Puppies in Their Own Words
I’ve spent several hours on this, which is ridiculous. I don’t even know why, except that I’m frustrated by all of the “I never said…” “He really said…” “No he didn’t, you’re a lying liar!” “No, you’re the lying liar!” and so on.
An infinite number of monkeys have said an infinite number of things about the Hugos this year. People on all sides have said intelligent and insightful things, and people on all sides have said asinine things. The amount of words spent on this makes the Wheel of Time saga look like flash fiction. File770 has been doing an admirable job of posting links to the ongoing conversation.
I wanted to try to sort through the noise and hone in on what Correia and Torgersen themselves have been saying. As the founder and current leader, respectively, of the Sad Puppies, it seems fair to look to them for what the puppy campaign is truly about.
Sad Puppies I: Birth of Puppies: The Sad Puppies bit started with Larry Correia. He had used the tag a few times to criticize President Obama and argue about privilege before calling on his readers to nominate him for a Hugo in early 2013.
“[D]espite providing hours of explosion filled enjoyment to their readers, most pulp novelists will never be recognized by critics, and in fact, they will be abused by the literati elite.”
“Much like Michael Vick, literary critics hate pulp novelists and make them fight in vicious underground novelist fighting arenas. I actually did pretty good, until Dan Wells made a shiv from a sharpened spoon and got me in the kidney.”
Sad Puppies 1 wasn’t about slate voting; it was simply an author promoting himself and some folks he liked for Hugos. Some bits may trigger eye-rolling; other parts were amusing to read. The whole thing was clearly framed as pulp writers/explosions/excitement vs. the snobbish literary message-loving elite.
“[I]f Monster Hunter Legion were to become a Hugo finalist, elitist literary snobs around the world would have a complete come apart that something which was unabashed pulp, had an actual plot, had characters who actually did stuff, and wasn’t heavy handed message fiction dared tread into their sacred halls.” (Source)
In the end, Correia did not get nominated, though some of his recommendations did. It’s interesting to note that even then, Correia referred to it as a “stacking campaign.”
“So the Sad Puppies Hugo stacking campaign was a success for almost everybody else I pushed, but me…” (Source)
Sad Puppies II: Revenge of Puppies: Correia returned to Sad Puppies again in 2014, with the same anti-literati message.
“[Y]ou can support awesome books winning fancy Hugo awards and drive the literati insane! … No more boring, pretentious literati-wannabe dreck! … Vote for Warbound!” (Source)
“The ugly truth is that the most prestigious award in sci-fi/fantasy is basically just a popularity contest, where the people who are popular with a tiny little group of WorldCon voters get nominated and thousands of other works are ignored. Books that tickle them are declared good and anybody who publically deviates from groupthink is bad. Over time this lame ass award process has become increasingly snooty and pretentious…” (Source)
Really, the whole thing seemed to come down to Larry thinking bad, boring, pretentious stories keep winning Hugos over good, fun, pulp stories like his, so he’s calling upon his readers to vote for him and people like him, and to make literari head explodes in the process.
This time, Larry described his picks as a slate.
“Almost the entire rest of the Sad Puppy 2 slate has been nominated.” (Source)
He also got more explicit about the political motivations.
“I said a chunk of the Hugo voters are biased toward the left, and put the author’s politics far ahead of the quality of the work. Those openly on the right are sabotaged. This was denied. So I got some right wingers on the ballot.” (Source)
Among other people on Correia’s Sad Puppy 2 slate was Vox Day, who would go on to run Rabid Puppies in 2015.
Sad Puppies III: The Apupolypse Begins: In 2015, Correia handed the torch to Brad Torgersen, who said:
“I am going to slowly compile a slate. Of books and stories (and other things, and people) for the different categories. So that hopefully deserving works and artists — who tend to be snubbed at awards season — get a chance on the final ballot.” (Source)
One of Brad’s arguments was that Worldcon didn’t represent fandom as a larger whole. He posted a Venn Diagram suggesting that most Worldcon attendees aren’t even fans. (While Worldcon is a very small percentage of fandom as a whole, to suggest that most of them aren’t fans is rather silly.)
Like Larry before him, Brad saw this in part as a political battle, but also claimed to want to get worthy authors onto the ballot regardless of political ideology.
“[T]he voting body of ‘fandom’ have tended to go in the opposite direction: niche, academic, overtly to the Left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun … To that end, SAD PUPPIES has basic objectives: Get works and authors onto the Hugo ballot who might not otherwise be there; regardless of political persuasion.” (Source)
Evolution of the Sad Puppies III Slate: A number of folks have asked exactly how the slate was put together in 2015. Brad mentions soliciting suggestions, and said, “I’ve had a great many very good suggestions, and I am mulling the potential list now.” (Source)
The final slate was announced on his blog on February 1, noting, “If you agree with our slate below — and we suspect you might — this is YOUR chance to make sure YOUR voice is heard.”
So who made the final decision in this process? One commenter on Brad’s site noted:
“This list was generated by Brad Torgersen, Larry Correia, and a few other authors. Their fans have been suggesting various works, but, ultimately, the decision of which works to include was solely that of the participating authors.”
This was neither confirmed nor denied by Brad, who claims, “SP3 is not a same-minded collective. We’ve actually had a tremendous amount of internal debate about how to proceed.” But who the “SP3 Brain Trust” includes is never clarified. Brad mentions only Larry Correia and Vox Day in that same post.
Unlike the prior two years, Sad Puppies III presented a relatively full slate, with four or five nominees in most categories. While Torgersen suggests this list was a democratic group decision, a spreadsheet posted on Google docs suggests that most of the Sad Puppy candidates were not mentioned at all in the brainstorming blog posts, and were either suggested by other means, or else were the personal choices of Brad, Larry, and Vox. There have been many questions about this, and despite Brad’s claims of transparency, I’m not aware of Brad having answered them. (I’m happy to update this if I’m mistaken.)
Updates – Two comments from Brad:
“[A]t this stage, how the slate was assembled, doesn’t really matter. The facts of the assembly have been out there since Day 1 and if you still have a problem with that … oh well.” (Source)
“[I]f you can use the internet, you can Google (within 30 seconds) the original announcement, and the request for suggestions, see the many responses in the blog thread, etc. It was a mish-mash of comments and e-mails from various sources.” (Source – Screencapped)
The Unraveling: In the beginning of Sad Puppies III, I was hoping Torgersen would try to pull things up out of the mud. Over time, he seems to have gone in the opposite direction. By February 18, he was bashing John Scalzi for what he perceived as a slight against Baen. Then there was a shot against Nick Mamatas. He put forth CHORFS as an acronym for Cliquish, Holier-than-thou, Obnoxious, Reactionary, Fanatics. He designated Teresa Nielsen Hayden as the CHORF Queen in a rather lengthy and over-the-top rant after Nielsen Hayden (correctly) pointed out that the Hugos are representative of Worldcon, not fandom as a whole.
