Pixel Scroll 12/30 The Scrolls Have Eyes

(1) INDY 5 IS GO. Consequence of Sound has the story.

Walt Disney Company chairman and CEO Bob Iger, has confirmed that a fifth Indiana Jones movie is indeed happening.

During a recent interview with Bloomberg, Iger spent much of his time talking about the franchise possibilities that are opening up with the massive success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. When he got to comparing Disney’s acquisition of Lucasfilm to that of Pixar and Marvel, however, he noted that taking on Lucasfilm’s intellectual properties also meant “Indiana Jones, by the way, which will be coming.”

(2) ABOUT FACE. Kameron Hurley posted a funny gallery of GIFS to illustrate the “Faces I Make When Reading Reviews”.

A lot of people think authors take reviews personally, and I suppose there are many who do. Those are the folks who should really steer clear of reader reactions to books, or rather, what some readers believe the books say about the author, which is always far more amusing.

There are great reviews with insightful criticism of my work, and glowing reviews about how it changed people’s lives.

But, this being the internet and people trying to poke an author for a meltdown, I’m often asked about my reaction when reading negative reviews of my work. What folks don’t get is that I find most negative reactions endlessly amusing. Not the real criticism that points out real flaws, no, but the reactions that say far more about the reader than the writer.

(3) MIND MELD. SF Signal’s latest Mind Meld, curated by James Aquilone, posts the question “What are your favorite new genre (SF/F/H) TV shows of 2015?” – with replies by Alex ShvartsmanSarah Pinsker, Matthew Johnson, Robert Davis, Carlie St. George, Erin M. Hartshorn, Andrew Liptak, Rob H. Bedford, and Sally Ember, Ed.D.

(4) CHOOSE FEAR. Here’s how David Brin’s Mars mission would start.

Go to Phobos before landing on Mars itself?  I have pushed this idea for twenty years and now some at NASA agree.  Not only is the larger moon far easier to reach and might serve as an ideal research platform, it also has two advantages never mentioned in this article.  It can serve as a logistics hub where supplies might be pre-positioned and tended without complex orbital management.  It also might (some figure) be carbonaceous chondritic material, containing volatiles like water.  If these could be mined and stored and prepared, subsequent Mars landing missions would find all the water and rocket fuel they need, lowering both cost and risk by an order of magnitude.

(5) ZICREE ON FAN-MADE TREK FILMS. Marc Scott Zicree on Facebook.

Science fiction has a long and honorable tradition of fan fiction — in fact, many of the top professional writers started out writing fan fiction — and these fan films are the logical extension of that tradition. More than that, speaking as a professional who’s written extensively for all the major studios and networks, the reason I chose to do “World Enough and Time” was that I felt Michael Reaves and I, along with our creative team, could bring as high a level of professional quality to that project as anything we had ever done for the studios and networks. I wanted to work with George Takei, the powers that be were never going to choose to do the ultimate Sulu story we wanted to tell, and it was something we could share with the whole world.

CBS/Paramount views Star Trek as a money machine, and that drives their decision on what or what not to make. This is perfectly justifiable. But it’s not what led Gene Roddenberry to create Star Trek, nor is it why Renegades or Axanar are being made. I think often taking a step back, gaining perspective and saying, “How can we create a win/win situation here?” is a good idea. It’s what led George Lucas to not only allow Star Wars fan films, but to hold an annual contest recognizing the best ones.

(6) GERROLD ON SUIT STRATEGY. David Gerrold on Facebook:

…But this lawsuit also suggests that CBS and Paramount might be missing the more important point. The fan productions are about the hunger for new Star Trek. They’re not competition as much as they are signs that the franchise is alive and well. Keeping the fans engaged is the best thing that CBS and Paramount can do to keep the franchise alive.

I understand the corporate desire to protect their rights to the franchise, but that cat got out of the bag a long time ago. If they weren’t going to shut down Star Trek New Voyages and Star Trek Continues and Star Trek Renegades and Star Trek Farragut for “copyright infringement” — and those productions use Kirk, Spock, et al, and the original enterprise — then they’re going to have a much harder case with Axanar which barely touches the same specific content of the original series.

I suspect that the lawsuit isn’t about copyright infringement as much as it’s designed to intimidate Axanar’s producers. I’ll be interested to see how this proceeds….

