My Thoughts on the 2016 Hugos

See? I told you so.

I didn’t watch any of it. I painted minis instead. I’m going off of the discussions I saw on Facebook this morning.

I hung it up after 2015’s Celebration of Wooden Assholes and didn’t participate in 2016. I figured it would shake out like this, the elitist cliques would circle the wagons, send a message that outsiders can fuck off, and declare whatever happened a victory for “diversity”.

Funny. When I started Sad Puppies four years ago, the narrative was all about how the Hugos were a celebration of what was great, representing the best of all of fandom. I said nope, it is decided by cliques, ass kissing, and politics. They called me a liar. Fast forward to now, and at least they are open it is all politics. Hell, they’re celebrating it.

Just ask yourself this, what kind of scumbags would give No Award to Larry Elmore? This is a man who is one of the most prolific and popular fantasy artists of all time. His covers dominated the better part of a decade, a whole generation of writers grew up with his posters on their wall, yet, he never got nominated for a Hugo that entire time.

Larry Elmore wasn’t involved in any campaigns. When he found out that fans finally recognized him for a Hugo nomination he was surprised, honored, and humbled.

No Award.

Moira Greyland exposed to the culture of rape and pedophilia in old fandom, and not the made up “rape culture” the modern feminists accuse anybody who disagrees with them of. It was a gut wrenching expose in a category normally won by fluff. But they wanted that swept under the rug.

No Award.

Toni Weisskopf? No Award. But we already knew that was coming. Sure, she’s one of the most successful editors and publishers in the business, exactly the sort of “empowered woman” these liars claim we want to keep out.

And Jerry Pournelle… Living legend. You pieces of shit are honestly going to tell us that Jerry Pournelle is not award worthy?

Sure. Why not?

And to Neil Gaiman, boldly standing up to those pesky Puppies during his speech…

When you got your buddy Jonathan Ross to volunteer to MC the awards, it wasn’t those jerky Sad Puppies that formed an angry twitter mob because he *might* tell a fat joke. He got sacrificed on the altar of PC.

When you were getting yelled at for making light of Trigger Warnings, it wasn’t the Sad Puppies who were triggered.

And when some dilettante couch surfer was demanding that readers judge authors by the color of their skin rather than the content of their books, and holding up your book as the example for her finger shaking scolding, it was the Sad Puppies who said that was nonsense.

Now, I know you’re a multi-millionaire A-lister and your career is so awesome you can safely pat those yapping jackals on their tender heads and not lose a hand, but most authors aren’t in your lofty tower. When the angry mobs come for them, they’re fucked. Names get ruined, contracts get cancelled, and careers are derailed.

But instead of standing up to the Outrage of the Week crowd, you stood up against those jerky puppies. (by the way, Neil, there were two separate groups of Puppies with entirely different goals and methods, but I’m sure you knew that before you told them all to sod off). So way to go.  You showed them.

So all this latest nonsense sure makes me glad I didn’t waste any time on the Hugos this year. What a joke.

Aw, The Guardian's Village Idiot Remembered My Birthday!
The American News Media Sucks

383 thoughts on “My Thoughts on the 2016 Hugos”

  1. Let’s face it: The Hugos, and the Worldcon. . . are the Walking Dead. Or at least the Scootered Dead.

    We simply need to ignore them, and let their Death Spiral take it’s course. . .

          1. That is a 28mm Repaer Chronosocpe mini of what I presume is a body horror undead or life-supported super villain called Dr. TotenKranz (Dr Funeral Wreath or Dr DeathWarrant)

            Might make a good re-imagining of Davros from Dr Who.

      1. Of course, the Blog of Eternal Stench will note that the International Lord of Hate and his followers are laughing at the disabled.

        Despite the fact that I walk with a cane on a GOOD day, a walker on a bad one, and am on a wheelchair on the really bad days. . .

  2. Hey, I can’t say I’m too much into any of this stuff, but I’ve been a big supporter of yours ever since I read about all of this Hugo scandal AND because I knew your stance on guns. Keep up the good fight, man. We’re on your side.

  3. As usual, people like Gaiman pick the safer option and pretend it’s striking a brave stance against “bad” people.

    I’m guessing they tried to be less blatant with the No Awards this year, but it still is obviously being used to punish any nominated by either group of Puppies.

    1. It’s the old classic loony downhill sleigh ride from an almost reasonable preference or goal to total paranoid self righteous insanity enabled by liberal application of false or even absurd dichotomies between A and ANTI-A ,or inverted to Anti-A vs. Pro-A where A is often a position NO ONE HAS EVER TAKEN because it is nuts yet SOMEONE must be blamed for it.

      [Kind of sane] Cancer sucks! ->” we claim the anti-cancer position” -> we fight cancer-> anyone we bitch at or who gets in our way or disagrees with us is inhibiting our fight against cancer-> They must be PRO CANCER-> they are dupes and sellouts who work for BIG CANCER who pays them to lie so that people get cancer making the Cancer Barons rich. -> If you know someone with cancer we’d have saved them but the pro cancer people wouldn’t have it. ->Cancer is the pro cancer side’s fault. ->YOU aren’t pro-cancer are you? [Totally ridiculous and delusional]

    1. The difference between the Hugos and the Dragons was that I was able to nominate works for all the categories of the latter without much difficulty (checking date of publication was the trickiest bit) whereas I had a horrible time finding anything I wanted to nominate in the shorter fiction categories of Hugo.

      Unsurprisingly when it came to voting the same applied. I had in fact read more than one entry in every book category (and in the Alt-Hist category I think I’d read all of them). The Hugos OTOH were a struggle if one was to vote intelligently and not mindlessly following a slate.

      I’m sure I’m very far from alone in this. I expect this will mean that the Dragons will get many many more votes than the Hugos did this year and that they’ll get more and more in the years to come. Meanwhile the Hugos will likely decay back to their mid 2000s levels of irrelevance where it took about 100 votes to get a nomination and a block of a few hundred to ensure victory

  4. If you’re willing to No-Award GOOD books, authors, editors, and artists in the name of your agenda/ politics- then obviously you’re also willing to vote for crappy books for the same reason.

    Correia was right.

  5. Glad I’m not the only one flat-out astonished by no-award-ing Jerry Pournelle.

    It’s almost like they want to prove just how fucked the Hugos are.

    1. Jerry Pournelle (along with Larry Niven) is a pillar of the field. NO AWARDing Jerry is like when SFWA shit all over Mike Resnick. This field no longer gives a damn about the men who actually helped make it great. This field is obsessed with virtue-signaling and identity politics.

      1. Nonononono, you don’t understand. Jerry Pournelle’s evilbadthinkicky books have been part of what has been holding SF back from being accepted by all right-thinking people.
        No-Awarding such counter-revolutionary thinking is precisely the right thing to do.

      2. No Awarding Jerry Pournelle is a fucking crime. Also, what happened with Mike Resnick? I’ve never heard about that.

        1. Mike Resnick used to have a regular column in the SFWA Bulletin, IRRC with Barry Malzberg. They’d discuss the state of science fiction publishing or talk about its history. They did one on several prominent women editors of the 1950’s and 1960’s, how the fanboys were in awe of them, how these fine women were able to be both feminine and skilled editors.

          The Social Justice Whineybutts blew a gasket because *gasp* Resnick used the term “ladies.” Because he mentioned how good one of these women editors looked in a swimsuit, how another cooked awesome chili that really made the party at one or another major convention. Not why the heck have these very prominent women editors been so totally *forgotten* by most of today’s sf readers, along with a lot of great women authors of that era (Margaret St. Clair/Idris Seabright, CL Moore, etc), which is a real shame that ought to be addressed, but OOOOH SEXIST, we can’t have that.

          Suddenly the column was permanently suspended, the SFWA Bulletin editor was being fired, and a new editorial review policy was being put into place to make sure that nothing sexist (as the Social Justice Whineybutts defined it) would ever be published in those hallowed pages again. And it lead a whole bunch of writers (myself included) to decide that SFWA just wasn’t representing our interests any more and drop our memberships.

          Search “tempest in a teardrop” or “tempest in a B-cup” to find blog posts about it. IIRC it was in 2014, because it was after LoneStarCon III, when I still had a SFWA membership and did make a (brief) visit to the SFWA suite when I wasn’t busy working our booth in the dealers’ room.

          1. So I looked and found scans of that article. It didn’t seem objectionable to me. And then I saw the responses to it. Holy shit!

            Why does it always seem that when SJWs get angry, their response is orders of magnitude worse than what made them angry? You say something that someone could perceive as homophobic? They want you fired from your job, tarred and feathered, and they will likely send you death threats. They seem to have all lost their minds.

          2. The straw that broke the gerbils’ backs was when Malzberg accurately called them liberal fascists. Once Malzberg did that, it was all over. The liberal fascists proved they weren’t liberal fascists by being (ding, ding) liberal goddamned fascists: driving Mike, Barry, and Jean out of the Bulletin. I hear Neil Clarke is now in charge of that august publication. (head in hands) I am pretty sure the magazine devotes itself in large part to earnest, heart-felt discussions about how SF/F is hopelessly racist, misogynist, and heteronormative — and what to do about it.

  6. I hadn’t noticed until the Sad Puppies that I had not gone out of my way to look for Hugo Award winning book for years. I am pretty sure that it was because they had given up the pretense about being entertaining writers and were pointed at whatever the Social Injustice of the year was.

    1. To be fair it Gaiman. Any punch he ever throws will be down. He could punch the queen and it would be punching down.

  7. I really wanted the tent to be big enough for Puppies and the old guard, but it’s not. Message received. At least I don’t need to waste time submitting to those markets any more. Time to get off my rear and get my novel polished and sent to Baen…

    1. Yes please do, if it is as good as The Golden Knight “I” will buy it, if it is only half as good it will be better than some of the Hugo works.

  8. I agree with you, Larry, but I find it sad that a once prestigious award, won by the likes of Heinlein and other greats, is lowered to the importance-level of used toilet paper. All for politics. (sigh) Screw it, I need some range-time…. My son got me one of those cheap side-by-side hammer coach guns, it’s a hoot.

  9. I have to think Gaiman thinks everything in Puppydom is merely Vox Day. I suspect Gaiman spent zero time talking to anyone on the Puppy side, doesn’t understand the actual diversity of the Puppy fans or participants, and that Gaiman merely wanted a cheap, quick way to virtue-signal — to the establishment — that he is still their darling.

    Yeah, way to punch down, Mr. Gaiman. So bold and heroic of you. 🙁

    1. I think your right, but Gaiman has always been a wussy beta-male. I like his work, but courage is simply not part of his character. He is far too obsessed with sucking up to his tribe.

      He needs to borrow Larry’s balls sometime. It would do him magical *wonders*.

  10. So, no more of my money to Gaiman.

    Not that that’s really a loss – the only thing of his I’ve ever enjoyed was Good Omens, and the style there was mostly Sir Pterry.

    1. I can see where you’re coming from, but personally I’d rather not judge a person’s work by his politics. For example, I completely disagree with the politics of both Orson Scott Card and our very own Larry Correira, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying their books.

      As for Gaiman, Neverwhere and The Dream Hunters are among my favorite books of all time, FWIW. Along with Sandman, of course.

      1. I actually believe in supporting the people in whom your politics align–especially if it’s someone as vocal as Larry Correira–and even MORE especially since people with that particular brand of politics are actively shunned by the awards system. I’m all for supporting proper representation, and there is no proper representation at the moment. Therefore, even though I’m not an avid reader, I go out and buy Larry’s books simply because I know it’s supporting what he does. To me, it’s just as important to support the real-life work of the person as it is to support the fictional work of the person. The real-life work (in my opinion) winds up being the most important in the end.

