Ron: 0:14

Thank you, hello and welcome back sibilant revelers to the uncannery. It is I, ron, returned from the death of the old year and sitting across from me is I'm done and oh, there is no Doug.

Don: 0:50

Guys, I'm sorry, we have bad news, we have very bad news.

Ron: 0:53

So Doug's a father. Doug and his lovely wife introduced or brought a new life into the world over the holiday season and because of this he will be rightfully and earnedly spending time with his new kid and we wish him a speedy recovery. We hope his kid is 18.

Ron: 1:24

As soon as possible so that we can get him back into our life. But many happy congratulations to them. And so that means you guys got a Don and Ron duo today. You're stuck with us. Yeah, you're stuck with us. I know we've been reading a lot in your mail and we know that we are your two least favorite hosts, and then we don't spend enough time talking about wrestling. So really this is a dream for us, because we don't have to talk about wrestling, or Mahjong or whatever.

Ron: 2:00

Thank you all for joining us. I know we took a break there for the holidays, but, hey, everyone deserves a break on the holidays. Since it's the new year, don, I was thinking you know this is a great time to reflect and look back. And you know, you and I, we're both cultured men, right.

Don: 2:14

Allegedly yeah, yeah.

Ron: 2:16

You know, my very expansive definition of cultured applies to us. And do you read any good books? I've been thinking like, uh, I don't, I don't read as much as I used to, um, but I, I imagine you read more than I do. What? Was what was 2024, like in books for you I wouldn't want.

Don: 2:33

I wouldn't want it to be a horse race like that. Um it uh it comes in. It comes in spurts, and 2024 was was less of a more of a dribble than a spurt.

Ron: 2:44

That's okay, that's fine.

Don: 2:46

There are ways to fix that. I did read a book called the Wives of Henry VIII. I was doing some traveling over the summer and visiting some of those locations, so so I wanted to to get a little bit more in depth there. That's not super interesting though. I mean it's just history. I mean it was a good book, but it's just history.

Ron: 3:02

There's something about traveling and like reading a thing that sort of enhances your experience, right Like oh, this is, it provides context for the location your locations you're moving through. That's pretty cool yeah.

Don: 3:17

Would you recommend it to people interested? In the time it was a good version of the Henry VIII story, so yeah, if that's what you're interested in, that would be one that I recommend for sure.

Ron: 3:26

um, I read song of solomon um, I know this title, but I can't think for the life of me what that book's about right now.

Don: 3:34

Uh tony marson. So it's right, okay, yeah, um it. Uh, I read it for uh to help out uh a friend. Um, I also finished the uh the last kingdom series by. Okay, yeah, it's utry bernard, uh, cornwall, yeah, utrid okay, we've seen son of utrid.

Ron: 3:56

We've seen the series and utrid is a. He's a. He's a big man in our house. Yeah, but I've not read them yet.

Don: 4:01

Yeah so that's, that was my. That was my, that was my 2024. That that's it. It wasn't. It wasn't a a year full of of literary wealth. Oh, I also read um. Oh, this one's kind of fun. Uh, the Windsor knot.

Ron: 4:17

Oh, so now you can tie a really sick knot.

Don: 4:21

So it's a, it's a Windsor, it's a, it's a murder mystery, like a a negative, Christie style murder mystery kind of.

Ron: 4:27

But a queen Elizabeth the second involves herself in the, the, the detective assault.

Don: 4:32

She, she is, she, she involves herself in the solution, and it's a series. There's two more books in my, in my, my nook library the double Winds are ready to go that I haven't quite gotten to yet, but uh, but that was fun too. So kind of an eclectic set of uh of reading.

Ron: 4:49

Yeah, that's pretty good. I think that's a pretty strong list, so I don't know if I like finished a single book, maybe one, over the year. My reading habit now has become more like read part of a thing and then put it back on the shelf and start a new thing, and then, hopefully return to that first thing within three years.

Ron: 5:07

Yeah, tasting platter yeah, kind of like. Uh, oh, this has sated my interest in the topic now and if I, I mean, yeah, I'm either gonna like not read anything if I force myself to finish it or I could just pick up a new thing I'm interested in. But, um, I think the most recent thing, I finished the silmarillion by JRR Tolkien, which is something I've read many times before, but it's just sort of a. It's a fun holiday. Around the holidays I get into like a Tolkien mood and I'll pick up the Hobbit or something and just sort of leave through that.

Ron: 5:39

I was reading Barbara Tuckman's A Distant Mirror. Have you read this one? I feel like this is so up your alley I have not, it's like a. It's a history of um, mirrors, not mirrors. Uh, it's the. I want to say the 15th century. Uh, when? When was the black plague? 14th, okay, four, okay, so it's a. It's a. It's a history like the 14th century, um, from like the Plague through to the Hundred Years War and kind of focusing on like one particular dude. So fun medieval history stuff.

Don: 6:09

Was that dude's name Henry?

Ron: 6:11

No, his name is De Chautzy. It's French man, I don't know. He's like something. De Chautzy is his family name. He's just involved in a lot of the historical events and he's kind of fun. Yeah, bob De Chautzy family name. And um, he's just involved in a lot of the historical events and he's kind of fun. Yeah, bob de chousey. And. And then I read like a history of the mexican revolution. It was a history year for me, I guess. Really, I think the only novel I finished was um, uh, under the volcano. Um, malcolm lowry. Uh, it's just about a guy living out in. Uh. Uh, it's about. It's about a drunk Englishman living in Mexico. Uh, in the 1930s.

Ron: 6:48

Uh, which is you know a lot of Hemingway. Yes, exactly A lot of literature of that time period. Um, hey, um. But you know I was wondering if you'd ever. You know you're a well-read guy. You, I'd say you probably have your thumb on most of the classics, right, or you know?

Don: 7:09

an essential portion of them, would you say. I would say a portion of them. Yeah, there's a. There's so many it's hard to really sample them all.

