i guess it doesn't matter because no more books will ever come out at this rate, but that really takes all the wind out of the sails of my relistening to the audiobooks.
For the record, I don’t want to be right here. I have been a massive Jim Butcher fan for nearly a decade. I own the audiobook for every Dresden Files story (which was NOT cheap), and have listened to all of them multiple times. The last runthrough took over a year because I shared them with my wife, listening to them over every car ride together. I really, really want to be wrong about this. I just don’t think I am.
It’s not like I think he’s gonna turn Harry into a Nazi or something, but I think there’s a painfully high chance we get some subtle digs. He already busted out the “trust but verify” line in the Peace Talks preview chapter. The saying wasn’t created by Gamergate, but they sure loved using it, and him choosing it might point to the kind of company he was keeping at the time he wrote it. I’m not going to be surprised to see something like a woman with dyed hair getting a stern lecture from Harry about “how the world really works”, or a female character who turns out to be a “professional victim”.
What. That's just a phrase that comes up in discussing security... don't tell me it's yet another phrase poisoned...
I'm not too concerned about Butcher's stance on women after The Aeronaut's Windlass though. Much better than early Dresden books in that regard.
What is the status on his writing anyways? He'd nearly stopped for life issues or something wasn't it?
It’s not like I think he’s gonna turn Harry into a Nazi or something, but I think there’s a painfully high chance we get some subtle digs. He already busted out the “trust but verify” line in the Peace Talks preview chapter. The saying wasn’t created by Gamergate, but they sure loved using it, and him choosing it might point to the kind of company he was keeping at the time he wrote it. I’m not going to be surprised to see something like a woman with dyed hair getting a stern lecture from Harry about “how the world really works”, or a female character who turns out to be a “professional victim”.
What. That's just a phrase that comes up in discussing security... don't tell me it's yet another phrase poisoned...
I'm not too concerned about Butcher's stance on women after The Aeronaut's Windlass though. Much better than early Dresden books in that regard.
What is the status on his writing anyways? He'd nearly stopped for life issues or something wasn't it?
It gained popularity as a response to an Anita Sarkeesian slide at one of her presentations that said “listen and believe”, referring to not automatically dismissing people when they come forward with stories of harassment (sort of a #MeToo precursor). GG decided that it meant us crazy SJWs think people should blindly believe everything they’re told, and started using “trust but verify” as a slogan for how rational and discerning they were.
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WhiteZinfandelYour insidesLet me show you themRegistered Userregular
Cool, but it's not GG's property. I've only ever heard the phrase in other contexts. Where was this post Butcher made that defended Sad Puppies?
It’s not like I think he’s gonna turn Harry into a Nazi or something, but I think there’s a painfully high chance we get some subtle digs. He already busted out the “trust but verify” line in the Peace Talks preview chapter. The saying wasn’t created by Gamergate, but they sure loved using it, and him choosing it might point to the kind of company he was keeping at the time he wrote it. I’m not going to be surprised to see something like a woman with dyed hair getting a stern lecture from Harry about “how the world really works”, or a female character who turns out to be a “professional victim”.
What. That's just a phrase that comes up in discussing security... don't tell me it's yet another phrase poisoned...
I'm not too concerned about Butcher's stance on women after The Aeronaut's Windlass though. Much better than early Dresden books in that regard.
What is the status on his writing anyways? He'd nearly stopped for life issues or something wasn't it?
I read, and liked, Aeronauts Windlass, and it did have some pretty awesome women in it.
Actually, if he completely dropped Dresden Files and wrote more books for the Cinder Spires instead, i would not complain.
That said, the book generally had men being the more reasonable people (apart from the mother of one of the characters) needing to explain things to the women, and teach them about the world (also, two of the major villains, and definitely the biggest monster of the book, were women).
Not saying the book or the characters (well, some of the characters) are sexist, but you could easily nitpick about some stuff in it, and it could develop into either direction.
Probably for the better though, assuming it follows the trajectory main DF books have taken (i have not read/listened any of the short stories, comic books or audio only stuff).
What’s disappointing with Butcher concerning the Sad Puppies is he’s treading the silence is acceptance path. I get him wanting recognition for his works and I have no beef with him in that aspect it’s simply how he’s going about doing that with allying with the Sad Puppies. We don’t know what his true thoughts are, but we do have enough to draw conclusions and none are good options, like he’s either used them to get awards or he’s a true believer who’s smart enough to keep his head down in public because admitting to being Coreilla 2.0 would be career suicide.
Though I don’t think he is that far gone, he hasn’t helped his case by post-Sad Puppies becoming a friend and ally to Correia, including professionally. IIRC he’s getting a story published in a monster hunter collection edited by Correia himself.
Before all this he did have trouble on Twitter and other places when he got asked and attached for not being inclusive and seemed to have doubled down and/or ignored everything political about his works - thus may be why such topics are verboten on his official website.
Would I be surprised if Butcher was conservative? No. Nor would I hold ill will over his politics, I’m a fan of various conservatives RE: Kelsey Grammar, Bruce Willis etc.
However, the Sad Puppies are really a group everyone should avoid being friendly with because they go beyond the pale so far even other conservatives steer clear of. That’s why it’s so disappointing to see him remain friends with them post-Hugo’s.
Overall Butcher’s decision to keep out if politics has helped his career by being neutral - until the Sad Puppies forced him to make a choice and every choice he made he sided with them and had refused to disassociate with the group to this day. He may not have shouted it from the roof tops but with politics like this he doesn’t have to. His silence is damning in this case.
edit: Here's the Monster Hunter Files anthology Butcher had a story in.
Reading Dresden Files, i would be surprised if Butcher was not conservative, possibly not "votes straight Republican, always" conservative, but still conservative in the "old fashioned and not comfortable with all the new things happening in social space" sense.
He could also be "votes straight Republican, always" conservative, which would be disappointing.
It’s not like I think he’s gonna turn Harry into a Nazi or something, but I think there’s a painfully high chance we get some subtle digs. He already busted out the “trust but verify” line in the Peace Talks preview chapter. The saying wasn’t created by Gamergate, but they sure loved using it, and him choosing it might point to the kind of company he was keeping at the time he wrote it. I’m not going to be surprised to see something like a woman with dyed hair getting a stern lecture from Harry about “how the world really works”, or a female character who turns out to be a “professional victim”.
What. That's just a phrase that comes up in discussing security... don't tell me it's yet another phrase poisoned...
I'm not too concerned about Butcher's stance on women after The Aeronaut's Windlass though. Much better than early Dresden books in that regard.
What is the status on his writing anyways? He'd nearly stopped for life issues or something wasn't it?
It gained popularity as a response to an Anita Sarkeesian slide at one of her presentations that said “listen and believe”, referring to not automatically dismissing people when they come forward with stories of harassment (sort of a #MeToo precursor). GG decided that it meant us crazy SJWs think people should blindly believe everything they’re told, and started using “trust but verify” as a slogan for how rational and discerning they were.
Trust but verify is a term constantly used in professional accounting for methodology. Shit heels cannot have it.
Cool, but it's not GG's property. I've only ever heard the phrase in other contexts. Where was this post Butcher made that defended Sad Puppies?
I tried to find the original post and couldn’t. It was along the lines of “if you go around pushing people, you shouldn’t be too surprised when they push back.” It was at the very least “both sides”-ism, and seemed to agree with the general Puppies tenet that the left had taken control of the sci-fi/fantasy community.
I did find a couple other things though. There was a somewhat well known incident where an employee of TOR, Irene Gallo, called both puppy groups “racist”, “misogynistic”, “homophobic” “neo-Nazis”. The right erupted with self-righteous indignation over it, and she was forced to apologize. Here is an article pointing out Butcher taking the Puppies’ side. And here is a comment on a right wing blog where he defended her apology as being sincere, while still making it clear that her original statement was “out of line”.
Cool, but it's not GG's property. I've only ever heard the phrase in other contexts. Where was this post Butcher made that defended Sad Puppies?
I tried to find the original post and couldn’t. It was along the lines of “if you go around pushing people, you shouldn’t be too surprised when they push back.” It was at the very least “both sides”-ism, and seemed to agree with the general Puppies tenet that the left had taken control of the sci-fi/fantasy community.
