Pixel Scroll 12/11 Fresh Squeezed Pixel Juice

(1) COME OUT OF YOUR SHELL. The University of Maryland Libraries is hosting “Exam Wars: The Turtle Awakens” (U of M’s mascot is the terrapin.)

They’re having a Star Wars drawing contest, among other things.

Exam Wars Illustration Contest Students will send us a drawing of a Star Wars character, and will be entered into a drawing for their very own VIP Study Room, (modeled after the University of Dayton <http://www.programminglibrarian.org/blog/very-important-prize>  study room give-away). This room in McKeldin will be available to the winner during reading day and finals week.

(2) REFERENCE DIRECTOR! “Calista Flockhart Thought the Millennium Falcon Was an Airline”, or so she told Jimmy Kimmel.

In recent months, Harrison Ford has grudgingly acknowledged that he has a soft spot for Star Wars — but apparently, not enough to show the films to his wife Calista Flockhart. During a visit to Jimmy Kimmel Live last night, Supergirl actress Flockhart admitted that she was completely in the dark about all things Han Solo until this year. In fact, when a producer on Star Wars: The Force Awakens called to inform her of Ford’s accident on the Millennium Falcon, she had no idea what the Millennium Falcon was.

“A producer called me and she said, ‘Hi Calista, I have some bad news. Harrison has been hurt. He had an accident: he was standing on a Millennium Falcon and the door fell,’” Flockhart told Kimmel. “And I thought that he was on some commercial airline, and the door fell off and he flew out of the airplane!”

Totally confounded, Flockhart called a friend. “I said, ‘What the hell is the Millennium Falcon? I have never heard of that airline!’” she recalled. (Never heard of that airline? It’s the airline that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs!)

(3) DAMMIT JIM! ”Dammit Jim!” beer got its name when New Republic Brewing Company had to rename of one its products.

Dammit jim sixpack

The New Republic Brewing Co received a cease and desist letter from a law firm representing Luxco. They demand that we stop using the brand name Bellows as it is in violation of their trademark.  They claim that you, the consumer will confuse their plastic bottle bourbon with our quality craft beer.

Jim Beam apparently has a ‘Bellows’ line of rail-liquor and put pressure on New Republic. Thus, I suppose the message behind the new name is, “Dammit Jim, I’m a beer not a bourbon!”

Chad B. Hill commented, “The closest Captain Kirk will ever get to a 6 pack!”

(4) BANDERSNATCH EXPLAINED. “Diana Pavlac Glyer Talks About New Book, Bandersnatch” at the Azusa Pacific University website.

What common misconception about creative writing does Bandersnatch hope to eliminate?

This is a good opportunity to explain how Bandersnatch got its title. In a written exchange with Lewis an interviewer asked, “What influence have you had on Tolkien?” He responded, “No one ver influenced Tolkien—you might as well try to influence a bandersnatch.” (A bandersnatch is a mythical animal with a fierce disposition created by author Lewis Carroll.) Many researchers argued that Tolkien and Lewis must, therefore, have worked independently. In the very same letter, however, Lewis goes on to explain that Tolkien either ignores suggestions all together, or completely redoes his work.

The idea of the solitary genius is extremely popular, especially in the United States. Many people imagine the creative process this way: Someone struck with inspiration, sits alone with a typewriter and completes an entire book in one sitting. This could not be more off base. The world’s most influential creators are those embedded in a web of collaboration. They communicate deeply with other people about their ideas, and immerse themselves in groups of influence. When we work among others, our own productivity flourishes. We need people not only to work with us, but to do small things like encourage us along the way.

(5) SECRET AGENT NARNIAN. Harry Lee Poe’s title is overdramatized, however, he seems to be literally correct in saying “C.S. Lewis Was a Secret Government Agent”, according to the information in his article for Christianity Today.

…[The] British did the next best thing they could do to help Denmark and the rest of Europe: They launched a surprise invasion of Iceland, which was part of the Kingdom of Denmark….

Though British control of Iceland was critical, Britain could not afford to deploy its troops to hold the island when greater battles loomed elsewhere, beginning with the struggle for North Africa. Holding Iceland depended upon the goodwill of the people of Iceland who never had asked to be invaded by the British. If Britain retained Icelandic goodwill, then Churchill could occupy the island with reserve troops rather than his best fighting forces.

This was the strategic situation in which C. S. Lewis was recruited. And his mission was simple: To help win the hearts of the Icelandic people.

The Work of a Literary Secret Agent

The Joint Broadcasting Committee recruited C. S. Lewis to record a message to the people of Iceland to be broadcast by radio within Iceland. Lewis made no record of his assignment, nor does he appear to have mentioned it to anyone. Without disclosing his involvement with military intelligence, however, Lewis did make an indiscreet disclosure to his friend Arthur Greeves in a letter dated May 25, 1941. Lewis remarked that three weeks earlier he had made a gramophone record which he heard played afterwards. He wrote that it had been a shock to hear his own voice for the first time. It did not sound at all the way his voice sounded to himself, and he realized that people who imitated him had actually gotten it right!

