These are the times that try men’s Scrolls.
(1) Dilbert is still not at work on his sci-fi novel.
(2) Blogger and Big Bang Theory actress Mayim Bialik is opening a new venue for her writing:
I am founding this space for all of us: It’s called GrokNation.
Do you know what it means to grok something? Grok is an old-school sci-fi term from the 1961 book “Stranger in a Strange Land.” It means to fully grasp something in the deepest way possible.
I want to be able to reach all kinds of people with my thinking and writing, and while I will still continue to write for Kveller about Jewish parenting, GrokNation will be the place where I share my thoughts about being an actress on “The Big Bang Theory,” being a scientist and a vegan mom, being an unusual woman because I am an actress and a scientist and a vegan mom, and everything in between. Eventually, I want GrokNation to become a place for voices other than mine, but we are just starting out so it may take some time!
(3) Rachel Bloom, known to fans for her Hugo-nominated music video “F*** Me, Ray Bradbury”, has been busy charming TV critics in advance of the October 12 premiere of her sitcom Crazy Ex Girlfriend.
When it organically was revealed that literally every single present “Crazy Ex” actor can professionally tap dance, Bloom’s co-star and four-time tap champ Donna Lynne Champlin challenged the journalists in attendance to ask all the other casts we come across this tour that same question, and see if any other show comes close….
Showrunner Aline Brosh McKenna and Bloom also masterfully handled — or at least deflected — sincere topics, such as the use of the potentially pejorative “Crazy” in the title, which could have been bait for a less comfortable group.
(4) In World War II, dozens of radio operators in Scituate, Rhode Island dialed into enemy conversations worldwide:
The Chopmist Hill listening post soon became the largest and most successful of a nationwide network of 13 similar installations. Its ability to eavesdrop on German radio transmissions in North Africa, for instance, was so precise that technicians could actually listen in on tank-to-tank communications within Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s infamous Afrika Korps.
The Germans’ battlefield strategy was then relayed to the British, who under Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery eventually defeated Rommel at El Alamein.
(5) With the Worldcon coming to town next week, the Spokane Spokesman-Review brings locals up to speed about the Sad Puppies:
It also arrives amid controversy.
Fans at Worldcon vote for the winners of the annual Hugo Awards. Regarded as some of the most prestigious honors in sci-fi and fantasy writing, the Hugos have been bestowed upon such names as Kurt Vonnegut and Portland novelist Ursula K. Le Guin. The Hugos have been awarded every year since 1955.
This year’s Hugos are mired in a present-day argument instead of a futuristic struggle.
A group of authors who call themselves the “Sad Puppies” is accused of strong-arming Hugo organizers to insert three authors on the shortlist of nominees. The group’s leaders contend the Hugos are too often awarded to what they call the “literati elite” and predisposed to affirmative action rather than less pretentious and more deserving writing.
Critics call the “Sad Puppies” a right-wing group supportive of the writings of white men and averse to the growing diversity of the genre. Martin has chimed in with a long series of blog posts, saying the controversy has “broken” the awards and “plunged all fandom into war.”
The controversy “has resulted in more people interested in Worldcon than would have been interested before,” said Tom Whitmore, a Seattle massage therapist and Worldcon volunteer who’s helping promote and organize the not-for-profit event. “We’ve followed our own rules, and we’re going ahead with our own rules, and that’s that.”
(6) Even those who have been following the Puppies from day one need a map. Aaron Pound, who Lou Antonelli tried to get fired from his job as a government attorney, summarizes all the Antonelli news from then til yesterday on Dreaming About Other Worlds.
Despite my tweeting on my personal twitter account, Antonelli took it upon himself to track down my work e-mail and phone number, first e-mailing a poorly thought out threat to come down to my workplace and do something or other, and then telephoning my office to confirm I was employed there.
(7) Natalie Luhrs’ chronicle of Antonelli’s offenses, “Pattern Matching: Lou Antonelli and the Sad Puppies”, characterizes them as she feels they deserve.
I think it bears emphasizing that by making a false report to police about David Gerrold, Lou Antonelli placed every single attending member of Worldcon in danger. This is reprehensible. The fact that David Gerrold forgave Antonelli for this is between the two of them; Gerrold does not get to accept Antonelli’s apology on behalf of the rest of the convention membership and to its staff and volunteers….
