Entry tags:

author entitlement, awards, books/authors, person: john ringo, person: john scalzi

A Wank of Two Authors
A wank that is somewhat pan-fandom - Science Fiction in general!

First piece of background: John Scalzi is an author and, at present, he was until recently (thanks, sgaana!) the president of the SFWA. In the past few months, he has been a very vocal supporter of anti-harassment policies at SFF conventions, and in general has been a supporter of having women and minorities represented in SFF. This annoys some people. (Warning: this wank, while it has not in itself veered into unfunny territory, is between two authors - and to some extent their fanbases - who stand on very different sides of the "what (if anything) should be done to ensure equality for people of different genders/sexual orientations/races/creeds." While going over facebook and twitter to research this particular kerfluffle, I encountered some of that in other posts. None of it is linked here, but it is in this general section of the blaggertubes.)

As a second piece of background, the Hugo Awards celebrate the best of Science Fiction, and are widely considered one of the most prestigious awards an SFF author can win. While highly prestigious, however, the awards are not immune from the general principle of award-giving, which is that first someone wins, and then someone else bitches about it.

All caught up? Good.

On Sunday, the winners of the 2013 Hugo Awards were announced. John Scalzi won the award for best novel with Redshirts, a comedic novel about the unusually high mortality rates of starship employees wearing crimson attire. As usual, the win touched off some debate around the quality of the various nominees. Some people enjoyed Redshirts, others did not like it so well. Fairly standard. The Guardian has covered some of the differing points of view here, most of which are centered around the merits of the books and the voting system.

John Ringo, on the other hand, posted the following:

If anyone has been wondering why Scalzi has been picking the rather stupid fights he's been picking lately:

[link to Hugo Awards announcement]

Scalzi, either directly in response to Ringo, in response to some other criticism, or just as a general response to the world in general, posts on his blog about the award, and includes the following:

* Likewise, as is also tradition whenever a new winner of a Best Novel Hugo is announced, there are people who are heralding Redshirts as evidence that the Hugo voting process is corrupt/confused/irrelevant/a sign of the impending apocalypse. I don’t take this personally because a) I am well aware that not everyone is going to like everything I write, and that this goes double for Redshirts, which seems to have the greatest range of responses to it of any book I’ve written, b) someone would complain no matter what and who won, because the Internet is vasty and noisy, and for some people, something they don’t like winning an award is clearly evidence of systematic problems and/or conspiracy, rather than simply a popular vote of a particular group of voters not reflecting their own personal preferences.

My response to this is, as always: That’s fine. And in a larger sense, a vote no one complains about correlates very highly with a vote no one cares about. I’m happy to see people care about the Hugos, even if it’s to be annoyed with my book as a winner. With that said, the fact is this year I won the award, now it’s mine, and I’m not giving it back. So they’ll just have to deal.

(Now, there are people who are angry I won because they don’t like me personally. To them I say: Ha! Ha! Ha! Sucks to be you, dude.)

This touches off a debate on twitter, including (but certainly not limited to) the following. Feel free to add to these highlights, as my twitter-fu is by no means expert. (Which is why a majority come from Scalzi himself.) Scalzi is accused of pandering, Ringo is accused of pandering, Chris Kluwe makes an appearance.

Just because John Ringo is being a total ass to me doesn't mean you might not like his books. Some to try for free: [link to free books]

@Scalzi: Reading your post that was referenced, never going to buy any of YOUR books again. You're a deluded hypocritical racist little shit.

From Scalzi: "Highlight of the day so far: Dude with Hitler Emoji Twitter icon telling me I was racist and he would never read my books. I thought: Good"

Also from Scalzi: Seriously, though. Poor spelling does not make you wrong, but consistently poor spelling does undermine rhetorical credibility. Spellcheck!

The problem is, the Internet makes it seem like you SHOULD read the comments. But then you do, and you say, "YEAH, I forgot. Dammit."

HTML has totally failed me, so here are a few good links for twitter: Scalzi, Chris Kluwe and, courtesy of </b></a>duraniedrama, John Ringo's page. (There's some potential for unfunny there.) You can find more tweets under the hashtag #womendestroySF. (Lightspeed has announced a "Women Destroying SF" special edition.)

The wank builds up, with Ringo declaring that his wife is hotter and his hair is better than Scalzi's, until at some point in this mess, Ringo posts to his facebook page again.

Scalzi was pissing me off even before getting a Hugo for a novel so remarkably unremarkable it would barely have made it to paperback in the 1970s. Nothing against it, it's a fun, simple, mindless, read from all I've gathered. But it's not exactly Stranger in a Strange Land or Nightfall.

[....]

Which is where we start to see the issues with Scalzi suddenly not so much 'coming out of the closet' but making a splash on a variety of hot-button issues that really don't sit well with his RETAIL market. The people who actually BUY the books over the counter as opposed to market, sell and even buy them for distribution. The more books you can get a bookstore to buy, the more likely you are to sell them. So being the poster child for your commercial people is a good thing.

Orson Scott Card is brought up in the comments, but less than you might suspect.

John Ringo's politics get further attention when Scalzi links us to a review of one of Ringo's books. The review can simply be referred to as OH JOHN RINGO NO, which proceeds to become a catchphrase in the ensuing twitter comments.

This wank, it must be said, is far from over, as no one has yet flounced. Twitter continues to explode, and Scalzi continues to post to twitter, and all in all, the wank has continued merrily on for the span of a few days. Enjoy!

EDIT THE FIRST: Courtesy of tunxeh (thanks!), we have Scalzi's latest blog post. It is, as noted, worth it even if all you look at is his U MAD BRO? macro. Since I can't seem to embed, here: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/09/06/some-final-hugo-related-thoughts/