Where there’s smoke there’s… Well, exactly what there is is a subject of debate in today’s Scroll.
(1) Do not miss – “Dilbert Writes A Sci-Fi Novel”.
(2) Oh brave New World! Scientists claim to have pinned down one of Shakespeare’s previously unsuspected literary influences —
South African researchers announced they found cannabis residue on pipe fragments found in William Shakespeare‘s garden.
Francis Thackeray, an anthropologist at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand and the lead author of the study published in the South African Journal of Science, said he and his team used gas chromatography mass spectrometry to analyze residue found on 24 pipe fragments from the bard’s hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, and cannabis residue was discovered on four fragments taken from Shakespeare’s garden.
(3) When Arthur C. Clarke introduced interviewer Jeremy Bernstein to Stanley Kubrick, he accidentally launched their 25-game chess duel.
I told Clarke that nothing would please me more. Much to my amazement, the next day Clarke called to say that I was expected that afternoon at Kubrick’s apartment on Central Park West. I had never met a movie mogul and had no idea what to expect. But as soon as Kubrick opened the door I felt an immediate kindred spirit. He looked and acted like every obsessive theoretical physicist I have ever known. His obsession at that moment was whether or not anything could go faster than the speed of light. I explained to him that according to the theory of relativity no information bearing signal could go faster. We conversed like that for about an hour when I looked at my watch and realized I had to go. “Why?” he asked, seeing no reason why a conversation that he was finding interesting should stop.
I told him I had a date with a chess hustler in Washington Square Park to play for money. Kubrick wanted the name. “Fred Duval” I said. Duval was a Haitian who claimed to be related to Francois Duvalier. I was absolutely positive that the name would mean nothing to Kubrick. His next remark nearly floored me. “Duval is a patzer,” is what he said. Unless you have been around chess players you cannot imagine what an insult this is. Moreover, Duval and I were playing just about even. What did that make me?
Kubrick explained that early in his career he too played chess for money in the park and that Duval was so weak that it was hardly worth playing him. I said that we should play some time and then left the apartment. I was quite sure that we would never play. I was wrong.
(4) The new Fantastic Four reboot is getting the kind of reaction that explains why the phrase “stinks on ice” was invented.
Not only were reviews scathing — resulting in a 9 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes — audiences on Friday night gave the $120 milliion Fox tentpole a C- CinemaScore, the worst grade that anyone can remember for a marquee superhero title made by a major Hollywood studio. (CinemaScore, based in Las Vegas, was founded in 1979.)
…For the weekend, Fantastic Four, starring Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara and Jamie Bell, topped out at a dismal $26.2 million from 3,995 theaters in North America, one of the lowest openings of all time for a Marvel Comics film adaptation
(5) Carrie Cuinn explained why Lakeside Circus killed plans to publish a Lou Antonelli story, what Antonelli did next, and the verbal attacks she received as a result.
I couldn’t stand by and do nothing after Mr. Antonelli publicly admitted to essentially SWATing someone in our community, especially given the numerous deaths by police and in police custody that have recently made the news. As I said in my letter, it’s a matter of SAFETY. Antonelli took away Gerrold’s safety when he filed that false police report, and I won’t support that by giving him my money or promoting his work.
I was content to do what I felt necessary privately, between Mr. Antonelli and myself, but he dragged me up in front of his fans and made a target of me. He knew people were defensive and angry on his behalf, and he gave them me as a target. Doing that, he took away my safety, too.
(6) Lou Antonelli says what happened wasn’t his intent, and apologized again.
I want to make it clear than when I posted about Carrie Cuinn and Lakeside Circus’ decision taking back their decision to publish a story of mine, I meant it as a cautionary tale – don’t be a jackass like I was, because there are repercussions. Experience is a hard teacher. I don’t begrudge the decision at all. I apologized to David Gerrold because I realized I did something stupid and I made a mistake. But I didn’t think I made a mistake in revealing Cuinn’s decision. Fact was. I thought people would commend her for it, and I thought there would be some people who would like to give her credit for it.
Now she says she’s gotten threats over the revelation. That’s not why I posted it! So I’m sorry again, in this case, because it never occurred to me her action would be seen negatively.
(7) K. Tempest Bradford has a take on the Antonelli/Gerrold story.
