aka The Puppy That Cried Love at the Heart of the World
Today’s roundup spans everything from legitimate beef to The Walking Dead, with visits along the way to James Worrad, Bob Mayer, Martin Wisse, Earl Newton, Brad Torgersen, T. L. Knighton and T.C. McCarthy. (Title credits go to File 770 consulting editors of the day Vivien and NelC.)
Todd VanDer Werff on Vox
“How conservatives took over sci-fi’s most prestigious award” – April 26
Do the Sad Puppies have a legitimate beef with the Hugos?
Not really.
In recent years, the Hugos have definitely taken a turn away from traditional pulp sci-fi toward more literary works. But science fiction has always had pulp and literary writers, and the latter crowd has traditionally been more successful at awards ceremonies — just as it has with the Pulitzers or National Book Awards, where Phillip Roth is more likely to win than Stephen King.
The Puppies’ claim here also ignores that the science-fiction community has traditionally backed all sorts of authors, of all sorts of political stripes.
“Robust conservative voices have always been part of the SF&F conversation.”
“What’s actually notable about the SF subculture is its heterodoxy, expressed by things like the Libertarian Futurist Society sometimes giving their Prometheus Award to the Scottish socialist SF writer Ken MacLeod, or MacLeod himself talking about the importance to him of right/libertarian writers like Robert Heinlein and Poul Anderson. Robust conservative voices have always been part of the SF&F conversation,” [Patrick] Nielsen Hayden told me.
The Puppies also insist there’s an unstated secret cabal running things behind the scenes of the Hugos, and that the only way to fight it is to push back against it.
Said Torgersen again: “Sad Puppies was necessary because everywhere I went in the field (as a young professional) I heard the same gripes: that the same predictable names always popped up in the same categories, that other names were always left out in the cold, or in the Hugo awards blind spots, and that the way to win a Hugo was not to write a fantastic story or book, it was to buddy up with and schmooze the right people.”
James Worrad
“Kicking Against The Pricks: Thoughts On That Vox Day Troll Fiasco” – April 26
I’d like to tell you it was a tough, valiant battle but it was more a pull-the-trigger-with-left-hand-smoke-with-the-right Somme-type affair.
The first wave had no comprehension of irony or satire and were thus tragically cut down in their knicker-sniffing prime. Second wave realized they should at least pretend to understand irony and satire and still got cut down. The third wave was more of a trickle by then, one that had no option but to criticize my weight and writing ability. This, readers take note, is the troll equivalent of boys and old men being sent out into the breach with rifles made in 1892. The last push. Not pretty.
Bob Mayer on Write On The River
“The Hugo Awards: Who Gives A Shit? Author Bullshit” – April 26
I’m a whore. I cash my check.
This highlights the bullshit of authors.
If the system works their way—GREAT!
But when it doesn’t it’s censorship?
Take indie bookstores. Love them. Was in one yesterday and it inspired me. But over half the indie bookstores I’ve been in over the years blew me off trying to place my books there, even when traditionally published and a NY Times bestseller. Didn’t even bother to ask the guy behind the counter yesterday. Just bought some books. But, by God, one of them starts going out of business, the hue and cry arises. Ever hear that for an author going out of business?
99% or more of readers don’t care. They read. I did buy a book with the badge of Hugo Award Winner once on the cover based on it—Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Great fucking book and series. Total dickhead as an author in person and in email. But who cares?
He wrote some great shit. Harlan Ellison supported him so he won a Hugo. Yeah. Still a dickhead. But who cares? You read his book, not marry him.
Martin Wisse on Wis[s]e Words
“Will 2015 see the end of the Hugo Voters Packet?” – April 26
This year we’re in a perfect storm. For the average non-Puppy voter, the Voter Packet is a lot less attractive with all that Puppy Poo on it, while publishers might be wary to put their books on it due to the rocketing number of supporting memberships bought since the shortlist announcement. Sasquan is on track to become one of the largest, perhaps the largest Worldcon ever and what’s more, most of the memberships are supporting, not attending.
