Puppies To The Right of Them, Puppies To the Left of Them 4/14

Today leaders of the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies react to a ruling by the Hugo administrator that one work from each of their slates is ineligible and has been dropped from the Hugo final ballot.

David Gerrold and Connie Willis say it will not be business as usual at the Hugo ceremony.  Larry Correia, John C. Wright and George R.R. Martin parry and riposte. Laura Mixon says send a message by voting her a Hugo.

Then, while “you missed the point” is a phrase oft resorted to in these arguments, Michael Stackpole eloquently describes the point he says Sad Puppies have missed.

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“John C. Wright work disqualified” – April 14

I think this is a serious mistake by Sasquan. Just as Dune and Ender’s Game served as precedents for a shorter work reworked and published as a longer one, which was the case with both “One Bright Star to Guide Them” and “Big Boys Don’t Cry”, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War serves as precedent for a work that appeared on the web prior to being professionally published and subsequently declared eligible in the latter year.

 

Brad R. Torgersen

“Two Hugo final ballot changes, and a question” – April 14

I would like to take this opportunity (as the coordinator of the Sad Puppies 3 effort in 2015) to note that John C. Wright’s piece, “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” was not on the Sad Puppies 3 list. It appears this story was on the copycat Rabid Puppies alter-ego slate, being put forth by Vox Day.

Many people have been conflating the two slates (Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies) for the past ten days, and I think it’s important to make clear the fact that the two slates are different, while still being similar. I congratulate Thomas Olde Heuvelt, whose story “The Day The World Turned Upside Down” (from Lightspeed magazine) now takes a place on the 2015 Hugo final ballot. Good work, Thomas! And good luck!

One person who was on the Sad Puppies 3 ballot — Jon Eno [http://www.joneno.com/] — has been disqualified. I am sorry about that, Jon! I tried as best as I could to do my due diligence in researching the Hugo qualification rules, when I put you forward in that category. I think you’ve been doing a lot of very beautiful spec fic art, and I hope you continue to share your illustrations with all of us who follow you on Facebook.

Taking Jon’s place on the ballot is Kirk DouPonce, from the Rabid Puppies slate. Kirk’s been doing a bang-up excellent job with cover design, many examples of which can be seen at his site. Congratulations, Kirk! Terrific stuff, sir.

My question for the masses is: the year-to-year interpretations of the rules seem to occasionally be inconsistent. For example, John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War was indie published (to Scalzi’s web site) long before it was licensed by TOR for traditional publication, yet Old Man’s War was on the short list for Best Novel in 2006. Did anyone (at that time) ask for clarification? Seems to me if John C. Wright’s story can be bumped for prior web publication, this would have applied in Scalzi’s case too; unless the specific rules have changed since 2006.

 

 

David Gerrold post on Facebook – April 14

I had asked Connie Willis to present the Campbell award — she declined. Because she cannot pretend that this year’s awards are business as usual.

In fact, none of us can. And as the host of the award ceremony, I can’t either.

So, Brad, Larry, Vox — congratulations. You’ve spoiled the party. Not just mine, but everyone’s.

I waited nearly a half century to get here, and when I do get here, there’s ashes.

It hurts.

Not just me. Everyone.

And I don’t care how you dodge and weasel, how you rend your garments and play the victim game, how you pretend it’s everyone else’s fault — that’s bullshit. You’ve made it impossible to have a Hugo ceremony that is a joyous celebration of the best in our genre.

I haven’t figured out how we’ll manage the Hugo ceremony yet. I’m still soliciting advice from the smartest people I know — people with experience, regardless of their politics. Right now, mostly what I’m hearing back is, “I’m so sorry this has happened to you, you deserve better, but I know you’ll figure it out.” (Plus a few suggestions on what to do if this or that or the other happens.)

I do have some ideas. (One of which is, “You won’t like me when I’m angry.” But you don’t like me already, so why should I give in to anger?)

