Dear SJW's: We Sad Puppies CAN'T Repent

The 2016 Hugo Awards season is beginning to kick into gear -- and as you might expect, those of us who backed the Sad Puppies in last year's contest have begun receiving a slew of ludicrous demands and baseless accusations. Renounce Vox or admit you're his lackeys! Apologize for breaking our unspoken "rules" and distorting the "natural" vote! And while you're at it, repent and debase yourselves for locking out Andy Weir!

I'm sorry, folks, but we won't do what you ask.

Let's dispatch the final complaint first: The fact that Weir did not make the ballot last year was due to an unintentional error on our part. We were told he was ineligible for Best Novel last year because The Martian was originally self-published before the eligibility window, and we assumed - mistakenly, as it turned out - that this ineligibility extended to the Campbell as well. Geez, we're sorry we're new to the process! Excuse my French, but are you this shitty to all the newbies who are just hopping onto your learning curve?

Here's the truth: We all love Weir. We thought his novel was amazing. (For representative samples of our enthusiasm, see my review here and a Sad Puppy-generated list of great hard SF here.)  And this is just a hunch on my part, but since we know now that Weir remains eligible for a Campbell, I suspect he will not be left off this year's Sad Puppy recommendation list. So please - please - put a sock in it.

Regarding the second complaint, we won't apologize for our "slate" either, for four very simple reasons:

Number one, we've already acknowledged that the pool from which last year's recommendations were pulled was not as representative as it could've been, and we're already trying to cast a wider net when it comes to creating this year's list. Kate's site is open to everyone and is 100% transparent.

Number two, we had no idea last year's list would be that successful. The numbers for Sad Puppies I and Sad Puppies II simply did not presage what would happen with Sad Puppies III. We didn't bank on the Vile Faceless Minions getting involved, and we underestimated the enthusiasm within our own ranks.

Number three, Brad Torgersen may have called our list a "slate," but it was not deliberately designed to function in that manner. From the get-go, we Sad Puppies were encouraged to read the suggested works (hence the book bombs) and vote our conscience, and based on the numbers, most of us did. That's why Chuck Gannon's Trial By Fire did not make the ballot despite being featured on our list (which made me sad, by the way, but I suppose not enough of our group was able to read Chuck's novel in time). Yes: Vox may have encouraged people to vote a slate, and he did in fact appropriate much of our list, but the Rabid Puppies campaign was not our circus and not our monkeys. Stop mixing us up.  

Lastly - and most importantly - there is no such thing as a "natural vote." This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions that under-girds our opposition's argument: the idea that, before we philistines got involved, the Hugos highlighted works that were genuinely the best in the field -- which were selected by a group of high-minded, pure, and totally impartial fans. Ha. Ha ha. And again: ha. Do you know how many works of science fiction are published in a typical year? Many thousands. There is no one on God's green earth who is capable of reading them all. In reality, modern fandom (like any other large group of human beings) has always had its aristoi -- in this case, a small group of influential bloggers, reviewers, publishers, and magazine editors that routinely has an outsized impact, intentional or not, on what gets the hype and what doesn't. The only thing that's changed here is that some "politically objectionable" people have proven themselves to be a part of that aristoi and have decided not to play pretend. My suggestion? Make peace with the fact that factions will forever be with us. Man is inherently a political animal. Instead of denying this state of affairs, try to manage its effects by increasing overall participation on both ends of the Hugo process.

Now about Vox Day: We get it. You think he's Evil Incarnate and should be run out of fandom on a rail. But do you want to know a secret? Most of us don't like him either! And honestly, we don't understand your confusion; quite a few of us are on record stating that we do not share Vox's goals for the Hugo or his Alt Right views. Renounce him? We can't renounce something that's not our fault to begin with; as I noted above, we didn't ask Vox to steal our idea and use it to his own advantage. To reiterate: Not our circus, not our monkeys. In our view, the only person who should be held responsible for Vox's activities is Vox himself.  

And that brings me to some additional - and more philosophical - reasons why the Sad Puppies can't blacklist the Great Fannish Satan. First of all, personal responsibility is one of our lodestones. We don't believe authors or editors should be held to account for the views or actions of their fans because we don't believe anyone should be held to account for something they didn't personally do. We absolutely refuse to accept Cultural Marxist notions of collective guilt. The fact that Vox likes a particular writer does not and should not tar that writer for all eternity. This is classic argumentum ad hominem, and we won't accept such a fallacious line of reasoning no matter how many times you try to bully us into doing so.

Secondly, we are, to a man, cultural libertarians, and as such, we believe that having a political opinion - even a wrong and offensive opinion - is not in itself a crime and should not have any bearing on how we judge the quality of a person's work. Folks might object to my "not our circus" claim by pointing out, correctly, that Larry Correia put Vox on his list for Sad Puppies II. But this was not an actual endorsement of Vox's personal views. Larry was, admittedly, testing World Con's supposed commitment to "tolerance," but he and his fans also sincerely liked Vox's writing regardless of what they thought of the man himself. Speaking for myself, I didn't nominate Vox's story, but I did read it in the voter packet and concluded that Vox's detractors were likely allowing their personal antipathy to color their judgment. Failing to separate the author from the story? As far as the Sad Puppies are concerned, that is something we should all try to avoid.  

