The Varieties of Fictional Pleasure

by Doctor Science

The Puppening continues in SF fandom, and File 770 is taking suggestions for naming each day's link collection.

One much-discussed Puppy statement is by Brad Torgersen, from January:

In other words, while the big consumer world is at the theater gobbling up the latest Avengers movie, "fandom" is giving "science fiction's most prestigious award" to stories and books that bore the crap out of the people at the theater: books and stories long on "literary" elements (for all definitions of "literary" that entail: what college hairshirts are fawning over this decade) while being entirely too short on the very elements that made Science Fiction and Fantasy exciting and fun in the first place!

Among the many problems with this statement is that Worldcon members (that Hugo-voting "fandom" of which Torgersen speaks so sneeringly) did in fact give a Hugo to The Avengers, in the same year they gave the Best Novel Hugo to John Scalzi's Redshirts -- a work which, Scalzi admits, can only be called "long on literary elements" if you're making a joke.

So a lot of us having been talking about literary quality, writing quality, what is a genre, what is our genre, etc. I'm going to use this as an excuse to set down some things I've been thinking about for a while.

One of the most important things about fiction is that we read it for pleasure, for fun. What literary critics rarely discuss is that we all have different ideas about what is "fun".

This is one thing that being part of the fanfic community has taught me a lot about:

Your Kink Is Not My Kink, But That's OK

(I believe this expression, like a number of other useful concepts, came into fanficdom from the Usenet group alt.sex.bondage in the 1990s, before the World Wide Web was up and running.) The point of YKINMK is that you should never assume that what is pleasurable to you is pleasurable for everyone else in general or any one person in particular. People have different pleasures, and that's OK, that's one of the cool things about being a person.

Here's my preliminary typology of the pleasures people get, and seek, from fiction:

1. Prose, especially on the level of sentences, aka "literary style".
2. Characterization: how much the characters seem like real and/or vivid people to the reader.
3. Plot: both in the sense of narrative drive, and in the sense of logic and complexity.
4. Ideas: which probably also includes the "themes" beloved of high-school lit teachers. Can also be disparaged as "message".
5. World-building. Rarely discussed in lit classes, this is IMHO the pivotal literary value of SF & fantasy.
6. Tropes: the stuff you like. For instance, there was a time when I read every time-travel story I saw, and I'm still likely to give one a try even if all signs point to "you'll regret reading this". For another instance, Mister Doctor Science will try almost anything involving sailing ships, or fencing. Maybe you like fashion, maybe you like space battles, or amnesia, or talking animals, or psychic powers, or divorce ... and now I'm wondering if I know of a novel with all these tropes at once.
7. Emotions: the feelings evoked in you, the reader. Reading about negative experiences and emotions can be a real, sought-after pleasure: sometimes you want to feel sad (or angry or depressed) about something that isn't you and that isn't real, if only to get the closure that comes from getting to the end of the book.

Different genres -- including literary fiction -- provide pleasure of different types and mixtures.

Literary fiction, IMHO, emphasizes the pleasures of prose and characterization above all, and is often quite shoddy about world-building.

For instance, I recently started Michael Faber’s The Book of Strange New Things, which was on the Locus Recommended Reading List for Science Fiction, but which I decided is litfic. I quit in Chapter 1 or so, when our hero was leaving to talk to aliens … from a carefully-described airport, vintage 2014. The world didn't match the story: sucky world-building, beautiful prose and characterization = literary fiction.

The science fiction and fantasy the Hugo awards voters like usually rates really high on world-building and ideas, but pretty often the characterization can go hang. In recent years there's been *slightly* more of a tendency than in the past for prose to be a factor, but it's still not really the most important thing.

I haven't spent all that much time trying to figure out What the Puppies Want and why they're so convinced the Hugo Awards have Lost Their Way, but a lot of it seems to be that they don't actually believe that recent award-winners are works the voters actually *like*. They don't think it's possible that Ancillary Justice ran the table on the awards last year because people *enjoyed* it, it must have been for a tremendous groundswell of affirmative-action-mindedness.

And this, it seems to me, is why (and how) the Puppies broke the Hugo Awards. Jeet Heer explains:

Taste is individual, not collective. Slate voting makes no sense because it is impossible for even a small group of people to have exactly the same taste, let alone a mob.

Agreeing on a slate allowed the Puppies, especially the Rabids, to overcome their numerical disadvantage and shut other voters' choices out of the running. But that agreement -- to pick the slate instead of thinking about, and then voting, their individual preferences -- is profoundly against the spirit of the awards.

But then, we're also talking about the kind of people who can claim they just want to promote "diversity on the Hugo ballot!" while making sure it reflects the choices and lines the pockets of one person in particular. Not to mention that they use the word Reactionary to describe their *opponents*. I can't figure out if this is Newspeak, or just ignorance.

Literary Reading, by Vladimir Makovsky (1866). I think maybe this is how the Puppies think the readers of "literary SF" make our decisions. What I want to know is, why does the standing man in the pale waistcoat look just like the reader? Is he supposed to be another writer?

Comments

[wj]

Not to mention that they use the word Reactionary to describe their *opponents*. I can't figure out if this is Newspeak, or just ignorance.

Definitions of "reactionary" come in two distinct versions:

1) someone who wants to return to a (sometimes fantasy) past.

2) someone who disagrees with my beautiful vision for the way the world should be.

In some cases, of course, the two can both accurately describe the same person. But it is useful to figure out which sense of the term the person using it is aiming for.

[John M. Burt]

What was that name again, "Buck Turgidson"?

There, now you also won't be able to get it out of your head whenever you see a reference to him.

You're welcome.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Perhaps too early to tell, but as far as the Hugos are concerned, it looks like Buck Turgidson may have initiated a Doomsday Device.

