(1) DISCON III REACTIONS. Today’s decision by the 2021 Worldcon committee to remove Toni Weisskopf as a GoH (“DisCon III Removes Weisskopf as a Guest of Honor”) is being widely discussed.
Toni Weisskopf posted a concise response on Facebook.
The committee of Discon III approached me this week to discuss the allegations about Baen’s Bar that were posted at Patreon. Baen is conducting a thorough investigation, which we feel we cannot rush, and has taken down the Bar while we conduct the investigation.
I do understand the immediate appeal of Discon III wishing to act quickly to respond to their community. Today they informed me of their official decision to remove me as their Editor Guest of Honor.
While I strongly disagree with the committee’s decision, I will regretfully accede to their wishes.
These excerpts for the Scroll are primarily by authors who condemned the decision (except for the final one).
David Weber responded on Facebook.
So Toni Weisskopf has been formally disinvited by WorldCon and DisCon. Can’t say it was a surprise. I will however remind people of the personal policy I adopted years ago and reiterated in the case of ConCarolina and John Ringo. I will not attend a con which has disinvited a guest. You are always free to invite —or not—anyone you like. Any con which disinvites someone after the invitation has been issued and accepted, especially when they do so under pressure, however, does not deserve to be trusted by future guests.
He said more in the comments on his post, including —
Bob Eggleton made this comment —
Chuck Gannon also made a comment on Weber’s post, repeating one of his quotes linked here yesterday and extending it as follows:
…So Toni Weisskopf activated the most proactive, realistic option available to her: she closed the Bar, thereby ending any possibility that it might do further ostensible injury.
36 hours later, however, she was disinvited without any additional cause.
You will note, however, that no one asserted that she did not respond quickly enough. In fact, in disinviting her, there were no further/new discoveries added to those put forth in Mr. Sanford’s essay.
So what had changed? If the concom believes that 36 hours is enough time for her to resolve the matter completely, I once again point out that
a) any business person operating in the real world would *know* that is not enough time to conduct anything like a thorough review
b) in order to ensure that what Mr. Sanford reported could not expand or remain as a potential threat, SHE CLOSED THE WHOLE BAR DOWN.
If she had meant to stonewall, or not actually investigate the matter, she would not have taken the step of closing the Bar.
Do I repeat myself in this post? Assuredly so . . . because these are salient points which are being repeatedly, perhaps purposively, overlooked.
For anyone familiar with the musical Hamilton, cue “The Room Where It Happened” as we ponder “so what changed in 36 hours?”
Larry Correia shames the SMoFs in “An Open Letter To The Old Time Fans at WorldCon” [Internet Archive link].
…Then several years later, after the old controversy I caused had died off and most of us barbaric outsiders had said screw cheesy WorldCon and moved on with our lives, some of you still felt guilty for how you’d treated Toni, so you extended an olive branch. You offered her the Guest of Honor spot at your little convention. How nice. How fucking magnanimous.
Toni, being a far better human being than any of you could ever aspire to be, thought the offer over. She knew there was risks. She knew that she’d take heat from people on the right (and she has). Morons on my side of the political would call her a sell-out, quisling, traitor, boot licker, so on and so forth, and they did. She got attacked by the useless grifters on both sides, looking for hate clicks. But unlike you, Toni ignores the baying mob and always does what she thinks is the right thing to do. She looked at your peace offering, and said fine, If you want to try and mend fences, okay, I’ll take the heat, I’ll be your guest of honor. She was the bigger person.
She talked to me about her decision. I told her I understood, I wouldn’t do it, but I respected her call, but that she’d surely get yelled at by the idiots on both sides. She already knew, but she thought it was the right thing to do anyway. Because unlike you, Toni actually has a moral compass. Your moral compass is a windsock. Her one mistake in all this was assuming that any of you old time Smofs would have a spine….
A very large number of people today are reaching for rhetorical flourishes to complain about what happened. RS Benedict made this connection. (If you don’t recognize Isabel Fall’s name, run a search here. Also let it be noted that Weisskopf has been removed as GoH, not banned from attending.)
Mike VanHelder, an experienced conrunner, tried to understand the decision from a convention running perspective. As part of that he wrote this How It Should Have Ended scenario, in addition to other insights. Thread starts here.
(2) NO ONE TO FOLLOW. While we’re at it, let WIRED’s Angela Wattercutter tell you about “The Crushing Disappointment of Fandom”.
…When we really, truly admire someone, whether they’re an Avenger or Anthony Fauci, there’s a tendency to mimic their personality, even their morality. Media theorists call these bonds “parasocial relationships”; parents of kids with one too many Star Wars posters (probably) call it “over the top.” But the people in it, the ones who write fic and spend days making cosplay before the next convention, call it part of their identity, the fabric of who they are.
