Hey, whatever it takes to get his vote. I do find it unlikely that any publisher has been paying off each and every one of the several thousand Hugo voters to get, in a typical year, maybe one award, and I’m inclined to take with a grain of salt anything the Puppies say about the publisher they’re mad at for paying $3 million to this one writer they hate for being a feminist dude.
But I haven’t had anything published by Tor, or even by Torr, so it’s safe to vote for me.
As I recall when the whole thing started out, the Hugos were only seeing a hundred or so votes.
I mostly found the whole thing amusing because the anti-puppy crew were directly accusing the author of “A Few Good Men” of being a sexist homophobe. You might be able to make the case against the author of “Ethan of Athos,” maybe, but a “Few Good Men”?
What is also interesting is if you take a look at the 2011 number, Girl Genius got as many votes (400) as some of the categories from the previous year had total votes, while in 2010, there was only a total of around 225 at the first ballot, while the winners of best novels that year both started with 240 votes at the first ballot.
There were nearly twice as many No Award votes in this year’s Hugos as there were total ballots cast in many of the years prior.
Just going through the Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies 3 had around 5.5k votes cast in it, SP2 was 3.5k, SP1 was 1.8k, and the last pre-puppy year was 1.9k, but that was the first year after GG left the ballot, and the number of voters for the best graphic novel category started dropping immediately afterwards.
It will be curious to see the statistics for next year.
Yeah… that shadowy cabal of Tor SJW operatives who have spent that last however-many decades brutally suppressing all Pup-friendly SF, and concealing all evidence of their manifold perfidies, somehow managed to allow more than 60 of this year’s 85 Hugo nominations to go to Pup-friendly SF.
But seriously. My reaction to the whole “puppies” thing was something like:
“Like hell I’m going to listen to someone who thinks Star Trek was apolitical talk about how the fake geeks are taking over SF to push an agenda and the solution is to push a Hugo slate chosen based on the leanings of its authors.”
“The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy defines the Marketing Division of Sirius Cybernetics as ‘a bunch of mindless jerks who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.’ Curiously enough, a copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica which fell through a time portal describes them as ‘a bunch of mindless jerks who were first against the wall when the revolution came’.”
These are the guys who have “Go Stick Your Head In A Pig” in half mile letters above their headquarters. Illuminated on occasions of special celebration. Seems appropriate to me…
Nah. He created and handed out the “Alfies”—named after Alfred Bester, it’s reported. Gave ’em out at the Hugo Losers party to who “should have” won—none of whom were nominated.
On the off-chance you haven’t been following the Hugo controversy–nah, not really. This year’s awards got messed up but the main effect was that no award was given in several categories.
It’s rare because, given income inequality and the glass ceiling, when the war comes the men start with more resources :p
Guess whatever mad scientist was behind this decided to go for the numerical advantage instead.
I think I read When It Changed and wasn’t inclined to read any more of her stuff either. On the subject of attempted subversions of gender stereotypes, if you haven’t read “Ancillary Justice”, don’t. It’s one of the most boring 400 pages I’ve read in a long time, and the whole bit about referring to everyone as “she” in the language with too many “a”s just strips off a layer of texture from bland characters who can’t afford to lose it.
I am not surprised that others liked it, given that it won “all the awards”. I was surprised at first to then find it as dull as I did – the novel was set against the backdrop of a galaxy-spanning 10,000 year old civilisation, and all I got to see of it for the first half of the book was through two pinholes into unengaging scenarios. By the time anything started to happen the author had lost to opportunity to get me to care… and oh my lack of God, the endless blather about tea.
There was an all-female society in that one, but I think the background was “alien planet, local factors lead to die-off of men”. There’s also a _literal_ war of the sexes reality, IIRC, but I think that one had been going on for a while. No reverse screwflies.
This scenario only really works as humor: the female numerical advantage is small, and men not only have the money, but most of the guns, too. Unless the insanity comes in the very specific form of “become a clever, sneaky assassin.” 🙂
Of course, we don’t really know if this is a reliable witness in the first place…
I was going to suggest the ‘slow burn insanity’ type, wait for your opportunity to kill someone. That works much better. That and if you’re dedicated and homicidal you can steal the guns before you strike.
Which makes me wonder, do we know that the insanity REALLY was temporary?
the background to Whileaway was totally that the war of the sexes ended with the women killing off the men. This was the big revelation that Alice gives to the other women toward the end of the book.
