Tag: Puppies

It was funny to read this in my inbox, as it was the first time I’ve had any reason to give a thought to SFWA in a long, long time. Possibly the most amusing thing about this latest SFWA kerfluffle is that it is a direct consequence of SFWA adopting my original campaign proposal to admit independent authors to the membership. Sad Puppy leader Brad Torgersen observes, with no little irony, the 2019 version of Sad Puppies:

This past week, some indie authors got on the Nebula ballot, and the taste-makers—many of whom are ardently “woke” political activists—began braying about how a “slate” had ramrodded these indie authors onto the sacred SFWA ballot, and how it was high treason against all things Good and Clean in the genre for *any* “slate” to influence the Nebula final selections.

Nevermind that magazines such as Locus have spent decades publishing “recommended” lists designed and published explicitly for the purpose of influencing both Nebula selection, and Hugo award selection, among others. Such “recommended” lists have been with the genre for a long time, and only now—mysteriously!—has it been deemed evil for such lists to exist. Provided those lists don’t originate from Correct™ sources, with Correct™ credentials, Correct™ political affiliation, and so forth.

Well, predictably, the indie authors came in for a caustic drubbing, and many of them—some being overseas, and not at all familiar with the internecine rhetorical warfare of American literary SF/F—were both angered and confused. And I can’t blame them. It’s difficult to properly unearth the many decades of political and elitist cultural battles which have saturated SF/F in America, and the larger Anglosphere SF/F lit scene, since at least the 1920s.

Suffice to say the whole thing is perhaps best explained through the lens of George Orwell’s landmark 1984. Where you have Inner Party, and Outer Party, and Proles.

Inner Party being comprised of long-time Super Fans (aka: “true fans”) and some venerable editors and authors who’ve labored carefully for years to take up positions of influence and prestige within SFWA, and the broader literary SF/F “establishment” as a whole. They are concerned almost
entirely with their own power and influence.

Outer Party being the newcomer political activist writers from the universities who see all of literary science fiction—and the Hugos and Nebulas, as well as other awards—as a tool for “woke” political activism. All of them aspire to Inner Party status, and are just waiting for the extant Inner Party to literally die off, so that the Outer Party members can graduate to places of Inner Party power and prestige.

And finally the rest of us inhabit the land of the Proles. Fans and authors who were never part of the establishment, and do not attend the so-called “World Science Fiction Convention” (which never was ‘world’ much, even when it went overseas) nor are we active SFWA members. Many of us are indie authors, or hybrids, who often make far more money and have far more readers than any three dozen SFWA trad pub members put together. But we still bear the stigma of self-publishing which is beyond the borders of establishment propriety in the eyes of the Inner Party.

So, when a “slate” created for and by Proles manages to get some Prole selections onto the ballot—which rightfully belongs to both the Inner and the Outer Party!—the Inner and Outer Party take it as an act of ART WAR! And as you know, Bob, nothing is more vicious than ART WAR!

And this meant it was time to launch the social media mobs, Twitter snipers, “woke” punditry, etc. In an effort to get the Proles kicked out of the process, or at least make the world aware of how horrible and evil it is that Proles stood up to be counted. Which Proles are never, EVER supposed to do. Ever. Proles are meant to mind their places in the hierarchy and not cause a fuss. We are to accept what the deciders of “worthy science fiction and fantasy” have declared for us this season, and learn to love Big Brother.

THAT is the state of American literary SF/F, in a nutshell. That is SFWA.

Which doesn’t make it any easier for indie authors or fans, much less indie authors or fans who don’t originate from U.S. soil. The whole thing can seem both ridiculous and conflicted. Which it is. Because any sane outsider looks at it all and does a W-T-F.

Try as they will to style themselves international, the Inner and Outer Party members of American literary SF/F are hopelessly provincial, sharing a painful overlap in ideology, as well as a kind of homogeneous, mushy globalist-liberal outlook. Which, being “woke”, puts a premium on demographics over individualism. Fetishizing ethnicities and sexualities. While remaining borderline-militant about a single-track monochrome political platform.

