Condition Red

Derek Smart chronicles the growing industry awareness that not all is right in the Star Citizen universe:

For Star Citizen, the elephant in the room in terms of tech, is this notion that somehow a twitch-based game designed to be instanced, and which can’t even get more than 10 clients in a session without very bad things happening, is going to turn into an MMO. But back in Nov 2012 (when he was seeking funding for the project) when Chris Roberts wrote this missive about multiplayer and instancing, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that this guy – who hadn’t made a game in almost 15 years at the time –  really believed that what he was writing and dreaming about, was in fact possible. Hint: it’s not. Like over 90% (at last count) of everything he has said/promised about this project in order to get funding, it’s pure and utter horse shit. And back in July 2015, one of the devs actually added his own thoughts which then made it painfully clear that not only were they winging it – which is the basis for R&D btw – but that they also had absolutely no clue how they were going to actually do it.

As of this writing, not much has changed since then; neither in the underlying network architecture, nor the instancing part of it.

As an experienced software engineer, I tell you – flat out – that inter-instance communication described in this manner – and for the game pitched – is not only improbable, but it’s also the sort of thing that fairy dust is made of. And we’re not talking about the ability for a database in one server instance to talk to another database (e.g. user) in another instance. That’s pretty trivial (we’ve done just that in Line Of Defense btw) and rudimentary.  No, we’re talking about the ability for one game instance (A) with players, to communicate with another game instance (B) that also has players. As that is the only way that you’re ever going to get Tom on A to see/communicate with Harry on B. Before you even go that far, know this, in order for that to even work, you need to have a unified and persistent universe that acts as the “play” area for Tom and Harry.

Before you say Eve Online has done it; don’t – they haven’t. If you’re a programmer, go ahead and read up on the EO architecture (1, 2) – which btw has been drastically improved upon over the years. That EO bespoke architecture was built from the ground up as part of the engine and for a specific game. A game that’s not twitch-based or anywhere near the fidelity of the seamless architecture that Star Citizen is shooting for.

Simply put, without a seamless inter-instance communication backend, there is no Star Citizen MMO. Like ever. And while Chris was flat out of his depths and just making shit up, Alex on the other hand outlined how it could be done. Theoretically. See the difference between those two accounts of the same thing? While you’re at it, this is the list of games made with CryEngine. Count the number of standard MMO games which have actually been completed and released.

As I write this blog in the middle of May 2016, not only do they not have a persistent universe to speak of, but they still have serious issues with instances hosting more than 10 clients. Not only that, as an instanced game, the chances of you and your buddies to be in the same instance are next to impossible. This is not a game whereby you fire up a server browser, join a server, then tell you friends to come to that server before it fills up. Nor is it a game whereby you can spin up your own private server – which they also promised btw.

The sad part of all this? They were never supposed to be building an MMO to begin with. Somewhere along the line, despite saying it wasn’t an MMO, Chris decided they were going to build one after all. Just like that.

There is more being discussed at Guard Frequency, including what could be a very important date of 31 May 2016.

The convergence of the US military

Fred Reed foresees the inevitable developments:

It was an epochal moment for the military and perhaps for all of society. Screwing up her courage, Air Force First Lieutenant Kara-Ann McBee walked into her commander’s office on the D-Ring of the Pentagon and announced that she was a giant squid.

Kara was slender and tomboyish, with an upturned nose, freckles, and an attractive brush-cut hairdo. She could have been Tom Sawyer’s sister. She did not appear to be a giant squid.

“But I am, sir,” she said, rigidly at attention and clearly nervous. “I’ve known it since I was a little girl. I…sir, I am a squid trapped in a woman’s body. I’m trans-phylum, sir.”

The commander, Colonel R. Boyd Gittim, was stunned. He was a compact, graying man in his mid-fifties, a combat flier who had slipped through the screening process to high position in what insiders called the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel. He was not well suited to the complex personnel issues of the modern military.

He had to say something. What, he wondered?

“Squids have lots of arms. Ten, I think.”

“Yessir, ten. But…you see, sir, I feel their presence. Like ectoplasm or something.”

