Tag: SJW

Sad Puppies can’t be wrong

Not when the very worst writer in science fiction and fantasy opposes us:

Mercedes Lackey says:   
May 15, 2015 at 9:00 PM   

I’ve said it before in your blog and I’ll say it again. The Puppies of both orders picked the perfect name for themselves. Puppies piss and shit all over everything, they never stop whining and yapping, they destroy everything they get their teeth into and plenty of them are too damn dumb not to shit and piss in their own bed. And then lie in it.

And then they are shocked–SHOCKED!–when someone comes along, rubs their noses in it, and smacks them. And they’ll be even more shocked when someone lock them in their crate, or sends them to the pound.

See, one thing Larry (my husband Larry Dixon) and I have learned is that editors don’t appreciate trouble. Trouble doesn’t sell books. In the long run, trouble loses sales, in a business already precarious.

I’m going to predict that someone is going to be crated over this. If they are less lucky…someone’s going to be sent to the pound.

No wonder her hastily scribbled–5.5 per year on average according to Wikipedia–are so appallingly dreadful. The woman makes the logic-challenged Eric Flint look like a genius in comparison. I’d rather read John Scalzi’s entire oeuvre twice than another Mercedes Lackey book. She’s the anti-Tanith Lee; her works were among the first Pink SF works I noticed corrupting the genre. A year ago, I would have called her an Marion Zimmer Bradley-imitator who can’t write, except that would be a bit harsh given the recent revelations of her predecessor’s problematic pasttimes. And if I was as determined to unilaterally destroy the Hugos as the SJWs claim, RP’s Best Novel category would have been as follows:

  • Closer to Home: Book One of Herald Spy by Mercedes Lackey
  • Bastion: Book Five of the Collegium Chronicles by Mercedes Lackey
  • Children of the Night (Diana Tregarde Investigation #2) by Mercedes Lackey
  • Steadfast (Elemental Masters #8) by Mercedes Lackey
  • Blood Red (Elemental Masters #9) by Mercedes Lackey

As to how shocked–SHOCKED!–we are by the behavior of the SJWs in science fiction, I will simply quote Martin van Creveld in The Changing Face of War.


“As Schlieffen himself had once written, for a great victory (what he called a “Cannae” to take place, it was necessary for the commanders on both sides to cooperate, each in his own way.”

Let’s just say their behavior shocked me about as much as the discovery that the sun rose again this morning. There are precisely four things that have surprised me about the SJW response to date:

  1. John Scalzi more or less keeping his mouth shut. Now we know why.
  2. Charles Stross attempting to doxx Castalia and his insane Finnish Nazi theories. I genuinely thought he was smarter than that.
  3. The public approval of Mary Kowal openly buying supporting memberships for other people. It’s so hard to imagine anyone else making effective use of that tactic in the future.
  4. Popular Science being one of the publications in which they planted their hit stories. I knew from past experience they would plant hit pieces in the media. But that would not have been among the first 250 publications I would have guessed.

On the other hand, it is entirely unsurprising to see that Lackey is stupid enough to not realize that her prediction about Puppy-supporting authors suffering at the hands of their editors is additional testimony in support of our original contentions. And it’s not the only testimony in this regard either. I rather enjoyed Brian Z’s Stalinistic ritual denunciation under pressure:

“In case this might be misunderstood as an endorsement of that site
moderator’s views or tactics, I denounce everything Vox Populi stands
for.” 

Do you, SJW, renounce the Supreme Dark Lord and all his works? And then there was Influxus’s admission of what many SJWs are thinking, but most are sensible enough to deny in public:

Of course VD loves it because it perpetuates his narrative that the Sads
are scape-goated by the SJWs of Fandom, when really the only person
that most people want to get rid of is him.

Nearly everything the SJWs do tends to support that narrative. And while I may top the list, based on their behavior towards Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen and John C. Wright and Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg and John Norman, I very much doubt I am the only troublesome individual of whom they wish to be rid. As for the pound, it is obvious that the SJWs of Fandom simply do not understand the relevant dynamic here….

UPDATE: Speaking of the Puppy narrative, further support for it from SJWs.

“I suspect that some of these sad and rabid folk will soon have to start writing under new pen names if they expect their work to survive the editorial sniff-test with most of today’s publishers.”

This, of course, is the same thing Charles Stross was telling me 10 years ago. Submit to the SJW gatekeepers or be cast out. As for me and my House, we choose out.

Eric Flint, SJW

I hadn’t bothered reading whatever Flint had been going on about, because knowing that he was still a socialist was sufficient for me, the student of several noted Marxian economists (since recanted), to know that the man is neither very intelligent nor very educated.

But I finally got around to reading the article and was mildly surprised to learn that it was even dumber than I assumed it would be.

I am a social justice warrior. Not an “SJW,” not a figment of the fevered imaginations of right-wingers, but the real deal. 

Wow, the real deal! And what do SJWs always do? That’s right. All together now! SJWS ALWAYS LIE. Case in point: Eric Flint.