There is another way to go. It’s something I learned watching Harlan Ellison. Did I mention he’s one of my role models?

So I have a choice. I can pretend it’s business as usual —

It isn’t.

Or, I can recognize that I’ve been trusted with the microphone for a reason — that the committee thinks I know what I’m doing — and use that responsibility in a way that serves the Hugos, the Worldcon, and most of all the generations of fans, thousands and thousands and thousands, from all over the world, who still respect our traditions and our awards.

 

Connie Willis

“Why I Won’t Be A Presenter at the Hugo Awards This Year” – April 14

And finally, to Vox Day, Brad Torgeson, and their followers, I have this to say:

“You may have been able to cheat your way onto the ballot. (And don’t talk to me about how this isn’t against the rules–doing anything except nominating the works you personally liked best is cheating in my book.) You may even be able to bully and intimidate people into voting for you. But you can’t make me hand you the Hugo and say “Congratulations,” just as if you’d actually won it. And you can’t make me appear onstage and tell jokes and act like this year’s Hugo ceremony is business as usual and what you’ve done is okay. I’m not going to help you get away with this. I love the Hugo Awards too much.”

 

Larry Correia on Monster Hunter Nation

“George R. R. Martin responds” – April 14

[Larry Correia] Okay. Then don’t accept our version. Go read reporter Damien Walter’s account in the Guardian about my sexist homophobic campaign to steal the Hugos last year. (by the way, how did he know about my nomination before it was announced?) Or go read his account in the Guardian where he libeled Toni Weisskopf. Or go read Entertainment Weekly, the Telegraph, Salon, Slate or the many other places where I’m a racist white guy from earlier this week.

Of course we tweak their words around to mock them, because bullies hate that.  You have to have fun with this stuff, or it’ll drive you nuts.

[GRR Martin] Take this “Wrongfan” moniker I now see popping up on Puppy sites. Neither I nor any of the other SMOFs or trufans or worldconners that I know have ever called you or your friends “wrongfans.” You guys made that up and applied it to yourself.

Damn right we did. I’m pretty sure I invented the word Wrongfun to describe how the perpetually outraged crowd on Twitter was perpetually offended that somebody somewhere was having fun wrong.

Let me give you an example of wrongfun. After my last letter to you went public I had three or four people concern trolling me on Twitter because I used the term “Twitter Lynch Mob” to describe a well-known type of behavior. They’re perched like falcons, waiting for somebody to transgress, so that they can swoop in and feel superior. If you use the wrong words, play the wrong games, read the wrong books, wear the wrong shirt, they’ll be there. These people are always looking for an excuse to shake their fingers at you for having fun wrong, hence the term, Wrongfun.

So when Teresa Nielsen Hayden (who somehow knew that SP3 had 3/5 of the best novel nominations before they were announced) started going off about us, and how we were outsiders, my people took Wrongfun and turned it into Wrongfan. I don’t recall who did that, but it was funny, and it made my people laugh, so it stuck.

Words are awesome like that. I do find it ironic that you don’t approve of my people making up words to describe the world as they see it, in the same sentence that you speak of SMOFs, Trufans, and Worldconners.

 

Kalimac on Kalimac’s Journal

“Hugonian Politics” – April 14

I think there are two courses of action here.

1) You can try to rewrite the rules to ban slates. I don’t think you will succeed. Slate advocates will find a way around the rules. Maginot line. The fathers of the U.S. Constitution thought they had eliminated political parties, and they were pretty smart guys, but in that respect they failed.

2) Or you can form a counter-slate. Many people are doing so, even among those who claim to oppose a counter-slate. They’re launching a campaign to vote for No Award. That doesn’t help them with next year’s nominations, but for the current election, No Award is their counter-slate candidate, whether they think of it as one or not.