Ron: 7:14

Of course, of course. But you, uh, you ever read um my billionaire triceratops? Craves, gay ass.

Don: 7:21

I haven't. No, that's a, that's a new title, that's weird.

Ron: 7:24

That one's pretty. I feel like that one's been pretty influential. Huh, oh, what about I'm gay from my living billionaire jet plane?

Don: 7:33

Nope, I haven't, I'm not, you know, I can't even, I can't even. That doesn't sound familiar to me. Is that Dickens?

Ron: 7:40

No, it's a lot more recent than Dickens. These are stories by a man named Chuck Tingle. You ever heard of Chuck Tingle? I'm not Chuck Tingle, Dear listener, if you've ever heard of Chuck Tingle then you probably know where this episode's going.

Don: 8:00

But I want to talk about an American author named Chuck Tingle today who, in 2016, found himself kind of embroiled in a scandal, himself kind of embroiled in a scandal. Should we suggest to anyone listening that might have young ears nearby that today's topic might be one to skip through today?

Ron: 8:15

There will be some.

Don: 8:16

Nothing explicit.

Ron: 8:17

No explicit language or intentionally crude language, but we are talking about a, an author who specializes in uh, gay, erotic fiction, and so, um, probably should have said that before I said triceratops craves gay ass, maybe we could go back and we could edit that into the very beginning of the show just pretend that we did, it'd be fine. But yeah, if you think, uh, this might not be a perfect topic for some ears in the room then yeah, maybe return to this one late at night when you're alone in your room.

Ron: 8:52

Uh, I want to talk about in 2016, don. You're probably familiar with the, the hugo awards. You ever heard of the?

Don: 8:58

hugo awards. That sounds familiar, but uh, but remind me which, which or which, what are they awarding the?

Ron: 9:05

hugo awards are a? Um, probably, I think they're considered the most prestigious uh award show or ceremony for science fiction and fantasy literature. Oh, okay, predominant, like science fiction and fantasy media. You know, they'll give awards to films. They'll give awards to films, they'll give awards to comics and journals and things like that, but it's most famous, uh, for novels, uh, and literature. Um, ever since 1953, the Hugo awards have been going on. They go uh every year and they're always presented at world con, which is a kind of science fiction and fantasy convention that travels the world. Um, in 2017, I actually went to Worldcon, don.

Don: 9:43

What? Yeah, you won't believe where I was hosted.

Ron: 9:45

Were you nominated? I was not nominated. I was a hanger-on. I was riding the tailcoats of my wife, who was invited by Worldcon to give a presentation based on a paper she'd written in grad school, and so we went. We went to Helsinki, finland. I was going to guess the.

Don: 10:04

Space Needle but.

Ron: 10:07

They should have a Space Needle in Helsinki. You ever wanted to go to Finland, Don.

Ron: 10:12

Um you can be honest, Not, not with a strong desire, no Well let me tell you uh, you're right, you don't have to go. No, it was very cool. Helsinki is a very neat place and it was fun to hang out there. But all I'm saying is this is kind of like a big geeky convention, sort of like not a comic con, but think of like a highbrow geeky convention where you can go. And we saw George RR Martin walking through the halls. He was like a big train conductor. Did you ask him when he's going to write?

Don: 10:45

again.

Ron: 10:46

I think at that point this was 2017. It wasn't yet apparent how dire the situation would become for the fans of that series, and so we were there. It's fun they have a big award ceremony and they give away the biggest awards in the in the field to like science fiction and fantasy authors. And I want to take us back to 2016, the year prior to the one we were in attendance for.

Don: 11:13

In 2016, something, something something vile was was brewing, something, something really gross was happening behind the scenes at this seemingly cute and you know, sort of not all that uh offensive uh, science fiction fantasy awards ceremony so I did some, I did some googling while you were, uh, while you were doing the introduction, and just to contextualize the award, do you think it, do you think it would be helpful if we um talked about who has won this before?

Don: 11:47

just because I guess you keep saying it's prestigious, but, like it's, it's only vaguely something that I think I might have heard of at one time, right so?

Ron: 11:54

for sure. If you've got a list, rattle them off to me. I was like I'm assuming if, if anyone in the audience is familiar with science fiction at all, I think, like all the names that kind of pop in your mind, have probably received this award. Am I correct?

Don: 12:06

um, I don't know about all of them, but so frank herbert uh won for dune in 1966. Um, isaac asman asimov uh for the gods themselves. Arthur c clark, clark for rendezvous with rama uh enders game one uh.

Ron: 12:21

Orson scott card it's got to be a heinlein in there. Right, Show me some Robert Heinlein.

Don: 12:26

I don't see him on my short list. Oh my gosh.

Ron: 12:29

He's snuffed.

Don: 12:30

But it's varied too Like. There's short stories by Shirley Jackson that have won, and then movies too, 2001, a Space Odyssey wins, star Wars has won, the Lord of the Rings has won.

Ron: 12:43

Yeah, they always pick like the best sci-fi fantasy film of the year.

Don: 12:46

So because these are kind of like snubbed by what, like the oscars and stuff right and even philip k dick won for the man in the high castle, um which, of course, uh, who picked that was that net uh, probably, yeah, I think so a yeah. So so. So these are like this is not a little, a little award. No, it's not a small thing, okay.

Ron: 13:07

Yeah, this is pretty big Like, again, if you are uh, you know, following the world of science fiction and fantasy literature, or if you are published in this world, this is like this is your Oscars. This is big right. This is a big deal. 2016. Well, the way the hugo awards work is that, um, the like the community gets to vote on the awards. There's not like a secret panel of editors or anything. Who decide who is going to receive the hugo award is like the one for the best novel of the year.

Ron: 13:36

That's kind of like your best picture, right well, and that's I was going to ask, because the oscars are like that, but you, you have to be a member of the academy to be so so it's not just like not every I can't go get a vote on best picture um no, you couldn't, but you could get a best, a vote for best um editorial I wrote in my high school uh uh newspaper about the likelihood of the gaza or giza pyramids.