Colonel Gittim sighed. He knew of course about LGBT, which he thought of as Lettuce, Bacon, and Tomato, and he knew there existed crucial military questions about whether boys could use the girls room. Squids were too much.

It wasn’t his Air Force any longer, he thought grayly. Wars were fought by remotely-controlled drones now, and the best pilots were probably fifteen-year-old gamers with no social life. They could do it from home by internet. He decided to retire and drink himself to death.

But consequences were to follow this modest beginning. Kara-Ann, not particularly militant, said that just wanted to be respected as a cephalopod, although she did say that she thought the Air Force ought to provide her an aquarium to sleep in. But, inevitably, the affair came to the attention of DACOWITS. This was not a Polish mathematician, but the Defense Advisory Commission on Women in the Services. They were Boadiceas of social justice, fighting against the oppression, brutality, contempt and unremitting assault to which women were subjected everywhere, except anywhere that anyone could find.

Dacowits needed something to do. Things were slow in the trenches of discrimination. Most victories had been won. A woman commanded the SEALs, who had been disarmed to prevent violence. The new main battle tanks had changing tables, and urinals had been outlawed throughout the services or converted to flower pots to preclude uncomfortable spaces. The warriors of social justice needed a Cause.

Virtual squids were just the thing.

One would be inclined to say that could never happen, until one recalls that the US Army is now wearing red high heels.

The rise of the white tribe

David Marcus is about a decade too late, but his observation that the Left and the various non-white American tribes have created a growing white tribal consciousness is correct, even though he foolishly laments it rather than celebrates it:

White people are being asked—or pushed—to take stock of their whiteness and identify with it more. This is a remarkably bad idea. The last thing our society needs is for white people to feel more tribal. The result of this tribalism will not be a catharsis of white identity, improving equality for non-whites. It will be resentment towards being the only tribe not given the special treatment bestowed by victimhood.

A big part of the reason white Americans have been willing to go along with policies that are prejudicial on their face, such as affirmative action, is that they do not view themselves as a tribe. Given the inequality of resources favoring whites in our society, it is a good thing that white people view themselves as the ones without an accent. Should that change, white privilege (whatever one views that to be) will not be eviscerated—it will be entrenched.

All of this comes at a time when the last immigrants from the great wave of white immigration from 1850-1920 have died off. In the past, most whites identified with their European ethnicity: Irish, Italian, German, etc. As white people gravitate away from such identities, many see themselves as a neutral, “non racial” population. The Left criticizes this refusal to see themselves as “white,” but it is far preferable to the alternative: an American white population that views itself as a special-interest group.

There is no “white nationalism” in Europe. The EU was an attempt to create a merely continental consciousness – as opposed to the white racial consciousness of the white nationalists – and it has utterly failed. The various European nationalists consider each other allies against the continental globalists and the Arab and African invaders, of course, but there is no confusing the Soldiers of Odin with UKIP or La Lega Nord. Italian nationalism is very different than German or Swedish nationalism.

However, due to the replacement of European identities with a generic American one, combined with the anti-white tribalism of the blacks, Asians, Jews, Mexicans, and other self-identified tribes, a white tribal consciousness has been created. It falls well short of nationalism per se, but it has strong historical roots, as in fact, no other tribe has any historical claim to call itself American.

Let me repeat that: with two partial exceptions, American Indians belonging to Federally-recognized tribes and black slaves, no non-white tribe has any historical claim to be American. Americans are white, and this is a long-established matter of historical and legal record.

The original United States Naturalization Law of March 26, 1790 (1 Stat. 103) provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were free white persons of good character.

Moreover, this remained the rule of American citizenship for more than half of the country’s history. As the Supreme Court unanimously declared in 1922 in TAKAO OZAWA v. United States, to be American was to be white.

In all of the naturalization acts from 1790 to 1906 the privilege of naturalization was confined to white persons [260 U.S. 178, 193], although the exact wording of the various statutes was not always the same. If Congress in 1906 desired to alter a rule so well and so long established it may be assumed that its purpose would have been definitely disclosed and its legislation to that end put in unmistakable terms….

