aka There are few things in this world that can simultaneously delight and dismay in the same manner as a Puppy dinner party.
The lead dog returns in today’s roundup which starts with Brad R. Torgersen, followed by the rest of the team, Brianne Reeves, David Gerrold, Adam-Troy Castro, Kristene Perron, Roger BW, Ace, EJ Shumak, Lisa J. Goldstein, Lis Carey, Barry Deutsch, Sarah A. Hoyt, Vox Day, and Jim C. Hines. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Jim Henley & Morris Keesan, and ULTRAGOTHA.)
Brad R. Torgersen
“Fisking the broken narrative” – May 17
Someone forwarded me a copy of Kevin J. Maroney’s editorial from the April New York Review of Science Fiction. I don’t normally read Maroney’s column, and I don’t even normally read NYRoSF, but some of Maroney’s commentary screams BROKEN NARRATIVE at such a high decibel level, I thought it might be worth it to examine some of that commentary in close detail….
The only real way I see the Hugos being a “smoking ruin” is if the CHORFs fulfill their stated pledge to bork the 2015 awards by placing “NO AWARD” at the top of every category; thus no awards will be given. This will be an entirely self-inflicted wound (by the so-called devotees and cherishers of the Hugo) because clearly you have to destroy the village, to save the village. I mean, that’s just good common sense. If you love a thing and think it’s awesome, you absolutely must obliterate it — to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Because this is what open minds and open hearts do. They destroy something they claim to love, so that something they claim to love can be kept pure. Because the “wrong” people must never be allowed to have it the “wrong” way.
If there is any other way to leave the Hugos a “smoking ruin” this year, I haven’t thought of it yet.
This is not to counsel despair. But we need to be aware that the battle against the arrayed forces of assholery will, at times, be unpleasant to watch and wearying to fight. But the fight is genuinely important, and it won’t win itself.
—Kevin J. Maroney speaking for himself
Thanks for the pep talk, Kevin! I agree with you wholeheartedly! The Forces of Assholery have been trick-or-treating at my virtual doorstep for 45 days and counting. They’ve smeared me, smeared my family, smeared my friends, and smeared Sad Puppies 3. Again, clearly the way the Forces of Assholery save the thing they love and cherish, is to be complete pricks to whoever they feel like, whenever they feel like, badger and threaten and cajole and shun and shame, all that good old fashioned 12th century village stuff. Torches and pitch forks! Tie them to the stake! Burn them! Infidels!
Or maybe “your” side needs to just settle down and vote on the ballot like normal?
Brianne Reeves on Bree’s Book Blog
“2015 Hugo Awards and the Sad Puppies Slate” – April 9
Politicking has always gone on at the awards, to some degree or another. We’re not so naïve as to be unaware of that. Authors and publishing houses have always campaigned for works to be chosen. After all, the Hugos does provide a sales boost.
However, the dominance of a slate that advocates the blind nomination of works based on political ideology is fairly unprecedented.
Because the voting population for the Hugos is fairly small, approximately 2,000 voters for the most popular category and much fewer in less popular categories, it’s easy to skew the results of the nomination process. And, of course, when it’s derailed and by a large, but distinct minority of voters, the rest of the community is going to be upset.
Slates themselves are problematic. They reduce the number of potentially nominated works, undercut the deliberations that go into the nomination process, and potentially flood the awards with non-vetted works (read: works that have not actually been read). This means that the stories we are awarding may be extremely obscure, non-representative of the genre and its advances, or non-representative of the stories readers want to consume.
It should also be noted that slates are distinct from suggested nomination lists. Plenty of people put up lists of works they think work well in categories and suggest their readers, friends, fellow SFF lovers read the list when considering who to nominate. To me, this is a distinctly deliberative act. It allows for people to read and decide on their own without suggesting or advocating blind voting (to me the biggest problem with slates). They are often include far more lists of works than the voter can nominate and act as a substitute longlist for readers. This is especially important for readers who want to sample and become more involved in categories like short fiction which have a much smaller readership.
The creation of a slate for political reasons is objectionable. What I will say here, is that the use of politics in this case is a limiting factor and detracts from the inclusive and representative goals we have for the Hugo. Again, they are within their rights to limit based on this factor, but I think that it suffers from a lack of consideration for new types of stories, and increasingly popular stories in the genre.
We all have limitations in our reading. Time, length, interest are all factors we have to balance. I think it is inkeeping with the spirit of the award, however, to push ourselves to read what we may otherwise ignore or not prioritize. As readers, we should always be pushing ourselves to empathize and expose ourselves to stories that are not familiar to us or that show a part of humanity we may not often see.
David Gerrold on Facebook – May 17
Yes, there has been pushback to the sad-rabid slates — because too much of the rhetoric from sad-rabids justifying the slates has not been about the merits of the nominated works, but about the context of the awards — the existing narrative, created by the sad-rabid supporters themselves, is that the slates are motivated not by merit, but by a political agenda. And the larger body of fandom has been appalled by that. That’s the source of the pushback. Not the mythological SJWs. Nor any other acronym of disrespect.
