I’m not feeling well today (nausea, exhaustion, pain — basically, my fibromyalgia is being rebellious), so I haven’t been doing much of anything except lie down and hope it passes soon.
Sometimes, when I’m in the right mood and there’s something on my mind, I start composing poetry. I guess today’s one of those days. So, hey, I guess I’ve got another Hugo-related post in me after all.
While once upon a time a fan
Would know a Hugo would impress
In recent years awards began
To seem to lack that same success
Awards for excellence now went
To only those who would express
A social scheme without dissent
And jump on those who might transgressThe story, see, cannot be king,
Not if we’re to fix the mess
For social justice is the thing
And never style or finesse
The value of a tale is found
Only when its words address
A lack of tolerance profound
And so dissent we must repressThese are, we’re told, quite vital jobs
To let society progress
But it just left us with some snobs
Whose way of life was to suppress
This made many puppies cry
And seek a cure for their distress
The best of fiction they could buy
But Hugo wins would just depressBut then one year they tried as one
To get the field to reassess
The old idea that tales are fun
And that’s what Hugos should express
Canine plans weren’t met with glee
But rather lies told by the press
Yet puppies everywhere agree
That they’ll keep trying nonetheless!
Novel Ninja 
A tale’s a pale and sickly thing, it seems,
for it cannot support the dreams
of people who want other ways,
or other laws, or different lays,
but must run in the same old track
as laid by Doc Smith ages back,
with heroes pure and lantern-jawed,
and villains ending overawed.
Not so! you say, That is not fair!
I see no reason anywhere
to doubt my claim. If Iain Banks
and Ken McLeod aren’t in the ranks
of Talespinners, then I fail to see
where I am wrong. Or can it be
to be a “Tale” is to leave undisturbed
those who might be perturbed
by gay sex, feminism or other genders
rather than spaceship battle benders?
There’s room for both the sickly tales
and more robust ones; neither entails
sole claim on bookshelf space,
and, indeed, it’s not the case
that either one’s about to die,
so, Sad Puppies, no need to cry
unless you want, and need, and crave
to drive my sort of tale to the grave.
In which case, I’ll with heroes stand,
Ellison, Le Guin, Delany, Zelazny and
Chiang, Shepard, Mieville, Joanna Russ
and so many more I could discuss
from Alfred Bester to Lois Bujold.
Our numbers so great and so bold
no Puppies could even make a dent.
But I would rather pitch our tent
on the Worldcon fields and say
“All are welcome — come and play!
There’s room for blood and room for style,
room for justice and for guile,
room for books that win awards
and books that don’t — books with swords
and books with compromises. Please,
come in, and all can read at ease.
And then, when puppies stop their barking,
and their smelly territory-marking,
perhaps we’ll get back to fannish games —
complaining about awards, muttering names
of people who we think should win,
without trying to get under each other’s skin.
Tales are good, and tales are great,
But dreams are part of SF too,
And if we would our field renew,
we cannot keep them off our plate.
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You say there’s room for all tales here.
Room for heroes straight and queer.
Room for stories, pop and lit,
Room for all that seems to fit.
It seems to me that you can’t see
The Puppies happily agree.
The only thing that matters there
Is if a story has that flare
That spark of fun and wond’rous sight
To entertain all through the night.
You claim within your shaky rhyme
That what we want amounts to crime
Not so, you see (though you insist),
It’s only message fic that we resist.
We don’t care what else is shown.
Just judge the works on skill alone!
Now if you say we can’t be fans
And argue that we face more bans
Then we know that you desire
To limit fandom to your choir
But if instead you now agree
That marks of a good nominee
Do not depend on politics
Described by one side’s dominance
That only stories truly count
Then we our quarrel shall surmount
Just don’t say we don’t belong
That we’re wrong-fans and have fun wrong.
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(I wonder if in poetry
we’ll find a place we can agree;
if not, at least we entertain
a different argument & explain
ourselves in a manner to amuse
anyone who might, in fact, peruse
our dialogue; and I’ll not cavil
for this debate has been most civil.)