So if voters are less eager for the Packet anyway and publishers less willing to include their books now the membership is getting bigger and bigger, does this mean 2015 will make the Packet obsolete?
Earl Newton
“The Victimhood of Bullies, or: The 2015 Hugo Awards” – April 26
You know what political correctness actually is?
It’s treating strangers like your friends. One of the biggest predictors of whether someone will accept gay people as equal in society? “Do they have a personal relationship with someone who is gay.”
You might tease your best friend, but you don’t tease them in front of others. You don’t tease them behind their back (or maybe you do. Stop doing that.)
You don’t make them into an outcast. You respect their feelings.
“Feelings?!” comes the Sad Puppies / GamerGate / Men’s Rights Activist reply, swaddling itself in self-pity and righteous outrage. “What about our feelings?”
I care about your feelings, too. And I want to take your feelings seriously.
But you’re like a bully who, after shaking down a seven year old for their lunch money and pride, complains about the harshness of the reprimand.
If your only persecution is that no one will let you persecute others anymore, then I can’t help you.
T. L. Knighton
“Fisking Cat Valente” – April 26
And really, how in the hell do you know that that was what bumped the Heinlein biography off the ballot? You are talking about volume two of the biography that Tor has put almost no push behind, that has been largely absent from many book stores, and that a number of people didn’t even know was out? That biography?
Cat, we can’t nominate what we haven’t read and we can’t nominate what we don’t know is even out. Take that up with your buddies at Making Light, because the biography was published then not pushed by Tor.
Brad R. Torgersen in a comment to T. L. Knighton – April 26
Again, some of the chief plaintiffs (against SP3) have been the most obvious beneficiaries of the status quo. Cat tends to be a bit of a “queen bee” within the field, and has a lot of sycophantic admirers. She’s just mad that somebody is disrupting things, and falling back on the tired narrative of, “Everyone who upsets me is a [insert bogeyman words here] so I win!”
T.C. McCarthy
“Anti #SadPuppies/#GamerGate – Brianna Wu – has ‘Ralph Retort’ Reporter Ejected from Panel Discussion” – April 26
The SadPuppies did not hijack the Hugo Awards. They played by the rules and won a popular vote that resulted in many within the SFF community complaining (falsely) about how there had been ballot stuffing, etc. This is all disingenuous. It’s a bit silly to complain and write hit pieces that accuse Brad Torgersen and Larry Correia of being racist just because one lost a popular vote. Brianna Wu is one of the latest to make these false (maybe erroneous is less inflammatory?) claims; this is my assessment.
Barth Anderson on Con Gusto
“Sad Puppies, The Walking Dead, and Hunting for Conservative Science Fiction” – April 14
Saddest Puppy Brad Torgersen has said there was no political litmus test at play in selecting certain works for their proposed slate, and I tend to believe him. The works on their slate are mainly fifty shades of military science fiction. Tellingly, to me, the most exemplary conservative piece of science fiction in the last ten years didn’t make the Sad Puppies’ ballot for Best Dramatic Presentation: The Walking Dead. This isn’t a work that merely plays with the trappings and furnishings of conservative thought, as military sf does, saying “yay guns” and stopping there. The Walking Dead is conservative from individual scenes to the widest angle of its worldview and philosophy.
The big conservative idea behind The Walking Dead’s apocalyptic world is a pure, condensed Thomas Hobbesian scenario. Society and government have collapsed from a zombie apocalypse, but even if you aren’t killed by a zombie, your corpse will re-animate as one. Indeed, the situation is so bleak and horrible that there is no presumption of seeking a cause or cure for the outbreak in this story. We don’t even know if it’s really an “outbreak” at all. The Walking Dead narrative is reduced to the horrible choices facing the characters, who come to realize that other humans are even worse foes than the zombies could ever be.
