(1) From the SuperversiveSF livestream, Kate Paulk’s statement on SP4 at 1:05:42 (transcription provided by Mark):
For starters the word slate is not going to appear anywhere. For second [Cross talk] I am not doing a slate, I am doing a list of the most popular works in all of the various categories as submitted by people who read on any of the various blogs that will have me. And I’m going to post ultimately the top ten of each, with links to the full list of everything that everybody wanted to see nominated, and I’m going to be saying “hey if you really want to see your favorite authors nominated your best bet is to pick something of theirs from the most popular in the list as opposed to the least popular”. That is going to be what it is. I don’t care who ends up on that list. I don’t care if David Gerrold ends up being the top of the list somewhere. That’s not the point, the point is that I want to see the voting numbers both for nomination and for actual voting go up above 5,000 up above 10,000, because the more people who are involved and who are voting the harder it is for any faction including puppies to manipulate the results.
(2) John C. Wright – “Neither Do They Grok Nicknames”
How is it that these mackerels have gained hegemony over our cultural institutions, down to and including such trivial corners of life as the Hugo Awards?
These are the same people who did not comprehend that obscure nuance of the English language known as a “nickname” was when used in my Hugo-nominated story One Bright Star to Guide Them. Instead it was generally agreed by the consensus that I had forgotten the name of my own character, on the grounds that she was a woman, and therefore hated by the author. I wish I were kidding. These people are deranged. It is not due to a physical damage to the brain, but to spiritual. Pride and ire darken the intellect.
(3) MRMADWRITER – “Merit’ vs ‘Politics’ in Fiction”
How is it that we live in a time where gender is the dominating topic, and the white male is pushed into a grave and buried in it. I thought equality stood for, if anything the treatment of all ethnic groups respectfully. True equality would be difficult to achieve in regards to the world that we live in today, hence the fact that how well you do in life, is purely based on merit and your determination to succeed. There a plenty of stories where people at the bottom of the barrel have risen to the top. It’s a matter of thinking outside the box and sometimes taking risks. But the Sad Puppies campaign is evidence that free expression, and the position of writer is now under intense scrutiny. If you don’t fit the narrative of the other side, your work is not even worth their time.
(4) Mark Ciocco on Kaedrin Weblog – “Hugo Awards: The Results”
So the Puppies did not do so well in the final voting. I was basically expecting this, though perhaps not to this flagrant extent (the 2500 Absolute No Awarders number is pretty eye opening). More evidence for my Action and Reaction theory, and I stand by most of what I said there. One thing I hope I’m wrong about is “No Award” being the worst possible outcome. It’s always been clear to me that the current Puppy approach does not work (assuming you’re actually trying to get your nominees an award and not, say, burn the whole thing down). My recommendation for Kate Paulk: Please, for the love of God, do not put together a slate. Focus your efforts on garnering participation and emphasize individuality. If you’re dead set on listing out nominees, go for a long reading list as opposed to a blatant slate. Brad Torgersen called for nominees early this year, and the grand majority of them didn’t make his slate (and some things appeared on the slate that weren’t discussed? I think? I don’t really feel like digging through that.) Perhaps coordinate that effort and be inclusive when you list out eligible nominees. We’re all fans, let’s write this year off and try not alienating everyone next year (that goes for everyone, not just the Puppies). Forbearance is a good thing.
The notion that voting on the current year gives you the ability to nominate next year is a brilliant one that might actually keep me participating. That being said, if there’s anything like this year’s clusterfuck brewing, I’m out. I can forgive this year because I think even the Puppies were surprised at how successful their slate approach was. I can understand the Noah Ward voters too. But if the same thing happens next year… I don’t know, why bother?
(5) Cathy Young on Real Clear Politics – “Mutiny at the Hugo Awards”
It’s also telling that Mixon bent over backwards to stress that she supports the righteous anger of the “oppressed” and that most of Requires Hate’s victims were themselves female, gay, transgendered, and/or nonwhite. When a commenter argued that treating members of “dominant” groups as acceptable targets was precisely the mindset that enabled Requires Hate, Mixon insisted that “a case can be made for marginalized people’s right to punch up.”
Despite all these disclaimers, Mixon’s exposé was too politically incorrect for some. Writer and blogger Deidre Saoirse Moen, who drafted the “Puppy-Free Hugo Awards Voting Guide,” also opposed the award to Mixon, at least partly because “it just feels like a white woman elder putting the younger woman of color in her ‘place.’” That Mixon ultimately got the award could be seen as repudiating the extremes of left-wing cultural politics. But in a way, it also affirms that criticism of such extremes is allowed only from within the true faith and from within the establishment (Mixon happens to be married to current SWFA president Steven Gould).
In this stifling atmosphere of “progressive” authoritarianism, the Sad Puppies’ mutiny makes sense.
