Tonight I chanced across this smelly little gem:
Baen books specialises in works of “military SF” that, behind their appalling prose styles and laughable retro cover designs, speak to a right-wing readership who can recognise the enemies of America even when they are disguised as cannibal lizard aliens. Baen’s chief editor Toni Weisskopf went so far as to issue a diatribe against any and all sci-fi that did not pander to this conservative agenda.
I won’t feed this particularly empty ego any more than is necessary, suffice to say that the individual who wrote this obviously does not read very many (if any?) actual Baen books by actual Baen authors, nor do I think this person has actually read any such “diatribe” by my editor at Baen. In fact, I can state with certainty that the words “Toni Weisskopf” and “diatribe” do not belong in the same ZIP code. You will seldom find a less offensive, even-tempered, non-confrontational, fair-minded editor and publisher in the field today. And it’s not just an insult to her when shit like this (above) gets written, it’s an insult to all the many talented and varied authors who ply their trade beneath the Baen label. Myself included.
Unfortunately, ignorant snobbery of this sort is nothing new in the genre. You find out very quickly (once you begin publishing) which writers, editors, publishers, and artists enjoy the favor of the “society” people, and which writers, editors, publishers, and artists do not. My from-the-hip observation is that the “society” people want to see SF/F turned into a lightly speculative and fantastical carbon copy of the “prestigious literary” world. Replete with ambiguous covers that don’t really tell you anything about the story, but follow the general pattern of all things deemed “prestigious” and “literary.” If this year’s talked-about lit work features a somewhat fuzzy, off-focus photo of a pair of muddy Converse sneakers sitting on somebody’s front stoop, then by golly SF/F needs to follow suit with similar photos of similarly mundane, slightly off-focus objects which may or may not have anything to do with actual science fiction; as practiced traditionally by the greats.
Speaking of which, did you know Baen is one of the few publishers actively working to keep the works of the greats alive and well in the modern marketplace? I mean, Poul Anderson for heaven’s sake. That’s a name which ought to make even the 20-something spec fic “lit” kids sit up and pay attention. And if his estate’s re-releases of the Dominic Flandry books seem to have more in common with James Bond movie posters than the latest art house tome, perhaps that’s actually a good thing? Young general genre readers (thankfully oblivious to art houses of any sort) might actually read Anderson as a result.
Of course, one must remember that Baen is the “military” SF publisher, for “right wing” readers. Because as you know, Bob, Eric Flint is the world’s biggest right winger. David Drake too. But wait, maybe it’s worth noting something Drake actually said:
Frequently I write about soldiers or veterans: military sf. Because of that I’m accused of writing militaristic sf by those who either don’t know the difference between description and advocacy or who deny there is a difference.
Seems to me Drake — who might raise an eyebrow at being called “right wing” anything — is far better equipped to judge whether or not Baen is the “military SF publisher for right wingers” than someone who seems to have decided that Baen is a cut-rate house, based purely on . . . the absorbed conventional wisdom of like-minded aesthetes? Who sniff at the banally popular, and declare it both shallow and of no consequence. Because, muddy out-of-focus Converse sneakers! Or how about a stark black background with stark, anemic white lettering, no painting or picture whatsoever. Excellent, my good chaps! Because the less actually shown, the better. It’s the thing with “real literature” these days. Spaceships and galaxies on the covers? Aliens and rockets flying to the planets? Lantern-jawed heroes and hot-bodied heroines? P’shaw! One might start thinking the spec fic inside is actually speculative fucking fic. And that’s no good, you know.
We wouldn’t want our readers to actually have fun. That would be the worst thing ever.
Of course, we’ve not even addressed “appalling prose styles”, for all definitions of “appalling prose style” that include actual, straight-forward, engaging, page-turning storytelling. You can always spot an art house poseur by how often he puts down the prosaic accomplishments of people who actually entertain audiences and make money. Because a lot of Baen authors have been known to do that, you know. Entertain. Make money. Someone please catch me, I am suffering a case of the vapors! One wonders if Lois Bujold, she of the many Hugo awards and much literary praise, is aware of the fact that she’s been tried and convicted of “appalling prose style” by an individual who clearly hasn’t read any of her work.