Until it’s not. Earlier this week, actress Gina Carano lost her job playing Cara Dune on The Mandalorian. The former MMA fighter had been facing criticism for months for her anti-science views on mask-wearing, mocking transgender-sensitive pronouns, and tweets about voter fraud. Then, on Wednesday, after she shared an Instagram story that suggested having differing political views was akin to being Jewish during the Holocaust, the hashtag #FireGinaCarano began to trend on Twitter. That night, Lucasfilm issued the following statement: “Gina Carano is not currently employed by Lucasfilm and there are no plans for her to be in the future. Nevertheless, her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”
Carano’s comments are harmful for a lot of reasons, but they seem to carry an additional weight for fans. Cara Dune was a hero, someone who fought for people, a tough, competent female warrior in a genre often dominated by men. Fans looked up to Cara, and by extension Carano, but the actor’s comments on social media left one of those things harder to do….
(3) BY POPULAR DEMAND. The UK’s Daily Mail proclaims: “WandaVision: Fans CRASH Disney+ to stream latest episode”.
Viewers of WandaVision crashed Disney+ on Friday morning as the latest installment dropped on the streaming service.
There was a brief 10-minute outage in the early hours of Friday as episode seven of the Marvel Cinematic Universe-based series was made available, PEOPLE reports.
Fans expressed their frustration on social media after experiencing issues as they signed on in droves to catch the latest installment of Wanda and Vision’s Westview adventures.
(4) RECOVERED. Claire O’Dell has released a second edition of her award-winning River of Souls trilogy with new covers and updated text: River of Souls Series. The author blogged about the books here.
…Once Tor returned the rights to me, I decided to release a second edition, with new covers and updated text. I commissioned new artwork from the amazing Jessica Shirley. I badgered my long-suffering spouse into designing new covers. And I spent several months editing and proofreading the manuscripts. The e-books are now available at my on-line bookstore (here), individually or as a bundle, and will appear at all the usual vendor sites later this week….
(5) PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT. James Davis Nicoll helps us keep these two things straight: “Five SF Works Featuring Dyson Shells (and Not Dyson Swarms)” at Tor.com.
…There are at least two kinds of Dyson Sphere. The first—the one Dyson intended—is made up of a myriad of independently orbiting objects. While this presents an interesting traffic control challenge, the Dyson Swarm has the advantage that not only can it be built incrementally over a very long period, but the components are gravitationally coupled to the star in question.
The second option is a solid shell with the star in the middle….
Here’s one of James’ picks:
“Back to Myan” by Regina Kanyu Wang (2017)
Retrieved by the Union from certain extinction on the ice-encrusted world Myan, Kaya is somewhat less than entirely grateful. After all, the reason Myan was freezing in the first place was Project Saion, the Union’s vast energy-gathering structure blocking Myan from its star, Saion. While the Union did belatedly notice the Myan natives and rescue them, this didn’t come to pass until 997 out of every 1000 of Kaya’s species had perished in the cold. Still, the Union is very, very powerful, while the handful of Myans are not. There is nothing Kaya can do to save her home world. At least, that’s what the Union believes…
(6) GREG BEAR INTERVIEWED. Frank Catalano, who was SFWA Secretary back when Greg Bear was SFWA President, pointed out a good profile of Greg Bear in the Seattle Times today, including his thinking that his newest novel may be his last one, and the trouble he had in finding a publisher for it: “Lynnwood’s Greg Bear, stalwart of modern science fiction, starts writing his life story”.
The 69-year-old Lynnwood-based author and first-class raconteur still has a lot to say. He’s published four novels since aortic dissection surgery left him with a titanium heart valve six years ago and has plans for more. But he’s just not sure he wants to deal with the business of fiction publishing anymore after having a hard time finding a buyer for “The Unfinished Land,” eventually published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt imprint John Joseph Adams Books.
“If I had written it and no one wanted to publish it, what would I do right at that point?” Bear said. “I considered just retiring. And I think I’m still making that decision at this point.”
Catalano reacts: “It’s end-of-days when Greg Bear can’t find a publisher. Ack.”
(7) ENDLESS RIVER. “Doctor Who’s River Song Alex Kingston writes new novel” – Radio Times has the story.
… Alex Kingston is releasing a brand new River Song novel, taking the popular companion on a brand new adventure.
The book, entitled The Ruby’s Curse, promises to tell a thrilling story set in New York in 1939, featuring both River Song and her alter-ego Melody Malone. It is Alex Kingston’s first foray into writing Doctor Who fiction, following in the footsteps of Tom Baker, whose story Scratchman follows the escapades of the Fourth Doctor….
“Having absolutely no idea of the journey I would be taking with River Song when I first uttered those words, “Hello Sweetie,” I cannot begin to express how excited I am to be able to continue not only River, but Melody’s adventures on the written page,” she says.
