomplishments as a negative in your rhetoric. you mark yourself as a non-entity, a jackass, a pipsqueak, an ant shouting at a monument.
This sin, currently in evidence among some supporters of the Sad Puppies, is not exclusive to either end of the political spectrum.
Fans from the left wing thought they had reason to be upset at Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg, a couple of years back, and though it was arguable that they had a case, it was downright appalling how many of them thought they were issuing slammers when they complained that these greats hailed from before their time, or were “old and irrelevant,” or, tellingly, “I never even heard of them!”
That controversy provided fuel for this one, where among things fans from the right wing are slamming David Gerrold for being old and senile and irrelevant and all those things he most assuredly is not.
David Gerrold on Facebook – June 2
Okay, so now that I’ve laid some groundwork — see my two previous essays about communication forensics and compelling questions — I’m going to ask some compelling questions.
In the past, I’ve asked these questions about the sad-puppy slate and the rabid-puppy slate:
1) Who are the horrible, no-good, terrible people who have conspired against the science fiction that has been “overlooked?” How have they conspired?
2) What are the qualities of storytelling that define excellence? How are these qualities recognized by the reader?
3) The stories on the sad-puppy slate and the stories on the rabid-puppy slate? How do they demonstrate the qualities of excellence that would make a reader consider them award-worthy?
Let me add a few more questions here:
4) If you are a supporter of either or both slates, then did you read the stories on the slate you support before the ballot was announced? Did you nominate any or all of the stories on either slate? Did you nominate any story you had not read? Why?
5) Have you now read any or all of the stories on the final Hugo ballot? If so, can you please tell us which stories you feel are award-worthy? Why? (Let me rephrase that.) Without considering the author or the politics of the author, can you explain why any of the stories from either slate are award-worthy?
6) Which do you feel is more important in the award process — the excellence of the story or the political views of the author?
I’m not the only one posing these questions.
I thought that the Sad Puppies would quiet down between the nominations and the actual awards. Boy, was I ever wrong.
— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) June 2, 2015
Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write
“Because hope springs eternal.” – June 2
[Quoting a comment Erin left on Brad R. Torgersen’s blog.]
I’m sure I’m not the first person to try to tell you this, but the people who spew hot air about “warriors for social justice” are all over here with you. That’s not a thing people called themselves. It’s a pejorative made up to dismiss people, a la calling someone “PC patrol” or “feminazi” or “thought police”.
Some people have taken it as an ironic badge of honor or made geeky riffs on it (like “Social Justice Paladin” or “Social Justice Bard”), but by and large, you’re chiding people for not living up to the standards of a label that was foisted upon them in the first place.
Which is actually part of the function of the label. Most of the people I have seen getting slapped with the “SJW” label not only don’t describe themselves as social justice warriors, they don’t describe themselves as activists. They’re just people, living their lives, dealing with their own problems, and acting their consciences.
bibliogramma on My Life In Books
“Campbell Award Nominations: Jason Cordova” – May 26
Basing my assessment on these two submissions, Cordova has a future as an SF writer to be sure, and I enjoyed them both, but to me, his work does not rise to the level of previous Campbell winners such as Spider Robinson, C. J. Cherryh, Ted Chiang, Nalo Hopkinson, Cory Doctorow, Elizabeth Bear, Jo Walton, and others.
bibliogramma on My Life In Books
“Campbell Award Nominations: Wesley Chu” – May 26
Obviously, I am very much impressed by these two novels. Chu easily passes my standard as a worthy candidate for the Campbell.
bibliogramma on My Life In Books
“Campbell Award Nominations: Kary English” – May 26
English has some definite writing chops, but I felt that there wasn’t a lot of variety in the pieces offered, which weakens my overall assessment of her as a Campbell nominee. I have already noted the similarities in protagonist choice. There are also structural similarities in the pieces, and I was irked in that I wanted to use the word “bittersweet” in describing all three stories. I think English has definite potential and I hope she continues to develop her craft.
bibliogramma on My Life In Books
“Campell Award Nominations: Eric S. Raymond and Rolf Nelson” – June 2
Rolf Nelson and Eric S. Raymond did not submit any pieces [to the Hugo Voters Packet], but as there are samples of their writing in the Castalia House anthology Riding the Red Horse, submitted by the publisher in support of nominations of other pieces in the anthology, I read those in order to gain some sense of Nelson and Raymond’s work. I was not inspired by what was available to go searching for any more samples of either author’s work.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
Journey Planet is visually attractive, filled with interesting and thoughtful articles, well-written, and well-edited. I’m totally impressed. Go read it. Highly recommended.
