Vox Day

Vox Day
Vox Day 2007 promotional photo
Born Theodore Beale
(1968-08-21) August 21, 1968
Education Bucknell University
Known for Writer, computer game designer, publisher, musician
Parent(s) Rebecca Beale[1]
Robert Beale[1]
Website voxday.blogspot.com

Theodore Robert Beale (born August 21, 1968), professionally known as Vox Day, is an American writer, editor, video game designer, blogger and alt-right activist.

Early life and music career

Beale grew up in Minnesota, the son of Rebecca and Robert Beale.[1] He states on his blog that he is of English, Irish, Mexican, and Native American descent.[2] He graduated from Bucknell University in 1990.[3]

Beale was a member of the band Psykosonik between 1992 and 1994,[4][5] and he appeared in the band's video for "Welcome to my Mind".[6] Psykosonik also operated a music company called Power of Seven that provided music for video games by Raven and Bungie.[7][8]

Video game and writing career

Beale and Andrew Lunstad founded a video game company in 1993 named Fenris Wolf. They developed the game Rebel Moon in 1995, and its sequel Rebel Moon Rising in 1997.[9] Fenris Wolf was developing two games, Rebel Moon Revolution and Traveler for the Sega Dreamcast, when it closed in 1999 after a legal dispute with its retail publisher GT Interactive Software.[10] In 1999, under the name Eternal Warriors, Beale and Lunstad released The War in Heaven, a Biblical video game published by Valusoft and distributed by GT Interactive.[11] Beale holds the design patent for WarMouse (known as the OpenOffice Mouse until Sun Microsystems objected on trademark grounds[12]), a computer mouse with 18 buttons, a scroll wheel, a thumb-operated joystick, and 512k of memory.[13][14][15] Beale was an early supporter of Gamergate and hosted the GGinParis meetup in July 2015 with Milo Yiannopoulos and Mike Cernovich.[16]

Beale first began writing under the name Vox Day for a weekly video game review column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press,[17] and later continued to use the pen name for a weekly WorldNetDaily opinion column. In 2000, Beale published his first solo novel, The War in Heaven, the first in a series of fantasy novels with a religious theme titled The Eternal Warriors. The novel investigates themes "about good versus evil among angels, fallen and otherwise".[18]

Beale served as a member of the Nebula Award Novel Jury in 2004[19] and in 2007.[20]

In 2008 Beale published The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens,[3] a book devoted to criticizing the arguments presented in various books by atheist authors Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Michel Onfray.[21] The book was named a 2007 Christmas recommendation by John Derbyshire in the online conservative magazine National Review Online.[22] Beale's 2008 book, Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy, was a finalist for an American Christian Fiction Writers award in 2009.[23]

In 2015 Beale released SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police, a book about activists online concerned with social justice, referred to disparagingly as "social justice warriors", which was billed as, "[a] guide to understanding, anticipating, and surviving SJW attacks." The book was positively reviewed by the conservative online magazine American Thinker.[24]

In 2016 Beale created an alternative online encyclopedia project called Infogalactic.com from a mirror site of Wikipedia's content.[25]

Publishing

In early 2014, Beale founded Castalia House publishing in Kouvola, Finland. He is lead editor and has published the work of such writers as John C. Wright, Jerry Pournelle, Tom Kratman, Eric S. Raymond, Martin van Creveld, Rolf Nelson, and William S. Lind.[26][27][28]

In 2016 Castalia House works had two wins at the Dragon Awards:[29][30]

  • Best Science Fiction Novel: Somewhither, by John C. Wright
  • Best Apocalyptic Novel: Ctrl-Alt-Revolt! by Nick Cole

In September 2018, Beale announced the founding of Comicsgate Comics, a "100% SJW-free" comic book publishing imprint.[31][32]

