Tag: McRapey

John Scalzi is one strange little man

This was the reaction of last year’s Best Novel winner to the fact that someone he totally ignores and doesn’t care about at all didn’t happen to win a Hugo Award for a novelette.

John Scalzi @scalzi
I’m not going to lie. I’m going to be
THRILLED to snarkread the whiny “I didn’t want it anyway” nonsense that
will squirt forth tomorrow.

John Scalzi @scalzi
WE ARE GOING TO MAKE THE HUGO SLATE A REFERENDUM ON THE FUTURE OF SCIENCE FICTION (loses) THE HUGOS DON’T MATTER ANYWAY

John Scalzi @scalzi 
SHUT UP I AM NOT CRYING IT’S THAT LITTLE FLECKS OF GUNPOWDER FELL INTO MY EYEBALLS SOMEONE GET ME A FLAMING SWORD SO I CAN FLICK THEM OUT

John Scalzi @scalzi 
WHO IS CALLING ME PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE I AM ALL AGGRESSIVE DON’T YOU SEE THIS HUGE GUN I HAVE WITH ME AT ALL TIMES (breaks down, sobbing)

John Scalzi @scalzi
AND NOW I WILL IGNORE THE HUGOS AGAIN UNTIL NEXT YEAR WHEN MY FEELINGS OF PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE INADEQUACY ANGRILY WELL UP ONCE MORE

John Scalzi @scalzi
I’VE LEARNED MY LESSON AND MY LESSON IS THAT WE DIDN’T HAVE ENOUGH PATENT RACIST SHITBAGGERY ON OUR SLATE WHAT THAT WAS GOOD WRITING MAN

John Scalzi @scalzi
ITS PROOF THAT ALL THE FEMINISTS NEED TO DO TO WIN AWARDS IS WRITE BETTER STORIES ACCORDING TO THE JUDGEMENT OF THE FANS SHEEESH

John Scalzi @scalzi
I NEVER WANTED THE AWARD THAT’S WHY I’VE WHINED LIKE A KICKED DOG ABOUT IT FOR A COUPLE YEARS RUNNING.

And then, for some unknown reason, he posted a picture of an orc. I’m not exactly sure what that had to do with anything, but there you go. Anyhow, here’s the interesting thing about the nominations for the 2014 awards. The nominating votes for the supposed “bloc voters”:

Larry Correia 184
Toni Weisskopf 169
Brad Torgersen: 111
Dan Wells 106
Brad Torgersen 92
Vox Day 69
Sarah Hoyt 38

Clearly we operate in perfect unthinking lockstep. Here are the nominating votes for those who vocally opposed the “bloc voters”

Charles Stross: 120
Charles Stross: 127
Mary Kowal: 118

Pure coincidence or psychological projection?

UPDATE: And McRapey keeps digging deeper:

You’ve seen me snark about it, I’m sure, but now that the voting is over, what did I really think of the “sad puppy” slate of nominees championed by Larry Correia and others? What I thought at the beginning, which was: The folks pushing the slate played within the rules, so game on, and the game is to convince people that the work deserves the Hugo. It does not appear the voters were convinced. As a multiple Hugo loser myself, I can say: That’s the breaks, and better luck another year.

With that said, Correia was foolish to put his own personal capital as a successful and best selling novelist into championing Vox Day and his novelette, because Vox Day is a real bigoted shithole of a human being, and his novelette was, to put it charitably, not good (less charitably: It was like Gene Wolfe strained through a thick and rancid cheesecloth of stupid). Doing that changed the argument from something perfectly legitimate, if debatable — that conservative writers are often ignored for or discounted on award ballots because their personal politics generally conflict with those of the award voters — into a different argument entirely, i.e., fuck you, we got an undeserving bigot shithole on the Hugo ballot, how you like them apples.

Which is a shame. It’s fine for Correia to beclown himself with Day, if such is his joy, and he deserves to reap the fruits of such an association. I suspect, however, there are others whom he championed for his “sad puppy” slate who were less thrilled to find themselves looped in with Day by involuntary association. Likewise, Correia is a good writer and his works are fun to read and easy to enjoy; others he championed are likewise fine writers, and their works deserving of award consideration. He didn’t do his work, or the work of these other writers, any favors by muddling his message with Day’s nonsense.

