aka Destination: Loon
Today’s roundup features Brad R. Torgersen, Paul Weimer, Vox Day, Edward Trimnell,John C. Wright, Barry Deutsch, N. K. Jemisin, Adam-Troy Castro, Jared Dashoff, Jason Sanford, Rebecca Luella Miller, Spacefaring Kitten, Melina D, Lis Carey, John Seavey, Rick Novy, Helena Bell and cryptic others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day Kary English and Rev. Bob.)
Brad R. Torgersen on Mad Genius Club
“So you want to write an award-winning Hard Science Fiction story?” – June 21
[Begins with a series of insights about writing sf professionally.]
Now, for a few personal caveats. These are just my prejudices and biases speaking, so take ’em or leave ’em.
Endless polishing is death on productivity, and death on learning. I never learned anything from spending months or years tinkering with the same piece of work. Give yourself a personal rule, for when you’re going to stop on a specific work, and move on to something new. Either how many revisions you’ll do, or how much time you’ll devote to finishing touches once you’ve put THE END on the tail, etc. Just don’t get locked into thinking you can make any story perfect. I can speak from experience: good enough really is good enough.
Downbeat endings suck. They are ‘literary’ and some critics and aesthetes love them. But they suck. If you’re going to roast your characters in hell, at least give them a little silver lining at the end? Some kind of hope for a more positive outcome? Your readers will thank you.
Stories that demote humanity to being puny and insignificant, also suck. We may be small and/or not as advanced as other intelligent life in the universe, but we didn’t get to where we are now by being meaningless dullards. Humans are crafty and stubborn. Never say die. We should be reflected as such.
Some of the best HSF I’ve ever read, inspired in me the notion: Wow, this is how it could really happen! Be it space colonization, or warp drive, or first contact with another intelligent species from somewhere else in the galaxy. When you play by the rules — keeping the universe as we know it relatively intact, accessible, and consistent — you’re shining a light on a possible path. Not predicting the future per se, but illuminating a way that things might develop. That’s the kind of story that may inspire some teenager somewhere to become a rocket scientist.
Speaking of which, leave the “playground equipment” around for your readers to mess with. That’s a Niven-ism. If the reader gets to the end of your story and can imagine events continuing on — populated by your characters, the reader in character form, or both — then you’ve really won. Because you’ve made your world and your story so engrossing, the reader doesn’t want to leave! That’s a reader who will want to come back for more. That’s a reader who will be loyal, and tell others about your work.
Paul Weimer on Blog, Jvstin Style
“Campbell vs the New Wave, and Brad Torgersen” – June 22
I do think that Torgersen is missing a large bet on a lot of stories. And I am not sure that Literary=downbeat=suck is an equation that works. HEA and HFA are fine and dandy, but those aren’t the only stories. Hell, look at Stephen Baxter’s Xeelee stories as an excellent counter example. I’m sure Baxter would be surprised to be called literary. And he definitely does not suck.
What strikes me from this article is how it fights the whole Campbell vs the New Wave argument that I’ve opined was at the heart of the Sad Puppies.. One of the File 770 group called him Neo-Campbell. So there you have it.
Torgersen post shows that SF fandom and authors are STILL fighting the New Wave conflict, decades later. The past isn’t dead, its not even past.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“A necessary endorsement” – June 22
Refusing to take a side and trying to remain above it all will no more bring an end to the tactics he dislikes than the League of Nations prevented World War II. Misbehaving bullies can only be stopped with superior force. To stop the lynch mobs, Mr. Trimnell should help us bring them to an end by multiplying our force. We will abandon the tactic as soon as the SJWs do… like Ronald Reagan with the Evil Empire, we will trust, but verify. But until the SJWs give up their rhetorical tactics of name-calling, marginalization, and disqualification, we will continue play by the Chicago Rules and exploit every mistake they make and every opening they give us. The TOR boycott is nothing more than holding TOR Books accountable for the wholly unprofessional behavior of its SJW employees, behavior that would have gotten a minimum-wage Walmart greeter fired on the spot.
Furthermore, there is no symbiosis. The SJWs are not dependent upon anyone’s outlandish statements; if an opponent has not said something objectionable, they will simply lie and claim he did, then run their usual insult-isolate-disqualify routine. We, on the other hand, have a rich and continuously replenished pool of outlandish statements from which to choose to use against them.
