I'm trying to recall the name of a short story mentioned somewhere in this thread and I'm failing at pulling it out via search.
The story involved a person that could not only read minds and nasty thoughts, but could pull them out of people and eat them. An early event in the story has her dining on somebody who's actually a murderer, which results in her getting screwed up in a variety of ways.
For such a memorable story, I can neither remember the name of the story nor the name of the author! I've probably even gotten details of it wrong in that tiny snippet I've tried to recall above! Naturally, my ability to successfully google it out of these scattered memories hasn't been good, either.
I'm trying to recall the name of a short story mentioned somewhere in this thread and I'm failing at pulling it out via search.
The story involved a person that could not only read minds and nasty thoughts, but could pull them out of people and eat them. An early event in the story has her dining on somebody who's actually a murderer, which results in her getting screwed up in a variety of ways.
For such a memorable story, I can neither remember the name of the story nor the name of the author! I've probably even gotten details of it wrong in that tiny snippet I've tried to recall above! Naturally, my ability to successfully google it out of these scattered memories hasn't been good, either.
I read 3 of his Monster Hunter books, but my brain tapped out early in book 1 when he was so goddamned amazing with a shotgun (due to his at home survival training) that the elite military team was like omg guy lemme get that donger you so great.
I don't get Correia. I'm near his age. I remember his good old days, and his stuff wouldn't have even been shelved in Sci Fi when I was buying books as a teen. His books would've been with in "Men's Adventure" with The Executioner, and Wingman, and Deathlands.
If I felt that Vernor Vinge, Dan Simmons or Gene Wolfe caliber authors were being passed over at the Hugos, I'd be willing to entertain the Sad Puppy agenda, but Corriea isn't anywhere near that. I just can't believe this is anything other than self promotion for him. He can't be that delusional.
At least part of it has to be feeling slighted by not understanding the process to get into groups at Hugo cons (which occurs to everyone), as well as being a jerk. That's his bigger problem, not his right wing beliefs. But yeah, it can't be all genuine - it's too suited to his author persona and his audience.
I'm trying to recall the name of a short story mentioned somewhere in this thread and I'm failing at pulling it out via search.
The story involved a person that could not only read minds and nasty thoughts, but could pull them out of people and eat them. An early event in the story has her dining on somebody who's actually a murderer, which results in her getting screwed up in a variety of ways.
For such a memorable story, I can neither remember the name of the story nor the name of the author! I've probably even gotten details of it wrong in that tiny snippet I've tried to recall above! Naturally, my ability to successfully google it out of these scattered memories hasn't been good, either.
Man, Cat Pictures and this are both of an amazing caliber
I agree 100%.
The Hugo and Nebula awards are really good ways to discover short stories, and the sheer number of them that are available basically for free online.
l_g on
Cole's Law: "Thinly sliced cabbage."
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MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
I'm trying to recall the name of a short story mentioned somewhere in this thread and I'm failing at pulling it out via search.
The story involved a person that could not only read minds and nasty thoughts, but could pull them out of people and eat them. An early event in the story has her dining on somebody who's actually a murderer, which results in her getting screwed up in a variety of ways.
For such a memorable story, I can neither remember the name of the story nor the name of the author! I've probably even gotten details of it wrong in that tiny snippet I've tried to recall above! Naturally, my ability to successfully google it out of these scattered memories hasn't been good, either.
Man, Cat Pictures and this are both of an amazing caliber
I agree 100%.
The Hugo and Nebula awards are really good ways to discover short stories, and the sheer number of them that are available basically for free online.
I liked the pitch, but I didn't care for the execution.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
I’ve said before that it usually doesn’t matter how much a conservative shouts or points at a problem with liberal behavior, the liberals usually don’t pay any attention until another liberal sees the same problem, and speaks up. This is because liberals (and conservatives often, too) — in the United States — have trained themselves to be so cynical about the thoughts and motives of the other side, they will immediately discount any information flowing from an “enemy” source. Everyone is forever on the alert for “concern trolling” and nobody wants to budge an inch, if it means admitting that maybe something might be wrong in friendly territory.
Excerpted below are the comments of the current Vice President of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America — SFWA.
NOTE: I walked out of that organization after they expelled Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg from the pages of the SFWA Bulletin, for what essentially amounted to word crime. I decided I didn’t want any part of a so-called writers’ union that would treat two of its senior members so shabbily, over a matter which can only be described as thought-policing. I haven’t paid much attention to SFWA since then.
But Ms. Hogarth’s words struck a chord with me — they should, for any conservative who’s toiled in these spec fictional prose mines over the past 25 years. I said it last weekend: the field of Science Fiction and Fantasy does not like conservatives, nor libertarians, all that much. Being a conservative or libertarian (aka: classically liberal) in SF/F, in the year 2016, is akin to operating in enemy territory. Not because you’re out to get them as much as they’re certainly out to get you. Unless you can run silent, and run deep. Showing your cards — forcing them to admit that you exist — comes with a host of potential repercussions. You’ve definitely got to make up your mind about how you’re going to sail your way through this strange little ocean Hugo Gernsback dubbed “scientifiction.”
I attended a con once where the toastmaster said that they wanted all conservatives to “hurry up and die and leave the planet to the rest of us. No wait, they can stay as long as we can have their money.” And people applauded. That person wasn’t kicked out of the convention. They were feted and congratulated while I sat in the audience, pale and trembling, listening to the people around me cheer my demise. I have never, ever forgotten that moment. Or all the threatening ones after, both generalized or intimate, like the man who leaned into my face and told me the world would be better off without me and people like me. No one stepped in to tell him that he shouldn’t say such things. The people standing around us just nodded or smiled. One of them even said before leaving, “Your time is over. We don’t need you anymore, [expletive here].”
The mandarins of SF/F expend a lot of energy wrapping themselves in the flag of tolerance. But as any conservative can tell you, that tolerance runs pretty much one-way. A tolerance conversation (liberal to conservative) in SF/F often goes like this, “Hello, I am a tolerant caring compassionate liberal, and you’re not. You will sit there and politely listen to all of my ideas and theories, and not say a word. I will sit here and listen to all of your ideas and theories, and then I will explain to you why you’re a dirty bigot and a hater and an evil human being. We will both agree I am right, and you will apologize for being bad.”
That, dear friends, is how “tolerance” works in SF/F at this time.