Another Link of Interest: Fisking Wired

The hit pieces never stop. This time, a writer at Wired has jumped on the Puppy Kicker bandwagon and dutifully repeated the SFF establishment's distortions and outright lies. Fortunately, "Dystopic" has already fisked this nonsense so we don't have to:

Pop Culture Has No Soul: Deconstructing the Puppy Kickers

A few of my favorite quotes:

Amy explains that “activists” were angry because characters were gay, or women, or aliens. What kind of nonsense is this? I am a participant in a number of forums and locales on the Internet where Sad and Rabid Puppies discuss authors, characters and books. Many of them (probably the majority) are fans of David Weber, whose penultimate Honor Harrington series is centered around a woman. His Safehold series features a transgender (a woman who became a man) as Merlin, arguably the most important character of the series. The Raj Whitehall series by S.M. Stirling and David Drake features two gay protagonists in the service of the titular Raj Whitehall. Sarah Hoyt (a female author and Sad Puppy, by the way) has a major gay character in her Darkship series.

And in Torgersen's The Chaplain's War, the lead female is a North African Copt. As I remarked in my short post on Baen, the books we Pups like are lousy with "diverse" characters and strong women. Unfortunately, said characters don't fit the narrow political "types" these SJW's seek. Instead, they are flesh-and-blood individuals -- and competent ones at that.

Moving on:

What we insist is that diversity is irrelevant. It’s the story that matters. If you want to tell your story with a bunch of Norwegian Men who are whiter than a polar bear in a snowstorm, go ahead. If you want to have a cast of Gay Jewish Black Transgender Lesbians, nobody is stopping you. Write your story, and make it good.

Actually, there is a sort of diversity that actually does matter: diversity of thought. This, however, is something the radical fannish left is busily trying to squelch.

And speaking of the left's power:

Tor is run by Leftists like PNH and Irene Gallo. The media is sympathetic to your point of view. When a Black man is killed by a White cop, everybody notices. When the reverse happens (and it HAS happened), nobody even bats an eyelash. It’s #BlackLivesMatter not #StopPoliceBrutality or something else neutral. It is about how many gay authors get nominated, or how many Black authors get nominated, not whether or not any of the works are good. 

White men are more likely to get published? By who? Amy, your side controls all SciFi publishers except Baen and Castalia. Indeed, it’s Indie publishing and Amazon that aspiring White male authors like myself often have to go to, because we all know that PNH would chuck our work into the garbage can the second he picked up a whiff of non-Progressive thought in it. 

You keep thinking that we are “The Man.” Here’s a newsflash for you, Amy: YOU ARE “THE MAN.” 

DC Comics bows to your wishes. Hollywood is famous for being Left-leaning. Even Politico acknowledges that the media is 95% Liberal. Your side has all the power. We don’t have privilege, and we haven’t for decades. 

You call us the oppressors. You project your own actions onto us.

OORAH. This is telling it like it is. Privilege is multivariate -- and in the world of fandom, it is not we Pups who possess it.

At any rate, there's plenty more at the link. Go and read. Meanwhile, I will start working on an essay for next week explaining why N.K. Jemison's definition of science fiction as "the literature of the present, viewing the future as allegory" is, at best, only twenty percent correct. Boy, do I have a lot to say on that one! 

Challenging Comfortable Fictions, Part II: The Question of Quality

For those who might have missed it, here is the link to Part I, in which I question the "privilege" narrative.

I'm back!

I apologize for the unplanned four month hiatus. Life - and then a bout of depression - intervened, making it very difficult for me to sit down and convert my thoughts to pixels.

While I was away, of course, the Great Hugo Controversy of 2015 reached its climax at an awards ceremony in which the assorted Puppies were not-so-subtly mocked and five categories were burned to the ground. This result, I feel, was all too inevitable; pockets of niceness aside, modern-day Fandom can be a very unpleasant place for folks of my philosophical bent. I've been an "active," con-going fan since the early oughts, and if I had a nickel for every occasion in which other fans unthinkingly "hit" me simply because they presumed everyone present thought the same way, I'd be a millionaire. "Christians are douchenozzles!" is not an appropriate utterance when discussing the merits of, say, Harry Potter, but that has never stopped anyone from airing their personal prejudices against me and mine. (And yes, while the Puppy lists included authors with many different political persuasions, I'm pretty confident the Puppy voters tend to be rightist in their sentiments.)

But let me turn now to the main purpose of this post, which is to pick up where I left off months ago in my take down of the Dominant Spin. I promised back then that I would next tackle the question of "quality," and now seems as good a time as any, especially since several anti-Puppy commentators, in the process of running their victory laps, have chided us for voting for works that "sucked." "Learn to write better," they say, "and maybe you'll have better luck next time."

In order to respond to this charge, we have to understand what the AP's consider to be "good" science fiction, and I don't think it simply boils down to politics. To be sure, much of their rhetoric emphasizes the goals of so-called "social justice" when it, for example, demands an end to "the binary gender default" or insists that we refrain from reading works by "straight, white, cis-male" authors. But based on my analysis of the stories that have captivated the AP's over the past few years - not to mention their complaints regarding some of the works that we SP's consider meritorious - I would also argue for the importance of innovation and poetic prose in their critical mind-space.

An AP respondent on Larry Correia's blog once stated, quite tellingly, that in a race between a work by a widely popular author (like, for example, Larry himself) and a work by, say, China Miéville, he would always put aside his personal feelings regarding which work was more enjoyable and vote for Miéville because the latter stretches boundaries that the former does not. Similarly, I have seen at least one AP remark that Jim Butcher's Skin Game is the literary equivalent of a box of chicken nuggets. To paraphrase: "It's fun, but in the end, it's not exactly "good for you" -- and just as no one would consider giving Mickey D's a Michelin Star, no one should consider giving Butcher a Hugo." Underlying both of these sentiments is the assumption that "ground-breaking" automatically means "better." It doesn't.

