I used to take orders for personalized autographs here on the blog, but the constant shipping just turned into a nightmare, so I quit doing it. I do personalized signings in person whenever I’m at an event, but the hard part there is that I can’t go everywhere.

Luckily, every year when I go on book tour I try to stop at Uncle Hugos. They are the store that introduced my self published MHI to Toni at Baen, so I love those guys. I’ll be there again in October for the release of Son of the Black Sword.

One nice thing about Uncle Hugos is that they will take orders for personalized autographs. So if you’ve got any requests, or want to give away any copies as gifts, and you aren’t going to be near any of my tour stops, this is your chance.

http://www.unclehugo.com/prod/ah-correia-larry.php

I usually fly in a day early so I can go straight there, and sign autographs for the copies that need to be shipped. The last few times I signed hundreds of books waiting to be shipped before the actual book signing.

It doesn’t have to be just the new book (though you should get SotBS, because it is awesome, and I’m really proud of it) but Uncle Hugos will bring in copies of everything. So if you want to give away a bunch of autographed Hard Magics or MHIs for Christmas, with their name in it from me, we can do that. And I’ll write pretty much anything. I’ll even doodle (badly) if you want.

This works well for everybody. You guys get personalized autographed copies, Uncle Hugos sells lots of books, and I don’t have to have half my office dedicated to shipping and receiving (I needed the space for mini painting!).

We’re doing Challenge Coins again! Last time we did a Kickstarter and sold over $100,000 worth of them, which turned out to be a LOT of freaking coins. So we’ve learned from last time around and will be doing a few things differently. This post was written by Jack Wylder. He’s the poor guy who actually had to keep track of all this stuff, bag them, mail them, and answer all the emails. ## Ok here it is at last-

CorreiaTech Challenge Coins (Series II)

12 Points We’re doing it a bit different this time (learning from our mistakes)

• 1) We’re not doing it through KickStarter. KS was great in many ways, but Larry’s got a large enough audience that there’s really no reason to hand them 10% off the top (when they brought in less than 1% of sales)
• 2) Instead we’re doing it through the MHI Swag page: https://mhiswag.myshopify.com/ Important: Do NOT order yet! Wait until all 12 designs are finalized and up there so you only have to order once. Even if you’re planning on buying a complete set, hold off- we have a few other items we’ll be introducing along the way that might interest you. In fact, I’m not even going to put them on the site until all has been revealed…
• 3) Since we’re not doing it through KS there’s not a big reason to do stretch goals. It’s easier for all if you only have to place one order one time, so we’re going to just unveil one design a day until we get all 12 shown then you can go order all you like. Don’t order until they’re all posted! You might miss one you love AND we’re going to add a couple of other non-coin items as things go along. We’re going to run this whole thing through the end of the month.
• 4) Actually 2 of the designs are yet TBD- we want to see what coins YOU want so we’re doing 2 backers choice coins. (Last time around the backers’ choice coin ended up being the most popular- the PUFF exemption tag.) Rather than have to wade through a bazillion comments here we’re opening up the discussion on the all new Monster Hunter Forums: (UPDATED- the Forums didn’t pan out) (Ok the forum isn’t actually 100% yet but it makes too much sense to launch it now and I can adjust as we go along…) We were going to make a bigger deal about the forum’s launch but this seems as good a time as any.
• 5) We’re not numbering the coins this time- the numbering last time created WAY too much work and problems and was single handedly responsible for setting us weeks (possibly months) behind schedule on shipping.The exception to this is the first tag we’re doing, but all numbers will be done in a random manner…
• 6) We’re using a new provider for the coins this time. Last time the mint we used did beautiful work but between broken molds and various other delays, what should have been done in less than 6 weeks ended up being over 6 months. The new provider does work JUST as nice (if not nicer) and we have complete confidence that they will deliver in a very timely manner. Speaking of which…
• 7) The molds for the first 10 designs are almost done! Once we have a final tally we can get them to start immediately with much less of a wait. (We should actually be able to show you samples before we even finish unveiling all the designs…)
• 8) Even with the KS 10% loss, the single biggest financial loss last time out was with shipping (no questions, not even close). We’re going to make it much easier this time- all domestic orders are a flat $15 shipping and handling and will ship first class priority mail (along with tracking numbers.) International orders will be a flat $45. Yes, this might seem a lot for one coin but with the swag page we have to put one price in; with the underestimated international shipping last time, we essentially gave hundreds of coins away for free. It’s a lot for one coin, but if you order the whole set it becomes a lot more of a bargain… 😉
• 9) We’re not doing all of the tiers like we did last time. Again, it just ate up way too much time and needlessly complicated things. You can order the whole set for $150 (which is like getting the 2 backers choice coins for free) or you can order just the individual coins you want.
• 10) Like last time we’re going to round up the final tally and get the coins minted and then that’s it- once they’re gone, they’re gone!
• 11) Because we’re using the swag page this time, you can add as many non-coin items as you want. Since we’re shipping things to you anyway it’s an excellent opportunity to stock up on whatever you want.
• 12) Check back daily here for updates and if you have any questions just let us know!