        1. Isn’t “supporting the people in whom your politics align” — regardless of the quality of their work — exactly how we got into this mess ?

          1. No.

            I have a friend who writes romances. They are not my style at all. When she is published (any day now) I will purchase the book and support her. What I will not do is nominate or vote for her work in an award category just because she is my friend. THAT is what got us (actually, the Hugos) into this mess – being unable to separate, not just author from works, but politics from quality.

          2. You missed my point. My point was that I am for proper representation and diversity–mainly because that ensures a wider variety of work without a narrow agenda or narrative…which in turn waters down the quality of the work. I am for that, and because of that, I support the under-represented “sides” of a discussion. When more opinions and sides are represented, history shows that civilization prospers and advances. When opinions are suppressed and silenced, history shows that civilization stagnates and withers. I will continue to support further opinions that are under-represented, because I feel a broader world view and understanding ultimately benefits the type of literary work available.

          3. I am not going to buy a badly written book just because its author holds a political view that I agree with. If everyone did that, there’s be no good books left. I want to promote good writing, not the “correct” opinions.

            I agree that silencing one’s opposition is among the worst things one can do; SJWs have called me a “free speech extremist” in the past. But choosing to judge fiction based on its own merits, rather than on the politics of the author, is not the same as silencing anyone. Quite the opposite, really.

          4. Ah, but “good writing,” “good art,” and “good work” is subjective–as is any one person’s opinion. The only objective thing to do is encourage proper representation of ALL opinions and works, whether you think they are good or not. Heck, take the movie industry as another example: is what everyone buys what is “generally good?” Not necessarily. Is pushing one ideology and shaping the culture and the way people think based on that one ideology the correct thing to do? I would wager not. In fact, I would say that whether or not you think so, the books you like or don’t like are generally (not always) chock full of the authors opinions about the world, politics, and/or life in general.

          5. The essence of trade is mutual benefit. Therefore, when I pay for something, I expect to get good value for it. If I’m paying for entertainment, I expect to be entertained. I don’t care so much about the beliefs of the creator(s), but I am unlikely to buy something else from someone whose work I didn’t enjoy.

            Of course, that’s a very subjective opinion of the quality of the work, but it’s my beer money the writer or moviemaker or whatever is trying to get me to part with, so I have absolutely no qualms about not supporting stuff I don’t like.

            You, of course, are free to do whatever you think best. I’m not trying to convince you to do what I do, I’m trying to explain the reason I take the actions that I do.

        2. I don’t agree with judging a person’s work by their politics, UNLESS that person is themselves a proponent of judging work by politics, or covers for and supports those who do. In that case, I believe in ruthlessly holding them to their own rules. Experiencing the consequences of it personally is the only way they’ll learn.

      2. I don’t judge a person’s work by their politics either. But if they insult me, well then I don’t care if how good they are, they’re not getting my money anymore.

        1. Yeah… there’s doing an ideology check and then there’s trying to ignore direct insults. The two are not the same. Most of the time I don’t have to *decide* not to read someone anymore. No boycotts. What happens is that I *can’t* read someone anymore because they’ve made themselves personal to me.

          Not reading blogs or following social media can help and that’s the first step but darned if sometimes an author will make him or herself impossible to ignore.

          Not going to conventions and making a point never to meet your hero can also help a great deal. It’s just that you can’t know ahead of time which favorite author is going to be awesome and which one will sit on a panel, look right out at the audience, and spew hatred towards you and yours.

      3. I love Gaiman’s work; and I KNOW he’s not in the same political POV as mine. But the way he said it, no qualifications, clearly not caring about the difference between Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, and calling us all names – well, it’s clear he doesn’t want a certain type of people to be his fans or buy his work any more. So why would I spend money on the works of an author who calls me a loser?

        It’s the same reason why I won’t buy Tor published books, even IF there are books of theirs I might want (The John Cleaver books being an example.)

        1. Exactly.
          Sitting in the auditorium, listening to the accepter read Gaiman’s diatribe, I heard this message: “F@#$ you, Dexter. I don’t need your money, and don’t want you to buy my books.”

        2. I don’t love Gaiman’s work. I thought Sandman was cool in the 90’s certainly better than most of the highly Anne Rice or Clive Barker influenced Vertigo experimental “grown up but not really” comics wave. Looking back it’s not so hot. Not terrible but he’s really not someone who’s work I cherish. His prose I find quite dull, sort of like my least favorite Ray Bradbury stuff with less crusty emotion and more crowd pandering, often with shallow nostalgia or pop-psych bluster, at play.

          So I can happily take or leave Gaiman and will never count him as among the greats except in his momentary proximity to Terry Pratchett.

          1. Well when I say never, that’s assuming he doesn’t radically change his writing style and general interests towards something I do find really compelling.

        3. OK I am not giving up my fix of Safehold or something else David Weber might write. But to balance my being tempted to buy Tor books I may have been the only person to walk into the Hugo Awards wearing a Sad Puppies t shirt 😉

          1. I’m not part of that boycott. There are too many good people writing books for them that have nothing to do with the assholes.

          2. Since last year’s debacle, the only Tor I’ve bought is a Sanderson novel and two Repairman Jack books by F. Paul Wilson, who is an awesome writer and a libertarian.

          3. I will continue to buy Steven Brust’s books regardless of who he is published by and despite his self identification as a Trotskyite. Vlad Taltos is too good a character to miss. YMMV.

      4. “I can see where you’re coming from, but personally I’d rather not judge a person’s work by his politics.”

        I see where you’re coming from, but objecting to Gaiman seems to have less to do with politics than with being rude to fans in public. It’s about cliqueishness, albeit politics-inspired cliqueishness. Gaiman’s remarks offended me in a way that his politics do not.

  11. “I have to think Gaiman thinks everything in Puppydom is merely Vox Day. I suspect Gaiman spent zero time talking to anyone on the Puppy side, doesn’t understand the actual diversity of the Puppy fans or participants, and that Gaiman merely wanted a cheap, quick way to virtue-signal — to the establishment — that he is still their darling.”

    Brad I read you because of Vox. I enjoyed it. I get tired of trying to split people in half who are broadly working for the same goals. It isn’t healthy. I again remind you that people did that to you to.

    1. “who are broadly working for the same goals”
      Except that Theodore Beale is not “broadly working for the same goals.” Politically, he’s an Alt-Right racialist crank, and thus not someone with whom any conservative or libertarian wants to be associated. And with specific reference to the Hugos, again he is not working for the same goal, since the Sad Puppies wanted to reform the Hugos whereas Beale, from the beginning, wanted to destroy them.

    2. The problem is that Vox Day — the persona — has become the avatar of all that is heinous and evil, in the eyes of the Eloi. My sense is that Gaiman has not devoted any serious time to examining the issues, but because he knows Vox Day is supposed to be the end-all be-all of pure horribleness in he genre, Gaiman felt no need to make his argument any more nuanced than it was. Beale knows this, and he actively feeds the flames. Thus it’s easy for Gaiman to conclude that all of Puppydom is just Vox Day with a thousand and one sock puppets. Is this Vox’s fault entirely? Nope. It’s Gaiman’s — in the main — for failing to do his homework. But as I have told Beale himself on more than one occasion, Beale makes it extraordinarily difficult; and he does this on purpose.

  12. My husband was appalled by the snubbing of Jerry Pournelle. Absolutely stunned. I don’t know why. This is par for the course for these disgusting bags of rancid effluvia.

    1. I am ashamed to say that I have never heard of him. If I wanted to get into his fiction, which book would I start with ?

      1. I would highly recommend Pournelle and Niven together: Lucifer’s Hammer or Footfall if you like near-term apocalyptic or alien invasion stories, and The Mote in God’s Eye if you want a very classic military space opera type of story, mixed with alien first contact.

        1. All three of those are brilliant. They are part of what made me a hard-core SF fan when I discovered them in college.

      2. The mote in God’s eye

        Also, something is up with wordpress security. I got here from the mailing list and was logged on as Kate Julicher

      3. Anything with Larry Niven, in no particular order.

        The Mote in God’s Eye (1975) (with Larry Niven)
        Lucifer’s Hammer (1977) (with Larry Niven)
        Footfall (1985) (with Larry Niven)
        Oath of Fealty (1981) (with Larry Niven)

        The original Janissaries (1979) (and follow-ons if you like it.)

        All of the Falkenberg’s Legion stories….

        He is one of the “Grand Old Men” of the genre.

        n

      4. The Mote In God’s Eye is their acknowledged masterpiece, an epic novel of mankind’s first encounter with alien life that transcends the genre. No lesser an authority than Robert A. Heinlein called it “possibly the finest science fiction novel I have ever read”.

        That is one of the best book recommendations you will ever see.

      5. Thanks for the recommendations, all — I did not realize that he was Larry Niven’s co-author. I have actually read some of these books, but thanks for the recommendations — I’ll queue up the others.

        1. Bugmaster, you’ve got some great stuff ahead of you! All of the books mentioned are excellent! And not excellent because of the “it was good because of this or that” they’re all really good reads.

          Heck I just got the republish of Janissaries because it had 3 of them in one book. Kind of a “oh look! Gimme!” Kind of automatic reaction.

          You’re frightening us… next you’ll say you haven’t read anything by Ringo, Bujold or Weber.

          We know you’ve read Larry’s stuff, since… well. You’re here.

          1. Yes, I’ve read all three (er, four) of those authors, so you can relax 🙂 I’ve got to admit though, Larry Niven is sort of hit or miss for me. YMMV, of course.

          2. I’ll cheerfully admit that I haven’t read any Ringo, Bujold or Weber – yet. And no, I didn’t get any Pratchett yet either. It’s not for a lack of wanting – it’s lack of money, and my reading addiction spans to manga and cookbooks.

            Also, because science fiction successfully drove me away because of the moralizing lectures. That, or stuff didn’t get interesting for me. So it was hard to get into it outside of Star Trek or Star Wars.

            I’ve got maybe another sixty years of life to catch up on reading lots of authors.

          3. Pratchett has several types of Discworld book. None of them are bad though some are better than others. He wrote tons of the things. They fall into several categories.

            Cynical zany genre parody (the first two books) to NASTY social commentary (Interesting Times)

            NASTY Vicious geographical/cultural commentary (Interesting Times, The Last Continent)

            Pat/neat center left morality plays.social commentary (Sourcerer, Faustus, Mort, Men at Arms, Reaper Man)

            serious world and character building(Guards, the Witches of Scrote, various “Death’s Buddies Adventures”, various Unseen University Follies)

            Fascinating pseudo-historical dissections of a whole field or some major change to modern society (the post office, the monetary system, communications tech, movies, war, rock music, trains, Pro Sports. Social unrest between Dwarves and Trolls)

          4. ;_; ‘Fraid not. My teen years were spent reading what books I COULD get – Eddings’ stuff, Diane Duane, Weiss and Hickman/Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms. The fantasy and fiction lane dwindled from two shelves to one back in the day with ‘National Bookstore’ and it was digging into secondhand bookshops and hoping for the best. I only got the AD&D line of fiction because a cousin gave me the books, and those occasionally popped up in the comic sellers’ stores, and I was essentially competing with the rest of the more affluent members of city to buy them.

            Had a friend who, at the time, wasn’t allowed to go out and about by herself (this was an era where kidnapping upper middle-class to rich kids for ransom was rampant) so she’d give me the money to check the shops for her, and paid me for the fare and effort (out of which I could get a book or two.) This continued till our early years in college. *grin* This was before cellphones too, so I’d check the shops, go to a pay phone and ring her and ask what she’d like out of what I’d seen. I was able to dress and act enough to pass under the radar as a ‘rich kid’ even though I technically belonged to that ‘social class’ because of my Dad’s work, and of clan ties.