So, certain Inner and Outer Party folks proceeded to step all over their own unmentionables in an effort to “call out” the “slate” of the indie Proles from the dirty ghettos of indie publishing. And now the Inner and Outer Parties are in damage control mode (yet again!) trying to re-write events, submerge evidence, gaslight the actual victims of the literary pogrom, blame all evils on Emmanuel Goldstein (cough, Sad Puppies, cough) and crown themselves the Good People once more. Who would never, of course, do anything pernicious, because how could they? They are Good! They tell themselves they are Good all the time! They go out of their way to virtue-signal this Goodness on social media! It cannot be possible that they have done anything wrong!

Well, if you’ve seen the ugly carnival long enough, it’s easy to peer through the smog. And I am sorry for all of the Nebula nominees who—being rightfully excited to learn of their nominations—watched that excitement crumble beneath a digital tsunami of accusations and character assassination. I’ve been there. I remember the lies and slander. I know how it happens, and why.

Just shrug it off, and walk away. Neither SFWA, nor Worldcon, nor the Outer nor Inner Parties, have anything for you. They are not the audience, and never were. And the harder they try to enforce their own relevance, the more plain it becomes that this relevance has fatally degraded in the new century.

Meanwhile, no one seems to have noticed that both Tor and Baen are rapidly sliding towards nonexistence. I’ve heard that Macmillan is looking to get rid of Tor from several sources over the last three months. The changes you’ve seen in Castalia’s practices of late are the direct result of Amazon destroying the ebook publishing market, and those changes are hurting the traditional publishers a lot more than a company like Castalia that doesn’t rely as heavily upon the various channels.

The acid test is going to be in April. It’s going to be fascinating to see how well a book that is in very high demand does through the channel versus direct.

Bounding Into Comics urges everyone to stop the madness:

With coordinated attacks coming from all sides, it’s more critical than ever that #Comicsgate members keep their eye on the prize and don’t turn into #dramaqueens who favor sniping and infighting over solidarity. Sadly, for those supporting this consumer revolt in the name of good comic books, and for the high profile figures within it, recent history may not be on our side.

On September 3rd, 2018, Alt-Hero publisher Vox Day announced his prospective Comicsgate imprint right here on Bounding Into Comics, and it would be an insult to diarrhea to say that the Comicsgate community understandably lost their crap in response. Whether Vox Day was trying to do something he deemed to be positive for the movement, or he was just trying to co-opt it a la Sad Puppies…or both, is mostly irrelevant; the fallout from his move was quite real, particularly when it came to author and occasional BIC contributor Jon Del Arroz…. Guilt by association? Juvenile stunts? Sounds a little SJW, doesn’t it? That’s because these are the brushes that crowd loves to paint with, and this is the same crowd who is smiling with glee at seeing Comicsgate infighting because they equate it with weakness.

With someone like Vox Day, it’s easy to understand this reaction. He has a history of co-opting movements, and he’s far more apt just to burn down the house rather than try to treat the infestation, which is what many longtime comic book fans don’t want to see. However, in this case Vox didn’t do that. He gave up on the Comics Gate imprint and is sticking to publishing popular stories through Arkhaven Comics and Dark Legion Comics.

I tend to agree that it’s important to stay focused on the business rather than the tempests and teapots, but I also have to admit that I’m really not concerned about this one way or another. Things will probably play out as they usually do, those who talk will talk and those who act will act. This ComicsGate nonsense hasn’t slowed down our release schedule in the slightest or interfered with the Alt-Hero:Q campaign. The only real ComicsGate-related problem for us has been the latest SJW attack at Amazon; the four digital editions of Gun Ghoul there are still blocked for absolutely no legitimate reason.

As I pointed out to a very irate Will Caligan last night, this isn’t a showstopper and the print edition of Gun Ghoul is available at Arkhaven Direct, at Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, and even on Amazon itself. You’ll get the best price at Arkhaven. But it is the sort of ridiculous thing that has inspired the President of the United States to consider lowering the antitrust boom on the social media giants.

