WorldCon - Death Is Bad

A clarification

Jan 072016

In response to yesterday’s post, this comment was made on the reddit HPMoR subforum:
I sort of see “encouraging a fanbase to all buy supporting memberships to Worldcon to get specific items added to the ballot” as more of a questionable action

I’d much prefer to get more people involved in WorldCon in general. I would be disappointed if people bought the membership just to get HPMoR on the ballot, and I also think that’d be a waste of money. $50 is far better spent on donating to a charitable cause if that’s your only motivation. But I love WorldCon, and I’m excited about it, and I’m trying to encourage others to share in that fun. If it’s something that seems like it could be up your alley but you’ve never done it before, this is a great year to jump in! But please don’t take it as a call-to-action for HPMoR’s sake or anything. Do it because you’re enthusiastic about SF! (if you are)

Harry Potter and the 2016 World Science Fiction Convention

WorldCon 1 Response »

Jan 062016

HPMoR-Podcast-Small (1) I think it’d be great if HPMoR was nominated for a Hugo, and I feel it deserves at least a nomination. To that effect, I wrote this post. Mirror below.

What are the Hugo Awards?

The Hugo Awards are one of the most prestigious Science Fiction and Fantasy awards. They are also the only ones awarded based on popular vote. Every year the World Science Fiction Con attendees vote for the works they liked best in the previous year. And since the convention travels around the world, and not everyone who wishes to attend can be physically present every year, anyone is allowed to purchase a Supporting Membership rather than attending in person, and can still cast a vote that way. That means that for a nominal fee, any Science Fiction or Fantasy fan in the world can vote for the works they liked best that were published in the previous year.

Is Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality eligible?

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is a serially published work, whose final instalment was published in 2015. Under the WorldCon rules, this means it is eligible for a Hugo at the 2016 WorldCon. Per Section 3.2.4 – “a work appearing in a number of parts shall be eligible for the year of the final part.” There was a minor kerfuffle in 2014 when The Wheel of Time was nominated for Best Novel, as it consists of 14 books published over 13 years. The nomination was allowed, but not without objection. However HPMoR should receive no such objections, as it is very clearly a serial work of the type that this rule was originally written to explicitly allow.

And yes, fanfiction is eligible. Don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t. First, there is no rule against it. Perhaps more importantly: well-regarded fanfiction has been nominated before. Peter Watts’s “The Things” is an explicit fanfic of “The Thing” and was nominated in 2011. (Incidentally, you should go read it. It is rationalist, short, available free online, and ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC) John Scalzi’s “Redshirts” is a barely-disguised fanfic of Star Trek (the original series), and won the 2014 Hugo Award for Best Novel. Obviously fanfic is eligible.

But is HPMoR the best work of 2015?

I’ve been participating in the Hugos for a number of years. Every participant gets five nominations they can use to nominate works they want to be considered for the Hugo Award. I can’t definitively say that Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is the best work published in 2015. I have not read every work published in 2015. And my opinion is just one of many. However, I can say that HPMoR had a profound impact on my life, much more than most fiction I read. And it was certainly within the Top Five Most Important Fictional Works To Me That’s Eligible For a 2016 Hugo Award. Among the five nominations I get for Best Novel of 2015, there’s no way HPMoR wouldn’t deserve one of them.

If HPMoR made an impact in your life, and you truly enjoyed it, I encourage you to participate. As long as it was meaningful to you, you can nominate it. Once it has been drawn to the attention of the wider SF-reading world, we can let the world’s fans weigh it along with the other nominees to decide if they think it’s deserving of the award. And, of course, we’ll be reading the other four nominees and giving our input as well. Personally, I think HPMoR has a good shot.

Why do this?

First, because you get to be a part of SF History! That in itself is pretty fun!

Second, voters get a packet that contains many of the nominated works in e-format. (Usually not all of them though). This makes it easy to read all the nominees, and exposes you to a lot of very good stories that you often wouldn’t have picked up on your own. If nothing else, it lets you be part of the conversation. If this is your first time supporting the Hugos, you get to experience the process. If you choose to attend as well, you get to be in a hugely geeky major con that’s a lot of fun and meet fellow HPMoR fans IRL!

Third, a number of people who may have passed over HPMoR because it was “just fanfiction” may be willing to take a closer look. Especially if a lot of the wider WorldCon-going public gives HPMoR a look and says “Hey, this is pretty intriguing!”

Fourth, as I said in the previous section, I honestly believe it deserves at least a nomination. It has been impactful on my life. I would like to do what little I can to celebrate that. Even if it doesn’t win, a nomination is a great honor.

Alright, how do I do this thing?

But before anything else, HPMoR must be nominated to the list of finalists. The nomination period is opening soon. If you want to participate, you must purchase a membership before the end of January. If this is something you want to do–don’t put it off. You’ll forget. At the very least, write yourself a note or send yourself a text. The days slip by way too fast on these sorts of things!