When we SP's read comments like those described above, we make a sound roughly equivalent to someone barfing up three feet of intestine -- and to be quite frank, we have just cause for doing so. Number one, science fiction is genre fiction. It is meant to be written for and consumed by popular audiences, not approached like an hor d'ouvres at the Inn at Little Washington. Does this mean science fiction can't absorb new ideas, new modes of expression, or new points of view? Of course not -- but it does mean that, past a certain point, innovation for the sake of innovation will alienate your likely audience, who will pick up your story or your novel expecting that the few basic rules of the genre will be followed. Number two, we have seen how, in its quest to be "new and exciting," the avant-garde in other creative fields has overwhelmingly succeeded in making a pretentious mess of "high culture." Case in point: Tracey Emin. Emin snookered a bunch of cultural elites into proclaiming a pile of bed linens and refuse "art" precisely because those fools are so desperate to be "challenging" and "transgressive." Forgive us for being hesitant to go down that same road with our SF.

I have also seen AP posts that compare the plain prose of SP-favored authors with the literary prose of AP-favored authors and then confidently declare that the latter is superior. And indeed, when it comes to being evocative, authors like Thomas Heuvelt and Ken Liu do have Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen beat. But it also matters what the pretty words actually say. Style does not necessarily indicate substance. Style can, in fact, be used to cover up an author's complete failure to imagine the Big Idea that is supposed to be one of science fiction's hallmarks. I decided to jump in and become a Hugo voter around Sad Puppies I; since then, I have seen a number of stories - particularly in the short fiction categories - that use fantastic elements as superficial glosses over what, in truth, are extended ruminations over characters' emotional states in which nothing of any consequence actually happens. In many of these cases, the emotion is very well-rendered, but digging deep reveals a foundation of sand. The textbook example of this phenomenon is "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love," in which the event that inspires the "content" of the story is based on an improbability and the point-of-view character is left powerless to do anything but rage at her plight.

Bottom line, in leaning so heavily on originality and style, the AP's fail to grasp other ways in which "quality" can and should be defined. Writing a tight plot that grabs a reader on page one and sustains that reader's attention until the very end is itself a very difficult skill to master. So to is writing characters who, while simple, are also funny and appealing. So to is inspiring interest in a scientific concept that is not well understood by the general public. So to is inspiring wonder or fear at the universe as a whole. It might behoove our detractors to expand their viewpoint a little and entertain the notion that our recommendations were and are based on honest appreciation for talents that have so far remained beneath their notice.

ETA: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Links of Interest: The Puppies Soldier On

For the next few days, I have to step away from the computer to attend to a family obligation. In the meantime, allow me to direct you to a few interesting blog posts from the last week:

The Judgment of Solomon, Brad Torgersen

"The way you prove to the world that you love a thing, is to see the thing preserved. Maybe it winds up in the hands of somebody you don’t think deserves it, or because you don’t like how the thing got there in the first place. But declaring, “Cut it in half,” reveals a jealous possessiveness that belies any love that may be felt."

A Response to George R. R. Martin from the Author Who Started Sad Puppies, Larry Correia

"When one of the most successful authors on the planet takes the time to talk about something you did, I figure that deserves an in depth response." And an in-depth response is exactly what Larry provides. Why? Because Martin isn't a rage nozzle; he has cred, and he's level-headed.

Were They Contacted? Brad Torgersen

In which Brad responds to an irrelevant question about a non-issue. "If people have to conform to your expectations or your litmus tests before you will accept them, no, you are not inclusive and loving and embracing in the way you think you are. You are loving and inclusive and embracing as long as the newcomers speak and talk and think and have fun just like you."

The Architecture of Fear, Sarah Hoyt

"I must beseech you, consider, please that you are not alone.  Consider that the sound and fury, the threats, the people pushing you to do things against your will and conscience because you’re so scared of them might be less than the full crowd.  It might be just a small mouse, full of him/herself, roaring up a storm.  Consider that the decent people who disagree with all this bs might actually be in the vast majority but not know it because none of you dares speak."

Flaming Rage Nozzles of Tolerance, Brad Torgersen

"I consider it the duty of Science Fiction and Fantasy fans, authors, and editors, to be anti-authoritarian. Even to include (or especially to include?) benevolent authoritarianism. The cuddly pink fluffy cudgel of political correctness must be opposed by men and women with courage, and the conviction of their free-minded principles. Now is the time for this field — more than any other genre in the literary arts — to demonstrate that it is dangerous. To the commissars. To the flaming rage nozzles of tolerance. To the people who believe the ends justify the means."

Nostradumbass and Madame Bugblatterfatski, Dave Freer

Dave has some questions -- and I have to admit, I share the suspicions expressed in this post. Somebody on the other side almost certainly has a direct line to the mainstream media; that's why I argued on Monday that the anti-Puppies are the privileged power-brokers in this whole affair.

Social Justice Bullies: The Authoritarianism of Millennial Social Justice

"The fact of the matter is, this particular brand of millennial social justice advocacy is destructive to academia, intellectual honesty, and true critical thinking and open mindedness. We see it already having a profound impact on the way universities act and how they approach curriculum." This article doesn't discuss SFF specifically, but it is still highly relevant.

Fan Writers, Cedar Sanderson

If you are a Hugo voter, you'll find this post remarkably helpful, as Cedar has taken it upon herself to collect representative writing samples for each fan writer on the 2015 short list. Go, read, and judge for yourself.

Commentary: Challenging Comfortable Fictions, Part I

As you may have noticed, I've been following the recent Hugo kerfluffle very closely -- and to be quite frank, I'm getting mighty tired of the anti-Puppy leftists and their boring, repetitive "arguments." Consequently, I'll be running a series over the next few weeks that tackles their nonsense point by point. First up:

The Sad Puppies are just privileged white men pitching a tantrum over the imminent loss of their privilege.

