Wednesday, April 30, 2014

IF I DON'T WIN AN AWARD IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE ALL PREJUMADICED.

Shorter Ole Perfesser Instapundit Glenn Reynolds: Some writers said mean things about another writer, which can only be explained by liberal fascism.

I wonder if he or this Correia guy know that when John Lennon gave back his MBE "as a protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against ‘Cold Turkey’ slipping down the charts," he was joking.

What a bunch of whiners. They're like the unpopular kid in high school who thinks girls don't like him because they only like jerks, so he'll just be a jerk then and see how they like it.  

P.S., here's some background on this from someone who is not nuts, but I bet some of my readers have lots more to add. 

UPDATE. I should have mentioned for the benefit of non-devotees of the genre that this is all based on a Hugo Award publicity stunt by some authors of the conservative persuasion. (And to that I have no objection -- swindle, comrades! What bugs me is the promulgation of this "we're being oppressed by liberals who won't vote for us" bullshit by the Perfesser and others as a serious free-speech issue.)

But that's okay -- among my readers are many sci-fi fans, and this milkshake brings all the nerds to the yard. (I say that with love, folks.)

On the fact-based tip, Spaghetti Lee notes that "[Orson Scott] Card won [a Hugo] twice in a row, in fact, and [Robert] Heinlein 4 times. And David Brin. And Vernor Vinge. And Dan Simmons. Anyone who thinks that conservatives or libertarians are being shut out has either done no research or is a petulant idiot, or both."

Others just have a laugh at the wounded-dork routine. "I have to give my fellow Zhdanovites on the left credit for this brilliant scheme," says whetstone. "Instead of merely disappearing Correia from the Hugos altogether, you nominate him... and then don't let him win!!!... Just think about how much longer various repressive regimes would have survived if they'd just strung along dissidents by short-listing them instead of disappearing them."

Satch breaks it down:
All this just goes to show how conservative whiners have managed to civilize public discourse... at least for conservatives. We should all be thankful that when conservatives are "lynched" or "martyred", they are no longer required to actually die. Being shipped off in cattle cars to re-education camps, which used to be the same as eye-rolling mockery, has been downgraded from literal to figurative. And soul-crushing injustice has been smoothed out to now mean "Being Nominated For, But Not Winning, A Hugo Award". I, for one, think that we are doing conservatives no favors by subjecting them to the soft bigotry of watered-down metaphors.

213 comments:

  1. So I've read a bit about this, including the complementary controversy over Theodore Beale being nominated, and I've got to admit that I'm a bit torn. On the one hand, this is a writing award; in that kind of competition, one's personal opinion about the writer really shouldn't factor in. At the very least, people shouldn't be looking for loopholes to knock people they don't like off the ballot. If you have a genuine concern for the way the Hugo is run, that's fine, and there are ways to address it. But this rules lawyer routine is crap, and if people really are harassing Correia and his family, then that's really not okay.


    But on the other hand, I can't help but feel that the above is an overly academic argument that refuses to acknowledge the reality of both science fiction and awards in general. Since Asimov, science fiction has been heavy with political and social commentary, and it's foolish to assume that this never factors in. I could make a case that science fiction has, for decades, been judged on the beliefs of the writer. It may not be pretty, but given the nature of the genre, perhaps it is a valid consideration. Put simply, as much as I don't feel it's fair to judge a story because the writer is an asshole, I think it may be naive to assume that this is new. Reynolds has to know this, and his argument just seems terribly disingenuous.


    Bottom line: The SF geeks should hash out on their own terms and the political hacks need to keep their fucking noses out of it. Not everything is a bullet point, Ol' Perfesser.

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  2. whetstone10:58 PM

    [C]ritics have accused the [Hugo] award process — and much of science fiction fandom itself — of becoming politicized.... That's certainly been the experience of Larry Correia, who was nominated for a Hugo this year.

    I have to give my fellow Zhdanovites on the left credit for this brilliant scheme. Instead of merely disappearing Correia from the Hugos altogether, you nominate him... and then don't let him win!!! HOW DO YOU LIKE THE TASTE OF DISAPPOINTMENT, TRAITOR???
    Just think about how much longer various repressive regimes would have survived if they'd just strung along dissidents by short-listing them instead of disappearing them.

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  3. AGoodQuestion11:17 PM

    "The science fiction community has become so politically correct that conservative authors can't get recognized by institutions such as the Hugo Awards. As proof, I offer the example of a conservative who's just been nominated for a Hugo Award."


    This is not an argument you expect to hear from a man who's allowed to sharpen his own pencils or handle metal silverware.

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  4. asmallmoose11:23 PM

    I sharpen my own silverware and wrote a short sci-fi story in my yout'. Where's my HUGO, nerds?!?!

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  5. M. Krebs11:46 PM

    When Glenn Harlan Reynolds is writing in the USA Today about the persecution of science-fiction writers, I'm inclined to declare victory and go home.

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  6. JennOfArk11:56 PM

    WTF is a Hugo award?


    OK, I get from context that it's for sci-fi, which is why I had no idea what it was. So more to the point...who gives a fuck?

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  7. Mr. Wonderful12:05 AM

    I read the Perf's piece. Is it me, or was there nothing there but garden-variety whining? Two of the links subject you, the reader, to a pair of endless blog entries by Sarah Hoyt. What, exactly, is Correia's beef? Or does the Perfessor not care? "Wherever there's something to bitch about, somewhere, somehow involving liberals...I'll be there."

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  8. JennOfArk12:07 AM

    Cleek's Law: conservatives are for whatever liberals are against, and vice-versa, updated daily.

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  9. From Reynolds column: "Now, apparently, a writer's politics are the most important thing, and
    authors with the wrong politics are no longer acceptable, at least to a
    loud crowd that has apparently colonized much of the world of science
    fiction fandom."

    I would like to assume the perfessor understands that the internet can be a mean place, but that the trolls don't actually rule our universe.

    I don't think Terry Goodkind or Orson Scott Card or any other non-liberal sci-fi writer needs to worry about getting "purged" from the genre.

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  10. DocAmazing12:17 AM

    You don't give a damn about at Gernsbach dollar?

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  11. Those of use who are science fiction fans, and who have to watch as a fan-nominated-and-voted award process gets hijacked by a pack of psychopathic Randian assholes and other moral monsters, that's who. And we're talking about an award that has been won by Orson Scott Card and Harlan Ellison here ... because enough fans thought the particular works in question were good.


    AFAICT, there's nothing in the rules that says that someone can't ask vis fans to nominate ver. There's nothing prohibiting people from coordinating their nominations or their votes. But this year's nomination process is being used to "prove a point" by a bunch of far-right jackholes trying to teach all those politically-correct liberal fans a lesson by shitting all over their awards. (I would have given Larry Correia the benefit of the doubt, except he apparently reached out to Vox Day, who is one of the most horrid anal fistulae ever to get an internet connection. And I mean triggering-level horrid.)


    So anyway, to make a long story slightly less long, reactionary fucksticks declare their outrage over cultural politicization by jamming politics into yet another cultural milieu. Decent participants react by weighing whether it's moral to politicize the voting process by taking the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the author's beliefs into account when judging a work's artistic merit; aka the polar opposite of the reactionary fucksticks' strawman. As above, so below. And so it goes.

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  12. montag212:20 AM

    This is just a variation on a theme--libruls don't give conservatives in the arts no respect. The Hugo is just Hollywood and the Oscars writ a bit smaller. Why, conservatives in Hollywood are so put upon that only two of them have been elected governor of California, and there should have been so many more!

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  13. asmallmoose12:22 AM

    Trolls are like locust swarms at times. They can infect a place and make it useless and vile if they move as a group. It's when they are alone that they are either ignored or counter-trolled until they break. This is my theory. Also, Orson Scott Card is a major dick but I don't see any reason to purge him or whatever the fuck. Perfesser, chill out, take a xanax.

