Sad Puppies: We are not Rabid Puppies

263 comments

1. Getting a membership tomorrow. I was going to sit things out until 2016 but today’s comments by Alastair Reynolds and George Martin have helped me to make up my mind.

   I’m tired of running. I’m tired of hiding. I’ve had quite enough.

   I am also done with debunking lies and slander. If forty dollars and a voting packet is what it takes to hammer the point home, then I’ll do it.

   Fandom hasn’t been fun for years, unless you are insulated by a throne made of smashed swords. I have absolutely nothing to lose at this point as a writer.

   Respects,
   Steven Francis Murphy
   On the Outer Marches

2. Anyone who can’t see this, is either a) not examining the details closely enough, or b) using the fallacious guilt-by-association argument to try to “win” this thing.

   This. This. Either they are dishonest, or else simply dull.

   Neither one, thankfully, is our responsibility to remedy.

3. Nicely put Brad. I’ve been watching this over the last few days and it beats me how ‘adults’ can’t get along. Everyone should chillout and get a grip.

4. After seeing last nights events I really started losing heart. I feel a little better today, but it’s just too much pain to deal with over the last month to really put any effort into looking far enough ahead to the possibility of light somewhere, someday. It was bad enough when it was Damien Walter, the HuffPo and Daily Kos spreading the disinformation, lies and character assassination, but when Davidson, Willis, GRRM, and others that are supposed to be some of the TOP PROFESSIONALS OF THEIR FIELD do it I have a hard time seeing the hope. All I can see right now is that Vox wins, no matter what. His slate of nominees win: he wins. The SJWs get enough votes together to burn it down this year with No Award and Vox wins. Worse, if that happens, Vox gets enough followers together next year, and possibly decades afterwards and No Award takes all the categories going forward.

   I’m getting to the point where I see the lies, disinformation and character assassination various authors put out and I’m done buying their works. Which is really, really sad. Because I don’t want to have to find out if an author is a lying douche bag. I just want to read entertaining works. Maybe I’ll feel better about it in a few days. In the meantime, you others need to stay strong.

5. When I first noticed the SP2 goal last year, I thought “Well that might be interesting”. I spent $40 (which I should have used for something else) this year because I thought no matter what, I would get a chance to vote on an award that used to mean something to me as a fan.

   Win I turned in my nominations, I limited it to works I had read or watched. That’s it. The howling, from both sides at first surprised me, then amused me.

   People are attacking Vox (which I think was his goal) and anyone else who was on the nomination list. Fine, enjoy have fun. But, lets get serious and read the packets when they come out. Vote for the best work, not the good/bad think one.

6. Yes, indeed, Brad. Sad Puppies is not Rabid Puppies. Larry Correia is not Vox Day. You are separate people with separate agendas going separate ways…which is precisely what Vox said two days ago:

   Now, I know some of you are annoyed that Larry and Brad are not responding to the attacks of George Martin and other SJWs by publicly swearing blood brotherhood with me. Don’t be. They live in that community and have to find a way to abide them. We don’t. Larry and Brad are not my pack, the Dread Ilk and the Rabid Puppies are. Science fiction fandom is not my family, #GamerGate is.

   They are allies. But they are not responsible for me and they have no control over me. That’s really all they are pointing out to the other side. Of course they don’t agree with me on everything, no one here does either.

   So it’s clear: you guys are distinct, and ALL of you are saying that. Who’s not? The people who want to bring you down. The people who want to pretend there was never a problem in the first place. The people who want to attack you personally and hurt you so hard that you never DARE try something like this again, you racist mixed-marriage guy you. The people whose howling would drive away good writers from these nominations.

   They’re trying to make you fight each other. But the question the anti-Puppies need to be asked is this: do you want vengeance, or a solution? If you want a solution, listen to the Sad Puppies and take them seriously. If you want vengeance, then you’ll deal with the Rabid Puppies. There is no option three, “whine about my options and make the Sad and Rabid Puppies eat each other alive,” so don’t let them take it.

7. If Vox Day and RP didn’t exist it would be something else because this isn’t about racism or sexism or homophobia, its about power. We are challenging someones little kingdom and, even though it is exceedingly tiny and, in the grand scheme, inconsequential, it is still theirs and they are going to keep it, damn it.

   Wasn’t it Kissinger who said that university politics were so vicious because the stakes are so small?

8. “Two wrongs don’t make a right; if you hate Vox for being a dickhead, don’t be a dickhead yourself.”

   True words. Not knowing anyone involved in this, I can honestly say I have no dog in this fight, and/or no Puppy in this fight. However, I read John Brown’s excellent email/interview with Vox Day (http://www.johndbrown.com/what-vox-day-believes/) and he seems to be much less of a feces-flinging monkey than people say. What he seems to be, like John Derbyshire and Steve Sailer, is someone who has gotten tired of couching his views in “polite” language. His approach seems to be “OK, you called me an a**hole? I’ll show you A**HOLE, you a**hole!” As a debate tactic it leaves much to be desired, but as a human being I can certainly understand his feelings.

   I just finished his “A Throne Of Bones” and frankly, I enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to reading more Puppy books, from both slates. Whatever else this whole clusterf**k has done, at least it’s gotten me back into reading something besides reference books. I’d forgotten over the past [cough cough] many years how much I enjoyed reading for pleasure.

9. I’d like everyone to know I always boil my rice with salt.

10. I don’t know much about Vox Day. I’ve bought one book by him because it came up as an Amazon suggestion and it’s sitting on my kindle waiting to be read. The statements attributed to him do sound controversial and not something I agree with. However, he has a right to speak his mind. Nothing I’ve read to date suggests he’s advocated or threatened anyone. It would have been “cleaner” if he’d come up with a unique logo and name for his campaign, but SP3 probably wasn’t trademarked.

    The folks that pressured, intimidated, etc. authors into giving up their nominations are a different matter. That’s slimy behavior at best and potentially downright malevolent or criminal depending on how it was done. The folks conniving to trash the Amazon ratings of authors they disagree with regardless of the quality of the work or whether they’ve even read it are despicable.

    My knowledge of the Hugo awards was practically nil before Sad Puppies 2, yet I’m a long time SF/F fan and have the bookcases to prove it. The other day I bought a Sasquan supporting membership and look forward to voting after reading the candidate works. Worldcon 2016 is within driving distance so I’m planning to attend my first SF/F convention then. Democracy can be messy, but more people being informed, active participants is a good thing. No matter who it annoys.

11. @ James:

    Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

    PS: I hate to think of the sort of reception the Marx Brothers would receive today…

12. @kamas716: That’s feeling is easy to understand, but do not let the lies and the hate get to you and spoil your hobby. Take a few days rest if you feel you need it. Punishing writers because you don’t like their opinions is not what this is about. The great majority of the people who are insulting us are good people. They just are immersed in an atmosphere of uniform and dogmatic ideas, to the point that they can no longer understand that someone may see things differently. No one is perfect, we all have good and bad parts of our personalities, and I think good authors are able to pour the best part of themselves in their stories.

13. @sfmurphy1971: hi, I remember you from some old magazine forums, although I was not active there. Nice to see you here!

14. I’m kind of torn on this whole issue. I’m a huge fan of Larry Correia’s work, along with a lot of other Military Sci-Fi. I read the last two Hugo Winners, Redshirts and Ancillary Justice. Both were decent reads, but nothing I felt was amazing.

    So the idea of getting some under-appreciated author’s on the list is a good one!

    But the tactics sucked, to be blunt.

    Instead of encouraging people to vote for what they like, to attend, to be more represented, a block/slate of votes was put in. Now I am sure that not everyone voted exactly like the block, but a lot did obviously, or the nominees wouldn’t have matched the “suggested” nominations so well. I have two major problems with this.

    First, this seems to be in response to accusations of secret cliques. Well they can’t be that effective if they got steamrolled this well. And people having prejudices in what they read, like, vote for (on any side) is nothing new, it is being human. Tribalism as Mr. Torgersen said.

    Second, this does have the potential to destroy the awards. Why? Because what is the counter to block/slate voting? More block/slate voting. Imagine if Martin had HBO put up a commercial urging people to vote for his slate! Good god, would be national politics all over again.

    We are all fans. Are some intolerant assholes to an extreme? Of course. And they are everywhere, in every camp. I have seen them on this board, on i09, etc etc.

    Ignore them, vote for what you like, encourage your friends to vote! But lets not make this about factions and who can rouse the most fans to vote for your selection. It is not a war, it is not all about winning an award. How you win matters to. The problem with Total War is that when you are warring in your own home, it doesn’t leave anything to come home to.

15. The stiffness and conformity the Marx Bros. satirized is SJW culture to a “T.” I invite anyone to look at video of the two emcees of last year’s Hugos. That is what made John Belushi’s character in Animal House smash a guitar. What I’d like to know is what Groucho would say about people who encouraged a crowd to use jazz hands instead of clapping becuz PTSD. SJWs are the biggest boobs in America. They are hideously unsuited for writing a perceptive literature like SF.

16. Paul, I can’t speak for anyone but myself but I’m not interested in your cultural relativism or he-said, she-said. Arguing that GLAAD is just the other side of homophobic assholes carries no water whatsoever. One is right, one is wrong. We in no way started this fight.

17. It is not a war

    Wrong verb tense.

18. “First, this seems to be in response to accusations of secret cliques. Well they can’t be that effective if they got steamrolled this well.”

    The block votes were effective enough to get the job done in the past. We know this beyond reasonable doubt because of the past vote tallies. Vox has laid all of this out in considerable detail.

    SP/RP didn’t start block voting. They just escalated it to a level that the SJW’s couldn’t match this time around.

19. “Whatever else this whole clusterf**k has done, at least it’s gotten me back into reading something besides reference books. I’d forgotten over the past [cough cough] many years how much I enjoyed reading for pleasure.”

    Me too, Tom. I can’t even remember how many times as a teenager I went through the sci-fi section in the bookstore looking for more modern work of the caliber of Bradbury, Heinlein, or Asimov, only to come away empty-handed, wondering why all the new sci-fi seemed so awful. We are finally witnessing a renaissance of the genre.

20. As far as I can tell, the correct analogy is that Larry is DeGaul (the annoying one). Brad is Chiang Kai-shek, and Vox is a less cunning Stalin, except the Lend-lease that helps him take over Eastern Europe comes from China, and the people they call SJWs are not actually Hitler or Tojo. But aside from that, the analogy works.

21. tl;dr : Longtime sf/f fan, but first-time Hugo voter. I can name maybe four “slate” nominees; that won’t work for or against them. I plan to, as Brad suggests, read the nominees and vote for what I think deserves to win.
    *
    I’ve been reading sf/f since the 1970s. I started with Star Trek reruns and the James Blish adaptations, and later series tie-in novels. I read some but nowhere near all of the Giants of the early genre (Clarke, Bradbury, Asimov, Dick, Heinlein, Herbert…). The Ender’s Game novella blew me away as a kid; I loved the later novels. I met Mike Resnick and others on Compuserve in the 1980s, which further grew my reading list. I discovered new authors through Resnick and Greenberg’s anthologies, Writers of the Future compliations, etc.

    I’ve tried writing. I attended Life, The Universe, and Everything several times in college. I sat through the Kris and Dean sessions. In the 1990s I sold one story – which helped kill the magazine it appeared in (Galaxy, #8 – R.I.P.) and managed a tepid sentence or two in Tangent. No further sales. When I’d paid more in SFWA wannabe-level dues than I’d earned, I left. I’ve been listening to Writing Excuses for years, but my muse has remained on permanent vacation.

    His epic blog rants and SP2 got me to give Larry’s MHI books a shot, and I liked them. I’ve read a few of Sarah’s stories, and enjoyed them. I gave Brad’s The Chaplain’s War a try just this month and became a fan; now working through his anthology. I haven’t seen the SP/RP slate(s), though when I saw “Skin Game” was Puppy-approved, I was happy.

    I’m not In Fandom, so I didn’t know what it took to be part of the process, and I wasn’t curious enough to find out before this year. I’ve paid my $40, and I look forward to reading the nominees – all of them. I have no predetermined winners.

22. Brad — So now Vox Day is Joseph Stalin who killed tens of millions of people because he happens not to believe in human equality? I think you crossed your analogies there because Stalin murdered millions in *favor* of the lie of human equality.

    So I guess my Little Ponies is also now Joseph Stalin!
    http://thefederalist.com/2015/04/08/my-little-pony-to-children-marxism-is-not-magic/

    Whee, this is fun!

    The data happens to support My Little Ponies and Vox! Congratulations, Brad! In your furious race to the left, you now have My Little Ponies to your right. Apparently it takes fictional cartoons to occupy the space that you and your fellow Goodthinkers will not hold!

    Will you delete my comment? I am pretty sure it is not Goodthink.

23. “We are not Rabid Puppies…”

    …Yet. But keep on flaming away, you flaming rage nozzles of tolerance. Vox is looking more and more reasonable by the day, thanks to your efforts.

24. @Paul: Hi, Paul. As James May, I can speak only for myself, but I’ll give you my take on this.

    You talk about slates and block voting, while there is some truth to that I’m not sure that is a completely fair representation. I only paid attention to the SP after the nominees were announced, but the claims that they voted without reading the works is not accurate. They actually book bombed the books they had in the list. That means coordinating to buy it on the same day and store, and watch it climb in the bestselling lists. They read them, and I have not yet heard anyone say that they voted a book they disliked. Now, it’s obviously the books in the list got many votes. Was the vote very coordinated or did people vote for some of the books in the list and some that weren’t? Difficult to say, as the votes are secret. We will know a bit more when detailed results are released after the WorldCon. In any case, the results seem to indicate that the vote was coordinated enough. I guess the mind of each person is different. Did they vote for works they liked (and maybe many of them have not read that many eligible books apart from the ones read from the list)? Did they just vote for the book of the list because they wanted to support SP, without worrying about anything else? Some combination of that? As I said, difficult to say.

    Another thing that is important to explain is that the SP did not expect to sweep the nominations. That was an unexpected result of how deficient the nomination voting system is. The idea is to have a process more representative of fandom, and not of a few cliques, closed and becoming more politicized. The idea is not to replace a group of gatekeepers for another. We would like to involve more people in fandom. It’s not easy, because there is a entry barrier that is the price of the supporting membership.

    The SP do not want to destroy the award. There are things that I believe could have been done better, and maybe we will be able to improve next year. As Larry Correia has said, there is no manual on how these things are supposed to be run.

    The SP believe that there has been a partial takeover of fandom by people with radical ideologies, often called SJW, who harass anyone who dares express an opinion different from theirs and campaign openly to give the award form political reasons (for example, check out the comments to this blog post, where some SJW, including a well-known author, acknowledge that they “talk about Affirmative Action” and “deliberately try to read and nominate books by POC, with the ‘by POC’ coming first before anything else”):
    http://nkjemisin(dot)com/2015/04/not-the-affirmative-action-you-meant-not-the-history-youre-making/
    SP, on the other hand, believe that the color of the skin of the writer, or the gender or the sexual orientation should not be the criteria used, that it should be about the stories. All that you may have read about us being racist, misogynous and whatever else are just a bunch of lies. Many news sources immediately printed that SP were hatemongers who wanted to keep women and POC out of SF. That is particularly ridiculous because there actually was a lot of diversity in the list, not only in gender/race, but also in ideologies.
    This news is particularly funny because they printed the usual hit piece and their lawyers forced them to rectify and print a more accurate description:
    http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/06/hugo-award-nominations-sad-puppies

    Because of the insults against SP and the harassment against the authors they voted, two of them have been driven to withdraw. Some of the SP are angry because of that, but I hope we can keep this a positive thing. We are also fans, and we want to have a voice. We’ll have to see.

25. By the way, I wish we had a forum. Writing in blog comments is kind of clumsy.

26. Sasquan Final Hugo Ballot Adds Novel Three-Body Problem, Short Story “Single Samurai”
    http://file770.com/?p=21930

    Let’s hope this is the last change to the ballot. I’m sorry about Kloos’ novel not being there, but since it is withdrawn, I’m glad Three-Body Problem replaced it. This is one of the books I really want to read.

27. Also, Vox is not actually as evil, brutal or powerful as Stalin. Let’s be fair. Sorry, Vox about #3.

28. Three Body will probably win. It’s a pretty good novel. That doesn’t really matter to GenFemSJWs. It pushes all their diversity buttons. I figured it would make the ballot without the SP initiative and I was glad of the initiative if for no other reason I didn’t want to see translator Ken Liu accept the award. I am more than tired of his silly remarks about white people. Three Body is certainly more interesting than Ancillary Justice. The weird thing about Three Body is that at no time did I get the sense it was written by a Chinese guy. This type of novel can be and has been written by Americans. It is full of stereotypes anyone will recognize right off the bat. It’s also a rather shallow novel and I don’t think it ever really exploits the fear and mystery its characters are exposed to in a way it could’ve. This could’ve been a truly terrifying novel in the right hands.

29. If you want to try an SF novel that has some genuinely creepy eerie scenes, check out Jack McDevitt’s Infinity Beach. For me it’s one of SF’s great mystery novels.

30. I think they have trouble telling the difference because they can’t imagine us deviating from (our own type of) groupthink, because they do not deviate from their own on pain of being ostracized.

31. Thanks for the intelligent response James. To be clear, I read pretty much every blog post I could find before coming to a conclusion about SP. I did come to a couple conclusions though.

    First, I do believe this was largely block voting, just given the breakdowns of who made the nominees. I think if SP had just been encouraging fans to vote what they liked and get people that didn’t normally attend the Hugos to vote, that would a great thing.

    I’ve seen a lot of talk about the Hugos being closed to a few “cliques” as you put it. Also referred to as conspiracies, secret slates, etc. I have yet to see anything remotely resembling evidence by anyone on this, and I have most of the blogs on both sides.

    What seems far more likely to me, is that the average Hugo voter has tastes which run in a certain direction, call that what you will. So they tend to vote for what they like, which may not be what other people (including me) likes. Is that annoying? Oh yes. Is it wrong? Not really, since it is how every award since the dawn of time has been decided.

    I mean in 2014 Ancillary Justice got 1335 votes for the win in initial voting. Warbound got 335. I own and have read them both, I didn’t vote, but would have voted for Warbound in a heartbeat. Hell of a book:) That being said, I think it strains belief that 1335 fans at a convention had a secret conspiracy. Most people aren’t capable of keeping a conspiracy of 2 people quiet, let alone over 1000.

    More likely, just the average World Con Fan like Ancillary Justice more! So what? If you are a minority in tastes, which I often am (Although I found Warbound and the Dresden File before they were popular lol) it can be annoying but it is what it is.

    Now are there some voters who might not vote for someone because of personal politics? Of course. It has always been that way, awards are seen as putting someone on a pedestal, and lots of people don’t want to do that to someone they disapprove of. For example, you linked a post by Ms. Jemisin. I have seen her name tossed around a lot with a lot of dislike. I haven’t read any of her stuff so I can’t comment. But my point is, don’t you think, honestly, that there are a lot of sad puppies who wouldn’t ever vote for her because of personal disapproval even if she wrote a great book? I’ve already seen lots of posts by people that claim they won’t ever nominate Kloose or Bennet? because they withdrew. That is the same thing, withholding a vote for personal judgment. Is it fair? Maybe not, but it is how some people think.

