aka Twenty Thousand Comments About the Controversy by Jules Verne
Stampeding into this roundup are Kate Paulk, John Carlton, Nick Mamatas, Tom Knighton, Adam-Troy Castro, Brian Lowe, Max Florschutz, Rich Horton, Lou Antonelli , Amanda S. Green, Steve Davidson, William Reichard, embrodski, Lis Carey, Joe Sherry, Elisa Bergslien, Brian Niemeier, R.P.L. Johnson, Katya Czaja, Mary Robinette Kowal, “Orange Mike” Lowrey, Alexandra Erin and ULTRAGOTHA. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Jim Henley and Soon Lee.)
Kate Paulk on Mad Genius Club
“So What Is Hugo-Worthy Anyway?” – May 28
So. What I look for when judging quality in narrative fiction (this mostly doesn’t apply to poetry and non-fiction and it sure as heck doesn’t apply to art) is this (in approximate order, even):
- Early immersion – I read a hell of a lot, and I find it very easy to become immersed in a piece. The earlier it drags me in, the better. If I don’t get the immersion, the interplay of the technical factors (prose quality, characterization, plotting, foreshadowing, etc.) isn’t handled well enough to do it. I’ve read pieces where I liked the premise and characters, but the craft wasn’t good enough to generate immersion. I’ve also read pieces that I hated but were well enough done to hold me despite that.
- Immersion is maintained until the last word – This is important: if something throws me out of immersion, it’s a serious technical flaw (because, yes, I’ve actually analyzed this. It could be a plot flaw that runs the piece into a bridge abutment. It could be something that breaks a character. It could also be prose so damned obtuse it sends me running for a dictionary – and I read Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant series without needing one…..
John Carlton on The Arts Mechanical
Eric Flint Owes Brad Torgeson And The Rest Of The Puppies A Huge Apology
This has gotten too long, Eric and I’m leave it with this. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!!! Before I knew what your relationship with Brad was, your posts were just more of the kind of crap we have been seeing all over. Not only excusing the nuclear strike of hate, but seemingly justifying it. Most of us thought you just weren’t aware of the whole story. That was before how well you knew Brad. Then you came into my thread [on Facebook] and acted like a perfect jackass. Beating up on me, well ok, I’m a big boy, and I’ve been beaten on by better than you. Supposedly you are Brad’s friend, though. Yet you didn’t hesitate to demonstrate true douchery by taking a hit at him. All the while he’s formatting that hit piece on himself for you before going on deployment. A true friend indeed.
I’m sure you are aware of the Alinsky tactic of isolating the target and setting it up for destruction. You also know that that’s exactly the time when friends need to stand together. Yet there you were with the rest of the mob. I’m asking myself why? Couldn’t you just for once set aside your politics and support a friend who needs it? With all the voices turned against them the puppies and Brad could have used another voice in support. Even if you saw the screams of racism and misogyny you KNEW that it all had to be a lie. Yet you not did not call out the lies, you amplified them and did not speak out against them even when the CHORFs were attacking YOU. And that’s why you owe Brad and the rest of the puppies a HUGE apology.
Nick Mamatas on Storify
“Engagement and Popularity in Science Fiction – Sad Puppies Are Sad” – May 28
[Numbers 10 and 11 of 17 tweets]
High engagement books occasionally withhold immediate mind-pictures. This is why low engagement readers think they are bad.
— Nick Buy My Book Mamatas ??????????????? (@NMamatas) May 28, 2015
These readers also suspect people who like high-engagement books of lying, putting on airs, or being "pretentious."
— Nick Buy My Book Mamatas ??????????????? (@NMamatas) May 28, 2015
Tom Knighton
“Sad Puppies, Noah Ward, and the abusive husband” – May 28
How, pray tell, did we screw any work, magazine or other entity over by nominating them? First, that presumes that we not only sought to have everything on the slate nominated but also knew that the reaction would be to No Award everything we nominated.
Make no mistake, the decision to No Award the works on the Sad Puppy slate lies on you who have decided to judge a work by its fans.
Claiming that we “screwed over” a work because we nominated it is like an abusive husband smacking his wife because another guy said she was pretty, then turning to the other guy and saying, “See what you made me do?”
We didn’t make you do anything. It is your decision to No Award works, not ours. Just like the abusive husband trying to pin responsibility on the other man, you’re responsible for your own decisions. We’re not forcing you to vote anything below No Award. That’s been your call from the start.
Those of us on the Sad Puppy side just wanted to nominate things we like. We didn’t like what had been winning, so we stepped up and nominated different stuff. You act like we’ve committed an unspeakable sin because we didn’t do it the way you guys have been doing it. We did it a different way.
Adam-Troy Castro
“Conniption Fodder” – May 28
[Ordinarily I avoid quoting entire posts – but this is, after all, only three sentences long…]
Any political differences I might have with the Puppies, any feelings of dismay I might have about the racism and homophobia and sheer unpleasantness displayed by some of them, are secondary.