[Nous]

I missed the earlier discussion of literary value, but it strikes me that what you are claiming there is similar to how Judith Merrill defines the genre of SF:

"Speculative fiction: stories whose objective is to explore, to discover, to learn, by means of projection, extrapolation, analogue, hypothesis-and-paper-experimentation, something about the nature of the universe, of man, or 'reality' . . . I use the term 'speculative fiction' here specifically to describe the mode which makes use of the traditional 'scientific method' (observation, hypothesis, experiment) to examine some postulated approximation of reality, by introducing a given set of changes – imaginary or inventive – into the common background of 'known facts', creating an environment in which the responses and perceptions of the characters will reveal something about the inventions, the characters, or both." - "What Do You Mean: Science? Fiction?"

[Cthulu (SJW TINGED)]

YOUR PICTURE AVATAR OF THAT CAT DEFINES YOUR INTERNET AGE.

WE APPROVE.

Actually, I rarely comment on blogs, but the scientific journalism of actually doing the whole links thing is A+.

In our jaded eye, I would hope I have not caused you due distress and wish you the best of this world

We do love you, it's ok.

[Doctor Science]

Nous:

Yep, that's pretty much what I'm talking about.

[DanAudy]

I'm not sure whether this would fall into the 'Ideas' category or not (that is where I would class it but it doesn't seem to fit your description) but one of the most core things I value in Science Fiction and Fantasy is 'reflecting the world'. I like to see things that exist in the world as it is taken and shown in a different context, exaggerated, or brought to a logical conclusion because it allows the work to spotlight those issues often without the cultural assumptions and baggage associated with them. By shaking off the way we normally see an issue it allows for a exploration in a new world that (hopefully) allows us to see our own world with new eyes.

[Morzer]

I found it interesting that in one of the discussion over on File 770 VD said that what Castalia House does is... *drumroll* publish via Amazon. In other words, the whole shoddy operation is just a repackaging house. This certainly explains the low quality of the writing and non-existent editing.

I have increasingly come to believe that the whole shoddy exercise of puppyhood was basically one of Correia's marketing campaigns to push his garbage faster by using the right-wing grievance narrative.
I suspect that the returns were diminishing and this was what led Correia to call in VD and the even harder rightwing crazies, at which point a backlash ensued and people began looking at what Correia and Torgersen were doing and saying with a very unenthusiastic eye - and the marketing scheme faltered in consequence.

I don't think it's coincidental that Correia has now given up control of the puppy fraud to some obscure Australian fellow-traveler named Kate Paulk. Stage one of operation "Sneak Away and pretend you never really knew who VD was" is in progress. Ultimately, I think Correia and Torgersen have tied themselves to rightwing crazyhood in such a way that they won't be able to expand their audience or have significant influence over the field of scifi. Mind you, given the low quality of their writing, I doubt that they were likely to succeed over the longterm.

VD will get to prance around as the demon king under the pantomime trapdoor for a little longer, but ultimately isn't going to be anything more than an egomaniac fake publisher of mediocre nonsense churned out by wannabe nickel and dime fascists. If it keeps him out of real mischief, there's certainly something to be said for the idea.

The Hugos will adapt and survive, a little dented around the edges, maybe, but ultimately stronger and less susceptible to being gamed.

[Nigel]

Mister Doctor Science will try almost anything involving sailing ships, or fencing...

Is not a good historical novelist like Patrick O'Brian also engaged in a kind of world building ?

Whereas fencing, though not to be sniffed at, a whole other kind of building...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Basic-Guide-Building-Cross-country-Fences/dp/095488633X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1430272637&sr=1-2&keywords=fence+building

[Morzer]

Since we are on the topic of the Puppies and their Gamergate co-creeps:

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/04/28/gamergate/

The article is extremely depressing, but a fine piece of work.

The relationship was doomed, but they slept together one last time. Quinn says that’s when Gjoni turned violent. Scared and unsure what to do after Gjoni left, she called her friend Bill Zoeker, a video producer, and asked him to rush over. “I could clearly see bruises on her arm, and suddenly the whole situation became very real to me,” he says. Though Gjoni denies the incident, Zoeker says, “I’ve never seen anybody so afraid in my entire life than Zoe in that moment.”

Their relationship status: game over. And in any normal universe, that would be that. But Gjoni was just getting started.

"On the flight back to Boston, Gjoni began drinking heavily. He’d lost Quinn, but he had gained something else: a simulacrum of their relationship, a complete record, from beginning to end. In some other era, a man like Eron Gjoni would have been forced to reconstruct the details of his obsession from snapshots of memory. Thanks to technology and an increasing culture of surveillance, our every purchase, movement, and keystroke is stored somewhere, recoverable and replicable. Gjoni had already collected enough material on Quinn—personal Facebook messages, texts, and email chats—to fill a bible. What’s more, he had an inkling about how to get back at her—how to weaponize the metadata of their relationship. He wouldn’t even need to touch her. In fact, he already had the goods to destroy Quinn if he wished. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted more."

[Eimear Ní Mhéalóid]

Maybe you like fashion, maybe you like space battles, or amnesia, or talking animals, or psychic powers, or divorce ... and now I'm wondering if I know of a novel with all these tropes at once.
I suspect at least one of the Liaden books will include practically all of the above (if telepathic animals count as talking).

[Brett Bellmore]

I can think of a few that hit three of those at once, but all five? Nah. But I've only read a few thousand novels, that doesn't mean anything.

[Cat Valente]

Maybe you like fashion, maybe you like space battles, or amnesia, or talking animals, or psychic powers, or divorce ... and now I'm wondering if I know of a novel with all these tropes at once.

So...oddly enough? I have a short story coming out in a week in Uncanny Magazine that includes all of these.

[Doctor Science]

Cat:

And in a *short story*! wow, you get BINGO. Was it a prompt or formal challenge, or mere coincidence?

And is there *fencing*?

[Cat Valente]

No fencing, but telekinesis and psychic ray guns? It's a MilSF space adventure story, actually...I'm not holding my breath for Puppy adulation, though.

I owed a story to Uncanny, the idea came from an idle household joke. Just a coincidence. I saw your list and was like hey...does Planet Lion have all those? I...I think so!