(6) MST3K CASHES IN. The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Kickstarter raised $5,764,229 with 48,270 backers , and another $600,000 in add-ons, for a total of $6,364,229. MST3K claims $5,764,229 is a Kickstarter record, beating Veronica Mars to become the most funded media project ever.

We get 13 episodes, a holiday special, and a 14th episode. More importantly we have shown the industry that fans have real power, and in fact don’t need networks and studios to rule our viewing choices. Good work.

(7) SHAGGY. R. Graeme Cameron takes a deep dive into the November 1958 issue of LASFS’ fanzine Shangri-L’Affaires #39 in “The Clubhouse; Fanzine Reviews: ‘breaking people off at the ankles’”.

He begins by reciting the entire credits page (“If the following doesn’t convince you the clubzine SHAGGY was a group effort by a staggering array of now legendary fans in the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, there’s no hope for you”), quotes a Halloween party review at length (Fritz Leiber attended in costume), and documents Bjo’s abilities to mesmerize male fans of the 1950s.

(8) COMPANIONSHIP. All I can say about TVGuide.com’s “The Most Fabulous Doctor Who Companions, Ranked” is any such list that doesn’t have Donna Noble at #1 will not be receiving my daughter’s seal of approval.

(9) SECRETS OF CERES. NASA reports “New Clues to Ceres’ Bright Spots and Origins”.

Ceres reveals some of its well-kept secrets in two new studies in the journal Nature, thanks to data from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. They include highly anticipated insights about mysterious bright features found all over the dwarf planet’s surface.

In one study, scientists identify this bright material as a kind of salt. The second study suggests the detection of ammonia-rich clays, raising questions about how Ceres formed.

(10) LAST SASQUAN GOH RETURNS HOME. Sasquan GoH and NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren had a longer flight than most. He returned to Earth earlier today (December 11).

Expedition 45 flight engineers Kjell Lindgren of NASA, Oleg Kononenko of Roscosmos (Russian Federal Space Agency) and Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) touched down at approximately 8:12 a.m. EST (7:12 p.m. Kazakhstan time) northeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. It was the first time a crew has landed after sunset and only the sixth nighttime Soyuz return from the space station.

 

Kjell Lindgren

Kjell Lindgren

(11) BE YOUR OWN ALIEN. See the cartoon at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal“Why has no one made this?!”

(12) Today In History

  • December 11, 1992:  The Muppet Christmas Carol premieres in theaters.

(13) Today’s Birthday Ghoul

  • Born December 11, 1922 – Vampira, aka Maila Nurmi.

(14) PUPPY SCHOLARSHIP. Doris V. Sutherland in “2014 Hugos Versus 2015 Sad Puppies: Short Stories” quotes Gregory Benford’s complaint about fantasy taking over the Hugo Awards, and after a long introduction to the Sad Puppy controversy (excerpted here) assays the sf worth of the 2014 Hugo finalists compared to the stories on the slates.

The grave talk of a fight against a “toxic” and “hateful” ideology that controls the Hugos is a long way from the puckish humour of Correia’s early posts. At this point, what started out as a jokey bit of grandstanding has begun to resemble an online holy war against “SJW” hordes.

This element of moral imperative is the key distinction between the Sad Puppies campaign and earlier exercises in slate-voting, such as John Scalzi’s “Award Pimpage”. When a slate of potential nominees is taken as a simple suggestion, that is one thing; when it is taken as a call to arms against evil forces, that is quite another.

And the Winner Is… Well, Nobody

I am, of course, awfully late to the party, and by now I think just about anyone reading this will know the result of the two campaigns. The Sad and Rabid Puppies gathered enough support to sweep the nominees with a mixture of choices from the two slates. And yet, they also had enough detractors to keep almost all of those choices from winning – even if it meant voting “no award” to the tops of multiple categories.

Both sides took this as a victory. Many opponents of the Puppies congratulated themselves on keeping the slated works from winning, while supporters took the results as evidence that the Hugos were run by “SJWs” who barred any nominees with the wrong ideology.

Myself, I would have to agree with Liana Kerzner: “No one won. It was just a disruption in the Force like Palpatine ripped a big fart.”

(15) CONTENT WARNING. The Castalia House blog has posted the first two of a five-part series “Safe Space as Rape Room: Science Fiction Culture and Childhood’s End.” The series argues the sf community has a pedophilia problem. Whether you read it, you now know it exists – Part IPart II.

[Thanks to David Doering, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Will R., and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Chris S.]

280 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 12/11 Fresh Squeezed Pixel Juice

  1. Aww, your tortie looks like my tortie. Which, despite having a perfectly good name, is referred to alternately as Tortie, Tortlebutt, and Blat-cat.

    I don’t know why I bother to name cats any more, they always acquire wildly different names in common usage.

  2. RedWombat, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, and neither do my two cats, The Ninja and Doofus…. <wry grin>

  3. @Red: Her tail is really long, actually. It’s just skinny, and not the best angle in that pic.

  4. Bruce, those are by far the cutest kittens I’ve seen recently*. May they bring you many years of delight and affection!

