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The Lounge => Media and Inspiration => Topic started by: Zalman on May 24, 2022, 07:03:48 AM

Title: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Zalman on May 24, 2022, 07:03:48 AM
Mercedes Lackey forgot to use the preposition "of" when referring to People of Color, and is now being cancelled (https://locusmag.com/2022/05/mercedes-lackey-removed-from-nebula-conference/) by the The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (who are apparently still allowed to call her a Grand Master ...)
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Ghostmaker on May 24, 2022, 07:57:49 AM
Commented on this over in the 'Turning the corner on woke' thread.

It's sad, but the parable about the frog and the scorpion springs to mind.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: bromides on May 24, 2022, 12:57:48 PM
Performative justice is not justice, and yet here we are. Dancing before the authorities. Shucking and jiving to a tune that makes no sense except to perform before the cultural masters.

We are creating cultural authoritarianism out of pronouns and prepositional phrases.
What a fascinating modern age we live in.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Spinachcat on May 24, 2022, 05:29:38 PM
Does the NAACP know of her incredibly vile action???

Somebody call the UNCF pronto! We need their opinion as well!!
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on May 24, 2022, 08:56:57 PM
This is why I'm leery of trying to get published nowadays. Publishing houses have been taken over by identity politics. I feel like I'd have to write most of my cast as disabled transwomen of color to have any hope of getting published, even if identity is completely irrelevant to the content. But even if I did, I'm afraid that I'd be damned anyway by the #ownvoices crowd for not being a disabled transwoman of color myself or otherwise attacked for failing to meet arbitrary purity tests. I could try writing all my characters as hermaphroditic purple cat people, but I'm worried that will attract furries and get my work an undesirable reputation that way.

Blech!
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Armchair Gamer on May 24, 2022, 10:25:30 PM
I'm seeing a lot of people have a reasonable level of success with self-publishing. Not superstars, but not vanishing into obscurity either.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Spinachcat on May 25, 2022, 02:57:31 AM
Self-publishing and self-promotion is the way in the age of POD and Kindle.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Rhymer88 on May 25, 2022, 04:31:23 AM
Self-publishing and self-promotion is the way in the age of POD and Kindle.

Yes, nowadays it's easier to publish and distribute your works than at any other time in history. I also wonder whether the West will eventually go the way of China, where web novels are all the rage. Even many Chinese series and movies are now based on web novels. 
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Battlemaster on June 10, 2022, 06:01:57 AM
Jesus fucking Christ don't these idiots know what NAACP stands for?

On the same  page I looked up it had a link about the trannies (yeah, I know, offensive term. ) trying to get bill Maher cancelled.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Zelen on June 20, 2022, 09:50:54 PM
Mercedes Lackey is one of the people who pushed this into the hobby, so I don't have much sympathy from her in that respect.

It is obscene that these people aren't even willing to give an old woman who lived through their ever-changing language poisoning the good faith to assume she just misspoke. But then these people were always evil.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 21, 2022, 08:05:10 AM
Mercedes Lackey is one of the people who pushed this into the hobby, so I don't have much sympathy from her in that respect.

It is obscene that these people aren't even willing to give an old woman who lived through their ever-changing language poisoning the good faith to assume she just misspoke. But then these people were always evil.
Yeah, considering Lackey's role in this, it's hard to feel full throated sympathy.

That being said, your second line bears some thought: 'good faith' in analysis. They naturally jumped to the conclusion, despite Lackey's long history, that she was racist.

I have two takeaways here: one, it's the same as the policy on TBP with 'the onus is on the poster', which means anyone can interpret anything posted to be offensive. And two, it's indicative of the mentality of these twits. Specifically, the addictive nature of social justice outrage. They gotta get their fix, which means flipping out at anyone and everyone.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Omega on June 27, 2022, 06:29:27 PM
Its sad really. Kat spent a night over at Mercedes place way back on a long emergency trip.

