I’m running a little behind on this, but I’ve caught up on things today, so I’ll devote a few minutes to pointing it out. The target this time is John Ringo, who started writing military SF in 1999 and has had several appearances on the New York Times bestseller list. He was scheduled as a special guest for ConCarolinas 2018, to be held starting June 1 in Charlotte, but has now withdrawn. As far as I can tell, Ringo has not been involved in the Sad/Rabid Puppies activist movement at all, so he was singled out apparently based on the community’s perceptions of his politics.
You’d think a writer with these credentials would be considered an asset for any SFF convention, but Ringo falls on the conservative side of the spectrum. According to Eric Flint, Ringo “more-or-less anchors the right wing in science fiction.”
Ringo was challenged as a guest with the usual charges against conservative writers, that he is racist, sexist, homophobic and misogynist. I’m not familiar with his work, so I checked around. Regardless of the author’s conservatism, his novels seem to feature diverse characters, and Flint even noted that in some cases Ringo stretches reality in his representation of powerful women fighters. I also found an opinion from the female ex-military R.G. Dole that the question is a matter of realism versus fantasy, and that Ringo represents things as they happen in the real world, rather than a fantasy world we’d like to believe in.
After the Con announced Ringo as special guest, the opposition quickly heated up with other guests and attendees threatening to boycott. On social media, Ringo’s work was described as “rape fantasy” and comments ran to the effect that female attendees would not feel safe with him there, presumably because of this Ghost series.
At first the Con staff tried to stand their ground, quoting their policy against harassment, but eventually the hostility got to the point where they encouraged Ringo to withdraw due concerns about his personal safety—which he then did. Jon Del Arroz immediately interpreted this as trend toward bans on conservative authors at SFF conventions.
So, what did this accomplish? It’s certainly not going to hurt John Ringo a lot. He’s already got a solid spot on a national Best Seller list and this is just more publicity for him. It seriously annoyed the staff at the Con, as John is a successful author and had by far the biggest fan base of the invited guests. As a result of the harassment, they were faced with hiring expensive security to ensure his safety and faced liability issues in case things got out of hand. Con attendees lost out on Ringo’s input on the panels, where he might have discussed his personal approach to writing and marketing. Basically, all I can see that this did was provide still another example of activist author bullying. In this case, the staff at the Con was bullied, too. How should the SFF community respond?
I think I need to buy and review few of Ringo’s books. I might attend the Con in support of the staff, too.
See review of Ghost by John Ringo here.
thephantom182
Apr 21, 2018 @ 15:44:37
“I think I need to buy and review few of Ringo’s books.”
Yes you do. ~:D
Do not start with Ghost. It is heavy S&M pr0nz, and does not represent the rest of the books. I’ve read essentially everything he’s ever written, except the Ghost series. I’m not a fan of S&M in books or in RL.
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Lela E. Buis
Apr 21, 2018 @ 16:10:32
S&M? Are you talking about sex?
Hm. Nobody complained about 50 Shades of Gray. That makes this sort of sexist, doesn’t it?
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thephantom182
Apr 21, 2018 @ 16:42:33
“Nobody complained about 50 Shades of Gray.”
I had not considered that. Excellent point. Romance cons are not excluding the “50 Shades” author because of complaints that women feel “unsafe.”
It should also be pointed out that Mr. Ringo has been a guest at ConCarolinas before, and has not murder/death/killed anyone. What we’re left with is a hate campaign directed at one man for no good reason, its politics again. Same thing they did to Greg Hullender, just a different target, plus upping the ante with threats of violence.
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David VanDyke
Apr 21, 2018 @ 16:44:52
To be fair, the niches are different, and I agree with 182 in general–the Ghost series is not representative, and the overlap between SFF readers and S&M readers is (commercially) small, and likely to turn off more people than it turns on (so to speak).
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Lela E. Buis
Apr 25, 2018 @ 14:58:04
David, I don’t know about the overlap between SFF and S&M. Over the years, I’ve read a couple of very successful series where it was right out there. Plus there are a couple or three publishing companies that specialize in SFF erotica. There may be more readers than we think.