    *since Kathodus posted photos…

  5. @Meredith: It’s a wonderful apartment. It would be out of my range, by a wide margin, except that recent construction in this area has to have some low-income units, for which I qualify. I’ve been very happy here.

    @Lexica: Thanks. 🙂

  6. Excellent kittens!
    And all the best cats have multiple names, or at the very least, relevant epithets.
    And, of course, songs.
    You have your work cut out for you.

  7. “A reference to Menchi from Excel Saga, by any chance?”

    No, that didn’t exist at that time.

  8. If I ever got a pair of kittens (unfortunately I seem to be allergic to cats these days) I would name them Blastaar the Living Bomb-Burst and Annihilus the Death That Walks. (Star and Ann, for short.)

  9. @Bruce Baugh

    Congrats on the new kitties! If a name doesn’t immediately become apparent, we name our cats after favorite characters from well-loved works. Just two months ago, we lost Morgon the Riddle Master as well as one of two that we had inherited named Anne. (Our friend passed with six cats and we took two). Now we’re down to Violet, Seraphina and Rosemary. (Violet was actually named Violetta after the heroine of La Traviata). Often referred to respectively as Miss Fuzzy Petit Pants, the Seraphinator and Rose McDiddlesqigimus. And the dog Theo.

  10. @JJ: I think you and I are reading the Sutherland essay very very differently.

    It sounds like you’re reading it as an attempted summary of the entire affair – Sutherland is “coming in late,” and trying to sum up the chain of events to other latecomers like her. In that case, I can understand why you feel like research is a fundamental requirement, why you feel like the essay doesn’t add anything, and why you’re baffled as to why she would even post this.

    I read it as something different – and, as I said, more valuable.

    So much of the Puppies’ case is a variety of motte and bailey arguments – arguments that blur the line between a defensible statement (the motte), and an extreme, indefensible one (the bailey); relying on vagueness and a logical leap to get people agreeing with the defensible statement to also agree with the indefensible one. (The Puppies also work the other way – fan up some outrage against an outrageous bailey, and then rally your own side with shock and insult at your perfectly reasonable motte coming under fire.)

    For example, “Scalzi’s eligible-works posts had a strong influence on the Hugo nominations” is a motte; “The Hugos have been controlled by slates that everybody secretly knows about” is the bailey. Or, “Hugo-nominated works in recent years has been works we hate” is a motte, “SJWs are intentionally filling the ballot with awful message fiction they don’t even enjoy” is the bailey.

    What I feel Sutherland is doing in this article (and, hopefully, the subsequent ones) is examining what part is motte and what part is bailey. Because obviously you had a bunch of Puppies nominating, and obviously some of them liked some works more than others, while others voted a straight slate. But until now, I feel like most people addressing the issue were looking at the actual Hugo ballot. That misses out on what many of the Sad Puppy nominators were intending, what they actually nominated. In other words, Sutherland is the first person comparing apples to apples – what the Sad Puppies were lashing out against, vs. what they were nominating for. The motte looks different to me now than it did before I read the essay.

    And what I’m seeing is a very interesting observation: if you look only at the Best Short Story category, and you look only at the SP nominations (and not the RP ones, and you include the stories that were ineligible or bowed out, because they’re still stories the Puppies wanted), then the SP selections aren’t that horrible. If somebody said “this is my nomination ballot,” you might not appreciate any of the stories, but you also wouldn’t say “this is junk fiction and you’re nominating these maliciously.”

    Not only that, you don’t need to accept some of the outrageous bailey claims the Puppies make to acknowledge that, limiting yourself to the Best Short Story category, the Sad Puppies do have a fairly defensible motte in “There is a homegenity in Hugo Short Story nominees, in which fantasy elements are used largely as metaphor and poetic image, rather than hewing closer to more classic uses as story premise, as basis for extrapolation, or as worldbuilding to be explored during the story.” Or, as Sutherland puts it, these stories “keep the fantasy elements at arm’s length.”

    I say this motte is defensible; that doesn’t mean it’s unassailable or means more than it does. Even accepting this motte, you can argue that such homoegenity is absolutely fine, is outright desirable, or other arguments that say “yes, there are certain common elements here, but that’s OK because–“. That’s fine. On the other hand, you’ll also understand that it makes a lot of sense for some readers to be disgruntled at an entire category settling into a niche they don’t appreciate.

    And here’s an observation of my own, which I find fascinating: Reading this, I’m thinking maybe the Short Story category is serving as a sort of motte, for the much larger bailey of the entire Hugo awards. What’s the single most accessible category on the Hugos? It’s Best Short Story, where most often arecommendation or nominee can be reached with a click, and read in ten minutes. Best Short Story is the format that’s easiest to share and to spread – both for recommendations, and for outrage. In fact, free online stories have such an edge that (for example) every one of the 2013 stories was from a free venue. Since I’ve grown interested in the Hugos, this is a topic that both interests and worries me – I do think some of the categories are trending in a certain direction, because differences in distribution and discoverability can overpower many other considerations.

