Son of the Black Sword won the inaugural Dragon Award for best fantasy. I want to congratulate all of the other nominees and winners. There were some truly fantastic stories to choose from. There were a lot of talented creators up for awards, and it is an honor just to be considered.
I want to thank my fans for voting, because they are absolutely amazing. I have the best fans ever. I wouldn’t trade my fanbase for anyone’s (and my fans are better armed too). I love you guys. Seriously. You are a bunch of bad asses.
I want to thank Toni and the good folks at Baen for putting together one hell of a book, and being awesome to work with.
And thank you, DragonCon. You guys rock. You saw the need for an award that represented all of fandom, and you stepped up. Thank you for all of the hard work this must have been. You did a great job.
Now the long version!
I was at Salt Lake City ComicCon for the last few days. I picked up some nasty con crud which turned into a cold, so I skipped church and slept until 11 on Sunday morning. I was—am still—pretty wrecked. I was playing World of Tanks (I’m never too sick to tank) when my wife got home from church. I heard the garage door open, and she came in excited and shouting something. Because Bridget isn’t the excitable/shouty kind, I knew something important was up, so I shut my game off and rushed downstairs.
She was saying you won.
I couldn’t believe it. Son of the Black Sword had won the Dragon Award for best fantasy. It took a minute for that to sink in. Somebody had sent her a text while she was getting out of the car, giving her a heads up. Toni Weisskopf was up on stage accepting on my behalf at that very moment.
I had to grab my phone and start checking Facebook. I had multiple messages from people at the ceremony. Congratulations were pouring in. It was stunning. I would have been watching, but this snuck up on me. I actually thought the award ceremony was later in the day, but then again, when you’re drinking Nyquil straight out of the bottle and don’t get out of bed until lunch, time is relative.
I checked in throughout the day, reading what people had to say. It was great to see so much overwhelming enthusiasm. One really cool thing was that I heard the award show was up-beat. There was no stupid posturing or useless virtue signaling. Nobody talked trash in their speech. Nobody handed out wooden buttholes. They were just fans there celebrating fun.
That’s the nature of DragonCon though. It is a big enthusiastic, Nerdi Gras. I try to hit DragonCon every other year, and I was there in 2015. Because of a scheduling screw up with the building, my local Salt Lake City ComicCon ended up on the same weekend as Dragon this time (and I talked to the program director, they really didn’t want to, because they share so many guests and vendors, but they were stuck this time). I was already committed to SLCC when I found out I was a Dragon finalist, because otherwise I would have loved to have been there. I’m planning on being back at Dragon again next year.
I want to talk about the nominees and winners a little bit. Starting with my category.
You can ask any of the fans who asked me about the Dragons during SLCC, and I told them the same thing. I thought Jim Butcher was going to win my category, and I was cool with that. Not just because Jim is my friend and about the nicest guy you’ll ever meet, but because he’s a brilliant, imaginative, storyteller and his work deserves recognition. And though the Venn diagrams of our fanbases overlap, his circle is way bigger, so I figure Jim would take it.
Except for one thing, Jim is such a class act that after they announced the finalists, he came out and told everybody that he voted for Son of the Black Sword! Aeronaut’s Windlass is a great book, but Jim thought SotBS was the stronger of the two this year. (I was honestly moved by that).
And one of the other finalists I was up against, where our fanbases overlapped a lot, was Dave Freer, who was nominated for Changeling’s Island. And Dave came out and said in that category he was voting for SotBS! Dave was also nominated in the YA category, and being a gentleman and a scholar, said that was where his book belonged. And he said that knowing that he was up against the late and extremely great Sir Terry Pratchett.
I’ve known Jim and Dave for a few years but I didn’t know the other nominees as well, and had not read the books in question. But I will say that R.R. Virdi is a very nice guy. I ended up talking to him a little bit yesterday on Facebook when he offered his congratulations, and said that he was honored to be competing against other authors that successful. He’s got a great attitude and really wants to entertain his readers. I’d encourage you guys to go check out his stuff.
In sci-fi, I’m not going to say who I voted for, because I’m friends with two of them. It came down to John C. Wright and Chuck Gannon for me, both excellent authors, but with two really different kinds of books. John took it, and I am really happy for him. I have no doubt Chuck will be back up there again in the future.