[Yama]

I am wondering if there is an easy way to find what works were bumped? I would like pick up on some of those. So far my readings on the current nominees have only yielded Wright as worth reading, though I have a ways to go.

I can kind of see why the puppies hated Ancillary Justice. I just read it - while I liked it, it was not what I was expecting (I am reading it again, I usually like stuff better on the second or third round).

If I were to read Ancillary Justice with a chip on my shoulder, I would have tossed it quickly.

[Doctor Science]

Yama:

A fuller list of nominees will be released along with the winners and voting tallies. Here is last year's, for comparison.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

I can kind of see why the puppies hated Ancillary Justice. I just read it - while I liked it, it was not what I was expecting (I am reading it again, I usually like stuff better on the second or third round).

I just finished it myself. It wasn't what I expected, either - but then, in my case, that's because someone in a recent thread here had described it as "MilSciFi, except gender", and it is so, so very not MilSciFi. It was fine - a decent book, well written and such - but it wasn't amazing, nor did I find the use of gender to be deeply moving or profound. Then again, I've been using "they" oft as not instead of specific gendered pronouns when I've felt I can get away with it for most of my adult life. I fully agree, though, that it's plain why the mad and mopey mutts hated it - if I was bewitched by a cultural narrative of beleaguered, besieged masculinity, a book where the narrator erases the male protagonist's very gender would be shocking and deplorable (and I wouldn't see the overwhelming irony in holding that position alongside a belief that ours is an oppressively misanderous culture, natch).

(I suppose gender essentialists probably also would thoroughly dislike the slightly-more-subtle way in which the narrator's irritation and disinterest towards specific gender disambiguation of various characters underscores just how little role gender needs to play in most narratives...)

[Nigel]

a decent book, well written and such - but it wasn't amazing,

In a spirit of fishing for reading recommendations, is there any recent stuff you would call amazing ?

[Yama]

Thanks, Doc

[Yama]

Well the most amazing thing I have seen recently was this editorial cartoon:

http://file770.com/wp-content/uploads/Gary-Locke-Hugos.png

I particularly like the oblivious puppy hugging his rocket ;).

Book wise the Expanse series is good, but fluffy.

I really liked the movie Edge of Tomorrow; the way they used Cruise in jackass mode was neat. The subtle love story was well done, IMO.

[Shane]

Doc, I think YKINMK should be in more peoples mental toolbox, and it should go along with 'squick'. (Doc Sci most certainly knows this, I share for those that don't).

A squick is a thing that turns you off, or you find unpleasant, but the key point is that what turns you off is actually a fact about *you*. Other people might not mind it. For any given thing that squicks someone there's almost certainly people for whom it's one of their kinks. No problem, you don't have to judge each other, you just don't share that thing.

Nigel, I don't know there's anything that's knocked my socks off since maybe some Iain M Banks, but I've really liked Nick Harkaway's Gone Away World. Been Aaronovitch is pretty good too.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Stross, Laundry files. Why hadn't I heard of them before?
I blame BLUE HADES. Or the Black Chamber. One of those.

No, not the best literature, but ever so fun. Vernor Vinge. Brin, but an editor should cut down on his overabundant verbiage. Stephenson, now that he *finally* seems to have worked out how to end a novel satisfactorily.

Some of Banks is wonderful, but I have to say that I've been disappointed with others, where the plot line was something like "Maybe this is important, but probably not" (hundreds of pages of running around) "Nope, not important".

As for squick, the following tagline always comes in handy: "First I was disgusted, now I'm just amused"

[Nombrilisme Vide]

In a spirit of fishing for reading recommendations, is there any recent stuff you would call amazing ?

Uh. Um. Well. I'm hard-pressed to find examples, actually. E.g., I really like Connie Willis but feel her more recent works are slow and a bit unengaging, albeit still marvelously written. Likewise Vinge, who Snarki mentions; older works are better works. I would love to second Snarki's recommendation of Stross's Laundry Files, but a few quirks about the man's writing style and a whole lot about his not-superficially-awful gender politics make me reluctant to read -let alone recommend - anything by him, even if I know it'll be well-written and engaging.

I've actually not read a lot of SciFi/Fantasy these last few years. Well, by my standards, anyway. The occasional threads here have pushed me to go out and read more than I had for quite some time, but the stuff that's struck me when I've done so hasn't been from the last 5y or so, and the stuff I've read from the last few years has generally underwhelmed me. I may be getting more finicky as I age, or it may be that being less voracious in my reading has left me increasingly careful about what I spend my time on...

[Brett Bellmore]

I regret to say I haven't had the opportunity to read a lot of recent stuff besides Stross and Correia. Both of whom I'd recommend. The Laundry series is particularly good. So is the Monster Hunter series.

Most of the stuff I'd call "amazing", though, is older. Zelazny's Amber series is pretty fantastic.

[Morat20]

I would love to second Snarki's recommendation of Stross's Laundry Files, but a few quirks about the man's writing style and a whole lot about his not-superficially-awful gender politics make me reluctant to read -let alone recommend - anything by him, even if I know it'll be well-written and engaging.
I'd like to see this expanded. Not because I'm looking for an argument, I'm just curious as to what you're referring to.

Unrelated to you (I suspect you're quite aware of the following distinction), I've of late been surprised by people who can't do things like separate "sexism" from "sexist characters". I admit, it can be more difficult in stories with unreliable narrators -- a lot of people just don't grok those well, although I tend to love them -- but I've been surprised by the occasiona bouts of "Author X is sexist/racist" because a particular character is, despite a wealth of characters who are, you know, not. (Or the fact that, oftentimes, this racist/sexist character gets screwed by his own biases).

