If you’ve been following the Hugo Awards debacle over the last couple of years, or even the last nine months, you’ll know that this year’s show was an amazing display of how desperate the authoritarian insiders were to keep their control — they figuratively burned the place down rather than allowing authors not blessed by them to win.
As best-selling author, Larry Correia states, The Hugos – a kind of People’s Choice Awards in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre – had become a place where The Hugos
no longer represented all of Fandom, instead they only represents tiny, insular, politically motivated cliques taking turns giving their friends awards. If you wanted to be considered, you needed to belong to, or suck up to those voting cliques. I was called a liar.
I said that most of the voters cared far more about the author’s identity and politics than they did the quality of the work, and in fact, the quality of the work would be completely ignored if the creator had the wrong politics. I was called a liar.
I said that if somebody with the wrong politics got a nomination, they would be actively campaigned against, slandered, and attacked, not for the quality of their work, but because of politics. I was called a liar.
That’s how the Sad Puppies campaign started. You can see the results. They freaked out and did what I said they would do. This year others took over, in the hopes of getting worthy, quality works nominated who would normally be ignored. It got worse. They freaked out so much that even I was surprised.
I was reminded of this view of “popular with the masses” = “unworthy, quite possibly BADEVILROTSYOURTEETH dreck” view of fiction by self-proclaimed Enlightened Gatekeepers is one long and bitterly held as this letter from Edgar Rice Burroughs to a then 14-year-old fan, Forrest J Ackerman, so wonderfully illustrates.
Forrest’s letter:
I wonder how many 14 year olds could write a letter like this today, especially those stuck in failed public schools.
Cranky, a few years ago a test from around that time (1931) was making the blogger rounds, one 8th graders had to pass before advancing to high school. The reason it was getting attention was because it was beyond what a HS senior would be expected to know now days. Hell, when I graduated HS in the late ’70’s , passing calculus, chemistry, physics and literature, that 30’s test would have been a challenge.
I blame the nationalization of the school system, and public unions…a marriage made in hell. And now in the face of failing schools what is the answer? More government involvement! Meet Common Core, championed by the “conservative” Jeb Bush, because the Government solution to failing schools for “conservative” GW Bush, No Child Left Behind, did nothing to improve educating students.
Only a matter of time before there’s a movement to rescind Hugos previously-awarded to “unacceptable” SF authors. Say, Robert Heinlein and Orson Scott Card for starters…
This Ackerman character was a pip all on his own hook.
sdferr
ya, Forry got started young and was a ForeverFan.
This is probably only tangentially related to this post, but what the heck. Since you mention Larry Correia, if anyone is thinking about becoming a fiction writer, he did a class on becoming a professional fiction writer at Weber State University back in May. I transcribed three of the four class sessions and posted the notes on my blog at harrdharrharr.org. Feel free to take a look.
It’s all about the story. If the reader doesn’t care about the characters or what’s happening to them, it’s crap. That does not mean there is no place for “message” fiction. It just means the message should be incidental; it should be a part of a whole, like the low brass parts of a symphony.
Somewhat related: Franky Schaeffer, son of prominent Protestant theologian Francis Schaeffer discussed this topic years ago in relation to so-called Christian Art. His thesis is simple and it applies to all fiction, art, music or whatever, and is applicable in the context of Gamergate and the Hugos: It’s all about the art. Concentrate on making it good art, and the message shines through.
Assuming that there is a message. Sometimes a story is just a story. Someone I was talking to once told me, “I am a Christian author because I put Christian messages in my stories.” Since our novel takes place in 12th century Japan, by that definition, I am a Shinto/Buddhist/Confucion/Taoist author.
Well put, Shermlaw.
I would add: always have a main character [not necessarily THE main character] who the reader can root for, who has a Moral Sense.
As for getting a message across: I just finished reading A. Solzhenitsyn’s In The First Circle [96 chapter, uncensored version] and one of the brilliant things he does is let the message unfold slowly, piling-up evidence, and never getting heavy-handed. [the four chapters that get inside Stalin’s mind are pure genius, BTW].
I transcribed three of the four class sessions and posted the notes on my blog at harrdharrharr.org. Feel free to take a look.
Now looking … so far, good stuff!
I second Darleen’s motion, OG – thank you.
Speaking of fiction, Eric Metaxas rocks #TrumpBible.
But, if you like what the masses like, you are not special.
By the way, Mr. Burroughs: fiction, like music, is much more than mere Entertainment.
At it’s best, it helps us understand The Human Condition.
Bach and Solzhenitysn.
Thanks, Dicentra!
My favorite:
He rebuked the wind and said to the sea “Silence, be still!” But Jorge Ramos kept talking and talking. #TrumpBible
where be #barackykoran losers?