(7) CAVEAT TWITTER. Business Insider reports “Mark Hamill is protecting fans from fake signed ‘Star Wars’ merchandise on Twitter”.

He apologized to fans who have spent money on fraudulent items and urged them to look at real copies to learn how to confirm his signature on their own. When asked why he wasn’t tired of responding to people, he said, “Because I owe it to all true fans to protect them from being victimized by dishonest dealers.”

(8) FORCE A FEW DOLLARS MORE. Steven Harper Piziks opines about writers who are “Riding the Coat Tails of the Force”.

These and other similar articles mean absolutely nothing, of course.  They’re written by people who have no real cred. For example, Lili Loofbourow, who wrote the desperate-sounding “emotional blind spots” article above, is a freelance reporter. She’s not a professor of media studies, or an experienced film reviewer, or a film maker. She has a computer and a contact at Salon.com and ticket stub for THE FORCE AWAKENS. Same goes for all the others. They’re just riding along on TFA’s coat tails, trying to make a few dollars for themselves.

Well, at least I got a blog entry out of it.

(9) PICACIO PLUGS COMPETITION. Today John Picacio commented on George R.R. Martin’s pro artist Hugo recommendations and added six more names (with links to their work).

Thanks so much for the shoutout, George. It’s an honor to be be considered in any year, including this one. That said, winning any major award comes with responsibility along with hardware and glory. It’s always great to win, but as a past winner, I want the Pro Artist Hugo list to reflect the extraordinary range and evolution of the field. So while I’m not recusing myself, I would like to take this opportunity to shine light on some of sf/f’s art stars that have had an outstanding year and deserve Hugo consideration in this category:…

(10) HITCHHIKER’S HOMECOMING. Think how much more effective Lazlar Lyricon 3’s “about” statement would be if it hadn’t stopped with just four reasons for holding this convention? I hope the concom will treat themselves to one or two fifths as part of their launch celebration.

Dateline: The Old Kings Head Pub, London, 21 November 2015. Today, ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha (the Official Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Appreciation Society) Annual General Meeting authorised a committee to run Lazlar Lyricon 3. This is the third (coincidentally) in a series of conventions celebrating The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Douglas Adams, the first having occurred in the 1980s.

Lazlar Lyricon 3 will take place on 9-11 June 2017 at the Quality Hotel in Stoke-on-Trent.

Committee members Stefan Lancaster, Emma J. King, David Haddock and Alan Sullivan, amongst others, were on hand to discuss plans, answer questions and receive the imprimatur of the AGM. They were also given ‘seed money’ of £500 towards the costs, which was greeted with much cheering!

The first two Lazlar Lyricons were part of a series of conventions in the 1980s, 90s and early 00s colloquially called ‘Fun Cons’, which also included the Incons, Dangercons, and several one-off conventions such as Year of the Wombat and Aliens Stole my Handbag. The aspiration is to ensure everyone has a great time (and not panic!), with fun, loosely Hitchhikers-inspired programme items such as crab stomping and towel-based martial arts. The announcement that the first and foremost in appointments will be a ‘beer liaison’ was greeted with more cheering!

(11) SPEAKING OF LAUNCHING. Gail Z. Martin on “Making the Most of Your Launch Day” at Magical Words.

Book launches are on my mind since Vendetta, the second book in the Deadly Curiosities urban fantasy series, just launched yesterday. So I thought it might be fun to pull the curtain back on what can go into a book launch, and let you pick and choose the elements you feel best suit your own circumstances.

Social media is is your biggest bullhorn to the world. Long before your book comes out, you should be creating a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Wattpad, a blog, and a web site. These are the places you can gather your tribe–the people who have read and liked your work, your friends and others who wish you well and are happy to help spread the word. Make sure you let your friends and followers know in advance when the book is coming out, and how they can help.

(12) ON RECONCILIATION. Joe Vasicek’s “Response to Steve Davidson on Reconciling with the Puppies” is a commentary on Steve Davidson’s Amazing Stories post “Reconciling with Puppies – ‘…to dram, the impossible dream, to reach the unreachable star…”.

