text:
Guest post by Ken Burnside
As people sort through the ashes of last weekend's Hugo awards ceremony, I wanted to highlight some very good analysis by Hugo nominee Ken Burnside. Note, there is no framing from me. Ken wrote a very astute, very candid piece. You make up your own mind. — Brad
Ken says:
Last week, I went to WorldCon, by way of Seattle and staying overnight with Karen Junker, and spending some time with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, and Shannon Chavez. Karen was a great host, and Annie Scarborough didn't remember me from the last time we met – when I was a hyperactive 13 year old and she was visiting all the junior high schools promoting Bronwyn's Bane. If you like puckish fantasy, her not-quite-YA books are quite good, and I especially recommend the Harem of Aman-Akbar.
We woke up at 5 AM, and piled into the Dodge Caravan, driving our way to Spokane with several breaks to enjoy the scenery and use the facilities…and drive through the smoke in the Cascades. I wish I'd taken more pictures from the van. We kept the conversation moving along with the drive, and made it to Spokane with no incidents.
They checked into the Doubletree, with a stash of food I could raid, and I checked into the Grand, and scouted the convention floor, and set up my demo table. Later that evening, I met Dave Marusek, who, unlike Annie and myself, still lives in Fairbanks – he and I split the hotel room.
Paula Thomas, a local indie-published author, was very kind and acted as my seeing-eye-human. (Visual clutter is amazingly effective versus me, and I'm legally blind, even if I conceal it well. When she found out I left my laptop charger at home, she tried to find me one I could borrow for the convention. Sadly, ASUS isn't that common a brand.
On Thursday morning, while exercising, I met Tananarive Due in the workout room, and had a good conversation with her. This was good; I was scheduled to run Squadron Strike for her son Jason, and Dan Moran's son Connor in the gaming hall (Salon V, Doubletree). This meant she had a face to go with the name, and had a certified block of 2 hours where she and Steven Barnes could be adults rather than parents.
Most of the rest of Thursday morning was spent talking to friends (Russ Ault and Lee at the Instant Attitudes booth, talking to the people at Starbase Indy, selling some of the Reagency shirts for Mike Williamson, meeting Tom Gondofi and finding out that Bruce Graw was in town, but not at the con.)
I spent the rest of Thursday manning the Ad Astra Games table in the fan tables area – I got a sweet location. I wish I'd had an assistant or two to share the load with. I went up to the con suite twice to scrounge meals, and Karen made sure to bring by some of the groceries I had stashed.
I did a lot of "Would you like to blow up a chocolate?" to people who hadn't seen it before. I also sold a lot of copies of Minimus and handed out flyers.
By Thursday evening, the smoke had started to settle into the Spokane valley, and the sky was a really ominous Mordor-orange. The chest cold I brought with me was not liking the smoke at all. I coordinated with Harlan Haskell to get some table space for Friday's game.
On Thursday, I did three panels – two related to games (both of which had IP attorneys steal the show…) and one on space opera where I couldn't do my slide deck because I had no laptop charger. Plus I was coughing gunk. A number of people wanting to talk Puppy issues met me at my panel and we cruised a few themed parties, but were pretty tired.
Friday morning, the entire city of Spokane smelled like someone was starting a smoker-pit; there were advisories to NOT go outside if you could avoid it. After an impromptu breakfast with Kurt Busiek of Astro City fame, including a modest amount of fan-boy squeeing on my part, and a really good discussion of story structure and compactness, I braved it anyway with my demo kit in tow, wishing I'd had a face mask.
I did cancel my 4 PM panel appearance because my voice wasn't going to cut it.
I had lunch with Dan Moran and Amy Stout-Moran and Connor Moran, along with Blaze Ward, Tracy Erickson, Scott Hysmith, and Janna Silverstein. Nice wide ranging discussion about writing, being a professional, the growing lack of gate keepers in indie publication, and why this is a Good Thing, along with epigenetic influences, bad jokes, and how kids always seem to resemble their grandparents more than their parents.
I set up the game on Friday, and had Kendrick Dickens (going from badge name and the fact that Dennis Dickens says he's his son; I suspect I have the name wrong), Connor Moran and Jason Due-Barnes playing in an Axanar playtest in 2D. In the end, one Klingon disengaged, another did some light damage to Connor's ship, and was destroyed by my setting up a good shot for Connor. Jason was a little young for the game (11, and a bit of a bag of squirrels) while Connor is damned near the center of my target demo: Young enough to think shoving minis around the map is REALLY COOL, bright and focused enough to see this as a game like chess that he can master if he focuses on it.
Jason left at 3:45 for a social engagement with his parents, Connor was tempted to try to plead his way out of dinner to play more. 🙂 (The golden age of gaming is about 13-14. You hook 'em then and you have a customer for life.)
As I was packing up, I had people show up to ogle the minis, because the ships I'm using (by Charles Oines) are clear cognates of the classic Trek designs but not the classic Trek designs. Which led to more demos and teaching four more people how to play. I could never /quite/ get out of the room, which was a problem, because the doorways nearest the game room kept opening and letting smoke in from outside.
I eventually escaped the game hall after sending a few demo participants to smuggle food to me, and found the Filking room. I sang The Elements and gave a recital of Janus: Sonnet by John M. Ford, dragged the demo kit to my table, found five notes from people wondering if I was OK, went back to the Grand and went to bed. Coughing kept me up until 3 PM local time, and I woke up at 8:30 when my alarm went off.
On Saturday, I manned my demo table in the convention center until 12:30 PM, handed George R.R. Martin a "Castle Friends" shirt (which he didn't get the joke of!), and had lunch with Karen Junker and Lou Antonelli. I scouted out the theater for the Hugo ceremonies, hung out with Jenn Brozek and her husband for a bit, and then took a shower to cough brown gunk out of my lungs, and a nap.
I went to the Hugo reception and nearly missed my Hugo Nominee Photo Shoot because I didn't hear the category name when it was called up; fortunately, John C. Wright said they were looking for me. I mingled with a few editors from Tor for a bit, talked to fellow nominees, and enjoyed the hors d'ouvres.
And then the Hugo ceremony happened. I'll cover the Hugo ceremony, the immediate aftermath and the parties in a separate post.
On Sunday, I had a fair number of people say that they were really sorry that I was in the collateral damage zone of the Puppy smackdown. I had an even larger number of people come up to me to be deliberately rude, saying that they hoped I felt awful for my part in trying to "rig the vote." For the most part, I said the following:
"I came into this expecting No Award in my category. I've gone out of my way to personally congratulate every person who got a Hugo, and to congratulate every person who came in second to political pique. Beyond that, I figure I gained somewhere between one thousand and four thousand new readers, depending on what percentage of the people who voted No Award read the packet."
Paula Thomas and Tom Gondolfi helped me tear down my table, and we went to several parties after the close of the exhibit hall and the end of the con. Paula dropped me off at the Amtrak station at 1 AM, where I discovered that my ticket was no longer valid (I'm talking to Amtrak about this now, to get a refund), and I spend 42 hours riding coach back to Milwaukee and having low-key conversations with fans.
So . . . .
How the Hugos Crashed
(aka "The Diary of a Self-Deploying Human
Sandbag In The Culture War")
By: Ken Burnside
Part I: My Experiences
The Puppy imbroglio is about politics overlaying a literary dispute, and like all political actions, it has no winners. Its major casualties are relationships, and the truth.
I signed up for the Sad Puppy list because I was told it was about getting representation for conservative and libertarian leaning storytellers in the Hugo nomination process. The request came in when a book I was published in was in its initial 90-day release window, and it counted as promoting the title. More exposure means more sales, and I was (and always am) looking for new readers.
Plus, I figured that my chances of getting onto the final ballot were somewhere up there with me being named Pope. I largely forgot about it.
The Sad Puppies recommended reading list became the basis of the Rabid Puppies slate. The first pieces describing how the two were indistinguishable came out in early March. While I was published by Vox Day, I was a Sad Puppy, not a Rabid one. One very important difference between the two: Vox said to vote his slate; Brad said "These are highly recommended, worth reading, and if you agree, worth nominating."
The announcement of the Sad Puppies slate was a mishmash of "Let's get a certain type of SF represented" which I agree with, and a large charge of "Let's turn this into a culture-war front." I agree with the former. I think the latter is profoundly stupid.
I'm going to divert here to a subtle, but important distinction.
A recommended reading list should not be a slate. The Sad Puppy recommended reading list, while not intended to be a slate, effectively turned into one.
A recommended reading list should, in an ideal world, be lightly curated. We don't live in an ideal world. Locus Magazine puts out the most prestigious recommended reading list in the field, and while Locus makes their recommendations more in accordance to the Nebula guidelines, their influence on the Hugo nomination process is pretty strong.
A recommended reading list should have, at a minimum, twice to three times the number of entries per category as the final ballot for an award. Fewer than this, and you're packing the slate with what you want, and charges of ideological nominations will fly. Exactly matching the number of entries on the ballot for each category is the definition of a slate.
Brad Torgersen and John Scalzi both use their blogs to solicit recommendations. Scalzi sometimes gives an affirmation on third party recommendations, Torgersen had his commenters vote to consolidate several recommendations down into one list, and then posted that list publicly as the Sad Puppies 3 list. There is a difference between the two methods, and Brad's way consolidates nominations in a way that (we later learned) had disproportionate impact.
