Tag: Hugo Award

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.

Their opinion doesn’t count

Keep this literary interpretation in mind when you see SJWs in science fiction striking poses and attempting to dismiss the literary quality of the Sad Puppies-recommended works. Considering their complete lack of reading comprehension, they shouldn’t even be allowed Hugo ballots. Or any utensils beyond plastic sporks.

#313 ::: rea :::April 03, 2015, 10:07 AM:
Nancy Lebovitz @300: ‘I think that if people hadn’t been aware of VDs history, the reaction to his nominated short story would have been more like “why is this mediocre thing on the ballot?” rather than “kill it with fire”.’

I read the story last year. I thought it was deeply, deeply racist, with “elves” being a stand-in for blacks and other minorities. Elves don’t have souls. Most of them commit atrocities. One elf manages to set aside his atrocity-committing tendencies, adopt the traits of human civilization, and even make friends with humans (“some of my best friends are elves”), but it doesn’t help him–he’s still soulless–and moreover all of the humans who have befriended him get massacred by the evil elvish majority. Moral–association with members of other races is at best futile, and likely to be dangerous.

Now, if you’ve read “Opera Vita Aeterna”, or any of my fiction set in Selenoth, for that matter, you will recognize that this particularly reading of the Hugo-nominated novelette isn’t merely wrong or stupid, it is downright insane.

How do they know?

Ptbarnium points out that the SJWs in science fiction are demonstrating one of the reasons Sad Puppies 3 is so badly needed:

Every single second of the controversy so far has taken place before the ballot has been announced. It might sound plain but it seems that they have all missed it. Everytime TNH wrings her aquatic hands pathetically, every time Jason Sanford stamps his feet childishly, every time Cora Buhlhert blares her senseless foghorn, the undecided ask one question: “How do you know?”

They have done more damage to their own cause than SP3 ever could simply because of their inability to restrain their wounded egos & frustrated self entitlement for four days. No matter how this all shakes out, no matter who wins, the cat is out of the bag now. To the CHORFs, wrapped in their delusions, they have done nothing wrong.

To anyone neutral, anyone without a dog in the fight, they have proven beyond all of our expectations that the motive force driving Sad Puppies is true. Anyone who asks the question “How do they know?” will see the immediate and obvious conclusion that eludes these morons, insulated by their self-righteous anger.

They know because many of the people who ‘should’ have been given the nod haven’t. Is there any other convincing reason why people un-nominated for any award seem to know the entire final slate? You could excuse knowing one or two finalists in a given category but the entire list? The only ways to have their level or knowledge at this stage are (a) Worldcon leaking or (b) interval communication based on information from the people on their own slates that were ‘supposed’ to get through. I know which one my money is on.

This is exactly right. The usual suspects, who revolve in orbit around Tor Books in general and Tor senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden in particular, are accustomed to quietly arranging things to their liking behind the scene. They talk to one another on a regular basis and arrange things like this outcome in 2008.

43 Best Fan Writer John Scalzi
41 Best Novel The Last Colony John Scalzi
40 Best Novel Halting State Charles Stross

That’s quite the coincidence, considering that Larry, Brad, and I were accused of bloc voting in 2014 with the following outcome.

184 Best Novel Warbound Larry Correia
111 Best Novella The Chaplain’s Legacy Brad Torgersen
092 Best Novelette The Exchange Officers Brad Torgersen
069 Best Novelette Opera Vita Aeterna Vox Day

What looks more like a bloc vote to you? Oh, and speaking of 2014, let’s not forget this:

120 Best Novel Neptune’s Brood Charles Stross
127 Best Novella Equoid Charles Stross
118 Best Novelette Lady Astronaut of Mars Mary Kowal

Again, what looks more like a bloc vote to you? Are we seriously supposed to believe that a 115-vote variance is an invalid bloc vote, but 9-vote and 3-vote variances that are limited to SJW authors published by Tor are just a pair of freakish coincidences involving the same group of closely connected authors six years apart?

