Tag: SFWA

The virulent circle

I find it modestly amusing how the only thing that the two sides of the low-grade civil war between the SFWA Old Guard and the Insect Army can agree upon is that I am simply beyond the pale.


“That’s right! I am dangerous, Ice… man!”

Although it’s also amusing how a few of them seem to think that they should be able to discuss how terrible I am without me, you know, letting any of you know about it. Apparently they also think the MORE THAN ~50,000 DAILY READERS here are crackpots and hatey-hatey haters. Shame on all of you! From SFF.net, which I will remind you is the considerably more rational side of the two that are involved.

YOU ARE HEREBY WARNED  This is a hate site. They hate EVERYONE. Also the abode of crackpots.
– Lois Tilton (providing link to VP)

No one has to seek such things out. If we knew exactly why he was kicked out of SFWA, then we need never think of him again. But we don’t.
– Jerry Pournelle

I was pointing out that Beale is predictably taking advantage of the current flapping over the Truesdale matter to do more flapping of his own, on his own blog. 
– Lois Tilton

Vox Day is, of course, a perfect rendition of the Cory Doctorow prescription of writerly success. Welcome to the Promised Land.
– William Barton

As he will tell you.
– Lois Tilton

As far as I know, the only thing Beale has to do with the current flap is that he signed the petition at some point and his name was removed before it went public.  Beale commented on that on his blog.
– Steven Silver

I seriously doubt that. I saw an early draft of the petition and his name wasn’t there.  Dave would not be that dumb; it would have poisoned the whole effort. I wouldn’t take anything Beale says as accurate.
– Chuck Rothman

If Truesdale, a non-member, can present such a petition, Beale, a non-member, should be able to sign it. Removing someone’s name from a petition because one thinks they are an asshat is prima facie evidence that one is, onceself, an asshat. Maybe SFWA can chip in and buy an “UNCLEAN” sign for Beale to wear around his neck? SFWA’s not the fucking Pope.
– William Barton

Regarding Beale I have yet to see either charge or specification, apparently because even the mention of what he did to merit expulsion would be actionable or something of the sort.  I probably misunderstand, but apparently the Board can act as a Court of Star Chamber and doesn’t need charges and specifications.  I can’t say I find that reassuring.
– Jerry Pournelle

Well, Mr. Rothman, Dave was precisely that dumb. It was also downright hilarious to see one member pointing out that Steven Gould’s actions have proved that I was “was the only possible choice for president who might have made me write a dues check this year.”

Anyhow, I sent Mr. Pournelle a copy of the SFWA report as well as my response to it. I have no idea what he will make of it, but at least he will be left in ignorance no longer.

As Lois Tilton has surmised, I don’t mind any of this. I have the impression that running a publishing house will permit me to have considerably more impact on the field of science fiction and fantasy than serving as president of SFWA would have. About which more tomorrow. And as it happens, many of the things I would have implemented inside the organization are equally implementable from the outside. About which more anon.

Crushing the insects

As he learned from his Mommy, Johnny thinks that if you pretend to embrace an insult, you are totally showing the big meanie that he can’t hurt you. Because if you put on a big enough production, no one will notice that you’re crying yourself to sleep at night.

“The problem is that the ‘vocal minority’ of insects who make up the new generation of writers don’t scramble for the shadows when outside lights shines on them—they bare their pincers and go for the jugular. Maybe it is a good thing that SFWA keeps them locked up. The newer members who Scalzi et al. brought in are an embarrassment to the genre.”
— (name withheld) on SFF.net, during the recent unpleasantness.

Heh heh heh. I realize, of course, that the person who wrote the comment above meant “insect” as an insult. But what do we know about insects? They are numerous, adaptable, highly successful as a class, and, when they put their mind to it, absolutely unstoppable. No wonder this person seems terrified.

