Inspiring SFF Books

The latest Mind Meld column at SF Signal collects answers to the question What SF/F/H book (or books) inspired you the most? which was posed to a group of authors.

Their answers:

1. Dan Koboldt:
1. Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time
2. Michael Crichton Jurassic Park
3. Frank Herbert Dune
4. Robin Hobb Farseer Trilogy
5. Patrick Rothfuss The Name of the Wind
2. Nicole Cushing
1. Thomas Ligotti Teatro Grottesco
2. Anonymous The Nightwatches of Bonaventura
3. Sadegh Hedayat The Blind Owl
4. Roland Topor The Tenant
5. The work of Bruno Schulz, Witkacy, and Mário de Sá-Carneiro
6. Hermann Ungar The Maimed
3. Jeremy Szal
1. George R. R. Martin Game of Thrones
2. Stephen King
3. Karen Traviss Halo: Glasslands
4. M. Darusha Wehm
1. Nathan Lowell Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series. Writes Wehm:

Beginning with Quarter Share, the series follows Ishmael Wang as he navigates the world of interstellar cargo hauling first as a green, unskilled recruit through to running his own ship in the “final” book, Owner’s Share.

5. Anatoly Belilovsky
1. Vladimir Nabokov Pale Fire
6. Dawn Bonanno
1.  Mercedes Lackey Valdemar series.
7. Amy Sisson
1. Eleanor Cameron The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet.
2. Laurent de Brunhoff Babar Visits Another Planet.
3. Poul Anderson Tau Zero
8. Kate Heartfield
1. Pat O'Shea The Hounds of the Morrigan

I thought this was a very interesting list. I look forward to checking out Lowell's Solar Clipper series, which sounds right up my alley. The Hounds of Morrigan also sounds pretty cool from the brief synopsis you can find at the original link.

"The Wreck of the Hugo"

Following the debacle of this years Hugo's, in which No Award was given in more categories than had previously been awarded in the entire history of the award, a number of efforts have been made to recognize deserving authors whose works were snubbed.

Most famously, George R. R. Martin handed out "Alfies" named after Alfred Bester and made from car hood ornaments in the spirit of the first Hugo Award. These awards went to authors who George argued would have one if not for the puppy slates, other authors who turned down nominations, as well as those who spoke out creditably in the surrounding debate.

Now we learn that Ken Burnside commissioned artist Charles Oines to come up with a trophy to be awarded to, in the worlds of Arlan Andrews, the "runners-up to the 2500-vote NO AWARD bloc that wrecked the Hugos this year in many categories." In addition to Andrews, Kary English, Mike Resnick and Toni Weisskopf were recipients.

The 3D-printed trophy, entitled "The Wreck of the Hugo," that comes with the award looks pretty good and fittingly depicts a crashed rocket ship very much like the one on the Hugo Award statuette:

Constructed Languages (Conlangs)

David J. Peterson, hired to create working versions of the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBOs Game of Thrones, is about to release his new book The Art of Language Invention. Coinciding with its release, he has been featured in a couple of recent articles discussing the art of constructed languages (conlangs).

In one article in Wired entitled How to Invent a Language, From the Guy Who Made Dothraki, K. M. McFarland punts on describing the new book, which he describes as

incredibly dense. Unless you’ve taken a fair amount of linguistics, or are innately familiar with phonetic inventories and symbols, there’s a high barrier to entry for the average pop culture fan curious about how Dothraki came to be.

Instead, he settles for interviewing Peterson. Of particular interest to me:

Some Conlangers Want to Keep Their Hobby Arcane
Peterson recognizes there are “definitely some negative aspects” to the growth in conlang popularity. He cites linguistic pioneer J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Lord Of The Rings as an example of the community’s instinct toward self-protection. “There were some people who reacted negatively [when LOTR was published] because they knew conlang would start to get more attention, and they didn’t want that,” he says. Until recently, the community has been a supportive niche for people with a very specific interest. But as television shows and films with created languages continue to pop up in more places, it’s no longer as heavily guarded.

His Book Aims to Codify Conlang Knowledge For Posterity
Constructed languages have existed for centuries, but the advent of the internet brought with it the listserv that created a true community of peers. Since then, the community has grown hugely—but as the internet has changed, a new generation of conlangers on various social networks has become more spread out and unaware of each other. “I’ve met dozens of conlangers on Tumblr, all new, all young, who have no idea that each other exist,” he says, “because they’re with the mass kind of shouting into the wind.” None of them know about the old conlang listserv, and now it’s an antiquated form of digital communication, so “they don’t want to bother with that.” Peterson worries about redundancies that would arise from the lack of connection. “They’re inheriting a kingdom they really don’t know the history of, and know nothing about,” he says. They’re reinventing every single wheel we already perfected.” The Art Of Language Invention is a way of bridging the gap between the old and new conlangers by becoming a codex of sorts, preserving knowledge of constructed language much in the same way ancient languages have been preserved throughout history.