I’ve discussed this at length with Orson Scott Card — he being well acquainted with the tolerance charade — and he says it didn’t used to be like this before 1980. Oh, to be sure, there were plenty of fans, authors, and editors on the left-wing side of the aisle. But it wasn’t so vindictive, nor so personal. You could sit at a table with conservatives, liberals, anarchists, libertarians, and have a rousing verbal melee of competing ideas, but at the end of it, you’d still be able to shake hands, and walk away comrades in the field. That began to change (perhaps not coincidentally) about the time Ronald Reagan took his seat in the Oval Office. Gradually, in dribs and drabs, the dominant left-wing culture of SF/F has traded in true tolerance, for a kind of totalitarian double-think 1984 version of tolerance — people and ideas labeled ‘intolerant’ don’t have to be tolerated. In 2016, with tender snowflakes floating around in SF/F like it’s a mild blizzard, anyone can be labeled ‘intolerant’ for any reason, logical or not. Because anyone can claim to be a Victim (caps v) and in the new vernacular of Social Justice Zealotry, the Victim is always right and always wins. Always.
What this means is that common law assumption of innocence — the foundation for Enlightenment justice as practiced in the United States for over two hundred years — has been replaced (in the culture of SF/F) with a totalitarian law of default guilt. When a Victim says you have “aggressed” in some fashion, you are automatically at fault. In fact, if you’re unfortunate enough to possess “privileged” demographics, your very existence is an aggression. You must put on your scarlet letter P and show the world that you are willing to atone for your sin of privilege, and call out those around you for their privilege too. Again, all of this rests on a totalitarian law of default guilt.
Not surprisingly, default guilt breeds an environment where compassion and generosity shrivel away to nothingness.
I’ll say it twice, for emphasis: default guilt breeds an environment where compassion and generosity shrivel away to nothingness.
What do I mean by that? Look at Ms. Hogarth’s example. A compassionate person does not openly wish for a broad segment of the population to die — whether it was a joke or not — and a compassionate audience does not applaud such a statement. There is also zero generosity in the declaration, “We don’t need you anymore, your time is over, bitch.” Ms. Hogarth was cast in the role of villain merely for being who she is. As the villain, she was not accorded the regard even a child might be accorded. Villains don’t deserve regard. Villains deserve scorn, disdain, insults, and worse.
I have occasionally read and heard rebuttals along the lines of, “Well if conservatives and libertarians weren’t so selfish, terrible, hateful, and bigoted, we wouldn’t have to insult them!”
Again, the totalitarian assumption of guilt. It doesn’t matter how the default villain has comported herself. The villain is the villain is the villain. And villains are fair game for all kinds of atrocious and genuinely aggressive (usually, passive aggressive) behavior that tolerant liberals themselves would never countenance; if it were directed at them, or their fellow ideological travelers.
More from Ms. Hogarth:
I am all for a more civilized fandom. I am all for us being kinder to one another, and striving to understand each other’s viewpoints, experiences, and beliefs. I give people the benefit of the doubt, and because of that, I’ve enjoyed friendships with a broad gamut of people, all of whom have taught me a great deal and brought me a great deal of joy. But if we’re going to slap people on the wrists for microaggression, can we please start playing fair? Can we go after the person at the con who made knowing comments to the audience about flyover states? Can we talk to the person who was preaching radical feminist philosophy as if it was the only sensible philosophy until I said, quietly, “I’m sorry. I’m not on board with most of that.” Can we stop the toastmasters wishing that half the population would die in a fire (and leave their wealth to them)? Is my excessive discomfort also important? What about all my conservative or religious friends, and the fans who have quietly told me the only place they feel safe is in my social media spaces? What about the fans who have even more quietly told me they don’t feel safe ever?
I find this sentiment plausibly risable. It seems like the voice of grown-upness, pleading for sanity. “Can we all please just try to treat each other a little better? Please??”
I could only add that the solution to all of this, is not to police the left-wing (on matters of “microagression”) to the same degree that the right-wing has been policed. The solution is to reevaluate the entire concept of “aggression” and “microagression.” Again, what happened to common-law assumption of innocence? We need to get back to it. Do not assume intent to harm. Set the bar (for proof of harm) high, and keep it high. Good lord, do we really want twin competing blizzards of tender snowflakes, all flying into each other and running to authority figures to “fix” the issue? Like a pack of sore-faced first graders endlessly tattling to teacher?
I was raised to believe that a real grown-up can take a few things on the chin. I was also raised to believe that a real grown-up can laugh at himself on occasion. The totalitarian assumption of guilt removes vital flexibility from our interactions. Everyone winds up expecting and seeking to discover (s)he has been harmed, and everyone is on the defensive against accusations of same. This kafka-esq nightmare of human relations permits almost no compassion, nor humility. When both pride and ego have been refined to the point of glass fragility, the slightest knock can cause shatteringly overblown reactions.
So, rather than degrade the state of dialogue, we need to promote thicker skins as well as greater honesty. I don’t want liberals being too scared to speak their minds. If somebody wishes I would go away and just die, I may not like the sentiment, but at least I know where the person stands. I am tough enough to hear those words, and I know the viewpoint from which they spring. It’s the viewpoint of moral surety. Scaring liberals into never speaking their moral surety does not end the moral surety. It merely drives them into echo chambers behind closed doors, where they can speak and share that surety in safe company; people who won’t run and tattle to teacher.
And if both conservatives and liberals only ever spend their time among like minds, behind closed doors, inventing monocultural spaces for themselves where they only ever have to hear and speak the same thoughts about the same ideas . . . well, we’re pretty much there already. In SF/F and also the culture at large. Social media has allowed us to run around inside the heads of other people, and we’re horrified by what we find there. Perhaps the liberals of SF/F believe that SF/F conventions (like Worldcon) ought to be places where they can feel safe verbally wishing for the deaths of conservatives? Forgetting that conservatives, too, are part of the fabric of SF/F? Whether SF/F’s liberals like it or not.
One wonders what old Mr. Gernsback might make of the situation — he who originally intended for “scientifiction” to be a literature that interested children in STEM careers. I am not sure Gernsback had any asterisks attached to that desire, political or otherwise.
Still more, from Ms. Hogarth:
Should I discuss at length all the times I have had this prejudice applied to me, not only at conventions, but in my career? Should I tell you about the time someone told me I “belong in the Baen gutter, with all the other troglodytes?” If this wasn’t a systemic prejudice, I wouldn’t bring it up. If we didn’t belong to a fandom that claims to desire diversity, I wouldn’t bring it up. But it’s both, and I am here bringing a warning: all the moderate conservatives — which constitute the majority — who do care about the rights of their friends, no matter their identities, are being driven away. Soon SF/F will find itself in an echo chamber, without any way to build bridges to the people who will increasingly see them as enemies. I don’t want that to happen. That’s why I continue to quietly point out that we can’t foster an environment of real safety without including people we disagree with. Because without exposure to one another, it’s too easy to demonize each other.