Brian Niemeier on Superversive SF
“Transhuman and Subhuman Part VIII: Gene Wolfe, Genre Work, and Literary Duty” – June 2
The eighth essay in John C. Wright’s Transhuman and Subhuman collection is a meditation on the merits of speculative fiction occasioned by SFWA making Gene Wolfe a Grand Master. “He is the greatest living author writing in the English language today,” Wright declares, “and I do not confine that remark to genre authors.”
“Sometimes in this life,” Wright says in regard to Wolfe’s accolade, “we see justice done.” If honors are rightly given to those who perform their duty, what obligations do SFF authors owe to their readers, to society at large, and to the truth itself?
Wright seeks the answer through a critical via negativa. What causes our disappointment–even outrage–when due honor is denied?
Chris Gerrib on Private Mars Rocket
“Hugo Thoughts, Down-Ballot Edition” – June 2
More thoughts on this year’s Hugo.
Best Fan Writer (777 nominating ballots, 265 entries, range 129-201)
Dave Freer
Amanda S. Green
Jeffro Johnson
Laura J. Mixon
Cedar SandersonFreer’s been an ass to me, and incoherent at length to pretty much everybody, so no rocket for him. Green and Sanderson seem to not like SJWs like me, so I’ll return the favor. I’m a bit reluctant to give Mixon the award for an expose. Johnson at least restricts himself to book reviews, so my ballot is Johnson and no award.
Reading SFF
“2015 Hugo Awards reading: Kevin J. Anderson – The Dark Between the Stars (2014)” – June 2
I did not finish this novel. I abandoned it at about 25% in (and I am “proud” of having made it so far) but the book did not grab me and the writing is not good enough to keep me reading for the sake of the writing. If I have the time (and I probably won’t have the time) to get back to the book before voting on the Hugos closes, I will try to finish it. But only then.
Lyle Hopwood on Peromyscus
“Big Boys Don’t Cry by Tom Kr*tman (Castalia House)” – May 30
This is a Sad Puppy and Rabid Puppy nomination.
It’s is an okay story about the basic training of AIs used in combat. The methods used are cruel, but the humans don’t care. They wall off the AI’s memories of pain and injury after training is complete, but in the case of Maggie, severe damage during combat allows her (she’s a she) to recall the training sessions. All the while she is accessing her memories, she is being investigated for scrap value, and she can see and hear the humans discussing her fate. It’s not a very new concept, but it’s handled well. It’s just so very long. It’s interesting to compare this with Steve Rzasa’s story, Turncoat, as the AI warships come to very different conclusions about humans.
Alexandra Erin at Blue Author Is About To Write
“Sad Puppies Review Books: STREGA NONA” – June 2
Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (Aspired)
If you want chilling proof of the radical feminist lesbian witch cult (also known as “Social Justice”) that has infiltrated all ranks of society, look no further than this book which blatantly glorifies witchcraft, matriarchy, and the creation of a loyal slave nation of emasculated beta male cucks.
Exactly as foretold in a literal straightforward reading of the Book of Revelation, this book portrays a near-future world where even the Catholic Church itself is in thrall of a woman. The church is no longer the Bride of Christ but the scarlet woman of Babylon.
“Although all the people in the town talked about her in whispers, they all went to see her if they had troubles. Even the priests and the sisters in the convent went, for Strega Nona had a magic touch.” If that isn’t straight out of the Bible then I don’t even know what the Bible says. I do know that it says to not suffer a witch to live, not to treat her as a valued civic leader.
David Langford in Ansible #335 – June 2015
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I think posting your comments that got moderated from another SF/F site is a good use of File 770, at least when the comment is interesting. (I can’t say Brian Z’s comment hit that mark, though.)