Sir Terry to took YA. I don’t think that surprised anybody, because the man was a legend, and this was all of his fan’s last chance to give him an award. It’s sad to think that this is it. Like Dave said on his page, he’d gladly lose to Terry Pratchett every year, if it meant keeping him around.
Military sci-fi was a tough category, with a bunch of really solid authors in it and a few friends. But I’ve got to say that I am really happy David Weber won. David is a great guy. Honestly one of the nicest people I’ve met, not just in this business, but in general. And when it comes to mil-SF, he’s like a godfather of the whole genre. I really like Marko’s stuff too.
Alternative history was an interesting one. You had some big dogs of the genre. I think the 1632 verse is the biggest thing in alternative history, but there were two of those competing against each other. Then you’ve got Harry Turtledove. And if Weber is a godfather of mil-SF, you’ve got to say the same thing about Turtledove for Alternative History. (I actually voted for Jonathan Maberry, because he’s awesome, and I love Deadlands) Only Naomi Novik took it. I’ve not read that series, but my wife tells me that they are fantastic. At least one book about dragons took home a Dragon!
Apocalyptic was a tough one. I’m friends with three of the nominees, so will plead the 5th as to how I voted. Nick Cole took home the Dragon. I Book Bombed that one, and it got a lot of attention for getting booted from his first publishing house for ridiculous political reasons, so it probably had an attention edge. But let me just say that you guys should all go look up Mark Wandrey’s A Time To Die on Amazon and get a copy. He’s got skills, and I think you will be seeing him as a finalist again. Sorry, Marina, but I haven’t had a chance to read your stuff yet. 🙂
Horror, again, lots of good books. Ironically, the winner Brian Neimeier was at Salt Lake City ComicCon with me (I book Bombed the prior book in the series). When we talked about the Dragons on Thursday, we both figured we would be losing. Brian is a humble guy, so I’m really happy for him.
I’m not an expert on the comics and graphic novels stuff, so have no idea there. Gaiman won, and despite him knowing jack shit about what Sad Puppies are actually about, the man has mad writing skills and lots of fans. Same with TV shows, GRRM may hate my guts, but Game of Thrones on HBO has tons of fans, so that sounds like another deserving win. (I voted for Daredevil season 2, because the Punisher was amazeballs). The Dragons are unabashedly about rewarding enthusiastic fans, and those things have lots of excited, motivated fans, so good for them.
The Martian won movies. I actually voted for Captain America: Civil War. But you really couldn’t go wrong in movies.
Fallout 4 won video games. Holy moly, yeah, I can see why. I’ve got about 160 hours into my Fallout game.
Fallout Shelter won mobile. That’s another one that I played the heck out of. Maxed out two vaults before I got bored, and the way I drift away from the vast majority of video games after a day or two, that’s really saying something.
On the games, I was mostly in the dark, because they weren’t things I was up to speed on. Next year I’m going to campaign for some Warmachine and Infinity! 🙂 Though I do love Call of Cthulhu (though have never played that edition) so way to go there.
I look through the list of nominees and winners, and for once it is a bunch of fun stuff, where I’ve read, or would actually want to read most of them. That’s fantastic. I look forward to many more Dragon Award ballots like this.
Somebody was asking me what I’d like to see in the future. I think it would be cool to have Fantasy broken into Fantasy and Urban Fantasy, or maybe even Paranormal Romance, sort of like how they’ve broken up Sci-Fi. Those are genres that sell millions of books, yet where the authors get very little respect from the traditional snooty awards types. I’d love to see those fans have a chance to celebrate what they think is great too.
Whatever the Dragon Award folks decide to do going forward, I have no doubt it will be great. They’ve shown what they’re about—fans having fun—and that’s what is really important.
I don’t even know what the rules are for prior winners, but I’ll tell you guys right now, since I’ve been lucky enough to get one, I am perfectly happy if you never nominate me for a Dragon again. I’ve been recognized. There are so many awesome writers out there who have been ignored by other awards for years and years, that I would love to see some of them get a shot. Spread the love. Read great books. And then next year, nominate whoever you think was great.
Again, thank you. I love you guys. You’re the best.
I will be at Salt Lake City ComicCon for the next few days along with 120,000 other nerds having fun.