There's no grand conspiracy here; it's simply someone expressing a preference.
A slate is a radically different kettle of cats. It's not "these are worthy of your consideration.," it's "Vote for these to piss off group " Because of how the Hugo nomination process currently works, it's easy for a slate that gets fewer than 10% of the nominations to write the ballot for a category. The Hugo nomination process is vulnerable to favor-trading and log-rolling. It was possible for books with as few as 60 nominations to make the final ballot four years ago.
In terms of philosophy, Torgersen was hoping to get a handful of nominations on the final ballot, and maybe, just maybe, get Toni Weisskopf a Hugo Award. His goals were modest. Vox Day? Vox Day has wanted to get No Awards dished out in the Hugos since early 2014.
Keep this distinction in mind for what follows.
From March through Easter weekend, when the ballot got announced, things were quiet. I got told that I was an actual finalist, in Best Related Work. I was told to not reveal my nominee status.
Three days before the ballot was released, the editor of Amazing Stories started the campaign for No Award on all the categories that were nominated by Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies. This was the first "high profile" source treating them as interchangeable. This was the first hint that the slates had worked…and was clearly a leak by someone breaking the "please don't reveal this information" instructions.
The day the ballot was released, I stated (and continued to state through the end of voting).
"Read the works. Vote your conscience. In that order."
It was abundantly clear that slate voting had a disproportionate effect. Keep in mind that the only person demanding people vote straight slate was Vox Day.
In the four month span between the ballot being made public and the end of voting on July 31st, I got threats of assault if I showed up at WorldCon (none materialized), I got called a racist, homophobic sexist neo-Nazi, and I watched lies and fabrications show up in national media. The Puppies are all racist white men (which is why the nominated slate had seven women in it). I mostly played duck-and-cover; Brad Torgersen was on scapegoat duty.
Those threats of physical assault made up my mind about going to WorldCon. Until then, I figured that going to a convention where I'd lose a Hugo and wouldn't be able to sell games was…not financially sensible.
I stayed out of discussions on the Hugo Awards after the assault threats. People largely assumed that I was a lock-stepped mouthpiece for Vox Day anyway. If you weren't the focus of this attention, it was easy to say "Oh, it wasn't that bad…" It was that bad. It was relentless, with a hit piece coming out roughly once a week from late April to the week before WorldCon.
In late May, I saw Brad apologize for some of his rhetoric about "victim quotas." It wasn't much of an apology, but the counter-reaction was as bad. He learned that backtracking from any Puppy statement was worse than keeping his mouth shut. Through June, several outright libelous pieces about Brad were published, corrected, taken down…and repeated in a different venue.
I have had early readers on this tell me I'm being too kind to Torgersen, that he deserved what he had coming.
Prior to the assault threats, I would wade into the discussions trying to be reasonable and calm and correct only errors of fact, and got ripped. I stopped for the sake of my own sanity, and was reminded of the quote that no amount of factual information will convince a person whose self image is threatened by those facts.
Throughout this, the things that made me a Puppy in the first place was buried in a malodorous pile of feces. They were buried by partisans on both sides, not just the Anti-Puppies. In Kary English's blog, I paraphrased Anita Sarkeesian: "In the game of Hugo Awards, the Puppy nominees aren't the opposition. They're the ball."
Eventually, tired of being browbeaten and told what an awful human being I was, I just retreated to "Read the works. Vote your conscience. In that order."
I made it to WorldCon (see convention report, above), largely ignored the political infighting by running game demos and stepping out of conversations on Puppy versus Anti-Puppy positions; even the people who presumed I was on "their" side aggravated me..
When people wished me luck, I said that I expected to lose to No Award. I'd been saying that since June.
I went to WorldCon to spend time with authors I rarely get to meet, hang out with friends, demo games, and lose a Hugo in person. Keep in mind, most of my writing is in games, not in SF; I'm unlikely to have another nominated work given my other commitments.
While I was clearly the best fit for the category in Best Related Work (and I wished I could've taken another editing pass; the piece was a bit of a rush job for a deadine.) I was certain that "The Hot Equations," in particular, would have no chance no matter it's merits. It was nominated by Vox Day, and published by Vox Day.
Kiss. Of. Doom.
Then the Hugo Awards happened.
Part II: The Hugo Awards, the Afterparties and the Aftermath.
On Saturday, I went to the Hugo Award reception. I could tell who "knew me" as a friend and who "knew me" as a Puppy. The former tended to chit-chat. The latter would move to get a fresh drink or a new snack when I walked closer. I've been at more awkward receptions in my life, but not many of them.
At the reception, we were handed our Extra Large Hugo Asterisks as nominees. For those not in the literary know, Kurt Vonnegut used the asterisk as an illustration of the anus. So yes, all the nominees got a nice reminder that the awards committee thought they were assholes. Gerrold name-dropped Vonnegut's name at the reception. Either that, or all the winners were going to be reminded, Roger Maris-like, that they didn't meet the same standards as prior Hugo winners.
Combined with shunning, my "OK, this is going to be a disaster…" sense was past tingling, into throbbing and really should just be called mordant curiosity. Only after I was seen talking to Tananarive Due did anyone outside the small representation of "Puppies" at the convention consent to talk to me, mostly in the shadows of the reception, where nobody else could see.
I went to the INB Theater, sat in the front row and waited. The long discussion of the Official Hugo Asshole Disks led things off. The Sasquan chair reminded people that "No Award" was an option. David and Tananarive did a lovely job, and covered for a few gaffes from script pages not turning, and tried to keep it fun. I've been a master of ceremonies; I'm not going to rag on them for it.
Best Related Works came up. It went to No Award; I expected that. I didn't expect the loud and raucous cheering, which, frankly, pissed me off.
Then Best Short Story came up. It also went to No Award. The cheering was even louder.
Then Best Editor, Short Form went to No Award and the cheering was deafening. There were several people who said "Fuck this…that's not right…" when that happened, down in the nominee area. David heard it; he quickly looked over the orchestra pit to see what was going on.
Then Best Editor, Long Form went to No Award, and the cheering made the floor tremble. Several people (myself included) started booing. David said "booing is not appropriate" and I came about a half-second away from standing up and jumping on the stage to grab the mic. Bryan Thomas Schmidt DID get up and curse loudly. Toni Weisskopf apparently never went to the ceremony at all; per Bryan the two of them commiserated for a few hours after the ceremony.
Best Novelette went to an actual winner, best Novella got No Awarded (but with less cheering), and Best Novel got a Hugo. I made a point of personally congratulating all of the Hugo winners when I found them on Sunday.
Words cannot describe how furious I was at the outcome at the time. I sat in the theater after the lights came up. I had a brief conversation with political pundit (and fabricator of the Hugo Asshole Disks) Jim Wright. He agreed with why I was angry: Cheering for No Award (and cheering loudly) was beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior.
For a ceremony that promised to be about inclusion and "we're all fandom," having the master of ceremonies feed off the cheering for No Award? That's very easy to take as hypocrisy of the first order. I've also been told, multiple times that SF readers are NOT FANDOM…and that's part of the problem.
Seeing "No Award" blow out candidates who were clearly meritorious, like Mike Resnick and Toni Weisskopf? With cheers that rattled the rafters and made the floor rumble?
I felt so very included in Fandom then. Really.
I expected "No Award" to take my category (clearly the weakest one) and Novella. I was cold-cocked by Short Story, and both Editor categories.
I grabbed a copy of the vote tally sheet while being confronted by people who were jubilant about the outcomes. I was glad I took the time to sit in a quiet place and calm down before doing so.
I eventually calmed down and went to the two after-parties, the one at Auntie's bookstore, and then got into the cab going to George R.R. Martin's Hugo Losers party. At both locations, I made it a point to shake hands with the people who won, to say kind things to them. The conversations I got into in both tended to revolve around What Happens Next (see Part V: Implications.)
I saw George R.R. Martin declare that all Puppies were Rabid at his party, and hoped that his alternate awards wouldn't be needed in the future. The celebration was one of fandom holding off the barbarians. You know, people like me. I had some fun at the party anyway, talked to people when I could, and got home around 3 AM.
On the ride home, I shared a limo with David Gerrold, and got to hear his account of the Hugo Ceremony. He said he'd been expecting a lot of booing, but when he heard the cheering for the first No Award result, he knew everything was going to "be all right." He also talked about how, now that the ceremony was over, he could finally lay down the mask of politesse and let people know how he really felt.
I pointed out that I was one of those people who got shellacked by the No Awarding, and that I felt that the cheering was incredibly rude and disrespectful. David, to his credit, listened to me and said that he wanted me to continue writing in the field, and that I should treat the cheering as cheering for the process, not a personal attack.
The car ride ended, I talked to more writers and pros in the lobby of the Grand. No punches were thrown, no people were upset – there was still some jubilation about the smackdown.
On Sunday, I put up with periodic heckling by fans who came to "rub it in." I replied with variations on this:
"I came into this expecting No Award in my category. I've gone out of my way to personally congratulate every person who got a Hugo, and to congratulate every person who came in second to political pique. Beyond that, I figure I gained somewhere between one thousand and four thousand new readers, depending on what percentage of the people who voted No Award read the packet."