@stevie Thanks–have added to my RSS feeds and will try to get up to speed. Looks fun! Also signed up for the group podcast.
I got carried away with my cheese themed fiction and wrote a tribute to John C Wright.
Spoilers for anybody who hasn’t read the Parliament of Birds and Beasts yet.
Tbq qvq vg
@Stevie
I had a cousin who died on the railway, leaving his wife and baby (who he never got the chance to meet) behind. My direct lines were lucky – one grandfather was an actuary, so was put to work doing that sort of work instead of combat, and the other was Bletchley adjacent if I recall correctly. One of the bombs of the London blitz hit the crossroad by the house I grew up in, killed the local doctor and warped all the glass in the front doors. The wars I grew up hearing about never sounded like the gun porn crowd.
@Rev Bob
I couldn’t get the file suppressed thing to show on an iPad. Am I doing something horribly wrong or is it a flaw in iOS?
An excellent story, Camestros.
I liked you slow but key introduction of Timothy, who came to play a crucial role.
I ran a character in a joke D&D campaign back in college. Name: Brie Camembert, Class: Cheez Wiz. It was a lot of fun.
@Will: Plan K9 From Outer Space
Thumbs up!
Rcade:
>> Copy-and-paste isn’t impossible on an iPhone. Press a word in a paragraph until a blue selection box appears. Expand it to cover the text to copy, then choose the command Copy from a pop-up menu that appears.>>
Ah! Thank you, now I know.
Rev:
>> One of the tricks I learned a while back was to make a JavaScript bookmarklet that handles ROT13 – so all you have to do is highlight the text and open the bookmark to decode it. Still not transparent, but it’s a decent balance.>>
Now I have the complete set, so when I miss the ROT-13 discussions, it’ll be my own damn fault out of laziness, rather than someone else’s…
I felt Timothy needed a strong character arc.
The Wizard of Paws
@Meredith: “I couldn’t get the file suppressed thing to show on an iPad. Am I doing something horribly wrong or is it a flaw in iOS?”
Hunh. Well, that’s annoying.
If this link doesn’t work, you should be able to go to the first link I gave and click on the “Raw” button above it to the right. You should then be able to copy the resulting code to the clipboard and go from there.
To Alexandra Erin:
I was just going through your tweets, and I found the one that said
and I laughed until I cried.
Lis Carey:
There’s also the fact that TGE is set in a constructed world. I consider anything set in a constructed world to be fantasy, no matter how little magic is used.
CPaca
I agree entirely. There is a huge difference between those who pose, and those who serve.
On the posing front, people in the reserve forces are not usually put in life threatening situations.
And what sort of guy panics at the sight of a diadem.?
It’s very late over here; I should get some sleep…
Stevie: And what sort of guy panics at the sight of a diadem?
Apparently, the same sort of guy who mistakes a representative democracy for a monarchy.
@Rev. Bob
Funny, after I left that comment I’d tried doing that and even with he text c&p’d into the bookmark it didn’t want to work, but now its working fine. I think its trolling me! Thanks for the code. 🙂
rcade –
Bring the comment itself, yes, but not the “see! No free speech there!” verbiage
Stevie –
Currently in the US many reserve units are being called upon to serve in *multiple* deployments in the Mid-East, as the standing Army has been aggressively downsized.
I suspect I’m probably of an age of the artillery officer mentioned up-thread, which is probably why David Drake’s writing finds a lot more resonance with me than the “gun porn” (a nice phrase, that) in the currently typical milsf fare.
Craig R. at 5:37 pm
Brian Z – It’s her house It’s her blog It’s her rules
rcade at 6:21 pm
a good use of File 770, at least when the comment is interesting.
Craig R.
Bring the comment itself, yes, but not the “see! No free speech there!” verbiage
Craig R., what the hell? I specifically said she’s within her rights to delete whatever she wants. In fact, I asked her to go ahead and delete ALL my comments if she doesn’t want me there asking questions.
rcade, yeah, I see your point. Short version mighta been:
Alexandra Erin is selectively deleting questions she doesn’t want to answer, so I’ll repost my question here: What do you make of the criticism on Brad’s blog that she is erecting a pack of straw puppies?
