Year: 2015

UPDATE: This is not for an audio book, it’s just a reading.  Yes, I’m tense, I HATE reading.  I have a Yeti microphone.  What I don’t have is a file converter.  My computer recording goes to wma, which WordPress won’t let me upload.  So I used an online converter to mp3.  The original file is if anything too loud.  SIGH.  If anyone knows a safe-to-download converter, tell me.

I was trying to test this before letting ya’ll try it.  yes, I know it’s stupid, but I can’t stand to hear to MY OWN voice.  Hey, I’m a writer.  I’m allowed to be a little derp.

Tell me if you can hear it.  If not, I shall take down and replace.

It was a bright and stormy night.  Moonlight glinted off the snow-packed streets, sparkled from the falling flakes, and found an echo in the strings of lights around parking lots, in the lights around lightpoles, and in the light shining from the windows of a diner in Downtown Goldport.

Though the area had recently started on the upswing of gentrification,only that one diner at the corner of Fairfax and Pride was open during what would become known as the New Year’s Blizzard of 2015, the worst in Colorado history.

People inside wore snow boots and draped a multitude of jackets and coats on the back of chairs and booths.  There was no motorized traffic except for emergency vehicles.

Behind the counter a very young man was cooking on a vast industrial range.  A bandana confined his long black hair.  His T-shirt had a picture of a dragon in the back and the words “I rise above.”

One of the waiters, an Asian man, wore a similar t-shirt with a red dragon and the inscription “burn them all”.

Suddenly from deserted parking lot there was a sound of something heavy hitting.  Something say of the rough tonnage of an airliner, but more… meaty.

A young woman yelled from near the back door.  “I can’t believe this.”

Okay, this is written on the fly and is NOT (repeat not) shifters canon.  However, if any of you want to finish this story, just remember it ends with “we’ll never speak of this again.”  Have fun.

And what a long, strange trip it’s been.

And yes, when I heard those in Portugal as a kid I had NO clue they were about drug use.  Heck, it took a lot for me to realize Phillip K. Dick’s novels had drug use.  Yes, I was an innocent little snowflake.

Now considerably less innocent.

So, let’s talk fandom.  I like you guys, obviously.  In fact, I like all of my fans.

I’ve reached the level of name recognition where people embarrass me in my “normal” life, tm.  Like, I’ll be buying something and someone will see the name on my card and say “are you the Sarah Hoyt who–?”  Sometimes it’s for the blog, sometimes is for the books, but every time the person is sweet, polite, nay nice.  Very often they look as normal as everyone else, though they might be Odd and there are often tells for that.

I’ve met fans while at the grocery store, I’ve met fans while having the dishwasher repaired, I’ve met fans while trying to rescue a kitten, I’ve met fans at the laundromat when our washer broke, I’ve met fans when one of the neighborhood power cords frayed, I met fans while checking in to a hotel for a weekend away with my husband, I’ve met fans while having a dress pinned for alterations, and I’ve met fans at the museum.  They seem, by and large, to be well adjusted, normal people with lives and families.

And then there is fandom.  No, no, not truefans, but… close enough.  the people who live, breathe and live for science fiction.  A not inconsiderable cross section of it includes authors, including, alas yours truly.

Sometime ago I was reading the bio of someone who had been a communist early on and who started turning around when he realized “everyone in this room is some nice family’s tragedy.”

Raises hand.  By definition, having married abroad and being very, very weird for a Portuguese chick, I was a burden/puzzle to my family.  A lot of my friends are in the same bandwagon as is a significant section of fandom, possibly including most people here.

Here’s the thing: we were picked on, we stuck out, we had trouble as kids or teens or even young adults.  And we picked ourselves up, turned ourselves around.  Our families might still look aside and say “oh, him,” or “we don’t talk about her” when our names are mentioned, (well, my family turned around when I won a prize, because, hey, other people didn’t think I was crazy.  But all the same.) but we are okay, REALLY.  Most of us have families.  Most of us have jobs.  Most of us are happy and have gotten over the crap we got as teens, except for, of course, preparing our kids to withstand similar onslaught.

I even “get” my family, really.  I mean I had the grades to do anything I wanted (there) and I chose to marry someone (not rich) and move here, and be a writer.  That’s crazy level behavior.  Except I’m okay with it.  I could use more money, but it’s what the Great Move of 2015 was all about.  If we can sell and buy smaller not only do we save money in mortgage, but in heating, cooling.  And time in cleaning.  Now maybe the gambit won’t pay off, but we’re trying.

But apparently there are some people among the really involved fandom who have bigger problems than that.  This is all I’m going to say: I never expected/expect to win a Hugo.  Hell, I never expect to win any awards.  The Prometheus was a shock. I write for me and my fans not for the award.

I didn’t pay much attention — other than avoiding Hugo-winning books like the plague (unless they were written by Connie Willis.) — until they emptied the whole slop pot over Larry with Sad Puppies II.  I hope I’m not falling prey to what Dorothy Grant calls the Myths of Friendship, but I come from a highly tribal culture, in which friendship is a sacred bond.  When you attack my friend, viciously and without any foundation, I’m going to get involved.  Which led to my saying I’d carry SP III, then I got ill and Brad took over and what they did to Brad who is considerably to the left of me and honestly one of the best people I know–

Well.  I thought I was prepared.

I was not prepared for the infantile award show, the cheering of no award and nothing NOTHING could prepare me for the assterisks.

To the science fiction establishment — I’ll help run SP IV because I’d already told Kate Paulk I would help her (she has a full time job and other stuff we don’t need to/I’m not permitted to discuss here.) — if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t even be involving myself in this anymore.  And if you think that’s because you won, you’re wrong.

If I hadn’t fallen in love with Simak and Heinlein, with Bradbury and Asimov at an early age, if I didn’t have fans who love my worlds, and if I didn’t have one of those obligations you can never pay back to Baen, I’d be dusting my sandals and walking away from science fiction and fantasy as one day I walked away from Portugal, as much as I had at one time loved it.  It can be done.  And that show pretending to be representative of my profession and my field gave me a really bit incentive to do it.

I want you to reflect on this.  I love science fiction (and fantasy, but that will always be second.)  I always have.  I kept reading it through the arid years when I had to scrounge the entire bookstore to find ONE book worth reading.  I’ve bought books — some of them by people involved in that sorry spectacle on Saturday — when I didn’t have money for food.

If you drive me out, yeah, your power and the power of your little clique will be safe.  Indeed. BUT IF YOU DRIVE ME OUT YOU’RE DRIVING OUT YOUR BUYING PUBLIC.