What really infuriates me most is eighty years — eighty goddamned years — of SF writers and fans trying to persuade a skeptical and often contemptuous world that this is not a field of crap, jumped-up “Buck Rogers stuff,” as it’s so often been called, but a field of literature, material that was stylistically and thematically and conceptually ignored at the world’s tremendous loss, a fight that was led on the page by Campbell, for God’s sake, by Bradbury, for God’s sake, by Heinlein, for God’s sake, by Pohl for God’s sake, even from time to time by Harry Harrison for God’s sake, and in popular culture by Serling and Roddenberry for God’s sake, all that before we got to the likes of Vonnegut and Ellison and LeGuin and Silverberg and Russ and Malzberg and Tiptree and Brunner and Delany, with the occasional cruelly overlooked master like Kit Reed, and others, for God’s sake, all of them hammering hard at the limits of what this field was allowed to do, and what it was allowed to say, all of them breaking barriers and shattering ceilings, often in the face of tremendous opposition, while permitting the grand old adventure stuff to continue to flourish, until we have room for both Neal Stephenson and Neil Gaiman, for everything from Kim Stanley Robinson to China Mieville, for Nalo Hopkinson and N.K. Jemisin, all those good folks, after which we not only enter the zeitgeist but take it over, decades later, whereupon the Puppies come along and say, “NO! IT WAS NEVER ANY OF THAT GOOD STUFF! IT WAS ALWAYS *JUST* ROCKETSHIPS AND DRAGONS! IT WAS NEVER ANYTHING BUT PLAIN FICTION FOR PLAIN FOLKS! ANY PRETENSIONS OF ANYTHING ELSE ARE JUST AN ABERRATION OF THE LAST FEW YEARS!”
*That* is conniption fodder.
If the #SadPuppies want more people to vote for the #Hugos, why are they promoting stories no one wants to vote for? #sciencefiction
— Brian Lowe (@BrianLoweWriter) May 28, 2015
Max Florschutz on Unusual Things
“Battle of the Lone-Star Reviews” – May 28
A very vocal anti-puppy commented that simply because he was an outspoken anti-puppy, his books had been one-star bombed by the Sad Puppy supporters, and it was wrong. Except when the anti-puppies did it (yes, he actually claimed this in the same comment), because as long as they believed the were morally right, then they had a good reason to. Also, he dared more people to leave one star reviews on his book because all that proved was that they didn’t have a leg to—yeah, I started skimming it. It got ridiculous.
Point is, I checked him on Amazon, and indeed, he does have a very large number of unreasonable one-star reviews. He also had a few very well-thought out and explained one-star reviews to go along with them. I went along and did the helpful/not-helpful boxes as I browsed through them, because heck, even if the guy is loud and annoying to me, a scummy review is still a scummy review.
So, here’s what we have: individuals on both sides appear to be leaving one-star reviews for books of authors they don’t like. And at least one prominent individual on one of the sides has encouraged such actions as a “take that!” to which supporters on the other have responded in kind.
I don’t approve of either. In fact, if you’re encouraging this or engaging in it, you’re part of the problem.
Rich Horton on Black Gate
“A Modest Proposal to Improve the Hugos” – May 28
Though, I ask myself, why do I use the word “problem?” Surely it is a feature, not a bug, that there are so many stories published each year that are worthy of our attention? Indeed it is, but a result of that, I feel, is that if we want the Hugos to represent the very best stories of the year, we are failing, in the sense that it’s easier than before for a great story to slip under the radar.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that for a story to reach the final ballot it must receive 5% of the nominating ballots. That requirement is obsolete in a situation where so many more stories are plausible contenders. (Three times in the past five years the Hugo Short Story ballot has had fewer than 5 entries due to this rule, and in 2013 there were only three stories on the final ballot.)
Is there a way to solve this? I have a very simple suggestion. Change the rules as follows: instead of choosing the top 5 nominated stories for the final ballot, choose the top 10. (However, any individual nominator would still only be allowed to nominate 5 items in a category.) Also, lower the percentage threshold of total nominating ballots to be eligible for the final ballot to 3% (or, possibly, eliminate the lower threshold altogether). I’m not sure this change is needed in all categories – in some categories (Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, for one example) it’s been my impression that getting to 10 reasonable nominees in a given year might be a stretch.
Lou Antonelli on This Way to Texas
“Kansas City chronicles – ConQuest 46” – May 28
One of the practical things I did while at the convention was upgrade my membership for SasQuan from supporting to attending. They offered a $20 discount if it was done at the con. I also had a nice chat with the people at the table. I told them of my belief, because of the mob mentality being fostered by some people against the Pupps, that they should just announce the winners and forget the dinner. But they are aware of the possibility of unpleasantness and plan to keep a tight rein on things. I wish them luck. I hope I get out of Spokane in one piece.
One person I ran into at the con said he has suggested that, to prevent catcalls, boos and jeering, that the Hugo committee announce in advance which categories will not have an award this year, and the ceremony only deal with the presentations to winners. That sounds like a good idea, also.
Amanda S. Green on Nocturnal Lives
“Five days and counting” – May 28
As for today, well, it is difficult to find a topic to blog that doesn’t take me back to Sad Puppies and the Hugos. That is especially true when one author keeps turning up on my Facebook feed with his daily anti-puppy rant. Now, I’m a big believer in everyone is entitled to their own opinions but it is hard to not respond, either on his page — which would get me banned — or here. That’s especially true because he consistently misconstrues what SP3 stands for.
