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anathenema posted:That seems like a benign nerd thing. Did the sex slave thing happen in his books or am I thinking of another creepy dude? Sex slave thing did happen in that series. It was egregious, the scene I remember involved "pretty college girls" wearing dog collars and translucent clothes calling everybody 'my lord' while acting as wait staff in king nerd's new castle. I found it particularly creepy due to the fact that the novel takes place in the city where I grew up, came out while I was in college, and the university the "college girls" came from was heavily implied to be my university meaning the girls he was creeping on and fantasizing about enslaving were literally my friends and classmates. Shitlord status extends to him because he goes out of his way to defend his creepy bad novels online. I wish I had kept the link but honestly it was nothing special, basically just "you're too stupid to appreciate my genius". andrew smash fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Feb 18, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 14:57
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Jedit posted:I'm not bothered by it, "death of the author" and all that. In the case of SM Stirling, though, I wish death of the author applied literally so he wouldn't write any more lovely books. "Excellent genre fiction" is not a sin of which he can be accused. This a thousand times over. I haven't read peshawar lancers so maybe it's different but Dies the Fire made my skin crawl due to creepiness and my eyes roll from frank stupidity.
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Feb 18, 2014 15:00
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andrew smash posted:This a thousand times over. I haven't read peshawar lancers so maybe it's different but Dies the Fire made my skin crawl due to creepiness and my eyes roll from frank stupidity.
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Feb 18, 2014 18:05
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Drakyn posted:If you don't like it, maybe you should try his Draka series (no etymological relation)! After all, we've all been dying to hear the alt-history story of how the entire universe gives a country of South African ultra-Nazis increasingly improbable and insane handjobs until they win at everything forever. With lots of gratuitous slavery and sex.
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Feb 18, 2014 20:16
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andrew smash posted:This a thousand times over. I haven't read peshawar lancers so maybe it's different but Dies the Fire made my skin crawl due to creepiness and my eyes roll from frank stupidity. Man, maybe I need to revise my standards upward then. That or maybe he is capable of briefly freeing himself from his insatiable love of enslaving women and orientalism *flips through book* never mind. I still liked it for its alternate history aspects and Benjamin Disraeli giving his life fighting the cannibal hordes. In sort of the same way that I kind of enjoyed Armor, despite it basically being an updated Starship Troopers for people for whom the fascism of the original was not explicit enough. I'm sort of loath to bring him up in this thread, in case it turns out he's also an unbearable twit, but has anyone else here read Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick? The rumor has it that he was so sick of fantasy authors recapitulating the Lord of the Rings that he tried to write something which applied a radically new take on the classic forms. In the book, dragons are basically jet fighters that can hate, and a changeling girl enslaved in a factory meets one that has broken the bonds of slavery and now seeks freedom. I think (and the ending has some regrettable hallmarks of the era's fiction, and so is unclear) that he ends up trying to destroy the matrix of the universe as revenge for daring to create him with her help, and it's pretty metal. There was a sequel recently, Dragons of Babel, I haven't read yet.
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Feb 18, 2014 20:31
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Swanwick's a neat author and I wish I'd read more of his stuff. I sort of group him in with Mieville in my head.
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Feb 18, 2014 20:43
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I'd add the caveat that that series is very obviously the story of her 1st edition AD&D paladin's campaign with the numbers filed off. She even gets her warhorse at fourth level and everything. It's still better than most things of that ilk but if that kind of thing bothers you be aware. One of my best friends spends many a Thanksgiving dinner with the Moon family. And yes, the series is directly rooted in a D&D campaign. She was strongly encouraged to set the stories down in novel form and evolve them. The research on medieval torture and military units is fairly meticulous. The first books are the strongest. Fantasy isn't her usual genre and she's far more comfortable in space opera. This is apparent once the story goes beyond the initial D&D framework. One of my most treasured books is the 'Deed' omnibus with a note from Elizabeth on some of my own (bad) improv roleplay I'd done that had roots in her Paksenarrion character. As far as the SFWA shitlord debate ... it still seems like the Gor love/hate unending hushhush debate and pulp vs serious fiction that never the twain can mix. Which isn't true, but its all too easy to devolve as titillation sells. Although this is very much a 1000 foot view from someone who reads anything and everything, good, bad and horrible without worrying about the politics or bent of the author outside of going "huh ... welp, there's a rather blatant [insert -ism word] plug." I don't worry about it, I just take enjoyment where I can find it from a phrase, a cheap laugh or an integrated world.
