All the myriad realities parade through today’s roundup, arrayed by Jason Sanford, George R.R. Martin, John Scalzi, Vox Day, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Alexandra Erin, Tom Knighton, Anna Butler, Matt Hotaling, Ann Leckie, Katya Czaja, Rich Horton and Declan Finn, plus a few less easily identified others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day James H. Burns.)
Jason Sanford
“When science fiction authors are no longer grounded in reality” – April 30
Let me put this delicately: WRONG WRONG WRONG! AND WHAT WORLD ARE YOU ACTUALLY LIVING IN?
First off all, if what [John] Ringo says was true why would science fiction have first begun hitting the bestseller lists in the late 1970s and early 1980s? Those were the decades when Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and many other top SF authors landed massive advances and sales for their novels. Most of which, I should note, were not published by Baen, which wasn’t even founded until 1983.
But we don’t have to go back to the ’70s and ’80s to prove Ringo wrong. For example, the April 2015 Locus Bestseller List had only one Baen title on it (which is Ringo’s Strands of Sorrow, which debuted at number 5 on the list). That’s one title out of 25 novels on the different Locus Bestseller categories for April. The March 2015 list had no Baen titles and neither did the February 2015 list. The January 2015 list had a single Baen title on it.
A similar pattern emerges from the last few years of the Locus Bestseller lists, which cover genre sales in the hardback, paperback and trade paperback formats….
And it isn’t only the bestseller lists showing this pattern — all of this is backed by sales figures from Bookscan, the publishing industry’s system for tracking book sales….
If you are going to make a provocative statement like Ringo’s, you need to back up your words with, you know, some facts. You need to show that you actually understand reality and aren’t simply saying whatever pops into your head.
George R.R. Martin on Not A Blog
“More Hugo Musings” – April 30
BEST SEMIPROZINE. This category has always pissed me off, since it was created largely to kick LOCUS out of Best Fanzine, where it was winning every year. Of course, once Semiprozine was created, LOCUS proceeded to win that a bunch of times too, until the rules were jiggered once again to kick it out once more. (This is one reason I oppose jiggering the rules, even to stop the Puppies). They really ought to call this category BEST SEMIPROZINE THAT ISN’T LOCUS. But they don’t. We have five finalists here, only two of which are from the slates… and one of those, ANDROMEDA SPACEWAYS IN FLIGHT MAGAZINE, has been loudly declaring that they were not informed and never asked to be on anyone’s slate. I am really only familiar with LIGHTSPEED and STRANGE HORIZONS from this category. Both of those are pretty good. If anyone has an opinion to offer on the others, do speak up. If I have time to check them out, I will… if I don’t, I will abstain in this category, i.e. not vote. I won’t go NO AWARD, since I do think the two semipros I know are worthy. Not as worthy as LOCUS, mind you, but there you are…
Daniel on Castalia House
“Snapshot in Time: The 2002 Hugo Recommended Ballots” – April 30
Possibly because of the records that have been legitimately broken, there have been a few minor misconceptions recently that a number of other events associated with the 2015 Hugo Awards process are unprecedented. One of these has to do with recommendation lists.
By merely examining a single category (best novel) on the NESFA Recommendation list from 2001 (which promoted candidates for the 2002 Hugos), a few myths are easily dispelled:
John Scalzi on Whatever
“Redshirts as a Social Justice Cabal Hugo Pick” – April 29
[First and second of 13 tweets in series.]
1. It's been recently suggested that I should be ashamed for getting the Hugo for Redshirts (by an author who hasn't himself read the book).
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) April 29, 2015
2. To be clear: I am not. I am deeply pleased it won, and I think it was entirely deserving of the award, and the other awards it won.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) April 29, 2015
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Compare and contrast” – April 29
The SJWs in science fiction believe that if they can control the narrative, if they can convince the media to tell the story their way, they are going to retain their control of the science fiction establishment. They are given every opportunity to spin the narrative and make their case; Brad, Larry, and I were contacted by a Wall Street Journal reporter yesterday, which was a welcome change from most of the coverage that we’ve been seeing of late, but so too were John Scalzi and George Martin.
It’s just like one sees on the cable news. If a talking head has on a liberal guest, the liberal appears alone to sell the narrative. If a talking head has on a conservative guest, a liberal guest usually appears to dispute the narrative. And although it is only a guess, I suspect that the way that the story is likely to go will be moderately anti-Puppy, in light of the reporter actually “playing devil’s advocate” in conversation with me.
L. Jagi Lamplighter on Superversive Blog
“Signal To Noise” – April 22
Ever wonder why the opposition—whatever side you are not on—only ever seems to attack and quote the outliners on your side? The most horrible folks? The most obnoxious comments? How they never seem to get the point? How the throwaway line you, or your favorite blogger, tossed off when you were pissed off is repeated everywhere, while the strongly-reasoned arguments are ignored?
This is why.
To them, that throw away line is signal—because its on the subject they care about. To you and your blogger friend, it’s noise.
So, next time you feel the urge to bridge the endless gap—and maybe talk to that crazy lunatic on the other side who used to be a bosom buddy—try this simple trick:
Pick the lines the other person says that upset you the most. Ignore them. Just pretend that they are not there. Pretend that they are static. Noise.
