aka The Puppies of Wrath
Today’s roundup stars David Gerrold, Tom Knighton, Rand Simberg, Phil Sandifer, Abi Sutherland, Doctor Science, Edward Trimnell, Jenn Armistead, Lela E. Buis, Peter Grant, Sarah A. Hoyt, Natalie Luhrs. Robert Sharp, Lis Carey and Lou J. Berger. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Seth Gordon and Steve Moss.)
David Gerrold on Facebook – June 12
Okay — so far, so good. If you wanted to suggest that there is a certain insular attitude among regular Worldcon attendees and supporters, even a clique-ishness, you could make that case — from the outside, it could look like that.
But actually, no. Because any convention — especially the Worldcon — is open to anyone who wants to buy a membership and attend. So no one is being kept out.
The issue — the idea that I’m creeping up on here — is the perception of a science fiction community. It’s an open community. Anyone can be a member of this community. Just show up. The ceiling constitutes an introduction. (ie. “You’re in the room, you’re here, you’re one of us. Hello!”)
So, in actuality, the community isn’t insular and it isn’t a clique — but it does have a lot of people in it who’ve known each other for a long time, and that can be intimidating to newcomers.
Now — here’s where I’m going to make some assumptions.
1) Based on the evidence of his online screeds, Vox Day does not consider himself a member of the science fiction community. In his own mind, he apparently considers himself a righteous and noble warrior fighting an evil establishment that sprawls like a cancer across the literary landscape. Based on the evidence of his online statements, he is at war with the community. He wants to disrupt and destroy. He has — by his own devices — selected himself out.
2) Brad Torgersen and Larry Correia, and others who have identified themselves as the “sad puppies” are very much a part of the SF community. They have demonstrated — by writing and publishing stories, by attending conventions, by being nominated for awards, by writing blogs and participating online — that they have a personal investment in the workings of the SF community. They are not enemies, they are (to the extent they participate in fannish endeavors) fans like everyone else.
Now, having made those distinctions, let me expand on them. ….
Tom Knighton
“David Gerrold: Sad Puppies ARE part of ‘SF community’” – June 12
I’ve been very upset by some of the things I’ve seen from David Gerrold since the Hugo nominations were announced. Honestly, knowing such a person wrote my mother’s favorite Star Trek episode was upsetting on a personal level that really doesn’t make any sense, but there it was.
However, Gerrold’s tone has mellowed recently. Today, he stated something that few would acknowledge, and that was how Larry Correia, Brad Torgersen, and the rest of us are part of the science fiction fan community in a post on Facebook early this morning. ….
That said, I’m willing to explore alternatives, but only so long as the horrid things we’re called ends. Gerrold brings up the Paris Peace Accords and the amount of time it took just to get things rolling for various reasons. In light of that, a comparison to a bloody war, I think it’s fair to note that I see no reason for us to disarm if the other side refuses. CHORF and SJW remain in the arsenal, and will be used if necessary.
Calling us Sad Puppies won’t bring them out from me. Calling us racists, homophobic, misogynists, or similarly will. I’m damn sick of it. Those words have meanings, and they’re being stripped of those meanings by using them to describe minorities of all stripes who stand with the Sad Puppies simply because they like different books.
Rand Simberg on Transterrestrial Musings
“David Gerrold” – June 12
..says Sad Puppies are a part of the SF community.
Well, that’s mighty white of him.
Philip Sandifer
“John C. Wright Has Just Advocated For My Murder” – June 12
In the comments over at Vox Day’s blog, John C. Wright posted the following:
The first line is Wright quoting a previous post of mine. The second paragraph is him advocating for my murder. Because he disagrees with my definition of mysticism. I am, to be clear, not particularly scared by this. I do not imagine that John C. Wright will now be hiding in my bushes, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. This is empty, vicious rhetoric of the sort that Day and Wright specialize in – sound and fury that, while not exactly signifying nothing, is still clearly told by an idiot. Hell, if I were a woman blogging about the stuff I blog about I’d get half a dozen far worse threats a day. The threat itself is not a big deal.
https://twitter.com/evilrooster/status/609469558496325635
Doctor Science in a comment on File 770 – June 12
If any Puppies are in the neighborhood: *this* is what the conspiracy of Hugo voters you think has been going on for years looks like. Not covert conversations, not a sekrit batsignal telling us who the Approve Authors are this year, but a lot of people saying, “I just read this thing, it’s great!” and explaining *why* it’s great, with other people saying things ranging from “me to!” to “what are you, nuts?” to “meh”.