TNH: When I say the Hugos belong to the worldcon, I’m talking about the literal legal status of the award. But I also know that one of the biggest reasons the rocket is magic is because it spiritually belongs to all of us who love SF.
Brad: You hear that, fans? We don’t count. The Hugo is Teresa’s personal prize. Hers, and that of the other TruFen and CHORFs. (Source)
To be fair, people were absolutely talking crap about Torgersen, too. There was crap-talking on all sides. Just like you had people in Torgersen’s blog threatening to dox folks from the “anti-puppy” side, calling them “pussy,” and so on. But Torgersen is the Head Puppy this year, and this is part of how he chose to shape Sad Puppies.
He also reaffirmed his connection to Vox Day, saying, “I don’t mind being linked to Vox, because I don’t hate and fear Vox like a little schoolgirl who’s been stung by a wasp.”
Over time, Brad began talking less about recognizing worthy authors and more about his perceived persecution and fear in the genre, his imagined war against the CHORFS, the SJWs, and so on:
Me? My cohorts in Sad Puppies? … We’re done with playing the game. We’re calling out the fear-mongers and we’re saying, ‘Go to hell, you can’t stop us, because you were never as powerful as you thought you were.’ And it’s true. A lot of this correctness crap is a tissue. A smokescreen. The CHORFs, the Social Justice scolds, the taste-maker poseurs, et al., it’s like an overlapping venn diagram of noxious people…” (Source)
He also refused to accept that people could disagree with slate and bloc voting, describing Sad Puppies as a “peasant revolution” and claiming, “100% of the opposition to SP3 can be distilled down to that single concept: snobbery.” (Source)
As word of the Sad Puppy sweep of the Hugo ballot spread, larger media outlets picked up on it, many of them unfavorably, and some of them in aggressively critical ways. Brad saw this as further evidence of conspiracy:
“I suspect some of the insider SF/F people who dislike Sad Puppies 3 decided that the best way to “win” the insider baseball argument, was to stage a broader media flare-up for the sake of fatally discrediting the “poster people” of Sad Puppies 3.” (Source)
His blog posts got more over-the-top, comparing voting No Award to the Judgement of Solomon, likening fandom to a Gulag, and even trying to link it all to 9/11.
He began accusing “The Left” and CHORFs of hounding nominees off the ballots, even when those nominees explicitly stated this wasn’t the case.
Brad: Nobody should have to be afraid of being on a list of suggestions. But Juliette (and a few others) were. Because they didn’t want to be punished for an association. Brilliant, folks! Just brilliant. Let’s make hard-working authors afraid of having the “wrong” people put those authors forward, for recognition.
Brad: You know, 1984 wasn’t supposed to be an owners manual. Juliette’s one of Analog’s bright stars. I think she deserves a Hugo. She was upset because she realized she was going to become a target — a target for the CHORFs. As soon as that hit her, she came to me and requested to be pulled. I think she’s honest about not understanding the “slate” and SP3 were the same thing. But her motivation for wanting off was all about fear. She didn’t want to have to deal with the Peoples Republic of Science Fiction’s version of the NKVD.
Juliette: Brad Torgersen, you are pretty brazen, trying to speak for me, and I would appreciate it if you never attempted to do so again. I was entirely unaware of the Sad Puppy connection … I guess I was too idealistic, thinking that Sad Puppies might be over and that you would just be talking to me about some Hugo recommendations … Just to be clear, you have clearly got no idea of my motivations and are trying to spin them to your benefit … I would never, ever have wanted to associate with Sad Puppies after last year, because of the depth of my anger over their behavior. I felt sick that you had deceived me and betrayed my confidence, and the fact that you denied having done so is irrelevant. You, and your actions, were what I was avoiding in pulling myself off the list.
I know how much time I lost on this post. I can’t imagine how much time Brad has invested in all of his blog posts, and showing up on other Facebook posts, blog posts, and on Twitter to argue with people. It feels obsessive. (And I say that having written a 2800-word post on the subject.) It looks to me like Brad’s primary focus with Sad Puppies isn’t to promote good works so much as it is to argue with everyone.
The Real Problems:
Here are some of the things Brad has pointed to as problems with the Hugo awards and fandom.
“The Hugos especially have become prone to focusing on issues-first fiction. If not outright tokenism and affirmative action, for the sake of the sexuality, gender, and ethnicity of the authors themselves. In those cases, the content of the story is practically irrelevant. It’s the box-checking that counts.” (Source)
“[T]he Worldcon tribe — or at least certain vocal members within the tribe — have gone full-retard-tribal about the affront to “their” award, and “their” convention. So it’s tribe-vs-tribe. Are you in-tribe or out-tribe?” (Source)
“maybe just be wholly transparent and call it White American Liberals Con — An inclusive, diverse place where everyone talks about the same things, has the same tastes, votes the same way, and looks at the world through the same pair of eyes. Whitelibbycon. With the trophy: whitelibbyrocket.” (Source)
“I am pretty sure the point of Sad Puppies 3 was to make the final ballot more inclusive, not less … Oh, SP3 pointedly criticized affirmative action — which makes demographics paramount over content and quality.” (Source)
“We (Sad Puppies Inc.) threatened nothing, demanded nothing, and closed no doors in any faces. We threw the tent flaps wide and beckoned to anyone and everyone: come on in, join the fun! The Puppy-kickers have threatened and demanded a great deal. They most certainly do not want the “wrong” fans being allowed to participate in “their” (the Puppy-kickers’) award.” (Source)
“It wasn’t about dialing the field back to the Golden Age as much as it was about using the extant democratic process to broaden the extent of the Hugo’s coverage; to include Hugo-worthy works (and authors, and editors, and artists) who’d ordinarily fall into the blind spots. And let’s be clear: the Hugo selection process in 2015 does have blind spots. Such as the consistent bias against tie-in novels and tie-in novel authors…” (Source)*
*It should be noted that Brad included zero tie-in works on the 2015 Sad Puppy slate.
Racism/Sexism:
A number of people have talked about racism/sexism and the puppies. Some directly accused Brad et al of being racist, sexist, etc. Others pointed to the number of racists, sexists, and bigots among the slates. I pointed out that the puppies had reversed a five-year trend toward gender balance in the Hugo awards.
“[T]he narrative is stupid. That Sad Puppies 3 is sexist, racist, etc. It was stupid when it was concocted. It remains stupid. It was stupid the second Entertainment Weekly stepped on its own tongue, after being spoon-fed an uproariously amateurish and error-festooned hit piece, by parties who have no regard for facts, and who were eager to smear Sad Puppies 3 and everyone associated with it.” (Source)
Part of this aspect seems to be disagreement about what constitutes racism, etc. Brad hasn’t been out burning crosses or anything. Indeed, he pointed out that he’s married to a black woman. The puppy slates included women and non-white authors.
So are Brad and Larry racist? Sexist? Homophobic? What about their slates?
I don’t see an active or conscious effort to shut out authors who aren’t straight white males.
I do see that the effect of the slates was to drastically reduce the number of women on the final ballots.