-Jack

First up: The Provisional PUFF tag

When you sign up for STFU you aren’t granted a PUFF exemption; the whole point is you have to earn it. So how does the government prevent hunters from claiming bounties on members of STFU? The Provisional PUFF exemption tag of course! Bearers of the “P PUFF X” tag can prove that they are regarded as ‘People Pro-Tem’ in the eyes of the MCB and that their death might be considered murder. Good times….

Update:
Here’s the sample of the actual coin. (This is the prototype but the production ones will have a random number on them)

Note- so many people were upset about not getting a PUFF exemption last time that we came up with this as a way for them to get exempted too. We are not bringing back the original PUFF and we are only doing these for this run of coins- there will not be a second run of these and I don’t see any way we can do a third PUFF coin.

Coin II: The Grimnoir Seal

As promised, we’re not going exclusively MHI this time! The Grimnoir seal on one side, a highly reflective surface on the other… Wonder what THAT could be used for? (salt not included) Update: Here’s a (not very good to be honest) picture of the actual production sample:

Coin III: The STFU/Heather Coin

In the series I coins the Heather/STFU coin came in second as the backers’ choice. By popular demand here it is at last! The artwork is usually not really representative of the final product so here’s a close up to give you a better idea of what the coin will ACTUALLY look like…

Coin IV: The (un)holy symbol of the Sanctified Church of the Temporary Mortal Condition

Stupid squid lovers… Ok what isn’t shown is that the full title of the cult is engraved around the edge of the medallion. This is another one of those that looks better in reality than in photos…

Coin V: Grimm Berlin Germany’s foremost hunting team gets it’s own coin, with the logo on one side and a portrait of their founders on the other.

(I like to have the original artwork as well as the photos because a) I don’t have ALL the sample coins in and b) I’m using the camera on my iPad which doesn’t always take the best pictures…)

(case in point- to get this one with the wacky lighting it had to be taken at a very odd angle…)

A surprising number of the upcoming designs have been requested on the forum. I take this as a good sign 😉

Coin VI: the Imperium Guards

One side has the distinctive gray eyes of the feared Shadow Guard, the other the snarling visage of the implacable Iron Guards battle helm. Oh- and even though it’s counter-intuitive, it’s kind of a cool effect that the Shadow Guard side actually glows in the dark!(I’ve been assured that the Kanji is 86.6% likely to be at least not terribly incorrect.)

Coin VII: the International Lord of Hate!! Cower mortals and despair at the dread visage of the International Lord of Hate! Behold the hated face of hatred personified (hatefully). Thaaat’s it- BEHOLD IT!!!

Coin IIX: MHI Redux The iconic image that started it all; the horned smiley face logo of Team Harbinger!

Coin IX: (Pirate) Captain Bob Southunder
Undisputed leader of first the Bulldog Marauder and then the Traveler, Captain Bob was integral to the Grimnoir’s plans.
(Sorry for the less than awesome picture- I’ll update with actual pics as soon as I get the sample in hand…)

Coin X: Stranger & Stranger
You’re in strange hands with Stranger & Stranger!

(This is one of those times where a picture just doesn’t do it justice. The hands on the front glow brilliantly in the dark and though the sample lacked the enamel top coat that makes it happen, the back of the coin has a strange finish wherein the design in the back is only visible from certain angles. The sample I saw of the effect was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen on a challenge coin which is why it is perfect for THIS design!)