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Feb 18, 2014 21:05
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Does anyone have any of Elizabeth Moon's Sci-Fi they'd recommend? I greatly enjoyed the Deed of Paksenarrion (admittedly when I was a teenager) so I'd love to give some of her space opera stuff a try.
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Feb 18, 2014 22:40
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spider bethlehem posted:I'm sort of loath to bring him up in this thread, in case it turns out he's also an unbearable twit, but has anyone else here read Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick? The rumor has it that he was so sick of fantasy authors recapitulating the Lord of the Rings that he tried to write something which applied a radically new take on the classic forms. In the book, dragons are basically jet fighters that can hate, and a changeling girl enslaved in a factory meets one that has broken the bonds of slavery and now seeks freedom. I think (and the ending has some regrettable hallmarks of the era's fiction, and so is unclear) that he ends up trying to destroy the matrix of the universe as revenge for daring to create him with her help, and it's pretty metal. There was a sequel recently, Dragons of Babel, I haven't read yet. I read this book about 10 years back and remember really enjoying it. I might reread based on your post.
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Feb 18, 2014 22:48
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syphon posted:Does anyone have any of Elizabeth Moon's Sci-Fi they'd recommend? I greatly enjoyed the Deed of Paksenarrion (admittedly when I was a teenager) so I'd love to give some of her space opera stuff a try. The Heris Serrano trilogy was pretty fun. Hunting Party, Sporting Chance and Winning Colors. It's about a future space navy captain after she gets wrongfully dismissed from the military and has to work on a civilian ship.
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Feb 18, 2014 23:12
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General Battuta posted:This is an aftershock of the eruption last year over sexism in the SFWA Bulletin (which is, mind you, the trade publication of a professional organization). The Bulletin was suspended, its editor fired, and a council proposed to keep oversight on the Bulletin to make sure it didn't (for example) ship issues with bikini barbarians on the cover and columns discussing which women in the industry were the hottest. Here are some more details. While I am going to focus the rest of this on the main instigator, there is a lot of bullshit that deserves to be examined there. This fool isn't an isolated case. Here is the thread in question. There is context (such as it is) for things, and you can see what that tumblr decided not to preserve, and who said some of the unattributed quotes The Daily Dot linked to this public thread discussing it all on Sunday Here is where Mr Fodera threatened to sue for libel for linking to a public comment thread Here is former SFWA president John Scalzi commenting on the issue. Here is Ken White ripping apart the idea this is libel And here is Mary Robinette Kowal discussing her reaction to this kind of poo poo. The thing that really stands out to me is that Sean Fodera, who is not a member of SFWA, but is associate director of contracts for Macmillan is the "old white guy" who started this. More importantly, he, a non member, picked this fight with former vice president of SFWA, former secretary of SFWA, and Hugo award winning author Mary Robinette Kowal. So what we really have here is a hack who isn't good enough to actually get picked up and published trying to act as gatekeeper to shut down the people who quite clearly are good enough to do the job (being paid, published, and award winning authors and all). Because... reasons. The industry has spoken, the professional group has spoken, and the awards committees have spoken. But this little poo poo who can't hack it against an increasingly diverse field of authors is upset that changes are being made so that the newer, non old white male authors will feel welcome by the profession. It is an absolute textbook example of a reactionary attempting to preserve privilege. And he deserves to be poo poo on from great height for all this nonsense. It might almost be amusing if not for the fact that given his position at Macmillan he can act as a gatekeeper against the young non white and non male authors he is angry are being accepted. Also, his name looks like "Mr Fedora" Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Feb 18, 2014 |
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Feb 18, 2014 23:39
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andrew smash posted:I read this book about 10 years back and remember really enjoying it. I might reread based on your post. I originally read it when I was like 12 (looking for another godawful dragonlance book, got a faceful of nightmare fantasy) so the impact was heightened but I actually recommend it to everyone who wants to try something new within sci fi and fantasy genres. Like Hieronymous pointed out, he's similar in some ways to Mieville in his slightly punk tinged fantasy and his willingness to explore mythologies that aren't rooted in Star Trek-style "wrinkly forehead aliens/pointy eared elves". I've never managed to get more than 100 pages into any mieville book, though. Swanwick actually has a wonderful obsession with ancient ritual updated to modern, if not sensibility, then at least technology. One of his shorts in Gravity's Angels is about an annual American Idol-style campaign through a disaster-riddled America for poor musicians to genetically alter into Janice Joplin so she can be ritually murdered by the crowd and expiate the mad carnal energy of people doomed to radioactive death So, pretty 
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Feb 18, 2014 23:47
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Fried Chicken posted:Here are some more details. While I am going to focus the rest of this on the main instigator, there is a lot of bullshit that deserves to be examined there. This fool isn't an isolated case. This is an excellent summary; thanks for posting it all. How grown rear end people can be this unprofessional and not immediately get poo poo-canned is mind-boggling to me.