Because, chances are, that to him, it is just noise.
And you’ve been missing the signal, tuning it out, all along.
Then, listen closely to whatever he seems to think is the most important part–even if it sounds like mad nonsense to you. NOT, mind you, what he says at loudest volume—that is likely to be noise, too—the part he speaks about fervently or with reasoning.
From there, you can often find a bridge, a common point of agreement—because at the very least, you now know what the important issues actually are.
Bojoti in a comment on Arhyalon – April 29
I think what the TrueFans and Sad Puppies don’t realize is that they are being watched by the great unwashed masses, hoi polloi, the little people of science fiction. Some of the behavior and rhetoric is so hateful and venomous that I regret my membership. Authors were saying that the new members didn’t love science fiction; they were claiming that they didn’t even read! Some were even saying stupid things like the Koch brothers bought my membership. TrueFans were disgusted by the thought of new members. They like the WorldCon being small and are actively against new members.
Chaos Horizons
“Declined Hugo and Nebula and other SFF Nominations” – April 28
[Needs also to deal with the less-easily-researched self-recusals from awards that led to people not being nominated at all, therefore not registered as declining.]
Since Chaos Horizon is a website dedicated to gathering stats and information about SFF awards, particularly the Hugos and Nebulas, a list of declined award nominations might prove helpful to us. There’s a lot of information out there, but it’s scattered across the web and hard to find . Hopefully we can gather all this information in one place as a useful resource.
So, if you know of any declined nominations—in the Hugos and Nebulas or other major SFF awards—drop the info on the comments. I have not included books withdrawn for eligibility reasons (published in a previous year, usually). I’ll keep the list updated and stash it in my “Resources” tab up at the top.
Hipster Racist
“The Anti-Geek Manifesto #gamergate #sadpuppies #sjw” – April 30
But fucking #gamergate? Who could possibly fucking care, at least after the age of 14? I mean, there is serious shit going on in the world, and you’re worried that some pink haired hipster chick with a nose ring sucked a bunch of dicks to get her game a good review? I mean, I read about “Depression Quest.” Anybody should have been able to figure out she spent a lot of time on her knees to get any recognition for that crap.
“Ethics” in “game journalism?”
“Game Journalism?” Holy fucking God, we had Judith Miller writing in the New York Times about non-existant Weapons of Mass Destruction and you’re worried about “ethics in game journalism?”
Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write
“Sad Puppies and Magical Thinking” – April 30
So, I’ve characterized the line of thinking behind the Puppies’ discontent as being unable to understand when reality runs in ways that are counter to their tastes/beliefs without imagining some kind of dark conspiracy or cabal (or “clique”, to use their preferred term).
This belief is so strong that a combination of confirmation bias and the effect of “believing is seeing” causes them to interpret all available information in ways that point to the existence of the cabal, even when this requires them to imagine that people are meaning the exact opposite of what they say.
Tom Knighton
“Thoughts on ‘slate’ voting” – April 30
Yeah, trust Vox to not make it any easier on us.
However, it’s worth noting that a number of Vox’s “Dread Ilk” have stated quite publicly that they didn’t nominate just as he wrote them down. Why is that? Probably because people who value individualism tend to be individualists. Getting any collective of individualists to do anything exactly as you want makes things like cat herding appear to be simple matters. No one is the boss of us unless we want them to be, and even then, we’ll disagree with them all we want. I sincerely hope some of the ilk stop by and tell us how they didn’t nominate a straight slate either.
Lockstep, we ain’t.
Anna Butler
“Links To Blog Posts on Writing” – April 30
The Clusterfuck that is the Hugo Awards: If you hadn’t heard this already, then the Hugo Awards this year have been torpedoed by a coalition of white, reactionary, middle-aged male writers who call themselves the ‘Sad Puppies’ and who hate women/gays/anyone who isn’t them. They’ve gamed the system to get all their books put in for awards, and effectively destroyed any credibility the Hugos had. Sad.
Matt Hotaling in The Beacon
“Hugo Award for Science Fiction not looking so progressive this year” – April 30
At the end of the end of the day and when all the hate and bile is removed from the conversation, the core of what both sides want doesn’t sound too unreasonable. The conservative nerds simply demand excellence from their media, they want the very best that the great wide geekdom has to offer; they recognize work on all of its merits, what it does, not just what it contains. The conservative nerds have no problem if their media contains progressive themes or characters, or if it comes from creators of diverse backgrounds, they simply feel that everything should get its fair shake, nothing should elevated simply because it has progressive representation. The new liberal nerds simply want broader, equal representation of all genders, races, and creeds. They want to create a climate where is it is not just acceptable to play with progressive content, but encouraged. They don’t want representation to be pandered to, they want representation done well and recognized.
The two ideologies at the base of each side of the argument are not mutually exclusive; the only thing standing in the way from the two sides making truly great sci-fi together is that the most vocal members of each group are also the most toxic.
Sad Puppies’ coup of the Hugos went too far; its list is not just a slap in the face to progressive works, but is an outright regressive move as it includes more than one openly homophobic writer.