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greghullender
Apr 25, 2018 @ 15:17:08
Most of the SFF magazines I follow have strict rules against erotica. “We’re a family magazine” some of them say. (But there are exceptions.) That probably contributes to the general feeling that sex doesn’t belong in SFF, and certainly not kinky sex.
For the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to keep track of how many stories feature characters who are gay or lesbian. What has surprised me is how many stories give you no clue at all because the character never expresses any interest in anyone or anything. I don’t mean actual sex scenes. I mean even something at the “gosh, she’s pretty” level.
I did get people dumping on me for being “anti-kink” after I recommended against a story that involved sexual mutilation. Yeah, they were immortal. Yeah, they healed back 100%. Yeah, it was consensual. But it was very graphic, and it totally grossed me out. Let’s just say that 100% of real people in the real world would have died if they did this.
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thephantom182
Apr 25, 2018 @ 15:45:15
Greg Hullender said: “I did get people dumping on me for being “anti-kink” after I recommended against a story that involved sexual mutilation.”
I will take a wild, wild guess and say that these are the same type of people complaining of how “unsafe” Ringo is this week.
And I’m with you, a story about immortals cutting their bits off for a kick does not sound good. But it -does- sound like something plenty of SJWs would trumpet as New! and Edgy! and call you a square for not liking it.
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greghullender
Apr 25, 2018 @ 16:34:06
I haven’t really seen people complaining about his books. I’ve seen mostly complaints about his behavior on panels. That’s what would best justify excluding him from a Con, after all. The narrative becomes: “Once someone complained in public there was an avalanche of complaints, and his own documentation of his own behavior was enough to hang him.”
I’m sure that’s not the whole story, and it’s possible it’s mostly after-the-fact rationalization. But it guarantees that he’s no one I want to be defending.
It’s also worth pointing out that there’s a difference between consensual kink and non-consensual kink, but, right at the moment, it doesn’t seem to me that that ended up being the big issue here.
Maybe a lot of things in real life fall out like that. Someone makes an utterly off-base complaint. In response others, who might have normally stayed silent, raise a variety of complaints, encouraging still more complaints. Only some of the complaints turn out to be serious, but the ones that are serious are very serious indeed.
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rgdole
Apr 21, 2018 @ 17:58:32
I would start with Into the Looking Glass. That whole series is amazing, and while it is mostly men in it, the women that show up are very intelligent and often the ones coming up with the answers. One of the books even deals with a head guy trying to make one of them women do just their job, and to not go meddling in anything else, and all the men stick up for her, and point out all the things she’s helped them achieve. So I find it really hard to see how people can honestly call him sexist. Also, thanks for checking out my blog. Nice to know someone is reading it.
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thephantom182
Apr 21, 2018 @ 18:47:31
“So I find it really hard to see how people can honestly call him sexist.”
Once you accept that there’s nothing honest about it, the whole thing starts to make a lot more sense. ~:D
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Lela E. Buis
Apr 21, 2018 @ 23:35:57
Thanks for checking in, RG, and for the suggestion. I linked to your blog above, so maybe you’ll get some traffic from it.
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rgdole
Apr 25, 2018 @ 22:09:23
Knowing that someone manages to stumble across my blog every now and then is enough for me. 😀
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Lela E. Buis
Apr 26, 2018 @ 00:46:39
The magic of Google.
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thephantom182
Apr 21, 2018 @ 22:04:51
Speaking of blacklisting and removing conservatives, here’s some related news. It appears that large Silicon Valley firms may be using Big Data to generate a blacklist of conservatives in tech.
http://www.breitbart.com/radio/2018/04/20/dhillon-silicon-valley-actively-trying-blacklist-conservatives-hiring-engines/
Fun, yes?
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Lela E. Buis
Apr 21, 2018 @ 22:14:36
I got Ghost. Might as well get to the heart of the issue right off.