I would, however, like to correct one common misapprehension: I never co-opted Sad Puppies. To the contrary, I was the architect of the Sad Puppies most notorious success and at no point in time was there ever any conflict between the Sad Puppies and me. If you look more closely, you’ll notice that none of the four leaders of the Sad Puppies, from Larry to Kate, have ever made a single accusation on that score. I don’t intend to say any more than that, except to reiterate an absolute fact: I did not co-opt Sad Puppies and anyone who claims I did in any way, shape, or form is wrong.

They are, however, correct to observe that I believe the optimal response to a converged organization is to burn it down. Because that’s what is going to happen anyhow, one is merely helping to speed the inevitable process along.

Congratulations, Rabid Puppies! Thou hast conquered.

Last night’s Hugo Awards ceremony featured a significant first: Nora Jemisin became the first novelist in science fiction history to win three consecutive Best Novel Hugos, once for each volume in her Broken Earth trilogy (the concluding volume, The Stone Sky, won last night’s prize); in addition to the unprecedented honor, Jemisin had another first, with her acceptance speech, which may just be the best such speech in the field’s history.

Other works and creators honored last night include:

Best novella: All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)

Best novelette: “The Secret Life of Bots,” by Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld, September 2017)

Best short story: “Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™,” by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex, August 2017)

Best related work: No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, by Ursula K. Le Guin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Best Graphic Story: Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood, written by Marjorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image Comics)

Best Editor – Short Form: Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas

Best Editor – Long Form: Sheila E. Gilbert

Let’s consider the best speech in the science fiction field’s history by the greatest science fiction writer of all time.

oh um okay so I I had started developing this whole superstition where I only went Awards if I don’t show up and my friends are texting me so I can’t read my speech stop okay all right so let me get to the speech this has been a hard year hasn’t it a hard few years a hard century for some of us things have always been hard and I wrote the broken earth trilogy to speak to that struggle and what it takes to live let alone thrive in a world that seems determined to break you a world of people who constantly question your competence your relevance your very existence I get a lot of questions about where the themes of the broken earth trilogy come from I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m drawing on the human history of structural oppression as well as my feelings about this moment in American history what may be less obvious though is how much of the story derives from my feelings about science fiction and fantasy then again science fiction and fantasy are microcosms of the wider world in no way rarified from the world’s pettiness or prejudice but another thing that I tried to touch on with the broken earth trilogy is that life in a hard world is never just the struggle life is family blood and found life is those allies who prove themselves worthy by actions and not just talk life means celebrating every victory no matter how small so if I stand here before you beneath these lights I want you to remember that 2018 is also a good year this is a year in which records have been set a year in which even the most privileged blinder of us have been forced to acknowledge that the world is broken and needs fixing and that is a good thing stop texting me and that is because acknowledging the problem is the first step towards fixing it I looked at science fiction and fantasy as the aspirational Drive of the zeitgeist we creators are the engineers of possibility and as this genre finally however grudgingly acknowledges that the dreams of the marginalized matter and that all of us have a future so will go the world soon I hope fairies and yes there will be naysayers I know that I am here on this stage accepting this award for pretty much the same reason as every previous best novel winner because I work my ass off I have poured my pain onto paper when I could not afford therapy I have studied works of literature that range widely and dig deeply to learn when I could and refine my voice I have written a million words of crap and probably a million more of me and beyond that I have smiled and nodded while well-meaning magazine editors advised me to tone down my allegories and my anger I didn’t I have gritted my teeth while an established professional writer went on a 10-minute tirade at me and basically as a proxy for all black people for mentioning under-representation in the sciences I’ve kept writing even though my first novel The Killing Moon was initially rejected on the assumption that only black people would ever possibly want to read the work of a black writer I have raised my voice to talkback over fellow panelists who tried to talk over me about my own damn life I have fought myself in the little voice inside me that constantly still whispers that I should just keep my head down and shut up and let the real writers talk but this is the year in which I get to smile at all of those naysayers every single mediocre insecure wannabe who fixes their mouth to suggest that I do not belong on this stage but people like me cannot possibly have earned such an honor and that when they win its meritocracy but when we win its identity politics I get to smile at this people and lift a massive shining rocket-shaped finger in their direction I’m understand so how many of you all saw like Panther okay probably my favorite part of it is actually Kendrick Lamar theme song all the stars the chorus of it is this maybe the night that my dreams might let me know all the stars are closer let 2018 be the year that the stars came closer for all of us the stars are ours thank you

