S.L. Huang's Blog, page 13
March 18, 2014
How Much Bigger is a 4.7 Earthquake Than a 4.4? Twice As Big.
OMG it’s a math post!
Yesterday we had an earthquake here in SoCal. It was the most dramatic one I’ve been here for, by a long shot, and my friends have all said the same � probably because we all live near the epicenter and it was quite a shallow quake.
It turned out the earthquake � a bit of a disappointing number after what we had felt! Anyway, it was first reported in as a 4.7, and then revised to a 4.4, and someone retweeted this tweet:
�: Just heard from our son in LA. Status downgraded from 4.7 to 4.4. You know how much difference that makes.� Uh, .3???
� Ron Perlman (@perlmutations)
Well, yeah. But that doesn’t really tell us anything, does it? It’s a difference of .3 on the Richter scale, but the Richter scale is logarithmic, and we silly humans aren’t used to thinking in logarithms unless we’re astronomers. So how much bigger IS a 4.7 than a 4.4?
(cut for math)
Here’s the way : seismologists measure the “shaking amplitude� (how big the waves on the seismograph are) and compare it to a smaller wave. For the purposes of this (simplified) post, I’m going to call that number how “big� the earthquake is. Then, to get the Richter scale number, you take the base ten logarithm of that number.
In practical terms, the logarithmic scale means that every number you move up on the Richter scale is ten times bigger than the previous number. A 5.0 earthquake is ten times bigger than a 4.0. A 6.0 earthquake is a hundred times bigger than a 4.0. A 7.0 earthquake is a thousand times bigger than a 4.0.
So how much bigger is a 4.7 than a 4.4? Well, how “big� is the 4.7? Let’s say X. How “big� is the 4.4? Let’s say Y. Then we have the following relationships:
To find out how much bigger the 4.7 was than the 4.4, let’s subract and use some handy log rules:
Convert to exponential form:
So the earthquake with strength X is 1.9953 times bigger than the earthquake with strength Y. In other words, a 4.7 is twice as big as a 4.4!
How much energy it releases is a whole ‘nother ball of wax, from what I understand.
March 12, 2014
Who Chooses SF Classics? Who Chooses Our Required Reading?
started a very interesting discussion on Twitter today, about .
I have many Thoughts on this stuff. In particular, the “You haven’t read HEINLEIN? You’re not a true fan!� attitude bothers me for many, many reasons, starting with my discomfort with defining “true fans,� and running through my own particular opinion that Heinlein, however influential, is certainly not the be-all end-all of the genre, my discomfort with making anything “required reading� in a genre this large and diverse, and my own personal feelings on Heinlein’s writing, which are somewhere between “eh� and “not all he’s cracked up to be.�
I feel similarly about any of the other “classic� writers who were repeatedly recommended to me in one breath in my youth, except with variations on my personal taste for them (I’m an Asimov and Bradbury nut but could never get into Dune or Snow Crash, but all that’s neither here nor there). The point I’m getting around to is, if you’ve been a SF fan as long as I have, you feel like you’ve at least tried all the “classics� (or you’re aware of your “blasphemy� in not having read them yet). That even before the days of the Internet, you’d be assured of eventually having a conversation along the lines of, “You’ve never read [Classic Author]??? Where have you BEEN?! Read [Classic Title] right now!� so by the time you were a seasoned SF fan you at least felt like you knew all the Important Names.
All this is a backdrop to what I really want to talk about here, which is possibly a very small piece of all this, but also possibly representative, and the only part of my relevant thoughts that feels remotely coherent. Namely: my reaction the first time I read Octavia Butler.
It was relatively recently. After college. Long after I had foolishly presumed I knew of every Big Name in the genre. I started to diversify my reading because Reasons, and the first name on every single list of SF authors of color was Octavia Butler. The first recommendation on everyone’s lips, if we conditioned first for diversity.
So I picked up Bloodchild.
And I remember being shocked. Mind-numbingly shocked. Because I didn’t get this � I didn’t get how I could have been a fan for so long, had had the luminaries of the genre recommended to me time and time again in a myriad of different contexts, and no one had ever told me to read Butler. The only places I’d seen her were on lists regarding diversity and authors of color, the lists I’d only just sought out.
I’d never seen her name unfurled in the litanies of classics in the same breath as Asimov or Bradbury. And I dzܱ’t understand why. Octavia Butler is not a great SF writer of color, or a great female SF writer. She’s a great SF writer.
