Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) - Nerds protecting nonces

[Mola Ram]

It's weird that I'm way way older than KF average and I'd not heard of mid-roll ads in paperbacks before. I guess I never bought trashy enough stuff in the 80s used bins. Weirdly this is one of Harlan's most justified rages. Guy didn't want cig ads in his book, it's in the contract, whaddya gonna do?

I am also elderly by KF standards, and I only encountered such ads once while scoping old, out of print books ... and oddly enough it was a Harlan Ellison book, From the Land of Fear. The ads were on slick, heavy stock and were super-intrusive, though I don't recall if it was a cigarette ad. It had been published in 1966 or 67, to give you some idea of the vintage of this practice.

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

Look at GRRM, his work might not be all that but he's a successful scifi/fantasy author and he doesn't diddle kids.

No, he just writes all his creepy monkeyspank fantasies about underage girls getting raped into his work and gets it published.

 

[crowabunga]

Sci-fi writers tend to be either left wing jewish parasites writing about how we need to form a one world government and evolve into a commie hive mind or right wing fascists/libertarians writing about how we need to murder all homosexuals.
Anyone remember this story by Dan Simmons?
TLDR: It's about a time traveler from a future where Islam has conquered America

Just came to say Philip K Dick was /ourguy/

On the topic of Philip K Dick, commies, and the SFWA, anyone have opinions on Stanislaw Lem? For those who aren't aware, Lem was a Polish Sci-Fi author who did most of his writing during the Cold War, and if there's one thing about him that's relevant to this thread, it's that he hated the posturing of the SFWA and western Sci-Fi authors overall. He believed that most Western Sci-Fi writers were playing a constant motte and bailey of defending Sci-Fi as just "entertainment" whenever criticized for being mostly myopic "futurist" pulp, but would then proceed to go back to fellating each other as visionaries when no longer under attack from serious literary criticism. I think this got him kicked out of or prevented from joining the SFWA, but I don't have the details of that fresh in my memory. The one Western Sci-Fi author he announced himself to have a soft spot for in this essay was Philip K. Dick, who did not reciprocate the sentiment, instead believing "Lem" to be a Soviet fabrication.

Check out Lem's "Summa Technologiae" for some of his essays, including the one where he shits all over Western Sci-Fi. It also includes an essay on what would nowadays be called "AI risk," which is notable for two things: one, for the fact that Lem succinctly predicted, with less hand-wringing and no cultish AI-religiosity, all the worries of the modern "Rationalist" Silicon Valley movement/clusterfuck; and two, for the inclusion of a hilariously perfunctory (preemptive?) kowtowing to Soviet censors, where an example of an AI misbehaving is it discovering the rationality of Communism after being directed to improve capitalist workplace efficiency.

 

[Mikoyan]

On the topic of Philip K Dick, commies, and the SFWA, anyone have opinions on Stanislaw Lem? For those who aren't aware, Lem was a Polish Sci-Fi author who did most of his writing during the Cold War, and if there's one thing about him that's relevant to this thread, it's that he hated the posturing of the SWFA and western Sci-Fi authors overall. He believed that most Western Sci-Fi writers were playing a constant motte and bailey of defending Sci-Fi as just "entertainment" whenever criticized for being mostly myopic "futurist" pulp, but would then proceed to go back to fellating each other as visionaries when no longer under attack from serious literary criticism. I think this got him kicked out of or prevented from joining the SFWA, but I don't have the details of that fresh in my memory. The one Western Sci-Fi author he announced himself to have a soft spot for in this essay was Philip K. Dick, who did not reciprocate the sentiment, instead believing "Lem" to be a Soviet fabrication.

Check out Lem's "Summa Technologiae" for some of his essays, including the one where he shits all over Western Sci-Fi. It also includes an essay on what would nowadays be called "AI risk," which is notable for two things: one, for the fact that Lem succinctly predicted, with less hand-wringing and no cultish AI-religiosity, all the worries of the modern "Rationalist" Silicon Valley movement/clusterfuck; and two, for the inclusion of a hilariously perfunctory (preemptive?) kowtowing to Soviet censors, where an example of an AI misbehaving is it discovering the rationality of Communism after being directed to improve capitalist workplace efficiency.