You hear all this, and your response is UGH, how terrible! That crosses a line! Antonelli should explain himself and apologize!
Oh? Really? A guy contacts a police department in a serious effort to have said police pay extra special attention to a convention attendee in an atmosphere where there’s already plenty to worry about with police overreacting and you want him to apologize?
Sure, Gerrold isn’t a young black man, so he’s already much safer around police than a lot of folks. But Antonelli’s intent was bring police into a situation for the purpose of causing alarm and harm to Gerrold for no other reason than that he can’t handle Gerrold having an opinion and a platform….
There are real ramifications here, real consequences. There may be a good chance nothing bad will happen. That doesn’t mean it’s okay. That doesn’t mean an apology is enough….
The difference between how we treat people from marginalized identities who do things harmful to our community and how we treat white men who harm our community is so stark, so blatant, that I feel like I’m living in a Onion article right now.
This is how you fail, white people of SFF. This right here….
(8) Some commenters are extrapolating Bradford’s post to mean that Benjanun Sriduangkaew, the subject of a report by Hugo nominee Laura Mixon, ought to be treated with comparable leniency.
Jason Sanford, for one, has written a post “On the double standard of genre apologies”.
Here’s a simple test. Can you figure out why the following situations are different?
- Lou Antonelli apologized. The genre is beginning to accept his apology, with many people wanting to act as if nothing happened.
- Harlan Ellison apologized. The genre accepted his apology and most people now act as if nothing happened.
- Benjanun Sriduangkaew apologized. Most people in the genre refuse to accept her apology.
(9) Ann Somerville sharply disagreed that these cases are comparable.
The crucial differences are – and Tempest fucking knows these:
- Antonelli does not carry out secret campaigns of abuse. He does everything, for good or ill, under his own name (which is now mud).
- He hasn’t been carrying out harassment of people, white/POC, male and female, straight and gay, cis and trans for over ten years
- he apologised for what he actually did, in full – unlike Miss Hate who sort of vaguely alluded to bad behaviour, without acknowledging the full scope of what she did or directly apologising to her actual victims
- his victims don’t include people of colour, but include one of Hate’s much loathed white women (that should make him a hero, according to Bradford and Hate)
- People don’t feel constrained from criticising Antonelli on account of his oh so persecuted race and sexuality – which is still the case with Hate (despite the fact she is massively class privileged and not racially disprivileged in her own country.)
(10) In an earlier post, Jason Sanford made an appeal for peace in the genre.
But this incident has also brought into focus how much bad blood there is in the science fiction and fantasy genre. The letter Lou wrote wasn’t merely an attack on David — it was an attack on Worldcon and the entire genre.
Which I’m certain isn’t what Lou intended. I have no doubt he loves the genre. I’m certain he wants the genre to thrive and grow.
We have reached the point in the SF/F genre where people must decide what they want. Because there are now two simple choices: To destroy the genre or reach for peace.
Reaching for peace doesn’t mean silencing your views or beliefs. Our genre has long been a big tent where all viewpoints and people can co-exist. Yes, the genre has often not lived up to this ideal. And that doesn’t mean there won’t be disagreements and arguments and people who hate each other.
But at the end of the day a shared love of science fiction and fantasy joins us together. We must never forget this.
(11) Though prompted by her experience at the BEA, not by this latest kerfuffle, Kameron Hurley’s article for Locus “Your Author Meltdown Will Be Live-Tweeted” seems prescient.
The more people respect what you have to say, the more folks will come out of the woodwork trying to tear you down. Having been one of the people flinging arrows at authors myself (and let’s be real, I still do), I get it, and I accept it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to navigate when you’re sitting in a restaurant and wondering if your dinner conversation will end up in an Instagram video.
In the ten years I’ve been writing online, I’ve mostly been hated as some kind of women’s lib boogeyman, and that’s just funny more than anything. It’s a lot easier for me to dismiss haters when they’re sending me death threats for believing women are people. It’s harder to dismiss people who want me dead because they despise me in general. In the same breath they’ll say I should be garroted to keep me from speaking and Starbucks should stop serving Pumpkin Spice Lattes because, gosh, those lattes are gross.
