The Day the World Turned Pupside Down 6/15

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aka The Fall of the Doghouse of Usher

Today in the roundup: Andrew Hickey, The G, Brad R. Torgersen, Dave Freer, Chris Van Trump, Cedar Sanderson, L. Jagi Lamplighter, Joe Vasicek, Peter Grant, Amanda S. Green, Keri Sperring, Natalie Luhrs, Maureen Eichner, Paul Weimer, Michael A. Rothman, RedWombat, Camestros Felapton, Spacefaring Kitten, Lis Carey, Steve Davidson and cryptic others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Kary English and rcade.)

Andrew Hickey on Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!

“What Political Campaigners Can Learn From The Sad & Rabid Puppies” – June 15

But at the point where you try to drag in the US-centric “culture war”, and argue for the right-wing side of it, you lose not only the “SJWs”, but basically anyone in the Western world outside the USA, because even the most barking right-winger in the UK would be considered a leftist by US culture war standards, and the UK is right-wing compared to most of the rest of the West.

Then there’s the claim that the Puppies’ work is the best of what’s out there — on a purely aesthetic ground, that claim is a nonsense, and I get very annoyed at people pushing clearly sub-par work.

So even if the Puppies hadn’t made an actual enemy of me by including among their membership white supremacist homophobes who advocate rape and murder, I would wish them to fail purely because of their promotion of poor work and their culture war agenda.

But then there are other people — right-wing Republicans who like the stories — who are also voting “No Award” above the Puppies because they’re angry that those works got on the ballot thanks to voting slates, which are against the spirit of the awards and break the unspoken agreement among fandom not to do that kind of thing.

I have to say that personally, that bit doesn’t annoy me too much. I mean, it annoys me a bit, because it’s cheating, but if they’d cheated and got a *really great* bunch of stories on there, I’d have had a sneaking admiration for it. I’d not have approved, mind, but I’d not have been that angry.

 

The G on nerds of a feather, flock together

“Final Words on #Hugowank” – June 15

  1. Isolate and address the legitimate grievances

The sad version claims its campaign is really about sticking up for fun and/or commercial and/or pulpy and/or conservative and/or apolitical science fiction and fantasy against the onslaught of intellectual snobs and/or “social justice warriors” who have forced works of high-minded and/or message-driven and/or progressive literature on the unsuspecting masses of fandom.

Despite finding the majority of victimization claims empirically bogus, I do have some sympathy for the base-claim that popular genre is often crowded out by a specific style of literary-minded SF/F. But in short fiction, where voting pools are small and its likely that writers, editors and slush readers represent a disproportionate slice of the electorate. And it’s not the result of conspiracy but an institutional effect—a self-replicating mechanism that structures the field. Jonathan McCalmont explains how that works in these (one, two, three) articles.

For the record, I see no evidence of this in the best novel category. In fact, I see the opposite—voters rewarding novels that are, on the surface, light and breezy, but have some deeper messages if you bother to look for them. However, it’s not necessary to do that if you just want fun and adventure—sort of like Firefly. (Actually a lot like Firefly, come to think of it.) Plus several Hugo winners, Redshirts and Among Others in particular, are aimed directly at so-called trufans: Redshirts is a Star Trek parody and the protagonist of Among Others is literally a trufan. These are genuinely popular books, and if being a fan is a major part of your life, then there’s an even stronger chance you’ll connect with them. But New Yorker material they are not.

What’s more, even if certain kinds of short fiction enjoy institutional advantages at the moment, pulpy SF/F has not been shut out. Brandon Sanderson, for example, won Best Novella in 2013 for the popular and commercial The Emperor’s Soul. And though I understand Charles Stross is, for some, a demon whose recent Hugo successes haunt dreams and stalk imaginations, 2014 Novella winner “Equoid” (on Tor dot com) is actually super pulpy.

 

Brad R. Torgersen

“Picture of a TOR buyer” – June 15

It would be a damned shame if someone thought I was just malware.

Don’t you think?

 

Dave Freer on Mad Genius Club

“The plucky ‘bots” – June 15

Now according to semi-reliable sources (Publishers Weekly, drawing data from Bookscan) the pie got smaller. This of course is traditional publishing’s pie (which is historically almost the entire Hugo pie too.) (my apologies for not having the 2014 figures – my internet is being really slow and buggy. I’ve seen them, but couldn’t find them. It’s no change.) It’s shrinking year on year with less readers, less sales, and at this rate, will be a slightly smaller problem than the argument about the last slice of Pavlova at the Flinders Island Country Women’s Association tea in ten years’ time (Okay that’s a pretty serious dispute, but it’s got maybe 12 women eyeing it. Still, it’s only just thermonuclear, and not planet-busting)

Part of the reason the puppy kickers have been so particularly unpleasant, vicious and ready for ad hominem and attacks on the livelihood and reputation of anyone even vaguely associated with the Puppies has been because of that shrinking. Those are their pieces of pie, and they want to keep them, and as much as possible of what is left.

In a way, of course, that true in the award situation. There are a fixed number of final nominees, and only one winner in each category.