If it be assumed that the opinion of the framers was that the only persons who would fall outside the designation ‘white’ were Negroes and Indians, this would go no farther than to demonstrate their lack of sufficient information to enable them to foresee precisely who would be excluded by that term in the subsequent administration of the statute. It is not important in construing their words to consider the extent of their ethnological knowledge or whether they thought that under the statute the only persons who would be denied naturalization would be Negroes and Indians. It is sufficient to ascertain whom they intended to include and having ascertained that it follows, as a necessary corollary, that all others are to be excluded.

Now, you can argue “progress” and “things have changed” and “dual nationalities” and so forth. But that way lies incoherence and madness, to say nothing of the obvious fact that what has changed can be changed again. The simple fact of the matter is that if you are not white, your nationality is not American and you are not part of the posterity for whom the Constitution was written. (Of course, if you are a white immigrant, or descendant of immigrants, you are not part of that posterity either.)

You may be a United States citizen, you may be a resident of the United States, and you may be part-American in the sense that many individuals are part-German or part-Dutch, but you are not an American in any legitimate sense of the word, regardless of what ideas and ideals and propositions you happen to hold in your heart at the moment.

You may now commence the wailing and the gnashing of teeth. Do try to keep two things in mind. First, your argument is not with me, it is with history. The facts are what they are. It’s not my problem if you find them uncomfortable. Second, yes, I recognize that I am only part-American and I have absolutely no problem with that.

Tribalism begets tribalism. The rise of white nationalism, and eventually, white separatism, became inevitable once the minority population of the United States rose beyond a modest level. Once whites realize they have become a minority, they will rapidly become every bit as tribal as every other minority competing for wealth and political power. But neither white nationalism nor white separatism are synonymous with white supremacism, and anyone who attempts to equate the former two with the latter is, at best disingenuous.

Behind the scenes

Peter Grant explains why he chose Castalia House and what it is like to work with “the most despised man in science fiction”:

Vox was my editor in getting the book ready for publication.  He stated up front that he wanted to ‘make a good book better’, not try to remake it in his image, or make it into something it wasn’t.  I found him a very effective editor indeed.  He went through my manuscript and made many proposed changes, averaging two or three per page, but did so on the basis that these were his suggestions rather than his demands.  I was free to accept or reject each of his proposed changes.  In about two-thirds of cases, I went along with his proposals.  They did, indeed, make the book better.  In the remaining third of cases, I went with what I’d originally written, or re-wrote a few lines, because I felt it fitted in better with my vision for the book and what I hope will be the series into which it will grow.  Vox accepted that with aplomb.  The man’s a gentleman.

There will doubtless be those who’ll be disappointed that I’ve chosen to publish with a man, and a publishing house, that they regard with the same revulsion as the Devil regards holy water.  To them I can only say, go read what my friend Larry Correia had to say about Vox last year.  I endorse his sentiments.  I don’t share all – or possibly even most – of Vox’s opinions, but then he’s never asked me to share or support them in any way, shape or form.  He’s merely tried to be the best editor he can be, and help me be the best writer I can be.  I’ll be damned if I condemn him because of past history or exchanges to which I wasn’t a party, and in which I had no involvement at all.  Not my circus, not my monkeys.  I certainly won’t demand that he embrace political correctness.  As you’ve probably noted from my blog header, that’s not exactly a position I embrace myself!

Vox shares my perspective that the ‘classic’ Western genre is ripe for revival.  I’ve grown very tired of romance or erotica masquerading as Westerns – to my mind, they’re neither, and belong in a different category.  I’m also fed up with the historical inaccuracies and fantastically high body counts of many so-called Westerns that are nothing more or less than violence porn (and sometimes actual porn as well, given the number of sex scenes they contain – something that would be anathema to every one of the great Western authors).  I tried to write in the classic style, and Vox actively tried to help me do that.  I appreciated his input.

Castalia House is a small publisher at this stage, but it’s grown in stature and in the diversity of its offerings.  I’m honored – deeply honored – to join authors such as Jerry Pournelle and Martin van Creveld in its stable.

I’m very glad to hear that Peter feels that way, as we are all delighted to have such a talented, knowledgeable, and above all, exceedingly decent man join our band of renegades, rebels, reactionaries, and recidivists.