(8) MEMORY LANE.
- 1961 — Sixty years ago at Seacon in Seattle, A Canticle for Leibowitz, a fix-up of three short stories published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, written by Walter M. Miller, Jr. wins the Hugo for Best Novel. It was published by J. B. Lippincott. Other nominees that year were The High Crusade by Poul Anderson, Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys, Deathworld by Harry Harrison and Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon. Surprisingly this is the only award this novel won.
(9) BLACKBURN OBIT. Graphic designer “Bruce Blackburn, Designer of Ubiquitous NASA Logo, Dies at 82” reports the New York Times. He died February 1 at the age of 82,
…In 1975, NASA introduced the worm, a sleek sequence of winding red letters, and the logo quickly became a tangible symbol of a boundless space age that lay ahead.
“We did get what we set out to accomplish,” Mr. Blackburn said. “Anybody we showed it to immediately said, ‘Oh I know what that is. I know them. They’re really great. They’re right on the leading edge of everything.’”
But in 1992, a few years after the Challenger explosion, NASA dropped the worm and revived the meatball in a decision that was said to be intended to improve company morale.
Mr. Blackburn and other designers lamented the choice. “They said, ‘This is a crime. You cannot do this,’” he said. “‘This is a national treasure and you’re throwing it in the trash bin.”
“His design sensibility was offended by what happened,” his daughter said. “He thought the meatball was clumsy and sloppy and not representative of the future.”…
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
- Born February 19, 1923 – Alan Hunter. Fan and pro artist; founded the Fantasy Art Society (U.K.); fifty covers, three hundred fifty interiors, for Banana Wings, Dream, Fantasy Tales, Matrix, Nebula, New Worlds, SF Chronicle, Vector, the Millennium Philcon Program Book (59th Worldcon), the LoneStarCon 3 Program Book (71st Worldcon). Artist Guest at Fantasycon 1981. Here is the Spring 53 Nebula. Here is an interior from the Mar 53 New Worlds. Here is an interior from Dream. Here is the Oct 86 SF Chronicle. Here is Vector 112. Here is Banana Wings 38. Our Gracious Host’s appreciation here. (Died 2012) [JH]
- Born February 19, 1937 — Terry Carr. Well-known and loved fan, author, editor, and writing instructor. I usually don’t list awards both won and nominated for but his are damned impressed so I will. He was nominated five times for Hugos for Best Fanzine (1959–1961, 1967–1968), winning in 1959, was nominated three times for Best Fan Writer (1971–1973), winning in 1973, and he was Fan Guest of Honor at ConFederation in 1986. Wow. He worked at Ace Books before going freelance where he edited an original story anthology series called Universe, and The Best Science Fiction of the Year anthologies that ran from 1972 until his early death in 1987. Back to Awards again. He was nominated for the Hugo for Best Editor thirteen times (1973–1975, 1977–1979, 1981–1987), winning twice (1985 and 1987). His win in 1985 was the first time a freelance editor had won. Wow indeed. Novelist as well. Just three novels but all are still in print today though I don’t think his collections are and none of his anthologies seem to be currently either. A final note. An original anthology of science fiction, Terry’s Universe, was published the year after his death with all proceeds went to his widow. (Died 1987.) (CE)
- Born February 19, 1963 — Laurell K. Hamilton, 58. She is best known as the author of two series of stories. One is the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter of which I’ll confess I’ve read but several novels, the other is the Merry Gentry series which held my interest rather longer but which I lost in somewhere around the sixth or seventh novel when the sex became really repetitive. (CE)
- Born February 19, 1946 – Rosemary Ullyot, age 75. Early member of the Ontario SF Club. Fanzine Kevas & Trillium with Alicia Austin and Maureen Bournes. “Kumquat May” column in Energumen. Twice finalist for Best Fanwriter. [JH]
- Born February 19, 1957 – Jim Rittenhouse, age 64. Founded Point of Divergence, alternative-history apa. Guest of Honor at DucKon 12, Windycon 32. Judge of the Sidewise Award. Has read As I Lay Dying, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Suetonius’ Twelve Caesars, Adam Bede, Lolita, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “Why do I like fountain pens? The smoothness and ease of writing, the clarity and solidity of the line, the profound coloring and the strong saturation of the ink.” [JH]
- Born February 19, 1964 — Jonathan Lethem, 57. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a weird mix of SF and detective fiction, is fantastic in more ways that I can detail briefly here. I confess that I lost track of him after that novel so I’d be interested in hearing what y’all think of his later genre work particularly his latest, The Arrest. (CE)