Torgersen made a now-infamous homophobic remark about John Scalzi, which he later apologized for. I don’t see this as suggesting Torgersen is a frothing bigot; it does suggest he has some homophobic attitudes or beliefs he should probably reexamine and work on.
More central to the Sad Puppies, when I see Brad railing against “affirmative action” fiction, I see a man who seems utterly incapable of understanding sometimes people write “non-default” characters not because they’re checking off boxes on a quota, but because those are the stories they want to tell, and the characters they want to write about. Dismissing all of those amazing, wonderful, and award-winning stories as nothing but affirmative-action cases? Yeah, that sounds pretty bigoted to me.
#
Most folks already know I think both puppy campaigns are nonsense, and their claims that they’re just doing what “the other side” used to do are wishful thinking with no evidence or basis in reality than I’ve seen. I’ve been remarkably unimpressed with most of the puppy-nominated work I’ve read so far. (One of their recs in Best Related Work doesn’t actually appear to be at all related to SF/F.) I’ll be voting accordingly, and presumably so will the rest of the voters.
There’s a lot more to it all, I know. But I’ve got deadlines, and can’t afford to spend even more time on this today. I’m sure some folks will complain that I’m cherry-picking, but I’ve done my best to find quotes that are either representative of the larger posts and comments, or else demonstrate that yes, so-and-so did say that thing you claim they didn’t say.
Enjoy what’s left of your weekend, folks!
Martin
June 7, 2015 @ 2:03 pm
Thank you for the history…. That was a hell lot of work to get it structured that well.
Jim Henley
June 7, 2015 @ 2:09 pm
You hit the nub at the end of the penultimate section. Brad and the SP honchos insist that recent award wins by women and authors of color could not have been because of the merits of their stories. Of course that’s racist and sexist.
Also, Correia’s SP1 and SP2 read like those of a man completely in the grip of resentment.
Tegan
June 7, 2015 @ 2:15 pm
Thanks for this, this is probably one of the more balanced looks I’ve seen of the whole story, and it helps to have it without blatant inflammatory writing regardless of stance.
Paul Weimer (@princejvstin)
June 7, 2015 @ 2:15 pm
That’s a lot of crunchy roundup of the whole thing, Jim. Thanks.
Jim C. Hines
June 7, 2015 @ 2:25 pm
I won’t claim to be neutral in all of this, but I tried to keep it as fact-based as possible.
Genevra Littlejohn
June 7, 2015 @ 2:26 pm
Thanks for writing this.
Matthew Thyer
June 7, 2015 @ 2:50 pm
Ever since the first SP “campaign” I have been amazed at the level of cognitive dissonance that must have existed intrinsically and was then cultivated over subsequent years. The SP/RPs both correctly recognize that the award is a popularity contest, but they consistently ignore the fact that people will vote for the things they like the most. If I don’t like what you’ve written it shouldn’t imply that I don’t like you. If a lot of people don’t like what you’ve written that doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy to drive you into obscurity. I say this from a position of obscurity.
I can tell you that I loves me some pulp fiction. I really do, space operas have been a personal favorite of mine for a really long time. I’m obsessive about original Conan. But I can also appreciate beautiful prose, an amazingly unexpected plot twist, and any number of literary devices executed with originality and precision. And the juxtaposition of these styles of writing shouldn’t imply any sort of mutual exclusivity. Pulp fiction can be beautiful writing.
My nominations were all works I had read last year, selections that I enjoyed. When it came out I downloaded my reading packet and immediately dug into the nominees. I didn’t do this by first checking who wrote what or who put this or that in their voting block. I imagine this may be how most people go about this process because I’m averagely lazy too. I just can’t be bothered to match up what I’m reading to some list of “approved” fiction. Besides, reading and voting this way seems to me the exact opposite of how the award is supposed to work.
As I’ve read I’ve also had to put some down. This isn’t a literary or political criticism, it’s me exercising personal taste and defining the boundaries of my what I’m willing to tolerate. I just don’t like much of what I’m reading and so I’m not going to waste my time reading it.
I’m not being “snotty” or leftist or joining some anti-conspiracy conspiracy when I do this. Rather I’m doing what readers do everywhere every day, enjoying the works that bring me joy and ignoring those that cannot compel me in this manner. If the SP/RP organizers and contributors can’t understand the prevailing zeitgeist in their genre they won’t ever capture the eyes needed to gain legitimate access to a ballot of popularity. If they ruin the ballot by engineering it to serve their own purposes no one should expect the offering of a tissue.
Muccamukk
June 7, 2015 @ 3:24 pm
This is a good post. I hadn’t tuned in to the first year and didn’t pay attention to the second, so it’s good to have the backstory laid out like this.
That said, I continue to feel like the Sads are pretty much besides the point here, so their motivations don’t especially matter. It was the Rabids that put most everything on the ballot, and their motivations are pretty damn clear.
Mary Kay
June 7, 2015 @ 3:50 pm
Upfront: I am a longtime Worldcon attendee and Hugo voter. I administered the Hugos in 2008.
What the SPs allege about the Hugo process does not match my experience in any way. No one ever suggested nominations or votes to me. When I administered the Hugos there was NO hanky-panky of any sort. Of course, I would say that. Have I discussed my nominations & votes with friends? Of course? Do we agree on all things Hugo? HAH! I just have a really hard time taking seriously anything so completely divergent from my nearly 40 years of experience.
I find it peculiar beyond understanding that the SPs do not seem to understand that tastes vary for reasons that have nothing to do with political correctness. That works with moral/ethical content MUST be inferior to those without. I can’t even.
I love me some rip-snortin’ space opera. I also love me some interesting examinations of ethical dilemmas. I feel sorry for how those guys are letting their politics dictate such a narrow range of reading matter. They’re missing so much.
Of course when it comes time to vote for what I think is best, I’m going to vote for things with depth and layers. Things I can enjoy on many levels, characters I like & admire, new viewpoints, ways of thinking, different worlds. These are always going to get my votes because there’s just more there there. It’s like comparing a Big Mac to beef Burgundy. Yeah, I eat both, but that fancy French stew is winner, hands down. It tastes better AND is more nutritious.
MKK
Mark
June 7, 2015 @ 4:12 pm
Jim, really useful post, thank you for you time in putting this together.
Re: “There have been many questions about this, and despite Brad’s claims of transparency, I’m not aware of Brad having answered them. (I’m happy to update this if I’m mistaken.)”
You are not mistaken. There have been a number of attempts to get further details, and they have yielded very little. His absolute latest word on the subject, in the last few hours on File 770, was “at this stage, how the slate was assembled, doesn’t really matter. The facts of the assembly have been out there since Day 1 and if you still have a problem with that . . . oh well.” http://file770.com/?p=22977&cpage=3#comment-276941
Michael A. Ventrella
June 7, 2015 @ 4:40 pm
Thanks for a mostly impartial, fact-based analysis.