Mr. Davidson’s post is interesting, and worth reading. We obviously don’t see eye to eye on a number of things, but it would be rather petty to go through our disagreements line by line. Instead, the part that I want to respond to is his call to action at the end:

Want to reconcile?  Here’s what puppies must do.

1: Stop scamming the system.  If you want to recommend works that you think are worthy of the award, go ahead and do so.  But drop the political agenda (you’re dragons are imaginary) and eliminate the hateful, snarky commentary

If you’re looking for “hateful, snarky commentary,” I’m sure that you’ll be able to find it. On the fringes of both sides, there are a lot of people with blogs and strong opinions. I’d count myself as one of them—while I align with the Sad Puppies, I’m not a leader or organizer by any stretch, just another guy with opinions and a blog. Don’t be so quick to look for ammunition, because there’s a lot of it lying around.

Kate Paulk, one of the Sad Puppy organizers, has pointed out that Sad Puppies 4 is open to nomination suggestions from anyone, which appears to be what you’re calling for. And honestly, I think a lot of us don’t want to see conservative writers edge out everyone else so much as to see them go head to head with more liberal writers on a more equal playing field. It’s not about slaying imaginary dragons so much as breaking down walls.

So on this first point, Mr. Davidson and I tend to be in agreement. This seems like a reasonable step for reconciliation, and it’s one that the Sad Puppies 4 already appear to be taking.

(13) YOUR RANCOR MAY VARY. Brad Torgersen’s “Sad Puppies and the future”, prompted by Martin’s “reconciliation” post, says many familiar things.

Many people have already seen George R. R. Martin’s optimistic (and well-intended) commentary at his LiveJournal. However, just as with George’s hood ornament Alfie awards (also well-intended) there is more than one way for a thing to be perceived. My perception — and I am not alone in this — of George’s desire for an end to the rancor, is that George still seems to think that a) the rancor was flowing almost entirely one-way, from the Puppies’ side to the Trufan side, and also b) none of the Puppies are themselves fans. Not Fans (caps f) and certainly not Trufans. No. Puppies are still an outsider bunch, who carry an outsider’s stigma.

There is also a bit too much parentalism in George’s tone: dear kids, I hope you’ve learned your lesson, now wipe those dirty looks off your faces and come give your mother a hug!

(14) DO YOU FEEL SAFER? And in the comments, national security consultant Arlan Andrews, Sr. gives MidAmeriCon II members something to look forward to:

I for one will never forgive anyone who appeared in that pre-Awards “90-minute-hate-the-Puppies” TV show, nor anyone who called me a neoNazi. Though some were, I had thought, nice acquaintances if not actual long-time friends, their behavior before, during and after the Hugos simply meant that I shut them out of any future consideration of any kind, meaning no purchasing of their products, no voting for their works, no attendance at any function at which they are honored or prominent, no reviews of anything they are involved with, and no defense of any criticism of them. As a very minor player in fandom/prodom, despite 60+ years of fanlife and 35+ years of prolife, those people will seldom notice nor long remember what I do here, but if thousands of others do likewise, the effects may be meaningful. All of the SP3 experience this year has been enlightening, and a tiny reflection of the national schism between those who cherish Freedom and those banding together to enforce Collectivism. I thank Brad and Larry and the Jovians for graciousness in the face of fire. And next Worldcon, I will definitely attend. (Does Missouri have Concealed Carry?)

(15) HOOKY HEADLINE. “9 things ‘Starship Troopers’ totally nailed about today’s technology”  is a pretty bold claim about a movie that showed space infantry fighting in shoulder-to-shoulder formations like at the Battle of Waterloo.

(16) CHRISTMAS CONFLATION. When I read the headline of io9’s post “Chewbacca Comic Finally Answers A Question Star Wars Fans Have Pondered For Years” I mentally filled the blank with, “Does Chewie sleep with his whiskers outside or in?”

(17) REEL CONSPIRACY. At Star Wars Minute, “How Kylo Ren Got Darth Vader’s Helmet.” A fan theory based on some events in Disney/Lucasfilm comics and novels.

(18) TONIGHT ON JEOPARDY! A Bradbury-themed question.

Literary Characters for $200

Answer: Beatty is the captain of the fireman in this Bradbury Novel

Question: What is Fahrenheit 451

(19) IF YOU WERE A DINOSAUR…BUT WAIT, I AM. “Retaliation for getting coal in my stocking!” says YouTube poster Ralph the Rex.

