I know now why you cry, K Tempest Bedford Forrest, but it’s something I can never do.

This morning somebody showed me this tweet from noted racist, K Tempest Bedford Forrest.
My reaction was: There was something going on this weekend?
 
Oh yeah, WorldCon. Whoop de friggin’ do. 
 
Alas, poor Tempest, sadly I cried no salty tears of sadness, because a bunch of assholes continued to prove me right by giving awards to their friends.
 
As much as these mopes keep trying to drag me back in because they really need a villain to rail against, I wrote them off years ago.
So instead let’s see what did I do rather than give a crap about WorldCon.
 
During the week I wrote a new Grimnoir short story for the upcoming Noir Fatale anthology, edited by me and KC. We’ve got all the stories in now, and they’re great. 
Target Rich Environment comes out in a couple weeks. I also got back the 2nd draft of Monster Hunter Guardian. I just received the first few chapters of another collaboration to go over as well. I signed another contract with Baen. Oh yeah, and I got the next Tom Stranger contract to look over too.
 
For fun, I shot my new custom Grayguns Sig 320. I boxed up my 625 to send off to Apex for a full custom job. I got a Seekins Precision 6.5 Grendel upper as a thank you from RMR Bullets, but I’ve not shot it yet. 
 
On Friday I drove my 18 year old daughter off to college and helped her move in. Ironically, since my teenage daughter has had two pro short fiction sales in the last year, I believe she’s written more than Tempest has in that same time frame. Which is really kind of sad, since Tempest has been a writer longer than I have. Well, nominally a writer, because you know, that would require actually writing fiction and not just angry tweets about how everybody in the world is having fun wrong.
 
In more time than it has taken me to write 20 novels and 50 short stories and novellas, she has written like a dozen shorts… And some fools still take this dilettante hobbyist’s opinion seriously? Really, she’s just one of those useless parasites who has latched onto publishing, who rarely creates anything, but is all up in fandom and on lots of panels, constantly bitching that people who do create are creating wrong. She interjects herself into every controversy, and if there isn’t a controversy right then, creates one.
 
But back to my week of not paying attention to people with severe projection issues, on Saturday I went car shopping to replace the one my daughter took with her. I got a low mileage 2017 Murano. I just paid cash (I’ve never made a car payment in my life). This is the second car I’ve bought this year (first one was a 2016 Explorer). As a former accountant, I never buy new. Let somebody else take that big first year depreciation hit.
 
But anyways, when you are a hack pulp, not a *real* writer, with and irreparably damaged career, you can buy a couple of low mileage, almost new, vehicles, and just write a check for the full amount. Proper award winning authors have to beg on Patreon for rent money.
 
After that, I had to check on the construction of my new place. They laid the footings last week. This week is forms. Due to the half a mile of mountain driveway, it is a logistical challenge. The issue now is, are we going to be able to frame and button up before the weather turns, or will I just have a big bunch of concrete sitting there for the winter, and then start framing in spring?
 
Sadly, no tears for that either. Those are simply the challenges you face when you develop a big piece of property up in the mountains and put a gigantic house on it. I suppose life would be simpler if I was just a rich kid bum whose daddy sent me to the most expensive undergrad program in the country, before dropping out to couch surf and mooch off my rich friends, before going into a career of whining about other folk’s “privilege”.
 
But anyways, yesterday was my birthday. I appreciate the thousands of happy birthday wishes. I took the day off, painted minis, while streaming some low budget horror movies, and gave myself a free day on the carbs to enjoy some cake and ice cream (on that note, I’m now down 51 pounds and 4 pants sizes this year).
 
So let me think… More work than I can handle, enough contracts that if I don’t have another idea I’m booked up for the next 6 years, my books are doing well, there’s more coming, I love my job, and I have the creative freedom to do whatever I feel like. All that and not a single tear was shed because a bunch of stuck up dipshits had their annual circle jerk, after months of them ripping each other apart for not being sufficiently woke enough?
Go figure. 
 
I didn’t even cry when I dropped my daughter off at school. Because I was proud of her, not worried or sad. I raised a strong, independent, smart, hard working kid, who knows that identity politics is a cancer (plus, she’s majoring in computer science, not social justice studies, so unlike most of my detractors will actually be able to get a real job).
Sorry, Tempest. As much as you guys keep trying to drag me back in to serve as your Emmanuel Goldstein, I’ve washed my hands of your clown show.  Enjoy your slow decline into irrelevance. I’m busy.

So in conclusion: 

 
Infinity RPG 2nd session recap
How I lost 50 pounds this summer.

165 thoughts on “I know now why you cry, K Tempest Bedford Forrest, but it’s something I can never do.”

