Category: Uncategorized

John Scalzi, author of precisely one “conventionally published novel”, leads the hopping mad flock of rabbits over at Electrolite:

I have a degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago (specializing in the philosophy of language), and therefore have ample training in rhetoric, so I doubt that rhetorical deficiencies on this end are the issue.

I read your column Vox, and I grasped your obvious rhetorical device. It doesn’t impress me. As continually stated, your rhetorical device is obviously bad: Poorly stated, poorly supported, and rheorically incoherent. To restate: Your thesis is wrong and you lack the rhetorical skills to present your thesis in a coherent fashion. Your latter-day attempt to brush off your sexist and ignorant statement as sarcasm is baldly transparent as backtracking; even if it were true, it shows that your use of such devices is appallingly clumsy. Again one wonders how you got your columnist gig, or, alternately, if anyone bothers to edit you, as you so clearly need.

He’s taking exception to my statement that “women do not write hard SF today”. I guess he’ll be after Maureen Dowd this morning after the opening line of her column in the New York Times: “Arabs put their women in veils. We put ours in the stocks.”

Or perhaps she isn’t using a rhetorical device and I’ve been shamefully remiss in not keeping Space Bunny locked up. Handcuffs, hmmm…. That doesn’t really sound all that bad, if you just come at it from the right perspective.

By the way, don’t post there. The host has declared the subject closed. You can make your points here if you like.

Farmer Tom is leery:

I don’t think as professing Christians we have the right to decide if we like the death penalty or not. God established it in Genesis 9, Christ addressed it when he stood before Pilate declaring that God had given the right to take a life to Pilate, and the Apostle Paul reaffirmed in Romans the right of the government to bear the sword. So when Vox says that he opposes the dp because he fears governments, I get concerned. What is the next Biblical principle he will decide is not relevant today?”

I’m leaning towards fornication, but I’m also open to the love of money or perhaps polygamous deacons. Seriously, I’ll address this in the future, but not now. I have a column to write.

Since the wrathful womyn of the science fiction and fantasy writing community appear to believe that pointing out undeniable and easily demonstrable fact is tantamount to proof of sexism, I thought I’d think about if there did happen to be any women writers I enjoy. As it turns out, there are quite a few.

WOMEN WORTH READING:

Murasaki Shikibu: THE TALE OF GENJI is a journey into an alien culture, namely, 11th Century Heian Japan. It doesn’t follow conventional fiction tropes, which makes sense given that it appears to be the first novel, and it can get tedious at times, but it is absolutely fascinating. I’m not sure which is more interesting, the hero-prince who is always bursting into tears over the color of a ribbon when he isn’t seducing women or the warrior-monks who periodically descend from their temples to ravage the countryside.

Theresa Edgerton: GOBLIN MOON is the first in a series of slightly creepy novels that touch on the dangers of romance with an alchemical edge. I love her stuff, she’s vastly underrated in my opinion.

Tanith Lee: Speaking of creepy. She writes some of the most purely beautiful prose in the genre. “When you die, no, when I kill you….” I much prefer her fantasy to her science fiction, but it’s all good.

Camille Paglia: SEXUAL PERSONAE is a great and marvelous work. Okay, it’s not fiction, but I re-read her often. Definitely caused me to approach WRATH in a different way.

Susan Cooper: THE DARK IS RISING is one of my all-time favorite books and series. Many EW readers have noted her influence on my own writing. Her other books are decent too, I only wish she’d been more prolific.

Ellis Peters: Brother Cadfael is one of my two favorite detectives.

Dorothy Sayers: Lord Peter Wimsey is the other one.

Agatha Christie: Formulaic, sure, but always entertaining even so.

Sharon Kay Penman: My favorite historical novels.

Lois McMaster Bujold: Her BARRAYAR books are often very strange, to me, but I enjoy following her characters. Her fantasy is also pretty good, and is more original than most.