Controversies

Expulsion from the SFWA

In 2013 Beale ran unsuccessfully against Steven Gould to succeed John Scalzi as president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). African American writer N. K. Jemisin, during her delivery of the Guest of Honour speech at 2013 Continuum in Australia, stated that 10% of the SFWA membership voted for Beale in his bid for the SFWA presidential position and called him "a self-described misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole".[33] Beale responded by calling Jemisin an "ignorant half-savage".[33] In the resulting interactions, Beale also called writer and editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden a "fat frog".[34]

Beale tweeted a link to his comments about Jemisin on the SFWA's official @SFWAAuthors Twitter feed. The SFWA Board subsequently voted to expel him from the organization.[34] In 2015, the Wall Street Journal described Beale as "the most despised man in science fiction".[35]

Rabid Puppies and Hugo Awards Controversy

2015 Rabid Puppies Campaign

Based on the success of Larry Correia's 2014 "Sad Puppies" ballot-manipulation campaign, in 2015 Beale implemented a slate of candidates for the Hugo Awards called "Rabid Puppies", announcing a slate of candidates one day after the announcement of the Sad Puppies recommendation, instructing his followers to nominate the slate "precisely as they are."[36] The Rabid Puppies slate successfully placed 58 of its 67 recommended nominees on the ballot. Two of the nominations were for Beale himself, and eleven were for works published by his small Finnish publisher Castalia House,[37] where Beale acts as lead editor.[36] Of those other nominees, two authors, an editor, and a fanzine subsequently withdrew their own nominations; three of these four explicitly cited the wish to dissociate themselves from Beale as being among their reasons for doing so.[38][39][40] Withdrawals from the Best Novel category allowed space for Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem to move into a finalist position,[41][42] and it went on to win the Best Novel Award.[43] Although the winning novel was one of the few nominees not on the Rabid Puppies slate, some sources credited the win to Beale's backing of the novel.[44]

Beale was nominated as a finalist in the categories Best Editor, Long Form and Best Editor, Short Form. When asked why he included himself in the nomination, and what it meant that the voters preferred that no one win the award rather than give one to either Beale or a Beale-endorsed entry, Beale stated, "I wanted to leave a big smoking hole where the Hugo Awards were. All this has ever been is a giant Fuck You—one massive gesture of contempt."[45]

2016 Rabid Puppies Campaign

In 2016 Beale continued the Rabid Puppies campaign, posting a slate of finalists for the Hugo Award, including all finalists in the Best Short Story category.[46] Beale included himself on the slate of candidates, and was nominated in the category Best Editor, Long Form, the Castalia House Blog edited by Jeffro Johnson in the category Best Fanzine, and his own non-fiction release SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police by Vox Day, published by Castalia House, in the category Best Related Work.

Other Rabid Puppy recommendations of note which became Hugo Award finalists included Chuck Tingle's short story "Space Raptor Butt Invasion" and Hao Jingfang's "Folding Beijing," which went on to win in the Best Novelette category.[47] All nominated works associated with Castalia House ranked below No Award.[48]

2018 Feud with ComicsGate

Rebuffed by Ethan Van Sciver in an attempt to enlist him to draw for Alt★Hero, Vox Day disparaged the artist as a "moderate" on his blog, touching off a minor round of video commentary in January 2018, during which Sciver also negatively reviewed the Vox-written comic Quantum Mortis.. The two seemed to patch things up in a video chat, and for a half a year, all was quiet. During the spring and summer of 2018, Sciver, going independent after leaving DC Comics, transitioned into one of the central figures of the "ComicsGate" and anti-SJW movement as he devoted time to expanding his YouTube channel, and especially during the launch of his CyberFrog: Bloodhoney as the highest-grossing crowd-funded comic book of the year.

In the first week of September, 2018, an apparent misunderstanding between Vox Day and Sciver boiled over into public YouTube exchanges (Vox Day videos: ; EVS videos: ). Vox announced an intention to create a "ComicsGate Comics" imprint. Reaction within the ComicsGate community was immediate and nigh uniformly negative, as such an imprint would funnel term-searching toward the imprint, when they felt that Vox had not earned the right to the name, either in a general sense, or legally, as in a trademark sense. Vox withdrew the imprint two days later.