Register at the MidAmericaCon2.org registration page. Choose either Attending (if you can go to the con, also allows nominating & voting) or Supporting (to just nominate & vote). There are two discount categories (Military, Young Adult) which convey all the same rights as Attending but are cheaper. I would strongly encourage everyone to go in person, if they can afford to do so. It’s in Kansas City this year. I’ve gone to two previous cons, and they are a wonderful experience! I cannot recommend it enough. I’ll be going to the 2016 WorldCon in person too, so we can all meet up together! If you’d rather not, but still wish to nominate and vote, choose Supporting. Remember, register before the end of January!

What about the podcast?

You know, I’m not sure. I think the closest match is Best Fancast, “Any generally available non-professional audio or video periodical devoted to science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects”. Traditionally these go to talk-show type podcasts, where interested people talk about a subject, such as SF Signal or The SF Squeecast. Generally the fiction podcasts don’t fall into this category, because they are counted a semiprozines. But HPMoR simply is not a Semiprozine, it doesn’t fit any of the criteria. And Dramatic Presentation is really a stretch.

HPMoR is both a Podcast and a purely Fan work, so Fancast fits well. Also, in 2015 Welcome to Night Vale had 28 nominating votes for Best Fancast last year (not enough to make it an official Nominee, but enough to show up on the Long List in the Full Breakdown PDF). It is also a continuing story that is podcasted regularly, so I feel there’s a wee bit of precedent, even if it’s not fully official.

In short: Best Fancast, if you are so inclined.

I have more questions!

First, please check out the official Hugo FAQ. If you’ve done so, or have a specific HPMoR-related question, comment here. Or write me at hpmorpodcast at gmail.com.

Sad Puppies 4 – The Olive Branch?

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Dec 312015

Sad-Puppies-4-RoboButch-final-845x1024 One of the organizers of Sad Puppies 4 recently requested one or more panel slots at the 2016 WorldCon (where the Hugos are awarded). I am all for this!!!

Last year’s WorldCon was marred by the Sad/Rabid Puppies fiasco, but you’d barely know it if you were just a general attendee. Basically nothing was said about it publicly, aside from a veiled mention here and there, and half of a single panel that obliquely discussed it without mentioning it directly. The only time it was directly talked about was during the Awards Ceremony itself. It was like the family matriarch had just been diagnosed with cancer and no one was willing to talk about it yet.

I am a strong advocate for getting things out in the open. Last year there was virtually no cross-talk between the factions, because everything was so hushed up. Everyone stayed in their own little cliques. If we won’t talk with each other, then we cannot resolve our grievances. This year I think having a panel in the largest room available, with luminaries from both sides, would be fantastic. For every Kate Paulk or Larry Correia on the panel, we need a John Scalzi or George RR Martin as well. Smart, charismatic, well-spoken people who are willing to engage the other side respectfully. With a neutral moderator, of course.

And they should not be allowed to sit at opposite sides of the table. Too much like having opposing sides with borders. Mix them up, keep the human aspect real.

I admit, I’m a bit disappointed that this is only now happening. In 2015 I was a coordinator of literary programming for Denver Comic Con. We had two Sad Puppy nominated authors at our con (Kevin Anderson and Jim Butcher, both nominated for Best Novel)! I attempted to set up a panel discussing the Sad Puppy controversy, and both declined. I can kinda understand it from their side–as authors without direct involvement in the movement, they didn’t want to get too mixed up in the controversy (although in my opinion their silence and acceptance of the nomination was a tacit endorsement anyway). However I also put a lot of effort into getting Sarah Hoyt to come to Denver Comic Con. She was a very vocal Sad Puppy supporter. This year she’s one of the Sad Puppy 4 leadership! She also turned me down, and ultimately I had to cancel the panel because no Pro-Puppy people would agree to talk about the issue. I was unwilling to have a one-sided panel of people bashing the Puppies. I am glad to see that she’s changed her mind, and is now willing to talk about the Sad Puppies. But I wish she’d have been willing to do so at DCC2015, I would have loved to have a panel on the topic then. Maybe I’ll try again this year. :)

The vile Vox Day, of course, shouldn’t even be let in the building.

The media would create a civil war purely for the ratings…

Musings On Present Day, WorldCon 4 Responses »

Nov 202015

…and it is our fault.

Remember Starbucks Red Cup Controversy? Where the media spent days telling us how christians are outraged that the Starbuck holiday cup is plain red instead of having christmas trees and snowflakes on it? And it turns out that it was just one christian shock-jock type, and every single real christian in America was like “What the fuck guys? We don’t actually care. Who is making shit up about us?”

Which is exactly what we liberals think every time we see a “War on Christmas” story.