The Hugos are not awards for political correctness. They are not awards for any political opinion. They are awards for merit. They are a recognition of what the community deems as “best of the year.”
The awards are voted on by a large disorganized body of people — a continually evolving, changing, amorphous body consisting of whoever bought a Worldcon membership that year and felt likle voting. Sometimes you vote for a story, sometimes you vote for an author you like, and sometimes you even vote for a friend, but in general the awards represent a cross-section of the opinions of those involved in the Worldcon.
To ascribe any kind of conspiracy to a circumstance that is rooted in anarchy is to misread the evidence.
But … even more to the point, to expend so much time and energy on this effort has to be seen as an eyebrow raiser. Is this the most important thing you can be doing with your time? Reading some of the discussions, I’ve rolled my eyes so hard so many times, I can describe in great detail what the bottom of my brain looks like.
Real writers don’t worry about awards. Real writers write. (In my never-humble-opinion.) Real writers don’t worry about feuds. Real writers write. (IMNHO.) Real writers cherish their time at the keyboard as so precious that any distraction at all is seen as the enemy.
Adam-Troy Castro
“On the Roar of Approval For Self-Defenestration” – May 17
You’re a decent person. You really are.
Oh, sure, you have some bad habits, some irritating beliefs, some things you do that get on the nerves on people around you. But by all the low bars, you’re a decent person. You don’t molest children. You don’t attack people with broken bottles. You don’t set bombs. You’re good to your family and polite enough to people who are polite to you. In some ways, you’re admirable. Even noble. Your worst enemy, considering the way you live your life, would acknowledge it.
But then we get to the part of you that is objectionable. You’re just a little bigoted, just a little misogynistic, just a little homophobic, just a little xenophobic – any one of those four things, to some level, in some combination.
You are not any of these things to the degree of all-out, full-bore toxicity. They are trace elements, the same things that many of us have. Maybe they are a bit stronger in you than they are in some people who we would consider more enlightened – and maybe you have many compensating virtues.
As a character flaw, this is like a managed medical condition, in that it is possible for you to live with it comfortably, and for you to control it without causing too much offense to others, possibly even without them being visible to others.
But here’s the problem. You then surround yourself with the wrong people.
Kristene Perron on The Coconut Chronicles
“The Evolution of Cinderella” – May 17
There is one aspect of the Sad Puppies I am interested in, however, and that’s the assertion by many of their supporters that the sci-fi of old was better, purer, and more important than its modern day incarnation. Men in space ships, having adventures and solving problems with technology, that is “real” science fiction.
Anyone who waxes poetic about any kind of halcyon age makes me roll my eyes. And, when it comes to stories and storytelling, that kind of “Back in my day…” thinking is absurd. By such standards, Cinderella would forever and always be the story of a commoner marrying into royalty because the original was the “true” version regardless of social changes. In the 1600’s, the original story of Cinderella was subversive. In the 2000’s the original story of Cinderella is irrelevant.
I can and do still read and enjoy the “old time” science fiction stories, sexism and racism be damned, but my world has evolved and I expect stories written today to reflect those changes. If Crocodile Dundee was made today and the crotch grabbing scene was still included, I would boycott the movie and I would encourage everyone else to do likewise. There’s still room for stories of men in spaceships, having adventures and solving problems with technology but, given social changes, how could anyone complain that there is also room for science fiction stories of women and non-binary genders of all colours having adventures in all kinds of places?
Roger BW’s Blog
“Thoughts on the 2015 Hugo Awards” – May 15
But forget about the specific politics of this case. What institutional slate voting gets you, no matter how well-intentioned or how much it is aligned with your own views, is political parties. Nothing can get onto the ballot unless it’s part of a slate, so the people who run the slates become the kingmakers; any author who wants any chance at an award has to get in with one of them. (We’ve already seen popular works getting knocked off this year, and once the full nomination totals are revealed after the awards are made we’ll have a better idea of what missed its one chance at a Hugo.)
For this reason I will be voting “No Award” over any slate-nominated work this year, and I shall probably not bother to read it either. I’m glad to see that some of the slate-nominated authors have had the grace to withdraw once they found out what had been done, and disappointed that so many of the others haven’t.
In the long term, I don’t believe changes to the nomination procedure are worth it: technical solutions to social problems rarely work. Getting more people to nominate seems like a worthwhile effort. Clearly not all that many people are actually reading SF short stories in magazines any more; should Hugos even be awarded for them at all now?
Ace at Ace of Spades
Sunday Morning Book Thread 05-17-2015 [OregonMuse] – May 17
As we talked, I told him about Ace’s interview with Larry Correia concerning the Sad Puppies controversy in that by pursuing this strategy the publishing houses are ignoring huge markets of people willing to buy books and are cutting their own throats. He broke in saying, “I know, I know…But look…you gotta stop thinking. Just stop thinking! Thinking about all this will drive you crazy! Don’t go to bookstores, if they even still have any where you live. Don’t look at other books. You’ll just wonder how in the world this thing even got published,” and then told me some more anecdotes about how the sausage is made…
It was sad. He’s a good guy, and was just as frustrated about it all as I am, but he’s stuck fighting a bunch of Goliaths who only look for certain types of books (that support the current narrative and are framed by the postmodern cultural marxist analysis of race, gender, class) and is left trying to sneak in what stories he can, however he can.