    The solution is to get more people involved in the community. Tell your friends to show up and vote for what they like! Hell, I will do the same. But you don’t get a bunch of followers (not meant in a pejorative sense) together and basically say “All of you get memberships and look at this list (wink wink)” I mean imagine if George R.R. Martin did that, he would flood the nominations. It doesn’t end well.

    Finally, as to your comments about hatred and vitriol from the other side, and how sad puppies aren’t all racist homophobes. You are right. There are a lot of shouting assholes, as I said before. There are a lot of thoughtful people who disagree with you. Intelligent people can disagree. But you also have to acknowledge that this community has its own share of assholes. Just reading through the posts I have seen veiled and not so veiled homophobia and prejudice. This DOES NOT MEAN sad puppies as a group are. But a loud, and obnoxious asshole minority on both sides tends to scream the most and thus get the most attention.

    Finally, as to the SJW claim. Where did that term even come from anyways? You say we want everyone to be on equal footing. The news posts about how Sad Puppies wanted to keep minorities out of the list? Probably not helped by Brad Torgersen’s announcement. Fighting because awards are given to minorities because they are minorities? To a lot of people that comes across as code for “white guy wants award!” Not saying it IS, but that is how it reads. After all if Martin won would you say he got it because he was a white guy?

    I liked the line “rousing fantasy epic with broad-chested heroes who slay monsters, and run off with beautiful women” Personally I like those books:) But saying that is what you want to win awards is like saying that men should be the heroes and women just need to be saved! The messaging was way messed up there.

    So, in my final estimation, the Sad Puppies had some valid points and some good ideas. But the execution has been way screwed up, and sometimes the appearance of “old white guy misses the old days.”

32. “I have yet to see anything remotely resembling evidence by anyone on this”

    John Scalzi has received more Hugo nominations in ten years than Arthur C. Clarke got in fifty.

    You don’t believe that happened based on sheer literary merit any more than I do.

    Now that you’ve seen evidence, you’ll retract your post. Right?

33. ““I have yet to see anything remotely resembling evidence by anyone on this”

    John Scalzi has received more Hugo nominations in ten years than Arthur C. Clarke got in fifty”

    Actually no. Where is the secret conspiracy is my point? Maybe the voters like Scalzi a lot. (I’ve only read one of his books, Redshirts, and thought it was OK but not amazing) Just because you disagree with the majority of voters doesn’t make it some secret conspiracy out to exclude you. They just like different stuff! That was kind of my point. Didn’t Clarke win a couple Hugos and Nebulas anyways?

34. “Just because you disagree with the majority of voters doesn’t make it some secret conspiracy out to exclude you. ”

    And the majority of voters voted for the SP and RP slates this time around.

    So, where’s your beef? You don’t get to appeal to the “will of the people” in one case and not the other.

    “Secret conspiracy” is an ad hominem term that you are using to try to shut down the discussion.

    George R.R. Martin, who would certainly know, and who certainly isn’t an SP fan, has admitted that backroom campaigning and logrolling has been going on for a long time. It’s just happening in public now, and everyone gets to play, not just those who are favored by the power structure.

35. “First, I do believe this was largely block voting, just given the breakdowns of who made the nominees. ”

    “Actually no. Where is the secret conspiracy is my point? Maybe the voters like Scalzi a lot. (I’ve only read one of his books, Redshirts, and thought it was OK but not amazing) Just because you disagree with the majority of voters doesn’t make it some secret conspiracy out to exclude you. ”

    So you can assert one thing supported solely on the outcome of an election where the numbers haven’t been released yet, but require extraordinary evidence of counter assertions based on the outcome of other elections that have released nomination numbers that show definite evidence of covert slate voting? Your standards of proof seem inconsistent and rather biased from the outside.

36. As for the notion that there’s some huge fannish love for Scalzi, Clarke’s 42 year old Hugo-winning novel, Rendezvous with Rama, is currently outselling Scalzi’s 2 year old Hugo-winning novel, Redshirts.

    Your claim that Scalzi is somehow vastly more popular than Clarke appears to have been refuted.

37. A fair point about the numbers for the block voting not being released, will concede that.

    Locketopus, if Larry and Brad and whoever had just said “Hey guys, we are under-represented at the Hugos, join up and vote for what you like!” I would have zero problem with it. Honestly some people would probably still bitch, some people will ALWAYS bitch, but there would be nothing wrong with it.

    But (and this addresses Marc as well) it certainly looked more like a Slate of books being put forward and then people worked up and encouraged to go vote for those books. Classic block voting. It is effective, as it prevents dilution of votes but can also skew results. Granted the final vote counts aren’t in.

    Secret Conspiracy is not an ad hominem, I am not attacking you instead of the argument. Although it IS redundant, I need to stop saying that since by definition a conspiracy is secret… my bad.

    Look, is there campaigning behind the scenes at any awards. Yeah, of course. We are all adults, we know this shit happens. But Ancillary Justice wins by 1300 to 300 votes. No conspiracy in the world has ever had 1000 people and been kept quiet. Still think Warbound was better but it is irrelevant. If you had an award with say 10 panelists picking winners, then yes a small conspiracy or clique could swing or even largely control things. But a fan convention with the winner getting 1300 votes? Doesn’t happen. For the record I have yet to have the book I would have picked win the Hugos. Sucks but my tastes may not be the crowds.

    I mean think of an election in politics where the guy you hated won(doesn’t matter which one or who, not the point). Is it a conspiracy? Probably not, just people liked that guy better. Were they wrong, were they idiots, were they gullible? Sure maybe. Doesn’t mean it is a conspiracy though.

38. “No conspiracy in the world has ever had 1000 people and been kept quiet.”

    The “conspiracy” happens at the nominating stage, not at the final voting stage.

    Do you have any evidence whatsoever for your suggestion that Scalzi is so much more popular than Clark that he deserves to get nominations at 5x Clarke’s rate?

    That’s an extraordinary claim, which requires extraordinary proof. A claim that Scalzi won based on write-in votes from the gray aliens of Zeta Reticuli would have just about as much credibility.

    “Look, is there campaigning behind the scenes at any awards. Yeah, of course. We are all adults, we know this shit happens.”

    So… sort of “secret”, then? And if agreements are made, that would be a “conspiracy”, wouldn’t it?

    You’re not helping your own case here, dude.

39. “As for the notion that there’s some huge fannish love for Scalzi, Clarke’s 42 year old Hugo-winning novel, Rendezvous with Rama, is currently outselling Scalzi’s 2 year old Hugo-winning novel, Redshirts.

    Your claim that Scalzi is somehow vastly more popular than Clarke appears to have been refuted.”

    I should hope Rendezvous with Rama is selling well, it is a classic in the truest sense of the word. There is a reason it won pretty much every award it was conceivable to win. And I don’t know the number of nominations offhand or who got what for what between Scalzi and Clarke, too many factors to consider there.

    But since when do awards decide winners by books sold? If we did that Harry Potter would have won every year and then probably those obnoxious Twilight books, god forbid.

40. “But since when do awards decide winners by books sold?”

    Now you’re trying to move the goalposts. Your claim was that Scalzi is much more popular than Clarke with Hugo voters, so much so that he should legitimately be nominated at 5x Clarke’s rate.

    I have shown that this is far from the case with the general SF-buying public (of whom Hugo voters are a subset); in fact, a 42 year old book by Clarke is kicking the ass of a two year old book by Scalzi.

    Your only option now is to show that Hugo nominating voters are (or have been) vastly different from the general SF book-buying public (which, of course, is one of the SP’s complaints).

    You lose.

41. Pointing out the winners ignores the fact that the abuse happens with logrolling in the nominations. All the supposed wrongdoing of the puppies is based on skewing the nominations. The puppies have been accused of slate voting, and this affected the nominations, skewing the ballot a different way then in the past, but exposing how it had been skewed another direction for so long. The RP were more successful than SP because the SP voters did their own reading and voting. RPs voters were much more lockstep thus were more effective getting their nominees the nod relative to their numbers.The Haydens knew a week ahead of time because they got dunked by being completely out-rolled for the first time in years. That the number of votes that had been controlling the flow of nominations was so small is the shocking part, and why Brad and Larry were so surprised by the outcome.

    Vox wasn’t because he was already several steps beyond that in his plans. He knew just how small the clique was, and how their main weapon was fear, fear and suprise. They accused him of gaming the 2014 Hugos when he was innocent. He’s going to game the 2015 Hugos to show them how it’s done.

42. We are not going to convince each other. You compare sales of 1 book, which is inarguably one of the great classics of sci-fi, to a recent Hugo winner which I already stated I wasn’t a hug fan of.

    I have no idea who was nominated for what or when or the quality of the work at the time. Sales proves nothing one way or the other regarding a conspiracy, as you should well know.

    “Your only option now is to show that Hugo nominating voters are (or have been) vastly different from the general SF book-buying public (which, of course, is one of the SP’s complaints)”

    Umm, yeah? The hardcore fans that go to world con probably have different tastes than your average reader downloading a book on to his kindle. Has anyone, ever suggested that isn’t the case? That may be one of your complaints, and that part is true. Never denied it.

    Awards for anything are almost always decided by the hardcore fans. I mean Avengers didn’t win the Oscar over Argo, lol.

    If we go by sheer popularity and book sales, man we all lose. You really want the Hugo to go to Divergent or the novelization of Frozen? Because technically those are probably the most popular scifi/fantasy books out there….

    With that, I am going to go play video games. Torn between Destiny, Bloodborne or maybe Starcraft 2. Decisions decisions, maybe I should put it to a vote, lol…

43. Supposedly SP swept the entire award by adding 200 votes many of which were probably for something else. No one has claimed a conspiracy of a thousand, only the habitual mutual back scratching of enough to swing the nomination, which may be very few who are in touch with which authors are “in”.

44. I have never said there was a secret conspiracy or a clique. What I am saying is there is a culture of overwrought hysteria driven by feminist racist bigots and eaten up by gullible do-gooders which maintains America is a white supremacist patriarchy dedicated to messing over women, gays and non-whites and that this is reflected in SFF. There is an obsession with diversity based on the mass defamation of whites and men as morally inferior. That is reflected in quote after quote after quotes from the main players and those quotes run into the hundreds if not the thousands. There is nothing secret about them.

    Read this small sample:

    http://www.jamesmaystock.com/essays/Pages/SFFRacistQuotes.html

45. The Oscars aren’t a good case to cite. Oscar voting is only done by previous Oscar winners. Hence why the People’s Choice Awards were a big deal (and the MTV Movie awards as well)

46. “The hardcore fans that go to world con probably have different tastes than your average reader downloading a book on to his kindle.”

    And said “hardcore fan taste” does not include Arthur C. Clarke?

    You are suggesting that Clarke fans are somehow like Twilight fans and Harry Potter fans (i.e., not part of core SF fandom).

    Dude, you don’t even believe this bullshit yourself. Don’t expect anyone else to believe it.

47. “Supposedly SP swept the entire award by adding 200 votes many of which were probably for something else.”

    One claim I’ve seen (but not verified) is that in some years as little as 40 votes would be enough to sway the nominations in a major category.

48. Easy to verify. Look at Worldcon’s slides from last week showing their tracking of the total number of nominations cast and votes cast on previous years.

49. You and Larry may want to sharpen your pencils and send some helpful legal hints to the folks at The New Republic:

    https://archive.today/zENfh

    ‘Reflecting the demographics of the larger field, the Hugo Awards have traditionally gone to white men, but nominations for women and non-whites have risen in recent years. That trend has upset right-wing fans who say they’ve been marginalized by affirmative action gone mad—and who organized a successful nomination campaign to undo these gains in diversity, creating an unprecedented party-line slate which has led to the stacking of this year’s Hugo ballot largely with white men once again.’

    ‘Torgersen is assuming that stories by and/or about women and non-whites will automatically be left-wing propaganda. Again, this flies in the face of history.’

50. Pingback: Every Puppy Has Its Day 4/16 | File 770

51. When you said “Alinsky” I saw you as stupid and stopped reading.

52. because god forbid he mention the source of the exact tactics they are using.

53. @Paul: we would like to encourage more participation, from many different fans and groups of fans that do not take part in the process, but since the cost of voting is 40$ (or 50$ if you don’t live in the US), this is kind of difficult to do.

54. I would amend that to say the Hugo Awards have traditionally gone to people who weren’t part of a bizarre race-gender cult. Who cares what they look like – it’s the rancid rhetoric that pops out of their mouths that’s the problem.

55. @pjcamp

    Registered simply to marvel at the kaleidoscopic irony of your comment.

56. In a low volume award nomination environment like the Hugos, Slates are a death sentence to the spirit and intent of the award.

    That holds true of all slates–be it a slate from John Scalzi, George R.R. Martin, Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies, Happy Kittens or anyone else. Slates kill the nomination process of the Hugos. Because, as you say, Brad, humans ARE tribal. People are attracted to slates, to sides.

57. thou dost protest too much

    GRRM has ably and repeatedly debunked the idea that any group has been deliberately excluded over the years. You have chosen to ignore that in favor of continually playing the victim … what fun! … and now that’s it’s got way out of control and is in very real danger of destroying that which you profess to love … you’re trying to somehow take it all back.

    “We aren’t Vox Day!! We didn’t intend that when we brought him on board/jumped on his coattails for THIS to happen … etc etc” Sorry dude you roll with pigs you’re gonna get shit on you.

58. Ably? No, he simply said it, and expected reality to match his statement. Does it? look a t the winners from the last 15 years or so, and the nominees for the 12 years or so preceding Sad Puppies 1, and show us where ‘groups’ haven’t been deliberately excluded.

    They didn’t ‘bring Vox on board’ and didn’t ‘jump on his coattails’- if anything he did the reverse by creating Rabid Puppies as sort of a dark shadow of Sad Puppies. Of course, you’re having trouble conceptualizing of their being two entirely separate slates that are bringing a different take of what constitutes award-winning SF, because you’re stuck in the belief that we all think in lockstep.

59. GRRM has ably and repeatedly debunked the idea that any group has been deliberately excluded over the years.

    I’m having trouble linking to it, but check out Mr. Correia’s latest response to Martin to see his debunking of that.

    Anyway, the “intentional” part is besides the point, and doesn’t change the purpose of Sad Puppies.

    “We aren’t Vox Day!! We didn’t intend that when we brought him on board/jumped on his coattails for THIS to happen …

    But they didn’t bring him on board, or jump on his coattails, unless you call “recommending him for one work one year” “riding on his coattails.

60. Maybe you should have clearly distanced yourself from Vox Day right from the start, instead of posting this wishy washy reply you gave when GRRM called you out.
    The truth is that Beale was a convenient ally for you and Correia, until the backlash started.

    Maybe you should not have tried to excuse the vile lies and hatespeech Vox Day is pumping out as “freedom of speech” which is always the favorite argument of the extreme right, as long as they are not being the ones that are under attack.

    Maybe you should not try to excuse the worst kind of racism and sexism as so-called tribalism, thereby calling it a natural occurence that is bound to happen and that nothing can be done about.

    Maybe, just maybe, you should have thought about the consequences of your actions before you started this whole childish mess, that is currently destroying the fun(fun being so very important to you) of the Worldcon and the Hugos for so many people.

    Correia compares you, himself and Vox Day to Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin in his current post, claiming that sometimes you can not pick your allies. I wonder if you would agree to this quite ridiculous comparison. I further wonder if that means that it’s beyond both your and Correia’s power to kick this “ally” to the curb and say something that is not just another wishy washy excuse(“I am not Vox Day” so I wash my hands of it).

    I do not pick my reading list based on an author’s political opinions, I don’t think that this is the most important issue for fans of SF/F that goes beyond “fun” and might actually engage the reader on a deeper level.
    You seem to be a moderate and civil person compared to your allies.
    I am not familiar with your writings, Mr. Torgersen, but I will look into it, with an open mind.
    I did have a look into the creative output of Mr Correia though and I am honestly not surprised that the juvenile power fantasies of his Monster Hunter series are not being showered with awards.
    Maybe it’s after all not a question of politics, but of quality?

61. “Librarian” is the true face of liberal fascism. No doubt she’s made sure all the non-PC books in her library have been pulped to make it “safe” for the children and “people of color”.

62. Judging by “Librarian” Brad did the right thing in not denouncing Vox Day when called to by Martin. You see its already too late Brad. If you’d been a true Bolshevik, you would have denounced Running dog Vox day years ago. Now its too late and you’ve been labeled a counter-revolutionary and wrecker. After all, who but a fascist would need to be asked?

63. It’s so, so very sad you people on the right have to be told in a block how and whom to vote for. Why can’t folks just vote for the works they love best? Is that such an impossible concept?

64. @Librarian

    Honestly, this would make Marie Antoinette cringe. The sheer arrogance.

65. @ David Keith –

    Please to present the evidence that people supporting SP (note: not the same as “being on the right” – and you would be advised to have already chosen your second if you continue to label people in this reckless manner) did not vote for the works they loved best, and instead voted as they were instructed.

    (You might want to look up “libertarian” whilst you’re at it.)

66. The best part of all the Anti-Puppy sentiment I have seen is how they are drafting in moderates who are seeing their bullshit and saying, “I’ve had enough. Larry and Brad are being reasonable and you people are being disingenuous assholes. I’m signing up for Sasquan.”

    But please, keep the raging rhetoric flowing. You only drown your cause in stupid.

67. May I recommend Eric Flint’s post over at ericflint.net? https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=la&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=ericflint.net&edit-text=

    Without agreeing in all particulars – for example, I think that are a number of SJWs who are consciously being exclusive – I think Eric raises two very important points as to why there is popular dissatisfaction with the Hugos. One is the sociological drift. Those who have been voting on the awards for a long time have “seen it all” before and have a desire to reward the new thing, whatever that is. Paul, your statement that popular doesn’t equal award-winning makes me think that you generally agree with that sentiment. Actually your statement that a thousand people can’t be in on a conspiracy makes me think the same thing. It’s not necessary that there be a conspiracy; the differing preferences of the in-group and the masses would be enough awards and sales to not match up. *That’s* why the question, Who do the Hugos represent? is so important. Or, Who is really a fan?

68. “Why can’t folks just vote for the works they love best? Is that such an impossible concept?”

    You mean like just vote for the best quality SF without regard for the author’s politics or publisher? Wow, never heard of that concept before. Oh wait, that’s SP3.

69. Librarian,

    Go read what I said about not arguing with third graders.

70. Rcocean,

    Yes, and quite so. To add: and when it came time for Uncle Joseph and the Party to move the goal posts once again, even many true Bolsheviks were sent to the gulag. I have tried to warn people that this is how it works. That there is no end to it.

    Unfortunately, it’s impossible to overestimate the human desire for a) the easy win and b) the chance to be cheaply smug and self-righteous.