Coin XI: the Women of MHI (Backers’ Choice coin #1)
Starring Julie Shackleford-Pitt and Holly Newcastle!

Coin XII: (the Final Coin of Series II) Milo Anderson- the DaVinci of Destruction! (Backers’ Choice coin #2)
MHI’s resident mad scientist finally gets his own coin. (His was very high on the list of requested Backers’ Choice coins last time)

Ok so here, as promised, are some of the additional items we’ll have for you:

Series II Zippos (not knock offs) in either a high polish chrome or black, both engraved

We haven’t done a new patch in a few years, so why NOT suck up to the CorreiaTech CFO by putting him on a patch?

I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve had a request for these… Available in White, black, bright green, or chrome.

(I don’t actually have a sample so I had to cheat, but this is pretty close to how they should come out.) Tiny MHI Smiley pins suitable for hats, bags, cufflinks, tie tacks, whatever!

We will start taking order Monday for the individual coins, the full sets, AND for the new items. (Pricing then)
It will NOT be first thing in the morning as I still have to enter all the info into the Shopify system but we will *DEFINITELY* let you know as soon as you’re cleared for takeoff.

Readers can vote for their favorite military sci-fi stories of the year. The deadline is the end of August. Details at the link.

http://baen.com/yearsbestaward2014.asp

I wasn’t going to bother fisking the latest Article of the Week about the evils of the Sad Puppies campaign, but I figured what the hell, it’s Friday.

And when I say Article of the Week, I’m not really exaggerating. Apparently the Guardian is all worked up about Sad Puppies. A cursory Google search shows this is what the Guardian has run recently, and let me save you some time, it appears all of them run with the same racist/sexist/homophobic angry white cismale backlash narrative that’s been easily debunked since Entertainment Weekly beclowned themselves on day one.

April 6^th, Are the Hugo nominees really the best sci-fi books of the year?

April 9^th, George RR Martin says rightwing lobby has broken Hugo awards

April 17^th, Hugo award nominees withdraw amid “Puppygate” storm

April 18^th, The Hugo awards hijack is nasty and dishonest

July 20^th, George RR Martin urges every true fan to rally for Hugo awards vote

July 24^th, The Hugo Awards will be losers if politics take the prize.

July 27^th, NK Jemisin interview (and how Sad Puppies are racist sexists blah blah blah)

Those are just the recent ones. Three years ago I set out to demonstrate that there was a left wing bias in publishing.  Immediately the Guardian did their best to prove me right. Not once in three years have they spoken to anybody on my side.

And now for today’s stupid article: http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/jul/31/the-puppies-are-taking-science-fictions-hugo-awards-back-in-time

As usual, the original article is in italics and my responses are in bold.

The Puppies are taking science fiction’s Hugo awards back in time

That’s a really dumb title. He’s trying to say we’re dragging it back to the days when democrats were still lynching people, but it actually reads more like we’re saving the Hugos just in the nick of time (now we’re talking!). 

Rightwing infiltrators unhappy at the liberal direction of modern science fiction have gamed the polling for the Hugo awards with a hateful online campaign. If they win, sci-fi loses

Funny. The only hateful online campaign I saw was the libelous smear campaign the Guardian participated in

By Adam Roberts

Never heard of the guy. Most of the Guardian’s weak ass nonsense about us usually comes from the Guardian’s Village Idiot and wannabe fiction writer, Damien Walter. But a bunch of folks sent me screen caps of Adam’s Twitter posts this morning, where he’s calling us Nazis. So you know, the usual level of professional unbiased competence we’ve come to expect from the Guardian.

The clock is ticking for the public vote in this year’s Hugo awards, which celebrate excellence in science fiction. Sixteen categories are up for grabs, from best novel to short fiction, fan writing, art and dramatic presentation, and the deadline is 31 July. But this year the prizes are not just about celebrating science-fiction – it’s political war.

It has been political war for decades. Only this time the opposition actually bothered to show up.

