aka Think Blue, Bark Two
Brad R. Torgersen, John C. Wright, T.C. McCarthy, Michael Senft, Henry Dampier, Lis Carey, Chris Gerrib, Alexandra Erin, Font Folly and Protest Manager are the featured participants in today’s roundup. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Morris Keesan and Craig R.)
Brad R. Torgersen
“Musings, not necessarily sorted” – May 13
Because ultimately this isn’t even about Sad Puppies, or what we said, or did not say, or what we did, or did not do.
This is about the Hugo award, and Worldcon, and decades of seeping stagnation, and the ossification of the mindset of the so-called “keepers” of the field’s self-proclaimed “most prestigious award.” An award that seems to too often deliberately avoid what’s actually happening in the marketplace, has become the personal toy of a self-selected crop of individuals who are happy to play at being large fish in small fishbowls, and does itself and its legacy a disservice by catering to taste-makers and taste-shapers. Both for reasons related to art, and for reasons related to politics. As I said above, the number of people in this group is finite. The actual fans (small f) are legion.
Sad Puppies 3 is an effort to bring fans (small f) to the table. No matter how much people have bashed it, lied about it, or tried to paint it as something it’s not, Sad Puppies 3 is “open source” and egalitarian. We asked for suggestions in the run-up to the formation of the slate, and we encouraged everyone to buy, read, and participate with an open mind. No expectations. No tests. No rules. We demanded nothing. We threatened nothing.
John C. Wright
“On the Unwritten Code” – May 13
A meme currently circulating among the Social Justice Warriors in their relentless attempts to made poor, poor big-eyed puppies sad with their heaping awards upon talent-free uberleftist message fiction is that Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen and Vox Day, merely by asking fans to read and nominate worthy works, have violated the strict and scrupulously observed unwritten code of gentlemen forbidding the crassness of asking for votes in public.
Asking for votes in private, or if you are a Politically Correct leftist in good standing, of course, provokes no furor, as it is evidently not a violation.
I call it a meme because it is a thoughtless and absurd white noise of words, a self replicating sentence phrase that means nothing and says nothing. It is an accusation leveled because the accusers have run out of other, more credible, accusations, and they are not well behaved enough to shut their mouths with dignity after their case has been argued and lost.
Without eventual, organized fan/consumer activism as seen in #gamergate, #sadpuppies will ultimately fail. More thoughts to come.
— T.C. McCarthy (@tcmccarthy_) May 13, 2015
Michael Senft on Relentless Reading (And Writing About It!)
“Marie Brennan and Mary Robinette Kowal talk fantastic women throughout history” – May 13
We also touched briefly on the Hugo controversy, with both authors weighing in, although Mary understandably was reticent to discuss Puppygate. Here are some excerpts from the interview.
Brennan: I sincerely hope that slates will not become the wave of the future, because I find them utterly antithetical to the entire spirit of the Hugos. It is one thing to say “here’s what I published last year” (I’m grateful for that one, honestly, because it reminds me of when things came out, and which categories they fit into, and oh hey I meant to read that story); that doesn’t bother me. Neither does people posting to say “here’s stuff I think is Hugo-worthy” — that’s just fannishness at work. But a named campaign, stretching across multiple years, whose public rhetoric focuses less on the awesomeness of the stories and more on the political message they will send to the “other side”? I’m not in favor. And that would be true even if the slate in question were filled with stories I had already enjoyed.
Kowal: I can’t actually comment on this much, because I decided to try to do something to bridge the gap between the multiple groups of fans and am crowdsourcing a set of supporting memberships for WorldCon. So I’m trying to stay neutral to avoid swaying votes. Which means that I’m declining any Hugo nominations next year (since a supporting membership this year means you can vote next year) and attempting to not express opinions about any of the nominees.
I will say that I’m seeing a lot of people, all around, who are feeling alienated. I think everyone needs to do a better job of listening.
(The principal text of the interview is online at azcentral.com.)
