Category: Puppies

The Mystery of the New New Heinlein

Cast your minds back to May 11 2016. It was a kinder, more innocent time and not-so-crypto crypto-fascist website Vox Popoli invited people to “Meet Rod Walker” (archive link). Walker was, we were told, the “new new Heinlein” and like Heinlein would be writing some exciting “juvenile” targetted science fiction novels for Vox Day’s Castalia House.

“We are very excited about our new series of Rod Walker books, because they are exactly what we founded Castalia House to publish. They are pure Blue SF, and contain no foul language, no adult themes, no nihilism, and they are 100 percent social justice-free. Robert Heinlein revitalized science fiction with just 12 wonderful novels – 13, if one counts Starship Troopers which was originally supposed to be a Scribner novel, but was foolishly turned down – and we believe it is possible to do achieve similar effects by applying the same principles that made his early novels so successful.”

The supposed success of “Mutiny in Space” was much trumpeted by Vox Day and this first “juvenile” was followed by two more: “Alien Game” and “Young Man’s War”. All the books had somewhat clumsy 3D model art covers. This was all according to the plan Vox Day had laid out in August 2016: [Archive link]

“He is one of the most professional authors in the industry, delivering what must be some of the cleanest manuscripts delivered anywhere. He’s not only professional, he’s prolific, as we’ll be publishing two more of his novels before the end of the year, Alien Game, which is a second Heinlein-style SF juvenile, and an as-yet-untitled fantasy novel set in Minaria, the world of Divine Right.”

…

“KU is the real game-changer now, because the traditional publishers can’t play there. But we can, and last month, one of our better-selling books sold more via KU than through all the other means and editions combined. It doesn’t make sense for us to sell all our books that way, as we’ve experimented and some books do great while others don’t, but KU editions are now every bit as important in their own right as paperback, hardcover, or audiobook editions.”

In July 2018, Rod Walker’s “Young Man’s War” was on Vox Day’s nomination list for the Dragon Awards.

But what about that fantasy series that was mentioned? In February 2018, the Castalia House blog had a review of a Rod Walker fantasy book called “Master Rogue 1: Mage Tome” http://www.castaliahouse.com/quick-reviews-mage-tome-karma-upsilon-4-and-appalling-stories but aside from that “Rod Walker” had gone a bit quiet.

More recently a stray comment in a post that appeared both at Vox Day’s blog and Castalia House blog caught my eye:

“Castalia House is not doing YA right now,”

A quick trip to Rod Walker’s own blog led to this:

rodwalkerpage

The Wayback machine had a version of his front page from August 2018 but at some point since the blog had been blanked. The archived version showed a fantasy trilogy of novellas called “Master Rogue” . A simple google search for “Master Rogue: Mage Tome” gives a link to an Amazon page but that link leads to:

missingbook

Does Straw Puppy work for Amazon now? Did he always work for Amazon? No, that’s a side issue. Off to Voxopedia. There “Rod Walker (science fiction author)” is a red broken link:

rodwalkervoxopedia

Rod Walker’s last blog entry appears to have been in July 2018. After that point, the mysterious Mr Walker appears to have disappeared and at least some of his book scrubbed from Amazon. The trilogy of novellas appear on Goodreads but no links to the books themselves function. There are odd remnants of the fantasy books on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/aw/cr/B077SGPHK2/ref=mw_dp_cr ) which prove they existed but they’ve since gone.

The conclusion was obvious: Rod Walker has vanished as swiftly as he once appeared and with him a trio of fantasy novellas. The new new Heinlein simply…vanished…

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You Haven’t Mocked Voxopedia In A Long Time

That’s very true random blog post title writer, I haven’t.

Yes, the shambling undead creature assembled from rotting remains of articles discarded by Wikipedia continues to lurch through the countryside occasionally gurgling the word “brrraainnss” (or is it “editorrrrsss”). Somehow it is still not dead despite being edited by a tiny number of people, two of whom seem to be at war over which kind of weird conspiracy theory complex is the right one.

Has it got worse? Mainly, yes. It already harboured some nasty apologetics for people who had psychologically abused children and since then has gained at least one editor engaged in some kind of transphobic campaign. Without sounding too much like a character from a Lovecraft pastiche, I shan’t link to the articles in question for fear that they may drive you mad or (more realistically) despair of humanity.

The incompetence remains refreshing. For example, the community portal (which I will link to https://infogalactic.com/info/Infogalactic:Community_portal ) remains remarkably informative…because all of the links in the “Topics” section go to…Wikipedia. Nobody has edited the community portal since April 2017, presumably because the community is so happy an healthy and nobody’s limbs have dropped off as they shambled with arms outstretched as if scripted by George Romero.

