aka The Good, the Bad, and the Yapping
Rachel Acks and Abigail Nussbaum begin the May Day roundup, followed by Mark Leeper, John Scalzi, Paul Kincaid, David Langford, Laura Mixon, Kiesa, and a colleague who has chosen a saner course. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Milt Stevens and Laura Resnick.)
Rachel Acks
“The Hugo Nomination Problem or, I Am a Bad Reader” – May 1
I’m sure this does not reflect on me well as a human being. I also know I used to read a hell of a lot more back before I didn’t have a full time job and a part-time writing gig and a daily commute during which reading tends to give me severe motion sickness. But here it is, the call for help. I seriously need some helpful soul, or maybe some kind of crowd-sourced thing that can tell me what I should be reading as things come out so I’m not floundering under drifts of pages on book mountain when the Hugo nomination period opens. Preferably some recommendation engine where my fellow writers, bless you guys I love you all but damn I know how we are, are not allowed to nominate or push their own books. I don’t want reviews, I don’t even want opinions, I just want a simple list or titles and authors and maybe a helpful link where someone can say hey, I think this book should totally get a Hugo, and then other people who agree can maybe give it a plus one, and that’s it. Let me form my own opinions.
Does something like this already exist and I’ve just never seen it because I’m a failure at google? Is this something a complete computer incompetent like me could set up on her own site pretty easily? I’d do it in a heartbeat if I knew how.
It's really sad to me that the whole "hate compassionate people and call them SJWs" thing bled over into the Hugo Awards
— d.w. @[email protected] / [email protected] (@dvewlsh) April 30, 2015
Abigail Nussbaum on Wrong Questions
“The 2015 Hugo Awards: A Few Thoughts as Voting Opens” – May 1
In addition to No Award-ing the Puppies, there are two other categories where I will be voting No Award for all nominees. I’ve already written about the Best Fan Writer category, and in addition I will not be voting to give a Hugo in the Best Novelette category, even though it contains a non-Puppy nominee in the form of Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s “The Day the World Turned Upside Down.” Chance has written eloquently about the many problems with this story, which does not deserve to win a Hugo by default.
Speaking of Chance, she’s thrown herself on the grenade of the Rabid Puppies’ short fiction selections, and is reviewing them one by one with sad and hilarious results. Her reviews are required reading, first if you like funny and snarky writing, but also if you’re still under the impression that literary merit has anything to do with this campaign.
Anna Kashina
“Hugo awards: what can be done to save them?” – May 1
Going forward, I believe that the best way to redeem the situation and restore the prestige of the Hugos (and perhaps the other awards) is to ensure that every nominator and voter actually *reads* the work they are voting for and actually considers it to be better than the other comparable works published the same year, based on valid criteria. Barring that, the awards have no meaning, I think everyone would agree to that.
How to achieve it practically?
For one, every nomination should be publicly listed, with the name of the person nominating and voting for each work openly accessible, along with the checked “yes” next to the questions on whether they personally read the work, and whether they truthfully consider it the best in the genre.
I would go even further, though. I would request for each nomination to contain a short paragraph of what you like about the work and what made it stand out for you and seem like it deserved the award. This information should also be made public from the start and required with each nomination (notably, reasons based on the race, ethnicity, and political and religious views of the author should not be permitted).
I am aware that this would probably drastically reduce the number of people willing to nominate. But I bet that no slate voting would be possible with this kind of a system. Even if a person is willing to outwardly lie on a public form, if the writeups for the slate voters are commonly generated through a campaign, this fact would become immediately transparent.
Celia Darrough on Bustle
“How The 2015 Hugo Awards Became A Battlefield (And Not Over Science Fiction)” – May 1
If the science fiction and fantasy literary genre has an Oscars, it’s the Hugo Awards. Since the 1950s, the awards have recognized the works of science fiction and fantasy (SF/F) greats, including Stephen King, Kurt Vonnegut, George R. R. Martin, and Michael Chabon. But, if you look at a complete list, you’ll notice one thing about the roster of past winners: A majority of them are white men. And this year fans, the media, and the organizers themselves claim there’s a conspiracy to rig the Hugo Award nominations to keep it that way.