We may be outnumbered, but we are never, ever, outgunned.

And I’m pleased to learn that I was able to help Peter realize his vision. The primary role of the editor is not to catch every typo, position the book for marketing, or police its content in order to ensure its compliance with the social justice Narrative, it is to help the author accurately transform the story he sees in his mind into an articulated reality he can share with others.

An editor can improve a book or he can ruin a book, but he must never forget that the book is neither his vision nor his story.

Not for long

The globalist media is celebrating the “thwarting” of Austria’s “Far Right”:

Alexander Van der Bellen has won Austria’s presidential election, preventing Norbert Hofer from becoming the EU’s first far-right head of state.

Mr Hofer led narrowly after Sunday’s election but postal votes gave Mr Van der Bellen victory by 50.3% to 49.7%.

Mr Van der Bellen campaigned on a pro-EU platform backed by the Greens.

Mr Hofer, of the Freedom Party, tapped into anti-EU sentiment and fears about rising numbers of asylum seekers. He conceded victory on his Facebook page.

Mr Hofer, 45, said it was a sad day and that he would have gladly served as president.

“But please don’t be disheartened. The effort in this election campaign is not wasted, but is an investment for the future.”

I think it’s fascinating that they pretend to think Hofer and the Freedom Party are the “Far Right”. They are either being disingenuous or have no idea what is coming. And if they keep stealing elections, as appears to have been the case here, they will render the electoral process entirely irrelevant.

But as I said, it will take two election cycles for the nationalists to gain power. This is still the first. This is the phase in which the mainstream parties band together to maintain the status quo and keep out the nationalists. The next phase is when the nationalists overwhelm the united status quo.

It’s worth noting that the Freedom Party gained 13 points from the first round to the second one, from 36 percent to 49 percent.

Economics as religion

Steve Keen explained why the mainstream economists have completely failed to learn from their past failures at Brainstorm:

VOX: Why do you think the mainstream economists failed to learn anything from the 2008 crisis, given the fact that these minor school economists, the post-Keynesians and the Austrians in particular, have been correct about the crisis coming? Generally speaking, isn’t the idea that if the predictive model works, maybe we should pay attention to it?

KEEN: The reality is that economics is basically a set of competing religious schools. The case of the post-Keynesians predicting a crisis and some Austrians getting their heads around it as well and the Neoclassicals not predicting it is like saying the Muslims had discovered the body of Jesus Christ. The apt reply back from the Vatican is, no, you haven’t, because it isn’t here, it’s in heaven. So, in that sense, the religious side of it came out and they have their own interpretation of the crisis. It was an exogenous shock.

VOX: From where, Mars?

KEEN: Yeah, they were looking for the meteor right now to see where it landed. It was an exogenous shock from outside the solar system! So this idea of an exogenous shock became their explanation. There’s a classic paper over it by a guy who I think is named Peter Ireland, he’s actually from Boston College, and he began a paperback in 2010 saying that we failed to see the crisis coming but it doesn’t mean our models are useless. He dismissed the type of dynamic modeling that I do while simultaneously showing that he didn’t understand my modeling. He wasn’t reading a paper of mine, he was just saying that you can’t make a deterministic model of this sort of phenomenon, showing he knew nothing about complex systems. But he then said what actually caused the crisis was an exogenous shock just like those that caused the 1992 crisis. However, the shocks lasted longer and they got bigger. Which means, of course, that a randomly distributed variable, which is what the exogenous shocks have to be, remained permanently negative and got bigger while still remaining randomly distributed.

So therefore there has to be, at some point, a really big shock in the opposite direction which hasn’t arrived yet. So they just went back into saying that – and I have seen this happen so many times – that you can’t predict the crisis because in our model a crisis can only occur if there’s a large exogenous shock. Which, by definition can’t be predicted, therefore, you can’t predict it.

Now it really reminds me of one of the little questions I had in my mind. I said, how did Ptolemic astronomers explain comets? And it finally was explained to me that in that era, comets were considered an astronomic phenomenon because of course comets couldn’t occur in the heavens because the heavens are perfect. It’s the same thing with neoclassicals.

