Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Friday, November 27, 2015
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 20: The Three-Body Problem
Hugo winner: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (translation, Ken Liu), 2015
My take: in many ways, this is the exact opposite of what can be stereotypically termed an "action-packed" SF novel; the violence it depicts - although occasionally quite brutal, as with the opening chapter that occurs during the Cultural Revolution - is either in flashback form or so much at a remove from anything currently happening in the main plot of the novel that the violence is more of a news report than a direct threat to any of the main characters. That's not to say that Three-Body isn't full of menace. Without resorting to spoilers, the Trisolarans are one of the most ominous alien invasion forces recently dreamt up by an author specifically because they're so subtle in terms of strategy. They don't need death rays, UFOs or other varieties of traditional BEM-style super-weapon to deal with their future human antagonists because what they have in their arsenal is both so subtle as to be nearly invisible and so powerful that it could put humanity in a potential tailspin years before the invasion actually happens. But don't take my word for it; read the book.
Nuggety?: You really might want to re-read the previous paragraph if you think so.
My take: in many ways, this is the exact opposite of what can be stereotypically termed an "action-packed" SF novel; the violence it depicts - although occasionally quite brutal, as with the opening chapter that occurs during the Cultural Revolution - is either in flashback form or so much at a remove from anything currently happening in the main plot of the novel that the violence is more of a news report than a direct threat to any of the main characters. That's not to say that Three-Body isn't full of menace. Without resorting to spoilers, the Trisolarans are one of the most ominous alien invasion forces recently dreamt up by an author specifically because they're so subtle in terms of strategy. They don't need death rays, UFOs or other varieties of traditional BEM-style super-weapon to deal with their future human antagonists because what they have in their arsenal is both so subtle as to be nearly invisible and so powerful that it could put humanity in a potential tailspin years before the invasion actually happens. But don't take my word for it; read the book.
Nuggety?: You really might want to re-read the previous paragraph if you think so.
Monday, November 9, 2015
Now reading
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, also due to the fact that it's a homework assignment for an upcoming SF convention.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Now reading
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, particularly since it's a bit of geek homework assignment for an upcoming convention.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 19: Count Zero
Hugo nominee: Count Zero by William Gibson, 1987
My view: It could be the fact that I empathized a lot more with Count Zero's Turner than I did with Case in Neuromancer; it could be the fact that I first read CZ at an emotionally stressful time in my life (the unexpected death of my father due to post-surgery complications in 1990) that somehow caused the novel to remain especially vivid in my memory; or it could be that it's just a damn good novel. It's certainly full of the twists, turns and strong characterization that make Gibson such an vital writer at his best, but whatever the reasons, CZ still remains a favorite of mine to this day.
Nuggety?: Nah.
My view: It could be the fact that I empathized a lot more with Count Zero's Turner than I did with Case in Neuromancer; it could be the fact that I first read CZ at an emotionally stressful time in my life (the unexpected death of my father due to post-surgery complications in 1990) that somehow caused the novel to remain especially vivid in my memory; or it could be that it's just a damn good novel. It's certainly full of the twists, turns and strong characterization that make Gibson such an vital writer at his best, but whatever the reasons, CZ still remains a favorite of mine to this day.
Nuggety?: Nah.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 18: The Peace War
Hugo nominee: The Peace War by Vernor Vinge, 1985
My view: Sure, it's a lot closer to the traditional idea of hard SF than most of the novels I've read (it was serialized in Analog, so there's your proof), but that's not to say I couldn't - or didn't - enjoy the hell out of it. I ended up getting a hardcover copy as a freebie at a local convention (Capricon, probably) shortly after its publication and it serves as proof that sometimes you get far more than what you pay for.
Nuggety?: I'm going with "no" on this one as well; Vinge has rhetorical points to make in this book, but he does it in a way that seems more than a little too subtle for the likes of what Torgersen and co. seem to think is suitable for Sad Puppy-approved SF. Plus, Vinge's small-l libertarian (read: probably not Objectivist) technophile streak wouldn't sit too well with a John C. Wright or a V*x D*y, either.
My view: Sure, it's a lot closer to the traditional idea of hard SF than most of the novels I've read (it was serialized in Analog, so there's your proof), but that's not to say I couldn't - or didn't - enjoy the hell out of it. I ended up getting a hardcover copy as a freebie at a local convention (Capricon, probably) shortly after its publication and it serves as proof that sometimes you get far more than what you pay for.
Nuggety?: I'm going with "no" on this one as well; Vinge has rhetorical points to make in this book, but he does it in a way that seems more than a little too subtle for the likes of what Torgersen and co. seem to think is suitable for Sad Puppy-approved SF. Plus, Vinge's small-l libertarian (read: probably not Objectivist) technophile streak wouldn't sit too well with a John C. Wright or a V*x D*y, either.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 17: Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
Hugo nominee: Beyond the Blue Event Horizon by Frederik Pohl, 1981
My view: It's a continuation of Gateway, to be sure, but Pohl never stoops to the lazy pattern of writing more of the same formulaic crowd-pleasing material (what I lovingly term "fanwank") in order to please an equally lazy audience. Indeed, if he had done that Beyond would've probably never come close to receiving the Hugo and Nebula nominations it did. As stated before, Pohl's ability to be a challenging writer well into his years was as much a way of defying the clichés of old age as a degree of abnormally robust physical health. He may have been getting older but he certainly never started thinking that way.
Nuggety?: Hardly.
My view: It's a continuation of Gateway, to be sure, but Pohl never stoops to the lazy pattern of writing more of the same formulaic crowd-pleasing material (what I lovingly term "fanwank") in order to please an equally lazy audience. Indeed, if he had done that Beyond would've probably never come close to receiving the Hugo and Nebula nominations it did. As stated before, Pohl's ability to be a challenging writer well into his years was as much a way of defying the clichés of old age as a degree of abnormally robust physical health. He may have been getting older but he certainly never started thinking that way.
Nuggety?: Hardly.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 16: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Hugo nominee: Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick, 1975
My view: I suppose this was a sign of things to come in terms of my tastes in SF; it's been decades since I've read this, yet the feel of the novel's oppressive atmosphere has remained in my mind since I read it and was one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.
The nightmarish alternate world that Jason Taverner is thrust into after a failed murder attempt embodies the word "Kafkaesque" with a vengeance, but unlike PKD's earlier works the usual sense of paranoia is leavened by certain degree of empathy that points a way out of the maze Taverner has been thrust into no matter how dark his personal universe has become. It seems like PKD was becoming something of a humanist (albeit a very odd version of one) in his later years, and this novel is strongly indicative of that fact.
Nuggety?: Not even close.
My view: I suppose this was a sign of things to come in terms of my tastes in SF; it's been decades since I've read this, yet the feel of the novel's oppressive atmosphere has remained in my mind since I read it and was one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much.
The nightmarish alternate world that Jason Taverner is thrust into after a failed murder attempt embodies the word "Kafkaesque" with a vengeance, but unlike PKD's earlier works the usual sense of paranoia is leavened by certain degree of empathy that points a way out of the maze Taverner has been thrust into no matter how dark his personal universe has become. It seems like PKD was becoming something of a humanist (albeit a very odd version of one) in his later years, and this novel is strongly indicative of that fact.
Nuggety?: Not even close.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 15: Dying Inside
Hugo nominee: Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg, 1973
My view: There is no doubt as to what David Selig is in this book. He's a telepath.
He's also a complete and utter wreck of a human being because of it.
This is easily one of Robert Silverberg's darkest novels (at least of the ones I've read) because he pulls absolutely no punches about Selig's many psychological shortcomings or the supposed gift of telepathy.That "gift" has helped shaped Selig into an opportunistic, ethically void grifter who is just as incapable of any sort of real emotional connection to another human being as anyone suffering from severe Asperger syndrome or full-blown autism. He's not a particularly likable protagonist as a result, but that's the point: Silverberg's ultimate message is that taking the easy way out from real human emotional give-and-take (in short, normal human interaction) is no real gift at all - it's one of the worst curses anyone can suffer in life.
Nuggety?: Only if you're into chewing gravel.
My view: There is no doubt as to what David Selig is in this book. He's a telepath.
He's also a complete and utter wreck of a human being because of it.
This is easily one of Robert Silverberg's darkest novels (at least of the ones I've read) because he pulls absolutely no punches about Selig's many psychological shortcomings or the supposed gift of telepathy.That "gift" has helped shaped Selig into an opportunistic, ethically void grifter who is just as incapable of any sort of real emotional connection to another human being as anyone suffering from severe Asperger syndrome or full-blown autism. He's not a particularly likable protagonist as a result, but that's the point: Silverberg's ultimate message is that taking the easy way out from real human emotional give-and-take (in short, normal human interaction) is no real gift at all - it's one of the worst curses anyone can suffer in life.
Nuggety?: Only if you're into chewing gravel.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 14: The Book of Skulls
Hugo nominee: The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg, 1973
My view: Silverbob's SF (or fantasy, in this case) is particularly rewarding when he goes into the dark corners of the human psyche and shines a flashlight around and he does it with a vengeance both here and in Dying Inside, which also picked up a Hugo nomination in '73. This is less a story about a mystical quest for immortality than it is of the limits of friendship and how far someone will allow their ethics to be mutilated in the name of an overriding goal, and it's no surprise that this was probably one of the works that caused Silverberg so much distress that he wrote less and less often in the seventies due to the emotional strain it caused. Admittedly, it's not easy to read. Which it to say that you should.
Nuggety?: Afraid not.
My view: Silverbob's SF (or fantasy, in this case) is particularly rewarding when he goes into the dark corners of the human psyche and shines a flashlight around and he does it with a vengeance both here and in Dying Inside, which also picked up a Hugo nomination in '73. This is less a story about a mystical quest for immortality than it is of the limits of friendship and how far someone will allow their ethics to be mutilated in the name of an overriding goal, and it's no surprise that this was probably one of the works that caused Silverberg so much distress that he wrote less and less often in the seventies due to the emotional strain it caused. Admittedly, it's not easy to read. Which it to say that you should.
Nuggety?: Afraid not.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 13: Bug Jack Barron
Hugo nominee: Bug Jack Barron by Norman Spinrad, 1970
My view: It's no surprise that this particular novel came out in 1969 and actually got things horribly right about trends in mass media decades before they became prevalent (the yapping-dog hothead as media pundit theme in BJB is especially galling to think about in this day and age); it's not even close to being a subtle novel (again, not surprising for the late 60's), but Spinrad's theme of trading your ethics in for a quick shot at "immortality" (as ersatz and disgusting as the form of it offered in this novel is) is just as frightening now as it was in '69. Even more so, since any number of more contemporary events (do not click on this link if you're concerned about spoilers) have turned out to be sickeningly true.
