Well, this sucks.

Today two talented, worthy, deserving authors who we had on the Sad Puppies 3 slate gave up their Hugo nominations.

Annie Bellet: https://overactive.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/hugo-story-withdrawn/

And Marko Kloos: http://www.munchkinwrangler.com/2015/04/15/a-statement-on-my-hugo-nomination/

Nobody should give either of these authors anything other than kind words. You should bear them no ill will for this decision. They are damned good writers and you have no idea idea what they’ve been through recently.

Marko added this statement on Facebook:

My withdrawal has nothing to do with Larry Correia or Brad Torgersen. I don’t know Brad personally, but Larry is a long-time online acquaintance and friend. We’ve known each other since before our writing days. I have no issue with Larry or the Sad Puppies. I’m pulling out of the Hugo process solely because Vox Day also included me on his “Rabid Puppies” slate, and his RP crowd provided the necessary weight to the ballot to put me on the shortlist. I think Vox Day is a shitbag of the first order, and I don’t want any association with him, especially not a Hugo nomination made possible by his followers being the deciding factor. That stench don’t wash off.

##

Personally, I think this sucks. We were trying to get talented quality writers on the ballot who would normally be ignored. Neither of these share my politics. There are some amazing authors nominated for the first time, and I wish that people would just read the fucking books, but hell, who am I kidding? I’m tired of repeating myself. Some of the stuff I’ve seen go down over the last two weeks is so infuriating it would blow your mind.

For the 100th damned time, Vox wasn’t on SP3. He did his own thing. Now authors are being tried for guilt by association with somebody they never chose to associate with, and their nominations are somehow meaningless because the wrong person plugged their work.

That’s unfair bullshit and you all know it.

I’d encourage everyone to still check out Marko and Annie’s work because they are awesome writers.

I'm not Vox Day
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530 thoughts on “Well, this sucks.”

  1. Well frack.

    I’ve had Annie’s other stuff on my short to be read list for awhile now, and I was really looking forward to reading/rereading all of the stories to decide if she still had my top spot.

    This freaking sucks.

  2. Well, we can use this, and John Wright’s disqualified entry, to see if the replacement entries are of the same or better quality.

      1. I just finished reading this and I would really like my time back. I shudder to think of this being up for any award.

        1. I stopped reading when the main character let the woman die while he tried to rescue his goldfish.

          Don’t need to have that polluting my brain, at all.

          So much of SF/F is composed of shit like this too. Really gotta do Sad Puppies 4-14, just to keep that kind of bollocks down in the slush pile where it belongs.

      2. wow. That’s actually… quite bad.

        The flow is off, the dialog stilted, and the entire piece reads like a twelve year old wrote it.

          1. I quit reading when he dumped the fish into a bottle of 7-Up AND IT SURVIVED.

            I have nearly 300 gallons of freshwater tanks in my house. Ask me if a fish can survive in 7-Up. Go ahead.

            Oh, wait. THAT must the part of the story that’s science fiction.

        1. To be fair, it’s a translation from Dutch.

          But, yeah, I read the whole thing and kept waiting for something to actually, you know. Happen. It’s a story about letting go in which the main character never actually does let go. We leave him climbing down a rope ladder, still holding on.

      3. Where is the actual science in this fiction. The fantasy/sci-fi in it is at best a Macguffin for the rest of the story. It could have just as easily been an earthquake or fire and nothing would change. Shouldn’t a sci-fi/fantasy award nominee have sci-fi or fantasy as a focal point? That just seems a basic requirement for the genre (Even by Larry’s ‘genre’s just somewhere to shelve it’ arguments)

      4. O.K. Omnomnom bit cracked me up, I gotta ask, is this real? I worked at 2 jobs today; and did my taxes during lunch, so I am a bit fried. But please tell me this is satire. Please, cuz if it is, it is brilliant, if not… Wow.

      5. I’ve just blogged about The Day Turned Upside Down (and Goodnight Stars) if anyone is interested:

        http://www.futureslesstravelled.com/?p=71

        I’ve just started writing a ‘fiction techniques’ blog. And I’m explaining why I think “The Day…” is message fiction and why political message fiction can be uncomfortable. I’m not sure I’m correct, as I read both stories quite quickly, so all thoughts welcome.

      6. Couldn’t get through that … was there even an effort to explain why the atmosphere didn’t fly away and everyone suffocate instantly?

    1. Well, we can use this, and John Wright’s disqualified entry, to see if the replacement entries are of the same or better quality.

      Maybe not. I thought the RP list just added works were the SP list hadn’t nominated 5, but I was mistaken, because I didn’t look at the lists closely enough.

      Two Sad Puppy nominees were out-nominated by RP nominees, Megan Grey and Steve Diamond. Given how well the puppies did overall, it seems likely that one of the two would be the replacement, if there is one.

      http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2015/04/14/sad-puppy-data-analysis/

  3. I’m buying books from both Marko and Annie (already bought Marko’s when I read his blog; getting Annie’s tonight).

    I wish others had the required intestinal fortitude to make clear what a horrible human being Vox Day is and to disassociate themselves in no uncertain terms, just the way Marko did. Brad Torgersen’s mealy-mouthed dancing around the issue hasn’t gained him any respect.

    1. Oh fucking bullshit. Knock it the fuck off. Oooh, look, a first time poster shows up to push the shame train. Brad isn’t dancing around shit just because he refused to join a witch burning. I’ve said the same consistent thing about Vox for two years now and it hasn’t made a bit of difference. Brad is allowed to have his opinion about another human being and not have to play your stupid blacklist games.

      1. This. So fucking this!

        I’m personally disgusted by the people who are saying they’ll buy their stuff now, but couldn’t be bothered to buy it before hand.

        Now, I haven’t read Annie’s stuff because of circumstance (I hadn’t heard of her before the SP list came out), but I read Marko’s stuff and it was awesome.

        I’m getting tired of these people who act like now they’re interested in the books.

        1. Preach it, brother! I read Marko’s statement yesterday and then started wading through the comments. All the, “I’m going to buy your stuff now,” comments just made me sick!

          I haven’t read Anne Bellet yet, but I also had not heard of her before she went on the SP list, either.

      2. Didn’t Rob just prove your point that the only way to get ahead in this industry is to adhere to the guilt by association with people who have badthink regardless of their literary talent? Rob just stated he wished more people could be intimidated into withdrawing from the awards. Whether Mr. Kloos decided purely for himself to withdraw purely because of Vox Day’s presence, or if he was pressured by external forces, the external pressure still exists and ends with the same conclusion.

        1. That’s why I really can’t say anything nice about their decision to withdraw. At the very least they have made life more difficult for everyone else on the list as the SJW’s assume that their retreat was due to the pressure applied to them.

          1. Its about money. Somebody threatens your income, you have to make a move.

            There’s no money in fighting SJWs. Just lots of getting smeared.

          2. Money isn’t the only thing that has value. I understand reacting to threats to one’s livelihood, but if anything SP has shown that there is a huge market beyond the SJW’s. This strikes me as a desperate desire to hang with the “cool kids.” Never mind that the the “cool kids” are a bunch of bullies and capitulating only reinforces their bad behavior.

          3. Unfortunately, bullies tend to pick on people they think they can cow into submission. While its nice to see bullies proven wrong and get trounced by their would-be victims, it’s still the bullies’ fault when they attack and their victim folds.

          4. Dude. When people we support are being attacked, we need to insulate them from the rodents, not isolate them and push them back out into the wilds.

            Sometimes people need to take a break. If we let them go with no hard feelings, they can feel good about coming back to support us.

          5. Put another way – do not allow them to divide us by opening fire on them for not standing firmer in a fight they didn’t ask to be a part of.

            We suffer none by magnanimity, and gain by making the howling hordes reveal themselves for the vengeful, petty people they are while we stand firm, and keep advancing.

      3. can someone post a link to a post to what Larry said about Vox Day? I’d like to see it from him and not someone else.

      4. What gets me is that by merely saying that he likes something, he is able to destroy… Must REALLY be a serious asshole… Damn, this has the Hitler seal of approval! (Godwin!)

        All I care about Vox is “can he write good shit?” And I ain’t talking about a blog.

        That’s all that matters. Yeah, it seems like he’s got a chip on his shoulder and lives to poke at stuff that shouldn’t be poked, but hey, I don’t have to read his damn blog… I will eventually check out a short or something of his. And if it sucks, well, buh-bye…

      5. It is very telling that Jim Butcher has never been on the Hugo radar until now. He is a brilliant writer, and practically the father of a huge genre. The Hugo awards had been relegated to dry and irrelevant, even pretentious relics to my crowd. I am a prolific reader of science fiction and fantasy. I don’t like an award that is promoted as THE standard of a genre and the penultimate voice of sci-fi/fantasy readers to include or exclude potential candidates based on socio-political commonalities with the organizers. Whether one author once owned a gun shop or another author is gay doesn’t affect the quality of the story they are telling or the appeal with which the story is presented. Authors should only feel obligated to “suck up” to fans through the skill of their craft, not to some exclusive cult of egotistical editors and their cronies. The award shouldn’t be used as sci-fi influence currency to be traded for favors and endorsements. Nor should it be circulated around an insular group of established authors and their entourages of up-and-comers to pat each other on the back.

    2. Get back to us when everyone on your team disavows Marxism, a philosophy that is directly responsible for the murder of over one hundred million people.

      And counting.

      1. >”Get back to us when everyone on your team disavows Marxism, a philosophy that is directly responsible for the murder of over one hundred million people.”

        Oh, we’re playing that game? Let’s discuss a little evil known as Colonization then, and how Western Europe and the entire Anglosphere (that includes America!) are guilty of not only warcrimes, crimes against humanity and literal genocide.

        Did you know the population of the Americas was greater than Western Europe prior to European Colonization?

        Let’s attribute the mass-genocide of the >100,000,000 (that’s one hundred million) natives of the Americas to the Western European and Christian ideology of the Divine Right for Colonization, and the Christian Religious underpinning of the culture of racial superiority that led to the mass ethnic cleansing. These continents were quite literally ethnically cleansed by the ancestors of those who now enjoy the continents, both by the circumstance of ignorance and the policy of the Europeans who colonized them.

        If any social democrat must disavow Marxism, than all Americans and all Christians should disavow country and faith in recognition of the genocides committed in those names and ideals.

        Mao’s dead millions pale in comparison to the Christian’s ethnic cleansing of the American continents and their strongly religious underpinning for their behavior, a cleansing they’ve all but conveniently whitewashed from their history.

        See how this game gets nasty quickly? No one in America is “good” if we must bear the sins of others in history who share some semblance of our ideas.

        1. Yeh, but I’m not a Colonialist nor do I support any Divine Right, be it to rule or land. It’s not like there’s anyone running around saying,”Colonial Imperialism was a really good idea, but no one’s ever really done REAL Colonial Imperialism”.

          There’s all sorts of people who currently, today, claim to be socialists, Marxists and such, and pretty much all of them wind up at “but Mao/Stalin/Hitler wasn’t REAL socialism”.

          I’m not for holding individuals accountable for the deeds of their ancestors. When they advocate for a policy…then it’s fair.

          1. “pretty much all of them wind up at ‘but Mao/Stalin/Hitler wasn’t REAL socialism'”.

            Bingo. The fact that it’s turned into slavery, starvation, and mass murder every other time doesn’t count. It will be different with the Right People in charge — where “Right People” is defined as the Johnathan type of cafe commie, who are always too stupid and/or ignorant of history to realize that the Johnathans are always the first ones sent to the death camps, come the revolution.

          2. Doc Locketopus said ““pretty much all of them wind up at ‘but Mao/Stalin/Hitler wasn’t REAL socialism’”.

            Bingo. The fact that it’s turned into slavery, starvation, and mass murder every other time doesn’t count. It will be different with the Right People in charge — where “Right People” is defined as the Johnathan type of cafe commie, who are always too stupid and/or ignorant of history to realize that the Johnathans are always the first ones sent to the death camps, come the revolution.”

            If this comment was on face book I’d be bemoaning the lack of an “Holy shit that’s AWESOME” button

          3. Which Native American cultures rejected conquest and colonization of other Native American civilizations?

            Which Asian ones? Which African ones?

        2. If it were as easy to ethnically cleanse a continent as you are suggesting, the Vikings would have done it 600 years before the Portugese and English even tried. Instead the Vikings – the Vikings – – were driven away by the natives.

          The only reason that Europeans were able to colonize the Americas is because a plague had already wiped out the natives before the Europeans ever arrived.

          The only thing the Europeans were “guilty” of is building their American civilization on somebody else’s post-cataclysmic wasteland.

          1. Well, they were sometimes harsh to the survivors, but as Andrew pointed out, you won’t find many people saying Colonialism wasn’t done correctly and it needs to be tried again.

            Marxism and it’s various flavors? Yeah, lots of people keep claiming it wasn’t really tried correctly and it will be better this time.

            Which I guess means a billion will die next time and people like Johnathan will screech “but… but COLONIALISM!!!”

          2. Well…plague and steel, and gunpowder..the sail…printing presses…scientific method…

            Sure, plague made having a foothold easier, but I don’t see a way for a late-stone culture to avoid being assimilated or destroyed by contact with a culture that’s inventing mechanical clocks.

          3. Whatever happens we have got the maxim gun and try have not.

            But yeah, nobody is all ‘let’s do colonialism again!’

          4. “Well, they were sometimes harsh to the survivors,”

            And vice versa. This notion of evil white people vs. virtuous and peaceful natives is a preposterous false narrative.

          5. You know perfectly well that you can’t get facts through to someone whose mind was already made up.

        3. ” Let’s discuss a little evil known as Colonization”

          Colonization is largely a thing of the past, and you’ll find few supporters of it.

          Marxism is still with us, and is busy murdering more people even as we speak.

          Thanks for playing, though. You’ve been indoctrinated well.

        4. Excuse me while I laugh in the face of your first paragraph. That’s a highball estimate, and most historians set it at around half of that.
          Furthermore, most of the natives who were killed died of disease, and thus died–well, accidentally. It’s not like the Europeans understood germ theory and acquired immunity.
          Whereas Marxism, on the other hand, deliberately sets about killing anyone who stands in its way. And, as pointed out to you, there are still Marxists. There are no colonialists.

        5. 100,000,000 population in a preindustrial agrarian and/or stone age nomadic cultures. hang on …HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH…..ok ya sure

          “No one in America is “good” if we must bear the sins of others in history who share some semblance of our ideas.” ya so you realize the worst of those population loses occurred in areas of Spanish dominion right? So what semblance of ideals did the US founders share with Spanish monarchists? And have you ever actually looked at the ancestry of the vast majority of the current population of Central and South America? Yup not a drop of indigenous blood there. Also since the majority of the native population loss was from disease how did those european types pull that off since at the time they had no idea of how pathogens actually worked? The only thing “nasty” you’ve brought up is your grasp of history.

        6. You’re stupid. Most of those people died without ever having seen or been seen by a Western European.

          And they were in fact colonialists themselves; they are not the original inhabitants of North America.

          Or do you want to talk about the colonialism of the Jews? How about the colonialism of the Chinese? How about Muslim colonialism?

          For that matter, you do realize colonialism happened several centuries ago in North America, right?

          You and your stupid false equivalencies, your empty-headed rhetoric which tries to tie whatever sounds vaguely “feelbaddish” no matter how completely and totally unrelated it is.

          When anyone associated with this blog is actually advocating for colonial imperialism, then you talk about how there’s any kind of meaningful equivalency to how SJWs are actually still advocating for Marxism.

        7. This is just a load of crap. The Native American population had gone through a massive disease-related reduction greater than the European Black Death, perhaps 100 years before European colonization began. The rest of your post is merely the standard western-civilization-hating spew we’ve come to expect from the left.

        8. Let’s actually look at a little history as well before we judge our forebears too harshly for their treatment of peace-loving, eco-friendly previous colonization wave. Read the native american role in King Phillips war and the American revolution. Essentially both the French and British used them to commit atrocities that neither side had the stomach to commit themselves. If you pick the losing side of two major wars to commit atrocities, you can expect the reconciliation process to be difficult. Read about the Comanche and how they were viewed even by the other Indian tribes. They were an apocalyptic death cult who lived for kidnap, torture and murder. Our forefathers weren’t monsters, just people who actually had to make hard decisions instead of preening and posing to their coreligionists.

        9. You realize that the drop in population in the Americas was primarily due to inadvertent transmission of diseases, I hope. (I probably need to emphasize the ‘inadvertent’ part of that, the majority of the deaths due to disease occurred before there was any significant European presence in the Americas. No significant part of it was deliberate.)

          Find me a society 600 years ago that wouldn’t be “guilty” of crimes that were only invented in the last century or so.

        10. Jonathan the liar apparently doesn’t realize that there weren’t 100 million people in North America when Columbus arrived. Period fucking dot.

        11. Oh, and Jonathan? If you believe in Evolution, there is no such thing as genocide. There’s only inferior genetics losing to superior. So get stuffed.

    3. So do you want this posted in 40 point font or will 18 pt do? And should it be in all red caps and bold?

      Can we just send you an email notifying you when the disavow goes up, or do you want it out on Twitter, too? OH! And do we have to send a copy to VD, too?

      And then who will you want everyone to denounce?

      Go stuff it. You got a problem with VD, you go take it up with him. Quit using your hard on for him as an excuse to bash others.

    4. Brad Torgersen isn’t associated with Vox — he doesn’t NEED to distance himself.

      Brad could burn Vox in effigy and it wouldn’t gain him any respect, either. Insinuating otherwise is dishonest at best.

    5. I hope you realize that Vox Day is a far better human being that you are. For one thing, he isn’t a vile Progressive, so that’s a good million shithead points knocked off his tally. Plus he’s at least honest about his positions, questionable as they may be. He doesn’t mewl around playing passive-agressive bullshit games.

      Since you’re big into denouncing: With sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest you.

      1. “I’m an asshole, and here are the exact ways I’m an asshole, but at least I’m honest about it.”

        Gosh. Just gives me all the warm fuzzies.

        1. Better that than the alternative.

          It is easier to avoid a hazard that’s decked out in hazard lights and reflective tape, after all.

        2. It gives me the warm fuzzies. What’s your problem?

          One self admitted asshole admits he’s an asshole and has no power over you.

          The others pretend they are upright and true and do their best to control you, punish you, and if you don’t comply, keep you OUT and likely have the power to do so.

          Give me the first guy. Seriously.

          1. My bad. I mistook your warm fuzzies comment for a sarcastic rather than genuine sentiment.

            I am in full agreement with you on this point

    6. I post over at Vox but I am new here so I can’t tell if you are serious or being a parody. I am the one that puts black/moslem on gay attacks links up over at Gaypatriot.

    7. You do realize that the rabid puppies folks are now talking about putting forward a 2016 slate of SJW BS, especially Scalzi, JUST to see if they’ll take a “principled stand” and refuse the nominations or not, right?