Edward Trimnell
“So why are they mad at Tor Books?” – June 12
The science fiction community is currently divided into two factions: For the purposes of our discussion here, we’ll use the names they’ve assigned to themselves: the Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) and the Sad Puppies.
* * *
The SJW faction believes that science fiction is primarily a vehicle of identity group politics. For the SJW faction, the ideal science fiction story would feature an angry feminist of color who receives a visitation from a band of transgender aliens one night as she is driving home from a Women’s Studies seminar somewhere in Massachusetts.
Over the course of many chapters, the transgender aliens explain to her why all of her problems result from white male exploitation.
The plot line is resolved when the angry feminist of color leaves her husband or boyfriend, gets a closely cropped haircut, and moves into a lesbian commune in western Massachusetts. (A closing monologue about the evils of the George W. Bush administration is optional.)
Jenn Armistead in letter to Library Journal – June 1
If the Sad Puppies don’t want to be conflated with the Rabid Puppies or called mean words like misogynist, perhaps they should have done a better job of explaining how what they were doing wasn’t a reaction to the “large” number of minorities who won the Hugos last year (Wilda Williams, “Set Your Phasers to Stunned: 2015 Hugo Nominations Stir Controversy”). Yes, it’s lovely that your slate also has women and brown people and that women and brown people were involved in creating Sad Puppies, but if you are going to claim the past winners didn’t deserve their awards but received them because of their gender/race/sexuality/whatever, you have to be very, very careful with your messaging, because it is going to tend to sound like you don’t like women/brown people/LGBT/whatever winning awards instead of white men.
The choice of the term Sad Puppies also doesn’t help your position. It was obviously chosen as a nod toward the anti-SJW [Social Justice Warrior] term, and it is rather disingenuous to claim otherwise. At the very least, your message was not received as it was intended. At worst, you sound like Gamergaters crying, “But it’s about ethics in game journalism!”
At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters. This is about a small subset of the sf reading population vying with another small subset of the sf reading population over a popularity contest. The rest of us readers will continue to read whatever we prefer. If we don’t see ourselves and the works we care about reflected in the Hugos, we’ll just go elsewhere.
—Jenn Armistead, Literacy Coordinator, Tulsa City-Cty. Lib. Syst.
Lela E. Buis
“Replying to intent” – June 12
As a mere short story writer, I’m coming late to the front. I’m just picking up on the issues here. I don’t know what Vox Day has against Tor, but it looks to me like he’s attacking the editors as a way to get at the organization in general. As a battle-hardened flame warrior, I have to say that it’s important to look at the enemy’s intent instead of what s/he says. Attacks can be shut down if you know what they’re really about.
John Scalzi? Just a guess.
Peter Grant on Bayou Renaissance Man
“Tor: the latest developments (or lack thereof)” – June 12
I wonder whether Tor’s and Macmillan’s lack of response to my letters, both public and private, is because they think I don’t mean it? Do they think I’m just ‘small fry’, not worth bothering about? Do they think my words are ‘a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing‘? Do they think I’m making an idle threat, or don’t have any support? Time will tell. I know what other authors and individuals in the SF/F community have said to me. Let’s see whether they back up their words with action. Whether they do or they don’t, I know what I’m going to do if the situation doesn’t change.
Sarah A. Hoyt on According To Hoyt
“Dispatches From Another World” – June 12
But one thing is to know it instinctively – and even then when I write about it, people email me to tell me that I am wrong and “paranoid” and yeah, one is always afraid – and another to have one’s nose rubbed in it in the form of a supposed adult saying with the simplicity of a 12 year old that the people who oppose her are “racist, sexist, homophobic” and “bad to reprehensible” even before the “poopy-head” level classification of “neo-nazis.”
Look, it is the fact that Irene Gallo is sincere and, in her own mind, fighting on the side of angels, that is shocking and scary. And it fits perfectly with what I’ve seen in the publishing world (other than Baen, natch) in my years working as a professional writer.
These people don’t live in the world we live in.
Most of us – well, some of us – went through excellent universities, and read voraciously, and were subjected to the barrage of media that projected the same mental picture Ms. Gallo has: the left is eternally right (when they were wrong, their mistakes – like segregation – are now attributed to the right) and the future is a bright socialist utopia (really communist, but we’ll call it socialist so as not to scare the squares) and anyone who stands against it is an evil right winger, a fascist, a neo nazi and by definition racist, sexist, homophobic.
