Jerry Pournelle Week VI

25 years after the end of the Cold War and the publication of the ninth volume of THERE WILL BE WAR, Dr. Pournelle revived his classic science fiction series with Castalia House. THERE WILL BE WAR Volume X continued the tradition of combining top-notch military science fiction with first-rate real-world analysis by military experts. The Cold War may have ended, but as recent events everywhere from Paris to Syria have demonstrated, war has not. 

THERE WILL BE WAR Volume X is edited by Jerry Pournelle and features 18 stories, articles, and poems. Of particular note are “Battle Station” by Ben Bova, “Flashpoint: Titan” by Cheah Kai Wai, "What Price Humanity?" by David VanDyke, and the eerily prescient "The Man Who Wasn't There” by Gregory Benford. Volume X also includes timely essays on "War and Migration" by Martin van Creveld, "The 4GW Counterforce" by William S. Lind and LtCol Gregory A. Thiele, USMC, and "The Deadly Future of Littoral Sea Control" by CDR Phillip E. Pournelle, USN, which was awarded the 2015 Literary Award by the Surface Navy Association for "the best professional article in any publication addressing Surface Navy or surface warfare issues."

THERE WILL BE WAR Volume X is free today. The following is an excerpt from "Flashpoint: Titan", the Hugo-nominated novelette by Cheah Kai Wai, the author of No Gods, Only Daimons.

Editor’s Introduction to:
FLASHPOINT: TITAN
by Cheah Kai Wai

Arthur C. Clarke said that if the human race is to survive, for most of its history the word ship will mean space ship. I will add to that the obvious implication that Navy will soon mean Space Navy. The Space Navy will certainly keep many of the traditions and practices of the wet navies, for the same reasons that they developed in the first place.

Navy stories are as old as going to sea in ships. The heroines of those stories are often ships as well as their crews. Here a story of a heroic ship and her crew.

Read more »

Jerry Pournelle Week II

Jerry Pournelle Week continues with Glenn Reynolds's tribute to Jerry Pournelle.

Jerry Pournelle died on Friday, peacefully in his sleep. With his death, America lost an important figure... But Pournelle didn’t just write fiction. His 1970 book with Stefan Possony, The Strategy of Technology, outlined a strategy for winning the Cold War (with among other things, an emphasis on strategic missile defense) that was largely followed, and successfully, by the Reagan administration. He was a driving force behind the Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy in the 1980s that helped lay the groundwork for today’s booming civilian space launch industry. And, for me, his wide-ranging columns in Galaxy Magazine, back when it was edited by star editor James Baen, were particularly influential.

I was a kid in the 1970s, which was not a great era to be a kid. We had Vietnam and Watergate, the Apollo space program quit abruptly, oil prices skyrocketed and so did inflation. Even a hamburger was expensive.

And while that was going on, the voices in the media were all preaching gloom and doom. Stanford professor Paul R. Ehrlich, in his book The Population Bomb, was predicting food riots in America due to overpopulation. A group called The Club of Rome published a report titled The Limits to Growth that suggested it was all over for Western technological civilization. Bookstore displays were filled with books like The Late Great Planet Earth that announced the end times. And if that weren’t enough, most people figured we were heading for a global thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union. It looked like we were headed for some sort of apocalyptic future in which Charlton Heston would be the only survivor besides a few apes or mutants.

But Jerry Pournelle never bought it. In his Galaxy columns — eventually collected and published in book form, and still in print — he actually did the math. The fact was, he reported, we could not only survive but, in his words, survive with style.

Castalia House is republishing The Strategy of Technology later this year. Also, today and tomorrow, we are giving away my favorite volume in the entire There Will Be War series, namely, Volume II. It is edited by Jerry Pournelle and features 19 stories, articles, and poems. Of particular note are “Superiority” by Arthur C. Clarke, “In the Name of the Father” by Edward P. Hughes, "'Caster" by Eric Vinicoff, “Cincinnatus” by Joel Rosenberg, "On the Shadow of a Phosphor Screen" by William Wu, and "Proud Legions", an essay on the Korean War by T.R. Fehrenbach.

These stories are great and many of them remain relevant today. Just last month, Castalia House was contacted by a U.S. military war college and asked for permission to give out copies of There Will Be War Vol. II to the officers in the class, which permission we obviously granted.

That is what real influence looks like. Most of the authors and the editor are gone now, but the beauty of the written word is that it provides the author with a voice even after death.

Jerry Pournelle Week

To celebrate the life and work of Jerry Pournelle, we will be giving away volumes of his classic military science fiction series, THERE WILL BE WAR, all week. Today and tomorrow, you can download THERE WILL BE WAR Vol. I for free. If you have never read Dr. Pournelle before, this is an excellent opportunity to acquaint yourself with his fiction and his philosophy. The man has gone to his reward, but his ideas remain with us.

Created by the bestselling SF novelist Jerry Pournelle, THERE WILL BE WAR is a landmark science fiction anthology series that combines top-notch military science fiction with factual essays by various generals and military experts on everything from High Frontier and the Strategic Defense Initiative to the aftermath of the Vietnam War. It features some of the greatest military science fiction ever published, such Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" in Volume I and Joel Rosenberg's "Cincinnatus" in Volume II. Many science fiction greats were featured in the original nine-volume series, which ran from 1982 to 1990, including Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Gordon Dickson, Poul Anderson, John Brunner, Gregory Benford, Robert Silverberg, Harry Turtledove, and Ben Bova. 

33 years later, Castalia House has teamed up with Dr. Pournelle to make this classic science fiction series available to the public again. THERE WILL BE WAR is a treasure trove of science fiction and history that will educate and amaze new readers while reminding old ones how much the world has changed over the last three decades. Most of the stories, like war itself, remain entirely relevant today. 

Volume I is edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr, and features 23 stories, articles, and poems. Of particular note are "Reflex" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the original "Ender's Game" novella by Orson Scott Card, "The Defenders" by Philip K. Dick, and a highly influential pair of essays devoted to the then-revolutionary concept of "High Frontier" by Robert A. Heinlein and Lt. General Daniel Graham. 

If you would prefer to buy Dr. Pournelle's books instead, I would recommend adding the big, beautiful hardcover omnibus of THERE WILL BE WAR Vols. I and II to your library.

Smells like SFWA

Elijah Wood speaks out about the pedophiles in Hollywood:

Hollywood is in the grip a child sexual abuse scandal similar to that of Jimmy Savile in Britain, Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood has claimed.

The 35-year-old former child actor said paedophiles had been protected by powerful figures in the movie business and that abuse was probably still taking place.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Wood said he had been protected from abuse as he was growing up, but that other child actors had been regularly “preyed upon” at parties by industry figures.

“You all grew up with Savile – Jesus, it must have been devastating,” he said.

“Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood.

“It was all organised.

“There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind.

“There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.”

Considering the physical proximity of Hollywood to the California SF scene, it would not surprise me in the least if there turns out to be links between the Hollywood coven that Wood is describing, the Breen-MZB coven, and the coven of convicted pedophiles that the Sacramento police department reported were in contact with Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka.

The truth will come out eventually. Eventually the victims will find the courage to speak out and save others from suffering their fate.

Anne Henry, co-founder of Bizparents, a group set up to help child actors, said Hollywood is currently sheltering around 100 active abusers and said a “tsunami” of claims was beginning.

Dr. Jerry Pournelle wins 2016 Heinlein Memorial award

I am very pleased to see Dr. Pournelle recognized for his many contributions to Man's exploration and development of space. It has been one of the great privileges of my life to have the opportunity to work with such a brilliant man and he continues to be an inspiration to those of us who believe in the importance of Man and Western civilization. Congratulations, Dr. Pournelle! - Vox

The National Space Society takes great pleasure in announcing that its 2016 Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award has been won by acclaimed science fiction author Dr. Jerry Pournelle. This prestigious award selected by an international vote of NSS members will be presented to Dr. Jerry Pournelle at the 2016 International Space Development Conference (ISDC).The public is welcome to attend the conference and see the award presentation at the Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ISDC will run from May 18-22, 2016.