 

Chris Van Trump on Shambling Towards Bethlehem

“Sadder Puppies” – June 15

I suppose the most tragic thing to me, in the ongoing Saga of the Sad Puppies, is that the people opposed to said Puppies seem to be going out of their way to prove a lot of the accusations that led to the creation of the Puppies in the first place.  Because the inevitable response, once you filter out the snark and hyperbole, is as follows:

“There is no conspiracy, no liberal cabal stopping conservative authors from winning, so stop trying to take our award away from us.”

“Us”, of course, is just code for “people who think like me”.

It’s disheartening to see established, award-winning authors decrying anyone who doesn’t agree with them as “no true fan”.  And Worldcon isn’t even in Scotland this year…

 

Cedar Sanderson

“Letter-Writing Campaign” – June 15

And speaking of black holes, I was annoyed to discover that Tor Books, on which I blogged at length last week, has apparently decided that the customers who are contacting them to complain about the way Irene Gallo treated them are not real. I wish I were joking. I am being told that they have decided the response is disproportionate, and therefore all the emails they are getting are from ‘bots. Whether this is all of Tor (which I doubt) or a small cadre (likely the same ones who have been so vocally critical in the past of their ‘wrongfans’) doesn’t really matter. This is completely unacceptable. I am angry and abandoning a vendor who has messed up a small (relatively) order. How do you think that I and others are reacting when complaints of being called racist, misogynist, homophobic, our work being ‘bad to reprehensible’ and worst of all to those of us who know history, lumped with neo-Nazis? Those complaints are being ignored, maybe deleted, and I will not put up with it, for one.

I strongly urge my readers to join me in making our voices heard. I am not calling for a  boycott, or firings, I simply want to have a conversation and have my concerns acknowledged. I do not want to be brushed aside and ignored as though I were a meaningless part of this. I’ve bought few Tor books in the last few years because I haven’t cared for most of the authors they support. But I have bought some, and furthermore, am one of those libeled as having ‘bad to reprehensible’ work.

I am also a businesswoman, and this unprofessional behavior is inexcusable. Allowing their employees to post things like the screencap below, which appeared on a Monday afternoon, meaning it was almost certainly made during work time, on a work computer… that is beyond the pale, as many people have found in the past. Unless, evidently, you work for Tor or MacMillan. If then, apparently you can call your customers names with impunity.

 

L. Jagi Lamplighter on Welcome To Arhyalon

“I Am Not A Robot! I Am A Free Fan!” – June 15

[The author requested that I run this disclaimer ahead of any excerpt.]

[L. Jagi Lamplighter: “I would not want someone to think I am trying to make things worse between Tor and their readers! I just thought that harmony could not be restored if folks at Tor mistakenly thought the letters from readers were from a bot. (I know they are legit, because I know some of these folks. They’ve been writing to John to explain why they feel they can’t buy his books.)”]

Many of these readers are people I know, people I interact with online, or fans of John’s who have written us thoughtful letters explaining why they regretfully feel they must stop buying Tor book, despite their desire to keep reading John’s latest series.

I was thus appalled to see posts suggesting that the emails to Tor—many of which, I am led to understand, are arriving with photos of the reader’s Tor book collections, in some cases, collections worth thousands of dollars—were not legitimate but were sent from automated bots.

Tor Folks:  You may disagree with the Sad/Rabid Puppies, or feel loyalty to your co-workers—but please! Don’t insult our readers by claiming they don’t exist!

Readers:  I realize that, in the age of electronics,this is an unprecedented request, but: if you have a strong opinion that you wish to be heard, it might help if you committed it to physical paper—perhaps along with a printout of your photo of your Tor book collection—and snail mailed it to Tor and Macmillan.

Also, feel free to send me your photo of your Tor books. I will post any photos or links I receive on my website, so everyone can see that you are a real person with real books.

[Photos posted here — I Am Not A Robot! I Am A Free Fan!]

 

Joe Vasicek on One Thousand and One Parsecs

“I AM A REAL PERSON” – June 15

In my first email, I stated that I could not in good conscience continue to support your organization by submitting my stories for publication at Tor.com. The events of the last seven days have made me reluctant to buy Tor books as well. In the coming months, I hope that we can move past this controversy so that we can get back to reading, writing, and publishing stories that we all love, without concern for politics. However, until the corporate culture at Tor has changed to be more inclusive of readers and writers like me, I do not see how that is possible.

 

Peter Grant on Bayou Renaissance Man

“’Can you hear us now?’ Another open letter to Tor and Macmillan” – June 15

A heartfelt “Thank you!!!” to everyone who responded to requests to e-mail Tor and Macmillan about the situation there.  I’ll leave the co-ordinator of the campaign to announce the totals, but they appear to be well into four figures as of the time of writing.  I wonder if Tor and Macmillan will now accept that we aren’t bots and we aren’t just a few malcontents? We are, in fact, a growing wave of SF/F fans who are threatening to abandon them altogether.  If they haven’t yet got that message, they’ll probably never understand it without more direct action.

(By the way, I can only describe as ‘catastrophic’ the performance of whoever’s responsible for customer relations at Tor and/or Macmillan.  There’s been an absolutely inexplicable, deafening silence from both companies in response to e-mails and other communications – not even so much as an acknowledgment of receipt.  When I was a manager and, later, a director, if I’d had a customer relations person who performed so abysmally, they’d have been fired the moment I found out about it.  “Do not pass ‘GO’, do not collect $200, and by all means let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!”  This is simply ridiculous.  Oh, well . . . if they want to play the clam, I think we have every right to assume that both companies are standing behind the unconscionable words and attitudes of the Tor personnel we’ve named.  We’re therefore free to take our response to the next – and only logical – level.)