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Feb 18, 2014 23:54
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Fried Chicken posted:Here are some more details. While I am going to focus the rest of this on the main instigator, there is a lot of bullshit that deserves to be examined there. This fool isn't an isolated case. That's odd, I don't seem to be in the Schadenfreude thread, and yet this is exactly what I feel here and now. Thank you Fried Chicken. I used to think that the issues of privilege and (to be generous) insensitivity to issues of race, gender, sexuality and consent, was intrinsic to the genre of science fiction for some reason. Now it's becoming clear that a number of people at the publishing end seem to have perpetuated exactly this kind of writing and thinking. That's encouraging.
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Feb 19, 2014 00:09
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spider bethlehem posted:I'm sort of loath to bring him up in this thread, in case it turns out he's also an unbearable twit, but has anyone else here read Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick? The rumor has it that he was so sick of fantasy authors recapitulating the Lord of the Rings that he tried to write something which applied a radically new take on the classic forms. In the book, dragons are basically jet fighters that can hate, and a changeling girl enslaved in a factory meets one that has broken the bonds of slavery and now seeks freedom. I think (and the ending has some regrettable hallmarks of the era's fiction, and so is unclear) that he ends up trying to destroy the matrix of the universe as revenge for daring to create him with her help, and it's pretty metal. There was a sequel recently, Dragons of Babel, I haven't read yet.
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Feb 19, 2014 03:41
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Swanwick's a neat author and I wish I'd read more of his stuff. I sort of group him in with Mieville in my head. I read Stations of the Tide a few months ago and it was great. Someone in this thread said it was similar to Gene Wolfe, and they weren't wrong. Swanwick is definitely good at world building, so based on that I'd read The Iron Dragon's Daughter.
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Feb 19, 2014 03:44
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Fried Chicken posted:Here is the thread in question. There is context (such as it is) for things, and you can see what that tumblr decided not to preserve, and who said some of the unattributed quotes I wonder how he'd react if someone told him Blizzard Entertainment took the same root idea as Riftwar and made more money than he's physically capable of imagining with it. It'd be a nice capstone to the sales-envy chat they were spitting about near the earlier pages. And I really need to find Iron Dragon's Daughter. I've read the sequel, but not that, and it's one of those things you think to do but never manage to remember. Drakyn fucked around with this message at 06:33 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 06:22
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Drakyn posted:And I really need to find Iron Dragon's Daughter. I've read the sequel, but not that, and it's one of those things you think to do but never manage to remember. Amazon's "wish list" is a good tool for that kind of thing. You can just save them to the list and then when you need something to bump an order over the $25 ceiling for free shipping, you have your list.
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Feb 19, 2014 06:32
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Drakyn posted:This thing is loving ridiculous to read in the most horrifying and wonderful way. A bunch of familiar names engaged in the most tediously familiar internet dickery-gossip, only in an I-am-old-and-have-decided-that-is-my-identity way, where you can't be assed to try to understand the internet, or copyright law, or any event of the past four years, or that your hairline isn't the only part of reality that changes over time. A dozen cranks who've known each other for multiple decades jammed into a chipped cupboard in a corner of the internet complaining loudly into each other's asses about how You're a bolder person than I. I waded into it and was chased out by a wave of grandpa fumes and get-off-my-lawn. I just finished a Margaret Atwood tear. Oryx and Crake, Year of the Flood, and Handmaid's Tale in about a month (audiobooks and telecommuting...). I am always blown away by how good Handmaid's Tale is. And by how profoundly let down I am by Year of the Flood. Oryx and Crake was pretty good but Year of the Flood pulls off a seriously unexpected move by retroactively destroying a lot of the worldbuilding from the previous book.
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Feb 19, 2014 06:46
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The thing is there's actually two old white men involved. The stuff summarized there is actually all a response to the events summarized here. This is some seriously ridiculous poo poo going on here.