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Stross has some... issues with how he develops female characters. The most egregious symptom of this is his inability to portray women in positions of authority as sympathetic characters. I don't want to be too spoilery, but consider every single one of Bob's female managers in the Laundry series. The Apocolypse Codex had a moderately-sympathetic female character who exercised some authority, but pointedly not over Bob. For something very similar outside of Laundry, go back to his earlier Iron Sunrise, the God-awful sequel to his thoroughly-enjoyable Singularity Sky. Stross has issues with female supervisors. A stock character for him is the scheming, conniving, treacherous woman given a position of authority who will meet a nasty comeuppance, and it's irritating, especially since it's always women filling that role. Other than that, his female characters tend to be victims, nigh-invisible background scenery, or Action Girls, while his male characters are permitted to fill a far broader range of roles.

(I also have trouble forgiving Stross for using Space Nazis as villains in two separate series. Doing that once is kinda corny, but if handled well entirely forgivable. Doing it twice? Not so much, no matter how much grace you write it with (and again, the thoroughly excretable Iron Sunrise wasn't anything resembling graceful).)

[Morat20]

Huh. I see what you mean, although I consider Bob the ultimate in unreliable narrators (the Laundry files are his memoirs) so I chalked that up more to Bob's own POV. He does strike me as a bit of a sexist, in a very common geeky way.

I suppose the protagonist of Saturn's Children and Neptune's Brood doesn't count (being a robot, even if a female one) -- but the Rule 32 books contain at least one female protagonist, including detailed first-person POV's. I can't consider either set (robots or scottish policewomen) as action girls, at least nor victims.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

He does strike me as a bit of a sexist, in a very common geeky way.

Yeah, this is a good description, although I'll stand by my more specific criticism as well.

I've only read the two series I'd mentioned, so mayhaps I should give some of his other works a chance. He really is a good writer, and in the past I've been able to ignore more dramatic sociopolitical issues with other authors who wrote well (I'm looking squarely at you, Dan Simmons).

[Nigel]

Thanks, guys.
I've read a couple of Stross' books, and tend to agree - interesting ideas; not so interesting characters.

I've just finished Robert Tombs' The English and Their History, which is excellent, and am looking for some lighter fare.
Maybe I'll pick up some Pratchett, whom I have (unaccountably) never read...

[Morat20]

I'd be more forgiving of Dan Simmons if he didn't have a habit of making his second book destroy my fond memories of his first, in every duology he's ever written.

If you're gonna try another Simmons book, I rather enjoyed the ideas behind Rule 32. Neptune's Brood is good (especially the overarching plot), and you really don't need to have read Saturn's Children first.

The Merchant Princes' series has a sole, female protagonist. Much of the book is her slamming head first into sexism -- mostly, but not entirely, of the medieval variety.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Maybe I'll pick up some Pratchett, whom I have (unaccountably) never read...

Most people I know love Pratchett. Personally, I hate almost everything he wrote after Pyramids to wildly varying degrees; this is a small and quiet minority opinion. So playing the numbers, you'll probably enjoy him. His later works were satire aiming to make commentary about contemporary society; his earlier works were fantasy satires. He's an adept writer in any case, even if he got far more toothless and self-indulgent as he went on.

[Hartmut]

Maybe start with the Pratchett/Gaiman cooperation Good Omens. British and US editions differ slightly but it's not really relevant.

[Morat20]

this is a small and quiet minority opinion
That is true.

Not disliking Pratchett -- tastes differ and all (though hate is a stronger word than dislike), but the part where it's 'after Pyramids'.

Prior to Pyramids, Pratchett basically wrote fantasy parody. Pyramids marked the point where he began to develop fully realized characters, plots, and deeper structures beyond caricature. (Although to be honest, even his early works were quite solid).

To be honest, I consider his YA Tiffany Aching series to be the pinnacle of his work, although if you're talking his adult stuff then probably Night Watch.

Good Omens is, as Hartmut noted, a good place to start. If you don't like that, you won't really like Pratchett.

(Also, in my previous post I referred to 'Simmons' as the writer of Rule 32. I meant Stross).

[wj]

For something a little different, you might want to check out Ambelin Kwaymullina's The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf.**

I suppose that some will argue for it being "politically correct". But I would counter that it is more a matter of the author following one of the oldest dictates of writing: Write what you know.

At least in my local library, it is in the Young Adult section, and not labeled SF/Fantasy. But I wouldn't ignore it for that. (I confess, I only stumbled across it by accident.)

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Morat20 makes a good point about Simmons and "duologies".

The typical "trilogy" bothers me, because I see a common pattern: Book 1: cool premise! Wow! Interesting! (get the publisher/readers on board); Book 2 BORING, moving the chess pieces around, placeholder book, for Book 3: the exciting conclusion.

Yeah, Tolkien did it, but others too. In some way the "open ended series" helps to avoid that, which Pratchett handled in Diskworld..but at the price that each book leaves it's world/characters roughly where they started.

[wj]

It is possible to write a series where the world and the characters move along as the series progresses. See Bujold's Barrayar books or Lee and Miller's Liad books. But it is, admittedly, a non-trivial exercise to pull it off.

[Hartmut]

Tolkien did not plan a trilogy*. It was his publisher who did not want to take the financial risk of a mega-book flopping, so it got published in three parts. Tolkien's habit of constantly reworking his stuff did not help either. It's fascinating to read how LotR developed over time and what ideas got discarded and at what point in time. In the manuscripts Aragorn was a hobbit up to the break-up of the fellowship at the falls of Rauros (maybe even Bilbo in disguise). Treebeard was originally a fairy-tale giant in league with Sauron and Sam got Frodo out of Minas Morgul (Shelob not part of the story yet) by getting mistaken for the city commander (the chief Nazgul or an equivalent to the Mouth of Sauron???). Even the map had to be expanded several times to fit the grown narrative. etc.
Still quite some inconsistencies and a few plotholes remained, remnants of the earlier narrative aimed at children.

*he was very explicit about that. Either it was one book or six but not three.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Prior to Pyramids, Pratchett basically wrote fantasy parody. Pyramids marked the point where he began to develop fully realized characters, plots, and deeper structures beyond caricature. (Although to be honest, even his early works were quite solid).