But the interesting part is that there aren’t less War on Christmas stories as time goes on. Rather, they’ve expanded, so now the leftwing media has their own version, re the crazy Red Cup guy. Years ago the rightwing media found that War on Christmas stories don’t have to be true. They still generate TONS of revenue, because they emotionally charge their viewers. Now the leftwing media has found out the same thing.

As a result both sides of America become more and more polarized, viewing the “other” side as evil and/or idiotic. Over what is essentially lies given to them by their own media. It’s getting worse.

Perhaps you saw today that Donald Trump wants to put all Muslims on a national registry and issue them special identification, and he’s crossed the Nazi Line.

If you’re like me, you shared with the quote from a friend that: “if Trump got elected President, and somehow persuaded both houses of Congress to pass a “Muslims must register” bill, it would be struck down by the federal courts. But the problem here isn’t that there’s a danger of this policy being implemented in the near future. The problem is that it is currently not only acceptable but popular to openly advocate fascist ideas … his popularity says a lot of frightening things about the current American mindset”

But if you’re like me, you also have friends on the other side, who then point out that this is a massive distortion (I apologize for linking to that particularly vile news site). “It is clear from the exchange that Trump thinks Hillyard is talking about new entrants to the United States, presumably Syrian refugees. But Hillyard reports Trump’s answer as if he is talking unambiguously about Muslims already in the United States.”

Which isn’t to say that Trump isn’t both wrong and racist. But he’s plenty wrong and racist on his own, and painting fangs on him just makes our side look like fucking idiots.

But more importantly, it makes us think of him as an irredeemably evil person, and all his supporters as similarly evil, or too stupid/blind to see past their own fear. It further polarizes us into camps that think the worst possible things about each other, and don’t talk to each other. Because it makes for GREAT ratings/clicks.

America seems to be drifting ever closer to civil war, and these sorts of intentional misportrayals by the both sides is spurring it on. Seriously, how long are we going to let the media ask vague questions that could be interpreted to mirror Nazi policies, and then if someone doesn’t immediately and strongly side with the questioner, report that “they didn’t rule it out“???

The thing about devils is that they give you what you want, per your revealed preference. That’s always how the story works. That is what makes those stories compelling. You get what you deserve because the devil always is simply giving you what you want. And then the angels – who care about our stated preferences rather than our revealed ones – come and save us. The Ego triumphs over the Id.

But the Ego doesn’t generate clicks, or share things on social media. The Id does. We have created institutions that mimic the devils of myth – they are rewarded for giving us what we want, in terms of revealed preference. But we haven’t created equally strong institutions that mimic the angels of old – rewarded for giving us what we want in terms of stated preference.

Until (if?) that happens, we really need to develop an immune response to hatemongering. Never share anything that pisses you off. Especially if it’s about someone from the other side. DOUBLE ESPECIALLY if it’s because they are doing something evil or idiotic that must be stopped before all of society is destroyed. And if we could coordinate some sort of institutional response that would punish these media companies/devils whenever they do this (seriously, government oversight to head off a civil war is a legitimate use of government power IMHO), that would be great. Maybe necessary.

WorldCon 2015 Highlights

Personal, WorldCon 1 Response »

Aug 282015

Wow, where to begin?

The thing that sticks out more than anything else is the award for Best Related Work. Because everything up until that award wasn’t too badly vandalized by the Puppies. Best Related Work was the first big pile of crap that was nothing but awful Puppy trash. This was the big turning point – if this didn’t get No Award, it was likely nothing would. So I was tense and actually on the edge of my seat. The cheer that went up when No Award was announced was viseral. I was part of it. Things would be OK.

I sat in the Literary Beer with Neil Clarke, which was really fun. The man had great stories about his heart attack, the Clarkesworld Stalker, and the amount of sweat that went into deciding whether to publish Spar, among other things. He also talked about how when he helped write the criteria for Semi-Pro Magazine category he deliberately helped set it up so that Clarkesworld would soon be “Weighted Out” of the catagory (boxing term, meaning they were too big to qualify anymore). I found that rather noble of him. It’s hard to disqualify yourself for a catagory while you still try to hold down a full-time day job as well!

My first WorldCon I didn’t go to any Koffee Klatches or Literary Beers, as I was scared as hell about what I’d say around someone famous like that. I’m super glad I went to two this year, and I plan to go to them again next year.

Speaking of things learned from my first con – find a con spouse! My first time I hung around with Anaea Lay a lot, and took her as my date to the award ceremony. This year my con spouse was Danielle, we checked in a few times, shared several meals, and went to the ceremony together. (As a note – for those who aren’t familiar with the term “work spouse”, a “con spouse” is just someone you share a lot of time with, absolutely nothing sexual or romantic about it). It made everything easier and more enjoyable, and she managed to “track down” (ie: coincidentally bump into) one of the Hugo Awards, so we got to TOUCH THE HUGO! And take pictures with it!! Aaaaaaah!

