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I was just glad to see someone aside from myself mention Dhalgren. :)
Hi Hitdice! I haven't read Dhalgren yet, actually. I've stuck to Delaney's shorter fiction. He's a hard guy to pigeonhole. There's a lot of intersectionality going on in his work. He reminds me at times of Kurt Vonnegut, and at other times he seems like the love-child of Philip K. Dick and William Faulkner.
I still haven't gotten any further with Delaney than The Jewels of Aptor but I think of you, Lord Dice, every time I sit down to play D&D (which isn't as often as it used to be ever since I handed over the DM reins).
The teenager in the group named his dwarf fighter Dhalgren. Actually, I don't know how he spells it, and I'd bet that he hasn't read any Delaney. He took Improved Unarmed Combat and specializes in kicking shiznit. The DM ran all of the characters through individual adventures at the beginning of the campaign and awarded each character with a unique magic item. Dhalgren received a pair of boots of testicular connection. I have no idea what the book is about, but I suspect Delaney would approve.
Jesus, more Trotskyist sf/f authors!
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Flint's probably written the best essay on the issues behind the kerfuffle, with a cogent takedown of the thesis that the awards are discriminating against 'conservative' authors.
Plus a dig against Breitbart.
Some comments on the Hugos and other SF awards
and
NO, AWARDS AREN’T “FAIR.” NEVER HAVE BEEN, NEVER WILL BE. SO WHAT?
and
Incredible articles. I think there is no need to read any further than them about the subject. Thanks for the links.
... or you could read about it from the guy that started Sad Puppies, here.
EDIT:
Incredible articles. I think there is no need to read any further than them about the subject. Thanks for the links.
I find it useful to see how one side speaks about itself rather than relying on their opposition to speak for them.
-TimD
If so, then you want to read Vox Day, since it's the Rapid Puppies who were successful in filling the nominations, not the Sad ones.... or you could read about it from the guy that started Sad Puppies, here.
EDIT:
Incredible articles. I think there is no need to read any further than them about the subject. Thanks for the links.I find it useful to see how one side speaks about itself rather than relying on their opposition to speak for them.
I have.
I've also read Scalzi's.I admit, I read a lot - its a weakness :)
-TimD
Flint's not their opposition. He's called both sides of the slap fight stupid.
I don't think I can agree with that assessment.
While there are multiple sides to this, from what I've seen and read it basically boils down to: Hugos have been biased - yes / no. (via "message more important than fiction" &/or "anti-conservative")Flint was effectively attempting to defend the argument that they were not. Admittedly, when I read it he was quite a bit less inflammatory than most when making his points about the opposition, but that hardly puts him on "yes" side of the argument any more than Correia / Sad Puppies not agreeing with everything that Vox / Rabid Puppies say or believe puts them on the "no" side.
As someone who is sometimes confused with being a Republican, I've found the arguments quite interesting and the tactics often appalling.
... or you could read about it from the guy that started Sad Puppies, here.
EDIT:
Incredible articles. I think there is no need to read any further than them about the subject. Thanks for the links.I find it useful to see how one side speaks about itself rather than relying on their opposition to speak for them.
-TimD
I have done both, and I have to say these articles are probably the best ones I've seen from opposition actually acknowledging what the problems are, even if they don't properly attribute Sad Puppies to actually saying these problems out loud first, which they have, a lot.
I think the fact that he dismisses that the "in crowd" of these awards is drifting highly liberal is a problem.
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I have done both, and I have to say these articles are probably the best ones I've seen from opposition actually acknowledging what the problems are, even if they don't properly attribute Sad Puppies to actually saying these problems out loud first, which they have, a lot.... or you could read about it from the guy that started Sad Puppies, here.
EDIT:
Incredible articles. I think there is no need to read any further than them about the subject. Thanks for the links.I find it useful to see how one side speaks about itself rather than relying on their opposition to speak for them.
-TimD
Except that, according to Flint, the Puppies completely mistake the problem. They blame it all on SJWs and conspiracies, when it's just the field outgrowing the awards. There are plenty of damn good authors of all political bents who aren't winning awards. Nor are all the awards won by SJWs.
