Who is the Muggle and who is the Slan?
UPDATE NOTICE: http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/18/book-bomb-novellas-from-the-sad-puppies-slate/
One of the Happy Kittens (as I hereby officially christen the self-declared foes of Sad Puppies) has decreed, speaking ex-cathedra from his bung hole, that we Evil Legionnaires of Evil who support the Sad Puppies ballot are not true, real, authentic fans of science fiction.
The esteemed Patrick Richardson expresses an opinion to the contrary, which is to say, the truth of the matter (https://otherwheregazette.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/not-a-real-fan/):
Not a real fan
Posted by Patrick Richardson
I started loving science fiction when I was all of three or four, watching the Apollo/Soyuz link-up with my parents on TV. It’s one of my earliest memories. I remember playing in the semi-finished basement of our home in Colby, Kansas, listening to Walter Cronkite as little lights showed the orbits converging.
I was hooked.
For forty years I’ve read or watched every scrap of SFF I could get my hands on.
But, according to the Anti Sad Puppy crowd, I’m not a real fan.
I read the Hobbit for the first time in Kindergarten.
So I’m not a Real Fan.
I chased the Delikon off Earth in fourth grade and followed Alice down the rabbit hole.
But I’m not a real fan.
I devoured the Chronicles of Prydain and watched the Dark rise in 5th grade.
So I’m not a Real Fan.
By sixth grade I was on my fifth run through of the Lord of the Rings.
So I’m not a Real Fan.
I discovered Col. Falkenberg and met the Moties in 7th grade.
So I’m not a Real Fan.
In the last 40 years I have read hundreds of SFF books, watched hundreds of movies, dreamed of flying on Serenity and riding Sue with Harry Dresden.
So I’m not a Real Fan.
You see, according to the Anti crowd I can’t be a real fan because I don’t go to cons. I’ve only been to one you see, not out of lack of desire, but lack of funds.
So I’m not a Real Fan.
See, to be a Real Fan, you have to agree with the liberal orthodoxy. You have to believe that SF is all about teaching us lessons, not about having fun. You also, apparently, have to go to cons and beat your breast about “privilege” and “diversity” and apparently apologize for having testicles.
The problem I see with this point of view is simple.
It’s bullshit.
Bravo, and Read the whole thing.
* * *
Keith Glass of the Otherwhere Gazette chimes in likewise:
https://otherwheregazette.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/check-your-fandom-privilege/
…Our Betters have declared, that there IS a class structure in Fandom. Ask Mike Glyer or Kevin Standlee. Apparently we need to read fanzines, be a member of a formal club, be a collector, filk, and do cosplay.
And that you are a fan “in proportion to the effort you make to attach yourself to fandom”
Well, thank you very much for laying out the requirements, that was mighty Privileged of you to do so.
And so I say in return: Check your everlovin’ Fandom Privilege. You’re a Fan if you say you’re a fan. Period. Full Stop. No check off the boxes, no “attaching yourself to fandom”. No Secret handshakes. Not even any Propeller Beanies. . .
My comment: Who dares to tell me who is and is not a fan? By what standards? By what logic?
Is this groundworm who does not know the difference between rishathra and grokking frelling telling ME that I am am not a fan?
Has he even read one story by AE van Vogt, while I wrote a NOVEL by him? Can he name, in order, the Eighteen races of Man from Olaf Stapledon? Does he know who Arthur C Clarke is, or the real name of Cordwainer Smith? Ye gods!
May the great white apes of Barsoom bugger him and the thoat he rode in on.
(Answers below)
* * *
For those of you who came in late, the Hugo Awards since roughly the mid-90s have been dominated by Leftwingery, literary twitterings, and dreck instead of stories containing science fiction elements.
To use the example most ready to hand, the winning short story was a prose poem about the wife of a paleontologist indulging an a daydream of revenge against oddly gin-drinking bar patrons who beat her bridegroom into a coma: the vignette takes place apparently in the present day, and contains nothing science fictional at all. It is not a bad piece, but neither is it the best science fiction short story of the year by any measure. It is amateurish, even lazy. For example, the authoress, instead of inventing real invectives that might erupt in a real bar fight, merely selected a grab-bag of what Leftist know-nothings dimly and risibly imagine the Rightwing boogieman hate, with the unintended consequence that the author has made the victim of the beating into a transgendered homosexual Mohammedan Mexican sissy.
