You're wrong about GamerGate. It's about ethics in jounalism. [/sarcasm]
My internal tl;dr of the Sad Puppies things goes:
There are some people who think diversity and variety in sci-fi is a Bad Thing. 'Proper' sci-fi books, about wars and heroes rescuing wimmens and stuff get overlooked in the major awards because the hippy elite who run things only value books about gay people, women, and anybody not white. Solution: form a club to game the nominations of a major award to make sure proper old school sci-fi novels about straight white men get the nomination. Also suggest that there should awards specifically for sci-fi novels about gay people, women, and anybody not white so that such things can stop contaminating the PROPER awards.
Yeah, it's a crazy, convoluted, controversial issue. I don't understand it well enough to say how it all began, but it seems (to me) to be a conflict between so-called classic science fiction stories of conquest and battle, and more modern, progressive science fiction of social ideals.
For me, science fiction has always been about progress, so it's seems kind of ironic that the sad puppies are so concerned with the prevalence of nominees/winners that have the audacity to suggest genders, races, and sexualities can be equal. :)
While I generally try to avoid knowing too much about what authors think/believe so as not to influence my reading choices, I know this mess has permanently erased a few sad puppies from my TBR list. The kinds of things they've said, specifically Theodore Beale talking about N.K. Jemisin, just makes me sick.
Thanks for helping me understand what's going on. In a nutshell, if someone identifies with some type of puppies I can assume they believe Heinlein-esque scifi is the only valid form?
F*@)!% that noise. I like modern scifi that reflects the world I live in, full of all kinds of different people doing all kinds of different things.
That being said, I do have a soft spot in my heart for Paul Verhoeven's film adaptation of Starship Troopers, but that's mostly because I don't hold movies to as high a standard as I do books. I didn't see Ender's Game; I'm not going to put dollars into the pocket of someone who thinks my friends, colleagues and neighbors don't all have the same basic human rights.
GRRM doesn't precisely have skin in the game... His discussion with Correia is rather illuminating, as are Correia's posts.
But I agree; I'd love to see and objective, unemotional, fact-citing summary of this. It would be hard, though. Like gamergate, it leaves me angry and sad.
I also think that scifi is inherently about exploring possible futures, whether technologically or societally. I dispute the puppies' belief that Good Ol' Scifi wasn't about political or social messages; however, when we view them from our perspective, the daring predictions of the future are either banal or ridiculous, and thus no longer threatening. Context is everything.
I'm amused at the idea of seeing Miller or PKD or Farmer as good ol' storytellers with no subversive politics in mind...
The thing I see in common with both GamerG and the Puppies is that both groups are suddenly all threatened about "These People are ruining Our Thing." Except it never was just their thing - games and scifi have been consumed by multitudes - there was never a barrier keeping everyone out but white dudes. What seems to have happened is that a bunch of white dudes have been noticing that now more people criticising "Their Thing" aren't just other white dudes. It's not that games or scifi are being ruined or that non-white and non-dudes are suddenly having a larger say/producing more games - it's just that those voices are being heard more often.
It's all psychological threat and not any real takeover or conspiracy - which is why so many of the white dude ranters come off as disturbed beyond normal logic. Or they could just be trolls - it's really hard to tell.
My internal tl;dr of the Sad Puppies things goes:
There are some people who think diversity and variety in sci-fi is a Bad Thing. 'Proper' sci-fi books, about wars and heroes rescuing wimmens and stuff get overlooked in the major awards because the hippy elite who run things only value books about gay people, women, and anybody not white. Solution: form a club to game the nominations of a major award to make sure proper old school sci-fi novels about straight white men get the nomination. Also suggest that there should awards specifically for sci-fi novels about gay people, women, and anybody not white so that such things can stop contaminating the PROPER awards.
For me, science fiction has always been about progress, so it's seems kind of ironic that the sad puppies are so concerned with the prevalence of nominees/winners that have the audacity to suggest genders, races, and sexualities can be equal. :)
While I generally try to avoid knowing too much about what authors think/believe so as not to influence my reading choices, I know this mess has permanently erased a few sad puppies from my TBR list. The kinds of things they've said, specifically Theodore Beale talking about N.K. Jemisin, just makes me sick.
F*@)!% that noise. I like modern scifi that reflects the world I live in, full of all kinds of different people doing all kinds of different things.
That being said, I do have a soft spot in my heart for Paul Verhoeven's film adaptation of Starship Troopers, but that's mostly because I don't hold movies to as high a standard as I do books. I didn't see Ender's Game; I'm not going to put dollars into the pocket of someone who thinks my friends, colleagues and neighbors don't all have the same basic human rights.
But I agree; I'd love to see and objective, unemotional, fact-citing summary of this. It would be hard, though. Like gamergate, it leaves me angry and sad.
I also think that scifi is inherently about exploring possible futures, whether technologically or societally. I dispute the puppies' belief that Good Ol' Scifi wasn't about political or social messages; however, when we view them from our perspective, the daring predictions of the future are either banal or ridiculous, and thus no longer threatening. Context is everything.
I'm amused at the idea of seeing Miller or PKD or Farmer as good ol' storytellers with no subversive politics in mind...
It's all psychological threat and not any real takeover or conspiracy - which is why so many of the white dude ranters come off as disturbed beyond normal logic. Or they could just be trolls - it's really hard to tell.
You're so right about it being noise.