You know, I get it that in an era of explosive social media growth, everybody is scrambling to make waves, draw attention, get page hits, etc. But it really pisses me off when a jackass who should know better, sits down to type something that is not only patently dishonest, but stupidly patently dishonest. Someone please dangle this daft chucklebutt by his ankles, his head submerged in the nearest loo, the water (and other liquids) swirling happily about his ears. Maybe the cool refresher will get his synapses firing a little more efficiently? Yes?
Brad R. Torgersen 
My only hope is that he’s finally gone far enough to get his fool self fired.
Not bleeding likely, I know, but hope is the last to die.
I had the pleasure of working for Baen back in the Baen’s Universe magazine days, as one of their magazine illustrators. Never drew more random dragons, cats with hourglasses and puppet people than when working with them. I also remember that the art director never failed to be INCREDIBLY polite, well spoken, kind, and easy to work with. They always paid reliably and were easy to communicate with. And the stories were wonderfully fun to read before illustrating them. Basically I have had nothing but favorable interactions with them, they’re good people.
Jared, sadly enough, I think he’s everything The Guardian is looking for in a writer. After all, to bottom-feeders like them, controversy = clickbait.
Anti- Baen discrimination is alive and well, and has been for years. Yet few – actually, make it no other – sf Publisher has as credible a record for publishing sf across the entire spectrum, socio-politically, and in every other aspect. You wouldn’t think so, to judge by the fellow who opens his mouth change feet. Well, bigots don’t need to think, and he’s a fine example of proving that it needs needs neither creed nor color either. I guess besides Eric Flint, you could mention Mercedes Lackey, Brad, and your typical military sf has to include Eric and this lowly monkey’s SLOW TRAIN TO ARCTURUS (er. Where one of the heroes is a pacifist, and the other a sex-changing alien.). Yeah typical…
Jessica – I was the Art Director at JBU for a lot of the time. I hope I was the polite one 🙂
I recently invited people to compare Poul Anderson’s writing in any typical Flandry story to Leckie’s Ancillary Justice. I did that because no one was going nuts saying Flandry stories should get awards. If you look at the prose in something like Anderson’s The Rebel Worlds (1969) paragraphs are routinely nuanced and layered bits of amazement. Words, feelings, color and ideas jump, dive, float above and beneath one another and intertwine but are never bloated or artistically overaware of themselves. And the novel is remarkably short. And it’s not even his A-game. It’s a B SF novel – at least in that day.
Anderson is 3-dimensional, Leckie 2. Leckie’s prose is as flat as a children’s book, typical of a writer’s workshop. She’s not a particularly interesting storyteller or writer. She may be a technically better writer than Van Vogt in his The Weapon Makers (1946) but that novel is a amazing free-for-all that never stops for a second and takes so many turns and twists it’s pretty stunning considering it’s a barn-burner. Leckie can’t compete – period.
Ancillary Justice is hyper-politicized average SF, of worth to intersectional feminists and few others. AJ is not a tribute to artistry but to how low the Hugos have sunk in terms of pure mindless idiocy. The awards were a tribute to how much the majority of voters are smug moralists happy they are not bigoted racist sexists like the rest of the benighted (straight white males only) world is and has been for 5,000 years.
AJ is classic intersectionalism in it’s twin themes. AJ advocates a bent-gender/feminist/non-white world view while simultaneously, as white-man lover N.K. Jemisin put it, is a novel “stripped of the male power fantasy… which is what that story managed to do successfully.” In other words it is the typical PC game of talking “diversity” while never being able to do so without attacking straight white men. Leckie herself attacks “white straight cis guys” in non-fiction remarks by rote.
Keep in mind this is the moronic cult that claims white supremacists have purposely stripped non-whites out of medieval European history and excluded women, gays and non-whites from SFF. The Orwellian madness there is the PC themselves strip any non-white colonialism out of medieval European history, leaving only non-white traders and workman, I guess. The reality is unsurprisingly the opposite. Arab Spain never happened. The PC are massive liars, and delusional ones.
The Hugos are dead, as are the Nebulas. Whatever worth they once had as an indicator of artistry is dead. They possess the same provenance a class in feminist studies does. It is an amazing act of literary bigotry that almost every winner was in some manner a reflection of disdain for ethnic European heterosexual males. In principle, you can’t get more neo-Nazi than that. Imagine the stories having a disdain for Jews and you get the full and real picture of who and what the PC are and what drives them. They are naive middle class tools acting as useful idiots for a racist and sexist supremacist ideology flying under the false flag of “anti-oppression.”