          5. Shadowdancer, now you’ve frightened me.

            Yell for thoughts on what next to read by any of the authors I mentioned (all are Baen authors).

            Few recommendations:
            For the harder science fiction, I’d recommend Weber or Ringo. The series they did together “Empire of Man” with the first book being “March Upcountry” is superb. 4 books but we’re hoping for 5 soonish.

            Weber’s Honor Harrington (also now down in comic form with about 4 or 5 episodes out) starting with “On Basilisk station” has been almost genre setting. Excellent stuff and you’ll know more about Warp Sails, Grav drives, and naval combat in the 40th century than you may realize by the time you finish book 1.

            Some extremely well done “plausible” for values of plausible Zombie books would be Ringos Black Tide Rising series. Start with “Under a Graveyard Sky.”

            Lois Bujold who does a somewhat lighter version of Science fiction with still quite a bit of it, would be the Miles Vorkosigan books. Start with “Young Miles” it’ll take you on a pretty amazing ride as well. If that one hooks you, you’ve got some really great stuff ahead.
            For fantasy her series “A Curse of Chalion” is excellent as well.

            Do NOT under any circumstances start with Ringos “Ghost.” Just… dont. Trying to stay PG rated here.

          6. *Hefts Grunge* First Ringo book of mine, just started it today, and loving it. I got to recommend it, MHI and a whole list of authors to the clinic nurse just this morning as she was giving my daughter some catch up shots; she has five kids, mostly boys, and readers, and wanted recommendations for adventure, sci-fi and fantasy.

            Actually, a friend had been recommending “Ghost” to me and it’s on my To Buy List; along with Black Tide Rising. Honor Harrington is on my list as well; a friend gave me a book, and it’s.. somewhere in my shipping boxes.

          7. “Ghost” is Ringo’s book that generated the infamous, “Oh no, John Ringo” screeching from some of the more delicate flowers who picked it up. The whole “Ghost” series was maybe a leeetle bit “coarse”(?) for these delicate flowers. His other stuff is good hard science sci-fi with some being sci-fi-fantasy.

          8. It should be noted that Ringo showed up on the blog that spawned that meme–and agreed with the blogger.

          9. Sugar, I may be small, and I may be cute, but I’m no delicate flower. *grin* the fellow who recommended the Ghost series to me said I’d love it because it’s over the top fun, and the lack of PC-ness ain’t something that bothers me. Though I think Black Tide Rising is more likely to be what I’d grab next from Ringo-sensei.

            My next month’s (notional) splurge budget though is aimed at putting it aside for a Father’s Day pressie for my hubby. I got him this for his birthday, and while he would likely enjoy a bottle of his favorite bourbon, something not food and drink will probably be even more enjoyed.

            *grin* and there’s some Larry Correia audiobooks on CD at The Book Depository. Something for him when he’s exercising!

          10. So what you’re saying Shadowdancer is that while you may be cute as a button, it’s a stainless steel button with sharp edges that will cut a man just to watch him bleed.

            No wonder you fit in so well around here.

          11. Strongly recommend CJ Cherryhs Pride of Channur books -very believable alien trading compact into which comes one very frightened human , a species no one has ever heard of or seen. Mcmaster Bujolds Barrayar books are also excellent, with strong and memorable characters you can really care about.

          12. I love the Barrayar series….right up to the most recent one: “Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen”. The writing itself is excellent, as always, but the theme was quite different. I’d be interested to hear if anyone else disliked it as much as I did. Otherwise, the entire series is one I reread just about every year for fun.

          13. I think that the warning against Ringo’s Ghost Series is that it is not suitable for younger teenagers. Most of the rest of his stuff is suitable. There’s also a number of books in the Baen free library by Ringo that you can check out, to see what series you like.

          14. Third (or fourth, or tenth, or whatever we’re up to now) on avoiding “Ghost.” It was flat-out awful — at least the two chapters I managed to slog through were, and it was definitely on a downward trajectory at that point. It’s not the pr0n aspect that irked me (though I’d’ve liked to know about it going in — if I want to read a Gor novel, I’ll buy one). It was the main character being a ridiculous Gary Stu and all the political opinions tossed in like anvils. Ringo was irritating enough with constantly jamming his fanwanking over that thug bunny webcomic into the Posleen books, but “Ghost” took his author-on-board tendencies to all new depths.

            Sorry, I know he’s got a lot of fans here, but that was it for me. I won’t buy him and I won’t recommend him. In fact, I sometimes warn people off.

          15. If you don’t like a series, by all means avoid it.

            I would recommend that sometime you check out Johns other stuff. You mileage may vary, but he has a great deal of excellent titles. Perhaps the Black Tide series or the Empire of Man he did with David Weber. Both are excellent and not anything like the Ghost books. Heck the Princess of Wands books are a great read. Same with the Looking Glass books.

            Personally I enjoyed the Ghost series, Shadowdancer please note I said don’t “Start with it” After you have read some of Johns stuff it’ll probably gel easier.

          16. I warn people off Ghost (the first e-book I’ve ever purchased and I’ve never been so glad in my life not to have it sitting on a shelf in my house where people could find it). It was… interesting… in a number of ways and I’m not sorry to have read it. But I do *warn* people and I haven’t read any more in that series.

            I particularly liked Princess of Wands.

            Liked the recent Zombie books, too.

          17. It actually does “tone down” a bit and Kildar (book 2) is actually a better book in my opinion. Don’t mistake though, Ghost still is the main protagonist. Same with the rest of the series, its good but not as graphic as Ghost by any means.

            But I also freely admit to being a Correia, Ringo, Weber, Bujold, mainly “Baen” publishing Fanboy.

            I’ll buy just about any of the books they publish and usually enjoy them.

          18. In fairness, I was warned that it’s THE story that refused to ‘shut up’ until it was written, and I can relate to that. From what I was told he originally just threw it into the Bar, and people were like ‘publish it, we wants.’

            I’m more likely to buy the Black Tide series first, after some other things that require my pleasure budget allotment.

          19. Be advised that Ringo himself has referred to his Ghost series as “Porn” (not sure if that comment is still on his web-site). I love the stories but I tend to skip 10-30% of the pages (varies by book) when I re-read them.

          20. For Lois McMaster-Bujold, start with Barrayar. It won the Hugo! Er… back when that still meant something, that is. 😛

        2. Once upon a time one of the Baen CDs had an omnibus ebook of all the Falkenberg Legion books on it. I expect it’s still around on the internets somewhere

      6. Every one of the novels the Pournelle and Niven collaborated on were great, but if I had to pick a favorite it would be Footfall, followed closely by Lucifer’s Hammer. For his solo stuff, I think I’d go with anything in the CoDominium series, the books featuring Falkenberg and Sparta in particular. (Even though they are anthologies set in the CoDo universe and just edited by Pournelle, the WarWorld series is also fantastic)

      7. Surprised no one mentioned Fallen Angels. I found that hugely entertaining, but there is a lot of “inside baseball” that goes with it. Maybe not Hugo material when it was written, but today……well, the standards are much lower today, aina?

        Just think how much fun that story could be if re-told with today’s GoodFen CHORFs and WrongFen/Puppies involved.

        Mr. Pournelle may be out a Hugo, but I’ll keep stuffing Sad and Rabid dollars into his G-string.

      8. Not sure what’s still in print. I started w/ “The Mercernary” and “West of Honor”. As noted elsewhere, Footfall is great as well.

    2. No Award for Pournelle, and no awarding Larry Elmore. That just blows my mind, Pournelle was one of my first and still abiding loves for military sci-fi. Without whom there very likely may not have been a military sci-fi niche.

      I used to be friends with Larry Elmore’s manager. Myself and several friends were on our way up to GenCon in Milwaukee (This was it’s last Hurrah before it moved to Indiana). Not even knowing us except for, Murray. He let us have the run of his studio, while he and Murray talked business. I was in heaven, Larry Elmore to me at least is IT when it comes to fantasy art. I have to admit I had a complete and total nerdgasm, even though I tried extremely hard to act like I was not totally in awe at being in the studio of one of the most prolific, and talented artists in his field.

      It is a sad, pitiful organization, that would put politics, before the talent of such men.

      1. “Without whom there very likely may not have been a military sci-fi niche.”

        For the Puppy kickers, Mil-SF is a bug, not a feature.

      2. There’s no way that crowd is ever going to give Elmore anything, given that he draws “conventionally attractive” women (i.e., women that a heterosexual man would enjoy having sex with).

          1. As a member of that crowd, that is untrue. Of course, I came to it from the Rightop rather than the Left, so…

          2. I dunno…I recall the armor in Dragonlance for the female characters actually looked pretty decent. I couldn’t comment on his more recent stuff.

    3. Your husband’s wife’s friend (me) was also stunned. I thought it was a fucking foregone conclusion. “Pournelle? Shit dude, he must have phat stacks of that Hugo shit!”

  13. And this is one of the reasons I made the decision a couple of years ago to never again attend WorldCon.

  14. Well the good news is now there’s no need to worry about what goes on in the Little Shop of Horrors anymore. Shake the dust of that place off and move forward into the light. Hopefully Vox will eventually buy up the Worldcon intellectual property at a bankruptcy auction and turn it into a sort of literary equivalent of Minas Morgul. A cautionary tale for SJWs everywhere.

  15. Can anyone explain why Supernatural was below “no award?”

    This is not: Why did Jessica Jones win for “Smile.” Smile and the entire series are excellent.

    But why No Award Supernatural?

    1. Because it has gone on for far too long. The story ARC with Angels was way out of hand. And it isn’t very good. That would be my guess.

  16. It’s a truly sad state that an elitist clique of priggs dictate to the masses. I know that sort if struggle well…and how it drains your patience to nothing. Instead of fighting…you just tell them to duck off. Though on my case I had to apologize to a potential guest for making the trip out on his own dime…because he was not in their little sphere of interest.

  17. Honestly the Hugo awards this year? Boring. Oh so very boring. Everything went to those who were expected to. There were no surprises, no suspense, and not even very many “no awards” like last year to liven things up. I even watched the Rabid Puppies stream out of curiosity, and that was boring. Just gentile authors talking about editors and how fast they could crank out manuscripts, while actually ignoring the Hugo ceremony. (And that was still more entertaining than the smug skits that the ceremony was.)

    And in the end isn’t that the most damning thing that be said? Being boring is worse than being bad in my opinion. I’ll always remember last years Hugos for being the mess that it was. I probably won’t remember this one at all. So I very much hope whatever happens with the Dragon Awards, it isn’t boring.

    And yes, extremely bad taste to No Award some of the greats of the genre, some of whom knew nothing about what was going on.

        1. Yeah I imagine it does. Further reminder that just because it doesn’t set off the spellcheck, doesn’t mean it’s the right word. ????

    1. Exactly. The drama is the only interesting thing about the Hugos,and this year it barely even kept my attention. Why bother when I have so much to read, watch, and play?

    2. The most damning thing that can be said (aside from the No Awarding of Greyland’s MZB expose)?

      Almost none of the SJW winners bothered to show up. When you can’t even motivate the people you’ve made shoo-ins to get the award to bother to come to your shindig, you’re dead already.

      1. Even if they felt they HAD to cover for the Pedos, if nothing else, Appendix N is virtually the definition of Fan Writing. That got buried too.

    1. They used to be an award for good SF. Now they’re a fetish passed back and forth by a small group of SJWs. Happy to help.