Natalie Luhrs on Pretty Terrible
“Links: 06/12/15” – June 12
Has there been any more fan writing about this? I’d really like to read more fan perspectives as I work my way through the giant pile of angry thoughts I have about this. I feel like the fan perspective is important, for a lot of reasons: first of all, most of us are doing this because we actually do love the community and most of the people who make up the community. Second, we often have more at risk: fan labor is almost by its very definition free labor, we have smaller platforms, and what happened to Irene Gallo is chilling across multiple axes.
I stand in solidarity with Irene Gallo. I respect the hell out of her and her work and I think she is doing amazing things with art direction. She makes an incredibly difficult job look effortless and easy. And publicly chastising her for what she said on her personal Facebook page was wrong.
Robert Sharp on Medium – June 12
It is now time for a “personal opinions” icon. Millions of people like Irene Gallo could add the symbol to their personal social media accounts. Ideally, the symbol would link to some standardised “these are my personal views” text that would insure both the individual and their employers from being dragged into something that should not concern them.
What would such an icon look like? That is a challenge for graphic designers. It needs to work at extremely small resolutions. My initial idea was simply a shape with a letter ‘p’ in it, but that does not translate across cultures. Perhaps a speech bubble with a face or head inside?
I urge designers to take up this challenge.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF, by Ken Burnside” – June 12
This is easily the best of the Best Related Works Hugo nominees. Burnside lays out what thermodynamics really mean for military actions and combat in space, at least if you are writing “hard” sf, intended to be based in scientific reality.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Letters From Gardner: A Writer’s Odyssey, by Lou Antonelli” – June 12
The memoir portions are perhaps less fascinating than Antonelli imagines. It’s a bit of a slog to get to the first few little notes from Dozois, which, while obviously highly encouraging to a new writer for whom any personal comment from an editor, especially one as notable as Dozois, are in themselves very ordinary. They just do not have the thrill for the reader that they would obviously and appropriately have had for Antonelli when he received them. What’s hard to understand here is the lack of the most basic proof-reading and copy-editing. There are errors of tense and number, but always when the error is just one letter, suggesting a typo that a spellchecker wouldn’t catch, and a human eye didn’t catch. There are dropped words that momentarily bounce the reader out of the narrative. And it’s not just one or two instances; it keeps happening. It’s as if Antonelli relied too heavily on his newspaper-honed ability to produce readable copy on short notice, and didn’t think he needed an editor, or even a proofreader. The danger of that is that after you’ve spent too much time with your own prose, you see what you meant to type, not what you really did type. It’s an unwise choice that weakens even the best work. All in all, I can’t see this book being of real interest to anyone except Lou Antonelli’s devoted fans. A “Best Related Work,” it is not.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Riding the Red Horse, by Tom Kratman (editor), Vox Day [Theodore Beale] (editor)” – June 12
Unfortunately, it’s a very uneven collection. It includes the very good The Hot Equations, by Ken Burnside, and the very disappointing Turncoat by Steve Rzasa. There is, early on, a casual endorsement of the probable “necessity” of genocide on the grounds that Those People aren’t smart enough to modify their behavior. A point Beale’s fans will have difficulty with is that such inflammatory language makes it less likely that readers will take in the point the author was attempting to make. A better editor would have caught it and told the author to dispense with pointless provocation and just make his point.
Lou J. Berger on Facebook – June 9
As David Gerrold proposed, WorldCon in Spokane this year will be a party, a place to revel in our shared love of Science Fiction, a place to be inclusive and supportive of one another.
Remember, we are ALL Science Fiction!
I’ll be passing these badge ribbons out to whomever asks for one at Sasquan.
Lou J. Berger on Facebook – June 11
#?WeAreALLSF
The hashtag is gaining momentum, and if you agree that Science Fiction has been sundered, but believe we can repair the situation, please consider sharing the hashtag, along with a short paragraph or so of WHY you agree that re-unification of the various factions is vital….
There’s LOTS of room for all of us in the field of Science Fiction. Hijacking ballots, or dismissing milSF as “not real SF” says more about the person stating it than about the field at large.
We are ALL Science Fiction, and we’ve taken this genre from pulp to mainstream.
Let’s put down our scathing vitriol and find a way to support each other.
We are ALL Science Fiction.
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Thanks, Lori. I don’t particularly like dance or heartbreaking books though 🙁 Any recs for a more cheerful book by SR?
