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2016 Hugo Awards Shortlist Dominated By Rightwing Campaign (theguardian.com)
Dave Knott quotes a report from The Guardian: The annual Hugo awards for the best science fiction of the year have once again been riven by controversy, as a concerted campaign by a conservative lobby has dominated the ballot. The Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies movements, which both separately campaign against a perceived bias towards liberal and leftwing science-fiction and fantasy authors, have managed to get the majority of their preferred nominations on to the final ballot, announced today. Since 2013, the Puppies factions have posted recommendations of works to combat the Hugo tendency to reward works that leaders of the movement deem "niche, academic, overtly to the left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun." The Rabid Puppies has been successful in getting its nominations on the shortlist again this year; out of 80 recommendations, 62 have received sufficient votes to make the ballot. At MidAmeriCon II this year, it was announced that more than 4,000 nominating ballots were cast for the 2016 Hugo awards, almost double the previous record of 2,122 ballots. This news was initially greeted with cautious optimism, but the shortlist shows that the Puppies and their supporters have redoubled their efforts to "game" the awards. The shortlist will be voted upon and the winners revealed at the forthcoming Worldcon in Kansas in August.
distort literature like this.
the Hugo tendency to reward works that leaders of the movement deem "niche, academic, overtly to the left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun."
Works collectively known as "science fiction".
Elon, get a move on, I want out.
If they do not like the results of public balloting then they should not have public balloting. Allowing broad public campaigning undermines things because it becomes either a popularity contest or a place for people to grind their collective gripes. This goal of public participation is fine if it is for something that lacks meaning, like political elections, but that is another story. Oh wait,I forgot some of you folks are from the US. Sorry about that.....
No one reads all that crap. How many entrants? Are they judged just by the book cover? Where are all these people who sit around and read all these books? It would seem you would need to read all on the list to justify a vote. Hmmm. Where do I sign up for this job?
Why does it have to be either "left wing" or "right wing" books that win? Why not just choose good books, regardless of politics? I think a feature of some of the best books written is the politics is left up to the reader. Is the Lord of the Rings left-wing or right-wing? I've seen commentaries taking both positions.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
The people in charge of them have no respect for the voting public and vice versa. Continuing to struggle on as though these groups should be part of the same literary ecosystem is ridiculous. Whichever side you believe introduced a deleterious political bias to the genre, it's clear that they should really just be two different genres now. Let each clown in this circus go and make their own award ceremony with blackjack and hookers, and anyone left fighting over the Hugos can be safely ignored, as they were just there for the fight.
Not right wing, rather, opposed to social justice snowflakes, whiners and crybullies.
The sorry arse losers who only want gay and lesbian sci-fi characters? :(
Didn't read TFS nor TFA but...
>This is sad seeing republicans... distort literature like this. ...
Yeah, the left wing just bans literature they don't like.
>They already control nearly every moment of our lives.
I don't know in Amerika, but in the rest of the world the LEFT is the one trying to control everything you do, lest you say something somebody wouldn't like
>And the media.
Wrong. Everything you see and hear in the media is anti-right-wing propaganda.
Music, movies, news, series, etc
Anything by Heinlein or Jerry Pournelle would fall into the right wing Scifi genre.
But if you are looking for a movie that delivers on it promises of "visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun," what you want is Marvel and Disney. The problem, of course, is that Disney is evolving into the most liberal, subversive, and prosperous studio on the block.
but I think it's not really so evil to organize. This is a system that is getting like 2 to 4 thousand votes, and this so called conservative cabal still didn't get all of their candidates into the final.
We are talking about nothing. This is nothing. This is a world with 7 Billion people in it. The margin of victory in this ballot is like 400 votes.
The short version is, maybe conservatives are 'gaming' this, but the thing they are gaming is completely meaningless. It's a stupid award and nobody should care who wins it. Read what you like, sheeple!
Maybe it shows that the people who have BEEN gaming the awards for the last couple of decades are finally being outnumbered by people who actually vote for good writing, instead of politically-acceptable dross. Up until a year or so ago, there was a huge amount of campaigning for Hugo awards. Now, the same people who used to get nominated regularly by doing so are whining because someone else is also campaigning - and getting nominated instead of one of their friends.
