It’s time to get back to reading Hugo finalists and ignoring the Gallogate and anti-Tor e-mailstravaganza mess that I wrote about yesterday and commented on in a couple of places. I doubt there’s anything more I can do on that front than voice my opinions and hope for the best (that is, Tor and Macmillan shrugging and getting back to whatever they were doing).
A few people were pissed off and tried to convince me I was wrong. Some of them, such as Jared Anjewierden and Cedar Sanderson had, I think, something worthwhile to say, too.
Cedar Sanderson is also one of the Hugo Fan Writer finalists, and, as fate would have it, she’s next on my list.
Category: Fan Writer
Blogs on: Mad Genius Club & Cedar Writes
Slates: Rabid Puppies & Sad Puppies
Cedar Sanderson is the third member of the Mad Genius Club in this category, and she has produced what is probably the single best blog post in the voters packet I’ve read so far that has actually something do with SFF. In it, she ponders the shortcomings of generic fantasy on the lines of Diana Wynne Jones’ Tough Guide to Fantasyland which is a book I should probably read sometime. The text would be stronger if Sanderson had gone into specifics and given some more concrete examples of bad fantasy, but it’s not bad as is.
The other texts are standard Mad Genius Club fare: an anti-feminist manifesto with babble about minorities-du-jour, a post about (other people’s) confirmation bias and a defence of ESA astrophysicist Matt Taylor who infamously gave an interview wearing what Wikipedia calls “a shirt depicting scantily-clad cartoon women with firearms”. Sanderson tells us she bought two in solidarity with Taylor. “Who will stand with me for individuality, and freedom of expression?” she asks in the post, while now six months later her opinion seems to be that freedom of expression doesn’t necessarily apply to people employed by Tor.
As in all feminism-related stuff coming from the Puppy candidates, it’s bewildering how hard it is for them to imagine that maybe, just maybe, the things Sanderson reports — female writers not taken seriously, few women in science etc. — are actually produced by norms of the society, cultural practices and the like, not by some magical essentialist female-ness. Well, to be fair, she lays the blame for female writers’ problems also on the feminists’ doorstep. You see, male readers get suspicious with strong female characters and don’t read books that feature them because message fiction has made them mistrust such protagonists. Sigh.
Score: 3/10.
Spacefaring, Extradimensional Happy Kittens 
Cedar is a nice person.
You could take lessons. But you probably won’t. Your loss.
As for Irene Gallo, she embarrassed Tor, including its founder. She called people, including some Tor authors, Nazis. The First Amendment applies to your government, not your employer. An educated person would know this. But then, I highly doubt you would use the same flawed logic to support Chik-Fil-A or people who support them.
The Dialectic Uber Alles, as always with the Left.
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I’m sure she’s a nice person and I wish her no ill, even though I don’t think I wish her a Hugo either. She’s best of the MGC bloggers, in my opinion.
I suspect it was Taylor’s employer who made him apologize for wearing the shirt (which is the thing Sanderson criticizes), so I don’t think your logic is going to cut it here.
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I remember Cedar. She called me promiscuous. For saying I think women should be able to choose who uses their bodies and when they have to stop, and that I thought women didn’t give up this right by sleeping with multiple people.
Nice? No, she didn’t strike me as being nice. Perhaps she is pleasant to people who agree with her on every point and defer to her as an authority. I couldn’t say.
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Sadly, she never comes to range day at LibertyCon. She more wants to attend the panels.
BTW: Ever read the dragon rider series, or perhaps Honor Harrington? Or maybe the Serrano books by Ms. Moon? What about Ansaro?
But, yeah, they ain’t good enough because…? They aren’t emphatically feminist enough. Is that it?
Unlike you, I grew up when the Left Hand of Darkness truly made a difference. It sparked conversation. It was a great story. It engendered conversations at cons for decades. Not because “it’s socially correct” but because it’s a cracking good story that makes one think.
Give me more of those instead of over done preachy tale. (Which both sides are guilty of). That’s how conversation begins…Not with hammers.
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I don’t recall saying I only like books that are emphatically feminist. I’m not excited about fan writers whose main topic is snarl attacking feminism with no arguments, though.
I do hope that somebody somewhere will sometime substantiate the Puppies’ pet claim about a big chunk of Hugo winners being “preachy message fic”. Which books and how’s the message ruining it? Twenty fiction category winners will be a good start. This is known in File770 as the Mamatas challenge and nobody has tried tackling it yet.
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I’ve read and enjoyed the dragon rider books (we’re talking Anne McCaffery, right?) many of the Honor Harrington books (gave up on them because Honor the treecats weren’t getting enough screen time and one ravening space beam is very like another as far as I am concerned,) and the Heris Serrano books. Not familiar with Ansaro.
Have you read the Temeraire books? They’re like the dragon rider books turned up to 11.
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I think it is good that some people who enjoy Cedar’s blog(s) have commented on this review – but perhaps a bit more substance would help. She us a nice person? Ok, but what is good about her writing ? “Nice” is a good criteria for the “nicest person Hugo” but that isn’t a category…
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Big points deducted from that Cedar Sanderson post for misspelling Tolkien, which none of the geniuses over there seemed to have picked up on.
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patient, sir, all of a silver lining.
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