END SPOILERS
I also think it’s kind of ridiculous to be talking about how impractical for women to win a literal war of the sexes when the whole idea of a literal war of the sexes is utterly impractical in the first place.
Anyway, I haven’t read “We Who Are About To…” or “When It Changed,” but Russ’s “The Little Dirty Girl” is the best ghost story ever (and doesn’t involve the death of all men).
A bit of poking around (all right, Wikipedia) suggests that the background of Whileaway in “When It Changed” may be different than in “The Female Man.” Though it may also just be that Janet has the same false beliefs in “When It Changed” and they haven’t been corrected (though it sounds like the timelines aren’t compatible).
I like to think I’m an advocate for my gender, but I’ll confess I didn’t think the appearance of monster-filled wastelands would be one of the negative effects of the sudden disappearance of men.
Has it got something to do with leaving the toilet seat up?
Surprisingly enough, I’m told that’s one area we are at least on par, if not ahead, of the ladies. The men’s room at my workplace looks like a Heironymus Bosch painting but everyone is scrupulous about washing up afterward. My female coworker indicates it’s not so on the other side.
More seriously, losing half the population would make maintenance of everything difficult. And I don’t think that we are good enough at cloning yet to make the population go up.
Did Mad Science survive? Because if so the solutions to the lack of men will be…interesting.
Distributing sex change pills? Women growing from spores? Magic genetically recombining baby engine? All we know is that whatever is involved, it WON’T be ‘bring men back’.
Well, their world already is filled with monsters. Men disappearing in real life would probably lead to the remains of civilisation being overrun with wild animals instead.
Wouldn’t take that much, you know. Eventually the laws of chance say all the women in the world will happen to synchronize their monthly periods. Then some idiot guy will tell his girlfriend women are only using that as an excuse not to fix sandwiches for their men. The riot will sweep the world.
You know what they say about women who hang out together, in college dorms, say—they all start having their monthlies at the same time of the month. Is that true or is it just some urban legend?
I’m inclined to say “yes” – it’s true AND an urban legend. In my experience it’s like car turn signals in a turn lane: there will be periods where they seem eerily in sync, and then they diverge again. Probably because too many women have bodies stubbornly determined to have cycles longer/shorter than ‘average’. (Though they do sync up a bit more than turn signals, so there’s probably SOMETHING to the pheremone thing.)
Considering the fact that I have three women in the house. I would do well to even wake up that first morning. Especially since two of them are teenagers.
Oh because,y ou know, this is just another universe. I’m sure finding someone who claims that will be considered perfectly sane
Wow, that’s f€£¥ed up, I was tempted to not censor my swearing.
As long as the Rabid Puppies were first against the wall it can’t have been too bad.
Don’t forget the Gamergate people.
You realize the whole war on the puppies was Torr trying to keep the Hugo’s bought, right?
That sounds like a serious problem that you should combat by voting for all my work for the Hugos.
Yeah, Shaenon’s a regular on We Hunted The Mammoth. This line of argumentation will go well for you.
Hey, whatever it takes to get his vote. I do find it unlikely that any publisher has been paying off each and every one of the several thousand Hugo voters to get, in a typical year, maybe one award, and I’m inclined to take with a grain of salt anything the Puppies say about the publisher they’re mad at for paying $3 million to this one writer they hate for being a feminist dude.
But I haven’t had anything published by Tor, or even by Torr, so it’s safe to vote for me.
As I recall when the whole thing started out, the Hugos were only seeing a hundred or so votes.
I mostly found the whole thing amusing because the anti-puppy crew were directly accusing the author of “A Few Good Men” of being a sexist homophobe. You might be able to make the case against the author of “Ethan of Athos,” maybe, but a “Few Good Men”?
Voyager, you recall incorrectly: http://www.thehugoawards.org/content/pdf/2013HugoStatistics.pdf
I do have your vote for next year’s Hugos, right? I’ve got some stories I’m working on.
It just struck me, comics authors are campaigning for our votes all the time. Why the different standard for books?
Does anyone else mentally complete “by Tor” with “and the snow dog”?
As I recall, wasn’t 2013 Sad Puppies 1?
At the end of the day, the only reason I’m even aware of the whole fracas was because I actually know a bunch of the authors involved.
