Methinks some people don’t understand what an award is.
It’s for, “Oh you did a good job there!” Not for, “Oh you adequately squeezed some approximation of my views into that thing you made!” I think it speaks to the kind of people Sad Puppies are: People who think everything must pass a political litmus test to be recognized as “good.” I.e. the exact kind of people they would declare themselves the antidote to.
The Martin post is fascinating reading. I don’t follow sci-fi awards, so I had no idea the Hugo was this heavily politicized. I guess every year from now on is going to be a giant shitshow.
I also didn’t know who Theodore Beale was before, but now that I’ve read a bit about him, I’m pretty sure no cause he endorses is worth backing. What a piece of work.
G.R.R. Martin also points out that the supposed problem that the Sad Puppies are trying to solve… kinda doesn’t exist.
Also, can I just say that I love everything about G.R.R. Martin’s somewhat technophobic feeling blog? I’m completely hooked.
I’m very much in favor of Jim Butcher, but I’m still marking him below No Award when I vote, because he got put on the ballot by the Sad/Rabid Puppies slates attempt to break the Hugo nominations and voting process. If he had gotten his book on the ballot by honest means (not his own dishonesty in this case), I’d rank him above No Award, and I’ll probably still rank him above the other two Puppies’ novels.
I enjoyed the first couple of Dresden Files books, haven’t gotten around to the rest, and in a normal year, Butcher would have some difficulty because Volume N of a series usually only gets votes from people who’ve read enough of the preceding books to catch up to that one, balanced by some advantage that people must like his writing if he’s been able to continue the series this long.
I’ve always thought it was ironic that the majority of science fiction and fantasy authors seem to have websites that were designed on Geocities circa 1998.
People have also been raving about “The Goblin Emperor”, the other non-slate novel that got nominated (basically, for categories the Puppies decided to steal, non-slate works only got in when somebody nominated by the Puppies withdrew, leaving room for normal nominations.)
Last year, when “Ancillary Justice” got nominated, its publisher Orbit decided to only provide excerpts of their three nominees for the Hugo voter packet, and the excerpt wasn’t enough for me to like the book. I don’t know if they plan to do the same this year, or to provide the whole book. But enough other people went out and read the whole book based on the positive press and it winning, and of course both non-Puppy novels are going to attract a large vote.
The Hugo Awards didn’t used to be politicized, until Correia and Beale decided that the award had had girl cooties all over it for too long, and they needed to fix that and nominate some politically correct works that real men would feel proud to vote for, and when they didn’t get enough votes last year, they decided to stomp the entire nominating slate with politically correct cootie-free works and then whine about the political correctness of people who didn’t like that.
If you want a popular vote, try the Goodreads Choice Awards.
The puppies don’t do particularly well there, either. Maybe it’s not the awards.
I read it and I read its sequel this year. Both deserve award nominations and, perhaps, awards.
I probably wouldn’t give number fucking fifteen in the Dresden series the award either. Don’t get me wrong, I read it, and enjoyed it, but it is pure cotton candy. I liked Pacific Rim as well, but it probably doesn’t deserve Best Picture. Dresden 15 really brings nothing new at all to the table, which I think is kind of a bare minimum to win, and I fall decidedly on the “more plot, more world building, less literary navel gazing” line.
That said, I wouldn’t toss everything on the list out of hand without giving it a glance.
I loved Lines of Departure. It is book two in the series. I would suggest giving his first book in the series, Terms of Enlistment a shot. I personally think that the series brings some really fantastic and new ideas. I am pretty sure Terms of Enlistment was his first serious book and it is damn good. If you like Terms of Enlistment, which has some of the best twists to military SF I have read in a very long time, you will probably feel the same about the nominee, Lines of Departure. I have not read the other stuff (besides Skin Game), so I can’t say whether or not it would be my pick, but I think it deserves to be on there.
The only short story I have ready from short fiction section was Goodnight Stars. It is written by a self described queer socialist lady. I’m not sure I would put it on the top of my for short fiction, but I read a lot of short fiction. Regardless, it deserves at least consideration before being grouped up with Sad Puppies and tossed.
In related works section, I have not read “The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF”, but it was already solidly on my to-read list after atomic rockets, a site dedicated to obsessing about realistic space travel, said nice things about the essay.
I really don’t get it. It smacks of the same bizarre logic that was behind the creation of Conservapedia. Too bad these people can’t follow through and make their own award (The John Norman Prize or whatever), instead of ruining things for everyone else.
What is the sci-fi/fantasy equivalent of No True Scotsman?
No True Android? No True Drow? [size=10]No True Whining Man-Child?[/size]
Indeed!
I thought those were only building up to the awesomeness that was God Emperor of Dune. But it’s been so long since I read them that I might well evaluate them differently from my current perspective.
After fighting my way though God Emperor, I never read another and felt it was a mistake to read that one.
Hey man, #notallfurries, OK?! 
Oh gawd, I got to like the second paragraph of the rant by Wright there… and I just can’t even. Just fuck all that noise.
ETA: Also, can we get this Beale guy and find (Norwegian) Varg from Burzum (who’s in France, uploading dating videos and D&D commentaries on the youtubes AS WE SPEAK), lock the two in a room, and see if they either become BFFs or the most deadly of enemies (because Beale seems to be a christian and Varg thinks christians are not much more than Jews in disguise). Will their somewhat overlapping, yet contradictory ideologies do them both in?
Why isn’t he writing Winds in Winter?
He’s like a 14 year old girl from 1999 or there abouts on his livejournal…
But back to writing Winds in Winter, George (I know you’re lurking here somewhere - shoo).