One person’s “message fic”‘s another’s life —
that’s the cause of most of our strife.
For if you ask, say, Mr. Wright,
queer heroes should stay out of sight,
and not everyone thinks that it’s great
to insist upon the unmarked state.
“There’s no message here, it’s just a tale”
has grown old, tired, and stale.
“Just judge the works on skill alone” implies
a single benchmark — under the skies
there’s no such thing. One person’s skill
leaves another with quite a chill.
Let’s take two cases; be specific
about this case of “message fic.”
Some say “Iron Council”, others “Ender’s Game”,
for what most seems to get the name
is work that as I say, perturbs
the reader’s politics or disturbs
their moral sense. If we remove
all those texts, all we do is prove
the arguments laid against us all
by the mainstream — that we just fall
into children’s lit, and not true art.
Perhaps we should take it to our heart
to, as you say, judge the story
in all its full political glory —
and if a story praises kings
or calls for genocide, these things
are part of it, and how we weigh
whether we like it. To my dismay
it seems that Russell’s line was true:
“I’m strong-willed, you’re stubborn, he who
is over there’s a pig-headed fool”
for the other “side”‘s always the tool
of conspiracy, and heavy hands
who make their points and take their stands.
I am naive; this I do admit,
but hope that we could simply quit,
and let people vote and nominate at will.
Will there be ballot-stuffing still?
Of course, for we all love our friends
and vote for things we like, but trends
towards blocs and political dividing lines
do no one any good — the signs
are clear; if we make this our fight
we’ll share the Hugo’s burning light
and when the ashes blow away,
I fear we will both rue the day
when “message” was opposed to “story”
when, I submit, the greatest glory
is when the two are interwoven,
or as many a subtle writer’s proven,
the story’s there to make us think,
for that’s a worthy use of ink
no matter if we agree or not
with what we think the author’s wrought.
As for those who would now say
you’re not true fans, to my dismay
I hate the idea, from either side
but have heard it, harsh, and snide,
from both “sides” of this dispute —
for what does it mean to impute
“That’s not real SF” as some people do?
The fans of said, are they not true,
if what they like is thought not real,
how else are they supposed to feel?
Let’s stop this talk of “message-fic”,
of “not true fans”; both make me sick.
We can argue over who struck who —
what matters is, what shall we do?
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You claim there is no definition
And open fandom is a tradition
But though you tell me we can stay
You also tell us “go away.”
Which is it, then, that you implore?
Which message here shall we ignore?
When faced with claims of fan exclusion
You then accuse us of intrusion.
Ballot-stuffing’s quite the crime
Yet how has that occurred this time?
To ballot-stuff is to vote twice
To vote again for just one’s price
Hugo judges throw those away
They’re quite harsh with foul play
But you, good sir, say we’re a scam
That we wrong-fans are just a sham
And when it comes to your own rules
You treat those different like they’re fools
For if it’s true that all may bide
Then that includes the other side
Art might not say what you will
And artists’ words might make you ill
But is it fair to judge a work
Because a blog made your knee jerk?
No, you say, it can’t be done!
Fiction should be right, not fun!
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Of your poetry I have only this… “But one thing I cannot forgive – the boredom of having to listen to your verses, your second-rate songs, your mediocre performances. Adhere to your special gifts, murder and arson, betrayal and terror. Mutilate your subjects if you must; but with my last breath I beg you – do not mutilate the arts.” – Gaius Petronius.
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Okay then. I’m not Steven, but I’ll be happy to answer in prose.
The problem with the Puppies isn’t that they feel excluded and want to do something about it. Lots of people do, and there are lots of things one can do to call attention to being excluded without excluding other people.