Oh, really? Tell that to the Puppies who grew up in less-than-advantaged circumstances. Jason Cordova spent much of his childhood in a series of group homes. Larry Correia grew up on a dairy farm with an alcoholic mother and an illiterate father. Sarah Hoyt remembers her winter shoes being cut into sandals for the summer. For many, frugality and resourcefulness were (and are) necessary virtues, not matters of choice. And personally, I don't know any people on our side who were fortunate enough to, I don't know, attend one of the most expensive universities in the country. We had to settle for more affordable options.

What's more, many of us are quite shocked to discover that our vaginas are mere illusions. You think we're suffering from gender dysphoria?

There is such a thing as privilege, and it often flows just as the SJW's claim it does. But do these folks actually understand its mechanics -- or its complexities? I submit that they do not -- not entirely. For one thing, they oversimplify its origins. For an excellent primer, I recommend reading the following:

Yes, Privilege Exists, But Government Can't Fix It
Joy Pullmann, The Federalist

It may be true that the "system" has made it more difficult for certain groups to build the sort of cultural and financial inheritance that members of the U.S. majority enjoy -- but that hasn't made the hard work and sacrifices of individual members of said majority any less deserving of reward. Further - and this is something Pullmann does not address - the hurdles the "system" presents to members of certain classes are not always the fault of the right. Our troubled inner cities have been almost exclusively run by the left for decades, and the decline of marriage and social capital in certain communities has been accelerated by the logic of the sexual revolution boosted by the same. If we don't address these root causes honestly and with intellectual rigor - if instead we follow the SJW's preferred course and forcibly redistribute the riches of the so-called "privileged" - we will fail to cure the disease and foment a lot of chaos and resentment in the process.

And how does the above apply to the field of science fiction and fantasy? Well, just as injustices in the real world can often be laid at the feet of leftists, injustices in the fandom can often be similarly attributed. For example: If there's one privilege that white, "cis-het" male SFF authors enjoy, it's the privilege of writing whatever the hell they want without feeling the pressure to "represent." Authors of color like Sarah Hoyt, meanwhile, are chided by New York publishers if they don't write about their "heritage" and toe the party line. Is this the fault of the Sad Puppies campaign? Hardly. The belief that culture is inherited and not a choice is a tenet of SJW radicals, not their opponents.

But let's now take a larger view: As I recently observed:

Inequities in the fandom, I suspect, stem from inequities in the way we rear and educate our children. Writers are not born; they are bred. My parents tell me that I've always had an imagination and a natural talent for writing, but that talent would've wholly languished were it not for my "word-rich" childhood. In order to write, I had to read first to see how it could be done effectively -- and my parents were educated enough to encourage the habit. What's more, I had to attend strong schools at which I could learn the conventions of my native language and be exposed to literature that was not available in my father's personal library -- and here too, my parents' eternal vigilance ensured that I largely got exactly what I needed. Unfortunately, not all children are offered these same opportunities -- and that is where the true problem lies. If you want more minority authors in the fandom, take the long view: Catch good prospects when they're children and make damned sure they are not shortchanged by the lousy curricula and disciplinary chaos that disproportionately impact their communities via the dysfunctional urban public schools. Band together and create after-school tutoring clubs to build proficiency in reading and writing. Start writing groups for inner city kids. Drive around in a truck and pass out books to kids in culturally impoverished neighborhoods. Build literacy and cultural capital wherever they are absent or tragically insufficient.

In sum: Go from the ground up, and the impact will be lasting.

This path, of course, is much harder - and consequently less attractive to the internet activist - than simply demanding equity in our annual awards. It is, however, the only path that will lead to genuine and organic diversity in the fandom -- and the only path whose results will be permanent and universally lauded.

Of course, the other thing the typical SJW fails to understand is that privilege doesn't always cut in one direction. Privilege and power are multidimensional and dependent on the context -- a fact dramatically highlighted by the events of the past week. I've lost count of how many influential media outlets have parroted the SJW viewpoint - without making any attempt to contact Larry Correia or Brad Torgersen, mind - that the Sad Puppies are a racist, misogynistic outsider group intent on destroying the Hugo Awards. Some conservative media have attempted to respond, yes, but I ask again: Whose narrative is getting more mainstream exposure in the end? And what does that suggest in re: which faction really holds a position of power in the fandom as a whole?

Or, to put it another way: If Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen are the privileged participants in this controversy, why don't they have a direct line to Entertainment Weekly?

No: If you have the media in your corner, you don't get to claim that you are the downtrodden. You also don't get to claim that status if the folks on your side feel perfectly free to make politicized pronouncements in inappropriate contexts while the folks on our side bite their tongues. As Sarah Hoyt recently related, prominent left wing SFF authors see nothing wrong in using a con-provided platform to sing the praises of Howard Dean -- and fans of that bent see nothing wrong in insulting John Ringo to his face by insinuating that he is pro-slavery. You may think I'm kidding about that last part, but this happened at Dragon Con just a few years ago, and it caused one of my acquaintances to gafiate -- at least when it comes to volunteering for cons. Now think real hard: Why are these SJW's so confident and so brazen? Because they're in charge. They're not "speaking truth to power"; they are the power. They have control of the field's professional organization and the backing of big-name editors. We have -- the indies and a few Baen authors. Whoo.

Bottom line, when the left chides my friends for their supposed "privilege," I'm inclined to scoff. They may - may - benefit from certain advantages in other arenas, but in this particular fight? Nope. The radicals' Manichean categories simply do not reflect reality.

(Coming up next time: The question of "quality.")

