Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

Not Your Shield
By Rhiain

K. Tempest Bradford of “The Social Justice Warrior Racist Reading Challenge” fame is at it again. On her Facebook wall, she posted the following a couple days ago (no, you don’t have to follow the link). Her original words are in italics, and my responses are in bold.

Here’s a thing: I need people to stop responding to this Sad Puppies/Hugo thing with “well, if you want to change things, you should have voted.”

Because complaints that the Hugos were dominated and manipulated by a small clique of people are exactly why campaigns like Sad Puppies were born. It’s called a “taste of your own medicine.”

First: F*** you.

You’re not my type.

Second: Has you’re a** been paying attention to the conversations in this community for the past 5, 10, 20, 30 years on this topic? because, if you haven’t, I invite you to shut your d*** mouth.

No and no. Invitation declined. Make me – perhaps by learning to build an argument on something other than victimhood.

And in the past few years more and more people who care about diversity in SFF have been making an effort to join the WorldCon voting ranks.

Your voting numbers laugh at your own efforts, then.

THIS IS WHY SAD PUPPIES EXISTS. Not because some people just happened to decide, but because the mostly white mostly male contingent of whiny a**holes saw that there was a shift happening toward a more diverse Hugo slate and away from their ilk and decided to work against it. And bring in people fro outside of the community to help them.

If you don’t f***ing know this then you should keep your opinions in your head.

I don’t f-ing know this, and again, I can be as publicly opinionated as you seem to enjoy being.

But again, the mostly white mostly men who are involved in Sad Puppies and the mostly white, mostly men brought in from gamer gate have money to spare (this is often a result of said whiteness and maleness). For them $50 is no big deal. For others it is not.

A) Nobody involved in GamerGate really knew about SP3…until you opened your mouth about it.
B) I thought a supporting membership cost $40? And this non-white chica was happy to shell out moulah for one. So all this ranting just to say you can’t afford to pay for one?

So f***ing cut it out acting like ‘Oh, you can just vote’. It’s not that simple.”

Yes, it is that simple. This non-white chica will be happy to rub that in your face for as long as it takes. Your multicultural diversity schtick bores me, is completely without reason, and is annoying the hell out of me with all the overemotional and oversentimental tripe thrown in. You call this a justification for the current status quo of the Hugos as recently as last year? The more you whine about your lack of privilege in this arena, the more other non-white people who refuse to be classified as such are going to start speaking up to make you look like an utter fool.

This is a class issue, a race issue, a gender issue.

This middle-class, Samoan female says this is only in your imagination, and only because you keep hammering on this point like there’s no tomorrow. You know what’s interesting about a hammer? It’s actually two tools in one – one to put the nail in, and one to take the nail out. You’re just pissed because other people are able to take that hammer away from you and use it to remove the nails you keep trying to put in. I’m a patient woman, and I’m willing to learn how to use tools for everything they’re intended for .

And I know some of you have a hard time with that concept. I don’t care. You’ve had plenty of time to figure it out. I’m real tired of your inability to understand these things.

Oh, I understand these things perfectly, but I refuse your attempts to maintain this as the overall narrative. No. You have not yet begun to see pushback on your lazy, self-absorbed whining.

Do you hear me, Tempest?

YOUR. NARRATIVE. IS. BROKEN.

And so help me God, people like me are going to break it into irrecoverable pieces.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I want to add something: I despise the hypocrisy on full display in this post. Here’s a non-white woman who grew up with more privilege than I did complaining about the lack of diversity in the Hugo Award nominations, and trying her best to persuade fellow scifi fans that promoting a more diverse platform in the name of equality should be done by excluding certain people because of their skin color and sex.

I’ve been more vocal about this nonsense in recent weeks because I’m non-white, female, and technically speaking, someone whom Ms. Bradford would count on as an ally based on appearance alone. But you’re not going to find me whining about what I haven’t yet earned. I don’t disparage or belittle the contributions of white guys to society based on their looks. The qualities of a person aren’t just skin deep, and I will say that to anyone who keeps repeating this tripe and make him or her eat his or her words.

This is not going to be first or last time that I repeat this, but be warned, SJWs: I’m not staying quiet on this any longer. And you sure as hell don’t speak for me.

De Gustibus – David Pascoe

With the madness raining down from on high in a flood of mixed metaphor vitriol the anti-fun crowd have been spewing their hatred with predictable and familiar, if disappointing, illogic. Those seeking to prevent puppy-related sadness Sad Puppies (I’m not a puppy, personally, and I’m depressed, not sad) are hatey mchaters, secksissss, racisssss, homophobisss, and any other -isss you can imagine. We cheated. We bloc-voted, which isn’t cheating (witness the efforts of Hugo-winners-past) but should be (except when they do it; that’s just clever self-promotion). We GASP may not have informed those we put on the slate. We- but you get the picture.

In retaliation measured response, the wise and not-at-all vindictive luminaries of literary SF are recommending their fans vote NO AWARD rather than allow their the good name of the Hugo to descend to the level of mere adventu-, ahhh, fu-, ummm, mere escapist pulp (yeah, that’s the ticket).

What’s bugging me, here, is the entire concept of the Hugo award. See, I get a “Best Novel” (or other category), but when you have a subset of any given group vote on it, you don’t end up with the best: you end up with the favorite. Not necessarily the same thing. I suppose, if you could get all readers of scifi to vote every year, you could reasonably call the winners the best of that year. Except they’d still just be the most-liked. Upon what criteria can we even determine what is best in life story?

There are standards of craft that should be met. Is it readable? How’s the grammar, generally? How about continuity? Does the dialogue work? How about world-building? Are the major conflicts resolved? These are all questions of craft, and basic ones, really. Then there are slightly more esoteric subjects. Do the characters’ relationships encourage readers toward poor life choices (I’m lookin’ at you, Twilight) or lead one to believe humanity is doomed by its own hand, and that’s a good thing? Does the story keep readers up until all hours of the night, just to find out what happens next? (I could argue that as a simple, albeit unverifiable objective standard. But I won’t.) After all, as Mrs. Dave points out, some readers are simply more self-disciplined than others. We are not them. “Just one more chapter,” gets one exiled to the couch, where there may be light. The sleeping chamber is for just that, after all. Well, not just that…

The Hugos aren’t, and never were, for the BEST work, according to anything resembling objective criteria. The only criteria we could possibly use is most bought, whether through sales numbers (Hah!) or money made. How commercially successful is any given work? In that case, the aforementioned Twilight would win handily. As would any of the Harry Potter books. Let us not speak of Fifty Shades (after all, it’s as scifi as If You Were A Dinosaur-).

What I’m coming down to is the individual Hugos are misnamed. They aren’t the Best of anything, let alone the entirety of the genre I know and love best. Despite what it says right on the packaging! (And despite the unexpectedly honest blathering of a certain former editor, if you claim it’s the best of a genre, then everybody who wants to gets a say.) They’re simply the favorite of the subset of readers who happened to buy memberships to any given year’s World Science Fiction Convention. And that’s fine. I don’t actually have an issue with that, as such. However, there are a goodly number of people in the world who will look at just such a label (XXXXX, Winner of 20xx Hugo for Best Whatever) and make the assumption that this is the best the field had to offer that year. An understandable and logical assumption. And when it’s some silly saurian revenge fantasy, they’re going to form a poor opinion of my genre. And that vexes me.