If Ringo has been attacked just for writing erotica, then this is something the SF community needs to look at because that’s a legitimate subgenre. Vox Day opened the floodgates, and there’s a fantasy erotica finalist in the Nebula list this year.
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vivienneraper
Apr 22, 2018 @ 01:10:59
I wouldn’t start with Ghost; it’s a huge joke and not representative of his other work.
I like his Monster Hunter Memoir books; they’re basically Monster Hunter International fan fic. He’s a really good pulp writer – gets straight into the action, guns blazing (in most cases, literally) and apparently writes 10000s of words a day. His stuff reads like a sharp, pulp version of Stephen King – almost like he’s telling a tall tale in a bar somewhere. No idea how he does all that, but it’s really impressive.
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yamamanama
Apr 22, 2018 @ 01:15:39
I would start with not reading anything by Ringo at all.
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Shadowdancer Duskstar / Cutelildrow
Apr 25, 2018 @ 05:09:55
Since you’ve already started with Ghost, may I suggest that you follow it up with Monster Hunter Memoirs? They’re seriously fun, and is a better example of “MUST WRITE BECAUSE ENJOYING AWESOME WORLD” from John.
http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/24/new-monster-hunter-international-project-announcements/
I believe the last book in the trilogy will be out this year. It’s one of those series that my husband has to take away from me periodically because if he doesn’t I finish the book in an hour or two.
If you would like extra entertainment, read the comments in that post.
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yamamanama
Apr 22, 2018 @ 00:33:08
Uh, I think the name Ringo is of English origin.
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Lela E. Buis
Apr 22, 2018 @ 01:40:32
Thanks for the tip. I checked for the name origin and came up with Japanese, English and Spanish. Being born in in Dade County FL strongly suggests Cuban ancestry, but I don’t see right off that he advertises himself as a minority writer, so maybe I should take that out of the title.
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yamamanama
Apr 22, 2018 @ 00:36:07
And Ringo’s novels remind me of the random books lying about in Avernum 3.
NIGHT OF THE BLOOD FANG, by Q. King, Esq. – Chad Hardslab, who had recently and through many years of brave fighting and hardship, been declared a Dervish of the mighty Empire army, looked over the veldt.
“Tonight,” he boomed, “tonight, in a bloody, detailed way, those fool Nephilim scum will pay for killing my mother, father, brother, grandmother, other brother, first love, sister, second love, and teacher!” He drew his swords, and strode forth.
THE FURY OF THE NEPHILIM – Hrrmrr drew his sword and strode forth from the crude, disgusting mud hut in which the foul feline creature lived with his disgusting brethren. “Now I go forth!” he cried.
“Now I go forth, and slay humans, and butcher their children, and interfere with their farm animals foully, for that is my purpose on this Earth. And the Empire shall never get all of us, no matter what they do!”
Stone Slabthigh plunged deep into the Nephilim fortress, his mighty blade tossing his foes to and fro. His lust for the death of the barbaric creatures was undeniable.
And then, in one massive, epic, spasm of violence, his work was done. The grotesque bodies were piled around him waist high. And there, across the throne room, he saw Princess Aldevarrha, the object of his quest …
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Lela E. Buis
Apr 22, 2018 @ 12:45:51
RE: Ghost
Okay, this is really funny. Has anybody mentioned that it’s got elements of satire? The adventure story is rolling right along, but the commentary is clearly aimed a tightening up a particular group of people.
I love subtext.
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greghullender
Apr 23, 2018 @ 10:58:06
Here’s a puzzle, though. ConCarolinas is a conservative con, no? Like LibertyCon. Most of the people on their committee (or whatever they call their organizing body) probably agree with Ringo’s politics. Why they heck did they kick him out? They certainly had no reason to care what folks on File770 think.
Several people have suggested the real cause was that his behavior on panels is unacceptable. He talks over people, won’t let others talk, tries to take over the panel, etc. He even admits this himself.
I’ve been a moderator for a panel where someone tried to take over. I can easily understand how that would create hard feelings that would last for years.
So my best guess is that when the committee met to decide what to do, it had too many people on it who felt they’d been burned by him–politics be damned.