Edward Trimnell
“Debating the Tor boycott” – June 22
I expressed my disagreement with Vox’s position on the Tor Books boycott…and Vox expressed his disagreement with my disagreement.
My dislike of boycotts remains.
I remember the mindless campaign orchestrated against Orson Scott Card a few years ago. Card’s sin was basically to express a view of marriage that was all but universal (including among liberals and Democrats) until ten years ago. Yet the SJW mobs did their best to silence Card, urging a nationwide boycott of the movie adaptation of Ender’s Game, and barraging the offices of DC Comics until Card was dropped from the company’s Superman project.
Ah, but that is exactly the point….say the forces behind the anti-Tor boycott. The SJWs do it.
I believe it is important to remember what separates the freethinkers from the SJWs. The freethinkers seek to outthink their opponents with a more persuasive argument in the marketplace of ideas.
The SJWs seek to silence their opponents through harassment and intimidation. (This should surprise no one, since the SJWs are almost all anti-market and anti-free speech.)
John C. Wright
“The Three Laws of Morlocktics” – June 22
[Quotes a long string of comments from File 770 but purports not to know the source, then says –]
The fear seems to be based on the grounds that her calling me and you neo-Nazi homophobic bigoted misogynist racists was cricket, but my accepting her lame apology like a gentleman (so she and I could get back to work) means that secretly I, and the other fine people called Sad Puppies who would like to reform the Hugo Awards, and return the award to be granted for merit of the work, rather than for the political correctness of the work, now have or may soon concoct an cunning yet dastardly plan!
The women who sound indistinguishable from phobia-afflicted delusional neurotic believe I and mine intend to send Daddy Warpig (the one Gamergater who expressed support for the Sad Puppies slate) to New York to blow up public monuments there with Vatican-made explosive rosaries, and dox and vox and vaporize Miss Gallo.
Because my expressions of neutrality and your letters to Tor asking for professional courtesy are so appallingly frightening that is creates an atmosphere of unsaferiffickness. Or something.
I would say that if women are that easily frightened, it is up to us men to make sure that no cad and no blackguard is ever allowed to speak to them. And if political argument over a pathetic space-yarn award gets the ladies this scared this quickly, it seemed that the Victorian standards for male and female roles were entirely correct. The poor, fainting, delicate damsels in distress must be keep safe from all the bumps and jars of the real world.
Either that, or these nags and termagants are a scandal and an embarrassment to their sex, because they are pretending to be frightened, when they are not, to arouse the very feelings of Victorian protective gentlemanliness that they at other times despise.
Which is it to be, ladies? Equality of the sexes in political matters? Or ultra-damsel-gushing, shriekingly school-girlish, play-pretend hysterical so beloved of the Left? The two are mutually exclusive.
Leftism or Equality?
Pick one.
@CathyYoung63 Sad Puppies is literally led by published authors; obviously it's not true that only lefty sf writers get published.
— Barry makes comics. barrydeutsch.bsky.social (@barrydeutsch) June 22, 2015
N. K. Jemisin
“An open letter to the WSFS about unintended consequences” – June 22
Whoa. Did you guys think this through? No, seriously. Beyond whether “The Wheel of Time” could get a Hugo, or whether you, personally, like short fiction or not. Did you consider how proposal B.1.3 looks, both within and outside SFFdom? What message it sends about WSFS priorities? Consider the context. In a year when there’s been intense mainstream-media coverage of an attempt to ideologically tarnish the Hugo Awards, effectively making them less representative of the genre’s current dynamism and way more representative of racist white guys’ vanity publishing, this proposal compounds that problem. Let me break down how this looks to people outside of the WSFS process….
So let’s review. In a year when misogynists, white supremacists, and homophobes have already managed to use the Hugos to advance their own interests, along comes this proposal making it easier for privileged white men to gain recognition, at the direct expense of the marginalized. I’m going to assume it’s an unintended consequence that this proposal effectively reinforces the Puppies’ efforts; there’s been no reason to think that anyone on the WSFS is anything other than professionally neutral on the matter. Until now. So, c’mon ya’ll. Did you really think this through? Is this the best time for B.1.3? Are you really willing to throw short fiction under the bus just to give bestsellers another accolade? Do you mean to throw a level playing field under the bus, to give more affirmative action to successful white men?
