Castalia Blog Posts Excluded from Hugo Packet

Daniel Enness announced he has been informed by MidAmeriCon II that “Safe Space as Rape Room,” his Hugo-nominated series of posts on the Castalia House Blog, will not be part of the Hugo Voter Packet:

Worldcon Members who are looking forward to the forthcoming Hugo Voter Packet – which traditionally contains as many of the works nominated for a Hugo Award as possible so that all voters can review the nominees in a unified set of documents – will notice a special warning from MidAmeriCon II in this year’s edition of the Packet:

As the World Science Fiction Convention, MidAmeriCon II has members from 35 countries. Safe Space as Rape Room quotes extensively from a written work containing explicit descriptions of children engaged in sexual activities. This material may be illegal in some home countries of  members. MidAmeriCon II does not wish to put any member at risk of inadvertently violating the law in their country of residence by downloading it in the packet without intent. As such, under legal advice, we are not  hosting or distributing this material directly. However, Safe Space as Rape Room is freely available on the Internet and can be found by anyone at….

The series of posts is nominated in the Best Related Works category.

321 thoughts on “Castalia Blog Posts Excluded from Hugo Packet

  1. Brian Z:

    “Imagine a world where thousands of people contacted their libraries and requested up to between 15 and 20 titles, some full-length but most often shorter e-titles, during a single spring and a single summer of a single year, and, should there be any they couldn’t borrow in time but still wanted to read, bought a few for a couple bucks each.”

    Why do you believe that a swedish library would have all these brand new english SFF books? Or any swedish library for that matter? Why do you think all countries even have local libraries? Why do you think these brand new SFF books are available for a couple bucks each? Do you really see that as a realistic price for a brand new novel?

  2. JJ, I guess you don’t think we could reduce the cost of a supporting membership by the price of a double cheese pizza? You didn’t seem to think it was worth doing that in the past.

    Hampus, that’s a couple bucks on average. The few items that cost a lot more are often already unavailable. You might not have seen Orbit’s thoughts about this in 2014.

    It is true that library access is a concern in many places. It wasn’t the rationale for creating the packet, but it is an issue. If it is important, target it. Maybe a fund? Members who write in and show their local library is unable to get a finalist may be eligible to have a copy sent to them to be donated? Discounts sought, booksellers to process? Doesn’t seem more administratively difficult than raising money to give hundreds of applicants free memberships.

  3. Brian Z:

    “Maybe a fund? Members who write in and show their local library is unable to get a finalist may be eligible to have a copy sent to them to be donated? Discounts sought, booksellers to process?”

    Why do this when there is already a packet?

  4. Brian Z: I guess you don’t think we could reduce the cost of a supporting membership by the price of a double cheese pizza?

    That pretty much destroys the point of having a Supporting Membership, which is already at best a break-even prospect (I still haven’t gotten my programme book from Loncon).

    The cost of administering Supporting Memberships would then become a negative cost sink for the sitting Worldcon.

    Duh.

  5. Why do this when there is already a packet?

    To help and encourage libraries in Worldcon members’ communities to stock more Hugo-nominated SFF.

    The cost of administering Supporting Memberships would then become a negative cost sink for the sitting Worldcon.

    Why have everyone pay for a fine hardbound copy of a souvenir program book in a handsome slipcase (or similar) that they might not really need? Make it an optional extra and take the no frills supporting membership down to about $25.

  6. “To help and encourage libraries in Worldcon members’ communities to stock more Hugo-nominated SFF.”

    Ok, sure. Start a campaign then. Good luck, routing for you. Please send updates to Mike so we can see how you progress.

  7. Brian Z: Why have everyone pay for a fine hardbound copy of a souvenir program book in a handsome slipcase (or similar) that they might not really need? Make it an optional extra and take the no frills supporting membership down to about $25.

    Since you think that this is so important, I am sure that you will submit a proposal for it to the WSFS, and show up at the Business Meeting this year with a bunch of people who agree with you to support it.

    *snort*

  8. The Business Meeting??? Future rates can be set by a tiny handful of people, currently those hailing from Helsinki and Dublin, unless you want to veto what they decide, JJ, in which case start getting organized or you’ll find yourself running out of time to negotiate your own contract with a major convention center.

    Read the rules, would you?

  9. Brian Z: JJ, in which case start getting organized or you’ll find yourself running out of time to negotiate your own contract with a major convention center.

    You’re the one who is worried about this. Why are you expecting me to do your work for you?