“But surely,” I hear you say, “the platform itself must have enabled some soul who has been frustrated by the narrow-minded editors of Wikipedia to find a safe harbour where they could express their encyclopedic tendencies without the harsh judgement of the social justice warriors?” Fear not. For amid the hatred and bigotry, conspiracy theories and hagiography of Ted Beale, one benighted soul has found a home on Voxopedia to bring to the world articles that no conventional wiki could ever host. I bring to you, Voxopedia – the place was Englebert Humperdinck reigns supreme.

Perhaps you want to know about Humperdinck’s 1977 compilation album “Engelbert Sings for You”? Well sorry bud but those stuffed shorts at Wikipedia can’t help you out! Not so Voxopedia: https://infogalactic.com/info/Engelbert_Sings_for_You_(Engelbert_Humperdinck_album)

Or maybe A Merry Christmas with Engelbert Humperdinck is more your thing: https://infogalactic.com/info/A_Merry_Christmas_with_Engelbert_Humperdinck_(Engelbert_Humperdinck_album)

Or perhaps https://infogalactic.com/info/Engelbert_Sings_the_Hits_(Engelbert_Humperdinck_album) an article form which we can learn:

“Not much information is available on this album, but it appears to be made by EMI, without any involvement from Epic. Hence, this was probably not released in the US.”

One plucky editor appears to have spent the past week attempting to make Voxopedia THE internet authority on Englebert Humperdinck. Is this a prank or is the Alt-Right desperate to find a popular singer to listen too now that they feel betrayed by Taylor Swift? Weirdly, the Voxopedia article on Humperdinck doesn’t mention his 2017 cover of an Ed Sheeran song, unlike Wikipedia — a fact that once again makes me feel the need to add dire warning like a character in a Lovecraft pastiche.

Things I learned today:

  • Englebert Humperdinck is English and has the Freedom of the City of Liecester.
  • According to Wikipedia “Humperdinck enjoyed his first real success during July 1966 in Belgium, where he and four others represented Britain in the annual Knokke song contest”
  • I’d obviously heard of Humperdinck but I think I had him confused with somebody else but I’m not sure who.
  • This is far more than I wanted to know about Englebert Humperdinck.

 

CoOrDiNaTeD aTtAcKs!

Cast your minds back to April 7 2015. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish were beaten by the Connecticut Huskies in the NCAA Division I women’s basketball championship and Senator Rand Paul announced he was going to run for the Republic nomination for President of the United States. Meanwhile, in Sad Puppy related news, Larry Correia posted this: https://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/07/addendum-to-yesterdays-letter/

“To the the SMOFs, moderates, new comers, and fence sitters I addressed yesterday, yes, we have disagreements with you. We’re happy to discuss them. We are not, however, happy to be libeled as the vilest forms of scum to walk the earth, and we are not happy to live in fear of career destruction. You want my part of fandom to coexist peacefully? You want to work out our differences and keep the awards meaningful? So do we. Though we disagree on the details and the issues, we also love this stuff. But coordinated slander campaigns, lies, character assassinations, threats, witch hunts? No… We won’t stand for that.” [CF: my emphasis]

“Coordinated slander”, oh my golly gosh! The issue being that the Sad Puppy campaign had become notable enough that its impact was being covered by the mainstream media. You’d think that was predictable — make a loud enough noise, eventually pay attention — but no, for Larry the news coverage must have been because of some hidden layer of coordination. A week later he was on the same theme: http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/14/george-r-r-martin-responds/

“So here is a question for you.  What term would you use to describe the shared politics of the dozens of reporters, columnists, and bloggers who have run similar articles this week with obvious false accusations that Sad Puppies supporters ran an anti-diversity slate, motivated by racism, sexism, and homophobia? Jerks? Yes, they are, but that is a bit too coordinated for mere jerkage. That was a political attempt to establish a political narrative.” [CF: my emphasis]

Changing topics but not themes and sticking with a Sad Puppy outlet for a moment, fast forward to February 3 2017. Milo Yiannopolous’s star had risen high with an invite to the Conservative Political Action Conference and a book deal with Simon & Shuster when anti-Trump Republican group The Reagan Battalion released an edited version of a 206 video in which Yiannopolous justified sex with 13 year olds. At Mad Genius Club, Kate Paulk was unhappy about Yiannopolous’s book deal being cancelled: https://madgeniusclub.com/2017/02/23/the-inadequacy-of-silence/

“What I care about is that someone who has – objectively – done not one damn thing wrong is the subject of a coordinated effort to not merely silence him, but disappear him. I’ve seen this happen in the past. It happened to Larry Correia. To Brad Torgersen. I didn’t get the full force of it last year, but instead got the cold shoulder of people doing their best to pretend I’d already been disappeared.” [CF: my emphasis]

The theme being coordination obviously, the idea that if multiple sources are saying similar things it must be because of hidden coordination. Of course, some people really do plan things and approaches. Obviously the Reagan Battalion planned their media campaign against Yiannopolous but the “coordination” claim is stronger than that and proposes that the subsequent fuss and related outrage was also somehow coordinated.