EJ Shumak on Superversive SF
“WorldCon Members review GOBLIN EMPEROR” – May 17
First we will look at the positive response to this novel, comprising about 25% of the group. Bill, after reading all the other nominees, believes that this work will be at the top of his Hugo award list. He likes politically based tomes and enjoyed this iteration of that concept. Though the book was, admittedly, not what he had expected, he had a pleasant experience and was very positive overall.
Another vocal supporter had much good to say about the concept and purpose to the book. In many ways his reasons for liking the book paralleled the reasons others disliked it. He felt it exemplified white privilege imposed upon black (or Goblin) society. He felt we need to consistently look at and focus on our societal problems with racism and sexism. He felt we should examine these problems deeply, while assuming ignorance. While agreeing with another reader that the work was truly a lecture, he asserted that it was “…a lecture we need to have…”
The rest of the group was solidly in full disappointment of the work. Several people actually opined that this kind of lecture and message fiction was the best possible justification for the sad puppies’ slate. Mike loved the story through to the middle and then it overcame him to the point that he observed he could now understand the sad puppy position.
Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4
“The Hugo Ballot, Part 10: Novellas” – May 17
[“One Bright Star to Guide Them” by John C. Wright.] …Tommy goes to his old friend Richard but discovers that Richard now serves the Winter King. There’s a battle with the king’s servants, and at the chapter’s end “the smell of the sea filled his nose, and Tommy could neither see nor breathe.” We don’t get to see what happens next, either. Instead, unbelievably, the next chapter starts with Tommy meeting another of his old friends, Sally, and telling her what had happened. It’s as if someone had taken an entire book, cut out all the interesting parts, and published the rest. (Amusingly, in “John C. Wright’s Patented One-Session Lesson in the Mechanics of Fiction,” included with Wright’s stories, he stresses the importance of “showing, not telling” to the narrative.) Gradually, though, the story grinds to a start. It becomes the usual fantasy quest: Tommy has to go various places, do various things, collect various objects….
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Flow, by Arlan Andrews” – April 17
As the opening section of a novel, this is great. As a complete novella nominated as a complete story, not so much. I don’t think it’s asking too much that a nominated piece actually fit its category in ways beyond arbitrary word count. This doesn’t. It’s not a novella; it’s a novel fragment.
Barry Deutsch on Alas
“A Quick Primer For Those Who Wonder What The Issue With Slate Voting And The Hugo Awards Is” – May 17
THREE POPULAR PROPOSALS TO REDUCE THE INFLUENCE OF SLATE VOTING
Many have suggested that all that’s needed to reduce the influence of Slate voting is more voters, that is, for a larger number of people to vote in both rounds of Hugo voting. However, since Slate Voting is a strategy that mathematically allows a collectively organized minority to overcome the preferences of a disorganized majority, I don’t have much confidence in this proposal. (Although it is a nice idea for other reasons.)
Another proposal is the 4/6 proposal, in which individual Hugo voters can only nominate four works per category, and there will be six nominees per category. In this case, rather than a successful slate controlling 100% of nominees in each category, it will only control 66% of nominees in each category. If there are two slates, then the most successful slate will control 66% of nominees, while the next most successful slate will control the remaining 33% of slots. This seems like an insufficient solution, to me.
The proposal I favor is “Least Popular Elimination,” in which voters could still nominate up to five works per category, but the votes are counted in a way that mathematically favors works that appear on the broadest number of voters’ ballots while diluting (but not completely eliminating) the power of slate voting. A detailed explanation of “Least Popular Elimination” voting is available here. While LPE voting is not as intuitive as the other two proposals, I believe it would be more effective
Sarah A. Hoyt on According To Hoyt
“The Privilege Of Not Caring” – May 17
So who am I betraying by not conforming to the baneful Marxist stereotype of who I should be? Oh, right, the SJWs. That’s okay, I’m fine betraying them. Or at least fighting them. Hard to betray what you never belonged to. And, you know, most of them, even those with exotic names and claiming exotic identities (rolls eyes) are pasty-assed white people with real privilege as defined by having money and having attended the best universities and hanging out with all the “right” people and having the “right” (left) opinions. If they knew the meaning of the word privilege, they’d see it all over themselves.
But there are more egregious definitions of privilege. You see “check your privilege” is a tool of would-be elite whites to keep competition and challengers in check, while riding to glory by defining themselves as champions of the downtrodden. (It’s an old game, in place at least since the French revolution, but it’s the only one they have. Remember they lack both empathy and imagination. And since they have more or less overtaken the press, no one on the street realizes how old and tired this “clever” gambit is.)