    *snort*

  10. Anyone who’s had occasion to put multiple items on hold at the library knows that they don’t become available one-at-a-time, the next one coming up just as you finish the last one. They tend to clump, if they don’t delay so long that you despair of ever getting them.
    For me, getting three five-hundred-page-plus books at the same time that must be finished in three weeks is not a big deal, but I am an exceptionally fast reader with very little social life. I was lucky enough to get all the novel nominees within a few weeks and finish them. Last year, much more of a hassle. And I live in a large city with a large library.
    I suspect some of the short fiction may be even tougher to get one’s hands on, but it being in the packet means I didn’t have to worry about that.
    I read SSaRR online. Wish I hadn’t. There was nothing of substance in it that I hadn’t already seen, plenty of unsupported arguments, and some rather nasty innuendo. Vile.

  11. getting three five-hundred-page-plus books at the same time that must be finished in three weeks is not a big deal

    You have to do that with most of the doorstop novels anyway, what with how many publishers put only excerpts in the packet. I bet still more will follow their lead. You have three or four months to at least try to space them out. And don’t have to finish them if you don’t like them. And novellas are easier.

    And I’m not sure about short fiction being a great hardship. Most short fiction winning these days is online.

    You might see any print magazines lucky enough to score a finalist putting it online for the duration of the season. Probably’d see folks trying to email you books for free again. But at least we can stop encouraging them.

    I’m not saying there aren’t arguments in favor of the packet. But the cons are clearly starting to outweigh the pros.

  12. “I’m not saying there aren’t arguments in favor of the packet. But the cons are clearly starting to outweigh the pros.”

    I still haven’t seen any argument against the packet. A bit of argle, bargle, but nothing of any substance.

  13. I know what you think of me, Hampus. Is that your response to Tim Holman?

  14. Brian Z.: Asking my library for a copy of a new book is easy, if they have it: but if I am number 42 in line for five copies, they’re not going to jump me ahead of the queue because I say I need it in time to vote in the Hugos.

    Asking the library to acquire a book they don’t have is also easy, but there’s a major difference between asking my library to get a book, and poking at them regularly until they either say “your copy is on its way” or “sorry, we’re not getting that.” I suspect that somewhere in there is “Dear Ms. Rosenzweig, We will be deciding whether to buy Seveneves sometime this summer. Please be patient,” which might or might not qualify as showing that they won’t do it to whatever complicated fund you’re setting up.

    This is so much work and expense to create a more complicated substitute something that basically works, that it makes me skeptical of motives. Why do you want to make significantly more work for Hugo voters, especially those outside the United States; disadvantage those who don’t live near a good library; and cost the library money it may not have to spare? If I just show up at the library and say “I want to donate this copy of Seveneves, they’re likely to say “thank you, put it on that table” for the book sale, because it costs staff time and thus money to add a book to the collection.

  15. Why have everyone pay for a fine hardbound copy of a souvenir program book in a handsome slipcase (or similar) that they might not really need? Make it an optional extra and take the no frills supporting membership down to about $25.

    Er, admittedly I’ve only ever had a supporting membership to two Worldcons, but is the “fine hardbound copy of a souvenir book” for supporting members actually a thing? I mean, as a standard part of the membership?

  16. This is Tim Holman speaking on behalf of Orbit Books. For future reference to anyone it might concern, it really helps if you refer to your link in the same language as was used to create the original link (or surrounding text). That way, people aren’t clicking on every single link you used in case one of them involves the mysterious Tim Holman. For example.

    To summarise, Tim Holman is concerned that some authors and publishers might feel pressured to provide full copies of their work for free, instead of doing so happily. As a compromise, because they did still want to support the packet, Orbit chose to only include excerpts of their three nominated novels.

    One of those novels won. It did not hurt their chances in any measurable way. It makes for a very poor support for the idea that the packet is harming nominees who choose not to include their work in full.

    The supporting membership fee, so far as I recall, has nothing to do with the packet, because the packet only costs the Worldcon in time. Therefore, removing the packet and reducing the price of the supporting membership to compensate fans (like me) with less disposable income makes no sense whatsoever. The Worldcon is using the funds elsewhere.

    I would also counsel against solutions that would place a greater burden on poor fans without thinking very carefully about the tradeoff. There’s a huge difference between “yay! packet download time! now I can budget for whatever is left!” and having to both know a lot about available fandom charity initiatives and spend the time and energy applying for them – which is not, actually, as simple as is being made out. Oh, and my local library just got defunded. So there’s that.