Font Folly
“The stories we have to tell” – May 13
“Moreover, men literally have no clue how much they talk. When Spencer asked students to evaluate their perception of who talked more in a given discussion, women were pretty accurate; but men perceived the discussion as being “equal” when women talked only 15% of the time, and the discussion as being dominated by women if they talked only 30% of the time.”
My conclusion: men think women talk too much because they think women should be silent.
This perception problem isn’t limited to gender issues. Any person in a position of power or privilege thinks that any time someone outside their group talks or is recognized more than a tiny fraction of the time that the others are dominating the situation…..
- And yes, it’s part of the reason that someone like Larry Correia and his cohorts—Brad Torgerson, Theodore Beale (aka Vox Day), and John C. Wright—can see more than one or two women or people of color nominated in a single category for the Hugo Awards and start screaming that science fiction is being taken away from people like them.
Henry Dampier
“About Progressive Situational Dominance” – May 13
The point of this is to argue that it’s a bad idea to challenge progressives in areas where they have institutional control. You could counter by using the recent example of right-wingers crashing the Hugo Awards, but ultimately, what that was good for was just demoralizing fringe progressives while heartening some right-wing genre fiction fans. The official science fiction author’s groups are, for the most part, still solidly progressive, and will continue to be so. Creating alternative institutions is more important and effective than trying to take over progressive institutions which are only nominally neutral.
The more profound impact on progressive institutions has come from the re-emergence of self publishing and small publishing enabled by Amazon and its eBook platform — a mostly neutral bookstore which has contributed much to the weakening of the progressive critical establishment, which they complain about endlessly. When the opposition complains about something, it’s wonderful, because they’re telling you where the pain is, and if they’re telling you where the pain is, then that’s where you should apply more pressure to cause more of it.
It’s also important to understand that, when making moral arguments in a progressive country, where most people believe in most of the tenets of progressivism, that you have the low ground when making such arguments. It’s futile to criticize progressives on moral grounds which they don’t accept, and which the majority of Westerners tend not to accept. You have to shore up the alternative moral institutions to provide those opposing sources of authority in order to create a self-sustaining resistance
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Championship B’Tok, by Edward M. Lerner” – May 13
Paragraph by paragraph, this story is decently written. Character development hovers in the vicinity of competent. The plot, unfortunately, wanders all over the place, and doesn’t go anywhere really interesting. It’s possible this is a piece of a larger whole, and I can easily conjecture a larger whole in which this piece would make more sense, and being doing some important work for the larger story. Sadly, that is in no way indicated, and it’s nominated as a novelette.
Chris Gerrib on Heroines of Fantasy
“Wednesday Review: A Sword Into Darkness” – May 13
There’s an ongoing debate in Science Fiction at the moment. One very loud faction says people are abandoning SF because all our stories are “social justice novels” and we’re handing out awards not for good work but to hit a racial / ethnic / gender checklist. Since I vote on one of the awards (the Hugos) I found that argument rather unconvincing. One of the gentlemen on the other side, I discovered, had penned an SF novel entitled A Sword Into Darkness [by Thomas A. Mays]. The ebook price was right, so I bought it and read it. Overall, it’s a pretty good book – I’d give it three stars.
Sad Puppies
“Celebrating What Is Best In Science Fiction: Foundation” – May 12
Over the past month we here in the Sad Puppies Revolutionary Vanguard Party Ministry of Truth have received a number of questions about which classic works of SF do and don’t exemplify the goals of the Party. While our cohort John Z. Upjohn has done a fantastic job identifying SJW-infused works, we do not wish to present ourselves as wholly negative, so today we’re going to talk about one of the all time great works of SF, a classic of yesteryear which could never win a Hugo today. Yes, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation.
Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write
“Sad Puppies Review Books: IF YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE” – May 13
After a few hours of study, it seemed obvious to me that there must be an agenda at work, and as soon as I knew there was an agenda I could see it everywhere. It’s so easy to see agendas I’m surprised more people don’t do it.