You see, by nature I’m a battler. I’m a brawler and I fight dirty. But I have learned over the years that there are some fights that just aren’t worth fighting. This fight, with this particular author is one of them. He is never going to change his stance, no matter what sort of evidence, anecdotal and concrete alike, he is presented with. He has written the history of the industry in the way he wants it to be remembered and to hell with everyone else. Taking the battle to him would serve no purpose except to prove, in his point of view, he is right.
Obsah XB-1 – June 2015 issue
[A Czech-language SF magazine presents both sides of the controversy. Jason Sanford’s article, according to Google Translate, is titled “You maniacs ! You destroyed Hugo Award !” while Brad Torgersen’s is called “Sad Puppies critics strike back.” Each author also has a story in the issue.]
Steve Davidson on Amazing Stories
“On Politics and Fandom” – May 28
Yesterday I sent out a general press release concerning the appointment of Judges to the Gernsback Science Fiction Short Story Contest (you can see a post here).
I received an email from one of the usual press outlets I send such things to, asking to be removed from our PR mailing list.
The name of the venue is unimportant.
What is important is that the request for removal from the list represents fallout from the 2015 Hugo Kerfuffle, otherwise known as Puppygate.
William Reichard
“What hope gets you today (puppy sadness)” – May 28
But that’s what earnestness gets you. Earnestness is a crime in our world. Even daring to try to believe in something hopeful and un-ironic wins you scorn. It gets you lectured. And this is one of the nuances that makes me able to understand some of the “puppies” in the Hugo debate. I tend toward cynicism and irony myself, but when someone tells me I can’t be hopeful, that it’s bad taste to be hopeful, that earnestness is corny per se, my hackles are raised and I think, well I’m going to be hopeful, then. I don’t even think I’m uncritical of hopefulness itself–I could name plenty of ostensibly “hopeful” works that weren’t much more than jingoistic rose-colored welding glasses. But Interstellar wasn’t that, and it seems facile–a critical trope of its own–to say it was.
embrodski on Death Is Bad
“SF/F Review – The Three-Body Problem” – May 28
Puppy Note: This book was not on the Puppy Slate. When I thought to myself “How did this book make it onto the Hugo Ballot?” my first thought was the same uncharitable thought that the Puppies normally have. I thought “This is cultural inclusiveness being taken too far. The liberal thought-leaders want to show they are racially/culturally diverse, and they know that this book is CRAZY popular in China! For it to be so popular among so many readers, it must be fantastic! So let’s make sure it gets a nomination regardless of its merits.” Thus a type of affirmative action – signaling your awesome cultural acceptance and diversity at the cost of nominating a book that would have been much more deserving of the Hugo on its merits.
Except that the Puppy Leaders have come forward to say that they love this book, and would have put it on their slate if they’d known about it!! And I’m like… WHAT THE HELL is going on?? OK, we all already suspect that the Puppies don’t have great taste in SF lit, but if they think this book deserves a nomination on its merits, than perhaps *I* am being a giant, insensitive dick by assuming that only someone with a hidden liberal agenda would nominate this. Obviously people must actually like it. And if I am lumping in the Sad/Rabid Puppies with their hated “SJW” nemesis for picking crap for political reasons, maybe that’s a big flashing sign that says “There is no such thing as the political-reasons voter, and the Puppies were even more wrong that I thought from the very beginning.” Seriously, if I can’t tell you apart from your political rivals based on book selection, I think you’re grasping at straws.
Second, apparently Puppy-approved books can be nominated without the Puppy’s help. In fact, despite their efforts in this case. If the liberal conspiracy you claim is keeping good works down keeps nominating things you like (much like they nominated Correia and Torgerson in the past…) then it might not actually exist.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Saga (Collected Editions #3), by Brian K. Vaughan (writer), Fiona Staples (artist)” – May 28
In the end, though, I think too much of the background needed for the story to make sense is just not here. It’s likely in the two earlier volumes, but it’s not here in Volume 3, which is what I’m being asked to judge. I suspect I would like this a good deal better if I’d read the earlier volumes. As is, though? Art, very nice. Story, meh.
Joe Sherry on Adventures In Reading
“Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Graphic Story” – May 28
Time will bear this out, or not, but I think I will have had a much more difficult time ranking the nominees for Graphic Story than I will for any other Hugo category this year. There is just so much excellence here and the comics are all great in very different ways. I will, however, hold to this ranking and this vote and live with it. But ask me tomorrow and I could reorder the whole thing and be equally comfortable with that order. I choose to draw the line today.
Elisa Bergslien
“More Hugo’s reading: Related Works … voted category most likely to make you completely bewildered” – May 28
My conclusion ? I have no idea what the nominators were thinking with these selections. I just can’t find the redeeming value that would make any of this years items award winning.
Brian Niemeier on Superversive SF
“Transhuman and Subhuman Part VII: The Glory Game” – May 28
Today I’m reviewing John C. Wright’s review of Keith Laumer’s short novel The Glory Game.
“The novel is well crafted, concise, without a wasted scene or word,” says Wright, “and therefore has the clearest and most trenchant point of any tale I have ever read that is actually a tale and not a tract.”
Indeed, the book’s twist ending is incisively delivered in its last four words. Since The Glory Game was first published in 1973, this review will discuss the plot under the reasonable assumption that little risk remains of spoiling the final twist for long time sci-if fans. For those who are newly come to the fold, it’s recommended that you read the novel before continuing with this post.