Pat Wrede: I tend to like her less popular works best, for some reason. DEALING WITH DRAGONS is all right, but I preferred SORCERY AND CECILIA as well as its recent sequel, THE GRAND TOUR. She writes a far more accurate European background than most. She’s also a delightful person, which comes through in her characters.

Louisa May Alcott: She’s mostly known for LITTLE WOMEN, but she actually wrote quite a few books. LITTLE MEN was a childhood favorite of mine.

Others worth mentioning: Kage Baker, Katherine Kurtz, Barbara Hambly, Katherine Kerr, Julian May, Melanie Rawn.

OVER-RATED (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap)

Ursula K. Le Guin: THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS is a very good book. THE EARTHSEA CYCLE is all but unreadable. As for the rest… whatever.

Catherine Asaro: Yes, she has a PhD, in physics no less. But her books are still romance novels and bad ones at that. She won the Nebula around the time she won the SFWA presidency – the membership votes for both – thus providing a useful proof of the democratic trend towards the lowest common denominator. THE QUANTUM ROSE has 17 reviews on Amazon, the novels that won the year before and the year after have 225 and 469 respectively. Hmmmmm….

Mercedes Lackey: Writes the sort of books that cause the reader to seriously consider scratching his eyes out rather than read another page. Why is it always this sort of author who turns out to be prolific?

Laurell Hamilton: Sweet Cthulhu, she’s TERRIBLE. Her first book was pretty good and then everything went downhill fast. My hatred for her protagonist is second only to that I harbor for Robert Jordan’s Rand al’Thor. I’m not reading anymore of her books until she finally kills off Anita Blake, I wouldn’t want to miss that. Of course, she’ll bring the loathsome bitch back, but I’ll skip that part. Read Jim Butcher’s DRESDEN FILES for a much better take on a supernatural detective in a modern setting.

Pat Cadigan: Often lumped in with William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker. Shoudn’t be. When I was going through my cyberpunk phase, I really wanted to be cool and like her stuff, but despite my best efforts to read through rose-tinted glasses, it still sucked.

Colleen McCullough: I rather liked FIRST MAN IN ROME and THE GRASS CROWN. I have no idea what happened to her, but the recent books in the series haven’t so much gone downhill as been hurled off the Tarpeian Rock and splattered far below.

UPDATE: Ironically, I happened to notice this listed by Barnes & Noble in the section about my most recent novel:
People who bought this book also bought:
• White Apples Jonathan Carroll
• The Eyre Affair Jasper Fforde
• The Left Behind Box Set: Books 1-4 Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins
• Left behind Collection II (Vol. #5-8) (Boxed Set) Tim LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins
• Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake Vampire Hunter #1) Laurell K. Hamilton

Not one, not two, but THREE are by writers for whom I have no affection. Strange, and mildly worrisome. On the other hand, having the 122nd best-selling Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy item at Barnes and Noble isn’t so bad, there are worse fates than being sandwiched between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkein. Sure, that falls into the “don’t quit your day job” category, but I’ll take it.

From Electrolite:

I don’t understand. Are you denying that you said: “Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics” but, instead, you’re saying that some linear superposition of Barby and Ann Coulter said: “Women do not write hard science fiction today because so few can hack the physics?”

Or are you saying that a woman cannot both be a feminist and able to write hard science fiction?

Or are you saying that a woman cannot both be a feminist and a Physics professor?

Or what?

Please note that I am not attacking you. I am admitting that I had trouble understanding one paragraph of your because it seemed to deny the existence of my wife. I am giving you a chance to correct my misunderstanding.

I agree with you that Neal Stephenson is a good writer, although he needs a good editor. I agree with you that Bujold, Eco, Stross and Wrede are all very good writers. I agree with your statement that you had the best of intentions on the Nebula Jury. I did not accuse you of antisemitism.

I am just one reader of Patrick’s blog. But if you can clarify things for me, you have reduced from n+1 to n the number of readers of this blog that you need to persuade.

