Category: science fiction

Categories
science fiction sexism someone is wrong on the internet

Dear John C Wright: Please stop lying.

No really, John C. Wright. You flounced, you’re not my problem any more, I don’t have to care about your bullshit misogyny and gross homophobia. I’m done with you. Stop wasting my time.

Only then you go and pull this shit.

I have this problem, you see. Most of the time, when there’s someone saying stupid things on the internet, I can make myself get up and walk away because I seriously have better things to do with my limited number of minutes on this mortal coil. Like read books. And write. And play with my cats.

But when it’s a particular brand of stupid shit on the internet, when it’s someone saying things that should be connected to actual real facts, I. Just. Can’t.

I already had an inkling that Mr. Wright had some problems with the truth after his flounce. But this just confirms it. So let’s play some whack-a-mole, shall we? Please, don’t consider the following comprehensive, exhaustive, or final. I invite you to play your own round of Spot The Bullshit. It’s fun for all ages! Enjoy slogging through his comically overwrought paragraphs! My brainmeats may never recover!

Robert Heinlein could not win a Hugo Award today.

Not calling this out as an untruth necessarily, but because I am so, so fucking sick of this.

First off (at the risk of inviting hordes of flying monkeys to my blog for failing to bow at the feet of the Heinlein) you say that like it’s a bad thing. Second off, he won a Retro Hugo for best novel, for Farmer in the Sky, in 2001. This is not to say that if Farmer in the Sky had been on the actual 2001 Hugo ballot, it would have won. No, I’m pretty sure Harry Potter would have nutpunched poor Bill Lermer and gained the victory without breaking a sweat.

I’m also forced to wonder at the implied assumption that, had Robert Heinlein been born in 1977 (or 1967) instead of 1907, he would be writing the exact same stuff in 2014 that he wrote in 1954 (The Star Beast) or 1964 (Farnham’s Freehold–holy shit, I hope not!). Feels kind of insulting to him that if he’d grown up in a different time he wouldn’t have maybe had some different opinions, but I guess that shouldn’t be surprising coming as it is from someone who has attitudes about gender roles that might have been more at home in the Victorian era.

But that’s a discussion for a different time, a different place, and probably to be had by people who are a lot more personally concerned with Heinlein than I am. Let’s get back on track.

Orson Scott Card publicly expressed the mildest imaginable opposition to having judges overrule popular votes defining marriage in the traditional way. The uproar of hate directed against this innocent and honorable man is vehement and ongoing. An unsuccessful boycott was organized against the movie Ender’s Game, but he was successfully shoved off a project to write for Superman comics.

This is what’s commonly known as a lie. Orson Scott Card has a history of virulent and public homophobia dating back to the early 90s (oh look, Salon has been kind enough to collect a non-exhaustive timeline!) The straw that broke the homosexual’s back, so to speak, was him joining the board for the National Organization for Marriage in 2009–the loathsome organization that worked to pass Proposition 8 in California and then tried to defend it with blatant, pathetic lying in court. His involvement in NOM was specifically cited by the campaign to boycott the Ender’s Game movie, by the way.

Even better, Wright doesn’t even believe this line of shit himself. To quote a comment he posted in his own blog in response to someone pointing out that hey, OSC is in trouble for sticking his hand into the political blender when it comes to same-sex marriage, not for being a Christian:

Hence if Mr Card, a Christian, expresses what Christian should hold, he does and he must express the idea that homosexual acts are sins. When Mr Card is being punished for speaking out against homosex, he is being punished for being a true Christian.

Huh. I thought you said it was just incredibly mild opposition to judicial activism. Not “homosex.” Whatever the fuck that is. But if you read that entire post (I suggest you have an airsickness bag on hand first) it’s painfully obvious that Wright’s concerned about OSC being boycotted and punished for being, gosh, virulently homophobic because their opinions are totally similar, OSC is just so much more mild than him.

(Aside: This quote is from a hilarious thread in which Mr. Wright debates with a commenter whether or not Mormons are Christian and thus deserving of help.)

Mr. Wright, stop lying.

Likewise, Theodore Beale was expelled from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers America (SFWA), our professional union, on the rather specious grounds that he repeated comments from a members-only bulletin board to the general public.

Nope. Beale is an embarrassing (racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic) shitstain in the shorts of humanity in general, but what got him finally thrown out of SFWA was using the organization’s official Twitter feed to promote a racist, misogynistic screed. Here’s a post Amal El-Mohtar wrote prior to his expulsion, with screenshots of said screed. I don’t know, something about those professional organizations. They don’t like it when members try to drag them through the racist, sexist shit.

He was libeled with the same typical menu as above. [The “list from above”–ed: You know the selection: racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, insensitivity, fascism.] (By odd coincidence, the falsely accused racist here is also Hispanic.) That the expulsion was done in an irregular and ad hoc fashion casts an additional pall of shame over it.

(Note, I’m guessing the “falsely accused racist here is also Hispanic” is in reference to Larry Correia. I’m leaving the Correia issue alone because I do not know enough about the guy other than the fact that I think he’s an asshole, and still cannot be bothered to slog through the festering cesspit of his blog to investigate.)

Quoted from the screenshot of Beale’s blog post: [For context that should probably be unnecessary, NK Jemisin is African-American.]

Jemisin has it wrong; it is not that I, and others, do not view her as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we do not view her as being fully civilized for the obvious reason that she is not.

