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What Correia and friends are doing is nothing new. They're just more organised than the people who've been doing it for years. I guess the incumbent were complacent.

Also, have you seen their list of nominations for those who made it into the Hugos? It may surprise you but surprisingly, not all of them are 'white male' authors as you so put it -_-. And people wonder if there's an agenda that was already present in the Hugos


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Haemonculus wrote:
Again, you said that all SPs were right wing; and they are clearly all not.

I said no such thing. Please do not build straw men to attack.

Yes, just one friggen person. And so what, someone has a boogeyman right-wing world belief. Hardly evidence of a crime, and hardly evidence that the movement is right wing.

The guy organizing the SP3 campaign is not just some random person. And yes, it is evidence that the movement is right-wing because the organizer's explicit goal is to promote a right-wing (or at least anti-left) agenda.

A few decades ago, if you saw a lovely spaceship on a book cover, with a gorgeous planet in the background, you could be pretty sure you were going to get a rousing space adventure featuring starships and distant, amazing worlds. If you saw a barbarian swinging an axe? You were going to get a rousing fantasy epic with broad-chested heroes who slay monsters, and run off with beautiful women.
But now:

The book has a spaceship on the cover, but is it really going to be a story about space exploration and pioneering derring-do? Or is the story merely about racial prejudice and exploitation…
A planet, framed by a galactic backdrop. Could it be an actual bona fide space opera? Heroes and princesses and laser blasters? No, wait. It’s about sexism and the oppression of women.
Finally, a book with a painting of a person wearing a mechanized suit of armor! Holding a rifle! War story ahoy! Nope, wait. It’s actually about gay and transgender issues.
No longer interested in adventure, argue the Puppies, the Hugos have grown elitist, academic, and overly ideological—irrelevant to the average fan.

I'm not reading anything even anti-left in this. Me think you doth protest too much

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Have you read anything from some of the first group reacting to this? They clearly want to ensure that only their vetted special friends make the voting process.

No, they don't. A few people are saying the sad puppy candidates should be excluded, but they're int he minority, and none of the SFWA board members, who Correia is railing against, have said they should be excluded. Quote the opposite. In fact last year John Sclazi went out of his way to defend Vox Day's right to be nomiated, after Vox Day accused Scalzi of being pro rape, :

"Vox Day has every right (so far as I know, and as far as you know, too) to be on the ballot. You may not like it, or may wish to intimate that the work in question doesn’t deserve to be on the ballot, but you should remember what “deserve” means in the context of Hugo (i.e., that the nominators follow the rules while nominating), and just deal with it like the grown up you are."

The whole ideology of the sad puppies is against the inclusive nature the Hugos have taken on. Banning people for their political views, however abhorrent, goes against that.

Sining wrote:
So you're saying SP3; which wants things to be less political inso much as they believe an authors political leanings shouldn't matter, should reject an author who supports that message because of his politcal leanings? LOLK

I'm not saying they should or shouldn't do anything. But they are clearly comfortable having Vox Day (a thoroughly repulsive ) participate in their movement.

Apparently what Peregine is saying, that VoxDay was on their slate isn't even true. OMG, Peregine telling an untruth? What next?

After looking at it again you're partly correct. He got "best editor" nominations this year and his participation in the SP3 campaign (and related discussions/arguments/etc) probably had a lot more to do with it than his writing or editing talent, but he wasn't included on the official SP3 list. The SP3 nomination I was thinking of is actually for a story by another author in a collection edited by Vox Day, but he wouldn't get the award himself.

And of course Vox Day did get a nomination last year (with a pretty bad story that finished below "no award") after being included on the SP2 list.

 .Mikes. wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Have you read anything from some of the first group reacting to this? They clearly want to ensure that only their vetted special friends make the voting process.