Rich Horton on Black Gate
The 2015 Hugo Nominations – April 30
To take one more example, hopefully close to the hearts of many reading this: I have to confess that I never nominated Black Gate as Best Fanzine. (I nominated it as a Semiprozine back in the print days, to be sure.) The reason: I simply didn’t think of it as a Fanzine. But it is, really, and (leaving my contributions out of the mix), I honestly think it’s a damn good Fanzine. So I’m glad to have this whole matter bring to my mind the notion that Black Gate is eligible for a Fanzine nomination. At the risk of campaigning, let me suggest that people keeping reading it through 2015, and if it seems to hold up, nominate it again next year.
Ann Leckie
“Hugo Voting Is Open” – April 30
When I first voted for the Hugos, several years ago, I didn’t fully understand the voting system, or how No Award fit into things. But I’m going to be entirely honest, I have felt the need to use No Award in at least one category every single year that I’ve been eligible to vote. No, I’m not going to say what I’ve No Awarded over the years. Nor am I going to tell you whether or how to deploy No Award yourself, if you’re a Hugo voter. That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself, for your own reasons.
Katya Czaja
“Vogon Poetry and Rabid Puppies” – April 30
Not every species can appreciate Vogon poetry. It turns out, I don’t appreciate Vogon poetry.
The Rabid Puppies claim they want stories with better ‘plot’. “So the conservative SF fans can get together and let their hair down and talk about stuff they want to talk about (like books with actual plots and dialogue)” (John Ringo)
I’m currently about 80 pages into a RP nominated novel and I have finished several of the RP short stories. Sure, the stories have plot, but plot alone is not enough. The dialog is wooden. There is a whole lot of telling and very little showing. The prose doesn’t sparkle, it doesn’t even shine. There are more characters than a Russian novel and less characterization than Twilight. In other words, it is not the kind of fiction I enjoy.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Moderates gonna moderate” – April 29
[Second and third of four verses]
They do not like me here or there
They do not like me anywhere
They do not like me on the Net
Because they are so moderate
If only I would be more nice
And pour out sugar in place of spice
Then it would all be duly meet
We’d march off to our brave defeat
Declan Finn
“Puppies Come to WorldCon” – May 1
…If you haven’t read the last two blogs, you might be new here. This started with a thought: what if Sad Puppy authors were SWATted (part 1)? Then it sort of drifted from the “ringleaders” in part one (Correia, Torgersen, Hoyt) to “mere” supporters in part two (Kratman, Ringo, Weber)….
WORLDCON, SPOKANE WASHINGTON
[WorldCon is practically empty, for a Con. A borderline ghost town of two thousand people. If DragonCon is New York City, WorldCon is Detroit. Suddenly, the ground shakes. The front windows rattle. It feels like an earthquake! Suddenly, the squeal of brakes as a tank rumbles to a stop outside.]….
[Gerrold straightens.] And another thing–
[Larry whistles] Wendell’s Roughnecks! Charge!
[Two thousand men and women, all wearing a t-shirt with a cuddly manatee on the front, all invade WorldCon, en mass, with Schardt, Lehman, and Paulk leading the charge. David Gerrold is lost in the stampede.]
[Sarah rolls her eyes and smiles] Show off.
[Kratman] Outstanding!
[Knightman shrugs] I’ll go park the tank.
[Everyone disperses]
[Scalzi, still under a pile of carp] Had enough? I’m invincible! I’ll bite your legs off! Hello! Hello! All right, we’ll call it a draw! Hello?
~The End~
I want to thank all of the people who have made these go over so well, including Tom Kratman, Sarah Hoyt, Brad Torgersen, Tom Knighton, everyone who has shared this throughout the net, everyone who offered suggestions, and even those who asked to be apart of it. I’m honored, touched, and a bit surprised that something that started as a “fever dream” has been suggested (seriously) for a Hugo.
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“This is one of those “respect of the religion of another person” things I keep hearing about.” I only hear that from Christians complaining about how persecuted they are in the United States. Religion is to be respected to the extent that we honor other’s beliefs, but we don’t have to honor claims without evidence, which Wright’s “supernatural” comments surely are.
I’ve put up some of my data in a bit more detail here: http://daveon.livejournal.com/738614.html
If anybody has the nomination data pre-2011 I’d like to compare that too to see whether or not 2011 was am unusual ‘blip’ of range or if in fact, the more people we have nominating the worse the selection of works has become. Which is certainly highly counter intuitive.
Brian Z: If it were me no-awarding (which I’m not) that’s why I would still hesitate to ask him to disavow a fellow writer
Oh, for chrissakes.
In the hypothetical, nobody asks anyone to disavow anyone. In the hypothetical, an author [, artist, editor] living in the back of beyond is featured on a bloc-voting slate. SF fans seek out that person, asking ‘Mr./Ms. Example, the Syphilitic Puppies organisers are publishing at [URL] a public call for mass voting of your work Somenovel. In light to [reference to 2015 history], do you wish to be included in this organised effort? If you have any reaction, what would you like us to convey to the Syphilitic Puppies organisers on your behalf?’
The date spread to accommodate communication with the back of beyond and back is like this:
January 7, 2015: Brad Torgersen opens SP3 campaign, solicits suggestions (which, as covered elsewhere, he mostly ignored in the end and wrote his own list).
January 16, 2015: Hugo nominations opened.