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  14. He's just upset because the Hugo winner wasn't about a Sexy Robot.

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  15. JennOfArk12:32 AM

    Well, not that I don't sympathize but...what made anyone think they wouldn't shit all over this like they shit all over everything else?

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  16. JennOfArk12:32 AM

    I have no idea what you just said.

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  17. Which would actually be funny, as Charles Stross's Saturn's Children involves a sexbot, and it was a 2009 Hugo nominee for best novel. Then again, Charlie isn't a political and social reactionary, so under Fresnel's Second Law of Multiplex-Level Projection, that doesn't count.

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  18. The Hugo was named after Hugo Gernsbach, a pioneer in pulp science fiction. He wrote and edited science fiction in the first part of the last century.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Gernsback

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  19. Funny you mention Mr Stross- I just looked up Larry Correia's "Monster Hunter" series and the books seem to be a rip-off of Charlie's "Laundry" series, just told from the standpoint of a gun-nut, not an IT nerd.

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  20. The relentless optimism so characteristic of science-fiction fandom, since "they" haven't ever bothered before, because ... who gives a fuck?

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  21. It's in the silverware drawer, don't cut yourself.

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  22. Spaghetti Lee12:48 AM

    That's what the robo-maids are for.

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  23. I sure am against drinking bleach.

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  24. That's what you think.

    **nudge nudge wink wink**

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  25. montag212:53 AM

    Oh, they'll certainly be for drinking bleach. Other people drinking bleach, that is.

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  26. I wish I could upvote this comment a gajillion times.

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  27. JennOfArk1:02 AM

    Jesus do I get tired of revealing the very broad range of my ignorance to you peoples on a regular basis.

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  28. Join us... come over to the dork side!

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  29. Spaghetti Lee1:06 AM

    On his 'about me' page on his blog, Correia relates anecdotes about how he was his farm's official varmint shooter as a kid, and how it prepared him for a pivotal moment in his life where he fought off four gangbangers at once in high school. Also, three paragraphs about what it means to shoot a gun.



    I cast no doubt on the truth of all this, I only say that it's a bit undercut by sending your fans to spam an awards ceremony vote on your behalf and then complaining when it doesn't work.

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  30. JennOfArk1:10 AM

    I'm already on the dork side; I think I just fall into a different quadrant (or would that be a trirant?) on the Dork Venn diagram.

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  31. JennOfArk1:15 AM

    Repeating made-up stories about what a badass you were in high school past the age of 25 is very revealing. Not in a good way.

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  32. Spaghetti Lee1:24 AM

    Card won twice in a row, in fact, and Heinlein 4 times. And David Brin. And Vernor Vinge. And Dan Simmons. Anyone who thinks that conservatives or libertarians are being shut out has either done no research or is a petulant idiot, or both. Like all decent libertarians, Reynolds wants nothing more than the freedom to live his own life the entire literary establishment to sanctify the greatness of his favorite authors and no one else to offer a peep of resistance.

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  33. Spaghetti Lee1:26 AM

    Funny you should put it that way, because the title of Reynolds' brain fart is "Politics Have no Place in Science-Fiction". Well, maybe the sci-fi he prefers is about brave space captain Renn Gleynolds rescuing the three-boobed Zorlaxian babes from the evil Amabo Empire, but out here in Reality Land politics have more of a 'place' in science-fiction than in about any other genre.

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  34. eohippus1:56 AM

    Sarah Hoyt? That tells me two things: Reynolds has no leg to stand on and he really doesn't like his readers.

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  35. Card won because he wrote fanservice for angsty thirteen year-old special snowflakes who had wet dreams over a book in which a gifted, sociopathic weenie saves the human species by playing video games.

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  36. Spaghetti Lee2:03 AM

    I actually rather liked Ender's Game, and no more than half those descriptors apply to me. He really was saner back then, but he's such a jerk today that the book seems to have retroactively gone from modern classic to fascist embarrassment, which I think is kind of unfortunate. This is one of the better defenses of it that I've read: http://grantland.com/features/ender-game-controversial-author-very-personal-history/

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  37. Relevant comment about halfway down. Here's the best part:

    MHI exibits all the weaknesses of a particular approach to secret
    histories. It's also poorly written. The guns have more character
    development than the protagonist and supporting characters. If you like
    gun-porn in your urban fantasy, this is probably the book for you.


    SNERK

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  38. montag23:28 AM

    If you like gun-porn in your urban fantasy, this is probably the book for you.


    Hmm. Sounds like the Ole Perfesser to me. No wonder he's up on his high cultural horse over Correia.



    Still, I do hope that this causes at least one or two people at USA Today to ask themselves, "now, again, why did we hire this intellectual equivalent of a paperweight?"

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  39. davdoodles3:35 AM

    "Now, apparently, a writer's politics are the most important thing, and authors with the wrong politics are no longer acceptable, at least to a loud crowd that has apparently colonized much of the world of science fiction fandom."
    And I bet that is exactly what he was saying about the Dixie Chicks back when they dared to publicly not like that Bush guy.
    Only he didn't mean it in the passive-aggressive way he means it here. He meant it fo rilz.
    .

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  40. davdoodles3:48 AM

    "Politics don't belong in science fiction"

    Seriously? Tell that to just about every science fiction writer since Voltaire wrote Micromegas (and many before him). It's a big part of the point of the genre - making sometimes dangerously subversive commentary in a veiled and acceptable way.

    What an incredibly foolish thing to say.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_ideas_in_science_fiction
    .

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  41. mortimer20003:53 AM

    I yearn for a simpler time when Jonah Goldberg could be nominated twice for a Pulitzer Prize but still not win for some reason. (Hint: liberal fascism.)

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  42. Derelict6:04 AM

    What an incredibly foolish thing to say.

    But, but, but--if Reynolds does not say foolish things, he would never utter a word, nor write a blog post or column.

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  43. Daniel Björkman6:29 AM

    Agreed. The thing with EG is that while it shows signs of the kind of mean-spirited craziness that Card would develop more fully later in life, it's a heartfelt form of mean-spirited craziness. The book doesn't preach at you about how a sociopathic drive to destroy your enemies is a fine trait that will tragically cause harm to those noble souls who have it. It takes it completely for granted that it is so, that you agree that it is so, and gets on with telling a story based on the premise that it is so.


    And that actually makes it a powerful story. When it comes to writing, being earnest about bad morals tends to work better than actually having good morals.

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  44. Fats Durston7:45 AM

    Along the same lines, an essay by a former professor of mine: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tenshi/Killer_000.htm

    I just recently re-read Ender's Game with my 9-year-old daughter, who loved most of it. (I didn't re-read it all, because she couldn't wait for the slow pace of bedtime reading.) As a forty-plus-year-old it's a lot shoddier and sillier than I took it when I read it three times in the '90s. My daughter was even bothered by the preposterousness of the Demosthenes-Locke subplot (you know, because one power fantasy wasn't enough).

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  45. coozledad7:59 AM

    Those pencil sharpening robots can rip your dick off.

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  46. Because in their world paperweights more agency and intellectual heft than the humans.

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  47. El Caganer8:03 AM

    The Persecution and Humiliation of Larry Correia as Performed by the Voters at the Hugo Awards Under the Direction of Liberal Fascists. Sounds familiar.

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  48. Aimai8:06 AM

    Your point?

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  49. You'll get used to it. I know I did.

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  50. In an alternate universe, you probably could.

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  51. chuckling8:20 AM

    Actually, his spamming the awards nomination process did work. That seems to be why he received all the flak; not so much because of his politics.

    Of course I'm only speculating as my first reaction was "What's a Hugo?" Now I realize it was just because "and Nebula awards" didn't follow. So I can see how fucking with such a hallowed award could engender some blowback. But that was most likely the play, wasn't it? Blowback, particularly blowback packaged as persecution, sells books. Whatever, imo.