Don: 14:03

Sorry, wow, what a what a slip of the Gaza or Giza pyramids. Sorry.

Ron: 14:05

Wow, what a, what a slip of the tongue. A Giza pyramids powering a battery, that could you know? Uh, power all of human civilization for the first 500 years. Um, so yeah, that article you could get probably get votes for. Okay, Uh, because it's just anyone can vote. Anyone who like goes to the website uh, anyone can vote. Anyone who like goes to the website uh, you can nominate.

Ron: 14:27

so the hugo community is anybody who, anybody who is paying attention, anyone happens by yep exactly all right, and you can go and you can nominate whatever you'd like and you can vote for whatever you'd like, and it's supposed to be a very sort of democratic like hey, we, you know sounds like chaos, it could be chaos, it could be chaos and, in fact, uh it, it became chaos um in 2016,.

Ron: 14:45

people were excitedly opening up their email inboxes to find out who got nominated for this year's Hugo Awards, and they found, at the top of one of those lists, a little author named Chuck Tingle for his story Space Raptor Butt Invasion.

Don: 15:04

And people said what?

Ron: 15:05

is going on with the Hugos and so what? What is going on with the hugos and so what was really going on with the hugos is that apparently there was a little bit of a political row going on behind the scenes, amongst, amongst members of the community of the sci-fi fantasy community. A couple years prior, there was a famous report that kind of got published and this sparked some discourse in the sci-fi fantasy scene. And this report said that basically went and analyzed like who, what kind of people, get published in sci-fi and fantasy, and, uh, it found that less than 2% of all published sci-fi fantasy works um, that year this was 2014, uh, came from black authors. Um, and the report was like, considering that, you know, uh, black people make up 14% of the U S population. This seems odd, right? This seems like a bit low.

Don: 15:56

But you know, I'm remembering our UFO episode where we discovered that most aliens are Nordic. So that would only make sense. Definitely a factor in this Nordic gray or lizard, yeah yeah.

Ron: 16:11

The Nordics have been censoring black literature for generations, and so, anyways, this, this sparked a kind of you know, a mostly peaceful conversation as. I think lots of, uh, lots of different places were having similar conversations about diversity in 2014. You remember 2014? It doesn't sound like 30 years ago.

Don: 16:33

It sounds like longer ago than I wish that it did, but yeah.

Ron: 16:37

You know a lot of these kinds of conversations about hey, is the United States as provide, as equal opportunity, as it says it does to all of its uh many populations and and people? Um, and this was happening in sci-fi and fantasy and, as a reaction to these conversations, a group of I guess we could call them knights, really an order of knights, an order of um warriors uh named the sad puppies uh formed. That's intimidating yeah yeah, yeah, right.

Ron: 17:16

Um, the sad puppies is a name they gave themselves. Would you believe that? Wow, um, and the sad puffies were a group of sort of reactionary um, mostly white, mostly male sci-fi fantasy authors who thought that this conversation about diversity was getting a little bit out of hand, that, uh, maybe the whole conversation was getting blown out of the water, and they were kind of that. This, the the inciting incident for this was, um, the fact that a woman won the Hugo Award in 2014. Anne Leckie wrote a novel, ancillary Justice, and this was voted the best sci-fi book of the year. And this, obviously, as you gasped, don you understand? This can't stand.

Don: 18:01

This is aggressive behavior on the part of the hugos well, and just to clarify, she won that award because she earned the most votes that were democratically collected by literally anybody who wanted to cast a vote did she earn them done?

Ron: 18:15

or were the votes given to her as a sort of token participation prize to encourage a leftist agenda that seeks to supplant good art, culture and literature by predominantly white male authors, in a field that is supposed to belong to white male authors?

Don: 18:37

Well, that's a. It's a. It's a really interesting and absolutely not provocative question. Provocative question, but. But, uh, but, even if that were true, everybody's still on getting one vote, so every. So that would be what the what the movement is deciding to do. Right, like it wouldn't be. There's not, there's not a machine behind the vote. Uh, um, counting that is saying, oh well, we're going to like double count some votes that are for the female author, because we're trying to make up for a past injustice. The votes were just the votes, right.

Ron: 19:10

That's exactly right, don, that's exactly right. There's no real evidence that anything untoward was happening here.

Don: 19:18

Did they use Dominion machines when they were counting the votes?

Ron: 19:21

Yeah, yeah, they fixed that. They got rid of those real fast. Um, but in order to you bring up a great point on that, like, obviously you know a vote is a vote and the system can't really be manipulated. So, um, following the 2014 hugo awards, the sad puppies decide to manipulate the voting at the hugo awards in order to prove how can they manipulate that?

Don: 19:41

everybody just gets one vote?

Ron: 19:43

well, what if you formed like a, an online group, right, maybe a series of blogs, or you went to like a forum or something and you got a bunch of people together and you gave them a list and you said, hey, you are going to vote for these books, these stories, these these items. So, colluding, yes, exactly right. So, and, and that's what the sad puppies began to do, they started publishing a list of um what wouldn't you know it? Um books by white male authors, um, that they were going to nominate for every category. And then, once they had all colluded and used their numbers because again, it is such a scattered, uh kind of voting process anyone can vote for it, you know, unless you like, have a real impetus behind it. It's or you actually are like the most popular works. Um, it's kind of like, you know, you, it's open to manipulation, is, I guess, what I'm trying to?

Don: 20:36

say so. Uh, the author you started with mr tingle. Yeah, is mr tingle white male? Uh, sci-fi, I mean, I suppose white male sci-fi, I mean. I suppose it's sci-fi. You mentioned space in the titles.

Ron: 20:47

He loves sci-fi, he is white and he is male.

Don: 20:51

Yes, so the sad puppies were just trying to promote one of their own. They're clearly fans of Mr Tingle's work and wanted him to get the recognition that he clearly deserved for the work that he was producing.

