The Hugo Awards

[Beliyal]

[quote/][But now] The book has a spaceship on the cover, but is it really going to be a story about space exploration and pioneering derring-do? Or is the story merely about racial prejudice and exploitation?A planet, framed by a galactic backdrop. Could it be an actual bona fide space opera? Heroes and princesses and laser blasters? No, wait. It?s about sexism and the oppression of women.Finally, a book with a painting of a person wearing a mechanized suit of armor! Holding a rifle! War story ahoy! Nope, wait. It?s actually about gay and transgender issues.

[/quote]

My favorite thing about this must be that this statement of theirs seems to imply that they are incapable of researching the book, even reading the short summary that is usually printed on the back cover. It implies they see an interesting book cover and base their purchase only on that. As far as I know, even slightly political books will have some kind of a marker that they are political; in the description, in the short summary, in some review on a page (Goodreads is great for books reviews and information) or simply by looking up the author. Apparently, you should be able to judge a book by its cover. The cover should tell you everything, or it's trying to stealthily sneak up some unwanted agenda. For a group that allegedly wants the awards to be based solely on the quality of the work, this is really funny.

Speaking of quality of the work; has it occurred to them that maybe the works they are so much against are, you know, of better quality? I mean, perhaps there isn't any conspiracy here or someone pushing for an agenda. Perhaps, people in this day and age want more of one thing instead of the other and people deliver on that and it is of better quality. Either way, I'm sure that "just SciFi" and "just fantasy" will continue to exist (even though I doubt there is a single work of fiction that is completely apolitical and I doubt there ever was or ever will be. But that's up for a debate; perhaps people don't see the politics in works when the politics involved cater to them).

I wondered a few years back whether in this political climate the illustrious Philip K. Dick would be shunned for having the "wrong" political views.

He responded to Roe vs Wade by writing The Pre Persons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pre-persons Can you imagine if an openly anti-abortion short story were nominated, or even won a Hugo, in 2015? Surely you would have people shouting that the Hugos had become "hostile" to women or "non-inclusive" or some shit.

There just seems to be this unpleasant political cloud hanging over everything now. I suppose it is a reflection of the growing political prejudice in society.

May I just point out that the world never worked any differently in this regard? Every culture in any era of your choosing had a certain "political climate" which made some things more appropriate and some things less appropriate. Some people were burned at the stake 500 years ago because they wrote inappropriate things or had inappropriate opinions. So, yes, there are ideas that will be frowned up in this day and age as well. Of course, no one will be burned at the stake, thankfully. But yeah, anti-abortion stories in 2015. might be frowned upon by the general public (and praised by someone else). I don't find this particularly surprising or new to the 21st century. Who knows, a hundred years from now, it may perhaps be inappropriate to suggest that abortion should be banned. For comparison, a hundred years ago, it was inappropriate for women to want to have the right to vote. No one today would suggest that women shouldn't vote though (hopefully). Incredible, but the political climate has changed.

 

[Vampyre]

There appears to be some kind of controversy with the Hugo awards this year. I don't really pay attention to awards, and looking at the wikipedia page I'm not really familiar with the authors nominated in the past couple of years. Except the Wheel of Time for best novel in 2014 - what?

So are the 2015 nominations really right wing?

No. That's another story made up to try to justify silencing people. I don't know much about it, but the politics of the authors is all over the place, as well as their gender, race, etc.

I think the big difference is that this is a publicly made list of authors selected based on how good their writing was, not how important to social justice their story was, as in the previous few years. The same people complaining about this year's group were happy to do the same thing with their social justice authors the last few years.

Personally, I don't read enough Science Fiction or Fantasy to feel informed enough to spend $40 to buy a membership to worldcon and vote. The stories about Gamergate taking over the Hugo's are just fear-mongering excuses. It would seem the reality is that the actual members of Worldcon are just as fed-up as the writers on the Sadpuppies slate, and so they voted the slate in. I would argue that most of Gamergate is like myself, supportive but not interested enough to actively get involved.

 

[MorphBallBomb]

A two party system may be better then a one party system, but no party system is better then any party system.

this too, would be my preference.