Here’s what’s happening: For close to a decade, the Hugos have made strides toward increased diversity, with deserving women and members of minority groups added to the nomination list. (See: Octavia Butler, Ann Leckie, Saladin Ahmed, Nalo Hopkinson, N.K. Jemisin, and Ted Chiang, all of whom, save Butler, were nominated after 2000.) But the 2015 awards, whose winners will be announced in August, have become a battlefield as longtime supporters of the awards allege that two online groups known as the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies tried to subvert the nomination process, apparently to keep the awards mostly white and male — a statement that the leaders of the Sad Puppies — Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen — and the Rabid Puppies — Vox Day — vehemently deny.
Mark Leeper on MT Void
“The Puppy Crisis” – May 1
I think a lot of people have given in to a myth. The myth is what I think is a basic misunderstanding about what the awards are. In the case of the Hugo awards, the myth is that the fans have gotten together to pick God’s anointed best science fiction pieces published over the previous year in each category. Once they pick the stories democratically chosen by mutual consent to be the best they–the fans–have spoken. What they have chosen is God’s Anointed choice. It works like the selection of the new Pope.
Pardon me but that is not what happens when a novel wins a Hugo. The Hugo Award is not about the book; it is about the voters. In this case it is about the attending and supporting members of the upcoming World Science Fiction Convention. We all pretend that this is a reasonable set of people to judge and decide the question. We have pretended that for years. But they cannot make a book be the best novel. They can only decide as a popularity poll what book they most want to see win. Their choice tells you about them. It tells you something about the minds of the people, but voters do not make best novels. Writers make them.
John Scalzi on Whatever
“The Myth of SF/F Publishing House Exceptionalism” – May 1
Sanford is correct in his point that as a matter of books from Baen whose individual sales can compete with the sales of individual books from other science fiction publishers on a month-to-month basis, as charted by the Locus list, Baen’s showing is modest (the May Locus lists, incidentally, show no Baen books, whereas Tor shows up five times, Orbit five times, DAW four times, Del Rey three times, Ace and Harper Voyager once each, and non-genre-specific publishers like Bantam and Morrow taking the rest of the slots).
But does that mean Ringo’s larger assertion (sales of SF/F publishing houses are down since the 70s except for Baen) is false? Not necessarily! Here are some reasons Ringo might still be right:
- Ringo’s first assertion (SF/F publishing houses sales down since the 70s) is independent of how any individual title by any publishing house stacks up against any other title by any publishing house in the month-to-month or week-to-week horse races known as the best-seller lists. That a book is #1 on the Locus list one month does not mean it sold the same number of books as any previous #1; nor does it speak to the overall sales of any particular publishing house….
Ringo appears wants to make to two arguments: One, that Baen has experienced consistent, across-the-board growth in its sales where other SF/F publishers have not. Two, that this is due to Baen not publishing authors or tales that are “SJW”-y; only “cracking good tales” allowed, the definition of which apparently preclude any Social Justice Warrior-ness (although apparently may include any number of conservative/reactionary tropes)….
The second part of Ringo’s assertion, the implication that Baen’s continuous sales upswing is due to cracking good SJW-free tales, I’m not going to bother to address seriously, because what a “Social Justice Warrior” is at this point is something of a moving target, the most consistent definition of which appears to be “Anyone left of Ted Cruz who certain politically conservative authors want to whack on in order to make whatever dubious, self-serving, fact-free point they wish to make at the moment.” I believe George RR Martin has recently been relegated to SJW status for being upset with the action of the Puppy slates and the Hugos; this is a curious maneuver if we’re talking “cracking good tales” and sales numbers as a proxy for… well, whatever they’re meant to be a proxy for.