And:

Unlike the white males she excoriates, there is no evidence that a society of NK Jemisins is capable of building an advanced civilization, or even successfully maintaining one without external support.

Yes. Beale is totally not racist at all. [/withering sarcasm] Stop lying.

Back to Wright’s bullshit fest.

Likewise, Elizabeth Moon was “uninvited” from being the guest of honor at a large convention for making the rather unremarkable remark that immigrants to the United States should assimilate.

If you actually care to read the article linked to, you will find that once again that Wright is going for the incredibly dishonest minimization route. Now, maybe it was just the assimilation comment that got Elizabeth Moon uninvited. Or maybe it was this:

I know – I do not dispute – that many Muslims had nothing to do with the attacks, did not approve of them, would have stopped them if they could. I do not dispute that there are moderate, even liberal, Muslims, that many Muslims have all the virtues of civilized persons and are admirable in all those ways. But Muslims fail to recognize how much forbearance they’ve had.

I feel that I personally (and many others) lean over backwards to put up with these things, to let Muslims believe stuff that unfits them for citizenship, on the grounds of their personal freedom. It would be helpful to have them understand what they’re demanding of me and others – how much more they’re asking than giving.

Context matters. Considering that the large convention in question is WisCon (pretty much the most liberal scifi convention that has ever liberaled), I’m more surprised Wright even managed to mention it obliquely without his poor conservative fingers bursting into white-hot flame from the hellish proximity of so many un-shaven she-devil feminists.

Likewise, under the editorial guidance of Jean Rabe, two well-established science fiction writers, Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg, in the SFWA house magazine made comments ranging from the complimentary to the utterly innocuous about lady writers and editors breaking into the field. That issue also featured a toothsome sword-wielding Amazon in chain-mail bikini. All three were fired.

Wow, going there are we? The original comments in the Bulletin, however they might have been intended, were not complimentary, nor innocuous. The inflammatory and trollish way Resnick and Malzberg decided to respond (“liberal fascists,” really?) earned just the ire for which it had been aiming. That Wright chooses to describe the chain-mail bikini-wearing warrior woman as “toothsome” honestly just goes to prove every fucking complaint women had about that cover. Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg had a regular column that was discontinued because a large portion of the membership didn’t feel like paying to see ourselves belittled in writing; to my understanding, that’s not the same as firing. Jean Rabe resigned, though I suppose one could argue if she felt pressured, but she was ultimately not fired either.

Stop. Lying.

None accuse Mike Ashley of any evil intent against women. Yet if you look at the Wikipedia entry for this anthology, there is only one quote from a critic, mocking his lack of diversity.

Wikipedia: the best source ever for iron clad proof of the existence of conspiracies.

And then Wright goes of into a giant, frankly masturbatory stroke-fest about his cherished belief that he and people like him are persecuted. Keep reading if you want to feel a sense of creeping, disgusted awkwardness.

It’s a free country. Mr. Wright is entitled to his own opinion that the evil liberal thought police are out to get him, and I really could not give less of a shit if I tried. But just like climate change deniers, evolution deniers, moon landing conspiracy theorists, 9/11 truthers, and every other flavor of disingenuous nut scrabbling for justification, he is not entitled to his own facts.

Kindly stop wasting my time.

Sashay_Away

Stop lying. Asshole.

(PS: Natalie, IHU SO MUCH RN.)

Related links: 

HERE. If you want to watch someone try to take on the tortured “logic” in Wright’s post–which I noped right out of and went for the low-hanging fruit of completely dishonesty–Foz has taken a stab at it. Foz deserves all the cookies.

Natalie has also opined about Lying Liars Who Lie.

Popelizbet has an absolutely gorgeous takedown of some of the quasi-philosophical bullshit asshattery that the rest of us didn’t want to touch. NO REALLY READ THIS IT’S SO WORTH IT.

Marissa Lingen makes an excellent point about Heinlein that I only touched on here in the lightest possible sense.

From my own blog: The deeply pathetic intimation of violence. Because duels for honor are a thing?

Categories
science fiction sfwa someone is wrong on the internet

It’s okay, John C. Wright, you’re pretty too.

Remember this fucking guy? He has done a public flounce from SFWA now. It’s delightfully pompous as flounces go, and I highly recommend it if you need a dose of evil glee to round out your Monday. (Though I am forced to wonder why someone who seems so enamored of strict gender roles has decided to emulate a stereotypical teenaged girl, albeit one armed with a thesaurus and a King James Bible.) No idea why the flounce occurred today of all days, as SFWA has been nicely quiet for some time.

My best guess is

  1. Mr. Wright is jealous that the other super misogynistic embarrassment to science fiction (you know, Theodore Beale) is getting all the attention and desperately wants the cute girl whose parents gave her a mustang for Christmas the internet to pay attention to him and validate his outrage.
  2. Mr. Wright’s membership is up and he decided to not renew in the most flamboyant way he could find without shelling out the money for a sky writer.
  3. A confluence of luck that made both happen at the same time?

(Dear people who keep trying to blame the syphilitic outbreak on the Hugos on SFWA, get it straight. We give out the Nebulas. Address your complaints to WSFS, and then buy a supporting membership in Loncon 3 so you can vote. Because that’s how the Hugos work. SFWA has nothing to do with it. And I hope Mr. Wright knows that considering he was until today a member of the organization.)

There isn’t really that much to say other than the evil belly laugh for which hairy-legged feminists like myself are renowned, the sound of which causes agony to all good god-fearing men. Well, other than to point out a couple things in his florid love letter to his own ego that he really should be ashamed of typing. You know. If shame is a thing he does.