Part III: The Fundamental Literary Divide
In case it's not clear, my personal position is anti-slate, and strongly in favor of recommended reading lists. I'm not running the Sad Puppies 4 campaign, but I'm hoping their recommended reading list sifting starts soon. I want them to avoid overlooking things like the Three Body Problem. I want that recommended reading list to either put out one or two recommendations per category, or actually be a recommended reading list, and have so many recommendations that it's ineffective as a slate. I'd guess that 10-15 works per category would suffice, but I don't know.
There should also be a clear statement of intent – "These are the works we like." I'd be delighted if there were a de-escalation of the culture-war rhetoric. Make this a positive about the works being recommended, and cut back on the name calling, the talks about political collusion, the cries of character assassination, the attempts at counter-character assassination.
Make this about the works, please. Avoid slate voting and nominations. I'd much rather have one or two very good works in the category make the final ballot than see what happened in 2015.
I will state for the record that every recommended reading list is a filtered list. It reflects the biases of whomever compiled it, whether that's Sad Puppies, the Baen Barflies, Goodreads rankings, or Locus Magazine.
I am working out the back-end logistics to make a web-accessible database of publication listings from publishers, large and small, to make it easier to find all the works published in a given year. If I can get any traction on this, I'll make an announcement.
I think, below the political dispute, there is a set of unexamined literary assumptions. Over the last fifteen-ish years, while the makeup of organized fandom hasn't changed (organized fans have always been homogeneously liberal), the makeup of awards has skewed towards "literary" SF. Literary SF aims more of the story at exploring the human condition, and how people's lives and ideals have changed. In any story, there's only a finite amount of word-count, and divvying it up between characterization, plot, exploration of the setting (and establishing the setting's ground rules) and The Big Idea is part of a writer's craft.
Literary fiction relies on conveying a change in emotional state and character understanding. It puts a premium on better writing, because of this. Literary fiction, left to its own devices, turns into tone poems about competitive navel gazing; this isn't mockery of the form–anything in writing taken to an extreme runs into problems.
There's a sub-genre of SF that I call "The Heroic Engineer Story." It's not always about an engineer, and another term for it is "competence porn." Analog still publishes a lot of it. It's very much about "put character into a puzzle box, have Act I be about how they realize how screwed they are, have Act II be about making things worse, while getting the key needed to escape the puzzle box at the end of Act III." While it's from the pulps, and borrows something from the pulp formula, it's not really 1950s style pulp writing. In Heroic Engineer Stories, most character details of the protagonist are secondary to "How Does She Solve The Problem?" In Literary SF, the character development is MUCH more important.
A lot of people read Heroic Engineer Stories and project "straight white dude" onto the protagonist, unless the author specifically states they aren't such. One of the appeals of the Heroic Engineer Story is that it focuses on the universally human fascination of solving problems, along with life-or-death stakes.
For the SF readers who are the target of the Heroic Engineer Story, there's an intellectual thrill akin to reading a murder mystery in seeing how the problem is solved, and a comforting escapism from emotional nuance. For the readers of the Heroic Engineer Story (and its related subgenres, the Exploration of the Mysterious Yet Logical Thing Story and the Defense Against The Inhuman Aliens By Mighty Pluck And Human Courage Story), the Competent Protagonist who puts aside emotions to Solve The Problem is an aspirational character.
And yes, more of those aspirational characters should be women. David Weber carved one hell of a market niche by doing exactly that.
It is damned difficult to do a literary SF version of The Heroic Engineer Story. There are two I can think of, and both are movies: "Her" and the problematic "Ex Machina," In both cases, the "human element" is "man falls in love with feminine machine and is creeped out because even Simulated Women Are Mysteeeerious Creatures." I'd like to see less use of the "Woman As Mysteeeerious Creature" trope, but that's secondary to saying that writing a Literary Heroic Engineer Story is a difficult juggling act.
For people who write and read literary SF, that Competent Protagonist is as staid and cliched as Horatio Alger. They don't have any internal conflicts, or any hard decisions to make about emotional issues. All the interesting stuff is external, and the only motives in conflict are in a strictly Manicheist vein. A lot of very good recent SF–notably a good chunk of Charlie Stross' output–pokes deliberate fun at the Heroic Engineer Story and its subtropes.
Heroic Engineer Stories drive a lot of sales. Nearly every SF author I know who doesn't need a day job writes an action-adventure series, where the Heroic Engineer/Officer/Competent Protagonist Solves The Problem. They sell, and they sell to a male demographic, often current or recently retired military, and that demographic skews conservative.
You can make an argument that Ringworld or Rendezvous with Rama wouldn't make the Hugo ballot if published today. One of the reasons why they wouldn't make the ballot is that the standards for prose smithing have risen since the early 1970s; the general quality of _writing_ in the field has improved noticeably in forty years.
The Heroic Engineer Story has all but vanished from the Hugo awards; this year's Three Body Problem will be seen as a reversal of that trend. They still show up in the Nebulas. Chuck Gannon's Caine Riordan series has a protagonist who's clearly "Chuck Gannon in better shape, and the universe cheats on his behalf." Both volumes have made the Nebula shortlists. The entire series is pretty pulpy in its premise and protagonist. It's published by Baen…and large swathes of Baen's catalog is conspicuous in its absence from the Locus Recommended Reading List.
For what it's worth, I have a three-fold explanation for why that imbalance exists:
1) WorldCon Fandom (the small sliver of SF fandom that goes to WorldCon) is liberal and fairly insular.
2) Literary SF, as expressed above, is generally better written. All else being equal, truly excellent writing will be the tie breaker.
3) The Baen Invisibility Factor in the existing recommended reading list channels.
There's no need for a grand conspiracy; I doubt that organized Fandom could keep a secret conspiracy secret for two weeks. The idea that they could do so for fifteen years? I read SF, I've got a good imagination, but…no.
Addressing this imbalance is why I became a "Puppy."
What happened instead? The Hugos became a front in the culture war. Brad Torgersen's posts at the very beginning about "victim class check box fiction" destroyed any rapport with people who weren't already in his camp. Other comments made by Torgersen kept the same divisive tone. Vox Day's posts on the subject started at inflammatory and went up from there. His business model is built off of it.
Both were using the tactic of "say something outrageous, wait for the 'other side' to get pissed off, and turn to the choir to say 'see, I told you they'd over-react." When trying to build a roster of voters nominating literary works, this sure as hell doesn't convince people that your side has any merit.
Conducting literary criticism via the rhetoric of culture war is profoundly stupid if you want your complaints listened to. The counter-reaction to the Puppies was justifiable, predictable, and seems to have fed into a considerable media campaign, one that Torgersen had to threaten libel lawsuits to tone down.
The actual Puppy "grievance" is that the WorldCon fandom has gotten insular, and needs more nominators and voters. It also needs to reflect things outside the narrow purview of the current WorldCon membership.
I lay most of the initial blame on the Puppies, but the reaction (and cyclical counter-reactions) leave plenty of blame to go around. There's been enough decrying of fault and blame on this matter. No side of this, Sad Puppies, Anti-Puppies or especially Rabid Puppies , comes out without char marks.
Part IV: The Anti-Slate Measures.
There are two anti-slate measures that were ratified at Sasquan. Because the World Science Fiction Society has a two-year rules change cycle, they won't impact any Hugo nominations prior to 2017.
The two proposals are EPH (formerly Single Divisible Vote) and 4/6.
In EPH, each nominee gets one ballot per category, and that vote gets divided among the number of entries in that category. Nominate a single work, and you get 1.0 nominations. Nominate five works, and you get 0.2 nominations. This is the one that I think holds the best chance of deterring slates, since someone stuffing a category needs to know they have about 5x as many nomination ballots as anyone else.
The problem is that I don't think it will work. A look at the nomination statistics shows that Vox Day has somewhere around 3-4x as many nomination ballots as anyone else. Another element of the equation is that the people who regard the culture war ("causing the SJWs to screech" is their form of entertainment) are generally affluent enough that spending $40 or $50 is "OK, I miss a night out at the movies.") EPH/SDV is the only proposal that mitigates slates enough to keep the "old collegial feel," It raises the barriers to slates, but doesn't eliminate them.
In 4/6, each category gets expanded by one entry for nominations, and no nominator can nominate more than four entries per category. There was an alternate proposal, called 5/10 which did the same thing.
The way 4/6 fails is that it's still vulnerable to slates. It wouldn't have stopped what happened this year at all. The only change is that the Rabid Puppy slate would've had fewer overlaps with the Sad Puppy slate. Instead of one slate dominating the nominations, it just takes collusion between slate organizers (whether deliberate or coincidental) to lock out a category.
The two proposals ombined means that you need two colluding slates, each of which has 3x-4x the number of unaffiliated voters. Slates are still more effective than unaffiliated voters, but this should require that close to a third of all nominating ballots are voting for two coordinated slates to block out a category.
Note that I don't think blocking out a category is necessary to achieve the Rabid Puppy goals. See Part V below.
Part V: Political Consequences
Quite honestly? I don't see a good way out of this.
In an ideal world, two categories would've gone to No Award: Best Related and Novella. They were easily the two most egregious cases of Rabid Puppy Nomination Stuffing, and the two weakest categories in terms of top-to-bottom quality of the work – and I say this as person who got the second-most votes in the Best Related Works category after political pique.
This would've been (I'd hope) an adequate rebuke of the slate-packing. Having actual Puppy candidates _win_ in the other three No Award categories–and the top vote getters were truly worthy winners– would've let the anti-Puppy crowd say to the Puppies, "See, you're welcome here too."