Those who revile the Puppies as bigots if not outright fascists point to the pseudonymous Vox Day, a.k.a. Theodore Beale, the leader of his own “Rabid Puppies” faction whose Hugos slate largely overlapped with Sad Puppies. A writer and indie publisher kicked out of the SWFA a few years ago, Beale is also a prolific blogger who urges a radical Christian takeover of America and espouses views that actually can be called racist and misogynist with no exaggeration. (Among other things, he maintains that blacks are inherently more violent and less civilized than whites, that female suffrage is bad because women will “vote for whomever they would rather f***”, and that curtailing female education is rational because “a society that sends its women to college stops breeding”).
It’s hard to tell to what extent Vox Day’s public persona is performance art played for shock. In any case, this year’s Sad Puppy leaders, Correia and Brad Torgensen, repeatedly stated that they do not share Vox Day’s views and regard him as an unpleasant tactical ally, the Stalin to their Roosevelt and Churchill. (Hoyt, in turn, has written that she find his views “repulsive.”) They didn’t quite disavow him; but Torgensen has told Wired magazine that even if they had, their detractors would have found some other reason to demonize the Puppies.
Given the tenor and frequent sloppiness of anti-Puppy critiques, Torgensen is almost certainly right. Thus, in a Chicago Tribune piece on the Hugos controversy, Roosevelt University professor Gary Wolfe mentions Vox Day and his inflammatory views—then adds that “others” in the Puppies’ ranks “have even argued against women’s right to vote.” But Vox Day is the only one who has done that. Far more typical of the Puppies’ views is Best Fan Writer nominee Sanderson, who considers herself a pro-equality, anti-misandry feminist—and who nonetheless got skewered as an “anti-feminist” for (among other things) defending astrophysicist Matt Taylor’s public appearance in a shirt with scantily clad women on it.
As for Vox Day, the Puppies say that the progressive guardians of the fandom and WorldCon voters played right into his hands by “no-awarding” the categories with only Puppy nominees. Vox had planned to instruct his followers to vote “no award” on everything, in the explicit hope that a large number of “no awards” would help him “burn down” the Hugos.
(6) Louis Antonelli on Facebook
OK, it’s been a week since the Hugo nuking and Sasquan convention ended. I’ve gotten a lot off my chest and aired a lot of grievances. Seven days. I’m actually feeling played out. At this point, I think I’ve made all the points I’ve needed to make, done all the good I could. I’m feeling like it’s time to turn the corner, close the chapter on this fiasco and move forward.
A little Facebook poll – what do y’all think? Give me a “Like” or thumbs up if you’d to see a change in focus. That’s not to say I’ll always be a sweety pie – but let’s face it, both sides have had a lot to say and think this past week. I’d like to know what you think – is it time to move on?
(7) Steven Barnes on Facebook
On SJWs, racism, and the attempted control of language
There is a story that the Buddha was lecturing, and a man mocked him, insulting everything he said. Finally, the Buddha paused. “Excuse me, my friend,” he said. “If I offered you a present, and you declined to accept it, to whom then does the present belong?”
“To you” the man said smugly.
“Precisely. And if you offer me insult, and I decline to accept it, to whom then does the abuse belong?”
And the man was speechless.
####
I don’t respect shifting language for political purposes. It feels like Orwell’s “Newthink” to me. Very close to what NLP refers to as “slight of mouth” patterns. Here’s a pair of examples, one from the Right, one from the Left.
- Social Justice Warrior. Look at those words, and the only thing it could mean denotatively is someone willing to fight, and die, and change the world to achieve an idea of equality and justice. Literally, I can think of nothing I’d be more honored to be considered, and nothing that more accurately describes the human beings I respect most in all the world. The attempt to demonize it is nothing more than a linguistic mind control.
- Racism. The primary definition of this term is, simply, the differential attribution of worth or capacity based upon race or ethnicity. Nice, neutral definition–anyone can have that, (probably most of us have a little of it) it is global and pervasive and would seem to arise from tribalism and the tendency of children to think their mommy is prettier, their daddy stronger. But over the last twenty years, academics have shifted that to be “perception of differential capacity based upon race or ethnicity PLUS the power to enforce your decisions and leverage your attitudes”. That’s another interesting “slight of mouth” pattern, because it leads to the attitude that disadvantaged groups “cannot be racist.” Since all of our cultural vitriol is directed at this term, it is an interesting “escape hatch”: WE can say whatever we want, YOU have to shut the @#$$ up.
I don’t buy either of these. I’ve been attacked by both sides for disagreeing with them, and that’s fine by me. So I state clearly, for the record: I think the term “Social Justice Warrior”, denotatively, is one of the finest things a human being can be. Want to use a different, connotative definition? You are welcome to do so, and in so doing, allow us to examine your values, politics and thought patterns.