Jason
June 7, 2015 @ 4:58 pm
Though not directly puppy related, those who support sad/rabid puppies are calling for a boycott of Tor because of comments made by people associated with Tor ‘ so much for we only want good stories and never judge fiction based on the politics of those creating / publishing it!
http://madgeniusclub.com/2015/06/07/dear-tor/
Jim C. Hines
June 7, 2015 @ 5:05 pm
There’s been a fair amount of Tor-bashing, though it died down a bit when people realized how closely Tor and Baen were linked in the business world. Not to mention the fact that Tor publishes folks like John Wright, Orson Scott Card, etc…
Not surprised some folks are still on about the Evil Boogeymen of Tor.
Laura Resnick
June 7, 2015 @ 5:08 pm
Jim wrote: “It should be noted that the puppies included zero tie-in works on their slates.”
Similarly, about 3 weeks ago (on May 16), Brad Torgersen claimed on DAW Book publisher Betsy Wollheim’s Facebook wall that “it’s precisely because DAW (and many a DAW author) can’t seem to get much traction at Hugo time, that myself and a few others deemed Sad Puppies necessary.”
Yet the Puppy slate did not name a single DAW novelist–not even one–for ANY award on the Hugo ballot. And when the Puppy slates swept the ballot, 2015 become the first time in several years that no DAW author appears anywhere on the Hugo ballot.
His assertion that DAW gets no traction at Hugo time is, of course, completely inaccurate:
In 2014, DAW co-publisher Sheila Gilbert was on the Hugo ballot for Best Editor. (This year is her third consecutive appearance there, so I am skeptical to the point of actual sneering if Torgersen would assert that she needed his “help” to get on the ballot.) And Dan Dos Santos, who does many DAW book covers (including most of mine) , was also on the ballot in 2014.
In 2013, a DAW book was on the Hugo ballot for Best Novel, a DAW editor (Sheila) was on the ballot for Best Editor, frequent DAW cover artist Dos Santos was on the ballot for Best Artist, and DAW author Seanan McGuire was on the ballot three times (twice in short fiction, once for her group podcast).
In 2012, DAW co-publisher Betsy Wollheim won the Hugo for Best Editor, DAW author Jim Hines (I believe you know him) won for Best Fan Writer, and DAW regulars were nominated in Best Related Work and Best Artist.
So… in what way is DAW unable to get “traction at Hugo time?” This might be a poor showing for a huge program like Tor (which is a huge pubishing program compared to DAW, and which also has an enormous related magazine, Tor.com, for short fiction and nonfiction), but it’s not an absence of traction for a house the size of DAW, one which moreover publishes mostly fantasy (albeit not exclusively)–while the Hugos focus mostly on sf (albeit not exclusively).
Yet in the 2015, the year the Puppies swept the ballot, not a single DAW novelist or artist is anywhere on it.
With “help” like that, if it persists, DAW will indeed have trouble getting traction at Hugo time.
Laura Resnick
June 7, 2015 @ 5:11 pm
Oops, contradicted myself up there. No DAW author appeared on the ballot in 2014, either, though a DAW artist did.
Laura Resnick
June 7, 2015 @ 5:17 pm
Is John C Wright still under contract at Tor, or did they have an acrimonious (or anti-climactic) parting of the ways? How does the Tor-bashing (and now the call to boycott Tor) of his Puppy associates balance well with his professional business association with Tor Books?
If there was a politically-motivated Hugo-gaming blogger group similar to the Puppies that had it in for DAW Books, my primary publisher, I wouldn’t be one of their well-known ringleaders and daily cheerleading pundits. That’s unprofessional, as well as poor business sense.
Evan Þ
June 7, 2015 @ 5:30 pm
And, thanks for keeping it fact-based. Your non-neutrality did show a couple places, but exhaustive citations, factual points, and frank admission of your perspective is the best way to address that – as you did.
Willard Stone
June 7, 2015 @ 5:33 pm
Thank you for the historical summary.
Sally
June 7, 2015 @ 5:33 pm
Maybe they’ve confused Tor with DAW. All those three-letter words are confusing.
Jim C. Hines
June 7, 2015 @ 5:41 pm
Wright jumped in to defend Tor here on his blog. I’m not sure the larger puppyverse paid him much mind.
Sally
June 7, 2015 @ 5:42 pm
The thing that jumped out at me (aside from the butt-hurt, inconsistency, incoherency, and… I’m sorry, I’ll come in again…)
was that Brad says he “doesn’t mind being linked to Vox.”
Okay.
Let’s ask Mrs. Brad about that, shall we? Since it’s a well-documented fact that Mrs. Brad is a person of ancestry/skin color that ol’ Teddy has clearly stated he considers sub-human savages.
Someone says that about every person who’s got the skin tone and ancestry of my spouse and thus also my children, you damn well better believe I’m NOT going to want my name linked with them.
Or, if my spouse publicly made cause with such a person, I would STRONGLY disapprove and be terribly hurt and wonder about our relationship.
But this is one of many things in which Bwad and I differ.
I don’t go palling around with people who disrespect my spouse just for existing.
Terry O'Brien
June 7, 2015 @ 5:56 pm
Just a minor quibble: “Nielsen Hayden” isn’t hyphenated.
http://nielsenhayden.com/name.html
Jim C. Hines
June 7, 2015 @ 5:58 pm
Thank you. Fixing now.
sjl
June 7, 2015 @ 6:10 pm
Great roundup. Another minor quibble: The “Teresa Nielsen Hayden as the CHORF Queen” link is broken.
Terry O'Brien
June 7, 2015 @ 6:14 pm
You’re welcome.
Jim C. Hines
June 7, 2015 @ 6:20 pm
Fixed now. I also added a snippet from that post. Thanks.
Cat Sittingstill
June 7, 2015 @ 6:58 pm
Thanks for an informative round-up. I don’t envy you the job of collecting it but I appreciate what you have done!
Regarding the puppies–if the whole world smells of dog do, it’s time to check the bottom of your shoes. If the whole of the SF fan world is composed of jerks, it’s time to ask yourself whether you’re actually the jerk.
Laura Resnick
June 7, 2015 @ 6:58 pm
Things have gotten even more volatile since then (looks like he posted this in April?), but I suppose he can keep linking to it to point out he may be traveling with the Puppies but he’s not trying to publicly disrespect the company that releases his novels.
Gabriel F.
June 7, 2015 @ 7:19 pm
I’d like to just point out that these are the SAME folks who were up in arms about the idea of people boycotting Orson Scott Card for his offensive statements. AND the same people who very recently went on a tear accusing anyone who left negative amazon reviews on their work (that we had to read because it was in the packet…) as “threatening the livelihood” of these writers and being beyond the pale.
Except when they do it.
Chris Meadows
June 7, 2015 @ 8:10 pm
The latest round of Tor-tarring post-dates Wright’s post by a few weeks. It only just started up the other day, in fact, when one of the Puppies found a few-weeks-old post by Irene Gallo, one of the editors at Tor.