My hotel was baller as hell, with AMAZING service!! I will try to always stay at Holiday Inn’s, I recommend them highly. When I tried to book my hotel I was dissapointed that the con hotel was already booked up, but now I feel I dodged a bullet. That thing was built at the nadir of American Architecture. The hallways are cramped, the roof is no more than six inches above my head, and the whole place looks like it came out of the 60s. Ugh. My Holiday Inn, OTOH, looked like a freakin’ castle, and was perfect and accomidating in every way.

One of the HIGHLIGHTS was getting to meet Seth Dickinson in person! Yes, the guy whose writing I ADORE and can’t stop talking about. We had dinner together, and drinks too, I got to talk with him for like FOUR HOURS across two days!! We talked fiction, his stories, rationality, the Rationalist movement (Anaea was there for most of this too, she’s not as enthusiastic about the rationality scene, so that was an interesting conversation. That’s her on my right), pets, and so forth. OMG it was so cool! If you can buy your idol dinner and drinks, do it, it’s so worth it! Insights from Seth #1: If a sentence doesn’t work, the problem is generally a few paragraphs up. Good fiction progresses naturally, and if you can’t get it to flow right, you probably messed up something upstream. Insight from Seth #2: Blindsight is proof that the SF genre of fiction is necessary. Most stories can be told in any genre, even most SF/F could be recast as Earthfic with some work. But Blindsight could only be done in SF, and it is an essential work.

I got to walk through a cool park whenever I went to/from my hotel. The entire con area was a nature wonderland, very asthetically pleasing! :) The nearby forest fires were a nuisance though. On the third day the smoke was so thick that not only was there a permanent haze, but the entire city smelled like the inside of a smokering room. It got to be nauseating, I had trouble eating dinner that day. A few times there was ash in the air, and yes, it even got into the convention center. It was really striking on the flights in/out, when you looked from your airplane window and saw smoke covering the landscape for hundreds of miles in all directions. Damn.

Oh, another thing I learned from previous cons that I put into practice in Spokane – before you do anything else, walk the entire con from front to back. Get a lay of the land, so you know where things are, especially in relation to each other. Schedule 30 minutes for this (more if you need it). I swear it’s one of the most important steps to enjoying any con, and well worth your time.

I went to both the Brandon Sanderson and John Scalzi readings, where they read from upcoming works. You guys are in for a treat in the near future. :) In addition to reading, John joked with the audience a bit and was all around charming and hilarious. Brandon talked about how he writes and some history, which was fascinating. Insights from Brandon #1: When you write, the novel/story is not the product you are creating. The product you are creating is a better author. You are upgrading you. The story/novel is a side-effect of this process. If it sells, great. If not – no worries. There will be more such side-effects as you keep working on yourself.

Pic stolen shamelessly from Rachael Acks
I went to the Business Meeting on Saturday. It’s a three-hour commitment right in the middle of peak con hours! I thought it would be a chore, but considered it an important duty. Boy was I wrong! This was among the highlights of the con for me! It is fascinating to watch the process happen. It feels like you are in a small Puritan village during the early colonial period. All the adults have gathered and are doing the best they can to keep society running because this is all the government there is. We are the only adults around, and who the hell thought that was a good idea? :) The strict adherence to Parlimentary Rules was charming, and I felt like I was turely part of a small community family. People were jovial. Apparently there are “regulars” who are well known for coming to these year after year after year. There was an informal Bingo game that listed the names of the 14 most common speakers, Whenever one stood up to make an amendment or challenge or speak for/against a motion their name would be marked off (and 5-in-a-row gets Bingo, of course). One person who spoke multiple times about the “YA Hugo” proposal was put onto the YA Hugo Committee by executive order. :) It felt like what governments SHOULD be. If only humanity could live in groups of a few thousand, rather than the hundreds-of-millions that nations consist of. /wistful

Most votes were done by raising of hands and estimation by the chair (most votes weren’t close and a count wasn’t needed). When a count was requested, everyone For stood up and counted off one by one as they sat down. Then repeat for Against. It was terribly exciting! Especially when I was sitting right next to the proposer of one of the motions (who was also the committee chair! Recused himself for that particular motion and sat down next to me) and voted against him! Later there was a presentation of EPH (E Plubris, Hugo) which cleared it up greatly for me and moved me from the “Voting against it, too complicated” to “This is brilliant!! I’m all for it!” camp. I hope they make that presentation available online at some point.

Anyway, the Business Meeting was great, and I encourage everyone to go! The sense of community was palpable. I only went for one (there were four, one each day Thurs-Sun), but I’m glad I did, and wish I had time to go to others as well. My friend Rachael Acks live-blogged all four days at her blog, here.