About Dr. Jerry Pournelle

This award recognizes Dr. Jerry Pournelle’s many years of support for space science, exploration, development and settlement and his close association with Robert Heinlein. He was active in the NSS predecessor, the L5 Society, during its early years. Jerry served as co-chair of the very first ISDC, NSS secretary, and as a Board member.

Jerry was also Chair of the Citizen’s Advisory Council on National Space Policy. This group was active during the 1980s and was one of the most effective groups promoting specific space related policy positions at that time. Robert Heinlein was also an active member of that group. The group’s early support of missile defense eventually led to the perceived need for an inexpensive launcher. The briefing that he and two others gave to then Vice President Quayle was instrumental in getting the approval of the DC-X program, overcoming widespread skepticism about the project. Jerry was present at White Sands on September 11, 1993 when the first large rocket, the DC-X vehicle, was reused.

Jerry has consistently supported the vision of self-sustaining human settlements in space and on planetary surfaces, and as part of a free, spacefaring civilization, which is at the very heart of the space movement. Jerry’s work as a science fiction author, focusing on science fiction with realistic physics, has contributed to a better understanding of the limitations and the abilities of human space operations. Few have made such a rich contribution to these fields.

About the Robert A. Heinlein Award

This award is presented once every two years for lifetime achievement in promoting the goal of a free, spacefaring civilization. The winner is decided by the vote of the entire NSS membership, not by the awards committee. The award consists of a miniature signal cannon, on a mahogany base with a black granite inlay and a brass plaque as shown. The award concept came from Robert Heinlein’s classic book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Some of the early award winners include Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Carl Sagan, Neil Armstrong and Elon Musk. More information about this award and the past winners is here.

There Will Be More

Dr. Jerry Pournelle has an important announcement:

Accepting submissions for a new volume of the There Will Be War series. Send with cover note to submission@therewillbewar.net. Stories should preferably be 20,000 words or less.  Poetry encouraged, but see the previous series; it needs to make sense. Hard science fiction mainly; urban fantasy with a military theme possibly acceptable, but mostly we want hard, realistic stories.  They need not be action adventure; good command decision stories encouraged. Space opera always considered.  Again see the previous nine volumes.

Nonexclusive anthology rights only are purchased.  Payment on acceptance is $100 advance against pro rata share of 50% of the revenues received from the publisher. Given the sales of the previous volumes we expect this to be a respectable payment. Original works will be considered, but author is welcome to sell it elsewhere; we purchase only nonexclusive anthology rights.

There will be a hardbound print edition, paperback if the sales indicate it, and eBook publication. Contributors will receive an author’s copy. Each contribution will have an introduction by the editor. The work will contain non-fiction essays by invited contributors: again see the previous volumes. 

There Will Be War has historically been a reprint anthology, so reprints are not only fine, they are preferred. But if you're a military science fiction writer, be sure to only send in your very best, as this will essentially be a "best of" the last two decades of military science fiction. If Vol. X can somehow reach what I consider to be the heights of Vol. II, I will be extremely pleased.

And if you haven't read There Will Be War Vol. II yet, go and get it now. Just do it. The entire series is more than merely good, it is important. But in my opinion, Volume II is the best SF anthology ever published. Seriously, it was hard to decide which of the stories most merited mention in the Amazon listing. Of particular note are “Superiority” by Arthur C. Clarke, “In the Name of the Father” by Edward P. Hughes, "'Caster" by Eric Vinicoff, “Cincinnatus” by Joel Rosenberg, "On the Shadow of a Phosphor Screen" by William Wu, and "Proud Legions", an essay on the Korean War by T.R. Fehrenbach.

I was talking to Dr. Pournelle recently, and one of the things I told him was that I was extremely surprised to learn, upon editing the re-released anthologies, how much influence There Will Be War had upon my intellectual development. If you have a teenage boy, this is a series that should be a part of his education.

Compare and contrast

The SJWs in science fiction believe that if they can control the narrative, if they can convince the media to tell the story their way, they are going to retain their control of the science fiction establishment. They are given every opportunity to spin the narrative and make their case; Brad, Larry, and I were contacted by a Wall Street Journal reporter yesterday, which was a welcome change from most of the coverage that we've been seeing of late, but so too were John Scalzi and George Martin.

It's just like one sees on the cable news. If a talking head has on a liberal guest, the liberal appears alone to sell the narrative. If a talking head has on a conservative guest, a liberal guest usually appears to dispute the narrative. And although it is only a guess, I suspect that the way that the story is likely to go will be moderately anti-Puppy, in light of the reporter actually "playing devil's advocate" in conversation with me.

When I pointed out how the Puppy case is bolstered by comparing the number of Hugo nominations belonging to those in the Making Light clique, (15 for Charles Stross, 15/14 for Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and 9 for John Scalzi compared to 12 for Isaac Asimov, 12 for Robert Heinlein, and 7 for Arthur C. Clarke), the reporter shot back, and I quote, "yeah, but they're editors!"

Although I pointed out to him that a) Charles Stross and John Scalzi are not, in fact, editors, and b) Isaac Asimov was an editor as well as a writer, I got the feeling that he was not likely to quote me concerning those readily observable and very telling facts. We'll see, perhaps I'm wrong.

But the anti-Puppy influence over the mainstream media is largely irrelevant. Because, when people look more closely at the situation, here is the sort of thing they are seeing the Anti-Puppies say:

Anna Feruglio Dal Dan: "It’s not the Hugo ballot – that is a problem, but I am solving it by gleefully voting No Award to lots of categories, and I think I will make a point not to read any of it just to annoy you – it’s the strutting and posturing and pronouncing of you guys that I find hilarious. OK, I tell a lie, some of you are just boring and lame, Kratman for example can’t even insult people creatively, but you have moments of pure comedy genius."

Hampus Eckerman: "Honestly, when you are saying that there are no unwritten rules, the only thing you’re really saying is that you haven’t got the social competence to notice them. Even when people write them on your nose.

Mickey Finn: "I’ve been making my way through the short stories, novellas and novelettes, and so far haven’t even encountered a competently polished turd.

NelC: "I’m not absolutely convinced that you’re not the type of loony who thinks he can gain advantage by pretending to be a (different kind of) loony, but either way, you’re seriously fucked in the head."

Alexvdl: "I think you have articulated better than anyone else why Beale’s (and other puppies) reliance on rating systems shows how far outside fandom they are."

Whatever reader: "I had a great time voting “No Award” today... I’d rather give the award to a trash can than to the crap they spent years working on."

By contrast, here is how the non-Puppies in the field see the situation.

Rick Moen: "I think it’s abundantly clear what about the Beale and Torgersen campaigning and (apparent) acquisition of nomination votes has made habitual Hugo voters and Worldcon co-goers very annoyed and (in my estimation) in a mood to terminate what they see as behaviour hostile to the Worldcon."

Whereas here is how at least some of those outside science fiction are seeing it:

Greg Ellis: "When all of this blew up I was not even a non-attending supporting member of WorldCon. I’ve known about the Hugos for years, but never knew I had, as a fan, a chance to vote for nominees or on the final ballot. That all changed this year. What also changed was that I came down on the Sad Puppies side of the debate. For awhile I was trying to look at both sides and judge equitably. I was trying to be fair and open-minded and non-biased. Then I asked the wrong question of the wrong people at the wrong time. Even Brianna Wu chimed in on that one. I was a “white supremacist” by mere association with Brad Torgerson and Larry Correia because they knew Vox Day and I was friends with Brad and Larry on FaceBook. Guilt-by-association. I do not tolerate being accused of something that anyone who knows me understands that I am not. You want to push me into somebody else’s camp, make an accusation like that."


RI: I've been a spectator to this conflict for several months now. To be honest, I didn't even know who any of the participants were when I first started following. Now, because of the outcry against you, Mr. Correia, and Mr. Torgersen I have become a daily reader of your blog and am rapidly burning through Mr. Corriea's books.

Bojoti, a Worldcon Supporting member appears to share similar sentiments:

I knew absolutely nothing about the Sad Puppies until this year. I knew of the Hugos but little about them, either. I'd followed George R.R. Martin's Not a Blog for years, and I remember him encouraging people to vote because the Hugos were their award (except now, they aren't). But, back then, I had a house full of kids which meant less time for reading and fewer dollars for sure! Now, the kids are gone, and I have more of both of the aforementioned. When I discovered that WorldCon would be held in the Midwest in 2016, I was excited and decided to get a supporting membership for this year and attend the next.