It further vexes me when people who should know better encourage their followers to vent their spleen in such a childish manner: “I’m taking my rocket and going home!” When, instead of reading the nominated works, and judging them based on inherent merit, these giants of the field recommend torpedoing anybody’s chance to win. (Never mind that the ballots will almost certainly reflect a vote for 1) Ancillary Sword, and 2) No Award.) After all, any work holding a nomination is on the ballot because a sufficient number of people willing to pay to nominate chose to do so. And if this is a popularity contest, then let it be so. Don’t game the system just to spite a group of people who only want fun books to read (well, we don’t want only fun books. We want fun and challenging books, with interesting worlds, genuine characters, etc, etc.)

I didn’t really want to talk more about the Hugos, Puppy-Related Sadness, and the infantility (shut-up, spellcheck) of NSJWP and its adherents. It tires me. And so, let me end on a high note. I’d like to offer my congratulations to my fellow Mad Genii, Dave Freer, Amanda Green, and Cedar Sanderson, who are all up for Favorite Fan Writer, and major congratulations to Jason Cordova, who is up for the Totally-Not-a-Hugo Campbell Award for Favorite New Writer. Congrats to Toni Weisskopf and Jim Minz of Baen Books for keeping me in crack providing such excellent mental fare to the story-starved masses. Congrats to all of the other nominees, and I’m delighted to see such a tough field. I’m joyful to have such difficult decisions to make this year. It is my hope and prayer that I can say this again next year.

First of all, to those who celebrate it, happy Easter.

For those who’ve sent me guest posts, I am not running them this weekend because it’s typically low hits.  Yes, Mad Genius Club is through the roof right now, but I don’t think it’s to TODAY’S post.

On why it’s through the roof — the Hugos — and that whole kerfuffle, I’m only going to say a few things.

First and most importantly I’m going to say congratulations to all the nominees.  The ballot is a rather sweet result to me. Kevin J. Anderson is FINALLY on a Hugo ballot.  I’ve known the man for a million years give or take a hundred thousand (I am not a time trav–  Oh, whatevs) and he’s deserved a Hugo all that time.  Now he’s getting a chance at one.  Also in the related category three of the nominees are like blood kin to me.  Siblings, in fact.  So that is rather sweet, though I have no idea whom to vote for (yet.)

Also on the ballot is my publisher, who should have got a Hugo for Best Editor at least a dozen times.  (Trust me, I’ve worked with a lot of other editors.)  So, there I know whom to vote for.

Second, the gentleman that Amanda had to take to task on her blog [UPDATE: Okay, not him just someone with a similar name on the same side.  I have lousy memory for names.] came out yesterday night to accuse us of gloating and being “partisan” and unprofessional.

I will confess to being Portuguese born and bred and to being the despair of my mother when it came to nice manners and not slapping the back of my hand into the palm of my open hand while speaking like (mom tells me) a fishwife.

But that’s only when I’m riled up.  And I wasn’t even riled up last night, just vaguely annoyed.  Also, anyone who thinks I’m gloating because authors who’ve been willfully passed over for the Hugos for decades finally got on the ballot graced last year by the sloppy bathos fest “If You Were A Dinosaur My Love” should go lie down.  They’re feverish.

These people rather than being honored by the Hugo honor the Hugo which was all of Brad Torgersen’s point.  To rinse the award won by truly deserving writers, from Asimov to Heinlein to Ursula Le Guin and make it relevant to normal fans again. I don’t know if Kate (the Impaler) will have the same goal, but I think so.  (We haven’t talked as much as usual recently because surgery and such.)

Anyway, to be asked for civility from the side that’s been emptying the slops bucket on our head ever since their favorites didn’t get the call is all too precious and rich.  The people who were screaming at us that “Women are allowed to write science fiction too” apparently didn’t notice the women on this side and on the ballot (I know, we’re wrongwomen and wrongfans.) And the idiots who for years have said that this was all because Larry wanted a Hugo owe him a giant apology. Until I see that I’m all out of f*cks to give about their precious hurt feelings.

For more on the Hugos go to the ever classy Brad Torgersen.  I’m not classy.  Oh, and guys, if I were gloating, you would know it.  There would be gifs of dancing goats or something.  Instead, I just feel like a soldier who’s marched all night for the honor to walk into Mordor.  I’m tired, I’d like a bed, and I know tomorrow there will be a heck of a lot of work to do.

On the good side, the spoils are good.  I.e. if you can pay the membership to vote do it because the books will be worth the $40.  And then read and vote for your best.

The only other comment on that ever so civil and non partisan side I’m going to make is to reproduce the comment one of them made on IO9 and my friend Charlie Martin’s comment in reply.

alimumCharlie Jane Anders
4/04/15 1:53pm
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Actually, it’s about ethics in science fiction awards.

In the past year or so, it has become painfully obvious that if I ever do publish any of my writing, for my own safety and to be taken seriously, I will have to use a gender neutral or male pseudonym.

Charlie Martin:

Charlie, the only risk to your safety is if you dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back for what a Good Person You Are.  After years of campaigns by the Right People, you’ve discovered the Wrong People can vote too.

So, yeah, it’s about ethics. And if you and the other bien pensants had any, we wouldn’t be having this whole discussion.

Oh, and I’d like to reassure Charlie Jane Anders.  Women have been working and winning awards in science fiction for decades.  Under female names, even, unless Ursula, Connie and others are male names and no one told me.  I have been writing under a female name (several in fact) for years, and never feared violence because of my sex.  Because of my politics, maybe, but even there I didn’t fear for my safety, just for my career.

Okay.  And now enough about the antics of the perpetually threatened and offended and their strident calls for “civility” from our side.  I might have made a tasteless comment about preparation H.  Again, I’d like to point out my mom never beat the fishwife out of me, thought she tried.  And I might have made a graphic of a rocket exploding with “wrongfans having wrongfun and we like it.”

However I’ve never accused anyone of “stealing” the Hugos or of buying sock puppet memberships; other than saying that some of the nominees (and winners) in recent years have been long on social justice and short on worth (a value judgement but MY value judgement and that of a lot of fans who no longer use the Hugo as a buy recommendation), I’ve never impugned the character of any Hugo nominee/winner for being nominees/winners (I’ve pointed out bad behavior from some of them and an habit of wearing their own colon as a stylish hat in other circumstances.  That’s different, but that’s frankly more descriptive than impugning);and I’ve never, not even in my worst moments accused anyone on the other side of thought crime (racist, sexist, homophobic, wrongthinker or eeeevil) or private vice (I’ve never once said I fear for my safety around them.)

I will employ civility when I see some.  And some apologies, too for people like Larry.

And now for the longed-for — you long for it, right? — update.

I’m recovering, though I managed to catch an infection during surgery and also the surgery was far more extensive than expected (how extensive?  Cut from hip to hip extensive, though it wasn’t supposed to be abdominal at all.)

I am now off the opiates.  Have been for about a week, but percocet seems to have lingering effects with me.  Because I was forced to re-resort to it (I first only took it for a day) due to the infection and associated pain, the writing came to a stand still.  This is because for whatever reason percocet makes my writing flat like week old open soda.  I can write words and everything, but there’s no voice, or not enough to carry a story.

