On Saturday they announced the finalists for the Hugo Awards. As you are aware by now, Sad Puppies suggested candidates absolutely dominated. I tried to mostly avoid the internet this weekend because it was a holiday better spent with family than hate mail.
This blog post is directed at the newcomers, the fence sitters, the undecided, and the unlucky SMOFs who’ve been caught in the crossfire. There is no need to address my detractors, because they have already repeatedly demonstrated that they’ll just ignore what I actually say and do, and fabricate their own wild and crazy narrative about what I secretly meant to say.
This is going to be get long, but there are a lot of things being tossed around that I need to respond to.
For those of you just joining us, Sad Puppies 3 was a campaign to get talented, worthy, deserving authors who would normally never have a chance nominated for the supposedly prestigious Hugo awards.
I started this campaign a few years ago because I believed that the awards were politically biased, and dominated by a few insider cliques. Authors who didn’t belong to these groups or failed to appease them politically were shunned. When I said this in public, I was called a liar, and told that the Hugos represented all of fandom and that the awards were strictly about quality. I said that if authors with “unapproved” politics were to get nominations, the quality of the work would be irrelevant, and the insider cliques would do everything in their power to sabotage that person. Again, I was called a liar, so I set out to prove my point.
This blog post has details and links to most of the background, history, and fallout from last time: http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/04/24/an-explanation-about-the-hugo-awards-controversy/
Basically, I did what the other side had been doing for years, only in public and with the wrong kind of fans, and everything unfolded just like I predicted it would. Especially vehement was the contingent of fandom that I took to calling Social Justice Warriors. This may offend the No Labels crowd, but oh well, it is what it is. The name has stuck in our culture.
Having proven my point far better than I’d ever hoped, I was going to walk away, but Brad Torgersen is a very idealistic author and fan, and he was inspired to continue the program for another year. All of his explanations are available at this link: http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/01/21/sad-puppies-3-only-a-few-days-to-register-to-vote/
Sad Puppies 1 consisted of me and a handful of blog posts. Sad Puppies 2, more people joined in, we had some fun with it (check the link, we’ve got badly drawn cartoons, videos, and a spokesmanatee), and we made a dent. A handful of nominations damned near caused the apocalypse. Then Sad Puppies 3 was wildly successful beyond all of our expectations.
Now I want to address some of the many concerns I’ve seen voiced over the last few days. I will try to be as honest and direct as possible.
-SP says that they’re fighting back against biased politics by having biased politics.
Yes and no. SP1 was very politically biased because it was just me. SP2 did have a preponderance of nominees on the right side of the political spectrum, again, because that slate was basically my suggested list of stuff that I personally enjoyed. However, ultimately that didn’t matter because the liberals we got noms for were just as attacked and vilified as the rest of us.
SP3 is actually extremely politically diverse. That’s because this time our slate of suggestions was put together by a bigger group of authors and fans, and since Brad was running the show and trying to be all about getting recognition for quality, deserving authors, their personal beliefs were of no concern. Don’t take my word for it. Go through our list of nominees for yourself. You’ll find that we have liberals, conservatives, moderates, and question marks who’ve kept their politics to themselves.
What these authors have in common is that they are good, entertaining, and wouldn’t normally have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a nomination because they aren’t inclined to kiss the right butts. If you look at our best novel nominees, none of them are conservatives. I was the only one on there who could possibly be described as right wing, and I refused my nomination.
For the record, Brad Torgersen is a moderate. By Utah standards he is a flaming liberal.
As you go through the other categories, you’ll find that we put up many authors and editors who are my polar political opposites, and I’d guess that a majority of them are actually moderate to left on the spectrum.
That’s because Sad Puppies suggestions was about the quality of the work. Not the author’s politics. Anybody who says the SP nominees are a bunch of right wingers is either misinformed, willfully ignorant, or a liar.
-Sad Puppies wants to destroy the Hugos
Not at all. The Hugos were already broken. My people are just the inevitable backlash that happens in any system when the pendulum swings too far in one direction.
For years people have paid lip service to bringing new people into the Hugos. Whenever people complained about the biased, cliquish state of the awards, they were dismissed and told that if they wanted to change things, they should get more people involved in the process.
Okay. Done. Next?
Note, a lot of the anger this week is about how my people are wrongfan having wrongfun, and thus are bad and should be dismissed, blocked somehow, or excluded. That kind of talk only proves my original point that started this all, and really, it is that sort of asinine, outlandish accusations that caused more of the previously apathetic fans to shell out their $40 to get involved too.
I fully admit, and am on record about starting this out of spite. However, it has grown far beyond just one man’s opinions. Brad is fighting to make the awards relevant to more of fandom.
-Okay, many of us agree the Hugos were broken, but Sad Puppies isn’t the way to fix it
That is a valid opinion, and I’ve seen it pop up a lot over the last few days. I really want to address this, because I can’t stress enough that if that’s what you believe, we’re not your enemy.
For years authors have complained about the biased state of the Hugos, the politicking, and the games you needed to play in order to be considered. Most of the grumbling was in private, behind closed doors, and there wasn’t a green room at any con in the country where you couldn’t find authors complaining about the sorry state of things.
But nobody did anything.
Then some cliques started manipulating this small, easily manipulated system. When 40 or 80 nominations was all it took to sway the most prestigious award in the industry, a few whisper campaigns and calling in favors was all it took to secure a spot. Again, many honest WorldCon fans were offended by this behavior.
But nobody did anything.
As time went on, it got increasingly absurd and political. Some once beloved and award winning authors were shunned for their politics, never to be seen at the Hugos again. Editors and companies related to those shunned authors discovered that they too were shunned by relation, regardless of their politics. Campaigns became more public, with “award pimpage” becoming the norm. And the long time SMOFs who took pride in this award were offended.
But nobody did anything.
To my half of fandom, we’d pretty much written the awards off. They’d become a joke. Award winning became a synonym for boring and preachy. The insider cliques just declared that my part of fandom was stupid and didn’t matter anyway, while those who honestly cherished the awards didn’t like seeing their Hugo lose its luster in the eyes of the masses.
But still nobody did anything, and it got worse and worse.
Then several years ago some upstart, minor jackass hack pulp writer (who’d owned a machinegun store and did gun rights lobbying for the Republican party so couldn’t exactly hide his politics) managed to squeak in a Campbell nomination. I got to see how the sausage was made up close and I was stunned by how asinine the process really was.
So I did something.
Now I’m the bad guy. I’m cool with that. Eventually somebody was going to have to do it.
Here’s the thing. This massive upheaval wouldn’t have ever happened if the moderates had done something years ago, but they didn’t. I can’t really say I blame them though. If they took a stand against the perpetually outraged crowd, they risked their career and their reputation. We’re talking about the same angry, entitled twitter mobs that ran off a famous comedian because he might tell a fat joke in the future. Those mobs are quick to outrage, slow to reason, and will turn on their allies, because attacking is what they are programmed to do. And the moderates—those who will admit it—are terrified of ending up on the wrong end of a witch hunt.
Now it is okay to rail against my people for doing what the other side has done in the past, because we’re not going to sabotage anyone’s career or slander you. We actually believe in the concept of free speech and free expression.
We’re getting condemned for bringing politics into the awards, but we all know politics have been in the awards for a long time. We just did it openly.
I never expected us to sweep the awards. Frankly, I was shocked by the results. I didn’t realize just how many regular fans had been turned off for so long.
Now the moderates are telling us we did it wrong, or telling us what we should have done better, but the thing is at least we did something. There’s not exactly an instruction manual for this sort of thing you know.
-All the Sad Puppies people are lying. It isn’t about getting good books recognized, it is about TOPIC X.
Now this is a really hard one to argue against, because X is whatever they want it to be, and it changes constantly. I’ve seen how we’re all angry white straight males (which is why we’ve got like a dozen women in there, the person taking it over is female, I don’t care about anybody’s race, and I have no idea who our nominees have sex with). Yesterday X was about how my fans are motivated by homophobia. The day before X was racism. I’m sure tomorrow we’ll hate the disabled. Who knows? I can’t keep up.
That is all nonsense, but they keep on making new crap up, and the gullible keep swallowing the narrative and regurgitating it all over the internet.
Here is an interesting one for you moderates, SMOFs, and fence sitters to ponder on. Why is it that our own words and actions aren’t to be believed, but anything the other side says about us, no matter how outlandish, is to be accepted?
Over the years I’ve done Sad Puppies, do you know how many fannish blogs, fanzines, and podcasts interviewed me, the guy who started the campaign, about the goals of Sad Puppies?
None.
I can’t think of single one. You’d think with the most controversial thing to happen to the Hugos in forever, somebody would actually want to sit down and interview us and get our side of the story, but nada, zip. Sure, lots of people wrote about it, but it was pretty obvious these fannish journalists didn’t read what I actually wrote, and instead they critiqued Straw Larry, or they quoted other bloggers quoting Straw Larry.
Finally, last month Brad and I were finally asked to do a podcast interview. They tried to be unbiased. They asked us hard questions.
It was fantastic. http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/2015/03/aisfp-289-larry-correia-brad-r-torgersen-sad-puppies/
So I’ve been a little less than patient with some fannish journalists. It has been really interesting to see a few of them who originally hated my guts, watch the foot stompy outrage crowd doing exactly what I said they would, and having those journalists realize that maybe I was telling the truth after all.
On this note, I’d like to extend an olive branch to Mike Glyer at File 770. We’ve gone around a few times, but I’ve got to hand it to him. Recently he’s been fully quoting my side and letting our arguments stand without interpretation. Well done, sir.
-Sad Puppies is mean
We’ve been getting a lot of moderates and SMOF friends reaching out, concerned, because the straw versions of us are very hateful, and it is so very sad that there are sides in fandom, and they are fighting.
That’s nice. Now let me flip this back around. Where were you guys when my people were being libeled, slandered, attacked, and insulted? Did you reach out to the perpetually outraged crowd and urge them to be nice and tell them there shouldn’t be any fighting in fandom, or do you just do that to the side you know won’t sic an angry mob on you?
Do you know the biggest single reason SP3 got more fans involved than SP2? My guess is that it was after the other side moved the goal posts, and danced in the streets about our “humiliating defeat”, and called all those outsiders first time voters stupid homophobic racist sexists and other super gracious acts, and Hugo award winning former SFWA presidents take to Twitter to have all caps rants about how my people are motivated by hate and racism, you shouldn’t be shocked when my people are increasingly motivated.
Just think, if you guys urging peace, love, and harmony now would have reigned in the attack dogs years ago, Sad Puppies would never have existed.
-Sad Puppies BLOCK VOTING is different because it was designed to lock out all other contenders
Nope. And here is a very simple way to tell that simply isn’t true.
Based upon our past performance, how in the world could we know we’d get this much more turn out?
Also, if you look at the suggested slate posts, you’ll note that in some categories we had 5, because we had 5 works that we really liked, and there are 5 slots. In other categories we had less because we didn’t think of 5 in time. We ran with what we thought of. It wasn’t exactly a nefarious master plan.
The year before we’d only gotten half of our novels on. In SP2, I put up 2 works for best novel. Mine (which made it) and Sarah Hoyt’s A Few Good Men (which sadly didn’t make it). Why wouldn’t we put up more this time?
(Funny note on A Few Good Men, as morons were saying Sad Puppies 2 was motivated by homophobia, trying to kick gays out of fiction, the protagonist and hero of that one is a gay man, but I voted for it because it was a fantastic book)
Now the moderates are telling us that if we’d suggested fewer/more works, then magically this would all be okay and they wouldn’t be so angry at us. Oh bullshit. Come on. We all know that whatever we do, whether there is one nomination or a hundred, the perpetually outraged would still be outraged.
I do love however how everybody who was completely silent while the SJW mob was running rampant and unopposed, are now full of all sorts of condemnation against my people, and full of helpful strategic advice about what we should do next time. So, when we were in a position of weakness, they maligned us. Now that we’re in a position of strength, they malign us, but your advice is to go back to a position of weakness…
Yes, that is super helpful. Thanks a lot.
Here’s the thing, this isn’t just me and a couple of my friends having fun with this anymore. It is bigger than that. There are a bunch of us involved now. For next year, we’ll take a look at how this shakes out and proceed from there. Kate Paulk is in charge next year and will be organizing what we do.
We don’t want to replace one kingmaker with another. We don’t want to replace one dominate clique with another. I don’t want the Nielsen Hayden’s throne of skulls. It doesn’t look very comfy to sit in.
Let me reiterate. We don’t want to exclude anybody. We want to include everybody. We’ll look at what happens and adjust fire from there. We are willing to listen to suggestions, debate, and talk with you, because we truly don’t want to destroy the awards or lord over them like some petty tyrants. But getting screamed at, insulted, and lectured at is just going to annoy us, so you can skip that part.
-The Hugos belong to a select few
My, how the tune has changed in just a few years. I loved when Teresa Nielsen Hayden proclaimed that, because when I said the same thing several years ago, I was a lair.
Think about this carefully moderates and SMOFs, the Hugos are either:
- The most prestigious award in genre fiction that represents the best of all of fandom
- An award for the favorites for one small group of people at one small convention.
You can’t have both.
-Sad Puppies insults SMOFs
Now this gets tricky, because we get into the definitions of words that have insider meanings.
SMOF means Secret Masters of Fandom. It can be used in a few different ways. To people whose social lives revolve around conventions, it means the people who run stuff there. The word started as a joke.
To many of my people, SMOF was seen as a pejorative, used for the snooty, snobbish types who liked to tell those fans that they aren’t real fans, or that they are the wrong kinds of fans, or that they were having wrongfun.
However, many good, decent, honorable people self-identify as SMOFs. I count many of these people as friends, and many of them are cheering Sad Puppies on.
This is why Brad Torgersen, being diplomatic, made up the word CHORF to describe the snoots. https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/chorf-its-a-word-now/ which I must admit, made me laugh.
We’ve got nothing against fans. We’re fans too.
-Larry Correia is a big mean jerk
No denying that. As Sarah Hoyt said the other day, nobody raised in a Portuguese household has ever been accused of subtlety. I’m loud, opinionated, and bombastic. Part of that is because I didn’t get to Live Life on the Easiest Difficulty Setting, and where I come from if you look like food you will be eaten.
So yes, I can be rude, impatient, and I’m quick to anger. It is a character flaw. I never claimed to be perfect, but I’m the one who showed up.
I used to be more patient. For those of you who are authors, artists, or creators, I want you to think back to the meanest, most vile, fundamentally dishonest, cruel thing anyone has ever said about you or your work. How did that make you feel? Now I want you to imagine getting that twenty times a day for your entire career. How long do you think your thin veneer of civility would last?
The SJWs are bullies. They can’t tolerate anybody being outspoken against their ideas. So when you are the nail that sticks up, they will try to hammer you down. They will spread lies about you, hoping that everyone else will shun you. This gets tiresome after a few years, especially when they start to make up “scare quotes” from you in international newspapers.
I’ve had a bunch of honestly concerned people tell me recently that they think I’m being too mean, or that I’m so used to responding to malicious attackers that I sometimes lump in innocent bystanders in with those malicious attackers (a moderate friend referred to it as my “shotgun approach” which is a good comparison).
You get attacked enough and eventually your ability to differentiate targets starts to suffer. For those caught up in that, I apologize.
To those who still willfully want to attack me, come get some.
-Vox Day! VOX DAAAAaaaay!
Vox Day wasn’t on the Sad Puppies suggest slate. Sorry. Can’t blame that one on us.
Well, I suppose you can, in that I demonstrated how small this most prestigious award actually is last year. Vox Day’s alternate Rabid Puppies slate was him going directly to his fan base. Looking at the numbers, and he on his own was about as successful as I was last year for SP2.
Now here is an interesting thought for you moderates out there who despise Vox Day. Above I talked about the angry reaction to SP2… Honestly, last year Fandom (capital F) insulted hundreds of outsider fans’ taste and intelligence, called them names, and basically treated them like trash (while the majority kept their mouths shut at best, or gave tacit approval at worst) and now you’re shocked when Vox Day has appealed directly to those people you mocked to vote in a manner that especially pisses you off?
Well, duh.
-Sad Puppies invited in Breitbart.
That’s cool. The SJWs brought in the Guardian, Io9, and Tor.com, so now we’re even.
Actually Breitbart approached me and asked for an interview. Last year the SP2 controversy got a small mention in the USA Today. The guys who talked to me from Breitbart have been doing reports on SJW crusaders across many industries, and this is news, so this isn’t exactly shocking.
-GamerGate is behind Sad Puppies!
Okay, now this one is just stupid. It comes from Teresa Nielsen Hayden, head of the SMOFfen SS.
Because many SJWs check under their bed for the Gamergate boogieman before going to sleep, obviously GamerGate is responsible for the Sad Puppies sweep. Apparently she discovered that one of my longtime fans, Daddy Warpig, is a GamerGate blogger, and has tweeted about SP3, and she exposed this shocking revelation!
Wow… Yeah, good work there, Sherlock. You could have just saved time and asked me, since I also favorited those and retweeted them. I’ve also been on his podcast. But if you want to really damn me, let me save you some detective work. I’m also friends with actor Adam Baldwin, the guy who coined the word GamerGate. I’ve also blogged about GamerGate, but more in relation to Sarkesian calling for a boycott of my home state because she didn’t understand our constitution or laws wouldn’t allow for violating our citizen’s civil rights because of fake threats against her. http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/10/21/fisking-the-deseret-news-anti-ccw-article/
But GamerGate isn’t behind Sad Puppies.
- SP predates GG by a couple of years.
- SP is tiny compared to GG, and the vast majority of GG paid no attention to SP,
- Until the Breitbart article came out, but if you loot at the dates of the article http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/05/breitbart-reports-on-sad-puppies/ it came out too late for any new people to register in time to nominate for Sasquan.
- We do share some common members, but enemy of my enemy is my friend, and both movements can’t stand Social Justice bullies telling people they are having wrongfun.
- There were like 2,000 total nominations. If it had been a GamerGate plot there would have been 20,000 nominations, and they would spammed it across the internet and had a great laugh about it.
Oh, quick note moderates and SMOFs, if you don’t want GamerGate to get involved in the Hugos, don’t blame me. Tell your Social Justice idiots to shut up on Twitter! TNH is the one invoking and provoking them, not me.
Brianna Wu—who is despised by hundreds of thousands of gamers as an opportunistic vulture—took to Twitter after the nominations were announced, blaming GamerGate for ruining the Hugos, and then she tweeted about how the awards were precious and sacred to her because her husband has 4 Hugos. That is like waving the red cape in front of the bull.
-We’re going to vote No Award against every single thing suggested by the Sad Puppies slate!
Yes, voting based on politics with no consideration for the quality of the actual work will sure show Larry Correia what’s up.
The fact that the CHORFs were already demanding rule changes, No Awarding everybody, and blocking the wrong kind of fans before the nominations were even announced should be pretty telling. Funny. That is exactly what I said they would do years ago. The insider clique cares far more about maintaining their insular little kingdom than they do about the awards.
Here’s the thing, if you No Award everybody on the slate with no consideration to the authors or their work, you’ll just be proving me right.
And seriously, you’re telling me Jim Butcher, the god father of an entire genre, isn’t worthy? Marko Kloos indy published sci-fi book has sold literally over ten times as many copies as last year’s winner Ancillary Justice, and people love it, but it isn’t worthy? You’re telling me that Kevin J. Anderson, industry pro, 23 million books in print, three decades of working in fandom and helping other authors, isn’t worthy?
Bullshit. And none of those authors share my politics.
Toni Weisskopf has spent her entire life in fandom. She grew up at cons and lived in Rocket City. She had relatives on the Manhattan Project and ate dinner at Warner Von Braun’s house. I don’t know how many hundreds of conventions Toni has gone to, as everything from volunteer to GoH. She’s edited hundreds of authors, took over and successfully run a publishing house, and it is telling that she was ignored until Sad Puppies came along. She’s not worthy?
Edmund Schubert has been running Intergalactic Medicine Show for years, producing tons of great short fiction, and you’re telling me he’s unworthy? Why? His boss (who he disagrees with) doesn’t like gay marriage? Jim Minz started as David Hartwell’s assistant at Tor, and is beloved by everybody in publishing and has spent his whole life in fandom, and he’s unworthy?
All of these short fiction authors, some of whom have been writing for places like Analog for decades, they’re unworthy? Campbell nominees who are brand new, producing all sorts of great work, and you’ll shit all over their prospective careers and No Award their future because Brad recommend them?
They’re unworthy because of association, but you didn’t say a damned thing when the SJWs tried to give a Campbell to Requires Hate?
That is hypocrisy.
We want people to read the works and judge them for themselves. We were accused of trying to get people to nominate without reading, but we put that one to bed when we Book Bombed all the short fiction in the weeks leading up to the nomination’s, selling thousands and thousands of stories, and bumping all of our nominees up to the tops of their Amazon categories sales rankings, and making the SP nominated works the most widely read things on the ballot in years.
But yeah, No Award a bunch of obviously worthy creators over politics and brag about it on the internet in advance. If I truly wanted to destroy the Hugos credibility to all but one tiny, insular little group of fans, that’s exactly what I’d do.
Well, the whole world is watching now. What are you going to tell them the award is really about?
EDIT: To add, read this article for Entertainment Weekly http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/06/hugo-award-nominations-fall-victim-misogynistic-and-racist-voting?hootPostID=221657cca998c926458486c3f53fbe17
So, SMOFs and Moderates, read that article. Hell, just read the headline… If you’ve paid any attention or have even an iota of honesty in your soul you know that article in a national publication is total bullshit.
Now do you understand why it is so very tempting for my side to just say to hell with it and hoist the black flag?
EDIT 2, they’ve already changed the article because the EW lawyers freaked out. That should tell you something. I’ve got the original cached.
Since they changed it, here is the original. See moderates? This is what happens when you cross the Social Justice crowd. The truth become irrelevant and they spread whatever they can about you to get you shunned and destroyed.
Hugo Award nominations fall victim to misogynistic, racist voting campaign
BY ISABELLA BIEDENHARN • @ISABELLA324
The Hugo Awards have fallen victim to a campaign in which misogynist groups lobbied to nominate only white males for the science fiction book awards. These groups, Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies (both of which are affiliated with last year’s GamerGate scandal), urged sci-fi fans to become members of the Hugo Awards’ voting body, World Science Fiction Convention, in order to cast votes against female writers and writers of color. Membership only costs $40, and allows members to vote for the 2016 nominations as well as the 2015 nominations, which were just released.
Sad Puppies broadcast their selection on Feb. 1, writing: “If you agree with our slate below—and we suspect you might—this is YOUR chance to make sure YOUR voice is heard.” Brad Torgerson, who runs Sad Puppies along with Larry Correia, complains that the Hugo Awards have lately skewed toward “literary” works, as opposed to “entertainment.”