Links of Interest: Anticommunist Ponies and the Hugos

As many of you readers may have noticed, this has been quite an explosive week. The Hugo nominations were finally released last Saturday to a storm - no, a hurricane - of controversy. I'll link to some remarks on that tempest in a tea cup in a bit. First, however, I'd like to draw attention to Saturday's season-opener for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, which, in these quarters, might arouse considerable interest:

My Little Pony to Children: Marxism Is Not Magic

Brandon Morse, The Federalist

I feel it’s necessary to preface this article by stating that I am not a brony. I’ve met a couple, and I don’t exactly…get it.

Don't worry, Brandon. I don't think you lose your man card by appreciating a good allegory -- even if the show is targeted to little girls.

After the leader has been exposed, the town revolts, reclaiming their cutie marks and thus their individuality. Using their reclaimed unique skills, they rescue the main characters’ marks and thus their powers, while chasing the villain into a mountain cave system, where they lose her. The show ends with the now-unique and fun-looking village having a party. 

To children, this message is clear. It’s better to be yourself than to be the same as everyone else. What they won’t realize is that the show uses many references to the real world to do it.

I was actually thinking of Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" while watching these episodes the other night -- and I agree that the choice of theme was quite remarkable. I know many in my audience (of gun-totin' dudes and the Odd girls who love them) may balk at this suggestion, but -- go and watch it. Don't let the ponies and all the pink distract you from the pure awesome.

But anyway, now to the Hugos. Dear. Lord. 

To peruse the final shortlist, click here. Personally, I was quite shocked at how well certain despondent infant canines performed-- and I was doubly shocked to see the dominance of Vox Day's alternative selections. I consider Day a professional shit-stirrer who is much too extreme for my taste and consequently read him only on occasion, so I had no idea he had that kind of a following.

As you might expect, once this result was confirmed, fandom proceeded to lose its collective mind -- and the noise drew the attention of certain mainstream media outlets, who dispensed with all the dull fact-checking stuff and uncritically ran one side's preferred narrative. I'll give you one guess which side that happened to be.

(In the interest of fairness, I should note that Breitbart and The Federalist have both published articles favoring the Puppies. Still, in a contest between these alternative conservative publications and Entertainment Weekly, who's going to win on the influence front?)

I've been a Sad Puppy booster from the beginning (though I am also an independent-minded cuss who posted her own personal slate here and here). I know these folks' intentions, and they are not to scuttle the Hugos or drive out "diverse" voices. Granted, there is a political tinge in the movement; a good chunk of us are libertarians or conservatives of various flavors, which is why Breitbart and The Federalist took notice. But that is an accident of the Sad Puppy philosophy, which stresses ideological diversity and solid story-telling over navel gazing and genre-destructive literary pretensions. Said philosophy operates on strongly individualist assumptions, so it will naturally attract those who hold political views built on the same base.

And yes -- I can admit there's probably also a bit of spite involved (directed not at the Hugo Awards specifically but at the fandom elite). Please excuse my French here, but people are really fucking angry. Why? Well, Larry Correia explains our thoughts pretty well in the following posts:

A Letter to the SMOFs, Moderates, and Fence-Sitters from the Author Who Started Sad Puppies

Addendum to Yesterday's Letter

And I suggest you read the following post by Brad Torgersen as well:

A Dispatch from Fort Living Room

For years now, a vociferous and powerful minority of radical left-wing science fiction fans has worked hard to beat down every nail that dares stick out. Indeed, I wrote about this very phenomenon as early as 2010. Any deviation from approved groupthink, no matter how mild, has resulted in relentless bullying and, in some cases, successful Stalinist purges. Quite frankly, we nails are sick of it. We're sick of being forced to self-censor, we're sick of being dishonestly vilified for having contrary opinions, and we're sick of the double standard that forces us to disavow characters like Vox Day while virulently racist SJW's like K. Tempest Bradford get a pass. Do you get it? Do you understand the origin of this uprising? Do you now understand why some folks on our side have been less than polite? Why do we have to play by the Marquess of Queensbury rules while the other side gets to wear metal cleats?

I have more to say on this whole brouhaha, but I need to head to work, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow. In the meantime... enjoy the posts I've linked above! 

Links of Interest: Battlespace Prep

I think there might've been a leak.

The final slate for the 2015 Hugo Awards will not be officially announced until Saturday, April 4, but people are already raising a hue and cry about us Sad Puppies and Irritated Kittens and how dishonest, dirty, bad, and wrong we all are. Fortunately, we are all quite capable of defending ourselves and our campaign.

Brad Torgersen, the standard-bearer for Sad Puppies 3, was the first out of the gate:

See, Worldcon is like the proverbial nail house. In the 1950s it was nestled in among the fresh post-war suburbs, bright and pretty. The people who lived there were young, or at least younger than they are now, and quite proud of their house and its vibrant, if eccentric, collective personality. For much of the 1960s and into the 1970s, the little house retained most of its original flavor. New folks were brought in, some of the originals left, or died. The culture and basic mindset of the house was kept the same. And everything seemed more or less fine . . . until a guy named George Lucas showed up with his gargantuan set of plans for a huge, gleaming city called Star Wars. Suddenly, skyscrapers and apartment complexes and freeways and all manner of businesses began to shoot up around the house. Until, in the year 2015, the house has become an anachronism. Cheered by a few. Ignored by most. Intensely proud of the fact it defies the world around it. Crumbling at the foundation. And also intensely interested in making sure nobody from the sports bar or the yoga studio or the Gold’s Gym down the street, comes into the little dilapidated house, and puts his or her feet up on the use-worn coffee table. 

Because anyone who is not a blooded member of the nail house, doesn’t get to be a “real fan.” 