Well, that is rinsing out at last and after I get some tea and a boiled egg, I’ll be working on Through Fire some.  Yes, even today.  Frankly I want the cursed book off my desk.

The biggest revelation of this post-op period, though, has been finding out what was wrong before.

Apparently not only was there a lot of binding and scar tissue in my abdomen which (weirdly) impaired my mobility, but I must have been in chronic pain for years.

To clarify: I’ve taken maximum one percocet a day (sometimes less) when the pain gets really bad.  Again, I don’t like opiates.  They make me dizzy and nauseated, but worst of all they give me mini-dementia.  As in, the governor that prevents you from watering the cat and giving tuna to the plant is gone.  To avoid doing something disastrous, I have to watch myself even more thoroughly than I normally do which is EXHAUSTING. And writing becomes a negotiated process because my fingers get ideas of their own about what to type.  (No, it’s not even Freudian.  For a time last week my fingers had an Asian accent issue, and typed l for r and vice versa.) So instead of the 12 percocet a day (2 tablets, three times a day) I took one when things became unbearable.  This was usually in the morning.  I’ve taken no percocet at night.

However, I’ve experiencing long, deep sleep for 7 hours (by the clock.  Part of the reason I’m up now is that I woke up seven hours after falling asleep.)  UNLESS I forget to take Super Motrim (imagine it with a little cape floating in the wind) in which case I have the nights I’ve had for 15 years and REALLY had for the last three: interrupted, broken, never fully asleep, etc.

It was so noticeable I asked my doctor (and Speaker) if Motrim had soporific properties.

Turns out it doesn’t.  It just stops pain.

The only explanation for its noticeable effect on me is that the stuff in there had been growing/binding/hurting more each year and that the human body is infinitely adaptable and the human mind more so.  I got used to tuning it out, and it worked fine during the day and even most of the time at night when considered as pain.  (Most of the time because one of the things that caused the appointment that ended in surgery was that I’d been having trouble not screaming aloud in the night.)  But my subconscious wasn’t fooled and thus kept me awake.

I’m hoping very much, and if you’re a praying person I request the favor of prayers on that behalf, that at the end of this, in a month (or earlier, but a month from now is the discharge appointment) I’m pain free and the deep sleep continues without Super Motrim (to the rescue.)

And now that I’ve both been a fish wife and one of my grandmother’s friends who thought their health was endlessly fascinating to everyone (I’m sorry for it, but some of you have bugged me for news and this was easiest) I shall get out of your way and wish those of you who celebrate Easter a happy and blessed day.  And wish those of you who don’t a happy and blessed day anyway, since it’s not a work day and you can do whatever you want, and hopefully it’s not snowing where ya’ll are today.

Thank you for your continued kindness and support.  This blog shall resume bright and early tomorrow.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers, and thank you to Glenn Reynolds for the link.

Second UPDATE: Because everyone keeps asking me this, and I’m tired of answering messages, yes, if you buy a membership now for $40 you can vote in this year’s Hugos AND you can NOMINATE for next year. And you’ll get copies of most nominated works to make an informed vote. The link to buy memberships is here.
 

Good Saturday morning. I apologize for not writing this in cave symbols, since I know that language is inherited in the blood and therefore can’t be changed as can’t any other part of the culture. Because it’s all in our genes. And that’s why I’m squatting here in my cave, working at starting a fire while my husband and the boys sit in a corner chipping flint implements.

Oh, how I wish that human beings had been designed with the ability to grow and adapt, to learn new techniques, evolve new beliefs, adjust their behavior, create new words to fit new meanings, and thereby change their culture to fit new tech and new times.

Then I might be sitting in a shiny office, (more or less clean. Hey, I’ve been recovering from surgery) typing on a keyboard in a language full of meanings that our stone age ancestors couldn’t even imagine.

Oh, wait. Maybe we can learn and adapt. Or else, I’d be looking for berries while the guys tried to club something to death with their bare fists.

No, I’m not actually out of my ever-loving mind, but I think our culture, our “intellectuals” and our cognoscenti are. Not just out of their minds, but over the hills and far away, staking out a position that Hitler would be proud of.

What prompted this were clashes between two Australian groups, Reclaim Australia and No Room For Racism.

On the face of it it sounds like the nice narrative we are fed every time something like this happens. I haven’t been following the international scene, and frankly it wouldn’t even surprise me if Europe headed for nativism and blood-related nationality. It is what is at the basis of their nation states (even if it’s often a lie. For instance I’d hazard that a lot of people in Portugal – yes, d*mn it, I’ll do the DNA testing. Let the house sell and let me have some money first – are as mixed as Americans. My kids call Portugal the reservoir tip at the end of Europe, which is unkind but somewhat accurate since that portion of land was part of the Celtic commonwealth, before being invaded by Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Germanic tribes, Moors (though their contribution in the North is minimal as the North was usually administered by overseers with little or no actual colonization) French crusaders, Viking raiders. Then there were British and Irish merchants due to ties going back before the Carthaginians who would set up trading posts, send their younger sons over, sometimes engage in a bit of raiding, etc. There are unkind proverbs about blue eyed Portuguese, but there are also a lot of them. (Two of my grandparents. A third was green eyed.) And in the end sometimes I think all of us are the result of some girl who tripped (on purpose or not) while evading a foreigner. All this to say that when my dad talks of the “The Portuguese Race” (and boy, does he) he’s mostly talking of a mythical entity. But it’s one they all believe in as hard as they can.)

I’ll even accept that given that most of the programs of blood-nationality parties are to put it mildly socialism (but with the goodies going to a different group) it is accurate to call them fascists.

And my sons at least assure me that the Golden Dawn is honest to Bog fascism. I bow to their knowledge. They read a lot more international news than I do and by virtue of being millennials have friends all over the world. (Ah, the internet.)

However, Australia is not in Europe. And going on the self definition of the groups – and only that. (Note to the idiots who are going to dig out quotes by some figure in Reclaim Australia saying that if you have a tan you should be killed – I’m only going on the group’s self-definition as stated in the article I read.)

So, the protests by Reclaim Australia were according to the article I read for: Around the country Reclaim Australia protesters held rallies to oppose “sharia law, halal tax and Islamisation”, where they waved Australian flags and carried signs saying “Yes Australia. No Sharia”.

Now you can think whatever you want of those goals, but I look at them and think “They want to keep a more adaptable and successful (in raw terms of giving people a better life) culture from being replaced with a medieval nightmare that makes women into slaves, gay people into corpses and denies people the ability to practice other religions/cultures without paying dearly for it, either with money or blood.” (And please, don’t tell me burkas are freeing, and gay people REALLY want to be thrown from buildings, and that the tax to be a person of the book but non-Muslim is REALLY freedom of religion. And don’t try the nonsense that this only happens in rare and isolated places, either. It happens EVERY TIME that Islam gets the upper hand or the numbers.)

While I don’t care if people practice/believe in Islam or not, I think that freedom should be restricted to what we in the west would consider a purely religious arena. Or to put it another way, you have the right to wear the burka, you don’t have the right to make other people wear it; you have the right to tell your gay son he’s going to hell, or even kick him out of the house, you don’t have the right to throw him off a building; you have the right to divorce your wife because she insists on having a job, you can’t honor kill her. Or in other words, you have the right to follow the rules of your religion, but you WILL respect our civil laws. Or, again in other words “Very well, you build your pyre, we build our gallows. When you’re done burning your widow, we’ll hang the people who burned her.”

