aka The Puppy Who Mistook His Bark For A Hugo
Today’s roundup gathers together excerpts of Puppy-related thoughts from Mercy Pilkington, Paul St. John Mackintosh, Mike Glyer (who let him in here?), Deborah J. Ross, T.C. McCarthy, Kevin Standlee, Vox Day, Michael Kingswood, Tom Knighton, Lisa J. Goldstein, Jane Frank. Steve Davidson, Alexandra Erin and players to be named later. (Title credits go to File 770 contributing editors of the day Danny Sichel and DMS.)
Mercy Pilkington on Good E Reader
“The Sad Joke That Is the Hugo Awards” – May 5
Unfortunately, this year’s nominations have allegedly been shanghaied by a small collective of people under the name “Sad Puppies” and a rival group “Rabid Puppies” who are disheartened with the “touchy feely” decline of science fiction into a genre that allows gay couples and women who don’t have giant breasts to exist. The groups have garnered enough voting support to send their favorites to the top of the lists, then have seemingly been quite open about achieving their goals.
Paul St. John Mackintosh on TeleRead
“Locus Awards finalists show the power of open voting” – May 5
You’re either forced to assume that the liberal-left-loony conspiracy beloved of the Sad Puppies ringleaders extends across the entire internet – or that the SP promoters are just a bunch of histrionic opportunists who hijacked the voting process of a particular set of awards in the name of a particular ideological agenda. Which also makes you wonder what future history will make of the 2014 Sad Puppies Hugo list, if not a single one of them has made the cut in a more open ballot. Apologies to any fine writers besmirched by that comment, but in the circumstances, it’s understandable. And apologies too to the Locus Awards for casting their fantastic slate of contenders in the shade of the Hugos/Sad Puppies fiasco. All the same, people, compare and contrast.
Mike Glyer in Uncanny Magazine
“It’s The Big One” – May 5
Does The Award Matter? The award was forged as a weapon in the original culture war—the battle to earn acceptance for science fiction itself.
Isaac Asimov gave readers a taste of the mockery early science fiction fans endured in his introduction to a collection of Hugo–winning short fiction:
“You can imagine the laughter to which we were subjected when sensible, hard–headed, practical, every–day people discovered we were reading crazy stories about atomic bombs, television, guided missiles, and rockets to the moon. All this was obvious crackpotism that could never come to pass, you see.”
….Openly campaigning for a Hugo has long been culturally discouraged in fandom, however, that old–school tradition has not survived a collision with some other significant forces. Individual authors have been forced to shoulder the publicity burdens once carried by their publishers and one aspect of gaining attention is through awards – an approach discussed by Nancy Fulda (“Five Things You Should Know About Award Nominations”) on the SFWA Blog in January 2015. Furthermore, people steeped in the social media culture of constant self–expression and self–celebration have been conditioned to feel reticence is unnatural: Why wouldn’t they recommend themselves for an award?
Deborah J. Ross on Deborah’s Journal
“In Which Deborah Learns A New Word” – May 5
Normally, this is a politics-lite zone. Growing up in the ’50s with the McCarthy nuts breathing down my family’s neck has not endeared me to rancorous public discourse. I have, however, been following PuppyGate because I know some of the folks who withdrew their stories from the Hugo ballot and/or Puppy slate. The online debate has at times been pretty vile.
One of the few delightful things to come out of this mess is a new word: Puppysplaining. Akin to mansplaining, it refers to “Explaining to you how you really have no idea how completely wrong you are about your own lived experiences.” It comes to me from Gamer Ghazi. If it follows you home, you have my permission to keep it.
Remember: for the #hugoawards there's an IMPORTANT ballot for site selection in 2017; THIS MUST BE MAILED IN. Select DC17 as #1. #sadpuppies
— T.C. McCarthy (@tcmccarthy_) May 5, 2015
Kevin Standlee on Fandom Is My Way of Life
“Scheduling WSFS Business” – May 5
Because of a comment on the File 770 web site, I find that I’d better write about the subject of when the Business Meeting in Spokane will or might consider specific items, because it would appear some folks are taking this spot as the journal of record on such things.
( Parliamentary Neepery about Business Meeting SchedulingCollapse )
So it’s possible for the meeting to put off consideration of proposals until Day 5, the morning after the Hugo Award Ceremony. How could it do this?
( Agenda-Setting MechanismsCollapse )
I hope this explanation makes sense. It gets into a number of the finer points of parliamentary detail, but given the complexity of the tasks we may fact this year, I think it important that people understand what tools they have at their disposal.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Bi-discoursality” – May 5
The interesting thing about rhetoric is that it makes no sense to those who are limited to the dialectic. I didn’t fully grasp the way it worked until reading RHETORIC for the second time. It can be bewildering when people tell you that they have been convinced by something that you know can’t logically have persuaded them. In such cases, you know they have been persuaded by rhetoric, not facts, reason, or logic.
I wouldn’t expect an individual who only speaks one form of discourse to be any more able to follow me into the other than if I abruptly switched to speaking Italian or French after beginning in English.
For example, this was written for dialecticals. Rhetoricals only see “blah blah blah, I’m so smart, blah blah blah, Aristotle” and scan through it seeking to find some point of attack they can use to minimize or disqualify me. And if they can’t, that’s when they strike a bored pose or return to the snarky ad hom.
Michael Kingswood on Magic, Swords, and Laser Beams
“Myke and Brad” – May 5
Look, I’ve had to set fellow officers straight before because they were messing up. Mostly those junior to me, occasionally a peer, and once or twice more senior officers, up to and including my CO. It’s part of the job, and expected: forceful backup is a primary tenet of submarine operations. So I have no issue with one officer correcting another.