Instead of enhancing the prestige of the genre, the leadership seems bent on holding us up to the jeers of all fair-minded men by behaving as gossips, whiners, and petty totalitarians, and by supporting a political agenda irrelevant to science fiction.

Sorry dude, if you have a problem with gossips and whiners, you really shouldn’t have typed out that entire letter there and posted it on the internet.

Instead of men who treat each other with professionalism and respect, I find a mob of perpetually outraged gray-haired juveniles.

I really wish you guys would get your internet persecution complexes straight. I thought we were The Young. (DAH DAH DAAAAAAAAAH!) Now we’re gray-haired juveniles? Did we have a terribly dye job accident? Also, the fact that Wright again and again talks about men and completely ignores the fact that there are people of all genders in the org makes me INCREDIBLY glad the door isn’t hitting him on the ass on the way out.

But all of this is honestly just mockery on my part, and really has no meaning beyond me just being a jerk for the sake of being a jerk. Mr. Wright can be upset that women are allowed to speak in public or whatever has his ass in a twist and it really does not matter in the long run. Except for this one right here, and this is where I draw the line:

Instead of receiving aid to my writing career, I find organized attempts to harass my readers and hurt my sales figures.

Does he provide any evidence for this? No. And I will flatly state as a member of SFWA who frequents the message boards, I have not heard word one of even a breath of an idea that could even begin to approach the hint of the shadow of  anything of this nature. Mr. Wright further states in an addendum to the letter that he will not be providing any evidence because he’s totally a professional, and professionals don’t kiss and tell provide evidence for their accusations.

This is bullshit. And is also commonly magical internet speak for “uh oh I don’t actually have any evidence oh shit just pretend to be taking the high road and hope no one notices!” And the more I think about it, the more it just flat fucking pisses me off. It’s all fun and casual taunting games until someone makes an accusation that can actually be supported with evidence.

If this is an actual real thing that has happened, it needs to be stopped. Because going after someone’s readers and harassment is never okay, whether you like the person involved or not. But considering the nature of the rest of the letter, unless he has evidence of this organized harassment of his readers with the intention of hurting his sales figures, Mr. Wright would be far worse than a man in love with his own persecution complex. He would be a liar. The rest of his complaints are the standard differences of opinion, and they are what they are, agree or not. This one is an actual accusation, and as such should be backed up with actual facts if he wants to have any hope of credibility.

Or as we say on the internet: Deets or GTFO.

ETA 4/29: Apparently SFWA requested evidence as well and Mr. Wright was too much of a “gentleman” to provide it.

And Steven Gould, president of SFWA, had a few things to say about these accusations, which includes both his personal opinions and notes on SFWA policy.

And the flounce continues!

Categories
science fiction things that are hard to write thinking out loud worldcon

Drawing the line

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, these last couple of days. Well, as much thinking as possible considering I’ve been getting about five hours of sleep a night and work is slowly consuming my brain, my soul, and probably my major viscera. (But hey, workshop day is tomorrow! Then I get to relax have severe panic about all the end of month work that I didn’t get done because of the workshop wheeeeeeee.)

Anyway. I’ve been thinking drawing the line. You know. The Line. The Line That Must Not Be Crossed.

It’s an expression that can have some real macho bullshit baggage with it, I guess because it makes for nicely threatening language. See anything involving foreign policy. But that’s not what I mean, here. It’s not about denoting territory in a power struggle, be it between international powers or people. It’s not about maintaining physical safety. Those are the lines you draw outside of yourself, whether you’re a country or a parent with a cranky toddler or someone trying to hold the distance between you and an evil shitbag that doesn’t comprehend the meaning of No–and that’s a whole different matter.

The lines I’m thinking about here are the ones you draw inside yourself. They’re part of the way you define and shape yourself into the person you want to be. They are yours–only yours. You don’t get to force your configuration of internal borders on anyone else, and no one has the right to reach into you and redraw those boundaries.

These internal lines read: if I do this, if I am a part of this, I will no longer be the person I am or the person I want to be. I will no longer be right with myself. Crossing these internal lines will probably never hurt you physically, but will wound you in ways that never heal.

And make no mistake, other people aren’t going to have the same internal lines as you; it’s never easy to hit a point where you think something is unacceptable, but your friend is okay with it. Being human ain’t easy because no two of us are exactly the same, and that’s another thing you have to decide for yourself.

But these lines are important. These are the lines you draw between yourself and the dark.

#

So why all the navel-gazing? It’s not really my style when I’ve got movies I could be bitching about. As you might suspect already, this is another dispatch from the gift that keeps on giving: this year’s Hugo short-list. In my previous post, I said I’d be doing my best to read all the entries with an open heart. It was the best I could come up with at the time, because my first urge is always to ask what’s fair.

But then I made the mistake of getting lost down the comment rabbit hole of Natalie’s post, and one of the people there invoked Orson Scott Card, Roman Polanski, and Woody Allen as similar situations to the Vox Day being a Hugo nominee. (Insert your own feelings here on if you think that’s even a fair comparison to make on the scale of artistic merit versus complete shitbaggery.) And god I wish he hadn’t done that, because I’d almost managed to stop picking at this particular scab and let it retreat to no more than a nagging itch.