But the award for “real fans” gets to be “the most prestigious award” in SF/F.
See how that works, folks? It’s Taste-Maker 101 strategy. A few, deciding for all.
You’re the outsiders. You are not the real fans. You don’t get to have a say in the Hugos, because you’re not welcome at the table. You haven’t been to two dozen Worldcons and volunteered a thousand hours in various chore-laden positions on the concom or the gofer staff. You didn’t earn your cred, man! Get off their lawn, man! Screw you guys and your video games and your 21st century pop culture sci-fi! So you like The Avengers and the Marvel Cinematic Universe? You’ve got a Storm Trooper costume? Maybe you play Skyrim or Borderlands? Puh-leaze! That doesn’t count. Only real fans get to decide what SF/F is important and worthy of recognition! The other 399,997,500 “fans” out there? You didn’t pay your dues. You don’t belong. (Read more here and here.)

Brad's remarks were soon followed up by others:

• Piers Plowman and the Hugo Awards (Novel Ninja): This writer correctly points out that anyone can plunk down the money for a supporting membership, that we Sad Puppies and Irritated Kittens followed the rules in that regard, and that the increased participation that has resulted from our campaign can only be a good thing for WorldCon and the Hugo Awards.
• Sad Puppies Update: Honesty from the Other Side (Monster Hunter Nation): Larry Correia's post here contains a link to the other side's freak-out and his own response. "But it is too late now, Teresa. The Sad Puppies voters got involved with WorldCon, paid their dues, and bought memberships so they could participate. The problem is that they’re the *wrong* kind of fans. You guys should have just been honest to begin with and none of this would have ever happened."
• All the Scarlet Letters (Sarah Hoyt): "One of the most interesting things – and by interesting I mean scary – about the reaction to Sad Puppies 3 is that many people who are anti-puppy (always wanted to write that) were mad at Brad for 'not telling people you were putting them on the slate.' [...] What are the Hugos? They’re awards, right? They’re awards given, supposedly, for the best science fiction and fantasy of the year, right? In theory, theoretically as it were, who is supposed to nominate: why, Lord love a duck, right? Any reader of science fiction who pays at least the supporting WorldCon membership. And who gets to make recommendations for nominations? Well, from what I’ve seen over the years, anyone with an interest in sf/f. I could, tomorrow, (well, not tomorrow, but at the beginning of the next set) put my list of recommends on the blog, whether I meant to vote for them or not. (I.e. whether I paid the membership or not.) Readers, reviewers and various other side-spurs of science fiction do that pretty much every year. So, if I did that, would I have any obligation, no matter how remote, to tell people I was putting them on my slate? Why? I mean, I might, as a friendly gesture, send a note saying 'I love your books and I’m putting such and such on the slate.' BUT WHY would I HAVE to? I mean, when I won the Prometheus and the two other times I’ve been nominated, all I got was an email saying 'you’ve been nominated.' No one warned me. And trust me, ten years ago that announcement would have frozen me solid, instead of causing me to dance in my office. That is because ten years ago, I lived in a state of fear. And the fact that my fear was real and serious is justified by that accusation to Brad, 'You bad bad man, when you decided these people deserved awards, you didn’t TELL THEM you were putting them on a recommend list.' I lived in fear because of the implied end of that sentence 'And you knew that because you associated them with you, a known conservative, we would make their lives miserable and do our best to end their careers.'"

My personal comment regarding this controversy is this: Most on the anti-Puppy side are out-and-proud progressives who, more than likely, oppose real-world attempts to police the franchise and ensure the eligibility of every participating voter. I would also bet solid money that many of these folks also sympathize with "mandatory voting" proposals and a whole host of other reforms to "increase participation" and "promote democracy." But now that a grass-roots rebellion is threatening their "safe space", they've completely changed their tune. How interesting.

I don't think anyone should vote in an American election unless he or she is a confirmed citizen of the US and has made an effort to stay informed on the issues; likewise, I don't think anyone should vote in the Hugo Awards unless he or she is truly a fan of literary science fiction and fantasy. The trouble is, my definition of a "true fan" is very much at odds with, say, Hayden's. I think anyone who has read SFF for a solid chunk of his or her conscious life and can cite works from the past year that he or she has enjoyed counts as a "true fan;" the anti-Puppies - who constantly tout their commitment to inclusivity - wish to apply other litmus tests that, low-and-behold, favor the fandom's elite 1%. The hypocrisy here is striking to say the least.

Update on Tuesday, 6PM - I also urge you to check out Larry Correia's latest: The Melt Down Continues. Lots of good stuff there.

The Wet & Irritated Kittens Slate, Part II - Short Works

A few weeks ago, I shared my personal nominations in the Novel category for the upcoming Hugo Awards. As the deadline looms, 'tis now time for me to share my picks for the short fiction categories.

You may notice as we proceed that I haven't filled the entire slate. The explanation for this is actually quite simple: It's difficult to impress me in fewer words. As I was paging through my old zines trying to decide what to add to my list, I didn't find much that I thought was truly striking. What this says about the state of the short fiction market is, to say the least, concerning.

But, without further ado, here are my picks:

Novellas:

• “Flow," Arlan Andrews Sr., Analog, November 2014 - This fantasy adventure expertly captures man's desire to explore and learn more.
• Big Boys Don’t Cry, Tom Kratman, Castalia House - I knew I was going to nominate this one as soon as I'd read it, as its subversion of a popular military science fiction trope is both troubling and necessary. See my review here.