I was initially planning this post yesterday after I read a series of tweets from Ethan Van Sciver, the right wing comic book artist who claims the mantle of ‘ComicsGate’®™. EVS was the guy who had the big falling out with Vox Day in September. In a series of tweets he disappointed me slightly by using the word “organized” instead of “coordinated”. I shan’t link to the tweets because it messes with the WordPress layout but the combined message was this:

“This Wave of Organized Attacks on ComicsGate consisted of:
1. The rise of @sinKEVitch as leader of AntiCG!
2. Jeff Lemire calling pros to arms against us!
3. Darwyn Cooke’s widow baiting CG!
4 Three Bleeding Cool hitpieces on me!
5. Hit pieces in the Washington Post, & INVERSE
6. Hit piece in The Guardian! The Daily Dot!
7. Robbi Rodriguez sending me a photo of his anus!
8. Vox Day trying to co-opt ComicsGate for the Alt Right!
9. Patton Oswalt condemning ComicsGate!
10. Pablo Hidalgo of Lucasfilm compares ComicsGate to the KKK!
11. John Layman spews bile at 21 year old CG writer Nasser Rabadi for 21 consecutive tweets!
12. Kieran Shiach penned hitpiece in POLYGON!
13. Marvel Comics Chief Creative Office Joe Quesada weighs in to debate @DiversityAndCmx and EVS: Loses debate.” [CF: my emphasis]

Rather like the Yiannopolous defence, the charge of coordination here crosses political lines. EVS suggests a conspiracy between a disperate group that includes the Guardian and Vox Day. The Yiannopolous piece suggested coordination between the left and the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Like I said, this post was going to concentrate on a theme among culture wars and be a break from writing about the nomination process of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. However, the morning news presented this to me: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/24/politics/read-brett-kavanaugh-letter-senate-judiciary-committee/index.html

“These are smears, pure and simple. And they debase our public discourse. But they are also a threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country. Such grotesque and obvious character assassination—if allowed to succeed—will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from service. As I told the Committee during my hearing, a federal judge must be independent, not swayed by public or political pressure. That is the kind of judge I will always be. I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process. The coordinated effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out.” [CF: my emphasis]

It’s an interesting principled-tone Kavanaugh strikes whilst simultaneously accusing two different women of inventing ‘smears’ against him. And there is that tic again. Of course, yes, clearly the Democrats coordinate their opposition to his nomination just as the Republicans and other conservative groups have coordinated their support of him but the ‘coordination’ here is intended (as it does in the examples above) to imply that criticism is not just illegitimate but sinister and underhand.

“They” are out to get me and it doesn’t matter who ‘they’ are or that ‘they’ are a superfluous hypothesis to describe events. By casting events in this way, a call to action is made against the shadowy Them — who, to quote Kavanaugh, are a threat “any man or woman who wishes to serve our country”.

Personally I like to believe Them are giant ants. I prefer the classics.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, but yes you did co-opt the Sad Puppies…

Comics love nothing more than a crossover event! In a rambling post about the schmozzle that was (comicsgatecomics^comicsgate^gate)! Vox Day is very keen to set the record straight about previous culture-wars hijackings:

“I would, however, like to correct one common misapprehension: I never co-opted Sad Puppies. To the contrary, I was the architect of the Sad Puppies most notorious success and at no point in time was there ever any conflict between the Sad Puppies and me. If you look more closely, you’ll notice that none of the four leaders of the Sad Puppies, from Larry to Kate, have ever made a single accusation on that score. I don’t intend to say any more than that, except to reiterate an absolute fact: I did not co-opt Sad Puppies and anyone who claims I did in any way, shape, or form is wrong.” http://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/09/dramagate.html [link for reference, I don’t recommend following it]

Hmmm, no I think it is safe to say that Vox Day really did co-opt the Sad Puppy campaign. Let me count the ways:

  • He used Brad Torgersen’s cobbled together slate to form his own slate.
  • He used the name “Rabid Puppies” to sow confusion between the two campaigns
  • He commissioned a logo for his campaign from the same artist as the logo for the Sad Puppies campaign
  • He manipulated the Sad Puppies into the spectacular own goal of the Tor boycott
  • He mounted a vote stacking campaigns to help ensure that the Sad Puppy nominees swept whole categories…
  • …and then left the Sad Puppies to defend the outcome

To be honest, I’m a little surprised Vox isn’t boasting about it. He very much wants people to believe that he is a master strategist of Batman like proportions and their are very few actual examples of him actually doing anything particularly clever. Yet the manipulation of the Sad Puppies is the one obvious and genuine example – he played them like a fiddle. Yes, they were easy and very gullible targets but still, Vox has no reason for false modesty in this one (and very limited) regard.

