Pompeii, Krakatoa, Sasquan — only one of them was a science fiction convention…
(1) Dilbert bypasses actual writing to work on social media marketing for his sci-fi novel.
Yes, sometimes there is a fine line between documentary and parody.
(2) SF Signal’s new Mind Meld “Exploring Fear in Fiction” poses this question to its participants:
How do you use the fears that fascinate you in your writing, and how do the things in those dark recesses and corners of your mind come to the fore? What authors evoke the fears lurking in your own head and how do they do it?
Rising to meet the challenge: Stina Leicht, Kendare Blake, Robert Jackson Bennett, David Annandale, Lisa Morton, Mercedes M. Yardley, Mark Yon, David Nickle, Lillian Cohen-Moore, Andrew Pyper, Kate Maruyama, Anna Yeatts, Tiemen Zwaan, K. V. Johansen.
(3) Camestros Felapton (Nick asks, is that your real name?) has produced a literal (did I use that word right CPaca?) map of the 2015 Puppy kerfuffle.
A map of the various websites and groupings involved in the on-going internet kerfuffle over the Hugo Awards. Most symbols don’t really mean anything. Groupings of bloggers under a heading in bold. Crossed swords represent places where a notable discussion/argument etc occurred. This may include Brad Torgersen explaining what he intended or some kind of deceleration of intent (e.g. a boycott) or somebody pointing out what somebody else had done.
Several people offered corrections and suggestions. The best is CPaca’s plaint, “What, you couldn’t have a little Tank driving off a cliff in Marmot Gulch?”
(4) Sarah A. Hoyt’s version of the past six months of Puppies, “The goat kicks back”, shuffles the cards and deals them in a way that makes sense to her. That generally means belittling critics, or treating them as if they don’t have agency.
Which brings up “I’ll walk with you.”
I like Vonda and read her long before I came here. And I’m sure all she’s heard is the game of telephone in her circles, the same nonsense that convinced the dim bulb Irene Gallo that we’re all “right wing extremists.” I’m just going to say she’s trying to be nice, and the reprehensible people in this equation are the ones who so “Othered” Sad Puppies as to convince her we’re some kind of bigots.
To borrow Mark’s description in a comment here: “It’s a whistlestop tour through puppy history, illustrated with out-of-context screen shots and bizarre conflations of different events, culminating in identifying a clearly satirical website as an attempt to trick potential puppies.”
(5) Chris Meadows sums up the Antonelli story for TeleRead and makes a reliable prediction:
This is really something in the nature of a pre-game show to the kerfuffle that will invariably follow the announcement of this year’s Hugo winners (or “No Award” votes, as the case might be). No matter who wins, or whether nobody wins, some people won’t be happy, and there will be plenty of ranting and grumbling from both sides. And the Puppies will emerge determined to do even better (or worse) next year—which they might well be able to do, since Worldcon bylaws mean that no change designed to rebalance the procedure can go into effect until two years after it was proposed.
I just keep thinking of the old aphorism about academic politics being so vicious because there is so little at stake. It occurs to me that could very easily describe the politicking over literary awards, too.
(6) Although Ann Somerville’s primary interest is rebutting selected statements by K. Tempest Bradford, in the process she distilled the latest kerfuffle into a few well-chosen, pungent words.
As letting Antonelli off the hook, this is simply bullshit. No one in the comments on that post is saying “Antonelli should be let off the hook or let’s wait and see or oh it was so long ago”. The only defenders of Antonelli I’ve heard about at all have been his Sad/Rabid Puppy fellow travellers. Even at the very start of this, when all we knew about Antonelli is what he’d done to Gerrold, his apology, and Gerrold’s acceptance, there were easily half of those commenting condemning him outright and saying the apology was self-serving. The others thought Gerrold had been generous and on the face of it, the apology matched the offence. The more information we have had about Antonelli’s behaviour, has meant those praising him for his apology have changed their minds, and more people have joined in to say the apologies are nothing but an abuser’s typical tactic.
No one is letting Antonelli off the hook, not even Sasquan. Whether he’s facing the full consequence of his behaviour is another matter. But the idea that he is being given a free pass is nonsense – and again Bradford knows this. She also knows the only reason Antonelli’s apology was given any consideration by serious people was because the only known (at the time) victim of his actions, accepted it.
