To Sail Beyond the Doghouse 5/19

aka Chronicle of a Slate Foretold

Hitched to the sled today are Spacefaring Kitten, David Gerrold, Vox Day, Jim Henley, John C. Wright, Jim C. Hines, Lis Carey, Martin Wisse, Chris Gerrib, Joe Sherry, Rebekah Golden, Bob Snyder, and the masterpiece of Brian Z. (Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editors of the day Rev. Bob and Kary English.)

Spacefaring Kitten on Spacefaring, Extradimensional Kittens

Unfisk / refisk / fisk² – May 19

All I know about smoking ruins is that if that’s to happen, Elric the Prince of Ruins will be pleased. Frankly, I don’t think that anything is truly lost in either case. A Puppy-sponsored work getting a Hugo is not the end of the world and there have been weak winners in the past (and maybe all Puppy-nominated works aren’t that weak). No Award winning means that the majority of the Worldcon voters didn’t enjoy the works on the Rabid Puppies slate (plus the two or three additions that Sad Puppies managed to get up there on their own) and/or they weren’t ready to give in to a campaign of tactical voting, and that’s fine too.

I wonder who are the “CHORFs” Brad’s talking about there. Kevin J. Maroney hasn’t been suggesting that you should vote No Award over everything, slate or not. Neither has Teresa Nielsen Hayden, or Steve Davidson, or Anita Sarkeesian, or John Scalzi, or Karl Marx, or Barack Obama. I’ve been following the discussion rather closely and I remember reading one single blog post in which someone said that the voters should do a blanket No Award thing, and I think nobody was very keen on the idea.

Brad, is it possible that you’re exaggerating?

 

David Gerrold on Facebook – May 18

Coming back to a comment someone made here about “threats of ostracism” — no.

In all the articles I’ve seen, nobody has said, “We’re going to shun X, Y, and Z.”

Because … nobody in fandom has the power to lock anyone out.

But what is possible is that people will choose on their own not to associate with those who they perceive as toxic.

It’s not even an organized boycott. It’s just a personal reaction.

An example from the 70s: There was a C-list author whose behavior toward women was so creepy that when he entered a room, several of the women would quietly and discreetly excuse themselves and leave. He was never specifically ostracized — but individuals were choosing to spend their time elsewhere. That’s the most you’ll ever see in fandom.

And here’s how that works on the larger level:

There are opportunities that are occasionally offered to authors. You get invited to speak, you get handed an award, you get to be a Guest of Honor, sometimes you even get a lifetime achievement plaque. All very nice. But if you have a reputation for being hard to work with, and there are a lot of authors and artists who have that reputation — or if you’re the center of a major controversy, one that you created yourself — the organizers of those opportunities are going to look elsewhere for honorees.

 

Vox Day on Vox Popoli

“King Log or King Stork?” – May 19

The moment that the SJWs in the science fiction community decided they could exclude individuals from it (and whether the SFWA expulsion was technically real or not is irrelevant in this regard), that meant the open community concept was dead. The principle was established. Now we can exclude Eskimos, people with big noses, people with little noses, people who look funny, or people who smell bad; in short, we can openly exclude anyone we have the power and the desire to exclude. There is no longer free speech in science fiction.

There is no longer freedom of expression or thought. It is now a simple ideological power game and we are ready to play that game with extreme prejudice. There is no need for discourse. There is no need for dialogue, for compromise, or negotiations. There is nothing to discuss. They laid out the new rules.

They laid out the new consensus. We not only accept them, we’re going to use make far more ruthless use of them than they ever imagined. Once we were content to let the twisted little moral freaks do and think and say what they wanted, but now they have claimed the right to tell US what to do and think and say we’re not going to tolerate them anymore. We are the sons of the Crusades and the daughters of the Inquisitions. This is a game we know how to win.

 

Jim Henley on Unqualified Offerings

“The Puppies of This Generation and the Trainers of Ever Afterwards” – May 19

What occasioned considerable jocularity in comments was Wright’s statement that

For the record, I write literary fiction…

People laughed at this because many of them have read Wright’s stories and/or essays and found them to be bad. But I have no problem with Wright’s claim whatsoever. Not because I think his stories and essays are actually good. I haven’t read them. People who seem to be acute readers have found his Hugo-nominated work wanting or worse, but even if, as I suspect, they’ve got it right, I still have no problem with Wright calling his own work “literary fiction.”

 

John C. Wright in a comment on File 770 – May 19

I notice this debate consists of two points, endlessly repeated: We say that for which we stand, what our goals and methods and motives are, publicly and repeatedly. The enemy pretends we said something else and that are motives are whatever impure and horrible impulse happens to be at hand. We state that we said what we said and that our motives are what we said. The enemy pretends we did not say it. And repeat.

