818 thoughts on “The Goat Kicks Back”

1. A bit shocking to see all the screenshots in one place. And I know how many things were never captured and deleted later.

   1. Such how Moshe Feder called for us to be “walled out” of science fiction cons and other venues.

      1. If they “No Award” the Puppies out I really think we should talk to the DragonCon people about creating Heinleins or Nortons or, hey, maybe The Shellys.

         Let them shut more and more people out of WorldCon…it’s barely 20% of DragonCon now. A DragonCon based award would have more value in terms of “gets people to read/watch” based on that alone.

         Plus, like 30 years ago I’d know it was worth giving a chance to a Hugo winning novel I’d know that a Shelly winning novel was worth a shot.

         1. Much as I admire RAH, I would endorse naming the awards the Nortons. Norton wrote at a time when nobody knew whether Andre was a boy’s or a girl’s name, her entire body of work was more consistently good* than his, and she did it all while working in a sewer.

            *Debatable assertion, i know, but while she didn’t approach his heights her oeuvre also lacked his lows.

            1. I threw more than one name out for a reason.

               Personally, I like the Shellys so we could ask them why they force black women to accept an award named after a Patriarchy white racist man while we give them awards named after an early feminist.

               While I might give you Norton has a more even output in terms of quality the flip side is she wasn’t the most daring writer either. Also, I’m not sure enough SJWs know her name to hate while they certainly would Heinlein.

               1. I grant you that RAH was far the more influential writer (second in the genre only to John Campbell and far ahead of whoever is third) and the one most likely to outrage the professionally outraged. I suspect there is an ethical problem with appropriating a recently dead author’s name under such circumstances (not that i think RAH would object) which would apply, as well, with Norton.

                  OTOH, I fear that by using the Shelleys (I presume that’s the author you meant) we might be creating a monster beyond our ability to control.

                  Perhaps we could lift one of Heinlein’s characters and name the awards the Longs (okay – that’s a family name; call the awards the Lazaruses … Lazari? Lazurini?) or the Valentines? Perhaps we could use one of his writer characters and name the award the Harshaws or the Hazels.

                  1. pan=galactic solipsism award

                  2. You consider RAH recently dead? Are you, yourself, a member of the Long family? 🙂

                     Fair enough. And yes, I meant Shelley and I see what you did there. I also thought of the Verne or the Wells. The latter could be a cylinder at an angle with a screw-off top.

                     If we’re going by characters the Frankenstein is out there and does make me smile on the many varied interpretations. Given the downlist suggestion, how about the Prefect or the Bebblebrox?

                     Or, if we’re going to try and convince the Dragoncon board to do it there as I suggested, how about the Dragon or Dragonrider.

                     The nominees could be candidates and all the winners could be the Weyr.

                     1. Shelly is more “horror” to me. Norton is more “SF”.

                        1. If we could name it for living writers, I’d vote for the Bujold or the Lois.
                           Her Vorkosigan Saga is one of the allHow about the Bujold or the Lois? She is a woman, got four Hugos for best novel (as many as RAH), a single mother (of now grown children), is vaguely liberal but does not let messaging get in the way of the story, and… is published by the eeeeeevil Baen.

                           1. Sorry, mis-clicked while correcting sentence 😦

                  3. The Hazel Stone Award. Maybe the Adam Selene Award. (Call those “the Mikes.”)

                     I read Andre Norton in junior high school. Didn’t know she was a she. I just read all the books I could find.

                     1. I read Andre Norton at a young age too but only because I’d read all the other science fiction books in the unincorporated small town’s library. All of ’em, juvenile and adult. I considered Norton’s writing strangely lame.

                        1. Like far too many writers, she had an “early” and a “late” period. When she went from science fiction to witches and cats I lost interest. She tried a few more “SF” later, but they were completely forgettable.

                           Overall, I think Norton’s work has held up better over time than Heinlein’s. I think a large part of it is that Norton’s stories had more worldbuilding and Heinlein’s had more characters. Which wouldn’t be too bad, except I find a lot of Heinlein’s characters easy to dislike, and they keep getting in the way when I’m trying to read a story.

                           I know that’s probably anathema in the modern world of the character-driven novel, but I view the character as an adjunct to telling the story, not vice versa. I DON’T CARE about the character’s tragic backstory, their emotional traumas, or their inconsequential stream of consciousness. GET OUT OF MY STORY! I’m tryin’ to read a book here, I don’t want to mind-meld with a bunch of imaginary people who keep getting in the way…

                           1. PFUI. I like his characters. Meh.

                     2. I like The Heinlein. But The Hazel would be good too.

                     3. The Verne. Or, if we can get an awarding convention in Baltimore, the Barbicane, after the celebrated Gun Club.

            2. I like that. And she wrote both more fantasy-flavord works and sci-fi-flavored works, so it covers all of SFF.

               1. c4c

                  1. Norton was my favorite writer in the 60/70’s in part for the breadth of her output.

                     1. I grew up on Norton even more than Heinlein. She wrote more books. 🙂 I once tried to collect everything she wrote in at least paperback… and came close.

                        1. I have every Witch World book in paperback, except the coauthored ones. Only a few non-Witchworld ones, though.

                           1. Wasn’t a series of hers (the Beastmaster books, I think) adapted as a TV series (syndicated?) or movie … annnnnd yes! IMBd says three seasons, and various movies!

                              http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0215392/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_1
                              “In this spinoff of the various movies, Dar, the Beastmaster and last survivor of his tribe, wanders the ancient lands, seeking out his beloved Kira, defending the animals he controls, and pitting his might against various sorcerers and tyrants.”

                              66 episodes, 1999 – 2002. Sci-Fi Channel, so probably very low budget, of a sort to make Dr. Who look posh. Don’t recall as I ever saw it, although I may have tuned through it at some point.

                           2. Oh Noes! Is on Youtube!

                              Trailer for 1982 film, but there seem to be whole episodes from the Sci-Fi Channel series.

                              At least the movie offers Rip Torn and John Amos.

                              My eyes, my eyes … NSFW or anyplace where viewer at risk of injury from falling out of chair laughings. You tend to never appreciate the quality of a Xena or Kevin Sorbos delicate nuance until you see something like this.

                           3. I remember hearing that Andre Norton insisted that her name be taken off of the first Beastmaster movie. Her Beast Master books are nothing like those movies or the TV series.

                           4. Well they kept the same animals and turned it into a fantasy.

                           5. I think some of her SF is among her best. Dread Companion, Ice Crown. . . .

                           6. I loved Star Guard and Star Rangers.

                           7. I’ve come to despise the Norton’s “coauthored” books. There were a couple with Lackey and Edghill that were ok but those were new worlds. The ones that tried to extend Norton’s own work were drek. “Redline the Stars” is a stunning example of a “Mary Sue” destroying a series.

               2. Two votes for Nortons then.

                  What will be the form of the statue? How about a stone megalith a la the Siege Perilous in Witch World? It would be stylized to be rough on one side but smooth on the other calling out the Monolith of Oddessy.

                  1. Solar Queen… okay, it’s a bit too close, another traditional rocketship, but would be nice.

                     1. Or was it really described in the series? It’s been quite a while, and I have this image of that upright standing rocket, but if not (memory may be due to cover picture, not what’s in the novel) could design a different looking ship.

                  2. Perhaps a Jargoon Pard?

                     1. The “Jubal” the “Harshaw” or the combined “Jubal Harshaw”.

                        1. Perhaps naming awards according to a general theme with specifically named awards for individual honors.

                           The “Hazel Stone” award for Best SF Novel.

                           The “Jubal Harshaw” for Editor of the Year.

                           The “Lazarus Long” for Outstanding Series.

                           The “Oscar” “Empress Star” for Best Fantasy Novel.

                           And so on …

            3. Isn’t/wasn’t there already a (possibly short-lived) award named for her?

               (Incidentally, I started reading Norton’s work in the late 1950’s, when you could still count all her books with out taking both shoes off. *I* knew she was a woman even then, and all my high school friends, at least those who had heard of “Andre Norton”, knew too.)

               1. There was a member of the Blackhawks named Andre — a rakish Frenchman with a dashing mustache — so there was ample room for concluding otherwise.

                  But of course, back in the 50s & 60s nobody cared whether the writer sat or stood to pee, all that mattered was a ripping yarn with engaging characters.

                  Nowadays it is inverted: nobody cares if it is a ripping yarn with engaging characters (well, in fairness to our opponents, they probably do care: it constitutes a mark against the work), what matters is whether the author carries minority card.

                  1. Andre was awesome. He was the only Blackhawk who could fly his Grumman Skyrocket with both hands held over his head!

                     1. Old joke:

                        Mario: It takes-a the real man to drive in Rome!

                        Andre: What do you mean?

                        Mario: In Rome a real man uses his right hand to sound’a his horn and with his left-a hand he pinches alla de ladeeze as he-a goes by!*

                        Andre: What!? how does he steer the car?

                        Mario: It takes-a the real man to drive in Rome!

                        *Sorry for dialect; been watching later episodes of ‘Allo ‘Allo recently.

               2. I started in the mid-60’s and perhaps not with her first book, but I soon was aware she was a woman. I assumed it was a pen name so people would think she was a man. Of course, I was also influenced by the Walter/Wendy Carlos bru-ha-ha at Columbia Masterworks Records, so the idea that a woman could be forced to use a male name wasn’t specific to SF only.
                  For the record, I thought she was a damn good writer and like RES while her work was never ‘great’ it also was never ‘bad’ and it was *always* entertaining (but I guess now days the SJWs want uplifting not entertaining).

                  1. What’s uplifting about their dystopic muck?

                     1. *their* version of uplifting. YMMV

               3. Pikers. I was reading them for over a decade before I realized that Andre was a boy’s name.

               4. Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy is still given by SFWA. It’s taken.

                  1. Howabout some recognition for an author whose career spanned the field from its inception to the end of its first century, an author who cut his teeth on space opera and yet was the first to warn of the stifling effects of an oppressive nanny state? First published in 1928 (bought by Gernsback) he was still writing award-winning SF in 2002.

                     Ladies & Gents, I propose the Williamsons!

                     You don’t know Jack.
                     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Williamson

            4. There’s already a Norton. One wants to avoid confusion.

               1. It’s for best SF for young folks.

               2. Then I’m back to pimping Shellys. You could even do a statute of the monster.

                  1. Except that for most of us, our image of the monster is primarily from the movies (particularly Boris Karloff’s interpretation) than the book.

                     1. Or Heinlein… how about a copy of Lady Vivamus? 🙂

                        1. A GOOD quality copy.

                           1. Oh hell, why not call it Lady Vivamus too. The motto is very good. And who wouldn’t want a good sword. (Really?)

                           2. There WAS a good copy of the Lady Vivamus. It was a limited edition, 100 pieces. Barstock high-carbon and meticulously forged and sharpened. Albion swords, currently selling online for about $3,700. Not exactly a plastic rocketship.

                           3. Yes… wouldn’t something like that make a lovely trophy? Much better than a plastic rocketship (I know, I know, too expensive, but one can dream).

                           4. Now that’s motivation. Plastic rocket? phooey

                  2. Hugo Gernsback was an editor, right?

                     So I nominate a certain deceased editor whom we all honor: let’s call the new award the Jims.

                     1. How about the Greenbergs, then?

            5. Sewer? I thought she was a librarian.

               1. Probably confused her with Ed Norton……..

            6. Andre Norton was a librarian in Cleveland, and was loved by publishers once she got started. Hardly a sewer.

               1. Sigh. When you gotta ‘splain a joke …

                  
                  The sewer bit was a reference to Art Carney’s Honeymooners character, Ed Norton.

                  Although given what we have learned about publishing over the years …

            7. There were over 70,000 people at DragonCon last year (63,000 weekend passes, plus probably over 10,000 Saturday passes). And what for Worldcon, 5,000? So closer to 7%/ Plus DragonCon has a whole weekend of activities to engage in.

         2. Or you could just call it the “SF/F Fan awards” and have the statue be a troll.

            1. The problem with that is that it’s adhering to George R.R. Martin’s suggestions for apartheid — they get to have the Hugo and we get to have the Whatever, and they will go on claiming to be the Fan award while we’re the conservative award. Conservative, white, straight, male award, no doubt.

               1. That’s why I’ve said more than once that we need to frame this as Fun vs Unfun or something that has nothing to do with political divides. While they exist, and the lines are similar, they’re not hard and fast. I’ve run up against libertarian/conservatives who hate the Sad Puppies, and liberals who agree with us, so I think we’re better off making damn sure people know we don’t care about whether an author is conservative or libertarian or whatever, we want fun stories.

               2. yes, exactly. That lets them have the “prestige” and they’re still the face SF presents to the outside world. F*ck that, pardon my French.
                  Kate — if needed with my help, because Kate is having health issues — is going to rub their pigtails in the mud.

               3. I would rather fight to reclaim the Hugos, but if an alternate is proposed I strongly support making “Total Votes Cast” an element of the publicity.

                  Not that they won’t lie about how many are voting for Hugo.

                  1. Ah … the “Popular” award — thus creating reasonable skepticism about what they mean by “Fans”.

               4. They can say that but that’s why I said do it in association with DragonCon.

                  You know, that small Midwestern city of roughly 50,000 that springs up in Atlanta every year.

                  Sure, the 5-10,000 attendee WorldCon can tell the 50,000 they aren’t fans. Business people, however, will think otherwise.

                  1. “You know, that small Midwestern city of roughly 50,000 that springs up in Atlanta every year.”

                     Sorry Herb, but this Illinois resident had to chuckle at the “small Midwestern city” in Georgia. [Smile]

                     1. Don’t worry, this Georgian did too. 😀

                     2. It is now badthink to call it Dixie. Who knows, the South may yet secede (if you call being shoved out secession.)

                        Amazing what happens with a president who prefers Havana to Houston.

                     3. Fine, small Plains state city.

                        However, put WorldCon anywhere in the Midwest and it’ll still be at best a quarter of DragonCon.

         3. The Writer’s Symposium at GenCon is so big adn popular now, that they could handle that kind of award thing.

   2. Gathering them all together really shows how ugly and suspiciously similar the attacks on the Puppies have really been, doesn’t it?

      1. Single-minded people reading single sources.

2. c4c

   1. c4c

      1. c5c

         1. I call your c5c and raise it to c6c.

            1. Do I hear C7C? C7C? Anyone?

               1. H2SO4

                  1. I have an acid sense of humor sometimes.

                     1. “That bites,” he said, sulphurously.

                        1. I’d suggest some cake, but I’ve heard it’s a lye.

                  2. no thank you. I play with CH3COOH and H3PO4 and the easily pronounced 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid. I don’t have to play with that sulfurous mess.

                     1. Or as Joseph Wambaugh called it, “ethyl-methyl-badshit.”

                        1. I don;t play with much dangerous stuff, but you’d not know that walking in to see me work. Full Tyvek and face shield, but if I got my full face respirator on, you might aught back away. You might get a snoot full of Ammonium Hydroxide or Diethanolamine. 1,2,3,4-BTCA is like Acetic, and stinky in a vinegary way, but not that powerful. Still you’d not want it on you.

                           1. And here I thought I was being unreasonably safety-conscious by moving my ball mill outside when it was running. Well, mostly because it’s freakin’ noisy, though a couple of pounds of black powder deciding to do its thing would be even louder…

                           2. can I interest you in some balls for your mill?
                              Flint and course ground steel? Fun stuff … entertain the neighbor . . . . ing town

                           3. Two fun chemicals:
                              FOOF, and Chlorine trifluoride.

                              Search for things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride.php

                              and: sand_wont_save_you_this_time.php

                           4. Seen those. Gotta love something that reacts will all PPE.

                        2. The worst I played with was MEK. That’s the worst I want to play with, thank you.

                           1. I regularly play with MPK at work. Not my favorite stuff.

                           2. MEK causes cancer if you look at it funny. I’m reluctant to use it for anything.

                  3. “Johnny, Johnny was a chemist.
                     Johnny, Johnny is no more.
                     For what he drank for H2O
                     Was H2SO4.”

                     A rhyme I learned in elementary school in the early ’60s in elementary school.

                     1. Johnny wasn’t a very good chemist.

                        Or drinker. 😛

               2. y26y

                  1. 26C4 your shirt?

3. how anyone can put such limits on Science Fiction of any literature is beyond me. Its intellectually dishonest.
   “There’s no crying in Science Fiction.” (Apologies to Tom Hanks.)

   1. Intellectual dishonesty is what they do.

4. *slow clap*

5. Point of order: “We Are All SF” is an initiative started by Lou Berger, who is sick of all the fighting. No, he does not agree with Sad Puppies (at all), but he is as outraged as you by the heinous acts of the anti-Puppies. His point is that SF is all of these people, Puppies and Kickers and bystanders and people who don’t even know what the fuss is all about, and we should all be able to get together in a convention and enjoy REAL diversity.

   Lou is a very good man, a Superstars Tribe member, and a friend of mine. He funded this effort out of his own pocket (i.e., he ordered a bunch of ribbons). I tried to split the cost with him, but he said it was too small to bother. I intend to wear his ribbon proudly at Sasquan, and to hand them out. Short story nominee Kary English (also my friend) will be wearing one as well, as will plenty of other Superstars.

   Some people (on both sides, to a degree) have behaved very badly and should be avoided. Lou is not one of them. He’s trying to say that there’s room in SF for everyone of good will, and that anyone who disagrees is part of the problem.

   1. I believe that of Lou, but I’m seeing that tag on people who were gleefully kicking us (and still are.)

      1. When the PKC coopt “We Are All Science Fiction” it’s in the same vein as Brianna Wu, who greedily clutches the “light” to her chest and screams, “Me and my friends are the beautiful ones, you don’t get to be beautiful! It’s virtue-greed: being so jealous of one’s self-perception as the “good” that nothing good or pure can ever be allowed to be attributed to the other people. Ever. Only Brianna and others who agree with her are good and pure. Everyone else can get the fuck out. Because that’s how you be “inclusive” in the Peoples Republic of Science Fiction.

         1. Don’t forget that Brianna Wu’s husband has four Hugos, and since they live in a community property, half of those are HERS! It’s PERSONAL!!

            I swear, in all of this, that might just be the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard, and considering the competition, that’s saying something.

            1. Actually she said “My husband has four hugos and I have thoughts” a statement I’m still trying to believe.

               1. I seem to remember her pulling the community property line too. Can’t find it though. Oh well

                  1. Found it.

                     My husband Frank has four Hugo awards. Half of everything he owns is mine.Ergo, Brianna Wu has two Hugo awards.

                     — Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) June 1, 2015

                     1. People who use ergo are pretentious dweebs.

                        By her logic, she has one testicle.

                        Ergo, Bri Wu is a pretentious dweeb.

                        1. I’m hoping her tweet was a joke.

                           And does that mean her husband has an ovary?

                           1. Heck, I’m not even willing to stipulate he has testicles.

                              I share your inclination to deem it a joke, but it is a joke of a particularly revealing sort, eh?

                              And no, he does not have an ovary; for such as Wu I wager the true meaning of Community Property falls along the lines of “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is ours.”