As it happens, I have for a long time said that there are three types of writers: dinosaurs, mammals and cockroaches. Dinosaurs are the writers who are tied into an old model of the writing and publishing life, and when that specific model dies, so does the writer’s career. Mammals are the ones who ride the wave of a new writing/publishing model into success and prominence — but if they tie their fortunes to that one model, they’ll find themselves transformed into dinosaurs soon enough. Cockroaches, on the other hand, learn and adapt and thrive in every circumstance, in part because they know that things change. If you’re a writer, being a cockroach is the way to go.

And so, oh! The irony! Of calling writers the thing that (metaphorically) it is awesome to be, careerwise.

For the record (and because it is referring to my time in office, which I can speak about): I am immensely proud to have, along with Mary Robinette Kowal (my VP for two thirds of my administration) and the rest of the board and volunteers, through our efforts on behalf of our membership, helped to bring so many of the writers this person so dismissively refers to as “insects” into SFWA. These writers are talented, opinionated, smart and adaptable, and not coincidentally write some really great things, and were already in my time doing good for the organization. If this person wants to put me at the head of this insect army, I’m delighted to accept the commission (as is Mary! I asked her! She said yes!).

Mary and I are no longer officers of SFWA, but I think our commissions at the head of the Insect Army are still in effect: After all, not every “insect” is in SFWA (yet). And so I say to you: Join John and Mary’s Insect Army! You must write! You must be fearless! You must stand your ground in the face of deeply silly insults, clacking your pincers derisively at them! And, if you believe that every person — writer, “insect” and otherwise — should be treated with the same dignity and honor that you would accord yourself, so much the better. Together we can swarm to make science fiction and fantasy awesome!

Insect is an apt term for them. They are nobodies and no-talents led by mediocrities who have careers by virtue of smoke, mirrors, and being chosen by other mediocrities due to their ideological affiliations. We’re not talking about China Mieville here. We’re not talking about Charles Stross or the late Iain M. Banks, left-wing writers of genuine talent. We’re talking about the nattering nothings. Scalzi is lying when he says: “These writers are talented, opinionated, smart and adaptable, and not coincidentally write some really great things.”

They’re not talented. They’re not smart. Most of them are barely even published. They’re not adaptable, they’re intolerant, and most of them don’t even write as well as the definitively mediocre Scalzi, who produced this award-winning dialogue:


“Man, I owe you a blowjob,” Duvall said.
“What?” Dahl said.
“What?” Hester said.
“Sorry,” Duvall said. “In ground forces, when someone does you a
favor you tell them you owe them a sex act. If it’s a little thing, it’s
a handjob. Medium, blowjob. Big favor, you owe them a fuck. Force of
habit. It’s just an expression.”


“Got it,” Dahl said.


“No actual blowjob forthcoming,” Duvall said. “To be clear”
“It’s the thought that counts,” Dahl said, and turned to Hester. “What about you? You want to owe me a blowjob, too?”
“I’m thinking about it ,” Hester said. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what it now takes to win A PARTICIPATION HUGO!

After taking over the SFWA with their bureaucratic swarming thanks to the McCaffrey rule, the insects made the same mistake that all the indebted college students are making today. They think the credentials and the awards matter and they don’t understand that those things were only ever significant because of what they symbolized: SF excellence. A Nebula once meant something. A Hugo once meant something. Now, they’re the reward for meaningless swarmings. The insects mistake the awards for the literary accomplishment.

That’s why the Old Guard’s petition, the Old Guard’s disgust, was so hurtful to them. Because it is an undeniable reminder that the insects cannot live on the stolen glory of their elders and betters.

And now that the gatekeepers don’t matter any longer, now that everyone has equal access to the SF/F readers, we will crush them beneath our iron-shod feet.

As for Mary Puppinette Kowal, the reason she’s a complete nobody is because nobody actually gives a damn what she writes. Nobody reads her except her fellow insects. For all her awards and bureaucratic involvement and being pushed by the biggest genre publisher, her most recent book is ranked #268,486 on Kindle. She’s a nasty little nothing and never-will-be who doesn’t even write SF/F, she writes miscategorized Regency Romance.