Moving. Deeply moving. (wipes a solitary tear away) You lift that massive shining rocket-shaped finger to the sky, you inspiring token for the savagely untalented! No one can ever take away those unprecedented three consecutive Best Novel Awards from you, although they’re desperately going to want to do so once they realize just how completely they have destroyed the credibility of their own awards.

You see, my dear SF-SJWs, this is what a smoking hole looks like.

A legitimate award-winning science fiction writer, Robert Silverberg, begins to grok.

I have not read the Jemison books.  Perhaps they are wonderful works of science fiction deserving of Hugos every year from now on. But in her graceless and vulgar acceptance speech last night, she insisted that she had not won because of ‘identity politics,’ and proceeded to disprove her own point by rehearsing the grievances of her people and describing her latest Hugo as a middle finger aimed at all those who had created those grievances.

But that’s what the Hugo Award is now. And that is all it is. Which is exactly what I told the Rabid Puppies would happen. Our actions could never have sufficed, but their reactions did.

Basically, what we succeeded in doing is turning Worldcon into WisCon. Now, here’s an interesting observation: isn’t that what is happening to the DNC? Absolutely it is, and who caused that? Donald Trump is doing the same thing on a larger scale in the political world, what Rabid Puppies did to the
science-fiction world. It’s the same thing. If you apply sufficient force, if you apply a sufficiently strong action and provoke a strong enough reaction, then you can withdraw and allow the SJWs that have been stirred up to devour everything else that’s still there.

Think about this way. Imagine that SJWs are like piranhas, and so you’ve got these piranhas in a fish tank, and there’s the SJWs and then there’s the regular lefty fish. They’re all the enemy, but some of them are a little bit worse than others. So what you do, you know, is you stick your hand in there and then shake your hand around right? Now, the key is got to pull your hand out! Yeah, so you stick your hand in, you stir them all up, you pull your hand out, and then the piranhas are going to attack everything that’s in there. They don’t realize that the other fish in there aren’t your hand, they’re not discerning, they have their agenda and these other people stand in the way of that agenda just like you do, and so, you know, by going in and stirring things up, and then withdrawing, then the whole thing ends up a massive mutually destructive activity.

Here are my recommendations for the 2018 Dragon Awards. In the comic book category, note that they want the series name first, then the issue and publisher. And while it might seem a bit much to put John C. Wright’s novels forward in both categories, frankly, I defy you to find a better science fiction novel published in the last year than Superluminary: The Lords of Creation or a better fantasy novel than Tithe to Tartarus. The man is simply the greatest science fiction author alive, and I say that despite being a hard-core fan of both Neal Stephenson and China Mieville.

The rules follow. Be sure to get your nominations in before the deadline. I’ll post a reminder as we get closer to it.

Once you have submitted a nomination for a category you cannot change it. If you are not sure about a category, then leave it blank. You can come back at a later date and add nominations for any category you leave blank using this same form. Make sure your name (First and Last), and the email address match your original submission. No need to fill in your original nominations, the form will append the new nominations to your prior list. Do not nominate a book for more than one category. If the same book is added more than once, all your nominations will be null.

Nomination Deadline: July 20, 2018. We encourage you to get your nominations in early.