I didn't realize all the turmoil about Sad Puppies until after the nominations were announced. I came to the situation too late to nominate and unaware that my membership would be an affront to the TrueFans. I just wanted to participate in and give back to a genre that has been integral to my life. Instead, I find that I'm not welcome at the cool kids' table, which is ironically hilarious, because my science fiction ways were unpopular to the non-science fiction crowd of my youth.

As is my researching way, I took to the Internet to look at all sides. I went all the way back to the inception of Sad Puppies. I read "Making Light." I Googled, read, and digested from a wide spectrum from news sources (most very biased and inaccurate), authors' websites, Twitter, and Facebook.

I think what the TrueFans and Sad Puppies don't realize is that they are being watched by the great unwashed masses, hoi polloi, the little people of science fiction. Some of the behavior and rhetoric is so hateful and venomous that I regret my membership. Authors were saying that the new members didn't love science fiction; they were claiming that they didn't even read! Some were even saying stupid things like the Koch brothers bought my membership. TrueFans were disgusted by the thought of new members. They like the WorldCon being small and are actively against new members.

I'm rethinking attending WorldCon 2016. I'll wait to see what happens at Sasquan before I decide. If people are going to act crazy like a frenetic bag of cut snakes, I want no part of that fandom (or Fandom). I don't need to spend money to be ostracized, belittled, and hated. I'm sure I can get that for free, elsewhere!

The TrueFans are pushing the new members right into the Sad Puppies' doghouse. I wasn't a Sad Puppy, but if the TrueFans don't want me, they have proven the Sad Puppies' charge of insular exclusivity. When the TrueFans band together and decide as a bloc NOT to read the works and agree to vote No Award to Sad Puppy nominations, they've lost any respect or sympathy I had for them. When people advocate putting the Puppies "down," I'm horrified. When people write "basically if the "hero" isn't white and male, the Puppies will get all Sad at you and threaten to rape you to death. Like the good, tolerant humans they are, natch," I'm sickened. When an author opines the correct way to treat the Sad Puppies is "Well, we make fun of them. We refuse to play with them. We refuse to share our resources with them," I flash back to the petty games of the middle school mean girls' cliques.

Baen Books author John Ringo has an idea where things are headed and why:

The SJBs, CHORFs, what have you are facing an uphill climb. Their ‘award winning authors’ are hardly popular in the mainstream (also frequently boring as shit on a panel) and every convention which has tried to stay entirely ‘SJW’ has found it has little or no market.

The CHORFs accuse the SPs of ‘fighting to retain white-male privilege.’ The reality is that the CHORFs are desperate to retain any sort of relevance at all. 'Their' conventions are failing. 'Their' books don't sell as well as 'pulp crap'. 'Their' magazines are losing circulation and closing. Lose control of the Hugos and they become irrelevant. And desperate regimes get crazier and crazier the more desperate they become.

They are not completely irrelevant yet. But they will be. And they fear it. Their over-the-top reactions make that very clear indeed.

THERE WILL BE WAR: The ten best stories

This is just my personal list of favorites from Volume I and Volume II. I'm only considering the fiction here, not the essays, articles, or poems.

1. "Cincinnatus", Joel Rosenberg, Volume II. This story about a retired, possibly traitorous general brought back for one last command is probably my favorite-ever mil-sf story. As excellent in conception as execution, it has had a distinct influence on the world of Quantum Mortis.
2. "On the Shadow of a Phosphor Screen", William F. Wu, Volume II. The series features several stories from this world where wars are settled by professional gamers. It reads like a prophecy of Sega's Total War series, but has a haunting edge to it that gives it a timeless feel.
3. "Superiority", Arthur C. Clarke, Volume II. A clever and amusing exercise in explaining how technological superiority can be a weakness. Particularly interesting if you've read van Creveld's Technology and War. It's more relevant than the average general would like to think.
4. "Ender's Game", Orson Scott Card, Volume I. "Ender's Game". The original novella. Enough said.
5. "In the Name of the Father", Edward P. Hughes, Volume II. This is possibly the most light-hearted post-apocalyptic tale ever told. I like the stories of Barley's Crossing.
6. "Time Lag", Poul Anderson, Volume II. A tribute to the significance of female steadfastness in times of war, as well as an illustration of how time and distance factor into the martial equation.
7. "His Truth Goes Marching On", Jerry Pournelle, Volume I. As Tom Kratman once called it, "the Spanish civil war in space". Philosophically deeper than you might think at first.
8.  "'Caster" by Eric Vinicoff, Volume II. A little longer than it needs to be, not quite as artfully written as the others, but an inspirational and optimistic war story.
9. "Ranks of Bronze" by David Drake, Volume I. Drake does Roman legions playing mercenary for aliens. A little short, but it's a good battle scene.
10. "Call Him Lord" by Gorden R. Dickson, Volume I. Less about war than the price of leadership. A bit artificial, but it comes to an emotionally powerful close.

As far as the non-fiction goes, while the articles on High Frontier are fascinating for their historical significance, my favorite is "Proud Legions" by T.R. Fehrenbach, which appears in Volume II. In fact, I have to confess that of the nine volumes of THERE WILL BE WAR, Volume II is my favorite. That is the very high bar that Volume X will attempt to clear.

The return of THERE WILL BE WAR

From The Year's Best Science Fiction to Thieves World, I have always been a fan of anthologies. I find it interesting to read the work of various authors as they address similar topics; in some ways, appearances in anthologies allows the reader to better distinguish the true masters from the journeymen, the stunt writers, the formulaists, and the one-trick ponies. It's also intriguing to see the difference between authors who are adept with the short form and novelists who really need more textual space within which to work. And of all the anthologies I ever read in my youth, my absolute favorite was THERE WILL BE WAR, created by none other than the science fiction great Dr. Jerry Pournelle himself.

To me, Jerry Pournelle was a near-mythic name that appeared on the shelves of B. Dalton's like an omnipresent demigod. I enjoyed his non-fiction essays even more than most of the fiction for which he was most famous, and looking back, he probably had as significant an impact on my intellectual development as Milton Friedman, Joseph Schumpeter, or Camille Paglia, not only as a writer, but as an editor. When I first read the first volume of THERE WILL BE WAR, with the unforgettable cover of a white-helmeted spotter calling in orbital artillery, I was deeply impressed by the way in which the essays informed the short stories as well as how the short stories tended to bring the essay subjects to life and make them more relevant to the reader.

And the names! Gordon R. Dickson. Philip K. Dick. Arthur C. Clarke. Poul Anderson. Joel Rosenberg. Robert Silverberg. Joe Haldeman. Niven and Pournelle. What was most impressive, however, was the way in which even the stories by the biggest names were occasionally trumped by then-unfamiliar names like Orson Scott Card, Edward P. Hughes, and above all, William F. Wu. THERE WILL BE WAR ran from 1982 to 1990, and finally came to an end around the same time as the Soviet Union, which had often served as a primary topic in the nine-volume series. It seemed apropos, after all. The Berlin Wall had fallen, an end to history had been reached, the long-warring nations of Europe were heading for monetary union, and, everyone assumed, peaceful political union as well, and many presumed that an end to war as we knew it was in sight as well. There would be no more war.

Being, as readers here know, somewhat of a pessimist when it comes to such utopian claims, reviving THERE WILL BE WAR was one of my first ideas when Castalia House was founded. I contacted Dr. Pournelle about it, but although he generally favored the idea, we never really got around to discussing it very seriously. I went with Plan B and created RIDING THE RED HORSE with LTC Tom Kratman instead. But I still wanted Dr. Pournelle to be involved, as I considered RED HORSE to be the spiritual successor of THERE WILL BE WAR. Upon being asked for a contribution, Dr. Pournelle graciously permitted me to include two of his pieces, a well-known short story set in the CoDominium universe called "His Truth Goes Marching On" and an article on wargame design that I found to be particularly interesting. Tom also obtained a contribution from John Carr, the associate editor on several volumes of THERE WILL BE WAR, including the first one. RIDING THE RED HORSE was published last December and it has been very well received. Five months after its release, it is still one of the top ten bestsellers in Military Strategy and more than one reviewer has even referred to it as a virtual "tenth volume" of THERE WILL BE WAR.

