Le Mutt d’Author 6/2

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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, edited by James Bacon, Christopher J Garcia, Lynda E. Rucker, Pete Young, Colin Harris, and Helen J.Montgomery”  – June 2

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 Sanderson

Freer’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

strega-nona-225x300

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

File 770 has proudly adopted a new motto on its website masthead: ‘”… the 770 blog, that wretched hive of scum and villainy …” – John C. Wright.’ Another satisfied customer!

487 thoughts on “Le Mutt d’Author 6/2

  1. @Meredith

    Well, Freer’s no Antonelli or Kr*tm*n (AFAIK), but I guess using a disposable/ fresh email is advisable nonetheless

  2. Mike:

    …oh, now I feel doubly foolish, because not only was I wrong about what you were saying, but you are completely right in saying it. It does. This is the kind of blood-pressure raising, time-wasting nonsense I turned to comedy to avoid.

    I guess this whole thing just managed to hit all my cranky buttons at a moment when I’m disposed to crankiness.

  3. Brian Z: Awhile ago in comments here on File 770 there was a lengthy discussion of how you got disinvited from a discusson at Making Light. In fact, one of their moderators came over here to participate in that exchange. That seemed to get resolved. But in general it’s not interesting to me that somebody doesn’t get along with a moderator at another site. Bear in mind, I’m making this point as a reflection on your decision, not as a rule against you registering the complaint itself.

  4. snowcrash: Dave Freer left a comment here that he wanted to continue whatever discussion… elsewhere… Mad Genius Club site was the preferred location.

    Meredith: I prefer grounds with less chance of doxxing, myself.

    And based on my ventures into the MGC blog site, your chances of encountering anything approximating rational discourse by commenting there are slim.

  5. Shambles: Discussing one’s planned or actual votes is actually widely encouraged. Fandom is basically a conversation. Conversing makes conversations better. We are, ideally, all in this together, looking for cool works to delight in and people to delight with.

  6. snowcrash: Well, Freer’s no Antonelli or Kr*tm*n (AFAIK), but I guess using a disposable/ fresh email is advisable nonetheless.

    Be aware that Hoyt, Freer, Green, Paulk, and several other people all appear to have Admin privileges at that blog, presumably with access to IP addresses and e-mail addresses.

  7. Meredith says:

    Wallace and Gromit is brilliant! Never been nominated, hm?

    Au contraire! I remember putting it in first place on my final ballot.

  8. Shambles:

    I’ll concur with Brian. No point in just saying “Hey, here’s my ballot!” Tell us why, and we’ll all talk about how wrong you are and why your ballot will destroy the Hugos, nay, CIVILISATION as we know it.

    Or we’ll just go, “Huh, ok then, this is how I see it…”

    There’s a wide range of potential outcomes….

  9. Mike Glyer: I didn’t carry that Making Light discussion back here – and as I stated both there and here when someone mentioned it, I had no problem with a moderator there asking me to wrap things up when I went off topic.

    I had imagined it was acceptable to drop my deleted comment here because the topic was two posts you that linked in your roundup. But I confess I was feeling annoyed at the time, which might have clouded my judgment.

  10. @Petréa Mitchell

    I must be losing it, I checked that year specifically. O.o I suppose I’ll cancel Gloomy Gromit’s then… For now. I’m watching you, SJWs!! I know your anti-Wallace and/or cheese agenda!

  11. 1. I am wistful that the “spoilers” in ROT13 are not actually an existing book in the world of The Goblin Emperor. I would read the hell out of it.

    2. I have shepherd’s pie coming out of the oven RIGHT NOW, how did y’all KNOW?

  12. JJ:snowcrash: Well, Freer’s no Antonelli or Kr*tm*n (AFAIK), but I guess using a disposable/ fresh email is advisable nonetheless.

    Be aware that Hoyt, Freer, Green, Paulk, and several other people all appear to have Admin privileges at that blog, presumably with access to IP addresses and e-mail addresses.