71. Paul Weimer: “Slates are a death sentence to the spirit and intent of the award.”

    Said “spirit and intent” being “give John Scalzi more nominations in ten years than Arthur C. Clarke got in fifty”, you mean?

    Book Burner (sorry, not going to call you “Librarian”): “Maybe you should have clearly distanced yourself from Vox Day right from the start”

    Maybe you should clearly distance yourself from Marxism. You first.

    ” Maybe you should not have tried to excuse the vile lies and hatespeech Vox Day is pumping out as “freedom of speech” which is always the favorite argument of the extreme right”

    “Extreme right” being defined as “people who don’t demand that everyone think exactly the same way”?

    What, exactly, has Vox Day done to you, other than disagreeing with you? He has neither picked your pocket nor broken your leg. He’s just some guy talking on the Internet. Why is it so vitally important to you that he think exactly the same way that you do?

    You are a thought-policing thug. Own it.

72. We’re sorry to be causing a ruckus that got bigger than expected. We’re sorry people are angry.

    Is this a sincere apology? Or just a bit of sarcasm?

    Because if it’s sincere… why in the world are you apologizing? Because you had an effect big enough to turn heads and actually make a difference?

    Because the very people who have been attacking you and others are, God forbid, upset now that they’ve been challenged? Did you honestly think they would ENJOY being proven wrong?

    But maybe you’re just kidding about the apology, in which case, alright – I guess that’s some writer’s flourish.

    By the by, I’d like to thank you, Larry, and yes, even Vox for what you’ve all done here, if only individually. You have nothing to apologize for, and much to be proud of. You’re adding voices and diversity – real diversity, chaotic diversity, not sterilized monoculture “diversity” – to a creative realm. You’re making sci-fi -interesting- to a lot of people. Please do not back down and apologize because the biggest bullies around are saying ‘you are MEAN’. You’re not.

73. Brad,
    Thank you very much for this post. From the beginning I believed the Sad Puppies “slate” were recommendations and not a slate as such. Therefore I appreciate you bringing your rec’s to the table. But as noted in your post the Rabid Puppies have taken over the game (this time). This is unfortunate because I believe that you have something valuable to tell those of us less prone to notice your work – that we should not overlook good writing whatever the reason. I said this in a post to GRRM pointing out that the Rabid Puppies slate won because of slate voting. The Sad Puppies rec’s were similar to the Rabid Puppies slate, but it was clear the Rabid Puppies took the board. I am sorry that your campaign to be considered for the Hugos has been kidnapped by the rabid puppies.
    I have been reading SF for 45 years now. I do not attend or vote in worldcon but I read every work nominated every year. I am voting this year and will make a true assessment according to worth. But I must admit that the taint of the Rabid Puppies is not going to be easy for me to erase. I am sorry, but that taste will linger a long while. I promise, I will read everything and vote my heart/mind.
    I appreciate the model of decency you have been in this. I enjoy much of your writing and nominated “The Chaplain’s Assistant” for best first novel in the Locus poll. I hope cooler heads prevail all around in the future. Thank you for standing up for your beliefs. That is a brave thing to do.

    Bob Blough

74. Meanwhile, the CHORF’s SJW counterparts have closed down a booth run by three women at CalgaryExpo for the heinous crime of being pro-GG. A twitter brigade of people NOT EVEN AT THE EXPO was enough to cause organizers to shut the HoneyBadgers down for creating a ‘threatening environment’ by displaying artwork incorporating the GG logo.

    ‘Isolated Incident’, or foretaste of Sasquan?

75. Thank you Brad, that is. Typo.

76. ‘Isolated Incident’, or foretaste of Sasquan? I’m starting to worry that that may end up being more ‘Harbinger of Ragnarok’. It’s not going to win the anti-GG’ers any friends, and it’s likely to piss the GG’ers off.

    Unlike real warfare, there’s not much in the culture wars that removes combatants from the battlefield. Given that most of the SJW side seems to not welcome comments, most of the engagement seems to be on SP territory, and most of that seems to involve more and more people moving toward the SP cause, or moving from the SP cause toward the RP cause. If more of the Gamers recognize the Hugo skirmishes as a part of their larger war, stupid moves like these may end up moving more people toward the SP side and motivating those of us already here.

77. I’m glad that you and LC have taken the time to distance yourselves from Ted Beal. It wasn’t until very recently that you’d made any statements indicating that there wasn’t more agreement between you and him. I mean this honestly. Up until fairly recently I assumed that you, he and LC were all pretty much in general agreement on the goals for SP, RP and politics in general. Puppies has always been somewhat political if for no other reason than it was against liberals. Given that you all appeared to be ‘working together’ or ‘on the same side’ with the puppies thing it was a pretty reasonable assumption to make. It seemed like he was definitely on your side and used that associated to increase his legitimacy and perceived influence.
    Based on his writing he sounds like a nasty person. He may just be a troll trying to get attention. I can’t say. But I can easily understand why people wouldn’t want to be considered as ‘on his side’. What he’s said about women (“Shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they’ll elect whoever they want to F****”) and (“Women shouldn’t be encouraged to do science or play video games”) is enough to make me dislike him.

78. I’d also like to point out that every comment about ‘moving people to a side’ or ‘getting gammergate involved’ further makes this like just another stupid culture war issue. And not about recognizing great stories.

79. Concern troll is concerned.

80. further makes this like just another stupid culture war issue. And not about recognizing great stories.

    What does and doesn’t constitute a great story is tied up with culture war issues, unfortunately. What we clearly need is a standard that allows multiple cultures to exist, thrive, and produce great stories and be recognized for as much.

    is enough to make me dislike him.

    Sure, but is it enough to make you want to exclude him, people who like him, and others from producing and recognizing great stories?

81. Given that most of the SJW side seems to not welcome comments, most of the engagement seems to be on SP territory, and most of that seems to involve more and more people moving toward the SP cause, or moving from the SP cause toward the RP cause

    And you just nailed it on the head with that comment Civilis. The anti-SP/SJW slate are showing there true colors, which is that they are unwilling to debate, accommodate, or attempt to find a middle ground. If you deviate from their ideological thinking, even a smidgen, you run the risk of being drawn and quartered. Brad’s rejection of their absurd allegations of racism by saying ‘my wife and daughter or not white so how exactly can I be a racist?’ earn him further attacks accusing him of using his family as shield (strange how the SJWs don’t consider how demeaning their comments to Brad are in regards to his wife agency. Would a minority women really be married to a white man if he was racist? I mean come on.) If Brad had apologized for bringing up his wife as proof it would have been tantamount to adding chum into a water full of sharks.

    There comes a point where someone sees that no matter what they do they will be branded in the worst possible light with individuals they do not necessarily agree with that you decide to say “screw it” and burn the mother to the ground. Because if your going to be accused of a crime not matter what you say or do to prove contrary, you might as well do the crime.

82. I’d also like to point out that every comment about ‘moving people to a side’ or ‘getting gammergate involved’ further makes this like just another stupid culture war issue. And not about recognizing great stories.

    If the reason we can’t have nice things, like recognition for good SFF stories and honest reviews of video games is because the SJW culture warrior brigade has to intrude everywhere, then we don’t have much choice in the matter.

    What he’s said about women and is enough to make me dislike him.

    The only reason you know about him is that to one side of this debate, he’s a boogeyman, a made up threat. (Or at least was a made-up threat. By hating him, they’ve given him control of the situation, and therefore real power). There’s no reason to fear him having his say, even if what is said about him is accurate. There’s no reason to fear having him in the awards; either his books suck, or they’re good books worthy of an award. Lots of people say awful things. Here’s something else Vox said, in the last thread: “I assert that an unborn female black child with a missing chromosome and an inclination to homosexuality is equal in human value and human dignity and unalienable, God-given rights to a straight white male in the prime of his life and a +4 SD IQ. How many of my dishonest critics will do the same?” He may be bigoted. He may be an asshole. But that statement, right there, how many petty totalitarians can truly say the same? How many will disagree with that statement just because it comes from Vox?

83. Civilis,

    But that statement, right there, how many petty totalitarians can truly say the same? How many will disagree with that statement just because it comes from Vox?

    What a hateful human being, claiming that clumps of cells are just as worth saving as actual people.*

    *Sarcasm

84. Just a guy, you missed my point. Read Civilis comment above. There’s little reason to think he’s motivated by really wanting Skin Games to win because it was awesome. I don’t think he does. I think he wants it to win because of ‘culture war’. I dislike culture war stuff. Libertarians were the last political group in the US that didn’t really do that…now they’re getting in on the act also. Ugh.

    Crude, I have 4 kids. My oldest really loves stories where she has an easy time putting herself in the role of the protagonist. This means she wants a pre-puberty female main character doing awesome stuff. Until she’s read all of those books she’s not going to bother with the Hobbit. I’ve tried. My 8 year old LOVES comic book cartoons. She can’t wait for avengers to come out. (I’m going to go see it firs and make sure I think it’s OK for her.) Tonight after work we’re going to sit on the couch and watch a DVR of the latest Flash episode.
    Everything VD proposes would make SF/F (and life in general) worse for them. He, and anyone else, are free to write and publish and vote and do whatever they like and others are free to say they’re nasty people and hope they’re ignored. I think I’m also free to think its good when their influence is decreased by the common agreement that they’re nasty pieces of work and not really worth listening to. I guess there’s a loss function on how offensive someone has to be before you’re not willing to separate the art from the artist. For me he crosses that line. You can decide for yourself if that makes me overly sensitive.

85. What a hateful human being, claiming that clumps of cells are just as worth saving as actual people.

    You can replace the ‘unborn’ with ‘newborn’ if you’re the sort of person that can’t wrap your head around the idea that both sides of the abortion debate can possibly have valid values due to the inherently unfair nature of the debate.

    I have yet to have anyone come forward with how Vox poses a threat to anyone, besides the emotional loss from being unable to beat him in a debate or at the Hugo nominations, and if that’s the qualifier for ‘threat’, it’s much lower than having one’s livelihood threatened for not being one of the SJW in-crowd.

    (This is not directed to you, Malcolm, I’m sarcasm-impared and even I could get your meaning.)

86. There’s a guy who thinks African Americans are half civilized savages and the people who kinda, sorta don’t challenge that. There’s a woman who likes throwing acid at anyone who has the least bit of daylight from her ever changing political stances, and the people who kinda, sorta didn’t challenge that. There’s the people who brewed up a slate system that harmed some worthy people on their own side, besides many others, and the people who spent a month working up a group hate in anticipation of those slates’ results. Why on Earth would anybody respect either side at this point? By the way, as a Polak, WWII analogies don’t read the same way to me as they probably do to you. Godwin is not a morality test (though I agree many on the left abuse it that way) so much as a challenge to use your imagination and not pick the most malleable, predictable example possible. It also stems from the fact that so many people use WWII (or the Fall of Rome) to recite bland truisms, devoid of actual historical content or applicability to the topic at hand.

87. Civilis and I cross posted. I was talking about his comment at 12:05.
    Regarding your most recent comment: I know about VD from brad’s blog. I read it for a while out of curiosity and boredom. I formed my own opinion of him. And it’s dislike, not fear. I don’t think he’s a threat. I think his ideas, if implemented, would be harmful to people I care about. As long as he’s just another angry dude on the internet I agree, he’s harmless. Don’t really see how that changes my point. I’m sure the guy also likes dogs. He might really like Jim Butcher’s work. That would mean we agree on something. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a nasty pc of work.

    I have to get back to work. Thanks for the conversation. (No sarcasm or snark, this was fun.)

88. Just a guy, you missed my point. Read Civilis comment above. There’s little reason to think he’s motivated by really wanting Skin Games to win because it was awesome. I don’t think he does. I think he wants it to win because of ‘culture war’. I dislike culture war stuff. Libertarians were the last political group in the US that didn’t really do that…now they’re getting in on the act also. Ugh.

    Until the Culture War is over (and abdicating won’t end it; the Gamers weren’t part of it until being dragged in), we’re stuck with it. Seriously, I don’t like Culture War stuff. I’d rather be reading and playing games.

    I guess there’s a loss function on how offensive someone has to be before you’re not willing to separate the art from the artist.

    I don’t mean to seem like I’m picking on you. You have valid points. But for everyone, that offensive point and what crosses it will be different. From my perspective, I’ve seen just about every hobby I’ve cared about (except tabletop wargaming (*crosses fingers he doesn’t spoil anything*) ) pulled into the culture war by the social justice crowd and made worse. At the beginning, there were some points in the SJWs favor; I may be a heretic for saying this, but the old D&D rules capping strength for females in a fantasy world at 18/50 was kinda stupid. But more and more the nitpicks have gone on and on and made things worse and worse, until my line was crossed.

89. “It wasn’t until very recently that you’d made any statements indicating that there wasn’t more agreement between you and him.”

    Liar.

90. @AG Thanks!

91. I find it interesting that Mr. Torgerson is accusing his enemies of using Alinsky style tactics when the reverse is actually true. (and I am a big fan of Saul Alinsky, so I don’t see Alinsky tactics as a bad thing necessarily) Saul Alinsky set out to empower the disempowered (and Sad Puppies definitely perceive themselves to be disempowered). He did so by creating organizations and symbols for people to unite behind (I mean… you guys do have a name and a logo…) and creating an enemy for people to mobilize against (the SJW conspiracy!!!).

    Now the difference is obviously that Alinsky was from the left and the powers he fought were generally entrenched political systems/industries in cities… but really Sad Puppies are positioning themselves as the agitators and the ones who are ‘fighting the power.’ Which means the Sad Puppies are actually an Alinsky-style campaign. Albeit one that is based off of what I consider to be a mostly false sense of oppression and disempowerment… but one that is obviously deeply felt by its adherents, both Sad and Rabid.

92. Yikes! The Hugos are now irrelevant…

93. “There’s a guy who thinks African Americans are half civilized savages and the people who kinda, sorta don’t challenge that”

    If you’re referring to Vox Day, that’s a Lie.

94. Vox Day in an interview 3 days ago:

    “Yes, I am claiming that societies are incapable of moving from full primitivism to full civilization within the time frame that primitive African societies have been in contact with what we consider to be civilization. It is a genetic argument. It takes that long to kill off or otherwise suppress the breeding of the excessively violent and short-time preferenced. African-American men are 500 times more likely to possess a gene variant that is linked to violence and aggression than white American men.”

95. Chaplain’s War arrived today from Amazon. Looking forward to reading it.

96. “… mostly false sense of oppression and disempowerment… but one that is obviously deeply felt by its adherents, both Sad and Rabid.”

    Cheap psychology is cheap psychology. Quotes are better. You see, that’s called presenting a case. I could make a far more elegant case that we are sick of stupid gender feminist harassment and bigotry and that we’re 14th Amendment types who also have dictionaries with words like “bigot” and “supremacist.” I have never felt threatened, oppressed or disempowered by people too stupid to understand the Constitution they were born into. Why would I?

    Why would I feel threatened by a bizarre ideology that thinks gender is a scarecrow created by men in pre-history to control women and thwart lesbianism? Have you even read these people? Don’t confuse my mockery, pranking and disdain for feeling threatened by morons.

    Their Star Wars version of C-No-Gender was laughable.

97. Mary Robinette Kowal’s Supporting Membership Giveaway ends tonight midnight Central Time.
    http://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/talk-with-me-about-being-a-fan-of-science-fiction-and-fantasy/

    Entrants will be drawn randomly.

98. Saul Alinsky set out to empower the disempowered… by creating organizations and symbols for people to unite behind… and creating an enemy for people to mobilize against.

    Most political leaders, both good and evil, have set out to empower the disempowered by creating organizations and symbols for people to unite behind and creating or identifying enemies for people to mobilize against. What you have given us is the ‘bailey’ or ‘castle’ version of Alinsky, the easily defended one that leaves out all the controversial bits. Alinsky’s rules themselves aren’t controversial, all political movements these days either adapt to use them or lose. What is important is that the rules speak of enemies. If someone is using Alinsky’s rules against you, they see you as an enemy, and are engaged in political warfare.

    one that is based off of what I consider to be a mostly false sense of oppression and disempowerment

    As an exercise, take Science Fiction Fandom and Worldcon as a self-contained political system, and tell me how I identify who has power in the system.

99. “African-American men are 500 times more likely to possess a gene variant that is linked to violence and aggression than white American men.”

    So? That doesn’t show that he is a “guy who thinks African Americans are half civilized savages”

100. Librarian: “I am honestly not surprised that the juvenile power fantasies of his Monster Hunter series are not being showered with awards.”

     “Librarian” probably gives boys insipid books that enforce “civilized” expectations and sissification of the poor dears. Some people consider this child abuse for young male minds and souls… because no boy should ever EVER be allowed a “juvenile power fantasy.” AmIright? And wow, if the juvenile power fantasy is followed up by “getting the girl” it’s like bad icing on the bad cake.

     Actually… this goes with the VD quote about needing more than a generation to kill off all of your inconveniently suvival adapted young men so that civilization can thrive. The biggest reason that I think Vox is probably wrong is that boys still seem quite survival adapted, enough so that when they’re pummeled with the badness of their boyness they break rather than bend.

101. Actually… this goes with the VD quote about needing more than a generation to kill off all of your inconveniently suvival adapted young men so that civilization can thrive. The biggest reason that I think Vox is probably wrong is that boys still seem quite survival adapted, enough so that when they’re pummeled with the badness of their boyness they break rather than bend.

     It’s also not that different from the whole third-wave-feminist “we need women in power because men are all violent wannabe rapists” line of thinking. Vox’s argument is complex, but the subject is complex as well. Attempts to turn it into an easily-digestible soundbite for political points are necessarily going to lose that complexity and make it impossible to debate the argument. I don’t think it’s out of line to call it biased or bigoted; there’s a lot of room for debate as to the results of fundamental genetic differences in population groups. On the other hand, the argument is not incompatible with thinking all humans are equally deserving of human value and dignity.

102. Juvenile fantasies like going to the center of the Earth or visiting Venus? If adult fantasies are whining paranoia about millions of people personally having it in for you to the point you’re writing revenge culture fantasies then I’ll take the kid stuff. Notice how even though these morons say Golden Age SFF was racist and sexist, none of it was supremacist revenge fiction. We leave that to the enlightened guardians of justice.

103. No research necessary when it comes to the SJW Klan. They gather like flies:

     “Cecily Kane @Cecily_Kane · 6h 6 hours ago ‘They could do many things to build community instead of breaking what others have built.’ — @Forestofglory THIS”

     You mean what WE built? Cultural appropriation. Fuck off.

     “Cecily Kane @Cecily_Kane · 7h 7 hours ago ‘Diversity is the property of a group, not an individual.’ — @_vajra on essentialism. Read this!”

     No! Fuck off.

     “Cecily Kane retweeted Jeanne @fangirlJeanne · 9h 9 hours ago It’s embodied in the “crazy ex” trope. Where we’ve literally constructed a fictional monster to explain why men’s relationships fail.”

     Tough. Fuck off.

     “Cecily Kane retweeted Jeanne @fangirlJeanne · 9h 9 hours ago If your critique of a woman character is about her relationship, you’re perpatuating the idea that a woman’s value lies in her relationships”

     So what? Go fuck.