Adam-Troy Castro
“Spaying the Hugos” – June 22
The proposal to simplify the Hugos by eliminating the Best Novelette category and replacing it with a Best Saga category is an excellent start, in large part because it will completely eliminate any interference with those fresh young talents who nobody is ever interested in and who just complicate things.
But it doesn’t go far enough. A few more appropriate changes would certainly help usher the awards into the twenty-first century.
First, eliminate the short story and novelette awards as well. As everybody keeps pointing out, the short fiction markets are dying and the annual competition for an award not supported by the free market is unseemly. Short fiction has never produced anything of worth, anyway. Name just one time it has. I bet you can’t.
Make the contest all about novels, the big awards that really mean something, and make the smallest award the one for best stand-alone novel, because everybody also knows that stand-alone novels are for writers with no staying power…..
Jared Dashoff in a comment on Whatever – June 22
Over the years, long fiction in the greater speculative fiction category has moved towards publishing works in series, rather than stand-alone works. Stand-alone works are still published and are eligible for Hugos in various categories, but some of us thought that the expansive works, where the individual volumes may or may not stand alone and be worthy of a Hugo themselves, deserved recognition. So we set out to create a Hugo for them. Best Saga became the title mostly because as the work gets longer, the title of the Hugo gets shorter.
Having attended many WSFS Business Meetings between us, and personally having been on the Head Table before and being on it this year, we felt the sense of the Meeting (i.e. how many that generally attend the Meeting feel) was that another professional fiction category would throw off the balance if a category was not removed. Based on long discussions and floating the idea past folks, we settled on the Novelette category. This bumped up the maximum word count for a short story, and dropped down the minimum word count for a Novella. No work that had been eligible was no longer eligible, it was just eligible in a different category….
In response to this opposition to the Novelette collapse, we contacted Kevin Standlee, Chair of the Sasquan Business Meeting, to ensure we could amend our proposal so long as it was before the deadline for the submission of New Business. We are now in the process of doing that and amending the discussion text to remove any reference to the Novelette collapse. Some original proposers have decided not to join us in this effort.
Going forward, the proposal will only include the addition of the Saga Hugo and that will need to pass or fail on its own merits. If it fails, we will be sad, but we accept that it was not the Business Meeting’s want to create an award for such works. If others wish to submit a proposal related to the shorter fiction works, that is their prerogative, but I will not be submitting one nor supporting it.
https://twitter.com/jasonsanford/status/612748644379267072
Rebecca Luella Miller on Speculative Faith
“Awards And The Problems Behind Them” – June 22
The irony of the brouhaha is that the Puppies seem to be arguing against the politicizing of science fiction and it’s preeminent award by politicizing the method used to select the award winners.
Having been behind the scenes for the Clive Staples Award in the past, I know a good deal about the ways people try to game the rules in order to help those they hope will win. One reason CSA instituted judging the short list—the finalists—by a panel of qualified judges was to avoid this kind of deck-stacking which would reduce the award intended to honor good writing and storytelling to a popularity contest (or a philosophical statement).
Yes, there are diversities among Christian writers, and some would push the point by “gaming” an award if they could.
Other awards have bypassed readers altogether in order to steer away from the popularity contest approach (come vote for my book even though you haven’t read it, just because you know me, sort of). But those are susceptible to other problems—unqualified first round judges, high entry fees, sponsoring organization promotion requirements, poorly conceived judging sheets, and the like.
In short, no award is likely to be perfect, but one that combines readers’ choice with qualified judging evaluations seems as if it has a better chance of honoring the year’s best book.
The Hugos? Seems to me they have gone the way of the Oscars and in the process have opened the door to a horrible mess. This long-running award is in the process of making itself irrelevant to readers.
The Clive Staples Award, on the other hand, is a tool which can help readers learn about the books that other readers value.
Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring Extradimensional Happy Kittens
“Kitten/Puppy Dialogues (on Pizza)” – June 22
In the comments to the last Wednesday’s post titled Answering Peter Grant, a Puppy supporter called Xephon has been vocally criticizing me for several things I’ve said. The arguments in his/her first few short comments made little sense to me, so I thought the discussion was going nowhere, but then this lengthy account landed on the comment section.
I’m still unconvinced, but Xephon brings up some points I want to respond to, and because this is going to take up some space, I’ll rather do it in a new post.