    I've never cared a whit about an author's politics outside the novel, which explains a part of my affinity for this blog. When I was a kid, Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" was one of my favorites. And I liked "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." When I grew to understand the underlying politics as well as the poor writing style, it didn't much affect my thoughts on the works (though Heinlein's horrific misogyny now makes "Stranger" unreadable. And these days, with even more perspective, I can think that Libertarian utopianism is ripe for science fiction as subject matter. Like Ursula K. Leguin's ansible, it's not bloody likely to happen in real life. But still, it can be fun to speculate.

    I've never read Correia and this doesn't make me any more or less likely to. But the history of literature is filled with anecdotes about authors who really were censored or shunned for their politics, ethnicity or gender. And as long as that's been going on, hacks have been claiming persecution as a marketing ploy. As regards to quality, Time will weed it all out.

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  52. redoubtagain8:20 AM

    'Cause he was cheap. (This is Gannett we're talking about here.)

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  53. Helmut Monotreme8:28 AM

    I totally want to direct this comment as my senior directing project for my undergraduate theater major and at least one point light the stage all in red.

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  54. redoubtagain8:30 AM

    This. My personal idiotsyncrazy--I don't read science fiction either, never been interested--but I know enough history to know that a blanket statement like "Politics don't belong in science fiction" isn't and can never be true.
    As for whether or not someone's work is worthy of the exposure that comes with a "liberal" award, there's always the fiction publishers of Regnery. . .

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  55. mortimer20008:37 AM

    Even more deviously successful was our plot to ensure that An American Carol didn't win a single one of the awards is wasn't nominated for!

    Mwaahahahaha!

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  56. Helmut Monotreme8:39 AM

    I have read none of his fiction, but plenty of his blog posts. Most of them seem to be a strident defense of pandering to the lowest common denominator to make a buck. He seems heavily invested in the idea that no one would buy a sci fi novel with more depth than a silver age Batman comic back when they were extra silly. And maybe his audience wouldn't. But to state that is actively denying the existence of the reading public that bought Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein and Arthur C Clarke and Ray Bradbury and every other author whose goal was to blow your mind or make their audience think.

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  57. Derelict8:40 AM

    We used the same fiendish tactics to make sure that Atlas Shrugged was denied all recognition. And box-office receipts.

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  58. Derelict8:42 AM

    Never forget that Reynolds teaches law. I have to wonder how many of his students have gone on to careers in fast food and retail overnight stock work.

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  59. Derelict8:42 AM

    True, but they do get your point.

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  60. Derelict8:47 AM

    Well, you can't. But you could organize your fans . . .

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  61. dmsilev8:51 AM

    The original short-story version (or was it a novella? I forget) of Ender's Game was better in a lot of ways. Mainly, it didn't have all of that side plotting of Ender's siblings and the plotting/pacing was tighter.

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  62. In fairness, the Demosthenes-Locke subplot was ahead of its time. As relevant as Ender's Game was to the delusions of intelligent-but-overpraised middle and high schoolers back when it was written, it's even more relevant now, because now they too have a blog that they imagine contains the most profound wisdom the Internet has yet seen.

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  63. LittlePig9:05 AM

    The calls are coming from inside the city...

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  64. Dr. Hunky Jimpjorps9:07 AM

    Ah, it's charming when the masters of making everything political suddenly tell us to stop with all the politics when a trophy's on the line.

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  65. Sarah Hoyt is someone who has been made fun of somewhere I read on these internets--can't remember where. It might even be here. But whatever you say about her, it can never be awful enough to encompass her awfulness.

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  66. Strider9:10 AM

    It's worth mentioning that the Locke-and-Demosthenes storyline predates the internet as we know it by a considerable margin and was written right about the time Ronald Reagan was running for president.


    I think it's aged poorly, but I also think the idea of "Hey, maybe someone could use this new communications medium to become a media figure, then move into politics directly" seemed a lot more viable at the time.

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  67. LittlePig9:11 AM

    For the test, be sure to remember the pen name that John W. Campbell, Jr. used when he wrote Who Goes There? was Don A. Stuart.

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  68. Jeezus, I just actually bothered to read the Ole Perfesser's "more in sorrow than in anger" post--how did Eich get into cette galere? He even digs up a pathetic plea from the gayz to stop being mean to the homophobes included that howler that suppression of contrary views "by government or any other means should be eschewed by all right thinking people. I mean--if we deny prizes and applause to the powerful the terrorists will truly have won, I guess. Has anyone posted a link to this brilliant poem on the topic from Making Light? http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/015857.html#015857

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  69. Thank you! I couldn't get it to cut and paste. It really deserves to be embroidered on a cushion and read out every christmas.

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  70. Halloween_Jack9:35 AM

    Unfortunately, there's a serious gun-porn contingent (or, getting away from strictly guns, what William Gibson called "gear queer") in SF that drives the milSF subgenre. You know that you've run across an aficionado when their main critique of Verhoeven's Starship Troopers is that the movie didn't include the bitchin' exoskeletons that Heinlein had in his original.

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  71. I basically skipped the entire sibling subplot.

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  72. Halloween_Jack9:37 AM

    I'm pretty sure that it was here. She whined about how her precious progeny was treated by his school, and at the same time made you sorry for the kid.

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  73. Oh yes! That was the time she screamed at him about being second rate, while also complained about how the school was holding him back and thought she was weird.

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  74. LittlePig9:42 AM

    Exactly. The Ole Prof better not let that be his last battlefield.

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  75. satch9:42 AM

    All this just goes to show how conservative whiners have managed to civilize public discourse... at least for conservatives. We should all be thankful that when conservatives are "lynched" or "martyred", they are no longer required to actually die. Being shipped off in cattle cars to re-education camps, which used to be the same as eye-rolling mockery, has been downgraded from literal to figurative. And soul-crushing injustice has been smoothed out to now mean "Being Nominated For, But Not Winning, A Hugo Award". I, for one, think that we are doing conservatives no favors by subjecting them to the soft bigotry of watered-down metaphors.

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  76. witlesschum10:06 AM

    Wow. That's obtuse even by Reynolds' standards. I mean, Reynolds is apparently friendly with the linked Scalzi, despite their political differences. Did he really think Old Man's War had no resonance or references to contemporary politics in it? At all? Nothing?

    I mean, I read a lot of S.M. Stirling's books and you notice his politics. They mostly don't overwhelm the story, but I notice that he and I would not see eye to eye on many issues. But I think engaging with the writers' views or, more accurately, the views the writing suggests the writer has is part of reading.

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  77. Halloween_Jack10:08 AM

    Card got criticized for not writing children very well, to the point that he actually mentioned it in the foreword to the edition that I read. (His response, IIRC, was basically that, hey, I have lots of fans who like it just fine, so fuck the critics.) I completely get how precocious children, both actually young and grown-up (and probably not having processed through a lot of their early damage), ate up Card's portrayal of the Wiggins as basically adults in kids' bodies--I had more than a touch of that as a kid, and probably would have had a very different reaction to the book if it had come out ten years earlier--but without the ZOMG THIS BOOK CHANGED MY LIFE mindset, it didn't compel me to read further into the series.

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  78. I'm a huge stirling fan and I think his politics are pretty weird but rather...complicated--you can't exactly ascribe any straight up set of right vs left beliefs to him and he divvies a lot of stuff up between his hero characters--he's against feudalism but pro biker gangs, for instance, is one way of thinking about his approach. Pro socrates and technology, anti (some) divine right of kings. Pro robber barons as individuals but also disgusted at their amorality. He once described cats as "furry little republicans" by which he meant "out for themselves, useless to the community, and generally of a bitchy temperament." That resonated with me.