VOX: Yeah, it’s interesting to me how in any field of science or even quasi-science, you can almost always tell whose models are ineffective and who really doesn’t know what they’re talking about because they always have to bring in some sort of bizarre epicycle to explain things away. The more epicycles and explanations that they have to come up with, the more certain you can be, even if you have no idea what they’re talking about, the mere fact that they are engaging in the circles and epicycles means that you can be pretty confident that they’re going to be wrong.

I thought this was an unusually good event, even by the high standards of Brainstorm. We’ll try to get the transcript cleaned up and out to the members within the next two weeks or so.

Brings the Lightning by Peter Grant

Castalia House is very pleased to announce the publication of a new Western novel, Book 1 in The Ames Archives, Brings the Lightning, by Peter Grant.

When the Civil War ends, where can a former Confederate soldier go to escape the long memories of neighbors who supported the winning side? Where can Johnny Reb go when he can’t go home?

He can go out West, where the land is hard, where there is danger on every side, and where no one cares for whom you fought – only how well you can do it.

Walt Ames, a former cavalryman with the First Virginia, is headed West with little more than a rifle, a revolver, and a pocket full of looted Yankee gold. But in his way stand bushwhackers, bluecoats, con men, and the ever-restless Indians. And perhaps most dangerous of all, even more dangerous than the cruel and unforgiving land, is the temptation of the woman whose face he can’t forget.

When you can’t go home again – go West!

Earlier this year, Peter Grant, the author of The Maxwell Saga and The Laredo Trilogy, happened to mention that he was interested in reviving the classic Western, and was, in fact, engaged in writing one. While the thought of publishing a Western was appealing, my initial impression was that Castalia House had more than enough on its plate attempting to revive classic science fiction and fantasy, and besides, I’ve always been more of a Louis L’Amour fan than a particular fan of the genre.

But then it occurred to me that for many Western civilizationists who love liberty, the Western is central to our conception of ourselves, and moreover, that there was very likely a connection between the SJW infestation in SF/F and the loss of interest in the Western genre by the mainstream publishers. As we’ve seen everywhere from computer games to comics and RPGs, it is all one big cultural war.

And then there is the fact that Fair Blows the Wind is one of my favorite novels in any genre.

So, I got in touch with Peter, told him that Castalia would love to get on board with the Western revival, and offered to publish what I learned was not merely the novel that turned out to be Brings the Lightning, but was the first book in a series about a man named Walter Ames, a Confederate who finds that he can’t return home to the farm in Tennessee after the Civil War. Peter is a man of a vast and varied experience, and it shows in his writing; moreover, he is a stickler for historical research, especially where firearms are concerned.

If you have a soft spot for Westerns, or you are, like me, a L’Amour fan, I am confident you will enjoy the adventures of Mr. Walt Ames. Brings the Lightning is 229 pages, retails for $4.99, and is available only on Amazon. New Release subscribers should check their emails for the customary free bonus book offer.

From the early reviews:

  • Brings the Lightning is an
    excellent revival of the western genre popularized by the likes of Louis
    L’Amour and Zane Gray in years past. 
  • The gun nuts among his fans will be delighted at the myriad details about firearms he includes, deftly weaving them into the tale as his main character comes to depend on them for his livelihood and defense on the dangerous trip West. 
  • I found the novel to be on a par
    with the early L’Amour works such as Killoe, Fallon, Radigan, Hondo and
    Kilkenny    . Very much worth reading.
  • The storyline is L’Amouresque, but the writing style is much better. L’Amour told great stories, but let’s face it, some of his prose really clunked in places, whereas Grant’s is very smooth. 

UPDATE: Peter Grant’s own announcement of his first Western is here. It’s interesting to learn that the genre was so popular with the South African military.

    The Internet isn’t fair

    Neither is life. So what? Git hahd. Git gud. The New Femininity writes an essay on How to Defend Yourself From the SJW Mob:

    Never assume anyone is going to be fair to you

    No one is going to be fair to you and no one is going to sympathize with you. No one is going to give you the benefit of the doubt and no one is going to defend you because their default thought process is that you shouldn’t have touched the flaming hot stove if you didn’t expect to get burned.