      You morons are too stupid to think that you could run the Hugos as your own little private dacha. The Hugos Reconquista will continue apace. If they have to get burned down in order to be rebuilt, at least when all’s said and done, they’ll be about quality science fiction again.

    8. What Brad did is a lot more than what IntFem’s have done regarding their own problem children. Not only do they not call them out they give them awards. When it comes to giving Vox Day an award they don’t want to. I cannot detect what standard they are employing that would lead to that.

      #DitchYourRacists

      1. Contrary to what you’ve been taught by several generations now of cultural Marxist teachers, McCarthy was 1) polite and professional, and 2) correct about Soviet spies.

        All kinds of things, including especially the Venona Project. have proven McCarthy right. Own McCarthyism. It wasn’t anything like what the progressives have lied to us for years and said it was.

        Heck, McCarthy wasn’t even very right wing.

        1. Exactly. To make leftist heads explode, tell them, “McCarthy was right!” and then prove it to them.

    1. he picked rabid puppies specifically to ride on the coattails of sad puppies, so we can wish he would do something different, but there’s no reason to expect him to listen.

      1. I defend VD on the deliberate misinterpretation of his intellectual debate, but I think he’s a selfish dick for coopting the SP name and imagery. Now it’s all about him. Presumably that’s why he did what he did.

        But much of the stuff they attribute to him is edited and twisted out of context. That doesn’t change the fact that he does seem, in fact, to be an asshole.

        Still, forced disassociation is a cornerstone of fascism. And these people like to think they’re inclusive.

        1. If he’d called it Rabid Wombats, the SJWs would still have “confused” the two slates.

          Because nobody is really confused. They are choosing not to pay attention to the differences, just like people choose to see no difference between Gamergate and SP3. They do it all the time on matters of more moment (like conservative Republican vs. social libertarian), so why would you expect anything different?

          1. Also, of course they’re still trying to isolate Vox Day and make him a scapegoat, and of course they would love for the rest of us to play their SJW game.

            It’s exactly the same thing that the clique people used to do in junior high to the designated victim. “If only you would just stop hanging out with Suburbanbanshee, we would liiiiike you. Her geekiness and constant bookreading is the only thing between you and popularity, we swear.”

            Although of course, some people don’t have to be asked. They see the writing on the wall and drop their friends before being asked.

            So the question is not, “How stupid do they think we are?” We know they think we’re stupid out group people.

            It’s “How many fans will fall for this same old line?”

          2. Yup. It’s about attacking the person, not their ideas. Vox is “nasty, badbad, horribul, and, and evul!” It’s not enough to disagree with his ideas. Ya gotta join in the witch hunt.

            It gets real old, hearing the same old pathetic nonsense from a thousand different mouths (and sockpuppets).

  4. And this just proves that the Hugos have been rigged for years, and that if you’re not one of the rightpeople having rightfun, that you will be PUNISHED.

    I feel sorry for these authors, they did nothing wrong. But leftists really don’t care who they kill, maim, or destroy, as long as they get their way. I’m sure they were being put through hell, and were seeing their careers destroyed, because they had the bad luck to have been nominated out of turn.

    So much for any calls of ‘temperance’ or ‘moderation’ from the left, huh?

    1. What’s really hilarious is that some leftards are congratulating Marko now for declining the nomination, and promising to read his books.

      They are going to get a fucking shock when they read what he has to say about his future Earth universal welfare state.

      1. Evil genius, that.

        He apparently has a pretty low opinion of government, bureaucrats, political elites, etc., too. 🙂

        His withdrawal won’t stop me buying his stuff, but has apparently convinced a number of SJWs to give his work a try.

        I wish I could be there for the head explosions.

    2. Every time folks generalize the “other” and make blanket statements about how “all of those people are jerks” (or worse) they are in the wrong. Whether the person saying that is on the left or the right makes no difference it is wrong in either case. That goes for the sjw folks smearing the authors on the sp or rp slates with a broad brush AND sp folks smearing “liberals”. I’m pretty liberal and support the sp folks and think the sjw folks should sit down and shut up.

  5. Ironically this possibly presents a new strategy wherein Vox can simply support any of the writers he wants to see drop out in order to target the unwashed masses.

    1. Don’t think for a second this isn’t something VD has considered. Whether you like the man or not he is good at figuring out how to piss off people he doesn’t like.

      1. It probably won’t have the slightest effect on the CHORFs.

        Although I’d pay to see Scalzi’s reaction if Vox nominates his work.

        1. Save your money; you’ll need it for the anti-nausea meds when Scalzi accepts his nomination with a weaselly shit-eating grin.

      2. This was pretty much my “hacker brain” solution for the next step of escalation.

        “Take whatever slate ‘Making Light’ puts up and endorse that.”

        Followed by “Make a list of every eligible work from 2015, and endorse that.”

        Of course, we already know they have no consistency, so they won’t stand by their principle of “No Award anything VD endorsed”. *shrug*

  6. That’s a shame. Lines of Departure was excellent. I was going to have a hard time deciding whether to vote for Marko or Jim Butcher.

      1. Read the nominees, and decide. That’s always been half of the goal of Sad Puppies: to get more good stories on the ballot, and then to get more people to read and decide what they like best.

        You can still help us win, even if it won’t be those two good authors! (Besides, you still have them as two people to try out and buy more if you like it!)

        1. well I just read , or tried to at any rate…the story they replaced Annie with. Uhhh..are we sure there isn’t someway I can get that time back? Dear lord someone invent a time machine now…..

          1. I couldn’t even get past the halfway point. My brain can process a limited amount of stupid in any given timeframe.

          2. Have they actually, officially announced replacements? I’ve been watching, but I haven’t seen it… as far as I know, it’s still possible there may not replace them, and there may only be 4 nominees on the final ballot for these categories…

          3. Gamergate has a time machine. It’s how we started Sad Puppies three years before we existed. Our time travel technology was given to us by the Daleks, in recognition of Gamergate’s superior evilness. But we won’t let you ride in it. Because evil, you know?

    1. That’s exactly what I said, B. I said the same thing about both works — Annie’s, and Marko’s. They both write very well. I do not have a supporting membership myself, but if I did, I would’ve read everything else and probably _still_ voted for them because I felt what they were doing was quite worthy and valuable.

      I do want to point out that not every liberal or centrist person approves of the tactics of the folks I’d like to call “the traditionalists” (rather than so-called SJWs or whatever). I definitely am to the left of many who post here on a regular basis, and I do not post much. But I honor the courage of your convictions…and I believe that the “Sad Puppies” haven’t done anything wrong whatsoever.

      While I haven’t aligned myself with the SPs, I also definitely do not align myself with the traditionalists (so-called SJWs). I see the infighting and can barely stand it; we’re all writers, editors, readers, and we all should understand context.

      What I do applaud is the movement to have _more_ people vote on the Hugos, not less. Some traditional writers like Mary Robinette Kowal are calling for this (as well as the SPs, who’ve been calling for this now for three years by my count), and have put their money where their mouths are. This is the right thing to do. (MRK says all she wants is for people to read everything and then make an informed decision — and she also draws a distinction between the SPs and the RPs.)

      And for the record — I’ve had one long-term friend walk away from me because I supported another friend’s nomination. It’s not a patch on what Brad Torgerson or Annie Bellet or Marko Kloos have had to endure, I know, nor anyone like Larry Correia or Sarah A. Hoyt who’s well-known in the whole SP movement. I mention it solely because this nonsense is far-reaching and it is causing distress in strange places. (As I said on my own blog a few days ago, I will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions. Like Lillian Hellman before me, I have principles and ethics and I will stand by them. I have the right to congratulate my friend if he’s nominated for an award, for crying out loud, and I don’t care *who* tells me I shouldn’t.)

      1. BTW, Brad, sorry about misspelling your name. (I was typing too fast there.) It’s Torgersen…with an “e.” (I live in a place with many -on/-en name suffixes, so I should’ve been more careful.)

      2. There’s a similarity with the video game activists who are against people like Sarkesian and Co. fucking up video games with trashy crap that’s less game/decent graphics and mostly all polemic and preachiness. And yes, like you, I too am a flaming liberal that supports the SP’s against all of these crappy books being given Hugos, Nebulas, and PKD’s year after year-if this happens to video games, the industry will suffer a collapse similar to the crash of 1983/84

  7. This is a shame. It will probably also embolden folks on the left to turn up the pressure on the remaining candidates to try to force as many of them as possible to withdraw. From their perspective, they just need a single non-SP or non-RP candidate for each award so they can block vote for that person regardless of the quality of the candidate works. Vote for the non-puppy affiliated candidate, rank everyone else below “No Award”, shut out the puppy-backed candidates, and not quite unleash “the Kurgan” by using No Award as the top choice for everything.

    1. The Kurgan will unleash himself no matter what dirty tricks they play. Watch him put a few SJWs on his slate next year just to get them to withdraw.

  8. The strange thing is seeing some of the ones who were insulting these poor writers only a few hours ago saying how marvelous they are and how they are going to buy their book.

      1. I actually tricked some gays into going to see Ender’s Game by lying about the shower scene. I told STR8s they could tell people that their steak eating gay friend that isn’t afraid of weapons said it was ok to watch it.

    1. Well it wouldn’t be proper operant conditioning if they didn’t hand out treats for the desired behavior, would it?

    2. Why would that be strange? They have returned to the fold by aligning themselves with proper group think. Those that surrender to the collective will be rewarded.

      1. The other way to look at that is: “If you pay the Danegeld you never get rid of the Dane.”

        I understand why Marko and Annie pulled out, and I’m *not* attacking them for it…but the sad and unlovely truth is that both of them have just effectively given the Flaming Rage Nozzles of Tolerance veto power over their writing and their literary careers. Whatever short-term rewards they might reap isn’t going to offset the fact that, long term, they’ve just bundled themselves into straitjackets.

        And it’s not doing the image of the Hugos any good, either. But then again, the Hugos may be beyond salvage at this point.

        1. Just remember what happened to Winston Smith after he was fully conditioned to love Big Brother…

          1. We’re the only ones that remember that. George Orwell has been removed from the reading lists and the libraries of our high schools.

          2. Unfortunately, many people seem to fail to understand that 1984 was a warning>, not a blueprint.

        2. For about the past ten years a Hugo nomination has been the flag to put the work on my “must miss” list. My limit for organized stupid is quite low.

      2. Those surrendering to the collective aren’t rewarded by anything other than dependence on the collective.

        Shaming and most of the harassment is primarily an IN GROUP control mechanism.

  9. I think the stench of Vox Day is indeed strong, but would wash off.

    Winning (or even placing ahead of noah ward) while being on the rabid puppies slate would be clear sign that whatever piece we are talking about is damm good indeed.

    I too am sorry to see this. Marko did make it clear that he saw the Rabid Puppies as a separate movement.

    I plan to read and vote. I haven’t even looked over the Rabid Puppies slate, so I don’t prejudge those books.

    I care about the Hugo.

    1. To be honest, I no longer care about the Hugos. They have been irreparably damaged by the SJWs. The awards mean less than nothing to me at this point; I’ll stay away from Hugo winners unless I hear from some other source that they’re worth reading.

  10. Oh, look, the Agents of Inclusion and Tolerance have succeeded in bullying a woman off the nomination list because someone she had no control over liked her story.

    I hope they’re fucking proud of themselves.

    1. A bisexual socialist woman, no less.

      Perhaps this will open up a slot for Hip Young Person of Color John Scalzi to win another award.

      For “diversity”.

    2. Of course they are.

      After all, the wrongfans aren’t allowed to like the same stuff they like. It’s verboten!

      The thing I’m wondering is, how do they know who’ll get bumped up?

        1. Thank you for the link. It’s a fascinating theory, and I’m wondering about that. Brandon didn’t like to be held horizontally, but preferred to be held at an angle, or held upright.

          The researcher’s site is here, and if folks feel it worthwhile, it may be worth it to donate.

          http://www.sidsguild.org/

          Personally, if the Hugos end up losing the folk whose works I consider worthy and replace them with gray goo, there’s no worth in spending for the ability to nominate or vote for the Hugos. I would rather spend my money on a cause like this every year, than on something where the authors I like are harassed simply because I enjoy their works, and the authors are made to distance themselves from the fans who enjoy their work and nominate them but aren’t of the ‘approved howling mob.’

    3. Don’t you get it? They ramped up the pressure specifically on the authors who identified as being on the left, or whatever the SJW’s “ONE OF US” category includes. They want the people who are supposed to be on THEIR side to drop out, so that the shortlist becomes more homogeneous with “right-wing, white male” authors. Thus giving their bullshit claims more perceived credibility.

      It is the same procedure as when a black person or a gay person comes out as a conservative. They are attacked with orders of magnitude more ferocity than the usual targets, because they need to shut up and stop giving the other side credibility.

      This isn’t internet chaos. This is a controlled, coordinated strategy.

      1. When did Marko identify as being on the left? I can’t say that I know his politics, but I’ve been reading his blog for a few years and think he’s libertarian. Like most real people, I don’t think he completely agrees with any party, seems more like an independent thinker.

  11. There will be plenty of time for that, but I was saying at Brad’s blog that the strategy next year will have to be rethought, because regular writer can’t be expected to subject themselves to this level of abuse.

    1. I myself wonder if there are not some people eagerly scribbling away with the intent of having something fit to publish in time for consideration.

        1. I’m about 2,000 words into mine, myself. I don’t have Twitter or FB (or Vine, or YikYak, or whatever the hell else is out there) and don’t give a rat’s ass what’s said about anyone by anyone on them. I also have a job and an adamantium self-image, so they can all take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. I’ll KU it for $.99 when I’m done, and (if it’s okay with Larry) maybe mention it here if anyone’s interested.

          1. flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? First time I’ve heard THAT variation on flying fuck. lol

    2. Actually, no one should be subjected to this level of abuse, including Brad, Larry, Sarah, Dave, Amanda, John, Tom, or ANYONE ELSE!

      The SJWs are celebrating tonight. Tomorrow, who will they turn on?

    3. I am not sure if it is a matter of that though. This is the route the ruling clique uses because it works. They already seem to live in parallel universes as far as truth is concerned

  12. Mr. Correia, I truly admire you and enjoy your work. However, recent events have convinced me that you and Mr. Torgersen are wrong. The hysterical reaction to science fiction fans buying memberships and participating in WorldCon has been eye opening; if these people hate Vox Day so much then they should stop making him look like a prophet. The Hugos deserve to burn.

  13. Funny thing about this whole new affair – the right is always being warned to “disassociate itself” from “extremists” and …. the left never seems to reciprocate. Either someone is “rehabilitated” after a number of years, or if they are so egregious as to be truly damaging, they’re sent down the memory hole.

    But disavow their own scumbags? “Police themselves?” I’ve yet to EVER see it.

      1. “She apologized, isn’t that enough? What else does she have to do?” — say a bunch of leftist on various blogs.

        1. For the record, I think that hanging would be much too far, prison a bit much, the stocks for 10 days about right, and recompense for all her victims a bare minimum.

  14. This is really sad, and I feel sorry for both authors. I’m also a little frustrated that SP has worked harder to distance itself from RP. I get the whole “I wont’ participate in the shunning” thing. I think it’s a little misguided, but I respect it.

    The fact is, SP can take actions to distance itself from RP and show good faith *without* attacking Vox Day. For example: I think in hindsight having 5 recommendations per category was pretty objectively a terrible idea because it created–unintentionally, I’m sure–a new exclusive. If you’re not on SP / RP, you didn’t get nominated. This is almost literally true for the 4 literary categories.

    SP4 can avoid that in two ways:

    1. Recommend only 1-2 works per category
    2. Recommend a minimum of 10 works per category

    Announcing it now would show good faith by SP to participate in the Hugos according to their mission (get recognition for new folks) without becoming an existential threat to the whole party.

    And it would be a very, very stark departure from the confrontational approach of RP.

    Shunning somebody because you’re scared is wrong. Establishing clarity that your thing is distinct from somebody else’s thing when it actually is distinct *isn’t* wrong.

    The message is going to be lost with the wider audience if that separation doesn’t take place.

    1. Yeah, I don’t know how many more times I could say that SP and RP are different. But it doesn’t seem to matter.

      As for the suggestions, that is in Kate’s hands. I’ve also been clear that we didn’t expect to sweep the categories. On the ones SP had 5, it was because we had 5 that we really liked. In other places we had 3. Last year I only had 1 in each category, and that was still the SMOFpocolypse, so I honestly don’t think there is anything we could do that wouldn’t cause outrage. Except go away. They’d accept that I suppose.

      1. Larry,

        You’re never going to appease the social justice crowd. That’s a given. Never gonna happen. But there’s appeasement and then there’s just making things harder than they have to be.

        At this point, I think SP really needs to do more to differentiate itself from Vox Day and show good faith to the moderates. It’s not enough to say that y’all didn’t expect to sweep. In my mind, y’all need to say that you’re sorry that it did, that it wasn’t your intention, and that you’re taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

        Unless that happens, there are a lot of rational, decent, moderate people who are going to feel like this isn’t an attempt to diversify. It’s an attempt to conquer. Adding people to nominees is one thing. Wiping out anyone else? That’s another thing altogether.

        Don’t hold your breath expecting anyone to send flowers if you do these things. Your opponents will still oppose you. But for Heaven’s sake, don’t give them a bigger cudgel if you can avoid it!

        Right now the Hugo’s are kind of faced with an existential threat. Noah Ward wins this year, Vox nukes them next year. That’s bad. And it’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity for SP to work to build the Hugo’s up.

        From where I’m standing, this is makes tactical sense (it appeals to moderates and undecideds) *and* it fits the mission profile.

        Just my $0.02 from the peanut gallery. You’re right that it’s Kate’s call to some extent, but we’re still in SP3 territory (finalists aren’t out yet), and so I think it has to be a joint effort. And let’s face it: you’re the one with the biggest megaphone.

        And hey, Larry, thanks. I know I’m being a little critical (hopefully in a constructive way), but I am grateful for the hits you took standing up for what’s right and trying to make the sci-fi community a better place. Sincerely, I appreciate all you’ve done. I don’t for a moment think I could have done it any better, even if I were as famous and talented as you.

        1. With all due respect to your second paragraph…no.

          Apologizing for something that was beyond your control (because, let’s face it, it kind of was) is vanity.

          1. Putting 5 works up for nomination in a category where there are 5 available slots? That was a mistake. It was an honest mistake, but it was a mistake. Even if they *hadn’t* swept the nominations, it still would have been a mistake. Just one that didn’t have bad consequences.

            There’s no shame in saying so.

          2. (Shakes head) What kind of conquest? I could understand people thinking SP1 and SP2 were conquest-oriented, but SP3?
            The most ideologically diverse slate, official or otherwise, to appear in years, is an act of conquest because it dared to have one nominee for each slot available?
            This isn’t Rommel and Guderian invading France, this is Cota and Lovat.