[Thanks to Will R., John King Tarpinian and Brian Z. for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]

324 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 12/30 The Scrolls Have Eyes

  1. Lenora Rose: I just want to say, officially, that there is no establishment that gave me any orders what to vote for or where to put No Award on my ballot… For example, I put Sheila Gilbert above no award and Toni Weisskopf below, and I get the impression that was a minority position). If anyone were to find an establishment representative to apologize, they will not be speaking for me. I will not apologize for making up my own damn mind.

    I agree with a lot of the people who’ve said that they find Best Editor Long Form a very difficult, if not impossible, category to judge — because, apart from acquisition choices, only a pre-edited vs post-edited excerpt would be a good way to judge that, and what author is going to want their writing subjected to that sort of scrutiny?

    Nevertheless, I put Sheila Gilbert and Anne Sowards above No Award because they each provided substantiating information which convinced me that their presence on the ballot was justified.

    Conversely, given the horrendous lack of content editing and spelling and grammar correction, along with the abysmal covers, in the books and stories I’d read — not to mention the appallingly-bad cover art — in which the other editor candidates had a hand (or should have, but chose not to), I felt completely comfortable in putting those names below No Award, or leaving them off the ballot entirely.

    Of course, the fact that this evidence, positive or negative, exists and was used in making decisions on the category is completely denied by the Puppies — because again, it does not support their “2,500 horrible No Awarders” narrative.

  2. @Meredith: oooh, thanks! I came back to check on names and saw the link, yay!

    ETA: posted!

  3. @lurkertype: I think Gerrold should apologize for the asterisks the minute the Puppies, oh… quit making up stupid acronyms, quit using what in most countries is regarded as hate speech, quit threatening to wear weapons to intimidate people who have a differing opinion about awards, quit actively wishing harm to people and trying to get them fired/injured and maybe if CUL will stick to any of his claims about stepping back from cons and social media.

    Or, maybe, ya know, just STOP LYING about facts that everyone can double-check easily online.

    Makes a whole lot of sense to me.

  4. @lurkertype

    going off that list of things the puppies should stop doing – I see BT, TB, AA, JW, LA, and LA again. It’s all different people so I doubt they will stop anytime soon 🙂

    apologies can’t be forced, and I don’t think one from DG would resolve the complaint from the puppies. i do wish DG would stop hiding behind the charity fig leaf as Jim has mentioned but I don’t expect any change in the baying from most of the self-identified pups even if he did.

    the obtuseness on the asterisks by DG is probably as annoying to various pups as the reluctance to admit slates were unfair and wrong has been to me.

  5. I’m with others on editor long form – I’ve been no awarding the category for a while, the only ones who can judge are the writers who are working closely with the editors, its very inside baseball and I can’t see how others outside the process can judge. Short form is a bit easier.

  6. We’ve had (I think) three spoiler threads for major releases so at this point I think we can call it a tradition*. 😀

    *The English Country Dancing version of a tradition is “if we did it last year and half of us have forgotten it, it counts”.**

    **I mostly associate asterisks with footnotes, and footnotes with Pratchett, so I’m generally inclined to be fond of the little pointy things.

    @Jim Henley

    I think there was definitely a general feeling that the BDP candidates were unlikely to be Puppies, but more importantly none of them were odd choices. It would be difficult to claim that Flow would have been on the ballot regardless, but easy to say that there’s every chance Interstellar, The Lego Movie and Guardians of the Galaxy would have got there anyway, or at least weren’t bringing the quality down. Looking at the numbers we might have ended up with Big Hero 6 instead of The Lego Movie in the Puppy-free alternate universe but I’m not certain. It’s easy to justify voting for something that you think is a legitimate candidate that simply had the misfortune to be on a slate as well.

    That’s not the same argument as ‘anti-slate voters will always vote for quality even if the work was on the slate’ but I think it’s related. To be seen as a legitimate and obvious candidate requires that the work be good and have broad popularity. I think that’s a lot easier to judge for the BDP categories than almost any of the others. Best Novel, maybe, or Graphic Work. Campbell in a pinch, for a runaway breakout hit author.

