So, after my last blog post a dude who has 45 Hugo nominations (no that is not a typo FORTY FIVE) became very cross with me for saying that the the Hugos are broken. Now, since he has won twice as many Hugos as Robert Heinlein I can’t possibly imagine why he would be biased in favor of the current broken ass system, but I can only assume that his motives are absolutely pure.
While searching for something else to condemn me for, this stalwart journalist decided that I had never *specifically* declared that people should read the suggested works before nominating them, and thus am a very bad person.
After he posted in the comments of the last update, I responded with a few quotes where I did encourage people to read for themselves, form their own opinions, choose for themselves, and basically how you Wrong Kind of Fans are just going to do whatever the hell you feel like anyway.
I made a joke that I also never specifically told Sad Puppies supporters not to set fire to small animals, so obviously, Larry Correia wants you to burn small animals… However this might not have been clear enough for Glyer-45-Hugos, so I’d better clarify. Do not set fire to small animals. That would be mean and bad.
So allow me to go on the record about other things that are so stupidly obvious that I shouldn’t have to say them, but since we are dealing with ridiculous, lying SJWs, I’d better be specific:
You should wash your hands after going to the bathroom.
You should read stuff before nominating it for awards.
You should look both ways before crossing the street.
So there you go, Glyer-50-Hugos (I figured what the hell? Let’s round up!) Thanks to your hard hitting journalism, the nefarious Larry Correia has now gone on the record about some painfully obvious stuff.
I apologize for not loading down our first blog posts on this subject with a bunch of asinine disclaimers and trigger warnings. After Brad and I get back from LTUE the next thing we had planned were blog posts about the works we selected and why, to encourage people to read them. The nominations don’t close for over a month, giving people plenty of time to familiarize themselves with the suggested works.
And while Brad is doing those posts, I am going to be running a series of Book Bombs to try and expose as many people as possible to these authors we picked. I’ve already been in contact with some of them about seeing if they can’t put their books on sale to coincide with the Book Bomb in order to pick up even more readers. That gets the authors more exposure but more importantly, that means they sell books and get paid (unlike Glyer).
There you go. Glyer-50-Hugos has gotten the International Lord of Hate on the record talking about controversial things like hand washing. If he keeps up this hard hitting journalism maybe he’ll score himself a few more Hugos.
Last week we released the Sad Puppies suggestions. Predictably, that caused some outrage. Then I asked for people to help out by providing links showing how SJWs operate. More outrage. Then the Breitbart article came out. Wow. That was fun.
I’ve been seeing a lot of criticisms of Sad Puppies. Now, my original plan was to have our eloquent spokesmanatee, Wendell, do an in depth interview with respected news man, Brian Williams, but Williams backed out of the interview at the last minute for some reason.
Sick burn, dude.
So instead, I’ve thrown together some criticisms and narratives that the SJWs have been using and my brief response to each.
Sad Puppies represents the “Fringe” and “bigots with crazy beliefs”.
Wait… Did my people nominate Requires Hate or a guy who publically supports NAMBLA while I wasn’t looking? Oh wait… That was the GOOD SIDE.
File 770 has written a lot about how Larry Correia is the worst person ever.
Headline: Man with 28 Hugo nominations thinks the system is perfectly fine.
Some people put on the Sad Puppies suggested slate have removed themselves.
Yes. This isn’t surprising. Considering the heat and concern trolling many of the suggested authors have been getting, I’m surprised it has only been a few.
If you’ll note, despite the allegations to the contrary, our suggestions are politically diverse. Of the ones who have dropped out, I do believe they have all been liberals.
We made an effort to contact everyone we put on beforehand to warn them what was coming. Apparently we missed two of these. One was added the day we put up the suggestions because a couple of posters pointed them out, and they truly are excellent and talented, but we’d forgotten about them during our initial brainstorming.
I can’t blame them for dropping out. And none of you should either. The ELoE talked about this a lot before putting together a slate. They have all personally experienced what happens when you draw the SJW contingent’s wrath. It isn’t pretty.