        2. Eff the moderates. The dedicated moderates waste their time and mine trying to sit on a fence mostly so they can concern troll one side of it and ignore the excesses of the other. The nondedicated don’t much care beyond eating popcorn and watching the slap fight.

          Make this about the moderates and you’ll lose. Make this about shifting the status quo or don’t bother to do it.

          1. I don’t agree with your points about moderates being moderate so they can kibbitz and/or troll both sides. I do agree that the status quo is obviously way off if a bunch of traditionally published writers and editors can forget the value of context and keep conflating the RPs with the SPs and blame everything that one man — Vox Day — has done on everyone who’s voted for their favorites with a supporting membership (whether an official SP or not).

            I don’t know what the answers are. I do at least understand context. And I also understand that what we’re, in effect, seeing on the part of the traditionally published folks is akin to mob rule. (And I don’t approve of mob rule, which is why I’m here.)

            Even though I am a moderate, please do not insult my intelligence or my command of the facts of context. I know full well what’s going on and I know that Brad T. and Larry C. and Sarah H. and the authors on the SP slate have been unfairly maligned. It is not right, it is not just, and I will not sit silent and pretend that it is.

            That said, I want to find common ground if there is *any* with the traditionally published folks, because those people actually have more in common with us than we might like to think. But obviously they have to cool off and start thinking as individuals again, not a mob, before any bridge-building can even be attempted. (I find this very sad, very shocking, and very wrong, but there it is.)

        3. Sounds like a great way to accomplish absolutely nothing. What happened to standing up for what’s right and trying to make the sci-fi community a better place?

          1. The CHORFs aren’t interested in making the community a better place. Far as their concerned, the community is perfect and we’re the barbarian horde.

            At this point I’m not sure what would please me more: An honest election, Noah Ward stuffing the ballot box, or the ConDom just cancelling the Hugos outright.

    2. Unfortunately, your objection to SP3 is untrue. But it’s been repeated so often people don’t realize it. (The CHORF’s MIGHT be conscious of it, but they like to claim that SP3 was designed to monopolize the ballot.)

      Out of 16 Hugo categories, SP3 had five nominations in only four of them. Novel, Short Story, Related Work and Fan Writer. The rest had four or three. Except Graphic story which had only one.

    3. Quite frankly, I don’t feel sorry for both authors. Maybe I feel a tiny bit sorry for Annie Bellet because it seems she just doesn’t have the stomach for the fight (but it’s a fight she and every SFF author wouldn’t be able to run away forever), but I don’t feel sorry for Marko Kloos because the reason he gave for rejecting the reward is ridiculous. Why is he giving a damn about Vox Day being an asshole if his work is good enough to be nominated? If you care about the “right” people praising your work then something is very wrong with your thought process.

      1. Unfortunately, unless you’re signed with Baen the “right” people praising your work is the difference between eating and starving. And for the past few decades having the “right” people is contingent on toeing the SJW line and punching the correct SJW holes on your ticket, and God help you if you’re declare an unmutual.

        It was either Larry or Brad who told of his first experience as a Hugo nominee: “OMFG how did someone who owns a GUN STORE get in here???!!! UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN! STONE THE WARLOCK!” It wasn’t about the nominated work, it was all about the pig who tried to pass himself off as a man. As far as they were concerned, he was a sideshow geek who should go back to the circus.

        And the events of the past few weeks demonstrate nothing has changed.

  15. I just read the short from Annie Bellet and that was a very worthy story. She will be back on another date, I think that it is a shame that we can’t vote on this story.

    1. The problem is that she won’t, unless they change the rules so Sad Puppies can’t even sign up to vote. Because any time we do, all the Good People will be told they must withdraw.

  16. That sucks. I hate that people have made this into anything other than getting good, quality stories on the ballot. Neither should have felt the need to withdraw.

    So pissed off at everyone who’s made them feel this way. One thing’s for sure, the SP-haters can’t hide behind sanctimonious BS anymore. They’re so buried in hate they just had to throw this tempertantrum. They had to make it about race. Or politics. Or gender.

    They HAD to ignore facts.

    And they had to ignore the stories.

    1. Oh they will. They will still put up the façade and I bet it will still work. Fear and shame are potent tools.

  17. Much as I hate to admit it, the attacks are starting to make me think that the black flag has been raised. It was not by either Vox or Larry. Just fear that the campaign will reach scorched earth proportions and not go down.

    1. I haven’t actually read any of Vox Day’s work yet, aside from a handful of posts on his blog, but this smarmy, insipid comment just inspired me to go purchase a couple. Good job!

  18. so does this give Vox a veto on any Hugo nominee? all he has to do is add them to his list and they must refuse the nomination to be ‘good people’

    He is obnoxious enough to use this against the SJW types as well. If he were to put one of them on his slate, would they really refuse the nomination?

    1. Yep. I fully expect to see him putting Scalzi on his slate next year.

      While I’m seriously annoyed that VD copied the puppies, distracting from the whole issue, I do think he will make sure the SJ bullies regret intimidating people out of their just nominations.

  19. To all the anti-Puppies out there: are you satisfied now? Are you happy that you shamed, threatened and intimidated people into withdrawing? Or will you continue your war of attrition until the ballot is cleansed of all heretics?

    1. Actually, incredible as it seems, they deny that they had anything to do with this, citing the writers’ messages that doesn’t say anything about the campaign of abuse.

      1. Yes, just like every confession signed in the Lubyanka was totally voluntary. Totally. It says so right there on the paper.

          1. I hope Butcher holds out. I suspect he’s big enough and distant enough from the CHORF sphere of influence (great thing about them disdaining urban fantasy) that they couldn’t do much damage.

          2. I tweeted support for him.

            I’m on fire on Twitter tonight. Laurell K Hamilton just got involved. She’s friends with Larry, so I’m assuming on the pro-Puppy side.

          3. Me to Butcher:

            “Christopher Chupik ‏@CChupik · 13h13 hours ago
            @longshotauthor I just want to say that I hope you stand firm and don’t let the haters intimidate you.”

            Butcher to me:

            “Jim Butcher ‏@longshotauthor · 12h12 hours ago
            @CChupik There are haters? :D”

            🙂

    2. Of course they will. And they now have implacable foes who refuse to back down and be intimidated, so it’s going to be a massive game of Hugo chicken for a year or two now.

      We’ll see what happens when it comes time to actually announce winners. If Puppy-slated works win, then the SJBullies will go away in tears impotent. If they don’t, then it’s going to be scorched earth next year.

    3. Was Stalin satisfied? Mao? Pol Pot? Baron Harkonnen? Sauron?

      SJWs may not be all alike in philosophy or goals, but they are all alike in their conformist social authoritarianism. The Millenials, especially. They’ve grown up with the web, and social media, so they’re bringing the herd mentality and the weapons of shunning and ostracism to every party.

      All must be as they want, and all must be the same.

  20. At what point do you cut your losses and go home? If you fight until the place you’re fighting for is no longer fit for anyone, was it worth it?

        1. You’re taking the metaphor beyond crush depth. Assume SP totally achieves its goals, it completely drives the politically motivated out of fandom. In that case the Hugos are awarded to quality works. Even if media coverage is hostile, people will occasionally pick up Hugo-winning works, enjoy them, and recommend them to others. After a few years the rancor from the “Puppy Wars” will fade in memory, but the association of “Hugo=quality” will be reinforced year after year, returning the Hugos to the honor they once held (and once again attracting the SJW’s who seek to hide their ugly ideology behind the reputation of others). THAT is what is best in life.

          1. This is also stupid. The Hugos are not Russia and the SJWs are not bravely defending their home.

            THE PUPPIES are the Russians in this analogy. The SJWs are the invaders. Just because they’ve had the run of the place for years now doesn’t mean that they belong there.

          2. Although… on re-reading your post, it looks like that may have been what you meant after all anyway. If so… my bad.

    1. If it’s no longer fit for anyone, burning the ruins to the ground and salting the earth isn’t a bad plan.

      Joking. Mostly.

  21. A question. At this date, can they withdraw from the ballot?

    I can’t seem to find a definitive rule on this matter.

      1. Nathan’s right. They can withdraw now. The precedents apparently say that they will not be substituted at this stage, but after so many strange things who knows.

  22. I already gave up. Let the Hugo’s remain what they became around 1985. An indication of shoddy stories with all the right messages, unreadable and unworthy of being purchased; a mark of shame telling us which books not to bother with.

    1. Here’s the problem, a lot of people including myself, didn’t know how broken the Hugos are/were.

      I’d rather see it labeled as the award for best SFF as determined by InclusionCon than purport to represent that which is best in SFF. You shouldn’t be able to have it both ways, and they did for a long time. Now the problem is being addressed one way or the other.

      Either it’s their award, or it belongs to us all. It can no longer be both.

  23. Annie Bellet writes damn fine fiction. Her collection “Dusk and Shiver” is hands down my favorite book of this millennium. Her nominated story was on that same level. And no assholes are going to take that away.

  24. As one of the folks who voted the RP slate, I’m sad to see this. I’d looked forward to reading Kloos specifically because I’ve seen Vox recommend his works several times. If Mr. Kloos doesn’t want to take the heat and feels the need to withdraw, fine. That FB statement frankly pisses me the hell off though. He’s definitely moved way down my reading list.

    1. Well FUCK.
      You voted for them without reading, because of VD’s endorsement? Way to prove the SJWs right asshole. SP was all about promoting authors to read and vote on, but Fuck You.

      Hey Larry. Think we can get the Hugo’s group to Strip out straight RPs Slates?

      1. Are you suggesting that you thought everyone who voted the Sad Puppies slate read every work they nominated? If so, I think you’re naive. If Brad or Larry suggested people only nominate works they’ve read, I missed it.

        The fact is, I read every entry in each fiction category last year which was included in the voter packet (luckily, I’d already read Wheel of Time). So while it’s true that I don’t know for sure that Kloos’s work is better than everything non-SP in there last year, I think it’s a safe bet since I know from experience that my taste is similar to that of Larry, Brad and Vox.

        As far as voting for the big show itself, I’ll read every nominated work in each category in which I vote, just as I did last year. At least, I will assuming all of the nominees don’t back out.

          1. Well as I said, if that’s so then I missed it. It happens.

            Vox certainly recommended taking his whole slate as is, and I agree with that. To quote Larry directly, “…you can usually guess who all of the finalists are going to be that year before any of the books have actually come out or been read by anyone, entirely by how popular the author is with this tiny group.”

            At worst, RP nominated similarly to past nominating bodies based on popularity with SP/RP instead of SJW Worldcon voters, so it seems disingenuous to act like RP is somehow destroying an otherwise pristine process.

          2. Yup. AND it was stated- OFTEN- that if we knew of an author we liked better, we were welcome to nominate them instead- and/or give them a shout-out in the comments of the post. If you go back to those old posts, there are a LOT of shout outs.

          3. Doug –

            What you did was wrong. You should not have nominated anything you hadn’t read. And you shouldn’t have taken anyone else’s word for how good a work was.

            I do respect your willingness to own up to this mistake.

        1. Did you not notice any of the Book bombs that Larry and Brad were Promoting? Did you think they just did those for giggles?

          “As noted earlier in the year, the SAD PUPPIES 3 list is a recommendation. Not an absolute. ”
          https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/sad-puppies-3-the-2015-hugo-slate/
          Plus all the amazon links next to the names.

          I looked on VD’s blog, and I see that he did recommend straight voting. So maybe that is why you are confused. But the Sad Puppies effort was all about spotlighting nominees and saying “If you agree with our slate below…” i.e. because you read them and agree with the nomination, not because you followed the party card.

          1. I voted the Kloos one with out reading too. I had read terms of enlistment and thought it pretty good and I wanted at least one book in the hugo packet that I hadn’t already bought and read. I bought and read every other book bomb leading up to the nominations.

          2. Please tell me you didn’t really just say ‘I liked the first book, and wanted the second free’?

            I didn’t like it but I bloody well bought it.

        2. “Are you suggesting that you thought everyone who voted the Sad Puppies slate read every work they nominated? If so, I think you’re naive. If Brad or Larry suggested people only nominate works they’ve read, I missed it.”

          *headdesk, headdesk, headdesk* Oh for fuck sake. They’ve both said REPEATEDLY hnot to take their word for it, READ THE FUCKING BOOKS and nominate as you see fit or suggest your own.Hell so have any number of the rest of us who’ve been commenting on the brouhaha in support of the puppies.

          Sigh someone get me a couple advil and a bourbon.

  25. Occasionally, I wonder why some people are vile, hateful or just plain malevolent. Then I remember:

    It works.

    1. Seriously. This news was damned depression but I can’t make other people put up with all the bikes slander and pressure possibly from friends.

      I’m pissed that vox day borrowed so many from the sp
      Slate instead of just coming up with his own stuff.

      1. Ok what the hell did auto correct do to my words? Sorry guys, I should know better than to post on my phone.

      2. Because it’s UNTHINKABLE to ponder the notion that he might actually have enjoyed some of the same books as Brad, and for the same reason?

        1. Because it’s UNTHINKABLE to ponder the notion that he might actually have enjoyed some of the same books as Brad, and for the same reason?

          He named his slate ‘rabid’ puppies.

          He used a good portion of the same slate. What were the overlap numbers? More than could be accounted for by chace, I think.

          I wish Vox had done more to differentiate himself.

          1. Well – if the point was to nominate the BEST works regardless of political message, then “differentiating himself” would mean not promoting things he saw as the best works…. thus making him a hypocrite.

            OR you think he doesn’t actually think those books and stories are among the best available and has malign intent in picking many of the same stories.

            So either he’s a hypocritical liar promoting inferior books to make everything burn down, or you want him to BE a hypocritical liar and not promote what he believes is best to spare your feelings.

            I’ll give you one clue – I’ve yet to catch a lie from him. Remember that scene in True Lies where – under the influence of truth serum – Arnold’s character tells his torturer-to-be exactly how he will escape and kill him?

            It’s straight out of Sun Tzu . Larry, Brad, and yes, Vox doing his own separate thing that happens to have overlapping goals, have announced exactly what they will do, and then worked in exact accordance to their claims insomuch as humanly possible.

            All the other side had to do to prove them wrong was be gracious,

            and tolerant.

          2. It makes no difference at all whatsoever what he would have named it or how much differentiation he had attempted. That’s completely beside the point. The Hugo gatekeepers and SJWs are completely incapable of seeing anything beyond their bubble as anything other than “not us.”

          3. you want him to BE a hypocritical liar and not promote what he believes is best to spare your feelings.

            I don’t want him to be anything, but his goals for this whole thing were different. He conflated the two slates, long before the others jumped in and did in national print. And he clearly picked some similar works in an effort to sweep the field if possible. Which is why he said this:

            They are my recommendations for the 2015 nominations, and I encourage those who value my opinion on matters related to science fiction and fantasy to nominate them precisely as they are.

            All the other side had to do to prove them wrong was be gracious,

            and tolerant.

            I know. But not to get all preschool but two wrongs dont’ make a right.

          4. Which is the opposite of my telling people to vote for what they wanted, because I knew they were going to do so anyway.

  26. Wow, just when I think my disgust with the social justice bullies can’t be any greater. That’s too bad for both Marko and Annie.

    1. With every move the SJWs lose more ground. They have no idea–because they’re so used to living in their stupid little bubble–what their antics are doing to everyone else around them.

      Also, because they don’t actually understand how people think. The r/K theory suddenly opened my eyes to why I couldn’t make any sense out of rabbit behavior, and how I see it in reverse; rabbits can’t make any sense out of people behavior. So they are destroying themselves without even knowing it.

  27. And NOW I’m tempted to spend my $40 just so I can vote for Noah Ward at the top of each category, regardless of quality. The way to stand up to bullies is to stand up and bite, not lick!

    1. Or you could do what I’ve asked people to do this whole time, and actually read the books and vote accordingly.

      1. That’s one of the problems with “sending a message”; the desired message frequently is not understood. I am, I suppose, unlikely to waste the money on such a useless thing, just as I have not voted for decades. Both are a form of feeding a bullying Troll.

      2. “Or you could do what I’ve asked people to do this whole time, and actually read the books and vote accordingly.”

        Assuming, of course, that everybody I like and want to vote for hasn’t been driven off the ballot by the Flaming Rage Nozzles of Tolerance, when it finally comes time to vote. In which case Noah Warding the whole damn thing suddenly looks more and more attractive, especially if the SP and RP candidates end up replaced by insipid SJW dreck as the DQ’d-under-suspicious-pretenses “Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus” by John C. Wright was.

        Marko claimed that he didn’t want his nomination to be because of Vox’s influence. I’d say that his consistently-high Amazon rankings have more to do than that, but as they say YMMV. It’s a safe bet the anti-Voxxers wouldn’t have nominated him purely out of political reasons, any more than they would have nominated that Heinlein biography they keep throwing in our faces.

        The strategy is clear: If they can’t beat SP and RP, then they’ll just tear the whole thing apart one author at a time, and then call it a triumph of “reason over politics” with a straight face. And the Hugos will, once and for all, be dead regardless of what you or I or Vox friggin’ Day might do to them.

    2. … who are the bullies, though?

      The best way to stand up to the bullies is to nominate and vote for the best stories you can find. And to encourage everyone else to do the same.

      Period.

      1. The best way to stand up to the bullies is to nominate and vote for the best stories you can find. And to encourage everyone else to do the same.

        And how well will that work if everyone is just driven off the ballot by bullying? I cannot make other people have the fortitude to stand up for themselves in the face of such harsh treatment.

        If the best writers are driven off the ballot by bullying, then we will have the same broken system.

      2. Is the best way to stand up to bullies a firm, “No, I will not play your game“?

        Or is the the best way to stand up to bullies to punch back twice as hard.

        My teachers (and the ABC Afterschool Special) taught me the former, and I believed. The reality of daily life in public school, and in the big city, taught me different.

        I wish I’d read Ender’s Game when I was 8 years old, instead of 21, My life would have been very different 🙂

        1. Well – it’s a continuum.

          Once you prove that you’re willing to be a hard target and “Punch back twice as hard” – then “I’m not willing to play” is enough most of the time after that.

          Sometimes before – but rarely. Bullies are pretty good at picking out people who aren’t inclined to punch, and so will mistake “leave me alone” as “we can keep messing with him”

    3. Keep in mind that we are only in year three of Sad Puppies. And the first two don’t count, as that was Larry trying to prove a point, not to effect change.

      This is but the first major battle, and both the SP and RP have scored devastating hits on the opposition. Just because it is not a flawless victory is not a reason to reach for the nuclear option. Let it continue. Stick with LC’s strategy if that is what you came in with, because nothing so far has undermined it.

      Me? I’m a fence sitter between saving the Hugos or letting them burn, and I have been since I started paying attention last year. But, I’m willing to give the SPs a chance to prove they have the endurance it takes to accomplish their goal.

      If this is all it takes to make you throw up your hands in disgust, then the SPs will have defeated themselves.