She proudly proclaimed on Facebook that, in taking part in publishing a geek feminist book by Kameron Hurley, one of the Sad and Rabid Puppies’ favorite punching bags, she was helping to “[make] Sad Puppies sadder.” Someone in a comment asked what the Sad Puppies were, and she explained:
This has gotten some of the Puppies’ collective knickers in a twist, and they promptly shared and blogged about it, making sure via the Streisand Effect that instead of being an obscure remark on someone’s Facebook feed that everyone knew about it.
Laura Resnick
June 7, 2015 @ 8:46 pm
I think the “latest round” is the operative phrase there, since the Tor-bashing has seemed pretty perpetual to me. As well as often bizarrely absurd–my personal favorite was whe some puppy supporter asserted to me on Facebook in mid-May that Tor was bribing Puppy nominees by offering them future Tor book contracts if they withdraw from this year’s Hugo ballot.
Houndation 6/7 | File 770
June 7, 2015 @ 10:56 pm
[…] “Puppies in Their Own Words” – June 7 […]
Tom Galloway
June 7, 2015 @ 11:43 pm
One addition re: the source of the slate. From Naomi Kritzer’s excellent post on its origins (https://naomikritzer.wordpress.com/2015/04/13/vox-days-involvement-in-the-sad-puppies-slate/), these quotes from Larry Correia’s blog;
“Now that the registrations for memberships to nominate for the Hugo are closed, here is what the Evil League of Evil authors came up with in discussion…. Everybody up there is someone who the ELoE talked about.”
“The ELoE talked about this a lot before putting together a slate.”
The “ELoE” is the self-titled group “Evil League of Evil” , who the various members have written consists of Correia, Torgersen, Sarah Hoyt, John C. Wright, and Vox Day, as also shown in the above post.
Whenever, at least from when I’ve seen it happen, this post is referenced with respect to Torgersen claiming the slate was assembled “democratically”, he vanishes and does not respond.
lkeke35
June 8, 2015 @ 1:27 am
Amen!
Wish I could up vote your response.
If a puppy barks, and no one's there to hear it... - Invizable Ink
June 8, 2015 @ 1:32 am
[…] Chines, a man after my own heart, apparently, takes on the lack of quotations and attributions pro-Puppy blog posts from the opposite angle of my own […]
Emi
June 8, 2015 @ 1:58 am
Is is bad that my first thought in beginning to read this was to correct Correia’s grammar?
It’s “I did pretty well” not good!
snowcrash
June 8, 2015 @ 2:00 am
Hi Jim, first time poster here, followed thorugh from File770. Re on where the sources for the nominations for SP3 came for, one of the commenters in Brad’s blog pointed me to the following:
https://www.affsdiary.com/slate/img/shadow/content/2015/06/03/ignoringemails.png
Where he says that some recc’s came through email. How this makes it open/ democratic/ transparent is not made clear. When I asked Brad about it at F770 (http://file770.com/?p=22977&cpage=3#comment-276937) his response was that it no longer matters how the slate was assembled.
Dr. Mauser
June 8, 2015 @ 4:03 am
One correction. You said: “Unlike the prior two years, Sad Puppies III presented a relatively full slate, with five nominees in most categories.”
Actually, there were five nominees in only four of the sixteen categories, so a quarter of the categories, not most.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 7:55 am
Thank you. Fixing the wording on that now.
Wolf Baginski
June 8, 2015 @ 8:04 am
I do have a slight sympathy for Larry Correia’s views. There is a difference between quality and political viewpoint, and there might be a political bias. But I don’t think he picked works of good enough quality. On the other hand, he didn’t try to overwhelm any category.
There wasn’t a Doctor Who slate in 2014, but the number of nominations, for the 50th-Anniversary year, and a Worldcon in England, was hardly a surprise. I don’t think there was anything nominated of outstanding quality, it was more like the Wheel of Time nomination without the option of being explicitly for the whole lifespan of the series.
This year we have two overlapping attempts to game the system, hitting at a wide variety of categories. And the slates are not even adequate commercial work. As with last year, I have a vote. I am trying to read the nominations. And, as with SP2, I am bouncing off the writing quality, but harder.
Might I suggest a Sad Wizards slate for 2016. Just one work, in one category.
Best NovelThe Shepherd’s Crown Sir Terry Pratchett.
There’s a an author who should have won a Hugo before now.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 8:08 am
Thank you. Updating with links to both of those.
Dr. Mauser
June 8, 2015 @ 8:08 am
I seem to recall something about Sir Terry declining the honor before.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 8:10 am
While I agree with you that Pratchett and his work are more than deserving, he was actually nominated for a Hugo award, but declined.
steve davidson
June 8, 2015 @ 8:31 am
Dr. Mauser; you are entirely incorrect. SP & RP slates completely dominated all but 3 award categories: Here is the detail so that no one reading here is misled: (slate/non-slate)
Novel – 3/5 (now 2/5 because Marko Kloos withdrew)
Novella – 5/5
Novelette – 4/5
Short Story – 5/5
Best Related – 5/5
Graphic Story 1/5
Dramatic Long – 3/5
Dramatic Short – 3/5
Editor Long – 5/5
Editor Short – 5/5
Pro Artist – 4/5
Semi-Prozine – 2/5
Fancast – 3/5
Fan Writer – 4/5
Fan Artist – 0/5
Not-a-Hugo New Writer – 4/5
So 13 of 16 categories. MOST.
You may be making a distinction between Sad and Rabid puppy slates, but such a distinction is meaningless in the face of the fact that the voters were denied the right to nominate by the creation of the slates.
Kate
June 8, 2015 @ 8:37 am
I’ve been following this from a serious distance for a couple months, and I very much appreciate this summary. I’ve been trying to piece together the full picture of the Sad Puppies & the Rabid Puppies – it’s pretty clear now why I hadn’t seen one in such depth until now. Hope you got a nice long shower complete with bleach & Brillo after. Ugh. (I’m still confused about the Rabid thing if anyone can point me toward a good link…)
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 8:39 am
My statement in the blog post specified Sad Puppies, as opposed to the combined puppy slates, so Dr. Mauser was correct on that. I adjusted the wording on my comment.
But yeah, the SP and RP slates together basically shut out most non-puppy candidates.
steve davidson
June 8, 2015 @ 8:50 am
Jim, For complete accuracy’s sake, I appreciate your distinction. My reading of Dr. Mauser’s comment was that it was an attempt to minimize and obfuscate the debate (if that wasn’t the intention, my apologies).