Says a SJW who grew up in the suburbs, and attended some of the most expensive schools in America, to the guy who grew up milking cows, and worked his way through Utah State, unironically.
Puppies are color blind. (No… really, come to think of it they are!)
We don’t care who you are or where you came from, as long as your writing is awesome.
Okay, I made up that last one to see if you were paying attention.
Nope, sorry. They’re actual fans who ponied up some money to vote. They’re just the wrong kinds of fans.
Sad Puppies supporters registering in record numbers.
Sad Puppies is all about mumble mumble racism.
Nope. We’re not about excluding anybody. That’s them. We’re about including more people.
Oh yeah! Vox Day is literally Hitler Satan!
He’s not even on the Sad Puppies slate this year, but he still lives rent free in their heads.
Last year I liked a story written by a guy SJWs think is racist. Could a comment made a few years ago by Vox Day to Nora Jemisin be seen as racist? Yep. Has Nora Jemisin said a whole bunch of racist things herself leading up to that and then a bunch after? Yep.
So, to attempt to put this into SJW terms, did a Person of Color (man, I hate that stupid term) aggress against another Person of Color who was also committing aggressions? I think so, but I got an accounting degree instead of gender studies, so I’m not sure.
Have the SJWs ever nominated individuals who have said or done controversial things for prestigious awards? Ha!
Have far worse and more insulting things been said about people like me or Sarah Hoyt by beloved Social Justice Warriors, with zero condemnation from their side? Oh hell yeah. But double standards are cool.
In reality, Sad Puppies don’t give a crap about what box an author checks. We care if they entertain us.
Damien Walter said Larry Correia just needs a hug.
Uh… Hugged by a confused “lonely Brit” who moved to Thailand searching for someone to love him? Naw. I’m cool. Thanks.
Larry Correia *claims* to be speaking to reporters!
I don’t know why it was so far-fetched for them to think that I was actually talking to reporters since Sad Puppies 2 got mentioned in the USA Today.
He’s gathering SJW names! Persecution!
I’d already sent a bunch of information on to the Breitbart guys to look into last week, and the only reason I posted was to gather more links showing how the run of the mill SJWs behaved. (feel free to go through them if you want to decide for yourself).
But even when they knew I was collecting quotes, they couldn’t help but provide more.
Okay, so there was a news report about Sad Puppies, but Breitbart isn’t a *real* media outlet.
Oh man, hopefully someday I’ll be able to break out huge and get in Salon or the HuffPo!
I like exposing bullies. SJWs operate by accusing their ideological opponents of all sorts of horrible things. The accusations are usually crap, but people are scared of being accused. Bullies are only powerful when nobody challenges them. Expose them, and their endless accusations lose strength.
So the SJWs will dismiss this article, but in truth they’re terrified of being exposed. As their accusations lose power more authors say to themselves screw the thought police, I’m going to write what I want. Then somebody somewhere might be having fun wrong, and SJWs can’t abide that.
My favorite part was seeing a former SFWA president in the comment section praising the article and agreeing about the importance of defending free speech.
This is all about Correia’s huge ego and his personal desire to win a Hugo.
Which is why I tried to back out, and when the ELoE outvoted me, we still made sure to suggest me up against some of the best writers alive, including one of the most popular authors on Earth and what is probably his single best book.
Seriously, guys, nominate Jim Butcher. (Hell, I’m voting for Butcher first!) The fact that he’s been ignored by the Hugos all this time is telling. I’m not joking. The man writes circles around most of the usual nominees. Gannon, Kloos, and Anderson also have amazing books in there. All are remarkable authors. Read the books and decide for yourself.
You should work within the system. The Sad Puppies method of asking outsiders to get involved is uncouth and barbaric.
Funny how that works, isn’t it?