Torgerson also writes that he disagrees with Hugos being awarded for affirmative action-like purposes, as many women and writers of color went home with awards in 2014: ”Likewise, we’ve seen the Hugo voting skew ideological, as Worldcon and fandom alike have tended to use the Hugos as an affirmative action award: giving Hugos because a writer or artist is (insert underrepresented minority or victim group here) or because a given work features (insert underrepresented minority or victim group here) characters.”
The other lobbying group, Rabid Puppies, is run by Theodore Beale (who goes by the name Vox Day). As The Telegraph reports, “Members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America have called for Beale’s exclusion from the group after he has writtenagainst women’s suffrage and posted racist views towards black writer NK Jemisin.”
Fortunately, some sane voters allowed well-deserving writers to pull through. Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword and Listen was nominated for Dramatic Presentation, and Annie Bellet’s Goodnight Stars was nominated, despite having a non-white, female protagonist.
Plenty of members of the science fiction community have voiced their disgust with both sects of “Puppies.” Writer Philip Sandifer wrote on his blog Sunday, “The Hugo Awards have just been successfully hijacked by neofascists.” Sandifer’s post, which is worth reading in full, addresses what this disaster means for the sci-fi world:
To be frank, it means that traditional sci-fi/fantasy fandom does not have any legitimacy right now. Period. A community that can be this effectively controlled by someone who thinks black people are subhuman and who has called for acid attacks on feminists is not one whose awards have any sort of cultural validity. That sort of thing doesn’t happen to functional communities. And the fact that it has just happened to the oldest and most venerable award in the sci-fi/fantasy community makes it unambiguously clear that traditional sci-fi/fantasy fandom is not fit for purpose.
As writer Joe Abercrombie put it:
The Hugo Awards winners will be announced on Aug. 22 in Washington.
##
And this is how she addressed me after being called on these obvious blatant lies on Twitter.
isabella biedenharn @isabella324 1h1 hour ago
@monsterhunter45 Hi Larry, we’re happy to update to include your side. Please send me your comment when you have time
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Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Sad Puppies
“Well, the whole world is watching now. What are you going to tell them the award is really about?”
If they’d only done that to begin with, none of this would’ve been necessary.
I want to follow Staw Larry on Twitter.
The Straw Larry is a jerk.
At this point Straw Larry isn’t enough. We need Brick Larry and Stick Larry too.
And an Iron Fist Larry, to do battle with the foul Reichsfuhrer Teresa Nielsen-Hayden, She-Dachshund of the SMOFfen SS.
No insulting the Dachshunds!
Ah! So that’s what all the huffing and puffing is about. :p
If Larry is Iron Fist, who’s Power Man?
More importantly, who is Misty Knight? Rrrowr!
Oh, the hilarity.
I love this, still kills me I was a day late to the party.
If I am not mistaken you can still vote. =D
Then nominate next year.
Thanks so much! It would appear you are correct.
http://www.thehugoawards.org/i-want-to-vote/
Love seeing Wright nominated so many times, only discovered his work recently through SP.
You’re welcome! I got my membership today and am waiting for my name to show up on the membership list.
Excited to vote in the genres I’ve loved and grown up with.
You can still vote for the Hugo though. Get a supporting membership, read the nominated works and vote!
And what’s more, you will get free copies of many of the works, so you can read them and judge.
Looks like one of the authors that SP nominated is a socialist and she is getting harassed by people for having this endorsement. I had never heard of her. However, it looks like her most popular series is Urban Fantasy. This group has a large Urban Fantasy fan base. How about book bombing her to help her out? Its a way of showing people on the opposite side that this group can appreciate quality writing and its not about your political views?
https://overactive.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/hugo-nomination-and-thoughts/#comments
https://twitter.com/anniebellet
She was on our slate because she wrote a good, quality, worthy story. Period. The fact that the perpetually outraged foot stompy crowd is attacking a bisexual socialist should tell you who the real bullies are in this story.
I haven’t read the story yet. So I don’t know. I was just pointing out that it was ignorant for people to harrass. Its why I floated the idea of a book bomb. Especially since she focuses in a genre(Urban Fantasy) which is both popular with this crowd and not real popular with the Hugos. Just floating the idea. Not telling you what to do…. it would kind of be an ultimate screw you to people saying you only want to help political conservatives.
I’ve only seen her short fiction, and we hit that already during the SP book bombs. I’m not adverse to the idea, but short fic is killer hard to bomb. I try to stick to books.
The funny thing is, I’ve book bombed authors from all over the spectrum, and it hasn’t mattered. No matter what I actually do, they’ll just make up some outlandish bullshit about me.
This is a big issue- but your turning down the nom this year? And also having Brad being the main organizer?
Damn, that’s some fine chess you were playing, sir. Some real fine chess.
The entire ideology is detached from reality. Whether it’s a James Nicholls thread or Scalzi or Making Light, I am stunned by the stupidity of SJWs. Nothing they say makes any sense to me or resembles the world I’ve moved around in.
I feel really bad for that Annie person so I bought one of her books to check it out (I also love urban fantasy).
She clearly wants to keep the politics off her page but you can help but wonder if a few people might start to wake up in the face of such treatment. She runs to a defense of being socialist and bi, but she shouldn’t have to and clearly she knows it. This is why this whole thing has been fascinating.
If she wants to be out of the politics, nothing wrong with that. Was going to buy the first story in the series Adam was mentioning, but it was on sale right now, so I bought more.
Because The Author Must Get Paid.
the only worthwhile bullshit is outlandish bullshit
The SJWs are desperate to keep all minority people on the designated plantation, so they lynch a few uppity ones to discourage the others.
“Saladin Ahmed @saladinahmed · Apr 4 Far-right Catholics, market fundamentalists, pseudo-anarchist gamers. Amazing how they can all get together to hate women/queer people/POCs.”
It’s amazing how opposing a few dozen kooky gender feminists who hate me in actual quotes 365 days a year becomes 6 billion people I hate instead.
As a Far-Right Catholic (António de Oliveira Salazar Division), I welcome Saladin Ahmed’s hatred. See you at Lepanto, Sally.
Good thing the other side is doing that. If we did it, it would be evil! (rolls eyes)
Ugh. I think a book-bomb is an excellent idea. Although I plan on buying a membership and will hopefully get a copy of her book anyway. Still, good work is good work- and deserves to be acknowledged.
Annie Bellet is also an Indie publishing star (seriously, check out her 20 Sided Sorceress series, it’s awesome. Next book is out tomorrow). So she’s not sucking up to the right people despite having the ‘right’ politics.
Interesting.
Any indie who is “doing it right”, so to speak, deserves better.
I hope she isn’t shamed into withdrawing. On top of that libelous EW article, I’ve had just about enough of these little tin fascists.
Annie is hanging tough. In her own words, she’s finding out who her friends are. She won’t be cowed into abandoning her nomination. She earned it, SP3 aside. Anyone who attacks her is an idiot and a fool. Seriously.
James Nicoll, world-famed for the best and most succinct analysis of the state of the English Language ever published, announces a new policy due to Toni Weisskopf’s essay at Hoyt’s:
http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/5297418.html
I like Nicoll’s reviews and am saddened that he now chooses to exclude a massive segment of the genre from his sphere of influence.
His choice.
Oh man, somebody who never reviews our books isn’t going to review us anymore? I’m heart broken.
Oh dear ghods .. his readers are trying to figure out what the term “Publisher” is/means over there….
Never heard of him, but I did find it odd he does paid reviews. That’s generally considered a conflict of interest, because even if the author has no direct control over the review, it’s still amounts to paid advertising, and obviously an incentive exists to attract customers.
At any rate I’m not reading advertisements or reviews by someone whose reading comprehension is poor enough to call the SP slate “doctrinaire lockstep.”
It is, unfortunately, becoming far more normal for reviews to be paid for.
However, I figure if I have to pay someone to read my book, I probably wrote something shitty anyways.
Aww, man. I was counting on that check!
…and PNH poked GamerGate?! Taunting them that they couldn’t organize anything?
Do they really want a hundred James May’s crawling all over their stuff?
“Hastur, Hastur, Hast—arrrgh!”
No, I think that given the tremendous volume of material being published, paying for a review is a legitimate approach. Reviewers have a fixed amount of time in the day, an amount that is clearly insufficient to review even a small fraction of what’s available. This isn’t to say that paid reviews can’t be abused, but as long as the payment is disclosed, the review reader is able to assess it’s objectivity. Any reviewer who consistently overrates their subjects is going to lose credibility, and thus lose eyeballs, and poof, no more paid reviews.
Apparently these are often fan-commissioned reviews.
That is a thing. Well, huh… Didn’t know that anybody would actually pay money for something you could just get for free.
That could be a new revenue stream for you, Larry: Every time someone proposes internet stupidity for fisking, charge them.
Back when my first book came out, I was looking for ways to get reviews, only to decide I’d rather keep my ethics than get in on so many of those scams. There were “review” blogs out there that would take your money, plus a free copy of the book, for a “chance” at a review. No actual promise of one. The more you “donated” past the base fee, of course, the greater chance you had of being reviewed. They admitted as much.
I found another site that had “tiers” of reviews. Want a mention in passing? X dollars. A paragraph and a star score? Y dollars. A full article? Z dollars. Want front page coverage with a “favorable” response? XYZ dollars.
Yuck.
I settled for simply writing and relying on Amazon reviews. It’s not the best system, but at least I get to keep my scruples.
But the road to reviews these days is pretty fraught with insanity.
I would write reviews for free books all day long. Unless the book really sucked, like so many self published garbage.
Oh no! Deprived of the SJW critical endorsement, Baen will be forced to rely on their massive, outspoken loyal fanbase instead.
Oh… a patreon. Pass.
Nice guy he also posted online that Jim Baen shouldn’t get the Long Form Editor Hugo posthumously. Jim lost the Hugo on the last tabulation by 2 votes.
I’ve been watching Sad Puppies over the years, and just wanted to say thank you, Larry.
I’ve been dismayed over the outright hate and lying that has been going on when a simple google search would have sufficed to clear up any confusion. As you said, you’ve been very forthright about your position.
Thank you for standing up for good stories, and for shedding light on the hypocrisies, lies, and general uncivil behavior that has gone on far too long.
Don’t forget the intolerance.
What saddens me about all this is that Larry, et al., have to continually defend themselves against such base ignorance and hatred; yet the worst offenders don’t see themselves in that light. As you said, hypocrisy. I refuse to engage them directly (it’s pointless; they’re never going to grow up), though I’m outspoken enough among friends and family.
Instead, I made a conscious and deliberate decision to combat the problem from the inside in my own genres (Fantasy and SciFi Romance under not-very-well-hidden pen names) where many masquerade their hatred of freedom and self-expression behind the politically-correct/SJW flag. I would worry about alienating readers with my blunt honesty, but I’m a relatively new author. Not much to worry about when your readership is small.
Keep fighting the good fight, Larry.
That bothers me too. Especially when it’s not that hard to go back and read what he actually said.
*high five to new authors*
I’m trying to get to the point that it doesn’t bother me if I alienate some readers due to being honest. I would rather have fans to enjoy my stories and are the sort that can separate the author from his/her books–and who both have and can enjoy varied and different opinions–rather than those that demand I march in lockstep to what they believe is the One True Way or else.
I’m at that age where I’m tired of biting my tongue. It was getting kinda sore. Also, I’m not a lockstep kinda gal. I’ve always been out of step with the people around me, always. Don’t see any reason to change that now.
I’m waiting for the backlash, though, and not from the average reader. Truthfully, most are willing to overlook a character’s politics if the story is good and the message isn’t preachy. But there are a handful of self-appointed gatekeepers that will take one look at the stories I’m publishing and scream loudly about what an anti-[insert cause of the day here] I am. I’ll do my best to ignore it and focus on cultivating readers more interested in a well-written tale than on whether or not the characters and story lines conform to popular ideology.
I’ve been following the Hugo/Sad Puppies discussion on a certain forum and have noticed your attempts at rationality, reason, and an informed opinion. Kudos on that and much luck. I would join you, but I’m pretty sure attempting to reason with that crowd is like spitting in the wind.
Me too.
That’s why I’ve started speaking up now, and plan to in the future.
That’s the thing that I’m angriest with. People shouldn’t have to be afraid for speaking their opinion out loud. Silencing an opinion doesn’t magically make it go away. Shunning people who don’t have the “right” opinions isn’t going to make those people go away. What it does is convince those who are trying to do the right thing that we need to stand our ground and say “Enough is enough.”
*writing cookies* To good stories! Hear, hear!
Thank you.
I spoke up because the OP didn’t have any truth to it. And that bothers me. I’m not planning on going back because once the argument devolves to discrimination is okay so long as it’s a woman/non-caucasian person doing it, well, it’d be like volunteering to be Sisyphus *and* keeping Prometheus’s eagle on retainer. :p
It’s not the first thing that OP has deliberately mangled. But yeah, I get why you’re speaking out. In fact, I agree with you on all points. Especially the cookies.
re: Sisyphus/Prometheus. *snicker*
The only thing better than cookies is dragons. O:) *am thankful my muse is easily bribed*
Dragon-shaped cookies for the muse.
Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
!
You have no idea how awesome that sounds. Just the thought of those delectable treats has sent my muse spinning furiously all sorts of wonderful ideas. Right. Before. Bed. Time. O.O
If Twitter is any indicator, SJW is not well regarded by anybody. And the Gamer Gaters are going “HUH? WTF, We’ve been playing, who has time to read about trisexual nymphs?”
Gamergater here. You know, I would make more time for reading if it weren’t for the likes of Scalzi putting me right off the hobby sometimes. Or way back when I found a proto SJW calling Piers Anthony a pedophile.
I was reading long about gender swaps long before SJWs made it their religion in the likes of John Varley.
Regarding the comments from Dawn about people being willing to read a story with politics they don’t agree with I can attest to that since as an atheist lefty type I read a good bit of Dean Koontz and Orson Scott Card lately. Their worldview is their worldview and it does come out in their writing but they are still masters of their craft and I have the tolerance to enjoy their works unlike the faux-tolerance of the SJWs.
Please keep doing what you are doing you guys, I had no idea this was a thing until recently but glad to see people standing up to SJWs in any field. I’ve no desire to see the dogmatic religious right just get replaced by a dogmatic cult of the left. It’s bad for free thought, creativity, and real tolerance all around.
[…] And speaking of which, you really should read this excellent open letter from Larry to the moderates…. Links in there to a lot of needed background and history. Bravo sir! […]
[…] You really should read this excellent open letter from Larry to the moderates, fence sitters, and ot…. Links in there to a lot of needed background and history. Bravo […]
Just a minor proofreading comment. In the “The Hugos belong to a select few” section, I suspect that Hayden called you a liar.
You are a big guy, to be sure, but I doubt anyone would consider you a lair.
It’s the hobo beard. Lotta lair could be built in that beard.
And it’s at a great height, good defensive position…
Sigh. I wanted to checky the little box so I could follow the comments…
As a Hugo voter for several years, I regard the slates as tampering because they filled the ballot with the choices of only two people: Brad Torgersen and Vox Day (Theo). As a nominator I picked works I liked and have been confident in my belief that the bulk of nominating and voting is done by other people doing the same. But the pool of people eligible to vote for Hugos is small (850 people nominated a best novella last year), so it doesn’t take much for a small group voting as a bloc to determine all of the nominees.
I’m what the Puppies crowd claims to want as a Hugo voter. I pick the works I like and don’t vote my political preferences or any other considerations.
But none of my nominees made the ballot, and for as long as there are slates, it is unlikely that any nominee I select as an individual will ever make the ballot.
So my choice is to either reward Torgersen and Day for their hostile takeover of the Hugos or use No Award to discourage the use of slates in the future.
I
t’s quite obvious that Hugo voters will use No Award to reject this.
That’s a pity for the worthy nominees promoted by a slate, but letting two people dictate the Hugo ballot is something I can’t abide.
So thanks for that, Larry. Be sure to let me know when your movement to oppose elitism in the Hugos will allow nominations to once again be selected by individuals instead of your friends.
Yeah, I’m sure sorry I wasn’t able to right every single wrong and do everything absolutely perfectly, especially with all that help we were getting from you guys in the process.
So, as a noble Hugo voter, did you ever take issue with small groups getting all their friends nominated before? Did you enjoy being able to choose between five works of approved social justice? Did you ever complain to the regular kingmakers, and the authors who sat at the cool kids table, or just us?
And it wasn’t just Torgersen’s picks… There’s actually a bunch of us who had input. Oh, and most of us fished around looking for suggestions from fans and readers as much as possible. Vox had his own slate with his picks on it, can’t speak for him.
So, when Brad and other members of the ELoE were asking for input from fans and authors about works we should look at and consider, did you suggest anything? Politics wouldn’t have mattered. He championed a socialist because of the quality of her work. Or, were in the crowd that made fun of Brad and his fans, and insulted them for being barbaric outsiders rather than engaging and suggesting worthy works?
But you can No Award all you want. That is your choice. I win either way.
Like any other Hugo voter, in past years I questioned the presence of some works on the ballot. Nobody agrees with everything that gets nominated or everything that wins the rocket. Some Twitter gasbags with big online followings got more acclaim than I thought they merited.
Do you recognize the flaw in defending your takeover by claiming that a bunch of people had input on your slate?
I wasn’t one of those people. I used the normal Hugo process to make nominations. My individual choices — along with the individual choices of hundreds of others — were swamped by bloc voting.
Since you folks are vowing to do another hostile takeover next year, if I want to have input on the 2016 Hugo awards, am I required to make suggestions to your slate?
That’s quite a future you envision for this award: Each spring, a friend of Larry Correia/Brad Torgersen/Vox Day takes suggestions on a blog, these are winnowed down to five per category and around 150-200 people vote as a bloc to keep every other nominator from making any selections.
You have created a solution worse than any problem you thought you were solving.
Nice concern trolling there.
We are taking back the Hugos, not taking them over. A bunch of Tumblr trigger-warning special snowflakes have smeared their politics all over the Hugo process.
Just rolling over and playing nice is exactly what they want, since they never play nice, conduct witch hunts, and try to ruin the careers of anyone who opposes them.
So no, we aren’t going to play nice anymore.
Hey, even if you really could appeal to 3 of us to have a shot, that’s a 300% improvement than the prior system of sucking to the 1 twitter gas bag.
Serious answer, yeah, I know it is flawed. I don’t know how many more times I can say that it isn’t perfect, and we’re learning as we go. However for the first time in forever, my kind of fan doesn’t feel totally disowned and disavowed. You think the problem is worse now because you were eyeball deep in it, but my people are throwing a party.
I don’t think SMOFdom is going to be quite as lockstep condemnatory as you think either. Considering all the thank yous we’ve been getting from authors, artists, creators, and fans who are sick and tired of the current process, and they’ll take a new form of imperfect over the stagnant crap of recent times, because at least we’re trying.
As I said elsewhere – I hope the end result of this is thousands of new voters, and I hope a ton of them are liberal as well as conservative.
Strong competition breeds better results – no one gets complacent and starts nominating stuff that isn’t top notch.
I see you getting thank yous from people waging a culture war who will quickly move on to the next outrage du jour. I don’t see random Hugo voters like me thanking you for making our vote completely meaningless.
Your scheme won’t even improve things in the future for the kind of works you celebrate. The most likely outcome is for a bigger slate to emerge and some other self-appointed gatekeeper to dictate all of the picks. That will suck too.
You can read me and Brad’s email? That is pretty remarkable. Do you work for the NSA?
No, I mean we’re getting emails from long time SMOFs, people who’ve attended lots of WorldCons, writers, and professionals. Since the SJW side is vindictive and quick to blame all dissent on racism/sexism/homophobia we’re doing what they can’t.
When TNH had her little foot stompy come apart about owning the Hugos last week, that was like the best thing that ever could have happened for us. It ripped the mask off for everyone who cared to see.
Gatekeepers were already there. Only you guys never stood up to the twitter windbags, and probably didn’t mind them too much as long as they were only slandering people on my side. Personally, I’d like to see enough widespread involvement that no one clique can dominate. Everybody on my side has suffered through years of crap we didn’t like and our votes not counting, so now you can suffer through a year of feeling like your vote doesn’t count (even though our nominees are actually diverse, good, and if it wasn’t for us, you’d probably not mind voting for them).
Or you can go ahead, No Award everything, which will prove my point (but poor idealistic Brad will be proven wrong, because he actually has faith in fandom at large), and show the whole world that it isn’t about the quality of the work at all.
A weakness of your argument is that you assume my opposition to your campaign is because I’m not on your “side.”
I’m a 30-year SF/F reader whose tastes have always leaned towards the Heinlein quadrant of the genre that you and the other bloc campaigners seem to love the most. I don’t share your politics, but that didn’t stop me from loving Heinlein and wouldn’t stop me from reading your books, which truthfully sound like something I’d enjoy.
When I No Award all of the slate nominees, the point will be that I hate bloc voting. It won’t have anything to do with this war you’ve ginned up against social justice warriors.
rcade:
A question for you:
This year, it looks like 200 – 300 people pretty much completely took over the Hugo nominations process, despite warning everyone before hand that they were going to do that.
Given that, do you really think that slate voters haven’t been gaming the system for years? Do you really think that 40 – 50 people couldn’t gang up together and push through slates? Looking at the nominees over the last 5 – 10 years, do you really think they have NOT being doing that?
Are you really complaining just because Sad Puppies forced you to realize that your nominations never mattered?
I have seen no evidence that people have successfully gamed the Hugo nominations in past years. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that a small number of nominees got on a ballot through secret campaigns in past years, but there’s never been anything like what Correia’s campaign has openly done here — take entire categories and almost the whole ballot.
As for the last 10 years, there were times I was disappointed in the nominees and winners, but I read a lot of online talk about the Hugos and I saw no evidence of manipulation. Just the normal unhappiness that follows an award leaving off people you think deserve to be there and the typical conspiracy theories.
“but there’s never been anything like what Correia’s campaign has openly done here — take entire categories and almost the whole ballot.”
Again, the main complaint here seems to be that SP has broader appeal than past such lists. Yes, when more people vote your vote matters less. But when very few people vote you get Ferguson and the pre-SP Hugos.
Most of the “thank-yous” are from people like me, who were introduced to some astounding work by SP.
So you’ll join the bloc vote No Award to fight bloc voting?
Thanks for screaming how dead on accurate the Sad Puppies campaign had you folks pegged.
To add hilarity, you complain that after Larry’s bloc voting blocked your favorites from getting nominated.
The direct correlation is that your choices got nominated in the past. Presumably your nominations knocked other sincere concern trolls’ nominations off the short list, but you don’t seem to mind when your choices are on top…
Like any other Hugo voter, in past years I questioned the presence of some works on the ballot.
But not enough to actually do anything, I noticed.
So, the short version to Larry’s questions is, “No, I didn’t.”