I don’t know if that’s what Reclaim Australia wants, or if they’re the more extreme form of “no mosques in Australia.”

I don’t care.

I don’t care not because I don’t see a difference between those positions (I do. I’d oppose the latter on principle) but because the group opposing them is not the “pro-islamicization group” or even the “no discrimination against religions group.”

No, the group opposing them is No Room for Racism.

This means that the problem they have isn’t even the problem that’s actually being fought over.

In other words, this is like if you had a problem because your car blew a tire, and someone pulled over and started arguing what type of seats you should have.

It is also entirely predictable.

The left can’t argue the actual problems and their actual causes, so it defaults to insane accusations and running around screaming what are (at least to them, but also to a vast portion of mal-educated young) trigger words: racism! Sexism! White supremacism!

We’ve seen this in the fight for science fiction and the fight for gaming, in the discussions about immigration, and in fact in just about anything that is a point of contention in the present day. I could write the longest, most carefully reasoned essay on why our schools are failing to teach people to read, and someone will quote truncated phrases and call me racist or sexist or (and this is funny) white supremacist.

This is how they’ve convinced themselves the people who want the Hugos to be the award of the majority of fandom again are about pushing women out. (Funny way to do it when Brad’s slate contained about half women.) Sigh.

They should consider not only are those words losing their sting but they DO encourage the people they purport to oppose. TRUE white supremacists in the US and abroad have been considered beneath the touch of normal people. However, when you call everyone who disagrees with you “white supremacists” how are people to know who the real ones are? They will just assume you’re going nuts again. And from that to falling prey to true demagogues is a step.

Anyway, to return to the point of this post – yes, I have one – the problem is that a lot of people on the left have evolved this bizarre theory of race/culture.

I saw it in my kids homework, when they were requested to write about “your culture” but got the essay sent back when they wrote about SF/F geekdom because they wanted “your ancestral culture.”

In my kids particular case the situation quickly became tragic or funny depending on how you look at it, because I descended on them like the wrath of Sarah, demanding they explain themselves.

The explanation went something like this “Language and costumes are tied to your race. Trying to get an immigrant to learn a new language/integrate in the culture he immigrated to is aggression, since you’re supposed to keep your culture, because it’s part of your race. To want you to change is racist.”

(Note to those in SF/F this is much, much worse than the position staked out by VD, the banished one, which if I understand him correctly is that SOME characteristics are inherited and make you more/less competent for industrial civilization. Note also that I don’t even agree with his position, much less the more extreme one. Note also that for his position he is condemned as racist, but the other position makes you enlightened and possibly beautiful and full of the meanings.)

This is the point at which I broke out my broom and flew in circles around their office, pointing out their position was something Hitler would have been proud to embrace. What they are claiming in fact is that there is some ur-mythical-quality to races (and races in this case are defined in the European sense, like my dad blathering on about the “Portuguese race”) which imbues them with their own language and culture. If wanting to change that is racist, and if some of these “races” are better at life than others (understood in the whole system of Marxist reward and punishment) then what will prevent them from in the future deciding to eugenically improve the breed by eliminating the less competent? Or just, as they’re doing now, handicapping them by never teaching them the lingua franca of the age and the technological culture needed to survive?

I didn’t convince anyone, of course, because this is a “religious” belief. I.e. if they thought rationally about it, they’d know that culture isn’t race, because we don’t all speak/dress/eat as they did in Ur of the Chaldees or on that distant day when we lounged about on tree tops eating insects, rodents and berries. But they can’t think about it because in their own blinkered minds, that would make them “racist.”

That is, the admission that all groups of humans (as groups. Obviously every individual is different) can adopt whatever religion/culture they like and be as successful at it as any other group (if they try hard enough) would to them be racist.

While claiming that you’re stuck with whatever culture your ancestors had and that even if you immigrate you have to keep repeating the mistakes of your culture, which caused your country of origin to have problems that caused you to immigrate, THAT in these idiots (apologies to real idiots whom I’m maligning)’s “minds” is racism.

(In other news, Slavery is Freedom, Work is Leisure, and Big Brother loves you.)

And that is what caught me about the confrontations in Australia. Not that they’re clashing over muslims, no. That half of these people think race equals culture.

And that is the epistemological error that can put paid to Western Civilization unless it’s combated every time we meet it.

And we must combat it, or the end result of this will be sitting in a cave, chipping away at flint. And I for one suck at making fires without matches.

Fortunately I also suck at tolerating racism and genetic supremacists of every race. So I’ll continue fighting, long before it comes to that.

In the end, we win, they lose. At least if we don’t allow them to change the meaning of words.

It is the blessing and curse of humanity that we are social creatures.

It is a blessing because it’s a source of happiness. Some of the greatest sources of happiness as a human (no, really, I am one) come through connection with other humans. I know some of the specific sources of my happiness come through hanging out with the guys, or even working in my office and listening to them laugh in the next room (like yesterday, when I really had to finish something.)

It’s a curse because if you get humans together they immediately form two groups and start imagining their group is superior to all others.

I remember this wedding party which was not among our normal acquaintance, so I didn’t know anyone. I was, I think, about ten. The older kids separated off into a group and we into another, and we went and played in a field next to the party and we knew we were SO superior to the older kids who were playing at boy and girl stuff.

Or take middle school (please. I’m convinced if there’s a place of eternal punishment it’s middle school.) In elementary school I don’t remember having cliques, possibly because my graduating class was 12 and we had a junior class being taught in the same classroom, so we could always look down on them (though we took them under our wing, too.)

In Middle School there were cliques. There was the pretty girl clique and the rich boys and girls clique and then there were… us. If we’d thought about it we’d have called ourselves “the others” and if we’d been in the states every man and woman jack and jill of us would now be in science fiction. We were of an intellectual disposition, sometimes odd looking (my “boyfriend” looked like a dinosaur. No, I’m not exaggerating. There was something saurian to his face. Dan only knew him by that description, but when we met him years later in a train, he recognized him on sight. Of course he was also a brilliant mathematician. The middle-school boyfriend. Oh, and Dan too.) Most of us were tiny and skinny. Then there was me. I functioned as an attractor to the group, because compared to the normal run of my generation in Portugal I was what was technically known as a moose (And if you want to know what that was, at 13 I stopped growing at 5’7” and wearing a US size 7.) and I was not afraid of fighting and fought not just to defend myself but “mine” as well. That meant we got the lame and the halting and the slow too. Though most were quick in the mind, because we scared the others. But not all. We had people we protected because they were nice but kind of … well… not that smart.

Middle school is when teens try out for adulthood. I realize Portugal was a more conformist society than anywhere in the US. But I saw it with my kids and it’s not that different. In Middle School they try to teach you to “fit in” with the most possible people. Not on purpose, of couse, but that’s what happens when you throw a bunch of humans that age together. Tribalism rules, and if people aren’t in your group – because you are a kid and have no brakes – they’re likely to get hurt. Also, if people ARE in your group they must be watched for any sign of disloyalty.