That's an interesting observation. From my point of view, it's interesting primarily in that it's very close to the criticism I'd level at his post-Pyramids works. Going forward from there up to when I stopped reading him around Jingo, he showed a growing tendency to recycle his stable of characters from one book to the next, and to fall into the common trap of serial authors whereby they cease to engage in the task of ongoing character development in favor of knowing winks to the audience hailing back development carried out four or five books ago before the beloved character fossilized into their permanent form. I saw far involved character development in his earlier books than the later ones, as in those he would quickly establish new character according to slightly-tweaked interpretations of contemporary tropes, and make fond references to known attributes of established characters... in some cases his jokes devolved to the level of "Oh, X, that's so like you!"

(Obviously, YMMV on this point. It's also worth noting that I generally dislike serial authors for the above-mentioned reasons, so as a result my dislike of later Pratchett is more than a bit predictable. This ties into what Snarki alludes to as well.)

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Yes, I know that Tolkein didn't plan a trilogy. But
it turned out that way, and is perhaps the best known
example of the 'trilogy pathology' I mentioned.

(BTW, I *hated* *hated* *hated* the 'Thomas Covenant' trilogy. So f'in derivative, it was like he used s/tolkienword/newword/g on the whole thing, just to be annoying)

I like to tell myself that I'm more cautious about picking up books that are part of a series, but I'm not sure it's really true. At least Banks' SF novels, while (mostly) set in the same Universe, are independent of one another.

[Harald K]

Morzer is quoting the hit piece against Eron Gjoni. I would like to ask some questions:

If a person is a victim of relationship abuse - gaslighting, demands to cut out support network, manipulative suicide threats - are they allowed to post about what happened to them? Are they allowed to warn about their abuser?

If the accused abuser then says "They are the abuser, trust me. Don't even look at that post, it's invading my privacy. I won't respond to anything it says" - do you blindly side with them?

In case you don't know, that is exactly the situation between Eron Gjoni and Zoe Quinn. Zoe did not just cheat on her boyfriend, she also tried to convince him he was paranoid when he suspected something was amiss. All the while she demanded Eron cut off all contact with a female friend of his, because she didn't trust her (or him). When the infidelity came out, she used suicide threats to keep Eron from breaking off the relationship. This is all TEXTBOOK emotional abuse, and it's just the tip of the iceberg.

But you didn't know, did you? Because you never looked at the Zoe post. That sleazebag of a "journalist" did, but he decided he could make more money by appealing to people like you and your preconceptions, and writing a sanctimonious hit piece.

You know what, if you disagree that journalism has an ethical problem in the age of clickbait, fine. If you think intersectional liberal feminism has no issues whatsoever in the age of tumblr, fine. Let's worry about that another day.

But when you blindly side with an abuser just because she gets harassed on the internet, and gleefully cheer on as the victim is smeared and gagged with prior restraints on speech, then don't come to me with pretty words about justice and equality and feminism. Those words are nothing more than tribal shibboleths to you if you can't even manage this minimum of decency.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

...do you blindly side with them?

In case you don't know, that is exactly the situation between Eron Gjoni and Zoe Quinn.

...appealing to people like you and your preconceptions, and writing a sanctimonious hit piece

Please do tell me that you do appreciate the staggering lack of self-awareness it takes to write these things together.

[Harald K]

I did not blindly side with Eron Gjoni. I saw his claims, checked them against his abuse receipts - that is the documentation that most abuse victims subject to gaslighting start collecting, to prove to themselves that they aren't going crazy - and found that they held up. Indeed, I found that he didn't even understand how bad it was (he had no prior experience with abusive people - I have). If anything, he was charitable to his ex.

Tell me, Nombrilisme Vide: Have you read the Zoe post? How can I be the one blindly taking a side, if I have and you haven't?

I would read Zoe's account too, if I could, but of course she hasn't done the slightest attempt to confront the allegation that she's abusive. It's hard to imagine how she could explain away the evidence. She has apparently warned people in private though, and made claims about Eron that he can't defend himself against.

Abusers are GOOD at managing impressions in private. It's when people compare notes that their narratives fall apart. When two people accuse each other of being abusive (and there are no obvious third parties they are reasonably shielding, like kids), by default I trust the one who does not demand to be unconditionally trusted. Nothing has so far shown that to be a bad idea.

But again: I invite you to show it to me, if you think it exists.

[cleek]

am i the only people who finds it very strange that people invest so much of their emotional energy in the break up of two complete strangers?

[cleek]

it's also strange that i am a people. but that's a different issue.

[Harald K]

When I see that smear piece reposted everywhere, I get emotionally invested, yes. I get angry at how all this can be right out in the open, and yet a piece like that can be written and systematically spread to all remotely "progessive" blogs, and no one with any clout question it or protest at the injustice.

Well, credit where credit is due. Ozy Frantz maybe has a little influence, they called the behavior that tzp describes as abuse. But elsewhere, the reaction ranges from enthusiastically embracing the Boston journalist's narrative, to crickets.

You don't have to have an opinion on this mess. But if you want to have one anyway, please, please go read the firsthand account that started it. I can't force you to, but for your own sake, for the sake of not contributing DIRECTLY to a terrible injustice. Please?

[cleek]

yeah, um, no.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

In case you don't know, that is exactly the situation between Eron Gjoni and Zoe Quinn.

Again, you have no way of knowing that "this" is "exactly" the situation between those two. You have a one-sided story that aligns with your preconceptions and prejudices, and you are taking one stranger's word about another stranger completely at face value. You know nothing but what you've been spoonfed by an extremely biased party with absolutely no motivation or obligation to be forthright, candid, or even honest, yet somehow you know exactly the truth of the matter with perfect certainty and righteous, unwavering conviction. I have no dog in this fight, and unlike you I am not blessed with a mystical sense allowing me to unerringly discern between truth and meticulous lies in the absence of any sort of evidence, so I really don't care about this "terrible injustice". Perhaps if I had the great gift you were blessed with, I would share your great responsibility, but as I'm only human I'll refrain from finding a convenient narrative confirming my prejudices and using it as an excuse to parade my righteous indignation in front of all and sundry.