More and more, ‘‘being a writer’’ isn’t about writing at all. It’s about the writer as celebrity. The writer as brand. The writer as commodity. And more and more, I see authors themselves reviewed as if they’re businesses on Yelp.
(12) Is it possible that the extended edition of The Battle of the Five Armies could be even more violent than the version shown in theaters? TheOneRing.net theorizes that will be so —
According to a bulletin published today by the Motion Picture Association of America Classification and Rating Administration, the extended edition of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies will carry an “R” rating for “some violence.” Of course, it’s no news flash that the movie contains violence. The theatrical version’s PG-13 rating came with an advisory for “extended sequences of intense fantasy action violence, and frightening images.” So, it’s intriguing to imagine what, exactly, in the EE bridged that gap, especially with only “some violence” to go by. Possible EE spoilers ahead!
(13) The late Terrence Evans (1934-2015) is remembered at StarTrek.com:
Evans ventured to the Star Trek universe to play Baltrim, the mute Bajoran farmer, in the DS9 episode “Progress,” and Proka Migdal, the Bajoran who adopted a Cardassian war orphan, in “Cardassians.” He also appeared as the Kradin ambassador, Treen, in the Voyager hour “Nemesis.”
(14) Voice of Trillian in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Susan Sheridan, has passed away. SF Site News has more at the link.
(15) I believe Matt!
For the record: None of my decision to break my five-year con-free streak by attending Worldcon has anything to do with the Hugo Awards.
— Matt Wallace is Updates Only (@MattFnWallace) August 10, 2015
[Thanks to Gregory Benford, JJ, Andrew Porter and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
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@RAH
Lou acted on his fears that David may continue in his attempt to trash SP and RP at the convention itself and violence could ensue.
“Lou acted on his paranoid-rage-fueled fantasies.” There. Fixed that for you.
It posted that he suffered professional consequences as warning to others not to go overboard. He then asked his own fans not to trash the publisher.
Well, yes, after they’d already e-mailed her death threats and rape threats.
So this weird idea that contacting the police is evil and dangerous because the police want to kill fans at World con that Tempest implies is just upside down thinking.
I’m sure there are other reasons why people get the “weird idea” that contacting the police to tell them someone with whom you have a disagreement is insane and a public menace who incites violence is “evil and dangerous.”
To Jim Henley and Shambles,
I had just started reading The God Stalker Chronicles when you started raving about Hodgell’s work in the Fantasy Bracket threads. I have to say I enjoyed the first book immensely and the second, only slightly less so. I can see why you are such fierce advocates of the first book. Unfortunately, I will probably not be able to start on the subsequent books after Sasquan — but I am looking forward to them.
God Stalk!
Aaron, reading your post about Antonelli reminds me of something I haven’t written up before. One of my very best friends in junior high and high school is, like Antonelli, a first-generation American child of Italian immigrant parents. He was, and likely still is, exuberant and demonstrative. But he was, and last I heard still is, very gentle – good at peacemaking and defusing stressful situations. And part of that is because his parents raised him and his older brother to do that, explaining the difference between good-natured carrying on and actual threats, and how they didn’t want to play into stereotypes reinforced by the examples of the fascists and Mafia.
It bugged me when Antonelli tried to justify as part of his heritage, in just the way it’s bugged me when other Puppies have tried to justify their own bad behavior as in some sense innately American.
@Brian Z
Your reply to Patrick quoted a big chunk from the EPH FAQ…and it still doesn’t say what you claimed it did.
Maybe that’s why you didn’t quote the statement your expository lump of text is supposedly supporting.
Patrick:
It is that same feature of the existing rules that has always given Hugo voters the ability to come together, to converge on and jointly recognize true excellence in the field, and that feature has helped produce consistently good results most of the time in the past. Rather than a “flaw”, you should say it is a method of voting that has proven its advantages, and also carries the risk that was demonstrated this year, and we can choose to address that risk in various ways.
So, you don’t, then. Good to know.
Well, at least Brian answered a direct question.
Lori Coulson: I disagree slightly with BrianZ as the boy who cried wolf. In the end of that story, a wolf did show up, and none of BrianZ’s predictions or flailing are going to come true.
BrianZ is more like the boy who cried tiger in a country with no tigers, and who refused to guard his flock against wolves for fear of tigers.