Nuggety?: You'd have one hell of an imagination in order to think so.
My view: It's no surprise that this particular novel came out in 1969 and actually got things horribly right about trends in mass media decades before they became prevalent (the yapping-dog hothead as media pundit theme in BJB is especially galling to think about in this day and age); it's not even close to being a subtle novel (again, not surprising for the late 60's), but Spinrad's theme of trading your ethics in for a quick shot at "immortality" (as ersatz and disgusting as the form of it offered in this novel is) is just as frightening now as it was in '69. Even more so, since any number of more contemporary events (do not click on this link if you're concerned about spoilers) have turned out to be sickeningly true.
Nuggety?: You'd have one hell of an imagination in order to think so.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 12: Slaughterhouse-Five
Hugo nominee: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, 1970
My view: I suppose a hypothetical hard SF purist will refer to this as slipstream (o, Mother no!) and consign this to the non-SFnal rubbish heap instead of calling it the antiwar fable dressed up in SF clothing that it obviously is, but consider this - any number of Hugo nominees can be considered antiwar fables; the fact that they're encased in much more traditional forms of SF is probably the reason why they're not distastefully squinted at in a similar fashion. I suspect Vonnegut left organized SF more for that reason than any other. I wouldn't have, but a writer has to do what he or she thinks makes sense to their careers and artistic tastes. It's obvious Vonnegut apparently needed to do just that.
Nuggety?: You're kidding, right...?
My view: I suppose a hypothetical hard SF purist will refer to this as slipstream (o, Mother no!) and consign this to the non-SFnal rubbish heap instead of calling it the antiwar fable dressed up in SF clothing that it obviously is, but consider this - any number of Hugo nominees can be considered antiwar fables; the fact that they're encased in much more traditional forms of SF is probably the reason why they're not distastefully squinted at in a similar fashion. I suspect Vonnegut left organized SF more for that reason than any other. I wouldn't have, but a writer has to do what he or she thinks makes sense to their careers and artistic tastes. It's obvious Vonnegut apparently needed to do just that.
Nuggety?: You're kidding, right...?
Saturday, August 29, 2015
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 11: Deathworld
Hugo nominee: Deathworld by Harry Harrison, 1961
My view: Considering how much danger Jason dinAlt is put in in most chapters of this book by the flora and fauna of Pyruss, a description consisting of the phrase "action-packed" seems more than a bit inadequate. The action doesn't let up a whole lot (which is the point, obviously) and Deathworld is probably one of the best examples of this type of SF that I've read.
Nuggety?: while it seems to meet some of the qualifications of what Brad Torgersen thinks is traditional, action-based SF, the big reveal concerning why Pyrrus is so dangerous isn't one likely to please him. Even more than Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, there's a message buried in the action that's far too complex and ambiguous than "let's go kill us some BEMs!"
My view: Considering how much danger Jason dinAlt is put in in most chapters of this book by the flora and fauna of Pyruss, a description consisting of the phrase "action-packed" seems more than a bit inadequate. The action doesn't let up a whole lot (which is the point, obviously) and Deathworld is probably one of the best examples of this type of SF that I've read.
Nuggety?: while it seems to meet some of the qualifications of what Brad Torgersen thinks is traditional, action-based SF, the big reveal concerning why Pyrrus is so dangerous isn't one likely to please him. Even more than Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, there's a message buried in the action that's far too complex and ambiguous than "let's go kill us some BEMs!"
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 10: Who?
Hugo nominee: Who? by Algis Budrys, 1959
My view: a dark book that treats the concept of being stuck in the uncomfortable middle ground of the Cold War with the symbolism it deserves, Who? is one of those novels most people probably won't forget years - or even decades - after reading it. I'm not sure how much Kafka Budrys read during his life, but Lucas Martino's dilemmas as a character (suspected by all, but especially by those who knew him before he was "rebuilt") seems to have been inspired by him to a certain degree.
Or maybe that's just Budrys' understanding of that decade's international politics and how it related to his expatriate background talking. A enjoyable, unnerving novel, and its unresolved cliffhanger ending is just about perfect considering the subject matter.
Nuggety?: Absolutely not.
My view: a dark book that treats the concept of being stuck in the uncomfortable middle ground of the Cold War with the symbolism it deserves, Who? is one of those novels most people probably won't forget years - or even decades - after reading it. I'm not sure how much Kafka Budrys read during his life, but Lucas Martino's dilemmas as a character (suspected by all, but especially by those who knew him before he was "rebuilt") seems to have been inspired by him to a certain degree.
Or maybe that's just Budrys' understanding of that decade's international politics and how it related to his expatriate background talking. A enjoyable, unnerving novel, and its unresolved cliffhanger ending is just about perfect considering the subject matter.
Nuggety?: Absolutely not.
Charmers, each and every one
A certain amount of backlash was to be expected from the Hugo results at Sasquan, but...
Yeah.
First off, there's the stupidity concerning this nonsense, in which Scott Malcomson thoroughly makes a fool of himself concerning the idiotic idea of a class-action lawsuit because the Puppy slates didn't win en masse.
Now what would actually be even more laughable as a concept?
How about a Gamergate-connected something called Andrew Swallow trying to drag the FBI into it for no real reason?
Add to this Kate Paulk's ever so subtle characterization of anyone opposed to this nonsense as "petty bullying socialists" who would "fit in just as well with the Nazis as they would with their equally murderous Communist cousins" (gee, Kate, hyperbole much? Over losing a bunch of literary awards, for crying out loud?) and you get the sense that the Puppy camp is exclusively made up of one of the following:
1) Professional Internet trolls;
2) People looking to expand their following and book sales by throwing red meat to readers gullible enough to believe their logic-free bullshit in toto;
3) People dumb enough to actually believe their own rhetoric;
4) An unpleasant mixture of "All of the Above".
Seriously, how many more iterations of this garbage do we have to go through before people do what the logical thing is and write these idiots off as not worth addressing, bickering with or even caring about?
It seems to be the thing to do, especially since tuning out obnoxious blowhards whose opinions you couldn't give two shits about in real life is second nature to most adults.
So why not here?
Yeah.
First off, there's the stupidity concerning this nonsense, in which Scott Malcomson thoroughly makes a fool of himself concerning the idiotic idea of a class-action lawsuit because the Puppy slates didn't win en masse.
Now what would actually be even more laughable as a concept?
How about a Gamergate-connected something called Andrew Swallow trying to drag the FBI into it for no real reason?
Add to this Kate Paulk's ever so subtle characterization of anyone opposed to this nonsense as "petty bullying socialists" who would "fit in just as well with the Nazis as they would with their equally murderous Communist cousins" (gee, Kate, hyperbole much? Over losing a bunch of literary awards, for crying out loud?) and you get the sense that the Puppy camp is exclusively made up of one of the following:
1) Professional Internet trolls;
2) People looking to expand their following and book sales by throwing red meat to readers gullible enough to believe their logic-free bullshit in toto;
3) People dumb enough to actually believe their own rhetoric;
4) An unpleasant mixture of "All of the Above".
Seriously, how many more iterations of this garbage do we have to go through before people do what the logical thing is and write these idiots off as not worth addressing, bickering with or even caring about?
It seems to be the thing to do, especially since tuning out obnoxious blowhards whose opinions you couldn't give two shits about in real life is second nature to most adults.
So why not here?
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Sasquan and the Crazy Uncle problem
I have no real news to add concerning the incidents concerning Lou Antonelli's letter to the Spokane police concerning that international criminal mastermind David Gerrold or his earlier outbursts of irrational anger aimed in the general direction of Carrie Cuinn and Aaron Pound (subjects covered in a far more exhaustive manner by Natalie Luhrs on Pretty Terrible); what I do have is an opinion on Sasquan's decision to let Antonelli attend later this month.
The decision's a bad one. Here's why: despite Antonelli's apology (one which I really have my doubts about - saying "I'm sorry" seems to be the least of your problems if you openly libeled someone and tried to get them in trouble with a police department weeks before that person was even due to set foot in the city in question), what he did not only put Gerrold in potential jeopardy but the rest of Sasquan's attendees as well. This wasn't merely the action of a complete asshat with serious anger management issues; it was the action of someone who apparently has no regard for any of the other people going to a function he was going to attend as well.
I'm not sure what's more disturbing - the fact that an alleged adult was going to do this to a well-known author merely because he wrote something he didn't like or that he was apparently willing to cause all sorts of potential mayhem to other attendees in the process. Sure, Gerrold accepted his apology. That's what the bigger man does when confronted by this sort of crap. But that's not the same thing as giving him tacit permission to do it again by not reminding him of the consequences of such actions, and that's what Sasquan effectively did. In a time where all manner of deeply unpleasant shit is breaking out all over the place over the Sad Puppies 3 campaign, this was not the signal a Worldcon needed to send to its attendees or SF fandom in general.
Frankly, I'm more than a bit puzzled by this. What would happen if Antonelli had phoned in a bomb threat or called in a false active shooter report to the cops some time during the con? Would that have been okay with Sasquan's concom as well?
Back in the day, most tiffs between pros and fans ended up being confined to email and online flame wars; these days it's almost as if you have to pack a flak vest before heading off to one of these things. Sasquan's actions didn't help that perception one bit.
The decision's a bad one. Here's why: despite Antonelli's apology (one which I really have my doubts about - saying "I'm sorry" seems to be the least of your problems if you openly libeled someone and tried to get them in trouble with a police department weeks before that person was even due to set foot in the city in question), what he did not only put Gerrold in potential jeopardy but the rest of Sasquan's attendees as well. This wasn't merely the action of a complete asshat with serious anger management issues; it was the action of someone who apparently has no regard for any of the other people going to a function he was going to attend as well.
I'm not sure what's more disturbing - the fact that an alleged adult was going to do this to a well-known author merely because he wrote something he didn't like or that he was apparently willing to cause all sorts of potential mayhem to other attendees in the process. Sure, Gerrold accepted his apology. That's what the bigger man does when confronted by this sort of crap. But that's not the same thing as giving him tacit permission to do it again by not reminding him of the consequences of such actions, and that's what Sasquan effectively did. In a time where all manner of deeply unpleasant shit is breaking out all over the place over the Sad Puppies 3 campaign, this was not the signal a Worldcon needed to send to its attendees or SF fandom in general.
Frankly, I'm more than a bit puzzled by this. What would happen if Antonelli had phoned in a bomb threat or called in a false active shooter report to the cops some time during the con? Would that have been okay with Sasquan's concom as well?
