Or if you’re going to push a pendulum, either pick on a light-weight one (ie. not Larry Correia), or not nasty sharp spiky ones (ie. not Vox Day) or don’t push it very far. Because it surely will swing back to whack you against the side of the head.
http://io9.com/announcing-the-2014-hugo-award-nominees-1565144494
All hail the International Lord of Hate. The cries of ‘Racist, Sexist, Evul LGBTBPN hater’ must be sweet music to your ears 😉
And to think I actually thought Larry was being a bit conspiracy theorist about Damian Walter and his loser attempt at character assassination in a UK rag, putting it down to possible happenstance. I was wrong, I admit that, and apologize. The evidence strongly suggests there’s a dishonest snitch in the inner circle of LonCons’s Hugo crew, who was trying to poison the well. Cons sadly no longer draw from as broad a spectrum of society as they did, and the sort of person who reads, and — heaven help us — takes the Grauniad drivel seriously are likely to be numerous at LonCon.
For more here is the MHI link. I gather the internets are a-throb with lots of butt-hurt – from all the usual suspects — those who have been relentless in their kissing up to powers-that-be in traditional publishing/arts circles. Yes, we know, that was the only way into publishing barring pure luck and lots of talent, and you were right out of luck, and somehow not picked up on talent (strange. But then one man’s talent is another woman’s drekk). But it’s over now and you can compete just as if there was no PC barrier. How is the change working out for you guys? Believing in it yet? The funniest part was some wobbly lip squalling about ‘speaking-truth-to-power’ about these bad noms. Yeah, I kid you not. For years their dahlings have engaged in overt lobbying a la John Scalzi. No one said boo (baring a few guys like me who said ‘this will end in tears’) because near-absolute power and its friends are allowed to be corrupt. Only now Traditional publishing — on the far left side of the political spectrum — finds its power and influence disappearing. Anyway, moral of the story — the tide always changes, and probably will again one day. I think a Fox News lesson lies in this – to my jaudiced eye the MSM in the US became so obsessed with being a left-wing propaganda tool and indoctrinating with their version of what people ought to think that they lost sight of what they needed to do. Actual news, actual entertainment became secondary if not tertiary. And lo, along came an upstart with a different point of view, and they’re now many times bigger than the old powers. If they go the same direction, or at least too far in it, they’ll have same happen to them.
It’s worth noting that all the squallers – including a TOR editor – have made no comment about the other very corrupt and unfair area: interested parties being able to vote for books/works in which they have a material interest. Just the staff and authors beholden to Tor, for example, are quite large enough in number to successfully get a book/story nominated, and seriously compromise the final voting. Joe’s One-man-and-one-book Publisher have no such shoo-in voting block. But as it’s working for them right now, they’re keeping schtumm. Fine. But don’t whine (as you’re busy doing now about lobbying – which you and your friendies engaged in for years without once complaining) when someone else does it to you. Like voting ‘No award’ as a spoiler, it’ll come back to bite you. Judge the books as fairly as you can and you won’t go wrong, because even if you can’t manipulate the awards – as I firmly believe has been done in the past — at least it can’t be done to you. Apply the dirty reality test – yeah I know. That about writes most of them off, except the ILH. Maybe traditional publishing ought to try harder. Take books because they are good, not preaching ideology.
It’s something we’ve preached a lot here on MGC Story first. Entertainment first. If the Hugo Awards got reformed, made a serious effort to find the best sf/fantasy — most of the squallers (including those who seem to think character assassination of competitors is ethical. Kudos to Larry, who did not. I can’t say the same about the usual suspects.) have about as much chance as me. And I have none. I’d love to read ‘the best’, but the Awards process has not provided a clue to what it was for a long time.
I’m off to Conclave II on Wednesday, and frantically trying to finish my edit of the latest Heirs book to send to Eric. So alas, my loves, I must go and leave you, this morning’s tempest I have to cross…
Mad Genius Club 
29 responses to “As you sow, so you shall reap”
In younger years I would have furiously attacked a TOR editor who railed against the noble effort to End Puppy Sadness…even as her own house released a list of their nominees for their fans to vote for…now I must simply laugh at such a deluded harridan.
Good luck to all of the International Lord of Hate’s slate.
Oh yes. It’s just fine when TOR skews the field, gives away nominees books, solicits votes, uses their company size to bias to their chosen dahlings. Just as it was just fine when the big 5 used their size and dominant position to dictate that authors should be screwed and readers ripped off by being charged a specific price (large) for e-books. But when Amazon did the same to them it was EVUL. Probably racist. And sexist. And LGBTBBPN haters. I expect to hear they’re funded by big oil next.
Congrats to Larry– he deserves it.
Yep. I hope he gets it.
It’ll probably be Wheel of Time or Ancillary Justice, but it’s good just to see him nominated.
I’m sorry but WoT -as a series, vs other single book entrants, or other books not considered because they are part of a series simply shouldn’t be there. If you want an even playing field, put up the last book only (which is IMO better than many of the others) Therefore, I, personally would not vote for it.