The problem with the Puppies isn’t that they prefer “good stories” to message fiction. Almost all of us do that. We may disagree about what constitutes message fiction, and I think one of Steven’s points was that “message fiction” is frequently found on all sides of any given issue, but only recognized as such by the people who oppose its message… to those who support its message, the piece will be considered “just a good story” with no message at all. That’s a factor the Puppies do not seem to recognize… when they do it themselves, they don’t see it — they look at a story with a blatant message, but one they approve, and consider it just a good story; but that’s only half the problem with this blindness. The other half is that they appear to see the SJWs (a term I’ll address later) applaud stories which the Puppies consider “message fiction” and assume that the REASON the SJWs are delighted with that story is the message. That isn’t true, any more than it’s true that the Puppies themselves are primarily supporting the message in stories *they* enjoy. The truth is far less sinister — we SJWs don’t usually vote based on message because we usually (just like the Puppies) don’t *recognize* the messages we agree with in fiction. We’re just voting for what we perceive as good stories… just as the Puppies claim to do.
I deliberately use the term SJWs, by the way, even though I know that it was intended sarcastically and offends some of the people to whom the Puppies apply it. I do so because it’s a term I wear with pride. You better believe that I’m a warrior for social justice — I spend several hours a day every day working for it through every political channel I have. But I do not consciously base my reading material on that aspect of my life. I read many authors I think are amazing writers, and with whom I have massive political disagreements. In the years when I have a Worldcon membership, I vote for the ones I enjoy, not the ones who share my politics. This is true about most of us, however much the Puppies claim to disbelieve it. It is not only possible to be passionately involved in political causes which are left wing and nevertheless ignore the whole subject when evaluating science fiction books, it’s the usual way of things. If the Puppies are being honest in claiming to believe otherwise, they are making a major error.
Finally, what offends us SJWs about the Puppies’ approach isn’t that they’re nominating books which don’t contain our messages. It’s not even that they’re nominating books which DO contain THEIR messages. Almost all of us have, at times, voted for books which contained right-wing political or social messages. The Puppies frequently address this as though it were our objection to their behavior, and it’s a complete strawman. It was never the objection of most of us.
Here are the real objections:
1) We believe that, in an act of explicit hypocricy, the Puppies (both sorts) claimed to oppose “message fiction” and support Hugo voting based solely on story quality, but actually supported stories of such grossly inferior quality that it is obvious to us that the ONLY qualification for getting on the Puppy lists is a right-wing political message.
2) We believe that, by supporting slates of specifically five nominees in each category, and soliciting support for their entire slate as a body, there was a deliberate attempt by the Puppies not merely to offer voters a choice between their selections and those of the SJWs, but to take over the Hugos completely and prevent any choice from being available except theirs. This is the chief reason behind the No Award campaigns — we believe that the Puppies’ purpose was to deny us agency and *force* a vote for one of their favorites; and we don’t like being pushed around.
3) We believe that, by reaching out to people who are not normally SF readers or Worldcon attendees and asking for their votes, the Puppies are doing the moral equivalent of the graveyard vote. They’re trying to gain extra votes via people who are not normally qualified to vote, and who are not community members in any way. As far as I know, they aren’t even suggesting that these people read the books and get involved in Worldcon as active members… they’re just asking them to put in their votes on a straight ticket, without reading the contents, as a favor to political fellow-travelers. I suspect strongly that, if Vox Day had a story on the ballot and the SJWs asked the NOW to run a campaign to get Hugo votes against it — from people who have never read SF before and had no interest in the subject, and without asking them to read any of the stories in question — the Puppies would rightfully object to this behavior. What they are doing is precisely the same.
4) In reaching out to the Gamergaters in particular, the Puppies are not only going outside the community for votes based solely on shared politics; they are willfully allying themselves with the most vile, dangerous, controlling, rape-culture-based, violent trolls on the Internet. They sought out the worst they could find, and gladly embraced them in order to get votes for their cause. This is bad behavior for several reasons. It demonstrates a total indifference to good and evil behavior, so long as someone votes the way the Puppies want them to, they’re golden in the Puppies’ eyes. It also brings a dangerous group of people into the SF fannish sphere, where they may not be so easily inclined to leave again. And wherever they go, they threaten, harass, and harm people. So the Puppies are willing to put fellow fans in real danger just to get votes for an award.