Now, just as a matter of logic, who has access to knowledge about our inner secret motives? How did we communicate our goals to each other and to our voters aside from public statements of our goals?

 

 

Jim C. Hines

“Hugo Thoughts: Short Fiction” – May 19

No Award will be scoring pretty high in this category. That doesn’t mean I think all of the stories are bad. (Though I don’t think they’re all good, either.) But it’s one thing for a story to be competent or interesting or fun. It’s another thing for that story to be award-worthy, for me to consider it one of the best things published in the past year. Four of these stories don’t clear that bar for me, and the fifth I’ll have to think about a little more.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“The Plural of Helen of Troy (from the collection City Beyond Time), by John C. Wright” – May 19

There’s a plot here, but time travel can make even a simple plot complicated, and Wright has no interest in people following the story. The nonlinear storytelling was a “feature” I didn’t need in a story where I already had difficulty caring what happened to the characters.

 

Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library

“Pale Realms of Shade (in The Book of Feasts & Seasons), by John C. Wright” – May 20

Based on reading all the other Wright fiction nominees, I kept waiting for this to go bad places. It didn’t. It’s a solid story that, given it is explicitly religious fiction, expresses beliefs and values that have a strong and positive resonance for me. It won’t work for other people for the very reasons it does work for me, and it’s not so good that it blows me away, but this is the first of the Puppy nominees whose placement on my ballot I will have to think seriously about.

 

Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words

“My gods it’s full of puppy poo!” – May 19

That gets you two of last year’s best novels and nobody will force you to read the Kevin J. Anderson. Many of the other categories are of course soiled with Puppy droppings you don’t want even if free, but there are some gems among the dross. Especially so in the Best Graphic Story category, with no Puppy nominee included and complete PDFs of Sex Criminals Vol. 1, Saga Vol. 3, Ms Marvel Vol. 1 and Rat Queens Vol. 1.

Though the Hugo Voting Packet should be seen as a bonus, rather than an inalienable part of buying a supporting membership for Worldcon, for plenty of people this of course has been the main benefit of membership, after getting to vote for the Hugos and all that. For those people this year’s packet is far from a bargain, despite the presence of the books listed above. Another reason to smack down the Puppies..

 

Chris Gerrib on Private Mars Rocket

“Hugo Packet – Thoughts” – May 19

Best Related Mike Williamson’s Wisdom From My Internet is everything the Amazon preview promised, namely random crap half-assedly puked into book format. Yeah, I get that it was parody, but I’m not amused by it. Antonelli’s Letters from Gardner is better (small praise indeed) but seems mostly an excuse for an anthology of Antonelli’s short fiction. No Award for the whole category.

 

Joe Sherry on Adventures in Reading

“Thoughts on the Hugo Award Nominees: Short Story” – May 19

“On a Spiritual Plain” / “A Single Samurai”: One thing that I found very interesting about reading through the nominated short works is that they pair very closely in my head in how I would rank them. Antonelli’s story of a faith (of sorts) on an alien world and a man trying to lead a human spirit to wherever “moving on” turns out to be. It’s a simple story, but cleanly told. The comparison between human faith and that of the alien is interesting. “A Single Samurai”, on the other hand, is a story of action, of one samurai taking on a kaiju about to terrorize the samurai’s land. There is a certain spirituality to the samurai’s thoughts and actions and an economy to the movement and pacing of the story. On a different day, I could flip my ranking of these two stories.

 

Rebekah Golden

‘2015 Hugo Awards Best TV Show: Reviewing Orphan Black” – May 18

I can easily see how the whole series deserves a Hugo and this episode definitely has individual merit.

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best Graphic Story: Reviewing Sex Criminals” – May 18

Well this one definitely captured the “graphic” part of graphic story.

Rebekah Golden

“2015 Hugo Awards Best TV Show: Reviewing Grimm” – May 19

It was good, it was entertaining but I’m hung up on the history of the Hugo Award and the depth of respect I feel for past winners. Grimm is good, and this episode is good, but it’s not that good.

 

Adult Onset Atheist

“SNARL: Turncoat” – May 19

For a story where there is so much happening there is very little going on.

 

 

Brian Z. on File 770 – May 19

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for Castalia House that day;
The score stood 16 of 20 with one story out of play.
And then when Kloos withdrew at first, and Bellet did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few turned off the stream in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought if only John C. Wright could get a whack at that–
We’d put up even money now with John Wright at the bat.