My home base during the con will be the WordFire Press booth. I’ll be there off and on throughout the days. Bring your stuff and I’ll sign it, and copies of all my books will be on sale there.
Thursday
5:00 – Writing Fantasy, An inside look at the art and craft of creating the fantastic. 151G. I’m moderating. With Laurell K. Hamilton, Matthew J. Kirby, Sarah Kuhn, Brian McClellan, and L.E. Modesitt.
7:00 – World Building and Magic Systems, A Character of Their Own. 253A. Me, Biran Durfee, Rhiannon Paille, Megan Hutchins, L.E. Modesitt, Chad Morris, and Candace Thomas
Friday
3:00 – THE LARRY SHOW, which is officially called Monster Hunter International Presents: Writing Action 150G, and the only panelist is me. (this is the one where I teach you how to write action scenes, but I try to make it fun for everybody)
Saturday
5:00 -Character Creation: How to Write Believable, Likable, and Interesting Characters. 255B. Me, Brian Durfee, Dave Farland, Laurell K. Hamilton, Sean Hoade, Sarah Kuhn.
Son of the Black Sword comes out in paperback this week.
I am really proud of this one. It is my first attempt at writing an epic fantasy. I had a lot of fun with it.
Despite me not being a *real* author, Son of the Black Sword had done pretty good.
Sales were solid. Audio book sales were excellent (due to the fantastic narration of Tim Gerrard Reynolds).
This year SotBS has been a finalist for the Audie, AML, CLFA, Rampant Manticore, H Beam Piper Memorial, Gemmell Legend, and Dragon Award.
Shockingly, despite being considered a mere purveyor of hack pulp,I actually got some some good critical acclaim for once. It made Buzzfeed’s best of 2015 list, made Audible’s best of 2015 list, got a starred review on Publisher’s Weekly, was an LA Times pick, and I know I’m forgetting some other ones. I’ve never gotten “critical acclaim” before.
SotBS got a Jim Butcher cover quote. And true story, one day on Facebook fans were trying to decided who to vote for in the Dragon for best fantasy. Aeronaut’s Windlass is one of the other finalists. And this is a tough one, because the Venn diagram of Butcher and Correia fans overlaps a lot (though Jim’s circle is way bigger). But then Jim commented and said he thought SotBS was better.
I about died. What a class act (and brilliant author, if you’re not reading him you’re missing out).
But the best thing of all? I got Larry Elmore artwork! BOOM! Winning! 😀
The next two books in the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior are:
House of Assassins
Destroyer of Worlds
I’ll be working on the next one as soon as I finish up Monster Hunter Siege.
The voting for the Dragon Awards closes at the end of the month. Please spread the word and tell your friends. The Dragons are open to all fans, don’t cost anything, and they want as many fans as possible participating.
I would love for the first annual Dragon to have more fans voting in it than the Hugos.
Once you register here http://application.dragoncon.org/dc_fan_awards_signup.php they will email you your ballot. They send these out in batches, so make sure you give yourself time. If you registered, but not gotten your voting email yet, it might be stuck in your spam folder. It is from dcawards at dragoncon.
Aw, the Guardian’s Village Idiot Remembered My Birthday!
At least I assume that’s why I showed up in the pages of the pathetic Brit newspaper/bird cage liner The Guardian again on Saturday. Either because it was my birthday–and Damien knows I love piñatas–or it might have been that poor stupid Damien Walter needed the uptick in traffic again. The only time his goofy little opinion pieces get any traffic are when I make fun of them.
Or it could be that last week I wrote an article about the sorry state of the US media, and the Guardian took that as a challenge.
For those of you not familiar with Ace Reporter Damien Walter, you are in luck. Just go up to this blog’s search engine and type in “Village Idiot”, and a whole bunch of fiskings of his goofy/snooty ramblings will pop up. Every time I say something about how modern sci-fi fandom has gone so PC that it has shoved its head up its own ass, and some person thinks I’m exaggerating the state of things, along comes another Damien column, and that person is like “Damn, son. It’s worse than you said.” Truly, Damien is the gift that keeps on giving.
Since the Guardian is falling apart financially and laying people off, I can only hope that Damien is able to cling to employment. Ha! Who am I kidding? I doubt the Guardian actually pays him! He should be safe.