  1. Mr. Correia, I just wanna say: thanks. You have reached a point in your career where zero fucks are given. I love your work. And though I met you very briefly at SLCC Fan X last year, you were awesome and signed my books and even chatted with me a while. You are probably one of the coolest writers in the business. So thanks for sharing things like this, and thanks for entertaining the hell out of me.

  2. I guess she has written some fiction recently: What the voices in her tiny overheated head insists you and the others “really” feel about Worldcon et al.

    Nice to see you still live rent-free in their heads. Though the accommodations are cramped and a bit warm…

  3. Not to mention it would be pretty hard for him to weep “white tears” for one very simple reason. 😉

    1. Only one of the guys she mentioned would be considered “white” by, say, Hitler, or your average Klan member, and he’s married to a black woman.

    2. I’m *offended* that I don’t get to call myself Latino as well, because some of my ancestors are Italian. I mean, that’s the original Latin!

    3. I got no dog in this fight, but despite the federal government’s and random businesses’ and research marketers’ confusion on the matter, Hispanic/Latino* isn’t a race, it’s an ethnicity. Basically it’s anyone in North or South America who descends from early Spanish conquistadors, colonists, and settlers. I suppose you could also add second-generation Spanish-Americans (as in, their immigrant parents were directly from Spain) to that list, but they’d probably argue with you about it.

      Basically that means anyone–descendants of Natives, descendants of black slaves, descendants of white people, etc., who interbred with the early Spanish colonials. So yeah. You get white Latinos.

      The problem is that racists somehow think that a Spanish European is inferior to an English or German European, plus a LOT of Latinos are native + Spanish mestizos, hence brown-skinned, and of course in the mind of a racist it’s a sin to be brown unless you paid for it in a booth or out of a bottle. So the SJWs are fighting this particular battle from that point of view because they don’t know how to frame an argument, they can only “resist” one. (Poor George Lakoff.)

      —–
      [*I despise the new SJW term “Latinx” with every fiber of my being. If “Latino” is out of favor, use “Hispanic.” Failing that, “Latin” in recent decades has not meant Roman. CHRIST, people. But of course you can’t tell them anything, ever.]

  4. Should totally post this on the idiots twitter feed just to watch her go all condescending or…total melt down.

  5. About Patreon: She’d probably have enough to live on, but she wants to live in New York. Those hamster cages costs money.

    1. That proves she’s brain damaged. I can see living in New York if you have money. My In-Laws kept a New York condo so they could go to the Opera without having to drive a long way home after. They had money (He was, at that time, a CFO, and drawing seven figures). I thought that was a terrific way to spend it with style. Not my personal cuppa, but then I don’t like Opera (I like Symphonies. Go figure).

      But to live in New York on a budget? That sounds really miserable.

      1. It can be done, albeit with a lot of sacrifices, until you get a career that pays a lot which will let you live and do luxurious things; however, a lot of hardworking Afro-American blue collar and white collar New Yorkers are leaving the city and moving to the American south, as this article shows (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/22/nyregion/many-black-new-yorkers-are-moving-to-the-south.html) so make of that what you will. This lady wants to stay in New York because it appeals to her and she’s used to life there.

  6. 1. Happy Belated Birthday
    2. The eARC of “Target Rich Environment” was a blast! So many good stories, including stuff that was only available on Audible. (I have one good ear and one half-capable ear.)
    3. And more good stuff coming?

    THANK YOU!!!!!

  7. Great stuff.
    How hdo you like your graygun sig. I’ve been thinking of sending my p220 to them for a short reset trigger and a little action work. I’ve heard good things in the past.

    1. Yeah, thanks for anticipating my question. I’d like to read Larry’s assessment of the 320. Seems to be a rapidly popular model.

      1. Ooh!
        Larry doing gun reviews, that would be awesome. Please consider this!
        And far as the p320 goes, a guy at the range offered to let me shoot his last week. I have a p220 and a p229, and was skeptical of a pin fire pistol, thinking it wouldn’t meet my snooty standards. It was mightily impressive. There is a lot to be impressed with by that pistol, long as you don’t drop it of course.

        1. You DO know he served his apprenticeship writing articles for magazines like SWAT, and moderating on gun forums, right?
          😉

        2. They’re solid guns. Honestly most of the modern striker guns are pretty good, with a couple of exceptions.

          If you’re concerned about the drop thing, they’ve got a recall. From what I saw it was basically a non-issue. You had to hit it at exactly the right angle, and most of the people who got them to fire on YouTube did so by dropping them over and over, without ever working the slide to reset things, because they don’t understand how inertia works.

          1. And yes. I did used to write gun reviews professionally. I like writing fantasy novels a whole lot better. 🙂

      2. I was very impressed by my new P320’s trigger. I was far less impressed that the first shot revealed the pistol out of the box had a loose rear sight. I’m now awaiting it’s return from SIG to put a _second_ magazine through it.r

        So be careful of SIG quality control.