Regarding Best Novel: I’ve heard that three of the five finalists are SP-endorsed. (Which, see above, doesn’t in itself guarantee that any of them are unworthy of a Hugo.) I don’t know what any of those three books are. I do know the identity of the other two, and I don’t think anyone in this conversation will regard them as unworthy candidates. (Disclaimer: Neither of them are books Teresa or I worked on in any way.) – Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Senior Editor, Tor Books

Since we’re speaking of PNH, how about 2009, 2010, and 2012?

76 Best Novel Saturn’s Children Charles Stross
74 Best Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden
54 Best Novel Zoe’s Tale John Scalzi (Even some in on the game couldn’t bring themselves to vote for that steaming little pile, but it still got enough votes to make the shortlist and keep the next two authors off: Iain M. Banks and Terry Pratchett.)

79 Best Novella The God Engines John Scalzi (indicates outside support)
56 Best Novella Palimpsest Charles Stross
52 Best Short Story Overtime Charles Stross
54 Best Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden

49 Best Novel The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
48 Best Novel Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
44 Best Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden
 
Three more amazing coincidences! How do they know? How do they know? Furthermore, Kevin Standlee, a Secret Master of Fandom and Worldcon insider, acknowledged at File 770 that these quiet little campaigns are known to have taken place in the past.

There clearly have been campaigns to get individual works on the ballot, some of them going beyond the technically legal.
– Kevin Standlee on April 2, 2015 at 9:41 am

He also added that nothing Sad Puppies has done is illegal or against the rules:

I agree with Vox that what’s been done (at least from the rumors
rumbling around) isn’t illegal. It’s not against the rules. It’s simply
exploiting a heretofore never-considered loophole in the rules that has
never come into play because fans are traditionally not very well
organized.
-Kevin Standlee on April 2, 2015 at 9:44 am

The SJWs are upset because we play openly by the rules better than they cheat behind closed doors. And the mere fact that they are so upset BEFORE THE NOMINATIONS ARE ANNOUNCED is sufficient to prove that they coordinated their whisper campaigns in the past and they are still coordinating them now. And the fact that so few people in latter-day science fiction can’t see the obvious shows how crabbed and limited their imaginations are:

SF fans have been historically so independent-minded and disorganized that the idea of actually filling a slate to try and deliberately stifle anything other than a particular group of five works in each category hadn’t really occurred to anyone I know of, and I’ve been following this since 1984. Sure, there have been deliberate campaigns (of varying degrees of ethical) to get individual works onto the ballot, but to try and monopolize all 85 spaces? Nah. Indeed, the idea would probably been laughable until fairly recently. You can’t generally get five fans to agree on where to go to dinner, let alone get 500 of them to agree on exactly the same slate of Hugo Award nominees.

This juxstaposition, however, is my favorite proof that the other side is utterly incapable of thinking past the end of their noses.

  1. “There’s only one way to deal with people like Day, who see
    themselves as above basic human decency, and that is to cut them out of
    the community like a tumour. Shun them, ignore them, no-platform the
    hell out of them. Our conventions, our fanzines, our anthologies, our
    community is not open to people whose racist arguments could have come
    straight from the mouths of slave-owners.” (April 19, 2014)
  2. “How do you bring the weight of community disapproval on someone who isn’t part of the community?” (March 30, 2015)

Well, who could possibly have seen THAT coming? Give a man a platform and he will speak his mind. Deny him a platform and he will build his own… and you will never silence him again. Rabbits always think that the only possible response to being shunned is to a) submit or b) vanish. The problem, of course, is that some of us aren’t rabbits.

Now a number of them are credibly threatening to No Award everything even before the announcements have been announced. And I’m wondering, do they really think we didn’t anticipate that too? Considering that they repeatedly assert that Brad Torgersen is lying about the purpose of Sad Puppies, hasn’t it ever occurred to them that perhaps the purpose he is concealing is different than the one they assume it must be?

It is a proper conundrum.