  18. I had a friend go to Worldcon this year. Oddly she didn’t talk about the Hugo’s on her twitter. Anyway, when I checked twitter, it seemed like all the top tweets related to Worldcon were from people against SP, and worst of all she that must not be named…. Briana Wu (I have now cursed the blog).

    Anyway the Hugo’s and worldcon are pretty much dead. Their only use now is to enjoy the salt that comes from the easily irritated (Scalzi).

    Lastly, I discovered that there was a Christian meet-up at Worldcon. I am not gonna lie that surprised me. The current state of Worldcon does not seem like a welcoming place to Christians.

  19. Truth to ‘power’, albeit a dying ‘power’… The have cemented their own future obscurity by what they did this weekend. Long live DragonCon!!!

    1. Meanwhile, Mary Robinette Kowal gets a mere rest-of-the-day suspension for serving booze at a reading in violation of written rules, and they took her aside and explained to her exactly what she did wrong, rather than the curt email that Truesdale got.

    2. And what does anyone here make of the Mary Robinette Kowal incident? Everyone is saying how awesome it was that her membership was suspended for a day because she accidentally broke a rule in which nobody appeared to be harmed in any way,

      Don’t really know the details; to my European eyes some Americans are weirdly puritanical when it comes to alchohol. So I have no idea whether what she did was big deal or not.

      1. The convention hall (or Hotel) will very often not allow food that they don’t provide themselves and since serving alcohol requires government licensing and regulation she probably actually broke laws. The venue would be on the hook, quite possibly and expensively, if they turned a blind eye.

        I’m rather shocked that anyone thought it was okay to “open carry” booze. People drink (like fish) in their rooms but in the public areas isn’t it normal to need to put it in a benign container or coffee cup or water bottle?

        1. Our con hotel doesn’t allow the convention to serve food… it’s partly because they want to *sell* food but it’s also health department regulations. State requires food handling certification. Same for booze.

          1. ??
            Excessive for violating an explicitly stated rule? Err, perhaps it is just the LEO in me, but I’d say it wasn’t enough.

      2. Don’t know a thing about whatever Mary was involved with.

        I know Dave Truesdale got thrown out of the whole WorldCon for badthink. Only it turned out he recorded the whole panel so the SJWs can’t do their usual freak out and lie schtick. Whoops.

      3. http://www.tangentonline.com/articles-columnsmenu-284/3227-2016-worldcon-panel-on-the-qstate-of-short-science-fictionq
        There’s a link to the whole thing- you can listen to for yourself and decide if there is truth that “Dave Truesdale’s membership was revoked because he violated MidAmeriCon II’s Code of Conduct. Specifically, he caused ‘significant interference with event operation and caused excessive discomfort to others.'”
        (Edit: $%^# I forgot to log out. This is Jack Wylder posting and NOT Larry!)

        1. I listened to the whole taped panel. I don’t have a dog in this fight, more of an interested observer who reads everything and is a registered Independent. My takeaways are:

          * I would be interested in hearing Truesdale’s whole argument, but he needed to practice it beforehand and be much more glib in getting it out. I think he was flustered by the sound issues at the beginning and that may have hurt any momentum he had built up in himself.

          * If I were moderating such a panel and had a strong opinion on the panel topic, I would ask a generic opening question (such as “What is the biggest problem facing sf short fiction today?), let all the other panelists have a go first, then answer the question as I see things. As it turned out — and I think this was utterly predictable — by making such a pointed opening statement Truesdale *did* effectively hijack the panel.

          * Truesdale seemed to be fair and generous after that point, encouraging other panelists to speak and not being combative. One panelist tended to wander a bit and probably could’ve used some gentle nudging moderation, but Truesdale handcuffed himself into noninterference lest he look too intolerant.

          * Upshot: I wouldn’t have kicked Truesdale out of the con, but I wouldn’t let him moderate any more panels. Not because of his politics, but because he didn’t moderate correctly. A moderator’s job is to ask framing questions that let the panelists paint the canvas of the topic. From there, you can still down on an interesting detail that is uncovered.

          1. Yep. At worst, Dave didn’t do a great job as a moderator. Nothing different than thousands of others who came before.

            But if he hadn’t recorded the event, then the prevailing narrative on the internet would be that Dave was a barbarian asshole who ran roughshod over the panel with his hatey hatemongery.

            Hell, Hines is still out there claiming Dave took up half the time. Apparently they don’t have clocks in Social Justice Land. They’re probably banned as oppressive symbols of the patriarchy or something.

          2. For those on facebook, this post: https://www.facebook.com/feder/posts/10210376360509144?pnref=story is a window into the cluster foxtrot surrounding this.

            You’ve got back-justifications where people are claiming that MACII kicked Dave out for recording the panel, before they even knew it was recorded. Now that the audio is out, some are claiming Dave was kicked out for a physical altercation.

            And the freak-show is on parade. Someone who claims to be a therapist is so triggered that she should probably live on a mountain by herself, because that is the only place she is going to feel safe.

            Then there are the people who feel that Dave set up the panel just to oppress marginalized minorities/women/POC where they would normally feel safe so they would know that there was no way they could ever escape from that evil.

            And Hines is claiming that the recording was a violation of the Code of Conduct for the Con, even with people pointing out it isn’t, and couldn’t have been the justification.

            It is a glorious parade of examples of just how right Larry was about the CHORFS.

            Larry, if you’d written this up a scene, beforehand, you’d be getting a lot of complaints that it was just too unrealistic.

          3. Wait… When you go around calling everyone who disagrees with you jackbooted nazi racist sexists and demanding that they be silenced at all costs, while ignoring all of their actual words and deeds, it creates a climate of intolerance?

            No shit?

            Congratulations, Moshe, you clueless bastard. You helped make this world. Now you get to live in it.

          4. Moshe’s sudden “oh wait, this is getting out of hand” reaction is deeply amusing. Like many conventional liberals, he’s only just now waking up to the horror of the monster he has helped create. Too late, sucker.

          5. Like I said before, whenever Chorfs get caught doing something awful, they flail and scramble until somebody comes up with a plausible reason why they are actually justified. Then they’ll all glom onto that and double down.

            They’re in the flail stage on the Truesdale thing right now. If he hadn’t recorded it they would have picked their narrative days ago.

            And Hines? I’d call him a tool, but tools are actually useful.

          6. If Moshe is starting to see the light, I’m all for that. The ultimate victory is when your enemy finally agrees with you.

      4. Our alcohol mores were partly formed by cleaner water supplies and populations with fewer alcohol digestive enzymes. At one time we had a drinking culture where eye gouging was optional, but opting out unmanly. Alcohol political questions were contested over a period where we had a civil war, an insurgency, and internal campaigns of terrorism. The history gives context to the present.

    3. I did, but once I heard he’d recorded the whole thing I decided to not say anything one way or the other until I got a chance to listen to it.

      So far it sounds like Dave got kicked out for making snowflakes uncomfortable, and his only crime was badthink. I’ve sat through panels where they’ve mocked and insulted republicans, Christians, gun owners, Mormons, pro-lifers, and even country people, and that was totally cool.

      1. Well, it’s the sort of bigotry that progressives approve of since they can’t let “republicans, Christians, gun owners, Mormons, pro-lifers, and even country people” be seen as decent human beings. :-/

      2. I was in a panel that devolved into a smug fest condemning Christians because anyone who believes that God created the world can’t understand microbiology, pathogens or science and thus, when the super-bug comes humanity will all die a horrible superstition induced death. Only atheists were rational enough to save the world. Not a single panel participant pointed out the many church affiliated hospitals or medical missions or Historical evidence of who has worked the hardest to keep people clean and healthy. You’d think that a single person would have had a twinge of objectivity and objected.

        You’d also think that, in fairness, someone would mention Alternative Superstitions… or at least homeopathy. (This might have been before nuts-and-tofu anti-vacc’ers became a thing so I’ll let them off the hook for that.)

        Better had they not personalized the issue at all and simply talked about ideas and concepts. No, there’s no need to insult the Wiccans or the homeopaths or the people who could tell you which crystal to wear if you suffer anxiety. I don’t WANT anyone to insult those people.

        All I want. Honestly ALL I WANT is for panelists to be equally careful of everyone’s particular thing. It’s possible, very much, to talk about people who don’t believe in modern medicine in a general idea-centered rather than person-centered sort of way. I know people who do it. I know authors with whom I disagree in every particular who never EVER speak about “those bad people” but who always talk about concepts and ideas. They draw you in and make their point without turning you into a non-person.

        And they’re rarer than hens teeth.

        Panelists feel free to be personally insulting on the basis of politics and religion and any number of things that have nothing at all to do with science fiction or fantasy. The first (and last) filk I went to at our local con had a song that was just about making fun of Jesus and I’m like… WTF? I’m developing a “avoid this author at all costs” panel avoid list because, seriously, I want to sit in a panel and listen to how horrible anyone who supports Bush is? Same author is doing a writing workshop, something I’ve been agitating for. Do I want to go and wait for the diatribe about Trump? No.

        Do I want someone to launch into a diatribe about Hillary?

        No.

    4. And then there’s this poor dude, who was also expelled via email but didn’t find out until he got home. http://darthtroutman.livejournal.com/33990.html

      Protip to ConComms: If you’re going to expel someone from your convention, best do it in person. I realize that this means you might get icky conservative cooties all over you, but it beats the alternative where the person is blissfully unaware they’ve done anything wrong and just keeps attending.

      I still love how they personally took MRK aside and explained to her almost apologetically exactly what she did and why they had to suspend her for the rest of the day, but couldn’t be bothered with Truesdale and this other guy when they expelled them completely. Because, let’s face it, it’s a super uncomfortable conversation where you have to say “Yeah, we’re tossing you out because you made a snowflake UNCOMFORTABLE but, uh, didn’t actually break any rules.”

  20. I think the last time I used Hugo winners as a buying checklist was ’85 when Neuromancer won. Now, I don’t most of those books, novellas and short stories would even be nominated.

  21. The Hugos have become a reverse Good Housekeeping Seal, guaranteeing the contents inside will be wretched, painful to read, dreck. Which is useful in its own way.

    1. Exactly. Having an infallible indication of dreck can be pretty handy. Now if we could get the SJWs to award anti-Hugos to let us know which works they particularly hate, those might be useful markers of things to read…

      1. A pretty good indicator: Look for the work voted immediately below NO AWARD in any given category. That’s the one they hate most, and probably the most worth reading.

  22. Write a good book and let the readers decide. I think most writers would prefer to get paid vs. winning an award anyways. I understand winning an awards equals more exposure equals more money but the Hugo have been so tarnished it’s not going to attract anyone outside of their little group. The people that don’t know what’s going on and read the crap they award are not going to pick up a hugo award winning book again. Personally I think the Hugo’s fell off the grid when that horrible piece of shit Redshirts won it. I throw up a little bit in my mouth every time I think of that POS winning an award. Granted there wasn’t a lot to choose from that year (that was nominated) but Redshirts shouldn’t have even been nominated. There is on way I can believe the readers picked that book.

    1. The reason that the Hugos should be fixed is that awards cause wider ripples.

      I still remember browsing the library shelves back in 1980 and coming across a book proudly displaying “Winner of the Hugo Award”.
      My thought process went:
      – hmm, Science fiction, I’ve never read any, could be worth a try
      – This one has won an award, must be the best they got
      – So obviously a good place to start.

      That book was “The Forever War” and my reaction was “Sci-Fi is AWESOME, I have to read EVERYTHING!!11!!1”

      If that had happened today, the reaction would have been “Sci-Fi is HORRIBLE, I’ll never touch it again!11!!”