I did find a couple other things though. There was a somewhat well known incident where an employee of TOR, Irene Gallo, called both puppy groups “racist”, “misogynistic”, “homophobic” “neo-Nazis”. The right erupted with self-righteous indignation over it, and she was forced to apologize. Here is an article pointing out Butcher taking the Puppies’ side. And here is a comment on a right wing blog where he defended her apology as being sincere, while still making it clear that her original statement was “out of line”.
Your descriptions don't match what Butcher actually says in those links.
E: In the first link, all he's saying is that Gallo is wildly misrepresenting the Puppies and it's very unprofessional to say what she said at the same time as she's representing her employer. Regardless of whether he's right, it doesn't imply any support for the group on his part. In the second link, he's saying that everybody should do the decent thing and just take Gallo's apology at face value even though it's hard to truly know whether it's sincere. The third link, the tweet, is the easiest one to read antagonism into, but it's also the shortest and vaguest. I have serious doubts about the possibility of deriving the man's political views from it, particularly having just read that second link where he spends five times as many words talking about... well, I'll just copy-paste it
I work with words professionally. I know exactly how powerful they can be. I am also well aware of their limits–and when it comes to expression complex thoughts in emotionally tense situations over the goddamned internet, the magic of written language has little power.
How can it? It’s missing too much. You can’t read tone of voice, or the expression on a person’s face when they’re making keys click. Pretty much all you get is “clickity click click.”
I’m also an English major. So I’m very aware of how skilled human beings can be at reading all kinds of absolute horse manure into other people’s writing, and then declaring it “subtext” or “internally consistent logic.”
But it isn’t. It’s you, guessing. And your guess is probably prejudiced to one degree or another, most often by projecting things into it that were never meant to be there.
Cool, but it's not GG's property. I've only ever heard the phrase in other contexts. Where was this post Butcher made that defended Sad Puppies?
I tried to find the original post and couldn’t. It was along the lines of “if you go around pushing people, you shouldn’t be too surprised when they push back.” It was at the very least “both sides”-ism, and seemed to agree with the general Puppies tenet that the left had taken control of the sci-fi/fantasy community.
I did find a couple other things though. There was a somewhat well known incident where an employee of TOR, Irene Gallo, called both puppy groups “racist”, “misogynistic”, “homophobic” “neo-Nazis”. The right erupted with self-righteous indignation over it, and she was forced to apologize. Here is an article pointing out Butcher taking the Puppies’ side. And here is a comment on a right wing blog where he defended her apology as being sincere, while still making it clear that her original statement was “out of line”.
Your descriptions don't match what Butcher actually says in those links.
E: In the first link, all he's saying is that Gallo is wildly misrepresenting the Puppies and it's very unprofessional to say what she said at the same time as she's representing her employer. Regardless of whether he's right, it doesn't imply any support for the group on his part. In the second link, he's saying that everybody should do the decent thing and just take Gallo's apology at face value even though it's hard to truly know whether it's sincere. The third link, the tweet, is the easiest one to read antagonism into, but it's also the shortest and vaguest. I have serious doubts about the possibility of deriving the man's political views from it, particularly having just read that second link where he spends five times as many words talking about... well, I'll just copy-paste it
I work with words professionally. I know exactly how powerful they can be. I am also well aware of their limits–and when it comes to expression complex thoughts in emotionally tense situations over the goddamned internet, the magic of written language has little power.
How can it? It’s missing too much. You can’t read tone of voice, or the expression on a person’s face when they’re making keys click. Pretty much all you get is “clickity click click.”
I’m also an English major. So I’m very aware of how skilled human beings can be at reading all kinds of absolute horse manure into other people’s writing, and then declaring it “subtext” or “internally consistent logic.”
But it isn’t. It’s you, guessing. And your guess is probably prejudiced to one degree or another, most often by projecting things into it that were never meant to be there.
This is "Both Siding." Butcher's never commented or talked about the toxic activities and behaviour the Sad Puppies and the Rapids did. Every time I've seen someone bring this up on twitter he's dismissed the issue then bounced.
Was Gallo out of line calling all Sad Puppies Nazis? Sure. Except he's distracting the issue with tone policing to avoid the elephant in the room. Tone only goes so far when his pals say this
Vox Day was on a prior SP suggestion slate, because I liked his novelette that year, and the SP2 slate was pretty much just my personal suggestions.
The Sad Puppies campaign doesn’t endorse anybody’s politics. Our slate had people from everything, left, right, middle, and question mark. We only cared if the works were good.
I personally do not agree with Vox on a wide variety of topics.
I do not speak for him.
I do not control him.
He does what he wants.
We have argued about this topic. You know the situation has gotten weird when I’m the voice of moderation.
I cannot disown what I do not own.
I neither condone nor defend any of his public statements. I did not make them.
Of course I do not like some of the things he has said.
Do you think the existence of Rabid Puppies has somehow made my life easier?
I’m not going to burn anyone in effigy. Stop asking.
I’m not going to condemn anyone by association. Stop asking.
Sarah Hoyt, a previous runner of Sad Puppies, defended Roseanne's racist tweet that got her show cancelled.
So, this Valerie Jarret thing. Roseanne Barr apparently said she looks like a cross between the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes.
She’s not wrong. Jarret doesn’t have particularly simian features, at least to my eyes, but her eyes have that curious flat, “odd” look of the actors in planet of the apes. I don’t know why. I mean, I know why in the actors. The makeup creates a certain immobility that gives the eyes a fixed stare. I don’t know why in Jarret. Botox, maybe? As for the Muslim brotherhood, that’s harder to defend. We know Jarret has family ties to it, but what does the Muslim brotherhood look like? Perhaps really angry? Which Jarret tends to look. Like she’s barely keeping from yelling at you.
So?
There's more, but you get the idea.
Harry Dresden on
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
It’s not like I think he’s gonna turn Harry into a Nazi or something, but I think there’s a painfully high chance we get some subtle digs. He already busted out the “trust but verify” line in the Peace Talks preview chapter. The saying wasn’t created by Gamergate, but they sure loved using it, and him choosing it might point to the kind of company he was keeping at the time he wrote it. I’m not going to be surprised to see something like a woman with dyed hair getting a stern lecture from Harry about “how the world really works”, or a female character who turns out to be a “professional victim”.
What. That's just a phrase that comes up in discussing security... don't tell me it's yet another phrase poisoned...
I'm not too concerned about Butcher's stance on women after The Aeronaut's Windlass though. Much better than early Dresden books in that regard.
What is the status on his writing anyways? He'd nearly stopped for life issues or something wasn't it?
It gained popularity as a response to an Anita Sarkeesian slide at one of her presentations that said “listen and believe”, referring to not automatically dismissing people when they come forward with stories of harassment (sort of a #MeToo precursor). GG decided that it meant us crazy SJWs think people should blindly believe everything they’re told, and started using “trust but verify” as a slogan for how rational and discerning they were.
'Trust, but verify.' started trending back when Reagan busted it out when talking about various negotiations with the USSR. Butcher is of the age where that would probably have been where he picked it up.
Language and concepts actually did exist before internet garbage people started using them. Just because said garbage people picked up on them doesn't mean that anyone using them is part of that group.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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WhiteZinfandelYour insidesLet me show you themRegistered Userregular
Cool, but it's not GG's property. I've only ever heard the phrase in other contexts. Where was this post Butcher made that defended Sad Puppies?
I tried to find the original post and couldn’t. It was along the lines of “if you go around pushing people, you shouldn’t be too surprised when they push back.” It was at the very least “both sides”-ism, and seemed to agree with the general Puppies tenet that the left had taken control of the sci-fi/fantasy community.
I did find a couple other things though. There was a somewhat well known incident where an employee of TOR, Irene Gallo, called both puppy groups “racist”, “misogynistic”, “homophobic” “neo-Nazis”. The right erupted with self-righteous indignation over it, and she was forced to apologize. Here is an article pointing out Butcher taking the Puppies’ side. And here is a comment on a right wing blog where he defended her apology as being sincere, while still making it clear that her original statement was “out of line”.
Your descriptions don't match what Butcher actually says in those links.