Ron: 21:04

Don. I wish it was that simple In order to explain we need to. The sad puppies weren't the only puppies. The sad puppies was a self-named group of people trying to fight this warped idea of political correctness in their favorite literary genre, and it spawned another group who called themselves the Rabid Puppies, oh, okay. And the Sad Puppies said we're the Sad Puppies because we're saddened by the state of sci-fi and fantasy. And the Rabid Puppies said we're angry about it and we're going to do something about it. And the Rabid Puppies were, kind of like, led by this guy named Theodore Beale. Let me show you how cool this guy is. Okay, all right. His pen name Vox Dei Pretty cool, right? Wow, that's pretty cool. Oh, you want to know what else is cool? He also, online, refers to himself as Supreme Dark Lord. Oh okay.

Don: 22:08

Well, that's sci-fi-y.

Ron: 22:09

That's sci-fi-y.

Don: 22:10

And that is cool. They call Darth Vader that, I think. Yep, okay, well, that's sci-fi-y. That's sci-fi-y, and they called Darth Vader that I think.

Ron: 22:14

Yep, I'm Darth Vader. I write science fiction books. This guy, theodore Beale, was actually booted out of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America organization in 2014 for racist comments he'd made towards a black author, nk Jemisin Um, and was kind of like at the time, already like no one liked him, was already like, uh, a bit washed up. Um hadn't really written anything of like serious note, it seems, or that was all that popular Um, but he kind of uses this like situation at the Hugo's to sort of I think, like most of these people kind of like make a name for himself and put himself like in the limelight for a little bit, right, and so, uh, it's actually the rabid puppies who bring our boy chuck tingle into this story.

Ron: 23:02

Um, because the sad puppies tried for like two years to kind of nominate a slate of books and it like it never actually worked right like, um, uh, they they didn't actually have enough people to affect the voting all that much. They thought they were much larger than they actually were right, and so they weren't actually getting anything past what just normal people read and liked and voted for, and the rabid puppies kind of changed that in 2016. And there's a couple of reasons for this One. The rabid puppies kind of changed that in 2016. And there's a couple of reasons for this One. The rabid puppies kind of start drawing like a larger crowd of people to their kind of like this issue because they very clearly kind of associate themselves with what we call the alt-right Don. What's the alt-right?

Don: 23:50

in.

Ron: 23:50

America.

Don: 23:51

Well, I mean it's been discussed as the opposite of the radical left right. So we've got the political spectrum left and right and then. So one side is conservative, one side is liberal, and then the further you get away from the center you get to the more radical extremes and alt-right is past radical right. Right Like alt-right is super more.

Ron: 24:12

Right right like alt-right is is is super more writer right the most rightist um uh yeah and and uh, you know the, at least here in america, like, uh, members of alt-right organizations have been very credibly linked to uh, like neo-nazi groups and white supremacy groups and, uh, you know, fascist groups, just, you know, really cool groups so far right that it's past conservative.

Don: 24:38

It's moving to reactionary, and it's not even beyond Right.

Ron: 24:42

It's not really. It's a philosophy that's not really interested in, like traditional conservative political viewpoints right.

Ron: 24:48

They're almost only concerned with like sort of cultural uh politics right um and uh, they're like a you know, a key, uh driving force behind, uh, the culture Wars right is a term probably most everyone has heard by now. Right, this idea that, like America, is so divided on whether or not there can be a woman superhero in a Marvel movie? Right, right, because they go and review bomb things that they don't like that typically, you know center or feature, you know female actors or characters or people of color, people of non-traditional or you know, non-binary people, Exactly right Like people that they just decide they don't like or that don't represent their ideal vision of america.

Ron: 25:33

So, anyways, uh, because the rabid puppies are kind of like, uh, sort of parroting a lot of this stuff, they just pull in like other alt-right people who probably don't even really care about sci-fi or the hugo awards, but it becomes this new sort of like gang uh, gang press. Is that a? You know what I'm talking about press game press game. Thanks this kind of internet press gang where people can just jump in and like be angry about something and so um they start nominating and they really like gay erotica.

Ron: 26:04

So so the point is they nominate chuck tingle because they don't like gay erotica, but they find Chuck Tingle funny. Okay, and let's pause here. Who exactly is Chuck Tingle? Right? Chuck Tingle started publishing sort of like self-publishing these Amazon eBooks around 2014. And Chuck Tingle is obviously a pseudonym. We do not know Chuck Tingle's real name. We don't know a lot about Chuck Tingle's real identity at all. Actually. He's always been rather mysterious and for a long time, he was just sort of like a name on some very weird novels that you could buy on Amazon, novels like Creamed in the Butt by my Handsome Living Corn Angry man Pounded by the Fear of His latent gayness over a dinosaur transitioning into a unicorn uh pounded.

Don: 26:57

That's the title or that's the summary.

Ron: 26:58

No, that's the title. Okay, uh, that is the best. Titles function as both don uh, pounded in the butt by my handsome sentient library card, who seems otherworldly but in reality is just a natural part of the priceless resources our library system provides. My macaroni and cheese is a lesbian. Also, she is my lawyer uh, you know famous ones. I have no butt, but I must pound. It's maybe one of my favorites, um. And then, uh, not pounded in the butt by anything, and that's okay.

Ron: 27:33

Um is another of his and so he's, uh, he writes, he's very absurd and goofy um, uh, erotica fiction that becomes kind of like a, an underground joke, right, like I would say he's sort of like a millennial um, uh, john waters you familiar with the filmmaker john waters? Uh-huh, just kind of like a absurdist and kind of campy and kind of over the top and, um, especially in the realm of like sexuality right, and sort of broaching conversations and topics that are non-traditional or sort of like considered uncomfortable sometimes, right, um, and so no one really knows much about Chuck Tingle. But what we don't now is that he is a guy, he, he, he claims to live in Billings Montana. Um, uh, he has a son named John, son name of John, um, john might be. He's like caretaker, um, I think Chuck has said that he is autistic, um and um since 2016,.