The reason that SJWs have arranged for this hollow mockery of a book to be praised by all quarters is that it is basically a modest proposal for welfare benefits to immigrants. It starts by asking you the reader to imagine a mouse just shows up on your door unannounced and says he’s hungry, and then suggesting that you feed him. The words like “if” and “might” make this sound so polite, so reasonable. The rhythm of the book is I believe intended to lull the reader into a daze where you will nod along. “Makes sense,” you will say to yourself. “If a bunch of hungry vermin want to invade my home, why shouldn’t I give them the food off my table?”
https://twitter.com/ProtestManager/status/598362225460391936
And I don’t know whether I’m emotionally ready for this, but it is rather stfnal….
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JJ:
“And can I just add, that until I saw the fansqueeing here on File770, I had no idea who Kurt Busiek is, since I don’t read comic books — but that based on his remarks here, I am much inclined to go search out his works?”
Do! His superhero stuff is the sort that remembers how to tell a nuanced story and stay fun, and his other works are great too. I’m still holding out hope for more Arrowsmith. 🙂
And to be frank, I would take one of Busiek’s Confessor from Astro City over a hundred of Wright’s allegedly Christian heroes any day of the week.
Also, Superman: Secret Identity’s Lois would make certain Puppies go into absolute rage fits.
JJ: I suffer from a horrible memory for names, so I didn’t remember who Kurt was until others started fansqueeing, and I googled to remind myself. But I do know his work, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Wait, did I just read Vox “I stopped commenting at File 770” Day commenting upthread?
Something something always lie…
*drink*
Soon: I can’t play that game, I have to be sober enough to drive sometime in the next day or two.
vis a vis judging the Hugo short fiction.
I won’t settle for “best of a bad lot”. I think short fiction is an area where a writer’s ideation, skills, discipline and talent can be displayed with spine tingling precision…a scalpel to carve out mood, character, conflict, story. I originally fell in love with SF after reading Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” and have loved the short stuff ever since.
I’ve traditionally bought at least the Best of SF and Nebula Award collections every year. I’m not expecting to get a “Flowers of Algernon” or “The Sentinel” or “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” every year but I want stories that can at least be in the same room. Unlike a novel, most shorts (novellas have a leeetle more wiggle room) have to grab you really quickly and hold on for the payoff without sagging in the middle or anywhere else.
Anyway, I was noodling around just checking out what shorts were available in 2014. (I’ve always read *after* the awards were given and the ‘best of’ picked.) I found this story by Elizabeth Bear. I think it’s pretty darn good. It certainly did all the things I expect from a short story.
So I’m kinda using this as a benchmark for excellent quality for last year. If a Hugo nominated work can’t, at some level, sit in the same bleacher section with this one, it doesn’t even get ranked after NA.
“Covenant” Elizabeth Bear
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/09/covenant_a_creepy_sci_fi_short_story_from_the_anthology_hieroglyph.html
junego at 12:32 am:
I have a soft spot for the shorter lengths. They might not sell anywhere as well as novel length but I think they’re extremely important to the genre – the brevity allows for more experimentation without as big an investment in time & writing effort. It’s where you’re more likely to see new ideas, more likely to see new writers breaking out. The shorter forms are the genre’s bleeding edge.
JJ; I second the Astro City recommendations and if you want to get a better idea, look for a short comic story by him called The Nearness of You or the Confessions trade paperback
Astro City is the ideal of superhero comics.
@Junego –
Wow. That is a good story. Well written, with action, suspense, interesting new tech to think about, no particular social message unless you think ‘killing people is bad’ is controversial…
This is exactly the kind of thing the Puppies say they want to win Hugos, and it was the thing that their slate actually kept off the list. Instead of this, we got Turncoat, Spiritual Plain, and that horrible attempt to copy CS Lewis by Wright. 🙁
Mr Moss – the difference we are looking at here, is that nobody has even suggested that “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love” was somehow shoehorned onto the ballot through stuffing the ballot box.