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Sexism and ideological bias in science fiction” – May 17
TOTAL: 65.7 women have won 24.7 percent and 19 conservatives have won 7.1 percent of the 266 Hugo Awards given out since 1996. This is despite the fact that conservatives outnumber liberals by a factor of 1.6 in the USA, which means that conservatives are underrepresented by a factor of 11.3, versus women being underrepresented by a factor of 2.
Now, if the SJWs are to be believed, sexism is a serious problem but there is absolutely no evidence of left wing ideological bias. They keep repeating this despite the fact that the anti-right wing bias in science fiction is observably 5.6 times worse than the purported sexism about which they so often complain.
Jim C. Hines
“’Do You Wanna Take The Hugos?’” – May 16
[First of two stanzas]
To the tune of “Do you want to build a snowman?”
Brad
Larry? Do you wanna take the Hugos?
Come on let’s change the game.
I’m tired of those liberals
Like criminals
Who steal our rightful fame!
This used to be our genre
But now it’s not.
They make all the puppies cry.
Do you wanna take the Hugos?
(And also puff up both our egos…)
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Can I just say that I…really, really have to wonder if the “WorldCon Members” in the above-linked post read the same version of “The Goblin Emperor” that I did. ::headshaky::
You ain’t nothing but a sad puppy
whining all the time
you ain’t never won a hugo
and you ain’t no friend of mine…
@Nate:
I think read might be too strong a verb for whatever transpired.
The pro-camp came up with the gem:
“He felt it exemplified white privilege imposed upon black (or Goblin) society.”
Which is a fascinating interpretation given that they were two separate nations, whose main interaction in the novel was the resumption of diplomatic relations.
@Nate
Yep, I’ve got doubts if that’s their takeaway.
You know you’re in Bizarro World when someone criticizes Goblin Emperor for being messagefic while not expressing even greater criticism for (Insert Any John C Wright Entry Here).
Goblin Emperor at least has a great story and empathetic characters to work with.
Quoting Schumak, “While agreeing with another reader that the work was truly a lecture, he asserted that it was “…a lecture we need to have…””
I read the Goblin Emperor and I loved the book – but I’m very sensitive to being lectured in any way by an (any) author. I never felt that Addison was doing that at any stage. I didn’t feel that the elves and goblins were a pastiche of any kind of white/black human dichotomy, they were aliens (non humans) who had suitably alien problems and concerns. I don’t know where they commenters quoted are getting this, it seems to me a stretch too far.
There are some big differences between YA and Graphic Story. For starters, the way the rules are structured Graphic Story would only qualify in the short fiction categories which are a bad fit. It is also a significantly different medium. For what it’s worth I think there are a lot of interesting Graphic Stories being produced and nominated. I love Fables, Schlock Mercenary is solid hard SF. Unwritten, Saga, Saucer Country and Digger are all amazing bits of nominated fiction.
It’s almost as if they were reading TGE with the specific intent of finding something to be offended over, while completely ignoring the actual content of the text.
“It’s almost as if they were reading TGE with the specific intent of finding something to be offended over…”
It’s almost as if they didn’t read TGE at all, frankly. I can’t recognize anything about the novel from that discussion.
I am a bit doubtful about a YA Hugo, given the overlap with “adult” books(I wouldn’t have considered The Diamond Age as YA for instance), but we should be encouraging younger readers, so a Juvenile Hugo would seem an obvious addition to me.
Rick, sorry for catching up to your question on the last thread late. I don’t know what definition of “young adult” is best for the purpose of Hugo nominations in a YA category. My intuition would be “any definition that is feasible, so long as young people feel encouraged to get involved.”
“CHORF became a necessity once it became clear that Teresa Nielsen-Hayden (among others) was teeing up the outrage machine, in the week before the release of the Hugo final ballot in April.”
I like how Brad Torgersen seamlessly weaves together the narratives “we’re not jerks” and “I had to coin a new acronym to call people names, and encourage others repeatedly to use it, because I anticipated they were going to be jerks to us.”
Is it true that Teresa Nielsen-Hayden knew about the Hugo finalists before they were announced?
Sort of. On March 24, she posted this over at Making Light:
I’ve been keeping an ear on the SF community’s gossip, and I think the subject of this year’s Hugo nominations is about to explode.
Let me make this clear: my apprehensions are not based on insider information. I’m just correlating bits of gossip. It may help that I’ve been a member of the SF community for decades.
If the subject does blow up, I may write about it in this space. In any event, watch that space.
Note that the original had the word “think” in italics, and TNH is botn an insider with an ear to the ground in SFF and someone with a strong internet presence; I have no problems believing she picked up rumors of the Slates early, particularly since at least one nominee missed the confidentiality agreement and posted news of his nomination on his own blog at the same time as he got the phone call. (I think it was Williamson, but I’m honestly not sure at this point; I remember a name starting with W, so it could have been Wright.)
I’m curious–I thought Torgersen coined “chorf” earlier in the process, but I could easily be wrong. Does anyone know?
