(1) MODERATE TO HEAVY PUPPIES. Standback contributes “A Moderate Conversation Re: Sad Puppies”.
So to some extent, this is a sufficient answer to Stephanie’s question. Why is there so much vitriol against the Puppies? Because we’re on the internet, where it doesn’t take a whole lot to escalate an argument over Best Brand of Pasta into virtual knifings…..
To start things off: I would say I understand the core Puppy complaints, and agree with many of them (to varying extents).
I definitely see a shift in the “focus” of the genre, even if I’d be hard-pressed to nail it down to a definition (not unreasonable, in a genre still best-defined as “what we point to when we say it”). The disproportionate influence of particular groups and fandoms has been raised and enthusiastically argued over in the past (e.g. [1] [2] [3]). And I think there’s been a lot of snubbing, condescension and ad-hominem attacks coming from non-Puppies. Which they often don’t notice, or consider justified. (Scott Alexander’s I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup springs to mind, as it so often does.)
I won’t go over the Puppy grievances one by one, but I think I can see where all of them are coming from.
(2) DAN SCHNEIDER VIDEO INTERVIEW #68. Steven H Silver says, “Yesterday, Terry Bisson and I were interviewed for a podcast about Alternate History. If you want to hear what I would sound like recording on an Edison cylinder, I imagine this is pretty much it.”
(3) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman’s third episode of his Eating the Fantastic podcast is now live, with guest Bill Campbell.
Bill opened up about many things, including the genius of Samuel R. Delany, how Rosarium’s first book Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond gave birth to a new publishing company, the challenges of crowdfunding creative projects, why he was once blacklisted at a convention, and many other topics which I hope you’ll find as fascinating as I did.
Episode four, coming in two weeks, will feature writer Tom Doyle.
(4) REQUESTING MORE CONTENTS, FEWER TABLES. Black Gate continues its Hartwell tribute with “The Books of David G. Hartwell: Visions of Wonder and The Science Fiction Century”. I’m all in favor of paying tribute to Hartwell, I’d just like to see more in these posts than the reprinted tables of contents of his collections.
(5) NAMING CONVENTIONS. Michael J. Walsh observes what a well-Cultured sense of humor Elon Musk displayed in naming his ships.
By January 2016, a total of three ASDSs have been refitted. The first ASDS, named Just Read the Instructions (JRtI), was converted from a barge in late 2014 and was deployed in January 2015 during the CRS-5 cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station in order to provide a landing platform for a test flight of the returning booster stage. It was used for two landing tests through April 2015, and by June 2015, was retired as an ASDS.[1] The second ASDS, named Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), was converted from a much-newer deck barge and became operational in June 2015 to support a landing test on the CRS-7 mission.
(6) CRADLE OF SF’S GOLDEN AGE. Robert A. Heinlein’s birthplace in Butler, MO has been listed for sale. The asking price is $97,500.
Geo Rule says “The Heinlein Society will gladly accept a six figure donation to purchase it and turn it into a museum, if you’re feeling generous as well. Well, maybe seven figure to turn it into a museum…”
Lou Antonelli takes a selfie at Heinlein’s birthplace.
(7) STATHOPOULOS EXHIBITION. Rejects! The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a retrospective of portraits by famed Australian painter Nick Stathopoulos , runs March 28-April 15 at Project 504 Studio in St. Leonards (Sydney). Stathopoulos is a 10-time Ditmar Award winner, who also was a 1999 Hugo nominee in the Best Professional Artist category.
(8) NANCY REAGAN OBIT. Former First Lady Nancy Davis Reagan died today, March 6, at the age of 95. Like her spouse, she had an acting career prior to living in the White House, which included a role in the genre movie Donovan’s Brain. The movie was based on a 1942 horror novel by Curt Siodmak who, showing what a small world it is, lived in those days not far from Robert A. Heinlein’s home on Laurel Canyon.
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- Born March 6, 1906 — Lou Costello. “Abbott and Costello Meet… have to be some of the best monster movies,” says John King Tarpinian.
- Born March 6, 1928 – William F. Nolan
William F. Nolan, Forrest J Ackerman, and Ray Bradbury.
(10) ACE OF HORROR. SF Signal has “5-Time Bram Stoker Winner Jonathan Maberrry on His Prolific Career”
CARL SLAUGHTER: Which of your novels is being adapted by hollywood?
JONATHAN MABERRY: I’m fortunate to have several of my projects in development for film and television. My Joe Ledger thrillers are being developed by Lone Tree Entertainment and Vintage Picture Company as a possible series of movies, likely beginning with Extinction Machine, the 5th in the series. And my vampire apocalypse series, V-Wars, is headed to TV, with a brilliant script by former Dexter head writer, Tim Schlattmann. Several other properties, including Rot & Ruin, The Pine Deep Trilogy, and others, are being discussed.
CS: How long and how hard is the journey to the screen?