E: In the first link, all he's saying is that Gallo is wildly misrepresenting the Puppies and it's very unprofessional to say what she said at the same time as she's representing her employer. Regardless of whether he's right, it doesn't imply any support for the group on his part. In the second link, he's saying that everybody should do the decent thing and just take Gallo's apology at face value even though it's hard to truly know whether it's sincere. The third link, the tweet, is the easiest one to read antagonism into, but it's also the shortest and vaguest. I have serious doubts about the possibility of deriving the man's political views from it, particularly having just read that second link where he spends five times as many words talking about... well, I'll just copy-paste it
I work with words professionally. I know exactly how powerful they can be. I am also well aware of their limits–and when it comes to expression complex thoughts in emotionally tense situations over the goddamned internet, the magic of written language has little power.
How can it? It’s missing too much. You can’t read tone of voice, or the expression on a person’s face when they’re making keys click. Pretty much all you get is “clickity click click.”
I’m also an English major. So I’m very aware of how skilled human beings can be at reading all kinds of absolute horse manure into other people’s writing, and then declaring it “subtext” or “internally consistent logic.”
But it isn’t. It’s you, guessing. And your guess is probably prejudiced to one degree or another, most often by projecting things into it that were never meant to be there.
This is "Both Siding." Butcher's never commented or talked about the toxic activities and behaviour the Sad Puppies and the Rapids did. Every time I've seen someone bring this up on twitter he's dismissed the issue then bounced.
Was Gallo out of line calling all Sad Puppies Nazis? Sure. Except he's distracting the issue with tone policing to avoid the elephant in the room. Tone only goes so far when his pals say this
Vox Day was on a prior SP suggestion slate, because I liked his novelette that year, and the SP2 slate was pretty much just my personal suggestions.
The Sad Puppies campaign doesn’t endorse anybody’s politics. Our slate had people from everything, left, right, middle, and question mark. We only cared if the works were good.
I personally do not agree with Vox on a wide variety of topics.
I do not speak for him.
I do not control him.
He does what he wants.
We have argued about this topic. You know the situation has gotten weird when I’m the voice of moderation.
I cannot disown what I do not own.
I neither condone nor defend any of his public statements. I did not make them.
Of course I do not like some of the things he has said.
Do you think the existence of Rabid Puppies has somehow made my life easier?
I’m not going to burn anyone in effigy. Stop asking.
I’m not going to condemn anyone by association. Stop asking.
Sarah Hoyt, a previous runner of Sad Puppies, defended Roseanne's racist tweet that got her show cancelled.
So, this Valerie Jarret thing. Roseanne Barr apparently said she looks like a cross between the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes.
She’s not wrong. Jarret doesn’t have particularly simian features, at least to my eyes, but her eyes have that curious flat, “odd” look of the actors in planet of the apes. I don’t know why. I mean, I know why in the actors. The makeup creates a certain immobility that gives the eyes a fixed stare. I don’t know why in Jarret. Botox, maybe? As for the Muslim brotherhood, that’s harder to defend. We know Jarret has family ties to it, but what does the Muslim brotherhood look like? Perhaps really angry? Which Jarret tends to look. Like she’s barely keeping from yelling at you.
So?
There's more, but you get the idea.
Neither I nor Butcher ever said both sides are the same. It's possible to take issue with what one side is doing and still not support the other. It's sloppy thinking to hear Butcher say "they're not nazis, they're not seeking to end social justice in literature, and it's unprofessional to say those things while acting on behalf of your employer" and assume that since he's saying something negative about Gallo, he must be one of them. Particularly given the addendum where he says "you assholes making snide remarks about her sexuality/personal life/etc--get fucked. Put up an argument with something to back it up or go back to playing video games in your parents' basement." I get the impression he's just pissed off at people breaking standards of debate and courtesy regardless of what side they're on.
What exactly do you mean about Correia maintaining ties with Vox Day? From those lines and
I cannot purge him... since he isn’t part of my campaign, I’ve got nothing to purge him from.
they certainly don't seem to be confederates. The parts you bolded pointedly state the opposite, in fact.
If you want to look at Butcher's ambivalence or conspicuous silence and decide he's not an activist ally, fine, you'd be right. Anything more than that is getting into bullshit "if you're not with us, you're against us" territory.
I didn't like that particular story! I felt like it was a real disservice to the characters involved as it moved them in arcs that are disappointing to me.
In particular
The Winter Lady being oversexed yet denied release is interesting in how it retroactively reframes Maeve as a character, but who cares about Maeve at this point?
It seems fantastically unfun to me to read about Molly dealing with it
And the story does absolutely nothing to advance our knowledge about Carlos' "Galahad" thing. He's just down to bone, and that's the extent of it
It was easily the least satisfying story in the collection for me
I care about Maeve. I find it very interesting to see how a young woman could be taken and transformed into a Sidhe by the powers of The Winter Maiden. Maeve is also potentially Molly's future self, in that she shows us what happens when one gives in to the Mantle of the Winter Maiden.
Reading Molly's struggles with retaining her humanity is what makes the transition feel real. And I'm confidence in saying that in the future Molly and Dresden will be at odds when Molly is forced to follow Winter Law and Dresden refuses to do so. This story clearly shows why Molly *CANNOT* refuse to follow Winter Law.
As for Carlos Ramirez's "Galahad" thing, Dresden calls him Galahad because he acts like a knight, not out of any deeper meaning. And in this case, we see how the power of the Winter Maiden can corrupt a knight.
I didn't like that particular story! I felt like it was a real disservice to the characters involved as it moved them in arcs that are disappointing to me.
In particular
The Winter Lady being oversexed yet denied release is interesting in how it retroactively reframes Maeve as a character, but who cares about Maeve at this point?
It seems fantastically unfun to me to read about Molly dealing with it
And the story does absolutely nothing to advance our knowledge about Carlos' "Galahad" thing. He's just down to bone, and that's the extent of it
It was easily the least satisfying story in the collection for me
I care about Maeve. I find it very interesting to see how a young woman could be taken and transformed into a Sidhe by the powers of The Winter Maiden. Maeve is also potentially Molly's future self, in that she shows us what happens when one gives in to the Mantle of the Winter Maiden.
Reading Molly's struggles with retaining her humanity is what makes the transition feel real. And I'm confidence in saying that in the future Molly and Dresden will be at odds when Molly is forced to follow Winter Law and Dresden refuses to do so. This story clearly shows why Molly *CANNOT* refuse to follow Winter Law.
As for Carlos Ramirez's "Galahad" thing, Dresden calls him Galahad because he acts like a knight, not out of any deeper meaning. And in this case, we see how the power of the Winter Maiden can corrupt a knight.
I found it eye opening to see how exactly the Winter mantle affects someone. Even just over the course of that short story she found her personality changing towards what the mantle wanted, though some small part of her still poked at her saying it wasn't right or she wouldn't normally be doing this. Even more revealing was how he mantle warped her speech into sexual innuendo whenever she tried talking straight about what she was doing. Somewhat forcing her into the role. I found the story, as a whole, pretty good and liked seeing her inner struggle along with a bit of her flirtatious side. Having this story come right after a previous Molly story, you can see more directly how the mantle is affecting her - a lot like how it was affecting Dresden actually.
I only have two more stories to go until I finish the collection, but I'm finding it rather enjoyable overall.
I mean, if you're looking for a pleasant pulp fantasy series to read while waiting for more Dresden Files to come out and your main criteria is...
"Pretty decent, but published SUPER regularly"
Then I can recommend Jonathon Moeller and all his current series. He writes as if words are about to be confiscated by the government. 300 page book every month or so. His book COVERS are the most atrocious pseudo sexist nonsense you've ever seen (although, I think that may MAINLY be because he's terrible at art but knows a few models who are willing to let him use photos of them in costumes as his covers), but his actually books have a very pleasant blend of female leads or strong female characters, and lots of good pulpy dresden files style action scenes. I go back and forth between him secretly being some kind of AI bot who writes pulp literature automatically, a secret front for a group of female authors who want to avoid abuse, or secretly a horrible alt right monster (because it seems everyone is these days) but there's certainly no shortage of content!
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
I didn't like that particular story! I felt like it was a real disservice to the characters involved as it moved them in arcs that are disappointing to me.
In particular
The Winter Lady being oversexed yet denied release is interesting in how it retroactively reframes Maeve as a character, but who cares about Maeve at this point?
It seems fantastically unfun to me to read about Molly dealing with it
And the story does absolutely nothing to advance our knowledge about Carlos' "Galahad" thing. He's just down to bone, and that's the extent of it
It was easily the least satisfying story in the collection for me
I care about Maeve. I find it very interesting to see how a young woman could be taken and transformed into a Sidhe by the powers of The Winter Maiden. Maeve is also potentially Molly's future self, in that she shows us what happens when one gives in to the Mantle of the Winter Maiden.