  28. On File 770 there is an open question whether they will be replaced on the ballot. If they are, and if (as with the replacements for ineligibility) the Hugo admins update the “most nominations/fewest nominations” numbers, some further indication should be available regarding the actual impact of the RP slate.

    1. The withdrawn nominees will be replaced with the next in line of their categories, providing they received the required 5% of the nominations. It will take a day or so for Sasquan to make the announcement.

  29. Larry I want to thank you for the last few days of fun. I know you are taking a lot of flack for this, but I’ve not had this much fun in a long time. I am honered to be a fan of the king of hate. It’s amazing how mad people get when you pull the curtain back and expose the truth.

  30. Well, that sucks. I suppose that Jim Butcher will get my “Best Novel” vote by default. Unless he gets bullied into withdrawing, too.

    Larry refused his Hugo nomination because he didn’t want to make the 2015 Hugos all about him. How well did that work out? And who will say “Screw it” and pull out next?

    The hell of it is: It’s a short-term “victory” for the Flaming Rage-Nozzles of Tolerance that in the long run is only going to strengthen the position of Vox and everybody else who’s ready to just burn the Hugos to the frickin’ ground.

    Hell, at the rate the SJWs are throwing gasoline and matches all over the place, there isn’t going to be anything of the Hugos left for Vox to burn. I doubt he’ll find so much as an ash to pee on.

    1. Bottom line… he *can’t* burn it down without their willing and enthusiastic participation.

      Looks like they’re right on board the Vox train shoveling coal.

  31. Does Amazon tell authors when someone has their books wishlisted?

    And, does it also tell them when someone deletes one of the author’s books from their wishlist?

    If so, Mr. Kloos will be sad.

    Giving in to terrorist demands is never the smart option. Letting bullies push you around and make your choices for you is idiotic. I cannot reward such behavior, let alone condone it.

    Kloos made a choice to throw his support behind cretins like Requires Hate and the Neilsen-Haydens, and child molesters like MZ Bradley and Ed Kramer. If Vox Day is a “shitbag of the first order”, what does Mr. Kloos think of the 4 people I just named that are on HIS SIDE in this matter?

    That’s not a rhetorical question. Let’s all ask him until he provides an answer.

    1. I disagree, and I’m saying that as somebody who has been on this wall taking arrows for a few years. He did what he thought had to do. You weren’t in his situation, and you listed off a bunch of people he probably doesn’t like. Disliking Vox doesn’t suddenly make him a friend of the Nielsen Haydens.

      1. Yeah, it’s a pity, but no one can be expected to suffer so much tension and abuse unless they know very well what they were signing up for. I can only respect his decision.

      2. Larry, what about what Kloos posted on FB? Seems it was more about Vox than the SJWs, which frankly is stupid. Does he really think everyone who likes his work is someone he considers a good person?

        1. I can’t read Marko’s mind any more than I can read Vox Day’s, and frankly I’m too tired to care.

    2. I’m not Marko, but I can assure you that it’s perfectly possible to think that Vox Day and Nora Jemisin are both assholes. “Requires Hate” is apparently a psychopath, and the Neilsen-Haydens are scrofulent SJW trolls of the first order.

      There are many different flavors of shitbag in the world.

  32. The SJW might believe that this is a win for their side. It ‘s not. It is a win for Vox Day. Every act like this just empowers him more.

  33. i don’t know either of these authors but I do respect their decisions. For the people banging on them b4hand and getting involved in a war (and that’s what it is now, unfortunately) without knowing is not something to deal with lightly. I’ll try to find some of their works.

    I barely know of Vox Day outside of he seems to be a cantankerous blog writer, and it’s really a shame that he picked a name so close to the Sad Puppies.

    One last add: I was disappointed in too many of the Marko blog commenters 🙁

  34. I confess a little puzzled by this. They withdrew because someone they [disagree with / disgusts them / they hate] actually likes their work ?

    Does this mean that because the Nazi’s stole great works of art (which would seem to indicate that they liked it) that the artworks is unworthy of praise, recognition, or acclaim ?

    I can see that acclaim by someone you disagree with means less than compliments from someone you like/admire/respect.

    But wouldn’t it seem that since they (Vox in this case) put your name on the ballot, it probably wasn’t because of your politics, or that they already liked you in other ways, or considered you a “kindred spirit” ?

    Not saying anything bad about the authors — they have a right to do as they choose — but I really don’t understand.

    1. Yes. One side nominates you for an award. The other one subjects you to torrents of online abuse.

      Which one is actually your friend?

      1. The real question is: What side has already bought your books, and what side will buy your books the moment you bow down to them?

      2. Yeah, I doubt that when she talks about hating to open her email, she was getting abuse from any Puppies.

    2. Two days on, I think it’s possible that she was fairly put out with the retoric from the SP side, flavored as it was by povs that she didn’t agree with. (As is her right.)

      Had she been defended by those she agreed with, and attacked by those she did not, it might have been easier to stand firm. The situation she was in deeply sucked.

  35. Hi Larry,

    I’m not much of a science fiction reader so I ain’t got a dog in this fight. I read your site because it’s fun. As a mildly interested outsider. I do feel you’ve proved your point that the Hugos are politicized, mostly in the office-politics rather than the DC-politics way. But i also don’t think you can win your battle now because it’s becoming mostly about Vox Day. Have you considered shifting strategies and setting up your OWN awards? Then your strategy can be about making your awards cooler than the Hugos. You can leave them to the SWJ’s and work towards making the Larry the award that the hip writers want. I read somewhere that a Hugo does not translate to much of a boost in sales. If you can get to where a Larry translates into “X more sales to [coveted demographic],” then you are in a much stronger position.

    Suggested design for the Larry: Puppy in space suit holding up sign, a la Wile E. Coyote, that reads I AM IN NO WISE ASSOCIATED WITH VOX DAY.

    Does an association with Vox Day help, hurt, or have no effect on sales?

    Good luck!

    1. A couple of observations:
      “But i also don’t think you can win your battle now because it’s becoming mostly about Vox Day.”
      This is part of the “personalize” stage of discrediting a movement or idea. You select a person who is both A: an advocate of the idea you oppose, and B: vile in some way.
      SP’s ideas are bad because of Vox Day in the same way vegetarians are evil because of Hitler. I don’t recommend accepting either propositions. Conceding defeat “because Vox Day” is effectively accepting the proposition.

      As for why one would rather see the Hugo’s represent a broader base of the SFF community, instead of just starting “The Larry” or some such (I’d go with Laika). Weather or not it currently deserves it, the Hugo has a position of cultural prestige as the premier award of SFF. It claims to represent the best of all SFF. It would be wrong to allow it’s claims of prestige and universality to continue, if it is exclusively the province of a political clique. This has already damaged the reputation of SFF, as many have become convinced the genre is just piles of intersectionalist tripe, and ceased to participate. Worse, without the Hugo acknowledging it’s place as an award for a particular clique, starting another award for the excluded gives credence to the idea that works that would be politically excluded from the Hugo are not quality storytelling.
      Starting another award without extracting the acknowledgement from the Hugo would be to voluntarily enter the ghetto.

    2. If tomorrow Vox Day evaporated from the face of the Earth, the social justice warriors would simply cut ‘n’ paste the next target on their list. There isn’t any winning this game.

      1. Exactly. If they got Larry or Brad to denounce every single person to their right, guess what? Larry and Brad would then be the most extreme, and next on the list.

        1. Yes. It’s just pushing the guy in front of you off of the plank. Sooner or later it’s your turn.

          (I’m the same as vnehringviktor. I can’t figure this thing out.)

      2. I agree. What’s being forgotten is that this is all about being straight, white, and heterosexual. In a very real sense intersectional feminism see us all as Vox Day.

        We are at best racially privileged, rape apologists. and an oppression of the cisnormative.

        On the other hand SJWs see themselves as Freedom Riders. Unfortunately they missed that bus by a half century and caught the next one that came along – the KKK one.

  36. What is happening is pretty damned awful. Not as awful as someone dying, but more awful than anything else.

    I used to be a regular WorldCon attendee. I even worked at LunaCon. This harassment of authors and guilt by association makes me feel like someone took a dump all over a place I used to visit.

    1. I’ve done Con stuff before. I like Cons. I like people. I’ve been convinced this year that I never want to go to a WorldCon.

      1. Never been but it’s been kind of like Pennsic, something on the geeky bucket list.

        Pennsic is still on there…WorldCon, not so much.

  37. P.s. I also read your discussion with George R.R. Martin–it was the last Sad Puppy thing I read before I decided it was getting too complicated for me. Mr. Martin sounds like a nice man, but I gotta say: Man, that dude has raised procrastination to a (bleep) ing art form. All that about Hugos when he could have been writing about Westeros. Shame on him.

    1. I’m sorry, Larry but I won’t be checking out their works. Anyone lacking the moral courage to stand up to this kind of Harper Valley PTA backbiting probably lacks the artistic integrity to write anything memorable.

      I’m no big fan of Vox Day, per se. In may ways he reminds me too much of Arthur Chu, or many MENSAns I’ve met who were too smart to ever listen to a different idea than their own. But I have never done anything to crowd anyone out of the marketplace of ideas except to decide for myself who gets my money and who doesn’t.

      1. Are you kidding me? You have no idea what sort of shit these people have been put through as a result of this, and not everyone has the intestinal fortitude or the mental health or the spoons, for that matter, to deal with the vitriol.

        Annie’s story is really, really good, and she herself is lovely and didn’t deserve the hate blasted her way.

        1. I keep hearing it was good. Her story was one of the reasons I bought a voting membership this year. I was really looking forward to reading it.

          Guess I have to hunt it down the old fashioned way. 🙁

        2. not everyone has the intestinal fortitude or the mental health or the spoons, for that matter, to deal with the vitriol.

          Indeed. I’m a bit of contrarian, and as a conservative used to bouncing off and ignoring these kinds of attacks. But they usually aren’t personal, because in person I am pretty nice. And used to talking around liberals and leaving them alone when I don’t want to deal with their nonsense.

          But I feel really, really sorry for Annie because she’s probably not used to this at all and it’s got to be daunting. Being a writer, I’m sure this is coming from people who might actual affect her career or who she knows personally. I bought her first book the other day, but I haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet.

      2. You are still punishing wrong people. These agreed to be on sad puppies, but had to step down. They still shown more courage then those who would turn sad puppies down in the first place due to fear.

      1. LMAO!!!

        Thus far, I’ve enjoyed the GoT series, but if the plot doesn’t start getting somewhere in the next book….

        Jebus, Weber does long, wordy and info-dumping like almost no other, but it’s obvious that he’s Going Somewhere With It(tm). Martin needs to figure that out.

    2. I said much the same thing about GRRM. not the shame of course…just shut the hell up and write because your wasting time. HELL didn’t he admit in an interview that the tv series will be finished before the next book comes out? seriously?

  38. I get that Bellett and Kloos were under extreme pressure. But I’ve only got so many dollars and I’m not going to waste them on writers who capitulate to the SJW crowd. This is war, there is no middle ground, and they chose a side. And it’s the side that consider us wrongfans.

    1. I’m not on board with that really. Why should I deny myself a good read because of the actions of the writer? It’s just the reverse of reading only boring message fic by translesbian multicolored people because they are.

      I got only one criteria for buying/not buying a book:

      Do I think it is a good book?

      I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone would want to choose differently.

    2. “This is war, there is no middle ground, and they chose a side. And it’s the side that consider us wrongfans.”

      What a terrible attitude to take when reading books. I’m probably not a typical guest on this site as I’m a leftist, European, feminist, and probably everything else considered anathema in here… But I enjoy books despite their ideology or their writers ideology. I have a cherished copy of ‘Tarzan at The Earth’s Core’, rows piles of Baen MilSF in my shelf next to Banks and MacLeod. I often see the so called SJW crowd accused of ideological censorship which makes posts yours bitterly, terribly ironic.

      1. I’m not opposed to them because of their ideology. I’m opposed to them because of their actions.

        If Kloos had written saying he opposed everything Vox believed, loved Stalin, but wasn’t going to withdraw I’d be fine with reading his work.

        Instead he attacked Vox. He attacked his fans. And then he surrendered. And he did it in a petulant manner. We keep being told that we shouldn’t judge Bellet and Kloos too harshly. But Larry and Brad are facing 20 times the crapstorm. And they’re not backing down. That takes big brass ones. I’d rather spend my hard-earned money on author’s I respect and haven’t attacked me.

        Maybe Kloos thinks I’m a wrongfan. Maybe he just said it to make the right people happy. Either way he crossed a line. And there’s no coming back.

        1. He’s apparently posted an apology/clarification. Check it out, it might change your opinion. Or not.

    3. This is war, there is no middle ground

      They didn’t enlist in a war. They just want to write things. This isn’t their fault.

  39. The safest area in my school was the stairwell where the druggies, hoods, and drug dealers hung out. None of our interests aligned, nor did I do business with them. However, the dangerous people were afraid to do bodily harm on me there. I respected those folks as human beings.

    I also respected the people in remedial and low level classes, because they were generally friendly and helpful. Many of my gamer friends had been wrongly placed in such classes because of learning disabilities or bad luck, too.

    As for those in the Honors classes with me, they wanted to keep their heads low and avoid getting tarred with my unpopularity. Some people were honest enough to say it straight out.

    Meanwhile, the most dangerous people in school — the ones who kept trying to get me to break my neck on the non-druggie stairwells — were moderately popular people with moderately good grades, from moderately well-off family, who weren’t quite smart enough to get into Honors classes. (Some purposefully stayed down a level to improve their GPAs.) They were usually dressed in something like preppie clothes, and they mostly had moderately liberal opinions (as it happens). Nice kids. Murderous nice kids.

    So yes, I recognize the handiwork of the nice kids as they attempt to trip the Sad Puppies, and I can understand those who are trying to scramble away from unpopularity, poor things.

    But if, instead of being a loudmouth, Vox Day were a criminal, it would still be safer in his stairwell than it is to hang out with the nice kids. I don’t agree with him, but he’s not the one beating people up for being the wrong race or religion.

    1. I learned early on that the popular kids weren’t a threat. They were always quite friendly and personable (probably a large reason why they were popular). The threat came from those kids who wanted to be *seen* as popular. They didn’t have social capital of their own, so they raised their relative position by pushing others down.

      1. Agreed! At worst, the popular kids are just too busy to notice what’s going on; at best, they will try to do something to help; but in general, they are reasonably okay. My junior high and high school were both big, though, and the popular kids weren’t really in any classes I had. (None of them were taking Honors, either.)

        The only popular kid I knew well was in my senior year when I got to know our senior class president, because we were both conservatives and both took the same civics/government class. He was a happy warrior par excellence. Heh, did we have fun!

        1. (Of course, by one’s senior year in high school, one’s enemies are usually no longer trying to kill one, because they have usually grown up a tad. Drama from one’s friends usually makes up for this.)

    2. Brilliant.

      So much of the anti-Puppy behavior reminds me of high school.

      Look at people like the Neilsen-Haydens, Hines, and Scalzi. Think about who they were in high school.

      They (think) they’ve made this little world their own; (they think) they’re the “cool kids” here. And they will be damned if they’ll let anybody they don’t like into their club.

      Woody Allen (hawk, spit) was right about at least one thing.

  40. If you are not a troll, then I apologize for the tone of the following, but we get an awful lot of concern trolls (a particularly nasty breed that reflects badly on we aristocratic and well-groomed internet trolls) around here that give mild support to Larry then ask him about Vox Day. The conversation usually goes something like this:

    CT: You know, Larry, I kind of like what you are doing with Sad Puppies.
    Larry: Thanks.
    CT: The only problem is that Vox Day fellow. If only you weren’t involved with him.
    Larry: He has nothing to do with Sad Puppies.
    CT: Yeah, if only he weren’t involved, all this would be good.
    Larry: He’s not involved. Brad and I have nothing to do with him.
    CT: You know, I’ll bet that if you were to really come out and say that you disavow Vox Day, that everything would be unicorns and sunshine blown up our asses!
    Larry: I have nothing to do with Vox Day, he doesn’t listen to me, he does what the hell he wants.
    CT: Really, Larry, if you could just not have associated with him…
    Larry: We had nothing to do with him, he is completely independent.

    and so on and so on. If Larry had a dime for every time he has stated that the doesn’t control Vox, doesn’t work with him, and Vox had nothing to do with Sad Puppies, he might consider giving up writing and just denounce Vox Day all the time, because it would be more lucrative.

    And the whole Vox Day thing is bullshit anyway. Vox is a bogeyman to the SJWs. He lives in their heads, he lives under their beds, he is the WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD! Meh, Vox has some opinions I have problems with, he has other opinions that are interesting, but I get bloody sick of the “guilt by association” game, when James May can literally whistle up 100 people whose opinions and statements are every bit as toxic, every bit as objectionable, and every bit as fringe as Vox’s, but on the other side. But, those people get a pass.

    So, excuse us if we don’t get all excited about your plans for Sad Puppies to distance itself from Vox so that everything can be unicorns and skittles.

    1. In that case, dispense with the sign, call the award the Vox instead of the Larry, and watch hilarity ensue!

      I think if i were a professional writer, I’d be mainly interested in the award you take to the bank. That’s why i thought a good strategy might be to tie the Larry/Vox/Whatever-it’s-called to a coveted demographic , if you can.

      1. Why all this talk of “starting our own awards?” Neither Vox nor Larry are community organizers. Why would they get into the business of starting up awards?

        Also; why should they? The SJWs don’t own the Hugos. They’ve just been squatting on them since about the 80s. But what do you do with squatters when you’ve had enough to them? You throw them out and reclaim what already belongs to you.

      2. Let’s start an award dedicated to the best expressions of racial and sexual supremacist doctrines. It would be identical to last year’s Hugo and Nebula winners so it might be a bit redundant.

        #DitchYourRacists

    2. “but I get bloody sick of the “guilt by association” game, when James May can literally whistle up 100 people whose opinions and statements are every bit as toxic, every bit as objectionable, and every bit as fringe as Vox’s, but on the other side. But, those people get a pass.”

      Worse – they’re not fringe. They’re held by people lauded by the main power brokers and in the mainstream media. Fifteen years ago the “Vagina Monologues” were radical feminist, the year some colleges are banning it for not being inclusive enough .

      Look at Sarkeesan’s videos re: Feminist Frequency. You thought her BS cancellation in Utah over a non-credible threat (and the threat maker was uncovered by gamer gate) was bad?

      Literally telling you that what you are seeing is wrong, and that it’s all about abusing women…. even as she shows you the gameplay disproving her….

    3. And the whole Vox Day thing is bullshit anyway. Vox is a bogeyman to the SJWs. He lives in their heads, he lives under their beds, he is the WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD!

      For the moment.

      I wonder if Orwell was being an optimist when he came up with the Two Minute Hate. Sometimes it seems like the SJWs run out of breath and have to stop hating for a couple minutes until they recover.

