Unpacking books at work the other day, I was surprised to come across
the latest novel of John Ringo <http://www.johnringo.com/aldind.htm>,
_Watch on the Rhine_
<http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743499182/qid=1123384370/sr=1-...>,
co-authored with Tom Kratman. _Watch on the Rhine_ is another novel in
Ringo's Posleen series, until now notable for the massive carnage
inflicted upon the Earth by alien-aided humans set up against the
cannibalistic Posleen hordes. _Watch on the Rhine_ is notable mainly for
featuring rejeuvenated Waffen SS as heroes, as a Germany rendered
decadent turns to its greatest military heroes in the time of its
greatest need.

It's difficult to underestimate just how repellent--and also,
repellently stupid--this book is. Anyone who isn't a far-right extremist
is a enthusiastic collaborator with aliens willing to eat everyone;
almost anyone who is such is a noble person unfairly tarred classified
as belonging to the ranks of the _génocidaires._ Of course, outside the
morally-akimbo Ringoverse this is because the Waffen SS
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS> was a criminal organization
deeply implicated in the worst crimes of Nazi Germany. It's difficult to
understand why a military body most noted for its ability to round up
and massacre Jews and other _untermenschen_ by the hundreds of thousands
could ever be treated as an institution capable of redemption, or how a
military formation most notable for its successes against unarmed
civilians would even be capable of any sort of headway against sixty
years after its formation. But then, the whole Posleen series can best
be understood as a series of books inspired by the same factors which
motivated the Nazis, of a final confrontation between the good people of
the world and the barbarian inferiors who surround them, a conflict that
must be fought if only for the honour of the great and good. Ringo and
Kratman make this point explicitly in their afterword, directly
connecting the ruthlessness of their book's chosen heroes to the War
against Terror (tm) and the need for the West to be strong in the
defense of its prerogatives after (one logically concludes) the fashion
of the Waffen SS.

It's a sad, sad day for science fiction when some of its most popular
books potentially have the same sort of relationship to as the Western
novels of Karl May do to Hitler's dreams of a great German empire on the
vast open spaces of Europe, the main difference being that the Posleen
novels do so much more directly and dangerously and with rather less
empathy save much more directly and dangerously and with much less
empathy for their real-world victims. Germany's interest in the novels
of Karl May is reflected in a broad vein of sympathy for the First
Nations of the New World
<http://www.uwec.edu/Geography/Ivogeler/w188/articles%5Ckarlmay.htm>,
after all.

The utter moral nihilism aside, _A Watch on the Rhine_ and other books
of its ilk reflect a worrying trend in science fiction, as military
science fiction books start to crowd out more worthy and interesting
titles. Military science fiction is as valid a subgenre as any, and when
done well can be good. Haldeman's _Forever War_ comes most immediately
to mind, though others more interested in this sub-genre can doubtless
name other candidates, titles marked by strong characterization, good
plotting, effective writing styles and an appreciation for the costs of
war. Too often, though, this popular sub-genre lacks any sort of
appreciation of the requirements of good fiction and is simply
interesting in describing a future devoid of anything but killing on
galactic scales, a universe of civilizations distinguishably mainly by
the calibres of their weaponries, an existence offering nothing but
death on a massive scale.

Science fiction is a threatened genre, perhaps a dying one, lacking the
large markets and much of the potential for critical respect enjoyed by
other genre fictions. The decision of a recent reviewer of a major
science fiction novel in the Toronto _Globe and Mail_ to note in passing
that this title's awkward writing style was about as badly written as
other titles and that this was normal says it all. Who is going to be
attracted to science fiction if some of the most popular titles are
marked by nothing but an immorally amoral fascination with death? There
are other genres out there, after all, perhaps more respectable ones in
the eyes of some. Genres have lost their popular audiences before. If
there ever comes a time when science fiction is intrinsically less
deserving of respect, science fiction deserves to follow suit. Ringo,
bless his soul, is doing his best to ensure that this day comes.