What actually happened?
Five categories got No Awarded. To me, the least justified case was Best Editor, Long Form. Toni Weisskopf got more votes for Best Editor than the previous five winners combined. It didn't matter; No Award got almost twice as many as she did.
With the way the Instant Runoff Ballot works, it would've been trivial to ensure that Vox Day didn't win the category, without nuking it. That didn't happen. Instead, we got the argument that "No-one named on a Puppy List shall prosper."
And I think that's dreadfully wrong. I think, more than anything that could've happened, that just wrote "Larry Was Right All Along" In ten foot tall letters. Because the threat of possibly giving an award to someone Vox Day recommended was more important than the quality of the work.
Politics over quality. This is doubly true of what happened to Kary English. Mike Resnick was also worthy.
The people who voted "No Award" without reading the works may have thought they were punishing the leaders of the Puppies. They were punishing the self-deploying human sandbags instead. Protesting the unwritten social conventions by breaking the written admonition against "Don't vote in categories you haven't read" is, arguably, hypocrisy.
For a person nominated for an award like the Hugo, especially people like Kary and myself, with short publication lists in the field, the real prize isn't the trophy. Getting one of those early always makes you wonder what you'll have to do to prove you got better at your craft. The real prize is getting your work out in front of more readers, readers who tend to be influential in other parts of Fandom.
However, the real disaster is coming.
It has now been established that voting No Award without reading the works is acceptable behavior. It's also been established that it's perfectly OK for members to distribute large numbers of Supporting Memberships to other members to "get out the vote." Both of those were done by the anti-Puppy side.
What makes you think they won't be done by the Puppy side next year?
As horrible as the cheering for No Award in the Editor Categories was for the people who were nominees, two of those No Awards pretty much give Vox Day his best ever recruiting pitch: "After seeing what they did to Toni, why bother reading the categories, when voting for what you like is going to get a No Award anyway if it shows up on a Puppy Recommendation List? Just join me in burning the whole thing down by Voting No Award in every category." Yes, you can argue that the cheering was for the process…but that's not going to be persuasive to people who feel aggrieved and shut out.
Until now, a point of commonality between the Sad Puppies and the Neutral Fans is that voting for something (or against something) you haven't read is an abrogation of the trust implicit in getting a voting packet.
The "winner" of this year's Hugo ceremony was Vox Day. His goal has been to crash the Hugos, and has been for 17 months. He wanted to create a "lose/lose" situation for WorldCon: Either give him a nominee victory, or, do what he really wants and show how easy it is to manipulate the voters into voting No Award. He got both outcomes. Chaos Horizon points out that the block of 400 voters putting Three Body Problem over the top probably came from Vox Day. (See Annotations, below.)
There were roughly 1050 "Puppy" voters – about 550 Rabids and 500 Sads. 1000 Rabids and 100 Sads The Rabids are recruiting, because the anti-Puppies just gave them a nice, appealing message:
"We will return the insult done to Toni Weisskopf ten-fold."
Here's how they'll do it:
1) They'll get at least two TRULY objectionable works in every single category, along with 1-2 works that might be tolerable to fandom at large.
2) They'll tell all their voters to vote No Award in every category. This, plus whatever votes go to No Award because, say, Vox Day has a piece in a category from a slate, should be enough to ensure that No Award happens in nearly every category. It will be harder for them to screw over Dramatic Works and the professional artist categories.
I wouldn't bet against their success. I sure as hell wasn't expecting five No Awards this time around.
If WorldCon wants sane Hugo Awards, there needs to be a dialog begun about the _literary_ dispute, separate from the culture war dispute. Consider this piece an opening statement
Toni Weisskopf may be able to deflate the ball of anger and bile the cheering at the Hugo ceremonies created, and she may love fandom enough as a thing (or dislike Vox enough as a thing) to do so.
To the side gloating over "victory" over what was done to Toni and Mike? There's a reason why Vox Day is thanking you in public. Profusely. It's not every day that your opponents/enemies hand you a banner AND a martyr to rally the cause around, then act like gleeful bullies to reinforce the message.
To the side referring to David Gerrold as a "faggot," to Wesley Chu as a simpering man-whore? Yeah, I know, you can't be persuaded at this point. You're crowing over being handled a book of matches and a 55-gallon drum of gasoline. May the flame of your self-immolation be a beacon of enlightenment providing a cautionary fable for future generations.
To others, watching the cavorting with pyrotechnics or the cheering? Remember the words of Steven Barnes: "The first rule of human interaction is to assume every person you meet is a fully capable human being rather than a caricature. Human beings are driven by unacknowledged fears filtered through aggression and insecurity. Identify the fear and resolve it, and you resolve the conflict. React to the insecurity and aggression, and you escalate it."
Part VI: What Happens To Me?
Me? I'm planning on writing. More games than fiction. Games pay better for me, by a fair margin. But there will be some work from me coming in the latter third of the year.
Besides, depending on how you interpret the mix of No Award and First Place votes in my category, I picked up 4,000 readers who want to see what else I can do.
Here are the voting statistics.
And an analysis of who the assorted voters were.
This article by Nathaniel Givens at Difficult Run was also quite instructive
The winners of the categories that got No Awarded are the ones who placed first in the "Run for Second Position" after "No Award." They are:
Novella: Flow (Arlan Andrews Sr.)
Short Story: Totaled (Kary English)
Best Related Work: The Hot Equations (Ken Burnside)
Best Editor, Long Form: Toni Weisskopf
Best Editor, Short Form: Mike Resnick
Thanks for that write up Ken – very interesting, even if I disagree with parts of it.
Personally, it was both Sad & Rabids that got me off my backside again to participate as there was actually stuff that I found worth reading, (prior to that I hadnt participated since the late 80's). rather than stuff like Ancilliary whatever (bored me rigid) and "If I was a dinosaur" from previous year – both of which I think work against the claim of "literary fiction" being predominant. If that was the case neither of these "works" would ever have seen the reflected light off a Hugo rocket.
I think the "culture war" aspect was already present, with the opposition already claiming victory on a deserted battlefield. The asterisks were simply a manifestation of that, and tbh if I'd been the recipient of one of those, David Gerrold would have found it the representation shoved in the actual location, sideways – live on stage. It was rude, disrespectful,antagonistic and totally unnecessary – and it was done gleefully.
Topping off, GRRMs actions in hosting an awards for works he deems "should" have won were classless – and have ensured that he's lost this reader on those actions alone, let alone that his words and actions have been vastly contradictory.
Personally, I read the works and voted accordingly. Really enjoyed your entry. Not sure whether I'm going to bother or not next year yet, really not sure whether the Hugos are worth saving at this stage.August 30, 2015
Yep. I've been reading GRRM since I was a teenager (the first paperback of his I bought, new, had a big-assed spider on the cover, which will tell you how long ago that was), but no more.
Not that it'll make any difference to him, since he's no doubt sleeping in Scrooge McDuck's money bin by now, but enough is enough.August 30, 2015
Ken, Toni was at the pre-show reception and walked out when they announced the asterisks. She went to another party until 4amAugust 30, 2015
I disagree with the effectiveness of the 4/6 and EPH proposals
to beat 4/6 you don't need multiple slates, just one slate of 6 items that you display to each viewer in a random order (doable server side or in javascript). yes you need more voters, but there were more than enough puppy voters this year to win (if you assume the way the anti-puppies do that the puppies voted the slates blindly, even if the fact of the vote information)
EPH is more complex, so a different postAugust 30, 2015
Nice piece, Ken. I can see parts of it being unpopular on both sides. We need more pieces like this, that at least attempt to analyze without being overwhelmed by partisanship. You've got a new fan. Carry on.August 30, 2015
The current system is too easy to game because there are too few people voting for too many different works, any directed voting is enough to break things 'gaming the system'
and by 'directed voting', I include Scalzi's recommendation list that his many fans pick up and greatly influences what they vote for.
As for the results this year:
I looked at the nomination numbers a little bit, and I think that EPH would not have made very much of a difference in the numbers this year.
If you assume that there were ~200 each of SP and RP and they nominated 5 items on their ballots
and other people nominated an average of 3 items on each ballot (stats from chaos horizon analysis of a couple of years where the full list of
nominations were provided)
Also assume that only puppies voted for things on the puppy lists.
note, if puppies voted for fewer things, or non-puppies voted for more things it would strengthen the puppy vote under EPH
with these assumptions, the EPH scores after the first pass would have been:
acutal EPH total
279 93 Ancillary Sword
263 87.6 the Dark Between the Stars
256 85.3 The Goblin Emperor
387 77.4 Skin Game
372 74.4 Monster Hunter Nemesis
210 70 The Three Body Problem
270 54 Lines of Departure
168 56 Lock In
160 53.3 City of Stairs
141 47 The Martian
126 42 Words of Radiance
120 40 My real Children
199 39.3 Trial By Fire
196 39.2 The Chaplain's War
112 38 The mirror Empire
92 30.7 Langoon
88 29.3 Annihilation
So under these assumptions (which are pretty slanted against the puppies, the vote totals show that at they did not all vote for all the items on the slates, and some surely did not vote for 5 items) the list after the first pass would been close enough to the same that if that generated
the final Hugo ballot, it would have consisted of the exact same items as it ended up consisting of. The difference being that instead of Marko
Klees declining the nomination, he would have just missed the cutoff. In both cases, the Three Body Problem would have missed getting on the
ballot if Larry hadn't declined the nomination.