Three or four years ago, a fellow author lamented — in a discrete conversation among mixed company — that she had to suppress and hide a significant portion of her identity, in order to avoid causing trouble in SF/F. Because she knew her religiously-couched beliefs about a hot-button political topic would make her persona non grata with fellow authors, and also editors. She was crying when she said it. She knew she was baring her soul to a potentially hostile audience. At the risk of using a shopworn phrase, I felt her pain. Quite deeply. About a dozen years ago, it became apparent to me that if I truly wanted to become a “player” in SF/F I would have to learn to mask my beliefs. Either hide them, or pretend (in the company of fellow professionals) that my beliefs were contra to what I actually think and feel. About economics. About how societies and human beings function. About God, and the immortality of human essence. About sex and sexuality. About any number of things. It would all have to be shoved far back into the closet, and kept there. Otherwise, I was going to piss off a lot of people.
A few years later, having broken into the field — and having also failed spectacularly to keep my trap shut — a trusted mentor engaged in what can only be described as an impromptu intervention. To his credit, all of his logic was business-sound: when you are open about your beliefs, you risk alienating part of your audience, as well as part of your professional cohort. So why talk about it? Isn’t the golden rule to never discuss religion or politics? Because this conversation almost always ends in disaster?
My mentor made excellent sense, then. He still makes excellent sense now. And if the field of SF/F were a field that abided the golden rule across the board I am quite sure I’d not feel the need to bang my pot to the extent that I’ve been banging it. Bless my poor mentor, I know he gets an eye-twitch now, if ever my name is brought up in conversation. He knows he’s gonna have to hear it, about me. And he’s tired of deflecting, or making apologia. I don’t blame him.
But then, that’s precisely why I can’t let it go. Why should he have to deflect, or offer apologia? Why should Ms. Hogarth have to sound the alarm, about moderate conservatives being driven out of SF/F? Why should my fellow author — who cried tears of genuine anguish — have to suppress or cloak who she is, just to get along in this field? Why should any of us have to fear repercussions simply for thinking or expressing opinions or ideas that other people in SF/F disagree with?
“Stop thinking and speaking bad ideas, and we won’t have to be jerks to you!” shout the defenders of the status quo.
Ah, yes. The time-honored excuse of all abusers: you made us do it. There was a fair amount of that talk, directly following the farcical 2015 Hugo awards ceremony. And I’ve made no bones about the fact that I think the mandarins of SF/F self-inflicted a very deep, perhaps irrecoverable wound. But even that wound is merely a symptom of the bigger problem. Of the cultural and intellectual rot which has settled over SF/F and is presently intensifying.
Nobody on the “other side” has to give a damn what I say or write.
But they ought to give a damn about what Ms. Hogarth says and writes.
This is a key officer in the field, putting the field on notice. That the rot must not continue without remedy. I may disagree with her style of remedy, but there must be a remedy. At some stage SF/F’s self-styled liberals must force themselves to look into the eyes of those whom they despise, and find humanity there.
Otherwise, SF/F is going to entirely balkanize. It may have balkanized already? A kind of ethnic cleansing, wherein the “bad people” are at last revealed, and driven from the hall of righteous purity. Leaving SF/F a shell of its former self. Unable to grapple with the most basic of all scientifiction concepts: that there are minds which think as well as yours, just differently.
If there was ever a time when that maxim was carved into the stone archway over the door to the hall, it’s since been chiseled out, and replaced by a cheap plastic placard that says: SAFE SPACE. The door itself is now festooned with blinking orange hazard lights and gobs of yellow-and-black caution tape. Abandon all differences, ye who enter here. Diversity has become a skin-deep game of demographics and Victim-identity fetishization. The totalitarian culture of guilt is omnipresent. You can’t go a week in this field without some poor author or editor being called out, shamed, shunned, castigated, and verbally burned at the stake — for infractions of impiety or heresy.
Scientifiction — the literature which ought to, above all other things, pride itself on free inquiry and the publishing and expression of “dangerous” ideas — has fallen into a spiritual and ideological gutter of same-thinkery, restrictions on speech and expression, and the routine punishing of “evil doers” who cannot or will not conform to expected orthodoxy.
Again, the left-wing side doesn’t have to give a damn what I say or write.
But if enough people like Ms. Hogarth have the courage to tell the truth, maybe things can change?
One has to hope.
I feel pity for Ms. Hogarth feeling unsafe in situations like that. People should not have been mean to her like that, though it's difficult to say exactly what happened since we don't get a lot details with the context. Was it a joke? Where people mocking? Sometimes we do that, but we don't literally means we want toe at the rich etc. She wouldn't be the first conservative who over reacted to the left in the industry that it made them a nervous wreck. Cedar Sanderson comes to mind.
If someone is a conservative, Christian or right wing they shouldn't be mercilessly attacked over it or felt unwelcome. I've had friends like this before, after all.
Authors like this have my sympathy - to a point.
It's when they don't use these negative experiences to self analyze or think about minorities in field, or life in general, that have to deal with this every damn day and with them it can mean literally life and death, or getting rail loaded by companies for being x etc. This would be an experience that conservative truly could find a way to mend fences and compromise. Unfortunately I rarely see it in action in the industry from conservative authors, there's usually two modes: running away or going full steam ahead. No in between, nothing substantial to talk to to calm them down and find common interests.
OSC is a bad example for Brad to bring up. OSC became a lot more extreme with his political opinions and actions than the 80's, and what he believed in wasn't harmless conservative bullshit.
Circumstances like this are why liberals are not going to "tolerate" it, no. They really shouldn't be surprised by that reaction to anyone who has a conscience.
Sure, being conservative in a liberal field like the novel industry sucks. I get that. They're outnumbered, they feel like they're bombarded with liberal values everywhere. Makes it harder to make connections and friends. But it's not impossible. Conservative writers aren't all bat shit crazy, too. I may disagree with them on things, but there are many who are successful and not person non grata to the community. Like the conservative writer who told the Sad Puppies to get lost with 3. That made him a lot of fans. Not all conservatives think alike, or a re terrible people. Every ideology has their assholes, liberals aren't excluded.
However, where the Puppies and uber conservative authors went wrong is that they chose to start a (culture) war and are unable to see themselves as being the extremists on their side. If the Puppies had decided to be friendlier, and worked with the industry to make it less scary for conservative readers to participate in the community and awards like the Hugo's I'd have no problem with it. I'd encourage it! That is not what they did, and I'm not talking about the Rapid Puppies here. The Sad Puppies are guilt of plenty of fear mongering and trolling to fuck up an award because they didn't feel welcome. Not that Hoyt or Coreia were moderates before this started. They made their bread and butter to energize the worst elements of the right wing to buy their books. Then they refused to cut the Rapids loose, and felt insulted when they didn't do it since it was guilt by association. They chose to be allies with the Rapids, they can't complain when people lump them in with them. They didn't even bother rebranding themselves with a new name as 4, either.
