I was reading through the various Puppy blogs. Did I find despondency over the crushing Hugo debacle?<\/p>\n
Nope. What I found was a growing consensus that it\u2019s time to start separating from the Chorfs. Previously there was the hope that after some balance was achieved in the Hugos both sides would bury the hatchet and a live and let live arrangement would prevail. Last year\u2019s asterisks and more so this year\u2019s no awarding of perfectly legitimate and in some cases highly qualified nominees makes that unlikely. I think anger has hardened into hate.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s sort of like a marriage. When bickering turns into screaming it\u2019s time for a marriage counselor. But when knives come out it\u2019s time for the divorce court. It\u2019s time to award custody of the silverware and figure out who gets stuck with the dog. Luckily that\u2019s already been decided Fido (aka Hugo) is going to be gassed by Vox. Everything else gets divided according to the laws of nature. Fans who are ebullient over books that invent new pronouns for the nine billion new gender iterations will go to the Chorfs. Those who like their prose punctuated by hot lead will follow the Puppies. Everyone in between will have to search their souls and choose. They get Tor, we get Baen. They\u2019ll get the kudos of academia, we\u2019ll get the reviews on Amazon. Our books will feature scantily clad women, theirs will feature pastel colored dinosaurs. Everybody gets what they want.<\/p>\n
So separate on all fronts. It\u2019s time to start building. Build up separate author lists, separate sales strategies, separate awards (maybe the Dragons?), separate branding. Some of this is the result of the Puppy Kicking Campaigns and has become a sort of general boycott of the Chorfs and their enablers. Many people have already jumped on the Tor Boycott and inversely many are purposefully concentrating their book spending dollars on Baen, Castalia House and Puppy authors in particular. Of course no Chorf worth her salt would buy a puppy book anyway or any other book that didn\u2019t include at least some element of social improvement so there\u2019s really no change needed on that front.<\/p>\n
I think the only thing that really needs to be done is branding and labeling. How to differentiate their stuff from ours? Neither side will want to sacrifice the science fiction and fantasy labels. Too important (and too valuable). We need some qualifiers, some adjectives.<\/p>\n
Good vs Evil?<\/p>\n
Strong vs Weak?<\/p>\n
Dynamic vs Static?<\/p>\n
Active vs Passive?<\/p>\n
I think the real dichotomy is Fun vs Boring.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re boring. Let it be their new brand. When a reader goes to Barnes and Noble he should go to the BSFF shelf and choose the colorful covers full of gay dinosaurs and cat loving computers. That\u2019s where he belongs. BS, boring stuff.<\/p>\n
But if any of my grandsons asks me where to find \u201cthe good stuff\u201d I\u2019ll point him to the FSFF shelf and he\u2019ll find space pirates and heroes and things blowing up. He\u2019ll find that adventure hasn\u2019t needed to change that much since Odysseus invented the Trojan Horse and Penelope preserved her home and family against war and time and hostile gods and welcomed him home. It\u2019s still brave men and good women daring fate to win the day and live happily ever after. That\u2019s exciting, that\u2019s fun. FS, fun stuff.<\/p>\n
But how do you brand something boring? How do you brand something fun? Easy, separate them and let people decide for themselves. But the key is separation. It\u2019s like a hardware drawer filled with a mixture of ball bearing and razor blades. It\u2019s confusing and you know something is wrong.\u00a0 Totally different things that don\u2019t belong together. And trying to grab one when you need it will be painful and frustrating when you grab the wrong one. But separated they can be used for their separate purposes. So let\u2019s dump the razor blades into a different box and get rolling and have a ball.<\/p>\n
Goodbye Chorfs. Enjoy your BS aisle. It\u2019ll probably be pretty quiet over there.<\/p>\n
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