[QuickTidal]

Cause, on 25 June 2020 - 06:34 PM, said:

I confess I have never heard of Myke cole or the other one. Have they written anything particularly notable?

Cole's first books were military urban fantasy I think (I only read one of them)...they were fine, not brilliant. They featured a POC lead (which makes the racism Kate accuses him of sting worse). I think he wrote more epic fantasy after that but I never read it.

Sam Sykes writes grim Fantasy with a bunch of humour, and is also notably the son of Outlander series author Diana Gabaldon. I've read one Sykes book. It was fine. Nothing special.

[Cyphon]

Cause, on 25 June 2020 - 06:34 PM, said:

I confess I have never heard of Myke cole or the other one. Have they written anything particularly notable?

I have one of Sykes books but unread.

Myke Cole's stuff appeared on radar a few times but until his latest book nothing intriguing enough to make me go for it.

I got the impression they were fledgling writers who were improving their art. I know them more from being engaging, funny and reasonable human beings on twitter. Sadly it seems their demons have won out in the past.

This post has been edited by Cyphon: 25 June 2020 - 06:51 PM

[Primateus]

Cause, on 25 June 2020 - 06:34 PM, said:

I confess I have never heard of Myke cole or the other one. Have they written anything particularly notable?

Cole has written some fair to decent urban fantasy novels. Nothing special at all, but by no means unreadable. I am not familiar with the other one.

[amphibian]

QuickTidal, on 25 June 2020 - 06:44 PM, said:

Cause, on 25 June 2020 - 06:31 PM, said:

These peoples minds don’t work right. The tweet where she set off her followers on a queer brown girl was literally just saying that in a fantasy book set 200 hundred years in the past relationships between 17 and 20 year olds are not that wierd.

I mean if nutjobs than choose to attack her based on that I’m not sure we can blame the author and if the girl in question happens to be brown and queer that seems irrelevant to the original post.

Right, but I think the point is that Mark didn't "Send" his followers after her either. From what I can glean, he retweeted her tweet about PoT to them, and they did the nasty stuff on their own. We can argue about the optics of that retweeting all day, but if she wants him held responsible for the subsequent behaviour of those followers, then she must follow suit when her followers descend on someone. I think they are just pointing out the hypocrisy of it calling it out.

There are also others on that thread who say that they've have poor interactions with her at Cons...

Schwab is not being fair to Lawrence here and he didn't do any egging on of followers to her. She's a burgeoning superstar in SFF, selling more books than just about anyone not elite tier. He retweeted her review bc she wrote it, even if it was somewhat negative. That's it.

He's made enormous strides in depicting women and stories since the early road bandit stories that put him on the map. I get why he wrote those bandit stories the way he did, but it's also something that is going to trigger Felisin style reactions in some readers. That's a parallel many Malazan fans get - and Erikson made Felisin worth going through that pain. I'm of the opinion that Lawrence didn't quite do as good a job with the Jorg stories as Erikson did with Felisin and Hetan, but Lawrence's subsequent books have been stunning stories centering mostly women in some very tough situations with style and grace and compassion.

I don't know what her con experience is like. I've read a few of her books. Liked them alright. Don't think it's relevant to talk about that here.

Really think Schwab is being super unfair about this.

[QuickTidal]

Cyphon, on 25 June 2020 - 06:50 PM, said:

Cause, on 25 June 2020 - 06:34 PM, said:

I confess I have never heard of Myke cole or the other one. Have they written anything particularly notable?

I have one of Sykes books but unread.

Myke Cole's stuff appeared on radar a few times but until his latest book nothing intriguing enough to make me go for it.

I got the impression they were fledgling writers who were improving their art. I know them more from being engaging, funny and reasonable human beings on twitter. Sadly it seems their demons have won out in the past.

It also sounds like people are also calling out Chuck Wendig who is good friends with both Sykes and Cole, and saying that he has basically enabled their behaviour over the years by inaction. His tweets are protected, so I don't know if he's said anything about it.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cole wrote an interesting-seeming book about the myth of Sparta being primarily a product of propaganda---think I read a review in TLS or similar. His recent epic fantasy apparently has a female protagonist.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 25 June 2020 - 07:07 PM

[amphibian]

The more concerning tweets of Lawrence are the ones with KKHarrin and Kate Elliot. We don't have the context for his responses to Harrin (the locked private account of moonmagister on Twitter) anymore. That is something in which he looks rude - but it's not direction of abuse to anyone at any point.

Given moonmagister's posts, the bio of the Harrin account, and the warped context of Schwab's post, I do not think Lawrence did a thing to encourage or increase abuse. I don't think that he needed to do something to stop a one tweet abuse someone he wasn't connected to, talking to, or using in the contexts of his talks.

I believe his Fbook apology for not distancing himself from the tweet by the person who called Schwab a c**t.

I've been very outspoken about people who abuse others verbally and/or physically needing to be called out and to do the work to stop hurting people plus make amends. Cole and Sykes have work to do. I do not think Lawrence does.

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 25 June 2020 - 07:00 PM, said:

Schwab is not being fair to Lawrence here and he didn't do any egging on of followers to her. She's a burgeoning superstar in SFF, selling more books than just about anyone not elite tier. He retweeted her review bc she wrote it, even if it was somewhat negative. That's it.