Tilting the level playing field

The mainstream media’s attempts to ignore, belittle, and compete with the independent media has failed, so now they are desperately trying to appeal to anyone, from the government to Google, who will stack the odds in their favor:

Who, for example, could object to a paper that opens with something as reasonable as:

“At a time of extraordinary domestic and international policy challenges, Americans need high-quality news. Readers and viewers must decipher the policy options that the country faces and the manner in which various decisions affect them personally. It often is not readily apparent how to assess complicated policy choices and what the best steps are for moving forward.”

You know you are wading into difficult waters, however, when in the very next paragraph West and Stone quote warnings about the perils of the present political polarization from Brookings’ Thomas Mann and the American Enterprise Institute’s Norm Ornstein. AEI is indeed a conservative think tank, and a jewel of one at that, but any idea that coupling these two scholars from AEI and Brookings produces a balanced analysis should go out the window. Ornstein is AEI’s resident liberal and about as representative of the scholarship at AEI as I am of the Harlem Globetrotters. Mann and Ornstein are themselves very partisan players who would like nothing better than to go back to the old days when Tip O’Neill got the better of Bob Michel in the House of Representatives; they blame all of Congress’s dysfunctions on the Republicans, especially the Tea Party branch. So when West and Stone blame the role the news media are currently playing in the polarization that Mann and Ornstein decry there is more than just the sound of academic “tsk, tsking”—there’s also a slight whiff of “here’s hoping that we could set this darn clock back.”

In fact, attempts to do just that permeate the entire paper and its recommendations. West and Stone even chide the practice of pairing conservatives and liberals on TV to comment on issues, which they say results in “polarization of discourse and ‘false equivalence’ in reporting.” Getting both views means there is a lack of “nuanced analysis,” which “confuses viewers,” they write. As with all liberal grousing, there is also throughout the paper the suspicion that the average American is not capable of filtering the news by himself. Another passage reads, “the average reader’s ability to critically judge this new presentation of digital data is still developing and is lagging behind the ubiquity of interactives and infographics on the web.”

So journalists should lead the average American reader out of his torpor by linking to thoughtful commentary that give the context the reader needs, just like in the old days. And who might be good examples of such much-needed context-givers? West and Stone observe that “Platforms such as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog and Andrew Sullivan’s “The Dish” provide daily developments in policy news for those seeking to understand the intricacies of complex issues.” And, no it doesn’t end there. They also recommend Democracy Now!, which they describe as “a daily, independent program operated by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. It runs stories that have ‘people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S. corporate-sponsored media.’ Among the individuals it features include grassroots leaders, peace activists, academics, and independent analysts. The program regularly hosts substantive debates designed to improve public understanding of major issues.”

Both Sullivan and Klein are uniformly liberal in all issues and supportive of Barack Obama’s agenda. They are also, however, deep-thinking innovators who explain things thoroughly in their respective sites, even if from their perspectives. Not so for Goodman and Gonzalez, who can only be described as neo-Marxist apologists for Chavez, Castro and the Sandinistas.

We can only be thankful that West and Stone revealed their weakness for Goodman and Gonzalez for it alerts the discriminating reader to be on the lookout for danger to come, and it doesn’t take long to materialize. Buried beneath moderate-sounding verbiage there is nothing less than a call for neutering the citizen journalist through mass editing (crowd sourcing) and for making it harder for average web searchers to find ideas that do not conform to the accepted wisdom. “Citizens without journalistic training may be more likely to report inaccuracies or file misreports,” they write. “Because they are reporting of their own volition, it is possible that they might have a specific agenda or bias. They may repeat false ideas reported elsewhere and help bad ideas go viral.” Combining the mass editing of crowdsourcing (“the virtues of collective reasoning,” as the authors put it) with citizen journalism, however, would be a way to hold these untrained journalists accountable.