That said, there is a way to do that sort of correction, and I do take issue with the nature, style, and content of Myke’s open letter.
The entire letter is condescending, and lacking in professional courtesy or respect. Does he honestly think that Brad doesn’t know that, as an officer, he has a duty to all of his men, regardless of their personal situation? Or does he just think Brad knows but doesn’t care? Brad’s been doing this for a long time now. I think he gets it. And who the hell is Myke to lecture anyway? He doesn’t work with Brad, doesn’t serve with him. They’re not in the same chain of command, and neither has authority over the other. Has he ever observed Brad’s professional behavior? If not, he’s just speculating not even based on hearsay, and has no standing to judge or cast dispersions.
Tom Knighton
“An Open Letter to Myke Cole” – May 5
Dear Myke,
As a veteran who is now firmly ensconced in civilian life, I’m writing you to discuss your open letter with CWO Brad Torgersen. This is not to defend Brad’s comments, because there is nothing I feel like defending. Brad was out of line, and I think he knows that. One thing I agree with John Scalzi on is that being gay is not anything to be ashamed of, so there’s no reason it should be categorized as an insult. Thus far, we are in agreement.
However, you chose to address this issue in an open letter. In and of itself, this wouldn’t normally be an issue. Open letters are quite common in this day and age. However, you opted to do so as a commissioned officer who is addressing a warrant officer. This is where I must take issue.
You are a commissioned officer, a lieutenant in the United States Coast Guard Reserves. You are addressing a warrant officer in the United States Army Reserves. In essence, you are addressing a junior officer in a different chain of command. As you are an officer, one would assume that somewhere in your training, you were instructed in how to address junior personnel while counseling them in matters such as proper execution of their duties.
If you were, then I am quite sure that the Coast Guard instructed you similarly to the way the Navy instructed me in such matters. Simply put, you handle stuff like this behind closed doors. A private message, an email, something. You address it directly and privately and, if that doesn’t resolve the matter, you address it with his chain of command.
However, that’s not what you did. Instead, you opted to put your disagreement with Brad’s comments out in public. Again, had you done this as one writer addressing another writer, then so be it. You didn’t. Like most other things on your website, you couched it all under the color of your own uniform and did so publicly.
Font Folly
“Visions and Ventures: why I love sf/f” – May 5
As an adult, I’ve been attending sci fi conventions for decades. I’ve even been a staff member at a few. I’ve had some of my own tales of the fantastic published, even though most of my published stories have been in fanzines and other small semi-pro publications. I’ve had the good fortune to be the editor of a fanzine with a not insignificant subscriber base. I count among my friends and friendly acquaintances people who have been published in more professional venues, people who have run those conventions, people who have won awards for their sf/f stories and art, even people who have designed some of the trophies. Not to mention many, many fans. I have even occasionally referred to that conglomeration of fans, writers, artists, editors, and so forth as my tribe.
All of that only begins to scratch the surface of why I find the entire Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies mess so heart-wrenching. Yes, part of the reason the situation infuriates me is because the perpetrators are all so unabashedly anti-queer. For this queer kid, sf/f and its promise of better worlds and a better future was how I survived the bullying, bashing, hatred, and rejection of my childhood. To find out that there are fans and writers who so despise people like me that they have orchestrated a scheme whose ultimate goal is to erase us goes beyond infuriating.
Wikipedia entry on “Science Fiction”
A controversy about voting slates in the 2015 Hugo Awards highlighted tensions in the science fiction community between a trend of increasingly diverse works and authors being honored by awards, and a backlash by groups of authors and fans who preferred what they considered more traditional science fiction
Sappho on Noli Irritare Leones
“The flames of the Tigers are lighting the road to Berlin” – May 5
This year’s Hugo Awards have proved more controversial than usual, with the sweep of several categories of Hugo Award nominations by two slates known as Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies.
I don’t mean this to be a post about Puppies. If you want to know more about puppies, you can check out the blog of, well, almost any science fiction author right now, or Google “Hugo Awards 2015? and look at all the Puppy posts and articles. But the debate about Puppies raised a meta-Puppies point that interests me: the relationship between politics and art.
You see, two things are true, at the same time. The first thing: Art has always been, and always will be, political, and in the sense in which “politics” is being discussed here, politics can’t be extracted from art. The second thing: What Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns, and Money likes to call aesthetic Stalinism – preachy message fiction where the message overwhelms the story, and preachy reviews that evaluate books, movies, music, or other art solely on their political implications – is really, really annoying.
Where's my manly fun and why all the clerical aliens? More #hugoawards short story finalists. #hugogeddon http://t.co/8k10zNEU0O
— Spacefaring Kitten (@SpacefaringK) May 5, 2015
Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4
“The Hugo Ballot Continued: Short Stories” – May 3
The next story up is “Totaled,” by Kary English. English is the only woman to make it onto the ballot in the writing categories (short story, novelette, novella, novel) from the Sad Puppies’ slate, although another woman, Annie Bellet, made the ballot but withdrew her story from contention. Elsewhere the Puppies tout the diversity of their nominees, but their record in this slate is pretty terrible, at least concerning women who write.
Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4
“The Hugo Ballot, Part 3: Short Stories” – May 5
The story after Diamond’s is John Wright’s “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds.” Wright’s style here is deliberately archaic, in a stately, somewhat pompous, King James Bible vein, and for the most part this serves him fairly well. Every so often, though, he will stray from purple into ultraviolet and become lost to human ken. What, for example, is one to make of “All about the walls of the city were the fields and houses that were empty and still,” which seems to have one too many “were”s in it? Or a description of leaves as “wallowing”? Leaves may do a lot of things, but I’ve never seen one wallow. And then sometimes Wright will leave this style altogether and use words King James would have a hard time recognizing, like “sangfroid.” The effect for this reader at least is to be yanked, hard, out of the story.