Now, we can't really know what would happen in a full EPH because of the complex thousand round vote reallocation, but keep in mind that puppy
votes would get reallocated as well, strengthening their remaining candidates.
It's also important to note that if you look at the total nominations for works that got 5% or more of the vote, the puppies combined for almost half. If you assume that every ballot had one entry on it over the 5% mark, then (other than the puppies) somewhere between 88 and ~350 non-puppy nominees had 2 or more works on them that got over the 5% mark.
This means that you can do all the reallocation of partial votes between works and you will still end up with a lot of ballots having no effect on the final nominees.
So my view is that EPH is a bad idea. It doesn't 'solve the problem' that it claims to solve, and it takes an already complex nomination/voting
process and makes it so horribly complicated that it's basically impossible to audit and boils down to 'trust that the computer software was
written with no biases or bugs', and I think that a voting process that people can't grasp can't be trusted.August 30, 2015
Alpheus #
The problem with both EPH and 4/6 is that both are starting with the wrong assumption: that what happened this year was because of slate voting.
If it's the result of a "get out the vote" campaign, then changing the system of counting isn't going to change what happened one whit!September 3, 2015
"The Hot Equations" was damned good, Ken, and I've re-read sections of it several times since. This potential reader is now an actual one due to your inclusion in Sad Puppies, not because of anything political, but because you put together something worth reading.
It wasn't close, for me. "Why Science is Never Settled" was also good, but I liked T.H.E. better. I look forward to what Speaker writes for us next, too. *grin*
The culture war aspect has been going on for a long time, I think. Longer than I've been paying attention for sure. Is it any less so, for being quiet? For a lot of us, from the mid eighties on for another ten or fifteen years was a dry spell in SF for the reader. What counts as an enjoyable read varies, of course, from what I hear, SF sales declined quite a bit. YMMV.
For me, it doesn't matter whose shoulder I'm looking over in the story. Male, female, AI, monster, alien, god… A good story makes these things, not irrelevant, but seamless. What matters is, what's going to happen next? That's what keeps the pages turning until the last one, and then goes looking for the next in the series.
So I don't stand with more aspirational characters should be women, any more than I think more aspirational characters should be X, Y, Z, or men. The quality of the work matters, not the mythical plumbing in the character's pants. The fact that Honor is female matters less than thickness of hull, or skin, or skulls for that matter in the story. To put it another way, if the story is *about* being female it can still be a good story… But if we're hit over the head with it every five pages, it tends to lose something. This may not be a disagreement, but I *do* want to clarify that I think quality should always come first.
That sort of statement though, that there should be more SF about 'X', can be polarizing. I want to read more zombies in space stories is one thing, that's just my taste. But saying "should" worries me. It sounds like an "eat your vegetables" kind of thing, that's good for us whether we want it or not. That's not why I read SF. I read it for, well, Heroic Engineers, science hard and soft, alien worlds, exploding spaceships, AIs, travel between the stars… maybe even zombies in space, too. Authors are competing for reader's beer and pizza fund, not for their college textbook fund. At least I hope not. *chuckle* Make the customer happy, and they'll come back for more. Or, like Baen, "the first taste's free…"
The "should" I like to see is "SF should be for everyone. Full stop." That means I may not *like* Creative Pronouns myself, but hey, if that's your fave, more power to ya. That means if want gender hopping, non-binary fiction, cool. If you love to explore the human condition, hey, I like some stories like that myself. Just don't be telling me that I'm wrong, immoral, and down and out evil to be enjoying pure fluff popcorn books with guns and monsters… or exploding spaceships.
That is indeed what they've been telling us for some time now. That if we don't like stuff we "should" like, we're bad people. We're not, the vast majority of us. Neither are the folks on the other side bad people if we just disagree on taste. I tend to reserve a judgment of really bad for things that deserve it. Cheering for someone else losing is bad behavior, no matter who does it. Voting "No Award" over things you didn't yourself read, or voting for or against something you didn't read is pretty stupid behavior- what's the award worth if everyone does that? If we, all of us, can hold firm that distinction between opinions and what our morals are- what we think *should be* for all of us, I think we'll be okay.
There will always be trolls. Trolls don't have a side, they're trolls. They use one side or another for their own delight in destruction, not because they really believe in it. I think those inclined that way are delighted to see so many folk acting foolishly.
Sad Puppies had some good stuff on their reading list this year- though I agree with Mad Mike, he had better stuff than "Wisdom from my Internet." I'm looking forward to next year's. I'm too poor to buy *everything* I want to, so winnowing it down with recommendations from folks with similar tastes helps. I'd be fine with a dozen per category, if there's that much good stuff coming out. *grin*
Ken, I'm sorry to hear Sasquan turned out the way it did. But I look forward to seeing what you and all the other folks whose work I got introduced to this past year do in the future. All of y'all did good. Keep at it, and good luck.August 30, 2015
Bah. If I wanted angsty navel gazing, I'd have most of the bookstore to choose from.
He's very much mistaken to believe that Brad started the culture war aspects of the dispute. Those have been in play for many years.August 30, 2015
I never said that Brad started the culture war artillery barrage. Merely that using it wasn't the right tool for a literary dispute.
Also, at some point, the right response is to stop searching for who threw the first rock, silence the artillery, and talk.August 31, 2015
The Other Sean #
Isn't artillery usually silenced through counterbattery fire?September 1, 2015
I should also note that Toni tried to pour oil on the water a year or so ago. Scalzi, Hines, and a few others deliberately twisted her words and led an internet lynch mob against her in response.
I very much doubt she's willing to put herself through that again. Especially given the insults she suffered at the Hugos.August 30, 2015
Ravenshrike #
All EPH does is ensure multiple slates. In the current environment that means 1 of each to rabid/sad/kickers with the remaining two going to the ones who game the system the most ruthlessly. Which means either a split between kickers/rabid or both to rabid.
To be perfectly honest the Hugos need to be on a 3-4 year delay with the noms for the next year announced at the current Hugos.August 30, 2015
"In the current environment that means 1 of each to rabid/sad/kickers with the remaining two going to the ones who game the system the most ruthlessly. "
That is precisely why the Torlocks are behind it. As long as they wind up with one book they can point to and say "Hugo-nominated! Hugo-nominated!" they'll be happy.August 30, 2015
A good analysis, but thinking it's possible to hide from the culture wars is a bit naive. And a suggestion: When people try to ignore you, you walk up to them and loudly greet them as though they're your long lost friend. My wife and I have used that to good effect, It's also fun.
Because of what happened in Spokane, I'm one of those who think we should No Award vote all categories until No Award is not an option or the Hugos are no more. Either one works. Unless there's a genuine apology from the Puppy Kickers, that's not likely to changeAugust 30, 2015
Angus Trim #
Ken, nice thoughtful try at a balanced view of this. Brad, thanks for posting this here.
Though frankly, I'm already really tired of the post-Hugo angst. It's time to move on, time to write the best stuff one can write, time to read stuff that interests one, and time to reflect on it. Then get ready for SP4.
I have to disagree about the culture war stuff. It's been going on for years, SFF has suffered for it. It doesn't take much checking back to see how honest people had to bury their beliefs in order to get anywhere, just a few years ago. Sarah Hoyt and Brad are two amongst many that can tell you the horror stories. Even Vox Day was created by it when he was hounded out of the SFWA and accused of things he didn't do. Well, there are some people it's not a good idea to bully, and Vox is one.
I do agree on one thing, fighting on the internet won't solve anything. After some reflection, I'm not sure the Hugos are worth saving, but there are those that do believe it. SP4 here we come.
I don't think SP4 or even SP5 will solve things one way or the other {same with RP2 and maybe RP3}. What will solve this kerfuffle will be the market. If message fic is the future, it'll dominate SFF in sales. If classic SFF is going to continue its comeback, then it'll be the market that dictates that.
My useless $.02August 30, 2015
Actually Vox Day was long before that. Charles Stross gave him a "you'll never worn in this town again" speech after he'd written something negative about Mrs. Nielsen-Hayden in one of his syndicated columns.
He holds this as directly responsible for some major setbacks he's faced.
From personal experience, it does wonders to clarify the stakes when someone threatens to destroy you.
Don't expect him to show mercy.August 30, 2015
And, amusingly, Stross agreed with Day and advocated No Awarding everything. So they're both "winners" in that game…August 30, 2015
I think the Hugos had become part of the culture wars when they became the private fiefdom of a handful of writers, editors and fans — all leftist — who used it as a reward for their fellow travelers.August 30, 2015
Craig #
Part of the question I guess… is it that the vote manipulators are rewarding people on the basis of ideology, or for being part of the clique (which is somewhat self-selected based on professing the ideology)?August 30, 2015
If the Sad Puppies move to a true recommendation list, with 8+ suggestions per category, that would be a big step towards healing the rift. More than that minimum would be better still, because the more recommendations of good SF/F, the better.August 30, 2015
Alex #
Better idea: The puppy kickers start shunning their radicals. It's made clear that anyone who behaves as they – including Gerrold – did at WorldCon will be asked to leave, then escorted out if necessary. Issue a public apology on behalf of WorldCon to the nominees who were insulted by Gerrold and company. Offer refunds (or an additional year's membership, since refunds would likely end WC) to those who were insulted by the officially sanctioned bad behavior toward the Puppies. Make it clear that WorldCon is really as inclusive and open to real diversity as its denizens like to believe.