The sickening truth is that the anti-Puppies need Beale more than the Puppies do. He’s done nothing for my side except stir an increasingly rancid pot. Those of us who have distanced ourselves have learned that we are wasting our time, because all we hear from the other side is, “because Vox Day”. You need him to be your bogeyman, the focal point for your opposition. If he didn’t exist, someone would have invented him.
One of the funnies recent developments in the discussion around Hugos is that the second you mention Theodore Beale/Vox Day, somebody charges in and accuses you of “because Vox Day” fallacy. It sure is an interesting variant of “playing the ‘Playing the Hitler Card’ card”. Let me state once again that Beale’s Rabid Puppies slate swept the Hugo ballot. Your demand that everything related to him should be removed from the Hugo discussions does feel a bit odd — especially when we’re talking about his boycotts and other schemes.
Anony-Mouse on Cedar Writes
“Get out and Vote!” – June 22
Do NOT vote NO AWARD for anything. Yes, I know the temptation to make a statement by putting something below No Award at the bottom, but in the unlikely case of close races NA can have an adverse affect on outcomes because it’s a weighted ballot. And frankly, it’s a pet peeve of mine. NO AWARD is a political statement, and this isn’t supposed to be about naked politics.
Do NOT vote at all for anything you do not think is worthy, regardless of why you do not find it worthy. See previous.
DO try to vote for at least one good thing in each category rather than leaving the category blank. For example, some of the fanzine/semiprozine entries have been nothing but contemptuous of dissidents against the establishment. I will not vote for them. Others have been accepting of everyone, I will rank them.
World of Pancakes
“Retraction regarding the Sad Puppy John C. Wright” – June 22
I don’t do this sort of thing very often, but I’m retracting my last post. Let me explain why. In repose to charges of homophobia, Wright said the charges were a lie and responded in a fashion which could be described as equally “homophobic” and “bizarre.” I wrote a long-ish piece taking him to task for this. It’s a solid bit of work, but I’d like to disavow it as of now. Since posting this piece, I’ve read a good deal more of what Wright has written outside of his novels. I’ve come to the conclusion that Mr. Wright has enough going on his life that piling on like this is neither fair nor necessary. I stand by the content of what I wrote, but, given Mr. Wright’s situation, it was needlessly mean of me to write it.
Melina D on Subversive Reader
“Hugos 2015 Reading: Best Graphic Story” – June 22
[Reviews 4 of 5 nominees.]
It was so wonderful to read a category and understand why all the nominees (that I could access) were nominees. These had quality story telling, good art (and art telling stories which I appreciate so much), interesting plots and characters, character development, humour, and in some cases, extreme ‘feelings’. These are the things I want in all my fiction (except the art, of course) and they’re never restricted to one ‘type’ or ‘style’ of fiction – romance fiction can deliver these things as well as epic fantasy, historical fiction as well as apocalyptic fantasy.
When you hold the quality of this category – just the writing and story telling to start with – up against the others, you really see how bad most of the work in the short fiction and related fiction categories are. And you have to ask why? Why didn’t the slate people put forward work that is well written and engaging? (Or more of that work?) Is there a lack of well written and engaging work which is action oriented/classic age/milSF? Is there a publicity issue for works that are well written and action oriented/reminiscent of older stuff and? Or did this slate become a cynical/destructive force designed to reward certain writers/publishers while ‘punishing’ others?
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Beneath Ceaseless Skies, edited by Scott H. Andrews” – June 22
This is a 2015 Best Semiprozine Hugo nominee. Beneath Ceaseless Skies is an online magazine of literary adventure fantasy. It’s visually attractive, and it offers some impressive fantasy fiction. I was pleased to find an archive that allowed me to check out the 2014 issues, the relevant issues for this year’s Hugos. An extra delight is that it offers audio fiction as well as print. This is an altogether fine magazine, and I’m very impressed.
Reading SFF
“2015 Hugo Awards Reading: Cixin Liu – The Three-Body Problem (2008/2014)” – June 22
I liked that the novel posed lot’s of mysterious questions and even answered them in a way that made sense, at least most of the times. While there are a lot of things in this novel that I liked a lot, there are a few things that I did not like as much. Mainly, this is not a character driven novel. This novel is about the science, not the characters. It’s very hard SF (which is fine), but it’s so hard, that at times whole passages read as if they were taken from a popular science text-book on futuristic physics. I guess it’s difficult to have everything: an imaginative and engaging story, cool science and great characters. The Three-Body Problem scores 2 out of 3 of these, which is a very good score.