  8. Happy belated birthday! I am awaiting the release of TRE, It’s on my outlook calendar. (I know I can pre-order, but this gives me something to look forward to. Yes, my life is that sad…). Did I miss what publications your daughter has sold to? I love (good) short fiction and I’d be very interested in checking out her work.

    1. One of them is in TRE (Larry and his daughter co-wrote), and I think the other one is in that Noir Fatale collection that he mentioned in the post.

  9. Noooo Larrrryy! Your doing it wroooong!!!
    When a bunch of snots kick you out of their little club, you’re supposed to cry and obsess and scheme how to get back in and generally continue to make that the most important part of your life!
    You’re not supposed to shrug and move on with your life!!

    And a note for Glyer & assorted lickspittles: mocking you turkeys for making a right dumpster fire out of your little club isn’t really obsession on our part. It’s classic schadenfreude, like hearing about how some jerk you happen to know royally screwed up and is getting what they deserve.

  10. Holy Sh*t. I don’t EVER want you mad at me.

    (Because I’m pretty sure that wasn’t even you being mad… so I’m scaling that up and using my imagination.)

  11. I looked at the list of winners last night and laughed. Yes, they are -exactly- what one would expect from WorldCon.

      1. Had a moment of “whaaa?” there, although at least I agree with your post entirely. 🙂

        (the real Doctor Locketopus)

  12. I was in SJ and couldn’t be bothered to go to the Teresa ceremony (I’m using my name for them for a while. Put the flyers out over the con, not sure if there was any backlash.)

    Managed to get to Sunday at noon before I encountered “Trump will kill us all!” at a panel.

    Gonna do Ireland probably and then that’ll be it for WC for me.

    Unless there’s a Vegas or SLC bid. Then I might reconsider.

    1. There’s an SLC NASFIC next year, I don’t believe the timing conflicts with Ireland.

      David Weber is the GoH.

      I’m planning on going

  13. Ah…..Another brilliant smackdown of the attention clowns. I have only admiration Larry, for how clearly you let them know that their little club has lost relevance. That nobody but themselves cares. That said condition is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.

    And, as was said above, living well is indeed the best revenge.

    That said, I want to hear about the 6.5 Grendle too. Been considering one for years.

    1. Indeed. Though now that .224 Valkyrie is a thing I’m leaning in that direction. Decent mags should be easier to come by, for one thing.

  14. “Somewhere, those I chose to think of as my enemies are thinking all about ME, the center of the universe!!! WEEP, FOOLS!!!”

    *elsewhere*

    “Boy, am I sure enjoying my rewarding, full, successful life.”

    “What an odd thing to say.”

    “…*….yeah. For some reason, just felt compelled to say it.”

    *Back at World Con*

    “Genitals…Skin Pigmentation…Politics! Genitals…Skin Pigmentation…Politics! Genitals…Skin Pigmentation…Politics!”

    “…good story?”

    “Genita-….*…what does -that- have to do with anything?!? GUARDS, SIEZE HIM!”

  15. Somewhere, File770 is latching onto the fact that you posted about being somewhat amused by the WorldCon hullabaloo, and is using that to construct an entire straw argument saying that you just can’t stop thinking about it and are only building a mountain fortress so you can hide from everyone else and cry about how wronged you have been. It’s like they don’t even understand the concept of humor.

      1. And how am I “hiding” in my mountain fortress? I only post about it every week, in between all my many public appearances. 😀

        Man, these people are shit at everything. They can’t even come up with a proper narrative to explain my villainy. No wonder their books don’t sell.

        1. Okay, to be clear, I’m the one joking about hiding in a mountain fortress. I don’t know if they read what you have to say enough to realize that you own one. But I’m not making up the part about how they think you are sad and grumpy and cry about them all the time.

    1. I peeked and see they’ve gotten around to slinging the obligatory litany of insults at Robert Silverberg. I guess he’ll be this week’s target of the 24/7 Hate.

      Sigh.

          1. My guess: he’s an old white guy who’s written a lot of entertaining stories.

            I think they actually believe that that if all the good writers were somehow disappeared, people would suddenly start buying their dreck instead.

            Yeah, no.

          2. Re: Doctor Locketopus

            All good writers disappearing? Sounds to me like an economic opportunity.

        1. They’re upset that he pointed out that Jemisin saying her Hugo trophy was a “middle finger” to her critics was a bit vulgar.

          1. Okay, honest question here. At what point does she have critics who value a Hugo who she could possibly legitimately care about?