I find it hard to believe that quality of writing was superceded by politics. The Hugo awards have always been diverse, and sci-fi writers have always covered both political spectrums. Can you imagine two writers more diverse then Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury? But they were both friends, and both enjoyed successful careers in the industry.

From what I understand, the issue with the Hugos stems more from within the past 5 years or so, rather than the more noble appearance of history of which we are both nostalgic. Heinlein and Asimov would not have spoken vilely of each other, either.

Besides, this is about much more then just right wings politics. This is also about literary fiction versus popular fiction. It's, essentially, a war over the soul of sci-fi and fantasy, and it's proffesional place in society. Personally I can't understand why a story can't be high brow literary fiction and still be popular and accesible. LotR bridged the gap perfectly. The same could be said for Neon Genesis, though that's obviously not literature. But the Sad Puppies movement wants to essentially strip away any form of literary fiction in favor of low brow fantasy and sci-fi. As a huge fan of sci-fi and fantasy I can't see this as anything but regressive. This is the opposite of what the community needs. If they want simple adventure serials about space pirates and fantasy barbarians running of with women then I say they take their nonsense elsewhere. These are the Hugo awards, not the cover of an issue of Heavy Metal Magazine.

Some people want low-brow genre fiction, some people want transcendental works. When I look at the greats in the genre, I find it hard to see the point of divergence. Take Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama. It was both an adventure novel about intrepid explorers doing explorer things, and a thoughtful novel about humanity's relationship to mystery, and inspired the 1992 Spaceguard project.

Pulp is as much at the heart of the genre as the exploration of the human condition, and I think trying to 'direct' the subculture from an Ivory Tower point of view is counterproductive. If we ever receive SF/F's Ulysses, will anyone read it? Will it be understood? Will it matter? If you can excoriate the impulse to create more 2000AD type works, surely you can see how the opposite will be a turn off too.

If this is coming to the question of "who is SF/F for?", the only acceptable answer to me is "everyone".

 

[Vault101]

. Apparently, you should be able to judge a book by its cover. The cover should tell you everything, or it's trying to stealthily sneak up some unwanted agenda. For a group that allegedly wants the awards to be based solely on the quality of the work, this is really funny.
.

I don't know if the same guy who said that but one of them has been published predominantly by Baen

Baen is infamous for its terrible covers

and even then a lot of publisher covers can be bad to mediocre

Speaking of quality of the work; has it occurred to them that maybe the works they are so much against are, you know, of better quality? I mean, perhaps there isn't any conspiracy here or someone pushing for an agenda. Perhaps, people in this day and age want more of one thing instead of the other and people deliver on that and it is of better quality. .

that's the problem when you have a specific idea of "normal", things that diverge from the "normal" can't possibly stand up on their own, there has to be some other kind of reason

sort of similar to something I saw coined as the "koolaid" effect

where after something gets to a certain point of popularity some people get really really angry not just because they don't like x...but more the fact that other people are "buying into" x, they drunk the koolaid

see also: the hate for apple products (I mean I'm not a fan myself but the mentality is most obvious there)

 

[Ambient_Malice]

There just seems to be this unpleasant political cloud hanging over everything now. I suppose it is a reflection of the growing political prejudice in society.

May I just point out that the world never worked any differently in this regard? Every culture in any era of your choosing had a certain "political climate" which made some things more appropriate and some things less appropriate. Some people were burned at the stake 500 years ago because they wrote inappropriate things or had inappropriate opinions. So, yes, there are ideas that will be frowned up in this day and age as well. Of course, no one will be burned at the stake, thankfully. But yeah, anti-abortion stories in 2015. might be frowned upon by the general public (and praised by someone else). I don't find this particularly surprising or new to the 21st century. Who knows, a hundred years from now, it may perhaps be inappropriate to suggest that abortion should be banned. For comparison, a hundred years ago, it was inappropriate for women to want to have the right to vote. No one today would suggest that women shouldn't vote though (hopefully). Incredible, but the political climate has changed.