The people running the Hugos whine about ""Republicans" - but go and actually LOOK at the nominees from the Sad Puppies. There's actual political diversity there, not the progressive sameness of a typical Hugo ballot.
There are actually some really good books in the lists that are now "tainted" by these shenanigans. Hell, I like Jim Butcher and I know he's got some right-of-center politics, but best novel? No way. And Seveneves? Good book for about 3/4, then falls a bit, also not a good pick for any cause.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Scifi used to be based around some science concept or a science concepts impact on people or society. Now it just seems to be a backdrop to some action adventure movie.
The "Rabid Puppies" and "Sad Puppies" have about as much to do with each other as "JavaScript" and "Java". That is, nothing but a confusing similarity of name.
Charges that Sad Puppies needs to control Vox Day are simply unfair. How are they supposed to do that exactly? Vox Day is an independent adult and there is no reason why the Sad Puppies would have the ability to control him. See above point.
Last year, the Sad Puppies pleaded with Vox Day not to burn the Hugo Awards to the ground. Then the science fiction fandom got really organized and burned the Hugo Awards to the ground. Vox Day got everything he wanted and they did the work for him.
The Sad Puppies have always been about recommending the SF works that you enjoyed the most. Sad Puppies 4 continues this tradition.
Rabid Puppies, on the other hand, seems to be a trolling campaign by Vox Day. (Vox Day seems to have a knack for saying things that are so beyond the pale that they literally enrage people. I suspect he's trolling because his statements are so perfectly calculated to enrage. And now "Space Raptor Butt Invasion"?)
One final point, submitted for your consideration: The novel Three Body Problem won a Hugo. It was Vox Day's favorite novel of the year, and had he read it a little sooner, he would have nominated it for a Hugo. It would then have lost the Hugo to "No Award" as the organized fandom was voting an "anti-Puppy" slate.
The organized fandom and their organized "No Award" campaign claimed that they had to award an unprecedented number of "No Awards" to protect the Hugo, but how would denying the Hugo to Three Body Problem have protected anything? What was protected when Toni Weisskopf was denied her Hugo? And here we are, with the Rabid Puppies causing worse trouble than ever, and some fraction of fandom repelled by the No Award and wooden asterisk plaque antics, and walking away from the whole thing.
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
It's only a problem when the people other than your buddies are doing it.
I'm OK with the Hugos being about "swashbuckling fun". They've always been a fan's choice award anyway, for the lowest common denominator. There are other awards for serious science fiction. The Hugos are for people who think Star Wars is science fiction.
Let's see how much attention the Hugos get once they start giving awards to talentless self-publishers like Vox Day.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice I cared so little about!
#DeleteChrome
So, not only the reality, fiction also has a Right-wing bias?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
There are actually some really good books in the lists that are now "tainted" by these shenanigans.
How are they "shenanigans" if lists are simply good books to read?
Doesn't variation from a list of good books to read mean that the OTHER lists are the ones that are "shenanigans"?
I voted for the Hugo for the first time the last year. Not because I was a member of the Sad Puppies per se, but because they opened my eyes to the fact it was supposed to be a fan award, and how easy it was to vote. How is that a BAD thing for a fan award? I think their actions are laudable.
The great thing is that if you register to vote you get a packet with ALL of the nominated material, so you can actually read what you vote for. I did not vote for any category that I had not read through all the entires - many times my favorites aligned with some from the Sad Puppies list, but again that just shows the validity of that list as stuff that is enjoyable to read. Who doesn't like to enjoy reading?
The really sad thing to me is that some people are so closed minded they simply cannot take a complement from the "wrong" people. One of my favorite author nominees last year for short stories withdrew her name from the choices just because she was on the list. Why be so bigoted? I still like her as an author but I lost some respect for her actions.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why not just choose good books, regardless of politics?
That is what has happened, if you actually READ the list of recommended books from the Sad Puppies list for example, it's not really a set of "right wing" books at all. It's simply good books.