 

Naomi Kritzer on Will Tell Stories For Food

“Vox Day’s involvement in the Sad Puppies Slate”  – April 13

So, hey. Obviously, whatever else the ELoE is, it’s an informal organization; it’s partly an in-joke and an amusing self-chosen nickname for a clique of friends. But here’s what I feel pretty confident about:

  1. This particular Evil League of Evil is Larry Correia, John C. Wright, Sarah Hoyt, and Vox Day. When Larry Correia talks about the ELoE, he doesn’t use the term like it’s a joke; he uses it as a straightforward shorthand for his clique. Vox Day is a member of the clique. In fact, the origination of the name for the clique came out of an indignant rejection of the idea that Wright might consider distancing himself from VD.
  2. Larry Correia said that the ELoE discussed and “came up with” the names and works on the SP slate.
  3. Larry Correia said that that VD “isn’t even on the slate” but I did not see anywhere that he said that VD had nothing to do with choosing the slate, and if he made that claim at this point, I guess I’d like him to unpack his previous statements about the ELoE’s involvement.

 

Michael Stackpole on Stormwolf.com

“Why Puppies Are Sad and Always Will Be” – April 14

To me, the oddest part about the Rabid Puppies and their lamenting that they don’t get awards is that they’re pointing to the wrong reason why they’re left out in the cold. It’s not because they’re an oppressed minority. It’s because they don’t write the kind of work that gets awards. The Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards have traditionally been handed out to new voices addressing new ways of telling stories, addressing new issues and new technology. When geographical bias is factored out of the awards, over and over again they go to works which are imaginative, well-written and, more often than not, of diminished popularity. After the fact they might become classics, but their more-likely fate is to go out of print despite having won an award.

I’ve been working in this field since 1988 (when my first two novels came out). I’ve never been short-listed for an award of any sort in the field. Why? Because I write series fiction. Because I write fantasy. Because I write military SF. Because I write franchise fiction. I’ve been just as solidly frozen out by the literary establishment as any of the puppies, but it doesn’t bother me.

Why not?

1) Awards don’t move the needle on sales.

2) I can’t eat awards.

3) Awards are not a referendum on quality of writing.

4) Awards reflect notoriety during a mote of time, neither conferring immortality nor success upon the recipients.

5) Readers who only read or respect award-winning authors and their work are outside my target demographic: that being people who want to read a rousing good tale that, maybe, will allow them to reflect on an issue or conundrum now and again.

 

Laura Mixon

“Standing in the Borderlands of Discourse” – April 13

I’ve spoken to an expert in the matter who has studied our case, who tells me that RH’s abuses (like Vox Day’s) are highly unlikely to stop by themselves, if she follows the trajectory of other people who act as she has. Over and over, for more than a decade, she has blown up communities by positioning herself as a victim and finding people to cover for her, who either feel they don’t have a right to criticize her, or are willing to overlook her behavior for the sake of other concerns.

That’s why I accepted the nomination, and why I continue to speak. The community is still at risk. A vote for me sends a clear signal that the community stands firm on this basic principle: that our politics can’t outweigh our humanity. That everyone has a fundamental right to be here, to engage in online and in-person discourse without being threatened with annihilation. We have to find a way—not to deny our own beliefs and experiences—but to talk across the divides.

I don’t have good answers for how we can help the center hold, but I do believe we need to rally as a community around a set of norms. A covenant of sorts. An agreement that, whatever the fractures in our community—whatever our disagreements—whatever personal circumstances brought us to this genre in the first place—at its heart, SFF has room for all of us.

 

John C. Wright in a comment on George R.R. Martin’s Not A Blog

Sir, you commented “John C. Wright SIX TIMES!!! John C. Wright, a writer famed far and wide for having no opinions on politics, race, religion, or sexual orientation, and would never dream of injecting such messages into his Damned Good Stories.”

I assume here you are being ironic, and stating that I do indeed put messages into my fiction.

However, we have worked together in the past. You edited the anthology SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH in which my short story, ‘Guyal the Curator’ appeared.