I’ve already searched through this little sector of my soul in relation to Orson Scott Card. (For me, he’s the only really pertinent example, because in all honesty I’ve never really liked Woody Allen’s work.) I fought with myself, blood was drawn, wounds were taken, and I came to the conclusion that I have a line. There is a point at which I can no longer separate the art from the living artist. I cannot escape the fact that my support of their art, however miniscule in relative scale it may be, implicates me in what they then use their platform to do and say. It makes me complicit, if only peripherally, in the harm they choose to do. I said of Orson Scott Card:

If you can separate the art from the artist, maybe that makes you a better person than me. Feel that way if you like. But I cannot support someone who believes that me and many of the people I love and esteem are not full human beings.

If that’s true for OSC, whom I have met and actually liked as a person, it’s just as true for Vox Day. And I’m ashamed of myself for not having considered this sooner. Though I guess that explains why I’ve been so damn uncomfortable about this entire mess.

I may still read Vox Day’s story if it’s in the Hugo packet, because what little of his prose I’ve seen has been downright florid, and I have this “hobby” (some might call it a “problem”) where I watch or read terrible things and then go on seething rants about the awfulness I witnessed. So I might give this embarrassing shitstain in the shorts of humanity that much of my time. Or I might just watch a couple episodes of Master Chef reruns instead. The series where it’s all kids is super cute, after all.

But I will not be putting Vox Day above the No Award line. I gave up Ender’s Game because being right with myself was more important than a novel I treasured as a teenager. This isn’t even a contest.

#

You don’t have to agree with me. I don’t expect you to. These are my lines, not yours.

Feel free to discuss this with me. Feel free to offer me arguments (I’ll do my best to consider) or ask questions if you’re going to actually listen to the answers. If you think less of me as a person for my melodramatic little choice, well, it is what it is. This is personal. I didn’t make this decision for you, and I sure as hell didn’t make it just to spite some guy I wouldn’t recognize if I bumped into him on the street.

It’s the end of the day, and I feel right with myself.

Categories
science fiction worldcon

Reading stories, wrestling pigs, the repetition of history. You know, the Hugos.

I edited my post from yesterday to add this, but I’m going to make it as a statement all its own too (with a little expansion), since I don’t think I made this point as strongly as I wanted.

While my sideeyeing here is mighty, I’m going to do my best to give the fiction in the Hugo packet an open-hearted read, within time constraints. I feel like if I’m going to complain about this uber-pathetic deck stacking, then it’s my obligation to not play into the game by letting my choices be made by anything outside what I read in the stories. This might be a good place to whip out that old Samuel Clemens chestnut about not wrestling pigs (because you both get dirty and the pig likes it). I’m pretty sure whichever way the awards fall this year there will be politics invoked as the reason whether it is or not.

I’m also well aware that I’m operating from a pretty privileged position here, so please don’t read this as a finger-shaking exhortation or some kind of judgment. (And feel free to argue with me on this one, I’m just doing my best and my best ain’t perfect.) At the end of the day you do what you have to do to be right with yourself. Where you draw the line for yourself is your choice, not mine. Relevant update on this notion here.I’ll be doing my best to read everyone fairly… minus one.

To be honest I feel a bit bad for anyone that’s gotten unwittingly caught in the crossfire of Correia’s incredibly unsubtle “sad puppy” campaign thing because it adds an unhappy shadow of doubt to the nominations, and that seems unfair. Then again, guys, you got nominated for a Hugo! It’s not like you need some random person on the internet feeling bad at you for that.

Also, you should read Kameron Hurley’s post. And remember that this kind of stuff ain’t new.

That is hopefully all I’m going to need to say about that. I might try to blog a bit as I’m reading. If I have time to read.

Until then–IT’S LEG DAY MOTHERFUCKERS ARE YOU READY

Categories
science fiction worldcon

Happy Hugo Nomination Day! (In which I go “Yay!” and sideeye simultaneously.)

I know, I drop off the internets for two weeks (I have a massive slate of excuses that I’m planning to elaborate on…soon-ish) and then two posts in one day! Zomg! But the Hugo nominations just got released, so I’m going to react in between moving my plate so my cat can’t get to my sandwich.

So, here’s the list of nominees!

First off, I’ll cop immediately to the fact that I don’t have as many opinions as I would like about most of the categories because the amount of reading I got done last year was somewhere between deeply pathetic and downright sob-worthy. (And much of what I did read was not published in 2013. Boo.)

I’m super happy for Sofia Samatar; Selkie Stories Are For Losers is one of those rare 2013 stories I did actually read and I loved it so much I nominated it so woo! I helped!  The Graphic Story category is very exciting this year (and god I’m already looking forward to throwing Ms. Marvel on the 2014 ballot, you have no idea) and I’m very happy to see Gravity and Pacific Rim in the Dramatic Presentation, Long Form category. Also An Adventure in Space and Time and The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot are my faves out of the Best Doctor Who Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category. Semiprozine and Fanzine both look exciting this year. And Skiffy and Fanty got nominated in the Fancast category and I love that podcast ferociously so YAY.

Standard congratulations to everyone who got nominated, particularly the five writers up for the Not a Hugo award!

So then there are the things that I’m just sideeyeing so mightily.

First off, Wheel of Time. The whole series. In best novel. Look, I get that it’s technically okay by the letter of the rules, but seriously? I just… I can’t even. And don’t take this as me just being some WoT hater. I mentioned the nomination to Mike, who has read the series and owns many of the books. He likes that massive wood pulp trainwreck in his own way. And when I told him about the nomination, he frowned and said, “Really? That had better not win.” SO IT’S NOT JUST ME.