No, why would I deny it? Sure, it is theoretically possible for women to be feminist Physics professors writing science fiction. I have no doubt that one or two such unusual beasts exist floating about the fringes. However, because of the inclination of women towards Women’s Studies and other math-free majors, the pool of potentials is extremely small. If only 13 percent of Physics PhDs are female, as Physics Today claimed, then I don’t see why it should be controversial to state that few women are capable of writing hard SF.

I note that The Hard SF Renaissance declares the big names in hard SF in are: Greg Egan, Gregory Benford, Geoffrey Landis, G David Nordley, Paul McAuley, Nancy Kress, Kim Stanley Robinson, Charles Sheffield, Brian Stableford, Allen Steele, Bruce Sterling, Robert J. Sawyer, Poul Anderson, David Brin, Greg Bear, Hal Clement, Ben Bova and Larry Niven. With the exception of Ms Kress and Mrs. Robinson, these names strike me as overwhelmingly male. And Mrs. Robinson is one homely woman judging by her picture on her web site.

I believe I have a reasonably accurate snapshot of the state-of-the-field after getting book-bombed by genre publishers for the past year. Like my fellow jury members, I slogged my way through an astonishing amount of equine ejectus. And speaking of equine ejectus, I note that the cover of the award-winning physicist’s latest indicates rather strongly that what is supposedly the recent best in our field is nothing but a romance series. It’s not even a good romance cover… geez, win a Nebula and you STILL can’t get Fabio?

From the Washington Times:

Republican media adviser R. Gregory Stevens, who recently served as co-chairman of the Bush/Cheney Entertainment Task Force, was found dead Saturday in the Hollywood home of actress Carrie Fisher…. A flamboyant personality and bicoastal bachelor, Mr. Stevens was regarded as something of a misfit in the corridors of the buttoned-down lobbying firm, and yet “had a large circle who he touched. His life was a journey, not a destination,” said one member of the firm. “He was always fun and entertaining.”

This could get interesting, considering all the Democratic threats to out gay Republicans. I’ve never heard of the unfortunate Mr. Stevens before, but seeing the words “flamboyant” and “bicoastal bachelor” strikes me as being rather similar to those crime reports where the legacy media strangely happens to leave out the description of the murder suspect. VPQF, can we get a ruling?

I rather doubt that the late Hunter S. Thompson’s recent suicide was sparked by fears of being outed as a gay Republican, but then, you never really know.

UPDATE: Snowdog pronounces a verdict: Well, the words “flamboyant” and “bachelor” used in the same sentence would be a huge warning sign. “BI-coastal” has certain implications. Part of the “Entertainment Task Force?” He was SO gay.

Bradley Smith says that the freewheeling days of political blogging and online punditry are over. In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign’s Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate’s press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

Smith should know. He’s one of the six commissioners at the Federal Election Commission, which is beginning the perilous process of extending a controversial 2002 campaign finance law to the Internet.

In 2002, the FEC exempted the Internet by a 4-2 vote, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly last fall overturned that decision. “The commission’s exclusion of Internet communications from the coordinated communications regulation severely undermines” the campaign finance law’s purposes, Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

I saw this yesterday but didn’t even bother commenting on it. The notion is absurd. The Clinton administration wanted to shut down WND and even sent the IRS after it – Al Gore is still suing them, if I recall correctly – and couldn’t do so despite the fact that as a corporation that has people dependent on getting paid by it for a living, it is far more vulnerable than blogs.

The government might be able to make life a little more difficult for Blogspot and other hosting services, and will almost certainly be a pain for the Kos-style professional bloggers, but it will be virtually impossible to shut down blogs like this one, at least until the globalist traitors in the US manage to hand the Internet over to the UN. In the meantime, hosting it somewhere outside of US jurisdiction would be a matter of hours, if not minutes.

Color me both unsurprised and unconcerned. There’s a lot of things to be genuinely concerned about; this isn’t one of them. It’s ironic that blogs like the Captain’s Quarters would get their panties in a bunch over this, while simultaneously saluting the UN’s embrace of military power.