They see a real problem, but they misunderstand it's nature completely.
Or you could actually read Sad Puppies stuff and realize that they acknowledge that there are multiple problems that are interconnected.
Because they're not the first to bring up the issues.
They're not even the first to game the system on a large scale (that would be Locus).
They are the first to cast it as a political and culture war issue and then throw a hissy fit over it.
LIke I said, out loud. They caught the publics attention. Before them, there was barely even acknowledgement of the problem by the groups voting, and yet a bunch of authors are now saying "yeah, this has been the case for years". Sometimes you need an a~++~@@ with a blowhorn to call attention to a problem.
You're not that familiar with how the Hugo's work, are you?
No, I have no idea how they work.
(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)
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... or you could read about it from the guy that started Sad Puppies, here.
EDIT:
Incredible articles. I think there is no need to read any further than them about the subject. Thanks for the links.I find it useful to see how one side speaks about itself rather than relying on their opposition to speak for them.
-TimD
... or you could read about it from the guy that started Sad Puppies, here.
EDIT:
Incredible articles. I think there is no need to read any further than them about the subject. Thanks for the links.I find it useful to see how one side speaks about itself rather than relying on their opposition to speak for them.
-TimD
I've read Correia and Torgersen, I've read Martin and Scalzi. I've also read several other pieces by people not in the forefront of the trenches. Flint's articles that Krensky link do a much better job of organizing and critically dissecting the problem than any I've seen so far - much better than the participants in either side, I must say, which is funny in a way.
If I were to point someone to an article or series of articles which I think do a good job of showing things as they are, these would be the ones I'd choose. That's what I meant in the post you responded to.
Vox is also tied to Gamergate, which taps a similar vein of anger...
Gamergate is actually quite a different beast - for one it is much much (much) bigger than the Puppy Wars (is that a name people use? it's stuck in my head for some reason and I wonder if I've read it somewhere or came up with it myself), so classifying Gamergate as a single front is borderline absurd. The puppies have a pretty clear set of stated beliefs, while Gamergate is shared between people who think too much credit is given to a bunch of hack conmen who say nice sounding words (I believe that to be the case. having witnessed a lot of actual evidence) and people who just can't stand the idea of a woman playing a video game. Gamergate is also different in that it was a political debate from the first place (that is group 1 made a political statement and group 2 disagreed hence conflict) while the Puppy Wars are really largely about deciding whether there are politics involved at all.
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What do you think the problem is? What do you think the authors outside the Puppies are agreeing with?LIke I said, out loud. They caught the publics attention. Before them, there was barely even acknowledgement of the problem by the groups voting, and yet a bunch of authors are now saying "yeah, this has been the case for years". Sometimes you need an a&&*#!% with a blowhorn to call attention to a problem.Because they're not the first to bring up the issues.
They're not even the first to game the system on a large scale (that would be Locus).
They are the first to cast it as a political and culture war issue and then throw a hissy fit over it.
The problem is that the awards do a very poor job of reflecting anything about the field of SFF literature in general and about the value of their winners (or even more importantly, the implied lack of value by those who don't win) in particular. I think most people agree that this is the case.
The reason is very likely not a result of an evil liberal cabal that hates Catholics, though, unlike what many Puppies seem to think.
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I'd totally watch an Animal Planet channel "Puppy Wars" tv show, if it's anything like the "Puppy Bowl." I picture puppies scampering across a battlefield on the Western Front, or standing in front of a draped flag to rally the troops - we could call him General Pawtton!
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Vox is also tied to Gamergate, which taps a similar vein of anger...Gamergate is actually quite a different beast - for one it is much much (much) bigger than the Puppy Wars (is that a name people use? it's stuck in my head for some reason and I wonder if I've read it somewhere or came up with it myself), so classifying Gamergate as a single front is borderline absurd. The puppies...I don't want to go back into dissecting Gamergate. They're not the same thing, that's certainly true. In addition to what you've said, Gamergate got much nastier, with more doxxing and threats, etc.