            Because on a human level I can absolutely understand the value of a big “middle finger” to one’s detractors. But, for example, when I was motivated to FU prove something to my high school classmates who thought I was a ditz, I went and signed up for Electrical Engineering at college… because it was the hardest thing I could think of and it would actually prove something. (It was a bad plan and I finally *do* have a STEM degree, but that’s neither here nor there… I got to college, discovered that people thought I was super smart and my motivation for EEE went right down the loo, as did my college career.)

            “I’ll show you!” general requires something that actually works as an FU. But who knows, maybe there are people who value a Hugo very much who also don’t give her credit and maybe she did show them after all.

            ALL of that said, maybe she knows her own fans best and that’s the speech they wanted, but Silverberg is not in the least out of line by suggesting that a speech focusing on the positive is sort of nice, when you’ve won something.

    2. The thing is, if he had said nothing, they’d say he was sulking. He says something, they’ll say he’s still angry. They want to think he’s some furious manbaby who won’t let go, when it’s them who won’t stop bringing up Sad Puppies.

      In short, haters gonna hater.

      1. Unfortunately I can’t remember who I actually saw saying that Larry is “still obsessed” with the Hugos. It might have been File770, it might have been Damien Walter’s twitter feed. I can’t keep them all straight. If I find it again I’ll screenshot it.

        I think it should be obvious enough that the only reason we occasionally still talk about the Hugos is to laugh about it. They’re the ones who are still angry.

        1. Yeah, I think I posted about it once or twice on the internet this year, and usually only in response to some dipshit talking about me. So if that’s “obsessed” by that standard I’m SUPER CRAZY OBSESSED with mini painting. 😀

          1. Unless he reads Total Minis he’s not super crazy obsessed. He probably doesn’t even rise to the level of Minis Monthly.

  16. “Well, nominally a writer, because you know, that would require actually writing fiction and not just angry tweets about how everybody in the world is having fun wrong”

    Your sentence contradicts itself. Her angry tweets are fiction. Not very interesting, but certainly describe a fictional world. Or maybe a parallel universe.

  17. Damn it, Larry, stop being so successful!

    As long as you remain successful, I must continue to read your Fisking Smackdowns of Internet Idiots, hear about Yard Moose Mountains with Footings and Forms, watch you pay cash for nearly-new vehicles, and enjoy book after book after book because you never stop creating! Oh, and the minis! Can’t forget the minis with the kitbashing and the painting and the RPG’s and Gritty Cop Shows raising money for charity! How dare you?!?

    Why can’t you just be a one-hit wonder that got lucky, and then parley that luck into becoming a life-long member of the Society of the Perpetually Aggrieved that doesn’t actually do anything other than beg for recognition from within their own echoing chamber?

    You just had to go and be successful, didn’t you!?!

    Well then, okay. Carry on.

  18. What happened at WorlCon, though ? Some kind of kerfuffle, again ?

    FWIW, I’ve actually read some of the Hugo winners this year:

    * The Stone Sky: This series got off to a pretty nice start, and I enjoyed it at first, but it got totally bogged down in boredom by the time it got to The Stone Sky. Meh.
    * All Systems Red: Hey, it was actually good, and so’s the entire series ! It’s a bit YA, granted, but still quite enjoyable.
    * Saga: It started out intriguing, but then got boring and way too random for my tastes.
    * Wonder Woman screenplay: I haven’t read the screenplay, but the movie was great.
    * The Last Jedi: I liked exactly half of this movie. The other half was boring and pointless.
    * Blade Runner 2049: It was true to the spirit of the original, though perhaps a bit unimaginative.
    *Thor Ragnarok: Yeah ! That movie was fantastic.
    *The Good Place: Great miniseries, though it does get a bit too zany for zaniness sake at times.
    *Black Mirror / USS Callister: Not the best episode, but not the worst, either. Black Mirror is very solid in general.
    *Star Trek Discovery: The only TV series I know of that actually gave me motion sickness. That’s some kind of an achievement in and of itself, I suppose.

    So, of the Hugo-worthy books/movies/comics I’ve heard of, about 55..60% are actually decent. That’s not a bad hit rate, IMO. Not sure why I should be crying… Unless maybe all those other winners that I haven’t read (watched, etc.) are terrible ?

    1. In general, awards are supposed to be given to the very best examples of whatever the award is for, not to examples that are merely decent.

      For instance, Redshirts wasn’t even the best Star Trek fanfic of 2012, much less the best novel in all of science fiction.

      1. True, but literature is subjective — it’s not like some sporting contest where you can precisely measure the lap time or jump distance. Thus, I wouldn’t expect to automatically love any Hugo- (or Dragon- or whatever) award-winning book. However, I would expect them to be at least somewhat decent — because, regardless of personal taste, some books are just bad and need to be weeded out.