Back in the day, most tiffs between pros and fans ended up being confined to email and online flame wars; these days it's almost as if you have to pack a flak vest before heading off to one of these things. Sasquan's actions didn't help that perception one bit.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 9: The Diamond Age
Hugo winner: The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neil Stephenson, 1996
My view: Phyles! Nanites! A more successful look at slice-of-life Steampunk-ish culture (albeit based in the future instead of the past) than Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine! Although I didn't enjoy this as much as Stephenson's Snow Crash, the plot here is a lot easier to follow than the back-and-forth past/present-jumping one he tailored for Cryptonomicon. It also has two noticeable advantages over Cryptonomicon as well, namely comparative brevity (a 400-plus page difference in length makes that abundantly clear) and an ending that doesn't feel like all the air just went out of the novel you were enjoying up until then. More than deserving of the best novel award for that year, IMHO.
Nuggety? In some alternative reality, maybe. Otherwise, no.
My view: Phyles! Nanites! A more successful look at slice-of-life Steampunk-ish culture (albeit based in the future instead of the past) than Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine! Although I didn't enjoy this as much as Stephenson's Snow Crash, the plot here is a lot easier to follow than the back-and-forth past/present-jumping one he tailored for Cryptonomicon. It also has two noticeable advantages over Cryptonomicon as well, namely comparative brevity (a 400-plus page difference in length makes that abundantly clear) and an ending that doesn't feel like all the air just went out of the novel you were enjoying up until then. More than deserving of the best novel award for that year, IMHO.
Nuggety? In some alternative reality, maybe. Otherwise, no.
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 8: Hyperion
Hugo winner: Hyperion by Dan Simmons, 1990
My view: if you think that winning this award is going to sway my opinion as to whether or not I'm going to read the book, you're wrong. Actually, this is not the most recent winner for best novel I've read (my mistake, but at least I was close) as I originally stated. That's not so much a negative comment on my reading habits as it is on my apparent lack of need to read every last book that's won a Hugo. Be that as it may, I really enjoyed this. There are parts of the Canterbury Tales-based protagonist-by-chapter format that I liked a lot more than others, but there's no denying it deserved the award.
Nuggety? Far too literary a book for that, although the "Soldier's Tale" section concerning Fedmahn Kassad might keep a Puppies' attention for a while. The rest, though? Not really.
My view: if you think that winning this award is going to sway my opinion as to whether or not I'm going to read the book, you're wrong. Actually, this is not the most recent winner for best novel I've read (my mistake, but at least I was close) as I originally stated. That's not so much a negative comment on my reading habits as it is on my apparent lack of need to read every last book that's won a Hugo. Be that as it may, I really enjoyed this. There are parts of the Canterbury Tales-based protagonist-by-chapter format that I liked a lot more than others, but there's no denying it deserved the award.
Nuggety? Far too literary a book for that, although the "Soldier's Tale" section concerning Fedmahn Kassad might keep a Puppies' attention for a while. The rest, though? Not really.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 7: Neuromancer
Hugo winner: Neuromancer by William Gibson, 1985
My view: For a book that was the first shot fired in arguably one of the biggest internal feuds over style and substance in the SF world since the New Age explosion of the late 60's, Neuromancer has more than a few problems for a book which I still consider one of my personal favorites. In my estimate, Case just isn't as interesting a protagonist as Turner was in Gibson's immediate follow-up Count Zero and Maelcum and his crew of spacefaring Rastas aren't quite as engrossing as characters as modern-day Vodou devotees Beauvoir and Lucas were in CZ, either. Then again, there's the breakneck-speed caper plot of the book, the tech that seems obscenely futuristic at times even today (and probably seemed utterly improbable to all but the most jaded SF readers when Neuromancer was first published) and side characters such as psychologically broken ex-special forces officer Armitage/Willis Corto and technologically enhanced sociopath Peter Riviera. And Molly Millions, who is anything but a mere "side character". Don't forget about her. Or else.
Nuggety? Nope. Not even close. Feel free to look up Gibson's "The Gernsback Continuum" in Burning Chrome as to why this isn't even a subject for debate.
My view: For a book that was the first shot fired in arguably one of the biggest internal feuds over style and substance in the SF world since the New Age explosion of the late 60's, Neuromancer has more than a few problems for a book which I still consider one of my personal favorites. In my estimate, Case just isn't as interesting a protagonist as Turner was in Gibson's immediate follow-up Count Zero and Maelcum and his crew of spacefaring Rastas aren't quite as engrossing as characters as modern-day Vodou devotees Beauvoir and Lucas were in CZ, either. Then again, there's the breakneck-speed caper plot of the book, the tech that seems obscenely futuristic at times even today (and probably seemed utterly improbable to all but the most jaded SF readers when Neuromancer was first published) and side characters such as psychologically broken ex-special forces officer Armitage/Willis Corto and technologically enhanced sociopath Peter Riviera. And Molly Millions, who is anything but a mere "side character". Don't forget about her. Or else.
Nuggety? Nope. Not even close. Feel free to look up Gibson's "The Gernsback Continuum" in Burning Chrome as to why this isn't even a subject for debate.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 6: Gateway
Hugo winner: Gateway by Frederik Pohl, 1978
My view: I once made a statement on Facebook (go ahead and shudder freely at that fact, if you wish) that veteran authors who successfully avoid Old Fogeyism - a tendency for writers to get cranky and start shouting "you damn kids get off of my lawn!" at new-fangled concepts that they don't like - is central to their continued relevance as authors even if they're pushing Who Knows What in terms of their actual chronological age.
Frederik Pohl is definitely one of those writers.
A Pohl work from the seventies is just as relevant to SF as a Pohl work from any other decade, and this story is no exception. Despite all of the futuristic trappings of the novel, Robinette Broadhead is exactly the sort of Everyman who'd be relevant regardless of whether or not he'd be alive during the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Era or Pohl's setting here. His neurotic quirks, desperation to make a better life for himself and the pain of losing a loved one and his crewmates to the same space travel phenomena that enabled him to become a rich man can be told in many ways and in many settings, but it's far too universal a story to merely be considered stilted BEM-fodder.
Nuggety? Probably not. Broadhead may be determined, grasping and capable of taking all sorts of crazy-ass risks in order to improve his meager lot in life, but he's no steely-eyed, iron-jawed alien-slaying type. Matter of fact, he's glaringly neurotic and emotionally vulnerable to his core. If what Brad Torgersen says is his idea of real SF is to be believed (my guess is that it's a huge mistake if you do), this doesn't qualify as real SF either - which is an entirely laughable view, IMHO.
My view: I once made a statement on Facebook (go ahead and shudder freely at that fact, if you wish) that veteran authors who successfully avoid Old Fogeyism - a tendency for writers to get cranky and start shouting "you damn kids get off of my lawn!" at new-fangled concepts that they don't like - is central to their continued relevance as authors even if they're pushing Who Knows What in terms of their actual chronological age.
Frederik Pohl is definitely one of those writers.
A Pohl work from the seventies is just as relevant to SF as a Pohl work from any other decade, and this story is no exception. Despite all of the futuristic trappings of the novel, Robinette Broadhead is exactly the sort of Everyman who'd be relevant regardless of whether or not he'd be alive during the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Era or Pohl's setting here. His neurotic quirks, desperation to make a better life for himself and the pain of losing a loved one and his crewmates to the same space travel phenomena that enabled him to become a rich man can be told in many ways and in many settings, but it's far too universal a story to merely be considered stilted BEM-fodder.
Nuggety? Probably not. Broadhead may be determined, grasping and capable of taking all sorts of crazy-ass risks in order to improve his meager lot in life, but he's no steely-eyed, iron-jawed alien-slaying type. Matter of fact, he's glaringly neurotic and emotionally vulnerable to his core. If what Brad Torgersen says is his idea of real SF is to be believed (my guess is that it's a huge mistake if you do), this doesn't qualify as real SF either - which is an entirely laughable view, IMHO.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 5: The Forever War
Hugo winner: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman, 1976
My view: This is a novel that seems completely undated despite its publication back in 1974; given the post-Vietnam era politics of the time it's absurdly possible to draw parallels to that was and the unending, mainly futile conflict that William Mandella and his comrades are fighting, but it seems to be more of a meditation on the futility of all wars and what they end up doing to the common soldier. Which is why it's just as relevant now (especially now, considering how long Gulf War II and the conflict in Afghanistan have gone on) as it was in '74.
Nuggety? This is going to be a bit of a quandary. But only a bit.
Yes, this novel fully qualifies as military SF. Yes, it pulls no punches about organized military violence, is full of action and also doesn't make any overt or unsubtle pacifist statements in its text. The problem is that it also doesn't glorify a single thing about war, military life or the havoc it reeks on everything from romantic relationships to the lives of the draftees who are caught up in it. So despite all the carnage and military jargon, this isn't even close to Nuggety. Not by a long shot.
My view: This is a novel that seems completely undated despite its publication back in 1974; given the post-Vietnam era politics of the time it's absurdly possible to draw parallels to that was and the unending, mainly futile conflict that William Mandella and his comrades are fighting, but it seems to be more of a meditation on the futility of all wars and what they end up doing to the common soldier. Which is why it's just as relevant now (especially now, considering how long Gulf War II and the conflict in Afghanistan have gone on) as it was in '74.
Nuggety? This is going to be a bit of a quandary. But only a bit.
Yes, this novel fully qualifies as military SF. Yes, it pulls no punches about organized military violence, is full of action and also doesn't make any overt or unsubtle pacifist statements in its text. The problem is that it also doesn't glorify a single thing about war, military life or the havoc it reeks on everything from romantic relationships to the lives of the draftees who are caught up in it. So despite all the carnage and military jargon, this isn't even close to Nuggety. Not by a long shot.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 4: Stand on Zanzibar
Hugo winner: Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner, 1969
My view: At this point - and this was a while ago, to say the least (at least twenty years, if not twenty-five) - this was the longest novel I had ever attempted to read. But read it I did, and if Brunner softened the blow of his overpopulation-as-hell on earth plot by resorting to a somewhat pat happy ending (a trait this book shares with The Jagged Orbit and The Shockwave Rider but not The Sheep Look Up) it's only because he was looking to find hope of escape out of the dystopian maze he expertly constructed. An incredibly solid work regardless of that fact, and a work that's almost impossible to adapt as a movie or even a miniseries because of its structure and refusal to pull its sociological punches.
Nuggety? Nope. For one thing, it's constructed in a fashion largely inspired by John Dos Passos' USA trilogy, and that constitutes literature. For another, it's message fiction, but the big difference between this sort of message fiction and what the Sad/Rabid Puppies think constitute big-m Message Fiction is this: the message follows from the consequences of the plot and not the other way around. It's not a form of Stalinist Socialist Realism at work here but an Orwellian cautionary tale (although Brunner is much less of a pessimist than Orwell was), and anyone who can't tell the difference probably thinks that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was unduly didactic as well.