What is also interesting is if you take a look at the 2011 number, Girl Genius got as many votes (400) as some of the categories from the previous year had total votes, while in 2010, there was only a total of around 225 at the first ballot, while the winners of best novels that year both started with 240 votes at the first ballot.
There were nearly twice as many No Award votes in this year’s Hugos as there were total ballots cast in many of the years prior.
Just going through the Sad Puppies, Sad Puppies 3 had around 5.5k votes cast in it, SP2 was 3.5k, SP1 was 1.8k, and the last pre-puppy year was 1.9k, but that was the first year after GG left the ballot, and the number of voters for the best graphic novel category started dropping immediately afterwards.
It will be curious to see the statistics for next year.
I’d do it, but it’d cost me money. Also for Aaron Neathery’s “Endtown,” if I can do more than one.
Yeah… that shadowy cabal of Tor SJW operatives who have spent that last however-many decades brutally suppressing all Pup-friendly SF, and concealing all evidence of their manifold perfidies, somehow managed to allow more than 60 of this year’s 85 Hugo nominations to go to Pup-friendly SF.
So logic. Much coherent. Very sense.
Torr? Aren’t they the onion-routing people?
But seriously. My reaction to the whole “puppies” thing was something like:
“Like hell I’m going to listen to someone who thinks Star Trek was apolitical talk about how the fake geeks are taking over SF to push an agenda and the solution is to push a Hugo slate chosen based on the leanings of its authors.”
“The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy defines the Marketing Division of Sirius Cybernetics as ‘a bunch of mindless jerks who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.’ Curiously enough, a copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica which fell through a time portal describes them as ‘a bunch of mindless jerks who were first against the wall when the revolution came’.”
In honor of this quote, I hereby dub the Men’s Rights movement the Sirius Cybernetics Marketing Division. May they live up to the name.
Hey now, you shouldn’t be that mean to the Sirius Cybernetics Marketing Division.
These are the guys who have “Go Stick Your Head In A Pig” in half mile letters above their headquarters. Illuminated on occasions of special celebration. Seems appropriate to me…
The non-nominated losers can just console themselves with George Railroad Martin’s trophies.
Wait, I thought they revoked all of Martin’s awards after the rape of Sansa Stark.
Nah. He created and handed out the “Alfies”—named after Alfred Bester, it’s reported. Gave ’em out at the Hugo Losers party to who “should have” won—none of whom were nominated.
So from all this I gather that “Hugo award winning….” does not carry the same cachet as it used too. As a consumer, that’s good to know.
On the off-chance you haven’t been following the Hugo controversy–nah, not really. This year’s awards got messed up but the main effect was that no award was given in several categories.
You DO realize that Martin had nothing to do with Sansa’s wedding night rape, right? That’s all the show. In the books she’s still not done ANYTHING.
The rare Reverse Screwfly Scenario.
It’s rare because, given income inequality and the glass ceiling, when the war comes the men start with more resources :p
Guess whatever mad scientist was behind this decided to go for the numerical advantage instead.
That, or they were just counting on the Narbons…
Some folks may not have read The Female Man by Joanna Russ. Read The Female Man by Joanna Russ, everybody!
I read her “We Who Are About To.” Not a chance I’d read anything else by her except by accident.
I think I read When It Changed and wasn’t inclined to read any more of her stuff either. On the subject of attempted subversions of gender stereotypes, if you haven’t read “Ancillary Justice”, don’t. It’s one of the most boring 400 pages I’ve read in a long time, and the whole bit about referring to everyone as “she” in the language with too many “a”s just strips off a layer of texture from bland characters who can’t afford to lose it.
Ancillary Justice was one of the best books I read last year. Ancillary Sword wasn’t bad, either.
I also have an opinion about Ancillary Justice! http://eblong.com/zarf/bookscan/review/leckie_ann_ancillary_justice.html
(Not posting to get into an argument, only to demonstrate that some of us really liked it. Not just because of “the pronoun thing” either.)
I am not surprised that others liked it, given that it won “all the awards”. I was surprised at first to then find it as dull as I did – the novel was set against the backdrop of a galaxy-spanning 10,000 year old civilisation, and all I got to see of it for the first half of the book was through two pinholes into unengaging scenarios. By the time anything started to happen the author had lost to opportunity to get me to care… and oh my lack of God, the endless blather about tea.