I might not bother fisking the whole thing, because poor dimwitted Damien’s latest jackassery is even more pedantic and boring than usual. It’s another article where he pretends to have read books before reviewing them. I’ll just hit the highlights.
Basically, Damien read some Wiki synopsis or the first few pages of various books, and then put on his Wannabe Literature Professor hat. Because those who can do, do. Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t even do that take grant money from the British government to write a novel and then run off to Thailand to chase Lady-Boys.
Original is italics, my comments are in bold.
Hugo awards: reading the Sad Puppies’ pets
The rightwing lobby are gunning for books to win the sci-fi awards that match their ideological project. They really don’t care about writing well
By Damien “Never Had a Proper Male Role Model and Is Still Very Upset Someone Made Fun Of His Hair Cut In Middle School” Walter.
For the last few years, the Hugo awards for science fiction have been campaigned against by a group of writers and fans calling themselves the Sad Puppies – mostly male, very white, and overwhelmingly conservative.
In true Olympic spirit, Damien is off to a great start by cramming several lies into the opening line. It isn’t mostly male. In fact, it was run by three women this year. The Sad Puppies don’t care what color anybody is (ironically in the USA, I’m supposed to check the Latino box, which is annoying because I think checking any box is stupid). And last but not least, I’d say most of us are probably more libertarian than conservative.
Unhappy with sci-fi’s growing diversity, the Puppies have deliberately block-voted for certain titles to get them nominated for Hugos at the expense of a wider field.
Another lie. If by “diversity” Damien means the year I really got going on this topic the winners were 14 white liberals and 1 Asian liberal, and people like him hailed it as a “triumph of diversity”, sure. Run with that.
They say it is their goal to “poke the establishment in the eye” by nominating “unabashed pulp action that isn’t heavy-handed message fic”.
Yeah. I just couldn’t handle any more dying polar bears or robot rape.
I say it is to sponsor awful writers.
And Damien is an expert on awful writing.
The Puppies have two criteria for what they deem excellence: does it turn a buck? And has the author dared to say anything, ever, that they disagree with?
Nope and nope. Two more lies.
Never disagree with? SP1 and 2 was mostly me throwing some stuff together that I liked, and I nominated works by several people who I disagreed with politically. Damien conveniently forgets that part where one of my novella nominees was a liberal democrat, who was immediately set upon and attacked as a “racist neo-con” because I liked his story (Remember, back then the WorldCon crowd wouldn’t actually come out and admit the whole thing was political, which was the point I was trying to prove).
If you look at the SP3 nominees, they are clearly all over the board politically, philosophically, racially, sexually, or by any other metric you come up with. SP4’s suggested nominee list was put together out in the open, democratically, with input from anyone who wanted to participate. And to put a cherry on top of how obviously idiotic this accusation is, a few of those nominees “disagreed” with us by dropping out due to political pressure from Damien’s friends.
Scratch that. Damien’s side. Damien doesn’t actually have “friends”.
Making a buck? Well duh. It’s a FAN POPULARITY AWARD, moron. When books nobody ever actually buys are winning your fan award, that should be a warning you’ve got a problem.
This, paired with their conspiracy theories about some big sci-fi publishers, means that they tend to champion mostly self-published authors.
One more line, two more lies.
In an award system where a category came into existence simply so Patrick Nielsen-Hayden could finally get a trophy, somebody with clout and reach got a dozen media outlets—who never covered the Hugos before—to run matching stories about sexist/racist invaders in the same 24 hour period, but conspiracies are absurd! – Says the reporter who somehow knew I was a finalist before the announcements were made.
And the vast majority of SP nominees have been traditionally published. I do believe however that we were the cause of the first ever nominations for self-published or shockingly, media tie-in works.
Which tells you a lot more about the snobbish nature of the Hugos than it does about us.
Nothing about quality
Lie. In fact, going back to the very beginning I was saying that the quality of any given work had become irrelevant compared to the author’s politics or ass kissing ability.
– though you don’t need an in-depth knowledge of sci-fi to understand that a short story called Space Raptor Butt Invasion (yes, really) has not arrived on the Hugo lists because of its calibre.
Another lie. Space Raptor Butt Invasion was not a Sad Puppy nominee. It was nominated by an offshoot group which started during SP3, called Rabid Puppies. They have different goals and methods. Damien, and everybody who has paid a lick of attention, knows this. They just like to confuse the two whenever it is convenient.