My view: At this point - and this was a while ago, to say the least (at least twenty years, if not twenty-five) - this was the longest novel I had ever attempted to read. But read it I did, and if Brunner softened the blow of his overpopulation-as-hell on earth plot by resorting to a somewhat pat happy ending (a trait this book shares with The Jagged Orbit and The Shockwave Rider but not The Sheep Look Up) it's only because he was looking to find hope of escape out of the dystopian maze he expertly constructed. An incredibly solid work regardless of that fact, and a work that's almost impossible to adapt as a movie or even a miniseries because of its structure and refusal to pull its sociological punches.
Nuggety? Nope. For one thing, it's constructed in a fashion largely inspired by John Dos Passos' USA trilogy, and that constitutes literature. For another, it's message fiction, but the big difference between this sort of message fiction and what the Sad/Rabid Puppies think constitute big-m Message Fiction is this: the message follows from the consequences of the plot and not the other way around. It's not a form of Stalinist Socialist Realism at work here but an Orwellian cautionary tale (although Brunner is much less of a pessimist than Orwell was), and anyone who can't tell the difference probably thinks that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was unduly didactic as well.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 3: The Man In The High Castle
Hugo winner: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, 1963
My view: It's not nearly as affecting to me - an old PKD fan if there ever was one - as either Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said or Ubik, but his alternate history version of a US occupied by a victorious Axis is both plausibly realized and suitably ominous, although the most important aspects of this novel (as with practically all of his work) are the disturbed inner psyches of the lead characters. It's a truism: the more deeply you read into a PKD novel, the more you get the sense that the workings of outward reality itself against those characters is the real enemy. This is a good place for a novice to start before heading off to even more challenging fare like the aforementioned novels and the likes of A Scanner Darkly, BTW.
Nuggety? Aw, c'mon. Not even close.
My view: It's not nearly as affecting to me - an old PKD fan if there ever was one - as either Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said or Ubik, but his alternate history version of a US occupied by a victorious Axis is both plausibly realized and suitably ominous, although the most important aspects of this novel (as with practically all of his work) are the disturbed inner psyches of the lead characters. It's a truism: the more deeply you read into a PKD novel, the more you get the sense that the workings of outward reality itself against those characters is the real enemy. This is a good place for a novice to start before heading off to even more challenging fare like the aforementioned novels and the likes of A Scanner Darkly, BTW.
Nuggety? Aw, c'mon. Not even close.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 2: The Big Time
Hugo winner: The Big Time by Fritz Leiber, 1958
My view: A war that runs through all of time and space as viewed through the setting of a futuristic USO station might have been a lousy idea in the hands of a lesser writer than Leiber, but although I don't like this nearly as much as his fantasy work he still pulls it off with a lot of flair and punchiness.
Nuggety? This is relatively close to what Brad Torgersen seems to prefer in terms of whiz-bang traditional (military) SF, but I doubt he'd find the moral ambiguity that underlies the plot and character motivation much of anything to write home about.
My view: A war that runs through all of time and space as viewed through the setting of a futuristic USO station might have been a lousy idea in the hands of a lesser writer than Leiber, but although I don't like this nearly as much as his fantasy work he still pulls it off with a lot of flair and punchiness.
Nuggety? This is relatively close to what Brad Torgersen seems to prefer in terms of whiz-bang traditional (military) SF, but I doubt he'd find the moral ambiguity that underlies the plot and character motivation much of anything to write home about.
Running Through Hugo's Back Yard 1: The Demolished Man
So. I had this funny idea, and...
Yeah, yeah, I know - funny ideas are usually the death of good ones, but not in this case; what this idea was is to look through all of the Hugo Award-winning novels I've read (mere nominees will have to follow sometime later, but I'll get around to it) in order to see how they stack up both in terms of how I remember them and how they stack up to a certain Mr. Torgersen's ideal of breakfast cereal (pretty much beaten to death here by MD Lachlan). I know I have a tendency to overwrite introductions, so without further ado here's the first victim of this experiment:
Hugo winner: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, 1953
My view: It's been a good, long while since I've read this, and the one thing that's a drawback is that the dialogue even seemed dated to me when I read it in my late teens/early twenties. Then again, so what? TDM came out in 1952, which essentially means that it would seem dated in most contexts since this is over 60 years later. A fun romp of a book that can almost seem like a positively cheerful alternative version of Minority Report at times.
Nuggety? There's plenty of action, but somehow I don't think that this is quite the kind of book that Sad Puppies would go for since it has about as much to do with military SF as it does the Bolshoi Ballet.
Yeah, yeah, I know - funny ideas are usually the death of good ones, but not in this case; what this idea was is to look through all of the Hugo Award-winning novels I've read (mere nominees will have to follow sometime later, but I'll get around to it) in order to see how they stack up both in terms of how I remember them and how they stack up to a certain Mr. Torgersen's ideal of breakfast cereal (pretty much beaten to death here by MD Lachlan). I know I have a tendency to overwrite introductions, so without further ado here's the first victim of this experiment:
Hugo winner: The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester, 1953
My view: It's been a good, long while since I've read this, and the one thing that's a drawback is that the dialogue even seemed dated to me when I read it in my late teens/early twenties. Then again, so what? TDM came out in 1952, which essentially means that it would seem dated in most contexts since this is over 60 years later. A fun romp of a book that can almost seem like a positively cheerful alternative version of Minority Report at times.
Nuggety? There's plenty of action, but somehow I don't think that this is quite the kind of book that Sad Puppies would go for since it has about as much to do with military SF as it does the Bolshoi Ballet.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Not funny (revised)
(WARNING: this is going to be a mostly visceral reaction to what I consider a disgusting response to a national tragedy; you were warned in advance. If this doesn't bother you, read on.)
Sometimes I get the feeling that certain members of the human race were just put here to test the limits of my anger; this, unfortunately, is one of those times.
As mentioned on James Nicoll's More Words, Deeper Hole, a certain Hugo awards nominee who got there largely due to the efforts of the Sad/Rabid Puppies slate-voting him in under the Best Related Work category decided to have a massive brain fart and posted two nauseating comments about the Charleston mass shooting of June 18th. The two comments (reproduced here and here) were, apparently, an attempt to be funny to someone.
And I'm sure they were funny. To utter psychopaths, though. Not to human beings with anything approaching normal levels of actual empathy.
Seriously, what the hell is this?
A steaming turd that was posted by an emotionally deficient individual is one thing - there are plenty of those to go around on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. - but here's the problem: the guy who posted this particular serving of Antisocial Personality Disorder du jour is a Hugo nominee who got there with the help of a faction of "fans" and pros who have done everything in their power to game the Hugos and get people nominated who don't deserve to be there. They don't even deserve to have their alleged reasons for gaming the nomination process taken seriously anymore - if they ever did in the first place.
Do you know what they do deserve, though?
Derision. Contempt. And your hard-earned money going to authors who write far better books and stories than they do.
The fact that the particular author in question here has a Hugo-nominated book made up entirely of his similar wit and wisdom should serve as a warning that this was never about anyone trying to reclaim a space in the SF universe for cracking good old-fashioned Golden Age tales, as Brad R. Torgersen said in his Sad Puppies 3 manifesto. That might have been what Torgersen claimed, but it's not what the Sads (as well as V*x D*y and the rest of the Rabids) wanted. What they wanted was for their pet bull to take a shit in the middle of the floor and dare people to call it what it obviously was.
Guess what? Mission accomplished. All the Sad/Rabid Puppies stand for in my opinion is utter bullshit. The nomination of books such as Dysentery from my Internet (a book, BTW, that was a nominee on both the Sad and Rabid lists; originally, I thought that only V*x D*y's sycophants would stoop so low as to nominate it, but no such luck) is irrefutable proof of that.
Happy?
What's worse is that that those "jokes" about the Emanuel AME Church mass shooting was posted by someone I've known on and off in Chicago-area fandom for years. That fact alone makes this especially difficult to stomach. I wasn't more than a friendly acquaintance and I certainly never shared his politics, especially recently; however, I never realized what sort of a complete asshole he is deep down. And if he meant any of what he wrote, he is a complete asshole. If not, he's a tone-deaf publicity freak who doesn't care how he comes off as long as he gets enough followers and like-minded "fans" online. Both of those facts are sad and pathetic, but for him to take a national tragedy and try to crack wise about it in order to be King of the Dickheads isn't merely sad and pathetic - it's a sign that the man is mentally FUBAR.
As to anyone who wants to take issue with my language in this post, go right ahead and do that. I'm not the one mocking nine dead people who were killed by a fucked-up kid who was either a nascent white supremacist or psychologically addled to the point of committing mass murder. Too many people take issue with profanity even when it's fully deserved, and in this case it is. It's also funny that you didn't read garbage like this in the wake of the Sandy Hook or Aurora shootings. It couldn't be because the victims were - you know - black, could it?
Nah. Of course not. It was just a coincidence! And I just need to lighten up!
Both of which are utter bullshit as well, of course.
Sometimes I get the feeling that certain members of the human race were just put here to test the limits of my anger; this, unfortunately, is one of those times.
As mentioned on James Nicoll's More Words, Deeper Hole, a certain Hugo awards nominee who got there largely due to the efforts of the Sad/Rabid Puppies slate-voting him in under the Best Related Work category decided to have a massive brain fart and posted two nauseating comments about the Charleston mass shooting of June 18th. The two comments (reproduced here and here) were, apparently, an attempt to be funny to someone.
And I'm sure they were funny. To utter psychopaths, though. Not to human beings with anything approaching normal levels of actual empathy.
Seriously, what the hell is this?
A steaming turd that was posted by an emotionally deficient individual is one thing - there are plenty of those to go around on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. - but here's the problem: the guy who posted this particular serving of Antisocial Personality Disorder du jour is a Hugo nominee who got there with the help of a faction of "fans" and pros who have done everything in their power to game the Hugos and get people nominated who don't deserve to be there. They don't even deserve to have their alleged reasons for gaming the nomination process taken seriously anymore - if they ever did in the first place.
Do you know what they do deserve, though?
Derision. Contempt. And your hard-earned money going to authors who write far better books and stories than they do.
The fact that the particular author in question here has a Hugo-nominated book made up entirely of his similar wit and wisdom should serve as a warning that this was never about anyone trying to reclaim a space in the SF universe for cracking good old-fashioned Golden Age tales, as Brad R. Torgersen said in his Sad Puppies 3 manifesto. That might have been what Torgersen claimed, but it's not what the Sads (as well as V*x D*y and the rest of the Rabids) wanted. What they wanted was for their pet bull to take a shit in the middle of the floor and dare people to call it what it obviously was.