 

Amanda S. Green on Nocturnal Lives

“Vacation’s over” – June 15

Then there is the mischaracterization being tossed around by some that SP3 stands for no message in our fiction. That is, as I said, a mischaracterization. What we want is for story to be the driving force. Yes, you can have a message but don’t hit the reader over the head with it because, whether you want to admit it or not, it will turn most folks off it they think they are being lectured to.

 

Kari Sperring

“Red Writer: I stand with Irene Gallo” – June 15

Mr Beale believes in freedom only for himself and those who agree with him. He believes he has the right to police the words and lives of everyone else and punish or destroy them if they offend. He is the perfect robber capitalist, dreaming of a world in which the rich — and he is very very rich — control everything, from resources and awards to bodies and thoughts of those who he considers his inferiors. He’s trying that today with TOR books.

And this red writer is standing here in his way. The US culture war does not belong in our genre, which is global and not the property of any one interest group or political belief. Do I want right-wing books and writers in my genre? Yes, I do. Writing belongs to us all. Do I want *only* right wing books and *only* white, straight, American male writers? No, because that is counter not only to the roots of sff — which lie in the work of writers of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and political views — but to my personal principles, which believe in inclusion and support for the many rather than privilege for the (predictable straight white male) few.

I stand with Irene Gallo.

Or, and if you want to go and denounce me and my books as communist, feel free. I’m not ashamed of my politics.

 

Natalie Luhrs on Pretty Terrible

“I am a real person and I stand with Irene Gallp” – June 15

In response to these rank pieces of bullshit (and this one, too), I have just emailed the following individuals at Tor Books and Macmillan in solidarity with Irene Gallo:…

 

Paul Weimer on Blog, Jvstin Style

“I am a real person, too and I do not Support Theodore Beale” – June 15

You know what? I’m a real person too. I’m a real person who thinks that the shit that Theodore Beale has pulled in the community has helped inflame tensions and increase divides in the SFF community. I’m a real person who reads what Beale writes on his blog and sees that if Irene is wrong in calling Rabid Puppies Neonazis, its a pretty thin wedge….

 

Maureen Eichner on By Signing Light

“A letter to Tor and MacMillan” – June 15

I’ve spent much of the last week appalled and upset by this message from Tom Doherty, the head of Tor Books. I’m not going into the backstory or ramifications in this post, but suffice it to say that once again, it has made me feel that being a female SFF fan, writer, or editor means fighting for your place forever. It means your boss choosing to give words of support to a noxious racist rather than to you.

 

Michael A. Rothman in a comment on Facebook – June 15

[Rothman outs himself as a troll.]

The Chesley Awards…..

Anyone want to take bets on Irene Gallo taking the prize for a variety of reasons that will remain nameless?

Larry? Brad? Mike?

 

Brad R. Torgersen in a comment on File 770 – June 15

Aaron: has it ever occurred to you that for me, the front man of SP3, to begin playing favorites — ergo, singling out specific works for praise — I’d be doing a disservice to the whole slate? Like every other year at the Hugos, not every work on the list will be to all tastes. I am only disappointed in everyone who claims “The Hugos should be a celebration of quality and excellence!” in one breath, then shout, “Everyone on the Puppy list sucks, their work sucks, and I will Noah Ward the lot of them; sight-unseen!”

 

Red Wombat in a comment on File 770 – June 15

I would like to ask our person asking us to go easy on Brad, in turn, if he can understand how some of us who went from “Which one’s Brad?” to being told that our much cherished awards were an affirmative action movement, and we weren’t REALLY creating anything worthwhile, it was all our glittery hoo-has and correct social justicey-ness, might take offense.

From my point of view, Torgersen went from a name on the Campbell ballot to a dude who had just insulted something I poured a decade of my life into.

Can you at least reach across the aisle to understand why I would not feel he’s a nice sweet boy after that? Why I started out feeling that he’d built a campaign on the back of insulting me, and everyone a little like me?

He could apologize. I’d probably accept it–I’m basically a marshmallow. But please understand that some of us walked in to find that we were being insulted when we’d never spoken a word to Brad before.

 

Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring Extradimensional Happy Kittens

“The Blending Puppies” – June 15

There was supposed to be a difference between the two puppy breeds. Rabid Puppies were supposed to be the foam-mouthed extremists who want to destroy the Hugos and wreak maximum havoc, while their sad cousins are — despite buying into some objectionable ideas —  actual SFF fans. Or that’s what I thought. I’m not sure you can make the distinction anymore.

Sad Puppy figures Brad Torgersen, Cedar Sanderson and Peter Grant, among others, have decided to join the professional troll Vox Day on his crazy crusade against Tor books. They’re all supporting a GamerGate-inspired mailbox-stuffing campaign that tries to get a person who is working for an SFF publisher (and who they don’t like) fired.