I notice that you didn’t answer the question asking if you had no-awarded prior slate nominations by the likes of Scalzi’s ‘award pimpage’… planning on doing that anytime soon?
rcade, take your sanctimonious crap and shove it back up your ass. People like you are what got people like me voting in the first place. All your hand-wringing, false-modesty, whining, belligerence and flat out lying pissed me (and judging by the comments and this and many other blogs) and plenty of others off.
You don’t own being a fan. You don’t get to tell people how and how not to feel about anything.
Your tears are precious to me. Keep them coming.
Do you know how Brad picked the slate?
He opened his comments section and took reader suggestions.
So what?
He used bloc voting to enable 100-200 Hugo nominators to drown out the choices of everyone else. This even hurt the fans who made suggestions to him: If a work they liked wasn’t in his top 5, it had almost no chance of being nominated.
A bloc voting campaign putting the choices of two people all over the ballot is not made more acceptable by the fact they took some public input. It’s still a subversion of the process that gives those of us who do what Correia said he wanted — vote for great SF/F books without a political agenda — no voice in the Hugos.
So, which of our nominees works have a political agenda?
…
…
…
…
…
…*crickets*
I wasn’t referring to books having a political agenda. I was referring to Hugo voters having a political agenda, such as rewarding an inferior book because it espouses the correct political views.
Those of us who don’t do that will have no voice in the nominations while bloc voting persists.
Rcade is going to block vote “No Award” to protest alleged block voting.
And opposes the political goal “Find actual good books”.
Before the nominees were announced, I had hope that the Puppies movement would help improve the awards by bringing in more fans with a broader range of SF/F interests.
But now that their slates are taking up almost the entire ballot and leaving almost no space for any work that didn’t meet their bloc’s approval, I see no choice but to use No Award to repudiate that.
If the shoe was on the other foot and one of the people Correia calls a social justice warrior hogged the entire ballot with a slate, he’d be calling for No Award to be used too.
Nope.
Feel free to check through my many copious writings on the subject. I’ve always encouraged people to read the works and vote accordingly. I’ve never called for No Award. In fact, if I really wanted to destroy the awards like you guys accuse me of, I’d encourage my people just to No Award everything to be dicks.
And hate to break it to you, but when the finals look like Best Novel: SJW. Best Novella: SJW. Best Short Story: SJW. Best Related Work: SJW, you’re already getting gamed.
Only my side is honest at it, and apparently better at it.
No. When that happened Sad Puppies was born.
We got off our butts and voted. I nominated stuff I loved and thought deserving.
You are welcone to disagree, but don’t go telling us what we’d do. Especially when your hypothetical is anything but.
Rcade:
The SJWs HAVE been “hogging the entire ballot”, that’s why Sad Puppies came about.
And if Sad puppies were JUST “block voting”, we’d have had 5 Novel nominees.
Correia: You have no proof the Hugos were successfully gamed in past years. I will buy a copy of every novel you’ve written if you can prove that even a single novel/novella/novelette category was stuffed with a secret bloc’s nominees in the past 10 years.
Greg: The only reason you don’t have all five best novel nominees is because that category gets the most nominations. There were 1,595 best novel nominations in 2014. It would have taken 369 bloc voters to take all five slots or 220 to take four.
By comparison, there were 847 novella nominations and only 144 bloc voters could take all five slots.
Luckily for you, they’re not that stupid, but I won’t miss the sales.
Also, Sad Puppies didn’t sweep novellas. We had 3 nominees. The fact that those people went on to nominate other Wright novels? I didn’t tell them to do that. If somebody else told that to do that, can’t blame my slate. Though it probably has something to do with the week before the noms closed when we sold 2,000 novellas, making them the most widely read things to show up on the ballot in a very long time, and while those fans were on Amazon they bought a ton more of his products and ended up liking those two.
Damned fans and their incorrect opinions!
Using No Award as a political bludgeon will destroy the Hugos faster than the Sad Puppies ever could.
Using No Award isn’t political at all if you are using it to reject the tactic of bloc voting.
If a liberal author had organized a campaign that swept entire categories of the Hugos I’d be saying exactly the same things to him I’m saying to Correia.
“rewarding an inferior book because it espouses the correct political views.”
That’s the explicit promise of the SJWers. Except its worse than that, because they want to reward/punish work merely for who it was written by. I could appreciate a well-written progressive jeremiad on its merits, even if I disagreed; no work should be judged by the author’s skin color or sexual orientation or politics.
The greatest flaw in your argument is to think that everyone supporting the goals of SP votes, thinks and acts in lockstep. The slate is just a set or recommendations. if voters agree, they will put them up there, if not, they’ll go their own way. No one tells me how to vote when it comes down to the actual ‘picking time’ and from reading the others here, well, good luck getting them to either. I have a herd of cats, and I’d rather get them going in the same direction.
Yeah, you know how easily manipulated and bossed around libertarians are.
Hey, don’t tell me how easily persuaded and manipulated I’m not!
rcade and the rest of the SJW nutjobs are projecting. They assume that because they’re a hivemind, that everyone else is a hivemind, only with wrongthink.
Understanding *real* diversity — diversity of thought — is well beyond their abilities to comprehend.
Lisa Simpson: Watch yourself, Dad – you’re the highly suggestible type.
Homer Simpson: Yes, I am the highly suggestible type.
Correia is good, Correia is great, we surrender our will, as of this date!
@TallDave: To the International Lord of Hate?
dear rcade,
personally i paid $40 for the express purpose of making YOU whine. i didn’t know it was you at the time, but i knew it would be somebody.
i just wanted you to know that all your convoluted bullshit here has fulfilled my every hope, and i feel i have gotten my full-on forty bucks worth already.
next up, i get to read all the nominated stories and books, which for the first time in 30 years WILL NOT SUCK.
wait until you see what we do to you fuckers next year. you’re going to be pining for Sad Puppies 3.
and ghod help you, i may even show up in person at Mid America. you’ll be spending a lot of time in the Official SJW Safe Space, because it ain’t going to be Safe around me. i’ll be saying all kindsa triggery shit all over the place, just to be a dick.
I need a shirt that says this.
Whatever floats your boat.
I’m not your enemy. I’m just a Hugo voter who wanted to make nominations that had a shot at getting on a ballot. Correia and his pals took that away from me with their bloc voting campaign, so I’m telling him why I think that sucks.
As for the notion that the Hugo packet has sucked for 30 years, Kim Stanley Robinson alone shoots that idea to hell. And there are plenty of other authors along that span among the greats of the genre.
Rcade. Prove your claim, please. A 200 vote variance between #1 and #5 in the Novella nominations tends to argue against people voting a bloc.
Nathan, only if you’re willing to think and apply your own honest assessment. If you’re willing to concede higher functions to Argument from Authority, well, you get what you get.
The high point for SP-related votes is probably 368-387 (editor or novel). Let’s go with the editor figure, 368.
Looking for a lowpoint…
Two Best Dramatic shorts did not make it. Cut off was 71. Semiprozine cutoff was 94, and one missed.
Unless they were ineligible or declined, of course, that establishes the overall range.
rcade:
I’m another Hugo voter, off and on for the last 30-some years. Personally, I’m used to nominating works that never wound up on the ballot, because 99% of the time that’s what happens to my picks. But it used to be I could rely on the final ballot to have at least some works I could enjoy. For novels its more or less still true, but for shorter works… I really can’t say I’ve enjoyed many of them for at least a decade now. Last year’s SP noms were probably the first in a fairly long time which I could genuinely say I read without gritting my teeth.
I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it: Ever since I attended my first convention (1979), what have I been hearing about the Hugo ballot? “If you don’t like whats on the ballot, buy a membership and vote. Better yet, get your friends to do the same.” Pardon me, but just how different is that advice from whats happened?
Not everything I nominated made it onto the ballot, but a far larger percent made it than I’ve ever had before. And its introduced me to some writers I’d not tried before. I do not want to see the Sad Puppies dominating every year, but if this starts the process of making the Hugos at least somewhat more inclusive to all of fandom… I’m for it.
Re: Redshits
Since this book keeps coming up as an example of a flawed Hugo win, let me say that IMHO listening to the audio book version (narrated by Will Wheaton) is far superior to actually reading it; the humor works much better narrated than it does read.
But having said that… its still the polished version of a concept every fanfic reader has been familiar with for decades. (hell, I’m even guilty of using it myself!)
So, you’re bent out of shape that a couple hundred people bought memberships and voted in a way that you don’t like. Rather anti-democratic of you, isn’t it?
-jcr
Bloc voting is apparently only actionable when wrongfans do it.
( sarc ) The SJW crowd never bloc votes. It is just a coincidence that their hivemind always picks out authors that are of the protected-class or the day. No hive-voting here, no siree. ( / sarc )
You keep saying “he used bloc voting”. Do you have some arcane insight into the actual nominations? Or are you simply ASSUMING?
Screw them. They have bloc voted their hivemind for years.
Dish some of it back to them.
Obey the Libertarian International Lord of Hate. You know you want to.
I’ve tended to avoid all this controversy because most people already know that I personally know & like most of the authors from SP1 & SP2, but I’ve been on the verge of commenting on this for days, now.
You say: “I’m just a Hugo voter who wanted to make nominations that had a shot at getting on a ballot. Correia and his pals took that away from me with their bloc voting campaign, so I’m telling him why I think that sucks.”
It’s comments like this that bug the hell out of me. You say that you’re “just a Hugo voter who wanted to make nominations that had a shot at getting on a ballot”. Well, you know what? So is Larry. So is Brad. So is EVERYONE else who ponied up their $40 or more to support WorldCon or pay their poll tax.
Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Are. Hugo. Voters as well.
You aren’t telling “telling him why I think that sucks,” you’re telling them WHY THEY DON’T MATTER. That THEIR votes aren’t as worthy as YOURS.
It’s seeing this attitude repeated ad infinitum that just guarantees that more people whose votes will “take that away from you” continue to participate. You want to take that away from them and it doesn’t seem like they want to let you.
F*cking A well told, Joe.
Of course we are not worthy. We are wrongfans who promote wrongfun.
Our badthink must be purged.
Wait a minute. Joe Buckley? I read in a book that you were dead. A lot!
Oh, just die already, Joe.
hehehe
You’ve obviously missed the point. The purpose of SP is to broaden the Hugo electorate to make bloc voting, public or no, ineffective. I’d bet that more than 1000 nominating votes were made in the novella category this year, and that number is going to grow.
Bloc voting doesn’t expand the electorate. It discourages participation in the Hugos for everyone who does not join a bloc. It makes our nominations worthless. No one outside of Torgersen and Day’s blocs got a nominee on the novella, novellette, short story, best related work, or best editor categories.
Before the nominees came out, I held out hope that the Puppies would be a net positive by bringing a lot more people into the nominating process — both pro-Puppy and anti-Puppy.
But bloc voting games the system so completely that it will just cause one or more other blocs to form. People who just want to nominate good works without organizing with others will have zero voice.
rcade,
You’ve fouled your message, as far as I’m concerned. You showed up at another author’s page, one who’s taking some joy in her nomination despite finding herself amidst the silly kerfuffle, and denigrated the value of her nomination.
Leaving aside her request to keep the nonsense out of her space, who are you to lecture her about the value of her nomination? Who are you to stop by her place and cast a shadow on her pride in the accomplishment?
It’s pathetic concern trolling, it’s petty and pointless.
Oh, s/he’s the graceless and pathetic concern troll that did that? Guess I should have compared names…
Yep.
Not much class on display with this one.
But I thought the SJWs wanted people to organize? Are you saying you’re anti-union?
What SP is at its heart – organizing the oppressed working class reading masses into recognizing their oppression and working together to do something about it to make a better future for their children.
We demand good science fiction and fantasy! Down with puerile, heavy-handed, “progressive” message fiction! We demand heroes who perform heroic deeds! We demand stories where the humans are the good guys! We demand stories where the good guys win, or at least go down doing their best, setting up a sequel where their successors can advance the ball down the field in the next generation! We demand a variety of story-telling styles, forms, and themes, not lock-step progressivism extolling the supposed “virtues” of weakness and the favored class of the moment! We want stories that make Big Brother cry and gnash his teeth in anger! Emmanuel Goldstein for best editor! WE WANT GOOD STORIES TO WIN AWARDS!
Readers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your boredom!
/end snark/
That’s quite the temper tantrum there. Would you care for some Preparation H for that industrial-strength butthurt?
But then, as A Certain Frenchman once said, “Never interrupt your enemy while he’s making a mistake.”
Please, continue.
But the pool of people eligible to vote for Hugos is small (850 people nominated a best novella last year), so it doesn’t take much for a small group voting as a bloc to determine all of the nominees.
Wrong. The pool of people eligible to vote for the Hugos numbers in the billions. The pool of those who choose to make the effort and expend the resources to do so is much, much smaller. Sad Puppies has expanded the latter pool. Why is that a bad thing?
I just plunked down my $40, so I will match your “I’m picking up my marbles and going home” brave “No Award” with my vote for the stories I like bestest. When democratic, party politics can trump the creation of a Supreme Soviet for SF, I have to cheer.
Conformity and acquiescence is easy. Democracy is hard, and sometimes it isn’t pretty. Nancy Pelosi, for example. But it is better than the alternatives.
“Be sure to let me know when your movement to oppose elitism in the Hugos will allow nominations to once again be selected by individuals”
Um, never have, and never will. It takes at least 30 votes to get something or someone nominated. 30 >>1 that your vote pretty much never matters.
Sorry
rcade, these were not “my” choices. I polled (straw poll) many dozens of fans, as well as friends, and fellow pros. The list was condensed from a large number of selections. It was right there in my damned blog comments. Of course, all the whiners and complainers never bothered to check. They just wanted to vent their spleens and point fingers, like the crying toddlers that they are.
The fact you took comments from “dozens” in your community does not make it OK that you hijacked the Hugo nomination process away from everyone else. The nominations that I and hundreds of others submitted as individuals in good faith had almost no chance of making the ballot because your slate and Day’s slate filled it.
In another comment in this discussion, Correia admits he has no proof that even a single novel/novella/novelette category was stuffed with a secret bloc’s nominees in the past 10 years. None.
Yet in the name of fighting that non-existent problem, you’re completely taking over the Hugos with bloc voting.
As I told him, just let me know when your anti-elitism campaign is over so someone other than you and your pals can make nominations again.
AAAAAAAAAAAND there’s that moving the goalposts when you are outright told that nope, it’s not just a small handful of people who picked out what to put on that list. Retreat to screaming about hijacking and recommendation lists and voting lockstep when that didn’t happen with SP3. Don’t know about Rabid Puppies, you’ll have to demand answers from them.
So predictable.
Out of curiosity, just what were your nominees that didn’t make the cut?
“As a Hugo voter for several years…”
Question: how many years does someone have to vote before their vote becomes legitimate?
The first year you agree with the Nielsen Haydens.
Rcade, I find you fascinating. I think SJWs need to be studied as a psychological and sociological phenemenon of the internet age. What I find remarkable is that you are completely lacking in any self-awareness. You keep projecting your own characteristics on everyone else but you don’t even know you are projecting. Then you realize the SJWs don’t actually see themselves as SJWs at all. They just think they are RIGHT. About everything. And in a completely mindless way. You don’t reconize how badly the SJW crowd ruined the Hugo awards despite being a SJW because you don’t any clue that you are one. Is that the key? It is beyond mere narcissism, but also not really a form of opportunism. It is complete self-delusion based on absolute certainty about one’s own moral superiority. Like something out of 1984. So the clear reaction to the SJW hijacking of the awards makes no sense to you because you are programmed not to recognize that this ever existed. Yet you cannot explain the reaction, which clearly was based on something. So you rationalize and mentally make Sad Puppies into the real SJWs.
SJWs are people that demand empathy but have none, demand compassion but lack compassion, demand justice but have not one shred of decency, deplore lies but have no honesty, and live an existence of sustained misery, pettiness and infinite self-righteouness that they are completely blind to. Maybe SJWs should be declared a mental illness, or categorized as sociopaths.
The fact that you cannot see the problem is the problem. Luckily the rest of us are not so impaired.
Funnily enough, I distrust you not because of any politics or social justice reasons, but because you lied. You’ve said that you’d asked all the authors on your slate if they were okay with being associated with SP, but you didn’t. Several of the authors have made that clear.
So, while maybe you aren’t pushing any agenda I can’t and won’t trust anything you say in that regard. If you have no agenda, you had no reason to lie about that.
We didn’t lie. We made the attempt to contact all of them and screwed up. Curse this frail human imperfection. The fact that you are trying to dismiss the entire thing over that just means you are a nitpicky checklister.
But hey, while I’ve got you here, why is failing to contact a nominee to tell them you liked and endorse their work such a terrible sin? Oh yeah… That’s because merely being plugged by outsiders with the wrong politics might CAUSE A MOB OF SOCIAL JUSTICE ATTACK DOGS TO RIP THEM APART AND TRY TO DESTROY THEIR CAREER.
So, apparently if my neighbor has a mean dog that roams around and bites, and I fail to tell people about the mean dog, that is somehow a worse sin than the asshole who lets his mean dog roam around biting people.
Now personally, I just kick the dog.
Try again. Your narrative sucks.
Oh yeah… That’s because merely being plugged by outsiders with the wrong politics might CAUSE A MOB OF SOCIAL JUSTICE ATTACK DOGS TO RIP THEM APART AND TRY TO DESTROY THEIR CAREER.
*DING DING DING!* We have a winner!
Wow.
Triple-axel double reverse flying backhand bitchslap, and you even stuck the landing!
Only kick the mean dog trying to gnaw your leg off?
That “International Lord of Hate” thing went to a teddy-bear pushover…
Errrm, Alex…
Have you ever SEEN the ILoH in person? You do not want to feel his size fourteen combat boot making newtonian connections with you.
Owen Z. Pitt, the human wrecking machine that killed a werewolf bare handed? It’s pretty obvious Larry was looking in the mirror when he dreamed OZP up.
Sure Larry was looking in the mirror when he dreams up Owen ….
Then Mrs. Lord of Hate came by, gave him a big hug and said that he better tone it down in print because no one would believe the truth.
Interestingly enough, the very fact that the SJWs are concern trolling over “innocent authors dragged into this mess without their consent” simply establishes EXACTLY WHAT LARRY HAS BEEN SAYING fr several years.
The CHORFs will gang up and exclude anyone associated (however vaguely) with a position or person *they* (a tiny clique) deem “bad think”.
Thanks for proving the original ” J’accuse!” that initiated Sad Puppies was 100% accurate.
This is more akin to diverting someone’s taxi to your place, knowing that there was a mean dog around that might attack them. Sure, you didn’t know about the pack of rabid dogs that came into the neighbourhood, but saying “but didn’t the taxi driver tell you I paid him extra to bring you here instead?” doesn’t exactly cut it.
If you don’t hear back from all the authors, you mention that fact and say that you’d welcome any way offered to communicate with them. This is not your first rodeo. You should have known, or at least suspected, the reaction. It might be a couple of magnitudes bigger than previous, but it was always going to be there. Humans are humans.
Except we’re not talking about the reactions of mad dogs, but of people. People have self-control; their reactions are their responsibilities, not Larry’s.
Blame the frothing lunatics for frothing, not the innocent people who stirred them up just by existing.
I agree with LC. The fact they even needed to be contacted shows an inquisition is in play. Does anyone need to pre-contact N.K. Jemisin or Saladin Ahmed. If those Twitter feeds were the world I’d think white people were hunter-killer teams.
What do you mean we don’t have a hunter-killer team? What kind of International hate organization is this?
Well, they’re sjw seals, so natcherally we have hunter-killer teams, except it’s only metaphorical. Also tetsubos. We established that the last time there was a flood of trolls over here.
Don’t forget the tetsubos.
Wow. What a special word you live in. It must be nice to be able to label every goof up as a lie.
Here’s the thing. I was being considered for the Sad Puppies slate, and I got spoken to before I was even on the slate (and I wasn’t, alas). I have every reason to believe that the attempt was made, because I saw evidence of it myself.
But you go on believing that a mistake is a lie. I sincerely hope you get to experience the sensation soon enough.
Wait? So everyone is supposed to ask every author’s permission before saying, “I like these stories, and I think you will, too. Go buy them, read them, and decide for yourself…”
Shit, I’d better go edit my Facebook “likes” page, since I already know Ouija boards are fake…
There already is a permission process. The authors are asked if they accept the nomination.
Apparently this special snowflake is worried we might be triggering authors.
The only triggering here is being done by the SJW witch-hunters to author careers.
If YOU nominated someone, would YOU feel obligated to inform them? Maybe, but no one else does. That SP did so (however imperfectly) was a courtesy they dreamed up, not a requirement of the process.
And I don’t count honest mistakes as “lies”, especially when the perp has already owned up to their mistake.
With something this politically charged with the fandom and internet as it is? Hell yes. Causing problems for someone is something I try and avoid to the point where things actually become detrimental to myself.
So the actions of SJWs causing problems is somehow Brad’s fault?
What an… interesting world you live in.
It’s the same mindset that gave us “she dressed provocatively, she knew what to expect”.
Yeah.
Fan of (insert author here): “I love this person’s books so much I will nominate them for a Hugo Award. I’ll blog about it.”
Friends of the fan: “Hey, let’s make a list of awesome books that qualify this year and we think deserve a Hugo. Raise awareness, because I didn’t know you could vote for the Hugos.”
Fan: “Sure! Nobody has to vote for it, this is just the list of the ones we like.”
Some of the friends: I like some of the ones on that list but I’ll nominate a few others that aren’t on it.
Fan and other friends: That’s cool, nominate the ones you like.
*Several books on that list make it*
SJW: RAAAAAAAAAAAR THEY DIDN’T ASK PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHORS THE BOOK I LIKED DIDN’T GET ON BECAUSE IT’S THEIR FAULT AND RAISED AWARENESS!!!!!!!!!
*SJW goes to harass authors of the books* TURN DOWN THE NOMINATION OR I WILL SWAT YOU, DESTROY YOUR CAREER AND TELL EVERYONE YOU ARE RACIST AND MISOGYNIST! DO WHAT I SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! AND IT’LL BE YOUR FAULT IF YOU DON’T DO WHAT I SAY!
Fans and several authors: What the actual fuck?
No, the only liar here is Someone else and his crew. They are using the exact logic of a wife beater: “If you took better care of the kids, I wouldn’t have to hit them and you.”
Yep, the justifications of the habitual abusers, the muggers, and stalkers.
Stalker: “Tell you what, if she takes down the sticky (that documents all my abuses and warns other people about me) I’ll leave all of right-wing SF alone. Oh, she didn’t, it’s her fault then that I’m harassing everyone. It’s all on her now.”
I’m very, very familiar with the ‘argument.’
I love how they blame the victim. DARVO tactics at it’s finest.
I take full responsibility for anyone on the slate who got missed. I was juggling hundreds of e-mails and FB messages over a very short span of time. So far, only two people specifically asked to be removed, and they were removed. We did all of this with as much communication and transparency as could be managed. And some balls got dropped.