Guess what? Mission accomplished. All the Sad/Rabid Puppies stand for in my opinion is utter bullshit. The nomination of books such as Dysentery from my Internet (a book, BTW, that was a nominee on both the Sad and Rabid lists; originally, I thought that only V*x D*y's sycophants would stoop so low as to nominate it, but no such luck) is irrefutable proof of that.
Happy?
What's worse is that that those "jokes" about the Emanuel AME Church mass shooting was posted by someone I've known on and off in Chicago-area fandom for years. That fact alone makes this especially difficult to stomach. I wasn't more than a friendly acquaintance and I certainly never shared his politics, especially recently; however, I never realized what sort of a complete asshole he is deep down. And if he meant any of what he wrote, he is a complete asshole. If not, he's a tone-deaf publicity freak who doesn't care how he comes off as long as he gets enough followers and like-minded "fans" online. Both of those facts are sad and pathetic, but for him to take a national tragedy and try to crack wise about it in order to be King of the Dickheads isn't merely sad and pathetic - it's a sign that the man is mentally FUBAR.
As to anyone who wants to take issue with my language in this post, go right ahead and do that. I'm not the one mocking nine dead people who were killed by a fucked-up kid who was either a nascent white supremacist or psychologically addled to the point of committing mass murder. Too many people take issue with profanity even when it's fully deserved, and in this case it is. It's also funny that you didn't read garbage like this in the wake of the Sandy Hook or Aurora shootings. It couldn't be because the victims were - you know - black, could it?
Nah. Of course not. It was just a coincidence! And I just need to lighten up!
Both of which are utter bullshit as well, of course.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Boycott, Shmoycott
Although I think that Laura J. Mixon says what most needs to be said about the Puppy-proposed boycott of Tor books (mentioned here by Laura Resnick via Facebook) in her letter to Tom Doherty, a few choice bits about the individual most responsible for initiating it need to be repeated here:
(Theodore) Beale has been pursuing a personal grudge against several people, including Tor author John Scalzi and the Nielsen Haydens, for years. The reason he has targeted them is that they have stood up for those who have been bullied and harassed by Beale and his supporters.
Beale was booted out of our professional trade organization, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), in 2013, after using official SFWA channels to promote a series of deeply offensive, blatantly racist remarks against SFF writer and SFWA member N. K. Jemisin. He has a long history of horrific reactionary public statements, not only against people of color, immigrants, and non-Christians (including citing Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, who gunned down 77 people, mostly teens, as a national hero for his acts, and suggesting that we look to Hitler to solve our immigration problems [he has since deleted the offending paragraph from his article, but the original pro-Nazi text appears here]). His views on women (“a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages,” “[A] purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban’s attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable”) and gays (“Correcting the gay defect;” “How ‘gay marriage’ harms you”) are equally repugnant.
All of the above has been documented over and over again, but that's not the point: the point is that there are apparently people out there who've decided to still make Beale the champion of their cause despite the fact that he has repeatedly proven that all he seems to be is a singularly repulsive scumbag whose supply of grudges never seems to end, either in terms of the number or the expiration date. Mixon, again:
But there is no getting around the fact that a misogynistic, homophobic white supremacist, who has spoken approvingly of shootings and acid attacks on women, and of Hitler and the Holocaust, who has called a respected SFF scholar and popular writer an ignorant, “not equally human” savage, stands at the heart of this conflict. Beale’s followers and fellow travelers may not themselves hold all the bigoted views he does, but information on who he is and how he feels about women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and others has been widely shared by now. If people are emailing you calling for Irene to be fired, they are unavoidably supporting Beale’s hate-filled agenda.
What makes this worse, IMHO, is that the nonsense he's orchestrating about demanding Gallo's firing doesn't just stop there. Laura Resnick:
One of their explicit demands is that Tor must publicly apologize for "the attitudes, lies and libel expressed by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Moshe Feder and Irene Gallo, all current or former employees of Tor, and by the Tor-published author John Scalzi, concerning supporters of the 'Puppies' slates for the Hugo awards." A second demand is that Tor must publicly reprimand those individuals. With so many different Puppies involved, I can't tell at this time whether they're still demanding that Irene Gallo's employment be terminated.
If anyone thinks that I was being far too harsh in my language when I called the RSHD a singularly repulsive scumbag, please feel free to tell me how. Come to think of it, my forgetting to use the term "egomaniacal" earlier is a bit of an oversight. My bad.
To be perfectly honest, the people who support his little campaign aren't much of an improvement, at least in terms of the outrageous chutzpah they're showing in demanding an apology here and a reprimand there. Okay, they may not be as hate-filled and venomous as he is. Few people are who already aren't in a prison cell, psychiatric hospital or currently running a torture program in a third world dictatorship. But let's face it - they let him take the lead in all of this despite knowing exactly what he is. Why they did so is beyond me, but the history of SF is chock-full of people who are more than a bit tightly wound. The RSHD is just one of the latest examples. I'm also sure that by the time this all ends he'll also go down as one of the worst.
Granted, I think that Tor won't just roll over in the wake of this bullshit. Too much of their reputation as a publisher is at stake for that to happen, and if you were thinking of picking up a book published by them over the weekend it couldn't hurt. Just keep in mind the following: a fanatic has a right to his views, but that right ends at the range he can punch someone who wants to violate it. The RSHD has gone way past that range.
But nothing bad can happen when you continue to incite people to such levels of hatred, right?
Nine people might disagree with that point if they could.
(Theodore) Beale has been pursuing a personal grudge against several people, including Tor author John Scalzi and the Nielsen Haydens, for years. The reason he has targeted them is that they have stood up for those who have been bullied and harassed by Beale and his supporters.
Beale was booted out of our professional trade organization, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), in 2013, after using official SFWA channels to promote a series of deeply offensive, blatantly racist remarks against SFF writer and SFWA member N. K. Jemisin. He has a long history of horrific reactionary public statements, not only against people of color, immigrants, and non-Christians (including citing Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, who gunned down 77 people, mostly teens, as a national hero for his acts, and suggesting that we look to Hitler to solve our immigration problems [he has since deleted the offending paragraph from his article, but the original pro-Nazi text appears here]). His views on women (“a few acid-burned faces is a small price to pay for lasting marriages,” “[A] purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban’s attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable”) and gays (“Correcting the gay defect;” “How ‘gay marriage’ harms you”) are equally repugnant.
All of the above has been documented over and over again, but that's not the point: the point is that there are apparently people out there who've decided to still make Beale the champion of their cause despite the fact that he has repeatedly proven that all he seems to be is a singularly repulsive scumbag whose supply of grudges never seems to end, either in terms of the number or the expiration date. Mixon, again:
But there is no getting around the fact that a misogynistic, homophobic white supremacist, who has spoken approvingly of shootings and acid attacks on women, and of Hitler and the Holocaust, who has called a respected SFF scholar and popular writer an ignorant, “not equally human” savage, stands at the heart of this conflict. Beale’s followers and fellow travelers may not themselves hold all the bigoted views he does, but information on who he is and how he feels about women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and others has been widely shared by now. If people are emailing you calling for Irene to be fired, they are unavoidably supporting Beale’s hate-filled agenda.
What makes this worse, IMHO, is that the nonsense he's orchestrating about demanding Gallo's firing doesn't just stop there. Laura Resnick:
One of their explicit demands is that Tor must publicly apologize for "the attitudes, lies and libel expressed by Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Moshe Feder and Irene Gallo, all current or former employees of Tor, and by the Tor-published author John Scalzi, concerning supporters of the 'Puppies' slates for the Hugo awards." A second demand is that Tor must publicly reprimand those individuals. With so many different Puppies involved, I can't tell at this time whether they're still demanding that Irene Gallo's employment be terminated.
If anyone thinks that I was being far too harsh in my language when I called the RSHD a singularly repulsive scumbag, please feel free to tell me how. Come to think of it, my forgetting to use the term "egomaniacal" earlier is a bit of an oversight. My bad.
To be perfectly honest, the people who support his little campaign aren't much of an improvement, at least in terms of the outrageous chutzpah they're showing in demanding an apology here and a reprimand there. Okay, they may not be as hate-filled and venomous as he is. Few people are who already aren't in a prison cell, psychiatric hospital or currently running a torture program in a third world dictatorship. But let's face it - they let him take the lead in all of this despite knowing exactly what he is. Why they did so is beyond me, but the history of SF is chock-full of people who are more than a bit tightly wound. The RSHD is just one of the latest examples. I'm also sure that by the time this all ends he'll also go down as one of the worst.
Granted, I think that Tor won't just roll over in the wake of this bullshit. Too much of their reputation as a publisher is at stake for that to happen, and if you were thinking of picking up a book published by them over the weekend it couldn't hurt. Just keep in mind the following: a fanatic has a right to his views, but that right ends at the range he can punch someone who wants to violate it. The RSHD has gone way past that range.
But nothing bad can happen when you continue to incite people to such levels of hatred, right?
Nine people might disagree with that point if they could.
Saturday, June 13, 2015
In Memoriam: Sir Christopher Lee, 1922-2015
From the Guardian:
In an interview in 2013, Lee spoke about his love of acting. “Making films has never just been a job to me, it is my life,” he said. “I have some interests outside of acting – I sing and I’ve written books, for instance – but acting is what keeps me going, it’s what I do, it gives life purpose.”
In an interview in 2013, Lee spoke about his love of acting. “Making films has never just been a job to me, it is my life,” he said. “I have some interests outside of acting – I sing and I’ve written books, for instance – but acting is what keeps me going, it’s what I do, it gives life purpose.”
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
I Stand With Irene Gallo - but that's not enough
So: the quote that managed to get Irene Gallo in such hot water is this one, as reproduced by Chuck Wendig:
There are two extreme right-wing to neo-nazi groups, called the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies respectively, that are calling for the end of social justice in science fiction and fantasy. They are unrepentantly racist, sexist and homophobic. A noisy few but they’ve been able to gather some Gamergate folks around them and elect a slate of bad-to-reprehensible works on this year’s Hugo ballot.
Now here's the problem, and it takes more than a bit of nuanced thinking to fully get it.
If Gallo had taken one word out of that paragraph, she'd have been fine. Problem is, she left the Godwin-friendly term in, and that complicates the issue to the point where defending her becomes a bit difficult. It is not, however, impossible.