    My own husband didn’t have a lick of sympathy for me. He told me I was completely on my own. In fact, the only time he showed me any sort of empathy was months after when I told him I pressed full charges on my stalker against her professional license. He knew she went too far, and he fully supported my decision.

    Bottom line is, people are not going to be partial to your sense of political justice in saying controversial things on the internet–because they themselves don’t want the trouble or expense of caring about something they believe you brought squarely upon yourself. It isn’t right and it isn’t wrong–it just is. People have jobs, their own lives, and their own multitude of problems. Don’t expect them to be fair, supportive or understanding in your willful decision to engage in your own personal crusade of online martyrdom–it’s your problem and they are under no obligation or duty to make it theirs.

    On the flip side, when you find that rare individual who is willing to stand with you, who is willing to damn the torpedoes and defend you, you’d better appreciate what a gift you’ve been given.

    That’s why so many people fear the VFM and the Dread Ilk. They know none of their tactics are going to work. They see the mutual loyalty that is the chief characteristic of the relationship and it scares them to death because they don’t know anything like it.

    That’s also why it is useless to attempt to separate me from my social media allies. I’m not blind to their various idiosyncracies, (nor, to be fair, are they blind to mine) I simply don’t care because I know that I can count on them. Every single one of them has, at one point or another, put himself in the line of fire on my behalf when he did not have to do so.

    This may be one more thing that separates the #AltRight from the movement conservatives. They are constantly jockeying for position and status and air time. We are far more concerned with mutual defense against the media and SJW mobs, and we genuinely celebrate each others’ scalps and successes. Take on one of us, and you can be pretty sure that at the very least, the others will at least fire a symbolic round or two in your direction.

    How do you develop strong alliances? Mike Cernovich has already answered that. Look for those who need help and deserve it. Help them. Then repeat.

    Smells like SFWA

    Elijah Wood speaks out about the pedophiles in Hollywood:

    Hollywood is in the grip a child sexual abuse scandal similar to that of Jimmy Savile in Britain, Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has claimed.

    The 35-year-old former child actor said paedophiles had been protected by powerful figures in the movie business and that abuse was probably still taking place.

    In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wood said he had been protected from abuse as he was growing up, but that other child actors had been regularly “preyed upon” at parties by industry figures.

    “You all grew up with Savile – Jesus, it must have been devastating,” he said.

    “Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood.

    “It was all organised.

    “There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.

    “There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.”

    Considering the physical proximity of Hollywood to the California SF scene, it would not surprise me in the least if there turns out to be links between the Hollywood coven that Wood is describing, the Breen-MZB coven, and the coven of convicted pedophiles that the Sacramento police department reported were in contact with Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka.

    The truth will come out eventually. Eventually the victims will find the courage to speak out and save others from suffering their fate.

    Anne Henry, co-founder of Bizparents, a group set up to help child actors, said Hollywood is currently sheltering around 100 active abusers and said a “tsunami” of claims was beginning.

    The decline of science fiction literature

    He raises a significant question I haven’t seen: why is it that science fiction editors talk so much about politics, and so little about books they’ve read? He also hammers McRapey for his corrupt little arrangement with Cory Doctorow and BoingBoing.

    He also found over a dozen voting slates and determined that there was only  one difference between the Puppy success and the lack of success of the rival slates: the Puppy slates – which, in the case of the Rabid Puppies were of course not even slates at all – were put forth by more popular blogs.

    In other words, the only reason for all the fandom histrionics is that our writers are considerably more popular – or even worse, more influential – than theirs are. That is why they are constantly changing the rules and appealing to the media in order to continue their affirmative action campaign of destroying science fiction in order to improve it.

    Earlier this week, a rousing headline shot at warp-speed across browsers and Twitter feeds: Women Swept The 2015 Nebula Awards, taking home the prestigious science-fiction and fantasy prizes in the categories of Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story and Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy work.

    The news might’ve come as a surprise to — or, at least, to the chagrin of — a boisterous group of science fiction writers and fans who’ve taken up the cause of restoring the genre to its tenants of yore: lighthearted adventure that’s sleek, zippy, fun, and — oh yeah — comprised of shelves’ worth of white male writers.