Now, I understand Correia will be happy to tell you that his Hugo loss doesn’t matter to him, which is fine. I do wonder if he considered how other people that were seen as part of his slate feel the same way, or whether he’d do them or their careers any damage by associating them with a bigoted shithole, or that if he really wanted to make the argument that a particular set of writers are ignored by award voters, that he went about making the argument in just about the worst way possible. Bad strategy, bad tactics, bad result.

I find it amusing that Scalzi keeps acting as if it is junior high, and if only he can separate Larry from me, then HE can become BFFs with Larry. The Left simply never understands the Right. I like and respect Larry. We get along fine. But we don’t agree on everything and we don’t spend even five seconds each day thinking about the other guy. Scalzi is welcome to his opinion of my writing, Lord knows I don’t think much of his either. But it doesn’t even cross Scalzi’s mind that since Larry is a religious man who has real friends on the basis of friendship rather than their utility for him, Larry might have read the story very differently than he did.

Moreover, keep in mind that this is the same Scalzi who not two weeks ago was openly mocking someone on Twitter for declaring that works of literature can be judged by objective standards. He’s not so much inconsistent as incoherent.

Congratulations to John and John

Per John C. Wright:

I heard just this week from my agent and editor that, despite declining sales, Tor Books has agreed to published the penultimate and ultimate volume in the sexilogy (not what it sounds like; get your mind out of the gutter!) of the nonaward-winning Count to the Eschaton Sequence!

Re: John Scalzi:

Those who have been anxiously waiting for John Scalzi’s best-selling military scifi novel Old Man’s War to get a live-action adaptation won’t have to be waiting much longer. Syfy and Academy Award-nominated director Wolfgang Petersen will adapt the books for television as a series titled Ghost Brigades, after the second novel in the series.

You might remember that Paramount had originally purchased the rights to the Old Man’s War novel to make a movie, but those plans fell through. But don’t worry that this adaptation is going to skip the events of the first novel; as the author himself explains in a tongue-in-cheek self-Q&A on his website, “The series will pull elements from various books in the OMW universe in any event.” The title “Ghost Brigades” was used for the show instead of “Old Man’s War” simply because it sounded “sexier.”

I’m rather disappointed about one of these things, but possibly not the one you might think. While I personally dislike John Scalzi and consider him a fraud, a coward, and a mediocre, derivative novelist, I don’t wish him any ill. I genuinely believe he is rather well-suited for the medium of television, and based on my limited experience in the TV industry, his self-marketing tendencies may actually be on the modest side there.

No, you see, I was rather hoping to have Castalia pick up the rest of the Count to the Eschaton books. C’est la vie, a la prochaine fois. We have not yet reached the point where we can directly compete with Tor Books. But we will. Sooner or later.

8 million views

8 million views for 2014. Just passed the number. Thanks to ESR for the assist. I’ll note again that this is just the views recorded by Google’s software; the actual number of views is higher. I’ll have a full report at the end of the year. But still: 8 million views. It doesn’t suck. Thank you.

I’m afraid I’m not being completely honest here. The actual number of Google pageviews recorded was 8,352,092, so 8 million was passed about a week ago. I just thought it was funny to imitate McRapey’s self-congratulatory auto-backpatting for his all-time best year… at the end of July.

And speaking of things I found amusing, this extended apology from Giuseppe, who felt he misjudged me, would have forced me to accept it on that grounds alone, if I had been inclined to take any offense in the first place, which I’m not.

Hi Vox.

Fuck! I read a lot more of your blog. And actually writing this e-mail is literally kinda painful. Honesty and honour demand it, but fuck, I don’t need to enjoy the process right?!

It has become quite clear, at least with respect to your elucidation of rhetoric vs dialectic that your understanding of the subject far surpasses mine. One could put this down to the simple fact that a number of things would seem to indicate you simply have spent more time studying the subject, and while this is undoubtedly true, as is the fact that your training as an economist no doubt also allows you to sift through volumes of data that personally I would find too boring to bother with (not saying they are devoid of instruction, just that they would not grab my attention to the required extent necessary for me to indulge enough in it that I would benefit from it anywhere near as much as you seem to have) and no doubt, other endeavours I may be better at, but the fact is that it has become clear that you excel at it compared to me because of another factor.