Get them in a private conversation and most authors will admit that the Hugos are broken. Some are cool with it because it is broken in their favor. Others won’t say anything because they didn’t think there was anything they could do about it, and they knew the first group would make their lives miserable if they tried. So things stay the same or get increasingly asinine. Then when somebody does try to do something, they’ve rocked the boat, and are bad.
I noted that both Elizabeth Moon and David Gerrold both commented last week about the badness of Sad Puppies. That’s great. We are political polar opposites, but I think they’re talented and I’ve enjoyed works from both of them.
Here’s the thing. Whether you think what I’m doing is horrible or not, it has actually drawn attention to the same clique of rabid types that actively attacked both of you. Signing a petition for free speech is great. What happened next? They dismissed you as old, white, racist, neo-cons and went back to scaring the shit out of all the authors who don’t have entrenched established careers.
So you might not like me or my friends coloring outside the lines, but we actually believe in free speech, freedom of artistic expression, and not sabotaging the careers of the people who disagree with us. So if that means we need to flip over some tables at the country club, so be it.
Fandom is inclusive! So we have to exclude you!
I’m trying to think of how to explain this one, but I’ve been seeing it pop up a lot. On one hand, Fandom (as in the crowd that votes for the Hugos) claims to be all inclusive, but on the other hand, some of them get very upset when a new group of people who are also fans show up and participate. Because they’re the wrong kind of fans.
I’ve even seen some of these people go so far as to admit that the Hugo is actually a popularity contest just for them, which is why we are bad for meddling in their club. Okay. I can actually respect that, because at least it is honest.
However, considering it was me saying exactly that a few years ago that started all this. I went to the Hugos and came out saying it was a biased popularity contest for one little clique, and I was condemned for it, because the Hugos are all about quality, and art, and greatness, and represent all of fandom and sunshine and happiness.
I said nope, let me show you how it really is, and that’s what brings us to where we are today.
Now, voting for quality art is still true for many of the regular voters, and they take it very seriously. In fact, they cherish it and consider voting honestly a responsibility. I’ve got nothing but respect for them. I can even understand them seeing something like Sad Puppies as offensive, uncouth, even vulgar. And I can appreciate that.
But get them in private and start going through some of the message ridden dreck and see what they think. Most of these people have better things to do than to collaborate and nominate in blocks. So when the finals roll around they get to choose between Angsty Message Fic 1 and Angsty Message Fic 2. They’re not outnumbered by SJWs, but they’ve certainly been outmaneuvered.
We’re doing the same thing the SJWs have been doing for years. The difference is that it is safe to condemn the Sad Puppies contingent. We’re not going to sabotage their careers or slander them.
Sad Puppies wants to burn it all down.
Not really. Maybe that’s true for some of us, but let me give you a peek behind the curtain. We all have our different motivations. We don’t march in ideological lockstep.
I’ve explained my reasons repeatedly. When one of their beloved leaders called me Mr. Free Speech At All Costs they meant it as an insult. I took it as a compliment. I proved my point last year about the bias and was happy to walk away.
Brad Torgersen on the other hand is an idealist. He bleeds geek. He wants the Hugos to mean something again. He wants them to be special, and for the general reading public to look at them and say “Award Winning? Holy moly, then it must be good!” Brad wants the Hugos to be relevant to everyone. He dragged me back into this because he thinks Sad Puppies can actually make a difference.
As the mushy moderate of the Evil Legion of Evil, he’s like a Druid, trying to bring balance back to nature or something.
Hey, Monster Hunter Nation and Sad Puppies Supporters, I’ve been approached by a major media outlet gathering information about our little corner of the culture war.
I mentioned bias, and specifically anti-conservative bias among the voters. They asked if I had links to blog posts, comments, etc.
I don’t keep track of most of what these people say about us. Honestly you can only get called a racist hate monger by so many crazy people before it just becomes background noise. So if you guys don’t mind, would you please post your favorites in the comments below.
James May/Fail Burton specifically, I know you are like the archivist of their racist Twitter posts. Time to bust out the files. 🙂
Slate-ening? Oh well, run with it. Here is our suggested slate!
