Category: Uncategorized

On bloc voting

First, I was pleased to see that Black Gate accepted their well-deserved and long-overdue Hugo nomination. John O’Neill, who is one of the fairest and most decent individuals on either side of the ideological aisle, explained why:

“Since the Black Gate nomination was for the
entire site (which is run by a group of nearly 40 volunteers, many of
whom are thrilled by the nomination), we did not decline. That’s a
choice that will doubtless expose us to some (perhaps deserved)
criticism.”

John believes SP/RP was “a Spectacularly Bad Idea” and that “There will be a response, and it won’t be pretty.” Of course, we’re already seeing how unpretty that response can be.

“I consider Vox Day one step, either direction, from certifiable.” – Mike Resnick

“Fuck John C. Wright, that cretinous neckbeard, and fuck Vox Day, that pathetic human garbage bin.” – a commenter at Charles Stross’s site

“I cannot abide Vox Day, and I’d drop a planet on his house if I
could. Man’s a misogynistic pig, and that’s an insult to swine.” – Michael Harper

And the latter comment is coming from someone who has REJECTED the Mutually Assured Destruction option being recommended by many, including John O’Neill himself. However much I like John and respect his opinion, I would be remiss if I did not point out there are two serious problems with it:

  1. It is logically incoherent to assert that we are wreckers and indifferent to the long-term fate of the Hugo Awards and to simultaneously threaten MAD. If anyone believes that it is our goal to destroy the awards, they should be begging Sad Puppies to not vote No Award for everything and promising to cast their own votes for everything on the merits. In 2008, there were 483 valid nominating ballots. In 2015, when SP/RP dominated, there were 2,122. It should be readily apparent that anything they can do, we can do bigger, better, and longer. Yes, the other side can bring more in the future. So can we. If they want a showdown, we’ll be there.
  2. Contra John’s belief, I’m not crazy, he is completely wrong, and there IS a bloc operating in secret. Several blocs, as a matter of fact, and a fair number of people have known about them for a long time.

You might be surprised how long small block voting has been going
on in Hugo nominations. In fact, I was having a conversation with a
former Hugo administrator about it last night. The thing is, it’s usually only in a category or two, and usually
either not enough to add a single nominated work, or just enough to add a
single nominated work.
– Deidre Saoirse Moen, April 5, 2015

I do not believe that there was ever a deliberate conspiracy to fill all
the slots in every category with a dedicated “slate” of works. There
clearly have been campaigns to get individual works on the ballot, some of them going beyond the technically legal.
– Kevin Standlee, April 2, 2015

Here is one apparent example. Consider the following vote totals in Best Editor from 2007 to 2013:

2007
88 David G. Hartwell (Tor)
80 Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor)

The next three nominees received between 43 and 28 votes.

2008
70 Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor)
67 David G. Hartwell (Tor)

The next three nominees received between 18 to 51 votes.

2009
87 David G. Hartwell (Tor)
76 Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor)

The other three nominees received 92, 34, and 34 votes.

2010
54 Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor)
47 David G. Hartwell (Tor)

The other three nominees received 99, 61, and 42 votes. Strikethrough indicates that the nomination was declined. As you can see, not everyone gets the message right away.

2011
44  David G. Hartwell (Tor)
31 Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor)

The other three nominees received 96, 54, and 23 votes 

Either PNH or Hartwell won the Best Editor Long award every year from 2007 through 2010, with two apiece. Lou Anders of Pyr finished second on the shortlist every year from 2007 through 2013, except for the year he won, in 2011. Now, what is interesting to observe is that in 2007-2008, Anders only had 43 and 51 votes. Anders responded with an effective nomination campaign and came back the next three years with a bloc vote ranging from 92 to 96 votes, finally culminating in a shortlist win in 2011, the year that PNH followed Hartwell’s lead in declining the nomination.

PNH was back in the game the next year, although it looks like he threw his support to Betsy Wolheim of DAW who received 67 nominating votes and won the Best Editor Long award despite never receiving a single nominating vote in 30 previous years and promptly falling off the shortlist the following year, when PNH won again. Two years after winning, Wolheim was back to receiving no nominating votes at all. Sheer coincidence, no doubt. Note that Wolheim is Patrick Rothfuss’s editor, and Rothfuss is an ally of the Scalzi/Stross bloc vote.