    @Robin

    You’re welcome!

    @Tasha and JJ

    I’m not sure what to think about this tangent (apart from ‘awkward’) but I wanted to acknowledge that I’d seen it.

  7. Mike, to be clear, I don’t think David Gerrold needs to apologize to anybody, or for anybody. He did an outstanding job (along with Tananarive Due, who deserves tons of credit) handling the ceremony. I still think the asterisks were a misfire, but on the whole, it’s much ado about very little. Sad Puppies are going to complain no matter what.

  8. Jim Henley: Do you think some of the voting for BDP was also driven by the sense that the folks behind the works were surely not witting participants in the Slate, being too big to care about the Hugos?

    Oh, absolutely that is the case as well. To be honest*, I’d probably be faced with a tougher decision should a work I think is really worthy appear on the slate because the author is an avid supporter of the slating.

    I don’t think that is terribly likely, though; I think that authors who are justifiably comfortable and confident with the quality of their work would prefer to appear on the ballot under their own steam.

    I did not see one vocal supporter of the slates this year who has produced work I would consider Hugo-worthy (note that I am making a distinction here between enjoyable and readable, of which there were a few, and Hugo-worthy). I think there are definite reasons for that, chiefly because those supporters knew that their works were not going to get on the ballot any other way.

    * I am telling the truth here 😉

  9. Jim Henley on December 31, 2015 at 8:45 pm said:

    @JJ: Do you think some of the voting for BDP was also driven by the sense that the folks behind the works were surely not witting participants in the Slate, being too big to care about the Hugos? I didn’t end up buying a membership, but I thought about it, and that was certainly my own reasoning as I considered what I’d do.

    I think that was part of it. BDP (Short) had low No Award levels as well – although Sad Puppy nominee “Grimm” ended up below on 1st preference (beat No Award on preferences)

  10. Friendly reminder for those in CST and further west…

    That ball they drop at midnight is not a piñata. There is no candy inside. Please stay safe – leave the long sticks at home.

    😉

  11. @Mike Glyer: I’d read Loofbourow’s essay earlier and I think she made some good points in it. Without invoking spoilers, there were definitely moments during the movie when I was like “Wait, shouldn’t [name redacted] have had a more significant emotional reaction to what just happened?”

    (I’m hoping that the director’s cut is able to allow an extra 30 seconds here and 60 seconds there to show things like that. It felt like they had to cram so much into the time that they couldn’t relax and let it breathe at all.)

  12. The gap between enjoyable to read and Award-winning quality is not a concept that seems to come naturally to some Puppies. (See: Any discussion about Skin Game in relation to Hugo voting.) To me, the concept is self-evident to the point that I’m sure I make a total hash of explaining it whenever it comes up.* I’ve seen Puppies refer to their own version of it (Paulk, I think) so it isn’t universal amongst them (is anything? I swear if they weren’t so focused on fighting the enemy they’d collapse from infighting within a week) but there do seem to be quite a few who are shocked! that someone might like something** and still not want to vote for it as something that deserves a best*** of the year accolade.

    *I have so many written, saved, and unposted comments for the thread on Torgersen’s blog, you have no idea.
    **I adore the Fast and the Furious films but they’re never going to win Best Picture, and that’s fine.
    ***I’m sure I’ve bored all of you enough times with my dislike of the word ‘best’. If I sort of approach it at an angle and rewrite it in my head as “amongst the best of the year, but definitely the best of the particular small group of things that were all amongst the best but did not include all the best because they wouldn’t all fit” I can cope. 🙂

  13. I have found how I want to be remembered…”In a hive of scum and villainy he was one of the horrible 2,500″

  14. @Tasha Turner,
    Your comments typically have a high signal to noise ratio; I am often glad I made the effort to read them but if I don’t feel compelled to respond to them, doesn’t mean I appreciate them any less. (That’s also true of a number of other posters here, which is why File770 has become a regular stopping point for me)

    Best Editor (Long Form):
    It’s already a problematic category for me given how hard it can be to discover the identities of editors of novels. It’s a category where we really lack information, so when it comes to the Hugo final vote, we have to rely much more on what is provided in the Hugo Voter Packet.