Peterson also has an interesting short post on tor.com about books that do a good job (and some a not so good job) of creating languages.

Peterson begins by citing Jack Vance’s The Languages of Pao as an example of how to do it badly. The premise for that book is that language shapes culture, and so by inventing and implementing three new languages within a group of people, culture can be changed enough to alter societal outcomes. I thought this was an interesting premise, but Peterson rejects it as a fantasy with "absolutely no grounding in linguistic science."

As for those books who do it well (and why Peterson thinks they do it well):

1. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
   Obviously! Tolkien was a language creator, and created the Elvish languages of Arda decades before writing LOTR.
2. George R. R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire.
   Martin created no languages in detail, but worked out their genetic histories.
3. Suzette Haden Elgin, Native Tongue.
   Elgin imagined a group of women trapped in a patriarchal society creating a language that would liberate them mentally and physically from male oppression. Elgin actually created the language, Láadan.
4. Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire.
   Nabokov created an interesting sketch of an a posteriori language—a language based on real world sources.
5. Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle.

On Vonnegut, I quote Peterson in full:

In Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut introduces the reader to the island nation of San Lorenzo, whose culture, government, and religion were radically altered by the actions of two castaways who washed ashore one day. Central to the religion, called Bokononism, are a series of English-like words that were introduced to the island by English speakers, and then altered in quasi-realistic ways. For example, karass, likely from English “class,” is a group of people that are cosmically connected in an indiscernible way. From that word, though, comes the word duprass: A karass consisting of exactly two people. This is precisely the type of fascinating misanalysis that occurs all the time in real word borrowings, such as the English word “tamale,” formed by taking the “s” off “tamales,” even though the word for one tamale in Spanish is tamal.

Eric Flint on Popularity and Literary Awards

A couple of weeks ago, Eric Flint wrote up a lengthy post getting at the oft-circulated idea, which appears to have been at least part of the motivation for the Puppy campaign at the Hugo Awards, that there is a divide between those SFF works recognized by the awards and those that are popular. Back in 2007, Flint set out to ascertain whether this divergence was in fact real.

As Flint points out, this is a difficult topic to analyze because popularity is typically defined to be sales and data on sales by author is not publicly available. In fact, if I understand the situation correctly, the data might not even be privately available to the author, and there is some doubt as to whether publishers have accurate sales data, too!

To get around this problem, back in 2007 before e-book sales were nearly as important as they are now and when amazon.com was smaller, Flint sought out to get around this absence-of-data problem by proxying for sales by looking at shelf space at major book chains like Barnes & Noble and then then-still-solvent Borders.

Flint he claims he went to multiple such stores all over the country and recorded the names of authors who were regularly able to command four feet of shelf space, as opposed to three feet of shelf space, or only two feet of space. This was taken as a measure of "popularity" which could be then compared with the names of the authors who won awards. For reference, Flint asserts that back-in-the-day the sets of authors who were popular and who won awards would have a large intersection. The question he wanted to answer was: is this less true today?

Back in 2007, Flint found that there were seven authors who could command four or more feet of shelf space in the SFF section:

1. Jim Butcher
2. Orson Scott Card
3. Raymond Feist
4. Mercedes Lackey
5. Terry Pratchett
6. J.R.R. Tolkien
7. David Weber

Note that this excludes authors like JK Rowling, Stephen King and Michael Crichton who are typically not shelved in SFF.

As for the performance of these authors with awards:

From the standpoint of measuring these authors in terms of awards received, of course, we have to start by subtracting J.R.R. Tolkien. He pretty much antedates the awards altogether. (Although he did receive a very belated Hugo nomination in 1966 for “best series ever.” But he was defeated by Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.)

Of the six remaining authors, four of them—Butcher, Feist, Lackey and Weber—have never received a single nomination in their entire careers for any major F&SF award. No Hugo nominations—forget wins, they’ve never even been nominated—no Nebulas, no World Fantasy Awards. Nothing.

Terry Pratchett has been nominated. Exactly twice. Once for the Hugo, once for the Nebula. He didn’t win either time.

With the last figure in the group, of course—Orson Scott Card—we find ourselves in the presence of a major award-winner. Card has been nominated for sixteen Hugo awards and won four times, and he was nominated for a Nebula on nine occasions and won twice. And he was nominated for a World Fantasy Award three times and won it once.

But…

He hasn’t been nominated for a WFC in twenty years, he hasn’t been nominated for a Nebula in eighteen years, and hasn’t been nominated for a Hugo in sixteen years. And he hasn’t won any major award (for a piece of fiction) in twenty years.