Brad Torgersen is this year’s banner carrier in our ongoing war against Puppy Related Sadness. Now that the registrations for memberships to nominate for the Hugo are closed, here is what the Evil League of Evil authors came up with in discussion. Here is the list, and I’ll talk about the philosophy/strategy below.
Best Novella
“Flow” – Arlan Andrews Sr. – Analog magazine November 2014
“One Bright Star to Guide Them” – John C. Wright – Castalia House
“Big Boys Don’t Cry” – Tom Kratman – Castalia House
Best Novelette
“The Journeyman: In the Stone House” – Michael F. Flynn – Analog magazine June 2014
“The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale” – Rajnar Vajra – Analog magazine July/Aug 2014
“Championship B’tok” – Edward M. Lerner – Analog magazine Sept 2014
“Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium” – Gray Rinehart – Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show
Best Short Story
“Goodnight Stars” – Annie Bellet – The Apocalypse Triptych
“Tuesdays With Molakesh the Destroyer” – Megan Grey – Fireside Fiction
“Totaled” – Kary English – Galaxy’s Edge magazine
“On A Spiritual Plain” – Lou Antonelli – Sci Phi Journal #2
“A Single Samurai” – Steve Diamond – Baen Big Book of Monsters
Best Related Work
“Letters from Gardner” – Lou Antonelli – Merry Blacksmith Press
“Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth” – John C. Wright – Castalia House
“THE HOT EQUATIONS: THERMODYNAMICS AND MILITARY SF” – Ken Burnside
“Wisdom From My Internet” – Michael Z. Williamson
“Why Science is Never Settled” – Tedd Roberts – BAEN
Best Graphic Story
“Reduce Reuse Reanimate (Zombie Nation book #2) – Carter Reid – (independent)
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)
“The Lego Movie” – Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
“Guardians of the Galaxy” – James Gunn
“Interstellar” – Christopher Nolan
“The Maze Runner” – Wes Ball
Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)
Grimm – ” Once We Were Gods” – NBC
The Flash – “The Flash (pilot)” – The CW
Adventure Time – “The Prince Who Wanted Everything” – Cartoon Network
Regular Show – “Saving Time” – Cartoon Network
Best Editor (Long Form)
Toni Weisskopf – BAEN
Jim Minz – BAEN
Anne Sowards – ACE/ROC
Sheila Gilbert – DAW
Best Editor (Short Form)
Mike Resnick – Galaxy’s Edge magazine
Edmund R. Schubert – Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show
Jennifer Brozek (Shattered Shields)
Bryan Thomas Schmidt (Shattered Shields)
Best Professional Artist
Carter Reid
Jon Eno
Alan Pollack
Nick Greenwood
Best Semiprozine
Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show
Abyss & Apex
Andromeda Spaceways In-Flight Magazine
Best Fanzine
Tangent SF On-line – Dave Truesdale
Elitist Book Reviews – Steve Diamond
The Revenge of Hump Day – Tim Bolgeo
Best Fancast
“The Sci Phi Show” – Jason Rennie
Dungeon Crawlers Radio
Adventures in SF Publishing
Best Fan Writer
Matthew David Surridge (Black Gate)
Jeffro Johnson
Amanda Green
Cedar Sanderson
Dave Freer
The John W. Campbell Award
Jason Cordova
Kary English
Eric S. Raymond
##
Now let’s talk STRATEGIC Puppies.
These are my suggested nominations. I am under no delusions that you guys do exactly what I suggest. 🙂 (seriously, it is like herding cats!). But I would encourage you to take a look at these, and consider nominating all of them. Everybody up there is someone who the ELoE talked about. Many of these are deserving, worthy types, who would basically be ignored because they don’t appease the SJW clique. I’ll share with you some of our reasoning.