Novelettes:

• "Life Flight," Brad Torgersen, Analog, March 2014 - From my original review: "...the main character's emotional arc is profoundly interesting -- and, thankfully, morally grounded. When his childhood dreams are tragically ripped away, he initially loses himself in suicidal ideation and a selfish sense of entitlement. But as he grows older and wiser, he realizes he can still find meaning in his life by focusing his attentions on the other people on board -- and ultimately, while he is robbed of the chance to set foot in the promised land, he's strangely okay with that result because he knows being the guardian and shepherd of the mission still mattered."
• “Championship B’tok," Edward M. Lerner, Analog, September 2014 - I'm a little confused on this one. The Puppies have it listed under Novelette, but my digital copy of Analog puts this in the Novella category. At any rate, this is a tantalizing introduction to a space opera universe whose mysteries definitely hit several of my squee buttons.

Short Stories:

• "The Golden Knight," K.D. Julicher, Baen Website - From my original review: "I love, love, love platonic elder-younger pairings in which the younger's boundless loyalty and innocence in some way redeem the elder. Such stories, I feel, speak to the more profound spiritual reason why most of us become parents (and why I, in the absence of a spouse, have elected to work as a teacher). Biological imperatives to reproduce aside, there is also an instinctual recognition that caring for our children is a salvific enterprise -- and the fact that many succumb to the pop culture's distorted and idolatrous visions of parenting does not in any way negate the nobility of the animating impulse."
• “Totaled," Kary English, Galaxy’s Edge, July 2014 - An excellent sci-fi concept conveyed with genuine human emotion. I hope to see more from this author.
• "Abandoned River, Dry Water," Jane Lebak, Sci Phi Journal #1 - From an earlier review: "The tale it implies - of a misplaced Catholic missionary attempting to minister to an alien race he was not prepared to encounter - is both haunting and poignant -- reason enough to look for some of Jane Lebak's other work."

Now I must hurry and log these choices with WorldCon! After all, the kittens are waiting.

Get on with it already!

BOOK BOMBING the Puppies' Picks for the Campbell & Related Works

Reminder: Your Hugo nominations are due next Tuesday evening (March 10) before 23:59 Pacific!

I will be posting the Wet & Irritated Kittens' picks for the short fiction categories just before the deadline. In the meantime, check out the Sad Puppies' suggestions for the Campbell Award and the "Related Works" category. Larry Correia is book bombing them TODAY:

Sad Puppies BOOK BOMB! Best Related Work and Campbell Award for Best New Writer

BOOK BOMB for the Sad Puppies Slate!

From Larry Correia:

"It is time to spread more awareness about Puppy Related Sadness. The following are our suggested nominees for the short fiction categories, novelette and short story. 

"The way a Book Bomb normally works is that we pick one good book worthy of more attention, which is available on Amazon, and then we get as many people as possible to buy it in the same day in order to boost it up through the ratings. As the the rating climbs, it gets in front of more people, until it ends up on an Amazon bestseller list, where lots of people who aren’t involved in the Book Bomb see it. Success breeds success, the author gets lots of new readers, but more importantly, the author GETS PAID. 

"This Book Bomb is a little different. Because the ones I’m doing right now are to get more people exposed to the works we nominated for the infamous Sad Puppies slate, we’re bombing a bunch of works at the same time. I don’t like putting this many links, but time is of the essence, and next week I’ll post about the Campbell nominees and Best Related Works. 

"We did three novellas last week and it was a huge success. They’re still selling well a week later. Overall we sold a couple thousand novellas, which in novellas is freaking huge. 

"But shorter fiction is tough, because it isn’t always available for sale by itself, but is usually bundled as part of an anthology, or in a magazine which often isn’t available on Amazon. 

"As you can see from the list below, luckily many of these are available on Amazon, and some are available for FREE, and for the ones that you can only get in magazines the Evil Legion of Evil Blue Care Bear of Flamethrowering (i.e. Brad) contacted them and asked for a work of theirs which was available for us to plug. So those won’t be the nominated work from the current year, but if they sound cool, check them out, that way the author GETS PAID."

And since the Wet & Irritated Kittens are just as enthusiastic in their evangelical capitalism as their canine allies, this is a cause we can certainly get behind!

Click here to join in.

The Wet & Irritated Kittens Slate, Part I - Novels

I have been allied with the Sad Puppies since their first campaign -- and with that in mind, I definitely encourage you to check out - in other words, buy and read - what they have recommended for the 2015 Hugo shortlist.

At the same time, however, I'd also like to share some of my own recommendations over the next few weeks -- and since I'm a hair's breadth away from being a crazy cat lady in spirit, I shall dub my own personal list the "Wet & Irritated Kittens" slate.

He's read one too many crappy "award winners," and the claws are out.

First up: the novels.

• The Chaplain's War, Brad Torgersen, Baen - I know Brad has recused himself from the Sad Puppies campaign, but gosh darn it, I think he deserves a nod, as his first novel takes the tropes of military science fiction in a relatively unique direction. Not only does his protagonist have an unusual point-of-view, but the story itself is also less about the particulars of combat and more about the securing of an honorable peace. (See my original review here.)
• Trial by Fire, Charles E. Gannon, Baen - I'm overlapping with the Sad Puppies on this one for a damned good reason: this novel is awesome. It rivals such classics as A Fire Upon the Deep and The Mote in God's Eye in its alien world-building, and it depicts the divided nature of mankind in a striking and unforgettable way. (See my original review here.)
• Monster Hunter Nemesis, Larry Correia, Baen - Because who says pulp doesn't deserve respect? In all seriousness, anyone who claims that Larry only writes "dumb action novels" about "muscle-bound white guys" hasn't actually read his work. The way he messes around with common fantasy elements is absolutely delightful, and his characters are both entertaining and well-crafted. (See my original review here.)
• A Darkling Sea, James L. Cambias, Tor - Once again, I love me some aliens, and the deep-sea culture of the Ilmatarans is absolutely fascinating. Additionally, Cambias takes an old sci-fi philosophical stand-by - the Prime Directive - and intelligently challenges its assumptions vis-à-vis the likely results of intercultural contact. (See my original review here.)
• The Wingfeather Saga, Andrew Peterson, Rabbit Room Press - I'm using the famous Wheel of Time loophole on this one, as this was a juvenile fantasy series I profoundly enjoyed. Peterson's sense of humor is a real treat, and his created world is both imaginative and superversive. If you're a fan of the Chronicles of Narnia, definitely give these books a try! (See my review of the final novel - which links to reviews of the previous three - here.) 

