Two Thoughts

[chris_gerrib]

Thought #1 - Bowe Bergdahl

Comes news over the weekend that Bowe Bergdahl, the only US soldier captured by the Taliban, has been released in a POW exchange. Prisoner of war exchanges fell out of favor in the 20th century, although of late Israel has had to do the same thing. It's also not clear how Bergdahl came to be captured. Specifically, did he walk of the base of his own accord or was he grabbed?

In any event, the President's duty as Commander in Chief is to get all of our soldiers back. He did that, in what appears to have been the best way available. Whether or if Bergdahl was in error in getting himself captured can be (and should be) sorted out now that he's in US hands.

Thought #2 - Warbound (Hugos)

Moving from serious to trivia, over the weekend I started to work on reading Larry Correia's Hugo-nominated novel Warbound. I'm finding it hard work. First, I'm 9 chapters in and have yet to find a character I give much of a damn about. Second, Larry's politics are coming through on this one, and it's driving me nuts.

The novel is set in an alternate 1930s where magic is possible and airships rule the air. Having said that, FDR is still President and the Great Depression is still happening. So, what's bugging me is we have FDR, a man who spent his presidency trying to end segregation, attempting to get people with Power to wear armbands on their sleeves warning mere mortals of their abilities!

In defense of Larry, some of the other political irritants, namely a rich guy moaning that the government is trying to screw him, are historically accurate. (The moaning, not the screwing.) At any rate, the novel is heavy going for me.

Comments

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

What the heck is “fisking”?

http://monsterhunternation.com/2014/06/02/fisking-the-guardians-village-idiot-part-1/

Some guy named Damien over at The Guardian demonstrated Liberal Bias™ at Mr Correia's expense, and he has something to say about it:

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A startling conspiracy theory was at the heart of the campaign. It alleged that a powerful clique of liberal writers and editors had taken control of science fiction, and worse, were politicising a genre that should exist purely for entertainment. They were filling the genre with heavy-handed “message fiction” and excluding conservatively minded writers. So conservatively-minded fans should vote for those writers to redress the imbalance.

That’s sort of related to what I said, as rewritten by somebody with a paint huffing addiction… I do like how Damien stated it all super nefarious like that though. But strangely he didn’t link to the posts where I talked about the demonstrated bias against non-leftists, or the posts about how the heavy handed message fic was driving away readers and causing the market to shrink? I’m sensing a trend. I wonder why Damien never seems to link to what his opponents actually say, when it is so much easier to make up really dumb straw man versions instead?

I wouldn’t call any of this startling though. I pointed out that the awards were biased, and if any openly conservative author got on the awards ballot they would be attacked and sabotaged. I was called a liar. So I got some conservative authors on the ballot and they did exactly what I said they would. (they were even shriller than expected, and major professionals jumped into the witch hunt, so for that, I sincerely thank them for being so predictable).

Point proven. Hilarity ensued.


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BW:  What caught my attention was the following, as it did many:

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The opinion that I’ve long held, and which helped inspire my dastardly campaign of evil to begin with, was that sci-fi readers were leaving our genre because they were getting tired of being preached at with liberal cause of the day message fiction. They were bored with dying polar bears, murderous bigoted Christians, lectures about the dangers of capitalism, and thinly veiled Dick Cheneys as bad guys. You can really only slap half of the country upside the head and tell them their beliefs are stupid and backwards so many times before they quit buying your stuff. (but keep in mind, the left are supposed to be the inclusive ones).

How did I come to this belief? Because the people who’d been quitting told me so. I kept getting messages from readers with some variation of “I’d quit reading SFF because I was bored/tired/annoyed etc. but your stuff is fun!” over and over and over and then they’d provide me with large royalty checks. This got me to thinking that there might be something to this crazy idea of putting reader enjoyment ahead of placating the perpetually outraged Damiens of the world, where everything including Godzilla and Tomb Raider had to be boiled down to cisgender patriarchal neocolonial military-industrial privilege.

Of course, if those authors really wanted to de-politicise science fiction, they could easily help to do so – by admitting the genre’s historic bias and applauding its growth…


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BW:  Me, I don't read 21st century science fiction. I tried; a story called “Rollback,” by Robert J. Sawyer, featuring a rejuvenation technique that works on the husband but not on the wife because she'd had the gall, the NERVE to choose for herself what kind of medical care she would get and went to the US for cancer treatment instead of waiting Correctly for the bureaucrats of Canadian socialist medicine to decide her fate…

Toss. More power to you, Mr Correia!]

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

fisking defined (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisking)

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

Interesting, how that article mentions the comments of Andrew Orlowski in The Register, then proceeds to contradict his petulant whining entirely: 'Fisking' DOES build a coherent argument, which systematically destroys the Leftie it's aimed at by hitting with the only weapon ever necessary - the facts.

Very interesting - thank you. I'm SO glad I don't get involved in blogowars.