1) If you stand shoulder to shoulder with VD maybe don't act shocked when people conflate your opinions on things.
2) The issue with complaining about prejudice for advocating certain philosophies is that it isn't really prejudice if the complaints are about the philosophy you're advocating.
3) The above two don't really justify harassment or abuse in response so they're spot on there.
I feel like I've seen that exact rant before, is it a new one or a rerun?
This old saw of SFF Used To Be Great is tired and I'm tired of it, because it's patently untrue. SFF has never not been political. Speculative fiction, the perpetual what-if, is inherently political-- yes, even when it is just Ripping Good Yarns.
and SFF circa 1980 was pretty much great only for those white men who long to return there. So I don't really value that opinion much.
The conservative/liberal divide in the field is about everything but SFF-- but, the thing is, at this point, in a post-Trump candidacy world, I frankly don't feel physically safe in many places. BECAUSE of that divide. Even in SFF spaces, even in spaces where I otherwise felt safe enough to be an out queer on queer sff panels, even!
SFF (Worldcon) was mostly an exception -- there were a few (white straight cishet male) people who made me deeply uncomfortable, but I also think, in the cases I experienced, that explaining to those men that for queer folks (and, by extension, other minorities who feel threatened in mostly-white mostly-male spaces) it isn't an "ideology" thing-- it's people telling me I shouldn't exist, that I'm an abomination, I'm a ... whatever, not going to get into it, but like... to be standing in front of these people and explaining, I am here, I am a real person, this language of intolerance that you guys think we should "hear both sides of" is... not acceptable to me.
I would like to think that I made an impression. I have neon hair, I like to think I'm memorable, but I was far from the only person there with my Pantone shade so who knows? But I spoke with at least one relatively conservative midlist guy I found incredibly intimidating, and I'd like to think that I made an impression on him by being a real person for whom the "both sides are bad, don't be on a side" argument is dangerous.
GatorAn alligator in ScotlandRegistered Userregular
I feel like whereas not every conservative is batshit crazy any conservative that becomes a fellow traveller to vox day certainly is. Or perhaps not crazy, just racist
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knitdanIn ur baseKillin ur guysRegistered Userregular
There is a reason we tend to find certain philosophies abhorrent.
In economics, it's the valuing of the wealthy because they have wealth, and the argument that it is always deserved and earned. That poverty is a moral failing rather than a necessary consequence of having the majority of wealth concentrated at the top.
In politics, it's the advancement of totalitarianism, and nativism, and blatant pandering to fear and hate. It is pretending these things are desirable.
It is the insistence that one's religion trumps all, and the religion of the many outweighs the rights of the few.
It is the belief in eugenics, that one's circumstances are determined even before they are born, and that undsirables should be weeded out.
It is the resistance and opposition to minority voices being heard at all, their stories told, their desires met.
It should not surprise you that if you hold these beliefs we will hate you and oppose you. You are trying to destroy us after all.
“I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
I like how he's trying the "Fan Award" line because he sure as fuck doesn't want to suggest just sales as the award metric. That'd be a quick way of ensuring he never sees another award ever again.
Numbers are difficult to find but Stross made this comment on his blog awhile ago:
If you're going to demand a "big picture", then the biggest picture of all is trade fiction publishing as a field -- remember, SF makes up around 2.5% of fiction book sales, and Fantasy about 5%. By far the largest tranche of fiction sales go to Romance, with around 48-52% of all novels sold being sold within that category. There's an SF Romance sub-genre that is about the same size, if not larger than the sort of SF publishing we're talking about.
So yeah, not a line Larry's going to follow because he wants to award what people are reading, but only what his kind of people are reading not any of that Romance set in SF (probably written by girls.)
I sometimes enjoy reading the odd romance novel. If anyone has any suggestions for good SFF romance, I'd welcome them. I'm perfectly OK with the idea of the Hugo going to a novel that is a romance novel that also happens to have elves and cyborgs.
"Nah, I don't care about the Hugo awards at all, it's no big deal, they don't matter to me one bit, I didn't watch them this year because they're so dumb
....but let me write a multipage blog post about how terrible they are and dissect the results in detail"
I feel like whereas not every conservative is batshit crazy any conservative that becomes a fellow traveller to vox day certainly is. Or perhaps not crazy, just racist
But Vox Day can't be a racist, he has a couple of white descendants who lived in Mexico!
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Gabriel_Pitt(effective against Russian warships)Registered Userregular
I feel like I've seen that exact rant before, is it a new one or a rerun?
You do have to remember, Torgersen is the none-too-bright-bulb who was passionate about his cover-purity-test, that 'The cover should tell you what the story is about! If there are rocketships on the cover, there should be rocketships inside, and none of this social issue nonsense that never polluted sci-fi before! None of these weird, abstract pictures that give you no clue what's inside!'
Which means, given his age and the authors that should have exposed him too, means he never read any sci-fi growing up, nor has ever so much as looked at the works of nearly all the lumanaries of the field. Because, yeah, appreantly Asimov, Dick, Farmer, Heinlein et al weren't real sci-fi writers or something, given how many of their works would fail those particular criteria.
Another hypocritical thing about the Puppies is that their Left Wing conspiracy falls apart when someone like John Scalzi, a conservative author, wins awards and is thriving in the industry. The Left aren't tearing him down - it's the Right. He's actually a moderate conservative, unlike the right wing authors who think they are.
Scalzi isn't really right wing. A lot of people get confused because his big hit reads that way but if you read his blog he really really really doesn't fit in to the modern US right wing.
Scalzi isn't really right wing. A lot of people get confused because his big hit reads that way but if you read his blog he really really really doesn't fit in to the modern US right wing.
I remember reading a blog where he talked in detail in his politics and he definitely didn't shy away from being a conservative or Republican. Of course these days he's probably switched to the Dems. IIRC he's drifted left over the years. I'd need time to look it up, though - it's a fantastic post.
I mean, he might be one of those Aaron Sorkin Republicans that didn't really exist when the West Wing was airing but most of them would get kicked out of the current GOP before the Trump thing.
Edit: Quick googling actually turns up the opposite. He used to be more liberal and has gone a little more conservative, at least circa a 2005 post. Which is totally a decade old now...
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited August 2016
I keep on on Scalzi's blog and he is default liberal, but he'll vote republican if that's the better choice, which I believe he has done for the governor, or senate or something in Ohio where he lives, I can't remember at this point. Even the Old Man's War trilogy (and expanded universe) leans somewhat left over the span of the series.