The issue is that for many years beforehand it HAD been a politically chosen set by a tiny minority with no diversity of thought, and so the "normal" became a set of overwrought heavily left-wing oriented books. Now that it's reverting to center it's being portrayed as political, when what is occurring is the opposite of a political movement. It is a QUALITY movement.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Some of the categories (like short stories) I could get through all the submissions in a few hours.
For the books, I can easily read a book (or two depending on length) in one solid day if I set my mind to it, so it's just a few weekends of effort.
Also of course if there's a book you plainly do not like after a chapter or two in, why read the whole thing? It's obviously not going to be your choice.
That said I didn't vote in every category, because I couldn't read through all the nominations. But it doesn't matter as you are still helping and it matters even if you only vote for some categories.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There are a number of books in the "Sad Puppies" slate that have gay/lesbian characters. It's just that they "think wrong" according to how gay and lesbian people are supposed to think, and that is the ultimate crime.
Never has the echo of "Uncle Tom" been heard so loudly across the land, issued forth by people who pretend to be for diversity while growing the most singular monoculture ever conceived by man.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If the reverse were true it would even be news. Especially on slashdot.
I think it's sickening to have these puppy factions undermining the awards process.
Which books are the kittens recommending?
The anti-Puppy people couldn't manage to come up with anything better.
That should worry you more.
(Although it does remind me of a lot of late-70s sci-fi I read in various major publications...)
I'm willing to advocate for war, and for war fought cruelly, with scorched earth tactics when necessary to win.
But in my heart, I hate conflict and value understanding. At night I really do dream of a peaceful understanding among men and wonder how conflicts like Syria or places like Afghanistan can be made less broken. And sometimes I hope there will be a way.
But then I read this story and realize it's hopeless. If the world of fucking science fans can't manage to run their awards ceremony because of nitpicking and infighting, what fucking chance does the rest of the world have?
We are doomed.
As a leftist, I cannot and WILL NOT allow ANY RIGHT WING NUT to have a say in ANYTHING. EVER! I believe all people should have the right to express their beliefs, but RIGHT WING NUT JOBS should be jailed and beaten on a daily basis until they AGREE WITH EVERYTHING I HAVE TO SAY.
Why do I get this feeling the only reason these types of articles get posted to slashdot is so liberals can get offended and do the usual "everything we hate is Hitler" act. Just notice all the kids stuttering 'Republican' over and over while ignoring the fact most forms of entertainment/news media have a heavy liberal bias. You progressive types need to accept that not everyone is like you and you can't just have them put into a death camp.
If it's perfectly obvious that the awards are rigged, as the article and evidence seem to indicate...why the fuck is anyone paying attention to the awards?
Why the fuck is anyone paying attention to them in the FIRST PLACE? An "award show" is a bunch of successful people congratulating each other for being so goddamn wonderful that they need a trophy for it. It's so inherently ridiculous that the fact that people even pay attention to them defies logic. The Academy Awards, when is the last time anyone actually gave a fuck about them? I can't even name one of the films that one "best of show" in the past five years, they obviously didn't make much of an impression.
Perceived?! When they vote "No Award" so to not give an award to someone based on their views, that is text book bias.
The hugos have been a mix of political correctness in the 5+ years. Why the fuck has a left wing political view have need to be pushed in an awards meant for best scifi/fantasy... Why do they have to censor what we read to not offend someone. This PC crap has been getting out of hand since they gave a Nobel peace prize to someone because of his lefty party affiliation and not his works.
...that's wrong.
While some of the folks behind the Sad Puppies movement are definitely right-wing, or Libertarian, or something similar, their nominations are all over the map, because they didn't run their nominations through a political filter before putting them up.
On the other hand, the left-wing types who have been running the Hugos process for a long time have been... less honest about it. They whine about the Puppies "promoting" books for the award, while people like John Scalzi have been doing it for years. For that matter, touting books for the Hugo has been a part of the process as far back as I can remember (and I've been in and around fandom most of my life).
Is the Lord of the Rings left-wing or right-wing? I've seen commentaries taking both positions.
Wow. What? Who? And... WHY? Why the HELL would anyone take the ideas in LOTR and feel the need to fit them into one category or another based on modern political parties?