Then there’s Theodore Beale, aka “Vox Day.” Now we come to a far more suitable candidate, Great-Dictator-Reborn-wise. He shares Hitler’s general attitudes on race, certainly, although I don’t know where he stands on the subject of Jews. And he’s even to the right of Hitler on the subject of women. Far to the right, in fact. Hitler thought women should stick to their proper roles in child-rearing, managing households and church activity—“Kinder, Kūche, Kirche”—but he wasn’t actually opposed to women learning how to read and write and he didn’t support honor killings.

But there are two great differences between Beale and Hitler that make it impossible for Beale to play that role either.

To start with, whatever his other depravities, Hitler wasn’t a petty chiseler. Whereas Beale is nothing but a petty chiseler. He chisels when it comes to his opinions, always trying to play peekaboo and slime around defending what he obviously believes. And he’s trying to win Hugo awards by petty chiseling.

But it’s his other characteristic that really disqualifies him for the role of Great Villain in this morality play.

In a nutshell—and completely unlike Adolf Hitler—Theodore Beale is a fucking clown with delusions of grandeur. This is a man—say better, pipsqueak—who rails to the heavens about the decline—nay, the imminent doom!—of western civilization due to the savageries of sub-human races and (most of all) the pernicious—nay, Satan-inspired!—willfulness of uppity women, and likes to portray himself as the reincarnation of the feared Crusaders of yore, all the way down to wielding a flaming sword.

And… the best thing he can figure out to do with his time, money and energy is to hijack a few Hugo awards. That’ll show the sub-human-loving treacherous bitches!

The world trembles and shakes, just like it does in the imagination of a mouse whenever that mouse imagines itself to be an elephant. Except no mouse who ever lived was this stupid.

You know, we’ve wondered who was going to be the new Hitler ever since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proved to be such a washout in that regard. My money was on Putin, so I had absolutely no idea it would turn out to be me. Someone get Hugo Boss on the line, we’re going to need some snappy new outfits for the VFM, stat!

Let’s address the issues as Mr. Flint, real deal SJW, puts them forth.

  1. I don’t share Hitler’s views on race, as I have a basic grasp of human genetics and I am neither a eugenicist nor an Aryan supremacist.
  2. On the subject of Jews, I am a Zionist who edits and publishes the eminent Israeli military historian Dr. Martin van Creveld.
  3. I’m not opposed to women learning to read and write. I am opposed to women being encouraged to obtain advanced degrees in the place of husbands and children. Unlike Mr. Flint, I can do the demographic math.
  4. I don’t support honor killings. I never have.
  5. I don’t hide what I really believe. Mr. Flint claims to know what I really believe without me ever putting it into words because, and I quote, “peekaboo”. If anyone is “a fucking clown” here, it is observably Mr. Flint.
  6. I’m not trying to win Hugo Awards. I don’t care about winning awards.
  7. I have no delusions of grandeur. I’m not the one who keeps running to The Guardian, Entertainment Weekly, The New Zealand Herald, NPR, Popular Science, or the Wall Street Journal to talk about me. I haven’t issued a single press release or called a single member of the media about the Hugo Awards or anything else, for that matter.
  8. Western civilization is in peril. In large part thanks to idiots like Mr. Flint.
  9. I don’t like to portray myself with a flaming sword. That was the brainchild of the Star Tribune photographer who was taking pictures of me for a story the paper was doing. Apparently he was onto something, as it’s an image many people have remembered.
  10. Hijacking the Hugo Awards is not the best thing I can figure out to do with my time, money and energy. First, the Hugos weren’t hijacked. We claimed the nominations fair and square, and entirely in accordance with the rules. Second, it took very little time, money, or energy as it required nothing more than a single blog post and 367 Vile Faceless Minions who despise SJWs like Eric Flint, John Scalzi, Jim Hines, and George Rape Rape Martin more than Eric Flint hates capitalist running dogs.

Anyhow, it’s always good to see one’s initial instincts confirmed. Now I can go back to completely ignoring the moronic intellectual dinosaur. Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to still subscribe to the Labor Theory of Value? I would have thought that robotics would have been sufficient to lay that to rest for anyone capable of turning on a computer.

It’s kind of funny that these people take umbrage at the idea that I am considerably more intelligent than they are. Do they even read what they write? Hitler! Honor! Hate! Hijack! Hugo! It’s as if they’ve got conceptual Tourette’s Syndrome. My favorite was Flint’s claim to a) know I share Hitler’s ideas on race but b) not know my views about Jews. We’re clearly dealing with a real master of logic here.

One tit is never enough

JCCarlton explains why Eric Flint owes Brad Torgersen an apology:

The best thing the CHORFs could have done is lived by the principles they say that they said the Hugos represented.  They cold have welcomed the puppies as new blood.  At the very least they could have remained silent and accepted the fact that things are going to change.  Instead they created a huge media smear campaign against, among other people, Brad.  Frankly, accusing BRAD of being anything other than the nicest guy you will ever meet is just weird and I don’t think I’ve ever met Brad personally.  But when you play by Alinsky rules, facts aren’t relevant, the narrative is.