About 20 years ago, I had this suspicion that most small sf magazines (guidelines: read us and see what we like) were kept afloat by people desperate for that first sale, that most big name name magazines had about 1/2 subscription from would be writers, and that most sf/f books that didn’t break out of the niche were bought ONLY by people hoping to sell to the publishing house.

I don’t know how accurate that is.  It was just a gut feeling.  And I never seemed to run into any enthusiasm for the books themselves, only for either the writer (if you were currying favor with such) or the book as “what are they buying now” signal.

Then I started working for Baen 12 years ago, and my first few weeks on the bar, I think I actually said, “So this is where the book lovers went.”

There are tons of people who don’t even write, but read.  Avid readers, who know the history of the field and like discussing THE BOOKS.

But they weren’t involved in that sad spectacle last week.  In fact most of us are still shaking our heads at it.

Which brings me to: congratulations.  You probably achieved at least half of your objective — to drive out the people who don’t think/act like you and aren’t part of your groups.  It is heartily to be hoped you won’t live to regret it, but don’t bet on it.

So, the show over, and once I’d gotten over being both mad and sad but mostly sad, we started discussing (Kate and Amanda and I) operational details for next year.  Stuff like how many noms, where do we get recommends, do all three of us have to read something before we recommend it, and oh, yeah, logo? patches? t-shirts?  Incredibly threatening stuff like that, you know?  Since Kate, Amanda and I routinely PM and send each other scads of emails everyday (otherwise known as being ‘thick as thieves’) including on all important topics such as “that cute thing the cat did yesterday”, it barely rose above the ambient noise.

So imagine our surprise when Kate got hacked on facebook, not once, not twice but three times in a 24 hour period and her account started spamming sunglass adds.  Coincidence?  I don’t know guys.  One time, maybe.  But three times, when Kate has pretty d*mn good security?  Bah.

Then Mary Robinette Kowal went after me for being racist by using Chicom.  (Which she somehow still thinks I applied to Cixin Liu — partly because she can’t convince herself he’s not a good communist.  I mean, I have no idea what he is.  He lives in China, so there is a minimum of compliance required of him.  But I know the book was among other things a blistering denunciation of the Cultural Revolution.  And besides, grammatically, I was clearly NOT REFERRING TO HIM.)

She also cherry-picked the ONE dictionary that said it was “derogatory” to claim it’s racist.  This is what’s known as “battle space preparation, I guess.”  Stupid one.  In fact, part of what has been shocking to me is the utter level of stupidity in these attacks.  Guys, when I last dealt with socialists and communists, they were brighter than this.  But I guess it takes being a fanatic to be a true believer after the fall of the SovUnion (Oh, look, another racial slur.  I’m fairly sure it must be one, since it’s a contraction.)  Also, there is such a thing as 3rd generation blight in would-be revolutionary movements.  The first are original thinkers, striking out against the establishment, but by the fourth you have the good boys and girls who just follow what they were told, with no more thought than baby duckling following momma.  This for some reason results in people so dumb that they could give fifteenth generation inbred nobility a run for their money.  Part of why you get hellholes like Cuba and North Korea.  (Yeah, yeah, I know, racist.  But then what isn’t.)

So, Mary Three Names gave me an “apology” which I think would convince a toddler.  A lot of “I forgive you little brown girl for not knowing the word is racist” — I might have paraphrased, but read the original here — and I refuse to accept her kind condescension and whitesplaining.  I’d like to serve warning, though I normally don’t brag about it because I think it correlates poorly to things like building a decent cabinet or managing your finances, that I do have a Mensa card somewhere in the moving boxes and even if I don’t find it and have to renew to post it, you should realize that I AM NEITHER STUPID NOR BORN YESTERDAY.  She manages to claim I “introduced her to a new ethnic slur” yet she wasn’t calling me racist (“I did not have relations with that connotative meaning”) and also that she knows the meaning better than I and all dictionaries out there (derogatory doesn’t mean towards race) and also, reasons, including I’m sure her milky white complexion and liberal-privilege.  Seriously?  That is your go to game?  And your followers are of this caliber?

So, in this post, I said this:

I don’t mean I wish a different set of books/stories had won.  That is only to the extent that the DELIBERATE and PARTISAN slighting of such unexceptionable luminaries as Kevin J. Anderson and Jim Butcher (Yes, yes Three Body Problem.  Well, I didn’t find it worth it, but I bet you half the people who voted for it voted either under the illusion they were favoring Chicoms OR as a slam against the puppies.But quite beyond that the block voting for the clumsy Ancillary “but pronouns” would have won first place if it weren’t Australian Rules) is a blot on the face of our genre and makes me sigh and roll my eyes.

Fully expecting the MASSIVE and AMAZING brains on the other side would come back and tell me Ancillary Pronoun is a great novel, a work of genius, a… blah, blah, blah, to which I would answer with the respect I reserve for leftist lectures, which are the same things they ALWAYS say:

For the record, I was wrong.  They DID surprise me.  They went past boring lecture and way past stupid and to full potato.

Mary Three Names, whom I don’t mean to impugn, because it’s becoming clear to me that she has an impairment that prevents her from understanding written language but has nonetheless managed to win three Hugos,

leapt to a conclusion probably caused by her impairment and decided “Chicom” was a racial insult.

Now, I understand some of the younger people and those who didn’t grow up in Europe during the cold war might NOT know that Chicom is a contraction of Chinese and Communist.  Not a racial slur under any way or form, but a way of specifying these were CHINESE communists, you know, not Russian Communists or Feminist Communists (you know, Mary, Femcoms, you might know some) or any other form of the repulsive ideology.

Now, faced with this cogent accusation, this was my reaction:

And this was my fans’ reaction:

And being the restrained and sweet people they are, a lot of my fans hit twitter and did this at Mary.

At which point — I swear I’m not making this up, Mary said she’d looked Chicom up in “Dictionary.com.”

This is the point at which I started to suspect some intellectual/developmental impairment might be present, even though one would never suspect it from her status in the field.

And then I went to dictionary.com and looked up Chicom.

Chicom
[chahy-kom]

noun
1.
Slang: Disparaging. a contemptuous term used to refer to a Communist Chinese.
2.
a grenade or other weapon manufactured in Communist China.
adjective
3.
of or relating to the People’s Republic of China.
Usage note
Though the term was originally an official military abbreviation, the derogatory slang use originated during the Vietnam War.

“derogatory” apparently to Mary means “racist.”

