Or a ‘tail’ of jackals smelling their own holes first – an expression from my native culture, usually reserved for those blaming others for smelly farts they made themselves, but with other implications.
Two important quotes to start with. Remember them. There will be a test at the end of the post and anyone who doesn’t get 100% will have to read it again. They are both from Teresa Nielsen Hayden (TNH), who was a major editor at Tor books, a major figure in Tor.com, married to a very powerful editor at Tor, who are single largest producer of sf/fantasy. She also runs a blog called ‘Making light’ followed by an enthusiastic clique of her loyalist who share her worldview, and perhaps want to make themselves popular with one of the most powerful people in the Traditional Publishing Establishment. She tolerates no dissent and allows no freedom of speech on it. She’s a long term member of SFWA, and vocal on their forums. These are very relevant points, so try to keep them in mind. I always used to write notes of relevant points because I have a lamentable memory. Alas, I have a worse handwriting.
First quote from TNH: “Larry Correia is a lying liar who lies. So is Brad Torgesen. So’s Vox Day. You either believe facts matter, or you don’t. #sadpuppies
Second quote from TNH:
• Teresa Nielsen Hayden says: April 7, 2015 at 10:30 am
Paul St. John Mackintosh —
Don’t blame the Hugo administrators. The secret ballot is still secret while it’s in their hands.
The Sad Puppies knew the outcome in advance because the Hugo administrators contact presumptive nominees in advance and ask whether they consent to be nominated. This is supposed to be confidential information. It’s obvious that the SP nominees compared notes; and because they’ve so thoroughly overrun this year’s voting, their pooled information was enough to substantially reconstruct the final ballot.
Just so you know: Hugo administrators tend to be some of the most reliable, experienced, trustworthy people in fandom. Usually their own con committees don’t hear a thing about the Hugo voting results until very late in the process. Take any story involving misbehavior by a Hugo administrator with a very big grain of salt.
Let’s start with the first quote – at least the part that we’re not going to prove is libel. The facts matter – So here are some of the facts which relate rather strongly to second quote (which is also a libel –but then very, very powerful people seem to think the truth and honesty is for little people.)
Here is the first fact, easily verified. On the 11th of April 2014 Larry Correia got his notification of being shortlisted from the Hugo Administrators (very honest people, see quote 2) for LonCon 2014, a WorldCon held in the UK. On the same day the UK left-wing newspaper “The Guardian” – more famous for its typos than the quality of its journalism, but still a large newspaper, a reporter called Damien Walters launched a furious tirade at an American author he had never mentioned before (Damian is frequent in his praise singing for Charlie Stross, and more recently Alex Dally McFarlane who writes sometimes for Tor.com to name two people associated with him (Alex one of the few people named as a co-conspirator to the internet troll and bully ‘Requires Hate’ aka Benjanun Sriduankaew some of whose work appeared in a collection edited by Ann Leckie, and also seems a favorite on Tor.com – all these people seem to know or have worked with each other). He accused the author (Larry Correia) of racism, misogyny and all round being a rubbish writer, and evil to boot.
The chances of a ‘hit’ piece, intended to denigrate, on an American populist author with little impact on his British scene, in a publication that tends to Ahrt, are slim. The chance of it happening the very day that the Hugo Nomination shortlist is released, targeting an audience who might possibly go to LonCon, but probably would not have heard of Larry Correia? In other words, to poison minds well before they saw their voter packets…
The chance that this happened purely by accident – about the same as a fully armed nuclear missile turning into a Sperm whale a few seconds before impact.
Let’s get to a second fact. Just the facts. A year later, TNH launched into a furious tirade on her blog, ‘Making Light’… attacking the Sad Puppies for sweeping the Hugo Noms. Threatening to bring down retribution for being nominated. Now coming from such a powerful person in Traditional Publishing, and one with… shall we say wide influence (the links are… telling) this is fairly serious bullying. Abuse of power.
But the important thing is WHEN IT HAPPENED.
It happened BEFORE the embargo was lifted.
These facts lead inexorably to a question so simple and so obvious I can’t see how anyone can miss it asking it:
HOW DID DAMIEN WALTER AND TERESA NIELSEN HAYDEN KNOW LARRY AND THE SAD PUPPIES HAD BEEN NOMINATED WHEN IT WAS EMBARGOED? I can find no definitive public posts from Puppies to this effect. And anyway she knows they’re (quote 1) ‘lying liars who lie’. Why would she believe them?
Obviously you could (and I didn’t – which I am willing to prove) know of your own victory in race to Noms shortlist. If those who did know were co-operative and unethical (remember this, it’s important) they could have told… a sort of ‘eminence grease’ or lowpoint grease, a slimy individual who orchestrated their presence.
BUT HOW DOES _ANYONE ELSE_ KNOW? PARTICULARLY THOSE WHO HATE AND OPPOSE THAT ‘EMINIENCE GREASE’?
I mean even if Vox Day, Brad Torgersen and Larry Correia sent personal messages to TNH… an event as likely as my falling pregnant and giving birth to quintuplet space-octopi, I remind you of quote 1. She tells you she believes them to be liars. And – here’s another fact for you – if they had, they’d have proved to her they aren’t liars.
And secondly: you have worked out that she just libeled Jim Butcher, Kevin Anderson, Charles Gannon, Marko Kloos, John Wright, Rajnar Vajra, Tom Kratman…? I could keep going. Teresa Nielsen Hayden, I am willing to make a sworn disposition, and to have my computer hard-drive examined by an independent expert, including digging through deleted material. They’ll discover no e-mails at all from or to Brad, Vox Day, or Larry or the Hugo administrators prior to the release. The Hugo Administrators had failed to contact me. Accidents happen. But here is another fact for you. I can’t honestly tell someone something I don’t know. I can only prove that link she claims was there, existed only in her projections. But I think an apology is called for, both from TNH and Paul St. John Mackintosh.
To some people a Hugo – for any category, has value. Social value, self-esteem value and according to Kameron Hurley, substantial monetary value.
It has none of the above for me, I am afraid. My self-worth is something I found aged 19 when I was rock-climbing, leading a very hard, dangerous overhanging route at the absolute edge of my ability, 70 feet up facing a certain deck-fall which would probably kill me (and I’d been an army medic for 2 years by then. I’d seen death and pain, blood and broken bones first hand). It required absolute calm, absolute control, every ounce of strength I had, applied correctly… and a level of stupidity rarely matched outside the Darwin Awards. A man only has himself at this time. Only God — and you – can keep you alive. And to make it more dangerous, I had a moment of epiphany, spider-spread, standing on a quarter inch foothold and friction, reaching off my fingertip-hold on my left-hand, muscles screaming… that I had just met the only person I really needed to prove myself to, and had done it. Social value? Huh. Do you think my diving and climbing buddies give a toss? They know me. Do you think my readers do? It’s more likely to put them off than encourage them. And monetary value? Well, the nom hasn’t made any difference at all to my self-pub sales, I can prove that fact, and I’ll bet you ten bucks Toni Weisskopf isn’t going to offer me a raise on my advance for it. There is no motive driving me to extremes for the award.
But there is for others. There is substantial motive and opportunity for some to game the system.
Let’s look at the facts (quote 1 again). Attacking Larry Correia through the Guardian is clearly detrimental to his chances of winning. It’s a clear, unequivocal piece of cheating, of bullying, of abuse of power. So are the Entertainment Weekly and other attacks, but let’s deal with one at a time.
If a member of the Hugo Admin Committee leaked the results to Damien Walter – what motive, and what opportunity do they have to do so? Well… a motive is outside the realms of known facts. I suppose there are various vague possibilities. Irrational hatred, ideology, a beloved author being pushed out – but really, to inform a journalist for these motives, placing their reputation, ethics and quite possibly the future of the award on the line… possible, but very unlikely. It would take a whole new level of stupid, nearly at the rock-climbing level without the reward to do that. And that they would have the opportunity is equally unlikely. Con volunteers MAY have connections to reporters at major publications. Those reporters MAY place enough value on their friendship to take action to oblige them. And I MAY win the Lotto.
It is also worth pointing out that the admin committee changes year on year, and as there is clear evidence of this abuse and corruption for two years in a row, this requires either two stupid, dishonest people (even less likely), or someone involved in both years.
So who else has motive and opportunity?
Obviously: the other nominees had motive. But did they have opportunity? That means contacts with the UK press – so they must know someone in the UK press — willing to write hit pieces to order), and most important HOW DID THEY KNOW that Larry was on the list?
Who ELSE had motive? You could make a viable argument that the editors and backers and loyalists of the other nominees had motive. Some probably have opportunity. But still you hit HOW DID THEY KNOW?
Gentlefolk, there are only two possible answers that don’t take Nostradamus or spirit communications from the future dead Hugo Awardees by Madame Blavatsky. The simplest is that quote 2 is incorrect and someone on the Hugo Administration leaked, possibly to someone with both motive and opportunity (A reporter with a major UK publication, willing to run the hit piece. Perhaps many Americans enjoy this situation, and it’s only the rest of us who don’t. Do tell me if this is the case.). Think about it: for someone to engage in this, not only destroys the credibility of the Hugo Administrators, but also reveals someone willing to try to deprive someone of a chance at the award by underhand means and the abuse of power. That’s going to take a very powerful public purge to clean.
Fortunately for the Hugo Administrators, there IS a second possibility, that leaves their hands clean. It’s a long shot, but there is some supporting circumstantial evidence.
To explain that, I need to go to the Nebula Awards, as issued by SFWA, and some history. I used to be a member of SFWA. I used to get the Nebula nominations notifications. They were fascinating, pre 2010… because they listed the names of those who voted for them.
Guess what?
It was all the same names. Jim got nominated by Joe, Mary, Sally, and Charlie. And Charlie got nominated by Jim, Joe, Mary and Sally. And next year lo and behold! Mary got nominated by… yeah, you guessed it. Jim, Joe, Sally and Charlie. And yes, many of the names now screaming in outrage about the ‘evil’ puppies… are the same names. This is not a lie, or conjecture. It’s a fact. Well known, well established and one you can verify. The process is called log-rolling, it’s incestuous, unfair and a very very poor measure of quality.
I was asked to join in one of these circle-jerks. I had noms for books and stories I’d never read requested. I can honestly say I did not participate. The idea disgusts me. (I wrote a letter to my regional rep, complaining about it, among many abuses. Didn’t get anywhere. Rather like my pointing out there were flaws in the Hugo system years ago…if Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies affronts you, maybe you need to take it up with the people who covered up the abuse of the system, not us. At least we did something.)
Many of the same people won Hugo AND Nebula nomination. They were well connected, very much part of the clique that spent a lot of time talking to each other. This is a fact. There is ample evidence of the same. Strangers did not gain nomination. The power brokers, publishers, editors, agents, even influential reviewers were and probably still are part of this ‘In’ group.
Do you honestly, truly believe that those were ‘the best’?
Do you honestly, truly believe that they behaved one way in SFWA… gained great success with it there… and never ever repeated the same very successful pattern elsewhere? It only took 30-40 votes to get onto the nomination shortlist for the Hugo in some categories.
Really?
REALLY?!
Are you into willful self-deceit, or actually from planet Gullib? We love Gullibilians! Especially around elections.
I’ve heard outrage about how the possible nominees were ‘cheated’ of a place by the slate of recommended books puts up by the Sad and Rabid Puppies. Yet there was no log-rolling, no compulsion of voters. So where is the outrage for those far more numerous possible nominees who were ‘cheated’ of a possible place for so many years…?
….
……..
crickets. The only people who said anything at all, were attacked, ridiculed told it was impossible. Told quote 1 and told quote 2. Yes. Well HOW DID THEY KNOW?
In 2010 they changed the Nebula rules. Did they stop Jim, Joe, Mary, Sally, and Charlie voting for each other?
Well, no.
But they made the names of the voters secret meaning no one could ever know if log-rolling happening and complain about it, or take action to boycott or punish Jim, Joe, Mary, Sally, and Charlie.
Sarc tag/ Now that just had to solve the problem… Sarc off.(on planet Gullib anyway). Their action merely covered it up, protected the guilty.
They also limited the number of noms to 5. Which promptly passed control of noms… to whom?
Do I have to spell it out?
They took the power of nominations from the members, and gave it to those who could concentrate votes on certain people. The power-brokers, the cliques. The people who all know each other, work with each other. They set up a system which has to favor those who collude in secret, with no penalties for doing so. Guys, PLEASE apply logic. There are hundreds, if not thousands of possible novels for any award every year. Ten of thousands of shorts. Normal unbiased selection will favor a few talked about, popular books, and wide scatter. It will not favor obscure works, or those that are very divisive. But those who can deliver a ‘captive’ group of votes (even a small captive group) will win, because those votes will disproportionately affect the natural spread.