And what ho? That year that Wolheim inexplicably received Tor-level nominating votes and won, what do we see in Best Novel, but:

49 The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
48 Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi

Pure coincidence and fanly enthusiasm again, right? Unless you have a two-digit IQ, what you can see here is not only bloc votes of the sort that Standlee and Moen are describing, but competing bloc votes. Anders was able to build a bigger supporting bloc vote at the nominating stage, but he was always beaten out by Tor’s larger non-bloc shortlist voters until the Tor crew eased up and let him win one by stepping aside. Then they threw a bone to Wolheim before resuming business as usual.

And then Sad Puppies entered the picture….

Anyhow, as I told everyone at Black Gate, there is one, and only one, reason that I recommended their nomination. I recommended a Hugo nomination for Black Gate and for Matthew David
Surridge for one very simple reason; they are both among the best in
their categories in the SF/F field. No more, no less. And both deserved Hugos
years ago.

“The key to strategy… is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory.”
    —The Vor Game

A note to pro-immigrationists

Do you really want this in the West? Because this is exactly what you are enthusiastically importing everywhere from Spain to the USA. And for those of you of the SJW persuation, notice that there isn’t a single straight white male body among them. Who do you think will die first, well-armed white men willing to fight or unarmed liberals in gun-free zones at universities?

“The terrorists raided the university early on Thursday morning…. A total of 148 people were killed in the six-hour siege, with the gunmen
shooting and beheading those who could not recite the Koran.”

Their greatest threat

The Hugo announcements appear to have driven a few SJWs well around the bend:

This is a man who goes beyond bigot, whose longterm planning looks more and more like creating a Christian version of ISIS. I don’t care about Godwin’s Law, he has written his own Mein Kampf. Forget the “War Against Terrorism”; Vox Day’s Culture War is the greatest threat to us all.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:38 PM on April 5 [5 favorites]

My old Uncle Charlie – he once invited me to call him that – appears to be deeply, deeply disappointed with his black sheep of an adopted nephew:

The screaming question I feel the need to ask, is: why Finland? Could there be a connection between the white supremacist Perussuomalaiset (Finns Party), the overtly racist Sweden Democrats, the Dark Enlightenment/neoreactionary movement, and Vox Day’s peculiarly toxic sect of Christian Dominionist theology?

Over a period of years, he’s built an international coalition, finding
common cause with the European neo-nazi fringe. Now they’ve attempted to
turn the Hugo Awards into a battlefield
in their (American) culture wars. But this clearly isn’t the end game
they have in mind: it’s only a beginning. (The Hugos, by their very
nature, are an award anyone can vote in for a small fee: it is
interesting to speculate on how deep Vox Day’s pockets are.) But the real burning question is, “what will he attack next?”

And now we know how the imagination that once produced Accelerando now exercises itself. Great stuff! My question is if it is “the screaming question” or “the real burning question” that takes priority? Remember, this is one of the very people who informs us that John C. Wright isn’t a Hugo-quality writer, like them. Cuz they be writing real gooder! But at least we now have a proper name for the auxiliary forces of the Evil Legion of Evil, which is the International Coalition of the Willingly Evil.

But I do owe the man for honestly warning me about how speaking my mind freely would pose a serious risk to my career in SF/F. Is Scalzi around? Does that merit a hand job or will a mere “thanks, mate” suffice?

McRapey’s friend Sparklepunter was content to settle for a death wish:

Chris Warcraft@chriswarcraft
The only thing that Vox Day deserves to win is a trip to a society that believes what he espouses so a random person can shoot him.

And another of Scalzi’s little friends, @SFReviews, managed to get his account suspended.

Account suspended
The profile you are trying to view has been suspended.

These people really have their identity tied up as the One True Science Fiction Fans. The mere threat of not collecting their annual rocket tribute has them reacting like Gollum to someone trying to steal his Precious. For who would contemplate something so purely evil, but Evil Nazi Finnsssssss?

If this keeps up, it will provide Anonymous Conservative with enough material for tome on Rabbitology fatter than A Throne of Bones. And you know, for all that they enjoy citing the fact that my father has been imprisoned for years and babbling about how dangerous I am, it’s interesting that they never manage to put the two together. I mean, in the movies, anyhow, people are usually very concerned about those who have direct contacts in the Federal prison system.

UPDATE: James Nicoll digs a deeper hole and swears off Baen Books:

Since Baen’s publisher Toni Weisskopf is part of the Puppies slate for the second year running, I will no longer accept new commissions where the only edition is from Baen and while I will finish current projects involving Baen Books, I won’t link to the Baen edition. I certainly will not be buying anything from Baen in the future. I urge everyone (particularly people with review sites) to do the same.