JM: Like most writers I’ve coasted the edges of the Hollywood experience for years. There are some frustrations, of course, but that’s part of the game. For example, back on 2007 I co-created a show for ABC-Disney called On the Slab, which was a horror-sci fi-fantasy news program. Disney paid us to develop it and write a series bible and sample script; and then there was a change of management in the department that purchased it. Suddenly the project was orphaned and therefore dead in the water. Another time producer Michael DeLuca (Blade, Magnolia) optioned the first Joe Ledger novel, Patient Zero, on behalf of Sony, who in turn took it to ABC, who hired Emmy Award-winning TV writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (Lost) to write a pilot. Then after we’d gone a long way toward seeing it launch they decided instead to focus on the reboot of Charlie’s Angels, which flubbed badly. That’s Hollywood. I don’t take this stuff personally, though. And I never lost my optimism.
(11) FRIENDSHIP CALCULUS. Adam-Troy Castro explains “How To Remain My Friend When You Really Hate My Friend”.
I guarantee you, if I am close to Friend X, I know that “Asshole” is part of his Venn Diagram. As it is part of mine. As it is part of yours. I have clearly already made my personal calculations and decided that his other aspects are more important. I may someday change my mind. But it is my mind to change, based on whatever passes between me and Friend X; possibly even depending on what I see Friend X do to Friend Y. But you, who have had a different experience with Friend X, and therefore a different reaction, cannot win this argument with me using words, no matter how eloquently you express everything you find objectionable about him. It is, however, very possible for you to lose it. You can become a bore. You can become a scold. You can just become the distasteful person who always feels obligated to piss on my pal; the guy who gives me the impression that nothing will satisfy him until I start pissing on my pal too. That makes YOU the shithead.
(12) VIRUS WITH A LIBRARY. Nature reports “CRISPR-like ‘immune’ system discovered in giant virus”.
Gigantic mimiviruses fend off invaders using defences similar to the CRISPR system deployed by bacteria and other microorganisms, French researchers report. They say that the discovery of a working immune system in a mimivirus bolsters their claim that the giant virus represents a new branch in the tree of life.
Mimiviruses are so large that they are visible under a light microscope. Around half a micrometre across, and first found infecting amoebae living in a water tower, they boast genomes that are larger than those of some bacteria. They are distantly related to viruses that include smallpox, but unlike most viruses, they have genes to make amino acids, DNA letters and complex proteins.
(13) TO BOLDLY BUILD WHAT NO MAN HAS BUILT BEFORE. Collider explains why “NASA Has Designed a Warp Ship Inspired by ‘Star Trek’s Enterprise”.
When does science-fiction become science fact? Throughout various mediums over the last few centuries, we’ve seen early versions of concepts that would eventually become a reality. Sometimes these portrayals are pretty far off base (still waiting on those flying cars), while other times they feel downright prescient. But in the case of Star Trek and one particular engineer at NASA, science-fiction actually informed science fact, with NASA engineer and physicist Harold White now actively working on a space ship that would allow travel faster than the speed of light—or, for the Star Trek inclined, warp speed.
White announced this idea a few years ago, with the concept seeking to allow travel faster than the speed of light by literally expanding space-time behind the object and contracting space-time in front of it. In reality, the object doesn’t “go fast,” but instead takes advantage of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity to move between space-time.
If your head has yet to explode, sit tight—in concert with White, designer Mark Rademaker has now created a CGI design concept of the ship that would operate using this theory, which they have aptly named the IXS Enterprise. Per Rademaker in an interview with the Washington Post, the idea behind the concept art serves two purposes: to visualize their idea, and to inspire burgeoning young scientists
(14) PAGING HUGO NOMINEES. George R.R. Martin knows it’s “Nomination Time”. His short fiction recommendation is a needle in a small Venusian haystack.
Last year, however, these three categories were among those most impacted by Puppygate. The slates dominated all three, sweeping the board and shutting out all other work. In the novelette category, a disqualification allowed one non-Puppy nominee to squeeze onto the ballot, and that story ultimately won. In novella and short story, fans unhappy with the choices presented them voted No Award. Understandably, IMNSHO… still, it was not a happy ending. There was some wonderful and powerful work published in these categories in 2014, and it was a shame that none of it could be recognized. (I was proud and pleased to present Alfie Awards to Ursula Vernon for “Jackalope Wives” in short story, and to Patrick Rothfuss for “The Slow Regard of Silent Things” in novella… but we all know that an Alfie is not a Hugo, and in an ordinary year both Vernon and Rothfuss would surely have been contending for a rocket).
That’s last year, however. No amount of rehashing can change what happened. The important thing is to see that it does not happen again. And to that end, it behooves all of us to nominate the short stories, novelettes, and novellas that we enjoyed most last year… to share our thoughts with our friends… to shout our recommendations from the rooftops. Let’s make sure this year’s shortlists truly represent the best of what was published in 2015.
As to my own recommendations…
Ah, there I hit a problem. I am not making any recommendations in these categories. Problem is, I have a conflict of interest. As a writer I did not publish any original short fiction in 2015, true. As an editor, however… well, Gardner Dozois and I co-edited an anthology called OLD VENUS that came out last year, and in my (admittedly less than objective) view, that book contained several stories that are worthy of Hugo nominations, and one that is so bloody brilliant that I think it stands right up there with any story that ever won the Hugo.
I really can’t tell you which one it is, however. Or the names of the other stories in the book that I think worthy of consideration. Look, Gardner and I liked all the stories we included in OLD VENUS. If we hadn’t, we would not have purchased them (and we do reject stories for every one of our anthologies). But we’d be lying if we said we liked all of them equally. There are stories Gardner liked more than I did; there are stories I liked more than Gardner did; there are stories both of us loved, loved, loved. As editors, however, it would be unethical for us to say which were which in public. Just as parents need to maintain devoutly that they love all their children equally and have no favorites, it behooves the ethical editor to take a similar stance toward the stories they purchase and publish.