        I haven’t read Redshirts though, so I can’t comment on it.

        1. I -did- read Redshirts. More than anything else, reading Redshirts convinced me the Hugos had become the Tor Inner Clique Awards. It was, quite frankly, not only -not- the best SF novel that year, it was INSULTINGLY bad.

          1. It’s funny. No matter how much they try to portray Sad Puppies as opposed to minorities or women in writing, the one book that motivated all my people more than any other thing to believe that the Hugos were well and truly fucked, was Redshirts, written by a straight white dude. It’s almost like all that identity politics gibberish they’re still spouting is fabricated nonsense or something.

          2. Redshirts… sigh. I wanted to like that book. And it started off in the finest tradition of PTerry and Douglas Adams style affectionate parody. Then it tried to be Oh So Profound by attempting a PK Dick style twist, but then Scalzi got all enamored with his own “cleverness”, and it just went up in a puff of self satisfied smug.

          3. And the twist wasn’t even that original. Look at “Visit to a Weird Planet” in The New Voyages from WAY back when.

            And he followed it up with a weak-sauce take of a Bruce Willis movie, and he & TOResa wept when it didn’t get a nom because of (Glenn Close scream) “Puppies!”

          4. Red Shirts was fun. Not what I’d consider a Hugo-calibre work, but a quick read and worth the time spent.

        2. To be honest, I kinda went on a one-man boycott against John Scalzi. I really liked the first two books in the Old Man’s War series, and I would still absolutely recommend them. But Scalzi totally phoned in the third book, to such an extent that I felt personally insulted by his laziness. I was willing to give Scalzi another chance, but then he went on some kind of woke vision-quest and started telling everyone how straight white men are the devil or whatever. So, I just kinda gave up.

          1. Oops, I meant to reply to John R. Ellis, above. Is it just me, or is the indentation on these threaded comments really hard to parse ? Is there some way to increase it ?

          2. Fuzzy Nation ruined him for me. Only good thing I can say about it is that it introduces me to Piper.

          3. I saw a (signed) hard cover copy of Collapsing Empire in a used book store last April. Read the first dozen pages and put it back on the shelf. It was like reading a first draft. Or maybe fanfic. It definitely could have used an editor. Apparently whoever paid $35 for it and took the time to wait in a line to have Scalzi sign it didn’t think it was worth keeping.

    2. > * “The Last Jedi”: I liked exactly half of this movie. The other half was boring and pointless.
      It was overly long, consisted mainly of gotcha moments and gimmicks, no continuity, screwed up tone,… blah

      > * “Blade Runner 2049”: It was true to the spirit of the original, though perhaps a bit unimaginative.
      All the faults of the original, and not many of the advantages.

      1. I haven’t seen it, but would surmise the problem is NO RUTGER HAUER.
        I like the original (every version of it), and Rutger Hauer stole that movie out from under Harrison Ford. The most quotable lines were from Hauer as well as the raw intensity. Deckard just wasn’t that interesting.

        1. In fairness, the most interesting parts of detective noir tend to be the other characters so they nailed the genre pretty well. Whether it was a good idea for a movie however…

    3. I liked The Stone Sky (and, indeed, the whole trilogy). I agree with you regarding Martha Wells–I don’t know that you’ll find anything from her that isn’t good, and All Systems Red is no exception. I also liked Akata Witch (the sequel, Akata Warrior, won for YA; I haven’t read that one).

      First time I’ve ever gone to WorldCon. The panels I attended were mostly good, and also mostly in rooms too small to contain them. David Gerrold and Robert Silverberg were among others in the Harlan Ellision memorial panel, and that was touching (and also a lot of fun). The room was way too small, though. They should have known this would pack people in, and it did. Almost every bit of floor was taken up with people sitting.

      Most of the other winners, I haven’t seen/read. I voted for Blade Runner in long form (haven’t seen Wonder Woman yet). I haven’t read the series that Bujold won for, though I have read other work by her and I think she’s good.

      Short form, I’ve seen Star Trek Discovery and Black Mirror, and I like both but think Black Mirror is better.

      I never know enough about the editors to know what to think of those categories.

      As I said, first WorldCon, so I can’t compare it to past cons. It was enjoyable, with the too-small rooms for some panels being the main problem.