Of course…say those from planet Gullib. These wonderful people – who happily engaged in the corrupt practice of log-rolling would NEVER EVER do something so wicked elsewhere. Others, more practical and pragmatic say big conspiracies never succeed. Someone always leaks…
Oh, you mean like giving away they know the outcome even when they lost?
I have a hard time taking it seriously myself. But… short of an “eminence grease” or maybe a half a dozen of them, with a tail of sycophants with no ethics reporting back to them that they’d not got the expected e-mail despite being promised the fix of a secret slate… HOW DID THEY KNOW?
There is a fingerprint to this kind of collusion, this form of secret block-vote to order. You get a bunch of noms in different categories – some of which are vastly unlikely to get many, and all tied together in some way, being for example a known group of friends, or all being from the same publishing house… getting very similar numbers of votes (some would be from genuine uninvolved fans, some recruited by that author) so identical numbers are rare, but low variance is a clue. I’m busy with the laborious process of data entry right now (and I still haven’t finished the last historical analysis). I know Vox Day has done so already, and got some very low variances off the very people who accuse him of lying, but I want to do it from scratch, myself. I’m beginning to suspect, looking at the ‘we all take turns to get it’ up and down of the same names in separate years… that at least some ‘log-rolling’ carried over to here. And therefore it would, remotely, seem plausible that some ‘Eminence Grease’ or a few of them could have known the ‘fix’ was in, and had failed. Meaning that the failure/s had to be an unethical scumbag who knew it was a fix and who was willing to tell the ‘Eminence Grease’ (do you still feel sorry for them losing?). It’s possible. It’s the only other possibility except that someone on Hugo Administration leaked… two years in a row, to people who violently dislike “Sad Puppies”.
Choose what you believe. But it has to be one or the other or both. That is the fact.
This piece is already too long but I do want to mention one other suspicious thing – which points again to quote 1).
Larry Correia got a libelous fact-free attack in 2014 by the Guardian accusing him of racism and sexism and everything short of eating small children for breakfast – a major UK paper. In 2015 Brad Torgersen and Larry and the Sad Puppies got the same ‘racist sexist homophobe’ libelous drivel screeched by Entertainment Weekly (EW) A major US Media outlet, including the gem that the Sad Puppies had had an all male, all white slate – which is of course provably a lie. For no reason at all suddenly newspapers across the world picked up on the drivel… and spread it around. It’s ridiculous to assume this would ‘just happen’. WorldCon SOUNDS a big deal. ‘World’ – but it really is a midget compared DragonCon or ComicCon – in News terms, a few thousand people attend and Hugo noms are a few HUNDRED votes. It’s suburban news. Village news. You know, stuff that can’t make it into the local paper, let alone anything bigger. You, or I could never ever get that report into a local paper never mind major media.
So: How did it get onto major media? You couldn’t get them to touch such a story with a pole. Too small, too irrelevant. We know how it got onto Instapundit. We can see the links and understand the relevance. We know Breitbart could pick it from there.
The Guardian (HOW DID DAMIEN KNOW?) and some cub reporter at EW? Two hit pieces. The cub reporter at EW has no demonstrated links to sf. She is far too junior to be likely to just let such a piece get on line without an editor… approving it, quite possibly spoon-feeding it – because there wasn’t even elementary research done -it was all just the kind of ‘making shit up’ that is all over ‘Making Light’. HOW DID THIS IMPROBABLE EVENT TAKE PLACE, TWO YEARS IN A ROW? How come it is so similar to the attacks on Gamer Gate – buy people attempting a cover-up of corruption with the same accusations even the same ‘co-ordinated’ media attack?
The bowl of petunias knows. It just said ‘Oh no, not again’.
The rest of us raise our sad eyes to Madame Bugblatterfatski and her assistant Nostradumbass to see if they can solve this vast mystery. It couldn’t possibly be covering up abuse of power and to dis-credit the puppies could it? Who would have the motive, and the opportunity (the influence, the contacts) to do this?
Addendum: marsultor13 posted the link to the quote below which is pretty well a smoking gun, so in the interests of keeping all of this in the same place I have included it here. Patrick Nielsen Hayden March 26 2015 8.30 AM quoted from ‘Making light’
* Regarding Best Novel: I’ve heard that three of the five finalists are SP-endorsed. (Which, see above, doesn’t in itself guarantee that any of them are unworthy of a Hugo.) I don’t know what any of those three books are. I do know the identity of the other two, and I don’t think anyone in this conversation will regard them as unworthy candidates. (Disclaimer: Neither of them are books Teresa or I worked on in any way.)
I quote marsultor13
How the fuck did a senior editor at Tor KNOW the 3/5 number wihtout either
1) Being told directly
or
2) Deducing this from the facts that
a) 3 of the 5 nominations didn’t go to the right people
and
b) that there was no group other than the puppies who could have “stolen” those noms.
To which another commentator, jccarlton, added something I’d missed.
Am I the only one who picked up on this from PNH:
” I do know the identity of the other two”
I think he admitted just a little too much.
The non-SP endorsed (as PNH put it) are Ann Leckie published by Orbit US/Orbit UK, and Katherine Addison (Sarah Monette) published by Tor Books. So either they or their editors failed to abide by the embargo.
There is no way PNH is entitled to know of either, and the Orbit (a rival publisher) one suggests to me that DoJ prosecution for publisher/Apple collusion to fix e-book prices (which the parties besides Apple settled) was more than justified.
Test (which I promised at the end)
100%
If you didn’t get this you really really, really need to read it again, with your glasses on.
Mad Genius Club 
338 responses to “Nostradumbass and Madame Bugblatterfatski”
Eminence grise
It’s a joke, Mark, and a reference to Sir Pterry. I make them all the time. I do know how to spell it and where the term comes from 😉
Ah. Some of us were confused, sir, not having had the privilege of reading the noble gentleman. (Not a bad thing, it means some of us still have something to look forward to.) I thought you were satirizing the atrocious Guardian typesetters, myself…
And – bad professor – you didn’t tell us yesterday that there was a TEST today! Ah well, I’ve always been good at pop quizzes…
Sorry, didn’t get the reference. I should really, being a mild fan of his
No worries :-). I’m too obscure for my own good.
And this, more than anything else, Is what has pissed me off. I wasn’t aware of the timing of the guardian hitpiece. But I watched that Making Light thread evolve as a lurker. And it struck me then that the only possible way for PNH (yes not his wife) to KNOW that the puppies had won3/5 best novel noms (without collusion from the Worldcom admin) was due to negative evidence .Hell I posted it on LC’s blog and GRRM’s blog.(though like a complete dumbass I never bothered to post it on my own, (probably because I am both the author and the only reader) In each case, the only way for the “Eminence Grease” to know who had been nominated was to know who was supposed to be nominated and wasn’t.
That in itself is proof of collusion. That PNH had the exact numbers days before the announcement could only come from a direct leak, or the result of negative evidence.
BTW Im talking about this post.
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016177.html#4047197
How the fuck did a senior editor at Tor KNOW the 3/5 number wihtout either
1) Being told directly
or
2) Deducing this from the facts that
a) 3 of the 5 nominations didn’t go to the right people
and
b) that there was no group other than the puppies who could have “stolen” those noms.
So far as I can see, these are the only two logical possibilities.
And BTW point “b” blows GRRM’s “multiple competing cliques” hypothesis out of the water.
This was my feeling, as well, They knew because the people who they expected to be on the ballot weren’t confirming that they were.
Yep
That was the only possibility I could come up with. That or the Worldcon admin are former intelligence agents who have somehow managed to cross over from the parallel universe depicted in “The invention of lying”
Or who were running around asking everyone in their clique if they had made it.
Either way it requires knowing who had not won, and attributing that fact to the puppies. This in itself implies that there was no one else who could have won OTHER than the puppies in light of the Chorf’s loss. You cant determine your enemies won 3 out of 5 spots unless that way the ONLY way your side could have lost 3. If they had even suspected the possibility that a “random” work might have won due to its sheer popularity or merit, they could not have been sure that the puppies were the other 3.
I suppose that this year they could be reading a pattern– if you assume that some social area they’re in usually mimics what the results are, and the stuff with hype were ones that their friends would’ve heard about. (Don’t they suggest people tell their editors?)
But that doesn’t explain last year’s, unless it was some kind of a preemptive strike.
Can we get confirmation from one of the finalists who was contacted that yes, it was permitted for the authors to contact their publishers? Adding that bit would ALSO, I think, help build the case that it was perhaps not just NHs talking ‘mongst themselves, but also talking to other publishers. (Maybe.)
Keranih – “Please note that the list of finalists is embargoed until it is released at noon US Pacific Daylight Time, Saturday, April 4th, so we ask that you not publicize your selection before that time.”
I believe one of the finalists got a second message – I assume on query – that it would be OK to tell his editor UNDER THE SAME CONDITIONS.
So, yes, as the books are not NH books, – one is from Orbit, and PNH says the NH didn’t edit the other, the only way they COULD know is breaching that. But rules are for little people, not the CHORFs
Am I the only one who picked up on this from PNH:
” I do know the identity of the other two”
I think he admitted just a little too much.
You know, I didn’t get that. And I thought I was observant! Well done,that man,
Good point.
Marsultor13 I think I’d like to put this in an addendum – to keep all of this in one post. Are you Okay with being quoted as bringing it to my attention?
Absolutely.
jccarlton -are you OK with me quoting you as spotting this in an addendum to the post above?
Of course. We are either in this together or we all get blasted separately.
Thank you. More evidence. I was unaware of that (I was so divorced from all of this I didn’t even know I was in the running at all, (yeah, durr. I am frequently stupid) so I’m sure there are other other bits I didn’t know of.
OH and BTW dave, I always love a douggie adams reference. Even if he was a big old lefty he could write like an brass plated motherfu**er!
I guess, however, he wasn’t a good enough lefty. One Hugo nomination in 1979 for the radio show…..
Humor never wins awards.
Especially humour which is so well crafted as to appear effortless; labored humour is the only kind they can do.
Neilsen Hayden made the claim that we “knew”, but I don’t know of a single Sad Puppy supporter who mentioned any numbers but what anti-Sad Puppies were saying. In short, she needs to either put up or shut up. Show us where we were using anything but the other side’s claims.
At least one Sad Puppies nominee goofed and announced his nomination early. He was told he wasn’t supposed to reveal anything, so he pulled it with a mea culpa and moved on. Anti-SP forces claim there’s a second, but I didn’t see it so I don’t know. That was hardly enough to piece much of anything together except that those two(?) people were nominated. That’s it.
No, TNH and her ilk knew. They knew specifics that they shouldn’t have known, that they couldn’t have known, without some very specific information that shouldn’t have been available. In theory, the Hugos noms could easily be gamed by a small time writer with a devoted fan following. You may only sell fifty books, but if all fifty of those readers nominate you for the Hugo, then you’re nominated.
They know this. No one had an issue with Scalzi pimping his own work in 2008, after all, so they know that the possibility exists. They know it.
And yet, they saw no issue in claiming Sad Puppies ran the table (we didn’t. Rabid Puppies also showed up, and they’re different than us). They had some oddly specific information that I honestly don’t think they could have gotten on their own.
This also explains why some of them are whining about some authors losing their “deserved” nominations or Hugos to the Sad Puppies. The fix was in — and then spoiled. Those whom things were being fixed in the favor of regarded the nominations as being already their property, paid-for with favors, and feel horribly cheated by losing them.
I heard rumors two weeks before the Hugos, no names or numbers. By a week before, EVERYBODY was talking about it.
BTW, it’s “Damien” and “Rajnar”, not “Ragnar”.
thank you. Fixed. I should have made those notes
Then you’d just have to try to read ’em.
I’ll note we’re in the second wave of attacks now: a second Arthur Chu piece and a second Atlantic piece. I’m guessing we’ll have more as the week goes on.
I don’t expect one from Entertainment Weekly, though. They’re probably still in shock from the response to the last one. 🙂
Anti Sad Puppies hit pieces you may have missed: Wired on Saturday, Gawker, Slate.
The Hugos used to be a whispering campaign. What is currently being conducted is a SCREAMING campaign: howl about racism and evil people invading the Hugos, so voters will come and destroy the Sad Puppy nominees.
Which is where we’re at.
(Yes, I am the evil #GamerGate Daddy Warpig, called out by PNH himself. Apologies for first posting here under these circumstances.)
And you are welcome. The Mad Genius Club is a bit of everything, but we’re not so much gamers (Amanda is the in-house expert on that.)
Thanks for the welcome! And congrats. : )
I’ve read MGC before, just never commented. Got linked to it from Sarah’s blog.
BTW, I quite enjoyed “Pixie Noir”.