That said, they're both aspects of the same culture war and Vox Day is both backing Gamergate and drawing Gamergaters into the Puppy Wars.As he said:
At this point, #GamerGate is about more than games now. It is a Schwerpunkt in the ongoing cultural war for the West. And the gamers of #GamerGate are the only defenders of freedom and Western civilization who are counterattacking and causing enemy casualties.
that's the thing - he may be bringing Gamergate into the Hugo controversies, but that's a one way street. I'm fairly confident saying 99% of Gamergaters have no idea what the Hugos even are. And if they did know, many of them would disagree with Vox's stance on the issue. So I wouldn't cast the Puppy Wars as part of the same conflict, even if the sides fighting it are minor factions in Gamergate. It's not so much a skirmish in the greater war as a similar, smaller scale conflict that happens concurrently.
I think we "non-puppiers" have in this thread said that there is some underlying truth to the Sad Puppies claims...we just don't agree that there is any sort of organized conspiracy behind it, nor is it politically motivated. And the attempt by some on the puppy-side to make it about politics rubs me the wrong way, especially since I don't really agree with a lot of the beliefs/arguments on that side of the political spectrum
Personally I suspect it's less politics and more a bias towards more "literary" works, and an overall bias against certain subgenres of the field (Urban Fantasy, etc).
Had the arguments always been couched in the terms of literary versus popularity, I don't think the situation would have blown up like it did. I also think it wouldn't have drawn in the rabid puppies.
That's why Flints piece is really worth reading. He really is mostly in agreement with the Puppies, but he doesn't drag politics or conspiracies into the affair.
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What do you think the problem is? What do you think the authors outside the Puppies are agreeing with?LIke I said, out loud. They caught the publics attention. Before them, there was barely even acknowledgement of the problem by the groups voting, and yet a bunch of authors are now saying "yeah, this has been the case for years". Sometimes you need an a&&*#!% with a blowhorn to call attention to a problem.Because they're not the first to bring up the issues.
They're not even the first to game the system on a large scale (that would be Locus).
They are the first to cast it as a political and culture war issue and then throw a hissy fit over it.
That there has been a divergence between what the Hugo awards say they are (A popularity fan award) and what they actually are (an award by a niche club for people in their club). Its pretty much exactly what Breitbart and G.R.R. Martin have said.
What both of them fail to acknowledge is that that club is strongly liberal to a point where conservatives feel actively unwelcome. Now, I can't speak to whether or not it is true, I'm not a member of that community, but conservatives are saying it is. Dismissing it because you don't feel it, like Breitbart does, is wrong. Hell, this year's Sad Puppies was made without acknowledgement of author's political beliefs (the first Sad Puppies the political beliefs were a major factor because they were trying to prove a political point), but some of the authors on the list were harassed for being associated with the group. Annie Bellet dropped out because of the harassment, which is a shame because her story was awesome, and she is anything but closely related to the politics of Sad Puppies.
As a center-left liberal in with ties to the New England con circuit, I can say that I find those communities to often be too close mindedly liberal for my tastes, so I can't see active conservatives feeling particularly welcome in sharing their views. The one libertarian I know active in the community gets by by making a self-deprecating joke when politics comes up and then diverting the conversation, but he has also been a staple in the community for a long time and not someone just trying to join. Someone with his political views just joining would probably leave for a group he felt more welcomed in instead of trying to stick with the group. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent group in the case of Worldcon, since there is only one Hugo award. So instead you just have a bunch of people who have felt ostracized by the clique saying they are tired of it and organizing supporters.
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that's the thing - he may be bringing Gamergate into the Hugo controversies, but that's a one way street. I'm fairly confident saying 99% of Gamergaters have no idea what the Hugos even are. And if they did know, many of them would disagree with Vox's stance on the issue. So I wouldn't cast the Puppy Wars as part of the same conflict, even if the sides fighting it are minor factions in Gamergate. It's not so much a skirmish in the greater war as a similar, smaller scale conflict that happens concurrently.Vox is also tied to Gamergate, which taps a similar vein of anger...Gamergate is actually quite a different beast - for one it is much much (much) bigger than the Puppy Wars (is that a name people use? it's stuck in my head for some reason and I wonder if I've read it somewhere or came up with it myself), so classifying Gamergate as a single front is borderline absurd. The puppies...I don't want to go back into dissecting Gamergate. They're not the same thing, that's certainly true. In addition to what you've said, Gamergate got much nastier, with more doxxing and threats, etc.