Ron: 28:31

He kind of, he kind of blew up as a result of this controversy and he's had a number of podcasts. My wife and I really enjoyed listening to his podcast. We got to see him talk once he went to a bookstore and we got to see him. But whenever he's in public, he always wears a mask covering his face and so he can't really be, identified.

Ron: 28:50

He always wears a mask covering his face and so he can't really be identified. He wears like a pink lunch bag over his face with a hole cut out for his mouth. He'll wear sunglasses over the bag and usually he has written on the bag a message that says love is real. And Chuck Tingle claims that he is writing these stories one to be kind of funny, but also that he kind of has a broader point, which is that he's trying to prove that love is writing these stories one to be kind of funny, but also that he kind of has a broader point, which is that he's trying to prove that love is real. Which great, awesome. These are not the reasons why the rabbit puppies nominate him. They nominate him because they think this is funny, and they kind of. Two reasons here. One, they're trying to nominate authors in categories that will take up the space of other authors. Right, if we can get Chuck Tingle in the best short story category, then that takes one more space away from a woman or a person of color. Author right.

Ron: 29:48

And secondly, if we can get Chuck Tingle to win the award, then we will also kind of the Hugos will look like they have egg on their face, right Like ha ha, what, what? What happened to the great Hugo Awards that they're nominating and awarding? Space Butt Raptor.

Don: 30:03

Invasion, this award and how it's been disgraced, by being awarded to, to, to a woman of all things, that we want to completely undermine the legitimacy of the award.

Ron: 30:19

Exactly. That's somehow going to fix whatever. If we can't have it, nobody can Don.

Don: 30:24

Okay.

Ron: 30:25

Um, so this is, this is yeah, as you're, as you're pointing out, it's ridiculous, right? And and? And I see some flaws in the logic. Do you want to point them out or are they self-evident?

Don: 30:37

And we hold these truths to be self-evident.

Ron: 30:41

So in 2016, ram and Puppies, you know, try to push a lot of these and they have the numbers behind this time to kind of get a lot of these nominees uh into the, into these categories, um, a lot of the authors who were nominated as a, as, as part of this political kind of statement or movement by the the puppies, they choose to just uh, bow out, uh, so they're like okay, you know, I, I realize I'm part of this thing. I don't want to be affiliated with, I'm just gonna reject my nomination and then.

Don: 31:10

So they weren't puppies, they, they were, they were.

Ron: 31:18

So, yeah, not all the nominees were like puppy people. In fact, like very few of the puppies are actually authors themselves. They're really just sort of like online crybabies and weirdos, right? Um, uh uh Beal himself. Uh was uh an author and an editor editor and he did try to get a lot of his work on these lists and frequently he did manage to make it through the nomination process and he was a potential award winner and we'll get back uh. What he did uh was, uh he wrote a new story, um, about the whole situation uh, which uh is called slammed in the butt by my Hugo award nomination.

Ron: 32:03

Um and uh, and here's a. Here's a short passage from that. Can I read that? Oh, yeah, please, okay, all right, uh, from Chuck Tingles, slammed in the butt by my Hugo award nomination. Wait, I tell the prestigious nomination, let me be the one who takes care of you tonight. I want to show my thanks for this incredible, handsome award. I look up at him and suddenly find myself overwhelmed by love and attraction to this awesome nomination. Sure, he's penetrating deep within my throat, but he's also penetrating my heart.

Ron: 32:34

But he also includes this, which you know once we're done with the hot and heavy stuff. You know there is a point to this and Tingle writes there's lots of bucks out there who think the soul of books is just inside books, don't know that real love comes from proving books are real for all who kiss that's inside and outside of books goofball and uh I think what he's kind of trying to say here, right, is like uh, the the thing that rabid puppies kept bringing up is like oh, people are just nominating and awarding these books because they think it's important to get representation.

Ron: 33:15

This representation is this outward kind of thing, and that what's actually in the books doesn't matter and that the books can't actually be good because authors we don't like they're just writing to get this handout award and therefore the quality of the writing must be bad. And this is the thing you hear from a lot of these kinds of people, even today. Right, oh, you know they can't write a, an actually good video game that has a gay protagonist, because they're just doing it to make pat themselves on the back, right, and that's contrary to what Tingle is saying here. Right, it's like no, these it. It's like, no, people aren't getting these awards just because they check a certain box. It's because the fiction they write is actually pretty good. They actually write good fiction. It is both things, and that, of course, makes them mad. It makes the puppy-type people mad, because that's kind of key to their argument. Their argument is like oh, this is actually bad literature, but, um, that's not true.

Ron: 34:17

That it's an excuse they make in order to they don't have to call themselves racist or misogynistic or something.

Don: 34:23

Right, well, and and and, just that idea that that a new voice in the space somehow takes up space that used to belong to the, the traditionally recognized, recognized voices. Like that's the space is huge, like more. More voices in the space doesn't mean that your voice has less space to exist in. It just means that there's more voices around you right, exactly right, like there's.

Ron: 34:46

I don't you know if I, if you walk through barnes and noble, I don't think you're going to see uh, any fewer books about colonizing mars or spaceships fighting in the orion's belt, or you know like those things still exist, right, like uh, um, there's just like other stuff.

Don: 35:02

They are sitting beside them now right, and and this is an an unusual genre for me to be talking about I don don't read science fiction much um ever.

Ron: 35:13

I used to read more of it than I do now I do. I do really like science fiction.

Don: 35:18

Um, I haven't read to something in a while but of all the books that I have read, like even the ones we were talking about earlier, I don't normally research the authors and no, no yeah. And even when you know I've been, I've been buying books online now and and you know I read them on my e-reader rather than in in, so I don't even get the picture on the back of the book.

Don: 35:37

So it never occurs to me to even think about what. What race an author is that? That that I'm reading Like it doesn't? It has no effect on the way that I read a story. The way that I read a story.