January 31, 2015: Last day to become qualified as a 2015 Hugo Awards voter by purchasing a Sasquan or MidAmeriCon II voting membership (or by having already had a voting membership in LonCon3).
February 2, 2015: Beale pronounces the RP3 slate, apparently ex-cathedra (but not verified because I don’t really care that much).
March 10, 2015: Hugo nominations closed.
April 4, 2015: Finalists (nominees) announced.
April 14, 2014: Two finalists are found to be unqualified per WSFS Constitution. Ballots adjusted to promote the next-highest-vote nominees for those categories.
April 16, 2015: Two finalists withdraw. Ballots adjusted to promote the next-highest-vote nominees for those categories.
April 19, 2015: A finalist disavows nomination, but ballots will be unchanged.
April 27 2015: A finalist disavows nominations, but ballots will be unchanged.
For any bloc-voting campaign to function, it would need to be active during a future-year (say, 2016) cycle’s equivalent of the recent Jan 16 – March 10, 2015 voting window. Which leaves plenty of time for fandom to consult the hypothetical Mr./Ms. Example in the back of beyond about Syphilitic Puppies 2016, assess what he/she says, assess what Syphilitic Puppies 2016 organisers do and say, and decide their individual votes intelligently.
Which is a long-winded, factually specific way of saying: Hugo Award voters are high-information voters. And now I am really done trying to lead the horse^W puppy to water on that (obvious) point.
Rick Moen
[email protected]
Ah Steve Moss, you are correct… then I’d like to find the 2008,9,10 data to see if the weird ‘blip’ is 2012 – either way, the number of actual works nominated seem to be remarkably inelastic when compared to nominations made.
Daveon id be interested in looking at whatever numbers you come up with.
I didn’t quote you, S1A1, I summarized your position, and I did so accurately, which is likely why you’re so surprised. It’s a skill you lack. For example, you didn’t even get the book right AGAIN. The book does too say lava mining:
see pp. 15 (“All the personnel of the lava-mining facility”)
and 16 (“At the lava-mining facility”)
and it also appears in the back-of-the-book glossary describing Sheol (“site of lava-mining operations”).
There are also specific references to “lava miners” (p. 13) and “lava mines” (p. 81, and twice in the glossary on p. 664 and again on 668).
“Lava miners” is also n the tor.com excerpt, which I was citing, btw. You could have just clicked through, you know, instead of trying to bluster. It’s literally in the third paragraph: “The other lava miners paid little attention to his warnings about third-order tidal shifts in the broken planet, not because they disputed his geological math, but because they didn’t want to believe.”
My laughable claim about mining was…what, that it requires digging under the surface instead of just zipping along on a boat and scooping up the medium upon which the boat floats? Tell you what—I’m actually going to stick with that definition, it being accurate and all.
The plain fact is that you didn’t even look at, or at least remember, the details of the book you so exhaustively defended, then dared call me arrogant, and then when I cited multiple instances of what I was talking about, including page numbers, you left the thread, only to appear here and engage in similar shenanigans.
My God, It’s Full Of Puppies…
Maybe fourteen years too late, but I couldn’t resist.
” I have read both, nobody who read them would nominate Lines of Departure ahead of Three Body. Nobody.”
Put the brush down, you’ll dislocate your shoulder swinging it that hard…
Its quite possible that many of the people who read the Kloos book haven’t read Three Body Problem. I havent read TBP yet, I bought it last month buts its still in my TBR file. I like the Kloos series, I’ve read them all, but I like MilSci Fi that I think is written well, and I think Kloos writes well.
I know for some people, Three Body problems November release meant it went to their TBR pile, and they hadn’t gotten around to reading it before the nominations were closed. It also meant it didn’t get the same sort of press/word of mouth like Ancillary or Goblin Emporer did. I haven’t read it yet, I will before I vote, and if I like it better than what I currently like, I’ll vote accordingly.
As distasteful as slate voting appears to be to some, I’m sure nominating works you haven’t read ranks up there as well in the “Bad things to do as a Hugo Voter.”
There are great books left out every year. Something like 600 individual novels were nominated this year, and for every one out there saying “How could you leave off Three Body Problem” there are people saying the same thing about Station Eleven, Annihilation, City of Stairs, Mirror Empire, Lock In and so on.
“Which comes back to where is the evidence that the Puppies made up their own minds on this stuff?”
The disparity in votes in the various categories should be some. I didn’t nominate the straight SP3 slate, I think very few people did.
They are on my LJ. I might create a public Google Spreadsheet and make them available for people to play with.
Either way, the consistency is remarkable the last 4 years, last year was the first ‘real’ SP slate and it didn’t change the nominations in terms of numbers of works – that’s highly suggestive to me that the idea that there is a core of works that gets pushed doesn’t seem all that evident from these numbers as I’d expect to see core plus puppy votes – if people have been reading and nominating then it’s also suggestive that actually the puppies are mostly reading and nominating the same stuff.
It will be very interesting to see the numbers in August to see if these ratios are constant.
‘Vox Day has been clear in his opinion about how to destroy the Hugos. Outsiders can only damage them. It takes insiders to destroy them.’
He’s a war-gamer and his war-games probably come with cards you can read shit like that off all night long while rolling your dice and moving your ninjelves.