So, what is this about, precisely.

Well, someone on the anti-puppy side has been screaming and throwing fits (okay, they all have, but this one is speshul. Read Amanda’s take down here.) about the sad puppies campaign “politicizing” the Hugos and how he demands anyone on the slate distance himself from the campaign or else.

[Steeples hands on desk. Looks towards the heavens.] Lor’ what fools these mortals be.

First of all there is about zero political content to Brad’s slate. There might be more if it were mine (MAYBE. I was talking at dinner with the boys about authors I like/enjoy and frankly, starting with Connie Willis and passing through Pratchett any number of them are not just liberal but openly so.) But Brad’s slate is “works Brad found he thinks are worthy” and we read them and agreed or just told people about his slate and that’s about it. Which is why he said “go out and read them.” The books had zero vetting for politics, and so did the writers. In fact, I haven’t read one of the books and I guarantee I’ll find politics that make me roll my eyes, though very few people who weren’t taught Marxism from Middle School on would see it.

It’s absolutely impossible this man looked at the slate and decided it was politically motivated. Absolutely zero chance. (It’s also impossible they looked at the slate and decided it was exclusionary of women. As for people of different orientations, I don’t think anyone knows or cares about the private life of the writers.)

So…

So the noise is pure middle school clique. This man who is at best a hanger-on to the field is screaming and yelling “Look at me, look at me, I’m with” (what he perceives to be) “the cool kids.”

This joined with a discussion last night on facebook with two people much younger than I on the precise gradation of “Latino” and “Hispanic” and the exact parsing of the need to belong.

I am one of those people who are pathological xenophiles (no, really, in the stone age, I’d probably have been killed one way or another.) When I was an exchange student, lines of friendship in the groups parsed along blood lines. Portuguese would (of course) be friends with Portuguese. If there wasn’t one, then Spanish or Italian, or any flavor of South/Central American.

Me? My best friends were British and Japanese. I hung out with the Swedish guys. And – this will shock you – I REALLY liked Americans which meant I often didn’t hang out with exchange students at all.

So to me the whole “belong” thing is a little hard to understand, except in the sense that all humans (even me) seem to want a tribe (mine tends to be the rag tag oddlings.)

And we all try to fit in with our group, be it in clothes, hairstyle, mannerisms or the way we choose science fiction awards.

And that’s fine if it’s for clothes, hairstyle, etc. Not so okay if it’s awards.

The work of civilization – the undertaking that’s got us from the pyramids to where we are – is a work of defeating tribalism or at least of harnessing it towards the larger world and larger, more worthy endeavors.

Deciding literary or even just story worthiness requires dispassionate examination and discussion that cannot happen if it’s all “I wanna belong with them.”

To take it back to tribalism and the cool kids who get to have the award because they’re cool is the opposite of civilization. It is a regression to barbarism.

It is, unfortunately one that is everywhere in society at large, partly encouraged by Marxism which is a barbaric philosophy, treating people as widgets, that is interchangeable members of a group (and the group mostly due to inherited characteristics). It is little wonder that Marxism usually leads to barbaric “kingship” systems like in Cuba or North Korea. That is what it is. Barbarism cleaned up and made to sound “intellectual.”

As for belonging…

I will confess to feeling a cultural kinship with lots of Latin people, particularly when we recall childhood incidents or maxims. This is not unusual. Some of the just-so stories I was taught in childhood date back to Rome, and the religious underpinnings have been changed in the telling, as I found out when I learned Latin and read the stories in the original.

I do not however feel a need to alter my behavior to fit in better with an imagined cultural identity. I accept that I have some, possibly genetic, possibly cultural and learned in childhood (though that doesn’t explain some that show in the kids, not me) legacy of my ancestry. That’s fine. I don’t suppress them. (The “feisty” thing, for instance.) BUT I also don’t encourage them to be more Latin. I just am me, as I am.

I find kinship and friendship and amusement in belonging with British ancestry people too, and anyone who knows the North of Portugal will understand why (seriously, we were where the Brits sent their disappointing sons before they had an empire) and know that it permeates the culture to a great degree. I found when I went to England and saw for the first time the landscapes I’d read about that it was sort of a lost homeland of the soul. There was something to the light and the layout of fields and houses that evoked a homesickness for a place I’d never been. (though there were traces of it in the North of Portugal.)

What I’m trying to say is that I channel my “tribalism” to “belonging.” I don’t try to conform to a tribe, but I’ll accept as brothers and sisters those who share some part of my sense of self. Needless to say, every American who loves the Constitution is definitely close kin, too.

But I don’t try to conform. I don’t try to be what people expect.

I try to be me as hard as I can. I have taken the full scope of who I am, changed what I could change that displeased me (or work on it on a day to day base) and encouraged the virtues and talents I like. I take no reference of what other people expect me to be (except my family, of course. I try not to be too hard to live with, after all.) I take reference of who I am, who I want to be and what I want from life. Not what other people want, not even what other people want me to want. Just what I want.

Do I have friends? Of course. I view friendship as an important bond involving mutual obligation.

Do I have a tribe? Well, yes. My friends tend to sort of be that.

Do I have a tribe that demands I think as they do as dress/behave/like what they do? No. You see, my tribe is odd and we’re each one our own.

I like it that way.

It must be scary to live in a world where Middle School never ends.

It’s also wholly inadequate for the work of adulthood and civilization.

May the State Compel You…?- Martin L. Shoemaker

May the state compel you to sign a loyalty oath?

May the state compel you to recite the Pledge of Allegiance?

May the state compel you to sing the Star Spangled Banner?

May the state compel you to fly the flag?

May the state compel you to remove the flag?

May the state compel you to burn the flag?

May the state compel you to endorse the current President?

May the state compel you to endorse all past Presidents?

May the state compel you to denounce all past Presidents?

May the state compel you to endorse Amazon? Ford? GM? The UAW? Microsoft? Monsanto? NBC? Greenpeace?

May the state compel you to denounce Amazon? Ford? GM? The UAW? Microsoft? Monsanto? NBC? Greenpeace?

May the state compel you to join a church?

May the state compel you to leave a church?

May the state compel you to denounce a church?

May the state compel you to buy a home?

May the state compel you to sell a home?

May the state compel you to buy things you do not need and can never use?

May the state compel you to sell things you wish to keep?

May the state compel you to give away things you wish to keep?

May the state compel you to work for free?

May the state compel you to work in a field of their choosing?

May the state compel you to not work?

May the state compel you to charge only state-approved prices for your goods and services?

May the state compel you to move to a new town?

May the state compel you to eat what you’re told to eat?

May the state compel you to steal?

May the state compel you to give?

May the state compel you to take your medicine?

May the state compel you to take your own life for the benefit of society?

May the state compel you to take the life of another for the benefit of society?

May the state compel you to take drugs?

May the state compel you to abstain from drugs?

May the state compel you to support art that offends you?

May the state compel you to denounce art that offends the state?

May the state compel you to read the Bible? The Koran? The Talmud? The Fountainhead?

May the state compel you to burn the Bible? The Koran? The Talmud? The Fountainhead?

May the state compel you to do what they decide is in your own good?

May the state compel you to become friends with people who offend you?

May the state compel you to denounce your friends?

May the state compel you to say things you do not believe?