Ron: 35:49

No, I agree, Like I don't think I've ever chosen a book, because of the author. I mean you develop your favorite authors and you're like oh, I'll read anything they put out, Right. That always happens. But I mean, yeah, you look at a book, you read the synopsis, like oh, that's sick, Right. And then you put it back no, that's what they're.

Don: 36:11

That's what I understand about the. What the puppies are are concerned with is judge the book based on the book. Why are we judging the book based on the? Who the author is or was, and and that's so when? And lucky is that her name.

Don: 36:28

One, the 2014 Hugo. Like um, I imagine the people that voted for it read it right, like they didn't just vote on it. So is is it? I guess my question is is it the concern of the puppies that those votes were cast Not because someone read the book and thought it was quality work, but just because she was the? Was she the only woman nominated? So we were just feeling sorry for the woman and giving her the the consolation prize. That's what they thought. I don't, I don't. I mean, I know you're not one, so you can't.

Ron: 37:01

I'm trying, I'm really trying to put myself in the shoes here, don Um, but uh, I don't, I don't know the specifics about like that, the Hugo, uh, like the 2014 Hugo, and if there were other nominees and stuff like that, I do have. Like um. I managed to get like, in their own words, kind of there was a statement, um, that the, the puppies put out in their own words, they said, um, they, they were accusing the Hugo awards of quote giving awards on the basis of political correctness and favoring authors and artists who aren't straight, white and male. So, again, it's this idea of unfairness, right, like um.

Ron: 37:39

And this is also like, really interesting to me because I think this is just like a really good flashpoint, for you know, something we're seeing in America we've seen for the last decade, I guess really now, we've seen for the last decade, I guess really now um is this every time a conversation arises about, hey, there might be some serious inequalities worth looking at in American society, culture, film, whatever, right, the, suddenly the group of people who are not the marginalized people suddenly have to rise up and defend.

Ron: 38:10

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, it's actually fine. It's actually fine. It's not that big a deal deal, and I don't super know where that comes from. Um, and they use these very like, uh, like, as you've been pointing out, don very thin arguments right about sort of purity and fairness to to kind of like argue their point. And I think it's just sort of like, particularly when we're talking about, like, a certain group of people who have like sort of been in power, whether they perceived that power or not, or been privileged in some way. As soon as you tell them like hey, you may have been privileged and it might be worth expanding those privileges to other people, I think they feel attacked because they feel like that means I'm, I'm going to have, uh, uh, the privilege.

Ron: 38:56

Less privilege Right Like oh I'm going to lose some of my power.

Don: 38:59

Right. And some of my importance which is only true if you imagine privilege as a zero sum game, right which? In which case you're admitting that you have more privilege than another group and you don't want to more privileged than another group and you don't want to. You don't want that disparity to change, right you?

Don: 39:12

understand how much that would suck to not have the privilege because you're like oh, wow, right, and so it sucks for you that you don't have it, but I you're not taking it from me, but that's. I think that's part of the, the frustration that I feel in the last decade and or plus that you know, I think I mean decade plus that has been super in the forefront of the media discussion and the ongoing discussion in America. But obviously it goes back way farther than that. But just that idea that I don't want someone else to have the privileges that I have doesn't mean that we're taking those privileges away from you. It just means that we're we're expanding them to other other groups, other people, other. So everyone should have an equal opportunity and equal on equal footing. It doesn't mean that you've lost footing. It just means that we're giving other people there's more room in the under the tent.

Ron: 40:06

Right. But I do think there is, um, it is true, and I think, whether they consciously identify this or not, it does mean there'll be more competition, right, like a lot of things that like, let's say, you're trying to get a job, right, I just have to compete against this group of people, and if I suddenly now, you know, open this job up to three other classes of people, whoa, now I got to be even better than I already thought I was Right, and so there is a sort of like selfish motivation, I think there, and I think that's part of the sad puppy thing, which is wait, wait.

Ron: 40:38

By token of being white and male, I was way more likely to get this award for my work, and now I now have to compete against 50% of the population, right? So I do think there's that element to it. But it does become interesting when it's like what? Even people who aren't, um, uh, even people who aren't like writers or or even affected by this award, how they kind of glom onto this right.

Ron: 41:07

Like, oh, I identify as a member of this group, even though I technically am not. I will never be a sci-fi or fantasy writer. But God, do I need to defend my fellow sci-fi and fantasy authors from this atrocious attack by the Hugo Awards? So, anyways, chuck Tingle is you know, he writes this story. He's using it to kind of lampoon uh the the puppies. He kind of goes and gives a series of uh interviews about this where he says, like he does not um uh associate with the the puppies and their and their weird project. He also registers a website, um, he registers uh rabidpuppiescom.

Don: 41:48

Chuck.

Ron: 41:48

Tingle does yeah, yeah, yeah. So anytime someone goes there right, he puts a. If you go to the website, it's just a giant picture of shirtless Channing Tatum looking pretty fly and he has this message written on. He says hello, my name is Chuck Tingle, world's greatest author. Sometimes devil men are so busy planning scoundrel attacks they forget to register important website names. This is good because it makes it easy for buds who know love is real to prove love. Please understand. This is a. This website is to take dark magic and replace with real love for all who kiss the sky. Um and uh, yeah, just kind of like, continues to sort of troll the these, these, these puppy people. Uh, in the same way they were kind of trying to troll the um, uh, uh, awards um. He uses this opportunity, uh, tingle uses this opportunity, um to support um, a, a foundation for online harassment. Uh, uh, victims, um, uh. That was started by zoe quinn. Is the name zoe quinn familiar to you?

Ron: 43:01

no zoe quinn was like at the same time oh man, this is so stupid, but do you?

Don: 43:05

remember gamergate.

Ron: 43:06

Do you remember this word? I've heard that word. Okay, around the same time, gamergate happening, which was like a similar series of alt-right attacks against women in the video game industry, instead of like the sci-fi and fantasy industry. And Zoe Quinn was kind of like the first person they targeted. She was a video game developer and they made all sorts of gross accusations about how she'd managed to publish her video game and blah, blah, blah. All of this bunch of of uh bunch of lies and things like that. But anyways, uh chuck uses this an opportunity to draw attention to her foundation, um. She uh single.