(And I am a reader more than a gamer. But I’m fighting for all my passions in this mess.)
Eh. We have gamers among us. Though WeeDave really cuts into my gaming time.
Good gravy, I hope “WeeDave” isn’t a euphemism for your… ehhhh…
No self respecting man would call his…thing, “wee” anything.
WeeDave is his son. [Wink]
Wee Dave is my 11-month-old son, the Bane of My Career and my favorite teeny monster. He loves the bright lights on the front of my desktop, and want to Push All the Buttons, Daddy. He also loooooves pulling power cords out of sockets. Which can be inconvenient, you can imagine.
You do know the trick of setting the good keyboard up above, setting an old unplugged keyboard in front, setting the kid in your lap, and you use the working keyboard while the kid uses the nonworking? A disconnected mouse is also useful.
Also, baby teeth are sharp. Computer cords are bad choices for teething once the first couple teeth are through. Just FYI. (I had Second when Eldest was 19 months old. There were some very scary moments, usually when I was changing or bathing Second.)
We set the Princess up with an old keyboard and a mirror at her “work station” and she thought it was a blast.
Her sister pushed a few buttons, discovered that it had no effect, and the Duchess was displeased.
The Baron just goes for whatever we’re pushing on.
Heh, vaguely OT, but Rune – kitten; Vincent – puppy (I’m sure you remember the photo that earned him that); Damien was the little Dragon and Brandon was our little Dinosaur (because he’d make noises that reminded his Dad of the baby dinosaurs from Jurassic Park)
Theme nicknames are a blast. (And my goodness, does the Duchess live up to her nickname.)
XD It extends to myself and Rhys. I’m ‘his little foxy’ and he’s Daddy Dragon. =3
When my nephew was about three I managed to keep him occupied by starting up my Dad’s old Thinkpad, opening Word and letting him mash the keys. He seemed to enjoy that.
(…and now he’s in his early teens and ridiculously tall. Gah, I’m getting old.)
The cousin I mostly remember from keeping him from eating the neon colored ants in Utah is a Marine, now. And another who was “the baby” is writing impassioned religious essays…in spite of her friends’ disapproval. Now I understand part of why the older cousins always acted strange when I saw them as a teen/young adult.
I have a treasured photo of one of ours at my office desk checking my e-mail – at the age of three. It was snapped by a coworker after she heard “Daddy, you’ve got e-mail.”
We went the discarded keyboard route, and told them upfront that it was for pretend. All sorts of boxes and things were arranged into different “computers” at various times.
At least they never did what a young office visitor did the night I got an urgent call to come in. Seems he saw all the wonderful flashing lights on a PDP-11, and promptly crashed it.
You guys might appreciate a scene in the second Little Fuzzy book. The original books, of course.
I’ve got them somewhere… charming books. 😀
There are Modifications Required. My desk (I stand) is about four inches too short, so I’ll need to rig some kind of platform for it. I’m planning something more-or-less one piece, so the printer and my desktop can fit underneath. The tower is to the side of the desk right now. I have to block it off from Wee Dave (along with the printer, the outlet into which the power strip is plugged, etc.) so he can’t reach any of the interesting bits. I’m – well, I’m not safe, but I’m pretty well set-up. For now. Need to get the surface of the desk and the monitor up higher, though. Making my neck stiff and my wrists hurty.
Not underneath! Unless there’s a door that closes and locks.
Look, the lady’s printer was broken, so she called in Husband. Turned out her toddler had thought inside the printer was a perfect home for a toy octopus–one of those rubbery stretchy things. Printers really don’t like having small objects inserted in them. It was all wrapped around the moving parts and cost two hours of labor to remove.
You know, computer repairs really did leave us with some good stories to tell, didn’t it? (Oh, if any of you are accountants, BACK UP! Offsite, preferably, but just do it!)
@Holly – my youngest brother was very helpful and helped put away all my father’s clean, freshly washed ashtrays as a wee toddler.
We discovered them in the VCR. They fit in there beautifully.
Disabling the power button can help. Does nothing for the power cord or the power switch on the back, but it’s a help.
Oh, you’re going to enjoy that later on. My daughter, when she was three, could be trusted to play my Lineage 2 character for me. All I had to do was say into the headset “daughter taking over, I’ll tank for a while,” for my friends to be alerted and she’d play. I remember holding her in my lap, talking to her and praising her. She got held in place by a spell once and she equipped a bow I had in my inventory, and kept attacking. When the spell ran out, she equipped my dual swords and attacked as normal.
It’s a bit easier to teach my son math via Starcraft. Visuals. =)
No apologies necessary. We’re glad to have you here. And you’re right, the whisper campaign has been acknowledged — and denied very loudly. It seems it is okay to do it that way but how dare we bring it out into the open. What I am hearing more and more of are comments from folks who never gave the Hugs a passing thought, at least not for the last 20 years, and who are now paying a great deal of attention. Why? Because, like SP3, they want to see books they would enjoy reading making the list and winning again.
I’ll be honest, I’d like to see Larry win. Even if we had to kidnap him and hold him incommunicado in a cave somewhere in Chile, so he wouldn’t be able to decline. : )
Then again, that might make him REALLY mad, and I get the feeling that might not be the healthiest of lifestyle choices one could make. I’ll have to settle for voting for some GREAT works that would otherwise be unfairly overlooked.
If only real life were as protean as my imagination…
I figured out a way we can make Mr. Corriea win, but hopefully it won’t be doable for (how old is he? don’t answer that, as it’s not my business) another eighty years or so, and would require some collusion from his heirs. Longer if possible.
After all, if Wheel of Time had won last year, that would’ve been a posthumous win for Mr. Jordan.
Daddy Warpig, if we ever need to snatch Larry it can be arranged. Take him out to a base in Utah or Nevada and let him play with enough explosives and he’ll be laughing too hard to care that there are no neighbors. Mike Kupari can come along as his personal EOD advisor and Range Safety Officer. We can (politely) invite Mrs. Correia and the kids along and it’ll just be a big Family Explosives Camp vacation.
This is a brilliant suggestion. If the SJW’s weren’t so opposed to guns/explosions, they might have thought of it first.
“Family Explosives Camp.”
There’s just got to be a good MHI-type short story or novella in that phrase, just dying to be written.
Just sayin’.
^^Yes. If it didn’t directly piss off Corriea, I’d volunteer for such a mission. I’d love to see him nomed for Grim Noir. Too bad it’s too late for that…
@Daddy Warpig
You don’t want to get Larry upset with you. He might call Cookie Monster…
(If you haven’t yet seen that thread you need to let us know so we can link it immediately)
You don’t want Cookie Monster.
He completely leveled my neighborhood, but it was all Larry’s fault. He never told us to not light the cat on fire.
Totally his fault.
“He never told us to not light the cat on fire”
Don’t you filk? That was the refrain of a popular filk I think written by the redoubtable Leslie Fish the only honorable Leftie (Wobbly) around.
Is this the song?
Yes that’s the one. I thought it was Leslie. I guess Frank Hayes’ disease made me forget him.
Doesn’t matter. Larry didn’t tell us not to, therefore…
(Kind of a long story, that.)
Of Wired, Gawker, and Slate, only the first matters. Slate is one of those places that makes me think of blank eyed bobbleheads. I saw the article while slumming, thought about penning a response, and decided people influenced by allegations about authors and not the quality of their work aren’t worth the time and effort.
If anything, the Slate hatchet job is a perfect illustration of the battle in science fiction between ideology driven “message” fiction, and fiction that’s good. If ideology is the goal, then the personal beliefs of writers matters a great deal. But if good fiction is the goal, a writer’s beliefs doesn’t matter much at all.
Yet what we’re seeing isn’t an attack on a writer’s skill, but their beliefs, or their sex, or the color of their skin, with the unspoken assumption that this matters. This strongly implies those behind such criticisms either assume the general public thinks this way, or that they themselves think this way, or possibly both.
Good to see you here, Daddy Warpig. I listen to GeekGab.
Trust me, you’ll love this crowd. These are your kind of people 🙂
Aw, you should have said hi earlier, Daddy W. You’d like the folks here.
Hi Shadowdancer (hugs) – glad to have you here.
*hugs back*
Folks here are lovely, pleasant company. It helps a lot. I’m doing little bits of work ’round the house and replying to family emails, things like that. If I feel the black pain starting to cloud my vision again, I pop into here or ATH or MHN or Brad’s, read a little, maybe comment – just until I feel steady again. Then back to work I go. Probably do some groceries in a few, since the kiddlywinks had the last of the bread and eggs for lunch (I taught the eldest how to make an omelete.)
I promise I won’t overdo anything.
XOXOXO lady. Do what you need to do. If it feels right, it’s yours to claim. We are here for you.
It’s a wonderful thing to know.
Take it day by day, and remember there are a lot of people here rooting for you.
Thanks. *hug*
Sarc tag/ O woe is us.Sarc off/ These jackasses don’t do maths well do they? if GG had taken over the Hugos, the number of noms would be in the tens of thousands. You’re welcome. Anyone is, if they don’t break the furniture. At which point we introduce them to the door. Sometimes we open it first.
Some friendly advise from one of those mean nasty clearly evil #GG’ers who is also a SFF fan. Arthur Chu is one of your best assets. Treat every statement, every tweet, every half baked editorial from him as a gift to the cause. Spread it far and wide. Because the more people who actually read Arthus Chu’s own words become the more people that support you.
In case those of you in the SFF community have not encountered Arthur Chu before, while by all appearances being among the more clinically insane of the SJW hit men, he is at heart in truth everything they are claiming you are. He is openly racist, misogynistic and is even a brutally documented honest to god rape apologist. His presense in any exchange is pretty much a guaranteed win for the Sad Puppies. When you find someone in doubt just link them David Pakman’s interview with Chu, and Chu’s subsequent public statements regarding it. Chu is so lacking in human empathy and basic decency that it comes through in every word he says. If he is in the “Tororists” tool kit then let it reflect badly on them.
The backlash against the SJW’s has already begun. If I hear that a book is being criticized from certain quarters, or in certain ways, it makes me more likely to seek that work out and plonk down some money, not less. And I know I’m not the only one reacting this way.
It is as important to choose the right enemies as the right friends.
I really need to get the SJW’s to bitch about my book.
Now THAT would help sales. 😀
I firmly believe that TNH or someone directly affiliated with her (either at Tor.com or the media) were the ones orchestrating the media hit job that came out last weekend.
It’s also rather obvious that TNH and elements of Tor (not all of it, but enough) were involved in gaming the Hugos for years.
This isn’t going to end well for TNH and her side.
This can’t be mentioned too often:
John Scalzi has racked up more Hugo nominations in 10 years than Arthur C. Clarke got in 50.
But nope. No backroom politicking there. Nosiree!
Scalzi’s nominations were based on sheer literary merit and (cough) originality. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
In fairness, Clarke was competing against some mighty good authors, such as Asimov, Bradbury, Dickson, Ellison, Farmer, Gunn, Heinlein …
I am not wanting to disparage current authors but there are no such giants in the field today.
I would argue that Neal Stephenson is absolutely a giant. I’d put him up there with any of the greats.
Stephenson has one win and three whole nominations.
My apologies — I forgot this is not the usual venue for my comments even though many of the folks commenting are familiar with me.
ANY time I start a statement with “In fairness” you can be sure my tongue is securely in cheek.
Scalzi is certainly no giant. He’s looking smaller all the time.
I am fairly certain if we track the links we’ll find you are right. And we’ll find the fingerprint of the anti-gamergate corrupt crew there too. It’s the same playbook, same media.
I’ve recently read that Tor books buys something like 160 Worldcon attending memberships per year for its employees. Well gee, ya think that might influence the nominating and voting process just a little bit?
In The Star Beast, Mr. Heinlein had a character say “Everything should be turned upside down once in a while. Let’s in light and air.” It’s beginning to look like the Hugos should have been turned over quite a few years ago.
Now THAT would a useful reference to find! I’ve always suspected it was a factor with the large publishers.
Oooh, do you have a link-source for that?
A year or three back, I think it was here, I suggested that perfectly reasonable employee perks exactly like that might tilt voting.
As I’ve mentioned far too often this year, the reaction was all out of proportion that such a thing was not even vaguely possible.
Confused the heck out of me, since even the US military sometimes does stuff like that.
(My husband went to PAX with the recruiters– it was brilliant, really; they picked folks who thought that going to PAX was awesome, and that means they got PR folks who would relate well to folks that they’re trying to recruit. Even if someone didn’t join up, it’d make them more positive towards the organization… and I can’t believe a group where that’s their actual bread and butter wouldn’t realize the same.)
The claims from the “other side” are nothing but projection and misdirection. Theyve been caught with their hands in the till and are frantically trying to wave the evidence away with bluff and bluster.