     “Cecily Kane retweeted N. K. Jemisin @nkjemisin · 12h 12 hours ago The Hugos debacle is the manifestation of Chip’s Prophecy: the instant the marginalized are even a little accepted, we’re seen as a threat.”

     That’s bullshit. Fuck off.

     “Cecily Kane retweeted Chine Ezekwesili @ChineEzeks · Apr 16 If you’re carrying guilt for being privileged, you’re doing it wrong. So focus less on your guilt, & more on those without your privilege.”

     Get a hanky. Then fuck off.

     “Cecily Kane retweeted Emma @baazaarr · 23h 23 hours ago “‘If you don’t want to be raped then…’ No, just. Nah just stop that’s it end of thought no more be quiet that’s all no thank you.”

     Join the police force. Good luck. And fuck off.

     There’s your obsession with science fiction and fantasy, courtesy of Skiffy and Fantry. One person – and all with a few inches of each other. And they never stop. Multiply that by 100. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what’s happening at the Hugos.

104. “It’s also not that different from the whole third-wave-feminist “we need women in power because men are all violent wannabe rapists” line of thinking.”

     Makes a person wonder if they actually know any women in real life.

105. The one who taught me how to fight was quite capable of violences.

     That would be my mom, but she is hardly a singular example.

106. Civilis: “On the other hand, the argument is not incompatible with thinking all humans are equally deserving of human value and dignity.”

     People have to be taken as individuals or it’s all worthless. No matter any particular distribution the individual isn’t the distribution, they’re an individual. It doesn’t help me at all, as an example, that Norse tend to be tall. Thinking about statistical distributions among people groups is nothing more than an academic exercise, and a fairly meaningless one at that. It might be interesting and perhaps at some meta level valuable for understanding evolution (if anyone cares about evolution) but it’s… esoteric. It’s go no relevance to person-person issues because people are not groups. Part of what makes me so livid about the insane “white privilege” garbage is that it codifies and *prohibits* treating people as individuals.

107. The SJWs face total, utter and complete defeat and failure in all areas of endeavor. They face defeat not at the hands of any sad or rabid puppies but at the hands of themselves. The reason is that the core is eventually stripped out of whatever they pursue.

     The reason that equality and equalism can never win is not that equality and equalism are bad, but they aren’t the core source of worth and value and beauty. They are derivatives.

     One can think of this in a mathematical sense. A derivative function is something that is not a function in its own right but follows from the function of something else.

     Social justice is similarly not a primary function but a function of something else. It begins as a criticism or protest of primary things, whether the military or the relationship between the sexes or painting or video games or almost anything else. These criticisms or protests may have a valid point. But they are not a primary thing.

     Inexorably, social justice seeks to replace the thing that it criticizes. But this is impossible. A protest or a criticism is not a primary thing.

     Sad puppies and rapid puppies did not hurt science fiction. Science fiction was so far diminished from what it had been because it pursued something as its core that can never be the core. Instead you end with ever pure, more barren criticisms, a kind of iconoclasm that keeps knocking down but never building up.

     Unsurprisingly, everything from objective beauty to audience size has been diminishing.

108. At this point “social justice” sounds like a James Bond movie plot: A cult of racial paranoia from postcolonial “southern nations” seeks world peace by abolishing gender and avenging itself on the West. Let’s call it Dr. Marginalized.

109. @rcocean –
     Human Biodiversity is doubleplus ungood badthink though. I’m a racist for even acknowledging it exists.

110. Makes a person wonder if they actually know any women in real life.

     Or have read their history books. Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher… the women that have successfully led great nations have had similar personalities to the men that have successfully led great nations.

     Part of what makes me so livid about the insane “white privilege” garbage is that it codifies and *prohibits* treating people as individuals.

     I agree. It’s also what pissed me off about Scalzi’s trite “white males are playing on easy mode”. A person is more than a statistical intersection of groups. Reducing human life in all its complicated variety to statistics is a recipe for failure.

111. Pingback: Trench Warfare on the Puppy Front | Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens

112. On a related note:
     https://twitter.com/anjiecast/status/589269482654175232

     Presented without editorial comment.

113. Crude,

     A physician may apologize to the patient for causing pain, while performing a necessary — if uncomfortable — procedure. I knew SP3 was going to cause certain individuals to become upset. I didn’t anticipate that some of them would use the larger media to launch some slander attacks, and for those specific people, I am not apologizing to them. They are worse than anything SP3 has done, because they have made it about the politics of personal destruction, and personal destruction was never an objective of Sad Puppies 3.

     But I do apologize to the people who aren’t necessarily partisan, but who have been upset by this anyway. Certainly Connie Willis’s comments make it clear (to me) that Connie doesn’t necessarily understand what’s going on, has had the “facts” communicated to her by people who are partisan, and who are also happily using Connie as an emotional chess piece in the partisan conflict. I don’t blame Connie. I feel bad that she’s unhappy. But I don’t blame her. And it sucks that we’ve reached this point.

     But like I told George R. R. Martin, despite the fact Sad Puppies blew the lid off the rotten contents of the dutch oven, we (Sad Puppies) did not create it. The dutch oven has been stewing for decades. The green rooms and private author-editor parties have been stewing with it. Everyone agreed that the awards had “problems” and almost everyone agreed that there didn’t seem to be any way of addressing these problems which weren’t also problematic.

     Larry and I simply concluded that complaining about a problem — while doing nothing — wasn’t a principled position. Having identified the thing, we determined to do something about the thing.

     Which, again, takes me back to the analogy of the physician and the patient. We want to heal the Hugos. It hurts right now. For some people, unbearably so. Hopefully all the attention and controversy and conversation will get people involved, the democracy will become “awake” and alive, the quiet exclusion — from Fandom toward fans — will end, and this award will mean something again.

114. “We can’t control the other driver(s) on the freeway.”

     True, but were another driver to recklessly rush past you at 150mph, I’d expect you to be concerned: for your and your passengers’ sake at least, if not the other driver’s. If you’re utterly *un*concerned, what would that imply about your own driving, or about your respect for the law?

     Similarly, when a Neo-Fascist advocates the repeal of female suffrage, concern is the absolute *least* thing you should feel. And if you can’t feel it for your own sake, feel it for the sake of your mother, your wife, your girlfriend, your daughter. While you’re at it, read some Francis Fukuyama, and realise what a fragile thing liberal democracy is.

115. And that Brad is the primary difference between you… SP3… and us… RP1. We don’t care about the Hugos at all. We are not here to fix anything.

     We’re here to demonstrate something… which I believe has been conclusively demonstrated.

     Vox was wrongfully accused of gaming the awards in 2014….. so he gamed the awards in 2015.

     In response…

     The morons have wrongfully accused GamerGate of gaming the awards in 2015.

     What do you suppose happens next?

116. @nathan,

     Sometimes when you cross similar species (SFF fans & gamers), you get a mule.

     And sometimes, you get a Mule.

117. While you’re at it, read some Francis Fukuyama, and realise what a fragile thing liberal democracy is.

     Concern troll is concerned.

     Seriously, even if Vox is serious about his desire, it has no chance of ever coming true. Your mothers / daughters / girlfriends are in no danger.

     On the other hand, I’ve seen people lose their jobs because some SJW doesn’t like what they’ve done in private, or takes offense at some joke. I’ve seen good people libeled and slandered for being on the wrong side of the SJW grievance industry. That’s where the threat to liberal democracy is and that’s what comes closest to fascism.

118. Dear Mr. Torgersen,

     thank you for your thoughtful response. I am beginning to understand why you would need to manipulate the Hugos to see someone you like win an award.

     Dear other puppies, sad & rabid,

     First of all, it was interesting that so many of you straight away assumed I was female. Is it because an opinion like mine could only come from a woman? Or is it because you never heard of a male librarian?
     Sorry to disappoint, I am male, I am white and I am straight(though I am sure lots of you will have some colourful things to say about that).

     Second, as I pointed out before, I do not pick authors based on their politics(or religion). As I look at my bookshelf right now I see lots of Gene Wolfe, Dan Simmons, Joe Abercrombie, Heinlein, Bradbury, Dick, Neal Stephenson, Frank Herbert, Steven Brust, Lois MacMaster Bujold, Iain Banks, K.J. Parker, Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, Terry Pratchett, Scott Lynch, Neil Gaiman and many others. Are they all „liberal fascists“ like me?
     I even own, read and enjoyed the complete Cerebus by that „evil old misogynist“ Dave Sim.

     For you and your kind the political allegiance of an author seems to be far more important than for me. I thought „Ancillary Justice“, which seems to get more than one of you frothing at the mouth, was a very well written and entertaining book. I did however NOT read it as an evil genderbender manifesto.
     I also read and really enjoyed some books by Orson Scott Card. Do I think that some of his personal views are embarassing and narrowminded? Yes I do! I do not try to make sure he will never get any awards for his writing or call him names on the internet though.
     Love lots of books by Dan Simmons. Think his politics are craycray. Still would not protest against him getting an award, if he wrote something as good as „Drood“ again.

     I find it rather telling, that „your side“ and people like Mr. Wright and Mr. Beale use an extremely aggressive rethoric and dismiss any view that would contradict their own as completely wrong/insane/fascist, etc. while none of the authors on the „other side“ of this argument show such a complete lack of common curtesy, manners and empathy.
     Isn’t the attempt to threaten, silence or shout down any opposing view a sign of a totalitarian state or facism?
     As a native German with an interest in history I know a thing or two about fascism and it is pretty clear to me which side looks like the Nazis(since Larry Correia brought this comparison up, might as well use it)to an outside observer(hint: it’s the side with the guy that calls black people half-savages and has some interesting theories about women and rape).

     Why is it that your side is always on the attack, always lashing out, always using the most abusive and insulting terms, trying to verbally turn your opponents into something less than human?
     I think I know. It is because you have already lost and you know it. Your time is over. Noone owes you anything. And like a very annoying child that has come to realize it is not the center of the universe you throw your little temper tantrums.

     You keep talking about a culture war. But what culture are you even talking about? What kind of literature are you even talking about, when you mention literature? If you are only happy with books that offer you pure escapism, do not challenge your beliefs, don’t make you uncomfortable at times, don’t feature too many minorities and/or women, are not too confusing or hard to read for you, then maybe you need to create your own award.
     The „Most fun book that did not upset me“ Award or MOFUBODINOUP can be yours!
     And then Larry might be able to take one home one day and doesn’t have to cry anymore.

119. >Sorry to disappoint, I am male, I am white and I am straight
     >(though I am sure lots of you will have some colourful things
     >to say about that)

     We haven’t got anything to say about that, colorful or otherwise. Unlike social justice bullies, we do not care what color your skin is or what hangs or doesn’t hang between your legs, and we certainly do not care about your sexual orientation. We treat people equally, as human beings.

     I do not know why do you feel that you should visit another person’s blog and insult them. What do you wish to accomplish? Obviously you are not going to persuade anyone that way, not anyone that wasn’t already persuaded.

     I)’m glad to know that you do not try to make sure people who do not think like you never get any awards for their writing, and that you do not call them names on the internet. In that at least, you are much closer to the spirit of what the puppies are about than to the social justice bullies. That is the culture war we are talking about.

120. while none of the authors on the „other side“ of this argument show such a complete lack of common curtesy, manners and empathy.

     Paging James May. James May to the white courtesy phone…

     Why is it that your side is always on the attack, always lashing out, always using the most abusive and insulting terms, trying to verbally turn your opponents into something less than human?

     We welcome examples. Then we’ll give you a much longer list of the other side doing the exact same thing.

     Isn’t the attempt to threaten, silence or shout down any opposing view a sign of a totalitarian state or facism?

     Quick question for you, which side is threatening, silencing, or shouting down opposing points of view? Your posts certainly aren’t being censored, you’re not being threatened, silenced, or shouted down. You’re not being disemvowelled, or banned, or blocked.

     For that matter, which is more diverse, the Sad Puppies recommendations, or the winners from last year’s Hugos?

     Have you read any of the books by Mr. Wright or Mr. Beale?

121. >We welcome examples. Then we’ll give you a much longer
     >list of the other side doing the exact same thing.

     If James May sends him his list I hope Librarian has a lot of space in his email account. 🙂

     By the way, Mr. Librarian, allow me to suggest this article, to think about the next time you are going to call people who do not think like you nazis:
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

122. Dear Brad,

     It is admirable that you want a process which uses “the democratic selection system of the Hugo awards” with “No “quiet” logrolling. Make it transparent.”.

     Of the five novels recommended on your slate, only three were actually recommended by your readers in your January discussion. The other two on the slate received no mention at all in that discussion.

     Four other novels were mentioned by three people each in that discussion, but were omitted from your slate. They were A Sword Into Darkness, by Thomas A. Mays; The Martian, by Anthony Weir; Judge of Ages, by John C. Wright; and The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Steadfast, by Jack Campbell. Another 21 novels received a nomination each, which is one nomination more than either The Dark Between the Stars or Lines of Departure.

     For Best Novella, “The Plural of Helen of Troy”, by John C. Wright, got three nominations and was on your slate. But the slate also included “Big Boys Don’t Cry”, by Tom Kratman, which had no nominations in the crowdsourced discussion; and it did not include “Island in a Sea of Stars” by Kevin J. Anderson, which got two nominations, nor “Sixth of the Dusk” by Brandon Sanderson, which got one.

     For Best Novelette, four stories were each mentioned once in your crowdsourced discussion. Your slate, however, comprised four completely different nominees which had not been mentioned in that discussion, and none of those that were.

     Similarly, for Best Short Story, two potential nominees got more than one mention in your discussion. They were “Domo”, by Joshua M. Young, which got a massive five (more than anything else in any category except Interstellar), and “Queen of the Tyrant Lizards” by John C. Wright, which got two. Neither, however, appeared on your slate. Another 18 stories were each mentioned once in the crowdsourcing discussion. Two of those did make it to your slate, as did two stories that had not been mentioned in the discussion.

     In other words, of the 16 written fiction nominees on your slate, 11 – more than two-thirds – had not actually been nominated by anyone in the crowd-sourced discussion from which the slate supposedly emerged.

     For the sake of transparency, can you explain?

123. @Nicholas Whyte: Admirable scholarship. I think (and this is my personal opinion) that the way the recommendation list was done was a bit rushed, and there are things that could have been done better. I think no one expected how successful SP3 would be. Hopefully, for SP4 we will improve and learn from experience to make the process better.

124. It’s also my understanding that the discussion of what to put on the list was carried out on multiple blogs. There certainly wasn’t an official ‘all nomination discussion goes here’ thread.

125. Mr. Whyte. Years ago, I remember your posts analyzing all the nominees for the Hugos. Are you no longer doing those?

126. I see Book Burner (“Librarian”) has gone straight to the “make shit up” tactic.

     Do you actually think that anyone here is going to take your crap seriously, or doesn’t realize that petty little Stalinist thugs like you are going to call us “racists” and “sexists” no matter what we do, short of bowing down at the altar of your thought police?

     It’s not going to happen, dude.

     I also see that George R.R. Martin wants to know if he, Scalzi, and the Nielsen Haydens can “play” next year.

     Given that Scalzi has racked up more Hugo nominations in the past ten years than Arthur C. Clarke managed in fifty, I’m pretty sure that he and the Nielsen Haydens have been “playing” for quite a while now.

     Granted, there are alternative explanations.

     Sheer literary merit (cough)
     Originality (cough…cough)
     Scalzi has Justin Bieber-like levels of popularity, despite persuasive evidence to the contrary (e.g., with respect to sales, Clarke’s forty year old Rendezvous with Rama is kicking the ass of Scalzi’s two year old Redshirts). If Scalzi has been forced to helicopter in to Worldcon to avoid the cheering throngs, I have somehow failed to notice it.
     Compensation for past injustices, Scalzi standing proxy for the “tubby middle-aged white guy” demographic that has been so notoriously underrepresented in the SFF world. Diversity!

     Cool story, bro.

     It stinks on liquid helium. John Scalzi is not five times more popular than Arthur C. Clarke, never has been five times more popular than Arthur C. Clarke, and never will be five times more popular than Arthur C. Clarke. That’s total bullshit.

127. Perhaps Mr. Whyte would like to give us an explanation for this otherwise mysterious outbreak of Scalzimania.

128. “Similarly, when a Neo-Fascist advocates the repeal of female suffrage, concern is the absolute *least* thing you should feel.”

     1) Fascists were socialists. I’ve seen VD called a lot of things, but never that.
     2) Where’s the concern about all the self-declared Marxists in SF? I mean, given that Marxists actually murdered a hundred million people. As far as I know, Vox hasn’t done anything but run his mouth.

129. >Perhaps Mr. Whyte would like to give us an explanation
     >for this otherwise mysterious outbreak of Scalzimania.

     Well, there is an explanation. When Mr. Whyte read Old Man’s War (Scalzi’s first novel), he thought that Scalzi’s politics were right-wing (since the novel was military SF), and he wrote a scathing review taking him to task for being an evil, militaristic right-winger. He spends more time in the review chastising Scalzi’s supposed political ideas than criticizing the novel. Then Scalzi appears in the comments to assure him that no, his political opinions are in fact the correct ones. After visiting his blog Whyte is placated, admits that Scalzi apparently is not a “slavering warmonger” (Mr, Whyte’s words, not mine), but takes his to task because “there is already enough of this militaristic stuff out there being written by people who believe in it.”

     http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/642176.html
     http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/643512.html

     😀 I’m sorry for laughing, Mr. Whyte, but you have to admit that this was not your finest moment
     as a reviewer. And not only for completely misreading the author’s politics, but for letting your own politics dictate your reviews. If you are unable to read military SF I respect that, but perhaps it would be more honest not to review it.

     I guess that since politics are so important for him when it comes to judging authors, Scalzi must now be in his “good” book.

130. Anyone who thinks I’ve ever said Ancillary Justice is a gender bending manifesto doesn’t know how to read english. In fact I’ve repeatedly said it doesn’t use what it plays at. In other words it’s false advertising, most likely because Leckie herself (like most SJWs) doesn’t even understand the ideology she promotes. If they did they’d likely not promote it. There’s a reason insane ideas are sometimes mainstreamed and that’s because of selling a bill of goods to chumps. Why else would mainstream housewives be endorsing lesbian queer theory that has the destruction of their own families as the goal?

     From their side, what I’ve read is SJWs have some blase understanding that if you don’t show little girls dolls or boys toy trucks they’ll end up far differently then society makes them. It’s just some hazy idea social justice will emerge if you don’t see gender performance, and of course that’s not what gender feminists mean at all. At the same time there is absolutely no doubt where the concept of gender abolition comes from, and it is gay radical feminism. Whatever’s the case, I didn’t force Leckie to write a post about an imaginary restaurant where white men randomly punch women, non-whites and gays which Leckie maintains is America? Really?