And in her case there is no question that this could be only my own subjective her-work-touched-me opinion. If you look her up, she’s widely acknowledged in every biographical piece as a master of SFF. Award winning. Massively respected. And if we’re measuring influence and groundbreaking in the field as metrics of what makes a classic, it’s hard for me to fathom the idea that Octavia Butler wouldn’t fit that definition.
If I name her as a classic SF author, I never expect anyone to argue with me.
And yet, nearly every time I see someone else recommend her, it’s segregated. Qualified. A recommendation given if you want writers of color.
I don’t understand how we can have a genre where “You haven’t read HEINLEIN (/Asimov/Clarke/Bradbury/Dick/etc.)??� are common and accepted refrains, and “You haven’t read BUTLER??� is almost unheard. Why aren’t we saying it? Why isn’t Octavia Butler considered “required reading� of the classics in order to consider oneself a True SF Fan? Why don’t people feel left out and incomplete if they haven’t read her?
I don’t really know what defines a classic, or who should get to say what one is. But I do know I find myself feeling deeply uncomfortable with any popular mentality that shames people for not reading influential white men while giving a pass to those who skip the influential black women.
Edited to add: Ana of The Book Smugglers turned her thoughts into a thought-provoking essay . I highly recommend both that and the Storify for a broader articulation of the issues surrounding this point.
Sarcasm intended here; as noted I think there’s something problematic about these attitudes in general, though my thoughts on them are not quite articulate enough to form a post from.
March 5, 2014
My Thoughts on Movies I Saw for Free
I wrote this last year but kept delaying posting it because I kept thinking I would watch Lincoln. Since I was starting to write one up for THIS year, I figured, what the heck, I’ll post it a year late.
So, because I work in Hollywood, I get screener DVDs sent to my house of some of the movies that are up for awards every year. (And if they don’t send DVDs, they often give me downloads or free movie tickets.) Here are my brief thoughts on a subset of this year’s free movies:
(mild spoilers for Silver Linings Playbook, Argo, Hitchcock, Les Miserables, and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel)
Silver Linings Playbook: Well-written, well-directed, well-acted, and their screw-up of the “big move� was one of the best-crafted actions in a movie scene I’ve seen in a long time. But I have a bone to pick with Silver Linings Playbook, which is . . . how did nobody tell me this was a ROMANCE??? I’m watching, and watching, and watching, and suddenly, BANG, in the last ten minutes, I realize the entire plot structure was a ROMANCE PLOT STRUCTURE! I thought it was a drama that was going to end unhappily with everyone miserable or dying, dammit. I felt very duped!
Argo: First half: Awesome. And I was rolling on the floor at the (all too true!) portrayal of Hollywood. Second half? Eh. Way too many exactly timed close calls that were Hollywoodized in just for the DRAMA of it. Plus, I didn’t think any of the hostage characters were very well-developed, which means I dzܱ’t bring myself to care as much as I wanted to about their eventual escape. I would have much preferred to see more antics of the producer and the SPX make-up artist. (Also: The whitewashing, of course, pissed me off. We’re at a time when Hispanic people are systemically being painted as non-patriotic, non-real Americans, and here was a golden opportunity to show a Latino as an American hero . . . not.)
Hitchcock: The cast was spectacular. The story of making Psycho was fascinating. Alas, if only they could have stuck to that story. The forays into Hitchcock’s strange daydreams/night dreams messed up the pacing and confused what would have been an excellent film otherwise. (Also: I want to marry Helen Mirren.)
Lincoln: Didn’t watch it at first because they didn’t send a DVD. Then they sent one and I . . . still didn’t. Sounded heavy, so we kept procrastinating on watching it. I’ve heard it’s narratively pretty problematic (i.e. racist), so I’m not too bothered. Maybe I’ll watch it eventually.
Les Miserables: . . . no comment. (We tried to watch it with copious amounts of alcohol; we really did. We started the fast-forwarding about five scenes in and still dzܱ’t even make it to the halfway point.)
Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: Expected it to be a bunch of awesome elderly British actors getting up to hijinks, and it was completely as advertised. I’m generally not a fan of the Exotic Location Teaches White People a Very Important Lesson stories, but I was too busy watching Judi Dench being adorable to worry about it much, and from what I can tell (not being Indian) they did have a diversity of reasonably well-developed Indian characters. (Also: I tend to like movies that don’t focus on young twenty-somethings.) Other thoughts: Judi Dench and Maggie Smith are both near eighty,what?, and I desperately wanted Penelope Wilton to whip out a badge and say, “Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister!”� (Yes, we know who you are.)