Are the Nebulas still good to go by?
Factional bullshit from grubby student politics infested the Hugos whether one faction was worse than another, whether splits happened or whatever. All of those "puppies" were a plague, Vox Day faction or not.
This is why I love democracy.
It isn't
It's just that there is a lot of stuff published with that viewpoint and some of it won awards, just as has happened for years. Vox Day and others stepped in the try to "correct" that and argue that only things conforming to their ideology deserved awards instead of just what people enjoyed reading.
Some people have been pretending the kickback against Vox Day etc was how it was before - that's dishonest.
By their very nature, stories which explore future scenarios are going to speculate about every imaginable type of social and political system, and the human cultures that might inhabit them. The one core value I do expect the genre as a whole to hold sacred is a deep-seated respect for science itself and the potential of mankind to use it for its own improvement.
Go ahead and make your spaceship captain a lesbian, if you think your take on such a character would interest the target audience. But make her a person who appreciates science to the extent that she would be far more interested in what new things could be seen through the Thirty Meter Telescope than any reasons the SJWs can come up with to prevent it from being built somewhere.
The opposing position to this basic appreciation for science, in case you think I'm speaking in vacuo, is here: http://dgrnewsservice.org/civi...
This is the kind of thinking I want to see the Rabid Puppies blow to hell.
Two of my favorite authors died recently, Pratchett and Banks. I still have about 5 Banks books, although none of them are science fiction. I have about 8 Pratchett books left. I'm not going to stop reading and saying there is a shortage of good authors is about stupid. I remember a flame war on the old SciFi Weekly site where some idiot said women can't write. I listed off about 8 women who can hold their own with any man, and I didn't even include Heinlein. The Sad Puppy website that someone posted didn't seem to have any overt political overtones. It seemed more like a bunch of nerds talking about what books they read that they liked. I'll probably go back and write some names down after I finish off the last of my Pratchett and Banks books.
I remember when the Hugo and Nebula would award the same book with their awards. I can't think of one book that did win that after reading didn't appear to deserve it.
Read Stranger in a Strange Land or To Sail Beyond the Sunset and then get back to us. Heinlein, like every human ever, was a product of his times and a lot of his juvenile works (including Starship Troopers) were written as serials, often to specifications by the publisher. A lot of his later novels are not right wing at all.
It is the hubris of the living to cast shade on the morality of the past.
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Boxers vs. Briefs
At least we'll get a new story every year for Slashdot.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The faux-victim mentality would be a match.
I'm confused. TFA says that "Ancillary Mercy" is in the Sad Puppies' list. But I thought the earlier books in this series were books that the Puppies specifically disliked and thought represented the weird academic leftist trend they were complaining about?
Until now where a bunch have turned up with what is effectively "how to vote cards"
If that's what they had done it would be hard to argue with them but instead they have "how to vote for the people we think should win" cards which is not quite the same. Until both sides can put aside their politics and vote based on who writes great science fiction the Hugo awards are not worth paying attention to.
This is particularly sad because one of the things which great science fiction often does is translate a current issue into a setting where the entrenched baggage of the real world does not get in the way of thinking about it. Science fiction which rams one ideology or another down your throat is a wasted opportunity and, I would argue, not at all prizeworthy.
What's right-wing sci-fi exactly? Tax-cuts kill Darth Vader and blow up the Death Star?
Table-ized A.I.
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Just a reminder, the entire point of this was 4 years ago when people pointed out there was a cabal fixing the hugo awards behind he scenes based on people's political ideology. To wit: If you weren't a far left leaning progressive, don't bother, you weren't welcome in science fiction.
It honestly was getting a bit stupid. Best reference book: "Queers Dig Time Lords." Really? "If you were a dinosaur, my love?" Wouldn't even rate a 3 out of 10 on Fanfiction.net -- it was shit, but had the right politics.
Last year they proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were right. Not only were they able to out-influence the people trying to fix the Hugos -- forcing such horrible monsters such as Jim Butcher onto the ballot -- but then the group of people who were fixing them for decades before this pushed a no-award slate (despite insisting slates don't exist) in order to derail them.
