I have repeated this stuff dozens of times, but apparently I need to repeat it again.

The Sad Puppies 3 campaign is a separate and different entity than the Rabid Puppies campaign.

I started Sad Puppies a few years ago. My goal was to demonstrate that the awards were biased, represented the likes of only one small part of fandom, and that authors with the wrong politics who got on the ballot would be attacked.  All of that has been demonstrated rather conclusively.  

Brad Torgersen ran Sad Puppies 3, and I was one of the people who helped. The mission changed, and Brad’s main goal was to get deserving, worthy authors who would normally be ignored onto the ballot, regardless of their politics.

Vox Day ran a separate campaign called Rabid Puppies.

I believe that RP started with most of existing SP3 suggested slate, and then added more works that they liked. But I can’t speak for them.

Vox Day himself was not on the SP3 slate.   

I believe 3 short fiction works from his publishing house were on our suggested slate. They were on our suggested slate because we thought they were very good.

Vox Day was on a prior SP suggestion slate, because I liked his novelette that year, and the SP2 slate was pretty much just my personal suggestions.

The Sad Puppies campaign doesn’t endorse anybody’s politics. Our slate had people from everything, left, right, middle, and question mark. We only cared if the works were good.

I personally do not agree with Vox on a wide variety of topics.  

I do not speak for him.

I do not control him.

He does what he wants.

We have argued about this topic. You know the situation has gotten weird when I’m the voice of moderation.

I cannot disown what I do not own.

I neither condone nor defend any of his public statements. I did not make them.

Of course I do not like some of the things he has said.

Do you think the existence of Rabid Puppies has somehow made my life easier?

I’m not going to burn anyone in effigy. Stop asking.

I’m not going to condemn anyone by association. Stop asking.

When two assholes collide, I shouldn’t have to take a side, declare one a sainted victim, and the other the devil aggressor. Stop asking me to.

I’ve said all of the above before.

My personal politics are on record. I have been involved in politics. I’ve written about my personal beliefs a lot. I am very opinionated. Those are my personal beliefs. I stand by them. Since this has started reporters have combed through everything I’ve ever written, trying to find something sexist, racist, or homophobic to use against me, and they haven’t found anything. Why? Because they aren’t there. Because I’m not.

I recommended someone’s short story. You do not like his belief. I can defend my liking his short story, but I cannot, and should not have to account for the author’s personal beliefs. A giant group of other authors, who are also not affiliated with him, should not be assigned his beliefs and be attacked for them.

However, I can believe that all authors have the right to free speech. That includes people who say stuff I don’t like or agree with. I have a giant list of authors I disagree with. I have done so, loudly, and often. We should all be free to disagree without the danger of purges, defamation, and career sabotage. As far as I am aware, Vox Day hasn’t ever called for censorship or tried to ruin any author’s career. I cannot however, say that same thing for others.

Authors should not be attacked for the crime of being recommended by someone you don’t like. That is asinine. The only questions should be, is the work good? Is the work award worthy? Yes? Good. Then quit yelling at them. I was told by one of his supporters yesterday that Vox is also a fan of Umberto Eco and China Mieville. Better break out the torches and pitchforks!

I cannot explain his quotes or his public statements because I did not formulate them, do not hold them myself, and I did not write them. Unlike my critics, I do not claim to read minds.

I cannot purge him. First, I don’t believe in purges. Second, I believe in free speech, warts and all. And third, since he isn’t part of my campaign, I’ve got nothing to purge him from.   

Let me clarify something. When I say something to the effect about how it would be awful nice to see normal people on the other side condemn the outlandish, racist, stupid, hateful, threatening things that hundreds on their side have said, I don’t actually expect them to. They don’t own other people’s comments either. Normally when I bring that up, it is out of frustration, because I’m expected to ritually shun someone who is nominally on my side of the debate for saying mean things, while all those on the other side saying things just as bad or worse, are given a pass. That is hypocritical.

For the one loudmouth I’m being demanded to account for, just among the award winning and nominated folks on the other side you’ve got NAMBLA supporters, psychopathic trolls, and a whole mess of racists… But Brad and I are the ones who need to anoint ourselves with ash and perform the ritual of shame? No. Buzz off.  

Look at it like this. I’m Churchill. Brad is FDR. We wound up on the same side as Stalin.

SP3 has been accused of trying to sweep the nominations. First, we didn’t have 5 in most of the categories, and when we did, it was because we had a ton of good suggestions and honestly thought all of them were awesome. Second, we did not expect to do as good as we did. Our showing was a surprise. Some of the categories were not swept by SP, but rather a combination of SP and RP noms, and SP had no control over that. Note, that isn’t an apology. That is a clarification. They are fans too, they spent their $40 like everyone else, and they voted for what they wanted.

And believe me, if I was surprised by how many fans SP brought, I was really surprised by what RP pulled off.

John C. Wright is also not Vox Day. Sad Puppies did not get him a record number of nominations. I believe we had him for 3 items in novella, short, and related work, and all of them were excellent. Wright picked up more nominations beyond that, which again, my campaign had no control over. He is now tied for most in one year. However, Wright is an excellent author, who has been around about as long as Charles Stross, but he is normally ignored at awards time. So rather than bitch and moan about him getting several noms, why don’t you actually read the works to see how good they are and vote honestly?

My motivation was not to replace one biased clique with a new biased clique, but rather to get an award that everyone—up until two weeks ago—claimed represented all of fandom, to represent more of fandom. I suppose the one way that I do have to accept responsibility for Vox Day is that I’m the one who demonstrated to all the outsiders just how little and cliquish the system actually was.  

So in conclusion, we are not Vox Day. Quit trying to make us the same. Vox Day is Vox Day. If you have any problems with him, take it up with him.

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.

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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.