There’s usually a kerfuffle of one kind or another – popular authors habitually campaign for fans to vote them on to the list,

I think it is hilarious how the narrative has changed. Three years ago I said the awards were just a popularity contest with a bunch of campaigning between friends and like-minded cliques, where the author’s politics were more important than the quality of the work, and that was all sorts of outrageous. How dare I question the sanctity of the sainted Hugo process which represents the best of all fandom? How dare I openly campaign to get things nominated? How uncouth! How barbaric! But then GRRM killed that narrative when he said there’d always been campaigning. Whoops. He was also the first VIP on the other side to come out and say that the Hugos were just for one small group of people, and not all fans… Which is kind of what got me started on all this to begin with.

but 2015 has proved the biggest drama the award has ever seen. That’s because two linked online campaign groups, known as the “Sad Puppies” and their more politically extreme running mates, the “Rabid Puppies”, have been campaigning hard to register supporters and bump their preferred titles on to the shortlists.

I’m amazed that this article actually pointed out that they are two separate campaigns with different motivations. Getting something right for once, that’s like an achievement unlocked for the Guardian.  

They have managed it, too: this year’s Hugos are packed with Puppies titles.

And we couldn’t have done it without all of you guys’ self-righteous gloating last time. Thanks. Seriously, Damien Walter was probably one of our best recruiting tools. And with Damien, special emphasis goes on the word tool.  

There’s no avoiding the politically partisan nature of this campaign.

Well yeah, considering that it all started because I wanted to demonstrate that there was political bias in the system, duh… Sadly for you guys, we had real success when Brad took over and pushed a group of politically diverse nominees this year.

Its leading lights range from respectable rightwingers such as US authors Larry Correia

Ha! The Guardian says I’m respectable. It must be crazy upside down day! Normally Damien just fabricates scare quotes to make me sound scared of gay people.

and Brad Torgerson,

Okay, seriously. My last name has double Rs and four vowels and you can manage to spell it correctly, but none of you can spell TorgersEn?

through to those with more outlandish views such as John C Wright 

By “outlandish” you mean John is a devout Catholic who actually believes Catholic doctrine and doesn’t get all mushy and apologetic about it.  

and Vox Day (also known as Theodore Beale).

Who is probably disappointed you only called him outlandish.

It’s the Tea Party of contemporary US sci-fi.

Yes, because if anybody understands American conservative political movements, it is the UK’s socialist rag.

The Puppies are complaining that recent Hugo winners have been too highbrow,

Is highbrow a synonym for boring and preachy?

Curious, I searched my blog for the use of the word “highbrow”. It occurs once, in an unrelated post where a New York Times reporter uses it in an idiotic article pontificating on why Mormons haven’t produced another Shakespeare (hint, nobody has or will, because he’s Shakespeare).

and argue that winners such as Anne Leckie’s smart gender-deconstruction of space opera Ancillary Justice, or John Scalzi’s witty Star-Trek-inspired metafiction Redshirts are too experimental and literary.

The fact that instead of words like good, fun, memorable, inspiring, exciting, or imaginative you need to use terms like “gender-deconstruction” or “metafiction” to describe them might be an indicator that you’re the one out of touch with what people actually like to read.

Sure, I’ve made fun of literary, as in the sense that some books try too damned hard to be GREAT LITERACHOOR. Sad Puppies supporters are more likely to be regular readers than college English Lit guest lecturers, but I don’t know why that’s such a terrifying thing to contemplate for something that is supposed to be a fan based award.  

More importantly, as Sarah Lotz says, they’re also suggesting SF has been hijacked by a conspiracy of “social justice warriors” or “SJWs”, intent on filling the genre with progressive ideological propaganda.

You guys really don’t need to keep putting Social Justice Warriors into quotes. Everybody knows the kind of folks we’re talking about. It’s mainstream. Eli Roth is making a movie where annoying SJWs get eaten by cannibals.

The Puppies’ real beef is that SF, and society as a whole, has become too feminist, too multiracial, too hospitable to gay and trans voices.

I do like how you just boldly state that’s our “real beef” despite the complete lack of evidence. I started this thing to expose left wing political bias. Brad continued it to get deserving authors (regardless of their politics) on there who weren’t part of the cliques. Yet you lazy bastards always go right back to your tired old racist/sexist/homophobic narrative. 

Did you miss the part where your newspaper’s Village Idiot already crowd sourced a witch hunt to find evidence of my supposed hatemongery, and despite being a prolific political blogger for a decade they came up with nothing? Considering how we had no problem nominating people of various races, sexes, and orientations on our slate, if our secret goal is trying to keep sci-fi white and male, we must really suck at it.