Of the book’s characters, Wright notes that they are, “…rough sketches, painted in broad, energetic strokes, as befits an adventure yarn.” Yet the story’s driving conflict is moral; not military–the dilemma of a principled man told to violate his principles.
Adult Onset Atheist
“SNARL: Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form” – May 28
I am not, in general, a big fan of TV. However, almost everything I watch, or want to watch, is on this list. My reviews for the Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form category will be short. They will be short enough that I can fit them all together on this one post. I present them in the same order in which they appear on the Hugo nominations list.
R.P.L. Johnson
“A Hugo Post – The Short Stories” – May 28
So what’s the final verdict? Totalled is the standout favourite for me so I’ll be voting as follows:
Totalled
A Single Samurai
Turncoat
No Award
Kristin on SciFi With A Dash of Paprika
“The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison” – May 28
Overall, a solid absorbing read with beautiful world building and solid character development.
Katya Czaja
“Hugo Award: Related Work” – May 28
Ranking Another race for the bottom. Difficult to figure out which was worse, the word-salad that was Transhuman and Subhuman or the not-a-book that was Wisdom From My Internet. In the end, Wright lost because he put words together in a form that can be described as essay and not just random, unrelated scribblings. Neither “The Hot Equation” nor “Why Science is Never Settled” were important enough to rise above No Award, but “The Hot Equation” came closest.
1) No Award
2) “The Hot Equation” by Ken Burnside
3) “Why Science is Never Settled” by Tedd Roberts
4) Letters from Garnder by Lou Antonelli
5) Transhuman and Subhuman by John C. Wright
6) Wisdom From My Internet by Michael Z. Williamson
Mary Robinette Kowal
“Talk with me about being a fan of science fiction and fantasy” – April 11
[I linked to Kowal’s post before, but John Hertz would be deeply gratified if I injected “Orange Mike” Lowrey’s comment and her reply into the ongoing discussion and I am happy to do so.]
Definition of Terms (You can tell that I was on the debate team in high school, yes?)
- Fandom – The community of fans who regularly attend fan run conventions.
Michael J. “Orange Mike” Lowrey in a comment on “Talk with me about being a fan of science fiction and fantasy” – April 11
As a historian, I do want to clarify one thing. Historically, SF fandom was centered in the fanzines, constantly refreshed by names culled from the letter columns of the prozines. Conventions were rare and widely scattered, whereas a letter cost less than a dime to mail, and fanzines could easily be printed and mailed for much less than a quarter-dollar. If you lived in a big enough town, this was bolstered and enlarged by local SF clubs, at least one (LASFS) still extant today.
Starting in the 1960s, and more in the 1970s, conventions became more common, but these sprang from the local fandoms (both club and fanzine), and carried on the same conversation, with many of the same participants still around. This conversation in turn (for those unable or unwilling to attend conventions in the flesh, or just wanting more doses of that fannish pleasure) shifted gradually from paper fanzines to online venues, from Usenet and e-mail lists to LiveJournal (and individual blogs) to Facebook. But all these were carrying on the same conversation, and some of the participants remained the same or were the spiritual heirs of the same conversants. We are all the heirs of Bob Tucker, of Forrest J Ackerman, of Jan Howard Finder, of Rusty Hevelin and Lee Hoffman, of Robert Bloch and Morojo, of John Boardman and Harry Warner, Jr., of Terry Carr and Russ Chauvenet and Vin¢ Clarke and Bob Shaw and Jan Howard Finder and Ross Pavlac and Ken Moore and Dean Grennell, of Samuel Edward Konkin III and Steig Larsson (yes, he was One of Us), of Judith Merril and Sam Moskovitz and Ray Palmer, of Frederik Pohl, of Tom Reamy and Bill Rotsler, of Damon Knight and Julie Schwartz, of Donald A. Wollheim. Some of them became pros; some remained “only” fans. But every time you argue about Hugo selection, or use the term “space opera”, or deprecate the use of the horrible neologism “sci-fi” or otherwise celebrate this wonderful thing we enjoy, you ARE part of that conversation, whether you ever get to a con or not. And you are part of science fiction fandom.
Mary Robinette Kowal replying to comment – April 11
Oh! Excllent point about the fanzines. My fault for forgetting because I joined fandom after the internet had already started to reshape things.
Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write
“Sad Puppies Review Books: GOODNIGHT MOON” – May 28
Reviewed by John Z. Upjohn, USMC (aspired)
I suppose this book is supposed to be clever in that literary way that SJWs are so fond of, but I found it to be a confusing and unholy mess. It was very hard to follow. The prose was far too clunky and the signaling was all wrong. Good stories use signaling to tell you what kind of story they are, so you will know how the story goes and not be thrown out of it when something happens that you do not expect.
ULTRAGOTHA in a comment on File 770
Hwaet! The Great-Danes’ want glory through dubious achievements
The god-voice former infamy we have heard of,
How puppies displayed then their prowess-in-prose.
Theodore, their mighty king, in honor of whom they are often called Teddys.From many a people their chrome-rockets tore.
Since first they found themselves rocketless and wretched,
The puppies had sadness: no comfort they got for it,
Waxed ’neath the woe, word-honor hungered for
Till all the fans o’er sea were compelled to
Bow to their bidding and bring them their nominations:
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Nothing gets past you buddy!
Zing!
Shambles —
They could do medals instead of rockets. And the best first novel winner could wield a cavalry sabre.