Hugo Award nominations

Beale has been a finalist six times for a Hugo Award, beginning in 2014 (as a result of Larry Correia's "Sad Puppies" campaign), when his novelette "Opera Vita Aeterna" was a finalist for the best novelette.[49][50] The Hugo voters ranked "Opera" sixth out of five nominees, behind No Award.[51][52][53]

The list of his nominations is:

in all cases, his nominations have been ranked below "No Award" in the final vote.[51][60][48] In response to the 2015 voting Beale stated, "I wanted to leave a big smoking hole where the Hugo Awards were. All this has ever been is a giant Fuck You—one massive gesture of contempt."[61]

Personal life

Beale is married and has a son.[62] As of 2015 he lived in Northern Italy.[63]

Political views

Beale describes himself as a Christian nationalist.[64] He has been described as a prominent member of the alt-right movement by several outlets, such as Breitbart, Vox, Wired,[25] and Business Insider.[65] Writing for Publishers Weekly, Kimberly Winston described Beale as a "fundamentalist Southern Baptist",[18] but other journalists have made more pointed characterizations, such as Mike VanHelder's assertion in Popular Science that Beale's views are "white supremacist."[66]

White supremacy

Day has been supportive of the white supremacist Fourteen Words slogan,[67] promoting it in his Sixteen points of the Alt-Right,[68][69] which placed the sentence "we must secure the existence of white people and a future for white children" as the fourteenth point.[70]

Concerning the notion of white supremacy, Day has said, "white supremacy simply isn't true. Whites are not superior, but whites are the only tribe willing and able to maintain Western civilization because they are the only tribe that truly values it. The answer for those who support Western civilization, regardless of sex, color, or religion, is to embrace white tribalism, white separatism, and especially white Christian masculine rule."[71]

Women's rights

Regarding women's rights, Day is largely against the concept. The New Republic reported that Day "has written that women should be deprived of the vote",[72] an interpretation of comments in Beale's article "Why Women's Rights are Wrong." In Beale's post "In which we are called out", he argued that "women's suffrage has been a complete and unmitigated disaster across the West and it is doubtful that any society can survive it for long."[73] On the other hand, Day later said in 2016: "And that is why I am an advocate of direct democracy with full female suffrage: it is both possible as well as an improvement on a system that is clearly incompatible with societal survival and Western civilization."[74]

Discography

  • Psykosonik (1993)
  • Silicon Jesus (1993)
  • Welcome to My Mind (1993)
  • Details Magazine Music Matters Volume 4 (1992)

Video games

Game nameFirst releasedSystem name(s)Role(s)
X-Kaliber 2097 1994SNESMusic (Psykosonik)
CyClones 1994DOSAudio
Rebel Moon 1995DOSGame designer, co-producer
Rebel Moon Rising[75] 1997DOSGame designer, co-producer
Rebel Moon Revolution (cancelled) Planned 1999WindowsGame designer, co-producer
The War in Heaven 1999WindowsGame designer
RPG Traveller (cancelled[75][76]) (Planned 2000)Sega DreamcastGame designer
Hot Dish[77] 2007Windows(co-) game designer

Bibliography

Fiction

  • A Sea of Skulls (2017)
  • The Altar of Hate (2014) ISBN 978-952-7065-23-5
  • The Last Witchking (2013) ISBN 978-952-7065-04-4
  • The Wardog's Coin (2013) ISBN 978-1-935929-97-0
  • A Throne of Bones (2012) ISBN 978-1-935929-82-6
  • A Magic Broken (2012) ISBN 978-1-935929-79-6
  • Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy (2008) ISBN 978-0-9821049-2-7
  • The Wrath of Angels (2006) ISBN 978-0-7434-6982-1 (as Theodore Beale)
  • The World in Shadow (2002) ISBN 978-0-671-02454-3 (as Theodore Beale)
  • The War in Heaven (2000) ISBN 978-0-7434-5344-8 (as Theodore Beale)