 

https://twitter.com/jsuttonmorse/status/610525288133332992

 

Camestros Felapton

“The Aslan, the warlock and the cupboard: more on One Bright Star” – June 14

What are we to conclude? The simplest answer is that Tybalt is an allegorical mess and the reason for that is Wright really didn’t know what he was doing. I’m happy to believe that Wright’s claims about what he intended are correct but all we can conclude from that is what was obvious from the beginning: One Bright Start To Guide Them is not well written nor well edited and the potentially interesting ideas are mainly happenstance.

 

Tony on Geeky Library

”The Dark Between The Stars”  – June 15

Rating (5 stars)

The author’s writing style is engaging and dramatic without being overly narrative. While it took me a little work to get started, once I was reading it, I couldn’t put the book down. Written in the same format as A Song of Ice and Fire, the story follows multiple characters, sometimes briefly, as events unfold. Historical events are introduced and explained without making you feel like an idiot for not reading the Seven Suns saga, and plotlines are left unresolved where necessary to carry into rest of the trilogy.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Hill 142, by Jason Cordova” – June 15

Jason Cordova is a 2015 nominee for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best New Writer.

This is a single, small battle of World War One, with the Germans equipped with giant, venomous spiders as cavalry mounts, and the Americans equipped with giant (2000-pound) lion as mounts. There’s no explanation of why or how, other than a reference to a breeding program for the lions in Texas, There’s also no indication of how this affects the war, other than sending the surviving soldiers home with more fantastical stories to tell. So what’s the point? I have no idea.

Not recommended.

 

Font Folly

“Hugo Ballot Reviews: Novella” – June 15

[Preceded by reviews of nominated novellas.]

* The Sad/Rabid Puppies object to this characterization. They were just recommending entire slates, they say. Nothing they did was against the rules, they say. Which is exactly what cheats, grifters, and confidence men say when they are caught exploiting a system. Voting an entire slate clearly violates the spirit of the awards, which is supposed to be voting for the works you personally thought were the best of the year. Recruiting mens rights activists and Gamergators who aren’t regular readers of SF to vote these slates in order to stick it to the Social Justice Warriors pushes it even further into the dirty deed category.

 

 

Steve Davidson on Amazing Stories

“Fandom Enters The McCarthy Era” – June 15

Corrected text from the Wikipedia entry on Senator Joseph McCarthy S. R. Puppies:

Beginning in 1950 2013, McCarthy S.R. Puppies became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War Hugo Award tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist SJW subversion. He was They were noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers SJW and Liberal Fans inside the United States federal government SF/F publishing industry and elsewhere. Ultimately, his their tactics and inability to substantiate his their claims led him them to be censured by the United States Senate Fandom.

The term McCarthyism Puppyism, coined in 1950 2015 in reference to McCarthy’s S.R. Puppies’ practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist SJW activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents….

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800 thoughts on “The Day the World Turned Pupside Down 6/15”

  1. The rational core of Puppyism is that there is a lot of cronyism—they’re right that Scalzi trained his large blog audience to fetch him awards, that projects like the SF Squeecast are pretty much designed to attract Hugo nominations, etc. Loud Bloggers Win Hugos these days. My own Hugo nomination was due to a campaign by James Nicoll, who liked what I was doing at my day job (which I do not represent with my comments here at any time) and launched a campaign on his own blog without my encouragement (though I did not discourage him)—though at least he attempted to persuade by reviewing the work rather than cultivating political grudges and race-baiting.

    Slating is a qualitative escalation of cronyism though, though truth be said, the Puppies would not have been criticized so harshly if their ballot wasn’t full of obvious self-dealing (especially the RP section of the slate) and plain ol’ crap, and if they hadn’t politicized the process by suggesting that winners such as Leckie and Chu only won because of their gender, race, and sexuality.

  2. @Kery English: For what it’s worth I think the cronyism rhetoric about the Sads Puppies is overblown. Yah, a lot of the nominees were people Brad had a relationship. Plenty of other people log roll for their friends and favorite authors. Plus, professional SFF is still a small field, as you point out. What is more troubling is the Rabid Puppies, where VD disproportionately picked works from his own publishing house, by authors who are part of his close personal network and have actively served as his allies in this whole mess.

  3. Kary: It would really help if there were qualityscopes or something to settle it objectively, wouldn’t it? I think that all any of us can really do is try to be honest about what we’re doing, and to be able to discuss the role of personal issues and/or relatively detached appraisal in our recommendations. And I think this is where slate construction ends up really hurting, by short-circuiting the ongoing interplay of individual judgments – the more voices get direct input into the nominating, the more chances there are to even out the purely social factors.

  4. Dammit Bruce, I like Rush. Now I’m all confused which thing to root for. 🙁

    (Also, thanks for the back-up, but don’t get yourself into anything stressful on my account if its not a good time.)

  5. @Kary English:

    At any rate, my question is this: So here we are as writers and we’re trying to be fair, but odds are we’re going to know just about anyone we nominate or recommend. So when is it cronyism and when is it not?

    This is a fair and difficult question. I think different people will come up with different answers. I can’t draw a bright line. But it’s clear to me that Torgersen’s SP3 effort was way on the wrong side of my very fuzzy one. It’s the sheer totality of it, combined with the transparent awfulness of the outliers. Again, he nominated Wisdom From My Internet. For a Hugo award. He really did that. Were I you, I’d be pretty miffed about that. He got Wisdom From My Internet all over your story.