David M. Klaus: What bothers me is that the definition of “hyperlexia” (the most clear and obvious “symptom” of which is a self-taught ability to read while at a pre-Kindergarten age) considers that early-age ability a deficit.
Wow. I’m stunned to hear that early, self-taught reading is considered a “deficit”. That’s kind of appalling.
My mom told me once that I didn’t speak until the age of 3. I asked her if she was worried that I might be developmentally disabled. She mumbled something about having been “a bit concerned”. I asked her what happened. She said that one day, when I was around three years old, I finally just started talking — in complete sentences. Shortly after, that, she had my older sister bringing home books from school for me because I refused to read the “baby” books any more. I was reading adult novels by the age of 7 or 8.
And yes, there were lots of words I later had to retrain myself on, because I’d made up my own pronunciation, since I’d never heard anyone say them. In junior high and high school, I frequently got accused of talking fancy as part of being a “showoff”. I was mystified by that accusation; it was just how I talked. I didn’t realize that a lot of people, in real life, didn’t actually speak as articulately as the people in the books I was reading.
I worry what sort of suppressing they’re doing to kids who are “diagnosed” with hyperlexia.
I don’t know if it’d be Ann’s sort of thing, and it’s not SFF, though it’s by a very good SFF writer. But MOLOKA’I by Alan Brennert is one of the most positive, life-affirming works I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.
Fair warning: it’s set in a leper colony.
I do love dance so I made a note of that one, even though I wasn’t the intended target. 😀
Mark wrote:
Some days ago I was asked if The War in Heaven was the Vox Day book-which-abruptly-ended-halfway-through-the-story which I read.
I can now confirm that it was not.
The plot as reviewed does remind me of Fallen, the utterly-weird-theology ABC Family Channel mini-series produced by an ex-Buffy writer — it had its moments but was mostly forgettable — except that Lucifer was portrayed by Bryan Cranston which is a bit of a hoot since that was before Breaking Bad.
Amusingly, Cranston’s Lucifer was a much nicer person than Cranston’s Heisenberg, which makes you wonder who *really* is the Lord of Hell…?
Lucifer? Or Heisenberg?
Alan Brennert! Yes! And he has written sf/f. He’s got a novel, Time and Chance, in which the version of the protagonist who went off to Broadway to become an actor and the version who stayed home in the small town and became (if memory serves) a teacher get to trade places for a while. It’s like a really good Twilight Zone episode. And, ooh, it’s in print again!
He’s also got an out-of-print short story collection, Her Pilgrim Soul and Other Stories. The title piece, “Her Pilgrim Soul”, was made into one of the best episodes of the New Twilight Zone series; a holography researcher finds that a woman has reincarnated in his chamber. It and the other stories in the collection are deeply humane and heartwarming.
(He also did a neat Batman one-shot, Batman: Holy Terror, not to be confused with a similarly named Frank Miller piece; it’s set in a world where the Puritan Commonwealth never got overthrown and Bruce Wayne is a tormented candidate for the priesthood.)
Brennert’s KINDRED SPIRITS is also SFF, it’s essentially a romance between young ghosts.
Oh, and if you haven’t read his other comics, HOLY TERROR, while good, is not in the top tier of them. I’ve been bugging DC to collect all of his comics work for then into a book; it’s all fit into one excellent volume.
Kurt, I hope you will feel the compliment intended when I say that “The Nearness of You” felt like a wonderful companion to Brennert’s Deadman/Supergirl story.
Maximillian on June 14, 2015 at 3:06 pm said:
That … must have been a bit confusing. And then really spoilery.
.
Jamoche on June 14, 2015 at 4:23 pm said:
Your mother taped baconlabels to the cat?
I spent two weeks in St. Petersburg, Russia. Oh. My. God. I have no memory of being illiterate. Even in countries where I cannot understand a word of the language, I can at least clumsily sound out words or recognize them at train stations or on maps or subway stops.
St. Petersburg freaked me out. I vowed never again. On the plane home, there was a six page article on the Greek Olympics. “Oh, let’s go!” says my wife. “What part of ‘never’ don’t you understand???”
Bruce —
I take any comparison to Alan Brennert as a compliment. I’ve told him directly that ASTRO CITY probably wouldn’t exist without “Time, See What’s Become of Me” and various of his other comics stories.
Mark wrote:
I knew what these words were and what they meant far into the left side of that scale (“robot” in elementary school), and I’d hazard most of the File 770 readership did, too.