     As a native German what’s obvious to me is that a person from a country with the most massive failure in regard to mainstreaming hate speech in human history still hasn’t learned what principle is. There is a difference between a couple of fringe lunatics and an institutionalized movement which can remove video games from shelves, people from conventions and men from jobs and organizations. SJW ideology is the very embodiment of morons parroting hate speech from their mental case “allies” as “justice.” Who else but madmen would assert they are in possession of secret knowledge regarding the psychological inner thoughts and barely seen workings of an immoral racist patriarchy? In fact what gender feminism does is dehumanize no less than half the people on the planet using oddball theories like “white privilege,” gender oppression and “rape culture.” Does this librarian not realize feminist icon Andrea Dworkin believed a race of matriarchal sorceror-dwarves lived in England until the 17th century and that she maintains Christians killed 9 million women (80 a day) as witches over a period of 300 years?

     Does librarian understand this ideology believes a patriarchy overthrew a matriarchy in prehistory and has been oppressing women with heterosexuality ever since? That is not from fringe lunatics but Harvard teacher and PhD Artemis March and also Charlotte Bunch, the (Founding Director (1989) and as of 2014 current Senior Scholar, at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University). This idiocy was supported by one of the most cherished names you see pop up among SFF’s feminist heroes, Audre Lorde. Lorde was so nuts she not only blurbed Dworkin’s insane book but thought white gays feminists were “racists” and tools of “patriarchal thought.” How many times do you have to read the word “patriarchy” from some mental case in SFF to understand how nuts or gullible these people are?

     As for manners, I don’t feel I owe jack shit to a cult which dehumanizes and demonizes me every single day. No more than Jews or black folks owe politeness to neo-Nazis or the KKK. I think it’s probably the 1,000th time I read some moron write some stupid bullshit like “white men should come with TWs (trigger warnings)” I realized that kindness and reason won’t trump mental illness and hate. What’s my saying “fuck you” compared to race hatred? I have no problem whatsoever telling any idiot who could write such filth to fuck off.

     Some of this stuff is so over the top paranoid it defies belief. Exactly how sane do you think women are who write blogs posts with phrases like “Stop it, white people. Stop it” are? Especially when they admit (like many others) they suffer from crippling mental health issues in the same post? Topping that insanity off is the woman lives in the Philippines, not a noted haven for white supremacy.

     The truth is people like Librarian have a passion for discussing this only surpassed by their laziness in actually learning what the hell’s going on. This is a goofy fucking heterophobic cult of pill-popping man-hating racists selling themselves as “anti-racists” and equal rights “feminists” – end of story. The fact half of them are naive morons who in fact aren’t bigots doesn’t mean anything to me: hate speech looks the same from the outside.

     Do your homework or shut up. Do you think Scientology uncovered itself?

131. @ Mr Whyte –

     Sir, a valid question, and I am not sure there is a complete verifiable answer to that. (Do not discount the possibility of multiple email suggestions.) As for Weir’s The Martian – that one was sadly not eligible for consideration this year.

     (It is my hope that in future years, the WC committees will be able to investigate slates prior to the closing of nomination season, which would be made much easier by the openness of creating slates.)

     As LC has said, SP is pretty much making this up as they go along. Constructive critique is painful but necessary.

132. Hello James May,

     I have no idea who you are and I definitely did not think about you when I was talking about Ancillary Justice.
     I also do not understand how you are being demonized and I definitely have no stakes in the heterophobic cult you are talking about.

133. “I have no idea…” is the correct part. This is not a thing you’re going to be able to figure out by reading some comments and a few blog posts. If GRR Martin and Connie Willis don’t know what’s up then trust me, neither do you. Whether it was aimed at me or not doesn’t matter. No one is suggesting AJ is a manifesto. What we are saying it was promoted and SOLD as one as the currently C-No-Gender craze.

     No one is personally demonizing me, nor was any one singling out Jews in the ’30s. That’s the whole point, isn’t it. What part about “white men” do you not understand? My name is not “white man,” or “Jew.”

134. I’m sorry, should I know you? Are you that guy from Top Gear?
     When I bought my copy of Ancillary Justice, I was not informed that I would be supporting the C-No-Gender-Craze, whatever that is.

     I would also like to point out that several prominent members of the Nazi party and so by default also the German government were singling out jews in the 1930s. I am really not sure I am getting your point and I am trying.

     And that last sentence? That really doesn’t make any sense.

135. A commenter on GRRM’s blog:

     “Having started reading the nominated works, I’ll have to concede that their selected novels, at least, do not appear to be “conservative” works. The Dark Between the Stars passes the Bechdel test, has diverse ethnicity, includes environmentalist religion in a positive light, shows dire consequences for ignoring global warming and conducting medical research with a profit motive, and includes the standard greedy industrialist villains that conservatives tend to complain about. Those things are a small part of a plot that’s mainly about killer bug robots, evil forces of darkness, and exploding space jellyfish–but that’s the political part, and it shouldn’t ruin any self-identifying “SJW”‘s day to read it.

     If the Jim Butcher entry is anything like the previous Dresden novels, that one isn’t particularly Republican either. So either they were telling the truth when they (sometimes) claimed not to be politically biased, or they failed on the big category. Draw your own conclusions.”
     http://grrm.livejournal.com/422311.html?thread=21308327#t21308327

136. I forgot the word “individual.” I meant individual Jews. They were demonized as an entire group. And stop strawmanning me. We’re not saying buying AJ is supporting any such thing. Some people knew, some didn’t. It’s clear from your own comments you don’t even know what’s happening. That doesn’t mean the issue wasn’t in the book. Google any review of it. Or you could just use sheer wisdom and insight. If my last sentence doesn’t make any sense then get ready for history to repeat itself.

137. Gee, with that description I want to start reading The Dark Between the Stars. (And before anyone starts screaming slate-voting, please take into account that I did not vote in the Hugos this year.)

138. “Certainly Connie Willis’s comments make it clear (to me) that Connie doesn’t necessarily understand what’s going on, has had the “facts” communicated to her by people who are partisan, and who are also happily using Connie as an emotional chess piece in the partisan conflict. I don’t blame Connie. I feel bad that she’s unhappy. But I don’t blame her.”

     Connie is… Connie is nice, she has lots and lots of friends, everyone likes Connie, she writes amazing books… she is also somewhat un-self-aware. Do I feel bad that she’s unhappy? Geez… I donno. I’ve had to make a “Connie Rule” for science fiction conventions… don’t go to any panel that Connie is on because she WILL slide into a political rant at some point. Guaranteed. 100%. And no one will or has or whatever said anything… no one will get on her case about that. Because she’s so goll darned NICE… and she feels so very very BAD if there is any conflict. And everyone LIKES her. EVERYONE. And no one wants her to feel BAD.

     But I swear it’s like tourettes… at some point, no matter the science fiction or writing subject, she’s going to suddenly turn and holler… BUSH!!!… and you’re like… WTF just happened? (My Connie rule went into affect before Obama was elected so I’ve no idea what replaced that.) I believe absolutely that she doesn’t understand what is going on or why people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome in face of what seems to be an assumption that EVERY SINGLE person in the audience naturally agrees with whatever she’s going to say about Bush.

139. And I just posted that with my real name. Geez. No seriously. Connie is NICE. Everyone knows that. Everyone agrees that it’s true. I don’t dislike Connie. She just *frustrates* me.

140. “Similarly, when a Neo-Fascist advocates the repeal of female suffrage, concern is the absolute *least* thing you should feel. And if you can’t feel it for your own sake, feel it for the sake of your mother, your wife, your girlfriend, your daughter.”

     Mostly what I do is laugh because of how often I have similar thoughts when I’m told how I’m *supposed* to vote because I’ve got a vagina. Who has more ability to hurt me? Probably the people trying to unperson me for not voting emotionally with my vagina. Not a real woman, right? Our entire… or half of it anyhow… political system positions itself as speaking for “women’s issues.” If you’re unsure what women’s issues are, they are all the things that are supposed to control my vote. Foreign policy? No. Globalization? No. Unemployment? No. Ebola? No.

     Women’s issues… remember those (if you’re old enough) big family gatherings where the men would sit in one room and have deep conversations about politics or current events and the women would sit in the other room and talk about women’s issues? Yeah, that.

     So, I’ve got a vagina. On account of my vagina I’m supposed to care most of all about my ability to get someone else to pay for birth control. The men will worry about the bomb. Don’t worry your pretty little head.

     So… do I feel *concern*? Yes. About some guy pointing out what I see all around me? No.

141. I’m sick and tired of the SJBs in ALL facets of life right now. Connie Willis may be “nice”. I don’t know as I’ve never met her. What I do know is that after that little temper tantrum, I will never buy anything of hers ever again.

142. I do wish to thank you and Larry for introducing me to the works of Martin Kloos. I just finished ‘Terms of Enlistment’ and started on ‘Lines of Departure’. It is a shame he withdrew.

143. ” In the Albuquerque SF Society newsletter, ASFacts, our editor concluded
     his account of the dustup “…the Puppies p***ed in our sandbox.”

     ” I think that says it all.”

     Ayup.

144. Thanks, @AG, @Civilis and @keranih. I accept that this is work in progress. I am asking about the working methods. Mr Togerson asserts that among the “simple and consistent” principles of drawing up the slate this year were transparency and democracy. The accuracy of that assertion is not immediately apparent.

     A transparent process is one where we know why each work on the slate is there, whether nominated in the original discussion post, nominated somewhere else, or just that Mr Torgerson (or indeed Mr Beale) just kinda liked it. But for 11 of the 16 fiction works on the slate, and several other nominees, we don’t have that information. Until we do, the process cannot be considered transparent.

     A democratic process is one where there is a demonstrable relationship between the amount of support a candidate gets and whether or not it appears on the slate. Again, going by the available evidence, that relationship doesn’t appear very strong. Unless such a relationship can be demonstrated, the process cannot be considered democratic. 

     I accept that The Martian was, unfortunately, ineligible. Was that true of all the other works which did not get on the slate despite being nominated in this supposedly transparent and democratic process? If not, why are they not on the slate?

145. @Doctor Locktopus – Scalzi has had more Hugo nominations than Arthur C. Clarke because he has written a novel almost every year for the last few years. Clarke wrote 11 solo sf novels between 1960, from when we have shortlist data, and his death in 2009. Four of them got Hugo nominations – A Fall of Moondust and 2010, which didn’t win, and Rendezvous with Rama and The Fountains of Paradise, which did.

     I’d have liked to see Imperial Earth on that list too, but I know that even other Clarke fans often don’t like it much. 2001 is also a good book but was marketed as a movie tie-in (despite the considerable plot divergences between it and the movie). I think even the most diehard Clarke fans would find it difficult to argue that the other five (2061,3001, Songs of Distant Earth, The Ghost from the Grand Banks and The Hammer of God) represent his finest work. The Hugos were not going when Clarke was writing his best short fiction.

     @AG – Thank you for reminding me of that exchange, though I think you oversimplify my position. For what it’s worth, I still don’t much like Scalzi’s writing, even though as it turns out his political position is closer to mine than I first thought. I think all his characters tend to speak in the same voice, though that is less true of his latest, Lock In.

     Redshirts is a one-joke book. But I could tell that it was likely to win a Hugo, because it is the kind of book that Hugo voters like. Same with Connie Wilis’s Blackout/All Clear, which I found tedious in tone and erratic in geography (it features an epic drive from St Paul’s Cathedral to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, a distance that can be walked in five minutes), but it obviously very much appealed to the Hugo electorate.

     Both Scalzi and Willis have put in years of spadework appearing at conventions, so a lot of Hugo-voting fans feel that they know them personally (I see surprisingly little discussion of this important point in the various debates). Scalzi’s online presence does no harm either, but it’s ludicrous to describe his eligibility posts as slate-building.

     @AG again – as you know, I’ve been tracking Hugo votes in varying degrees of detail since the start of the century. I gave up on the massive posts after 2006. But for three of the last four years I surveyed bloggers’ declared voting intentions in the written fiction categories – see 2011, 2013 and 2014. I did not find a single blogger who expressed much affection for Blackout/All Clear or Redshirts. The only thing that demonstrates is that people who blog are a small and unrepresentative sample of people who vote.

146. ” I did not find a single blogger who expressed much affection for Blackout/All Clear or Redshirts. The only thing that demonstrates is that people who blog are a small and unrepresentative sample of people who vote.”

     Or, perhaps, the other way around?

147. @Confutus: considering it’s around a dozen bloggers compared with a couple of thousand Hugo voters – no, definitely not the other way round.

148. I guess these unnamed “conspirators” who have been rigging the Hugos secretly for years — behind closed doors, among shadows, speaking in whispers — must not have been very good at their job. The casual nominations of a tiny handul of people were enough to lay waste to all ther sinister plans.

     Now where did I leave my tin hat?

149. as long as you ignore the forums and newsgroups that they carried on their discussions in, sure, you can pretend it was all in secret.

150. Hello, mr. Torgersen! George R. R. Martin has asked about the SP nomination process and I would very much appreciate if you would answer his questions when you have the time to do so. The questions can be found here: http://grrm.livejournal.com/422311.html

     Thank you!

151. “Scalzi has had more Hugo nominations than Arthur C. Clarke because he has written a novel almost every year for the last few years.”

     And his novels are automatically deemed worthy of a Hugo nomination. Got it.

     Your reasoning is circular and unconvincing.

     Also, the part about “slate-building” is irrelevant, since I never contended that he was doing that. I contend that the SPs are doing in public what the CHORF contingent has been doing in private — taking advantage of the fact that Hugo nominations can be had with a surprisingly small number of votes.

152. “I guess these unnamed “conspirators” who have been rigging the Hugos secretly for years”

     No one has been “rigging” anything. Voting in accordance with the rules is not “rigging”.

     “Now where did I leave my tin hat?”

     I don’t know, but I hope you find it. You certainly need one if you think that Scalzi actually deserved all those nominations.

153. I didn’t stop reading Star Wars tie-in novels when Darksaber came out because of Kevin J. Anderson’s politics or religion (both of which I was completely ignorant). I did it because the Jedi Academy trilogy was terrible compared to the books written by other authors in the series, and I didn’t feel like choking down a fourth book to give Mr. Anderson yet another chance to redeem himself. I even read his contribution to that Cantina anthology he edited, thinking that maybe he was better in a short format. It was even more disappointing than the novels.

     The man has not been “perennially overlooked” because of some kind of conspiracy. It’s because his work isn’t good enough to deserve recognition. The fact that you think otherwise casts serious doubts on the legitimacy of your complaints.

     I’ll read the work for which he has been nominated. Perhaps he has undergone some kind of transformation and the quality of his work has radically improved. I’ve never seen that happen before, but I don’t want to be unfair. I’ll revise this comment if I turn out to be wrong.

154. Isn’t the stuff Scalzi writes exactly what Mr. Torgersen wants nominated? Fun books, not too literary, spacemen and starships on the cover, spacemen and starships in the book?
     I have not read anything by him except Redshirts and while I did not consider this book award worthy, it is basically the exact kind of SF/F Brad is asking for, a fun adventure romp.

     Or are you all so upset about him because he has the wrong politics? But I thought we should not judge books by an authors political opinions?
     Or is the Old Man’s War a series about space minorities? I didn’t read it, so I wouldn’t know.

     I would also like to know if the opinions of James May are representative of a majority of people here.
     Do you really believe that there is a gay feminazi movement that wants to destroy the white man?
     And do you honestly think, that the situation for white straight males is comparable to that of jews in Germany in the 1930s?
     If you really do you should be ashamed for comparing the suffering of the innocent people that died back then and what terrible things the holocaust survivors had to endure to your silly little “culture war”

     I do hope you call me bookburner again, that gets funnier every time!

155. @Librarian:
     >I would also like to know if the opinions of James May are
     >representative of a majority of people here. Do you really
     >believe that there is a gay feminazi movement that wants
     >to destroy the white man?

     This is my opinion: there are people with a totalitarian mindset (we could call them social justice bullies) who want not to “destroy the white man”, but to eliminate all dissension and all voices that deviate from their ideas from public discourse. To that end, they use tactics like accusing anyone who objects to their ideas or methods of racism, sexism, bigotry, of making them feel unsafe (and consequently needing to be kept apart from the rest of the community). They are obsessed with race, gender and sexual orientation, and they judge people according to those criteria and also to whether they conform to their ideology. To the shame of the moderate left, most of them find it more comfortable to look the other way and not see, or to be appeasing instead of denouncing what is wrong, secure in the knowledge that they are not their primary targets.

     >Isn’t the stuff Scalzi writes exactly what Mr. Torgersen wants nominated?

     I have only read Old Man’s War and found it OK but not interesting enough to make me want to seek the continuations. In any case you keep missing the point, this is not about “spacemen and starships on the cover”. Regarding the Hugos, this is an attempt to take the awards out of the hands of the politicized cliques that control it, taking advantage of how self-selecting the Worldcon community is. What we would like is for the cost of voting to be lowered so that all fans interested in the Hugos can vote, and that way the award would not be in the hands of any clique, including the Sad Puppies. Haven’t you noticed how easy it is to control the awards right now? Somebody in the internet saying “hey, vote for this” is enough. And Correia was not the first to do that

     >And do you honestly think, that the situation for white
     >straight males is comparable to that of jews in Germany in the 1930s?

     Why are you so obsessed with nazism? This situation has nothing to do with the holocaust.

     >If you really do you should be ashamed for comparing the
     >suffering of the innocent people that died back then and what
     >terrible things the holocaust survivors had to endure to your
     >silly little “culture war”

     No, you are the one who should be ashamed, since you are the one unable to stop bringing nazism up.

156. Why such reluctance to use the r-word when referring to Vox? “Controversial,” “dickhead,” “has opinions I don’t agree with” – can’t we just drop the politician language and call him a racist? If the Sad Puppy guys said that “Yeah, he is a racist and misogynist but art has to be judged on its own merits” (the author is dead and all that) I’d be more pro-SP, but the way they tend to skirt the issue really bugs me.

157. @somniture:
     >his work isn’t good enough to deserve recognition. The fact that
     >you think otherwise casts serious doubts on the legitimacy of
     >your complaints.

     Since you then go on to say you haven’t read it you’ll have to forgive me for being confused about whose complaints lack legitimacy.

158. Olov

     I’m not Brad, but in my opinion all of the pertinent questions have been answered. It looks to me like Martin is either polite trolling, or doing the “camel nose” thing. Either way, you’ll find that most of the Sad Puppies, and folks that follow the Sad Puppies have better things to do than play stupid internet games forever with people that have nothing better to do than look down their noses at the working classes.

     In other words, the Hugo distraction has gone on long enough. Its time to get back to work. If George would rather spout off on the Hugo stuff than get that late novel done, then that’s his business.

     That also goes for the clowns that have taken over the thread with their concerns and demands and questions. Brad is getting ready for a deployment. You had plenty of time before the nominations were announced to ask your questions. Why now? Sore losers?

159. @Nicholas Whyte: I was not involved in the process this year, so I can’t say much about it. As I say, after the success of SP3 I hope SP4 is done better, with more people participating, and learning from past mustakes.

     Having said that, regarding your concerns about the democratic quality of the process, I would like to remind you that ultimately Brad Torgersen or, next year, Kate Paulk, could unilaterally put up a list of their own making, as so many other people do, but they have no means to force anyone to vote for those works if they do not like them or if they do not agree with the way the list was made.