[There should be a law that anyone who wants to write in this style has to read Ursula Le Guin’s essay “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie.” Sorry, no exceptions.]
Jane Frank on Amazing Stories
“The Artful Collector: On the Topic of ‘Puppies’ from a Former ‘Loser’” – May 5
And It’s not that attempts to skew Hugo outcomes have been solely the province of that literary set. Lobbying to get certain (overlooked) artists on the ballot has been attempted, as well. In years past I’ve been approached to participate in these efforts, to garner support (assuming I had such influence!) from other voters I knew, and get them to nominate one artist or another. I guess I was seen as the perfect lobbyist for such a cause, considering I was then selling original art for such well –known (but never nominated) artists as John Berkey, Paul Lehr, Darrell K. Sweet. To name just three . . that never enjoyed that honor during their lifetimes.
Not that such efforts would have been without merit, or weren’t well-intentioned. But even I – an outsider who actually never minded the objectification of women AND men on the covers of books and magazines (how else are you gonna get young men to READ, duh?) – knew enough to know that such lobbying was simply NOT DONE. Voting has always been an individual thing – and I never had any interest in influencing the votes of others. Indeed, I have always been able to act as has been suggested by others. That when I wasn’t familiar with the work, if I hadn’t read the story, if I never heard of the artist, saw the TV episode or movie, I just didn’t vote for it.
Steve Davidson on Amazing Stories
“OMG! That SJW Fannish Cabal is WAY Bigger Than They Thought!” – May 5
So lets get this straight. Locus Magazine publishes the final ballot for this year’s Locus Poll – a poll of the readers of science fiction and fantasy, one that costs nothing to participate in*, one that doesn’t require special membership in a special organization, a poll of the READERS rather than just a poll of those nasty liberal WSFS Trufans and Message Fictioneers, a poll presumably participated in by the folks who really count – consumers!, the ones untainted by the crushing weight of 75 years of special cabal-think (libprog, social justice creep), the Goodread and Amazon four-star-review-unless-we-don’t-like-you crowd, the great unwashed masses of REAL FANS(tm), the folks who supposedly believe that sales figures and best seller lists are the only markers one needs to confer awards, the readers who the Suicide Puppy Squad claim want nothing more than entertaining adventures (weirdly homoerotic broad chested man adventures at that) is published with NOT ONE SINGLE WORK BY A Puppy of any breed! (Thank goodness for super lungs!)
Aaron Kashtan on The Hooded Ultilitarian
“The End of Comic Geeks?” – May 5
This piece originated as a paper presented at the 2015 University of Florida Comics Conference. A slightly different form of this paper was incorporated into my lecture “Change the Cover: Superhero Comics, the Internet, and Female Fans,” delivered at Miami University as part of the Comics Scholars Group lecture series. While I have made some slight changes to the version of the paper that I gave at UF, I have decided against editing the paper to make it read like a written essay rather than an oral presentation. The accompanying slide presentation is available here ….
Now in other fan communities, the opening up of previously male-only spaces has triggered a backlash from the straight white men who used to dominate. The obvious example of this is Gamergate, where the inclusion of women in video gaming has led to an organized campaign of misogyny which has even crossed the line into domestic terrorism. SLIDE 6 A less well-known example is what’s been happening in science fiction fandom. In recent years, novels by liberal writers like John Scalzi and female and minority writers like Nnedi Okorafor and Sofia Samatar have dominated the major science fiction awards. SLIDE 7 When this started happening, certain mostly white male writers became extremely indignant that science fiction was becoming poiliticized, or rather that it was being politicized in a way they didn’t like. So they started an organized campaign known as Sad Puppies SLIDE 8 whose object was to get works by right-wing white male authors included on the ballot for the Hugo award, which is the only major science fiction and fantasy award where nominations are determined by fan voting. And this led in turn to the Rabid Puppies campaign, which was organized by notorious neo-Nazi Vox Day and which is explicitly racist, sexist and homophobic. SLIDE 9 And these campaigns succeeded partly thanks to assistance from Gamergate. On the 2015 Hugo ballot, the nominees in the short fiction categories consist entirely of works nominated by Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, and this has led to an enormous public outcry.
Alexandra Erin on Blue Author Is About To Write
“Sad Puppies Review Books: THE MONSTER AT THE END OF THIS BOOK” – May 5
The cover of this book promises a monster, which implies there’s going to be a battle. But there’s no battle. There is barely even a monster! Just some blue gamma male wimp who begs and pleads with you to stop reading the book on every page.
Looking at the obviously inflated Amazon reviews I can only conclude that a number of weak-willed liberal readers gave in to this blue cuck’s loathsome SJW bullying tactics and stopped reading before the disappointing reveal. Of course this doesn’t stop them from lavishing it with glowing reviews. These people care only about politics and demographics, not merit or value.
Well, I read it all the way to the end. The last thing you want to do is tell this red-blooded American he mustn’t do something or shouldn’t read something because I believe in the first amendment and I will read whatever the hell I want.
Discover more from File 770
Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.
( Dear Mr Glyeer, I come from country where internet is not wery stabile, so, since I got disconnected posting this comment, if it shows up twice, I would be gratefull if you would dispose of the duplicate, of your choosing, Thank you! )
To those who commented – I neither said that the book I mention is a Hugo nominee, nor that it is written by the authors the leading figures of Sad and Rabid pPuppies motly mention. Anyway, I do not base my reading around awards. I do not care for Hugo or Locus.
The most prevalent notion I got from all this Puppygate bussines is that there is a strtling amount of using SF for political propaganda and the likes, Hugo awards being the casuality in all of that.