But I felt it was only fair to reproduce my comment, though tedious, in full. Sorry.
@Brian Z
I think your original comment would have been entirely pointless if it had both referenced comment deletion and did not include the content of the comment itself, but that’s only if you wanted to discuss Erin’s moderation policy.
If you did not, and you wanted to discuss the criticisms from Torgersen’s commenters, it might have been better to leave out mention of the deletion and deleted comment entirely, to avoid unnecessary distractions from the subject.
JJ
Another great catch in poor light conditions; I’m impressed!
Part of the problem is that many of them appeared to have no known motive, unless wanting to stick it to the man was a motive. Well, it’s better than nothing, but it’s also completely open. How do we secure it
Meredith, part of that conversation is still standing at the very blog post linked in this roundup, so I couldn’t really talk as if I had flounced to come talk about it here instead. I thought at the time it was best to cite context and give the comment in full, but maybe there was a better way.
@Brian Z:
Craig R.
Bring the comment itself, yes, but not the “see! No free speech there!” verbiage
Craig R., what the hell? I specifically said she’s within her rights to delete whatever she wants. In fact, I asked her to go ahead and delete ALL my comments if she doesn’t want me there asking questions.
Because obviously, deleting one comment she found objectionable or overly argumentative means she doesn’t want you there asking questions at all. That’s an impressive ego you’ve got there, Brian.
Brian Z.: Alexandra Erin is selectively deleting questions she doesn’t want to answer
Oh, did she actually tell you that?
Or are you just being aggressively passive-aggressive again?
@Brian Z
Its only that I’ve noticed that your comments get, hm, heightened scrutiny and less good faith assumption than most. (Rightly or wrongly.) I think it might be of value to you to try and hone your ordinary comments as finely as your filks; keep what you want to discuss plus pleasantries and such, and leave out anything that could be taken the wrong way, because it will be.
I mean, I’m speaking with perfect hindsight: I can see what happened with this comment. But its also not the first time I’ve seen this happen, and you do leave yourself open to it.
Brian: It’s awfully disingenuous to say I’m deleting questions I don’t want to answer. I told you the criteria for getting your comments unmoderated. I based this criteria on your own words in your previous comment. When you have a substantive comment about something I said, then your comment will be let through.
The “question I don’t want to answer” I completely addressed in my last comment to you. Let me quote it for you:
That right there is verbatim from the comment you were responding to with the comment that didn’t make it out of moderation. Right there, Brian. Right on the screen clear as a bell where you can read it.
That’s now three exchanges in a row where you responded to completely different things than I said. So here’s a question for you, Brian. When you do this you dishonest, or careless?
It’s got to be one or the other.
Which is it?
Dishonest or careless?
Brian: Your moderated and deleted question added nothing new to the discussion, and was starting to look painfully like you were JAQing off in her comments section.
Demanding repeatedly that she respond to a throw away bullshit comment, and getting increasingly petulant when she failed to sidetrack the comments on her blog to discuss what you wanted discussed, was not a good look and frankly, she was doing you a favour by not releasing that comment from deletion.
Oh Lis come on, it means I’m not happy when one of my responses in a longer blog conversation is selectively deleted. She talked as if I was calling her comment to Brad a “straw man argument” when I was asking about their criticism of her book reviews. I pointing that out, and she didn’t let it stand on her site, so I dropped it here, where we are also talking about her blog post and her book reviews.
MickyFinn, her invitation was “If anybody wants an actual discussion about it, I’ll be happy to have it here.” So I offered her my opinion of her comment – she doesn’t have to like it, but I don’t think I was being rude – and asked what she makes of somebody else’s criticism of her (not mine, by the way – I like her parodies.) If that was really so inappropriate, then I don’t know JAQ.
No, Brian Z, I did not talk like you were calling my comment a straw man argument. Not even a little tiny bit. This is what I mean. You don’t “see what I’m saying”.
I don’t think you even read my posts before you respond.
Careless, then.
As for giving me your opinion of my comment, any time you feel like doing that, feel entirely free, but I give you kind permission to read it first.