The “puppy free” voting ballot is summarized here – http://deirdre.net/the-puppy-free-hugo-award-voters-guide/
Again, to be “super accurate”; several of the puppy nominees have withdrawn over the course of the debate, mostly with strong words to the effect that they would never have agreed/would have asked to be withdrawn, had they known of their inclusion on the slates. They therefore can’t be lumped in with slate nominees who are also self-identified puppies (or friends of puppies), but their inclusion on the slates had the same effect as if they were.
rodgerdodger
June 8, 2015 @ 8:55 am
The Sour Grapes of Wrath
this whole topic has become very stale. in the end, the nominating and voting process of the Hugo’s is a democratic process. so in the end it did not work out for a group of people who are pissed and feel cheated. not really different than the other group feeling the same way and doing something about it.
as a reader, I just want to read good books. I have enjoyed books from both sides of this silly playground argument and have enjoyed them. I for one do not base my purchasing decisions on who wins an award or what books appear on the shelf or end caps of book stores. word of mouth on the internet is king. even those authors who make an ass of themselves on their internet blog I will buy their books if the books are good.
time to move along, really.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 9:15 am
I don’t think you’re mistaken. Dr. Mauser was over on Facebook saying:
“Hmmm, Jim Hines went and cherry-picked some Brad Torgersen and Larry Corriea … blog postings to criticize SP. Took some careful trimming to show a quote of Brad saying he didn’t mind being linked to Vox and totally miss the entire post dedicated to distancing himself. I commented on an inaccuracy in his portrayal of the slate (that WORD is SO important to them!), we shall see what happens to that comment.”
So yeah, my take is that he’s more interested in scoring points against “the other side” than anything else.
steve davidson
June 8, 2015 @ 9:15 am
rodgerdodger – it may be stale for you, but for those of us who care about the award, it is anything but.
Every year there are people disappointed with the results of the award. Why you have (deliberately?) elided is the fact that the democratic process was voided by the slates this year.
S.M. Carrière
June 8, 2015 @ 10:02 am
So… this. All of it. That’s exactly what makes their stances racist and sexist – that women writers and writers of colour were only selected because they checked a box, not because they could have possibly come up with a story worthy of the award.
It’s a subtler form of bigotry, couched as it is behind the idiotic “political correctness gone mad” rhetoric, and I’m glad people are picking up on it.
jason
June 8, 2015 @ 10:19 am
Vox day has posted how he claims he’s voting for best novel and his top choice is
The Three-Body Problem (The Goblin Emperor is 3rd). Seems to show the non puppy voters got it right . . .
Harry Connolly
June 8, 2015 @ 11:57 am
rodgerdodger, you personally don’t buy books based on awards? That’s fine, but there are lots of readers who do.
An award win like this is worth money for the authors who win them. That’s why the puppies exist.
rodgerdodger
June 8, 2015 @ 12:08 pm
just to be clear, I think the democratic process DID work. As for others buying books based upon awards I do not recall saying anything other my opinion about them. Clearly there are those who do buy books based upon winning awards and the importance of the winning the award for getting those readers is not lost. Otherwise the whole nomination is water under the bridge except for maybe the grousing about it.
It will be interesting to see the response when next nomination time rolls around. I bet there will be a pendulum swing and then the opposite group will be pissed. And the drama will be just as much.
Kari Sperring
June 8, 2015 @ 12:52 pm
There’s also a large dollop of American exceptionalism on display from a number of the puppies, who seem not to grasp that us foreigners may be fans and readers too and we may not have identical taste to them. This redoubles for those of us who are foreign and non-white, or non-male, or non-straight, or any combination thereof.
The resistance to non-US voters isn’t new — I remember complaints about ‘the wrong people’ being allowed to vote in 1995 (1st Scottish Worldcon) and 2005 (2nd Scottish Worldcon) from some US fans (whose political affinities do not know ) and in 2007 (Yokohama Worldcon) which in all cases boiled down to ‘non-USians voting’.
The world is a vast and diverse place. Worldcon has named itself for that: I’m not going to apologise for deciding to assume that that means the whole world, not just one country (and, indeed, one political subset of said country).
Timothy Liebe
June 8, 2015 @ 12:58 pm
@Jim C. Hines: How dare you be all Jon Stewart on the (self) righteous wrath of whinily-privileged White Male Pulp Writers? How dare you, Sir…?
::DRAMATIC
CHIPMUNKGOPHER!::(changed per objection by Tamora Pierce that “That’s Not a Chipmunk – It’s a Gopher!”)
steve davidson
June 8, 2015 @ 1:07 pm
rodgerdodger – the “democratic process” did not work. It is not a democratic process when someone says “you may vote for anyone you want to, as long as they come from this list of possibilities”.
Your prediction about next year will not come true: first – the puppies have already announced a campaign for next year and second – everyone else had previously and will continue to abide by the accepted practice of voting for themselves rather than in lockstep with some self-proclaimed savior of the awards.
Jen R
June 8, 2015 @ 1:19 pm
rodgerdodger, the current situation is different than what happened before, in that this year there was a coordinated effort to shut out works the puppies didn’t like. Nobody has been able to show any evidence that this happened in the past (paranoid fantasies don’t count as evidence).
Doctor Science
June 8, 2015 @ 1:56 pm
I think your analysis is flawed, because it assumes that the Sad Puppies slate and movement is more important than the Rabid Puppies. Yet it’s quite clear that Sad nominees only got on the ballot when backed by Rabids, but not vice versa.
The Sads are the stalking horse for the Rabids, who do what Vox Day tells them to. Many Sads have said that they didn’t vote a straight slate, that they picked and chose and followed their own opinions. This is *precisely* why the Rabids were more effective: they really do seem to have voted as a bloc.
The Sads have said a lot more than the Rabids about what they think they’re doing and why, but IMHO it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. And as far as I can tell, there is *nothing* the Sads can do next year that could prevent the Rabids from co-opting their slate, editing it to Vox Day’s benefit, and running it to “victory”.
All the discussion about different kinds of fiction, what people like and don’t like, even politics, is meaningless. Correia started out trying to get himself and his friends on the Hugo ballot, it’s now a much more successful effort by Vox Day to benefit himself and his firm.
Timothy Liebe
June 8, 2015 @ 2:05 pm
I’m a bit surprised at all this vehemence towards Creative Awards being angled towards what an organization wants to present as its “best work” to the world, rather than its most popular, honestly. Pretty much every creative award has a bias in that direction – how many times has the Oscar been given to a horror or SF movie? Once, if you’re willing to stretch a point and consider Silence of the Lambs a “Horror Movie” – maybe twice if we’re really tying ourselves in knots to include Rebecca. If we add fantasy movies to that list, we can add Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – from the world’s most prestigious motion picture award, that’s been going on for 87 years.
Maybe what the Puppies need to do is create their own “Most Popular” award, for the kind of SF books they prefer. Trying to stack the deck on the Hugos isn’t going to give them any more validation – it’ll just degrade the value of the Hugos in the eyes of those who look to it for “The Best” of SF, rather than “The Most Fun”.
rodgerdodger
June 8, 2015 @ 3:02 pm
The list of nominations comes about how….. a democratic process
blufive
June 8, 2015 @ 3:06 pm
tiny correction: “It should be noted that the puppies included zero tie-in works on their slates”
The 2014 sad puppy slate included Dan Wells’ “Butcher of Kardov”, which is a (gaming) tie-in: http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/03/25/my-hugo-slate/
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 3:33 pm
Yep. That’s one of those where I knew what I meant, but it wasn’t clear in the words. Tweaked for clarification.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 3:34 pm
Where do I make that assumption?