    And considering how chummy they are with known, vindictive doxxers and remain silent as they continue to threaten to doxx, it’s probably safest to assume that they’ll pass what they can along to their abusive pals.

    If they didn’t want people to assume such things about them, maybe they should have spoken up when VD, TK, Antonelli, etc were pulling that crap.

  13. snowcrash, brian, and JJ: All noted, thanks it will be fun to share (without spoilers) and find out how what other people thought and maybe learn something new !

    I am going to download the packet and get it on my tablet before my travels so I can make a go of it early.

  14. Damn it – posted on wrong thread.

    JJ : Be aware that Hoyt, Freer, Green, Paulk, and several other people all appear to have Admin privileges at that blog, presumably with access to IP addresses and e-mail addresses.

    And you better believe that just because you think you’re being civil now doesn’t mean that they won’t persuade themselves that you “deserve” to be doxxed later.

    Remember, they believe they are at war with the nebulous forces ranged against them, of which you will be one. And they can always circle-jerk themselves into more and more extreme measures when they don’t seem to be winning that war…

  15. @Nicole

    If Addison/Monette writes another book in that world its an insta-buy for me even if it doesn’t focus on cheese or anything else in the spoilers. 🙂 But everything is better with cheese, amirite?

    Honestly, when ruminating on uses for cheese, shepherds pies always make my list. Especially with sliced tomatoes on top too, mmmm… I must drum up the spoons to cook one sometime soon. It keeps well in the fridge so it fits my usual rule about batch cooking. 🙂

    @snowcrash, JJ, XS

    Its the group as a whole I don’t trust rather than Freer specifically, yep. Especially since they might ask He Who Shall Not Be Named (because mod filter) or Antonelli to join Mad Genius Club in the future.

  16. Be aware that Hoyt, Freer, Green, Paulk, and several other people all appear to have Admin privileges at that blog, presumably with access to IP addresses and e-mail addresses.
    Use a proxy and a nonexistent e-mail address.

  17. @alauda

    My feeling is that if I feel I need to use those measures to feel safe participating somewhere, there isn’t going to be anything there worth participating in. Bad actors aren’t worth my spoons.

  18. Meredith: ” Bad actors aren’t worth my spoons.”

    And it’s not like they’d listen to a word you said anyway. Any reply you got would be the comment you made in their heads, not in reality.

  19. I wonder what a strawMeredith would end up looking like. Social Justice Warrior or Glittery HooHa?

  20. @Alauda “They’d probably just leave the comments in moderation limbo.”

    Probably not, a lot of that crowd pride themselves on *not* moderating their forums at all. Now, that doesn’t mean you should expect an answer to any questions that they don’t like, such as the repeated, “How is listening to people and then putting all your friends on the slate democratic or transparent?” But they won’t hide the post itself.

  21. “I thought that Howard Taylor handled last year’s debacle with great dignity so this was a win/win for me; I get a great product and I also get to support people who have behaved in an honourable fashion.”

    I just wanted to add that while I am sure Howard Tayler and I probably agree on very little politically, we have conversed politely on his blog, his work contains sarcasm but relatively little “message”, and I don’t care if he’s particularly right-wing; the plan should *still* be shaped like us not screaming. 🙂

    (It’s near the beginning of the massive archives. Really.)

    JCW, TK, BT, LC and all the rest could learn a lesson in how to be successful and conservative from Mr. Tayler.

  22. Not sure they would leave the comments in moderation limbo at MGC. It’s been a while since I’ve visited their blog but last I knew, they left comments up and then piled on the commentator, calling them a “drive-by” and being insulting, if not outright threatening.

    In looking through their posts trying to find that example of threatening I see Freer’s old post from 2013 about “vote buying” (as it’s called in the comments) being wrong. This particular comment thread is interesting:

    http://madgeniusclub.com/2013/09/09/defeating-the-anak/#comment-29955

    It very much looks like the SP/RP contingent decided years ago that because vote buying COULD happen, it WAS happening, and that their recent shenanigans are entirely about revenge. Freer seems to think so, anyway. I guess he’s trying to pretty his little revenge fantasy up with high-minded rhetoric now.