I think “racism” is a perception, a judgement about human beings, separate from whether that perception is correct, and separate from the actions you take once you’ve come to that conclusion. I disagree that there are major differences between whites and blacks (for instance) morally or mentally, and believe that in almost all cases those who believe there are are being self-serving. That immeasurable human evil has flowed from those beliefs. The great Octavia Butler believed that the most dangerous quality of human beings is
- our hierarchical thinking.
- Our tendency to place ourselves higher on that hierarchy than others.
Further, almost everyone changes that definition so that THEY “aren’t racist.” THEY don’t burn crosses on lawns, use “The N-word.” They have black friends, or have dated/married a woman of the group in question. CAN’T be racists. Can’t possibly have an attitude about the AVERAGE member of the other group, or any sense that whites would have survived slavery and its aftermath with greater ease.
And on the other side, why, they can believe blacks are mentally, morally or athletically superior genetically…but they aren’t racist because they are members of a group with lesser power.
O.K. That’s all fine. If that’s the way you make sense of the world, and it works for you, I’m happy. Let me know how that works out. I’ll probably never accept either position, and if that bothers you, you may call me whatever you want, or think whatever you wish.
But come Christmas morning, that box will be under YOUR tree, not mine. Have fun.
(8) James Worrad – Sad Puppies, Post-Hugo Blues & Loose Genitalia…
“And what’s even sadder is this pathetic collection of power-hungry little Hitlers have destroyed what was once a genuinely respected award. “
Such is the outlook Kate Paulk, author, blogger and leader-apparent of Sad Puppies 2016 (Buckle yourselves in, folks!). A baroque example, admittedly, but at heart fairly typical of the SP campaign’s disconnect from the reality on the ground. To Paulk, if you didn’t use your vote like the SP’s told you then you were in lockstep with the shadowy cabal of mean, hissy-fitting SJWs/Communists/Decepticons. No excuses.
The idea most Hugo voters were motivated not by politics but by a wish to stick it to a bunch of pompous gits intent on ruining a much-loved event is not even laughable to Paulk. It’s more like she cannot even register the fact. To vote unpuppish was to be a… I dunno… a Stalin clone in a test tube or something. You were willing to burn the ground and salt your loins rather than let anyone else have it.
Any glance at 2015’s winners dispels this garish canard. How, for instance, would a mass ‘SJW hissy fit’ explain that win in the fan writer category, Laura Mixon’s takedown of a troll who hid their psychopathology behind a mass of faux social justice rhetoric? Surely a lockstep leftie march would have crushed that eventuality before it began? Instead the ‘Mixon Report’ won with votes to spare.
And why? Because fandom’s wide and battered middle finally woke up and drew a line in the sand. Against the worst excesses of leftwing hypocrisy on one hand and the most thuggish excesses of right-wing stupidity on the other. Simples.
[Thanks to Mark and John King Tarpinian for some of these links.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
RE: Heinlein’s Juveniles Aging Badly.
I’m not sure I can agree with this. When I was 10, in 1960, I read The Rolling Stones and I was forever hooked on science fiction in general and Heinlein in particular. It was the first sci fi book I read that used REAL math and science. And it had a madcap family on a trip through the solar system. I reread it a month ago; it still works well and has a good message: family is everything and knowledge/competence is a good thing.
Except for the better knowledge of the other planets of the solar system, which tears up the Venusian landscape of “Space Cadet” pretty hard, I think that “Space Cadet” (story of a boy growing into a man and his experiences at a military academy. Ok, no women, but the USNA didn’t admit women until the class of 1980. So dated by that.); “Have Spacesuit Will Travel”, “Rolling Stones”, “Citizen of the Galaxy”, “Farmer in the Sky”, “Tunnel in the Sky” and “Between Planets” are all great stories that speak to young people.
Heinlein was fighting the mores of the time, but he managed to slip in some people of color and other subversives stuff past his editor at Scribner. “The Star Beast” has a strong female protagonist who DIVORCED HER PARENTS. And an African career bureaucrat (Mr. Kiku) who manages to keep the politician he works for from gumming up the works. OH, and it turns out that humanity is the PET of the alien creature. What’s not to like?
And wouldn’t it be a great discussion with your nephew if you ask him if he noticed something missing from those stories?
@Camestros
Once you realise that the British summer holiday was designed by committee, it all becomes much clearer.
There have been several attempts to legislate for better British weather, but the House of Lords put in amendments diverting the balmy days to Ascot and the Chelsea Flower Show.
a bunch of hand normalization in the beginning
Over at ML they’re suggesting some of the software libraries use.
Humph, who can I have arrested for the drenchings I’ve had at Chelsea then?
The weather for today is a cunning Scottish plot, they cheat by taking the first Monday in August instead of the last…
Cat said
Wtf what was this in?
@Aaron
I (respectfully) disagree. Let´s do some math: 5%, with 5 stories per ballot mean 100 stories by length category. Not having 5 reaching the bar mean that votes are dispersed on several hundreds of stories and/or many nominators don’t use their five spots because they are clueless.