But on the other hand, however much fun it is to joke, I think a set of awards like that would add something to the field that would be prized by the portion of the audience that loves that kind of thing, could do the stuff they talk about in terms of outreach, and could benefit the con.
It would all be positive, instead of all this attack/tear down/take rhetoric.
Ah well.
I actually somewhat agree with Tuomas about Rothko, (if nothing else) but presumably rather than saying that here, I should be linking to his comment and writing my opinion of Rothko over at Scalzi’s blog while onlookers wonder vaguely what I’m on about.
But that would be stupid. So I’ll say here, instead, where the party involved might see them, that Rothko’s interesting but Reinhardt’s black paintings had it going on.
Prints don’t do them justice.
Kurt, look at the noms though. They are not celebrating anything, the negativity is a feature, not a bug.
I’m picturing different camps forming over any MilSF awards with space opera vs. alternative history and a small fantasy contingent over in the corner.
Kurt, look at the noms though. They are not celebrating anything, the negativity is a feature, not a bug
But Torgersen must have read his noms, though right? I mean, imagine if Torgersen posted his own review of Totaled – it’d be great. (And he interviewed Kary English, so I’m sure he’s read it.) Imagine if he explained what he saw in Wisdom From My Internet or One Bright Star To Guide Them? I’d be delighted. It wouldn’t make running a slate justified, but it’d put a positive spin on the nominated works. (I’d object, of course, if/when it became clear that it was a charade and he hadn’t read any of ’em.)
PAUL HARVEY VOICE: “And that little boy…grew up to be…Larry Correia.”
Also, I’m sorry, Billy Collins blows.
Since I cannot possibly be the first person to suggest it, consider this my vote in favor of expanding Godwin’s Law to include reference to Saul Alinsky.
I mean, really.
Jim Henley: “Also, I’m sorry, Billy Collins blows.”
Let me stand a little farther away before the lightning strikes.
Kurt,
I think it’s a great idea honestly and there are existing examples of this in the field of SF. I actually like lots of MilSciFi myself; it can be a fun read and I would follow the awards to see what is new and good in that genre.
I would hope ithe award would not be seen as exclusionary but celebratory and I would welcome self identified puppies to vote their individual choices in the Hugos and discuss why they are good choices for others to consider.
Going To Maine on May 29, 2015 at 2:21 pm said:
But Torgersen must have read his noms, though right? I mean, imagine if Torgersen posted his own review of Totaled – it’d be great. (And he interviewed Kary English, so I’m sure he’s read it.) Imagine if he explained what he saw in Wisdom From My Internet or One Bright Star To Guide Them? I’d be delighted. It wouldn’t make running a slate justified, but it’d put a positive spin on the nominated works. (I’d object, of course, if/when it became clear that it was a charade and he hadn’t read any of ‘em.)
I would really enjoy that as well. While I think most of the works range from mediocre to bad, several of them are things I can imagine others liking. Where the list started to confuse me was that I could absolutely imagine someone liking Championship B’tok. I can also imagine someone who genuinely likes John C. Wright’s work. I liked The Skin Game myself. Where I struggle is imagining one person who likes all of those things, given the radical differences in their aesthetics, and imagining anyone who genuinely admires Wisdom from My Internet at all.
I don’t think my own opinions of those works would change much from seeing reviews and explanations, nor would I change my mind about slates, but I think I could be open to reconsidering my current belief that the puppies’ motives are mostly self-serving or political in nature and to acknowledging that there is some sort of coherent aesthetic perspective behind their choices.
@Shambles and @Kurt Busiek
You’re both basically describing what the Goodreads Award is. In fact, two Puppy nominees made those lists. Skin Game came in 3rd in the Fantasy genre and Line of Departure came in 20th in Sci Fi. But based on what did win it looks like an award based on popularity would also not make the Puppies happy. I.E. Scalzi was 2nd in Sci Fi, Ancillary Justice was 12th, and there is a fair amount of woman-dominated urban fantasy in the Fantasy genre.
Scalzi was 2nd in Sci Fi,
I mentioned it before, but will reiterate that I think the John Scalzi Military Sci-Fi Award would be a delightful idea, if simply for the amount of chaos it would cause.
I’d pledge to fund that award!
@Mike Glyer:
I would die cursing God himself in that eventuality. 😉
Well, he’s no James Dickey.
Confession and speculation.
The confession: Unlike many folks here I don’t have any attraction to MilSF, so little that I haven’t read enough to make the following speculation informed. But.
Speculation: It kind of makes sense to me that someone who prizes MilSF would leave worldbuilding off her list of virtues for SF/F stories. Because my impression is that MilSF doesn’t feature much of it; that is, the core requirement is space navies and military organizations structured recognizably like the ones we’ve had within the lifetime of MilSF fandom and space marines and planetary invasions and therefore probably interstellar empires and colonial revolts, and the “worldbuilding” amounts to retrofitting a fictional universe to these subgenre tropes.
Is that off base? Does the MilSF tradition amount to updating Hammer’s Slammers just enough to account for obsolescence in prior works? Or is there more originality in speculative content common to the subgenre than I credit it for?
I support the right of people to dislike the work of just about any author they can name, but Billy Collins!?
If my second wasn’t an elderly beagle, he’d call upon yours for this outrage.