John C. Wright contemplates the meltdown

Tor and Castalia House author John C. Wright calmly contemplates the Toad of Tor’s public meltdown, in which she insults literally dozens of excellent and well-regarded science fiction authors and libels at least one notable Tor author:

If my accustomed Vulcan calm could be perturbed, no doubt it would be by the allegations Teresa Nielsen-Hayden, late of Tor Books, is leveling against myself and the other members of the Evil Legion of Evil Authors. But since I am imperturbable, I merely raise one eyebrow and wonder on what evidence, or one what chain of reasoning, she makes her outrageous allegations.

I am motivated, she says, not by what I have publicly, notoriously
and repeatedly stated my motives are, but by some unworthy form of spite
or resentment. I see. Any protestation to the contrary is dismissed as
an unconvincing lie. Accusing me, of all people, of dishonesty certainly
has the advantage of being a novel and unexpected accusation.

But on what is it based? No written word of mine can lead an honest
onlooker to draw this conclusion. Did she speak to me and deduce this?
She did not. Does she have my strange Vulcan power of the Mind Meld, that she can read the secret workings of my green-blooded heart? She does not.


Is it her claim that I am some interloper, some newcomer, who has
been reading science fiction since the days when the moonlanding was
still science fiction, been a Tor author since before the turn of the
millennium, nominated for a Nebula for one of my Tor novels, been
insulted by Harlan Ellison like an old hand, been to mass with Gene
Wolfe, and wrote the authorized sequel to AE van Vogt’s work, the author
whose first story in 1939, back when ANALOG was still ASTOUNDING,
heralded the Golden Age of Campbell? It seems she does.

Indeed, the fact that the estimable John C. Wright did not have so much as a single Hugo nomination for his excellent The Golden Age trilogy or his brilliant novellas collected in Awake in the Night Land is one of the most damning rebuttals to any anti-Sad Puppy complaints.

They put forward Scalzi and Swirsky. We put forward Wright and Butcher. And really, that’s all you need to know. Meanwhile, the Evil Legion of Evil’s International Lord of Hate, Larry Correia, also turns his baleful eye upon the Toad of Tor and points out that in her remarkably stupid meltdown, she has revealed something the SJWs have denied for years.

A few years ago I told the truth in public, and said that SMOF insiders usually knew who all the award nominees were going to be for the year, based upon how popular the authors were to the tiny insular cliques, and they usually knew this before the books came out or had been read by anyone. (hell, that even wound up in our Sad Puppies video!)

I was called a liar. There is no insider info like this! The Hugos are a sainted, pure process. They’re not predictable or manipulated by politics! There are no suggested slates or campaigns behind the scenes! How DARE you?!

Uh huh… So I did in public, in the open, with a bunch of outsiders, what they’ve been doing for years with insiders. Outrage ensues.

So here we are now, a few days away and Teresa is worried. Why? Because as an insider, the people she already knew were SUPPOSED to get Hugo nominations haven’t been contacted…

But if there wasn’t insider info and insider cliques, and most of the noms aren’t predestined forgone conclusions, how does she even know she’s supposed to be so worried and upset?

He also adds an inspiring personal note that everyone who has supported Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies, even if only in spirit, needs to remember:

Wrath is all you people have.

Well, Teresa, no matter what we do,  no matter what the results, we know we’re going to feel your wrath. Luckily, I’ve demonstrated to the world that your wrath is impotent. For years, authors have lived in fear of angering these Social Justice mobs. They’ve moderated their speech, self censored their art, and walked on eggshells to avoid getting burned at the stake… That’s why I hate you people, and that’s why I’ve loved exposing you for the petty, petulant, and ultimately powerless little bullies that you are.

Your angry mobs only have as much power as the person you’re attacking is willing to grant them. I stood up to you last year, and all it did was bring your antics to the attention of more, good, decent, regular fans. 

The wrath of the enemy is not to be feared. They hate us for simply existing and living as free men. And that gives any man, any woman, with the courage to stand up to them complete carte blanche.