I don’t think you are materially smarter than I am. That is, you are very smart and in your chosen fields you will be more capable than me as a result, but  I would guess in my own chosen fields I would be more capable than you. It’s sort of academic anyway, and I don’t care, but precisely because it is extremely rare for me to come across someone smarter than me (and in a demonstrable fashion) I did notice it. Painfully sharply I have to say….

Your post on Modern vs Postmodern discourse on the Alpha Game blog was enlightening because it made me aware of how much I despise the postmodern methods (long before I came across you I came up with my own virulent hatred of all postmodern bullshit). It was so strong I literally had to take three goes at reading the postmodernist list, because it literally made my head spin with discomfort as if I had got a decent punch to the jaw. Now that this has become conscious knowledge, of course, I realise that psychologically I now have basically no option but to temper myself by full immersion/exposure to all that postmodernist babble, if for no other reason than banishing its existence wherever I find it trying to enter my life.

 [Long personal section redacted]

On some levels I still harbour a suspicion (increasingly I think I know it’s unfounded) that maybe, deep down, you’re still maybe just a very smart and well-read racist, fundamentalist Christian asshole… but… deep down I am realising this is not really the case. In fact, I recognise a certain level of natural ostracism by the crowds precisely because they are not smart enough to cope/see what you are really saying. Possibly, if I may even go so far, there may even be a certain level of humility in you. If I can see it, it is only because certain aspects of your style are not foreign to me. If the monkeys are gonna label you arrogant anyway, so be it, it’s a quick filter for stupidity.

And you may be guilty too (I know I have been) of probably taking a somewhat excessive pleasure in teasing their monkey-like brains (you bad Christian you!)

Nevertheless, all that said. I really just need to read more of your blog and learn more…. I know we are strangers, and that it probably means little or nothing to you, but I had clearly misjudged you. Honesty demands I apologise, at least to the extent that I was wrong, which I was. There are few people I can have honestly engaging discourse with. I have no doubt however, that you are one of them. Even if we were to disagree totally on some things, I am certain I would be able to respect your position for its integrity at least.

So yeah. Bastard of an e-mail to write, only one of its kind really, but it had to be done.

It is unusual for a writer to find a reader who genuinely understands him, even in part. What does Giuseppe mean by a certain level of humility in one of the most nakedly arrogant bloggers on the Internet? Well, he may not have been clear on the difference between rhetoric and dialectic, but unlike normal binary thinkers, he understands the difference between “I know I’m right” and “I know you’re wrong”. One can be humble with regards to the truth and yet utterly arrogant and dismissive of various peoples’ incorrect assertions regarding it.

He also grasps that the reason I don’t get upset about what he describes as “natural ostracism” is because I expect it. It’s exactly what has happened my entire life whenever I didn’t go to the trouble of veiling my intelligence and refraining from openly departing too far from the acceptably defined borders of consensus reality. Those who called me racist because I observed human differences when they insisted that “we are all the same inside” didn’t apologize to me when it was discovered that Caucasians and Asians are genetically different from each other, and from Africans, anymore than anyone apologized to me after repeatedly mocking me by demanding to know where the second Great Depression was when the economic recovery was declared for the first, second, and third years in a row.

It’s the behavior that is expected out of midwits. Stray too far from the intellectual fold and they are threatened by it. I’m not the first to be hated for it and I won’t be the last. But it is encouraging to learn that so many people are sufficiently open-minded to consider what I’m saying and actually think about it, rather than simply dismissing it out of hand because it is alien and scary to them.

McRapey and the leftward death spiral

John C. Wright and George R.R. Martin both attempt to explain John Scalzi’s habitual reaction to criticism and public humiliation:

The Evil League of Evil smites again. I am too delicate of
constitution to repeat the details, since the writer involved, Mr. John
Scalzi, is one who has treated me with respect in the past, and I would
wish to return the favor if I could.