John Seavey on Fraggmented
“Review: Ancillary Justice” – June 22
I think that’s why, despite appreciating ‘Ancillary Justice’, I didn’t really enjoy it all that much. There is a plot, and it’s actually a very clever one. But Leckie takes a lot of time in getting to it; she’s got a lot to say about the Radch, the empire that controls vast segments of the galaxy, and she wants you to really get a handle on the reality of living in the empire they’ve created. Vast chunks of the novel are taken up explaining customs, linguistics (yes, including the bit the book is famous for, that the default gender is “she”) and politics of the Radch, long before the plot ever kicks into gear.
Rick Novy on Entropy Central
“Lampooning the Hugo Awards – Free Short Story” – June 22
aka…The Bluegills, the Bream, and the Shiny Stones
Every once in a while, a writer will produce a piece of fiction with a short shelf-life. Such it is with a story i wrote a couple of months ago. The intention was to make a statement about the 2015 Hugo Awards, so I lampooned it. I shopped the story to three pro markets that I thought might be able to handle the expiration date. One market called it amusing but not right for the magazine. I happen to agree it’s amusing, and the editor is probably right about it not being a good fit.
I decided the shelf life of the story is now way too short to try to sell the story again, so I’m posting it here for free. I hope you enjoy it.
Without further ado…
I don't think "I really like [Author]. He should have a Hugo. Lets fuck up all the awards to rig it in his favor!" is good justification.
— Helena Bell (@HelBell) June 22, 2015
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@Brian Z:
You’re doing it wrong.
You’re not supposed to be nominating stuff for the longlist, or things you found “okay.” Nominations are for what you thought was the best. Imagine you’re the only one nominating, and pick what you think deserves to be on the final ballot.
It’s that damned simple.
To Jim Henley 4:28 a.m.
Glad to see we both loved”my name is asher lev”
One of the joys of reading SFF is reading about alien civs and cultures and too often we read too narrowly and miss out on great literature about “alien” ciltures imhabited by people who live on our own planet.
P.S. replying to random people as a courtesy– not re-igniting topic.
Kate, that was such a lovely story! Thank you for linking it.
Rev. Bob: I’d split it some. “When I went to sleep, my boots were scuffed and worn. When I woke, they looked brand new.”
One of the things I learned about my own prose when freelancing regularly in roleplaying game writing is that perfect tenses tend to get me into trouble – I’m more likely to get over-fancy and set myself up for the kind of thing you quoted. Simple tenses tend to set me back on track.
I agree with Nick and Ann that the “now” usage is fine. I’d just change it because that’s how I roll.
Bruce, it depends on what effect Bob is trying to achieve. Using ‘now’ puts the narrator – and reader – in the moment back then. Your example is fine, but lacks a nuance that Bob might be trying for.
Edit: Why yes, I am another mediocre writer offering Views on How to Write. I am only offering my own opinion, fwiw.
@Bruce Baugh:
Trouble is, the point of the “now” is to highlight the change – not to simply report it. In context, it’s a significant “what the hell?” discovery, rather than an expected ho-hum event.
ETA: Given the responses so far, I think I’ll leave it as it stands.
ETA2: I’m a little extra-sensitive because the author’s playing with tenses in another way, but that gets complicated.
Rev Bob, then keep it. The emphasis works.
Bob,
I often tell my students not just to look up words they don’t know, but to look up words they do know, as they might be pleasantly surprised. Anyway, from Merriam Webster, which is the dictionary most copy editors working on commercial publishing in the US use:
Now
…
6: at the time referred to [now the trouble began]
Rev. Bob and Ann (and Nick): Right. If immediacy is wanted there, then the “now” is way better suited than my version. 🙂
Kate: Hurm. For me, immersion and conforming with expectations are nearly orthogonal. I found a whole bunch of Laird Barron’s short stories intensely immersive the first time through, for instance, when I had everything to learn about his way of approaching post-Lovecraftian cosmicism. Less so, on the whole, on re-reads, though I still find them thoroughly engrossing – just less of the sense of “I am there right in the midst of these folks”.
Can I just say a germphobic vampire is one of the funniest things ever invented? 🙂 /reading Stray Souls
influxus,
Well, with an established author like Gene Wolfe it is pretty obvious. One can simply note that while he used to get nominated but never win, something like The Sorcerer’s House (2011 ballot) or Home Fires (2012 ballot) didn’t make it while things of much lesser quality did.