Anti-SJW rhetoric, most of it proceeding from angry straight white men, has flooded online discussions.

I do like how you slip in the “most” there, totally ignoring all of the non-white/straight males who are sick of the shrieking harpies of tolerance too. Anybody with a few functioning brain cells to rub together is sick of the bitter scolds and their perpetual culture war. Whether they’re screaming at a scientist for wearing a sexist shirt, or screaming for another scientist’s job because they erroneously thought he told a sexist joke, or getting people fired for donating to the wrong political campaign, or barking at wrongfans for having wrongfun, everybody is tired of you assholes making every disagreement about sexism/racism/homophobia.

Kind of like you’re doing right here.

It’s been ugly. It’s also proving self-defeating.

Year 1, a couple of nominations. You guys flip out. More fans notice.

Year 2, several nominations. You guys have a total come apart. More fans notice.

Year 3, a sweep of the nominations. You guys run organized slander campaigns while calling every fan who thinks the awards are biased, Nazis.  

Wow, yeah. That’s brilliant. Keep up the good work.

George RR Martin’s intervention, urging people to register and vote in order to defeat the plans of people he call “assholes”, has galvanised the counter-vote.

The more people involved, the better. My side isn’t the one trying to keep out any fans because they have fun wrong. I want as many fans involved as possible, because then a couple tiny little cliques can’t dominate the whole thing. The fact is the Hugo voting pool had gotten so apathetic that twenty votes could swing whole categories. No matter what happens, we’ve changed that dynamic.

We won’t find out the winners until this year’s Worldcon on 17 August, but it looks as though enough people will vote for “none of the above” over the Puppies titles, and syphon support in the direction of the non-Puppies nominees.

Don’t worry, I’m sure however it turns out you will move the goalposts so you can gloat about it and declare total victory, sort of like you guys did the last couple of years. That’s been working great for us.

What the Puppies have done is within the rules of the awards, and key figures in the movement have already declared their intention to repeat the process next year.

Yep. Kate Paulk is running it next year. I wasn’t even supposed to be involved this year until Brad dragged me back in. Arguing with an internet full of morons for months cuts into my paying writing time.

But this is larger than one set of awards. It is about the direction of science-fiction as a whole, and it poses larger cultural questions.

Note how pretentious the Guardian is about all of this. In the next few paragraphs they are going to go out of their way to demonstrate how they’ll never be content until their snooty, preachy, bossy nonsense drives off everyone who just wants to read books for the sake of reading.  You can’t read for fun, you must read for SOCIAL JUSTICE. And then publishers are bewildered as fans buy fewer books and our genre shrinks, as those same consumers spend record billions on sci-fi movies and videogames. 

The truth is that this year’s Hugo awards are wrecked.

The Guardian hasn’t been this upset since Hugo Chavez died.

Can you imagine anyone saying that of the Pulitzer, Man Booker, or Nobel?

Imagine? You mean like if they gave the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore for “weather”, Jimmy Carter for “Jews are mean”, Barack Obama for “getting elected”, and Yassir Arafat for “not killing anyone lately”?  Yeah, I can’t possibly imagine how various prestigious awards could start to suck when they become dominated by politics. 

Yet here we are, and if the Puppies succeed in gaming the awards again in 2016 we may as well give up on the Hugos forever.

By “gaming” I assume you mean by fans buying memberships and voting? Getting people to vote in a popularity contest… What a dastardly plot!

Now personally, when I think of “gaming the awards” I think of things like elaborate schemes to tweak the rules to keep the wrongfans out, like the various complicated systems proposed by you guys over the last few months, but those totally doesn’t count.

This is what is so frustrating about the Puppies’ campaign. Not that it has resulted in a bunch of frankly inferior works being shortlisted – although it has.

Sure, that Jim Butcher guy may be one of the most popular and successful authors on the planet, but he doesn’t write proper progressive post-colonial metafiction! However, considering you guys seem to think Damien Walter is employable as a writer, I’ll just have to take your opinion with a grain of salt.

And not that it values old-fashioned SF over more experimental, literary and progressive writing –

But what about fun? Memorable? Exciting? Thought provoking? Enjoyable? Adventurous? Compelling?

Nope. Experimental. Literary. PROGRESSIVE.