That said, they're both aspects of the same culture war and Vox Day is both backing Gamergate and drawing Gamergaters into the Puppy Wars.As he said:
At this point, #GamerGate is about more than games now. It is a Schwerpunkt in the ongoing cultural war for the West. And the gamers of #GamerGate are the only defenders of freedom and Western civilization who are counterattacking and causing enemy casualties.
I don't want to touch Gamergate with a ten foot pole (because discussion of that topic here leads to madness and thread closure), but Vox has admitted to recruiting gamergaters into the Hugo voting process, voters who almost certainly know nothing about the Hugos or read anything on the rabid puppy roster.
Which makes sense in the context the rabid puppy slate dominating.
I would hazard the Sad Puppy voters probably were less unified in their voting since presumably that crowd were at least somewhat familiar enough with the field to have different tastes.
I would imagine the real satisfaction for an author in winning the Hugos is knowing that something they poured their hearts into was beloved by the fanbase.
Reminds me of something Salman Rushdie once said about when an elderly woman came up to him at a book-signing in India with a pirated copy of his novel. When he commented on this, she replied, "Mr. Rushdie, do you want royalties? Or readers?"
I'm still not sure what the story is with the Sad Puppies or that it's becoming another Gamergate, but it really is a shame that people are dragging divisive, partisan politics into something that's supposed to be inclusive. I'd rather see stories that stand on their own than ones that push an agenda, even if it's one I happen to agree with.
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Wrote about Annie Bellet
If you read the linked article in Wired magazine on the first page of the post in the thread, she talks about why she declined her nomination. It was because she didn't want to be associated with the slate and have politics dragged into it, not because she was pressured. She explicitly states that she wasn't pressured. She felt the nomination was tainted.
Wrote about Annie BelletIf you read the linked article in the first post in the thread, she talks about why she declined her nomination. It was because she didn't want to be associated with the slate and have politics dragged into it, not because she was pressured. She explicitly states that she wasn't pressured. She felt the nomination was tainted.
And if you read her comments in various posts the weeks before she declined, you see her talking about the massive amount of hate mail she was receiving for being put on the Sad Puppies slate.
What’s more, for the record, she doesn’t think Beale, who folded much of the Sad Puppies slate into his own, even read her story. “I’m everything Vox Day doesn’t like — which I consider a badge of honor,” she told me. “I’m a queer female writing about shape-shifters—that fantasy ‘crap’ that’s not ‘real’ science fiction.” Here’s the thing she thinks Beale doesn’t grasp, she said: “Nerd culture brings everybody together. People don’t care what you look like. If you want to be a black Khaleesi, go for it!”
Edit: Ninja'd Zeugma and whoever first posted the article, but it's worth bringing up again.
My own impression from the article is that Vox Day doesn't even believe in any of the crap he spouts; he simply tries to make the world a worse place for fun.
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And if you read her comments in various posts the weeks before she declined, you see her talking about the massive amount of hate mail she was receiving for being put on the Sad Puppies slate.Wrote about Annie BelletIf you read the linked article in the first post in the thread, she talks about why she declined her nomination. It was because she didn't want to be associated with the slate and have politics dragged into it, not because she was pressured. She explicitly states that she wasn't pressured. She felt the nomination was tainted.
I haven't been following the controversy that long. Links?
I haven't been following the controversy that long. Links?And if you read her comments in various posts the weeks before she declined, you see her talking about the massive amount of hate mail she was receiving for being put on the Sad Puppies slate.Wrote about Annie BelletIf you read the linked article in the first post in the thread, she talks about why she declined her nomination. It was because she didn't want to be associated with the slate and have politics dragged into it, not because she was pressured. She explicitly states that she wasn't pressured. She felt the nomination was tainted.
Annie Bellet's blog about accepting the award. The comments slowly degenerate, and she eventually locks the thread because she doesn't want to deal with moderating it. Honestly, its not as bad as I remember it being, so I'm not sure how much she deleted or how bad my memory may be, but she locked the thread before she eventually declined the nomination.