The PC can’t see that because they are a cult without principle. That means they literally cannot compare one thing to another except by appearance; no swastika no hood no racism, no matter how blatantly segregationist, supremacist, racist, discriminatory or indulging in racial and sexual advocacy. That’s how you create an anti-racist racist. There is no such thing as an intellectual or philosophical space in such a cult – only race and gender, and that’s intersectionalism’s bigoted and racist substitute for a moral ethos. That’s why a simple accidental skewed white or male demography becomes a women-hating KKK and an actual and real KKK in all but particulars becomes social justice. These people don’t even bother to hide their disdain for whites, men and heterosexuals. The quotes are so massive in number you’d need a multi-volume set of tomes to set them in context.
If you have ever wondered how hate speech is mainstreamed, normalized and made to seem reasonable, wonder no more.
Now this would be a great piece to Tweet!… Well said Brad!
Dave I do believe you were one of the people I worked with, though I enjoyed everyone with Baen. I always got a wide range of interesting topics, I just wish my skill level had been where it is now, back then. But I think every artist wishes that.
He’s not wrong.
I read the screed Brad is talking about last night. Frankly, a LOT of people are furious over those comments.
To start with, the “diatribe” Toni is accused of writing? Yeah, apparently leaving real world politics out of fandom is the same thing as demanding fiction that is the exact same thing as expecting conservative politics in fiction. Seriously, what is he smoking?
Yes, Baen publishes a lot of military SF. So what? They publish it because there are a lot of people who want to read it. Damien is deluded if he thinks those readers are suddenly going to read literary SF if that’s all that’s available. They’ll jump genres and real thrillers, mysteries, or whatever. They might miss SF, but they won’t miss it too much. How do I know this? Because it’s happened and these readers are coming back thanks to stuff like what Baen publishes.
Sorry, but reading is entertainment. People do it for enjoyment. You suck the fun out of it, and then lament how people don’t read anymore? It takes a special kind of stupid to not see the cause and effect.
Mysteries? There’s not enough hand holding in those. Proper mysteries, you have to piece together what happened. I don’t think Jordan, for instance, or Uphoff, could handle that.
Funny you mention James Bond. Flandry IS James Bond, and predates him.
Did I just read a post by Fail Burton that wasn’t twelve paragraphs long and filled with delusions of eloquence?
Another piece damning Baen for unspeakable sins, which they thence proceed to speak about at length and without accurate knowledge? Ho-hum. Can’t say I’m surprised.
I don’t think I’ll bother to read the click-bait, as what I’ve read of him before did not impress. Baen will continue to get my money, and I will again be entertained. For my dollars, a good story will always beat a six-pack of beer or a movie ticket.
It keeps folks honest to pay good money for good works, I believe, be they stories written or bricks laid. It’s why I stop buying authors that don’t entertain, though generally I’ll still read blurbs or back-covers to see if they’ve gotten better by my lights. Probably most folk are like that.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find if some random people stumbled upon that piece and read it, thought “how awful those nasty so-and-sos must be to have such things writ about them,” then proceeded to buy the next Ringo, Weber, Drake, Bujold, Flint, Grant, or Freer because the cover grabbed them and the story snatched up their attention such that they *had* to click they Buy It Now button/rush to the checkout before the store closed…
Apparently he spent some time making fun of the cover of A Few Good Men, because, you know, the fact he doesn’t like the cover totally proves it’s a bad book. Or something. Has anyone broken the news about the CONTENTS of AFGM to little whimpering Damien?
It is a surprisingly common delusion on the part of the lit-critters that greatness in the field is dependent upon their approval. In fact it is dependent upon having the audience, and trying to be a gate-keeper merely means that the audience will take another path and leave oneself standing there on an empty road, defending one’s gate.
I’ve noticed that the current crop of gate-keepers have decided to hate the great writers of the past. This is a common theme in literary history, and the usual reason is self-doubt and envy. The gate-keepers and their writers doubt that they can write as well as any of the great science fiction writers of the past — they picked John W. Campbell’s stable as writers to hate because virtually any decent sf writer who published in the late 1930’s through late 1950’s had multiple appearances in Astounding — so instead of even trying, to write that well, they try to tear those great writers down through guilt-by-association.