You really don’t see the difference between a work being honestly selected because a diverse set of people thought it was well-written enough, and Skiffy enough to put it on the ballot and forcing a blatantly, no redeeming SF/F out-genre work onto the ballot so you could play a political game?
You really don’t see a problem with the latter scenario?
@AG: Sorry to hear about your adverse experience commenting in the voting-systems discussion at Making Light. I’ve commented there intermittently over a period of a number of years, and found them always worthwhile and generally reasonable, with occasional lapses.
I don’t envy the people doing the (unpaid) work of moderating online forums, which I’m sure is just a bit crazy-making. It’s the kind thing to give them some slack.
Rick Moen
[email protected]
Maximillian on May 15, 2015 at 12:54 am said:
@Junego –
(ok, I’m going to try the ‘blockquote thing. Without ‘preview’ I won’t know if it works until I post. If it goes wrong *it’s not my fault*, blame Standlee. :^}
I see some messages, or at least some questions. Should we intefere this much in someone’s brain, even if they’re a psychopathic murderer? Should we let someone like this go free after committing such crimes? Is this actually an exquisite form of punishment? (I thought of Andrea Yates and the meds they give her that lets her realize she murdered her children). This thing has LAYERS, y’all.
Yeah, this story is definitely accessible on many fronts and “just cracking good story” is one of them. That’s part of its genius. I’ll be curious (and sad and frustrated) to see what got squeezed out of the finalists by the Puppy slates.
Totaled in short stories, while not up to Covenant’s weight, shows a bit of promise. English is a fairly newish writer and could improve. So far, that’s the only decent one I’ve found, but I’ve barely scratched the surface.
JJ, you’re in for a treat. Kurt’s comics are pretty much all the anti-Beale/Wright. They celebrate worlds full of people who want to do the right thing and are willing to pitch in and do their part. Real villainy is rare, and nobody is doomed to keep doing harm just because they have been.
Astro City is, to my taste at least, his writing with best depth and breadth; he and artist Brent Anderson have done a remarkable job of laying out a world full of complicated, interesting people and way cool events. But he’s written a bunch of other great stories, too, like the first few years of Thunderbolts, about a team of super-villains who pose as heroes…and find that sometimes you end up growing into the role you’ve adopted, whether you want to or not. He did a swell run of Conan comics, too, a mix of adaptations from Howard and original pieces, and a lot more. Look up his bibliography and go to town. 🙂
@ Soon Lee on May 15, 2015 at 12:41 am said:
junego at 12:32 am:
[Yeah! Blockquote works!]
Agree with all your points except I’ve read that at least some writers find the short lengths much more difficult and time consuming to produce because every word has to do double or triple duty, you can’t spend paragraphs setting up worlds/scenes/characterization.
I adore the short SF, my son is completely “Meh”. It’s wonderful when your child ends up loving something like this as much as you do but disconcerting when they put their own spin on it. Give him 600 page tomes in 3+ book series -Sanderson, Gaiman, Rothfuss – that he can spend days and days reading ( not that I don’t enjoy those, too.)
Oh wow, I just remembered who directed me to the Bear short story. Here’s a link to Spacefaring Kitten’s page with a list of short stories from 2014.
https://sfkittens.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/swamped-with-short-stories/
@Junego – Oh, absolutely, plenty to think about it. I meant no ‘message’ as no overt political bluster.
It reminded me just a bit of ‘Passing Through Gethsemane’, which was one of the best episodes of Babylon 5. They had a serial killer who had been sentenced to ‘death of personality’. Similar themes.
@junego:
Good point about short stories taking more effort for some writers. I am reminded of Ted Chiang as a writer who isn’t very prolific but every one of his stories is a carefully cut & polished gem. His “Stories of your life” collection is one a buy to gift to friends.
@Maximillian on May 15, 2015 at 2:41 am said:
I was just grandstanding a bit 😉
I half expect someone to accuse the story of having some anti-sexist/pro-feminist screed because “oh noes, HE is turned into a SHE!” ala Ancillary J & S.