I seem to recall a rumor about Pratchett declining a nomination and I am not sure if that is included.

A similar pattern emerges if the list is expanded to authors commanding three feet of shelf space in SFF:

1. Terry Brooks
2. David Eddings
3. Eric Flint
4. Neil Gaiman
5. Terry Goodkind
6. Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson
7. Robin Hobb
8. Tanya Huff
9. Robert Jordan
10. George R.R. Martin
11. Anne McCaffrey
12. L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
13. John Ringo
14. R.A. Salvatore
15. Harry Turtledove

According to Flint:

Of those fifteen authors (counting Herbert and Anderson as a single author) eleven of them—that’s almost 75%—have never been nominated for any major award. Again, forget winning. These authors aren’t even on the radar.

Harry Turtledove has gotten some recognition: one WFC nomination; two Nebula nominations; and three Hugo nominations, one of which he won.

But, being blunt, six nominations and one win is a pretty screwy record for an author with Turtledove’s popularity, wide range of output, and longevity. Forty or fifty years ago—thirty years ago, for that matter—he would have been nominated at least as often as Gordon Dickson.

Anne McCaffrey has gotten quite a bit of recognition in her career, taken as a whole. She’s been nominated for a Hugo eight times and won once; and nominated for a Nebula on three occasions, of which she won once.

But she hasn’t been nominated for a Nebula in thirty-eight years and hasn’t won in thirty-nine years. And she hasn’t won a Hugo in forty years. The last time she was even nominated for a Hugo was sixteen years ago—and that was her only nomination for any major award in the last quarter of a century.

A quarter of a century, mind you, in which she kept writing and never once lost her popularity with the mass audience. But, as with Orson Scott Card, she long ago lost the favor of the in-crowds.

The situation’s a little better with George R.R. Martin. Martin, of course, has a very impressive track record when it comes to awards. He’s been nominated for a Hugo on seventeen occasions and won four times; nominated for a Nebula thirteen times and won twice; nominated for a WFC nine times and won once.

And, true enough, Martin did pick up some nominations recently, unlike Card or McCaffrey. Several of the novels in his very popular A Song of Ice and Fire series were nominated for Hugos and Nebulas in this century, although none of them won.

Still, even with Martin, most of his award history is now far in the past. Of the many nominations he’s gotten in his career, the great majority date back to the 70s and 80s, and most of them are now a quarter of a century old.

Here’s the truth. Of the twenty-two authors today whom the mass audience regularly encounters whenever they walk into a bookstore looking for fantasy and science fiction, because they are the ones whose sales enable them to maintain at least a full shelf of book space, only one of them—Neil Gaiman—also has an active reputation with the (very small) groups of people who vote for major awards.

And they are very small groups. Not more than a few hundred people in the case of the Hugos and Nebulas, and a small panel of judges in the case of the WFC.

With them, Neil Gaiman’s popularity hasn’t—yet, at least—eroded his welcome. He’s gotten five nominations and two wins for the Hugo; three nominations and two wins for the Nebula; eight nominations and one win for the WFC—and almost all of them came in this century.

The situation is similar for those authors commanding two feet of shelf space, although as Flint notes there is much more variation in the set of such authors from store to store.

What does all this mean? Flint takes it as confirmation that awards have drifted away from recognizing purely story-telling skills, towards focusing on how the story was written:

To go back to the issue at hand, this is the inevitable tug-of-war that affects any literary or artistic award. Do we lean toward the tree or toward the forest? Do we focus on the way a story is written, or on the story itself?

That’s a simplistic way of putting it, granted, but it does capture the heart of the matter. What usually happens over time is that awards given out by a group of people who are a small sub-set of the mass audience for that particular form of literature or art tend to lean in the direction of contemplating the trees.

There’s nothing wrong with that, in and of itself. You just need to understand the phenomenon, not take it personally—and above all, not to characterize it as the product of foul play.

And that was the Original Sin, as it were, of the Sad Puppies. (The Rabid Puppies are a different phenomenon altogether.) As it happens, I agree with the sense the Sad Puppies have that the Hugo and other F&SF awards are skewed against purely story-telling skills.

They are. I’m sorry if some people don’t like to hear that, but there’s no other way you can explain the fact that—as of 2007; I’ll deal with today’s reality in a moment—only one (Neil Gaiman) of the thirty authors who dominated the shelf space in bookstores all over North America regularly got nominated for awards since the turn of the century.

I do not necessarily disagree with Eric's conclusions.  But I am not certain.