And this is really the launching pad from which many conservative arguments spring in The Walking Dead. Each season takes on different “enemy attitudes” that the tribe of right-thinking characters (ha ha) must face, analyze, and ultimately overcome. These “enemy attitudes” (my term) take the form of long-term presumptions about what society is, but which are now delusional (liberal?) beliefs that stand in the way of people being what they really need to be in this hyper-Hobbesian horror. Such as:
- believing that the walking dead (zombies) still bear some humanity and must be treated humanely;
- forgiveness and reconciliation are crucial to surviving;
- motherhood and children are essential to society;
- arming and feeding ourselves are cornerstones of society
I'd never join a conspiracy that would have me as a member.
— Rachel Swirsky (@rachelswirsky) April 26, 2015
https://twitter.com/kjmiller12AM/status/592413519154253824
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Craig,
Indeed, Wright’s latest, which came out one week ago, is in the 20,000s. I would certainly hope that he’d have enough fans to sell several mobi files per day for at least the first week or two of his book’s release. (Wright has also benefitted from the Puppies granting him five Hugo nominations this past month.)
Indeed, non-fiction isn’t widely read, but a. only people who read in a category should nominate in a category, and b. Heinlein’s bio was absolutely more widely read than any of the Puppy selections this year.
xdpaul- Thank you for the Chaos Horizon referral. I browsed it and found it interesting.
For those interested in the slate voting analysis, I think the relevant entries are April 6 and 16. Here’s the link: https://chaoshorizon.wordpress.com/
I’m not a math guy, but my interpretation of the Chaos Horizon analysis is that the SP/RP voters combined have a maximum of 360 voters. Only 150 of the 360 voters were “effective slate” voters. The balance appeared to pick and chose.
That’s in general terms, as Chaos Horizon’s opined that it could have been combinations of voters (such as 50 effective slate voters with another 200 voting 50%), etc. in the discussions. And for those who are interested, our host, Kevin Standlee and Vox Day all make appearances to discuss the numbers.
What all of that means to me, is that the bulk of Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies were not slate voters. Only between 50-150 were. And this tends to support the Puppies claims that the Hugos have become insular and detached, if that few “slate” voters can upset the apple cart so effectively.
There is also a Vox Day reference to the math suggesting slate voting (or alliances) in the past, though I’m not sure where the analysis this proposition is at, and being effective at much lower numbers. No one appeared to disagree with him, however.
The Hugos have a relatively low number of voters because most people have something better to do with $40 then spend it on a vote. That’s a little different than calling the Hugos “insular”, which was a political claim primarily and only secondarily a claim about the number of engaged voters.
Seth Gordon and Daveon- I suspect that Scalzi’s lack of success in recent years has to do with the increased numbers of voters, many of whom I would presume are hostile to Scalzi (calling Corriea names is unlikely to endear himself to Corriea voters, for example). As I understand it, it was a much lower threshold to get on the ballot just a few years ago. In some categories, less than 100 voters could win someone the Hugo.
Nowadays, a small group isn’t as effective as it would be in “normal” Hugo years.
Keep in mind when I used words like “increased”, “lower”, “small”, etc… I use them in the purely relative sense. To me, even the high end of 360 voters seems small.
Winning a Hugo in 2013 is a lack of success in recent years? Do you even read what you type?
And Jesus, wasn’t Correia’s complaint that the Worldcon crowd didn’t like him?
And what’s the SP complaint that SJW “message fic” like ANCILLARY JUSTICE and “The Water That Falls on You From Nowhere?”—two 2014 winners!—showed how insular and SJW-friendly the Hugos voters were???
“And I don’t know why you have such an obsession with puppies and Heinlein.”
Heinlein was dragged into this by the Sad Puppies. He’s their go-to example as the kind of SF/F writer who wasn’t making it onto the ballot because of the super-secret social justice cabal.
Correia directly asked GRRM, “If Robert Heinlein wrote Starship Troopers in 2014, could he get on the Hugo ballot now?”
When the Heinlein-obsessed Puppies campaign kept a Heinlein bio off the ballot, it’s another sign of how flawed and half-assed their efforts were. They didn’t go looking for excellent SF/F. For the most part, they used slates to promote themselves, their buddies and people whose presence on the ballot would make the most people angry.