But the most significant response came from Dr. Pournelle, as after looking over the new anthology, he asked me if Castalia House might be interested in republishing his own out-of-print anthology series. I allowed that, yes, perhaps Castalia might have some modest interest in considering a discussion of the possibility, immediately put it on top of our priority list, and after a few months of hard work from the ad hoc THERE WILL BE WAR team, I am very, very, very pleased to be able to announce not only the republishing of THERE WILL BE WAR Volumes I and II, but also the revival of the THERE WILL BE WAR anthology series with an actual Volume X, edited by Jerry Pournelle, as well. Volume I and Volume II of THERE WILL BE WAR are now available in ebook at Amazon and Castalia House for $4.99 each, and as the following reviewer of Volume I noted, despite being 33 years old, they have a lot to offer the younger generations who never had a chance to read them before. It was very rewarding to read the first review of Volume I from a reader too young to have encountered the original paperbacks.

This book is astonishing. A collection of short military science-fiction and essays put together in the early 80s by Jerry Pournelle, the book is older than I am and yet somehow manages to avoid seeming dated at all. The book was extremely well-regarded when it came out, and spawned a nine volume series, but for years has languished in semi-obscurity. How good is it? It's got the original "Ender's Game" novella by Orson Scott Card, and that's not even the best story in the book!

If you're a younger reader, odds are you've never even heard of half of these writers. And they're all good. The stories are diverse, with everything from post-apocalyptic shootouts to huge sci-fi space battles. Sometimes the heroes win, and sometimes they don't. But every time I found myself rooting for them.

But the real prize of the book is the non-fiction essays, which give a window into how scary the world was back when the Soviet Union was still a threat. One of the essays, 'The Soviet Strategic Threat From Space", discusses the end of the world in a cold, scientific manner that's more chilling than any fiction could ever be.
 
"There Will Be War" introduced me to a ton of great new authors, and entire series that I had no clue even existed. For someone who's just getting into science fiction, it's a wonderful starting point. For veterans, it's a way to revisit some of the old greats.

I will post later today at Castalia House about some of my favorites from these first two volumes, but I can assure you that if you enjoyed RIDING THE RED HORSE in any way, shape, or form, you will be find Volume I and Volume II of THERE WILL BE WAR to be very well worth reading. I very highly recommend both volumes.

Amazon (Kindle format)

• THERE WILL BE WAR Volume I
• THERE WILL BE WAR Volume II

Castalia House (EPUB and Kindle formats)

• THERE WILL BE WAR Volume I
• THERE WILL BE WAR Volume II

FAQ

•  Will these be released in print versions as well? Yes, in two-volume case laminated omnibus hardcovers. The first will probably appear in the July-August timeframe.
• When will the next volumes be released? We expect to release Volumes III and IV in company with the VI+VII hardcover.
• Does this mean the end of RIDING THE RED HORSE? No. RIDING THE RED HORSE Vol. 2 will focus on entirely new fiction. THERE WILL BE WAR Vol. X will consist primarily of Dr. Pournelle's selections from the best and most significant military fiction published between 1990 and 2015.
• Who did the covers? Jartstar and Chris came up with the title layout and a new artist, Lars, did the updated 3D images that are homages to the original painted covers. He'll be doing the entire series. 
• Can we review the books on Amazon if we bought them from Castalia or read them previously? By all means, please do.

Kicking Puppies makes Vivian sad

I wonder how many SJWs have the wits to grasp what that picture indicates? In any event, there are two more SJW responses worth noting this week, including another heartfelt soliloquy from David Gerrold as well as an absolutely revelatory response by John Scalzi.

David Gerrold first writes an open letter to Brad Torgersen:

You have hurt the Sasquan committee. These are people who have spent years planning, campaigning, bidding, working, preparing, and anticipating the best convention they can imagine. You don't know what goes on behind the scenes of a convention, how many moving parts there are, how many people have to rise to the occasion. There's programming, guest relations, membership registration, con suite, green room, sound and video, tech of all kinds, finances, insurance, security, special needs, cat-herding, and more. Everyone who takes on one of those jobs does so out of a love of the field -- and everyone who was looking forward to a party is now hurting because there's a turd in the punch bowl -- and you are perceived as the guy who dropped it there. You and Larry Correia.

And you have hurt all the fans who will be attending, all the fans who wil be following events online. Instead of the convention being about a celebration of our common interests in SF, it is now about you and Larry Correia and a few others associated with you. You have pulled the convention off purpose and you have hurt the fans who wanted to have a good old-fashioned happy Worldcon. There have been many of those.

You have hurt your colleagues in the field. There are people who have declined to be award presenters. Others have asked to have their works removed from the ballot. You have hurt the integrity of the awards.

And then promptly deletes Brad's response to his open letter:

And once again, Brad Togersen misses the point. I've deleted his msgs. I'm done with you, Brad. At long last, have you no decency? Have you no shame?

Do they still wonder why we laugh at their disingenuous calls for "honest dialogue" and "debate"? I thought Brad's response was considerably longer than it needed to be. "We don't care" would have sufficed. Although I suppose it is amusing to see that Gerrold still doesn't realize that what he thought was a punch bowl has been a toilet for a decade.

Speaking of deletions, Johnny Con first made fun of sexually abused children in the process of attacking Larry Correia, then belatedly deleted his post.

[On second thought, this was not well-argued and I’m withdrawing it until I can more fairly and accurately make the point I want to make. Will update when I do. In the meantime, note to self: Don’t write screeds when operating under lack of sleep — JS]

But not before I happened to notice this interesting big of psychological projection: "Day is a perfectly lucid person. He’s a fine con man, in other words, and Correia and Torgersen fell for his con."

The choice of words is revealing. It was nearly a year ago when I wrote about SF's biggest con artist: "Sure you're smiling, Johnny. That's why you stopped reporting your annual numbers in 2013. That's why you shut down your Quantcast reports. That's why you don't post a traffic meter anywhere on your site. That's why you threatened to quit SFWA.... I can't speak for anyone else, but I find your constant snake oil salesmanship genuinely amusing. You're the Bernie Madoff of science fiction and you've got the Participation Hugo to prove it."

To say nothing of two more Hugo nominations than Arthur C. Clarke, and seven more than Iain Banks and Terry Pratchett combined. As it happens, thanks to the Dread Ilk and the Puppies, I am rapidly approaching the 2 million monthly pageviews that Johnny Con falsely told Lightspeed Magazine he had back in 2010, when he actually had 305,000. The difference is that if I say I have two million monthly pageviews, you can be 100 percent certain that I do. I do not lie on the Internet. It is very, very stupid to lie on the Internet. Johnny also let Larry Correia have it for Larry's refusal to let little Johnny be friends with him despite Johnny's repeated overtures.

Also, can we please now stop pretending that this whole Puppy nonsense began for any other reason than that once upon a time, Larry Correia thought he was going to win an award and was super pissed he didn’t, and decided that the reason he didn’t had to be a terrible, awful conspiracy against people just like him (a conservative! Writing “fun” fiction!), as opposed to, oh, the voters deciding they just plain liked something and someone else better? Can we stop pretending that a fellow who practically begs people to nominate his work three years running, hiding the begging behind an oh-so-thin veil of “let’s stick it to the SJWs!” doesn’t desperately crave the external validation that he thinks the award will bring? Can we stop pretending that this is anything other than a grown up child stomping his feet, screaming look at me, look at me, loooook at meeeeee? Because, come on, folks. We’re well past the point of genteel here. Let’s call it for what it is.

(And yes, I know, Correia declined his nomination for the Hugo this year. Let’s talk about that for a minute, shall we. It takes a very special sort of fellow to allow himself to be on a slate to get nominated, marshal people to nominate him for the award as part of a slate, and then decline — and write a big ol’ puffed-up piece about why he was declining, social justice warriors, blows against the empire, blah blah blah, yadda yadda. Yes, nice he declined the nomination and let someone else on the ballot. But it’s a little like wanting credit for rescuing a baby squirrel when you knocked the baby squirrel out of the tree to begin with.)