Despite this, my loyalty to the Evil League of Evil requires me to
draw attention to the odd phenomenon of leftwing thinkers of reacting to
public humiliation by redoubling their efforts to humiliate themselves.

There is a normal psychological mechanism, something like an inner
ear, which allows someone to correct himself when his words and thoughts
become imbalanced. The social cues, or the whisper of conscience or
reason, tells a man he has said something too extreme or too absurd, and
that his thought no longer reflect reality, and so he reverses course,
modifies his position, admits of some exception, apologizes and puts
himself right.

This mechanism, in those poor souls afflicted by the political
neurosis of Leftwingnuttery is jammed or, worse, is set in reverse. When
they discover themselves to be in an unbalanced position, instead of
shifting their center of mass and returning to true, their psychological
inner ear tells them their fault is that they are not tipping far
enough, and so they throw themselves headlong.

That is a credible theory, but I think it fails to take human socio-sexuality into account, and particular, the Gamma Delusion Complex, as does Mr. Martin’s explanation, provided in A Game of Thrones.

When Tyrion encounters Jon Snow up at the wall, he gives Ned’s bastard the classic, but profound advice of the misfit: “Let [those who mock you] see that their words can cut you, and you’ll never be free of their mockery. If they want to give you [an insulting] name, take it, make it your own. Then they can’t hurt you with it anymore.”
– “A Different Kind of Other: The Role of Freaks and Outcasts in A Song of Ice and Fire“, Brent Hartinger

This is why John Scalzi has publicly adopted the Gamma Rabbit as a device and why he attempts to redefine every apt description of his cowardly, dishonest, and reprehensible behavior, from “insect” to “pussy”, as a compliment of some kind. He reacts in this manner because he is a deeply insecure misfit, a fatherless and effeminate man, so his instinctive response is not to deny the charge and demonstrate it to be false, but rather to protect his own overly sensitive feelings.

This is also why he is always pretending to enjoy the very abuse that hurts him and returns him to his feelings of childhood rejection. After having his overtures rejected by Larry Correia, Scalzi predictably lashed out in a bitter and vulgar manner, only to suffer a very public humiliation at the hands of the Correiakin, who, being masculine and of higher socio-sexual status, does not fear direct conflict. This promptly led to exactly the sort of misfit posturing recommended by Martin’s Tyrion, prior to Scalzi finally metaphorically placing his hands over his ears when he couldn’t take the humiliation any longer.


“So you’re saying I’m tough, resilient, constantly reinventing myself, and a source of great pleasure? This is an insult?”
– retweeted 19 Jun 2014

“Honestly, the stupidity of people who think they’re making clever points
on my thread is like a meeting of the Dunning-Kruger fan club.”
– tweeted 19 Jun 2014

“Shhhh. Can you hear that? It’s the sound of a bunch of jackasses on
Twitter, desperately trying to pretend that I haven’t muted their asses.”
 – tweeted 20 Jun 2014

He can mute his own Twitter account, but he can’t mute reality. As I’ve demonstrated here, the correct way to puncture John Scalzi’s incessant spinning is to simply keep repeating the truth no matter how he tries to deflect and redefine it. Just continue observing the readily apparent: he is a fraud, he is a literary mediocrity, he is a socio-sexual gamma, he is a coward, he is insecure, and he is unable to engage in effective debate.

I suspect Scalzi will always remain popular in some misfit circles because he is, and he will probably always be, one of them. Unlike those misfits (or as Sarah Hoyt would say, Odds) who are determined to improve themselves and grow out of the social prison of their low status, the self-deluded Gamma redefines his every action as winning, and reinterprets every expression of criticism or contempt as praise. The fact that he does so is not an indication of psychological strength, but rather, extreme psychological weakness. The Gamma has to claim victory on all occasions, however absurd the claim appears, because he simply cannot handle the pain of admitting that he is a loser.