From what I understand though, she didn't name the title or the author in that "tweet" (it was not really a review). So that's the part that hitches me up in the whole thing.

She simply tweeted: "The book I just read was basically a list of problematic archetypes: victimized mother, whore, prude princess, innocent child oracle."

Which is a super random tweet to me.

And then someone must have done the work (possibly through her "currently reading" on her GoodReads account at the time, I don't know) to figure out that it was PoT and Lawrence she was talking about.

After which it sounds like the responses started coming through? I could be wrong, I was not aparty to the original thread. Just laying it out as I've seen it reported today to make sense of it.

amphibian, on 25 June 2020 - 07:00 PM, said:

but Lawrence's subsequent books have been stunning stories centering mostly women in some very tough situations with style and grace and compassion.

I agree. I think his female characters are much better now than they were at the start. I also even think her comments about PoT are off base and simply feed more into what she's comfortable with rather than what she read. Like Cause said, none of those things make PoT a bad book, or Jorg a bad character. They simply make him a less palatable person as that character, and I think that's quite alright and should not reflect on the author in any way, and instead should lead the reader to make judgements about what they can and cannot tolerate in fiction and make book choices accordingly.

amphibian, on 25 June 2020 - 07:00 PM, said:

Really think Schwab is being super unfair about this.

It sounds like she's carried the interaction around along time and I don't want to dismiss her feelings on the subject, but I think I've found my way to agreeing with you after spending the day trying to find out more about it, and that even if Lawrence's fans went after her for tweeting things...that's not on him for retweeting it. At least I think that's where I land on the subject.

Like I can't find any evidence that he specifically did anything wrong besides the notion that she espouses if you tweet about someone then you should be wary of how your followers will react and if they will go on the attack for it. Which is a convo we can have...but I agree that what's happened here doesn't appear to belong in the orbit of Sykes and Cole.

amphibian, on 25 June 2020 - 07:17 PM, said:

The more concerning tweets of Lawrence are the ones with KKHarrin and Kate Elliot.

And yes, Elliott is the one that gives me the most pause. I'm a huge fan of her work, and find her to be a really genuine and easygoing person on social media...so when she chimed in to support Schwab I think that's the most today that I've been like "Wait, maybe there's something to this I'm not seeing..." because of the level of esteem I hold her in.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 25 June 2020 - 07:27 PM

[amphibian]

We have one screenshot of him saying two minorly rude things to KKHarrin with Elliot tagged in. We do not have information on what KKHarrin wrote prior, in response to, or after those tweets.

I did find several tweets in which it becomes clear that KKHarrin used a publisher's quote in late 2016 to make some point that Lawrence disagreed with - possibly because it was critical of how he treated women in the Jorg series in a way that didn't use his actual writing - it used the publisher quote.

I also found tweets where he apologized specifically to her. And tweets where in 2019 she was doing fan art of Holy Sister and tagging him, to which he responded with thanks.

So it's a weird dynamic and I do not think that Elliott or Schwab got any level of abuse or abuse directing towards them from Lawrence.

[amphibian]

The tweets.

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[amphibian]

The fan art.

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[QuickTidal]

Ah, I hadn't seen those. I was talking about the fact that Kate seemingly tweeted support of Schwab today (She tweeted at Schwab "Ugh, I remember when that went down").

[amphibian]

The blog post that started the KKHarrin and Elliott discussion - "is there a SFF book that's only one woman's point of view all the way through"?

http://mark---lawren...d-move.html?m=1

So this is the thing that started the kerfuffle with KKHarrin and Elliott, which is now popping up without context as "Lawrence sends his fans after women who disagree with him".

I'm feeling bad that Schwab clearly felt hurt from this, but this is one hell of a stretch to say Lawrence used his position to hurt women or drive them away.

[QuickTidal]

Scalzi has chimed in, because he's friends with some of the accused.

[polishgenius]

I was in that convo with Schwab today (I was the person who didn't want to bring it to the forum - here obviously- in case it was true and he took it to his followers). It's pretty clear that what Mark is accused of doing is nowhere near in the ballpark of Sykes and Cole, yeah. And there isn't a lot of direct evidence but there's a lot of women who have bad experiences with him taking criticism badly - I also had another convo with someone (not a woman I don't think) on the asoiaf forums who had a bad experience with his moderation of a facebook group he was running.

One screenshot did sit particularly badly, when he said he's allowed to disagree 'with females', coz I've never come across someone saying 'female' when they meant 'woman' who was speaking in good faith.

It's a strange one because as I said in reply to her, he does seem to listen to criticism when you read the books, in which portrayals of women get better as they go- but whichever way you slice it he's clearly picked up a rep, with at least some justification, of taking criticism badly- and the criticism made of the initial book, however much I like it, is fair in regards to its portrayal of women. And I definitely think it's odd behaviour to retweet criticism of yourself. As someone said, there's a reason Abercrombie only refers to his negative reviews anonymously. I don't think I'll stop buying his books - I'll hafta think about that one a bit- but there is clearly more than one person who for whatever reason feels harmed by him on twitter so it makes me want to chat his books up less.