For one thing, it is not entirely obvious to me that the situation was different back in the 50s, 60s and 70s.  Of course, I wasn't alive and/or paying attention back then, and so I need to rely on the reminiscences of Flint and others instead. And they may be correct when they assure me that things were different. But there is also a tendency for people's memories to be distorted by time. Looking back, are we more inclined to remember the books that were both popular and that were given awards? Were the bookshelves of the period actually filled with books that were popular but that did not win awards and that have not passed the test of time? Perhaps John Norman's Chronicles of Gor dominated the shelves (as far as I know, they never won any major awards)? I simply do not know and wish we had some hard data as a check on the reminiscences of others.

For another thing, even if we accept that popular best-selling work does not win as many awards these days, does it necessarily imply that story has been subordinated to form in the awards? One thing we know is true is that the market for SFF is more crowded today than it was in the past. As a result, it is harder for new authors to amass large followings. If many more good authors---authors who has mastered story as well as form---are having trouble finding their audience, then voters may have compensated by giving awards to works that have escaped attention. Or alternatively, maybe on average (there are obvious exceptions) it takes an author with a long career to be a best seller these days. If so, and if authors write their best books when young, then awards might inevitably be going to the work of younger, less established and hence less popular authors.

I don't know and in the absence of hard data we probably never will. But I thought Flint's solution to the problem of lacking hard data was a helpful step forward, in spite of all the problems that remain (and that Flint does a very good job of acknowledging in his post).

More Parody

After Amazon removed the Scalzi-rape-parody book yesterday, the authors revised the title and re-posted it as John Scalzi Banned This Book But He Can Never Ban My Burning Love: A Pretty, Pretty Girl Dreams of Her Beloved While Pondering Gender Identity, Social Justice, and Body Dysmorphia.

The blurb is as offensive as the title, which is to say "only a little" as it more juvenile than truly offensive:

A blazingly inventive parody that was banned by John Scalzi, despite Ms. Eren being a huge Scalzi fan and an unemployed transgendered up-and-coming romance author who needed the money so xe could one day buy xerself a big, beautiful lawn of xer own. Soon to be nominated for the Hugo, don't miss the story of a love so bold it broke the Internet!

Not to be outdone, some other wag has posted a similar parody entitled SJWs Never Lie: Censorship is Tolerance! Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! The authors are listed as Brianna Scalzi, George R.R. Moretons, and Sam Piddle, with a foreword by Toadessa Nielsen Haten and an afterword by Ritaskeeter Sarkeesian.

All pretty juvenile stuff, but to be expected after Scalzi had Amazon remove the first parody.

The Antonelli Affair ... Again

More information continues to bubble up about the Antonelli affair and Sasquan. Much of the recently revealed information concerns other people, beyond David Gerrold, who reported feeling harassed to the Con committee. As evidenced by Antonelli's attendance at the conference, the committee did not act on these concerns.

Most notably, Meg Frank, Events Deputy Division Head and the Co-Director of the Hugo Ceremony at Sasquan, posts that she reported that she felt harassed by Antonelli's actions. However, the Con committee was not supportive of her request, responding with "guilt trips, denial, victim blaming, sarcasm and dismissal." As a result, she resigned her position.

The Con committee apparently felt that Frank had not been harassed.

One of the vice-chairs, Glenn Glazer, attempted to guilt me into not pursuing the complaint, and one of the Operations Division Heads, Robbie Bourget told me flat out that I hadn’t been harassed.

Frank deserves credit for providing a pdf file of all of her correspondence documenting this event.

Natalie Luhrs, who I have mostly found to hold reasonable opinions, has opined that this is unacceptable behavior and that the community needs to remember these events and hold the Con committee accountable. She is specifically incensed by statements made by the Con head of operations, Robbie Bourget, including:

The first step in change is realising you were wrong. The second is public apology. Mr Antonelli has started on the road, who wants to tell him to piss off because we don't want him on our road? Remind me to probably de-friend you in that case. And, no, I am not a supporter of Lou's, the Sad Puppies, the Rabid Puppies or the rapidly becoming extremely rabid Anti-Puppies.

Likewise, one of the vice chairs, Glenn Glazer, in response to a complaint on facebook, wrote:

I know Robbie quite well. She's being running Operations for cons for over thirty years (I was her second at ConFrancisco in '93) and in real life is a probation officer. You are fully entitled to have an opinion, but the objective truth is that she is highly qualified, IMHO more highly qualified than anyone in fandom, to make this kind of decision. What I really think is the problem is that many people can't separate "I decision I don't agree with." from "A bad decision." Those *are* different things.