And you can’t respond, “But Ancillary Justice!” Because that book is fantasy adventure fiction. Tavern. Snow. Checkmate!
There is *always* more originality in unfamiliar subgenres than one credits them for.
Mike Glyer on May 29, 2015 at 12:24 am said: nyq only: Is this what you are looking for?
Thanks again. I’d intended to write a comment on it but it got out of hand.
Here instead https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2015/05/29/on-petunias-and-whales-part-1/
@Anna Feruglio Dal Dan https://file770.com/?p=22784&cpage=7#comment-271743
I’ve not seen that name here before, so I’ll bite. (Figuratively, not literally.)
But as for your claim that 80% were denied any say on the nomination ballot. I would recommend having a look at the following ‘blog post’ at Blackgate: https://www.blackgate.com/2015/05/28/a-modest-proposal-to-improve-the-hugos/
Just scroll down to see the handy percentages for nomination votes. For best novel;
– In 2014, 76.90% did not nominate Ancillary Sword.
– In 2013, 82.66% did not nominate Redshirts.
– In 2012, 81.73% did not nominate Among Others.
– In 2011. 84.99% did not nominate Blackout/All Clear.
You can nominate four other works, and the entries that follow the winning nomination are usually few percentage units away from each other. Sometimes only decimal points away from being on the nomination list themselves. In otherwords, people nominate what they think was ‘worthy.’
And this brings us to the claim that the “Puppy Slate” deprived 80% of voters any say on the nominations. Well, it seems that for any given year, roughly 80% had not nominated the most nominated work. Perhaps another work they chose to nominate did pass on the list, or perhaps none at all. It is hard to say without going through the ballots and tallying up successful nominations.
Yet what we can do easily is calculate the probability of someone not having a single successful nomination on the best novel category. By knowing how many nominated any one of the nominated works, we know how many did not.
2014:
Not Ancillary Justice: 76.9%
Not Warbound: 88.5%
Not The Wheel of Time: 90%
Not Neptune’s Brood: 92.5%
Not Parasite: 93,9%
Thus: 76.9% * 88.5% * 90% * 92.5% * 93,9% = 53.2% (Roughly)
Thus following the above example, the probability not to have any of your Best Novel nominations among the final five candidates should be roughly as follows:
2014: 53.2%
2013: 50.1%
2012: 49.7%
2011: 53.0%
Therefore, we could expect that each year there is a roughly a 50% chance that none of your nominated works have passed onto the final round in the Best Novel category. Almost a flip of a coin and your nominations do not matter one bit.
Now, I for one wait very curiously for the 2015’s Hugo nomination results to be released. I want to see how well the “Puppy Slate” actually worked, do we see same percentages for each nominations, or will they be few percentage points away like on the earlier years?
And naturally, calculate the probability of not have a single one of your nominations pass.
Disclaimer:
I just picked best novel because those were first on the list, too lazy to do the rest.
And it is late at night.
“Eighty percent had not nominated the most nominated work in the most contended category” is very different than “Twenty percent nominated almost all the nominated work in virtually every category.”
@Mike Glyer https://file770.com/?p=22784&cpage=7#comment-271747
HAH!
@Kurt Busiek: “If Libertycon (that’s the con where MilSF and Baen authors shine, right?) started up their own awards, it could grow into something respected and honored, much beloved by the readership of books that conservatives/MilSF fans/thrilling adventure fans and others like, and a guide to excellence in work of that sort.”
Libertycon officially takes a neutral stance on this particular fiasco. However, they also claim to be politically neutral, which… no. They’re not. I don’t know whether their claim in that respect is actively deceptive or simple blindness, but they are an overwhelmingly conservative organization that occasionally invites a few liberals. (It helps tremendously to be named “Eric Flint.”) I will also note that this convention puts a climate denialism panel on their programming track; it’s at 10am Saturday this year.
True story time, and please forgive the length…
“The Revenge of Hump Day,” nominated in the Fanzine part of this year’s slates, is compiled by “Uncle Timmy” Bolgeo – founder, former chairman, and now Chairman Emeritus and dealer coordinator of the convention. The newsletter’s layout is fairly straightforward: announcements and fandom news up top, followed by any “old business” letters and comments, a few pages of jokes, some science, and finally politics. The last section is divided up into three parts: “Absolutely & Totally Politically Incorrect & as Far to the (Right / Center / Left) as You Can Go!” This was used as evidence that the newsletter was neutral, y’see; there was a place for any viewpoint! Only…
It so happens that I was a subscriber for a while, including during the 2012 political season. I noticed a trend that bothered me, and spoke up about it. Anti-Obama political cartoons were filed under “jokes” rather than “politics,” and the political divisions seemed a bit slanted to me. I was informed that it was his zine and he’d put stuff where he wanted to. Fair enough. During the course of my subscription, I also pointed out several cases where he published debunked items as true, usually with a quick link (to Snopes or elsewhere) as documentation. I hope his fact-checking has improved since then.
However, although I know at least some anti-Romney articles were submitted during that 2012 season (because I started doing so), I do not recall seeing even one get published there. Certainly none of my submissions did, although there always seemed to be room for more Obama-bashing. Looking at the 12/19/2012 issue, where the introduction talks about how the Sandy Hook shooting shouldn’t be seen as a reason to promote gun control, here’s how the political section breaks down:
“Right” – A compilation of “You know you live in a Country run by idiots if…” gags, such as “…The government’s plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work).”