(15) GIVING KATE A HELPING PAW. Steve Davidson hated to let go to waste the effort he invested on a comment I deleted here the other day. It now has manifested as “Puppy See, Puppy Do-Do” at Amazing Stories.
Kate Paulk recently closed the comments (at the beginning of March) so that they could be compiled and a final list composed.
It’s a little late in the game, especially considering that nominators are kinda expected to read and be familiar with works they’re going to recommend (but that isn’t necessarily an impediment for organized voting), so we’ve decided to help them out a bit and give them a hand up.
We started with one of the most visible categories – Best Novel. The following list contains all of the individual works mentioned in the comments. We did not verify eligibility (although most, if not all of the works seems to meet that criteria). When judging whether or not someone recommended something, we took “Plus 1” and “Me Too” to count for a “vote”. If someone talked about a work but didn’t expressly indicate that it was something they were going to nominate, we didn’t count it.
If a “top ten” is going to be compiled, it’s pretty obvious from the counts below what we should see on the Sad Puppy IV Slate. It will be interesting to see how the final list compares.
(16) HAMMER EMCEE RAPPED. Marie Porter has some feedback for masquerade emcees, triggered by a recent bad example of the art.
I want to talk about Emcees for convention ?#?cosplay masquerades.
It feels like almost every masquerade we’ve competed in, judged, or watched – with maybe 1-2 exceptions – has had an emcee that behaves in a manner that I find disrespectful to the competitors.
As a general thing, it usually comes in the form of trying to be “entertaining”, and basically comes off like this emcee has an audience, that they are the STAR of the show, and the competitors are basically props to them. They feed off the laughs, which they try to obtain by any means necessary.
A lot of the time, it happens by cracking rude and unnecessary jokes while introducing the competitor, as the competitor leaves the stage, etc.
When it happens, it feels like the emcee has lost sight of what the show is actually about – showcasing the hard work of the competitors. It’s not the “emcee show”, no matter how much they would like to think it is.
Tonight, a few things happened that still have me mad, so let me describe it to demonstrate what I’m saying.
A friend of mine was competing in the beginner category, in a costume she SLAVED over – a Steampunk Lady Thor. I watched her build progress – she put a ton of work into it, and she had every reason to be proud of it.
As she was on stage – being judged, mind you – the emcee talked *over her provided audio* to say – and I quote
“She could hammer me any time”.
She looked horrified, and – quite frankly – like she wanted to murder the guy. Rightly so, IMHO. She basically had all of her hard work diminished into a sexual joke. It was degrading and objectifying, and had no place happening. SHE WAS COMPETING, during PERFORMANCE judging. Can you imagine being shocked by something like that, after all that work?
This is a Facebook link to video of the emcee’s “hammer” line. You can see it for yourself.
(17) UNLOOTED LOOT? Nile Magazine wonders if someone blabbed: “It is full of treasures… the discovery of the 21st century”.
Tantalising news about the ‘secret chamber’ in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
“We do not know if the burial chamber is Nefertiti or another woman, but it is full of treasures.” – Egypt’s Tourism Minister, Hisham Zaazou.
It seems that some secrets are too good to keep. Is this a phenomenal leak about what lays beyond the false wall in Tutankhamun’s tomb? Is it speculative wishful thinking? Or is this a clever boost for badly-needed tourism?
Mr. Zaazou claims that the announcement of what lays inside the secret chamber will be made in April. “It will be a ‘Big Bang’ – the discovery of the 21st century.”
To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of the news that has wafted out of Egypt via Spain in the past 24 hours. The Spanish national daily newspaper, ABC, claims that Egypt’s Tourism Minister, Hisham Zaazou, who was in Spain a few weeks ago, confirmed that there is “treasure” in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
(18) OLD NEWS IS GOOD NEWS. Shortly after Ray Bradbury died in 2012, Jessica Allen wrote a retrospective for Maclean’s about the Bradbury stories Maclean’s had published, in “Here’s to you, Ray Bradbury”. Her article was adorned with photos of the title page art, including a notable typo in the credit for his contribution to Maclean’s September 15, 1948 edition.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Michael J., Walsh, Steven H Silver, Lis, Andrew Porter, and Will R. for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day IanP.]
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(1) middleweight pups
I think it’s important to remember that the “vitriol” also gets distorted and exgaggerated when reported within a closed group. Especially as several puppies have built themselves up as martyrs for the cause (or saviors in the case of VD).
RDF: Who is this person that does not understand the lures of unspreadsheeted data?
I was showing an understanding of the lures and also the bad places they can take you. I’ve been hurt badly by going beyond spreadsheeting data and creating relational databases because what could it hurt. Turns out it can hurt lots of people and put jobs in jeopardy or impact salaries or hurt people/causes in many unexpected ways. Whatever the outcome it wasn’t the intention too many times. Think of possible consequences before geeking out with data.
I’ve learned techniques to keep myself from going down those dark ways when I suspect I might end up using my power for evil. I shared a variety of those techniques.