    4. The Last Jedi’s problem was that it didn’t know it was the second movie in a trilogy.

      There were a bunch of story promises made in TFA that were simply broken:
      – Rey longing for a family loses a father figure when Han is murdered before her eyes by Kylo. Character moment? Nah. They’ll just hash it out in force ghost rap sessions.
      – Fin runs away and then grows and makes a stand by the end in TFA. Maybe this can be part of a larger character arc… So let’s have him try and run away again in TLJ? That can be his character! Plus it will be a cool opportunity to introduce a character that will puff up the Chinese box office by as much as 10%.
      – Rey spends her *life* nowhere waiting for her family to arrive. How do we resolve this? Tell her they’re nobodies who sold her off and have her accept it. Satisfying!
      – Snoke is a looming figure – literally. Seems like he should be important. LOL NVM.
      – Luke – the guy who redeemed Darth Vader – decides to murder Kylo in his sleep and lose faith in the force. Have… Have you seen Star Wars?
      – Rey seems to have some kind of force connection to the lightsaber and maybe something else? Those were cool moments but wasn’t it funny when Luke tossed the light saber over his shoulder? ROFL!

      But you know what? They saved the horse things on casino planet and that’s the real victory.

      I honestly hope they have the courage to make Episode IX a RomCom set in a Maine fishing town. There’ll be hilarious misunderstands but Rose and Fin will find love and that’s what will win. Or how about gangsters (Jabba’s son!) kills Rey’s pet Pog and she goes on a killing spree like the cold-blooded assassin she truly is. That’ll *really* subvert expectations.

      1. Honestly Luke’s character assassination was the biggest reason why I hated that movie and don’t care about the sequels. And when I tried to explain that to some of my friends they just said “Oh but in the real world sometimes good people do bad things!” But… there’s a difference between “doing bad things” and “doing things that are completely antithetical to previously established character motivations.”

        Character is a big deal for me (which is one of the reasons I love Larry Correia’s books so much, especially the Monster Hunter books). I want characters to be complex but understandable, and I want to feel like I know the person, and that each new action makes sense within the context of previous actions by that specific character. I’m not necessarily bothered by a character developing negative personality traits, like selfishness and cynicism, but I want it to make sense how they became that way. The Last Jedi did none of that for me. It was just “Hey, remember that spunky idealistic guy who saw the best in everyone and never gave up? Yeah, now he’s a hermit who hates the world and tried to kill his nephew.” That’s not character development. It’s writing yourself into a corner where This Event must happen, and there’s only one character with the opportunity to do it, so even though that character *wouldn’t* ever do it you force it in anyway.

      2. Yeah. TFA was pretty much nothing but foreshadowing and set-up. TLJ was pretty much nothing but ignoring said foreshadowing and deliberately destroying said set-up.

        And yet, LucasFilm -itself, on myriad platforms, viciously attacks its OWN FANS for daring to point this out.

        The worst part is the narrative all the lefty genre sites are going with “Well, the EVUL older fans are just EVUL and stuff. That’s the ONLY reason they didn’t like it!” Yeesh.

        1. “The original trilogy didn’t explain to us where the Emperor came from or who Luke’s mother was!!!” Yeah, but it also didn’t spend a WHOLE DAMN MOVIE making us think that they were going to tell us those things!

          Also, I’m part of that “young” demographic that they think is all about the cynical deconstructionist tone and surface-level character diversity. My parents grew up on the original Star Wars. And I still think these new movies are crap.

          1. I saw the first movie as a young sprat in the theater on first release. I had all the toys, I watched all the movies, I’ve read much of the EU, I loved “Rogue One”, I even appreciate the prequils because they gave us the Mr. Plinkett reviews- and I’m pretty much done with the Star Wars movies after TLJ. I have no plans to see Solo, and will probably skip the next one in the series.
            I guess I’m just an evil racist sexist…

          2. Yeah, at least the prequels are good to laugh at. I also recommend The Nerd Crew, by the same guys who did the Plinkett reviews. Pretty spot-on satire of the way people let Star Wars and other media franchises take over their lives. Personally, I pretty much disregard anything Star Wars produced after 1983, though I might make some exceptions for EU novels if they are good enough.

          3. Being of the age of growing up on the original Star Wars movies myself, I have precisely zero desire to see the next Star Wars movie. Even though I thought the prequels were bad, they were still watchable with my kids as fun. TFA was a passable movie to try and kick some life back into the franchise, but TLJ…that movie does nothing but spoil tension.

            It spoils the tension established by the previous film, and even spoils its own. That’s why it doesn’t work as a story. Johnson was so focused on “subverting expectations” that he subverted the whole damn story.

          4. “I also recommend The Nerd Crew, by the same guys who did the Plinkett reviews. Pretty spot-on satire of the way people let Star Wars and other media franchises take over their lives. “
            And there’s also their notorious TFA trailer reaction video… they may be hack frauds, but they’ve got the funniest webzone on the youtubes.

          5. “Johnson was so focused on ‘subverting expectations’ that he subverted the whole damn story.”

            Yeah, that’s basically my conclusion too. They wanted to do something “different” but ended up making it so “different” that it wasn’t even Star Wars anymore. Best exemplified, I think, by the dull, dreary pessimism of the whole thing. The prequels might have been stupid, but at least they were fun.