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  79. He doesn't write children at all--he has Bean doing things at 9 months that an infant simply isn't capable of doing at all. Its not charming, like having a five year old speak like at 10 year old. Its freaky--infants can be on their way to being brilliant but they simply can't function at the level he posits because they don't have the experience. There's no point following him down the rabbit hole on this because its so ridiculous but his love affair with the idea of the ubermensch who knows all and sees all even as an infant is just bizarrely disrespectful of the real world and kind of all of a piece with his rejection of other aspects of humanity.

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  80. Halloween_Jack10:15 AM

    You can't take politics out of it when politics is the only real reason why Correia and Vox Day (Beale) were nominated in the first place. Correia was a minor author at best (his Wikipedia entry brags of being a NYT best-seller-list author, but that distinction is pretty meaningless), and Day wasn't even on the radar until he got notoriety for his especially vile brand of wingnuttery.

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  81. Welp, I guess I'm gear-curious, then, since that omission did annoy me. Mostly I was pissed that the books' examination of life and politics in a Fascist state was reduced to "You kill bugs good". Heinlein's political and cultural opinions I found appalling, but he was a interesting SciFi writer.

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  82. XeckyGilchrist10:21 AM

    Same here - I'm not usually all that into loving descriptions of the weaponry, but those suits were cool. Who wouldn't want to see a troop of hydrocephalic gorillas that could jump hundreds of feet high?

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  83. I am a novice sci-fi fan. I loved Wheel of Time, Ender's Game and A Song of Ice and Fire. I didn't bother to look into George R.R. Martin or Robert Jordan or Brandon Sanderson's politics. I did manage to overlook Orson Scott Card's views. I promise Ole Perfessor that if I ever find out George RR Martin believes in Objectivism, or thinks Obama is bringing about the destruction of the US, I won't burn his tomes. I can't promise the same however for those right-leaning readers if the opposite were to happen. How does Mr. Reynolds think his readership would have reacted towards an author who came out against the Iraq War back in the day? Yet as Mr. Reynolds says, "Purging the heretics, usually but not always from the left, has become a popular game in a lot of institutions." I'll take "Country Music Stars who were Purged from the Radio" for $800 Alex.

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  84. and the critique of it as a plausible excuse for Hitler actually struck me as pretty reasonable given where Card has ended up.


    It's only a plausible excuse for Hitler if Hitler was deliberately bred to have the right balance of ruthlessness and empathy, if he committed genocide inadvertently, if he felt crushingly guilty about it afterwards, if he went on to found a secular humanist philosophy dedicated to the idea that there is some good in everyone, and if he personally established the modern state of Israel.


    See, I think it actually helps to treat the original duology as a single unit. The bit in Speaker for the Dead where it's made clear that after millenia of chest-beating over how tragic the Xenocide was, the warships are on the way with the same planet-killer weapon because of scary aliens with wooden spears? The whole shtick about needing to expand the definition of our "tribe"? Given where Card has ended up, I think it's more likely that EG and SftD were actually written by the 6th Earl of Derby.

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  85. he has Bean doing things at 9 months that an infant simply isn't capable of doing at all.

    See? All the books in that setting after the first two were much, much worse ... because Card actually wrote them. Sixth Earl of Derby, I tell you!

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  86. Halloween_Jack10:33 AM

    You've probably already noted how Ol' Heh-Indeedy doesn't mention Vox Day at all, and Correia pushes mention of his co-nominee way down on his blog post (and handwaves away the guy's bullshit). It's amusing that even those guys can't stand him.

    Incidentally, here's the John Scalzi post that started this (for those of you unfamiliar with the genre--looking at you, Jenn--Scalzi is an actual best-selling author, past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and former consultant on Stargate: Universe), and more info on what Correia did, including nominating a graphic novel--really a collection of webcomic strips--that wasn't even eligible, and whose author didn't seem too happy about it.

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  87. Halloween_Jack10:35 AM

    Hey, I'd rate a four, at least, on the Kinsey-Gibson gear-queer scale. My Star Trek tech manuals are shamefully well-thumbed.

    ReplyDelete
  88. Brian Schlosser10:36 AM

    Goddamm, thats brilliant. I fancy myself a journeyman when comes to slinging dogerrel, but I bow to this poet's sublime rhyme skills.

    ReplyDelete
  89. WAIT WAIT David Brin really doesn't belong on that list. He calls himself a libertarian, but he's a left-libertarian and an Obama voter; he's definitely not in any territory that can be called 'conservative'.

    ReplyDelete
  90. "Politics** don't belong in science fiction"


    Interesting. He and John Scalzi are on friendly terms, to the point of Scalzi waving it away whenever Reynolds being a vicious mendacious tool (which is most days ending in "-y"), and was even a booster of Old Man's War. Yet he obviously never read to the end of the original trilogy. Because "politics" (defined as "politics to the left of mine") becomes fairly apparent by that point.

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  91. witlesschum10:40 AM

    Oh, yeah. His politics don't track Republican/Democrat or even left/right, but I notice them. For instance, right around 2008 we started hearing about the frivolousness of democracy in the Change novels. And he seems to dislike Islam more than he dislikes most religions. His views also seem to be much more feminist and pro-gay than is probably good for his sales among the Beale set. Definitely a love of authority and a lot of militarism there, but only just authority and restrained militarism, I guess. I've somewhat jokingly called it fascism with a human face.



    I absolutely remember the furry Republicans line, as some wonderful homespun Mike Havel wisdom. Havel is supposed to have grown up 30 miles from where I was raised in Michigan's U.P. and I choose to interpret the differences between the real Copper Country and the way Stirling describes Mike's childhood as more indications that it's not supposed to be our world.



    I'm a huge fan of Stirling's stuff, too, though I've only read the Nantucket and Change books. The later have really gone down hill since the quest ended. The last three books really should have been handled in an epilogue and have been super anticlimatic. The only surprising reveal was what precise horrors the Cutters were up to and that was only accomplished by Ingolf not saying it out loud for books and books.

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  92. I'd like to reverse the polarity of this comment.

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  93. Most of them seem to be a strident defense of pandering to the lowest common denominator to make a buck.


    Since we're already into Usenet nerd territory here, I might as well note that I consider this characterization to be pretty unfair. I withhold my Hugo vote from you, egg-laying mammal.

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  94. XeckyGilchrist11:04 AM

    Likewise, and now that I reread your original comment above, I notice that you said the gear-queers' *main* critique of Starship Troopers is the omission of the suits. I'm not too far gone, then - I thought it had much bigger problems, like what Kordo pointed out about sidestepping the examination of the militarist state.

    That, and that Heinlein's pointedly multiracial society was cast like this: http://s3.amazonaws.com/quietus_production/images/articles/14494/starship_troopers_1392336307_resize_460x400.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  95. glennisw11:07 AM

    "Purging the heretics" = nominated for an award but didn't win.
    Martyrdom is a bitch.

    ReplyDelete
  96. To hear Card talk about it, the most important difference between Hitler and Ender seems to be that Ender feels super bad about committing genocide. And, of course, the intention. But intention is literally everything in Card's moral universe. The fact that ten million people would still be dead even if Hitler had somehow killed them accidentally and then felt super bad about it is immaterial in his mind - in Ender's Game, all of the sympathy somehow flows to the serial murderer rather than his victims simply because he didn't mean to kill them (an excuse that may hold up once, but certainly not several times in a row).


    Ender manages to kill several people even before he commits genocide, and yet he's somehow he's always the victim of each murder, rather than the person who was actually murdered.

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  97. dstatton11:12 AM

    Dalton Trumbo was cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted for his political views. He got off easy: not nearly as bad as getting nominated for an Oscar and not winning.

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  98. I love Correia's defense of working with Beale (I refuse to use his stupid internet handle anymore), which basically comes down to "I'm not that familiar with his politics, but he's not that racist, really." Yeah man, he really is.