Please don’t take it as a judgement of any kind, I don’t nominate myself as I don’t consider myself up to date enough.
But now, I read enough short fiction (mostly late, and using best of and awards selection…) to tell that there isn’t several hundred of stories around per year of mind blowing quality to the point one can’t tell what is truly remarkable. A lot, but not several hundreds.
That, and sorry, the late nomination pattern of the Hugo nominators does not fit with your description of a saturation of stories to chose from by well informed voters: repetitive nominations for a few authors, (unvoluntar) domination of a few free access venues such as Tor, striking difference with the selections from truly informed readers (best of editors, reviewers…)
We have a fantastic, diverse short story field, AND we could do with a bit of consolidation regarding nominations for the Hugo.
I think we need a better definition of “slate.” I propose we define a “slate” as a set of works that are meant to be nominated, but not read.
What makes slates unfair is that it takes lots of time and effort to actually read stories. It’s hard to complete with people who vote without reading–for whatever reason.
I’ll add that there’s no real threat from bona fide reading lists. No one can read all the stories anyway, so everyone must apply some filter. As long as people are nominating worthy works that they actually read, the Hugos will be in good shape. Also, if we really do want to get more sensible nominations next year, we’re going to need lots of people involved, and that’s helped a lot (I claim) by having a fair number of recommendation lists that aren’t too long. (A list of 100 suggested works is hard to work with.) It’s no good if people have no idea where to start and just give up.
Finally, back to the original post, I observe that she strictly talks about voting to win–nowhere does she ever suggest that anyone is expected to actually read a story before voting on it.
CMM,
On recommendations, I can suggest Planesrunner by Ian McDonald. Lots of sense of wonder, relationships are coming on stage (the hero is 14 IIRC), but aren’t the center of the action. The post-electropunk world of E3 though does have a lot of time, along with airships.
One other that _might_ interest him would be The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. Lots of tech, some interesting puzzles.
Finally, have you tried introducing your nephew to H. Beam Piper? I read the cover off of Uller Uprising and Paratime when I was in my early teens.
Break time is over for me so back to the bit face.
@Cat
Something by John Ringo apparently
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/CouncilWars
I feel like there ought to be a movement to get a Retro Hugo for “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbos Tertius”, a manuscript identical to Borges’ story but written by someone else, preferably someone who didn’t know Spanish.
@Camestros
And yet with all the rain Kent will still have a hosepipe ban.
@cmm
Jack McDevitt’s Priscilla Hutchins books perhaps. I’m trying to remember the tone of Ken MacLeod’s stuff, Learning the World for example. Vinge can be surprisingly easy reading too.
Greg Hullender:
That seems good, but not complete. If the two-hundred-or-so puppy nominators had read all that dreck on the SP/RP slates in 2015 and then gone ahead and nominated it anyway, what they did would still be objectionable.
I think the defining characteristic of a slate is that it’s an organized grab at the entire ballot. If you can read Thing X, and come away from it knowing which five items you need to nominate in order to stick it to Group Z, then Thing X is a slate. That could take the form of a list of five things. Or it could be a much larger list, ordered such that you can make a good guess at which five things the other people looking to stick it to Group Z are going to nominate.
The weakness of the Hugos is that a small organized minority can lock everyone else out at the nomination stage. A slate is a list that’s likely to facilitate such lock-out.
@cmm–“I found out yesterday that my nephew (going into 7th grade) read and loved The Martian — his first “adult” book. She said he sought it out because he saw the trailer for the movie, liked it, and has a personal “rule” to read books before he sees the movies.”
So, about 6th/7th grade? If he’s into post-apocalypse, try John Christopher. I just gave my 13 year old great nephew a bunch of Bradbury’s works–with a nudge towards “The Martian Chronicles”. Andre Norton, for sure. Or Anne MacCaffery’s Talents series. I still have a soft spot for “Between Planets”.
Course, if he’s getting a Kindle, the best way is to give him a list of books you think he’s like and a big, big credit balance on Amazon so he can get what he really wants.
@Greg
“Not read” has a couple of issues: firstly you probably can’t know for sure. Secondly, the intent with SP4 doesn’t necessarily seem to be to list unread works, but to dogwhistle that you should choose your 5 based on overall popularity (as shown by the list) rather than your individual opinion. Subtly different, and not necessarily caught by your definition.
ETA: I should have started by saying that it was a good foundation for a definition, because voting without reading is the most blatant form of slating.
Simeon Beresford on August 31, 2015 at 2:13 pm said:
According to a later comment from Cat, it’s There Will be Dragons by John Ringo. Cue the ritual cry of “Oh, John Ringo, no!”
@Chris S: “Woohoo! Can we have “I’m helping to destroy SF” buttons/tshirts/coffee mugs made up?”