  23. So if I’m following the conversation right… THE GOBLIN EMPEROR is about cheese?

  24. “And for those of us who may at times be reading the site on iPhones, like, say, me, it’s impossible to copy/paste the stuff, so even if we have a ROT-13 translator handy, it still ain’t gonna happen.”

    Hear, hear. 🙁

  25. @Alauda “They’d probably just leave the comments in moderation limbo.”

    Dave Freer only left my comment (made with a throwaway email, of course) in limbo for about 48hrs. It could just have been a matter of neglect of the moderation queue, but as he’d invited File770 commentators over there, it seems strange to then not check for new posters held in moderation….

  26. @Meredith:

    If Addison/Monette writes another book in that world its an insta-buy for me even if it doesn’t focus on cheese or anything else in the spoilers. 🙂 But everything is better with cheese, amirite?

    Honestly, when ruminating on uses for cheese, shepherds pies always make my list. Especially with sliced tomatoes on top too, mmmm… I must drum up the spoons to cook one sometime soon. It keeps well in the fridge so it fits my usual rule about batch cooking. 🙂

    Behold! And I was able to do it after two hours’ hard roller derby* practice, too. Usually my top speed at that point is mac-and-cheese-with-sausage, or just leftover-mac-and-cheese-cold-out-the-fridge because I’m too hungry to wait for things to microwave. It helps I chugged a coconut water while waiting for the shepherd’s pie to cook, though.

    The friend with whom conversation led to recipe doesn’t do lactose, but she’s the one who mentioned cheese. And there happened to be parmesan in the fridge. So.

    *I looked up the Hugos for the year of my birth, like all the cool kids are doing. Rollerball was a Hugo nominee. This amuses me.

    @Dela and @Meredith:

    “So if I’m following the conversation right… THE GOBLIN EMPEROR is about cheese?”

    Only in my dreams, Dela, only in my dreams. Cheese fueled dreams.

    The next time I reread it, there will certainly be cheese in it. My brain will add it. There are already enough delicious sounding meals in there, a little imaginary cheese sauce can’t hurt.

  27. Crap, wait. I think I may have mixed some people up, who was the one who called up Aaron’s place of work – Freer or Antonelli?

  28. @Nicole

    Behold! And I was able to do it after two hours’ hard roller derby* practice, too. Usually my top speed at that point is mac-and-cheese-with-sausage, or just leftover-mac-and-cheese-cold-out-the-fridge because I’m too hungry to wait for things to microwave. It helps I chugged a coconut water while waiting for the shepherd’s pie to cook, though.

    That is a gorgeous looking shepherd’s pie! Well, cottage pie if you’re going to be fussy I suppose but honestly who cares, they both taste good and apart from the type of meat they’re very similar. There’s something about peas in that dish which is just so comforting. I like to chuck a tin or two of chopped tomatoes in as well for the sweetness and a bit of extra moisture. (As well as aforementioned cheese and sliced tomato on top of the mash where it can get all roasted and melty wth crunchy bits.)

    My sister’s a zebra – a roller derby referee. 🙂 (Its endlessly amusing to me as I’ve got ehlers danlos and we bendies call ourselves zebras, too.) If you had the time before practice (or even the day before) I bet you could prepare all the meat bits and store them in the fridge until later, but I don’t think there’s a way to pre-prepare mash and have it survive well. :/

  29. Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little: Good to see another derby person wandering this comments section (I’m a zebra with Canberra Roller Derby League)

  30. Thanks @Ann, @Max

    Saw Mark’s comment on MGC and got confused about the doxxing reference wrt Freer… I’m gonna need a list of the Not Yet Ready For Prime Time Players and their various missteps outside the bubble they’re used to…

  31. I would advise anyone on the receiving end to report it to the police as well as reporting it to the credit card company. Admittedly, I live in the City of London itself, which has its own police force with vast expertise in fraud in all its forms, but it is the sensible thing to do…

    You LIVE in the City? That’s awesome. Also some serious money. I suppose in the spirit of Murphy’s Law you work in Lewisham… 😉

  32. CPaca on June 3, 2015 at 4:07 pm said:
    Cally : Ohg gur zvffvat purrfr cvengr jnf gur xrl gb gur jubyr fgbel!

    Ehoovfu. Lbh arrq gb pbafvqre urkncbqvn nf gur xrl vafvtug.