A Geography Lesson

I forgot to say exactly where the library was that I featured in my last post. It’s the new Green Square library in Sydney https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/explore/libraries/locations/green-square

I haven’t found out why there is a plane inside the library and I don’t know when I’ll be back that why to ask. It will have to remain a mystery.

Normally I keep my movements obscured to keep me safe from ninjas, lost polar bears and Timothy’s adoring fans but given the last post here’s a little map of the general area I was pacing around yesterday…

stpeters

Meanwhile, the top Puppy internet sleuths have been closely monitoring my location in a way that isn’t remotely creepy or a bit weird…

“…his IP has changed to St. Petersburg. That is, it’s a common mask.”

And what’s 15 thousand kilometres or four letters between friends after all.🤣

Well This Should Be Interesting

Chris Chupik’s response (still in the comments at According to Hoyt) to my set of questions was:

“What’s strange is that he’s accusing of you stuff, but for some reason he’s talking to me instead of the target of his accusations. “Do you not think it even more strange that Sarah Hoyt had forgotten a follow up post where she attempted to justify the discussion of mass-murder of an ethnic group, also in May?” Hey, Contentious Flummadiddle, why don’t you talk to Sarah instead of trying to call me out on your blog?”

Well, I was asking Chris because he was the one engaging with the post — I assumed that was obvious. Sarah Hoyt has made it abundantly clear in the past that she isn’t interested in discussion. Still, while I wouldn’t comment at a blog that asked me not to, this is a clear invitation to comment at According to Hoyt. So I did but just a little one 🙂

 

[ETA: the first comment went in and then the next two presumably spam-filtered. So it goes 🙂 So there’s you answer Chris.]

Hey, hey, hey, it’s Chris Chupik!

Hi Chris!

Thanks for dropping by and reading this blog and then reporting back. It’s certainly a thing that you do I guess 🙂

Anyway…I’ve a few questions if you don’t mind.

    You and other Sad Pups often made angry sounds about selective quoting, even when whole paragraphs of text were quoted…yet, you always make an effort to quote misleadingly. How come?
    Did you not think it really odd when Sarah Hoyt said in the comments that:

  • “Excuse me? I’m targeting WHAT?

    • I can honestly say I haven’t thought of gypsies since I saw their encampment near mom’s. (And then it was “oh, it’s still there.”)” https://accordingtohoyt.com/2018/09/10/utopia-means-death/#comment-554751

    “Now apparently people in this blog hate gypsies and want to commit genocide against them.  This is amazingly bizarre.  Yes, I know that the idiot Floppy Camel has taken stuff from comments and interpreted it through his looking-glass mind to mean that.  Yeah.  Well, you know, he’s so invested in disguising his perfectly normal, traditional marriage, because he and his wife have been scamming the community out of “diversity” attention for years, that he can’t possibly be thinking anymore.  The migraine of trying to reconcile that nonsense, including, btw, the belief that Dave Freer will cause people to attack them by revealing they’re utterly conventional (and across the world.  And annoying/reviling people who have never attacked anyone, ever) probably rotto-rooted what remained of his brain.”

    • And did you forget that in that same post (the one where she was saying the anti-Romani prejudice on her blog was rumours and innenudo) that she asserted that their behaviour encouraged violence against them? Odd, if you did forget, because again, I think that IS something that would stick in my memory.

    “Because Europe going nuts and killing the strangers in their midst is such a ridiculous idea and hasn’t happened throughout history.  And Europe isn’t about to hit the wall with the welfare state and EU and need a scapegoat. Yeah, we did say gypsies’ behaviors encourage this.  But they are their behaviors.  Not rumors, but things they are actually proud of.  And which, incidentally, mesh very badly with the welfare state.”

    • On that, don’t you think there’s something a bit weird about that defence given that it is literally an admission?

    Just curious. I know that the only likely response will be avoidance of the topic but let me ask you another question. Look back on those threads or just that comment above and replace the name of the ethnic group there with some other ethnic group (pick a few and try it out). Would you be cool with those statements now?