--
 R.F. McDonald
 r_f_mcdon...@yahoo.ca
 http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/

 "What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course;
 for are we all not children of the same father, and the creatures of
 the same God?"

     - Voltaire, from _Treatise on Tolerance,_ 1763

*snip rightful excoriation of Ringo and Kratman*

Let me say first that I'm right with you on the topic of Baen's recent
editorial decisions.  I'd like to get that major point of agreement
right up front since the rest of my post is so disagreeable!

Look... Kratman clearly has issues.  And I thought Ringo. while being
someone I disagree with on a lot of things, knew better that to
collaborate with this sort of thing.   But the rest of your post is
kind of out there.

I'm not sure where you get the idea that SF is dying.  It's more
vibrant and popular than it has ever been, at least from where  I'm
sitting.  Far from dying out, it is increasingly embraced by the
mainstream.

Um, what?  What other genre fiction?  Westerns?  Jimmy Hoffa has more
presence these days.  Horror?  Pining for the fjords.  Romance?  SF
certainly loses on the "large markets" count but you can't possibly
argue that romance is critically respected.  Mysteries?  Nah.  What am
I missing?

I am unclear where you get the idea that _Watch on the Rhine_ is one
of SFs more popular titles.  Not that I'm defending the bestsellers
(mostly media tie ins and such) as the best SF has to offer, but I
don't think _Watch_ will even come close to those kind of sales.

Bottom line, Baen has become a total joke^H^H^H niche publisher.  They
are essentially a ghetto for unknowns looking for a shot, has-beens
churning out mediocrity and getting their backlists into print, and
raving right wing loonies.   Almost all of their best authors
eventually defect to other publishers.  (See Bujold, L.M and Stirling,
S.M. for examples.  Weber appears to be an exception.  Don't get me
wrong;  Baen serves a real purpose as a sort of professional slush
pile.  It gives people like Bujold, or even our own Sea Wasp, a chance
at making it in SF.

But very few people except the Baeniacs at Baen's Bar will ever take
them seriously with guys like  Kratman headlining for them.

Because of a couple of books from a slushpile publisher whom almost no
one takes seriously?  Come on.  When Patrick Nielsen Hayden and TOR
publish something like this, then we'll talk.

-David

It has been co-opted. Is Michael Cunningham writing science fiction if
his latest novel features interstellar travel and alien species?

One of the genres that have disappeared, I suppose.

My writing teacher at UPEI was bemused despite herself to note that
Stephen King's _On Writing_ was the best book on the fiction-writing
process she'd read, and noted further that King was an effective writer.

Yes, I can. Take _Bridget Jones' Diary,_ say.

Writers like Ian Rankin, Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell, and Henning Mankell
have received quite a lot of positive literary attention, and they
aren't exceptions to the rule.

As I mentioned, I work at a bookstore. Our inventory system tracks books
and their authors, ordering in copies of specific titles based on past
sales of the title and the author's broader popularity, along with
attention from the popular press. We ended up receiving what is, for the
science fiction section, a rather large number of hardcovers. Getting
science fiction hardcovers at all is a fairly rare phenomenon, something
associated to date only with top sellers like Clarke and Turtledove. If
we got a lot of copies of this book in, then our inventory system
expects we'll sell a lot of them.

I'm curious as to why you say that no one would take Baen seriously.
They do sell well, after all--people do pay attention to these authors
and this publishing firm, even if they aren't the people that you know.

Hayden and TOR don't need to jump off the rails for things to go badly.
The possibility that science fiction, as a genre, could become
associated with people possessing technologically-assisted genocide
fetishes has to be taken into consideration.

--
 R.F. McDonald
 r_f_mcdon...@yahoo.ca
 http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/

 "What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course;
 for are we all not children of the same father, and the creatures of
 the same God?"