Re:Antonelli: I AM perfectly willing to accept his apologies and let the matter drop. If you understand drop to mean “cease discussing it”, not “forget it”, nor “fail to take it into account in potential future encounters”, nor “treat him as a friend, not a potentially dangerous person”. In fact, drop doesn’t even mean “fail to mention the incident in future, ever, at all”, because I can imagine circumstances where saying, “you might want to take this into account if you’re going to work with him” is important (though such a discussion would include mention of the apology as well, for the same reason a firm non-apology and lack of contrition might come up in the case of others.)
I hesitate commenting on this one and clicking the “follow comments” box, because I really don’t want to wade through more “This is why EPH will warp your mind, curve your spine and lose the war for the Allies” arguments and the rebuttals. Brian is too easily amused. But I’m interested in the Shakepeare discussion, though I don’t use that particular substance myself. The etymology discussion fascinates me.
LA’s apology was never up to me to accept or reject-Mr. Gerrold was the injured party and it’s his decision, not mine. Likewise, Ms. Cuinn would be the only one who could determine her reaction, if LA should ever apologize directly to her.
I don’t see any mad rush to express mass forgiveness or condemnation of LA across fandom. I see fandom behaving like fandom-the usual broad range of reactions and opinions typically found on most points.
As to books, not SF-related, but I’m currently reading a collection of letters written by John and Abigail Adams. She probably would have been a better POTUS than he did!
Robert, I get the feeling John Adams would have agreed with you. 🙂
I’m sure Mr Antonelli has learned his lesson, next time he tries to get someone into trouble he’ll be sure not to blurt it out during a podcast.
I’m sure Mr Antonelli has learned his lesson, next time he tries to get someone into trouble he’ll be sure not to blurt it out during a podcast.
Setting aside the fact that Antonelli did something stupid by sending the letter, what kind of boggles the mind is how the other “Superversive” participants in that Google Hangout just sat there and went along with it when he said he had sent a letter to the Spokane PD and that he thought Gerrold needed to be put in a secure psychiatric facility. At no point did anyone even hint that this might be just a tad extreme. My conclusion: They are inhabiting a circle of allies that is fundamentally sick and twisted and don’t even realize it.
It bugged me when Antonelli tried to justify as part of his heritage, in just the way it’s bugged me when other Puppies have tried to justify their own bad behavior as in some sense innately American.
I categorize appeals to personality traits based upon heritage much the same way I categorize appeals to personality traits based on birth sign: As mystic mumbo-jumbo that no serious adult should ever take seriously. Using this sort of thing as a “justification” for one’s behavior is merely an attempt to evade responsibility with the added element of implicitly smearing everyone who shares your heritage.
Robert Reynolds: I hate to exasperate you with my sources of easy amusement, but Patrick May asked me a serious question and it seemed best to give him a serious answer. Hopefully I’ve explained my position to his satisfaction.
@ Red Wombat
“Comparing apples and outrages” – wonderful!
Um would suing have to involve a lawyer? its only $41. I am sure America must have the equivalent of a small claims court. here in the UK You could do something like that on your own for around a $100. Still stupid even if you won but affordably stupid.
Brian Z.,
It appears that we’re not in disagreement about approach but about fundamental goals. That’s progress.
Are there any possible changes to the existing rules that you would support?
What data, if any, would convince you to support EPH?
On Antonelli: I’m sure he didn’t think of his actions as SWATing. I perceived it as mouthing off and a relatively empty threat. I was surprised when people described it as dangerous, but I’m a) Canadian (not that we don’t have our police brutality too, mind) and b) white. I’m glad that he apologized to Gerrold, but I do find it telling that he hasn’t apologized directly to Carrie Cuinn, and what he posted on his Facebook was a non-apology. “I’m sorry, Carrie, if that happened because of me.” News Flash: it did. Try again. Then perhaps work toward changing the actions that cause you to constantly apologize.
Harlan Ellison: My first exposure to HE was in an Isaac Asimov intro to one of his stories, and I got the impression that both Asimov and Ellison were kind of assholes. As Ellison got older, I saw him more of an old cranky grandpa. Remember when he sued the internet? But I never expected him to grope a fellow author on stage at an award ceremony. I don’t recall him apologizing, either. Didn’t he just give reasons reasons reasons why what he did was fine?