  41. Yeah, let’s not pretend this was anything but authors getting bullied and harassed because they were nominated by the wrong fans, and then deciding to shit all over those fans in favor of the people who had victimized them in the hopes of getting sales.

  42. For those of you huffing and puffing over how much you hate and despise Vox Day, have the decency to mitigate your ignorance by reading the interview of Vox day by John Brown, who does have the decency to examine the man’s actual words and positions. Vox Day is refreshing in a world dominated by SJW scum. Brown’s interview and article is at http://www.johndbrown.com/what-vox-day-believes/. Pay particular attention to the comments after the piece.

  43. I get it. Kloos was signing up for last year’s level of drama, not this Turdnado. And it’s all going to be a lot harder on a lefty.

    This was the down side of the politically diverse slate.

    On the other hand

    “I’m pulling out of the Hugo process solely because Vox Day also included me on his “Rabid Puppies” slate.”

    It took him days to find about that?

    Credit where it’s due. Annie handled it better.

  44. I’m not mad at Kloos and Bellet. I’m mad at the people who have threatened and intimidated the people on the ballot since the beginning. I’m mad at the people celebrating this sickening “victory” right now.

    Don’t like the Hugo ballot? Rage and threaten until you get your way!

      1. I keep running into a depressing amount of people proudly proclaim they were “intolerant towards intolerance” or “bigoted towards bigots” and that it’s okay to “hate haters” and such.

        Which just makes them hate-filled, intolerant and bigoted people making excuses to justify their behavior.

        1. The problem with hatred is as much what it does to you inside as what it does to other people. Hatred twists you. Hatred is a bad thing, no matter who it is directed towards.

          If someone does something you don’t like, don’t associate with them, or don’t buy their stuff, or don’t be best friends with them. But don’t sit around dwelling on how much you hate them because it just twists you up into terrible person.

          That is what has happened to these people. They have hated and hated so long they are now ugly, rotten, twisted things. They need to get off the internet, stop complaining about every damn thing and try to do something good. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Think about something other than who you hate.

    1. I’m not mad, either. And I’m not surprised- actually. I expected it would happen. What does confuse me is why an author who cares this much about what Vox thinks of him, didn’t pull out when he was put on Vox’s slate. Or he could have declined the nomination when he got the call. Maybe he didn’t notice until today or something, I’m not sure.

      But that’s just confusion.

      I’m mostly frustrated that this is being used by the anti-sad puppy crowd as a weapon against the other authors on the slate.

      And the message from the antis is clear: All you have to do is denounce those evil SPs and we’ll buy your books! (but we won’t vote for you or read your work if you remain a nominee.)

  45. So the authors are upset that someone they think is a jerk liked their books.

    They need to get over that if they want to sell books.

  46. What a shame, I was looking forward to reading both authors to see if they should go on my buy list.

    I can’t quite put my finger on why, but somehow this feels like a win for VD. He revels in the role of Lord of Chaos, and here his magical affect is still collapsing the towers of Hugo town one by one.

    I also wonder if they

    Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

    I haven’t given any weight to the Hugos in recent years, but it must truly suck for authors, for whom the recognition probably matters far more than it does to me, to find themselves caught up in a tangential conflict. For them the stakes must be substantial.

    1. Actually, you’re exactly right, if only because it proves that Vox’s opinion matters more than any other fan’s opinion.

      I hate that this has been made political. I understand Bellet is socialist (or did I hear that wrong?) and that Kloos is… well I don’t know what he is. And I don’t really care.

      I also don’t care if Vox likes either one of these authors or not. Just like I don’t care which authors Jim Hines or Mary R Kowal like.

      I refuse to vote for someone just because someone else likes them…

      The flip side to that is that I refuse to believe a Hugo is less deserving somehow, because someone I don’t like endorses an author.

      If I don’t like someone, their opinion of an author is completely irrelevant to me.

      1. I understand Bellet is socialist (or did I hear that wrong?)

        Bellet is so far to the left, she makes Obama look like Limbaugh. Hillary Clinton is too right wing for her — she actually idolizes Fauxcahontas.

        1. Ah. Ok. Well, regardless, I have heard a lot of good things about her work and I guess I’ll have to hunt it down the old fashioned way now to read it. (I didn’t nominate her- didn’t buy my membership until after the nominees were announced.)

  47. I don’t know enough about Bellet to form an opinion, but I bought four of Marko Kloos books. It’s blindingly obvious he’s a leftist, and his work suffers for it when he can’t keep his politics in check. So I am not surprised at his decision or his vitriol at Vox. I’m only surprised he was on the slate at all.

    “…the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire…”

    As an author, he’s been hit or miss with me, Lucky Thirteen was great, I hated Measures of Absolution, and the two novels were good but not great. Couldn’t give a damn about the main character in the novels, the pilot love interest (and protagonist of Lucky Thirteen) was far more interesting.

    Elliot Kay has a similar protagonist that I can’t make myself give a damn about, either, yet still somehow found myself reading more of him. Not Rand al’Thor level of hate, just, “If this character died and the story continued from someone else’s point of view, I would be more than okay with that.” Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kay and Kloos were the same person. Their writing styles are that close. Politics, too, for that matter. Never read anything other than their fiction but it shows. Larry Correia levels of subtlety.

    Well, I have more authors on my to read list than I have time for. His actions simplified matters for me. Not because of his withdrawl; like I said, I was surprised that he was on the list in the first place. But for the spite.

    “I think Vox Day is a shitbag of the first order, and I don’t want any association with him, especially not a Hugo nomination made possible by his followers being the deciding factor. That stench don’t wash off.”

    Given that I share far more in common with Vox than Kloos, I can only assume that his opinion of me is similar, and therefore my money isn’t good enough for him.

    1. Kloos. Leftist. Hahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahaha.

      Well, I got my humor for the day.

          1. Not the first time someone has called Marko leftist. I’ve read all his stuff. Is there something I’m not seeing?

            Just ’cause it’s milfic doesn’t mean he’s not, and I often miss the spectrum markers if the story is good enough.

            Which elements mark him as left or right?

            zuk

          2. I go away for the night and I come back to all sorts of weird comments.

            Marko Kloos isn’t a leftist. Holy shit. I’ve known the man for years.

          3. @larry, that’s what I mean, I never thought that but I’ve heard it at various times. I wondered if I was missing something (not that it would matter, I still like his writing.)

            zuk

  48. Sorry to see this.

    Heck — I just wanted a pointer to some damn good reads. Wasn’t that what the Hugos were supposed to be about?

    So — thanks for the pointers to some good books I hadn’t heard about. Perhaps next year, I’ll just look for the Sad Puppies 4 slate and ignore who actually gets/accepts a nomination.

    Terms of Enlistment is next on my reading list, and this isn’t going to change that.

    This is definitely a setback for anyone who thinks the Hugo nominees should represent the best reads of the year.

    FWIW, just finished Goblin Emperor. It was well written, and a good read, though the agenda was a bit strong. Read a bit like the author had a checklist. The made-up-language terms were a tough slog early on, but I liked the way they put us in the same boat with the protagonist, who was a bit lost at sea in the capital. Could have used more touches of grey in the heroes and villains.

    Skin Game was better, but I’ve been a Dresden fan forever — I’d be really interested to hear what someone reading it cold thinks of it.

  49. On reflection: I apologize to Vox Day for calling him a shitbag. I loathe his politics and race diatribes, disagree with his theology, and have absolutely nothing in common with him philosophically, but there’s no reason to get uncivil and resort to name-calling.

    1. And yet, he endorsed your book based on the story, not your politics. As did many of the RP followers. Was his point not proven by your withdrawal?

    2. You should probably say so on VD’s blog. In an age of dueling, Vox gets to play Andrew Jackson. A little civility goes a long ways…

    3. Is this the only place you’re publishing this apology or are you man enough to put it all the places you called him a shitbag?

      One is damage control and one is an honest apology.

        1. And there went any lingering respect I might have had. Now I really find it suspicious that you just found out at this late date that you were on the RP slate.

          Still, out of a shred of pity, I will point out you’ve done a pretty good job of pissing off one side and not enough to cozy up to the other. Standing in the middle of the road just gets you run over, and it’s too late to be a bystander. That ship sailed as soon as you accepted a slot. Did you learn nothing from SP1 and 2?

          1. I don’t really get why people keep saying that Kloos should have known he was on the Rabid Puppies slate. Obviously he knew Rabid Puppies existed, but if he doesn’t actually follow Vox’s blog, how would he know if he was on it or not? And he knew he was on Sad Puppies, so it would be logical for him to assume that’s the only place the nomination came from.

            Hell, I’ve been following Vox’s blog during this whole debacle, and *I* don’t even know for sure what’s on the Rabid Puppies slate!

          2. I was wondering if it was possible to concern troll from the other side.

            Looks like it is.

          3. Cut Marko a little slack. One of his dogs (the special one) died shortly before the Hugo noms were announced. (It’s on his blog.)

            I can only speak for myself, but I was devastated when my best friend and constant companion of 13 years died.

            Maybe Marko had other things on his mind and it took him a little while to come up for air, and then a little while to think about what must have been a difficult decision.

            Hell, I was going to vote for him. Now I have to pick someone else, but I can’t find it in my heart to be upset with the guy.

    4. Good on you for walking that back. It’s fine not to like him, but your original statement went way too far in my opinion. I would also second the idea that you post this anywhere you posted the original comments, but frankly I’m so taken aback to a see a non-conservative apologize to a conservative for any reason that I’ll take what I can get lol.

    5. Too little, too late, Mr. Kloos.

      Do you honestly think that the folks with whom you’ve allied yourself are going to overlook the way you “glorify militarism” or that you’re a “cis-het white male” and nominate you for another Hugo? This might have been your best chance to be known forevermore as a Hugo Award winner, and you threw it away. And who knows what Vox will be doing in that time frame? Editing and game design might well remove him from the involvement in SFF he’s doing now.

      As a fellow gunnie and a fan of Tam’s, I was willing to overlook quite a lot, especially Tam’s blogpost just today regarding the latest volume in your series. I already knew that you don’t see eye to eye with Vox on just about everything, and I was willing to ignore that, because Science Fiction. No longer.

      As for me, you’ve seen my last dime. If your books end up in my local library, perhaps I’ll read them, but I won’t ever spend more of my money on them. Good luck with your SJW friends. I’m sure they cannot wait to fawn over your principles.

    6. Everything else aside, Marko, I am so sorry you felt obliged to take this step. I was very much looking forward to reading your nominated work. All the best going forward!

    7. Vox recommended you for a Hugo award, though your theology, politics, and philosophy differ. The nerve of that man.

      You’re right that it’s none of our concern…except for the fact that you made a very public announcement announcing to all and sundry that he was a shitbag. If you’re going to back up on that it’s a perfectly legitimate question to ask whether or not you’re attempting damage control or if you actually intend to make your apology as public as your insult.

      You made this bed, and you get to lie in it.

          1. Hey, I’m just calling a spade a spade. If it waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, and sounds like a Stalinist ritualistic denunciation of a Trotskyite… well, I’m going to call people out on it. When post start looking like someone is running “The Best of Clamps” with Marko swapped for Vox, I would like to remind people that It Is Not Okay When We Do It.

    8. I disagree. I have no problem calling someone a shitbag over racial diatribes. My issue is in creating a shitbag strikezone. If we have 1,200 different umpires with 1,200 different rules, it’s not going to turn out well.

      I give you the current Hugo debacle. That didn’t come out of nowhere. It came out of arguing with the umpire…

      …for 3 years.

      The game is still suspended.

      Some people insist on fair play. Insist as in INSIST – as in INALIENABLE.

      Some people don’t have such a heightened sense of fair play. Do what you have to do. That is also an inalienable right.

    9. Well said, sir.

      I’m sorry you felt you had to withdraw and disagree with that decision — the problem with having fans of any number is that inevitably you will disagree with them about something other than what you think is a good story — but I wish you the best of luck in future endeavours.

    10. Nice to hear (not that I give a shit about Vox Day, but my first impression of you was your withdrawl and that’s probably not ideal).

      I think if everyone could learn to be a bit more civil the world would be a better place. Maybe I’m tilting at windmills.

    11. This was good of you.

      I deeply regret the crap you’ve gotten. Best of luck on the rest of your writing this year.

  50. The real interesting thing would be to know if certain members of certain publishing houses were contacting these two authors behind the scenes. If so I am guessing we will never know the details of those conversations.

  51. Meanwhile, while Marko may have made that post clear, I notice that it seems to be getting ignored or overlooked, at least in some circles *cough* GRRM’s blog *cough.*

    This whole thing is getting ridiculous. It’s starting more and more to resemble a pre-school fight. The insular SJW group is digging in and refusing to admit their own screw-ups, and that just makes the extremists on both sides get worse and …

    Well, craziness happens.

    1. An economically literate leftist, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. Socially, I suspect you make MZW look like Larry.

      Hmmm, okay, maybe not quite that far. MZW probably has more in common with you than, say, Vox.

      Eh, it’s easier when both line up. That “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” stuff always seems to break down in the liberal’s favor, like Bloomberg and that No Labels fraud. Taxes go up, government gets more intrusive and we get to watch society continue to slide into postcivilizaton. But they tell us some comforting lies.

      By the way, I’m serious about Grayson. My advice is to let him die heroically. And end his existential angst; reading angst is like an itch I can’t quite scratch, but maybe I’m in the minority on that. Then let Halley, who’s more interesting as a character, in my less than perfectly humble opinion, take over. Plus killing the worthless male and putting a female in charge will earn you much needed points with the warren.

      Whatever you do, I won’t be reading it. You well and truly burned that bridge. May this gain you more fans than it costs.

      Of course, considering which side is more likely to be gainfully employed….

      1. I think you’re beginning to discover that “Culture” is why we “Fiscal”, and thus the latter serves the former.

    2. I would suggest that you actually read what Vox has to say when the subject of race or sex comes up, rather than reading what other people think he said.

      I don’t agree with all of it either, or necessarily most of it, but it’s often a lot less objectionable than it sounds.

      That said, on behalf of all SciFi fans everywhere, I’m sorry for the abuse you got for the crime of being nominated by wrongfans. I don’t say “I apologize”, because that would imply that it was our fault, but I AM sorry that it happened to you.

    3. I read your work sir. I found it to be excellent and I nominated it.

      A pox on you for suggesting we’re a bunch of mindless robots that follow Vox’s lead unquestioningly.

      I had never heard of you until Vox suggested your writing. I read it. I love it. I still love it.

      how then can Vox… or I… then be said to have wronged you? By recognizing excellence and remarking so?

      BAH.

      Damn it all.

      1. You probably should have read all the comments on this post first. And then posted this one in response to the guy that admitted that he nominated Marko’s book blind, based on Day’s slate, without having read it. Because apparently the reason some people think you’re “a bunch of mindless robots that follow Vox’s lead unquestioningly” is that some of you are.

        1. One guy said he voted the slate without reading the books. One.

          Meanwhile, the nomination numbers make it obvious that while some people nominated a preponderance of slate suggestions, most threw in their own nominations or did not nominate some names from the slate.

          Logic and data. Use it.

        2. but everyone that voted No Award above Vox’s short story read it?

          They are far more robots than we are. They vote down things they know nothing about based on nothing but their clique’s standard. I’ll wager less than 10 of them actually read that story.

    4. I have no idea what your politics are- all I know is that you’re a good writer.

      My husband devoured Terms of Enlistment and passed it on to me. I was thrilled to see your name as a finalist. I’m just sad that your dislike of VD outweighed our respect for you as a writer. We can’t help what any random person out there likes, and I don’t think you can either. I don’t think that people should care if VD likes you or not.

      Are you a good writer? Was your book Hugo worthy?

      Then you deserve the nom. To hell with everything else.

    5. Actually, I should clarify my thinking. I’ve been focusing on social and cultural issues. Economically, I suspect we would agree far more than we disagree. But that’s a cold, distant topic.

      Social and cultural are where we live, what we are. That, when push comes to shove, is what matters. I’d rather have an ally who agrees with me on what society should look like than tax policy. He’s far more likely to stand shoulder to shoulder when things turn ugly.

      Leftist… may be an overstatement. In my defense, I was really pissed off. It wasn’t enough to insult Vox (he can take care of himself) you had to drag ME into it and make it personal. If that little diatribe hadn’t made it clear you don’t think much better of everyone thinks maybe Vox is on the right track I probably wouldn’t have said to myself, “Kloos made himself my enemy and the ally of my enemies.”

      Now maybe you don’t consider yourself on that deceitful Dwarf and the Toad’s side, but it sure looked like it to me. Given what I already picked up from your books, it was really easy for me to forget that someone who sees projects and the dole for what they are is unlikely to make a comfortable fellow traveler for that bunch.

      So, yeah, I reacted emotionally, and indulged in some hyperbole. You’re still not getting a dime from me, though. On calm(er) reflection, that stands.

      Oh, yeah, I had just read that World Turned Upside Down monstrosity. ALL. OF. IT.

      I may never mentally recover. That’s your fault, by the way, I wouldn’t have read it if you and Bellet hadn’t bailed.

      Enjoy. That’s the best the warren can come up with. I’m sure they’ll welcome you with open arms. Until they actually get around to reading the first chapter in Terms of Enlistment.

    6. I personally don’t care about your politics. You’ve never been on my radar as engaging in hate speech. You have no obligation to join a crusade. Go in peace.

    7. The internet is a firehose of misinformation.

      Already pre-paid for your new book, and expect to enjoy it. I’m sorry you had to decline, but I understand your lack of desire to walk into this turdnado.

      Hopefully the leftists promising to buy your book will actually do so and read it. They might accidentally enjoy some WrongFun.

  52. I had no idea what YOUR philosophy is nor did I state that I just pictured this Vox Day guy saying

    COOL this is an excellent way to eliminate anybody I don’t like let me see who else I can trick into eliminating themselves

    But if you want this guy to drive your life for you it’s your decision to make

  53. I dunno about the other person, but I’m pretty sure I’ve already read everything that Marko had up on Amazon – The guy writes some damn fine space opera… Damn fine. And it’s a shame that there are people hating someone so damn much that anyone who steps into an elevator with him is assumed to also be worthy of that hate…

    1. We’ve got gays, blacks, Jews, women, the whole deal. C’mon and join the dread ilk, we won’t bite.

      1. I actually read the blog a decade ago. (I think… a long time ago anyway.) Dove in and argued with people, too. It’s often far more interesting to have disagreements than agreements, and you certainly learn more, even if you keep on disagreeing. I had no idea at the time that VD had anything to do with writing science fiction.

        It did, eventually, get tiresome and I quit.

        1. then return! we need more sane and decent types… less trolls.

          come.

          we do not ask that you change your position… only defend it honestly.