Were there or were there not pro-conservative messages in that story? You may not recall it, but I know you read it.

If, since you are an honest man, you will say that story had no overt political message in it, on what grounds do you assume I put overt political messages in my other stories?

In other words, you are accusing me of hypocrisy, I, who have never said a bad word about you in public or private to anyone, and who have always hitherto held you in the highest esteem. What is the factual basis for the accusation please?

If there is no factual basis, why make the accusation?

 

George R.R. Martin replying to John C. Wright’s comment on Not A Blog – April 14

Actually, I don’t recall “accusing” you of anything. I was pointing out that the Sad Puppy stance against “message fiction” rang kind of false when they nominate someone (six times) who has lots of “message” in his fiction. It would have been more honest for the Pups to say they don’t want liberal/ feminist/ “SJW” / socialist/ atheist/ etc messages in their stories, but they think conservative, libertarian, and Christian messages are just dandy.

Truth be told, I think there are messages in every story, whether the author intended to put them in there or not. The things we write are invariably colored by the ways we see the world.

At this date, I don’t recall the details of your story in SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH. I would need to review it. Yes, of course I read it. I bought it. I liked it. You knew your Vance, and captured the Dying Earth quite well.

Jack Vance himself was quite conservative, as you may or may not know, and grew even more so in the last years of his life. You can see it in some of his stories, though it requires careful reading; he never stopped a story for a lecture. Vance is only one of many conservative SF authors that I hold in high esteem. Actually, Vance is probably my favorite SF writer, and as a fantasist I rank him up there with Howard, Leiber, and Tolkien.

I also like Heinlein, Kipling, Niven & Pournelle, Lovecraft, Blish… I love Poul Anderson. That does not mean I believe there were no messages in their fiction. That also does not mean I agree with those messages. They wrote great stories.

What annoys me is the Sad Puppy stance that liberal writers are producing “message fiction” while guys on their ticket are just writing Ripping Good Yarns untroubled by politics or opinions.

 

Brad Templeton on Brad Ideas

“Second musings on the Hugo Awards and the fix”  – April 13

To deal with the current cheating and the promised cheating in 2016, the following are recommended.

  1. Downplay the 2015 Hugo Award, perhaps with sufficient fans supporting this that all categories (including untainted ones) have no award given.
  2. Conduct a parallel award under a new system, and fête it like the Hugos, though they would not use that name.
  3. Pass new proposed rules including a special rule for 2016
  4. If 2016’s award is also compromised, do the same. However, at the 2016 business meeting, ratify a short-term amendment proposed in 2015 declaring the alternate awards to be the Hugo awards if run under the new rules, and discarding the uncounted results of the 2016 Hugos conducted under the old system. Another amendment would permit winners of the 2015 alternate award to say they are Hugo winners.
  5. If the attackers gave up, and 2016’s awards run normally, do not ratify the emergency plan, and instead ratify the new system that is robust against attack for use in 2017.

 

Noah Ward on Sad Puppies

“Enemies of the Revolution Resort to Underhanded Tactics” – April 14

Some may believe that with the nominations announced, the hardest part of our campaign has already been accomplished and all that remains is to coast to victory, but recent events prove the need for continuing vigilance. The eligibility committee at Sasquan has today disqualified two of our works from the final ballot based upon minor technicalities! They did this even though last year they permitted the entirety of the Wheel of Time, the first volume of which was published when the Soviet Union was still a going concern, to be nominated, with free copies of the entire series distributed to voters. In so doing they severely undermined Larry Correia’s Warbound by admitting an entire series that attracted votes away from the Sad Puppies base of adventure-loving readers.

 

David Gerrold on Facebook – April 14

Once again, I have to remind people that I have the name “Noah Ward” as a legally registered pseudonym with the WGAW.

People using that name are doing so without my authorization.

I’m not saying this to spoil anyone’s fun, but to protect my legal rights as well as to make sure that no one thinks I am behind the various “Noah Ward” pages and sites.