I think Lightspeed/Fantasy/Nightmare has those reserved for some of their authors – or maybe the Kickstarter backers can get “helping” while the authors get “destroying”? 🙂
@Chris Meadows: “Careful, there. You’re kind of getting into a “have you stopped beating your wife” scenario. If they call it a slate, they blatantly admit that they’re running a slate. If they don’t call it a slate, they’re sneakily conniving. There’s no way for them to win.”
It’s almost as if, once someone has been caught cheating at cards, it’s really hard for them to say anything to convince people that despite their insistence on bringing their own decks of cards (which nobody will be allowed to examine before the game) and never admitting to any wrongdoing, they really and truly won’t be cheating in the future. Uh-huh. Sure. Pull the other one; it’s got bells on.
The common wisdom on this, at least from MY internet, is that one reaps what one sows… and the Puppies have sown a whole lot of ill will. A few perfunctory platitudes are not going to get them off the hook.
@cmm: (grown-up reading for a 12yo)
I’d like to recommend Joel Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame series, but a bit of memory-refresh reminds me that it’s got some problematic points for someone that young. Specifically, there are slavers, and where there are slavers there will be rape; it’s realistic but not nice, and I remember thinking that the repercussions from that traumatic event were handled well. (I read it in my late teens, but by then I’d read just about everything Heinlein had published; I was hard to shock. Remember as well that I read the first books in the late 1980s, about when book 5 came out – which, oddly enough, is one of the reasons I instinctively despise The Wheel of Time. I think I’ve told that tale, though.)
The series is very much “D&D party gets sucked into the game world” with the serial numbers filed off. The device of modern characters getting pulled into the fantasy world provided a solid bridge for me to get into the setting, and the added twist of them becoming their characters was neat. The fact that some of them clung to their “Earth” identities while others embraced their fantasy ones fascinated me; it made complete sense for each of them, while distinguishing them more as characters.
A more friendly series that deals with some of the same tropes – modern folks meet fantasy world – is Rick Cook’s “Wiz Biz” books, in which a computer programmer figures out magic-as-a-language. There are four of these in two to four volumes, depending on how you find them; Wizard’s Bane and The Wizardry Compiled are sold as separate ebooks but were also published together as The Wiz Biz, but the third and fourth are only e-available as Wiz Combo II: Cursed and Consulted. A fifth book was started, and the draft can be found, but apparently the author suffered some malady that kept him from being able to finish it. (He’s still alive, so far as I know, just not writing fiction.)
Hmm, for a twelve year old…
The Forgotten Door – Alexander Key
All the Zenna Henderson “The People” stories
Tomorrow’s Children — anthology edited by Asimov (and OMG it’s out-of-print, I don’t understand that at all…)
A clear case for constitutional and meteorological reform.
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
“THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!”
Unless it is Chapter 5.
Bruce Baugh:
*blush* Thanks. I should point out, to those who haven’t encountered it before, where I’m getting the “punch in the face” metaphor from. It’s Ann Leckie being brilliant as usual.
Tasha Turner:
Oh, yes, very much so. Given who I am, it’s the sexism flavor of punch-in-the-face that’s most strongly on my radar, but that’s by no means the only bigotry on casual display.
And of course the punch-in-the-face factor only addresses the part of Bradford’s blog post where she described “rage-quitting” works by straight white (cis) men, and getting more enjoyment out of her reading by swearing off that demographic for a while. The other part, the part where she challenges others to do the same, isn’t about declaring works by straight white cismen inferior; it’s pointing out that they’re what you’re already getting served anyway. Since the publishing-reviewing-awarding industry disproportionately favors those authors, it’s up to the individual reader to actively seek out other demographics of authors, at least to some extent.
This is why “I don’t care about identity politics–I just care about GOOD STORIES” is a flawed argument. As in all things kyriarchy, you can’t just go with the flow and then declare yourself non-complicit in the status quo.
There’s a good couple of posts at Tor.com that address this – I think in the Sleeps With Monsters column? – including a guest post by a reviewer who at first argued “I just read good stories, what’s gender/color have to do with it?” and then, after taking a really critical look at what was on his reading/reviewing list, and what wasn’t, changed his mind.
mintwitch:
Come to think of it, this may be why I wound up getting the seafood pho at lunch, despite my usual tendency toward rare steak and brisket…
Richard Brandt:
yayyyyy *bows down* (how may i serve u)
Rev. Bob on August 31, 2015 at 2:47 pm said:
@
I’m with the Rev here. Yes, it’s pretty much the case that nobody who’s been paying attention is going to take any Pup pronouncement at face value. Yes, there’s going to be a strong tendency to interpret any Pup pronouncement in a maximally uncharitable manner. What you need to keep in mind is, the Pups brought it on themselves. If the Pups are caught in a trap where nothing they say will be believed, any sympathy one might thereafter feel for the Pups really should be tempered by the knowledge that the Pups built that trap, bar by bar, bolt by bolt, and wall by wall. The Pups built that trap with their own hands, over an extended period of time, and then insisted on locking themselves into it.