                           2. Also in this case, it’s relevant that she’s trans. There were no ovaries to be had. Perhaps one labia. (labio? Labi?)

                           3. She’s trans? He won Hugos for fan art?

                              I think the fact that somebody like me who has been avidly reading SF/F for over fifty years had no idea of that (nor any interest) establishes the significance of their participation in fandom and the significance of teh Hugo awards nowadays.

                           4. Yeah, but you’re the wrong kind of fan. Duh.

                           5. Frankly, I think I can make a good argument for eliminating the Fan Writer/Artist/Whatever categories, based solely on the fracturing of fan activities into so many little blogs, image boards, and forums on the next. A look through Deviant Art or Danbooru alone should be enough to illustrate that the best fan artists aren’t getting nominated.

                           6. The historic record of the lack of general interest in those awards indicate they are just egoboo for their pets. To assert “nobody cares” who wins those would be to overstate the interest in the awards.

                           7. Also in this case, it’s relevant that she’s trans

                              Ah… I think I did read that in the past. Oh well, I suppose not remembering it is just evidence of my heteronormative white male privilege.

                           8. Randy,

                              There were allegations that Frank Wu had been abusive towards a former wife. Anyone who doesn’t remember hearing that must be a misogynist. 🙂

                           9. No.

                              You misunderstand “community property”.

                              “What’s yours is 1/2 mine. What’s mine is mine. Except your debts, those are all yours.”

                        2. pretentious dweebs, or Europeans from an older generation. In written Dutch, for example, Latin words were still commonly used as late as my high school years. Remember, pretty much every educated person in the generation before had gone to Atheneum or Gymnasium for high school, and all those had sat through years of Latin.

                           1. Mine was the first year they didn’t teach Latin in Portugal, so I had to learn it myself, and it sucks, mostly because I’m not very good at keeping it in shape.

                           2. It’s because there’s no native-to-Latin sf.

                           3. “It’s because there’s no native-to-Latin sf.”

                              But..but..there /should/ be. Hm, I wonder if I have a 1632 character who could fix this….

                           4. “It’s because there’s no native-to-Latin sf.”
                              Counter-example: Thomas More’s Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia certainly qualifies as an early example of the craft.

                           5. Not native but, I think David Drake did a latin SF story in high school.

                        3. Also not a woman either. Never has been, never will be. His chromosomes are XY, not XX.

                     2. Thought so. 🙂

                     3. Hmm… 2 Hugos, or 4 half-rocketships?

                  2. Doesn’t matter — she was his muse, his inspiration. So those are actually her achievements. All he did was put words on paper; he didn’t write that!

                     1. Draw. His Hugos are for Fan artist.

                        1. (sigh of cosmic weariness). I think Freud would have had a field day with those two…

                  3. She said it. I saw it. I laughed.

            2. I wonder what the Hugo committee thinks of Brianna Wu laying claim to her husband’s awards like that?

               1. I’m sure it was a joke. She’s said enough other dumb stuff.

                  1. “Dumb stuff”, no kidding. Joke? That I find more difficult to believe.

                     She doesn’t drink the SJW kool-aid. She has it as an IV feed.

                     1. I thought it was what her marrow produces instead of blood.

                        1. Back when he was Flynt, there are reports of him frightening the newspaper he was stalking. These and other reports are consistent with being seriously messed up. Deciding he was a woman, hence spoke for all women, and was a supreme authority on feminism, speaks more of impairment than politics to me.

                           Most trans people would not dig themselves into such a hole.

                           Most leftists are at least able to function better than that. (At least, such is my desire. Hope might not be the right word.)

            3. I saw his art at Raven Con.

               Meh….I’ve seen much better.

               1. He’s got some on his website.

                  Color me less than impressed.

                  1. Ditto. The were OK, but as Nathan says, there are some really stunning works over at Deviant Art. (And they have cute little bunny rabbit icons for windows/mac)

            4. who is Brianna Wu’s husband?

               1. Frank Wu.

                  1. Well, darn – doesn’t that give me an idea for an insensitive knock-knock joke.

                     Knock, knock.
                     Who’s there?
                     Frank Wu.
                     Wu who?
                     Don’t cry, little girl.

                     Yeah, I denounce myself. Probably not the first person to have thought of it, either.

                  2. You’re wewcome.

         2. I suspect the problem is one of mis-reading (whether inadvertent or willful I could not say; probably a little of both) of the slogan.

            We read that and think it says: We are, each and everyone of us, Science Fiction.

            They read that and think it says: We are the entirety of Science Fiction.

            

            Kinda like those pictorial illusions which ask: maiden or crone.

            1. No, it’s simpler than that: they believe (because they listened to lies), that we are trying to exclude them from science fiction.

               I know, the irony is dripping…

               1. Such as that always remind me of one of my favorite lines from the movie (and book, but the line-reading in the film was delicious): “His ringer spotted our ringer.”

                  1. You missed saying which movie or book. M*A*S*H?

                     1. D’oh! I got distracted by the need to acknowledge the line came from the book (as all the greatest lines in that movie did) and elided the title. Yes, M*A*S*H.

                        I notice that you didn’t really have any doubt about that source. Great lines have that quality: to hear them is to know their source.

                        I am shocked, shocked …

                        Frankly, my dear, …

                        Never go in against a Sicilian …

               2. Want to know what a Progressive is planning? Listen to what they accuse their opponents of planning to do.

                  1. This is so true. The current POTUS is a master of this.

      2. Then they should be mocked and laughed at for not understanding the simple English Word “all”.

         1. I see you have not been properly instructed in Newspeak sensitive language, comrade!

   2. Thanks for clarifying. I’d heard of Berger’s role in publicizing the Antonelli affair, and a cursory glance seemed to indicate that his motives were pure. I’m glad for that.

      Yet well-meant as “We are all SF” may be, it strikes me as redundant and misdirected. There already is a big tent movement in SF where all of goodwill are welcome, and it’s Sad Puppies.

      For those who came in late, SP has been populist and egalitarian from the start. Larry wanted to expose the Hugos’ political bias. Brad wants fandom opened to the new and burgeoning generation of SF fans.

      When you’ve got a movement whose leaders continually call for tearing down walls and expanding the voter base; and a counter-movement who work tirelessly for the first group’s exclusion–often resorting to projection and libel to do so–an initiative aimed at getting both sides to bury the hatchet is effectively a plea to give up the fight for inclusiveness.

      SP’s victory means more diversity. Anti-SP’s victory means that SP gets walled out; therefore less. If greater openness in SF fandom is really the goal, then support the ones who’ve been striving for it over the last three years–or at least don’t hinder us.

      1. No argument about SPs being about making SF/F more inclusive — that’s why the anti-puppies are trying to kick them out. Some folk want to make the pond bigger even if that makes them smaller fish, some would rather achieve big fishdom by making the pond smaller. The cuckoos are in the nest.

         1. Sad, really, that they have so little confidence in the quality of their own work.

            1. At least they got one thing right, then.

      2. We all know that diversity is a code-word and does not mean what it means in their mouths.

         1. How about CISDD (conformity in skin-deep diversity)?

            1. Good heavens, do you WANT to let the cat out of the bag?

   3. Lou may be a very good man, but the SJW’s are not very good people. Their tactic is to subsume any institution or movement than can advance their cause, and then destroy it rather than see it used for purposes other than theirs. I fear Lou is in for sad disappointment.

      1. With pessimism like that, we might as well surrender now. If they have the power to subsume any institution, then next year they’ll subsume Sad Puppies, and it’s game over, man. Game over.

         Or maybe they DON’T have the magical power to subsume any institution they choose. And maybe — just maybe — We Are All SF can withstand their corruptive attempts just as much as Sad Puppies can.

         I’m not one who believes in giving up on battles that haven’t even been fought.

         1. Most institutions never realize they’re in a fight until it’s too late. They think the SJW’s are arguing honestly. Look at DC, the Universities, the media, the big charitable foundations. That’s how they fell. So it’s time to point out the tactic.

            Problem is, most decent people are too decent to realize how indecent other people can be…

            1. But that way lies paranoia. “All other institutions will be corrupted eventually. Only this institution is safe. Or maybe just my friends. Or maybe just… me…”

               Knowing that institutions are corruptible is different from assuming that a given institution is or will inevitably be corrupted. I prefer evidence to assumptions.

               1. If you’re looking forward it may be paranoia. If you’re looking backward, it’s history. NEVER assume good intentions from the likes of SJW’s…

                  1. But Lou is not a SJW. We Are All SF is not SJWs. It has no future, only history. Give it a chance before writing it off. Otherwise we’re back to assuming that they’ll eventually corrupt Sad Puppies, and we might as well learn to love Big Brother now and avoid the rush.

                     1. I meant no history, only future, of course.

                     2. I’d like nothing more than for everybody to get back to writing SF in service of the readers and bestowing awards on those works’ merits.

                        The only obstacle to that longed-for future is a specific and well-defined group who insist on dictating what writers should write and what readers are allowed to read. And it ain’t Sad Puppies.

                        This is my first year of Worldcon membership. The attempts to disqualify and disenfranchise me were loud and immediate. This exclusionary rhetoric came from one direction.

                        Your error–the same one that “We are all SF” appears to be making–is drawing a false moral equivalence between SP and its detractors. If you take objection to certain commonly used terms, let’s just stick with the ideologically neutral ‘entryists’.

                        The key principle is: any organization that is not explicitly anti-entryist will eventually succumb to entryism. SP was founded to resist entryism in SFF and is therefore hardened against it. By discounting this principle, “We are all SF” renders itself vulnerable to co-option, which Sarah notes has already begun.

                        Warning of “We are all SF’s” vulnerability to entryism isn’t pessimistic. Noting SP’s immunity to it isn’t special pleading. They’re conclusions based on experience.

            2. It helps with realizing it to have lived under communism. It really, really, really does.

6. Prediction:

   Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies nominees will win in many Hugo categories and the powers that be will decide to not give the awards.

   Yes, I’m predicting the SJW’s will burn the Hugos to the ground rather than give out the award to wrongpeople.

   Its what they’re going to do. They are spoiled children and they will always behave like spoiled children do.

   1. Don’t be silly. Before they let things get that far, they’ll falsify the vote counts.

      1. FWIW, Larry C has looked into the voting while wearing his accountant hat, and said that the actual vote count is clean and that he had no reason to doubt the integrity of the counters for the actual award.

         I know it’s easy to slip into cynicism about vote counting (I hail from C[r]ook County, Illinois, where the right to vote extends beyond the grave), but barring evidence that the actual count is funny I think it’s in everyone’s best interests to extend the benefit of the doubt to the con staffers handling the ballot counting.

      2. You mean they are both spoiled children and Democrat?

         1. One and the same!

   2. I’m on the con staff, as of two weeks ago. Without revealing any mailing list confidences: even the most rabid anti-Puppies on the staff are determined to do whatever it takes to make the awards show run smoothly for EVERYONE.

      Additionally, many of them expect exactly of us that you expect of them: disrupting the awards to prevent results we don’t like.

      Maybe everyone should stop expecting and just let’s see what happens.

      1. Hear hear.

         I’ve seen nothing but professionalism from the actual Hugo

      2. “… many of them expect exactly of us that you expect of them”

         Sigh. It’s like watching a bad marriage going down the drain.

         1. BTDT, got the scars. Best not to get in bed with them at all.

      3. That’s about what I expect out of the actual con staff. The problem here is, I’m seeing a trend of more anti-puppy types being willing to kick up a public fuss than puppy types, if only because they’re in ‘home territory’ and aren’t likely to get lynched (Either metaphorically or literally) if they say anything.

      4. Hear, hear.

      5. Martin, see my comment re: Lou above.

7. One of my novels recently made it to #50 on Amazon’s LGBT Science Fiction list. Evidently no one told them I’m homophobic.

   1. (snort)

   2. Thus clearly illustrating the difference between TrueFans and people looking for a good story.

      Congrats, Misha!

   3. Wait until they realize your novel is helping white gay men appropriate Stonewall away from transvestites of color (for those not in the know this is now a thing).

      1. I’m beginning to think that G-d erred in the relative rankings of “Thou shall not covet” and “Thou shall not murder.”

         1. “Thou shalt not covet” was placed at the end because covetousness leads to violating all the preceding ones.
            cf. the Talmudic phrase: “These are the commandment to which there is no fixed limit: 1. … 2. … 3. … 4. … And the study of The Law outweighs them all [because it leads to them all].”

      2. Oh, believe me, I know. Despite the efforts of the media to package an image of the “LGBT Community”, no such thing exists. (You can even find knock down drag out arguments about what initials should be in that descriptor, what they all stand for, and what order they should be in.)

         I’ve been in and out of the leather scene since the 1980s and the diversity and inclusiveness is strictly for show. There is no common ground except for blind unreasoning hatred of the boogeyman of Right Wing Fundamentalist Menace. That’s why every manufactured homophobic hate crime has to be headline news–it’s the only thing that keeps the voting bloc from disintegrating.

         1. Interesting comment on the leather scene. I’m still somewhat active and if anything the leather scene, as opposed to the broader S&M community, seems very libertarian and conservative. Given the strong military presence and influence that doesn’t surprise me. Now admittedly I’m mostly in the het leather scene but still any event has a large leather man presence and we all drink at the Eagle.

            1. That’s just it–there is a huge variation of ideals and viewpoints in what the media tries to pass off as a monolithic “community”. Even within Leather circles you’ll find some groups that are open to het men hanging out and others that are openly heterophobic. (Funny how my browser doesn’t recognize that word, but has no problem with “homophobic”.) But even in straight BDSM groups you’ll find a lot of hate directed at Conservatives and Christians.

               1. Yeah. Oh, the awkward silence when I calmly pointed out, “Guys, I’m Christian. You really believe all that about me?”

                  Somewhere along the way they forgot that just because I have good friends who are Asatru and Wiccan doesn’t mean I am also.

                  1. The dodge I get from neo-pagans is “then you aren’t a REAL Christian.” Sort of reverse No True Scotsman.

                     “Narrowmindedrighwingfundybigots” say “You aren’t a real Christian unless you are exactly like Us. “Openmindedliberalfreethinkers” say “You aren’t a real Christian unless you are exactly like Them.” What is wrong with this picture?

                     1. As an Orthodox Christian I’m glad to see even pagans can recognize those who embrace heresy 😉

                        More seriously, I love how non-Christians who hate Christians abrogate to themselves the ability to decide who are real Christians. I even get nervous when some of the more strident Orthodox want to exclude Catholics and Protestants from the fold. I have personal issues with the logical conclusion of my beliefs that Mormons are not Christians (because belief in Christ not withstanding their theology as I understand is too at conflict with the Creed). In both cases there are real theological reasons beyond, “All Christians are @ssholes and you aren’t” and they seem more willing to make the call than I am.

                        1. The way I figure it, it isn’t for me to determine who He accepts as his own. While I am skeptical about some claimants, I expect He will know His own and hasn’t authorized me to make those decisions on His behalf.

                        2. What I really love is atheists who, being divinely inspired by a non-existent Holy Spirit, can tell me the real meaning of the Bible or any verse thereof, which proves that any Christian should believe that.

                           Generally a fundamentalist interpretation.

                     2. “The dodge I get from neo-pagans is “then you aren’t a REAL Christian.” Sort of reverse No True Scotsman.”

                        Oh, you get that from every Lefty, including the atheists. Basically, unless you read the Bible the way they do, where the only sin is in not taxing the rich the way they want, because charity,

                        1. No, they can also declare that anyone who claims to be a Christian is so, regardless of belief. Bring up Jews for Jesus, and they will have vapors, but they will not admit that Christian, like Jew, has a meaning.

                           Indeed, I have had them quote “No True Scotsman” at me, to which my retort is that if you have no Scottish ancestry, were not born in Scotland, and have not naturalized or even lived there, you aren’t a Scotsman.

                  2. One idiot on Baen’s Bar would tell me that “Most Christians aren’t as nice as you”.

                     Of course, it was a little “funny” as I was often a jerk about people bad-mouthing Christians.

                     1. And they get made when I ask “HOW DO YOU KNOW? Can you tell people’ s religion by looking at them?”

                        (This also applies to nitwits mouthing off about people who “look Muslim” , then rant that this can’t be racist because “Islam isn’t a race.” Look like what? Like my six foot blond cousin the dervish?)

                        Then, when they try to move the goalposts, “How can you simultaneously complain of being oppressed by “the majority”, and treat ‘Christian’ as something strange and abnormal?”

                        1. My younger son looks Muslim. or Jewish. I wish he’d shave the frackin’ beard. He must like being felt up in airports.

               2. Oh, het, non-leather S&M groups are so predictably liberal it’s sad. Inclusion no matter what rules the day. We’ve had the hate on for a women’s event that banned transwomen. I get grief about my event, Submissive Journey Weekend (which is what SJW means to me) excluding switches who are actively the dominant in an ongoing relationship.

                  That’s one reason I prefer to associate with leather people, straight, gay , lesbian, whatever. They are much more grounded as a group.

                  Another issue, since I’m going on ten tangents already, is respect for people wanting their own space. Before I went to the Eagle the first time I talked to a couple of gay leather men I knew about the appropriateness of me, a het guy, attending. I also asked about the polite way to fend off an approach. Had they said, “You really shouldn’t drink there” I would have respected their space. Leather people seem to be good when people say, “we’re setting this off for X” the response is, “hey cool, when you’re done we’re over here.”

                  1. Eagle? Drink at the Eagle? Explain please?

                     1. In nearly every major city that has a leather bar the oldest one is called the Eagle, or at least it seems that way. Certainly true of Atlanta, Dallas, Baltimore.

   4. Way to go! That’s great Misha. And yeah, you must have forgotten to CC them on that dastardly homophobic memo. There’s always someone who doesn’t get the message.

   5. I thought you’d also quit considering your work Sci Fi?

      1. I don’t call it sci fi–I’ve got is listed as Fantasy: Paranormal and Fantasy: Urban. Amazon is the one calling it LGBT Science Fiction. But if it gets me noticed, who am I to be critical?

   6. Congratulations, Misha!

8. It is entirely unreasonable to judge a book by its cover because, as we all know, “covers happen.”

   1. It is unreasonable to treat presumptions based on the book cover as irrebuttable.

9. Wow. So much hate over so little. So much commitment for plastic rocketships. All their “principles” depending on being with the “right people” thinking the “right thoughts.” A total intolerance for any deviance. Have these people never looked at themselves. As Rush just mentioned it’s all about hate, hate anybody who thinks differently than they do.

   1. Full oikophobia combined with full xenophobia.

10. Sarah Unchained!

    This was the best Sad Puppies post of them all. Bravo.

11. You know, as bad as the scapegoat had it, he at least had a chance however small. The other goat was immediately sacrificed.

12. re: Brie Wu
    I was a SF/F fan while you were still a choice your mum was trying to decide on.

    Exclusionists like you have no place in fandom. Not in videogames, not in comics, and not in sci-fi.

    This is our culture, not yours. Get the hell out.