After accomplishing my goals for SP2 of getting the SJWs to have a giant, public freak out demonstrating their political biases (accomplished, hoo boy, was that ever accomplished!) and auditing the vote process (accomplished, I saw zero evidence of dishonesty from the WorldCon people) I was ready to hang it up and not do an SP3. However, as a result of the giant public SJW come apart, I got contacted by a lot of people, fans and creators both, encouraging me to keep going.
See, the Hugos are broken. Everybody who is sane and paying attention realizes that it is just a popularity contest that has come to be dominated by one tiny insular group. The Hugos are supposed to mean something. They’re supposed to represent what ALL of fandom thinks is awesome. Many of the regular voters still treat it seriously, but they’re outnumbered. Hell, even the people benefitting from the Hugo’s current state will admit that it is broken, only they do so privately, and certainly not in front of the unwashed masses who like things like fun or enjoyment. (that’s you guys!) 🙂
Last year, I got most of my suggested nominees on the ballot. I basically just listed who I was voting for, and I voted based upon what I liked. However, we all learned some interesting things from the resulting SJW freak out. I nominated people ranging from fire breathing right wing curmudgeons, to mushy moderates, and a few that I honestly had no clue what their personal beliefs were. However, the SJWs immediately labeled every single one of them as a racist, homophobic, right wing, hate-monger of hatey-hate-hate, and how this wasn’t about me bringing some popular relevance back to the Hugos, but rather an attempt to keep women and minorities out of publishing. We all know that is crap, but that’s what they ran with.
Hell, they attacked poor liberal democrat Dan Wells as a racist Neo-Con, all because I thought his Warmachine novella was amazing (and normally media tie in fiction can’t buy a Hugo to save its life, regardless of how good it is).
So this year we are expanding the slate to encompass an even wider cross section of people who would normally be shunned. A lot of thought went into this, and I’ve got stuff to do, so today I’ll illustrate our though process by going over just one category. Let’s start with the big category of best novel:
Jim Butcher for Skin Game, because how can one of the most popular authors on earth, who is like the godfather and poster boy of an entire friggin’ genre, who has produced some truly incredible works of art, then get ignored by an award which is supposed to represent “best”? Oh wait… But they’ll say that Jim totally got a Hugo nom before! For Best RELATED WORK for a Dresden Files graphic novel… Oh hell no. That’s not how Sad Puppies rolls.
When I tell fans who don’t pay much attention to the WorldCon circle that Butcher, friggin’ BUTCHER! can’t get a Hugo, they’re stunned. I don’t know. Is that so crazy? Maybe he’s too popular? What’s next? Are they going to nominate Matt Damon for an Oscar? Only Jim is way more talented than Matt Damon (and better looking. Go Jim). And Skin Game is one of his best.
Kevin J. Anderson for The Dark Between the Stars, because how the hell can a genre fixture with 23 million books in print get ignored for decades? He’s one of the most popular authors alive. He is also one of the most helpful professionals in our business, who goes above and beyond the call of duty to help new writers succeed in the business. However, KJA (who is certainly no right winger!) can’t get nominated to save his life. See, Kevin commits the unforgivable sin of doing this stuff for a living and treating it like his job. He puts fan enjoyment ahead of cause of the day message fic, and then cranks out works. He gets a bad rap for writing lots of media tie in fiction (and how could Star Wars or Dune ever possibly represent *real* sci-fi?).
Oh, don’t worry, they’ll point at Kevin and say that he’s a hack because of the quality of some media tie in fiction that he wrote to spec, the same way last time they talked about the flaws in my first novel even though it was my 11th that was nominated. Here’s the thing. Kevin is a damned fine author. Read the book. He deserves the recognition.
Trial by Fire from Chuck Gannon. Now last year, I put up a bunch of really talented authors, and they immediately started taking flack, because OBVIOUSLY I wouldn’t have had to push these authors if they were actually *good* writers… (Holy shit, I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around how dumb that is) So here’s the thing, World, meet English Professor and Compton Crook Literary Award Winner Chuck Friggin’ Gannon, who in addition to being a master wordsmith, also knows how to write knock your socks off action adventure hard sci-fi which is a sort of Bourne Identity meets big idea interstellar warfare. You are welcome.