The Toad tries to walk one back

The Toad of Tor, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, belatedly realized she’d shown the true face of SJW gatekeeper privilege to the world because she’s desperately trying to walk back her words. But it’s much too late; we’ve already impaled her upon them. She even alarmed her fellow SJWs.

“I will admit to having been in kind of an unsettled state since
Teresa’s “this is the Worldcon award, and others can go do their own
thing” post. But then I may well not be the only one in that state, too.”

Compare and contrast this statement:

“The Hugos don’t belong to the set of all people who read the genre; they belong to the worldcon, and the people who attend and/or support it. The set of all people who read SF can start their own award.”
– Teresa Nielsen Hayden, March 29, 2015, 03:43 PM 

 With this one:

“I should have been clearer. Those of us who love SF and love fandom know in our hearts that the Hugo is ours. One of the most upsetting things about the Sad Puppy campaigns is that they’re saying the Hugo shouldn’t belong to all of us, it should just belong to them.”
– Teresa Nielsen Hayden, March 30, 2015, 10:15 PM

Like all SJWs, the Toad of Tor is a shameless liar. First, the Sad Puppies have NEVER said the Hugos should just belong to us. We haven’t said it, we haven’t implied it, and in fact, none of us have ever even thought it. It’s not even remotely credible to claim that a group of “outsiders”, of “thugs” and “reavers” and “nobodies” who aren’t “part of the community” have ever believed that something that has been under Tor’s control for 30 years just belongs to us. Teresa Nielsen Hayden is not only lying, she is insulting the intelligence of every single person who reads her words.

What we have said, what we continue to say, and what we will continue to prove, is that the Hugo Awards do NOT belong to the small group of SJWs led by Tor Books, who for the last 15 years have been handing awards to mediocre diversity lit written by SJWs and their pet minorities. In their eyes, it’s a good thing to be celebrated when minorities such as Saladin and Jeminsin are nominated for awards. It’s a bad thing to be decried when minorities such as Correia and Day are nominated for them.

The only people who have claimed ownership of the Hugos is Teresa Nielsen Hayden and the SJWs. They are already clamoring for rules changes before the nominations have even been announced. The Toad is one of those affiliated with Tor who have, somewhat successfully, turned the Hugos (and the Nebulas, for that matter), into the Best SJW-Endorsed Writers of the Year award. The Toad obviously knows how badly she screwed up because she’s resorting to a ridiculous technicality in order to rewrite the narrative and deny that she said what she quite clearly said:

“When I say the Hugos belong to the worldcon, I’m talking about the literal legal status of the award. But I also know that one of the biggest reasons the rocket is magic is because it spiritually belongs to all of us who love SF.”
– Teresa Nielsen Hayden, March 30, 2015, 10:15 PM

Sure you were. It “spiritually belongs” to everyone, so they can fuck off “and start their own award”. That makes sense. Sad Puppies 3 leader Brad Torgersen responds in his own inimitable fashion:

We. Matter. In fact, we have always mattered. Everyone who ever
came to love and cherish SF/F in ways not vetted and approved by you, by
TruFans, or by SMOFs.

And we’re not going away. Not this year. Not next year. Not the year after that.

We’re not here to destroy the field, nor the Hugos.

We’re here to keep you from greedily clutching the award to your chest, while the field sinks beneath the waves.

That is precisely what Sad Puppies is about. As for Rabid Puppies, we don’t want to destroy the field or the Hugos either. We want to destroy the SJWs. We want to crush them into dust. And we will.

If you’re not already marching with the Evil Legion of Evil under one Puppy banner or another, I encourage you to join us. We can always use the reinforcements, and as other Sad and Rabid Puppies can testify, it is invigorating to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the croaking lamentations of their women.

As Brad said, we’re not going away next year. And with Kate the Impaler holding the black standard, we’re not going to be inclined to show any mercy to the liars and the con artists. Nor, I suspect, will GamerGate.