The unspoken thing from last year's controversy is that the Sad Puppies were proven absolutely fucking right, but the Regressive Left moved the goalposts and everyone kinda ignored that.
This year, the Puppies are taking a different stance. Sad Puppies 4 has sadly faded into the woodwork, while Rabid Puppies has decided to destroy the Hugos. How? Simple. Flood the nomination with things the regressive left will abhor, and then help vote No-Award so NO ONE gets a Hugo this year. And the idiots on the Regressive Left are falling right into their hands. Again.
Then maybe Worldcon will change the goddamned voting system to prevent this kind of fixing -- which again, I'll point out the moralists in the regressive left have been abusing for decades -- which was the original goal of the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies in the first place.
But the best part about this?
Space Raptor Butt Invasion is now a Hugo Nominated Short Story. And they can't ever take that back.
Testing. FYI "Anonymous Coward" is Slashdot's corporate slang for mining your friends and contact list for info to sell. I wrote the above post.
Some of us have been in declining healh for years, have been watching societal sicknesses infect our friends, our family, and only avoiding ourselves thanks to vigorous mental resolve.
Some of us are also making the plans necessary to give us a chance at longevity, even if it turns out we don't last long enough to recieve it.
So perhaps you should like you're going to die soon and see how long you can actually survive for, rather than already being dead and seeing how long it takes your body to catch up.
Holy Carp. I posted using Anonymous (because lazy) & it appeared as Anonymous Coward. Fair cop. So take the (minimal. I said "lazy") extra effort to log in and post a follow-up This Wuz Me comment. And I get a warning message that Slashdot will be mining contacts for Lulz and $$$$. Fine. I post anyway. ....and all the thread goes away. " comments hidden cos preferences"
F
I tell you true no preference of mine EVER has included censorship.
So I expect this comment to mysteriously disappear, too. Yay screen caps.
I'd be a lot more sympathetic toward the Sad Puppies (as opposed to the Rabid Puppies) if their leadership didn't have a history that includes comments like the following:
Kind of puts a massive dent in the argument that the Sad Puppies are all about quality. It's not even "given two works of otherwise equal quality, we nominate the more rightist one." That would be understandable, in a "we encourage diversity, and most nominees are leftist" sort of way (ignoring the question of whether that claim is correct; the belief is understandable and the action would logically follow from it). "We set out to make political statements that make people mad" is just trolling, though, or perhaps more accurately flamebaiting.
Note that I don't consider this sort of behavior acceptable by any side of an argument, in case anybody planned to respond by pointing out some of the leftists who explicitly set out to anger rightists (or just to anger those who are insufficiently well tucked into their niche of leftism). It's immature and counterproductive, regardless of who is doing it or what context it's being done in. It deeply damages the credibility of any claims the speaker makes of being motivated by an apolitical goal (such as story quality)..
Speaking personally, I read a lot of authors whose political views I disagree with. Except for the ones who get Really Preachy about it, I'm generally fine with this. Card is an obvious example (in fact, he's better than many about being un-preachy, at least in most of his work), although I'll admit to now preferring to get his books second-hand. I also read a lot of stuff that, whatever the authors' views are or were, would be considered socially unacceptable today (some of what Heinlein wrote early on was very socially progressive for the time: things like including a named black character who wasn't immediately killed off, even if the way people interacted with him or her would be viewed as racist and demeaning today).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I'd rather read "right-wing" fiction than be forced to read about LBGTQ0 issues take over every fucking story line. It's called Science Fiction. It's not SJW Fiction.
Not Kansas.
When the right does it, they're "gaming the system". When the left does it, they're "networking".
Republican Space Rangers https://youtu.be/xZuZShxJq8M
The word "liberal" USED TO mean fighting for freedom, now they're pushing for totalitarianism.
The left USED to be for more freedom, now they hate freedom of thought and any dissenting opinions (hence the push to eliminate any thinking contrary to theirs)
Classical liberals are what we call "conservatives" or "liberterians" depending on the stripe.
Meh. People that feel the most strongly about something vote, the fact that twice as many people voted this time around is probably just a good thing. Left or right doesn't really matter so long as the writing is good, and it is thought provoking. I mean one persons ideology is another's parody.