I’m super disappointed that Her didn’t get nominated in the dramatic presentation, long form. I’m guessing it’s because it wasn’t as massively popular (or well-advertised) as any of the other movies, but goddamn it was phenomenal. (It very much deserved the Oscar it received for best screenplay, and every one of its nominations.) And of course Europa Report, but I had no illusions about that one even having a chance since it was a relatively teeny independent film.

Then the dramatic presentation, short form category. The Best Doctor Who category. But really, The Name of the Doctor? And frankly, I have such a hate/love relationship with The Day of the Doctor that I just can’t even start on that. I guess I’m just glad The Time of the Doctor didn’t get a nomination or I might have punched my fist through my laptop screen. Boy I can’t wait until next year when The Loofah of the Doctor and The Worrying, Hairy Mole That Should Probably Get Looked at of the Doctor battle it out against Game of Thrones: The Lion and the Rose. (I have never watched nor read GoT, and yet it’s very likely even I would vote for that episode because I am an adult human being with an internet connection.)

And then there’s this thing where my sideeyeing hits the sort of level that might indicate incipient eye strain. Natalie Luhrs posted at her blog and there’s also a bit about it over at File770, which is basically the fact that several of the nominees were on sample ballots pushed by the dreaded Vox Day and the not-dreaded-and-is-probably-a-perfectly-nice-dude-in-person-but-online-sounds-like-a-real-asshole Larry Correia.

Now, I have no idea about the quality of most of the work on the ballot this year. I didn’t put nominees in a lot of the categories because I didn’t get to read much new stuff, which is kind of the point. It goes without saying that you shouldn’t nominate things you haven’t read. And for all I know right now, these are all equally fantastic damn stories; I look forward to finding out when I read them. In fact, I had no thoughts beyond, “Oh hey, good for you Brad Torgersen, two nominations!” and so on until I heard about this grossness. (Exception: I did think, “Wow, the Prince of Darkness got nominated for a Hugo? What the hell does that story do, press and iron your shirts while you read?”)

People post their personal ballot picks all the time. I actually look at those when the nomination period is drawing close so I can try to squeeze in a few more things to read and get a better spread on my own nominations. But there is a subtle but very important distinction between, “So this is who I’m going to nominate” and actively exhorting your followers to pony up the $40 for a supporting membership and participate in a “Sad Puppies Hugo stacking campaign” because it’ll… make liberals cry or something.

Bonus points for VD trying to blame it all on the subject of his massive internet hateboner, John Scalzi:

It should be interesting to see how this all turns out. But after John Scalzi – how entirely unsurprising – laid the groundwork for the open politicization of the Hugo Award, it was inevitable that what had always been done quietly behind closed doors would come out in the open.

See! He totally did it first! We’re just doing it better or something!

I get that there is an element of politics inherent in award giving, particularly when it’s “big” awards–all you have to do is observe the Academy Awards to see that. And I get that there is a lot of deck stacking when it comes to platform. (Shit, man, I was just bitching about how a movie I thought was fucking amazing didn’t get a nomination because it was insufficiently popular.) Yet all you have to do is really look over the nominations to see that it’s not just the 900-lb gorillas that get on the slate for these things.

While it might feel good to tell yourself that the only reason the people in your in-group aren’t raking in all the awards is because fancy schmancy people who write stories you don’t like because there’s too much global warming and not enough guns are having a massive circle jerk and didn’t invite you, it’s also pretty goddamn sad. It’s “you plebes just don’t get my genius” in a different form.

It just seems really…pathetic. Yeah, that’s the word I’m looking for.

ETA on 4/20: And since I feel like I didn’t make this point strongly enough in the original post–while my sideeyeing here is mighty, I’m going to do my best to give the fiction in the Hugo packet an open-hearted read. Because if I’m going to complain about this uber-pathetic deck stacking, I feel it’s then my obligation to not play into their game by letting my choices be made by anything outside what I read in the stories. I’m also well aware that I’m operating from a pretty privileged position here, so please don’t read this as a finger-shaking exhortation or some kind of judgment. (And feel free to argue with me on this one, I’m just doing my best and my best ain’t perfect.) At the end of the day you do what you have to do to be right with yourself. Relevant follow-up here.

TBH I feel a bit bad for anyone that’s gotten unwittingly caught in the crossfire of Correia’s incredibly unsubtle “sad puppy” campaign thing because it adds an unhappy shadow of doubt to the nominations, and that seems unfair. Then again, guys, you got nominated for a Hugo! It’s not like you need some random person on the internet feeling bad at you for that.

Anyway, good luck to all the nominees! And may the odds be ever in your favor.

Categories
gender logical fallacies science fiction

Geeze, Larry Correia, leave some straw men for the rest of us.

So, Larry Correia wrote a fantastically dickish blog post about Alex Dally MacFarlane’s post on Tor.com in regards to the default gender binary represented in mainstream SF literature. The post in question involved Alex making the incredibly revolutionary1 observation that transwomen and transmen, you know, exist. As well as other people who do not conform to the strict, aggressively Leave It To Beaver-ish gender binary that’s still presented as the default. And it’s time to get away from that being the default. And hey, there have already been works written that touch on the issue, so let’s discuss those and then move forward. (Alex, if you ever happen to read this, I hope I have not misrepresented your position overmuch in my rather flippant summary.)

Jim Hines, bless him from his shiny head to his sofa-marrying heart2, possesses such intestinal fortitude and abundance of spare time that he’s done a point by point take down of Correia’s post.