    Take this year as an example: Sheila Gilbert provided excellent examples of her work. Toni Weisskopf & Jim Minz gave us nothing except a link to the Baen site. How can a voter possibly judge on that basis? I left Weisskopf & Minz off my vote; I had no way of knowing what they actually edited.

  15. *high-fives Meredith* Look, I frickin’ love the Riddick movies. I will go to the mat for my love of them. I have played Escape From Butcher Bay AND Assault on Dark Athena. But Pitch Black was the only one that could even make a stab at objectively good. (Ok, the games were pretty fun, but Jesus, the learning curve went easy-easy-easy-DIE PLAYER DIE)

    I suspect one of the most intractable qualities of the whole Puppy issue is the gulf between those who can say “my love for a thing does not mean it is good” and those who can’t.

    I suppose there are people who would argue that the Frito crunch wrap supreme is the greatest culinary achievement of mankind, because they enjoy it and therefore it must be great. Me, I am happy to wallow in my low tastes and know that they are low.

  16. Jim Henley on December 31, 2015 at 8:45 pm said:

    @JJ: Do you think some of the voting for BDP was also driven by the sense that the folks behind the works were surely not witting participants in the Slate, being too big to care about the Hugos? I didn’t end up buying a membership, but I thought about it, and that was certainly my own reasoning as I considered what I’d do.

    Speaking only for myself, it certainly helped. I wasn’t going to let someone poison pill a worthy work merely by including it on a slate.

    For much the same reasons, Day’s attempts to claim The Three Body Problem were also irrelevant to how I voted.

  17. I feel a bit bad for Gerrold, honestly–twenty years from now, an aged Torgersen is still going to scream every time he posts anything with an asterisk

    Hey, David Gerrold’s about to turn 72. If he’s still posting anything twenty years from now, I’ll count that as a victory regardless of whether Torgersen’s crabbing about it or not.

  18. Meredith said:

    “The gap between enjoyable to read and Award-winning quality is not a concept that seems to come naturally to some Puppies. (See: Any discussion about Skin Game in relation to Hugo voting.) To me, the concept is self-evident…”

    Yes, a pup on BT blog is explaining to me how Sarah won the Prometheus Award; his point being that puppy authors are worthy also. Here is Sarah being presented the libertarian Prometheus…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUedD6E15TU

    I mean that’s fine but it isn’t a major award. Then explains that Larry is a NYT Bestseller. That’s fine as well. But I have read Larry and he isn’t that good. They don’t have anybody that good. It’s not they are getting shut out of the Hugos for whatever reason (politics, cabal, whatever). They are getting shut out of all of them. And they don’t sell that well. Even Correia is no Scalzi.

    To win awards, the first thing to do is to write something worthy of the award. Conservatives can do that. Orson Scott Card did. But none of their guys can.

  19. It’s been the new year here for over 14 hours and it’s beginning to feel distinctly old again. However, happy new year to everyone! (Nevermind that Thailand technically celebrates their new year in April so it’s still the year 2559 here – roll on 2560! Not that I plan on being in Thailand for Songkran this year. A four day waterfight is fun once, but now it’s just tiring.)

  20. Serious question: If you think David Gerrold should apologise for the Asterisks, was Irene Gallo also right to apologise for her Facebook posts?

  21. Lorcan Nagel: You may not be asking me but here’s my answer. He should engage with the reaction to the asterisks. If he thought the asterisks were a good idea, no apology needed, just say that. Those who matter won’t fault him for his good intentions. If he feels that they were a mistake, he can say that. The money-raising thing just seems beside the point. I’m sure there are lots of Puppies who give to charity, too, but that’s not what we’re looking at, it’s their decisions and statements about the Hugos that are being discussed.

    As for Irene Gallo — I’ve never worked in publishing, but where I did work making that kind of statement about other members of our professonal community would have been certain to create problems for me. In hindsight it’s easy to give John Wayne’s movie advice, “Never apologize, it’s a sign of weakness” because it’s not apparent that Tor got anything but more abuse from making her apologize or from Doherty’s public statement. But that’s a tactical answer, not an ethical answer. The ethical answer is that if she concluded she did something wrong, it was appropriate for her to apologize.