I should read that essay. There have been some high-concept philosophical western sci-fi works but he's 100% right: Most of the 'greats' of old were getting paid by the word for pulp mags, any intelligence in their work is incidental at best.

 

[Chaos Theorist]

I wanted to write scifi, but knowing that I have to be fat, get a hideous beard, and look/act like a pedophile means I probably wont get far.

The crossover between scifi authors and gamers must be insane

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

or right wing fascists/libertarians writing about how we need to murder all homosexuals.

I can't tell if this is bait or just stupid.

No, he just writes all his creepy monkeyspank fantasies about underage girls getting raped into his work and gets it published.

Guess I'm glad I never read a Games of Thrones book either lmao.

 

[crowabunga]

On the topic of Philip K Dick, commies, and the SFWA, anyone have opinions on Stanislaw Lem? For those who aren't aware, Lem was a Polish Sci-Fi author who did most of his writing during the Cold War, and if there's one thing about him that's relevant to this thread, it's that he hated the posturing of the SFWA and western Sci-Fi authors overall. He believed that most Western Sci-Fi writers were playing a constant motte and bailey of defending Sci-Fi as just "entertainment" whenever criticized for being mostly myopic "futurist" pulp, but would then proceed to go back to fellating each other as visionaries when no longer under attack from serious literary criticism. I think this got him kicked out of or prevented from joining the SFWA, but I don't have the details of that fresh in my memory. The one Western Sci-Fi author he announced himself to have a soft spot for in this essay was Philip K. Dick, who did not reciprocate the sentiment, instead believing "Lem" to be a Soviet fabrication.

Check out Lem's "Summa Technologiae" for some of his essays, including the one where he shits all over Western Sci-Fi. It also includes an essay on what would nowadays be called "AI risk," which is notable for two things: one, for the fact that Lem succinctly predicted, with less hand-wringing and no cultish AI-religiosity, all the worries of the modern "Rationalist" Silicon Valley movement/clusterfuck; and two, for the inclusion of a hilariously perfunctory (preemptive?) kowtowing to Soviet censors, where an example of an AI misbehaving is it discovering the rationality of Communism after being directed to improve capitalist workplace efficiency.

Update: I just went back to review my digital copy of Summa Technologiae, and I realized that that isn't the essay collection that includes his criticism of western Sci-Fi authors. Sorry! The book that includes the criticism is Microworlds: Writings on Science Fiction and Fantasy, and can (among other sources) be borrowed on the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/microworldswriti00lems

 

[keytar]

No, he just writes all his creepy monkeyspank fantasies about underage girls getting raped into his work and gets it published.

I first read ASOIAF a fair few years ago and I loved it (and still love a lot of things about it to be fair) and I assumed that GRRM was trying to go with 'people got married/were expected to be sexually active at younger ages in Ye Olden Days', along with making the setting more dark n gritty. The older I get though, the skeevier a lot of it seems.

 

[Windows 10 Upgrade]

Take one look at his blog and read the tirades he goes on about Trump. He's not someone I'd look to for advice on life or politics.

Though to be fair the whole Trump era was an alarming circus for normies used to a G-Man looking dude behind the lectern. All the grab em by the pussy, whores and YMCA dancing rallies with the weird fucking crowds perhaps ran counter to the idea that politicians and lawmakers fulfil a purely administrative role. GRRM does skew normie.

It's weird that I'm way way older than KF average and I'd not heard of mid-roll ads in paperbacks before. I guess I never bought trashy enough stuff in the 80s used bins. Weirdly this is one of Harlan's most justified rages. Guy didn't want cig ads in his book, it's in the contract, whaddya gonna do?

He was ahead of his time in a lot of ways. He was also my writing mentor's mentor. Fucking loved the guy. Harlan Harlan Harlan. He'd be doing a writing class and it would just devolve into a: "Now Harlan said..." for 30 minutes.

No, he just writes all his creepy monkeyspank fantasies about underage girls getting raped into his work and gets it published.