     “Redshirts is a one-joke book. But I could tell that it was likely to win a Hugo, because it is the kind of book that Hugo voters like. Same with Connie Wilis’s Blackout/All Clear, which I found tedious in tone and erratic in geography (it features an epic drive from St Paul’s Cathedral to St Bartholomew’s Hospital, a distance that can be walked in five minutes), but it obviously very much appealed to the Hugo electorate.
     Both Scalzi and Willis have put in years of spadework appearing at conventions, so a lot of Hugo-voting fans feel that they know them personally (I see surprisingly little discussion of this important point in the various debates). Scalzi’s online presence does no harm either”

     It seems to me that there is no need to make my point, when you make it for me so well. In practice the constituency is a closed circle, and those who can successfully do the social work and are acceptable politically profit from that disproportionately. If you can look at it without your politics blinding you you’ll have to admit that we have a point. You’ll then say that the solution is worse, that we are changing a few cliques for another one, but the ultimate objective as I understand it is not to have the Sad puppies decide the nominations year after year, but to shock and expose the flaws of the system and open the process up for all fandom.

160. Librarian, you keep making up bullshit no one’s saying and then arguing against it. Why use stupid words like “destroy?” I don’t know what daffy racists with mental health issues want or why they hate. But that their words exist there is no doubt. Read ’em, and then if you can, read their stupid minds and get back to us.

     No one has said white male Americans are going through what Jews did. We’re saying hate speech is hate speech and there are certain similarities by which it is mainstreamed into the public arena as “anti-oppression.” Does it have to go full genocide before I can object? You don’t get to excuse what these people are doing by making stupid comparisons.

     If you have any brains, use them. Do you see anyone here talking about women, gays and non-whites – like these morons do – or do you see people talking about a diverse group of broken humans with real names which are part of a hateful ideology?

     Go educate yourself. Right now you seem more eager to open your mouth than read.

     As for Harry, did you read the dumb blog post SJWs are lining up to praise which has phrases like “Stop it, white people. Stop it”? SJWs wouldn’t know the word “racist” if it was tattooed on their forehead. Let us know your definition and then we’ll get back to you. Right now “bravo” seems to be what SJWs think of “racist.”

     http://awitin.likhain.net/2015/04/out-of-fracture/

     Surprise – she’s crazy.

161. I don’t think what we’re saying could be any clearer. You have to be willfully blind to not see what’s going on.

     SJWs are saying the same thing over and over again: they won’t review men, they won’t review white men, stop reading heterosexual white men for a year, help me “de-white” my library, aren’t you tired of reading white men, SFF used to be all white men and on and on. Conversely, SJWs are promoting work according to what they see as the opposite of straight white men. There is no style of literature in play there, no politics, no ideology – just race and sex.

     What we’re engaging with is the complete opposite. We are objecting to words spoken, to literary styles, to ideologies. The race and sex of who’s saying those things are immaterial to us. Our argument is a principled argument, not a racist and sexist one. We are asking literary and ideological questions, not ones of race and sex.

     For some oddball reason, there are media stories and blog posts that are straight up lying and saying the opposite is true: that we object to more women and non-whites in “our” arena and that SJWs are promoting good literature that just happens to be a demographic spike of non-Western, non-white and female.

     When is obvious obvious and how dumb is dumb?

162. @AG:

     I’m reading it now and it’s the same bland crap I remember, just set in a different universe. Only this time there are constant references to some backstory that I glimpse periodically, but only after I’ve forgotten the things or characters that tie those glimpses together, because they were only mentioned once and that was eight chapters ago. I’ve never had to search and reread a book so much.

163. Dear Mr. Martin: Thanks for your kind offer to nominate stories for Sad Puppies 3. I will not be heading Sad Puppies 3, but I will pass along your offer. Please bear in mind that boring message fiction is the leading cause of puppy related sadness, so select your nominations accordingly.

     Also, a point of clarification: the Hugo award uses a democratic selection system in which all members are entitled to vote; but the decision as to which works are included on a slate of candidates is made by the slate organizer, in her sole discretion, from which there is no appeal, whether that slate is organized by Teresa Neilsen Hayden, Sad Puppies 3 or even you, George, should you find the Sad Puppies slate unpalatable.

     Thanks again for your kind offer. Very Sincerely Yours . . . .

164. “Certainly Connie Willis’s comments make it clear (to me) that Connie doesn’t necessarily understand what’s going on, has had the “facts” communicated to her by people who are partisan, and who are also happily using Connie as an emotional chess piece in the partisan conflict.”

     I agree with all that.

     “I don’t blame Connie. I feel bad that she’s unhappy. But I don’t blame her.

     I totally disagree with this. She is an adult. She is capable of assuming the full and proper responsibility for her decisions. She has done something incredibly stupid. I for one will remember it.

165. “Isn’t the stuff Scalzi writes exactly what Mr. Torgersen wants nominated?”

     I don’t know about Mr. Torgersen’s opinions, but I have tried several things Scalzi has written and found them all either boring or insufferable (too much cutesy-ness or smugness).

     Add in that Scalzi himself goes out of his way to be as monumental a jerk as possible to what he considers safe targets (people on the opposite side of the political spectrum), even after precisely those people helped make him a success (Glenn Reynolds used to plug Scalzi on Instapundit. He doesn’t do that anymore. Wonder why), and that the sole direct interaction I have had with the man was me offering well-meant advice based on my own life experience and Scalzi telling me I was lying and trying to play some sort of game with him –

     No, Scalzi is right out.

166. @AG – I note your response. Of course Mr Torgerson or Ms Paulk can recommend whatever they like for whatever reasons they want. But It was Mr Torgersen, not me, who asserted that transparency and democracy were among his objectives (indeed, in the top two of the six that he listed). Those words have meaning, and I want to know how he is applying them in this case. I appreciate that he is probably busy with other things this weekend; I can wait for his answer.

167. Dude steals a company ship and his son, then he just lets the kid pick where they’re going, knowing that his wife is going to come after him. Instead of trying to put some distance between them and the wife, he sees some unfamiliar bubbles and decides to just stop to check them out. He doesn’t even consider the possibility the ship might have a LoJack on it until after they have spent DAYS just chillin’ with these mysterious membranous space bags, which he finds fascinating because they are giant space bubbles that periodically light up. But he needn’t have worried that much, because his wife is such a good employee that permission to, you know, maybe get her child back is the LAST thing she asks her boss for at a meeting, apparently a lower priority than her boss’ wardrobe.

     Academic wants a crypt opened. He has valid authorization from the Mage-Imperator himself, but the guards’ orders say no. So the Mage-Imperator’s kids just show up because deus ex, beat the crap out of the guards, and make the workers open it. I am not making this up.

     This is the kind of work you think deserves a Hugo?

168. @James May
     If you want to call the SJW’s racist that’s absolutely fine by me, but don’t pretend Vox isn’t just because it pisses off the right people.

169. “This is the kind of work you think deserves a Hugo?”

     Well, those sound more interesting to me than some idiot revenge fantasy set in a world where people in a redneck bar drink gin.

     Just sayin’.

170. “I appreciate that he is probably busy with other things this weekend; I can wait for his answer.”

     Your sense of entitlement is pretty strong, isn’t it?

171. @Doc:

     Violet Beauregarde: Internet Critic

172. @ Mr Whyte –

     In 2011, one thousand six nominating ballots were cast for the Hugos. It was only in the last two years that as many as two thousand nominations were cast. While the voting process is arguably representational of the opinion of those who voted, the insanely narrow voting pool makes for a distinctly slanted outcome. Over the last ten years, between 12 and 17 novels – of all the thousands published annually – have received 5% of the nominating ballots. This reflects an incredibly narrow slice of SFF. Attempting to call foul on SP as being “undemocratic” in selection of their list is spitting into the hurricane of the larger issue – the tiny portion of fans who had any clue that they could indeed cast a vote for the books they thought best.

     @ Harry

     Why such reluctance to use the r-word when referring to Vox? “Controversial,” “dickhead,” “has opinions I don’t agree with” – can’t we just drop the politician language and call him a racist?

     Because the people leading the charge to have VD labeled so have also attempted to slap that brand on Brad Torgersen, and show every intent of using it to slander anyone who stands still long enough to get the paint thrown on them. They have surrendered their chance at having their judgement taken seriously in any such matter.

     If people want to have a discussion about VD and what he thinks, go find him and talk to him. You’re wasting time here with your demonizations.

173. Well, Harry, it’s also a matter of proportion isn’t it? Do you see us writing blog posts where we light up black folks in SFF which say “Black people, please stop it” and then line up to congratulate that?

     I could at least see your point if some one – anyone – of the SJWs said that daffy woman in Manilla is off base, like quite a few SPs do about Day. But no – they lined up to gush over that troubled woman’s racist comments.

     As long as there is no single standard for this sort of thing, there’ll be trouble.

     Right now SJWs are going after two guys and lying about two others. Meanwhile the flood of rancid SJW comments gets to skate clean away. Do you see us creating entire anthologies which define colonialism as non-white and then write racial revenge fantasies where we murder Arabs and Ottomans? Do you see any of us asking for advice on how to “de-black” our libraries? Do you see any of us suggesting laying off women’s SFF for a year? Do we have editors saying lesbians should come with trigger warnings for arrogance? Do we have reviewers who’ve declared they won’t review black women?

     Can you find even one quote in SFF where a book is recommended because it’s by a white, man or heterosexual to offset the flood of quotes going the other way – and DAILY?

     In a court room one lays out a case. Right now SJWs look like a racist syndicate and our side might have a couple of burglars. The fact SJWs assert the exact opposite shows they are a culture of liars, racists, the stupid and the naive.

174. It’s fascinating to re-read Larry Corriea’s column from April of last year, “An Explanation About The Sad Puppies Controversy” in light of this year’s events. Prescient.

175. @keranih: If the slate process wasn’t actually transparent or democratic, I can live with that. But the person in charge of it says it was, and I want to know what he meant. So far none of the rest of you has been able to explain.

176. What do you suppose happens next?
     The SMOFs change the rules.

177. If the slate process wasn’t actually transparent or democratic, I can live with that. But the person in charge of it says it was, and I want to know what he meant. So far none of the rest of you has been able to explain.

     I don’t think he meant he invented the Internet.

178. Refering to KJA: “The man has not been “perennially overlooked” because of some kind of conspiracy. It’s because his work isn’t good enough to deserve recognition. The fact that you think otherwise casts serious doubts on the legitimacy of your complaints.”

     Some people loved Old Man’s War… other people bounce off it. Some people can’t read Cherryh. Cherryh, for pities sake. They bounce off. I’ve read long internet explanations of why Lois Bujold is a hack. (This was back in the “Space Opera is a dirty word” bad old days of science fiction’s “literary” identity crisis.) *Empirically* enough people are fans of KJA to support his rather impressive career. He’s not making it on first time buyers, he’s making it on repeat sales. The man has a huge fan base.

     So the problem seems to be… unwashed masses vs. snobbish nincompoops.

179. @ Nicholas Whyte

     You haven’t gotten the answer you want, because no one is interested in talking to a racist, sexist, privileged SJB. You know, the mo-fo’s that think they can demand an answer.

     @ Harry

     We’re not Rabid Puppies, and we don’t answer for Vox and the Dread Ilk. You’re lack of reading comprehension tells more about you than us.

     You got a problem with Vox, go talk to him.

180. “@keranih: If the slate process wasn’t actually transparent or democratic, I can live with that. But the person in charge of it says it was, and I want to know what he meant. So far none of the rest of you has been able to explain.”

     Professional pedants can’t be satisfied so… there you go.

     If you can’t see “transparency” in being up front about who did the deciding (Brad), how he did it (a combo of asking for input and limited to work that he had read and could personally advocate), then you can’t see “transparency.” Won’t. After all, Brad probably closed the door when he went to the can one time and all his thinking was inside his head.

     Do you really think that people aren’t smart enough to see the games involved in your demands?

181. ” But the person in charge of it says it was, and I want to know what he meant.”

     He doesn’t owe anything to you.

     “So far none of the rest of you has been able to explain.”

     Nor do we.

182. “Do you really believe that there is a gay feminazi movement that wants to destroy the white man?”

     Seeing as well respected, employed professionally as feminists in Gender Studies programs, people with doctorates, do professionally teach pretty much exactly that… I don’t think that the word “believe” is appropriate. “All heterosexual sex is rape.” Reasonable statement? Yet, these people aren’t laughed at, they’re cocooned in approval. “Heterosexual sex is how men control women”… same. Also academic (and completely unscientific) arguments that biologically reproductive sex is unnatural, that all women are really lesbians, every single one of us, seem to be viewed, not as fringe crazy-pants ranting, but thoughtful and interesting intellectual work.

     Maybe they are being laughed at… but maybe the feminists laughing at them need to laugh a little louder.

183. Mr. Whyte is now at the foot-stamping and screeching stage. I expect the flouncing stage to follow forthwith.

184. Julie,

     I actually made it all the way through Cherryth’s Morgaine Cycle, and I’m reasonably certain it took at least eighteen months off any Purgatory I may end up serving – so much rain and self-flagellation.

     I actually shudder when my gaze goes past it on the bookshelf; yet I cannot find it inside myself to take it to Half-Price and subject some unknowing sap with it.

185. Liars. Your hand was caught in the cookie jar today. Copies of Correia’s tweets from Jan and Sept directly courting Gamergate. https://twitter.com/sinboy/status/589798898325188608 You lie and lie, Brad. Lie and lie. An absolute disgrace.

186. @Nicholas Whyte: Don’t worry, when we require an independent auditor we will *not* contact you, since you are clearly not independent…

187. Burns: see my comment, about not arguing with third-grade mentalities.

     Also: since when did “GamerGate” become bogeyword for “All evil in the known universe”??

     In other news: Honey Badgers thrown out, for disagreeing on a panel.

     The world, it is going crazy for nothing.

188. In the meantime, the owner of Black Gate announces he withdraws from Hugo consideration as Best Fanzine. It’s not clear whether it will be struck from the ballot, since Sasquan previously stated the ballot was locked on April 16:
     http://file770.com/?p=21975

     It was not in the Sad Puppies list, but it was in the Rabid Puppies’. That seems to confirm that VD was not looking at the candidate’s ideology before putting them on his list, since the owner of that fanzine is a well-know social justice bully. Here you can see him, doing what SJBs do best:
     http://www.blackgate.com/2014/06/05/an-open-letter-to-dave-truesdale/

189. Geez, John. You totally missed where Sarah Hoyt had whole blog posts supporting Gamer Gate.

     I realize that to the perpetually hyperventilating the term “Gamer Gate” is the epitome of all evil… that way you never ever have to actually engage with people who have different ideas than you. GG is the thing that must be shunned or else you’ve “supported doxxing and harassing women and probably swatting and rape, too”, and also the University of Utah is supposed to treat Anita with the same security accommodations as the president of the united states or it’s exactly like harassment and support of death threats…. gosh… I just realized that you missed an entire fisking, long from, from Larry Correia on his blog related to that.

     Sadpuppies predates gamer gate. Simply put. Science fiction and games naturally overlap. Simply put. GG is the Boogie Man… Boogie Boogie… monster under your bed… all the things that you want to hate. None of this has to appeal to reality because it’s all a positional good… it’s about positioning yourself as being good. It’s a commodity. If you can shriek like a little girl loud enough you get a cookie.

190. Brad,

     GG is responsible for all society’s maladies:

     GG caused last year’s Ebola outbreak.

     GG is responsible for the Blizzard of 1967.

     GG caused little Suzy Smith to lose her grip on her Ella balloon at the park last week.

     GG is a known producer of dioxin, CFCs, and ragweed pollen.

     GG is non-compostable, non-recyclable, non-renewable, and icky.

191. The Honey Badger thing is unfrickingbelievable. Or perhaps *too* believable.

     Answering a question, expressing a different point of view, and having a booth that is visual testament to the existence of alternate points of view is… harassment and grounds for life banishment.

     Hazzah!

     Raging Flame Nozzles of Tolerance strike again, and pat themselves on the back for it. Whoo hoo!

192. Flaming Rage Nozzels… Flaming RAGE… I’ve now become whole-word dyslexic.

193. @ Orgell

     Philistine. You are dead to me. Your inability to appreciate the depths of the subtle investigation of the inter-dynamics of the working and emotional pairbond between the socially isolated Mogaine – herself both an oppressed female and the sole survivor (ie: ultra-minority) of a technologically advanced culture, as well as the agent of an oppressive genocidal regime – and the separately disadvantaged Vanye – a younger male subjected to constant bigotry due to his illegitimate birth, who is still the physical and martial superior to Morgaine, yet finds himself forced into an inferior status due to circumstances beyond his control – all this tells us nothing of the stellar multi-volume work in question but only speaks to the flat barren terrain of your soul.

     Also there are ponies, which make all things better in SFF.

     Go gate yourself, you unrepentant heretic.

     (More seriously – I love CJC’s stuff like the Rider series and Morgaine and much of Foreigner, etc. Cyteen I bounced off like a rubber ball. There is no accounting for taste. Please, do tell me something you do like that has won a Hugo.)

194. One good thing of the success of SP3 is that it has renewed my interest for the Hugos. And I’m reading more just-published SF.

195. One thing that I’m starting to be very concerned about is that the Hugo trophy is obviously a white, hetero-cisnormative, privileged, and very male sexual organ. It represents patriarchal repression. White people, please stop!
     😛

196. @keranih,

     Perhaps she caught me at a bad few days; I did enjoy the Mri Wars part of that setting.

     As to Hugo winners that I’ve read – and liked – I would have to say most of the pre-2K I have enjoyed, but I am mottled and shattered to say that I haven’t read Robinson’s Mars books,nor any of Willis’, and I must have read Hyperion at some point, but I seem to have blanked the experience out.

     Post-2K, here and there, but have been veering into more Pratchett, as well as older Smith, Chalker, White, and Co., as well as Webber and Ringo (within certain boundaries; I stopped a couple chapters into the first Paladin of Shadows, and noped outta there.), and whoever catches my fancy at the store.

197. keranih, I think that Cyteen was probably the first thing that I read of Cherryh’s and since she’s one of my favorite authors I obviously didn’t bounce off. I *understand* that some people do. I’m just glad that she got published anyway or we’d be a whole lot poorer for it.

198. Since we’re discussing Cherryh now, I have to admit that “Paladin” is one of my go to books when I want an uplift. I also looked at when I wanted to see how a woman can do a man’s point of view when I wanted to figure out how to do a woman’s point of view.

     I’ve read the Morgaine series, but it’s been so long that I forgot most of it.

     Loved her stuff.

199. Always interesting to see people who insist they just want to see everybody be judged as individuals turn around and judge all feminists by the most extreme things said by the most extreme examples.

     I suppose the people who suppose that every single person who holds viewpoints they disagree with are a devotee and disciple of Saul Alinksy (a man who has been dead for forty years and is at this point far more widely studied and breathlessly quoted by the right than by the left) also fall into that category.