Perhaps even more troubling is their proposal for dealing with diversity of views on the web. West and Stone quote New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson as opining that there is “a human craving for trustworthy information about the world we live in- information that is tested, investigated, sorted, checked again, analyzed, and presented in a cogent form. …. They seek judgment from someone they can trust, who can ferret out information, dig behind it, and make sense of it.” I think we all know what the managing editor of the Times thinks when she talks about sorting and analyzing news. So here’s what West and Stone propose:

“Search engines employ many criteria in their algorithms, but many of them are based on the popularity of particular information sources. Yet these algorithms lack the embedded ethics of human gatekeepers and editors. Articles or sources that generate a lot of eyeballs are thought to be more helpful than others which do not. This biases information prioritizing towards popularity as opposed to thoughtfulness, reasonableness, or diversity of perspectives. “Digital firms should be encouraged to add criteria to their search engines that highlight information quality as opposed to mere popularity. They could do this by adding weight to sites that are known for high-quality coverage or providing diverse points of view. This would allow those information sources to be ranked higher in search results and therefore help news consumers find those materials.“

In other words, Google, Facebook et al should move up higher and promote the “high quality coverage” practiced by Abramson, Klein, Sullivan, Gonzalez and Goodman, and which would produce once again the type of politics that Ornstein and Mann find acceptable. Much lower down would be the muck-raking journalism of James O’Keefe and Breitbart, the opinions of Sean Hannity and Hugh Hewitt or pieces run by National Affairs or NRO. Sen. Cruz’s refusal to go along with higher spending, or Sen. Lee’s analysis of how our current welfare system keeps the poor poor would be about 20 clicks away, if anywhere at all.

This is precisely why I have continued pointing out the behavior of the SFWA with regards to me and other SF/F writers who refuse to join the hive mind. The Left always attempts to eliminate its opposition, by hook or by crook, because it doesn’t believe in open and honest competition, but manipulation and con artistry. This isn’t a current phenomenon; John C. Wright writes eloquently about how the founder of SFWA and the Clarion Writer’s Workshop, Damon Knight, waged a long-running campaign against one of the original Big Three of Science Fiction, A.E. van Vogt, which succeeded to the point that most people today wrongly believe the Big Three were Asimov, Heinlein, and either Arthur C. Clarke or Ray Bradbury.

(As we see time and time again, the rabbit of little ability but a highly developed talent for social manipulation and bureaucracy hated his superior in intellect and accomplishment. Knight famously claimed van Vogt was: “not a giant as often maintained. He’s only a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter.” I found this informative because after reading Knight’s fiction about ten years ago, I’d wondered how he could possibly have ever been named an SFWA Grandmaster. It turns out it was an Appreciation Grandmastership; he was the Scalzi of his day and began his now-forgotten SF career as the writer of a fanzine called Snide.)

So, we see the phenomenon writ small in the SFWA. We see it writ large in the European Union. But what we see is the same fractal political phenomenon that is always and everywhere dedicated to reducing the limits of the freedom of human thought.

Of petitions and pettiness

Apparently I was correct to anticipate that my signature would be removed from Dave Truesdale’s SFWA petition:

“If Truesdale, a non-member, can present such a petition, Beale, a non-member, should be able to sign it. Removing someone’s name from a petition because one thinks they are an asshat is prima facie evidence that one is, onceself, an asshat. Maybe SFWA can chip in and buy an “UNCLEAN” sign for Beale to wear around his neck? SFWA’s not the fucking Pope.”

This SFF Net discussion reminded me that I had an account there, not that I’ve used it since my presidential campaign. Or… perhaps not After reading that comment, it struck me that it would be completely
characteristic for the SFWA to ensure that my account at SFF Net was
deleted. I went there, and typed in the user name and password. Sure enough:

Sorry! We can’t find a user called tbeale. Please try again or write to Tech Support for assistance. 

That made me laugh out loud. The comedy continues. But the sheer pettiness of the act makes it something useful to keep in mind for when you find yourself facing one of the nasty little rabbits caught in a trap and begging for mercy. Show them the same mercy they showed others. Cut them the same slack they offered others.

There is no need to hate them, just crush them under your heel and go on with life. One cannot forgive those who do not repent.