Haha, I'm gonna use "to be fair" in the one post and say sometimes you gotta do what sells! So ok, in the 80s and early 90's there was a resurgence of epic fantasy - the Riftwar Saga, the Belgariad, The Wheel of Time, Dragons of Pern, Memory Sorrow and Thorn etc, and with few exceptions they all cleaved very close to this Lord of the Rings morality of sexlessness.

A lot of "men's fiction", the other big genre of the time - Eric Van Lustbader, Harold Robbins etc were identifiable with this political thriller interspersed with hefty sex-scenes every couple of chapters. GoT was a game changer in epic fantasy in that it smushed together this nihilist men's fiction thriller concept with a historical epic fantasy background (in terms of sexually charged epic fantasy, the Historical Romance brigade were way in front with smutty entertainment, ie: the Outlander Series started in 1992, but it was marketed towards a female audience.)

I have to say, that compared to some things one might read now, the GoT sex scenes are quite brief and not very outrageous.

The crossover between scifi authors and gamers must be insane

I remember during the Sad/Rabid puppies debacle when the Hugo results were being announced on Twitter (I don't think there was livestreaming back in 2014) and the feed was so clogged with people shouting at each other I applied one of the Gamergate blocks (its a BlockTogether that blocked all the annoying Gamergaters, but impossible to remove without a API script, sigh).

The feed suddenly became manageable again, in fact it was really quiet!

 

[Miriam Margoyles]

Haha, I'm gonna use "to be fair" in the one post and say sometimes you gotta do what sells! So ok, in the 80s and early 90's there was a resurgence of epic fantasy - the Riftwar Saga, the Belgariad, The Wheel of Time, Dragons of Pern, Memory Sorrow and Thorn etc, and with few exceptions they all cleaved very close to this Lord of the Rings morality of sexlessness.

A lot of "men's fiction", the other big genre of the time - Eric Van Lustbader, Harold Robbins etc were identifiable with this political thriller interspersed with hefty sex-scenes every couple of chapters. GoT was a game changer in epic fantasy in that it smushed together this nihilist men's fiction thriller concept with a historical epic fantasy background (in terms of sexually charged epic fantasy, the Historical Romance brigade were way in front with smutty entertainment, ie: the Outlander Series started in 1992, but it was marketed towards a female audience.)

I have to say, that compared to some things one might read now, the GoT sex scenes are quite brief and not very outrageous.

That's all very well, but what about that scene where Martin goes into great detail about exactly how messily and frequently Daenerys shits herself and how stinky all her big fat shits are?

 

[Windows 10 Upgrade]

That's all very well, but what about that scene where Martin goes into great detail about exactly how messily and frequently Daenerys shits herself and how stinky all her big fat shits are?

Yep, a game changer! Nobody ever much pissed or shat in Fantasy novels or did anything remotely to suggest they had a functioning digestive system (of course it became all the rage in Grimdark, later, to describe everything in excruciating detail).

At some stage, a human is going to have to take a dump. Back then in entertainment you couldn't even have a toilet flush sound on TV (and GRRMs years of TV writing probably added to that little detail)

 

[Briananderson1138]

Not strictly related to the organization, but if we're discussing science fictional authorial degeneracy, I may as well note that I, too, have encountered a degenerate science fiction writer online.
This is Charles Stross, a Scottish Jew and the author of the Laundry Files series, wherein we follow a secret British Government agency and their attempts to deal with the sundry creatures and entities of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. He extrapolates from the idea of magic being a mathematical system that can be analyzed scientifically, which does actually have Mythos precedents, and therefore posits that it would be much like atomic physics and other weaponizable science; under the purview of mathematics, physics, and computer geeks, working in a government bureaucracy.
The first three books are "real neat", involving as they do a singularly interesting and creative premise. By the fourth, however, his misanthropic streak rises from his psyche like Cthulhu from his tomb in risen R'lyeth; he introduces an eeevil Christian fundamentalist church , eeevil U.S. government agencies, and other shittery. As the series progresses, the "secret" aspect of the secret government agency is dispensed with and the books deteriorate into doomposting, with the stars coming right and all the Mythos critters gradually rising to destroy/enslave/madden humanity.
Furthermore, and of more direct interest to Kiwis, he has a blog (go to "Charlie's Diary"), wherein he expostulates his beliefs to the sycophants who infest the comments section. I no longer visit it, for the content thereof is repulsive to my sensibilities, but from what I remember the comments section contained such gems as a poster expressing his belief that all persons opposing communism should be lobotomized . There are also comment posts by an avowed critical race theorist "Foxessa", with whom he obviously agrees (he stated in one response that he absolutely believes the 1619 Project lie that the American Revolution was instigated to preserve slavery. Further, he is so far to the left that he unsubscribed from the Guardian on the grounds of their alleged "transphobia". But what, then, should we expect from a registered member of the Scottish Green Party?