No, they don't. A few people are saying the sad puppy candidates should be excluded, but they're int he minority, and none of the SFWA board members, who Correia is railing against, have said they should be excluded. Quote the opposite. In fact last year John Sclazi went out of his way to defend Vox Day's right to be nomiated, after Vox Day accused Scalzi of being pro rape, :

"Vox Day has every right (so far as I know, and as far as you know, too) to be on the ballot. You may not like it, or may wish to intimate that the work in question doesn’t deserve to be on the ballot, but you should remember what “deserve” means in the context of Hugo (i.e., that the nominators follow the rules while nominating), and just deal with it like the grown up you are."

The whole ideology of the sad puppies is against the inclusive nature the Hugos have taken on. Banning people for their political views, however abhorrent, goes against that.

Cat in particular has been very clear about the politics present in the group. Decent books are thrown aside for political gain, and I for one am glad that that is being challenged.

Sining wrote:
What Correia and friends are doing is nothing new.

It absolutely is, because they're crossing the line from saying "I love this book and it deserves to win" into choosing a specific list of desired winners and then asking people to vote for them regardless of their personal preferences to maximize the anti-SJW voting power.

I'm not reading anything even anti-left in this. Me think you doth protest too much

You might not be familiar with this because you're not from the US, but things like feminism/gay rights/etc are typically left-wing issues and opposition to them usually comes from right-wing sources.

 Peregrine wrote:

Sining wrote:
What Correia and friends are doing is nothing new.

It absolutely is, because they're crossing the line from saying "I love this book and it deserves to win" into choosing a specific list of desired winners and then asking people to vote for them regardless of their personal preferences to maximize the anti-SJW voting power.

Really? How does them saying "I think these books are good and I think they're worthy of nomination" any different from what you said? Keep in mind they're not saying "these are anti-SJW books, vote them". That's what you're reading into what they're saying

Also, have you seen their list of nominations for those who made it into the Hugos? It may surprise you but surprisingly, not all of them are 'white male' authors as you so put it -_-. And people wonder if there's an agenda that was already present in the Hugos

I'm not reading anything even anti-left in this. Me think you doth protest too much

You might not be familiar with this because you're not from the US, but things like feminism/gay rights/etc are typically left-wing issues and opposition to them usually comes from right-wing sources.

Except they're not stating anything about opposing feminism or gay rights or so on in that paragraph you posted and keep touting as if it's the absolute truth. Here, let's go through the relevant quote again

Nope, wait. It’s actually about gay and transgender issues.
No longer interested in adventure, argue the Puppies, the Hugos have grown elitist, academic, and overly ideological—irrelevant to the average fan.

What you're reading from them is 'we hate gays and females and transgenders'. What I'm getting from it is 'We need more stuff that the average person can relate to'

Sining wrote:
Really? How does them saying "I think these books are good and I think they're worthy of nomination" any different from what you said?

Because they aren't just saying "I think they're worthy", they're organizing a campaign to select designated winners and then get everyone to vote for the whole set at once.

Keep in mind they're not saying "these are anti-SJW books, vote them".

Yes they are. Their entire point from the very beginning was that certain authors aren't approved by the "SJWs" therefore the anti-SJWs should organize a protest vote and fix the problem. Somewhere in there they might have some books that deserve nomination on their own merits, but the primary goal is to produce a list of "SJWs won't let these win" books and get them nominated.

What I'm getting from it is 'We need more stuff that the average person can relate to'

Which depends on defining "the average person" as "a straight white middle-class man". Seriously, context matters, the things the SP3 organizer said in that quote are almost an exact copy/paste of the standard right-wing "SJW TUMBLR FEMINAZIS RUIN EVERYTHING" rant.

Also, let's not forget that this is science fiction we're talking about here. If a gay character is just too difficult to relate to then how can a reader possible relate to a half-robot space pirate commanding a fleet of battleships against the weirdest aliens an author can imagine? Are they just nodding in agreement with the description of all of the issues involved in transferring a wounded hero's brain into a healthy new body, and then suddenly throwing the book away in confusion when the author mentions that the new body is a different gender? Etc.

 Peregrine wrote:
Are they just nodding in agreement with the description of all of the issues involved in transferring a wounded hero's brain into a healthy new body, and then suddenly throwing the book away in confusion when the author mentions that the new body is a different gender? Etc.