Steve Moss — “As to Vox Day, since when is his call for lock-step voting given him more power than Scalzi or Torgersen’s recommendations?”
Uh, since this year, when the nominations for best novel, novella, novelette, short story and best related work are dominated by the Rabid Puppy slate — or the RP slate uncannily predicts the nominations for those. Did you miss what has caused this kerfuffle?
Day claims the power himself, and the evidence seems to support it. Whereas Scalzi, the Nielsen Haydens and all their ninja SJWs don’t actually seem to have had that much of an effect, despite all the frothing from Sad and Rabid Puppies alike.
Nick Mamatas- For an award claiming to be SF/F “most prestigious” (per the Hugo site) award “given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year” (per wiki), and which anyone who pays $40 can vote, the numbers are very small and very insular, and were more so in prior years, so far as I’m concerned.
I’ve been a regular reader of SF/F since the mid-70s. I didn’t know I could vote for the Hugo until this most recent kerfuffle arose. I’m a relatively well off fan of SF/F and have been for a couple of decades. If I knew I could be voting, I would have been. I suspect there are many thousands like me. I certainly signed up to vote once I knew the process.
While I had nothing to do with voting for the SP/RP slate, the commotion following the slate winning spots attracted my attention. As I’m sure it has attracted the attention of others. So if nothing else, the most recent controversy has served a useful purpose from my perspective.
I would think that everyone would be in favor of that, though it appears not.
“As I understand it, it was a much lower threshold to get on the ballot just a few years ago. In some categories, less than 100 voters could win someone the Hugo.”
You’re mixing two concepts together — getting nominated and winning. I’m not aware of any Hugo category in recent years where the winner got less than 100 first-place votes.
Nick Mamatas- I find it curious that an observation, which may be incorrect (or not) depending on one’s frame of reference, provokes such a violent response from you.
Specifically, Tor seems to have very heavily pushed Scalzi’s “Locked In”. That hasn’t gone very far in translating into a Hugo nomination, as Scalzi’s prior work almost uniformly achieved. And this is despite a work being removed from the ballot, which means it was at least 2 under the original top 5.
That suggests to me the Scalzi “fans” who regularly got his work on the ballot are a very small number indeed.
NelC- Day appears to have had that effect this year, in conjunction with Corriea and Torgersen (and don’t forget Hoyt, the Mad Genius Club, and others, including those authors not active in SP3, such as Anderson and Butcher, all of whom have active fan bases). I don’t think Day would have gotten as far without them. Day seems to be the most prominent beneficiary, but the effort came from the fans of many authors. So singling him out as the effective mastermind may be erroneous (or correct, we’ll know eventually).
Remember, there seem to be huge (relatively) variances in the “Puppy” vote, so attributing to them monolithic motivations is probably an error.
@SteveMoss ” Is anyone seriously contending that the last decade’s winners rival the works submitted in decades past by the likes of Roger Zelazny?”
Are you seriously contending that any works on the Puppy slates rival the works of a Zelazny, or a Delany?
And, yes, I think that China Mieville rivals Roger Zelazny, to pick an example totally at non-random.
Also, the Hugos aren’t like a Sports Hall of Fame ballot, where you have to go “Are any players not in worthy of being in?” You don’t have to be as good as “The City and the City” or “Lord of Light” to win a Hugo.
Moss—the Hugo Award is the most prestigious, regardless of how the sausage is made. Its prestige comes from its positive effect on sales and the award’s longevity in the field. Many other awards are on some level a reaction to the Hugo and thus ends up further solidifying the prestige of the Hugo. It’s a Puppy plank that “prestigious” seems to mean “should be voted on by lots of people who’ll do what we tell them” or “should be awarded to best-sellers” or “future classics” or “fun pulp.” It’s an incoherent argument. You embarrass yourself by parroting it.