(7) Lyda Morehouse in “Dirty Dogs, Old Tricks” on Bitter Empire pays David Gerrold several ironic compliments.
Amazingly, this so-called reaction to the way he thought he was being treated has resulted in… (drum roll, please)… zero consequences for Antonelli.
Yep, the way he’s been treated by his loyal opposition is well beyond fairly. A few more people know his name now, and, at worst, have crossed him off their to-be-read list. But, the folks running the Hugo Awards, the Sasaquan WorldCon Committee, have not banned him (though they really kind of wanted to). Guess why they didn’t?
Because David Gerrold asked them not to.
In fact, Gerrold has been calling for peace all over the internet and asking everyone to try to be more compassionate.
Wow, yeah, what a psychotic that Gerrold guy is.
Good thing the cops know to be on the alert. You wouldn’t want a raging wanker like Gerrold wrecking your party.
(8) Vox Day has his own notions about giving peace a chance:
As for Sasquan, we have no interest in disrupting it, but we do expect our attendees to be prepared for any SJWs inclined to violate the posted Sasquan harassment policy. That is why I encourage every VFM, Puppy, and Dread Ilk attending Sasquan to keep a recorder running at all times on your Android or iOS phone. If you’re subsequently subject to any verbal or physical harassment, you’ll have material evidence on hand to bring to the relevant authorities. More importantly, you’ll also have a strong defense to present against the inevitable SJW lies concerning your own behavior.
(9) Deb Geisler, chair of the 2004 Worldcon, puts in perspective what the 2015 committee is going through.
Today, there is a group of people who are starting their own week-long count-down to the World Science Fiction Convention. This one is in Spokane, Washington. Their convention has been fraught with difficulties. Many of their people are not laughing. They’re not even grinning.
They are still trying to build something special for fandom. They’re often not getting much satisfaction. In fact, some are sitting around right now, wishing they were somewhere else, dealing with something else. Perhaps at a villa in Tuscany…perhaps in Port-aux-Français (since that’s as far away as one can get from the Spokane Convention Center and still be on land) in the Kerguelen Islands (also known as the Desolation Islands – you can get to the irony of that on your own)….
What I will say is this: If you are going to the convention, say something nice to the people you meet with a “committee” or “staff” or “volunteer/gopher” ribbon. You don’t need to compliment them on things. Just say something nice. Or maybe something that will make them laugh. Or smile at them and say nothing at all. (This last works particularly well when you don’t much like them.)
For those of us who have slogged this slog, sometimes a smile from someone is better than a paycheck. Hell, it *IS* the paycheck.
(10) Anne Rice in a public comment on Facebook renews the argument that the limit on freedom of speech depends on a willingness to defend its least savory examples.
Signing off with thanks to all who have participated in our discussions of fiction writing today. I want to leave you with this thought: I think we are facing a new era of censorship, in the name of political correctness. There are forces at work in the book world that want to control fiction writing in terms of who “has a right” to write about what. Some even advocate the out and out censorship of older works using words we now deem wholly unacceptable. Some are critical of novels involving rape. Some argue that white novelists have no right to write about people of color; and Christians should not write novels involving Jews or topics involving Jews. I think all this is dangerous. I think we have to stand up for the freedom of fiction writers to write what they want to write, no matter how offensive it might be to some one else. We must stand up for fiction as a place where transgressive behavior and ideas can be explored. We must stand up for freedom in the arts. I think we have to be willing to stand up for the despised. It is always a matter of personal choice whether one buys or reads a book. No one can make you do it. But internet campaigns to destroy authors accused of inappropriate subject matter or attitudes are dangerous to us all. That’s my take on it. Ignore what you find offensive. Or talk about it in a substantive way. But don’t set out to censor it, or destroy the career of the offending author.
(11) And here’s an unsavory example you can practice on: Tangent Online Special: Androgyny Destroys SF Review of Lightspeed.