What’s that tactic acronym…. deny, accuse, invert…..
Sec.
Ah! DARVO — Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. (H/T CLD/ShadowDancer)
Or, as is more commonly observed: “whatever they’re accusing us of? Probably what they’re doing, especially if we’ve got no clue what they’re talking about.”
It’s a classic abuser tactic, which I mentioned when Clamps decided the best place to spend the holidays was my website and bitching about me on Jordan’s blog.
SJWs use it all the time.
(Also, hi guys, don’t worry about me at the moment. Having food, spending online time with you lovely folks = comforting.)
[Hugs] and good to see you!
The Nielsen-Haydens are very connected to the “correct” side of Fandom. The expected people who should have been getting the call, did not get the call. After half a dozen or more instances of this, all kinds of alarm bells began to go off in the Nielsen-Hayden home.
Oh my God, the Hugos are going off-script!
That the credulous dimwits in the clown car progressive media were called in for one of the field’s all-time sloppiest hit pieces, is just further proof (to me) that the Nielsen-Haydens and their many sympathizers were not only aware of the results before the official release, but instantly invoked GamerGate, so that the media could be brought to bear to crush (in their eyes) the credibility of Sad Puppies 3, and to mortally intimidate the components of the slate. While vilifying myself and Larry Correia in the process.
All of this was straight out of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. They ran that playbook to perfection.
Thankfully the freedom of the internet allows even the little man to punch up at his betters in this field.
Nielsen-Haydens, your fellow travelers, and media goombahs . . . I MOCK YOU! I MOCK YOUR ASININE INCESTUOUS CLUSTERFUCKED LITTLE CULTURE OF DOCTRINAIRE PROGRESSOSEXUAL MEDIOCRITY MASKED AS SUPERIORITY! You are all dolts. You are moral and physical cowards. You are without ethics, without scruples, and if you weren’t so patently pathetic, I’d say you might be dangerous.
Fuck you. Fuck you all. The forces of the progressive pink and poofy Xerxes were met at the Hugo Hot Gates, and repelled by a few brave dudes and dudettes with the stones to stand up to your bullshit.
And remember, folks. Brad is the NICE one on this side of the fence.
Me? I’m not even close to nice.
When Brad is swearing, the situation is dire.
Why did I hear that in a clipped British accent? I always hear Brad in a clipped British accent….maybe it’s because he’s so darned proper.
He is gearing up for a deployment, he could just be thinking in Warrant Officer.
o_o that’s what I was going to say. Oh my Gods and all the little godlings, Brad is furious!
Beware the nice ones, indeed.
Concern Troll: But Brad, if you say things like that, the other side will call you names, insult your family and write nasty articles implying you’re a racist!
Since they’re going to do that anyway….
And that would be different from what’s currently happening how, exactly?
Brad, IMHO you forget the most damning piece of evidence. They could only have known that their losses were Puppies wins if there WERE NO OTHER SIDES, FACTIONS, CLIQUES or whatever you want to call the sides. The loss of side A is only the win of side B if there are only two parties. If there are three or more “factions” than the loss of your own side can only be used as EVIDENCE OF YOUR SIDES LOSS.
This is an excellent point that puts the lie to GRRM’s contention that there were competing factions. Process of elimination only works when there’s only one possibility remaining.
Process of elimination can work with N factions, as long as you can get information from N-1 of them. It’s possible that TNH, after getting word that her picks didn’t get the nod, started contacting the heads of the other cliques – they all know each other – and started putting pieces together.
Hmm I hadn’t thought about inter-clique collusion.
But they are all the same clique, dontchaknow?
Oh, snap, you hit them dead center and blew up their magazine. They had to be certain in advance who they could normally expect to get nominated to react as they did. I didn’t quite see the implications till now.
It’s not good to keep your bad feelings locked up. Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?
You need to work on your swearing Brad. It needs to flow a little better. 😛 Says the guy who swears like a sailor…CONSTANTLY.
Brad said the f-word, holy crap.
I’m typing this from my bunker under the basement stairs.
Shove over. I think the roof just shook.
Okay, just be careful of the keyboard. I’m over deadline.
I brought coffee.. and a casserole…
I thought you were on cookie duty, this week.
It’s ok, I brought lemon tarts. (No grabbing!) 🙂
I’ve got split pea soup and gingersnaps.
*panting from run to bunker* Saw the clouds on my way home from work – glad the wind’s from the other direction. I brought jerky (three kinds, two brands) and hickory-bacon-laced-mac-n-cheese.
Here’s the vodka.
I’m .sure the Finnish ones are much better the Russian variety.
Of course. 😉
You do know that the brewery is rated to withstand a 1.21 Megaton blast, right?
Granted, it’s supposed to be from the inside, but I figure it’ll work well enough the other way. Just be careful what you look at.
Sarah’s hiding from Brad-rage. Need a deeper bunker.
In stark contrast to their priggish behavior, I draw attention to the kindness and encouragement offered by such luminaries as Stanley Schmidt, Mike Resnick, and Allen Cole. It’s not only the great unwashed who cry for a return to the good story-telling you promote in SP3, it’s also the gifted and graced.
And that’s what I wrote about in my review of “Lights in The Dark,” which is on my blog and Amazon.
http://habakkuk21.blogspot.com/2015/04/lights-in-deep-by-brad-torgersen.html
Mike Resnick? the excommunicated from SFWA for badthink Mike Resnick? while John Scalzi, the doubleplus goodthinker presided? (Belatedly trying to fill out my scorecard)
“The forces of the progressive pink and poofy Xerxes were met at the Hugo Hot Gates, and repelled by a few brave dudes and dudettes with the stones to stand up to your bullshit.”
And not only are we all still standing, our ranks are growing. Sasquan is shaping up to look like Salamis.
Or, dare I say it…Dresden?
Madness? THIS. IS. SASQUAN!
(It makes more sense than most of what the puppy haters say)
…holy cow. That really is a 10 hour loop.
That’s pretty much my reaction the first time I ran into it– there’s a similar one for the “They’re taking the Hobbits to Isengard!”
I can’t remember which one it was that my husband and I watched until we were sure they were actually looping it, about 25 minutes in. Mostly they switched the same clips around….
And they didn’t even mention Brad in The Atlantic hit piece. Talk about not doing their homework…
Brad, why don’t you tell us how you really feel…
er maybe not. I think I got the gist of it.
Brad, please stop tip-toeing around the Mulberry bush: Would you just come out and tell us what you think? :–)
Oh that is excellent Brad.
Well the implication of them “knowing” they’d lost also implies they otherwise would have known who was going to win. How’s that? (unless they’d been quite accustomed to log rolling, that is and were more or less assured of a win)
Permit me an observation.
When all this started bubbling up I had never heard of her majesty TNH so naturally I ran a few searches. She is no longer at Tor. While her Wiki still has her as a “consulting” editor, the Tor web site makes no mention of her whatsoever. Hubby is still there, but no T. I also ran across an anonymous post from someone claiming to be at Tor who said TNH had been let go due to her extremist net postings. Anonymous, so take that one with a chunk of rock salt.
After a bit of consideration this makes perfect sense. Tor is a leader in the industry. Hugo nominated and Hugo winner are significant advertising fodder for their primary products. The PTB at Tor would definitely see a need to insulate the company from any whiff of collusion or vote fixing.
Funny what you can find on the net. It does to me at least seem to support an underlying good old boy (in the transgendered sense of course) network of insiders agreeing to make sure that the “right” folks are properly rewarded for their hard efforts. And all the loud and violent attacks against those of us trying to call attention to this questionable activity while they quietly attempt to erase their backtrails is simply further evidence that something about the Hugo process stinks to high Heaven.
She’s been in the authorial news a couple times in the last couple years – from being so outrageous in her bullying as to get kicked off the Absolute Write forums (G-d help you if she was around and you mentioned self-publishing as an option) to no longer having moderator priveledges at boingboing.
http://writeabsolutereviews.blogspot.com/2013/12/from-boing-boing-to-absolute-write-tale.html
The hugo debacle is just another brick in a very large wall.
The people links between RH and Tor.com are rather obvious. It was her fief, and the tactics used are very similar. I think a lot of this rage is 1)losing control of a cherished manor, 2)fear the proles- us – might find out just how they’d been robbed.
I’ve seen bits and pieces of the above elsewhere but this is the first time I’ve seen it all laid out like this.
I want to start compiling a list of the names screaming abuse and for our destruction, and start establishing links. So and so published so-and-so, who gets rave reviews and promo from such-and-such. I was surprised today to find the Ann Leckie/RH/Alex Dally/ Damian Walter connections. I bet that’s the tip of the iceberg. Of course we are often interconnected, but when some of those interconnections are RH…
The Gamer Gate folks have the correct approach, imo. Setup a wiki and document the connections.
http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Main_Page
You could tell the EW reporter didn’t put any more effort than typing (or maybe copypasta’d) it out from the very last sentence – “The winners will be announced in August in Washington”. Which Washington? That sentence leads unknowing reader to believe it would be D.C. If she applied even a little bit of research rather than run with one-sided information (which she admitted after the fact to Larry on twitter), she would have written Spokane, Washington.
Really, more like Creepy Pasta’d
First time commenter here.
“Copypasta’d.”
The Flying Spaghetti Monster (BHNA) shall smite thee for thy blasphemy. With … RAGÚ!
P.S. I did more research on this comment (finding out if that accute accent goes on the ‘U’ in “Ragú”) than the entire staff of EW did for their SP3 propaganda piece.
If she’s from Washington, not the District, then it’s normal…but you’d think an editor would notice that.
)
(I greatly dislike the habit of calling DC “Washington.” We’re Washington.
If she WAS from Washington, she would be exquisitely sensitive to the difference, same as us (Edmonds/Seattle myself), and thus make it specific. She would also be able to spell Spokane and be able to find it on a map.
I’m old enough to remember “The *Other* Washington” tourist ad campaign.
She’d be sensitive to the difference… if she was of a mindset to try to deal with folks who don’t have exactly her head-space.
When I switch from talking to folks that aren’t from Washington (I’m in the SeattleBlob, too– *wave*) I sometimes run into a bit of confusion. My father in law (lives near DC) still isn’t use to it, and his parents have lived here for decades.
DC? Is that short for Damned Capitol? Democratic Corruption? Diseased Center? Domed Cesspool?
District of Columbia.
That’s absurd. If it were what you suggest it would take the abbreviation DoC, enabling callers, Journalists and the like to ask What’s Up?
Res wrote:
“If it were what you suggest it would take the abbreviation DoC, enabling callers, Journalists and the like to ask What’s Up?”
That’s absolutely horrible, and you should be ashamed of yourself for posting it. Bad kangaroo, no biscuit!
I will now, of course, steal it. But everyone remember, it’s RES’s fault, not mine.
Ich bin kein Känguru; Ich bin ein Wallaby.
I learned as a child that the location of Seattle was Washington State.
I had the idea to rename our Capitol to “Obama”, because I didn’t like how we now tend to refer to “Washington” in disparaging terms. George Washington was a decent human being, and a good President as well; it’s a pity I almost want to spit when I say his name.
Unfortunately, I had this idea two years into Obama’s presidency, when he had already lost the House, and when some of the “glow” and whatnot had faded; indeed, if the proposal had been brought up (or even mildly supported) by Republicans at the time, people would have thought that something was up…
Plainly a spoonfed cub, no idea what this was about, copy pasta on orders from some higher editor, from whom I imagine the favor was called due.
Just been reading GRRM’s reply to Larry C (http://grrm.livejournal.com/420090.html) . Its rather long, but the tl:dr version is..
dismiss Larry’s experiences & claims,
fandom is ours and you cant have it,
prove you were attacked or youre an oversensitive fop,
you made up a word,
that might have happened but you have no proof so I dont really care,
are you sure youre not being oversensitive?,
it’s all the internet’s fault,
placating noises.
I expected better tbh, not sure why. I’m really starting to think this is a divide that cant be bridged.
I like to think that GRRM was shocked enough at the death threats and the media libel, as well as the evidence that people were actually attempting to game the system in response – plus pleased enough at LC’s civil response – to be a reluctant ally in future events.
I could be wrong, but please see that I am balancing my optimism wrt GRRM’s response with the sure conviction that we are in for a long haul.
Nah. I’d met him before (twice.) I expected what we got. I have seriously considered — again, not for the first time — walking away from the field this week, when I realized how it has destroyed my faith in humanity.
Please don’t leave.
I’m trying very hard not to.
Please keep writing. There’s always Indie. Worst comes to worst and we could set up an email subscription: you write the book, we send you money, you email it to us.
I don’t have a problem with Baen. Actually it’s shocking to like my publisher and most of my colleagues. It’s just the — spits — luminaries of my field, the ones people outside respect.