I also have no idea what rock you’ve been hiding under, but the last seven years saw a significant push to explain the Hugo Award process online. Indeed, one could reasonably point to Scalzi and the Loud Blogs of the SJWs as being the transmission belt of this information. That *you* missed it isn’t necessarily indicative of anything.
2008: 972 ballots cast for final voting
2009: 1074
2010: 1094 (small increase because con was in Australia)
2011: 2100
2012: 1922 (dip I’d credit to volunteer in-fighting—a very competent Hugo person was pushed out)
2013: 1848 (first Puppy year saw…a decline??)
2014: 3587 (second Puppy year…but let’s also be clear that the con was in London, and thus very accessible to the entire EU that year).
And yes, it would be great if more people voted, except that I’d like more people who know how to read to vote, rather than more people taking their marching orders from bloggers to vote for hopelessly obscure and only-okay works that just happen to have been authored by the pals of a Loud Blogger. (Note, there are plenty of SJW Loud Bloggers as well.) As I pointed out on the previous thread, the issue of Galaxy’s Edge in which one of the Hugo-nominated short stories appeared has sold literally THIRTY-EIGHT copies in paper as recorded by Bookscan. Yes, it’s also an ebook magazine, and yes Bookscan doesn’t get every paper sale (especially at cons) so add a zero if you like: 380.
A story in an issue magazine with a circulation of under 500 (which also had work by several Hugo perennials) did not magically happen to randomly get read by people who then loved it and decided to vote for it. The story got on the ballot thanks to a political campaign that wasn’t even *for* the story, but *against* a phantom menace of SJWs who like message fic and high-falutin’ literary stuff.
So, Vox Day just did it better than Scalzi. The problem is what? That he’s got a better handle on the Hugo Awards’ process than the former president of the SFWA?
I don’t believe that’s a crime.
“And, yes, I think that China Mieville rivals Roger Zelazny, to pick an example totally at non-random.”
I’d put Kim Stanley Robinson up there too. George R. R. Martin, Iain M. Banks, Neil Gaiman and Neal Stephenson have all made appearances on the best novel ballot in the last decade, and I think they’ve all earned mention among the greats.
“So, Vox Day just did it better than Scalzi.”
You can keep pushing this lie over and over but it will remain a lie. Scalzi never led a bloc voting campaign.
Prove it, rcade.
Puppy vote variance isn’t huge, and except for novel doesn’t seem to be all that confusing—we already know how political coattails work in standard elections. I’ve mentioned this before, but will do it one more time. Imagine slates labeled, oh I dunno, D and R. And imagine that D and R use a variety of means to cultivate various voting blocs among a population. We can predict who would vote for D and who would vote for R pretty reliably. And we’d also know that many Ds and many Rs would drop out as the slate got longer. Plenty of people would vote for President D and then Senator D and then Congressman D, and would then leave the booth rather than vote for Schoolboard Members D, D, D, and D, Sheriff D, and Town Coroner D. Ditto the Rs. It’s is the nature of cultivating blocs around major charismatic figures and a few big ideas that coattails lose their effectiveness as the offices (or bond issues or ballot questions) get less important.
@xdpaul “So, Vox Day just did it better than Scalzi”
No. He did a different thing, that had a more significant impact. I have never seen anyone document Scalzi going “If you trust me, and want to have an effect on the broader politics of SF, you’ll vote just as I tell you.” or anything even close to it.
Let me give you a clue: If you find someone has been ineffective at something you think they’re doing, (and, indeed, no one has provided that much-sought-after evidence for any kind of “SJW takeover”), that might be a clue that they’re *not* *doing* *it*.
@rcade: “I’d put Kim Stanley Robinson up there too. George R. R. Martin, Iain M. Banks, Neil Gaiman and Neal Stephenson have all made appearances on the best novel ballot in the last decade, and I think they’ve all earned mention among the greats.”
I’d agree with you on many of them: I was restricting myself, purely for rhetorical purposes, to winners in the last decade.
I find it amazing that Iain Banks never got nominated for any of his Culture novels, myself.
“Prove it, rcade.”