@Stevie,
You’re most welcome! 😉
[File770 is one of them mixed blessings that gets you coming & going: not only do you get less time to read because of time spent here, but at the same time your Mt. TBR rises due to fiction recommended by Filers.]
@Tasha Turner,
I know the Campbell anthology had been mentioned previously, but I hadn’t seen* mention the announcement that the anthology is now available. So, signal boosted!
*Keeping up with File770 comments is non-trivial these days, even in the year 5006 with all the brain-mod tech available.
@microtherion
I’d have thought diversity of appearance, age etc would be a given in Mianaai’s position. It would make them much more difficult to target. Some diversity in genetics (if feasible in universe) would be ideal to stop anyone getting ideas about targeted pathogens and the like….
@Dann665
I’m pretty sure they made a call for submissions, and then based their decision off whether it was included in the Campbell-eligible wiki at… I forget the URL, but it’s in there somewhere. They asked authors to get themselves added to the wiki if they weren’t already.
Still a filter, though a passive one, as eligible authors would have had to know to submit.
I’ve seen you talk about de Castelle before. Do you know if he’s got any short stories or novellas up online? I did find an excerpt of his first novel:
http://www.tor.com/2014/06/02/traitors-blade-excerpt-sebastien-de-castell-us-release/
Checking it out now…
@Mike Glyer – I’ve wondered if there were other characters who, if I’d been paying more attention, I might’ve known or guessed their gender. At some point when I have time to re-read things the Ancillary series will be up there on the list. I suspect the bits that seemed slow will be a lot more interesting the second time around, when I’m not in a hurry to see how the plot works out.
ETA @Brian Z, I think you’re embedded quite firmly in File770. However you may prefer it, you’re a Filer in my head. (winky smiley)
@Soon Lee: Keeping up with File770 comments is non-trivial these days, even in the year 5006 with all the brain-mod tech available.
I don’t know how any of us keep up with the comments. The 2/24/16 thread almost broke 900 comments and was going strong up to March 4th. Thank goodness most threads aren’t that active or contentious*.
Recent threads have seemed comparatively reasonable weighing in at under 200 comments per pixel scroll. But if you miss a few days catching up is hard.
*lets not revisit the thread or it’s topics it was an easy example of how hard it is to keep up around here.
Greg Hullender on March 7, 2016 at 12:11 pm said:
Huh. I was rather disappointed at the lack of real conflict, but still found it a breeze to read. If anything, I was a little disappointed at how quickly I blew through it. (Which, I admit, does sound a bit like the classic restaurant complaint: “the food’s not very good, and the portions are too small.”) Overall, I think I liked it, though I’m still mulling.
I think Lois may have a point. Yes, it’s full of references to events in other works, but Cordelia’s attitudes, approaches, and solutions to things may be far more revelatory if you’re not already familiar with the way she thinks. If you are, it all seems a bit blindingly obvious. So it might well work better overall if you’re not familiar with the backstory.
The emcee sat down at the table next to us, as we all exchanged LOOKS. It was super uncomfortable.
He started talking about how someone came up to him about the hammer comment, and he apologized, but “well I made OTHER hammer jokes during rehearsal, and that was OK…”, and TOTALLY made it sound like she was OK with it.
I wonder if the emcee got all hir ideas about the job from watching TV, where the emcee can be a major part of the entertainment, and never bothered to find out what was actually wanted.
@kathodus
I’ve not seen any short fiction from Sebastien. However, he is quite friendly via a couple of channels, so I’ll have to ask. I did find that he has something in “The Book of Emissaries” that was edited by Emily Skaftun. It was released in January 2016.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28758027-the-book-of-the-emissaries
His Greatcoats series scratches my particular SFF itch in a way that is thoroughly satisfying.
—-
Not sure if I mentioned it in the past, but I did finish Dinosaur Lords. Left me with a ‘meh’ feeling. Not bad, not great, not really interested in book 2 either. It had some promise, but missed the mark, IMHO.
Regards,
Dann
(1) I went to Standback’s post, and while it was decent, I disagreed with a fair number of his points. The interesting thing is that even though he only has a few comments on his post, they are generally intelligent. Then I went back over the Stephanie S’s post, and her comment section is a sewer of rampant stupidity.
That, I think, encapsulates the difference between the Puppies and the non-Puppies.
@Xtifr (speaking about “Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen”)
Warning: I’m not using ROT13 here on the grounds that there can’t be spoilers for a story that has no plot. Skip this if you haven’t read the novel and have doubts about that claim.
It’s possible that reading hundreds of short stories and reviewing them has twisted the way I read all fiction. 🙂 With any story, I’m not comfortable until I’m sure I know who the protagonist is and what he/she is trying to accomplish. If I reach the end without an answer to those questions, then it’s a 2-star story at most on the grounds of “no plot.”
Across the whole book, the only thing that you could call plot was that Oliver was conflicted about Cordelia and about his and Aral’s children. Except he’s not really conflicted. He knows exactly what he wants. He just embarrassed to tell anyone, even with Cordelia assuring him that no one will care. Sure enough, no one does. (The bit at the end about a possible promotion comes too late to qualify.)
So I found it a tedious exercise in reading scene after scene where it seemed clear nothing was going to advance the plot (heck, nothing was going to initiate the plot). Even after I got about 40% in and I realized there never was going to be a plot, I wasn’t able to relax and just enjoy it.