Darkened hearts, poisoned minds

Kate Paulk is amused by the spectacle afforded by the SFWA devouring itself:

It’s funny as hell, but it’s also sad to watch. The organization founded to help authors and act as their advocate has become a grotesque carnival freak show devouring its own newborn children, as often as not with the publishers who are busily devouring the slightly older authors watching on and approving. Not a word is said about the contracts that try to stop authors writing anything except what the publisher approves (even when it’s a totally different genre and a totally different name), or the contracts that claim the rights to your first born and your dog for all of eternity and beyond (yes, I’ve seen these. I didn’t sign). Oh well. Time to break out the popcorn and enjoy the show.

And, since one of her commenters saw fit to complain about the fact that she made a factual observation about “the current SFWA president (you know, the one whose first major action as SFWA president was to expel the losing candidate)”, I should point out that Steven Gould’s hypocrisy was actually worse than that. As I pointed out in my response to the SFWA’s “investigative report”, Steven Gould was guilty of the exact same act for which I was purged from the SFWA, and he was guilty of it before I was. He used an official SFWA communications channel, in this case, the SFWA Forum, to link to an attack on an SFWA member.

The only difference? I used the SFWAauthors Twitter account to post the link to my blog, Gould posted the link to NK Jemisin’s blog in the SFWA Forum on the SFWA web site.

Sarah Hoyt, meanwhile correctly points out that the SFWA is perfectly content to point-and-shriek at the small fry while ignoring the abuses of the very publishers the organization was formed to fight:

Nota bene that all the fields taken over by “progressives” end up with unpaid work where the exploited ones – interns, adjuncts, beginning writers – are told that to complain would be unprofessional and where the weak people are held to much higher standards of behaviors than their masters.)

This flaw in the design of SFWA has always been apparent, and therefore the people inside chose the other route.  “Act like we’re a big bad union, but co-opt the employers, make nice to them.  We can at least secure good deals for ourselves and our friends.” Note that everyone they go after, and everyone they pound on are small presses or things their pet authors disapprove of: write for hire, Amazon.

This is something most people don’t realize about the SFWA. It’s not merely that they are ideologically and politically corrupt, but they have totally given up on their primary purpose. As proof of Sarah’s accusations, consider this exchange between one member and a former SFWA president, Michael Capobianco:

Capobianco: “I’m informed that some DAW anthologies pay less than 5 cents a word.”

SFWA member: “How are they therefore able to keep their pro status?”

Capobianco: “The lapses are overlooked because declaring DAW to not be a professional market would be counterproductive.”

Counterproductive…. The SFWA defends authors from big publishers about as effectively as they defend free speech.

Increased demonization cycles

Sarah Hoyt has a theory concerning the increasingly rapid appearance of Pink SF’s Two-Minute Hates:

The funny thing, though, is that they are not only completely ignorant about us, and so unaware of it that the dime never drops, but that these demonization cycles seem to be coming closer and closer and get more hysterical. The next person who disagrees with them or pokes the tiniest bit of fun at them will be declared “worse than Hitler” and they’ll call for his hanging.

I think I know why.  Part of the reason the episodes are coming closer together and getting crazier is that they’re losing power and they know it.  They convinced an entire generation of women that Heinlein should not be read.  This was because “all the right thinking people know that.”  This is breaking.  There are enough blogs, and enough of us female Heinlein fans ready to tell them they’re idiots and then describe exactly in what part of their anatomy their head is lodged.

With Resnick and Malzberg the backlash was faster and louder and even a lot of their number thought (privately) that they were off their rocker.  With Card, I think only the choir thinks he’s “a fascist.”

And with Larry…  There is no word for this.  It’s like a Chihuahua trying to hold onto a car by the back bumper.  They have not only bit off more than they can chew, they’ve bit off more than they can… bite.  In tactical terms it’s getting involved in a landwar in Asia or going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

But wait, there’s more.  The other reason they’re getting crazier and crazier and trying to enforce group conformity more and more is that they are no longer in possession of the bully pulpit.

That’s definitely part of it. As Hugh Howey showed in the report to which I linked earlier today, independent publishers now sell more daily units in the three primary genres, Mystery/Thriller, SF/F, and Romance than the major publishers do. But the loss of the bully pulpit and the declining power of the gatekeepers has done more than drive them crazy, it has all but eliminated their targets.