  6. @ Meredith: “I almost want a bingo card, but my kinder self is convinced that they lower the standard of discourse.”

    If this were a drinking game, we’d all have been hospitalized with alcohol poisoning by now.

  7. As has been noted, Brad came kinda close to winning the Campbell. He actually had the most first-place votes, but without a clear majority, slipped into 2nd place once the last-place finalist’s votes were redistributed and never re-took the lead. “Ray of Light” finished second, two. I can imagine how frustrating and disappointing it must be to be that close to winning and come away empty-handed, but hardly “having your head handed to you.”

    Larry Correia, though…Yeah, finishing in last place, I can imagine being one of five new writers fans considered the best of the year just wouldn’t be accolade enough for that guy.

  8. “thanks for the back-up,”

    No, you don’t want to raise the temperature, unless it’s someone you disapprove of being slapped around.

    Puhlease.

  9. Rebekah, thanks for sharing the link!

    I think the best part about a co-op of nemesii/nemeses is the variety. Best if both sides are co-ops, for a wide variety of match-ups.

  10. Meredith, I am a huge Rush fan. I’m just recalling Usenet/BBS arguments of days gone by when earnest guys would quote Neal Peart lyrics as if they were dispositive.

  11. @Laura Resnick

    There was one for rhetoric for awhile and that was bad enough!

    @Ann Somerville

    If that was my motivation I’d address Puppies directly more often. If I’m addressing you, I respect you enough to think its worth the effort. Its a vote of confidence even if it might not feel like one.

  12. Nate Harada: I would also like to see a reply to Ursula Vernon’s post, as it cuts directly to the hear to of several matters here including, but not limited to, Mr. Torgersen’s apparent inability to regard anyone not himself or a part of his immediate circle as a real human being, who put forth real creative endeavors, and whose endeavors deserved recognition on their own merits. I suspect he lacks the courage of conviction necessary to tell one of the women who won a Hugo in the last ::checks:: thirty bloody years that she only won her award due to affirmative action.

    As I recall, Brad has responded to challenges to actually identify any of the specific works that benefited from affirmative-action checklist-voting by being too much of a gentleman to name names and embarrass specific people.

    Although he has no problem with a blanket claim that writers won because of affirmative-action checklist-ism rather than the quality of their work, implicitly condemning any writers in his own “wrong kind of” camp (women, people of color, LBGT) and tarring them with a far wider brush than anyone used against a certain breed of free-range Puppy.

  14. None of us can control the behavior of others. But we are, each and every one of us, responsible for how we behave and our behavior is a reflection on us and no one else.

    Please remember that when you are suddenly seized by the urge to verbally relieve yourself in the File 770 fireplace. There are tall children aplenty to be found in this fiasco launched by the tallest child of all-and not all of them are Puppies.

    If I have overstepped my bounds, Mr. Glyer, I apologize.

  15. Here are my original comments on slates. I’ve said similar things here which, yeah, I don’t think I’ll be able to find all of the links to. At any rate, there isn’t an “anymore” to it. I’ve been anti-slate from the moment I understood what Vox Day had done.

    http://karyenglish.com/2015/04/the-disavowal/comment-page-1/#comment-13770

    Oh, plus this one, which was easy to find because who says aghast anymore? 🙂

    https://file770.com/?p=22569&cpage=3#comment-263372

  16. I’m inclined to be skeptical of the dismissal of Squeecast as “designed to attract Hugo nominations,” frankly. Not that I think Nick cares what I think, but seriously, where’s the line? Do we authors have to pre-emptively recuse ourselves from Hugos if we want to do a podcast? Couldn’t we just do it out of love?

    It’s a cynical view that doing something that might fit in a category means the creator is cold bloodedly gunning for a Hugo. I write novels with no intent or expectation of seeing them hit a ballot. I’m inclined to extend others the same courtesy, honestly.

  18. At any rate, my question is this: So here we are as writers and we’re trying to be fair, but odds are we’re going to know just about anyone we nominate or recommend. So when is it cronyism and when is it not?

    If you can look at a writer’s Hugo recommendations and they’re all friends and professional colleagues, it’s probably cronyism.

    When the writer’s recommendations include obvious non-qualified works such as Wisdom from My Internet, it’s probably cronyism.

    When the writer won’t even explain why the works were chosen, it’s probably cronyism.

  19. I’ve been anti-slate from the moment I understood what Vox Day had done.

    So, does this mean you are retracting the sentiment of lukewarm endorsement of slates so long as they aren’t all that successful that is in your first link? Because staying on the ballot when you benefited from a crony-driven slate seems like you’re still endorsing slates, just not really successful slates.

  20. I’m inclined to be skeptical of the dismissal of Squeecast as “designed to attract Hugo nominations,” frankly. Not that I think Nick cares what I think, but seriously, where’s the line? Do we authors have to pre-emptively recuse ourselves from Hugos if we want to do a podcast? Couldn’t we just do it out of love?