The Impossible: After reading , I refused to watch it, even for free.
February 28, 2014
Holy Mackerel Folks IT’S A COVER! Zero Sum Game HAS A COVER!
I never used to understand why people did cover reveals. I mean, the book is going to be released anyway, right? Won’t people see the cover then?
That was before I started working with the most kickass cover designer of all time, .
That was before she built me a cover I love so much I just want to wrap myself up in it FOREVER and never come out. I want bedsheets made out of this cover. More importantly, I want to tell the world about it, because it’s SO RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME that I can’t help shoving it in people’s faces and saying, “LOOK HOW AWESOME THIS IS! Forget the text of the book, buy it just to get a copy of the cover!�
So! I present to you! The cover of Zero Sum Game, the first book in the Russell’s Attic series:
And if you need a book cover, for Pete’s sake hie thee over to . You won’t regret it!
February 27, 2014
(Tongue-In-Cheek) Conversation of the Night
Me: I love that you agree with me on everything [when it comes to opinions on Doctor Who and Torchwood]. It makes me happy. (beat) Because I’m right. (beat) And that means you’re right, too.
My friend: I like the way you worded that. Because then if we end up on opposite sides at some point, you’ll have set yourself up on the “right� side.
Me: Well, of course I’m right. If I weren’t right I’d change my opinion.
My friend: Wait, you’re not allowing for the possibility that you might be wrong?
Me: Of course not. Why would I want to be wrong? If I were wrong, I’d change my mind so I was right.
My friend: But maybe you believe . . .
Me: Pffffft! Why would I want to believe something that wasn’t true?
February 25, 2014
When On Earth Did Self-Publishing Become a CAUSE?
I sincerely do not understand this.
Self-publishing is a business decision. Some books and authors will do better self-publishing. Some will do better trade publishing. Sometimes an author will do better trade publishing one particular book and self-publishing a different one.
Sometimes self-publishing might be a personal decision. That’s fine, too!
But when—and why—did self-publishing become a cause? Why is it something some people feel the need to evangelize and “convert� others to? When did tearing down or looking down on trade publishers—or authors who choose to trade publish—become part of what some self-publishers like to do?
I just don’t get it. I really don’t.
Most, though not all, of my close writer friends are aspiring to trade publish, because they’ve determined that’s what will be best for them and their books. I’m self-publishing, because that’s what I want to do with my books. It just seems incredibly odd that I would go to one of my friends who wants (or has and is happy with) a publisher as a business partner and try to convince them that they’re wrong.
Who am I do say that? Why would I say that? There are so, so many reasons to pursue one route or the other.
Not to mention that self-publishing is often a shit-ton of work and initial investment, if you want to publish at a standard comparable to trade, and that there’s the business side of things that a lot of writers just don’t want to tackle—I don’t know why I would automatically assume that anyone else would be up for that.
Of course, I do discuss self-publishing with friends and colleagues. All the time! We talk about the pros and cons. We talk about the business side of it, and what it can involve. You know, as you might do when you’re artists exploring any sort of business decision. And yeah, we discuss the pros and cons of trade, too. We talk about bad deals, or bad publishers. Just as we talk about pitfalls one might run into self-publishing. We exchange knowledge. As you do.
But I see some people fly the flag of self-publishing as if it’s a religion they want to convert people to. A Dz. ³,why! Not to mention that even if we were talking about religion—look, I’m totally fine with people being whatever religion they want to be (or no religion!) as long as it works for them and their life, and I love discussing religion and learning about other religions, but when people shove their religious texts in my face and tell me I’m doomed if I don’t subscribe to their beliefs—well, I’m not a fan of that at all.
Even if it’s the religion I belong to. Especially if, as it makes the rest of us look bad.
Not all self-publishers, of course! But why is it even happening at all?
Likewise, if one of my friends tried to hammer at me all the time about why self-publishing was the wrong way to go, I’d be more than a little pissed.
February 17, 2014
Why/Why Not: “Gilded�
Today I’d like to welcome Christina Farley, whose debut novel is being released on March 1! Gilded stars a Korean-American teenaged protagonist who’s just been uprooted by her family to Seoul, where she discovers that an ancient Korean god has been kidnapping the first-born daughters of her family for generations. Fortunately, she’s got a black belt and an archery obsession and is determined to fight back . . .
Why was this a book you needed to write, or only youcouldɰٱ?
Christina Farley: It’s interesting that you asked this question because that was one of the things my editor told me when we first talked. She was like, “Only you could have written a story like this.�
I think it’s a combination of my love for Korea and understanding the difficulties that the students I taught at international schools face. I lived and taught at an international school in Korea for eight years. While there, I studied Korean history and mythology because I’m a history fanatic. I had just started writing for fun when I ran across the myth of Haemosu and Princess Yuhwa. I dzܱ’t get their story out of my mind. And before long, I was writing a retelling of that myth. I also took taekwondo classes while living in Korea so that element fit in nicely with the book as well!
What parts of the premise, plot, or characters speak to who you are asa person, your life experiences, or the things you want to see more of in books?
Pretty much most of the book are situations that I experienced or feelings that I dealt with as an expat moving to a new country. Writing GILDED was an outlet for me to express the emotions that I was experiencing. At the same time, I know many of my students were also going through these same struggles.
Why was this abookthat youdzܱ’twrite—why did it force you togrow as an author? What terrified you along the way? What parts of itstretched you, made you think, made you research? What parts were you most afraid of getting wrong?
I really struggled with the ending of this book. I had originally written it one way (I can’t say what due to spoilers) and my hubby was like, “Your readers will hate you for that ending.� But I also didn’t want it to be cliché. I had worked so hard to create a story that felt unique and unexpected so the ending needed to have that same feel.
As far as the parts I was worried I’d get wrong, I would say the correct spelling for Korean. There are actually two kinds of spellings for English translations. I ended up going with theMcCune-Reischauer system because of personal preference.
Give us a blurb or an excerpt from Gilded:
“Disbelief is the root of the impossible.�
Finally, give us a funny or unusual piece of trivia about yourself.
I’m a big Star Wars fan. I’ve purposely placed little references throughout all of my books to Star Wars. Maybe you can find them. :)
Thank you so much, Christina! Gilded is is available for preorder through the following retailers:
Christina Farley loves to explore and travel the world. She holds a master’s degree in education and has taught for eighteen years, eight of which were in Seoul, Korea. Check her out online:
Website:
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ŷ: www.goodreads.com/book/show/16173250-gilded
February 16, 2014
Links to Analysis Regarding AuthorEarnings.com
Because I am, apparently, incapable of keeping my mouth shut when it comes to certain things.
Like math.
Like bad math.
Like people using bad math to support their pet Cause when the data do not support those conclusions.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about: self-publishing evangelist Hugh Howey and a silent partner went and scraped a bunch of Amazon data. That’s fine. That could be cool, even. But then they made a bunch of pretty charts and used it to bang their pro-self-publishing / anti-trade publishing drum, and , when, in fact, those paragraphs were not in any way implied by the data collected.
This pains me in my mathematician heart. And it makes me angry when people misinform aspiring authors this way. Mr. Howey touts himself as an author advocate, but that’s not what this is. These data do not support his “conclusions.”� To be fair, they don’t disprove his ideas, either; they just don’t really say much of anything. And when Howey pretends that they do support him, he’s giving authors bad information.
I’m not saying all this because I’m anti-self-publishing (I’m not! I’m doing it myself, in fact!). But science isn’t about “sides.”� When talking about science or math, there shouldn’t be sides; there’s no “teach the controversy� or “we’ll let the people who believe Earth is flat have equal air time.”� Or there shouldn’t be. There’s just what the data imply, and what they don’t. And there’s absolutely no shame in saying, “I firmly believe in XYZ. And I just collected a lot of data in the field . . . but unfortunately those data don’t support XYZ. They don’t contradict it, either, but there are just too many limitations here, and too much we don’t know. That said, I still believe my ideas on XYZ are right and that the data will bear them out eventually!�
There’s no shame in that.
But that’s not what Howey did. He used the numbers to pretty up a dog-and-pony show that pretends to support his preconceived notions with data, and he posted a piece that is actively detrimental to anyone trying to cut through the obfuscation and agendas and learn about publishing.
Now, who wants MATH? Have some links!
“[The authors of the report] make claims that the data cannot possibly support [...] they do a lot of inferring that is analytically indefensible.� (emphasis in the original) I highly suggest reading the whole thing. It’s a very detailed and well-written analysis by someone trained in research and sociological methods, and it concludes, as I did, that these data do not imply anything like what Howey claims.
“The failure to compare the model’s results to actual measurements before making pronouncements is a huge problem.� Courtney Milan isan extremely successful self-publisher, so obviously she’s pro-self-publishing. She’s also clearly incredibly knowledgeable about data analysis, and she points out a myriad of problems with the way these findings are presented, as well as also some possible discrepancies in the raw data.
“Sorry, Hugh. There is absolutely nothing in your blog post that justifies that conclusion. This is not the same as saying that your conclusion is wrong. Maybe it’s right. But if it’s right, it’s not because of anything � anything! � in your blog post.� This makes many excellent points and comes with a context of a lot of details of the publishing industry (the author is a literary agent). Once again, the conclusion is that the data do not actually allow Howey to make any of the extreme claims he’s making.
“For myself and others, I wish I had more optimistic findings that showed we could all share in an incredible gold rush, but the data are the data.� This article makes a case that the data are actually entirely consistent with the site’s own (far more pessimistic) prior survey, and can’t be used to prove anything more extreme. (Obviously it’s possible there’s a bias there, and I can’t comment on the DBW survey as I haven’t seen the full thing, but I think what’s said here is valuable and knowledgeable regardless, and I note that the author is exceptionally qualified at data analysis.)
“[W]hile the report gives the illusion of providing hard data, it appears to be as built on guesswork as anything else we’ve had.� Steve Mosby also makes excellent points about the unique path a published book takes, and that this can’t be repeated with hindsight.
Edited to add: “Unfortunately, Hugh’s latest business inspiration � a call to arms suggesting to independent authors that they should just eschew traditional publishing or demand it pay them like indie publishing � is potentially much more toxic to consume.”�Mike Shatzkin weighs in with a long list of other variables Howey’s report does not take into account.
Look, you can’t list a lot of numbers and a lot of pretty charts and then list “conclusions� next to them and say one follows from the other because they happen to be next to each other on the page. Science doesn’t work that way.
The poor way these data have been presented only serves to feed the adversarial “us vs. them� mentality that (some) self-publishers and (some) trade published writers are for some strange reason so invested in. Personally, I want to see that attitude go away forever. It’s not productive. It’s not helpful. I wish to all that is holy that Howey had come out with this spreadsheet in a more professional way, an invitation to other people in the writing/publishing world to analyze the data and see what we might be able to learn. That might’ve been nifty, a positive addition to the knowledge base. Instead, by presenting it as part of such a massive load of bad math and misinformation, he’s only clouded the discussion even more.
That’s not good for anyone. And speaking as a self-publisher, it embarrasses me. False conclusions that are unsupported by data, written up in something that pretends to be a study but is anything but—it just looks desperate. Self-publishing is all grown up now, and the people most responsible for stigmatizing us in the eyes of other writers and publishers are the self-publishers themselves who pull stunts like this one.
Comments are closed, as I don’t have time to babysit the blog right now and from what I’m seeing elsewhere this subject can be rather contentious. I may reopen them later. If you have something you feel would be a valuable addition to this post, feel free to send me the comment through the Contact page and I will post it here. Be warned that I am only going to be prone to posting contributions of the dry academic variety on this one.
Note that this list is, in order, a researcher who doesn’t write fiction, a successful self-publisher, a literary agent, a data analytics professional whose research is in digitization, and a trade published writer. And I’m a math nerd who is self-publishing my fiction books. The biases we’d be expected to have are all over the map, but like I said, science doesn’t take sides.
February 15, 2014
How to Use Mathematical Expectation in Daily Life (A Demonstration)
Mathematical expectation is one of the single most useful pieces of mathematics ever.
The technical stuff: to calculate it, you multiply the probability of something happening by how much return that thing will give you. This allows you to compare different paths. Cool!
I’ll show how this works by example.
I had two possible jobs this week (well, three, but I got called for the third after I’d already committed to one of the others). One of those jobs was a definite, but it was also a job I would essentially be doing as a favor. The other job was at my full rate, but I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. Which to accept?
I’m not going to put the actual amounts down here, because I feel weird talking about what I make online, but the orders of magnitude are right. To keep the numbers super easy, let’s say it was this:
Favor job: $400
Real job: $4,000
The probability of the favor job happening was pretty much 100%, or close enough. The real job I wasn’t sure. But I could estimate based on where the production was in the process and how they were interacting with me. Let’s say, in my experience, 9 out of 10 jobs that get this far actually happen. Then I estimate the real job’s probability at 90%. Thus, my expected return is:
Favor job: $400 x 1.00 = $400
Real job: $4,000 x .90 = $3600
$3600 is way better than $400! So the clear choice is to take the real job and turn down the favor job. Even if the real job doesn’t happen, I can be comforted in knowing I’ve made the mathematically correct choice, the choice that was most likely to work out best. (Yeah, I do find that shit comforting. So shoot me.)
Okay, let’s say you don’t know the probabilities terribly well. This can still be helpful. How low a probability would the real job have to have to give me an expected return as low as the favor job?
Favor job: $400 x 1.00 = $400
Real job: $4,000 x p = $400
It’s pretty easy to see that p would work out to .1, or 10%. So the real job would have to be so improbable as to only have a 10% chance of happening for both jobs to have the same expected return. Even if I don’t know the real probability, I might be able to say that I’m pretty sure it’s over 10%. (And it would have to be below 10% to have a lower expected return than the favor job and finally make the favor job be the better choice.)
So, there’s a quick guide to using mathematical expectation in life. If you can estimate the rough probabilities of two paths, multiply those by the return, and you’ll get the expected return; compare those and pick the bigger one. Done!
Man, math makes life decisions so easy.
Not really.
February 11, 2014
Can We Please Not Rewrite History, Folks? (More on the SFWA Petition, and Links.)
Yesterday I ranted about a certain petition is. (It just offends me as a logician and a writer, yanno?) I thought I would leave it at that, because books to write, and there are lots of other people saying very intelligent things so I don’t have to (see below).
But there’s one thing I see coming up over and over that nobody else seems to be addressing, and it’s driving me crazy.
I’m seeing continual efforts in some corners to frame the issues of the past year as people overreacting to the “lady writer�/”lady editor� columns in the Bulletin and to (poor! victimized!) Resnick and Malzberg daring to call women beautiful. Those columns were, in my humble opinion, inappropriate for the publication, but the people calling them out as such were respectful and relatively muted. (As were the criticisms of the (also inappropriate) Bulletin cover and the (also inappropriate) Barbie column that happened in parallel.) There were eyerolls. There were sighs. The criticism I saw was polite and rather mild.
The thing that blew up the Internet was when Resnick and Malzberg decided to respond to those (respectful, muted) criticisms of their columns by scorching the fucking Earth. By calling their detractors “liberal fascists,� comparing their critics to Stalin and Mao, and making references to censorship and thought control. That was in the May 31 issue of the Bulletin, two issues and six months after the initial “lady writers� column.
That was not reasoned debate. That was a nuclear escalation of abusive, dehumanizing rhetoric against anyone who dared to disagree with them. And they did it in the publication of the professional organization that purported to represent a lot of those same people.
There’s a huge, huge difference between that and reasoned, relevant disagreement. There’s a chasm the size of the Mariana Trench between that and the respectful airing of differing political views.
Personally, I’m sorry it took something so extreme to bring change to the publication—like points out, the Bulletin is a trade publication and thus should strive for professionality and relevance to the needs of the members (why is this even a question?). But I strongly object to the reframing of history some people are endeavoring to make here. It’s disingenuous and it’s minimizing. It’s casting the people who called for change as (shocking! unreasonable!) overreactors to a bunch of friendly old guys who (gasp!) dared to fondly use the word “lady,� and that is not at all what happened.
Look, I’ve even provided this for you to reference. Stop making shit up. Stop rewriting events to cast the people who disagree with you as the bad guys and the people you support as picked-on innocents who were just writing some innocuous column about women writers, doncha know. It’s not true. And as a rhetorical tactic, it’s disgusting.
If your points are worth making, you should be able to make them without falsifying history.
(Speaking personally: the initial “lady writers� and “lady editors� columns made me roll my eyes, not think Resnick/Malzberg/the editorial direction of the Bulletin needed to be reamed in the public square. It was the later column that brought that reaction. And I think the same was true of many other critics.)
Now for Links
There are lots of people writing really insightful, intelligent things. Have some links:
“I’m not worried about censorship. I’m worried we are a joke.� (This makes me want to join RWA, even though I’ve never successfully written romance in my life.) , whom I linked to yesterday, made a very similar point, and I continue to think it’s a good one.
“If you continue this Politically Correct censorship of mantitties, aren’t you creating a slippery slope that leads to DEATH PANELS?� (This made me LAUGH OUT LOUD. Several times. Applause, Jim!)
“While this petition has not been formally presented to SFWA, I have seen versions and they express concerns for something that does not and will not exist [...]� (In other words, someone who is not a member of SFWA circulated an inflammatory petition spearheading a charge against something that . . . was never real. Yup, that sounds about right.)
has some discussion I’ve found fascinating, including by a lot of pros.
I also recommend reading the comments at , which I also recommended yesterday, and which remains the most comprehensive rundown of the entire situation.
(Parts of this blog post were originally written for the discussion over at and posted there.)