Consider how much static I took for a few months from the moment I ran for president. But I’m gone now. They can’t purge me twice. They can’t purge Sarah or Larry, they’re already out of the little club. They can, in fact, they regularly dig up the corpse of Robert Heinlein in order to ritually attack him, but nobody cares, least of all REH.

So, like rats, the rabbits are on the verge of devouring themselves. They have no one else left to attack. We’ve already seen Dave Truesdale and a cohort of elderly members publicly launch a salvo at Stephen Gould and the lowlives of the Board; it won’t be long until those Very Serious and Concerned Individuals strike back with a series of point-and-shrieks directed at various petition signers.

If you’re a young writer on the right half of the political spectrum, you would have to be insane to decide to join the SFWA at this point. I mean, is it going to help you get published by Baen? Is it going to impress anyone at Castalia House? Or, for that matter, Random House, after the way they were attacked by the SFWA worthies? And do you really think the lunatics at places like Tor are going to harbor any interest in your story about spaceships and space battles if it lacks the requisite tri-gendered queer transcultural warrior princess who defends abortions in space from the evil Bible-misquoting raciss white Christian bigot?

We have achieved ideological segregation. Now the wolves can compete among themselves and laugh as we watch the rabbits frantically shrieking “not-rabbit” at their fellow rabbits as they devour each other.

SFWA petition

Well, they really can’t say I didn’t warn them…. I added my name to the petition as “Vox Day – Former life member of SFWA” but I assume they won’t want to add it. I find this more than a little amusing, considering that none of them other than Brad Torgersen were willing to speak out when the SFWA President, ex-President, and Board targeted me for purging. As I said at the time, there was never any chance that the shambling shoggoths of Pink SF were ever going to stop with me.

In light of the preceding correspondence we, the undersigned, object to the new SFWA requirements for editor of the SFWA Bulletin, as set forth on the SFWA website. Specifically, we have the following objections:

A “review board” implies a group of persons, as yet unnamed, who can veto content submitted by members if the board deems it “offensive” to a sub-group of SFWA. This opens the door to censorship of opinions that do not jibe with the personal beliefs of those on the review board, whereas SFWA should be open to the airing of many varieties of opinions, especially on such sensitive subjects as sexism, racism, religion, and politics.

The proposed requirements are so vague that they leave many critical questions unaddressed. Several among them: Given that it is our strong belief that there should be no “advisory” or “review” board, who would hypothetically sit on this board and how would they be chosen? Would advertising copy (book or magazine covers) be subject to review as well, especially in the high dollar advertising rates the Bulletin charges for its special Nebula issue?

The editor of the Bulletin should have discretion over its contents; that is why he or she is chosen as editor. There should be no advisory or review board. In view of these considerations, we ask that SFWA (1) withdraw this slate of requirements for the Bulletin and (2) open a discussion where all viewpoints can be considered on this matter before drafting any further sets of guidelines for SFWA publications.

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that the issue here is most decidedly not one of Left vs. Right. The only issue here is a First Amendment issue that both those on the political Left and Right should without hesitation embrace as one. What may happen to the Bulletin and SFWA as a viable organization if the current SFWA President has his way is unthinkable, especially as an organization of writers.

One thing the Bulletin should do is provide an outlet (its Letters column) for anyone to express his like or dislike with anything printed within its pages. This is the true essence of free speech. “Political correctness is tyranny with manners.― Charlton Heston, (actor, early civil rights activist who marched with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King.)

It is our hope hope others will add their names to this call for SFWA President Steven Gould to kill any proposed advisory board or any other method designed to censor or infringe on any SFWA member their First Amendment right to freedom of speech in the pages of the SFWA Bulletin. Active or Associate SFWA members wishing to support this effort may send email directly to SFWA President Steven Gould at: president@sfwa.org.

Active or Associate SFWA members wishing to add their names to this petition may do so by sending an email to Dave Truesdale at: tangent.dt1@gmail.com. Signatories will be added to the list below.