  54. Marko,

    as a potential fan I gotta say, your over the top initial quote reeks of immaturity and lack of class. I’m probably to the right of you on most issues but how in the hell do you expect me to sample your books when you insult and demean someone with such hatred. Your quote has convinced me that perhaps it is you and your works that are full of hate. A little class in your initial quote, and while I may have disagreed with you for removing yourself for the Hugo, I would still have tried your books. Even if they are recommended by a person you despised if only you had shown more class. Because I like good books, I love good stories even from people I dislike because unlike you, I care only about being entertained.

    That being said, why should I try your works if you cannot be gracious to those who disagree with you.
    Really, tell me why.

    1. @ corey –

      “should I try your works if you cannot be gracious to those who disagree with you”

      Because if we stopped reading all the arseholes, back-biters, idiots, and liars (plus all the other negative traits of humanity) – we’d be stuck with reading the labels on soap wrappers. (And maybe not even that.)

      Judge the work on the quality, not the author.

  55. I’ve enjoyed Marko Kloos’s books, and will continue to do so despite his withdrawal. I’d never heard of Annie Bellet before her nomination, but I read and enjoyed her story, and will look up more of her work.

    But, while I respect their right to make the decisions they’ve made, I will not support either writer in the future for a Hugo. The time to decline a nomination is when it is made, not days later.

    I read and enjoyed both Terms of Enlistment and Lines of Departure long before LoD showed up on Vox Day’s list. My enjoyment of and support for the work had nothing to do with the RP campaign. By accepting the nomination, then reneging, Kloos has judged that my support, and the support of other fans like me, is less important to him than Vox’s support. I know he apologized to those like me who supported his work based on merit, and I accept that apology, and I bear him no ill will. As I said, I will continue to buy and read his books, and let other people know about them. I just won’t be supporting him for future awards, lest another undesirable person’s support causes him to drop out again, invalidating my support again.

    Ms. Bellet is a slightly different case. Like I said, I hadn’t read her before she won a nomination so I don’t have the same level of familiarity or investment with her work. But like it or not, there is a struggle going on over the Hugo Award, a battle to determine whether it belongs to all fans who love the genre, or a certain segment of those fans, identified by a somewhat nebulous set of characteristics familiar to anybody who has experienced high school cliques. Because the battle is real, and will continue for the next several years, nominations will be contentious, and artists who are nominated will have to have the strength of belief in their work to stand up to bullies from both sides, and to hold firmly to the conviction that their work deserves to be on that short list, regardless of what anybody says about it.

    Sadly, Ms. Bellet does not have that strength of belief. Again, I bear her no ill will, no malice, and no scorn, and I will continue to read her work, because it is good. But I won’t subject her to a strain she has demonstrated she is unwilling to face.

    It’s sad because I want to be able to simply judge works on their merits, but when authors start pulling nominated works for reasons other than merit, that becomes difficult, if not impossible to do.

    1. I give miss Bellet a little more room on this honestly. Let’s be honest, every time somebody has accused us of being gay hating misogynists for the past week one of our first defenses has been “we have a bisexual woman on our slate”. That’s why she said she felt like the ball and did not want to continue. I am sure somewhere inside of her was the question “Am I the token that was inserted for their defense”. The answer is obviously no, her story was fantastic and worthy.

      I respect her doubts and decision as sad as they make me. She’ll be up for another one again for sure.

      1. She wasn’t chosen because of her sexuality. I didn’t even know what it was (nor did I care) until after I’d put her on my ballot. She’s an awesome writer. But I suppose I am guilty, when I’m being screamed at for running an all white, all male, all straight slate, and I respond by telling the truth.

        1. I’m not calling you out on that at all Larry. I’ve been doing the same thing.

          Her blog post just made me thing that was part of her reason for withdrawing. The entire thing broke my heart.

  56. I am amongt the most Rabid of all Rabid Puppies. I am amongst the Dreadest of Dread Ilk.

    I ask this honestly.

    Why should I apologize for reading a man’s work who was recommended to me by Vox Day… and upon considering it excellent… nominating it?

    The fact is Vox Day has exceptional taste as a critic. The man admires people like Eco and China Melville. Politics have nothing to do with it.

    But because he recommended your work… and I judged it to be excellent and nominated it… I have wronged someone?

    NO.

    I will not apologize. I voted for Rabid and Sad Puppies worked that I found to be excellent and nothing else.

    A pox on anyone that claims otherwise.

    DAMMIT.

  57. The furor over being having been recommended by Vox Day rather deflates any pretense that the anti-Puppy crowd cares three straws about literary merit. The baying hounds are clearly on a witch hunt.

  58. *sigh* Please let this be the last.

    I have never read anything by Marko Kloos, but I’ve just bought Terms of Enlistment & Lines of Departure and plan to get to them soon. Good luck to him, and I hope to see his name on the nominations list again someday.

  59. Marko

    First – thank you for writing your books. Please continue to do so. I’ll likely still be buying as fast as I can take time to read them.

    Your decision to withdraw is your choice. That said, while it doesn’t surprise me, it still saddens me that you’ve withdrawn. I feel like my vote FOR you is devalued.

    It is a rare talent to write not only with a good turn of phrase, but with enough deep human truths to also touch those with whom you disagree.

  60. Having just popped over to Marko’s…
    Wholly Kats people! You know how when Larry would do a fisking, and we’d get all those drive by trolls? People who Skim Until Offended, or say that someone is evil based on 3rd hand evidence?

    Yeah, let’s not start up with doing the same thing. Take a fresh look at the Internet Arguing Checklist, check your own words against it, and remember, It Is NOT Okay If We Do It.

    Hell, there’s even a Clamps Homunculus that calls itself “slime”, doing the same kind of crap that Clamps did. (ahem) IF YOU ARE REMINDING PEOPLE OF CLAMPS, YOU ARE INTERNETING WRONG!

  61. What do you mean don’t blame them? They’re both fucking cowards. Let them rot and don’t give them a red cent. Any writer who is willing to conform to anything but their own vision or muse is just a whore with a pen, no better than a hack who writes anything for a buck.
    These fuckers who want to live on their knees to those crazy gay overlords can kiss my ass. Liberty is not for cowards. Freedom isn’t free like welfare corn syrup bitch!

        1. ….because if the SJWs jumped off a bridge he’d feel an obligation to do so as well?

          Win-Win!

          😉

      1. I thought we weren’t required to buy the SP3 recommendations unless we intended to read and vote to nominate.

        I also thought I was free to choose what authors to buy for whatever reason.

        Is there now “required buying” on the SP side?

        1. Nope. No requirements for reading (but no voting for unless you have ALREADY read it) no need to buy it (but no pirating – library, y’know?)

          But no need for calling people cowards or pen whores. Not helpful.

          (By which, yes, you’re free to call them that, free country, yaddi yaddi, but I will tell you I don’t agree. And that I think it’s rude.)

          1. Actually, I didn’t vote on noms at all because even if I had read all the recommendations I figured I need to have read a bit more of eligible items to have comparison.

            I ready “Skin Job” and liked it much better than the prior two Dresden Files but didn’t read that many novels published last year and thought nomming Dresden files just because it was the best of the 5 or so eligible things I’d read was a bit much.

            As for calling them cowards or pen whores I did not.

            However, if a writer, even one I enjoy, makes a public claim to distance themselves from the wrong people who are praising them it does create a filter that moves them down my buying priority. For a writer I’m not yet familiar with it can effectively remove them from my “take a chance” list. I have limited time and money for reading and books and have a backlog of old stuff that arguably will get me to 60 as I’m a relatively slow reader.

            The temptation to reject pre-X pop culture from the classic comic “The Guy I Almost Was” is getting really tickled by all of this.

    1. I don’t agree with that. The problem is the atmosphere which created SP. People not wanting to fight that fight can’t be enrolled against their will, no matter how keen we think that would be. The question isn’t why they did what they did, but why an atmosphere exists that would cause anyone to sideline themselves.

      If these 2 wish to include themselves out, that’s their business. They’re caught between a rock and a hard place, which is a space they didn’t create. Can one argue they should’ve stood up previously and fought the fight to help eliminate that space? Not really. Tons of authors have conspicuously distanced themselves from the core SFF community. The last time I looked, not one name on the Amazon Top 100 interacted with the core community nor was listed among hundreds of names involved in the Hugos last year. They may have more sense than we do.

      To be honest with you, were I a writer, I’d go the Peter Hamilton route. Write, quietly ignore morons, keep a minimal internet footprint, make it all about the work. I admire his decision to do that.

      This is an inquisition and the fear is real and palpable. You cannot say “toughen up” and drag people where they do not want to go and nor will I treat them as collaborators. Leave ’em in peace.

      1. This is an inquisition and the fear is real and palpable.

        Yes, and it is one demanding they publicly denounce people like me and indicate they are barely worth being considered human if that.

        These writers can’t stand the pressure and decide to denounce people that this their right.

        Just as it is my right to decide to not voluntarily give them my money for their work.

        If you denounce the unclean do not be surprised if the clean decide they don’t wish to engage in commerce with you regardless of how talented you are as a writer and storyteller.

        1. Annie Bellet denounced no one that I saw.

          Markos Kloos did, but he has at least somewhat backed off that, and apologized to Vox if not to his readers. I am willing to take that as indication of good faith.

          Get back to me when a nominee actually does perform a ritual denunciation of badfans of theirs. But you can’t blame someone for wanting to back out of a fight they didn’t instigate or foresee.

    2. You are very unhelpful. I don’t agree with your description of them as cowards and I think that you’re harming more than helping.

  62. I am sorry my lord but I can not do as you say. Evidently I stink and so must my money. So I shall respect Mr. Kloos sensitivity of smell and with hold purchasing any more of his books.

  63. I cannot bring them back, and I have no way to influence the Hugo committee, so I will just add the one ray of light for today that I can.
    Larry, I didn’t have Spellbound in my collection, but it’s coming from the Book Depositary this weekend. I realize one book doesn’t bring you much, but it’s what I could do, so I did it.
    Peace and comfort to you; the SJWs do not rule all, and you do have friends.

  64. So….do I have to respect their withdrawal? Say I was leaning towards voting for Lines of Departure book?

    Can’t I just write him in?

    1. I haven’t heard any official notice whether the Hugo Awards will respect their withdrawal. Nor have I heard if they do respect their withdrawal, if another name will be put on the ballot. There are probably rules for this.

      No, you can’t just write him in.

      Hugo awards are voted using the instant run-off voting system.

      There are usually 6 “candidates”, the 5 nominees and “no award” There are 6 blanks.

      You arrange the 6 candidates into the 6 blanks in your order of preference. You can choose to leave some of the blanks empty, but you can’t place any of the 6 more than once.

      So earlier today when people were speaking of deciding whether to vote for Butcher or Kloos, it isn’t a question of having to choose one or the other; you can vote for both. It’s a question of who you place first.

  65. I am extremely sad to hear about both of these. As we all know, the number one cause of sadness among puppies is authors not getting awards they deserve.

    Annie’s story was outstanding, and was definitely getting my vote in that category. I also started her 20-Sided Sorceress series last week, and it was excellent too. As much as I love gaming, I normally shy away from stories that try to bill themselves as being about gamers, because they tend to be rather insular and unrealistically focused on their own little world, and Justice Calling did not fall into that trap at all. Moreover, it was much shorter than most of the books I read, but it felt like it had as much meat packed into it as a book twice as long. That’s really hard to pull off!

    As far as Kloos goes, I haven’t actually gotten around to reading any of his stuff yet, but I’ve heard so many glowing reviews from people whose opinions I trust that I’ve been looking forward to getting around to it before the Hugos. (And no, I DIDN’T nominate it, before anybody gets any bright ideas about Sad Puppy supporters nominating things they haven’t read…)

    In both cases, the Hugo awards lost something special, and are lessened for it. If that doesn’t make puppies sad, I don’t know what does.

    I’m disappointed that they bowed out, but to be completely honest, I’m not certain if I would have been able to stand up to the pressure if I were in their shoes, either.

    I suppose one good thing did come out of it, though; After reading Annie’s blog post, I’ve come to the conclusion that a game similar to dodgeball, where the teams throw their teammates at the opposing team, would make an AMAZING fictional sport! It would sure beat the hell out of Quidditch, that much is for certain!

    1. ” that a game similar to dodgeball, where the teams throw their teammates at the opposing team, would make an AMAZING fictional sport!”

      Pretty sure that’s what Ender ended up doing in the Battleroom, in “Ender’s Game.”

      (Kids these days. Get off my lawn.) 😉

      1. Hrm, good point, but to be fair that wasn’t the actual objective of the game, and the zero G made it a lot less physically demanding.

        I was thinking of it more along the lines of something that orcs, trolls, or some other unusually strong race might play. Cover the players up with spiked armor and whatnot, and just go to town on the other guys. There would be an astounding amount of strategy involved. Is it worth potentially losing a body on your team, if it means taking out one of their strongest players? Maybe you could even implement a rule where, if an opposing player doesn’t get hit and the thrown player survives the fall, he joins the other team. It would make each throw a carefully weighed decision.

        Best of all, the fat kid would ALWAYS get picked first! He’d be the hardest to dodge!

        1. If memory serves, there were dwarves in Salvatore’s Dark Elf books with spiked armor. I don’t think they were thrown, though, they would just put their heads down and charge.

  66. The truly sad thing is that doing this won’t help them with the SJWs. They will always remain tainted by their association with the Puppies, both kinds. 🙁

  67. 🙂

    I will admit I haven’t read much of Vox Day, but what I have read hasn’t impressed me, and if people want to refuse their nominations on the grounds that someone they don’t like likes their work well, that’s their business.

    Or if someone doesn’t want to profit form the efforts of someone they *really* don’t like, that’s still their business.

    Me, I will be adding Annie Bellet and Marko Kloos to the list of authors I one day hope to get around to reading.

  68. Concern trolls are, evidently, so very *VERY* concerned!!!

    Good on you, Marko – stand up for your principles. You keep writing ’em and I’ll keep reading ’em!

  69. Look on the upside. When they were nominated by SP and people bought their books? These authors *got paid*. If the aSPs follow through on supporting the authors now that they’ve denounced Evil Lord Vox Dread? The authors *get paid*.

    And both sides have folks talking about how they hadn’t read the authors before but they’re impressed by the stories. Gotta be worth something, at least in terms of future sales.

  70. Well said, all of those who understand what these authors have gone through, which fortunately are the vast majority. Sad and disappointed about what has happened yes, but no one should be angry at them. They never signed up for a character assassination campaign. Annie wrote about imagining herself sitting there in a pretty dress next to her mother, and having everybody cheering when No Award was announced in her category, or booing her if by some chance she happened to win. How can anyone be angry at her? Don’t you feel some empathy?

      1. Mighty easy to say from the sidelines. May I recommend you write and publish something for consideration for next year’s slate, if you are that certain you could hold up under fire?

    1. Annie wrote about imagining herself sitting there in a pretty dress next to her mother, and having everybody cheering when No Award was announced in her category, or booing her if by some chance she happened to win

      That is so sad. I’ve never met this woman, and I feel like I want to bake her cookies and tell her it’s all going to be allright. Ridiculous I know.

    2. I feel empathy for that, I don’t think it’s the best choice since it only encourages more but then I’m not a writer who can write Hugo-worthy material and it won’t be my reputation being dragged through the mud.

      I liked her story, wish she could have stayed in so she could win and say to heck with the screechers, but it’s not really my place to demand she endure a bunch of that crap.

  71. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I would like to see people standing against the bullies. On another hand, I think that it would be hypocritical of me to expect someone to take some flak while I am getting none.

    So I am accepting and respecting their decision.

  72. Well, I’ve learned this week that if the SJWs are going house to house shooting survivors of the culture wars, apparently VD’s fans are sweeping the countryside executing refugees for ‘desertion’.

    1. That’s what war looks like. That’s why rational people avoid it as long as they and often longer than is prudent.

      However, once it is engaged ruthlessness is not just a consequence but a necessity.

      Just because the war is metaphorical these facts do not become inoperative.

      The Hugos are lost and now the war is over who gets to burn them down.

      1. This is one of the reasons SJWs are deservedly hated: They consider resisting being drafted into serving their cause tantamount to siding with the enemy, and so attack people who merely want to be left alone. The fact that the Sad Puppies typically DON’T act that way is one of their major advantages, in terms of how this conflict is perceived by those previously unfamiliar with it.

        “However, once it is engaged ruthlessness is not just a consequence but a necessity.”

        Don’t forget that when people who just wanted to be left alone conclude that the press gangs trying to drag them off to fight somebody else’s war are the most immediate threat , and respond with appropriate ruthlessness.

      1. The Crazy Years weren’t just a future history entry.

        You know, the worst thing about Heinlein is he has turned out to be right too damned much.

    2. Who exactly are these Rabid Puppies turning on again?

      Vox has called for the Ilk… dread or otherwise… to respect the decision of any author to turn down his or her nomination.

      We take exception to the insults. Nothing more.

      The plain truth of this is… the hugo people screwed with people that had no business screwing with. This is the result.

      If they keep screwing with us… the results will be far… far… worse.

  73. I am sad to see that two authors who wrote books that I have very much enjoyed withdraw from the Hugos. Regardless of their actual reasons, those who have been using bullying tactics will take this as a sign that their tactics are working and will double down on all the other authors they don’t like.

  74. OK, my thoughts. The Hugos are currently on next-to-terminal life support, only hanging onto relevancy by the slimmest of threads. As others have said, this is no longer just an attempt to make the Hugos meaningful again, it is now an all-out war.

    Personally, I wouldn’t be at all bothered to see the Hugos destroyed as an award that anyone pays attention to. For me, they have ceased to be meaningful a long time ago. But in the interest of attempting to rehabilitate them, I have this suggestion.

    First, SP and RP (yes, I know they’re not the same or even related) should continue to nominate whatever works they damned well please. And nominate so many in each category that they swamp the SJW nominees completely. Do this every year, for as long as it takes.

    Second, in your Hugo voting in each category, vote for your first choice as first (of course), but vote for No Award above any SJW entries on the list. If the non-SJWs win resoundingly for a number of years, the award will be rehabilitated. If No Award wins in each category for a number of years running, the award will be destroyed and we can move on to creating a new award (and system for conferring it) that is meaningful and inclusive.

    1. I strongly disagree with “no award” voting any work for any reason outside of the (personal opinion of the reader on the) quality of the work.

      No Awarding can not remedy anything – it only endorses judgement on extraneous litmus tests.

      1. You misunderstand my intent. I don’t thing the Hugos are saveable at this point, but if they can be pulled back from the brink they should be. If they can’t be, a lengthy period of “No Award” wins in all categories will demonstrate that to even the most casual of observers and then can be henceforth ignored by the bulk of the SFF-reading community (I don’t say fen because frankly, the fannish community is much smaller than the reading community, which is what the authors need to please.).

        1. I agree. This crew of daffy feminists can pretend they’re not that all they want. Every award from here on in is going to be scrutinized in the light of what it has become: postcolonial racial revenge fiction. That’s true of either the fiction itself or the authors, and to the tune of 100%.