My nonexistent wife on Twitchy

Twitchy has a round-up of Larry Correia’s comprehensive Twitterspank of John Scalzi:

After the freakout sparked by Miss Nevada promoting women’s self defense, Correia wrote a blog post with the headline The Naive Idiocy of Teaching Rapists Not To Rape. Here’s a taste:

The idea that there is a “rape culture” in the USA is a
myth. There are individual imbeciles, individual evil scumbags, and
there are some criminal gang subcultures where rape is business as
usual, but for most regular people it is an evil anomaly, and our
children are taught accordingly. To all of these TEACH BOYS NOT TO RAPE
morons, my question is who the hell is teaching them that it is okay?
Where do you live? Next to Roman Polanski or Bill Clinton?  

Some of his science fiction author brethren weren’t too pleased with it and sanctimony ensued.

In addition to accusing Larry of looking like “a rape-excusing asshole” (I note that unlike Scalzi, Larry Correia does not belong to the group that associated with Walter Breen and still celebrates both Marion Zimmer Bradley and Samuel Delaney), John Scalzi went on to claim that Larry’s blog readers are misogynists, that Larry is “sexist” and not “able to understand the English language past the fourth grade level”, and even went so far as to assert that Spacebunny does not exist in her own right, but is merely my sockpuppet.

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi
@Spacebunnyday Hi, Vox. Run along now. @monsterhunter45

Larry Correia ‏@monsterhunter45
Uh… @Spacebunnyday is an actual female human person on the internet @scalzi

I thought that was a little rich coming from a self-described rapist who claims to be celebrating two decades of married bliss with a drag queen. Isn’t denying female agency supposed to be an important aspect of Rape Culture? Anyhow, given the timing of the relevant laws, it should be apparent to the casual observer that it is not my wife, but his marriage, that is imaginary.

But since we’re talking about the Hugo-nominated Larry Correia, I would be remiss were I to fail to note that Larry’s latest Monster Hunter International, NEMESIS, is already available on Amazon despite its nominal release date of 1 July. Does the man not entertain you? I’ve read the previous four books in the series and I’ll be posting a review here next week. I was intending to post it on the release date, but either Baen or Amazon threw me a curve ball with the early release of the ebook on that one.

UPDATE: I just noticed that Tom Kratman’s THE RODS AND THE AXE are also available on Kindle. It’s a big day for Baen fans! But don’t be disappointed if you’re a Castalia fan too… we’ll have a little something for you on Monday.

Not a bad summary, actually

Our new friend Damien nicely summarizes the heart of the SF/F Left-Right divide on Twitter. A more succinct paraphrase:

Right-wing sci-fi is about shooting the Other. Left-wing sci-fi is about fucking the Other.

This does explain the incessant Pink SF/F obsession with necrobestiality. As well as, for that matter, Larry Correia.

Speaking of Twitter, John Scalzi is, as usual, spinning, ever spinning. There are spiders who look at him in awe, and wonder where on Earth he finds the energy.

Once in a while I check to see if the racist sexist homophobic dipshits
are still railing that I exist in the world. They are. I smile.

Sure you’re smiling, Johnny. That’s why you stopped reporting your annual numbers in 2013. That’s why you shut down your Quantcast reports. That’s why you don’t post a traffic meter anywhere on your site. That’s why you threatened to quit SFWA. No one is “railing that [you] exist in the world”. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I find your constant snake oil salesmanship genuinely amusing. You’re the Bernie Madoff of science fiction and you’ve got the Participation Hugo to prove it.

Now, did you forget that you tried the “I’m so loving this” routine before you finally cracked and let your real feelings show? Look, there is nothing wrong with being upset and embarrassed about being caught out inflating your bio. But piling on lie after lie after lie just isn’t convincing very many people anymore.

June will mark the fifteenth straight month that my average site traffic exceeds your best month ever… by more than 120,000 pageviews. And the main reason your blog is in relative decline is because you lack the self-confidence to be honest with your readers.

But hey, keep smiling!

The Torlings scheme

So much for the idea of moving on. In the squalid semi-aquatic home of the Nielsen-Haydens, the Torlings have taken their cue from Mr. Scalzi and are planning their Hugo voting strategy accordingly:

TOR editor PNH: On stories from Tor.com making up over one-third of the short-fiction finalists: LOUD CRIES OF WOO HOO. And congratulations to Andy Duncan & Ellen Klages (“Wakulla Springs,” best novella), Charles Stross (“Equoid,” best novella), Mary Robinette Kowal (“The Lady Astronaut of Mars,” best novelette), Thomas Olde Heuvelt (“The Ink Readers of Doi Saket,” best short story), and Viable Paradise alumnus John Chu (“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere,” best short story).

