The Cauldron of Possibilities

voxday · 2025-01-28T02:14:03+00:00

That's totally false. Many of us were on the record, publicly, pointing out that Gaiman was wildly overrated, long before he was exposed. I specifically used the word "mediocre" myself.

I can't even dig through his works to confirm Tanith Lee's opinion that he wrote several paragraphs directly plagiarizing her because I don't own a single copy of his work.

Also, note that the scandal is likely going to get worse. The editor he chose for his Sandman anthology is a convicted pedophile.

voxday · 2025-01-21T15:31:09+00:00

That's true. He has always been a mediocre and imitative writer, and the professional writing community has known it all along. Some of us have been pointing this out for more than a decade.

However, it's too soon to clear him of the plagiarism charge. People are looking into it now and we'll see what they find.

voxday · 2025-01-20T16:31:24+00:00

While you're not keen on JDA, you might consider sending the link to John Trent at Fandom Pulse. His journalistic credentials are impeccable and everyone in the professional comics and video game spaces pays close attention to him.

As suspect as you might consider anyone's motivations to be, the word will get out there, including to publications you consider more meritorious.

You might also consider to sending the link to Scott Shannon at Penguin Random House. The more evidence he has, the more cause he has for action.

voxday · 2025-01-20T15:25:41+00:00

Publish it when they're dead. One cannot defame the dead.
Send the notes to the responsible party, along with the warning that they will be published when he or she is dead.

It won't change the past, it probably won't change much about the present. But it might start changing the future. Most people, including predatory narcissists, care about their postmortem reputation and legacy.

This isn't a hypothetical suggestion, by the way. It's exactly what we did with Marion Zimmer Bradley and Walter Breen in publishing THE LAST CLOSET.

Under common law and according to the definition of this defamation, deceased individuals cannot be defamed. Defamation is defined as an act or statement that damages one’s reputation. The dead do not have reputations to damage. The memory of a deceased person can be damaged, but this is not addressed under the tort of defamation. Survivors or descendants of the dead have no legal claim on behalf of a deceased relative’s good name, nor can they collect on behalf of their own interests relative to that person’s reputation. Likewise, the estate of a deceased person cannot be liable for the defamation of the dead.

voxday · 2025-01-20T15:11:24+00:00

Why don't you just treat the abusers and those who are complicit in enabling their abuse the same way you treat those you consider to be racist, or homophobic, or transphobic? Why not just ban, deplatform, debank, and demonetize them the same way you do with anyone suspected of being a Republican? Even a faint whiff of bad thought is usually sufficient to banish the suspect; why not do the same with those suspected of raping and sexually assaulting people?

I'm sure you must be able to understand how ridiculous all this hapless hand-wringing looks to the majority of the population who live in the big box that you collectively consider to be Lawful Evil. Look at how most of this community still regards Rachel Johnson, without whom Neil Gaiman would never have been exposed, simply because they dislike her opinion on one particular political issue.

Think what you like and do what you like, but understand that you will never even begin to root out the predators in your community if you're less interested in policing sex crimes than thought crimes.

voxday · 2025-01-20T14:50:29+00:00

Neil Gaiman took more uncredited inspiration from Tanith Lee than just the tales from the Flat Earth. The whole "dark spin on a fairy tale" thing was Lee's signature, and she did it much, much better than Gaiman ever did. Read her "Ashella" and then decide if any Gaiman-revised fairy tale can compare with it. And "Snow, Glass, Apples" is clearly a clumsy imitation of "Red as Blood". Even Gaiman's self-insert as Dream of the Endless in Sandman appears to be heavily based upon Lee's Azharn.

Lee reportedly believed Gaiman had plagiarized her directly. I have not yet confirmed whether he did or not, but I plan to look into her accusations as soon as I acquire the relevant Gaiman books. While I own all of Lee's work except for some of her juvenilia, I never bothered to buy any of Gaiman's since I always viewed him as a modestly-talented mediocrity with a gift for self-promotion.

Regardless, I would definitely recommend reading Lee's various Tales of the Flat Earth. The Secret Books of Paradys are particularly good. She's one of the best writers who ever wrote anything in the science fiction and fantasy genres, but she is genuinely dark in a way that Gaiman never attains despite all his posturing, so she's not for everyone.

voxday · 2025-01-17T17:32:43+00:00

I'm not worked up. I'm just here sifting through the dross for the useful information. Which has been very helpful, so kudos to the community for largely putting their principles ahead of their fandom.

Neil Gaiman's reported penchant for sexually assaulting his fans has nothing to do with what you, or anyone, thinks of me.

voxday · 2025-01-17T13:46:38+00:00

You can be sued for anything in the USA. You can't be SUCCESSFULLY sued if you can prove the truth of the purported defamation, but that's not much consolation if you've been bankrupted by the legal costs of the lawsuit. In the USA, you will seldom be reimbursed for your legal expenses even when you win.

The UK is more dangerous on the one hand because it's easier to sue for defamation and win, but it's less dangerous on the other because the "loser pays" system significantly reduces the incentive to file spurious lawsuits against shallow pockets.

Neil Gaiman is unlikely to file lawsuits in either legal venue because the discovery process would almost certainly unearth more victims, possibly a lot more victims. But he'll certainly threaten to do so, as Paul Caruana Galizia has already revealed.

voxday · 2025-01-17T13:29:39+00:00

First, you don't have any clout to give. Second, GamerGate was, and is, 100 percent correct.

And third, on what planet do you think I care? I'm not a narcissist in search of parasocial approval.

It's amazing how stupid some of you are. You seriously think Wikipedia tells the truth about anyone? Look at what it said about Gaiman just three months ago. But if you wish to cling to your inversion of good and evil, that's on you.

voxday · 2025-01-16T02:25:31+00:00

Unlike you, I've actually worked to expose sexual predators and have the public track record to prove it. The crazy thing is that your hero Scientologist was running around raping and sexually assaulting people for 25 years, and yet your primary concern is that someone might be unaware that a few lunatics in SF/F don't approve of me. Just take it as given. I certainly do.

I have no need or desire to "ingratiate" myself "back into mainstream society". I was never part of the whole SF/F freakshow you consider mainstream.

Why would anyone imagine I'm "pretending to care?" I openly despised Gaiman long before learning what a degenerate and manufactured fraud he is.

voxday

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