          If you asked all those people if they’re against a thing like the KKK I’m sure they’d all say yes. Why they’re against such a thing is where the confusion comes in. As far as I can tell, they use photos to decide such things. It’s like using photos to write a ticket for going over the speed-limit.

          #DitchYourRacists

        2. No, I still disagree. Works should be judged on quality, not the politics of the author (or anything else.) SJWs can still write wonderfully thought-provoking stories of action and heart – and they will, if we reward that kind of writing instead of turning up our noses at the work because of the writer.

          1. We’re talking about either returning the Hugos to relevancy or basically destroying them. If the SJWs do write such stories (whether they can has not been demonstrated, or they wouldn’t be SJWs), and of a caliber worthy of being nominated, then they should be considered along with the rest of the nominees. But you and I both know that the only side in the current debate that would be willing not to reject works by those on the “other” side out of hand isn’t the SJWs. So if the SJWs are successful in their defense of the current emasculation of the awards (Yeah, that’s sexist. So?), burning the awards down is the only reasonable thing to do.

    1. I think in general we are.

      Assholes are gonna asshole, and I think some – I felt a bit of it too – feel that Marko and Annie don’t value our support as much if we don’t agree with them.

      That said – our assholes are a) told to knock it off by other’s on our side, and also by the more mainstream/popular “thought leaders” (including by the “eeeebil” Vox) and b) NOT anywhere near as close to the centers of culture on our side insofar as dragging in mainstream media, support from respected senior members of the community, etc.

    2. Well-done.

      I don’t blame the authors in the slightest for withdrawing.

      My ire is directed at the thugs who are responsible.

  75. Is there ANY evidence that Mr. Kloos – a friend of Larry’s for 20 years – caved in under pressure, rather than rejecting the nomination for the reasons he said on his blog post (does not feel the was nominated solely on basis of quality; does not want to be associated with Vox Day)? I see a lot of assumptions being made here, plenty of vows not to buy the miserable coward’s books any more, but is there anything to back up the accusations of cowardice?

  76. The Soviet Criminal Code has a Charge for

    Persons having Contact with Persons Under Suspicion of Anti-Soviet Activity.

    Just replace Anti-Soviet Activity with Vox Day and you have the present Pogrom

    I suppose next somone will demand that the work of any author who has been listed by Rabid Puppies be branded with a Seal Maybe a Yellow Dog?

  77. I just had an awful thought: could Kloos withdrawing allow Scalzi onto the ballot? He’ll be even more insufferable than usual if that happens.

    1. “Guess what? My work was so awesome that I managed to get on the Hugo ballot after a bunch of other authors were bullied into dropping out.”

      That’s definitely the sort of brag I wish I could make.

      1. “It’ll look like a line drive in the box score in the morning.” -Lewis Grizzard.

        Lewis used to tell a story about his baseball days. In one game, he hit the ball so that it landed on the base line, spinning like a top. The ball shot underneath the concession stand. By the time the baseman had retrieved it, Lewis was on base and safe. The next morning, the newspaper had a 1 in the H column next to his name. For all anyone who wasn’t there knew, he had knocked the horsehide off that apple with a linedrive straight past the shortstop.

        What I mean by that is that most people will just see he was nominated, not that he was a substitute.

    1. Good post.

      One thing I’d dispute: “SF&F fandom is split 80/20 liberal/conservative”

      A *lot* of the conflict here is over the definition of “fan”.

      I think you are likely right about active conventioneers and big publishing houses and Hugo voters in the last twenty years.

      But I’d be surprised if the numbers skewed anything like that much if you looked at people who buy/read SF&F books.

      And that’s a ton of this fight. And why the Hugos have increasingly diverged from sales figures.

      Should the “SF&F Fan” title only apply to people who can tell you stories about their favorite filks, or does it apply to people who think filking sounds like a sex act but could happily spend a whole evening discussing their favorite SF&F books without scratching more than the surface?

      The latter is a *much* larger group, and much less uniform.

      But I completely agree with the larger point — most of the people who are being categorized (by others) into one camp or another don’t actually appear to have any real animus towards one another.

  78. Bought Terms of Enlistment as part of my Hugo-prep reading a week or so ago.

    Read Terms of Enlistment today and yesterday.

    Enjoyed it.

    Bought Lines of Departure, even though I no longer have to decide whether or not I like it better than Skin Game.

    Really hoping Jim Butcher will hold out — he’s certainly got the fan base to ignore this stuff, and “I should tell people not to vote for me?” should seem quite reasonable to anyone not deep in the weeds on this. And because I’m a huge fan, and would love to be able to vote for one of his works to win a well-deserved Hugo.

    1. He has so far. And publically, at least, the number of people calling on him to denounce SP is pretty small.

    2. At this point, Butcher and John C. Wright are probably the only two authors who might keep me from saying “Screw it” and hoisting the Rabid Puppies black flag of “No Award” this year.

      The people whining about Vox…are actually making Vox look *reasonable* about all this. Congratulations, CHORFs and FRNoTs.

  79. Kudos to Marko and shame on the rest of you who keep defending VD or pretend that his message is less than repulsive.

    Since I’m sure his defenders will pile of on me for “taking things out of context”, so I’ll preempt: in an interview he blatantly and *very* clearly says the following:
    1) That Africans are intellectually inferior to the whites and Asians.
    2) That a society is better off when women are not allowed to vote (because they stupid and vote with their “vagina”).
    3) That is it better if women are not educated beyond high school.

    See here: http://www.johndbrown.com/what-vox-day-believes/

      1. Do you believe a country is better off when women cannot vote?

        “Yes, in a representative democracy. However, note that I favor universal direct democracy and the jury is out there.”

        What a nice guy, really! Why wouldn’t Marko want to be endorsed by such a charming forward thinking individual.

        1. So disagreeing with someone on one issue means that you can never accept his support for anything, ever. Gotcha.

        2. Read the latest post and then take that shit elsewhere. My comments don’t need to be filled with posts demanding explanations for politics I don’t share.

    1. Yes, of course, we must condemn that thinking but must applaud and support those who demand conformity to a philosophy that lead to nine figure death counts and the near annihilation of the population of one Asian country in less than half a decade.

      But they didn’t say mean things around you so it’s all good.

        1. The View

          Kill it! Kill it with fire.

          (since it’s maybe not obvious, I am female also. Man that stuff gets tiresome. One of my friends (also female) posted a link about a doctor in med school who saw a late term abortion first hand and how much it disturbed. I deeply resent the democrats attempts to act like anyone who is against that is antifemale.)

    2. Interesting how you post quite a few claims and can somehow not link to what Vox wrote and instead another website “interpreting” what he wrote.

      1. Did you follow the link? Frankly, I think it’s Lotharloo who’s “interpreting” – not John. D. Brown. The link is to a fair interview, with Vox Day’s actual, unedited, in-context replies to John’s questions. Below the interview John does respond with his own opinions, including disagreeing w/ VD on some things, but I don’t think he “interpreted” anything. I think it was a good interview.

        1. You are confusing “interpretation” with “reading comprehension”. And Patrick had not even bothered reading what was linked before he decided to respond and you are obviously deliberately non-specific because otherwise you have to copy/paste the original words of VD which would immediately show you are wrong. Nah, it is better to stick with general weaselly approach to discussion.

          1. I was non-specific because all three of your 1) 2) 3) statements were your interpretation of his words, not his actual words. Why do expect me to copy/paste his original words, when you didn’t? It’s quite easy for anyone to read your comment here, follow the link you provided (thank you for that), and read his original words there. Then they can decide if your interpretation is valid or not. For myself, I happen to think Vox is wrong, based on his actual words, but your words above are not accurate portrayals of his words. He argues honestly, you argue dis-honestly. Is that non-weaselly enough for you?

          2. I just noticed you did actually copy/paste some of his actual words in an earlier reply. So I apologize for accusing you of having double standards.

          3. Yes, and I corrected that by reading it. Your little list is not quite matching what was in the interview.

            I’d say “surprise” but I’ve run into people like you before making the same sort of handwaving statements so it really isn’t a surprise. Partly why I made my offhand statement in the first place.

            I notice you haven’t posted anything from it either.

            Nor have you posted from Vox’s blog either, which, IIRC, is where he makes most of his icky evil awful doubleplus ungood writings.

            Direct quotes, little one. No “summaries” or little lists or posting links and handwaving.

  80. I’m of two minds about this. Part of me would have liked these authors to stay in the fight and thinks they’re cowardly for backing out. The other part of me, however, recognizes that I’m posting on Larry’s blog as “Zsuzsa.” The reason I’m doing that, rather than using my real name, is because I’m in a field dominated by SJWs, and I know if my politics get out, I’ll never be able to make a living doing what I love. I have this fantasy that someday I’ll be a tenured professor and can tell the bullies exactly what to do with which parts of their anatomy, but right now, showing “courage” would just make sure that I never get a chance to teach or research. So how can I blame these guys for dropping out of the fight?

  81. Middle-aged, white, hetero, long-haired, Catholic, biker, gun owner, veteran and libertarian here. SJW target audience for sure.

    I signed up under the RP banner because I follow VD’s blog and have for many years, mainly for the commentary. I made my nominations based on what I read – or saw, in the case of TV or movies or whatnot.

    That said, I wouldn’t have spent my money to nominate or vote if it wasn’t to spit in the eyes of SJW types. It is all about the culture war for me. The Hugo long ago ceased to mean anything to me as an indicator of a good read. I used to look for Hugo and Nebula nominated or awarded books. Now it’s a good reason never to pick it up to start with.

    That the stories on the RP slate were worth nominating is a bonus. I’ve been a SF/F fan for the better part of 5 decades and had mostly given up on the genre. It was Vox’s recommendations that got me reading SF/F again. FWIW, non-fiction is just as much a disaster area as is science fiction. Wading through the dreck from both sides of the divide to find the occasional gem is tiresome at best.

    Damned Amazon and/or Castalia have been getting a lot of my money lately.

    I don’t agree with everything VD or the rest of the Ilk say or do but then, I’ve never felt like I had to. I still check in every week or two – more lately because ENTERTAINMENT and I have a dog or two in the hunt now. Ain’t it grand?

    I and others like me have been on the receiving end of SJW vitriol for many years now. To hell with them. While I hope SP makes the Hugo relevant again, I’d be almost as happy to trash the SJW clubhouse and have a good laugh. I love win-win situations.

  82. been lurking on Larry’s site on and off for a few years now. I’m that fence sitter, the moderate you are trying to reach. I suppose I finally decided to comment becasue I wanted to provide perspective you may or may not have considered.

    super short backstory. I’m an avid video gamer. I don’t just play – I also watch recordings on youtube, fan made vids, etc. and often times, I find new favorite music to listen to, becasue it was used in video games I have played

    yet with a disturbing regularity, there are comments that show up, bemoaning how awful it is that people found music becasue of a “stupid videogame” how they don’t really appreciate it, because of how and when they discovered it.

    why am I saying this? becasue… does it matter WHY people end up reading Marco and Annie? whatever brought them there, they end up reading good stories and that should be the important thing. so if it took them distancing themselves away from kerfuffle, than so be it.

    and on a flipside of that. we are all entitled to make our own choices. especially choices in entertainment. and if someone ends up basing those choices on writer’s politics? its THEIR choice. their prerogative. and I don’t think its wrong. there is no wrong way to chose how to have fun, you even said it yourself, Larry.

    so if people chose not to read someone’s work, becasue they vehemently dislike them as a person? its their choice. I won’t condemn them for it either. its their choice what to read, what to use their money on, whom to vote for.

    I understand, I think what you are trying to do with sad puppies. you want more of the fandom to be represented and its GREAT! but you have your way of approaching work and have no issues with separating work from its creator. for other people creator and their work are one and the same. all of it is personal preferences in the end. and both approaches IMO are VALID.

    and btw, Larry? I got interested in your books because another blog I used to follow, back in a day of me actively playing world of warcraft – linked your posts on guns. I liked and agreed with what you had to say and that got me interested in your books. is it really such a bad thing?

    1. First, can I say that I so sympathize with your experience with the music/video game issue. I’ve seen a lot of that. I try to avoid commenting on YouTube, because I’ve seen exactly 1 polite and informative comment thread, but occasionally I’ve wanted to when I see something like, “Like this post if you came here because you knew about this group before the song was featured on stupid Vampire Diaries.” I want to scream, “You know, at one point you’d never heard of this band either. If Vampire Diaries is exposing them to a new audience, shouldn’t you be thanking the show rather than mocking the show and the fans who liked the music enough to seek it out?”

      As to your larger point, about not judging people who choose their entertainment based on the creator rather than the work, I can see that, but there are a couple of things I would say in response:

      1) The Sad Puppies campaign is specifically directed towards an award that is supposed to represent the best in SF. If you personally don’t want to read someone for their beliefs, okay, but denying awards based on beliefs seems a step up from that. It’s not merely saying, “Not to my taste” but rather, “Doesn’t belong anywhere in our world.”

      2) Even beyond the awards…I would like entertainment to be a place where we can put politics aside for a while and just enjoy things together. Where we can say, “I think Obama is a traitorous scumbag, and you think Bush is the reincatnation of Hitler, but we can both agree that monsters and magic and explosions are awesome! Let’s forget about the guys in DC and just talk about Grimnoir for a while.” And maybe, from that conversation, we can realize our shared humanity and accept that we can disagree about somethings without one of us being Hitler (cue sappy music here).

      If people are choosing their entertainment based on a political purity test, that doesn’t work. If liberals must like liberal writers, conservatives must like conservative writers, communists must like communist writers, etc, then that destroys the possibility of a shared cultural space and non-political interactions between people of different beliefs. It’s…well, it’s totalitarian in the most literal sense of the word: making politics encompasses the totality of human existence.

      So while people have the RIGHT to choose their entertainment based on the politics of the creator, I don’t think it’s a wise choice or one that’s equally valid to judging a work in its own right.

      And as to your last question, no, it’s not a bad thing however someone gets interested in an author. I’ve been reading this blog long enough to know that all that matters is that the author GETS PAID : – )

      1. “Like this post if you came here because you knew about this group before the song was featured on stupid Vampire Diaries.”

        Ah man. Those people. So irritating.

        I remember shopping at tower records (dating myself) for a ricky martin cd (not apologizing!) and having the guy get all snide about whether I knew his music before his grammy nom or win(?). Way to ignore how people find music, authors, etc… I have a band I absolutely love that I found because they played a song on Chuck. Now I have 2 of their albums and will probably buy the new one.

      2. I think we may need to agree to disagree, at least on some points. becasue I think its not nearly as simple as “purity of politics” (but I may also be saying that becasue I personally don’t fit into any of the little boxes we all so love to shove ourselves into. and I know very few people who do)

        people are biased. even when we try to minimize that bias – we will still be biased. and when it comes to “best” who decides what’s best? how can we objectively make that opinion when it comes to something creative. you can maybe somewhat say when something is bad, if the grammar is all over the place, sci-fi elements directly contradict actual science, etc, but even then, it comes down to personal bias and preference. the best you can hope for is having largest possible variety of work nominated from a large variety of people. you cannot however get people to like something that contradicts their preferences… including those of political nature.

        incidentally, I’ve seen a lot of criticism levied in a direction of Jemisin. criticism of her writing… that is inevitably tinted with criticism of her politics. I’ve yet to read her personally (keep on forgetting to request her books at the library, and my local branch doesn’t have them), but a good friend whose entertainment tastes are often mesh with mine and who is a fantastic writer IMO in her own right – adores Jemisin’s books. so… where do we go from here? is it still a matter of objective quality or purely personal taste or somewhere in between?

        me, I’m not a good writer. I’d say my posts here kinda show it 😛 I’m not a writer at all actualy, I just write down my stream of consciousness. that and try to see every situation from different sides and perspectives.

        1. you cannot however get people to like something that contradicts their preferences… including those of political nature.

          Ah, but I would say truly excellent writers often can do just that. If the writing is good, and the characters make sense, I am going to enjoy it. And what’s interesting about good writers, is that some times their characters run beyond their politics. Witness people like Joss Whedon and JK Rowling. Their characters and worlds are so developed, sometimes they’ve become something the writers themselves would not necessarily endorse. [Sometimes (looking at you JK) they do not even recognize what other people see in the characters.] But that is where the story and characters themselves lead.

          And although I agree with you that good is subjective, I think many times bad, truly bad shines through! Like porn, we know it when we see it.

  83. I’m new to the whole fantasy and science fiction subculture. I’ve been reading this website (and its comments) as well as others on the opposite side ever since the whole “Hugo Thing” popped up.

    It makes me sad. Most people on both sides of the discussion seem intelligent but so passionate about their views that they seem a bit narrowed in their view of the situation. In response to this thread, I’ll say a lot of the comments make it seem like there is an “attack” or over act of aggression by people you all refer to as “SJW”. (Aside, I don’t know what this standards for but I assume social justice _____?) I honestly don’t think that sides intent (on average) is as malicious or vicious. Nor do I think this sides intent (on average) is malicious or vicious either. It just makes me sad that some of the comments seem to take the stance that the “SJW” are attacking people to withdraw their nominations. I don’t doubt a very few internet people have been mean to nominated authors. However, from what I’ve read regarding authors’ statements for their nominations is that people are pulling out because they just don’t want to be involved (either with the whole situation on either side or being associated with the RP side). For the most part, it seems like it’s their choice. I’d just caution people to using peoples’ withdrawing as a rallying point against the “SJW”. I think doing so does your points a disservice.

    I am enjoying reading both sides of this discussion because I do think it is a discussion worth having (on both sides). I’m just putting for my own opinion as someone new to reading all of your points-of-view.

    I think all people should be entitled to their opinion as long as that opinion doesn’t lead to infringing upon the rights of another. I don’t think many on either side of the discussion have violated that view. I do think though that both sides’ perspectives are at risk of being hijacked by a vocal minority as can be the case on the internet.

    I suppose I am writing this to encourage you all to keep up the conversation. Remember that people outside of this community are reading your discussions and trying to learn about you just like I am.

    1. I don’t doubt a very few internet people have been mean to nominated authors. However, from what I’ve read regarding authors’ statements for their nominations is that people are pulling out because they just don’t want to be involved

      1. It’s been quite a bit more than just ‘a few’ people being mean.

      2. You need to read between the lines on those statements a bit more.

      1. Thanks for the response, Lea.

        1) I suppose my wording was off. In terms of the absolute number of people being mean, I have no idea. It is probably a lot. In terms of percentages of consumers of the media, I don’t think it’s the majority. Also, I think there are probably the same percentage of people guilty of being mean on both sides of the discussion. It’s terrible that on the internet so many people can be so mean but I don’t think its representative of the population fantasy/sci-fi/speculative fiction fans as a whole. I don’t think we are on average mean people.