I must pause for a moment for astonishment at the notion of “guilt” by association with John W. Campbell, Jr., or of anyone being ashamed of being in the august company of writers he encouraged, or of liking their work. Seriously, to feel guilt or shame for this, one would have to be completely ignorant of the history of science fiction and never read a story written before the 1980’s or 1990’s. This would be an act of intellectual “purity” equivalent to refusing to ever read Shakespeare or anything inspired by him (a joke with the same punchline, as pretty much all subsequent English literature was inspired at least indirectly by Shakespeare and the same thing is true for the Campbellian science fiction writers).
I think that half the reason why the standard of “excellence” chosen is adherence to political correctness, a system of values distinguished by the most extraordinary transience of its tenets in such a manner that no one of one generation can hope to predict the political correctness of the next (who in the 1990’s could have predicted that feminists would be jumping on board to defend Muslim fundamentalists, for instance?) is in order to disqualify all previous science fiction writers from the competition. If not, why the eagerness to distort the truth in order to hunt down deviances of the writers of the 1940’s and 1950’s from a set of standards which they had no way of knowing would exist in that form?
They are unmoved by the obvious point that, if they tear down the writers of a half-century ago for failing to conform to today’s political masks, they themselves will be torn down a half-century from now for failing to conflrm to that future’s political masks, for several reasons.
(1) They are poor time-binders — they wouldn’t believe nonsense like political correctness if they understood that other times and places were really real,
(2) They assume that they are Special Snowflakes and that the mob they try to raise could never turn on them, and finally
(3) Some, I think, know they are mediocre little clumps of excrement and that they will be entirely unknown a half-century from now, so it matters little to them.
So they stand at the gate on the increasingly-unused road, fiercely defending their path, while the bulk of fandom enters by new gates for new destinations, and sometimes looks curiously at the lunatics guarding the unused passage.
Apparently he spent some time making fun of the cover of A Few Good Men, because, you know, the fact he doesn’t like the cover totally proves it’s a bad book. Or something.
Thus literally demonstrating the failing of judging a book by its cover. And he’s so full of his own Progressive enlightenment that he probably doesn’t get that this is what he’s just done.
I’d like to point out that Tor is also helping keep Poul Anderson in print. I was startled (and pleased) to find that I’m in the same catalog as one of the past greats I most admire.
Another ignorant elitist that doesn’t bother actually learning about what he’s talking about. I’m shocked. See? This is my shocked face. :I
Maybe he only read the Scalzi version of it, not the thing itself? That, or he believes being unable to get along with anyone who disagrees with you is an inherent requirement to be of the Left, which is about what it would take to believe that “can’t we concentrate on the things that bring us together” is exclusionary in the way he claims.
Reblogged this on The Worlds of Tarien Cole and commented:
And why did I reblog about Toni Weisskopf last night? Because it’s been part of “the Cause” to attack Baen for daring to sell stories that make money. And to claim they’re a “right wing” catering house. Mind you, Eric Flint is a Trotskyite, and he publishes at Baen. Daring to publish stories the Glittering Ones do not approve of results in much gnashing of teeth.
Y’know, Clamps, while it’s good to have a hobby. . .. perhaps you should change yours. Might I suggest auto-erotic asphyxiation ???
Okay, this appears to be structured so I can’t reply to individual comments.
Let me just say though that, like I’ve said about Heinlein, a bad “Poul Anderson” story is better than most other writers’ best day. He’s just that good.
When you’re using words like “Left” or “liberal” and “conservative” with an intersectionalist like Walter, it’s important to realize how he has altered and appropriated those words to conform with his own ideology and how attached that ideology is to QUILTBAG feminism. This is what Walter writes:
“When author and historian Alex Dally Macfarlane made a call earlier this year for a vision of post-binary gender in SF, her intelligent argument was met with predictably intractable ignorance from conservative sci-fi fans. For writers and fans like Larry Correia, whose virulent attack on MacFarlane was excellently dissected by Jim C Hines, sex is a biological imperative and the idea of gender as a social construct is a damn liberal lie! But Correia boils it down to a much simpler argument. However accurate a queer future might be, SF authors must continue to pander to the bigotry of conservative readers if they want to be ‘commercial’.”
In other words Walter parses liberal/conservative to mean intersectionalist/anti-intersectionalist, and to be anti-intersectionalist is “bigotry.” Liberalism doesn’t default to race or a gender “construct,”; that’s radfemspeak 101, not Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, who I doubt hit the stump proclaiming a “queer future” or a “post-binary” world. And playing fast and loose with the word “bigotry” until it means the exact opposite is moronic, because I’m not sure when reacting poorly to identity supremacy, narcissism and group defamation itself became “bigotry.”