As I mentioned, very few SF is being published in my country in the last couple of decades. For instance Heinlein you guys and gals seem to fixated on, got only Starship Troopers, which is what I read of him. Previously in the 70-ies, his Methusalem Children were published, and Citizen of the Galaxy serialized in the newspapers, but I have not read those two.
SF is not very popular, for instance the only SF book that got secoind printing is Hunger Games, to coincede wtih the movies, and the other two books did not sell too well. Scalzi and Stross have not been published, Docotrow I think had Little Brother, but likewise, no one read it. For couple of years publishers tried to promote SF but they printed Bujolds Vorkosigan series, but it did not catch, they gave up after two books, stopped Butcher series after the first one. I did not read any of that, as it did not interest me.
One of the biggest publishers printed Leviathan Wakes, did a promotion of the book based on upcoming TV series, with glorious blurbs from Martin, who is the only bestselling author, because of his retelling of European history with dragons. So I bought the book, reading the foreign reviews that stated the book is inovative SF opera, comparing it to Hyperion Cantos and Hockenberry books, and besides it was the only SF in the last two years, except Maze Runner books which I do not find interesting because YA romance.
Upon reaching a third of it, I realizaed with dissapointment that people who compared it to previously mentioned masterpieces, obviously have not read either them or the book they were reviewing. Tedious prose, characterization that is summed as I said earlier, and hillarious deus ex machina plot points. I googled to see about the second book, stumbled upon authors views regarding men, and nodded, yes, I was right. Also stupmbled upon Puppygate.
I did not get involved in commenting until now, since two years ago, I witnessed villification and vitriol thrown Orson Scott Cards way, and horryfing comments directed at him on forums, and decided that it is not worth my time or my sanity to reason with posters of such poison – I bought several of his books in hardcover as a sign of support.
I decided to post my opinion here after reading the comment about what has to be done to rabid dogs.
As I said I have no dog in the game, or what the saying is. I have not read much of SF, I dislike militaristic SF, urban paranormal dectetive romances, and the moment I see someone drawing anything from scabbard in alternative world populated with names resonant with names from our one, i blank.
If anyone told me mere ten years ago that the SF books I will enjoy the most in 2015 would be those originally written in 1911, I would laugh at that person and called him insane.
@Steve Moss: “What would you think of Jim Butcher being voted below No Award? Do you really think RedShirts is better than Skin Game? I don’t.”
However, Redshirts and Skin Game were never in competition. Different years. Even so: yes, I think Redshirts was better. Butcher entertains me for a while, but Redshirts did so while making me think, and the added layers make it – IMO, of course – a better book. (My favorite Dresden, I think, is Changes, simply for how it shakes everything up and tears Harry down until there’s nothing left. Even the title is a departure from the “X Y” scheme of the rest of the series.)
“Until I read Three Body Problem, Ancillary Sword (and its predecessor, Justice), and The Dark Between the Stars, it is currently in my top spot. I couldn’t find Ancillary Justice or Sword in my local library system (I won’t buy them), so I’ll have to wait for the packet to read them (and what I’ll do about Justice, I don’t know).”
I’m about to start on Ancillary Justice myself. The ebook is $4.99, but I believe it was cheaper last month in celebration of the sequel’s nomination. Still, five bucks is a lot cheaper than ten or (list price) sixteen.
I’ve been a Dresden Files fan since book six. I bought the last several in hardcover and raced home to devour them.
I just got Redshirts from the library yesterday. It’s the first Scalzi book I’ve ever read.
Yeah, it’s better than Skin Game. At least, so far, as I’m not done with it yet. Soon though!
And I really liked Skin Game. It was a very fun read, overall. But Skin Game is a bank job caper with urban fantasy tropes and a twist I didn’t find terribly plausible or well set up. What I mostly enjoyed about Skin Game was the chance to revisit characters I’ve grown to love and see what they’re currently up to (Waldo Butters!), which is the main appeal of an ongoing series.
Incidentally, anyone who thinks Redshirts is “literary” is smoking some good stuff. (Isn’t that one of the things the Puppies hate? “Literary” fiction?) As much as I’m enjoying it, I’ve had several nearly-overwhelming urges to get my editor’s pen out and attack the text. “A said”. “B said”. “A said”. “B said” STOP ALREADY SCALZI! The writing is fun, fluid, and gets the job done but it’s not even a little bit “literary.”
Nor does it need to be.
Anyway if there were a Hugo-worthy Dresden book so far I’d nominate “Changes.” And I would also support the idea of a separate Hugo for “Best Work In An Ongoing Series” as I do think novels like that are judged by different criteria than stand-alones or first works in a new series; in some ways they have an easier job to do as art, but in some ways a harder job, and they probably deserve a category in their own right. But I don’t think the lack of Hugos for serial works has anything at all to do with the politics of the author or the work itself — that’s nuts.
However, even if Skin Game were the peak work of the Dresden Files, I would not (and will not) vote for it this year, because it’s part of a slate. I’d be happy to vote for a top-notch Dresden book in another year that made it onto the Hugo ballot under its own power and not via rules exploitation. In my book, taking advantage of someone rigging a win for you is just as bad as rigging the win yourself. So, no.
Opus – ‘stumbled upon authors views regarding men, and nodded, yes, I was right. ‘
Which author?
Leviathan Wakes was no Hyperion but as a fan of the Expanse novels, I found my experience different.
Steve Moss- “Thank you for telling me what I “know.” Are you by chance my wife posting under an alias?”
Yes. Please pick up some milk and butter on the way home tonight.
I neither said that the book I mention is a Hugo nominee, nor that it is written by the authors the leading figures of Sad and Rabid pPuppies motly mention.
In other words, your opinion concerning the kinds of books nominated for the Hugo awards is entirely uninformed.