    The problem is that many white males refuse to acknowledge that nerd fandoms have traditionally been closed off. I think people view that as an accusation, a pointed finger accusing them personally of being prejudiced in some way. And I think some people prefer that their hobbies be exclusionary. That's the only way I can explain the screaming fits you hear from time to time over "girls" (always girls, not women) playing video games.


    Some people prefer to be outsiders, to get the feeling of moral superiority one gets from being persecuted. If it doesn't come naturally, there will always be a few who act like jerks so that people will shun them. This is the only explanation I can come up with.

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  99. It's amusing that even those guys can't stand him.


    Probably shouldn't have explicitly selected him to help make your "point," then, eh, Larry? Because "How come Vox Day never gets nominated?" has a really, really obvious answer, and one that requires little reference to his politics.



    A few additional points:

    (1) You know that initial Edroso "P.S." above? The one with the link to "someone who is not nuts"? I'll give you three guesses what post he's linking to, and the first two don't count.

    (2) In trying to establish Scalzi's bona fides, couldn't including SG: U cut both ways?

    (3) I am a pedantic asshole. Where's my Hugo?


    [Unabridged The Count of Monte Cristo falls off high shelf]


    .... Ow!

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  100. RogerAiles11:14 AM

    What's this I hear about politics not belonging in Victor Hugo novels?

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  101. Ender manages to kill several people even before he commits genocide, and yet he's somehow he's always the victim of each murder, rather than the person who was actually murdered.


    That's what gets me, and it's the part that the fans always gloss over. What Card basically did was engineer an implausible situation in which the little psychopath protagonist would be the put-upon victim. It's almost like he deliberately designed the books to appeal to self-obsessed teenagers. Had I read it when I was fourteen and convinced the world was out to get me, I probably would have loved it too. Fortunately, I didn't.

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  102. Hell, Maimonides Micromischegass was years earlier.

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  103. Helmut Monotreme11:30 AM

    My post was indelicately stated, in more detail: In his post where he reacts with outraged indignation to a TOR columnist's goal of eliminating default gender binary from science fiction, Larry Correia stresses that first and foremost he is a businessman creating a product to sell. The product he creates is science fiction adventure stories. And he states that it would make his product less dramatically less appealing to his customers to include characters with non-traditional gender identities. To be fair, the TOR columnists goal is hyperbolically stated, quixotic and maybe even counter productive. But rather than saying that, he fisks the entire column for its alleged stupidity in a way that suggests that the notion that writing anything more than simple fan service is not only career suicide for a working author but unprecedented and maybe morally wrong. But when I finally write my fiction opus I will sadly, not count on your support for the critical accolades it hypothetically will deserve.

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  104. and yet he's somehow he's always the victim of each murder, rather than the person who was actually murdered.


    Well, IIRC one of the blurbs on the first paperback edition was "A scathing indictment of the military mind," or something like that. So one could read it as Ender certainly being one of the victims of the system that was expecting, even demanding, him to act like that. Yes, Card elevates the intention above the act, but despite himself he still makes the act wrong. If motivation were really all that mattered, Ender could have said "Whoops, my bad" instead of going on a decades-long guilt-ridden quest to bring the alien species back to life.



    Part of my point, such as it is, is that since it is obviously possible to interpret a work in a way other than the artist intended, and since plenty of sci-fi readers do that, Correia's beef is even more of a nothingburger.

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  105. I agree completely. I'm a huge fan of the Nantucket and the early Change books because what is so interesting is the way he explores politics and economics through his "what if..." In particular in the Nantucket series: what happens when knowledge and technology are transferred to the earlier period. In the change novels its "what happens when a limited knowledge and technology bump up against the new glass ceiling imposed by the alien force and people have to go back to manipulating each other more or less directly to gain access to labor and to power?" In the Nantucket series the uptimers manipulated both science and society to create a new, functioning, democracy. In the change series people end up manipulating socially to create more or less functioning non democracies.


    As the earlier generation dies off and the new one just grows up in a new style world this all gets less interesting--the characters are less conflicted and less real. He's less willing to explore tension between the witches and everyone else.

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  106. I feel ya; my "Battletech Technical Readout 3025" is held together with scotch tape...

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  107. Whoops. I've edited my previous comment to indicate that I misuderstood which blogging author you were referring to. Apologies.

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  108. Jon Hendry11:42 AM

    In the spirit of the pulp era, just use a gajillion pseudonyms.

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  109. You can only really appreciate it in the original Ladino.

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  110. whetstone11:42 AM

    Not even a Razzie? I take back my praise of the Zhdanovite left.

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  111. When I see his column about the popularity of Pokemon proving that PETA loves animal cruelty, then I'll drop my guard.

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  112. Jon Hendry11:45 AM

    Yes, he wrote science fiction. (As in, "The golden age of SF is 12")

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  113. My Star Trek tech manuals are shamefully well-thumbed.

    IYKWIMAITYD.

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  114. Helmut Monotreme12:00 PM

    And I have edited my original comment to make it more clear which author to which I refer.

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  115. Always wondered about that, myself. I wanted to share my Geek Love (D&D, comics, SciFi) with anyone who'd listen, and I'd have given my left arm to find girls who were into it (you young Geeks don't know how lucky you are; time was, the mention of RPG's functioned like a Pussy Force Field). I was shocked to find that a lot of guys used it as their version of the Cool Kids Club.

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  116. Brian Schlosser12:24 PM

    The problem is I see it, it's not so much that Correia is nominated, it's that he's joined forces with Vox Day. As has been discussed, the halls of SF history are filled with right-wing, reactionary, libertarian dick-wavers. But Day... the man could be a character in The Turner Diaries . He's truly, unbelievably vile.

    It would be like a moderate Republican asking for an endorsement from David Duke and being shocked when people take offense. And yes, I think Day is as racist as a Klansman.

    There reaches a point where a person's political associations trump their artistic endeavors. You don't see anyone discussing the linework in Der Sturmer cartoons.

    (And again, I think Day deserves the comparison, Godwinning or no)

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  117. There reaches a point where a person's political associations trump their artistic endeavors.


    In fairness, it also helps if their artistic endeavors aren't actually all that good.

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  118. David Lloyd-Jones12:51 PM

    Strider,
    I've been on the Internet as I know is since 1972.
    'Course that predates TCP/IP, so my address had a whole lot of bangs in it...
    :-)

    -dlj.

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  119. edroso12:51 PM

    "There reaches a point where a person's political associations trump their artistic endeavors."



    Well, I disagree. But you know that.

    ReplyDelete
  120. Brian Schlosser1:00 PM

    Trump may be too strong a word. Overshadow, maybe?

    I don't know... I just cant see myself enjoying a Vox Day novel, even if it was well written.

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  121. David Lloyd-Jones1:36 PM

    Yeah, Fascism didn't trump Ezra Pound's endeavours.



    I can't judge his (or anybody's) poetry, but I can judge him as a pioneer transmitter, translator, interpreter of Japanese literature and culture. No doubt to my mind that the endeavour comes out on top.



    Allen Ginsberg seems to have felt that Pound made it on the poetry side, but Alfred Kazin doesn't. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1986/oct/09/an-exchange-on-ezra-pound/



    'Course that leaves the question of how we all feel about Kazin's Oscar for life long service: if they'd wanted to give him a deserved Oscar, surely they should have left out some parts of his lifetime.



    -dlj.

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  122. Halloween_Jack2:07 PM

    ...Larry?

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  123. sigyn2:20 PM

    S'truth, it's been remarkably easy to turn my back on Terry Goodkind.

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  124. Ahem. Quoting, quoting! Hence my attempted addendum that
    being a shitty artist might conceivably trump one's
    artistic endeavors. As far as I know, Beale hasn't actually been passed
    over for awards on the basis of his political associations. I'm not
    particularly convinced that Correia has, either.