 Coming up soon: the short works. In the meantime --

Keep an eye on those kittens. They're pissed!

Commentary: On the Most Recent Hugo Controversy

On many occasions, I have declared a fierce opposition to elitism. Mind you, this is not because I am a relativist or a small-d democrat. There are objective standards when it comes to judging art, theater, science fiction, or anything else, and I don't hold to the common viewpoint that "it's just your personal opinion." Jackson Pollock is not on a level with, say, Rembrandt or Monet; Waiting for Godot doesn't hold a candle to Shakespeare; and "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love" is an embarrassment when set beside the stories of Ray Bradbury. Like John Adams and other conservative thinkers, I acknowledge and respect the existence of a natural aristoi. What I don't respect are the pseudo-intellectual phonies who in recent decades have arrogated to themselves the power of the cultural gatekeeper; the status the members of this clerisy enjoy is utterly unearned.

In last night's guest post, Declan Finn declared that good science fiction depends on world building and characterization. I agree; nothing annoys me more than a supposed science fiction story that tacks on its fantastic element without bothering to integrate it into the whole -- or a science fiction story whose principal players are mere obeisances to fashion.  I also agree with publisher Toni Weisskopf's recent declaration that one of science fiction's primary purposes is to encourage scientific and technological progress and expand the reader's imagination; without the "sensawunda," a science fiction story is a cold and lifeless thing. But I would add one other critical element: science fiction - like any other genre of literature - must tell the truth about the world and about human nature. We are fallen creatures who mistreat and make war upon each other -- but we also possess an enhanced consciousness that has led to remarkable cultural, technological, and humanitarian achievements. And what's true of our species as a whole is also undeniably true of Western civilization, the context in which science fiction originally took root.

In my opinion, this is what the science fiction lionized by the Worldcon in-crowd often gets so disastrously wrong. The aforementioned "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love" presents a world in which men who frequent pool halls are prone to beat an educated paleontologist into a coma because they hate anything that is different. It's a world, quite frankly, that does not line up with the experiences of those of us who've actually lived in blue-collar neighborhoods and gone to sports bars. It's a world that strikes us as fundamentally false. My fellow Sad Puppies, quite understandably, emphasize entertainment and adventure, but at base, our complaint is anthropological, and if we're enthusiastic about spaceships and ray-guns, it's only because we sincerely believe such stories contain more that is real than stories like the above could possibly boast. If we demand, as Heinlein so eloquently expressed in Glory Road, the "hurtling moons of Barsoom" or "Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake," it is only because we are reacting instinctively to trends that have dishonestly pushed the negative, disdained the transcendental, and ignored man's eternal yen to explore.

And there are other things fandom's self-appointed elite fail to grasp. I'm thinking in particular of a certain Hugo Award-winning fan writer who recently implied - with a haughty sniff, no doubt - that the tens of thousands who attend Comic Con or Dragon Con don't read literary science fiction and therefore don't count. Let's see: Last year - a peak year for Worldcon - Loncon received roughly 3,500 Hugo ballots. Meanwhile, I know indy writers - who don't have access to a professional marketing apparatus - who've sold almost twice as many novels annually -- and I know Baen authors who've hit the best seller lists and have been able to quit their day jobs as a consequence. Additionally, the most recent numbers I could track down indicate that Analog's circulation hovers around 27,000. Even if some of those copies are languishing on book store shelves, there is no way anyone can seriously claim that there are only 3,500 genuine literary science fiction fans in the entire world. If that were true, Asimov's and Analog would've collapsed long ago, and no publisher would risk touching science fiction with a thirty-foot pole.

So yes -- there is a significant pool of literary science fiction fans who aren't currently being heard at Worldcon. Now, I'm willing to grant that some of these fans don't particularly care about said lack of representation. Others, however, have watched Worldcon gradually descend into narrow-mindedness and have gafiated in disgust. Their choice? Sure, but the Hugo Awards - the people's choice awards - have been damaged - I hope not irreparably - by their absence. In recent years, I can recall several winning works that were genuinely deserving -- but I can recall many others that, to my mind, secured the rocketship merely by appealing to the parochial and bigoted tastes of the academic leftists who've seized the heights of fandom in the same way they've seized other major organs of our culture. And just so we're clear, I didn't hate such stories because they were leftist. For heaven's sake, I've been a lifelong fan of Star Trek, and Trek is certainly not a conservative "text."  I hated such stories because they were leftist and failed to qualify as authentically human science fiction. For me, an entertaining story can cover a multitude of ideological sins -- but the social justice left in the fandom is so brazen now that it doesn't even concern itself with such essentials.

Nor does it bother to hide its illiberalism -- which is why I find it rich to see our opponents donning halos and insisting that fandom is one big happy family and everyone is welcome to participate. If you folks actually mean that, you may want to tell your compatriots to cool it with the harassment and quit lying about us. Larry Correia is not a violent, racist, homophobic monster; Brad Torgersen is not an aspiring fascist. They're just various flavors of conservative -- and if you can't engage with them in good faith, then don't stand around and act innocent when we complain about how politically homogeneous and intolerant fandom has become.