     Really, this whole thing is a wonderful study in projection.

     I mean, you fixed the Hugo nominations to prove an imagined “other side” was doing the same thing. Any tactics are acceptable if you can convince yourself the other side would use them. Any evidence that the other side isn’t in fact using them can be written off as the incompetence of the other side. Ah, that other side! So wily, yet so stupid! Isn’t that always the way with other sides?

     You can understand why people might not want to read or reward John Scalzi if they see him as kind of a jerk, but if anyone dares to suggest they might not have any desire to read the works of a man who literally believes that the racial categories dreamed up by white supremacists represent actual genetic subspecies with scientifically quantifiable levels of intelligence and civilization*, this is suddenly unacceptable. It’s almost like the people in this community endorse certain viewpoints as protected and allowable, while other viewpoints are forbidden completely.

     On the subject of forbidenness: Julie Pascal, acknowledging privilege doesn’t forbid you from making judgments about people as individuals. It just gives you one more thing to consider when doing so. It allows you to look at a more complete picture. What you’re saying, on the other hand, is that you would forbid people to consider any larger societal context.

     Why, Julie? Why can’t you trust people to make up their own minds about what to take into account? And why wouldn’t the approach that takes the most information into account produce the most accurate conclusions? Why would you have us shackle our brains, close off our eyes and ears, and only look at the approved aspects of reality instead of the whole picture?

     For that matter, we might wonder why someone who champions the idea of treating individuals as individuals advocates controlling the books that boys are allowed to read, in order to protect them from, ahem, “sissification”.

     If you actually believed what you seemed to be suggesting about an innate difference between boys and girls that transcends socialization, then wouldn’t we simply be able to pile all the books between them and then trust their natural tendencies to work out what books they’re “supposed” to be reading?

     I guess that innate nature still needs a gardener to do some pruning of young minds. Luckily there are staunch moral guardians like Julie to protect the children from being exposed to the wrong ideas! Boys and girls might get the idea that they are free to be anything they want, not simply what we approve of!

     Thank you, moral guardians!

     *Wow, this gets really cumbersome when we can’t just sum this up as “racist” but I understand that some opinions are just too dangerous to be aired.

200. You built the Rabid Puppies, Brad. You and Larry brought them to the table — went to great lengths drag them to the table. You tried to drag Gamergate here too. You’re responsible for everything and anything either Rabid Puppies or GG do while they’re here.

201. Cherryh is one of those authors I waited a while to like.

     Morgaine is a Stargate story from before Stargate was invented (if Jack were a woman with a horse and an sf sword). Vanyel is her alien recruit (except not everything looks like Vancouver). Everything else pretty much boils down to typical Seventies Suffering, except that it doesn’t really lapse into overt hurt/comfort fanfic, and Morgaine never gets Oppressed like your usual Seventies fantasy heroine. I’d read The Pride of Chanur trilogy even earlier, and enjoyed it just fine.

     I think I’d turned 30 by the time I was able to get into Cherryh’s main sf universe, which was kinda sad because the books weren’t quite as easily available in the used bookstores and libraries as when I was younger. I read Cyteen but wasn’t overly impressed. Downbelow Station was okay. Weirdly, I liked Serpent’s Reach best. I haven’t felt much need to read all the Foreigner books, though, or any of the really long fantasies. Paladin is kind of a waste, as it features a Seventies fantasy heroine who is Oppressed, except in the Nineties.

     You have to be in the right mood for Cherryh, and even then, it usually takes a couple chapters to really warm up to the story. Some time, I intend to reread by skipping the first chapters of books, and see if that works better.

202. @Alexandra Erin
     I do not judge all feminists by the most extreme things said by the most extreme examples. I criticize social justice bullies. If by feminist you mean someone who thinks that women should have the same rights as men, then not only don’t I criticize them: I’m one of them.

203. @John Henry Burns
     And another troll for the collection… *yawn*

204. John Henry Burns — Fine. Then the phone company is responsible for every prank phone call, swatting, and stalker. It’s their fault for letting people know they can buy access to communications.

     While we’re at it, let’s shame that Alexander Graham Bell, for letting people know that the physics existed, such they could call people on the phone! He’s also responsible for every Internet crime that took place in the days of dialup modems!

205. @ Orgell –

     Oh, I did love the Miri Wars. (and @ Angus Trim – yes, to Paladin.) I came very late to “Pterry” – first through the collaboration with Neil Gaiman “Good Omens” – and then I got handed “Small Gods” and “Night Watch”, so my perspective of TP is not so much that he is “funny” as he is “heart wrenching” and “affecting”. I do like a great deal of his stuff.

     @ Julie – I’ve named my favs, but there is also a number of others I liked ever so much. I would note that ponies also show up in Cyteen, and I loved that passage.

     I think it’s possible to adore a particular writer and yet have a couple things that they’ve written which one doesn’t like at all. (I think this the mark of an author who has been trying to push their own boundaries, and not just rest comfortably on what they have demonstrated they can do well.)

     (OTOH – this also means that any given writer who is pushing their boundaries can write something that some readers will love – even if nothing else by that author appeals. The writer is not the work.)

206. Excellent article by Sarah Hoyt:
     http://madgeniusclub.com/2015/04/15/the-dogs-you-lie-down-with/

     By now the hysterical reaction of the anti-puppies proves that there’s something seriously wrong, not only in the Hugos, but also in the heads of people who react that way because others vote in a way they dislike.

207. An even better article here

     http://www.jasonsanford.com/blog/2015/4/on-screaming-were-not-vd-while-not-mentioning-your-relationship-with-vd

     And for what that’s worth, they’re speaking the truth. They are not Vox Day.

     But what they’re not talking about is their relationship with Vox Day.

     There’s an old strategy at play here, one used to force people to do or give you what you want. Sometimes called good cop/bad cop, it involves one person appearing to be reasonable while the other person makes the threats — even though both people are seeking the same or similar outcomes.

     Basically, you let someone else be the heavy. You let that person threaten to destroy everything others love unless you get your way. That way you don’t have your fingerprints all over the nasty nasty bad stuff.

208. Hey there CPaca

     Let’s see if I can get this straight. You’re admitting to being as racist as Jemisin, because you, like all SJB’s have a relationship with her on the left side of SFF. By the same token, you’re admitting to owning up to the racist/ sexist rants of Tempest Bradley. Or the cyber bullying of Theresa Hayden. Or the bigotry and punching down of “Requires Hate”.

     You see, when you try and put us in bed with Vox, you’re just admitting to being in bed with the hundreds of SJB’s that make Vox look like a saint.

209. “Basically, you let someone else be the heavy. You let that person threaten to destroy everything others love unless you get your way. That way you don’t have your fingerprints all over the nasty nasty bad stuff.”

     I think this is called…. wait for it… PROJECTION.

210. Most of the ‘Listen and Believe’ crowd is confused by the notion that different groups of people can move in the same general direction without being in lockstep with each other, and without overseers making examples of people leading with their right foot.

211. “Always interesting to see people who insist they just want to see everybody be judged as individuals turn around and judge all feminists by the most extreme things said by the most extreme examples.”

     Bullshit, Alexandra.

     I don’t know how many times I’ve had a “shut up and listen” feminist explain to me that feminism is only about equality. Well then, bucko, the success has been successful and it’s time to pack up and go home. The crazy-pants man-haters exist, they’re loud, they’re not even unusual. Young women who’ve seen nothing but unfathomable privilege in their lifetimes will go on at length explaining what they deserve because of the patriarchy. If someone points out… Hey privilege! Hey PIV is rape, mkay?… Hey so-and-so said that she took martial arts to defend herself… burn her at the stake victim blamer!

     But no really… pointing this out is judging “all feminists by the most extreme things”.

     But if you take away those “extreme things” what have you got left to fight for? We won. Women, in particular, white upper middle class American women in 2015 are the most privileged beings in the entire universe. Simple objective fact.

212. Gamergate can be summed up in this quote from Robert Stacy McCain:

     “FEMINIST LOGIC: 1. Constantly denounce males. 2. Males object to being denounced. 3. This proves men are haters.”

     Brianna Wu, Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn are not critiquing games, they are critiquing men.

     As for Miss Erin, I can tell you for a fact I don’t cherry-pick quotes by feminists. What I have done is read them. Simone de Beauvoir, Monique Wittig, Kate Millet, Audre Lorde, Andrea Dworkin, Susanbrownmiller, Shulamith Firestone, Charlotte Bunch and many more. Far from being outliers, the quotes I choose are those which most sum up the fundamental concerns of this brand of gender feminism then and in SFF today. I have yet to see one SJW disavow the ideas behind them. In fact, through blog posts, Tweets and webzines like Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Lightspeed, they never cease regurgitating the central dogma of of intersectional gender theory. How is accurately quoting the people they themselves constantly cite as their heroes in any way “extreme”? I agree they are extreme, the problem is you don’t. Do you disavow Donna Haraway, Audre Lorde, Charlotte Bunch, Peggy McIntosh and Judith Butler as a bunch of loons? I do.

     Who then are your icons? Tell us and I’ll come up with quotes that are in lock step with everything I have written. The idea these people (or you) are Germaine Greer or Betty Friedan-style equal rights feminists is ridiculous. Do you disavow “white privilege,” with is the centerpiece of gay feminist icon Audre Lorde and SJW dialogues in SFF? It’s pretty obvious from your comments you do not.

     Do you disavow Alex Dally MacFarlane’s posts at TorCom about Ancillary Justice and the binary in SFF, because each is fundamental French Queer Theory about the abolition of gender and in perfect keeping with every quote by radical feminists I have ever presented.

     “Ancillary Justice is not about gender, which is a strength: it normalises non-gendered people and doesn’t present a narrative in which they are exceptional, strange or a source of curiosity.” – Alex Dally MacFarlane

     “SJW” is a term completely interchangeable with French Queer Theory racial intersectionalism. It is their default orthodoxy and that dialogue pervades their rhetoric. Do you deny that? Do you deny heterosexuality is a fake construct the patriarchy uses to oppress women? Just say so. It’s obvious from your quote about “transcends socialization” that is exactly what you believe.

     So tell me what quotes I’ve listed which are “extreme.” I’ll prove to you they are not in any way extreme either in radical feminism or SJW thoughts about “social justice” in SFF, from John (white privilege) Scalzi, to Jim (rape culture) Hines, to M. Robinette Kowal to K. Tempest Bradford and N. K. Jemisin. They – and you – are on the same page. No one has enrolled you or them in a club; their own rhetoric has.

213. “For that matter, we might wonder why someone who champions the idea of treating individuals as individuals advocates controlling the books that boys are allowed to read, in order to protect them from, ahem, “sissification”.”

     You’re amazing Alexandra. Truly amazing. Since you didn’t quote me I’m gonna guess what you were responding to. I (unfairly, no doubt) objected to the typification of the Monster Hunter books as “juvenile male power fantasies.” (From memory, but I think that was close.) Instead of insisting that they weren’t “juvenile male power fantasies” I (unfairly, no doubt) suggested that the clear *negative moral judgement” involved in that charge likely influenced “Librarian” when suggesting books to boys. After all “juvenile male power fantasies” are BAD. Right? And “getting the girl”, ie., “juvenile reproductive success fantasies” is even worse.

     Because it’s BAD when boys enjoy a story about being strong and powerful and killing monsters and protecting the world and saving the universe and getting the girl.

     Which blows my mind. How are those things bad? How is this phrase “juvenile male power fantasy” assumed to be pejorative? Why? How twisted is that?

     What I NEVER so much as implied, thank you, is that boys shouldn’t be able to choose to read whatever they want to choose to read. That I feel it’s damaging to them to make a crime out of perfectly normal enjoyment of reading a book (or playing a video game) where they get to kick ass and take names, blow stuff up, and save the universe… and get the girl. It’s an entirely healthy fantasy. Lots of girls share it, FYI. Kick ass, take names, blow stuff up, save the universe… followed by the implication of reproductive success.

     And for this I get accused of… wanting to LIMIT THE BOOKS BOYS CAN READ.

     I think someone famous wrote a whole novel about changing the meanings of words to their opposites. Saying boys should not be discouraged from enjoying perfectly normal power fantasies now becomes, by “feminist equality magic”, a call to force boys to read only one kind of books, instead of whatever they’d like to read.

     This particular willful illogic and unreason is probably why women shouldn’t vote… no, I’m kidding, but dear freaking dog woman… hello? I said something you didn’t like so you LIED about me.

214. Really… how does complaining about an agenda (yes, it’s an agenda) to criminalize and denigrate “juvenile male power fantasies”… and calling it an attempt at sissification of boys… and once you see it you see it all over… “OMG, my little boy likes Iron Man… how can I get him to stop wanting to be a hero! OMG, patriarchy!” And you can not convince me that “Oh, Librarian used the term because he thinks it’s a GOOD thing…”

     How does complaining about that turn into a demand that boys be force-fed manliness content?

     Unless it’s… “I know all those people I hate are fascists since I can read minds…”

215. “If you actually believed what you seemed to be suggesting about an innate difference between boys and girls that transcends socialization,..”

     BTW… if there aren’t innate differences between boys and girls that transcend socialization then we can just *socialize* all transgendered people to an acceptable expression of their identity.

     I mean… do you ever bother to think through the consequences of what you believe is true?

216. Here’s a test Miss Erin. These are quotes from the introduction to Judith Butler’s 1990 book Gender Trouble. It is impossible for me to cherry-pick them.

     “One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one.” – Simone de Beauvoir

     “Strictly speaking, ‘women’ cannot be said to exist.” – Julia Kristeva

     “Woman does not have a sex.” – Luce Irigaray

     “The deployment of sexuality . . . established this notion of sex.” – Michel Foucault

     “The category of sex is the political category that founds society as heterosexual.” – Monique Wittig

     Do you disavow those quotes as extreme? Do you deny that concept of gender abolition is central to your own feminist ideology or that it is one of the centerpieces of SJW SFF thought? How then does Ancillary Justice – which is Judith Butler 101 – have an unprecedented awards sweep if it is not same page throughout core SFF thoughts about “social justice”? The plot? Don’t make me laugh. It was first and foremost reviewed as a work of gender abolition. One has only to Google the original reviews to see that. Gender abolition is also core to Anita Sarkeesian’s ideology. Her quotes have reflected that many times. Sarkeesian is not an equal rights feminist – she is an intersectional gender feminist – two completely different things.

     Sarkeesian says “we don’t want equality within these oppressive systems,” and by “systems” she means the patriarchy. Her quotes about “toxic masculinity” as a “performed” identity are not hard to find. The idea of the “performed,” as you likely know, is again Judith Butler French Queer Theory 101 – the idea of the “performative” – that masculinity is fake and in truth humanity defaults to androgyny, not binary sexes. Not only that, Sarkeesian and all gender feminists believe that needs to be abolished to bring justice into the world on a global level.

     This is what gender feminists mean by “sexism,” as opposed to equal rights feminist’s idea of sexism as laughing at the idea of a woman fork-lift driver. They are two completely different things and explains why SJWs consider ALL of Golden Age SFF to be “sexist.” Those straight white males are not laughing at women, they are quaintly locked into Elizabeth Bear’s world of “medieval horrors… dentistry without anesthetic, binary gender, and as being stuck forever in the body you were born in, locked in and struggling against what your genes dictated.'”

     Sarkeesian recently cited bell hooks as one of her biggest influences.

     “Queer theory helps everyone to understand gender as performance” – bell hooks.

     “Masculinity is a socially constructed and performed gender identity” – Anita Sarkeesian

     I will say this again. There is no greater number than 100%, and I have shown you ALL of last year’s Nebula winners and the most important Hugo winners were supporters of radical gender feminist intersectionalism. It is their passion. I can prove that with quotes from the authors themselves. Even the least of them – Charles Stross – has guest hosted gay Hild author Nicola Griffith and her stupid comments about “angry white boys sitting around in their white-wall buzz cuts eating white bread and watching Leave It To Beaver,” and supported Farah Mendlesohn and Seanan McGuire’s specifically radical feminist “white dude” stance of routing Jonathan Ross out of the Hugos gig. SJWs are all fanatically on the side of Anita Sarkeesian as well.

217. The best thing that can be said about John Henry Burns is that he isn’t Clamps.

     And that’s not a high bar to clear.

218. Julie you’ve hit it right on the money and have exposed the self-contradiction in gender feminism which shows its resentments precede logic.

     Lesbian-centric gender feminism is basically saying men can be cured of their masculinity and heterosexuality. However those same feminists maintain “curing” lesbians is bigotry. Somehow THAT gender performance is natural, but a thing they otherwise assert isn’t possible. Either it’s all fake or none of it is. Judith Butler actually addresses this dissonance in her book. If one looks at those quotes from Butler’s book, then lesbianism is a performance as well.

     It all brings us right back to square one: mother nature, a thing French Queer Theory denies and detests. Animals breed to survive. End of story. Whether these goofy intellectuals like it or not (and they don’t) THAT is normal. THAT is also why gender feminists use the term “cisnormative” as if they’d just seen a spider.

     “Intersectionalism” expanded on this idea of the “normative.” In the PDF John Scalzi links us to it includes oppressions such as “age, attractiveness, body type, caste, citizenship, education, ethnicity, height and weight assessments, immigration status, income, marital status, mental health status, nationality, occupation, physical ability, religion, sex, sexual orientation.”

     Where the bigotry creeps in is this idea of “the multiplicatively privileged,” the “‘white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure.'” That last bit in double quotes is from Audre Lorde. This is what the former president of the SFWA was selling then and when he was president. SJW ideology is obsessed with straight white males being an oppressive group of homophobic, privileged, Islamophobic, misogynistic racists.

     This is SJW ideology and their “feminism.” I support equal rights feminism but this is a cult of racism, bigotry and supremacism passed off as “social justice.” A sucker is born every minute.

     I admit I find the sheer Orwellian anti-racism racism element of SJW logic endlessly fascinating. They are some of the biggest and weirdest boobs to ever come down the pike.

     Intersectional activists like Suey Park (remember Steven Colbert?) retweet reminders like “Whiteness is only invisible to those who inhabit it” and “Feminist Theory would not exist had it not been for radical Black women (particularly Black lesbians). Audre Lorde, Bell Hooks, Angela Davis, Barbara Smith, Kimberle Crenshaw, Flo Kennedy, Alice Walker, Patricia Hill Collins, Dorothy Roberts, Shirley Chisholm, etc. Never fucking forget that.” And of course…

     “Suey Park @suey_park · Nov 1 Asian women must forge coalitions with women of color in order to undermine not only white supremacy, but patriarchy. #SilentAsianWoman”

     “Do we really need more men explaining feminism to women? Do we need ANY? Go explain it to other men if you’re so inclined. #OrJustListen” – current SFWA president Steven Gould

     “I had never questioned or thought of heterosexuality as an institution. Now, I began to understand that everything I had thought was ‘natural’ was a vicious lie maintained to keep women down… As I experienced the combined exhiliration of loving a woman and knowing I could change, I thought all women would come out, change and be as happy as I was… I realized that every fuck is a rape even if it feels nice because every man has power and privilege over women, whether he uses it blatantly or subtly. My ‘liberated’ husband kept me down.” – radical feminist and colleague of Charlotte Bunch, Sharon Deevey.