    I mean, upthread I've been defending an Orson Scott Card novel that everyone nowadays apparently views as Mein Kampf with spacecraft, because I got something worthwhile out of it. (No, not fascism.)** So just maybe, I and many of my fellow genre enthusiasts have skipped over Correia's work because we don't find it sufficiently interesting or exceptionally well-done. Crazy, innit?



    **Okay, so I officially changed my name to "Ted Ender Hitler." The point remains.

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  125. Larry Correia, to whom the first part was addressed. Sorry for my clumsy patchwork of different narrative styles. Speaking of which, where's my Hugo?


    [Unabridged Les Miserables falls off high shelf]


    ... Ow! At least we finally got to the correct author.

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  126. But then, there was a time when that sort of openness characterized much of American intellectual life. That time seems to be over, judging by the latest science fiction dust-up.

    Hey! numbnuts! Ya’, you, Reynolds you ignorant fuck. Why do you and your ilk go completely fucking brain dead when it comes to history that disproves the putrid diarrhea you pass off as punditry? You don’t remember that cunt (used in the British sense) McCarthy and his hysterical witch hunt that didn’t just deprive some slack-jawed fuck-head of some stupid fucking award, but actually ruined people’s lives.? Is that the sort of “openess” that has now “seems to be over”?

    I am fucking sick and tired of the right wing talking heads sticking their fists up their asses and then complaining, in their most sincere and “caring” fashion, that they’ve never, ever had their assholes violated by anything before – never! – and it was the left that made their hand smell like shit. My disgust for these syphilitic sores festering and feasting on the ignorant, the bigoted, the just-plain-fucking-stupid is fucking boundless.

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  127. Halloween_Jack2:50 PM

    where's my Hugo?


    As Quasimodo would say, I've got a hunch...

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  128. Halloween_Jack2:52 PM

    Incidentally, here's a very recent interview that GRRM did for Rolling Stone; covers not only his personal politics but also his work's relationship to (and critique of) Tolkien.

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  129. Yeah, exactly, I don't really see the attraction. To turn it around, I also don't feel compelled to like, e.g., Melissa Scott's fiction just because of her political associations. People like Reynolds and Correia will apparently never understand that.

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  130. tigrismus3:06 PM

    Heh. Indeed.

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  131. tigrismus3:09 PM

    Much to the dismay oh forget it.

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  132. tigrismus3:37 PM

    Larry Correia stresses that first and foremost he is a businessman creating a product to sell.

    Is a Hugo plug worth a certain dollar amount in sales he feels he's lacking?

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  133. realinterrobang3:59 PM

    I want to refuse to eat ice cream with this poem. It's probably not even Cholov Yisroel!

    ReplyDelete
  134. realinterrobang4:01 PM

    Well, that's disappointing of Scalzi...

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  135. Brian Schlosser4:38 PM

    Ok... Let me restate my argument I made earlier, down thread.

    I said: "There reaches a point where a person's political associations trump their artistic endeavors."

    mds said "In fairness, it also helps if their artistic endeavors aren't actually all that good." To which I reply: Oh definitely. Shitty writers with shittier politics are easier ignore altogether.

    Next, our Gracious Host said he disagreed with my contention all together, which I something I don't quite understand...

    Let me add that it takes a really, really set of political views to tarnish someones work. mds has defended Orson Scott Card's early work, and I agree, mostly because, as was noted, Card was far less of a loon in those days. David Lloyd-Jones said that Pound's fascist streak doesn't ruin his poems. I mostly agree, but in that case I am a little uneasy with Pound.

    Now... I said that it is a high bar that has to be crossed before someones politics outweight their art. Here are some Vox Day quotes (with a trigger warning, because this is some seriously gross shit...)

    On Gays: "Homosexuality is a birth defect from every relevant secular, material,
    and sociological perspective...[we must] help them achieve sexual
    normality"

    On Marital Rape: "First, there is no such thing as marital rape.
    Once consent is formally given in public ceremony, it cannot be
    revoked... If a woman believes in the concept of marital rape,
    absolutely do not marry her"

    On Lalala Yousafzai: "Ironically, in light of the strong correlation between female education
    and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala
    Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate
    that the Taliban's attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and
    scientifically justifiable"

    And finally, On N. K. Jemisin's, the black, Female SF writer: "Jemisin has it wrong; it is not that I, and others, do not view her as
    human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not
    equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we simply do not view her as
    being fully civilized for the obvious historical reason that she is not."

    And: "Unlike the white males she excoriates, there is no evidence to be found
    anywhere on the planet that a society of NK Jemisins is capable of
    building an advanced civilization, or even successfully maintaining one
    without significant external support from those white males."

    And: "Being an educated, but ignorant half-savage, with little more
    understanding of what it took to build a new literature by "a bunch of
    beardy old middle-class middle-American guys" than an illiterate Igbotu
    tribesman has of how to build a jet engine, Jemisin clearly does not
    understand that her dishonest call for "reconciliation" and even more
    diversity within SF/F is tantamount to a call for its decline into
    irrelevance"

    (the comments about Jemisin were the last straws that caused him to lose the presidency of the Science Fiction Writers of America)

    Now, I think that these wretched little bon mots show that Vox Day is an unrepentant misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, racist piece of shit. And I think he rises to the level of shittiness where it stains everything else he says or does.

    I don't see any problem or hypocrisy in placing someone like Day or anyone who voluntarily sides with and uses someone like Day on the "Not worth our time" list when it comes to their art.

    Vox Day is no Ezra Pound, in other words, and even if he WAS, I don't think would be enough to overcome his wretchedness.

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  136. Thing is, Goodkind's politics actively made his art worse. I read the first couple of books and thought they were okay: standard fantasy, some grotesque violence and a lead who sometimes made crazy stands on dubious principles. Then they went on and it became apparent that our protagonist wasn't a noble sometimes mistaken hero but a perfect person who could do no wrong and who spent increasing amounts of time explaining to the stupid people around him why he was so right. This was usually followed by events which proved him right and all the good characters expressing how amazingly insightful he was. This extended to not just politics and ethics but fucking magic. Plus he was the world's best sculptor for some reason. Also, all the bad guys somehow became parodically broad stand-ins for modern political stances that Goodkind opposes.

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  137. Jon Hendry6:12 PM

    I briefly had one of those addresses in the early 90s... I set up a UUCP account for my NeXT Cube.

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  138. Jon Hendry6:17 PM

    "(the comments about Jemisin were the last straws that caused him to lose the presidency of the Science Fiction Writers of America)"


    He was kicked out of the SFWA, he wasn't president of the SFWA.

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  139. Jon Hendry6:19 PM

    Taint? Curdle?

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  140. Jon Hendry6:31 PM

    I don't see any references to Reynolds on Scalzi's blog since 2012, and that was just him saying who had helped promote Old Man's War (Reynolds and Cory Doctorow). That no doubt helped get his novel-writing career going and may have engendered a degree of loyalty.


    But most of his mentions of Reynolds are from the mid 2000's. He may have shifted into a mode where he's politely ignoring Reynolds.

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  141. RHWombat7:08 PM

    Try polyrant

    ReplyDelete
  142. Plus he was the world's best sculptor for some reason.


    Because "World's best architect" had already been done.

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  143. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.7:37 PM

    You see Scalzi and Reynolds having polite exchanges on twitter. Of course Scalzi has to avoid every topic that might set off Reynold's stupidity. Which means nearly every topic.

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  144. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.7:40 PM

    Also she had that submoronic "I'm Spartacus because Benghazi" piece.

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  145. Tiny Hermaphrodite, Esq.7:52 PM

    Plus he was the world's best sculptor for some reason.
    Without any training or any hint in prior novels, that he has that training.

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  146. Brian Schlosser8:12 PM

    I thought he held some post... he was using the official blog and twitter. Still, doesnt diminish the ugliness of his words.

