The Decline of Baen Books as a Respectable SF Publisher

[MKSheppard]

I just read some of an upcoming Baen Book (Ragnarok by Patrick A. Vanner) and it’s due to be released formally in print next month.

What I did read did not impress me that much. The technology, tactics and characterizations were all boring and rote.

The author wastes a lot of time on describing each person in excruciating detail; “eyes the color of blah blah blah,” and each person talks in long stilted prose.

Give you an example; nobody says “This stuff’s ready for release”

Oh no. Instead they say. “This stuff is ready for release.”

While such stilted prose may be useful to show the difference between the regular line crew and the engineering department – e.g. engineers talk slowly and with exacting precision to avoid misunderstandings; vital when dealing with fusion plants; it just makes you look like a poor writer when you apply it to everyone.

Their technology is basic “Look! Fighters in space!” woo-tech. But it’s applied stupidly and without thought.

The author has the fighters making wide sweeping turns in space. This is rationalized away by saying that if you simply flipped end over end and burned in the opposite direction, you would end up going back into your drive exhaust; and while the rear of the craft is thick/hard enough to take it; the front is.

Okay, so? This is SPACE. Just burn “up” for a little bit to get out of your immediate drive plume, then do your end-over-end flip and retard your velocity.

Let’s not get into the names. Despite the book seemingly taking place in a US hegemon universe – all the human ships have “USS” prefixes, and specific references are made to US installations like Camp LeJeune…every ship has Norse-themed names, USS Asgard, USS Fenris, USS Gna, USS Hervor, etc.

Space: Above and Beyond may not have been the most ‘serious’ SF out there, but they got it right with the USS Saratoga, her hull designation SCVN-2812, and her belonging to the John F Kennedy class.

Overall, a very poor book; and a symptom of the decline of Baen Books over the last decade as their main production lines was largely taken over by John Ringo, Tom Kratman, and Michael Z. Williamson.

For the 2000-2010 decade; I count:

12 x Books devoted to the Legacy of the Allendata (Posleen War)
5 x Books devoted to the Libertopian Freehold series by Michael Z Williamson
3 x Books devoted to the Desert Called Peace series by Tom Kratman.

The LotA series can be best described as what Salvation War would’ve been if Stuart had been huffing gasoline while putting together the military mobilization planning aspect of it.

Baen does have some older “established” authors like David Drake and David Weber under contract; but they don’t produce as prolifically as they used to, and Weber’s work is not that great (Mary Sue Harrington, anyone) as it used to be.

The only real SF author of any REAL note who began publishing in the last decade is John G. Hemry (pen-name of Jack Campbell for the Lost Fleet series); who gave us the Lost Fleet Series, JAG in Space, and Stark’s War series in conjunction with ACE Books.

His books may not be on the scale or scope of another Heinlein or Clarke, but they stand significantly head and shoulders above the recent crop of authors this last decade.

[Mayabird]

Who's been running the company since Jim Baen died, anyway? It seemed like he was very active in the company and didn't have a likely successor to continue on with the work. How much could it function without him?

[Xon]

In the 2006-2007 period, after Jim Baen died, there was a major purge on the forums. And frankly the lolobertopian nutter population exploded in size after that.

[MKSheppard]

Hmm; looking at that yes, it does seem that after Jim Baen died; the Lolbertopian stuff from Williamson and Kratman exploded.

But even before Jim's death, you had the Allendata series cranking out books.

[Darth Hoth]

Kratman is not a lolbertarian. Those tend to want to abolish the state completely. While Kratman's favoured mode of government is, by all accounts, a right-wing military dictatorship. He is also not interested in preaching about this utopia or that, but more in detailed descriptions of how the Mohammedan terrorists and Liberal race traitors are tortured. (Not to mention impaled, crucified, strangulated, submitted to involuntary gender reassignment surgery . . . )

If I were to put a political label on him, it would be something on the order of "reactionary authoritarian militarist" or suchlike.

I used to like his early books somewhat (a guilty pleasure, sort of - and purely technically, he is not really such an awful author), but then apparently he went completely insane as the A Desert Called Peace series progressed.

Although Williamson is assuredly a lolbertarian and does preach extensively. While also being the same kind of insane militarist, and a raving hypocrite to boot.

[MKSheppard]

He is also not interested in preaching about this utopia or that, but more in detailed descriptions of how the Mohammedan terrorists and Liberal race traitors are tortured.

Even Weber isn't immune to this. Remember the dumbshit reporter in one of Weber's "Starfire" Books who went someplace he wasn't supposed to be on a carrier flight deck and got his arms/limbs amputated in a horribly hilarious accident?

Weber had the postscript that the government paid for his mechanical limbs/surgery/regrowth of cloned limbs whatever.

[Darth Hoth]

Yeah, I know. And perhaps that makes me a horrible person, but I can and do find those kinds of things amusing, sometimes, as well.

Kratman is generally overdoing it, though.

[Mr Bean]

But even before Jim's death, you had the Aldenata series cranking out books.