Glazer's response has drawn particular censure:

@eilatan Wow, the flat-out credentialist put-down. Haven't seen such a shameless example in a while. @michaeldthomas

— P Nielsen Hayden (@pnh) August 29, 2015

Luhrs also links disapprovingly to an email by Bourget further detailing her qualifications and views:

As for my take, this entire exchange has deepened my respect for the people who run cons. They are faced with some very difficult problems. Sasquan elected to interpret their anti-harassment policy in a narrow legal sense as regards prohibiting attendance of the con; without evidence of harassment, a person will not be banned. Bourget makes clear in her email that allegations of harassment without enough evidence can be dealt with in other ways, such as by providing support on the ground to ensure that an accuser is protected from an alleged stalker. This seems reasonable, and the outcome at Sasquan seems to have been acceptable.

Throughout, the Sasquan committee was transparent about their decision making and responsive to questions about their reasoning. I think this is about as much as we can expect from a Con, and I am appreciative of the job that the committee does.

While I understand and respect the views of Luhrs and others, I think the Committee is correct in taking a narrow legal definition of harassment. A wider definition applied strictly is too open to abuse, and to apply it less strictly requires someone to make judgments as to which claims of harassment are to be actionable and which are not. What if someone complained that they felt unsafe around George R. R. Martin because his books, and their television adaptation, contained violent rape? Or if someone (not naming any names) reported that they felt harassed by the depictions of homosexuality depicted in The Legend of Korra?

And as for PNHs complaint of credentialism, I am, with some reservations, a big fan of credentials. And Bourget's seem to be perfect for this job given her work with the perpetrators of domestic violence (DV):

Kat, my work in UK Probation is with perpetrators of DV. I do assessments for Court every Thursday on just those offences. Harassment, Breach of Restraining Order, Breach of Non-Molestation Order, Assault, Criminal Damage. Seriously, I have been thanked by victims, white, black and asian, for the work I do with their abusive partners and ex-partners. I am more than slightly offended that you have assumed that I a) know nothing on the subject and b) do not have respect for the issues of minority groups. UK Probation, so far, is not at all like US Probation. And here's one very important point that I have learned. DV affects absolutely everyone. Statistically more women than men and more black women than white women and, in the UK, more asian women than black women. But, there are male on male DV cases, female on female, black on white, female on male, the full gamut. Each one has to be assessed on its own merits. On evidence specific to the incidents and the individuals, not on hearsay, not on what others think is happening but what both parties tell you balanced against likelihood of falsehoods and evidence gathered from written material by both parties (in this case).

Meanwhile, Lou Antonelli has published a blog post where he complains about not receiving an invitation to George R. R. Martin's Hugo Losers Party. As Martin noted in his report on the party, some people were not invited because he was not able to get an invitation to them. But Antonelli makes clear he talked with Martin at Sasquan, so he was evidently explicitly not invited. As George says, he had an explicit "no assholes" policy.

Antonelli then sends Martin a few choice words.  But seriously, Lou: after what happened, what did you expect?

(In yet another post, Antonelli comes across as more reasonable, thanking the committee for allowing him to attend).

Hugo Odds and Sods ... and Casual Homophobia

A coupe of additional pieces of information have to come to light about Sasquan and the Hugo Awards.

First, on the Political Correctness Police at Sasquan removing material from the freebie table deemed offensive. The poster Captain Comic has related how he approached the convention workers about the removal of the material:

Okay…

As I said, I don’t twerk (?), but I finally ran down the two OUTRAGE twoot lines and someone over at MHN pointed out Jim Hines wanting me found out and the official Sasquan tweent account responding…

Sooo…I wandered down to the wrong room and introduced myself and they sent me to a different office and I walked some more and introduced myself again and showed them my tablet and asked ‘sup?

None of those present knew who used the account for this issue. Had a pleasant enough chat with a con worker who said they basically OK’d the removal because some were “offended” and this year is already tensioned up enough. They also asked if I could stop putting the ribbons out so they wouldn’t have to keep picking them up or accepting them from folks who have.

They also offered to bring all the gathered ribbons they have collected down tomorrow and return them to me.

They seemed more tired than offended themselves.

and how the Sasquan people justified the removal of the ribbons

I can sorta see the point on the puppy ribbon. If I squint. And tilt my head a bit.

But the Larry ribbon? The ConOpsEr said they were told it seemed an attack on a person.

I pointed out it was an issue about strawman arguments against Larry Correia who HIMSELF says this. Got a civil shrug and as I said I wasn’t going to escalate.

But I’ll repeat it one more time:

How did all this little bit of off-handedness become ALL OF THIS?

This makes the Sasquan people come off a little better, although it is still upsetting that they felt the need to respond to the whiney people shouting "I am offended" at the slightest provocation.

Sarah Hoyt then responded with a little homophobic rant:

There is no defense for pulling the ribbons. None. These socialist-cock sucking whores who get their good feelings from being lickspittles to totalitarians and suppressing “unapproved” speech are going to be the death of civilization if we don’t stop their insane stunts.