 

Heraldic Arms of the Hugo Justice Workers (c) 2015 by Moshe Feder

Heraldic Arms of the Hugo Justice Workers (c) 2015 by Moshe Feder

Heraldic Arms of the Hugo Justice Workers © 2015 Moshe Feder All Rights Reserved

Permission for reuse is granted to anyone fighting to restore and preserve the traditional fair play of the Hugo Awards and to send the Sad Puppy and Rabid Puppy vandals back to their noisome kennels.

“I will fear no puppies.”

144 thoughts on “Puppies To The Right of Them, Puppies To the Left of Them 4/14

  1. Mike – removing a member wasn’t popping anything in Google. I’m to the point with Vox that if he said the sun rises in the east and sets in the west I go check.

    Obviously I wasn’t the only person who thought a board could expel somebody as evidenced by the bylaws.

  2. Andrew is Tad. So yes. Obtuse.

    YOU ALL ARE MINIONS!

    Um we voted differently

    YOU ALL ARE DIDN’T FOLLOW THE LEADER!

    Um…I give up.

  3. “Mike – removing a member wasn’t popping anything in Google. I’m to the point with Vox that if he said the sun rises in the east and sets in the west I go check.”

    While it is always good to check where exactly has he lied? My guess is Mike even got the relevant by-laws (just a guess) from Vox. You may not _like_ him you may not _agree_ but lying is a whole different thing.

    But then when you are on the side spreading lies I guess there’s a natural inclination to not be trustful.

  4. “Andrew – Are you just willfully obtuse? Several people asserted that there was “lockstep” nomination of the slate. Several of us pointed out the obvious falsehood. That’s it. Of course stuff got nominated from the slate… because people read it and liked it!”

    But that obviously isn’t true. If it was then there would be no need for a Sad Puppies campaign because those works would be getting nominated already. People clearly voted off of the Sad Puppies list. The fact that doing so means they matched the voting numbers of previous years doesn’t prove slate voting one way or the other.

    Look, I understand that the Sad Puppies want to “prove” that other people have colluded to get works nominated. But if that’s your goal, say that. This “Oh, but I didn’t really vote off the Sad Pupppy slate” stuff just makes your cause seem dishonest.

  5. “People who fear no Puppies don’t vote blank slates. Otherwise why do it?”

    Because you’re mistaking “fear” for “disdain”, perhaps.
    Or anger, or any one of a number of other possible motivations.

    I don’t intend to vote a blank slate — Ann Leckie will get a vote, ahead of “No Award”, because I think her book deserves it, at the very least. However, I’ve now read multiple Puppy nominees, (including one removed from the ballot), and I don’t think they were deserving by any stretch of the imagination. So I’m certainly going to vote “No Award” ahead of them — and given that one of the Puppy nominees was (AFAICT) an editor who chose to publish them, I’m certainly going to vote “No award” ahead of him.

    All the Puppies have demonstrated, from what I can tell, is that a) bloc voting works, b) they’re prepared to whine if anyone uses a tactic against them that they don’t like, and c) much of at least the RP slate just goes to demonstrate why the author’s haven’t gotten Hugo noms in other years — the work is simply not Hugo-worthy.

  6. One thing about this whole thing that really amuses me is the fact that the puppies have been identifying traditional fandom/SMOFs/trufen as a leftist cabal of “SJWs”. It wasn’t that long ago that many on the left were calling us all a bunch of sexist, racist bigots who were “standing in the way of progress and scaring away young fans”. Which view is true?

  7. Andrew – Were you aware of every work on the ballot? I wasn’t. I read books from almost every genre throughout the year. I don’t have the ability to keep up with everything that is available in SFF. That’s why I actually would prefer to see lots of competing slates – more information for everyone.

  8. “One thing about this whole thing that really amuses me is the fact that the puppies have been identifying traditional fandom/SMOFs/trufen as a leftist cabal of “SJWs”. It wasn’t that long ago that many on the left were calling us all a bunch of sexist, racist bigots who were “standing in the way of progress and scaring away young fans”. Which view is true?”