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Feb 19, 2014 07:06
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quote:He calls Kowal, who is a Hugo-award-winning author, "an unperson… no one you should have heard of." Then he goes on to compare her to an aggressive dog:
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Feb 19, 2014 13:03
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Decius posted:The Cherryh-stuff is some disappointing poo poo. I thought better of her. I am not sure what you find disappointing. I took the trouble to find her actual post on Facebook and saw nothing inflammatory. CJ Cherryh posted:The SFWA thing that will not die. Actual Post There is no other quote, and I am not even sure she actually signed the petition (her name is there without comment).
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Feb 19, 2014 13:23
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Zola posted:I am not sure what you find disappointing. I took the trouble to find her actual post on Facebook and saw nothing inflammatory. She might have deleted a post.
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Feb 19, 2014 13:34
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The post I linked to is the one that is quoted in the opening quote of that web page from the link. Assume you are correct and a post was deleted. Would you prefer she had made a post against free speech? Again, I don't get what's to be offended about. I've been following her for a long time, and getting into this sort of tempest in a teapot is not her style at all. You don't have to take my word for this, just look at her blog and Facebook page for yourself. With a complete lack of evidence, I'm inclined to think that something was taken out of context.
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Feb 19, 2014 13:58
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Zola posted:The post I linked to is the one that is quoted in the opening quote of that web page from the link. Assume you are correct and a post was deleted. Would you prefer she had made a post against free speech? Again, I don't get what's to be offended about.
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Feb 19, 2014 14:01
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Cardiovorax posted:Because "free speech" is a dogwhistle code word for "stop telling me not to be racist/sexist/homophobic!" The MRA movement in particular loves to tell people that they're just about free speech, not hating women. I agree that there are some people who use the term "free speech" in the way that you describe. However, I think you are doing a huge number of people a disservice by assuming that any person using the term "free speech" is using it as a "dogwhistle code word". CJ Cherryh posted:Sometimes these communications have contained words that mean something worse to one side than they did in the intent of those that fired them off. This is the heart of the problem, I think. Just because a person interprets a word in one way doesn't mean the rest of the world does. There's a big difference between saying "I think he's right" and "I think he has a right to express his opinion and I don't think he should be stopped from doing so". Given what I have seen of CJ Cherryh, I'd believe her intent was the latter.
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Feb 19, 2014 14:34
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If C.J. Cherryh thinks "you are a vapid whore and I am literally as afraid of you as I am of rabid dogs because you wear dresses in public sometimes" is an opinion the SFWA should allow expressing, then she's a dipshit regardless.
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Feb 19, 2014 14:41
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Zola posted:I am not sure what you find disappointing. I took the trouble to find her actual post on Facebook and saw nothing inflammatory. http://radishreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Bulletin-petition3.pdf She is one of the signatories to the petition. Cardiovorax posted:If C.J. Cherryh thinks "you are a vapid whore and I am literally as afraid of you as I am of rabid dogs because you wear dresses in public sometimes" is an opinion the SFWA should allow expressing, then she's a dipshit regardless. That rabid dogs stuff is not from anyone connected to the petition; that is from a non-SFWA member (but an editor at a major publishing house!) talking about the angry reactions to that petition. You're conflating two separate blow-ups.
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Feb 19, 2014 14:48
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The rabid dogs discussion emerged from discussion of the petition. I've always liked CJ Cherryh myself, but I'm definitely disappointed she signed this thing (as well as Nancy Kress).
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Feb 19, 2014 17:49
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Is River of Gods the right place to start with Ian McDonald?