They should indulge their need for submission in private and leave the rest of us alone.

While I agree with Sarah's basic point, and while I concede that calling people "cock-sucking whores" is a relatively mild form of homophobia and one that Sarah is perhaps not even aware of consciously, it still has homophobic connotations. As the proud son of a proud gay man, this form of casual homophobia pisses me off.  I have tried really hard to keep an open mind about the whole Hugo affair, and to do justice to the arguments of the other side. But there is no justifying this, or the other casual (and sometimes also explicitly vitriolic) homophobia emanating from the Puppy camp.

Second, George R. R. Martin has weighed in with the first of two posts about Sasquan and the Hugo Awards. Like me, he was pretty upset by the results in the two editor categories and by the general cheering of the "No Award" results:

I had picked Mike Resnick in Short Form and Toni Weisskopf in Long Form, and indeed, each of them finished above all the other nominees in the first round of voting... but well behind No Award. This was a crushing defeat for the slates, and a big victory for the Puppy-Free ballot of Deirdre Moen. Honestly? I hated this. In my judgment the voters threw the babies out with bathwater in these two categories. Long Form had three nominees who are more than worthy of a Hugo (and one, Jim Minz, who will be in a few more years), and Short Form had some good candidates too. They were on the slates, yes, but some of them were put on there without their knowledge and consent. A victory by Resnick, Sowards, Gilbert, or Weisskopf would have done credit to the rocket, regardless of how they got on the ballot. (All four of these editors would almost certainly have been nominated anyway, even if there had been no slates).

((Some are saying that voting No Award over these editors was an insult to them. Maybe so, I can't argue with that. But it should be added that there was a far far worse insult in putting them on the ballot with Vox Day, who was the fifth nominee in both categories. Even putting aside his bigotry and racism, Beale's credential as an editor are laughable. Yet hundreds of Puppies chose to nominate him rather than, oh, Liz Gorinsky or Anne Lesley Groell or Beth Meacham (in Long Form) or Gardner Dozois or Ellen Datlow or John Joseph Adams (in Short Form). To pass over actual working editors of considerable accomplishment in order to nominate someone purely to 'stick it to the SJWs' strikes me as proof positive that the Rabid Puppies at least were more interested in saying 'fuck you' to fandom than in rewarding good work)).

I also misliked the roar of approval that went up at the announcement of the first No Award. I understand it, yes... fandom as a whole is heartily sick of the Puppies and delighted to see them brought low... but No Award is an occasion for sadness, not celebration, especially in THESE two categories. For what its worth, neither Parris nor I participated in the cheering.

While I do not agree with everything George has written on the Awards, he has been, on-the-whole, one of the clearest voices of reason in this otherwise unreasonable mess.

Third, Lou Antonelli has chimed in with two reports from Sasquan. The first post displays a fair amount of bitterness about the way things went down. He also clarifies a little the letter he sent to the Spokane PD:

Oh, to set the record straight about that letter I wrote to the Spokane Police Chief:

It was a personal letter expressing fears I had. It was not a report, formal or otherwise; it was not a complaint. People who state I filed a false police report or complaint to the Spokane Police Department are lying.

This sounds better; I would still like to see exactly what he wrote. As I mentioned before, there is

a big difference between writing to say that David Gerrold is "insane and a public danger and needs to be watched" ... which is what he said on the podcast, and ... "expressing some concerns over potential security issues at the upcoming Sasquan" which is what he says he did in his apology.

His second post clarifies reports of a snub by David Gerrold:

Some people have said I'm mad because David Gerrold snubbed me at Sasquan. That's not true - I'm not mad that he snubbed me, because he didn't.

He did offer to buy me a beer, but that I guess was little more than a rhetorical flourish. I'm sure he was very busy. It think it would have made a great photo, the pair of us quaffing brews - it might have even helped show some kind of reconciliation was possible. A missed opportunity, perhaps?

Bumping into him in the hallway outside an elevator, I absent-mindedly and rather spontaneously went to shake his hand. He refused, saying "I may have accepted your apology, but I haven't forgiven you." Realizing my faux pas, I turned tail and took off.

That's not a snub, that's him exercising his personal rights. He doesn't have to be nice to me, and he wasn't rude, just firm. I may have other complaints about how some things were done, but a beer and handshake weren't two of them.

He has also made it clear that he regards Sad Puppies as a bad idea and will not participate in future. On the whole, these posts lead me to believe more firmly that his original apology was genuine.