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  147. Jon Hendry8:22 PM

    As I understand it the SFWA twitter account was sort of shared among regular members, in some way. There may have been some auto-tweeting mechanism set up, or a gateway or something.


    Day abused that in order to channel his vile effluent via the SFWA account.

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  148. edroso8:46 PM

    "Next, our Gracious Host said he disagreed with my contention all together, which I something I don't quite understand..."

    I understand you better when you say "Shitty writers with shittier politics are easier ignore altogether." Though I think shitty writers should be ignored, or better yet chased with birch rods, whatever their politics.

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  149. Spaghetti Lee10:20 PM

    Yeah, that was uncalled for on my part. Sorry, David Brin!

    ReplyDelete
  150. Rome Scherer10:22 PM

    "It's a proud and lonely thing to be a fan"

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  151. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person10:36 PM

    and [Robert] Heinlein 4 times. And David Brin. And Vernor Vinge.

    Heh. Three of my very favorite SF writers are Libs. (RAH I knew about) Should that say something about me? I don't feel it does. Actually I feel like who gives a fuck? I'm not gonna turn around and unlove the Zones of Thought novels, or the Uplift books. Not even Ringworld, although Larry Niven turns out to also be an asshole and a racist on top of it. Won't buy anything new of his, though...

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  152. Hello all. If you recognize the handle, yes, this is the author Mercedes Lackey (it appears there are actually 3 people, including me, in the US, who can legitimately claim this name/handle. It also appears if I had kept my maiden name as a nom de plume, I would have been a unique snowflake. Oh well, hindsight/20/20/all that).

    John Scalzi pretty much has it right. But he didn't reveal the deep, dark secret to really getting a Hugo.

    Schmooze.

    The Hugos are pretty much decided by a couple thousand people; those people who go to a lot of conventions, maybe even chair a few, and faithfully buy supporting memberships at all the WorldCon bid parties (whilst they are cheap). Why does this matter? Because a supporting membership gets you the privilege of voting on the Hugos regardless of whether you upgrade to the (much, much more expensive) attending membership.

    So, if you want a Hugo, and your work is better than crap, all you need to do is attend as many conventions as you can, identify those all-important members (also known as SMOFS--Secret Masters Of Fandom) and hang out with them. Meet them in the bar, occasionally buy a round. Go to their room parties. Play at their poker games. Give them a free book now and again.

    Because they know you and consider you a friend, they will tend to put your work on the ballot at nominating time. Because they know you and consider you a friend, in a contest between equally worthy works, they will vote for yours.

    It's just that simple. And here is the amusing thing. Precisely because the SMOFS are graying, hardening in attitude, and getting crotchety, and also preponderantly male, they are actually more likely, as the years roll by, to vote for someone whose attitudes are more conservative than liberal. Not only is there no liberal bias, there is, most probably, a conservative one.

    Sorry, dudes and dudettes. I gotta call BS on the entire kefluffle.

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  153. Also, tip of the hit to Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard who tipped me off that my thoughts might be relevant on this subject.

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  154. He might merely be proof of the statement that "50% of all lawyers graduated in the bottom half of their class."

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  155. See my post above. At this point, unless he has several hundred supporting memberships in his pocket to give away to his fans, it is unlikely that any of them are going to pony up the roughly $50 just to vote for him. I could be wrong, but when it comes to forking over $50 just to prove a point, I don't see any but the most rabid doing so. And when it comes to parting with $50, most people aren't that rabid.

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  156. Yah. And that if my recollection is not totally off, the gender ratio in Heinlein's military forces was roughly 50/50 (except almost all the pilots were female, cause, faster reflexes.)

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  157. The SMOFS have an interesting bent. If they catch a whiff of ballot-buying, I guaran-damn-tee you that there will be a Great Dixie Fry and Correia is going to never, ever be nominated again. There was a Tempest over exactly that roughly 20 years ago (the category was Artist, IIRC) and the ensuing massacre is still whispered about in hushed tones.

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  158. Sounds like he was channeling the ghost of Ayn Rand. I couldn't get past the first chapter of the first book. And we share an agent, so I was kind of predisposed to give him a fair try.

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  159. See my post upthread. It's half writing award, and half popularity contest.

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  160. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:04 PM

    Don't hold back, son, tell us how you really feel...

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  161. I had a hunch shining that big spotlight with a gobo shaped like your symbol into the sky would work. Good to see you here!

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  162. /bows



    Nice to be here!

    ReplyDelete
  163. Pope Zebbidie XIII11:31 PM

    They'll be using it for executions in OK before the year is out.

    ReplyDelete
  164. Heh. My cynical take is that he's hoping to get some sales from people who otherwise wouldn't touch sf/f.


    He might ought to have asked Newt Gingrich how that worked out. Last I saw, the sales of 1945 were so abysmal that not even reading the sexy parts out loud on the floor of Congress elevated them. And so bad that not even the remainder houses would take the books off Baen's hands; the majority were pulped.

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  165. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:41 PM

    Is this the Ice Cream Golem?

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  166. fraser11:46 PM

    Right. Glenn Reynolds who says "“Science fiction is inherently rational and forward-looking. That puts
    it at odds with contemporary liberalism” is worried about SF being politicized.

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  167. fraser11:50 PM

    Haven't read Monster Hunters, but I do enjoy the Grimnoir Chronicles. 1930s superheroes/mutants (though with a magical power source) but well-executed. And whatever his politics, they didn't show up in the book.

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  168. fraser11:52 PM

    I presume that the personality/likeability of the author is probably a factor too. And with someone like Beale, politics definitely makes me loathe him.

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  169. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person11:53 PM

    Maybe the stuff he reads is. A story set in the future isn't necessarily "forward looking", especially if it deals with, say, Jack the Ripper. Also too, "rational"? Did he read *any* of the New wave stuff in the '60s and '70s?

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  170. Technically, anyone who attends the World Con has the right to vote for the Hugo that year, but, as Ms. Lackey states, there is a hard core population who attend every year if possible.

    The line between fan and writer in the SF community is thin to almost invisible at times. I once drank brandy with Robert Adams who wrote the best-selling Horseclans series at a local con many moons ago. He bragged that all he had to do was come up with a title to get a contract from his publisher for a new book in the series.

    Not to work that line is worse than a crime, it is a blunder.

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  171. fraser12:02 AM

    I suppose if I read Day and liked his stuff, it might turn out it was good. But there's lots of stuff I should read, so why bother?
    Likewise, John C. Wright, who has discussed at length on his blog how too many women in SF stories are really men in drag (they invent, fight, investigate, cuss, have professional jobs and do other things instead of Real Women who are emotionally supportive and save lives with the power of their love). Why bother?

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  172. fraser12:02 AM

    Yep. We're specifically told (I'm an associate) not to tweet to political posts, but he did anyway.

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  173. It's beginning to ring a bell...........

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  174. fraser12:07 AM

    Well he also warned against "academic-writing-seminar types ... creeping in via fantasy." So I suspect he'd dismiss the New Wave as being "at odds" with the Real Stuff. Even lots of ordinary not-batshit fans complain about stories that aren't "real" SF so Reynolds should have no trouble doing it.

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  175. Here it is in black and white for you:

    http://www.thehugoawards.org/2013/08/2013-hugo-ballot-count/


    The number of ballot cast for the 2013 Hugos was 1,848. Only 42% of those eligible to vote, did so.

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  176. That sounds depressingly like midterm elections. The public screwed up bigtime in 2010.

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  177. Amen Brother BBBB. Amen.

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  178. PhoenicianRomans4:47 AM

    It's amusing that even those guys can't stand him.

    Alas, not completely so. The RSHD recently started up his own "publishing house", hilariously stating that his "influence", as determined by his blog's hit count, was an advantage authors could lever.

    Correia has notably and to his credit stayed well away. Noted wingnut loons Tom Kratman and John C Wright have jumped in with both feet, along with a gaggle of people I've never heard of..