In fact “the idea of gender as a social construct” isn’t a liberal anything, but a weird obsession hiding within and claiming liberalism, the better to hide its own bigotry and supremacy and pose as “anti-oppression.” The idea a bigot or “conservative” is someone who disagrees the future is queer is too stupid to contemplate.
I love the idea Walter thinks the world would be queer if we’d just stop shoving Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls around. That’s just a bizarre fantasy putting on a “liberal” t-shirt and insulting anyone who doesn’t share in that bizarre fantasy.
Whether it’s babysitting or international business, the best barometer is the economic barometer. As the Baen authors go about their daily middle-or-better -class lives, one can only note that the EBT card-toting pinkSF set can continue to proudly not sell books and complain about the folks who do.
Nobody snobs better than Labour-flag-holder The Guardian!
If these accusations of PC heresy against Baen were only true, I would become their most loyal reader. As it is, just the fact that Baen has pissed off the thought cops to this degree has stimulated greater attention from me.
Fail… if you’re going to quote Walter lying about what Correia said, you should mention that that he (and most certainly Hines) were lying about what Correia said. You and I know what Correia said but other people, and most probably Walter, have no idea what he said because they (including Walter) never actually read it.
(Damian hates the cover of A Few Good Men because it’s a picture of a gay guy.)
😛
It’s a bad cover, yes, but it’s no Pixie Noir/All Night Awake or Nocturnal Lives or Seda’s Diary: Bias.
Leave it to Clamps to interject things that have no place in the discussion, just so he can pathetically believe he’s scoring hits or something.
I’m a far better artist than… whomever drew Creepy Galadriel… and Shadowdancer the Screeching Douchebag Duskstar.
Walter isn’t lying about what LC said in that quote but giving his opinion it was a “virulent attack,” which he is certainly welcome to, as he is to his opinion it was “excellently dissected” by Hines. The fact I disagree doesn’t make that particular quote a lie. I’m sure Walter believes each to be true. I’m sure MacFarlane felt attacked but then she lives in a fantasy world where she imagines how great the world would be if no men were in it and is too moronic to even have a definition of what a bigot is beyond it’s never her, even when she acts just like one.
MacFarlane writes stuff like “Imagine: a group of women living together without men,” and “Imagine women doing whatever they want, un-harmed and un-limited by misogyny.”
I can’t go into the minds of people like her and Walter who literally seem to want and believe the future will be queer. Where would lying end and delusion start?
Are all antifeminists this pretentious?
Imagine: Fail Burton shutting up.
Imagine me writing “Imagine a group of white people living together without black people and doing whatever they want, un-harmed and un-limited by crime and murders.”
Or throw in “gay” instead. “OH how nice a world without the gays!”
That’s Alex Dally MacFarlane, flag-bearer for peace, justice and bald-faced bigotry.
Imagine me ticked off at a comment by a gay person on a blog and Tweeting “Homo peeeoooople.” What MacFarlane actually Tweeted was “cis peeeoooople” after she read a comment on her binary piece.
These folks make comments like that and skate clean away. But if I say “lady” I get 70 blog posts written about it and enrolled in a women-hater’s club. If I use a vulgar slang term some PC moron will donate money to a rape crisis center in my name.
A quote comes to mind. “Neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man.” not a bias just a universal truth…
It’s highly ironic that the guy’s whole output appears to be in support of corp slurge that pays authors jack and keeps them as mindless drone slaves. Nice to see the artists weighing in here – saying that Baen paid them well and gave a good working environment conducive to their best work.
I’m not an anti-feminist. I use the word a lot because it’s how intersectionalists self-identify but I don’t really think of them as feminists. It’s just another anti-oppression word they’ve hijacked to hide their bigotry, racism and supremacy. Intersectionalists are in principle little different from neo-Nazis. I don’t fantasize about living without women, gay folks or black people. I don’t write race and gender revenge stories focused on gays and non-whites getting what’s coming to them. Intersectionalists do that, and neo-Nazis would if they were fiction authors. I don’t have a problem with women wanting equality before the law and in cultural custom and practice. Why would I want to hamstring my own mother, sisters, nieces, cousins and friends like that?