His modus operandi seems to be to incite an incident or seek one out, become abusive in some manner, and then only apologize if the target is high profile enough or if enough high profile people notice that he’s being abusive. His apology will contain a lot of language that deflects responsibility for his actions off him and onto other people or communities. Lather, rinse, repeat. If he goes after you and you don’t make noise about it or if someone doesn’t make noise on your behalf, or if you’re not particularly high profile, you’re not going to get even an attempt at an apology….
(8) In a separate post, “Some Members are More Equal than Others”, Luhrs makes her case against Sasquan’s decision not to ban Antonelli from attending.
One of Gerrold’s quoted reasons is that Antonelli “deserves” to be able to attend the Hugo Awards because he’s a nominee.
The message I’m getting from Sasquan is that if you apologize enough, if you can convince the person you’ve harassed into accepting your apology, and if you’ve been nominated for an award, Codes of Conduct don’t apply to you. Especially if you’ve promised to be on your very best behavior and not do it again.
(9) But Antonelli has not been left to face the music completely alone. Amanda S. Green on According To Hoyt argues the way he’s being treated is out of proportion, and compares his critics to the storybook folk who claimed “The sky is falling!”
At least that is the way it might seem if you were paying much attention to those very vocal few who have made it their life’s mission to denigrate anyone who might even remotely be associated with Sad Puppies 3. Oh how they have rallied these last few days to not only vilify Lou Antonelli but, even in the face of the one man who could reasonably be seen as having an issue with him accepting his apology, they continue to attack and demonize him. This has resulted in at least one contract being cancelled for Mr. Antonelli and even that is not enough to satisfy those who have taken to social media to attack him.
And, like with so much of what the Anti-Puppy crowd has done these last few months, they have taken Antonelli’s actions and blown them out of proportion. Specifically, Antonelli sent a letter to the Spokane Police Department expressing concerns not so much about what David Gerrold might personally do but what some of those who follow him on social media might do. Was it a wise move on Antonelli’s part? No. But, to be honest, with some of the vitriol I have seen from both sides of the fence the last few months, I can understand why he might have felt concerned.
(10) There will be no comic relief at the end today! Because Stephen King knows how to take a horror and make it verse.
How's this for a Trump campaign slogan: IF YOU'RE WHITE, YOU'RE ALL RIGHT! ANY OTHER HUE, I DON'T TRUST YOU.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) August 5, 2015
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Nigel.]
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That Hoyt post makes even less sense than usual. And while J.R. Tomlin comments in many places, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her post here at File770.
Mike it’s still rotated for me on iOS 8.4 and Chrome.
@Rick K.: Baen’s site strikes me as needlessly confusing, but as far as I can tell, the book you link to is an omnibus of the first two volumes of the series. (Although for some reason they have retitled God Stalk to God Stalker, which does not seem to me an improvement.)
Shorter answer: Yes.
In the phrase “a public figure is transgendered,” the word “transgendered” is an adjective.
I’ve seen people make the exact opposite recommendation and say that saying “she is transgender” is wrong. I try to use the proper terms when talking about the subject, but I’m not seeing a grammatical reason why “she is transgendered” is wrong when the adjective “gendered” is correct in a sentence like “Target toy aisles are inappropriately gendered.”
If using “transgender” instead of “transgendered” is preferred because the latter is perceived as a negative term, as Matt Kailey discusses, that makes more sense to me than claiming there’s a grammatical reason.
They look fine in IE11 but are rotated in Chrome. Windows 8.1, if it makes any difference.
Because you aren’t “maled,” you’re male. Or female, if that is the case. You aren’t “gayed” or “straightened.” Or “blacked” or “asianed.” Or “mentally illed.” Etc. It isn’t a thing that is done to you.
And “a public figure is transgendered” is still not correct. They are transgender. Or just trans or trans*, as Nick rightly points out that not everyone’s gender expression is binary.
I’ve updated the map http://wp.me/p6gJDB-aQ
Apparently VD has linked to it (?!) and suggested a new name for Rabidland.
I added some things from Paulk’s stream of consciousness thing and included Tor and Baen as the edges of continents. Worldcon is now a floating island – there is a small island nearby where I assume Kevin Standlee lives.
The Islets of Review have a cat-face shaped island where SFKitten lives.
I’ve updated the map
My only criticism is that both Sadland and Rabidonia are far too large. They should both be a fraction of the size of the other elements of the map.