#25 ::: Andrew Plotkin ::: April 20, 2014, 05:43 PM:

You made this coy statement in the open thread as well, and I confess that I still don’t know whether you’re referring to the Jordan/Sanderson or the Correia. Or something in one of the other categories.

#27 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: April 20, 2014, 06:25 PM:

Andrew, I was referring to the Novelette category, where one of the items is by someone who calls himself “Ibk Qnl” (rot13’d so his egoscan won’t find this thread so easily) (and yes, he means what that sounds like he means by it) aka Gurnqber Ornyr, also known as “the RSHD” (for Racist, Sexist, Homophobic Dipshit – not rot13’d because if he’s searching for himself by that name, well, haha, RSHD). I see no reason to read his work and judge it on its merits. He would not do that for my work, or for any work by a woman or person of color.

#59 ::: Alan Braggins ::: April 21, 2014, 10:22 AM:

Charlie Stross has said he will be ranking “No Award” above “Anthem” in the retro-Hugos. I suspect he will not be alone in that.

#175 ::: Xopher Halftongue ::: April 24, 2014, 02:47 AM:

As for Vox Day, I propose that the gang of idiots who do the bidding of that racist, sexist, homophobic dipshit be henceforth called “snotlings” (I got this from a card/board game I played years ago). They’re not even up to the level of trolls. They’re just little runny noses with legs, and they can be annoying to clean up after, but not seriously damaging, because they’re so pathetic.

Since the Torlings have decided to so thoroughly politicize the Hugo Awards vote this year, it seems to me that one would be absolutely remiss if one failed to follow their example by voting NO AWARD above every single work published by Tor and every nominated Tor editor this year. After all, since there are so few of us and we are not seriously damaging, it can’t possibly matter what we do. Just a thing for you to keep in mind when voting time rolls around, for no particular reason at all.

A few more examples of Torling strategery in action:

tnielsenhayden ‏@tnielsenhayden
I look forward to record levels of “5. No Award. 6. Vox Day” in the Best Novelette category.

John Scalzi on Whatever
Apropos of nothing in particular, however, I will note that in every category it is possible to rank a nominated work below “No Award” if, after reading the work in question and giving it fair and serious consideration, you decide that it doesn’t deserve to be on the ballot and, say, that its presence on the ballot is basically a stunt by a bunch of nominators who were more interested in trolling the awards than anything else. Just a thing for you to keep in mind when voting time rolls around.

John Scalzi on Whatever
I’ve seen rumblings of people suggesting they’ll put everyone on the Correia/Day slate below “no award” no matter what

Charlie Stross @cstross Apr 19
I won’t comment on current nominees, but the dead are fair game: I’ll be ranking “no award” above “Anthem” in the retros.

Charlie Stross ‏@cstross Apr 19
No: it would be inappropriate for me, as a nominee, to attack other nominees. I shall reserve comment until after the award.

Charlie Stross ‏@cstross Apr 19
No, it means Vox Day’s troll posse esteem Vox Day more than you. I’d call that a badge of honor, if I were you.

Charlie Stross ‏@cstross Apr 19
I doubt VD can afford to buy the award vote. Buying nominations is a much, much cheaper kind of shit-stirring.

Charlie Stross ‏@cstross Apr 23
I
find no inaccuracies in this RationalWiki page except that it ranks the
subject with other, *real* pundits:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Theodore_Beale …

Ian Sales ‏@ian_sales
@PrinceJvstin the reasonable response to the Hugo farrago is to put “no award” above the Axis of Evil works

Djibril al-Ayad ‏@thefuturefire
I am looking forward to ranking “No Award” higher than Vox Day, Larry Correia, Brad Torgerson, Dan Wells, Steve Diamond, & Toni Weisskopf.