It's funny reading the stuff Vox Day writes about Scalzi. It's like Scalzi is all that is wrong in Sci-fi.
Newkirk: You’re shocked by the reception? This seems like something that is tailor-made to be a hit right now.
Jemisin: Ehh. You may have seen some of the stuff that’s been happening in the genre in terms of pushback, reactionary movements and so forth. Basically, the science-fiction microcosmic version of what’s been happening on the large-scale political level and what’s been happening in other fields like with Gamergate in gaming. It’s the same sort of reactionary pushback that is generally by a relatively small number of very loud people. They’re loud enough that they’re able to convince you that the world really isn’t as progressive as you think it is, and that the world really does just want old-school 1950s golden-age-era stalwart white guys in space suits traveling in very phallic-looking spaceships to planets with green women and … they kind of convince you that that’s really all that will sell. Told in the most plain didactic language you can imagine and with no literary tricks whatever because the readership just doesn’t want that.
Newkirk: For you, are those people something that bothers you as you build a profile? Are people louder now that The Fifth Season is getting so much love?
Jemisin: They may be, but I’m not hearing them as much. I seem to have passed some kind of threshold, and maybe it’s something as simple as I now have so many positive messages coming at me that the negatives are sort of drowned out. As a side note, the so-called boogeyman of science-fiction, the white supremacist asshat who started the Rabid Puppies, Vox Day, apparently posted something about me a few days ago and I just didn’t care. There was a whole to-do between me and him a few years back where he ended up getting booted out of SWFA [Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America] because of some stuff he said about me, and I just didn’t care. It was a watershed moment at that point but now it’s just sort of, “Oh, it’s him again. He must be needing to get some new readers or trying to raise his profile again. Or something.” I didn’t look at it. No one bothered to read it and dissect it and send me anything about it. No one cared.
I think that’s sort of indicative of what’s happening. To some degree, as I move outside of the exclusive genre audience, the exclusive genre issues don’t bother me as much. Maybe that’s just speculation. I’m reaching a point where I’m still hearing some of it, but it’s just not as loud, or maybe it’s just focusing on different points. I don’t know. It’s still there. It’ll be there. I think that the Hugo ceremony at this upcoming WorldCon is going to be another not-as-seminal moment as last year when the Puppies tried a takeover that was somewhat more successful at the nominating stage and where they got smacked down roundly at the actual voting stage with no award after no award. I don’t think that’s going to happen this year, and I don’t think it matters as much. But who knows? I’ll guess we’ll see. If I win I’ll be happy. If I don’t win, I’ll be happy. I’ll continue to write.
Newkirk: I talked a lot with Ken Liu last year a lot when it happened [his translation of Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel], and he said all that stuff sort of loses its power over time, because it’s reactionary. It’s something where the facts and your audience numbers don’t really lie.
Jemisin: Reactionary movements can’t sustain themselves unless they find something new to catch and burn on. And when they keep using the same tactics over and over again, I don’t know that that’s sustainable. Or they’ll burn themselves out when they reach the point of, I guess, Donald Trumpism, for lack of a better description. They reach some point where it’s no longer a reactionary movement, some demagogue tries to take the lead and make it all about them. And at that point it becomes clear that it’s just some kind of petty narcissistic thing, and I think that’s what kills it. But we’ll see, both at the Hugos level and in the polls in November.
Newkirk: The point you make about the cycle of oppression is really driven home in The Fifth Season.
Jemisin: Well, again I just tried to do what seemed realistic to me within the boundaries of science-fiction and fantasy. They really are supposed to be about people. It’s fiction. It’s not a textbook, yet for decades, for reasons that I don’t fully understand, there was this weird aversion to good sociology and focusing on good characterization and people acting like real people. It was all supposed to be about the science. And so you would go into forums, and you would see dozens of people nitpicking the hell out of the physics. “The equipment doesn’t work this way!” Just engineering discussions out the wazoo, but no one pointing out, “You know, your characters are completely unrealistic. People don’t act this way. People don’t talk this way. What is this?” I just feel like that doesn’t make sense. Social sciences are sciences too, and that aversion to respecting the fiction part of science-fiction; to exploring the people as well as the gadgets and the science never made sense to me. And that aversion is why it isn’t common to see these kinds of explorations of what people are really like and how people really dominate each other, and how power works.
Because, among other things in a lot of cases, the people who were writing these stories were people who didn’t have a good understanding of their own power: their own privilege within a system, and a kyriarchical system, and not understanding that as mostly straight white men with a smattering of other groups who are writing this genre for years. A lot of them bought into the American ideal of rugged individualism of, “Go forth intrepid person with their gun,” and they would go forth and do brave things and that would bring them power. No recognition of the power they already had. And I think it does take an outsider to a degree to come in and look around and read the stuff that’s key in the genre and be like, whoa something is really missing here.
But I don’t think that I was the first outsider to do so by any stretch. Most of the writers of color who have come into the genre have come and looked around and had that moment. Of course, Octavia Butler being the first and foremost who came in and looked at the alien colonization story and said, “Oh, hey it’s a lot like what happened to [black people]! Why don’t we just make all that stuff explicit? Instead of rape, why don’t we include aliens trying to assimilate our genes?” And it does take people who understand systems of power, who understand the complexities of how people interact with each other to depict that.
I keep on on Scalzi's blog and he is default liberal, but he'll vote republican if that's the better choice, which I believe he has done for the governor, or senate or something in Ohio where he lives, I can't remember at this point. Even the Old Man's War trilogy (and expanded universe) leans somewhat left over the span of the series.
It's funny reading the stuff Vox Day writes about Scalzi. It's like Scalzi is all that is wrong in Sci-fi.
Vox Day is just a sad little man who's angry no one likes his terrible books
I keep on on Scalzi's blog and he is default liberal, but he'll vote republican if that's the better choice, which I believe he has done for the governor, or senate or something in Ohio where he lives, I can't remember at this point. Even the Old Man's War trilogy (and expanded universe) leans somewhat left over the span of the series.
It's funny reading the stuff Vox Day writes about Scalzi. It's like Scalzi is all that is wrong in Sci-fi.
Vox Day is just a sad little man who's angry no one likes his terrible books
Plus, he loves the attention as a troll, plus he exploits these situations for his business very openly.
You'd think the SP would be all over him doing the latter, but nope. Could care less. Then again, Larry Coreia spends half his professional advice on his blog encouraging fellow writers to work about getting paid as a very high priority. Which wouldn't be a bad thing if it was about balancing that with producing quality work.