I think it’s awesome that gender-bent Immortan Joe cosplay has become a thing. :)

[No pic here of Panel or Scott Andrews, sadly. I am a dumb.]
The Future-Of-Short-Story-Publishing panel was fantastic. Especially because they had an old-timer (Mike Resnic) moderating the panel. He brought in stark contrast, when he spoke several times of “these things are run by Profit-and-Loss” and so forth. I asked about this, because I knew for a fact that at least half the panel still had dayjobs(!) and one of them is set up as a non-profit because it’s the only way it can afford to run. These are works of passion, not capitalist endevours. IMHO. The panel itself was good, but as I sat in the front row I was now able to recognize John Joseph Adams and Scott Andrews on sight. This came in SUPER HANDY when I went to the airport to fly back home on Sunday. I saw Scott Andrews sitting at my gate, waiting for the same flight! Not talking to anyone or reading anything either. So, after about a minute of working up my nerve, I went over to talk to him. And OMG we talked for 20 minutes!! It was fantastic! He explained Science Fantasy to me, we talked SF and podcasts and several other things. And it turns out he is ALSO a huge fan of Seth Dickinson! Hell yeah!!

Anyway, I had one of the best vacations of my life. I can’t wait for next year!

A Puppy View

WorldCon 1 Response »

Aug 282015

This post by Ken Burnside is illuminating. This is the sort of thing we need, to keep a dialog open and reduce hostility. Obviously I don’t agree with everything, but it’s a good post.

Normally I post the text of things that appear on FB, but this is very long, and I feel too much like it would be just plain stealing content if I copy/pasted it wholesale. So, if you don’t have FB or can’t follow the link, I am sorry. :(

Ye shall know them by their fruits

WorldCon 4 Responses »

Aug 252015

fresh puppy “threats”

Over the weekend, the overwhelming majority of SF Fandom smacked the Sad/Rabid Puppies on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. It was a smashing victory for civility, when even those who normally enjoy the “old school” style of SF said “We’re not OK with you guys being assholes, cut it out.” No decent person will want to be on a Puppy slate after this. Matthew Foster put it better than I could*.

As by now I SHOULD HAVE expected, this has resulted in a number of Puppies saying that this is Fandom burning its own house, and crowing about a victory? Fascinating.

It’s wrong on so many levels that it’s hard to address them all. Primarily, the Puppies are using words (“burning down”, “salting the earth”, “nuking”, “pyrrhic”) that imply an action which weakens the winners. They seem to not understand the concept of You Never Negotiate With Terrorists. They are cowards, and they expect everyone else to act like cowards. I’m fortunate to live in a country where these sorts of fearful men are laughing stocks. I’m fortunate to be part of a fandom that feels the same.

But, as Alonzo Fyfe once pointed out, you can tell a lot about someone by the type of mistake they make, particularly when it is repeated and consistent. What can we infer about the Puppies** based on their claiming No Award as a victory?

We can assume they are the people who don’t actually care about Science Fiction at all, and certainly don’t care about SF Fandom. They are happy to see fandom “burned down”, and they hope to keep doing it again and again. They’re willing to pay money just to spite others.

This has been shown to be a losing tactic. I think we’re actually best served by signal-boosting their words. The vast majority of people are driven away by this sort of dickishness. The louder they proclaim it, the more people will turn against them.

The most interesting inference, however, is that they know they are weak. They don’t expect to gain any more followers, ever. They have maxed out their strength, and now they are working furiously at charging up the base. Why else employ a tactic that that alienates you from any new potential allies? Their leadership doesn’t expect further support, and is scared of losing the hardcore believers they already have. They know they are leading an army of cowards. They know that at the first sign of a loss cowards will turn tail and flee, leaving their leaders high and dry. They need to hold onto the fantasy that even a refutation as resounding as the spanking they got on Saturday is actually a win. Now they’re doing their best simply to avoid a rout.

Amplify their words. Let everyone see them thrashing about. Their own flailing damns them more than anything we could say. :)

*For those without Facebook, his public post says: “Gotta love this from Sarah Hoyt, (as I take the wording from the WSJ: …the “fury” of the reaction to the Puppies has proven their point. “That is the reaction of a small clique that has engaged in log rolling or years to reward its followers and those they approved of,” she said before the Hugo ceremony.

Too keep up the false narrative, she finally has to jettison the “small clique” that she claims runs everything, because it was a very, very big clique last night. It was...everyone except the pups. So I believe to recast her quote to makes sense, it would be,
“the fury of all of fandom against our small clique of puppies has proven our point: that all of fandom has engaged in voting for years to reward the stories they approve of–and we don’t like that.”

Yes, now it makes sense.”