- Born February 19, 1966 — Claude Lalumière, 55. I met him once here in Portland at a used book store in the the SFF section, and his wife wrote reviews for Green Man once upon a year. Author, book reviewer and editor who has edited numerous anthologies including two volumes of the excellent Tesseracts series. Amazing writer of short dark fantasy stories collected in three volumes so far, Objects of Worship, The Door to Lost Pages and Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes. Tachyon published his latest anthology, Super Stories of Heroes & Villains. (CE)
- Born February 19, 1968 — Benicio del Toro, 53. Originally cast as Khan in that Trek film but unable to perform the role as he was committed to another film. He’s been The Collector in the Marvel film franchise, Lawrence Talbot in the 2010 remake of The Wolfman, and codebreaker DJ in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Let’s not forget that he was in Big Top Pee-wee as Duke, the Dog-Faced Boy followed by being in Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as Dr. Gonzo which damn well should count as genre even if it isn’t. (CE)
- Born February 19, 1970 – Victor Ehikhamenor, age 51. Writer, visual artist including photography and sculpture. Exhibited in the first Nigerian pavilion at the Venice Biennale (57th Biennale, 2017). Here is I Am Ogiso, the King of Heaven. Here is The Unknowable (enamel & steel), Norval Foundation, Cape Town. Here is Hypnotic Lover. Here is Wealth of Nations, Nat’l Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution. Website. [JH]
- Born February 19, 1973 – Nikki Alfar, age 49. A score of short stories. Three Palanca Awards. Manila Critics’ Circle Nat’l Book Award. Co-editor, Philippine Speculative Fiction. Interviewed in Fantasy. [JH]
- Born February 19, 1984 – Marissa Meyer, age 37. Re-told Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Snow White in the Lunar Chronicles; the first, Cinder, MM’s début, was a NY Times Best-Seller; later Fairest, a prequel. Heartless has the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. Half a dozen more novels, a dozen shorter stories. Introduction to Yolen’s How to Fracture a Fairy Tale. Has confessed to writing (under another name) twoscore pieces of Sailor Moon fanfiction. [JH]
(11) COMICS SECTION.
- Lio is always bizarre – this time it’s even funny.
- Non Sequitur chronicles the Alexa / Siri conspiracy.
- The Flying McCoys reveals that Superman buys outfits off the rack! (When they’re in stock.)
(12) HE’LL BE REMEMBERED. Milton Davis reports the GoFundMe was successful and that the headstone and monument for Charles R. Saunders’ grave have arrived. The grave of famous fantasy writer Charles R. Saunders was without a headstone until friends raised money for it.
(13) REPURPOSED AND FUNNY. [Item by rcade.] The paranormal fantasy novelist Richard Kadrey has been reading some obscure science fiction paperbacks from the golden age of the lurid cover. Authors include Supernova Jackson, Cliff Zoom and Brawny Magnum.
The titles of Kadrey’s novels in his Sandman Slim series would be right at home on a shelf with these classics. They include Kill The Dead, Aloha from Hell, Ballistic Kiss and King Bullet, which comes out in August.
He’s also the founder with cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling of the Dead Media Project, which sought to save obsolete and forgotten forms of media. But it died.
(14) NOT A FAN. Variety’s Caroline Framke is not amused: “’Superman and Lois’ Brings The CW Superhero Brand Back Down to Boring Earth: TV Review”.
…It makes sense on paper for a new show about Superman to fast forward through the stuff that’s been done to death in order to find some new way into the man, the myth, the legend. Why not make him a harried dad juggling apocalyptic threats with teenage boys, one of whom might have the same kind of powers as he does? The CW’s dads are already supernaturally hot, so hey, might as well lean into the brand. (Hoechlin, like Tom Welling before him, does not at all have a Christopher Reeve level of charisma to bring to the role — but to be fair, who does?)
But for all the logical storylines and character journeys that “Superman and Lois” includes, it nonetheless lacks the spark to make any of it very interesting. Despite solid efforts from Tulloch, Garfin, and especially Elsass to bring life to their stiff scenes, these Kents feel more stuck than striking
(15) DO YOU REMEMBER. [Item by Mike Kennedy.[ Hugh freakin’ Jackman does the “announcer guy“ voiceover for a movie teaser… Io9 points to “Reminiscence First Look: The Sci-Fi Mystery Romance Is Out 9/3”. The clip is in Hugh Jackman’s tweet:
[Thanks to Michael Toman, rcade, James Davis Nicoll, John Hertz, Danny Sichel, Jeffrey Jones, Andrew Porter, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Steven H Silver, Frank Catalano, Cat Eldridge, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Chris R.]
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
4) I am so happy the books are available again.
Also, First
Also today is the Birthday of British author Jen Williams
Am I allowed to be depressed about what has happened with Discon III? Or is the only permitted emotion unrivaled joy at a glorious triumph in the cuture war?