But yeah. Mercedes courted these nuts and got exactly what everyone else who does gets. Stabbed in the back because there is no limit to what these sociopaths can hallucinate as offensive.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: hedgehobbit on June 27, 2022, 07:12:05 PM
But yeah. Mercedes courted these nuts and got exactly what everyone else who does gets. Stabbed in the back because there is no limit to what these sociopaths can hallucinate as offensive.

I was clicking around to see what Mercedes Lackey actually said and stumbled upon her Facebook account. Holy crap that woman is balls deep in this whole identity nonsense. Afterwards, I went through my bookself to tossed* all her books. I could only find four but I'm sure there are more in a box somewhere.


* I recycled them. I'm not a monster.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on June 29, 2022, 09:11:33 PM
The only Mercedes Lackey book I read was one about a were-coyote who had werewolves thirsting after her because she was the only person who could carry werewolf pups to term. Yes, that is an actual plot point.

That will never stop being creepy af. The worst part is that "the heroine is only woman who can carry my offspring" is apparently a well trod cliché in paranormal romance novels.

It sounds misogynistic af. Like The Handmaid's Tale but it's supposed to be sexy rather than horrifying.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Wrath of God on July 03, 2022, 10:00:36 AM
I'm quite sure you're talking about Patricia Briggs "Mercedes Thompson" series.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Iron_Rain on July 20, 2022, 08:10:00 PM
This is why I'm leery of trying to get published nowadays. Publishing houses have been taken over by identity politics. I feel like I'd have to write most of my cast as disabled transwomen of color to have any hope of getting published, even if identity is completely irrelevant to the content. But even if I did, I'm afraid that I'd be damned anyway by the #ownvoices crowd for not being a disabled transwoman of color myself or otherwise attacked for failing to meet arbitrary purity tests. I could try writing all my characters as hermaphroditic purple cat people, but I'm worried that will attract furries and get my work an undesirable reputation that way.

Blech!

Most of the imaginitive stuff is now self published for this reason. Get a Kindle Unlimited account and you'd be surprised what kind of cool stuff you can find. I'm going to be doing that with my own fic, which does have some discussion about race, but I have ZERO interest in going through the modern ethics Hunger Games experience in order to be published.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: BoxCrayonTales on July 21, 2022, 10:22:22 AM
I'm quite sure you're talking about Patricia Briggs "Mercedes Thompson" series.
Oh. My mistake.

Most of the imaginitive stuff is now self published for this reason. Get a Kindle Unlimited account and you'd be surprised what kind of cool stuff you can find. I'm going to be doing that with my own fic, which does have some discussion about race, but I have ZERO interest in going through the modern ethics Hunger Games experience in order to be published.
Yeah, I'm probably going to self-publish or something.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Reckall on July 21, 2022, 03:50:13 PM
I'm quite sure you're talking about Patricia Briggs "Mercedes Thompson" series.
Oh. My mistake.

Most of the imaginitive stuff is now self published for this reason. Get a Kindle Unlimited account and you'd be surprised what kind of cool stuff you can find. I'm going to be doing that with my own fic, which does have some discussion about race, but I have ZERO interest in going through the modern ethics Hunger Games experience in order to be published.
Yeah, I'm probably going to self-publish or something.

In my career I published for third party franchises, I put out original stories under existing publishing houses, I was tasked to judge others' creative works and I self-published. Don't think that the third job is evil or self-publishing easier. You must develop objective critical skills in your work or - better yet - pay a good editor out of your pocket. When I see a problem in someone else's work, among the first things I say is "You can hear about this problem from me and fix it or you can hear about it from the public, and by then it is too late."

Of course I also proceed to explain why I feel that it is a problem and I never fail to say "Anyway, this is your story. If you agree with my assessment, change it and the change is a disaster, that's still on you, not on me." And yet being a good editor is hard: you must understand the writer's poetic and try to understand why the story doesn't work according to his poetic, not your idea of a good story. It is this quality that allowed to Campbell to launch the careers of so many different SF writers (possibly renouncing to his own: he had pushed out "Who Goes There?" when he stopped).