    Surely we have reached peak fannishness right there. No wait, that would be if this exchange had included the “blessed are the cheesemakers” line.

  33. Stevie on June 3, 2015 at 6:00 pm said:
    I seem to remember devoting a lot of time arguing on Usenet about ‘what is MilSF’ in the Glory Days of RecArts SFWritten. My views were very strongly influenced by the fact both of my parents were career military, and therefore I had grown up immersed in the culture; my father served for 35 years in the Royal Air Force (RAF), and my first ever lesson on how to use an edged weapon was provided by a very nice Ghurka chap who was serving with my father at that time.

    It was a very good lesson; and I have remembered it throughout my life. Suffice it to say that, with Ghurkas around, those who believe the maxim ‘Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight’ may wish to reflect upon this carefully in whatever time is left to them.

    All in all, I suspect that the amount of gun porn is correlated with the amount of people who have never been anything other than civilian, and they haven’t a clue what battle actually means. It isn’t nice, it isn’t fun, you can’t pick up your toys and go home.

    My father was a slave on the Death Railway; he survived but it left scars, most obviously on his skin, the other inside him. we couldn’t touch him while he was asleep because he might kill us. That is what war is, and unsurprisingly people don’t talk about it, particularly if you fear it all over again…

    I just wanted to quote this in its entirety because it is awesome, in various meanings of the word including those related to “awful”, and also I as somebody who is just writing MilSf with veterans you shouldn’t touch without warning, somebody does. Maybe because I, too, had relatives who served in a World War (or two), and they too didn’t fancy speaking about it too much. Also, me and you both knew the people who stayed at home and didn’t enjoy war either, in some cases because your relatives were dropping bombs on mine… (no hard feelings: we were cheering for you guys at the time).

  34. Meredith on June 3, 2015 at 6:44 pm said:
    @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.

    I am reminded of Cory Doctorow’s After the Siege, which is I suppose for any possible definition of the term MilSF, and it is also drawn from his granny’s memories at the siege of Leningrad. I listened to him reading it as he was writing it and boy is it something.

    To give TK his due, from what I have heard his story does not depict war as particularly fun.

  35. @Anna Feruglio Dal Dan

    You LIVE in the City? That’s awesome. Also some serious money. I suppose in the spirit of Murphy’s Law you work in Lewisham… 😉

    I don’t know where Stevie works, but Lewisham is where I grew up. 🙂

  36. @Snowcrash

    Yes, Freer’s little dabble was much less extreme than Antonelli’s. Mind you, Freer is still claiming that because he didn’t actually identify where he worked, but simply noted what google search to do and what result to look for, it doesn’t count.

  37. @Lis Carey
    “So, the reason Ancillary Justice isn’t MilSF is because it isn’t weapons portn? That’s essential to the definition of “MilSF”? I’m sorry, but that sounds like rather determined special pleading.”

    MilSF doesn’t have to be weapons porn.

    Here is a definition of MilSF from wikipedia:
    “A detailed description of the conflict, the tactics and weapons used for it, and the role of a military service and the individual members of that military organization forms the basis for a typical work of military science fiction.”

    Ancillary Justice lacks a detailed description of the conflict (we arrive on the scene after the conflict and any insurrection is automatically doomed to failure), lacks details on tactics, and lacks details on weapons. AJ does a little work to describe the role of military service, although just as an occupation force and not in actual combat. AJ does describe the individual members, such as the ship and the officers. There are no enlisted, which is the usual PoV of a MilSF book, but I don’t mind shaking up the PoV. The officers have little agency and seem to only exist to propel the story forward and create conflict within Breq until they are no longer needed. The military elements disappear entirely in the second half of the book.