Signed by
Cyd Athens
Gregory Benford– Nebula winner
David Brin– Nebula winner, Past SFWA Secretary
Amy Sterling Casil
C. J. Cherryh
Lillian Csernica
Jack Dann– Nebula winner, former Bulletin Managing & Asst. Editor, past memberof the Publicity Bureau, Nebula Rules Committee, and Grievance Committee; current member of the Anthology Committee
Harlan Ellison– Nebula winner, SFWA Grand Master, past SFWA V.P.
Sheila Finch– Nebula winner, past SFWA V.P, and Western Regional Director
David Gerrold– Nebula winner
Nancy Kress– Nebula winner
Mercedes Lackey
Dr. Paul Levinson– Past SFWA President
Barry N. Malzberg– Five time Nebula finalist, appearances in six of the annual Nebula volumes, editor of the Bulletin in 1969, Eastern Regional Director for two years in the late 70s and Grievance Committee 1980-1984.
Jack McDevitt– Nebula winner
Larry Niven– Nebula winner
Dr. Jerry Pournelle– Past SFWA President
Mike Resnick– Nebula winner, past SFWA ConAlert (8 yrs.) and Anthology Chairman (6 yrs.)
Chuck Rothman– Past SFWA Treasurer
Susan Shwartz– Five-time Nebula nominee, member of Nebula Jury (2 years); on
committee exploring reinstatement of film Nebula
Robert Silverberg– Nebula winner, SFWA Grand Master, Past SFWA President
Norman Spinrad– Past SFWA President (twice)
Allen Steele– Three time Nebula nominee, Past Eastern Regional Director
Brad R. Torgersen– Nebula nominee
Harry Turtledove– Double Nebula nominee, Past SFWA Treasurer
Gene Wolfe– Nebula winner, SFWA Grand Master

Of course, the idea that the SFWA has any commitment whatsoever to free speech after purging a Life Member of Color for a Twitter link to a perfectly reasonable blog post that gave its SWPL-heavy membership the fainting fits is risible, to say the least.

Achievement Unlocked!

After beating up on both politicized literary pretenders and McCreepy, the Master Monster Hunter is temporarily even more hated in SFWA circles than Orson Scott Card and me combined. He responded to Jim “McCreepy” Hines:

This is gonna be a long one.

Not really. He mostly hits and runs and does some check listing. I’m the long winded one.

The backstory: Author Alex Dally MacFarlane wrote an article called Post-Binary Gender in SF: An Introduction over at Tor.com, calling for “an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories.”

One week later, author Larry Correia wrote a response to MacFarlane’s piece, called Ending Binary Gender in Fiction, or How to Murder Your Writing Career. (Side note: you’ll probably want to avoid the comments on that one.)

That last part is very interesting. You’ll probably want to avoid the comments… Why? Because I don’t edit them in anyway or “massage” them? Between the blog post and the corresponding Facebook post, I’ve got a few hundred comments. Of those, there are a handful that are very mean (this is the internet) but most of them are reasonable, and interestingly enough I’ve also got homosexuals and transsexuals who posted in the comments who thought the original Tor blog post was as ham fisted as I did.

I tried to ignore it. There’s no way I’m going to change Correia’s mind about this stuff, any more than his post changed my thinking. But of course, there are a lot of other people lurking and participating in the conversation,

He’s correct. Arguing is a spectator sport. You don’t waste your time on the already decided, you convince the undecided, and give ammo to your side. If there isn’t an audience, don’t waste your time.

and while I know this is going to do bad things to my blood pressure, I think it’s a conversation worth having.

Heh… My blood pressure is fine. Arguing with lefties on the internet is what I do to relax. In my last fisk, I talked about how the blog post was angsty emo bullshit.

I wonder which is more angsty … an author calling for our genre to move beyond binary gender, or another author spending 4000+ words about how people like MacFarlane are symbolic of everything that’s wrong with the genre, and are destroying fun.
The original. Obviously.  Nice check listing though. I wrote lots of words, ergo, that’s angsty… Or it could just be that I’m a WRITER who averages 3k of paying fiction a day, I threw that thing together while I was waiting for the matinee of I Frankenstein to start. Considering half of those words were a cut and paste of the original Tor article… Man… That means Jim Hines just wrote SIX THOUSAND WORDS to respond! Holy shit. That’s hard core!

