"What opinion do you have on the Sad/Rabid Puppies debate?" Topic

As some of us are aware, there is quite the contentious debate going on in sci-fi.

Do you have a positive or negative opinion on the Sad/Rabid Puppy Hugo slate?

Keep it polite, leave politics out of it, I just want to know, do you think this is a good debate for sci-fi to have, or do you think this will tear apart what is already a niche book market?

Due to the use of euphemisms to describe either side, I can't even claim to understand the debate.

-Will

WT Heck are you talking about?

That I want everybody to shut the **** up. It's essentially a mass cluster-troll.

Ha Ha, nerds fighting is funny. Oh wait…

Don't know, don't care. I don't read any SciFI published later than 1985.

Probably no way for this to not turn political.

It should be pretty obvious that I don't support Vox Day or anything he's entangled in.

I'm with Mute Bystander, I have no idea what you are talking about. The name Sad/Rabid Puppy Hugo sounds like the title of a post punk rock trash metal band. I sense I might be better off remaining ignorant.

Given the nature of the issue, leaving politics out is fundamentally impossible.

Zyphyr is correct. This is a political debate at its heart.

Bricoles!

Do I rabidly hate those sad puppies or do I sadly hate those rabid puppies? Food for thought! Variations of this very question have haunted man since time immemorial.

I gather it's something along the lines of "Since Card is a hateful conservative, Ender's Game can't be a good book ".

Had the same debate with Heinlein.

I thought Ender's Game was garbage before I knew who Card was, if that's any consolation.

Heinlein I like a lot but you can chart every political position known to man, by reading his books in order. Man got around!
Sometimes I think he just liked exploring weird positions.

As far as the topic at hand, a lot of authors have written about it on their respective blogs. Might be better reading than any of us goons here.

So after I guessed what it was about (and I got it 180 degrees wrong…) I Googled it. Naturally the one site I bothered to look up was totally one sided. As to be expected.
Oh my goodness. People are LEGALLY manipulating the system! I am shocked SHOCKED!!!

For the record I attended two WorldCons back on the 70s. Those people make Wargamers look sane.

yeah, there's like a nerd singularity when you get enough people into one spot, where things start detaching from reality pretty fast.

> Sometimes I think he just liked exploring weird positions.

From what I hear about his latter works that is an interesting way to phrase it…

I mean, this is the guy who went from "Give everyone money and tax the rich 100%" to "Build more nuclear bombs to fight the Russkies" :-)

But well, someone should stand up for the socialist-fascist-anarchist democratic monarchists ;)

I think … Vox "literally a white supremacist" "literally supports acid attacks on women" "also somehow a Neanderthal supremacist" Day … and his Rabid Puppies slate … are pretty bad.

I think both sides can agree on at least the first half of this, even if they like the slate, but let's argue about Heinlein instead.

My first inclination is that this should be on the Fez since this is a political issue and not a gaming issue, though Gamergate is a bit nebulous -- the politicization of games. So perhaps it does need to be discussed since I've heard mumblings about tabletop RPGs getting sucked into this culture/political war mess.

link

And since fullarena has dived into this mess, this was about the Hugo awards and SciFi awards in general being captured by social justice activists and shutting out authors who didn't hold their views. By the time the time the dust settled, fans had voted in a slate of non-PC authors from diverse backgrounds in defiance of the Establishment that had ended up in control of the awards system. You can see Larry Correia's stuff on it here if you want more background:

link

So anyway, the first Heinlein book I read was The Number of the Beast, in my school library. That was perhaps not a good place to start. Some of his other books are good though! In conclusion, Heinlein is an author of contrasts.

aaaand it's beginning.

I predict 100+ posts and at least 2 DH'ed. Any over-unders?

Heinlein discussion isn't that bad. Well, except for those people who use the word "grok" in everyday conversation. I think I'll edit my previous post though, maybe cut it down to the accurate descriptions of Vox Day.

We could have a long discussion about inclusiveness in gaming that'd be relevant to our hobby.

But it'd be awful.

This hobby could do with better representation of Neanderthals and Neanderthal descendants, and also more skeletons. Skeletons are relatively common in fantasy, but in SF? You're lucky to get something like 40K's Legion of the Damned, and they're not even really skeletons. Be more inclusive, hobby, please.

my scifi needs more boobies.
yes, that's my opinion.
sad/rabid? who cares. give me chest puppies every time.

When Battle Hack gets done, I'll make sure to put in a skeleton character, just for you.

Yes, social justice skeleton infiltration of another ruleset successful! You're the best, Mr Weasel.

So I read some stuff etc.
A pox on both their houses.
Scifi had stopped being interesting for me 30 years ago. I may have read five? new books in that time.

But it is interesting watching a Nerd Civil War play out in which I have no interest.

@SBminisguy..whoever that guy was who wrote that first article…He really needed to lighten up. I play games to have fun.

For the record, two nominated works are gaming-related. One is a nonfiction work on space combat by the creator of Attack Vector: Tactical. The other, in the fan writing category, is a series of essays on "Appendix N" fiction that influenced role-playing games and gamers.

I met Orson Scott Card when I was in college. He was into theater then, and gave a guest lecture to my drama class.

And a few years later, Ender's Game began appearing in Analog magazine, and I realized it was the same guy!

He seemed perfectly ordinary to me.