However, I think this is one of the silliest red herrings in the entire fracas. Since when does anyone ask “permission” to list an author or an editor on a suggestion list?
Simple: when everyone knows that the Social Justice Warriors will make the lives of those on the list, a living hell. Great win for our detractors! You have people terrified! You obviously love this field so much, you are willing to scare the entire field to death; of being retaliated against.
Go you.
SJWs: Did they ask? I need to know if it’s okay for me to go after this guy. I need to know if I can start slandering this author. I NEED TO KNOW IF THEY SAID YES TO THESE PEOPLE I HAAAAAAAAAAATE!!!!! THEY AREN’T ALLOWED TO LIKE THE THINGS I LIKE MORE THAN I DO!!!!!!!
*shakes head*
In other words the way SJWs criticize you is by admitting they’re an inquisition.
How many RPM’s is Orwell up to now?
Well, if I can honestly blame you for something, Larry, it’s letting a lot of us readers who weren’t aware that we could nominate and vote for the Hugos!
So, yeah, that’s your bad. Totally all your fault. At least where I’m concerned.
And now I continue to stare with teary eyes at the screenplays for movies, because I can’t choose, they were all awesome!
(cue Lego Movie themesong)
EXACTLY. Three yeas ago I didn’t even know I COULD vote in the Hugos. I thought the winners were decided by committee- and the results seemed to reflect that. (which is why I never paid attention to who won.)
And on Twitter- this is the conversation I’m having most often with people who are new to SP.
Yup. I’ve been a die hard fan since, well, forever. I GAVE up on using a Hugo Award as a sign of quality about 25 years ago, because while earlier Hugo winners were almost always entertaining, the inverse was true after that.
An until Sad Puppies, ibthough there was some kind of “Hugo Committee” that made the awards, sort of like the Nobel Prizes and other major awards.
“Bloc voting”? Well, no. I didn’t nominate this year (because, frankly, it was the shouts from the tiny clique that thinks it personally owns the Hugo’s as a fiefdom, and the people calling to destroy the awards by voting ” No Award” to “make a statement” that I got motivated to buy a membership, although I’d considered it for a few years). Now, when I vote this year, I’m going to read as many of the nominees as I can, and vote *only* where I have read the majority of them, and *only* base on quality as *I* perceive it. Next year, when I nominate, I will nominate *only* works *I* have personally deemed worthy for consideration, regardless of who may or may not suggest them.
Sadly, the increased book money will have to come from somewhere else in the budget, which means I’ll be buying fewer guns and ammo for the next year at least… Ah, such sacrifices we make for Art…
Forgive the typoes. Typing via phone limits one’s ability to readily proof…
Boy oh boy do I have some good news for you!
Not only did your $40 buy you a year’s shadenfreude, but it also includes e-book versions of most nominees. More than I was able to read last time, anyway.
I think they shoot for Mermorial Day to get them to you.
I didn’t nominate – didn’t have the money – but goddamn I would have when I found out that Jim Butcher’s Skin Game was eligible.
See, I completely forgot about the Hugo noms this year, till SP3.
I wouldn’t have nominated Lego Movie, nor Interstellar (I hadn’t watched it until two nights ago), or any of the movie nominations because I live in Australia and I wait for the DVD release over here. That came WAAAAAAAAAAAY too late for any of the ones that ended up being nominated for me to watch and go “I’ll suggest that for a nomination.”
I actually didn’t buy much book-fiction last year because I’ve been slowly buying manga and nonfiction. Or DVD box sets (of anime.) But I pre-ordered books like Nemesis and Skin Game. I saw that there were authors I liked in Dangerous Women so I got that in hardcover. (Which authors? GRRM and Jim Butcher. – I find I enjoy Martin’s work better as short stories.)
But my loving Jim Butcher’s work makes me a minion and a ‘block voter.’
Instead of books this month, I used my month’s book budget to buy a Sasquan membership so I can vote. (Though, in retrospect, the bundle indirectly means I got books. And for a change the bundle won’t be filled with grey goo like If You Were A Dinosaur, which I did read and it was COMPLETE AND UTTER CRAP. That would have earned a no-award from me because it wasn’t sci-fi OR fantasy.)
I’m voting for the stuff I enjoyed. I will read the works included in the bundle, as much as my time allows. Has bloody NOTHING to do with the SP3 ‘slate’ because the only thing Sad Puppies ever really did was to inform me “You, the fan, can nominate and vote for works you think deserve the Hugo; and which works were eligible.”
Larry and Brad did us ‘wrong fans’ an awesome favor.
I’ll have to check and see if I caught the butcher story in dangerous women! I tend to pick up short story collections at the library because I’m not big on them, but I like to know what’s happening if they are characters from books I’m reading (like the dresden files).
I’ve read all of GRRM’s books, but they are long. I read the first three in a clump and had to take a break for a year or two before tackling the last two.
Lea;
The Jim Butcher story in Dangerous Women was all sorts of AWESOME – and if I am not mistaken, it’s the first one. I’ll restrain myself on the excited squee because well, it’s full of dangerous women, and Harry’s not the main character this time. It was a fantastic look into the head of one of the other important characters.
Also, Jim writes really good women, imho as a woman. It really showed in this story – well, at least to me.
The GRRM story, I felt, was masterful writing; I greatly prefer his stuff when they’re short. I also highly recommend his The Ice Dragon, which was recently re-released with beautiful illustrations by Luis Royo. It’s a book aimed at children, and can be read out loud, chapter by chapter, to one’s kids. (We’re doing Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman.)
I tend to pick up anthologies that include authors I like because it also gives me the opportunity to sample the works of authors I haven’t discovered yet. It’s a bit hit-and-miss since I can’t peruse the books in a physical book store (I buy from Book Depository because free international shipping); but on the whole I enjoy even the unfamiliar offerings. Yes, some of them are messagey fics and some of them have rather obvious tick-in-the-intersectional-box characters, but they don’t always sacrifice the story for the message, and to my pleasure only very few stories were unreadable due to message-brick-cascade.
A collection of novellas that included one by one of my favorite authors sadly had mostly grey goo, with the story of my favorite being the only really good one. It struck me as a really tragic thing because the other stories had wonderful concepts in them, but suddenly I was being hit over the head with MESSAGE and it’s like the author forgot how to incorporate that more smoothly into the story.
I generally will try to check out anything that have been edited by Terri Windling (sp?) and Ellen Datlow, anthologywise. They get some really diverse styles and genres.
Ooh, that story is about Molly? I have to say, she has become one of my favorite things about the Dresden files in the last half of the series. I think Jim’s done a fantastic job with her.
When I finish the pratchett books I picked up at the library and the new jane yellowrock and the new annie bellet that I’m trying out, maybe I’ll check it out.
I also really liked Jim’s short story about Thomas. I think it was in an all dresden files short story compilation.
This, a thousand times this.
I’ve done cons, including worldcon in several locations, It wasn’t until SP1 that I realized the Hugos were fan driven.
For that alone, I’ll thank Larry et all, if for no other reason.
(OK, I loved the grimnoir series, and the MH series tickled me pink, but Larry did that for money, and I responded, the SP stuff, he did for free, and for that, I will thank him)
I know it’s great. The real great evil that Larry did here is let general fandom know that they could vote in the Hugo’s. I never knew how they were awarded before the Sad Puppies campaigns.
Larry: I’m probably going to regret posting, but I’ll say it anyway. Here’s the problem with what y’all did. Three Body Problem isn’t on the ballot because you hadn’t had a chance to read it yet. One author, John C. Wright, has six Hugo nominations because his editor put him on a slate.
It’s like if CBS figured out a way to get 15% of the Emmy voters (which is the approximate percentage of the Hugo ballots your slate controlled) to game the Emmys such that in any given category there were 4 CBS shows and one show from HBO. No matter which show wins (even the HBO one) people are going to suspect it was NOT the best show in that category.
A persistent argument, repeated here, is that “whisper campaigns” were getting people Hugos. In this year’s voting, 1174 people voted in short stories, nominating 728 short stories. Where’s the whisper campaign in that? The only campaign was the one involving between 230 and 151 people voting a straight Sad Puppies ticket. The other 944 people spread their whispers out among 723 titles.
Because of bloc voting, the requirement to get on the short fiction ballot went from 6% of the voting public to 12%. And to pull that off – to mobile a paltry 230 people – required enough screaming on the Internet to be heard from orbit. Yet the 60 people needed to pull off a pre-Sad Puppies “whisper campaign” did so in silence and stayed silent?
At best, the Sad Puppy logic is of the “we had to destroy the village to save it.” I really hope you bring a lot more people to the Hugo voter rolls – by my math you’ve got upwards of a thousand eligible voters who are really upset at you. That’s a big hill to climb.
In other news: concern trolls are *concerned*? More on this story after the commercial break.
Taking a concern troll’s bad advice will still not get you a seat at the “cool kids” table.
All concern trolls have the same advice: “Shut up, hick, and we promise you will stop being hated by us”.
This is a lie, of course. They just want you to shut up.
Refer to Brad Torgersen’s blog for a take down of this troll. I am too busy to pull back all the eloquent rebuttals of him over there.
Gerrib, as I said above, there’s not exactly an instruction manual for this. I’m terribly sorry that I couldn’t fix every single problem in the world, in an absolutely perfect and fair manner, while simultaneously having assholes scream racist racist racist in my ear.
Maybe if some of these “moderates” such as yourself (moderate gets quotes for you, because I’ve seen some of the completely asinine and false things you’ve post about us before) would have talked to us last year instead of having a destructive freak out, which then turned into a gloat fest after LonCon, it wouldn’t have come to this. But you didn’t. And my people acted. Oh well.
I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet, but the fact that a thousand people are mad at me is pretty much irrelevant. I’m one of those obnoxious types who does what I think is right, and can’t be shunned into falling into line.
You guys didn’t try to work with us. You didn’t listen to us. You attacked us, maligned us, lied about us, and every time you did more of my people showed up with cash in hand, pissed off and wanting to make a difference. Now your apple cart has been upset. Hmmm… maybe you should have done something other than call us names for the last few years and we wouldn’t have this issue.
I said I was going to regret posting, and I was right.
Larry – I have never lied about you. You wrote a book I thought was competent at best, pounded the Internets to get it on the Hugo, and me and 1500 of my best friends all said no rocket for you.
You guys didn’t try to work with us. We did. We said, “if you’ve got this mass of unhappy fandom, bring them.” They stayed home, to judge by Loncon’s vote totals.
You didn’t listen to us. We did. Listening is not agreeing. You spun a tale of conspiracies, in some cases laughable (Chicks Dig Time Lords – published by a one-man shop working in his spare bedroom in Iowa – couldn’t fund a whisper campaign in a million years). We said, “sorry, Larry, not really.”
more of my people showed up with cash in hand You’re up from 161 in Loncon to 230 now, a 30% growth. Of course, nominations are up from 768 to 1174, a 37% growth. Math’s not trending your way.
“Math’s not trending your way.”
Clearly, you have nothing to worry about then, right? Right.
I guess you still can’t hear us yet. SP4, coming up.
No, 20% of the voting public can’t win a Hugo, but they can sure mess it up for everybody else.
By mess up, you mean nominate people like Jim Butcher for best novel? Yeah. That must really suck for you. Just imagine what brilliant work of social justice message fiction didn’t make the cut because of that!
“Everyone else” being SJW losers like yourself.
Keep crying.
If Butcher or Anderson win, it is gonna be a real kick in the balls then, won’t it?
Make certain to campaign hard (HARDER I say!) for No Award.
That will show us!
” Since the entire short fiction list was a Puppy slate”
And, of course, no one but a Puppy would ever have voted for any of those crimethink stories, right?
Gerrib, you’re losing it.
“Gerrib, you’re losing it.”
Can’t lose what he never had.
You’re up from 161 in Loncon to 230 now, a 30% growth. Of course, nominations are up from 768 to 1174, a 37% growth. Math’s not trending your way.
That’s presuming (prejudicially) mindless lockstep block voting.
There are a lot of people in that non-block-voting 37% that are NOT your allies Chris. Waves!
Oh Gerrib, you are a perfect example of Brandolini’s principle in action. It is a good thing I type fast.
Your opinion of my book, meh. I’ll get over it. Probably by sleeping on this big pile of money.
As for not winning in LonCon. Duh. Wow! I never saw that coming (except for in every single post I ever made on the topic, at a con where half the voters hate me for who I am, before Australian rules I came in 4th in London behind two home town favorites and the Wheel of Time).
You said bring them? Uh… Yeah… We did. That’s why you are here angry at us right now. The 1st pass was a lark. LonCon was only the 2nd time my side ever bothered to do much of anything related to this topic. Now we’ve done it a 3rd time, we did as you said and brought more fans, and now you guys are trying to figure out how to change the rules to exclude them.
But hey, keep moving those goal posts. I’ll keep bringing more fans. Hilarity will ensue.
You don’t “fund” a whisper campaign. As for Chicks Dig Timelords, you are either being deliberately obtuse, playing dumb, or lying in the hopes that the people reading this don’t get it. If you look at who contributed to that book, you’ll see a whole bunch of names that are familiar to WorldCon regulars. Most of them have lots of fans in those regular voting cliques. It was a work that was uniquely suited to appeal directly to the small number of people who determine the votes.
Duh.
Interesting, Gerrib. I’m curious where you think you’ve got the exact number of Sad Puppies voters for this year. Either you’re full of shit, or you’re playing inside baseball about supposedly secret ballots (which we’ve been told over and over and over again never happens in this sainted process) and you’re admitting it in public.
But do you really want to argue trends with a former auditor? Disregarding the veracity of your numbers, if I’ve only got 230 total people that sure is a damned sad commentary as to the pathetic state of the awards now, isn’t it?
But hey, go ahead and No Award Jim Butcher and Kevin J Anderson and I bet I can double that number next year.
I got the numbers of Sad Puppies from the last slide of Sasquan’s presentation. They listed number of ballots, number of nominated works, and high and low vote totals. Since the entire short fiction list was a Puppy slate, it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure it out. Nor should it take an auditor to figure out that if 90% of the vote is spread out and 10% is concentrated, the 10% wins.
Regarding “Time Lords” – I actually know the editor (she’s a local fan) and she knows I’m a Hugo voter. Yet I didn’t even know she had something eligible until I saw it on the short-list. Pretty weak whisper campaign.
Yeah, seriously… Don’t quit the day job. Trust me on this one.
CDTL had contributors who were popular with the cliques. It got plugged by people popular in the clique. Once golden with the cliques, everything else in the series made it too, year after year. Small category, tiny insular voting group, easily swayed.
Wow… So what you are saying is that as few as 10%, if motivated and united can sway a popularity contest? Hmmm… I wonder where I’ve seen that argument before. Oh yeah, it was me. When nearly every winner in nearly every category was predictably leftist and spouting social justice stuff. Only, I seem to recall when I pointed that out years ago, I was a bad person for insulting the honor of the sacred Hugos.
Well, thanks for backing me up, Gerrib!
Always a pleasure.
So, no accounting for variance in votes between categories or that, given the relative difficulty some people have in reading enough short fiction to have an opinion, more people in general vote for novel than short fiction?
Oh, and Chris, a big problem many of us have with your arguments in general is that it usually falls along the lines of “Well *I* didn’t see it.” It makes you sound like the country boy that, when told that 1 in 5 people are Chinese, said that he didn’t know anyone who was Chinese. That you did or didn’t see something is a data point; it does not validate or invalidate an argument by itself.
2015 Hugo voter statistics are at
https://www.flickr.com/photos/coalescent/17038229312/
Which proves?
No, seriously. 151-230 people Voted for the Short Story nominees. Where’s the bloc voting?
Thanks for the numbers, Chris. It’s just too bad you didn’t actually bother to understand them first.
Best Fancast, three Sad puppies nominees: low 69, high 179.
Best Fan writer (5 nominees, 4 won, one lost): low 129, high 201.
Best Semi-prozine (3 nominees, 1 lost, two won): low 94, high 221
So AT MOST there were 93 Sad Puppies “pure slate” voters
Your numbers fail you
Looking at it again, but the 70 to almost 200 vote variance between #1 and #5 in categories swept by SP/RP appears to argue against block voting.
Oh, so that was a one time deal? Well, our mistake. /eye roll/
And here I thought specifics weren’t being released until after the awards were presented.
He’s, as usual, making massive assumptions before mangling the statistical analysis.
STEP 1: Assume block voting.
…
=161!
It’s dim.
Chris baby, this is the first year I ever cared enough to vote on the Hugos. I think I like it.
I think in fact I like it a lot. Because me -just showing up- has a lot of people like you, whom I detest as a patter of principle, going completely nuts.
We have not even begun to mess your shit up. You are outnumbered, out gunned and out maneuvered. Flanked, even.
Because: you asked for it, you got it. Toyota.
Gerrib’s side: Well if you want to see your stuff win then vote for them!
SP3: Challenge Accepted.
SJWs: YOU WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO DO THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Only if you assume that all SP fans vote as a bloc. “Begging the Question” is your lookup.
If Only You Were a Dinosaur, Chris Gerrib, you could have defended yourself from the Sad Puppies.
Wait, wait.
So us not nominating something we didn’t read is a bad thing now?
Which is it?
I am actually sad it didn’t make the ballot. But I haven’t read it yet, so I didn’t nominate it.
I nominated five novels I have read and loved, two of which are on the final ballot.
Keep in mind – apparently everyone else thought Ancillary Sword and Goblin Emperor were more worthy than 3-Body too.
No, both Larry and Vox said they’d have put it on the slate had they read it in time. Basically, a book got denied a Hugo nomination because of the reading patterns of two people.
So, why didn’t you nominate it and turn out the vote? Why are we supposed to do your job for you? And why are you surprised that a group of people that you’ve shown you disagree with over the past four months have different tastes and different ideas of what is good and fun than yours?
Are we now expected to have read all works published in a year now? Sorry, no one has time for that, and.my library and the local Barnes & Noble don’t carry Three Body Problem, Ancillary Sword, or the Goblin Emperor. But clearing the rather low bar of nominating from the pool that I’ve read over the year? Yeah, I can do that.
An individual nominating the works that he or she likes is never going to defeat a slate voting as a bloc.
This is true while Correia and his pals are running the only two blocs, and it will be more true when people with bigger megaphones are running bigger blocs.
Bigger microphones.
Given the discussions I’ve seen about “giving moderators power to ban anyone backed up by strong gatekeepers when anyone complains”, that means “the only microphones that haven’t had their cables cut.”
Were you born that dishonest, or did you go to special schools?
I never said that. I’ve not read it yet. I’ve heard good things about it.
Was it even more brilliant than Ancillary Sword?
You know, Gerrib, if your argument is that we’re super bad because a work you found worthy didn’t make the ballot… WELCOME TO OUR WORLD EVERY OTHER YEAR.
Great novels don’t make the ballot every year. That isn’t exactly a unique problem to us, and there are plenty of examples of truly shitty works that bumped something better from the short list. Your problem isn’t that this was decided by 3 men (it wasn’t, it was decided by a few hundred fans) but that it was the *wrong* men.
We did a slate of suggestions. We had no way of knowing that such a high percentage of them would make it.
You have already established in I don’t know how many SP related blog posts over prior months, that your real problem is that voters you don’t like are coming in and threatening your calm. That has to suck for you.
A Hugo nominee for best work in its field will have to get a shocking 12% of the vote instead of 6% from its tiny group of voters. Man. That sucks. At that rate we’ll never be able to read about dinosaurs getting revenge on a bunch of stereotypes again!
Was it even more brilliant than Ancillary Sword? actually, yeah – Sword wasn’t on my ballot.
We had no way of knowing that such a high percentage of them would make it. Well, other than you were repeatedly told that bloc voting would screw up the nominating process. Other than you saw that last year when sixty-some followers of VD put something up that then got clobbered by No Award.
Well shoot then, Gerrib, maybe you should have done a better job alerting the regular voters about what a good book 3 Body Problem was so that it would have made it instead of Ancillary Sword. Because you know, all the ones SP nominated are actually good.
I love how you keep using the phrases like “screw up” like it is a bug, not a feature.
“We had no way of knowing that such a high percentage of them would make it.”
You know it now. You also know that Vox Day put his publishing house, his authors and himself all over the ballot, which everyone can surely recognize as self-dealing.
So are you rethinking tactics for next year at all, or is this the new normal?
Well, let’s see… I only said that we would be rethinking tactics a couple of times in the main blog post, and a few more times in the comments… So I’m going to go out on a limb and say yes, we’re constantly rethinking tactics.
But the CHORFs are making that so very hard when they post stuff like this: http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/06/hugo-award-nominations-fall-victim-misogynistic-and-racist-voting?hootPostID=221657cca998c926458486c3f53fbe17
Read that headline…
Yeah, I can’t imagine why my side would be tempted to say to hell with it and hoist the black flag.
@Larry
Can you send me a link to the cached copy of that EW article? I wasn’t able to read it before they put up their… less biased version.
Pete: Here is a cached copy of the original EW libel bait:
https://archive.today/0NH1i
Rcade wrote: You also know that Vox Day put his publishing house, his authors and himself all over the ballot, which everyone can surely recognize as self-dealing.
Yeah, that’s horrible! Who does he think he is! pnh@tor.com?
You know, one of the things that I personally got out of all of the internet fighting the last few months was a realization that I don’t like how angry I get when arguing back and forth. It frays my temper far too much.
My temper is quite monstrous, and I spent more than two decades forging a leash for it. Given that coworkers have expressed outright shock when I talk about my temper I’d like to think I succeeded into making my control a strength rather than a weakness.
So I am trying really hard to focus on the positive and not insult people while still defending what I believe in and people I respect.
You, sir, are testing my resolve.
You are telling a man WHO TURNED DOWN HIS NOMINATION that it is his fault that a deserving book didn’t make it onto the ballot.
You are doing this while you and many others have accused us of not reading what we nominated.
You are doing this when the general voting pool thought Ancillary Sword and Goblin Emperor more deserving as well.
You have the sheer, unmitigated GALL to attack men whose only fault is that their to be read pile is larger than time permits, as well as AGREEING with you that the book was wonderful.
It is a shame it isn’t on the ballot. It is a shame the Lost Fleet isn’t there. Or Night Broken. Or a dozen other novels.
There are only five slots, and thank goodness there are more than five books worthy of inclusion. Something worthy of winning will always be left off.
I suggest you stop while you’re behind.
Let it go, snake. He ain’t nuthin’.
I’m not sure the significance of snake, but I laughed. I needed that.
He’s not worth getting upset over, no more than a petulant child throwing a temper tantrum over having to share the playground with kids he doesn’t care about sucking up to.
And that’s all his screeds are: temper tantrums. It’s only worth your pity that a supposedly grown man is acting like a two-year-old,
I love Patricia Briggs but I didn’t think night Broken was all that good.
But I agree with the rest
I have a question, Chris. Where’s the information on the numbers, and who was next in line, coming from? As far as I know that information is not supposed to be released until after the final voting, after the awards ceremony.
