Support Your Local Jon Del Arroz

A few weeks ago, on the alternative social media site Gab (follow me), I happened to run into sf author Jon Del Arroz.

He is the author of the space opera Star Realms: Rescue Run and the new steampunk novel For Steam and Country. This second title is the first full-length novel from Superversive Press, according to John C. Wright.

Turns out he knows a little something about shoujo anime, so we bonded over our mutual love of Revolutionary Girl Utena and contempt for Cardcaptor Sakura, and I introduced him to Princess Tutu. He contacted me after a few episodes to tell me he was hooked. Seemed like a nice guy. Buy his books.

Del Arroz, however, is guilty of wrongthink. I’m not sure I have all the details, but Mike Glyer, the editor of the fanzine File 770, which has over fifty (!) Hugo award nominations, has apparently obsessed over him somewhat. Del Arroz does indeed seem to be featured on File 770 an awful lot for a guy with two novels. I’m gonna have to get tips from Del Arroz on self-promotion.

Anyway, as I understand it, Del Arroz claims he was disinvited to Baycon because he publicly supported Donald Trump. File 770 reported differently that Baycon is merely rotating its guests. Del Arroz attempted to dispute this, and his comments were censored from File 770, as Del Arroz noted on Facebook here.

This dispute led in turn to a pissing contest between Mike Glyer and prolific sf/fantasy action writer Larry Correia, which Correia chronicles for posterity here. He however leaves out the random insults from the peanut gallery, some of which I might write down to plagiarize in a novel or something. My favorite is, “Your neck looks like the eroded hillsides of Easter Island covered in gray beard hairs.”

In the midst of all of this, Glyer boasted that his web traffic was higher than Correia’s and made the mistake of posting a screencap of the same. The screencap, however, reveals that a suspicious ninety-two percent of File 770‘s traffic comes from China, likely indicating a bot farm.

I don’t for sure what the story is with Baycon, but Glyer almost certainly outed himself as faking his traffic. That’s hilarious.

After Correia posted this to his blog, Glyer began censoring links to Correia from his combox.

Anyway, this is all I care to say on the matter, but I hear good things about Del Arroz’s writing, and I sort of like him personally based on our brief encounter. So there you go. This is not a political blog, but if anyone really feels a need to know my political leanings, I consider myself #AnimeRight, though I also have some #AltFurry sympathies. To summarize my position, it is, “Shut up. I can’t hear this bad fandub over all your political talk.”

Author: D. G. D. Davidson

D. G. D. Davidson is an archaeologist, librarian, Catholic, and magical girl enthusiast. He is the author of JAKE AND THE DYNAMO.