I keep on on Scalzi's blog and he is default liberal, but he'll vote republican if that's the better choice, which I believe he has done for the governor, or senate or something in Ohio where he lives, I can't remember at this point. Even the Old Man's War trilogy (and expanded universe) leans somewhat left over the span of the series.
It's funny reading the stuff Vox Day writes about Scalzi. It's like Scalzi is all that is wrong in Sci-fi.
Vox Day is just a sad little man who's angry no one likes his terrible books
I keep on on Scalzi's blog and he is default liberal, but he'll vote republican if that's the better choice, which I believe he has done for the governor, or senate or something in Ohio where he lives, I can't remember at this point. Even the Old Man's War trilogy (and expanded universe) leans somewhat left over the span of the series.
It's funny reading the stuff Vox Day writes about Scalzi. It's like Scalzi is all that is wrong in Sci-fi.
Vox Day is just a sad little man who's angry no one likes his terrible books
I keep on on Scalzi's blog and he is default liberal, but he'll vote republican if that's the better choice, which I believe he has done for the governor, or senate or something in Ohio where he lives, I can't remember at this point. Even the Old Man's War trilogy (and expanded universe) leans somewhat left over the span of the series.
It's funny reading the stuff Vox Day writes about Scalzi. It's like Scalzi is all that is wrong in Sci-fi.
Vox Day is just a sad little man who's angry no one likes his terrible books
Is that his I wish i were Gene Wolfe face?
it's his "I shouldn't have eaten that third Billy Goat Gruff" face
I keep on on Scalzi's blog and he is default liberal, but he'll vote republican if that's the better choice, which I believe he has done for the governor, or senate or something in Ohio where he lives, I can't remember at this point. Even the Old Man's War trilogy (and expanded universe) leans somewhat left over the span of the series.
It's funny reading the stuff Vox Day writes about Scalzi. It's like Scalzi is all that is wrong in Sci-fi.
Vox Day is just a sad little man who's angry no one likes his terrible books
Plus, he loves the attention as a troll, plus he exploits these situations for his business very openly.
You'd think the SP would be all over him doing the latter, but nope. Could care less. Then again, Larry Coreia spends half his professional advice on his blog encouraging fellow writers to work about getting paid as a very high priority. Which wouldn't be a bad thing if it was about balancing that with producing quality work.
Given how often artists of all stripes get abused by demands to work for free, I'm not going to fault Correia for flogging the "fuck you, pay me" drum (which Scalzi also regularly flogs as well, mind you.)
the "Fuck you, pay me" drum is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT for new writers
there are SO MANY people who do not know that the correct flow of money is toward the author in publishing. Vanity publishing is a fucking nightmare hellscape of tortured dreams and Correia &co are correct to point people away from that
That, I won't begrudge ANY writer for talking about openly, because that shit needs to be broadcast far and wide.
Can't stop himself from throwing shade at the Hugo's, classy.
Weird how he's ok with Pratchett. If he knows anything about Pratchett's books and his person it's the complete opposite to the Sad Puppies. Pratchett's not exactly hiding it in his books, either.
Let's see what his fans are responding...
Geez Larry.
Keep this crap up and you might turn into a Real Writer. And stuff…
Congrats m’LOH. Hope that made your cold somewhat bearable.
I think the only way for him to become a real writer now is if he donates all of his “ill-gotten” money to a virtue signaling cause. Incidentally, I opened up a charity called “Snowflakes Anonymous”. It is most definitely not a scam. =D
Yeah, authors like Scalzi and Ann Leckie never got a nice check out of their books. Right.
No, Larry, thank *you.* You deserved it.
. . . And may I say that it’s great to once again have a true fan award where one has actually read many of the nominated works, and has difficulty deciding which is the “best” because they’re all really, really good, and the writers are themselves such class acts.
I’ve remarked elsewhere that only three of *my* picks won – you, David Weber and Nick Cole – but I can’t see a single Dragon winner on there that I actually *disagree* with. Although I was surprised by a couple of the results, such as Naomi Novik winning Alt-Hist and – very pleasantly surprised, even though I voted for Chuck Gannon – JCW taking home Best SF for “Somewhither.” I’m hoping future editions of the Dragons can meet and exceed the high bar set by the inaugural awards.
Odd, considering Ms Marvel won that book would be heretic to any Sad Puppy on principal. I can't imagine what kind of stink the SP would start up if that won at the Hugo's. Wait - I can.
I really enjoyed Temeraire at first, even went to a book signing. But the Australia book was boring beyond belief, then the next book went, “Surprise! Your favorite character’s gay for a reason that doesn’t even make sense in this historical context!” And then I was pretty much: eff you, Temeraire series. It took me a while to realize that this author’s views of sex/sexuality and its place in an interesting story did not mesh with mine, and when I did the series was ruined for me. Which is especially frustrating because “Napoleon with dragons!” was going so well in many ways for the first several books.
Care to reign them in, Larry? *crickets* Oh well then, since their shit talking the Hugo's it's all good then.
I keep on on Scalzi's blog and he is default liberal, but he'll vote republican if that's the better choice, which I believe he has done for the governor, or senate or something in Ohio where he lives, I can't remember at this point. Even the Old Man's War trilogy (and expanded universe) leans somewhat left over the span of the series.
It's funny reading the stuff Vox Day writes about Scalzi. It's like Scalzi is all that is wrong in Sci-fi.
Vox Day is just a sad little man who's angry no one likes his terrible books
Plus, he loves the attention as a troll, plus he exploits these situations for his business very openly.
You'd think the SP would be all over him doing the latter, but nope. Could care less. Then again, Larry Coreia spends half his professional advice on his blog encouraging fellow writers to work about getting paid as a very high priority. Which wouldn't be a bad thing if it was about balancing that with producing quality work.
Pretty much. Dunno why people waste time on him, he's openly on it for the money and his ego. But mostly the money. Each controversy is a chance to increase pageviews and Amazon ratings. So he goes between the SFWA presidency bid, to Puppies, to GG, to Puppies again, to now the Trump campaign. The whole thing is amazingly cynical.
Given how often artists of all stripes get abused by demands to work for free, I'm not going to fault Correia for flogging the "fuck you, pay me" drum (which Scalzi also regularly flogs as well, mind you.)
the "Fuck you, pay me" drum is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT for new writers
there are SO MANY people who do not know that the correct flow of money is toward the author in publishing. Vanity publishing is a fucking nightmare hellscape of tortured dreams and Correia &co are correct to point people away from that
That, I won't begrudge ANY writer for talking about openly, because that shit needs to be broadcast far and wide.