    That’s a broader question, actually, one that came up when Scalzi decided he wanted a Fan Writer Hugo and decided to have his blog audience fetch him one. In my view, there is trouble on both sides: pros poaching “easy” fan categories, and fans responding by creating new categories (like fancast!) in order to protect old ones (like fanzine). At the same time, even a stoneheart like me couldn’t refuse Frederik Pohl his Fan Writer Hugo.

    Personally, yes, I’d decline any Fan* nomination that came my way.

    As far as podcasting itself, it occurs to me that an “SF Critcast”, which doled out negative reviews as a matter of course, wouldn’t be so obviously designed to attract Hugo nominations.

  21. @RedWombat

    I agree. Assuming that those activities are aimed at getting Hugos seems to me also assuming those writers aren’t fans, which flies in the face of considerable evidence.

    If the implication is just that those activities separate of intent help with getting Hugos, that’s different of course, and if I misunderstood and that’s what Nick Mamatas meant, I apologise.

  22. Brad R. TorgersenApril 21, 2015 at 2:11 PM
    Mr. Sandifer, if you truly believe that a book like ANCILLARY JUSTICE or a story like “The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere” did not benefit from a tremendous groundswell of affirmative-action-mindedness, you’re not paying attention. Please phone me when you’re interesting in discussing diversity beyond a skin-deep level. Quote Larry Niven: there are minds which think as well as yours, just differently.

    As always, he’s remarkably, tragically un-self aware. It’s ridiculous how many times he condescends to other people, chiding them on not understanding that other people have things they love that aren’t the same as others…. while completely discounting that anyone else has things they love that are different from him. Unbelievable.

  23. @ULTRAGOTHA

    If you like Phryne Fisher, check out the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries. Diana Rigg at her snarky best. Sooo wonderful. Funny. And the best 1920s costume designer I’ve ever seen. Also, Peter Davidson.

    FWIW, Amazon has pretty much all of the Mrs. Bradley novels on sale for Kindle for various flavors of Dirt Cheap (mostly $1.99, with some $2.99, I think). At least if you’re in the USA.

  25. Catching up…

    Gabriel F. @ 11:23am

    I’m disappointed to see that you’ve returned to unapologetic support of Puppy talking points with a Turtle Wax of “I’m just saying.” Not cool.

    I take your criticisms seriously, so I am trying to do so with this. My comments on “Gallo-fray” are:

    1. “what they saw on them there internets being said by one of his lady workers” deserved a good filking

    2. I thought the response was an overreaction, but I can see why service members in particular took offense.

    3. Grant said consistently he does not want anyone fired, and, so far at least, I don’t find his decision to associate with people who are demanding that to be evidence that he is lying, but I am giving the criticisms offered here serious consideration.

    4. In related news, if your car spotted parked outside of the house of a birdwatcher, that doesn’t make you a birdwatcher.

    None of that is a talking point, waxed or unwaxed, and I support no boycott against anybody.

    JJ@ 4:50

    Ha, Kurt Busiek! You have not debunked Brian Z’s comments enough to be considered an “arch-nemesis” like me! Neener!

    Busiek is a standard-issue internet activist who joins the attack when someone signals there is blood in the water, and is nowhere near monomaniacal enough to be an arch-nemisis. You, JJ, are my Captain Ahab. 😀

  26. For the question of cronyism…well, a lot of us read our friends* because we have massive TBR piles, and we move friends up the list so we don’t have yo do the awkward “I swear, I’m getting to it!” dance.

    So yeah, by pure probability in that case, we have read more of our friends’ stuff come nomination time. And I am completely sure that we vote more for our friends, because we love them. That’s life.

    The problem in this case, I think, is that people did not vote for their friends, they voted for Brad and Vox’s friends, in the manner they were told to vote, because they were assured it would stick it to the SJWs.

    Is there some gray space between those extreme points? Oh, I imagine so. We could try to parse out the exact number of milli-cronies inherent in retweeting somebody’s eligible work post, and does that number increase if you bought one of those stories? How many milli-cronies to congratulate someone on their nomination? Etc, etc, ad absurdum.

    I think, like art and porn, you probably just come around to “you know it when you see it.”

    *Unless we’re in that weird place of “Oh god, I like you enormously, so please, please, don’t ask me to read your stuff because if it’s awful I will not know how to make the proper evasions” and more recently, alas, “I am hoping it does not turn out that you are a catastrophic ass on the Internet.”

  27. So long as they aren’t successful – so that’s SP 1 and 2? Those were rec lists, IMHO.

    I’ve also given my thoughts about not stepping down: https://file770.com/?p=22569&cpage=8#comment-263971

    I get that we disagree about some this, and that’s OK. Staying on the ballot means some people will place me under No Award and/or leave me off entirely. That’s OK, too. People’s votes are their own business.

  29. While I’m here, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who’s been civil and even nice in their questions and responses to me.

    Thank you!

  30. So long as they aren’t successful – so that’s SP 1 and 2? Those were rec lists, IMHO.

    So slates are okay as long as they aren’t successful. Which means you’re not actually anti-slate. You’re pro-slate, just so long as you can benefit from the cronyism just a little bit.

  31. (To maybe be more pithy–I am probably going to vote for my friends sometimes because I’m human, but it gets weird when I try to get YOU to vote for my friends. And even weirder if I’m voting only for my friends, and the pinnacle of weird when I try to get you to vote only for my friends. If that makes any sense.)