I will assume this is lack of comprehension of the reading word is due to some sort of language-processing issue, and NOT to the fact that she assumed that NO one could use a derogatory term for this nice, jolly chap:

But you know, one can’t help thinking — just a little — that before launching a crazy accusation based on her possible misreading of “Chicom” as a slur, she would have wanted to — oh, I don’t know — look it up in other locations.

You know,the free dictionary or  wikipedia, or Merriam Webster or Abbreviations.com or the cross-word dictionary or even, GASP Democratic Underground. WHO FAIL TO LIST CHICOM AS “DEROGATORY” (NO I DON’T KNOW WHERE DICTIONARY.COM GOT THAT EITHER.)

No, Mary was so absolutely SURE I couldn’t possibly have referred to these nice, jolly fellows in what dictionary.com (and only them) defines as a derogatory way,

Now that I know of her impairment, I’ll spell it out again.  Chicom does NOT refer to these people:

It refers to people who approve of this:

Now that we have that clear, let’s move on.  You’d think faced with the fact she jumped to conclusions, Mary would have said “Oh, sorry, my bad, I assumed.”  I didn’t even require an apology from her because on her side an apology is viewed as a sign of weakness and a reason to pounce, so of course, she’d never do it.  And also, of course, since I disagree with her and don’t like communists I’m Satan.  So, no, I didn’t expect an apology.  What I didn’t expect was that she would go past potato to full turnip.

But yeah, she decided to double down on stupid.  AND to call in her FOLLOWERS.  Starting with Arthur Chu who started AT full potato.

He jumped into the fray with the mental acumen we’ve come to expect from him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZLjm2w8RfE

Let’s take it from the beginning — no I didn’t make it up — go look in any dictionary.  And second, no, it’s not a slur according to most places, you know:

You know,the free dictionary or  wikipedia, or Merriam Webster or Abbreviations.com or the cross-word dictionary or even, GASP Democratic Underground.

I guess dictionary.com thinks it’s “derogatory” to speak disapprovingly of people who DO this:

BUT beyond that, let’s look at what the revered and intellectual Chu had to say:

What I said was:

but I bet you half the people who voted for it voted either under the illusion they were favoring Chicoms OR as a slam against the puppies.

That is I said — let me repeat it SLOWLY — that you idiots in voting for the three body problem thought you were voting for Chicoms.  The use of “illusion” should tell you I don’t think so.  Tell me what part of this smears Cixin Liu?  Was he perhaps your primary education teacher and responsible for your reading comprehension?

No.  As the Author of the Three Body Problem, he knows damn well that he had to battle official disapproval in a country that’s far from free, just to be allowed to dream.

Since the book is set during the Cultural Revolution and portrays the problems of doing science under a dictatorial and murderous regime, it’s not exactly kind to Chicoms.  You know, these guys:

In fact, at this point I must confess part of what turned me off from the book is that I’ve read a lot about that time period — and the French Terror, and the Stalinist Terror, and — and there is a certain dread of reading more about it.  It HURTS to read about that much death and destruction and pure evil. (Beyond the fact that I am not crazy for hard sci fi unless I’m in the mood.) Lots of my friends loved The Three Body Problem. ( As did Vox, but I guess we won’t hold that against the book.)

But you?  If you think Chicom is a derogatory term or applies IN ANY WAY to Cixin Liu (beyond the necessary to survive in his homeland?), DID YOU READ HIS BOOK?  Or, you know, were you just being asshats?  Or didn’t you vote for it?  Or, given the mull you made of what I said, are you in fact illiterate?

Because,you know, then you lead your followers who are, if possible even dumber (or perhaps more trusting) than the fabled brain consortium of Arthur Chu and Mary Three Names to say crazy sh*t like this:

“Alyssa Wong @crashwong · 2h2 hours ago
Dear Sarah Hoyt,
Don’t call anyone a Chicom. It’s not clever, funny, or cute.
Any admiration I had for you has burnt.”

Dear Alyssa Wong, FUNNY?  CUTE? what in HELL do you think I’d find funny or cute about this?

The Cultural Revolution in full glory.

I wasn’t making FUN of Chicom.  I was pointing out that people like Chu and Kowal and their camp followers just might be stupid enough to think Chicoms are cool and quite capable of voting for a book VOX DAY RECOMMENDED because they thought it was a paean to Chicoms.

And yes, I know, now they’re going to say I shouldn’t make fun of Alyssa Wong.  That’s nice.  You shouldn’t lie to ignorant babies like her who are STUPID ENOUGH TO BELIEVE YOU.  I bet she never read my original post, either.

But since writing is hard too, I have a really hard time convincing myself that someone literate enough to write books, like Mary Three Names CAN be so dumb as to misinterpret THIS:

but I bet you half the people who voted for it voted either under the illusion they were favoring Chicoms OR as a slam against the puppies.

(BTW, Miss Wong, for the reading impaired, the only people that paragraph calls Chicoms?  Are the Chicoms.  You know, Mao and company.  Seriously.  Parse it.  I didn’t even call the idiots who thought it was Chicom and voted for it because of that Chicoms.  I wouldn’t call even idiots something that bad.)

I also don’t believe a MERELY stupid person would go all over twitter proclaiming that someone is racist without checking more than one source. Or accidentally pick, first time out, the only source that calls this word “derogatory.”  That’s a hell of a draw, Mary Three Names.  Hell of a draw.  You should buy the lottery.

I believe in fact that you were attempting to do battle space preparation for the coming Hugo award contest.

Dear Mary Three Names — Arthur Chu MIGHT be dumb enough to not have understood what I wrote, but you’re not — this meant you’re willing to slander someone’s reputation over this:

You’re willing to connive, lie to the ignorant and pretend to be a total idiot, FOR THE CHANCE AT A PLASTIC ROCKET. And for a chance to continue controlling who gets the plastic rocket. Because striving for it in the normal, meritocratic way is beneath you, Mary.
Congratulations, Mary. This man would have been proud of you. He too thought he was more equal than others:

Granted your evil is tiny compared to his, but the general attitudes are the same.

As for me, and the other people you have slandered, attacked and smeared in your quest for power, over the last few years, I have one thing to tell you.

Every time you think of a clever slander, every time you’re ready to twist someone’s words, every time you’re ready to attack, because your shriveled little soul needs power to make you think you’re relevant? JUST SHUT UP.

Write your books, enjoy the admiration of your followers and leave me and mine alone.

Because if you don’t, you might make me pay enough attention to you to find a way to retaliate and trust me when I say this: if I have to give up my writing time to deal with your idiocy, I’ll get really creative about it, Mary.