There is no evidence that TNH had any more foreknowledge about the Hugo nomineess then anybody else. Some of the Puppies nominees had announced their nominations early, for abundance of enthusiasm rather then maliciousness, so we all kind of knew what was coming.
Is it true that Teresa Nielsen-Hayden knew about the Hugo finalists before they were announced?
Not directly, no.
Many people knew Williamson was a nominee before the finalists were announced, because Williamson announced it himself.
Someone who was paying attention could probably figure out at least some of the nominees ahead of time because several of the Puppies began taking victory laps before the announcement was made.
And it isn’t that difficult to figure out who was not going to be nominated if you have a circle of friends who are authors and editors, because one would not be hearing the buzz that would normally accompany them getting the notification they had been nominated.
So in one sense, it is likely that TNH had some reasonably good information that would have led her to believe she knew the landscape of the nominations, but the idea that she had secret or leaked information is simply silly.
Happyturtle @ 6:36 am- She knew that three Puppies were nominated for best novel. I’m not certain that she knew which three.
There are three options, off the cuff, that would explain this:
1. The administrators told her or someone close to her. This is unlikely as from all accounts the administrators have behaved fairly well throughout the three Puppy years.
2. The Puppy authors, after being nominated, phoned her or someone close to her and told her. This is a possibility as a nominated author gets advance notice. However, I think it unlikely as who really thinks Jim Butcher, etc. called the Haydens?
3. She thought she knew the authors that would be nominated, like Scalzi’s Locked In (who won a Nebula nomination), and when they did not get the advance call from the Hugo admin, she knew the Puppys’ slates had been effective in getting three novels on the ballot.
There might be other options (is she psychic?). But I think it boils down the no. 3.
@Happyturtle The actual nominees know about the nominations in advance, this is part of the process. I understand that quite a lot of leakage therefore occurred.
Happyturtle: Short answer: no. Longer answer: no, no more than anyone else who knows a lot of writers and long-term fans, and who’d been watching the Puppies’ discussions with worried concern.
In practice, an experienced Hugos watcher can and will notice who burbles prematurely about being nominated, who says explicitly that they haven’t been nominated, and who’s been in the discussion and is a plausible candidate who’s gone suddenly quiet about it all. Teresa’s more likely than many people to know of some not-publicly-announced nominations, too, because she and Patrick have been (very good) editors a long time, and are friends with a bunch of writers who will want to burble to someone who’ll keep their confidences.
But no, nobody involved with actual Hugo administration leaked, so nearly as any evidence indicates.
A link to the thread and PNH’s comment that kinda lays out what the NHs had deduced from rumblings and their sources:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016177.html#4047197
Regarding YA novels winning awards, it’s worth noting that Ursula LeGuin’s YA novel Powers won the Nebula for Best Novel back in 2009.
The only real way I see the Hugos being a “smoking ruin” is if the CHORFs fulfill their stated pledge to bork the 2015 awards by placing “NO AWARD” at the top of every category; thus no awards will be given.
Whiny Brad is a bit tiresome at this point. “Why are people calling me an asshole? I have only been insulting them by coming up with names like ‘CHORF’ to attack them with for months.”
The 2015 Hugo Awards have already been borked by two slates getting completely shitty stuff onto the final list of nominees. The only thing to do at this point to save the Hugos is assess the shitty slate nominees on their shitty merits and place them below No Award.
I don’t understand EJ’s logic that the complaints about puppies are “much ado about nothing” because they only got 40% of the novel nominees. Is he unaware of the slates’ presence in the other categories?
Lock In won a Locus award nomination, not a Nebula nomination. Apologies.
I didn’t feel that the elves and goblins were a pastiche of any kind of white/black human dichotomy, they were aliens (non humans) who had suitably alien problems and concerns. I don’t know where they commenters quoted are getting this, it seems to me a stretch too far
Ditto. That’s such a stretch even Mr. Fantastic would wince. It had so few real world parallels that trying to connect the two is mind boggling.
“Why are people calling me an asshole? I have only been insulting them by coming up with names like ‘CHORF’ to attack them with for months.”
Well they do insist on comparing him and his chronies to dogs.
Learned’s right – look at how the slaters dominated the Best Artist category this year, and how one of the slate’s nominees for Best Artist was disqualified on the basis of not having any eligible work! What was that again about actually knowing something about the nominee before nominating them? Yeah, right.
“It is problematic – for a start what is YA fiction?”
We have two good guides here:
1. Whatever is marketed as YA fiction.
2. Whatever the attending and associate members filling out nominating ballots deem to be YA fiction.
If we don’t define SF beyond “whatever enough nominators deem to be SF” – and we don’t – why do we need to be more precise about “YA”?
Well they do insist on comparing him and his chronies to dogs.
Blame Correia for that. He’s the one who called them Sad Puppies.
Even the 40% in novel category is incorrect, the actual figure is 80%. Correia has stated that he declined his nomination, which I am inclined to believe, and Mike Kloo withdrew “Lines of Departure” after the nominations were announced. Both appeared on the Puppy slates.