To be clear, the Puppy nonsense now isn’t just about Correia really really really wanting validation in the form of a rocketship; Day’s stealing the Puppy movement right out from under Correia and Torgerson has changed things up quite a bit, and it’s certainly true at this point that this little campaign is about a bunch of people trying to shit in the punchbowl so no one else can have any punch. But at the beginning, it was Correia hurt and angry that someone else got an award he thought was his, and deciding that it was stolen from him, rather than being something that was never his to begin with. And I’m sorry for him that it didn’t go his way. But actual grown human beings deal with disappointment in ways other than Correia has.

Correia can bluster about this all he likes; he’s a lovely online bully, and certainly he wishes to project that he’s a Tough Guy Saying Tough Things, Toughly™. But, eh. If he was actually who he wishes he could project himself as, the Sad Puppy thing would have never happened. And, ironically, he would be better positioned to win the awards he craved, because he wouldn’t be seen as a petulant whiner about such things. As it is, all we can do for him now is let him show us on the cartoon face pain chart how much Worldcon hurt him, and offer him soothing hugs until all his pain goes away.

See, if only Larry had only treated Johnny Con more nicely, then he would have won the award that he so badly craves. Why won't he be friends, why?

Anti-GamerGate attacks the Honey Badgers

The SJWs came for the Honey Badger Brigade yesterday:

Early this morning, Fan Expo Canada banned Honey Badger Brigade (HBB) from the Calgary Comics and Entertainment Expo (CalEx). Security staff approached the HBB booth, ordered us to leave, and refused to state the reason why unless Alison Tieman agreed to speak to them away from the other members of the group, without recording. They informed Alison that they had received complaints on social media, including 25 allegations of harassment. No evidence was presented, no request was made for information from HBB, and no specific incident was cited until further questions were asked of security.

Upon further questioning, security mentioned the Women in Comics panel discussion from the previous day, where Alison was given permission to speak. Alison spoke briefly in relation to a topic brought up by the panelists. Accusers, however, claimed that Alison derailed the conversation. Alison and myself were in attendance, and you can listen to Alison’s statement in the panel here on YouTube. You can hear Alison, myself and indeed the entire panel in the full discussion record.

As you will hear, there was no harrassment. Expo staff and mob rule, in their crusade for ending harassment against women, harassed the Honey Badgers despite having no evidence of any policy violation.

This is what we are up against. This is why I will never back down, why I will never ever apologize for thinking, speaking, and writing freely. This is why I am the Leader of #GamerGate and why you should be too.

The real crime of the Honey Badger Brigade, for which they were successfully attacked, was not "reportedly disrupting panels", but rather "associating with GamerGate".

Think about it. A group of women were just harassed and driven out of a convention for being guilty by association. And the SJWs claim that we are the intolerant ones, we are the uncivil ones, we are the ones harassing women, we are the ones trying to drive others from the public discourse. Meanwhile, the moderates claim that the problem is our tone, that we're simply not being nice enough, that if only we didn't express our "problematic" views but kept them quietly to ourselves, everything would be all right.

Horseshit. Absolute and unadulterated horseshit.

Notice that they wanted to isolate Alison, and speak to her away from the others and without recording. Sound familiar? Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that I am an arrogant, cruel, and ruthless badthinker who eminently deserves every "shitbag" "asshat" "jackass" "dipshit" insult and every denigrating and disqualifying "mentally unbalanced" "racist" "misogynist" "sexist" "anti-Semitic" "homophobic" "Nazi" "white supremacist" description that has been hurled my way by SJWs from New York City to New Zealand for the last 10 years. Even if all of those accusations were perfectly true, how would that explain the coordinated assault on the Honey Badger Brigade?

Did that take place in response to me? If I was just a little nicer, if my rhetoric dripped with pure honey rather than pure contempt, if I lovingly laved Teresa Nielsen-Hayden's warty folds with my tongue and dutifully nominated John Scalzi and Charles Stross and Patrick Nielsen-Hayden for awards so those three giants of modern science fiction could add to their collective total of 39 Hugo nominations (only 8 more than Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke combined), would that have somehow prevented the Honey Badgers from being attacked by SJWs and expelled from Calgary Expo?

Several tweets from this morning suggested one of the exhibitors was proudly demonstrating banners and shirts for GamerGate. It was quickly revealed this was The Honey Badger Brigade.... Calgary Expo has been actively responding to comments and criticisms about its decision on Twitter, expressing it had no desire to allow a GamerGate-themed booth onto the show floor.

This is a cultural war, everyone. And if you're not fighting it, you're losing it.

The reason the SJWs went after the Honey Badger Brigade instead of #GamerGate is the same reason they went after Sad Puppies instead of Rabid Puppies. The more publicly acceptable the face of their opposition, the more they are determined to silence and separate it from their most implacable opponents.

It didn't work with Larry and Brad. It won't work with the Honey Badgers either. #GamerGate will not abandon them. What do you say, Rabid Puppies? What do you say, Dread Ilk?

Support the Honey Badgers and join the #GamerGate email campaign against the sponsors of Calgary Expo. Send one email, just one polite little email, to start. I have. That's all it takes... because we are legion.

New reader: where to start?

A new reader wonders where the best place to start reading my fiction is:

I've been enjoying your blog, and wanted to know - what would be the best book of yours for a new reader to start with? I'm a big sci-fi fan, but haven't actually read your fiction yet. If it matters, my tastes are a bit older - Orson Scott Card, William Gibson, Arthur C. Clarke, etc. Terry Brooks and Tolkien when it comes to fantasy. Might be good to have a "new reader" link.

My first instinct is to say QM: AMP for those who lean SF and AMB, followed by ATOB, for those who lean fantasy. But I also think the author is among the least reliable authorities in this regard, so I'll leave it up to the Ilk to sort it out in the comments. If you all can reach a consensus, I'll post it here and create a New Reader link in the sidebar.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume no one thinks that either REBEL MOON or THE RETURN OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION is the optimal starting point.

And on the Sad Puppy front, Mad Genius Dave Freer just asks the question that I did about the Toad of (formerly) Tor, only he asks it about the Guardian as well.

The chances of a ‘hit’ piece, intended to denigrate, on an American populist author with little impact on his British scene, in a publication that tends to Ahrt, are slim. The chance of it happening the very day that the Hugo Nomination shortlist is released, targeting an audience who might possibly go to LonCon, but probably would not have heard of Larry Correia? In other words, to poison minds well before they saw their voter packets…

The chance that this happened purely by accident – about the same as a fully armed nuclear missile turning into a Sperm whale a few seconds before impact.

Let’s get to a second fact. Just the facts. A year later, TNH launched a furious tirade on her blog, ‘Making Light’… attacking the Sad Puppies for sweeping the Hugo Noms. Threatening to bring down retribution for being nominated. Now coming from such a powerful person in Traditional Publishing, and one with… shall we say wide influence (the links are… telling) this is fairly serious bullying. Abuse of power.

But the important thing is WHEN IT HAPPENED.

It happened BEFORE the embargo was lifted.

These facts lead inexorably to a question so simple and so obvious I can’t see how anyone can miss it asking it:

HOW DID DAMIAN WALTER AND TERESA NIELSEN HAYDEN KNOW LARRY AND THE SAD PUPPIES HAD BEEN NOMINATED WHEN IT WAS EMBARGOED?

I think this pair of tweets from 2013 will explain a lot. Notice the connection between David Barnett, John Scalzi, and Damien Walter. And then notice who publishes David Barnett. Still dubious about a quiet circle of conspiracy centered around Tor Books?

