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

Elwood P. Dowd said:
Edit: Just realized only one of the nominees for Best Novel is even close to being Science Fiction in the first place. And even that isn't set in space/using hard science as its main plot. Something about hyperintelligent ocopuses(?)/ocotpi(?) plotting world domination. (Sounds kinda cool, if a tad silly. Might actually check it out.) Description honestly reads like a Michael Crichton Thriller more than anything else. The nominee list is pretty wild in and of itself as to subject matter, never mind politics is I guess my surprise here.
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Speculative fiction pretty much bleeds into science fiction, also the Nebulas has historically given awards for both science fiction and fantasy books.

Elwood P. Dowd said:
Only thing I recall in the last decade was when people made fun of the short story winner If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love. Which reads like something posted to Tumblr during that era more than it does anything else
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The Nebula awards are notorious for having rules and standards that change dramatically seemingly every year, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they start accepting half-baked Tumblr fanfiction as potential contenders.

One of the only science fiction book awards I can get behind is the Prometheus Award, which is given posthumously to (mostly) deceased writers that wrote fiction that’s actually worth reading, like Yevgeny Zamyatin or George Orwell.
 
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I was going through my bookshelves tonight looking for a specific PKD book and was shocked and horrified to discover I actually own a Samuel Delaney short story collection.

In my defense, this was long before I knew what he was and I like short story collections.

The one silver lining is I bought it used and he got no money from me. It's been removed from shelf and will be traded in when I go to a specific used book store I go to in Toronto.

How embarrassing.
 
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crowabunga said:
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;
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It's a shame that Wizja Lokalna was never translated into English. It's a short book from the Ijon Tichy series (but more serious in tone than the first volume of Star Diaries) where he gets closest to describing a technological utopia as envisioned by western liberals, with a society managed by AI-powered nanobots. The bots basically let you do whatever you like except doing physical harm to others, and do any work or even create works of art if asked. Of course it's not really a utopia, and the inhabitants become extremely neurotic, producing various rebellions (which are harmless, because the bots stop their hand before they stab anyone), and many escape to the other side of the planet which is controlled by some sort of a low-tech totalitarian regime, but the harm-preventing bots don't venture there. It's becoming more and more relevant. There's a summary on English Wikipedia.
 
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IDanceonTrannyGraves said:
It's been removed from shelf and will be traded in when I go to a specific used book store I go to in Toronto.
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I think this is the wrong course of action. If you like the work and it's devoid of disgusting material, than keep it. Both for the fact that just because delaney is an terrible person doesn't mean he gets to deprive you of your enjoyment of the work. (Separate the art from the artist.) Secondly, you already know what delaney is. You won't be buying anymore of his work. Especially when he benefits from the sale. Someone else may not be as informed, pick up the book you got rid of and than proceed to want to support an author they enjoy.
 
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RazorBackBacon said:
I shudder to admit my ignorance, but I don't know who this Delaney is. I take it he's some sort of pedo?
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Maybe try any of the media attached to this thread, he's kind of central to about all of them.

Long long term 'respected' SF author who wrote borderline child porn frequently and vocally was pro-NAMBLA.
 
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Meat Target said:
Well, it turns out that SFWA has a long and sordid history of members being pedophiles, child abusers, and all-around sex pests.
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Ooooh, NOOOOOOOO!!! One of the leading parties of genre fiction writers is loaded with nonces! Oh, my fucking god!

Why must every famous writer have skeletons in their closet that turn them into LOLcows and get them featured here?
 
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Elwood P. Dowd said:
I'm surprised anybody at Baen is allowed within a mile of the Nebulas. The Nebulas have always been kind of an SFWA circle jerk, and that has only amped up over the past decade.
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It's curious because there's easily all kinds in there, being that the SFWA is the biggest professional guild there is for speculative fiction writers. 10% voted for chucklefuck Vox Day in a SFWA election.

But with the old guard dying off and social media habits preferencing the the left, the loudest and most active movers in the organization are going to be fairly typical liberals. (Repeating what others have said, but in terms of marketing and visibility left-wing artists are far better at uplifiting fellow authors up and the Right really has to work on that. This is not an altogether selfless and altruistic habit: nor is it evidence of social media bias... anyone who moves in lefty circles knows that your fellows will turn on you at the slightest accidentally wrong pronoun, and will not stop, ever, untill you are dead. So it's good insurance to have *favours* and *friends* to protect you from the worst of it. If a right winger displays any wrongthink in their circle there's usually grumbles of, "I don't agree with that Billy Bob" and then they mostly move on.) Most Active usually translates to Most Powerful. And there's a Hugo at the end of it.
 
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RazorBackBacon said:
I shudder to admit my ignorance, but I don't know who this Delaney is. I take it he's some sort of pedo?
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Overrated “science fiction” author LARPing as African American despite being as white as Ed Sheeran. He wrote boring 1,000-page novels nobody outside assigned reading curriculums in Ivy League schools bothers with anymore. He also writes disgusting paedobait fiction and seems to have an overt a fondness for little boys.

I’m kinda thinking this dude needs his own thread on the Farms.
 
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Cherry Eyed Hamster said:
Overrated “science fiction” author LARPing as African American despite being as white as Ed Sheeran. He wrote boring 1,000-page novels nobody outside assigned reading curriculums in Ivy League schools bothers with anymore. He also writes disgusting paedobait fiction and seems to have an overt a fondness for little boys.

I’m kinda thinking this dude needs his own thread on the Farms.
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He's just one of many sci-fi writers with overt interest in fucking kids. That's not as unique as we'd all want it to be. There's so many of these likely pedo sci-fi writers there's an entirely community of them that could be watched.
 
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