If’n they’re supposed to be luminaries they’ve got to stop absorbing all the light.
Actually, I don’t think outside people respect them. I don’t think they even know of them. Maybe we can do some asking around of our non-science fiction fan friends and see? (I know my Mom and her friends haven’t a clue.) I think the only respect they get is the media subject expert sort, and that really doesn’t stick: people don’t remember them past the end of the soundbite.
Dont you dare stop writing! Im working my way through a very long list thanks to discovering you folks, and havent even started on your stuff yet.
The best revenge is living well. Or for a writer, outselling them.
They want those that sell more than they do out, so they can control the message, control the medium.
Your continuing to write what you want to write, and out-selling them, angers them more than anything else you could do.
Which I think is the perfect reason for staying. Well that and enjoying writing good stories of course.
Sarah, if you left the field, where would you go? Mystery?
I’d say don’t leave the field, leave the morons. Succes is the best revenge.
Nah; she’d pull a Butler: keep writing the same stories, and just yell at anyone who dared call them SF/F. 😈
You’re dead right, Steve. But it is exhausting. I know that. Seriously, I don’t catch half the crap Sarah or Brad or Larry do. You guys. This is as near to an order as I give: look after her. Support her. Buy her books, hand sell them to others. We need her (and yeah, we love her too).
SNIFFLE.
…and since listening to the Honey Badger podcast, you even sniffle in Portuguese-accented English.
By which I mean, adorably.
Pfui — as if any other field wouldn’t have, seen up close.
I have no faith in humanity, just certain of its members.
But the sheer amount of backstabbing in this one might be unparalleled. Yeah, I know. Calm the f*ck down and write, Sarah.
i am sure that the Romance Writers’ field has no backstabbing, pettiness or passive-aggressive behaviour and you can write Romance (Isn’t Luce a prototypical Romance leading man?) so that might be an option.
I understand that good fellowship runs so widely in the Mystery Writers’ community that they frequently gather at Richard Castle’s apartment to play poker.
Or maybe the knife fights in SF/F are more visible to you, what with you being on the inside.
Um… No, I meant writing as a whole. I quit those organizations at the same time as SFWA even though reasons varied and that’s what I mean about being bitter.
?? You would dare live with those characters locked up inside your skull?
Well, i s’pose there’s refinishing; customers there never make absurd demands and competitors aren’t prone to bitchiness.
Of course, I doubt you find the same level of fan support for that.
Frankly, the characters are the scary part. If I don’t write dragons soon, those evil people are going to beat a path out of my skull.
Ahem. I might lend ’em a hand…
To me or them?
Which one gets the book written and in my grubby hands?
Hey! Wash your hands before grabbing that book! 😛
Awwww…
*put-upon sigh*
Oooo-kaaay.
May I suggest care package for Sarah to relax with? That might help in getting the book out sooner. *frets about Sarah’s recovery, worries about Foxfier*
accordingtohoyt wrote:
” Frankly, the characters are the scary part. If I don’t write dragons soon, those evil people are going to beat a path out of my skull.”
Now THAT suggests some interesting story ideas …
Titch! Much better if you just stopped reading anything about Hugogate. It’s good for your blood pressure. Plus less less time spent reading online industry politics = more _fiction_ writing. And that’s another good thing.
No, I just realized over the years I have come to heartily dislike most of the celebrities in my field.
Listening to the podcast you did the other day, funny to listen to you in it.
Today. I’ll post a link tomorrow. I SWEAR Draven that inside my head I have a Southern (US) accent.
Now I’m going to attach a southern accent to the voice when I read your posts. 😉
You’ll notice it’s pretty natural.
Still listening… lol its long. Interesting to hear the observations. I say ‘funny’ because I’m now trying to picture your blog entries in your voice.
I tried to attach her real accent to her writing, but doing it realistically slowed my reading speed down to normal speaking speed, so I went back to “female default” in my head again.
Well duhhh … you’ve seen the machinery pushing up their feet of clay and learned the secret of puppy sadness: quality of output does not get rewarded because og how the marketplace is managed.
You think the celebrities in any other field are any more likeable? Your average celebrity is so surrounded by folks smiling and asking for more whenever the celebrity farts that it is almost impossible for the celeb to remain human. The wiser ones know that the media which built them up is as eager to tear them down and thus distrust the praise … but like kings of old (why yes, we are enjoying the Beeb’s Wolf Hall indulgence in costume p0rn) there is no room for trust of any voice.
At least in writing you get the voice of the marketplace (and a slew of us suck-up fankids.)
Yes. Write. Don’t worry about the idiots.
And remember that you’ve got friends that have your back.
That is important, for all of us. Sarah, me, the rest of us sticking our fool necks out. Thank you.
They’d just follow you when they finish chewing up the good thing they’re on now, and you wouldn’t even have those foundations that they can’t eat.
Says the woman who has, on occasion, had the same reaction to some unpleasant cleaning… (Can’t I just LEAVE IT?!?!)
It’s blues, it’ll go. You’ll still be bothered by some of ’em, but that’s just evidence of
your good naturethe better part of your nature. Keep feeding the right wolf.There is always hope good madam.
Have faith in individual humans. Humanity as a group is isn’t worth much.
I’m inclined to agree. But individuals, and small groups, can be awesome (part of the time. Nobody’s perfect all the time…). More often than not they aren’t the ones who end up in the limelight though, especially not on a more or less permanent way. That is something one usually needs to want, and badly enough to be willing to do quite a lot of less savory things for it. So the ones we see more often are presumably also more often examples of the bad – or at the very least of the unpleasant – rather than of the good.
I met him many years ago when we were both guests at a con. I was, er, um, unimpressed, to the point that it was only after the series started that I read GoT. While he was not the biggest, er, rectum, at that con (that went to a magazine person who saw multiple cancellations sent in after the con), it was such that I never bought or read anything of his until the series got me curious. Frankly, I think the producers have done an amazing job and can probably finish it better (and faster).
I haven’t read GoT because I met him before I did. that’s all I’m going to say.
I didn’t because i just have trouble with one of the fundamentals…
I’ve never tried it because I kept running into it on TV Tropes, and not a single example sounded like it was anything better than a Reality TV version of history. (From happening to catch ads for the show, I gather there are dragons, and some kind of beastmen, but that’s still not enough to make me read Real Housewives of the Darkest Ages meets The Sopranos.)
‘Winter is coming, we don’t know exactly when, and we don’t know how long it will be, maybe years” sounds like a recipe for extinction to me.
The series made great bathroom books. That what all the Patterson boys use them for. 15 minutes while in the seated position, then return to reading when nature calls. Lasted about three months for me. But I was not happy when I discovered nothing meaningful was resolved.
🙂 The funny thing is, I had begun to question my memories of him. I’ve been told repeatedly that I am too quick to judge, to harsh in my judgements, have anger issues, and a bad person for putting (mostly self-identified) people out of my life. Re-exposure to him (and those like him) has resulted in a different re-valuation and the thought that I should (metaphorically) throat-punch the next person to hit me with that load of fertilizer.
I was fairly well disposed toward GRRM, based on my first-born’s recommendations. That is, until I read FIVE books and realized he was no closer to tying the pieces together than the first page of the New York phone book is of telling the 8 million stories in the Naked City (a VERY dated reference).
And then I pondered: there never was a big fuss about GRRM until HBO used his works as a vehicle to boost their ratings by showing nekkid wimmin doing all sorts of nasty things.
With the last two books I concluded that GRRM had fallen prey to Farmer’s Syndrome, symptoms of which include meandering plot-lines, madly proliferating characters and “novels” ending not because they were complete but because had become too thick to be continued. Sadly, there is no known therapy that has been found effective against this disease and I expect GRRM will end up writing novels in his PJs.
Im impressed you made it past the second book tbh. I got halfway through that before I realised I was bored stiff.
I liked the first three. The last two were annoying because they focused so much on characters I either cared nothing for or despised (with a few exceptions). I am not going to stop reading because of anything GRRM says, assuming he ever actually finishes his damn books.
But I happily know nothing about the vast majority of writers I read. I am ok with keeping it that way.
I forget when I quit but it was after he killed all of my favorite characters off(Stark).
I gave up on Game of Throne when I saw I could get Feast of Crows out of the library and asked myself if I wanted to.
1- Why does Larry need to prove that people treated him like this? Doesn’t that sort of thing piss people off when, say, a woman claims she was treated badly because of sexism?
2. How has he NOT noticed this kind of discrimination? You have to be blind and deaf not to notice this crap.
The way Larry – and Brad, and yes even Vox have been treated is damn sociapathic. Like they weren’t human. That’s what stirred me up enough to stick my neck out with them. I was seriously not impressed with GRRM.
We’re untermench, don’tcha know
Reblogged this on The Arts Mechanical and commented:
Dave Freer Does a good analysis of the Hugos.
There is no one more outraged than the man who ‘knows’ he has won, because the ‘fix is in’, when they lose.
^^^ This. Very much this. “Dammit, it was MY TURN this year, and these blasted puppies have bunged it up for me!”
BTW, read your 3 books in the “Portals to Infinity” series – much fun, and I’m looking forward to #4!
Well #4 is out there, and I hope you like it. I’m working on the Sequel to my old Children of Steel novel right now (hope to finish it up in May) as there have been a lot of requests for it.
Then either book number five in the POI series will be next on the schedule, or the first one in the spin off that follows his sister (because I want to see more of the wonderful comments about how I don’t like women, etc).
So much work to do this summer 🙂
Write – or read good stuff? Oh, the eternal conundrum!!!
*loopy giggles*
“I would’ve gotten a Hugo, too, if it weren’t for you dang puppies– and your kid, too!”
Well played, madam. Well played.
Foxifer, I laughed a lot. 🙂 And I _needed- that.
“I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for those damned kids and their sad puppy.”
Those meddling kids and the puppies? /mangling Scooby Doo quote
Yep.
I have no idea what the context in the original movie is, but in this context, I laughed *hard*.
This. IMO This.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden & her hubby are nothing but pimps of the publishing world. They are petulant brats that can see their own diminished influence brought about by the ever expanding ebook self-publishing revolution.
If you want to know the precise point of connection between Tor and The Guardian, have a look at VP today. I know you’ll be shocked that a very familiar name appears.
It is iron-clad proof of a Tor-Guardian conspiracy.
Well it explains some of the linkage and suggests much. I don’t think it’s quiet iron clad though (not complaining you understand, just not as sure that the gun is actually smoking with Mrs Toad’s fingerprints on it)
Do those people realize that they are doing all this stuff in public and the internet never forgets?
They’re ‘special’. It doesn’t apply to them.
This. It’s for little people. Not the ubermench.
Somebody should totally do a Torling version of “Clue.”
“It was Teresa in the study with the candlestick….”
“…and to make a long story short.” “TOO LATE!”
There seems to be two threads to all those media reports from the other side. 1. the sad puppies are tied to those “evil gamergaters.” 2. the Hugo awards should be given to “more diverse authors” for “affirmative action.” Seriously? Has THAT been what the Hugo awards been reduced to by the other side? Guilt by association and an affimative action program for undeserving authors.
To answer your I suspect rhetorical question, yes, the Hugos have been exactly that for quite some time now. Which is precisely why Larry and a few others intentionally created Sad Puppies, not to win Hugos for themselves or for friends, but to bring the whole rotten mess into the cold harsh light of day.
Somehow, I get the feeling that they don’t like that very much at all. Their reaction is all so stupid though. It would have been better to just keep quiet about the whole thing and keep working from the background the way they had been. This “Noah Ward” and stupid media smears campaign just makes them look bad for anybody who looks at it.
The most hilarious thing in all of this is that in blaming Ganergate that way, they told Gamergate that the Sad Puppies existed. It’s obvious that they are so deep in the hug box that they failed to realize what invoking Gamergate would do. They may have trained the daily paper reading old timers that “whatever this Gamergaters nonsense is it’s evil, because the paper says so”. But neither the actual paying audience of the video game industry nor the paying and voting customers of the SFF community are those people.
Effectively what the SJW’s did was invite in a loud supportive (if occasionally obscenely languaged) voice in support of the puppies. Oh and bonus, them Gamers do comprise a huge number of avid SF readers, many of whom have just discovered years worth of great new writers and books that they had not yet encountered. Written by nice people that they actually like and wish to support. The SJW’s get their money via Patreon Pimping. With Gamergate we buy your work product, enjoy it and encourage others to do the same. I’m betting a good percentage of the Puppies authors will see an increase in readership thanks to the stupidity of the press.
Eh. My kids are gamers and the young one had to give up f words for Lent in order to break himself of it.