Pinkshirts at play

Now, recall that we're supposed to be concerned that the mainstream media is against #GamerGate. John Scalzi was crowing to Sparklepunter that. But do they seriously think we don't notice when the greater portion of the media establishment is simply pinkshirts doing exactly what Clark described at Popehat: "using these pink resources to promote, give good reviews to, and bestow awards on pink developers and pink games...." In this vein, consider the New York Times review of science fiction and fantasy today:

“Ancillary Justice,” the first novel in Ann Leckie’s far-future posthuman space opera series, recently became the first novel to win the “triple crown” of the genre (the Hugo, Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke awards), but not without controversy. The central question is whether the story’s structural gimmick — the protagonist’s tendency to refer to all people as “she” regardless of actual gender or even humanity — is sufficiently mind-blowing as to merit all the accolades. It isn’t a gimmick, though; it’s a coup. Rather than seriously entertain the endless, if stupid, debate on whether women have a place in stories of the future, Leckie’s book does the literary equivalent of rolling its eyes and walking out of the room. Her refusal to waste energy on stupidity forces her audience to do the same: A few pages into the first novel, the reader gives up trying to guess each character’s actual gender, and just accepts that this will be a story full of interesting women doing awesome things.

Notice that the reviewer dismisses the controversy around whether an eminently forgettable debut novel truly merits being the most highly-awarded SF/F novel of all time. As if there was every any doubt that a book written by a female pinkshirt was going to be full of women doing things. Prediction: the recently-released sequel to this vaunted SF novel ever is going to fall considerably short of expectations. Now, care to guess who wrote the review?

Why, none other than the educated, but ignorant half-savage herself, NK Jemisin! But we're supposed to be duly impressed by the fact that the supposedly objective mainstream media praises "a story full of interesting women doing awesome things", which I note could be used to describe practically any female-written novel from The Pillow Book to 50 Shades of Grey.

Like most pinkshirt victories, this one is hollow and bordering on pyrrhic, because the primary accomplishment is to cause the reader to realize that there is no point reading the NYT's book reviews anymore. Assuming, of course, that one didn't already figure that out about 20 years ago. Either way, it represents a once-formidable gatekeeper continuing its spiral downward into irrelevance.

The evils of togetherheid

Fred Reed observes that blacks and whites really don't want to intermingle, for the most part, and that this is entirely normal behavior from the historical perspective:

We need to realize, but will not, that blacks are a separate people, self-aware and cohesive. They have their own dialect, music, and modes of dress, which they value. They name their kids LaToya and Keeshawn instead of Robert and Carol because they want to maintain a distance from whites.

The races spring from utterly different cultures. Compulsory integration is thus a form of social imperialism in which whites try to force blacks to conform to European norms. Blacks have no historical connection at all to Greece, Rome, the Old Testament Hebrews, Christianity, the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, to Newton, LaGrange, or Galois, to the philosophic tradition of Thales, Aquinas, Schopenhauer, or Hegel. Nor do Eurowhites have roots in Africa. No commonality exists.

We talk multiculturism, but try to impose a monoculture—ours—on blacks. Why? Why in school should we insist that blacks study things of no interest to them? It is reminiscent of policies aimed at stripping American Indians of their languages and traditions.

On the other hand, I as a white man have little enthusiasm for studying Shaka Zulu, the Great Zimbabwe, or African religions. Would not all be happier with their own schools in which they could maintain their own culture?

“Separate but equal” is in bad odor as a governing philosophy. It seems to be the only thing that works. If voluntary, wherein lies the evil? Less contact means less conflict.

 Is there any evidence that blacks want to associate with whites? Or vice versa? In the universities, do blacks not clamor for black-only dormitories, black-only fraternities, and Black Studies? And what is wrong with this? Why should blacks not associate with whom they choose? And why should not whites?

Almost always, when the races do not have to mingle, they don’t. In Washington, blacks fleeing the crime of the city go to the heavily-black Prince George’s County, whites to Arlington, Fairfax, and Bethesda. Within Arlington, blacks cluster together in mini-barrios. So what? It’s their business.

Note that the togetherheid pushed endlessly on us is almost entirely rhetorical, preached by people who mean that others should practice it. I lived for years in the city with many liberal, racially correct friends. They spent all their time with other whites, and the restaurants and bars they patronized seldom had more than a token black, if that.

Ethnic mixing doesn’t work, gang. Not Moslems and Parisians, Irish Catholics and Protestants, Shias and Sunnis, Indonesians and Chinese, nor even New Yorkers and Alabamans. We think it should work, insist that it will, punish those who observe that it doesn’t. Yet still it doesn’t work. The greater the difference between groups, the less well it works. If we realized this, and let people do as they choose, the country would be much better off.

Another point that people fail to realize is that racial and cultural mixing is intrinsically destructive, even when it isn't forced. I am, in part, an American Indian. I know virtually nothing of my tribal culture or history. I speak three languages, smatterings of two more, and I know precisely two words of my tribal language. What most people forget when they speak cheerfully of Arthur C. Clarke's grand brown melange of humanity is that it means the death of almost every human culture, almost every human language, almost everything that is not the lowest and most vulgar common denominator.

Think about how Europeans look down on American lack of culture, or, conversely, think about how Americans look up to European culture. In the envisioned Grand Multicultural Amalgamation, the resulting culture will make American culture look refined.

As for the intrinsic desirability of racial intermingling, go tell that to a tribe of Indians that is dying out, or to African pygmies being hunted to extinction, or to orthodox Jews desperately trying to prevent their race from being intermarried out of existence how it's all really for the best that they go quietly into the void.

Diversity is cultural death. For everyone.

1939 Hugo Awards

My votes, as indicated in my recommendations. Bold indicates a winner.

Best Novel
Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis
The Sword in the Stone by T.H. White

Best Novella
Anthem by Ayn Rand
Who Goes There? by Don A Stuart

Best Novelette
"Rule 18" by Clifford D. Simak

Best Short Story
"Hollerbochen's Dilemma" by Ray Bradbury
"How We Went to Mars" By Arthur C. Clarke

Best Editor, Short Form
John W. Campbell

Best Fan Writer
Ray Bradbury

Rather pleased about those first two (on the bottom). Campbell was the one in which I was most interested. I'd quite like to see Simak and Lewis win, although I wouldn't object to E.E. Smith winning Best Novel for Galactic Patrol.

HG Wells won Best Dramatic Presentation for War of the Worlds. I voted for that too, but then, I'd be shocked if anyone didn't.

UPDATE: Hmmm. The Sword in the Stone?  I had it third on my ballot, but a retelling of Arthurian legend over the seminal science fiction space opera and a true SF classic? But he seems to be a favorite of the Moorcock-inspired crowd and I suppose a socially impaired British agnostic is always going to be viewed more favorably by the fandom crowd than a Christian apologist, even a British one. But I really would have thought they'd go for Smith, not White.

Three out of six isn't bad, but my take on this is that the Blue SF vote is still pretty small; it's enough to serve as a swing vote, but probably won't have much of an effect on Sunday. Regardless we'll find out soon enough.

UPDATE 2: Stats are out. It's a rough metric, but there appear to be 300 hardcore Pink votes who voted No Award over Anthem vs 160 Blue who voted it and Hollerbochen's Dilemma first. Just out of curiosity, I was interested to note that Out of the Silent Planet came in second, with 555 votes to 499 for Galactic Patrol which finished third.

The death knell for equality

The bell tolls for the advocates of diversity, multiculturalism, and human equality, as a study has determined that half the human capacity for learning is genetic:

The genes that determine a person’s ability to tackle one subject influence their aptitude at the other, accounting for about half of a person’s overall ability. The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, used nearly 1,500 pairs of 12-year-old twins to tease apart the effects of genetic inheritance and environmental variables on math and reading ability. Twin studies provide a clever way of assessing the balance of nature versus nurture....

The researchers administered a set of math and verbal tests to the children and then compared the performance of different sets of twins. They found that the twins’ scores  — no matter if they were high or low — were twice as similar among pairs of identical twins as among pairs of fraternal twins. The results indicated that approximately half of the children’s math and reading ability stemmed from their genetic makeup.

A complementary analysis of unrelated kids corroborated this conclusion — strangers with equivalent academic abilities shared genetic similarities. What’s more, the genes responsible for math and reading ability appear to be numerous and interconnected, not specifically targeted toward one set of skills. These so-called “generalist genes” act in concert to determine a child’s aptitude across multiple disciplines.