Make your rules apply to yourselves first. That will be a big step toward healing the rift. Until then, only Vox is going to win.August 30, 2015
Make sure to hold your breath while you're waiting for them to apply their rules to their own actions. Just because they have never, ever done so in the past, is no indicator of future behavior.
The only way this will even happen is if others (we, that is) force it to happen. And the only lesson that teaches is pain. If it doesn't hurt, there is no incentive to alter the behavior. Their arguments are emotional, and as such, do not respond to logic. 'Feelz' are immune to facts.
And they can't shun their radicals. They are their radicals. The radicals are their leaders, their members, their followers, and their supporters. They are nothing but radicals. They are so radical, it's as if something added an electron to half the atoms in the room. Would normal, decent people vote for Noah Ward over things they hadn't bothered to read? Would normal, decent people mount concerted campaigns to get authors to shun their own award nominations, just because of who might have voted for them? Would normal, decent people demand that you obtain an author's consent before recommending someone else read their work? Would decent people cheer and stamp their feet for Noah Ward? Would a normal, decent organization organize, fund, produce, and distribute assterisks, with the obvious approval of the organization, at an organization event?
This fight started decades ago. We've finally deemed it worthy to show up to one of the battles. They created the rift, in the hopes they could shove us down the memory hole. The only reason to bridge the rift is to move siege equipment and recruit new members from the unwitting masses whom they have bamboozled through years of thought control.
Why yes, I am an anti-communist. I despise them and their 'useful idiots' (of which SJWs are an obvious example) with every fiber of my being. How could you tell?August 31, 2015
""It's also been established that it's perfectly OK for members to distribute large numbers of Supporting Memberships to other members to "get out the vote." Both of those were done by the anti-Puppy side.""
I've heard this as conjecture, but is it verified? DID someone on the anti-puppy side purchase multiple memberships for others?August 30, 2015
Reality Observer #
Yes. There are multiple links from other people.
Sorry, Pat, but you'll have to chase those down yourself – I'm desperately trying to get something done for you to pick apart someday, and the production has been very uneven lately. So I'm taking a little less time on the blogs (not a complete retreat, though).August 30, 2015
Holly #
Mary Robinette Kowal, the lady who doesn't know what a Chinese Communist is, offered 'scholarships', I believe.August 30, 2015
Alex #
She was the public one.
There's good reason to believe there was at least one large-scale private one as well. Not enough to swing any votes by itself, though.August 30, 2015
Iridium #
Key Paragraph:
And to my readers — If you can afford it, I encourage you to buy a membership to WorldCon and become part of fandom. If you cannot afford it… I will buy a supporting membership to WorldCon for ten people, chosen at random, who cannot afford it. I am in no way constraining how that member nominates or votes. All I ask is that you read the nominations and join the conversation.August 30, 2015
Arthur Chu's Twitter post in 2014, tying membership to a No Award vote, is the most naked example of it.August 31, 2015
Bill S #
Thanks Ken for your reflections. I voted Hot Equations first because it best reflected, in my mind, the intent of the category. I voted 3BP first because of its anti-Red Guard (anti-SJW) message.
Much is being said about how the SP4 recommendations will be compiled and I'm sure Kate is listening to all clear-headed suggestions.
What we need is transparency from Scalzi and the SJW klan.August 30, 2015
The Other Sean #
"What we need is transparency from Scalzi and the SJW klan."
Surely everybody can see right through them already.September 1, 2015
First of all, thanks for your honest and thorough reflections. I'm sorry that Sasquan was an unpleasant experience; I'd hoped people would be more polite, or at least less hostile, in person than they are on the Internet. I thought The Hot Equations was award-deserving as a related work; it's not easy to explain highly technical material in such an understandable way, and besides that I loved the title. ;-).
That being said, and with great respect for the fact that you're clearly looking for ways to heal the breach here and go back to something like normalcy… I think your suggestions are not realistic because for the most part, they've already been tried. The responses have been uniformly hostile. I think we can say that these tactics won't work. I offer some examples:
I want that recommended reading list to either put out one or two recommendations per category
The way that Sad Puppies 2 offered one or two recommendations per category, and was met with a storm of abuse exceeded only by this year's storm of abuse? The problem is not the number. The problem is that what Larry Correia calls Wrongfans – people who aren't dialed into the social scene around Worldcon – are expressing an opinion in large enough numbers to affect the nominations, even if it's only one or two in a few categories. That's the offense.
There should also be a clear statement of intent – "These are the works we like."
Something like this…? "The SAD PUPPIES list is a recommendation. Not an absolute. Gathered here is the best list (we think!) of entirely deserving works, writers, and editors." That clear statement of intent was made, and it didn't put a dent in the abuse.
I'd much rather have one or two very good works in the category make the final ballot than see what happened in 2015.
In 2014, one or two Sad Puppies-recommended works made the ballot in a few categories and they were met with rage-spasms. This year, the Sad Puppies list included five novels of which three (not five) were nominated, three novellas (not five), four novelettes (not five), four short stories (not five)… well, I could go on. The point being that it pretty much doesn't matter how many works Sad Puppies proposes. Any that make the ballot can be expected to have their authors be the target of abuse and slander, and any who don't withdraw their nominations under this storm will be No Awarded. And that isn't speculation on my part. You've mentioned the abuse you received, and other nominees – both those who stayed and those who withdrew – have told similar stories.
The No Award contingent was not content to blow up five categories, either. They ranked ALL nominees who had been on either Puppies list below No Award. Some of them boasted openly about not even reading the works. I don't see any reason to think they won't follow the same tactic next year: if a given category has any number of nominees who appeared on the SP 4 list, they'll No Award those nominees no matter what the list looked like or how many entries it had.
I read the works. I voted honestly according to what I thought of the works, without reference to who nominated them or who hated them or who signal-boosted them. And then I saw what happened on award night – not just the No Awards but the cheering and hollering.
"Be conciliatory" was tried this year. "Vote honestly" was tried this year. And we all had our faces spat in for it. To follow that tactic again, I at least need some reason more compelling than "Maybe it will work this year."August 30, 2015
nerdgal #
I completely agree with jaed.
Also, if "literary" was the goal, they should have loved John C. Wright. As far as sheer literary skill, I've rarely seen his equal. Instead they voted Noah Ward above all his works.
It's also kinda funny that Ken objects to the "checkboxes" categorization … and then proceeds to say that there "should be" more women. Now me, I've never cared.
~ nerdgal
woman, engineer, SF fanAugust 30, 2015
In general, if women make up half the population, I'd like to see them make up more than ~5% of the protagonists in Heroic Engineer Stories, particularly since the gender of the protagonist is tertiary to the story being told.
It might encourage more women to read those types of fictions if they see themselves reflected in them.September 2, 2015
Jim Henley's blog post responding to this is worth reading: http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2015/08/30/18838
To speak to Henley does seem to me that this post, and many of the responses, are motivated by a kind of white cis male identity politics. I myself enjoy good old fashioned Astounding engineering tales as much as the next person but it's worth pondering the fact that of all the different ways of doing science fiction — the grand tradition that extends from Mary Shelley to H.G. Wells, to Stapledon to Sturgeon to Vonnegut to Le Guin to Gene Wolfe — the heroic engineer tale is only a relatively minor sub-genre. To regard it as the dominant mode of science fiction — whatever its sales might be — is to really ignore the history of the genre, its immense achievements, and its potential.August 30, 2015
Just so you all know, here's what Jeet Heer said on Twitter the other day:
Jeet Heer @HeerJeet · Aug 28
Memo to Larry Correia: if you are the junior partner to a monomaniacal nihilistic racist, you aren't Churchill. You are MussoliniAugust 31, 2015
I stand by that tweet! Correia had the nerve to compare himself with Churchill, so I think my response was appropriate. or would you dispute that Beale — who refers to blacks as savages, to himself as the Dark Lord, and who revels in the "chaos" he has created — is a "monomaniacal nihilistic racist"? And if you ally yourself with a figure like Beale — as the Sad Puppies have done — you should be prepared that others will judge you accordingly.August 31, 2015
You know who you remind me of? Those communists who demand that people confess their sins by self-criticism and accusing others. The left is so intolerant. You're like Victorian prudes except with a different set of rules.August 31, 2015
Setting up a slate and getting people to vote along party lines is a political act. In politics you are judged by who you ally yourself with. When David Duke said he supported Donald Trump, Trump wisely said he didn't want Duke's support. The Sad Puppies have been less astute in realizing how politics works.August 31, 2015
Correction: an ever-changing set of arbitrary rules.August 31, 2015
Does anyone else hear a dogwhistle?August 31, 2015
a kind of white cis male identity politics
Including those who are neither white nor male, I suppose?
good old fashioned Astounding engineering tales
Let's go to the record, shall we?
Sad Puppies suggestions that were nominated:
The Dark Between the Stars – there are competent engineers, along with everything but the kitchen sink. One half point.
Skin Game – not a competent engineer story.
"Flow" – not a competent engineer story.
"One Bright Star to Guide Them" – not [wheeze, choke] a competent engineer story.