OTOH this is making me turn the air blue, so stay around. Maybe you’ll learn some new words. I can swear in seven languages! (Okay, maybe six, but I SOUND like I’m swearing when I speak German.)
Russian is absolutely wonderful for swearing. The start at mother f… and go on from there.
German is also a good choice, but you have to wait till the end to find out all the verbs. (h/t Mark Twain)
Yes, and now the #SadPuppies hashtag is dominated by the GGs.
Oh? I wonder how many will vote. Haven’t been paying attention, because …
I heartily blame Wu and Chu for Gamergate finding out about Sad Puppies. Well, more Wu, due to that hilarious Twitter meltdown that made people go ‘huh? We did what? What puppies?’
Nice own goal they did there. They couldn’t shift the goalposts fast enough either!
With Gamergate we buy your work product, enjoy it and encourage others to do the same.
That’s what we do, and did, and we writers hope to keep writing stories that people will enjoy.
Let me take this opportunity tell you how much I enjoyed Sparrowind.
I’m very happy that you enjoyed my book! ^o^
I’m putting a copy in my son’s casket, maybe my Dad can read it to my boys.
I’m sure he’s looking forward to it.
Um, yeah…
It’s not about the quality of the writing, it’s about whether the proper boxes have been filled in on the Diversity Checklist.
I tried arguing on a blog about how ‘Diversity’ isn’t an automatic guarantee of good writing. And the responses were… “Well, how do you know it ISN’T?”
*Headdesk*
“Because Sturgeon’s Law has no exceptions.”
Now, 2014 *could* just be someone at WorldCon 2014 had good media connections. Right?
(Rolls Sad-Puppies eyes to the skies, hoping for a sign.)
((Great Big Neon Sign lights up, saying, “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.”))
I’m under the impression media outlets get embargoed press releases all the time. They aren’t supposed to share the contents until after the embargo gets lifted. So, is it possible that said prior media connection could email one current and or former Tor editor, saying, “How does it feel to have only 2 Hugo nominations on this years ballot?”. Naturally, just looking for a quote “in case” an article is going to be run.
I also believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and Truth Will Prevail. Don’t harsh my buzz, man! 🙂
Murgy – the point remains, this isn’t the Oscars. Its a tiny thing where 30 votes can get you a nom. Why would a major media call them up to ask? Without serious ‘lean’ this couldn’t get 2 inchs on page 30 in beyond the blackstump Recorder and Advertiser. And then why wouldn’t they contact the winners?
At some point I hope to see if I can reverse engineer at least some of the voting patterns from the last decade or so of Hugo awards. We do have the code used to do the vote counting available and we have all the reports of winner, 2nd, 3rd etc. breakdowns. I think it should be possible to use that to identify at least some of the ballot ordering and hence whether “coincidentally” a lot of people voted very similarly
In my ample spare time….
I’m thinking about replying to this. I signed up here as a refuge from the shenanigans about the Hugos because I thought we talked about books. And then this arrives.
Do you guys and gals really want me to dissect this and show how false it is? Or should I just slink off and leave you to it? I had thought I’d found some sanity: it appears not.
Worst. Concern trolling. Ever.
You’ll find lot’s of sanity (aka prog-think) over at MakingLight, or Absolute Writes, or File770, or grrm’s livejournal.
If you want free-thinking respectful discussion, on whatever topic, MGC will do quite nicely. These last two weeks have been pretty uproarious in the SciFi world. But did you check out Cedar’s post about books? Or there was one over on Accordingtohoyt the other day.
Why don’t you write up a guest post on books? Tell us what you like, and why. (or why not.) Just be prepared to be disagreed with. (MCG’ers are kind of like that.) 🙂
I hadn’t quite realised what I’d walked into when I followed Cedar’s links to here and signed up for email updates on her posts …
I suspect that a post here might not go down too well, but I’m going to stick around for the fiction discussions.
as in, you’re going to get your ass handed to you on the facts.
yes, exactly.
because ‘not going down well’, by definition, makes us wrongfans and badthinkers.
Go for it.
Paul, we discuss any number of topics that relate to publishing, including the Hugos. If you checked our posts for the last couple of weeks, you would see several discussing the awards. As for your allegation about how false it is, let me ask you this: how false is it for TNH to call Larry and Brad liars? How false is it to note that they were claiming we had prior knowledge about the awards when they were the ones discussing them before the nominations were released? How false was it for them and their media contacts (at least I assume it was their contacts) to claim that the entire SP3 slate was made up of white men and misogynists at that? How false was it for some of them to claim that Brad is a racist, or that any of the rest of us are? How false was it to claim we have been aligned from the start with gamergate when SP3 is the third year of Sad Puppies and GG is less than a year old? How false is it to conflate everything Brad has said and everything SP3 has tried to be with Vox Day just because he was on last year’s slate? (Note, he isn’t on this year’s slate, is not part of SP3 and never has been and, in fact, brought out his own group of nominees that might have had some overlap with SP3 but that is all.) Sorry, but if you come in here and threaten to tell us how false Dave’s post is, you had better be prepared to back up your statements with facts because I guarantee you, folks here have the facts to support our position.
Oh, gosh, Dr. Oldroyd, WOULD you? We’d be evah so grateful to you, massah, since we’uns don’t know nuthin’ ’bout readin’ no books.
“Do you guys and gals really want me to dissect this and show how false it is?”
Well, come on if you think you’re hard enough.
… and Hermione rolls her eyes to the sky again.
It’s quite clear from the information you have laid out that there was insider baseball going on. The people they expected to get the calls didn’t. THEIR side got creamed, and now they claim they don’t have a side. The old ‘illusion of neutrality’ that liberal democracy is so well known for.
Vox is correct that these SJWs are not deserving of any quarter. Even after GRRM ASKED for a debate with Vox, when Vox accepted, GRRM now says he doesn’t want to have a debate. Cowardly BS.
Paul Oldroyd April 13, 2015 at 12:52 pm
Do you guys and gals really want me to dissect this and show how false it is?
oh, PLEASE do.
Is it whack-a-troll Monday again? Already? My doesn’t the time fly.
You do have to admit that at least he was polite in his request for all the rest of us to shut the ef up and run away and hide while our betters continue to run things in their ever so perfect fashion.
And it an equally polite manner, I raise my middle finger in a gesture of friendship and invite him to perform anatomically impossible sexual acts upon his person.
But it’s still LOVE to see him “prove” anything.
“and invite him to perform anatomically impossible sexual acts upon his person.”
With an umbrella. Then open the umbrella.
Yeah, I’d love to see that too. It’s been so long since lunch and it’s chewtoy o’clock.
And since he also politely declined to back up his talk.
Funny, that.
Hey, that umbrella thing is my line. I thought it up all on my own. I really did. I guess great minds think alike.
I’m sorry. Between paypills and this insanity my governor is off.
If this is a case where someone is basically calling around, asking for people to confirm or deny, and just counting the denies versus the demure “No comments,” it would be a procedure with reasonable chance of success.
(People who’d never been nominated wouldn’t know it was supposed to be kept a secret, so they wouldn’t know to say “No comment,” even if they wanted to kid people. I know that I’d never heard that people got a chance to refuse nomination before the announcements. If I had known, I probably would have messed with people on many an April Fool’s Day, when I was young and bad and went to lots of cons.)
But if someone figured out who had or hadn’t been nominated, one would think that one would feel obliged to keep one’s mouth shut about it, in order to protect all the nominees from allegations of bean-spilling. Unless you are on the vote-counting committee, wouldn’t it be true that even hinting that one knows is the same as saying that other people are indiscreet?
But even if nobody is skullduggering and doing bad stuff (Hugo-illegal), and if nobody is canvassing and counting votes by people he knows (legal albeit weird), then the Hugo committee is sending out embargoed press releases and the press is breaking embargo (or is unable to count timezones other than their own); or other non-Hugo organizations are sending out embargoed press releases where somebody doesn’t count timezones correctly.
I’m usually all in favor of blaming the press, myself, but….
I suspect a lot of the problem is that it was Holy Saturday, and a lot of newbie reporters or interns were babysitting a lot of different rags.
Thinking about it further —
You don’t necessarily have to be connected to get press releases and “scoops” looked at. It does help if you’ve worked in that industry or in marketing and PR. Then you know the way the media expects to be contacted, and you can give them what they will want to use.
So baby reporters are probably the only ones working Easter/Passover weekend, and the baby reporters get a plausible press release or some juicy news info; or they go searching Twitter for hashtags and find something hot. Some of them were smart enough to fact check, and those folks didn’t print anything. But some of the baby reporters were too excited for due diligence; and they ran the story, since nobody more experienced was around to stop them.
But yeah, the stories were awfully similar, and yet it doesn’t seem to be a case where they were all riding the same wire story. (If they were, they weren’t doing a good job of it.Though I suppose one could blame baby reporters again.)
Simpler than that: Here’s the playbook.
Yes, they are arrogant enough to freely state their own tactics.
Informative. Also depressing.
But yeah, the stories were awfully similar
It seemed clear that they got a press release of some kind. Some of them did a little tweaking, a little research, etc. Some…didn’t.
“If this is a case where someone is basically calling around, asking for people to confirm or deny, and just counting the denies versus the demure “No comments,” it would be a procedure with reasonable chance of success.”
I’m sorry, Suburbanbanshee, but that is mildly ridiculous. The puppy noms would know if they’d been called. I might even have noticed ;-/. And as for the rest… who would you call? Thousands of people, that’s who. Only the Pups were on a public slate. The rest could be anyone who published last year. Sorry, did not happen. To call anyone to try your trick… you’d have know who to call, which requires a lot more knowledge of who got nomination votes and in what numbers they got them than is honestly plausible.
“Hugo committee is sending out embargoed press releases and the press is breaking embargo (or is unable to count timezones other than their own); or other non-Hugo organizations are sending out embargoed press releases where somebody doesn’t count timezones correctly.”
9 days is not a time zone error.
The straws, I grasp at them.
:-). I kept looking for plausible excuses.
“who would you call? Thousands of people, that’s who.”
That’s exactly the point in contention. If the allegations that it was really a secret slate are true, they would call those on the secret slate. And there would not be thousands of them.
And if they didn’t — how did they know?
[…] a great analysis of some of what has been going on, check out Dave Freer’s post at Mad Genius […]
Oh, you mean like giving away they know the outcome even when they lost?
When this Teresa person posted before the stuff was announced and then started yelling that obviously Larry, etc, had all been talking and knew the results and were cheating by being happy about it (or something)…it was seemed the absolute most likely answer was that:
1. There was a predetermined slate Teresa knew about.
2. Teresa had been talking to her buddies on that slate and they hadn’t received their noms.
3. These were the people who had been ‘cheated’ to her.
4. Thus, she knew SP’s got in. Because nobody else would have beaten their numbers.
Her comments in that ML thread back this up. That’s the theory that makes the absolute most sense, since she is the one who posted early.
But the NEBULA log rolling information is totally new to me so thank you for proving my instincts correct in this matter.
to those of you who think that GRR Martin just ‘stumbled’ into this kerfluffle, i’ll point out that it is common knowledge that he is a self-avowed Socialist who has been attending cons since at least the 70s.
“In the early 1980s, critic and writer Thomas Disch identified Martin as a member of the “Labor Day Group”, writers who regularly congregated at the annual Worldcon,[47] usually held on or around the Labor Day weekend.
…
While attending an East Coast science fiction convention he met his first wife, Gale Burnick; they were married in 1975”
the idea that he and the Haydens do not know each other is laughable.
i’ll leave it to the observer to examine the relative political views of Martin and the Haydens. i’m sure we’re all shocked and amazed that while he pretends to impartiality he SOMEHOW always manages to wind up hectoring the one side and completely ignoring the other.
I could have worded that first post better than I did. But I was astonished by the way that Dave Freer seemed to me to be adding two and two and finding five. Also by the way in which people who I know fairly well – the Loncon Hugo Award Adminsitrators – being accused of advanced leakage of information. I don’t believe they would do that. But I don’t know. I just believe in their integrity.
First of all the things I agree with. The media assassination you’ve had to put up with this week has been appalling. I’ve been talking to Jeffro about how he’s been blanked by people just for being on the the Hugo shortlist. That’s appalling too.
So onto the other stuff.
Fact 1.
I’m somewhat amused to see the Guardian seen as a left-wing paper. It’s more or less centre ground in the UK. And whilst it is known affectionately as the Grauniad because of the quality of its proofing, it does have some good journalism. (I’ve been known to complain about the standard of it’s news reporting: but to some extent that’s a consequence of the 24 hour rolling news coverage we have these days.) It’s certainly well respected, to the extent that the Times and Telegraph are.