 

[teriyakiburns]

This is Charles Stross,

please, no

no no no no

>no kid diddling

Oh thank god. He's just crazy.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

I regret buying an Arthur C Clarke book used a few weeks ago

 

[Wampak]

Haha, I'm gonna use "to be fair" in the one post and say sometimes you gotta do what sells! So ok, in the 80s and early 90's there was a resurgence of epic fantasy - the Riftwar Saga, the Belgariad, The Wheel of Time, Dragons of Pern, Memory Sorrow and Thorn etc, and with few exceptions they all cleaved very close to this Lord of the Rings morality of sexlessness.

A lot of "men's fiction", the other big genre of the time - Eric Van Lustbader, Harold Robbins etc were identifiable with this political thriller interspersed with hefty sex-scenes every couple of chapters. GoT was a game changer in epic fantasy in that it smushed together this nihilist men's fiction thriller concept with a historical epic fantasy background (in terms of sexually charged epic fantasy, the Historical Romance brigade were way in front with smutty entertainment, ie: the Outlander Series started in 1992, but it was marketed towards a female audience.)

I have to say, that compared to some things one might read now, the GoT sex scenes are quite brief and not very outrageous.

Game of Thrones, the first book, is basically just a noir mystery story in the vein of Chinatown but set in a pseudo-historical fantasy city (at least the main storyline with Ned is).

 

[OrangeJuliusEvola]

please, no

no no no no

>no kid diddling

Oh thank god. He's just crazy.

Well, he's also an arrogant hypocritical prick too.
Frankly the whole genre scene is so fucking incestuous and toxic it's just not worth it. I mean, there is just an utter lack of people there who are decent functional human beings. If they're not out to get into your pants, or destroy you for some minor offense, they're usually autistic to the point of being annoying or disgusting.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

I liked Kindred by Octavia Butler. Show was absolutely dogshit though.

I'll never forgive GRRM for the infamous 'fat pink mast' scene in one of the ASOIAF books.

 

[Chuckwagon]

Christ, that bit about Clarke. I recall doing a school project about one of his books, titled Childhood's End, ages ago. Now I can never look at that title or consider his thought process when coming up with it the same way.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

I should read that essay. There have been some high-concept philosophical western sci-fi works but he's 100% right: Most of the 'greats' of old were getting paid by the word for pulp mags, any intelligence in their work is incidental at best.

I have to disagree with that last. If you look up the backgrounds of those greats, we see much more engaging lives than the current crop of SFWA critters because, well, the facts of life were more engaging then. A lot were veterans, many lived through the Great Depression and the Spanish flu, worked all manner of jobs, and so on. How many Lovecraft, Howard, or Tolkien equivalents have the backstory "rich parents let them stay in school till they were 27, and they spent the time doing writers' workshops and networking until they started getting given awards for ticking the right demographic boxes despite selling basically nothing?"

 

[Flexo]

How many Lovecraft, Howard, or Tolkien equivalents have the backstory "rich parents let them stay in school till they were 27, and they spent the time doing writers' workshops and networking until they started getting given awards for ticking the right demographic boxes despite selling basically nothing?"

Well that would kind of be a description of Marx.... (and his fiction writing is still winning awards)