Metaphorically, of course. But trust me, you really, really, really will not enjoy it.

And now, having dealt with the sort of mind that slanders all Chinese with the title of Chicom  by claiming it’s their race I’m insulting? The type of mind who would try to destroy someone because the someone talks back to her?

Because, Mary, using a reference to a regime that massacred millions of humans to slander someone with “racism” — that’s not funny or cute, and you’ve totally lost any admiration I might have had for you.

Also, any claim to the benefit of the doubt. You might think you’re cute and endearing, but at your age it won’t wash.  It’s time to grow up now.

Right now my annoyance at you is outweighed by my wish to write. I’ve only half-engaged you.  Notice I’m not on twitter, because I have books to write and the cat fights of the sorority BORE me. I only hear of your shenanigans through my fans.

But you could get my full attention if you continue with the Fauxtrage.  You could get my FULL attention to your pathologically manipulative utterances.  You could get me to become your biggest un-fan.  Sure, it will burn my career because I won’t have time to write, but when I’m done, you’ll be the laughing stock of the world.

Because, Mary, darling, in your social media presence? you’re not clever nor cute.  Most of the time you’re at best pedestrian.

And before you scream “stalk” or “dox” — Mary, Mary, you’re not that stupid, are you? — No, I just mean take your tweets and SHOW them to people.  People outside your circle.  You know, like what you do to me and others.  Only in your case I won’t have to twist their meaning.  Because, Mary, you’re amazing.  And not in a good way.

Like, remember when you called legends of Science Fiction and wished they would die?  Yeah, Mary.  The internet never forgets.

Be told!

UPDATE: Mary Three Names (Good Lord woman, don’t you know that’s a cartoon villain?) is protesting in an unapproved comment that I didn’t let her “apology” yesterday out of moderation.  I didn’t because it starts with a lie “I didn’t call you racist.”  This means either in Three Name Land “ethnic slur” has a different meaning from in everyone else’s or she’s a disingenuous serpent.  (Any bets, guys?)  OR she thinks she can get away with semantic games here.  “I didn’t call you ‘racist-racist'”  I don’t approve posts that START with this kind of sh*t anymore than I approve the ones that start with obscenities.  However since she INSISTS I’m tempted.  What say you guys?

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: I’ve approved it.  Lord what tripe.  She absolves me for not knowing it was racist.  I challenge her to show a post not by her followers implying it was in any way racist.  Dictionary.com says it’s derogatory because they’d like us to be respectful of commies, of course.

And Mary Curds and Whey, way to whitesplain to this tan immigrant.  Well done.  Patronizing returned to sender.

Pointless Discrimination – Christopher Nuttall

 I’m going to start with a question and I would like you to consider it carefully before answering.

Is discrimination ever a good thing?

I suspect that most people will say, in a kneejerk response, no. And they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. Irrational discrimination is always wrong. But there is also such a thing as rational discrimination.

Consider the following example. You’re the manager of a mid-sized swimming pool. You have to hire someone to serve as a ladies changing room supervisor and you have a choice of four candidates; a straight man, a gay man, a straight woman and a lesbian. They are equal in every way, save for their gender and sexual orientation. Which one do you pick?

Unless you want to be arrested, sued or simply lose customers, you’ll go for the straight woman. She’s the only rational candidate for the post.

Ok, maybe that’s too strong an example. What about this? You’re the boss of a small computer company, faced with a choice between two candidates. One is a middle-aged white man with 20 years of experience, the other is a newly-graduated black woman with high marks, but no actual experience? Which one do you pick?

You go for the man, of course. You’re a small company. You can’t afford the time to train up a newcomer, no matter how much promise she shows. A person with 20 years of experience will probably be far more useful than a newcomer. He’s the only rational candidate for the post.

Here’s a third example. You’re the manager of a greasy fast food eatery. You have five male candidates, two of whom happen to be black, for a beginner-level opening in flipping burgers, pouring shakes and asking if anyone wants fries with their meal. Again, there’s nothing else separating them from the other three. Which one do you pick?

Any of them, of course. Skin colour has no bearing on their ability to do the job. Choosing a candidate purely because he’s white or black is an irrational choice.

My point is this. If you happen to be searching for someone to do a job, you look for the ability to do the job. Sometimes, those abilities are inherent; the straight woman of the first example has an edge because of how she was born. At other times, those abilities will grow and develop; the graduate of the second example, assuming she stays in the field, will eventually have 20 years of experience of her own.

(At this point, of course, we run into an issue I had when I was job hunting myself. You need experience to get a job – and the only way to get experience is to get a job. Why not offer the young graduate a chance? To which the manager might reply “we’re here to run a company, not offer chances. Why should we take a loss – and we will – just because someone who knows nothing about running a company feels we should?”)

Ok, you may ask. What is the point of this?

There’s an argument going on (it flares up from time to time) that suggests we should choose our reading based on the author’s skin colour, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc. You’ve probably seen quite a few articles insisting that straight white authors are horrible people who are forcing people of colour out of the marketplace …

To which I reply; hogwash!

Be honest with me here. How many of you actually know the skin colour of your favourite authors? More to the point, how many of you actually care?

I don’t, not really. I’ve met a few authors, seen Facebook pictures of others, but I can’t say I know what the vast majority of my favourites look like. All that matters to me is how they perform on relevant issues – and, where writing is concerned, it’s the ability to tell a good story in the genres I enjoy. Nothing else is important.

The only kind of ‘diversity’ that matters in the writing world is the sub-division of ‘literature’ into genres. A science-fiction writer is very different from a romance writer. Someone who is a fan of one genre may not be a fan of others. That does not mean that a writer who writes romance is a lousy writer, merely someone who has failed to capture a science-fiction fan.

The number of readers who make up the writing world is vast. Even JK Rowling hasn’t managed to sell a book to everyone, let alone win total approval for her books. There isn’t a book in existence that doesn’t have both a devoted fan and someone who wouldn’t lower themselves to use it for toilet paper. A writer doesn’t have to sell a book to even 1% of the total reading population to make a good living – and smart writers accept, right from the start, that not everyone likes their work.

I do not believe that gender, sexuality, sex colour or religion makes any real difference to the writing world. The only thing that matters is that they are good writers.

The suggestion that the publishing industry should be more ‘diverse’ is both harmful and pointless. It is harmful because it suggests, very strongly, that ‘non-white-male’ authors cannot get published without assistance. It is pointless because non-genre diversity simply doesn’t matter to writing. A ‘non-white-male’ author who gets published through any form of so-called positive discrimination, as opposed to writing skill, is in for a nasty shock when the book starts receiving independent reviews. As I’ve said before, the definition of success is success. Awards don’t matter, plaudits don’t matter … all that matters is satisfied customers.