Along with that they are trying to “fix” the Hugos to make sure that only the “proper Worldcon membership,” the TRUFAN is allowed to pick who SF awards the Hugos to.  They are trying as hard as they can to make the Hugos the comfortable racket they like so much.  I don’t think that they realize just how much the nastiness they’ve been spreading around is losing them friends

Of course it doesn’t help that the CHORFs have been diligently creating their own monster.  I suspect that they thought that Vox would just fall apart and blow away like dust when they went all Alinsky on him at SFWA.  The problem is that Alinsky tactics only work when the other side accept you definition of them.  And Vox didn’t believe what the CHORFs were saying he was and frankly was able to turn their constant distortions and half truths against them.  Making false assertions doesn’t work as well on the internet where almost nothing is permanently forgotten and everything can documented.  It’s hard to make false assertions when the truth is a Google search away.

What the CHORFs don’t seem to be able to understand is that once you put up something in a blog, you might as well be broadcasting your actions to the other side.  And while most of us don’t care what’s on the CHORFs’ blogs on or another of us will probably see it and pass it around.  And Vox is not above pointing out the other side’s strategies and saying to his readership, tit for tat.

Up until the last few years I don’t think that many of us fans really cared about the Hugos very much.  The one time I’ve been able to attend a Worldcon I don’t think I even voted.  I’m absolutely sure that I didn’t participate in the nomination process the next year.  One thing the response the CHORFs have made many of realize for the first time is just how rotten the Hugo Awards have gotten.  I think that up until the CHORFs  declared total war on the puppies none of us on the other side really understood how far those people were willing to go for little plastic rocketships.

I have to admit that I don’t give a damn what Eric Flint thinks. He need not apologize to me, regardless of what he may have said. I know that some of his fellow Baen writers think well of him, but I’ve never read anything he’s written and I don’t know anything about the man except for the fact that he’s published by Baen and he’s said to be an unreconstructed socialist.

So, I don’t know if JCC is correct or not. But he’s certainly correct to claim that I am not above recommending tit for tat. Indeed, I am considerably below that, being a devotee of the tactical philosophy that requires three or more tits for every tat.

George Martin really really likes rape

Like the worm, the SJW always turns on his own:

Rape acts in Game of Thrones the TV series (to date): 50
Rape victims in Game of Thrones (to date): 29

Rape acts in ASOIAF the book series (to date): 214
Rape victims in ASOIAF (to date): 117

The books contain over 4 times as much rape as the show (and probably even more; the method of analysis likely underestimates the rape in the books – see below).

Before the barrage of anon hate mail floods in: that’s not to say the show’s not problematic. It’s to say that the books are problematic. ETA: Please see A Song of Ice and Fire Has a Rape Problem for a detailed discussion on why the rapes in the books aren’t any better than those in the show. Spoiler: the only women who get vengeance on their rapists are villains.

Those 214 rape acts are particularly astonishing if you compare them to the number of times a married couple has sex. Which, if my memory serves correctly, happens about twice in five books.

Nor are the various defenses of Martin that have been offered valid. As Tafkar notes: “the only thing that protects a woman from rape is being one of Martin’s POV characters.” 

More damning is this conclusion: “The stories of rapists are important to George R. R. Martin. Those are
the stories he tells. Our point of view characters are the rapists, not
the victims.” 

George R.R. Martin well merits his fate. 

You don’t like the medicine, doctor?

Glenn Hauman on May 26, 2015 at 2:20 am said:

Dave Freer: No-one has called for a
boycott or blacklist of David Gerrold, or Glenn Hauman, or to have
their reputations tarnished and Amazon reviews deliberately lowered.

And yet they got bad reviews? What a coincidence! I also didn’t call for a boycott or blacklist, and yet somehow there’s a sudden rash of bad reviews of my books up on Amazon. See http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Engineers-Creative-Couplings-ebook/dp/B000WJSA3I/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

No, Glenn Hauman didn’t call for a boycott or a blacklist, he called for fake negative reviews to be posted on Amazon, fake negative reviews which were immediately posted on Amazon in response to his calls for them.

Glenn Hauman on April 15, 2015
You can game Amazon ratings as well. Here’s a list of all of Mr. Beale’s nominees, complete with handy links to Amazon. It might be a good idea to take a look at the reviews and see which ones are helpful. If you’ve read the works, you should add your own review. Oh, and to answer the title question: what do you do to rabid puppies? You put them down.

Glenn Hauman on May 20, 2015
Just a reminder to all Hugo voters: After you’ve read items in the Hugo packet, you don’t have to confine any reviews of them to your own blogs and social media. Feel free to add them to Amazon as well.

I see absolutely no evidence that the sudden rash of bad reviews of Mr. Hauman’s books reflect anything but the opinions of people who have read it and are honestly expressing their disappointment with their inferior quality. After all, absolutely no one has called for anyone to review or otherwise pay attention to his work at all. It must be, as Mr. “Put Them Down” himself has said, a mere coincidence.