I found Adam Troy-Castro’s post helpful in a number of ways. The discussions about the slates have gone on for many weeks, and looking back I see that over that time I have become much more dogmatic (yes, I know, but it’s the right word), and that is not a direction I want to travel in.
Admittedly, part of this is because I’ve been forcing myself to read nominated works which in other circumstances I would have abandoned after the first paragraph, and extracts from blogs I would never otherwise read, and it’s downright depressing.
But it’s only a part. The irony is that in trying to be fair I have become less fair, and I really don’t want to do that, so I will be stepping away from the slates and immersing myself in the books I love, starting with Zelazney’s ‘Lord of Light’, to remind myself of why I came to care in the first place…
And look how not defining SF properly allows stories about dinosaurs to get onto the ballot, which apparently justifies everything.
I can see definite teething problems. If a book is thought by some to be YA, but by others to be just a novel then it might get enough nominations that it should have been in contention, but because they’re split across two categories it fail to make either.
Other question: If allowing a new Hugo which by medium would fall into another category, but gets treated differently because of the target audience, does that justify a ‘Best Puppy Novel’ category? Or ‘Best Novel with QUILTBAG Themes?’
NickPheas: Well, the Tiptree Awards have a darned good history of finding excellent work within a flexible but distinct boundary…. 🙂
“(Barely related, Brad Torgersen complained about media tie-in novels not getting nominations, but I can understand there, when the world-building and characterisation is already done.)”
So, I wrote and was paid for my five thousandth professional review in May 2014 and a certain fraction of the five thousand was tie-in books. I grant the possibility that someone could write a noteworthy tie-in but when I try to think of examples, they’re from the 1980s. I think the current system for cranking out tie-ins is good at producing consistently good-enough mediocre works but not so good at encouraging exceptionally good works (except for Star Trek, where all the recent tie-ins I saw were terrible).
“Media tie-in novels being overlooked for the Hugos is a scandal” is my personal What Is This I Can’t Even.
I will now begin claiming the real outrage is that no Perry Rhodan book ever won a Hugo.
Torgerson’s pity party has to be a self aware thing at this point right? His ongoing one man mental gymnastics show is fun to watch at least.
BT – Sad Puppies 3 can be accurately described as operational push-back against a small pool of taste-makers getting to decide for all of Science Fiction and Fantasy (SF/F) what’s worthy of recognition with SF/F’s self-labeled “most prestigious award.”
That’s true, Sad Puppies 3 was about getting an even smaller pool of taste-makers getting to decide for Worldcon members what they feel was worthy of recognition at the expense of anything Worldcon members were nominating as individuals, because they were jealous of the prestige it had obtained.
BT – And let’s be clear: the Hugo selection process in 2015 does have blind spots. Such as the consistent bias against tie-in novels and tie-in novel authors; for all definitions of “tie-in” which include, “Books based on universes originating from sources other than literary.” Ergo, games, movies, television, etc
Yeah, way to point out that blind spot, now how many Sad and Rabid nominations were tie ins? Looks like that blind spot might be wider than we thought! Or it’s possible that tie-in books for the most part are like tie-in game or movies, licensed works with short deadlines not often known for heir quality. Not all of course, but rarely does one rise up compared to original content.
The rest is silly No True Scotsman, blaming ‘antis’ as a whole group for actions he insinuates but doesn’t mention specifics of, uses the word democracy like it’s going out of action though as shown in the past he states SP3 was 100% democratic and transparent so I question his understanding of the word.
And The only real way I see the Hugos being a “smoking ruin” is if the CHORFs fulfill their stated pledge to bork the 2015 awards by placing “NO AWARD” at the top of every category; thus no awards will be given
Which will not destroy the Hugos at all or leave them a smoking ruin at all. It’ll be an interesting statistic in the future history of the Hugos, one of many from this year.
BT – Or maybe “your” side needs to just settle down and vote on the ballot like normal?
That’s what the rest of us adults do — even when we aren’t thrilled with what’s on the ballot.
Because it’s not a normal ballot, no matter how much you want anyone to pretend it is. You know it’s not. You’ve bragged about how successful you (well mostly VD) was in making sure it wasn’t. So no, people don’t need to settle down and play make believe with the ballot as though this was a normal year.
Also when the rest of us see a ballot with things that might not have been our favorites, we don’t form a posse to make sure next year that it’ll be our friends and colleges only that make it, because we’re adults and that’s how adults handle these things.
Jim Henley
I dunno, I find it *really* hard to get past the spectacular stupidity of the “I wanna judge a book by it’s cover!!!” wahhhhhmbulance ride that Brad kicked things of with a while back.
That it’s Baen author saying it just makes it sooo much worse. Those Bujold books….such great content, such WtF covers….
Brad Torgerson said:
See, this is what bugs me about the characterization of the “sides” in this. The Sad and Rabid Puppies are admitted cabals working in unison. They obviously have followers doing what their leaders publicly told them to do, with the results apparent in the nomination. People publicly identify as Sad Puppies or perhaps as Rabid Puppies.