“Center” – a) an article citing four cases of armed civilians preventing crimes, b) a report of a man with a knife injuring 22 people in China, with a comment by Timmy at the end that “So according to liberal logic it’s time to start strict knife control.”, c) an article by Charlie Daniels about the evils of Obama’s policies (especially Obamacare), how raising taxes on the rich hurts small businesses, and generally how the country is DOOMED, d) an article where the St. Louis County police chief promotes arming school personnel, and e) a political cartoon comparing the effectiveness of gun restrictions to Prohibition.
“Left” – Nothing at all.
I leave the question of political neutrality to the reader.
I stopped my subscription three months later, when he started uncritically citing Infowars and WND articles. However, I still have a smattering of issues from 1Q 2013, 4Q 2007, and the first half of 2008 in my archives. I didn’t really keep them on purpose; they just didn’t get deleted. So, if anyone is concerned that I may have cherry-picked the example above, I don’t mind breaking another issue down in the same way.
@Nick Mamatas https://file770.com/?p=22784&cpage=8#comment-271779
If you got access to the actual 2015 nomination votes, please send them to me.
Jim Henley
I could argue the Vor Game is MilSciFi.
I agree with Peace here. There is originality to be found in unfamiliar byways of the genre.
Jim: There’s some really great MilSF. C. J. Cherryh’s Company Wars series is written with her typical genius. Bujold is brilliant, and her Vorkosigan series is absolutely worth reading. Yoon Ha Lee has been doing some fascinating things with short stories, and her writing is always gorgeous — I recommend Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain and The Battle of Candle Arc.
Meredith, thanks for kind words. Very welcome.
Jim, there’s works that I think of as military sf that include interesting worldbuilding – Jerry Pournelle’s Janissaries comes to mind here.
Well, Scalzi writes MilSF; Puppydum’s problem with him seems to be that he writes popular MilSF which does not involve long and loving descriptions of armaments. In real life people who deal with missiles for a living don’t engage in long and loving descriptions of them; it tends instead to the short and profane, even when said missiles are functioning as they are supposed to, which is not always.
I should perhaps note that my father served for 35 years in the RAF (Royal Air Force); the only SF author I have ever come across who comes anywhere near capturing the mindset of aircrew is CJ Cherryh in ‘ Hellburners’.
@RedWombat https://file770.com/?p=22784&cpage=8#comment-271753
I have to say I prefer to see a little bit more colour than in Reinhardt’s black paintings. As for the links earlier, those were just to point where and what I was commenting to. (The blogs posts gathered to this blog post.) Since… it is very easy that tens of posts just happen to pop out of thin air… @”names” only do so well to maintain any chain of discussion.
I guess I could use blockquotes. But… a link… works better with less effort.
Anyhow… better crawl to bed.
So goodnight and all that.
Jim;
Even if you disqualify Ancillary Justice on the “tavern in the snow and poor reading comprehension” technicality, Ancillary Sword still qualifies as MilSF. And a lot of Banks’ Culture stories. And Scalzi.
Also MilSF: Singularity Sky by Stross
Just because someone mentioned Cherryh, I have a semi-off-topic question. I’ve no real connection to fandom, it was the puppy mess that led me here. I have enjoyed the Foreigner series, as brain candy entertainment, and I wonder what folks think – I never see it mentioned anywhere. And despite its anthropology-centric take, it does involve quite a lot of fighting and such, so maybe not entirely off the current topic. In any event, I’d be interested to hear folks thoughts, be they pup or not.
Gully:
>> Kurt, look at the noms though. They are not celebrating anything, the negativity is a feature, not a bug.>>
Oh, I know. I just wish they were actually as interested in celebrating excellence in the areas they like as they say they are.
Shambles:
>> I think it’s a great idea honestly and there are existing examples of this in the field of SF. I actually like lots of MilSciFi myself; it can be a fun read and I would follow the awards to see what is new and good in that genre.>>
I don’t know that they’d even need to limit it to MilSF. Just some sort of vague banner of “stirring adventure” or something that recognized the spirit they like.
>> I would hope ithe award would not be seen as exclusionary but celebratory and I would welcome self identified puppies to vote their individual choices in the Hugos and discuss why they are good choices for others to consider.>>
Sure. It wouldn’t be about kicking them out of the Hugos, but about adding their own specific thing to the array of awards out there.
Andrew:
>> You’re both basically describing what the Goodreads Award is.>>
I don’t think I am. Despite their pro-popularity arguments, I don’t think that’s their only criterion.
>> But based on what did win it looks like an award based on popularity would also not make the Puppies happy. I.E. Scalzi was 2nd in Sci Fi, Ancillary Justice was 12th, and there is a fair amount of woman-dominated urban fantasy in the Fantasy genre.>>
Exactly. I’m suggesting something that celebrates the best of their particular sub-nation of SF, which I don’t think is what Goodreads does, so it wouldn’t be the same thing.
I mean, they’re not going to do it, so we don’t have to figure out an exacting definition, but what I’m envisioning is a specific-focus award (for, perhaps, a vaguely-stated specific focus), not an award that would encompass everything.
Nick:
>> “Eighty percent had not nominated the most nominated work in the most contended category” is very different than “Twenty percent nominated almost all the nominated work in virtually every category.”>>
Tuomas only sees the numbers. Applying them in meaningful ways is not his department.