It’s also bunk because while Baen is being used by Ringo as a synecdoche for a certain subgenres of science fiction (and the non-SJW agendas of the authors who produce it and the readers who read it), I have to wonder whether Baen itself wants that responsibility or affiliation. I mean, as just one example, we’re all aware that Baen published Joanna Russ, yes? More than once? Joanna Russ, part of the “new wave” of science fiction that Ringo identifies as a proto-SJW movement? Joanna Russ, who was the very definition of what is labeled a Social Justice Warrior before any conservative or reactionary person even though to spit such an epithet from out between their lips? That Joanna Russ? The only way that Joanna Russ does not fully qualify for retroactive SJW status is if the definition of “SJW” actually includes “cannot be published by Baen Books.” And yet, apparently, she could tell a “cracking good tale,” because that’s what Baen publishes. Strange!
Paul Kincaid on Bull Spec
Look, I wasn’t going to talk about this, it’s not really in my remit, but the one thing the Sad Puppies have done is guarantee that the Hugo Awards this year are all about politics and nothing to do with the quality or otherwise of the works nominated. A win this year, in any category, and regardless of whether the winner was on a slate or not, will not have the cachet that a Hugo win once had. They have spoiled the awards even for those they are supposedly trying to promote.
David Langford on Ansible #334
“Dysprosium & Puppygate” – May 1
Since I consider slate voting a thoroughly bad thing, I expect to make judicious – though not indiscriminate – use of the No Award option on the final Hugo ballot. Meanwhile, all sympathy to John Lorentz’s hard-pressed Sasquan Hugo committee; to Kevin Standlee and others who’ll be running a perhaps overcrowded and fraught Worldcon business meeting at which anti-slate rules changes will be proposed; and to slate nominees who were unaware either that they’d been included or that this placed them in an exposed position on a new battlefield of the US culture wars.
Kiesa on Kiesa’s Mutterings
“Hugo 2015 Best Novelette” – May 1
Up to this point, I was feeling really good about the novelette category. I could, without any reservations place the three slate stories below no award because I didn’t feel they were good. However, then I came to “The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale”. I felt this was a really good story. It is by far my favorite of the five options. The story pulled me in from the first paragraph. I got bogged down a tad during the journey to the alien world. However, once they landed it picked up again and had a great ending.
So . . . I’m still not sure how I’ll actually vote. I’ll probably vote in the order I’ve listed above. However, any stupidity that appears between now and when I place my vote may change my opinion.
Since I've cut back a lot on tweeting about Sad Puppies and Hugos, my tweet activity impressions has crashed.
However, this is healthier— Paul "Princejvstin" Weimer (@PrinceJvstin) May 1, 2015
Laura Mixon
“Yes. But.” – May 1
At the risk of yes-butting people over my report on Requires Hate/ Benjanun Sriduangkaew/ Winterfox, I want to respond to a few points that have been made in recent posts or in their comment threads regarding my Hugo nomination.
Kate Nepveu: Yes, but (1) my statistics were poorly supported or cited, and (2) the wrong people commented on and/or supported my efforts.
Abigail Nussbaum: Yes, but (3) perverse pie charts! plus (2) the wrong people commented on and/or supported my efforts.
Shaun Duke: Yes, but (4) Requires Hate has stopped her abuses, apologized, and deserves forgiveness. [UPDATE: while I was adding links to this post in preparation for uploading it, I saw that Shaun Duke has apologized. I’m leaving my response to point #4 up, because I have heard others raising the same point, and I want my position to be clear.]
Geoff Ryman: Yes, but (5) racism! The Sad Puppy/ Rabid Puppy attack on the Hugos is a much bigger problem than Requires Hate.
https://twitter.com/LukeJosef83/status/593956369348177920
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A neat initiative was linked in the comments to that Rachel Acks post: the Hugo nominations wiki: listing the various eligible candidates in each category.
A lot of good commentary to chew over today.
I don’t think that turning the nomination process into a book report is the way to go.
I agree that turning the nomination process into a book report might not be a good idea.
Though damn, I wouldn’t expect to have much trouble coming up with an original paragraph for each option I nominated…. except that it would drag the nominations process out to hours and hours… (sigh) no, I don’t think it’s practical.
Paul Kincaid, on the other hand, hits the nail on the head.
Gee. Last year, had I known in advance about this year’s Hugo kerfuffle, I would have produced issue 18 of my fanzine. I surely would be nice to see my fanzine winning several categories this year. Oh, the name of the fanzine? What else … NO AWARD.