Since the purpose of Discon III is to enforce rigid ideological conformity, why should I go to it? (I can get to Discon III on the subway if the convention happens.)
The events around the Isabel Fall story seem to be wandering away from people’s memories of it.
Re: Eggleton’s comment, I’m sure I was under the impression that McGuire being a motivating factor in the Ross thing had been thoroughly debunked on the basis of time zones being a thing. If I’m not misremembering, it may be worth a clarifying note on that section if there’s an easy evidence link around somewhere, given the parties involved.
It was weirdly hard to track down Jen Williams The Winnowing Flame series books in Canada. Two of them won the British Fantasy Award!
Sure. I think it was the right decision and that’s depressing.
That statement is also depressing but for different reasons.
@Martin Where are you seeing people showing “unrivaled joy” ?
This is a tragedy and an avoidable one. I don’t see people cheering in the streets exactly at the course of events.
And I don’t mean avoidable in the sense of Sanford should never have published his piece, either.
@James Same here in the States. Infuriating.
If you’re trying to make people lament that you might not attend, this comment is not getting the job done.
Meredith: You might look at my post about the Ross withdrawal — https://file770.com/loncon-3s-hugo-mc-withdraws/ –and see if anything there points to what you’re trying to find.
Y’all should do yourself a favor and don’t go near Monster Hunters International right now. The lead post, “AN OPEN LETTER TO THE OLD TIME FANS AT WORLDCON” are absolutely vile comments by him and the comments in response are completely disgusting. I read it and my brain still hurts.
@Cat Eldridge
There are only two authors in the world whose books I have sworn off completely after meeting them in person, and in only one of those cases did I trash all of my copies of those books so nobody might accidentally stumble across one in a charity bin and want to buy more, thus giving that author a single thin dime of additional sales. I hope the trash gremlins enjoyed my copies of the Monster Hunter books.
@Mike Glyer
Thanks! I should’ve thought to look, of course you’d have had coverage. Nothing quite as blunt as I wanted, sigh (not any fault of your reporting, it’s just that longform articles written several years ago rarely suit sentence long brief explanations of a thing you happen to want just that second), although certainly where I could find tweet timestamps in a quick pingpong around the internet (specifically, Bleeding Cool’s coverage) it’s really clear that the whole twitter shebang had been going on full steam for roughly six hours by the time of her first tweet.
@Mike V
I once burned a book so it wouldn’t end up on someone’s shelf – it was a genealogy book where the publisher had recalled it. It’s still in print, in a later edition, and still full of errors.
@Cat Eldridge Thanks for the tip, Boss.
Had no plans, but good to know about potential traffic problems, as it were.
Too late!
Larry Correia’s abusive and profane rants are a big reason why it was untenable for DisCon to wait for Toni Weisskopf to take action about Baen’s Bar. His whole shtick is directing rage and hatred towards whatever imagined enemy he has at the moment. Worldcon has been a convenient target for him ever since he became the first person to take an Astounding Award nomination as a grievous personal insult when he didn’t win.
As you’d expect from his over-the-top antagonistic behavior, he has fans who will take that further. One of his commenters is trying to get Jason Sanford fired from his day job and Correia has left that comment up for two days.
This kind of junk increases the temperature for everybody and it’s Correia’s primary contribution to fandom.
Correia couldn’t defend Baen with a rational response to Sanford’s report because there’s no credible defense for allowing that toxic junk to flourish on the forum. Instead Correia wanted as much anger as possible directed towards anybody critical of Baen Books or Weisskopf.
Given that, how much could anybody expect the DisCon board to take from his crowd while Weisskopf deliberated over whether to press Delete on the comment “kill enough of them that they can not arise for another 50 years”?
Clickity
rcade says Given that, how much could anybody expect the DisCon board to take from his crowd while Weisskopf deliberated over whether to press Delete on the comment “kill enough of them that they can not arise for another 50 years”?
Their contemptible excuse is that Baen’s Bar is a just place for generating story ideas and that particular idea was just that. That’s just bullshit. They’re verbally assaulting others. And such language can lead others to physically assault individuals. Given that, it would have been irresponsible for the Discon III Board not to disinvite her.
Larry Correia needs a reality check and a ton of therapy, both of which he won’t ever get willingly. Problem is he surrounds himself with enablers, sycophants or people just as angry as he is. Everyone else he drives away or just insults.
Every one of his “Rants” and “Fisks” reek of projection, paranoia, fear, Imposter Syndrome, and a long line of logical fallacies. Every one of them is also written in this patronizing tone that assumes he is correct from the get go and never seeks to learn.
His profanity I actually don’t mind, except that it undermines whatever point he is trying to make, and whenever he swears at people it makes him look like a man-child. But, a lot of other things he does also makes him look like a man-child with a thin skin and no impulse control.
re: 8) MEMORY LANE.