[Harald K]

I am reminded of one of the ghosts in C.S. Lewis' the great divorce: "It had been entreated, it could make a refusal, and this seemed to it a kind of advantage."

Yeah cleek. Most choose as you do. The prospect of having to disagree with your friends, to risk ending up on the receiving end of the "flaming rage nozzles" of progressiveness, is apparently not worth taking for the sake of not doing injustice to some scrawny Boston vegan guy. Better then to help fuel the flaming rage nozzles yourself.

Or at least, that's my best explanation for the refusal to even look at what the guy says himself. Maybe you have a better explanation for it, but you evidently don't think it's necessary to share.

[cleek]

share what?

i already told you i think it's strange that anyone would invest any emotional energy in the breakup of two complete strangers. neither i nor anyone i know in real life gives a crap about these two people, or about gamer journalism. in fact, i'd be surprised if anyone i know is aware that there is such a thing as gamer journalism, let alone that it should be taken seriously enough to serve as the ostensible basis for a -Gate.

but for your own sake, for the sake of not contributing DIRECTLY to a terrible injustice. Please?

Leave Britney Alone!

[Harald K]

Nombrilisme Vide: You didn't answer if you've read TZP. But of course you haven't. If you did, you would see why.

He did not just make claims. He included enough logs to show he's not just making it up. He's not demanding to be taken on his word. Do you think the evidence is elaborately falsified? Well then why don't you go look at it and try to make that case?

But we all know you aren't going to do that. You think you already know all you need to know, and looking at the evidence at all would be conceding defeat. Never will you do that to such a Bad Man as me.

Funny that you didn't complain about this eagerness to believe one side blindly when Morzer posted the link to the hit piece above. Then, "blindly" would actually have a point.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Harald, consider the nigh-inconceivable for a moment: what if your unerring discernment was wrong?

If I am wrong, I am passively guilty of absolving an abuser and making a few statements against her rightful but grossly disproportionate punishment at the hands of an illegitimate, self-appointed online mob.

If you are wrong, you are actively guilty of assisting in the harassment of an innocent victim of slanderous abuse by a rapacious, self-appointed online mob at the behest of a vindictive, manipulative ex-partner.

Given the choice between these two, and the scant benefit to anything but my ego and sense of righteous indignation afforded by actively choosing a side and crusading on its behalf, I can't help but feel that in the absence of objective evidence and a pressing moral responsibility to intervene in the lives of these two strangers, my choice to refuse to carry water for Gjoni is far more justified than yours, though likely far less satisfying as well.

[Nombrilisme Vide]

Harald, if I present you extensive evidence that ambulances are almost invariably present at the scene of fatal car accidents, and claim that this proves they cause them, that doesn't make it so, even if you're unable or unwilling to show the contextual explanation for why their presence is corrolated with accidents. To say of how much is "proven" if the only "evidence" that is available to be considered is what I've chosen to present and contextualize.

Which is to say, the fact that I am unwilling to waste both of our time by attempting to use a subset of a couple's correspondence that one party has carefully selected in order to prove the opposite point demonstrates nothing except that I'm not a fool with unlimited time to waste.

[Turbulence]

So, I've actually read bits of the Zoe Post. And I think cleek is totally right: there's no reason for anyone who isn't already friends with these people to care or know about their breakup. Where things do get relevant for me is when Gjoni sends his flying monkeys to start stalking and threatening rape and murder and mutilation to Zoe Quinn or Briana Wu or any of a whole bunch of other women in the industry. That's...a very serious very public problem that we need to deal with.

As for the idea that Zoe Quinn is an abuser...it doesn't really make sense. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that Quinn was desperate to get away from Gjoni. Abusers usually want to continue controlling their victims, rather than try to get as far away as possible from them.

I also like how Gjoni went to such great lengths to document who Quinn slept with after they broke up. That seems very relevant to documenting abuse. And unlike so many abusers, no one but Gjoni has stepped up to say that Quinn abused them. There's just no there there.

[Turbulence]

Gjoni and the gamergate ilk have a bizarre unbelievably intense obsession with Quinn (and other random women in the industry) that I can't fathom. For example, here's a crowd of them desperately trying to reconstruct Quinn's genealogy so they can track down her distant relatives so that they can abuse and harass those people. They've also worked themselves up into a lather about the fact that one of Quinn's relatives had something to do with common core, and this proves...um...that a lot of people need a lot of thorazine?

[Harald K]

Nombrilisme vide: You evidently have enough time to argue with me. You evidently don't have enough time to protest when the guy is smeared in media and it's posted to every possible "progressive" blog under the slightest pretext.

(Yes, I know this entire discussion is off topic. But if you delete it, damn well delete the link to the smear piece too).

Turbulence, you've read bits of the Zoe post you say. That wouldn't happen to be carefully cropped bits, carefully selected by someone else than you, would it? Maybe a Gawker publication, or some other party that has an interest in painting Eron in a bad light?

Because you say "Quinn was desperate to get away from Gjoni" and that is total bullshit. Quinn manipulated Eron again and again to get him to trust her and get back with her, including with suicide threats. You can read those threats in the facebook screenshots if you doubt it. Only when she feared Eron might go public did she change strategy somewhat, and she didn't "desperately try to get away from Eron" then either.

"The idea that Zoe Quinn is an abuser doesn't really make sense"? If I could convince you of one thing, could it PLEASE be to stop saying stuff like that without actually going to the primary source? Suicide threats to demand that people trust you again when you've betrayed their trust - that isn't a grey area!

You would have zero problem seeing this as abuse, you would have no problem seeing that abuse is not a private matter, if it hadn't been a "progressive" darling that was the abuser.

But as it is, as usual you demand that your in-group be judged by their intentions, (which are of course pure as the driven snow, how can anyone think otherwise?! we don't target civilians, they just... come in the way.) whereas the enemy must be judged by the worst indirect consequences of the worst indirect consequences of the worst indirect consequences of their actual actions.