Without some comments from people actually on the committee we’ll never know, but it seems plausible to me. More plausible than thinking a conservative convention kicked out a known conservative just for being conservative.
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thephantom182
Apr 23, 2018 @ 22:33:01
“More plausible than thinking a conservative convention kicked out a known conservative just for being conservative.”
So what then, Greg, ‘he was asking for it’? If he’s such a dick, why did the con invite him?
There’s no debate around what happened. Ringo was invited, accepted, they announced he was attending as a special guest author. People started posting things about how they were going to go to ConCarolinas and punch the Nazi. The con decided they didn’t want to hire -armed-cops- to guard the special guest author. That’s what happened.
The special guest author said he’s happy to stay home and not have to deal with idiots spitting on him in the hallways of a crappy hotel. Which has happened before, as outlined rather nicely in that link you posted.
It’s a Shirtstorm.
Just like the one you went through recently. Difference between your experience and Ringo’s is that this time the mob started threatening violence against his person. Same retards, different tactic.
Ask yourself this question: if NK Jemisin was announced as special guest author at LibertyCon, do you think random people would send hundreds of emails threatening to punch the commie, and they’d have to hire bodyguards for her? Would Sarah Hoyt and Larry Correia withdraw from the con in high dudgeon, declaiming their denunciation of Teh Eevile Norah, more in sorrow than in anger, of course. Do you -really- think that would happen?
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greghullender
Apr 24, 2018 @ 15:43:01
I didn’t see anyone actually threatening violence. I saw people saying they wouldn’t participate if he were on their panels, and all of those posts cited his politics. I guess there wouldn’t be links to such threats . . .
I heard the claim from the Con that they didn’t think they could guarantee his safety, but I wasn’t sure how seriously to take that. (It sounded like “He’s resigning to spend more time with his family,” which, of course, means “He was forced out.”)
It’s true that Eric and I got no death threats, but your comment does make me wonder. I’ve heard that the people involved are unhappy that Rocket Stack Rank still exists. Apparently they thought that after Locus kicked me off their panel that we’d just disappear; that people would stop visiting the site and we’ve give up.
But the truth is, we had double our normal volume for about a month, and we had picked up an extra ~20% by the time it all blew over. We’re actually better off than we were before. I doubt they’ll try the same tactic again; it clearly didn’t work very well for them.
So will they try threats of violence next time? I doubt it. Our enemies are really just thin-skinned authors who spend too much time on twitter telling each other that we’re morally wrong for giving them bad reviews.
As for why CarolinasCon invited Ringo, I don’t know how these things work. As you say, he was pretty much a known quantity. However, most people running things are very uncomfortable making arguments that sound like personal self-interest. “I moderated a panel this guy was on, and he put me through Hell, so I hate him forever. Don’t invite him.” But if they can pretend they’re acting in someone else’s interest, then Katie bar the door.
If you think this really was about threats of violence, though, that’s a different kettle of fish entirely. Rereading your post above, you do mention it, but you play it down. How come? I’d like to think that everyone on both sides should be able to agree that no one should ever have to withdraw from a Con due to threats of violence. If I thought there were serious threats of violence, I’d play down the politics, not the violence. “It doesn’t matter why people were unhappy with him, this is a threat to us all.”
As for your last question, I guess I really don’t know either LibertyCon nor the individuals in question well enough to predict with any confidence what they might or might not try to do. I’d be inclined to say “no,” but I wouldn’t be hugely surprised if they did. Not nearly as surprised as I’d be if Jemisin were invited and accepted. 🙂
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Skaeling
Mar 04, 2019 @ 07:18:08
So, a bit late to the party it seems but I’ll respond to your comments about him taking over panels and talking over people. First, the link you provided was from a 2006 con so we’re over a decade from that ‘self-admitted’ instance. Second, I have actually been to panels with him on it multiple times (DragonCon 2012 and 2016) and spoken to him directly a few times myself. I’ve actually been impressed with his professionalism in these instances. He was genuinely funny during his turns to speak and mostly kept quiet when others were talking and throughout most of the panel. Honestly I could wish to hear a bit more from him but he listened to what others had to say and responded to those points At no point did I see his attitude in panels could be a legitimate reason for banning him from a con. Now admittedly I’ve had limited interaction with him but from what I’ve seen, that excuse seems pretty thin.