“first if you like funny and snarky writing”
No I believe that snarky is part of the problem. And if anything the asinine reviews are just going to piss us off and make us want to continue.
“No I believe that snarky is part of the problem.”
You poor dear. Now you want Puppies books to be protected from sarcasm?
Rcade, to be fair, I believe that if Beale understood sarcasm then a lot of this year’s problems would be either non-existent or very mitigated. That GK has the same issues doesn’t surprise me.
Also if “asinine reviews” are one of the things that you’re railing against? Good luck with that. The author writes the books. The readers get to respond to the book however they wish. That’s how the game is played.
It’s almost like the belief that Puppy opinions are worth more than “SJW” opinions is one of the major issues. We get it, you like Beale’s or Torgerson’s work. What you don’t seem to get is that other people dislike that work, for reasons that have nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the content of the work.
I prefer a review with humor in it, especially if the work in question is painful to read.
That said, the foremost requirement for a review is honesty. I will take a humorless but honest review over any kind of dishonest review any day.
I agree, I’ll take honestly reading first. Honestly reviewing second.
The reviews accomplished the first but I don’t think the later. I base this on the fact that some stories became magically good in the anti-puppies crowd as they were withdrawn from the award. Which of course the puppies problem and why Scalzi’s comments miss by a country mile. You guys really don’t care about the story. You care about the credentials. Scalzi in his comments just frames it in reverse.
I am a little surprised about the “Upside Down Story” getting so much bad press though.
Less over engineered alternatives are to use a form of run off voting in the nomination process, or increasing the number of nominations by increasing the nomination threshold, which either way would remove the exploit the puppies are using to get things onto the nomination list.
The bigger trouble with requiring a reviewy paragraph is that it ultimately functions as a Turing Test, and I know for a fact that there are plenty of people in fandom who could not reliably convince an impartial third party that they are human via the medium of simulating human affectations and interpersonal communication – I’d love to make a joke about Theodore Beale here but he’s not part of fandom so isn’t relevant.
I don’t recall anyone saying that the stories of some of the nominees were bad before they withdrew and then changing to say the stories were good after they withdrew. Are there any cites, links, quotes or sources for that assertion?
Oh GK.
“I base this on the fact that some stories became magically good in the anti-puppies crowd as they were withdrawn from the award. ”
And an example of this would be….? It’s certainly not from Chance’s site, as they’ve not re-reviewed any works, and the reviews that are present are kinda *not* “magically good” for the withdrawn works as well. But no, keep asserting facts without evidence. It’s par for the course for you by now.
“I am a little surprised about the “Upside Down Story” getting so much bad press though.”
I know, must be a shock to the system when you mistakenly acknowledge those bits of reality that challenges your narrative (i.e., most of it). However, I’m completely confident that in the fullness of time, you’ll build up a rationalisation that will allow your narrative to triumph over such petty issues.
Asinine reviews, like most of the reviews on Amazon?
Because I’m pretty sure this review is asinine: I really enjoyed this story, it was fun, lighthearted, and had some good laughs and plot points in it.
And the [CITATION REQUIRED] tags rained down from the sky, and where they landed quizzical skeletons rose to dance the dance of a people who would really like you to provide a fucking link for once.
Abigail Nussbaum can always be counted on to helpfully illustrate why the puppies have a point. She will vote Thomas Olde Heuvelt’s story (not on any puppylist) under No Award. As reason for that, she cites a post by someone named Chance. Going to that post, we learn that the reason is that the story is supposed to be about (caps are Chance’s, not mine): “Dumped guy has so much MANPAIN that gravity reverses itself. Oh, and he was always too good for his girlfriend anyway”. Chance gives us more details: “This story is essentially a monologue of woe is my manpain! How could you not love me like I love you Sophie! How dare you have your own feelings and emotions! Woe is me! There is no greater pain than this manpain!”