Because yeah… I can’t wait until Damien Walter explains how guys like Chuck Gannon and John C. Wright aren’t *real* writers. 🙂
Oh, but wait… There’s more. Because I love listening to the literati sneer at those of us who started out self-published, Marko Kloos has Lines of Departure. Marko was the SP2 nominee for the Campbell for best new author, and he actually got nominated, but had a short story sale far enough back it made him ineligible. The dude has serious skills.
After only a few years he is one of the most popular authors in indy sci-fi. His gritty space opera series has been a huge hit, and when I say huge, you guys remember my Alphabetical List of Author Success? https://monsterhunternation.com/2014/07/24/the-official-alphabetical-list-of-author-success/ Well, he’s up there on the D List with me, and at the rate he’s going should hit C soon. C is where your royalty checks buy Aston Martins. To put his popularity into perspective, indy published Marko Kloos sells more books quarterly than last year’s Hugo winner has sold in total.
And here’s the kicker. All those books are REALLY GOOD. No stunts, no gimmicks, no checking to see what social justice victim boxes they can mark, just the best damned books of the year (lots of suggestions for it, but the Martian wasn’t eligible). By authors new and old, but all of remarkable talent.
Then there’s me. I actually told Brad and the rest of the ELoE that I was perfectly fine with Monster Hunter Nemesis not being on the ballot. Because when the SJWs aren’t blaming my motivations on homophobia or racism or something, then obviously SP was all about me trying to buy myself a Hugo Award (seriously that’s dumb, I did statistical analysis most of my life, so knew going in the odds of winning were nil). Plus, believe it or not, I really don’t enjoy having mobs of angry SJWs telling tens of thousands of complete strangers that I’m a wife beating, rape apologist. I’m perfectly happy to bow out and screw with them from the sidelines.
Then the ELoE told me tough luck, and that if I dropped out, my fans (who make up the back bone of the growing Sad Puppies contingent) would get mad at me. Plus, John Wright said that MHN was my best book, and his vote for best book of 2014. And you really can’t argue with somebody who writes like John.
Though it will be funny to hear them say this all a stunt for me personally to get a Hugo to satisfy my own ego, when I’m nominating myself against SKIN GAME! 😀
Later on we’ll talk more about the other categories in depth, but here’s the thing, in some of these smaller categories, the nominees have become downright silly.
Take a look at our Best Related Work category. The usual nominees are things like Transsexual WereSeals love Dr. Who. We’re putting up big brain stuff relating to milSF, the nature of mankind, the history of writing, and my personal favorite in that category is one of the most respected neuro-scientists in the world’s essay about the value of scientific inquiry. Basically the usual stuff looks childish in comparison. But of course, we’ve suggested a collection of Mad Mike insulting people, because the Evil League of Evil does like to have fun.
In the novellas, novelettes, and short stories, look through those. I don’t think we have a single dinosaur love story. I do like that in Fanzine we’ve got a guy who the SJWs lied about and ran out of a con as part of their witch trials.
Quick look at Editor. Toni Weisskopf is one of the most respected editors there is. Even if you absolutely hate some of her authors (like me!) you’ve got to admit that she has been one of the most prolific, successful, talented, and all around bad ass editors in the business, not to mention a lifelong fan, who has done more for fandom than damn near anybody else alive, and she’s been doing this forever.
But did you know that she had never gotten a single Hugo nomination before Sad Puppies? None. Zip. Zero. Meanwhile, the favorite editor of the SJW crowd? I think he has ten.
There’s a blog that hates me and constantly misconstrues what Sad Puppies is about. If I recall correctly it has something like TWENTY EIGHT Hugo nominations.
That’s why I’m doing this.
So check it out. Mull it over. We’ll be posting more about this later.