(ETA: I should in this context note that his 2013 novel was not his best of recent years, but it was still great and I’m looking forward to his 2015 novel very much.)
Lack of press is also a good clue.
Another factor is if excellent work is put out by smaller publishers. In addition to Haikasoru, Small Beer Press is another that has come up more than once for me.
“I’m a little extra-sensitive because the author’s playing with tenses in another way, but that gets complicated.”
Then you just have to go with your gut as editor – if it’s throwing you out of the story, then it’s not working the way the author wants it to. It’s a close call.
@Rev. Bob
Thanks for the SuperFogeys rec (I think it was you), having an extended rape joke near the beginning sucked but its been pretty good since after that.
Rev. Bob:
Reverend, you’ve just made my point for me, thank you. If you take that tone with people, they are never going to follow your orders.
” If you take that tone with people, they are never going to follow your orders.”
Brian, your mistake is to think that there are bunch of people waiting to follow orders. The Hugos are supposed to be about you and your tastes. Bugger everyone else. What do you like?
Those who want to follow orders, need a different award to mangle.
Rev. Bob, also you’ll note I didn’t say I’d nominate things that are “just okay.” I said I’d make a list of all the truly excellent things and try to gauge which of them are somewhere near the vicinity of 15-20 and my single vote would be useful to give them a push in the direction they truly deserve to go.
Since the top five things that actually make the final ballot aren’t very often the best things of year, recently, that goal hardly even enters my equation.
Ann Somerville, of course I don’t mean Rev. Bob is literally able to give me or anyone else our marching orders. But he did just tell me I’m doing wrongthink and having wrongfun with my Hugo ballots, so to speak and to borrow a phrase.
@Brian Z:
To me, this sounds indistinguishable from “List eligible works which are brilliant and cutting; nominate the five of those which I think will have the most support from others as well,” in which case this appears to me an excellent voting strategy.
…unless you mean you’re deliberately excluding works you consider brilliant and cutting and also popular and likely to be nominated anyway, because you want to give strength particularly to the pieces which you think aren’t getting enough attention.
Which also appears to me an excellent voting strategy.
“But he did just tell me I’m doing wrongthink and having wrongfun with my Hugo ballots”
I think he was trying to get you to get into the real spirit of the thing and enjoy yourself. I saw no malice behind his words. No need to go all Orwell on him.
@BrianZ
Because when the vast majority of what you do is ask questions, offering no solutions other than vague pablums about “We should find a social solution”, and appear intent on discrediting the thing about which you ask questions, that’s sealioning.
You’re quite polite about it, but I’ve seen essentially no indication from you that this is doing anything other than wasting other people’s time or, perhaps, hoping that you can find some contradiction or infelicity of speech to use as the next line of “questioning”.
I am reminded of the old story about the rabbis in the house of study, discussing the question of a chicken found wandering freely — when was it all right to take it, and when should it be presumed to belong to someone else. They came up with an answer — if it was distance X from the nearest farm, it belonged to the farm, if more than X, it was freely capturable.
Then one of the rabbis asked “But what if one foot is inside and one foot outside that distance?”
For this question he was expelled from the house of study.
It’s possible that you’re not seeing this — but try to step outside your own perspective for a moment, and see it as others would; someone comes into a space, and asks question after question in challenge of a particular idea; offering no proposals for improvement, no suggestion of alternative other than a vague “we should fix it some other way”, and derailing every discussion back to their subject of choice — does that sound like an honest interlocutor to you?
At best it’s someone who is clueless about the social space they’re eating up in the discussion — I think you can imagine the worst.
Part of what’s critical about the sealioning strip — the place this all came from — is the persistence and omnipresence of the sealion, interfering with the rest of the discussion. And that, to whatever degree, is what you’re doing. Perhaps it’s unintentional — I have dealt with peopel who don’t realize how much social bandwidth they’re taking up with their obsession — but even they, for the most part, cut it out when they were called on it.
So I’m calling you on it; file770 is not your personal playground for coming up with new ways to disagree with EPH and having it explained to you why your arguments don’t hold water; and that’s how a lot of people, I believe, feel you’re treating it.
@Ann:
It’s not throwing me out of the story. I just want to make sure I’m doing my editing job correctly.