Therefore, Tangent Online will show how the philosophy, the core defining predicates of androgyny can be applied to non-fiction as well as fiction and how in other ways it should be applied to areas of our real world lives. Thus, the table of contents for the August issue of Lightspeed below will contain only story titles—no author names; for revealing an author’s name would give immediate rise to the same conscious or unconscious bias we find in so much of our fiction. As well, the name of the reviewer is not mentioned for the same reason. Following the lead of the special Women and Queers Destroy SF issues of Lightspeed, you will find an essay following the review. Its author is also nameless, as it should be. It is the content of the words which truly matter and not who penned them. Content over author or editor is the only way to go in the Androgyny Revolution.
[Thanks to Mark and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cubist .]
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Trollers Scroll In Vain
Let’s say I’m a nanotechnological changeling who was transported through a dire portal in twistorspace whose distal terminus emerged in ancient Atlantis, and subsequently left in a certain hospital in in the early 1960s. Let’s say my nanotech enhancements have all gone dormant for want of an adequate supply of Technetium-98.
Sock Crocodile?
Buwaya:
There is no reason to think Sandifer’s comments were angry – that’s just something you’ve made up inside your head. Nor is there any reason to think that such clear and unambiguous statements make things generally difficult. Indeed, on the basis of this thread, it would seem that a far better candidate for making things generally difficult is your own dedicated promotion of vacuous buffoonery.
I would further note that one of the main virtues of liberal democracy is that it limits the ability of fascist dickbags to cause unpleasantness to their fellow human beings. The fact that fascist dickbags who happen to be operating in a liberal democracy are less personally harmful than their equivalents who happen to be operating in a different political environment is a testament to the virtues of liberal democracy, but has little bearing on the individual virtues of the fascist dickbags in question.
Hi Mr. Beale! Glad I could make it on your blog.
As for an example of someone ‘losing my shit’ that’s cute, but not accurate. I look forward to the voting regardless how it turn out. Specifically I was referencing https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/announcing-sad-puppies-3/ when I said that accusations of affirmative action were in the Sad Puppy mission statement: “Likewise, we’ve seen the Hugo voting skew ideological, as Worldcon and fandom alike have tended to use the Hugos as an affirmative action award: giving Hugos because a writer or artist is (insert underrepresented minority or victim group here) or because a given work features (insert underrepresented minority or victim group here) characters.”
So when I paint Puppies with a broad brush of sexism, racism, etc, it’s because SP3 accused prior winners of winning because of race or gender versus merit. I didn’t accuse Rabid Puppies of such, because Rabid Puppies are anarchist assholes who just want to fuck with the Hugos for fun. In that way I respect Rabids more than Sads because you at least have the balls not to pretend it’s anything else. You are more honest about not caring and willingness to be an asshole, congrats!
I’d put this on your blog, but you seem way more fixated with this one so I figured you’d notice more. Hope you’re dusting off shelves space for them rocket ships, though as a low rent Dr. Doom you’ve probably got some built in your lair already 🙂
Any estimate on just how soon Buwaya runs out of candy?
Robert Reynolds –
If people keep taking the bait he’ll keep fishing
Any estimate on just how soon Buwaya runs out of candy?
I think it had no candy in it, only hot air smelling of glue and old cardboard.
“Or, based on your statements here, much of a reader either.”
Bad writer, enthusiastic reader. That’s the typical fan I think.
Back in the day I would vacuum up SF. Not much since about the late 1980’s.
I CAN work out what Gene Wolfe is doing.
Wright is very difficult to follow though, in his last series. He put material for ten volumes in three. That man needs an editor.
“Any estimate on just how soon Buwaya runs out of candy?”
I cant have candy, diabetes.
buwaya –
I love you.
Bad writer, enthusiastic reader.
Enthusiastic maybe. Skilled, no, since you keep thinking people are writing something other than what they actually did write.
I cant have candy, diabetes.
If that sailed over your head, your claim of having done a lot of reading here is pretty much shown to lack credibility.
Returning to Hoyt: if the Puppies want more diversity in the Hugos, they’re doing it wrong, what with far fewer female authors than last year, and five nominations for the same author. And that’s just the objective measures: I would argue that style, sub-genres and message are narrower than the past, a result you’d expect when a small number of slatemakers game their choices into so many nomination slots.
“There is no reason to think Sandifer’s comments were angry”
I don’t think its usual to call people names like that unless someone is angry.
Perhaps I am old fashioned – well, I AM old fashioned. I think of writing this as one would speak in person. If Sandifer, or anyone, went about calling people names like that in a serene mood, there would seem to be something seriously wrong.