May the state compel you to remain silent when you believe you are in the right?

May the state compel you to claim there are five lights when you only see four?

May the state compel you to think only approved thoughts?

May the state compel you to believe what you do not believe?

May the state compel you to love the state?

If you answered Yes to any of these questions, who’s the real target: yourself, or everybody else? Or if you answered It depends, does that mean the state should compel those thoughts and beliefs that you share, but not the ones you don’t?

In either case: you little tyrant, you…

Deer Hoyt’s Ones Lones Hons
Thees iz D’Artagnan-cat the one theyz callz Evilsss (it’s a lie. I iz a good, beautiful boi and full of zee meanings.)
Mommy da writer, she who privides fud haz been kid catnapped Not by D. Cat, of course but by Nympha Nyp Nepharious teh evuls foreig oth er… outzide interests.
This post iz late becauz I has to lurn to typetytipe like da mum.
Thees evul fore– outsi– probably dougs interests want da tuna and ffity tousand unmarked catnip meeces. If notz they wont let mum writ in this typetytypethingy.
I want a cheezburger.
Oh, and Havlock wantz a cheezburger becaus he thinks thas how cats talk. He’s retar— stup— not all the— develupmentelee deesabld.
Wheeesh is whi he don’t remembur what we dougs agreed on 4 ransum.
Soes send catnip meece or the riter will nevu get neer typety aggin.
Evilly
D’Artagnan cat, aka butterpat, aka bah lamb, aka cow cat, aka notorious IBL (inappropriate licking boi — it’s a lie!) Aka slinky McEvil (it’s a lie! Put about by dougs and my emenies!)

PS- This is Havelock-cat. He is slow an’ stuff like 12 weaks ol kitteh

One of the most interesting things – and by interesting I mean scary – about the reaction to Sad Puppies 3 is that many people who are anti-puppy (always wanted to write that) were mad at Brad for “not telling people you were putting them on the slate.”

Okay. The accusation is not true. Brad actually told people, except for a couple he legitimately forgot to contact.

But let’s not defend Brad on that front, because when we are defending him on that front, we’re already swallowing whole a pretty bizarre assumption of the other side.

Instead, let’s step back and take a deep breath.

What are the Hugos?

They’re awards, right? They’re awards given, supposedly, for the best science fiction and fantasy of the year, right?

In theory, theoretically as it were, who is supposed to nominate: why, Lord love a duck, right? Any reader of science fiction who pays at least the supporting worldcon membership.

And who gets to make recommendations for nominations? Well, from what I’ve seen over the years, anyone with an interest in sf/f. I could, tomorrow, (well, not tomorrow, but at the beginning of the next set) put my list of recommends on the blog, whether I meant to vote for them or not. (I.e. whether I paid the membership or not.)

Readers, reviewers and various other side-spurs of science fiction do that pretty much every year.

So, if I did that, would I have any obligation, no matter how remote, to tell people I was putting them on my slate? Why? I mean, I might, as a friendly gesture, send a note saying “I love your books and I’m putting such and such on the slate.” BUT WHY would I HAVE to?

I mean, when I won the Prometheus and the two other times I’ve been nominated, all I got was an email saying “you’ve been nominated.” No one warned me. And trust me, ten years ago that announcement would have frozen me solid, instead of causing me to dance in my office.

That is because ten years ago, I lived in a state of fear. And the fact that my fear was real and serious is justified by that accusation to Brad, “You bad bad man, when you decided these people deserved awards, you didn’t TELL THEM you were putting them on a recommend list.”

I lived in fear because of the implied end of that sentence “And you knew that because you associated them with you, a known conservative, we would make their lives miserable and do our best to end their careers.”

And that, my friends is what I realized when I sold my first novel in the late 90s. Most Americans might not be that sensitive to the “climate” but I was. I had after all grown up in a socialist (at best, during the better times) country where to graduate you had to present the proper progressive front. I knew the signs and the hints and social positioning of “further left than thou.” For instance, my first SF cons, as an author, in the green room, I became aware that “a conservative” was a suitable, laughter inducing punchline for any joke; that all of them believed the Reagan years had set us on course to total dystopia; that the US was less enlightened/capable/free than anywhere else; that your average Republican or even non-Democrat voter was the equivalent of the Taliban.

As for Libertarians, I will to my dying day cherish the dinner I had with my then editor to whom I was describing a funny incident at MileHi where for reasons known only to Bob, I found myself in an argument with someone who wanted to ban the internal combustion engine. My editor perked up and (I swear I’m not making this up) said “Oh, a Libertarian.” At which point my husband squeezed my thigh hard enough to stop me answering. But yeah. That was a not uncommon idea of a libertarian. If it was completely insane and involved banning something, then it was a libertarian.

I once overheard the same editor talking to a colleague and saying that if she got submissions across her desk and they were – dropped and horrified voice – somewhat conservative she recommended they try Baen.

Which the other editor (from a different house) agreed with, because after all, they weren’t in the business of publishing conservative works.

This immediately put me on notice that in the field if you were a conservative (I presume libertarians were worse, or at least they seemed to induce more mouth foaming. And though I was solidly libertarian and – at the time – might have qualified as a Libertarian, I suspect if faced with my real positions they would have classed me as conservative, because my positions were self-obviously not left and that’s all it took.) there was only one house that would take you, and if what you wrote/wanted to write wasn’t accepted by then, then you were out of luck.

After that I lived in a state of fear

I imagine it was similar to living in one of the more unsavory periods of the Soviet Union. You saw these purges happen. Whisper-purges. You got the word that someone was “not quite the thing” or that they associated with so and so who associated with so and so who was a – dropped voice – conservative. Suddenly that person’s books weren’t being bought and somehow people would clear a circle around them, because, well, you know, if you’re seen with a – dropped voice – conservative they might think you’re one too. And then it’s off to Neverland with you.

I found a few other conservatives/libertarians (frankly, mostly libertarians) in the field, all living in the same state of gut clenching fear.

We did such a dance to test both the reliability and discretion of the other before revealing ourselves that we might as well have developed a hanky code. [Blue for true blue Conservative, white for pure Libertarian, red for the blood of our heroes, brown for OWL (older, wiser libertarian), purple for squishy conservative, baby blue for Brad Torgersen.]

Conventions were nerve wracking because I watched myself ALL the TIME. And you never knew how much you had to watch yourself. Suddenly, out of the blue, at a World Fantasy the speaker, a well known SF/F writer went on about Howard Dean, our next president. The room erupted in applause, some people stood to clap, and I sat there, frozen, unable to actually fake it to that point but too shocked to even put a complaisant expression on my face.

This is one of the instances where I think if I didn’t give myself away I gave them the impression I was not very bright and therefore untrustworthy. Another would be the letter exchange with a gentleman who went after my first Analog story. Another instance would be that I actually could not help myself and defended Heinlein at all possible occasions.

They were never sure enough that I was a – dropped voice – conservative, but they were sure enough that my books had the strangest issues with distribution and marketing. I. e. like the year I had six books out and not one on the shelves anywhere. [Yes, I have considered the possibility that maybe my books sucked, but a) if that was the case then why did they keep buying? b) why are the same books making me a paycheck every month indie?] And I was never one of the “darlings” who got promo or even really nice treatment (by editors) at cons (until I worked for Baen.)