But Vox preceded John Wright, as did Bryan Thomas Schmidt,
Resnick already had 36, and Schubert, he had quit;
So upon that Evil League of Pups a pall was settling in,
For there seemed but little chance for John Wright’s editor to win.

Thomas Schmidt’s Kickstarter was still in its final surge,
And Vox, the much despised, had so far failed to reemerge;
And when the list was opened, and the pups saw what had occurred,
There was Resnick safe at second and poor Bryan hugging third.

Then from 5,000 pups and more there rose a lusty bark;
It echoed through the group blogs, it rattled Riverfront Park;
It blasted like a ray gun shining from the Golden Age,
For John Wright, mighty John Wright, was advancing to the stage.

There was ease in John Wright’s manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in John Wright’s bearing and a smile on John Wright’s face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No rabbit in the crowd could doubt ’twas John Wright at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he dipped his pen in ink;
The hoi polloi applauded as he urged them to the brink.
Then as Social Justice Warriors began to jibe and snip,
Defiance flashed in John Wright’s eye, a sneer curled John Wright’s lip.

And now the silver-plated rocket came from off the stage,
And John Wright stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy penman the trophy unheeded sped–
“Remember, nits make lice,” said John Wright. “No Award,” the Emcee said.

From Ustream, thick with puppies, there went up a muffled howl,
While Torgersen swooped in again like Weasley’s Great Gray Owl.
“BOO HIM! BOO THE CHORF!” shouted someone in the thread;
And it’s likely they’d have booed him had not John Wright raised his head.

With a smile of Christian charity great John Wright’s visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the show go on;
He signaled to the Emcee, and once more the rocket flew;
But John Wright still ignored it, and Mr. Gerrold said, “Strike two.”

“Fraud!” cried the rabid puppies, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from John Wright and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his fingers strain,
And they knew that John Wright wouldn’t let that rocket by again.

The sneer is gone from John Wright’s lip, his teeth are clenched in rage;
He scratches with hyperbole his pen upon the page.
And as Due holds the envelope, he continues to compose,
And now the air is shattered by the force of John Wright’s prose.

Oh, somewhere on the favored fen the sun is shining bright;
The filk is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere pups are yelping, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy at Sasquan –mighty John Wright has struck out.

605 thoughts on “To Sail Beyond the Doghouse 5/19

  1. I’m sorry. It was the pallbearers and hearse wagon upthread what done it to me. Now I have to inflict it upon you.

    The Slate of Vox Day-o,
    or,
    The Puppy’s Lament

    As I looked out on the slate of Vox Day-o
    As I looked out on his Puppy Dog Slate
    I spied a Great Author awash in high dudgeon
    A-shaking his fist and looking quite irate

    “I see by your outrage that you are a Puppy,”
    This words I did say as he came into view.
    “Indeed,” he responded, “come hear my sad story;
    If it makes you outraged, you can be a Puppy too.”

    “Twas back in my youth when we used to win Rockets,
    But no Rockets now are like to come my way.
    The field’s bloomed so full with affirmative action,
    You can’t win a Rocket ‘less your protag is Gay.”

    “But Wright,” said I, lowly, for it dawned on me slowly,
    It dawned on me that John C. Wright was his name,
    “You can’t be that hated; you’ve been nominated,
    “You’re on that there ballot five times all the same.”

    “And yet, see” bewailed he, “This will not avail me.
    For the Ess Jay Dub CHORFs, they go lying along;
    They’re playing the race card, they’re voting No Award,
    All ’cause I’m a Puppy and they think I’ve done wrong.

    “But go read my works, lad, read all my works closely,
    Then tell your dear fellows the truths that I’ve said–”
    But such was my disgust that it took me till August,
    And by then his hopes for a Hugo were dead!

  2. In [John C. Wright’s] Unwritten Code Post he wrote:

    “No, my rivals say my fans must be silenced not because of some unwritten code — that is merely one more in a long series of unconvincing and ineffective lies — but because I am a faithful Roman Catholic, who correctly calls sodomy a perversion, and suicide a mortal sin.”

    Mr. Wright, you claim to be a faithful Roman Catholic, yet you have gone against the teachings of your faith and sinned against me by bearing false witness and committing an offense against truth. http://www.scifiwright.com/2015/04/i-have-a-cunning-plan/

    Dear readers, I recommend bringing his call to violate the Amazon reviews system to Amazon’s attention.

    I have made no such call to “violate” the system.

    As for Mr Huaman[sic], I suggest he go back to drawing goatees and eyeglasses on the images of lingerie models from the magazines he keeps in his bathroom.