@ Soon Lee
Thank you for the Chiang pointer, just downloaded a sample. I’ve gotten a ton of good recommendations since I dropped in here. My TBR stack would be several feet high if I didn’t have an eReader!
This, this is the sort of fandom and reader conversation I love.
Steve,
What works did Sad Puppy 1 get nominated? Sad puppy 1 was an attempt to get Larry nominated at LonStarCon . Larry missed being on the ballot by 17 votes. Sad Puppy 1 was a dismal failure. (http://www.thehugoawards.org/content/pdf/2013HugoStatistics.pdf)
Maybe you should stop talking if you can’t even be bothered to get basic facts right.
Furthermore, Larry “magically” created SP voters by doing what all politicians do. Appealing to the base. Portraying as “us vs. them”. Making it about MESSAGE, and how he lost because he’s a CONSERVATIVE, and not because he’s an asshole.
Manners has nothing to do with it, and multiple people have told you that multiple times.
Tuomas,
The only place that the military “provides you with underwear” is boot camp. Once you’re out of bootcamp, people go back to wearing their own damn underwear. Furthermore, military issued underwear is NOT fire retardant in any freaking way. It’s cotton underwear. Also, there have been a LOT of issues in America with military uniforms not being fire retardant. This hasespecially been a concern in the Navy where you don’t get to call an outside fireteam onto a ship while it’s underway.
You don’t know shit about the military. Stop pretending you do.
Re: Kurt Busiek,
I second Superman: Secret Identity. One of my favorite Superman yarns.
Also Marvels. Marvels is a freakin’ classic.
Top ten thing: I haven’t thought about this too much, but I wouldn’t mind putting this out there:
Galapagos, Vonnegut
Diaspora, Egan
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Adams
Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein
Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut
A Scanner Darkly, Dick
A Wrinkle in Time, L’Engle
Neuromancer, Gibson
Gun, with Occasional Music, Lethem
The Sparrow, Russell
Secret Identity is still my favorite Superman story.
Bruce Baugh:”Kurt’s comics are pretty much all the anti-Beale/Wright. They celebrate worlds full of people who want to do the right thing and are willing to pitch in and do their part. Real villainy is rare, and nobody is doomed to keep doing harm just because they have been.”
Very much this. Busiek’s work tends towards the idealistic side of the Idealism/Cynicism spectrum in my experience. He can also be counted on to write with empathy, something very lacking in the Rabid Puppies set but also amongst the current “hot” crop of comics writers on both the right and left that seem to be addicted to self-congratulating grimdark and/or nihilism.
@Will “The Sparrow, Russell”
Oh, lord. That was a very well written and intelligent book… But I *hated* it.
I think she did too good of a job making it clear why despair is considered a mortal sin. *shudder*
The opening was magical, though, almost as good as the beginning of Lord of Light.
‘The Jesuit scientists went to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God’s other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the farthest frontiers of human exploration. They went for ad majorem Dei gloriam: for the greater glory of God.
They meant no harm’.
Astro City is an affectionate love-letter to about a squillion different and intermingling superhero/pulp tropes. It remains a pole star even as the superhero genre shifts around it. It absolutely rocks.
Oh, have we done SF movies? Small list here:
Dark City
Bladerunner
Brazil
Stalker
Clockwork Orange
The Thing
Akira
Metropolis
Invasion of the Bodysnatchers
Rollerball
Danny Sichel on May 14, 2015 at 2:30 pm said:
I thought that was a wonderful example of playing with readers’ assumptions and expectation and the use of language.
I finished the book and, in discussion, thinking “Seivarden is male, isn’t he? why do I think Seivarden is male?” and not being sure why I did. There was textual evidence, but it was so early, before I was in the Radsch way of speaking, so normal, so much the default in our culture, that I didn’t notice that his gender was explicitly stated.
Now, on a second reading…
This is Just to Say
We have nominated
The stories
That were on
The ballot
And which
You were probably
Hoping
For better stories
Forgive us
Revenge is delicious
So sweet
And so cold
@Ultragotha “This is Just to Say”
Thank you, I like that one.