Spinning the Hugo Awards Results

In the pat couple of days, the competing narratives about the Hugo Awards results have solidified into two main strands. On one side, the anti-puppies/puppy kickers/happy kittens/SJWs are arguing that fandom critically evaluated all of the puppy nominations and found them wanting, thus voting "No Award" to victory in five categories:

Those who voted No Award did consider the nominees on their merits. And judged them to be bad & undeserving. https://t.co/E9LdPrvSOs

— K Tempest Bradford (@tinytempest) August 23, 2015

On the other side, the sad/rabid puppies and their supporters are arguing that their opponents voted "No Award" out of spite and independently of the merit of the works and people nominated:

#SadPuppies: SJWs Just Burned Down The #HugoAwards To Prove How Tolerant & Welcoming They Are http://t.co/fjzDPxGd0F pic.twitter.com/SilhDzIQsz

— .avi (@avi_addict) August 23, 2015

As tastes are inherently subjective, it is impossible to know for sure where the truth lies. But I believe that, as is typically the case in such matters, the truth probably lies somewhere between these two extremes.

On the one hand, I personally was less than impressed by a significant number of the nominated short fiction works. I did not use the No Award option but I could see how other people, evaluating on the merits, might have chosen to do so in some of these categories.

On the other hand, we know that a large number of people claimed that they had voted No Award without even looking at the puppy nominated works. In fact, many refused to read these works on principle. Of those voters who posted critical evaluations of the puppy nominated work, and who we can be reasonably certain actually read some of the work, I often felt that their evaluations were prejudiced against the work from the beginning (I'll post some examples one of these days).

Perhaps the most persuasive evidence that spite and/or politics played a major role in the voting comes from the results in the Best Editor categories. In both cases, there were multiple deserving candidates. Don't take my word for it; here is the opinion of happy kitten George R. R. Martin:

BEST EDITOR, LONG FORM. The first All Puppy category. If Vox Day wins, the end time is surely nigh for both worldcon and the Hugo Awards. VD is not the best editor in the field, or one of the best five, or one of the best fifty. His presence here is no more than a "fuck you" from his followers to those dreaded SJWs. I think... hope... he will finish last. The other four finalists are legitimate editors, however, and deserving of their nominations. I think the contest is between Sheila Gilbert of DAW and Toni Weisskopf of Baen. Jim Minz is a good guy and a good editor, but he's at Baen, and the Baen voters are going to go for Toni, who is the senior presence there. Anne Sowards of Ace and Roc is a worthy choice too, and it's nice to see her getting some recognition, but I think she's a long shot this year. Weisskopf and Gilbert were both nominees last year at Loncon, and Weisskopf was the last one eliminated in the first round of voting, losing out to the eventual winner Ginjer Buchanan. And she had more nominations even than Ginjer last time around. I think this may be her year. The Puppies love Baen the best of all the publishers in the field and will rally around her, but Toni is a solid professional with a lot of friends in fandom and prodom as well, and she's done a commendable job with Baen Books since succeeding the late Jim Baen. The Nukes and the Moens will be No Awarding this category, since it is all slate, but I think (hope) there are not enough of them to matter. It would be a tragedy if we threw out four good editors just because the Puppies like them too. So my prediction here is TONI WEISSKOPF. The first nominee from the slates to take a Hugo.

BEST EDITOR, SHORT FORM. All Puppies again. VD again. Last place again. Edmund Schubert of ORSON SCOTT CARD'S INTERGALACTIC MEDICINE SHOW withdrew, but too late to be removed from the ballot. That leaves Jennifer Brozek, anthologist Bryan Thomas Schmidt, and Mike Resnick. I think the Hugo goes to MIKE RESNICK. And yes, he's a deserving winner. He's founded an interesting new magazine, GALAXY'S EDGE, at a time when the old magazines are dying. He's a former worldcon GOH, a mainstay of midwestern fandom for decades, well known and much beloved. He's edited lots of good anthologies. Oh, and the Puppies love him... albeit for the wrong reason (losing the column he and Barry Malzberg did for SFWA BULLETIN in a kerfuffle over sexism). More important than any of that, Mike has been a mentor to uncounted number of new young writers over the years, some of whom have gone on to become Hugo and Nebula nominees themselves. Discovering and nurturing new talent is one of the most important things an editor does. Resnick has won numerous Hugos (and lost more), but all for his writing; this would be his first win as editor. All that being said, I do think the slates seriously fucked up this category. A win here, whether for Resnick or one of the other nominees, would be far more meaningful if it came against stronger competition, against Sheila Williams and Ellen Datlow and Gordon van Gelder and Gardner Dozois and the other great editors who have long dominated this category. To be the champ, you need to beat the champ, I always heard; this year, the Puppies kept all the champs off the ballot.