@Meredith:
Yeah, I was the one who rec’d SuperFogeys. Like any serial, it takes a little while to find its voice, but once it does… Well, I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s some cool stuff ahead, and when you get there, you’ll see that some of the roots go back to the very beginning. (Have you seen the speedster’s sparkles yet?)
@Brian Z:
What Ann said.
If it helps, imagine what would happen if everybody followed your strategy. The top-shelf stuff would get ignored (“everybody’s going to nominate that, so I won’t”) and the ballot would be filled with lower-quality items. How is that a good outcome?
It’s an award for the best. Nominate what you think is the best. It’s not a hard concept.
Rev. Bob on June 23, 2015 at 11:05 pm said:
“When I’d gone to sleep, my boots had been scuffed and worn, but now they looked brand new.”
That makes me twitch. My alternatives:
“When I’d gone to sleep, my boots had been scuffed and worn, but when I woke they looked brand new.”
OR
“When I’d gone to sleep, my boots had been scuffed and worn, but now they look brand new.”
” I just want to make sure I’m doing my editing job correctly.”
That’s what I mean. You as editor stand in place of the ordinary reader. So if it reads badly to you, ditch it.
““When I’d gone to sleep, my boots had been scuffed and worn, but now they look brand new.””
Unless the story is in present tense, that’s just wrong, sorry.
@BrianZ
OK. I’m going to go all Kantian on you here for a moment.
The reason Rev. Bob spoke so strongly, I suspect, is that while you are free to do so, if everyone did so, it would undercut the purpose of the Hugo Awards — because people would be looking for “Best Overlooked (I think) book” rather than “Best Novel”
And so the novels that everyone agrees are transcendent — wouldn’t get the award, because everyone would agree they’re not overlooked.
Now, you’re free to make your Hugo vote your personal “Best Overlooked” — but you can’t then turn around and complain “But the new voting system doesn’t serve my voting approach!” when your voting approach is contrary to the stated purpose of the award.
Well, you can, but you look foolish doing so, and further doubt is cast upon your motivations.
There comes a point where, yes, you can say “Hey! This specific thing? You’re doing it wrong.” If I decided that the Hugos didn’t have enough winners whose names began with M, and nominated or voted purely on that principle? It’s within the rules, but it’s utterly contrary to the stated spirit of the award. It’s doing it wrong.
@Rev Bob
I am glad to see I understood your objection correctly, even if I put it in my traditional loquacious format. 🙂
(When John C. Wright and I get to arguing, comment section pixels quiver in fear.)
Standback,
Not exactly. When my personal longlist has more than five great things on it (which is often the case), I’ll tend to leave off ones that have no chance in hell of making it anywhere near the longlist and those I think are probably safely on the longlist, in order to concentrate my “voting power,” such as it is, on thanking those authors who will get not quite enough recognition for all of their tireless effort.
“I’ll tend to leave off ones that have no chance in hell of making it anywhere near the longlist and those I think are probably safely on the longlist, in order to concentrate my “voting power,” such as it is, on thanking those authors who will get not quite enough recognition for all of their tireless effort.”
Now, putting it that way, it sounds fine. Why didn’t you say that to begin with?
Rev. Bob,
Ah, but everyone isn’t following my strategy, are they? And besides, I wouldn’t vote for a lower quality item.
@Rev. Bob
I’m at 567 at the moment – it got very clever. 🙂
Brian Z:
This is why I was referring to Kant: “Act as if your actions could be made into universal law.”
Apparently, you will; or, at least, you will divide works into “This tier is Hugo-worthy” and then, instead of trying to rank them within that tier, you will go “So, which ones can I help get on the longlist” instead of “which ones are best.”
So yes, you might be, if one of the best 5 works is one you’re sure will make the cut, by voting for #6 instead, you’re voting for a lower-quality item. Maybe not a lot lower — but lower.
Steven Schwartz,
My stated purpose in this 2014 example was to try to get Self-Reference English by Toh EnJoe recognition on the longlist and lending all the support I can to other truly ambitious and excellent work published by the likes of Small Beer Press rather than rewarding a bunch of bland stuff related to some bland series of other from Tor. But if you want to cast doubt upon those motivations, I’ll fall on my sword right here right now.
.
If we are going to go full Kant about it, please note that my expectations would be different if all the avout in my concent actually did have the practice of nominating truly excellent books from Haikasoru.
I can’t get on board with the anti-literary stuff, but I can definitely climb on the YA bandwagon with the rest of the motley crew.