Is the whole rest of the book the hero playing with the hero's new boobs?

"Oh, man. These are totally sweet."

The average person? Seriously, that was actually used as an arguement?

So females and lgbt are not average now?

Must be damn hard reading about all those post humans in power armor. Why can't they be about more average guys right?

So when someone else does it, they're organising a campaign. When other people do it, it's just recommending books? I mean, you do realise that they didn't say 'GUYS VOTE FOR THIS NOW' and you act as if they're acting with some unimind. They suggested, people looked at the nominations and voted for whichever ones they chose. You're pretty much just labelling everyone who followed sad puppies at this point.

So books that aren't approved by SJWs are anti-SJW books? I mean, the christians here don't approve of Archie comics. Is Archie an anti-christianity book then?

So you're comparing the guy's paragraph to an idealised rant. That doesn't even appear in his paragraph.

If people can't relate to half-robot space pirates, then maybe the half-robot space pirate shouldn't win the Hugos? I mean, this is a certain two-edged sword. Are the Hugos about what is the best literary work in terms of artistic merit or is it about what is the best novel in terms of most people like it (and considering Harry Potter won Hugo awards, I think it's the latter) then honestly, maybe the more relatable stuff should win the Hugos then. Considering it IS an open vote, I see nothing wrong with letting the masses decide.



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 BrotherGecko wrote:
The average person? Seriously, that was actually used as an arguement?

So females and lgbt are not average now?

Must be damn hard reading about all those post humans in power armor. Why can't they be about more average guys right?

Yeah, I didn't mean it that way but if you're always looking for things to be perfectly offended by, then I guess you've succeeded. Also, note that I've never said anything about females. It's always the people that disagree with me bringing it up. It's almost...as if they're looking for things to be offended by

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Hiding of known rapists?

Should've put it better, he knew of stalkers and rapists and never reported them.

But I don't want to get this to far off track.

As it is though it just seems like another political issue, one side fights, the other side fights back, and now that the second side is fighting the first side wants the rules changed.

As far as I can tell from the article in the Daily Telegraph, a special lobby group has been set up to influence the voting this year. It didn't mention special lobby groups being active in earlier years.

Is that correct?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
Hiding of known rapists?

Should've put it better, he knew of stalkers and rapists and never reported them.

But I don't want to get this to far off track.

As it is though it just seems like another political issue, one side fights, the other side fights back, and now that the second side is fighting the first side wants the rules changed.

As far as I can tell from the article in the Daily Telegraph, a special lobby group has been set up to influence the voting this year. It didn't mention special lobby groups being active in earlier years.

Is that correct?

Sad Puppies has been around for 3 years. That's why this is called Sad Puppies 3

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Is that correct?

Nope. This is the third year of the Sad Puppies campaign, and there was a similar controversy in past years. The only difference this year is that they seem to have organized more effectively and had more luck getting their chosen works nominated.

 sebster wrote:
If the Hugo shortlists were supposed to represent which political sci-fi hacks had the best organised muppets voting loyally for their ‘cause’, then your answer would make sense. But the shortlists are actually supposed to represent the books that are most loved because they’re actually good books that people choose to vote for as their personal favourite.

Note that there is no equivalent left wing campaign to vote for their ‘approved’ books. But if there was the issue would actually become worse not better, because then you’d just get a second set of crappy books with effective marketing campaigns flooding the shortlists. There might be political balance between right and left on the list, but that would mean nothing because the awards aren’t about political balance, they’re about recognising the best work that year. The only effect would be quality work getting squeezed about by yet more culture war nonsense.

Take the politics out of this and understand the root of the problem – gak books with very few sales are getting Hugo shortlisted because of organised marketing campaigns. Whether those campaigns are by people organised around fringe politics, or by people organised around the belief that there aren’t enough Manx cats in sci-fi is irrelevant.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Have an exalt!

