Missing Puppy Formation 4/15

Today there were major responses to a pair of Hugo nominees withdrawing their work from the ballot,  Marko Kloos and Annie Bellet, which raised the temperature of the discussion even higher.

John Scalzi comments on comparisons drawn between the eligibility of his 2006 novel and a 2013 John C. Wright story.  Sarah Hoyt turns an argument on its head. John Ringo forsees an enjoyable moment at the Hugo ceremony.

And Brad R. Torgersen posted a highly interesting, self-revelatory essay.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt on Facebook

When I hear one of my favorite writers, one of the most deserving of nominees, has dropped out of the Hugos because of the pressure, insults, and more she was subjected to by assholes who are angry and can’t blame those responsible but instead generalize and attack everyone, it makes me really disgusted. It also makes me more determined to keep my nomination and say this: the only thing tainting the awards this year is bad behavior by people who should have more maturity and class. Not bloc voting accusations or politics. But people unable to behave respectfully toward others. THAT stains our genre. It tars all of us. And I am soooooooo sick of it.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

Annie Bellet withdraws – April 14

As to anyone feeling betrayed by this, don’t be. Leave them alone and respect their decision; do not criticize them for it. Regardless of why they chose to withdraw, that is their right and their choice, and it is neither a problem nor a concern of ours.

UPDATE: Marko Kloos wasn’t quite so judicious on Facebook, apparently. …

What is with these SF writers and their absolute preoccupation with all things excremental anyhow?

 

Larry Correia on Monster Hunter Nation

Well, this sucks. – April 14

Personally, I think this sucks. We were trying to get talented quality writers on the ballot who would normally be ignored. Neither of these share my politics. There are some amazing authors nominated for the first time, and I wish that people would just read the fucking books, but hell, who am I kidding? I’m tired of repeating myself. Some of the stuff I’ve seen go down over the last two weeks is so infuriating it would blow your mind.

For the 100th damned time, Vox wasn’t on SP3. He did his own thing. Now authors are being tried for guilt by association with somebody they never chose to associate with, and their nominations are somehow meaningless because the wrong person plugged their work.

That’s unfair bullshit and you all know it.

 

Sarah Hoyt on Mad Genius Club

“The Dogs You Lie Down With” – April 15

It occurred to me that no one, that I know (and he’d probably tell me, at least for the novelty) has gone to John C. Wright and said “You’re supported by Sarah A. Hoyt, a public and avowed supporter of same sex marriage, who has many gay characters in her books. Therefore, you too must be a public and avowed supporter of same sex marriage, you horrible man.”

Mind you, there are people who consider this position of mine more than they can swallow and who have told me so and told me they’d never read me again. That’s fine by me. I arrived at that decision on my own and by thought. (And I’m not in favor of activist stunts like taking down pizza parlors or forcing religions you don’t even belong to to marry you or to perform ceremonies forbidden by their beliefs. No, supporting SSM doesn’t mean supporting that. I reject guilt by association in all forms.) I’m a big girl and I can wear big girl pants. (As for the gay characters they just happen. It’s like I have a ton of stories by the sea, and no, that’s not where I grew up. Or why I’m infected with dragons. Not everything in art is under your strict control.)

 

Nerdvana Podcast

Show #146: Episode 38: “HugoGate 2015”, Part 1. The title pretty much says it all. We’re not here to discuss the nominees, we are here to talk about the controversy surrounding this years Hugo awards. Join hosts JC Arkham and Two-Buck Chuck as we welcome back guests Hugo awards winners Christopher J Garcia and Mo “The Thrill” Starkey along with special guest Hugo expert Kevin Standlee.

 

John Ringo on Facebook – April 15

Talking with Cedar Sanderson reminded me of something.

There are multiple nominees for every Hugo and Nebula which are publicly posted. A few years back, both the Hugo and Nebula committee started to give out small trinkets to all the nominees who didn’t win. Runner up awards if you will. ‘You’re such nice people and you really deserve SOMETHING.’

Lois Bujold has collected so many over the years that she has a whole necklace of the things.

I just realized that the Hugo committee is going to have to pass those out to Tom Kratman, Toni Weisskopf, Brad Torgersen, etcetera, EVEN IF THEY DON’T WIN A HUGO.

Or I suppose they can eliminate the practice.

But I really want to see their faces when they’re forced to give one to Tom Kratman.

Fortunately, the whole ceremony is generally live cast to DragonCon. So I don’t actually have to attend WorldCon thank God.