Is the publishing industry reluctant to publish books by ‘non-white-male’ authors? I don’t think that’s actually true, but the recent changes in the industry render it pointless. There’s nothing stopping each and every ‘non-white-male’ author publishing their own books on Amazon Kindle or any other self-publishing platform, nor is there anything stopping them from changing their pen-name to ‘John Smith’ and not including a photograph. If they genuinely believe it’s a problem, they could hide their sex, race or religion. They would be judged by nothing apart from their writing.

Or, of course, they could hold competitions that only ‘non-white-male’ authors are allowed to enter, thus cutting down the number of entrants and making it dependent on factors that have nothing to do with writing …

… Which isn’t a real victory. But anyone who wants to host one of those contests has anything, but the interests of the writing world at heart.

So I was going to write a post about what I started calling Science Fiction’s Great Divorce a complicated and therefore long-delayed post, but, so, this happened on twitter.

 “Mary Robinette Kowal @MaryRobinette · 12h12 hours ago Thank you to Sarah Hoyt, for introducing me to “Chicom,” which was an ethnic slur I didn’t know.”

And here is the screenshot, as apparently the tweet has gone down the memory hole, or at least some can’t find it (I don’t respond for the tech competency of my minions.)

Now, a word of explanation for those of us who don’t speak a foreign language, learned as an adult fluently.  Those of us who do have special “head boxes” for things like swear words or ethnic slurs.  This is because those words have a strong charge that we don’t FEEL because it was not “forbidden” as a kid, so we need to wall them off extra strongly.  (For instance, the words d*mn and h*ll are not swear words in Portuguese and I have to watch myself not to use them in casual conversation.)

So when I read the above I went to box marked slurs and the only thing I could figure was that I MIGHT on FB have said something intemperate about the Chicago con com.  I have no idea why I would, since they’ve never done me any harm, but in the heated post sad display at the Hugos someone might have said something and I might have blasted.  (Am Latin.  Have temper.)

So I posted this:

Dear Ms. Mary Three Names, what in HELL are you talking about? How could I introduce you to a word whose meaning I don’t KNOW, slur or not? Perhaps you should take a powder and swoon already. Mary Three Names: “Mary Robinette Kowal @MaryRobinette · 12h12 hours ago Thank you to Sarah Hoyt, for introducing me to “Chicom,” which was an ethnic slur I didn’t know.”

Which in village terms is the equivalent of jumping to the middle of the street hitting my left hand with the back of the right.  (A gesture for which mom would spank heck out of me, so I presume it’s simulated copulation?  No one ever told me.)

Then people in comments mentioned I’d used it on my post on burning down the hugos, and I realized that dumb bunny (Sorry, but all presumption of intelligent but misinformed just went out the window) thought that Chicom — as in Chinese communist, a common term to distinguish them from the RUSSIAN COMMUNISTS in Europe (often referred to as the Sovs when I was young) was suddenly a “racist slur.”

I added this to my post, so it was clear the multiply Hugo-nominated and I think three time Hugo Winner Mary wasn’t a liar, merely addled:
UPDATE: My attention has been called to the fact that I used the word in a post. I used it exactly as “Chinese Communist” — when I read it was an ethnic slur, mind went blank as I don’t know the word as an “ethnic slur.” (Yes I have compartments for words in my head. Probably the result of being ESL. Never mind.)

And yep, when I’m hit with something like this, I’ll come up blank, just like I’ll blank out if I’m talking to mom on the phone in Portuguese and Marshall speaks to me in English, which happened just yesterday.  I have to ask mom to hold, cover the phone and ask Marsh to repeat, because until I change “the tape in my head” (yep, dating myself) I don’t understand English.  My husband got used to what he calls “changing tapes” lag when I’m in Portugal and surrounded by family gabbing in Portuguese.  He addresses me, or just calls my name, then waits till I “change tapes.”  Then repeats.

BUT anyway, it highly amuses me that I’m now racist for referring to Chinese communists.

I guess it’s the narrative now.  I MUST be racist, because otherwise they would have no reason to hate my attempt at disrupting their just-so club.  To put this in perspective, this is akin to an all-white club rejecting a Latin member and accusing them of being racist against Chinese.  VERY good.   Slow clap.  One doesn’t know whether to admire them for their inventiveness or their shamelessness.

One does know that one stands ready to expose every one of their attempts to take things out of context and be insane.  Because one is JUST that helpful.  Also because I learned my art of argument in the village, watching the fishwives.  (Smacks left hand with back of right.)  So, (puts hands on hips) be aware.  One thing my grandma taught me is that the more one bows, the more one exposes one’s *ss, so I’m not bowing and not submitting to your idiotic slurs.  One advises you to stop now, if you know what’s good for you.  Or do carry on.  It will be good for a laugh.

AND if they’re as funny as this, they’ll be pure comedy gold.

Yes, guys, I’m racist because I oppose communism.  Sing it with me “I am racist against an ideology that’s not an inborn characteristic, but the characteristic of those choosing to throw their lot in with a movement that, to date, has killed 100 million people and stands ready to continue its work.”

Yes, Mary Three Names.  I’m totes racist against communists.  The miasma of the yawning graves filled by communism makes me gag too hard to tolerate them.  I’m racist against fascists too.  And any others who would keep humanity in chains.

It’s just the sort of b*tch I am.  You got me.

Yes, I’m fine, just slept too late and am taking time to collect my thoughts, but meanwhile, this:

http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/radio/nerdrevolt-27-sad-puppies-proven-right-remain-sad/

*Yeah, I’m days late posting this.  Yeah, I’m okay.  This weekend just got really weird, what with the classless behavior of the SF Aristos, at the same time we were putting a home for sale AND dealing with paperwork and last minute stuff AND figuring out some things we forgot when moving boy out AND still recovering from beyond massive auto-immune attack.  Now I’ve delivered Black Tide short, after dissuading it from becoming a novel. Betas say it’s good.  I’ll write the other two overdue shorts today, then swing to novels including Witch’s Daughter and finishing Rogue Magic.  (And also, yes, Darkship Revenge, Dragons and the Shifters’ Bowl of Red.)  This means, now and then you’ll get a filler post like this.  I have a post percolating about “signaling” and “elites” but it will wait.  Love you all.*

Happy Saturday, minions, henchmen, partners-in-villainy, and other associates of our beloved Beautiful but Evil Space Princess! As we pause for a moment in our depredations against all that is good, right, and SJW-approved in the name of the Evil League of Evil, I offer you some reading material to slake your thirst for entertainment. Adventure, magic, heroism, science, freedom of contract, oppressive cisheteronormative patriarchy, all that is good in books! So go enjoy a good (evil) book for a while, and return rejuvenated to your nefarious efforts to bring down the Holy SFWA Empire. Oh, and gentlemen: don’t forget to practice twirling those moustachios!

