File the latest analog mindset Tourette’s spasm from Scalzi & friends under SF SJWs Always Double Down.
H/t @Azu-Rayn
“Dear whomever: Kiss my ass,” author John Scalzi tells a room full of fans. The crowd laughs and applauds.
Scalzi, who is a Hugo award-winning science fiction author of novels like Old Man’s War and Redshirts, was at Book Con — an annual convention of authors and booksellers at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. Along with fellow science fiction authors Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, and Cory Doctorow, Scalzi appeared on a panel on Saturday to discuss resistance in science fiction.
“People will visit my website or Twitter feed where apparently I have political opinions,” said Scalzi. “Then I get the sorrowful email that says, ‘I thought I was coming to you for entertainment, but you’re telling me how to think and regretfully I must not read your books anymore.’ They’re expecting me to say something like, ‘No, don’t leave.’ They’re not expecting the email I actually send, which is ‘Dear whomever: kiss my ass.”
Annalee Newitz, who co-founded io9 and has a debut sci-fi novel Autonomous coming out in September, chimed in to add, “If you’re setting [a story] on earth with humans, you can’t have a world without politics.”
All four authors lingered on the inherent absurdity of the notion that science fiction is entertainment and therefore shouldn’t be political.
Science fiction fans must always remember to thank Scalzi and Newitz for giving us two statements that perfectly diagnose the causes of tradpub SF’s demise.
The rank dishonesty of those public comments is striking. First we have Scalzi admitting how he’s alienating readers who come to him for fun and adventure but get double handfuls of message fic. He’s the sci-fi equivalent of the prudish curmudgeon who hands out Jack Chick tracts on Halloween instead of candy.
As for the snarky reply he purportedly gives to ex-readers who dare complain, you can be sure it’s bullshit. After all, Scalzi’s years of observably duplicitous attention-seeking provided the basis for the First Law of SJWs.
Any professional author who wants to stay in this business had better care when readers say, “I’m not reading you anymore, and here’s why.” It’s Market Research 101.
No, he cares. His living depends on readers buying his books. Finding out that there are fewer of them every day is not a revelation that inspires confidence. He’s bringing up these emails from disaffected readers and glibly dismissing them to reinforce his self-delusions.
Whereas Scalzi is mainly lying to himself, Newitz commits the graver injustice of lying to readers. She brazenly misrepresents the plight of readers who say, “This isn’t fun. We wanted action, adventure, and wonder; not civics lectures,” when she replies with a non-sequitur about world building.
Here’s a thought experiment: when Newitz says that a world with humans can’t be a world without politics, can you imagine her defending a story that features libertarianism, conservatism, or nationalism as prominently as Scalzi’s books bang the Leftist drum?
Then we come to the non-argument where readers who are sick to death of getting lectured by finger-wagging schoolmarms are told that their wishes are inherently absurd.
This bait and switch is monumentally dishonest. Everyone knows damn well that the readers leaving tradpub in droves aren’t precious snowflakes who get the vapors from any mention of politics in a secondary world’s background. (See the Third Law of SJWs.)
What the readers are is tired of being propagandized.
The authors on that panel have forgotten–or, more likely, are studiously ignoring–the fact that authors work for readers; not publishers. Only two parties are absolutely necessary in the author-reader relationship. I’ll let you figure out which two.
The Big Five publishers and their pet propagandists masquerading as storytellers know this. Their once packed conventions and trade shows are shrinking. Their profits are down; their market dominance lost to indie, small presses, and Amazon’s own imprints.
Top comment goes to Castalia House author and Hugo finalist Ben Cheah:
Successful non-tradpub authors like Ben and myself listen to our readers. We know that you want entertainment; not propaganda.
For a totally insane supernatural space opera with guns, pirates, demons, and zero politics, check out Nethereal, book I of my award-winning Soul Cycle.
And don’t forget to nominate The Secret Kings, Soul Cycle Book III for Best Science Fiction Novel at the Dragon Awards. In stark contrast to the Hugos, the Dragons know how to have fun!
Haven’t read The Secret Kings? Get it for free here.