Oh, and Space Raptor Butt Invasion is still more award worthy than If You Were a Dinosaur My Love… Because Chuck Tingle is hilarious and love is real.
With this year’s Hugo awards coming on Saturday night in the US, I thought I’d read some of the authors championed by the Puppies. (Don’t ever say I don’t do anything for you.)
Judging by how pathetic these reviews are, trust me, he still hasn’t done anything for you.
If you find meaning in straight-to-video Dolph Lundgren films, then Larry Correia’s novels will be your kind of read.
Wait… Is he comparing me to Dolph Lundgren, the ripped 160 IQ chemical engineer, turned Red Mother Fucking Scorpion, Ivan “I Will Break You” Drago, and all around bad ass… as an insult?
He left out the turned Machinegun Dealer part, which is what if I recall correctly, was what caused Damien to begin wetting the bed about me to begin with.
kicked off his Monster Hunter series with Monster Hunter International, about an accountant whose boss turns into a monster.
News flash. Guardian Book Reviewer reviews an author’s debut novel seven years late.
So he shoots him. In fact, much of the Monster Hunter series relies rather heavily on people the hero doesn’t like turning into monsters … so he can shoot them.
Another lie, but it just demonstrates that Damien merely skimmed the first chapter so he could fake a review.
The bit about the series relying heavily on people the hero doesn’t like turning into monsters so he can shoot them? I found out about this article when somebody shared it to the MHI fan page on Facebook. Nobody there could think of any other cases over five books where somebody the hero didn’t like turned into a monster so he could shoot them. The closest anyone could think of was the opposite happening.
You know what they say about assumptions, Damien? They say when you in particular make them you’re probably going to be wrong, because you’re a dope.
Speaking of assumptions, this is the same guy who published that I was a sexist/racist/homophobe, who when confronted for evidence, then crowd sourced a witch hunt of all my copious political writings to find something bad I’d said. And the best thing they could come up with was my teaching free self-defense classes to women (so they could shoot rapists in the face) was “victim blaming”.
Sadly, Correia’s books are not quite awful enough to be good. They’re just mediocre.
Isn’t it a little weird that Damien chose to talk about my debut novel from 2009, rather than my 12th novel, Son of the Black Sword, which would have been the book eligible for this period? Because that book was picked as one of the best books of the year by the LA Times, Buzzfeed, and the Science Fiction Book Club, has gotten critical and even academic acclaim, and has been a finalist for the Audie, Gemmell Legend, AML, CLFA, H. Beam Piper Memorial, and Dragon awards.
Go figure.
That’s fine – Dolph Lundgren movies are also often mediocre, but plenty of people like them.
And more than anything else here, that one sentence demonstrates why Damien is a fucking tool.
Damien? Never heard of her.
But did Lundgren’s Masters of the Universe deserve to take the 1987 Oscar over Oliver Stone’s Platoon? I don’t think so – and in that same way, Correia’s novels in no way merit consideration for the Hugos (thankfully, he only made the 2014 longlist).
Actually, dipshit, I made the 2015 longlist also, but immediately asked them to remove me from the list, and then I recused myself from all future Hugo nominations, so that you mopes couldn’t carry on your ridiculous narrative that Sad Puppies was all because I personally wanted a Hugo.
Dave Freer’s Changeling Island, shortlisted for this year’s inaugural Dragon awards, is all about story – which is fortunate, because sentences as thoroughly mangled and amateurish as Freer’s won’t be winning any prizes (at least I hope not).
Compared to Dave’s writing, Damien is finger painting with his own poo.
Open with a strong start, they say; now read Changeling Island’s opening:
It had been the most terrifying, miserable day of Tim Ryan’s whole miserable life. He’d just done it to show Hailey. Because … because she said he was too scared. He was. Every time he tried anything it always went wrong. Horribly wrong. And he wasn’t a thief. Well, he didn’t want to be. It was one of the few thing things his dad ever really got angry with him about. And then he’d only been a little five-year-old kid helping himself to a chocolate bar in a store. But Hailey … she said … and he’d do anything to get her.”