With the caveat that I do not, in principle, disagree with the statement that science fiction literature has become stale and boring (on both sides of this particular fence). After that, the movement in question seems to go way off the deep end.

So, anyone know of any actually decent science fiction writers around these days? I'm partial to Neal Stephenson myself, and very much a fan of Neil Gaiman for the fantasy end of the spectrum. Not so much a fan of everyone else's favorite psychopath, George Martin.

Nah, bro you specifically implied women and lgbt. Not my fault you can't notice it.

One of the things I learned in the military is if somebody is ate up you need to correct them. Doesn't matter if you didn't mean it that way. You wrote it that way and now you know that you did and you shouldn't do it.

If you want to pull the "offended" card then I suggest you have thicker skin if you going to make those kinds of comments.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Is that correct?

Nope. This is the third year of the Sad Puppies campaign, and there was a similar controversy in past years. The only difference this year is that they seem to have organized more effectively and had more luck getting their chosen works nominated.

For three years a right-wing group has been organising a campaign to promote an anti-left-wing agenda in the Awards, although there wasn't any left-wing group to oppose.

Seems totally legit and fair to me.

I am sure this will result in magnificent literature being promoted, and a huge increase in the public appreciation of the Awards process.

 Peregrine wrote:
Left-leaning authors made no effort to hide their politics in either their writing or their personal lives, but they didn't go beyond "this book is awesome" in trying to lobby for votes.

Do you have a source for that?

Sining wrote:
So when someone else does it, they're organising a campaign. When other people do it, it's just recommending books?

Sigh. Why do you keep ignoring the fact that there's a difference between saying "I think this should win" and organizing a bunch of people to coordinate their ballots?

They suggested, people looked at the nominations and voted for whichever ones they chose.

Except they didn't just make suggestions, they got a bunch of people together with the intent to get a certain category of book nominated, decided as a group which designated nominees they were all going to vote for, and then voted for the approved list. Let's make this nice and clear:

How it should work: I like book A, you like book B, someone else likes book C. We are free to discuss our preferences, but we each vote for our respective favorites as individuals.

How SP3 is doing it: we all agree that SJWs suck and one of (A, B, C) should win. I like A, you like B, someone else likes C. We all meet up and decide that C has the best chance of winning, so we all vote for C even though you and I would prefer something else.

So books that aren't approved by SJWs are anti-SJW books?

Exactly! The whole premise of the Sad Puppies campaign is that certain books are disliked by the "SJWs" for ideological reasons, and because they aren't approved they aren't allowed to win awards. Whether or not this is true (it isn't) that's what the SP3 organizers believe.

So you're comparing the guy's paragraph to an idealised rant.

No, I'm comparing it to similar statements made in other places by other people. Seriously, why is this hard to understand? It doesn't have to be a literal word for word copy/paste to see how the basic ideas are the same.

If people can't relate to half-robot space pirates, then maybe the half-robot space pirate shouldn't win the Hugos? I mean, this is a certain two-edged sword. Are the Hugos about what is the best literary work in terms of artistic merit or is it about what is the best novel in terms of most people like it (and considering Harry Potter won Hugo awards, I think it's the latter) then honestly, maybe the more relatable stuff should win the Hugos then. Considering it IS an open vote, I see nothing wrong with letting the masses decide.

You're missing the point completely. One of the primary goals of science fiction and fantasy is to explore things that don't exist in the real world. You know, all the cliches of the genre: spaceships, wizards, etc. If you take away all of the imaginative stuff you're left with a boring story about someone going to their 9-5 office job and maybe having an argument with their spouse as the highlight of the story. If you're reading science fiction and fantasy at all you're already demonstrating that you're capable of relating to characters that live in a completely different world from your own. And they're different in ways that make things like being gay look trivial in comparison.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
Nah, bro you specifically implied women and lgbt. Not my fault you can't notice it.

One of the things I learned in the military is if somebody is ate up you need to correct them. Doesn't matter if you didn't mean it that way. You wrote it that way and now you know that you did and you shouldn't do it.