I like to think the developed world went through this weird period where people tolerated difference to a degree. Aftermath of communist witch hunts in the arts leading to a degree of appreciation of how bad blacklisting people over politics can be. Maybe I'm wrong. But it certainly seems that we've come full circle again - where everyone's peering suspiciously at each other, gossiping in little cliques about whether so-and-so is associating themselves with the wrong kind of people or the wrong political movements. I think the kicker is that this behavior now comes from people who consider themselves to be liberal and tolerant.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Not sure if you all have seen it, but George R. R. Martin himself has weighed in on this shitstorm. His thoughts (which make for a good read) can be found here, in a series of blog-posts:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/417125.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/417521.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/417600.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/417812.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/418285.html

 

[MorphBallBomb]

And so it goes, here is Larry's response

http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/09/a-response-to-george-r-r-martin-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/

 

[Breakdown]

Not sure if you all have seen it, but George R. R. Martin himself has weighed in on this shitstorm. His thoughts (which make for a good read) can be found here, in a series of blog-posts:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/417125.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/417521.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/417600.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/417812.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/418285.html

What I'm taken from these posts is Martin saying "yes, the nominations for Hugos have been dodgy for a long time now but I was comforted by the illusion of prestige afforded by the legendary recipients of Hugo awards in the past, and now the Sad Puppies have taken that illusion away from me."

 

[Silence]

Not sure if you all have seen it, but George R. R. Martin himself has weighed in on this shitstorm. His thoughts (which make for a good read) can be found here, in a series of blog-posts:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/417125.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/417521.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/417600.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/417812.html
http://grrm.livejournal.com/418285.html

I urge everyone to read the last part, if any.

These are the facts, and they don't seem to have the nominations/awards as a problem.

(What my honest take of it is: The "SJW", which attacked some conservatives, skewed a huge part in favour of the conservatives. The "SJWs" did give conservatives and some neutrals a distorted perception of their own power. They dug their own grave.)

 

[Beliyal]

I like to think the developed world went through this weird period where people tolerated difference to a degree. Aftermath of communist witch hunts in the arts leading to a degree of appreciation of how bad blacklisting people over politics can be. Maybe I'm wrong. But it certainly seems that we've come full circle again - where everyone's peering suspiciously at each other, gossiping in little cliques about whether so-and-so is associating themselves with the wrong kind of people or the wrong political movements. I think the kicker is that this behavior now comes from people who consider themselves to be liberal and tolerant.

Well, to me, there is a certain difference here between the blacklisting and book burning and what is happening today. Certainly, to some people, it may appear that the world has come together in a conspiracy to take away what they hold dear. But I see no laws or blacklists being made. I see something that I can best describe as a change in fashion, or perhaps a change in what is currently popular. As of now, I haven't heard of large book bans, or of situations where you are literally incapable of finding literature for your tastes anymore, just because your tastes are traditional. People are maybe turning to new genres, conventions and tropes, but I would hardly say that the traditional ones are now completely gone or even in such a state to be comparable to communist witch hunts.

I consider myself liberal and tolerant, and I am definitely in favor of not judging a book by its cover, but by its contents. Of course, I don't prefer traditional stories, simply because by now I am bored by their repetitiveness (though I wouldn't outright dismiss them if they are of good quality content wise), but I would not advocate for those kinds of books to be eradicated. In my opinion, by creating more liberal literature, you are not inherently taking away conservative one. There isn't a limited place in the world for the split between liberal and conservative and neither of those has a "right" to have a set number of published books yearly. I don't see anything being taken away or censored or blacklisted; I see more people getting their fair share. I honestly can't tell how that's a bad thing for either side. Literature is now more diverse than ever and I think everyone can find something for themselves. Conservative maybe used to dominate the field, but tastes change. I wouldn't call that extraordinary or the product of a staged conspiracy by a "clique". To make a simple example, if conservative/traditional used to be 100/100 and is now 75/100 or even 50/100, I honestly can't say that is in any way a criminal attack on someone's freedoms or staged with a nefarious purpose.