Bingo. What the Rev just said here.
There’s five “Wiz Biz” books. I should know, ‘cuz I have all five on my bookshelf.
Wizard’s Bane, ISBN 0-671-69803-6
The Wizardry Compiled, ISBN 0-671-69856-7
The Wizardry Cursed , ISBN 0-671-72049-X
The Wizardry Consulted , ISBN 0-671-87700-3
The Wizardry Quested , ISBN 0-671-87708-9
According to wikipedia, that unfinished draft was to be titled The Wizardry Capitalized. There are several references on Cook’s blog to where he’s posted various bits of it online; after a bit of searching, I discovered that it can be found here, as a set of googledocs.
Ahoy! I am in moderation. My post was link rich but harmless, I swear! 😀
For a twelve-year-old, some new stuff:
Sophia McDougall’s Mars Evacuees and its sequel, Space Hostages (which will be out in the US next year, but I couldn’t wait and got it from the UK)
Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor’s Castaway Planet
And, if you don’t mind some fantasy mixed with the sf,
Diane Duane’s Young Wizard series, which should have a new book out realsoonnow.
Six months ago I was just a random fan voting on the Hugos the past six years.
Now I’m in the inner circle, and all it took was to say that bloc voting sucked.
I feel like Navin R. Johnson the day the new phonebooks arrived.
Bloodstone75 said: “Once the SP4 manifesto manifests itself, and the participation guidelines become clear, do we:”
I’m going to say that until it does, let’s just relax and read good books. I am not about to become as obsessed with the Puppies as they are with themselves (I almost wrote “more obsessed with”, but I’m not sure that’s physically possible). The year hasn’t even finished yet; I plan to spend the next few months reading enjoyable books (currently on related work: “The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Sam Maggs) and worry about SP4 when they actually announce what they’re doing.
Essentially, the whole thing has devolved for me into two sets of groups saying, “Look, you’re suffering from epistemic closure and living in a tiny little bubble of people who think like you do and you don’t understand how deluded you sound to everybody else.” Since the Hugos have proved which of these two are right, I see no particular reason at the moment to listen to the deluded people continuing to be deluded.
That’s not to say all macho stuff is right out. I listened to the Weber/Ringo series with March to the Sea and all that and while I thought it was hammy and kind of dumb, I did enjoy it and it definitely felt like something that would appeal to YA readers.
I liked the first three books but I think the 4th one dropped off a lot in quality and brought in some rather unpleasant sexual matters.
I found some aspects had aged poorly.
Re: the suggestions for YA books — one older book someone who liked The Martian might enjoy is Welcome to Mars by James Blish which has thematic similarities with The Martian. Since it’s a YA novel written in the 60s the teenage protagonist doesn’t say anything about science(ing) the shit out of anything as he and his girlfriend try to survive on Mars after their packing-crate “spaceships” break down.
Another YA SF novel from that period that still stands up to rereading is Silverberg’s Across a Billion Years. Lots of problem-solving by the young protagonist as he, as part of a team led by not-stupid adults track down an enigma.
@Simeon Beresford (and to a lesser extent NickPheas)
As I said before and as Cubist has noted (but it’s a fast-moving thread and easy to miss) the unicorn girl was in _There Will Be Dragons_ by John Ringo. I think her name was Barbara. Magical medical nanites turned her into a unicorn for her birthday then civilization collapses and she can’t turn back. She’s not a main character so we only get her story in bits and pieces. That book was pretty squicky for other reasons but the treatment of the unicorn girl really added the crowning touch for me. I will try not to get started.
But my original point was larger–it is too common in SFF written by men for there to be some assumption that women are not competent, sane, adult human beings the way men are, and thus I have become more interested in seeking out work by and about women, and now also work by and about minorities of various types. Hence my reaction to the Tempest Bradford challenge (which was “I’ll keep reading stuff by male authors I like but yes I will also be seeking some of this other stuff out.)
@Toon
Sure. In the sense if someone set the library on fire some Saturday night, they could be said to have “brought the community together” when everyone turns out to fight the fire.
@Greg Hullander
Reading five books before nominating a slate is not the big deal you make it out to be. Because with a slate you know which five books to read. Those of us who do it the hard way are seeking out books we will actually like; something that other people can’t do for us and that requires reading dozens of books often either buying them new or putting a bid in long library queues, reading lots of reviews, or tracking favorite authors or subgenres that are more likely to appeal to us or all of the above.
So hell yes it’s a slate even if people are told to read the books first. Five books? Ha! I can do that in ten days!
@Laertes, yes, exactly. A slate is any organized grab at a place on the ballot, usually for a work selected not because the nominator loves it but for other reasons (sticking it to another group being one obvious one.)
By the way, I’d like to register dissatisfaction with the invocation of “When did you stop beating your wife?” It’s not an appropriate analogy. Paulk is not being asked any sort of loaded question. She’s simply being disbelieved when she says her recommendation list isn’t a slate.
