(1) Laura J. Mixon’s Hugo speech and a great deal more commentary at – “Acceptance Speech Online! And Other Post-Hugo Neepery”

Tonight, I honor Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Tricia Sullivan, Athena Andreadis, Rachel Manija Brown, Kari Sperring, Liz Williams, Hesychasm, Cindy Pon, and the many others targeted for abuse, whose experiences I documented in my report last fall. They’re great writers and bloggers—read their works!

Thanks go to those who stood up for them: Tade Thompson, Victor Fernando R. Ocampo, Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Pat Cadigan, Sherwood Smith, and Nalo Hopkinson. Read their works too!

Thanks also to those who helped me with my research behind the scenes. You know who you are, and we wouldn’t be here with you, either. Thanks to George RR Martin, who boosted me for this award, and to all who voted for me.

I wrote my report out of love for this community. Out of a rejection of abusive behavior and the language of hate. There’s room for all of us here. But there is no middle ground between “we belong here” and “no you don’t,” which is what I hear when people disrespect members of our community. I believe we must find non-toxic ways to discuss our conflicting points of view. I plan to keep working toward that, in ways true to my own values and lived experiences. And I hope you all will, too. Science fiction and fantasy literature is our common bond and our common legacy. It belongs to all of us. Those who deny that do great harm.

I see our conflict as a reflection of a much larger societal struggle, as Robert Silverberg referred to, and I stand with people from marginalized groups who seek simply to be seen as fully human. Black lives matter. Thank you.

(2) Melina on Subversive Reader – “A Letter To ‘Old’ Hugo Voters from a ‘New’ Hugo Voter”

2. We don’t necessarily bring the same schema to our voting as you do

Part of being part of a community for a while means you start knowing the players. You know that Joanne Bloggs edits for that publisher, and Jane Smith worked with those people who love her. As a new voter, you don’t necessarily know that – it’s possible that the new voter is dipping their toes into the inner circle of knowledge for the very first time.

This is where the packet is a brilliant idea – all the information a new voter needs to fairly judge a person or piece of writing against others. Except, in 2015, there were times when the packet just sucked (and I’m not just talking about the writing). Several of the awards ask us to judge a person’s output over a year – best editors, best fan writer, the art awards etc. And while some categories did this well (the art categories) others provided little or no example of what the nominees were achieving.

This is especially clear in the editing categories. I’ve heard a number of commentators complaining that these categories shouldn’t have been No Awarded without any of them acknowledging that the packets were either thin on quality work or pretty much non existent. Additionally, there weren’t a lot of credible commentators advocating that we vote for one editor or another. So how is a new voter supposed to know that we should vote for a certain editor without evidence or advocacy?

 

3. No Award is not a tragedy or unethical

The option to use No Award is brilliant. It allows us to consider the works that are nominated, judge them according to our own criteria and say ‘nope’ when we think the work doesn’t reach the level a Hugo winner should reach. It’s like the perfect anti bell-curve mechanism.

So, when a No Award is awarded, it’s not a tragedy. It’s the voters, as a group, saying yeah, no, none of the nominated work was good enough. We’re not going to lower our standards just because that’s what was nominated. Try again next year.

Standards are fabulous. It makes sure that we’re celebrating the very best. It shows that we really value excellence in the winners.

Yes there were a lot of No Awards in 2015. That’s because the work nominated was not of a high enough quality to win or got on the ballot in a way we do not agree with as a community. Our standards are high and we should be proud of that.

(3) It’s a theory —

https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/637672487317192704

(4) CBC Radio’s news program As It Happens did an interview with Mary Robinette Kowal about the Puppies on August 28, so I’m told. I haven’t listened to it myself. The link to the program is here. Kowal reportedly begins at 16:40.

Hugo Awards flap

A group of angry reactionaries tries to hijack the biggest awards in science fiction and fantasy — but it turns out there’s no space for their opinions.

(5) Elizabeth Bear on Charlie’s Diary – “How I learned to stop worrying and love the concept of punitive slating…”

The Rabid Puppies, though, are self-declared reavers out to wreck the Hugos for everybody. I think their organizer Vox Day has made himself a laughingstock, personally—he’s been pitching ill-thought-out tantrums in SFF since before 2004, and all he ever brings is noise. But he and his partisans seem to be too ego-invested to admit they’re making fools of themselves, so they’ll never quit.

So it’s totally possible that the Rabid Puppy organizers and voters, in the spirit of burning it all down, would nominate a slate consisting of the sort of vocal anti-slate partisans who could conceivably swing legitimate Hugo nominations on fan support, having a track record of the same.

I’m talking about people such as our good host Charlie Stross, John Scalzi, George R.R. Martin, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and myself. Or just, you know, people they hate—the categories overlap. The goal here would be to then attempt to either force us to withdraw or refuse nominations to prove our lack of hypocrisy, or for fandom to again No Award the whole process. This is the Human Shield option, which—in a slightly different application—is what led to the inclusion on the Rabid Puppy slate of uninvolved parties such as Marko Kloos, Annie Bellet, Black Gate, Jim Minz, and so on in 2015.