 

 

 

David Gerrold on Facebook – April 15

Fans don’t quit. Fans don’t give up. Fans are the kind of people who — if you give them lemons — come back with key lime pie and you’re left scratching your head, wondering how they did it.

So we will have a Hugo ceremony. It will be a celebration of our deserving nominees. It will be a celebration of excellence in the genre. It will be a celebration of our history and our traditions. It will be a celebration of us.

There will be some jokes. There will be some surprises. Some of the best people in the genre have stepped up to the plate — and we’re planning a celebration that will be joyous and fun. I intend that we will end up feeling proud that we haven’t lost our ability to be the greatest fans on Earth — and in space as well.

When we step back and take a larger look at our history, at our traditions, at ourselves and the scale of our dreams and the scale of our accomplishments — this year’s little kerfuffle is merely a momentary hiccup in a much bigger history.

 

John Brown

“What Vox Day Believes” – April 15

I asked Day if he’d mind answering a few questions.

He agreed.

What you will read below is our conversation, arranged for easy reading.

Why am I doing this?

Well, who doesn’t want to scoop the devil? But beyond that, I agree with George R. R. Martin: internet conversations that are not moderated to maintain a tone of respectful disagreement are a bane upon us all. Actually, Martin said they were part of the devil’s alimentary canal, but I didn’t want to confuse the topic.

 

Dave Gonzales on Geek.com

“Winter isn’t coming: Hugo Awards’ own GamerGate is delaying A Song of Ice and Fire” – April 15

George RR Martin has taken to his blog to talk about a scandal at the Hugo Awards this year, and if he’s blogging, he’s not finishing Winds of Winter, the next installment in his A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels that inspired HBO runaway hit Game of Thrones.

Martin is an avid blogger and a seemingly avid procrastinator that loves hanging out at comic book and sci-fi conventions. He was in the news this March when he announced he wasn’t going to San Diego Comic-Con this year so he could continue work on his next book. Sad news for fans attending the Con and devastating news for those waiting for the new book: this July marks four years since A Dance With Dragons, and he’s still going to be working?

 

Brad R. Torgersen

“Tribalism is as tribalism does” – April 14

I told George R. R. Martin I’d be writing this post — as a result of some of the polite dialogue we had at his LiveJournal page. His basic question to me was, “How can you, as a guy in an interracial marriage, put up with some of the racist and sexist stuff (a certain person) writes on his blog?” I thought this a valid question. How indeed? I didn’t have the space on LiveJournal to unpack all of my thoughts and feelings on the dread ism topic, so I thought I would do it here.

 

Rhiannon on Feminist Fiction

“Responding to the Hugos” – April 15

The key thing, in the end, is voting. If we want diverse creators and titles to be included in the Hugos, then we need to show up and have our voices heard. And not just as an act of protest, but as an act of engagement. Read the nominees, make a genuine evaluation of which ones we like the best, and vote for them because we truly believe they deserve to win. Sure, it’s not as dramatic as nuking the votes, and it makes a less headline-worthy point of “we matter too,” but it’s the way that “untraditional” sci-fi/fantasy fans should be able to engage with the Hugos, and the Sad Puppies don’t prevent us from doing that. If enough people who don’t fit the Sad Puppies idea of “real sci-fi/fantasy” feel inspired to vote, then diverse works will be included naturally. The Sad Puppies slate only worked because very few people actually contribute to the Hugo nominations. The best way to stop them, therefore, is to contribute. And no matter how much some people believe that must be a conspiracy, anyone with sense can easily see that it’s just honest diversity in action.

 

John Scalzi on Whatever

“The Latest Hugo Conspiracy Nonsense Involving Me” – April 15

In the wake of one of John C. Wright’s Hugo-nominated stories being disqualified for the ballot because it was previously published on his Web site, howls of bitter indignancy have arisen from the Puppy quarters, on the basis that Old Man’s War, a book I serialized here on Whatever in 2002, qualified for the Hugo ballot in 2006 (it did not win). The gist of the whining is that if my work can be thought of as previously unpublished, why not Mr. Wright’s? Also, this is further evidence that the Hugos are one big conspiracy apparently designed to promote the socially acceptable, i.e., me specifically, whilst putting down the true and pure sons of science fiction (i.e., the Puppies)…..

  1. Aside from my notification of the nomination, I had no contact with the Hugo Award committee of that year prior to the actual Worldcon, nor could I tell you off the top of my head who was on the committee. It doesn’t appear that anyone at the time was concerned about whether OMW being serialized here constituted publication. Simply put, it didn’t seem to be an issue, or at the very least, no one told me if it were. Again, if this was a conspiracy to get me on the ballot, it lacked one very important conspirator: Me.
  2. So why would OMW’s appearance on a Web site in 2002 not constitute publication, but Mr. Wright’s story’s appearance on a Web site in 2013 constitute publication? There could be many reasons, including conspiracy, but I think the more likely and rather pedestrian reason is that more than a decade separates 2002 and 2013. In that decade the publishing landscape has changed significantly. In 2002 there was no Kindle, no Nook, no tablet or smart phone; there was no significant and simple commerce channel for independent publication; and there was not, apparently, a widespread understanding that self-publishing, in whatever form, constituted formal publication for the purposes of the Hugo Awards. 2013 is not 2002; 2015, when Mr. Wright’s story was nominated, is not 2006, when OMW was nominated.

 

Frank Catalano on GeekWire

“As science fiction ascends its popular award — the Hugo — threatens to nosedive” – April 15

It’s not that campaigning is new to science-fiction and fantasy awards. I was the volunteer administrator of another prestigious science-fiction competition, the Nebula Awards, during its major controversy in the 1980s. When I called an author to congratulate her for taking best short story in the peer-voted honors, I was stunned to hear her say she wanted to withdraw the work – after winning.

Her reason was the campaigning by another finalist in the same category. I had the awkward task of notifying the board of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America of the winner’s desire to decline, establishing my unenviable role as the Miles Standish of the Nebulas in the process. (The writer was Lisa Tuttle, the work was “The Bone Flute,” and both remain worth reading.)

But the big difference between the Nebulas then, and the Hugos now, is that the Nebula campaigning didn’t affect the outcome of the vote. For the Hugos, bloc campaigning verging on manipulation dominates the ballot today. And if protest “No Award” votes overwhelm slate-propelled finalists, the Hugos also fail in 2015 because certainly something, somewhere was worthy of a Hugo this year.

That could be a sad thing for science fiction, as geek culture has become mainstream popular culture. The irony of this Hugo ballot is that, simultaneous to science fiction’s ascendance, we’ve seen a reduced reliance on “quality” gatekeepers such as awards. Fans can find recommendations of what’s worth reading, even more tightly tied to their tastes, with an online tap or click. Maybe, as once was said about academia, the battles are so fierce because the stakes are so small.

 

Daniel on Castalia House

“Hugo Awards: A History of Recommendation Lists” – April 15

Frank Wu’s analysis of the awards from 2001-2005 suggests otherwise: that not only was there tremendous overlap in the “competing” lists, but that the appearance of diversity was, in fact, an important element of bloc-list unity. Some of the discrepancy between Wu and Martin is in interpretation: where [George R.R.] Martin sees an issue of an individual body exerting “control” over the process, and the evidence of “independent” bodies diffusing that control, Wu boils it down to the practicalities: a clear harmony of recommendations by influencers effectively guides the Hugos.

In other words, with the exception of a single book out of 28, if your novel wasn’t on a campaign list…you simply weren’t nominated, and sure as shooting were not going to win. The recommendation blocs didn’t guarantee individuals made it to the final ballot, they guaranteed that outsiders were left off.

 

Steve Davidson on Amazing Stories

“Happy Fans” – April 15

Now, it’s time for some real speculation.

Why would someone knowingly allow an ineligible work to be nominated for an award?

Well, if I were a schemer who liked to play head games with people and I was also trying to make a political point about the organization that was responsible for administering that award, I might find it extremely funny to try and set them up in a “Heads I Win, Tails You Lose” situation, especially if I was trying to devalue the entire award process.

Here’s how that might work.

I get my pals together and create a voting slate (knowing that since such a thing had never been done before, or at the very least never been done on such a monumentally annoying scale before, that it stands a good chance of succeeding) and when the list of recommendations that my minions will slavishly vote for is finalized, I’d salt it with a couple of ineligible works.

Heads I Win:  for one reason or another, the ineligible works make it all the way through to the final ballot, the awards are handed out and:  “See!  We TOLD you the awards were poorly managed.  How long has this been going on?  This brings the validity of every single award given out for the past 60 years into question!  What a crock.  They’re totally valueless.”

Tails You Lose: the ineligible works are identified and removed from the ballot.  “See!  We TOLD you the fix was in.  The ONLY reason that this work was ruled ineligible is because of the author’s politics!  How long has this been going on?  This brings the validity of every single award given out for the past 60 years into question!  What a crock.  They’re totally valueless.”

191 thoughts on “Missing Puppy Formation 4/15

  1. Not once have the left said. “We don’t like your ideas, but that’s okay, that’s your business. We’ll just go off and do our own thing.”

  2. Re: Ringo looking forward to Hugos being streamed to Dragoncon. Hope he likes watching an effective tape delay; this year, Worldcon’s a couple of weeks before Dragoncon (although the Hugo ceremony will be livestreamed).

    Re: OMG! Books on both recommendation lists compiled by knowledgable about the field and avid reading fen actually managed to *make the ballot*!! Um, yeah. Combined, 50+ or so each year were on those lists. So odds were if a work were on a list, it *didn’t* make the ballot…but gee, works liked by multiple, unrelated, sources manage to get on over the ones liked by a single source. Sounds like the nomination ballot to me, where a work gets on by having multiple unrelated people like it. Yeah. Uh huh.

    There’s probably a mathematical way of defining a slate, particularly at the nominating level. If correlation between ballots, either over all or even in a single category, reaches a historically absurd level, toss out the nominations on those ballots (at least in the correlated category). Bonus points towards tossing out if the administrators are shown evidence of a declared slate.

  3. “It’s not objective enough, and places an intolerable burden on the administrators …”

    It does not place any burden on administrators, because it does not say a word about enforcement. The purpose of the language is to make it crystal clear to nominators that they should not engage in bloc voting and to slate organizers that what they are encouraging is against the rules.

    If enforcement is necessary to remove bloc votes, that’s something to hash out in additional changes to the WSFS Constitution. If you’re reading Making Light, you can see that proposals to deter bloc voting generally involve complex counting changes to how nominations will work. That’s separate from this.

    What I’m proposing is a social change: Remove any doubt that bloc voting is a tactic we oppose.

  4. Alexander, the fact that the slaters cheated fair and square by gaming the system via the use of targeted slates of candidates is duly noted. Just because everyone who participated in the nominations paid for their Worldcon membership is beside the point.

  5. “Not once have the left said. ‘We don’t like your ideas, but that’s okay, that’s your business. We’ll just go off and do our own thing.”

    Even within the small world of SF/F fandom I can prove you wrong: The Tiptree Award began in 1991 “for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one’s understanding of gender.”

  6. Alexander, if you and your friends go to a baseball game and disrupt it by throwing a crate of baseballs into the infield, you may think you’re being very clever by saying “Hey, what’s wrong with bringing baseballs to a baseball game? If you can have one baseball in play, why not twenty?” The umpire is unlikely to agree.

  7. At that proves me wrong, how? Was there an award that was against that, and so you made your own? Or were you just adding another award program?

    The fact that the Super Bowl exists isn’t proof that football fans just weren’t into the world series.

    To prove me wrong you’d have to show me a right-wing institution that the left was willing to leave alone as-is. Good luck with that.

    David, what was beside the point? Rcade was discussing who owns the Hugo, and that Sad Puppies is part of the group that owns the Hugo, by virtue of being worldcon members. That was very much on point.

  8. ” I don’t think it’s normal that a conservative fan (or any other fan) should have to feel like an outsider, and I think it is a recent phenomenon very harmful for what, in my opinion, fandom should stand for. I think people should ask themselves whether this is what we really want. If we keep the way we are going, we’ll end up becoming two separate fandoms.”

    Only two?? I can think of literally dozens of fandoms, some I’m part of, some leave me befuddled – I have friends in some, don’t see eye to eye with others – personally, I reject the idea that we all get along in some giant hug circle or something. I’m never going to love Filk; I’m always going to find Furries kinda odd; Cosplay, on the whole, leaves me cold; I don’t much like Urban Fantasy and I truly hate sparkly vampire crap…

    I have had some really great political arguments/discussions with people I disagree with, both left and right, at conventions, and I’ve met people I’ve had to eject from parties for making people feel uncomfortable.

    I like media and I’ve had it in the neck from old school fans for that, but I’ve also been on panels about old school rockets and Venusian jungle SF with the same old school fans and had a beer in the bar with them afterwards.

    The idea that SF is somehow ‘left’ or for that matter ‘right’ is nonsense. I’m British – by my standards some of the people being slammed as lefties would be nicely at home in the British Conservative party.

    This has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with some hurt feelings over real and perceived slights to them at Worldcon.

    I’ll say it again, I’m seeing a LOT of collectivism here, and it’s not coming from the anti-puppy side.

  9. “the fact that the slaters cheated fair and square by gaming the system via the use of targeted slates of candidates is duly noted.”

    Sigh. They did not cheat because they followed all the rules. I would agree they gamed the rules, although determining to what extent is not easy. They book bombed their nominees, so if they bought them I see no reason to presume they didn’t read it. Did they like them? Did they dislike them but still voted them for political reasons? Was it a combination of factors? Difficult to say. There was a campaign, that is undeniable, and one that mobilized people more evidently than other political campaigns that are going on in the Hugos.

    I agree that campaigns are not in the traditional spirit of the Hugos, although that’s not preventing them from becoming more commonplace. Yesterday I pasted some links in one of my comments proving how some voters were agreeing to vote based as a first and fundamental criterion on the color of the skin of the writers.

    The puppies mobilized more people, I agree, and that’s not how a healthy Hugo should work, I also agree. However, those are all symptoms of a deeper disease: the increasing political intolerance and exclusion within fandom.

  10. Seth,

    The rules of baseball explicitly state the quantity and nature of a baseball in a baseball game. What you’re mad about is the size of the crowd cheering for the away team. Not quite the same thing.

  11. I read somewhere that Vox Day does not live in the US and is barred from enterring the country. I know his father is for tax evasion. Is there any truth to this? If so why is he barred from entering the country?

  12. ‘from demanding churches allow female clergy, to the boy scouts, to what an Indiana pizza place might hypothetically one day decide not to do, to a bloody dentist school private group.’

    Nobody’s excluded from Worldcon. Nobody’s turned away or not served at the counter. You’re not excluded from Worldcon. You’re IN Worldcon. You’re just whining that it’s unfair because your stuff doesn’t win. So you’re gaming the rules, because fairness has to mean you win.

  13. @Nigel “You’re just whining that it’s unfair because your stuff doesn’t win. So you’re gaming the rules, because fairness has to mean you win.”

    Yes. We are eeeeevil…

    Whatever, man.

  14. THere’s the Prometheus award, for books that exemplify LIbertarian ideals. I don’t see anyone whining about those?

    There are plenty of Christian Choice awards.

    The Hugos do not not, and have never, belonged to the Right OR the Left. They have belonged to WorldCon.

  15. They did not cheat because they followed all the rules.

    Yes yes, you do keep saying that. You do understand that just because you can manipulate the rules without breaking them, it doesn’t mean that you have to?

  16. @ Nigel

    You realize this is Sad Puppies 3, right? As in, there were two before hand?

    Look at the reactions by your side to 1 and 2, which was I believe a single nomination, and a handful of nominations, respectively. Look at the vitrol at the very idea that some people could possibly read and enjoy a fantasy story penned by Vox Day.

    Spare the claptrap that the two slates just appeared out of nowhere, because MEAN PEOPLE. And now, the solution isn’t: hey, maybe there really are people who enjoy that side of the spectrum, and they organized a better vote. It’s ‘hey, let’s change the rules to keep these people out of our thing.’

    The award that represents all of scifi is suddenly the award that belongs to a small part of it, according to Making Light. Larry was called a liar until GRRM comes out and says yeah, politics always played a role in this thing.

  17. AG,

    I’m still waiting for you to explain why you think that Kloos and Bellett were harassed into rescinding their nominations, when they both said they haven’t?

  18. “I’m still waiting for you to explain why you think that Kloos and Bellett were harassed into rescinding their nominations, when they both said they haven’t?”

    Go see my comment of April 16, 2015 at 5:58 am. If that says nothing to you do not ask me any further. There is really no point.

  19. Good grief, I detest this sort of language lawyering. Nobody, at least nobody I’ve ever read hasn’t suggested that authors occasionally did a ‘vote me!’ kinda thing, I suspect if you look back at Making Light you’ll also see people saying they believe Scalzi and Stross aren’t playing cricket or something over it.

    What they DID NOT DO, and nor did anybody else, was create a list of candidates matched to slots and promote them as a thing to vote for, and in the case of Rapid Puppies, a thing to vote for without bothering to read them.

    I have never heard of that being done, if you have, I will have to ask for some examples.

    Seriously this pitiful ‘wahhhh we didn’t cheat’, ‘you made us do it’, ‘you’re sooooo mean’ stuff is preposterous. You gamed the Hugos, you got what you thought you wanted and it’s not turned out to be as much fun as you thought it would.

    At least have the decency to own what you’ve done and stop blaming everybody else for your mistakes.

  20. Alexvdl, just because the Hugos haven’t made an announcement they are dedicated to Intersectional Queer Theory doesn’t mean they are not. In fact they do NOT belong to everyone or WorldCon. The Hugos have become nothing more than a cult of race and gender worship. Based on the winners and even throwing in the Nebula winners from last year, that in not an opinion but an easily proven fact. There is no greater number than 100%.