(Now, if someone asked her, “How many works will you list in each category of your slate?” that would be a loaded question, in that the respondent would, by answering the question as stated, appear to affirm the presumption that she is, indeed, making a slate.)
(I also disagree that non-puppies are unfairly refusing to accept any possible proof that she’s not slating–I think what she has proposed really is a slate-by-any-other-name. But that’s a different issue that has already has been addressed by others.)
[ticky box]
I second the idea of periodic recommendation posts here. I’ve already bookmarked several things I could list.
@cmm
John Varley ‘Thunder & Lighting’ books
Orson Scott Card – Ender’s Game
John Christopher ‘Tripods’ trilogy
Sam Stirling Nantucket trilogy
“Family is everything” may be a good message for you, but it’s a potentially destructive method for a lot of people, especially children of abusive parents.
I don’t know whether this is evidence of The Rolling Stones not having aged well, or whether it’s something that would have been fine for some readers, harmful for others, and gotten a third group to throw it across the room even when it was published.
Separate from that point, “this story worked well for me when I was ten and it still works for me now” doesn’t actually answer “has this aged well, in the sense of being likely to appeal to a ten-year-old today?”
Your site has good reviews.
Can’t argue with most of that one; however, one reason Meade had less studying to do was because she was three years older than the Twins and thus had three years more education, presumably in organized schools in Luna City. IOW, she was a freshman in college, the boys were sophomores in high school.
As far as Roger’s insistence on math and science, he explained his reasoning. I’m pretty sure it’s easier to be an autodidact in the liberal arts such as history, sociology, and so on. Math is harder to self-teach. I was a double major in math and physics at a liberal arts school, which meant I got a lot of english, philosophy, etc. Guess what? My own reading in those subjects had me pretty familiar with them before I got to those classes. The math and physics, not so much. And my best friend english major? I still tease her as to which one of us REALLY got a ‘liberal arts’ education.
(*shrugs*) I yield to no one when it comes to feminist credentials. Being feminist doesn’t mean that a woman can’t desire marriage and childbearing. I didn’t, but I have no interest in telling other women what to do with their lives.
…because her mother, an accomplished physician, is doing a sculpture of her.
Uh, this is in regard to the epidemic on the WARGOD? Yeah, not so much he wants his wife to sit around on her keister but because she will be going into an epidemic of a disease no one has any clue about and which has resulted in fatalities. Sorry, that’s just a husband worried for his wife, not someone with a sexist agenda. And later in the Belt, he just doesn’t want her to be overworked. He really has no control over whether Edith is going to be the doctor that she is. Edith makes that pretty clear in both events.
I can see your point of view. I don’t consider the events you point out to be quite so damning of Heinlein’s views as you do. YMMV as they say.
And with regard to his marriage to Ginny — my life experience tells me that no outsider, even one reading an ‘authorized’ biography, gets to have an opinion on the agreement that committed couples make to each other. So … they had an open marriage. That lasted 40+ years. It must have worked for them. I don’t get a vote. No one on this earth is a saint. Lord knows RAH realized that, and I don’t ever remember him claiming to be one. Frankly, I’m surprised more people don’t get twitchy about his sexual mores.
Doesn’t change my opinion on his writing.
Thanks for the feedback.
Problem with both of those definitions is that they’re untestable. There’s no statistical analysis or diagnostic test that can tell the inner state of a voter.
Can you come up with a definition based on only the outer state of a voter (ie. what’s on their ballot, in isolation from them but not necessarily in isolation from other ballots including published but not submitted ‘suggested’ ballots)?
If it’s puzzle/mystery solving in general, I’d suggest Niven’s Gil the ARM stories.
Skip Different Seasons, even for somebody who would be totally relaxed about sex content like me Apt Pupil is too icky. Arthur C Clarke on the other hand has written some wonderful stuff that would be right up the Martian way. And hey, nothing wrong with the classics, I Robot, Foundation, Bester, etc.
I also liked John Christopher’s standalone The Lotus Caves.
As far as magazines, I never really got into the digests. I was buying a fair number of magazines back in the early 1990s (one of the great things about working for Shinder’s was seeing all the different genre magazines they’d carry), but mostly just reading the columns and reviews. The one magazine back then whose fiction I did read pretty consistently was the Terminus revival of Weird Tales (Betancourt/Schweitzer/Scithers). I was also a big fan of Black Gate in its previous incarnation as a really big magazine; I wish they’d put more issues into Kindle-accessible format.
I can’t argue against either of your points. Heinlein actually has a protagonist who runs away from an abusive step-parent in “Starman Jones”. But I wasn’t speaking of that book. Because there are dysfunctional families and abusive relationships doesn’t mean that a book that has neither is a bad book. Or has a bad message when it presents a functional yet wacky multi-generational family.