     - Voltaire, from _Treatise on Tolerance,_ 1763

Yes.  That's why it's dying.  What's being published is being dragged
out of interesting territory and more and more into mediocrity and
mundanity by the possibility of mundane-level sales.  The real science
fiction is harder and harder to find.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:d...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>  Much of which is still down

In article <87r7d6713d....@gw.dd-b.net>,
 David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote:

Yep.  Gosh darn it, authors like Banks, Bujold, McCarthy, McLeod,
Morgan, Reynolds, Stross, Vinge, and Wilson are a sure sign of the
corruption and failure of modern science fiction.

                        - Damien

Of course it is. Ringo got Kratman to help him write it.

Idiots, of course. Given the vast supply, the future of sf seems
secure.

On Sat, 06 Aug 2005 23:53:33 -0400, Randy McDonald

Methinks you're giving the Waffen-SS a bit too harsh a rap here. Sure,
some divisions committed atrocities, but the link to the Holocaust and
them being a "criminal organization" comes from being inside the same
command structure that organized the Holocaust.

Now, if he had used Einsatzgruppen veterans as heroes...

// JJ

That would have been worse, sure. However, whitewashing the Waffen SS
doesn't fly. They were huge supporters of everything the Nazi party
stood for. Demonizing them as actually carrying out the Holacaust is
innacurate but closer in spirit to what they were than denying their
support of it.

I can see cutting some slack for Wehrmacht veterans. The Kreigsmarine
actually tried to keep some its Jewish officers and, in the late
Thirties, let Jewish seamen go ashore in foreign ports when anyone
would KNOW that they would go AWOL. It was possible in those days to
wear a German uniform and not be a villain. Even in the Waffen there
were probably a few people trapped by stupid youthful decisions. That
isn't the way the smart money would bet though.

Will in New Haven

--

"You don't like sitting next to hitters. They don't like to talk about
pitching and golf. They like to talk about hitting and other stuff."
- Greg Maddux

These aren't the only authors who sell, alas.

--
 R.F. McDonald
 r_f_mcdon...@yahoo.ca
 http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/

 "What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course;
 for are we all not children of the same father, and the creatures of
 the same God?"

     - Voltaire, from _Treatise on Tolerance,_ 1763

No problem. It really is quite good.

I'm not so sure about that. Certainly, the two are marketed as kindred
genres and there is a lot of authorial mobility between this areas (Nora
Roberts, for example). What is the equivalent relationship for science
fiction? Atwood and Cunningham, for instance, don't benefit from the
same sort of mobility.

--
 R.F. McDonald
 r_f_mcdon...@yahoo.ca
 http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/

 "What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course;
 for are we all not children of the same father, and the creatures of
 the same God?"

     - Voltaire, from _Treatise on Tolerance,_ 1763

A bit, I agree. As you pointed out, it isn't as if they were the
_Einsatzgrüppen._ Then again, it isn't as if they weren't a military
force with an ideologically-screened membership chosen for their
unquestioning loyalty to Naziism and Nazi goals. It certainly isn't as
if Ringo and Kratman weren't aware of this!

--
 R.F. McDonald
 r_f_mcdon...@yahoo.ca
 http://www.livejournal.com/users/rfmcdpei/

 "What! call a Turk, a Jew, and a Siamese, my brother? Yes, of course;
 for are we all not children of the same father, and the creatures of
 the same God?"

     - Voltaire, from _Treatise on Tolerance,_ 1763

    One of the SS "elite" divisions, the Totenkopfdivision, was in fact
made up of concentration camp guards, and its first commander was the
inspector-general of concentration camp guards, Theodor Eicke.

    But the SS "elite" divisions in general had a bad reputation.  Think
Malmedy (Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler), Oradour (Das Reich), Le Paradis
(Totenkopf), Audie (Hitler Jugend) --- and these were just on the
Western front.

    I'm not even going to mention some of the other units.  Don't
mention the "Prinz Eugen" division in the former Yugoslav states, for
example, unless you have a really strong stomach

       Joseph T Major

        Yep. No idea who Mr. Cunningham is, but if that's in the novel,
that's SF.