XoScarab Halftongue ‏@Halftongue
Well, look at this. A Hugo nom that ended up AFTER “No Award” on the final ballot. http://www.nesfa.org/data/LL/Hugos/hugos1987.html

Christophe ‏@Xof
@jacobian A quick moment to remind Hugo voters that ranking a particular work behind “No Award” is an option in the final voting.

Just F-ing Keftastic ‏@Keffy
A propos of y’know whatever, remember that the Hugo ballot has a lovely No Award option that you can place at any point in your ranking. 🙂

Andrew Hickey ‏@stealthmunchkin
Didn’t vote in Hugos last couple of years because Hugo Packet PDF rather than proper epub. May have to this year,to put “no award” above Day

James Davis Nicoll
Monday April 21, 2014 05:15pm EDT on Tor.com
Happily, the Hugos not only allow one to rate an undeserving work below all the others, it also allows one to rate said undeserving work below No Award.

Kate Nepveu
I feel under no obligation to read Vox Day’s work, under the guise of fairness or anything else, and neither should you. 

Your Daily Scalzi

Because we all have so much to learn from one of Science Fiction’s leading authors, I have created a site dedicated to preserving some of the more important bon mots gifted to the world by this very important literary figure.

John Scalzi: Wit and Wisdom, is dedicated to preserving the historic words of the award-winning author and ensuring that future generations will have the benefit of them. Think of it as Plato to the man’s Socrates. If you are interested in assisting this educational endeavor, we are looking for two or three admins who can determine which of the vast plethora of quotes are worthy of preservation.

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, there are simply too many other things that distract me from posting about the most important author in Science Fictionliterature every single day. I hope this will help make up for that lapse.

A basic logic test

Speaking of Autumn People, here is a straightforward exercise that will test your logical capabilities: 

  1. John Scalzi declares: “I do enjoy pointing out stupidity” and “I will happily illuminate stupid things said about me to others.”
  2. The otherwise loquacious John Scalzi goes out of his way to avoid responding to the various things I have said about him to others and refrains from pointing out my blog or even mentioning my name.
  3. Therefore, the various things I have said about him [FILL-IN-THE-BLANK].

Same as he ever was

You may recall that I previously demonstrated that John Scalzi’s claim to have 50,000 daily readers was a 12x exaggeration of his actual daily blog readership in 2013, which was 20,600 daily pageviews and 4,085 daily readers. As it turns out, this significant exaggeration of his site traffic and his influence was nothing new.  Consider this post from July 2009, in which he arrogantly claimed that he was more influential than the three major SF publications, Analog, Asimov’s, and Fantasy & Science Fiction, combined.

Brad Torgersen: “Unless the work you’re writing is not the sort that fits any of the
Big Three, why would you allow the format and method of submission to
stop you from sending to the three markets still considered to be the
Top Dogs in short F and SF fiction?”

John Scalzi: “Because it would cost me money to buy a printer, paper and ink, the
rate they pay is shite, and I can reach more people on my Web site in a
day than any two of them can in a month.”

 In July 2009, Whatever had 300,487 monthly pageviews, or 9,613 per day. That meant he had about 1,940 daily readers. In 2009, Analog’s monthly circulation was 25,418 and Asimov’s was 16,696. It will probably not escape the mathematically literate observer’s attention that 42,114 is more than 1,940. So, five years ago, he was exaggerating his site traffic by a factor of 21.7. His absurd 2013 claims are actually less exaggerated than his previous claims.

And, of course, he was aggressively policing his potential critics even then.

Just as a general note, as I’ve told Brad to move on from this thread, directing comments to him specifically will be frustrating for him, and will not get actual responses.

Those who have recently lost respect for John Scalzi were simply not paying sufficient attention to his antics before. He’s precisely the same narcissistic con man that he’s always been, the only difference is that now he is less able to successfully control the narrative and spin a self-serving web of deceit because an increasing number of people in the SF/F world are aware of the facts and are able to see through his incessantly fraudulent activity.

As Bernie Madoff learned, eventually people figure out the con. Mr. Scalzi may not yet have come to terms with the fact that the jig is up yet, but sooner or later, he will have to do so.

“WHEN YOU SEE FRAUD, SHOUT FRAUD.”
– Nassem Talib