Editor hat on (and unlike Damien, I’ve actually edited stuff people have paid money for). The purpose of an opening line is to serve as a hook to make you want to read more. It makes a promise. This is a YA book, aimed at young adults. We meet a character, and from the voice/tone, we can see it is a kid, he’s nervous, and he lacks confidence. Now the reader wants to know why, and reads the next sentence. And the next. If they made it that far, they just bought the book.
Mission accomplished. Except for Damien, because apparently Dave didn’t write that to hook the Sanctimonious Fucktard market.
Funny Damien didn’t pick the opening line of MHI for some reason.
On one otherwise normal Tuesday evening I had the chance to live the American dream. I was able to throw my incompetent jackass of a boss from a fourteenth-story window.
Damn right. And that opening line has probably made me a million bucks now. I bet Dolph Lundgren would love that opening. If Damien had put that in the Guardian, with its readership numbers, I might have sold another one, maybe even two, books!
In fairness … to Freer … pick any passage, from. Any Puppy author like Brad Torgersen or Sarah Hoyt and you will find … sentences … as mangled as these.
Oooooh, this working author used too many ellipses in a paragraph to indicate a young character was hesitant and correcting himself! says the knobtosser who has only published a handful of short stories (to such a pathetic reception that I can’t even find them on an Amazon search).
But at least Damien skimmed one whole chapter of my first book before writing a review. Dave only got one paragraph!
By the way, Sarah Hoyt started out writing “LITERATURE”, and got a lot of critical praise, but switched to stuff people actually like to read because the pay was crap. Brad’s background was in short fic, where he kept winning that Analog Reader’s Choice award, and before his badthink politics came to you guys’ attention SFWA thought he was good enough to nominate for a Nebula.
Within the Puppy movement, John C Wright is considered to be its resident intellectual colossus and was nominated three times for the 2015 best novella category (which eventually went to no one).
Objection, your honor. The prosecution is conflating the two puppy movements again, because this article is supposedly about Sad Puppies, but only one of those nominations were from the Sads and he knows it.
Sustained. One more outburst like that, Mr. Walter, and you will have to look upon this photo of Dolph Lundgren in order to dwell upon your own pathetic existence in comparison.
I will break– Never mind. It appears you are already broken. Please, Damien, stop crying. You are making me uncomfortable.
He is hugely influenced by the Inklings, particularly CS Lewis. But in comparison to Lewis, whose metaphysical investigations were built up from wide-reading during a lengthy education,
Uh, actually Wright got an education, graduated law school, was an attorney, then a reporter, then a newspaper editor, and back before he became known as a staunch Catholic he was so beloved by the literati they nominated him for a Nebula (an award which only SFWA members can vote for).
Funny how Brad and John were both *real* writers before their politics became well known…
Wright reads like a first-year humanities undergrad who refuses to read beyond a small pool of comforting favourites, writing essay after essay (or novel after novel) only to demonstrate how much he knows.
I was wrong earlier. Damien has one friend. Projection. In this case the “essay after essay trying to sound smart” part, because Damien is way too incompetent to get his novel finished.
Consider this dialogue from Wright’s The Phoenix Exultant:
Rhadamanthus said, ‘There is a tension between the need for unity and the need for individuality created by the limitations of the rational universe. Chaos theory produces sufficient variation in events, that no one stratagem maximises win-loss ratios. Then again, classical causality mechanics forces sufficient uniformity upon events, that uniform solutions to precedented problems is required. The paradox is that the number or the degree of innovation and variation among win-loss ratios is itself subject to win-loss ratio analysis.
Oh, look guys, Damien picked a dialog paragraph with no context from a book. You have no idea who the character is, or what they’re talking about, or what that paragraph is supposed to convey. Is the character actually smart? Trying to impress someone? Is the information meant to confuse someone else? Who is he speaking to? Have these ideas been discussed previously?
Well there you have it, folks, books have beginnings and page numbers for a reason.
That random sampling of one paragraph is a bullshit review method. You could do the same thing to Dune, Hyperion, or Cryptonomicon, and cherry pick some information dense, confusing when out of context paragraph too. It doesn’t mean those books aren’t fucking amazeballs.
That is why we have Book Reviews and not Paragraph Reviews (unless it is the Guardian, because we should just be thankful those lazy socialists show up to work at all).
Though this reminds me of an incident with the Imbecile Stalker Troll Clamps, where he was all hung up on what were author’s best lines, and his was something about globes of light floating like fish semen or some bullshit. I said my best line was The End, because that meant I’d finished another book and now I could get paid for it. Wannabe artistes get hung up on individual lines. Working authors tell stories.