This possibility concerns me a bit more, but honestly, I think it’s pretty easy to manage. First of all, I’m going to state up front that I will never willingly participate in a slate. If I learn that I have been included on a slate, I will ask to be removed, and I will bring as much force to bear on that issue as I legally can.

Additionally, I’m going to rely on the discretion of readers and fans of goodwill, who I think are pretty smart people. If you see my name on a slate, please assume that it’s being done by ruiners to punish me, and that whoever put it there has ignored my requests to remove it. I have nothing but contempt for that kind of behavior, and I’m frankly not going to do anything to please them at all.

(6) Ann Leckie – “On Slates”

First off, I deplore slates. In the context of the Hugos, they are an asshole move. Just don’t slate.

Second off, I am saying unequivocally that I do not agree to be on anyone’s slate, do not approve of my inclusion in any slate, and anyone who slates a work of mine is thereby demonstrating their extra-strong motivation to be seen as an asshole.

Now, there’s some concern that assholes making up a slate for next year would deliberately include the work of people they hate, in order to force those people to withdraw any nominations they might get. This might be a genuine concern for some writers. It is not one of mine.

(7) John Scalzi on Whatever – “Final(ish) Notes on Hugos and Puppies, (2015 Edition)” 

[From the second of ten points.]

The going line in those quarters at the moment is that the blanket “No Award” just proves the Hugo Awards are corrupt. Well, no, that’s stupid. What the blanket “No Award” judgment shows is that the large mass of Hugo voters don’t like people trying to game the system for their own reasons that are largely independent of actual quality of work. In the Sad Puppy case the reasons were to vent anger and frustration at having not been given awards before, and for Brad Torgersen to try to boost his own profile as a tastemaker by nominating his pals (with a few human shields thrown in). In the Rabid Puppy case it was because Vox Day is an asshole who likes being an asshole to other people. And in both cases there was a thin candy shell of “Fuck the SJWs” surrounding the whole affair.

The shorter version of the above: You can’t game the system and then complain that people counteracting your gaming of the system goes to show the system is gamed. Or you can, but no one is obliged to take you seriously when you do.

(8) David Gerrold on Facebook

Given all those different belief systems, any attempt to discuss healing and recovery is likely to be doomed — because it’s no longer about “I’m right and you’re wrong” as much as it is about, “my story about all this is the only story.” That’s not just a difference of degree, it’s an attempt to control the paradigm in which all this is occurring.

Which brings me to the inescapable conclusion — if one person pees in the pool, we’re probably not going to notice it. But if we’re all peeing in the pool, it’s going to start stinking pretty bad.

There is a larger narrative — one that we seem to have forgotten. We are all fans because we are all enthralled by the sense of wonder that occurs when we read a good science fiction story or fantasy. Perhaps we came to this genre looking for escape, but ultimately what makes this genre special is that it’s about all the different possibilities. It’s about who we really want to be — it’s about the question, “What does it mean to be a human being?” Are we slans? Are we transhumans? Are we starship troopers?

As Tananarive said, “There are no final frontiers. There’s only the next one.”

That’s what SF is about — it’s about exploration, discovery, and stepping into the next possibility. Our awards are about excellence, innovation, and merit.

There is room in this community for everyone who brings their enthusiasm. We have steampunk and heroic engineers and fantasy fans and gothic horror and gender-punk and space opera and cyberpunk and deco-punk and alternate histories and utopias and dystopias and zombies and vampires and all the other different niches that make up this vast ecology of wonder.

None of us have the right to define SF — we each define it by what we read and what we write. None of us have the authority to demand or control the behavior of others. The best that any of us can do is recommend and invite. And yes, this is another narrative — a narrative of inclusion that stands in opposition to the narratives of division.

That’s the narrative I choose to live in.

(9) Jeffrey A. Carver on Pushing A Snake Up A Hill – “Sad Sad Puppies Affair – Sasquan Roundup, Part 2”

While I stand firmly with the rejection of the gaming effort of the SPs, I feel for those writers and editors who were hurt by the whole affair. Some innocent writers and editors were unwillingly associated with the puppies slate, because the SPs happened to like their work. Other worthy individuals were kept off the final ballot because of the stuffing. Still, the winning novel, The Three Body Problem, by Cixin Liu (translated by Ken Liu), got its place on the ballot because another author withdrew his work after receiving support from the stuffers. Some say that the Hugo Awards as an institution were strengthened by the voters’ repudiation of the attempt to game the system, and I hope that turns out to be true. But it’s hard to say that there were winners in the affected categories. Those writers who were shut out may get another chance, another year, and then again they may not. Either way, it has to hurt.

(10) Adam-Troy Castro – “These Are Not Reasons to Vote For Me For a Hugo”

Please don’t nominate me for a Hugo because you’re my friend on Facebook.