**To be more accurate, I should specify I mean only the Puppies who do claim that. Not all Puppies fall in that category, and I don’t want to tar them all with the same brush. I will use the term “Puppies” in this post as short hand for “Puppies who think that No Award is a victory for them”, but please keep in mind that this isn’t all of them. I don’t even know if it’s a majority or not.

Puppies – All Bark, No Bite

Personal, WorldCon 24 Responses »

Aug 232015

Lets get the awards themselves out of the way first. As you’ve all heard by now, the Puppies were shut out. The community managed to successfully defend themselves at the first level. Congrats to all of us, I’m proud. :)

I had thought it possible there would be some disruption of the awards. Not necessarily anything physical, but maybe booing or chanting or yelling, which would slow things, stop the proceedings, and need to be dealt with. Before I arrived in Spokane I had been half-expecting it. There was not a peep. If there were any puppy supporters in the audience they were well behaved. I will admit that I am partially impressed that they managed to keep their civility about them. The entire thing went off without a hitch.

But by the time I actually walked into the auditorium, I no longer expected the Puppies to be a problem, because this was just the continuation of their entire week-long trend.

Long time readers may be aware I’m a bit of a drama-chaser. I don’t like it personally in my life, cuz who has the time for that shit? But I love to watch it. So I was seeking it out. I made many of my panel choices based on things I thought may draw puppy ire. I went to John Scalzi’s reading, which was hilarious and delightful. There was not a single bit of contention. No boos or hisses or people standing up to ask jerk questions. Maybe this is because John Scalzi is razor sharp and intimidating to anyone without genius-levels of charisma and IQ, and they were scared to speak out. Maybe they were intimated by such a large room full of huge Scalzi fans. I don’t know.

I went to the panel on “Writing About Controversies” which was unofficially THE panel to discuss the Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy situation. I thought maybe here, of all places, someone would stand up to ask a challenging question during the Q&A. Nothing.

I went to a handful of social justice panels, thinking maybe someone would boo or challenge there. The rooms were more intimate, the audience smaller, and the panelists fairly low-level and unthreatening. I left early out of boredome in several cases.

I attended the business meeting where the rules changes were discussed to address the puppy problem. Here, I thought, is a perfect place for them to strike. It is a very formal, palimentary system (more on this later, it was fascinating!), and it would have been pretty easy to sabotage. I saw one issue run off the table just because it was contentious and there was enough bickering and debate that time ran out on it. A group of less than a dozen puppy-supporters could have thrown a serious monkey wrench in the whole thing simply by exploiting rules without doing anything against the letter of the law (as they like to do). They could have tried continually calling points of order, or offering amendments, debating rulings, objecting to proceedures, etc. They could have run out the clock on everything. I’m sure there’s some way of dealing with this, but it would have gummed up the works if they did it smartly. Nothing at all. It’s like they weren’t even there.

I know there were some around. I ran into one at my hotel’s breakfast bar, and we had a good little discussion. It was very civil, and we went away with respect for each other as human beings. I talked to a couple friends who also ran into a puppy or two. But all in all, it was like they weren’t there. Turns out they are cowards in real life, and only strike out at others when they can do so comfortably from behind the safety of their keyboards.

One may think “Isn’t it possible they are just good people, who don’t want to disrupt a party and ruin the days of other people for no reason? Why are you Saying they are cowards, rather than that they are civilized people?” Nay, I reply. When they can hide behind screens and keyboards, and don’t have to see the faces of the people they are hurting, they are more than happy to destroy someone’s day. They are *gleefull* about it. They cackle about how good it feels to see an anthill and start stomping it (which is a direct quote from a puppy commenter on my blog, I’m not making shit up). I don’t do Twitter myself, but I hear you can see all sorts of abuse on there right now.

But lets grant that those online comments are from the worst fringes of the movement. The fact remains that the puppy supporters were excited to vote a slate so they could hijack the Hugos for their self-aggrandizement. And as I predicted in “Why Vandals?” none of them bothered to show up for the actual party. If the party was left just to them, they’d have a nearly empty convention hall and no one to run it. They do not care about the con, or the people who attend it. They didn’t attend the business meeting to try to make things better. They didn’t put forward any bids to host the 2018 WorldCon. That they didn’t try to further mar the convention by ruining things in person isn’t a mark of civility, it’s simply the modus operandi for internet cowards.

It really dawned on me just how worthless the Puppies are when I went to the business meeting, and during the watching of the fan-recognition part of the award ceremony. These are people, later on in their years, who have been SF/F fans for significantly longer than I’ve even been alive. They’ve spent *decades* of work putting together these conventions. They are dedicated, and in love. They aren’t the authors, they don’t get the accolades themselves. They’re just passionate about SF. I really came to realize how much WorldCon is by and for the fans. I was very disappointed that more puppies didn’t come to the con in person. I was very disappointed that ALL the puppies didn’t come to the con in person! They would have seen that joy and passion for themselves. Maybe that is part of the reason why the puppy supporters who did come didn’t boo or shout or try to disrupt anything. They saw the love and the passion for themselves, and couldn’t bring themselves to be assholes any more. The ones who stayed home, safe behind their keyboards – they are the ones who will continue to be dicks. Because they were cowards, and wouldn’t come to see what they were vandalizing in person. Assholery feeds on cowardice, which leads to further assholery, in a neat little circle. It’s fitting.