As always, future promo post entries can (and should!) be sent to my email. Happy reading!

Jason Dyck, AKA The Free Range Oyster
Codemonkey, minion wrangler, and teetotal tippler

PS: Since I lack a proper sarcasm font, the humour-impaired should probably just ignore that whole first paragraph.

John Van Stry

Demigods and Deities

Portals of Infinity: Book Five

Life can be complicated for those who the gods pick as their champions, and for William, it’s really no different. Between dealing with issues at home for his god Feliogustus, to helping Queen Rachel defend Hiland against the growing threat of Barassa, to being loaned out to other gods in other spheres, William has been kept busy.

Many of these tasks have had consequences however. Some of those William expected, and for one of them the time has come to deal with it and a trip back to Sireen may soon be in order. Complicating that matter however are those who are holding a grudge against William for his thwarting of their actions. But when the followers of another god kidnap his youngest child, William’s first question is, is this revenge, or is there something special about his child? With both his god, and the goddess Aryanna mostly mute on the issue, beyond their one command to keep the child ‘hidden’, William wonders what it is they won’t say, and why.

As always, there are things you need to take on faith when you work for a god, but sometimes their responses can be very frustrating. Especially when they order you not to ask questions, but the welfare of your own child is involved. Add to that some equally strange discoveries about his old foe Cenewyg back on Earth, which are also affecting his life and William is left with more questions than for which he has answers.

Max Florschutz

Dead Silver

Chupacabra hunting. Murder. Vacations aren’t supposed to turn out like this.

When Hawke Decroux gets an invitation from an old friend to come to New Mexico and help track down some chupacabras, it seems like a simple enough request. Hang out with a friend, enjoy some sun, help a few locals out, and maybe, just maybe, catch a live chupacabra and net a sweet fifty thousand dollar reward as the cherry on top of the deal.

But as Hawke arrives, he finds that his friend has turned up missing. The animal attacks are growing more violent and frequent, far more dangerous than any chupacabra attack seen before. Something strange is going on in Silver Dreams, and if Hawke can’t figure out what it is, the entire town might find itself facing a situation far worse than a few missing farm animals… a horror straight from their darkest nightmares.

Christopher Chupik

Enigma Front

Anthology

A wave of possibilities rolls across the land and nothing remains the same IN ITS WAKE… Dinosaurs. Dragons. Clowns. From nineteenth-century China to the moons of Saturn, from the Renaissance to the aftermath of apocalypse, these eighteen stories share one theme – change, like you’ve never seen it before.

NOW, EVERYTHING CHANGES!

Read stories penned by Aurora, Hugo, and Nebula Award winners, as well as
up-and-coming authors, in a single volume.

Daniel Potter

Off Leash

Freelance Familiars Book 1

When Thomas Khatt awakens to the magical world following the sudden, violent death of his elderly Archmagus neighbor, he doesn’t get the standard package of awesome power combined with a hero destiny. Nope, he trades his thumbs in for a tail, tawny fur and four feet with a very low co-efficient of friction on linoleum. His destiny as one of three talking mountain lions in the magical world? To be sold at auction and bonded to some pimply faced apprentice for life. Thomas would rather eat dirty kitty litter.

Armed only with an impressive set of chompers and buckets of snark, Thomas faces off against a lightning-bolt throwing granny and a sexy union recruiter as he desperately tries to hold the threads of his old life together. To stay off the leash he’ll have to take advantage of the chaos caused by the Archmagus’ death and help the local Inquisition solve his murder. A pyromanic squirrel, religious werewolves, and cat-hating cops all add to the chaos as Thomas attempts to become the first Freelance Familiar.

Bibliotherapy – Cedar Sanderson

Cedar Sanderson

A meta-analysis of the utilization of, and reading recommendations for effective bibliotherapy in a non-clinical setting.

Bibliotherapy is the use of reading to improve mental health, reduce anxiety, and increase ‘mindfulness.’

Firstly, what is mindfulness? Psychology Today defines it neatly. “Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention on the present. When you’re mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad. Instead of letting your life pass you by, mindfulness means living in the moment and awakening to experience.” In other words, rather than flowing through life on autopilot, we pay attention to our surroundings, to the people around us, and more important, to why we react and feel the way we do. This self-analysis is vital to living in harmony with our self, and with others. A good thing. And reading can enhance it?

A study published in Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, examines the result of a small pilot trial of only 37 people, finding that fully 89% of them completed it, and the majority reported a reduction in stress, anxiety, and an improvement in mindfulness and resilience. What were they reading? Materials on how to reduce stress, without training, simply given the material to read. This is interesting, but perhaps not appealing to the average reader.

I would insist that books which portray resilience and mindfulness in the characters, without being written specifically to instruct the reader in how to reduce stress and anxiety, are as efficacious in obtaining the desired result.

In the early 1800s when bibliotherapy was first being explored as a treatment (alongside other methods), “It will be useful, as soon as out patients begin to discover any marks of the revival of mind, to oblige them to apply their eye to some simple and entertaining book,” Benjamin Rush wrote. While this is evidently targeted at those who had broken down enough to become a patient, what if the bibliotherapy was instituted much earlier, with the idea of preventative care rather than palliative? In addition, the idea was not met with overall approval. Isaac Ray wrote that “Cheap novels and trashy newspapers are more a cause than a cure of insanity.” The therapy endured, though, and became much recommended whether it was simply to allow the weary mind to escape daily tedium, to meditate, or to seek self-improvement.

In 2012, a study in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy showed quite clearly that bibliotherapy was effective in cases of subthreshold depression. “The results indicated that cognitive bibliotherapy resulted in statistically and clinically significant changes both in depressive symptoms and cognitions, which were maintained at follow‐up. In contrast, placebo was only associated with a temporary decrease in depressive symptoms, without significant cognitive changes.” Subthreshold depression is difficult to define, and has no clear treatment. Most would term it merely a case of the blues. However, most young adults and adults would admit that this is a condition they have found themselves in at some point. Reading, it seems, is an effective self-therapy.