    And with that motte – “Look, here’s a few links to quick stories that you don’t enjoy,” it’s easy to get buy-in for the “All the Hugos are awful and corrupt” bailey. And when people say “Ummm, no,” they fall back to the “But but but If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love,” which (to them, and I can see why) is an impregnable motte.

    The way to address motte-and-bailey is not to attack the bailey, nor to attack the motte. It’s to distinguish between the two. Or, to step away from that terminology – to wholeheartedly acknowledge issues and criticisms that are defensible and understandable, while firmly rejecting fuzziness and logical leaps to anything that isn’t.

    That’s what I feel like Sutherland’s doing in her article (and I suspect my observation might be the direction she’s going in, because the Sad Puppy picks in other categories look to me much more bailey than motte). For this, I can live with her mis-using the term “slate” (as many before her have, and many will); I think her reviews do exactly what she intends them to, which is indicate the gestalt rather than analyze the particular story; and I certainly, certainly feel that her essay is purposeful and a contribution to the discussion.

  11. Wow, Standback, thank you for taking the time and effort to offer that lengthy analysis.

    It is a rather different way of looking at the article that the way I was looking at it — and as you say, it’s certainly more defensible if you look at it that way.

    if you look only at the Best Short Story category, and you look only at the SP nominations (and not the RP ones, and you include the stories that were ineligible or bowed out, because they’re still stories the Puppies wanted), then the SP selections aren’t that horrible. If somebody said “this is my nomination ballot,” you might not appreciate any of the stories, but you also wouldn’t say “this is junk fiction and you’re nominating these maliciously.”

    I would agree with this to a great extent: I would not say “malicious” nominations or “junk” fiction, but I would say that the word “amateurish” applies. But while it’s certainly a mitigating circumstance with regard to the SP Short Story choices, I don’t think that the same could be said of their Novella and Novelette choices, which consisted almost exclusively of partial stories, with a couple of florid, overblown examples of what Eric Flint calls “The Saudi School of Prose” thrown in on top.

    I would also say that I don’t find it a terribly mitigating circumstance for the group themselves — because the Sad Puppies seemed quite happy to ride the coattails of the Rabid Puppies as a way of getting their choices onto the final ballot.

    But again, thank you very much for your thoughtful, thought-provoking commentary. 🙂

  12. @JJ: Whew! So glad you liked! 🙂 I felt like I had something important that wasn’t clear, so I’m really pleased it sounds like I actually got that across well.

    But while it’s certainly a mitigating circumstance with regard to the SP Short Story choices, I don’t think that the same could be said of their Novella and Novelette choices

    I agree. This is exactly what I was getting at with “Short Story as motte; all categories as bailey.” Which is something I’d never considered before, and as I say, ties in to other issues I think I see in the field.

  13. Not only that, you don’t need to accept some of the outrageous bailey claims the Puppies make to acknowledge that, limiting yourself to the Best Short Story category, the Sad Puppies do have a fairly defensible motte in “There is a homegenity in Hugo Short Story nominees, in which fantasy elements are used largely as metaphor and poetic image, rather than hewing closer to more classic uses as story premise, as basis for extrapolation, or as worldbuilding to be explored during the story.”

    I’m not sure you can really make that claim though. Sure, for 2014 that may have been the case for the Short Story category, but that’s not a trend, that’s a single year example. What about 2013, or 2012, and so on? For it to be a trend, it would have to be something that recurs over a number of years.

  14. @Aaron: Agreed. “Perceived trend,” maybe? I haven’t done the homework yet to see how whether this is an actual trend, or how far back it goes.

    That being said, given that we have five nominees, it feels at very least like a local cluster. That is, it might not be a trend over time, but you can say that it seems representative of a trend (or of a faction, etc.), simply because it’s more than one or two isolated incident – it’s a set of five incidents, all together.

    (And, just out of curiousity, I’d be fascinated to see whether EPH might have affected this ballot in any way. Probably not, but I’d be curious 🙂 )

  15. @Rev. Bob: Pass me some of that nitro-9 you’re not carrying, would you? ?

    I expect gifts of supercharged baseball bats in return. 🙂

  16. @Standback, I haven’t read the article because I’m on a Puppy-break, but that was a really interesting analysis, and I enjoyed it.

  17. That being said, given that we have five nominees, it feels at very least like a local cluster.

    Four. There were only four short story nominees in 2014.

    It also seems somewhat odd to be comparing what the Pups would have wanted in 2014 to what actually happened in 2014. If we are comparing aspirations, wouldn’t comparing the Pup proposed slate to the short story nominees that would have made the 2015 ballot but for the Pup campaign make more sense? Doing that gives a potential alternate Hugo ballot of Jackalope Wives, The Breath of War, The Truth About Owls, When It Ends He Catches Her, and A Kiss with Teeth. Only one of those could really be called magical realism – the others are a Native American style folk tale, a space opera, a zombie apocalypse story, and a vampire story.