Note that I don’t insist that the plot be about changing the world. I can be perfectly happy with a story that’s simply about the protagonist learning to be happy with his/her lot in life. But there has to be something. In “Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen” I never found anything.
Someone mentioned Kyra and her brackets yesterday (I think it was yesterday) and I realized that I haven’t seen any posts from her lately. It’s certainly possible I missed them (brain like a sieve) but… The last thing I recall seeing was a discussion of Rainbow Rowell around February 20-ish.
@Aaron
Actually I think it’s just because it’s very, very hard to leave a comment on Standback’s post. The greater the barrier to leaving a comment (especially if there are id requirements) the more careful people seem to be about the things they say. (And the fewer comments you get at all.)
Greg Hullender said:
Odd, I’d expect that to need superego requirements.
Actually I think it’s just because it’s very, very hard to leave a comment on Standback’s post.
Is it that hard? You just have to have a Facebook, Twitter, or Google account.
In any event, Stephanie S.’s comment section isn’t unusual for the Puppies. Pretty much any Puppy-oriented blog has a comments section that is overrun by conspiracy theory thinking, ill-logic, irrationality, and outright stupidity. The comment section on Torgersen’s blog is like that. The comment section on Correia’s blog is like that. The comment section on JCW’s blog is like that. The comment section on the MGC blog is like that. I have yet to see a Puppy-oriented blog that had comments that weren’t overrun with the distilled expression of idiocy.
Scroll, Pixelfan, Scroll….
(h/t The Congos)
I may be late to the party, having missed the last few days of Pixel Scrolls, but I wanted to note that a tweet from @Jim Henley was featured on the blog of Brad DeLong, noted economist and SF fan:
https://twitter.com/UOJim/status/706163387894505472
I would be one melon collie baby if I didn’t mention that those reading the article JH linked will find the tone and arguments familiar, especially if you peruse the articles it in turn links (for example, one to the Ur-saga of Brendan “Filers Say ‘Who?'” Eich). Yes, the PC devils made them do it!
Aaron: A pattern that enhances the extremes is that a couple of hypertrolls can be counted on to appropriate others’ statements to their own ends — by agreeing and amplifying in ways all out of proportion to the intent of the original maker. If you practice disregarding some of that behavior it makes the non-idiotic content of other comments easier to discern.
Brian Z: You’re a filer. You post here regularly. As far as I know there’s no other criteria. We do have a few trolls that come close to being filers despite being trolls, but I don’t feel in good conscience like anyone can say they aren’t filers until Mike puts them in moderation.
I was on a mobile device and was required to add a new app in order to post a comment to Standback’s page. I declined to do that, so commented in file 770 instead.
Commenting on Stephanie S.’s page is theoretically possible except it has that horrible interface that freezes up if you try to edit something you typed higher up in the comment box. So I gave up. Looking at the nature of her comments section I am just as glad it worked out that way.
Puppies gonna Pup and part of Pupping appears to be feeling like it’s okay for their side to say and do absolutely anything (Theodore Beale’s and JCW’s well known comments apparently included) but awful for anyone else to point out how they are acting. Stephanie seems to be no exception to this rule. I… am obviously poorly equipped to get to a moderate conversation from that but I hope Standback will do better.
Regarding Gentleman Jole it seemed to me to be a ebznapr. Gur cybg vf zbivat cnegyl ol eriryngvba nf jr pngpu hc ba cnfg riragf jr unira’g unq gur evtug ivrjcbvag gb frr orsber, naq cnegyl ol Wbyr’f tebjgu nf n crefba nf ur punatrf uvf eryngvbafuvcf jvgu Pbeqryvn, uvf wbo, naq uvf irel cynarg, naq rzonexf ba n arj eryngvbafuvc jvgu puvyqera.
I think viewed in those terms it is successful and I enjoyed it very much. YMMV.
@Mike Glyer – I went back to the original post Stephanie made, and I think Standback’s contributions to the comments are an exceptional example of this. They’ve got their own James May over there in Fail Burton (may be May, for all I know), and it’s interesting to see how much better the conversation goes if you mostly don’t respond to wall-of-text rantings about intersectional lesbian feminists destroying all we hold dear, and white men are the true victims of racism, and etc., and etc..
You’re doing a great job, Stanback. I wish you and Stephanie the best of luck.
@Aaron
No, that wasn’t sufficient. You have to get “verified” (or “validated” or something like that. It was quite a chore.)
As Mike points out, though, if you pay attention to the names of the people posting, it often turns out to just be two or three trolls. If you ignore them and all responses to them, things look more reasonable. On Stephanie’s page, I think there’s just one guy to ignore (think “Epic Fail”) and suddenly the whole thing looks far more reasonable.
Standback provides a lot of food for thought. What’s the right thing to do going forward? Trying to engage them constructively is clearly very hard to do. My hat is off to you, Standback: answering a long, mendacious rant with a simple reply of “Would it surprise you to learn that they don’t see it that way?” was brilliant.
Except for BrianZ (who’s clearly made of fireproof material) I’ve only seen one puppy try to seriously engage anyone in the comments here on File 770 recently, and so many people heaped so much abuse on him so fast that he was gone pretty quickly. A pity, because he’d offered the fact that the puppies had done some bad things; he might have been reachable.