This voting for political (and in this case sexist) reasons, without regard for the quality of the story is not an isolated case. Reading this, is it any wonder then that there was so much talk about voting against Correia when he was nominated, once these people found out about his politival views? I emphasize that I don’t have the slightest problem with Correia not winning. In fact, if I had voted for that Campbell award, my first place wold have gone to Lev Grossman, who was doing some remarkable things with his Magicians trilogy. I do have a problem however with his not being considered for political reasons.
@Snow,
Again for those following at home, go back to the threads when the withdrawls were announced or read the twitter feeds. Suddenly authors became readable again.
AG might be surprised to learn that people have their own opinions on things for all numbers of reasons. Chance READ the story, and then proceeded to use actual points from the story to point why it was bad.
He seems to want to hold to the idea that you can somehow separate your own personal politics from your opinions on works. “We just want the politics out of our media!” is a freakin’ stupid thing to say as… it’s not possible.
@AG,
Oh it gets worse. There’s some stories I can tell where people were surprised I was a puppy and suddenly went from friendly to fanged. Having worked on the left coast it is pretty common.
That being said, the “Upsidedown” story was terrible. It didn’t follow any of its own rules. I’m not a style nazi but I do like consistent world building and it didn’t have it.
GK,
Why don’t you go back and then give us links? You’re the one talking about people magickally changing their minds, right?
As for me, I’ve been reading Kloos for years and his works are on both my Kindle and my bookshelf. I read Bellet’s Justice Calling back in November of last year. I enjoyed it, but not enough to pick up the sequel.
“it’s not possible”
That is true. Not being an overt ass about your message and closing people out is also possible though.
Take Kim Stanely Robinson. I loved the Mars Trilogy. Great stuff. He made rocks sound interesting (I know in some places this is a minority view). It had great characters. The one possibly conservative character in the entire book is a murderer. But, he does our side the favor of not dwelling on that forever (though it does go on for about 300 pages or so) and instead shows in-left combat with good characters and good story. Jax is simply one of the greater characters in SF for being so well written (as opposed to the Coyote who is Fantasy in SF and should have been culled).
Then…”Years of Rice and Salt” which gives us two characters repeated over and over again with plenty of Message.
One I think is puppy possible the other is not. And of course, the difference is, despite Robinson being an avowed political enemy I’d vote for him. You would never vote for Vox.
Apparently, AG thinks the content of a story isn’t grounds from which to critique it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Puppy Logic at its finest.
GK,
” You would never vote for Vox.”
That’s not true at all. That’s the issue with absolutes. Also with being unclear.
For instance, Theodore Beale was on my ballot last year. 🙂
Chance has written severely critical and mocking reviews of Hugo nominees for years. This includes her reviews of the works of the supposed SJWs heroes and secret Hugo masters Scalzi and Stross.
And she was right that the Heuvelt story sucked IMHO.
Well it’s easter-ish, so The Author has risen and moved that boulder from outfront of its tomb.
““I am a little surprised about the “Upside Down Story” getting so much bad press though.””
Why? It’s actually not very good.
I think the problem here is you’ve been believing your own press on how people normally vote – I don’t think that there’s been a single year where I haven’t voted something or another under No Award – I am sorely tempted to do so with Interstellar, but probably won’t.
If the Kloos had been on the ballot without the slate, I suspect I’d have quite probably done it to that as well, if I hadn’t been reading it on my iPad I’d have thrown it at the wall several times.
KSR – strangely I can’t handle it. I read Red and Green Mars and gave up a third of the way into Blue – didn’t care what happened at the end or to any of the characters. I detested Years of Rice and Salt.
But there are plenty of authors whom have politics very different to mine that I love – Vernor Vinge, Neal Asther, Peter F Hamilton, Ken McLeod, Allen Steele (at least I assume we have different politics), Neal Stephenson… it’s a long list.
The reason I suspect I would never, ever vote Beale for anything, apart from writing fantasy, is based on the example I did try to read, he’s really not very good at it. My stuff isn’t terribly good either, but I’m not pretending otherwise 🙂
Marty Cantor: Get busy then, every sign points to you having another chance for your title to win next year too.