And still, the Guardian and the CHORFs can’t figure out what actually motivates the Sad Puppies supporters.  

that’s a matter of taste.

Fiction is a matter of taste. Unless you disagree with the approved taste, because then it can only be because you are a racist, sexist, hatemonger neo-nazi who doesn’t want women and minorities in publishing. 

What is so annoying is that it so ostentatiously turns its back on the global context out of which the best writing is happening today.

Huh? That kind of word salad nonsense may have gotten you an A on your Gender Studies thesis, but you’re writing for an (alleged) newspaper now. Tighten that shit up, dude.

As Damien Walter argues,

There’s our favorite reporter! You know it is going to get really stupid when they’re going to the Guardian’s Village Idiot for quotes.

science fiction is currently in a golden age,

Except for that part where mainstream publishing’s sales are tanking.

“fuelled in large part by the genre’s growing diversity – to be a truly global art, it must be made by a globally diverse roster of creators”.

Just not diversity of thought, because that’s bad. Last year’s winners were like a dozen white liberals and one Asian liberal and they hailed that as a huge win for diversity. I saw a thing somewhere, can’t remember the link but somebody went through the last 20 years of the Hugo awards and of the 266 winners, 19 went to conservatives. I don’t know if those numbers are accurate, but that’s probably close.

Now the Guardian will just say that’s because conservatives are just stupid poopy heads who don’t write proper literary experimental progressive metafiction or whatever pseudo-intellectual wanker terms they’re calling it today, but half of America is like, well no wonder that award winning stuff seemed so obnoxious.

So the Guardian’s snob clique would have us believe that a fan popularity award, that’s supposed to be decided by fans, and voted on by fans, is ruined if fans vote for what fans actually purchase, enjoy, and read… And that instead the award needs to keep going to edgy progressive socially conscious LITRACHEWER that ranks somewhere in the top five million and has two and a half stars on Amazon.

Opening the genre to writers from outside the US and UK, making welcome a greater diversity of voices, has broadened and strengthened science fiction.

Except that the Hugo is an ENGLISH LANGUAGE AWARD, you pretentious dolt. The ENGLISH TRANSLATION of the Chinese novel Three Body Problem is up for best novel right now. (It ended up 3^rd on my personal ballot. I believe the Villainous Vox Whom the Guardian Hates Above All put it 1^st on his).

The Guardian should be careful what they wish for though. I’ve been up for best novel in France. 😀

Conversely, narrowing that pool of talent would only weaken it.

But the Guardian thinks narrowing the WorldCon voting pool is super awesome.

Compare the Man Booker prize, the longlist of which has just been announced. For its first decade, the Booker (as it then was) threw up some pretty insular, white, middle-class dominated shortlists.

Why is it that the only people who care about an author’s race are the ones who keep accusing everybody else of being motivated by race?

Then, following the win for Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children in 1981, the prize opened up: through the 1980s and 1990s and into the present century it regularly rewarded post-colonial writing and other international experiences, and the slates of shortlisted titles were richer and more enduring as a result.

So enduring that most people have never heard of any of them. Oh, wait. Skimming the list, there’s the one they made into that movie with the tiger.

The prize woke up to the reality of global literature. The Hugos are decades behind in that regard, and the Puppies want to drag it back further.

Nope. We don’t care if the book was written in China, India, or on the moon. We care if it is good or not. 

Considering that the Hugo awards hadn’t even ever nominated a single work of media tie in fiction until Sad Puppies came along, I don’t know where the hell you’re getting this idea that the insular little inbred cliques were combing the whole world for worthy new talent before. Hell, I believe the first ever INDY PUBLISHED novel nomination came from Sad Puppies, and you expect that little cliquish circle jerk of friends who’ve been taking turns giving each other awards, to suddenly teach themselves Spanish in order to check out the best sci-fi from Uruguay? 

This whole train of thought is just a stupid diversion. The Guardian is just being its normal snooty self. Look at us, we read MOAR GLOBALLY (no, actually, they probably don’t. From inaccuracies in previous articles about various classics we’re already pretty sure Damien skates by reading Wikipedia synopsis of books and then pretending to be well read). 