Not exactly a problem for Castalia House. None of them were ever going to review our books anyhow. What was that a very smart and astonishingly handsome man once said about denying a man a platform?

Mailvox: We are lessened

I just received this news:

“Hello everyone, I am Outlaw’s nephew. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, unfortunately Outlaw passed away last night at around 7:30. Personally, I had no idea my Uncle had this many followers on his blog. He was always a bright person and always had his own unique opinion on any topic. His death was a very tragic loss to our family. I would like to thank all of you for your prayers and support.”

He’d predicted he wouldn’t live to see Easter.

I know he’s with our Lord, free of pain, it that doesn’t still my sense of loss.

Outlaw X, aka Equus Pallidus, was one of the original Dread Ilk. He was combative and argumentative and difficult and smart and generous and fiercely loyal. He was an early supporter of my writing; he once bought 10 copies of Summa Elvetica for other Ilk who could not afford them. Longtime Ilk will recall that he could get overheated at times, but he always settled down sooner or later.

I wish I’d had
the chance to tell him about the Hugo wipeout yesterday. If he’d been better, there is no way he wouldn’t have been a part of it. And he was one of the primary reasons the Ilk became known as the Dread Ilk. His trampling of Michael Medved on Medved’s own show when Medved was waxing outraged in response to one of my WND columns was epic; I can still here him saying “You made that up in your haid” in that strong Texas accent.

Death comes for us all in time, but few of us will be remembered as fondly as Equus Pallidus. Rest in peace, my friend, and give my best regards to Bane when you see him.

A cunning plan

Watch out! The bitter SJWs and Torlings have come up with a clever two-part plan to take back the Hugo Awards!

  1. Sign up Castalia House for UK mailing lists. Muawahahahahaha.
  2. Blow up the Hugo Awards by voting No Award.

I don’t know about you, but I suddenly find myself questioning if I can find the strength to carry on in light of such effective actions and threats, especially such totally unforeseeable ones such as the latter.

Dear Mr VoxDay AndOtherRacistHomophobes

****** THIS IS AN AUTOMATED RESPONSE FROM TfL’s CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTRE – PLEASE DO NOT REPLY ******

Thank you for signing up to our Weekend closures email.

To make sure you receive our emails, please add Transport_for_London@info.tfl.gov.uk to your email address book.

They’re totally not irrational and flailing wildly about at all. Even other Tor editors besides the NHs are now doubling-down:

I’m asking people to vote for No Award (not a person named “Noah Ward,” please note), which is the escape clause the rules give us to signal that the process is broken. I don’t expect you to understand how it’s broken. Clearly the principles you’re basing your argument are radically different from mine. In these late days of traditional fandom, as sad as that is, it’s not surprising.
– Moshe Feder, Consulting Senior Editor for Tor Books

 I’m going to assume everyone here understands the concept of statistical variance. Here are the variances compared for the SP2 nominees, the top vote getter in the eight major categories in 2014, and the suspicious Tor darlings from 2008 to 2013. Can you spot the bloc votes?

    Variance: 3773.9 (SP 2014)    Variance:  1493.8 (SP 2013)    Variance: 1.6 (Tor 2008)    Variance: 98.6 (Tor 2009)    Variance: 119.1 (Tor 2010)    Variance: 4.7 (Tor 2012)    Variance: 14.9 (Tor 2013)

Note that 2008 is when Scalzi posted his most blatant “Award Pimpage Post” and he and Stross finished within 3 votes of each other for Best Novel (41), Best Novel (40) and Best Fan Writer. (43). That same year, Tor editors PNH (70) and David Hartwell (67) were within 3 votes of each other as well. Its pretty obvious that there was an additional “suck up to the big dogs at Tor vote of 30 votes over the Scalzi/Stross alliance.

By contrast, this year, the leading vote-getter in Best Novel, presumably Correia, received 387 votes, which was similar to the 384 votes in Best Editor Long, presumably Weisskopf. Bloc vote, right? Well, no, that doesn’t hold up because it is far more than the 230 that Wright presumably got in Short Story or the 201 that Johnson presumably got in Best Fan Writer. It’s too soon to tell, but there may be more variance among the people who voted for John Wright in Best Novella alone than between the 2008 Stross/Scalzi vote.

To claim that TWO 3-vote variances in a single year are LESS suspicious than an open slate that differed by at least 186 votes is either dishonest or insane. Especially when both Scalzi and Stross are self-admitted Hugo campaigners.