Reading Molly's struggles with retaining her humanity is what makes the transition feel real. And I'm confidence in saying that in the future Molly and Dresden will be at odds when Molly is forced to follow Winter Law and Dresden refuses to do so. This story clearly shows why Molly *CANNOT* refuse to follow Winter Law.
As for Carlos Ramirez's "Galahad" thing, Dresden calls him Galahad because he acts like a knight, not out of any deeper meaning. And in this case, we see how the power of the Winter Maiden can corrupt a knight.
Molly's situation may be good material down the line, but at first pass I am pretty unimpressed.
As for Carlos, a supposed smooth talking assured bravado dude, I assumed his being a virgin would have story hooks somewhere. And I felt like this was a missed opportunity to make good on that hook
Edit: on rereading your post I am unsure if you missed/forgot but Dresden calls Carlos Galahad because Galahad was the chaste/pure knight
Cool, but it's not GG's property. I've only ever heard the phrase in other contexts. Where was this post Butcher made that defended Sad Puppies?
I tried to find the original post and couldn’t. It was along the lines of “if you go around pushing people, you shouldn’t be too surprised when they push back.” It was at the very least “both sides”-ism, and seemed to agree with the general Puppies tenet that the left had taken control of the sci-fi/fantasy community.
I did find a couple other things though. There was a somewhat well known incident where an employee of TOR, Irene Gallo, called both puppy groups “racist”, “misogynistic”, “homophobic” “neo-Nazis”. The right erupted with self-righteous indignation over it, and she was forced to apologize. Here is an article pointing out Butcher taking the Puppies’ side. And here is a comment on a right wing blog where he defended her apology as being sincere, while still making it clear that her original statement was “out of line”.
Your descriptions don't match what Butcher actually says in those links.
E: In the first link, all he's saying is that Gallo is wildly misrepresenting the Puppies and it's very unprofessional to say what she said at the same time as she's representing her employer. Regardless of whether he's right, it doesn't imply any support for the group on his part. In the second link, he's saying that everybody should do the decent thing and just take Gallo's apology at face value even though it's hard to truly know whether it's sincere. The third link, the tweet, is the easiest one to read antagonism into, but it's also the shortest and vaguest. I have serious doubts about the possibility of deriving the man's political views from it, particularly having just read that second link where he spends five times as many words talking about... well, I'll just copy-paste it
I work with words professionally. I know exactly how powerful they can be. I am also well aware of their limits–and when it comes to expression complex thoughts in emotionally tense situations over the goddamned internet, the magic of written language has little power.
How can it? It’s missing too much. You can’t read tone of voice, or the expression on a person’s face when they’re making keys click. Pretty much all you get is “clickity click click.”
I’m also an English major. So I’m very aware of how skilled human beings can be at reading all kinds of absolute horse manure into other people’s writing, and then declaring it “subtext” or “internally consistent logic.”
But it isn’t. It’s you, guessing. And your guess is probably prejudiced to one degree or another, most often by projecting things into it that were never meant to be there.
This is "Both Siding." Butcher's never commented or talked about the toxic activities and behaviour the Sad Puppies and the Rapids did. Every time I've seen someone bring this up on twitter he's dismissed the issue then bounced.
Was Gallo out of line calling all Sad Puppies Nazis? Sure. Except he's distracting the issue with tone policing to avoid the elephant in the room. Tone only goes so far when his pals say this
Vox Day was on a prior SP suggestion slate, because I liked his novelette that year, and the SP2 slate was pretty much just my personal suggestions.
The Sad Puppies campaign doesn’t endorse anybody’s politics. Our slate had people from everything, left, right, middle, and question mark. We only cared if the works were good.
I personally do not agree with Vox on a wide variety of topics.
I do not speak for him.
I do not control him.
He does what he wants.
We have argued about this topic. You know the situation has gotten weird when I’m the voice of moderation.
I cannot disown what I do not own.
I neither condone nor defend any of his public statements. I did not make them.
Of course I do not like some of the things he has said.
Do you think the existence of Rabid Puppies has somehow made my life easier?
I’m not going to burn anyone in effigy. Stop asking.
I’m not going to condemn anyone by association. Stop asking.
Sarah Hoyt, a previous runner of Sad Puppies, defended Roseanne's racist tweet that got her show cancelled.
So, this Valerie Jarret thing. Roseanne Barr apparently said she looks like a cross between the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes.
She’s not wrong. Jarret doesn’t have particularly simian features, at least to my eyes, but her eyes have that curious flat, “odd” look of the actors in planet of the apes. I don’t know why. I mean, I know why in the actors. The makeup creates a certain immobility that gives the eyes a fixed stare. I don’t know why in Jarret. Botox, maybe? As for the Muslim brotherhood, that’s harder to defend. We know Jarret has family ties to it, but what does the Muslim brotherhood look like? Perhaps really angry? Which Jarret tends to look. Like she’s barely keeping from yelling at you.
So?
There's more, but you get the idea.
Neither I nor Butcher ever said both sides are the same. It's possible to take issue with what one side is doing and still not support the other. It's sloppy thinking to hear Butcher say "they're not nazis, they're not seeking to end social justice in literature, and it's unprofessional to say those things while acting on behalf of your employer" and assume that since he's saying something negative about Gallo, he must be one of them. Particularly given the addendum where he says "you assholes making snide remarks about her sexuality/personal life/etc--get fucked. Put up an argument with something to back it up or go back to playing video games in your parents' basement." I get the impression he's just pissed off at people breaking standards of debate and courtesy regardless of what side they're on.
What exactly do you mean about Correia maintaining ties with Vox Day? From those lines and
I cannot purge him... since he isn’t part of my campaign, I’ve got nothing to purge him from.
they certainly don't seem to be confederates. The parts you bolded pointedly state the opposite, in fact.
That's how his stance reads with that reaction to Gallo. Butcher speaking out loudly about her was a rare event in itself about the Sad Puppies, while his typical response was posted upthread when confronted with their politics or politics in general about the Hugo's, as if the publishing industry neither has politics in it or bigger factors in politics don't effect the industry, as if people who write and read novels exist in a bubble outside political matters (which in itself has been used by the Sad Puppies since they consider themselves "neutral" politics wise and those damn SJW's ruined the industry by bringing politics into it). His first focus was on tone policing, rather than analysis the facts on the merits and acting like when authors write things on the internet it's completely ambiguous with what they mean - which is a bullshit defence.
It's good that he scolded her for being out of line (she was) and that her critics should be ok with her apology, and it'd be fine if that was all he said except it's muddled by the fact he wants to completely ignore the elephant in the room regarding how the Sad Puppies are impacting the Hugo's and their politics both in being severely unsportsmanlike with rules lawyering and acting in bad faith on numerous occasions and being politically offensive with their conspiracy ridden defences and other offensive behaviour which is way out of line both in general and as individuals outside the Hugo's.
He's one of them because he silently accepted their offer to be in the Hugo's, if he thought differently but nope. Not taking a stand in situations like this are a political stand by default. Sometimes not saying anything can be a spotlight on how people really feel about a subject, and while we can't get specifics it's not hard to draw conclusions because we're not operating without any facts. Plus, we have Butcher's history regarding politics to draw upon, too, which tend to line up on the conservative side a lot of the time when he bothers to speak out. He's got into quite a few mini-scandals with this long before the Sad Puppies surfaced. I wasn't kidding about his forum being off-limits for topics like this, either. (Did Butcher erase his forums? They're not appearing on his official site, that's weird.)
Butcher is not a bystander in this, he was kinda screwed as soon as the Puppies asked for him to accept their nomination because he had to answer them and ultimately he unofficially accepted. It's also a weird subject to be neutral about, which I'm sure he has opinions on, he's shown in the past he has deep opinions regarding racism and sexism in his works, what author wouldn't? I'm trying not to get into too much depth with the Puppies or Hugo's since that's off-topic so I'll link to a thread which does go into everything relating to the subject, please read it to understand why many people have a hostile reaction to the Puppies.
His silence while all this was going on is not a good look, because he has no excuse not to know what's happening in his industry unless he was deliberately avoiding the implications of his side.