  18. Standback:

    What I feel Sutherland is doing in this article (and, hopefully, the subsequent ones) is examining what part is motte and what part is bailey. Because obviously you had a bunch of Puppies nominating, and obviously some of them liked some works more than others, while others voted a straight slate. But until now, I feel like most people addressing the issue were looking at the actual Hugo ballot. That misses out on what many of the Sad Puppy nominators were intending, what they actually nominated.

    Your description of what Sutherland is trying to do strikes me as accurate. I am also indebted to you for an explanation of motte and bailey arguments, a very useful term because, as you note, we have seen that tactic regularly used in the Puppy controversy. (I also recognize it as something a lawyer was trying to do during a memorable encounter in my professional work. Not knowing it was a thing, I was only able to tell him I agreed with one part and definitely didn’t agree with the other part….)

    When it comes to what the Sad Puppies were intending…. The only list of identifiable Sad Puppy stories is the slate — and what’s on that slate was mainly imposed by Brad Torgersen, with a little input from a few others. I can’t infer literary taste from that process, only political will.

    A corollary to your argument is that self-identified Sad Puppies liked and nominated stories beyond those on the slate — if so, those nominations cannot be identified without having transcriptions of individual ballots to inspect.

  19. @Aaron,

    So even the motte is bailey-ish?

    BTW Standback, that’s an interesting take on it, which if true, is still a dishonest strategy to game an awards system.

  20. Sutherland and mottes and baileys:

    @Soon Lee:

    BTW Standback, that’s an interesting take on it, which if true, is still a dishonest strategy to game an awards system.

    Yup!

    Never suggested otherwise. Don’t try to stick me with any new baileys 😛

    @Aaron:

    Four. There were only four short story nominees in 2014.

    Very true! I stand corrected.

    Again, as I said, I’m talking more about perception here than whether or not there’s an actual trend. When you’re in dialogue with somebody, you can argue whether their perception is correct or not. When you’re just trying to get into their head, you kind of need to roll with their perception even if/when it’s got obvious flaws.

    It also seems somewhat odd to be comparing what the Pups would have wanted in 2014 to what actually happened in 2014. If we are comparing aspirations, wouldn’t comparing the Pup proposed slate to the short story nominees that would have made the 2015 ballot but for the Pup campaign make more sense?

    No; because Sutherland’s examining the Puppy slate as a reaction to the 2014 ballot. In March 2015 the Puppies wouldn’t know, or compare against, the potential 2015 ballot as it would stand without their interference. They’d say “Last year we got X, this year Torgersen’s suggesting Y.” So to decide whether they want to vote Sad Puppy, they wouldn’t be comparing the slate against Jackalope Wives and When It Ends He Catches Her ; they’d be comparing it against the last ballot they’d actually seen (influenced, of course, by Incessant Internet Outrage ™!).

    @Mike:

    I am also indebted to you for an explanation of motte and bailey arguments

    I hope I got it right! 🙂

    When it comes to what the Sad Puppies were intending…. The only list of identifiable Sad Puppy stories is the slate — and what’s on that slate was mainly imposed by Brad Torgersen, with a little input from a few others. I can’t infer literary taste from that process, only political will.

    I disagree. Or, to be precise, I wouldn’t hurry to rule out literary taste as one of the factors. For some, a less significant one; for others, very significant indeed.

    If I took a random genre fan and gave him only the 4 Hugo 2014 Short Story Nominees, and the 5 stories on the SP3 slate, I think many fans would find the second closer to their view of the genre and what they enjoy. I’m not saying they’d call the stories excellent – but they’d likely sympathetic to the claim that “better this than that.” I think Sutherland demonstrates that quite nicely with her “fantasy at arms length” vs. “a potpourri of recognizable SF elements, of varying quality” observations. (Please try not to infer any more from this paragraph than what is literally written in it; this paragraph could be used as an argument for many pro-Puppy claims, but I need no convincing that it absolutely shouldn’t be.)

    I say all this because every Puppy supporter I’ve spoken to, and even just uninvolved bystanders who express some understanding of the Puppies, says their issue is one of literary taste. They don’t like X. They do like Y. Maybe they don’t know how to define X or Y, but they definitely know what they like and what they don’t. Political will is obviously paramount to the SP organizers, but it’s absurd to assume that literary taste isn’t even a component from the supporters. The supporters are a wide spectrum, for, and pretending they aren’t won’t get you anywhere.

    A corollary to your argument is that self-identified Sad Puppies liked and nominated stories beyond those on the slate — if so, those nominations cannot be identified without having transcriptions of individual ballots to inspect.

    I agree with the factual statement but I’m not clear on what it is you’re trying to say with this. I’m all ears if you’d like to expand on this.

  21. If I took a random genre fan and gave him only the 4 Hugo 2014 Short Story Nominees, and the 5 stories on the SP3 slate, I think many fans would find the second closer to their view of the genre and what they enjoy.

    I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Sure, there are some nuts and bolts loving guys who would do that, but the genre is broader now, and includes a lot of fans that were brought in to the fold by young adult fantasy rather than stories by Niven and Heinlein. In fact, the movement away from science fiction like Niven and Heinlein (and Howard and Lieber) is, I think, a natural progression as those authors productive periods recede further and further into the past.