The true realization of just how awful they are didn’t hit until the nomination stats were released afterwards. Before that point, it was just a theoretical “Man, I wonder how the year would have been different.” Afterwards, you could see exactly which stories were obstructed by the Puppy’s spite. Which authors were denied the recognition for great work. There are some truely fantastic stories that would have gotten nominations if not for the Puppy’s vandalism. Most tragically, a story by Eugie Foster would have received a nomination. Eugie Foster died tragically last year. By all accounts, she was an amazing person and a great writer. Who knows if she would have won? But now she’ll never have the memorium of “Hugo-nominated author” that she should have received. Because of the Puppy’s butthurt. I’ve tried to engage them before, and be reasonable. After today I’ll go back to that. But for today, I’m allowing myself to be angry. Fuck those guys.

Manufactured Outrage vs Worthy Opposition

Personal, WorldCon 14 Responses »

Aug 122015

The last few days everyone in Hugo-ville has been in a tizzy about Lou Antonelli contacting the police in Spokane. I’ve seen it referred to as a SWATing. Guys… no. Chill the fuck out. A SWATing is when the SWAT team actually breaks into your house. It’s terrible for a number of reasons, but primary among them the fact that American police are notoriously reckless and an innocent person could be killed. This is a SWATing. What Lou did isn’t SWATing. He wrote a letter, asking for extra police protection at a public event.

Yes, he’s crazy, and he used paranoid language that shows how off-the-deep-end he is. But police do occasionally get such letters from crazy people, it’s not a big deal. And let’s be real for a second – wouldn’t we all feel a bit better with extra security around this year? I’ve heard similar worries from the non-Puppies (called Happy Hippogriffs from here on out for brevity) – they’re also scared that the Puppies fans are dangerously emotional and a few lunatics on the fringe might try to start trouble. I’ve had this expressed to me in private, and seen it online as well. We’re all a bit nervous. Lou just had the misfortune of letting his fear show in public, and targeting the Master of Ceremonies with lunatic accusations while doing so. Cut the guy some slack.

Everyone is quoting the Aug 1 episode of the Superlative Livestream. This is a roundtable discussion by a number of Puppies & Sympathizers, and I think very few people have actually listened to it, because there’s some far more interesting stuff in there! I’ve now listened to it, so you don’t have to. ;) Here’s some highlights.

At ~27:40 someone complains about how many people “shelled out forty bucks just to vote a spoiler vote”, which at first I thought showed crazy amounts of obliviousness. The entire Puppy movement is just one big backlash of the aggrieved, uniting to shell out forty bucks for the satisfaction of casting a spoiler vote! That is their raison d’etre! And now they’re trying to take the moral high-ground, saying that’s dirty pool? Then I realized it was John C Wright talking, and I laughed. The man knows exactly what he’s doing, he just has more chutzpah than anyone currently writing. :)

An interesting insight into the Puppies’ view of us: at ~1:17:25 one complains that “the thing with a lot of these people is that they don’t know people of faith”. Which… wow. Is the problem really that the Puppy voters simply don’t know any Hippogriffs? How else could you imagine that the Hippogriffs don’t know any people of faith? A large portion of them are people of faith! Of the remainder, I guarantee close to 100% know people of faith. We live in America, the most religious first-world country on the planet. It’s nigh impossible to NOT know someone of faith. We are all very much acquainted with people of faith, and the fact that you think we aren’t makes me suspect you’ve been being told some very interesting stories about us.

He then goes on to say that this makes having a chaplain protagonist “non-PC.” I don’t understand how this follows, even in the abstract. If any Puppy is reading this, and agrees with his sentiment, can you clarify what he means?

The same Puppy at ~1:20:15 says that he lives in Texas where they “are very different” because “you don’t have to apologize if you mention God or you say “God-bless-you” when someone sneezes”. Again, I want to know where the hell he’s getting his opinions about the outside world. Generally, mentioning God is not something anyone apologizes for. I mean sure, it may be considered rude to start arguing Religion and/or Politics depending on the situation, but that’s normal social convention. There’s an old saying about it. That’s just not starting shit at the dinner table. Simply mentioning your God is never something I’ve seen anyone have to apologize for – more often than not it meets with approval.