Shouldn’t be there: agreed (though apparently within the rules?), but given that it is, it’s going to be hard to beat.
“Shouldn’t be there” in the sense that I think that rule isn’t a good one, and that it shouldn’t be competing with stand-alone novels, not in the sense that it should be kicked off the ballot. If it’s within the rules as currently written, it should stay.
There should be an award category explicitly for series or other longer-than-novel-form works. There certainly are a lot of them, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to honor a writer for maintaining quality (or at least a fan base) over many volumes.
“it’s going to be hard to beat.”
It’s got my vote, certainly. I love me some WoT.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Larry’s stuff too. I just love WoT more. 🙂
[…] There are several other really good takes on what’s happening. One is from Dave Freer at Mad Genius Club. Another is by Cedar Sanderson at Cedar Writes. Then you have Larry Correia’s initial […]
Anyone else find it most amusing that these people are complaining about turning what is in effect a popularity contest into . . . a popularity contest? It’s also interesting that these folks have so much spare time on their hands to get so wound up and comment all over the place. *shrug* I’ve got a novel to write, lectures to plan, and mischief to manage.
(lip wobble) but, but, but… only OUR special cool kids are _allowed_ to be popular. It’s not fair. Mummy! It’s not fair! And I’ll take my ball away! Yes, writing has obviously not been their route to success, politicking takes precedence.
I think I’ll go dig out my copy of the very _first_ “Hugo” winner (1957): Alfred Bester’s “The Demolished Man.” There, I submit, is a _story_! (Even got cis-males in it!)
Years ago, I read something to the effect that “Disputes in academic circles are so vicious because the stakes are so small.” Might that be the case here?
I’m sure that Toni Weisskopf and Larry Correia would be glad to accept the award, but they’ll not get all bent out of shape if they don’t… they’ll probably just smile… all the way to the bank.
Ben Hartley
(I write it, I sign it)
Which is why I always post under my own name 🙂
Yaknow you’re a great author when a generation later, a SF television show names an evil telepath after you and casts a Star Trek alumnus to play the role.
And talk about an awesome bad guy. You just had to love him (or at least, I did). 🙂
Pretty much all the “revolutionary” sexual concepts which the psuedo-brilliant pseudo-young pseudo-radicals of today are trumpeting entered science fiction in the 1950’s and early 1960’s.. And were often done better in those Silver Age stories, as well.
DEMOLISHED MAN won in 1953. But yeah, I think they’re already smiling.
Thanks you! That post was from my admittedly faulty memory.
Ben Hartley
If I didn’t have a signed first edition I caught “in the wild” in a thrift store many years ago, that I occasionally gloat over somewhat like Gollum does with his jewelry, I might not remember the exact date either. 🙂
Don’t be shy, Dave. Tell us what you really feel… (runs and hides)
Nope. I do my best to be as gentle and generous as possible. Which some people foolishly think is as far as I could go ;-/ I can be acerbic enough to buckle hull metal, but I usually feel like Godzilla dealing with a kid that stuck its tongue out at me. If I really got nasty someone crossed the final line – which usually involves beating up some decent individual just because they have the power and think they’re safe to do so, like our dear little friend Cora-dorable.
I kind of figured as much – my reaction when I saw this was “holy crap, they’ve finally crossed the line. They’re doomed”. Followed by the biggest shit-eating grin ever.
As I pointed out somewhere on FB, if they want the “No Award” thing to work they need to get rather a lot of people to actually care enough to vote. I would be extremely unsurprised if the Int’l Lord of Hate slate ends up getting more votes than “No award”, which then in turn gets mroe botes than anything else. If that occurs it will be funny
Honestly, I don’t think anyone’s more surprised than Larry about this year’s nominees.
You know it’s bad when Dr. Monkey chimes in that someone is being, well, pretty ridiculous.
I’m not complaining about the Wheel of Time nomination. I paid my $43.58 as a supporting member and I’ll receive all 14 ebooks to review prior to the vote. Plus I get (another) copy of Warbound! And those other books, novella, novellites, short stories, etc.
I wasn’t very impressed with last year’s nominees. Even Lois McMaster Bujold’s latest entry into the Vorkosigan Saga wasn’t one of her best efforts (though very enjoyable). It was by far the best of the nominees.
Red Shirts was average fan fiction (and edited about as well). I’ve read better self-published zombie books on Amazon. Honestly, it reminded me of the first book in the Slow Burn series and Bobby Adair has shown considerable improvement with each new book. Scalzi’s getting worse.
Hey Dave,
why do you hate Larry Cooriea so much
were sexually abuse as a child?
Dear Tom Dick – Were you blind drunk, suffering from concussion when you made this comment or just born stupid? I was neither abused nor do I hate Larry Corriea. Perhaps you have a reading or comprehension problem. Do not make it my problem ever again or I’ll carefully explain to you twice in small words so you can grasp it, what an idiot you are.