    Neither, of course. Are some SMOFs leftists? Oh, yes. Are some sexists? Oh, yes. As usual, we’re seeing errors of perspective here, from both extremes, if they try and write off the bulk of SMOFdom as coming from any one place.

  9. “Andrew – Were you aware of every work on the ballot? I wasn’t. I read books from almost every genre throughout the year. I don’t have the ability to keep up with everything that is available in SFF. That’s why I actually would prefer to see lots of competing slates – more information for everyone.”

    Of course I wasn’t aware of everything on the ballot. I was aware of other works that I liked and weren’t on there. And that’s the exact problem slate voting. The Sad and Rabid puppies both say the missed nominating works like the Three Body Problem and the Heinlein book because they were unaware of them. That’s why it’s better to spread out the nominating process by having everyone nominate their own favorites and see where they overlap. But the Puppies seem to care more about winning period than about their favorite works winning so that system was borked this year.

  10. [Mike: Please delete the two typoed copies above. Thanks.]

    Peter David, for all of his excellent work in the field, has never been nominated for a Hugo. I once asked him about that — if I recall correctly (I do NOT want to put words into his mouth), he said something to the effect that he didn’t understand why he was not in the view or favor of whoever ran the Hugos in various years. He also, if I recall correctly, shrugged it off as a vagary of the field and didn’t worry about it.

    He has never once publicly — to my knowledge — complained about not getting Hugo nominations.

    I think Peter David is a decent guy and a good sport, that it helps keep his blood pressure down, and that he probably looks at it with the perspective that there are more important things in life to worry about.

    Wouldn’t that be better for everyone than all this emotional, psychological, and balloting baloney? Just vote for what you think is best and if you’re not in the majority, just go on with your reading and writing life? No lib.-vs.-con. stuff which is irrelevant to the quality of work, just concentrate on the quality of work?

    (No doubt some are asking “How can he be so naive?” It’s not that so much as it’s idealism despite cynicism, idealism despite reality. Beyond that, make of it what you will.)

  11. Of course stuff got nominated from the slate… because people read it and liked it!

    And the Hugos have always been dominated by a seckrit cabal of SJWs, yes, yes I know.

    Like another commentator, I remember the dim distant days of 2012 when EXACTLY the opposite charge was being leveled at Hugo voters and nominators by the Book Bloggers and people on the left.

    If you can believe 6 impossible things before breakfast then….

  12. Those two withdrawals represent a climate of fear. And over what? You either boil your rice with or without salt. Wrong people in the wrong place in the wrong way.

    Tell us again there’s no Inquisition. They are making our point for us. You can indulge in all the group defamation you want, just make sure it’s the right race and the right gender.

    No genre so fallen in can write perceptive SF. It has regressed to before The Code of Hammurabi. All that bickering, death and war to arrive at a nation of laws. And for what? When SF itself is an unironic and unaware dystopia, then it is incapable of serving as a warning voice. It has been subsumed. Look elsewhere for your dangerous visions and perceptual shifts that act as humanistic tools of self-criticism. That has all been destroyed for the privilege of critiquing race and sex itself as the new moral ethos in town. In this new planetary romance, just kill the Thark – he’s green. What does it matter how he behaves? He’s green. He always has been green and always will be green. He’s a typical green guy.

  13. I am saddened that Markos Kloos withdrew (and the other author, who I am not familiar with).

    I really enjoyed Lines of Departure, and his next book should be out any day now.

  14. “And that’s the exact problem slate voting. The Sad and Rabid puppies both say the missed nominating works like the Three Body Problem and the Heinlein book because they were unaware of them.”

    Do you believe those works would have made it on, anyways? I don’t. Biographies are incredibly hard to get on the slate and part 1 didn’t make it last year. 3BP had the issue of being a late-year translation.