As for the reading habits of two people, well, Tor’s probably earned that one. My own assumption is that a book coming from Tor that’s not from an author I know I like, will probably not be to my liking, so personally I’d have waited for someone else to jump on the grenade and read it first, that I respect. Tor’s earned that reputation, so they get the results.
Yup. Let’s see, looking at my primary bookshelves, how many Tor books do I have…?
Let’s see, Niven, Flynn, Drake, Pournelle, Poul Anderson, Cook, one Heinlein, Burst, and one rather mediocre Weber (took the risk because I like David’s stuff usually). MOST of those are older works, or authors who signed on with Tor years before.
Well outnumbered by Baen books (which run about equal with the pre-1990 books).
But the last fifteen years or so? I *won’t* bother risking my money on an unknown author published by Tor, without a trusted recommendation, because they publish so much dreck. For a while there, I just thought it was modern SF/F in general, until I noticed that of the really prominent houses, Tor had a significantly higher rate of suckage…
OTOH, I *will* take a flyer on a Baen author I don’t know *anything* about, because I’ve been disappointed less than even buying based on whether I liked previous books by the same author. I found that to be a good working hypothesis (“Baen tends to publish decent stuff”) even before I became aware Baen had a reputation for publishing “badthink”. (Uh, yeah, Tom Kratman, Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey,S.M. Stifling, Anne McCaffery, and Lois McMaster Bujold are all from the same tiny, extremist sliver of political ideology, right?)
That says something about the relative quality if the publishing houses…
No fuck you this is where you’re lying.
It wasn’t the ‘reading patterns of two people’ that became the suggestion list / suggestion slate.
People were invited to give suggestions. Brad made a list of the ones that got the most suggestion count. I was one of the ones who actively said “Yes” for Skin Game. I had NO opinions outside of Lego Movie for the movie list because I hadn’t watched any of ther other movies being suggested except for that one. The discussion was held across several blogs and I think the owners of the blogs that were putting together the SP3 slate. MHN, According To Hoyt, Mad Genius club and Brad’s blog, were the ones I remember reading that had discussions of what works to put on the list.
Guess what, Gerrib, YOU could have suggested Three Body Problem, since you fucking comment on all those places. But YOU didn’t suggest it and NOW BLAME LARRY AND VOX? Because guess what? Anyone was welcome to put a suggestion, and the end result was a list of suggested works to vote for. NONE OF US were HELD TO THAT LIST, despite your constant sneaky insinuations that we did. There were several other people openly saying that there were some works they would vote for, and some that they wouldn’t, and that was completely fine. Because unlike your ‘friends’ they weren’t going to destroy us for NOT marching in lockstep. And here you are, going NO AWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BLOCK VOTE NO AWARD!!!!!!!!!
But it doesn’t matter, because you and your friends would never believe us anyway. And the SJW mantra is “It’s okay when WE do it.” And you’re one of the oldest SJWs I’ve run into.
You’re still pretending to be the reasonable, vaguely sad POS who used to concern troll over at Jordan179’s LJ till you got banned for your endless goalpost shifting and weaseling.
Funny how your 1500 friends ‘got beaten’ by the few hundred.
Are we supposed to yell ‘This is Sparta!’ now?
“Are we supposed to yell ‘This is Sparta!’ now?”
Too late.
quote: “you’ve got upwards of a thousand eligible voters who are really upset at you. That’s a big hill to climb.”
Reminded me of this scene from Inglorious Basterds (sic):
Col. Hans Landa: Are you mad? What have you done? I made a deal with your general for that man’s life!
Lt. Aldo Raine: Yeah, they made that deal, but they don’t give a fuck about him. They need you.
Col. Hans Landa: You’ll be shot for this!
Lt. Aldo Raine: Nah, I don’t think so. More like chewed out. That’s ok, I’ve been chewed out before.
” “you’ve got upwards of a thousand eligible voters who are really upset at you. That’s a big hill to climb.”
Typical.
In this year’s voting, 1174 people voted in short stories, nominating 728 short stories. Where’s the whisper campaign in that?
“Let’s all nominate for How to Serve Man, because it is awesome.”
How many other short story nominations would that “whisper” campaign cause?
All 1174 could nominate HtSM, and and those same 1174 have 4700 other slots to fill with short stories. Reaching 728 ‘others’ should be no problem. Or a mere 70 could nominate HtSM, and 728 other short stories happen to fill in slots. In other words, as usual, “The statistics presented don’t have any bearing on the case, but they were thrown in to obfuscate the issue and sound rational.”
The usual would be more like “I like -this-, you should help me get it nominated” and get 20-40 nominations that way. Not very far from 70 really, and a totally pathetic way to run an award.
I don’t expect you to bother reading up on it, but there was a pre-slate “Ok, what’s actually -good- this year?” series of questions and requests for submissions.
This year, the (your words) 70-person-whisper-block was outvoted. By, IMNSHO people who had actually read the works.
“In this year’s voting, 1174 people voted in short stories, nominating 728 short stories. Where’s the whisper campaign in that? The only campaign was the one involving between 230 and 151 people voting a straight Sad Puppies ticket. The other 944 people spread their whispers out among 723 titles.”
Dude. How on earth do you know this? I’m serious, has it been released that as many as 151 people voted “straight” SP? Linky links, por favor.
I think it’s actually pretty likely that most people who were aware of SP voted for a couple-three of SP “slate” noms in each category, plus a few others ( likely those that didn’t make the SP short list.)
But if you’ve got specific information indicating straight line voting, please do share.
I downloaded the slides from the Ustream presentation. They gave a breakdown of number of stories listed, ballots cast, and high and low vote counts for the finalists. I then compared them to the 2014 results.
So your guess is educated rather than pulled from some piece of your anatomy. Still a guess.
If your analysis is similar to what you demonstrated in that statistics thread on Brad’s, I’m going to have to ask for an independent auditor. Or at least some form of peer review.
Speaking as a retired auditor, don’t quit your day job.
I’ve already done such an analysis. Apparently we wish a return to the antebellum South.
Maths be hard as it is, but yours make about as much sense as making out with a rock.
I’m pretty certain we can turn that into a running joke about pretty much everything he says…
Okay, there is a copy of that slide posted here: http://madgeniusclub.com/2015/04/04/2014-hugo-nominations/
I took those and did some internal comparisons (just 2015), and found that the range of entries to ballots, the range of high to low votes, and comparing those two ratios to the number of SP/RP/and other noms was all the hell over the place. Ranges *seem* most strongly related to the number of available entries (ie, more shorts than novels) than anything else.
I need actual vote totals to do a better examination, and I’m not going up against LC on the strength of an excel spreadsheet, but your assertion that a definitive pattern exists is not supported by the evidence.
I’m not an auditor (retired or otherwise), but I have been doing failure analysis (starting with analyizong correlations in production testing with failures, to look for ways to set up testing more efficiently for total production ROI savings) for quite a while.
To paraphrase the great philosopher I. Montoya:
Your numbers do not mean what you think they mean.
Please note that Gerrib is constitutionally incapable of admitting when he is wrong, so debunking him mostly involves laughing at absurdities.
Go ahead, ask him if he’s willing to retract his statement that there were “no black people” in pirate movies before Pirates of the Caribbean. And his separate statement that there were no more than 2 black people in that movie. Because SJW’s only want to correct the “whitewashing” of history.
Seriously. Someone ask him.
But to his supposed points:
1) 2 novels NOT on the SP3 list made it onto the Hugo slate. If 3BP is *that* good, your side was able to get it on there. If it’s *that* good and you DIDN’T get it on there, well shame on you for marginalizing a non-anglophone POC in favor of a white woman. You racist hatey-haters.
2) Irrelevant Emmy comparison, since Emmy Awards are by committee (a large committee, but a committee nonetheless) – Man, you really proved your point on that one.
3) “Between 230 and 151 voting…” Seriously? At least do us the decency of accusing people of nominating in lockstep. Then we could have an actual discussion about bloc voting. As it is we’re supposed to conclude that, what, a large group of people with similar tastes nominated in similar ways?
SHOCKING.
Go tell that to the previous years where 40-45 people nominated the same people across 3 ballots by “accident.”
We’ll wait.
Oh, and BTW, thanks in large part to SP campaigns, the number of registered voters has QUADRUPLED in the last 5 years.
QUADRUPLED.
You’re welcome.
4) It didn’t require screaming. It caused it. Get your causation in order.
5) We’re not the ones threatening to use the nuclear “No Award” option to throw a temper tantrum.
Ah, but those are wrongfans, not truefans.
So… we’re Tanya and they’re Skippy? Except way, way less interesting?
No, not those two as comparisons. That’s mean to Tanya and Skippy.
Actually, I’d like to see more of Tanya and Skippy.
* looks on internet *
No, not that much! Aaargh, my eyes! I can’t unsee that!
* unfortunate noises follow *
What the f- ACTUALLY NO. BELAY THAT. AVERT. I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW.
There’s a word for someone who fails to do the right thing at the crucial moment — such as standing up to actual bullies and even kicking the person fighting back against the bullies and defending others against the bullies in the shin.
It begins with a “c”.
Actually, the proper word is accomplices.
“Teresa Nielsen Hayden, head of the SMOFfen SS”
Goose-stepping morons like the Haydens should try *reading* books instead of *No Awarding* them.
Re: GamerGate
You probably know this already Larry, but GG had the same problem with “moderates”. While the small, incestuous world of gaming media was being taken over by a clique of SJW’s who abused their positions to push radical leftist identity politics in articles about Far Cry 3 or what-have-you, the “moderates” did nothing.
When gaming journos were being showered with free swag by publishers for promoting their games instead of giving unbiased reviews, the “moderates” did nothing.
When the gaming press started becoming increasingly insulting of “dudebros” who enjoy the wrong sort of games (like CoD), the “moderates” did nothing.
When it emerged that a talentless SJW hack of a “games developer” was literally sleeping with the games journalists who promoted her awful “game”, and Reddit and a whole bunch of other sites immediately tried to censor any discussion of that, GamerGate was born. The SJW’s, used to pushing and pushing without any organised resistance, were stunned and enraged at gamers fighting back.
And what did the “moderates” do? Why, suddenly they were Terribly Concerned! Terribly concerned that these GamerGate folks were saying mean things on the internet, that is! Can’t we all just get along?
Well, no. SJW’s are like the Borg, if the Borg had rainbow hair dye and ironic hipster specs, and were constantly crying on Twitter about how evil white cis patriarchy is the root of all evil. It is impossible to reason with fanatics, or agree to disagree with extremists, or find mutually respectful common ground with people who are animated by hatred and paranoia.
The SJW mentality is like a grasping spolit child: “what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is up for grabs”. And it’s “not fair!” if you decide to take anything back.
The SJWification of the Hugo awards was like the Bugs destroying Buenos Aires. If they thought winning that battle meant they’d won the war, they were wrong. Wendell’s Roughnecks are heading for Klendathu, and we’re going to win.
Oh man, I just had a vision of Wendell’s Roughnecks.
“Hawooooonnn!”
“C’mon you amphibious, grey, doughy apes! Do you want to live forever!?”
“Well, they won’t get to heaven if they don’t git kilt.”
The CHORF idiots are going to regret getting the Gamergate crowd involved … if they think we are bad news …
This just conjures up the majestic sight of a manatee team as they open their canopies in unison on a HALO jump…Their whiskers blowing upward…. Their flukes fluttering in the slipstream……As their battle cry rings to the heavens…
“Meeeewhooo Hoooooooooon”
congratulations. I now want a Wendell’s Roughnecks unit patch. Also, a short story. And a sketch of the mobile amphibious armored landing craft, with fishbowl cupola, for Wendell to lead the mechanized charge.
And a pony. I’d like a pony.
BOOM That was the pony. Just dodge the “rain”.
Like this:
youtu.be/1_t44siFyb4
Need Wendell’s Roughnecks MI patch.
Shut up and get in your capsule, trooper! — Fleet Sergeant Zim
Write it!!!
PLEASE WRITE IT, MAKE A PATCH LARRY AND TAKE MY MONEY.
Pretty please with maple-bacon popcorn on top?
[quote]It is impossible to reason with fanatics, or agree to disagree with extremists, or find mutually respectful common ground with people who are animated by hatred and paranoia.[/quote]
This is something I’m finally understanding. It always bothered me that the people screaming for civility were the ones guilty of being uncivil, but I wanted to do the honorable and right thing no matter how deplorable other people’s behavior has been. It’s taken me a while to understand why it’s hard for me to speak up, other than wanting to avoid getting stomped on. The fact is, for me, the people who make my stomach clench and who would rain down character assassination, lies, and the ones who want to destroy others’ careers for simply having a different opinion generally came from the people demanding tolerance and equality.
It hit me yesterday that these same people who remind us that there are always consequences feel that calls for death (saying people deserve to burn, etc.) and attempts to deprive someone of their livelihood are *appropriate* consequences they are duty-bound to enact. Simply because people have opinions they don’t like. I used to give a lot of people the benefit of the doubt, and it wasn’t SP or anything/one else that convinced me otherwise. Their own words condemned them.
However SP has helped me speak up. I don’t argue because many of the arguments are not in good faith, but I can present the facts and source them.
I’ve found there’s fewer people less tolerant than those who are constantly telling you how tolerant and accepting they are.
It’s rather like if you meet someone who’s constantly telling you how trustworthy they are, you’d better grab your wallet and run. (Found THAT one out the hard way…)
As long as you’ve got facts, present the facts. If they don’t LIKE the facts, that’s just too bad for them…
Larry’s “SMOFfen SS” is one of those phrases that will live on for a long time, I think.
It needs a cuff title made up… In Sütterlin font…
I certainly hope so!
It’s difficult watching Demolition Man while reading all the blog posts, comments, and tweets about the SJW’s authoritarian takeover of society to make it their way because they just know so much better than we do, but the similarities are just too much to ignore.
Larry is not just the International Lord of Hate, he is the John Spartan, awoken, unfrozen, and ready to demolish the “perfect” society, because it’s about damn time somebody thought of the Dennis Leary and his Underground as people, too.
*makes notes for potential fanart*
Goose-stepping morons like the Haydens should try *reading* books instead of *No Awarding* them.
This I like. Yes. This no award I won’t read this stuff because reasons is just proving everyone’s point about clicks. A real fan of words written on pages rather than politics and Internet bs would read an vote accordingly. Anyone who refuses to do that loses the right to claim the high ground.
I am an extremist so I expect to get beat around the head and shoulders a bit… but, that ain’t never scared me enough irl to keep my yap shut, so it don’t here either
But, in this day and age, with the culture war going as it is, imo, ‘moderates’ fall into 1 of 2 camps.
1. Vichy.
2. Quislings.
This is an excellent summary of what happened and answers many questions/issues the uninformed have. Thank you for posting.
WHIPPLE! Long time! Former LJer and friend here. We had Kit and SMJayman and Oleg in common.
Whelp, I’ve spent most of Saturday and this morning on Twitter talking to other #WrongFans (Look, Larry, we made a new hashtag!) about the hugos. One guy I know who is in Gamer Gate (and, not surprising, a big SF/F fan), suggested we form a #NotYourShield coalition to combat the nastiness from the usual sources.
Being a female and a lover of animals of all species, sexes, and orientations (cough-heh.) I like #NotYourKitten- personally. But anyway…
I find it most amusing how hard the CHORFs on twitter crowd is trying to re-write history.
* This wasn’t something that Larry started doing years ago. Oh no. GAMER GATE is behind this! Even though GG began only 9ish months ago and majority of it had never heard of SP until last Saturday… NEVERTHELESS! This was GAMER GATE’S DOING! (those evil time traveling bastards!)
* SP wasn’t a backlash against a clique of people trying to shut out people and books that they don’t approve of- oh no. THEY are the victims! Because… well they’ll get back to you on that. But it will probably involve racism, sexism, and purity of the genre. Or something.
The hashtag MUST be #NotYourPuppy
I’d rather it be:
Inde Rem ad Triarios Redisse!
shorter form ad Triarios Redisse
or aTR
Yeah, apparently we’re all racist, misogynistic white men now.
Who knew? I sure didn’t, even while having babies.
I hope your holiday with family went well.
“Marko Kloos indy published sci-fi book has sold literally over ten times as many copies as last year’s winner Ancillary Justice, and people love it, but it isn’t worthy”
Is there supporting evidence for this somewhere?
You’ll have to take that up with Amazon.
Larry, math is hard. Don’t blame SJW if they cannot do it.
I will say Kloos is more than ten times more readable than Ancillary Justice was.
That’s got to count for something.
Fairly certain Amazon doesn’t publish sales numbers? Ten times the sales is a hell of an assertion, which is why I took the time to comment. You were in business, would you have accepted such a wild assertion without hard numbers to back it up? A quick glance at goodreads shows Lecke with a substantial lead in reviews so I was hoping for some enlightment.
I don’t always agree with your politics, or your presentation, but I’ve followed your blog for awhile, and this is the first thing that just sounded off the wall.
Try google.
This popped up as a second result.
http://www.novelrank.com/
When you want to ask someone to post proof, it pays to do a simple search first.
What the hell? Did you even look at that site before making your snide little comment? That site is stupidly obtuse, has some sort of blackbox calculation of sales rank going on, and I certainly can’t find a total sales figure since publication.
If you’d like to continue to feel superior then, please, post a link to both of those book’s stats from that site where it gives total sales since publication. I will happily bow down to your superior intelligence at that point.
Until then, here’s what I’m seeing:
Amazon Reviews for Ancillary Justice: 640
Amazon Reviews for Terms of Enlistment: 1868
– so roughly three times as many amazon reviews
Goodreads Ratings for Ancillary Justice: 16750
Goodreads Ratings for Terms of Enlistment: 5716
– so roughly one third as many goodreads ratings
So, to be clear, the assertion that Larry made that Terms has sold “literally TEN TIMES more” there should be 186 Amazon reviews and 571 Goodreads ratings. Obviously that’s fuzzy math. All of this is fuzzy, just like blackbox calculations of amazon ranks. However, the actual numbers are FAR too close to even remotely support that assertion.
So. Dazzle me. Make me feel stupid and expose my ignorance to the blinding light of day. I really want to be proven wrong here because it bothers the hell out of me that Larry would say something like that without being able to support it.
Dude, I know Marko. I was one of the tards that kept kicking him about wasting his time submitting his work to dead tree houses until he took our advice and self-published.
He’s making damned near as much cash as Larry.
Read keranih’s post in this subthread. He had way less info that I have, and he figured it out.
@Justin – I agree, the novel rank tool is not complete, but I suspect there are very sound reasons (ie, it would embarrass and/or cost a lot of money to Very Important People In Publishing) why the information is not more easily accessible.
@ Kristophr *cough* she *cough* (not a huge thing, no offense taken, but these the chromosomes God gave me)
@ LC – ah, ooops. *facepalm* In which case, novelrank doesn’t give enough data, as ToE has been out under 47North long enough that the self-publish data isn’t available. I will say that my eyeball says that ToE has likely already outsold that 30K just under 47North, not counting the previous self-publishing.
And unlike MK, I think I could bring myself to eventually be okay with outselling everyone on Amazon except Stephanie Meyer. Eventually.
Kloos is only publishing in Kindle. The novelrank tool below shows that for the last 12 months, AJ has been averaging just short of 1K sales a month. Lines of Departure has been at 1200 plus. And AJ has had about 150 books a month in paperback. LoD has been out for three months less than AJ, too. And completely without the publishing house backing.
To clarify, I was talking about his first book, not the one nominated. My guestimates on numbers are based on that article from last year where Ancillary Justice was declared the future of scifi and had sold 30k copies, and I can’t say anything else about Marko’s numbers, because that would be jerky. But I know how much money he makes, and we’re kind of competitive about it.
[…] Man, every time I read Larry I admire him more. Seriously, if he would come to WorldCon I would be stoked, I’d love to meet him. He just wrote a long response to the Sad Puppies Victory. […]
Good post.
You’ve got to understand why I’m not personally going to WorldCon though. There is nothing quite as fun as being shunned, hated, sneered at, and having people retreat when you enter because you make them feel “unsafe”.
Darn! I would have re-arranged my vacation schedule to get up to Spokane if you were going to be there, Larry.
Wish you’d re-consider. I think you’d find a lot more fans than nasties there.
Y’know, as long as all the Wrong Fans stay away from the actual WorldCon … hm. Maybe there’s some work to be done there, too.
If he carried his tetsubo around, the CHORFs will just stay the hell away from him.
Larry there’s going to be dozens of Baen Barflies at Worldcon. You’re to be busy to see us?
Ok, SCENE!! The doors to WorldCon as seen from the inside. SJWs trembling in fear and staring at the doors when suddenly they blow apart!!! Enter Wendell’s Roughnecks armed with the latest and greatest CorreiaTech weapons to take the SJWs prisoner…the music builds to a crescendo and the camera focuses on a pair of LARGE black boots, then slowly pans up revealing an even LARGER man dressed in black body armor and helmet while carrying a tetsubo-the International Lord of Hate has arrived!
And then he flips up the face mask and says, “I CAN’T BREATHE IN THIS THING!”
Aaaand that just kicked over my giggle box. All the more because I’ve met the International Lord of Hate, and I can totally hear him saying that.
Thanks for the laugh!
Where’s the “like” button?!
YOU! Put a keyboard on your belt notch. You didn’t get my screen though.
FWIW – the reason why topic X keeps shifting is because SJW (and their saner kin, quietly battling away in the trenches of actual oppression, rather than ranting on teh intrawebs) are in fact fighting the concept of the kyriarchy, which is All That Which Oppresses Anyone.
(This is apparently going as well as any fight against an idea ever does – or, for that matter, any operation without a well defined objective.)
They aren’t deliberately shifting goalposts, because the goalposts are everywhere at once, in some sort of multi-verse Schrodinger space.
Having said that – LC’s rebuttals are on point, and I get his frustration. This is a mess he didn’t make, but one he took upon himself to fix.
I still would like to see a wider spread of candidates for each category, and will be paying closer attention this year, in order to suggest those I fancy when I see them.
To make up for failing to get engaged in time to nominate anything this year, (I voted in SP2, but RL got away from me) I have roped in two friends to sign up for WC this year, who swear they will read before voting.
Hang in there. This is the good fight.
They’re not trying to fight oppression — they’re trying to set themselves up as the oppressors.
They’ve succeeded.
They’re not trying to fight oppression — they’re trying to set themselves up as the oppressors.
No, most folks are just trying to get by.
“FWIW – the reason why topic X keeps shifting is because SJW (and their saner kin, quietly battling away in the trenches of actual oppression, rather than ranting on teh intrawebs) are in fact fighting the concept of the kyriarchy, which is All That Which Oppresses Anyone.”
What is this MIckey Mouse bullshit?
The topic keeps shifting because they try to paint anyone who doesn’t fall into lockstep with them as a Bad, Evil, No Good Person!