    Quoting from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a8.htm

    2481 Boasting or bragging is an offense against truth. So is irony aimed at disparaging someone by maliciously caricaturing some aspect of his behavior.

    I leave it to you and your conscience whether your words and deeds only constitute a venial sin, as it becomes mortal when it does grave injury to the virtues of justice and charity. Also see Matthew 7:3-5. Even Matthew 7:6, if just for the wisdom “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”

  3. Was woman in “One Bright Star To Guide Me By” named Sally or Sarah?

    Was President Nixon named Richard or Dick? Clearly just more evidence that the Lizard people are controlling the world and messing with history. /sarc

    For pete’s sake this was settled by HappyTurtle way back on page 1, continuing to harp on it just makes you seem too dense to understand the concept of childhood nicknames.

  4. ‘Nate May 20, 2015 7:32 PM
    Look at the Graphic Novel category. Its pure refuse. Its ejectus of the worst sort.’

    Jesus. They’re happy to crap all over their own slated nominee. No honour amongst Puppies.

  5. Brian, you know how much I love watching you work, but I’ve got my country’s 500th Hugo conspiracy to plan, my big fat SJW wedding to arrange, puppies to murder and Gamergate to frame for it; I’m swamped.

    Aaand because this sounded so familiar yet was maddeningly out of reach of my feeble brain this morning, I had to drop everything and Google til I was reminded of the reference.

    Well done, SIW!

  6. I may be in a minority here, but speaking as someone who grew up in a couple of relatively rough towns on the east coast, I have to yet to find any pub where Irish dockworkers spend their time discussing mythology. They tend, in my reasonably extensive experience, to discuss sport, women, foremen they hate, women, the weather, the best places to find good beer, women, sport… you get the picture. Mermaids, selkies, banshees etc just don’t get a look in.

    Well the narrator did say *sometimes*. Obviously you just haven’t been there on mermaids and selkies night.

  7. So now you want us to catch you up on the debates to which you have attempted to make a rather sanctimonious contribution based on yipping ignorance? Have you ever considered actually doing your own research, or would that be just too, too much to ask of your delicate Puppy mind?

    Where did I say I was a puppy?

    Of course when one is new to the pile and is sitting there, sort through the hay and needles and someone says, “there’s needles missing,” one shouldn’t be surprised that they ask for more details rather than condemning.

    Had you bothered to do even a minimal amount of work before asking for intellectual handouts, you might, for example, have found this:
    http://crimeandtheforcesofevil.com/blog/2015/04/since-some-puppies-are-deleting-things/

    Yes I know I frequently berate 1st graders for demanding intellectual handouts. I don’t even know why we bother with teachers, that’s just encouraging laziness.

    Of course I note that Torgersen and Correia were accused of deleting, but thanks to Owlmirror & jayn, it turns out that (so far), it’s only been Torgersen, and (so far as I can find), just one post. Even your link mentions only that for Correia, “This is untrue; there is a recent addendum.”

    since a) he replaced said post with a lengthy explanation of why he thought so,

    I looked into it a bit more and I noticed that the text to John’s preversion post currently is actually identical in all ways to another post from later April (april 9th in fact).

    In fact, looking at the wayback machine. The post was unchanged on the 8th but vanishes on 12, then 14, only to be replaced later by the 9th post. So one has to wonder if he hid something, or if wordpress messed it up.

    No discussion of John C. Wright’s “A Legend Perverted” would be complete with out mentioning the comments section where he condoned bludgeoning homosexual men to death.

    This I did searching on and while it was apparently changed in comments, the deleted section was: “that is the instinctive reaction of men towards fags.” Which I still can’t find any example of actually condoning any more than a scientist noting, “this animal has an instinct to eat its young” is condoning baby dining. In fact gathering from all the quotes I’ve seen from those of the opposite political persuasion of JCW talking about the heteronormative world and institutionalized anti-gay policies, it would seem he’s just agreeing with them there, only applying a different term set. If observation == condoning then does that mean feminism is now condoning sexist policies?

    This would make more sense if the narrator weren’t switching back and forth between them in present.

    You’ve never seen any emotionally charged scene where a character switches back and forth between a formal and familiar name as they plead with someone? Or for someone to switch between the name styles as an indication of how they’re feeling in the scene? Hell even the Star Wars prequels did that much with Anakin/Ani.

  8. @Happyturtle:

    @Owlmirror: Thanks for the tip to “When it ends, he catches her”. It was every bit as good as you said.

    I’m glad you appreciated it, but that wasn’t from me.