    You’re saying that the slate means those works were missed. I don’t see that there’s any evidence for that. I would rather see people go into the nominating process with an awareness of what’s popular so they can read it if they like. Like I said – SFF is odd in that this is purportedly a “new” concept.

  15. If we on the anti-slate side actually hounded people off the ballot, then I’m truly sorry. I certainly don’t that should be happening. If, on the other hand, we take the two withdrawers at face value, things are equally sad, but at least we didn’t chase anyone off.

  16. Funny. I swear just last week a bunch of people were advocating “No Award” over anything on the slate…

  17. I just dote on safe-spaces and safe-racism.

    Heads up authors, this Orwellian SF is writing itself. All you have to do is take notes.

    At least those of you who don’t worry about how rice is boiled in the North American Co-Joy Syndicate of RaceGen Demi-Equality.

    Forget not being able to see gender. What about not being able to see law? That’s kinda edgy in IntSocSF.

  18. “Do you believe those works would have made it on, anyways? I don’t. Biographies are incredibly hard to get on the slate and part 1 didn’t make it last year. 3BP had the issue of being a late-year translation.”

    You’re saying that the slate means those works were missed. I don’t see that there’s any evidence for that. I would rather see people go into the nominating process with an awareness of what’s popular so they can read it if they like. Like I said – SFF is odd in that this is purportedly a “new” concept.”

    It isn’t what I’m saying, actually. I’m saying a slate has far more blind spots than everyone voting for their favorite work. The Puppies missed things they would have liked because of how they set about things. So all of the people involved in contributing to that list missed it, but other people outside of the Puppies saw those works and pointed them out later. More people involved means a better survey of the year.

    And a slate vs. slate Hugo nomination process would turn into exactly what the Sad Puppies say they don’t want. Writers having to do and say the Right Thing to get their work on one of the slates so that it can be considered. That definitely would bork the Hugos for a long time until some rules were changed.

  19. I detested Lines of Departure myself, it wasn’t actually terrible but it wasn’t what I expect from a Hugo nominee. Honestly, I do not believe he would have been on there without the rabid puppies slate. It will be interesting, therefore, to see what replaces him.

  20. “And a slate vs. slate Hugo nomination process would turn into exactly what the Sad Puppies say they don’t want. Writers having to do and say the Right Thing to get their work on one of the slates so that it can be considered. That definitely would bork the Hugos for a long time until some rules were changed.”

    Really? What had to be said or done to make it onto the SP slate this year? I’ve read political commentary by several people on the slate. That can’t possibly be it. So what makes you say that?

  21. @Mike K –

    “If we on the anti-slate side actually hounded people off the ballot, then I’m truly sorry.”

    My read of Kloos is because he decided there was too big of a chance (Near-certainty?) of VD’s group having nominated him “for political reasons” and he didn’t want the award if that was the case.

    For Bellet, though…who originally wrote about the tensions she’d been under but how pleased she was to have so many people contacting her about being pleased with her writing…

    “Maybe someday I will get to sit in a pretty dress next to my mother and know that if I lose the rocket, it will be because someone wrote a story that resonated more than mine. To know that I will lose to a person and not a political fight. To sit there and know if I lose, no one will cheer. And if I win, no one will boo. ”

    In her statement she makes it clear that she’s not crazy about having been made a football from either side. But I think her words above are particularly heartbreaking coming from anyone.

  22. Lol. That blog post by Naomi Kritzer managed to get six things (factually) wrong by the second paragraph. Is that the best you can do?

  23. “Really? What had to be said or done to make it onto the SP slate this year? I’ve read political commentary by several people on the slate. That can’t possibly be it. So what makes you say that?”

    Who knew that being on the SP slate made you pretty much a lock for a nomination this year? Judging from some of Correia’s comments not even the Sad Puppies thought that. If there was a counter-slate that pushed out everything that wasn’t on a slate a writer would be required to be on a slate in order to be nominated. Then the jockeying and favor-trading would begin in earnest.