  17. Leslie C: Remember who you’re talking to. Given BrianZ’s long-standing track record re: things like basic honesty, what’s your Bayesian prior for the proposition BrianZ has accurately described some part of the existing Worldcon procedures ?

  18. Brian Z on May 31, 2016 at 2:49 am said:

    To help and encourage libraries in Worldcon members’ communities to stock more Hugo-nominated SFF.

    I like the way that Brian’s fair and reasonable argument now involves Worldcon members becoming responsible for the implementation of Anglophone-friendly municipal library systems in the developing world.

  19. Vicki Rosenzweig:

    Don’t lose sight of the primary objective for getting rid of the packet, to stop pressuring authors and publishers into making things free when we ought to be giving them our money.

    And don’t overstate the difference the packet makes: several of the long expensive novels are excerpt only.

    If your public library isn’t accepting donations there’s no shortage of places to send a book: to soldiers, to schools, to the ALA, to prisoner programs. (And even if they took your book and sold it, that’s not all bad either.)

    Fourth, that occurred to me because I wondered if getting books in libraries isn’t a positive program that fans can unite around. Less selfishness, more doing something good in our communities. But it’s not like I’ve perfected the plan.

    At the moment it costs on the order of 75 bucks to buy everything available in the pack that’s not online, and it looks like another $26 to buy the novels available in excerpt only. (That would be electronic copies only.) So encourage Worldcons to reduce supporting memberships to roughly $25 (there is already some support for this) so fans don’t have to dig so deep into their book budgets to participate. Remember not everybody votes in every category. For fans who want to read more and still can’t due to financial hardship, if the library idea as stated isn’t totally practical, think of other ways to help them do that, sure. I mean, people did spend thousands of dollars giving away free supporting memberships recently. There must be some interest.

    Leslie C:

    The books are quite lavish.

  20. Brian Z writes: Don’t lose sight of the primary objective

    Trolling File770.

  21. Brian Z:

    “So encourage Worldcons to reduce supporting memberships to roughly $25 (there is already some support for this) so fans don’t have to dig so deep into their book budgets to participate.”

    Support from which administrators and which WorldCon? How have they budgeted for this? Please provide link.

  22. Here’s a radical* idea: Poor fans are capable of reading excerpts (especially the nice extended ones included in the packet) and judging based on those whether the full book is worth budgeting for.

    *Or not.

    I don’t think Brian Z said enough about Tim Holman’s post for any of it to constitute “lying”. He feels it makes a substantive argument against the packet. Fair enough, that’s what he thinks. I think the fact that Ancillary Justice went on to win the Hugo weakens that substantive argument considerably, but that’s just, like, my opinion, man. 🙂

    Oh, and my souvenir book from last year is softcover with no slipcase. For the record.

  23. Since I am now, apparently, in business of providing clarifying links (Brian Z, what you may think is a clear and obvious reference to a previous link is not a clear and obvious reference, I’m sorry, but it isn’t): This was a discussion on Kevin Standlee’s lj in 2009 about supporting membership costs.

    (ETA: Strictly speaking Brian Z linked to something that linked to that, but the thing he originally linked to isn’t super important comparatively, since it was basically “go look at Kevin Standlee’s blog and discuss supporting membership fees”.)

  24. A few (not many) Worldcons have done hardcover souvenir books.

    Printed publications are in fact an optional extra for Worldcon 75, as WSFS rules were changed a couple of years ago in a way that permitted Worldcons to consider printed publications as an extra-cost item. (That is, the base cost of a supporting membership to Worldcon 75 includes only electronic publications. There’s a surcharge if you want paper publications.) This allows the cost of a supporting membership to actually support the Worldcon, rather than act as a drag on the convention’s resources.

    Brian Z. seems to have very little knowledge of how Worldcons actually work. I wonder if he’s ever been a member of one or attended one.

  25. Brian Z:

    “I did. You just don’t read them.”

    Please, stop lying.

  26. The books are quite lavish.

    Lavish.
    So we’ve gone from “fine hardbound copy . . . in a handsome slipcase” to “lavish”.
    I wonder what extravagances you are thinking of that would raise the bulk price of the souvenir book to, at a minimum, 15 dollars each. Is it the coordinating satin ribbon bookmark that’s pushing it over the top, there?