As far as I can tell from the ISFDB listing for Canticle it’s never been out of print since first published. Pretty impressive.
And the books that lost to it are pretty damn good too.
2) I think David Weber threatening never to attend a Worldcon again is not the threat he thinks it is, though the three somewhat forlorn looking members of the Royal Manticorean Legion who had a fan table in Dublin will be disappointed.
This whole uproar started with the revelation that Baen’s Bar was hosting threats of mass murder and terrorism on a subforum. So Correia responding to this by hosting even more threats in the comments section on his own site is certainly a choice.
Also, Correia’s fans threatening never to buy any Hugo winning book or any book by anybody who attends Worldcon again is also not the threat they think it is, because most of them have made it very clear that they don’t like the sort of books that win Hugos anyway.
Cora Buhlert says Also, Correia’s fans threatening never to buy any Hugo winning book or any book by anybody who attends Worldcon again is also not the threat they think it is, because most of them have made it very clear that they don’t like the sort of books that win Hugos anyway.
Nor do they tend to do Worldcons either. So their threats to boycott Worldcon are utterly meaningless as well. Most of them certainly weren’t going to attend Discon III to hang out with Toni.
@cat eldridge I don’t think that’s true. Larry’s kaffeeklatches at Worldcons he has attended have invariably been sold out and waitlisted. Granted, it’s been a few years, but even still. He’s a popular writer.
Mike V. says to me: I don’t think that’s true. Larry’s kaffeeklatches at Worldcons he has attended have invariably been sold out and waitlisted. Granted, it’s been a few years, but even still. He’s a popular writer.
Well somehow I don’t see a scenario in which he’s going to be at a Worldcon ever again given his current attitude which he is utterly contemptuous of Worldcons and fandom in general.
Am I allowed to be depressed about what has happened with Discon III? Or is the only permitted emotion unrivaled joy at a glorious triumph in the cuture war?
If you think this was a triumph, you misunderstand everything. This was a tragedy. A necessary tragedy. An avoidable tragedy. But a tragedy nonetheless.
And I don’t say that because Discon III should have kept Weisskopf as GoH, but rather because they had to remove her. And they had to remove her because of her decisions.
There were many ways to avoid this, and almost all of them were in Weisskopf’s hands. She could have actually responded to the issues instead of belittling them and resorting to weasel-worded responses that amounted to “I’m not going to actually do anything about this, so go away”.
Once Weisskopf put out her statement in which she made it clear that, in the name of ‘free speech”, she wouldn’t do anything about the commentary the Bar had devolved to in some areas, the decision to remove her was inevitable.
That doesn’t make it a victory. It makes it a loss. For everyone. The only person who could have prevented that was Toni, and she decided not to. In a perfect world, Toni would have acted responsibly and would still be GoH. That she did not, and made it necessary for Discon to take the action it did is sad and disappointing.
Hey, look here, my first scroll title!
As to the actual source of radioactive clicking occurring here… I have bounced off of trying to read Correia’s blog a few times today already. At least Weber can form a coherent sentence, even if I disagree with him.
re 8) Memory Lane:
I can’t think of a single other award which A Canticle For Leibowitz could possibly have won, so it might be equally true to say that it made a clean sweep of all the sf and fantasy awards in the year it was published.
Ok, it missed out on the Pulitzer.
(13) I didn’t realize Kadrey had been involved in the Dead Media Project. Makes me want to dig out the transcript of my January 2000 interview with Bruce Sterling, which briefly touched on DMP and its lessons.
(Also, dangit, I claim partial title credit!)
Good point — too late for the International Fantasy Award, too early for the Nebula.
She didn’t even have to act responsibly; she could have just given the appearance of acting responsibly, and Discon probably would have leapt at the fig leaf.
I like, in a morbidly fascinated kind of way, how Weber’s more outraged over the so-called breach of trust entailed by revoking an invitation than he is by the fact he’s defending a space he shares with crazed lunatics.
But, that aside, he got me thinking along a particular line:
These sorts of things have been posted to the Bar for years. Some of the links in Sanford’s article are from 2014, and contain lots of ugly stuff already. And they were by no means the first warning signs.
Sanford’s article was fairly cursory, but a cursory look was all that was really needed to find this stuff; it’s like turning on a light switch and startling a bunch of roaches. It’s not like you needed to do a deep dive to find any of it.
Kratman, for example, has been publishing with Baen for nearly two decades and has never, ever been shy of communicating quite clearly that he’s a cruelty-obsessed jackass. What he’s posting now is not materially different than any of the other ‘I’m just musing, but wouldn’t be great if you all dropped dead’ turds he has left littered about various internet forums.
So how come WorldCon appears to’ve been caught flatfooted here?