I totally forgot to add
John Crowley, the Aegypt books
This is Just to Say ….
That I posted that poem in this comment thread by accident and it can be deleted.
Actually, re: the issue of china on Radchai ships — it occurs to me, what if Tuomas is right in that fragile breakable elegant porcelain dinnerware on a Radchai ship would pose a hazard in situations where the ship is so badly shot up that the artificial gravity shuts off… but this is an indicator of just how powerful the Radch are? Of how little risk anyone else is to them, of how much confidence they have in their utter security, of how justified that confidence is and of how long this has been the case? It’s like conspicuous consumption.
There are non-Radch human polities, yes (Breq pretends to be of the Gerentate), but none of them would dare attack a Radch ship. And there are nonhuman polities, but there’s no open bellicosity with them. Nobody attacks the Radch (except, well, spoilers).
ALSO
a few pages-of-comments back, someone commented on having been bothered by how — although so much of the Englishified Radch used inherently female terminology like “sister” for “sibling”, “mother” for “parent”, etc etc — Leckie still used terms like “priest” and “lord”. And that the reason this was bothersome was because these were male-gendered terms.
But I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. We think of “priest” as inherently male because in our gender-conscious society, priests (especially Catholic priests, who pretty much have a monopoly on the term) have been exclusively male for so long that we devised a female equivalent for the term. “Priestess” is “priest who — AND IT’S IMPORTANT YOU KNOW THIS — is FEMALE”, just like “aviatrix” is “aviator who — AND IT’S IMPORTANT YOU KNOW THIS — is FEMALE”. But if they’re all female — whether genetically, biologically, or linguistically — then the “-ess” suffix becomes superfluous.
It’s the same with “Lord” instead of “Lady”. In English, the default versions of the titles of nobility assume “this individual is male”, and the female derivatives can imply either “this individual has her own title of nobility” or “this individual is married to an individual who has his own title of nobility” — the difference between “queen consort” and “queen regnant”, you see, but this doesn’t apply to “kings”. A king’s wife becomes a queen, but a queen’s husband does not necessarily become a king, a baroness’s husband does not necessarily become a baron (e.g., Philip Mountbatten or Denis Thatcher). The Radch don’t make this distinction; therefore, they see it as perfectly logical to refer to Anaander Mianaai as “Lord” instead of “Lady”.
(I pity the poor translators whose job it will be to produce versions of AJ/AS/AM in grammatically gendered languages, by the way.)
Steven Schwartz
I put Tiptree’s Her Smoke Rose Up Forever on my TBR list. I’m sure that I’ve read some of her short stories but looking over Tiptree’s bibliography nothing springs out as familiar. I did like The Anubis Gate and even more so Kushner’s Swordspoint.
Danny Sichel
I haven’t read AJ or AS so I wouldn’t ordinarily take up a discussion on this but I feel like this particular sub-thread has veered far enough away from the actual novel that maybe there is something that I can add to it. Certainly if AJ and AS were near future novels relying on technology extrapolated out from what currently exists (say what we think Earth might have 10 to 100 years from now) this entire discussion of fine china, air filters, and fire-resistant underwear might make some level of sense. But that isn’t the case is it? I have more of a sense that you could better compare the science and technology of the Ancillary series to that of Simmons Hyperion novels rather than to say Clarke’s 2001.
Certainly in Clarke’s Space Odyssey series (or even in my personal favorite Rendezvous with Rama) there is an attempt to describe a technology where something like brittle china or non-secured liquids would be significant hazards just as they would be on a real space flight. In fact I could see Clarke writing a short story where just such a hazard caused a catastrophic failure. But are the Ancillary novels those kind of books?
@Darrell: I’ll echo Harlan Ellison and give a little Caveat Lector: Tiptree is not a cheerful read in a lot of ways. Very good, very poignant, very powerful — but not cheerful.