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Feb 19, 2014 17:56
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Zola posted:I agree that there are some people who use the term "free speech" in the way that you describe. However, I think you are doing a huge number of people a disservice by assuming that any person using the term "free speech" is using it as a "dogwhistle code word". I think in the context of issues like sexism or racism (like this specific discussion), "free speech" is most definitely a code word. It's a different thing entirely if we're talking about government suppression of dissent or journalists being imprisoned. However, something like this: quote:The cover of the 200th issue of the Bulletin was part and parcel of the furor that has led to its suspension. Cries of “sexism,” portraying women as “sex objects,” and other like phrases reached the ears of the President and will now become part of the “review process” overseen by the new editor, “volunteers and an advisory board” and the President himself. Covers like the one shown here are not new. They have graced the covers of countless magazine and book covers for many decades. So have magazine and book covers featuring handsome, ripped and rugged males in various stages of dress, depending on the story and what the publisher hopes will appeal to his readership in order to advance sales. Yet there are those who object strenuously to a sexy female (scantily clad or otherwise) on the cover of anything, and always somewhere in the mix of reasons, primary among them is that women are being portrayed as sex objects and that such covers are blatantly sexist and therefore are to be avoided, or removed, or are otherwise to be castigated and held up to ridicule and scorn. ...has nothing to do with freedom of speech. There is nothing oppressive or legally actionable about the New York Times or whatever declining my demands to put up a crudely photoshopped racist picture of Barack Obama. quote:This is the heart of the problem, I think. Just because a person interprets a word in one way doesn't mean the rest of the world does. There's a big difference between saying "I think he's right" and "I think he has a right to express his opinion and I don't think he should be stopped from doing so". Why defend initial speech and not response speech? Mere criticism of speech does not constitute being "stopped from doing so". I'm a big believer in freedom of speech, but I'm also a big believer in the resultant social consequences. fookolt fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 18:24
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General Battuta posted:The rabid dogs discussion emerged from discussion of the petition. I've always liked CJ Cherryh myself, but I'm definitely disappointed she signed this thing (as well as Nancy Kress). I'd assume that a number of those signatures come from people who worry about a review board full of Scott Fedoras suppressing any discussion of gender issues, sexuality, etc. making it into the bulletin. It's not an unreasonable viewpoint, honestly, although in the context of what the review board was intended to prevent it seems odd. If I was Cherryh I'd be more ashamed of having my name associated with such a terribly written petition.
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Feb 19, 2014 18:28
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spider bethlehem posted:You're a bolder person than I. I waded into it and was chased out by a wave of grandpa fumes and get-off-my-lawn. Can you expand on this? It's almost 2 years since I read Year of the Flood and don't remember anything like that.
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Feb 19, 2014 19:59
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fookolt posted:Why defend initial speech and not response speech? Mere criticism of speech does not constitute being "stopped from doing so". I'm a big believer in freedom of speech, but I'm also a big believer in the resultant social consequences.
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Feb 19, 2014 20:12
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That argument is pretty relevant in New Zealand politics at the moment. One of our right wing nut jobs (that is hell bent on bringing terrible US politics here) expressed his dumb opinion about how "women should stay in the kitchen and gays in the closet". When he was called out as sexist and homophobic for his comments he threatened to sue for defamation. You're all welcome to come to the NZ Megathread and laugh at how terrible he is if you like. Slightly more thread-related: Is there some curated list of sci-fi and fantasy authors who are creeps or bigots? It would be nice to have a reference list so I don't accidentally give them money. I was disappointed when ya'll posted that Mike Resnick was involved in that whole thing, I like what I have read of him so far.
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Feb 19, 2014 21:03
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It feels to me that making up a list of "authors to boycott because someone somewhere doesn't like something they said or did" (no matter how justified) is a slippery slope to misery. At some point you have to separate enjoying a work of art from the personal views of its creator, or you might as well give up reading altogether.
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Feb 19, 2014 21:29
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People on this site in particular are very quick to assert an author's views make him or her unreadable. The changes to the moderation lately are diminishing that, but Jesus it often seems people are worried about thinking incorrectly. When dealing with far future poo poo a lot of political views become irrelevant. For instance, fascism becomes kind of an odd discussion when the governing body truly is several hundred times more intelligent than us.
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Feb 19, 2014 21:35
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There are lots of non-racist/non-sexist authors out there who write good books, so I prefer to support them with my purchases over racist/sexist authors. This hand-wringing over GOING TOO FAR is just dumb.
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Feb 19, 2014 21:40
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I feel like every few pages this thread becomes the, "Sociopolitical opinions of sci/fi fantasy authors" rather than "The sci/fi fantasy thread." Can't people just google the author and decide for themselves if their opinions make them too reprehensible to read? It seems like a lot of people enjoy discussing this topic, but I'd rather it be its own thread because I just skim until people talk about actual books.
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Feb 19, 2014 21:46
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SF/F politics are important to me as an SF/F writer because I will probably run into a lot of these people at industry events and I don't want to end up sitting next to them at a dinner table. I get why readers might be less interested, but honestly I think it's important to be aware of what authors believe - you can choose how much to separate a work from its author, but with so many cases of writers putting their politics or personal predilections into a work, I think it's a case of forewarned is forearmed.
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Feb 19, 2014 22:28
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