    When you have the fan writing slate clogged up with people who blog about the failings of straight white men rather than SFF, you have a problem on your hands. When your Campbell Award winner is Tweeting they live in a “white supremacy,” you have a problem on your hands. When you have a gay gender feminist crying on Twitter about a “white dude parade” you have a problem on your hands. Calling that “liberal” politics is laughable. Since when has racial and sexual supremacist doctrines become “politics”? Is the assertion that liberals are a pack of racists?

    #DitchYourRacists

  21. ‘Yes. We are eeeeevil…’

    Haven’t you heard? We’re Orwellian McCarthyites intent on mass murder. You’re tyros.

  22. >Me: “If we keep the way we are going, we’ll end up becoming two separate fandoms.”

    >Daveon: “Only two?? I can think of literally dozens of fandoms”

    Yes, only separate fandoms based on political ideas, not on different interests.

    >Daveon: “You do understand that just because you can manipulate the rules without breaking them, it doesn’t mean that you have to?”

    And you realize that just because you can morally lynch innocent people it doesn’t mean you have to, right?

    Before you ask I’m talking about the writers, about people like Mike Resnick and Jonathan Ross, etc, etc, etc.

    Anyway, this is exhausting. Like Brad Torgersen once described it: It is like trying to explain to a fish that the water is wet. It just looks at you with big eyes and says, “but sir, that is the nature of the universe!”

    (By the way, I’m sure I did not manipulate any rules because I did not vote.)

  23. I feel like I’m seeing a pattern: X says “A is unfair, so we did B” and then Y says “But B is unfair” and then X says “Well, the rules permit B, so stuff it.”

    If fairness is defined according as “following the letter of the rules”, then it’s entirely fair for a clique of SMOFs to manipulate the Hugos by being the only ones showing up to vote and nominating their friends (assuming arguendo they’ve been doing that up until now), and it’s entirely fair for the Rabid Puppies to vote in a way that sweeps the nominations in spite of having only 10% of the memberships, and it’s entirely fair for non-Puppies to retaliate by voting “No Award” in every category without even reading any of the nominees, and it’s entirely fair for Vox Day to retaliate against *that* by encouraging as many of his fans as possible to vote “No Award” for everything in the following year, and, heck, it would be entirely fair for a best-selling romance writer to encourage her fans to buy Worldcon memberships en masse so that the following year’s Hugo can go to a romance novel instead of an SF novel.

    But if fairness has something to do with the spirit of the rules, or with the goals that the rules were established to promote in the first place, then “my faction followed the rules” is no defense against a charge that your faction operated unfairly.

  24. “I read somewhere that Vox Day does not live in the US and is barred from enterring the country.”

    Vox Day does not live in the USA. He is not barred from entering the USA. He left the USA years before his father took on the IRS and lost.

    “You gamed the Hugos, you got what you thought you wanted and it’s not turned out to be as much fun as you thought it would.”

    Oh, I would say it has turned out to be more fun than I ever imagined it would be. Considerably more. Watching the series of meltdowns has been beyond anything I would have anticipated.

    “Oh, no, some very good writers might win some awards that we had intended to go to their marked inferiors!”

  25. What they DID NOT DO, and nor did anybody else, was create a list of candidates matched to slots and promote them as a thing to vote for, and in the case of Rapid Puppies, a thing to vote for without bothering to read them.

    Evidence?

    I have seen people for months saying snarky things about how John C. Wright sucks, and he’s only loved by those assholes over at Vox Day…

    … and now you accuse us of not having read John C. Wright.
    Do you think we’re a stranger to Jim Butcher too? Or how about the fact you bemoan that the rabid puppies are just a Vox self-promotion of his Publishing House – and now you believe his fans have not read those works?

    Quit slinging shit. Especially shit that is so blatantly false.

  26. ‘Look at the vitrol at the very idea that some people could possibly read and enjoy a fantasy story penned by Vox Day.’

    Well, he is quite repulsive, quite aside from his avowed destructive goals towards the Hugos. Can you imagine how much grinding of teeth there’d have been if the story had been any good?

    ‘Spare the claptrap that the two slates just appeared out of nowhere,’

    ‘‘hey, let’s change the rules to keep these people out of our thing.’’

    I think you mean people are examining the issue to see if there’s a way of preventing the bloc-voting of slates becoming a regular thing.

    ‘The award that represents all of scifi’

    The award has always belonged to the people who join Worldcon. This is non-controversial. Seeing as anyone can join Worldcon if they’ve a mind and can afford the fee, regardless of politics or personality, it’s not particularly exclusionary.’