     “SFF has historically been very white, very straight, very cisgender, very Western, and very male. For a long time it’s been an uncomfortable place to be if you’re a member of any marginalized group. Not only has the overall atmosphere been toxic to a significant degree, but the doors have been solidly closed to marginalized authors.” – Sarah Wanenchak

     I’m sorry to keep writing such long comments but this is a rich cornucopia of madness. These people are completely off their rockers.

219. Speak of the devil and he starts trolling . . .

220. I do wish Brad would invest in some e-saucers-of-beer…

221. Boys and girls are different. I say this as a woman who is, in many ways, more like a “boy” than a “girl.” The reason I can so easily resist the crazy-pants elements of feminism is probably that my very first experience of it while a child in school was listening to the ways that education was supposed to change to make it “better for girls.” Every single one of which seemed purposely designed to make my school life even more like hell. All the things that I *could* do well… were wrong. All of the ways that I *was* a success… and there really weren’t that many… were wrong.

     From the perspective of many many years between then and now I know that lots and lots of women are “like me.” I find all of the many ways society attempts to infantilize me extremely frustrating… and no… feminists aren’t on my side in this since they’re the ones doing it. They’re still trying to “fix” life so it’s better for girls… Just not the girls who are me. And if I’m more comfortable in male environments it’s pretty clear that they’re doing the same things to boys and men.

     Society has spent my lifetime upset at men for the most trival of things… opening doors… yes, it’s wrong to open doors. Using the term “lady”. Paying for dinner. Scorn the man who thinks it might be amazing to save someone someday with his concealed carry because he has the audacity, the wrong-think, to view himself as a force for good in the world. Doesn’t he realize he’s an unimportant doofus with delusions of grandeur? The boy who wants to be Iron Man… the Hero… because being a hero is about individualistic glory seeking. Bad. Think. Bad. Boy.

222. “Dandy MxFopperson (Rose Fox) retweeted Robot Hugs @RobotHugsComic · 11h 11 hours ago The @ALALibrary included me in a bibliography on media representations of non binary gender identities! Eeee! http://www.glbtrt.ala.org/news/archives/1803 …”

     Who gives a shit? When did this truly bizarre obsession become science fiction? And this isn’t just some weird fringe – this is the Hugos and Nebulas today.

     “Dandy MxFopperson retweeted Jeanne @fangirlJeanne · 9h 9 hours ago Side note: I would REALLY love more research and discussions about ableism and gender lead by autistic trans/non-binary people.”

     I’d love for you to stop talking about it for one year, cuz these versions of Ringworld or Star Wars are a sleeping pill unless you’re nuts.

223. 

224. How very convenient to dismiss any uncomfortable argument with “not discussing with third graders”. I bet that has been Brad’s great comeback line ever since he managed to get into 4th grade.

     It is obvious that you all need to fabricate some victim status for yourselves to deal with your frustrations and failures and that a rational discussion is not possible, because you think you are the keepers of the secret universal truth.

     By now it has become clear, that you either played a good cop/bad cop game with Vox Day all along, or that you thought you could make him your useful idiot but then got turned into his.

225. By now it has become clear that you really, REALLY, can’t understand us not being a monolithic block of opposition, and clearly can’t imagine that there would be more than one group.

226. David Gerrold writes:
     >anyone too closely identified with the sad-rabids, anyone who benefited from this slate-mongering, anyone who did not publicly withdraw, will be indelibly tainted. Fans have long memories. (…)
     Those who have been tainted will find that they have put unnecessary obstacles in their own paths. There are editors who will not want the stink that certain authors will be tracking with them. There are conventions that will not invite them to be on panels. There are awards they can never be considered for, lest others wonder if there was a political agenda at work. There are websites and fanzines and podcasts that will choose not to interview them <
     —-

     There it is, clearly spelled for anyone who wishes to see it. This kind of tactics, although rarely so plainly spoken, has been used in the last few years against any thoughtcriminal who is not willing to at least keep silent. Sad Puppies was started by a group of people who said "this is not right, and we are not willing to be silenced. We just do not care about your petty threats."

     What a hate-filled man.

227. Dear David,

     Supporters of the slates will have a long memory too, and will recall which of the ‘old ones’ opposed anything like it and had snide and snarky things to say..

     and by the way, your Hugo was twenty years ago.

228. Starting to read the nominees…

     Read Terms of Enlistment. It was good enough that I bought Lines of Departure. It was good enough I went to amazon looking for book 3… only to find out that it won’t be released until tomorrow.

     (Insert-silly-Khaaaaaaan!-gif-here-to-demonstrate-tribal-membership.)

     Ah, well. Next author.

229. David is undoubtedly correct about a rules fight. You can ban overt slates but that only encourages covert ones, which is what Sad Puppies alleges happens now. The problem is it’s too easy to nominate so I suspect the solution will be restricting voting to attending members.

230. Is any piece of information Librarian hasn’t read and we have constitute a fabrication?

     As for Gerrold, he is a writer who can’t parse the meaning of words. He is yet another SJW convinced years of racial incitement and man-hatred against all ethnic Europeans and men on Earth is an anti-oppression movement. That’s the kind of anti-oppression movement where you hold all black folks responsible for what the worst of them do, even if it’s 100 or 300 years ago. Don’t expect any sharp SF from a mind like that.

231. Gerrold needs to go to the Twitter feeds of fangirljeanne, Rose Fox and Aliette de Bodard right this very minute and see what it is they talk about every day and how they interact with each other.

     It’s men, men, men, whites, whites, whites. It’s pretty clear they consider white men an inferior species. Expand that out to the whole crew. It’s non-stop. It is no fabrication. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out how those people vote for awards or promote fiction. It’s race and sex, NOT talent. Fox is an editor and reviews editor at Publisher’s Weekly. De Bodard a multiple award-winner. This stink is institutionalized at every level of core SFF.

232. Julie, thanks for your answer, though I must admit I was hoping that Brad would clarify in person.

     “transparency” in being up front about who did the deciding (Brad), how he did it (a combo of asking for input and limited to work that he had read and could personally advocate), then you can’t see “transparency.”

     So, as I understand your account, the transparency consists in the fact that Brad read it and kinda liked it, and in some cases his memory was jogged by the discussion here. If you’re happy to call that a transparent process, well, I’m happy for you.

     Also, as I understand our account, Brad was the sole decider as to the contents of the slate. Do you consider this a “democratic selection system”? It looks to me like only one person got to vote. I’m not trying to slam the slate as “undemocratic” – in my view that would be a category error; but I am trying to understand what is meant by the words as they have been used here.

233. Nicholas Whyte: You are picking at a process in a very obvious attempt to criticize. It was a casual thing, partly a joke to many of the participants. It was not designed to withstand this kind of rules-weeiness. Someone says on a blog, “I’m putting together a list of recommendations for the Hugos. Anybody have anything to contribute?” or something of the sort, and you try to pretend it was some sort of formal established voting process, or ought to have been.

     Your posts are coming across strongly as elaborate concern trolling. Remember, *nobody* had any expectation of sweeping the nominations, and without Rabid Puppies (which Sad Puppies had no control over), the results would probably have been similar to last year. So this retconning of a demand for more transparency and “democratic” processes is just silly. You seem to be obsessing about the term “democratic”. By the definitions you’re waving about, it wasn’t. Maybe that word shouldn’t have been used, but this is really trivial. Please move on.

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235. Karin,

     Sure. The retconning (excellent choice of word!) wasn’t mine; it was Brad’s in the original post at the top of this thread. But if we are agreed that he was incorrect to describe the process as democratic and transparent, I am happy to leave it there.

236. Nicholas

     Are you a Sad Puppies supporter? If not, then this is no concern of yours.

     You strike me as another SJB trolling around to see if you can’t find a way to create division and a problem. If you’re at all the fair person you paint yourself, start at Making Light.

237. Nicholas Whyte: your efforts to manufacture a Gotcha grow tiresome.

     The vote to award the Hugo should be democratic (one paid-up member, one vote), just as Brad said. But if we’re going to have slates of candidates nominated, then obviously the slate will not be democratic. Last year’s Sad Puppies slate were the works LARRY thought were worthy. This year’s slate are the works BRAD thinks are worthy. The slate is selected by the person who writes it, in his sole discretion, from which there is no appeal, and that’s exactly how it should be.

     If you don’t like the Sad Puppies slate, you shouldn’t vote for it. You should vote for the Tor Books slate, or the John Scalzi slate or start your own.

     But should there be slates at all? Ah, that’s precisely the point Sad Puppies was formed to make: there HAVE BEEN slates of nominees in the recent past, but covert and based on political correctness. Sad Puppies’ slate is overt and based on quality of the writing.

     Who could oppose that?

238. Nicolas… seriously dude. You’re going to continue to harp on the exact meanings of words? Look in the dictionary… how many words have *one* meaning?

     “Democratic” has several meanings from very general application to very specific. “relating to, appealing to, or available to the broad masses of the people” nothing about slavish adaptation of “one person one vote” there… and also “favoring social equality : not snobbish”. I’m entirely comfortable with Brad’s “democratic” application of requested input while composing the slate.

     “Transparent” has several meanings as well, from specific to general. “free from pretense or deceit : frank” Seems good to me. “easily detected or seen through : obvious” That one, too.
     “readily understood” Good on that one. “characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices” aaaaannnnddd…. check, again. Since Brad has not been in anyway obfuscating anything.

     People aren’t taking you seriously because you’re being a pedantic twit.

239. Hey, what happened to the “Science Fiction’s Civil War” post?

240. I suggest anyone who thinks Brad was wrong for not denouncing Vox day, should go over to Scalzi’s blog and read his little hate fest against Brad & Larry. Man, that guy has a lot of bitterness and anger for someone who’s always posting about how rich, successful, and happy he is.

241. “But should there be slates at all? Ah, that’s precisely the point Sad Puppies was formed to make: there HAVE BEEN slates of nominees in the recent past, but covert and based on political correctness. Sad Puppies’ slate is overt and based on quality of the writing.”

     I don’t know that the point was ever “should there be slates”… but it is an extremely interesting question. As is the question “was the dramatic narrowing of the award on purpose?”

     It’s certainly not my problem to solve but can “direct democracy” (heh… see what I did there) function in a situation with hundreds and hundreds or even thousands of candidates? Is it really possible to sort through that in a one-step process? (Which is, I suppose where the Australian rules thing started.) The voters, each with their solitary vote, can’t possibly be aware of even a fraction of what is out there. So advocacy groups (Time Lords, anyone?) that aren’t even *trying* are going to dominate. And if everyone votes for their friend (or themselves) you end up with one vote for each candidate… maybe two. Unless the friends agree to rotate who they vote for. And if, say, the same artist gets nominated every year, individuals might think… I’ll nominate someone else who is good… but if each of those “someone elses” is a different artist because there are hundreds and hundreds of really amazing artists, the well known guy still ends up nominated. Again.

     The complaints about Sad Puppies 3 started out… How dare you not vote for the Heinlein biography? The answer to that is… well, why didn’t *you* vote for it? Why didn’t you nominate Three Body Problem? The answer to that is also, well, why didn’t *you* nominate Three Body Problem?

     The same problem still exists… there’s TOO MUCH. Good stuff gets missed. So if the goal is how to not miss the good stuff, then there has to be a way of crowdsourcing a pre-sorting gathering of information… all in time for people to read what they’d never known about *and* have a little back-and-forth about what they like best or feel is most worthy.

     Ideally, it would be possible to look at other’s people or group’s “slates” and if there was a novel you’d never even heard of, check it out in time to see if they’d found a gem.

     So maybe “slates” wouldn’t be a bad thing.

242. @Julie –

     Ideally, it would be possible to look at other’s people or group’s “slates” and if there was a novel you’d never even heard of, check it out in time to see if they’d found a gem.

     Exactly. 650+ novels got nominated by at least one person last year…what were they? What made them awesome?

243. Tananarive Due is co-host of this year’s Hugos. Pretend you’re an alien with no dog in the hunt. Go to her Twitter feed and that of Vox Day. Tell me which Twitter feed is more fascinated with their own race and harder on an ethnic group.

     SJWs are idiots and liars, and that’s all they are. They don’t even understand the meaning of words, especially their favorite one’s – like “racist.”

244. The Hugo process lacks the agility to deal with large groups of people and large numbers of potential winners – it’s roughly analogous to trying to use Academy Awards voting methods to determine Best Direct-to-Video Release in the World for 2014.

245. All of this is just smoke and mirrors. The actual issue boils down to this: The Hugos are chosen by people who have paid money to WorldCon to vote in the election. Vox Day’s vote is as good as GRRM’s is as good as Larry Correia’s vote is as good as mine. You have no say in how other people vote. If you don’t like what Vox Day is doing, go out, get another 5,000 like-minded people, have them buy memberships and vote and run roughshod over him. If you don’t like what Larry Correia is doing, go out there and get 5,000 like-minded people, have them buy memberships and vote and run roughshod over him. If you don’t like what you think the SJWs are doing with the Hugos, go out and get 5,000 like-minded people, have them buy memberships and vote and run roughshod over them. Oh wait! That is exactly what they did! Since when is getting more people to vote a bad thing? Right, these are the wrong kind of people. You know something? Vox has a lot of issues, but, unlike a certain darling of the SJW crowd, HE never raped his own children and enabled his spouse to do the same. And if he had, I can guarantee you that the condemnation and distancing that you all seem to want from us would be happening.

     Shut up and vote.

     David

246. You know, I forgot that we’re dealing with the Borg. For a while there I actually thought we were dealing with real human beings. But, with the coordinated assault/ pressure that we’re seeing from multiple fronts, it appears that the Borg have decided that Larry and Brad are weak links, and are putting on pressure at the same time that the libel is continuously being published.

     1. You the have the libel
     2. George RR Martin is requiring an answer from Brad
     3. Whyte is demanding an answer from Brad
     4. The hard core trolls landing on Larry’s site {don’t know how that is working here}
     5. The concern trolls in both places
     6. The trolls that insist that Vox be denounced. Even though everyone has told them that Rabid Puppies are not Sad Puppies. It isn’t stupidity, it’s Borg mental commands to attack
     7. Today Scalzi got his orders, and has posted his own hate fest

     Really, humans wouldn’t do this. It’d be like herding cats. People have better things to do than continue an online kerfuffle forever.

     But the Borg? Give them the command to attack, and they won’t stop.

     Yes, I think the whole thing is coordinated.

247. 😀
     Scalzi has lost his marbles. He is not even pretending to be reasonable in his blog, which is where he usually presented his Dr. Jekyll face.

248. Mr. Torgersen:

     I believe you. Because I believe you, I realized that Vox Day has exploited you for his personal gain. He didn’t really come up with his own list of recommendations, he took yours and edited it to be chock-full of Castalia House publications, to his profit. You can see the analysis at my link.

     Although I disagree with you on a number of points, I believe you put SP3 together in good faith, without an eye to personal gain. Vox Day took your work and your honesty, and turned it into a tool for his own profit. This has been very successful for him, and it would be illogical to assume he won’t do it again next year: he’ll wait for SP4 to be announced, then edit it into an RP2 slate packed with as many Castalia House nominees as he can fit. I know of no way you guys can stop him.

     I have suggested to Sasquan’s Hugo Committee that they rule Castalia House, specifically, as having engaged in ballot-stuffing. I believe that the SF community as a whole can raise money to re-print the ballots, so as not to burden Sasquan further.

     I hope that you can see your way to supporting such an idea, even though it comes from someone opposed to the idea of slate voting. This isn’t about slates, it’s about someone *profiting* from slates, manipulating them for his own gain. The fact that we’ve all been extremely upset (and upsetting) for the past 10 days had made it very difficult to see what’s going on, even when it’s in front of our faces.

     With respect,
     Doctor Science

249. By all means; change the Hugos into “The Best in SF from Approved Authors and Publishers”.

     What could *possibly* go wrong?

250. Doctor Science sez:
     “I have suggested to Sasquan’s Hugo Committee that they rule Castalia House, specifically, as having engaged in ballot-stuffing.”

     Define “ballot stuffing.” I suspect that it boils down to “Someone I don’t like mobilized a bunch of people to vote in ways that I disapprove.” Concern troll is concerned. Fuck off, concern troll. You give us internet trolls a bad name. If, on the other hand, you are suggesting that Vox went out and paid out his own money for hundreds of ballots in hundreds of sockpuppet names and then he personally voted these ballots to get his nominees on the ballot, then let’s see even a whisper of a shadow of a proof of something like that.

     It is not ballot stuffing if someone paid their money and voted (once). Even if Vox Day DID take the SP3 slate and turn it to his own profit, who the fuck appointed you the gatekeeper of what goes on the ballot? Because all those little whisper campaigns in years past (I’m looking at you Scalzi) to get their stuff onto the ballot was purely for good and noble purposes that had not the slightest thing to do with profit or personal aggrandizement.

     Go away and stop bothering us.

     David

251. I thought the Hugos were going to be safe. Tananarive Due might make fun of how fat my white privilege is.

     Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

     Fee-fees!!

     I want Arthur Chu instead.

252. I assume David the Troll is Rabid, not Sad.

     if Vox Day DID take the SP3 slate and turn it to his own profit

     — it might make a difference to Mr. Torgersen, you know. That’s *his* work and good name VD is exploiting.

253. Don’t forget to take your fake concern with you when you leave, Dr. Science.

254. How much does Saturn weigh, Dr. Science?

255. better analogy: Academy voting for best youtube video.

256. “— it might make a difference to Mr. Torgersen, you know. That’s *his* work and good name VD is exploiting.”

     *pow*
     “Quit hitting yourself.”
     *pow*
     “Quit hitting yourself.”
     *pow*
     “Quit hitting yourself.”

     (In other words… Vox couldn’t do it without the help and aid of YOU, Dr. Science. How does it feel to be a footman for evil, Dr. Science?)

257. Dr. Science, you’ve puzzled me. I heard about Sad Puppies. I agree with the premise that Hugo has changed from The Best SF/F into The Best Politically Correct SF/F, which is a perversion of its intent. I bought my own membership to Sasquan. I paid the $40 out of my own pocket and was not reimbursed. I did not read every book on the Rabid Puppies slate but those that I did read and liked, I voted for. Some of them I read but didn’t vote for, because I didn’t like them. I voted for the works I thought were the best SF/F this year and most of them won. So you tell me: did I stuff a ballot? Should my vote be disallowed?

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259. Questions of exploitation become cloudy when it’s impossible to tell who had what motives — at least among the voters proper. I like to think my motives have been constructive. Not pain-free. But constructive. Vox’s may be very different. I honestly don’t devote hours and hours to pondering Vox, for the same reason I don’t devote hours and hours to pondering Scalzi. Some egos simply shouldn’t be fed. I believe if Rabid Puppies did not exist, most of the truly churlish plaintiffs would have invented something else to get upset at Larry and me for. If Sad Puppies did not exist, Vox would be doing what he does anyway — and still not care. (shrug)

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