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Lela E. Buis
Apr 25, 2018 @ 01:37:58
ConCarolinas gave the impression there were threats as they issued a statement that they were faced with hiring armed security and didn’t feel they could guarantee Ringo’s safety. I imagine they were visualizing the kind of mob scene that’s hit some other venues where people have rushed the stage and injured bystanders trying to get at the special guest. It’s not the kind of liability you’d want to accept, especially as a small con.
I’ve finished up Ghost, and I see what the problem is. This is actually a complex work, but it could also be considered highly irresponsible. I’ll have the review up tomorrow sometime.
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chuck dash parker dot net – your unreliable narrator » Blog Archive » friday random eleven – “first year teacher sick” edition
May 25, 2018 @ 07:32:45
CW Whitney
Sep 12, 2019 @ 06:31:42
John Ringo is nothing but a miniature of Donald Trump in his belief system. His books are for 10 year olds, seriously, there is nothing there. He left his first wife and kids, then forced his second wife to get breast implants, so get serious, he’s just another pawn for conservatives
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Lela E. Buis
Sep 12, 2019 @ 09:46:25
Thanks for checking in. We haven’t really made any comments on his personal life. Apparently he has made appearances at other cons without ill effects. Should all con guests be screened for appropriate personal belief systems? Do you think his appearance at ConCarolinas would have made anyone especially “unsafe”? Would he have attacked anyone or advocated that they be attacked?
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Anonymous
May 10, 2020 @ 22:41:59
I’m 56 yrs old and I’ve read his books several times over. So I don’t care for your 10 yr old comment. Also I am a conservative, so I don’t care for your Trump comment either. But the bottom line is that this is America and you have freedom of speech. On the other hand, liberals also shouldn’t limit free speech either, and that’s who I see mostly doing it in today’s society. It’s the whole “I don’t like what you’re saying, so nobody should hear it”. Again the bottom line is if you don’t like what someone is saying then DON’T LISTEN. Bunch of snowflake butter cups.
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Lela E. Buis
Sep 12, 2019 @ 13:02:22
P.S. Here’s my review of Ghost. I can see a lot of satire there.
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Suzan Bistrup
Aug 18, 2021 @ 13:52:52
I have read and enjoy many of John Ringo’s works. I am a woman and a twenty year combat veteran (Army, so right there where the bullets and mortars were for ten of those years), and I must agree that his stuff is real.
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Anonymous
Aug 18, 2021 @ 13:54:01
Eagerly awaiting the follow-on series to the Troy Rising trilogy.
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Lela E. Buis
Aug 18, 2021 @ 21:52:53
Good to hear it from both of you. In general I’d recommend Ringo’s work, though it tends to be transgressive. It will tighten up a lot of people.
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Captain Dan
Apr 24, 2022 @ 11:05:54
I have read and reread almost all of Ringo’s works. I have had time as I was born in the early forties and remember horse drawn milk and ice wagons even after the war ended. I look forward to his latest works and wonder if he has lost touch with his muse or daemon or if his publishers are discouraging him. I would hope that the opinions of less prolific authors have not done permanent damage to his genius. I look forward to a follow on to Queen of Wands and can see great interest in the out of the box adventures of Tyler Vernon, or was it Vernon Tyler?
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Anonymous
Oct 15, 2023 @ 16:16:02
I bought more of his books and recommended them to the local library. The SFF people are a good part of the decline of literature.
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Anonymous
Oct 19, 2023 @ 00:32:37
Why has John Ringo not published lately, perhaps due to bullying?
If I am willing to pay for a book by him is that not my right? Is that not how the freemarket works? Do we need politically correct monitors like Canada has? Try to buy a gun magazine there.
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