Alexandra Erin, thanks for responding here. But in the deleted comment I was asking you a different question – and I never said your comment to Brad was a straw man argument. (I did think it was criticizing a point that was not the main topic of his post, but you explained yourself clearly and that’s fair enough.)
brian z: From her initial post
and if you were having an actual discussion about her comment (the it in the second sentence), your post wouldn’t have been deleted. you were JAQing off demanding her reaction to someone’s throw away bullshit.
@Brian Z
I didn’t gather you meant that their straw puppies comment was about her book reviews, actually. I can see that you mentioned Erin’s parodies in the last line, but I took that as an I-like-your-work not as a clue to what the quote was referring to, which from context – the rest of your post – seemed to be referring to her comment. I’d also suggest that the best place to ask about parody criticisms would be on a parody post, but even better would be to not ask at all since she said in the OP that she had no intention of reading replies on Torgersen’s blog.
I’m thoroughly confused how a talented filk writer can manage to be so imprecise in writing ordinary posts.
Alexandra, I’m sorry, but here is the relevant part of first-ever comment on your blog, in response to invitation to “have an actual discussion:”
Though I saw one reply suggesting that seems to suggest you are:
“erecting a pack of straw puppies to kick”
Personally I really like parodies, and really like yours. Still, that might be a point you could respond to.
So I thought you understood I was referring to your parodies and thought that’s what the person I linked to was talking about. If you didn’t catch that, then maybe this is a big misunderstanding?
I apologise, that was intemperate. I’ll lurk for a bit until I feel less frustrated.
I received the Hugo Packet online today and it will be fun to read the works within. I don’t know how I will vote yet.
I glanced over at some of the linked posts, a lot of heat but very little light in the comments sections of Brad’s blog.
It does not leave me hopeful that next year is going to be any better. People seem more combative now than they were several weeks ago.
I am new to Hugo voting. Is it considered good form to discuss your voting ballot before the voting period closes ?
I’m still not sure if the answer to that is carelessness or maliciousness.
BRIAN.
I want you to read every word of this comment very carefully, twice, before you say another word to me. If you fail to do this and give another one of your ridiculous non-sequitur answers, I swear to God I will pull your comment from the trash and give it precisely the answer it merits, and if you think you want that, you will learn better. The kindest thing anyone has done for you in this entire mess was me killing that unholy abortion of an attempt at discourse.
Read carefully:
I NEVER THOUGHT YOU SAID IT WAS A STRAW MAN.
I NEVER SAID YOU SAID IT WAS A STRAW MAN.
Banish that thought from your head. Is it gone? Is it out? Good. Now go read my actually reply to you. Read it carefully. Read it in the fullness of the knowledge that not only did you completely misread it the first time, you completely misread the originating post/comment and my first reply to you, too. Read it with fresh eyes, one word at a time.
I’ll give you a hint, if you’re already lost: read it with the rather reasonable and obvious assumption that when I talk about somebody calling my comments a straw man, I am referring to exactly the same thing you were when you referenced that. Why wouldn’t I have been? Just because you can’t seem to follow a conversation thread means that I can’t be.
And since I was talking about the same thing you were, then yes, I did address the question you raised. Oh, there’s another question in your trashed comment?
*checks again*
No, Brian, there is not. There is not another question there. Just you re-iterating your interest in my reaction to the straw puppies comment, which 1) you already have, in the previous comment, and 2) you’ve been carrying on about here as if that’s the question I suppressed.
Are we up to speed? Are we on the same page? If we’re not, Brian, then you should make up your mind to walk away without another word to or about me, not a passive aggressive swipe or flounce… because as I said, if you keep on insisting on going down this path, I will go down it with you. I will take it to the end of the road, and I will leave you there.
Your call.
I’ve got a busy day tomorrow, so no hurry. Take your time. Read over everything as many time as it takes. Then make up your mind where you want to go from here.
Brian Z, you have a problem with people saying ‘no’ to you. If someone doesn’t want to discuss comments made on another blog, and tells you that, you should respect that and not push.
Brian, you seem to be backsliding to the poor reading comprehension and unclear writing that myself and a few other commenters here pointed out to you a week or two ago. Currently this has gotten you moderated in 2 places that I know if (ML, and Erin’s blog).