Think before you hit post. You’re asking me to prove a negative.
As the person alleging that Scalzi ran a bloc-voting campaign, you’re the one who should be providing evidence to support that claim. But like Correia, you have no evidence of past Hugo wrongdoing.
“I find it amazing that Iain Banks never got nominated for any of his Culture novels, myself.”
Yep. I wish we had more years ahead where that oversight might be corrected.
Prove what? He didn’t do it, there’s no evidence of it, you might as well ask us to prove that Unicorns don’t exist. Saying over and over ‘Scalzi did it!’ like a broken record without showing a single piece of evidence is just a little daft isn’t it?
“What all of that means to me, is that the bulk of Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies were not slate voters. Only between 50-150 were. And this tends to support the Puppies claims that the Hugos have become insular and detached, if that few “slate” voters can upset the apple cart so effectively.”
Actually, no, what it shows, quite clearly is that the Hugos have always been driven by a lot of individuals of wildly varying tastes voting for stuff they like with absolultely no evidence of somebody or something driving the process to get a certain outcome.
It does take a special kind of idiot to look at the data and wrong a completely wrong conclusion though. Kudos.
I wonder which sock will appear next to complain about tone or something like that?
‘So, Vox Day just did it better than Scalzi’
Yes, by having robotic sheep vote for his slate in lockstep!
rcade- I think you are correct. I accepted the line uncritically from another site I was reading. I think they were confused themselves, as when I went to the actual data I was obviously mistaken.
Kevin Standlee has an excellent page linking to the data of nominations and final ballots for the Hugo Awards: http://kevin-standlee.livejournal.com/1333247.html
When I followed the links, here’s the data for final ballots for best novel:
2008- 745 ballots cast; 195 votes in first round and 332 in final round for the winner.
2009- 1074 ballots cast; 264 votes in first round and 477 in final round for the winner.
2010- 1094 ballots cast; 240 votes in first round and 380 in final round for the winner.
2011- 1813 ballots cast; 374 votes in first round and 779 in final round for the winner.
2012- 1664 ballots cast; 421 votes in first round and 769 in final round for the winner.
2013- 1649 ballots cast; 407 votes in first round and 827 in final round for the winner.
2014- 3137 ballots cast; 1335 votes in first round and 2327 in final round for the winner.
Assuming I’m reading this correctly, for the year following Red Shirts, the voters for best novel almost doubled. Most of what I’ve read attributes this to the 2014 location (London) as compared to 2013 (San Antonio). Normally, it looks like 2015 (Spokane) would have been a smaller voting pool as compared to London, but it looks to be increasing again.
Regardless, it looks as if participation is increasing. That should be considered a good thing.
Scalzi’s LOCKED-IN didn’t smell like a Hugo book to me at all. For one thing, it’s more of a thriller with a mild SFnal gimmick than an SF/F novel. Scalzi’s prior appearances on the novel ballot were books about space battles and the like. It’s the same thing with Dan Simmons, who hasn’t appeared on the Hugo ballot in a long while despite his very fine novels—he’s just not writing HYPERION-type stuff at the moment.
Hugo novel voters seem to like:
books about outer space
books that have a poncy sort of fantasy feeling to them, or at least lots of confused running around and people waving their hands and going “oh-me oh-my!”
giant crossover hits
books by Canadians when Worldcon is in Canada
cosmic mind-blowy kablooey stuff
books that frequently mention how great science fiction and the people who like it are
whatever a few favored authors (Gaiman, Willis, Vinge) poop out
and last and least, undeniably excellent books.
Steve Moss — “Remember, there seem to be huge (relatively) variances in the “Puppy” vote, so attributing to them monolithic motivations is probably an error.”
Eh, no more so than similar verbal shorthand about, say, the Republicans, or the Rebellion, or taxi drivers. It’s well not to get carried away with rhetoric and fears about the future, but one can’t throw in qualifiers every time one mentions the Puppies when considering their effects and future plans.