  9. @Challenger Grim:

    For pete’s sake this was settled by HappyTurtle way back on page 1,

    In my defense, the paragraph quoted made it look like the Sally/Sarah change was a one-off personal choice, not a common substitution.

    continuing to harp on it just makes you seem too dense to understand the concept of childhood nicknames.

    You seem to have missed the comment a little further down on the same page you are citing me from where I conceded that very point.

    *cough*

    It’s starting to look like that’s the standard operation of all sides in this debate. If everybody’s scanning, and nobody’s reading, then it’s no wonder nobody’s understanding anything. — somebody or other

  10. With all due apologies…

    There is a ‘ward in Sasquaaaan
    No Puppy’s ever won
    It’s been the ruin of many a poor CHORF
    And God, I know I’m one.

    My mother was an editor
    The words are in my genes
    My father was a writin’ man
    In the pages of the ‘zines.

    Now the only things a Puppy needs
    Are a story and a slate
    But the readers are not satisfied
    ‘Cos the stories aren’t that great.

    (Organ solo)

  11. @aeou:

    Nigel, that category is untouched by puppies.

    The only category untouched by puppies is Best Fan Artist.

    Best Graphic Story had a nomination for “The Zombie Nation Book #2: Reduce Reuse Reanimate”, by both SP and RP.

    SJWs always lie.

    So, you’re saying that you’re an SJW?

  12. aeou — This is a baffling comment. Did you expect people not to check? The sad puppy 3 slate includes “The Zombie Nation Book #2: Reduce Reuse Reanimate” for Best Graphic Novel, and it is in fact a finalist in the category.

  13. ‘Nigel, that category is untouched by puppies.

    SJWs always lie.’

    Well, that worked out well for you.

  14. No, Owlmirror, that would be “Only SJWs lie.” He’s saying that there is no such thing as an SJW, since SJWs always lie and all of us have told the truth at least once.

    Then again, I had to teach him fractions yesterday, so symbolic logic might be a little too advanced as yet.

  15. John – No, Owlmirror, that would be “Only SJWs lie.” He’s saying that there is no such thing as an SJW, since SJWs always lie and all of us have told the truth at least once.

    The ‘SJWs always lie’ thing reminds me of Star Wars ‘Only Sith speak in absolutes’. Not because the former is an absolute, but because they both are ironic statements.

  16. “You should consider reading the story. (You should actually consider reading *any* sff, so that your comments could be connected to the genre.) The poster above wasn’t trying to make a joke about having more than one word for people, they were pointing out that Wright apparently forgot what name he gave the character and changed it in mid story.”

    And the poster is far more confused than Wright. Sally is a nickname for Sarah, just as Liam, Billy, Will, and Willy are diminuatives of William.

    Wright didn’t forget- he used Sarah when referring to the adult character and Sally when referring to the character in her youth. It’s kind of obvious, and very realistic. Two of our children went by different names in their childhood (one went by his middle name, one by a nickname), and now that they are adults, they go by the full and formal form of their first name. Yet, when recounting stories of those two children in their youth, I find myself reverting back to their childhood nicknames.

    The criticism was petty and mistaken, and one must wonder if such a foolish mistake would be made if it were a book written by and nominated by an approved source.

    I have not been impressed by every single one of the Puppy recommendations, either. However, I have been equally unimpressed by nominations of previous years, and some of you seem amusingly unaware that if you were capable of a neutral application of these newly discovered standards to previous years’ nominations, most of them would not fare any better.

  17. @Challenger Grim:

    This I did searching on and while it was apparently changed in comments, the deleted section was: “that is the instinctive reaction of men towards fags.” Which I still can’t find any example of actually condoning any more than a scientist noting, “this animal has an instinct to eat its young” is condoning baby dining.

    Oh, FFS, do we really need to do another round of close parsing the words of bigots being bigoted?

    Look, he’s making this claim about the instinctive reaction of men — and there’s no qualifier, there. Most people would see immediately that this is a deeply false dichotomy: Clearly, not all men have this purported “instinctive” reaction, because there many men, not all of whom are gay, who support gay rights, including (for example) the male judges who have ruled favorably on the issue of gay marriage, not to mention the historical societies and cultures where male homosexuality was condoned, and sometimes even common.

    So when he claims that there is this “instinctive” reaction, he’s actually generalizing from the small set of men who feel violent anger and hatred toward gays (which almost certainly includes himself), some of whom become gay-bashers, and pretending that their violent urges arise from “instinct” — something natural, inherent, unchanging, and universal — when there is no evidence anywhere for this being the case.