Benjanun Sriduangkaew: Yuck. She enjoyed (and likely still enjoys) using her words to attack people. I remember her actions as Winterfox. She was only sorry that she got caught.
Ann Somerville: I try to skim past her posts/comments because she also enjoys using her words to attack people. Including a misogynistic slur that is totally not a misogynistic slur because she doesn’t mean it that way. I wouldn’t call her hysterical (as I believe someone did above), because I believe she chooses her words very deliberately. I’ve never seen her apologize for anything, only explain why you’re wrong to be upset.
I can’t speak to fandom “forgiving” anyone. I haven’t seen it. Harlan assaulting Connie Willis seemed to go down the memory hole after a bit, but he was already tainted goods; I thought it just added a little more taint. Some people will rail about how Antonelli was wronged and is being persecuted, but I think a lot of people will be wary of him going forward. Sriduangkaew/Requires Hate might get a little acclaim for her writing, but I think she’s also irrevocably tainted. More than the white males? I can’t say.
@Aaron,
I consider these people to be far right, and many people with extreme views believe that the end justifies the means.
They can’t see a problem with this type of behaviour because they truly believe they are the good guys, battling against an implacable enemy, Us !
It’s quite bizarre, who knew a love of culture novels would lead to this?
August 2015 interview with NK Jemisin
https://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/1052.N_K_Jemisin?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=2015-08&utm_content=jemisin” rel=”nofollow
Scrolls Considered as a Hellix of Semi-Precious Pixels
Where did my link go?
Haven’t read it yet, just learned about it, but I am going to pre-order it:
She Walks in Shadows new collection by Innsmouth Press, transformative works based on Lovecraft’s stories but told from point of view of women!
Truly we are taking over THE WORLD!!111!!
https://www.goodreads.com/interviews/show/1052.N_K_Jemisin?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=2015-08&utm_content=jemisin
In a way I kind of like the idea of a serious long list of at least 10 items – if people seemed committed to seriously reading and evaluating at least excerpts – because it seems to me to carry with it the feel of everybody pitching in to jury a literary award. But essentially, waiting a year to decide what changes are needed if any is best.
Since I think there needs to be a social, not merely technical, solution, I’d be encouraged if the proposals this year were handed to a task force made up of people drawn from all walks of fandom, and they came back and made a strong case for something.
Since a plan was announced to attack the awards in other ways next year, there is probably also some advantage to learning more about what that plan is.
Showing that EPH would actually winnow lockstep voting for five items down to a single item, rather often three or sometimes even four, without penalizing fans who naturally cluster around certain favored items, would be helpful too, of course, but even then I’d be concerned about the rules change encouraging competing slates.
I think I have fixed your disappearing link.
I see the first two in the God Stalker Chronicles are available via Kindle for a little under $7.
CLICKS!
“I’ve never seen her apologize for anything”
Doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.
However, I did not intend to comment here again, and only have done so now on this post for a strictly limited reason, which is that Mike linked my post.
If you find my use of a slur about a truly horrible person, more obnoxious than the actions of the horrible person themselves, then you only need to avoid my blog. Should be easily done.
@Ed: Thanks for the link–fantastic interview (I finished _The Fifth Season_ in two days in between class prep and writing an essay). INCREDIBLE (and I love earlier work as well, but I’m a geology fan).
@Brian Z
But essentially, waiting a year to decide what changes are needed if any is best.
Which is exactly what’s being proposed this year. WTF is your problem?
Since I think there needs to be a social, not merely technical, solution, I’d be encouraged if the proposals this year were handed to a task force made up of people drawn from all walks of fandom, and they came back and made a strong case for something.
Someone please form that task force and ask people to serve on it. Not Brian, God knows. He’s just an idea man. (Oh, it would be helpful if you came up with that idea more than a year before Worldcon, too, so hop to it.)
Since a plan was announced to attack the awards in other ways next year, there is probably also some advantage to learning more about what that plan is.
Apparently A Plan has been announced but no one has any clue what it is. I think that sentence is phrased just a little ingenuously.
