Dave Freer senses one on the horizon:
I am seeing things which just wouldn’t have happened a few years ago creeping in. A few years back badmouthing and blacklisting and ‘I won’t read’ and you’re a jerk (or racist or or homophobe or bigot etc. etc.) ostracization if you read XYZ (yes, Baen) was the sole property of the left. It was ineffectual for anyone else, as there wasn’t much else. In the last few years, particularly last year, that has changed. The insults became a joke, or a badge of pride. The sad puppies, and particularly the attacks on Larry Correia and Brad Torgersson (Vox Day thrives on it, and so does his audience, something his detractors don’t seem to grasp) have had large numbers badmouth and blacklist the darlings of the left like Leckie and Hines and Scalzi. Yes, I know, they’ve done the same in the inverse. But… they always have. It’s nothing new. So what? No loss to the authors the left are demonizing to their followers, who didn’t buy them anyway, and always sneered at them. Those are not lost sales, but the same is not true in converse. It’ll spread to those who support them, and for some of those very sales stand between them and being dropped. And the demons of absolute power are coming back to haunt them with pedophile praise-singing and elevation of internet bully-trolls like Requires Hate (now reborn and rehabilitated as Benjanum Somethingorother (another fake persona?) And of course, independent publishing of e-books has revealed that the demographic of readers reflecting the population is real, and their little subsection is over-served.
It all shapes up for pretty mess. I reckon in the next ten years the pendulum will swing very hard and far. I hope those on the winning side of that bit of future history will have the sense to not push the pendulum higher when sense says to damp it. It’s probably 30 years off, at least, so I’ll be dead. Not my problem any more.
So what do we readers and writers who love our genre need to think about now, if we’re actually going to be long sighted and care about our genre? The answer depends on whether you sit as one of the pampered darlings getting benefits way, way over your demographic rights… or the other 90% of us. The latter… not much. Buy books from those who have been discriminated against – people like yourselves. You don’t have to buy the output of Traditional Publishing, or nothing. Write your own, support (with promotion and friendship, and maybe a good critique or two) people who have been marginalized by traditional publishing, but are like you. Support the Sad Puppies newest version, if you choose. If people choose to badmouth your favorite authors, vote with your dollars or cents. The demographics of those dollars and cents works against special perks for favored darlings.
If you are one of the other side, try panic. It looks good on you. Seriously, if you don’t want far left wing intersectionality crushed… and books and authors who write what you want to see driven out, and get what you’ve handed out, you better start damping that pendulum down. I think last year’s Hugo Awards was about your last real chance, but you could all get together in your little cabals and nominate something other than the totally improbable usual suspects.
Anyone want to bet they won’t be just as dim-witted as last year?
Yeah, me neither.
I can scent spring… and it’ll be a hot summer.
Translation: thrives = 895,311 monthly pagviews in January 2013 (just before John Scalzi and David Barnett teamed up to attack me in the Guardian), versus 1,467,620 monthly pageviews in December 2014. Clearly you are all very, very bad people and I hope you are ashamed of yourselves. In the meantime, Whatever is in precipitous decline, the Toad of Tor has been fired from Tor Books, and the various Pink SF awards have descended into complete farce.
The pinkshirts do have a choice, of course. They can try to ignore me and permit me to pound on them mercilessly without publicly defending themselves, or they can attack me, create a public discourse, and thereby risk being humiliated and creating even more awareness of the ideas they fear than before. Guess which one the rabbits will choose? It makes no difference, of course, either one works for me. I think it’s rather cruel for Dave Freer to suggest there is anything they can do about it now. What has happened so far is only the beginning; just wait until more of the smaller SF houses collapse like Night Horse, the media tie-in markets dry up, Tor starts laying people off and further cutting advances, and Castalia House begins to tap into the game channel. There is a reason, after all, that the likes of Scalzi and Gould have gone running to Hollywood. They see the writing on the wall.
Speaking of Sad Puppies 3, there is an amusing discussion taking place at Brad’s place, as a few SJWs are begging him to please not hit them again. The extent to which they don’t understand us is remarkable. And if you haven’t registered as a supporting member of WorldCon yet, you’ll need to do so if you want to participate in the voting this time around. Brad Torgersen, aka Bleeding Heart Bear, will be posting the Sad Puppies 3 recommendations for Hugo Award nominations in due order. Fingers crossed!