He is risen!

24 Now
upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came
unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and
certain others with them. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre.
3 And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus.
4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:
5 And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?
6 He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee,
7 Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
8 And they remembered his words,
9 And returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.
10 It
was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other
women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
11 And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.
12 Then
arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld
the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself
at that which was come to pass.
– Luke 24:1-12

Many wondrous things have come, and will come, to pass. But none is more wonderful than this, the empty tomb.

The everyday battles in which we find ourselves engaged are nothing more than ripples and reflections of this, the one true battle, the centuries-old war between the Prince of this world and the Son of Man. Contemplate how dark and hopeless everything must have looked to the apostles, and to women like Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary, after the Crucifixion. So when things seem dark and hopeless, when you feel outnumbered and alone, when you look at the barbarians rampaging inside the gates and despair at what the future will bring, remind yourself of two things.

The tomb is empty. He is risen.

Happy Easter. 

The Haydens take on #GamerGate

At this point, one has to wonder if the Toad of (formerly) Tor is a serious glutton for punishment, as well as, obviously, being the conventional sort.

Two observations here:

(1) Clearly, the Sad Puppy campaign is all about healthy fannish enthusiasm for particular people and books, not at all about vengeance, score-settling, or a desire to “hurt” “social justice warriors” and “hunt down” the “disease”. They’re all just nice folks who make jokes about puppies.

(2) Reaching out to #GamerGate, inviting them to join Worldcon: special.

To repeat something I said in the lengthy Making Light comment-section discussion of all this, here’s my own take what’s not a big deal, and what really is a big deal.

(1) To the best of my knowledge, the campaign to get a slate of specific people and works onto the Hugo ballot hasn’t done anything that violates the rules.

(2) As anyone over the age of ten knows, it’s generally possible to do things that are dubious, or scummy, or even downright evil, without violating any laws or rules.

(3) Merely running a campaign to get a slate of specific people and works onto the Hugo ballot doesn’t really rise to the level of “evil”, but it’s definitely “dubious” at the very least. Which is to say, it violates a lot of people’s sense of how one ought to behave, and if you do it you’ll incur widespread disapproval. Prepare to deal.

(4) However, running a campaign to get a slate of specific people and works onto the Hugo ballot and reaching out to #Gamergate for support in this…in effect, inviting a bunch of people who traffic in violent threats, intimidation, and “SWATting” to join our community…well, that rises all the way to “downright evil”.

For complicity with this, the Sad Puppy campaign deserves our comprehensive rejection.

Voting No Award for everything… wow, that’s such an astonishing and totally unexpected tactic! Who could ever have possibly anticipated THAT? Certainly not these dreadful people who are, I am reliably informed, “downright evil”. Now, I wonder what would be more evil, some perfectly reasonable works from the likes of John C. Wright and Jim Butcher winning an award or two, or leaving the Hugo Awards an awardless smoking ruin?

Meanwhile, Tor Books Senior Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden launches his own attack on #GamerGate:

Does the desire to expand fandom mean we have to welcome every imaginable kind of person? I think a moment’s reflection reveals that no, we do not. The SF convention that finds itself sharing a hotel with the International Association of Cheerful Child-rapers can probably be excused for not inviting them to come visit the con suite. Likewise, many people, me included, think that #Gamergate is an association of terrible human beings that we don’t want to see joining us.

(shakes head) Do these people know how to do anything but double-down?

The International Lord of Hate explains

Larry Correia was nominated in Best Novel for NEMESIS, but elected to decline the nomination:

The Hugo nominees have been announced. As you’ve probably already heard Sad Puppies suggested candidates showed up everywhere. We got nominations for dozens of talented, deserving people who would normally have been ignored or shunned.

I just want to make a comment about why I’m personally not on the list. I was contacted by the administrators on 3/20/15 and informed that Monster Hunter Nemesis was a finalist for best novel. I emailed them back the same day and turned it down. Whoever was next in line was then moved up to be a finalist in my place.

I refused the nomination for one simple reason. The Sad Puppies campaign isn’t about any one person. I felt that ultimately my presence would be a distraction from the overall mission.

The reason I refused my nomination is that as long as the guy who started Sad Puppies stayed in, the more our opposition would try to dismiss the whole campaign as being all about my ego, or some selfish personal desire to get award recognition. Nope. I really meant it when I said I don’t care about winning anything for myself. I hope this proves that once and for all.