” they try to paint anyone who doesn’t fall into lockstep with them as a Bad, Evil, No Good Person!”
Well, *yes*, but they call it “being an agent of the kyriarchy.” Which most anyone could end up being.
Circular firing squads are a feature, not a bug.
I call it currently accepted reality. what that is depends on the clique of approved insiders. If you don’t know what that is right now and deviate from it, SJW mob will descend upon you and rebuke you.
Would a non-hierarchical society be an eleisonarchy?
Dunno. Is that same sort where the first shall be last?
Doubt it. Eleison has the Greek for ‘mercy’ as the root, and I don’t see much mercy out of the SJWs.
If I became a dictator would that be a Patrickarchy?
Yes. That is all.
Also, baaaaaaaad man.
Larry:
All over the internet, the SMOF’s are saying that the SP’s should start their own award.
So, why not have an internet poll of the SP slate? Announce the result AFTER the Hugos.
Call it the Happy Puppy.
That would kinda defeat the point of SP3. They’re trying to reform the Hugos so that it once again is representative of good SFF, not create yet another little known award.
Not so. By releasing the award results AFTER the Hugo, it’s win-win. How could they object?
Do you want the list in alphabetical, or chronological order?
I don’t know, seperate but equal awards? I feel like I’ve heard of that before, there’s no way that could be construed as prejudiced. ..
The social justice warriors have been allowed to mess up enough good things. It is about time they were pushed back.
They need us, we don’t need them. They are the ones who infiltrate our institutions. I could care less about theirs.
Why the hell should we bother making a new award?
There’s this cute, shiny Hugo award, just lying there, neglected for the last couple of decades. Just waiting to be picked up by a fanbase who work hard at jobs, buy books, and can afford $40 each.
The Butler Award, recognizing excellence in putting French Queer Theory and race before SFF literature.
Larry, if you want to know, the thing that put me over the top on this Hugo thing was Alex MacFarlane over at TOR.Com
She proclaimed that SF was now officially “post-binary-gender”, and that there should be no more stories with “binary” gender characters. Or some such twaddle, I read her idiot blog but none of it made a lick of sense.
However, senseless as it was, it pissed me off. So I paid a bunch more attention to Sad Puppies this year. Discovered all it was going to cost me to have my say was $40US. So I did.
It would appear I was not alone.
I’m actually amazed at how few votes it took to sweep this thing. Just goes to show that the Hugos have sucked since the 1970s because of a REALLY SMALL CLIQUE, and they just got served.
Y’all can thank Alex MacFarlane for this year’s Hugos. Larry Correia is practically a bystander at this point.
Here’s about as short a synopsis as you’ll find, written by some goof on a tumblr:
“Gender creates the differences between the sexes. It celebrates inequality and it glamorizes the subordinate status of females – therefore gender is the embodiment of sexism. Without gender, we’d be androgynous in terms of fashion, and it would be much more difficult to notice one’s sex at first glance. How do groups of people oppress other groups if they aren’t able to tell themselves apart from the other? Gender’s intended purpose is to clearly mark the subordinate class from the privileged class.”
They literally think men have used masculinity like a scarecrow – a suit of clothes they put on to keep women in line for thousands of years. When we’re alone we revert to that silicon thing in Terminator 2.
I’m thinking this thing called biology would still make it possible to tell the sex of some, if not most, people. And that’s not even taking into account individuality. In a perfect, Maoist world, we all might have to wear the same ugly androgynous garb, but in the real world, we’re allowed to choose how we dress. Of course, that is presupposing we’re all denizens of earth.
They just want charter memberships in Insoc’s Anti-Sex League.
The CHORF’s are amusing. They really don’t understand what the “win” in this game is. The more the mask slips off with their bluster, threats and attempts to “shame”, the more they prove the point to the whole exercise.
The badfan call for inclusiveness should be heeded, but it won’t. Be interesting to see just how tightly they think they can circle the wagons…….
They’ve never once listened to anything SP voters had to say. They lied about the motivation behind SP. They didn’t believe us when we denied their accusations. They eat up their own BS as if it were tasty truth.
Now that we’ve proved them wrong on every count, they don’t know what to do with themselves.
It’s not fair that we didn’t act the way that they claimed we were going to act! Now they have to scurry around and find a new thing to be mad about.
About Ms. Toni Weisskopf: I sent her an e-mail once letting her know about a couple of authors I thought she ought to look at. Now, I’m just an old guy (71) who has been reading Sci Fi, Fantasy, S&S and associated genre for around 60 years. Nobody special, me. I didn’t expect to hear a peep out of her as she’s a big wig at an important publishing house for books I like to read. I just hoped she’d see the e-mail and think about the two guys works.
A week or so later she sent me a response. I was surprised. So, if some folks have bad things to say about her, in my view, they are idiots. If a publisher of a very good house takes the time to consider the opinion of a reader of books, and I didn’t mention that I buy Baen books, though I confess I dropped Larry’s name, she can’t be all bad.
1. N. K. Jemisin @nkjemisin Apr 5 Ehn. I started to blog about the Hugos today, but I’d actually rather do my taxes.
2. Tobias Buckell @tobiasbuckell Apr 5 @nkjemisin spending the weekend building bed lofts for my twins and writing
3. N. K. Jemisin @nkjemisin Apr 5 @tobiasbuckell Awesome better way to use your time.
4. Tobias Buckell @tobiasbuckell Apr 5 @nkjemisin I feel like I won. Plus, these sorts of people spent the first years of my career saying and threatening far worse. I’m inured.
5. K Tempest Bradford @tinytempest Apr 5 @tobiasbuckell @nkjemisin I am with you. These assholes are still around but they aren’t the mainstream anymore.
6. Mary Robinette Kowal @MaryRobinette Apr 5 @tinytempest @nkjemisin @tobiasbuckell That’s what people were saying during Reconstruction. I’m worried about assuming they’ll fade away.
7. Tobias Buckell @tobiasbuckell Apr 5 @MaryRobinette @tinytempest @nkjemisin I don’t assume they’ll fade away, I just am not surprised to see this stuff come back to light.
8. Tobias Buckell @tobiasbuckell Apr 5 @MaryRobinette @tinytempest @nkjemisin ie: I always assume it’s there based on how common it was 10-15 years ago when I got started
9. Tobias Buckell @tobiasbuckell Apr 5 @MaryRobinette @tinytempest @nkjemisin and based on the emails and personal encounters I had before I had multiple novels out
10. Mikki Kendall @Karnythia Apr 5 @tobiasbuckell @MaryRobinette @tinytempest @nkjemisin It’s Race Fail 2015. We were about due.
11. N. K. Jemisin @nkjemisin Apr 5 @Karnythia @tobiasbuckell @MaryRobinette @tinytempest Ugh. Why you gotta tell the truth?
12. Mikki Kendall @Karnythia Apr 5 @nkjemisin @tobiasbuckell @MaryRobinette @tinytempest I like truth. Also, they’ll ride this train for a few months then move on to comics
Hahahahahah. Freakin’ reconstruction!!! The South’s gonna rise again!! Ahahahahahah.
The SJWs are all about punishing people for escaping the Democratic Party plantation.
Nothing has changed for these folks since the Civil War.
Okay, if there are any newcomers in the comments, this is what we’re up against. Everything is about racism.
Yep. Despite some of us are writing diverse characters doing pretty cool things,they think we really just want to see non-straight white males in chains or something.
It’s true. The Left thinks everything we say is racist code words. No wonder they get outraged by the most innocuous things.
Mary makes me very sad with this; she has met me, and she’s painting with a brush so filthy and so wide, I have no idea if she realizes what she’s doing.
Here is the ever faithful Telegraph. I’m not surprised it’s anonymous:
“The Hugo Awards have been at the centre of a furore after two campaigns successfully prevented female authors and authors of colour from being proportionally nominated. Some people are comparing the controversy to GamerGate, which in 2014 saw coordinated misogynist attacks aimed at people who spoke out about sexism in the gaming industry.”
And they have this quote from K. Tempest Bradford:
“a class issue, a race issue, a gender issue. In other words, it’s intersectional.”
Who’da thunk that? The South’s gonna rise again boys. I hope SJWs have laid in stores of prozac and klonopin in their anti-white man shelters to weather the coming storm.
I was surprised to see K. Tempest show up on the Cultural Apprpriation Tumblrisms video.
Did they catch the part where we have a whole bunch of women on our slate? We also have people of different sexual orientation and People of Color (I so hate that stupid term, it’s just Colored People backwards), only we didn’t make a big deal out of it because we truly don’t care and it was all about the quality of the work.
The problem is that we DIDN’T make a fuss over that stuff. Don’t you know you’re *supposed* to make fusses over arbitrary genetics? Pffft.
Apparently those nominations were only to disguise your racist and sexist motives. Yes, I really did see someone make that claim.
Most Esteemed and Dread Lord of Hate, I tremble to correct you, yet am compelled to do so.
“Colored People” was an exclusionary artifact of White Supremacy, one that only referred to individuals of proximate African descent, aka “Negros”, “Blacks”, “Afro-Americans” and most recently “African-Americans.”
In the interest of being more inclusive, stick it to the White Supremacy for categorizing people based on the color of their skin, and demonstrate how colorblind the Social Justice Warriors and their ilk are, “People of Colour” was coined. It includes yellow people, black people, red people and brown people. Surprisingly, it does not include pink people, but by inference does include albinos. Odd, eh?
Those who coined the term assure us that THEY are not racists, and would never judge people by the color of their skin.
humbly yours.
“Proportionally nominated” — at least they admit they wanted racial quotas.
The reason I hate it is because in real world terms there literally is no such thing as “people of color.”
It was a term created to make whites look like planetary racists.
I thought white was a color. I must have been wrong for the past 57 years…
Blame it on Crayola, the racist, bigoted bastiches!!!!
K Tempest Bradford @tinytempest Apr 5 @tobiasbuckell @nkjemisin I am with you. These assholes are still around but they aren’t the mainstream anymore.
As if this woman would deign to associate with the riff-raff that passes for mainstream in her mind. It took me about 2 seconds (I am not exaggerating) to be banned from her Facebook page for daring to state that I, even as a woman, felt SP represented me more than the SJW side of the fence. Of course she simply concluded that I’m a closet misogynist because I’m white (I assume I’m racist too…)
I think I really pissed her off when I stated that my money spent just as well as hers and that her reviews would get no more weight than mine on Amazon regardless of her skin color.
And all the self-described “PoC” have made up with Requires Hate:
https://twitter.com/tinytempest/status/585160460309241856
Birds of a feather I guess. They’re all pretty much batshi*t crazy. The inevitable bad-ending to this particular friendship ought to be hilarious.
That’s one to hang around their neck.
They planning on trying to aim RH in our direction?
Meh.
And they’re pummeling Laura Mixon (M. J. Locke) the wife of Steven Gould, president of the SFWA for the expose Mixon wrote on RH. The funny thing about that feud is that the expose in question is bullshit. It’s a weird thing that backfired. By Mixon purposefully ignoring what it is RH REALLY did – which is take out white men – Mixon dug a hole for herself. SJWs routinely fall into tiger pits they dug for others.
Sigh, always sad to see Tobias with them (though I know he is tight with scalzi) I enjoyed his Ragamuffin and Crystal Rain books.
I agree. Buckell is a great writer and I have seen lots of support from readers that frequent this blog so I’m not sure where the victim complex comes from. I’m also wondering about the nature of the threats he claims to have had directed at him. I just can’t see the SP crowd doing that.
There are some racists still out there. A lot of them are card-carrying progressives, just like the vast majority of today’s anti-Semites.
5. K Tempest Bradford @tinytempest Apr 5 @tobiasbuckell @nkjemisin I am with you. These assholes are still around but they aren’t the mainstream anymore.
This statement reminds me of my old days in fandom.
People in fandom would be all a-flutter over a new movie and proclaiming how it would made hundreds of millions at the box office. They then would be shocked when the movie only made $15 million or something. “How can this be?!” Well, fandom was excited for the movie but that was it. No one outside of fandom was even aware of the movie. And fandom obviously wasn’t big enough to make it box office gold.
The story’s point is just like with fandom’s shock about a movie not doing well at the box office because of the fandom echo chamber. The SJWs talk about the “assholes” that aren’t mainstream anymore except how do they know? They surround themselves with like-minded people and block the “assholes” and from where I’m standing, their echo chamber isn’t very big just noisy.
Hey Larry,
Just a heads up: I believe ‘Warner’ should be ‘Wernher’ in the sentence below. Not a huge issue, as its obvious who you were referring to.
“She had relatives on the Manhattan Project and ate dinner at Warner Von Braun’s house”
BTW, huge kudos for your (and everyone else involved, go Brad!) success with Sad Puppies. Thanks so much for your efforts.
Mr Correia,
I’m pretty sure I’m drastically to the left of where you sit, and I do have some issues with the whole concept of organizing a proposed slate for the Hugo Awards (by anyone), but I very much oppose the idea of blanket No Awarding everyone in sight who was associated in any way with either Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies.
I nominated for the Hugo Award works I loved and thought were fantastic, and for the novel, I wish I had more slots to fill. I have a supporting membership, so I’m going to vote.
I value the Hugo Awards, this is something I look forward to every year and I’m going to treat this year much the same as I do every year: Read the nominated works. Vote accordingly. There’s some stuff on the ballot I was already interested in reading, and some other works I have no idea what they are or where they came from. I’m going to treat them all the same because I value the Awards and regardless of what anyone else does, I can’t No Award something simply because it was slated by a Sad or Rabid Puppy. That’s not right.
And if you’re right about there being a history of secret slates (I’m somewhat skeptical, but okay), I oppose that, too, but if I voted based on the works on the ballot then, how could I do differently now?
As a side note: Warbound was the first of your books I’ve read because of your Hugo nomination. I enjoyed it. I plan to give Monster Hunter a shot. Another guy who I think is farther to the left (but could be wrong because we only talk books) loves them and I tend to trust / appreciate his viewpoint. But this way I get to start at the beginning rather than jump in on the latest book. I do wish you would have kept the nomination, though. I understand the reason you rejected it, but I still would have liked to have seen it on the ballot since enough people thought it was worthwhile.
I’ve become increasingly annoyed by everyone these days, on either “side”. Too much anger.
I’ve taken up enough of your time. I think I’m going to go read a good book. Have a good day, sir.
I think that is fantastic, and all I can hope for is that most of the voters will follow your example.
Awesome, Joe. So glad you’re giving other authors a chance.
btw- the whisper campaigns were always a sort of open-secret at World Con. I’ve seen authors talking about it online, but the only one I can link to immediate (because I don’t remember where I saw every other one- like I said, sort of an open secret) is Bill Willingham’s comment about his 4 hugo noms here (scroll down to almost the bottom of the page to see it): http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2015/3/yes-the-sad-puppies-campaign-swept-the-hugo-awards
He mentions having a friend of his who was a World Con old timer pull him aside and explain why it was he’d never win the award. It’s a shame that that’s how it’s worked for so long.
I didn’t see Willingham’s comment at the time, though I do follow Sanford’s blog (I usually only read comments the first or second time through and not return to an article multiple times unless I’m part of a discussion).
That’s sad. I’d love to know more of the specifics regarding what was said, but I’m an outsider on the periphery (in that I nominate, vote, and participate in some online conversations).
But, it’s bullshit that any of the voting is hinky or irregular. Jut vote straight up what you liked in the order in which you prefer it. Period.
Also, Fables is excellent.
TNH was being an ignorant nitwit to get upset that SP was being discussed in GamerGate circles. Think back and recall where some of the first published reviews of game software ran. That’s right, in SF&F magazines. Computer and video games has had a huge overlap with fandom from the moment they were technologically possible.
If you’re going to be hostile to gamers, well, that just illustrates the basic problem all the better.
Piss them off enough and you’re going to find yourself giving a Hugo to a Halo novel.
The Hugos traditionally hate and despise media tie in fiction. In fact, the very first and only work of media tie in fiction to ever make it into a Hugo fiction category was the Butcher of Khardov, written by Dan Wells (democrat) for the Warmachine universe, which I plugged as part of SP2.
Halo novels are actually pretty good. A little ubermensch for my taste, but overall I’m talking 3.5+ territory. And for me, that means “well worth reading if you like the genre.” Heck, there was more actual Sci-Fi in the first Halo novel than most “sci-fi” I’ve read.
“Piss them off enough and you’re going to find yourself giving a Hugo to a Halo novel.”
1. It’s utterly ironic that one of the unhappy tweets quoted above was by a guy who writes, among other things, Halo tie-in works (Tobias S. Buckell). And his novels are very, very good. We’d happily read and maybe vote for any qualifying works of his that made it onto an SP slate.
2. Media tie-in novels are ignored, yes. Someone like Keith R. A. DeCandido has gotten no love from the Hugo nominators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_DeCandido
He creates works with amazing plots and tight writing. Creatively staying within a cannon is harder than is sounds. But it’s in someone else’s universe, so he must be a “hack,” to the gatekeepers.
Not like all those screen/scriptwriters they froth over, like Joss Whedon. Hey, Whedon didn’t invent the Avengers! He must be a hack! And so is James Gunn, because he didn’t invent Guardians of the Galaxy!
The hypocrisy gives me such a headache.
SJWs aren’t big on logic
Heck, Paramount could have made a HUGE amount of money by having Diane Duane adapt her Rihannsu Star Trek books for NextGen.
Very true! Duane had a great handle on Trek.
…Or a Warcraft one. Or Starcraft. Or Assassin’s Creed.
*evilgrin*
A Halo novel is setting the bar too high.
I’ve seen Minecraft novels that would mop the floor with that wretched dinosaur story.
To be fair to Halo novels, Fall of Reach was utterly fantastic.
The HALO novels are actually pretty good; though we haven’t had the chance to get the latest ones. I buy them for my hubby then end up reading them before he does.
Except for Halo: the Flood.
There were several sections that read like they were copied from the strategy guide.
“… he picked up the sniper, then shot some guys, and when he was out of ammo he went back and picked up the rocket launcher and took that forward….”
Blegh
Larry, I’ve been trying to get an interview with you since we met at GenCon last year. Admittedly, my podcast only reaches about 9,000-10,000 fantasy/scifi gamers/readers but I’ve talked about your books so often I know my listeners would love to hear anything you have to say. (They’re tabletop wargamers too, so you’ve got a double hold on my listenership!) If you’re even remotely interested I’d be honored to set up an interview.
David@garagehammer.net
David, I’d be glad to. I’ll send you an email later.
An excellent, well written letter, Larry. I think I’ll be reblogging this one on my blog.
Do you know what bothers me most about Sad Puppies? It is raising the bar for new authors to get on the slate. In the first two Sad Puppies, basically all you needed to do was to suck up to Larry. This year, you had to make nice with Larry and Brad. Next year, you will have to make nice with Larry, Brad, and Kate. The year after that, Sarah Hoyt will be added to the mix.
YOU ARE MAKING IT MORE DIFFICULT TO GET ON THE BALLOT! It is unfair and exclusionary of you.
David
(For those that lack the sarcasm detector, it should have gone off about the third sentence above.)
[…] won’t go too much into detail here (I’ve got work to do), but I thought I’d share this link to Larry Correia’s open letter response to the “outrage” over the Hugo nominations. It’s thorough, thought-out, […]
I’m hoping they try to #noaward everything. There’s no way they have enough votes. Especially since the nominations came out people all over the web are asking if it’s to late to sign up to vote for the Hugos.
If the SJWs push the #noaward, all they’ll do is embarrass themselves even further and weaken their positions into irrelevance.
“Come at me bro”
Question I’ve got is after we vote for our choices, if we want to vote No Award do we rank that above the items we want below No Award or do we not even put them on the ballot after No Award?
1. Thing I really want to win
2. Thing I kinda want to win
3. No award
4. OK, if my first two choices don’t win and neither did No award, give it to this choice.
—
Left off the ballot: things I no way in heck want to win.
“No award” is ranked, just like all the other ballot options.
Not quite.
Off the ballot =”I don’t care in what order these are listed.”
If I vote:
1. Skin game
2. Goblin Emperor
3. No award
I’m saying I’d like to see Skin Game win; failing that Goblin Emperor, but if neither win I’d rather see nobody win.
If I stop my ballot at #2 (no entry for No award) I’m saying I’s still prefer Butcher or then Addison, but after that people can award who they like and I’m fine with whatever they pick.
If voted fairly, No Award should be for people or works you don’t think should be eligible, or that you think are truly awful. not just not to your taste.
If you’re worried about No Award being used by the SJW clique to blow up the Hugos, I recommend you DO NOT vote “No Award” at *any* ranking, unless you truly believe no work listed is worth awarding.
You don’t want to give the No Award listing any greater mathematical weight than is utterly necessary, since you already know the whiners will be voting No Award to sabotage the awards.
Not true. If you vote for all the books you want to win, then No Award, then don’t vote for any books that you think simply aren’t good enough to deserve an award, then your “No Award” only harms those books that you didn’t vote for.
“Australian rules” voting is weird to Americans, and it’s not perfect, but it’s really hard to screw yourself with it.
I’d recommend Kevin Standlee’s article on this: http://kevin-standlee.livejournal.com/1440530.html
The shorter version is that No Award works in two ways.
First: It acts like a nominee just like any other. So, with the preferential voting system, if you vote anything under No Award when No Award is eliminated for having the fewest votes (likely in the first round), your vote will go to your next highest ranked selection. No matter how much you hate it. If it is on your ballot, it counts. If it is not on your ballot, your vote will not go to anything else. JC Salomon and Craig have it right. Anything on your ballot is ranked in the order in which you would prefer them to win an award.
Second: After a “preliminary winner” is determined by going through the ranked voting process, it is then tallied up against No Award. If PW is ranked higher on more ballots than No Award, it wins. If No Award is ranked higher than PW on more ballots, even though it made PW through the preferential voting system, No Award will be given for that category.
TL, DR: How you use No Award matters, and don’t rank anything below No Award if you really don’t want it to win an award.
Those bastards are exactly why I paid $40 to vote. I can do a small something and I will. They can slowly rot in their own feces-filled, fetid, inbred bastard swamp for all I care.
You know, Larry, neither you nor Bard are typical Utah Mormons. That’s not a bad thing, of course, it is just one of those things that shows that most people defy stereotypes in one way or another.
What’s amazing to me is the fact that if you look down the list of Neubula nominees for best novel for the past 10 or 15 years there’s nary a Scalzi or Stross nomination to be found. Considering that it’s industry professionals that largely make up the Neubula voting pool compared to fans you would think there would at least be some commonality where the works of Scalzi and Stross are concerned if their works were actually so desreving to be nominated time and time again. Yet over the years neither have received a nomination for best novel in the Neubula Awards.
One would think that in Stross’ case the sheer number of nominations over the last 10 years for supposed brilliant work would have also garnered at least some recognition in the form of a single nomination during this period yet there is none.
If you add this to the fact that both have been known to plead for votes over the years for their own work is it any wonder why Sad Puppies has become so popular?