"Big Boys Don't Cry" – not unless a tank can be an engineer.
"The Journeyman: In the Stone House" – no competent engineers here.
"The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale" – this is more like "competent spacer", but let's give it a full point.
"Championship B'tok" – no.
"Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Earth to Alluvium" – no.
"Goodnight Stars" – hardly.
"Totaled" – the protagonist is a scientist, but hardly triumphs over all problems. Half a point.
"On A Spiritual Plain" – doesn't look like it to me.
"A Single Samurai" – er, no.
Two points, three stories that can possibly be shoehorned into "old-fashioned competent engineer tale", out of thirteen. The point does not seem consistent with the evidence. Do you have a responsive answer?August 31, 2015
The phrase "Heroic Engineer Stories" wasn't coined by me but by Ken Burnside in the post above, to describe a type of fiction that he thinks is not being honored anymore, which explains his initial sympathy for the Sad Puppies movement. If you have a problem with the term, you should take it up with Mr. Burnside. The white cis male identity politics of the genre is implicit in it because historically it has been about white cis males and that is still the default mode of the genre, unless writers make an effort to make a break (which is actually difficult to to for reasons that I think Burnside does a good job of explaining).August 31, 2015
I was replying to your comment, not Ken's post. You, not Ken, stated that "good old fashioned Astounding engineering tales" are not "the dominant mode of science fiction" – which is true, and which is a straw man in this context. Are you willing to defend that straw man?August 31, 2015
Iridium #
Mr. Burnside,
This is the best post I have seen from either side of this kerfuffle. It quite neatly lays out the specific behaviors that you felt were inappropriate and their impact. It humanizes the other side and presents the arguments that they make in-person, without the distortion of Internet bravado. I finally understand how literary SF fans look at and evaluate literature (although I am still not quite clear on 'quality of writing' which I assume is something other than grammar and word choice). I love the fact that you want both sides to come to grips with the literary stylistic divide before tackling the political divide (if ever). Your statement that, in politics, 'relationships and the truth are the casualties' ought to be in the header of every social media website.
In summary, this post highlights and explains the rift, while containing virtually every technique I have ever been taught (and, perhaps more) in how to deescalate interpersonal conflict. It is my deepest hope, that this, and perhaps something equivalent from the other side, can get us closer to 'agreeing to disagree' in a Worldcon that includes both sides of fandom.
Thank you for writing this.August 30, 2015
Huitzil #
Yeah, you appear to be bending really, really, really far backwards to claim both sides are just as guilty. They aren't. Sad Puppies did all of the reasonable things you say you wish they could have done; they were repaid for this by being lied about, threatened, and abused. It's absurd to say that they are at fault for starting this, when to "start this" they said they thought that the Hugos were controlled by an insular ideological clique, and said clique proved they were one hundred percent correct in this perception.
The Sad Puppies did not make the Hugos a site in the culture war. The culture warriors did. You can tell, because they were the ones lying, abusing, threatening, and doing everything in their power to harm the people who weren't part of their culture. "Presenting a target for culture warriors to attack" is not a morally blameworthy act. If it was, then we would all have the obligation to never, ever disagree with a culture warrior about anything for any reason. Once the Hugo clique had made this a site in the culture war, and had deployed batteries of culture-artillery to reduce culture-settlements of culture-civilians to dust, Vox Day swooped in and started acting like a turd. But he was only able to do this because of the constant, predictable misbehavior of the culture warriors. He would not have been able to cause the damage he did, if the culture warriors had not been so consistently awful in the ways everyone predicted. Meanwhile, the culture warriors would still be lying, bullying, and threatening anyone who had the gall to not be part of themselves regardless of Vox Day's actions; because this is what they did before, when Vox wasn't involved.
Not everything in life is like an episode of South Park. The existence of two opposing sides does not mean both are wrong and the truth is somewhere in the middle. Sometimes, one side actually is wrong. When one of those sides is relentlessly dishonest and abusive, it is usually that side that is wrong.August 31, 2015
Finn #
I think you (and several commenters) are misunderstanding EPH; in order to sweep the ballot, you would need to have 4x as many votes for your slate as all other votes COMBINED, i.e. over 80% of voters would need to vote your slate. Furthermore, a slate with fewer works would not become more powerful, and an anti-Puppy voter who used all her nominations would not disadvantage any of the works she voted for by doing so.
Remember that each round, the least popular work is eliminated, and then the "split" of each vote is re-calculated with that work eliminated.
If anyone doesn't believe that this substantially reduces the ability of slates to sweep nominations, then I recommend coding a simulation of it yourself. The algorithm is quite simple.August 31, 2015
As I understand the EPH rules so far, the vote-splitting system would make it difficult to run a "slate."
On the flip side, it looks like it would make overrunning any specific category much easier than a straight vote count by conserving your vote for only one entry.
The trick would be to determine how many vile faceless minions would be needed to overpower a category. If the runoffs are public, that could be done in real time via text message.
"Ah, Captain. It would have been *glorious*!" – KorAugust 31, 2015
Finn #
If there's a faction who vote according to the dictates of a leader, then, under EPH, running only a single work will NOT make them any more likely to get on the ballot in that category than running a full slate of five works would.September 1, 2015
The concern many have with EPH is not that of the sweep, but that it will essentially permanently lock nominations to specific factions, locking out the fans just as certain as 1200 Puppies or 3000 No Awards might. No EPH supporter has yet to address Point B: Permanent Votes because they're worried about Point A: "slates".August 31, 2015
It is entirely possible that I misunderstood EPH; even if it's as 'weak' as I think it is, it's a step in the right direction. It looks very much like having 4x to 5x as many votes as any non-slated nominees would carry an entry.
Even if it's "weak", if combined with 4/6, it does require two "colluding" slates to have roughly 40-45% of the nominations between them to lock out a category.
Combine this with more nominees, and the problem probably solves itself in 2017.August 31, 2015
Sorry Sasquan ended up so unpleasant. I had a blast until the hate-fest at the awards ceremony. I also need to order another T-shirt from you. The-admiral-my-father covets my planet-busting one. I hope Quizzer and I weren't among the campaigners to end puppy-related sadness that got on your nerves: we had fun meeting you.August 31, 2015
I had fun meeting you folks too. It was mostly the people who wanted to see the big booms from the cultural warfare artillery that irritated me and made me leave.
I pretty much enjoyed the convention up until the Hugo ceremony. I enjoyed some aspects of both after-parties I attended.
I'd be interested in going to MidAmeriCon II if it's NOT going to be "Death Throws of the Rocketship: The Burnening."
Contact me through my website on the needs for a tee shirt, and we'll work something out.August 31, 2015
Thanks Ken, for your take on the Hugos. It really does help to hear a personal account, and I can see you're trying very hard to be fair and even-handed, which I appreciate.
I do think, however, that you slip in accepting the arguments of the anti-puppies about "slate voting" as the Evil That Must Be Destroyed. The fact that we're carefully parsing the exact number of recommendations that must be on a recommendation list in order to avoid being a "slate" really makes it feel silly to me. It's not a slate if you have only 2 or 3 recommendations per category, it's not a slate if you have 8 to 10 recommendations, but it *is* a slate if you have 4 or 5 recommendations? Sorry. I call bullshit on that. Coming up with recommendations is hard. I'm not going to fault somebody for not being able to list more.
Also, from the really similar reaction to the 2014 Sad Puppies and the exact same (if somewhat quieter) outrage, and the no-awarding of the couple of Puppy nominations… I have a hard time believing that the Slate Outrage is anything but a convenient talking point.
In addition, whether or not something is an Evil Slate seems to depend on how successful it is, which also makes me not believe in the complaint. If somebody comes up with a recommendation list and only a couple of things get nominated, it's not a slate. If there's a recommendation list and a bunch of them gets nominated, it *is* a slate. This makes it clear that the problem is not the recommendation list, but the success of it. Which means that it's really all about the wrong people having successful nominations.August 31, 2015
I can see your position; I don't agree with it, but I agree with its consistency.
I can take it as a received postulate that the outrage over the last two years is a good prima facie case for "Larry was right."
What's the next step?September 1, 2015
WomanWhoWeaves #
I was a first time Hugo voter this year. I paid for my own membership.
There were categories in which I did not vote. In no category in which I voted was No Award my first choice. Mostly, if I was unable to finish the work it went below No Award, the exception was 3BP, because I think I could finish it another time, but I did not put it first. If a list of 10-20 Stories, Novelettes and Novellas were put out next year by a "conservative/libertarian" group, I would try to read them all. I do not promise to buy and read that many novels. Some of the "Puppy" stuff did not appeal to me. Some of it was bad.
I can enjoy competence porn regardless of the gender, sexuality, and cultural/ethnic/racial identity of the protagonist. The reason Lois McMaster Bujold is the master she is, is because she writes characters as well competence. Falling Free is straight-white-male engineer competence porn. Her next book is going to be…something else.August 31, 2015
WomanWhoWeaves #
I was a first time Hugo voter. I paid for my own membership. I did not vote in every category (Sorry Ken, I ran out of time). With one exception, in every category in which I voted I attempted to read every entry. With one exception if I didn't finish it, it went below No Award. In no category in which I voted was No Award ranked first. I will be nominating for Worldcon74. Give me a list of things you think are good, and in the novella, novelette and short story categories, I will read them. I am not promising to read a 10-20 novels.