Btw, speaking of Baen, when I was picked up by them after my first series tanked and no one else would touch me, I was overjoyed. The agent who had been trying in vain for years to get SOMEONE to buy me, promptly told me that I couldn’t work for Baen because of the Baen taint. (yeah, that – dropped voice – conservative taint – this while Baen publishes anyone from any political color provided they like the story.)

One time I came into the room at a con and found one of my editors talking to another of my editors. I could tell from the expression, the startled look at me, that news that I might be a – dropped voice — conservative had been conveyed. I hoped I was being paranoid, but I wasn’t. My treatment by that other house immediately changed, overnight.

So I lived in fear, unable to associate normally or make friends with anyone. It was like being spied on all the time and knowing the worst construction would be put on my actions and words, even if the actions and words were not political, even if I just forgot what the week’s hate and the week’s cause was.

I got tired. I got really tired. I know authors who walked away after one or two books because they simply couldn’t take it anymore. I know others – gentle souls – who didn’t realize they’d been blacklisted on suspicion of being – dropped voice – conservative. This was particularly true of Libertarians (and libertarians) who never thought of themselves (I still don’t) as “conservatives” and couldn’t understand it when I tried to explain it.

All this was justified, you see, because in the minds of the establishment and establishment hangers on, conservatives are creatures shown as “right wing” on movies and tv (none of whose writers would know a true conservative, much less a libertarian if one bit them in the fleshy part of the *ss [and libertarians might.]) They give conservatives (which again is everyone to the right of Lenin) informed attributes never found in the real creature: conservatives, in their crazy little heads, are people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, ultra-religious in a medieval fashion or a crazy-evangelical (there are some, but not many) one.

Informed attributes for those who don’t follow the link, are a characteristic of lazy, sloppy writing, particularly common in fanfic AND beginner writers (though we all do it, but hopefully not in contradiction to our real writing.) This is when you tell the reader that the character is kind or socially conscious or whatever even though the rest of your writing shows exactly the opposite. (One of my ex-fledgelings had a penchant for this. Would inform you the character was so nice and universally loved, and then show he was the ass everyone rode in on and most people hated him. Eh.)

The informed attributes of “conservatives” in gatekeeper circles for SF/F are just that. Someone informed these people that “conservatives” are sexist, racist, homophobic religious fanatics and they believe it without checking it against every day reality.

Here I am tempted to insert snark about their preferred modes of writing, but I won’t. I’ll just say that once in a group populated mostly by them I found that if a person was good but didn’t proclaim it, then they were horrible. No, I don’t get it either. But somehow it works for them. They HEARTILLY believe this stuff, because someone told them.

And frankly if someone were racist, sexist, homophobic (religious fanatics I don’t care either way, unless they chase me down and make me believe as they do) I wouldn’t want to work with them either.

So, if you are revealed, through… what are the words of the old act of contrition? “Your thoughts, your words, what you’ve done and what you’ve failed to do” or indeed, whomever you associate with at a third remove, or whom you failed to denounce on denouncing day, to be a – dropped voice – conservative they don’t want to work with you. And if they have to work with you, they’re going to do it at as arm’s length as possible.

When I realized I couldn’t watch everything and didn’t have the energy to keep up with the hate or the enthusiasm of the week (there is a reason most of the darlings are single or at least childless) I told my husband I was dropping out. But by then there was indie, and I was working for Baen, and he convinced me to stay on.

Still, such was the reflex of that fear that the first time I was mentioned on Instapundit I reached up to wipe the scarlet L from my forehead.

Now? I’ve come a long way in seven years. By baby steps. But now I don’t hide I’m a libertarian. (Technically an OWL – waves brown feathery scarf.)

And still that naked “you should have told them you were putting them on your slate” and the implied, scary because we intend to f*ck up their lives because you like their work made me catch my breath and remember the fear.

The people who preach to you of inclusiveness and love (SF is “love” apparently); the people who are hunting for writers of various colors of the rainbow to give awards to demand (and receive) perfect lockstep abasing compliance with their beliefs.

The prize they held hostage was a writers ability to make a living.

Fortunately there is indie. They haven’t realized it yet, but what they hold in their hands is nothing. And the more they show their colors, the more they pursue their little purges (now in public) the less they’ll be taken seriously.

We haven’t yet reached the point when “banned by the New York Publishing establishment” is a badge of honor, but unless I mistake my gut we’re not very far off.

And it’s a beautiful thing. A scarlet l on my forehead, and an American flag on my heart, and what is it to you, and who made you keeper of other’s thoughts, other’s ideas, other’s art, other’s opinions?

Are you so empty, so vacant, so devoid of creativity and joy that all you can do is tear down the designated targets?

Well, then, you have my sympathy. But you no longer have my fear.

And you never had my allegiance.

Depart from us in peace and go find someone else who might still fear you. It won’t happen here.

Ask not for whom the puppies bay. They bay for you.

Americans are crazy people. I’m allowed to say that right? Considering I went a long way to become one.

Which doesn’t make Americans, born and bred, less insane to me. Particularly when it comes to organizing your fun. I mean, that’s something you expect from Germans, maybe, but I’m not even sure Germans did it. (Not that I could discover in my visits, at least.)

What do I mean by that?

Okay, first be aware I spent my formative years in a country that could not organize a piss up in a brewery, a country that not only can’t make buses run on time, it doesn’t even try. I was once shocked to find there was a schedule for public buses. This after ten years of using them to go to school and being used to the usual “Wait however long – more than an hour if it was raining, for sure – then get five buses in a row” style of public transportation. A glance at the schedule told me it was lovely fantasy. My brother calls the national style “pile in, may G-d help us.” There was a meme floating around the younger members of my family on facebook showing “the queue” with a bunch of people standing in line and then “the Portuguese queue” with a pile on with arms and legs protruding. And yeah, that’s more or less true.

And then I came to the states at 18 as an exchange student. And I was flabbergasted.

It wasn’t just that the local chapter of the organization that brought me over was… organized. No, we tried to do that even in Portugal. When you’re shipping someone’s sons and daughters over the Atlantic (and sometimes the pacific) you need a modicum of organization.

No, what shocked me was that – as I got invited to speak to a lot of clubs – all hobby-clubs were organized: the local Scottish ancestry club? Organized. The local stamp collecting club? Organized. The local bird watching club? Organized. The local sewing circle? Organized. All of these had refreshments, a punctual time of meeting, sometimes competitions or conventions, and all of them followed Robert’s rules of order. The SEWING circle had motions and seconded them and followed rules. I was amazed.

Now, I’ll admit I don’t know if it’s the same in other Anglophone countries. I suspect it’s the same in Canada (motto: “We are not America. No. We really are not. Don’t make us dip you in maple syrup, you cheeky little person. Stop saying we’re just like America. We say “eh””) but I’m not sure about England and Australia.

I know, however, that in fandom the US is unique.

Yeah, yeah, yeah “World fantasy” and “World sf” go off to England, Australia, Scotland and sometimes Japan. (Pinches bridge of nose.) Guys it’s like “World baseball tournament” okay? You remove the US from the equation and the other “organized fandoms” would never have happened. They are mostly in imitation of those crazy Americans who organize their fun.