Please don’t nominate me for a Hugo because you’re my friend in real life.

Please don’t nominate me for a Hugo because we shared a great time at a convention.

Please don’t nominate me for a Hugo because I’m politically liberal and you like what I stand for.

Please don’t nominate me for a Hugo because my strongest opposition is politically conservative and you wish to oppose what they stand for.

Please don’t nominate me for a Hugo because it’s “my turn.”

(11) Adam-Troy Castro – “While I’m At It”

“I am among the finest writers working today.”

That, my friends, is the kind of statement that immediately casts doubt on itself.

(12) Sarah A. Hoyt on According To Hoyt – “I’ve Been To The Desert On A Horse With No Name”

Which brings me to: congratulations.  You probably achieved at least half of your objective — to drive out the people who don’t think/act like you and aren’t part of your groups.  It is heartily to be hoped you won’t live to regret it, but don’t bet on it.

So, the show over, and once I’d gotten over being both mad and sad but mostly sad, we started discussing (Kate and Amanda and I) operational details for next year.  Stuff like how many noms, where do we get recommends, do all three of us have to read something before we recommend it, and oh, yeah, logo? patches? t-shirts?  Incredibly threatening stuff like that, you know?  Since Kate, Amanda and I routinely PM and send each other scads of emails everyday (otherwise known as being ‘thick as thieves’) including on all important topics such as “that cute thing the cat did yesterday”, it barely rose above the ambient noise.

So imagine our surprise when Kate got hacked on facebook, not once, not twice but three times in a 24 hour period and her account started spamming sunglass adds.  Coincidence?  I don’t know guys.  One time, maybe.  But three times, when Kate has pretty d*mn good security?  Bah.

(13) Cedar Sanderson on Cedar Writes – “Muzzled Redux”

I still wholeheartedly support the idea of reclaiming the Hugo Awards for excellence above ‘connections’ and even more, the idea of making the Hugo Awards back into a ‘Best of’ rather than a tiny super-minority. I do support the idea of a diverse nomination pool. A really diverse one, where you don’t have to be ‘approved’ by the right people to be included. So it’s not that I was shut out.

Rather, due to full-time (plus some) school and family obligations that need my attention, I cannot afford the time to be slandered right now in public, and this is what will happen. Yes, I have to fear that from the people who are running the show right now. Doubt what I say? One of the people in the front lines, a Latina woman, was accused by a milk-white woman, of using an ethnic slur. Which confused the accused woman, since English is not her first language, maybe it meant something she didn’t know? No… it’s a standard identifier that had been used extensively in the military since the 1950s. The accuser was making up mud to fling and try to make it stick. You can see the inherent hypocrisy, and the reason I have to avoid the poo-flinging monkeys.   The Sad Puppy movement supports me, knows what is happening in my life, but the other side? They wouldn’t care, and would no doubt use it as a tool to try and destroy me.

Pat Patterson in a comment on Cedar Writes

You know the scene in Henry V about the feast of St Crispan? I like the kenneth Branagh version, personally.
Well, on every instance of the Hugo awards, however long they last,
you will be able to strip your sleeve and show your scars and say “These wounds I had as a nominee for the Best Fan Writer Hugo,”
Old dogs forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But you’ll remember, with advantages,
What words you wrote this year. Then shall the names,
Familiar in your mouth as household words-

(14) Steven Brust on The Dream Café – “Who Really Runs the Hugo Awards?”

In a surprising development, the dispute among “Trufans” “SMOFS” “Sad Puppies” and “Rabid Puppies” has produced a result: We now know exactly who runs the Hugo Awards. It turns out to be Mrs. Gladys Knipperdowling, of Grand Rapids, Iowa.

Mrs. Knipperdowling, 81, came forward yesterday to reveal that she has personally chosen all Hugo winners and nominees since 1971 when her aunt Betty “got too old and cranky,” as she put it in an exclusive interview. “I wouldn’t have said anything about it,” she added, “but then I heard there was all of this trouble.”

Asked about the people usually accused of picking the Hugo winners, Mrs. Knipperdowling became confused. She claimed never to have heard of the Nielsen Haydens at all, and when John Scalzi was mentioned, she asked, “Is he the nice young man in the bow tie?”

(15) Dysfunctional Literacy – “I Am No Award!”

I’ve never heard of anybody named No Award, and I’ve never read anything by No Award, but No Award must be awesome.

No Award won so many honors because Hugo voters are in a big argument over stuff that non-Hugo voters don’t care about.  Science fiction fans have always liked to argue about stuff that other people don’t care about.  Before I was born, it was Jules Verne vs. H.G. Wells or Flash Gordon vs. Buck Rogers.  When I was a kid, it was Star Wars vs. Star Trek or Marvel vs. DC.  Today, science fiction fans are divided between social justice warriors and sad puppies.

[Thanks to Mark Dennehy, another Mark, Danny Sichel, and John King Tarpinian for some of these links. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]