The whole scenario is very much the same as if I decided that there were insufficient evangelical Christian stories on the ballot. In order to get more on, I published a list of evangelical stories, most of which were abysmally bad because I couldn’t find enough good ones, and all I cared about were that they were evangelical stories. In order to get the evangelical stories to win, not merely be nominated, I appealed to all the Christian fans I knew to nominate my straight list of stories, so that when the ballots came out, there were nothing but my not-very-good evangelical stories in most categories. When people objected to this behavior, I accused them of religious bigotry and hating Christians, and claimed that the only reason I did it was that there had been a conspiracy for years beforehand not to allow any Christian writer to win the award (despite the fact that Christian writers did win on a fairly frequent basis). Then i went and roped in the Westboro Baptist Church, whose members had never read any SF in their lives, and told them, “I’m being persecuted by people who want to keep Christianity out of the Hugo awards. I know you’ve never heard of Worldcon, but please, go buy a membership and vote for this group of books; you’ll be supporting Christianity against persecution!”
And, finally, I looked shocked and surprised when anybody said that my association with the Westboro Baptist Church was objectionable, and answered, “I don’t have anything to do with them! It’s not up to me who likes my selections and decides to vote for them… all I was doing was trying to get good stories onto the ballot, instead of this constant stream of anti-Christian message fiction which is nominated by people determined to keep Christians out. If hateful people come and vote for my stuff, it’s got nothing to do with *me*.”
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Due to Brandolini’s Bullshit Asymmetry Principle, addressing your lies, half-truths, and outright hypocrisy would take up a lot of space. So congratulations, you’re now the star of an entire new fisk.
https://novelninja.wordpress.com/2015/05/04/fake-geeks-go-home-a-hugo-fisk/
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Lol
Dueling poetry is definitely more elegant than most disagreements I’ve seen.
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The Nebula has always been more literary and message oriented. That’s why folks are so upset about the Hugo. It used to be Nebula was high-brow, Hugo was popular.
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And now we have a movement that reaffirms this, and an opposing movement that used to affirm it but now wants to change the rules.
I’ve told my students many times that they will never win a Nebula, and if they prove me wrong then I will be very happy. I think it’s a reasonable prediction, considering that I’m teaching a group of young Roman Catholics. I don’t expect anyone who professess such beliefs to ever get past the Gatekeepers or the Keymasters.
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Only just now did I realize that I missed my chance to write my previous reply in rhyme. Lol
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Cast our eyes back to the dim dark past
when Hugos went to popular works
And writers who were there to last
and not some social justice jerks
Those distant days, when Rowling won,
or Gaiman, or perhaps Bujold,
not radicals like Delany –he’s no fun,
so we mourn those days of old.
🙂
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I caution sir, strain not your weary mind
Early this morn, as you would join the world
Take care as you begin your daily grind
And guard your precious wit you have unfurled
For seems to me your well is dry as bone
Reduced as such to names of decades past
Discarding evidence as has been shown
That Puppies elsewhere have amassed
Should you persist and share your painful verse
Which awkward beats defy all hope to scan
Then I shall have to act afore it’s worse
And rule henceforth your poetry to ban
For sad to say it seems you’re past your prime
As you’ve no wit, and sure you’ve ne’er had rhyme
(Seriously. Your poetry is dreadful. You do know what a meter is, right?)
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Farewell — I will let the readers judge our points, our skills, and our effects. I will encourage you one last time to ask yourself if other people might have different definitions of “fun”, and might see messages where you do not.
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As you know very well, none of us have said a story can’t have messages. We just don’t want doggerel that beats us over the head like a copy of Piers Plowman. You might insist you know what we really think, but your wishing won’t change reality.
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“As you know very well, none of us have said a story can’t have messages. We just don’t want doggerel that beats us over the head like a copy of Piers Plowman.”
I refer you back to the Bertrand Russell quote I referenced before: “I am firm; you are obstinate; he is a pig-headed fool.”