        If he's a mainstreamer, it may be BAD SF -- a lot of people who
aren't into SF who try to write it often make the silly mistakes --
but it's still SF.

        King's stuff is on the decline and has been for years. His book on
writing is interesting for some people. I never found any book
particularly useful in that arena myself.

        King CAN be an effective writer, though his best work appears to be
short stories, at least IMCGO.

        Expectations can be wrong. That's where large amounts of remainders
come from.

        I worked at Borders for over 7 years. The only way to tell for sure
is to wait until several months AFTERWARD and see what the numbers say.

        And hardcovers in SF are a lot more common than you imply; there are
even some NEWBIE authors who've gotten HC publication. Hell, Jim was
considering putting Digital Knight out in HC at one point.

        The fact is that the current market makes hardcovers actually better
propositions than paperbacks. For a number of reasons, mostly the
consolidation of the distribution approach, the paperback market is a
fraction of the size it used to be for everyone except the very, very
top selling authors and maybe one or two people a year who get lucky.
So it is, right now, much more probable that a given title will be put
out in HC than it would have been say, 10 - 15 years ago.

        Speaking AS a Baen author, no one DOES take us seriously -- in the
areas you're talking about. Aside from Bujold, I don't think any of us
have been accused of being accepted literarily; "best book" surveys in
the industry rarely include Baen materials unless they're talking
about sales or popularity.

        Fortunately, I don't think very many Baen authors have any literary
ambitions or pretensions. My interest is to write my stories. If
someone likes them and pays me money for them, that's even better.

        Not really. SF is mostly associated with, and will CONTINUE to be
associated with, lightsabers, phaser beams, funny-forehead aliens, and
so on. Fantasy is mostly associated with, and will CONTINUE to be
associated with, hobbits, elves, and dragons.

        I think Ringo and Kratman, in addition to obviously disagreeing with
your political position, would be laughing themselves sick at the idea
that their book might influence the perception of the entire genre.
Not that they'd mind, as that would probably translate to immense
crossover sales.

        Seriously, stuff like that is niche. Baen itself ISN'T, despite Dan's
statement, a niche publisher; it's a MULTIPLE-niche publisher. Baen
tries to find authors that have a clear audience and let that audience
find them. They can then sit there and write to the people who want to
read "that kind" of stuff, and make a living. I'm kinda an exception
as it's not clear there's a particular "niche" for my stuff yet.

        Ringo and Kratman don't appear to be writing stuff I want to read,
but as long as they keep SELLING, they'll keep writing. If they tank,
that may change what they write. However, in neither case do I think
that they're going to transform the entire genre perception.

        The main genre perception is driven (A) by TV and Movies, and (B) by
the PREVIOUS generation's authors who survive in popularity.

--
                                Sea Wasp
                        /^\
                        ;;;    
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/

In article <42F585BD.1...@sympatico.ca>,
Randy McDonald  <rfmcdon...@sympatico.ca> wrote:

        This is actually a throw-back to the olden days of SF, when
genocide and its cousin, negative eugenics, were core values for the
genre. In a lot of ways Baen deliberately attempts to emulate older
SF, so it isn't that suprising that a bit of fondness for state-
sanctioned mass murder turns up here and there.

        In fact, I just read two Edmund Hamilton books, a collection
and a novel[1], in which vitrually every story had the format "Alien
race doomed by entropy, attempts to deal with this, either accidentally
or deliberately menaces humanity and its allies, heroes drive off or more
often exterminate the aliens, often by turning the aliens' own tools
against them." In the first story, the aliens had no idea the solar
system was occupied and they lacked FTL. Given FTL and the ability
to relocate, there's no need for them to do whatever it was they are
doing (I think these were the "ram the Sun with their sun to restart
their sun" guys) and so the crisis could have been averted with no loss
of life. That option never comes up.

        It's also probably a bad sign that the other two galaxies that
the heros contact both seem to be dominated by a single race. In one
case that race is Evile and has exterminated all rivals but the Andromedans,
who seem to be benevolent, also have no competators. Why this is is never
explained.