    Alternatively, he’s making an essentialist argument; that what he means is that “real” men — by Wright’s definition of “real” — have this instinctive reaction, and that anyone who doesn’t is not a “real” man.

    Either way, he’s expressing the normalization of violent bigotry towards gay men using false generalization and the naturalistic fallacy.

    In fact gathering from all the quotes I’ve seen from those of the opposite political persuasion of JCW talking about the heteronormative world and institutionalized anti-gay policies, it would seem he’s just agreeing with them there, only applying a different term set.

    Discussion of heteronormativity includes the fact of violence towards gays; it does NOT present this violence as being “instinctive”. The whole point is to identify cultural factors that result in institutionalized anti-gay policies, because culture can be changed.

  18. Challenger Grim on May 21, 2015 at 6:18 am said:

    You’ve never seen any emotionally charged scene where a character switches back and forth between a formal and familiar name as they plead with someone? Or for someone to switch between the name styles as an indication of how they’re feeling in the scene?

    Sure, but this isn’t a character switching back and forth, it’s the narrator. And as I noted in the comment you partially quoted, there’s no seeming rhyme or reason for the switch. If she appeared as “Sally” when the hopeful part of her personality was coming through, it would make sense. It would still be a bit off-putting, but it would make sense. As it is it just seems arbitrary.

  19. DHM on May 21, 2015 at 8:59 am said:

    Wright didn’t forget- he used Sarah when referring to the adult character and Sally when referring to the character in her youth. It’s kind of obvious, and very realistic.

    I agree, that would be obvious and realistic. It’s not what he did, though:

    http://i.imgur.com/PXArcmx.png

  20. I work with a woman named Margaret. In some situations she is addressed as “Margaret”, and in some as “Peg”.

  21. No.

    John C. Wright was very clear. It takes a weak or dishonest mind to claim they couldn’t follow the conversation.

    There are exactly TWO people to the conversation. Thomas and Sarah. They are childhood friends who are now adults.

    Sometimes Thomas is referred to as Tommy. Sometimes Sarah is referred to as Sally. Both are diminutives of their given names.

    Generally, speaking of either their youth, or the wonder or purpose they associate with their youth, Thomas is referred to as Tommy and Sarah as Sally.

    In the passage you selected, at the beginning she, Sally, is remembering the beauty of their youth. As your passage progresses she ends as Sarah, the fearful adult.

    Nitpick away. It merely demonstrates the intellectual dishonesty of your cause, whatever that might be.

  22. This whole “Sally/Sarah” thing, aside from eating up large numbers of pixels, is a rhetorical red herring.

    We saw this also around the discussion of “Turncoat” in another thread — the idea that, from one side, if a single criticism of a work is invalid, then the entire critique is. There is so much wrong with *any* of the JCW nominations that what might be easily brushed past in a better work instead becomes just one more point of irritation. Even if the Sally/Sarah thing is incorrect — the work is still bad.

    And, of course, those arguing the point on the other side, well, we’re just stuck that way. If people want to keep it up, go ahead — but in terms of Wright’s work’s worthiness, it’s all but irrelevant. Winning this point, for either side, bears with it only the laurels of this point.

    It does bring out a point in reader psychology, though, that I think we’ve seen well exhibited, again, from both sides (though I would argue that it’s much more valid on one side than the other.)

    The moment a perceived “message” appears (I’m still waiting in a different thread for someone to explain what Ancillary Justice was “preaching”), it becomes an irritant to some readers — which is why they don’t get irritated at their own messages so easily, because they’re not seen as messages. Similarly, an oddity of style (or bad bit of writing) in a work one likes may grate a bit, but is much more readily forgiven than one in a work one has (for whatever reason) already taken a dislike to.

  23. Hm.

    To reference Wright’s inspiration, C.S. Lewis’ characters were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. And I’m pretty sure that in the text, one of the characters was sometimes referred to by another character using a diminutive — for example, I’m pretty sure that Peter or whoever used “Ed” to sometimes refer to Edmund, and Susan was sometimes “Su”. No problem.

    But it would have been more than a little off-putting if the narrator had intermittently used those diminutives.

  24. I am suddenly reminded of Narbonic, where it is made very clear that there is an in-universe deep ontological and existential difference between a “Dave” and a “David”. Of course, there it is played for laughs. . .

  25. John C. Wright was very clear. It takes a weak or dishonest mind to claim they couldn’t follow the conversation.

    No, he’s not. If he were, then there wouldn’t be so many people who find the switching back and forth to be confusing. At the very least it is unnecessary and intrusive, getting in the way of the story.

  26. Steve Moss on May 21, 2015 at 10:24 am said:

    Nitpick away. It merely demonstrates the intellectual dishonesty of your cause, whatever that might be.