    You didn’t build fandom, and you don’t get to say who is allowed in.

    1. One of Larry’s trolls (no, not him, a new guy) told me I’m not a real fan.

       I laughed at him, but there was a time when that would have devastated me. Not anymore.

       1. But you’re not a real fan. You’re just a fan of science fiction. Real fans are fans of organized fandom.

          If you’re not part of the circle jerk at the Right (Left) Sort of Cons, you’re not a fan at all.

          1. Judging by the percentage of Worldcon members who bother to vote, they’re not much for that “reading” stuff.

          2. I’m an unorganized fan, and I refuse (REFUSE) to wear the union label!

          3. Taking a line from ‘Bimbos of the Death Sun’ (my grandmother gave me a copy, once upon a time…) if fans make up fandom, do those who attend conventions make up condom?

             1. +4

    2. I was a fan before she was even a naughty thought. I do not recognize her authority to tell me to get out.

    3. What if she was only born because her mother she was having a boy?

    4. To Ms. Wu:

       Come on if you think you’re hard enough.

       With all due respect,
       Jeff Gauch

13. I remember in 1969, in the run up to StLouiscon, a prominent pro denounced people who called for pointedly NOT welcoming Trekkies, or Anachronists, or other wrongfen who were not REAL fans. “Stomp the shadowman!” he cried.

    Who was this?

    David Gerrold

    1. Yesterday’s radicals are todays hidebound reactionaries.

       1. Like in outside society, those whose self-images were built on “fighting The Man” became The Man themselves 😉

    2. When you’re a piddling toad the only option is to keep the pond small, so you look big in comparison.

       This is the same reason some guys shave their ‘nads.

       1. That last sentence was information we could have done without 🙂

    3. Actually Gerrold presenting the Hugos kind of reminds of the Simpson’s “Bonanzamania” episode where the two old guys who played Indian extras on one episode of the show are still touring because they’re the only ones left…

14. I’ve seen a lot of the ugly of science fiction since April. Between moving, more family deaths, new job, wife losing her job, and everything else, I haven’t been as involved as I might have been otherwise and I STILL saw more than enough.

    These people claim they’ll never buy books by people like me? So much the better. If I have to please people who literally hate me because of the things I believe, then I’d rather not succeed as an author.

    Luckily, there aren’t really as many of them as they think.

    1. Truth is, they were never buying books from people like us to begin with. So scroom.

       1. That’s why I don’t lose sleep over the lost sales. There aren’t any.

          1. Ayup – those “lost” sales are sort of like the clowns boycotting Chik-Fil-A: folks who would never go to CFA except to boycott and protest. They’re like atheists who protest Mass by not attending. They’re baldies denouncing the high cost of haircuts. They’re babies boycotting toilets.

             They. Just. Don’t. Matter.

             1. +++

15. This post’s title has gifted me with an vision of a goat sitting poolside in a recliner chair, sipping from a tall, cold, drink glass with an umbrella in it.

    I don’t think that was the image you meant to evoke.

    1. I like your vision RES.

       1. Add seagulls representing the puppy kickers: scavengers who raise loud ugly squawks, flap their wings a lot and crap all over everything.

          1. Hmmmmmm……… Maybe we should toss some Alka-Seltzer tablets up in the air for them to snap up and eat. The results will be a little gross, but amusing…….

       2. So do I.

          1. Sigh. It is free to anyone who can draw.

             1. You rang?

                1. 🙂

                   Here (jerks thumb upward) take this image and see what you can do with it.

             2. Oh, are we giving away picture ideas? I always wanted “The Council of L. Ron” in the style of those brothers who did the sappy Tolkien art (Hildebrandt, IIRC), and a short furry character in black leather and chains titled, “Ewok on the Wild Side.”

16. Pingback: A Hugo Aggregation. | The Arts Mechanical

17. c4c

    1. What does that mean?

       1. See ATH FAQ & BBQ.

       2. See AtH FAQ & BBQ.

          WordPress delenda est.

       3. Comment for Comments. (To subscribe to comments.) And if you’re new here DO NOT GET THEM STARTED. They have carried on entire meta threads in answer to those.

          1. Trying to ruin their fun? [Very Big Evil Grin]

          2. Gee, if only WordPress included a “Subscribe” button at the end of a post.

             But that would be a feat of programming beyond the ken of mere mortal programmers.

             We can but dream of what halcyon days might await us, beyond such a transformative innovation.

             1. https://wordpress.org/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/

                What WordPress doesn’t do, odds are some intrepid developer has. Unless it’s an easy way to add HTML tables to posts without coding HTML…

          3. I thought it was Cookies for Carnies?

             No?

             Casting for Carp?

             1. Citizens for Communism? ;-P

                1. EW. Go wash your mouth with Lysol, young man.

          4. Sarah? Cats. Herding.

             1. Anybody can herd cattle. Holding together ten thousand half-wild short hairs? That’s another thing all together.

                1. Ah, a little bit of pure awesomeness for my day. I thank you, sir.

                   Now I need to go back there and see if the “also see” is a reference to “great rack…”

                2. This is my favorite commercial EVER.

                   1. I rather like this one as I used to live in the LA basin (sinkhole, swamp, descriptive noun): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sBjyjXxThw
                      Other reasons, too.

                      1. Snicker – I grew up in CA – Cal and his dog Spot were a staple. So were the Earl Sheib commercials. Our classic 1952 Plymouth sedan was carefully repainted every couple of years in Ear Sheib Jade Green…

                3. That was awesome. Thanks for the laugh!

                4. In the same opened vein..

          5. Hey now my young Portagee, you just gave us the largest info dump in many a day, so very nicely done I might add, yet you would deny us a tiny bit of fun. Just teasing sweetie.
             Now this is the Sarah we all know and love. Hope it’s an indication that with the house done and you better rested there are even more achievements to come in the very near future.

          6. But . . . but you’ve claimed to be amused by the meta-threads before!

             1. There’s overdosing.

       4. It’s a placeholder comment to get the opportunity to check the “send comments to my e-mail” checkbox. In general, it usually turns into an excuse to do a thread of unrelated silliness, such as aircraft/spacecraft identifying numbers. F2G

       5. Comment For Comments.

          People are making comments just to be able to “click on” the “Notify me of new comments via email” box below their “personal” info and next to the “Post Comment” button.

       6. comment for comments.

       7. C3P0’s android son.

          1. Nonsense. C4C is no relation to that bumbling droid.

             C4C is a free droid who is jack of all trades and master of some trades.

             He’s been very helpful to moisture farmers, smugglers, mercenaries, bounty-hunters and many others.

             Ah, the stories he could tell except for the fact that telling some of them would get him destroyed. [Very Big Grin]

             1. RU12Y4

             2. Ralph 124C41 … and you people call yourselve fans…

                1. I “got” Ralph “One To Fore See For One” but not sure about “RU12Y4”. [Smile]

                   1. Sci-Fi’s answer to ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’…

                      1. Which would be that it’s okay to be conservative/libertarian so long as you don’t ever mention the fact?

                         1. …and not resent it when the people around you assume that everyone there is a good little SJW, and it is acceptable conversation to villify and sneer at all conservatives/libertarians.

                         2. Throw in some virtuous tree-hugging aliens to CYA.

18. Reblogged this on The Arts Mechanical and commented:
    Being a scapegoat isn’t fun. BTDT.

19. My bet is that the Sad Puppies will win nearly every category we had a nominee in.

    After that, the SJW vote rigging for next year will begin.

    Because fans voting for fan awards and winning them is a grave offense that SHALL NOT STAND!

    1. “We’ve analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your ship standing by?”

       1. Mr. Scott, full power to the phasers, if you please.

          1. Nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

             1. Eh, just drop rocks on them.

                1. It’s so nice to see the classics quoted.

    2. There is no question that the Puppy Kicker Crusade will go into maximum overdrive to ensure that the Hugo results for 2016 are “re-balanced” in favor of what the PKC were demanding even before Sad Puppies existed. Because if the wrongfans who have wrongfun get to see the wrongauthors who write wrongbooks take the Hugo this year . . . it will literally be the end of the world. The end! (chortle)

       1. I feel fine.

       2. Nitpick, perhaps, but they’d have to wait until 2017 to “balance” the Hugos, given the wait period engineered into the rule change rules.

          1. Standlee has plenipotentiary powers in the Shadow Worldcon Business Committee. There will be no election in 2016. Sovereign Silver. Reptims out of Cuba!

             🙂

             1. They’re using rockets the award was modeled after to spread chemtrails, aren’t they.

                Dirty so-and-sos…

                😀

       3. Perhaps they can change the award to a rocket ship crashing into the ground?

          1. I expect them to do that if any Puppies win.

    3. Because fans voting for fan awards and winning them is a grave offense that SHALL NOT STAND!

       Wow, they sound so… Goa’uld.

20. I have to dispute your use of the game “Telephone” as a metaphor here. In “telephone” it’s the accumulation of small errors leading to big changes between the start and the end of the chain.

    Here, no errors were made. The alterations between the original and the endpoint were deliberate

    1. Every alteration was deliberate, but each successive player was altering the previous altered version with a deliberate agenda of demonizing the original author. It was a game of telephone, all right – but telephone played deliberately to lose.

21. Sarah, I thank you. This was huge work on your part — and not just you alone, but so many other people who all paid attention during the public episodes of the Puppy Kickers Crusade (PKC) and took pictures, and hung onto those pictures, because somebody wanted to make sure that the FACTS about the entire PKC didn’t disappear down the memory hole.

    Someone should remind the partisans of the PKC that 1984 was a warning, not an instruction manual. But there they are, like obedient citizens of the Peoples Republic of Science Fiction, engaging Mao-style in the Two Minutes Hate. Which is the 21st century version of using the Israelite goat as a proxy receptacle for all that the Peoples Republic of Science Fiction finds vile and reprehensible in itself but is too cowardly to face.

    So, the blame and the sin are displaced — the goat is reviled. The citizens rise to their feet and cross their arms in signaled obedience to the narrative.

    1. Well, we can do Airstrip One even better with our 24/7 hate cycle.

    2. Every time people mention that part from 1984 I think Orwell was being an optimist. Only two minutes of hate?

       1. Ahh, that was each DAY and sometimes a new target was given. So, no he wasn’t being an optimist. Besides by that point in time the state was almost controlling all thought so you could only hate when they said you could.

          1. Well, with the current SJW antics I find myself thinking maybe they have two minutes where they’re too exhausted to really hate anything and take a breather.

             So that leads me to think Orwell was optimistic in having his oppressive state decree that only two-minutes be set aside per day for hating.

22. I’m not a real fan; I am just a guy who’s read science fiction a LOT since…oh, 1968, possibly. I cut my teeth on Norton and Heinlein, discovered Asimov, and have been reading ever since.

    But I’ve never done anything in organized fandom. I really don’t care all that much about the Hugo crusade, although I probably ought to. Too much drama. It’ll all work itself out in the end.

    Either that, or it’s critically important that I take a side!

    1. “Why are academic fights so vicious? Because the stakes are so small.”
       /variously attributed to Henry Kissinger and Bernard Lewis

    2. David,
       Here’s a simple test to see if the whole kerfuffle matters to you. Look at the winning Hugo entries for the last several years. For the most part are these stories, works of art, editorial contributions that you agree with; or have the last few years been stuff that simply did not appeal to you? If you like the recent decisions then Sad Puppies isn’t for you. If like many of us you consider most of the winners to be politically correct social justice message dreck with little if any appeal as story, then you are a puppy supporter and just didn’t know it.

23. It’s late here in Bahrain, and I am getting ready for bed because I get to brief about all sorts of interesting things happening in the AOR tomorrow, but I am greatly looking forward to reading all the responses tomorrow morning. I can see why you left this one until you were done wrestling with the house.

24. This is a real beauty.

    Although via Insty’s comments I discovered perhaps my favorite Sarah-ism of all time: “… our media are palace eunuchs gazing avidly at the harem of power and stroking their impotent pens in time to the rape of our liberties.”

    https://accordingtohoyt.com/2013/08/15/i-am-spartacus/

25. So about the closest (that I know of) that the SPs got to official organization was me buying up some useful domains and then asking if anyone wanted to use them. Answer: (Crickets)

    1. I’ve tried to explain to people how impossible it is that SP’s have good organizational discipline… ie., they’re gonna vote for who they’re told to vote for… in other words… NOT. There is no official organization. No top-down control. We are science fiction fans and we herd about as well as cats, lest the “puppies” name fool anyone. If we had an organizational tattoo on our foreheads it would be, “You’re not the boss of me!” probably in Latin.

       1. Tu non es magister meus ?

          1. Magister meus tu non es!

          2. Vobis non me dux.

       2. No, Julie, come on. In Klingon. Like the Bible.

          1. Shakespeare in the original Klingon. Ta’q pa, ta’q be . To exist or not exist….
             (just googled the spelling since it’s been years that I have practiced and was slightly off…. TaH pagh TaHbe [where the H is a harsher Ke sound then q with more spitting])

             1. I considered learning Klingon back when I needed to make some confidential notes in a business environment. Unfortunately Klingon doesn’t have the vocabulary for what I wanted to do, though in retrospect writing English in Klingon characters would probably have been more than sufficient.

                Instead, I learned Gregg shorthand, which is so dead that probably fewer people recognize it than Klingon… when people asked, I told them it was an obscure Romulan script. Or

                1. Chuckle. You’re right. Might as well be Romulan.

                   My mom had the books, and I tried to teach myself in high school.

       3. I always preferred M.Y.O.B from Eric Frank Russel’s “The Great Explosion”.

26. Yargh.

    I’m enjoying the SJW-baiting, I really am. It’s fun to read, and I guess it’s fun for you, since you do it so well.

    However.

    You, and Larry, and Brad, and Mike… should be using this time to write. And I mean write, as in books, as in that stuff we can’t get enough of. And yea, maybe this doesn’t take a large chunk out of your day, but it must take at least *some* time.

    So in some way, the trolls are winning. They’re depriving me of what you do best.

    (and at this point I inserted a whole bunch of disclaimers and then deleted them because if you can handle them you can handle me being all mememe — do whatever you want, you’re awesome).

    1. I’m going to write. After I shower. 😉

       1. Didn’t Heinlein recommend washing after writing, rather than before.

          1. Yes. But after looking at these links I needed a HOT shower.

             2. Oh yeah. Helping my dad move records out of a storage unit was less thilphy than reading some of that stuff. And we’re talking 23 years of Panhandle dust and spiders thilphy. I need to detail my pick-up now, inside and out. But there’s more, lurking, waiting . . . *theatrical shudder*

                1. Business records in 30-40 pound boxes.

                   1. Am I the only one who thought you were helping your dad with vinyl music records?

                      1. Nope.

                         I don’t like admitting it, but no, you’re not alone. 😀

                      2. I dread the day Sib and I have to go through the 33 1/3 and 78s. They are also heavy.

    2. I am contracted for books, no doubt about it. A bit late on the current one. Working to get the darned thing done and turned in. Then its sequel immediately following!

       1. I’m very late on the current one, and I NEED to finish it.

          1. I’m not technically late, since I don’t have a contract, but… Yeah, I’m pretty late.

             1. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been two years since my last publication.

                1. Two years? Get the to a nunnery!

                   Oh, wait, that might be counterproductive…

                2. You are absolved, my son; go thou and publish no more. (Uhmmmmm … that didn’t come out right.)

                   1. no, no, it’s go thou and publish some more!

                      1. Far more

                   2. Go thou and procrastinate no more.

                3. For your penance write, er, how many hours could you dedicate a day?

          2. 9 months behind on edits and counting. Some of my clients probably think I’m actually dead. Stupid health, stupid black dog, stupid brilliant broken brain. (Ooh, that last one had nice meter… *wanders off chasing a poem*)

             1. Chase the money; let the meter come to you.

    3. Don’t worry about Larry. Online arguments are just how he unwinds. Dude can deliver tetsubo smackdowns to a twitter mob between rounds of World of Tanks, all while his Warmachine figs dry, and still crank out 10 kilowords per day.

27. “though arguably the effect of Pluribus Hugo which is on the agenda for WC WILL make it harder not for agendas to make it but for anyone without an agenda to make it.”

    I’m delurking because I’ve spent some time investigating the E Pluribus Hugo proposal (http://patrickmay.tumblr.com/post/126023308724/e-pluribus-hugo-vs-slates) and we’ve reached different conclusions.

    The only year for which there is test data available is 1984, so any conclusions are provisional. Based on that data, I found that under the current rules a slate of just under 15% of the total number of people who actually voted could have swept the ballot for the Short Story category. Under EPH, a slate of 40% would only be able to take 3 of 5 spots.

    The pattern is similar across other categories. EPH actually ensures that more voters will see one or more of their preferences on the final ballot.

    Interestingly, this happens whether the slate is explicit and public or implicit and due to a small group of like-minded insiders voting similarly. EPH enfranchises more voters.

    I hope anyone here who will be at the business meeting will consider supporting EPH.

    1. EPH enfranchises more voters.

       Interesting framing, but can also be stated as “EPH disenfranchises more popular works in favor of less popular ones.”

       1. “EPH disenfranchises more popular works in favor of less popular ones.”

          That’s not accurate. When 15% of voters can disenfranchise the other 85% there is a problem with the voting algorithm. That can happen under the current rules but not under EPH.

          It does come down to goals, of course. If you think that 21% of voters should be able to collude to take all five slots on the ballot, then the current rules are fine. If, on the other hand, you think that the ballot should represent a broad spectrum of the voters, EPH is a better approach.

          Interestingly, in the absence of slates both mechanisms give nearly identical results.

          1. EPH fails to address the real issue of the Hugos: the voter pool is too small. The nominating pool is 1000-2000 people. There are sites that can rally ten times that for Kickstarters or other issues of common interest. If the Hugos are declared to be one of those interests, like at least one online forum was considering for next year, EPH still offers no defense from brigading. Only by increasing the voting pool can slates and brigading be minimized.

             1. Nathan,

                I strongly agree that expanding the voting pool is essential.

                However, EPH does offer defense against brigading even with small numbers of voters. You can follow the link from my summary blog post to all the code and data if you want to play with it yourself.

                Even with a larger number of voters, the number likely to see at least one of their nominations on the final ballot is higher under EPH than under the current rules when slates are involved. Similar algorithms are used in real world elections to ensure proportional representation when selecting multiple candidates.

                1. Not a programmer, but if you would be so kind as to run the numbers on a hypothetical. Assume that there are five nominees, A-E, with 200 votes each. (1000 nominators, with 20% needed to capture a nomination as per Chaos Horizon). Now add 2000 voters to the pool running a straight slate equally divided between five other candidates, F-K, to represent a halfredditchan brigading. Please let me know if A-E appear.

                   1. If to make the results more indicative than a flat rate, let A-E vary from 150-250.

                   2. Nathan,

                      200 / 2200 = 9.1% It’s not surprising under any voting system that 9% of the voters will lose to 90+%. This will happen under the current rules as well. I don’t know what your point is here.

                      The issue with the current rules isn’t what happens when an overwhelming majority votes differently, it’s that 15% of the voters can completely disenfranchise the majority. That happens under the current rules but does not happen under EPH.

                      1. “… 15% of the voters can completely disenfranchise the majority.”

                         Really. “completely disenfranchise“?

                         (Spanish accent) I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.

                         1. Deprived of Power; marginalized. I think to be completely disenfranchised is more like margarinized.

                            1. Margarinized has now entered my vocabulary.

                            2. Well ‘margarinized’ is easier to spell than ‘oleaginous’ but the latter is better for Twitter brevity.

                            3. Richard, easy for you to say. I had to bring up my 1940’s USDA Seven food groups to spell it. Of course, the proximity to marginalized may have been part of my problem.

                            4. Blanks used to be called “margapatronen” (margarine rounds) in Dutch 🙂

                         2. RES,

                            Yes, completely disenfranchise. From the simulation I did (http://patrickmay.tumblr.com/post/126023308724/e-pluribus-hugo-vs-slates):

                            “With 42 slate ballots (just under 15% of the number cast) added, the slate sweeps the category under the current rules. 15% of voters in a category without a clear dominating work can collude to take every nomination spot. 42 people could completely shut out 283.”

                            This is in the Short Story category, using the data from 1984.

                            1. Please explain how 15% of the electorate would deprive 85% of the right to vote.

                            2. Also explain the assumption (you haven’t touched it) that the 15% have NOTHING in common with the 85%. Have you run numbers on a situation where the 15% have quite a bit in common with previously less forceful nominators? I repeat what I’ve said several places: Your situation is specifically set up to prove what you want it to prove NOT to actually test the validity of the process. You have to look at a proposal and go ‘How can I break this?” to accurately test it. This is true in every field I have encountered.

                            3. You are still employing a peculiar definition of disenfranchise. I repeat: I do not think that word means what you think it means.

                               Negating the effectiveness of a vote is distinctly different from “to deprive of the right to vote” (Merriam-Webster). Emphasis added.

                               Just because sloppy-thinkers demagogue the issue is no reason to cede their linguistic abuses.

                               Had you said effectively disenfranchise or virtually disenfranchise I would have accepted your bombast without complaint, but completely is a bridge too far.

                               As for your simulation — this is not time nor venue to engage in discussion of how such things can be gamed, but be confident few here would rely on a simulation we had not thoroughly vetted. It may surprise you to know that such sausage machines can be used to ensure desired results quite as readily as balloting schemes can be gamed.

                               The solution to slate balloting remains to increase the voter pool; excessively “cute” ballot counting methods are antithetical to such an endeavor.

                            4. Hmm, I can’t see a reply link on any of the comments nested deeper than this one, so I’ll put my answers here.

                               Nathan and RES,

                               It appears you’re objecting solely to my wording. I argue that making others votes count for nothing meets the definition of disenfranchisement. If you don’t like that word, I’m happy to switch to “effectively disenfranchise”.

                               The real issue is that 15% of voters can collude to sweep the ballot, making the votes of the remaining 85%. One of the complaints that resulted in the Sad Puppies campaign was that a small group of insiders could work together to control what got on the ballot. It turns out to be a real risk with the current voting system. EPH greatly reduces that risk.

                               wyrdbard,

                               I chose to use a distinct slate to demonstrate the number of colluding people required to take over a full ballot. If there were overlap with existing voters, fewer people would be needed to do the same thing.

                               I don’t understand your objections. The plain facts are that under the current rules a minority of voters can sweep all the nomination slots, denying representation to any other works. Under EPH, more voters are likely to see one or more of their preferences on the final ballot. What, exactly, do you think is bad about that?

                            5. I argue that making others votes count for nothing meets the definition of disenfranchisement.

                               So you’re equating “losing the vote” with “not being able to vote.”

                               EPH greatly reduces that risk.

                               Repeating the claim doesn’t make it so. Using a carefully constructed example to “demonstrate” that result doesn’t make it so for the general case. Have you really looked for how someone might game the proposed system? How it works in the idea case is not the test, but rather how it fails when people deliberately try to “break” it.

                               The tendency to elide over that latter part is a red flag for anybody at all familiar with testing.

                            6. “So you’re equating “losing the vote” with “not being able to vote.””

                               Heh. If he’s right, then I’ve been disenfranchised for years now. 😀

                            7. I think the conclusion is completely, totally, and 100% false.

                      2. You claimed that EPH offered protection against brigading. I gave a plausible scenario based on a specific forum deciding to run their own slate next year. EPH does not address two issues with the Hugos – the miniscule electorate and that, regardless of the system, it only takes 20% of the electorate to earn a nomination.

                         EPH is a fix in search of a solution.

                         1. Nathan,

                            EPH does offer protection against a brigade taking every slot in a category. If 20% of the voters are behind a particular work, it seems reasonable that they would be able to get a slot on a five work ballot.

                            “EPH is a fix in search of a solution.”

                            On the contrary, EPH is a fix for exactly what happened this year. It’s also a fix for the risk of a clique of insiders working behind the scenes to sweep the ballot.

                            1. The mistake is assuming that what happened this year requires a “Fix” unless you’re also talking about what’s been happening with the votes for the last 5-10 years.

                            2. Can’t have it both ways, Patrick. You previously said that EPH could not offer protection against the scenario I posted, a brigading by 2,000 people from a marginally popular science fiction forum. But now EPH offers protection from brigading?

                               Please bring something to the table other than “Because I say so.” EPH does not change the fact that a work needs only 20% of the votes to win a nomination, and, that regardless of the method reached, 80% of the electorate will not have nominated any particular work on the ballot.

                            3. “EPH is a fix in search of a solution.”

                               On the contrary, EPH is a fix for exactly what happened this year.

                               You do realize that those two statements are not contraries? It changes how things would happen this year. That does not mean it’s a solution.

                2. If there are only a small number of voters then the Hugos do not represent fandom, regardless of whether there is slate voting, brigading or drawing winners out of a hat.

                   All such efforts as EPH achieve is closing the barn door after the mule’s run off; it doesn’t restore that which has been lost and prevents its return.

                   1. RES,

                      “it doesn’t restore that which has been lost and prevents its return.”

                      What does EPH prevent the return of?

                      1. Any meaning or imprimatur of merit bestowed by the award; its claim to represent the collective opinion of fandom.

                         The Hugo has been exposed as a award voted on by a tiny fragment of SF/F readers. Changing the voting rules does not alter that.

                         Sheesh — would have thought that obvious.

                         1. A simple argument:

                            Does being awarded a Hugo increase sales of the wining work?

                            If not, then the Hugo is meaningless. Changing voting rules instead of expanding the voting pool will not restore the Hugo’s luster.

                         2. Come now, the number of ballots increased 65%. The exposure started the reversal.

                            And I ran across this and thought the cat was really out of the bag:
                            http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/06/02/and-i-show-you-how-deep-the-rabbit-hole-goes/#comment-208478

                3. It’s a way that a group consisting of 15% can guarantee their nomination getting picked while a group of 40% might have none of their 5 nominations picked. 1/5 of 40 is 8 while 1 of 15 is 15. So next year Scalzi can do a big push on his blog for his favorites and almost guarantee them getting in the finals if he tells his fan to only vote for 1 in each category.

                   1. So, akin to a bunch of slates competing under the current system…

                   2. So, based on the numbers of voters, Tor gets one slot, Sad Puppies gets one slot, and Castalia House gets one slot a year. Sounds like in the hopes of “enfranchising everyone”, EPH will usher in voting blocks as surely as if there were competing slates in the current system.

                      Eh, at least it isn’t as punitive as 4/6…

                   3. Thomas Monaghan,

                      “It’s a way that a group consisting of 15% can guarantee their nomination getting picked while a group of 40% might have none of their 5 nominations picked.”

                      No, that’s the case under the current rules.

                      If a group of 20% of voters all vote for a single work, under EPH it’s like that that one work will be on the final ballot. The other four works will be from other voters’ ballots.

                      Under the current rules, that same 20% would completely sweep the ballot with five works, leaving 80% of the voters disenfranchised.

                      EPH produces better results in the presence of slates, and very similar results in their absence.

                      1. You’re assuming that 20% would have NOTHING in common with the 80%

                   4. Yep. And if we do that if EPH is approved they’ll scream that we ‘cheated’ by following their rules. Again.

             2. I have that many people here on low-hit days.

          2. You still haven’t addressed the overwhelming advantage it gives extremely focused, enthusiastic groups.

             1. Or groups that work for a large publisher and decide to push a certain book. Honestly.

                1. And there, there will be enough playing the corporate ‘As you bid oh my master!’ game to skew things. Even if there are some of those going ‘noms are anonymous… screw this!’

                2. EPH isn’t intended to eliminate slates, only to reduce their ability to crowd out other voters. It makes intuitive sense that 20% or so of the voters should be able to get one work on a list of five. That’s what happens under EPH.

                   Under the current rules, 20% of the voters can sweep all spots on the ballot, disenfranchising the majority.

                   If you consider that a less than optimal result, then EPH is a better solution than the current rules.

                   1. Once you let somebody start playing with numbers there will be mistakes sometimes purposely. Like the Campbell throwing out all of John Ringo’s votes because try “Thought he wasn’t eligible” of course they were wrong. When you start manipulating votes by saying some are worth more then others problems will happen.

                      1. Ok, I know I haven’t been following the Campbell award at all, but when did this happen?

                      2. Thomas Monaghan,

                         When you start manipulating votes by saying some are worth more then others problems will happen.

                         That’s not what EPH does.

                         The current rules have a clear, demonstrated problem of being gameable by a small minority of voters. EPH addresses that, ensuring that more voters will see one or more of their preferences on the final ballot.

                   2. THE ONLY THING EPH WILL WORK FOR IS SLATES. (Rolls eyes.)

                      1. “THE ONLY THING EPH WILL WORK FOR IS SLATES. ”

                         That’s absolutely not the case. Could you please explain your reasoning?

                   3. Why?
                      No one wanted to replace them while TOR played them like a violin. So, why now?
                      Oh, yeah, because someone beat TOR at their own game. Laughable.
                      There have ALWAYS been slates. Just not done in public. Heck, before the internet an SF writer roomed with us and there was much mail on the subject of “you should read/nominate so and so,” sometimes with books attached. Usually from the publishers. And if you think Sad Puppies got in because of a “slate” and not because they brought in SO MANY people, you don’t know our side. We argue with each other more than with the establishment, and more than half the people went “f*ck that. I like Butcher and/or Anderson but I’ll nominate Joe Blow whose indie book I loved.”
                      Frankly I think you should ditch the Australian rules nonsense, which are designed to pick up the “least insufferable” work, not the best, but that’s me.

                      1. All of the gaming of voting rules fails to address the critical issue: does the Hugo push sales? Because if a story winning the Hugo does not see an increase in sales that can only mean it doesn’t entertain readers, in which case the Hugo is not representing what SF readers want.

                         The goal of a Hugo should be to direct readers to good, entertaining books which people like; currently it is having the opposite effect.

                         Compare a list of Hugo winners from the first twenty years with a list from the last twenty. The first list contains many books which are still being read today, forty to sixty years after first publication, books which are still undeniably bold, original and stimulating. The last twenty winners? Hell, nobody is reading those now, much less is likely to read them a half century from now.

                         Changing voting rules is putting lipstick on a pig.

                         1. I read that as “putting slapstick on a pig.” Also works.

                         2. Nobody is reading Harry Potter now?

                            Or _The Diamond Age_?

                            or _American Gods_?

                            or _Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell_, which was just adapted into a miniseries?

                            I think you have an exaggerated definition of ‘nobody’. 🙂

                            1. The diamond age was TWENTY YEARS AGO. Harry Potter was … more than ten.

                            2. I confess that I wasn’t aware won the Hugo in 2001; which conveys something about the attention paid the awards. Are you interested in debating whether the Hugo boosted its sales? I don’t recall seeing “Hugo-winning novel” emblazoned on the cover.

                               That said, I doubt the Goblet of Fire merited the award. It was an enjoyable novel but not a particularly good one. Certainly not more deserving than Martin’s A Storm of Swords.

                               As for the other novels, nope – the Hugo did nothing for them and they aren’t much read; I doubt any of them sells as many copies annually as Starship Troopers (1960 winner) or The Man in the High Castle (1963 winner and just adapted into a miniseries.)

                               I think you have an underdeveloped appreciation of sarcasm. 😉

                            3. It may well be a fair claim that I have an underveloped appreciation of sarcasm, and sarcasm is pretty hard to convey in online fora in any event 🙂

                               I’m not claiming the Hugo did something for the books; I’m implicitly claiming that the books are still read and that the claim that nobody reads them strikes me as bizarre: in my circles, they’re still very commonly read and recommended to people unfamiliar with them (I’d also add _The Windup Girl_ and _the City and the City_ to the list, but I think the case for them is more isolated to specific communities than to science fiction readers as a whole).

                               I would argue the “nobody reads these terrible books” case is easier to make for the last *five* years than the last *twenty*. 🙂

                            4. I said sarcasm? My regrets; I ought have written hyperbole. I used a twenty-year window to encompass comparable eras of voting.

                               The fact remains that few winners in recent years is likely to influence the genre the way those first winners have done. Interest in the awards is scarcely noticeable and their imprimatur is (at least) as often a warning of something to avoid as it is something with which any SF fan must be familiar to engage other fans in conversation. Too many significant authors in the last decade have been ignored by the Hugos because they were “the wrong kind” of entertainment.

                               The Hugo’s voting problems are that they have too few fans voting, not that fans are voting slates.

                            5. Aha! Hyperbole makes much more sense in context than does Sarcasm.

                               I agree that the Hugos could use more voters; I’ve thought that for many many years. I think there *is* a risk that a voting pool drawn heavily from a particular subculture could change the community irreparably – imagine, if you will, that the entire readership of gay werewolf erotica (there is such a thing) decided to start nominating and voting for the Hugos en masse. [I am *not* saying that’s what is happening now; i’m saying that there is a potential for this sort of thing to happen].

                               I’m in an odd position to talk about the quality of the Hugos as I’ve voted at least two novels below ‘no award’ almost every year that I’ve voted, couldn’t finish last year’s winner, and have voted for the actual winner only twice in the last decade. And yet I also think there have been some brilliant books nominated – and awarded – in that time, so claims that “nobody” is reading them and that they are all of low quality irk me; they strike me as exaggerated oversimplifications which, as the saying goes, throw the baby out with the bathwater.

                               I am interested, though, in this claim:

                               > The fact remains that few winners in recent years is likely to influence the genre the way those first winners have done.

                               I think *no books published in the last twenty years*, with the possible exceptions of Harry Potter and the Wheel of Time, are likely to influence the genre the way the first winners did. This is not a reflection of the quality of the books winning awards, or a reflection of the quality of books; it’s a reflection of the fact that the genre’s popularity has grown immensely since the early years, with the result that it’s harder for any one work to have broad, sweeping influence. There are few if any contemporary books with which an SF fan must be familiar in order to have discourse with other fans *because there are so many different subgroups of fandom* and *because so much is published that it’s impossible to read it all*, so every subgroup fixates on certain things that become popular and influential in their group … and it’s rare indeed the things which everyone sees.

                               The same can be seen, incidentally, in the fracturing of the television audience. *Nothing* will ever again be as influential as M*A*S*H … in part because M*A*S*H was amazing, but in part because there’s so much vying for attention, and the audience is so fractured, that nothing can get everyone in the door to get them hooked.

                            6. I considered the possibility that contemporary winners might prove less influential simply because the field has grown so much. I don’t think that the case. By the time of the first Hugos the genre was quite well developed, with its early pulp origins over fifteen years in the rear-view mirror. Thus the possibility of “First to …” influences seems less likely, and a cursory review of Hugo nominees supports that thesis. I think there were simply more entries of higher quality. That is, of course, as much a matter of opinion as whether Babe Ruth, Ted Williams or Bobby Bonds is Baseball’s Greatest Hitter, but it is certainly a soundly defensible position.

                               Look at the list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Award_for_Best_Novel#Winners_and_nominees

                               I also wonder whether you are correct in asserting the market for SF is greater now than it was. While certain individual books/series — Harry Potter, George Martin’s “Ice & Fire” — may achieve significant sales, I think that is a factor of other market matters and not expressive of the field as a whole. If we define the market of SF fandom as people who read twelve SF/F books annually (a mere one a month) my impression is that the genre is losing ground.

                               This is based on observation and anecdote, from things authors have said; I don’t have (nor want) access to the data which would be required to evaluate the claim. i would happily be proven wrong, but take away the effect of a few outside sales pushers — Potter, HBO’s adaptation of the Martin books, upcoming adaptations of such works as The man in the high Castle, American Gods and Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell (because film/TV adaptations are the steroids of book sales) and I think you will find the average SF/F novel sells fewer books today than thirty, forty years ago — and not simply because the market fragmentation is greater.

                            7. Print runs have been in a dive since the 70s, when the field started trading stories, dreams and joy for Marxism and “furthering the revolution.” Also “why we fight”

                      2. “There have ALWAYS been slates. Just not done in public. ”

                         That’s how the ballots would reflect the tastes of those colluding in private, under the current rules. Under EPH it doesn’t matter if a slate is public or private, it cannot sweep the ballot.

                         I don’t see why it matters that this proposal is happening because of the success of the two Puppy campaigns. The bottom line is that it’s going to prevent any slate from dominating the ballot. Isn’t that one of the goals of Sad Puppies 3?

                         1. “I don’t see why it matters that this proposal is happening because of the success of the two Puppy campaigns.”

                            Because it’s hypocritical as hell that slates are NOW a problem because we showed we were better at playing the game. Where was this plan three years ago? Where was it last year?

                         2. “… it’s going to prevent any slate from dominating the ballot. Isn’t that one of the goals of Sad Puppies 3?”

                            Where did you get that idea? The initial complaint, as I recall, was that the Hugo voting was dominated by a small cohort of insiders who were awarding boring fiction (and favored insiders.) The goal was to get more fans to vote so that the Hugo would once again represent popular SF.

                            Sad Puppies was about getting the Hugos to once again represent fun stuff, not PC tracts. The complaints about slates came from the insiders upset over being dislodged from their illegitimate perches.

                            Sda Puppies don’t need no steenkin’ slates, Sad Puppies just wanna have fun.

                            1. Y’all know the tune, and I confess to forcing the scansion but it ain’t as if I’m the only one ever did that:

                               I stay up reading until the morning light
                               My mother says when you gonna live your life right
                               Oh mother dear we’re not the fortunate ones
                               And Sad Puppies they want to read fun
                               Oh Sad Puppies just want to read fun

                               The Kindle lights in the middle of the night
                               My father yells what you gonna do with your life
                               Oh daddy dear you know you’re still number one
                               But Sad Puppies they want to read fun
                               Oh Sad Puppies just want to read

                               That’s all they really want
                               Some fun
                               When the working day is done
                               Oh Sad Puppies, they want to read fun
                               Oh Sad Puppies just want to read fun

                               Some boys take a marvelous book
                               And hide it away from the rest of the world
                               I want to be the one to read in the sun
                               Oh Sad Puppies they want to have fun
                               Oh Sad Puppies just want to read

                               That’s all they really want
                               Some fun
                               When the working day is done
                               Oh Sad Puppies, they want to read fun
                               Oh Sad Puppies just want to have fun(Sad Puppies they wanna)
                               (Wanna read fun)
                               (Sad Puppies wanna read)

                               They just wanna, they just wanna
                               (Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies just wanna read fun)
                               They just wanna, they just wanna read fun
                               Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies just wanna read fun

                               (They just wanna, they just wanna)
                               They just wanna, they just wanna
                               They just wanna, they just wanna
                               (Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies just wanna read fun)
                               Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies just wanna read fun

                               When the workin’
                               When the workin’ day is done
                               Oh when the workin’ day is done
                               Oh Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies just wanna read fun

                               They just wanna, they just wanna
                               They just wanna, they just wanna
                               Oh Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies just wanna read fun

                               (They just wanna, they just wanna)
                               When the workin’
                               (They just wanna, they just wanna)
                               When the workin’ day is done
                               (Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies just wanna have fun)
                               When the working day is done
                               Oh Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies just wanna read fun

                               (They just wanna, they just wanna)
                               Yeah, yeah, yeah

                            2. *giggles* You filk well, sir. You filk very well!

                            3. Danke; I just wish I had thought to change the “Some boys take a marvelous book” to “Some fans take a marvelous book” before hitting “post” and thank you for this opportunity to make amends.

                   4. The current rules aren’t broken, 80% of the electorate is not being robbed of their right to vote, and the more Patrick talks, the less I think the EPH supporters have adequately stress tested the idea.

                      1. They haven’t. They set up a test scinario that showed their proposal in the best possible light without asking the all critical question ‘now how do I break it?’

                         1. There is someone on Larry’s blog who is arguing for EPH and the arguments sound much the same. I wonder even if it’s the same person.

                            1. Most likely just someone using the same talking points. I notice our EPH-pusher never addresses any of the actual, substantive critiques.

                            2. Yeah, in the same method of the first question of their FAQ: Can you explain EPH in simple terms? The answer proceeds to not answer that question, but answers a question that was not asked.

                               Which sums up EPH in it’s entirety really.

                            3. It appears to be. Since the links claimed to be his own are identical as are the first names. He still hasn’t answered the most fundamental two questions of any testing: How can this be broken? And “Why are you waiting until after the first adoption is passed? You expect us to vote positively on something that’s not even alpha tested?”

                            4. “There is someone on Larry’s blog who is arguing for EPH and the arguments sound much the same. I wonder even if it’s the same person.”

                               That’s probably me you’re talking about.

                               RES,

                               “Most likely just someone using the same talking points. I notice our EPH-pusher never addresses any of the actual, substantive critiques.”

                               If there’s a critique you think I haven’t addressed, please point it out. The EPH FAQ is here: http://sasquan.org/e-pluribus-hugo-faq/

                               My code and results from the 1984 data and some simulated runs are here: https://softwarematters.wordpress.com/2015/08/06/e-pluribus-hugo/

                               I think the ability of 15% of the voters to sweep all five nominations in a category is a flaw in the current voting rules. My preliminary results show that EPH results in more voters seeing one or more of their preferences on the final ballot. I think that’s a good thing.

                               If you disagree, please be clear on whether you’re disagreeing with the means or the end.

                            5. So… yes, the same person.

                               So you’re doing the ‘make ourselves repeat what we said again, and again and again’ tactic, as if we’re all collectively too stupid to know what you’re ‘kindly’ trying to explain to us.

                               I like how the eph is up on Sasquan as a FAQ already. And OH LOOK, question number one: Can you explain EPH in plain language?

                               (rambling answer that doesn’t answer a yes or no question.)

                               And actually DOES force a change in nominating! IN THE SAME SECTION.

                   5. Under EPH it takes even fewer voters to sweep a given slot and the same number divvied into individuals casting full vote behind a single work.

                      That makes it, at the very BEST a wash. A wash as the best case scenario does not make a system better, especially when the worst case scenario is worse than current. (Letting an even SMALLER number of people decide who gets what slots.)

                      1. wyrdbard,

                         “Under EPH it takes even fewer voters to sweep a given slot and the same number divvied into individuals casting full vote behind a single work.”

                         That’s not correct. Under the current rules, the number of voters required to guarantee a slot under EPH could sweep all five slots.

                         1. That is not correct. Under the 21/100 example and the current rules, The 100 that voted for one piece with a variety of other books would have gotten that piece on there and left the 21 in the dust. Not so with yours. As I said over at Monster Hunter Nation. I’ve got a little excel file worked up. I’ll post the results as soon as I can on that. (Though if work picks up it’ll likely be Sunday when I have internet again.) IN those I’ve got the full set of slots mapped out. Excel’s a marvelous tool for this sort of thing.

                      2. Wyrdbard,
                         Do you have a graphics program that can expand canvas size, piece together a bunch of screenshots to make a single image, and write text with?

                         Because I just did a screenshot series (up to twelve images) of the EPH proposal’s FAQ, versus the CURRENT rules for Hugo nomination and voting process.

                         I’m tempted to just thread them together, insert large white areas of blank space on either side of the screenshots for people to write criticisms on, and give them out to folks to use.

                         It’s also a truly STRIKING difference between the fairly straightforward process of the current Hugo rules, versus the mess that is EPH, which while claiming to be only about the VOTING process, actually interferes with both nomination and voting process.

                         Seriously, the opening question of the FAQ is truly exemplary of the mess that is EPH and the contortions the anti-Sad Puppies are pulling to ‘make sure Puppies don’t have the ability to get in again’.

                         I liked also how they have some supposed non-expert ‘program up’ a program that will tally the votes. Is it open source? Can other people actually have access to the code that the Hugo Awards will be using? Will we get a chance to look at the algorithms and examine them? Because, coming from a point of view where the voting process is being presented by the very biased ASPs, simply, there is no reason to trust that the program coded will not simply throw out the nominated works they don’t like, or similarly muck with them, then allow the pontificating pricks to claim the computer is completely neutral.

                         That’s pure bullshit. Computers only do what people program them to do.

                         1. “Computers only do what people program them to do.”

                            Careful — such thoughts can get you labeled an EPH Denialist.

                            In LC’s interview at the Portuguese American Journal he told of his father’s experience eating steak:

                            My dad was in his late teens before he understood why people liked steak, because to him, steak was the dried out, flavorless hunks of retired milk cow he ate every day.

                            EPH is serving us the same old dried out, flavorless hunks of retired milk cow but assuring us their new sauce will make it delicious.

                            Notice that their complaint addresses the “problem” of slate voting (has anybody pushing EPH addressed the question of what happens when you get two, three, four groups pushing slates?) and ignoring the greater problem of too few people voting in the Hugos.

                            As The Right Stuff argues, “the issue here ain’t pussy. The issue here is monkey.”

                            1. I think the key is their program made by a non-expert. That program will do exactly what they want. Which is fix the numbers to their favor. Hence the reallocation of votes to other nominations which the voters themselves have no say in.

                            2. Weirdly I was nineteen before I liked steak. Same reason, though we didn’t own a dairy. It was just cheaper to buy the work-worn meat from old cows and oxen.

                            3. Of course there is my Dad who was brought up eating his steak well-done but quite often complained about the toughness of it. It took my Mom 30 years or so to get him to eat it medium rare. My mom used to use a meat hammer to tenderize Dad’s steaks.

                               Tom >

                            4. Which was something the 1632 crew missed: Eddie Cantrell complaining that the Germans couldn’t cook beef

                         2. I liked also how they have some supposed non-expert ‘program up’ a program that will tally the votes. Is it open source? Can other people actually have access to the code that the Hugo Awards will be using? Will we get a chance to look at the algorithms and examine them? Because, coming from a point of view where the voting process is being presented by the very biased ASPs, simply, there is no reason to trust that the program coded will not simply throw out the nominated works they don’t like, or similarly muck with them, then allow the pontificating pricks to claim the computer is completely neutral.

                            Again, I’m getting a distinct whiff of AGW model / data faking here. And once again, their long history of dishonesty shows we can’t take their word for it.

                            1. The sad thing is, they’ll probably get away with it because only ATTENDING members who go to the business meeting get to vote. We folks who got supporting memberships don’t get that.

                            2. Remember it takes two years to implement this.

                            3. @shadowdancer I’m seriously considering attending next year if finances allow. It’s a 3-4 hour drive from where I live. Depending on how many others live out in that part of fly over country and how things go this year, there could be a big in person puppy presence.

                            4. that would certainly cause a lot of leftist head ‘splosions.

                         3. I have photoshop and all the adobe fanciness.

                            I’m working on mine. Most of the numbers were hand with excel formulas once I got more complicated, but the excel’s a hodge podge and not exactly comprehensible to anyone but me. When I get it cleaned up I’ll make it and my tests available to anyone who wants to look. Right now I’m taking the simplest part of the proposition and running it: 1 vote up to 5 pieces and seeing what that does. The rest of it seems to be along the lines of ‘Watch the shells can you tell us where the ball is?’

                            1. Mine was just a massive compilation of screenshots showing the difference between the EPH FAQ and the actual Hugo Nomination and Voting rules, with blank spaces on either side and below, for people to write on.
                               

                               It’s huge.

                               First thing that becomes obvious: EPH’s FAQ doesn’t answer yes/no questions with yes or no, but goes for ‘set phasers to stun’ longwindedness. The FIRST question, “Can you explain EPH in plain language” proceeds to have an answer that both fails to answer the question, but reveals flaws in the system, as well as actively contradicting the first statement made in answer, as the methods used both influence nomination and voting.

                               Baffle them with bullshit might work for American Congress and passing laws in America, but you’re talking about FANDOM here. Fandom’s WAY more nitpicky about the minutae than US politicians.

                            2. I hope you’re right, Shadow, but… remember what happened to Luna.

                            3. Luna Lovegood? Yeah.

                            4. No, I meant Free Luna in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

                            5. I’m of two minds. Part of me wants to put it on insty, the other part realizes it’s not useful to anyone but sf/f fans.

                            6. Sarah, maybe PJ Media would let you put it up in Lifestyles or Tatler.

                            7. your pictured criticism, or the image? Freely use lol, it’s only screenshots.

                               But I think there’s more use to it than just the SFF fans. It’s a good illustration of the Baffle With Bullshit, Pretend Intelligence With Faked Eloquence that, in my opinion, is tended to be mistaken for actual substance and depth in critical thought these days.

                               Besides, it’s a good idea to expose the crap that’s being proposed.

                               Granted that’s just the FAQ vs the current Hugo Nom/Vote rules, but that’s what’s been linked around, so that’s what is critiqued.

                               Come to think of it, other than the FAQ is there somewhere that has the WHOLE EPH? Though really, the EPH FAQ is bad enough.

                               Seriously. Couldn’t answer a yes or no question with a yes or no. *shakes head*

                               It’s worth doing, Sarah; it’s not just a methodology of exposing the crap in the Hugos, but also some of the political handwavium that goes around too, and it’s not limited to the Hugos.

                               Just my two cents.

                            8. “… it’s not limited to the Hugos.”

                               They are forever using the same tactical manual. It can be useful to expose their methodology and strategery.

                         4. “Computers only do what people program them to do.”

                            Back in 1971, I ran across the following doggerel in our computing center:

                            I do not like this darn machine, I wish the boss would sell it.
                            It never does just what I want, but only what I tell it.

                            1. *cackle* This is even doubly true with the voice activated computers. There ARE some. There are some scripts as well that answer questions; with somewhat varying results but…

                               On a more serious note though, I’m really hoping they’ll actually have the holographic virtual assistant project work. I’m hearing from Aff that Japan has created a mobile hologram that can actually physically pick up objects up to 1kg in weight. The problem is, that’s essentially a plasma humanoid that can burn body-shaped holes through walls if it walks through one. Some bugs in the commercial viability of the system still need working on…

                   6. We would do well to remember that it has been mathematically proven that any voting method can be manipulated to get sub-optimal results. The question for EPH isn’t “can it be manipulated?” so much as “how can it be manipulated?”

                      If we want to limit the role of slates, we would do well to get out as many people as possible, from as many walks of life as possible, with as many ulterior motives as possible. The more people we have voting their conscience, the less any one “slate” is goin to have an effect on the outcome.

                      1. But, but … if we do that we might have lots of people vote, and some of them might not be the right people, and the Hugo might become nothing more than an exercise in rewarding (gulp) popularity rather than exxxxxxxxcellence.

                         I mean, then how does it become any different more meaningful than an Amazon ranking?

    2. Patrick, I read through much of the thread and, while your numbers may look good, the morality of the Pluribus Hugo proposal is just plain wrong. Why should my vote count less than someone else’s for any reason at all? Because I agree with others? You talk about the current system disenfranchising others. First, the current system does not prevent anybody otherwise eligible from voting. It may marginalize some but Pluribus Hugo does the same thing. In fact, by over-complicating the system, you make it easier for someone to game it.In every election, someone is going to lose. Sometimes badly. Learn to live with it or try to get more people to nominate stuff you want next year. Treat every vote equally. Stop trying to make everything equal.

       1. James Schardt,

          “Why should my vote count less than someone else’s for any reason at all?”

          It doesn’t. Under the current rules, less than 20% of the voters can make sure your vote counts as 0. Under EPH, the more of your nominations that are eliminated, the more likely one of your remaining nominations will be on the final ballot.

          Whether or not it’s over complicated is a personal call. The results, though, are that more voters will see one or more of their preferences on the final ballot. I think that kind of proportional representation is a good thing.

          1. I’ll make it simple: unless the entire algorithm and data sets are released publicly, with ample time for peer review and comment, before ANY vote is taken, your entire proposal can only be seen as a perpetration of fraud on the current and future members and attendees of Worldcon.

             1. Patrick asked at LC’s what it’d take for me to vote for it; I suggested to start with a lot more test runs (10,000 or so) than they had (since you don’t have real data, you need a ton of simulations to forecast)

                Since they didn’t do that this year, and their data is obviously cherry picked (wouldn’t do to use a simulated 2013 data set that showed the 6th place nominee making the ballot for best novel using EPH, after all, if you want votes from the file770 regulars, even though I’d guess that was more likely than not), the kindest thing to do is fail it and let them try to start over and do a better job.

                1. They seem not to grasp that all presumption of their good faith has long since been forfeited.

                   I don’t see how anybody can claim to be a fan of SF and not know:
                   Fool me once, shame on you
                   Fool me twice, shame on me.

28. I find it amusing that PNH compares us to the “Association of Cheerful Child-rapers”. Samuel R Delany supports the real life version of this and he gets anthologies in his honor, gushing blog posts on Tor.com, and interviews in major news outlets that somehow fail to mention this fact.

    1. That’s because sexual perversion is awesome when progressives do it!

       1. For example, when a Bill Clinton uses the Oval Office as a bachelor pad and gropes unwilling aides (Kathleen Willey) it’s one thing, but when a Senator Packwood (okay, with that name anything he does that evokes sexual imagery probably is criminal) it is a violation of all that is good and decent?

          1. Ah, but one side is well known for their hipocracy in the name of fairness.
             They always hold their enemies to a higher standard that they do their friends or themselves.

          2. Because NOW didn’t need Packwood’s vote anymore and decided it was safe to turn on him. They knew about his sexual predations all along and turned a blind eye, letting him victimize dozens of women because, like Ted Kennedy, he said all the right things even if he was a perverted pig.

             1. This is what happened with Mayor “Filthy” Filner in San Diego. His actions were an open secret, but no one did anything about him because he was a Democratic mayor in San Diego (which was a big deal). iirc, the Democrats in California voted on whether anything should be done after the whole mess went public, and 50% of the ones who voted said no.

       2. Yeah, and while I agree that gays do not equal pedophile, there are people trying to get pedophilia recognized as a legitimate sexual orientation.:

          http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/gay-laws-set-stage-for-pedophilia-rights/

          In 2003, a group of mental health professionals formed B4U-Act to begin a slow but inexorable push to redefine pedophilia as a sexual orientation in the same way homosexuality was in the 1970s.

          The organization calls pedophiles “minor attracted people,” and the website states its purpose is to “help mental health professionals learn more about attraction to minors and to consider the effects of stereotyping, stigma, and fear.”
          B4U-Act later held a symposium in which a new definition of pedophilia was proposed for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders of the APA.

          In 2010, two psychologists in Canada made national news when they declared that pedophilia is a sexual orientation just like homosexuality.

          Van Gijseghem, psychologist and retired professor of the University of Montreal, told members of Parliament, “Pedophiles are not simply people who commit a small offense from time to time but rather are grappling with what is equivalent to a sexual orientation just like another individual may be grappling with heterosexuality or even homosexuality.”

          He went on to say: “True pedophiles have an exclusive preference for children, which is the same as having a sexual orientation. You cannot change this person’s sexual orientation. He may, however, remain abstinent.”

          When asked if he should be comparing pedophiles to homosexuals, Van Gijseghem replied: “If, for instance, you were living in a society where heterosexuality is proscribed or prohibited and you were told that you had to get therapy to change your sexual orientation, you would probably say that that is slightly crazy. In other words, you would not accept that at all. I use this analogy to say that, yes indeed, pedophiles do not change their sexual orientation.”

          Dr. Vernon Quinsey, professor emeritus of psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, agreed with Van Gijseghem, saying pedophiles’ sexual interests cause them to prefer children, and “there is no evidence that this sort of preference can be changed through treatment or through anything else.”

          In July 2010, Harvard Health Publications declared: “Pedophilia is a sexual orientation and unlikely to change. Treatment aims to enable someone to resist acting on his sexual urges.”

          If the APA would declare pedophilia a sexual orientation on a par with homosexuality, it would have huge ramifications for existing anti-discrimination laws.

          The common process has been for homosexual advocates to add “sexual orientation” to a list of nondiscrimination factors in cities and states.

          However, such references are not directed specifically toward homosexuality and could be interpreted to protect a host of other people with “orientations,” such as bisexuals and transgenders.

          Supporters of the LGBT lifestyle vehemently deny the connection, insisting age-of-consent laws would prevent pedophiles from claiming the same rights as homosexuals in employment, housing and other areas. (I agree with this – Shadowdancer)

          At face value, the claim appears to have merit, however the problem is psychologists make a sharp distinction between pedophiles and child molesters.

          Dr. Gregory Herek, a fellow of the APA and the Association for Psychological Science and past recipient of the APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology, argued the point in an article titled “Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation.”

          Herek said the problem is the average person fails to understand correct terminology, which he says is “confusing” and “misleading” regarding pedophiles.

          “Pedophilia and child molestation are used in different ways, even by professionals,” Herek stated. “Pedophilia usually refers to an adult psychological disorder characterized by a preference for prepubescent children as sexual partners; this preference may or may not be acted upon.”

          He said that by contrast, child molestation and child sexual abuse refers to actions taken by the perpetrator.

          Based on this definition, a pedophile has not broken any laws, since he has not actually engaged in a sexual act with children. Analysts say with no laws being broken if pedophilia were to be declared a sexual orientation, it would fall under the definition of sexual orientation in all appropriate legal statutes.

          This could prove especially problematic for employers who hire people to work with children, such as in daycare centers or schools. If a pedophile were to apply for a job, as long as he could claim he has not engaged in the act of child molestation, a claim of discrimination might be supported if he was rejected based on his “sexual orientation.”

          Harvey said that while there are currently age-of-consent laws that prohibit adults from engaging in sex with children, there is a push to change that.

          “There are people who advocate for sexual freedom who have been attempting to lower the age of consent for quite some time,” Harvey said. “One of the things I see happening is they are going active in freeing and empowering youth to be who they are. They are attempting to de-stigmatize sex between older youth and younger children.

          “For instance, they will be pushing under anti-bullying laws that there is nothing wrong with a 16-year-old having sexual relations with an 11-year-old. Once you have passed that barrier and established that is a sexual orientation because that is something that people just do it is a logical step to make the leap to pedophilia.”

          She noted that the process that is being played out with mental health professionals such as B4U-Act is the same as what happened in the 1970s.

          “The definition by psychologists between pedophilia and child molestation is very important. They want to first establish the idea of an identity of people who are attracted to children,” she said. “The next step is to play the victim card, saying there are people who are hateful to them and criticizing them is hateful because it is an orientation and therefore they cannot help it.

          “They reason that if they never act on their sexual impulses towards children then what is the problem? Common sense says that if they have these feelings they will act on them. It is not inborn just like there is no biological basis for homosexuality. However, the militant lobby for pedophiles will defend their right to have that orientation and that’s where they are going to go first. They will not go to behavior right away because they know people won’t go with them on that, but they will go with the idea of desiring what you want to desire because you do not know where it comes from.”

          There are also those who advocate legalizing child pornography, contending it helps prevent pedophiles from becoming child molesters.

          Milton Diamond, a University of Hawaii professor and director of the Pacific Center for Sex and Society, once stated that child pornography could be beneficial to society because, “Potential sex offenders use child pornography as a substitute for sex against children.”

          Diamond is a distinguished lecturer for the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. The IASHS openly advocated the repeal of the Revolutionary War-era ban on homosexuals serving in the military.

          On its website, the IASHS lists “basic sexual rights” that includes “the right to engage in sexual acts or activities of any kind whatsoever, providing they do not involve nonconsensual acts, violence, constraint, coercion or fraud.”

          Other rights are to “be free of persecution, condemnation, discrimination, or societal intervention in private sexual behavior” and “the freedom of any sexual thought, fantasy or desire.” The organization also says that no one should be “disadvantaged because of their age.”

          What should be even more alarming to parents is that the APA has downplayed any mental health issues that children may experience resulting from sexually abuse by adults.

          In 1998, the APA issued a report claiming “that the ‘negative potential’ of adult sex with children was ‘overstated’ and that ‘the vast majority of both men and women reported no negative sexual effects from their child sexual abuse experiences.’”

          WND previously reported laws in states such as California and New Jersey barring so-called “gay” conversion therapy could actually prevent mental health professionals from offering counseling to pedophiles.

          Attorney Mat Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, which has filed a lawsuit against the California law, said under the bill’s language a mental health counselor could be sanctioned if there was an attempt to get a pedophile to change his behavior or speak negatively about the behavior.

          “If someone were to say their sexual orientation is toward young children and a licensed mental health practitioner were to counsel against those tendencies as opposed to affirming the behavior it is problematic and could result in an ethical code violation by the counselor,” Staver said. “This is an issue that is clearly lurking in this statute.”

          “This language is so broad and vague, it arguably could include all forms of sexual orientation including pedophilia,” said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute. “It’s not just the orientation that is protected, the conduct associated with the orientation is protected as well.”

          Many may not realize that the federal government has already granted pedophiles protected status.

          The Matthew Shephard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act lists “sexual orientation” as a protected class; however it does not define the term.

          Republicans attempted to add an amendment specifying that “pedophilia is not covered as an orientation.” However, the amendment was defeated by Democrats in Congress shortly after President Obama took office.

          Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., stated that all alternative sexual lifestyles should be protected under the law.

          “This bill addresses our resolve to end violence based on prejudice and to guarantee that all Americans regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability or all of these ‘philias’ and fetishes and ‘isms’ that were put forward need not live in fear because of who they are. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this rule.”

          Freaking SCARY READ.

          1. My goodness. How hard would it be for a creatively psycho-babbling bureaucrat to take the above, substitute a few words, and use it to try to justify “protecting” social psychopaths – y’know, just because the SP screams at the demons in his head, builds bombs in his basement, goes on hate-filled social media rampages in which he threatens to kill all the [whatever group], if he hasn’t actually done it yet he’s just a misunderstood minority who should totally be hired as a mall cop, movie house usher, retirement home orderly… {/horrified sarc}

          2. There are almost no words …..

             One of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read
             (seen it for real unfortunately — I am a nurse, worked ED’s, and have cared for children that have been abused and murdered).

             As a father, this kind of ‘advocacy’ makes me consider that the only possible response is to drop big rocks from the sky. Repeatedly. And again to make certain every one of these bastards are no more than scattered atoms.

             I.WILL.PROTECT.CHILDREN.

             1. Rocks fall, they all die? Yeah.

                And I’m someone who is AWARE of pedophiles who actively help police hunt down pedos who hurt children. (not many exist, but there are a few, I’d read…)

             2. (Nods) NAMBLA is one of the very, very few groups where the solution is the church-burning scene in The Patriot.

                1. Which is why Samuel Delaney is such a pariah. . . .

    2. Odds PNH voted for Bill Clinton, who now spends his spare time flying a donor’s private jet down to Pedo Island in the Caribbean?

    3. Good grief. This is almost the equivalent of Ron Jeremy decrying promiscuity…

29. I’ll need to finish this later… Hit the “New Robert Heinlein” claim in Scalzi’s piece and just had to quit for now. (Must look like a San Fran flophouse in that tiny brain of his, since he’s apparently also the “New Gene Roddenberry,” the “New H. Beam Piper,” and apparently also now the “New Toni Weiskoppf”…)

    1. “ and apparently also now the “New Toni Weiskoppf””

       Except the way he does it the spelling is Scheisskopf.

       1. How can one be “The New” anything, when the original is still running around doing things?

          1. He can’t be the New anything because all his stuff is completely cribbed then mangled from his supposed predecessors.

             1. So, the same old Scalzi? Or maybe…(I hate doing this too poor uncle…) Milton Berle? (alright, sans humor).

       2. 

    2. Amazing how things seem to come together at the same time… (I’m waiting on #3 to drop for the day.)

       Passive Voice has an interesting (for certain values of same) quote from Raymond Chandler in 1953 about science fiction.

       http://www.thepassivevoice.com/08/2015/google-was-a-1953-raymond-chandler-joke/

       My response to this…

       “I’m going to need to start paying attention to theories about reincarnation again.

       It is painfully obvious that Raymond Chandler has been re-embodied in the flesh of John Scalzi! Writing derivative tripe for the consumption of would-be “intelligentsia” (who would have been held back in the third grade as little as fifty years ago), and attacking anything that might possibly reveal his utter incompetence.”

       1. I think you’re being a little unfair to Chandler by saying Scalzi is his modern-day a-hole reincarnation. Sorry, Scalzi doesn’t have that much class, and while Chandler certainly spoke in blunt, perhaps even harsh terms, he didn’t strike me as an a-hole.

          1. There is a very good historical interview of Chandler by Ian Fleming, and vice versa, on BBC radio somewhere.

             1. I shall have to look for it, because my curiousity is piqued.

       2. I’m thinking he’s more the reincarnation of Lillian Hellman, determined to choke the career and talent out of more gifted writers so long as he can control them.

          And, of course, in the sense of “Every word she wrote was a lie, including ‘a’. ‘and’, and ‘the’.”

    3. I’ve always considered Scalzi to be a moderately entertaining mid list writer. It’s a pity that he also appears to be a chit for brains @sshole as well.

       1. Reading his blog was the same kind of mistake as reading Asimov’s later, short memoirs. Both spend so much energy on making themselves look better than anyone else they wind up looking like sh!theads.

          Turned me off Asimov for a long time (especially his sh!tting on his own son) and Scalzi doesn’t have the backlist to recover his position in my reading rotation that Asimov had.

    4. I noticed the Old Man’s War retrospective at Tor.com the other day started off with Heinlein bashing.

       1. Why not? Their “seminar” for the release of the first volume of Heinlein’s bio was nothing but Heinlein bashing, except for me.

          1. It is truly amazing what depths some people can plunge to in their quest for narcissistic supply.

    5. The New H. Beam Piper? He wouldn’t’ve been fit to proofread for the man.

30. The reaction among the anti-Puppies should be entertaining when they discover this article in the next few hours.

    “The nerve of that Hoyt woman, using our own words against us like that!”

    1. Just proves this Latin chick is racist and sexist, doesn’t it?

       1. You’re not allowed to have a vagina, Sarah. The PKC took yours away, remember? You’re a white Mormon male now.

          1. A GAY White Mormon Male. With a GREAT Rack. So there.

             1. The liberal reporters don’t want your great rack going on the record, either. They keep ignoring you even when I point to your great rack and say, “See? Over there! Woman! WOMAN!” Nope. They’re not having any.

                1. Well, what matters is not chromosomes or equipment, but how people identify, and clearly she is identifying wrong.

                   1. Identify women by their rack is wrong?

                      Proudly wrong for 48 years then 🙂

                      1. You and me both, brother. You and me both. 🙂

                         1. Perhaps we should start an award for women writes of *ahem* fantasy and maybe science fiction.

                            1. Could the award be a bronzed brass bikini?

                            2. Only if it has three (or more) cups.

                            3. The three cupper would be the retrospective award to ensure total recall of prior worthy works.

             2. They made you a Tranny! What FOOLS those mortal mortals be!

                1. YES! Now Sarah’s a special protected class and they can’t argue with her! She has UNASSAILABLE MORAL AUTHORITY!

                2. She’s a tranny? SHIFTY!

                   1. Well, she does write about shifters . . .

          2. That’s vaginal denial, that is. That’s sexxxisssssssss….

             1. So, basically if a straight man or a lesbian gets turned down for sex it is sexissssss?

                1. You joke, but there are those out there who seriously claim that if a person doesn’t want to have sex with someone because they’re not that person’s preference, they’re being bigots.

                   1. The person not wanting to have sex is being a bigot, rather.

                      *grumbles about lack of preview or edit options*

                      WordPress delenda est.

                   2. It’s more narrow than that. The claim is that if a lesbian woman doesn’t want to have sex with a man in a dress who feels that he is currently a woman, the refusing woman is bigoted.

                      1. Nah, it’s fairly broad. One of my gay friends was called sexist and misogynist because he doesn’t want to have sex with women.
                         I tell you, Marxism uses its victim groups to achieve power then treats them worse than anyone else. I mean tell me of one communist country where there are gay rights.
                         Our SJWs are the most idiotic of useful idiots.

                         1. But Sarah!

                            THIS time, they’ll do it right! /sarc

                         2. So the protected classes are starting to eat each other. Why am I reminded of Philip K. Dick’s story “Type Two”? (One of the very first sci-fi stories i read, in 4th grade. Don’t ask.)

                            1. Are you sure you’re not thinking of “Second Variety”?

                            2. Yes, 60guilders, “Second Variety”. Thanks!

                         3. Well, that’s a new one to me. The more you know!

                            1. I’ve also seen it said of males who don’t want to have sex with M2F transsexuals.

                               Granted, it may just be because I follow anti-SJW stuff, which brings to the forefront all the idiocies for the purposes of “point and mock”.

    2. She’s cheating/taking things out of context/mis-framing our argument/using our words without permission/othering us . . .

       I’ve probably missed a few.

       1. You missed “a poopyhead”, for one.

          1. Point. Brain full from in-service.

31. There is a bright side to this, though a selfish one, I’ve found a LOT of author’s through the Sad Puppies effort that I hadn’t read before, which feeds mah addiction t’ fiction… 🙂 (Picture the Cookie Monster meme with the spoon, lighter, and heroine reference, but replace the cookie dough with an Amazon logo….)

    1. Awesome! Rocket ships are all very shiny, but the George Washington award trumps ’em every time. Glad you’ve found more fiction you like, and long may you continue to do so!

    2. Me too. I knew of Sarah before (though not that she lived five miles north of me!) but it wasn’t until the SP explosion that I discovered Larry, Brad, Cedar, and John C. Wright. Peter Grant is in the queue, along with Brian Neimeier. The cloud indeed showed riches ready to drop upon me, and drop they did. My Paperwhite is full. I need not cry to dream again.

       1. Right back at you, Jeff!

    3. A certain amount of Streisand Effect?

32. There are only two alternatives:
    1. Go to war to capture the Hugo process and permanently neuter the SJW crowd;
    2. Pull completely out and start a new, untainted award system (which, doubt it not, will eventually be targeted and colonized by SJWs, because that’s what they do — see below).

    I deem the first alternative implausible. The second alternative will produce short term gains, intermediate term strife, and long term…a reprise of the current unpleasantnesses. Because SJWs want power and will pursue it wherever it seems available. In any organization, in any venue, and for any purpose.

    If anyone here has played the old Atari 2600 game “Yar’s Revenge,” you’ll undoubtedly remember the homing torpedo. That is the SJWs in a single metaphor.

    No, it’s not inevitable doom. It’s just a struggle that will never end as long as some people want to dictate what others can say, do, and think.

    1. SJWs are like Moral Majority 2.0, only they’ve been inverted on the political spectrum. Still the same old stuffy preaching, shrieking, and bald-faced attempts to use the mechanisms and structure of society to tell us what we can and can’t think, see, do, or enjoy. Yup. Moral Majority 2.0 is here! Now with lesbians and transgenderism! Yay!

       1. I realized t’other day that the SJW are just ‘Fifties moral scolds, working the other side. What is “banned in Boston” nowadays is just as much “bad think” as it was sixty years ago.

       2. That’s unfair to the Moral Majority…they wrote better and clearer prose.

    2. Implausible? Maybe, maybe not, but why go to all the trouble of building another playground for the bullies to invade when we can skip all the intervening steps and just dig in our heels here and now?

       Besides, we don’t have to capture it, unlike some who already think that they hold it and must keep us out. We just have to open all the windows, turn the spotlight on, and bring it to the attention of all the people who like scifi, and all the people who “used to, but I quit reading when I couldn’t find anything…” There are far, far more fans and occasional-readers than there ever will be puppies and puppy-kickers together.

       When they swamp all of us, when all our shouts are lost in the noise, then WorldCon will truly represent the world, and the Hugos will represent the best in scifi.

       1. You are indeed a wise woman. Truth be told, most SF&F readers, even many of us here, don’t really give a flying flip over a silly little award. What matters is that a certain small select group not only gamed that award process, but loudly proclaimed that their carefully promoted and encouraged winners were the absolute pinnacle of the SF&F art. And far too many publishers bought the line, drank the kool-aid, and used that concept as the guide when selecting works to publish. And then despaired as to why oh why don’t readers buy science fiction any more. It must be gaming, and video, and the internet. Here’s a long standing principle of retail: when you change the content of your product and business falls off look to your change first as the probable cause for the loss of business. It may truly be some extraneous reason, but even if so, the content you provide is the one thing completely under your control, so if a fix is even possible that’s where to focus your attention.
          The SJW, the CHORF, the SMOF, and tradpub have all conspired to crap all over the genre we all love. Whether from politics, bad business decisions, greed, or lust for power and control over a shrinking pie; they refuse to admit that they are the reason the pie is shrinking. It’s all about finding something, anything, else to blame for their failure.
          Sad Puppies started three years ago as a small effort by a well known and loved author wanting to simply point out that the system had problems. The furor and lies and vitriol that resulted and continue to rain upon anyone remotely associated with SP would seem to be all the proof we need that Larry C. was correct, but that admitting so would utterly destroy the self image of that same small select bunch of self important busybodies responsible for so much damage to real SF&F.

          1. Well, I think what really matters is that we love the genre and want it to grow and find new fans among all the people who incorporate science fiction into all the other parts of their entertainment *except* reading.

             1. This is what i got out of Toni Weisskopf’s linked post, engage those not engaged in reading and expand the audience. My first thought while reading Scalzi’s rebuttal(?) was that he seemed to have stopped reading halfway thru and that his enclosing the encapsulation within quotation marks was unfair as it would lead folks to assuming that he was quoting from her post. My second thought was that he was writing a text book example of projection.

       2. I’m afraid your optimism is misplaced, for a single reason: the SJWs love power and desire it above all other things. Their overwhelming motivation to dominate and exclude you and all others who dissent from their dispensation will trump your desire to hang on to the foothold SP3 has gained you. It will easily submerge any new, non-ideological entrants to the contest, who’ll swiftly retreat as they ask themselves “Why bother getting involved in this?”

          For a fuller exegesis on why this is essentially inevitable, refer to Friedrich Hayek’s The Road To Serfdom, specifically the chapter titled “Why The Worst Get On Top.”

          1. So… you’re saying we shouldn’t stand up to them at all because they’re going to win?

          2. I’m afraid your pessimism is unfounded, for a single reason: preference cascade.

             Seriously, do you think this tiny, shrill little minority is on top and can remain so because all the people who make Star Wars, Star Trek, Halo, et al. so lucrative really believe them?

             The Soviet Union’s dominance of the world was inevitable… until it wasn’t. So, to, will pass the grey, shrill, hysterical SJWs. Those that cannot create, cannot build, and cannot nurture will fall and be forgotten as the world moves on.

             1. There is also the fact that the SJW narrative has been broken. I am amazed that PuppyKickers believe that if you play games you can not possibly be a science fiction fan. Duh?
                The Sad Puppies problem was immediately obvious and true the minute I first noticed it. Why? I had experienced a little bit of GamerGate; I had purchased a game highly recommended by the gamer pubs and it was drek. When GG started, I went out to ‘Depression Quest’ that wonderful socially lifting experience most gamers were trashing; it was like a poor takeoff of the Adventure ‘colossal cave’ from the main/mini computer days. I thought there was a lot of validity to what the gamers were saying. Now, suddenly, I find out that SF is similarly under siege, and I know from personal experience that no Hugo in the last 5-6 years was worth a crap. (If it is not Baen I am not buying.)
                Now, I do enjoy games, but I am a dedicated SF reader, so naturally my moral outrage that the SJWs had ‘gamed’ and destroyed the Hugos was real. Unfortunately for the SJWs, I think a lot of gamers are part-time SF readers and they have solidarity with the Puppies on taking back our literature. Part of the preference cascade is not only finding lots of other people think the same way you do about a topic, but that those same people also provide avenues for reestablishment for the way things need to be. I suspect many gamers will be keeping an ear to the ground for the Hugos in the next few years, and their number are legion.

                1. I know that people who couldn’t find anything they wanted to read didn’t stop looking for good stories: they moved instead to TV, movies, and gaming. Looking at the huge world of entertainment out there, I hold out a lot of hope that there are more people like you, good sir, who will notice the kerfluffle and go “Oh, really? Who are these people?” and pick up a book.

                   While I personally would love if they try Peter Grant (being rather fond of eating, and the royalties keep us fed), I am delighted if they try Sarah, Brad, Larry, or any others – because we are in the company of good writers, of great storytellers, and after the first taste of fun books, I hold faith fans will be back for more. No writer can possibly write fast enough to satisfy their audience, so we’re in collaboration not competition.

                   1. Possible positive rant incoming here. I can’t speak for anyone else, but reading good books, especially fiction, makes me able to buy more good books. Life is rough; that’s just how it goes. Reading good books – stories that encourage, that uplift, that excite, that remind me of what I want to be and do with this amazing mortal span – lifts me up, reinvigorates me, helps me go do the things I need to do so I can improve my life. That includes making more money so I can buy more books. By giving me books worth reading, books that entertain me and renew my spirits, you (vos) are making me a more lucrative customer to the market in general. Not only will I take in more books than any one author can write; if I have fun, exciting books I will, in the near future, be more able to buy books. More money for all the authors! (Well, okay, not all. There are more good authors than I will ever have time or money enough to read in this vale of tears.)

                      That’s part of why I miss doing the editing I’m so behind on. Working on the kind of books my clients (most of them Huns and Hoydens) write? It’s like that squared. I mean, yeah, it’s awesome that I get paid to read awesome books. But not only do I get great stories to read, but I get to be part of building and polishing them. It’s an amazing feeling, made all the better by the fact that I have fantastic people for clients. [sappy aside about the wonderful community here snipped. Y’all know I love you as kith; groggy over-emotional outbursts ain’t gonna improve on it.] Keep writing those stories, all of you. Not that most of you can help it. 😀

             2. I hope that they will not be forgotten, that way lies their resurgence.

                What we need are simple and reliable rules for identifying SJW types (not just SJW’s) and social rules that demand that that type of person be shunned as maligant scum. Perhaps then they would no longer be able to game the systems to come out on top followed by destroying the system that they are on top of.

                1. Maybe already exists, via self-identification. I know I’m less likely to buy a book by an author who (like Scalzi, et al) who openly declares his work to be so poor that he has to try to keep the supply of new works small, so he’ll have a bigger slice of it.
                   Well, no, that’s not the words he uses – but it’s a reasonable interpretation of his motivation.
                   Might read something of his that looks interesting if I don’t have anything better from y’all, but he shouldn’t hold his breath waiting on me.

       3. We already have our own playground–several of them, in fact, of which this blog is only one. An alternate virtual fandom has existed for years. What happened this past spring is that the Sad Puppies explosion brought it to the attention of a lot of longtime fans like me who had more or less given up on tradpub SF. I’ve finally found my own people. It’s hard to express how liberating that has been.

          Beyond online forums like this, I like the idea of having in-person meetups in biggish cities, as GG has been doing this past year. I intend to be at LibertyCon next year, but it’s a long trot for me, and it’s only once a year. Traditional cons and awards aren’t the only way to create cultural solidarity. When we move to Phoenix next year I’m going to try to start up something monthy or bimonthly through the Meetup site, and hope that others will do the same.

          1. If you’re around CO in November, I’m going to try to have another Hungiving around thanksgiving at Pete’s Kitchen in Denver. (Yes, I like low dives.) Of course, with my luck that will be in the middle of a Chinese-fire-drill move.

             1. That should fit our schedule, and any SJW who tried to stop me would have a Jeff-shaped hole in him.

             2. What is Pete’s Maximum Jeff Occupancy rating?

                1. I THINK it can accommodate both of you.

                   1. They’ll have to have separate platter and separate checks. Can’t risk a true Jeffgularity.

                   2. I’m thin and I don’t eat much. I think we’re good.

          2. Blogs such as this (and Larry’s and John C. Wright’s and … ) serve as samizdat in the new environment.

    3. And isn’t that the sad truth?

33. Reblogged this on The Wandering Witchling.

34. Last year, I won the Baen Fantasy award contest. That was amazing and all the superlatives… and every time I send out a query or a cover letter to a story I wonder if it’s going to get me thrown in the trash by a low level slusher. Surely not, right?

    But I’ve made finalist at Writers of the Future twice since then and I’m still getting form rejections everywhere else. Maybe my writing doesn’t match the market, short stories are hard to sell, etc… but it kind of sucks that I even have to worry about all that. Guilt by association?

    I just want to judge stories by their contents and not care a wit about who wrote them, and I want the same standard applied to me.

    1. Hey, keep up the good work and try the indie path too — if I were a newby now, I’d be doing a novel for the drawer-traditional and one for indie. It won’t hurt you.

       1. Indie is definitely on our radar. Kind of going with the “write a whole mess of stories and then when we do decide to go indie, go all in” plan for now. Thanks for the reassuring comments. The doubts occasionally hold me back from submitting, but never for writing, so I’m building up quite a stockpile…

          1. If you haven’t already done so register for an Amazon publishing account. It’s free and gets your their monthly indie publishing newsletter as well as other resources.
             One school of thought tends toward dumping a large amount of product all at once, while another mimics the dollar cost average method of investing. Put a new work up every month, or even every week if you have sufficient available. If you find your audience it seems to be the case that with every new release you also see an increase in existing older works. As for short stories, for some reason they don’t seem to play well on Amazon at this time. A way around that is to gather several into a collection, which if your writing is any good do seem to sell much better.
             Do always keep in mind that with indie you are the publisher. Amazon or whomever is simply your distributor. You are responsible for all those details that a publisher would provide (usually, though less reliably of late) like final copy edit, blurb, cover art and design, e-book formatting, and marketing. It can seem daunting, but remember, it means your work is entirely under your control, not that of some anonymous entity in a cubicle at your publisher’s office.

             1. Thank you for that particular suggestion. I’ve read Sarah’s posts here and the ones over at MGC about self publishing and it’s definitely seemingly less daunting these days than it used to.

          2. What I did was go through the trunk and pick out the stories I think still worked, revised, and then released a bunch as a collection and also as individual stories. (Well, except the two short-shorts, which are collection only.)

             Note that the collections have sold better than the standalone stories.

             1. I’ve actually got my first exception to that: the Baba Yaga story is outselling everything. No idea what gives, but it’s flying off the server (for Alma levels of flying). And yes, I have an idea for a follow-up. I’m researching it right now, in-between in-service work.

                1. I guess Baba Yaga is more “popular” than she’d like. [Very Big Grin]

                2. eagerly awaiting a follow-up!
                   Loved it.
                   And I still think “Baba Yaga’s Laptop” would make an excellent band name.
                   (from that discussion way back in history)

                3. Its the whole house on chicken feet. The story is outstanding. I think it was Cedar that had a cameo appearance of Baba Yaga in a novel, so I was intrigued by the topic. Basically, I am used to Norse and Greek legends and German fairy tales, but I am always willing to stretch my knowledge to myths from other countries.

                   1. Slavic/Russian folk tales are soooooo cheerful and uplifting of spirits.

                      Just thinking about it makes me want to go uplift some spirits right now.

                      1. “Just thinking about it makes me want to go uplift some spirits right now.”

                         Stolichnaya? I mean, what else besides borscht screams “Mother Russia”?:)

                4. Ahh. So that’s you. Just downloaded it. I haven’t seen much fantastic fiction set in my part of the country in a good long while. (I’m four miles west of I-25.)

                5. Word of mouth, probably. My “Dragon Slayer” does best among my short stories, and I’ve seen some of the word of mouth.

                6. No idea if it’s at all related, but Baba Yaga and the egg of Koshei the Deathless both made a recent appearance in Aaron Williams’ wonderful PS238 comic, with quite a lot of approving comment on his having done his homework on Slavic folklore. Made me notice yours a little more than usual, myself.

                   1. No, hadn’t heard of that one yet. I was thinking last night, and I can count 7 Russian/Slavic based fantasy books off the top of my head. Three are based on Firebird, one on Koshei the Deahtless, and one has Baba Yaga and the Little Humpbacked Horse, and one on Rusalka (it is almost grim-dark, very much set in Medieval Russia), and one pulls in Baba Yaga. Three are by M. Lackey, three by Peter Morwood, and one by C.J. Cherryh. So yeah, there’s a lot of untapped material, and that’s just Russian, not other Slavic traditions (and there are some really interesting other traditions out there.)

                      1. Is Koshei the Deathless the same as Mad King Kastchei, from Stravinsky’s Firebird?

                      2. Koschei is a recurring character (persona? reference?) in James branch Cabell’s works; see Figures of Earth, Jurgen, other entries in the Chronicles of Don Manuel.

                         
                         Gaiman’s American Gods is a more recent work which includes Czernobog (Slavic god of Evil, according to Wiki. eh.)

          3. Kate, listen to Sarah. Doubts about going indie are a problem, but a completely solvable one: Just take a deep breath, grit your teeth, and do it. At Sarah’s urging I put my first novel on KDP Select not quite two weeks ago, and it’s done spectacularly well for someone without a track record in book-length fiction.

             Definitely do novels. Short stories are now promotional pieces more than anything else. Do lots of novels. Always have one underway and another in planning, plus two or three more kicking around in the back of your head. Larry Correia has summarized the path to success in SF in two words: Be prolific.

             You’ll have to buy covers and possibly editing services, but in the long run it’ll be worth it. Good luck. Make it happen.

             1. You’ll have to buy covers and possibly editing services

                There are a number of folks here who do good work in both of those areas, and if they’re not available I have a few contacts elsewhere I can recommend. Not pimping my own services, there: I’m swamped.

                1. Clams got swamps?

                   Good to see you ’round, FRO. 🙂

                   1. Fro? Clams got big hair?

                      1. free range oyster

                      2. …………….I cannot resist.

                         Hairy clams?

                         1. Yep — you get hair caught in your teeth when you eat them. Still a popular delicacy for all that, although it has recently become fashionable to shave them in preparation for serving.

                            1. ❤ You're as crazy as older son. 😛

                            2. It really depends though, on the matter of tastes, as some do prefer leaving a bit of identifiable hair to indicate the clam’s maturity for the sampling.

                               *completely straight face*

                            3. I have been advised that the immature ones not only lack flavour but can come back to haunt you. It is strongly recommended to only eat properly ripe ones to avoid digestive and other difficulties.

    2. I understand the concern, but I wouldn’t worry. You’re describing my career arc about three years ago — except I didn’t win a Baen award, I only came in second, so you’re ahead of me there. If it hasn’t slowed me down, it won’t slow you down. You’re writing at the pro level. It will happen.

    3. A big part of their goal is to make people like you unsure and lose confidence in your talent, and to encourage everybody who’s thinking of saying something about the Emperor’s knobby knees and flabby thighs think again and keep their mouths shut.

       Congrats on the Baen win — if you try selling stuff Independently be sure to identify your work with that; the people who would be put off by it aren’t going to like your stuff anyway and those who check out anything with Baen on the spine will have a much easier time searching you out.

    4. So put it up indie already, so we can read your writings and reward you with cold, hard cash. 🙂

       If the judges think it’s darned good, why not let the readers judge instead of wasting time with the publishing houses? You can always write another story for them if you want, later.

    5. Yeah…that’s definitely something I’d find suspicious in your shoes. You’re good enough to win Baen’s award, but form letters everywhere else? Hmmmmmm.

       1. If those who are presumably rejecting her work because of the Baen award were to accept it, consider what editorial changes they would likely inflict.

       2. Depending on what you write, it doesn’t have to be that suspicious.

          Back in the day I was able to sell several stories to Stan Schmidt at Analog. And when he didn’t buy, he replied with personal letters. And when I started college and it so happened we met at a con he said “I wish you would write more for me but I understand how it can be in college–you just don’t have the energy after all your classes.”

          The only other person who would talk to me was Marion Zimmer Bradley (who’d bought an early Fantasy short-short of mine for Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine. (And, as I’ve said elsewhere, that puts me in a very peculiar place in my head these days.)

          What I wrote was hard, hard science fiction and pseudo-medieval heroic fiction. The short fiction markets for either were miniscule. Analog on one side and, well, Ms. Bradley on the other.

          Nowadays, I might send something out to the paying market but I’m largely thinking of that as advertising that I don’t have to pay for but instead pays me. If it doesn’t sell, I can still put it up on Amazon. And if it does sell, I can wait for the exclusive rights period to expire and then put it up on Amazon.

          1. That was an observation Dean Wesley Smith made to me once: a one-page ad in Analog and Asimov’s costs you $800, and most readers skim past it; a ten-page story in Analog PAYS you nearly $800, and readers eagerly read it and reviewers talk about it on review sites. The sale is a much better way to build your brand.

             1. That’s the primary reason I’m looking at starting to resubmit to magazines. I don’t need the validation I once did, but advertising? Yeah, that’s a good reason to submit to them.

                And a bit of money that I can blow on guns? Even better!

                1. Pshaw, Tom. Y’all know better’n I does that money spent on guns is not blown.

                   1. Maybe, but I’ve been only able to blow money on food and shelter, so blowing it on guns feels extravagant. 😀

                      1. Wait, I can make enough SP-ing to feed my habit? I’d better get on that, we’re supposed to start teaching the kidlette to shoot and .22 is expensive. And I’m due to get another XD here… hmmm…

                         1. I read your story last year. You can do it. 🙂

                         2. Some do. Some don’t. It’s like anything else in that regard. With your talent though? I suspect you could do quite well.

                   2. unless it is a Glock that went Kabloowy.

                      1. Or tannerite targets…

                         1. Or tannerite targets combined with feral hog hunting….

                            1. sorta like Hog hunting with a mortar and dynamite in the bait pile.

                            2. Instant Sausage Syndrome.

                            3. {slight echo) Only YOU{/echo}, can prevent {insert dramatic pause, add reverberation} Sudden Sausage Syndrome

                            4. Why would I want to? There’s way more hog than even I can eat…

                            5. Ah, but we could get the donation money from the peta type folks and spend it on ammo so we can shoot even more hogs and thereby prevent them from suffering … SSS
                               and become the worthwhile PETA (that being people eating tasty animals)

                2. I’m just now discovering that there are magazines worth reading again. I’ve been too strapped to start experimenting just yet, but it’s encouraging.

                   1. I’ve heard there were. I submitted to Liberty Island and was accepted, but not crazy about the payment scheme there

          2. You should not feel guilty about MZB. Even a blind pig finds an acorn, and even evil people occasionally do benevolent or neutral acts. If she did not hurt you, you dodged a bullet.

             There was a Romanian chick whose life was saved by Mrs. Goering pulling a motherly moment. That did not make her a good mother to her own kids, and it was probably done out of her own pride in pushing people around, but it happened.

             You don’t have to feel beholden in a bad way, but God knows that evil people could use someone to pray for their nasty souls. Other than that, you could not possibly owe her anything more than whatever thanks you gave the woman while she was alive. If you made her feel benevolent then, that was what she wanted.

             1. This is a type of thing more authors should collect for books. It exposes a more complex kind of villainy.

                I remember reading about a Polish town in WWII which, knowing the Nazis would soon arrive and hoping to curry favor with their impending masters, rounded up and executed all the Jews. Announcing their deed to their conquerors they were dismayed to be summarily executed for presuming that decisions of life & death were theirs to make, rather than belonging to the state.

    6. I just read your story and want to know when the novel is coming out? Can’t be soon enough for me … please 🙂

35. Create a new award, and in honor of Douglas Adams call it the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.
    And if I could somehow protect all of my dear friends from troubling themselves with thoughts of mean people, I’d consider doing so, but then probably decide not to. Y’all have freedom to read, think, and so forth, and I’ll not be the one who starts the Thought Police.

    1. And a Vogon Memorial Overpass Award for the SJWs.

    2. Rather simple to design to a stylized gold brick with a lemon peel curling around it. 🙂

36. And this is why I don’t do cons. If anyone absolutely most go to WorldCon, I’ve got a link to a list of practicing criminal defense attorneys in Spokane, WA up on my site in the PS on today’s entry (http://www.gkmasterson.com/2015/08/12/sad-puppies-why-i-dont-do-cons/) and you can add me on Facebook or Twitter if you want to exchange contact info and have me act as your “one phone call” in case some SJW there gets you arrested on trumped-up bogus charges.

    — G.K.

    1. Well, I generally don’t do sci-fi cons but Our Evilest of Space Princesses and favorite pixie stenographer have me seriously looking at LibertyCon next year (helps I’m just down the road in Atlanta).

       1. Liberty Con is pretty much the only one I’d consider attending at this point, and I’m basically all the way across the country.

          Not even one jot interested in exercising my annual WorldCon membership as an attendee anymore. Even if it was next door. I also don’t want to travel as a tourist to Iran, basically for the same reason – if they hate me that much, I don’t want to go there.

          1. I’m across the country from LibertyCon…and I drove there. It was worth every penny. I’m doing it again next year, too. It was like coming home.

       2. I’m registered for LibertyCon ’16. I have a dreadful feeling I may get talked into doing a panel, if it makes.

       3. I’ll do LibertyCon next year if I have the money (and a job that allows for it) because I’m fairly certain that’s the one con where I won’t be a target for a Two Minute Hate session but that’s the only con I’d consider going to. Even then, I may have to drag my real-life bestie to help me deal with my mild agoraphobia.

          — G.K.

          1. Two minute hate, no. But I’ll warn you that John Ringo’s parties don’t stop. No, really. 5am? Still going. 7am? Still going, thinking about food. So if you have a panel the next day, remember to make your regrets and go back to your hotel room before you realize it’s 3 hours til the panel you’re on.

    2. Since Worldcon’s rulesheet says they support and defend all your rights except the Second Amendment, you won’t find me there either…

    3. Have to check the local statutes. Is laughing hysterically a crime in Canada? Or is it the laughing while pointing at the Puppy Kickers that is the felony?

       1. I may find out soon.

    4. Granted, I usually only go to cons within commuting distance, but I still enjoy congoing.

       As for the PC goons running cons, I have had mixed experiences. At Arisia, (a con the had Nesmin and will have Scalzi as GoH) I managed to get (and moderate) a wildly successful panel on conservatism in SF and fandom.
       OtOH, the PC goons have taken over Readercon and, among other things, they killed the Kirk Poland Pad Prose Competition. So, I am unlikely to ever go back again.

       BTW, one thing I love about the cons are the people I often only see at the cons. And if you can get on panels, you can influence the conversation.

37. “Just some friendly advice from a woman who owns her own piranha tank and scorpion pit” You can’t the the Evilist Space Princess of Evil without a shark AND alligator (or crocodile) pit! I learned that from the 007 movies; I thought everybody did!

    1. Wait – the Piranha-driven armored vehicle has arrived? Did we get the Piranha-Chow to feed them yet?

       Man, logistics are tricky…

       1. It also has the fully automated piranha gun …

          We’ve had some small problems with the crewing minions, however.

          Just a few minor technical glitches.

          Some trivial training mishaps.

          No-thing to worry about.

          It will all be worked out in no time whatsoever.

          almost.

       2. Right now I’m feeding them on door to door salesmen.

          1. If we have any in my area now, we haven’t noticed them.

             Our front door doesn’t open directly into our living space, so we don’t hear knocking. After we realized that anyone we would be opening the door for had a phone and would call in advance, we removed the doorbell.

             Interruption problem: solved

             1. There was once a few years ago we were happy to have an unexpected person knocking at the door – 2am, cop at the door, letting us know the neighbor’s garage was on fire and we might want to get out in case it spread… (no problem beyond a bit of roof-toasting, but glad to get the warning anyway.)

          2. Mine like gypsy roofers. We had a bad hail storm back on June 15th and they were non-stop driving up to our house pitching roof replacing services….

             1. Oh, yeah, those too. All year last year.

             2. We’ve got the dent-pullers hanging around local parking lots. The wife’s car has some very dented bumpers, so they keep coming by and offering to “Pull those dents for you, sir?”

                I give them by best shocked look and ask, “Do you have any idea how long it took to put those dents there?” 😈

    2. There was also a lion pit for disposing of the attorneys who advertise on late-night TV or during daytime talk-shows (“Have YOU been hurt in a car accident? I’ll Get YOU the money you DESERVE!!!!!”). But the lions unionized and staged a protest because the lawyers had no taste.

       1. I don’t think it’s a good idea to lionize attorneys. They’re already egomaniacs.

38. Apropos of “why Sarah won’t let us do fireworks (again) without warning her:” http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-33896292

39. I thank you for putting this blog post together.

    “The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” – and I think your blog post could provide enough power to run the Eastern shore for a day or two.

    1. We should put up a site that acts as a perma-archiver for their insanity to keep them from scrubbing it and sending it down the memory-hole. I’d be willing to host it and help with some of the technical work if anyone else is game. It would be nice to have a permanent back-up and reference point to work from.

       — G.K.

       1. Getting your material, however, is easy. Just find James May and ask him for his archive of SJW nonsense. It’s…extensive.

       2. For such an idea, you would need a very robust service (expect DDOSes at the minimum) and serious site security. Take it from someone who runs such an archive.

          I’d refer you to aff for hosting suggestions and discussion about the same. Blogs tend to be the favored medium for such things but CMS might be better. I guess the best thing you could do is ask.

          I’m afraid I couldn’t try to keep up with the puppy madness and archive.it all. With Gamergate it worked because they operated more on the ‘pics or it didn’t happen,’ methodology and they made extensive use of archive.it and twitsave, and knew how to take screenshots. Also, the fact that GG was really global (so people were able to take turns keeping an eye out while doing stuff otherwise) but when the person who was most diligent at archiving lives in Australia and shit hits the fan while she’s asleep… it’s not easy. Some stuff was archived by other folks, but not everything, alas. Plus, RL does get in the way because in some respect, Sad Puppies still lingers in many a consciousness as ‘just an online thing, I have better things to do with my time it’s not worth relinking/screenshotting/etc’ – even I admit to this one because well, work and life and actual death.

          On the other hand, this deals with what so many of us call our careers, our calling, our jobs. Maybe I should have tried harder. I’m sorry.

          I tried though; so I tried to archive.it as many things I could find, out of reflexive habit. Hopefully it helps a bit.

          James May also collects quotes, but it’s always a good idea to have screenshotted, archived wayback-machined proof. He’s a start though.

          1. A CMS, definitely — though WordPress itself can do in a pinch. Maybe something else would be better. A good host with multiple redundancies and several mirror sites with crons set up to do wgets daily or something…

             The issue is finding the content and putting it up. James May probably has the most extensive but if we used an open CMS like Joomla or Wikimedia with admin-only-approved registrations to keep it under control, could be do-able…

             1. I’d really recommend asking Aff. I personally wouldn’t be using WordPress (and I don’t, for the Stalker Sticky, for a very good reason) but lots of folks like it for commenting purposes.

40. Sometimes on reading something I have one opinion of it. Then a re-read later, I form a higher or lower opinion of it. And further re-read can reverse that. Clearly, I am an oscillating fan.

    1. Carp!

41. Apparently Ms. Token-Female-Puppy thought I should waste my time by sticking around to argue after I had already made my point. Sorry, but I have better things to do, like maybe reading some of those SFF novels that actually have some idea that the future or fantasy might not be exactly like the 1950s USA. But if differences and changes aren’t your thing, I’m sure some of the Puppies can write something to suit you.

    And no, I won’t be sticking around to argue here either. You see there is that novel I am in the middle of reading.

    1. Who are you?

       1. One of the people referenced in the post. Honestly, just letting them talk gives us enough rope to hang them with.
          I mean, the author of this blog post wrote a book where the protagonist is a non-celibate homosexual. Yeah, that’s 1950s America all right.

          1. No. But then the 1950s were not the 1950s in SJWs minds either. The amount of what they think they know but don’t is staggering.

             1. What if someone built a machine that would send people back in time . . . to a parallel timestream where things were the way people THOUGHT they were, instead of really were? So the 1950s for Tomlin/MacClure up there really was the June Cleaver/ Feminine Mystique world they imagine it to be?

                1. When the SJW’s talk about taxes (90% upper bracket, baby!) and “income inequality” (let’s all be relatively poor together) they point at the 50’s as some kind of idyll. But, of course, when it suits them they paint the 50’s as some kind of dystopia of racism, sexism, whateverism, and oppression.

                   Consistency? Not a factor in SJW thinking.

                   1. Wait a minute. Did I just use the word “thinking” wrt SJW’s? That should be “feelz”.

                      1. There is consistency, but it occurs in subtext. “What will support my argument?” being the most common consistency. Hatred of facts and fact-based thinking is another. They also consistently reject as illegitimate any criticism of themselves, but no criticism of their opponents is off the table.

             2. Yeah, the more stuff I read from the 1950s, the more I realize that it doesn’t fit the stereotype. The decade was more than just McCarthyism and white picket fences.

                1. ALL they know is from TV Sitcoms. Seriously.

                   1. How can they believe they know something, if their only source of knowledge is TV?

                      1. because they think TV is accurate.

                         1. I am torn between a reference to Michael Moore’s “documentaries” and the Thermians … so I straddle the divide and trust my pants not to split.

                      2. But but…. The Internet/Television/Movies/Newspapers don’t lie!!!!!! [Sarcastic Grin]

          2. If they could think, they wouldn’t be Progressives.

       2. Possibly another one of those probable white supremacist trolls we had come by a ways back.

    2. And of course, Sarah, you must be a token female in the Sad Puppies. Why, if you were at all important then, when other Sad Puppies were interviewed by the press, they would suggest the reporter talk to you too. And I’m not seeing any news reports that quote you. QED.

       What’s that you say, Brad? You’ve suggested to several reporters they talk to Sarah, but none of them ever did? Why, you make it sound like the reporters are trying to create a narrative of sexism—c’mon, that’s paranoid conspiracy theorizing: crazy talk.

       1. How many females constitute a token? I can count Sarah, Amanda, Kate, Cedar, Amanda … Just because men have taken the first couple turns does not mean they outnumber the women, does it? Lessee, there’s Larry, and Brad, and … are there any others? V. Day is rabid, not Sad, so he’s out.

          I think that it is the men who are the tokens.

          Unless your argument is based on the premise that women don’t count as much as men. But even if they’re only worth 77% of a man (which seems to be the going rate, based on analysis of reported pay scales on Democrats’ congressional staffs) there would still seem to be more females than males among the sad puppies.

          1. But see, the women you speak of are ‹gasp› conservatives, some of them. So they’re not really women, just clowns in blackface drag. White Mormon men, the lot of ’em.

             Having thus disqualified several of the Sad Puppies ladies, I return to my previous logic proving the rest are tokens.

             1. But Tomlin identified Sarah as token-female, therefore she is not disqualified, nor are the others who are no more conservative than Sarah, thus no less female than Her Tokeness.

                I think I understand why Tomlin prefers to hit and run and call people token; Tomlin punches like a gurl (and I’m not talking Ronda Rousey.)

                1. Actually Tomlin punches like a Ghoul. His/her/its arguments are dead, Jim.

                   1. What arguments? All Tomlin did was make simplistic assertions premised on an alternate history.

                      1. Hence, dead.

                   2. Don’t Ghouls have paralyzing touch?

          2. These tokens… can we play video games with them?

             (Sorry, had a flashback to my teen years in the 80s…)

          3. And then there’s Kate the Impaler (whose real last name escapes me… my memory could give black holes pointers on how to suck 😛 ) running next year’s SP iteration.

             But of course Kate is really a white Mormon male, so she doesn’t count. 😉

             1. That would be Kate Paulk, who was third in my list (no criticism for scanning intended.) She’s managing the Sad Puppies selections for net year, so yeah, totally token.

                She also comes here from Australia in complete compliance with American immigration laws and regulations, so, like, totally inauthentic.

                And Kate is a boy’s name, so she clearly doesn’t identify as Feminus Modernus Americanus.

                1. Missed the mention of Kate, mea culpa. (Though the SP4 part was new at least, so I didn’t totally drop the ball. 😛 )

                   In my defense I should have been asleep about two hours ago, and as such have an almost dangerously high level of blood in my caffeine stream because I didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.

                   … and it now is “the middle of the night”. 😦

          4. And Emily and Dorothy and Mary and Synova and Kate and Pam and Pohjalainen . . .

             1. . . . And Rory and Julie and Evie and Book and Wyrdbard and Celia . . .

                1. Rory being short for Aurora, in case anyone wonders (My childhood nickname.) Also, my siblings and I have Arabic / Filipino-Muslim names (because we all have more than just two given names) – Khaylon, Sulayman, Kudarat …

                   So yeah, ‘totally white male’ over here. I don’t wanna know how I’m supposed to have given birth through a penis’ urethra, but then again I actually know biology, not feelz sciencez.

                   1. Yeah. I gave birth to TWO kids… amazing.

                      1. Four over here. And when I’m given the medical okay, hopefully at least two more.

                      2. But yours were cesarean, right? So, still could be male. Besides, they identify you as male and who are you to argue with them, you worthless prole.

                         Used to they claimed the “one drop’ rule (a rule adapted for similar purpose by the Third Reich) and now they can assert the “one thought” rule for manthink.

                         1. Only the first.

                            1. Well, that’s the only one they count.

                               Funny how Brie Wu can claim to be more female than you and more American than you at the same time.

                               It’s as if theysaw a high school production of The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd* and took it as a manual rather than allegory.

                               *Wiki:
                               … the allegorical plot examines the maintenance of the status quo between the upper and lower classes of British society in the 1960s. The two main characters are Sir and Cocky. Since Sir is forever changing the rules of the game of life, downtrodden young Cocky always gets the short end of the stick. Assisting Sir is his eager disciple Kid, anxious to pick up bits of wisdom while helping keep Cocky in his place. Cocky tries to beat Sir at the game, first by getting a job, and then with love, but Sir bests him both times. Cocky is re-inspired when he sees a new character, the Negro, win the game behind his and Sir’s backs. By ignoring the rules, Cocky manages to win, but neither he or Sir can function without the other. The show ends with both of them frozen in a pose arguing which way to go next.

                            2. Does that make your second son your first born?

                   2. I don’t wanna know how I’m supposed to have given birth through a penis’ urethra

                      …that sounds extraordinarily painful. O_o;;

                      1. Hyenas. Ow.

             2. Oh, if you expand to non-writers there’s also about a million Hoydens.

       2. Me, Kate, Amanda, Cedar, S.J. Chase… just off the top of my head. SO MANY tokens is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it?

          1. More tokens than the crosstown bus.

             Perhaps Tomlin doesn’t know what the word means and just inserts it sehr randomly?

             1. A “progressive” being rude and dismissive towards women? That’s unpossible!

       3. Ever notice how no matter how important a female or minority is in SP, they’re a “token”? And yet, it’s the SPs being accused of being racist/sexist/homophobic.

          I doubt I’ll get a reply from a Puppy Kicker, but here’s a few questions for them:

          Why is it, when Brad rebutted accusations of racism by showing his family, you happily made false accusations of using them as “shields”?

          Larry himself has mentioned how someone spread slander that he was a domestic abuser, to the point his wife was getting calls offering to help. Can you condemn that, or do you see such a sick thing as a reasonable measure? Yes or no – would any of you demand that your supporters who do things like that come forward and admit it?

          You all laughed at the Sad Puppies reaction to being falsely labeled as “neo-nazis” and their works derided as “bad-to-reprehensible works”. Can you even understand how that would feel, knowing such statements to be false? Yes or no – would any of you have the decency to condemn such statements?

          The accusations of racism,sexism and homophobia are lies, that’s *not* disputable. Almost every accusation I’ve seen levied against the Sad Puppies has been false. Straight question, yes or no – will you please stop lying?

          1. Because otherwise reality would break in on them. By calling them “token” you can claim that they reinforce female inferiority.

       4. On Twitter, Natalie Luhrs and company were struggling with the idea of female Puppies. Ironically, these “feminists” can’t see women who think differently than they do.

          1. Everyone is free to be themselves, as long as they all think the exact same things.

             1. The SJW mission statement, Diversity in appearance, Unity in thought.

          2. Derps. This is because the world inside their heads has nothing to do with the real world.

          3. To “feminists”, women who think differently than they do aren’t women.

             Remember, they thought themselves witty (hey – four out of six characters were right) for adorning their cars with bumper-stickers proclaiming “Sara Palin isn’t a woman — she’s a Republican”.

             1. Their fantasies about “patriarchy” are merely their projections of what sort of control they would like to hold over women and their thoughts.

          4. Whenever you hear a feminist excusing a woman’s actions because she must have been brainwashed by patriarchy, remember the rule about accusing us of what they want to do.

    3. Apparently Tomlin imagines a(nother) point has been made. Wonder why Tomlin imagines anybody cares about Tomlin’s pointless points.

       Wonder also how Tomlin knew Tomlin had been referenced here. Perhaps Tomlin has no point and dares not face inquiry.

       As Tomlin clearly has never read anything by any of the Sad Puppies it is clear Tomlin judges books by their covers, not their content.

       1. Perhaps Tomlin is so vain he probably things this song posting is about him…

          (Boy, I hope the “strike” HTML tags work under WordPress… or I’ll have something besides fatigue to blame for any incoherence in this posting.)

    4. Gosh those futures just like the 1950’s sound awesome! Got any titles?

       1. Boy howdy! I hadn’t realized what a banal of crap novels won Hugos the first ten years the awards were given! Here is a list of the first ten Hugo-winning novels, starting with the first year of the award:

          1953: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
          1954: No Awards
          1955: They’d Rather Be Right by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley (Currently sold as The Forever Machine)
          1956: Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein
          1957: No Awards for fiction — magazines only
          1958: The Big Time by Fritz Leiber
          1959: A Case of Conscience by James Blish
          1960: Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
          1961: A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr
          1962: Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
          1963: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
          1964: Way Station by Clifford Simak

          Most of us are likely familiar with those books. Bester’s SF murder mystery in a world of telepathic detectives was very 1950s, could have been Perry mason almost. Heinlein’s Martian political novel had nothing to say to us about prejudice, politics or any of today’s issues. Nor did his Filipino soldier or his recycling of his Martian culture have a thing that wasn’t almost pure Ozzie & Harriet. Miller’s landscape was barely distinguishable from Europe in the 50s, although I suppose that is an improvement in that it isn’t America.

          Dick, Blish and Simak churned out the kind of simplistic two-fisted action that you could have watched in almost any episode of one of those Warner Bros. westerns, like Cheyenne, Sugarfoot or Maverick.

          It’s been so long since I read They’d Rather Be Right that I had to look it up:

          Two professors create an advanced cybernetic brain, which they call “Bossy.” Bossy can “optimise your mind…and give you eternal youth into the bargain, but only if you’re ready to abandon all your favourite prejudices.” However, when given the choice of admitting they were wrong and therefore being able to benefit from Bossy’s abilities, most people would rather be right, and Bossy’s ability to confer immortality is almost made ineffective by humanity’s fear of “her.”
          per Wiki

          … so, yeah, basic White Privilege stuff. Notice how they reject a bossy “female”, just like today. And the questio of how people interact to computers and the ways they affect society? Puh-leeze — soooo irrelevant now.

          Leiber’s book is totally “Leave it to Beaver” — a narrator who is female and “part prostitute, part nurse, part psychotherapist”! (Wiki again.) Soooo sexissss. And look at this – other characters “include Cretan Amazons, Roman legionnaires, eight-tentacled Lunans (natives of a civilization that thrived on Earth’s moon a billion years ago), Hussars, Wehrmacht Landsers, Venusian satyrs (recruited from Venus a billion years in the future), American GIs, Space Commandos. Soldiers from the armies of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, and Stalin” Checked your White Male Privilege, anyone? And the bit about having “”other characters narrate parts of the story in lengthy monologues about their experiences and opinions”? Soooo derivative! i don’t care if “Algis Budrys praised The Big Time as evidence that Leiber was the only science fiction writer of his generation ‘who as a matter of course and conviction saw through the mores and circumstances which are now proving nonviable not only in commercial literature but in what we can call life as well.’ ” – its crap with a capital K.

          It sure is a good thing we don’t have to suffer through that kind of drivel in reading recent Hugo winners, stuff like “If you were a dinosaur …” is far more substantive and carries an important social message of the sort that 50s Rock’em-Sock’em fiction didn’t dream of.

          1. Linguistic note: in the first paragraph the term “banal” is employed in its sense as the collective for jejune: “an accumulation of jejune” being a banal.

    5. Just wanted to re-mention my (token) vote for next year’s puppy logo… should be three girl puppies a la “puppy puff girls”… just in case anyone agrees that would be awesome and… stuff… or something…

       (Probably someone will eventually have to tell me to stop with the puppy-puff-girls already, in case I mention it again…)

       1. I think it would be awesome. Tell Kate. You’re FB friends, right?

          1. Great idea. Especially if they’re terrier puppies 🙂

          2. And TRADEMARK it this time so VD does not give the Puppy Puff girls rabies, m’kay?

          3. I might not be… probably ought to be though. 🙂

       2. My puppies would be pit bulls or rotties with copies of MHI in their paws, asking what the problem is.

    6. How interesting.

       You do know we aren’t obliged to do or think what the voices in your tiny overheated little head tell you we must do or think… right?

       (“1950s USA”? Wow, you’re… special.)

       1. And has his very own short bus to prove it.

    7. Shorter JR: I’ve had my head handed to me so I’ll run now, lying as I go.

    8. Points and laughs at Tomlin troll. Lookit at the funny drooling moron…..

    9. You should have not wasted your time by posting this.

       1. I’m kind of glad he did.

          I love seeing stupid in action.

    10. If JRT doesn’t have time to “stick around to argue”, maybe it’s just that he? is a very slow reader – or something. We should pity.

        1. If by “pity” you mean “mock”, then I agree. 😀

42. TNH and all her “The Hugos belong to us” crowd have a very simple vision of how Hugo voting should go.

    1. “I don’t care who does the voting as long as I do the nominating.” – Boss Tweed