Johan P
June 8, 2015 @ 3:35 pm
Good job on tracking down the statements from previous years. But the analysis ends up being unnecessarily nice to the puppies because you mostly leave out the involvement of Beale and Wright.
First, both Beale and Wright seems to be part of the “Evil League of Evil” who picked the SP slate.
Second, most who have discussed “the puppies” generally include Beale’s Rabid Puppies slate and not just Torgersen’s slate. In fact, like Doctor Science says it was the Rabid Puppies, not the sad ones, who actually where successful here.
So commenting on how “A number of people have talked about racism/sexism and the puppies” by talking only about Correia and Torgersen, and not mentioning Beale (and Wright) is – intended or not – whitewashing.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 3:36 pm
Rodgerdodger – There’s a “Reply” link by each comment you can use so folks know who you’re talking to. Or if you prefer not to do that, could you please mention the ID of whoever you’re addressing? Thanks.
Patrick Richardson
June 8, 2015 @ 3:57 pm
Actually we do not say they could not have come up with a story worthy of the award. Indeed there have been many women and writers of color who HAVE been worthy and HAVE won awards.
We simply do not agree that the ones who won LAST year were worthy. Has nothing to do with genitalia or skin tone and everything to do with quality.
YOU are the ones insisting we should look at dangly bits or lack thereof, and skin pigmentation FIRST.
Of course you’re also the ones insisting the women and minority writers we helped nominate THIS year don’t count, because wrongthink. Or something.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 4:02 pm
“YOU are the ones insisting we should look at dangly bits or lack thereof, and skin pigmentation FIRST.”
Let’s stick with what’s actually being said, please. There’s plenty to argue about without having to make stuff up.
Jon LaForce
June 8, 2015 @ 4:05 pm
I’d be happy to speak with you about what I wrote in my Dear Tor article Mr. Hines. In fact, if you’d like you’re welcome to call. I’m available after 1600 MST this whole week.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 4:11 pm
Forgive me, but this seems to come out of nowhere. I’m not aware of your Dear Tor article, nor any reason I should call you to talk about it instead of spending time with my family, working on my novel, etc. Tor has pretty much zero to do with my post here. Is there something specific you feel it’s important for me to understand, but that can’t be shared in a blog comment?
Dr. Mauser
June 8, 2015 @ 4:12 pm
See this is the kind of thing that makes me comment on these blogs. Deliberately conflating the two slates. What Vox did was immediately co-opt Brad’s list, put his own stuff at the top, and cut off anything over 5 off the bottom (with one exception where he dropped one out of the middle). No real thought to it. No Collusion.
Then we get alternating stories saying that it was Vox who was more successful, so the SP don’t matter (But are just as evil as Vox) while others like to slam Brad and Larry. And these positions alternate depending on which is more convenient for the latest theory.
But to your objection about the slates being undemocratic, I have to ask this:
Since when has the Hugo Nomination process EVER been Democratic? The first time I ever got involved around LAConIII, it was an open secret that it only took a mere 10% of the vote to get on the ballot. I could have gotten my Fanzine on the ballot then with a mere 20 votes. Nobody’s ever gotten on the ballot with a nice, Democratic Majority.
The Slates didn’t shut anybody out, the Voters did. But then, they always do. But they’re anonymous, so it’s really hard to call them out. But the fact remains that there were ENOUGH of them that Brad’s list of suggestions became a Thing (or it didn’t, depending on the argument you’re trying to make at the time). Without the participation of the voters, SP is just a blog post.
SherryH
June 8, 2015 @ 4:15 pm
Jim, thank you so much for this! I had managed to miss the 2013 and 2014 Puppies, and was off the interwebz almost entirely for the 2015 portion of it, so when I came back onlineto the fallout from it, I really had no idea what was going on. Piecing this together must have been a massive amount of work, and I really appreciate the clear, concise summary. Many thanks!
Safewrite
June 8, 2015 @ 4:20 pm
Hi Kate. Since no one clarified, here is what I’ve seen of a difference between Sad Puppies III and the Rabid Puppies. Vox Day and his publishing house were -nowhere- on the Sad Puppies III slate, and I guess he was upset about that. because two days later he posted his competing, heavily-slanted Vox & Castalia House slate. Vox even paid the artist who donated the Sad Puppies III art for a rush job to come up with a similar logo for his copycat Rabid Puppies (I heard this directly from the artist). My personal opinion is that Vox is doing his best to muddy the waters and push the notion that Rabid Puppies = Sad Puppies. There is also an interesting data analysis here. http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/04/14/sad-puppy-data-analysis/
Dr. Mauser
June 8, 2015 @ 4:23 pm
You know that XKCD comic “Somebody’s Wrong on the Internet”? That’s my motivation unfortunately, tends to chew up a lot of time. Following this debate can be so maddening, and the dishonesty, illogic, and editing and deleting of comments is really frustrating, which is why I call out things like this on FB, as witness.
You were actually very good on this, although there were a few places I wish you’d included just a little more, like Brad insisting the slate was suggestions and that one should vote one’s own opinions in the actual announcement. Or the aforementioned denial of Vox (Which so many bloggers were insisting he make, which they ignored afterwards).
I give you credit for taking my point about the number of nominations seriously. For not deleting or “Disenvowelling” it. So I guess the snark on FB might have been a bit pre-emptive.
But when people say things like SP filled up the ballot, and they should have either suggested more than 5, or less, I point out the fact that they failed to check the source for how many were actually put up.
Because facts in any argument are the key to being right on the internet. And I can see you put a lot of effort into being right on this post.
Dr. Mauser
June 8, 2015 @ 4:26 pm
Early on Vox posted that he would have put it on his slate, but he read it too late.
Dr. Mauser
June 8, 2015 @ 4:31 pm
Actually, there have been opposition movements going back to Sad Puppies 2, where an organized effort to put everyone Larry Corriea had suggested below No Award came about, and it was successful in knocking out all of them. There was much braying and whooping in celebration about their giant-killing by certain bloggers afterwards. (Thus entirely proving Larry’s point about opposition to having Conservatives on the Hugo Ballot. It was a perfectly played Xanatos Gambit).
There are similar campaigns afoot this year, of people who won’t read, and won’t vote on the merit of the works. How they can save the awards by going against the duty of the voters is a mystery.
Dr. Mauser
June 8, 2015 @ 4:34 pm
So who said ““you may vote for anyone you want to, as long as they come from this list of possibilities”? It wasn’t Brad or Larry. Vox did say something along those lines. But here’s the rub – nobody has the power to enforce that anyway. The responsibility for how the nominations turned out rests entirely with the Electorate.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 4:40 pm
Can you point to where this was an *organized* effort? I remember a lot of frustration and anger over Sad Puppies 2, and people have certainly been talking about No Award a lot this year, but I’m not aware of any organized campaign. (Which doesn’t mean there isn’t one; but if so, my invitation must have gotten lost somewhere.)