Another factor is that the Hugo's drew Butcher into the Puppies circle and forged him into being friends and co-workers with their founder, the notorious Larry Correia.
Correia's post was a defence of Vox Day, he thinks he can be completely neutral and not condemn the man or the Rapid Puppies. His outrage comes off as hollow when he absolutely refuses to officially cut all ties with the Rapid's. In fact, the very thought offends him. That's not someone acts when they don't want you on their team. They were perfectly ok being the "good cop" to the Rapid's "bad cop." Note how Butcher is nowhere to be seen on this subject.
If you want to look at Butcher's ambivalence or conspicuous silence and decide he's not an activist ally, fine, you'd be right. Anything more than that is getting into bullshit "if you're not with us, you're against us" territory.
I'm not deciding he's not an ally, Butcher's actions and words do. Ambivalence and/or silence while accepting awards nominated by a faction openly against inclusivity is not a thing which did not go unnoticed in 2016 and he hasn't made any changes openly to convince me otherwise. On the contrary, it seems like he's doubled down on being with the Puppies. It'd be one thing if he was able to stay out of the conflict as a neutral party but that was not how his actions played out with the Hugo's.
Since these short stories are basically the first thing that Butcher has released in the last few years, it's been odd reading. And maybe I'm looking at the text/subtext with a more critical eye than is merited, but some things jump out at me.
Like in Zoo Day:
But there were shrouds over their heads, like a couple of dirty old paper bags that you could kind of see through if you looked hard enough. Baglers weren't really all that dangerous as creeps went. I had a theory about them, that they just fed on the brain energy of people who talked about politics too much, and made them want to talk about politics more, because that's just about all that came out of their mouths. You just watch: First chance they get, baglered people start talking politics.
They were discussing the role of the United States in combating poverty, illiteracy, and terror in Central Africa, and were quite upset about it. They must have been baglered.
The way I read that was 'liberals and their endless droning on about politics!' In a story that's basically about the collective need to help other human beings in distress, that it takes a swipe against people talking about how to best help people suffering elsewhere in the world is a little bemusing.
Or compare how a few characters were described in Day One:
He wore an army-surplus field jacket and had old Desert Storm-style khaki BDUs, and he had a beard that birds could have nested in. There wasn't much grey in it, but his skin was weathered enough to make it difficult to guess his age. Forty?
I looked up at an EMT, a blocky black guy named Lamar. I knew him. He was a solid guy.
She wasn't much of a monster as they went - maybe fire-four in the low heels, a woman of slender build with dark hair. She was of Asian extraction, and her name tag read DR. MIYAMUNE. Behind the thick, dark rims of her glasses, her eyes were absolutely crystalline blue.
Later, we find out that the first guy is called Stan, which is generally a white-person's name. Basically, we have the white guy being described without anything saying "yeah, this guy is probably white" but the black and Asian characters are given big flashing "BTW, MINORITY HERE" signs. In both cases, just knowing the names "Lamar" and "Miyamune" is enough to paint a picture of their skin color, if that's in any way relevant to the story.
These are just minor things. Maybe they don't mean anything. But I notice these things more than I used to.
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
I see one of two things being true here:
1) Butcher doesn't have the nasty opinions and perspective but isn't willing to go to war with assholes to prove his bonifides. The Left is extremely fast to throw its allies into traffic at the slightest violation, so this is an understandable position to take.
2) Butcher does have asshole positions/opinions, which he does not share or act on. This is how I wish all assholes acted, so continue being this way if so.
The effort to ferret out whether his personal opinions are exactly what you'd want or not seems completely self defeating.
I see one of two things being true here:
1) Butcher doesn't have the nasty opinions and perspective but isn't willing to go to war with assholes to prove his bonifides. The Left is extremely fast to throw its allies into traffic at the slightest violation, so this is an understandable position to take.
2) Butcher does have asshole positions/opinions, which he does not share or act on. This is how I wish all assholes acted, so continue being this way if so.
The effort to ferret out whether his personal opinions are exactly what you'd want or not seems completely self defeating.
Unless Butcher decides to air out his full opinions in public, yeah, it'd be stupid to think we have any confirmation on things. However, we can draw on assumptions based on what he has actually said and infer his intentions by what he doesn't say with reasonable situations.
But yeah, at least if he is an asshole he's certainly one of the better ones in being professional about it. He definitely hasn't got any competition in being the "best" Puppy, though that's a low bar to clear.
edit: For clarity on this, being against the Puppies isn't about them being conservative - that's a bullshit charge they use to defang their critics. No, the actual problem are the Sad Puppies themselves who have a history of acting in bad faith, and a noted history with sexists and racists in their ranks. RE: Torgerson, Wright, Hoyt etc. There are conservatives within the industry who aren't Sad Puppies and who win Hugo's. That's a big reason why their argument is false.
I see one of two things being true here:
1) Butcher doesn't have the nasty opinions and perspective but isn't willing to go to war with assholes to prove his bonifides. The Left is extremely fast to throw its allies into traffic at the slightest violation, so this is an understandable position to take.
2) Butcher does have asshole positions/opinions, which he does not share or act on. This is how I wish all assholes acted, so continue being this way if so.
The effort to ferret out whether his personal opinions are exactly what you'd want or not seems completely self defeating.
Unless Butcher decides to air out his full opinions in public, yeah, it'd be stupid to think we have any confirmation on things. However, we can draw on assumptions based on what he has actually said and infer his intentions by what he doesn't say with reasonable situations.
But yeah, at least if he is an asshole he's certainly one of the better ones in being professional about it. He definitely hasn't got any competition in being the "best" Puppy, though that's a low bar to clear.
Why though?
What does it accomplish to ruminate on his possible politics with no possible way to be sure? I guess just an urge to gossip?
I see one of two things being true here:
1) Butcher doesn't have the nasty opinions and perspective but isn't willing to go to war with assholes to prove his bonifides. The Left is extremely fast to throw its allies into traffic at the slightest violation, so this is an understandable position to take.
2) Butcher does have asshole positions/opinions, which he does not share or act on. This is how I wish all assholes acted, so continue being this way if so.
The effort to ferret out whether his personal opinions are exactly what you'd want or not seems completely self defeating.
Unless Butcher decides to air out his full opinions in public, yeah, it'd be stupid to think we have any confirmation on things. However, we can draw on assumptions based on what he has actually said and infer his intentions by what he doesn't say with reasonable situations.
But yeah, at least if he is an asshole he's certainly one of the better ones in being professional about it. He definitely hasn't got any competition in being the "best" Puppy, though that's a low bar to clear.
Why though?
What does it accomplish to ruminate on his possible politics with no possible way to be sure? I guess just an urge to gossip?
because personally, i don't want to support anyone that is even vaugely encouraging right wing behavior through inaction.
But there were shrouds over their heads, like a couple of dirty old paper bags that you could kind of see through if you looked hard enough. Baglers weren't really all that dangerous as creeps went. I had a theory about them, that they just fed on the brain energy of people who talked about politics too much, and made them want to talk about politics more, because that's just about all that came out of their mouths. You just watch: First chance they get, baglered people start talking politics.
They were discussing the role of the United States in combating poverty, illiteracy, and terror in Central Africa, and were quite upset about it. They must have been baglered.
The way I read that was 'liberals and their endless droning on about politics!' In a story that's basically about the collective need to help other human beings in distress, that it takes a swipe against people talking about how to best help people suffering elsewhere in the world is a little bemusing.
Ok, that sounds kinda weird.
And stupid.
We need people talking more about politics, people ignoring politics is how we largely got into the mess we're in with US politics.
Expecting authors to be on the cutting edge of progressive ideology is dumb. If that’s the standard for stuff you’ll read, I’m sorry to say but you’re cutting out about 99.9999999999% of everything ever written.
Including pretty much all the good stuff. Everyone’s got issues, the sooner we recognize that and stop obsessing over our artists being paragons of perfection the better.
I see one of two things being true here:
1) Butcher doesn't have the nasty opinions and perspective but isn't willing to go to war with assholes to prove his bonifides. The Left is extremely fast to throw its allies into traffic at the slightest violation, so this is an understandable position to take.
2) Butcher does have asshole positions/opinions, which he does not share or act on. This is how I wish all assholes acted, so continue being this way if so.