Or, for a different example, one day Tom Clancy came to the decision that "he was too good for editors to tamper anymore with his writing". From that day on he had "veterans of the Falklands" in 1981, a chemical attack at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney that used a compound "especially adapted to the Summer climate" (I'll leave to you to edit this one), someone evaluating the attempt on the Pope by watching it live on TV when no such images ever existed, a "state-of-the-art computer with a 486 processor" in the early 2000s and more.

By all means, self-publish: just remember who kick in the behind when "The elf was moving silently, bow, arrow and sword in one hand..." remains in your book.
Title: Re: Mercedes Lackey Cancelled
Post by: Iron_Rain on September 04, 2022, 09:47:02 PM
I'm quite sure you're talking about Patricia Briggs "Mercedes Thompson" series.
Oh. My mistake.

Most of the imaginitive stuff is now self published for this reason. Get a Kindle Unlimited account and you'd be surprised what kind of cool stuff you can find. I'm going to be doing that with my own fic, which does have some discussion about race, but I have ZERO interest in going through the modern ethics Hunger Games experience in order to be published.
Yeah, I'm probably going to self-publish or something.

In my career I published for third party franchises, I put out original stories under existing publishing houses, I was tasked to judge others' creative works and I self-published. Don't think that the third job is evil or self-publishing easier. You must develop objective critical skills in your work or - better yet - pay a good editor out of your pocket. When I see a problem in someone else's work, among the first things I say is "You can hear about this problem from me and fix it or you can hear about it from the public, and by then it is too late."

Of course I also proceed to explain why I feel that it is a problem and I never fail to say "Anyway, this is your story. If you agree with my assessment, change it and the change is a disaster, that's still on you, not on me." And yet being a good editor is hard: you must understand the writer's poetic and try to understand why the story doesn't work according to his poetic, not your idea of a good story. It is this quality that allowed to Campbell to launch the careers of so many different SF writers (possibly renouncing to his own: he had pushed out "Who Goes There?" when he stopped).

Or, for a different example, one day Tom Clancy came to the decision that "he was too good for editors to tamper anymore with his writing". From that day on he had "veterans of the Falklands" in 1981, a chemical attack at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney that used a compound "especially adapted to the Summer climate" (I'll leave to you to edit this one), someone evaluating the attempt on the Pope by watching it live on TV when no such images ever existed, a "state-of-the-art computer with a 486 processor" in the early 2000s and more.

By all means, self-publish: just remember who kick in the behind when "The elf was moving silently, bow, arrow and sword in one hand..." remains in your book.

Absolutely, and I have no illusions about being the next J.K. Rowling, or even making more than pocket change. Here's my rationale - I have been working on my novel since about early 2017. I am on my 3rd draft, and have no interest at all in doing a fourth. I'm fairly sure a publisher would require more work, and I sincerely don't want to do it. I'm just done. I just want to publish this story and be done. My goal is to sell one hundred copies, that's it. I have no pre-existing blog or platform to boost sales, I don't care about that stuff and my day job is "boring." (Though it pays the bills and gives a nice pension.)

As soon as I started really taking my writing seriously, reading books on how to write better, how to self-publish or get published... My ability and interest to write just imploded. My wife finally remarked that I was much happier when I was just writing fanfiction 2010-2015 and not taking what I was doing seriously as a potential means of income, which started around 2018 after finishing my first draft. I learned a lot about how to self evaluate, self edit, be a strong self critic... And somehow made my entertaining but flawed first draft into a dull lifeless over-edited second rewrite (according to beta readers). Maybe my 3rd draft will do better.

As for authors who listen to their editors, Louis McMaster Bujold apparently listens to hers, and frankly, it shows in that she self publishes and I find almost everything she writes at my local library.

When I read self published books on Kindle, the authors are much more microtargeting highly specific markets that can only be found via keyboard. They also tell non-traditional stories that don't follow hidden archtypes and formulas nearly as much as published books do. And yes, the quality is substantially lower on average as a result. It's unfortunate.