This should not be surprising in any way. But it is an efficient, scientific slash across the exposed jugular of ideological equalitarianism. What this means is all the attempts to bring up African children to the level of European and Asian children by educating them were wasted efforts genetically doomed to failure. While improvement is possible, equality is not.

And even attempts to breed equality through the media advocacy of interracial relations are bound to be disastrous, being intrinsically dysgenic. Sure, there always will be the occasional sports such as me, a European-Hispanic-Native American melange with astigmatism, seriously sub-optimal spatial relations, sprinter speed, and a 150+ IQ, but in general, Arthur C. Clarke's utopian browning of the world would indicate human population that is shifted to the left on the Bell Curve, with a heavier distribution in the middle and a shorter right tail. That is the literal opposite of human progress.

(Speaking of my Native American ancestry, my brother succeeded in determining the tribe. My initial surmise was correct and it was my great-grandmother who married the Mexican revolutionary that was the full Indian. My brother doesn't know yet if we have sufficient tribal blood to qualify for membership in the tribe, although one-eighth is enough to qualify for membership in a related one. The blood quantum requirements vary from tribe to tribe, from one-sixteenth for the Cherokee to one-half for the St. Croix Chippewa.)

While it will take years, even decades, for the populace and the political system to absorb the consequences of this scientific reality, it is another nail in the coffin of the equality myth.

2014 Hugo Award Recommendations

From Loncon: We are in the final hours of voting for the 2014 Hugo and 1939 Retro Hugo awards!  The voting page for the 2014 Hugo Awards is located at http://www.loncon3.org/hugo_vote/hugo_vote_form.php.  The voting page for the 1939 Retro Hugo Awards is located at http://loncon3.org/hugo_vote/retro_hugo_vote_form.php.  The deadline for voting is Thursday 31 July 2014, 11:59 PM PDT.

This is how I am voting, and how I encourage other Hugo voters to vote. I am voting in some of the other categories, but have not prepared detailed recommendations for them and so will not address them this year. Remember, voting ends tomorrow night, so if you haven't finished filling out your ballots, you should probably do it now.

BEST NOVEL

1. Warbound by Larry Correia
2. No Award
3. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Left off ballot: Ancillary Justice, Neptune's Brood, and Parasite.

BEST NOVELLA

1. The Chaplain's Legacy by Brad Torgersen
   
2. The Butcher of Khardov by Dan Wells
   
3. No Award
4. Six-Gun Snow White by Catherynne M. Valente

Left off ballot: Equoid and Wakulla Springs.

BEST NOVELETTE

1. "Opera Vita Aeterna" by Vox Day
2. "The Exchange Officers" by Brad Torgersen
3. "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" by Ted Chiang
4. No Award

Left off ballot: "The Waiting Stars" and "The Lady Astronaut of Mars".

BEST SHORT STORY

1. No Award

I recommend leaving the ballot otherwise blank. This category is illustrative of how far the genre has fallen. 

BEST EDITOR, LONG FORM

1. Toni Weiskopf
2. Sheila Gilbert
3. Ginjer Buchanan
4. No Award

1939 RETRO AWARDS

Best Novel

1. Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis (The Bodley Head)
2. Galactic Patrol by E. E. Smith (Astounding Stories, February 1938)
3. The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White (Collins)
4. The Legion of Time by Jack Williamson (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1938)
5. No Award

Left off ballot:  Carson of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Best Novella

1. Anthem by Ayn Rand (Cassell)
2. "Who Goes There?" by Don A Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Science-Fiction, August 1938)
3. No Award

Left off ballot:  "A Matter of Form" by H. L. Gold, "Sleepers of Mars" John Beynon, "The Time Trap" Henry Kuttner.

Best Novelette

1. "Rule 18" by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1938)
2. "Pigeons From Hell" by Robert E. Howard (Weird Tales, May 1938)
3. "Dead Knowledge" by Don A. Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Stories, January 1938)
4. No Award

Left off ballot: "Hollywood on the Moon" by Henry Kuttner,  "Werewoman" C. L. Moore

Best Short Story

1. "Hollerbochen's Dilemma" by Ray Bradbury (Imagination!, January 1938)
2. "How We Went to Mars" by Arthur C. Clarke (Amateur Science Stories, March 1938)
3. "Helen O'Loy" by Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1938)
4. "The Faithful" by Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938)
5. "Hyperpilosity" by L. Sprague de Camp (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938)

Best Editor

1. John W. Campbell
2. No Award

Left off ballot: Farnsworth Wright, Mort Weisinger, Raymond A. Palmer,  Walter H. Gillings

Hugo recommendations: 1939 retro awards

Best Novel

1. Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis (The Bodley Head)
2. Galactic Patrol by E. E. Smith (Astounding Stories, February 1938)
3. The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White (Collins)
4. The Legion of Time by Jack Williamson (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1938)
5. No Award

Left off ballot:  Carson of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Argosy, February 1938)

Best Novella

1. Anthem by Ayn Rand (Cassell)
2. "Who Goes There?" by Don A Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Science-Fiction, August 1938)
3. No Award

Left off ballot:  "A Matter of Form" by H. L. Gold, "Sleepers of Mars" John Beynon, "The Time Trap" Henry Kuttner.

Best Novelette

1. "Rule 18" by Clifford D. Simak (Astounding Science-Fiction, July 1938)
2. "Pigeons From Hell" by Robert E. Howard (Weird Tales, May 1938)
3. "Dead Knowledge" by Don A. Stuart [John W. Campbell] (Astounding Stories, January 1938)
4. No Award

Left off ballot: "Hollywood on the Moon" by Henry Kuttner,  "Werewoman" C. L. Moore

Best Short Story

1. "Hollerbochen's Dilemma" by Ray Bradbury (Imagination!, January 1938)
2. "How We Went to Mars" by Arthur C. Clarke (Amateur Science Stories, March 1938)
3. "Helen O'Loy" by Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, December 1938)
4. "The Faithful" by Lester del Rey (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938)
5. "Hyperpilosity" by L. Sprague de Camp (Astounding Science-Fiction, April 1938)

Best Editor

1. John W. Campbell
2. No Award

Left off ballot: Farnsworth Wright, Mort Weisinger, Raymond A. Palmer,  Walter H. Gillings

Just look at those stories compared to the stories nominated in 2014. If that's not evidence of a catastrophic decline since 1939, I don't know what is.

OTHER HUGO AWARD RECOMMENDATIONS

Best Novel
Best Novelette
Best Short Story
Best Editor 

Hugo recommendations: Best Novel

I see people are starting to make their Hugo Award voting recommendations, so I shall begin mine. I'll do individual posts on the major categories, then provide a summary of all of them when I am done. Let's start with the award for best Novel, where I intentionally chose from among the worst Amazon reviews for each book in order to highlight the weaknesses of the various nominees:

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. 286 reviews. 4.3 average rating. The Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke winner, and the prospective first three-award winner in SF history. It must be something truly incredible, right? No, it's just the usual pinkshirts talking up the usual Pink SF/F sewage, albeit with the innovative concept of playing games with pronouns, which was a new and exciting idea back in 1971 when Robert Silverberg did it in his Nebula-winning A Time of Changes. A recent puff piece on Leckie asked the question: Is Ann Leckie the Next Big Thing in Science Fiction? On the evidence of this first novel, the answer is a resounding "no".

Amazon review: Characterization is non-existent: the main character never changes or learns, and the author only pays lip service to the AI going from hundreds of individuals under its control to one. That could be enough for its own story right there, but it's wasted. Instead, we have the main character taking on two different big goals or quests. Her reasons for the first are totally unexplained, and she even asks herself every so often why she's doing it. But there's never an answer or even any exploration of this. She just asks herself a few times and that's it. It has no effect on the story whatsoever.

The second is literally pointless. We know this because she tells us that completion will make zero difference. So why do we care? I suppose it's just as well since there's no real universe to speak of. The culture of her society is vague and bland, and doesn't really do anything new. Oh, their language doesn't have gender-specific pronouns, meaning the main character uses "he" and "she" interchangeably. It's not done as a way to demonstrate how her own language works, either, as she admits that she can't tell people's genders a lot of the time. We're supposed to believe that an AI that is thousands of years old and capable of carrying on hundreds of conversations simultaneously can't figure out whether a person is male or female? Meanwhile a space station's AI at one point is so sensitive she's afraid it will figure out her motivations just from observing her.