Science fiction, if it is about anything, is about hospitality to otherness,

Just not conservatives or libertarians, because screw those guys.

 to the alien and the unusual, about freeing one’s mind and boldly going where no one has been before. It is, centrally, about diversity. Locking out women writers, writers of colour, gay and trans writers does a violence to the heart of the genre.

That concluding paragraph is just regurgitated tripe.  We’re not the ones trying to lock out anyone. Female, “writers of colour” (oh how I hate that stupid racist term), gay, trans, left handed ginger pygmy wolf-riding garden squirrels, WE DON’T CARE. Write books. Entertain people. Fans get to judge books by the content of their pages rather than the author’s bio. Then give the really good ones awards.

This isn’t exactly rocket science, not that you jackasses didn’t literally try to make actual fucking rocket science all about sexism too.

If the Puppies win, nobody wins.

No. The Puppies would win. That’s sort of what the word win means, dumbass. 🙂

I’m not going to bother to link to click bait. (seriously, googled my name for the last 24 hours to find the New Yorker article I’d been told about, and it barely made the first page, which is a pretty good indicator of how popular the New Yorker actually is)

It is more of the same old tired narrative. The Guardian interviewed N.K. Jemisin, where of course the Sad Puppies campaign was all about white men motivated by their white maleness. And the New Yorker interviewed Samuel Delany, where somehow they can interview an actual NAMBLA supporter and yet the most controversial thing talked about is me and Sad Puppies.

Since I’m really busy, here is the entirety of my Fisking of the pertinent bits, the New Yorker is in italics, and my super in depth response is in bold.

On the phone recently, I suggested to Delany that Asimov’s poor attempt at humor—which, whatever its intent, also served as a reminder, as Delany notes in “Racism and Science Fiction,” that his racial identity would forever be in the minds of his white peers, no matter the occasion—foreshadowed a more recent controversy, centered on a different set of sci-fi awards. In January, 2013, the novelist Larry Correia explained on his Web site how fans, by joining the World Science Fiction Society, could help nominate him for a Hugo Award, something that would, he wrote, “make literati snob’s [sic] heads explode.” Correia contrasted the “unabashed pulp action” of his books with “heavy handed message fic about the dangers of fracking and global warming and dying polar bears.” In a follow-up post, citing an old SPCA commercial about animal abuse, he used the tag “Sad Puppies”; what he later called “the Sad Puppies Hugo stacking campaign” has grown to become a real force in deciding who gets nominated for the Hugo Awards. The ensuing controversy has been described, by Jeet Heer in the New Republic, as “a cultural war over diversity,” since the Sad Puppies, in their pushback against perceived liberals and experimental writers, seem to favor the work of white men.

 

Diversity my ass. Last years winners were like a dozen white liberals and one Asian liberal and they hailed that as a huge win for diversity. 

 

Delany said he was dismayed by all this, but not surprised. “The context changes,” he told me, “but the rhetoric remains the same.”

 

Well, that’s a stupid conclusion. 

 

In the contemporary science-fiction scene, Delany’s race and sexuality do not set him apart as starkly as they once did. I suggested to him that it was particularly disappointing to see the kind of division represented by the Sad Puppies movement within a culture where marginalized people have often found acceptance. Delany countered that the current Hugo debacle has nothing to do with science fiction at all. “It’s socio-economic,” he said. In 1967, as the only black writer among the Nebula nominees, he didn’t represent the same kind of threat. But Delany believes that, as women and people of color start to have “economic heft,” there is a fear that what is “normal” will cease to enjoy the same position of power. “There are a lot of black women writers, and some of them are gay, and they are writing about their own historical moment, and the result is that white male writers find themselves wondering if this is a reverse kind of racism. But when it gets to fifty per cent,” he said, then “we can talk about that.” It has nothing to do with science fiction, he reiterated. “It has to do with the rest of society where science fiction exists.”

 

Really, nobody cares.

SJWs are the only people who seem to care what color an author is. Everybody else just wants to be entertained rather than beaten over the head with the cause of the day. If our secret goal was to keep publishing white and male we sure sucked at it.

Great. Micro Fisking complete. Sure, the Sad Puppy related parts of these are filled with nonsense and I could do a whole giant Fisk, but I’m tired of repeating myself. Now I’ve got to get back to work, because “economic heft” has nothing to do with winning snooty awards, and everything to do with producing work that people want to give you money for.