Larry Correia puts the case for Toni Weisskopf well in a strongly worded post:

Editor Toni Weisskopf is a professional’s professional. She has run one of the main sci-fi publishing houses for a decade. She has edited hundreds of books. She has discovered, taught, and nurtured a huge stable of authors, many of whom are extremely popular bestsellers. You will often hear authors complain about their editors and their publishers, but you’re pretty hard pressed to find anyone who has written for her who has anything but glowing praise for Toni.

Yet before Sad Puppies came along, Toni had never received a Hugo nomination. Zero. The above mentioned Patrick Nielsen Hayden has 8. Toni’s problem was that she just didn’t care and she didn’t play the WorldCon politics. Her only concern was making the fans happy. She publishes any author who can do that, regardless of their politics. She’s always felt that the real awards were in the royalty checks. Watching her get ignored was one of the things that spurred me into starting Sad Puppies. If anybody deserved the Hugo, it was her.

This year Toni got a whopping 1,216 first place votes for Best Editor. That isn’t just a record. That is FOUR TIMES higher than the previous record. Shelia Gilbert came in next with an amazing 754. I believe that Toni is such a class act that beforehand she even said she thought Shelia Gilbert deserved to win. Fans love Toni.

Logically you would think that she would be award worthy, since the only Baen books to be nominated for a Hugo prior to Sad Puppies were edited by her (Bujold) and none of those were No Awarded. Last year she had the most first place votes, and came in second only after the weird Australian Rules voting kicked in (don’t worry everybody, they just voted to make the system even more complicated), so she was apparently award worthy last year.

Toni Weisskopf has been part of organized Fandom (capital F) since she was a little kid, so all that bloviating about how Fandom is precious, and sacred, and your special home since the ‘70s which you need to keep as a safe space free of barbarians, blah, blah, blah, yeah, that applies to Toni just as much as it does to you CHORFs.  You know how you guys paid back her lifetime of involvement in Fandom?

By giving 2,496 votes to No Award.

So what changed, WorldCon? We both know the answer. It was more important that you send a message to the outsiders than it was to honor someone who was truly deserving, and that message was This is ours, keep out. That’s why I’m disappointed. I wanted the mask to come off and for the world to see how the sausage was really made, but even I was a little surprised by just how vile you are.

Correia makes a similarly strong case for Mike Resnick:

Same thing with Editor, short form. Mike Resnick has the wrong politics, but he makes up for it by being a living legend, and a major part of fandom for decades. He’s super involved and has helped launch more careers than anyone can count. When they went through and broke down Hugo winners by politics over the last couple of decades, he was one of the few who was good enough and famous to still win. He should’ve won this year, big time. But nope. Brad Torgersen endorsed him. Send the message. Same category, Jennifer Brozek, have zero idea what she believes about anything, despite working on stuff that was worthy before, No Award, because Larry Correia endorsed due to her quality work on Shattered Shields. Send the message.

At least some of the happy kittens seem to agree that No Award-ing Weisskopf was a mistake:

You know I'm not a puppy supporter, but Toni has deserved a Hugo for ages. Denying it because the wrong people recommended her was awful.

— Dan Wells (@TheDanWells) August 25, 2015

Brad Torgersen and Larry also seem to have a point when they say that the puppy-kickers were doing little to favor diversity this year; the No Award strategy prevented several deserving female nominees---Kary English, Toni Weisskopf, Sheila Gilbert---from having a chance to win an award. And looking at the nominating totals shows that some of the chief losers from the puppy nominating strategy were perennial (white male) award winners Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Mike Glyer.

Correia ends with a little thought experiment about what would have happened had Vox Day read Three Body Problem earlier:

Oh, but now you’re going to say that Three Body Problem won, and that’s a victory for diversity! You poor deluded fools… That was Vox’s pick for best novel. That’s the one most of the Rabid Puppies voted for too.

Here’s something for you crowing imbeciles to think through, the only reason Vox didn’t have Three Body Problem on his nomination slate was that he read it a month too late. If he’d read it sooner, it would have been an RP nomination… AND THEN YOU WOULD HAVE NO AWARDED IT.

And if that doesn’t prove my original point about this fucked up system being more about politics than the quality of the work, I don’t know what will. One of the only two fiction works that actually received an award this year would have been a Rabid Puppy nominee except for timing, and you would’ve No Awarded the winner just to send your little message.

I suspect Correia is correct.

(Twitter is arguing that this is all spin by Vox Day; that he is retroactively claiming victory for Three Body Problem winning:

@Elocutioner @RizziWorld @charlesatan @kyliu99 I'm aware of that. The retcon is he totes would've picked it. Matches nothing else on slate.

— Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) August 26, 2015

but to be fair Vox was on record as early as April 16th stating he would have put Three Body Problem on his nomination list had he read it earlier, and listed it on top of his voting recommendations on July 24th).