There is no SJW or CHORF cabal speaking with one voice. There hasn’t been one behind the scenes and there certainly isn’t one acting publicly in concert as a counterpart to the Puppies. The “stated pledge” to No Award various categories is not something to align behind and march in unison as the slates are. Several people (some of them Big Name people in the community) have said that that is what they themselves intend to do. Others have said, if you feel that either 1)slates that lock up entire categories should not be rewarded or 2) none of the nominees are of Hugo quality, here is how you can vote to show that.
There is no group pledge. There is no concerted activity. One of the things that is so nutty about the whole thing is that the Puppies posited the existence of a secret cabal determining the nominees and award winners of the Hugos, based on the evidence that they themselves and people like them didn’t win them. That isn’t actual evidence, that is an inference. It is equally possible/probable that there never was a cabal and things just fell out the way they did because more people (of the subset of people who vote for Hugos) liked certain books better.
But taking the posited cabal as a true thing, the Puppies formed opposing cabals and, since there is not actually a liberal/SJW cabal (and certainly not a CHORF one since no one calls themselves CHORFs–that is a term applied from the outside), they ran the table.
In other words, for Mr. Torgerson, the narrative is “broken” when it doesn’t assume there are two opposing cabals using strategery to fight each other.
If you accept that there is not a liberal/affirmative action/whatever cabal, what the Puppies are doing looks like simple bullying. I’m sorry for the people who have gotten caught up in the middle of it who don’t necessarily think that way. But the leaders of the Puppies do, and they never have proved that a cabal exists on the “other side”, just acted like there is one, and then fought it.
Any “team” that exists in opposition to the Puppies is one that thinks 1) what the Puppies did to this year’s ballot was at best unsportsmanlike and 2) formed after the Puppies did what they did and 3) their philosophy is stop the Puppies or stop slates in general, not stop conservative/fun/military SF or whatever it is from winning Hugos.
Of course the fact that I make this argument is probably just proof of my brainwashing. But no one recruited me. I never voted for the Hugos before, but enjoyed following them from afar. I joined this year and intend to vote (and more importantly, perhaps, nominate in 2016) because I am disgusted by what the Puppies did, and sick of their rhetoric about the phantom SJWs/CHORFs or whatever they are calling their imaginary enemies this week.
@Everyone: Thanks for answering my question.
“Media tie-in novels being overlooked for the Hugos is a scandal” is my personal What Is This I Can’t Even.
The Sad Puppies have complained about media tie-in novels not getting nominated. Thus far, they have only nominated one. Last year, by Dan Wells. It wasn’t particularly good.
The Sad Puppies have whined about how Worldcon fandom has been ignoring comics. They have managed to come up with a single eligible nominee for Best Graphic Story. It is really quite weak.
The Sad Puppies complained that Worldcon fans ignored The Avengers, claiming this showed that the usual Hugo voters were out of touch with real fans. The movie won a Hugo. Meanwhile, they neglected to include Captain America: The Winter Soldier on their slate.
The Sad Puppies have said they weren’t intent on running a political campaign. And then they ran a campaign that was political through-and-through.
It is almost as if the Sad Puppies aren’t really being truthful about their intentions.
@snowcrash: “I dunno, I find it *really* hard to get past the spectacular stupidity of the “I wanna judge a book by it’s cover!!!” wahhhhhmbulance ride that Brad kicked things of with a while back.”
This is close enough to the Puppy ur-complaint – Muh Good Old Daze! – that I can formulate an actual response:
“Theodore Sturgeon published ‘Thunder and Roses’ in 1947. Your argument is invalid.”
But the tie-in-novel complaint makes me gape so much like a fish I want to hang a small lantern in front of my face and save on groceries.
@Mary: I’m curious–I thought Torgersen coined “chorf” earlier in the process, but I could easily be wrong. Does anyone know?
For what it’s worth, I can’t find a mention of the word prior to March 30th when Torgersen made it up in reference to TNH, because he was angry that she would dare say that the Hugo belongs to “those of us who love SF and love fandom.” That sentiment makes her Hitler’s evil twin, or something.
How can you claim a love of “classic SF” and not be familiar with the contents of the Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes? How did you not borrow all the Clifton Fadiman anthologies from the library when you were a kid? “Classic SF” DOESN’T LOOK ANYTHING LIKE THEY SAY CLASSIC I AM RANTING NOW I’M SORRY I WILL STOP BUT FOR CRYING OUT
Jim Henley:
I was born in 1965 and attended my first Worldcon in 1984, and every Worldcon since 1989. I’ll turn 50 years old the week after this year’s Worldcon. The Graying of Fandom argument was old before I was born. I made the same complaint when I was in my twenties and thirties, and wondered why people older than me looked at me rather patronizingly. Now I know. People have been saying exactly the same thing for more than fifty years now. And yet Worldcon hasn’t died, and the voters haven’t died. Where is the evidence for this proposition?