Chuck Gannon says this:
I don’t think that follows. In fact, removing the Bar from view would be, and is, however unintended, a very effective method of stonewalling. It prevents anyone outside Baen from doing further investigation into what violent rhetoric exists and in which forums, including any press who were alerted by Sanford’s article spreading on twitter. It could allow Baen to wait out the current scrutiny and potentially make no changes at all, if they left it long enough before putting the Bar back up – after DisCon had finished, for example, if Weisskopf had handled her statement well enough to stay GoH. It prevents anything similar or worse being posted during the backlash. All of this benefits Baen and Baen’s Bar.
I disagree with Gannon that putting the forum on hiatus is in and of itself proof of good faith effort.
That being said, while I don’t have high hopes for the results of the investigation, although I’ll be happy to eat my words if it does come to something, I believe Weisskopf that the reason for putting the Bar on hiatus was to facilitate the investigation. It’s much easier to investigate a forum frozen in time than the moving target of an active forum.
Otherwise, I’m unimpressed with the double-standard of defending Weisskopf taking the time to investigate while criticising DisCon for taking the time to consider their response and consult members and volunteers. Nothing needed to have changed in 36 hours. DisCon just hadn’t finished working through their process yet – a new and unprecedented process – and that’s perfectly reasonable.
1) RS Benedict references Isabel Fall as a rhetorical flourish a lot, to the point where I am very much losing patience with what appears to be using the terrible harassment of someone to win arguments.
@Kit Harding – Most recently, I believe they tried to claim that gay authors writing fanfic were what drove Fall to attempted suicide, so yeah, that seems to be a favored rhetorical device of theirs, deployed in increasingly baffling situations.
@meredith – Yes, I remember that too—Seanan is PST and Ross was in England. He’d already offered to withdraw by the time she woke up, IIRC
@foamy – I mean, this isn’t about Baen authors, it’s about the Baen forums, which I can readily believe many con runners did not frequent and would not have seen coming. And…well…I realize Kratman is important to Kratman, but does anybody else actually pay attention? Even if they did, I suspect their view might just have been “Poor editor having to deal with his crap, I hope his drafts are cleaner than his comments.”
More generally, I actually agree with the commenter saying that this was a self-own by Weisskopf—if she’d had the good sense to say “Whoa damn I haven’t checked in at the Bar and this has blindsided me, obviously threats of violence are unacceptable, closing Bar to investigate” instead of launching immediately into the Free Speech Chorus, while still closing the bar, things might have gone very differently. But eh, the past is another country and none of us get passports.
@RedWombat
I was having visions of someone mistaking quotation for endorsement again and running off to tell Twitter we’re repeating mean & wrong things about her, but heck if I can find something nice and easy and clear that could be linked adjacent to it to make it clear that it’s not.
OH HANG ON here we go: timeline! – @Mike, if you did want to add something and you don’t think it would muddy the Baen’s Bar coverage up too much I think this would work, it’s much longer than I wanted but it covers the timing.
@RedWombat: Sure, it’s about the Baen forums, but, first the Baen forums are categorized by author, or at any rate they were when I last checked in on them, and those authors basically ran those subforums however they chose. That’s why, say, Eric Flint can probably genuinely claim not to have seen these issues, because they wouldn’t crop up in a forum run by Eric Flint.
And the reverse applies for when you have the I-Write-For-The-Domestic-Terrorist-Demographi sort of author in charge, too.
Secondly, even disregarding that piece, I remind you that Mr. Kratman had one of the most egregious quotes in the Sanford piece that kicked this off — but it wasn’t anything unusual for him. The man’s been expressing those views for a long, long time and it would be naivety bordering on delusion to think they would not be all over a semi-private forum wherein he is treated as the guiding light for acceptable behaviour thereon.
Thirdly, we have statements from people who’ve been on the Bar that they specifically avoid, for example, the politics section. Flint, I believe, has said the last time he went in there was, what, twenty-three years ago? I think that points to how long this has been an issue.
Sanford’s stuff wasn’t anything anyone else couldn’t’ve found out by doing nothing more complicated than registering an account and taking a glance at the right spots. Other people’ve done the same at various times in the past; Sanford even linked to some.
I think what’s made this one land different is that, for once, people are realizing that just because these assholes are, nine times of ten, laughable chickenhawks, they’re also occasionally posting selfies as they riot in the Rotunda. I would be real surprised if “Baen’s Bar is a cesspool”* came as news to people as deeply involved in the SF&F community as a WorldCon committee.
*Yes, not all of the Bar is actively bad. But it’s like siting a cesspool next to your well. The result is that you wind up eating shit.
Weber mentions “placating the mob” and Correia “the baying mob”. I don’t think they mean the violent mob that stormed the Capitol. Nor the folks in Baen’s Bar who were advocating mob violence.