  22. Zenu: a pup on BT blog is explaining to me how Sarah won the Prometheus Award; his point being that puppy authors are worthy also… I mean that’s fine but it isn’t a major award… They don’t have anybody that good. It’s not they are getting shut out of [just] the Hugos for whatever reason (politics, cabal, whatever). They are getting shut out of all of them. And they don’t sell that well. Even Correia is no Scalzi.

    I have to admit that I got a huge belly-laugh out of the clueless Puppy posting there, who among numerous other utterly ill-informed things, says:

    You won your battle, but you lost the war. You’ve got twenty-five hundred Trufans who will vote the way you tell them. That’s great, but twenty-five hundred sales [from your 2,500 bloc-No-Awarders] is not going to earn back Scalzi’s multi-million dollar advance.

    At which I thought, “Oh, dear — you do know that, at this point, Scalzi’s total book sales are in the millions, right?”

  23. Truth to tell, I’m not fully convinced any of the Puppies have an army of true followers who will vote lockstep the way they tell them, however much some may brag.

    To hear that charge leveled against such a large, squabbling, diverse group as the Fen, or the even larger, more idiosyncratic, more diverse group of anyone-willing-to-talk-about-fandom (which seems to be what we have a slice of here) has an extra helping of reality-check whiplash.

    To see a Puppy bitterly conceding that non-Puppies have beaten them in a game nobody else is playing is kind of sad.

  24. @ Kurt

    David Gerrold could die tomorrow(God forbid) and Brad in twenty years would still be grumbling about how he was hard done by back in ’15 and how he coulda been a contender except for the SJWs.

    @Lorcan Nagle

    David Gerrold was making a public semi-proffesional appearance to a open forum and what was said was planned and rehearsed. It was his choice how to promote and spin the Asterisks.

    Irene Gallo was on her personal(but relatively open) Facebook page responding to a question asked by someone who follows her. The only proffesional aspect of that thread is that it was started by promoting a new Tor book. Her response was also pretty much correct and the outrage over her remark was manufactured and orchestrated for maximum effect. Perhaps she should have been more circumspect to avoid giving VD ammo, bu she had nothing she needed to apologise for.

  25. I think it would be wrong of Gerrold to do the full poodle, with all paws in the air, as Torgersen demands, but a half poodle would be nice.

    Acknowledge that some people felt hurt by the asterisks and that in hindsight, some other design might have been better. Say that it was an idea that might have looked better on paper and say that the intent was never tor hurt anyone.

    It is the nice thing to do, regardless of how it is taken.

  26. It would be very childish and immature and bridge-burning to start calling him Torgersen*, and calling them Puppies*. I only post this because I am hungover despite not drinking much and going to bed relatively early. Grumble.

  27. I see no good reason to start taking up the practice of name-calling.

  28. Apparently President Obama took 3BP on vacation as one of his four novels. I can only speculate as to the SP/RP/VD response (via the UK Daily Mail)

  29. You’re right, Peace, of course. Mea Culpa.

    On the other hand Torgersen just posted a comment – oh, heck, here it is:

    The person who really deserves admiration for having played the game to perfection, is Leckie. I can’t think of anyone who better understood (in recent memory) how this whole setup works, nor exploited that setup to a greater effect.

    Leaves a nasty taste, doesn’t it?

  30. @Nigel

    I’ve met Ann. I consider Ann a friend of mine. Ann is worth a 100 Brads. At least.

  31. Which is to say Torgersen’s value as set against a basic rate of ‘decent human being’ is a dwindling return.

    I’m being awfully mean on this stormy New Year’s Day. I need coffee and a book.

  32. @Nigel
    I have found I am happier when not reading BT’s posts. He appears to be consumed with bitterness and ill-cheer; and delights in the outraged reaction of others.

  33. My New Years reading: Castle Hangnail to my niece. I make up strange voices and provide many sound effects and she giggles and listens for a while before bouncing away to tell her mother what is going on and then bounces back for the next paragraph.

    I have new respect for talented voice actors !

  34. Ann Leckie’s books are enjoyable, beautifully written space romps with sympathetic characters and very deep undercurrents. I don’t know much about her as a person but have heard vague good reports from reliable sources.

    It is peculiar indeed to think her books needed the aid of some intricate monstrous super-secret exploitive conspiratorial game to find readers and win awards.