You forget Sheppard that John Ringo and Jim Baen were big time friends. The early Ringo books state as much in the afterwords and I can't remeber which Posleen book he wrote around the time Jim died but the afterword for that one out and out said that John Ringo and Jim Baen were big time BFF, like take your kids and grandkids to my barbecue on his xmas card list time BFFs.

Of course he's going to keep getting published if he and Jim are good friends no matter how nonsensical the books get your not going to shit all over your friends work. We've gone around an around on that shit before. Besides Ringo's books sell so no matter how much tripe they are, books which sell are books that get published.

[MKSheppard]

Of course he's going to keep getting published if he and Jim are good friends no matter how nonsensical the books get your not going to shit all over your friends work.

Well now that explains a lot.

Besides Ringo's books sell so no matter how much tripe they are, books which sell are books that get published.

Sadly. Though remember, even Clancy bombed so badly with Bear and Dragon, Red Rabbit, and Teeth of Tiger; taht we haven't seen a new book from him in like 5-7 years...

[Thanas]

How truly hilarious has Clancy become, anyway? I only read his absolutely awful "China tries to invade Russia" book.

[Srelex]

Wasn't he the one who had Japan suddenly go into WW2 Banzai mode on America with kamikaze attacks on the Capitol for some bullshit reason lately?

[Pelranius]

Clancy has Jack Ryan junior and his twin cousins running around trying to stop some evil alliance of Al Qaeda terrorists and Colombian druglords, assassinating terrorists through hypodermic applications of a solution developed by a doctor whose brother was on one of the planes (I think the second one to hit the WTC). 9/11 still happens on schedule. Straw liberal Ed Kealty has become president somehow, after some klukker (KKK member, for those of you who don't use American political slang) assassinated Bobby Jackson. And a new book is coming out this fall or winter.

And I think he reset all the changes he did to the Middle East and Asia so it would fit in with modern geopolitics.

[Thanas]

Clancy has Jack Ryan junior and his twin cousins running around trying to stop some evil alliance of Al Qaeda terrorists and Colombian druglords, assassinating terrorists through hypodermic applications of a solution developed by a doctor whose brother was on one of the planes (I think the second one to hit the WTC). 9/11 still happens on schedule. Straw liberal Ed Kealty has become president somehow, after some klukker (KKK member, for those of you who don't use American political slang) assassinated Bobby Jackson. And a new book is coming out this fall or winter.

Sounds like Garbage.

And I think he reset all the changes he did to the Middle East and Asia so it would fit in with modern geopolitics.

So this is pretty much just an attempt to make cash and hoping people will notice "Ryan" on the cover...and purchase the stuff, while Clancy himself does not care anymore for his earlier continuity.

[Zaune]

I made the mistake of paying money for the sequel to Freehold, whose title escapes me, and it's possibly the worst book I've ever read. The Legacy of the Aldenata series might have been a thinly disguised continuity-reboot fanfic of Starship Troopers written by someone who actually liked the original, but at least Ringo has the decency not to make the alleged good guys of the book commit terrorist atrocities that kill hundreds of thousands of civilians and claim it's perfectly justified by the fact that they're governed by straw liberals.

[Samuel]

It is called The Weapon.

Legacy of the Aldenata series might have been a thinly disguised continuity-reboot fanfic of Starship Troopers written by someone who actually liked the original,

I object to that- the military in Starship Troopers was competant and didn't pretend that their armored suits was the end all of warfare. They were just for raids- the navy could conduct orbital bombardment. The Posleen are too stupid to even do that right.

[Zaune]

I object to that- the military in Starship Troopers was competant and didn't pretend that their armored suits was the end all of warfare. They were just for raids- the navy could conduct orbital bombardment. The Posleen are too stupid to even do that right.

Well, I never said it was a good thinly-disguised continuity reboot.

[Pelranius]

So this is pretty much just an attempt to make cash and hoping people will notice "Ryan" on the cover...and purchase the stuff, while Clancy himself does not care anymore for his earlier continuity.

Sort of makes one wonder exactly how hard it would be to set new characters in a new continuity. It's not like anything would be lost by changing Jack Ryan Jr's name.

Of course, that didn't save Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising. China experiences a famine due to global climate change and invades Vietnam, which apparently has a lot of food (never mind that Vietnam is going to be fucked over when it comes to food a lot more than China with global climate change due to the Mekong running dry and more typhoons ).

[dworkin]

But without Baen Books how can we know of the future history in which Real Men battle the commie mutant traitors of liberal ideology?

Case in point is the Prince Roger Series. The company's battle across hill and vale of nasty alien world was good. The initial attack to set this up was laughable. The enemy isn't just a rival polity, they're Baby Eating Greenpeace.

[Batman]

As long as Baen lasts long enough to let me see Manpower and Mesa being torn apart I don't particularly care what they do with the REST of their SciFi/Fan series.