  22. @Aaron: I said “many fans”; not “all” or “most.”

    I don’t see what YA fantasy has to do with it. There’s little commonality between The Hunger Games and, say, Selkie Stories. YA usually has a strong focus on adventure, of some type or other. I haven’t read any popular YA, however cutting-edge, that’s reminiscent of, well, any of those short-story nominees.

    Just the opposite – new readers who are coming off of YA adventures will find the Puppy stories, not necessarily good, but much more recognizable. The stories have a simpler, more immediate, and above all – more familiar form.

    Again, I agree entirely that there’s a growing breed of fan who loves the 2014 stories. But it’s still “fantasy at arm’s length,” which for many readers just isn’t their cup of tea. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable assertion to make.

  23. I don’t see what YA fantasy has to do with it.

    Because YA fantasy (and YA in general) is much closer to the kinds of stories that were nominated in 2014 than in 2015. Things like Percy Jackson, while built on an adventure framework, are incredibly character driven. Look at Twilight – that’s all about moody characters. Look at The Bridge to Terabithia. Outside of genre, look at John Green’s books. They are just a slight distance away from something like Selkie Stories Are for Losers or The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere.

    Even The Hunger Games and Divergent are heavily character driven, and stories that depend on the inner emotional lives of their protagonists. They are, in tone, wildly different from anything the Puppies nominated. And those are the gateways to the genre now. As much as Pups want to tell people they should start with Heinlein juveniles and similar work, young readers simply don’t do that. I tutor high schoolers, and know a lot of younger readers, and they almost universally read books by people like Marissa Meyer and Alethea Kontis. Those books are entirely unlike anything on the 2015 short story ballot.

  24. Standback:

    A corollary to your argument is that self-identified Sad Puppies liked and nominated stories beyond those on the slate — if so, those nominations cannot be identified without having transcriptions of individual ballots to inspect.

    I agree with the factual statement but I’m not clear on what it is you’re trying to say with this. I’m all ears if you’d like to expand on this.

    In effect, you pointed out that not everybody who voted some slated stories voted them all, and perhaps implied those nominators might have filled in their ballot with other things they liked, rather than just leaving the rest of the short story category blank. Even though we can’t know that without seeing transcribed ballots, it’s a reasonable idea. More nuanced than the binary slate/no slate decision that’s been the focus of discussion.

  25. @Standback: There’s little commonality between The Hunger Games and, say, Selkie Stories.

    Now, that I agree with a lot less. I think your analysis here misses that most of the readers coming in from YA seem to be women, and you’ve just named two stories that are about rites of passage for young women. They strike me as stories very much designed for the same audience. The plots are very different, but the themes they talk about aren’t.

    You may read “The Hunger Games” and other YA as simple adventure stories like all other simple adventure stories, but more defining of YA as a genre are rite-of-passage stories. “Selkie Stories” and “The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere” both fall in that category, and “Ink Readers” arguably so, though it’s more strongly in a mythology sort of vein. I don’t know if the Puppy nominees can be read that way. Kary English’s story, for example, not so much, I think.

  26. @Aaron: I agree that YA is generally character driven, and I see your point that Puppy-favorites generally aren’t. If you’re saying a YA-based reader wouldn’t find the Puppy stories familiar, I’m not sure I agree, but I definitely see your point.

    I don’t agree that the transition from the YA titles you mention to the sophisticated sass of Selkie Stories or the elegiac wistfulness of Dinosaur, My Love, is a trivial one. Short fiction is different (which is one of the reasons it tends to get stuck on the sidelines).

    Again, you’re making a very sweeping claim (“Almost nobody would have that preference”) and I’m making a rather more modest one (“Some substantial segment has that preference.”) I may well be talking nonsense here, but I think you might be over-generalizing a convenient position for you 😛

  27. Standback,

    examining the Puppy slate as a reaction to the 2014 ballot.

    Except this isn’t really true. This year was after all, Sad Puppy 3. Even if you we concede that the previous Puppies were not as slatey as this year, the rhetoric has always been that SJWs and their touchy-feely ilk have been ruining SF for 10, 20, or even 30 years!

    Examining 1 year, which they have pointed to as a bad example basically concedes their point since we would not be examining their claim, just their best/worst case scenario.

    I hope you are not feeling overwhelmed by all these responses, I really did like your thoughtful analysis(just didn’t agree with some aspects;-) )

  28. @Amoxtli: I will happily grant the basic claim “Modern YA appeals to women; Puppy favorites don’t.”

    But I disagree strongly that Modern YA and those Hugo nominees appeal to women in the same fashion.

    (Annnd now I’m finding this a fascinating discussion and I really want to hear more of your thoughts on this. If you do have strong links between the two, I’d find that really interesting! And regardless, it’d be really interesting for me to go back to those books and back up my own stance. YAY FOR GENRE AND YA LITERARY ANALYSIS RAP BATTLES!