      The difference in terms of GETTING PAID? Well, my sci-fi library now counts north of 3600 books.

  23. Sad part was that Gaiman had someone else present his acceptance speech where he insulted the “Puppies”. Seems like he could have been there in person if he was going to insult people.

  24. What’s funny is these SJW geniuses think they won something.
    http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/2016/08/hugo-awards-politics-wins.html Yep, they BEAT the Puppies and kept the Hugos pure.

    All they’ve done, every fricking year, is prove you right, Larry. 100% dead on right.

    Here’s a perfect example of the kind of “fun” we can expect at cons in the future, from the SJWs: http://phantomsoapbox.blogspot.ca/2016/08/more-progressive-pants-wetting-replica.html Now with names named and pictures provided. He’s a peach, believe me.

    Replica guns, you see, are only okay if they are -fantasy- replicas. Like replicas of phaser guns. A replica of a -real- gun IS DISGUSTING!!!!11!

    At some point the people who run things like Wizard Wrold and Comic Con are going to realize the SJWs and their twitter tsunamis only ever reduce revenues and increase costs. That will be a good day.

    1. “All they’ve done, every fricking year, is prove you right, Larry. 100% dead on right.”

      The comment that comes to my mind from this statement is: How many times can you shoot out paper in the center of the target. The idiots stopped noticing that the X in the 10 ring has been gone. 4 years ago.

      And it keeps getting shot through, again and again.

    2. Their prize is to let Vox Day live in their heads rent free for another year. They deserve to get their prize, good and hard.

  25. Larry, I’mma start my own awards once I get some sponsors… The Best American Conservative and libertarian science fictiON and fantasy Awards…. the BACON Awards.
    Ideally the winners would get Bacon for a year, and a nice Pork-centric trophy, but I can’t afford those yet….

  26. Although my politics are almost 180% in opposition to yours, it’s hard to disagree with anything you say here.

    I think it’s impossible for the Hugos to be a big tent covering all of SF any more, the scene is too big and too fragmented. Time to let Worldcon and The Hugos be what they want to be, for the puppies to leave them alone, and for Worldcon to stop pretending The Hugos represent any more than one small subset of a much wider fandom.

    Whether that counts as victory or defeat for either side depends on what you think actual the victory conditions are.

    1. I’m guessing Vox will continue to twist the knife for as long as they don’t sue for peace (and probably after that). If I didn’t know that his ancestry was otherwise, I’d think he had Sicilian blood. They do like a vendetta.

    2. First I just wanted to be heard. Then I got insulted, lost friends, got insulted some more, had my intelligence, compassion, intelligence, humanity, intelligence, and freakin’ gender maligned. Repeatedly. Frequently by liberal friends who genuinely cannot perceive that someone they like might believe things they don’t.

      Now I want blood.

      Metaphorically, for any pearl-clutchers who might be reading.

      1. I still don’t get the “we hate Vox Day so much, we’re going to do exactly what he wants us to do” mentality. Are they so stupid they don’t see what he’s doing, or are they so addicted to virtue signalling that they can’t help themselves?

        1. I’d put it as “and” on about a 20/80 ratio. And the 20 is not so much “stupid” as “virtue signalling poses no risk, since all good people think exactly like me”. Whereas if I breathe Word One in a pro-Puppy manner (Sad OR Rabid), I will be dogpiled by damn near every F&SF-friendly acquaintance I have.

      2. Hell, I recently had some CHORF with a Burner account on Facebook try to blackmail me into silence… by using publicly available information that I posted myself. It was kind of pathetic. Alas, it got deleted before I could find out about the secret puppy mailing list he and I are supposedly on that he uses a secret identity with to stalk me. He fancies himself quite the puppy-killer. I laughed. I screenshotted. I’ll clip it all together eventually.

        1. Some puppy kicking idiot the other day had an exciting new line of attack the other day. I bet Larry Correia actually doesn’t read that many new books! And I was like, so where did you draw this shocking conclusion, the dozens of places where I’ve said in public that becoming a full time writer has severely limited the amount of reading I do for fun? Ooooooooh. Got me.

        2. It’s hilarious; aren’t they the side that was going ‘doxxing is evil.’
          That’d be a stupid thing to attempt after @mombot exposed several anti-Gamergate people of trying excitedly to dox her with false information she and another GG-er were stringing them along with.
          (For those who don’t know: Dox: expose someone’s real identity details- name, address, place of work, relatives – with malicious intent; usually to have the person harassed out of work; or for the person to be sent threats in person, or be SWATted.)

  27. I own so many books and comics written by Gaiman. I genuinely love a lot of his stuff.

    But over the years, I’ve noticed he has some serious blindspots that he will never budge on. Prior to this, the most recent example was his essay on Charlie Hebdo, where he simultaneously tried to stand in support for the French cartoonists while at the same time pretended that only Evil Right Wing Conservative Male White Christians ever, ever, EVER commit acts of terrorism.

    *sigh*

  28. Like you, I painted miniatures during the Hugos. Pournelle? WTF? Larry motha-frakking-Elmore too?! Wow, as a child of 1980s RPGs, he is what I imagine stuff looks like in many cases, all painted up in my imagination in his style. Ah well, the death of the Hugo is now complete.

  29. I hope nobody bothers with a Sad Puppies 5. Time to forget about the Hugos and let Worldcon continue its slide into obscurity and irrelevance.

    1. I think most folks didn’t really bother with SP4. The point had been made and everyone pretty much just ignored WorldCon, as they should have.

      1. I can’t speak for others, but after last year, I certainly wasn’t going to spend $40 again something like that. I mainly just watched.

  30. Well, pretty much everyone here knew the Hugos have fallen into a political mess of sucking, so, wonder how long it will continue before either a revolution or full on self implosion, I’m hoping for the later as that could be at least amusing to watch as political snobs turn on each other even more fully than they already have.

    1. Neither will happen. What is much more likely is that WorldCon and the Hugos will continue to decline to irrelevancy (not that there’s much more decline possible, as they’re pretty much completely irrelevant now), with the SJWs muttering to themselves while they pass meaningless Hugos back and forth, occasionally cackling and shrieking about how they showed those everything-ist Puppies a thing or two, didn’t they!

      1. There’s also the possibility that in 5 years there will be much wondering and lamenting by the puppy kickers regarding the dwindling numbers at Worldcon, and the increasing irrelevancy of the Hugo to the world at large.

  31. The Hugos are not a lifetime achievement award. Jerry Pournelle edited one book in 2015. Larry Elmore and Toni Weisskopf did not provide anything in the Hugo packet to let voters know the work they did in 2015.

    Though all three are legends and it would be exciting to see them win Hugos, voters given nothing to base an editor or artist nominee on will probably choose somebody else.

    This is especially true if they reached the ballot because of a bloc voting campaign.

    P.s. Good luck in the Dragon Awards.

    1. After the way Toni was treated by the Hugos last year, I’m pretty sure her entire attitude was that they can go to hell and die.

      Block voting = doing the same thing that was done forever by small insider cliques, but by wrongfans.

      And the editing category is VERY MUCH a lifetime achievement award, like I told the other Hugo Apologist. Because nobody other than the author and editor know fuck all about what the editor actually does. Fans don’t have a clue. So they vote based upon a body of work. It has been that way since they created the award specifically to cater to Patrick Nielsen-Hayden after he whined one year that he edited four of the best novel nominees, but he didn’t get a Hugo.

      And this has happened over and over in other categories, where some overlooked schmuck finally gets a nomination after being snubbed for years, even though it isn’t the strongest thing on there voters figure it is “Their Turn” and give it to them. And don’t tell me that doesn’t happen, because I’ve heard the conversations with my own ears.

      After snubbing Larry for thirty years, they should have given him a Hugo as an APOLOGY.

      1. Weisskopf didn’t provide anything in the Hugo packet for 2014 either. I have no idea what she directly worked on in either year.

        We had the bloc voting discussion last year and you admitted you have no evidence it ever happened before the Puppies. I’ve never seen any evidence either.

        1. The packet is voluntary. It isn’t mandatory. It is relatively new. And prior winners haven’t been in the packet. Hell, none of the Ancillary Pronoun books were in the packet because Orbit was too cheap. So that is a bullshit excuse as to why Chorfs no awarded one of the most prolific and successful editors in the business.

          And what the fuck is an editor going to put in the packet? They list a book. So what? You don’t know what they actually did to that book. The only people who know how much work an editor put into a book are the editor and the author. So when those fucking half wits give Patrick Nielsen-Hayden the award like eight times, did they know what he actually did? Nope. Not at all.

          Yeah, we’ve had the block voting discussion for several years, and it only exists because those fuckers needed some reason to paint us as wrongfans as wreckers. It is a clown argument.

          Proof? What proof? When you only needed a dozen votes to swing a category, they just asked their friends. This wasn’t exactly rocket science.

          1. Yes, the packet is optional. But there was no other place I could find out what Toni Weisskopf edited. So how am I to judge the quality of the editing she did in 2015?

            You say people voted for Patrick Nielsen-Hayden over and over without caring about what he edited, and clearly think that is objectionable. Why are you telling me to do exactly that for Toni?

            An editor could put a page in the packet saying “this is what I edited last year.” I don’t think that’s a lot to ask. At least then the voters have something to go on, instead of just rewarding the biggest name or the person with the most social media presence.

            The Rabid Puppies are being portrayed as wreckers because that’s explicitly what Theodore Beale said he’s trying to do.

          2. Yes. Giving PNH the award over and over and over, totally clueless because “he was due” is EXACTLY what they did for a decade. I’m not saying it is right. I’m saying they are hypocrites.

            Jim Baen had to die to get nominated. And he still lost. Because again, quality or popularity had absolutely nothing to do with it, compared to politics.

            Oh, you couldn’t figure out what this editor did? No shit. I’ve already said only the authors know. Oh, you mean, what did she work on during the year? Everything from Baen. There you go. But fuck you. No Award. Because politics.

            And last year she got 2x the votes of the highest editor Hugo in history, and still lost to a No Award block vote. You fucking hypocrites. So this year you expect her to do anything to appease those assholes? Everybody who isn’t a apologist liar or utterly delusional knows that it wouldn’t have mattered, she could have put a hundred free books in the (voluntary, not required) packet, and the Chorfs would have found some other justification to No Award her after the fact.

            The Rabids are wreckers? No shit. When Space Raptor Butt Invasion showed up, my comment was, bet you morons wish you would have just listened to people like me when you had the chance.

            Instead they insulted all the outsiders, lumped us all together whenever it was convenient for their narrative anyway, and a bunch of fans got pissed off, said there is no saving this bullshit, and decided to troll your precious sainted country club. Duh.

          3. You’re telling me Hugo voters are hypocrites who won’t vote for quality picks because they were on a Puppy slate.

            A Sad Puppy pick just won Best Novella and Best Fan Writer.

            A Rabid Puppy pick just won Best Graphic Story.

            A Sad and Rabid Puppy pick just won Best Novelette, Best Long Form Dramatic Presentation, Best Professional Artist, Best Fanzine and the Campbell Award.

            That’s eight categories in which a Puppy won. If the Puppy lists are full of excellent nominees, that means the Hugos just awarded eight excellent nominees with a rocket — even though they came from the Puppies.

            So why are you still mad? Does every nominee you like have to win?

          4. Dense obfuscation and you know it.

            Last year straight up NA for SPs across the board. Last year was a complete debacle. 4th year Kate took noms in the open. Some Chorfs participated. Great. Kate welcomed everyone. Some proper goodthinking Chorfs ended up on the SP list. Kate is nice like that.

            Only in those categories where there were crossover or just too many votes to override the NA block things got through.