I’ve seen individuals talking about voting all puppy nominees beneath No Award as a way to voice their opinion about the slate-voting thing. I know some people disagree with that choice, but it’s still their choice as voters, isn’t it?
Jon LaForce
June 8, 2015 @ 4:56 pm
You made mention of an article posted to Mad Genius Club entitled “Dear Tor”. Yes it was posted by Amanda- I wrote it. And if you’d like to hear my opinion, straight from the horse’s mouth as it were, I’d be happy to give it to you. No profanity, no vulgarity. Simple civil discussion.
steve davidson
June 8, 2015 @ 5:15 pm
Engaging in pointless exercise:
You are apparently engaging in deliberate attempts at confusion and obfuscation of the true circumstances. It should be readily apparent that while you can continue to do so here, there and elsewhere, your characterizations bear hardly any resemblance to reality and most everyone involved with this “debate” can see these statements for what they are.
Mark
June 8, 2015 @ 5:37 pm
That link was actually posted by a Jason further up, not Jim. It’s a fascinating article in which Jon trims a quote to give it a critically different meaning, and then complains vociferously about something that wasn’t actually said.
Jon LaForce
June 8, 2015 @ 5:55 pm
So where was I wrong about her calling myself and the rest of the Sad Puppy supporters “homophobic” “misogynistic” or “neo-nazis”?
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 5:57 pm
Ah. Thanks, Mark!
Andrew Jack
June 8, 2015 @ 6:00 pm
Well said!
Doctor Science
June 8, 2015 @ 6:13 pm
When you say “it seems fair to look to them [Correia & Torgersen] for what the puppy campaign is truly about.”
The effects of “the puppy campaign” are driven by Vox Day, full stop. The ballot we see before us is “truly about” the Rabids, not the Sads.
Doctor Science
June 8, 2015 @ 6:25 pm
Gallo said:
“Respectively”, a word you elided out, means that “right-wing” (or “extreme right-wing”) goes with Sad Puppies, “neo-nazi” with Rabid Puppies.
In other words, Gallo specifically avoided calling Sad Puppies “neo-nazis”. I believe she was alluding to Philip Sandifer’s widely-linked post, Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons, which is a careful argument that Vox Day, *specifically*, is a fascist.
Mark
June 8, 2015 @ 6:42 pm
What the good doctor said.
Also Jon, you may wish to consider that VD has now explicitly stated that he had the screen caps for weeks. He clearly waited until the right time to release it, the right time being “When Vox thinks it will cause the most consternation”
You have been played by Vox Day. Stop and think about that.
(Source for VD’s statement: http://file770.com/?p=23024)
Mark
June 8, 2015 @ 6:45 pm
No problem, Jim.
Incidentally, your Teresa Nielsen Hayden link in the first para of “The Unravelling” is broken – some erroneous words at the end of the url, I think
Mad Professah
June 8, 2015 @ 7:06 pm
thanks for posting this cogent summary of the Puppy drama. It will serve people well as more and more of the less engaged gee SFF fandom find out what happened with the Hugos this year ( and what may happen with the Hugos next year ).
I want to align myself with the commenters above who make the
factually correct statement (supported by data) that it is the Rabid Puppies who have had the most impact on the, 2015 Hugo ballot, and regardless of what the Sad Puppies claim as their rationale for their creation, encouragement and facilitation of bloc voting, the effect is the same, and the effect is one which the Rabid Puppies are satisfied with having produced.
Christopher Weuve
June 8, 2015 @ 8:36 pm
“Thus entirely proving Larry’s point about opposition to having Conservatives on the Hugo Ballot.”
Maybe it has more to do with not allowing cheaters to prosper by their actions. As someone who intends to vote for “No Award” above ANY work on the Sad Rabid slates, I really don’t care about whether the writer is liberal or conservative. I DO care about whether the name appears to be on the ballot because someone decided to throw a tantrum. As any parent knows, don’t reward tantrums. (And if Torgersen doesn’t want to be refered to in terms usually restricted to a three year old, he — and the rest of the Sad Rabids — should stop acting like one.)
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 8:46 pm
Dang. I thought I’d fixed that. Thanks.
Richard Hartman
June 8, 2015 @ 8:59 pm
I am glad you do not claim to be neutral, because while “fact-based” you seem to cover only the statements made by the puppies, and completely ignore the many false-approaching-vile statements that have been made _about_ the puppies. A truly balanced article would have attempted to cover the that have been taken by both sides.
Jim C. Hines
June 8, 2015 @ 10:06 pm
Nor did I cover all of the statements made by puppy supporters. Because that wasn’t the point. It seems like your complaint is that I wrote a different article than you would have liked. Sorry about that. But my interest was in finding out what Larry and Brad, particularly Brad, had actually said as head pups.
Yoyo
June 8, 2015 @ 10:40 pm
Jim, I have been following this very closely, partially because I am a lifetime SciFi but but also because I’ve been lurking at Vox’s site for years in horrified fascination. (I’m not stupid enough to comment there). Anyway I have to agree with those who claim the sad puppies are just useful idiots for vox, his Finnish publishing company and the assembled sycophants that are now the proud owners of special numbered cards that keep off girl cutties or some such.
The Walkies Dead 6/8 | File 770
June 9, 2015 @ 12:27 am
[…] a (very) tangentially related note, Jim Hines did some yeoman work over the weekend doing a quick early history of the Sad Puppies, using their own words to help make the picture more clear for the confused, which at this point […]
Timothy Liebe
June 9, 2015 @ 1:44 am
“Fair and Balanced” – just like Fox News, @Richard Hartman?
Life must be hard for whinily privileged White Males seeing their expected sense of privilege slipping away from them….
Dr. Mauser
June 9, 2015 @ 2:57 am
I was talking about the 2014 Hugos, not this year. Do pay attention.
Dr. Mauser
June 9, 2015 @ 3:05 am
Frustration and anger? Well, that year there was over Vox Day to be sure. The man lives rent-free in enough people’s heads to house all the homeless in San Diego. But it was as organized as just about anything in any of these Hugo Kerfluffles, lots of blog posts, especially by big-name folks, lots of word of mouth, and lots of cooperation when it came down to voting. (Surprisingly, that year John Scalzi was a far more reasonable voice.)
In other words, about just as Organized as Sad Puppies itself.
Dr. Mauser
June 9, 2015 @ 3:09 am
Reeeealy. Which “True Circumstances” would that be?
I DO like the scare quote you put around “Debate”, probably the truest thing you did there.
Dr. Mauser
June 9, 2015 @ 3:17 am
As for your NoAward plans. You’re not actually defying a Tantrum, you’re defying 400+ fans (ISTR that was the top number of noms in Best Novel) who thought the book was worth nominating. You’re saying “I don’t care if any of these things might actually BE the best science fiction of the year, I’m voting against it because Brad Torgerson liked it and endorsed it, and other people agreed with him.”
And seriously, you’re gonna NoAward Guardians of the Galaxy? You cad! 🙂