PROTIP: Your editor does not like to pay you for the words you cut and paste from other people’s blogs. 🙂

Destroying fun? Quite the contrary. If you’d bothered to read the comments then you know my readers have had a whole lot of fun with this. Oh! You mean destroying the fun of reading sci-fi and killing off our slowly dwindling genre. Well, yeah. That’s sort of the point.  I wrote my post for the aspiring authors who might read Tor.com and think that Ending Binary Gender in Sci-Fi was good advice. I pointed out that when you write with the goal of checking boxes to satisfy the cause of the day, your writing will probably suck.

I agree that if you’re writing a story with the kind of checklist Correia describes, you’re probably going to get a bad story.

Yep. But I said it in a mean way that hurt their delicate lilac scented feelings.

As Larry correctly points out, he’s the type of man who teaches women to defend themselves so they aren’t victimized by criminals. McCreepy is the type of cismale who likes to listen to crying women tell him about getting raped and console them when he isn’t dressing up in women’s clothing and taking pictures of himself. Is there anyone who would be even a little surprised if McCreepy turned out to have a complete Buffalo Bill-style dungeon under his garage?

Lapine spells

Oswald Spengler had the rabbits pegged in The Decline of the West. He explains why they are so prone to not only name-calling, but viewing name-calling as sufficient to make a case against a perceived foe.

“The world-fear is stilled when an intellectual form-language hammers out brazen vessels in which the mysterious is captured and made comprehensible. This is the idea of “taboo” which plays a decisive part in the spiritual life of all primitive men,  though the original content of the word lies so far from us that it is incapable of any translation into any ripe culture-language. Blind terror, religious awe, deep loneliness, melancholy, hate, obscure impulses to draw near, to be merged, to escape – all those formed feelings of mature souls are in the childish condition blurred in a monotonous indecision.”

Rabbits are not merely barbarians, but primitives. Thus the incantation “homophobe” is considered enough to banish the moralistic thought-criminal, even as the magic spell “raciss” is deemed sufficient to banish the ethno-cultural thought-criminal.

Spengler even offers an explanation for why they cannot create anything original, but more on that another time. But in the meantime, Kalel points out that Bradbury, too, identified the Nothing People:

“For these beings, fall is ever the normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth….Such are the autumn people.”

Autumn is such a beautiful time of year that it seems a travesty to identify them by that noble name. I prefer to think of them as the Nothing People, the empty-eyed, soulless creatures of the Abyss. But it is fascinating to me to see how thinkers, philosophers, and artists have all observed the same phenomenon in certain people around them.

Alhough it is ironic. Who would have ever imagined that the Wicked in Something Wicked This Way Comes would turn out to be the hollow and petty evil that is perhaps best exemplified today by the likes of John Scalzi and the shambling shoggoths of the SFWA.

The Huggening

Now that McRapey has finally claimed his Participation Hugo, the literary gods have declared that it is time for RAINBOW PUPPY LIGHTHOUSE THE HUGGENING. Which is to say, it’s Larry Correia’s turn to win Best Novel in 2014.

“The ugly truth is that the most prestigious award in sci-fi/fantasy is basically just a popularity contest, where the people who are popular with a tiny little group of WorldCon voters get nominated and thousands of other works are ignored. Books that tickle them are declared good and anybody who publically deviates from groupthink is bad. Over time this lame ass award process has become increasingly snooty and pretentious, and you can usually guess who all of the finalists are going to be that year before any of the books have actually come out or been read by anyone, entirely by how popular the author is with this tiny group. This is a leading cause of puppy related sadness.”

For just $40 you can register as a supporting member for WorldCon and nominate up to five works in every category. This year Warbound, the last book of the Grimnoir trilogy is eligible.Won’t you please help? Won’t you please put a smile on a sad puppy’s face?