    Discussing fiction. That’s the cause. What’s yours?

  27. Steve Moss on May 21, 2015 at 10:24 am said:
    John C. Wright was very clear. It takes a weak or dishonest mind to claim they couldn’t follow the conversation.

    John C. Wright is a professional author. It is his job to be clear.

    Since his capricious use of two different names for the same character failed to convey any of the meaning his supporters attribute to it, perhaps in this case he failed to do his job.

  28. Since his capricious use of two different names for the same character failed to convey any of the meaning his supporters attribute to it, perhaps in this case he failed to do his job.

    Its pretty much just another case of Moss filling in the blanks so the story is what he wants it to be, rather than what was actually written.

  29. Aaron on May 21, 2015 at 10:47 am said:

    Since his capricious use of two different names for the same character failed to convey any of the meaning his supporters attribute to it, perhaps in this case he failed to do his job.

    Its pretty much just another case of Moss filling in the blanks so the story is what he wants it to be, rather than what was actually written.

    Right. And as I have been learning, that is called “headcanon” and is a hallmark of lousy writing which the reader manages to find compelling anyway, even if it is by having to invent all the parts that make sense themself.

  30. Thank you to everyone who quoted those lines from Wright’s essay on uploading. I had forgotten the exact wording.

    So the obvious next question is whether Wright had forgotten that he wrote that, or if he just hoped that everyone else would forget it?

    That poor guy. This reminds me of the time last month when he was complaining that quoting his exact words was libelous.

  31. In “One Bright Star to Guide Them”, “Sally” was the chapter 4 title.

    In it “Sarah” was used 13 times, “Sally” was used three times (twice if you exclude the title), and with inconsistent usage by the narrator. This inconsistency, when noticed, is likely to drop the reader out of the story and should have been flagged by the writer or editor during revisions.

  32. Folks…really?

    Thomas is called Tommy when he is young, Richard is called Dick when he is young, and Sarah is called the diminutive of Sarah (Sally) when she is young.

    I think the confusion may come from people not realizing that Sarahs used to be called Sally as a nickname, but that doesn’t make it incorrect.

    And just in case anyone is confused: One Bright Star is NOT a sequel to Narnia. It is a sequel of sorts to a whole genre of “English School Children In Trouble” stories, including Narnia, The Dark Is Rising, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, etc. 😉

  33. It is a sequel of sorts to a whole genre of “English School Children In Trouble” stories, including Narnia, The Dark Is Rising, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, etc.

    Too bad it is only about 1/1000th as good as any of those.

  34. L Jagi Lamplighter (Wright) on May 21, 2015 at 1:35 pm said:

    Folks…really?

    Thomas is called Tommy when he is young, Richard is called Dick when he is young, and Sarah is called the diminutive of Sarah (Sally) when she is young.

    Except I’ve provided a sample where that’s clearly not the case. It’s still on this page of comments.

  35. The important thing is that the Puppies keep saying the wrong thing until it becomes true to enough of them that anyone with doubts won’t bother to check.

  36. It is a sequel of sorts to a whole genre of “English School Children In Trouble” stories, including Narnia, The Dark Is Rising, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, etc.

    I am pretty sure that the word you want is “homage”, not “sequel”.

  37. “Wright didn’t forget – he used Sarah when referring to the adult character and Sally when referring to the character in her youth. It’s kind of obvious, and very realistic.”

    The problem is that earlier last century in the United States, Sally was quite a common diminutive for Sarah. This isn’t the case any more. A lot of people know one or more Sallys, for whom Sally is their legal name. A lot of people know one or more Sarahs, for whom the diminutive Sally is never used. A lot of Americans living today, especially younger ones, have never seen Sally used as a diminutive for Sarah. It’s certainly not an “obvious” abbreviation, in the way that referring to Edward as Ed and William as Will are obvious. What’s more, this is a very American name thing.

    So it’s hardly surprising if this seems inconsistent to people living in other countries, as well as to a lot of Americans. This is another example of an author knowing what they already know, and assuming that all their readers know it too, and not putting anything in their text which would give the reader understanding.

  38. “Wright didn’t forget – he used Sarah when referring to the adult character and Sally when referring to the character in her youth. It’s kind of obvious, and very realistic.”

    Because Sally/Sarah is much less widely known than Dick/Richard or Peg/Margaret, a writer should have known to provide clues to the reader within the text. As for the Sarah = adult, Sally = child usage, a re-read of the relevant passages still does not make it clear to me that was the intent. It may be that I am an obtuse reader, and if I was the only person flagging it, then, mea culpa, the problem lies with me.