Mike:
>> Libertycon officially takes a neutral stance on this particular fiasco. However, they also claim to be politically neutral, which… no. They’re not.>>
Yeah, it doesn’t sound like my kinda show. But it’s their kind of show, so helping their show seems more positive than screwing with Worldcon for the sake of making sure that nobody can play on the monkey bars if they can’t be the boss of them.
As Gully notes, they’re not actually interested in doing anything positive, but I’m a dreamer.
Tuomas:
>> So goodnight and all that.>>
You really don’t need to announce that you’re leaving every time you leave. People are used to the idea that people posting have to go do other things.
CJ Cherryh is a wonderful writer. I’ve enjoyed all of her work, including Foreigner.
I also recommend her Faded Sun and Fortress series.
Highly recommended.
@Tuomas:
Perhaps there is no point replying because you’ve done your bow and depart.
According to your simplified premises, under one style of participation everybody has a ~50% chance of getting a work on the ballot, under the other ~80% have no chance and ~20% get everything they vote for.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to prove but you’ve mathematically demonstrated the inequality of opportunity.
@Kurt Busiek: “Yeah, [LibertyCon] doesn’t sound like my kinda show. But it’s their kind of show, so helping their show seems more positive than screwing with Worldcon for the sake of making sure that nobody can play on the monkey bars if they can’t be the boss of them.”
There is one significant problem with the idea of “helping LibertyCon” in this respect: size. LibertyCon is capped by their charter to an absolute maximum of 750 paid memberships, and their usual “official” maximum is lower than that, but getting closer every year. At the last meeting, the preregistration numbers were over 600.
Yes, the charter could be amended, but the convention has no desire to do so. They see themselves as a family convention and do not wish to expand. Even if they were to create their own awards – again, not something they’ve shown any interest in doing – that would directly contradict the SP narrative. The Puppies have invested too much work in painting Worldcon as tiny and elitist to abandon the Hugos for an award given by a convention less than a tenth as big.
Steve Moss:
I really like the Chanur Saga, definitely worth a read
Gully:
I enjoyed the first few books of Foreigner but I have fallen far behind at this point. It seems daunting to catch up. I would love a new original setting for the next book but Franchises sell… which is not a comment on the quality of the series but my reading habits.
@Kurt Busiek:
Um, I’m not Mike. 🙂
I responded to the “Libertycon award” issue a few minutes ago, but it’s gone into moderation. I have no idea why.
Rev. Bob, who is not Mike: It went into moderation because it was the first comment by that ID.
@Jim Henley “Is that off base? Does the MilSF tradition amount to updating Hammer’s Slammers just enough to account for obsolescence in prior works? Or is there more originality in speculative content common to the subgenre than I credit it for?”
Well, I think that a lot of what I think of as military SF/F wouldn’t get marketed that way — but it’s definitely there. Space Opera has inventive worldbuilding as well as shipbuilding — Banks has been cited, Walter John Williams did interesting work there as well. Mary Gentle needs to be mentioned as military fantasy, and very *good* military fantasy, always prepared to take the military part where the fantasy would go. Then there’s Lucius Shepard, such as in Life During Wartime, which is…military/espionage SF.
Short form: I think if you look at what’s *listed* as MilSF, you’re likely missing a lot of what’s out there, especially in the well-world-built category, because of the way people have restricted the definition of MilSF, which is unfortunate, to say the least.
@Gulley
I love the Foreigner series! I wasn’t really sure about the first book but there was enough “there” there to make me try the second and by the third I was completely hooked.
But I read them as much for the pleasure of revisiting the characters as anything else. If I were just looking for excitement and explosions–I think while there’s some of that it might not be enough to satisfy. This is a world where a cup of tea can be a life-or-death decision, and being seen to properly appreciate it can make the difference between large-scale success or failure, but there’s not a lot of manly-men-struggling.
I think the writer walks between making the characters too alien to relate to or too human to be convincingly alien but I think she generally does a very good job with that. And I love the patterned society and the suggested complexity of the language.
I may, at this point, be a book or two behind. I must go through my shelves, get all the books in the same place, and have a look… I think a new one came out recently.
@Rev. Bob, who may or may not be Mike
LibertyCon’s website says they sold out on the 25th. (700 or 750? The page says 700, but I haven’t really checked in any detail.)
People are used to the idea that people posting have to go do other things.
And are also used to the idea that Tuomas will post something indefensibly silly and then vanish.
“I guess I could use blockquotes. But… a link… works better with less effort.”
For you in writing the post, maybe. But it’s not very good for going back and forth, given the oddities of how wordpress is handling pagination. So it’s more effort for your readers.
@Jack Lint: 700 vs. 750
This is what I was talking about with the official vs. charter maximum. The charter limits the convention to no more than 750, but the con has traditionally set their membership cap lower than that. When I first attended, I believe the official cap was 500.
In other words, the charter was set up as the biggest the con ever wanted to be, but having a lower cap that could be shifted gradually allowed them to grow at a manageable pace instead of having a large degree of random flux.
I hadn’t noticed that they’d sold out on Monday, but I’m not surprised. As I said, they weren’t far off at the last meeting.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind tuomas’s “I’m going away now” pronouncements, if only he’d actually stay gone for a while after making them.