Damian Walter is an occasional contributor on SF matters. On 11th April 2014 the Guardian published an article by Walter looking at gender identity. As part of that article he says:
“When author and historian Alex Dally Macfarlane made a call earlier this year for a vision of post-binary gender in SF, her intelligent argument was met with predictably intractable ignorance from conservative sci-fi fans. For writers and fans like Larry Correia, whose virulent attack on MacFarlane was excellently dissected by Jim C Hines, sex is a biological imperative and the idea of gender as a social construct is a damn liberal lie! But Correia boils it down to a much simpler argument. However accurate a queer future might be, SF authors must continue to pander to the bigotry of conservative readers if they want to be “commercial”.”
Now you can argue whether or not Larry’s blog was a virulent attack or not. But it was an aside in the article. It happened to be published on the same day that Larry got the notification of his Hugo nomination. These things happen. And if an aside in an article written by an obscure writer in an obscure article in the Guardian is seen as “a ‘hit’ piece, intended to denigrate, on an American populist author with little impact on his British scene” that will be “targeting an audience who might possibly go to LonCon, but probably would not have heard of Larry Correia?” then I suggest that Dave might have watched too many episodes of the X-files.
Fact 2.
Now I’m looking hard for the post where “TNH launched a furious tirade on her blog, ‘Making Light’… attacking the Sad Puppies for sweeping the Hugo Noms.” I can find a piece by Patrick after the nominations were announced on 4th April, but nothing beforehand. There was a short piece by TNH on 24th March where she explicitly states that she doesn’t have insider information (those Hugo administrators sure hang onto their information) but there’s nothing attacking the Sad Puppies for sweeping the Hugo nominations. So can someone point me to the post Dave is referring to? If not, fact 2 doesn’t stand.
Now I’m getting very confused. What has Paul St. John Mackintosh got to do with fact 2? I’ve read that post which quotes a post by Jason Sanford which suggests that Larry and Brad said things that I don’t think they did …. but I’m starting to get a sense of infinite regression here. It seems that Jason Sanford had information from nominees or acquaintances of nominees that they were nominated. All I can remember from the time is that I picked up from the internet that some nominees had made their nominations public before the official release date, which lends some credence to the suggestion that people may well have know what the ballot was likely to look like earlier than they should have done.
I know nothing of the Nebulas and how they are voted for other than recent blogs from GRRM which suggest that Dave might well be correct in saying that people may well vote for each other. GRRM’s explanation for that was that well of course if you read each others work and like it you tend to vote for it. I don’t know: I’m not involved.
But I come back to Dave’s point: how did they know. Well, TNH says she didn’t (although she suspects other people did) and Damien Walter published an article that happened to mention Larry last year. Come on, the evidence just isn’t there that either person knew anything.
Paul – your willingness to post a civil response like this is commendable. I do not agree with all you have here, but speaking just for myself, thank you for putting it in a reasonable manner.
I do agree that Dave’s post would have been strengthened by a link to the 2014 DW article. Perhaps that could be found and added.
I was aware of the G’s nickname, and to its credit, this week the attack piece on SP was clearly labeled opinion, while the article in the Telegraph was held to be factual news – and as a result was soundly revised.
I might have other comments later. Again, before the blow back starts (hope you packed your asbestos undies) thank you for starting it reasonably.
Umm The Grauniad may be a respected paper, but it definitely is left of centre in the UK. Of course these days the left is more generally considered “centre” but it definitely is labour party supporting (which is left wing).
I think the VD link above with its twitter images suggests how the suspected communication might have happened.
Regarding fact 2, see the earlier link to a comment at ML by PNH also linked above (https://madgeniusclub.com/2015/04/13/nostradumbass-and-madame-bugblatterfatski/#comment-55487 )
Up to this election I think it’s been mainly LibDem supporting, but given the LibDems have self-destructed and are very much seen as being part of the Tory wing (I’m not sure I’d agree with that, but it does appear to be the consensus) the paper does seem to be supporting Labour this time around. Now if Labour was a left wing party I might agree with you that the paper was left wing. Sadly the Labour Party ceased to be a left wing party around 25 years ago. They and the Tory party seem to simply spend time arguing about how many angels can dance on a pin-head. I could wish for a genuinely left wing party to vote for ………
I’ve seen VDs post. And noted that people who are in the SF field talk to people who write about it for newspapers. Well, I don’t think that’s much of a surprise. I think you guys probably talk to each other too. I do think that that across the media in the last week there’s been a tendency to publish without checking facts. Again that’s not unusual. It doesn’t mean that journalists are colluding with anyone: they’re just looking for clickbait. As I said above, the result has been some pretty poor headlines (and articles).
Thanks for the link. I’d been searching for posts and comments by Theresa, not Patrick. You’re right: he does say that he knew the identity of two finalists. As Brad says above, that’s not surprising. Even with an embargo people are going to be excited and tell their nearest and dearest. And that may well get around the professional circles whether it should or not.
Paul,
Please understand that in American politics Cameron would be (barely) to the Right of Obama. Do not make the mistake of thinking the political center holds the same everywhere in the Anglosphere.
OK it’s hard to quibble about the lack of difference in UK political party policy – UKIP excepted, they all seem to be statist beyond belief – but in general terms the Labour party wants to tax and spend more and hews to the general lefty statist orthodoxy that more tax, more government and more government spending is always better while the Conservatives are slightly less keen on this. The lib dems are somewhere in the middle, the greens only want more taxes on energy and the NATs/Plaid Cymru also want independence from England stopping them spending while hoping for English tax money to help them spend
The Grauniad, as far as I can tell, has never met a labour party spending plan it hasn’t agreed with and it is solidly in the same mainstream of political correctness, diversity etc. that means it gives coverage to people that espouse precisely the sort of views that SPs consider have ruined SF by making it dreary message fiction. While the Torygraph and the Times may occasionally publish stuff like that they also publish people who protest all that stuff (as do the mail and the express).
To go back to the more relevant bits of whether or not there were leaks etc. The whole ML thread (started by TNH) that PNH commented on was clearly a pre-emptive wailing and gnashing of teeth that the Puppies had dominated. You can see the groundwork being laid there for the hit pieces that came out once the actual nominations were announced. For example in that thread there is both the deliberate conflating of the Sad and Rabid Puppies and the completely unsupported claims about GamerGate involvement. Guess what practically all the Hugo scandal articles have mentioned? Gamergate and “Vox Day being a racist/sexist/whatever”
Contrariwise I see absolutely no reports on the SP side that any of our noms were successful. The first we knew that Larry had refused his nom was when he blogged it, the first we knew that John C Wright had gaisn so many noms was when we saw the ballot and so on. If the SPs had known this then maybe the Evil League of Evil could have prepared for the obvious assaults and got our message out in a proactive fashion instead of a reactive one.
I suppose left-wing/right wing designations were significant for about 15 minutes during the French Revolution, and maybe to some even now. However, my experience with the Guardian and other Brit papers is limited to reviews which are mean-spirited. I happen to love the British TV series, now on Netflix, ‘Derek,’ with Ricky Gervais. I find his character to be touching, warm, and innocent. But according to the Guardian, Telegraph, and Daily Mail, Derek ranges from ‘not very good’ all the way to “the most rancid dollop of insincere gloop ever served up on telly.” When it comes to matters of taste, there is no benefit to be gained from The Guardian and that ilk.
If you think the Hugos is creating a storm, that’s nothing to what would happen if your comment equating the Guardian with the Mail got out ….. 🙂
Paul — Now I’m looking hard for the post where “TNH launched a furious tirade on her blog, ‘Making Light’… attacking the Sad Puppies for sweeping the Hugo Noms.” I can find a piece by Patrick after the nominations were announced on 4th April, but nothing beforehand. —
Now paul, not paying attention to information posted in comments above your own doesn’t prove that you are a troll, but it certainly isn’t positive.
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/016177.html#4047197
This post is from march 26th in which Patrick Neilsen Hayden knew exactly how many nominations the puppies had won in the best novel category.
But you do have to say that Patrick making a comment is hardly Theresa making an attack on Sad Puppies ……
Trivial strawman nitpick Paul. It completely blew your ‘they didn’t know’ out the water.
You’re either being intentionally obtuse or moving the goalposts, either way I ee no point in conversing with you further.
Look, the remark was “TNH attacked the SPs” – New Guy Paul asked to be shown where that happened. He was pointed at a link where PNH said “SP got all but two novel nominees”.
I agree that the link shows that the NHs did know the contents of the list, BUT one person being caught in admitting to knowing supposedly embargoed information is not the same as an attack by another person.
The trufans are going to do the same thing in poking at our assertions, they’re just going to do it nastier. We should be accurate in all that we put forth.
Short answer: Twitter, because she thinks she can make it disappear down a memory hole when she needs to.
*forehead slap* Yes. And screen caps would be a valuable addition to the piece.
(Thanks for this – I remember seeing nastiness at the beginning, and dismissed it as sound and fury, and then things just kept getting *worse*, until the Tuesday cascade of smear jobs. And then when I went to ML I could not find the quotes from TNH I had seen before. Do hope someone has them.)
Keranih, I thought it was clear that I was posting in response to the claim that PNH had not responded until after the announcements were made. If it was not then I formatted the post badly. I probably should have quoted him more selectively but at the time I misread the section I quoted as one sentence rather than two, and I feel that quoting part of a persons statement is almost always a sign of someone who is not debating in good faith. Had I been a bit more attentive, I would have seen that it was two sentences and only quoted the latter. Thank you for pointing out my mistake.
However given his other responses in this thread I believe my decision not to engage Paul anymore was the right one, as the type of behavior I accused him of is on full display if you take the whole of his comments into account. I have seen comments from you around the puppy-blogs, as I am sure you have seen mine. I think I have made it clear that I have no problem debating in good faith, but I value my time far too much to waste on anyone who is not willing to do the same. And judging from the entirety of his comments here I see absolutely no evidence that paul is debating in good faith.
No, it wasn’t clear that you meant your reply like that, not to me, anyrate.
And I’d be among the last to force you to say anything to anyone you didn’t want to talk to.
Sigh. There are four lights, Paul. No matter how you try and spin it. The LonCon award administrators are your friends and therefore would not, even accidentally let slip information, and you’re really unhappy about that? Well, Cedar and Amanda are my friends – I’ve known them for many years. I’d cheerfully trust either with my life – and I have reason and history to have to have made that judgement often with people -and I’m still alive, so natural selection says I am quite good at it. ;-/. What evidence do you have that we can trust your judgement? This is a generalization, not aimed at you specifically, but people are deceived, Paul. They’re not good at admitting it. Your assessment is no value to me, or most of us. I don’t know you, or them. All I know is either my friends are lying or TNH is libeling them (and me) – as well as Jim Butcher etc. Do you expect us to enjoy that? It’s possible that your friends are straight as die – even though your judgement is shall we say, subjective, as we will display. But if they didn’t leak, well the incestuous cesspool must be more interconnected than you realize.
Let’s start on the judgement thing your ‘fact one – I’m somewhat amused to see the Guardian seen as a left-wing paper. It’s more or less centre ground in the UK.‘
Only in your opinion. It is not one supported by the facts. This is Wikipedia (which is not great source, but in this case contains adequate references). ‘The paper’s readership is generally on the mainstream left of British political opinion: a MORI poll taken between April and June 2000 showed that 80% of Guardian readers were Labour Party voters;[107] according to another MORI poll taken in 2005, 48% of Guardian readers were Labour voters and 34% Liberal Democrat voters.[108] The newspaper’s reputation as a platform for liberal and left-wing opinions has led to the use of the epithet “Guardian reader” as a label for middle-class people holding such views,[109][110] or sometimes as a negative stereotype of such people as middle class, earnest and politically correct.
Former Guardian features editor Ian Katz stated in 2004 that, “…it is no secret we are a centre-left newspaper…”.[1] In 2008, Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley said that editorial contributors were a mix of “right-of-centre libertarians, greens, Blairites, Brownites, Labourite but less enthusiastic Brownites, etc” and that the newspaper was “clearly left of centre and vaguely progressive”. She also said that “you can be absolutely certain that come the next general election, The Guardian’s stance will not be dictated by the editor, still less any foreign proprietor (it helps that there isn’t one) but will be the result of vigorous debate within the paper.”[111] The paper’s comment and opinion pages, though often written by centre-left contributors such as Polly Toynbee, have allowed some space for right-of-centre voices such as Max Hastings and Michael Gove. Since an editorial in 2000, The Guardian has favoured abolition of the British monarchy.[112]
In the run-up to the 2010 general election, following a meeting of the editorial staff,[113] the paper declared its support for the Liberal Democrats, in particular due to the party’s stance on electoral reform. The paper suggested tactical voting to prevent a Conservative victory, given Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system.”
They’re also losing money (and readers) at an amazing speed. Not the hallmark of great, popular journalism to me. (for the record I look in there, the BBC and Torygraph every morning. I do actually know the publication).