Best Science Fiction Novel
Superluminary: The Lords of Creation
John C. Wright

Best Fantasy Novel (Including Paranormal)
Tithe to Tartarus
John C. Wright

Best Young Adult/Middle Grade Novel
Young Man’s War
Rod Walker

Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel
Wardogs Inc. #1 Battlesuit Bastards
G.D. Stark

Best Alternate History Novel
Hammer of the Witches
Kai Wai Cheah

Best Media Tie-In Novel   
Before the Storm (World of Warcraft)
Christie Golden

Best Horror Novel    
The Death and Life of Schneider Wrack
Nate Crowley

Best Comic Book
Alt-Hero
Alt-Hero #2 Rebel’s Cell, Arkhaven Comics

Best Graphic Novel
Rebel Dead Revenge
Gary Kwapisz, Dark Legion Comics

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series, TV or Internet
Stranger Things
Netflix

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie
Incredibles 2
Brad Bird

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Warhorse Studios

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game
Hearthstone
Blizzard

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game
The 7th Continent
Serious Poulp

Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game
Starship Samurai
Plaid Hat Games

It’s been known for years – as long as I’ve been published in SF/F – that conservatives get invited to be guests of honor at conventions far less often than leftists in SF/F and infinitely less than red-diaper-babies in SF/F, but ConCarolinas seemed like a weird place for a conflagration of snowflakism.

I went over to John Ringo’s page and read about it.  As far as I could tell, a bunch of people on Twitter had been badgering both the con-committee and the other (very leftist) guest about inviting someone who was… what the heck was he?  I don’t know.

In the beginning, the accusation against him was that he was “Puppy Adjacent.”

For those of you wanting to follow this at home, the score card is this: Five years ago, my friend Larry Correia started a movement called Sad Puppies, which was a half joking attempt to get books not of solid leftist bent (not even right wing, just not preachy left) nominated for the Hugo, which used to be one of the most prestigious fan awards in science fiction.

When Larry tired of the game after two years, my friend Brad Torgersen took it over…

It was supposed to be me, but a cancer diagnosis and emergency surgery stopped it.

Brad ran it creditably, suggesting fan-favorites who had never got nominated (over the last decade, the Hugos have become a log-rolling club of leftists.) He got people who’d never before nominated to nominate, increasing the number of people involved by three fold.  And we got practically everyone on our suggestions list on the ballot.  (Ours because I was involved both in planning and defending the guys, as was my friend Kate Paulk and my friend Amanda S. Green.)

Imagine our surprise when we found out that:

1. We’d promulgated an immutable slate, that had to be voted for in order. We must have managed that by cleverly telling people to read and vote for those they liked, or add others, or whatever, just get involved.
2. We were against the participation of women, people of color, and people of different gender identification and orientation in science fiction and fantasy. (How we were supposed to divine all that except perhaps women, is beyond me.  And even there, there are gender neutral names.)  The fact that three of us, in the “inner council” were women made no difference.  Since we’re not leftists, we’re obviously not “real women.” Oh, by the way, we also nominated women, people of color, and I think at least one gay person for the Hugo.  That most of those recused themselves had nothing to do with us, and was a function of the attacks by the left, who threatened to destroy careers of those who stayed on the ballot, or promised them they would get nominated by them next.  (On the eve of never, I’ll wager.)
3. We’d done this to oppress people by being gatekeepers. Note our coalition was one best selling author (Larry Correia), a promising beginner (Brad Torgersen), a midlist author (me), and two indie authors (Kate Paulk and Amanda S. Green).  None of us had or had ever had gatekeeping powers.  In fact, the people who called calumnies against us to Entertainment Weekly (who later retracted) and other national publications were gatekeepers, since everything points to their working for TOR.

Anyway, that was the conflagration called Sad Puppies.  After our nominees were treated horribly at the 2015 Hugos, after leftists bought memberships by the dozen for the express purpose of voting “no award” over people they proudly admitted they’d never read, we thought there was no point.  My friend Kate Paulk, probably the most conciliatory woman in the world, ran it the next year and did everything the left said they wanted done.  They still attacked her.  I and Amanda claimed the right of succession, but never took it, because it was obvious the Hugos were dead, their reputation destroyed and only academics seeking tenure could be interested in them.  The only reason we claimed them was to prevent a few deluded people from trying to ride a movement they had nothing to do with to fame.