If one wanted to go about suppressing fascism, I don’t think its a very useful thing to call people names on the internet, particularly some minor writer.
I don’t think its usual to call people names like that unless someone is angry.
Or, you know, he assessed their public positions and determined that it was an accurate assessment. Why don’t you go ask him?
@buwaya
If one wanted to go about suppressing fascism, I don’t think its a very useful thing to call people names on the internet, particularly some minor writer.
We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them on the landing grounds, we shall fight them in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight them in the hills, and we shall fight them on our awards shortlists.
“That man needs an editor.
I love you.”
Ah, but note that I bought those books from Tor.
Those I bought from Beale are much tighter.
You have limited experience of the world.
“You have limited experience of the world.”
touche
I dont care we are brothers now. Brothers on opposite sides of a war tearing a nation apart. We’ll pull through, somehow
@Dawn
This is the Utena sub playlist.
I would say that Utena just barely counts as “magical girl”. I mean, it has a young, teen girl in a central role, with some powers(sort of) and she changes outfits right before she fights(sort of), but that’s trappings more than substance. It’s weird, beautiful, completely not straightforward, and more than slightly fucked up, especially the last two sagas. However, unlike many anime, when something skeezy happens, it’s almost always on purpose and intended to be skeezy.
Also, the battle music is bizarre and awesome and, unlike anything else you’d’ve likely heard in any other anime. Or maybe anything else.
The movie is even weirder and more beautiful, but way more confusing, as well, especially the last third, or so. I’m pretty sure it’s on youtube, as well, but otherwise I think it might be on Hulu, or something.
buwaya, <raised eyebrow> Who here, other than you, is insisting on “complete agreement on a series of articles of faith “?
You’re the one positing, without evidence (and indeed despite evidence to the contrary), that homosexual don’t have kids, don’t engage in self-sacrifice, are vainer than heterosexuals, and are more prone to sin than heterosexuals. Seems like you want our agreement on your articles of faith, here.
Ah, well. Seems the new piñata won’t engage on the subject of Tank Marmot, for reasons I suspect are obvious.
Apropos of my evening, if you haven’t played the HD version of Okami, y’all are missing out.
Ah, well. Seems the new piñata won’t engage on the subject of Tank Marmot, for reasons I suspect are obvious.
To be perfectly honest, he hasn’t actually engaged on much of anything of substance.
Given the consistency of Philip Sandifer’s assessment over a sustained period of time, I think it is safe to assume that the names he used are his honest opinion.
Is it just me or did the puppies get a lot more frisky once the voting finished? Did somebody work out that maybe saying as little as possible might be a good idea while people were still voting? If so they should put that person in charge.
Will McLean: If the Puppies want more diversity of the kind they’ve been filling the ballot with so far, John C. Wright is going to have to write a hell of a lot more stories before the end of the year.
…and that’ll teach me to walk away from the computer and throw darts for a couple of hours without remembering to hit post. Four *pages* too late…. <sheepish>
How long until somebody takes the bait and loses their temper with Buwaya and he can happily flounce and report to puppydom what raving, intolerant lunatics inhabit Ville770 and how they refuse to even consider other viewpoints, even when those viewpoints come from a minority from an entirely different culture!
Also, where did Brian Z go all the sudden?
Well you know, when Batman shows up, Bruce Wayne is nowhere to be found…
Woohoo! I just got the acceptance on the story of Bob (you remember Bob–not the Reverend, but Marlene’s boy) and his attempts to catch a unicorn. Excerpt:
…I tried to explain this all to Bob, and even went so far as to draw out an Ambulocetus on a napkin, but I could tell he wasn’t all that interested, even though it was a pretty good drawing, if I do say so myself.
“Bob,” I say, “a man who is no longer interested in the genetics of inbred hillbilly water unicorns is a man who is no longer interested in life. I am afraid for your priorities, son.”
“Fine,” he says, “but that doesn’t change the fact that I got a narwhal in my above-ground swimming pool, now does it?”
Thank you all for the inspiration! I shall let you know when it’s available for general reading.
This latest’s pseuds ‘I don’t know…I can’t express myself…I can’t find where you said that…but I read closely’ schtick reminds me of aeou’s appeal to some brain problem when he was finally cornered into discussing a book. He didn’t remember the name of the book but something something happened and SJWs always lie.