I should apparently have understood that by defending Eron against a smear piece, I am defending someone who should have understood that talking about his abuse would lead to the unforgivable consequence of people getting mad at you on the internet.

[Turbulence]

That wouldn't happen to be carefully cropped bits, carefully selected by someone else than you, would it? Maybe a Gawker publication, or some other party that has an interest in painting Eron in a bad light?

No, it would not. I went to the original source. I read bits and pieces until I felt sick because Gjoni comes off as a sick twisted f$ckwit.

Only when she feared Eron might go public did she change strategy somewhat, and she didn't "desperately try to get away from Eron" then either.

Gjoni says that he wrote the Zoe post after she broke up with him. She didn't want to see him anymore. She didn't want to communicate with him. She wanted him out of her life. She even got a restraining order against him. Gjoni says all this himself. And Quinn can't possibly be more clear that she doesn't want anything to do with this guy.

Moreover, you keep talking about the materials in the Zoe post as if they're authentic, as if a software engineer couldn't fake screenshots of facebook messages. Well, guess what, I'm a software engineer and I can totally do that. It is easy. Acting as if all these messages are absolutely 100% authentic just makes you look silly and desperate.

I'm going to admit, I didn't really take this too seriously until Brianna Wu was forced to leave her home because people starting tweeting her address along with promises to murder her young children and rape her to death. That's when I took notice.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Why am I so strongly reminded of the "JW" responses to this thread?

[Shane]

ObWi is not as far as I know a progressive blog. I say this as a progressive.
I don't see anyone defending Zoe Quinn, particularly her personal relationships.
If Quinn was a progressive darling it's news to me, I'd be surprised if any regular posters here knew her name at the time.
Why is progressive in quotes, anyway?

Anyway, we all loved Cosby, but we aren't likely to defend him either.

[Turbulence]

To progressives, Quinn is a non-entity. She has zero involvement in politics, she doesn't write or organize, etc. No one outside the gaming industry has ever heard of her.

To the gamergate folks, she's a progressive cause celebre. You see, Quinn is a game designer and a woman. But since women are incapable of designing games, the only way she could possibly rise to such heights is if she's been affirmative-actioned to game-designerdom BECAUSE she's a woman. The gamergaters believe that progressives elevated this obviously incompetent (she's a woman, right?) person to game-designer and are now going to fight for her rather so they don't have to acknowledge that women are incompetent and that they were wrong to make her a game designer in the first place.

[Harald K]

Turbulence, that's what's called a strong prior. Nombrilisme vide's long detour into ambulances above is also a long-winded way of saying that you have an extremely strong prior.

But that prior has nothing to do with justice, or feminism, or any other nice things. It is the same prior as Pat Robertson or Pamela Geller or any number of other jerks. It's of the form "my people are the good guys, other people are the bad guys". If you want to be progressive, just, feminist, whatever the pretty words are to you, you have to have something fundamentally different at the bottom.

Yes, I know screenshots are easy to fake. I know you can even fake what Eron did, film himself logging in to facebook to show that the logs are the same as the screenshots. How he managed to pull that same faking trick on the laptop of the journalist who wrote the smear piece on him, I don't know, but I'm sure it's possible - wireless hacking or something? - if your prior is strong enough.

Funnily enough though, there has been no actual hard evidence or serious attempt to argue that the logs are fake, not even from that journalist.

Shane: "Why is progressive in quotes, anyway?"

Because loyalty to the self declared progressive tribe, isn't even progressivism.

Snarki, child of Loki, I don't know. Why don't you try making an argument instead of trying to not-so-subtly hint that I am a Bad Man? FWIW, I've been posting here on and off for around ten years. Much more rarely after Hilzoy and von left, but I am not a troll or a throwaway.

[Harald K]

By the way turbulence, you think Zoe broke up with Eron. You apparently think she got the prior restraint on speech order before thezoepost. That says something about how little you've read of it. Really. Try turning off your disgust circuits, go back, and read the whole thing.

Or you can watch the video by sdtoctm, a nonbinary genderqueer trigger warning enthusiast (everything gamergate hates, you would think) who nonetheless is capable of seeing abuse as abuse.

[Turbulence]

I understand that Zoe got the restraining order after Gjoni wrote the Zoe post. And I'm capable of writing the phrase "restraining order" without resorting to bizarre neologisms.

And I've occasionally seen people that I respect look at this case and see abuse. So far, they've all been people who haven't looked very deeply and didn't know anything about how Gjoni launched his flying monkeys.

[Turbulence]

you think Zoe broke up with Eron

Yeah, I do. Don't you?

[Slartibartfast]

I don't have an opinion in the matter.

The whole thing has me wanting to take a shower, frankly. The information age has some serious drawbacks, IMO, one of which is too much information.

No one should know these things about complete strangers, except as fiction.

[Nigel]

am i the only people who finds it very strange that people invest so much of their emotional energy in the break up of two complete strangers?

No.
I too am (are ?) that (those ?) people(s).

Emphatically so.

[CharlesWT]

[...]
GamerGate is certainly not above criticism. For my taste, it has not been willing enough to disavow the creepier denizens of the "manosphere" who have been riding its coattails, from acolytes of pick-up artist guru Roosh V to weirdo ultra-reactionary blogger Vox Day. Unfortunately, any movement that takes on feminism—even feminism in its extreme forms—is likely to be a magnet for genuine misogynists. But the "social justice warriors" on the anti-GamerGate side, who regularly get a pass from the media, are quite toxic themselves.
[...]
Bomb Threat Targets GamerGate Meetup (Hear From Somebody Who Was There): Much of the "GamerGate" viciousness can actually be laid at the doors of its opponents

[Nombrilisme Vide]

You evidently have enough time to argue with me. You evidently don't have enough time to protest when the guy is smeared in media and it's posted to every possible "progressive" blog under the slightest pretext.

