Scientifiction

David Moles is my hero.

Some are perhaps rightfully upset that he busted the password-protection wall of SFWA, but it’s nothing many others haven’t wanted to do for days. Charges of "copyright infringement" are ridiculous. I’m no lawyer (thank god), but if a comment on a private bulletin board can be considered "intellectual property," I fear for the people closely guarding such real estate. It made me think of a relevant quote from Thomas Jefferson:

It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.

Someone NEEDED to expose the truly venomous ideas some have been peddling, for however long it lasted. I think it’s graceful that David offered (and made good) on taking them down when asked.

Some SWFAns used to being behind closed doors seem much more concerned about their reactions being made public than they were about the very public incident.

Anyway, are they right to have barred him from the newsgroup? Sure. It’s policy. And he knew that when he did this. Good on you, Moles*.

p.s. For irony, definition of, see this comment at PNH’s, where it is revealed that at this year’s Hugos Connie Willis set the new record for fiction Hugos, beating out Mr. Mud. (If this isn’t true, please let me know.)

p.p.s. I agree with Jackie M.; keep your SWFA memberships if you can, folks, you’re needed there.

UPDATE: See Colleen’s excellent post from the perspective of an outsider who’s an SF fan:

Frankly, I don’t care why Ellison did it and other than hoping he privately apologizes to Willis (who might not want to hear it), I don’t care what he does from now on. But you can not call yourself a professional organization and then have this happen and not act on it. This was not a roast – it was not a meeting of comedians and beyond that, it was not a gathering where it was even possibly suggested that a man might grab a woman’s breast in jest. So it should not have happened. And when it does, then you need to take steps to set things right.

Folks were dressed up and hoping to win a great award for their work – it was a big big night for them. Why dirty it with this kind of joke and then, after it happens, why not apologize for it? Why not strive to bring some level of maturity and responbility and professionalism back to the evening?

I don’t care what every sci fi writer on the planet thinks about this. What I want to know is how can you possibly expect us, the fans, to care about who wins these awards if they are given out in an atmosphere that I would not allow at my neighborhood block party?

Go read the whole thing. (As a side note, she’s addressing World Con and the WSFS, not SFWA, which is appropriate– although it’d be nice if SFWA wasn’t just being the bastion of infighting about whether it was "okay" or not, when it clearly wasn’t.)

*ikins (note: inside joke)

The new issue of Ideomancer is up and it features short stories from some of the most kick-ass of the Kick-Ass Writers With Cervixes Brigade, genre division. I’m talking here about Hannah Wolf Bowen, Amanda Downum, Sarah Monette, and Haddayr Copley-Woods (who is so good that one of the best readings I’ve ever seen featured three other people reading one of her stories when she wasn’t even there!). You’d be a fool and a loser to pass up that line-up.

p.s. TwoThree of these ladies will have stories in the next issue of Say… which really will be out between now and Thanksgiving. Life has skewed the schedule, but it is not a dead market and this next issue is going to be all sorts of awesome. Promise.

Of something? Can’t we make this man president of something? Like SFWA?

Just look at this.

Let loose the puppies of war. Beautiful.

p.s. Greg Frost has talked with Connie Willis, who seems to be wisely and gracefully letting what happened speak for itself.

p.p.s. Moles exposes some of the seedier side of all this, heretofore hidden behind the Great Wall of SFWA Lounge password protection. (There’s some good stuff as well.)

And I’m nominating Rosenbaum for VP. (Seriously, that’s some beautiful shit.)

(Because I really am still on a deadline!)

1. Jeff VanderMeer and Evil Monkey have a sensible talk about Dirty Old Harlangate. (Oh, and also Alan’s response is to cheer for.)

For those of you not in SF — and some in — the reason a lot of us are reacting this way is because there very much is a League of Dirty Old Gentlemen in SF that seem to get a pass for this sort of behavior, and have for years, and we’re sick of it. And, yes, this one incident is inexcusable and disgusting in and of itself, too.