I googled to see about the second book, stumbled upon authors views regarding men, and nodded, yes, I was right.
Which author?
Steve Moss – ‘What would you think of Jim Butcher being voted below No Award?’
Forgot to answer that one. I don’t see a problem with it, I’m going to go that way myself. I don’t consider it in the top 5 of the SFF books I read in the last year or Hugo worthy and the only reason it’s on the list is because the puppies had their thumbs on the scale. As such I’d rate No Award above it, and as far as others voting that way or not, well that’s their vote to do with as they please regardless of what I think.
NickPheas @ 8:41 am
“And is that a Novellette or a Short story?”
That is my problem usually – I cannot classify a story into the categories if my life depends on it. I know what I like but there is no way for me to figure out where it fits unless if the publication tells me or if it is so short that it cannot be anything besides a short story. Locus lists the ones their team liked which catches most of the things I look for clarification on but occasionally I have this story noted from the previous year that is not there – and I am at my wit’s end to figure out where it fits.
I am half way through Skin Game and at this point there is no way in hell it is getting my vote.
I like Butcher’s books(I own pretty much everything he’s done) but Skin Game is an example of a problem a lot of long running series have. The stakes have to be continually raised, the Baddies have to get bigger, and the set pieces splodier.
Harry has already been in 3 major fights, has a gunshot hole through his calf, a broken arm, and a holy relic has been destroyed in the worst, fakest piece of writing I have seen in a while. The second half is really going to have to do something special to redeem this mess.
If Jim deserved a Hugo it should have been for the Codex Alera series.
Mr. Day, for me to care about how you feel, I would have to first know how you feel. There is only one truly qualified reporter on a given person’s feelings, and in your case, that person has proven himself to be both an unreliable witness and a bad faith actor. Your feelings are not only irrelevant to me, but on a practical level they are immaterial.
Your confusion over the matter of your growing popularity is easily explained by your ongoing inability to understand the scope and scale of the world around you. Yes, it’s true that the more attention you get, the more of the small percentage of the population whose views align with yours will find out about you, and flock to you. That’s what happens.
Anybody who caters to a niche as you do (or, for that matter, as I do) is going to have vast veins of untapped potential audience out there in the world. Well, “vast” from a certain point of view, as it’s still a small drop in a very large ocean when it comes to the marketplace as a whole. Not writing works with mass appeal means that the people who are hungry for what you write will be an appreciative and loyal audience, but it also means they don’t automatically know how to find you.
So anytime the spotlight hits you… yes, you’ll get some new readers, and some new actual loyal followers of your blog, along with the masses of people who are just there to rubberneck.
But for every person who rallies around your banner, dozens more recognize the repugnance of your views and actions, and know how to avoid them. Which, again, is the point of so labeling them. It’s not an ineffective rune being cast by social justice wizards against you. It’s a public service.
I am not so petty that I begrudge the fact that you might find a new reader or two who wouldn’t have otherwise known you existed if I never blogged or tweeted about you. As a firm believer in the long tail, I regard that as the system working: people who want to buy what you’re selling can simply go to you, rather than expecting everyone else to cater to their tastes and upsetting apple carts whenever it doesn’t happen.
Matt Y – As i understand there are two authors that comprise the pseudonimuos James S A Corey, I was reffering to posts made under that name. The views expressed mirror what I got from book – all women glorious, all men – Miller ( failure, stupid ) and Holland ( failure, stupid) and european looking villain, ( amoral, failure, stupid ), repeat to every other male character. Lets just say thing that make you go hmmm. I do not know what is the name of the asteroid belt dwelling in original, but that culture, obiously mirroring third world – wow, Earth, traditional culture ( minus obviously “enlightened” polygamist ) – blah. Not to mention disdain shown for Mormons, which I think is a insult to Card. Repeat everything listed ad nauseaum. I thought at one moment I was dejavuing reading Moving Mars, but Bear is much better writer.
The only way I am reading sequel is if in it Earth, Protogen and Mars combine forces and obliterate monstrosity on Venus and Holland and Butchers station, provided authors in the meantime wttended some creative writing workshop.
Even without the ‘slate factor’, I wasn’t going to read the Butcher, not least of which, I’m really not a fan of that type of fiction, whether it’s his, Laurel K Hamilton, Larry Correia or anybody else. I did like The Shining Girls last year which was more time travel horror but couldn’t finish the same authors Zoo City. Given I’ve been on panels with Lauren Buekes and she’s a great person, it really has nothing to do with the author and everything to do with personal taste.
I must admit that I am starting to think there should be less short fiction categories, simply because I’m not sure how many of us are actually reading much, and consolidation would increase the value of the award, and there should be some more Hugo Novel categories because the BEST HUGO should probably be focused on original stand alone works of SF&F rather than Book X in an ongoing series of Book Y or Z. I’d give an allowance for first books, and we’d need something to handle whether or not something like The Culture novels were in a series or all stand alone works?
And yes, I apply that as much to stalwarts of winning Hugos like Connie Willis and Lois McMaster Bujold as I do to the puppies.
Opus,
I too didn’t think much of Leviathan Wakes. Nor did quite a few people. Now for me that isn’t too much of a problem – I have access to hundreds of new titles a year and one or two duds isn’t terrible. But for you I can see how it is more annoying as you aren’t getting much SF in your country.
You mention vitriol and OSC – you have to remember that was a two way street. He started first and wanted (probably still wants) to fundamentally affect the personal life of more than a few fans. However this is not the time nor place to discuss that.