And because Public Enemy is always appropriate:

He book-reviewed, he S.J.W’d
Vile minions viewed his anti-Puppy feud
One-star the rating, listen to him double trouble
He signs in now he’s pushing for the lower level
Like crashing cars he’s out there stealing stars
From books he took without a single look.
Taking a toll ’cause his soul broke with the poll
From the revelation… of a Puppy Nation.
Now this is what I mean an anti-Puppy machine
If Hugo come out at all, he won’t come out clean
But look around here go the sound of the wrecking clown
Boom and pound when he put ’em down

SJWs always lie

It’s as if they have to constantly spin false narratives or they’ll stop breathing”

Glenn Hauman on May 23, 2015 at 12:37 am said:

At least Mr. Beale isn’t claiming I’m calling for false reviews anymore, though he still hasn’t retracted that statement.

I am absolutely claiming that Glenn Hauman has called and is still calling for false reviews of certain works to be posted on Amazon. He has publicly, and disingenuously, called for them twice now.  Ten negative reviews, at least five of them confirmed by the reviewer to be false, have now been posted, some by his known associates. Mr. Hauman is either lying or woefully mistaken when he says I am not claiming that he’s calling for false reviews anymore.

This is standard SJW behavior. They say something in a passive-aggressive, plausibly deniable manner that they expect others to interpret in a certain way and act accordingly. This is why they are always talking about “dog whistles”; that is how they communicate amongst themselves.

Then, when criticized for the very consequences they intended, they deny having done what they did, reject all responsibility for the consequences of their words, and insist that everyone accept the false narrative of the disconnect between their call to action and the subsequent actions.

Hauman points out that he said people should read the various Puppy works before the reviewers “put them down”, but some of the reviewers didn’t, by their own admission, read them, nor did Hauman give a damn whether they did or not. His objective was for the Puppy works to receive negative reviews, which they subsequently received. Mission accomplished. The pretense the SJW attempts to maintain is usually a childishly transparent one, and it both confuses and alarms them when one simply ignores the verbal fog of nominal “plausibility” with which they try to preemptively defend themselves and focuses on the intention and the effect.

As, one notes, the justice system likewise does. No drug dealer has ever escaped conviction because he said “melons and cantaloupes” in the place of marijuana and cocaine when wire-tapped. What he said may be true, but it is irrelevant. His intentions are best judged by the response to the words, and not the words themselves.

The reason we know it is disingenuousness and dishonesty and not an inability to connect cause-and-effect is that SJWs are not similarly inclined to respect genuine deniability whenever they are accusing someone of one of the many isms they wield as weapons to DISQUALIFY. In fact, SJWs regularly claim the ability to read minds and discern intentions even when there are no actual consequences to observe.

Don’t ever take an SJW’s spun narrative at face value. That’s exactly what they expect you to do; that’s exactly what they need you to do. Punch through it and expose them. You can be sure that the narrative will be false because SJWs always lie.

Speaking of which, these two false narratives are excellent examples:

Stevie on May 22, 2015 at 7:24 pm said:
One thing you will discover is that the canine conspirators are now in total disarray, because the Sads didn’t realise that they would be Shanghaid by the Rabids. Equally, the Rabids are in total disarray because Beale really thought he was going to be treated as an entrepreneurial mastermind by the WSJ and therefore was completely blindsided when the WSJ laughed at him. In other words, all they’ve got left is to be as destructive as possible, and do their best to make everyone else miserable.

Chris Hensley on May 22, 2015 at 7:37 pm said:
“Equally, the Rabids are in total disarray because Beale really thought he was going to be treated as an entrepreneurial mastermind by the WSJ and therefore was completely blindsided when the WSJ laughed at him.”

All the while Vox Day is screaming “Why are you running? We have them right where we want them!”

Are you in total disarray, Rabid Puppies? As for the idea that I was “completely blindsided” by Michael Rappoport’s article in the Wall Street Journal, this is exactly what I wrote to the Evil Legion of Evil about it two weeks before it ran: “Wall Street Journal piece coming soon, possibly tomorrow. Strangely enough, they didn’t even ask me if I hate black lesbians or kick kittens. It will probably be moderately against us, in my opinion. He wasn’t
hostile, but he played “devil’s advocate”, in his own words, several
times.”

I was, of course, under absolutely no illusions that the piece would have anything to do with entrepreneurship or my being a mastermind of any kind for the obvious reason that I actually talked to the reporter for about ten minutes. Not only were his questions mildly accusatory in nature, but the fact that he was also talking with two people who had nothing to do with the story, George Martin and John Scalzi, was sufficient to tell me which way he was going to spin it. As in fact, turned out to be the case. But the tone of the article was considerably less poisonous than the Entertainment Weekly, Guardian, and Popular Science stories that were planted by the Torlings. Which was nice, and I also noticed that the comments on the WSJ web site ran about 10-1 in our favor.

As for the clueless wonders at File 770 who don’t understand how the Torlings plant stories in the mainstream media, they should look at who publishes the authors of some of those “journo things”. 