  27. A few (not many) Worldcons have done hardcover souvenir books.

    Funny how I don’t know anything about Worldcons, then, yet somehow knew that.

    Printed publications are in fact an optional extra for Worldcon 75

    Which is, in fact, what I just told JJ.

    Brian Z. seems to have very little knowledge of how Worldcons actually work. I wonder if he’s ever been a member of one or attended one.

    Sod off, Kevin. I linked above to a discussion where YOU said, quote:

    Then start pressuring bidding committees to lower the ASM and pledge lower supporting membership costs — say in the $20-$40 range. Criticize committees that won’t commit to such a cost. We currently apply such moral suasion to get bids to agree to participate in Pass-Along Funds; why couldn’t we do the same to pester them into offering more-affordable supporting memberships?

    I suggest that the target cost of a supporting membership should be approximately the cost of a new SF/F hardcover book — not much more, and probably not much less, either. I think this would prevent causal ballot-box stuffing (the usual bugaboo raised when anyone wants to lower membership cost) while not scaring off so many people as the current cost of around $50 does.

    If you’ve since climbed down from that principled perch, fine. Just say so, without attacking me for subscribing to principles you believed in a few short years ago.

  28. Brian Z doesn’t need to be lying to be wrong. He’s perfectly capable of reading something and with his bias in place get confirmation it agrees with him. Or just skim a related link which leads him to wrong conclusions.

    We all have problems with confirmation bias at times.

    That isn’t to say he isn’t trolling us.

  29. Is it the coordinating satin ribbon bookmark that’s pushing it over the top, there?

    Mostly the glossy color printing.

  30. Links from 2009 says absolutely nothing about what support exists in 2016. Quoting seven year old prices as if they were applicable today is also more than stupid.

    But I guess I should be happy he didn’t link to a discussion from 1953 for support.

  31. I have my own reasons for not wanting lies/lying accusations flung around willy-nilly.

    @Hampus

    Yes, that’s true, and why I included the date in my link, but he wasn’t lying about providing a link.

    For example, the argument that there couldn’t possibly be a problem with ballot-stuffing is, um, thoroughly debunked by more recent events.

    I’d quite like to know whether anyone presented a proposal for change to the business meeting, and if so what the discussion/result was, but I’m afraid my fact-checking energy is a bit too low for that one right now. Checking links in-thread only for now. 🙂

  32. Hampus, he said “the cost of a new SF/F hardcover book,” plain as the nose on your face.

  33. (a) – Depending on the printer, mixing glossy vs buff stock can cost more (set up and binding costs)
    (b) – if you had actually looked at the latest WorldCon souvenir book you might have noticed that there was relatively small amount of actual color printing. The majority of which was in advertising, you know, that was paid for by people wanting to use the space to get their convention, publishing, or book name in front of convention members. Or would you take that venue away from people?
    (c) – That, by the way, is called “subsidizing.” So that the membership fees are not unduly spent on publications. That is known as being “frugal” and “fiscally responsible.”
    (d) – The souvenir books are going to printed anyways, and the cost offset against the supporting membership is the cost of mailing.
    (e) – My (very) cursory Google didn’t hit on the 2015 or 2016 WorldCon budget so I couldn’t breakdown publications costs. And all that means is that the budgets are not in someplace that is where *I* might expect it, not that the people responsible are trying to hide anything. (witness the roundabout ways that were required for me to find the Hugo voting eligibility rules that I researched last year – the website designers were not trying to hide anything: their design skill were just lousy)
    (e) – while we are on the subject, Dude, where is *my* slip-cased, hardbound souvenir book? According to you I’ve been cheated by the worldcon organizers for *years!* It’s bad enough that the Gummint keeps my flying car from being marketed, but now you tell me that someone’s been stealing my hard-bound, slip-cased, lavishly-printed Souvenir books as well.

  34. Personally, I like the really sumptuous kind, which is why I fondly mentioned them. But times change.

    The question is not whether a souvenir book is a noble and valiant endeavor. It is simply whether a traditional Worldcon souvenir book should be foisted on all the members who don’t need or want it all that terribly badly.

    Sure there are ways to keep the costs down. They’ll cut even more corners in future since, as an optional extra, they won’t be printing half as many.

    Is that a pity? Sure.

  35. @Meredith
    [Brian Z thinks Holman] makes a substantive argument against the packet. Fair enough, that’s what he thinks. I think the fact that Ancillary Justice went on to win the Hugo weakens that substantive argument considerably, but that’s just, like, my opinion, man.