Most of my trans* friends seem to prefer the term “trans*” (and I remember one of them reporting with amusement the excessive controversy in the trans community about whether that should be written with or without an asterisk).
rcade on August 12, 2015 at 5:27 pm said:
I think this is nonsense. It’s trivially easy to condemn transphobic, homophobic, racist, etc. insults without discussing whether the irrelevant issue of whether the “accusations” are true.
On a totally different note: for those travelling to Spokane by air, there’s a massive omission in the information on the Sasquan website, which implies that the only ways to get from the airport to downtown Spokane are by a $25 cab ride or a hotel shuttle service. There’s a $1.50 public bus that takes about 20 minutes, and stops at the Davenport Hotel (about 1 half mile from the convention center)
After all, if a skinhead thinks someone is a Jew and beats them up for that reason, it really doesn’t make the crime any less bad (or more bad) if the victim isn’t even Jewish, now does it? Hating Jews is still wrong either way; the bones are just as broken either way… the actual religion or ethnicity of the victim doesn’t really matter to my evaluation of the skinhead.
Despising someone for being trans is likewise wrong, whether the person despised is trans or not. That said, just as I wouldn’t out a Jew to a skinhead, I wouldn’t out a trans person where there might be jerks around who would despise them for that. Because there’s nothing wrong with being Jewish, or trans, but there are people out there who will hurt them anyway.
@Gabriel F.
V unqa’g urneq nobhg gur ivqrb tnzr – vg qbrf znxr zber frafr – OHG vg nyfb naablf zr zber orpnhfr abj V srry gung V tbg fhpxrerq vagb fcraqvat ubhef bs zl gvzr ba n pbzzrepvny.
Gender is a verb, unlike male, so adding -ed allows gendered to be used as a past participle and an adjective. Transgendered was used for a long time following the same grammatical principles.
But as I said, I can accept the argument that it has acquired negative connotations and should be avoided regardless. So thanks for pointing that out.
I think I made the mistake of using “transgendered” because of someone objecting to referring to someone as “transgender” instead of a “transgender person.” I avoided “transgender” in the wrong situation.
Expecting people to refer to someone’s gender expression with an asterisk is asking a lot of the world. What would the pronunciation be? The use of an asterisk to signify something fluid or versatile would be quite a curveball to introduce into the English language.
@GabrielF
What did I ever do????
(Context? We don’t need no stinking context…) :p
@Aaron / @Camestros – I think the size of Sadland and Rabidonia are pretty good – they both look large but when you get there it’s mainly empty or filled with venomous/ poisonous sock puppets.
Much like Australia I guess….
@Mark, wow. I think it would be easier to fisk that Hoyt article and point out what was accurate. That’s like a Platinum trophy level of wrongness there.
Victor Borge didn’t cover that one, I think.
All I meant was that the issue was likely to come up as people condemned the transphobic insult.
When Brad Torgersen implied that John Scalzi was gay as if that was an insult, people on File 770 talked about Scalzi being married to a woman and heterosexual.
Similarly, the insults of Wu sparked the discussion here of whether she is a transgender person.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned it, but Lou Antonelli has linked to Amanda Green’s post, saying
He also has linked to a video about not judging quickly.
Self-reflection followed by self-correction appear to have been fleeting, ephemeral things–assuming they ever existed in the first place.
Not judging quickly is good. Not judging poorly is even better. Antonelli seems to fall down on the second front especially.
Where The Pixel Scrolls Have No Name
Hey guise! Guise! Ann Leckie has published her query letter for Ancillary Justice! It explains how the book is a device to make everyone an androgynous lesbian through beating the reader over the head with the message, “YOU SHOULD BECOME AN ANDROGYNOUS LESBIAN AND SO SHOULD EVERYONE ELSE.” And it’s signed “SJ Dubs 5.271.009.”
At least, that’s how it all read after I pasted the text into hoyt13.com.
h/t our beloved Paul Weimer on the Twitters.
Wow! Camestros, that map is fantastic!
Mike Glyer: The other day a lot of people reported seeing pictures in the Dublin Comic Con post appearing sideways. I believe I have now stripped the EXIF data from all of them (except Agent Carter) and it would be helpful to know if that has eliminated the problem for those of you who experienced it.
I’m on a Surface Pro 3 running Windows 8.1 and all photos look great.
Thanks for that link, Jim Henley. While it’s interesting, the exciting part is the side link for Ancillary Mercy, with the info that it’s scheduled for publication on October 6, less than two months. I’m now #7 on the library request list, and since the only copy currently in the catalog is one ordered for my home library, that may put me effectively at #1. One of our librarians is a NESFA member, which I think is at least partially responsible for us having a particularly good SF selection (including many NESFA Press books).