Just a reminder

Kicking Puppies is not nice. Glenn Hauman issued a second call for anti-Puppy Amazon reviews, this time on File 770:

Glenn Hauman on April 15, 2015
You can game Amazon ratings as well. Here’s a list of all of Mr. Beale’s nominees, complete with handy links to Amazon. It might be a good idea to take a look at the reviews and see which ones are helpful. If you’ve read the works, you should add your own review. Oh, and to answer the title question: what do you do to rabid puppies? You put them down.

Glenn Hauman on May 20, 2015 at 10:51 pm said:
Just a reminder to all Hugo voters: After you’ve read items in the Hugo packet, you don’t have to confine any reviews of them to your own blogs and social media. Feel free to add them to Amazon as well.

And once again, SJWs have obediently responded to his call. Mr. Hauman’s actions strike me as a very good way to encourage publishers to stop participating in future Hugo Packets. I mean, why should we do so if it’s only going to provide the SJWs in science fiction with another means of attack? Mr. Hauman has demonstrated how the Hugo Packet can be destroyed in a single year; what publisher is going to even be willing to include excerpts when inclusion in the Packet means several hundred one-star reviews on Amazon within weeks?

BIG BOYS DON’T CRY

Not recommended
This is not a very good story. To be honest, it is not my kind of SF and the only reason I read it was because of the Hugo nomination.
Published 3 hours ago by Hampus Eckerman

Lame Whiny Book.
(Disclaimer: I didn’t buy the book here; got it as part of the Hugo ballot packet.) David Weber can write cartoon villains and cowardly REMFs and it’s fun to read, even…
Published 10 hours ago by Bill Stewart

What a Waste of Time
This must have been a rough year for novellas if this is one of the front-runners for a major award. Did he pay his friends to nominate him?
Published 11 hours ago by Janelle Wilbanks

Dated and amateurish MilSF
Another 2015 Hugo nominee from the Puppies.
Magnolia, a.k.a. Maggie, is a Ratha, an armored war machine in the military forces of a starfaring and aggressive Earth… Read more
Published 21 hours ago by Elisabeth Carey

These reviews averaged 1.5 stars, whereas the 142 other reviews averaged 4.3 stars. Elisabeth Carey is also attacking John C. Wright, giving ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM its only two-star rating in 80 reviews which otherwise average 4.5 stars. No doubt this is merely a matter of differing tastes combined with some coincidental timing. Again.

Of course, BIG BOYS DON’T CRY and ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM are not the only Hugo nominees included in the Hugo Packet. ANCILLARY SWORD presently has 204 reviews and a 4.1 rating. THE GOBLIN EMPEROR has 232 reviews and a 4.4 rating. To quote Mr. Hauman: “Just a reminder to all Hugo voters: After you’ve read items in the Hugo
packet, you don’t have to confine any reviews of them to your own blogs
and social media. Feel free to add them to Amazon as well.”

Feel free, the man says. Feel free. On a tangential note, while Chuck D brought us the concept of the one-man riot, Lori Coulson has invented the one-woman blacklist. She’s going to continue to not read books by authors she had never read before:

Lori Coulson on May 21, 2015 at 8:38 pm said:
The one thing the Hugo packet has demonstrated to me? That there are a bunch of authors out there I never want to read again, and not only will I not read anything more by them, I definitely won’t be reading anything the “Evil League of Evil” writes, edits or publishes. After being wowed by “The Crucible” in High School and taking the lesson within to heart, I find I’m starting my own personal blacklist. And it makes me very unhappy that it’s necessary to do so.

And here we were told blacklists were bad. Anyhow, this sounds rather like MSNBC’s audience threatening to never watch Fox News again.

The SJWs review the shortlist

Not that the outcomes were ever in any doubt, but it’s always interesting to see what justifications the SJWs produce for their DISQUALIFY. Here are a few commenting at File 770:

Hampus Eckerman on May 19, 2015 at 9:04 am said:

Just finished the Related Works. Not satisfied again.

Wisdoms from my Internet was mostly a collection of tweets. Some were funny, some were well thought out, others were boring and a few were… well, lets say they catered to people with another political taste than me. Ranting about “SJWs” is not the way to get votes from me. Anyhow, who wants to read that amount of tweets? Nah, this is a no award.

Why Science is Never Settled was the standard article about the scientific methods, one of hundreds, just not as well done as many others. No award again.

Wright is as horrible as usual in his Transhuman and Subhuman:

“The female spirit is wise rather than cunning, deep in understanding rather than adroit in deductive logic, gentle and supportive rather than boastful and self-aggrandizing.”

“Contrariwise, when women in the kitchen or the nursery use the name of the Lord in vain, and the children they are nursing and teaching hear them, the vulgarity has the negative effect of deadening the emotions of the youngsters and making them vulgar and indifferent to vulgarity.”

“Also a woman who is crude inspires contempt, because she has contempt for God and man. The difference is that a woman who loses her native delicacy and modesty does not become an object of fear and respect, but an object of contempt and loathing, because the aura of sanctity women naturally inspire in men is tossed away.”
And so on. Bollocks I say.