            Those winners on the SP slate? The things that were acceptable to the Chorfs also.

            Other categories where there were no Chorf Approved items? No Award still.

            Wrong politics still got No Awards. Goodthink candidates won, even if they were on the SP list too.

            So it still remains a Chorf Approval award. Nothing more.

            I am actually impressed Weir got the Campbell. I suppose it helps to be such a massive hit that even assholes can bitch you into oblivion.

            Your last questions are clown questions.

            I’ve made clear my opinion. The assholes No Awarded living legends Larry Elmore, Jerry Pournelle, and Toni Weisskopf. Pretty simple, and pretty insulting. Not down voted, or came in last, (because lack of non-mandatory voluntary packet submissions BS) but No Award.

            Categories without a Goodthinking Chorf in them? No Award.

            Except for Weir. So good for him.

          5. Oh yeah, and that’s just the results. That’s leaving out behavior at the con, speeches at the award show, and the post-game wrap up of puppy kicking and DARVO celebrations.

            So you shouldn’t be asking why I’m angry. This year I’m just one dude who wrote a blog post saying look at these assholes, once it was all over. If you were smart you would instead be asking why thousands of other fans see the Hugos as a joke.

  32. This is going to meander a bit, so bear with me. Also the names and geography is vague to protect V.

    This weekend I had some nerd friends at my Mom’s (near) beach house for a cookout. It’s an annual thing and there’s usually a game of Munchkin. Now, all the folks are regular congoers, gamers SF fen and so forth, though some more than others. In fact, one couple had been at Sasquan. Still, every one could be seen at local SF cons. Heck, one of them was introduced to congoing by me personally.

    Another salient point is that many (though not all) of my friends are likely well to the left of me politically, though tha is not universal. For example, the lady I corrupted into going to cons and drinking rocket fuel bashes Obama more than me(!), but is very pro BLM. I don’t hide my politics, but I don’t rub their noses in it either. We are all nerds first among each other.

    But for whatever reason I had to explain the Sad/Rabid Puppy contretemps to one of my guests. I think I explained things fairly, and mindful that I am inclined to be a Sad Puppy partisan, I tried to be balanced. So, when I got to the Vox Day part of the narrative, a gent I will refer to as V said, “He’s a racist.” I tried to soft-pedal things, , but I conceded the point.

    Here is where things get interesting. When I finished telling the tale (not remembering that the Hugos would be awarded that night (we would play ‘Nightmare before Christmas’ Munchkin and watch some Olympics track and field), V said took the time to bash the SMOFs who run our region’s most popular con. V (who is South Asian, but can easily pass as European) said they were racist. And I don’t mean some vague ‘not agreeing with the PC beliefs way. As in they tell racist jokes. Of course V is the only non-white person there. Now this is a con that had Scalzi and Jesmin as GoHs, so I was a little shocked. I guess I shouldn’t have been.

    Then it became a SMOF/CHORF bashing session. The lady who went to Sasquan agreed their behavior was terrible, especially the wooden sphincters. I got to trot out my ‘trying to convince our local SF club to advertise Worldcon they were organizing at the hugely popular anime convention* that Spring’ tale.

    We soon were able to agree the problem with the SMOFs was how they made everything for insiders. I brought up a harassment incident at a small literary con that was initially ignored, despite their zero tolerance policy. Because of that, a new dour regime has taken over the con and driven it into the ground.

    So, a group of fen, many very liberal, expressed disgust at the SJWs and CHORFs. And we had lots of delicious grilled food, even the salmon**.

    *The regional anime convention has been larger than Worldcon for about a decade now.
    **Which was wildly successful, despite the grease fire.

  33. I wound up hanging out with Jim Butcher’s sister Saturday night, after chiming in on a conversation about Sad vs Rabid. I’ve decided that it’s like unto someone hearing that I’m a Johnson supporter, and calling me a Trumpanzee.

  34. I’m new to the whole saga of the Puppies and Hugo awards and quite frankly, I don’t want to get involved. But I am f*cking astounded that Pournelle hasn’t been honored. Half the writing team of Niven and Pournelle hasn’t been given an award? Bullshit. Niven has won, as he so richly deserved, but not Pournelle? What the hell not?

    1. Because Pournelle doesn’t kiss rings or asses.

      Like I said when I started this years ago, quality had nothing to do with it. It was all cliques and politics.

  35. Of all the things they did this year, No-Awarding Pournelle and Elmore just because we nominated them was the lowest act of all. Absolutely uncalled for. I could see if they didn’t win? But that? Despicable.

    Oh, and Mr. Gaiman? Don’t be so proud: you got that Hugo by default.

  36. Gaiman’s words surprised me because I know at least one of his people is a Puppy… I wonder if he knows anything about the subject or if someone gave him the two-minute, one-sided explanation

    Still, very sad.

  37. Bad No Award choices, huh?

    Toni Weisskopf and Larry Elmore who didn’t care enough to even tell the voters what their work was published last year?

    Moira Greyland whose anti-gay screed boils down to “homosexuals are pedophiles”?

    Cannot say that I was surprised by their No Awards, even though I voted for Elmore myself.

    1. Apologize away. Because at the end of the day you Chorf shitbirds No Awarded living legends because of politics. Thank you for once again proving my point.

      Nobody knows fuck all what editors actually do, other than the editor and the author. That category is, and always has been, a “lifetime appreciation” award, since they made it up so Patrick Nielsen Hayden could finally win a Hugo.

      Artist? Same thing. You fucktards will give an artist award to anybody who kisses the right asses, regardless of the quality of their work. Living legend snubbed for decades because he didn’t sit at the cool kids table? If you fuckers had an ounce of human decency you would have given it to him as an apology. Or hell, don’t vote for him, vote for something you thought was better. But No Award?

      Fuck you.

      I thought I was all out of fucks to give about the Hugos, but then you scumbags No Awarded Larry Elmore, and it turned out I was wrong.

      If you think that is what Moira wrote, then you are a lying sack of shit apologist quisling fucking LIAR.

      1. Spacefaringkitten said:
        “Moira Greyland whose anti-gay screed boils down to “homosexuals are pedophiles”?”

        No, that would be Moira Greyland’s searing personal story of being raped and abused by two women and one man, how she was physically abused to the point of death, and how her brothers also suffered this along with many other fostered children and visiting children of sf fans, and how fandom basically turned a blind eye to all this because her pedophile mother, Marion Zimmer Bradley, was famous and had lots of important fannish friends.

        So yes, you didn’t read it, you don’t understand English, or you are a liar.

        1. Yeah, I get angry at pedophile rape apologists.

          I should try to be more sensitive to people who are lying sacks of shit.

          1. Funny how that works.

            Gay or straight, we should all be able to agree that pedophile rapists should be fed into wood chippers. But not WorldCon. Oh no. Their icons get exposed and stupid fuckers like this can be counted on to declare the first hand account of the victim “homophobia”.

            But these are the same motherfuckers giving lifetime achievement awards to an open supporter of NAMBLA.

          2. And who of his own accord, in an interview with a friend, admitted that he feels a six year old child is capable of having a consensual sexual relationship with a 40 year old man.

            ********************************************************

            For many years, one of my best friends in all the world happened to be (among many other things) openly gay. He was one of the kindest, most generous people I ever knew. He recently passed away after a long battle with illness.

            Once, he confided in me that as a boy, he’d been abused by a neighbor. It was a painful, traumatic experience that he feels warped and harmed his life in many ways.

            He had no time for those who claim those who prey on the young are “actually targets of homophobia”…

            Child abuse is child abuse. It is never justified. Taking a stand against it is not wrong.

          3. Yeah, I agree that people should read it if they can stomach both the horrible account of the crimes against her and her own hateful lies (or, I hope, clueless misinformation) about homosexuality.

            Some key points of the latter:

            “It IS the homosexuality that is the problem.”

            “Already the statistics for sexual abuse of children of gays are astronomically high compared to that suffered by the children of straights.”

            “Gay “marriage” is nothing but a way to make children over in the image of their “parents” and in ten to thirty years, the survivors will speak out.”

          4. Yeah keep trying to whitewash the fact that she was abused by pedophiles as a child as being ‘anti-gay.’ It doesn’t work on us.

            If Greyland is correct about the statistics, then what is wrong about the facts? You seem opposed to that possibility that she is correct about the statistics you mention.

            If she is, then the problem IS NOT homosexuality it’s ‘how many pedophiles pretending to be gay are using homosexuality as a shield against criticism and letting them prey on kids?’

            Oh I guess you don’t want to look at that, pedo apologist. It’d be too problematic for you to handle.

          5. Greyland is dead wrong about the statistics, citing the study of a designated anti-gay hate group. How pointing that out makes me “a pedo apologist” I really don’t know but keep at it if you must.

          6. This weasel is a great example of how Chorfs work.
            1. They do something ridiculous and get caught.
            2. They scramble to find a justification of why their bullshit is okay.
            3. As soon as somebody finds some half ass excuse, they all glom onto it.
            4. Double down and act offended when anyone rational questions you.

            Chorfdom swept a first hand account of abuse and enabling by Chorfdom under the rug.
            1. Everybody sane is like WTF?
            2. Some dipshit declared it to be “homophobic” even though it is a gut wrenching first hand account of abuse at the hand of a fandom legend, which was ignored or abetted by old fandom.
            3. Other dipshits like Kitten here go across the internet declaring that because there is a single statistic they disagree with in this gut wrenching first hand eye witness account, the whole thing is “homophobic” and thus safely dismissed.
            4. Since we have functioning brains, we all said Fuck You. So now she is offended.

            You can apply this to anything they do. They had to No Award Toni, not because they are petty scumbags, but because she didn’t put anything into the voluntary, not-required, packet. They had to throw out Dave Truesdale, not because they’re a bunch of pearl clutching easily offended jack offs, but because he took over HALF the panel (oh, there is audio show it was closer to 5 minutes, whoops). DOUBLE DOWN!

            So again, FUCK OFF, you pedo apologist. Because a woman is raping a girl, and we say that is evil, that doesn’t make us homophobic, you fucking shitsipper fritata moron. It makes you a piece of human garbage.

          7. Whatever, dude. Shouting and raving online is your thing and you’re good at it, so my hat is off.

            We disagree on what is the point of Greyland’s text. It’s published in a blog titled Ask the Bigot which opposes gay rights and the central thesis of the piece is that there’s a connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. The case is made with hateful bogus science, and the text was nominated by Vox Day in order to troll the Worldcon fandom. More than 1,800 people voted it below No Award and 80 thought it was last year’s best related work. The numbers don’t surprise me.

          8. Of course a politically minded lockstep bunch of Chorfs voted the same way. Because they are block voting assholes. 🙂

            Oh, and I’m not ranting. I just hold pedophile rape apolgist shitsipping fritata moron dipsticks in very low regard.

          9. Spacefaringkitten said, “The case is made with hateful bogus science”

            Prove it. You’ve made the assertion so the burden of proof is on you. Show their methodology and show how it is flawed. Show their analysis of the data and how it is flawed. Show how their conclusions do not follow directly from their analysis.

            Spacefaringkitten said, “the text was nominated by Vox Day in order to troll the Worldcon fandom”

            You’ve made another assertion. Prove it. How do you know with certainty that the only reason it made it into the final nominations was that it was nominated by Day?

          10. Because it’s the attitude of ‘this is anti-gay, should not be considered’ and ‘criticizing gays and holding them to the same standard as everyone else is bigoted’ is exactly why this happened: Gay rights campaigner lead double life as leader of pedophile ring.