Nonfiction

  • SJWs Always Double Down: Anticipating the Thought Police (2017) ISBN 978-952-7065-19-8
  • SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police (2015) ISBN 978-952-7065-68-6
  • The Return of the Great Depression (2009) ISBN 978-1-935071-18-1
  • The Irrational Atheist (2008) ISBN 978-1-933771-36-6

As contributor

  • Cuckservative: How "Conservatives" Betrayed America (2015), John Red Eagle, ASIN B018ZHHA52
  • Quantum Mortis: A Mind Programmed (2014), Jeff Sutton, Jean Sutton. Castalia House. ISBN 978-952-7065-13-6
  • Quantum Mortis: Gravity Kills (2013), Steve Rzasa. Marcher Lord Hinterlands. ISBN 978-952-7065-12-9
  • Quantum Mortis: A Man Disrupted (2013), Steve Rzasa. Marcher Lord Hinterlands. ISBN 978-952-7065-10-5
  • Rebel Moon (1996), Bruce Bethke. Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0-671-00236-7
  • The Anthology at the End of the Universe (2004), Glen Yeffeth (editor). BenBella Books. ISBN 978-1-932100-56-3
  • Archangels: The Fall (2005) ISBN 978-1-887814-15-7
  • Revisiting Narnia: Fantasy, Myth, and Religion in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles (2005), Shanna Caughey (editor). BenBella Books. ISBN 978-1-932100-63-1
  • Halo Effect (2007), Glenn Yeffeth (editor). BenBella Books. ISBN 978-1-933771-11-3
  • You Do Not Talk About Fight Club (2008), Chuck Palahniuk (Foreword), Read Mercer Schuchardt (Editor). BenBella Books. ISBN 978-1-933771-52-6
  • Stupefying Stories October 2011 (2011), Bruce Bethke (Editor). Rampant Loon Press. ASIN B005T5B9YC
  • Stupefying Stories March 2012 (2012), Bruce Bethke (Editor). Rampant Loon Press. ASIN B007T3N0XK