  32. Kary English, I’m still processing all the comments and responses here, but before you go I want to say thank you for coming over again and talking with us.

  33. Fudgesicles, I just realised what the Gallo stuff reminds me of. Gamergate claiming that the “Gamers are dead” articles were a slur against all gamers everywhere, ever, including the toddlers. Well, I guess Beale can learn by watching.

  34. Cronyism is bad, sure. But there are only so many hours in the day, so choices have to be made over what to read. It’s pretty natural for people to read more of authors that they have some connection to (even if indirect). That’s not cronyism.

    To be cronyism, you have to be deliberately ignoring work you know as better for your connections. I don’t know how much of that is going on with the SPs. I get the sense most of them don’t read a lot, and don’t read very widely. (So I guess I’m echoing Eric Flint’s latest, yet again).

  35. “if you truly believe that a book like ANCILLARY JUSTICE or a story like “The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere” did not benefit from a tremendous groundswell of affirmative-action-mindedness, you’re not paying attention. ”

    Oh, good grief, -I’m- paying attention, and what I saw throughout 2013-2014 was many, many people in sf/f talking online and in person about how much they liked ANCILLARY JUSTICE and what exactly they liked about it (sometimes at eye-crossing length). In all honesty, I read a few chapters and quit. The book just wasn’t for me. (Most science fiction isn’t.) But since I am not full of irrational denial, I am well aware that there was a lot of sincere excitement about the contents of that book among many, many people who read it cover-to-cover. And to pretend otherwise strikes me as absurd.

  36. All the Puppy complaints about the media coverage being manipulated or controlled by Tor/CHORFs/whomever, including the Entertainment Weekly blogpost which required correction, is also right out of the GG handbook.

  37. @Nick Mamatas

    Yes, it just didn’t click that the Gallo thing was virtually identical. I’m rather annoyed with myself that it took me that long.

  39. Nick,

    At the same time, even a stoneheart like me couldn’t refuse Frederik Pohl his Fan Writer Hugo.

    I’m willing to carve out an exemption for pros with at least eight decades of service.

  40. @ Kary

    So long as they aren’t successful – so that’s SP 1 and 2? Those were rec lists, IMHO.

    I don’t believe it’s a matter of being successful so much as providing an entire ballot part and parcel. And having people vote on what they love, not in lockstep with the leaders.

    I think most of us here are well aware that RP is what really ran the ballot, not SP. But SP wanted to do it, and has shown remarkable reluctance to admit they failed to do it and VD is the one who succeeded. And VD told his people to vote exactly has he listed, and for the most part they did.

    Getting a work or two on a ballot is one thing, and pretty easy to do considering how low the nomination numbers generally are with a population of people who are all each voting for what they liked best, which is not the same as what everyone else liked best. But running a full slate destroyed everyone else’s opportunity to speak for what they loved best, and that sucks.

  41. Meredith on June 16, 2015 at 7:43 pm said:
    Has anyone seen Torgersen’s reply to Flint’s latest, yet? He’s repeating the “cabal secretly controlling the Hugo’s” and “Worldcon should become a huge convention because I say so and fuck what Worldcon members think” spiels, amongst other greatest hits.

    OK, here’s the next item on My List of Things I Don’t Understand about all this:

    1) The Puppies think that WorldCon is too small and insular, and should emulate the business model of ComicCon etc.: that is, scale up from the 5000-attendee range up to the 25,000-attendee range.

    (1a As part of this, they start thinking up new terms of abuse to insult the VOLUNTEERS who run this convention (…at least partially…) for THEIR BENEFIT. That in itself is simply breath-taking….)

    And simultaneously,

    2) They think that the genre urgently needs to return to its good ol’ fashioned Nutty Nugget roots. And should cast out all of the new fans, everybody who doesn’t like good ol’ fashioned SF.

    I don’t understand how they can reconcile these two opposed goals in their heads.

    I mean, I started subscribing to Analog literally before Torgersen was born – back when it really WAS central to the field, with a circulation of over 100,000; and today – now that it’s one-fifth the circulation, and not one-tenth the influence in the field – they think that Analog-style SF should rightfully be at the core of drastically enlarged WorldCon? How could that even work?

    I can’t follow the reasoning here.

  42. One question that occurs to me, Ms. English:

    Suppose that later on this year, or early next year, Kate Paulk comes to you and says, “We want to put another one of your stories on Sad Puppies 4.” What’s your reply?

  43. @Gabriel F. “But running a full slate destroyed everyone else’s opportunity to speak for what they loved best, and that sucks.”

    I agree with this fully. ^

    I’ve given my reasons for remaining on the ballot this year. But hypothetically, let’s say I get asked to be on SP4. A lot (ahem, a LOT) of things would have to happen before I’d say yes, but one of the really big ones would be “It’s not a slate, and doesn’t look or smell like a slate.”

  44. @ Kary English

    At any rate, my question is this: So here we are as writers and we’re trying to be fair, but odds are we’re going to know just about anyone we nominate or recommend. So when is it cronyism and when is it not?