  35. @Shambles Yeah, that’s enough of that. What’s stark is the clarity and logic of the Filers on that thread versus the angry mush of the puppies. Being clear and logical doesn’t make you right, and not all the anti-pups make a good fist of their comments but the pup responses are consistently emotive, angry and full of deflections, avoidance and personal attacks. Anti-pups are capable of being exactly the same, but not the Filers in that thread, and the pups do not rise to the challenge. Peace’s reprimand about name-calling is well-taken. That approach works, and you don’t end up like that ‘piss on fandom’ guy or arguing with him on that level.

  36. A youngster in my family is an aspiring voice artist. I have gained a lot of respect for, and some small education about, the men and women who provide the voice talent for animation, games, etc.

  37. Torgersen really has a hard time accepting that Ann Leckie wrote the books she wanted to write and that people genuinely liked them.

    Look, Brad, the world doesn’t revolve around you. I’ll never see what people see e.g. in Neal Stephenson’s work, but that doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy to keep my favourite authors from their well deserved awards.

  38. Torgensen is struggling for relevance. And I still say this is all about target marketing. LC found a way to exploit the Hugos nominations. Whipped up a holy war. And did what he always had done with target marketing. Vox and BT piled on.

  39. My 2016 resolution, such as it is:

    I have come to see that the Puppies are, by and large, “Truthers” (in the larger sense), and I don’t believe that you can constructively argue with a Truther. I have resigned myself to another year of garbage logic and outrage until, hopefully, the rules kick in to render their antics irrelevant.

    I reserve the right to make fun of them because they are risible, prideful, self-centred individuals who are doing their best to sneeze all over the SF/F salad bar, but I will endeavour not to be too mean about it. I guess. I will try to hold on to whatever pity I feel regarding their inability to reflect on their own conduct as it pertains to their childish taunts, accusations, and demands, and the many ways in which this reveals their childishness to everyone but themselves.

    These are ostensible adults — “accomplished” professionals, even, or so they tell us. But reading something like Torgersen’s latest boy-ifesto…it’s just appalling, really. If I didn’t mock it, I would have to weep for humanity.

  40. Happy New Year to All!

    I would think that David Gerrold would be well within his rights to demand his own apologies. Heck, the whole committee that does the Hugos would be. We don’t have to look much past OGH work this year to see all the ways in which the Puppies said horrible things about the work and motivation of everyone who works to make these awards a success.

    Also, bluntly, while I can see why one the whole making and handing out the asterisks was a poor choice, well, the truth hurts. If Dark Between the Stars or Transhuman and Subhuman or whatever had won – would we all regard that book as a “real” Hugo winner? No, we’d regard it as a bit less than books that won the old fashion way, for good reason – it had cheated its way there. Any puppy efforts that won would have been qualified, would have well deserved the asterisk next to award winner.

    As for Gallo, I occasionally read JCW’s blog and Vox. Why should she have to apologize for words that happen to be true about the Puppy slate’s biggest author and it’s driving force? Every new post they make about the scary others has me thinking Gallo is owed apologies, from everyone who lined up to show how fair-minded they were and demanded she apologize for speaking the truth that many were too scared to say.

  41. You apologize because it is the right thing to do. That others continue to insult with no feelings of remorse is a separate thing. You don’t have to stoop to their level.

    This is a separate thing from Gallo. It was in an official ceremony, not a comment on an internet post.

  42. And Torgersen is extremely nasty towards Leckie. I doubt he would say the same thing to her if they met face to face.

    I reckon he thinks he has already burned all the bridges, so now he can be as horrible as he wants to.

  43. Apologizing is the right thing, but I can understand someone thinking it is pointless in this case. Gerold’s being asked to apologize to people who make no bones about hating the very fact of his existence. More prosaically, its people with no sense of responsibility for their own actions in this case. I can see why he’d have a real sense of wanting them to go first.

    Bluntly, considering the level of grievance from the Puppies, I’m sure any apology would be met with demands for an apology for how he apologized. Any apology from Gerrold would effectively be a display of “I’m a civilized person even if they don’t have the class or decency to understand it,” with little chance of it being beyond that. Gerrold may feel that’s a distinction that’s been made resoundingly these past few months, and not want to put time and effort into playing games with unreasonable people.

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