You may feel that someone else’s writing is doggerel; other people may think the same of you. *Neither* one has some magical claim over “Reality” or “True SF”, or any of the terms we’ve been banging about.
You puppies can be sad because your message-fic is unpopular with certain groups of people — but that doesn’t make it any less message-fic to people who don’t agree with you.
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Interestingly, that’s the one thing that hasn’t been claimed by anyone but you. Your side claims we don’t win their awards because we’re not popular enough. Yet your side makes that claim with just 400 people voting on what everyone else likes. Who’s unpopular again?
If we’re truly going to fail, then your side will win without you needing to change the rules. So what are you so afraid of?
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I’d also refer you to the definition of message fiction I linked to before, but I wouldn’t want to strain your brain. I hope you enjoyed your attempt at flying the anti-Puppy banner you were so proud of on Facebook.
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The only thing that might strain my brain there is trying to find a definition — your post goes on at great length (which I cannot, and am not, complaining about) but never does manage to get around to defining it. If you can do so concisely, please do go ahead.
Until that time, I see no reason not to assert that were one to view Iain Banks’ “Surface Detail” or Ken McLeod’s “Star Fraction” as message-fic, that Card’s “Ender’s Game” or Kratman’s “Watch on the Rhine” would not also qualify in the same category. In which case, claiming to vote against “message-fic” means merely against fiction with a message you don’t like, rather than voting against some nebulous Story over Message.
My concern with this divide goes well past the Hugos; as I said, repeatedly, above, it’s not doing anyone but, perhaps, the Hugo Treasurer* any good, at this point. But trying to paint yourselves as defenders of “Just Story” over “message-fic” is at best short-sighted, at worst pernicious — because what it means is encoding the politics of that story as, simply, the Way Things Are To Be.
*because I suspect they’re sleeping better at night, knowing that Supporting Membership purchases will be high. 😉
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Sorry, I haven’t gone back to the comments page until today.
I’m not sure why you can’t find a definition, as I talk about it at length. Unless, of course, you’re reading a different post. It certainly seems you have your own assumptions for what we want. As I’ve said before, keep saying, and will go on repeating, we don’t mind a story with a message. We mind a story where the only thing is the message. I haven’t read two of your examples, and I have no clue what the message behind Watch on the Rhine is (unless “we’re desperate enough to rejuvenate un-executed Nazis to fight these aliens” is somehow a message). Ender’s Game has several, but those who disagree with Card (including myself — sorry to disappoint you, if you thought you’d pigeonholed my politics) can still enjoy the story.
If you want an explicit definition, because you can’t unpack it from previous examples, then try this: Message fic is a story where, if the audience does not agree with the message, the audience cannot enjoy the story.
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“Sorry, I haven’t gone back to the comments page until today.”
No worries.
“I’m not sure why you can’t find a definition, as I talk about it at length.”
Indeed, I think that was some of the issue: I did not find a definition, I found a great deal of discussion around the subject; which made it rather hard to respond concisely.
” We mind a story where the only thing is the message.”
I have yet to see anyone bring up an actual example of a story where that was the case. I have seen plenty of cases where the message appears to have overwhelmed people’s interest otherwise, but that, as you point out, is not the same thing.
” (unless “we’re desperate enough to rejuvenate un-executed Nazis to fight these aliens” is somehow a message). ”
Actually, it is, especially given Mr. Kratman’s admitted Fascist sympathies; it has been quite some time since I read it, so I do not recall what storytelling hoops he leaps through to make that the only acceptable choice — it’s not as if the Waffen-SS was somehow uniquely qualified in modern history.
“Ender’s Game has several, but those who disagree with Card (including myself — sorry to disappoint you, if you thought you’d pigeonholed my politics) can still enjoy the story.”
Some people can; some people can’t. Which is rather my point; now that I understand Ender’s Game on the morality of intention, the book feels like a cheat to me, and I *don’t* enjoy it.
“Message fic is a story where, if the audience does not agree with the message, the audience cannot enjoy the story.”