And I am by no means suggesting that my 65-year-old tastes mean anything to a 15-year old of today. For one thing, today’s teenagers are exposed to far more sexual presentations in multiple media than I was. So, there’s that. By comparison, 1965 was downright victorian in attitudes.
I just think that the Heinlein juveniles aren’t quite the quaint relics that I have seen suggested. I do think almost any book/story in the genre written in the early 50’s will have the same ‘problems’. But that they still have good, timeless stories to tell.
Re: John Ringo’s Council Wars
I read those some years ago, and found them entertaining but not great. The recent discussions around message-fic and how different audiences see different politics in the same story got me thinking after it was brought up in comments here … I (a liberal) remember the villains of the series as being exaggerated right-wing types, but would someone from the conservative viewpoint see them as warnings of the left wing run amok? The heroes are certainly not liberals, but I read it as the sane conservatives against the insane ones, with the liberals occasionally showing up as hapless victims.
Just a thought that passed through my head today.
Re The Expans – I think that might be too much horror for a 12 year old – 1.5M vomiting zombies, for a start….
Though I guess teenagers like zombies?
@cmm: I also really, really like Carl Sagan’s Contact, although it might not move fast enough for a kid. This said, I used to read a lot more, and faster, at that age.
So I was listening to the Puella Magi Madoka Magica soundtrack (which I think is awesome and evocative but I loves me some strings) and it got me to thinking about gun porn as discussed earlier:
PMMM has some really epic fights. Hand-to-hand, grenades, guns, heavy artillery, you name it. I don’t know my weapons but I know big cool explosions. The PMMM Rebellion Movie has pretty much my favourite gunfight. It’s really tense and well-directed. None of this feels like gun-porn to me, I think because the fighting isn’t glorified.
Though there’s a difference between seeing a character using a gun and reading the gun described. Books and anime are very different things.
(I wonder what the Pups think of PMMM? On the one hand it was really popular, on the other it only barely passes the reverse Bechdel(-Wallace) test…)
Please, some one point me to Scalzi ‘s list, because I have never seen it. Scalzi hosts a forum, imo.
I’m way back on page five of the comments, but has anyone else noticed that the “Rev 3” site is being referenced un-ironically by puppies, as if it were an “SJW” blog? I recall one of the trollish posters here linking to it a while back, I assumed to distribute bait in hopes of some bites, but I also assumed everyone who saw that would immediately realize it’s a pretty clunky parody. Now I see there are entire sockpuppet conversations that come straight out of what the puppy parties have been saying Alinsky wrote. It’s very strange, but it appears to have fooled Dave Freer (I’m assuming he’s being honest when he un-ironically references it).
Clarke’s ” A Fall of Moondust” is a rescue/survival story that I enjoyed in my teens. Perhaps Campbell’s ” The Moon is Hell”. Both probably dated.
I can’t remember if this is the right thread for this or not, but it seems to relate to the face-punching question:
Exactly. It is the most natural thing in the world to want to see yourself reflected positively in the stories you love, and yet, if you aren’t straight, white, cis, and male, it’s really common to find either no reflection at all, or a hideous, distorted reflection that nobody would ever want to claim as their own.
I think redressing that imbalance is important, all by itself. Quality is still important, of course — a badly-told story is a different kind of distorted reflection. But it’s the height of entitled and callous arrogance to pretend — if you are one of the people who always gets to preen in front of a very flattering mirror — that it just doesn’t matter, and why are other people so concerned about it anyway?
In my time as a radical leftist freethinking anarchist marixist, we used the term “white supremacy” instead of “racism” most of the time because (a) it more precisely described what we meant; (b) it incorporated the notion of a power dynamic; and (c) couldn’t be flipped around a la “reverse racism.”
It’s probably not an ideal term, but that was the style at the time.
***apologies for responding to comments on page 1-2 but I am a little behind***
@Laertes (and others).
The trouble is, we cannot have a definition that forbids everyone from listing their favorites. Authors and fans have made lists of their favorite stories for decades. Any definition of slate that includes ordinary lists fails the sniff test, because we are criticizing the puppies (and only them) for something lots of people do.
But the puppies are absolutely the only ones telling people to “vote this list–don’t bother reading the stories; this is for the cause.” Even this latest post from them seems to suggest that people should use the info on the site to pick authors they like but not to read the stories.
Yes, it’s certainly true that a person could read through five nominees per category in a couple of days. Or just ignore the instructions and vote anyway. But if the puppies made a big deal that you shouldn’t nominate anything you didn’t read or didn’t like, then enough people would take them seriously to reduce the number of “true” slate voters. If they don’t accept that principle, then we have a very strong argument to beat them over the head with. “You guys are bad because you tell people to vote without reading.” That’s crisp, clear, and totally fair.
I think you guys are making the mistake of thinking that something has to be perfect to be good. No, it won’t eliminate all slate abuse. But I think it’ll have an impact–regardless of how the puppies respond.