I want the Justice Department to declare them a criminal organization and hit them with felony charges. It would not be an excessive response to their actions.
– Teresa Nielsen Hayden, March 30, 2015, 11:25 PM

UPDATE: And here Larry and I were repeatedly accused of gaming the Hugos last year. I told them I didn’t, that I had nothing to do with it, but they didn’t believe me. If Jason Sanford is correct, perhaps they will now admit the accusation was false.

Engagement is impossible

The other day, I visited Mike Glyer’s File 770 in response to his post that Sad Puppies 4 has been announced, with the infamous Kate the Impaler taking up the black flag from Brad Torgersen.

Kate the Impaler, of the Evil Legion of Evil, will be picking up the banner for Sad Puppies 4 and running with it. I even promised not to impale anyone with it (it’s such a pretty flag, and getting blood and… stuff… all over it would make those poor sad puppies even more sad. Even the Evil Legion of Evil has standards, you know. We’re completely against letting Sad Puppies stay sad. We want them to be happy).

There won’t be much action from Sad Puppies 4 for quite some time, but rest assured I will be lurking in the shadows looking for worthy candidates for the campaign to End Puppy-Related Sadness. When the time is right, announcements will be made and campaigning will begin in earnest. In the meantime, I shall rub my hands together and practice my evil cackle.

This is good news, of course, for those of you who were unable to join the Legion in the Sad Puppies 3 campaign. In any event, I explained that a number of the commenters had some fairly basic misconceptions about Sad Puppies in the following manner.

With all due respect, Mr. Fitch, I suggest that a popular movement led by a woman named “Kate the Impaler” is not overly concerned with an appearance of dignity. In fact, her appellation tends to suggest what the members of the movement believe can be done with those historical concerns about professional dignity.

As for the notion of being scorned, well, that’s the benefit of having been roundly scorned before. It renders one immune. They had one bullet. It’s been fired. And it is worth noting that Sad Puppies are simply following the advice of Mr. John Scalzi.

“Change the Hugos by nominating, voting and participating, or (much more slowly and far less reliably) actively making your case to the people who are nominating, voting and participating. As a pro tip, explicitly or implicitly disparaging their intelligence, taste or standing to make choices when you try to do that is unlikely to persuade them to decide anything other than that you’re probably an asshole.”
– John Scalzi, April 5, 2013

After answering a number of questions, correcting still more misconceptions, ignoring numerous passive-aggressive shots at me, and deflecting Andrew Marston’s usual nonsense, that led to this comment from one Martin Wisse:

Vox Day loves to play the victim, loves to fall back on his 1/8 Cherokee princess ancestory when called on his racism and it’s never, ever his fault that people are mean to him, despite his long and sordid history of being a racist, sexist gobshite.

He doesn’t care about science fiction, not even to the extent a Correira or Torgedsen still care about it, he just cares about sticking it to the liberals in his head.

What the Sad Puppies are doing is just your bog standard wingnut culture war, fighting an imagined persecution of their “art” when the truth is that their work is at best mediocre and worse, not nearly as popular of that of their perceived enemies. It burns them up inside to have Redshirts winning the Hugo and optioned for a tv show.

On top of that, James May posted a Twitter stream at Brad Torgersen’s site by some of the very people who were “engaging” with me at File 770. As you can see, they don’t appear to have been doing so in good faith:

Cora Buhlert ?@CoraBuhlert 3h3 hours ago @PrinceJvstin @shaunduke @SFReviewsnet Are we talking about VD vomitting all over File770?

Paul Weimer ?@PrinceJvstin 3h3 hours ago @CoraBuhlert @shaunduke @SFReviewsnet yes, and how I’m crazy for trying to engage with him.

Cora Buhlert ?@CoraBuhlert 3h3 hours ago @PrinceJvstin @shaunduke @SFReviewsnet I tried to engage with these people, too, at first, but I really think they’re beyond engaging.

shaunduke ?@shaunduke 2h2 hours ago @CoraBuhlert @PrinceJvstin @SFReviewsnet It would be nice if one could reasonably expect an actual engagement, but you can’t, really.

