Why do you make me hurt you?
Quote of yesterday, for me, was this on File770:
“I’m not a sociopath. As it happens, I’m actually unusually empathetic. I understand your pain. That’s why I gave you the opportunity to back down.”
That's Theodore Beale that is. I am minded of an old school TV serial killer, or TV style domestic abuse or something. "Why are you making me hurt you? Why don't you just do as I say?"
I have been reading all the Hugo entries, even the Puppies, both Sad and Rabid, and actually, until that and some choice stuff he's repeated today about Poll Taxes and how he gave 'us' a chance to back down, I've had to conclude I have to vote no to any fiction category that has his fingerprints on it, and I have to say sorry to Kary English if I meet her about that. OTOH she is up the for Campbell.
My father wasn't a very nice man and this is the sort of power game crap he'd pull at home after a bad day and after he was forced to retire on health grounds, when he didn't have a department at his beck and call at the Yard. He mellowed as he aged and our relationship was much better by the time he died, but that took many many years of him learnng to live with himself and without the power that he used to have. Mr Beale seems to crave that power and enjoys wielding it. Sad really.
Anyway, novel category is easy - Three Body #1, Goblin Emperor #2, Anciliary Sword #3, No Award #4. I am sad to say, I do not have any choice but to vote No Award #1 in the 3 other fiction categories. Only 2 of the stories felt like they should be there, and as one of them was the kind of 'message' fiction the Puppies claim to hate, I'm a bit lost over what they stand for.
Fan Writer is equally easy, anybody prepared to put their head over the parapet to take on that other blight on the face of SF&F, Requres Hate, is good with me.
Best Fanzine? No contest really :)
I'll be voting the Movie and 'TV' categories as if there wasn't a slate as I strongly suspect the slate effect is minimal in those because they do largely represent what people liked. I'm annoyed Predestination wasn't in the Movies - Heinlein people, your BFF? No? Too much icky cross-gender stuff? Sad.
Other observations from a few days of trying to avoid writing support docs (yes, the stuff they don't tell you in CEO school)...
“I’m not a sociopath. As it happens, I’m actually unusually empathetic. I understand your pain. That’s why I gave you the opportunity to back down.”
That's Theodore Beale that is. I am minded of an old school TV serial killer, or TV style domestic abuse or something. "Why are you making me hurt you? Why don't you just do as I say?"
I have been reading all the Hugo entries, even the Puppies, both Sad and Rabid, and actually, until that and some choice stuff he's repeated today about Poll Taxes and how he gave 'us' a chance to back down, I've had to conclude I have to vote no to any fiction category that has his fingerprints on it, and I have to say sorry to Kary English if I meet her about that. OTOH she is up the for Campbell.
My father wasn't a very nice man and this is the sort of power game crap he'd pull at home after a bad day and after he was forced to retire on health grounds, when he didn't have a department at his beck and call at the Yard. He mellowed as he aged and our relationship was much better by the time he died, but that took many many years of him learnng to live with himself and without the power that he used to have. Mr Beale seems to crave that power and enjoys wielding it. Sad really.
Anyway, novel category is easy - Three Body #1, Goblin Emperor #2, Anciliary Sword #3, No Award #4. I am sad to say, I do not have any choice but to vote No Award #1 in the 3 other fiction categories. Only 2 of the stories felt like they should be there, and as one of them was the kind of 'message' fiction the Puppies claim to hate, I'm a bit lost over what they stand for.
Fan Writer is equally easy, anybody prepared to put their head over the parapet to take on that other blight on the face of SF&F, Requres Hate, is good with me.
Best Fanzine? No contest really :)
I'll be voting the Movie and 'TV' categories as if there wasn't a slate as I strongly suspect the slate effect is minimal in those because they do largely represent what people liked. I'm annoyed Predestination wasn't in the Movies - Heinlein people, your BFF? No? Too much icky cross-gender stuff? Sad.
Other observations from a few days of trying to avoid writing support docs (yes, the stuff they don't tell you in CEO school)...
- The Puppy supporters/sock puppets/sealions and so forth work from the same kind of talking points memos as does the American right. Today's word to use is 'Poll Tax'
- If I were Beale, and I get a lot of No Awards this year, I'll make damn sure my slate looks like a normal reading list full of the stuff he claims to hate, just to see if people will spit stuff they would otherwise like, because that way it can be about him!
- 'Slate' is not a complicated word in this context nor is 'breaking the spirit of the law' - watching the 'wahhh, we didn't break the rules why are you being mean to us?' stuff is stomach churning
- Having read, or tried to read, most of the short fiction - we have a SERIOUS mismatch in taste and expectation going on. Flow? Read like a bad Dragonlance rip off of somebodies clever D&D scenario. A couple started out well and then went down hill really fast - what happened to Hook and Back fill anyway? Turncoat? Less said the better. Neal Asher and Iain Banks could teach him a thing or two about writing AI battleships.