The corruption is plain as day for anyone actually willing to open their eyes and take a proper look.
Slashdot has picked it up and seems to trend to support SP.
http://m.slashdot.org/story/215757
Here’s how fucking dumb Scalzi is – even though he lives in America – when Maynard says he doesn’t know or care about “the race, sexual orientation, or even gender of the author.”:
“April 5, 2015 at 11:19 pm
Jay Maynard:
“‘It’s about the stories, not the politics.’
“While I would not presume to doubt your sincerity, you should be aware that this is a “I don’t see color” sort of statement, which is generally treated with skepticism by people who see the obvious disconnect between the statement and the real world application of such an assertion.”
There is only a massive amount of “real world” evidence Americans in fact don’t see color in the sense it matters. There is no way in hell Lebron James and Michael Jordan are the #1-#2 most popular athletes in an America Scalzi and his crew of paranoia live in. Wouldn’t it be Tom Brady or Peyton Manning? Why is the NFL America’s most popular sport – it’s 2/3 black. Shouldn’t it be hockey? Why is the majority black March Madness a blockbuster rather than the all-white college baseball or hockey playoffs, which have dismal TV ratings. Why would Americans act so completely differently in SFF, there’s frequently a ton of crossover with them being sports fans. All of a sudden they turn racist when they read a book? Why in the hell are black acts dominating the Grammy’s instead of country western?
SJWs have bullshit burned into their minds and there’s nothing – no kind of reality, logic or facts – that will dissuade them. In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, SJWs hold onto this race privilege shit like it’s a pacifier. Meanwhile I’ve got to listen to Jim Crow on the march once again being Alaya Dawn Johnson trying to tell us N. K. Jemisin being mistaken for another black author is “institutional racism.” Are these people completely daffy, or what’s the story? “Obvious”? What the hell is obvious to John Scalzi? He wrote white privilege is as “obvious” as “gravity.” Somehow college football sellouts in stadiums across America watching black guys play escapes him and he figures those fans spit on those same guys if they write a book.
Then a couple of Scalzi’s sheep call Maynard a bigot just because. And this bizarre devotion to diversity, as if it’s some Holy Grail or miracle cure is something I can’t fathom.
I’ve never understood why people assume everyone else has their same limitations re: “I don’t see color.” Just because some aren’t able to see past another person’s skin tone, doesn’t mean other people can’t.
My real world application: Yes, I see color. I even have some too. But I’m not going to judge you by how much melanin you have in your skin. What I will judge you by are both your words and your works.
Well, yes, exactly.
A few words about my experiences sort of involving Mr. Scalzi, social justice warrior extraordinaire, plus iron crosses.
I’d never heard of him, if I recall, when I read a recommendation from Glen Reynolds of instapundit.com for his book Old Man’s War. I saw it on the shelf in B&N, skimmed through it, liked it, bought other books in the series later, read his blog.
Hmmm, leftist. OK, I have no trouble reading authors whose politics I disagree with. Charlie Stross, happy to give him my money.
However, I do dislike asshats. Scalzi is an asshat. I kept noticing assorted asshattery, etc- and one fine day Scalzi happened to express his wish that right-wingers would be condemned to exile in a desert to die, because hate. The context was something about people in trouble in a desert, or whatever. I forget, it was years ago, sorry. But I distinctly remember wondering if that wish for right-wingers to die included Glen Reynolds, the guy who’d certainly handed him quite a few sales. I quit reading soon after, whatevs.
I have more anecdotes describing how Scalzi made me grow to loath him, but I’m sure everyone gets the picture.
Bottom line: SJWs like Scalzi drove me away from SF for years, such that I stopped bothering to even look for new SF, because I came to believe new actually SF of the sort I actually wanted to buy simply didn’t exist.
Thank you Amazon and indie publishing thank you thank you thank you.
This is a half formed thought I’m working through and I’m happy to be swayed on it.
I wonder if SP3 was too successful.
By dominating the awards and doing so in a public fashion it could leave the in between voters feeling voiceless.
The progression of such dominance could make them feel that their vote will no longer count if they don’t pick a slate to join with.
Now next year might be SP vs one slate or there could be a number of competing slates, but I don’t see more than 3 others happening, tops.
Those who voted for the things they found in odd places that the SP or other slate creators didn’t see, didn’t get around to reading or were just generally overlooked might not bother to nominate them because they don’t have the reach a slate creator has.
And so good works in smaller venues might entirely lose out because the people that saw them only numbered in the tens by the time nominations came up.
Which could lead to voters in the middle, who really don’t want to pick a side, either withdrawing from the process or being forced to be partisan just so they feel like their vote counts.
And I don’t think sci fi fandom should have to pick a side, they should be able to pick what they like.
I know there are a lot of “mights”, ” maybes” and “could” in this. For all I know the ship will right itself from the middle.
This is just what I worry about.
And for a lot of people $40 is too much to throw away on a vote you don’t believe will count.
I threw down my $40. I’ll be voting. If I care about making my vote count more than someone else, I can’t speak for that person.
But I’ll not let this nonsense pass unresisted. And that’s from a veteran living mainly on a 50% disability pension. Don’t talk to me about financial sacrifice versus doing the honorable thing.
“Don’t talk to me about financial sacrifice versus doing the honorable thing.”
That’s not what I was talking about at all
Then I apologize for misreading you.
Thank you.
Apology accepted.
I completely agree. I think that if SP/RP continues to dominate the awards, we have the same problem we had to start: a small group of tastemakers controlling the Hugos.
To be fair, SP had no reasonable expectation of being this successful this year (based on earlier performances). But in the future, tactics should change.
Slate voting isn’t going back in the bag; it’s like a nuke, once it’s out, it’s out there for anyone to use. But it doesn’t have to eliminate the votes of those who don’t care/don’t know about slates
To the fans (because the Hugo is our award, as fans) and to Mr. Correia, while you’re reconsidering tactics, please consider some of these suggestions.
Reach out to other people or fandoms and let them compile slates independently. It gets more people involved (part of the point of Sad Puppies 3), and it also gives more works a shot at being nominated. Fans won’t have to vote on one slate, they could take what they like from differing slates.
Fandoms in these areas have been mostly ignored by both the Hugo’s and the Sad Puppies, while still being very popular.
Young adult science fiction & fantasy: I regularly hear on this and other blogs about how sff is dying. This is complete crap. Young adult SFF was the fastest growing print book sales category or 2014, and outsold adult SFF by a factor of nearly 4:1.
Link here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/65387-the-hot-and-cold-categories-of-2014.html
But it has been ignored by both SP and ‘traditional’ Hugo voters. Young adult books have been nominated for the Hugo’s in two years only, according to Chaos Horizon.
Ask around, see whether people want to help get more YA on the ballot. Reach out to specific YA fandoms and tell them about the Hugos. It’s their award too.
Epic Fantasy: Does quite a bit better than YA, still underperforms compared to how many people read and are fans of it. No nominations for Rothfuss, no wins for Martin, etc.
Humor: As Vox Day pointed out (one of the few times I think he’s been right about anything), the Hugo’s neglect of Terry Pratchett is astonishing. Douglass Adams ignored, etc.
SP has slightly improved the hugos there, but there is a long way to go.
Alternative media: Does anyone who votes for the Hugo’s realize how much popular stuff that isn’t movies or TV is eligible is eligible for best dramatic presentation? Welcome to Night Vale, Starkid, radio, youtube videos.
While we’re widening the tent let’s bring in as many people as possible. It’s awesome if they aren’t SP or RP, part of the mission is making the Hugos relevant to all of SFF fandom.
All good and valid suggestions for us to look at.
I’ll have to read through them again tomorrow, because right now I’m still kind of fuming about the whole Entertainment Weekly calling me a white supremacist right now.
I actually would be on board with that. I’ve been pre-reading a lot of YA literature, before purchasing it for my daughter’s bookshelf. And, frankly, I’m envious of the sort of things that are available to that age group that CERTAINLY weren’t available when I was a kid. You’d never have pried me out of B. Dalton if they’d had this kind of selection. And a lot of it is really, really good. I’ve gifted copies of Jessica Day’s stuff to other people. Heck a lot of Robin McKinley’s work ends up in YA.
I do also get your point about alternative media. I’m sort of sorry I didn’t realize that we COULD nominate back when Seeing Ear Theater was still a thing.
The only issue I really saw with the final slate was the domination of Wright’s works in the shorter categories. I could see how that might irritate some people.
Welcome to NightVale is great – has that not won anything?
Reach out to other people or fandoms and let them compile slates independently.
This is a great idea. also a good idea to do lists of books throughout the year. (And I’ve read a fair bit of YA in the past and a lot of that stuff is quite entertaining)
Oh, and if people like urban fantatasy, I want to put in a plug for the jane yellowrock books. I have really enjoyed them and just saw that the new one is out today.
I didn’t put in urban fantasy because that is something SP has done a very good job with, and hasn’t been extremely neglected in the Hugos as a whole. Subgenres of it have been though, such as paranormal romance. No nominations for Kenyon, despite that she’s been writing bestselling paranormal romance and romantic sci-fi for over a decade.
Glad to see such a positive response.
I wonder if SP3 would be getting the same level of backlash if Larry & Brad had only pushed for “their type” of readers to go get membership packets and vote for books they like, instead of suggesting a “slate.”
Probably, yeah. But I can still see a good argument that *that* is the direction that should be taken in future years. Similar to how Democrats always push “get out the vote” among people they know will vote their direction
Thanks so much for doing this. As someone who enjoys sci-fi, but would never claim to be a super-fan, I had no idea what was happening to the genre until a few years ago via a link to Vox Day’s blog. Keep fighting the good fight and helping others find worthy reads amidst the CHORF-promoted dreck.
Love your Monster Hunters series, too!
As the shining, guilt-proving link between #GamerGate and Sad Puppies:
1 – I only nominated works I read.
2 – I didn’t nominate Sad Puppies works I had read, because I didn’t believe they deserved it.
3 – I nominated other works I felt deserved it, which didn’t make it.
I’m glad I participated, and I’m looking forward to participating next year.
Also, I’m a nobody, who had nothing to do with Sad Puppies except sending out some tweets. PNH used my tweets to defame everyone in Sad Puppies. That’s despicable.
The people of Sad Puppies won a victory. #GamerGate had little or nothing to do with it.
Evidence: pic.twitter.com/ilZQ2x8LLu
I’m glad Larry is taking back the initiative, so Sad Puppies can speak for itself.
Kudos, Mountain That Writes.
Larry, would still love to have you on my radio show in Anchorage to talk about this. If you have 10 minutes to do a live bit I think it would be good radio. But then again…maybe not. LOL
At this point you might be hosting “The Volcano that Writes.” I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Larry explode on Twitter like that.
I’ve certainly never seen him threaten legal action …
( munches moar popcorn )
Michael, I can in the future, but I’m swamped this week.
And so the punch-up is finally underway.
SJWs don’t negotiate. They don’t like you. They consider you scum, hateful, racist, sexist, because they NEED you to be that.
Because they need you to be The Enemy. If you were good, decent human beings, they wouldn’t be able to make this a War For The Soul of Fandom.
It’s gonna be a fight all the way through to the final vote, and I guarantee you, they will be pulling every dirty trick that they don’t think will send them to jail.
So knuckle down.
It’s a phenomenon called “Othering”, and when they accuse anyone to the right of Stalin of it, they’re projecting.
[…] He says: […]
This is the text of an email message I have just sent to Teresa Nielsen Hayden. It has clearly been written as an open letter/message/whatever.
It wasn’t personal. Now it is.
I had scanned the File 770 posting on the current Hugo kurfullfle earlier today, but I had missed this upon my first reading/scan. This is the former Teresa Barbara Nielsen (I won’t let her hide behind another persona) as quoted in F770, from her blog “Making Light” —
“Third, when the people doing a block voting attack on the Hugos claim to practically worship Heinlein, but aren’t aware that the second huge volume of his first major biography has come out, perhaps you ought not worry about your own lack of omniscience.”
So here we have Teresa trying to wrap herself in the flag (so to speak) of the 2nd volume of the Robert A. Heinlein biography by Bill Patterson. That Tor published.
Bill died last year on 22 April 2014. He was my best friend for 40 years. He was someone that Teresa (and her husband Patrick) knew.
Did they even mention that someone they knew (Bill) had died on their Making Light blog back last year? No. Not a tit; not a tiddle. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Goose egg. He was, the way they treated him, an unperson. Despite the fact that two volumes of a book by him was published by Tor. They made no mention anywhere at anytime of his death despite all of the various venues they had available to them to do so, such as their own blog.
And here Teresa wants to claim somehow that she was somehow on Bill’s side, so as to make some points against the Sad Puppies folks.
Bill was a friend — clearly not a concept, Teresa, you are familiar with. Your attempt to use him a year after his death, after you had formerly thrown him metaphorically under the bus, shows for one and all what sort of a human being you are. Certainly it shows it to me, after 40 years of fooling myself.
I’m glad the first one was nominated, but it lost to one of the Chicks Dig Timelords.
Apparently TNH can speak for the dead.She also claimed to speak for Jim Baen, which is asinine. The woman has zero shame.
I love how all these SJW morons are suddenly people of principle. Where were you when N. K. Jemisin took out the entire continent of Australia as a pack of racists? You gave her “Bravo.” Where were you when Resnick and Malzberg were savaged out of a gig by a swarm of feminist inspired idiots because they were “white” and “men”? Where were you when Seanan McGuire, Fabio Fernandes and Charlie Stross hounded Jonathan Ross out of a gig because he was male, “white” and unsafe? Where are you when your racist fucks are throwing around bullshit about “white privilege” and “white saviors”? What were you doing when Miss “Cracka Ass Cracka” put all white men on probationary status for a year? What is a principle that critiques a segregated high school prom and not a segregated room at a convention. Where were you when your John W. Campbell Award nominees asserted they live in a “white supremacy” and that white men are as stupid as “buffalos,” but at least not “half-savage”? Where were you when Jim Hines put on his race goggles, peered into a photo of white WorldCon chairs and declared a racist emergency? Where were you when your Solomon Mikki Kendall asserted the man who shot Mike Brown was my “murdering kin”? What do you say when anyone talks about terrorism. Then “murdering kin” is wrong.
I know where I was. I was on the wrong end of all that – a “white dude parade” 100 million strong.
Both sides are accusing the other of being “racist.” Only one side has a principled neutral definition of that term.
So go fuck. I don’t have to put up with your Klonopin-riddled obsessive compulsive feminist swarm or the “men” whose nuts they keep a tight hold of.
The relationship with Gamergate is that the long-silent majority, who enjoy their various hobbies, passions, professions and pass-times, be it video games or sci-fi fiction, toddled along for years, happily debating, playing, critiquing, reading and enjoying their respective genres. Then the SJWs came along and said, you’re doing it all wrong. There aren’t enough minorities and women and the ones you have are presented all wrong. The attitudes and implied politics of your books and games are not agents for social justice, and we demand they be, regardless of merit or quality.
There’s FINALLY a backlash against this sort of thing and thank God there is. The social justice social media buillies are getting a taste of their own medicine in the form of an actual democratic process, and boy they don’t like it. They don’t operate by building consensus, debating issues and moral suasion, they operate by trying to destroy people’s lives if they disagree with them. They attack them online, attack them at their jobs, attack their kids, publish their home addresses so that they can be attacked there and even “SWAT” them on occasion.
I’m going to join every “backlash” organization I can so we can reclaim the things that make life enjoyable instead of reducing every effing thing in the world into a culture war “teachable moment” with a leftist bias- sports, movies, video games and sci-fi literature. Let them have the college administrations and MSM newsrooms, those are going to die in the next decade anyway.
[…] remain skeptical to that eventuality, however, The relationship between SP and Gamergate is that the long-silent majority, who enjoy their various hobbies, passions, professions and […]
[…] The relationship between SP and Gamergate is that the long-silent majority, who enjoy their various hobbies, passions, professions and pass-times, be it video games or sci-fi fiction, toddled along for years, happily debating, playing, critiquing, reading and enjoying their respective genres. Then the SJWs came along and said, you’re doing it all wrong. There aren’t enough minorities and women and the ones you have are presented all wrong. The attitudes and implied politics of your books and games are not agents for social justice, and we demand they be, regardless of merit or quality. […]
[…] ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY PUBLISHES A NASTY HIT JOB — Larry Correia Fisks it here — and without contacting any of the people it attacks, and then after publication, the author, […]
You know, when I first heard about the Sad Puppy thing I was excited about the idea of expanding the pool of voters. As an occasional Hugo voter over the last decade, I’d thought the biggest flaw of the award was the tiny number of people that nominated and voted for it. I was happy that more people might buy memberships and make their voices heard, and that would lead to more variety in the shortlist.
But you didn’t just encourage people to join and vote. Or even just put up a recommendation thread encouraging people to suggest possible choices. You put together an actual slate and encouraged people to vote that specifc slate. Granted, I’m willing to believe Sad Puppy people didn’t vote in lockstep. But you inspired Vox Day to put together his Rabid Puppy slate, and I have the suspicion that his crowd DID vote in lockstep. How else do you explain John Wright’s 6 nominations, including multiple noms in the same category? That’s a far worse abuse of the system than I ever saw in years past. Even more
annoyingly, it’s practically guaranteed that the Hugos will now turn into a pissing contest between rival voting blocs. So much for variety, or any chance of the independent voter having their
voice heard. I feel like what could’ve been a bright future for the award (more people voting) has instead burned it to the ground.
I hear it takes 2 years for rule changes to go into effect. I don’t even know if a rule change can be made that would stop bloc voting from dominating the shortlist. The only way I have to express my displeasure over the bloc voting is to put everything listed on a slate below No Award, so that’s what I’ll be doing, for both Sad and Rabid puppies. I don’t care about your politics or anyone’s politics. If the so-called SJWs put up a competing slate next year, I’ll No Award the hell out of that too. Probably won’t make any difference, but it’s the only way I have left
to make my voice heard at all.
Uh huh… That reads like a cut and paste from that other dude earlier.
You can scroll through and seem my response to him so I don’t need to type it all over again.
I inspired Vox Day to mess with SJWs? BWA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAA Ha. Sir, you overestimate my powers. Nobody motivates Vox to do anything except for Vox.
And hate to break it to you, but when your awards last year were Best Novel, SJW. Best Novella, SJW. Best Short, SJW. Best Novellete, SJW. Best Related, SJW. Best Fanzine, the one that published the best related SJW. Etc… The SJWs are already putting up a defacto slate, and you upright, morally courageous types haven’t done shit about it.
But like I told the other dude, go ahead on the No Award. That’ll show me who is boss.
To clarify on the “inspired,” I think the success of the SP slate last year in getting choices onto the shortlist made Vox Day realize just how easily the system could be gamed. He took full advantage of that this year, and in doing so, trashed all hope the Hugos could be rehabilitated. I don’t at all dispute that the shortlists in recent years have been limited in variety. What I’m saying is that I had genuinely hoped SP could help change that. Instead, I see one clique replaced with another (Vox Day’s) that’s provided even LESS variety in the shortlist. I don’t see how that’s a win in any sense of the word. What’s worse is that I don’t see how the award can come back from this, unless by some miracle so many new people join as to radically expand the voting pool and make bloc voting much more difficult to organize. But as a cynic, I don’t put much faith in miracles. I vote No Award not to show anyone who’s boss, but because I don’t know what the hell else to do to indicate that I think the nomination process is broken.
Heh. My guess would be that Vox will move on to a different project in a couple of years, so nothing to worry about there.
The issue has for a long time been the low number of people who know the Hugo exists, know they can get involved, and care.
2015 only had two Puppies slates that I knew of, because they were thought to be forlorn hopes. There will be more. Already, Sad and Rapid Puppies have some differing goals and methods.
The net result will likely be a sizable number of voters, without an overwhelming amount of common agreement.
Unless you would argue that Mr. Beale’s prestige is that much larger than that of the Hugo and of the rest of the field?
I agree. The best way to make non-slate voters voices heard is to have enough independently compiled slates/suggestion lists that they’ll probably pick work that already ended up on someone else’s slate. Then their vote inadvertently counts toward a slate.
More slates/suggestion lists that bring in more of the field are ideal. We get 100+ moderately popular slates, and we’ve probably covered most of the field.
I hope you’re right about the net result. My concern is that bloc voting rewards a far smaller number of people willing to vote in lockstep over a far larger number of people voting for a spread of works. And it’s the people voting out of some agenda other than the quality of the work (like politics or personal gain of single author/publishing house) that are most willing to vote in lockstep. Look at the success of Rabid vs. Sad puppies on this year’s shortlist. I do not at all believe that Rabid puppies had a larger group of voters than SP. But SP people presumably took the SP slate more as a suggestion, and spread their noms among other works they felt worthy. The core group of RP people voted in lockstep, and as a result, had a far larger influence on the shortlist.
Sure, Vox Day may go off to play somewhere else. But now that he’s demonstrated how easy it is to sweep the shortlist with a lockstep bloc, the cynic in me says plenty of other people will try the same thing. Only way to mitigate the effect is with a hugely expanded pool of voters. Yet what I see on SFF forums I frequent where people didn’t know much about Hugos is not, “Oh cool, you can vote for the Hugos? Sign me up!” but “Wow, those awards are a total joke. Good thing I don’t care at all about them.” This does not give me hope that a significantly larger pool of voters will be available any time soon.
” I don’t see how the award can come back from this, unless by some miracle so many new people join as to radically expand the voting pool and make bloc voting much more difficult to organize”
…Look, I have as much faith in the works of God as the next poor sinner, but I don’t think expanding the Hugo voter pool out to 15 or 50 K voters is going to require divine intervention. How about we give it a run ourselves first, before insisting the big guy take care of it?
If I remember right, there were about 2K nominations this year out of a pool of 8K eligible members. That 2K number is only up by a few hundred (if that) from the years before SP. So I fear getting nominations up to 15K is either going to take a miracle or a very, very long time (like decades). I’d prefer not to watch rival voting blocs have pissing matches during all that time. This is why I’m voting No Award, because 2 years to effect a rule change of some kind feels like the fastest anti-bloc method, and No Award is the only method I have to indicate I think a change in nomination process is desperately needed.
Ace is crushing this as usual.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/355984.php
( gets out the valu-rite, cleans the .30-06, and starts drunkenly planning the next hobo-hunt. My smokehouse is empty )
Man, everybody who takes a swing at Larry ends up falling on their faces. This is what the EW article says now:
“CORRECTION: After misinterpreting reports in other news publications, EW published an unfair and inaccurate depiction of the Sad Puppies voting slate, which does, in fact, include many women and writers of color. As Sad Puppies’ Brad Torgerson explained to EW, the slate includes both women and non-caucasian writers, including Rajnar Vajra, Larry Correia, Annie Bellet, Kary English, Toni Weisskopf, Ann Sowards, Megan Gray, Sheila Gilbert, Jennifer Brozek, Cedar Sanderson, and Amanda Green.”