        2) I don’t know about that. I find “reading between the lines” opens up people’s opinions to a greater chance of being misinterpreted. Granted, I don’t know either of the authors mentioned in the post so I don’t have a good frame of reference to know the subtext in either’s post. I will say that Kloos specifically said: “This is my choice alone, and I am making it without pressure from any side in the current Hugo debate. Please respect it as such.” And so, I will choose to respect it as such.

        I would be very saddened if it was the case that someone was pressured to withdraw. Very sad. Based on the statements of either author though, I don’t think that’s the case with them. Though, that is just my interpretation of their words. I’m just saying that I think it’s best that we avoid assigning a particular motivation to someone if they don’t explicitly state their own. In Kloos case, he does. I don’t know him nor do I have evidence to doubt the sincerity of his statement.

    2. Hey F_TV, welcome to the dark side. Cookies are on the sideboard.

      1) “SJW” is “social justice warrior” – it’s a pejorative term in use since at least the mid 2000’s. In the context of SP’s, it means people who would rather jump to conclusions and scream “you’re a sexist racist asshole who shouldn’t be allowed to speak in this room” instead of saying “I don’t agree with your opinion on X.”

      2) Most people on both sides are good hearted. Ours has the goal and intent of having works judged on quality and action rather than checking boxes in an intersectionalist progressive manner. (Having the boxes checked in a good story is perfectly fine – just don’t check the boxes and forget about the story part.)

      3) Bellett talked about having people cheer if she lost and boo if she won – while her mother was sitting right there. I don’t know if most SPs would have voted her story first – I haven’t read it yet (I didn’t nominate this year) but I find it difficult to think it’s our reaction she was speaking of, there.

      4) You said I think all people should be entitled to their opinion as long as that opinion doesn’t lead to infringing upon the rights of another.

      This can be tricky. Lots of people have opinions on things that – when put into law (or practice) – will infringe on the activities of others. Many times this gets verbalized as “denying people their rights.” It’s very easy to take the jump that some people’s opinions are infringing on the rights of others.

      I reject this kind of leap of judgement – particularly when it is used to ostracize people. Others see it as part of effecting change on the world. That distinction is part of the on-going squabble as well.

      Your encouragement to continue the talk is appreciated.

      1. Thanks for the response as well, keranith.

        1) I was so confused as to what that acronym stood for. Thank you for explaining it. I do take some offense to that term just because it implies “social justice” may be a bad thing. That might be because some people seem to be using it a bit broader than you defined it. For instance, I’m afraid someone might throw it in my direction and thus completely disregard anything I have to say because of that label.

        No one has yet! I’m just saying that for some reason, that’s a fear I have while commenting at this site. I am glad that the two responses I’ve received have proved me wrong and I hope to continually be proven wrong.

        2) I hope one day that there would be no need for boxes. It is a constant struggle to get towards that day where merit would be measured fairly in all regards. However, the reason people got concerned about boxes in the first place is because some were never getting checked regardless of quality. It’s a very similar argument to that which is happening here, which makes me feel like both sides are also very similar.

        3) That would be rude but I read her statement still as she didn’t want to be involved by one side or the other. I don’t think she’s happy about withdrawing (gosh, reading between the lines by me, bah, it’s hard not to do that) because I do think she honestly believes her work worthy of not just a nomination but a win. (She’s commented that much in responses to GRRM’s.) If I “read between the lines” even further then I’d say she resents this whole thing happening because it took an opportunity away from her. Not either side in specific, just the whole situation as it unfolded has. She hasn’t stated as much though, so I will just take her on her words of just not wanting to be involved.

        4) I agree my perspective is difficult to operationalize en masse. It’s just a sort of code that I try to judge my own views on. (Hah, my own personal bias also makes me believe that science should trump all but that’s not too relevant to this conversation.)

        In regards to the Hugos, I think if a group of people felt wronged by a system or function then I think it’s alright for that group to use the system as designed to voice their opinions. Here it sounds like people thought the Hugos were too much of a clique. I imagine this is true to some degree as its impossible for such things not to inevitably turn that way after time.

        What I think devalues such a position is that some people have turned this into a crusade against people they perceive as “SJWs”. Likewise, I think some people on the other side have assumed that this protest/stance was taken to purposely attack a group of people.

        In reality, I think the Hugo-debate does not involve “boxes” or “SJWs” or anything like that (at least when couched in SP vs. others). I think this debate, as I read from GRRM and Correia, is that one party views the Hugos as the Oscars and the others as a People Choice Award. At least that’s what I hope its about.

        —-

        In short, I agree that the Hugos should be based on merit. It’s just that with art, merit can only be determined by opinion. So the question is whose opinion?

        1. “If I “read between the lines” even further then I’d say she resents this whole thing happening because it took an opportunity away from her. Not either side in specific, just the whole situation as it unfolded has.”

          You’ll have to explain to me how “both sides” had anything to do with taking the opportunity away from her when one side nominated her and the other is cheering and rewarding her (or claiming they will) for bowing to their freely chosen bad behavior.

          Yes, imagining that someone might boo you in front of your mother if you win… isn’t worrying about *the people who nominated you*…. It’s worrying about the expected (rightly so) bad behavior of the other side.

          Don’t make excuses for them.

          1. Hi Synova,

            I think the best way I can answer this would be to think how I’d feel in her shoes.

            I would feel like my nomination would always be questions whether it was legitimate or not because it was tied to this protest of the Hugos.

            Also, not everyone on “the other side” is cheering or rewarding her withdrawing. And I’ve haven’t seen her say any where that she’s doing this because of “the other side”.

            I’m also not making excuses for anyone. I will say that the tone of your posts makes me feel like you are clumping the entire “other side” / “them” as one cohesive and similar group. It sounds very similar to the same criticism levied against people lumping SP/RP together, in my opinion. This is not an issue of one solid/unified side versus that of the SPs.

            Statements like “don’t make excuses for them” makes me feel like I have to pick side a versus side b when picking sides isn’t the issue I see here.

          2. I just reread my post and besides the obvious grammatical issues I wanted to clarify somethings. I also don’t feel like she’s doing this because of any side. She’s doing this because its her choice in response to a situation not a group of people. That’s my opinion anyway. Only she truly knows why she withdrew.

            And I apologize about the tone of my post. I suppose the reason I responded how I did was because the tone of your post made me feel like you view this whole situation as a unified “us” versus a unified “them”. I do not. Nor do I want to pick a side when the answers to most of these issues, in my opinion, is somewhere in the middle.

          3. @F_TV

            The only reason a nomination could be illegitimate is if, for example, the author’s publisher bought a bunch of memberships under imaginary names and had the imaginary members vote for the work.

        2. In short, I agree that the Hugos should be based on merit. It’s just that with art, merit can only be determined by opinion. So the question is whose opinion?

          Every fan of SFF who reads/watches the works in questions, and registers for that year’s WorldCon. That’s the SP line (as much as we have one. It’s kinda squiggly line, but we likes it, we do.)

        3. Hi F_TV

          Whenever you add an adjective to justice, whatever you end up with isn’t justice; or it wouldn’t need the adjective.

          Making a check in a box one of the criterion for quality if the quality in question is the quality of a work, dilutes the concept of quality. You start judging the work based on the boxes the author checks off.

          1. I disagree with the adjective to justice part but I feel that would be just us diving into arguing semantics. What’s important is I think I get the intent of what you’re saying and I respect that opinion.

            I don’t think anyone on that side said you have to check a box before being considered for a Hugo. Also, I do not think authors have to declare their race/ethnicity, gender, or any other demographical data about themselves to be considered. I don’t think the whole Hugo process before was 100% motivated by this ‘checking of boxes’…. I don’t know what percentage if any that it was. I don’t doubt that it did become at least a part of depending on who you knew or a bit of an insiders club. I don’t think it was this grand coordinated effort though. Also, I know that doesn’t make it right even if it was. That’s why in the broadest sense I appreciate the conversation that’s happening.

        4. Hi again.

          I always wonder when people object to arguing semantics why they object to arguing about meanings. After all, if we don’t share common meanings, we don’t communicate.

          Be that as it may, something is either ‘just’ or it is not. Adding ‘social’ (or any other adjective) won’t turn something that is just into the unjust. Nor the other way around.

          Your second paragraph would seem to indicate that you entered this discussion relatively recently and haven’t read what has gone before, concerning the purpose behind SP, SP1, and SP3.

          1. You’re correct in assuming I have joined this conversation recently. 🙂 I’ve been trying to read this blog to catch up. I apologize if that wasn’t clear in my first initial post.

      1. That is an intense link. Outside of context, some of those quotes can be interpreted many ways (as in either sarcastic or non-PC humor). However, some cannot and are just not right, I certainly give you that.

        I appreciate your effort in putting it together but I have to say it makes me uncomfortable. It sounds fueled way too much by anger and less by an objective motive. Granted, you are completely entitled to write out of anger and frustration. I also apologize if I’ve misinterpreted the tone of the piece.

        The first gut reaction I get from reading that is that you believe everyone who is not white, heterosexual, and/or male hates those that are. Is that the impression you wanted people to have when they read it? Additionally, that anger I think I hear in reading the piece makes me feel like you believe there was never discrimination against people who were not white, heterosexual, and/or male.

        I also didn’t get the impression reading these comments that a majority of the people here take as intense a stance on the anti-white/straight/male stance as that… Maybe I am wrong. I defer back to my view that the Hugo argument is about who should vote and what the Hugos represent.

        I suppose I am asking for clarification if you think discrimination against white/heterosexual/male exists on such a mass level and that non-white/non-heterosexual/non-male individuals never faced similar or greater discrimination than that which your accusing those same people of.

        1. Interesting.

          How do you go from some examples of people bagging on X to the idea that the person who collected the quotes thinks that **everyone** who is not X, hates those that are X.

          Could it not just be that he’s only saying that the people that were bagging on X hate those that are X, no expansion necessary?

          Does the fact that people of not-X category have been treated poorly in the past make it acceptable to treat people of X category badly now?

          1. I didn’t mean to go from anything to anything. I tried very carefully to just say that was the feeling I got from reading that article and asking the author of it to clarify his points so I don’t misconstrue them. The tone of the article honestly made me feel uncomfortable and gave me those impressions so I am asking if my reading of it was accurate or not.

            I will also say that your last point is true. However, I add that because not-X category has been treated poorly in the past does not mean they are automatically treating X category badly now.

          2. However, I add that because not-X category has been treated poorly in the past does not mean they are automatically treating X category badly now.

            Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don’t recall ever seeing James May claim that all not-X are treating anyone (X or otherwise) badly. He does make the claim — which he backs up with the document you’ve just perused — that the individuals quoted within it treat X badly.

            This also brings up an important distinction to make regarding the categories being discussed. Four of them — race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity — are the targets of the invective and vitriol JM has compiled. Of those four, two (race and sex) are intrinsic and immutable, one (sexual orientation) is probably so, and one (gender identity) is devoutly believed to be so by the SJWs. All of that hatred and bigotry is directed at people for being in categories which those people did not choose, and could not change even if they wished to.

            Contrast that with the categories of ‘leftist,’ ‘feminist,’ ‘SJW,’ etc. that JM (and most of us, I’d venture to say) bag on. Notice the difference? All self-selected. They chose to adopt a racist, sexist, bigoted, hateful ideology.

            Do you begin to see how little traction moral equivalence and statements like ‘I think both sides are about equally mean’ are going to get?

          3. Achillea,

            Thanks for your response. I didn’t want to say (and I apologize if I did) that James explicitly made that statement. I was commenting that my impression from reading it was that he was implying something close to that statement through the tone. All those things, I understand are based on just my perspective reading his article. I asked for some clarification from him. I do appreciate you and Scott providing your own view and interpretation of that article. It did help me understand your stances a bit more.

            I don’t think this thread is a productive place to discuss the “immutabliness” of those categories, one way or the other. But again, thank you for letting me know your perspective because its helps me understand where you are coming from. I think a more robust understanding of a person’s ideas can only help a conversation.

            My intent for this post or any of my posts was not to try to convince anyone to change their view, nor do I think that was any of your intents. I think, for the most part, this conversation was good because it informed me more about how and why some of the views I heard going around in this argument exist. It’s my own belief that some of the stances taken have merit and some do not. Just like I am sure many who read my comments here think some of my stances have no validity (though I hope some do understand, though they are allowed to not agree with, some of my stances).

            I just wanted to engage in a conversation with people who think differently than me. I thank those of you that have given me this opportunity and have done so respectfully.

            I do think my comments will be more infrequent now because we may have hit that diminishing point of returns on this specific topic/thread. Thank you all for the conversation.

            Finally, I will say that James last comment on this thread upset me (and I responded to it a few minutes ago). It just makes me view him as someone I don’t want to have a conversation with if that is his approach to talking about these topics.

          4. Your latest posts seem to exemplify the communication problem (one that you, from your earlier comments about arguing semantics, dismiss).

            On the one hand you spoke of how James May’s non-exclusive list of quotes made you *feel* as if anyone other than you are responsible for how you feel. You control your ultimate emotional reaction to things. Sure, there may be an involuntary immediate visceral reaction, but you are a thinking being, and can analyze whether your emotional reaction connects with reality. Given the extremely large number of people who might read any particular piece, the author of that piece can’t be responsible for how it makes any one or number of them feel.

            I specifically asked how, rationally, you reached the conclusion that James was making a blanket assertion about ‘everyone’, and your response was again about feeling, not thought. Here, again, you comment on ‘tone’ as if tone were objective.

            Here, in response to a comment from Achillea, you indicated that this isn’t, in your opinion, a productive place (not sure what that means, unless it means that you only are willing to discuss things in congenial venues) to discuss a certain concept. This again gets back to the concept that it isn’t possible to communicate when there aren’t common definitions and premises.

            Have you read Larry’s blog post “I am not Vox Day”?

          5. I apologize, I responded to this but it showed up as a newer response further down. Also, I don’t mean disrespect. Even if I don’t respond, I will be reading yours and others responses because you have shown me the same respectful treatment. I appreciate that.

          6. WordPress only allows so many replies in a row before they get too squished to read.

          7. @F_TV

            5) I may have lied about the brevity of this response.

            Don’t worry about it, FTV, it happens to everyone. 😉

            You’re doing a’right. See you on the next post LC does.

          1. James,

            I don’t know what this particular responds gets anyone. It comes across sarcastic and dismissive. Additionally, it doesn’t make me want to understand your perspective any further. Is this really what you want?

            I responded to your article with how I interpreted. Also, I am reading Scot and Achillea’s perspective on the topic. I don’t agree with their stance per se, but I think I understand a little better because of their responses and I hope they understand my perspective a little better.

            The tone of your response James does the opposite. I didn’t ask you to weep for me (or sarcastically do so). I just asked you to tell me if I was misinterpreting your words. If I did, I am sure others have as well. I don’t think you want your message to come across wrong. However, now I think my initial interpretation on your specific stance was more right than wrong. I won’t lump the others into that category (Scott, Achillea, Synova) because they’ve at least are talking to me in a way that’s respectful.

        2. Hi Scot,

          Thanks again for the response. I’ll have to keep this response short due to some time constraints on my end so I apologize for the brevity ahead of time.

          1) May’s article read like an exercise in confirmation bias to me. It also lacked substantial context for the quotes for me to be comfortable making any valid inferences on. Thus, I stated the inference I made on the piece as a whole (the language he used within it, what I felt was a one-sided perspective, among a couple of other factors) and asked if my inference was more or less accurate. If the purpose of the article was to win an argument somewhere, then it didn’t match up to any level of scientific or legal standard (I’m more familiar with the former than the latter, admittedly). Thus, I can’t take what he said in that article as fact, just as opinion (and I wanted to make sure I got his opinion correct).

          2) I tried very hard to avoid making it seem like I was being “objective” in the sense that objective equals absolute truth. I tried using language like “I feel”, “I think”, and “my opinion” to show that I was referring to my subjective view on the matter.

          3) I don’t think this is the proper place not because if may or may not be congenial but that such issues have been researched in much more depth and vigor than a message board allows. This medium would not give either of us I think a fair way to present out case with the thoroughness I think it deserves.

          4) I read the post.

          5) I may have lied about the brevity of this response.

          6) I wanted to come here and gaining understanding in what I saw as one group feeling a current process (the Hugo Awards) were unfair. I feel like I’ve gotten that. What I also feel is that this discussion is in danger of turning into something unproductive and unrelated to that. The subject of it keeps shifting further and further away from why I came here. That’s as much my fault as anyone’s. Thank you for your response again, Scot. You’ve handled yourself maturely and I appreciate it. I don’t think however that I will be responding anymore, if only because I think this is becoming a circular argument on all accounts.

  84. Darn it, before I could even download the Supporting materials! Since the passing (Ghu, but far too early!) of Joel Rosenberg, I’ve had just two authors on preorder at Amazon: Correia and Kloos. I’m not changing that, but how I do wish I could vote for the two of you this year.

  85. Do these idjits have any idea what they’re doing? (no, of course not). Suppose they succeed at identifying SP and RP in the minds of just about everyone. And suppose they succeed in shaming SP enough that no one runs a Sad Puppies slate next year (not going to happen, but bear with me). What do they think the result would be?

    Seems obvious to me… a lot of the SP supporters would go support RP, holding their nose or not. And the RPs are already powerful on their own. Blowing SP off the field just hands it to Vox Day. I think they simply cannot understand that a return to the status quo ante is NOT available at this time.

  86. I’m done with Marko. IMO, he’s revealed himself as someone I do not wish to patronize further.

    1. in other words. you are judging him by the content of his personality rather then by his work, yes? which.. is perfectly fine, just pointing out that its the opposite of what sad puppies message appears to be. in other words. what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander. if we can pick and chose whom we patronize based on who they are personally first and foremost, than why is it such a problem when other people do?

      I like what Sad puppies set out to accomplish, at least as I understood it – bring attention to variety of writers and their work – based on their work, regardless of the authors personal opinions and politics.

      I also understand when someone doesn’t wish to patronize authors whose political, personal etc stance they cannot abide by.

      I just kinda think its hypocritical to support a cause that attempts to judge work on the merits of its quality and nothing but its quality, all the while washing your hands off work of good quality, because you dislike the author. about as hypocritical as proclaiming that Hugo’s are by the fans for the fans, all the while keeping it to a very small fraction of the fans.

        1. yes you are and I very much respect you for it. whatever else you may be, you are not a hypocrite. I just thought to point out that this sort of personal bias is not reserved for SJW side, it seems. judging by Andrew’s post and other people who share his reaction to Marko’s response to being associated with Vox Day in any way.

          just saying that its a fairly common human reaction and we cannot blame only the other side for it, is all.

  87. I think it’s sad that the trolls always seem to have the loudest voices. For myself after reading up on this whole affair I discovered some new authors to try out. One of them being Mr. Kloos. Although I might personally disagree with the idea behind SP, I do appreciate the fact that I was introduced to a few new authors I might enjoy because of it.

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