Wrote about Annie BelletIf you read the linked article in Wired magazine on the first page of the post in the thread, she talks about why she declined her nomination. It was because she didn't want to be associated with the slate and have politics dragged into it, not because she was pressured. She explicitly states that she wasn't pressured. She felt the nomination was tainted.
Of course she couldn't say outright that she withdrew because of the pressure. If she did, she would be accused by her harassers of falsely playing the victim. She had to (figuratively) stand up in front of them with a black eye and insist that no, really, it was her fault and she should have known better than to upset the people who attacked her. Classic Battered Woman Person Syndrome.
In her original blog post, she said she wasn't withdrawing because she was proud of the story. Then she withdrew later anyway. What do you think that means?
Wrote about Annie BelletIf you read the linked article in Wired magazine on the first page of the post in the thread, she talks about why she declined her nomination. It was because she didn't want to be associated with the slate and have politics dragged into it, not because she was pressured. She explicitly states that she wasn't pressured. She felt the nomination was tainted.Of course she couldn't say outright that she withdrew because of the pressure. If she did, she would be accused by her harassers of falsely playing the victim. She had to (figuratively) stand up in front of them with a black eye and insist that no, really, it was her fault and she should have known better than to upset the people who attacked her. Classic Battered
WomanPerson Syndrome.In her original blog post, she said she wasn't withdrawing because she was proud of the story. Then she withdrew later anyway. What do you think that means?
So wait, she was being harassed for being a Puppy nominee, initially? I'm reading the thread and it looks like people from all across the political spectrum are showing enthusiastic support, including Torgerson himself, it's when the anti-Puppies start making it personal that things turn nasty.
Why is this not being reported on further?
Wrote about Annie BelletIf you read the linked article in Wired magazine on the first page of the post in the thread, she talks about why she declined her nomination. It was because she didn't want to be associated with the slate and have politics dragged into it, not because she was pressured. She explicitly states that she wasn't pressured. She felt the nomination was tainted.Of course she couldn't say outright that she withdrew because of the pressure. If she did, she would be accused by her harassers of falsely playing the victim. She had to (figuratively) stand up in front of them with a black eye and insist that no, really, it was her fault and she should have known better than to upset the people who attacked her. Classic Battered
WomanPerson Syndrome.In her original blog post, she said she wasn't withdrawing because she was proud of the story. Then she withdrew later anyway. What do you think that means?
That as she learned more about the Puppies, she reconsidered her position? As she noted in her interview, she's everything Vox Day doesn't like =P
Hate mail normally causes people to solidify their stance, not be dislodged from it.
I'm amused that the Puppies want to paint her as a victim/martyr when she has no interest in that.
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Correia's response to the Hugo awards.
Heh. The sheer venom in Correia's post (and in his comments section) is impressive. Scalzi predicted his response pretty well.
About 2,000 more ballots were cast this year than last year.
Apparently, the Puppies succeeded in inspiring a significant number of people to join in the Hugos just to vote them down.
Wonder if they'll inspire even more people to do that next year.
Great work, guys.
Correia's response to the Hugo awards.Heh. The sheer venom in Correia's post (and in his comments section) is impressive. Scalzi predicted his response pretty well.
About 2,000 more ballots were cast this year than last year.
Apparently, the Puppies succeeded in inspiring a significant number of people to join in the Hugos just to vote them down.
Wonder if they'll inspire even more people to do that next year.
Great work, guys.
I find it really interesting that you say his post has a lot of venom, when I think it has very little. He is mostly just sad. I find Scalzi to not only be much more of an asshat in his post, but also factually incorrect on many counts.
Correia declares over 3,000 voters to be "allied useful idiots" and "snide exclusive a$#&##@s."
Correia is attacking everyone that voted against the Puppies.
Scalzi's pointing out that Correia and the rest of the Puppy leadership are jerks, and they got voted down for pissing people off.
Correia's slate got rejected because of Correia's own conduct, and he's doing his damnedest to shift the blame on to others.
Edit: for rephrasing my last line.