Heck just look at things like the Oscars, even they have difficulties "getting it right". Odds are nothing will. There will always probably be a divide against fundamental issues of populist choices VS little heard of gems.
I've been currently been reading the Silo Series by Hugh Howey and I am enjoying it immensely. It has apparently been around for a long time now, and it didn't get any hugos or nominations for anything yet eventually through word of mouth I've heard of it. One might say it is a bit derivative to the Fallout video game series, but then again I am sure Fallout lifted ideas from elsewhere also. At any rate it's enjoyable.
4000 votes is still a pretty small sample size, which is how this can be easily manipulated by someone. If they want to have a more "centrist" voting structure they really need to open up the voting to all fans, not just the rabid ones that attend conventions. Then again, as my subject line implies having totally open internet voting has its own perils... Then again it will probably be dominated by populist vote, only because many of the options no one will have heard of. It might be interesting if the nomination process was also open (perhaps it is, I never checked)....
Sevenes is on the Puppies' list. There is nothing right wing about it - it's just a good book.
Uh, you’re claiming that classical _Athens_ wasn’t a democracy? You’re certainly free to criticize it for slave-holding and sexism, but saying that the word doesn’t apply to its main referent suggests that words mean only what you want them to.
So what I took away from this is that a "right-wing agenda" is "Swashbuckling Fun".
A Progressive Agenda is meant to make sure you respect diversity, like it or not.
Trump's not electable. He's getting the Republican nomination because a majority of Republicans will accept him. A majority of independents won't; and a majority of democrats won't. There's no way he can get around that.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Brandon Sanderson has posted his view on Google+ and I think it's insightful and well thought-out. His novella "Perfect State" was included in the slates of both the Sad Puppies, which he found out about before the nominations were submitted, and the Rabid Puppies, which he didn't hear about until after. Last year, he asked the Sad Puppies to remove him from their slate, but this year he decided that although he disagrees with bloc nominations and some of the methods of the Sad Puppies, he feels their hearts are in the right place and they're nominating works they really feel are good. However, if he'd known he was on the Rabid Puppies' slate, he'd have asked to be removed, and he has seriously considered withdrawing his book from the award entirely merely because the Rabid Puppies put him forward. He's decided not to do that, though, because if many authors remove their works for being put forward by this group of trolls, that gives the trolls too much power.
It does sound like the Puppies have drawn lessons from totalitarian governments' propaganda practices.
I gesserit's true.
I must not guess.
Guessing is the mind-borer.
Guessing is the little-nap that brings temporary self-deception.
I will face my guesses.
I will permit them to pass over me and through me.
And when they have gone past I will turn the inner eye to see their path.
But because I am aphantasic, I will see nothing.
Only narration remains.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Uh, youâ(TM)re claiming that classical _Athens_ wasnâ(TM)t a democracy?
Not as the word is defined today, no. And not then, either; it was always a Republic.
Youâ(TM)re certainly free to criticize it for slave-holding and sexism,
and I do.
but saying that the word doesnâ(TM)t apply to its main referent suggests that words mean only what you want them to.
Athens was and was not the birthplace of democracy. What was unusual was that they had citizen representatives. However, they still had representatives, and those citizen representatives did not make up the entirety of the council. Until you actually count individual votes, and all of them, you don't really have a democracy.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hasn't ANYONE learned from the previous years? Apparently not so here we go again.
Someone seriously needs to shut down the Guardian.
Starship Troopers was a book about how people living in a fascist society would view living in that society. The book made it plenty clear that they were brainwashed throughout schooling, so of course the characters accepted the society as normal, even admirable.
There no preaching either way about fascism in Starship Troopers, as it wasn't a bedtime story. It was an insightful exploration of why a fascist society holds together despite being so evil as seen from the reader's perspective.
At best you could argue that the book (and its author) are not CONSCIOUSLY praising fascism - but militarism.
Which, to an outsider to military life, like say... someone with a more intellectualist, university, more opened exchange of ideas, philosophical, but with not enough experience, or someone living a more sheltered life provided by a civilized society... may seem the same as fascism.