As much as either group of Puppies deny it, a lot of the stuff they've posted is exactly what Gallo calls it. Her problem is that she didn't pay enough attention to the difference between the Sads and the Rabids. The Sad Puppies have come across repeatedly as a group of tireless (and tiresome, IMHO) self-promoters who decided that a strange dual attack on "the literati" and racial diversity in fandom was going to win them oodles of readers and supporters and thereby make them the unquestioned kings of book sales in the SF universe.
Probably not, but you can dream, can't you?
Except when the dream becomes a waking nightmare.
Then you've got a problem.
Enter one person we will call the RSHD, as it's a euphemism he seems to have earned.
The RSHD does not seem to know when to leave well enough alone, you see. He had already earned himself a reputation for unsavory behavior and the promotion of crank beliefs even before he used a Twitter feed belonging to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America to defame fellow SFWA member N.K. Jemisin for daring to point out that he wasn't really all that nice a guy in a Guest of Honor speech she gave at Continuum 9. For that action, the RSHD got his lifetime membership in the SFWA revoked, which led to what you'd expect: more evidence of his inability to leave well enough alone. This time, though, he got a new bunch of friends in the form of the creeper lobby gamergate, and they decided that they'd ride the coattails of past Sad Puppy bloc voting efforts in order to get a bunch of people nominated for Hugo Awards that, in all reality, probably don't deserve them - one of them being the RSHD himself. Another one was John C. Wright, who seems to fit the definition of "homophobic" in the old "there's a picture of him in the dictionary above that entry" sense of things. Come to think of it, if Gallo had just specified that the Rabid Puppies were racist, sexist and homophobic in their orientation she'd be completely right.
Unfortunately, all this amounts to is another distraction from the overriding ridiculousness of this clown show.
This is a debate in which men - grown fucking men, mind you - are willing to engage in vituperative attacks and even borderline-illegal online and in-person harassment against people whose only crime seems to be that they disagree with them. Or gained their ire on a more personal level. Or are even breathing the same air as they are. Shit, I don't know where any of this starts or stops any more and I've been involved in more than one internecine fandom-related war myself. I just haven't been involved in one where this sort of thing becomes the norm, and I don't like Irene Gallo's chances at being passed over for harassment now that she's become a target.
So she wrote something that should've been edited more wisely. Big deal. She wrote it on her own Facebook page, on her own time, and that's more than what the RSHD has done in the past.
So I stand with Irene Gallo. I also think that it's time that we didn't just stand with her; we need to tell the people who are now insisting on her being fired from Tor to get off their high horses, knock off the selective outrage and think real hard about the sort of people they're allying with -such as the RSHD, for example:
"[I]n light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban’s attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable."
And that would be the sexism that Gallo brought up doing the talking there, of course.
Ultimately, the right tack to take about all of this was written by katster in this post:
It strikes me that Beale doesn’t want dialogue. He doesn’t want us to understand each other, because if we can understand — if we can glimpse that the other side of the screen sits another human being not all that much different from us — then his culture war is dead. He cannot afford to lose that — it is his driving force and his motivator.
I’m a science fiction fan because I like to read, Beale. I’m not here for your bullshit culture wars, and I really wish you’d take them somewhere else.
There are two extreme right-wing to neo-nazi groups, called the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies respectively, that are calling for the end of social justice in science fiction and fantasy. They are unrepentantly racist, sexist and homophobic. A noisy few but they’ve been able to gather some Gamergate folks around them and elect a slate of bad-to-reprehensible works on this year’s Hugo ballot.
Now here's the problem, and it takes more than a bit of nuanced thinking to fully get it.
If Gallo had taken one word out of that paragraph, she'd have been fine. Problem is, she left the Godwin-friendly term in, and that complicates the issue to the point where defending her becomes a bit difficult. It is not, however, impossible.
As much as either group of Puppies deny it, a lot of the stuff they've posted is exactly what Gallo calls it. Her problem is that she didn't pay enough attention to the difference between the Sads and the Rabids. The Sad Puppies have come across repeatedly as a group of tireless (and tiresome, IMHO) self-promoters who decided that a strange dual attack on "the literati" and racial diversity in fandom was going to win them oodles of readers and supporters and thereby make them the unquestioned kings of book sales in the SF universe.
Probably not, but you can dream, can't you?
Except when the dream becomes a waking nightmare.
Then you've got a problem.
Enter one person we will call the RSHD, as it's a euphemism he seems to have earned.
The RSHD does not seem to know when to leave well enough alone, you see. He had already earned himself a reputation for unsavory behavior and the promotion of crank beliefs even before he used a Twitter feed belonging to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America to defame fellow SFWA member N.K. Jemisin for daring to point out that he wasn't really all that nice a guy in a Guest of Honor speech she gave at Continuum 9. For that action, the RSHD got his lifetime membership in the SFWA revoked, which led to what you'd expect: more evidence of his inability to leave well enough alone. This time, though, he got a new bunch of friends in the form of the creeper lobby gamergate, and they decided that they'd ride the coattails of past Sad Puppy bloc voting efforts in order to get a bunch of people nominated for Hugo Awards that, in all reality, probably don't deserve them - one of them being the RSHD himself. Another one was John C. Wright, who seems to fit the definition of "homophobic" in the old "there's a picture of him in the dictionary above that entry" sense of things. Come to think of it, if Gallo had just specified that the Rabid Puppies were racist, sexist and homophobic in their orientation she'd be completely right.
Unfortunately, all this amounts to is another distraction from the overriding ridiculousness of this clown show.
This is a debate in which men - grown fucking men, mind you - are willing to engage in vituperative attacks and even borderline-illegal online and in-person harassment against people whose only crime seems to be that they disagree with them. Or gained their ire on a more personal level. Or are even breathing the same air as they are. Shit, I don't know where any of this starts or stops any more and I've been involved in more than one internecine fandom-related war myself. I just haven't been involved in one where this sort of thing becomes the norm, and I don't like Irene Gallo's chances at being passed over for harassment now that she's become a target.
So she wrote something that should've been edited more wisely. Big deal. She wrote it on her own Facebook page, on her own time, and that's more than what the RSHD has done in the past.
So I stand with Irene Gallo. I also think that it's time that we didn't just stand with her; we need to tell the people who are now insisting on her being fired from Tor to get off their high horses, knock off the selective outrage and think real hard about the sort of people they're allying with -such as the RSHD, for example:
"[I]n light of the strong correlation between female education and demographic decline, a purely empirical perspective on Malala Yousafzai, the poster girl for global female education, may indicate that the Taliban’s attempt to silence her was perfectly rational and scientifically justifiable."
And that would be the sexism that Gallo brought up doing the talking there, of course.
Ultimately, the right tack to take about all of this was written by katster in this post:
It strikes me that Beale doesn’t want dialogue. He doesn’t want us to understand each other, because if we can understand — if we can glimpse that the other side of the screen sits another human being not all that much different from us — then his culture war is dead. He cannot afford to lose that — it is his driving force and his motivator.
I’m a science fiction fan because I like to read, Beale. I’m not here for your bullshit culture wars, and I really wish you’d take them somewhere else.
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
"So what SF and fantasy has this argumentative bastard read, anyway?"
I'm sure you didn't ask, either. Too late.
Mark Adlard: Interface
Brian W. Aldiss: Barefoot in the Head; The Long Afternoon of Earth; Cryptozoic!; Earthworks
Isaac Asimov: Foundation
J.G. Ballard: The Terminal Beach; High Rise
William Barton: When Heaven Fell
William Barton and Michael Capobianco: Iris; Fellow Traveller
Alfred Bester: The Demolished Man
John Brunner: Stand On Zanzibar; The Jagged Orbit; The Sheep Look Up: The Shockwave Rider; The Traveler in Black
Algis Budrys: Who?
Terry Carr (editor): Universe 1
Philip K. Dick: The Man in the High Castle; Ubik; Martian Time Slip; Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; We Can Build You; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; Now Wait For Last Year; A Scanner Darkly ; Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After The Bomb; The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Paul DiFillippo: Ribofunk
Harlan Ellison: The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World; Approaching Oblivion; Deathbird Stories; Strange Wine; Shatterday; Dangerous Visions (editor)
William Gibson: Neuromancer; Count Zero; Mona Lisa Overdrive; Burning Chrome; Virtual Light; Idoru
William Gibson with Bruce Sterling: The Difference Engine
Mira Grant: Deadline
Joe Haldeman: All My Sins Remembered; The Forever War
Harry Harrison: The Stainless Steel Rat; The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge; The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World; The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted: Deathworld; Deathworld 2
K.W. Jeter: Dr. Adder; The Glass Hammer; Farewell Horizontal
Stephen King: Night Shift
Kathe Koja: The Cypher; Bad Brains
Fritz Leiber: Swords and Deviltry; Swords Against Death; Swords in the Mist; The Big Time
Frank Belknap Long: Mars Is My Destination
Ken MacLeod: The Cassini Division
China Mieville: Embassytown
Michael Moorcock: Elric: Elric of Melnibone; The Sailor on the Seas of Fate; The Weird of the White Wolf; The Vanishing Tower; The Bane of the Black Sword; Stormbringer; The Fortress of the Pearl; Corum: The Knight of the Swords; The Queen of the Swords; The King of the Swords; The Bull and the Spear; The Oak and the Ram; The Sword and the Stallion; Dorian Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull; The Mad God's Amulet; The Sword of the Dawn; The Runestaff; Count Brass; The Champion of Garathorm; The Quest for Tanelorn; Jerry Cornelius: The Final Programme; A Cure for Cancer; The Condition of Muzak; Oswald Bastable: The Warlord of the Air; The Land Leviathan; The Steel Tsar; Other: The Eternal Champion; The Silver Warriors (AKA Phoenix in Obsidian); Breakfast in the Ruins; Best SF Stories from New Worlds 2 (editor)
Frederik Pohl: The Merchants' War; The Cool War; Gateway; Beyond the Blue Event Horizon; The Siege of Eternity; The Far Shore of Time; The Best of Frederik Pohl; The Age of the Pussyfoot; Drunkard's Walk
Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth: The Space Merchants
Robert Sheckley: Immortality, Inc.
Robert Silverberg: Hawksbill Station; The Second Trip; The World Inside; Born with the Dead; Nightwings; Dying Inside
John Shirley: Eclipse; Eclipse Penumbra; Eclipse Corona; Wetbones; Heatseeker; (most of) New Noir
Dan Simmons: Hyperion; The Fall of Hyperion
Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash; The Diamond Age; Cryptonomicon
John Sladek: The Muller-Fokker Effect
Bruce Sterling: Crystal Express; A Good Old Fashioned Future; Islands in the Net; Heavy Weather; Mirrorshades (editor); Holy Fire
Michael Swanwick: Vacuum Flowers
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-five
David Wingrove: Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom
Gene Wolfe: Endangered Species
Roger Zelazny: Nine Princes in Amber; The Guns of Avalon
Doctor Who novelizations: (Please keep in mind that these some 81 [!] books are the ones I actually remember reading and may not be a complete accounting of the ones I've actually read. Editions with an asterisk were published by Pinnacle in the US instead of Target UK.)