Lest anyone accuse me of criticizing where I cannot do better, in one afternoon, I penned a tale using the same theme, but added a science fictional element.
Miss Swirsky’s tale, whatever its other merits, is a simplistic revenge fantasy against a Leftwing caricature of Rightwingers, here portrayed as violent and drunken bigots. This is one example of a dozen works selected for their political orientation but not for their merit.
Likewise, ANCILLARY JUSTICE by Ann Leckie — as best I can tell — won the award not for the merit of the work but for the use by one character of a female pronoun as the default pronoun. I say “as best I can tell” on the evidence that three times I have challenged fans of this book to name one thing inventive or entertaining about it, aside from the book’s loyalty to feminist piety.
In each of the three cases, the response from three different fans of the book was the same: first, the fan hotly denied that the books only merit was its loyalty to feminist piety; second, the fan mentioned one or two ideas I had already handled in more depth in my own book THE GOLDEN AGE, not to mention the works other authors back to Sterling and Gibson who wrote in the 1980s; third, the fan praised the book’s loyalty to feminist piety.
One fan not only fulsomely praised the book’s loyalty to feminist piety, but then went into a frothing spasm of outrage, telling me that I must and should like and love the book, because to fail to do so would be to display my lack of loyalty to feminist piety. In other words, the reader is not the judge the book on its entertainment value, but instead bow as if to the holy book of some dark idol, and praise the book unread, lest he be found guilty of disloyalty to the idol. This fan owes an apology to Miss Leckie, because there is no insult more cutting to an author than to say the readers must force themselves to like it out of a sense of duty.
Let me be not misunderstood: I level no criticism of this novel, which I have not read and about which I form no opinion. I level a criticism at the voters who elevated this novel to the status of an award winner falsely, and under false pretenses. Whether or not Miss Leckie voices any political opinions right or left, the sad fact is that leftwing nutbags heaped false praises on her novel not because it was praiseworthy, but only because they wanted to exploit her novel as a billboard for their pet political agenda.
Likewise again, works by women and minorities are nominated because of the skin color of the author, or sex, or victimhood status, not the merit of the work.
Like all affirmative action schemes, the attempt is counterproductive. Instead of elevating the minority, by showing the minority can compete equally on a level playing field with the majority and win on his own merit, affirmative action tilts the playing field in favor of the minority, robbing any win of any meaning, and merely demeans the merit of the award. Any minority who does win on merit now is lost in a crowd of poseurs who won not on merit but on some trivial surface feature of the author of concern only to Leftists.
I am not the only one disheartened and disgusted by the Leftification of the Science Fiction field, and its hostile take-over by literati.
The honorable Larry Correia, wishing to re-introduce the Hugo Award to the fans who read real science fiction, half in jest, proposed a slate of popular works a year or two back, and, fully in jest, said that science fiction awards going to undeserving authors was the leading cause of sadness in puppies. To fight against moroseness in puppies, readers were urged to join WorldCon, and vote for stories based on the merit of the story, not the political leanings of the author.
For his rather mild and common sense observation that science fiction awards should go to, you know, science fiction stories only when they are stories and contain science fiction, Mr Correia’s character was slandered, mocked, derided, impugned, insulted, slurred, slimed, and villified.
He was denounced as a transgendered homosexual Mohammedan Mexican sissy.
So uncouth and over-the-top were the insane rantings of the Left, that he took upon himself the title and dignity of the International Lord of Hate.
Myself, using my dread and dreaded authority which derives from the King in Yellow, the Voorish Sign and the Living Fungi of Yuggoth, I decreed into existence the Evil Legion of Evil, the literary version of the World Crime League, and published our official manifesto (http://www.scifiwright.com/2014/06/united-underworld-literary-movement-manifesto/) to which Vox Day and Sarah Hoyt added their pens mightier than swords, and to which since has rallied a dozen other names, including Brad R. Torgersen and Lieutenant Colonel Tom Kratman.
* * *
Here is the updated sample ballot, with links:
Remember: only YOU can fight puppy sadness!