    …I wish I had time to do any of that; I’ve already used up my daily quota on all my comments so far 😛
    )

  29. @tintinaus : This is a great discussion all round! My cheer is not overwhelmed in the least!
    My schedule, unfortunately, is :-/

  30. @Aaron, yes, I agree on the heavy character focus. And I think you’re right, it seems very likely there’s a direct line between YA as a genre entry point and sorts of stories nominated in 2014.

    That character focus part of why I see a bigger focus on rite of passage stories, versus traditional plot-based stories. YA is more interested in stories centered around character growth and change, and much less in the plot, which may be, as Standback described it, “simple”, or archetypal, depending on the book. YA is almost entirely built around exploring transformative moments for characters and sending them back out into the world, changed. And that statement holds true for a lot of the 2014 Hugo content, as well. Books that don’t have that focus probably feel quite flat to readers who graduated into adult genre fiction from YA, like the characters never come alive and feel real.

    I think there’s an interesting data point in the high popularity of YA among adult genre readers, even the trend for some adult readers to prefer YA because they feel it’s doing more innovative things with character. I just don’t know quite what that interesting data point is. I don’t think that happened in the ’80s, adults just didn’t read William Sleator. But there are authors who wrote for teens who did stand the test of time, like Le Guin and Susan Cooper, who were writing very character-centric rite of passage stories, again. There’s a fairly steady adult audience for those stories. I suspect it’s partly because one can return to books and get new insights about people, but it’s much harder to return to a book and get new insights about the plot, so the plot-based experience doesn’t reward re-reading as much. But that also just seems to be where tastes have swung across a lot of the YA and adult market, so they feel like quite modern books.

  31. Again, you’re making a very sweeping claim (“Almost nobody would have that preference”)

    You said, specifically,

    If I took a random genre fan and gave him only the 4 Hugo 2014 Short Story Nominees, and the 5 stories on the SP3 slate, I think many fans would find the second closer to their view of the genre and what they enjoy.

    Not some. Many. I’m saying that is probably a smaller subset than you would think. First off, it was a subset of genre fans even in the long-ago days that the Pups claim were when science fiction was good: Le Guin won a Hugo for The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Delany for Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones, and Sturgeon for Slow Sculpture, all of which are quite light on fantastical or science fictional elements (and whose genre elements are fairly tangential to the stories). There has always been a noticeable complement of fans that were comfortable around stuff like Selkie Stories Are for Losers. Second, that subset is probably growing. Sure there are still people who want to read nothing but rehashes of Conan stories, but that’s not where the YA market is, and that’s where new readers in the genre come from.

    But using 2014 is a real thin basis to claim that the genre has changed to just favoring magical realism. In 2014 four magical realist stories were in the ballot. In 2013 the short story ballot was a mostly hard science fiction story, a kind of cyberpunky space operaish story, and a fantasy story about mantises. 2012’s short story ballot has a magical realist story, an insect driven folktale, a transhumanist science fiction story, a science fiction story about medical issues related to autism, and an over the top fantasy parody.

  32. @Standback: But I disagree strongly that Modern YA and those Hugo nominees appeal to women in the same fashion.

    I suppose, short of us running a research study, we’re not going to have a definitive answer. I don’t know of any good discussions of what YA readers go on to read after they “graduate” from YA. But there are a few discussions of related points, namely what attracts adults to YA, which might give us a sense of what’s bridging those two genres when people move back and forth over the dividing line. For instance Malinda Lo on why adults read YA, which comes up with several possible readings, but seems to emphasize re-experiencing moments of personal growth and change. NYMag on adult purchasers of YA fiction – adults now buy 80% of YA, apparently. It’s not very informative as to why and doesn’t query too deeply, but I thought it was fascinating that adults buy 80% of YA. I don’t think the tastes of adult readers and young adult readers are as separate as you think.

    There are also a lot of writers who write across both genres, and are bringing the same skills and voice to both genres. And here’s the thing: Sofia Samatar is one of those writers who straddle YA and adult SFF. “Selkie Stories” was a classic YA story in every way, except that it was published by a mainstream SFF mag rather than a YA market (which is unsurprising, there aren’t a lot of YA short fiction markets). So it seems like a far more extraordinary claim to say that modern YA doesn’t appeal to its audience the way the 2014 Hugo nominees did, when that particular 2014 Hugo nominee was modern YA. I think your claim needs a lot more support than mine, because the indication is that there’s significant crossover in the YA/adult genre market, and no clear reason to think that those readers are seeing different qualities in those stories.

  33. @Aaron: I mostly agree with you. But I think it’s perfectly possible for a puppy supporter to have looked at the 2014 nominees, and “stain backwards” and assume that the previous 10-20-30 years have been similarly not to their taste (especially since the Puppy organizers said that this was the case). And so I think that the comparison to the previous year has some use as a way of understanding some of what the puppy supporters were actually responding to, as opposed to what they claimed that they were responding to. Indeed, looking at the way people operate in general, the idea that they were responding to very recent events, and assuming that these had always been the case, is one of those classic errors that the human brain is heir to.