Rick, in thinking of Liu Cixin potentially being informed next year that if he does not speak out against another writer he will face severe consequences, and what he must think of us, etc., I didn’t even consider the kind of emails he might get from fans seeking him out if Vox Day endorsed him. Adding that to the mix.
“Vox Day has been clear in his opinion about how to destroy the Hugos. Outsiders can only damage them. It takes insiders to destroy them.”
It’s weird you feel the need to repeat his silly propaganda, like he’s Dr. Evil and you’re Mini-Me.
Where did the 600 individual works number come from? I’ve not seen that referenced before… looking at the data of the nominations the numbers that make the 3% shown in the detailed stats looks remarkably consistent.
“then I’d like to find the 2008,9,10 data to see if the weird ‘blip’ is 2012 – either way, the number of actual works nominated seem to be remarkably inelastic when compared to nominations made.”
Hugoawards.org has .pdfs of voting report available. Least it did…
Daveon,
“Best Novel (1827 nominating ballots, 587 entries, range 212-387)”
“Entries” means the number of individual works or individuals nominated in that category.”
From the Hugo website.
Just wanted to chime and say a huge THANK YOU to Mike for all his diligence in rounding up the best and the worst of the Puppy Piddle every day. It’s all very interesting and saves me a huge amount of time.
Title suggestion: “To Say Nothing of the Puppy”
‘ I’m sure nominating works you haven’t read ranks up there as well in the “Bad things to do as a Hugo Voter.” ‘
Good thing the quote you’re responding to mentioned those who’ve read both and said nothing about people who had only read one or the other then.
@Brian Z: Yes, I never know what to do about this either. Keep the Chinese order of family name first? Or switch them around so that English speakers are less likely to make a mistake?
If you’re speaking to the gentlemen in question in English and had no cuing in the form of what he himself said or wrote, I supposed you would call him Cixin Liu, Cixin, or Mr. Liu. If you were speaking to him in Mandarin, you would most definitely call him Liu Cixin xiansheng (where ‘xiansheng’ is a honorific corresponding to Mr.).
If you encounter a Chinese name with no indication of which order it’s in, because you’re in international company and it could be either one (which was the situation in Hong Kong), then I guess your best strategy is to learn to recognise Chinese surnames, so that when you see ‘Liu Cixin’, it’s obvious that it should be parsed as Mr. Liu. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to learn this.
To quote the HSBC line: Local knowledge is good. I briefly was confused when I saw written reference to ‘Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music’ in Hungary. (Who was this Ferenc person?) Then, I remembered that Ferenc is the Hungarian-language cognate to the German-language name Franz. So, we anglophones would tend to say Franz Liszt Academy of Music.
Goodwill on both sides gets past the difficulties, and acknowledgement that names, even place names and personal names, will sometimes be adapted to the pronunciation needs and historical traditions of other languages. We say ‘Nicosia’ for the capital of Cyprus because that’s the standard anglicisation, even though the Greek canonical version of that name, if you accurately transcribe it to Latin letters, is ‘Lefkosia’. And the Cypriots don’t get offended, any more than the Finns get offended when we fail to refer to their country as Suomi.
Rick Moen
[email protected]
Daveon
I stand corrected; Ancillary Justice got 23% of the nominations. Truly a runaway favorite, given that in the short fiction categories 17%, 16% and 9% where what the top favorites got.
In the *previous* year the favorite in the novel category got 17% of the nominations, with novella’s favorite getting 17%, novelette’s getting 14% and short story’s favorite getting 16%.
Note that the items with the fewest nominations that still made the ballot that year got 10%, 12% 6% and 5% of the nominations in their respective categories. So a group that produced results resembling 17% nominating in lockstep can have things mostly their own way downballot but in Best Novel that may not be (and this year was not) enough to pwn the category.
And I think the rest of my commentary still holds. Remarkable, isn’t it, that there should be *five* such favorites in so many categories, and that Mr Torgersen and Mr Day should predict them so accurately. Truly worthy of remark.
On the other hand, if, as the Puppies appear to be trying to imply, the slate made no difference, congratulations to them! As 100% of the Hugo nominators I think they can probably ensure that No Award will get no traction in the voting.
S1AL:
Can I conclude that you believe mind control and the influence of ideas (a la “Inception”) are ALSO the same?
You mean, they are both fantasy? Not real? A thing that is not observed in consensus reality, and that I leave out of account when trying to understand and predict other people’s behavior?
Yes, that would be correct. Note that I am talking about “the influence of ideas” *specifically* of the sort seen in “Inception”, that is, where the party being influenced is having their actual brainwaves influenced via drugs and electronic telepathy.
As for “respect for other religions” — respect for *persons* is what’s truly important. When someone’s religious beliefs lead them to conclude that other people should be dealt with as though they’re under malign supernatural influence, I won’t respect that religion. “Their opinions are due to evil supernatural influences”, as an explanation for human behavior, has a *horrifically* bad track record. The record is so bad that I don’t honestly known if you — and/or Wright — are joking, somehow.
‘There are great books left out every year.’
And slate voting seems set to ensure that even more are excluded each time.
Yes, it does but the format gets harder and harder to process the further back… 2009 looks like the last year they reported the full numbers of uniques who got more than about 3% of the nominations. Going back to 2009, the results are consistent with the 2011 results, with about 23 works in each category getting 3% or more of the ballots cast.