    ‘politics always played a role in this thing.’

    Duh. Put two people in a room, you get politics.

  27. Alexander, a direct quote from Vox. “What follows is the list of Hugo recommendations known as Rabid Puppies. They are my recommendations for the 2015 nominations, and I encourage those who value my opinion on matters related to science fiction and fantasy to nominate them precisely as they are.”

    “…nomiate them precisely as they are” he said.

    http://voxday.blogspot.com/2015/02/rabid-puppies-2015.html

  28. Nigel,

    Avowed: that has been asserted, admitted, or stated publicly.

    What has Vox Day publicly stated his goal for the Hugo’s is to promote works based on quality, not politics.

    How is that evil?

    Or are you just ‘making shit up’ about what Vox ‘avowed’.

  29. Back in my undergrad days I minored in Women’s Studies, and I wrote a bachelor’s thesis on the Boston bisexual community. I haven’t been keeping up with the field, but I think I have a passing acquaintance with Intersectional Queer Theory, and I must say, if the Hugos are dedicated to that subject, they’re doing a lousy job.

    I attended a conference where one speaker presented a paper entitled, I swear I am not making this up, “The Blow Job: A Homo-Hermaneutic of Patriarchy and Being-There.” Compared to that, umm, text, _Ancillary Justice_ is _Buck Rogers_.

  30. ‘Since when has racial and sexual supremacist doctrines become “politics”?’

    Since always. You’ll be too young to remember the various political contretemps associated with, eg, issues like votes for women or the abolition of slavery. They pale in comparison to someone giving out about white guys on a blog or a science fiction novel using a female pronoun as a neutral default instead of a male one, I know, but there you go.

  31. Seeing the same six people repeat the same lies (“bloc-voting!”) and misinformation (“you cheated!” “It’s not cheating…” “By my arbitrary definition it is!” “…”) is certainly entertaining. But, much like AFV, it gets a bit droll after too long.

    Congratulations! You’re now droll.

    Whiners: “There have never been slates or campaigns before! ”

    GRRM: “There have always been slates and campaigns. This isn’t unique to the Hugo’s.”

    Whiners: “There have never been slates or campaigns (of this magnitude) before.

    Puppies: “… No kidding.”

    Whiners: “See! They admit to cheating! ”

    Puppies: “…”

  32. Mr Beale: That wasn’t aimed at you. I have absolutely no doubt that you’re having a complete hoot. It’s the others I think are finding it less enjoyable.

    AG: “not on different interests.”

    Bollocks, as we say where I come from. Seriously, do you honestly believe that? I don’t have any interest in Filk but I know people for whom that is the ONLY reason they go to conventions. How about gaming? I’m not a gamer myself, how about you? I don’t much like MilSF either. CANNOT stand Urban Fantasy and you have to get me in the right mood to read some ‘Pixie Shit’ as some of my friends call fantasy. This idea that we all like the same stuff is the kind of hippy collectivist crap that I thought the puppies hated?

    Alexander: A Quote, from Doug Wardell on Larry Correia’s blog:

    “Are you suggesting that you thought everyone who voted the Sad Puppies slate read every work they nominated? If so, I think you’re naive.”

    As I said, Theodore Beale is wetting himself over how easy people are to wind up and how easy it was to play the Puppies. Kudos. I can see what he’s getting out of this, I just can’t see what you are.

  33. S1AL – seeing the same people not owning up to what they have been caught doing is getting dull too, and yet here we are. But keep up with the ‘waahhhhhh we didn’t break the rules!!!!’ and let me know how it’s working for you all.

    And again, with the ‘we’ – I thought I was on the side of the collectivist hive mind?

  34. “Oh, no, some very good writers might win some awards that we had intended to go to their marked inferiors!”

    ‘Some writers I profess to admire as superior are going to be nominated in a way that calculatedly devalues the award that’s supposed to honour them!’ Not sure TB values those authors as much as he says he does.

  35. AG: “not on different interests.”

    Daveon: Bollocks, as we say where I come from. Seriously, do you honestly believe that? I don’t have any interest in Filk but I know people for whom that is the ONLY reason they go to conventions.

    ????? I no longer know what you are talking about. I said that it was OK to have different fandoms for different interests, but splitting a fandom that shares the same interests for political reasons it’s quite sad and sordid. No one from the left seems to care?

  36. ‘Or are you just ‘making shit up’ about what Vox ‘avowed’.’

