yeago works

After reading the leading phrase in this article by Cory Doctorow (”My Nebula-award-nominated story 0wnz0red….”), I was reminded of a debate on my friend-mailinglist about this short-story. My friend kristen summed Doctorow’s 0wnz0red up in a few very well-put paragraphs (below). I considered this summary to be so well-thought out that I wanted to put it out there to BoingBoing for response, because it definitely presents great points to anyone who has ever enjoyed any great science-fiction Nebula-awarded writer.

Had I realized the terror which the BoingBoing crowd regards criticism with, I wouldn’t have bothered. The whole thread became a mess as the moderaters deleted and censored comments and usernames left and right. They accused me of being the sockpuppet of some Emannuel Goldstein named TheCynic and I’m no longer welcome. But for the words below, it is well worth it. Without further ado, kristen put it:

I’m not sure why 0wnz0red was nominated for a Nebula, but I can see why it didn’t win. I find that I don’t walk away from reading Cory Doctorow having gained anything valuable. It’s a very snappy, clever story with plenty of paragraphs of twenty percent jargon that I happen to understand but that caters to a very narrow audience and provides even them with hardly more than an occasional chuckle of recognition. There is no human point, no insight. (The idea of controlling our bodies’ functions sputtered out without going anywhere and is sort of a darts-at-post-its plot idea anyway).

The reason he is such an internet hit is because he is an internet writer. That’s his thing. The best science fiction writers, though, figure out a way to convey the idea that their science, (often, though not necessarily, more broad or conceptual), ties into one or more foundational aspects of the human condition, as well as tying into others fields of study. Worthwhile art needs to be in some way universally understood, and understood to be in some sense true.

To think of people who win the Nebula, like Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Larry Niven, Orson Scott Card, is to think of a whole different order of writer. Even if you confine your comparison to within the cyberpunk spectrum, Doctorow cannot write on the level of your William Gibsons and Neil Stephensons. The fact the he won the lesser awards that he did is just a common case of critical error. His internet personality and nonfiction work propelled critics to give him more than his due in an effort to publicly recognize the new wave. Critics and award-givers make mistakes.

I don’t know. 0wnz0red seems equivalent to a very well-polished upper level undergraduate student’s story. The characters seem on the surface to be real—they move and talk and react the way a real person might, if exaggerated—but there isn’t really anything going on inside their heads, and the only purpose of any science in the story is to give the empty people something to do and talk about. I understand he uses his work as yet another avenue for his internet activism, but he needs to stick to nonfiction.

The above was dismissed as “screed” and the moderators removed all the vowels (which, they’ve somehow convinced themselves is not censorship). Sorry, but whatever side of the fence you are on about 0wnz0red, the above is very balanced and measured, cool-headed and a very open-ended as far as prompting discussion.

Update: kristen chimes in

Update 2: If you wade through the comments, TheCynic gives a few other recent examples of users being censored and banned for some suprisingly silly things.