“All of whom we recklessly and with malice called white supremacists, misogynists, etc. Damn, this is going to be expensive, isn’t it?”
I posted this further down the thread, but perhaps I should have put it here, instead: Twitchy.com quoted Larry on his twitter thread as promising: “Fisking to start, but that’s not good enough. I’m sick of this libelous bullshit.”
http://twitchy.com/2015/04/06/entertainment-weekly-retracts-claim-of-misogynistic-racist-hugo-awards-voting-campaign/
Fetch the Tetsubo of Justice; it’s clobberin’ time.
Dear SJWs, give it a rest with the race and gender already. You are hysterical. Are you even capable of controlling your weird compulsion that SFF is Jim Crow Mississippi in 1960? You are broken people wailing about precisely nothing.
That is one hell of a correction!
It is so weird to be amazed at the sloppy reporting at ew of all places. All the had to do to ‘research’ was spend five minutes looking on the Internet and they didn’t even do that. Pathetic.
My favorite bit (after some thought) of the “Hugos belong to us” diatribe was her “worry” over the Best Related Work.
“People who create reference books get one shot at the Hugo.”
Uh, no. No they don’t. They get one shot every time they create a reference book.
ANY work is eligible only in it’s original year of publication/presentation.
Andy Weir’s The Martian would have been a near shoe-in for Best Novel this year. Problem being it is ineligible since it had a prior publication.
Larry declined a nomination for Monster Hunter Nemesis. That novel will never have another chance for the rocket.
Is creating a related work harder than a novel, a script, hell even a short story? Iunno, I’ve done very little writing of my own. But the opportunity is still there for all those who were “squeezed out” by Williamson’s nomination.
Here, I’ll even help you (or them) get started:
For 2016 Best Related Work:
Futanari Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who and the Hermaphrodites/Pre-Op Transexuals Who Love It
For 2017 Best Related Work:
Gaspers Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who and the Auto-Erotic Asphyxiants Who Love It
For 2018 Best Related Work:
Some Subset of LBTQQIABDSMPHDBFDVIPRSVPRESPECTEIEIO Dig Time Lords: My Essay Is Important Because of My Crotch and What I Do With It
So get to work and good luck.
Collection of humorous web posts by Scalzi, published by Tor: duckspeak.
Collection of humorous web posts by Williamson, not published by Tor: crimethink.
Worth noting that they *still* haven’t changed the actual link, which contains most of the offending buzzwords.
They can’t really change the link — it would screw up all the people linking to them about the controversy, and smell of a coverup. Cue a hundred articles about the silly SJWs trying to throw something down the memory hole, when the internet never forgets.
Larry,
I just wanted to say ‘Thank you!’. You (and, of course, everyone else who worked to organize and promote Sad Puppies) helped prove that we, the fans, can have a voice in choosing what works might be recognized and receive our fandom’s most prestigious awards.
It is my fondest hope that someday soon, this vote-drive will have energized so many fans that the official Sad Puppies slate will read only, “Y’know what? No recommendations this year. Vote your conscience. This award belongs to you, the collective fandom!’ , and that all other cliques and voter blocks are lost in the noise.
Oh, *now* she wants Larry’s side of the story.
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/204729/
More here:
http://twitchy.com/2015/04/06/entertainment-weekly-retracts-claim-of-misogynistic-racist-hugo-awards-voting-campaign/
Including this quote from Larry earlier tonight on Twitter: “Fisking to start, but that’s not good enough. I’m sick of this libelous bullshit.”
Oh please, *please* break out the Tetsubo of Justice or at least sic some really good lawyers on ‘em. Assuming, of course, that there’s anything left to sue after Torgersen gets done working them over with the flamethrower; I gather that the changes in the story started immediately after he contacted EW’s editorial staff with the corrections that now comprise the first paragraph of the “story.”
Yup. The crazy cat lady’s work got redacted by EW in a fucking hurry …
Here’s a classic primer on how speaker-to-whites SJW Mikki Kendall signal boosts bullshit about statistics to attack white people:
“Mikki Kendall retweeted HuffPost Politics @HuffPostPol · 3h 3 hours ago Who gets food stamps? White people, mostly http://huff.to/1AmPFwo”
“According to 2013 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers the program, 40.2 percent of SNAP recipients are white, 25.7 percent are black,…”
So in truth, a third LESS whites receive help than their demography and almost twice as many blacks. Does this woman really think anyone’s fooled?
Watching this whole EW business is akin to the proverbial slo-mo train-wreck.
Also, for some mysterious reason, the phrase ‘Unleash the Kraken!’ keeps running through my head….
I expect they have awoken the Correia-ken. May Heaven have mercy on them, for he will not!
Larry, Larry, Larry. You’re not “a big mean jerk”; you’re just a classic alpha male, and there’s nothing wrong with that, no matter what the feminists say.
IMO, you’ve done a real service to geekdom with your Sad Puppies movement. Take a bow; you’ve earned it!
That EW “article” is remarkable. Does it have a single sentence that doesn’t contain at least one outright lie?
Well, Larry, you got another sale today. After dealing as civilly as I could with a bunch who see nothing wrong with dismissing words that are offensive because the words were aimed at white guys, people who insist that this sort of racism and sexism (that really isn’t, because REASONS) is not only permissible, but not even worth mentioning unless it’s to yell at the people speaking up, people who still believe they must be ground beneath the thumb of oppression because the world isn’t always fair . . . I need a break. And something fun. My husband assures me that Monster Hunter fits the bill. I look forward to reading.
You have chosen well. I love the MH books and recommend them to pretty much everyone. (It’s the romance. And the guns. And the monsters. Ok, I just like the whole universe.)
I’m going to have to steal the first Grimnoir Chronicles book back from my SO now…
The thing that I find most interesting about the Sad Puppies campaign and its well-deserved success is that it loosely follows the push back we saw this week with the GoFundMe response to Memories Pizza and last year’s push back withe Chick-fil-A.
Looking at Fandom as a microcosm of America as a whole, it’s obvious to me that by and large the days that the SJWs, CHORFs, and Glittery hoo-has could control the microphone and shout down any and all opposition of their agenda and narrative are drawing to a close.
Outside in the greater world, things will move a bit slower because the Leftist hammerlock on the news media and academia is going to take a lot of prying and crying to break, but it will break — just as there are many more quiet and solid fans that support the Sad Puppies than there CHORFs, there are far more exasperated and irritated middle class, middle aged, middle Americans that are totally tired of their bullshit and ready to fight back — all they need is a medium, and they are finding them.
Mr. Correia: I love the fact you’ve made the hugos a matter of public discussion, and I’m with you that this was the best way to make some noise. And you’ve done nothing but show class about things thus far. So I’m with you.
I just wished you to know I picked up the audiobook of Monster Hunter Alpha today, and I’m enjoying the series thus far. Is there another series you’d recommend off the top of your head to someone interested in your brand of novel?
Good job! I was only dimly aware of the socjus infiltration of sci-fi, and am glad to learn about the Sad Puppies, and how they drew blood on the SJW clique.
I loved this part about the E. Weekly article:
“and posted racist views towards black writer NK Jemisin.”
It doesn’t mention Jemisin’s racist views towards the entire continent of Australia, all of SFF fandom being “racist as fuck,” and all white people being “diabolical.”
My favorite line in this post:
For next year,…
So to start off, I’ve been following the Hugo ‘thing’ for awhile and just spent an hour (I’ll never get back) over at Whatever trying to read their side of things. Two things stood out 1) Larry mind controls all his fans so they will vote in lockstep. 2) by their own words act on par with my 8 yr old. She’s not wanting to go to her best friends party cause some one she doesn’t like will be there. Many, many comments like I’m gonna vote no award-why does Jim Butcher have to be a SP? Well, he chose to be aSP so NoAward for him! Really? And yet Larry’s fans are brainless minions.
Also doesn’t this NoAward voting seem like a dick thing to do? I don’t care how you identify, it’s a dick move. Though I rarely agree with Will Wheaton, I do agree that ‘Don’t be a Dick’ should be in people’s mission statements.
In April 1963, a small paperback imprint (incidentally edited by Harlan Ellison) called Regency published a nonfiction book by Eric Frank Russell called THE RABBLE ROUSERS. Its subject was the behavior of mobs, its theme that a mob is a creature with 10,000 arses and no brain. A headless monster.
It’s a bitterly funny book. It has chapters on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, the Florida land boom, and the Dreyfus Affaire.
Russell would have laughed himself sick over the SJW response to Sad Puppies 3. The SJWs are would-be Headless Monster jockeys, exactly the kind of conscienceless swine Russell excoriated. And they are deeply, deeply frightened that their days in the saddle are coming to a close.
Good.
[…] had been done. Both myself and my colleague Larry Correia — who typed up a very good piece here — had been dragged through the digital mud. I count no less than a dozen different links […]
[…] had been done. Both myself and my colleague Larry Correia — who typed up a very good piece here — had been dragged through the digital mud. I count no less than a dozen different links […]
“MichaelDamianThomas @michaeldthomas · 5h 5 hours ago So, yeah, Archon uninvited a Fan GoH when people pointed out his fanzine was full of racist jokes. Now it’s Hugo nominated. :(”
“MichaelDamianThomas @michaeldthomas · 19h 19 hours ago You might be lovely & your work splendid, but I can’t vote for you if you made it on to the ballot due to a hate group’s slate. Sorry.”
“MichaelDamianThomas @michaeldthomas · Apr 5 As a disabilities advocate, I work w/ many conservatives. Many are friends. HUGE difference between conservatives & hate groups.”
What possible world does this man live in which ignores the fact half the line up in the first three issues of his magazine routinely qualify for this:
“All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” – Southern Poverty Law Center.
Is there a single SJW in possession of a dictionary… or a sense of irony? And shouldn’t Older and Nussbaum be making these self-confessions to a cleric?
“MichaelDamianThomas retweeted Abigail Nussbaum @NussbaumAbigail · Apr 4 Fourth: if you choose to associate with bigots and hate groups, you will be treated accordingly. That’s how adult life works.”
“MichaelDamianThomas retweeted Daniel José Older @djolder · Apr 4 Racists in Fandom: you’re not welcome here. You get more irrelevant everyday and you failed on literary and human levels.”
“Failed” on a literary level? These are WRITERS who don’t know the meaning of simple words!!
#SJWsHaveNoStrikeZone
“MichaelDamianThomas @michaeldthomas · Apr 4 Why the fuck would you want a tainted nomination that will tie your name to hateful extremists forever?”
Is he talking about last year’s Nebula Klan rally?
“MichaelDamianThomas @michaeldthomas · Apr 4 Community. Art. Beauty. Friendship. Diverse voices. Emotional truths. Hate is fucking terrified, and will fall. Love you all.”
Hahahahahahahaha
“MichaelDamianThomas retweeted Mary Robinette Kowal @MaryRobinette · Apr 3 Feel free to express your bigotry. Just do not expect that people will accept it any longer, or that you can be free of consequences.”
Thank you, Miss “No White Men.” Did you know the word “bigotry” isn’t in the dictionary?
“MichaelDamianThomas @michaeldthomas · Apr 2 What makes more sense: You’re not getting published because of an SJW blacklist or because you’re a mediocre writer & an asshole?”
Priceless. Orwellian morons who live at the Ministry of Love always are. And so there’s the news about the White Privilege Conference (formerly known as the “Hugos”). In what world of etardation would adults have to hold a debate about the meaning of the word “bigot”? Imagine a baseball game that never gets started.
It was my birthday today. I spent much of my time at Fort Living Room with my wife and daughter. Not much for me to add at this point, beyond what I already put into my own blog response to Entertainment Weekly’s shoddy, shameful hit piece.
My link is here.
Happy birthday, Brad. I am beyond sorry and sickened that you and Larry have been slimed in this fashion. The paroxysms of hatred directed towards people who have done nothing more heinous than participate in an open process, by the rules, is truly shocking.
“Well, if you want your books on the ballot, then get them nominated,” they said, mockingly.
“Challenge Accepted,” was the reply.
Yup, pretty much. They said, “Come, play by the rules!’ We came, and we played by the rules. And for this, we are horrible and evil.
And their latest response is that because we played by the rules and won, the Worldcon and the Hugos will become things “of men, not laws.”
These people are so dishonest they can hide behind a corkscrew.
That may be one of the best pieces of imagery I’ve ever read. Well said!
[…] More on the issues surrounding the Hugo nominations from the guy who did the political campaign. Once you get into it, it’s very dramatic. […]
I love Rose Lemberg, I really do. Because like all SJWs, Rose Lemberg loves literature:
“3. Solicit from established AND up-and-coming authors. If, for example, you buy stories from white cisgender men at all stages in their careers, but you only buy from women, trans and non-binary people, and/or PoC creators if they are famous, that is not going to appear especially welcoming, and will not necessarily balance your slush.
“4. Invite a co-editor of the demographic you seek to encourage. For example, if you are an all-white, all-cisgender, all-straight male team, think of inviting someone different to collaborate with you. Then actually give that person power to make some choices.
“6. Special or themed issues are a great way to encourage new authors to discover your market. For example, we are very proud of our Queer issue;”
“8. Also, if you could please encourage people of all underrepresented genders, not just cisgender women, to submit to your venue, that would be great. Gender diversity is more complicated than men vs. women.
“Expanding on 8, I have now seen firsthand how complicated encouraging all genders can be. Some trans and/or non-binary writers feel that “women-only” calls exclude them. In response, quite a few markets expanded their calls to “women and non-binary people,” which to me feels like a step in the right direction, but unfortunately, some trans and/or non-binary writers feel that the “women and non-binary” rubric still excludes them, especially so if they are male-assigned. While I have no handy solution to offer, I am eager to see further discussions and hope that the field will become even more welcoming to writers of all genders.”
Uh, duhhhh. Say hello to the death of a literary genre.
This whole rant ignores everything about how people buy books.
1. The only clue I have to your gender, race, trans whatever is your name. Used to have an occasional book jacket picture but with kindle so much. Occasionally i might see your writers page at amazon.
2. Unless you tell me, I have no idea if you are gay.
3. There is a long tradition of females using male pen names and occasionally the reverse.
4. Am I really supposed to be trying to figure out what ‘stage’someome is in in their career? The way I buy books is if I like an author I buy jut about everything they write until I find something I don’t like.
Well said, Lea. It also ignores why people *read* books: a good story. Why should the writer’s race, gender, sexual orientation, stage in career, etc. matter at all if the work stand on its own quality?
I cannot take people seriously who think women are not represented in fiction. Women are all over fiction! Get out of the house, folks.
I would actually be happy to see a slate of native american, black, hispanic authors who wrote fantastic books. Sign me up. I’m always looking for new books. Just dont’ tell me this is all I’m allowed to read, because FU to that.
Theodore Beale, aka Vox Day:
On women: “I very much like women and wish them well, which is precisely why I consider womens rights to be a disease that should be eradicated. For what is rather more difficult to dismiss are the simple and easily verifiable facts that indicate women have seldom been less able to pursue their dreams and less able to achieve their desires than today, the Golden Age of Feminism.”
And: a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages, stable families, legitimate children, low levels of debt, strong currencies, affordable housing, homogenous populations, low levels of crime, and demographic stability.”
And: “Because they are the intellectual driving force of humanity, men will be fine… It is written that women ruin everything.”
And: “First, there is no such thing as marital rape. Once consent is formally given in public ceremony, it cannot be revoked… If a woman believes in the concept of marital rape, absolutely do not marry her!”
His thoughts on African-American author N.K. Jemsin: “an educated, but ignorant half-savage, with little more understanding of what it took to build a new literature”
And: “Jemisin has it wrong; it is not that I, and others, do not view her as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we do not view her as being fully civilized for the obvious reason that she is not.”
On Homosexuals:
“Homosexuality is a birth defect from every relevant secular, material, and sociological perspective…[we must] help them achieve sexual normality.”
So what exactly did they get wrong about the sick/rabid puppies?
Hey, you posted all that to the wrong blog. Vox Day’s blog is thataway.
Unless you are playing that game, you know? The one where you cherry pick outlandish statements from somebody on the opposing side and demand that anybody tangentially related to them in any way has to explain them… Because if we’re playing that game, I can give you a hundred times as many racist, outlandish, asinine, hateful, violence-wishing comments from Hugo and Nebula nominated authors on the Social Justice side.
Want to play? Because seriously, I’ve got a dude on here who collects their racist tweets like a hobby.
So, yes, you have quotes from somebody who wasn’t even on my slate. I don’t know the context they were made in, and they aren’t my words or opinions.
That is my nice way of saying take it up with him, jackass.
If they do vote no award, I suggest you start your own award, with blackjack and adult escorts from both genders
Science Fiction has ALWAYS been about social justice. Railing against it is denying SF’s source.
I have no issue with recommend reading lists. NESFA, BASFA, and a host of others do that. I have no issue with authors (or artists) saying, “Here is my Hugo-worthy work.” I do have an issue with people saying, “Vote this way to stick it to The Man.”
BTW, Toni Weisskopf has had two previous Hugo nominations. Not exactly overlooked.
Check your facts. Toni Weisskopf’s two nominations came from Sad Puppies 1 and Sad Puppies 2. Before I came along and threw a rock into your stagnant little pond, she had been ignored.
As for science fiction always being about social justice… Are you talking about like the big idea definition expanding human horizons sense of the term, or are you talking about the petty, tyrannical, communist-puritans out there running hit pieces on anybody who deviates from group think? Because hint, the reason the term SJW stuck in our cultural lexicon is because it is ironically 3 lies in one term.
We’re railing against the thought police. We actually like the old school sci-fi stuff.
As for voting to Stick It To The Man, maybe if The Man hadn’t been a douchebag to a giant segment of fandom, telling them they are wrongfan having wrongfun, then maybe these people wouldn’t want to Stick It To Him. You’d better take it up with The Man.
[…] Wow, the last 24 hours have been wild and not in a good way. We’ve seen EW post one of the most blatant hatchet jobs ever only to pull it, change the URL and title and issue a quasi-apology/retraction. I will leave it to Brad Torgersen and Larry Correia to address the specifics because they were two of the ones on the receiving end of the article that was totally devoid of any journalistic integrity. You would have thought that after the Rolling Stone UVA gang rape story debacle, so-called journalists would do at least a bit of fact checking. But no, apparently not. Any way, you can check out what they had to say here, here and here. […]
[…] ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY PUBLISHES A NASTY HIT JOB — Larry Correia Fisks it here — and without contacting any of the people it attacks, and then after […]
I bought a supporting membership last night. I look forward to reading the nominees, then voting for whomever I think is best. But-
I will have a hard time not voting for Jim Butcher. The guy rocks.
I will have a hard time not voting for John C. Wright. He’s a class writer.
I will have difficulty not voting for Vox Day, just for the joy of seeing SJW heads explode. If his edited works are any good (and they are, I’ve read several), he may well be a lock.
Hi guys, I’d like to say thanks for all the work you’ve put into the Sad Puppies campaign. Until the last few days I had no idea quite how much was wrong with the Hugos and fandom in general. I’ve been reading the stuff since early childhood but never really got involved with the social side.
I have a bit of a dilemma. One author I’ve always loved was Charles Stross, but going through a couple of threads on Making Light has left Tor’s authors poisoned to me. The organisation is so bitter and hate-filled I just couldn’t enjoy reading its stuff any more.
But I hoped Stross would be more reasonable, though he’s very involved with that group. I posted a comment on his blog making the obvious point: a business can only lose by insulting its customers. They ought to keep silent if they can’t at least be neutral. Likening their customers to child rapists will only drive those customers away. In essence, I said that if we could politely agree to disagree then I would carry on reading his books.
His response was to accuse me of being a Nazi sock-puppet.
The dilemma is this: if he actually understood the point, he might well agree. No-one in business would be so suicidal as to drive away customers on purpose; he must really think that I’m some kind of neo-Nazi with a fake account and a made-up story.
How much effort, if any, should I put into trying to make the point? The whole thing is all very hurtful, though the Nazi allegation is ludicrous enough to be funny rather than offensive. I can’t help thinking that any time spent arguing with these people will add nothing good to my life, but I will be sorry not to read any more of his books. (They would give me no pleasure any more.)
What do you think? Should I go back on his blog and press the issue?
Some of us authors are more approachable than others. Some like debate, some don’t.
Personally, I read books by people from all over the political spectrum, and don’t really care until they beat me over the head or bore me.
I can’t speak for Stross. Don’t know him. I know he doesn’t like me much.
I wouldn’t. Many authors tend to swing the banhammer or the disenvowling knife liberally. Cut your losses on the argument, and I hope that in a later date that you might be able to enjoy what you once have.
I just saw this quote from the EW original:
Fortunately, some sane voters allowed well-deserving writers to pull through. Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword and Listen was nominated for Dramatic Presentation, and Annie Bellet’s Goodnight Stars was nominated, despite having a non-white, female protagonist.
…?
Wow. Disproved their first paragraph in their last. Good job at that ‘reporting’ thing, EW! How can I trust your list of ‘what to watch tonight’ now??
I would typically associate SJWs with the “Everyone needs to vote, the more the better” and “Open borders” crowds. Interesting they don’t feel that way when it comes to the Hugo awards.
Thanks for doing this. Wish I’d known earlier. Just bought my “supporting membership” — had a lot of trouble with the site. I suspect I’m not the only one just joining the wave.
I don’t really see this ending well, but I value the Hugos, and they’ve been turned into a joke over the last decade (or two). As time goes on, the awards from those years are just going to look worse and worse.
Just look at the best novels right through the ’80s — the awards had no trouble finding Startide Rising and Neuromancer and Ender’s Game — all the first novels nominated from those authors. They spotted Anne McCaffrey from the first Pern novellas.
In the last twenty years, they’ve completely missed the opening salvoes in Game of Thrones (1997), Harry Potter (1998), and Hunger Games (2009). This alone tells you something has gone profoundly wrong. Each of those three books alone has done more to expand SFF readership than all the winners in the last ten years combined.
They also missed the Name of the Wind (2007), the whole Wheel of Time series (until last year’s sop that embarrassingly confirmed none of them had ever even been on the shortlist before) and the entire Urban Fantasy genre.
Some of the nominees this year feel a bit like the nominations of GRRM’s and JKR’s later works — trying to make up for missing the earlier, more deserving works. (Jim Butcher’s Changes from 2010 was spectacular. Skin Game was also quite good, but it’s definitely an “oops, we missed the previous fourteen books, but this one’s good too.”) But I’m looking forward to reading all the best novel nominees — which hasn’t happened ever. (I wasn’t aware of the Hugos at all, except as something I saw on book covers, back in the 80s when they had really spectacular years like 1986.)
So, thanks. I’m glad someone’s making the effort.
So I keep hearing this: We must destroy the hugo’s (No Award) in order to save them.
I keep hearing echo’s of Ban Tre (We had to destroy the village in order to save it).
The SJW’s have become what they hated most.