2. Project Runway fans will want to check out Project Rungay for the most hilarious show commentary ever.

Updated: The ever-brilliant editrix Susan Marie Groppi posted something in the comments I thought worth bumping up here so none of y’all miss it; it’s what I was trying to say before, but expressed with far greater clarity:

Alan’s right, and brilliantly so, that this isn’t Just About Harlan. What it feels like, honestly, is that this incident has become the center around which all of the vague and half-formed anger that we’ve all been carrying for years is finally coalescing. Everyone who has any contact at all with this community has some body of stories about the completely inappropriate ways in which older male writers feel entitled to behave towards women; for whatever reason, we needed that behavior to occur in a public forum (and against someone as well-loved and respected as Connie Willis) for all that simmering to come to a boil.

And one more: Lots of discussion in E. Bear’s comments (including by eyewitnesses), and too many other great posts for me to keep up with them at the moment. Despite this all being about something disgraceful in SF, I couldn’t be more proud of all the people who are providing thoughtful, no bullshit responses — that’s where we’re headed, tribe. That’s the field I want to exist. Not to get all warm and fuzzy.

Oh yeah. Deadline.

REUpdated: Ellison "apologizes," while majorly selling the "I Caught It From Tom Cruise"* batshit crazy insane vibe. Still, as many have pointed out, this is about larger issues anyway. (Thanks to Ed for the heads up.) Over at Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s someone has excerpted, for those who don’t feel like wading. (Thanks, Niall!)

And yeah, after reading this thoroughly, especially the follow-ups, the word apology definitely requires air quotes.

*Cruise, it should be noted, is a jumper and hugger, maybe sometimes a squealer, always a hyena laugher, but not a groper.

Breaking in to point to the chatter that Harlan Ellison groped Connie Willis (scroll to 3) — sans permission, natch, as the verb groping more or less implies — on stage during the Hugos.

Why was there no groping in Glasgow? Kim Newman and Paul McAuley would have been far less disturbing (and funnier), I’m sure.

But seriously, I think this news is going to remind a lot of us of a certain ICFA banquet gone terribly wrong. It must stop.

Updated: This is one of the most disgusting photos I’ve ever seen. Someone please put Ellison down. Immediately. Update of Update: As Ed points out, someone’s pulling a revisionist bait and switch so we are now linking to a different disturbing photo (meant, I suppose, to imply that it’s OKAY he grabbed her boob, because at some point she kissed him) instead of the mic/mouth one. But it’s still up here (scroll down) — if you want to see something hugely disturbing, anyway.

Updated again: Ed is right on.

Updated yet again: And so is Gavin.

The Hugo winners are out. Congratulations to all the winners — and especially to Mr. Pluto himself, John Scalzi, for his Campbell Award!

In unrelated news, Little Miss Sunshine is my favorite movie of the year thus far.

Some of you have heard the "snail man" anecdote in person. For everyone else, Christopher tells it on MemeTherapy, as one of several writers on the oddest thing they ever learned while researching a story:

It’s something that just came up recently, actually, though I’m not sure whether the info itself is as odd as the tone in which it was conveyed to me. I was on the phone to a science museum curator in Philadelphia, asking for information about snails. The character I’m contributing to the next round of George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards books is, for want of a better term, a snail-centaur.

He asked “You’re researching this because you want to know what characteristics a snail man would have?”

I told him that was more or less it and he replied, with no hesitation at all, “Snail man would be a tremendous lover.”

All the answers are great fun.

Anaheim kids.

Wish we could be there — if we were less tired and busy and the timing were different and wishes were horses and it was free. But y’all have fun. And good luck to those of you up for awards; ask not who my fingers are crossed for (for you, of course).

I have it on good authority that a vote for NAL/Roc editor Liz Scheier in the Women’s Division Hottie of Publishing competition over at Galleycat will both keep the terrorists from winning and stop baby Jesus from crying. (Thanks, Colleen!)

You know what to do!

p.s. In the Men’s Division, I went for Michael Stearns.

p.p.s. I know some people are offended by the whole idea of this competition, but I think it’s all in good fun.

p.p.p.s. Jeff Ford wants to be a write-in candidate.

Ben‘s Rosenbauming on slipsteam and topics relevant over at an old post of Jeff Ford’s. I particularly like this comment:

Most times, when a story makes us say "what the hell does that mean?" it doesn’t *work*. We aren’t drawn in, we don’t stay in the story. We withdraw. We are alienated from the *story*. The effect is dimmed, lessened, by unclarity.

It takes a master like Link to hold us so powerfully, that when we get to that unclarity, we stay with the *story* and are alienated from *the rest of life* — from ourselves. We are lost, bewildered.