If you want to pull the "offended" card then I suggest you have thicker skin if you going to make those kinds of comments.

Then you need to go read better. I replied to Peregine about his stance that the paragraph contained anti-lgbt, feminism rhetoric. Surprisingly, on the subject of feminism, I brought up females since it is feminism. I'm not offended, because people are going to read whatever they want into the paragraph.Especially if they're just looking to be offended.

 Manchu wrote:
Do you have a source for that?

Yes, of course I have documentation of every single word ever said by a left-leaning author and can prove that they've never tried to rig the vote like the SP3 campaign. Do you understand why proving a negative is impossible?

 sebster wrote:
But this movement is looking to make people's opinions on books secondary to their politics, which is something else entirely.

Actually, it is abundantly clear that the Sad Puppies people believe that this is already the state of things and have organized because they would also like their politics to have influence, or to use one of their opponents' buzzwords, they also want a "voice."

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Yes, of course I have documentation of every single word ever said by a left-leaning author and can prove that they've never tried to rig the vote like the SP3 campaign. Do you understand why proving a negative is impossible?

So no then. What you in fact did was make an argument based on an assumption that according to yourself is impossible to prove.

 Peregrine wrote:

Sining wrote:
So when someone else does it, they're organising a campaign. When other people do it, it's just recommending books?

Sigh. Why do you keep ignoring the fact that there's a difference between saying "I think this should win" and organizing a bunch of people to coordinate their ballots?

They suggested, people looked at the nominations and voted for whichever ones they chose.

Except they didn't just make suggestions, they got a bunch of people together with the intent to get a certain category of book nominated, decided as a group which designated nominees they were all going to vote for, and then voted for the approved list. Let's make this nice and clear:

How it should work: I like book A, you like book B, someone else likes book C. We are free to discuss our preferences, but we each vote for our respective favorites as individuals.

How SP3 is doing it: we all agree that SJWs suck and one of (A, B, C) should win. I like A, you like B, someone else likes C. We all meet up and decide that C has the best chance of winning, so we all vote for C even though you and I would prefer something else.

Lol, how are you even getting that? I mean, are you privy to the inner workings of Sad puppies? Because what I'm getting is 'guys, we have some books we think are cool. Some of them were nominated by you guys. Just take a look through them and feel free but here's why I think they're good" Source?
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/02/02/sad-puppies-3-the-slatening/

So books that aren't approved by SJWs are anti-SJW books?

Exactly! The whole premise of the Sad Puppies campaign is that certain books are disliked by the "SJWs" for ideological reasons, and because they aren't approved they aren't allowed to win awards. Whether or not this is true (it isn't) that's what the SP3 organizers believe.

Disliked by doesn't necessarily mean anti. You're the one saying they're Anti-SJW books.

If people can't relate to half-robot space pirates, then maybe the half-robot space pirate shouldn't win the Hugos? I mean, this is a certain two-edged sword. Are the Hugos about what is the best literary work in terms of artistic merit or is it about what is the best novel in terms of most people like it (and considering Harry Potter won Hugo awards, I think it's the latter) then honestly, maybe the more relatable stuff should win the Hugos then. Considering it IS an open vote, I see nothing wrong with letting the masses decide.

You're missing the point completely. One of the primary goals of science fiction and fantasy is to explore things that don't exist in the real world. You know, all the cliches of the genre: spaceships, wizards, etc. If you take away all of the imaginative stuff you're left with a boring story about someone going to their 9-5 office job and maybe having an argument with their spouse as the highlight of the story. If you're reading science fiction and fantasy at all you're already demonstrating that you're capable of relating to characters that live in a completely different world from your own. And they're different in ways that make things like being gay look trivial in comparison.

Sining wrote:
Lol, how are you even getting that?

By paying at least some attention to the events of the past three years? It's not really a carefully-guarded secret that the Sad Puppies concept was "the Hugo nomination process has this weakness, let's all organize our votes and take advantage of it".