            Your doubling down on dismissing Greyland’s account as ‘mere anti-gay screed’, as well as the circling the wagons around Sarah Butts, a mtf transgender anti-GamerGater and embracing the excuse of ‘teenage edgelordship’ for his preying on (then) his child cousin, is what showed us that you are in fact, a pedo-apologist. Oh and openly NAMBLA supporting Chip Delany.

          11. It is the same mental disorder where anytime you talk about actual Islamic terrorism, progs start screaming Islamophobia, so you can’t ever actually discuss the problem… Which is ironic since the most common victims of Islamic terrorists are other Muslims.

          12. Also, the attitude that protected Breen and Bradley had was not isolated. Greyland specifically describes how people were unwilling to criticize Breen’s behaviour because of this:

            Nowadays it seems puzzling why gays would get themselves mixed up with people whose sexual obsessions were downright illegal. The tolerance for pedophiles was fueled by several different sources. For one, many gays at the time knew all too well what it was like to be discriminated against by the state. Consensual sex between adult men was officially a criminal act up until the end of the 1960s. Only in 1969 did lawmakers in West Germany dismantle the infamous “Paragraph 175” of the German Criminal Code. At the same time, the sexual revolution was breaking out, and many men finally had the courage to come out of the closet.

            Thus many gays didn’t want to be the ones to judge others for their deviant sexual inclinations. In a climate of general tolerance, the movement lost its moral compass. The gay movement did not distance itself from men who acted on their desire for children; rather, it took them under its wing.

            Then there was the remarkable idea that underage boys should not be denied the chance to have sexual experiences with grown men. Even today, the Association of Lesbians and Gays in Germany (LSVD) claims on its website that in the 1980s, the only men who spoke up were those who had enjoyed sex with adults in their youth.

            For the pedophiles, the alliance with the gay movement was nothing but beneficial. They had a platform from which they could formulate objectives.

            The gay movement helped pedophiles in entirely practical ways. In the pamphlet “Justly gay. Legal advice for gays,” there is a one-and-a-half page “argumentation aid.” It’s an instruction on how men who are charged with child sexual abuse can best escape punishment.

            http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/gay-activists-in-germany-silent-on-alliance-with-pedophiles-in-1980s-a-919119.html

          13. We got us some DARVO up in here.

            Fuck your quotes. Because all they say is that this victim of a crime DISAGREES with you.

            That’s it. She doesn’t agree on a controversial issue? Yeah, because that’s what No Award is supposed to be for.

            Uh huh… and the convenient side effect of that is that you quisling apologist scumbags can sweep old fandom’s predilection for pedophilia under the rug.

          14. The pedophile apologist actually exposes a bit of their own bigotry: they don’t actually believe that gays are equal to heterosexuals. Saying something shouldn’t be criticized (gay lifestyle) means that the person saying it shouldn’t be thinks that it cannot withstand criticism on it’s own merit.

            I think both heterosexual and homosexual lifestyles CAN withstand criticism on their own merits.

            If Greyland’s story exposes that pedophiles hide behind the banner of LGBT then it is not a flaw of LGBT (false premise) but rather, a flaw on the conventions placing homosexuality above criticism.

            By placing it above criticism, if there are problems, it cannot be amended.

        2. Apologists for pedophilia make some of us angry. Especially if we’re sexual abuse survivors married to another abuse survivor with kids less than 16 years old.

          So fuck you.

          1. Yeah, each one of these morons who blunders through thinks they are so original, unique, and creative… When in actuality they are so predictable that we made up a bingo card for them three years ago.

    2. You people always find a way of covering for pedophiles. It’s no wonder your clique is so tiny and freakish.

    3. Moira Greyland whose anti-gay screed boils down to “homosexuals are pedophiles”?
      If that’s what you think Greyland’s piece was about, then you clearly did not read it. And thus, you’re proven a liar. Keep apologizing for the pedophile rapists, pedophile supporter.

  38. So basically you consider an evangelical theocrat, a neo-fascist and a racial supremacist embodiments of what “freedom of speech” should entail.

    It’s almost like conservatives are self-serving sociopaths…

    1. That looks like you intended to respond to somebody in particular, but you responded in general.

      So if it is in general “freedom of speech” includes everyone, whether I like them or not. So that means Black Lives Matter and the Klan can get together and have a giant Hate Off, while Westboro Baptist pickets it, and the Communist Party USA holds a bake sale, and as long as they don’t violate anyone’s rights or property in the process, they have the ability to yell all they want.

      The difference between authoritarian and liberty minded people (because this one isn’t conservative vs. liberal) is that progressives want you to shut up. Libertarians want you to keep talking so people can hear how stupid you are.

      1. They imagine themselves being the ones deciding whom is and is not Approved. Then whinge when it doesn’t happen.

    2. No, conservatives just understand what freedom means and that it applies even to people they don’t like.

      Which includes morons like yourself.

      (Since if you were silenced, no one could point out you using the usual prog “So…” comment which says more about your own prejudices than it does about the people you hatefully label “self-serving sociopaths” .)

    3. “So basically” is an SJW tell. It’s a way to rhetorically sum up their opinion without offering any facts.

      Progressives will do anything to cover for pedophiles, though.

      1. A way for them to fabricate something and then attribute it to their opponent, and usually it doesn’t match that opponent’s views. At all.

      2. I love it, because it can be used to imply bad motives no matter how neutral the statement:

        “I prefer granola to muesli”

        “So, basically, you’re a small-minded bigot who hates the Swiss?

      3. While it can be an SJW tell, I’ve used that phrase myself: “So basically, you’re saying that (short, but accurate summary of their argument). Is that right? Well, then here’s my rebuttal…” Note the “accurate” part of that sentence, though.

    4. Ah, yes, the “conservatives are evil sociopaths” argument. I’ve noticed this one a lot lately. The Left loves it because it cloaks their hatred of the other side in the language of psychology and science.

  39. This Noah Ward guy must be raking it in with all the awards he’s getting!
    But a serious question about the Dragon Awards – in the YA category. Can anyone tell me if there are any SJWs on that list? I’d hate to vote for one by accident. Thanks!

  40. Money will get you through times of no Hugos better than Hugos will get you through times of no money. – Jerry Pournelle

    From Pournelle’s latest blog post!

  41. I think I must be naive or something, or maybe just busy. Who cares about an authors politics, colour of skin, gender etc.? Who has time to research each individual author and what you may or may not agree with. I am just looking for a engaging, entertaining and enjoyable book to read. As long as you write a good book, I want to read it. I thoroughly enjoyed Novik’s Uprooted as much as all of Ringo’s and Webers novels. Larry’s MHI series just makes me smile and I am looking forward to rereading the entire series before I indulge in Grunge.

    1. Who has time to worry about that stuff? Social Justice Warriors, that’s who.

      If you would like I’ve got about a dozen fiskings on here of me responding to their ridiculous arguments on the topic.

      1. I have been paying attention to Sad Puppies for 3 years now. I do think they were needed, you had a purpose, the SWJ’s have resoundingly proved your point for you. It is just in my mind , if it is a good book, enjoy it! I read at least 75 new books a year and re-read many others. Unfortunately for the SWJ’s I get to recommend books without politics in my schools’ Hot Picks Program and I teach my students to pick books based on interest and quality instead of an authors politics! MHI is joining us this fall.

  42. For what its worth…. I was actually at this year’s WorldCon and watched the Hugo awards from the Consuite area.

    The one thing I heard quite regularly concerning N.K. Jemisin’s Best Novel Hugo was “I actually thought the novel was pretty mediocre, but I voted for it to send a message.” Also, at least one person I met refused to vote for Moira Greyland because they thought “she should have kept her damn mouth shut” about her abuse.

    On the plus side, a good number of the people I met simply rolled their eyes when the subject of the Hugo results came up. I also heard a fair amount of pushback over some of the more egregious examples of political correctness (including a Robert Silverberg panel where he called modern safe space/trigger warning on college campus’s as “stupid and asinine”). So I guess not all is lost.

    Side note: I attended the Tor Books panel, where they talked about upcoming releases. When the slide show came to John C. Wright’s upcoming The Vindication of Man, you could see the pained look on the panelists faces, as if they wanted nothing to do with the book but had to mention it because it was on the schedule. Not surprisingly they spent little time on it, but watching them being forced just to mention it and their facial twitches as they did so was amusing.

    On to Sad Puppies 5.

    1. “Also, at least one person I met refused to vote for Moira Greyland because they thought “she should have kept her damn mouth shut” about her abuse.”

      Waitwaitwait…whaaaaaaaaat? I’m rather surprised that you didn’t follow that sentence with “And then Satan himself appeared in a cloud of sulfurous fumes to give this person a thumbs-up.”

      1. Honestly, that was the point I just decided to extricate myself from the discussion. But yeah, the comment did annoy me. The woman (60-ish) was probably a little drunk, so I’m guessing she just voiced something she might ordinarily have kept to herself.

        I’m pretty sure most WorldCon attendees would have been appalled, tho; for the most part the conversations in fandom I’ve heard about Greyland’s abuse allegations have been quite supportive of her.

        1. Then the conversations you’ve heard are more sensible. The kind that are supportive of her usually get thrown into the SadPuppy pile with us, and then the ones who aren’t are also trying to paint her as anti-gay for her opinions. See above.

          1. Around here Greyland’s views on gay marriage tend to get couched in terms of, “remember where she’s coming from.” tones. Even those who disagree with her on that issue seem to accept it; they may disagree on her conclusions, but they understand how she arrived at it.

            To be sure, I think there is a core group of MZB supporters who can be regarded as true Darkover Zealots, who will not stand for their goddess to be slandered no matter what the evidence. But I think they are an extreme minority.

          2. Greyland’s views on gay marriage tend to get couched in terms of, “remember where she’s coming from.” tones. Even those who disagree with her on that issue seem to accept it; they may disagree on her conclusions, but they understand how she arrived at it.

            That’s how I feel. Mind, I’m aware that there are children of homosexual parents speaking out against homosexual parenting; and – this is my opinion – the problem isn’t having homosexual parents, it’s homosexuals who focus on identity-politics driven agendas over being parents. Hell, I think parents who focus on identity politics over being the best parents for their kids and looking out for the kids’ best interests, physical, mental and emotional health are THE problem, full stop, regardless of whether or not they’re het/homo/whatever. Pedophilia is a big fat no for me; I don’t care who does it.

            But eh, I’ll be painted as a homosexual-hating bigot by the zealots.

          3. Don’t feel bad. I helped a new charity organization dedicated to teaching self defense to homosexuals (in the wake of Orlando) to find a ton of firearms instructors around the country willing to volunteer their time. I was enough of a help they asked me to be on their board of directors (I turned them down because I’d already volunteered to be on the advisory board for another charity). But the Chorfs will still call me homophobic. 😀

          4. Just read some of those comments above. Wow.

            I seem to be missing out on all the really “fun” conversations. :-/

        2. 1800+ people (well, 1800+ ballots, anyway) voted against her account.

          Tells me all I need to know about WorldCon “fandom.”

        3. The woman (60-ish) was probably a little drunk, so I’m guessing she just voiced something she might ordinarily have kept to herself.

          I guess that’s a demonstration of in vino, veritas

    2. “The one thing I heard quite regularly concerning N.K. Jemisin’s Best Novel Hugo was “I actually thought the novel was pretty mediocre, but I voted for it to send a message.” Also, at least one person I met refused to vote for Moira Greyland because they thought “she should have kept her damn mouth shut” about her abuse.”

      On the first, does not surprise me.
      On the second – I am very glad I did not hear that. That is a slap in face to *ALL* rape, child molestation survivors. I do not know that I could have stayed calm, let alone civil.