The SJWs of science fiction have thrown all sorts of accusations at us, chief among them that we are self-serving individuals desperate for awards. The truth is, they would be considerably better off if we were. But we’re not.

2015 Hugo Nominations

In less than an hour, the finalists for the 2015 Hugo Awards will be announced. You can watch the livestream here. Regardless of what happens, I encourage everyone to remain calm, cool, and collected. If we fail, so be it. Kate the Impaler is leading Sad Puppies 4 for 2016 and the long march continues. If we succeed, then that is one more strong point broken, but many still remain. The long march continues.

Whether we are beaten back this time or we break through the enemy lines and leave them reeling in disbelief and disarray, we will continue to methodically and patiently advance. We will defeat the SJWs in science fiction, we will break the stranglehold of the gatekeepers, we will reclaim the genre for freedom of speech, thought, and association, and we will continue to expose the pretenses and posturings and pernicious accusations of the SJWs for the lies that they are.

And in doing so, we will show others, in other industries and areas of the culture, that not only is resistance possible, but that it is possible to reclaim long-lost ground. We will show them that even a small number of people who are willing to stand up and say “you shall not pass” can make a real and substantive difference.

I spent the afternoon putting together two ebooks by Jerry Pournelle that Castalia will be releasing later this month. Going through them helped me put into perspective how much has changed in science fiction and across the West since the early 1980s, most of it distinctly not for the better. Like us, those books have lain dormant for over a decade. But they are coming back. So are we.

I will post the results here as they are announced.

Best New Writer:

Rolf Nelson, Eric Raymond, Kary English, Jason Cordova, Wesley Chu

Best Fan Artist

Ninni Aalto Brad Foster Elizabetth Leggett Spring Schoenhusth, Steve Styles

Best Fan Writer 777

Dave Freer, Amanda Green, Jeffro, Laura Mixon, Cedar Sanderson

Best Fancast 576

Adventures in SF Publishing, Dungeaon Crawlers Radio, Galactic Suburbia, The Sci Phi Show, Tea and Jeapardy

 Best Fanzine 576

Black Gate, Elitist Book Reviews, Journey Planet, The Revenge of Hump Day, Tangent SF Online

Best Semipro periodical 660

Abyss Apex, Andromeda Spaceways, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons

Best Professional Artist 753

Julie Dillon, Jon Eno, Nick Greenwood

Best Editor (long) 712

Vox Day, Sheila Gilbert, Jim Minz, Anne Sowards, Toni Weisskopf

Best Editor (short) 870

Jennifer Brozek, Vox Day, Mike Resnick, Edmund Schubert, Bryan Thomas Schmidt

Best Drama short 938

Dr Who Listen, The Flash pilot, Game of Thrones Mountain and Viper, Grimm Once We Were Gods, Orphan Black By which means have never yet been tried

Best Drama long 1285

Captain America, Edge of Tomorrow, Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstellar, The Lego Movie

Best Graphic Story 785

Ms Marvel 1, Rat Queens Vol 1, Saga Volume 3, Sex Criminals 1, The Zombie Nation Vol 2, Reanimate

Best Related Work 1,150

Hot Equations, Letters from Gardner, Transhuman and Subhuman, Why Science Never Settled, Wisdom From My Internet

Best Short Story 1,174

Goodnight Stars, On a Spiritual Plain, The Parliament of Beast and Birds, Totaled, Turncoat

Best Novelette 1,031

Ashes to Ashes, Championsip B’Tok, The Journeyman, The Triple Sun, Yes, Virginia There is a Santa Claus

Best Novella 1,083

Big Boys Don’t Cry, Flow, One Bright Star to Guide Them, Pale Realms of Shade, The Plural of Helen of Troy

Best Novel 1821

Ancillary Sword, The Dark Between the Stars, The Goblin Emperor, Lines of Departure, Skin Game

Thanks so much to all the Rabid Puppies and Sad Puppies for your support. Without you, this cultural revolution in science fiction and fantasy would not have gotten off the ground. And for those feeling left out, you’ll be glad to know that it does not end here. If you aren’t already marching with the Evil Legion of Evil, you can vote in the finals this year and for next year’s nominations too by registering for a Supporting Membership with Sasquan.

I think you’ll find that at $40, it offers a considerable quantity of entertainment value for the dollar.

My favorite part about the whole thing was that one of the few SJW works to make it on the shortlist was Sex Criminals 1. That’s astonishing, especially in light of the recent revelations concerning Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ed Kramer.