Best Novel
The Dark Between the Stars – Kevin J. Anderson – TOR
Trial by Fire – Charles E. Gannon – BAEN
Skin Game – Jim Butcher – ROC
Monster Hunter Nemesis – Larry Correia – BAEN
Lines of Departure – Marko Kloos – 47 North (Amazon)Best Novella
“Flow” – Arlan Andrews Sr. – Analog magazine November 2014
One Bright Star to Guide Them – John C. Wright – Castalia House
Big Boys Don’t Cry – Tom Kratman – Castalia HouseBest Novelette
“The Journeyman: In the Stone House” – Michael F. Flynn – Analog magazine June 2014
“The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale” – Rajnar Vajra – Analog magazine July/Aug 2014
“Championship B’tok” – Edward M. Lerner – Analog magazine Sept 2014
“Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium” – Gray Rinehart – Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine ShowBest Short Story
“Goodnight Stars” – Annie Bellet – The Apocalypse Triptych
“Tuesdays With Molakesh the Destroyer” – Megan Grey – Fireside Fiction
“Totaled” – Kary English – Galaxy’s Edge magazine, July 2014
“On A Spiritual Plain” – Lou Antonelli – Sci Phi Journal #2
“A Single Samurai” – Steve Diamond – Baen Big Book of MonstersBest Related Work
Letters from Gardner – Lou Antonelli – Merry Blacksmith Press
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth – John C. Wright – Castalia House
“THE HOT EQUATIONS: THERMODYNAMICS AND MILITARY SF” – Ken Burnside – Riding the Red Horse
Wisdom From My Internet – Michael Z. Williamson
“Why Science is Never Settled” Part 1, Part 2 – Tedd Roberts – BAENBest Graphic Story
Reduce Reuse Reanimate (Zombie Nation book #2) – Carter Reid – (independent)Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)
“The Lego Movie” – Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
“Guardians of the Galaxy” – James Gunn
“Interstellar” – Christopher Nolan
“The Maze Runner” – Wes BallBest Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)
Grimm – ” Once We Were Gods” – NBC
The Flash – “The Flash (pilot)” – The CW
Adventure Time – “The Prince Who Wanted Everything” – Cartoon Network
Regular Show – “Saving Time” – Cartoon NetworkBest Editor (Long Form)
Toni Weisskopf – BAEN
Jim Minz – BAEN
Anne Sowards – ACE/ROC
Sheila Gilbert – DAWBest Editor (Short Form)
Mike Resnick – Galaxy’s Edge magazine
Edmund R. Schubert – Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show
Jennifer Brozek (for Shattered Shields)
Bryan Thomas Schmidt (for Shattered Shields)Best Professional Artist
Carter Reid
Jon Eno
Alan Pollack
Nick GreenwoodBest Semiprozine
Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show
Abyss & Apex
Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight MagazineBest Fanzine
Tangent SF On-line – Dave Truesdale
Elitist Book Reviews – Steve Diamond
The Revenge of Hump Day – Tim BolgeoBest Fancast
“The Sci Phi Show” – Jason Rennie
Dungeon Crawlers Radio
Adventures in SF PublishingBest Fan Writer
Matthew David Surridge (Black Gate)
Jeffro Johnson
Amanda Green
Cedar Sanderson
Dave FreerThe John W. Campbell Award
Jason Cordova
Kary English
Eric S. Raymond
* * *
Answers: Cordwainer Smith’s real name is Paul Anthony Linebarger. It is abnormally easy to name all the races of man in Olaf Stapledon, since they are numbered: The First Men, the Second Men, the Third Men, and so on.
* * *
UPDATE NOTICE: http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/18/book-bomb-novellas-from-the-sad-puppies-slate/ :Larry Correia is holding an official BOOK BOMB to show the naysayers what’s what. Click through, and buy like crazy. Spend the rent money. Be unthrifty — because science fictional goodness like this is sadly hard to come by these days.
If you’ve already bought the book, post a review.
The International Lord of Hate says:
How a Book Bomb works is that we try to get as many people to buy them off of Amazon in the same day. Because they have a rolling average best seller list that updates hourly, this causes the book to move up the list. The higher it gets, the more people outside the Book Bomb see it, and check it out too. Success breeds success, and best of all, the author GETS PAID.
And all authors should have GET PAID on their mission statement.
Please tell your friends. Repost, reblog, tweet, whatever it is you are into. The key to Book Bombs is spreading the word. Thank you
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