    But when more readers notice it, then isn’t it more likely that the writer hasn’t succeeded in making their intent clear to their readers?

  39. The consensus over there is that we’re all idiots, which fits their battle strategy, but I did find it amusing how many of them kept insisting it was only the characters themselves making the switch.

    Clearly most of them haven’t read the story, but since they’ve got VD and Wright to tell them all how smart they are, I guess they don’t really need to.

  40. One of the things that annoys me about the Helens of Troy story is the way the narrator’s voice keeps shifting between 1950s noir tough guy and John C. Wright. Gene Wolfe never makes that mistake.

  41. John C. Wright: I wrote an essay warning the Transhumanists not to place too much faith in the ability of science to usher in utopia, and that the uploaded people will not make people perfect, merely faster and smarter and perhaps longer lived, than flesh and blood humans.

    Fascinating. That’s not what I took from your uniquely Catholic interpretation of transhumanism, fantasy, magic and science fiction.

    To wit: Immortal transhumans will be crushed beneath the weight of sin or rendered soulless if they attempt to escape it. Secular fantasy and magic are suspect because they are godless. Secular thought leads to nihilism.

    –It reads to an atheist like me as a series of categorization errors.

    Most magical traditions have a spiritual foundation. Practitioners interact with the spiritual world in order to achieve some sort of practical goal. What you describe as “high fantasy” and “sword and sorcery” are expressions of the same thing. You seem to get this by contrasting black and white magic, without taking the idea to its logical conclusion. I wonder if this is because you would then have to accept the definition of “high fantasy” as that awesome moment when a farmer meets a old man on the road and sees Draupnir’s progeny fall from his hand. Because that’s sure as hell what it is.

    Since I’m drawing out of the lines at this point, I’ll make a distinction between magic and literary magic. Literary magic is generally secular and can be quantified in ways that lend it to novels and role-playing games.

    So, if Ace the Splendid binds a spirit in the old clocktower, it’s because she found a copy of the Black Pullet a month ago and learned the spell. And when her party found a treasure chest in a well, the one that was inside and/or guarded by a giant frog, she laughed when everyone started fantasizing about how rich they’d be when they got back to town.

    She has a chicken for a familiar. Wizards are strange.

    She also hasn’t been to church in years and perhaps that’s a point of contention.

    Science fiction is not about the “magic of the future.” It’s a form of fantasy. Fantasy does not require magic to be fantasy. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is a work of fantasy. It’s considered science fiction because it’s an alternate history and there are no elves, dragons or wizards.

    There are no gods, either, giving birth to eight-legged foals, the best of all horses.

    The descent into nihilism which constitutes the last half of your essay is something else. To address it, I’ll start with Ursula Le Guin. First, you are not tall enough to touch the soles of Le Guin’s feet. Second, you demean her faith– Taoism, as a philosophy and a religion– by equating it with nihilism. At its heart, the Tao is an objective reality that can’t be accurately described by subjective humanity. As soon as we think we’ve got it, we don’t. That’s actually how reality works– None of us are omniscient. We do the best with what we have to understand the world around us.

    Lao Tzu understood that defining flaw.

    To get back to your comment, your description of magic hinges on the best magic being a miracle, and the source of miracles your god. I would say, as a mere atheist, that there are other people, with their own gods and their own magic. They have their own stories to tell.

    So, there’s more going on here than a simple admonition. You gloss over so much.

    –And this is the first in a long series of essays. I’m not even close to my favorite part, where you imagine yourself the Hen of Jerusalem, settling upon the city’s inhabitants while you cluck, softly. Would you wear a fedora? I do not know, it is a mystery.

  42. Mokoto: Don’t hold out on us. You know that the point of mysteries is that they are revealed to initiates.

  43. I’ve already expressed the opinion on my blog that some of the Puppies’ activities have to do with marketing rather than heart-felt complaints about current trends in SF&F awards. This is likely why Mr. Wright dropped in and then flounced off. If I had some time, I’d add to the discussion in verse. Very entertaining, folks. 🙂

  44. Mokoto –

    –It reads to an atheist like me as a series of categorization errors

    It feels the same way for me, without the “atheist” qualifier.

    BTW – FWIW – YMMV – I was raised Roman Catholic, and some of the stuph that Wright comes up with do not jibe at all with what I remember the Sisters of Mercy (who had none if you Transgressed) inoculating into my pointy little head.

    ========
    Our esteemed blogmeister – thank thee verily for the visible echo chamber.
    Works a treat on Win 8.1 and Firefox 38.0.1

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