Maybe we should all try Standback’s approach in the future. Instead of denouncing a visiting puppy as a liar, just reply with something as mild as “We don’t see it that way, though.” Or pick a bit to quote and ask something like “Why do you think this, though?”
That sure would be hard to do. Maybe that’s evidence it’s the right thing, though.
Campbell Anthology: Here is the tale of contents.
Three days ago Mark-kitteh, JJ, and I were swapping recommendations on where to start in those 8000 pages. To the authors I mentioned then, I will add Nin Harris, who has a pair of imperfect but interesting stories about very complicated relations between humans and bunian (supernatural inhabitants of the Malay archipelago). The second of those stories is an example of fantasy-with-spaceships, taking place after the bunian have gone off-planet and developed spacecraft, cyborgs, etc. with technology fueled by sakti. The heart of the two stories is uneasy power relations and mutual dependence between human and bunian.
@Greg – I also think Puppies and non-Puppies are speaking different languages that just happen to include the same vocabulary and grammar, which makes it very difficult to communicate about controversial subjects sans flamewar.
Brian Z on March 7, 2016 at 8:48 am said:
Of course you are, Brian. You may be a troll some days but you’re our troll.
Dann: I do think this is a reasonable example of filtering in action. There are 120 authors in this curated collection. How many other equally talented…or perhaps with superior talents….authors are there that simply failed to come to the attention of the curators?
It’s a “self-promotion” filter in action. Authors had to submit themselves and their works for inclusion in the anthology. So any eligible author who didn’t know about it, or who didn’t feel comfortable promoting themselves in this way, won’t be in it.
I mentioned in a previous thread that there are a lot of Campbell-eligible authors which are not in the Up-And-Coming sampler; right now, only 2 of the 7 authors on my Campbell nomination shortlist are in it.
Becky Chambers
Andy Weir
Scott Hawkins
C.A. Higgins
Natasha Pulley
Carrie Patel
S.L. Huang
Two of the people above are only on the the Writertopia page of Campbell-eligible authors because I asked the moderators to add them and provided evidence of eligibility.
So, yes — nominators should check the Writertopia page of Campbell-eligible authors when filling out their ballot.
@kathodus
Not sure I agree. I think the root of it is that they have a single, core belief that’s 99% false but which they cling to like grim death. Communication isn’t the problem; it’s that they disregard anything that doesn’t support that core belief.
They’re convinced that modern America has become a place where an innocent person has a serious risk of being destroyed by bullies who are pretending to be protecting minority groups. For whatever reason, they believe that’s happening in SFF, and they see participating in the Puppies as a way to fight back.
I’ve even see the bullying they’re talking about, but I think it’s very, very rare by comparison to the abuse that’s dealt out to minorities. I think they’ve read a couple of horror stories and blown them out of proportion. Or flipped out over one or two very silly blog posts from people no one else ever heard of. Or maybe someone really did say something to them online, but someone badmouthing you on the internet is very different from facing real abuse in real life.
Regardless, their determination to hold onto that belief in the face of all evidence is what makes communication with them so difficult. The same problem exists if you try to communicate with a climate-change denier, an evolution denier, or (on the other side), someone who thinks GMOs are inherently unsafe or someone who believes nuclear power is inherently unsafe. (Or an anti-vaxxer, for that matter.) We’re just seeing a little piece of what I’m coming to think of as the great social challenge of our time.
In the Campbell collection, there are quite a lot of authors who participated in Samuel Peralta’s “Future Chronicles” series of anthologies (along with a few self-published authors who seem to belong to that same social circle). If Peralta contacted them and let them know they could submit stories, that’d be good; a beginning author likes to have their editor looking out for them. That said, I’ve never read or heard of a single one of those authors. I might be convinced to give some of them a chance if I found some recommendations.
@Cat Props for saying that.
@Standback Just went and read Stephanie’s piece as well, plus the comments. Hats off to you for kicking off a very productive discussion.
Vasha: I might be convinced to give some of them a chance if I found some recommendations.
Likewise. I’m sure that the quality of the Campbell sampler is highly-variable, so I’m using Filer recommendations to decide which entries to read.
Dann665
I have commented favourably on Sebastien de Castell’s work here on File770, and, as you can see, have not been cast forth into the outer darkness for doing so.
Nobody has jumped up and down and told me that he is unworthy, nobody has suggested that he should not be considered because they don’t like his politics, whatever his politics may be, in short, nobody has behaved as if File770 exists in a vacuum which can only be filled by people curating 8403 pages to be delivered into our welcoming arms.
Indeed, its arrival was not met with unreserved joy, though I admit that I was the only one who referred to call[ing] down the rage of particularly psychotic war gods on [the] head of the person who linked to all 8403 pages, and I decided against it.
Rather than fret about filtering, try doing what I did and recommend the works and writers you like, as I did. And if any dastardly cads want to moan about it there’s a bunch of particularly psychotic war gods raging away, straining at the leash, having come so close, only to have it snatched away, ready, willing and able to come through for you!
As Mike points out, though, if you pay attention to the names of the people posting, it often turns out to just be two or three trolls. If you ignore them and all responses to them, things look more reasonable. On Stephanie’s page, I think there’s just one guy to ignore (think “Epic Fail”) and suddenly the whole thing looks far more reasonable.