I remember being surprised the first time some of my relatives used “clone”, “starship”, “teleportation”, and similar words correctly, as it meant that the words had entered mundane culture.
I suspect new science-fictional concept words such as “genderfluidity” will enter mundane use more quickly, as the — call it “science fictionification” (there’s a phrase Forry Ackerman would have loved) — of mundane society progresses.
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was prophetic when he said “We live in science fiction.”
@Kurt Busiek
I missed the last couple of posts, and for a brief horrifying moment thought this was regarding Miller’s Holy Terror as opposed to Brennert’s.
::shudder::
Snowcrash, Kurt and I have a lot of good things to say about a lot of Miller stories…but not that one. 🙂
@Meredith
They may not be exactly what you’re looking for, but court politics and manners play a large role in many of Guy Gabriel Kay’s historical fantasies, and I would solidly recommend them. River of Stars and Under Heaven are both set at the end of dynasties in his version of China; the Sarantine duology is set in fictional Byzantium; and my personal favorite, The Lions of Al-Rassan, is set right before the reconquest of Spain.
Jack Lint wrote, quoting me:
SMoFs are every bit as real as the Illuminati.
I like it inside, thank you.
“The purpose of 6,000 years of human civilization is to keep the great outdoors, outdoors.” — J. Geoffrey Pruitt
@LunarG
Thanks, I’ll check them out!
@Ann Somerville
If you don’t mind YA, I recommend Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch for life affirming, or at least generally positive reading. And Libba Bray writes a madcap and ultimately uplifting novel about Mad Cow disease in Going Bovine. Also Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo, Jo Walton’s Among Others, and call me crazy, but maybe even Sheri Tepper’s The Family Tree? It is Tepper’s being playful…
Where would y’all recommend starting with Heyer? I’d read either romances or mysteries, and so many if you who like her have tastes that overlap mine significantly…
LunarG, thank you 🙂
@LunarG
I liked The Masqueraders and The Corinthian best. 🙂 I’m afraid I haven’t read any of the mysteries.
Meredith on June 14, 2015 at 3:54 pm said:
My experience is similar in that I don’t remember not being able to read. I’m oldest, so my parents didn’t really understand that my experience wasn’t that usual until my sister, 2 years younger, didn’t learn to read until she went to school. Luckily she didn’t have any problems to overcome. Unfortunately my brother, 8 years younger, is moderately dyslexic and wasn’t even diagnosed until years after he’d dropped out of high school at 16.
@junego
Yes, my sister was lucky, her diagnosis was fairly early on. We knew a few families who’d not found out until there was considerable catching up to do, some of whom we knew through the home education circuit because they’d had to pull their kid out of school to give them the intensive tutoring they needed to get back on track with reading and writing (which not all families are able to do). My mother is a librarian in secondary schools (age 11-16/18) and way too many children turn up every year without being able to read either at the right level or at all, and it really hurts their ability to participate in their education.
“Maximillian on June 14, 2015 at 3:06 pm said:
@Ultragotha “Oh, and for Heyers Fans into SF, try Komarr and then A Civil Campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold”
It was the other way around for me.
That … must have been a bit confusing. And then really spoilery.”
*boggle*
*double-take*
Oh! No, I meant that I read Civil Campaign and was inspired to go find Heyer, as opposed to a Heyer fan who found Bujold. 😉
@ RedWombat,
It’s clear to me that 2013 shook some things up in ways more permanent than some of the prior controversies in fandom related to artistic tastes. My contention was with Gerrold suggesting that sci fi fandom was not only merely cliquish, but still all are welcome.
I think things have escalated beyond mere cliques. And I think there’s quite the ammunition that not all may be welcome.
We can read one leaked document dump of SFWA forums or another — by SFWA members who apparently had no respect for confidentiality — and the same groups of people railing on about the same other groups of people. Mind you the issues of 2013 weren’t Hugo nomination slates per se. But certainly they centered on the “old” sci fi/fantasy versus the “new.” These are very general terms; but include the same or similar terms that form the basis for Correia’s original Sad Puppy drive, and that have evolved as new stewards of Sad Puppies 2 and 3 got to add their own character to the movement.
What strikes me about the connections are that I can see Making Light threads from 2013 railing on about Vox Day — then it was his presidential run, or his response to Jemisin’s Continuum calling out. I can see Brad Torgerson complaining how the more pulpy sci fi was being pushed out; this was in the context of the Bulletin cover issue.