Hot Equations might be very interesting for a weapons nerd or for someone who loves reading about exactly how weapons work. Sorry to say, I’m not that person.

Which leaves Letters from Gardner which was just damned weird. A mix of a guys memoire, writing tips and then stories. As I had never heard of him before, the memoire part was kind of boring. The writing tips weren’t anchored in anything. Stories in the mix of this just felt strange. So, nah.

And thats it. No award I guess.

clif on May 20, 2015 at 9:39 am said:

so I’ve read all I’m going to read of the short stories … preliminary voting …

1. Totaled
2. A Single Samurai
3. No Award
4. Turncoat
5. On a Spiritual Plain
6. The Parliament of Beasts and Birds

Nate Harada on May 20, 2015 at 7:27 am said:

I will confess that I No Awarded four full categories and I’m pretty >_< about it. I *wanted* to like “A Single Samurai.” I did, really! But, well, yeah. No. But it was good of Baen to include the entire anthology in which it appeared.

Katya on May 20, 2015 at 4:54 am said:

@Happy Turtle I’ve read
most of 3 categories (Short Fiction, Novel, Graphic Story). In one of
those categories, only two of the works are strong enough that I would
have finished reading them if I came across them in a magazine. While
both are OK, neither has strong enough writing or storytelling or
characterization to be ‘award’ level writing. I’ve read short stories
published this year that are much, much stronger than both of those
works. I don’t feel it is right to give a prestigious award to works
that are middle-of-the-pack. To me, it devalues the award.

nickpheas on May 20, 2015 at 1:08 am said:

OK, reads Hugo Packet. One Bright Star To Guide Me By.

Is there an in story reason why Wright seems to use Sally and Sarah to describe one of his characters, or just did he forget what he called her?

rob_matic on May 20, 2015 at 1:58 am said:

He may be using Sally as a diminutive of Sarah, although I can imagine it reading oddly if both are being used.

Peace Is My Middle Name on May 20, 2015 at 2:07 am said:
Given Wright’s stated attitudes towards women, I find it utterly unsurprising that he cannot even remember the name of his own character.



SocialInjusticeWorrier on May 20, 2015 at 4:43 am said:

I don’t
think switching between Sally and Sarah is a problem, so long as the
author has a good reason for doing it. I could see O. Henry, for
example, using the shift in names very effectively to make a point about
how different someone is/appears in a formal setting (as Sarah) as
opposed to their normal life (as Sally). What I don’t see is John C
Wright having any such purpose in his narrative, which argues for
incompetence or carelessness.

 GSLamb on May 19, 2015 at 7:18 pm said:

Had a few days convalescence (and a few more ahead), so I thought it a fine time to catch up on my Hugo reading.

Thanks
to a very good local library, I have been reading most of the Best
Novel nominees on the traditional Ent-corpse editions. “Skin Game” was
everything I thought it would be – no more, no less. “Three Body
Problem” was either over my head or not something to read on medication
(I will revisit next month). Even though I had not read the first novel,
I enjoyed “Ancillary Sword”. It wasn’t until the end when I realized
that not every “She” was female (again, medication).

With renewed access to my laptop, I started greedily digesting the Hugo packet.

Oy.

The
worst thing about the packet is that I have to wait until they release
the list of what would have made the Hugo ballot sans-slate so that I
can read those works.

Having read that one story by John C.
Wright (do not bother me with quibbles – they are all the same story*)
five times was, admittedly, rough work. Luckily I had left the Graphic
Story for afterwards. I nearly ruptured something reading “Rat Queens”.

Now, this might all sound very convincing were it not for the sort of works they were awarding in recent years. Or if you weren’t able to see for yourself what “Rat Queens” is like. No, there can be no compromise, as those who were formerly neutral are coming to understand.

Will on May 19, 2015 at 4:43 pm said:

Until now, until tonight, I thought they were full of BS. Utter BS. But you make their case better than they do. Congratulations.

Will on May 19, 2015 at 4:49 pm said:

You couldn’t be helping Vox more if he was paying you.

And where would we be without SJWs to not only explain what is good and acceptable science fiction versus what is bad and unacceptable science fiction, but also our own principles.  After all, they obviously understand us so very well.

Bruce Baugh on May 20, 2015 at 8:26 am said:

Nate’s monologue reminds me of the thing that really chafes me about a lot of noisy, disruptive modern conservatives: how much time the rest of us end up explaining their own principles to them.



Aaron on May 20, 2015 at 5:30 am said:

The Puppies have already lost. Even if one of their authors wins a Hugo, the Puppies lose, because what none of the Puppies seem to understand is the award doesn’t confer the prestige you all so clearly crave. The prestige has to come first, or the award will be seen as tainted and undeserved. Every Puppy campaign has been an admission on the part of the organizers that the works they are touting are too weak to get nominated on their own merits. Every Puppy campaign is an admission that the Puppy touted authors are simply too lousy at their profession to earn recognition for their actual work. Every Puppy campaign is itself a loss for the Puppies.