Scalzi’s point would be better made if he wasn’t relying on Locus and Bookscan for numbers. By doing so he’s missing anywhere from 30-40% of sales made in the US alone. Especially with Baen, as they have a lot of e-sales.
What’s a superior source of numbers? Ringo didn’t identify his sources at all. And Baen does sell a lot of ebooks direct, but if Baen is still printing lots of copies of books and selling them to stores and then the titles are selling in the triple and low quadruple digits, there’s a severe problem.
Except… the Locus and Bookscan numbers are the ones available. Accurate sales numbers have been a problem in bookselling for decades.
@GK:
Please don’t say “read the Twitter feeds”. That is no kind of documentary support. That’s so generic it’s practically impossible for some of us, and some people are on devices that cannot easily do any kind of searches anyway.
It is a simple act of kindness to provide links with some kind of direct evidence or proof when one is making an assertion about real live human beings.
Please provide some actual, direct, genuine quotes of people saying before the withdrawals that the stories were awful and after saying they were great.
It should not be that difficult if they really exist. It really shouldn’t. I am sure the Puppies have collected evidence, real evidence, for their assertions and are not just spinning empty paranoid fantasies in their own echo chamber.
So present it already.
The burden is on you to support your argument through documentation. That’s how argument *works*.
So far I have seen none, making the whole story sound like little more than gossip, urban myth if one is feeling charitable.
I would be as interested in seeing such links as I have been in all the myriad and varied and well-documented opinions and sources Mr. Glyer has been gathering on his site here, none of which support that argument so far.
At least then we could honestly debate what is actually going on.
‘And if anything the asinine reviews are just going to piss us off and make us want to continue.’
This constant quest for external negative validation to motivate your actions by providing emotional fuel for the energy you derive from hostility and resentment is really going to wear you out in the long run. The energy required to pretend that snarky reviews piss you off enough to evangalise for an anti-Hugo campaign just isn’t sustainable.
You know I have in the past. And then got called a liar for it. Nick in particular was a real ass about my wife. I do hope the two of us meet one day so he can tell me all about it in person.
And to the person that pointed out that all she does is snarky reviews, that doesn’t much change it. We as a group tend to hate snark.
“documentation”
For realz?
Get off it. Mike posts a 1950’s campaign for votes and all of a sudden I’m accused of having to take “all of 1953(?)”. I post his link to the links of slates/recommended reads then it isn’t a slate. The goal posts move all over the place. I cite stats on the puppies not shifting the high low, the same ones your side is using, and they are ignored. Putting down puppies complete with a fake review done by a co-worker is not calling for fake reviews. And so on all with links as this has gone on.
So no.
GK leaves out the bit where I dug up the links and showed that I was right, and then I showed that he did lie about his own statements. Shall I prep the links a third time? (Note that GK dare not show his proof now either.)
And like I said, anyone who wants to play say-it-to-my-face need only tell me. You wanna beat me up? We can meet at one of any number of gyms in Spokane, or you can come out to California.
‘And if anything the asinine reviews are just going to piss us off and make us want to continue.’
So, copies for the Review Committee need to be sent to which kennel?
Nick Mamatas: –“Apparently, AG thinks the content of a story isn’t grounds from which to critique it.”–
“Manpain” seems to me a political rather than literary criticism, but whatever floats your boat.
Nick Mamatas (on an unrelated subject): –“And like I said, anyone who wants to play say-it-to-my-face need only tell me. You wanna beat me up? We can meet at one of any number of gyms in Spokane, or you can come out to California.”–
He!, he! We have a new Tom Kratman in our hands. Calm down, Mr. Mamatas, no one is interested in exchanging blows with you.
GK – you really are being economical with the data here. The point was if you have to appeal to what they did in 1953 the first time they tried something, then most people would realize there was a problem. A lot of things were done in 1953 which most certainly we don’t want done now, like anti-Irish sentiment, rationing and so forth.
You have a pattern. You say something, it is countered, you say something else, it is countered, you then say the first thing again and claim nobody believes you.
You are correct at this stage.
Peace,
If you mean “Bad” as in “Their wiriting was bad before they withdrew, but now its merely acceptable..” I haven’t seen any, and they’d be a pretty popular post given the current environment.