The only thing I’ve seen is people pointing to anime and comic conventions full of People Younger Than Them and saying, “See, there’s the kids! If they don’t come here, we’re all doomed.” Well, what I think happens with SF/F literary conventions that doesn’t happen (generally) with those other events is that we don’t leave. The other events are something that people do for a few years, then they “grow up” and stop doing them. (Yes, I know there are lots of exceptions. I’m talking generally, not specifically, and the presence of specific exceptions doesn’t invalidate the general case.) So of course the average age of those groups stays young. By contrast, if you’re more like me and find your tribe at age 18 and never leave, then it’s not surprising that the average age is older. Besides, the population as a whole continues to get older as the Baby Boom continues to age out.
You want SF/F literary fandom to get younger? Well, wait for the Baby Boomers to finishing dying.
cmm
There must be a Cabal of CHORFs.
Just like there must have been slates previously, despite a complete lack of evidence prior voting slates (beyond the whole Stuff I Hate Won, which is proof of something else entirely).
It’s why there must have been Hugo nominees shoehorned in where their SJW-message distorted the writing, despite the fact that examples of these seem few and far between.
There has to be a Cabal of CHORFs. Otherwise, the Puppies would just be a bunch of arseholes.
The Arlan Andrews story is worse than Lis Carey thinks. It’s not the opening chapter. It’s the 2nd chapter.
“Any “team” that exists in opposition to the Puppies is one that thinks 1) what the Puppies did to this year’s ballot was at best unsportsmanlike and 2) formed after the Puppies did what they did and 3) their philosophy is stop the Puppies or stop slates in general, not stop conservative/fun/military SF or whatever it is from winning Hugos.”
Wait, so you hate slate voting, and the way to fight against slate voting is to call the leader of that vote a racist misogynist?
No, that’s not it…I know, lets attack his politics instead…
Wait, that’s not it, lets demand every writer who was part of the slate disavow themselves from the politics of the person who coordinated the slate…because if they don’t, they must obviously be in lockstep with everything that person believes…
That team is about as coordinated as the SP voters were.
The thread has moved beyond the Honey Badgers & the dubious intersection of MRAs and the puppies, so apologies if this drags it backwards but I think it’s a little addendum that provides even more sad puppy thoughts on the situation. (If you want ’em, of course.)
The Honey Badgers run a youtube channel called “Honey Bader Radio”. One month ago, Brad Torgersen, Sarah Hoyt, and Michael Z. Williamson appeared on the show as guests to talk about Sad Puppies and draw parallels with the Honey Baders’ being kicked out of Calgary Comics Expo, and Gamergate.
John C. Wright was a guest on a different episode, but he covered much of the same ground.
There’s not much new here if you’ve been following File 770, but its kind of interesting to see these different-but-similar groups finding common ground.
@cmm I have to promise @lori I’ll only say this once, but so far as I can see, voting the slate is not a criterion for membership in the Sad Puppies. There are no criteria, AFAIK, which is why I could (and had to) join. And the results have been very interesting: I started doing it as a joke because I never thought anyone would actually say yes, but a fair number of people have not only accepted it but have seemed to appreciate it, and I’ve genuinely come to think, as long as they’ll have me, I’m a Sad Puppy too. I’ve had actual conversations with people about how we might use our votes, so I can say with certainty at least some other puppies, like me, don’t think it’s a prereq. Which is to say: there’s at least one point of meaning in the Sad Puppy position that I didn’t get initially (maybe still don’t get), so there could be more.
And again, I promise @lori I won’t bring this up again for a while (because, as with Castro’s post, sometimes your best friends tell you stuff that’s hard to hear because they’re the only ones who can), but from my perspective, most of the main founders of the Sad Puppies are probably either a) actually Rabid Puppies (and in all honesty, for my strong disagreements with several of them, I don’t know of a single one I’d put in that category) or b) wish they hadn’t formed the thing but have no idea how to get out of it now because it is such a huge mess (Kennedy, Khrushchev and face-saving come to mind, powers that be). I hear a lot of saner people talking about the next puppy slate and, though the name “puppy” is forever going to stick in some craws, I would suggest one of the things I think Gandhi was most profound about, and that is one must always be ready again to accept people at face value. It’s very, very hard to do, but it’s how things move forward.
This is why I am accepting the Sad Puppies at face value. They are inclusive of me, so far, I have had to admit. I’m putting it out there again because I really do think it’s of value. I hope so.
(@lori, thanks for letting me do that.)
Todd, where is that team by the way?
And just so we’re clear, who is the leader of the vote/ slate co-ordinator that you are referring to?
FWIW, the urban dictionary, that premium, elite lexicographical resource has a reference to “chorf” from 2003.
“An acronym for “CHrist On a Rabbit Farm”. Variation of “Christ on a popsicle stick” or “Christ on a rubber raft”.
“Chorf, kids, get in the car already!”
by Neffy August 19, 2003″
Mind you, I am old enough to remember when SJW stood for “Single Jewish Woman”. Ah, the good old days when you could judge a book by its cover and manly men knew how to use the apostrophe.