I mean, when all the same people are debating about all the same things, I wonder one can feel there’s not any relationship. Now enter 2015 Hugo controversy.
If we talk cliques in sci fi, then SFWA can be said to have its fair share. That’s the entire basis for Mary Robinette Kowal telling the twelve rabid weasels to shut the “f—” up and just leave. And that’s a good example of the nature of civility. Another poster noted that one of the twelve rabid weasels would much rather like someone to be uncivil and tell them the truth — tell them straight up to shut the “f—” up — than to be mealy mouthed and dance around something. But that’s quite a bit different, actually. MRK didn’t name them by name, so there’s no way for that to apply. That’s fine when everyone, including bystanders and watchers (you know, us, people at places like File770) in fandom knows of that specific person’s desires, or when the communications between them is kept confidential. But, I think the problem is now is that people are being very public in their outrage and as well as not being civil, as well as not telling the truth about that incivility. Probably just some recent examples of that in play are the corrections of the record included in The Message from Tor reacting to Gallo. Or the Entertainment Weekly multiple retractions. When everyone thinks it’s okay to tell each other to shut the “f—” up, then what level of dialogue is there going to be? And just because that conversation took place in the “SFWA” room, doesn’t mean it’s not carried over when those same people leave that room and walk over to, say the Hugo room. I don’t think relationships work that way. And I’m sure the “cliques” have longer memories and also that transcend organizational limits.
I hope that better explains my thought.
Silly But True
@LunarG The Grand Sophy is wonderful, or, if you want a bit more history in the mix, An Infamous Army.
Thanks, Meredith!
Silly But True, you’re basically seeing what you expect to see – a tightly coordinated clique stamping on stuff you like/approve of – rather than what’s there. In particular, you’re assuming that it’s innately illegitimate to respond critically to people who are abusive and disruptive, particularly when they proclaim themselves hostile to an organization’s purpose and/or unwilling to tolerate the presence of members with other views. This will necessarily lead you into strange waters, as it already has.
My new favorite moron is the guy who has decided that Tor is why there hasn’t been a Worldcon in New York City since the late 960s.
1960s, gah.
@David K. M. Klaus: “Amusingly, Cranston’s Lucifer was a much nicer person than Cranston’s Heisenberg, which makes you wonder who *really* is the Lord of Hell…?”
The world will never be sure.
Nick Mamatas: My new favorite moron is the guy who has decided that Tor is why there hasn’t been a Worldcon in New York City since the late 1960s.
Because… if Worldcon was held in NYC it would be blindingly obvious that Tor is actual the Grand Orchestrator of a Sekrit SJW Hugo Cabal, and they don’t want anyone to figure that out?
I’m not getting the guy’s “logic” here. o_O
His guess is that Tor editors like traveling so wouldn’t book Worldcon in their own neighborhood. How else might they get to see scenic..Philadelphia, or Baltimore, or Boston? (I mean other than a $25 Chinatown bus.)
It goes without saying, I’d hope, that there hasn’t been a Worldcon in NYC since the 1960s because hotel and convention center space in NYC is outrageously expensive.
Silly But True: I hope that better explains my thought.
That was an illogical, incoherent mess.
If you want to have another go at explaining 1) what point(s) you are trying to make, and 2) the list of evidence you are citing to back up that point — and do so in a logical manner, using sequential reasoning, complete sentences, and paragraph breaks, I’d be willing to try reading it.
Nick Mamatas: His guess is that Tor editors like traveling so wouldn’t book Worldcon in their own neighborhood. How else might they get to see scenic… Philadelphia, or Baltimore, or Boston?
Oh, this is almost as good as the conspiracy theory about File770 and Unix permissions.
Whoever pointed out that VD was using his commenters to bolster his own perception of his intelligence as compared to the rest of the world was dead on target.
Hell, these people are making me feel like a Rocket Scientist.
@Bruce Baugh,
“In particular, you’re assuming that it’s innately illegitimate to respond critically to people who are abusive and disruptive, particularly when they proclaim themselves hostile to an organization’s purpose and/or unwilling to tolerate the presence of members with other views.”
I think you are wrong on all of those counts. I think it is perfectly legitimate to level critical response. However the likes of Gallo’s criticism is not critical; the same type of criticism leveled by Entertainment Weekly was not critical. When those responses have to be retracted and corrected, or rather don’t even reflect the reality of that criticism, that’s where I draw the line at legitimacy or not. We can agree or not with someone’s position on something, but criticism of it should be based on it, not strawmen or lazily hashed surrogates.