In both cases, you’ve had people (Abi, and Erin) tell you that you’re welcome, so long as you adhere to their community standards, which does include accurate represantation of someone else’s words, which you apparently failed in both places. You also get called out on it here quite a few times.
The point of this is the same as what I told you the last time around – I *know/ you’re a better reader / writer than this. Please *be* better
Having said that, I’m glad you’re commenting in Brad’s site. Thus far you’ve not, but I hope you start asking the questions to the commenters there that you were asking here, as I believe they would give you an useful perspective, and may be better equipped to answer some of those.
Meredith, intemperate is fine – no worries. I appreciate your honest approach, frustration and all.
Alexandra Erin: Sigh. I had just written a comment about the earlier exchange here, then decided against it, surfacing just in time to catch Round 2.
I don’t think it’s exactly a threat to say you will post what somebody left in a comment on your blog. So why are you fighting with Brian here instead of there?
Shambles: I am new to Hugo voting. Is it considered good form to discuss your voting ballot before the voting period closes?
It is perfectly good form to discuss individual works, and explain what you liked or did not like about them, and why.
Alexandra,
Googling around a bit, I see you already have replied to “erecting a pack of straw puppies to kick”:
http://www.alexandraerin.com/2015/06/sprb-the-poky-little-puppy/
Editor’s Note: Some wags (no pun intended) have claimed that our normal Sad Puppy reviewer of books, Mr. John Z. Upjohn, is not actually representative of the diverse opinions, tastes, and political ideologies of the Sad Puppies as a whole. Some have even suggested that he is little more than a ridiculous, over the top caricature. So in the interest of fairness, I have brought in another Sad Puppy for today’s review, to give this webpage generally and the SPRB feature in particular a more balanced perspective.
THE POKY LITTLE PUPPY
Reviewed by Special Guest Reviewer James May
Why don’t we bury the hatchet? I’d like to just say, thank you for the interesting response to that criticism.
JJ on June 3, 2015 at 8:39 pm said: It is perfectly good form to discuss individual works, and explain what you liked or did not like about them, and why.
Thanks JJ, I appreciate the answer.
On the note of commenting elsewhere, Dave Freer left a comment here that he wanted to continue whatever discussion he was trying to have here (ie, his claims that PNH broke an embargo, his analysis on bias in recent Hugo’s, his dislike of negative reviews etc etc) elsewhere, and I believe he said the Mad Genius Club site was the preferred location.
Looking at his latest post, he’s said the following
So there’s that. I guess he prefer home turf advantage
Mike: Apologies, but if it’s not exactly a threat, then it can’t exactly be much of a fight, either, can it?
Whatever you want to call it, it’s not happening at my blog because I kicked it out before it could get started, then came here later to find it’s apparently been carried on in full swing without me.
If you’re saying I was out of line… well, it’s your line to lay down, and I’ll respect it. When I see my name being dragged through the mud, I get a little heated. I think that’s all you can really say I’ve done, though: get heated. I’m not a violent women. I’m not given to swearing.
I don’t threaten violence, I don’t dox, I don’t stalk, I don’t harass. I don’t have those things in me, or if I do, I don’t have it in me to let them out.
What I have is words, and a willingness to use them if someone presses me.
Brian Z:
I will ignore you completely on the condition that you ignore me completely. If you want anything else, then you have my terms already.
@snowcrash
I prefer grounds with less chance of doxxing, myself.
Alexandra: Sounds like Lee in Gettysburg — “If they fight, then we must fight with them” — which wasn’t true for Lee, either.
It’s not that your set-to with Brian crosses any line of mine. I was under the impression it crossed a line of yours.
JJ: It is perfectly good form to discuss individual works, and explain what you liked or did not like about them, and why.
Shambles: Thanks JJ, I appreciate the answer.
Let me add a caveat to that: It is best to either try to avoid spoilers, or to clearly label them as such, leaving several lines after the *** SPOILER *** notice to enable people to scroll by them, or really best to Rot13 them. But often you can allude to the thing about which you want to make a point without needing to include a spoiler (e.g., “the ending left several important questions unanswered”, etc).