Showing that EPH would actually winnow lockstep voting for five items down to a single item, rather often three or sometimes even four, without penalizing fans who naturally cluster around certain favored items, would be helpful too, of course, but even then I’d be concerned about the rules change encouraging competing slates.
Of course. You’d be massively concerned.
Shoulda been Midnight At The Well of Trolls.
BTW, Brian, you have yet to address felice’s admission that there was in fact no analysis against a data set to reach those conclusions.
Lenora:
I was thinking of Chicken Little, but at least she had an acorn…
Brian, you do understand that EPH, even if approved at this year’s Business Meeting, won’t be taking effect after it’s ratified at MidAmericon II?
IF EPH is passed and ratified, it will be in action for 2017. So we won’t be able to gather data on it until then. We CAN run simulations on the nomination data from the 2016 Hugos, but considering the way you’ve blown off others who’ve actually done the work, I find it hard to believe that those results will convince you.
Social engineering is not going to work, because the Puppies don’t believe they’ve done anything wrong. The rest of us honored the gentlemen’s agreement not to exploit the Hugo Award loopholes. Social engineering only works were all sides are willing to follow the rules…something that’s highly unlikely here.
Thanks Mike !
Brian Z.,
Increasing the number of slots while keeping the current rules just makes the system susceptible to two slates instead of one.
We’re going to have to wait a year to fully approve EPH in any case. Do you object to passing it this year in case the slate issue arises in 2016?
Do you object to having a year for anyone interested to test EPH on more scenarios, then giving it final approval next year? That approach seems to provide the same benefits as your task force.
Why should we wait to address the problems we know about?
This sounds like you share my concern about disenfranchised voters. If that is the case, EPH is demonstrably better than the current rules at ensuring that more voters see one or more of their preferences on the final ballot. If you consider the ability of 15% of the people to disenfranchise 85% to be a problem under the current rules, you should support EPH.
BrianZzzzz said:
In a way I kind of like the idea of a serious long list of at least 10 items – if people seemed committed to seriously reading and evaluating at least excerpts – because it seems to me to carry with it the feel of everybody pitching in to jury a literary award.
So, you want to bake dueling slates right into the process?
@Ed
Thanks for that link, really interesting. I remember reading and enjoying NKJs The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms without having a clue what the N stood for. In both her writing and that interview she comes over as someone who wants to write in a genre she loves while freshening it up and avoiding cliches that do it no favours. I have a couple of her books bubbling to the top of my pile, in fact (I got distracted by having to read ALL the Max Gladstone).
Even if that were a danger it could be addressed by social sanctions and no award.
It is tough to argue with that logic, but if I agree, will you agree to pass everything on the Business Meeting agenda and decide at your leisure which ones to ratify later?
There are good reasons for making a constitution hard to change quickly. Worldcon has been around for a while – it can afford to take its time, and the WSFS Constitution is never going to become an agile crime-fighting machine capable of turning on a dime to adapt to new threats. (Sorry.)
What are the urgent problems we know about? As far as I can see, these include Kate Paulk vaguely planning to start up a Hugo-themed online book club, not a strict five-work slate, and Vox Day going on about the Xanatos Gambit and how his master plan is to turn the SJW’s tactics against them and allow them to self-destruct while burning the Hugos to the ground in the process, or something, and although I’m not sure exactly what all that entails, if he convinces dozens of authors and industry professionals to go along with it, I’d be very impressed.
Again, I’ve given my reasons for saying that the advantages of the current system are as worthy of consideration as the risks, and that a solution with a social component – if nothing else, a period of broad consultation – is preferable.
Mark said:
I so hate that women have to do this to break into the market.
@John Seavey
Indeed. CJ Cherryh not only had to initial-ise herself, she had to add the “h” as well.
@Brian Z
Even if that were a danger it could be addressed by social sanctions and no award.
I think we should make it absolutely clear to Mr. Beale and the Rabid Puppies that we are very, very disappointed in them.
There! Problem solved. Next?
I’m still trying to figure out what “social sanctions” will keep the extremists (and their loyal followering) from misbehaving in future……..and how they’d be applied.
Not very hard, you know, because I think it’s bullshit–but the fact that Brian keeps putting forth this phrase with no specifics keeps boggling my mind.