The numbers dropped dramatically in 2012 and have stayed that way.
2012 was about the time there was a real push for diversity in the votes to break the ‘strangle hold’ of Conservative White Males who ran the Hugo Awards – what seems to have happened instead is potentially more works are nominated but there has been more consistency in the numbers that everybody agrees on.
Still not seeing any evidence in these numbers of any sort of plot to exclude people – quite the opposite in fact.
“And slate voting seems set to ensure that even more are excluded each time.”
Depends on whats on the slate in question, doesn’t it?
Andrew, I sit corrected, I have been working off the 3% vote lists there…. let me look at the nomination totals too and see what that does.
Andrew – actually no, not if a slate is 5 works and somebody suggests people should vote as is. It would lead to fewer works each year. Let me do another pass of the data.
Nick Mamatas –
First, I abandoned the other thread because I didn’t get a response in the space of time available to me before a few very long work days. It didn’t seem to be going anywhere, anyways. Second, I didn’t bring it up anywhere – you did. Don’t blame me for that.
Your amusing comment on mining to which I was referring was your mockery that one could engage in “mining” in one’s backyard with a shovel and bucket… which, as it turns out, falls fully within the definition of “mining” provided there are valuable minerals to be extracted.
As for the book, I did not “exhaustively defend” it. I argued against your assertions regarding the quality of opening paragraphs and general quality the linked novella. I stand by the statements I made, as I found it to be perfectly readable and easy to grasp.
Now, as regards the references to “mining” within the novella:
1) There are exactly ZERO references to the word “mining” in the linked novella. I can’t speak for the larger book because I haven’t read it yet (I intend to read all of the nominees over a few days when I get the packet).
2) The reference to “lava-miners” and “lava mines” appear to be directed at lava processing techniques OTHER THAN those you continue to cite – every passage that mentions barges, rivers, and lakes also calls it “lava processing,” which is a perfectly reasonable term for what is occurring. “Lava-mining” therefore appears to be exactly that – mining of solidified lava.
3) KJA also uses “skymines” and “sea mines” to refer to aerial, cosmic, and water-based extraction operations. Given that “data-mining” is already a term in use today, it is not at all far-fetched to present the term as widely-used to refer to a wide variety of extraction techniques in the future; this is not dissimilar to the “water farmers” of Tattooine in Star Wars or the “Spice Miners” of Dune.
You see, the reason I called you “arrogant” is because you ARE. You made false statements and attempted to mock my knowledge and understanding of what constitutes “mining” based on demonstrably false assumptions regarding the passages of the book and your inability to comprehend that the term “mining” already refers to a very large variety of extraction techniques – including, say, taking a shovel out into your backyard and digging up valuable minerals.
But since we’re making assumptions, I’m just going to assume that you’re being petty about all of this because (1) you hate being proven wrong, (2) you’re jealous of the success of a fellow author who happens to have a very pedestrian, yet popular, writing style.
🙂
@Brian Z:
Rick, in thinking of Liu Cixin potentially being informed next year that if he does not speak out against another writer he will face severe consequences,
WTF? This has absolutely nothing to do with what I said.
and what he must think of us, etc.,
WTF? This has absolutely nothing to do with what I said.
I didn’t even consider the kind of emails he might get from fans seeking him out if Vox Day endorsed him.
It should go without saying anyone who would be verbally abusive towards an author in inquiring about his/her reaction to a mass-nominating campaign would be beneath contempt, and such theoretical person does not speak for me. Verbally abusing authors generally is beneath contempt.
I already said so to Theo, in the very recent past on File770.com, and Theo was kind enough to say I appeared to be a person of integrity. (Which I appreciated, as one does try.)
Rick Moen
[email protected]
“Andrew, I sit corrected, I have been working off the 3% vote lists there…. let me look at the nomination totals too and see what that does.”
No worries, I’m just as interested in what the numbers are as some of the others.
‘Depends on whats on the slate in question, doesn’t it?’
Not really. That was the point of the gaming of the nominees this year, wasn’t it, and the promises for more next year? You get enough people to vote, these titles will dominate. It’s not that easy, though is it? Took three years and a two-pronged approach, and one of those prongs was a sort of sneak-piggy-back that required a direct order to vote the slate. The trick in terms of actual titles was to choose them tactically. So long as there was some overlap, the nominations got maxed out. Nobody else need apply, or damn few at any rate. If in future the Hugos dissolve into slate warfare, a smaller number of titles will be pre-selected by competing slates to get nominated. It’ll make us nostalgic for the days when there was a wide open field, perhaps overly influenced by personal popularity and geography and some extremely large recommended lists, but better than puppy versus anti-puppy slates.
Doctor Science – I was referring to your stated inability or unwillingness to parse the difference between “influence” and “possession.” My original response was to delurking‘s obvious mis-characterization of Wright’s statement. Whether one thinks the notion ludicrous or not, that is no excuse to misrepresent his words.
Given that virtually every religion on the planet – which includes the vast majority of the human population – has theology regarding “malign spiritual influence” in human affairs, I think you’re not going to be able to take almost anyone seriously.