References

  1. 1 2 3 Tevlin, John (May 4, 2008). "Tax deniers' crusade 'becomes a religion' - Wealthy CEO Robert Beale might not fit the profile of a tax evader -- except for an unshakable faith in his own convictions". Star Tribune: B1. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
  2. ↑ Vox Day (August 1, 2014). "Did not see that coming". Vox Popoli. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
  3. 1 2 "Reviews and Criticism: Vox Day (Theodore Beale '90) The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens" (PDF). Bucknell Magazine. Bucknell University: 17. Summer 2008. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  4. ↑ Psykosonik, retrieved June 23, 2016
  5. ↑ Cooper, William. "Psykosonik". Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  6. ↑ Vox Day wrote lyrics for an early-nineties industrial dance band. They're just awful, April 13, 2015, retrieved June 23, 2016
  7. ↑ "Game Designer Vox Day Speaks On Women In Gaming, His Upcoming Game, And More". March 24, 2015. Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  8. ↑ "Marathon's Story". Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Fenris Wolf". IGN. Retrieved September 9, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Fenris Wolf Sues GT Interactive: Developer of Rebel Moon Series Charges Breach of Contract". IGN. February 11, 1999. Retrieved May 18, 2010.
  11. ↑ Lohr, Steve (October 18, 1999). "It's Demons vs. Angels in Computer Game With a Religious Theme". The New York Times. Retrieved May 18, 2010.
  12. ↑ "OpenOffice distances itself from OpenOfficeMouse, joins everyone else". Engadget. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  13. ↑ Stern, Joanna. "WarMouse Meta review". Engadget.
  14. ↑ Salton, Jeff (November 9, 2009). "OpenOfficeMouse promises to be quite a handful". Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  15. ↑ "United States Patent Number: D602493".
  16. ↑ Audureau, William. "A la rencontre du GamerGate, le mouvement libertarien qui veut défendre " ses " jeux vidéo". Le Monde. Retrieved January 16, 2016.
  17. ↑ Loftus, Tom (July 31, 1998). "Fenris Wolf". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on March 7, 2008. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  18. 1 2 Winston, Kimberly (April 16, 2001). "Other Worlds, Suffused With Religion". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  19. ↑ Nielsen Hayden, Patrick (May 1, 2005). "New heights of prestige for the Nebula Award". Electrolite. Retrieved April 18, 2014.
  20. ↑ Silver, Steven H. (May 8, 2007). "News - 2007 Nebula Novel Jury Announced". The SF Site. Archived from the original on August 24, 2007. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  21. ↑ Smith, Lori (March 3, 2008). "In Defense of God: Atheist bestsellers have spurred on protectors of the faith". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved November 3, 2011.
  22. ↑ Derbyshire, John (November 21, 2007). "Christmas Shopping 2007: A Time for Recommendations". National Review Online. Retrieved May 18, 2010.
  23. ↑ Schab, Linda (July 26, 2009). "Announcing the ACFW Book of the Year finalists!". Grand Rapids Examiner. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
  24. ↑ Chantrill, Christopher (September 1, 2015). "Fighting Back Against the SJWs". American Thinker. Retrieved January 15, 2016.
  25. 1 2 Fitts, Alexis Sobel (June 21, 2017). "Welcome to the Wikipedia of the Alt-Right | Backchannel". Wired. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  26. ↑ "2015 Hugo Awards". World Science Fiction Society. Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  27. ↑ "2015 Hugo and Campbell Award Finalists". Locus Online. Locus Publications. Retrieved November 27, 2015.
  28. ↑ "How conservatives took over sci-fi's most prestigious award". vox.com. Retrieved February 18, 2016.
  29. ↑ "Winners". Retrieved September 5, 2016.
  30. ↑ "First Dragon Awards Presented". Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  31. ↑ "Exclusive: Vox Day Announces New ComicsGate Imprint! - Bounding Into Comics". Bounding Into Comics. 2018-09-03. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  32. ↑ "Alt-right publisher founds ComicsGate comic imprint / Boing Boing". boingboing.net. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  33. 1 2 "Controversies Inside the World of Science Fiction and Fantasy". Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  34. 1 2 "Beale Expelled from SFWA". Locus Online. August 14, 2013.
  35. ↑ "The Culture Wars Invade Science Fiction". Wall Street Journal. May 15, 2015. Retrieved February 20, 2016.