OK onto SF books. I take it you know about the books and short fiction some authors/magazines have made free to download and read? Stross’s Accelerando, Doctorow’s novels, Mike Brotherton’s Star Dragon etc. Also look on http://www.freesfonline.de/ for short fiction. That way at least you can find authors which match your tastes a bit easier. I don’t think I am comfortable naming authors as you have only given me things you don’t like not things you do, and anyway you are probably going to struggle to find them in your country.
Aaron, read what I wrote. Did I mention anything about Hugos? I expressed in post addressed directly at them, that I realised that claims made by leaders of both set of Puppies that SF is being used as a tool for political propaganda are founded, in my opinion. I wrote a clarification, where I stated that. If I had 40 dollars, I would not spend it on membership to vote for something on the Hugo ballot list, I would buy some books. As you see my example with the Card incident, I think that is really the way of showing support.
By the way, here is another point I think is relevant- I love gay villains. Baron, Oberst, Achilles, Blood and Musk, gay Arctic cannibals, Budenboum and Mouse, Lestat, and as much I can tell sicnnce this PC kerfuflle started they have been sorely lacking. Are there any books now graced with them to which you can point me, written by the current SF and Fantasy top writers?
It didn’t do that person much good, either. (I don’t think I was at that meeting, being just a peon rat.)
I have to say that it’s a lot faster getting the computer to do the arithmetic. Subtotals in Excel – a few minutes. Fixing the misspellings and the wrong categories, that’s harder. (I now have Frisbie’s collection of Worldcon paperwork. Six largish boxes, and the contents are probably only valuable to completists. Or historians.)
@Alexandra Erin:
And that, folks, is how one drops the mic.
Hey! Alexandria Erin showed up. I gotta say that review in today’s round up was masterful.
Daveon, are you an author? That’s probably a noob question, but curiousity dictates I ask.
If you can finish it easily in a single sitting it’s a short story.
If you can finish it easily in 2 sittings it’s a novellette.
If you can finish it easily in 3 sittings, it’s a novella.
If you can kill a gorilla by dropping a paperback copy of it on the gorilla’s head, it’s a Peter F. Hamilton Novel.
Fred Davis –
Or Neal Stevenson. My wife fell asleep reading (the *paperback* edition of) Anathem once and still has a bump on her head.
I see that some of my comments did not make through internet. The gay villains one did, and it is a joke which is now bereft of context.
Andydl – thank you for villingness to recommend books. Now the thing is, I am mostly beffudled about newer stuff, and now I am seriously vary of it in lieu of all this that has been going on. But I have stashed some Watson, Wolfe, Brin, Bear, McDonald, Yovanoff, McAulley, Hamilton, Vance, Kay, Le Guin, May, Lee, Straub, King, Barker, Saul, and some more which I found old paperbacks, some in english. There are more, I am not in a full view of bookshelf, and generally I collected it through years, but they are mostly from 80s or 90s. I was interested in new stuff, and Leviathan Wakes were so hyped and presented as the best SF today has to offer…
… and it is nowhere near Dune, Hyperion Cantos, Snow Queen, The Left Hand of Darkness, Startide Rising, etc…
Matt Y,
The problem with that whole thing from Mike is summed up by “science fiction had become pop culture”
No, it hasn’t. Film, television and gaming expression of SF elements have become pop culture. Some fandoms have gone the pop culture route in order to earn more money.
Traditional fandom and SF literature has not gone ‘pop culture’ and I hope it never does. The literature’s exploration if transgressive themes, the culture’s broad acceptance of ‘the other’ draws its strength and drive from its ghettoized sub-culture, and it needs those ghetto walks to retain those traits. Fandom – and the literature thrives on its internal perception of specialness, and this creates a creative environment that encourages the exploration if things that are most decidedly not ‘popular’. Going pop culture means inevitable dumbing down and homogenization of the ‘product’ (that’s how you get lots iffoljs to engage with the same thing. We don’t need that and, if we want SF to remain ‘something special’ we don’t want that either.
I was interested in new stuff, and Leviathan Wakes were so hyped and presented as the best SF today has to offer.
By who?
Our foolish publisher and the person who reccommended book to him for publishing. Though I should have been tipped by the translators silence on the book. He usually writes about books he translates, in advance, especially when they are of the literature of the fantastic, and he considers them worthy of reading. The other translator that works for the publisher and translates mainly Fantasy – he hates SF – usually goes on a long rants in which he advises people not to buy the book he is translating, if he deems it bad. I am conflicted to what approach is better, or more moral.
Steve Davidson – ‘We don’t need that and, if we want SF to remain ‘something special’ we don’t want that either’
Understandable, I meant more that it’s become accepted by pop culture not that in and of itself is pop culture. And with sci-fi there’s been some dumbing down in general, take some recent Sci-Fi movies like Chappie or Prometheus for example. There’s a mass market where it might get diluted a bit but there’s still always going to be a core of speculative Sci-Fi playing with subversive ideas. Part of the reason I love the genre is some of the completely bizarre out of the box thinking.
Some of it will probably be increasingly homogenized but the trade off will be more exposure and hopefully more interest from completely new weird corners of the ghetto as well.
Of note is of course that said publisher – in regards to SF and Fantasy – is mostly YA oriented. It is of course a running joke that they discontinued publishing Bujold, cancelled Abercormbie, WIlliams, Hobb, Reynolds and Kay series leaving them uncompleted and meanwhille printed in the complete and sold out Meade and Smith vampire novels. For years they have not tried anything adult oriented, and they now churned Morgan Kovach novel, and dropped out of publishing the rest, but I was not interested in it anyway, and Corey, the first two, hoping to get on the TV series bandvagon.
I’m still curious what the two writers that compose the James S. A. Corey personality said against men. They’re both men so that would be interesting to read!
Matt Y: “I’m still curious what the two writers that compose the James S. A. Corey personality said against men. They’re both men so that would be interesting to read!”
