nominees bowing out; a variety of puppies and responses

[solarbird]

On top of everything below, I'm mad that this Puppies slate-voting/nominations-gaming stunt happened this year in particular.

I know that's selfish, but we don't get a lot of Cascadian Worldcons; I know, I've been involved (at low levels) with a few failed bids. But more, a friend of mine won the competition to do the Hugo Award base. I was really happy for him, and now he gets to deal with this.

I mean, the whole mess is overtly political bullshit, done for overtly political reasons, mostly - when it comes right down to it - for spite, to Show Those People What. And while plenty of people have been hurt by this - to the distinct pleasure of some on the Puppy side, since after all, that's kind of the point - it's a little more personal when it's people you know.

Anyway. I've assembled a bunch of links off to other people talking about the Puppies, including - talking of people being hurt by it - Annie Bellet removing her story from the ballot, and Marko Kloos removing his novel. I had most of these already yesterday, but I wanted to keep one day clear of it.

• Brad Torgersen's self-pity-party knows no bounds, apparently. OH NOES, IT'S THE SCIENCE-FICTION GULAG! Nobody expects the Fannish Inquisition? It's kind of sad, really, as James Nicoll points out.
• George R. R. Martin has commented extensively, and the comments section is large, with lots of the Puppy leaders showing up
• Why Connie Willis Will Not Present a Hugo Award This Year
• John Scalzi comments on the conspiracy theory surrounding the removal of a John C. Wright novel from the 2015 Hugo ballot on grounds of previous publication (spoiler: It's All Scalzi's Fault, apparently)
• David Gerrold: Star Trek wasn't about social justice? Really? It was entirely about social justice, I know, I was there, in response to Puppies trying to claim Star Trek as theirs
• Vox Day still doesn't understand not to cry 'context!' when the context makes the quoted material worse (spoiler: yep, he's super racist)
• Naomi Kritzer quoting extensively from the Puppies "Evil League of Evil" posts by John C. Wright, Sarah Hoyt, Larry Correia, and Brad Torgersen in response to various later attempts by Puppies to distance themselves from Vox Day (spoiler: they're all fully involved, and the distancing attempts are bullshit)
• The Nerdvana Podcast talks about the Puppies gaming the Hugo awards, with Kevin Standlee, Christopher J Garcia and Mo "The Thrill" Starkey.
• Hugo Story Withdrawn: Annie Bellet wants no part of this
• Neither does Marko Kloos, who withdraws Lines of Departure from nomination, based on being included in the Rabid Puppy slate without his consent. NOTE: His site is currently overwhelmed; if it's still so when you read this, here's a screencap.
• Sasquan - the Worldcon this year - has reported a huge surge in supporting memberships, which, of course, have voting rights; GRRM anticiptes nothing good coming from this, which seems a good bet.
• ComicMix called for people to "game" the Amazon review system to downgrade Vox Day's publishing house's works, which as contemptible as Vox is, I have to oppose; Vox, of course, threatens legal action. Look, don't make me be on the same side of anything as Vox, it makes me feel nasty, and you don't want supervillains feeling nasty.
• Fantasy novelist Angela Highland (whose Free Court of Seattle books are the series our new soundtrack album accompanies) posts her own feelings on the matter, and also has thoughts on extremism in general.
• Nobody in Finland knows who the hell Vox Day's press is, which certainly makes them the envy of me.

Here are all of my posts on the topic so far; they've also all been added to the Sexism and Racism in Geek Culture masterpost, which is on the left in "Collections." Or, you know, right here.

• On Buying some Hugo Awards^tm, and voting No Award
• We'd Better All Be Ready To Go To The Business Meeting, on gaming the rules change process itself
• On Brad Torgersen and Crocodile Tears, and the Correia/Torgersen attempts to distance themselves from the white supremacist they invited into their campaign
• A Predicable? Doubling Down, wherein I respond to Brad Torgersen's assertion that anyone opposing the Puppy slate are Leninist Communists
• Some Puppies Are Deleting Things, wherein I repost and/or link to caches of material various Puppies - mostly John C. Wright - have tried to hide via deletion or just pretend never happened. Too bad that's not how the internet works, guys. Also wherein I get accused of libel by John C. Wright for quoting John C. Wright. That's not how libel works, either. Possibly to be followed by John C. Wright coming over here and yelling at me for this, too, because wow, John C. Wright vanity searches a lot, and this will totally come up in John C. Wright's John C. Wright search results. Hi John!

eta: I am adding to this list as I find more things today, some of which are kind of hilarious, some of which are kind of pathetic, some of which are both. Enjoy?

From Crime and the Blog of Evil; we're geek musicians, come check out our new neo-Celtic fantasy novel OST!

Comments

[jain]

ComicMix called for people to "game" the Amazon review system to downgrade Vox Day's publishing house's works, which as contemptible as Vox is, I have to oppose

I read that article very differently from you. Hauman first quotes VD as saying that the SP/RP slate is "objectively superior" based on a comparison of Amazon ratings between SP/RP works and other Hugo-nominated works. Hauman then follows the block quote with the commentary, "We'd like to thank Mr. Beale for reminding us that Hugo Award nominations aren't the only things that can be gamed... You can game Amazon ratings as well."

My interpretation of those lines isn't that they're an invitation for non-Puppies to game Amazon, but rather that Hauman is accusing the Puppies of gaming Amazon ratings as well as the Hugo Awards and concluding that this is the reason for the SP/RP works' supposed "objective" superiority on Amazon. (I agree that Hauman's wording could have been clearer, though.) And I think this interpretation is further borne out by his suggestion, "It might be a good idea to take a look at the reviews and see which ones are helpful. If you've read the works, you should add your own review."

After all, these are works that thousands of people have read or are going to read as part of the Hugo voting process. Based on the final votes granted to last year's SP-endorsed finalists, they're also works that a sizable percentage of those thousands of people end up disliking. If you look at the Amazon ratings, though, you see that very few people have rated these works (ex. "The Butcher of Khardov" by Dan Wells, one of last year's SP novella picks, only has 29 ratings on Amazon), and that the few people who do rate the SP/RP works on Amazon are disproportionately supportive of them. For instance, compare "The Butcher of Khardov" on Amazon, with 29 ratings and 4.5 stars vs. "The Butcher of Khardov" on Goodreads, where it has 220 ratings and 3.37 stars.

Hauman isn't saying people should downvote these works reflexively. He's just pointing out that at present, the overwhelming majority of people registering an opinion of the SP/RP works on Amazon are their fans, while there exist hundreds or thousands of readers who read and don't like these works but who are confining their opinions to the Hugo ballot.

(Incidentally, I think that Hauman is wrong in his belief that the Puppies are gaming Amazon; the number of Amazon ratings on most of the SP/RP works are just too small to suggest any sort of coordinated effort by VD et al. A more likely explanation for these rating patterns is a combination of: 1) most people don't bother rating/reviewing short fiction, 2) some people prefer to review only those works they like and to ignore the ones they dislike, and 3) Puppies generally prefer to review books at Amazon while non-Puppies prefer to review books at other sites such as Goodreads or LibraryThing.

Hauman's more general point, however, I think is not unreasonable: if you've read one or more SP/RP works and have an opinion about it, you can share that opinion with prospective buyers at Amazon. Part of the Puppies' rationale for gaming the Hugos is to get more attention for works that they consider to have been unfairly passed over. If the end result of that attention is that the broader SFF fan community rates/reviews the works differently than their target audience would, then that is both valuable information for consumers and very just desserts for the Puppies.)