” oh the sweetist sound be the koran” 1st thing in the morning- baracky
He rebuked the wind and said to the sea “Silence, be still!” But Jorge Ramos kept talking and talking. #TrumpBible
Almost deserves its own plaque.
a-MAZE-ing shot of the summer monsoons in Arizona. Prolly didn’t look that good in person.
“[F]iction, like music, is much more than mere Entertainment. At its best, it helps us understand The Human Condition.”
Which means nothing if the work is so impenetrably dull, grating, or straight-up awful that no one will bother to read or listen to it. No matter how Important the cart may be, it cannot pull the horse.
In this, Burroughs is absolutely correct: fiction and music CAN be much more than entertainment. But if it fails at that one key point, whatever else it may be is immaterial and irrelevant.
Case in point: the Social-Justice-Obsessed Hugos.
(And yes, I know: Choir, Preaching To.)
Cranky, a few years ago a test from around that time (1931) was making the blogger rounds, one 8th graders had to pass before advancing to high school. The reason it was getting attention was because it was beyond what a HS senior would be expected to know now days
Now go back and look at the high school graduation rates at the time, and the number of kids who never even enrolled in high school. We did not have the same expectations back then. No one expected everyone to graduate high school, let alone that everyone would go to college. We didn’t need to. It was perfectly normal to drop out of school in middle school and get a job.
Those jobs are gone now. The answer is not to somehow “improve” our school systems…..the answer is to find a way for those who are never going to be educated to be productive contributors to society. I must confess that I am at a loss. My first suggestion however would be to end the farcical and destructive notion of “college for all”. The second would be to improve our vocational tech system. (perhaps bring back apprenticeships?)
Excellent point gahrie.
I think the change in expectation was then people expected to work hard to achieve honest success, now people expect to avoid hard work through government largess.
Also, in the pre depression years I think something like 80% of employment was in agriculture, and the family farm was the norm. After the war America was a manufacturing powerhouse, and good jobs were so plentiful we got a baby boom. Now that most manufacturing has been outsourced, and the mechanization of industry has displaced more good jobs, about all that is left is low wage service industry jobs, or college required professional fields that cannot absorb the ever increasing numbers of college graduates.
Ideally when it comes to education, vocational training should go back to HS, and the silly notion that ever one should get a college degree in something should be dropped like a hot potato. Unfortunately, neither would really help the problem of not enough good* jobs to go around, and with the problems of globalization and mechanization, I don’t really see the solution.
I mean sure, if we could deport our illegal alien parasites and cut government spending and regulation in half, things might start to improve, but even slowing the growth of government spending and regulation seems impossible at this point.
*by good job I mean one that will support a family, as opposed to an entryway, minimum wage job.
By the way Darleen, sorry, but your girl Carly just dropped from fourth or fifth on my list to eighth or ninth.
It’s not challenging the 14th amendment. There is the Brennan dicta footnote in a 1982 case where he quoted from a 1912 book the authors opinion that there should be no distinction made between legally here and illegally here immigrants. That is not a court holding though it has never been challenged.
Then on the Mark Levin he had someone who had done serious research into just where the birthright citizenship “right” comes from and he said it was from some obscure State Department ruling on a question of someone’s passport or temporary visa status, though he never said when or what ruling it was.
This seems to be something that just appeared and became “law” by never being challenged, sort of like everything Obama does.
On Sci-Fi.
I’ve read and enjoyed science fiction since childhood. I have a huge collection of books and all the Analogs from the 70s on till the early ‘oughts’. Then after the 9/11 attack and the invasion of Iraq the stories and editorials changed and became PC-ized. I dropped the subscription and stopped haunting the bookstore aisles or Amazon for new books.
I won’t be back. I can reread the old ones I have and get more entertainment and pleasure that way than chancing that something new will be different and have some twist I’d not seen before.
>This seems to be something that just appeared and became “law” by never being challenged, sort of like everything Obama does.<
baracky be the "proggtards". it would be fun if the little lady in kentucky (see link not only asserted her 1st amend rights but also asserted her 10th amend rights as a local public official. throw in the 9th for good measure.
@geoffB:
Have you tried Baen Books? They have a reputation as being Conservative, but are really quite eclectic. Some of what they publish can be PC, but then they also publish stuff like Ringo’s Paladin books. They publish Commies like Eric Flint, and radicals like Marion Zimmer Bradley. The important thing at Baen is the story.
If not for Baen, I too may have abandoned Sci Fi.
This seems to be something that just appeared and became “law” by never being challenged, sort of like everything Obama does.
Only it started way way before Obama came around.
Don’t think geoffb was attributing to ClownCatastrophe there, but merely using comparison.
gahrie:
I know about Baen, and authors like Hoyt and Corriea, but I’m just not going back and have moved on to just reading non-fiction when I read any new thing of novel length anymore. For fiction I have plenty from my younger days on the shelf.