    I’m not a writer, just a reader. But I’ve been reading SFF long enough to know that it is an interconnected industry. It’s like reading the liner notes, and seeing the same session musicians over and over. And SFF publishing (like recording studios) is a small puddle compared to the pool of writers. The people are interconnected, and cannot be severed from one another.

    This is why the slates hurt so much. They broke all the norms that let this close knit group of fans, who are also sometimes writers socialize, promote, mentor, nominate and vote amicably. If the Scientologists didn’t get L. Ron Hubbard a rocket by ballot stuffing, then the very cranky reaction against SP1&2, and the horror on SP3 should not have surprised anyone. There was a distinct lack of research in prior history.

    Anyway, you writers are close to each other, like an extended family. And now it’s a family where someone has done something terrible, nay unforgivable. It might get papered over eventually, but the longer Brad and the others keep making the same arguments instead of letting the “older ones” (GRRM, Flint) talk him/them off the ledge, well the longer it will take to mend the rift. And there will be people who will never forgive him and the other’s for inviting in Beale. And it will be Auntie A can’t sit next to Uncle B at the wedding forever, or at least until they’re both in wheelchairs and can’t wheel themselves away from each other.

    Well, that’s usually how these things go, but then again, VD has held a grudge against Scalzi for 10 years. So, I don’t know where this goes or where it ends.

  46. @’As You Know’ Bob

    I would suffer a serious attack of the schadenfreude if all this posturing lead to transformative works fandom (which is large, organised, and heavily dominated by women, often liberal ones) paying more attention to the Hugos. I don’t think they’d be the voters the Puppies have in mind.

    I don’t really understand why they want Worldcon to be bigger. If Worldcon isn’t the sort of convention they want, well, there are plenty of big conventions they could go to, or they could start their own. Why work to change what they hate?

    Trying to find logic in Puppy actions is unfun.

  47. @ As You Know, Bob: “I can’t follow the reasoning here.”

    This is because you’re looking for “reason” in the Puppies’ endless stampede of reality-free rationalizations.

    (whap!)

    Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200 in paper money.

  48. >> Busiek is a standard-issue internet activist >>

    It’s true. I was issued by the Internet Supply Sergeant at Internet Replacement Depot 17-delta-quorn, to a plucky recruit with freckles and an endearing cowlick.

    Unfortunately, he was killed during a Denial of Service Attack, and I’ve been wandering cyberspace since, trying to get back to my unit and sniffing for watery blood.

  49. @’As You Know’ Bob

    I think to make sense of it you have to see it as an elaborate effort to save face by two writers — Correia and Torgersen — who felt extraordinarily (and irrationally) humiliated to have been nominated for awards they did not win.

    To protect their egos, they constructed a narrative where they lost because of some secret conspiracy against the kind of people they are and the kind of stuff they write.

    Like most conspiracies, it expands and contracts to serve the rhetorical needs of the moment — vast when you want to talk about how powerful it is; tiny when you want to emphasize how it is subverting the democratic will of the people.

    They formed the slates in the assumption that this conspiracy was real and they had to fight fire with fire. Since the conspiracy wasn’t real, the slates overwhelmed the ballot. That should be obvious to anyone. But Brad’s poor tender ego still can’t take the truth — that he lost fair and square — so his narrative has to keep getting bigger and weirder and more self-contradictory.

    Any moment now, the aliens are going to show up.

  50. Kary English: Here are my original comments on slates. I’ve said similar things here which, yeah, I don’t think I’ll be able to find all of the links to. At any rate, there isn’t an “anymore” to it. I’ve been anti-slate from the moment I understood what Vox Day had done.

    Thanks for providing those quotes. I’ve got a couple more.

    Kary English (2 months 8 days ago)

    Hey, Puppies! 🙂

    Sorry it’s taken me so long to see this. I’m at the Writers of the Future week, and they’re keeping us VERY busy. I’m not sure how many of you have read my blog, but I want to make sure I’m really clear about something: I did NOT renounce or disavow Sad Puppies.

    I didn’t write that post because I was afraid of retribution from the anti-Puppy contingent; I wrote it because I was saddened and appalled by what I’d seen from the anti-Puppy contingent.

    The Pups have been nothing but kind and welcoming to me. Nobody here questioned me about my politics, and nobody here rejected me over them. Personally, I think that’s exactly as it should be. Story first, right?

    So if you saw the title of my most recent post and thought I was throwing you under the bus, I invite you to look again. 😉

    I also have a confession to make. Until the last three weeks or so, I pretty much thought anti-conservative discrimination was a load of hooey. Boy, was I wrong. Having seen it first hand, I am gobsmacked. I will never think that again.

    I have been honored and grateful for your support. I would like to offer my thanks to each and every one of you: thank you!

    Kary English on May 18, 2015 at 1:38 pm said:

    Yep, a whole 1/4, up from 13% (2 out of 12) last year. So they came close to doubling their female representation. I think if this had been more widely acknowledged, the puppies might have been willing to work harder and read farther afield next year. As it is now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they retrenched. If they’re only going to get slammed, why should they try?

    … At any rate, yes, I’d like to see the Puppies make further strides in the area of diversity. Did they take steps in that direction this year? Yes, they did.

    I’m guessing you can understand why I’m taking your statement “I’ve been anti-slate from the moment I understood what Vox Day had done.” rings more than a little hollow to me.

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