There was an all-female society in that one, but I think the background was “alien planet, local factors lead to die-off of men”. There’s also a _literal_ war of the sexes reality, IIRC, but I think that one had been going on for a while. No reverse screwflies.
This scenario only really works as humor: the female numerical advantage is small, and men not only have the money, but most of the guns, too. Unless the insanity comes in the very specific form of “become a clever, sneaky assassin.” 🙂
Of course, we don’t really know if this is a reliable witness in the first place…
I was going to suggest the ‘slow burn insanity’ type, wait for your opportunity to kill someone. That works much better. That and if you’re dedicated and homicidal you can steal the guns before you strike.
Which makes me wonder, do we know that the insanity REALLY was temporary?
BMunro, if you’re talking about the Female Man,
SPOILERS INCOMING
the background to Whileaway was totally that the war of the sexes ended with the women killing off the men. This was the big revelation that Alice gives to the other women toward the end of the book.
END SPOILERS
I also think it’s kind of ridiculous to be talking about how impractical for women to win a literal war of the sexes when the whole idea of a literal war of the sexes is utterly impractical in the first place.
Anyway, I haven’t read “We Who Are About To…” or “When It Changed,” but Russ’s “The Little Dirty Girl” is the best ghost story ever (and doesn’t involve the death of all men).
A bit of poking around (all right, Wikipedia) suggests that the background of Whileaway in “When It Changed” may be different than in “The Female Man.” Though it may also just be that Janet has the same false beliefs in “When It Changed” and they haven’t been corrected (though it sounds like the timelines aren’t compatible).
Screwfly is exactly where I went on first impression too.
I like to think I’m an advocate for my gender, but I’ll confess I didn’t think the appearance of monster-filled wastelands would be one of the negative effects of the sudden disappearance of men.
Has it got something to do with leaving the toilet seat up?
Actually it’s to do with washing your hands afterwards.
Surprisingly enough, I’m told that’s one area we are at least on par, if not ahead, of the ladies. The men’s room at my workplace looks like a Heironymus Bosch painting but everyone is scrupulous about washing up afterward. My female coworker indicates it’s not so on the other side.
Hey, we men won’t go down without a fight, you know. You’ll pry the remote control out of our cold, dead hands.
More seriously, losing half the population would make maintenance of everything difficult. And I don’t think that we are good enough at cloning yet to make the population go up.
Did Mad Science survive? Because if so the solutions to the lack of men will be…interesting.
Distributing sex change pills? Women growing from spores? Magic genetically recombining baby engine? All we know is that whatever is involved, it WON’T be ‘bring men back’.
(that’ll be the job for the mad scientists of 200 years from now. “And now to resurrect the mythical beast!”)
Well, their world already is filled with monsters. Men disappearing in real life would probably lead to the remains of civilisation being overrun with wild animals instead.
Wouldn’t take that much, you know. Eventually the laws of chance say all the women in the world will happen to synchronize their monthly periods. Then some idiot guy will tell his girlfriend women are only using that as an excuse not to fix sandwiches for their men. The riot will sweep the world.
You know what they say about women who hang out together, in college dorms, say—they all start having their monthlies at the same time of the month. Is that true or is it just some urban legend?
I’m inclined to say “yes” – it’s true AND an urban legend. In my experience it’s like car turn signals in a turn lane: there will be periods where they seem eerily in sync, and then they diverge again. Probably because too many women have bodies stubbornly determined to have cycles longer/shorter than ‘average’. (Though they do sync up a bit more than turn signals, so there’s probably SOMETHING to the pheremone thing.)
It is true. It’s also true in families. All the women cycle off the dominant–usually the mother–female.
How is that different from everybody else’s universe?
Considering the fact that I have three women in the house. I would do well to even wake up that first morning. Especially since two of them are teenagers.
Eh, I’ll survive then. I cook for the women in my house
Tip, pretty much the Last *Man* on Earth… heading into a “Boy and His Dog” scenario… Now, how to make it objectionable to him…
Most men killed off by violence. Tip, dead by exhaustion.
So…am I completely late to the boat on this one or did we really miss that Planet Lovetron is actually based on something?
Oh I see what this is. This is one of those doctor who stories where the doctor and their companion each end up on the opposite side of a war.
NNIIIIIICE!!!!!