I found my right-wing rhetoric decoder ring and “mob” is what they call an organization that works to the benefit of all, not just the few at the top. For example, “mob rule” is when you let everyone vote. In a funny way, being called a “mob” by right-wingers is kind of a compliment. Except it’s not funny.
@Meredith I agree very much. I think that the closure of the Bar is largely performative. There is no commitment to do anything about the problems – indeed, the problematic content seems set to stay unless it is clearly illegal. I very much suspect that she refused to offer any such commitment to DisCon, too.
Maybe the Rubberised Tire Salesman of the Year Award, assuming a massive balloting error?
(You did say ‘possibly’….)
Re 1).
Wow. I recall being quoted in the reporting on Isabel Fall. I don’t recall anyone driving Isabel Fall to suicide, but maybe I’m being accused of that? I’m not sure.
(3) I lucked out and had no trouble streaming WandaVision last night…
This doesn’t surprise me. I learned to Fan in the same regional fandom as the Baen click. There is a strong taboo against disinviting a Guest of Honor. Related to the strong taboo against airing out the dirty laundry in public. Based on my previous personal interactions with the people involved they are taking it very personally, seeing it as a personal rebuke of someone that they view as family. Which should be understandable to most fans, though the wider community has been doing a lot of soul searching on the limit of that in recent years. They also uphold conservative white Southern ideas of honor which feeds into that becoming toxic. That is what landed them in this whole mess in the first place. Ironically, it’s been their embracing of loud public figures like Larry Correia that has quickened the downfall of those prohibitions. Good riddance.
(8)
I have read the collected work of Walter M. Miller, Jr. (apart from A Canticle for Liebowitz, oddly enough).
It’s entertaining in places, but it’s not great. It had too many women set across men’s knees and spanked, and too many teenaged boys talking like six-year-olds for my taste.
His vision of future cities was funny, in a Richard Scarry sort of way, but I vastly prefer Clifford Simak’s.
@Tom Becker: the right-wing uses “mob” to mean “people who speak up loudly to object to actual mob violence by right-wingers.”
And we’re getting another round of “Freeze Peach! How dare anyone criticize, or even point out, what we’re using that freedom of speech to say!”
@Martin You’re allowed any emotion you wan. It’s the people you’re sympathizing with who think the only allowable emotion is anger, and only at the targets they choose.
(1)
Bob Eggleton? Well. That’s a disappointment.
.
@Paul King,
and shuttung down the forum plays the additional purpose of drawing all of its members into the punishment.
Who did that? Not Discon3.
@Cat Eldridge:
Does anyone else find it odd how hard that crew has tried to graft itself onto “old time fans”?
I recall being bewildered when Sarah Hoyt started slinging around 1940s-era fan slang, as if she were a historical re-enactor at some Greatest Generation event. At the time I presumed she was trying to give winking dog whistles to very old sff fans that here were their true heirs, who knew what “fugghead” and “slan” meant, as opposed to those whippersnapper parvenus with their newfangled attitudes towards sexual mores that would never fit in with the old generation of Walter Breen.
But I was born into fandom and I grew up around very old fans and pros (Walt and Leigh Richmond were honorary grandparents). I know what fandom and the sff world was like back then, and Asimov’s groping harassment and other awful shenanigans aside, it was never the tiny enclave monoculture that crew is trying to claim to be the Only True Heirs to.
Does anyone else find it odd how hard that crew has tried to graft itself onto “old time fans”?
No, not at all. Conservatives have long adhered to the belief that the vast majority of people agree with them, but they were just too cowed to actually speak up, going back to the earliest intonations about the “silent majority”.
If you recall, this was one of the premises behind the Puppy campaigns: No one actually liked who was winning the Hugos, and the Pups represented the silent, suffering majority of “true fans” who agreed with them.
The fact that they are trying to claim that “old timey fans” all agree with them is entirely to be expected. I think that, like with the Puppy campaigns, they will ultimately end up being sorely disappointed (and spin bitter conspiracy theories about how this imagined allied majority was foiled), but it won’t stop them from continuing to spin that fantasy.
@Tom Becker. Thank you; I’d been trying to put my finger on what was bugging me about them decrying the angry Internet mob; off course, it was all of them either supporting a real howling mob on January 6, or playing disingenuous “what about…” games in a less forthright defense if it. (Seriously, I live in Minneapolis, and the Lake Street Target was nothing special. It burning down doesn’t justify storming the freaking the Capitol.)
Re Isabel Fall; they’d almost have to invent her if it hadn’t happened. The one trans sorry they care about; purely a coincidence it’s based off a meme they think is the height of wit.
And David Weber should look at the pattern of who he’s flouncing in support of; Ringo is vile, and I don’t care that he can be charming in person.