But seriously, the BIG kicker here is his assertion that anywhere in the US someone would have to apologize for saying “God-bless-you.” That’s ludicrous, to the point that I wouldn’t have believed a Puppy had made that claim if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears. It doesn’t even have religious connotations anymore! That he thinks there are places where you’d have to apologize for saying that means his view of people who are outside his group has been so twisted and distorted that we must be little more than baby-eating mutants! He feels that his in-group is so persecuted outside of his enclave, that the outside world would turn on him for a simple wish of health after a sneeze! NO WONDER the Puppies are so happy to part with $40 to spoil the award party of the enemy side! They have a conception of us as truly awful people. This is the thing I was talking about in Defense Against The Dark Arts. What kind of person thinks it’s ok to distort the worldview of those who respect his opinion to turn them on their fellow citizens in this way? Ugh.

Which brings me to John C Wright. I kinda love this guy. He’s extremely intelligent, and well-spoken, and he has this wonderful, rich voice. He’d make such an amazing Quirrell. And he is *passionate*, which I really admire. I loved it when he was crazy Libertarian, and I still love it now that he’s crazy Catholic. This guy does not give one fuck about what his opposition thinks, because they are wrong. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool Warrior, and he’s amazing to watch. Have I mentioned that I like to watch that kind of thing? I loved reading PZ Myer’s blog for the same reason. Intelligent, passionate, and a warrior. PZ would be what the Puppies call a “Social Justice Warrior” (SJW). John C Wright is the right-wing equivalent. He is absolutely a Conservative Justice Warrior (CJW?), and his fiction screams it. Hell, HE screams it, he doesn’t hide it for a second. He starts off the livestream acknowledging it! But the real fireworks come near the end, and for some reason I haven’t seen it referenced anywhere else.

Starting at ~1:18:00 John Wright says that “they’re an enemy religion to our religion. They know it.” Followed at ~1:18:45 with “They worship Moloch by means of abortion, and they worship Baphomet by means of sodomy.” He’s obviously talking in metaphor, but damn, that is some awesome metaphoring! That’s straight-up biblical. And it’s refreshingly honest. None of this namby-pamby bullshit about “You can say God-bless-you without apologizing for it.” Jesus, that argument is just plain sad, it crumbles as soon as anyone bothers to spend five freakin’ minutes with the opposition. But the claims that we support access to abortion, and we’re cool with sodomy? Entirely true. You think those things are bad, we don’t. That’s something real. That’s something worth engaging. Huzzah to Wright, for cutting past the bullshit and getting right to the beating heart of the divide. You, sir, have my respect. In the odd way that one respects a strong opponent.

Defense Against The Dark Arts re: The 2015 Hugo Awards

WorldCon 13 Responses »

Jul 292015

This year has been extraordinarily bad in terms of fiction nominees for the Hugos, which I blame primarily on the Puppies campaign. However it’s not a total loss, there is at least one work in each category that I genuinely liked, and would vote for. Which puts me in a bit of bind, because now I have to decide if I should No Award or not.

There are two major objections to the Puppies’ campaign (aside from plain old bad taste, which is a venial sin at worst).

Block Voting. Three men chose a slate of works (based on inscrutable criteria) and encouraged adherents to vote a straight ticket without considering other works. It seems highly likely that most people didn’t even bother to read the works they voted to nominate. This overwhelms the normal scattered popular vote, and reduces the Hugos to a party-system. Right now there’s only one party (the Puppies) but even if there were multiple parties I would still be unhappy with this result. Having winners chosen by the leaders of whichever party can attract the most loyalists is distasteful. It’s the same political machine that runs US politics, and everyone hates it. Why would we want to adopt that system for anything?
Dark Arts. The Puppies gathered members and fired up their base by using the tried-and-true method of tribal hatred. It’s simple red-vs-blue antagonism. The Puppies’ message is that an evil leftist cabal of “Them” have been oppressing “Us.” Every single thing that really pisses off the right about the left was painted onto the image of “Them.” And we can defeat “Them” and really rub their noses in shit simply by paying $40 and exploiting the very system they have so much faith in! The Puppy Triumvirate found a pressurized reservoir of discontent and resentment that was straining to explode, stoked it further, and tapped some of that energy for their own purposes. All this does is turn the Hugos into another contest of who can hate who harder. All other considerations (such as artistic quality, or personal integrity) get thrown aside when we’re engaged in an existential struggle against the Other Tribe. That is not what I want the Hugos to be about.

So this use of Dark Arts must be discouraged. I cannot ignore the consequences of what would happen if the Puppies’ tactics were to propagate. And they will propagate if they’re seen to be successful. Regardless of how much I personally enjoyed a couple of these nominees, I cannot rate any work that was on a Puppy Slate above No Award.

If you have a Hugo vote this year, I urge you to consider the ramifications of the Puppies’ tactics, and vote No Award as well.

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