1: Published in the 1960s by Donald Wollheim in a reaction against something
Wollheim angrily called "slide-rule science fiction".        
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll

David Dyer-Bennet <d...@dd-b.net> wrote in
news:87r7d6713d.fsf@gw.dd-b.net:

If science-fiction-and-fantasy can survive Gor, it can survive Kratman.

--
Jim Battista
A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

In article <Xns96AB8749CFB5Bidto...@204.153.244.170>,

The Waffen-SS isn't the German Army; it was the descendent of the early
Nazi Party's paramilitary forces. While there were some conscripts later
in the war, the vast majority were ideological volunteers; and while there
were some units that distinguished themselves in genuine battle, they were
overall known more for their war crimes then their military skill.

Which is what makes the choice so disgusting; there really isn't any
reason to pick the Waffen-SS instead of the German Army (given the
extremely stupid and tortured premise of 'revitalizing past military
heroes') than a wish to whitewash them. Not that Kratman's past wingnuttia
isn't already freaky, but at least Hillary Clinton can speak for herself.
To use the ghosts of the unnumbered and helpless dead in this way, and
then to gleefully announce that anyone who objected was merely being "PC",
as Ringo did on this forum a few weeks ago... Well, it makes me wish that
the ghosts of Oradur-sur-Glane could walk. And show Ringo and Kratman
exactly the loving mercy of the Waffen-SS.

Charming, isn't it, that Kratman is the the sort of person has teaching at
the Army War College?

--
Laura Burchard -- l...@radix.net -- http://www.radix.net/~lhb

"Good design is clear thinking made visible." -- Edward Tufte

        Oo, and trenchcoats and impossible bullet shots.

--
                                Sea Wasp
                        /^\
                        ;;;    
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/

        I found it rambling and ineffective.  Compared to _Bird by
Bird_, it deserves the remaindered status in which I found it.

                Elf

"PC" is a useful thing to whine when you point out that someone is both
a bigot and a moron, because it serves to distract attention from the
"moron" part. Ringo did that to me when I pointed out that Kratman
drools. I even had angry, unsolicted email from him, defending the man.
But whatever you may think of his paleolithic politics, that Kratman is
an idiot is clear. It might be simpler, when dealing with characters
like this, to leave it at that, or you'll end up with defenses along
the lines of saying Kratman is not as big a lunatic as Fred Phelps, and
that some of his best friends are gay and Jewish.

It's when he gets defended with the claim that if he really was an
idiot and a nutjob the army would have nothing to do with him that I am
forced to scratch my head.

Still, one may look at the bright side. When I suggested that Kratman
probably represents the bottom of the Baen barrel a while back, someone
came up with an example of arguably worse idiocy. Baen therefore
represents a publisher who can make your work, whatever its problems
may be, look intelligent by comparison; so submit that manuscript.

Yes, he is -- at least by the rules you establish below.

[...]

_Bridget Jones's Diary_ is Romance only if your Michael Cunningham
example above is Science Fiction.  That is, only if you're looking at
the contents instead of the marketing label.

If you're looking only at contents, then Science Fiction is a
vigorously healthy genre, and you have no case.

If you're looking at marketing categories, you can't count Bridget as a
point in favor of critical acclaim for other marketing ghettoes.

David Tate

On Sat, 06 Aug 2005 23:53:33 -0400, Randy McDonald

SF survived Hubbard.

It will survive 'John Ringo', whoever that is.

I hereby nominate this as Most Geodesic Straight Line of the Decade for
rec.arts.sf.written.  I can't imagine anything else will come close.

;^D

David Tate

        You couldn't even think of a good line to take advantage of it? C'mon.

--
                                Sea Wasp
                        /^\
                        ;;;    
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/

Maybe this Ringo guy will found his own cult someday.

Non-sequitur; I made no claim that *no* interesting SF was being
published.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:d...@dd-b.net>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/>
RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/>
Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/>
Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>  Much of which is still down