Which I'm not arguing against, in fact that's one thing he gets right. The thing is is that he doesn't give a shit about telling those same writers to bother about quality control in their work. A facet that will help those writers get more money, as well as prestige.
the "Fuck you, pay me" drum is REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT for new writers
there are SO MANY people who do not know that the correct flow of money is toward the author in publishing. Vanity publishing is a fucking nightmare hellscape of tortured dreams and Correia &co are correct to point people away from that
That, I won't begrudge ANY writer for talking about openly, because that shit needs to be broadcast far and wide.
I am all for artists of all sorts getting on the fuck you pay me train. To many get shit on because its just art and you can do just something small for us fast for free k thks.
Just did a light scan of the aftermath and the Hugo's and found it rather tepid, aside from the usual suspects blogs - and I think I know why. The Dragon Awards.
As a nominee, I am of course both flattered and humbled that my debut novel has touched enough fans to be placed in the company of some of the biggest names in fantasy and science fiction. My first reaction was that I didn't belong there, but then I realized that it was not, in fact, true. After all, the very point of a fan-driven award is that the fans decide who belongs, and their voice is not to be taken lightly. Those familiar with my views regarding other types of awards will know this opinion is not new to me, nor will it change depending on my personal success or lack thereof. Thus, I thank my fans as well as the fine folk at DragonCon for getting me to this point and giving me and other new indie authors an inspiration to carry on.
As a reader and a fan, I love to see quality writing publicized and rewarded for the simple, selfish reason that we are now likely to see more of it. Not that prolific authors like Correia and Wright and Butcher ever needed a reminder to hurry up and give us more books, but it works on a wider scale. Once authors realize that the doors to success and professional recognition are no longer guarded by the select few and access no longer filtered through a particular prism, more creativity will naturally result, to the delight of those of us always trying to find fresh fuel for our love of reading.
Last but not least, as a minor culture warrior of the "home front and covering fire" variety, I must give special mention to a the authors whose wins have a special meaning to those of us concerned about the state of the culture in general and arts in particular.
Nick Cole had his now award-winning book was rejected by the publisher for openly political reasons, as previously covered in my Censorship post, forcing him to choose between artistic freedom and losing the publishing contract. Nick wisely put the art first, and clearly the fans approved.
Seems to fill the gap that many right wingers wanted when the Hugo's didn't work out for them as they wanted. Which may not be a bad thing, and it's not like the first book award with a conservative slant - like Prometheus. It'll be interesting to see where this goes and if the Hugo's are finally free of the bullshit, or if this is merely a temporary measure for the Sad Puppies.
Does anyone know how the Dragon Awards came to be or the people who made it happen? Haven't been able to find anything like that yet. If Correia is behind it he really would have walked the walk for once, though it'd get awkward when he won it first time out.
Posts
Man, Cat Pictures and this are both of an amazing caliber
Getting cameos in GI Joe comics will do that to you.
At least part of it has to be feeling slighted by not understanding the process to get into groups at Hugo cons (which occurs to everyone), as well as being a jerk. That's his bigger problem, not his right wing beliefs. But yeah, it can't be all genuine - it's too suited to his author persona and his audience.
That's the one! Thanks!
I agree 100%.
The Hugo and Nebula awards are really good ways to discover short stories, and the sheer number of them that are available basically for free online.
I liked the pitch, but I didn't care for the execution.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
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I feel pity for Ms. Hogarth feeling unsafe in situations like that. People should not have been mean to her like that, though it's difficult to say exactly what happened since we don't get a lot details with the context. Was it a joke? Where people mocking? Sometimes we do that, but we don't literally means we want toe at the rich etc. She wouldn't be the first conservative who over reacted to the left in the industry that it made them a nervous wreck. Cedar Sanderson comes to mind.
If someone is a conservative, Christian or right wing they shouldn't be mercilessly attacked over it or felt unwelcome. I've had friends like this before, after all.
Authors like this have my sympathy - to a point.
It's when they don't use these negative experiences to self analyze or think about minorities in field, or life in general, that have to deal with this every damn day and with them it can mean literally life and death, or getting rail loaded by companies for being x etc. This would be an experience that conservative truly could find a way to mend fences and compromise. Unfortunately I rarely see it in action in the industry from conservative authors, there's usually two modes: running away or going full steam ahead. No in between, nothing substantial to talk to to calm them down and find common interests.
OSC is a bad example for Brad to bring up. OSC became a lot more extreme with his political opinions and actions than the 80's, and what he believed in wasn't harmless conservative bullshit.
http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2013/10/enders-game-boycott-orson-scott-card-gay-marriage-geeks-out
That's why people don't like him anymore. That and his work has severely suffered, he's not making any Ender's Game novels lately.
https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?299098-Orson-Scott-Card-Empire
Circumstances like this are why liberals are not going to "tolerate" it, no. They really shouldn't be surprised by that reaction to anyone who has a conscience.
Sure, being conservative in a liberal field like the novel industry sucks. I get that. They're outnumbered, they feel like they're bombarded with liberal values everywhere. Makes it harder to make connections and friends. But it's not impossible. Conservative writers aren't all bat shit crazy, too. I may disagree with them on things, but there are many who are successful and not person non grata to the community. Like the conservative writer who told the Sad Puppies to get lost with 3. That made him a lot of fans. Not all conservatives think alike, or a re terrible people. Every ideology has their assholes, liberals aren't excluded.
However, where the Puppies and uber conservative authors went wrong is that they chose to start a (culture) war and are unable to see themselves as being the extremists on their side. If the Puppies had decided to be friendlier, and worked with the industry to make it less scary for conservative readers to participate in the community and awards like the Hugo's I'd have no problem with it. I'd encourage it! That is not what they did, and I'm not talking about the Rapid Puppies here. The Sad Puppies are guilt of plenty of fear mongering and trolling to fuck up an award because they didn't feel welcome. Not that Hoyt or Coreia were moderates before this started. They made their bread and butter to energize the worst elements of the right wing to buy their books. Then they refused to cut the Rapids loose, and felt insulted when they didn't do it since it was guilt by association. They chose to be allies with the Rapids, they can't complain when people lump them in with them. They didn't even bother rebranding themselves with a new name as 4, either.
1) If you stand shoulder to shoulder with VD maybe don't act shocked when people conflate your opinions on things.
2) The issue with complaining about prejudice for advocating certain philosophies is that it isn't really prejudice if the complaints are about the philosophy you're advocating.
3) The above two don't really justify harassment or abuse in response so they're spot on there.
This old saw of SFF Used To Be Great is tired and I'm tired of it, because it's patently untrue. SFF has never not been political. Speculative fiction, the perpetual what-if, is inherently political-- yes, even when it is just Ripping Good Yarns.
and SFF circa 1980 was pretty much great only for those white men who long to return there. So I don't really value that opinion much.