I just finished up this set of three books:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00W3RTQQM?ie=UTF8&redirectFromSS=1&pc_redir=T1&noEncodingTag=1&fp=1
Historical fiction written in 1971, I don’t know how I missed them back then, but it’s a great adventure story.
I think it was the second book I learned about this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerman
Vicious pack a bastards, those Iranian Mo’s, and always have been.
I was never much of a science fiction reader, was more into Louis L’Amour, Alister McLean, John D. McDonald growing up. Jules Verne was about the only science fiction I read.
I did like Ric’s book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00531CPHC?ie=UTF8&redirectFromSS=1&pc_redir=T1&noEncodingTag=1&fp=1
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
All the movie versions leave out the fascinating part, which is the odd nature of the planet itself and the theories and experiments to explain its behavior and to speculate as to whether it’s sentient.
All to no avail: Solaris is so alien, so bizarre, that the Utter Incomprehension is never resolved.
Any one see the Ender’s Game movie?
I enjoyed watching it but I could have used about 30 more minutes in the battle school. The movie ran almost exactly 120 minutes, which suggests that there was more at the battle school but the studio would NOT permit anything longer than 2 hours.
Because homophobe or something.
I read Enders Game, it was entertaining but the ending left me uninterested in continuing the series.
I don’t know why, but the same thing is true of Harry Potter.
Is rather read a series like this:
This:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/series/B012A3ZKA4?ref=series_aw_dp_link
this one is excellent Mr. Lee it has space zombies and cool characters what have lots of exciting space adventures – in space!
plus there are also zombies!
in space!
My oldest starts middle school next week. This afternoon we had orientation. The library has an entire shelf of frickin’ zombie/vampire/werewolf melodrama garbage.
First time in my life I wanted to vandalize a book.
>
Hello
(Hello)
Hello
(Hello, hello)
Hello
Ha ha ha ha
You never listened to a word that I said
You only seen me from the clothes that I wear
Or did the interest go so much deeper?
It must have been to the color of my hair
The public image
What you wanted was never made clear
Behind the image was ignorance and fear
You hide behind his public machine
You still follow same old scheme
Public image
Two sides to every story
Somebody had to stop me
I’m not the same as when I began
I will not be treated as property
Public image
Two sides to every story
Somebody had to stop me
I’m not the same as when I began
It’s not a game of monopoly
Public image
Public image, you got what you wanted
The public image belongs to me
It’s my entrance my own creation
My grand finale, my goodbye
Public image
Public image
Goodbye
<
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylOCIP54PIQ
My second son had me proofread an essay he wrote on an essay by Vaclav Havel and it was fantastic. I told him he needed to add some random commas, capitals and apostrophes to make it fair.
My third son has been assigned to read the Fountainhead in Freshman year.
Number four is obsessed with Percy Jackson, and is now reading every book on Greek myths he can get his booger-eating hands on.
Don’t like your public school? Move here, ours are awesome.
I mean the teaching is good, I would say great. The buildings are falling down, there’s an HIV epidemic, massive amounts of Meth and prescription drug abuse, and 70% of kids in the High School (85% of kids in number 4’s elementary) are on free or reduced lunch.
Still, I on-purpose moved my kids out of the private school and have never regretted it.
I read Enders Game, it was entertaining but the ending left me uninterested in continuing the series.
Card did something interesting with the series. He went back years later and retold the stories from a different viewpoint.
Card did something interesting with the series. He went back years later and retold the stories from a different viewpoint.
Which is why he dislikes fanfic: they’re horning into his territory.
I don’t think there are two novels more different from each other than Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, yet they’re original and sequel.
Speaking of sci-fi, I’m going back to the Tennant episodes of Doctor Who and it’s amazing how much better the Russell Davies era was than anything following it.
It’s not just Tennant’s performance (which is spectacular), it’s that they gave him better scripts: more genuine drama to work with instead of airy-fairy “alien feeds off human emotions, so sing louder” and that obnoxious lizard lady and her wife. (There couldn’t be LESS chemistry between two people who weren’t already ten years dead.)
How do you get more agony than John Smith’s decision in “Family of Blood” to annihilate himself? Where’s more pathos than Miss Evangelista’s neural link echoing after she died in “Silence in the Library”? And how about “the flesh” that the feline nuns breed in pods so that they can cure all manner of illness? The parallel to PP’s organ harvesting is so vivid it’s almost alarming.
Even the Ninth Doctor’s “Father’s Day” is amazing, when Rose’s dad figures out what he has to do.
Sorry, successors: Davies and Tennant did it to perfection, and y’all are inferior shadows, surviving on the echoes of their excellence.
A series I love:
http://www.amazon.com/Wool-Omnibus-Edition-Silo-ebook/dp/B0071XO8RA/ref=pd_sim_351_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=16TTP2T711YYDVVY06QM&dpSrc=sims&dpST=_UX300_PJku-sticker-v3%2CTopRight%2C0%2C-44_AC_UL320_SR210%2C320_