Fine. Fair's fair. I will spend exactly as much care and diligence refuting "the Zoe post" as you spent refuting "the smear piece", as I wouldn't want to be held to a standard that you don't hold yourself to. Ahem:

The Zoe post was written by a sleazebag who decided he could make his ex miserable by appealing to people like you and your preconceptions, and writing a sanctimonious hit piece.

There. As much care and detail as your own refutations, and with far less excess verbiage and personal attacks on people who disagree with me. Satisfied?

(I kid; I have no illusions you're satisfied. Which is nice, dear. But there's absolutely no way that I'm going to waste my time going into detail dissecting a narrative meticulously cherry-picked by an extremely biased "source" who is very careful to present only "evidence" which supports his accusations. See, that's the thing. Turb pointed out that the sort of "evidence" presented was the kind of thing that's really not hard to fabricate. But even if every bit of it is true, that doesn't mean the thesis of Eron's masterpiece is true; it just means he's presented enough evidence to convince people like yourself whose prejudices bias them to being convinced by such a narrative.)

(And my "long detour" into ambulances (6. Whole. Lines!) was neither long-winded nor meant to say I have a strong prior. It was meant to point out precisely how asinine I would have to be to play the game you're asking me to play, whereby you dictate how and what I'm "allowed" to do and say in response to you, so that either I accept your framing and preconceptions without protest, or you can claim your valid concerns are being blown off out of tribal loyalty and throw a piously self-righteous fit about how intellectually dishonest everyone who disagrees with you is. Well, and it was also pointing out that your 6:12 post crowing absence of evidence to the contrary did not, in fact, prove evidence that no evidence exists or that Eron's narrative and cherry-picked "evidence" provides an unbiased and complete record. Of two strangers' relationship and breakup. Neither of whom either of us know.)

[dr ngo]

From the link provided by CharlesWT:

"Are there actual GamerGate supporters who have engaged in abusive behavior online? Very likely so." (Emphasis added.)

Very likely among the most modest admissions (disclaimers?) on the Internet.

Readers are invited to supply their own lead-ups to this tagline, e.g.:

Are there actual instances of police brutality in the United States? Very likely so.

Are there actual Catholic Priests who have abused the children of their parish? Very likely so.

Does a bear actually s**t in the woods?

[cleek]

the anti-GamerGate side

now this is some language abuse.

the "-Gate" suffix is an atrocity all by itself. nobody should ever use it again. ever.

but what side is "anti-GamerGate"? is that the side of the SJW's, the side of the misogynists, or is it the side of people who oppose the entire thing ?

[Morat20]

As far as I can tell, Gamergate was a bad breakup wherein one side decided to blast it over the internet, and that's when it went to ugly to "object lesson about the depravities of the human id".

I really don't care which of the two people at the heart of it was the 'bad guy' when the relationship broke up.

I cheerfully condemn whomever started smearing personal texts and information over the internet, for starters. That's not kosher. Keep your stupid breakup hates to yourself.

And I very MUCH condemn the idiots who started doxxing, which was -- to be blunt -- not being done on behalf of the woman here, insofar as it was clearly aimed AT her.

So call me in on her side, because I sure as hell aren't going to be on the side of doxxing morons, people who issue rape threats, and general wastes of breath.

Also, anyone using the phrase "ethics in game journalism" without being sarcastic or ironic is an idiot.

[hairshirthedonist]

Does anyone have a good Venn diagram for this?

[Slartibartfast]

Not without going into the complex plane.

[hairshirthedonist]

Well, okay, but only if we use "j" instead of "i."

[Slartibartfast]

There is no "j" in "team".

[russell]

it's also strange that i am a people

I'm seeing some serious complications for constitutional interpretation here.

[wj]

Ah, but while persons have constitutional protections, people do not....

[bobbyp]

ChasWT,

I am willing to lay you 10 to 1 that Cathy Young, the author of the Reason piece you linked has never uttered, much less put down in print the following:

"-even libertarianism in its extreme forms"

But apparently "feminism" qualifies.

As for gamergate, I had to look up "doxxing", and I am convinced there is a "j" in team, but first I have to figure out what it could possibly stand for.

:)

[wj]

"j" is for "joint"? (Which kind of joint rather depends on what kind of team it is....)

[bobbyp]

"j" is for "joint"? (Which kind of joint rather depends on what kind of team it is....)

The Ganjah Stoners?

[Slartibartfast]

It's probably the wrong conversational drift to note that although there is no "I" (nor "j") in team, there is a "me".

But I never let things like that stop me.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

HSH: "..only if we use "j" instead of "i." "

What, no love for quaternions?. *sigh*

[liberal japonicus]

After reading various ins and outs about real life people, the title of this post is looking postively prescient.

[JakeB]

What I think is more important is that there is "meat" in team.

[dr ngo]

Mate.

[cleek]

eat 'm

[Snarki, child of Loki]

at 'em! eat 'm? ate 'm.

[Nigel]

Meta, please.

[cleek]

EA™

[hairshirthedonist]

Some of my best friends are Quaternions.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

i = j/k

[Snarki, child of Loki]

whoops, i = -j/k no kidding.

[Slartibartfast]

What, no love for quaternions?.

I don't love them. I admire them. But I can't connect with them the way I do with a nice, accessible direction cosine.

[Slartibartfast]

i = j/k

i=jxk
j=kxi
k=ixj

Always remembering to keep your right hand [rule] on your unit [vector].

[cleek]

once, i almost explained the discrete cosine transform to my wife (in order to explain why JPG and MPG compression look like the do). but i don't think i could ever explain quaternions to anyone.

[hairshirthedonist]

You take an onion, cut it in half, then cut the halves in half. It's simple.

[hairshirthedonist]

At this point, I feel the need to add that my comment about i and j was a reference to the use of j by electrical engineers to symbolize sqrt(-1) to avoid confusion, since i is used for current.

I did not intend to offer any judgement whatsoever on quaternions or anyone who may associate with them.

[CharlesWT]

This discussion has become a poetic four sheets to the wind with no eagle in sight...