Preventative care, then can be helpful. The study I referenced above followed a group of people for a year. They were given books to read that were not challenging – a 6thgrade reading level – and rated ‘highly interesting.’ The participants then discussed their reading monthly.

The interactive facet of this therapy seems to be an important part of it becoming truly effective for some, and for some purposes, although it is commonly carried out with private readings. A study of a Read-Aloud Group Bibliotherapy for the elderly: an Exploration of cognitive and social transformation, explored the use of group discussions to increase the mind’s ability to remember, endure, and heal

. “The idea that literature plays a role in healing has prevailed within nearly all human societies. From the distant past to the present day, humans have witnessed the extraordinary ability of literature to touch the soul, broaden the mind, enhance the imagination and invigorate the human spirit” (Katrina Genuis)

We are convinced, then, that bibliotherapy is a tool we can use in our own lives to improve our minds, our stress levels, and quality of life. How shall we go about this?

We can read to improve our minds, seeking out interesting books that instruct us without dwelling on ‘morbid thoughts’ (Galt, 1953). Historical books, references that improve our professional aspects, those can be part of the prescribed bibliography. Challenging our perceptions, too, is important. As is conversation about what we have read.

Beyond that is the use of reading for our physical health. Psychoneuroimmunology as described by Dr Gene Cohen is the phenomenon where stimulation of the central nervous system enhances the immune system. He reports that ‘an involvement in the arts associate with positive feelings triggers a response in the brain.’ His findings are supported by a study published by the University of Tokyo, which found in a two-pronged stufy of nearly 100 participants: “Study 1 revealed that participants felt more relaxed after reading positive poems with either personal or social content than after reading negative ones, and they felt least refreshed and calm after reading negative poems with personal content. Study 2 showed that participants reported less depressed feelings, both after reading an excerpt from an explanatory leaflet and after a controlled rest period.”

We conclude, then, that the content used for bibliotherapy is important. Negative, depressing, morbid, and nihilist materials are almost worse than nothing at all. For most, this is not surprising, as the twig is inclined, so grows the tree. However, an examination of popular literature shows that the quality for bibliotherapy must be considered. Dystopian, horror, or ‘literary’ fiction should be avoided. Instead, stories that offer insights into the resilience of the human character, which may go through a valley of despair but in the end offer hope and portrayal of personal growth, these should be offered for bibliotherapy. Uplifting personal stories, which can offer the reader a pleasant escape are not to be scorned, but rather sought out as a mental exercise in relaxation.

Through the pages of a novel, or a particularly well-done biography or historical sketch, the reader can find solace and solutions for their own struggles. However, the overly negative or heavy-handed treatments will not be effective. Choose the materials wisely.

Finally, discussion and group participation can be of further use in the alleviation of feelings of loneliness and irrelevance, and to help the reader become more socially active while stimulating their mind. Keeping in mind that a positive atmosphere is as important here as it is between the covers of the book, the group should be chosen carefully, and a route to withdraw from that group should be available if the dynamic becomes toxic. Online groups can be variable, with exiting them being simple, but they lack the face-to-face interaction that can be beneficial for the lonely.

In closing, consider this from a study carried out in Army Hospitals, “men bore their hardships more easily by reason of reading matter that either diverted or nourished them in some mysterious way.” (Jack and Ronan, 2008). What would you consider to be a nutritious book, then? A diverting one?

Bibliography

GENUIS, KATRINA. “Read-aloud group Bibliotherapy for the elderly: An exploration of cognitive and social transformation.” Journal Of Applied Arts & Health 6, no. 1 (June 2015): 77-89. Art & Architecture Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed August 23, 2015).

Macdonald, J., D. Vallance, and M. McGrath. “An evaluation of a collaborative bibliotherapy scheme delivered via a library service.” Journal Of Psychiatric And Mental Health Nursing 20, no. 10 (December 2013): 857-865. PsycINFO, EBSCOhost (accessed August 23, 2015).

Moldovan, Ramona, Oana Cobeanu, and Daniel David. “Cognitive bibliotherapy for mild depressive symptomatology: Randomized clinical trial of efficacy and mechanisms of change.” Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy 20, no. 6 (November 2013): 482-493. PsycINFO, EBSCOhost (accessed August 23, 2015).

Morita, Haruka, and Genji Sugamura. “[Reading poems to oneself affects emotional state and level of distraction].” Shinrigaku Kenkyu: The Japanese Journal Of Psychology 85, no. 5 (December 2014): 437-444. MEDLINE with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed August 23, 2015).

Sharma, Varun, et al. “Bibliotherapy to decrease stress and anxiety and increase resilience and mindfulness: a pilot trial.” Explore (New York, N.Y.) 10, no. 4 (July 2014): 248-252. MEDLINE with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed August 23, 2015).

So, I thought I didn’t care about the result of the Hugos, because in making the establishment lose their collective sh*t at the “non approved” nominations, we’d proven our point: that there is a political color bar in SF/F; that the self-proclaimed elites of sf view what fans like as problematic and therefore view the supposed “fan” award as the toy of the glitterati; and that NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS marched in lockstep with the narrative of a tiny clique over an award that in the past has sometimes been given with hundreds of votes (after which display it’s pretty hard to claim that the left doesn’t have a death lock on the media. And btw nothing was weirder than being told by the National Media we were the ones wanting to drive people off the field, while nominee after nominee was hounded off the ballot by leftist who — since WE have no political color bar — were often their co-believers.)

Turned out I did.  Yesterday was even more of a victory to the Sad Puppies than I expected.  And I wish it hadn’t been.  And I’m absolutely serious about this.

I don’t mean I wish a different set of books/stories had won.  That is only to the extent that the DELIBERATE and PARTISAN slighting of such unexceptionable luminaries as Kevin J. Anderson and Jim Butcher (Yes, yes Three Body Problem.  Well, I didn’t find it worth it, but I bet you half the people who voted for it voted either under the illusion they were favoring Chicoms OR as a slam against the puppies.But quite beyond that the block voting for the clumsy Ancillary “but pronouns” would have won first place if it weren’t Australian Rules) is a blot on the face of our genre and makes me sigh and roll my eyes.

No, I mean that the display of naked bias and, more importantly, of infantile foot-stomping and the clever-dumb insults only toddlers could think brilliant BEFORE and during the presenting of the awards makes me, today, embarrassed to call myself a science fiction and fantasy writer and, for the first time in my life, wondering if it’s time we came up with another word.