  24. S1AL: Naomi Kritzer’s post quotes Larry Correia to show how closely he’s associated with Day. The accuracy of those quotes is not in dispute, so it’s fair to conclude that Correia has been much closer to Day in carrying out his Sad Puppies campaign than his recent statements claim.

  25. @rcade – I think you (and Kritzer) are seriously over-reading those quotes. She conflates “we” “ELoE” and “Vox Day” pretty much willy-nilly throughout those few passages.

    At least she has the integrity to note at the bottom that this is conjecture and reason for suspicion to uphold her conviction that SP and RP are the same thing.

  26. *sigh*

    I don’t get how I can say “factual errors” and get the response of “uses quotes.” I really do not understand that.

    Andrew – Heh. I’m fairly certain that accusation had already been leveled.

  27. “Heh. I’m fairly certain that accusation had already been leveled.”

    Exactly. Which is why I said competing slates would bring on exactly what the Puppies don’t want.

  28. “One reason for fans to pay $40 is for what we get in the hugo packet.”

    The only reason I linked to it was the quotes she collected. If you found factual errors in her post, feel free to point them out, but that’s not why I posted the link. It shows Correia talking about how he’s worked together with Day, John C. Wright and Sarah Hoyt to come up with the Puppies slate.

  29. Mike,
    If you don’t win a Hugo next year for this year’s coverage, I’m going to start to get suspicious…

  30. Let’s start with “honest-to-God neo-fascist,” which is a rather hilarious accusation to throw at a guy who wrote literally just started that he’d currently support universal direct democracy.

    But that’s a side note. She can’t even accurately assess the size or composition of the EloE (Brad is a member. There are at least two more). I don’t believe there was ever an assertion that VD had “nothing whatsoever” (her words) to do with SP. And then the entire issue of z association fallacy to top it all off. That post is a freaking joke.

  31. ‘People who fear no Puppies don’t vote blank slates. Otherwise why do it?’

    Because puppies sometimes benefit from a light bop on the nose with a rolled up newspaper?

  32. “Mike, If you don’t win a Hugo next year for this year’s coverage, I’m going to start to get suspicious…”

    I agree. The coverage is better than anywhere else. Good job.

  33. “Because puppies sometimes benefit from a light bop on the nose with a rolled up newspaper?”

    I think you’ll find the No Awarders are actually hoping to gas the puppies once and for all.

  34. The first volume of Patterson’s Heinlein biography wasn’t published “last year,” but in 2010. It was a Hugo nominee in 2011.

  35. ‘I think you’ll find the No Awarders are actually hoping to gas the puppies once and for all.’

    By voting No Award you are participating in a new Holocaust. Well that’s a sobering thought right enough.

  36. The rest of your statement still stands? I presume you mean “ballot” when you said “slate” but it is not so that biographies are incredibly hard to get on the ballot.

    2004 had the Herbert bio.
    2005 had the Westen memoir.
    2006 had the Wilhelm book, which is half memoir/ half writing manual (of sorts). It WON.
    2007 had the Tiptree bio, which WON.
    2008 had the bio of the Emshwillers.
    2010 had the Vance autobio, which WON.
    2011 had the Heinlein bio.

    That’s just going back ten years. SP3 claims that about twenty years ago the Hugos started getting wonky, but the prior ten years saw autobios/memoirs or bios of Robert Bloch, Asimov, Sprague de Camp, and Merril as well.

    THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM was also widely anticipated, promoted, and sold very well, especially for a translation. (It sold about 8000 copies in hardcover according to Bookscan, which undercounts. Compare to KJA’s Hugo nominated book, which has Bookscanned fewer than 2000 copies despite having been published in June 2014, and by the same company as 3BD.)

    What’s “popular” indeed.

  37. And as reported on this site, THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM is indeed the new nominee, so it did get plenty of votes.

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