I have zero intellectual regard for the abortionettes, mostly because they can’t offer a single argument that can hold up to ten seconds debate before an impartial judge. The OC did a fine job of destroying the most cherished arguments in one or two sentences apiece; my favorite idiocy has always been the utterly asinine “it’s my body” argument, which of course doesn’t apply to almost anything else you eat, drink, wear or do in our current legal system.

But the argument I find the most tiresome is the “poor frightened young girl” argument. First, it’s a cop-out. Few would harbor similar pity for a “poor sexually deprived young boy” who rapes someone. Second, it’s a stupid basis for abortion rights as a whole, since it would be trivially simple to enact lesser penalties for girls under the age of 18 on the basis of their being non compos mentis, although I’d think that this could just as easily be regarded as an insult. In any event, the ease with which this “problem” can theoretically be addressed demonstrates that it’s nothing but a stalking horse designed to take the pressure off a beleagured abortionette who’s losing an argument.

A tangential annoyance is how abortionettes, when faced with the need to acknowledge the irresponsibility of the woman in getting pregnant in the first place given the plethora of available birth control methods, start whining about how men are irresponsible too. But this simply leads their argument onto very thin ice, as they don’t want men to be responsible or even have any voice in the matter. This is because bringing male responsibility into the pro-abortion argument would require granting men the right to either force the woman to have an abortion or be able to deny any subsequent paternal responsibility for the child.

This, of course, would be more terrifying to the abortionettes than an outright ban on the disgusting practice. What a contemptible lot! On top of everything else, they can’t even manage to take responsibility for the logic of their own haphazard arguments.

Anonymous asks a few reasonable questions:

One thing I’d like to know from all opposed to abortion. If it become illegal — what should the penalty for women who have abortions be?

And what should the penalty for doctors who perform them be?

If you think abortion if murder — shouldn’t the penalty for having or performing an abortion be the death penalty?

Penalty for women who have abortions: imprisonment until menopause.
Penalty for doctors: medical license revoked, imprisonment for life.

That will end abortion very quickly. The very remote possibility of being shot by an activist appears to have caused the number of abortionists to drop significantly. Although the notion of giving the abortionist a fair trial and executing him via rope-and-equine quartering offers just appeal, I do not believe in the death penalty because given the history of the 20th century, it is demonstrably foolish to the point of insanity to grant the state the legal power to kill its citizens.

The Original Cyberpunk performs a post-natal verbal abortion on a male abortionette. WARNING: graphic intellectual bitchslapping may be offensive to readers of a sensitive nature:

I had just put my lunch in the microwave and closed the door when the Insufferable Liberal confronted me. “I had no idea you were such a right-wing religious whack-job.”

Hmm. Strange way to begin a supposedly friendly conversation. I set the microwave timer for three minutes, pressed the start button, and turned to face him.

“Your web site. I read what you wrote about Planned Parenthood. How can you possibly be opposed to a woman’s right to choose?”

Yeah, you can’t front on that.

Utah lawmakers want to leave home schooling as unregulated as possible. Legislators have approved a bill that blocks school boards from requiring that home-schooling parents meet minimum credential requirements and keep records of what they teach and of student attendance.Also under the legislation, school boards could not require standardized testing of home-schooled students….

Rep. Mike Morley, R-Spanish Fork, noted that three of the top students at Yale this year were home-schooled. “It would be difficult to hold public education to the same standard that home school is achieving,” he said. “In most standards, we judge our parents as competent and fit unless otherwise proved.” But House Democrats questioned the hands-off legislation home-schooling parents requested. “It sounds a little like: ‘We don’t want you involved or interfering in any way,’ ” said Rep. Carol Moss, D-Holladay, a retired high school teacher.

I’m not surprised Madam Moss finds it so difficult to ascertain the message the home-schooling parents were sending the Utah legislature. She is, after all, a former teacher.