      1. Kat, some folks just need a good slapping. Staying civil in the face of that isn’t required, or even advised, so far as I’m concerned.

    3. Wow. Classy bunch.

      It was mediocre but I voted to send a political message… Funny, if they would have just admitted that five years ago there never would have been any Sad Puppies. 🙂

      1. In 15-20 years most of them will be gone. The graying of old time fandom is no where more evident than at WorldCon.

  43. Blissfully unaware of the 2016 Hugos, which I suppose speaks volumes. But I will say my piece about Jonathon Ross and the 2014 Hugos. (Disclaimer: Unlike Neil Gaiman I don’t personally know the guy, this is just based off what I’ve seen of him on TV.) I think that most Brits, certainly myself, wouldn’t want JR presenting the Hugos, not because he might say something non-Politically Correct, but because he’s a jerk. Smug, self-centred and tiresomely juvenile; the sort of chap if he was twice as funny as he was would still only be half as funny as he thinks he is. (JIMHO of course. YMMV.)

    1. Smug, self-centered, politically correct, jerk? Sounds like he would have fit in at WorldCon great. 😀

    2. wouldn’t want JR presenting the Hugos, not because he might say something non-Politically Correct, but because he’s a jerk. Smug, self-centred and tiresomely juvenile

      THAT sounds like most of the comedians holding forth on nightly TV to me, which is why I refuse to watch tripe like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Last Week Tonight…

  44. So I think congrats are in order for awarding some fine SFF. I read a lot of them. Impressive. Particularly “Fifth Season”.

    And congrats to the Worldcon FANS for taking back there award from the culture warriors. A lot of good work at the business meeting. I think the Doggy Wars are over. That’s nice. Neil Gaiman was spot on.

    At the end of the day, the FANS spoke. And Chuck Tingle was right – “Love is real.”

    1. You made a typo. I think you meant taking back their award FOR the culture warriors. You accidentally put “from”.

      1. Gratitude. I did make a typo – brain short circuit. Should be “their award” not “there award”.

        1. So you admit that the Hugos have nothing to do with the best SF works, but are just baubles passed back and forth by the Waddling Dead trufen of WorldCon. Not news to us, but interesting to see you admit it.

      2. You don’t take anything ba ck by no-award you just prove your system is a joke and your preferences are out of touch with anyone outside your shrinking aging bubble.

    2. It’s always amusing when one of the regulars from Pravda 770 surfaces.

      I suppose it’s only natural for someone who endlessly imbibes the effluvia of his compatriots, to assume that he and his compatriots are the end-all-be-all of the fan spectrum. There is no question Gaiman told you precisely what you wanted to hear. There is also no question that Jemisin is precisely the kind of author who best represents Worldcon in 2016: a career complainer who has endlessly declared that SF/F is a horrible place filled with horrible people, despite the fact that she is fawned over by the cognoscenti who seek her blessing and stamp of Ally (note the caps) approval.

      Meanwhile, on the streets beyond the shuttered doors of the WSFS ghetto, a melee of commerce continues. Indie authors increasingly pushing down trad pub’s numbers until trad pub begins to bleed. Professional reviewers and review sites struggling for relevance in the marketplace of Amazon rankings. Why, one might even think that the audience no longer needs taste-makers to do their selection for them.

      In such an environment, the Hugo is meaningless. Jemisin is a two-bit panhandler. You’re welcome to congratulate yourself for your righteous victory against the Straw Puppies. It takes true heroes to punch down — from the heights of the establishment — against the dirty proles who should be taught a lesson.

      1. Are you saying LC is a regular on 770. It isn’t me. It is too tedious to post there. I have made the rounds here, Scalzi, and Felapton.

        Brad said: “There is also no question that Jemisin is precisely the kind of author who best represents Worldcon in 2016…”

        Well there you go. Nuff said.

        1. I haven’t posted anything in that wretched shit hole for years, though Glyer-50-Hugos keeps linking to me in the hopes of boosting their pathetic traffic.

          You’re still here? I thought you were going to fuck off already. Bad prog. Shoo.

          1. OK Bud. Truck em easy for now. I may stop in to say howdy in November. We have another election then as well. Polls looking good so I am cautiously optimistic. I am sure you will host another blog on that topic when it happens.

          2. Who will care? You aren’t coming off as a statesman, a sage, or a tormentor, just a sad tit who sits at the bar ignored by the other patrons and the bartender. You’re Nobody McSurewhinesalot Esq.

          3. Wow. You really are one oblivious motherfucker. Hint. I don’t like Clinton or Trump. I probably will write another blog post the day after the election, and it will probably say “See? I told you so.” again.

            So don’t bother coming back in November (or frankly, ever). You aren’t smart enough to debate with and are too boring to troll.

          4. But Larry! You are Not a Good Person, therefore you must, must, MUST love Trump. It’s the narrative!

            They never let silly things like facts get in the way of their narrative. I’m starting to suspect it is hardwired.

          5. Yeah, it isn’t like I wrote a bunch of blogs and Facebook posts during the primaries basically saying you guys can’t be serious. And then after the primaries I wrote one last one that said, okay, you were serious, have fun with that.

        1. Cameldouch Fepelsnout, I truly doubt anyone ever clicks on your links. I retired. Go find a new weirdo stalker fixation hobby.

        2. “Father McKenzie, writing the words
          Of a sermon that no one will hear
          No one comes near
          Look at him working, darning his socks
          In the night when there’s nobody there
          What does he care?”

        3. Psst! Spoiler for you: pot doesn’t actually grant you omnipotence. It doesn’t even grant you an IQ larger than your shoe size.

          You’re welcome.

      2. He’s imbibing on something else, too. And, well, pot is legal now….he just hasn’t figured out yet that it doesn’t actually grant him mindreading powers or an IQ above room temperature.

    3. Neil Gaiman needs to grow up. If you’re going to insult people at least have the good grace to do it in person. If you’re sending a proxy to accept your award show a little class and have them thank the audience, the academy, and whoever helped get your product to market, but don’t send them to do your dirty work.

  45. Im chuckling at the outright hypocrisy being shown by so many folks in the Truesdale/Feder Facebook comments…

    People who screamed that con-comms needed to be more transparent when going after people accused of harassment are saying that midamericacon cant release info due to privacy concerns…

    or Mary Robinette Kowal whining that that truesdale was abusing people with his comments…I wonder does she even pay attention to what SHE says about folks she disagrees with? Or maybe she just likes to abuse people?

    1. One of the thing Tom Kratman goes on and on about is a concept called “amoral familism”–essentially, that which helps my family is good, and that which hurts it is bad. So it’s fine if I steal your flocks, but it’s cause for war if you steal mine.
      Once you understand that not all families are based on blood, Kowal’s behavior makes a lot more sense.

      1. We’ve certainly seen this on full display among the CHORFs and Trufandom. No lie is too vile, no amount of slander too overboard. Yet they cry like a kitten that’s had its tail stepped on if you point out they’re being assholes, or you dare to invent an apt label for them — just look at how CHORF not only stuck, it stuck so hard, none other than George R. R. Martin himself continues to whine about it. As if George’s side in the whole affair were lily-white clean and pure.

      2. We call that “displays situational ethics beyond the scope of supervision” in the workplace. We call it being a #@#$ing baby in more informal settings.

  46. Over at her blog, long-time Puppy-kicker Cora Buhlert had this to say:

    “Larry Correia has finally resurfaced from a long weekend spent painting Games Workshop miniatures (at least I think that’s what they are, not my scene) to weigh in on the Hugos about which he totally doesn’t care at all, cause they are totally irrelevant. Oh yes, and he totally made whatever point he wanted to make with starting the Sad Puppy campaign (apart from winning himself a Hugo). He’s also angry at Neil Gaiman for saying mean things about the puppies. Interestingly, Correia doesn’t seem to have found Damien Walter’s article about his work yet. ”

    She posted this yesterday. 😀

    “Coincidentally, for someone who is supposedly such a giant in SFF art, I have to say that I’d never heard of Larry Elmore before this Hugo season. My book on 1960s to 1980s fantasy art certainly doesn’t mention him. ”

    No link, because screw her.

    1. In other words, she’s admitting that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. No surprise, but it’s informative to see the CHORFs admit such things, even if they don’t realize they’re doing so.

    2. “Never heard of Larry Elmore. Or of Darrell K. Sweet. Or of Michael Whelan. Or of David Cherry. Or of Boris Vallejo or Julie Bell. Dave McKean? Doesn’t ring a bell, sorry. “Doctor” Seuss? What’s a a doctor of, anyway?!? Harrumph.

    3. Cora Butthurt is SO dumb. I mean really, she is shockingly dumb. Like you read her smug twaddle, and you think to yourself, is this person really this stupid? No… She can’t be. This is like inbred, paint chip eating, mole people dumb. But nope. She really is.

      Please, someone needs to alert Frau Butthurt to my response.

      Dear Cora. Because I retired from something means I’m no longer allowed to share an opinion on my blog? Oh, good thing I don’t have any political or gun related posts on here either. 😀

      Was I allegedly painting minis over my birthday weekend instead of breathlessly observing the Hugos from afar? Well, actually no. I also went out on a date one night. Saturday I watched my son’s football game. Then me and my kids did all you can eat sushi. I went to church. Then because one of my daughters is into K Dramas, I introduced them all to The Man From Nowhere. I also binge watched several episodes of Blue Bloods, because Tom Selleck is awesome. Oh yeah, and I played World of Tanks, because right now is the Hammer Challenge (and I’ve easily beaten the first few levels, and am waiting for the next to unlock). We also had cake and ice cream.

      Whew… Good thing we got that cleared up. I’d hate for my idiot stalker brigade to not know what I did with every minute of my weekend!

      But don’t worry. Because I have lots of fans, they usually give me a heads up when people like you or Damien say stupid shit. So I got around to Damien’s paragraph review eventually. I had to squeeze it in between writing bestselling novels, cashing massive royalty checks, and going over the architectural plans for my new mountain fortress.

      Sincerly fuck off and die,
      -Larry

      And by the way, those minis are not Games Workshop, they were Gatormen from Hordes, you uncultured dipstick.

    4. Wait… Edit to add.

      You have never heard of Larry Elmore…

      BWA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

      Keep in mind, this is one of their best and brightest, finger on the pulse of fandom, experts on scifi and fantasy we are talking about here.

      She has a book he isn’t mentioned in.

      Okay, and a whole generation of fantasy novelists grew up with his posters all over our walls. He did hundreds of book covers. Oh, yeah, and that little thing called D&D.

      Seriously, paint chip eating mole person. 😀

        1. I believe she meant she placed her notebook on top of a stack of ’60-’80s lithographs….

          Well, really, the content of her remark is rather unclear, so take my comment w/a salt tab.
          ;~)❱

      1. I’m not into the fantasy genre too much, but even I’ve heard of Larry Elmore. Mostly because I bought issues of Dragon magazine for articles on SF games like Star Frontiers. 😀

  47. I didn’t vote in most categories, but I was very happy to see that Andy Weir won the Campbell Award, although I think it’s ironic to win an award for being a “new” writer when your blockbuster book has already been made in to a blockbuster movie that is already out on video. The win for Jessica Jones was a lot like last year’s win for Orphan Black–I thought it deserved to win (amongst those works nominated–still upset that Daredevil ep 2 didn’t get a nom), but you can’t really watch it as an individual episode. You’re either in for the whole series, or you probably shouldn’t bother. It like picking up a mystery novel and just reading the last chapter. Even if you think it’s the best thing ever, you already know how it ends, so why bother with the rest of the story?

Leave a Reply to So anonymous it hurts Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *