In one week I will be Guest of Honor at ConClave in Detroit. Here’s my schedule:
Author
Right, dis week I duz captions!
Dis cat don’t live here & he’s a doof.
Dis is da “Princess” she’s a spoiled old prissy pants.
Dis one came here in the same box with me…also a doof.
I call dis one “butthead.”
This is one of my pet thumb monkey—the crazy one.
I want dis. It will bring me fissies!*
Dis is Ashbless, da smartest, prettiest, most wonderfullest cat in da whole world!
Belated thanks to Matt Kuchta for his kitty diving bell illustration.
I will be Guest of Honor at ConClave 38 in Detroit October 10-12.
This is a rant that grows out of the whole anti/pro steampunk kerfuffle that the f&sf genresphere has been aflutter with of late in which many on the two sides are flinging great gobs of words at each other like punctuation-laden poo. It’s not pretty and in many cases it seems to be a mix of sour grapes and tribalism, and it looks just like every other variation of this argument we’ve had for the last fifty years. The only real difference being what sub-genre/genre/literary sensibility we’re arguing about.
One of the things that we as a genre community seem to be most vulnerable to is the idea that our personal favorite type of writing is the only type of writing that other people should love and pay attention to, and that anyone who disagrees that our pet subgenre is the one true form of worthwhile writing is a poo-poo head. This tends to be expressed in one of two ways:
1) I want more of my stuff, and why isn’t everyone writing and publishing that? “Waaaaah!” *POUT* It is often accompanied by the stomping of rhetorical feet and tearing of hair. It mostly looks like highly articulate toddlers throwing a tantrum because the world isn’t treating them and their pet interests as the center of the universe.
2) How can anyone believe that XXXXX is worthy of their attention and dollars? XXXXX is immoral and anti-intellectual or just plain bad. The people who read/write it are dupes/exploiters or simply uncultured. If people really understood the underlying dynamic of XXXXX they’d realize that and come over and read YYYYY which is the one true way. It mostly looks like even more articulate toddlers throwing a tantrum because the world isn’t treating them and their pet interests as the center of the universe.
People, get a freaking grip! Not everyone likes what you like, and that’s okay. In fact it’s wonderful and healthy and necessary for the survival of a culture. Diversity of thought and idea and taste is one of the single most important parts of our ongoing survival as a species. It’s what drives us to try that funny looking new fruit, or accept that those who don’t look and think like us are people too, or take a long walk over the hill and find out there’s cool stuff over there.
The tendency of people to act as though stuff they don’t like is awful and bad for the culture if not downright immoral is one of the human tribal reactions that I find least attractive. It’s genre fundamentalism and it’s ugly and petty and basically unhealthy, both for the culture and for the head of bile it builds up within the person in question.
Does this mean I’m immune to the impulse? Of course not. There are sub-genres I think are stupid or hateful or bad for people. When my stuff doesn’t sell as well as somebody else’s stuff I get a little jealous and pouty. Hey, I’m human. However, I really do try to throttle it down because it’s bad for me and indulging the impulse is bad for the culture. And I sure as hell don’t throw a public tantrum about it.
If you were a geek in school (and if you’re reading this, the odds are pretty good) you remember what it was like to have the cool kids looking down on you for loving Star Trek or Dr. Who or reading those funny Lord of the Rings books. This impulse to say my genre/subgenre good = your genre/subgenre bad is the exact same shit. Do you really want to be doing that?
(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog Novemeber 10 2010, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)
Last night the world lost a big glorious goofball of a cat. My dear friend Scott Lynch’s cat Muse died suddenly and unexpectedly at home. As those of you who follow me on social media or read Friday Cat Blogging know, we had the pleasure to play surrogate monkey for Muse, aka Giant War Cat to my readers, for nearly two months this summer. We will miss him enormously and we’re heartbroken for Scott and his other person, Elizabeth Bear. I haven’t the heart to write any more, so I will say goodbye to him in pictures.
This was the first time I met him.
He had a ten minute staring contest with the concrete cat.
I’m going to miss him.
With Scott in our living room.
I uses standing desk for works too!
You know you’re a cat right? We don’t work.
But wooly bears do! Right?
Random wooly bear is confuzling. Also, possible sign of fall. Not good.
Quick, must get in extra sleeps on porch.
The McCullough cat are super weird.
But my nose is delicious, that’s something, right?
Not sure I should have drunk all that…
Why have you not burst?
Maybe he did…maybe that is Ghost of Giant War Cat!
Y’all run with that. I’ll be over here tasting my paw because it’s awesome!
If I had thumb I could open this thing up and write better captions…
Non sequitur cat says they went that way!
Friday Cat Blogging Bids farewell to Giant War Cat, Musimus Maximus Butthead Rex who has returned to his own thumb monkey the ever charming Scott Lynch.