And it’s obvious that those types of attacks have been the norm, rather than much of anything that could pass for any reasonable criticism for quite a while.
After seeing what passes for professionalism between colleagues, and between fans towards each other and towards writers, I am more than less willing to give Correia the benefit of the doubt on his experiences.
And again, I don’t think your final point is all that fair to Larry or Brad or any of the Sad Puppies at all.
I’d also tell you the water’s fine, come on.
Silly but True
Thanks, Maximilian! Suggestions noted… Looks like my best bet will be combing local used bookshops. I can do that.
@ULTRAGOTHA: “Your mother taped baconlabels to the cat?”
Ha, she’d have been such a trendsetter if only she’d known.
Silly But True, thank you for trying to clarify. I admit, I don’t entirely follow, but it’s clear you feel there’s a connection.
I’ll ask, though, do you believe that things like Torgersen screaming Fuck You in all caps and hurling insults is contributing to civil discourse? And can you understand how those of us who went from “which one’s Brad?” to being so screamed at would perhaps feel less than kindly toward him and his fellow travelers?
@RedWombat,
It’s not without some context. That came in June 2015 in response to the revelation that an Assistant Publisher of Tor.com and Creative Director of Tor Books slandered him, and coming after months of the same horrible narrative exemplified by the Entertainment Weekly hit piece, which pretty much showed the lows to which people with an agenda would go to in an attempt to cement a false narrative about his Sad Puppy effort. It’s months after Chu and a bunch of others dismissed his wife as a shield in a horrible show of racial antics that really mired Torgersen’s opposing side in places where no one should reasonably go.
All of that said. Yes, I think he was wrong to lose his cool. He’s the one at the top of Sad Puppies III, and it does fall on him to do the heavy lifting. I will say, the terms he used are as wrong as Mary Robinette Kowal while in her role as an SFWA officer getting fed up as the basis for then telling the Twelve Rabid Weasels to shut the “f—” up. Although I think it Torgersen’s case, the attacks were much, much worse, and much, much personal rather than just over getting repeat grievances from some crotchety old writers.
But, yes. He was wrong.
Silly But True
It’s not without some context. That came in June 2015 in response to the revelation that an Assistant Publisher of Tor.com and Creative Director of Tor Books slandered him, and coming after months of the same horrible narrative exemplified by the Entertainment Weekly hit piece, which pretty much showed the lows to which people with an agenda would go to in an attempt to cement a false narrative about his Sad Puppy effort. It’s months after Chu and a bunch of others dismissed his wife as a shield in a horrible show of racial antics that really mired Torgersen’s opposing side in places where no one should reasonably go.
You know, pouring out complete bullshit like this to people who know the actual stories you are distorting, misrepresenting, and lying about doesn’t really do much for your credibility.
Silly:
It’s not without some context. That came in June 2015 in response to the revelation that an Assistant Publisher of Tor.com and Creative Director of Tor Books slandered him, and coming after months of the same horrible narrative exemplified by the Entertainment Weekly hit piece, which pretty much showed the lows to which people with an agenda would go to in an attempt to cement a false narrative about his Sad Puppy effort. It’s months after Chu and a bunch of others dismissed his wife as a shield in a horrible show of racial antics that really mired Torgersen’s opposing side in places where no one should reasonably go.
No, actually, it wasn’t. It was in April at the MGC blog. Go ahead and look it up for yourself if you don’t believe me, it was very easy to find with just a few keywords. When you get the simplest of easily-checked facts wrong, how do you expect anyone to believe your interpretations of them?
Cough. Tor?
And not, say, the ridiculously high prices and tiny sizes of the hotel accommodations in the city?
>> It’s not without some context. That came in June 2015 in response to the revelation that an Assistant Publisher of Tor.com and Creative Director of Tor Books slandered him,>>
No, it didn’t. It was posted April 13, almost a full month before the Gallo post.
You also neglect to mention that Gallo’s post wasn’t “without some context,” either, but this is standard for you — you seem to want to portray the Puppies as provoked at every turn, but you don’t seem to want to point out that the Puppies were provoking people as well, and that Gallo’s post came after a great deal of demonization of Tor and its staff by the Puppies.
>> I will say, the terms he used are as wrong as Mary Robinette Kowal while in her role as an SFWA officer getting fed up as the basis for then telling the Twelve Rabid Weasels to shut the “f—” up.>>
Again, you’re asserting something that isn’t true.