Hey, Lucy. Imagine me solo hiking all three routes and sleeping on all three summits by the light of the full moon.
http://s10.postimg.org/s6135xtg9/Batur_Agung_Terrain_Routesjpg
The imagine yourself never doing that. Not as long as you live.
Sorry. Forgot the dot.
Imagine: you falling down Siula Grande and dying.
Damien Walter is an annoying little pissant, “The Queen Presumptive of the Whiny, Failed Writer’s Guild.”
Nobody’s as annoying as Fail Burton/James May.
There was a Viking famous for his curious gait named Luscinia Halfsack. He was very obliging it is said. Are you by any chance a relation?
Considering Luscinia is a Latin name and not a Norse one… also, you’re not funny and shut up.
“[S]hut up.”
For the record, Fail? That’s how you know you’re pissing him off. Keep up the good work.
Do you have some kind of disease that prevents you from seeing how inane every Fail Burton post is? Even Sarah Hoyt can’t stand him.
Andrew, you come away from those nice people and march straight to your room.
You’re not my supervisor!
Fail and I have bumped heads previously.
But if he’s pissing you off, he can’t be all bad.
No, I’m your mother you dirty little brat. Come away from there before I wash out your mouth with soap. And none of your usual “Yer not the bossa me.” I’ll show you who’s boss. And let me tell you another thing you halfsacked enfant terrible, there’ll be no more plucking the wings off of those filthy little nightingales you keep dragging into the house. AND GET RID OF THAT ANTFARM! And stop eating so much cheese and bacon bits. You smell like a Leicester hog.
Then why isn’t your name Catherine? Huh? Tell me that! YOU’RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!
That’s some dedicated stalking, though. It’s just too bad you’re stalking the wrong people.
You should listen to him. He’s an expert in stalking.
Probably because he possesses questionable personal hygiene and lacks the social skills of a lobotomized chimpanzee, but still.
I’ll call them and apologize. By the way – you’re fired, bitch.
You’re not my supervisor.
Yama, you’re docked two hours pay and have to make up the time this weekend if you want to keep your job.
– Sincerely,
Your Supervisor.
I apologize to everyone concerned. All I can say is I hate myself and I’ve had a lot of time on my hands since I committed myself for a nice rest at the New England Refuge for the Mentally Insane.
Plus those things from Arkham are after me. You don’t know what New England’s like. People walk weird here, and their head’s are shaped funny – like goldfish.
“head’s”
Seriously, Fail Burton?
You are a model of restraint, Brad. My response to SF’s favorite Grauniad calumnist, in the comments and at http://jcsalomon.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/space-opera-and-the-soul-of-science-fiction/, was somewhat less so.
It doesn’t surprise me how easy it is for people to scorn something they clearly didn’t even bother looking at. Baen has, hands down, THE list of authors I’d go to try books from without having to go to a physical bookstore to page through a book of theirs first. They list several favorites as well – Mercedes Lackey, Larry Correia, Sarah Hoyt, Anne MacCaffrey – to name a few, as well as a very long list of authors whose works I have long wanted to try and have not been able to. I also credit Baen for letting me discover that James Doohan wrote books, something that I did not know he had done. I look forward to reading his work, as well as those of Poul Anderson (whose books I have not yet tried but plan to.)
Brad, if I may, I’d like to apologize for the indirect trouble that I seem to have caused you. My very dedicated stalker seem to have decided your place of civilized discussion be the next venue he soil with his slanderous screeds and inane interjections because none of the places I frequent online allow him entry or have banned him for his vicious stalking of not just myself but any female members of those forums.
This is sadly just one of the tactics that Clamps/Yama uses in order to attack people who he cannot reach, in typical cowardly and base fashion, in the hopes of driving me from the Internet so I might not ‘indirectly cause’ more trouble for bloggers and authors such as yourself, through his harassment and the imposition of his presence on the blogs of people who participate in the same venues that I do. The Internet does not belong to him however and I have no intention of removing myself from it to please him, so likely he will continue to inflict his presence on others for the vaguest of connections to myself, as part of his personal Jihad.
It takes an incredible amount of self-loathing to use one’s own presence as a punishment upon others as Yama does, and to continue to do nothing with his life except go to places where he is not welcome and rail about the fact that he cannot participate in any discussions he sees there because he’s been banned.