XS noted about John C. Wright:
Wait, what? John C. Wright was so angry about something done or written by Terry Pratchett that Mr. Wright felt he was being the-better-man virtuous for not committing criminal assault upon the late Sir Terry?
Is that a correct inference to make?
I ask because, if Mr. Wright wrote in anger about Sir Terry, that would be the first time I have ever known of anyone angry toward him — he was one of the people who seems to have been liked by everyone who knew him from everything I’ve ever read until now.
If the claim that he considered criminal violence is true, what does Mr. Wright say Sir Terry did or wrote which caused such anger?
Gee, so many people saying such nice things! Thanks, folks!
And in sheer self-interest, let me add for anyone interested in ASTRO CITY that there are three free stories available online at Comixology.com — our award-winning first issue, our award-nominated #1/2 issue (that’s “The Nearness of You,” that many people say is the best thing I ever wrote) and a short 8-page prologue to our big DARK AGE epic.
I agree with Eric Flint. Free is a great way to try new things.
@David K. M. Klaus:
That would be:
“It is not the author who appalled me, it was the audience, including myself.
I sat and listened to pure evil being uttered in charming accents accentuated by droll witticism, and I did not stand up, and I did not strike the old man who uttered them across the mouth: and when he departed, everyone stood and gave him an ovation, even though he had done nothing in his life aside from entertain their idle afternoons. Only I did not stand, being too sick at heart. I did nothing, I said nothing. Was this Christian humility on my part, or merely the cowardice of the silence good men which allows evil men to triumph?
Had he never said a word, that audience would have been the same: a plowed and fertile topsoil ready to receive any seed, so long as the herb it grows mounts and becomes the tree of death, and the juice of its fruit ferment to venom.”
http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/10/the-watchtowers-of-atlantis-tremble/comment-page-1/#comment-66957
@David K.M. Klaus, Wright was angry, morally outraged, because Pratchett spoke in favor of voluntarily ending his own life before the Alzheimer’s progressed too far. JCW entertained the possibility that he had Done Evil by not punching Pratchett in the face over this when he had the chance.
David Klaus – Pratchett spoke about voluntary euthanasia for those who (like him) were at risk of dementia. Wright was present in the audience, and later expressed his regrets at having not punched Pratchett in the mouth. Or that’s how I understand it, anyway; if I’m wrong, I’m sure Mr. Wright himself will be along to correct me (which I will appreciate!).
(http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/10/the-watchtowers-of-atlantis-tremble/)
Okay, alexvdl only got five paragraphs on china out of TV. That sets today’s bar pretty low. Anyone think they can do better?
@Tuomas Vainio: Don’t be ridiculous. A detailed analysis of the book cover art (which I’ve performed, but the details are too bulky to post here) shows that the Radchaai navy lacks the technology to make fine bone china, and I think you’ll surely agree if you examine the spaceships on the cover more closely.
In retrospect, Wright’s comment is something I’ve seen from him before. It wasn’t the man, it was the idea that earned Wright’s anger. If only he could punch an idea in the mouth, he’d be set.
@Steven Schwartz & Darrell:
Tiptree’s “The Screwfly Solution” haunts me to this day.
JCW entertained the possibility that he had Done Evil by not punching Pratchett in the face over this when he had the chance.
I don’t even find that the worst part of all that. He compared Hitler to Pratchett with the idea that Pratchett might be more evil because he was more likeable and thus could convince people about the rightness of euthanasia. The idea that he was lamenting about how he was too cowardly to punch Pratchett to me isn’t as bad as the screed he’d written prior.
You know, the conversation about dinnerware in AJ/AS could be the inspiration for a new way of talking about book reviews that spectacularly miss the point of the book, or reviews that only prove the reviewer to be not the right audience for the book.
“That’s a two tea cup review. The reviewer is mostly on point, but the import of the ending seems to fly right over his head.”
“That reviewer is speaking from an empty sugar bowl, alas.”
“Out of this huge sweeping epic about empire and multibodied AIs, this reviewer’s suspension of disbelief broke down over fine china in space? Wow. That’s a review that takes the full tea service.”