    Not that I’m much inclined to give the Puppies the benefit of the doubt. But I’m not opposed to understanding what they are actually thinking and feeling. And I’m also not much inclined to believe what they say about their own thought processes. (I work in health care. People are really, really bad historians about their own lives. Really, really bad. I’ve got good, objective data to prove that.)

  34. And so I think that the comparison to the previous year has some use as a way of understanding some of what the puppy supporters were actually responding to, as opposed to what they claimed that they were responding to.

    The only problem with this theory is that, as has been noted before, 2015 was SP3, so (at least the leaders) weren’t reacting to the 2014 nominations, but rather to earlier ones, which is what makes 2013, 2012, and even 2011 relevant. There are certainly some Pups for whom the Hugo awards only date back to 2014, but for the people organizing the “movement”, there isn’t really that excuse, as they were all around from the early days.

  35. This is an excellent discussion. Trends in popularity are inevitable. My memory is that Magical Realism broke into mainstream culture around the late 80s/early 90s. It makes sense to me that it would become more and more integrated into the SF&F genres. From what I’ve seen here, a lot of filers enjoy the more literary works along with the more pure fun, classic-ish stuff. And there’s plenty of stuff out there that isn’t particularly uppity – The Ancillary series, The Expanse, Uprooted – those are the first to immediately come to mind for me.

    Standback’s attempt to get into the Puppy brain is important, especially since it seems impossible to have a discussion with most Puppies (especially the leaders) and disagree without being insulted and shut down. A lot of the Sad Puppies I’ve seen talking or had conversations with online seem to not necessarily be MRAs, but do seem to completely buy into the SP leader line, usually on the basis of one prose poem that didn’t win a Hugo and a novel they haven’t read and incorrectly imagine calls for the elimination of the male gender. It’d be nice to be able to communicate with them. Rabid Puppies… the less said the better.

  36. I think the motivations and actions of the Puppy leadership are sufficiently well-documented that at this point we’re unlikely to find out anything new about the prior campaigns, but there’s value in figuring out how to communicate better with Puppy followers. They, after all, might be convinced of the weaknesses in Puppy claims, if we can isolate the best ones to counter and avoid getting hung up on trying to counter stronger (or totally subjective) claims. With the caveat that Puppy followers too hung up on “SJW” conspiracy theories are unlikely to be persuadable.

    Anecdata: I read YA a lot of the time, and I agree with the comments about the character focus of the 2014 stories being a better match for YA sensibilities than most of the 2015 Puppy stories – except for Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer, which I think would suit YA readers just fine (and is also, in my opinion, the best of the Puppy short story picks – but then Goodnight Stars left me cold and while I liked Totaled it could have done with some tweaking, and the less said about the other stories the better).

  37. @RedWombat: They have to have names suitable for their records at the vet. It’s not nice for the vet techs to have to call and remind you that Divine Empress Sqigimus Fartfur needs a rabies booster. Plus it might not fit on the form. So my cats have respectable people-names, even though they go by “Multi-Colored Princess of Fluffitude” and “No, You Stooopid Tuxedo, Stop That”.

  38. Sheesh, y’all, just as I’m thinking “Too much input and too little time and attention; I really need to cut down on the number of RSS feeds and email newsletters and people on Twitter and websites I follow for the new year… can I bring myself to stop following File 770?” you get into this kind of chewy, rewarding discussion. Answer: no, no I can’t.

    (@Lydy Nickerson: Do you read Carolyn Hax? Just wondering because I’d never come across the usage “stain back” until a day or so ago in her column.)

  39. SCIENCE FICTION MOVIE BRACKET – FIRST HEAT

    1. WHICH SHALL IT BE?
    Things to Come (1936)
    Akira (1988)

    2. APOCALYPSE NOW
    Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)
    The Terminator (1984)

    3. GET THEM WHEN THEY’RE SMALL
    The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
    Terminator 2 – Judgement Day (1991)

    4. WEIRD SCIENCE
    Paprika (2006)
    Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

    5. CLOSE ENCOUNTER INDEED
    Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
    Close Encounter of the First Kind (1977)

    6. SAVIOURS OF EARTH
    Superman (1978)
    WALL-E (2008)

    7. FUN, FUN, FUN
    Tremors (1990)
    Back To The Future (1985)

    8. EPIC CLOTHING
    Clockwork Orange (1971)
    Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

    9. INNER SPACE OR OUTER SPACE
    Star Wars (1977)
    Fantastic Voyage (1966)

    10. WHAT HUMANS CREATE
    Wings of Honneamise (1987)
    Frankenstein (1931)

    11. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME
    The Man In The White Suit (1951)
    The Thing (1982)

    12. SURPRISING FUTURES
    Matrix (1999)
    Time After Time (1979)

    13. PEOPLE WITH RIDICULOUS NAMES
    Flash Gordon (1980)
    The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

    14. IMPACT OF PSYCHOLOGY
    Solaris (1972)
    Wargames (1983)

    15. THINGS THAT AWAKE
    Quartermass and the Pit (1967)
    Sleeper (1974)

    16. ALL THINGS GO DOWN
    Gravity (2013)
    Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

Comments are closed.