Men don’t matter to SJWs

Nero observes the uneven and sexist reaction to acts of violence in A GAME OF THRONES:

    D&D are trash bags go back to the sewerage where you belong
    — ziggy (@foxfeuer) May 18, 2015

    D&D are so gross I hope they burn in hell.
    — stevebucky asun (@mybaabyblue) May 18, 2015

    I AM FUCKING FURIOUS I WANT D&D TO DIE THOSE PIECES OF SHIT
    — JUSTICE FOR SANSA (@sansaslady) May 18, 2015

“D&D” refers to the show’s creators, Daniel Benioff and Daniel Weiss.

If any other group were caught making tweets like this, they would probably be labelled a hate group. But that can’t happen to feminists, so publications like Vox instead blamed the show’s creators for “provoking the ire of the internet”. It’s hardly surprising, of course. These are the same people who had nothing to say about #killallmen.

This isn’t the first time that violence against female characters in Game of Thrones has attracted attention. The first was over the graphic murder of a prostitute by the sadistic King Joffrey. Then people were upset when Robb Stark’s pregnant wife was stabbed in the belly. Robb himself was impaled with a sword before his corpse was decapitated and paraded around with a wolf’s head stuck on his neck, but no one minded so much about that.

But the latest outrage has surpassed all the others, with odious, risible “geek feminist” blog The Mary Sue announcing that they would no longer promote the series.

    Here’s our new policy re: @GameOfThrones. http://t.co/OkqrSawZaI #GameOfThrones

    — The Mary Sue (@TheMarySue) May 19, 2015

If these aggrieved Tumblrinas took a minute to think, they might figure out why violence against female characters seems so shocking: it’s because on-screen violence against men is so common that it doesn’t surprise us, and that in turn makes on-screen violence against women stand out.

It’s no different in games. Remember all the protests against GTA because you COULD kill prostitutes in a game where you MUST kill copious men in a broad variety of ways just in order to play. Meanwhile, an SJW-approved version of A GAME OF THRONES is suggested:

Daenerys Targaryean withdraws from marrying Khal Drogo after realizing she’s a strong independent Khaleesi that don’t need no Dothraki. Daenrys still takes the dragon eggs that were a wedding gift. As she never burns though the eggs never hatch.

Sansa cuts her long red hair short and dyes it rainbow colours. Starts a social media raven campaign for the awareness of how tough the daughters of Lords have it. Spends the rest of her time telling peasant boys to check their privilege.

I’ve previously pointed out how the basic story of A GAME OF THRONES isn’t even possible if the author had been properly feminist, and how a single change to a single character in A Song of Ice and Fire
would have eviscerated the entire series and eliminated the
greater part of its plot.  Consider the consequences of changing Cersei
Lannister from an oppressed woman used as a dynastic piece by her father
to a strong and independent warrior woman of the sort that is presently
ubiquitous in third-generation fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal
fiction.

  1. Cersei doesn’t marry Robert Baratheon.  She’s strong and independent like her twin, not a royal brood mare!
  2. House Lannister’s ambitions are reduced from establishing a royal line to finding a wife for Tyrion.
  3. Cersei’s children are not bastards.  Robert’s heirs have black hair.
  4. Jon Arryn isn’t murdered to keep a nonexistent secret.  Ned Stark isn’t named to replace him.
  5. Robert doesn’t have a hunting accident arranged by the Lannisters, who don’t dominate the court and will not benefit from his fall.
  6. Robert’s heirs being legitimate, Stannis and Renly Baratheon remain loyal.
  7. The Starks never come south and never revolt against King’s
    Landing.  Theon Greyjoy goes home to the Ironborn and never returns to
    Winterfell.  Jon Snow still goes to the Wall, but Arya remains home and
    learns to become a lady, not an assassin, whether she wants to or not.

So, what was a war of five kings that spans five continents abruptly
becomes a minor debate over whether Robert Baratheon’s black-haired son
and heir marries Sansa Stark, a princess of Dorne, or Danerys
Targaryen.

Delenda est

I couldn’t help but smile yesterday when the gentleman at File 770 mentioned that he had asked several pro-Puppies what they wanted and they answered “SJW delenda est.” That was beautiful. It touched me to such an extent that a single tear trickled down my cheek beneath the iron mask. And speaking of tears, this cri de coeur by Zoe Quinn about her unemployed and now-unhireable boyfriend is a good summary of what we want to see repeated over and over by SJWs in science fiction in the future:

How has the industry responded to his loyalty? Dubbing him a hiring risk. Too hot to touch. Heaven forbid some teenagers spam them with meme-laden emails. SmegmaDan’s blog said Alex hated gamers, better not hire him it could be risky.

Elephants afraid of mice.

God could you imagine how much worse it’d be if he was a marginalized person? Look at what happened to The Mighty No 9’s Dina Abou Karam? Look at her google search.