    I don’t think Holman’s argument against the packet was “Placing an excerpt instead of the whole work into the packet disadvantages a work”. I think it was “Not submitting anything at all would disadvantage a work”. And since there was an excerpt of Ancillary Justice in the packet, the fact that it went on to win says nothing at all about whether the argument made sense or not.

  36. Brian Z: Either you are arguing that the souvenir book costs at least fifteen dollars each for the usual Worldcon, or you are suggesting other cost-cutting measures to bring the cost of a supporting membership down to twenty-five dollars per. Which is it?
    I’m not sure what percentage of members would have to select “no souvenir book” to even produce a significant savings, due to bulk rates and such.
    In any case, your plan appears to leave members with potentially no souvenir book and still paying the same total amount for books plus membership. I don’t see this as an improvement on a system that seems to work pretty well.
    As for excerpts from novels in the voter packet, if the excerpt’s a hundred pages, that’s a hundred-page jump on the reading I’ll do when the book is available at the library. Last year I was way down the waiting list for at least one of them.

  37. @Brian Z: Why have everyone pay for a fine hardbound copy of a souvenir program book in a handsome slipcase (or similar) that they might not really need? Make it an optional extra and take the no frills supporting membership down to about $25.

    And if the rabid benefit, that’s surely a coincidence.

  38. Leslie C:

    Brian Z: Either you are arguing that the souvenir book costs at least fifteen dollars each for the usual Worldcon, or you are suggesting other cost-cutting measures to bring the cost of a supporting membership down to twenty-five dollars per. Which is it?

    Am I not understanding your question? There are some costs involved when you provide supporting memberships. The biggest one traditionally has been printing a bunch of stuff – including some stuff that was a bit fancy and kinda heavy – and mailing it to the supporting members.

    But the point of a supporting membership is not to get lots of stuff. It allows you to register support.

    By cutting costs and then setting the supporting membership fee a little over cost you are inviting more people to support the Worldcon and the Hugos.

    By setting it higher you are of course inviting people to do more to help defray the cost of your convention that they won’t be able to attend.

    But wasn’t encouraging more people to join and nominate and so forth supposed to be a good thing?

  39. Am I not understanding your question?

    I am asking if you think that eliminating the souvenir book will provide enough savings to allow the convention not to lose money on a twenty-five-dollar supporting membership.
    I took electronic publications last year. I do not know if current rules would allow for a lower price, reflecting decreased cost, for those who only receive electronic publications. I also do not know if there might be accessibility issues there.

  40. @Bill

    I think that Orbit was trying to compromise between not wanting to give away stuff for free and wanting to support the packet. It was also a decision taken by Orbit (who they were also arguing on behalf of – as rights holders) without the input of their authors, although that doesn’t mean their authors disagreed. Lots of commenters objected to the use of excerpts quite emphatically, by the way. 🙂

    I think that an excerpted work winning the award weakens the argument that lack of inclusion (or asterisked inclusion) is a disadvantage. The only strong argument that it does is in relation to Weisskopf, since her lack of provided information was widely considered to be crippling to the ability of many fans to assess her work. I think it would be very hard to persuasively argue that the Editor Long Form category is analogous to any other category in terms of how important the packet information is to Average Jane Fan’s judging ability.

    Basically, there’s no strong evidence that a widely available work would suffer a disadvantage. There’s guesses, there’s concerns, but what there isn’t is proof. I’m wary of accepting guesses and concerns as anything more than they are.

  41. I do not know if current rules would allow for a lower price, reflecting decreased cost, for those who only receive electronic publications.

    As I understand the rules, Worldcons can opt to charge everybody extra for publications, at which point they have no obligation to print and mail them to supporting members.

    As I understand the trend, Worldcons are likely to continue cutting publication costs by reducing the scale, lavishness and weight of the printed publications.

    As I understand the choice: do we set the Supporting Membership fee a lot lower, accepting that it does less to defray the cost of running the Worldcon but does more to encourage public interest and participation in supporting Worldcons and the Hugos? Or keep it roughly the same, putting more money back into the conventions?

  42. Note that it likely won’t be a particularly democratic decision. The minimum fee is $40 through 2018, and the Helsinki committee, together with the 2019 bid committees (who are required to get some not insignificant paperwork done by February) have the option of agreeing to lower it for 2019.

  43. Brian Z writes: Note that it likely won’t be a particularly democratic decision.

    Translation: hard for the puppies to hack.

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