Actually, I think it is more like there’s two or three people who are worth reading, and everything else is a parade of stupidity. Fail Burton is especially notable on that page (my favorite was where he claimed that the root cause of many problems in SFF is that Ursula K. Le Guin clearly hates all men), but there are other commenters whining about Scalzi’s “lowest difficulty setting” essay, repeating Beale’s “SJW’s always lie” mantra, and defending Gamergate as a wonderful populist movement of virtue, and so on. Other than you, I can only count two people worth reading in those comments, and everything else is a parade of shit. Trying to get value out of a Puppy comment thread is like panning for gold in your toilet.
I’ve only seen one puppy try to seriously engage anyone in the comments here on File 770 recently, and so many people heaped so much abuse on him so fast that he was gone pretty quickly.
Who was that?
Aaron: Who was that?
I think it was one of the trolls who commented a lot during the height of Puppygate and who pops in a couple of times a month now. Readers who rarely read here would not realize that that person’s reception was based on their past history here at File770.
Lenora Rose, people are bound to confuse us, given the name similarity (or not notice that our names were autocorrected to the other version, as my computer tried to do to your name just now). Should we point it out when it happens, do you think, or keep mum as twins often do?
Thanks for the link Soon Li. I have a wee bit of reading to do. Lets see if any of this knocks out the five nominees I have in mind to submit on my ballot.
Greg
I’m fascinated by the number of assumptions which seem to be embedded in your review; you are most certainly not the only one to be doing so – indeed there are some who seem to believe that marrying off the last named important male character is the obvious end to the series, which makes my brain hurt, but I do wonder: just what part of Miles’ genome were the haut ladies interested in?
Bearing in mind, of course, that the Cetegandans have fought horrific wars to get what they want, I would not put money on that roses twining around the cottage door you seem to be envisaging for Cordelia…
@Aaron
He called himself “Del Rayva,” and you and I both engaged with him constructively for a little while. Then he made a comment about the Sad Puppies being owed an apology, and that was too much for people, many of whom went ad hominem, and he never posted again.
This is where it starts.
https://file770.com/?p=27347&cpage=2#comment-395310
I know nothing else about the guy. He might be Vox Day’s brother for all I know. It just seemed to me at the time that we were actually engaging with him constructively and then suddenly people hooted him out of the forum.
But I’ll admit that that “apology” post burned me up too.
@Stevie
I don’t believe I foresaw anything for Cordelia in the future of the series. I thought I only commented on the content of this one book. Sure you’re not mixing me up with someone else’s comment? 😉
Tasha Turner on March 7, 2016 at 1:28 pm said:
Yeah, I resemble that 😐
I vaguely recall there was some move to keyword-tag each #d item, and to then include said keyword so we didn’t have to scratch our heads (often thereby getting skin flakes etc on the keyboard) “now what was topic #3 again?”
Mike, is there any (easy enough) way to let each #’d item spawn a separate comment trail? Yeah, that means separate comments rather than multiples, and, perhaps a bigger downside, making it harder to snake’s-hand (1) into a different topic(2).
(1) See http://snakeshands.com/
(2) E.g., sic: going back to “why don’t [they] create and give out their own awards?” has somebody already suggested that the [disconsolate young canines] honor the spirit of Mr. Gernsback, and call said awards “the Ralphs”.
And nominees will get a coin with a plus sign on it 🙂
BTW, speaking of asynchrony, the preview is showing that I “said” this on March 4, 2016, at 11:21am, quoting Tasha’s March 7 post. That’s one FTL hoverboard, I guess…we’ll see what actually posts. (Added in after hitting the POST button: what got posted was, sigh, accurate. A shame, I liked the pre-dated one better. Pre-cog blog thoughtcrime, anyone?
Petréa Mitchell:
I think you and I are interpreting the book very differently from each other! Which is fine – but, just to explain my reading a bit more clearly…
[edit] …and assuming we are talking about a quote from the book, and not from an interview with Leckie…
The third-person narrative in the Ancillary series is, to my mind, not “the author’s language” except in the purely technical sense that the author wrote it. The narrative point of view is not Leckie’s, but rather Breq’s–conveying Breq’s observations, filtered through Breq’s assumptions, reflecting Breq’s experience.
So to me, it’s what “baritone” means to Breq, not Leckie, that’s important. Which is to say, to an artificial intelligence that’s seen thousands of disparate cultures and has collected the music, especially the choral music, of all those cultures (along with their undoubtedly very disparate musical terminology), and who has trouble correctly gendering people and who doesn’t assign much importance to gender in the first place. The author chose the word, but she put it in the mouth of a character who probably doesn’t link gender to voice characteristics.
Anyway, like I said, not trying to argue you out of your reading — just trying to better explain mine!
@microtherion:
Now, that I hadn’t thought of. It makes sense, but I do recall that Mianaai’s clones were specifically said to be all genetically identical and thus identical in appearance (if not in age). So once Strigan used a gendered pronoun to refer to Mianaai, I mentally applied it to all of Mianaai’s bodies. But I may have read too much into the cloning thing!
For many of the loudest critics, the answer is – by their own admission – no. They don’t need to read the book, they just know its bad,
Oh yeah, and those people I ignore. It’s now the people who say the book is just about growing tea, or nothing important happens, or the like.