As for the rest of your argument. Tell you what, let’s test your faith in ‘these things happen’. I’m a poor working author, wasting working time replying to someone who thinks the Grauniad a quality centrist paper… Here are 365 numbers, randomly shuffled, upside down. One is synonymous with the day the nominees are notified. You draw that one, I’ll give you ten pounds. You draw the wrong one, you give me 10 pounds. We keep going until all the numbers are drawn. Then you will have a lesson in ‘these things happen’ that is is believable. You up for it? Hell, I’ll even offer to let you stop when you draw the right number- we’ll just shuffle in your draw every time. There is a 0.27% – zero point two seven percent of you getting it right. It happens, and as you believe it did then, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble believing it will for you. Come on. Put your money where your mouth is.
Face it, it’s just not plausible. It becomes less plausible with your fact 2. You’re into fantasy numbers here, leaping between the furthest stars,
Fact 2. Your hard looking is fairly feeble. Let’s start with this.
* Regarding Best Novel: I’ve heard that three of the five finalists are SP-endorsed. (Which, see above, doesn’t in itself guarantee that any of them are unworthy of a Hugo.) I don’t know what any of those three books are. I do know the identity of the other two, and I don’t think anyone in this conversation will regard them as unworthy candidates. (Disclaimer: Neither of them are books Teresa or I worked on in any way.) – Patrick Nielsen Hayden, March 26, 8.30 AM.
There is another from TNH but there is only a certain amount of nausea I can put up with in one search.
Jason Sanford has been a vociferous foe of the puppies. Of course they’d all rush and tell him. Oh, he was Nebula nominee. Did you know that? As far as I have been able to establish one Sad Puppy slate nominee, Mike Williamson, put the information up briefly before being told to take it down, it was embargoed. Mad Mike is an old ConGoer with a large personal fandom who are likely to attend cons, even Worldcon. He was not in the novel category – but in ‘best related work’ -where the number of votes to get in was small. Claiming that as a basis for guessing the rest is just so unbelievable as to make the story of Fred’s wife caught with her mouth on Joe’s open fly, claiming she’d just sewed on a button and was biting the thread off seem like the law of gravity. Mackintosh printed the bit accusing us of being sad gits, and used Jason Sanford’s quote to libel us, something you seem to fail to see as relevant. It’s Ok to call us liars who behave unethically, but terrible to even suggest – as one of two possibilities, that it could be your friends.
I am so glad you take GRRM’s word for it. His explanation once again failed to take dates on board. The day a story came out, getting nommed… sorry. Implausible. Check it out if you like. The log-rolling was chronic and endemic. And these are the same people. Who know each other.
don’t forget this quote from David Barnett in 2013
“… if I’d named him I’d have to get a quote … ”
the importance of that being, that Barnett is explicitly stating how he intentionally wrote the story in such a way that the editorial standards board WOULD NOT require him to contact Vox and get the other side of the story.
THAT is how the narrative is constructed.
what Barnett did, was to write the story up in such a way that the article functioned as a gossip sheet, repeating hearsay straight from John Scalzi’s mouth as ‘fact’.
the same John Scalzi who demanded that Vox be expelled from the SFWA in the first place or he wouldn’t renew his membership.
and it’s all perfectly ‘ethical’ ( for definitions of ethical which include ‘lying shit stain’ ) and passes right by the ombudsman.
Okay, first of all, the quality of life improves greatly if you click on Foxfier’s 10 hour “This is SPARTA ” loop while reading through the recent posts.
And second, there is no logic, rule, or facts whatsoever that will break through the prejudices of a member of the inbred elitist clique that essentially attempted to impose classist society over most of the world, and then just quit. This ain’t Tommy Atkins you are dealing with, here; it’s James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan.
Thank you for all of this Dave, you pulled it together nicely, good job.
🙂 glad someone appreciates the work. At least I haven’t had to put up with Larry or Brad’s level of abuse.
I always look forward to your articles dave.
Also by the way in which people who I know fairly well – the Loncon Hugo Award Adminsitrators – being accused of advanced leakage of information.
You might want to read it again; he points out that, given it happening on two different years, it’s very unlikely to have been the Hugo Award Administrators– if there’s even any overlap between the ones for London and Spokane.
He also points out that, were if the awards people in London, they would have had to be deliberately destroying their own credibility.
Are you kidding me? What if I were to write an aside in an article, mentioning that intransigent left-wing bigots, like Paul Oldroyd, whose virulently anti-Semitic rant about Abigail Nussbaum’s thoughtful article on the need for a Jewish renaissance in SF, was skillfully dissected by a noted Israeli blogger. Oldroyd basically denies the Holocaust, but argues that if Jews want to continue to publish in Europe and the UK they need to pander to anti-Semitic left wing narratives …. You wouldn’t call that a hit?
And if it were published in Haaretz or Yahudi wossname, a few days before you were to fly out to a con in Tel Aviv where no-one had ever heard of Oldroyd until this article, you’d be fine with that? Truly?
And just think: if half a dozen internet denizens tweet what I just wrote out of context, and no-one bothered to put it straight, how much fun would that be for you? Have a little empathy.
Walk a mile in Corrieia’s shoes, before you dismiss the wrong done him–and consider what a chilling effect on free speech this kind of behaviour has on fandom.
Paul
As an aspiring writer who should be finishing up things like blurbs, synopsis, etc, I can tell you that what Dave said is true. I’ll let someone with more time find the links, but I was drawn into watching this drama, three days before the nomination announcements, but the attacks on the Puppies at Making Light. Theresa made the comments that Dave said, and it was obvious that folks had some information as to what happened considering the attacks.
Most of what you find here is about the writing. I love what you see most of the time here, and have learned a lot. Once I get my stuff “up”, I’ll have to see about “paying forward”, so to speak. Tell others of my experience.
But, you’ve arrived here at a challenging time. The drama has been nonstop since the nominations, along with GRRM weighing in, and making waves about.
My guess is this will settle down a bit in a couple of weeks. Its up to you whether you want to give things a chance.
Oh, I’m giving things a chance. I like a lot of what I see around here. (Jeffro and Cedar have been very welcoming.) I’ll be following the fiction stuff and trying to keep it separate from the Hugo posts.
It’s too much to hope for that an upper class Brit would show respect to a former South African living in New Zealand.
Er, Flinders Island is part of Australia, not NZ.
Ouch. Looks like I’ll have to add ‘geography’ to my list of things not to think I know about.
“I’m somewhat amused to see the Guardian seen as a left-wing paper. It’s more or less centre ground in the UK.”
Mwahahhahhahhhahhah. English born n bred me. The Graun is the upper crust of Leftist fuckwittery. It’s circulation is low, only beat by the Independent, a Graun wannabe.
Oh fuck. I posted then read the comments above. The man’s deluded. He probably knits yoghurt in a yurt. Organic yoghurt.
in an organic yurt. Gluten and lactose free…
I think I was supposed to cower, Jeff. If only I could read my damn own notes. I think he said something I was supposed to be impressed by. Such generous noble to so condescend to educate the stupid peasants.
I kind of get the feeling that this is at the back of the rage from some of them. They kissed up… wallowed in it. And now their reward for eating all that has been stolen by those evil puppies. And they’d have got away with it if it wasn’t for those puppies and those kids Correia and Torgersen on their lawn.
Now I’m sad. Because nobody told me how to vote, and I’m about as inside a SJW as they come. I heard not a single whisper. I guess I need to tear up my smofs card now.
Rumors of the success of the slate started flying after two nominees leaked, about a week before the ceremony. And if you win a major award, you are quite likely to tell the publisher. Business is business. And if there is buzz about a book being Hugo worthy for months, and you are that author’s editor, and you hear nothing, then yes, you can make intelligent guesses. Because dammit, fans are pretty intelligent.
Guesses, sure. That wasn’t what was being thrown around. No, they knew who got nominated. They knew books outside their publishing house got the nomination. Those aren’t guesses.
And I keep hearing about two people botching things and announcing, but no one has yet to say who the other one is. We know Michael Z. Williamson goofed (and not in a fiction category either), but who is this other? I’ve asked this several places, yet no one has answered it yet.
Cogitionitis I do derive a certain amount of satisfaction when someone attacks me and proves my point for me.
Come on – spit it out. You’re such an ‘inside SJW’ that you would have had to know. Who are you, besides an anonymous poster with delusions of grandeur? Tell us. We’re building a list of the likely insiders. And secondly, why would we believe your unsupported word? We have substantial evidence of SJW lying, smearing and breaking the rules. You’ve just provided us with some more proof of the latter.
1)who are these ‘two nominees’ ? We know of one, in a category that had no bearing whatsoever on the novel category. It’s a category that historically takes very few votes to get on, and said nominee (Mike Williamson) is a regular con-goer, with a substantial fan base, many of whom, logically, are also con-goers. The only ‘intelligent’ guess you can make from that is that using that as basis for telling the future of the novel slate, is that to do so is to prove you’re pretty dim.
2) The Hugo Admin rules on this are explicit. If you inform your publisher/editor, and he/she leaks – they have broken the rules. There’s no ‘special’ category that says ‘it’s OK to break the rules if you’re a CHORF’ or it is ‘business’. We’ve had many documented howls of outrage that the puppies obeyed the rules, did nothing illegal, but it was just… unsporting. Bad form. Not cricket. They must be punished for this. You’ve just confirmed that not only did the CHORF editors break the rules, but you expect them to. And you accept it happily. Because like you, they’re special. And rules are for little people not important SMOFs as you seem to consider yourself to be.
3) Your assertions, cheerfully proving that breaking the rules is normal and perfectly acceptable behavior (if you’re CHORF, God help anyone else) explains how you would know who among your pre-ordained had got the call, and among those, who hadn’t. But how does it explain knowing it was Sad/Rabid puppies noms who had taken the rest? Short of telling me your clique’s chatter of who was ‘award worthy’ were actually the only possible nominees, and that this had happened often enough for you to accept this insane idea as true, your assertion is drivel. And if your clique’s chatter of ‘worthy’ and those being the nominees in previous years is correct, you prove Insider clique assertions far better than I ever could.
4)Where were these ‘rumors flying’? Find me a pro-puppy site and quote it. We didn’t know. We didn’t leak. We didn’t break the rules. But somehow you knew it was the puppies? The only way you could was if you knew who you expected, (and no-one but the ‘expected’ had a chance, including authors of the stature of Sir Terry Pratchett) and knew they hadn’t got the call (which, btw, is an admission that you expect your chosen dahlings and their editors to flagrantly break the rules, every time).
There are indeed some intelligent fans. There are honorable, honest, decent fans. It would seem on the basis of the evidence that not all CHORFs have those characteristics.
I think the whole log rolling thing in SFWA AND the Hugos explains why a certain author who was at the spearhead of the Jonathan Ross vitriol and doxing of Ross’s daughter online last year was ‘inconsolable’ about being nudged off of the nomination list this year after a six year run. Said author also has major links to the NH couple, and the whisper of a rumor that PNH masterminded the whole doxing thing of Ross’ daughter because they couldn’t get to him was something I heard along the grapevine as well. Can’t give you facts, alas, at this time, and am too out of the mainstream SF professional channels to care, but the professional backchatter has been…enlightening to say the least. Thank you Dave for a most illuminating blog post and factual information. While I can believe the integrity of the Hugo Administration of the various worldcons over the years, some of my worst suspicions have been more or less confirmed about the cool kids repeatedly voting each other in and around a rarefied nomination list ad nauseum. So glad to be out of it now…
Someone was inconsolable because they didn’t get nominated for an award?
Hell, *I* didn’t get nominated either. You don’t see me crying about it.
Gah. That’s revolting. You only get to the level of being happy to attack people’s children, destroy their careers, ruin reputations when you consider ‘those bad people getting in my way’ as not entirely human. I’d be pleased to give the Hugo admin a pass, but fairness did mean presenting them as either/or suspects. Given the utter rotteness that seems to ooze out of the ‘other suspects’ it seems increasingly obvious that ‘other suspects’ will let the administrators carry the can of suspicion, rather than admit guilt. There is no honor in them.
Show us on the doll where the bad tentacles touched you..
[…] the nominations were even made public, one editor announced that the Puppies supported slates had managed to land three of the five slots f… […]
[…] unacceptable and deserving any abuse anyone feels like – in the same post as being completely unconcerned about giving away that he knew the names of the non-puppies Novel noms, and that the puppies had got three novel noms. That’s breaking the rules, the people […]
[…] unacceptable and deserving any abuse anyone feels like – in the same post as being completely unconcerned about giving away that he knew the names of the non-puppies Novel noms, and that the puppies had got three novel noms. That’s breaking the rules, the people […]