My normal inclination here is to have the same response as I had to John C. Wright and his wall of misogy-text, namely: would you get a load of this fuckin’ guy. But there are a few things that are bothering me particularly, though. In short:

  1. Correia spends the whole time calling Alex “he” in his original post. (Alex isn’t a man. It takes exactly one google search or two clicks to double check that.[ETA] Her bio is literally at the bottom of her post. What kind of fucking laziness does this take?) I actually went and looked at Correia’s blog to see if he corrected himself, and he did… kinda? Somewhere in the word salad of this long response to Jim he corrects himself on Alex being “she,” airily dismisses it as a mistake and says he further doesn’t care anyway BECAUSE IDEAS NOT PEOPLE. Perhaps at this point misrepresenting someone’s gender feels like a drop in the ocean of douchery, and that’s the excuse for not taking two seconds to type out the word ‘sorry.’ But it’s a damn pathetic excuse.
  2. Seriously, what is with the dog whistle liberal versus conservative culture war bullshit framing? Perhaps this is bothering me more than normal because in my offline life, I just had a strong reminder that being conscious of gender identification isn’t a default liberal versus conservative issue, it’s a not being a douchebag issue.
  3. Correia’s thesis as written seems to be that (a) straw Alex wants all books to be nothing but non-standard characters and there will be checklists nothing but checklists forever, (b) this would make everything a preachy issue book (presumably because straw Alex does not care about story?), therefore (c) that would destroy the genre of science fiction.
  4. The “I don’t like thing X, therefore if you write thing X IT WILL DESTROY THE GENRE,” line has gotten so common that I believe it deserves its own name. It’s like an appeal to consequences and appeal to tradition got together and had an ugly, whiny baby. Any suggestions? The best I’ve got is Appeal to Destruction, and that’s admittedly tepid.
  5. Correia keeps coming back to story being the most important thing. I don’t think there’s any halfway decent writer who would argue the point that story is where it’s at. So where the fuck is this disconnect? How does what Alex actually said in any way preclude the primacy of story? How does even making a conscious effort to write non-default characters equal preachy issue book? Is there some kind of mathematical proof I’m missing out on here that shows the number of transgender or genderqueer characters is inversely proportional to the amount of story and/or fun?
  6. Geeze, dude, leave some straw men for the rest of us. Seriously. Worldwide shortage.
  7. Cisgender hetero guy with enormous biceps kills vampires and then must face their sire in a world-shattering showdown versus Transwoman with slightly less enormous biceps kills vampires then must face their sire in a world-shattering showdown would both be driven by the same basic story. Each would be distinct because, say, for option B you’d have to consider how the heroine’s status as trans would effect her interactions with other characters and all of their choices–yet in the end it’s still about some badass killing a shitload of vampires and saving the world.
  8. I do not tend to buy books that promise to preach at me. But you know what I will go out of my way to buy? Books with female protagonists. Books with explicitly bisexual protagonists. Because like all human beings, I’m an egocentric jerk and I enjoy being able to see people like me in stories, saving the world and doing other badass shit. [ETA: I would hope this goes without saying, but you never know. I want good and interesting books with the aforementioned and following. Books with excellent story, which very much do exist when combined with “non-default” main characters. Yeesh.] But you know what else I’ll go out of my way to buy? Books with genderqueer protagonists. Books with non-white protagonists. Books with protagonists from cultures other than my own. Why? Because I want to imagine things outside of myself as well. And imagining ye olde heterosexual white dude? We all basically know how to put those shoes on mentally before we can tie our literal shoelaces in the real world.

 

1 – Mmm, sarcasm italics. How I have missed you.

2 – Some of the comments on Jim’s post are gold.

Categories
sarcasm science fiction writing

Yes, I am trying to destroy science fiction, thank you for noticing.

God, what does a woman have to do around the internet to get her heathen liberal-fascist* feminazi reverse racist anarcho homosexual agenda aimed at the complete destruction of a literary genre noticed? I was about to start setting shit on fire, I fucking swear.

But it’s okay, guys! Senpai noticed me! (Okay, and a lot of other people, but I’m still getting some dokidoki in my shriveled, blackened little kokoro.) Finally, someone gets what we’ve been trying to do all along! We no longer have to go creeping around under cover of the internet, stealing Edgar Rice Burroughs novels from babies and pushing well meaning white guys (who just want to explain to us that we should stop whining because racism and sexism aren’t actually a thing any more, or wait maybe they are a thing but we should just suck less okay) down the stairs.

I for one am relieved. I’ve hated scifi since the minute I first encountered it. As my mother read The Hobbit to my brother and me as children, I had only two thoughts:

1) I was pretty sure I could take my older brother in a knife fight. If I sacrificed him on the altar if the dark and terrible lesbofeminazi gods, would I grow up to look absolutely fabulous in trousers and have my very own mustache to twirl?

And.

2) I was going to destroy Middle Earth and the rotten literary ground from which it had sprung. And then salt the soil with the bitter tears of all god-fearing, proper fans.

I never managed number one, though I do still look fabulous in trousers. But goal number two is ticking along nicely. I have joined an (apparently not so secret) cabal composed of basically everyone who isn’t a straight white guy oh wait there are some straight white guys in or cabal too, um shit, I guess it’s actually a cabal of people who just don’t think everything has to be about straight white guys. Yeah, that. And then, of all dastardly things, we WRITE.

