polishgenius Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 So the latest instance of writers being revealed as dickheads is Warren Ellis. Well, fuck. Cameron Stewart as well, who was allegedly grooming underage girls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord of Rhinos Posted June 19, 2020 Share Posted June 19, 2020 I don't know. I think anyone who has read Ellis's work should be unsurprised that he's a dickhead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGP Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 Not entirely thread related, but Myke Cole, Sam Sykes, and Mark Lawrence [amongst one or two others in SFF] are currently getting trashed in the Twittersphere for misogynistic and/or predatory/problematic behavior. Cole didn't surprise me, it's not his first time after all, and he whips out the performative man card way *to often. He has a comic series that'd been delayed due to covid, now dropped by Vault. Hopefully his agent and other publishers will follow suit. Sykes and Lawrence though, that's a shame but dropping them personally won't be difficult for me. *too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 This too, about Cole. And the fact that he had the nerve to just reuse his apology from last time. Someone here mentioned Lawrence as having been a bit of an arsehole a while back, what they detailed wasn't on its own necessarily 'drop him' behaviour but (though less serious) it tallies with the stuff that's been brought up today. Out of the three Sykes is the one who, from his reaction, might actually have a chance to change, but it's obviously so hard to tell on twitter. Cole's apoloy seemed sincere the first time around. Should be noted since it's not clear from what we both have said that (without defending him for the alleged online abuse at all) Lawrence hasn't been accused of sexual misconduct or abuse like the other two or most of the others mentioned in this thread, although he certainly has seemingly been singling out women who negatively review his books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGP Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 Right, 'predatory/problematic' might've been a little broad in Lawrence's case, it's not the same as Cole and Sykes. Still though, prior to this I hadn't heard any of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derfel Cadarn Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 Saw the Lawrence stuff blow up earlier today on Twitter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 5 minutes ago, Sad Panda said: Sykes surprises me not at all considering who his mother is. Is Gabaldon known as being a problem? 6 minutes ago, Sad Panda said: Lawrence I find more problematic. He certainly has stuck his foot in his mouth several times, but if I was to drop every author who sicced their fans on a bad review, intentionally or not, I'd have a very small book shelf. (I also think that old review of his first novel that seems to keep popping up is a terribly written review, and his response to it at the time was also terrible, so..) I dunno, hopefully more information comes out. I just bought the new Lawrence like, 3 days ago. This is the thing about Lawrence: he's (1) certainly not in the same ballpark as the others and (2) he also does a lot of genuine good work promoting other authors, especially independents, etc and might plausibly have been said to have put the work in since the incidents happened. So I haven't decided yet if I'm dropping his books. I'll be less enthusiastic about sharing them, especially on twitter where people clearly have bad interactions that still hurt, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGP Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 Cole got dumped by Angry Robot. --- The Lawrence thing, I don't know, starting to look like a Twitter dogpile, with little substance beyond a straight forward 'Online harassment of VE Schwab,' by Catherynne Valente. I don't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 8 minutes ago, Sad Panda said: Also, this: https://professorfangirl.tumblr.com/post/73993446786/china-mievilles-abuse-was-outed-by-one-of-his God knows what else. I can't find anything on Mieville except for links to the same blog mentioned there which no longer details the allegations or names him. Is there anything else that goes into it? A further twitter search suggests that even the original post didn't name Mieville- it referred to the perpertrator as 'C' and people guess Mieville. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 9 minutes ago, Sad Panda said: From what I've read, he super Lawyered up and sued the shit out of his accuser, then had it all scrubbed from the internet, but if you google his name + abuse their are still traces. At this point I'm just waiting to find out John Williams is a Nazi or I dunno ...I dunno. Here's some detail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGP Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 1 hour ago, Sad Panda said: God, this is just a cluster fuck of fuckery. Someone mentioned Kameron Hurley ..somewhere and I think her twitter has a lot of good perspective on the whole thing. I mentioned Kameron [that might've been DM though] and she's like my weather vane when it comes to anything publishing, but especially this kind of shit. Where she goes, I go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grey Wolf Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 F***. Is there any male public figure I like who hasn't turned out to be an utter a******?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Grey Wolf Posted June 25, 2020 Share Posted June 25, 2020 12 minutes ago, Sad Panda said: um hold on Probably not. The times we live in... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted June 25, 2020 Author Share Posted June 25, 2020 The Lawrence situation wasn't good, but there was some context in that there was one reviewer who posted a review of Prince of Thorns before it even came out saying the book was wall-to-wall, on-page rape and gratuitous sexual assaults. That turned out to be very much "not true" but it created a huge amount of controversy at the time, with Lawrence being quite vociferous in defending himself. Since occasionally the same accusation shows up and Lawrence's response is always "robust" since he feels that accusation is a lie, and of course much easier to prove now the book has been out for 9 years and has about a million people who've read it. Of course, whilst there is are no "on-page" scenes of rape in the book, it is certainly heavily alluded to as having happened off-page ("just" off-page in at least one case) and some critics took issue with that, which is a fairer criticism, but one I think tends to get conflated with the earlier, untrue accusations. Mark has developed a much thicker skin over the years, but certainly there was one period in time when he did over-zealously respond to critics of his work and sometimes people who were quite complementary about his work but voiced one or two small complaints (and I know at least one guy who was on the receiving end of that as well as female reviewers), perhaps a kneejerk response given what he considered to be more unfair treatment at the start of his career. That certainly doesn't excuse him siccing his now-sizeable fanbase on people for making more reasonable criticisms. It's clearly not in the same league as the very unpleasant misogyny and sexual accusations made elsewhere. We knew about the China Mieville thing as well. There was some speculation that his distancing himself from the SFF scene and going back into academia may have been related. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGP Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 1 hour ago, Werthead said: The Lawrence situation wasn't good, but there was some context in that there was one reviewer who posted a review of Prince of Thorns before it even came out saying the book was wall-to-wall, on-page rape and gratuitous sexual assaults. That turned out to be very much "not true" but it created a huge amount of controversy at the time, with Lawrence being quite vociferous in defending himself. Since occasionally the same accusation shows up and Lawrence's response is always "robust" since he feels that accusation is a lie, and of course much easier to prove now the book has been out for 9 years and has about a million people who've read it. Of course, whilst there is are no "on-page" scenes of rape in the book, it is certainly heavily alluded to as having happened off-page ("just" off-page in at least one case) and some critics took issue with that, which is a fairer criticism, but one I think tends to get conflated with the earlier, untrue accusations. Mark has developed a much thicker skin over the years, but certainly there was one period in time when he did over-zealously respond to critics of his work and sometimes people who were quite complementary about his work but voiced one or two small complaints (and I know at least one guy who was on the receiving end of that as well as female reviewers), perhaps a kneejerk response given what he considered to be more unfair treatment at the start of his career. That certainly doesn't excuse him siccing his now-sizeable fanbase on people for making more reasonable criticisms. It's clearly not in the same league as the very unpleasant misogyny and sexual accusations made elsewhere. We knew about the China Mieville thing as well. There was some speculation that his distancing himself from the SFF scene and going back into academia may have been related. All this in-group shit is way too secretive. I mean, I understand, but hell... I love Mieville's prose. The dude painted directly in my brain. Fuck him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted June 26, 2020 Author Share Posted June 26, 2020 1 minute ago, JEORDHl said: All this in-group shit is way too secretive. I mean, I understand, but hell... I love Mieville's prose. The dude painted directly in my brain. Fuck him. A lot of stuff blowing up. Obviously there's the Eddings thing, we haven't really hit the big time with the Arthur C. Clarke thing (but I feel we're one investigative journalist's trip to Sri Lanka from blowing that up) but all of this stuff going on with current authors is a much bigger deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGP Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 Chuck Wendig distancing himself. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how he didn't know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 25 minutes ago, Werthead said: A lot of stuff blowing up. Obviously there's the Eddings thing, we haven't really hit the big time with the Arthur C. Clarke thing (but I feel we're one investigative journalist's trip to Sri Lanka from blowing that up) but all of this stuff going on with current authors is a much bigger deal. Was under the impression that the issues surrounding Clarke and his youthful liasons in Sri Lanka had already been widely known and investigated? I distinctly recall reading a long-form piece on the topic a few years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JGP Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 Sure, but they were all at these cons together. And those three were tight. Not seeming mere professional-friendly acquaintances like Chuck is sort of not-saying here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IlyaP Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 20 minutes ago, Sad Panda said: Seeing accusations against Schwab that she recently sicced her twitter followers on a bad review of one of her books that called out some issues the review had with her representation of PoC. Dunno what to believe at this point. Have ye a link to that? Would be interested in seeing this conversation. Happy to have it be via PM if that's more appropriate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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