The conservative/liberal divide in the field is about everything but SFF-- but, the thing is, at this point, in a post-Trump candidacy world, I frankly don't feel physically safe in many places. BECAUSE of that divide. Even in SFF spaces, even in spaces where I otherwise felt safe enough to be an out queer on queer sff panels, even!
SFF (Worldcon) was mostly an exception -- there were a few (white straight cishet male) people who made me deeply uncomfortable, but I also think, in the cases I experienced, that explaining to those men that for queer folks (and, by extension, other minorities who feel threatened in mostly-white mostly-male spaces) it isn't an "ideology" thing-- it's people telling me I shouldn't exist, that I'm an abomination, I'm a ... whatever, not going to get into it, but like... to be standing in front of these people and explaining, I am here, I am a real person, this language of intolerance that you guys think we should "hear both sides of" is... not acceptable to me.
I would like to think that I made an impression. I have neon hair, I like to think I'm memorable, but I was far from the only person there with my Pantone shade so who knows? But I spoke with at least one relatively conservative midlist guy I found incredibly intimidating, and I'd like to think that I made an impression on him by being a real person for whom the "both sides are bad, don't be on a side" argument is dangerous.
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In economics, it's the valuing of the wealthy because they have wealth, and the argument that it is always deserved and earned. That poverty is a moral failing rather than a necessary consequence of having the majority of wealth concentrated at the top.
In politics, it's the advancement of totalitarianism, and nativism, and blatant pandering to fear and hate. It is pretending these things are desirable.
It is the insistence that one's religion trumps all, and the religion of the many outweighs the rights of the few.
It is the belief in eugenics, that one's circumstances are determined even before they are born, and that undsirables should be weeded out.
It is the resistance and opposition to minority voices being heard at all, their stories told, their desires met.
It should not surprise you that if you hold these beliefs we will hate you and oppose you. You are trying to destroy us after all.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
"Nah, I don't care about the Hugo awards at all, it's no big deal, they don't matter to me one bit, I didn't watch them this year because they're so dumb
....but let me write a multipage blog post about how terrible they are and dissect the results in detail"
But Vox Day can't be a racist, he has a couple of white descendants who lived in Mexico!
You do have to remember, Torgersen is the none-too-bright-bulb who was passionate about his cover-purity-test, that 'The cover should tell you what the story is about! If there are rocketships on the cover, there should be rocketships inside, and none of this social issue nonsense that never polluted sci-fi before! None of these weird, abstract pictures that give you no clue what's inside!'
Which means, given his age and the authors that should have exposed him too, means he never read any sci-fi growing up, nor has ever so much as looked at the works of nearly all the lumanaries of the field. Because, yeah, appreantly Asimov, Dick, Farmer, Heinlein et al weren't real sci-fi writers or something, given how many of their works would fail those particular criteria.
I remember reading a blog where he talked in detail in his politics and he definitely didn't shy away from being a conservative or Republican. Of course these days he's probably switched to the Dems. IIRC he's drifted left over the years. I'd need time to look it up, though - it's a fantastic post.
Edit: Quick googling actually turns up the opposite. He used to be more liberal and has gone a little more conservative, at least circa a 2005 post. Which is totally a decade old now...
It's funny reading the stuff Vox Day writes about Scalzi. It's like Scalzi is all that is wrong in Sci-fi.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL_5RuyMkxW_Nnk6KELx7JUJUDWQ56LuoI&v=f7pbpaZflYs
So next World con is definitely in Helsinki? If it is, I'll have to go. It'll probably be the only time in a while it's that close to me.
http://worldcon.fi
be aware, the hotel situation is A Thing rn. Supposedly some closer hotels have not released their rates yet or something.
(I'm staying with my podcast cohost, or I probably wouldn't be able to afford it at all)
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Get your tickets now, if you do. I will also say that it was well worth it. Having it my city this year was so very nice.
Vox Day is just a sad little man who's angry no one likes his terrible books
Plus, he loves the attention as a troll, plus he exploits these situations for his business very openly.
You'd think the SP would be all over him doing the latter, but nope. Could care less. Then again, Larry Coreia spends half his professional advice on his blog encouraging fellow writers to work about getting paid as a very high priority. Which wouldn't be a bad thing if it was about balancing that with producing quality work.
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Is that his I wish i were Gene Wolfe face?
it's his "I shouldn't have eaten that third Billy Goat Gruff" face
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Given how often artists of all stripes get abused by demands to work for free, I'm not going to fault Correia for flogging the "fuck you, pay me" drum (which Scalzi also regularly flogs as well, mind you.)
there are SO MANY people who do not know that the correct flow of money is toward the author in publishing. Vanity publishing is a fucking nightmare hellscape of tortured dreams and Correia &co are correct to point people away from that
That, I won't begrudge ANY writer for talking about openly, because that shit needs to be broadcast far and wide.
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http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/09/05/son-of-the-black-sword-wins-the-1st-annual-dragon-award-for-best-fantasy/
Can't stop himself from throwing shade at the Hugo's, classy.
Weird how he's ok with Pratchett. If he knows anything about Pratchett's books and his person it's the complete opposite to the Sad Puppies. Pratchett's not exactly hiding it in his books, either.
Let's see what his fans are responding...
Yeah, authors like Scalzi and Ann Leckie never got a nice check out of their books. Right.
Odd, considering Ms Marvel won that book would be heretic to any Sad Puppy on principal. I can't imagine what kind of stink the SP would start up if that won at the Hugo's. Wait - I can.
Care to reign them in, Larry? *crickets* Oh well then, since their shit talking the Hugo's it's all good then.
Which I'm not arguing against, in fact that's one thing he gets right. The thing is is that he doesn't give a shit about telling those same writers to bother about quality control in their work. A facet that will help those writers get more money, as well as prestige.
edit: Sorry, if I wasn't clearer in my post.
I am all for artists of all sorts getting on the fuck you pay me train. To many get shit on because its just art and you can do just something small for us fast for free k thks.
http://marinafontaine.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/dragon-awards-personal-view.html
Seems to fill the gap that many right wingers wanted when the Hugo's didn't work out for them as they wanted. Which may not be a bad thing, and it's not like the first book award with a conservative slant - like Prometheus. It'll be interesting to see where this goes and if the Hugo's are finally free of the bullshit, or if this is merely a temporary measure for the Sad Puppies.
Does anyone know how the Dragon Awards came to be or the people who made it happen? Haven't been able to find anything like that yet. If Correia is behind it he really would have walked the walk for once, though it'd get awkward when he won it first time out.
http://awards.dragoncon.org/
It's just ... almost poetic how much it represents the winners and apparently the award itself.