Though, shady nomination and award practices should be looked into. I read George Martin's posts about this issue and he pretty much outright states that it has always been shady and that this latest issue only highlighted how bad that is. However, even as a fairly ardent book reader, I didn't really notice that these awards have a huge effect on the... book industry. Either way, I certainly don't buy books based on awards they received and don't know anyone who does. I guess this is more about prestige.

 

[Schadrach]

So, ultimately, the problem is that in a popularity contest one group got their supporters to go out and vote in greater numbers than their competition and that's wrong because some of those people shouldn't be allowed to win an award for science fiction / fantasy authors because they have the wrong political views?

I think we shouldn't be basing that decision on whether or not a writer employs sufficient Partythink or unPartythink in the first place.

What I find truly amusing about all this is that the Sad Puppies claimed the SJW-types were effectively rigging the awards against anyone who engaged in wrongthink and were pushing for people to vote for their favorites instead. When many of those people were nominated, the SJW-types got angry and now are openly and explicitly talking about how to rig the awards against Sad Puppies. Many complaining about who was nominated don't even have complaints about the works in question, but rather the politics of the authors, which in turn only really proves the Sad Puppies right about the political bias of those usually expecting to control the nominees.

 

[EyeReaper]

Ok, so, I read that George Martin blog, and most of the posts here, figured that's the only research I would need before posting.

The basic gist of it, from what I can see, is that Puppies is an unscrupulous and asshole-y way to gain votes, but is also completely a fair way of doing it, and isn't the first time something like this has happened (and infact isn't even the first campaign these guys did). As far as I can tell, two groups are pissed at this:

A) The fans of authors who got puppied off the ballots
and
B) People who don't like the authors themselves, for their political views

I can agree with group 1, but, as a stern practitioner of Death of an Author, I can't really band behind the latter reason. Although I have no idea what a "Rabid Puppy" is. A subset of the sad ones that are more angry and asshole-y I would guess.

 

[kurokotetsu]

People keep asking me to remember that time that the Sad Puppies pushed a 'Right wing' agenda by nominating female, left wing political authors.

J'accuse!

Surely it had nothing to with the books were viewed to be 'of a quality' and nothing to do with disappointment in the political hugo'ing of the past few years which have left the Hugos a bit of a running joke.

But it's okay kids: There is 'no' clique, trying to block out non-sjw SFF!

Who do you accuse? Alsoe that si a very selfcentric ay of seeing the recommendations. Becuase sim´ly it could've been that the people that recommended it liked the other book better. That is a possiblity. That they prefer their Sci-FI as another author does it. And the CHaos Horizon blog post about the review of his book is that there where few, but good reviews. I see few posts mentoining him in the blog [https://chaoshorizon.wordpress.com/tag/larry-correia/]. He seems more crying foul than actually looking at the information. I see no explicit article about what he said. Just that "Mainstream" sites didn't review him (which they actually say was beneficial to him) and it is odd but draw no conclusions about it (taklingmore about the trend to not nominate books like COrreira, which is a statistical trend nto a political one). But it is an interesting blog, nice that him throwing the name led me to it.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I don't see evidence from the puppy side showing that they've got any validity to their claims. That last link from the GRRM post actually looks at wherr nominations went.

If I'm to see the puppies as anything but whiners I expect them to say *which* books didn't deserve the awards and a very good reason why they think they were picked based on politics. Otherwise it seems they are taking refuge in vague claims.

 

[totheendofsin]

I don't know enough to form a full opinion nor do I care enough to do the research, but I do want to say one thing, the fact that so many people are focusing on WHO was nominated instead of WHAT was nominated speaks volumes in my opinion

 

[Chemical Alia]

A cousin of mine is a scifi author, and happened to be nominated for a Hugo Award this year. I was reading some of his brief thoughts on this issue on his blog the other day, and I had literally no clue what he was talking about. I tried reading this thread, and now I'm really not sure I have the patience to understand what is going on here. It sounds super annoying, so I might just save myself the headache and avoid it altogether, like with all that gamergate garbage the kids keep talking about.

My cousin was on that list. Does that mean he's a terrible author/person and I should disown him? Somebody please advise.