ETA: but then I’m also allergic to task forces and consider the likelihood of them accomplishing anything especially with such a vague task to be low (too much time spent on timewasting academic committees).
bloodstone75:
I prefer making no change, but see the attraction of the long list, and think 15 items is too cumbersome. In any case, EPH normalizes slates by saying that there is nothing wrong with them getting, “generally,” one item on the ballot – and in practice that has turned out to be most often getting two or three or four items other than in Best Novel. It becomes a gray area. If a slate campaign monopolizes the entire ballot with a little under 20% of the vote (or even if two do it with 20% each), that is obviously wrong – it is not a gray area.
rrede: Ask the authors and editors who either removed themselves from consideration or said they made a mistake what I mean.
I hear you on task forces, but have you tried to read the Business Meeting agenda recently?
I prefer to evaluate each item on the agenda on its own merits, and as far as EPH is concerned it merits passing so it can later be considered and if desired, passed and enacted in 2016.
As for the social aspects, EPH certainly doesn’t preclude any progress on that front because it’s an apolitical measure designed to address a technical problem with how slates can disproportionately affect the nomination stage of the Hugo Awards. The current system of No Award doesn’t repair the actual damage that slates do at all, while EPH does.
If SP4 becomes a book reading club, fine, but we have yet to know that, and it’s almost certain that Beale will run another slate. So passing EPH this year give us the option to enacting it should the future go on to be like the recent past.
Ask the ones who didn’t also.
EPH isn’t a panacea, it’s just a way to reduce the impact of slates that as we’ve seen can get 100% of the nomination slots.
FYI, I know, I know, this is all repetitive for most of you. But someone’s gotta do it… ;^)
But we don’t want to keep no awarding all the time; we want to give awards to deserving people and works, which means we need a mechanism to keep the undeserving stuff off the ballot.
@Brian Z
In any case, EPH normalizes slates by saying that there is nothing wrong with them getting, “generally,” one item on the ballot – and in practice that has turned out to be most often getting two or three or four items other than in Best Novel.
“In practice”?!?! When?
It becomes a gray area. If a slate campaign monopolizes the entire ballot with a little under 20% of the vote (or even if two do it with 20% each), that is obviously wrong – it is not a gray area.
Ah. Brian Z prefers maintaining a system that allows an absolute wrong to be committed, so we can all admonish the perpetrator.
A system under which slates might still be able to dictate part of the ballot, on the other hand, would be bad. Because then we can’t claim ideological purity, or the high moral ground, or something.
Nice of Brian to clarify what’s been driving him all this time.
EPH normalizes slates
Brian Z is lying again. Quelle surprise.
Brian Z said:
Snort. It will be a slate. They will call it something else, but none of them will be dumb enough to be fooled. They will treat it exactly the way they treated the slate this year.
And so will I.
EPH “normalizes” slates?
Right. Sure. Just like door locks “normalize” burglary.
And seat belts “normalize” car crashes.
And doctors “normalize” disease and injury.
And…
@Cat
And we already know what VD has planned:
The Sad Puppies want to fix what the SJWs have done to the detriment of science fiction over the last three decades. I respect that, although I think it makes more sense to demolish a building and build anew rather than attempt to shore up a termite-infested structure. But Rabid Puppies are not Sad Puppies. We want nothing more than to crush SJW bones, drink SJW blood, and leave a smoking hole where every SJW institution used to be.
We’re not incapable of empathy, kindness or human decency, we simply have no mercy for SJWs. There will be NO PLACE in science fiction for SJWs.
Funny how he echoes John C. Wright’s rhetoric:
I have no hatred in my heart for any man’s politics, policies, or faith, any more than I have hatred for termites; but once they start undermining my house where I live, it is time to exterminate them.
Unified front, I guess.
Brian, it must have escaped your notice that the social engineerging has been applied in the last two years. It’s called “No Award,” and finishing ranked behind it has not discouraged the Pups from slating.
As I would rather see stories on the ballot that are actually readable, docking the Pups ability to cram the ballot with bullcrap is the only alternative I see. Yes, they’ll get a couple of items in there — so what? If their choices are as dismal as they were this year, the items won’t win. If they actually improve their game enough to put readable and enjoyable works on the ballot, they might convince people that the stuff they like is good. (I’m not going to hold my breath on that one.)