This goes on, for page after page.
Actually, no it doesn’t.
The characters are no more than ciphers for Wright’s ranting, and what story exists is only glimpsed in momentary fragments between diatribes. After long enough reading Wright, you start to suspect that he, like most of these authors, simply can’t help himself, vomiting on to the page whatever passes through his head.
Maybe you should try “vomiting” stuff onto a page, Damien. Then you might actually finish that book and quit ripping off the British tax payers with your book welfare. Whatever your current method is doesn’t seem to be working.
But the funny thing is, for those of us who have read Wright, we know that his stories vary a lot in style depending on what kind of effect he’s going for. Sometimes he does big brain sci-fi, other times he writes borderline Narnia. Personally, my favorite is his Nightlands stuff.
At this point, we must be reminded that these are amazing times for science fiction and fantasy storytelling.
Something I agree with, but for entirely different reasons. Back when gatekeepers controlled what made it to market, jock sniffer wannabe pundits like Damien actually had a small measure of power. Now they are increasingly irrelevant.
Not really. That’s what Damien found in ten seconds of Googling. Anything more exhausting would require him to take another mental health holiday.
And the hack writers and sloppy sentences championed by the Sad Puppies deserve no place in that picture; for their politics, yes, but also their sheer shoddiness.
I love when they slip up and admit that it is actually all about politics.
But the Sad Puppies don’t want any of their books to end up on bestseller lists or TV screens.
That is quite possibly the stupidest thing Damien has ever written, and that’s saying something.
First off, all authors want our books on bestseller lists and TV screens. Duh.
Second, I’ve optioned the rights for an MHI TV show to Entertainment One (the Walking Dead people). They teamed up with Sky Network and brought in a team of screen writers. We just renewed the contract this year. It is in development. Knock on wood.
And third, last week the latest MHI novel was the #1 bestselling fantasy hardcover in America on Nielsen Book Scan (the most accurate of all bestseller lists).
So literally, while Damien typing up this dreck about how we don’t want to be on TV or bestseller lists, I was on a bestseller list and cashing option checks.
You can’t make this stuff up.
And I’m not the only SP nominee to be a bestseller or have optioned stuff for movies. SP3 and SP4 nominee Jim Butcher is a #1 bestseller and already had a TV show. We nominated bestseller Kevin J. Anderson, who has written for like a dozen movie and TV franchises.
Shittiest. Reporter. Ever.
It’s the same frustrating paradigm that British MP Michael Gove hit upon when he said that people were sick of experts, or what Donald Trump plays upon when he rails against “professional politicians”.
I don’t know what the fuck lame ass comparison Damien is trying to draw here. But he thinks comparing me to Dolph Lundgren was an insult… so thanks? I guess?
We’re seeing the Dunning-Kruger effect played out on a mass scale, and the Sad Puppies are just a speck in that wider problem.
BWA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAA HA HA! Snort.
Oh wait… Dear Lord. He’s serious. Sometimes I can’t tell if Damien is such an ideological shill that he is compelled to say stupid shit, or if he’s actually as mentally defective as he comes off.
Regardless, for those who aren’t familiar with Dunning-Kruger, that’s the phenomena where the less you know about a particular topic, the stronger your opinion tends to be, with the truly ignorant being the most opinionated. The more you learn about the topic, the more uncertain you become, until you achieve actual expertise, and then your confidence in your conclusions increases.
The subject under discussion is WRITING BOOKS PEOPLE WANT TO READ. On one side, Damien cites me, Dave, Sarah, Brad, and John, who between us have published like 40 million words of paying fiction, as being shitty writers. On the other hand, we have a clueless wannabe dilettante hanger-on who has failed to publish anything, who is so certain he knows the market that he can judge entire careers based on a paragraph.
Yeah… Draw your own conclusions about who goes where on the Dunning-Kruger graph.
Projection is truly Damien’s only friend.
EDIT! Because this is too awesome not to share, this was pointed out on FB while I was putting this up, Damien’s first short fiction sale was in 2005. In 2008 he attended one of those fancy expensive writer’s workshops. That means that Damien has been trying to be a professional writer LONGER THAN I HAVE.