Because we saw, you see. We saw so clearly that the foundation of all speculative fiction is actually straight white guys, not, you know, fantastical elements and what if like those lying bastard liberals tell you in their “college courses.” (Hah! Our secret liberal indoctrination works again!) So if you replace the straight white guys in fiction with people that actually reflect the diversity of the population, IT WILL ALL COME CRASHING DOWN LIKE A JENGA TOWER SURROUNDED BY DRUNKEN UNDERGRADS.

AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA

I mean, we SAY we would just like to read stories about people like us, that a little diversity doesn’t hurt, but smart guys like senpai know. He’s on to us. We hate art, because art is only the stuff senpai likes reading, and the rest of us totally don’t count because we don’t get the greatness of all that ART. We’re just going to burn that shit down. I for one only read scifi because I hate it. I only do things I hate. That’s how my bitter, sad, and twisted life works. That’s why you should all run out right now and bake me cakes because if there is one thing I hate more than scifi it’s cake and I’ll eat cake while I read a scifi novel so then MY HATE-FILLED, MISERABLE EXISTENCE WILL BE COMPETE.

I am so glad I don’t have to pretend any more. It’s like a great burden has lifted from my shoulders.

Now, I’m going back to writing my story about a lesbian Sikh werewolf going to the prom because I am doing my part to destroy everything that scifi stands for. Which, let us remember, is only straight white guys. Only that. Ever.

* – That’s what it’s called, right, Bill O’Reilly (or was it Glenn Beck I don’t even know any more they’re all like the same person) is no longer actually intelligible through all the froth, so I’m guessing.

Categories
books science fiction

Embassytown

I’ve finally found a way to love China Miéville.

Which I feel really guilty about. Not loving him before, that is. I’ve tried to read The City and the City and Kraken and I ended up giving up on both books. I couldn’t get into them. The prose was beautiful and simultaneously felt entirely opaque to me.

And for once, this isn’t one I blame the author for. I feel like there’s some sort of inner disfunction that I have going, preventing me from really sinking into the story. I’m a bit lazy as a reader, sometimes, and I tend to give up on challenging things because I’d rather read about people shooting at each other after I’ve had a brain-melting day at work.

However.

I decided I was going to read Embassytown since it’s on the Hugo list, and I’m being a responsible voter. To be honest, I was dreading it a little, since I remember too well beating my head against The City and the City and feeling horribly guilty when I couldn’t do it. Then, when I was asking for audiobook recommendations so I’d have something to listen to on long rides and the amazing Janiece suggested Embassytown. I gave it a try.

Riding along at 18mph and sweating fit to die is apparently a place where I can stop wrestling with prose and just absorb it. I let the words wash over me while I’m building up a good burn, and they just are. It was wonderful, and I finally understand why people have such fabulous things to say about China Miéville’s books.

I’m thinking this might just be how China Miéville’s works are meant to be consumed, at least by me. I think I’ll try The City and the City once I run through my current set of books and see if I like it as much.

By the way? The actual book itself is very interesting. The aliens he came up with are utterly fascinating. There was a place or two where I could have done with a little less exposition, and some of the speechifying at the end went on a little for my tastes, but I found the characters compelling and the culture interesting. So I definitely recommend it. In audiobook format, of course.

Categories
rants sarcasm science fiction

Boy Fiction Versus Girl Fiction

A quote:

The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise. While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first. “Game of Thrones” is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.

(Emphasis added by me.)

Okay, so let me first admit that I should probably get my nerd card taken away, since I don’t give much of a crap about Game of Thrones, having not read the books yet since I’ve heard so many people whining about the series being unfinished and I don’t like to be left hanging. And at this point, so many people have been going on and on and on about it that I’m just kind of tired of hearing about it and the contrary little gremlin that lives somewhere around my pituitary gland is whispering, “Well if it’s that popular you don’t want anything to do with it anyway.”

So this has really nothing to do with Game of Thrones per se, but rather the mind-boggling stupidity that it’s brought out in some people. Namely the person that penned the above quote, in a NYT review.

Seriously, can we please dispense with this absolutely stupid notion of boy fiction and girl fiction already? Can we please let go of the tired, ridiculous notion that women don’t like things unless there’s like, sex and romance or some shit, because apparently we just don’t enjoy politics or watching people getting blown up or whatever?

I’m actually not even sure if Ms. Bellafante is saying that she thinks women couldn’t possibly like Game of Thrones if it weren’t for all the sexy-sexy time, or if she’s just saying that studio execs must believe that, or what. Though after reading the paragraph over and over, through the red haze of sheer annoyance I feel pretty sure that it’s a ridiculous statement any way you read it. And by the way, if we’re being stereotypical and sexist, isn’t lots of sex a boy thing? Because chicks just want relationships and romance and shit, and then all the subsequent sex is candle-lit and arty and there’s a mushy soundtrack with piano and lots of strings.

I could go on and on about just how many women I know who utterly love the book series and are excited about the TV series. I could also go on and on about how I got hooked on fantasy in general because my mom read The Hobbit to my brother and I when we were little kids. But I’m not.

My gripe is actually a lot more general. You know, from high school on I’ve been exposed to a lot of sneering comments about how, of the available nerd genres, fantasy is girl fiction and scifi is boy fiction because our pitiful ladybrains can’t handle all the science and guns and whatever in scifi. And now apparently fantasy isn’t girl fiction any more either, not unless it includes a sufficient quantity of mushy stuff to go with the violence, because our ladybrains just can’t enjoy anything if people aren’t frantically humping each other.