    This is just my opinion, obviously. Is there some reason why this book just has to be considered MilSF?

  38. Personally I would class the Ancillary books as Space Opera, but I can see why some people could view them as being similar in many ways to the ‘Hornblower in Space’ stuff that seems to get classed as MilSF.

  39. Much of the MilSF I have read was boring because they were slavish about the detailed description of the conflict, the tactics and weapons used for it part. It’s like listening someone narrate a tabletop wargame, but less fun. Give me some nice fog of war and personal stakes and ditch the birds eye battle recitation of armaments and casualties.

  40. “Much of the MilSF I have read was boring because they were slavish about the detailed description of the conflict, the tactics and weapons used for it part. It’s like listening someone narrate a tabletop wargame, but less fun. Give me some nice fog of war and personal stakes and ditch the birds eye battle recitation of armaments and casualties.”

    So much this. I was recommended the Honor Harrington books by a number of friends, so I picked up the first one, and enjoyed it well enough (while eyerolling at the perpetual welfare state stuff). The thing which impressed me was that the naval battle at the end was immersive, the detail level enough to give you a feeling of the complexities of commanding a ship in battle, but not too dry. It helped that Weber would cut to other parts of the ship and have other characters engaged in personal drama or peril caused by the battle.

    Fast forward a few books, and the scale has grown. Harrington is commanging fleets instead of lone ships. And the battle scenes increase in scope, and lose all their character. They become an exercise in bookkeeping as thousands of missiles are launched, their relative veolcity and which side having better point defence and ECM is more important than what the ship’s captains are thinking, or how the chief engineer is struggling to keep the reactor from shutting down, or the damage control crews trying to stop a fire or whatever.

    Annoyingly, Weber seemed to have a knack for keeping me on the edge of quitting the series for a few years, where a few books became my “if I don’t enjoy this one, I’m done” – only for that next book to zoom the scale in. Ultimately I did quit, but it was because I couldn’t take his turgid political writing any more.

    I enjoy space opera and military SF, and while I would probably put Ancillary Justice and Sword on the space opera side of things, I do agree that concentrating on the technology and tactics part of the definition of military sci-fi is far too limiting.

  41. Lorcan Nagle: Fast forward a few books, and… the battle scenes increase in scope, and lose all their character. They become an exercise in bookkeeping as thousands of missiles are launched, their relative veolcity and which side having better point defence and ECM is more important than what the ship’s captains are thinking, or how the chief engineer is struggling to keep the reactor from shutting down, or the damage control crews trying to stop a fire or whatever.

    I enjoy the Honor Harrington series, but when it became apparent that the endless recitations of weapons totals and hits and misses and blah blah blah was going to be a thing now, I started skipping those scenes without the slightest remorse. Likewise, when the political lecturing gets too lengthy or heavy-handed. So I’ve been able to maintain an appreciation for and enjoyment of the books — but also without ever feeling that they’re in need of a Hugo nomination.

  42. The problem with the Honor Harrington books is that Weber is too good at writing a relateable central character. That way you get suckered into what happens to Honor next while Dave piles up the stupid higher and higher in the background. I finally did give up when the Illuminati turned up.

    If you want to metaphorically see me frothing at the mouth, go here( http://brendanpodger.livejournal.com/32172.html ) and check out my HH rant.

  43. Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little –

    In re Rolleerball: Turner Classic Movies currently has one of my favorite Guilty Pleasure SF movies in its on-demand queue – Ice Pirates. “Hey! I just stole those boots!”

    Anywho, I was noting that the various crews were watching Rollerball (the movie) on various monitors, and that the “pursuit” in the corridors after the party involved both the motorcycles from Rollerball and the pursuit car was also from some other Scifi movie that I can’t place.

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