  36. 1 2 Waldman, Katy (April 8, 2015). "How Sci-Fi's Hugo Awards Got Their Own Full-Blown Gamergate". Slate.
  37. ↑ "Yhdysvaltain scifimaailmassa riehuu sota, johon Game of Thrones -kirjailijakin on sotkeutunut – ja kaiken keskiössä on tämä kouvolalaismies". Nyt.fi (in Finnish). March 6, 2015.
  38. ↑ "Two Authors Withdraw Their Work From This Year's Hugo Awards". io9. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
  39. ↑ In Which Edmund Schubert Withdraws From the Hugos, by Edmund Schubert; at AletheaKontis.com; published April 27, 2015; retrieved September 7, 2016
  40. ↑ "Black Gate Withdraws from Hugo Consideration". Retrieved April 20, 2015.
  41. ↑ Wallace, Amy (August 23, 2015). "Who Won Science Fiction's Hugo Awards, and Why It Matters". Retrieved September 5, 2016.
  42. ↑ "2015 Hugo Awards Ballot, Further Revised". April 17, 2015. Retrieved September 5, 2016.
  43. ↑ "2015 Hugo Statistics" (PDF). Retrieved September 5, 2015.
  44. ↑ Sandifer, Phil. "The Three-Body Trilogy, Or At Least Two-Thirds Of It (Excerpt from Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons: Notes on Science Fiction and Culture in the Year of Angry Dogs, Eruditorum Press, 2015)". Retrieved September 9, 2016.
  45. ↑ Who Won Science Fiction’s Hugo Awards, and Why It Matters, by Amy Wallace, in Wired; published August 23, 2015; retrieved August 26, 2015
  46. ↑ Barnett, David (April 28, 2016). "Hugo awards shortlist dominated by rightwing campaign". The Guardian. Retrieved April 28, 2016.
  47. ↑ "Hugo Award Predications Handicapping Sheet". Retrieved September 7, 2016.
  48. 1 2 The 2016 Hugo Awards, retrieved June 18, 2016
  49. ↑ "2014 Hugo Awards". World Science Fiction Society. Retrieved April 19, 2014.
  50. 1 2 "2017 Hugo Awards". December 31, 2016.
  51. 1 2 "2014 Hugo Award Statistics" (PDF). World Science Fiction Society. Retrieved August 18, 2014.
  52. ↑ Baker-Whitelaw, Gavia (August 18, 2014). "5 reasons to pay attention to the Hugo Awards—and one big reason not to". The Daily Dot. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
  53. ↑ Glyer, Mike (August 18, 2014). "Hugo Statistics Dress Sad Puppies in Black Armbands". File 770. File 770. Retrieved August 19, 2014.
  54. ↑ "2014 Hugo Awards". Retrieved April 5, 2015.
  55. ↑ Gonzales, Robbie (April 19, 2014). "Announcing the 2014 Hugo Award Nominees".
  56. 1 2 "2015 Hugo Award Nominees". Retrieved April 5, 2015.
  57. 1 2 "2015 Hugo Award Nominees".
  58. 1 2 "2016 Hugo Awards". Retrieved May 1, 2016.
  59. 1 2 Trendacosta, Katharine (April 26, 2016). "Here Are the 2016 Hugo Award Finalists".
  60. ↑ Sci-Fi’s Hugo Awards and the Battle for Pop Culture’s Soul, by Amy Wallace, in Wired; published October 30, 2015; retrieved September 25, 2016
  61. ↑ Wallace, Amy. "Who Won Science Fiction's Hugo Awards, and Why It Matters". Wired. Wired. Retrieved 1 September 2015.
  62. ↑ Wallace, Amy (August 23, 2015), Who Won Science Fiction’s Hugo Awards, and Why It Matters, retrieved May 6, 2016
  63. ↑ Wallace, Amy. "Who Won Science Fiction's Hugo Awards, and Why It Matters".
  64. ↑ Vox Day (December 15, 2015). "Why John C. Wright is not a libertarian". Vox Populi. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  65. ↑ Miller, James D. (August 9, 2017). "Get ready for the 'tech alt-right' to gain power and influence in Silicon Valley". Business Insider. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  66. ↑ VanHelder, Mike (April 17, 2015). "Culture Wars Rage Within Science Fiction Fandom". Popular Science.
  67. ↑ "From Alt Right to Alt Lite: Naming the Hate". Anti-Defamation League.
  68. ↑ "What the Alternate Right is". Vox Popoli. 24 August 2016.
  69. ↑ "Online alt-right to use facial recognition to track anti-fascists". Hope Not Hate. 22 May 2017.
  70. ↑ "The Sci-Fi Roots of the Far Right—From 'Lucifer's Hammer' to Newt's Moon Base to Donald's Wall". The Daily Beast. 17 September 2017.
  71. ↑ The #MilRight is inevitable by Vox Day
  72. ↑ Heer, Jeet (April 17, 2015). "Science Fiction's White Boys' Club Strikes Back". The New Republic.
  73. ↑ Beale, Theodore, (October 18, 2010). "In which we are called out", Vox Popoli. Retrieve 29 November 2017.
  74. ↑ Mailvox: Woman's take on female suffrage by Vox Day
  75. 1 2 Roosh Valizadeh (March 5, 2015). "Game Designer Vox Day Takes Us Far Back In Gaming History (interview)". Retrieved September 6, 2017.
  76. ↑ "Traveller". Retrieved June 24, 2016.
  77. ↑ "Hot Dish Credits". Moby Games. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
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