    Was it this thread or another where he talks about not caring SO MUCH about the Hugos but if people don’t stop being mean about him he’ll keep coming back until they’re destroyed? Hang around and he’ll be along to restate it again in a minute or two.

  37. “[S]eeing the same people not owning up to what they have been caught doing is getting dull too, and yet here we are. But keep up with the ‘waahhhhhh we didn’t break the rules!!!!’ and let me know how it’s working for you all.”

    Caught doing… What? You have yet to provide any evidence for the accusations you’ve made. Until that happens, I see no point in responding to the accusations.

    Additionally, you continue to conflate several separate parties with distinct goals and views.

    Finally: I did not use the word “we” in that post. Nice try.

  38. but splitting a fandom that shares the same interests for political reasons it’s quite sad and sordid.

    I’m not claiming it has been, you are.

    You bring up Ross? Care to wonder where I stood on that? Probably not, I’m an SJW eh? I don’t see Vernor Vinge’s politics harming his chances, he didn’t seem to have any trouble at a convention I was at sharing rather a lot of beers with a friend of mine who is, by American standards, unbelievable left wing and I’m pretty sure Vernor isn’t.

    I like Peter Hamilton and Ken McLeod – they’re pretty much polar opposites politically.

    I vote for what I like and what I want, or at least did until now. I’m not the collective with the f’ing persecution complex. Grow the hell up and get over your self importance. At least the ones you call SJWs are honest about this stuff.

  39. So you voted the Puppies slate and are defending it because you’re an individual?

    Brian would be proud.

  40. I’ve told you repeatedly that I did not nominate. You are a liar, so I don’t expect much better, but it would be quite nice if you would stop.

  41. @Daveon:

    You mention Peter Hamilton and Vernor Vinge. After a web search I have been unable to find a real online presence of those two authors, except basic web pages were there are no forums or comment sections of a blog. Do you think that’s coincidence? Conservative authors are tolerated as long as they keep their head down and avoid saying anything wrong that would give the signal for the lynching mob, while the rest of authors look elsewhere. Do you think that’s welcoming? Would you like to be part of a community where you have to act that way?

  42. If you have then I missed it. Sorry. And yet here you are arguing that there was no bloc voting this year? Remarkable…. oh, light goes on. You’re just trolling. Ok, no problem. Wish I’d realized sooner.

  43. Ryan, Daveon:

    I cannot speak for every voter. I can say that I voted for works that I had read, and that I am certainly a Rabid Puppy supporter. But from the comments over the past couple of months, I would bet on a very high percentage.

    But Daveon, there is quite a difference from the possibility that ‘not everyone read every work’ versus “What they DID NOT DO, and nor did anybody else, was create a list of candidates matched to slots and promote them as a thing to vote for, and in the case of Rapid Puppies, a thing to vote for without bothering to read them.”

    There is no way to tell, of course, but given the amount of anti-puppies who see nothing wrong with voting against a work without reading it, I would bet that the number of Puppies who read the works they voted for outweighs the people who are actively attacking the puppies.

  44. (continuing from my last comment…)
    Peter Hamilton has twitter, although going over it he doesn’t seem to give any personal opinions.

  45. ” However, those are all symptoms of a deeper disease: the increasing political intolerance and exclusion within fandom.”

    AG, that may well be, at least according to some fans who for some reason or other have this finely-ground axe in hand. (Although I don’t see how SF convention anti-harassment policies are intolerant of anything other than those who are harassing other fans.) But that doesn’t excuse messing with the Hugos. All the SP/RP slaters are doing with the scam is exacerbating such divisions and making things worse, and I think that’s intentional on their part.

  46. Lest there be any confusion on what I wrote: Based on the comments [at Vox Day], I would bet on a very high percentage [of Rabid Puppies who read their nominations.]

  47. Maybe Vinge and Hamilton are declining to share their political opinions with the Internet, not because they fear the wrath of an online mob, but because they feel have better things to do with their time, e.g., write novels. Stranger things have happened.

  48. I have been unable to find a real online presence of those two authors

    Eh? And so?

    Maybe they have better things to do than blog?

    Has it ever occurred to you that being a loud mouth online who acts like they want to pick a fight isn’t necessarily the trait of something you want to hang out with in the bar at the Worldcon?

    I must say, if Larry Correia behaves in Real Life like he does on line, I don’t give a crap about his politics, he sounds obnoxious.

  49. @David W: I’m not talking about convention anti-harassment policies (if there is harassment in conventions then it’s very good they have anti-harassment policies). I’m talking about the harassment of any writer or prominent figure in fandom who dares express an opinion not in line with the official line of thought. Believe me, there are no policies against that.

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