Regards,
Shadowdancer
http://www.affsdiary.com
Aw, can’t I at least keep the antfarm? I’ve invented this real cool game to play with it, you have to come watch it, it’s real real neat. It’s called “Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God!”
(runs off, laughing maniacally)
Who is Damien Walter and why should I care? He’s not smart, knowledgeable, or funny. He hasn’t published a novel, He’s shown no understanding of SF or literature. He’s just a “dickless weasel” with an opinion. If an an editor at the Guardian didn’t like him, no one would care.
You know it’s funny. I would like to make fun of “Luscinia” for his ignorant comments on covers and writing and Damien and so many other things but, he is so pathetic I can’t. I was raised to be nice to the mentally handicapped and he is so obviously one of them that I can’t. I assume his keepers at the home let him use the computer thinking it keeps him quiet. Sort of like a pacifier for an infant.
Dear me, Luscinia/Clamps you poor sad little birdie. Are you off your meds again? You really should know better than that by now.
Nope. Your cover art is bad and you should feel bad.
See that is what I am talking about. I have no idea who he is talking about here. Since he is spouting at some cover artist. or some author . He simply needs help
Luscinia’s definitely off “her” meds. She’s suffering from delusions of adequacy.
You know, once you have a case of the Clamps you really need a shot. The problem is there’s just not enough penicillin in the WORLD to cure this guy…
luscinia says:
August 30, 2014 at 8:58 pm
Nope. Your cover art is bad and you should feel bad.
Now THERE’s a painful shot. Andrew, we’re all just in AWE of your mad skilz, really dude, UR just so l33t!
“I’m a far better artist than… whomever drew Creepy Galadriel… and Shadowdancer the Screeching Douchebag Duskstar.” – Clamps
While I think you may actually be a better artist than you are a writer, I hardly think http://yamathespacefish.deviantart.com/art/Sara-ode-to-Yoshitaka-Amano-464197094 is better than http://shinybookreview.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/pixie-noir.jpg on an objective artistic level. You could argue about composition or some small things, I’m sure, but yours simply isn’t up to snuff. For one thing there aren’t issues with limb size or rotation in the actual cover. And are her fingers supposed to be broken? I could go on, but that might be unkind.
Stupendous and unheard-of splendors await me below, and I shall seek them soon. Ia-R’lyehl Cihuiha flgagnl id Ia!
Does anyone know if ant farms are waterproof?
Um, I think Creepy Galadriel might be a processed photograph. Or a Poser model. Whatever she is, she’s ugly and creepy, and the typeface is somehow both garish and bland. Trickster Noir is even worse.
http://lousybookcovers.com/?p=2794
Or take this, for instance. I showed it to my artist friend because we were talking about Vox Day and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and she says Drow’s art is very plain and unoriginal and generic anime style and the sky in one of them looks like macaroni and cheese. In other words, we’re much better artists.
Erica loves this one.
http://yamathespacefish.deviantart.com/art/excerpt-from-an-alien-bio-text-157801590
So there’s a lot of dissonance between fellow artists’ opinions and non-artists’ opinions, for the record.
Renegades: A Murder of Crowes is ugly, Crown of Creation (2046: Two Nations, One Murder) is just sad. Amazon wanted them posted as images, not as links, while WordPress’ moderation system said “nope, can’t be done.” so forget it. Look it up yourself.
actually, I think links are getting moderated. Or maybe I’m getting moderated.
The answer is “links are getting moderated.”
So let’s just pretend those links are there.
Um, I think Creepy Galadriel might be a processed photograph. Or a Poser model. Whatever she is, she’s ugly and creepy, and the typeface is somehow both garish and bland. Trickster Noir is even worse.
(this is where you look up the cover of Seda’s Story: Bias. It’s on Lousy Book Covers)
Or take this, for instance. I showed it to my artist friend because we were talking about Vox Day and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and she says Drow’s art is very plain and unoriginal and generic anime style and the sky in one of them looks like macaroni and cheese. In other words, we’re much better artists.
Renegades: A Murder of Crowes is ugly, Crown of Creation (2046: Two Nations, One Murder) is just sad. Amazon wanted them posted as images, not as links, while WordPress’ moderation system said “nope, can’t be done.” so forget it. Look it up yourself.
