Mr Smith Goes to WorldCon
Mr. Rothman and I had lunch at WorldCon. Here is his report of the outcome, from the point of view of his children:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204934540299315
And another:
http://thefederalist.com/2015/08/24/the-hugo-awards-why-the-waronnerds-is-a-war-on-art/
It disturbs me that the lies of the Morlocks are so widespread and so pervasive that even sympathetic onlookers absorb them without even noticing they do so. (This is sort of like how a conservative starts using “he and she” without noticing that this use of the pronoun buys into the logically absurd notion that thought is controlled by imaginary connotations of power relations hidden in vocabulary.) In this case, the writer quotes Mr George RR Martin objecting to conservative adventure fiction, without questioning the dishonest assumption that the Sad Puppies are conservative adventure fiction writers.
Meaning no disrespect to my fellow Evil Legion of Evil Author Legioneers, I am the only conservative in the group.
Here is another falsehood from Mr. Martin:
Aug. 24th, 2015 02:16 am (local)Every word you say proves that you are not a fan.A fan is not just someone who reads SF and fantasy. A fan is a member of a community called “fandom” whose roots go back to the 1930s.
Fans are tolerant, friendly, good humored, warm, welcoming. They love worldcon, they respect and value the Hugos, they honor fannish tradition.
You are your fellow Pups seem to have nothing but contempt for all that. Instead of joining the community, you do all you can to destroy it.
Edited at 2015-08-24 02:18 am (local)
I will leave to other pens than mine to describe how warm and welcoming WorldCon fandom was to me. Perhaps Irene Gallo or Mr. Moshe Feder can explain why my religion makes me a writer with whom they cannot tolerate to be associated, or automatically makes my works so wretched that their appearance on a ballot cannot possibly be the honest opinion of honest fans of SFF?
The pathetic lie here is Mr. Martin in his portrayal of me and mine as interlopers or outsiders. I was in an anthology edited by him ten years ago. My story appears just before his in another anthology, called FEDERATIONS. We have been at cons together and appeared on panels together. My first published short story was in Isaac Asimov years before that.
I have been reading in this genre since I picked up HAVE SPACE SUIT WILL TRAVEL as a child, and DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH as a younger child. The first story I ever completed writing was a childish homage to Keith Laumer’s DINOSAUR BEACH called AGENT OF NEXX. This was at age nine.
Who is the interloper, then? Whose work is in keeping with the traditions of the earlier generations of science fiction? I write so precisely in the make and mold of writers as difference as Jack Vance and A.E. van Vogt and William Hope Hodgson that my work appears as authorized sequels or in homage volumes to them, including one you yourself edited.
Indeed, if anything, a retelling of the War of the Roses set in Middle Earth with a grindingly nihilistic viewpoint is, if anything, more foreign to the mainstream of science fiction tradition than anything written by me, is it not?
You have been in the field longer than I. But Jules Verne was here before you, and I of his Church and his school of writing.
I have been in science fiction my whole life, Mr. Martin. I have never been anywhere else.
I am not going anywhere else.
If you cannot tolerate to be in the same field as a Roman Catholic because of your bigotry against me, it is you who must go elsewhere, not I.
This is my home. I am staying.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