So.  This is now three years later.  There have been no Sad Puppies for two years.  And by the way, John Ringo’s extent of involvement in this was to be our friend and to joke about giving Larry and Brad the Don Quixote award.

But he was “puppy adjacent” and the deranged game of post office on the left adduced to him all the things they said we were.  You know the drill: racisss sexisss homophobic.  (They really need to come up with a more sibilant word for that.)

I find this rather fascinating for what it omits. The Baen cum Sad Puppies crowd is in an uncomfortable position not terribly different from that of Never Trump and the cuckservatives. They are accustomed to being the sole opposition to the SJWs in science fiction, and viewing themselves as the proper and respectable opposition, so they really don’t know what to do about the Rabid Puppies or the considerably less accommodating opposition that is now represented by Castalia House, Arkhaven, and Dark Legion. Nor do they understand how various trends favor the growth of our influence, in part at their expense.

So, they push a narrative to the public in which we don’t exist, even though without us, Sad Puppies would have remained what it was prior to our involvement, a minor bump in the road that didn’t even require any suppression outside of the usual routine. This is not to say that what they did was not admirable, and indeed, their construction of the Dragon Awards will likely prove to be more significant in the long run than our demolition of the Hugo Awards. I merely observe that their efforts would have been insufficient in our absence.

But unlike the SJW narrative, the Sad Puppy narrative does not harm us at all. I am content to let them push it in peace; after all, they are not the enemy. Right now, we are marshaling our forces and preparing to engage in offensives on multiple fronts, some of which are known and others which will prove to be unexpected.

Understand that many people are going to become exhausted. Others are going to fall away for one reason or another. Friends will become allies, and allies will become neutrals. All of that is fine. None of that gives us any cause for concern nor should any such transitions be discouraged or criticized. The core remains stronger than ever, and our focus and our efforts remains relentlessly targeted at the enemy.

Let the others trail in our wake at their own pace. As long as they refrain from either attacking us or getting in our way, they are not part of the problem. They are trying to be part of the solution, even if they go about it in different and suboptimal ways.

Speaking of the SJW narrative, the crazy never ends.

I liked The Hobbit. A lot. But while Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books are influential as exercises in world building, as novels they are barely readable. It never seemed to me that Tolkien cared about his story as much as he cared about rendering, in minute detail, the world he built. Why not instead read Ursula K. Le Guin’s magnificent (and as beautifully rendered) stories and novels surrounding Earthsea? Le Guin captures the world of Earthsea through a powerful, dark, gorgeous kind of storytelling that is irresistible. Perhaps Le Guin’s work—along with an entire universe of fantasy fiction—wouldn’t have been possible without Tolkien’s influence behind it, but in its time, Le Guin’s books are more influential and make for better reading.
—”21 Books You Don’t Have to Read”, GQ

Only on Planet SJW are Ursula Le Guin’s tedious and tedentious books deemed more influential and better reading than Tolkien’s.

Jon Del Arroz has some recommendations for the Dragon Award:

Ran a poll yesterday on which blog my readers would like to see next, and the winner by no uncertain terms was my recommendation for Dragon Award nominations. If you haven’t seen the Dragon Awards before, they are the premier award for Science Fiction and Fantasy, given at Dragon*Con, arguably the best convention that exists. Please, readers, do take the time to vote as this is really your award choice and your voice matters.


Best Science Fiction Escaping Infinity by Richard Paolinelli

Richard really has created a great science fiction, and I mean that in the classic sense. It’s on the short side, but it’s packed with a lot of ideas and it’s definitely the best sci-fi of the year.

Best Fantasy  A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day

Vox Day is the most underrated fantasy author in fiction. His Arts of Dark and Light series is frankly better fantasy than Brandon Sanderson (of whom I’m a big fan), Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks or George R.R. Martin. The characters are fantastic, the world is a very cool Roman-esque fantasy world, it’s tense all the way through, and it’s got very cool magic and magical beings.

You can vote here. My own recommendations are here. If you’re interested in reading an excerpt from A Sea of Skulls, you can find one here.