If you've heard of Chuck Tingle, it's likely due to the wild titles of his extremely niche, parodic, self-published gay erotica, many of which have gone viral since Tingle became involved in the culture wars within the science-fiction community in the 2010s. And if that's so, you may be surprised to learn that Tingle has, over the past few years, evolved into one of the better horror/technothriller authors around. The mainstream publishing success of the author of This Handsome Sentient Baseball Hits a Home Run Into My Butt is one of the most unlikely, inspiring, and downright sweet underdog stories in book publishing, an industry not known for its abundance of sweet underdogs. Tingle's first taste of mass-culture fame came in 2016, when one of his short stories was nominated for a Hugo Award. The Hugos, presented every year at the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon), are among the genre's most prestigious prizes.

They sound cute, but for the second year in a row, politically motivated groups calling themselves the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies have more or less successfully gamed the Hugo Award nominations, some of the most prestigious prizes in science fiction and fantasy. The Chuck Tingle book is one of their recommendations. The puppies oppose diversity initiatives and support lists that are dominated by white men. Their targets, which they call SJW for "social justice warriors," are women, people of color, LGBT writers, editors and artists and the people who support them, including L.A. Times Critic at Large John Scalzi. Rabid Puppies leader Vox Day, a self-described libertarian, has criticized best-selling science fiction writer N.K. Jemisin, who is black, as an "ignorant half-savage," writing, "Unlike the white males she excoriates, there is no evidence to be found anywhere on the planet that a society of NK Jemisins is capable of building an advanced civilization, or even successfully maintaining one without significant external support from those white males."