I knew I shouldn’t have bothered reading that Hoyt post. What an illogical mess.
I’m mystified as to why the people at MGC don’t have enough pride to create outlines for their posts and research their talking points, to ensure that they actually follow a logical progression, make sense, and don’t include a bunch of errors and falsehoods.
I just can’t imagine aspiring to be a professional writer but doing such a poor job on something that should be promoting a positive impression of one’s written work.
My fave Puppy meme is conflating “Brad is using his black wife as a shield” with “Brad married a black woman in order to use her as a shield.”
It’s either LIAR or STUPID for every person who spreads it. No third choice.
Both.
ETA: Just to clarify – I’m not being facetious. There’s a bunch of Pups for who my theory is that not only are they dishonest, they are *epically* dumb about it.
Camestros, love the little sea lions!
@ Nick
Much like equating “Brad needs to stop using his military service as a get-out-of-jail-free card” with “Brad’s service doesn’t matter and I’m denigrating that service by criticizing him!”
@ Snowcrash
You will probably hate me for this, but I read Tad Wililams’ Otherland series before my friend handed my Snowcrash, and it reads like an early draft of a concept that Tad did a better job with.
I don’t really “click” with Stephensson’s reading, it’s a bit… cold? Distant? For me. I’ve heard the Baroque Cycle is more-character less-infodumpy, so that’s on my TBR list.
Still rotated in Safari on an iPad running iOS 8.4.
I am still bemused that the first comment on the linked Amanda Green piece at Hoyt’s blog thought hell would be a library full of nothing but Le Guin novels. There may be an unbridgeable gap between the puppies and 770 readers, at least the ones who voted in Kyra’s brackets.
@ Jim Henley
Thanks for the link! Leckie even writes superlative letters; I would never have come up with “Cherryh-flavored space opera” but that’s why she’s a novelist and I’m a fan.
@ Morris Keesan
Thanks for the news! Something to look forward to in October.
And thanks to both for the bright spots in all this puppy mess.
LunarG, that’s one hell I can get behind. Especially if the respective heaven is filled with nothing but puppy books, including endless supplies of JCW.
Rick K on August 12, 2015 at 5:07 pm said:
You know, it belatedly occurred to me that I in fact own a copy of the omnibus edition The God Stalker Chronicles. I think I received it in a tote bag at World Fantasy one year.
Tonight I cracked it open and read that first little section of the first chapter during my two minutes with the electric toothbrush. Lately I’ve been reading an article or two out of Jo Walton’s What Makes This Book So Good during that time, but tonight I spent it reading an equivalent amount of the beginning of God Stalk.
If I get no sleep tonight and nothing productive done tomorrow, I am blaming all of you, every single one.
@Gabriel F
No worries, Snow Crash isn’t even my favourite Stephenson.
Heh on the Otherland thing. I read the first book shortly after seeing the .hack//SIGN anime, and pretty much had the same thought, but in reverse, as you did.
I bounced of Baroque pretty hard (Cryptonomicon is probably my favourite Stepehenson), but I don’t think Stephenson can write anything without some degree of infodumpiness going on.
@Gabriel F.
Hah! I was reading Otherland as it was being released & it felt like it was taking forever to get anywhere, whereas Roger Zelazny & Jane Lindskold’s “Donnerjack” explored a similar theme & managed it in one volume. That period really solidified my liking for a well-formed stand-alone novel over interminable multi-volume series.
Otherland was one of those that should have been shortened down to 25% of its original length. Not my thing. Loved Snowcrash though.
“If coming out is a magic show, and gayness is the rabbit out of the hat, I’m one of those never-ending handkerchiefs.”
The Cherryh flavours of the Raadch novels struck me more strongly in Sword thn in Justice. That intense character focused stream of consciousness is so reminiscent of the Foreigner series. Certainly the station environment amplifies the connection.
Currently reading ‘Tracker’ and delighted to be back toward the stars and the station again.
@rcade:
It is being used as one, but I agree with Gabriel F. that the word form used in the phrase is incorrect. “Transgender” is an adjective in the same way that “black” and “southern” and “male” are; nobody would say that “Sarah Hoyt is femaled” or “Mike Glyer is maled.”