Ron: 43:40

Also drew attention to um uh, another a black woman author's uh book, the fifth season, which was nominated for best novel uh that year, 2016,. Um uh by NK Jemisin, and uh also drew eyes and money towards a, a crowdfunding campaign for uh LGBTQ health resources, and kind of just like took his moment in the in the in the spotlight here, to highlight a lot of like really cool causes and kind of take the impetus away from the puppies um and uh in an interview. I found this interesting. People were asking him like you know he starts. People are like hey, chuck, tingle, are you like for real, what's going on here? You talk weird, you write weird, your titles are absurd. Um, are you like trolling us or like is there a real point to all this? Um, and uh, someone asked him like why do you? Why do you write gay erotica? And he responded more, are you like trolling us? Or like, is there a real point to all this? And someone asked him like why do you write gay erotica? And he responded more important reason to write tinglers, which is what he calls his fiction, is to prove that love is real for all who kiss.

Ron: 44:44

Saw a man on TV talking about buds kissing buds and he said oh, what's gonna happen if we let buds kiss buds? What's next? Are they going to kiss planes too? So I thought, yes, all love is real. We should kiss planes because they are handsome to seeing online. Which is like these slippery slope arguments of like whoa, what? What if my kid can identify as a woman? Uh, does that mean he's going to identify as a helicopter? And just say, yes, yeah, that's fine, like who cares? Let's see if anyone identifies as a helicopter and then we'll deal with it. And also, cool, helicopters are sick. I kind of just really love this energy, uh, that he's uh putting out. So you're probably wondering where does this all go? Right, like uh, you know who. Who wins?

Don: 45:40

Hey Ron, where does this all go? Who wins?

Ron: 45:45

Uh, the results Did Chuck win the, the, the Hugo and in all the categories where the rabid puppies had nominees nominated, none of their nominees won those awards In some categories. So another thing you can vote for at the Hugo Awards is you can just say no award. If you think none of the nominees are worthy of the award. You can just vote no award. And in almost all of the categories where those nominee slots had all been occupied by rabid puppies uh, you know works, uh, that they had kind of promoted um.

Ron: 46:27

More people just selected no award than any of their books, so it was just like a lot of categories had no award given. Um nk jemisin uh for her um, her book Season did win the Hugo that year, so they were not triumphant in stifling the award of the Hugo to a black woman author, vox Dei, the very cool dweeb in charge of these puppies. He had nominated himself best editor and he had lost to a woman, sheila Gibbert, and he had also nominated himself for best related work because he had written a essay called SJW's Always Lie, and more people said no award given to that category than than him. So he didn't win anything. None of their nominees won anything.

Ron: 47:26

Um and uh, all was right and well and uh, um Chuck did not win his uh award. Um, instead, uh he, he was um uh beat out by a, a black female author also. Um, so um all, um, all was uh, well and right in 2017, the year that we attended. Apparently. I wasn't aware at the time, but apparently the rabbit puppies will still. We're still there and they are trying their games again, and they tried um nominating another weird erotic author who may have been made up, may have, may have been a plant by one of them, um, and to the same result, none of of it Like a ficus.

Don: 48:02

Yes, yeah.

Ron: 48:04

A racist ficus was nominated.

Don: 48:07

That sounds like something Chuck Tingle would turn into A tingler. Yes, exactly.

Ron: 48:12

So and then basically at the end of 2017, the whole voting block kind of vanished, disappeared. It was recommended, or it was suggested at one point by someone studying this, that there was never more than like 60 people um in in this block at the end of 2017, and so it's kind of ceased since then. The hugos kind of tidied up their um, uh, their award voting process so that blocks of people could be less sort of manipulative and, uh, they've kind of turned on ever since then and, um, um, I did some quick research to be like, okay, you know, in 2014 people were saying, uh, there's only less than 2%, um, uh, black authors being published. Uh, or less than 2% of the sci-fi fantasy works being published were by black authors. And has that changed much now that we're in 2024. And it has actually. That number has gone up fairly significantly.

Ron: 49:04

Especially, many more women are being published than ever before in science fiction and fantasy. I looked at some numbers and in 2020 was the most recent I could find, but it was like more than 50% of the um fantasy books being published were by women. About 47% of the science fiction books being published were by women and, um, this is like led to a kind of uh, um, a blooming of like sort of new genres within the genre. Like Afrofuturism has been a really big kind of uh, new genre, micro genre within science fiction ever since then, kind of spurred by things like black panther movie and stuff like that, and so it's, uh, you know, in in some ways, uh, things are definitely looking up, at least in the sci-fi, fantasy world the the data point that I would.

Don: 49:55

I don't think we have access to and can never have, but I. What I wonder about is how much sci-fi was being written by female authors or by marginalized groups before right to to reach that 2% in 2014, was it because they weren't producing it, which you know? That's a, that's a cycle too, because if you, if there are no authors published, then it doesn't become something that community is aware of, and then they don't produce and then it looks like it's you know that they're outsiders to a group that should be inclusive.

Ron: 50:28

Right, it's the argument for why it's important to have inclusive representation.

Don: 50:33

Yeah absolutely, and it's odd to me that science fiction of all places would be the spot. This would happen me, that science fiction of all places would be the the spot. This would happen because, you know, in in my short lifetime, science fiction has been the place where we've been able to experiment with. You know, the futurism of civil rights, um, you know, even going back to we, oh, we talked about um enemy mine, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. On the, the enterprise was was multicultural on purpose, in order to demonstrate a future where those cultural divisions were not as starkly held. Um, and I think it even predates that too. Like I, I haven't read it for years and years, but the time machine by hg wells, right, the, the morlocks live under the ground and they're the this, you know, the, the lower class humanoid, and but then the, what were the other people called the?

Ron: 51:45

elo, yeah, elo elohim um and uh.