Paul Weimer ?@PrinceJvstin 2h2 hours ago @shaunduke @CoraBuhlert @SFReviewsnet I’ve tried. Lord knows I have tried

shaunduke ‏@shaunduke 3h3 hours ago @PrinceJvstin @SFReviewsnet
After all, calling him out for being racist and sexist is just fact. He
is both of those things.”

Setting aside the observable absurdity of calling someone racist then openly mocking his Native American heritage, what is important is for us to understand that there is no point in even trying to engage with these SJWs because they quite clearly believe that we are beyond engagement.

Well and good. That is a feature, not a bug, as far as I am concerned. There is no reason to bother trying to convince them otherwise, as we shall simply cease to engage with them. When the SJWs whine and complain and cry and beg for mercy, they will hear nothing from us. From now on, let the only engagement we give them be the bottoms of our boots treading upon their fat, tear-stained, and screaming faces.

You can smell the SJW fear already. And however acrid and reminiscent of Cheetohs it may be, the scent is sweet indeed:

If there is proof on the Gator thing (and it is certainly wretchedly plausible, since Beale threw in with them early in one of his desperate bids for fanboys) I will be angry, and a little frightened, since coming to the attention of that particular group has proved very unsafe.

At the same time–and this is the part that frustrates me–a vote from someone who wants to watch the world burn is just as good as a vote from someone who read and agonized and voted for books they loved, and the judges can’t distinguish because then we careen down the slippery slope–and the extra maddening bit is that there doesn’t seem to be anything to DO about it!

How do you bring the weight of community disapproval on someone who isn’t part of the community? 

They had one bullet. Or rather, they thought they did. It turned out to be a blank. What’s amusing is that last year they were busy victory-dancing and babbling about how upset the Sad Puppies were about our failure to win any awards. I said, entirely truthfully, that I didn’t give a damn about awards. I never have. Perhaps now they are starting to understand that I do not lie.

And I didn’t throw in with GamerGate. GamerGate is MY community. It has been for my entire life. GamerGate is my brothers and my sisters. And while I’m not the smallest billy goat in #GamerGate, I’ve certainly got some big brothers who are much bigger and badder than me.

Her precious….

You may recall that the Toad of Tor said this yesterday:

1. I have less power than I feel I should have.
2. I feel those people over there have power I don’t have.
3. They must have stolen mine!

A clear case of psychological projection, one would have to conclude. Especially after reading her subsequent statement today:

“The Hugos don’t belong to the set of all people who read
the genre; they belong to the worldcon, and the people who attend
and/or support it. The set of all people who read SF can start
their own award.”
– Teresa Nielsen Hayden, March 29,
2015, 03:43 PM

That’s coming right from the Toad’s mouth. And yet, here is what Sasquan itself has to say about the Hugo Awards.

Worldcons are the site of the Hugo Awards, the premier awards in the science fiction field, recognizing the greatest books and stories, related works, film, television, podcasts, and fan works.

So, we’re supposed to believe that the premier awards that recognize the greatest books and stories in science fiction don’t belong to the set of all science fiction readers?  Then what makes them “the premier awards”? Why are they even supposed to be relevant, if they mean nothing to anyone who isn’t one of the small number of people who attend “the worldcon”?

Brad Torgersen breaks the narrative

As you might expect, Brad Torgersen’s response to the Toad of Tor and the carnival of the grotesque on display at Making Light is considerably more polite and measured than mine. But it is equally dismissive in substance:

We’re about a week out from the release of the final ballot results, for the 2015 Hugo awards. These results will determine which picks are available for your choosing when it comes time for you to cast your ballot. Best Novel, Best Short Story, etc. Already, the critics of Sad Puppies 3 have been laying the groundwork for de-legitimizing SP3. To include statements which completely misunderstand the point of Sad Puppies. Some of it is innocent. Not everybody’s had time to do a deep-dig on the history of Sad Puppies, nor to be able to discern that each iteration of the project has tended to assume its own personality. What they’re hearing about SP3 is probably hear-say from friends, and much of that is at least one to two years out-of-date. And even then, many of the “facts” put forth are demonstrably wrong.