And because the future comes from America, people DO try to imitate American things, and I understand there’s even SF conventions in Portugal. Some day I’ll have to attend one and see how it is, because the mind boggles at the thought. (It’s not just the organization, it’s the ethos of sf/f conventions. For instance, in a country in which wearing last year’s fashion on the street is a solecism and everyone tries to be “normal” just like everyone else, I wonder how Spock ears are worn. I’d bet money not just costumes but anything out of the ordinary is worn only at a designated time or in a designated room, so people can avoid being “ridiculous” or looking “crazy” – in other words to save face.)

I want to say right here, not only don’t I have anything against people who organize and run conventions – some of my best friends, quite literally, spend considerable portions of their lives doing that – nor do I think it’s a bad thing to do. I think it’s a crazy thing but then I think organized sewing circles are crazy things, and all of it, including other crazy things like diners that will serve you breakfast at midnight, and drinking fountains in public buildings, and all the things that are uniquely American are a little crazy: in a wonderful way. They’re part of the reason I wanted to be one of you.

Of course, just like I became a lunatic about diners, I have this “thing” for hobby clubs. They have a huge advantage, too, because for a reclusive writer, they FORCE me to interact.

At one time I was a member of a cat rescue group, two writing groups, an exchange student program group and a needle arts group.

The last few years I simply haven’t had time, but I can tell you something: if I ever have a writers’ group again, it will go according to Robert’s Rules of Order. (By which I don’t mean my son. – rule one, everybody wear ties!)

That said… There is a difference between sewing and being in a sewing club. You can be a fanatic seamstress and cover your house in yards of stuff to the point of making a broom cozy for your broom, and not belong to a club. You can be one of those genealogists who are descended from a dinosaur G-d himself (Through Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Very common thing for European crazies. No, really) on his mother’s side, but never belong to a “divine ancestry” club. And you can have cut your teeth on your mom’s Heinlein collection (and if she was like me she still has the chewed up books AND the replacements), read everything new that you can get your hands on, watch every sf movie, AND have a light saber in your closet, and yet not belong to an organized fandom club. In fact, I’d say that probably comprises 90 % of sf/f readers/gamers/watchers/fans.

That is fine. You don’t have to belong to a club. And you don’t have to organize conventions. You might go to one every once in a while, or three every year, even, without belonging to anything.

And you can be very grateful to the people who organize conventions without thinking they are the arbiters of taste, or all that matters.

Look, let’s be blunt: in belonging to all these organized clubs over the years, there are some things I learned, which I think go back to “human social dynamics” and economics.

The first one is that most people in the club are not themselves particularly organized, though they’re often nuts about their hobby/interest. The second is that some of the people aren’t very interested in the hobby/interest but they are amazing organizers (they might have started out interested, and then got sidetracked into organizing. Or they might have come because spouse/child/cat does this, so they might as well come along.) The third is that the groups are almost always run by the second kind (not always mind. I think the Liberty con organizers read/watch more than I do) and that the super-organizers, poor things, slammed under demands and work, will often be susceptible to outside influences.

In science fiction organized fandom, specifically those that organize cons, the outside influence is often publishers. Look, as Liberty con can attest it’s a good thing to have a publisher that likes you. You get more authors coming, you get a publisher attending, you get free books for giveaways, and suddenly you’re much more than a little regional con.

This is fine, since Liberty con doesn’t give any prizes and doesn’t declare itself representative of all fandom. (Maybe Southern fandom. Or fandom that likes shooting ranges, but they don’t even declare themselves that. Oh, and if they gave a book prize, it should totally be the zap and it should be a tricked out, amazing futuristic-looking gun sculpture.)

But when you have titles like “worldcon” and “world fantasy” the unwary might think you really represent all the fandom everywhere. Heck, you might start believing it too.

Hence, the insane stuff we’ve gotten lately about how the Hugo is the award of all fandom and then, when pressed, how the hugo is the award only of ORGANIZED worldcon fandom.

It’s certainly what it has been the last few years. And that’s a bad thing. A very bad thing. What it contains is not what it says on the tin.

Organized, mobile cons are subject to pressures from publishers, to really good campaigns, and to what I call “the mind of the organizer” which means they’re susceptible to the sort of push that says “you don’t have enough one-legged Thai Lesbians winning this award, you horribly racist person.” Because organizations requires a certain by-the-numbers mentality.

Yesterday one of my eyes on twitter sent me something from a past Worldcon organizer, which was in the main sensible “we can’t stop Sad Puppies and they’re not violating any rules” except for two things: he seemed to think that someone was paying for all these memberships for everyone. (I’ve heard this nonsense floated about Larry and I wonder if they’re barking mad. I DON’T know if Larry bought a membership for his wife, but if he did I bet you that’s the extent of his buying. Yes, he’s doing fairly well from writing, which means he’s making an upper middle class income. He has five young kids and obligations. He’s not Uncle Scrooge swimming in a money bin, and he’d neither be able to buy – nor, for heaven’s sake WHY should he? – memberships for all his fans, nor is that a sane thing to posit. This is an example of “Stop drinking your own frigging ink in an effort to find wrong doing.” Campaigning is what all your side has done for years, and it’s all we’re doing.) And he seemed to think the goal of the Sad Puppies campaigns was ultimately to destroy the credibility of the Hugos.

Will someone please grab my eyes? They rolled so hard they must be in the next county.

What we actually want to do is restore the Hugos. We want winning a Hugo to mean something. Not, mind you, necessarily “This is the best sf ever” or even “best of the year” NO ONE can keep up with everything published, particularly now that indie is in. BUT we want it to be “this is memorable SF” “This is sf that a significant portion of fans will find amazing if they stumble on it years from now.”

Take as an example of something that should have won a Hugo but didn’t Barry Hughart’s Chinese trilogy. It didn’t sell much (marketing and distribution being crazy then – and now, but worse then.) It won a World Fantasy, but his publishing house didn’t even take notice. He’s written nothing else. However now that the word of mouth has had time to percolate, there are very few intense sf/f fans, of the kind who reads books, who hasn’t heard of it. And there are fewer who, reading it, don’t go “oh, wow.”

That is the sort of thing that should be winning the Hugo.

That is the kind of award that the Hugo was when Heinlein, Asimov and Ursula leGuin won it.

It wasn’t a “oh, you’re so nice, and you attend all these cons, and you’re nice to us, and your publisher sends tons of books.” No. It was a “This is science fiction that won’t be forgotten in ten years.”

Now, was ALL of it that great? — shrug – humans ran the award now as then. Some of their guesses at what was amazing backfired.

But they were by and large that type of book.

They weren’t chosen because the authors were purple one legged bi-gender dinosaurs. They weren’t chosen because the books were about the plight of purple, one legged b-gender dinosaurs. They were chosen because the books impressed the readers.

I can’t say about the other people pushing it. Some are my friends, but we’re not organized fandom (or organized anything. For crying out loud, two of us have Portuguese ancestry and that’s the sort of thing that washes out of family culture SLOWLY) so I don’t know. I know I’ve never heard anyone talk of “destroying the Hugo” as a goal. Unless “make it awesome again” is destroying it, because that’s all Sad Puppies aims to do. It aims to make the Hugo an award worth winning.

An award that is the signal of a good read.

And that’s all.