Don: 51:51

So again, science fiction was was able to imagine the future, and the future always was a place where we could have worked through these problems or have experimented with options to coming through these problems. And, just like fantasy stories are a place to um, to, to play around with reality in a way that you can't play with in in the real world. Um, like, uh, district nine even, right, uh, it's a place where you can say well, what if we did it this way? How would things work out differently, right?

Ron: 52:26

Oftentimes it's a way of like packaging important messages or observations to people who would, sort of like, not naturally bring themselves into contact with that kind of media. Right, so like a lot of people will like. Oh, this book has. You know, this book's about a gay romance, right? Uh, I'm not gay so I guess I shouldn't read it. Right, but if it's a gay romance between a man and a sentient head of broccoli, right Like.

Don: 52:54

Oh that just sounds funny, and then you read it, and then now you maybe now you've gleaned something, uh, outside of your own lived experience right, and you have access to, to whatever meaning is included there, right, yeah, um, but uh, but then what gets fun is you know, uh, wolfgang eiser right, that whatever meaning you take from the book is actually a meaning that the reader has vivified from the text. So it's not, it's not something.

Don: 53:23

The author is responsible for, but it's the, it's the reader, it's Stanley Fish too, of course. Um, the reader response, so uh. So then that gets all that's going to weird them out, because then, oh my gosh, the sentient head of broccoli made me feel things but those feelings were coming from inside me, yeah, so yeah, you just remind me real quick um we're, we're.

Ron: 53:47

we are recording this in January of 2025 and the? Did you see Nosferatu over the break? I haven't seen it yet. No, Okay, Uh, we've seen it twice now. I love it, but every time I've seen it there has been at least one like couple, like a pair of people that have left somewhere halfway through the film and it touches on some, you know, themes of female sexuality.

Ron: 54:03

That, I think, makes some American audience members maybe uncomfortable, but it's been fascinating to watch, like what are the things people are pulling from the text. That is when they decide this is not for me or I do not like what I'm pulling from this text.

Ron: 54:20

But yeah, science fiction and fantasy obviously has always been about speculation, it's always been about metaphor, it's always been about examinations of very present day trials and questions, and obviously those like, if you want the best answers to those questions, you should open the question to as many uh voices as possible.

Don: 54:44

Right.

Ron: 54:44

Because, uh, you know, we're here gathering, uh, you know, trying to make decisions, and I, personally, I like getting as much information as I can before I make a decision, and so why wouldn't I want to see everyone's interpretation of how this, uh, how this, how how we can move past, uh, the, the troubles of today and, um, and and what we need to worry about down the road?

Don: 55:04

Well, and since, as you brought up, the there's an association with with some of these people and and um more, the far right alt right, right the um the um, there's always a nostalgia, for you know, that's not how it used to be and and I don't like the change that I'm seeing in the world that I see, because it was better before. But obviously it usually means better for me.

Ron: 55:29

Yeah.

Don: 55:29

But but those things in the past were never static either.

Ron: 55:33

Yeah.

Don: 55:33

You know and the things that that people imagine our traditions and we can't change that because that's the tradition of how we do it in this country or how we do it in in my family or whatever, like those traditions are are not much more than a generation old yes, you know, they, they.

Don: 55:49

We didn't always have turkey on thanksgiving yeah, we didn't always have thanksgiving yeah, um, you know, it's only been a little time, so the the fluidity of tradition is something that could be embraced rather than resisted, and and then these things should be easier. But other thing that I'm really impressed with with the story that you've told us so far is the way that Chuck Tingle um reclaimed that narrative and how he, rather than than just rejecting it and fighting it, he used it. He found a way to very cleverly use it for a platform to continue the message that he was sending in the first place, um, and kind of co-opt it into uh. So kudos to him for for being able to do that.

Ron: 56:30

That's uh, that's a uh, a clever and uh, skillful move yeah, chuck single's kind of a hero in our household and, um, I think there's something about him that kind of draws us to him, is just sort of sort of like his sincerity about everything. Right, like I said, we we saw him talk. He's since moved on from, I mean, I think he still publishes his, his tinglers, but he's also received, um, uh, uh, real publishing deals he's actually working through. He's he's moved on to horror now he does. He publishes, like young adult horror novels that are pretty sick actually. Um, we were, we were, uh, when we saw him.

Ron: 57:07

He was, um, on the press tour for his novel, camp Damascus. Um, and he's just like a really cool guy. He liked my metal t-shirt. He likes deaf heaven, uh, the band. So he's got good taste in black metal and stuff. So, uh, so that's cool, um, but he's just like uh, it's nice to see a public figure who just sort of like bold-facedly, is saying like, hey, um, it's perfectly fine to just like, uh, that love is real and that sounds stupid to say, but it does seem like a weirdly uh like a political statement nowadays is it's just fine for anyone to kind of live their life however they want without harming anyone else, and uh, whether or not that seems odd to you, it doesn't really matter.

Don: 57:52

It's perfectly okay Like there's lots of things it doesn't affect me.

Ron: 57:55

I see a lot of odd things. I see people in, uh you know, with some very weird stickers on the back of their truck and I'm all the power to them, right? That's how I feel. There are people who watch TV shows, that I think why the? Hell would you watch that? But all the power to them. I'm glad it's out there. Why would you watch Young Sheldon?

Ron: 58:16

I'm not sure, but if you are, congrats, I'm glad you have something to make you laugh at the end of the day, and I think we could all be a little bit more like that. Right, we can, we can all it doesn't affect me.

Don: 58:28

I can, you can have an opinion about it, but you you're welcome to keep it to yourself. Yes, exactly, if, if, if what someone is doing is is not directly affecting you, then let them have their decision, their love, their yeah, love is real, don Love is real, and this podcast is real and will continue to be real and we love all our cannibals, uncannibals.

Ron: 58:53

Cannibals and uncannibals alike. You're all welcome here in this tent. Thank you guys for tuning in with us today and we'll see you next time on the uncannery.

Don: 59:16

Thank you.