    The ostensible platform of the Sad and Rabid Puppies, whose name is meant to mock heartfelt liberalism, is meant to support action stories sans political or moral message. And the cost? Last year, they rigged the voting for a similarly lauded set of prizes, the Hugo Awards, favoring white male writers and effectively quelling women and authors of color. Unlike the Nebulas — which are voted on by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, an organization comprised not just of writers but editors and publishers — the Hugos are controlled by readers, so the Puppies were able to leave their mark.

    They didn’t succeed entirely. The categories they stocked with their own nominees received “No Award” due to voters rejecting their white male nominees. But for writers whose books were unfairly overlooked, the damage was done.

    This year, the conversation howls on, especially in light of the woman-centered Nebula slate. Nnedi Okorafor, who won for her novella Binti, an interstellar story about a girl who leaves her people to attend the prestigious Oomza University, worlds away from her home, says she’s thankful that issues of prejudice in the industry are being discussed.

    In an interview with The Huffington Post, Okorafor said, “Honestly, I love hearing people arguing out in the open, not hidden away in their own echo chambers. That’s what I want to see more of: Dialogue. The issues swirling around the Hugos are merely manifestations of the growing pains this country is experiencing as a whole,” she added. “Growing pains are painful, awkward, annoying, sometimes destructive in order to create. What I hope will be the outcome of the Hugos is an airing out, an addressing, a debate, and a moving forward.”

    Naomi Novik, who took home the 2016 Nebula for her novel Uprooted, a fantasy book about a girl whose taken from her beloved community by a seemingly harmless dragon, feels differently. For her, the Sad Puppies’ rhetoric has been damaging, manipulative and unreflective of true fandom.

    “I am glad to trumpet my disdain for this loudly,” Novik told HuffPost. “What I very much hope will come out of this year’s Hugo Awards is that the rules will be changed. [The Puppies] need to just go away.”

    Both women agree that prejudiced lines of thinking have been historically damaging to women and writers of color working in the genre, who have both been recognized in their time, but largely forgotten by history. Kate Wilhelm’s suspenseful speculative fiction has won multiple Nebulas and a Hugo; Vonda N. McIntyre, whose longstanding attachment to the “Star Trek” franchise rocketed her to acclaim, won both awards as well. Yet neither is discussed alongside Orson Scott Card or William Gibson.

    If Maddie Crum had ever read Kate Wilhelm’s or Vonda McIntyre’s books, or Card’s and Gibson’s, for that matter, she would know perfectly well why the former are not discussed alongside the latter. They’re neither as good nor as important and influential. They’re just not. It’s not even debatable.

    It will be interesting to see how Novik’s disdain will be affected if we give her book Best Novel, just as we gave it to Three-Body Problem last year. Uprooted isn’t a great book, nor is it an important one, but it’s not a bad little fairy tale either. It’s a lightweight book more akin to Among Others than Redshirts or The Quantum Rose. It’s rather amusing that fendom is so caught up in the nominations game that they have failed to recognize that while they decide if anyone wins or not, the Rabid Puppies now decide who will win whenever there is more than one contestant in play.

    The thing is, neither Novik nor Okorafor are bad writers. I generally like their works I’ve read. In historical terms, they write competent midlist fantasy and science fiction, respectively. But the fact that they are the best Pink SF has to offer is sufficient evidence of both the decline of the mainstream science fiction infrastructure as well as the general mediocrity of female SF/F writers.

    What female SF/F writer today can compete with Tanith Lee at her best? If you compare Novik’s take on fairy tales to Lee’s, well, it’s not even close. There is still Lois McMaster Bujold, of course, but even she has lost her fastball when it comes to her novel-length works. Fat Seanan? N… K… Jemisin? Kameron “We Have Always Invented History” Hurley? Ann “Tea in Space” Leckie?

    Please. There are better women writers working in the game industry than are getting nominated for awards in SF/F literature these days. Forget the awards, half these women couldn’t get published traditionally or self-publish and sell in the Amazon top 100,000 if they used a male pen name.

    I’d very much like to see one of them try to prove me wrong. And as for the converse, well, are you absolutely certain I haven’t already done so?