Then, for example, both of the stories of John C. Wright’s that I’ve read certainly qualify as message fic; indeed, the only way I *can* imagine enjoying them is as via the warm glow of having one’s beliefs reflected back at one and reaffirmed.
Which means the Rabid Puppies, at least, have simply replaced what they feel is other people’s message fic with their own, and declared it somehow “just about the story.”
There is nothing like an objective category of message-fic; it is entirely in the eye of the beholder, as has been my point from the beginning.
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Do you have a source for Kratman admitting to being a fascist? I ask because I’ve gotten so used to your side making stuff up with no evidence that I’d find it hard to believe regardless.
Also, you’re assuming I’m a Rabid Puppies supporter. That’s also something your side keeps wanting to do. Remember, if you get to say we’re all like Vox Day, then I get to say you’re all like Arthur Chu.
You asked about examples, and I’m happy to provide some. And, in the interest of fairness, I’ll make them all books I enjoyed. One is from Kratman, A State of Disobedience, though I should point out I enjoyed that book for personal reasons rather than because, or even in spite of, the heavy-handed message.
Another is a book I edited myself, Rapunzel Let Down, a Catholic pro-life novel that I personally find to be a powerful story, but which I’d be surprised if anyone anti-Catholic or pro-abortion could stand. It’s a perfect example of something I talk about a lot: “Real life has an advantage fiction doesn’t. Fiction has to make sense.” The characters in Rapunzel Let Down are all based on real people, but the villainess feels like a caricature to anyone who hasn’t actually met people like her. (Even Catholic pro-lifers.)
Christopher Stasheff’s books also tend to have pretty strong, and often heavy-handed, messages. His book Her Majesty’s Wizard goes out of its way to talk about Catholic teachings at times, sometimes to the detriment of the plot. His Warlock series, and the later sequels, are very politically heavy-handed; even though they’re sometimes lampshaded a bit with satire, I’d be surprised if they didn’t bother a lot of people.
I’ve got a bunch on the Catholic side. I’m the only openly Catholic freelance editor on the market who specializes in science fiction and fantasy, and so I wind up getting a lot of people coming to me with Catholic material or to do public speaking on the topic. Most people seem to think that in order to do things “right,” they have to lay out their bona fides in obvious fashion within the story itself. I lost track of how many such manuscripts I rejected in the very first year of my career. It has to be an entertaining story first; if people want a Catholic sermon, they can go to church.
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I could only ever write free verse. I’m so impressed. 🙂
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Now this, THIS is how gentle-beings duel!
In far off lands, fans may fret and fans may gripe
That vicious brutal vexing is the universal rule
Of limericks at first light, slinging sonnets at sunset
And hiakus at high noon, and thus forswear engaging
In exchange of rascal remarks set to rhyme unless
Such meets the moderator’s measure for enraging.
(Belike the damage felt rises not from catty dogged verse
But from whose bits which this witty art would pierce!)
Yet here, here there boldly range two new riders in the lists
Both bestriding steeds of lines modest, plain and fierce,
Wearing bright and joyous barding, each with dancing flags.
Their hooves beat the battered ground and raise a dust thereafter
That comes to settle down upon the watching crowd,
Til each face be graced with grudging laughter!
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Actually, you haven’t seen the pro-Puppy doggerel that I said couldn’t come here. Poetry is hard to do well, as your own attempt demonstrates. (Advice: keep to the same meter and rhyme scheme in the same poem.)
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😛 What’s the old wag – “Write like you talk don’t work if you talk funny?” (ie, regional dialects can play merry hob with meter.)
Criticism noted, and accepted. Pray consider it an encouragement for your attempts at broadening the dialog.
(I did that in half an hour. There are bits of that which I am still quite fond of. ) 🙂
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As you might assume, Mr. Schwartz’s attempts were, by far, not the worst to come up as a result of this post. Actually, the worst I saw all came from “my” side (though, admittedly, bad limericks are to be expected). It did, however, make me wonder if I should do a post on poetry. I went through some of it for my students when we covered Shakespeare, but it wasn’t really a how-to.
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