Of course, you could always fall back on the wonderful assertion that perhaps it is because of a heretofore-undetected effect of a “virus” that people believe in God…
Following the comments on Wright- Am I correct that the big complaint about interpretation is that he meant demonic ‘influence’ rather than demonic ‘possession’? Or does someone think that there was another source of malign supernatural influence? If so, what was it?
‘Whether one thinks the notion ludicrous or not, that is no excuse to misrepresent his words.’
Well, just so long as we can agree that it’s the feckin’ demons, one way or another. Even when it was the gays doin’ it, I knew it was the feckin’ demons.
‘Of course, you could always fall back on the wonderful assertion that perhaps it is because of a heretofore-undetected effect of a “virus” that people believe in God…’
The real scandal is that God never won a Hugo.
S1AL:
As I said, the question is not whether you believe in “malign supernatural influence on human affairs” — which I agree is widespread. The question is whether you believe other people should be dealt with as though they’re under malign supernatural influence.
I should say, also, that I was raised as a Catholic in a very devout family. I *never* recall people in my family attributing anything humans do to Satanic influence or even temptation. Original sin, man, it was all about original sin: humans don’t need supernatural influence to mess up, we take care of that by ourselves.
‘The real scandal is that God never won a Hugo’
The virus is on the slate to win next year though.
The real scandal is that there are SF fans, who theoretically think science is a pretty solid approach to the world, who seem concerned about forcing the superstitions of fairly ignorant folks from thousands of years ago onto the real world.
I have to say, this strikes me as the oddest element of this whole fracas. I had never met a fan in my life who thought religious texts were anything but early SF or F. Guess my experience is atypical.
@Nigel re: Wargamers
Ehhhh, kind of going back and forth over saying anything about this, but …
Please bear in mind that there is more than one kind of wargamer, and that the gloating rules-obsessed monomaniacal ones who are nowhere near as clever as they think are not the only kind.
Lots of thoughtful people play wargames with a lot more depth and interest, and even enjoy the occasional silly parts like ninjelves.
I don’t mind criticism of the ridiculously *poor quality* of someone’s wargaming, but contempt for wargaming overall hits a lot of good people.
Right…. firstly, not everybody actually gives the unique entries which means I can only compare like for like without doing more work than want to for 2009, 2013 and 2014…. but that gives us a solid pre and post puppy numbers to look at:
In that period, the number of ballots cast increased 2.5 times.
The number of unique works per voter… drum roll please… didn’t change – 2 per voter.
The number of works getting 3% or more of the votes cast dropped from 23 in 2009 to 16 – I don’t have other pre-puppy years – this is suggestive that more voters have put more things on the ballot but they are more things they only they and a few others find remotely interesting. Which also indicates that the problem isn’t so much that certain works are blocked but that small interest groups have small interests….
More interestingly, the total options voted for in the Short Story categories have actually gone the other way, with the ratio of ballots to options going down… if it had stayed contact from 2009, we should expect to see 300+ short stories, when in fact there were only 206 unique works selected… the data for the other short categories shows the same effect over the period… the more ballots cast, the fewer options being given.
I’ll try and get my data into a better format and make it available. Either way it will be interesting to see if 2015 makes that trend worse.
I see. So your problem with my comment is that Wright is not saying that people who favor equal right are *possessed* by demons — it’s that he’s saying they’re *influenced* by demons.
Okay then. Thanks for clearing that up.
Because that’s a really big difference. ON MARS.
I had never met a fan in my life who thought religious texts were anything but early SF or F. Guess my experience is atypical.
“How did Nixon get elected? I don’t know anyone who voted for him!” – Pauline Kael
I would say that you are definitely onto something, especially considering that there are numerous current authors who would never make such a category error as you have. I can’t imagine that the entire universe of fans could possibly be as illogical as you suggest.
So, in conclusion – the more people you get voting for something like this, the fewer options seem to be able to get a plurality of the votes to go on the ballot. That suggests to me that actually calls to get even more people involved in the Hugos could well prove even more problematic for people not seeing what they like.
Looking at the raw numbers, while there is usually a ‘most’ popular work, the remaining slots are really wide open, and many years there haven’t been enough works making the 5% limit to get onto the ballot. As we have seen this year, the numbers are clear, in ballots where only 800 or so people nominate, you really do only need 50 or so voting all the same way to pretty much get anything onto the ballot.
I have seen at least 2 people state clearly on various blogs they voted as instructed for the Rabid Puppies, you don’t need many more than that and the Rabid Puppies can put what they like in every short slot for the forseeable future – but this isn’t news.
I think the Sad Puppies who have been reading and nominating what they like should be more pissed off than the rest of us frankly.
See, someone is living in a bubble here, but t it ain’t us.
The idea that people believe things and take actions because demons are influencing them? Yeah, sorry. That is not mainstream American worldview. (And I have lived all over these American states, from Louisiana to Idaho, from Georgia to Arkansas to (briefly) LA.)
To be specific: Yes, I know there are Americans who believe it. Witness John C. Wright, who obviously does. But typical? Normal? Your average American? Yeah, no.
I’ll cop to being both an SF fan and A Believer™, but I understand that people can disagree with me on political matters—can even hold irrational beliefs about political matters—without being subject to a “supernatural effect”.