The error in that logic is that toy sections possess no inherent gender, thus they must be given one to possess it. Someone genders (active verb) them, after which the sections have been and still are gendered. Same goes for linguistics in most not-English languages; the words are gendered because someone made them so. See also “Asian” vs. “Oriental” – people are Asian, things are Oriental, and thus my Asian friend has an Oriental rug. Granted, food seems to be an exception, but it’s still a useful rule of thumb, as you would find Asian food in an Oriental restaurant.
People, however, have the means and right to determine their own genders, and in one slender respect I can see some use for *ed to describe that process, or as the result of a “God made the determination” thought process, but even that assumes that gender is a static, immutable quality. Pretty much any genderfluid or genderqueer person would dispute that, and then there are the people who are fine with physical sexes but reject the concept of social genders…
Speaking of asterisks, since I just used one as a wildcard: I’m on the no-asterisk side of the trans/trans* debate. It’s for purely typographical/aesthetic reasons, though; an asterisk is not a letter, it is not serving as punctuation, it’s devilishly difficult to pronounce, and we’re conversing in English, not regex. That said – Morris, I’m curious to know more about the other side of that debate. Do you have a good link handy?
@JJ: Classically, the weblog belonged to the Diary genre, so a certain amount of discursiveness is within scope. I used to blog, and sometimes referred to myself as a political diarist when putting on airs.
That said, there’s an art to discursiveness too. It can be done badly. And to some extent blogs have evolved away from their diaristic roots, for good – or eeevilll.
RE: The Query letter.
Yeah, I looked hard for evidence of Leckie’s evil plans involving pronouns and other anti-Puppy stuff, to no avail in the letter. Maybe it was in code?
Paul: you need to decode the text in Hoyt13.
@Jim. Ah, there was my mistake! Thank you!
Just for fun and not to suggest in any way the further use of the -ed word, how is a zygote not a toy aisle? Chromosomes in the sperm cell and ovum give the zygote a gender. A Target Team Leader gives the aisle a gender. Neither one has an inherent gender. Both can be changed.
(For those who wonder why Target came up, it announced this week that it is degendering most store sections, making the world a little better for the girl who likes dump trucks and the boy who thinks Barbie has a sweet ride.)
I just can’t imagine aspiring to be a professional writer but doing such a poor job on something that should be promoting a positive impression of one’s written work.
I think the issue is that the Pups simply don’t have any pride in their work. They have pride in being paid. And since they aren’t getting paid to write blog posts, they half-ass the work. An anecdote:
I was reading the letters section of a 2014 issue of Analog in which a reader pointed out that the science in one of Torgersen’s stories didn’t add up. Essentially, a critical element of the story simply didn’t work the way Torgersen had had it work in the story. Torgersen responded to the letter explaining that he wasn’t getting paid enough for the story to take the time to make sure the details were correct. He didn’t really care that he had gotten some basic physics wrong, because he wasn’t getting paid enough to care.
The Pups are very concerned with how much they get paid. They don’t seem to be so concerned about the quality of their workmanship.
The really depressing thing is not that the Puppies don’t care about getting the science right, but that Analog, of all magazines, is prepared to publish the resultant dross.
The really depressing thing is not that the Puppies don’t care about getting the science right, but that Analog, of all magazines, is prepared to publish the resultant dross.
This would have never happened under Schmidt’s watch. I have been very unimpressed with Quachri’s work as editor of the magazine.
Aaron I think that’s a bot too much remote psychoanalysis for things that can be explained more easily. Torgersen was just being to honest or too detailed. If he had said he was late, the story had to get finished and his proof readers didn’t notice the error, you’d have no basis for your assumptions, and yet it’d be substantially the same thing. (Because lateness and shallow/quick proof reading is the result of prior decisions and priorities. And for the non-wealthy money, as a secondary, convertible reinforcement is a big factor in those decisions and priorities.)
That aside, generally, Torgersen taking a craft approach to one story is poor grounds for extrapolating to his general approach to his work, much less the puppies who are not Torgersen.
The simpler explanation for MGC is that nobody they care about is bothered by their lack of logic, sense or argument. Much as I personally don’t go out of my way to make my texts accessible to white supremacists, except for the little difference in the group of people whose opionons we don’t care about.
@mk41: Remember that Brad has been unwilling or unable to provide concrete details on how the Sad Puppy slate was selected and that Brad has been unwilling or unable to defend the literary merits of the Sad Puppy nominees. The Analog incident seems to be part of a pattern.