Or more crudely - to a foureyed bearded commie pinko hippie any uniform is a fascist uniform.
And the book really does read like a book on how army will "make real men out of boys" and about "brotherhood of men" and how such a bond transcends any other - including love of family.
Hint - story culminates with the main character BOTH outranking his own father AND being praised AND exonerated by him - while his father admits (through tears, no less) that he was the one who was wrong all along.
So they hug - but not as a father and son, but as soldier-brothers. The happy few.
And that's AFTER all the numerous baptisms with fire that the main character goes through - becoming a new and stronger man with each one, until he ultimately outranks BOTH his fathers.
I.e. Both his dad and his instructor.
Isn't army great? Where else can you become both your dad's and your boss's boss simply by being better?
BUT...
That does not make only Rico superior to his father - it makes TRUE values of a military life superior to a soft LIE of civilized life.
Civilization is a lie - war is the truth. Just like "20th century's democracies" were a lie, so they met their ultimate failure.
Which is why citizens are NOT indoctrinated and "brainwashed throughout schooling" to accept such a society.
Oh no siree!
Rico doesn't join up cause he's indoctrinated into the story how great it is in the army. He joins out of youthful rebellion.
And then he keeps "discovering" how wrong all his acquired ideas of the army really are.
How all that pain and torture is actually out of love and how much the superior officers actually care and self-sacrifice for their subordinate soldiers.
Just like how those military instructors are placed in highschools TO DISSUADE the weak-minded from ever taking up military service.
In a society where you are free to lead your little life of pretend-importance.
While real men do all the real fighting and real standing on them real walls so you could live a luxury of comfortable ignorance.
So, because you are too soft to handle the truth you are handed a LIE.
A construct created by the military in order to have a place for all the good-for-no-military-role runts.
Kids' pool where they can splash about without actually endangering themselves or others with their own ineptitude.
A lie those runts call "civilization".
And that's not just fascism - that's a FASCIST UTOPIA.
Society where not only does the elite rule by banding together and holding both all the strings AND all the axes of the society... Oh no.
It also has NO internal opponents as they are not only emasculated of any real power - anything but fascism is "mathematically provable as wrong".
AND on top of that it is a society which MUST remain in a state of permanent war forever - as long as there is any other hostile species out there.
So not only is fascism presented as the only way - it is also the only MORALLY CORRECT way for ANY species.
Heinlein MAY HAVE started the book as a purely militaristic one, but he fell into his
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Fortunately I'm not American so the US presidential race is not worth paying attention to under any circumstances...unless it is to get a sense of relief that even though our own politicians are bad at least they are not THAT bad! Good luck with the Great Wall of Mexico! ;-)
That is your OPINION and does not make me a liar in any way.
Why so incredibly thin skinned?
Looks like there is some factional voting shit going on here too.
When that turns up on page one it is not clear if the character is being an asshole, the author is pushing an agenda (my initial incorrect guess hence getting pissed off) or something else is going on. Thus the confusion of people between the politics of the author (which I think the poster way above has imagined and the rest of us don't really know) and the politics of the character. Does that make sense yet?
It turns out Sturgeon was an optimist.
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I'm pretty sure I've been replaced with a simple shell script.
Which explains, why most of Europe can not achieve America's standards of living even without the military capable of, for example, keeping Russia at bay.
The further to the Left, the worse off the country.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Uh, are you perchance confusing Athens with Rome, or Platonic reality with actual reality? I concede that there might be other explanations for your mistake, but it’s hard to take seriously. E.g., to quote from the most easily-accessible source on what shouldn’t be a controversial point, the introduction to the Wikipedia article on, of all things, Athenian democracy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It was a system of direct democracy, in which participating citizens voted directly on legislation and executive bills. Participation was not open to all residents: to vote one had to be an adult, male citizen who owned land and was not a slave
Hush Puppies.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
My very distinct impression is that the Sad Puppies are responding to successful efforts to game the system.
"Gaming the system" has been done for decades, long before the LWNJ/SJW/moonbat/whatever crowd did it, by various sorts of folks. Not a new phenomenon.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.