Though thanks for the link, which contains this hilarious quote:

Kevin J. Anderson for The Dark Between the Stars, because how the hell can a genre fixture with 23 million books in print get ignored for decades?

Answer: because there's an angry mob of Star Wars fans who still haven't forgiven him for the awful books he wrote, and apparently a similar mob in every other fandom he wrote for. I seriously doubt his writing talents have improved enough from their previous virtually-nonexistent state for him to deserve the award on his own merits.

Again, is the Hugos supposed to be about the 'best artistic' book or the 'best most popular' book?

They're supposed to be about the best book, which is why they bother to nominate candidates and have everyone vote on them. If it was supposed to be an award for the most popular book they'd just check the sales numbers for the past year and give the award to whoever sold the most copies.

Ignoring what Scifi is about in general, but what are the goals of the Hugo? Considering it's open to normal people to vote and not just a select committee, one would suggest that they're really just looking for the most popular book. So you may have one idea about Scifi but I'm sorry, if it's not the most popular idea, it's not going to be what wins the Hugos. There's nothing wrong with that

You're missing the point entirely. It wasn't about whether or not a particular book deserves a Hugo, it was that saying "people can't relate to a gay character" or whatever in a science fiction context it's just plain stupid. If you can't relate to someone whose sexual preferences don't match your own then how the hell are you supposed to relate to anything else in science fiction and fantasy?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manchu wrote:
So no then. What you in fact did was make an argument based on an assumption that according to yourself is impossible to prove.

So how about instead of ridiculous demands to prove a negative (something you should know is impossible) you provide some evidence of left-leaning authors running a Sad Puppies equivalent of their own? It should be pretty easy to do so if you have a valid argument here, since if any Left Puppies campaign ever happened the Sad Puppies organizers would mention it at every opportunity to justify their own campaign.

Am a Star Wars fan. Actually liked Kevin J Anderson. Again, I mean, this is just how tastes differ. Also, would totally vote Kevin J Anderson for SW.

Also, the book that sold the most may not necessarily be the best book either. People who buy a book may not necessarily like the book enough to vote it.

At the end of the day, a character needs to be relatable to its audience. I see tons of people complain about this, about how they need female chars, need transgender chars in games to relate to scifantasy games. So why not the other way around? I mean, there is a reason why in those mouse books, where you have humanoid mice who talk and so on, that the book is written in english and the mice act in human ways.

The Daily Telegraph article didn't mention any left wing action groups in the Hugos.

 Peregrine wrote:
It's not really a carefully-guarded secret that the Sad Puppies concept was "the Hugo nomination process has this weakness, let's all organize our votes and take advantage of it".

That strikes me as a fair and accurate description of their tactics. But I don't find them objectionable or even remarkable. Whatever the truth of the matter, the Sad Puppies see themselves as arguing from the weaker position in terms of power. So they are using asymmetric tactics.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Just read that Sad Puppies predates Gamergate by two years. Some quality journalism there

Of course it does. This gak with the Hugo awards has been going on for ages as well.

It has nothing to do with GamerGate, but don't let that stop the narrative that they're behind all the evils in the world and that they're controlled by the evil misogyracists!

 Peregrine wrote:
So how about instead of ridiculous demands to prove a negative (something you should know is impossible) you provide some evidence of left-leaning authors running a Sad Puppies equivalent of their own? It should be pretty easy to do so if you have a valid argument here, since if any Left Puppies campaign ever happened the Sad Puppies organizers would mention it at every opportunity to justify their own campaign.

That is a disappointing piece of hypocrisy, after all the lectures you have posted on this site about burden shifting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The Daily Telegraph article didn't mention any left wing action groups in the Hugos.

The Sad Puppies stance seems to be that scifi is currently dominated by left wing ideology. Their action group is an asymmetric response to that dominance.

If Sci Fi is dominated by left wing ideology that is because it is what people want to read.

Or else the Secret Elders of Zion or the Bavarian Illuminati control the publishing industry.

Kind of like if Sad Puppies sweep the nominations this year, it's because that's what people like. I agree with that.