When you combine this with all of the other barriers marginalized people face, combined with how they are targeted for mob hatred at an exceptionally higher rate, it has a chilling effect on speaking out. There are countless marginalized people I’ve spoken to in the industry who are too afraid to support their friends in even the most lukewarm ways because they don’t want their employers to retaliate. There are so many women and people of color that have expressed private support alongside an apology for their fear of making it public because they have to keep their search results clean for a potential studio’s HR department.

You know that’s done to people like us on purpose, right? That running away at the first sign of smoke without fire is a tactic used against targets of online mobs CONSTANTLY? That they abuse SEO as a tool of social warfare? That the only power this carries is the kind major companies give to them by not bothering to see if it’s smoke without fire?

What if someone like Alex wants to go independent (leaving aside the question of if indies even hire producers for a second)? I cast a long shadow. He gets fucked over not just once from the industry’s general fear, but twice because his story has been looked over or lumped in with mine because he wasn’t “loud enough” about his own trouble. Not only does he get targeted because of being with me, but people look past his suffering, sacrifice, his work, and efforts to rebuild. People thoughtlessly treat him as an appendage. It’s infuriating. Look at some of the articles written about Crash Override. Look how often he’s missing or thought of simply as “a boyfriend” and not the cofounder he is. Look at how people attribute his work to me.  The man works his face off, gets results, and still gets screwed out of some of the credit.

Does that sound familiar? It does to me. I’ve fucking been there myself. It sounds like what USUALLY happens when I work with any men on a project. If you’re a marginalized person at all, you KNOW this feeling of frustration, of being whitewashed, of seeing your work being downplayed.

It’s not just Alex either. I’ve watched people who have been targets keep their heads down to try to keep themselves safe, just to have people all collectively forget what has happened to them. They’re stuck in a no-win position because speaking out means more hurt gets hurled their way, and more of their privacy is lost, but the cost of staying silent is that it seems that the world forgets about what happened to you at all. You’re left to wonder why people weren’t standing up for you like that, and if they cared about your suffering at all.

And since people with the power and reach need to speak up when those without are being hurt. Since I have been given the privlege to have this platform, I can’t just watch this, I have to speak up: THIS INDUSTRY IS CREATING A RISK OF SPEAKING OUT BY CALLING THOSE WHO SPEAK OUT A RISK.

We are bleeding assets to this industry, to this medium, at an alarming pace because of this risk aversion and shortsightedness. I would be dead or totally lost if not for Alex and the other folks who have been targeted by GamerGate and quietly faded away because it got to be too much. To see so many of them treated as footnotes is heartbreaking. To see my partner who has endured all of the hell I have and more treated as a fashion accessory and not the fully fledged and fucking impressive human being he is insults both of us and the things we have built *together*. For a risk adverse industry to treat him and other activists like lepers because a teenager might go “ur game sux” shows some pretty fucked up priorities.

The #GamerGate response has been worthy of the Vile Faceless Minions themselves: “Schadenfreudelicious!” One thing we’ll be discussing at Brainstorm tonight is how to bring successful #GamerGate tactics into science fiction, as Zoe Quinn points to one obvious possibility. It’s readily apparent that Tor Books doesn’t care in the slightest that PNH calls himself a racist or that John Scalzi launches vulgar attacks on everyone to the right of Hilary Clinton who crosses his path. But then, Tor Books is not their ultimate employer….

The employer stood behind us. They saw the horde for what it was. But
it didn’t stop there. Studios he never worked at got brigaded. Then his
employer’s employer got brigaded, and upped the pressure. One of the
things that makes mob harassment so insidious is how it attacks from
every possible angle, and some you didn’t even think of. All it takes in
any system is one point of failure, one person to make the wrong
decision, one person to not understand what’s going on, one person to be
a coward.

The SJWs have been playing this game of DISQUALIFY for a long time. They love to hurl the threat “you’ll never work in this industry again” at their enemies; Charles Stross, to his eternal credit, even warned me about it ten years ago. So it’s tremendously rewarding to see an SJW literally crying over the tactic being successfully brought to bear against them.

The secret of #GamerGate’s amazing success is emails, sent out on a daily basis in a series of coordinated campaigns against specified targets. Few corporations can resist a steady barrage of emails; as Quinn herself points out, it only takes one person somewhere in the system to crack and the target will be cut loose. And given the poor sales and financial performance of the science fiction publishing houses in recent years, it is unlikely that their corporate masters are likely to continue to tolerate actions and behavior which have quite observably turned a statistically significant percentage of the science fiction-buying public against them.

Zoe Quinn claims “20 accounts owned by 3 guys” have been sufficient to DISQUALIFY her boyfriend from industry employment. There are 364 Vile Faceless Minions. There are another 200+ Dread Ilk, plus an unknown quantity of Ilk, Rabid Puppies, and #GamerGate sympathizers. Even if we assume that Ms Quinn is lying (she is an SJW after all), I expect we can accomplish more than most of us might think if we were to follow #GamerGate’s lead in this regard. And in case you’re feeling sorry for the unemployable SJW lowlife, do keep this in mind.

|



SJWs only get sick of culture wars when they start losing. Until then it’s “Full Speed Ahead!” and “Remember the Misogyny!” 
– Daddy Warpig