FFS, could you assholes make up your minds about what women are allowed to like? At this rate, I’m going to have to give up reading all together, and then I’ll apparently only be allowed to watch Jersey Shore or something similarly vacuous. At which point I intend to put a hole through my skull with my dad’s cordless power drill.

Or maybe we could just dispense with all the stupidly sexist generalization and – I admit this is a radical notion, but hang with me here – just let people like whatever the hell it is they like without linking it to their gender?

You’ll get my copy of Old Man’s War when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Categories
science fiction writing

The Mid-vacation Post

So far, it’s been a nice visit to the UK, which is really no surprise to anyone. Christmas and Boxing Day were big family get togethers, which I enjoyed and only got a little drunk for. My jet lag problem is still present this year, though I think not nearly as obnoxious as it’s been in years past. I’ve had to take naps on a couple of days, and have had a little bit of insomnia, but not to the point that I’ve been up at 3 in the morning and completely unable to sleep like I have been in other years.

The weather in the UK has been just fine as far as I’m concerned. There’s been a lot of do about the temperature being below zero C, but I went for an hour and a half walk in it on Christmas morning while everyone else was at mass, and it was perfectly fine other than my ears getting cold since I forgot my hat back in the US. I think the bigger problem is just that the cold temperatures means the ice doesn’t melt, and I guess this part of the UK doesn’t know the wonders of car-destroying mag chloride the way we do in Colorado. I did have to avoid some terrifying icy sidewalks during my walk, to be sure. But other than that, it hasn’s been any kind of Snowmageddon. Yesterday when we got back from London (around 2200) it was actually raining fairly heavily, so that’s hopefully a sign that it’s getting a bit warmer and the ice will go away. We ended up taking a cab from the train station at Wokingham, since the line west of it was shut down and the rain was nasty enough we didn’t feel like waiting for the bus, or walking home once we caught said bus.

Speaking of Snowmageddon, we landed all right, but Heathrow has still apparently not gotten its shit together. Once we landed we had to park somewhere in the back of beyond for a good twenty minutes because there was nowhere for our plane to go, and then moved to a slightly less far away parking spot so that we could take buses to the terminal. Immigration was fast, but then we spent a stupid amount of time waiting for our luggage. I was also insanely thirsty the entire time, and there was nowhere to get anything to drink, though I could have apparently bought a SIM card from a vending machine if I wanted to. Maybe you can suck on those like mints. Anyway, our flight landed not long after 0900, and we didn’t get our luggage collected and get out of there until after 1100. There was also a frightening graveyard of lost and unclaimed baggage taking up one entire section of the claim, which did not inspire confidence.

It’s also worth noting that I didn’t get to sit next to Mike for most of the flight, since the television for his seat was broken, and they moved him to the only empty seat on the airplane so he had something to do. I mostly used the flight to catch up on movies… I watched Toy Story 3, which I thought was very good and don’t feel at all ashamed about sniffling through. I also watched The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The funny thing is, when Mike and I met up after landing and were talking about the movies we watched, we could each name two of them and it took us forever to remember which one the third was. For both of us, it was that movie. Which I think pretty much says all you need to know about how utterly unremarkable it was as a film.

Yesterday Mike and I went in to London. I paid a quick visit to Harrod’s – the store was insanely busy, but everyone apparently just desperately wanted to buy perfume. After we got out of that section of the store it was just fine, and we were in and out in less than twenty minutes. After that we met up with Sam and Rick, and spent the rest of the day taking up space in a pub and playing board games. The game we started off with was Ticket to Ride, which was a lot of fun and I’m going to have to pick up a copy once my checking account stops crying about the furnace.

Oh yes, translation for any UK readers: by furnace, I mean boiler. Even though it has nothing to do with boiling water. I do not in fact own any sort of smelting equipment. This announcement brought to you by Mike’s parents, who found that particular vocabulary mix-up very entertaining.

The Doctor Who Christmas special was pretty good, I think. I wouldn’t place it higher than the first Christmas Invasion, or even the Runaway Bride, but I definitely liked it better than the silly episode with the space Titanic, or the one from two years ago that was kind of about the cyberman and all it really had going was a lovely steampunkish Victorian setting. I’d say this one was as close at Doctor Who’s really gotten to just out and out producing a fable, and while it had the normal plot holes that you could drive a truck through, it at least had a lot more life in it than the last couple of episodes I’ve seen. (Which were, for the record, Victory of the Daleks and The Adventures of Spitty Timothy Dalton as the Most Underused Rassilon Imageinable [not its actual title].) Really, considering that I feel like the entire episode was based around someone saying, “I’ve got this awesome mental image of a shark flying through the air, pulling a rickshaw… let’s combine that with Christmas!” the end result was surprisingly coherent and fun. It’s also convinced me to give Matt Smith another chance as the Doctor… considering my first exposure to him was the underwhelmingly written turd of a Dalek episode from his season, he really needed something to recommend him.

I think a some point I may have to devote a post to how I feel about the way the Daleks have been used in recent episodes. It won’t be a very nice post.

Today Mike and I are headed off to Brighton to see Sam and Dan and Rhi and hopefully Captain Stu, so that’s exciting. It’s hard to believe we’re already at the midpoint of our trip, though this one’s a few days shorter than trips we’ve taken in the past, since Mike ran out of vacation. Something to do with a wedding.

Also, Anotherealm has now published its 2011 lineup. Transportation will be the September offering – I’m really excited about that!