The effort to ferret out whether his personal opinions are exactly what you'd want or not seems completely self defeating.
Unless Butcher decides to air out his full opinions in public, yeah, it'd be stupid to think we have any confirmation on things. However, we can draw on assumptions based on what he has actually said and infer his intentions by what he doesn't say with reasonable situations.
But yeah, at least if he is an asshole he's certainly one of the better ones in being professional about it. He definitely hasn't got any competition in being the "best" Puppy, though that's a low bar to clear.
Why though?
What does it accomplish to ruminate on his possible politics with no possible way to be sure? I guess just an urge to gossip?
because personally, i don't want to support anyone that is even vaugely encouraging right wing behavior through inaction.
dangerous times.
I think it comes down to are purity test mandatory in this day and age? And at what point are they witch hunts and hearings before the liberal court of unAmerican activities?
I will stick with the idea that those who stay out of it are expressing their right to have private political opinions which is the more traditional way of things anyway. Just because we are in the day and age of the bullhorn of twitter doesn't mean one has to be that way.
In the end it is a personal decision for you to make on your purchasing but I am never a fan of an inquisition on assumptions.
Expecting working authors to enrage a not-insubstantial portion of their paying customers in order to show you that they share your politics is, I think, a silly thing.
This is exactly the "you're either with us or against us" thing we were talking about before.
I see one of two things being true here:
1) Butcher doesn't have the nasty opinions and perspective but isn't willing to go to war with assholes to prove his bonifides. The Left is extremely fast to throw its allies into traffic at the slightest violation, so this is an understandable position to take.
2) Butcher does have asshole positions/opinions, which he does not share or act on. This is how I wish all assholes acted, so continue being this way if so.
The effort to ferret out whether his personal opinions are exactly what you'd want or not seems completely self defeating.
Unless Butcher decides to air out his full opinions in public, yeah, it'd be stupid to think we have any confirmation on things. However, we can draw on assumptions based on what he has actually said and infer his intentions by what he doesn't say with reasonable situations.
But yeah, at least if he is an asshole he's certainly one of the better ones in being professional about it. He definitely hasn't got any competition in being the "best" Puppy, though that's a low bar to clear.
Why though?
What does it accomplish to ruminate on his possible politics with no possible way to be sure? I guess just an urge to gossip?
because personally, i don't want to support anyone that is even vaugely encouraging right wing behavior through inaction.
dangerous times.
Okay but that's actually a witch hunt though.
Are you on the right wing? No.
Okay, but are you on my side? I'd like to think so.
Are you angry ENOUGH at the other side? Have you made professional sacrifices to make it clear you hate them? No, I haven't done that.
THEN YOU ARE RIGHT WING AFTER ALL.
Butcher is in the business of selling books. Not actively preventing people from giving him awards that could possibly lead to better book sales is a hell of a standard to try to force him to live up to. If he says something awful or if the content of his work is bad, that's a reason to give up on him, I'd say. The Puppies group is bad for sure but his works (which don't agree with their politics in many ways) benefiting from their actions isn't his fault. And this isn't like he's benefiting from ICE or something. They want books to be written a certain way... and he is not writing them that way. That to me says he is not one of them more than any random tweet could.
Expecting authors to be on the cutting edge of progressive ideology is dumb. If that’s the standard for stuff you’ll read, I’m sorry to say but you’re cutting out about 99.9999999999% of everything ever written.
Including pretty much all the good stuff. Everyone’s got issues, the sooner we recognize that and stop obsessing over our artists being paragons of perfection the better.
I think there's a pretty big difference between "cutting edge of progressive ideology" and "actively supporting people you think are awful." I sure hope he isn't in that latter camp but as people have said, there's no real way for us to know at this point.
I've only read the first story in this so far, but I enjoyed it. Neat little western thing.
Expecting authors to be on the cutting edge of progressive ideology is dumb. If that’s the standard for stuff you’ll read, I’m sorry to say but you’re cutting out about 99.9999999999% of everything ever written.
Including pretty much all the good stuff. Everyone’s got issues, the sooner we recognize that and stop obsessing over our artists being paragons of perfection the better.
I think there's a pretty big difference between "cutting edge of progressive ideology" and "actively supporting people you think are awful." I sure hope he isn't in that latter camp but as people have said, there's no real way for us to know at this point.
I've only read the first story in this so far, but I enjoyed it. Neat little western thing.
I think, by definition, if it were active we wouldn't be talking about ambiguity.
Expecting working authors to enrage a not-insubstantial portion of their paying customers in order to show you that they share your politics is, I think, a silly thing.
This is exactly the "you're either with us or against us" thing we were talking about before.
i don't expect them to do anything.
i choose to spend my very limited money this way, they are allowed to do whatever they want.
edit: also, is it a witch hunt when on the other side there are actual nazis? this is not a difference of opinion about the 5 cent titanium tax not going too far enough.
Whether Butcher holds alt-right views or not, and whether he feels strongly enough about whatever opinions he has that he's willing to sacrifice sales over it, he may just not feel like arguing on Twitter is a valuable use of his time. Aside from validating the feelings of some of your followers I don't think a political Twitter fight has ever had any positive outcome for anyone.
Expecting authors to be on the cutting edge of progressive ideology is dumb. If that’s the standard for stuff you’ll read, I’m sorry to say but you’re cutting out about 99.9999999999% of everything ever written.
Including pretty much all the good stuff. Everyone’s got issues, the sooner we recognize that and stop obsessing over our artists being paragons of perfection the better.
I think there's a pretty big difference between "cutting edge of progressive ideology" and "actively supporting people you think are awful." I sure hope he isn't in that latter camp but as people have said, there's no real way for us to know at this point.
.
I’ve found there’s not much room these days between the two positions you posted. We’re all on an Angsty Anakin kick. If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy!
Expecting working authors to enrage a not-insubstantial portion of their paying customers in order to show you that they share your politics is, I think, a silly thing.
This is exactly the "you're either with us or against us" thing we were talking about before.
i don't expect them to do anything.
i choose to spend my very limited money this way, they are allowed to do whatever they want.
edit: also, is it a witch hunt when on the other side there are actual nazis? this is not a difference of opinion about the 5 cent titanium tax not going too far enough.
yes it is still a witch hunt
the people hunting the witches at the time didn't exactly have a worse thing to accuse people of being
Expecting working authors to enrage a not-insubstantial portion of their paying customers in order to show you that they share your politics is, I think, a silly thing.
This is exactly the "you're either with us or against us" thing we were talking about before.
i don't expect them to do anything.
i choose to spend my very limited money this way, they are allowed to do whatever they want.
edit: also, is it a witch hunt when on the other side there are actual nazis? this is not a difference of opinion about the 5 cent titanium tax not going too far enough.
yes it is still a witch hunt
the people hunting the witches at the time didn't exactly have a worse thing to accuse people of being
witch hunts weren't hunting actual witches. that's sort of the thing.
When it came time for fellow writers to support the women and minority nominees who were being actively harassed and threatened for writing fiction awesome enough to get nominated for a Hugo, the vast majority of the SF/Fantasy community of authors loudly and proudly stood up in solidarity with them. It was pretty awesome to see so many writers I liked do the right thing and reject the hatred festering in their community.
Except Butcher. He kept quiet and let his works be a standard that the harassers marched under. That's nothing to celebrate, even if he's not personally a believer in their politics.
Whether Butcher holds alt-right views or not, and whether he feels strongly enough about whatever opinions he has that he's willing to sacrifice sales over it, he may just not feel like arguing on Twitter is a valuable use of his time. Aside from validating the feelings of some of your followers I don't think a political Twitter fight has ever had any positive outcome for anyone.
Hah, if there's one guy who loves to get into screaming all caps internet fights, it's Jim Butcher. We got the Codex Alera series out of one.
Posts
i guess it doesn't matter because no more books will ever come out at this rate, but that really takes all the wind out of the sails of my relistening to the audiobooks.
What. That's just a phrase that comes up in discussing security... don't tell me it's yet another phrase poisoned...
I'm not too concerned about Butcher's stance on women after The Aeronaut's Windlass though. Much better than early Dresden books in that regard.
What is the status on his writing anyways? He'd nearly stopped for life issues or something wasn't it?
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It gained popularity as a response to an Anita Sarkeesian slide at one of her presentations that said “listen and believe”, referring to not automatically dismissing people when they come forward with stories of harassment (sort of a #MeToo precursor). GG decided that it meant us crazy SJWs think people should blindly believe everything they’re told, and started using “trust but verify” as a slogan for how rational and discerning they were.
Actually, if he completely dropped Dresden Files and wrote more books for the Cinder Spires instead, i would not complain.
That said, the book generally had men being the more reasonable people (apart from the mother of one of the characters) needing to explain things to the women, and teach them about the world (also, two of the major villains, and definitely the biggest monster of the book, were women).
Not saying the book or the characters (well, some of the characters) are sexist, but you could easily nitpick about some stuff in it, and it could develop into either direction.
Probably for the better though, assuming it follows the trajectory main DF books have taken (i have not read/listened any of the short stories, comic books or audio only stuff).
Though I don’t think he is that far gone, he hasn’t helped his case by post-Sad Puppies becoming a friend and ally to Correia, including professionally. IIRC he’s getting a story published in a monster hunter collection edited by Correia himself.
Before all this he did have trouble on Twitter and other places when he got asked and attached for not being inclusive and seemed to have doubled down and/or ignored everything political about his works - thus may be why such topics are verboten on his official website.
Would I be surprised if Butcher was conservative? No. Nor would I hold ill will over his politics, I’m a fan of various conservatives RE: Kelsey Grammar, Bruce Willis etc.
However, the Sad Puppies are really a group everyone should avoid being friendly with because they go beyond the pale so far even other conservatives steer clear of. That’s why it’s so disappointing to see him remain friends with them post-Hugo’s.
Overall Butcher’s decision to keep out if politics has helped his career by being neutral - until the Sad Puppies forced him to make a choice and every choice he made he sided with them and had refused to disassociate with the group to this day. He may not have shouted it from the roof tops but with politics like this he doesn’t have to. His silence is damning in this case.
edit: Here's the Monster Hunter Files anthology Butcher had a story in.
https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Outta-Tombstone-David-Boop/dp/1481483498/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529312302&sr=1-2&keywords=monster+hunter+files+anthology
He could also be "votes straight Republican, always" conservative, which would be disappointing.
Trust but verify is a term constantly used in professional accounting for methodology. Shit heels cannot have it.
I tried to find the original post and couldn’t. It was along the lines of “if you go around pushing people, you shouldn’t be too surprised when they push back.” It was at the very least “both sides”-ism, and seemed to agree with the general Puppies tenet that the left had taken control of the sci-fi/fantasy community.
I did find a couple other things though. There was a somewhat well known incident where an employee of TOR, Irene Gallo, called both puppy groups “racist”, “misogynistic”, “homophobic” “neo-Nazis”. The right erupted with self-righteous indignation over it, and she was forced to apologize. Here is an article pointing out Butcher taking the Puppies’ side. And here is a comment on a right wing blog where he defended her apology as being sincere, while still making it clear that her original statement was “out of line”.
Edit: found it.
Your descriptions don't match what Butcher actually says in those links.
E: In the first link, all he's saying is that Gallo is wildly misrepresenting the Puppies and it's very unprofessional to say what she said at the same time as she's representing her employer. Regardless of whether he's right, it doesn't imply any support for the group on his part. In the second link, he's saying that everybody should do the decent thing and just take Gallo's apology at face value even though it's hard to truly know whether it's sincere. The third link, the tweet, is the easiest one to read antagonism into, but it's also the shortest and vaguest. I have serious doubts about the possibility of deriving the man's political views from it, particularly having just read that second link where he spends five times as many words talking about... well, I'll just copy-paste it
This is "Both Siding." Butcher's never commented or talked about the toxic activities and behaviour the Sad Puppies and the Rapids did. Every time I've seen someone bring this up on twitter he's dismissed the issue then bounced.
Was Gallo out of line calling all Sad Puppies Nazis? Sure. Except he's distracting the issue with tone policing to avoid the elephant in the room. Tone only goes so far when his pals say this
Correia refusing to break ties with Vox Day.
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/16/im-not-vox-day/
The Sad Puppies campaign doesn’t endorse anybody’s politics. Our slate had people from everything, left, right, middle, and question mark. We only cared if the works were good.
I personally do not agree with Vox on a wide variety of topics.
I do not speak for him.
I do not control him.
He does what he wants.
We have argued about this topic. You know the situation has gotten weird when I’m the voice of moderation.
I cannot disown what I do not own.
I neither condone nor defend any of his public statements. I did not make them.
Of course I do not like some of the things he has said.
Do you think the existence of Rabid Puppies has somehow made my life easier?
I’m not going to burn anyone in effigy. Stop asking.
I’m not going to condemn anyone by association. Stop asking.
Sarah Hoyt, a previous runner of Sad Puppies, defended Roseanne's racist tweet that got her show cancelled.
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2018/tle976-20180603-03.html
She’s not wrong. Jarret doesn’t have particularly simian features, at least to my eyes, but her eyes have that curious flat, “odd” look of the actors in planet of the apes. I don’t know why. I mean, I know why in the actors. The makeup creates a certain immobility that gives the eyes a fixed stare. I don’t know why in Jarret. Botox, maybe? As for the Muslim brotherhood, that’s harder to defend. We know Jarret has family ties to it, but what does the Muslim brotherhood look like? Perhaps really angry? Which Jarret tends to look. Like she’s barely keeping from yelling at you.
So?
There's more, but you get the idea.
'Trust, but verify.' started trending back when Reagan busted it out when talking about various negotiations with the USSR. Butcher is of the age where that would probably have been where he picked it up.
Language and concepts actually did exist before internet garbage people started using them. Just because said garbage people picked up on them doesn't mean that anyone using them is part of that group.
Neither I nor Butcher ever said both sides are the same. It's possible to take issue with what one side is doing and still not support the other. It's sloppy thinking to hear Butcher say "they're not nazis, they're not seeking to end social justice in literature, and it's unprofessional to say those things while acting on behalf of your employer" and assume that since he's saying something negative about Gallo, he must be one of them. Particularly given the addendum where he says "you assholes making snide remarks about her sexuality/personal life/etc--get fucked. Put up an argument with something to back it up or go back to playing video games in your parents' basement." I get the impression he's just pissed off at people breaking standards of debate and courtesy regardless of what side they're on.
What exactly do you mean about Correia maintaining ties with Vox Day? From those lines and they certainly don't seem to be confederates. The parts you bolded pointedly state the opposite, in fact.
If you want to look at Butcher's ambivalence or conspicuous silence and decide he's not an activist ally, fine, you'd be right. Anything more than that is getting into bullshit "if you're not with us, you're against us" territory.
Reading Molly's struggles with retaining her humanity is what makes the transition feel real. And I'm confidence in saying that in the future Molly and Dresden will be at odds when Molly is forced to follow Winter Law and Dresden refuses to do so. This story clearly shows why Molly *CANNOT* refuse to follow Winter Law.
As for Carlos Ramirez's "Galahad" thing, Dresden calls him Galahad because he acts like a knight, not out of any deeper meaning. And in this case, we see how the power of the Winter Maiden can corrupt a knight.
I only have two more stories to go until I finish the collection, but I'm finding it rather enjoyable overall.
"Pretty decent, but published SUPER regularly"
Then I can recommend Jonathon Moeller and all his current series. He writes as if words are about to be confiscated by the government. 300 page book every month or so. His book COVERS are the most atrocious pseudo sexist nonsense you've ever seen (although, I think that may MAINLY be because he's terrible at art but knows a few models who are willing to let him use photos of them in costumes as his covers), but his actually books have a very pleasant blend of female leads or strong female characters, and lots of good pulpy dresden files style action scenes. I go back and forth between him secretly being some kind of AI bot who writes pulp literature automatically, a secret front for a group of female authors who want to avoid abuse, or secretly a horrible alt right monster (because it seems everyone is these days) but there's certainly no shortage of content!
As for Carlos, a supposed smooth talking assured bravado dude, I assumed his being a virgin would have story hooks somewhere. And I felt like this was a missed opportunity to make good on that hook
Edit: on rereading your post I am unsure if you missed/forgot but Dresden calls Carlos Galahad because Galahad was the chaste/pure knight
What do people think of Zoo Day?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Edit: So, I just finished it. I liked it. I liked that each viewpoint gave a bit more info than the last. It was a fun read.
That's how his stance reads with that reaction to Gallo. Butcher speaking out loudly about her was a rare event in itself about the Sad Puppies, while his typical response was posted upthread when confronted with their politics or politics in general about the Hugo's, as if the publishing industry neither has politics in it or bigger factors in politics don't effect the industry, as if people who write and read novels exist in a bubble outside political matters (which in itself has been used by the Sad Puppies since they consider themselves "neutral" politics wise and those damn SJW's ruined the industry by bringing politics into it). His first focus was on tone policing, rather than analysis the facts on the merits and acting like when authors write things on the internet it's completely ambiguous with what they mean - which is a bullshit defence.
It's good that he scolded her for being out of line (she was) and that her critics should be ok with her apology, and it'd be fine if that was all he said except it's muddled by the fact he wants to completely ignore the elephant in the room regarding how the Sad Puppies are impacting the Hugo's and their politics both in being severely unsportsmanlike with rules lawyering and acting in bad faith on numerous occasions and being politically offensive with their conspiracy ridden defences and other offensive behaviour which is way out of line both in general and as individuals outside the Hugo's.
He's one of them because he silently accepted their offer to be in the Hugo's, if he thought differently but nope. Not taking a stand in situations like this are a political stand by default. Sometimes not saying anything can be a spotlight on how people really feel about a subject, and while we can't get specifics it's not hard to draw conclusions because we're not operating without any facts. Plus, we have Butcher's history regarding politics to draw upon, too, which tend to line up on the conservative side a lot of the time when he bothers to speak out. He's got into quite a few mini-scandals with this long before the Sad Puppies surfaced. I wasn't kidding about his forum being off-limits for topics like this, either. (Did Butcher erase his forums? They're not appearing on his official site, that's weird.)
Butcher is not a bystander in this, he was kinda screwed as soon as the Puppies asked for him to accept their nomination because he had to answer them and ultimately he unofficially accepted. It's also a weird subject to be neutral about, which I'm sure he has opinions on, he's shown in the past he has deep opinions regarding racism and sexism in his works, what author wouldn't? I'm trying not to get into too much depth with the Puppies or Hugo's since that's off-topic so I'll link to a thread which does go into everything relating to the subject, please read it to understand why many people have a hostile reaction to the Puppies.
https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/197848/the-hugo-awards-2016-and-beyond/p1
His silence while all this was going on is not a good look, because he has no excuse not to know what's happening in his industry unless he was deliberately avoiding the implications of his side.
Another factor is that the Hugo's drew Butcher into the Puppies circle and forged him into being friends and co-workers with their founder, the notorious Larry Correia.
Correia's post was a defence of Vox Day, he thinks he can be completely neutral and not condemn the man or the Rapid Puppies. His outrage comes off as hollow when he absolutely refuses to officially cut all ties with the Rapid's. In fact, the very thought offends him. That's not someone acts when they don't want you on their team. They were perfectly ok being the "good cop" to the Rapid's "bad cop." Note how Butcher is nowhere to be seen on this subject.
I'm not deciding he's not an ally, Butcher's actions and words do. Ambivalence and/or silence while accepting awards nominated by a faction openly against inclusivity is not a thing which did not go unnoticed in 2016 and he hasn't made any changes openly to convince me otherwise. On the contrary, it seems like he's doubled down on being with the Puppies. It'd be one thing if he was able to stay out of the conflict as a neutral party but that was not how his actions played out with the Hugo's.
Since these short stories are basically the first thing that Butcher has released in the last few years, it's been odd reading. And maybe I'm looking at the text/subtext with a more critical eye than is merited, but some things jump out at me.
Like in Zoo Day:
The way I read that was 'liberals and their endless droning on about politics!' In a story that's basically about the collective need to help other human beings in distress, that it takes a swipe against people talking about how to best help people suffering elsewhere in the world is a little bemusing.
Or compare how a few characters were described in Day One:
Later, we find out that the first guy is called Stan, which is generally a white-person's name. Basically, we have the white guy being described without anything saying "yeah, this guy is probably white" but the black and Asian characters are given big flashing "BTW, MINORITY HERE" signs. In both cases, just knowing the names "Lamar" and "Miyamune" is enough to paint a picture of their skin color, if that's in any way relevant to the story.
These are just minor things. Maybe they don't mean anything. But I notice these things more than I used to.
1) Butcher doesn't have the nasty opinions and perspective but isn't willing to go to war with assholes to prove his bonifides. The Left is extremely fast to throw its allies into traffic at the slightest violation, so this is an understandable position to take.
2) Butcher does have asshole positions/opinions, which he does not share or act on. This is how I wish all assholes acted, so continue being this way if so.
The effort to ferret out whether his personal opinions are exactly what you'd want or not seems completely self defeating.
Unless Butcher decides to air out his full opinions in public, yeah, it'd be stupid to think we have any confirmation on things. However, we can draw on assumptions based on what he has actually said and infer his intentions by what he doesn't say with reasonable situations.
But yeah, at least if he is an asshole he's certainly one of the better ones in being professional about it. He definitely hasn't got any competition in being the "best" Puppy, though that's a low bar to clear.
edit: For clarity on this, being against the Puppies isn't about them being conservative - that's a bullshit charge they use to defang their critics. No, the actual problem are the Sad Puppies themselves who have a history of acting in bad faith, and a noted history with sexists and racists in their ranks. RE: Torgerson, Wright, Hoyt etc. There are conservatives within the industry who aren't Sad Puppies and who win Hugo's. That's a big reason why their argument is false.
Why though?
What does it accomplish to ruminate on his possible politics with no possible way to be sure? I guess just an urge to gossip?
because personally, i don't want to support anyone that is even vaugely encouraging right wing behavior through inaction.
dangerous times.
And stupid.
We need people talking more about politics, people ignoring politics is how we largely got into the mess we're in with US politics.
Including pretty much all the good stuff. Everyone’s got issues, the sooner we recognize that and stop obsessing over our artists being paragons of perfection the better.
I think it comes down to are purity test mandatory in this day and age? And at what point are they witch hunts and hearings before the liberal court of unAmerican activities?
I will stick with the idea that those who stay out of it are expressing their right to have private political opinions which is the more traditional way of things anyway. Just because we are in the day and age of the bullhorn of twitter doesn't mean one has to be that way.
In the end it is a personal decision for you to make on your purchasing but I am never a fan of an inquisition on assumptions.
This is exactly the "you're either with us or against us" thing we were talking about before.
Okay but that's actually a witch hunt though.
Are you on the right wing? No.
Okay, but are you on my side? I'd like to think so.
Are you angry ENOUGH at the other side? Have you made professional sacrifices to make it clear you hate them? No, I haven't done that.
THEN YOU ARE RIGHT WING AFTER ALL.
Butcher is in the business of selling books. Not actively preventing people from giving him awards that could possibly lead to better book sales is a hell of a standard to try to force him to live up to. If he says something awful or if the content of his work is bad, that's a reason to give up on him, I'd say. The Puppies group is bad for sure but his works (which don't agree with their politics in many ways) benefiting from their actions isn't his fault. And this isn't like he's benefiting from ICE or something. They want books to be written a certain way... and he is not writing them that way. That to me says he is not one of them more than any random tweet could.
I think there's a pretty big difference between "cutting edge of progressive ideology" and "actively supporting people you think are awful." I sure hope he isn't in that latter camp but as people have said, there's no real way for us to know at this point.
I've only read the first story in this so far, but I enjoyed it. Neat little western thing.
I think, by definition, if it were active we wouldn't be talking about ambiguity.
i don't expect them to do anything.
i choose to spend my very limited money this way, they are allowed to do whatever they want.
edit: also, is it a witch hunt when on the other side there are actual nazis? this is not a difference of opinion about the 5 cent titanium tax not going too far enough.
I’ve found there’s not much room these days between the two positions you posted. We’re all on an Angsty Anakin kick. If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy!
yes it is still a witch hunt
the people hunting the witches at the time didn't exactly have a worse thing to accuse people of being
witch hunts weren't hunting actual witches. that's sort of the thing.
we got actual nazis over here.
Except Butcher. He kept quiet and let his works be a standard that the harassers marched under. That's nothing to celebrate, even if he's not personally a believer in their politics.
Hah, if there's one guy who loves to get into screaming all caps internet fights, it's Jim Butcher. We got the Codex Alera series out of one.