However, there were more than a few comments on Kloos’ website from people who were more than happy to go buy his works because of/after he withdrew, and comments calling him a coward for withdrawing. Annie Bellet apparently got more than a few emails saying her work being part of the slate left more deserving authors off, and a few “Since you withdrew I’ll read you now” emails. People apparently are going to stop reading Butcher because he hasn’t said anything, and so on and so forth. Its not an unexpected behavior though, been happening for ages.
You haven’t posted links btw, you’ve been asked many times to back up your claims – the best you’ve got is that some authors have said ‘here is my work, please vote for it’ – which nobody is disputing.
You guys did something stupid, you were caught at it, then Beale did it for real and screwed you completely. Whine at him will you?
I didn’t read Butcher before, so his position on the slate is irreverent. I did read Kloos before he withdrew, I disliked it, I especially disliked the ‘big’ reveal being a 40 year old twist from a Niven short. Mixing up velocity and acceleration? Meh, I suppose that’s just icing on the cake.
I respect his character as a human being a lot more now, which increases the change I might give his work a second look at a future date – assuming he gets a better editor and somebody to catch really really terrible science gaffs.
But as I’ve oft said, I’m not a MilSF fan. I like AIs, spaceships and the like. Turncoat ought to have appealed except Banks, Asher and Hamilton all do intelligent warships MUCH better.
GK: “So no.”
When you provide “evidence’ that is at best insufficient, or does not back up *any* of your claims, and consequently get called on it, that’s really not people moving the goalposts. That’s people trying get you to keep your shots on targets.
The solution, dear GK, is to provide actual evidence, not to double down and refuse to provide any sort of backing for your claims.
Now, your newest assertion is that “stories became magically good in the anti-puppies crowd as they were withdrawn from the award.” Prove this assertion, with evidence. Otherwise, this just goes onto your list of unsubstantiated claims.
Show us examples of reviews that went from negative to positive after the withdrawal of a nominee. Prove your claims.
snowcrash,
How about negative reviews of authors tat appeared after they were on the slate?
Does someone saying “I wasn’t going to read you before but I will now since you withdrew” meet the standard?
@Andrew:
Well yes, but that’s not people saying the *works* are bad before and good after, that’s people saying they were avoiding reading them because of the situation.
The earlier implication was that there were people judging the works by the authors’ positions in these matters, rather than there were people choosing what works to read or not to read by the authors’ positions in these matters.
One is rank hypocrisy, the other is a choice of free association.
‘“Manpain” seems to me a political rather than literary criticism, but whatever floats your boat.’
Really? Political? Creating a term to mock the tedious cliche of a particular strain of male angst is political? Clearly it is to you, which rather proves a point, but it is also very much a literary assessment. Maybe you enjoy narratives powered by male angst. That is your literary taste. So is not enjoying them. But you insist that it’s primarily political. This strikes me as the point of view of a culture warrior. Kind of ironic, all things considered.
“ensure that every nominator and voter actually *reads* the work they are voting for ”
Not convinced that nominating only thing one has read is a solution, or that I’m a villain because (last year at least) I nominated things I’d heard I should read, but then hadn’t. Ancillary Justice for example.
The problem this year was that lots of people (like me) don’t keep up on short fiction and rely on the hive mind to come up with an interesting consensus about what we should read.
“We as a group tend to hate snark.”
Uh…. have you met Sci Fi/Fantasy fans?
@Alexvdl:
““We as a group tend to hate snark.”
Uh…. have you met Sci Fi/Fantasy fans?”
Cough. Oh. Oh my. (Wipes eyes)
To expound further upon my last point…
Filk, fisking, Mystery Science Theater 3000, RiffTrax, Honest Trailers, Hugo nominations for Scalzi’s purposefully bad fantasy novel, Scazli’s Hugo WIN for Your Hate Mail Will be Graded, Hugo noms for ““A Snark in the Night” by Gregory Benford and “Hunting the Snark” by Mike Resnick….
Holy shit, to say that SF/F fans as a group HATE SNARK?!