Yeah, I’m utterly amazed at the accusations that the men are all portrayed as failures and stupid. In fact, the men the commenter mentions are great examples of intelligent, flawed characters who redeem themselves.
I’ve got a very strong feeling that that translator is not terribly competent.
Matt Y – I have not seen Chappie, but I think Jupiter Ascending ( Boredom Descending ) is right up the examples you were meaning. The big budgeted projects were never going to get risque. I think the low budgeted, small circulation movies will be more bold, and interesting, but they will never get mainstream recogniton. I sadly see the same with the books in the future – big publishers could print something relly out there, from ana author who is established, sort of like giving it to his whim, but something bold and experimental – no.
One of the most famous novelists in my country, decided to publish a Horror novel, in the seventies or eighties, and later a SF novel. His publisher printed those books in paperback, the only ones to do so, and in the editieon meant for publishing westerns, romances and adventure novels. I talked with a woman who read them then, and she said people were shocked and outraged he would use his skill and art and waste it on such books. Irony is throughout the years they are his most popular and enduring works, and helped popularization of SF to young oaudience in the eighties. But, crap, kids today do not read, and if they do, have no patience for characterizations or play of stilistic figures… Crap.
Rick Moen: I’m a writer of literary fiction and science fiction who can’t make it to Helsinki. I would LOVE the chance to interact with you – and others like you – at the 2017 WorldCon business meeting. I’ll ignore the asinine ballot stuffing comment.
Opus – True, in that manner most big publisher and movie studios aren’t willing to risk a lot on bold and interesting, they’ll always settle for decent and popular. It’s where their money is, I can’t even blame them.
One thing that’s nice about self publishing now is an author could be in a contract and still self publish a bold new work and might be able to succeed with it.
It’d be interesting to see your thoughts on Hamilton! I’m not a fan of hers but having read a couple I can’t even begin to imagine how they might translate culturally.
JJ, The translator is the best there is. Literrarly. He is a go to guy if you want a translation that match the beauty and intent of the original prose. His translations made me fall in love with Simmons, McDonald and King. Besides, Corey goes to great lenghts to simplify its prose that suits to what I call pedestrian style of the thriller.
Every decision Holland makes is shown as stupid, and he comes on as a petty, pathetic pouty character, who needs constantly to be shown the errors and stupidity of his ways by Naomi, or Miller. Miller is explicitly called a failure, a drunk suicidalpsyhotic who changfes his morality on a whims, and makes decisions based on what plots various deus ex machinas writer needs to put in motion, Frank is amoral ass, with visions of grandeur, meanwhile, Naomi is perfect, Millers wife is perfect, disembodied female voice on intercom is perfect. Jullet is perfect even turning into a monster…
Matt Y – I meant Peter F, not Lurel K if that is what you meant. I like Peter F, What little I read of him, the first two books of his series, Pandora Star and Judas Unchained.
You know, I haven’t read the James S. A. Corey, so I can’t opine on the veracity of Opus’s observation that it displays misandry, I do know a big insult to men when I see one. It looks like this:
(From the Jane Frank excerpt in today’s roundup.)
Yuck.
VD: Because I’m a lot smarter than you are.
“The reason that the vaccine propagandist claim is correct is because there is also no scientific evidence that vaccines have not killed anyone or caused autism because there is absolutely no valid scientific evidence on the matter. Most of the “science” in the studies that are widely cited by those who insist that vaccines are safe are simply statistical reviews, which involve as much use of actual science as polling former Playboy models. In the very few cases where an actual scientific experiment has been performed, the populations compared have not been between a vaccinated group and an unvaccinated control group, but rather two different groups that are both vaccinated to varying degrees.
The vaccine propagandists defend the failure of scientists to gather scientific evidence by begging the question. They insist that it would be unethical to permit a control group of children to go without vaccination, due to their assumption that the risks of vaccination are significantly outweighed by the dangers of the diseases vaccinated against. Thus, they perpetuate ignorance on the actual safety or danger of the current U.S. vaccine schedule.”
[Vox Day, 6/3/2012]
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/06/06/quoth-vox-day-vaccines-are-killing-babies/
@CPaca:
“Smart” does not mean “wise”, “informed”, or “reliable”.
Opus,
Sounds like you are going through the same “fun” I used to be stuck in back in my home country – not finished series, translations issues (including in my case an editor that decided that the translation is 100 pages too long and cut it) and all kind of shenanigans. One thing I want to say though is that even the best translator in the world may be the wrong translator for a specific book. All that led me to switching to reading in English only if the book is an English original at some point…
You know – we need a Worldcon panel on translation – but not the “Get a few publishers that publish in their own countries and translate between major languages” (like the one in London) but “Get the fans/publishers/translators from the minority languages countries and see what is the experience there”. I am not sure how much the native English speakers understand that specific problem. 🙂
Opus: “Every decision Holland makes is shown as stupid, and he comes on as a petty, pathetic pouty character, who needs constantly to be shown the errors and stupidity of his ways by Naomi, or Miller. Miller is explicitly called a failure, a drunk suicidalpsyhotic who changfes his morality on a whims, and makes decisions based on what plots various deus ex machinas writer needs to put in motion, Frank is amoral ass, with visions of grandeur, meanwhile, Naomi is perfect, Millers wife is perfect, disembodied female voice on intercom is perfect. Jullet is perfect even turning into a monster…”
Well, then, the problem is either in the translator, or in the reader. That you’re not seeing the credited intelligence, or the redemptive aspects, is a clear indicator that somebody is missing something somewhere.
For that matter, I can recall a number of stories about brilliant scientists fooled by cheap charlatans because no one, no matter how intelligent or capable, is immune to having their blind spots exploited. And we all have blind spots.