    Given his past results in the business world, I look forward to the inevitable implosion, the acrimony, and the flinging of dung in all directions.

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  179. PhoenicianRomans5:34 AM

    That might be because the movie is better considered as a satire of mil-sf and the sort of audience who get off on it. Making the protagonists the whitest of White-Bread soap opera stars is perfect.

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  180. PhoenicianRomans5:40 AM

    You have to be more specific on the dork side...

    http://brunching.com/images/geekchart.pdf

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  181. smut clyde7:08 AM

    And David Brin.I had occasion not long ago to replay my memories of Brin's early works, as an exercise in tracing sources, and bloody oath he's a crappy writer. A lot of his support, I suspect, came as a show of solidarity, from readers who saw Brin's clumsy fan-fic make its way into print and thought "He's one of us! Leading the way!"

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  182. smut clyde7:22 AM

    I was casting aspersions upstream about his writing and plotting, but that's another issue completely.

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  183. Lurking Canadian7:26 AM

    Holy fucking shit. I knew Vox Day was an asshole, but that's...beyond the pale. I didn't really see what the fuss was about Jemisin's debut novel, and now I'm feeling guilt by association.

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  184. smut clyde9:33 AM

    Now I want to reply to mds and Helmut Monotreme in a way that attributes each of their observations to the other one.

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  185. Mark_B4Zeds10:14 AM

    I wouldn't go so far as to call Heinlein a conservative. For sure, the government in 'Starship Troopers' was almost neo-fascist, but 'Stranger in a Strange Land' had a pretty hippy-ish esthetic. I think it's fair to say that his politics were more complex than anything you'd find in any of his books. In any case, his personal politics don't add or detract much to how important he was so Science Fiction and literature.

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  186. Halloween_Jack10:31 AM

    It really depends on which era of Heinlein you're talking about.

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  187. Halloween_Jack10:33 AM

    I'm sure it'll be as successful as the WarMouse (snort).

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  188. Is this the real Mercedes Lackey? I've enjoyed your books! About Goodkind, I kept reading just to see where he went. One of the books was basically a full length Rand tract about the evils of fantasy Soviet Christianity. Our hero starts a rebellion with speeches, entrepreneurship, and outstanding personal talent. I kept waiting for a dragon to show up whom he could defeat with patent law.

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  189. Doc Nebula1:08 PM

    Once upon a; time, I would have just shrugged, said "Larry Correia is a terrible writer and that's why he doesn't win awards", and moved on.

    However, as an independent author (that sounds much nicer than 'unpublished amateur', right?) I've had some experience with the seemingly endless legions of independent authors out there, self publishing in the same places that I'm self publishing, and I've become aware that Correia actually ain't bad. His personal writings seem to strongly indicate he's kind of a loathsome prick, but, you know, a lot of people are (god knows I aggravate enough people). I don't particularly care for his writing -- all his characters seem to be two dimensional caricatures, his dialogue is trite at best, and he doesn't seem to be much on plot or coherent world building -- but he does write at a professional level and he's got a pretty big following.

    Does that make him Hugo worthy? I doubt it.

    Correia claims proudly that he writes 'straight pulp'. I wish he wouldn't, as I love pulp and write a lot of it myself and Correia's pulp, in my opinion, eats fat frog dick... but while I know very few people who can coherently define 'pulp' (certainly, Quentin Tarantino has no fucking clue), a few things it isn't is original or visionary. Pulp is pretty much evocative, visceral fiction that usually concerns itself with various cliche subjects, characters, and plotlines, mostly because 'pulp' was originally very commercial fiction, and cliches always sell.

    Pulp doesn't win awards. It usually doesn't even get nominated for them.

    If Correia has to tell himself that he doesn't get nominated because he's a conservative, and he then goes on to tell himself that he didn't win for the same reason, whatever, dude. It's actually that he's a shitty writer. If he manages to work the refs well enough with his relentless whining to actually get himself a pity Hugo, well, that will suck, but it's not surprising... conservatives have been working the MSM refs for decades now the same way.

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  190. Meanie-meanie, tickle a person1:54 PM

    "Real SF". Wow, what a concept...
    What they probably mean is "Hard" SF, as in Rockets, Robots & Ray Guns, sort of the 3Rs of SF. Stuff that would get printed in Analog, "the" hard SF magazine. You know, "The one with rivets". Well, Harlan Ellison could hardly be called "hard SF", and Larry Niven couldn't get much harder, yet I like both of 'em, and Ellison published a Niven story in DV.
    Readers like what they like, which is as it should be, but to write off half of SF as something else because it doesn't suit your taste or your politics is childish. There's SF I don't care for--mostly dealing with swords and castles and SLTT--but it's still SF. "SF", to me, is Speculative Fiction. I read that description somewhere as a kid, when I was vacuuming it up at a dangerous pace, and I still think it fits best. "What if?---Why Not!", as it used to say on the inside cover of (I think) F&SF...

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  191. Doc Nebula3:10 PM

    I'm just going to say this, and I'm late to the party so probably no one will ever know... if you're huge S.M. Stirling fans, you need to find and read the Draka novels... not the edited down omnibus, but the original editions. MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA is good, UNDER THE YOKE is great, THE STONE DOGS is interesting. Plus, Stirling's other work is worth looking at, too... but if you want to see total militant fascism in action, read the Draka novels.

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  192. I think I've always avoided the Draka novels because, well, I can put up with a little creepiness in, say, Conquistador but the full up fascism of what undersatnd to be the Draka novels? No. Are you saying this is what Stirling looks like without filters or are you saying that despite it all they are fun, because I could use something fun to read.

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  193. I could enjoy a novel that was well written and jumped with my interests--but if I found out that it had been written by a mass murderer to while away the time he was serving for raping and murdering women and wrenching the eye teeth out of his victim's children I really wouldn't be able to continue enjoying it or discussing it as Art. Maybe with the passage of time I could, because the victim's blood wouldn't be crying out from the stones quite as loudly.


    But when we are talking about a contemporary person, or a person whose political viewpoints are diametrically opposed to my own and, in the case of the kinds of viewpoints that matter, aimed at the destruction of much that I hold dear, the same applies. I mean when we talk about politics we aren't talking about "favors/doesn't favor building an on ramp on the I-95" we're talking about "grinds the faces of the poor" or "objectively pro-rapist's rights" or "tool of the Koch brothers." And we're also talking about genre fiction, in the case of sci fi. I just don't think that this form of "Art" justifies giving money to assholes and political lunatics.

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  194. Lurking Canadian8:40 PM

    Under the Yoke is not fun. It is among the worst meditations on evil that I have ever personally read. I do not, unlike some, think Stirling wrote the Draka that way because he secretly admires them or whatever. But it is literally among the most frightening books I have ever encountered, and just because of the horrors the Draka visit upon their slaves.

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  195. So...not fun? I think I'll give it a miss then. But Hi, lurking canadian. My regards to the mrs. lurking canadian.

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  196. 'Tis! Thank you!



    Yeah, when your hero is Practically Perfect in Every Way, you'd better be writing children's fiction, not something you expect adults to swallow.

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  197. The Hugos are Hollywood writ a ,lot smaller. Upthread I quoted the numbers. 1800 and some change people decided last year's Hugos. That's total ballots cast.

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  198. "Technically, anyone who attends the World Con has the right to vote for the Hugo that year..."

    It's a little more complicated than that.

    If you wait until the last minute to buy your supporting or attending membership, you don't get a ballot. I think the cutoff is a month before the date.

    If you buy your membership at the door, you don't get a ballot.

    If you buy a limited attendance pass (1or 2 day pass) you don't get a ballot.

    So you could have a 6,060 attendance convention, like 2013, and still only have 1,848 voting memberships, which was 42% of those entitled to vote.

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