            I can’t believe I’m complimenting the Star Wars prequels. Ugh. What has the world come to?

      3. In the old EU,
        – Luke married a woman who initially hated him for ruining her life and struggled to resist the Emperor’s last command (Geas) of YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER constantly being in her head.
        – Virtually no human has their race mentioned because nobody cares, so anyone who isn’t depicted visually (and many who are thanks to a lot being line art only and/or low detail eyes) has no clear race
        – There’s lots of moments where characters still learning the force fail with it. Corran Horn failing to mind trick a stormtrooper then getting his ass handed to him and nearly dying in his first real lightsaber fight is and always will be interesting than REY ALWAYS WINS.
        It’s almost like the hacks Disney has employed don’t like Star Wars

  19. I did a quick look at the statistics they released on the voting and at around 3,300 total votes cast, their starting to circle the drain after the Sad Puppy bump in 2015.

    1. Alas, it only matters if they were the *right* votes, and I’m sure that they were very much so the *right* votes from the right sort of people.

    2. The so-called “World Science Fiction Convention” attracts fewer attendees than BronyCon (which is going to be canceled after next year due to low attendance).

      It’s been running on fumes for decades. The only reason it’s still even a thing is that some old-school pros still go there, but the number is fewer every year. Mike Resnick checked out this year. Since Robert Silverberg is this year’s designated Emmanuel Goldstein, perhaps he won’t be there next year (I wouldn’t be, that’s for sure).

      Modulo the remaining old pros, Worldcon is now basically a clone of Wiscon. If there is anything at all fun going on there, I haven’t heard about it (of course, if you’re the type of person who considers being lectured at by Marxists “fun”, your mileage may vary — me, I had enough of that in grad school).

      I admit that I will greatly enjoy it when Scalzi’s turn to be the designated sacrificial victim comes around. And it will. He’s too white, too middle-aged, too male, and too suburban to survive in that environment much longer.

      Also on my planned “watch with popcorn” schedule: what happens when the “woke” crew realize that a) just about everyone who works at Tor Books is whiter than Andy Warhol’s cadaver and b) despite their virtue signaling, all the decent money contracts go to guys like Scalzi.

      1. “I admit that I will greatly enjoy it when Scalzi’s turn to be the designated sacrificial victim comes around. And it will. He’s too white, too middle-aged, too male, and too suburban to survive in that environment much longer.”

        It’s already started. He only got one panel this year, and “gave it up”

  20. Any word on when Guardian comes out or which characters will be in it? Also anyone have any idea if the Frank’s and Joe Ledger short story will hit Audible?

  21. Told one of my co-workers who is an English major about the sad puppies and Hugo awards. He knew what a cluster fuck of fail the Hugo’s are and had heard of the sad puppies. When he found out Larry had started it he bought MHI and is now on Vendetta.

    My work here is done.

  22. K. Tempest Bradford? Never heard of her.

    Congrats on your success and another complete orbit around the local star.

  23. Happy birthday and best wishes for the year!
    Comp Sci is learning so all good. My nephew studied it at Case and is now working for Amazon in Seattle. Very smart young man.
    I met you at the B&N in MetroParkCentralis a few years back and had read everything you published at that point. I had no idea you were in town, finding you at the bookstore when I was there was pure happenstance.

  24. Happy Birthday!

    I was going to suggest that Nathan Bedford Forrest might be offended at your association of his name with this Bradford person but on second thought, it’s much more likely that he’s reading one of your books and laughing his ass off at her.

    Grats on losing 51 lbs.

  25. Thanks for the short update on the new home. Ours should be easier but my supervising contractor had an old shoulder problem flare and VA is working it but slowly. We are moving forward and should be ready to move before the winter weather arrives.

  26. I had to look her up since the name didn’t ring any bells. It appears that she is more a tempest in a teapot than a significant voice in SFF.

    Her bibliography shows that since 2002 she has had 13 short stories published by small presses, fanzines, anthologies, and online literary magazines. (No beef with small venues. Everybody starts somewhere.) She does have a half dozen interviews she conducted (not counting the one where she interviewed herself for Locus). I also looked at her twitter feed. She responded to this blog with how awesome her life has been with multiple teaching assignments and attending a workshop to work on a novel.

    That being said, I applaud her for being happy with where she she is at. it’s really not fair to compare Mr. Correia’s output and resulting material benefits to what she has accomplished. Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach.

    1. The issue is she’s accomplished nothing, yet acts like she has. The angry social justice contingent treats her like a pro celebrity, she is all over fandom stirring shit like she’s a big deal, but she’s really just a talentless parasite with no work ethic who likes to play at being an author. Every profession has loud but useless hangers on like her.