‘Lots of thoughtful people play wargames with a lot more depth and interest, and even enjoy the occasional silly parts like ninjelves.’
Actually, I think wargaming is kind of awesome and regret, just a little, that I never had the chance to do any myself. Apologies to all those wargamers who do not view the world as their personal wargame.
“The real scandal is that God never won a Hugo.”
That’s not true. He’s won 8 and a half.
“Actually, I think wargaming is kind of awesome and regret, just a little, that I never had the chance to do any myself. Apologies to all those wargamers who do not view the world as their personal wargame.”
Thanks. No need to apologize.
I would say that you are definitely onto something, especially considering that there are numerous current authors who would never make such a category error as you have. I can’t imagine that the entire universe of fans could possibly be as illogical as you suggest.
Xdpaul: I am confused, I was speaking of my experience, can you please describe the category error?
S1A1, thanks for your extensive commentary. It’s important, I think, that the lower order Puppies like yourself make clowns of themselves in every daily thread.
As far as my shovel comment, here it is: “If you want to call taking a shovel outside and putting some topsoil in a bucket ‘mining’ too, well, just one more thing you’re wrong about.”
I didn’t put in any motivation or goal, nor did I even mention loam, and why should I, as your comment to which I was responding was “you do, in fact, mine surface materials. The most common method is strip mining. Or is therefore correct to say that one is ‘mining lava’ when referring to cooled igneous rock at the surface.”
I very clearly said topsoil and you admitted that “topsoil doesn’t really count”, but you needed to keep arguing for whatever reason, and now claim I didn’t get back to you fast enough to continue? (Time stamps say my response was one hour and ten minutes later, btw.)
Now, onto your numbered list:
1. The linked to novella does make an explicit mention of lava miners in the third paragraph. What do miners do again? (NB: the novella is just an excerpt of the beginning of the novel.) They mine. Indeed, the word “mining” doesn’t appear; the word “miners” does. As does the phrase “lava mines.” If you really want to plant your flag on the claim that miners working at mines don’t engage in mining and I’m the dope for thinking that they do, well just imagine me pointing and laughing.
2. ““Lava-mining” therefore appears to be exactly that – mining of solidified lava.”
Oh, is that what appears? Well then, it should be very easy to show me where In The Actual Book (as opposed to your imagination) where the supposed real under-the-surface cooled-lava mining takes place.
Seriously, give me a page number. Give me a quote.
I actually own a Kindle copy of the book—it’s too tedious to read, but it is very easy to search. Searching for terms like “solid” “cool” “extract” “process” and “dig” show me zero instances of any solidifed lava or under-surface “lava” being mined or harvested in any way. I also checked “magma”, only to discover that Anderson seems to sometimes use lava and magma interchangeably. (As in “Instead, the boy’s daily view was a blaze of scarlet magma erupting in incandescent metal plumes in the smoke-filled sky” which you can see on tor.com)
What you think must be the case actually doesn’t appear to be the case at all, when I look at the book. You can follow along on amazon.com if you’d like, though those searches aren’t as exhaustive as The Actual Book, which I have and have looked at.
Or, you know, you can give me another little lecture on “false assumptions”—you’re the expert on making them after all.
3. How interesting! Your argument just a little while ago was “You began that entire conversation with a disingenuous statement that I failed to parse until later, which was a reference to “lava mining” (the book says “lava processing”).” Great, so now you acknowledge that the book DOES use the term “lava mining” (as it should, since the book details the existences of “lava miners” who work in “lava mines”) as well as processing after all. And all I had to do was sit through you making a basic failed-to-look error and correct you by citing page numbers. Hmm, I suppose lava “mining” could just be a metaphor, except that one of the major themes of the book is precisely the sort of extraction we would associate with mining and is not at all metaphorical.
And yes, Star Wars and Dune also fail on science fictional grounds—but neither of them even hint at rigor and are obviously **science fantasies** with magical powers and whatnot. This book does hint at rigor and the first “Wuh? Huh?” is in the third paragraph. Also, in Star Wars the term of art is “moisture farming.” “Water farming” is the exact opposite of what happens in Star Wars—it’s another term for hydroponics. That may even be why Star Wars didn’t use that term. Hydroponics were a big deal in the 1970s. (Weed!)
Finally, glad you acknowledge that Anderson’s prose is pedestrian. You can have whatever fantasies of me that you like, but pretty much the last person I’d like to be now is the a. Tor author with a b. dubious Hugo nomination granted to me by c. a group of people who have made “Tor” a propaganda enemy, e. for a book that hasn’t even Bookscanned 2000 copies in hardcover yet. Anderson is a valuable figure—he makes his deadlines, he’s prolific, he knows the IPs he works in back and forth—but his original stuff was never all that popular and this book especially isn’t. It’s also not Hugo quality, period, and got on the ballot because Anderson is a mentor of sorts to Torgersen, full stop.
(Feel free to stick in one’s own “d” in that last list! Be creative!)
How did Nixon get elected? Well, people heard of him.
If his visibility had been limited to a print-on-demand magazine with a paid paper circulation of thirty-eight copies, it would have been quite a surprise! The Puppy ballot, for the most part, isn’t Nixon becoming President, or even Bernie Sanders becoming President, it’s Robby Wells becoming President.