My stated purpose in this 2014 example was to try to get Self-Reference English by Toh EnJoe recognition on the longlist and lending all the support I can to other truly ambitious and excellent work published by the likes of Small Beer Press rather than rewarding a bunch of bland stuff related to some bland series of other from Tor.
And here we go — what you *said* you were doing, and what you say you’re doing now, are different.
Let me explain why:
Your original statement — perhaps it was infelicitous — was that
So, if you had 10 items, each one “truly excellent” but ranked, say, 1-10, and you thought that 3,4,5,8, and 9 were “somewhere near the vicinity of 15-20”, you’d vote for the, even if 1 & 2 were better, either because you figured they were shoo-ins or because you figured they had no chance.
Now you’re contrasting
with
That’s not at all the same thing. I think everyone here would agree that if you thought the stuff from Small Beer was the best, then vote for it. But then stop pretending that you’re doing some strategic voting for the end of the longlist in order to recognize under-appreciated authors.
Or, if you are trying to do that, then contrasting “excellent stuff from Small Beer” (and yes, Gavin does great stuff) with “bland stuff from Tor” undercuts your point.
And spare me the dramatics about falling on your sword; when you’ve eaten up as much time and space as you have here, cope with criticism.
Speaking of Haikasoru, I distributed copies of Project Itoh’s* novelette “From the Nothing, With Love” from our Phantasm Japan anthology to interested Hugo voters during the nomination round.
I wonder if it would have received sufficient votes to get on the ballot if not for the Puppy slates you have spent two months running interference for, Brian Z.
*Project Itoh is deceased and thus could not promote himself, so I did it on his behalf. This is not to suggest that I thought his story was more worthy of an award than any other entry in the book. The novelette had also been cited as a highlight of the book by several reviewers, so it seemed like a worthwhile endeavor.
Glad you enjoyed it, Ann! (I think this one‘s ever better. 🙂
Why do you consider asking questions in a public forum about a proposed amendment to the constitution of a venerable organization to be sealioning? If you said that you consider my questions nitpicky or edge cases, I might agree, but not that the questions are somehow invalid.
Classic. Absolute classic.
Are we ranking our nominations now? If not, sorry but I’m content to vote strategically for the five I’m most likely to help from my pool of, quote,
“(I think this one‘s ever better. :)”
God yes! Wow! Thanks so much.
Ann, for goegraphically restricted ebooks, there’s a site called omni/lit (remove slash & google) that might just ignore a US “shipping” address and a non-US PayPal address. (Works for me. Mainly a romance site but plenty of SF).
Nick, I’ve said consistently that the Sad Puppy campaign was a dumb idea, I don’t like any of the work Brad slated, and furthermore I think that if Vox Day asked his readers to nominate the likes of the Sad Puppies’ Dark Between the Stars and later revealed that he likes Three Body Problem better that is to all appearances faux activism worthy of an SJW.
And I will nominate the fabulous work coming out of Haikasoru, including you for best editor.
thanks, brightglance.
@Brian Z
Two things:
1) I notice once again you’re listing “authors” and not “books”, which, once more, according to the stated purpose of the Hugos, is simply wrong. A bad book by Samuel R. Delany, who definitely fits your bill, deserves a Hugo less than a brilliant book by, say, Susan R. Matthews — who is a perfectly fine writer, whose works I’ve enjoyed, but she’s not “brilliant” or “cutting-edge”.
2) When it comes to voting, yes, you do have to rank your votes — and if you’re nominating books for reasons other than “I think they’re the best”, you run the implicit risk of not nominating the best books; it’s that simple.
As I said before — you can nominate however you like. However, if you’re nominating on criteria that aren’t part of the criteria listed for the Hugo, I see no reason why the Hugo nomination process should cater to your needs.
Iain Coleman:
Because you don’t think that the possible reactions of a popular-author-reading non-math-major are of any relevance to the Hugo Awards?
I’m not asking you to do anything more than look at something from someone else’s perspective for just a moment. Can you see where some might think that that ship has sailed?
Nor would I want it to.
Brian, stop playing dumb.
Apex is full of unusual stuff, not all of which succeeds IMHO, but there are some real gems. I’m monitoring it for possible Hugo nominations for next year. 🙂
Bruce Baugh – go look!
Kate:
Good call – please let us know what jumps out at you!