  27. It’s always telling to see how ungracious the Usual Suspects are in victory. No Puppies this year and yet they acted like there were. Jemisin won like they wanted, but because Silverberg remembers what manners are they gotta moan about that. Total victory isn’t enough for them.

    1. I missed what happened with Silverberg. I’ve not been paying any attention. Are they mad at him now? Because I don’t know the guy but he’s always struck me as a gentleman.

        1. Yep. Now they’ll rip Robert Silverberg apart. That’s all they know how to do. They’re addicted to outrage.

          1. Obviously, telling someone they were being vulgar means you were ACTUALLY targeting their sex and skin pigmentation. Because reasons.

            RJS is also guilty of Original Sin…next you’ll be telling me THAT’S not a valid reason either!

  28. Random observations:

    K.Tempest: If you can only enjoy something if other people aren’t enjoying it, it probably isn’t worth enjoying.

    And I’m not sure K.Tempest is worth Larry wasting the keyboard time on.

    As for the Hugos, well the last Worldcon I went to was London and I thought it was great, and FWIW I didn’t really pick on any particular SJW vibes, just people coming together in a common interest. OTOH I can be pretty oblivious to stuff. And for the books that won, which IMHO is the important part of the Hugos, I have read precisely none. And actually only one of the total nominated, but I did think the one I read was awesome. (Though I think this is more a case of my needing to read more than anything else. )

    And finally congrats to Ms Correia on making pro-sales.

  29. They don’t understand the concept of a Pyrrhic victory, do they? Yes they purged all their opponents from the venerable institution, but at the cost of devaluing its brand. Now a competitor has appeared and may soon outshine the original.

    Additionally through their vindictive voting they have proven their critics correct. Nesmin May be Hugo worthy, but three in a row? I doubt that. But hey, the spite was more important than integrity.

    These people never got it. Corriea wanted to be the loyal opposition. Vox Day wanted to pee on the ashes of their institutions. He’s gotten more of want he wanted than they realize.

      1. Working within the system; loving them back to health; correcting them because you want to see them prosper (because you love them or you love the larger institution).

        You’re saying that’s not what you really were trying to do at first? You just wanted to expose the pill bugs to the chickens?

        1. I think that Brad really really wanted to save sci-fi from itself. That was his thing.

          Didn’t work, either.

        2. I think you’re mistaking me for Brad. I only wrote like 100,000 words over dozens of blog posts clearly explaining what I was trying to do, but you can go ahead and interpret events however you want I guess.

        3. I think we are talking about three different things:

          1- trying to fix the institution
          2- trying to destroy the institution
          3- simply trying to prove that the institution is broken

          I always got the impression that Larry’s goal was the third one on that list.

          1. Check; that was my reading or rather, that’s my recollection of my reading.

            (Was that “Sum of All Fears:” ‘I don’t recall Senator; I don’t remember Senator.’ Totally not what I was going. It was one of the Jack Ryan ones where the guys got abandoned in South America and he went and got them.)

    1. “So the sad puppies were right all along?”

      “Only if by “right” you mean correctly diagnosing a weakness in the system but then making it worse.”

      Me: Only if by “making it worse” you mean, “Look what those awful people made us do!”

      1. I think the Kindle version usually takes longer to get added to the preorder options. It’s still half a year away.

  30. So this reminds me to ask, Hey Larry! Are we gonna see you on a fantasy track panel at DC this year? I sure hope so – rub some noses in it!

    (Damned Good Riddance to a truly horrible track mistress. That tart took off her blouse to show off tattoos in front of a roomful with kids in a Pern panel once. Dragon tats so “it was ok”)

    1. I’ll be there. I’ll post my schedule soon. I’m just waiting to get my book signing times confirmed.

      1. Book signings??? Do they not let you do readings without the interpretive dance assistants these days?

    1. Always with this “crying” stuff. I think these squishes have some projection issues.

      Despite the thousands of writers producing thousands of books every year, the nominees and winners always come from the same tiny predictable clique of like minded friends, and them vindicating me by doing exactly what I told the world they do (only louder now) is supposed to upset me how?

    2. He also quotes Sen. Fienstien on his page. A true Kool-
      aide drinking social liberal melon ball if ever there was.

    1. Along with the Up/Down vote buttons, and the ability to edit posts for a few minutes…

      Jack has been having no end of ‘fun’ chasing down issues recently.

  31. Ooh, a Murano, nice. I have a Juke (the little sister to the Murano’s big daddy, if I may reference a game I only just recently played for the first time). I sat in a Murano once and found it to be incredibly comfortable and nice, but far more car than I’d be comfortable handling. Sounds like it’d be just right for someone like you.

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