Are “we” truely this Conceated as to think that its ok to compleatly hijack a persons blog is ok? And by “we” I mean all of you who somehow think grinding anothers opinion into the ground is somehow worthy of merrit… How little you must think of everyone if you treat each other this way. Sad really…. Sorry Brad…
At this point I’m not sure all the water in the world could snap Damien out of this funk he has foisted on himself. And foist is the correct word for it, I am mostly convinced that he has no idea the extent of the falsehoods he has convinced himself of. That doesn’t excuse his boorish behavior, but it does explain it somewhat. He’s actually admitted he isn’t even really reading the responses to his current dribble, nor is he apparently reading himself as he’s contradicting words he published less than a year ago to make his ‘point.’
I’m guessing The Guardian believes controversy equals clicks. In order to arrive at that place in SFF on the PC side, one must have a certain amount rather incredible bias built in plus a willingness to state things that are patently false.
In order to arrive to that place on the non-PC side, at least in core SFF fandom, all one has to do to create controversy is be a normal human being, and of course straight white and male.
Walter is part of a movement within SFF since 2009 that is basically like the Portuguese inquisition and asks if you do or do not use salt when you boil rice, and of course in its most general form in SFF that means white male privilege. As an SFF writer you have three choices: confess, not confess, stay away from core fandom. There are many, both genre and mainstream SFF writers, who’ve chosen to stay away, like Peter Hamilton and J.K. Rowling. Considering this whole PC movement is based on a distorted 21st version of feminism, the number of women authors who’ve chosen to stay away is remarkable. Why should we be surprised the whole event only then leaves a few fighters and a giant host of complete morons in core SFF?
This is just my opinion, but the worst of the PC are guilty of a level of stupidity I honestly didn’t suspect existed in a group of 40-something adults in Western societies. The naivete didn’t surprise me cuz a lot of these folks would fit in well in E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops.” How stupid must one be to globally whine about things that are demographically unbalanced, boycott SFF panels that have only whites, and never question black basketball? The conclusion is a group of people too stupid to realize they’ve been massaged and chumped by an anti-white, anti-male racist movement for whom they are carrying water, cuz the difference between black rap and white SFF is a rather simple comparison to make. One is either angry about both or neither.
To anyone with a brain cell, that would normally expose a cult that has no interest in equal demographics or “diversity” as it claims but in simply taking down white men. These types of people are usually called “useful idiots,” and they are useful indeed.
The problem for the PC is their uninterrupted run since 2009 started drawing to a close about a year ago. People are ticked off and either continuing to stay away or fighting back as many are coming to realize this has nothing to do with conservatives vs. liberals but an insane cult vs. normal human beings.
What that means in real terms is the PC are losing sales. For anyone following this mess you can see a few of the water carriers are backing off. The problem for them is a Catch-22. Lacking actual talent as writers, if they stop the ultra-PC propaganda they lose sales, if they keep it up they lose sales. A no-talent like Scalzi came in at the right time and built a career out of carrying water. I don’t think that can be done again. Scalzi may have realized a lot of sales but it can now be easily seen he (and others) is bleeding sales from people who don’t like his tactics.
What situation would ever produce a climate where people who love SFF are boycotting SFF writers, or core fandom as a whole? Normally one doesn’t boycott SFF, one reads it. The problem for the PC is they start out on the losing end from sheer lack of talent in being essentially affirmative action-ed and only add to their own permanent marginalization by lighting up their own customers as racists. The obvious factor there has been publicizing their own quotes, which are as supremacist as any neo-Nazi web site. When you are given free rein, you don’t think to check yourself, so those rather incredibly bigoted quotes will enter and stay on the internet forever and haunt any career.
Again, the stupidity there is in not being able to make simple comparisons. Walter is basically submarining his career before it started and who knows how many sales Seanan McGuire cost herself forever with her insane rant against Jonathan Ross hosting the Hugos? When you wish for a world without men or a queer future, not everyone is so stupid they can’t understand you are in essence wishing for a world without Jews or a blacks. Not everyone is so stupid they can’t understand when racists are cherry-picking white or male demographics and leaving non-white or women completely alone. That’s not egalitarianism but straight up targeted bigotry started by supremacist sexist racists and carried forward by naive useful idiots.
Don’t engage him. From there, it’s all demographics and intersectionalists and feminists.
Ia! Ia! Shub-Niggurath! Ya-R’lyeh! N’gagi n’bulu bwana n’lolo! My brain! My brain! God,–it’s tugging–from beyond–knocking–
clawing at my antfarm!