Which is weird, because I see the events as tremendously important for the series as a whole. It explores the problems the Empire has as a fundamental party of its nature, it points out that Breq can’t fix things simply by punishing the guilty and rewarding the innocent…I found it a very intense book.
Scanning the contents of the Campbell collection I only see two authors who work I remember reading. The first is Kelly Robson and the other was Rachael K. Jones. They both have pretty solid stories.
He might be Vox Day’s brother for all I know. It just seemed to me at the time that we were actually engaging with him constructively and then suddenly people hooted him out of the forum.
But that’s not people heaping abuse on him because he showed up and declared he was a Puppy. That’s someone who showed up, got engaged with, and then said something incredibly stupid, at which point people reacted to his stupidity.
@Hal Winslow’s Old Buddy: Thanks for tipping me to Brad D. picking up my humble tweet!
@Greg Hullender
I just reread the comments from your link until his demand for apologies to all SPs. He ignored or insulted everyone but you. If he didn’t like someone’s definition of slate he either ignored, restated it to be “you don’t like us”, or snarked in some way. You may have felt there was a constructive conversation going on but I don’t think most of the other filers participating felt that way based on their comments. It didn’t look constructive to me. He liked your definition because it gave him wiggle room to say SP slates weren’t slates. Not because the conversation was going somewhere and you were getting through to him.
These comments are a repeat from a previous day. I think they were lost in the midst of an EPH war.
Finished rereading Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Bujold. What an amazing book when your not waiting for the crazy adventure to happen. It’s romance but the ending makes it debatable if it fits the genres requirement for HPN or HEA. It’s hard science fiction with genetics except it doesn’t go into enough detail – what exactly is cleaning the genes of defects, biowarfare, learning about new species on planets. It’s science fiction with multiple alien species, space ships, multiple planets. It’s a character study. It’s worldbuidling and backstory and character growth. It’s full of social messages on parenting, on war, on military, on education, on how abuse of power happens, reproduction and associated rights, environmental issues, individual responsibility versus corporate responsibility versus government responsibility, sex at all ages, when do we tell our kids/grandkids things about us, immigration, and more. It’s amazing all the stuff Bujold squeezes into the book.
I’m now reading Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire. The latest in her InCriptid series. Another book which I don’t think stands alone. I’ve read the previous and I’m still feeling a bit lost at 27% in. I’m enjoying it. It’s a fun read. I love the dance skills combined with fighting for/against all sorts of creatures. The aeslin mice continue to be my favorite characters.
I’ve also been mis-recommending an anthology Temporally Out of Order Edited by Joshua Palmatier and Patricia Bray. The editors are in their first year of eligibility for Best Short Editors. The stories in this anthology are eligible for Hugos this year. I’ve been calling it Temporarily instead of Temporally it’s makes a big difference LOL
@Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little
Interestingly, to me this actually makes it more likely that it’s an accurate physical gender identifier. The descriptors cover very specific vocal ranges. Even the deepest female voice is very unlikely to fall into a range to be described as baritone, particularly by someone who is knowledgeable about classical singing.
BigelowT:
Speaking of that, has anyone heard of Meredith lately?
Greg Hullender: He called himself “Del Rayva,” and you and I both engaged with him constructively for a little while. Then he made a comment about the Sad Puppies being owed an apology, and that was too much for people, many of whom went ad hominem, and he never posted again.
Are you serious? DR’s first post — the one you linked to — was a deliberate slap at the people here. Numerous of DR’s subsequent posts took shots at everyone who’d bothered to respond, by twisting their words into things they didn’t actually say, and falsely ascribing psychological motivations to them without any evidence for doing so — in addition to making a bunch of demonstrably false claims about Puppy and non-Puppy actions.
How did you miss all this?
In an alternate universe, I am reading the Readers Digest Condensed Version of the Campbell anthology.
8000+ pages and over a million words? Whew, just a little intimidating.
(This is my “You must read EVERY story in an anthology” bugaboo speaking.)
I’ll try to go over the ToC and see how many names or stories I recognize.
Someone uptopic mentioned a number of the included writers had work published in indie-anthologies, rather than traditional markets (magazines and trad anthologies). I’ve been noticing some of these (they show up on Goodreads Giveaways listings fairly often), and like the original commenter noted, virtually none of the writers are names I recognize. It feels like the indie-anthologies, and their contributors, are happening in a completely different country, with only rare visitations to traditional markets or from trad-published writers. Like two-track programming at a convention, but held in different hotels. (And sometimes it feels like the hotels are in different cities.)
I haven’t taken the time or effort to read any of those indie-anthologies, which I think tells me that name-recognition plays a big part in what anthologies I choose to read. A writer whose work I’ve enjoyed before draws me in, and that lets me find new writers whose work I might also enjoy. The indie-anthologies don’t have that initial draw-in.
Which sometimes make me wonder if I’m missing out on great new writers in the indie world. Or whether, in the indie-world, some of the contributors to those anthologies are big names, who draw in readers more familiar with the independently-published world. Am I missing out by not reading very many indie-published books?
Then I look over at the TBR pile on the coffee table (7 stacks of books, about 15 per stack, plus a smaller stack of oversized books; the thankfully-of-sturdy-construction coffee table is only the most accessible TBR pile), slap myself, and move on.