@The thread in general.
Regarding Leviathan Wakes and The Maze Runner.
For a non-native speaker, the only overlap in languages that could possibly have this type of setup are Polish and Russian, with German being an outsider (given the language skills and internet availability within Germany this is unlikely).
Because I’m a lot smarter than you are.
The first lesson of life: there’s always a bigger fish out there, usually with sharp pointy teeth.
Back on the topic of the post where I am commenting on.
Mike, Thanks for the fascinating story about the Hugos. The old timers probably know most (if not all) of it and are tired of it. I do not. A lot of the newer kids on the block do not and have no real place to hear/learn it.
And a huge thanks to Kevin Standlee for all the work he is doing in explaining the rules and regulations to everyone. It is not easy to explain a complicated system in a way that does not simplify too much and still makes it accessible and any of the posts (including the one linked above) had been absolutely tone perfect. Understanding the fact that even the most trivial things that look like laws to anyone that knows the rules are in fact complicated is hard enough; managing to explain them is one one step higher.
And I’ve never heard the name Alexandra Erin before this post. Between the review and the subsequent post, I want to hear a lot more 🙂
I think there’s support for changing Hugo categories in recognition of the different word counts of what gets published now; on the other hand I would hate to give up categories like short stories. I’ve been rereading the Martin/Dubois anthology ‘Rogues’, one of the Locus finalists, and was reminded of how one line in a short story can make you immediately look to see what else the writer has done:
‘…I had been in that situation before, and I had been bitten by a previously undetected Chihuahua for my trouble.’
was enough to send me in search of Bradley Denton because it was so beautifully constructed. I won’t spoiler the next sentences but I would encourage anyone who hasn’t read ‘Rogues’ yet to do so. It’s on offer at Amazon UK for £1.48 which has to be the bargain of the year, so you forget the Hugo angst for a while and just enjoy…
TC, don’t be modest! You’re not just a writer, you’re a winner of the Compton Crook! That’s a prestigious award in the Washington/ Baltimore SF/F circles. And one of JABberwocky’s chosen few!
Of course, that being said, I was super disappointed to see you went full gater.
Opus: I was interested in new stuff, and Leviathan Wakes were so hyped and presented as the best SF today has to offer…
… and it is nowhere near Dune, Hyperion Cantos, Snow Queen, The Left Hand of Darkness, Startide Rising, etc…
Oh brother.
Opus, you are perfectly correct in what you say. You are totally incorrect in the inference you drawing from it. What you *should* be concluding is that someone gave you false advertising on “Leviathan Wakes”, which is a perfectly good workmanlike space opera, but nothing really special.
To give an analogy, you are comparing a piece of competent commercial art which someone raved over with the great masters found in a museum, finding it falls short of their standards, and thus concluding that the entire art world is at fault in its judgement.
Did I mention anything about Hugos? I expressed in post addressed directly at them, that I realised that claims made by leaders of both set of Puppies that SF is being used as a tool for political propaganda are founded, in my opinion.
The Puppy claim is that the Hugos have been going to undeserving books. You used a book that has never been nominated for a Hugo as somehow evidence that you agree with them. A book that was translated by someone who you say hates science fiction, and which, instead of reading in the original (as you clearly could do), you decided to read in a translation that appears to have lost almost everything about the characterization contained in the book.
In short, nothing you have written makes much sense.
VD sez: “we’re already labeled “misogynists” and “racists” everywhere” So, you mean you’re not?
I was surprised about my decision on gamergate as well but after researching the claims and counter claims, I was shocked to find out how many kind, transgendered, black, gay, Asian – basically people of all shapes and sizes – there are and how accepting they are of different world views. Once I realized this I realized that I had believed a lie: that they’re a hate group.
PiMMN: “Smart” does not mean “wise”, “informed”, or “reliable”.
Personally, I regard someone who writes a huge screed on the interpretation of statistics without asking whether he might be confusing correlation with causation as being pretty stupid.
But what would we know? We’re just rhetoricalicious. Aristotle!
TC McCarthy: I didn’t accuse you of ballot stuffing, and regret your having read my extremely offhand and somewhat cynical comment about ‘good ol’ boys’ as referring specifically to you, or as being an accusation. For all I knew about you personally when I said that, you might have been a Maine farmer or a New Mexico rancher.
I was just trying to imagine a reason for urging people to vote DC17 first, and I cynically came up with it being cheaper if you think you can round up a bunch of people locally in the USA and get them to attend. Calling such a hypothetical mob ‘ballot-stuffers’ is cynical, but my opinion if I want to see it that way. But note that I didn’t say you had ever stuffed any ballot box, not even using the most metaphorical sense of the word ‘stuffed’.
It isn’t actually isn’t true that DC17 works out materially cheaper, or necessarily cheaper at all, by the way. The attendee-expense numbers compare pretty closely between Helsinki and DC, as they also did in the 2015 contest among Orlando, Helsinki, and Spokane. I don’t know why so many Americans automatically assume leaving the country automatically equates to ‘significantly more expensive’, without bothering to run the numbers.
My wife Deirdre ran the 2015-bid attending-expenses numbers in two detailed posts to her blog in 2013. She will soon do so again for the current race, in the name of better information on this subject.
I think DC17 will be great if selected (albeit muggy in the extreme). And I’ll be delighted to see you there if it’s selected. I hope you can make any of the other three bids, if they get the nod.
Rick Moen
[email protected]
@Rick Moen: “I don’t know why so many Americans automatically assume leaving the country automatically equates to ‘significantly more expensive’, without bothering to run the numbers.”
I expect a good deal of it involves the added hassle of obtaining a passport, getting any necessary shots, and so forth. It’s not so much expense as inconvenience.