First Doctor: The Daleks; The Crusaders The Zarbi; The Tenth Planet; The Dalek Invasion of Earth; The Keys of Marinus; An Unearthly Child; The Aztecs; Marco Polo Second Doctor: The Abominable Snowmen; The Cybermen; The Ice Warriors; The Web of Fear; The Tomb of the Cybermen; The War Games; The Enemy of the World; The Dominators; The Mind Robber; The Wheel in Space Third Doctor: The Auton Invasion; The Cave Monsters; Day of the Daleks*; The Doomsday Weapon*; The Daemons; The Sea Devils; The Curse of Peladon; Terror of the Autons; The Green Death; Planet of the Spiders; The Three Doctors; The Invasion of the Dinosaurs; The Space War; Planet of the Daleks; The Carnival of Monsters; The Claws of Axos; The Mutants; The Time Warrior; Death to the Daleks; The Monster of Peladon Fourth Doctor: The Giant Robot; The Loch Ness Monster*; Revenge of the Cybermen*; Genesis of the Daleks*; The Pyramids of Mars; The Seeds of Doom; The Ark in Space; The Brain of Morbius; The Planet of Evil; The Deadly Assassin; The Talons of Weng-Chiang; The Masque of Mandragora; The Face of Evil; The Horror of Fang Rock; The Android Invasion; The Sontaran Experiment; The Hand of Fear; The Invisible Enemy; The Robots of Death; Image of the Fendahl; The Invasion of Time; The Armageddon Factor; The Nightmare of Eden; The Creature from the Pit; The State of Decay; The Keeper of Traken; The Leisure Hive; Logopolis; The Sunmakers Fifth Doctor:The Visitation; Time Flight; Castrovalva; Four to Doomsday; Earthshock; Terminus; Arc of Infinity; The Five Doctors; Mawdryn Undead; Kinda; Snakedance; Enlightenment; Warriors of the Deep
Mark Adlard: Interface
Brian W. Aldiss: Barefoot in the Head; The Long Afternoon of Earth; Cryptozoic!; Earthworks
Isaac Asimov: Foundation
J.G. Ballard: The Terminal Beach; High Rise
William Barton: When Heaven Fell
William Barton and Michael Capobianco: Iris; Fellow Traveller
Alfred Bester: The Demolished Man
John Brunner: Stand On Zanzibar; The Jagged Orbit; The Sheep Look Up: The Shockwave Rider; The Traveler in Black
Algis Budrys: Who?
Terry Carr (editor): Universe 1
Philip K. Dick: The Man in the High Castle; Ubik; Martian Time Slip; Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; We Can Build You; Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; Now Wait For Last Year; A Scanner Darkly ; Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After The Bomb; The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
Paul DiFillippo: Ribofunk
Harlan Ellison: The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World; Approaching Oblivion; Deathbird Stories; Strange Wine; Shatterday; Dangerous Visions (editor)
William Gibson: Neuromancer; Count Zero; Mona Lisa Overdrive; Burning Chrome; Virtual Light; Idoru
William Gibson with Bruce Sterling: The Difference Engine
Mira Grant: Deadline
Joe Haldeman: All My Sins Remembered; The Forever War
Harry Harrison: The Stainless Steel Rat; The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge; The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World; The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted: Deathworld; Deathworld 2
K.W. Jeter: Dr. Adder; The Glass Hammer; Farewell Horizontal
Stephen King: Night Shift
Kathe Koja: The Cypher; Bad Brains
Fritz Leiber: Swords and Deviltry; Swords Against Death; Swords in the Mist; The Big Time
Frank Belknap Long: Mars Is My Destination
Ken MacLeod: The Cassini Division
China Mieville: Embassytown
Michael Moorcock: Elric: Elric of Melnibone; The Sailor on the Seas of Fate; The Weird of the White Wolf; The Vanishing Tower; The Bane of the Black Sword; Stormbringer; The Fortress of the Pearl; Corum: The Knight of the Swords; The Queen of the Swords; The King of the Swords; The Bull and the Spear; The Oak and the Ram; The Sword and the Stallion; Dorian Hawkmoon: The Jewel in the Skull; The Mad God's Amulet; The Sword of the Dawn; The Runestaff; Count Brass; The Champion of Garathorm; The Quest for Tanelorn; Jerry Cornelius: The Final Programme; A Cure for Cancer; The Condition of Muzak; Oswald Bastable: The Warlord of the Air; The Land Leviathan; The Steel Tsar; Other: The Eternal Champion; The Silver Warriors (AKA Phoenix in Obsidian); Breakfast in the Ruins; Best SF Stories from New Worlds 2 (editor)
Frederik Pohl: The Merchants' War; The Cool War; Gateway; Beyond the Blue Event Horizon; The Siege of Eternity; The Far Shore of Time; The Best of Frederik Pohl; The Age of the Pussyfoot; Drunkard's Walk
Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth: The Space Merchants
Robert Sheckley: Immortality, Inc.
Robert Silverberg: Hawksbill Station; The Second Trip; The World Inside; Born with the Dead; Nightwings; Dying Inside
John Shirley: Eclipse; Eclipse Penumbra; Eclipse Corona; Wetbones; Heatseeker; (most of) New Noir
Dan Simmons: Hyperion; The Fall of Hyperion
Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash; The Diamond Age; Cryptonomicon
John Sladek: The Muller-Fokker Effect
Bruce Sterling: Crystal Express; A Good Old Fashioned Future; Islands in the Net; Heavy Weather; Mirrorshades (editor); Holy Fire
Michael Swanwick: Vacuum Flowers
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-five
David Wingrove: Chung Kuo: The Middle Kingdom
Gene Wolfe: Endangered Species
Roger Zelazny: Nine Princes in Amber; The Guns of Avalon
Doctor Who novelizations: (Please keep in mind that these some 81 [!] books are the ones I actually remember reading and may not be a complete accounting of the ones I've actually read. Editions with an asterisk were published by Pinnacle in the US instead of Target UK.)
First Doctor: The Daleks; The Crusaders The Zarbi; The Tenth Planet; The Dalek Invasion of Earth; The Keys of Marinus; An Unearthly Child; The Aztecs; Marco Polo Second Doctor: The Abominable Snowmen; The Cybermen; The Ice Warriors; The Web of Fear; The Tomb of the Cybermen; The War Games; The Enemy of the World; The Dominators; The Mind Robber; The Wheel in Space Third Doctor: The Auton Invasion; The Cave Monsters; Day of the Daleks*; The Doomsday Weapon*; The Daemons; The Sea Devils; The Curse of Peladon; Terror of the Autons; The Green Death; Planet of the Spiders; The Three Doctors; The Invasion of the Dinosaurs; The Space War; Planet of the Daleks; The Carnival of Monsters; The Claws of Axos; The Mutants; The Time Warrior; Death to the Daleks; The Monster of Peladon Fourth Doctor: The Giant Robot; The Loch Ness Monster*; Revenge of the Cybermen*; Genesis of the Daleks*; The Pyramids of Mars; The Seeds of Doom; The Ark in Space; The Brain of Morbius; The Planet of Evil; The Deadly Assassin; The Talons of Weng-Chiang; The Masque of Mandragora; The Face of Evil; The Horror of Fang Rock; The Android Invasion; The Sontaran Experiment; The Hand of Fear; The Invisible Enemy; The Robots of Death; Image of the Fendahl; The Invasion of Time; The Armageddon Factor; The Nightmare of Eden; The Creature from the Pit; The State of Decay; The Keeper of Traken; The Leisure Hive; Logopolis; The Sunmakers Fifth Doctor:The Visitation; Time Flight; Castrovalva; Four to Doomsday; Earthshock; Terminus; Arc of Infinity; The Five Doctors; Mawdryn Undead; Kinda; Snakedance; Enlightenment; Warriors of the Deep
Yet Another Polemic about The Hugos - collect them all! (updated)
So. A bunch of guys got together, voted as a bloc and...
Ah, skip the intro, already. This has been detailed by so many people in the fannish community in so many different ways that it's not funny, but then again, it really shouldn't be. Why? Mainly due to two reasons which I'll go into in detail:
1) Like most people who happen to read these odd, antiquated things called "books" as a form of entertainment I have a finite amount of both time and money to spend on those books. That means that I pretty much read what I want to. Quite a bit of it would be termed "literary science fiction", for want of a more accurate description. That being said, the one thing that will not convince me to read a book is having someone engage in the online equivalent of screaming at the top of their lungs with a bullhorn outside my window at 3 in the morning about how "YOU'RE BEING A LITERARY ELITIST/SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR/CRAPTACULAR JUDGE OF SCIENCE FICTION FOR NOT READING MY BOOK INSTEAD THE ONE YOU'RE CURRENTLY ENJOYING, DAMNIT!!!"
That's pretty much what the entire Sad (and even worse, Rabid) Puppies crowd did with the 2015 Hugos. A number of more deserving nominees probably got knocked off the ballot as a result of all this, which directly leads to this observation:
2) All of this wouldn't be as grating on my nerves except for the following: although there was nothing particularly illegal in terms of Hugo nomination rules as laid down by the WSFS in what the Sad/Rabid Puppies did, they chose to ignore the following truism: just because you can doesn't mean that you should. The Sads, in my opinion, were looking to continue a strategy of self-promotion that goes back to the first two Sad Puppy campaigns that Larry Correia organized in 2013 and 2014. Unfortunately, the current Sad Puppy front man is Brad R. Torgersen, who seems even more naïve than Correia about the company he keeps. Tactics like theirs would have pissed me off regardless of who engages in them, but the fact that the organizers of the Sad and Rabid campaigns are all to the right of my own political views (in the case of the Rabids very far to the right, since they make the likes of Bill O'Reilly seem like Bernie Sanders in comparison), have a very narrow definition of what constitutes proper SF and also undertook this as a politically motivated attack on certain corners of SF fandom is just icing on an already huge cake. I have a saying that if you scratch an Objectivist you'll find a Stalinist underneath. I think it's been more than adequately proven here.