On the 'Schwab set her own followers on someone' thing- the person quote-tweeted the post in question a couple posts down the thread and I don't see it. Sure, she quote-tweeted the girl, which I do think you have to be careful of when you're a big follower, but there was nothing hostile or even really critical about what she said - it was just a reply. She does, however, have to accept the responsibilty of her followers if she's accusing Mark of having to do the same.




Myke Cole has had a chance before, the stuff from the Kate Welch thread is icky as fuck even if you only take the stuff she has screenshots for, even just his photos of her- 'she scrubs up nice' is a dirty phrase, sly PUA stuff that he used not just to her but about her to the world, he can fuck off.


We will find out, I suppose, if Sykes' contrition is genuine.


QT, you wondered about Wendig: he has spoken about it, and summed up the thoughts he's tweeted on his blog here.

[Cyphon]

Myke Cole permanently dropped from his published Angry Robot, and his comic book has been cancelled too.

This post has been edited by Cyphon: 25 June 2020 - 09:24 PM

[QuickTidal]

polishgenius, on 25 June 2020 - 09:06 PM, said:

QT, you wondered about Wendig: he has spoken about it, and summed up the thoughts he's tweeted on his blog here.

People seem to be madder at him than he lets on here...and I can't imagine that comes without caveats about things they are privy to that we aren't?

From my angle, it sounds like people think contrary to what he espouses about it that he DID see stuff and did nothing. I can't imagine the vehemence of the "cancel" would be as it seems to be otherwise.

I could be wrong, but then I don't really think much of Wendig as an individual as I find him an entirely caustic personality with regards to the way he's behaved to others in other situations...he just seems like a jerk to me, so I'm not worried about not bothering with him anyways regardless of what his involvement or lack thereof is here.

[amphibian]

The important part of this discussion is that SFF isn't a community where women authors feel on equal and safe footing with a ton of male authors. There's been convulsions after convulsions of discovered poor treatment, harassment, and hurt delivered to these women for years. I hope they keep coming until the unconscionable treatment of women stops happening. I strongly suspect that there's horrible stories of legendary authors that have yet to come out.

Scalzi said it well in that blog posted above at the end. Full and safe participation, support, and footing for women is what we need to work towards in SFF.

Regarding the disagreement with moonmagister - the blurb in the tweet was a shitty blurb that made it seem like it's a bold thing for a male writer to have a single POV from a woman. Lawrence wrote a blog that says the following "However, the thread did set me to thinking, and I pointed out that the "bold" probably didn't refer to a fantasy book that simply had a female point-of-view character (of which I can immediately name dozens) but a fantasy book with only one point-of-view character, and that character was female. At which point I struggled to think of one.

So, hit me. A non-YA fantasy book with a single point-of-view character, who is female. To make it harder, let's rule out urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Focus on epic fantasy and its closest cousins.

I'm sure there must be many and the "bold" is still a strange choice of words. But I don't recall reading one. Expand my horizons. More points for a famous example."

And then a tweet using the publisher's blurb to lead into the blog.

KKHarrin said something (probably several somethings) that was an objection to the blurb in the tweet which is the same blurb Lawrence objects to and wanted to know examples of previous books that match the blurb's general idea, got a low level rude response from Lawrence for not reading the post, was apologized to, and now says this is poor treatment akin to what Schwab talks about.

I think Lawrence does boost women and minority authors, artists, and others. He's constantly promoting works by others that aren't from the usual circles of author friends and many are early works by these boosted authors and artists. I think he has done the work to be in better standing in the SFF community after the rude tweets to KKHarrin.

But Schwab has the larger online fan base and has characterized this as something it's not in a way that's understandable while also not fitting what happened four years ago.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 25 June 2020 - 09:36 PM

[polishgenius]

QuickTidal, on 25 June 2020 - 09:31 PM, said:

People seem to be madder at him than he lets on here...and I can't imagine that comes without caveats about things they are privy to that we aren't?

From my angle, it sounds like people think contrary to what he espouses about it that he DID see stuff and did nothing. I can't imagine the vehemence of the "cancel" would be as it seems to be otherwise.

I could be wrong, but then I don't really think much of Wendig as an individual as I find him an entirely caustic personality with regards to the way he's behaved to others in other situations...he just seems like a jerk to me, so I'm not worried about not bothering with him anyways regardless of what his involvement or lack thereof is here.

I don't know whether he knew or not but people hate Wendig, I mean haaaaaaaaate him. It's certainly plausible that he knew but so far the only evidence offered seems to be 'he must have, he was mates with them'. It's not like Sykes were people have been in the room where Cole did stuff and he did nothing, nothing like that's come out about Wendig.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Honestly, all the quoted tweets from Mark Lawrence make him seem like an even better guy than I previously thought. He made a snappy reply to someone, then counted to 100 and sent an apology? That's considerate behavior, honestly. (Yes, it would have been better to count to 100 prior to sending the reply.)

Based on those tweets, this is an incredible non-issue.

This post has been edited by Whisperzzzzzzz: 26 June 2020 - 03:53 AM