I’m just going to put it out there, without further elaboration, that adults don’t put on a panel on a subject that presents only ONE SIDE of that subject and that blatantly lies (“against diversity; mostly male” etc.) in front of a national audience.  Adults, at least ones who haven’t crossed over the line of senility, don’t create an asterisk to assign to this year’s awards.  (And for the person who played so dumb in the comments as to pretend they don’t know why an asterisk is offensive — yes, that’s why you weren’t approved — that is the mark used before/after dubious sports wins.) Adults don’t create little skits about defending the Hugos from death (particularly given what they’ve done to the Hugos’ prestige) and adults DO NOT say you shouldn’t boo no-award.

Another thing adults don’t do — or at least not adults in any definition I personally know — is slate: that is blindly vote for a list provided to them.  And that’s exactly what the Puppy Kickers did.  They voted, blindly and without reading the works (remember they bragged about that all over twitter) for the PK slate, including “no award.”  All this supposedly “opposing” a slate that we told them WASN’T a slate but a barely followed list of suggestion.  (And all you have to do is look at the vote totals to see that proven.)

Another thing (and this has me giggling this morning) adults don’t do is go to a blog that has nothing to do with Vox day and start crowing in the comments how they defeated Beale.  (No, I’m not approving you either, you clever fools.  I’m shocked you have the brainpower to push buttons on a keyboard.) You know what? I have my disagreements with Beale, as in most of the things we think are diametrical opposites and I often disagree with everything he writes, including the and a.

Until today I viewed him as a mirror of the SJW posturing.  I retract that and I give him full measure of applause.  Yes, his views are still repulsive and he still makes my skin crawl as often as the Marxists do, but you know what?  At least he has a brain and uses it.  Those of you celebrating might want to take a deep breath and wonder — for just a minute — if you did anything more than what Theodore Beale wanted.  Because from where I’m sitting, the man that set out to destroy the field and prove that everyone calling themselves its leadership were mannerless and brainless children not only won last night, he won walking away. He won without DOING anything.  He won by convincing yourselves to hit yourselves repeatedly with the obvious hammers of partisanship, lack of care for quality and INTEREST in the health of the field.  And before you died, you gloated you had won.  The mind boggles.

Well done, Vox Day.  My laughter is tinged with tears because I don’t know if the field I loved will ever recover from stupidity displayed in such an open manner. I think today I prove the Valentine Michael Smith adage that sometimes you laugh because it hurts too much to cry.

NO ONE can look at those results and think the puppies supporters vote in unison for some imagined agenda.  Not even the rabid puppies supporters. I think KJA and Butcher suffered from “most beautiful girl who doesn’t get invited to prom” syndrome (I was there, once upon a time, where guys self-shot-down because “surely she’ll laugh at me.”  Yeah, I ended up having a date, but there was a reason I thought badly of myself.) I think most people thought “Oh, they’ll sweep it in a minute.  Let me lend my support to the small but deserving Three Body Problem, so the field doesn’t look like ignorant asses. And I think that’s a shame because two men with such following would have lent their luster to the award and helped rinse it from at least a decade of mostly forgettable work that toted the right party line.

That is my only lament as far as the Hugos go.

Oh, sure, my editor, Toni Weisskopf, who has done more to keep this field alive than the rest of the field combined, deserved an award.  But I don’t think she deserved the award that was preceded by the classless and infantile display we watched last night.  Also, she knows she has not only the heart and respect of the fans, but the heart and respect of every author who’s ever worked with her.  Unlike past Hugo award winners in that category, about whom former editees trade horror stories on line and out.  So, I think in a way she already has the award of being the best-loved editor/publisher in the field. No, on consideration, I’m glad that Toni wasn’t besmirched with “the asterisk Hugo” awarded by people who if they were not too old would certainly be toddlers. (Only toddlers at least lack the experience of the world to know that with their “clever digs” they’re actually making fools of themselves.)

So while I am not upset at the results (except insofar as it proves a large number of my field is running the Marxist malware to such an extent that it will vote a slate to avoid an imaginary slate) I am upset at the display of infantility or senility or perhaps roboticity in my field yesterday (Though who would program robots that way?)  No one watching that live stream — and there was a lot of it captured and it will be replayed — can imagine that those who proclaim themselves the “intellectuals” of our field have an IQ above room temperature.  And certainly no one can imagine they have an emotional maturity above that of a toddler displaying to one and all the magnificence of the turd just deposited in the middle of the floor.

Before the pre-Hugo show was done a good number of you, by email, by PM, in private groups and on the phone were yelling that next year we No Award everything and BURN IT ALL DOWN.

The temptation is great, and I know it’s what Beale wants, and OF COURSE can manipulate the SJWs into doing.

However…  However… if we burn it all down, what we’ll be doing is destroying forever the reputation and the history of the award Heinlein (among others) won.  And while the last few years have gone a long way towards doing just that, I — like my comrade at arms and brother-of-the-heart Brad Torgersen — would prefer if we could save it.

I confess that job is going to be ten times as hard now, as people in the public at large aren’t likely to understand when leadership changes and that we aren’t the same idiots on display last night.

On the other hand, did you think it would be easy?  Did you think it was just a game? The effort to bring dignity and meritocracy to science fiction is like any other battle in the cold civil war: they will bring unreasonable force to bear on it, seeing it as part of a greater battle.  They’re not afraid of destroying that particular portion of the culture in order to “save” it.  Meanwhile we’re hampered by actually wanting to save the thing we’re fighting for.  And regardless of what else happens we can be sure that people like Beale are all for setting it on fire from the other side.

Impossible, you say?  Nah.  It’s a million to one chance.  We can’t lose.  But it might take years and years and we need to keep that in mind.  We need to commit and stay strong.  Anything worth doing is going to take years of fighting.

I’m not going to cry out for “No Award” because politics is downstream from culture, and if you guys want decent governance for your grandchildren, we need to take beachhead after beachhead and restore it to health NOT allow the other side to burn it down because if they can’t have it no one can.  I couldn’t much care about the Hugo, but I care about western civilization and it’s time we started fighting for it.

So, for next year, I give you Kate Paulk running the platform of bringing in more and more voters.  MOAR.  Sad Puppies IV the Embiggenning.  (Though none of us will do more than snicker if, since Amanda and I are helping Kate, you call it “Sad Puppies IV, the Embitchening.” We know the other side is going to call it that anyway, and we say “Yeah, and how” in advance.)  We’re here, we’re not giving up and we’re prepared to fight like girls.  May G-d have mercy on their souls.

And to every one of you, my friends, This One Is For You.