[Falkenhayn]

Batman, huge spoilers.
Spoiler

Operation Oyster Bay destroys ALL of the Manticore system's orbital armaments/shipbuilding infrastructure, and kills 99% of their attendant staffs, about 5 million people. The rain of debris kills the LaFolletts, and the great part of Honor's family, but not her mother, father or children.

The political settlement with Haven is exactly what you thought it would be when you finished At All Costs and Shadow of Saganami.

[Simon_Jester]

But even before Jim's death, you had the Aldenata series cranking out books.

You forget Sheppard that John Ringo and Jim Baen were big time friends. The early Ringo books state as much in the afterwords and I can't remeber which Posleen book he wrote around the time Jim died but the afterword for that one out and out said that John Ringo and Jim Baen were big time BFF, like take your kids and grandkids to my barbecue on his xmas card list time BFFs.

Of course he's going to keep getting published if he and Jim are good friends no matter how nonsensical the books get your not going to shit all over your friends work. We've gone around an around on that shit before. Besides Ringo's books sell so no matter how much tripe they are, books which sell are books that get published.

I think the problem came when Ringo's work (which is right on the ragged edge of how crappy you can make military SF before the crappiness starts to overrun the entertainment value) drew in other people who were even less good than Ringo, and even nuttier politically (Kratman being the prime example).

At that point, the lolbertarians and fascists hit critical mass. My impression is that Baen had always self-consciously separated itself from "dirty liberal" mainstream SF, dating back to the days when Baen was one of the few people willing to publish military SF in the immediate post-Vietnam era when the military was unpopular. That trend accelerated after they let Ringo in as a major author, and finally got completely out of control with Kratman (and possibly Williamson, who I am less familiar with).

But without Baen Books how can we know of the future history in which Real Men battle the commie mutant traitors of liberal ideology?

Case in point is the Prince Roger Series. The company's battle across hill and vale of nasty alien world was good. The initial attack to set this up was laughable. The enemy isn't just a rival polity, they're Baby Eating Greenpeace.

This was not made so clear until the third and fourth books... in fact, I think we can see an illustration of the decay of the publisher here. The first two books (published in 2001?) were straight adventure stories, and were entertaining on that basis. In the third book I think Ringo's political interests started hijacking the story, and it kept getting worse from there.

[Uraniun235]

Yeah, they even overran the Bolo franchise, I remember there was a Bolo book written by Ringo relatively recently that was basically super-evil BIG GOV'T LIBRULZ literally destroying an entire planetary society in their mad lust for power, complete with bullshit "but this character made it because her hubby was basically a survivalist" scenarios.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Wasn't he the one who had Japan suddenly go into WW2 Banzai mode on America with kamikaze attacks on the Capitol for some bullshit reason lately?

The attack on the capitol building in 'debt of honor' was the act of a Japanese airline pilot who'd just had both of his sons killed during a brief quasi-war with America. It wasn't sanctioned by the Japanese government, and it was the only kamikaze attack.

[MKSheppard]

Batman, huge spoilers.

Spoiler

Just for lols I went and read it on the Honorverse wiki; and...1% of treecat population only killed? Fuck.

The attack has catastrophic consequences for Manticore's economy and military strength: most of the workforce trained to build ships of war is gone, as is most of the missile-building capacity. Twelve million people have been killed, and no one even knows where the attack came from. Queen Elizabeth, however, makes it clear that she will not allow her Empire to fall before its enemies.

LOL. You stupid bitch. You just lost 99% of your industrial capacity; you simply have no way of replacing OMFG TEH MISSILESPAM in which your dildodreads fire 120% of their mass in missiles in a typical engagement.

Not to mention you can't replace destroyed ships or equipment anymore; while the enemy can bring in new ships easily. This is the freaking equivalent of Japan in 1945 after LeMay's B-29s incinerated the majority of their industrial capacity -- they still remain enough dispersed/small light industrial capacity to build small quantity runs of missiles; and small light attack craft; but the big stuff? No way.

And of course, the end of the book is the basic equivalent of the UK and Germany suddenly, in May 1945 deciding to ally with each other.

[eyl]

Baen have had a strong right-wing contigent since well before Jim Baen's death - allegedly, that was the reason Mercedes Lackey left.

However, they do have authors which don't fit that profile - e.g. Weber (relatively, especially in his later books), Eric Flint, and Lois Bujold (note that these authors have a relatively low output in Bane because they're also published by other labels, compared to Ringo and Kratman who AFAIK have been published solely by Baen).

Yeah, they even overran the Bolo franchise, I remember there was a Bolo book written by Ringo relatively recently that was basically super-evil BIG GOV'T LIBRULZ literally destroying an entire planetary society in their mad lust for power, complete with bullshit "but this character made it because her hubby was basically a survivalist" scenarios.

Ah yes, The Road to Damascus...

but at least Ringo has the decency not to make the alleged good guys of the book commit terrorist atrocities that kill hundreds of thousands of civilians and claim it's perfectly justified by the fact that they're governed by straw liberals.

Hundreds of thousands? That was just the warmup...The Weapon ends with a series of strikes which kill six billion people on Earth.