Also, consider their online belligerence: if they hadn't ratcheted up the "you better listen to us because we're really angry and we'll call you names if you don't" element of their campaign, I wouldn't have cared all that much about this mess. Since they did, my response is this: if the Puppies' only way to present an argument is to engage in personal attacks against other pros in the field (such as here, here and here), they've pretty much lost my interest in reading anything they publish or even in taking them all that seriously as polemicists in the first place. Not only is it a complete non-starter in term of debating tactics, but it makes them look like a pack of emotionally stunted escapees from the Asshole Factory. That's not a particularly pleasant turn of phase, mind you, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em and what I see from them is behavior indicative of a bunch of supposedly grown men who are acting like anything but.
So if the SRPs were looking to win any points with a run-of-the-mill, not particularly SMOFish Joe Fan like me by doing this, they didn't. Quite the opposite, in fact. As to whether they realize that there's an actual lesson in that fact...
Ah, skip the intro, already. This has been detailed by so many people in the fannish community in so many different ways that it's not funny, but then again, it really shouldn't be. Why? Mainly due to two reasons which I'll go into in detail:
1) Like most people who happen to read these odd, antiquated things called "books" as a form of entertainment I have a finite amount of both time and money to spend on those books. That means that I pretty much read what I want to. Quite a bit of it would be termed "literary science fiction", for want of a more accurate description. That being said, the one thing that will not convince me to read a book is having someone engage in the online equivalent of screaming at the top of their lungs with a bullhorn outside my window at 3 in the morning about how "YOU'RE BEING A LITERARY ELITIST/SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR/CRAPTACULAR JUDGE OF SCIENCE FICTION FOR NOT READING MY BOOK INSTEAD THE ONE YOU'RE CURRENTLY ENJOYING, DAMNIT!!!"
That's pretty much what the entire Sad (and even worse, Rabid) Puppies crowd did with the 2015 Hugos. A number of more deserving nominees probably got knocked off the ballot as a result of all this, which directly leads to this observation:
2) All of this wouldn't be as grating on my nerves except for the following: although there was nothing particularly illegal in terms of Hugo nomination rules as laid down by the WSFS in what the Sad/Rabid Puppies did, they chose to ignore the following truism: just because you can doesn't mean that you should. The Sads, in my opinion, were looking to continue a strategy of self-promotion that goes back to the first two Sad Puppy campaigns that Larry Correia organized in 2013 and 2014. Unfortunately, the current Sad Puppy front man is Brad R. Torgersen, who seems even more naïve than Correia about the company he keeps. Tactics like theirs would have pissed me off regardless of who engages in them, but the fact that the organizers of the Sad and Rabid campaigns are all to the right of my own political views (in the case of the Rabids very far to the right, since they make the likes of Bill O'Reilly seem like Bernie Sanders in comparison), have a very narrow definition of what constitutes proper SF and also undertook this as a politically motivated attack on certain corners of SF fandom is just icing on an already huge cake. I have a saying that if you scratch an Objectivist you'll find a Stalinist underneath. I think it's been more than adequately proven here.
Also, consider their online belligerence: if they hadn't ratcheted up the "you better listen to us because we're really angry and we'll call you names if you don't" element of their campaign, I wouldn't have cared all that much about this mess. Since they did, my response is this: if the Puppies' only way to present an argument is to engage in personal attacks against other pros in the field (such as here, here and here), they've pretty much lost my interest in reading anything they publish or even in taking them all that seriously as polemicists in the first place. Not only is it a complete non-starter in term of debating tactics, but it makes them look like a pack of emotionally stunted escapees from the Asshole Factory. That's not a particularly pleasant turn of phase, mind you, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em and what I see from them is behavior indicative of a bunch of supposedly grown men who are acting like anything but.
So if the SRPs were looking to win any points with a run-of-the-mill, not particularly SMOFish Joe Fan like me by doing this, they didn't. Quite the opposite, in fact. As to whether they realize that there's an actual lesson in that fact...
Monday, May 11, 2015
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
This is funny
Ah, Mike Pence. No sooner does he decide to make a splash in the 2016 GOP Presidential field by signing a certain controversial bill than he finds out that a whole lot of people don't really like it, including other public officials, the major newspaper in his capital, major business executives and even the NCAA.
It's really a test of your nerves to run for President these days - especially when some of the groups you're openly pandering to are just about as nutty as a fruitcake that accidentally fell into a peanut processing plant. But hey, Pence has a solution - it's called whining. Or failing that, blaming the other guy's laws.
And just as it's a test of your nerves to run for President, laws like this and the reasons they get passed are a test of my gag reflex. Air sickness bags to the fore!
It's really a test of your nerves to run for President these days - especially when some of the groups you're openly pandering to are just about as nutty as a fruitcake that accidentally fell into a peanut processing plant. But hey, Pence has a solution - it's called whining. Or failing that, blaming the other guy's laws.
And just as it's a test of your nerves to run for President, laws like this and the reasons they get passed are a test of my gag reflex. Air sickness bags to the fore!
There are no words...
...to describe the barbarity of this:
Washiqur Rahman’s Facebook banner declares “#IamAvijit”, after the leading secular and humanist blogger, Avijit Roy, who was murdered a month ago in Bangladesh.
This morning Washiqur Rahman himself was killed in similar circumstances: a machete attack by assailants on the streets of Dhaka. The brutal attack took place close to Rahman’s home. Police have reportedly taken two men into custody who were detained at the scene.
This stands as proof that violent religious fundamentalists - regardless of their creed, race or upbringing - are good at three things: finding followers to manipulate, terrifying their opponents into silence and killing the ones who dare to continue to speak out. And it's seemingly getting worse all the time.
Washiqur Rahman’s Facebook banner declares “#IamAvijit”, after the leading secular and humanist blogger, Avijit Roy, who was murdered a month ago in Bangladesh.
This morning Washiqur Rahman himself was killed in similar circumstances: a machete attack by assailants on the streets of Dhaka. The brutal attack took place close to Rahman’s home. Police have reportedly taken two men into custody who were detained at the scene.
This stands as proof that violent religious fundamentalists - regardless of their creed, race or upbringing - are good at three things: finding followers to manipulate, terrifying their opponents into silence and killing the ones who dare to continue to speak out. And it's seemingly getting worse all the time.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Your daily dose of "post-racist" irony in America, March 2015 edition
Fueless Cluck of the Month candidate Andrea Shea King just doesn't get lynching analogies. She uses them, to be sure, but that doesn't disprove the fact that she doesn't get them:
“I would like to think that these guys could pay with their lives, hanging from a noose in front of the U.S. Capitol Building,” she said. “What they are doing is they are putting their own interests above that of America, and to me that is criminal.”
Uh huh. Sure.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice added a bit of nuance to the debate about police conduct in Ferguson, Missouri by publishing a report that doesn't exactly state that the situation there is peachy-keen despite the lack of a case against former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown:
The City’s emphasis on revenue generation has a profound effect on FPD’s approach to law enforcement. Patrol assignments and schedules are geared toward aggressive enforcement of Ferguson’s municipal code, with insufficient thought given to whether enforcement strategies promote public safety or unnecessarily undermine community trust and cooperation. Officer evaluations and promotions depend to an inordinate degree on "productivity," meaning the number of citations issued. Partly as a consequence of City and FPD priorities, many officers appear to see some residents, especially those who live in Ferguson’s predominantly African-American neighborhoods, less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue.
This culture within FPD influences officer activities in all areas of policing, beyond just ticketing. Officers expect and demand compliance even when they lack legal authority. They are inclined to interpret the exercise of free-speech rights as unlawful disobedience, innocent movements as physical threats, indications of mental or physical illness as belligerence. Police supervisors and leadership do too little to ensure that officers act in accordance with law and policy, and rarely respond meaningfully to civilian complaints of officer misconduct. The result is a pattern of stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment; infringement on free expression, as well as retaliation for protected expression, in violation of the First Amendment, and excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
In other words, the DoJ ruling found that Wilson didn't deserve to get charged, but let's face it - the Brown incident was a oversized fuse trying to find a bomb to set off. And unfortunately, it did.
“I would like to think that these guys could pay with their lives, hanging from a noose in front of the U.S. Capitol Building,” she said. “What they are doing is they are putting their own interests above that of America, and to me that is criminal.”
Uh huh. Sure.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice added a bit of nuance to the debate about police conduct in Ferguson, Missouri by publishing a report that doesn't exactly state that the situation there is peachy-keen despite the lack of a case against former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown:
The City’s emphasis on revenue generation has a profound effect on FPD’s approach to law enforcement. Patrol assignments and schedules are geared toward aggressive enforcement of Ferguson’s municipal code, with insufficient thought given to whether enforcement strategies promote public safety or unnecessarily undermine community trust and cooperation. Officer evaluations and promotions depend to an inordinate degree on "productivity," meaning the number of citations issued. Partly as a consequence of City and FPD priorities, many officers appear to see some residents, especially those who live in Ferguson’s predominantly African-American neighborhoods, less as constituents to be protected than as potential offenders and sources of revenue.
This culture within FPD influences officer activities in all areas of policing, beyond just ticketing. Officers expect and demand compliance even when they lack legal authority. They are inclined to interpret the exercise of free-speech rights as unlawful disobedience, innocent movements as physical threats, indications of mental or physical illness as belligerence. Police supervisors and leadership do too little to ensure that officers act in accordance with law and policy, and rarely respond meaningfully to civilian complaints of officer misconduct. The result is a pattern of stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment; infringement on free expression, as well as retaliation for protected expression, in violation of the First Amendment, and excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
In other words, the DoJ ruling found that Wilson didn't deserve to get charged, but let's face it - the Brown incident was a oversized fuse trying to find a bomb to set off. And unfortunately, it did.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Tragedy and stupidity, continued
Not to be outdone by Bill Donohue (see above), it turns out there are a whole bunch of other people who are doing their damnedest to come off as, well, unbelievably dumb. Or insane. Or perhaps both.
Unsurprisingly, some of them have surnames such as Limbaugh, Ingraham or Bolling.
I suppose this is another lesson concerning the following truism concerning wingnut pundits and conspiracy hacks in general: cream may indeed rise to the top. Unfortunately, so does shit in a defective toilet.
Unsurprisingly, some of them have surnames such as Limbaugh, Ingraham or Bolling.
I suppose this is another lesson concerning the following truism concerning wingnut pundits and conspiracy hacks in general: cream may indeed rise to the top. Unfortunately, so does shit in a defective toilet.
Tragedy and stupidity, all at once
In the wake of the mass murders at Charlie Hebdo, never let it be said that you can't find an American wingnut who remains completely incapable of separating his grimy fantasies from reality.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Bill Donohue.
Now take him away and put him somewhere far from civilized people.
Please.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Bill Donohue.
Now take him away and put him somewhere far from civilized people.
Please.
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