Mary Robinette Kowal was elected SFWA VP in 2010. Rachel Swirsky was elected SFWA VP in 2012, replacing MRK. MRK made the comment you refer to in July 2013. And yet you consistently claim that she made it while she was an officer of SFWA, just as you consistently describe all things Puppy as provoked but never that they did any provoking themselves.
You’re either not doing any research when you make your claims or you’re deliberately lying to fuel a narrative. I’ll leave it to others to decide which.
@Silly But True:
You say Torgersen “was wrong to lose his cool.”
Torgersen never had any cool to lose. This was the man who *started* his hateful Puppy campaign by saying:
“Nielsen-Haydens, your fellow travelers, and media goombahs . . . I MOCK YOU! I MOCK YOUR ASININE INCESTUOUS CLUSTERFUCKED LITTLE CULTURE OF DOCTRINAIRE PROGRESSOSEXUAL MEDIOCRITY MASKED AS SUPERIORITY! You are all dolts. You are moral and physical cowards. You are without ethics, without scruples, and if you weren’t so patently pathetic, I’d say you might be dangerous.”
“Fuck you. Fuck you all. The forces of the progressive pink and poofy Xerxes were met at the Hugo Hot Gates, and repelled by a few brave dudes and dudettes with the stones to stand up to your bullshit.”
>> This was the man who *started* his hateful Puppy campaign by saying: >>
Uh, no. As mentioned above, he said that in April of this year, well after his hateful Puppy campaign was under way.
Thank you for that correction. I got my dates mixed up.
I guess that would be a sample of post-cool-losing, then, and less useful as an argument.
>> I guess that would be a sample of post-cool-losing, then, and less useful as an argument.>>
I’d think so, yeah.
Torgersen did start out very confident (or maybe not “start out,” since I haven’t seen the earliest posts), and has grown progressively angrier and wilder, so “losing his cool” seems to be a fair description.
Someone recently suggested that the Sads didn’t expect to have any greater success than last year, which is why Torgersen did such a slapdash job of assembling a slate, essentially grabbing the closest-to-hand stuff that fit the category. Which would explain why he slated such crap, and why some of it doesn’t even seem to qualify — he wasn’t paying much attention. And then Beale steamrollered the process and most of Torgersen’s slate got nominated.
The end result was that Torgersen may be embarrassed by the results, but can’t admit to it without admitting that it’s Beale’s victory, not his, and that he put up a lame slate out of laziness, which would both make him look bad and offend his pals. So he’s stuck defending something that was never intended to go this far, and which he can’t really defend on quality terms, so he defends it in emotional volume.
I don’t know if this is true, but it’s at least as credible as other suggestions, and more credible than thinking WISDOM FROM MY INTERNET was Hugo-worthy. If it is, I can appreciate Torgersen’s dilemma, but he dug the hole himself, and shouldn’t try to get out of it by blaming the people who told him it was a bad idea and didn’t vote for it.
But ah well. When you shoot yourself in the foot that badly, it’s generally unwise to reload and keep firing in hopes no one will notice what you’ve done.
Kurt Busiek: When you shoot yourself in the foot that badly, it’s generally unwise to reload and keep firing in hopes no one will notice what you’ve done.
And having subsequently emptied several clips into both of his feet, even if he started shoveling putty into those holes now, it would likely be years before they were all filled up again. And from what I can see, instead of looking for the putty tin, he’s reloading with the intent of shooting himself in the feet some more.
One of the most valuable lessons I ever learned was to admit “I f*cked up” and make amends as soon as I realized it, rather than continuing to deny it and digging the hole so deep that there was no way of ever getting out.
It hurts to admit it — but it ends up hurting a hell of a lot worse if you don’t.
Bruce Baugh wrote:
There are several Schismatic Catholic Churches listed in Wikipedia, all more old-fashioned or conservative than the current Roman Church, all with their own Popes and lines of apostolic succession. Some of the divergences date back to the 1960s and the Second Vatican Council, and refusal to change from the Latin Mass.
One does wonder why people insist on staying in a church which doesn’t share the values or communion as they do.
It could be that even though they disagree, as members of the Roman Church, they think they’re in the One True and Holy Church, and to change (even to a parallel Catholicism which was more consistent with the personal values they hold), would curse them to Hellfire.
I was scared that way as a boy, but eventually grew out of that childish fear.