Some of the puppy choices were excellent. 'Totaled' and 'Ashes to Alluvium' stood out. Some didn't interest me. Some was awful.
One of the reasons Lois McMaster Bujold is who she is, is that she writes confidence porn with interesting characters: Straight-male-engineer; gay-male-ob/gyn; widowed middle aged straight woman with a history of mental illness, teenage biracial female metalworker. All of these characters end up saving the world. Even that-idiot-Ivan managed it in the last book!August 31, 2015
"Three days before the ballot was released, the editor of Amazing Stories started the campaign for No Award on all the categories that were nominated by Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies. This was the first "high profile" source treating them as interchangeable. This was the first hint that the slates had worked…and was clearly a leak by someone breaking the "please don't reveal this information" instructions."
One day before I wrote that post, a nominee who appears on a puppy slate announced that he'd been nominated. I state as much in the opening of the article that Ken references – http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2015/04/ill-casting-final-hugo-vote/September 2, 2015
That was one nominee in one category. Where did you get the information about other nominees in other categories, which you reference in the article?
It seems to me that this is a reasonable question. Obviously you had some idea that there was more than one Related Work nominee that had been on the Sad Puppies list – Kratman being nominated would not have been enough to provoke that article.September 2, 2015
just re-read it; I don't mention a single individual work in that article; it's entirely speculative, based on the information in handSeptember 3, 2015
jaed – from having 42 years of experience with rhe Hugo Awards and the SF community; from reading multiple blogs and FB posts and articles and tapping into the zeitgeist.
I also predicted the final outcome with 82% accuracy.
It's pretty easy when you know the community.September 3, 2015
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subset: commoncrawl


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Last weekend, sponsored athlete Fran Bungay competed in the Ironman 70.3 Switzerland triathlon at Rapperswil. She was only treating it as a training race, but still got a great result in her age group. Over to Fran...
Well, we made it to Switzerland after a long cross-country drive from the Jura in France on Saturday. Unfortunately, I had been kept awake until 3am by our noisy french neighbours in the campsite. Between that and a cold I still hadn't shifted and - to top it all - hay fever (the french tractors seemed to be out in force!), I was feeling tired, congested and none too pleased! The journey took longer than we anticipated, so I missed the briefing, I didn't get a chance to recce the course and I wasn't really feeling excited, nervous or raring to go, which is a real shame as Rapperswil is a truly beautiful place to run a triathlon. Subsequently, I tried to focus on staying positive and just going out and enjoying the day, in full knowledge that race preparation and fitness just wasn't where I hoped it would be. Fortunately, I wasn't looking to qualify: it was the first long distance triathlon event of the season, so it was a chance to see what was going well and which areas I still needed to work on!
Another sleepless night, as all 5 of us (2 others also with colds) were camped up side by side, until 5am when it was time to get going! After checking the bike and getting ready, I made my way down to the lake. It was dead calm and incredibly picturesque. The pro's went first, then all the women went together 5 mins later. The swim starts were in waves, so if you are nervous about mass starts, this could be one of the races for you! Apart from a few bashes on the head, it was a really enjoyable swim and it was pretty impossible to go off course as well. I came out in 33 minutes, so not bad so far.
Then onto the bike, which is always the part I enjoy the most. The course was around 10 km flat then about 20 km of climbing, before long downhill sections back the the flat, then the course was repeated. I realised pretty early on that I was not going to produce anything special. I just didn't have that extra gear, and it felt much harder than it should have done. Frustrating, but it happens. However, I still climbed well (thanks again to Planet X for the kit to help here!), though my descending skills were terrible. There was a slight side wind and, weighing only 7 and a half stone, I felt very unsteady downhill on my deep-section carbon wheels, and any advantage I had uphill was eaten up by loads of girls. Frustrating, but if I had recce'd the course properly, I would have known this and used different wheels. Only myself to blame there. My split for the bike was 2:43. On a fit day I would have aimed for sub 2.40, but at this point I was actually in the top 3 of my age group anyway. In bike-run transition, I honestly felt like calling it a day. However, the voice in my head telling me not to be so pathetic won, so I went out on the run with one mission now, and that was to complete.
About 4k into the run, I had a really bad spell. I felt dizzy, just terrible, so I walked for a bit and took time in the next aid station, cooling down with sponges and getting some more fuel on board. This really helped, so the plan from this point was just to jog to the aid stations, walk through focusing on cooling down and fueling, then jog on to the next one. Honestly, if felt more like a marathon! Overall, I came in 5th in age group in 5:06. My run was about 5 minutes off what I hoped, but that was to be predicted. There was roughly 3 minutes separating 2nd to 7th positions in my age group so taking it all into consideration, it showed that training has been going well.
As always when you reflect, you wish it could have been different, "why did I get that cold," etc etc. But you can't change any of that so what's important is to learn from the experience. Despite not being fit, I did also make mistakes pre-race which affected my performance. We should have got to the event earlier: knowing the course would have probably gained me minutes on the bike course. Perhaps if I hadn't raced the week before, I would have been fully fit for Rapperswil... well, thats something I will never know. I certainly need to go back to the drawing board with nutrition over the distance, and now get back on track with run training, as my injured ankle seems pretty good to go now… That said, always remember to take the positives away from the race as well!
So, now its time to re-assess my goals for the next events, recover from this one, and this cold, and build in some quality blocks of training!
4 June 2014


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Holiday Party Tips
(originally posted 12/2/2016. libbysfitnutrition.com)
You have probably read other articles on tips for eating around the holidays, but in my experience, repetition is never a bad thing when it comes to making a new habit. In fact, maybe there will be things on this list that you have NOT heard yet...you never know what is going to be of great use to you...so read on, and apply as needed. :)
1) Drink water! Hydration is often forgotten with coffee, hot cocoa, and alcohol fighting for top contenders in your liquid category at this time of year. Thirst is readily mistaken for hunger when tasty options are before you. So remember to drinkyour 8 glasses of water (or tea) every day. Try drinking a pint before you leave the house, carrying a water bottle with you, alternating alcohol with water, and eating water-rich foods such as apples, cucumber, grapes, and salad greens.
2) Eat what you really want. Don't keep munching on things you "should" eat, and end up over eating because you are not fulfilling your cravings. This is probably the only time of year for your aunt's famous sugar cookies, Grandma's pie and stuffing, and other family goodies; enjoy them, savor them. You will probably end up eating less over all if you don't deny what you want.
3) Fit in exercise every day. Whether it is a dance DVD in your living room, a run in the brisk morning air, a gentle walk with the family (or the dog), or a class/weights at the gym. Be like Nike and, "Just Do It." Exercise will keep you in a better mood - and that is helpful to everyone around you as well!
4) Don't let ALL your meals be splurges. Big Christmas dinner? Eat healthy breakfast and lunch that day so you are not overdoing it (do NOT skip meals!!!). It is easy to fall into the habit of splurging at every meal during this season, whether that is what is in the house, or you feel so stressed you "deserve it," remember there are celebrations all year round, and you need to focus if you do not want to become 'round.' Do eat what you love, but you don't have to sample that so-so dish, just because Aunt Sally made it.
5) Send away the leftovers. Hosting a get-together? At the end of the meal, pack up leftovers into small containers and send most of it away with guests. If there is less in your fridge, there is less for you to pick at later.
Have other tips that work well for your holiday stress levels around food? Share in the comments below!
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New Year's Goals vs. Resolutions
(originally posted 12/23/2015. libbysfitnutrition.com)
Let's get the new year set up right, so that we can make the most of our goals.
Now I purposely use the term "goals" instead of "resolutions" when talking about changes I am working on in the coming year. Why? Because a goal indicates a measurable end result, whereas I see resolution as a change of habit, but not measurable to track progress. So, how do we make goals we will actually achieve? Make them "SMART".
What does that mean? You are going to be Specific in setting your goal, instead of saying, "I am going to eat healthier" you will say, "I am going to eat a serving of veggies at every meal." Measurable - you can measure success by knowing if you did or did not eat veggies at your meals; Attainable - will you actually eat veggies? Do you know how to prepare them in a way you like? Are you able to get to a grocery store often enough to have them fresh 3 times a day, or will you buy frozen? Realistic - Does this goal fit with your lifestyle? Are you making your own foods and can be sure to eat more veggies, or does someone else do all the shopping and cooking? Will your family eat the veggies with you or at least support you? Timely - Have a way to work up to your goal. Maybe start with I will eat veggies at least once a day, and after a few weeks say you are going to eat them twice a day, and so forth until you are at your goal.
End of the year: How did you do? have you met your goal and been able to maintain it? If yes, then you set a SMART goal :)
Happy Goal setting!
If you need help setting goals, or are in need of accountability, contact me for counseling to get you on the track to making your dreams and goals come true this year!
Don't Be the Turkey!
(originally posted 11/13/2013. libbysfitnutrition.com)
Afraid you are going to end up more stuffed than the turkey this Thanksgiving? Here are a few simple tips to have a happier, healthier, holiday.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Libby Parker, RD, CPT
First published: https://www.mindbodyonline.com/blog/2013/11/dont-be-the-turkey-stay-fit-this-thanksgiving
Libby is a non-diet Registered Dietitian focusing on eating disorder treatment and prevention. She approaches health from the inclusive standpoint that any "body" can focus on health regardless of size. She is a ally in diversity.
June 2020
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