Countdown to flame war in 5..4..3..

Ah…. another dawghouse trap.

I had no idea this existed until I came upon it here.

I simply smile and move on.

The name Sad/Rabid Puppy Hugo sounds like the title of a post punk rock trash metal band.

I was in a (horrible) band called Rabid Mongoose. Good times. Good times.

Ender's Game was a fun read. It takes a special kind of genius to write a book where two kids take over world politics by arguing on internet forums. A bit too much "hard men making hard choices," but it's still pretty good. The sequel was better, although I think the rest of the series nosedived off the quality cliffs. I think at least the first book reads better at the right age, but that's true of a lot of SF.

Winston Smith, if you come back to SF at some point there has been some wonderful stuff published recently!

Personal logo M1Fanboy Supporting Member of TMP 10 Jun 2015 10:27 a.m. PST
@SBminisguy..whoever that guy was who wrote that first article…He really needed to lighten up. I play games to have fun.

Yep, I agree, but if folks like him start to make an internet fuss to make gaming more "inclusive" and "just" and start applying deconstructionist cant to gaming, "Are Orcs inherently evil or misunderstood and suffer from negative stereotyping" type stuff, or that Orcs are an analogy of so-and-so's social struggle in a [insert your favorite meme here] dominated society, and aim that stuff at retail distribution focused companies like Wizards and FFG -- look out!

One is a nonfiction work on space combat by the creator of Attack Vector: Tactical.

I want to make it perfectly clear that the article is completely non-political.

(It should be obvious, but with everything swirling around …)

And only $0.99 USD! link

The Hot Equations: Thermodynamics and Military SF
The Hot Equations puts several assumptions about the future of space combat under a microscope, using reasonable near extrapolations of technology and accepting fundamental laws of physics.

@sbminisgyuy.

And to me, this is why the debate is germane?

Many folks involved reside in both worlds, gaming and sci-fi, Charles E. Gannon and Frank Chadwick have written sci fi novels for Baen. Not to mention, Ken's article.

Larry Correia is a 40K gamer and often posts his painting work online. I think he also published a MHI RPG?

In short, I am of the opinion, if they get sick, we might be sneezing before long. Although, in the interests of neutrality, I think it would depend on your definition of what sick is?

In fact, I have a better question. How do we in our hobby view sci-fi literature? Do we see it though the lens of enjoyment of a well told story, or do we look at it as fertile ground for scenario/campaign ideas?

You should read the venom on the competing goldfish forums.

You should read the venom on the competing goldfish forums.

Or the vicious political infighting amongst steam tractor collectors.

I won't comment on the fracas itself. I'm not about to get bit for sticking my hand in the middle of a dog fight! ;)

I will offer an admittedly ridiculously over-simplified solution, though:

Let the market sort it out.

If the Hugo awards don't represent what some SF fans think of as great SF, rather than co-opt it, they should start a competing award.

If editors of the big publishing houses don't like an author's politics and refuse to publish them, the authors should go around them. The days of the "big publishing house" are numbered, after all.

The idea that you can't get your product to market without the support of traditional systems just isn't supportable in the current era – one would think that SF writers, some of whom predicted the impact of technology on markets, would be the first to realize that.

Just my 2 cents . . .

Shawn.

I mean, scifi is big enough to encompass both social deconstruction and "blasters and spaceships".

I think a lot of people on the fringes tend to want to live in a world where both Forever War and John Carter of Mars can't co-exist and that seems like a crappy world to live in, you know?

Having read both, am inclined to agree @Weasel.

Yah. I get the concerns on both sides of the equation, but I am sort of wondering if it's actually that much of a concern, in the end, you know?

I mean, I go to the local (very nice) book stores and I see piles of scifi and fantasy of all kinds.
Some of it is very clearly "just" adventure, and some of it is trying to make a point about something.

Sometimes that point is progressive, sometimes it's conservative.

I don't even know where we'd start to have that conversation about wargaming, if we tried.
I mean, I occasionally get a tinge of a political viewpoint from reading this or that game (and I did the anti-war quotes in NEIS, which I am still shocked nobody complained about), but we're probably a bit more detached from it, than say, the RPG crowd, where that debate happened many years ago.

I mean, D&D was always explicitly inclusive of any player and as early as Runequest, we had a pretty humanist RPG as a deconstruction of the classic fantasy assumptions.
But then, it's a different hobby with a different audience.

I don't even know where this rambling is going now :-)
I feel like there's a discussion to be had here, but I also don't know if it'd actually be very nice to have.

Reason and common sense from the Weasel.

As for the puppies? Bit like Oscars, Emmies, Tonies, et al. Just someone's interpretation and opinion. Move on, nothing worth seeing here.

Heck with the politics – I just find it sad that SF/gaming fans feel the need to limit their hobby to one demographic.

I notice the only people commenting on this thread are American. The whole debate seems a reflection of their two party politics that we see so much of online.

Neither Left or Right is the problem; the perception that there is only Left or Right is the problem. Sincerely no offence to anyone but I'm glad I live in the UK.

Well, it's an American award, so that may be part of it.

I'm Danish btw ;)

Weasel…you know what I mean! :)

But on the point of it being an American award, American awards are used to market products outside of America.

I guess my point is that, as an outsider, America does itself a disservice by defining so much of Americana in such a monochromatic way.