And thus we see the appeal of Puppydom, especially the Rabid subspecies—literal halfwits get the other halves of their brains filled in by someone else.
Kathodus –
Hell I referenced something Brad Torgersen wrote and that proved to Vox that File770 is losing it’s mind because we know the Hugos are going to draw investigations that will show us all to be child molesters
By next week we might be incest cannibal serial killers! He’s right that time is certainly making some people freak out, heh.
Camestros –
Nah, they just had nothing to say about the stuff that was nominated leaving them without much to talk about for several weeks aside from the same BS.
Matt:
Geez! Tell everyone, why don’t you?!
I am much too old to flounce.
I was reasonably good at the cha cha once.
Nah, they just had nothing to say about the stuff that was nominated leaving them without much to talk about for several weeks aside from the same BS.
And now the only thing they have to talk about is how mean everyone is being to dear old Uncle Lou who was just being his usual self, and the fact that people can’t stir up trouble with the police without consequence any more means that Marxists are ruining the country.
Yama sed
+1 ’cause being responded to by so many people can be overwhelming
Joining in late, but @buwaya, how do you speak pleasantly with a Malaysian, ie, as opposed or differently to someone else?
Cat said:
A popular Beat Combo.
Dawn Incognito –
I am always happy to discuss magical girl shows! I think you’ve put your finger on Usagi’s appeal — her ability to embrace almost anyone for being exactly who they are. And in order to do that, she can’t be any sort of paragon herself. Hmm… Is there anyone Usagi doesn’t accept?
And you are in for a delight with Utena. Keep an eye out for who it is that is making things happen, particularly in the first third of the show… 🙂
Malaysians are just an example. Most Malays are Moslem, therefore they have different (sometimes subtle, sometimes overt) ideas about what is right, wrong, acceptable, unacceptable. They are of course very polite about everything and very pleasant, usually. Much of what they believe and live by would be entirely unacceptable in this place, if laid out overtly.
If one were in KL someday, would you, as a reasonable person, avoid the unstated differences in world view and deal productively on matters of mutual interest, or would you find it necessary to provoke a dispute just because a difference exists ?
@buwaya, first of all ITYM “Muslim”
Secondly, “…would you find it necessary to provoke a dispute just because a difference exists ?”
Unless there was a substantive reason and the difference needs to hammered out, I wouldn’t. And I daresay this would hold true for most people, without having to fallback into some sort of cultural relativism basis.
Your reply seems to be that you would be polite by being polite. But that was not the point you made initially, and that was not the question I asked.
So again I ask, how would you deal politely with a Malaysian, as opposed to or differently to someone else?
Consider the possibility of Islamic Science Fiction.
I guess it more or less exists. I find it fascinating.
It’s something from a different (human) world.
The puppies would probably also think it interesting, should it come to their attention, and, probably, only a few would automatically recoil in disgust or ideological aversion.
Based on the reactions here, I suspect that it would, probably, be carefully ignored (not PC to hate Islamic things).
Treating them differently was not the point, it was whether one could suppress ones own sense of difference to deal productively, even affectionately, with very different people.
PS: Malaysia is majority Muslim, barely (about 60%), which makes it a very weird example to use. Basically, the pseud’s question, “Can you deal with someone used to navigating a pluralistic society?”
Uh…yeah.
Therefore, if one could be polite and productive when speaking with a Muslim (Moslem, whatever, it is all conventions of transliteration, it was Moslem not long ago), what is so horrible about, say Correia or Kratman ?
*raises hand*
I’m Malaysian.
It may come as a shock to you (or not) that you have been interacting in a civil fashion with a Malaysian all this time. You guys have been doing it wrong all along!
Wow. Anybody got the Wright quote handy about how dare they make comics with Muslims without a white man as a moral center?
One of my favorite books last year was Yangsze Choo’s “Ghost Bride” set in Malaysia. I nominated it for a Hugo, actually, but a funny thing happened on the way to Sasquan… (Seriously, though, let me add this to everybody’s book rec lists, really good stuff.)
Consider the possibility of Islamic Science Fiction.
I guess it more or less exists.
Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. You might even like it.