But other commentary is not so innocent. There are people who find the very existence of Sad Puppies 3 to be an affront to their personhoods. A sinister outside force come to trouble their precious genre and its establishment. For the people deliberately misconstruing the purpose and thrust of Sad Puppies 3, it’s all about getting out in front and shaping a narrative. They’re smart. They know that truth can be overwhelmed with lies if you just spin your narrative adroitly, and with enough volume.

Thus the charges, in no particular order.

● SP3 is a trojan horse effort conducted by and for the benefit of authors who cannot earn a Hugo award the honest way.

● SP3 is just ballot-stuffing, which ought to be disallowed according to precedent and the rules of ballot-counting established through WSFS.

● SP3 is artificially trying to warp the Hugos out of true; an outside effort conducted by and involving people who are not real fans.

● The SP3 slate works are substandard based on (insert garbledy-garble talk about taste here.)

● The SP3 slate is just a bunch of right-wingers who should go set up their own awards, and leave the Hugos alone.

● SP3 is not legit because its participants were drafted for the effort, and are not willing participants.

● SP3 is not legit because Larry Correia is a terrible human being who is hated by all real fans.

● SP3 is not legit because Vox Day is also running Rabid Puppies and everybody knows Vox Day is also a terrible human being who is hated by all real fans.

● SP3 is a trojan horse for GamerGaters, and all real fans hate and loathe GamerGaters.

● SP3 is just a bunch of straight white guys who are terrified of women, gays, trans, and folks with brown skin.

● SP3 would never happen in the first place if (resurrected conservative editor of the past) could lecture them about their wrongdoing.

● SP3 is a fringe minority faction that does not represent the “main body” of real fans.

● SP3’s slate selections are not the “natural” selections of real fans.

There’s more, but I think you get the gist of it.

Much of this is simply the “in” crowd reacting badly to watching the “out” crowd take a seat at the lunch table. As I’ve mentioned before in this space, according to the dyed-in-the-wool denizens of WSFS and Worldcon, a “real fan” is defined as someone who has been attending Worldcon (and other cons) for a long time, has been properly inculcated into the specific culture of Worldcon and con-going fandom, is someone who volunteers time and effort to cons, generally makes Worldcon (and con-going) a “family” affair, etc. So if you don’t go to Worldcon and you’ve not been part of that culture for a number of years, you don’t qualify as a “real fan” in their definition. And they resent the hell out of anyone who is not a “real fan” showing up to vote on the “real fan” award.

Imagine that, an SJW trying to deceitfully shape the narrative in her favor. Keep in mind that Brad is addressing those who are still running around saying demonstrably untrue things like “Vox Day is the originator of Sad Puppies” and “Spacebunny does not exist”. These SJWs are not so much insane as willfully delusional. I have no doubt that I could show up at Sasquan with Spacebunny and some of them would claim that I somehow managed to find and hire an escort who happens to look just like the model whose pictures I’ve been using to make it look as if I am married to a slender and attractive woman. Because #GamerGate. And also, raciss.

Of course, they know better, but they’re perfectly willing to lie for rhetorical effect. Which raises the question: once you know that, why would you believe a single word that comes out of their mouths? The good thing is that it is easy to destroy their narrative. Because it is false, all that is necessary to do so is to relentlessly tell the truth.

Since 1986, Tor Books has 84 Hugo and Nebula Best Novel nominations. In 2014, Tor.com had 50 percent of the short story nominations, 40 percent of the novella nominations, and 20 percent of the novelette nominations. Tor has also won the Locus Award for Best Publisher for 26 straight years, beginning in 1988.

Keep that in mind when you read the Toad of Tor’s claims about people being afraid of losing their privilege.