Never mind, I found it (paragraph two of three):
http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/10/the-watchtowers-of-atlantis-tremble/comment-page-1/#comment-66957
I presume part of what Sir Terry said had to do with his own stated desire to end his physical life before his disease-degraded intellect was unable to act.
Alzheimer’s contributed to the deaths of both my mother and maternal grandmother, although the deterioration it brings was not the prime cause of death for either of them, and I worked with patients who had the syndrome, so I have some knowledge of what happens as it progresses.
Alzheimer’s literally destroys the brain from within. In the course of former employment, during optional training, I saw cross-sectional photographs of three autopsied brains at different stages of affliction. The cells of the brain are destroyed from the center outward, the gap being filled with cerebro-spinal fluid. What makes you you is eaten away until only a shell of the brain is left, so small that it is unable to support the physical mechanisms of life, the syndrome on its own causing death if there are no other causes.
By that time what makes a person a living soul, able to learn, able to retain information of even the simplest kind, everything that person has loved, hated, desired, refused, dreamed, nightmared, and learned, including even knowledge of self, have disappeared as the physical means by which they are stored are destroyed.
In its progression Alzheimer’s leaves a physical shell, which while for a time still may have a beating heart and breathing lungs, is not a live person — what makes the person a human being, makes the person more than a biological machine, is already dead. We now know this as fact, not as religious belief.
Sir Terry Pratchett’s stated desire was to choose the time and place of that death while there was enough of his self-awareness, consciousness, soul, still living and present to make that choice.
Mr. Wright, due to his conservative Catholic faith and belief (which I understand, having been raised Roman Catholic myself) thinks it is sin to even describe that choice to the point that he wished to act on behalf of God to punish a dying man senior in age to him because the man talked about the decisions and/or the methods he reasoned to use to relieve himself of some of the suffering which occurs during the later parts of the death.
Having that desire is a sin in Catholicism by itself, even if not physically acted upon.
Regardless of faith and belief, the physical fact is that Alzheimer’s destroys what enables the soul’s existence a considerable time before it also kills the protective armor and mechanism which house the soul.
Which is the greater sin for a Catholic, the reasoned decision for the person whose soul is being eaten away to end the inevitable process early, or to by force further the time of suffering of what is left of the soul as it slowly disappears from the body?
Mr. Wright is welcome to use this question as the basis of a story if he wishes, as long as he gives the question it’s due weight of thought for both the story and for the real world in which we live.
I wrote the above before knowing of any replies from anyone else. I will read them in a moment, although I haven’t yet, and for them I thank you all.
I should have written “both of those desires” are sins under the Catholic faith and belief. I originally was referring to the Mr. Wright’s desire to hurt an old, sick man, but technically under Catholicism, both Mr. Wright’s and Sir Terry’s desires were sins, and I failed to rewrite to correct that.
The thing is, I don’t think Sir Terry was a Roman Catholic. I may have read what belief system he followed, but don’t remember what it was if I did — although there exists a delightful photograph of Sir Terry and Ven. Oberon Zell-Ravenheart of the Church of All Worlds and the Grey School of Wizardry smiling as they stand together wearing each other’s wizard hats, so at he didn’t hate anyone who was overtly Neo-Pagan.
Whether accepting knighthood from the Queen, who is the official head of the Anglican Church, the state religion of the United Kingdom, makes one a member of that church I know not.
David K. M. Klaus
Pratchett was an atheist. I was part of this particular exchange way back then and found the arguments of Wright and some of the other posters more than a little disturbing.
“… if I’m wrong, I’m sure Mr. Wright himself will be along to correct me (which I will appreciate!).”
Wright is so considerate he will show up to correct you even if you’re right.
Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little : You know, the conversation about dinnerware in AJ/AS could be the inspiration for a new way of talking about book reviews that spectacularly miss the point of the book, or reviews that only prove the reviewer to be not the right audience for the book.
Nicole, the classic in that genre was a review in Field and Stream magazine in June 1959.