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. 2,358 reviews, 4.2 average rating. I've only read the first five or so books in the series. I'm not reading any more. Other than the length, the one notable thing about the books is that it introduces the most irritating protagonist in the history of epic fantasy, Rand al'Thor. The one way I might be able to force myself to read SFWA Grand Master's epic torture-rape extravaganza, Hogg, is if I did a word replacement in Sigil that substituted "Rand al'Thor" for all the little kiddies that Delany fantasizes about raping, torturing, and killing in various excruciating ways. That's how much I hate the whiny little bastard.

Amazon review:  The best word to describe his writing is "trite". Everything about the book, aside from the world-building, is trite beyond words; this is juvenile, unimaginative, amateurish writing. In over 30 years of pretty much continuous reading, this is unquestionably the worst-written novel I've ever seen published.

The characters are shallow beyond words; the ridiculous and incredibly irritating Nynaeve (don't ask me how that's supposed to be pronounced), for example, has a permanent scowl on her face, and never varies her tone at all; every sentence that comes out of her is negative, angry, and sour, and she almost never says anything without an exclamation mark at the end. She's as one-dimensional as a character can be, and she ends up being nothing more than a caricature. The rest are almost as bad.

Warbound by Larry Correia. 120 reviews. 4.7 average rating. I very much like The Grimnoir Chronicles and Warbound is a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. It's more intelligently developed than X-Men, its use of history is more sophisticated than the casual observer will realize, and it incorporates Japanese warrior culture in a manner that is both interesting and respectful. Those who focus obsessively on the functional style of the writing are completely missing both the point as well as a smart action story.

Amazon review: Enjobale read - great end to series. Like the end - surprise for me Wonder what he will do next

Don't look at me. THAT is the only one-star review of the 120 reviews on Amazon. And the two 2-star ratings are similarly complimentary.

Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross. 119 reviews. 4.2 average rating. Orbit didn't bother to include the novel in the packet. If the publisher doesn't give a damn, why should anyone else? Charlie lost his fastball a few years ago anyhow. That being said, I would have considered one of his Bob Howard novels, those are still pretty good. Not this one.

Amazon review: I am a longtime and ardent fan of Charles Stross books. I've read nearly every one and I look forward to new ones. I am not, however, a fan of Neptune's Brood. The premise was sound - great potential for some funny bits, a good launching pad for sniping at convention. And all that's in there. But what one has to slog through to get there simply isn't worth it. Mr. Stross, I imagine you have a pretty intelligent audience overall - you don't need to explain, then explain again, then needlessly overexplain yet again throughout the book. We get it. I was determined to finish the book in spite of the feeling that I was wasting my time after just having gotten through a third of it. And I did - to no avail.
 
Bottom line: I recommend each and every one of his books... except this one. 

Parasite by Mira Grant. 179 reviews. 3.7 average rating. Orbit didn't bother to include the novel in the packet. If the publisher doesn't give a damn, why should anyone else?

Amazon review: The concept for the story seemed appealing and I was excited to read it. Unfortunately the writer couldn't manage to move past how the main character felt about the prolific minutiae of her daily life, to actually tell the story. Another thing I found disappointing about this unquestionably boring attempt is, the writer spent the entire length of the story building up to what I'm sure she thought was a profound revelation. Only this revelation was glaringly obvious within the first few paragraphs. This book was not completely devoid of interest and had several fleeting moments of watered down intrigue that kept me soldiering on to the end. The ending "shocker" that was sadly predictable was followed by "to be continued" which to me is a let down squared. Overall this book is like an expensive meal served cold with poor and clumsy service. I will not be reading the next installment in this series as well as anything else written by Mira Grant.

My vote for Best Novel, and my suggestion to others, is Warbound by Larry Correia. My vote will go as follows:

1. Warbound
2. No Award
3. The Wheel of Time

I recommend leaving the three Orbit books off the ballot.

A letter to McCreepy

And, by extension, to every member of SFWA, the organization that celebrates child molesters and champions of child molestation such as Walter Breen, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Arthur C. Clarke, and Samuel Delaney. It's written to Jim Hines by a man who was victimized himself as a child:

Why are you focusing on Larry Correia?

I just don’t get this.

At all.

Why are you responding to a piece by a guy who thinks rape is wrong and just disagrees with you on the exact nature of the problem and the solution? I’m not saying those aren’t large gaps. I’m not saying I don’t think he’s wrong about rape culture. I’m not saying I don’t think he’s wrong about education (another survivor I know actually works in those groups with those people and says its effective and I trust him, although to be honest even giving offenders that much help makes my stomach turn).

But why is Larry Correia a target?

I don’t agree with a lot of what Larry has to say, but I’ll be honest and say I still like him. He reminds me of a couple of uncles I have and some friends I used to argue with at a couple construction jobs I had. He’s really loud and says some shit I don’t agree with but you also see him actually trying to help other writers and doing stuff for charity all the time.

So, I get that you guys have serious disagreements. I get that he’s called you names. You feel attacked and that makes sense that you’d want to focus on him.

BUT (and this is what’s bugging the shit out of me): The community just found out that Marion Zimmer Bradley was a child rapist. As in, she raped children. She put her hands on kids. I’ve just found out that the community knew she was a procurer and turned a blind eye to child-rape for decades on top of all of that. And no one talks about it.

No one in the community who usually talks about this stuff is talking about this.

I was five when I was victimized. That story hit me right in the guts. I figured I’d see everyone talking about it, trying to do some agony origami and figure out what to say about it that might bring some kind of useful awareness to the community. The silence has been deafening.

I get that Larry is loud and he says things that people don’t like. But maybe fandom needs a voice like that? Before you disagree, Larry’s website is the only place I’ve heard anything even WHISPERED about Samuel R. Delany. I can’t quite seem to figure out why that is.

Samuel R. Delany was just honored at the Nebulas and quoted in NK Jemisin’s speech (I agree with a lot of what she has to say, but I just don’t get how this isn’t at least being pointed out) and Samuel R. Delany outright without any kind of doubt or apology speaks up for NAMBLA.

NAMBLA is a group that advocates grown men raping young boys.

That’s so fucked up I don’t even have words for it.

Look at his Wikipedia page. If you can stand to do it, go to NAMBLA’s website. They quote him right goddamn there.

I’m not going to say that being a male survivor is harder than being a female survivor. But I will say that when you’re a male survivor not nearly many people are willing to talk about it. Giving a pass to a guy who supports NAMBLA is not okay. It’s not okay. Focusing on Larry Correia when that shit is not being talked about is not okay.

It is not okay.

I’m hoping you didn’t know. I’m hoping NK Jemisin and K Tempest Bradford and Mary Robinette Kowal don’t know. I saw everyone tweeting happily when he won his award. Because if you guys all know and aren’t saying anything about it and maybe even turning a blind eye because it’s really hard…

Well, I’d even kind of get that.

People talk a big game until that stuff is at their doorstep and then it becomes really easy to look away. We’re all human. No one’s invincible or infallible.

This is about the ugliest thing you can look at as a person.

But it’s still not okay.

I know none of you are under any obligation to condemn Samuel R Delany or Marion Zimmer Bradley. But when you’re going to start attacking people and you choose Larry Correia….

I just don’t get this.

The science fiction left is attacking Larry Correia for the same reason they have been attacking me since 2005. Because he is a threat to their claimed dominance of the genre. He exposes their lies. He proves that you don't have to be a left-wing sexual deviant writing about progressive ideology and the deviancy du jour in order to write and sell books today. He shows that their ultimate victory is not inevitable.

First they tried to win him over, and pretend that his offense was aligning himself with me. Once they learned that he is not aligned with me, that he speaks for himself, and that he rejects everything for which they stand, they showed their true faces, their twisted, ugly, hateful faces.

They attack Larry Correia for his ideas and his language because he is a good man who is willing to stand up for what is right. They attack him while overlooking the deeds of perverts and molesters and rapists because they are evil. It is that simple.