The Sad Puppies declared an intent to do something, organising themselves into the Sad Puppies, getting a logo and everything; they allied with VD to further their plans; VD took their plan and added his own spin and magic; the result of all this machination, to my eye, greatly resembles the intent of the modified plan, or is a pretty outrageous coincidence. Ergo, it really looks like Day exercised some power.
As to numbers, many Sad Puppies and Happy Kittens, not understanding the voting processes of the Hugos, have been prognosticating that the domination of the nominations will lead to automatic victory of the Rabid slate in the second round. However, the situations are different enough as to put some doubt on that.
While the nomination vote can usually be dominated by a couple of hundred or so marching in lockstep, or a few more largely-but-not-quite voting in sync, for a win in the second (award) round, the Puppies are going to have to be present in greater numbers and vote in a more co-ordinated fashion, because the choices are more limited for the voters as a whole, and because the second round generally attracts more voters than the first (nomination) round.
If Day wants to win an award for his favoured nominations (including himself), then he’s going to have to summon up a lot more undead voters to do his evil bidding than showed up in the first round. Chances are, I think, that he plans to spare himself the effort and will just declare victory whatever the outcome.
Did xdpaul really just ask someone to prove a negative?
Yes, I did Nick. Interesting how that works, isn’t it?
Indeed, we now know exactly what a ridiculous little pseud you are!
Mike identified one of the major problems with campaigning when he called Scalzi and Hines out for going after Fan Writer Hugos.
You do realize that Vox Day considers his blog to be one of the most read Science Fiction blogs out there? What would your response be if, on his slate of recommendations, he had written something like “I’m not seeking a Best Fan Writer nomination, nor recommending myself for the category, but I won’t turn it down the nomination if it’s offered.”
Steven Schwartz- Tastes vary but you got me there. I concede Mieville and Gaiman (American Gods was a wonder) have come close to Zelazny and are worthy winners/nominees.
And is it your contention that the best of John Scalzi comes close to approaching the level of Mieville, Gaiman, Banks, or Stephenson? You might believe so, but I have a hard time accepting that anything he’s written is anywhere near that level. And I include Old Man’s War in that, which I liked.
In this case, you very nearly can prove that negative, because the Puppies themselves showed exactly what you would expect of such a campaign, paralleling actual political campaigns — catchy slogans, multiple posts across multiple sites over a period of time to drum up support and to keep a forefront in mind share (there’s a reason for all those roadside political signs in real campaigns), memorable graphics (just as campaigns in politics have their own logos) etc. It’s a very, very public process. And fandom keeps secrets like a leaky sieve.
That’s what a campaign looks like. Anything else, any invisible campaign, is a conspiracy theory.
Although you can’t literally prove that there wasn’t a large cabal of sworn voters dedicated to do Scalzi’s bidding and to complete silence, a kind of Holy Vehm of the WSFS, believing it is rather like believing that Scalzi gets votes because he’s backed by the AISB. It can’t formally be proven, but it shouldn’t be taken seriously.
I don’t know if it really factored into it, but at the time I lot of people were making noise about getting supporting memberships to Loncon/London because of the promise of a really big voters packet.
Typo: that should be “can’t formally be disproven”.
Steve, are you going to argue that in the last 50 years some real turkeys have won the Hugo? Because I’m in 100% agreement with you on that, it’s hardly something new. Having dud books on the list over a decade is hardly novel and it’s not unique to the period 2002-2012 which is what we are told drove the puppies to their cause.
Of that decade you seem to have issue with Redshirts – can’t say I much liked it myself, but I’d argue happily it was better than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which won back in 2001 when I’m led to understand things were better.
Back a few years and we have Forever Peace – which personally I thought stank like week old fish. 1989 there’s Cyteen, frankly, in my opinion again, not a terribly good book either. How about further back? Speaker for the Dead? I’d actually say Redshirts is better than that myself. How about 1972, To Your Scattered Bodies Go? Really, against, I’d side with Redshirts over that too, but it is a personal thing I suppose.
Things people don’t rate or like have been winning the Hugo Award since 1953… and they will do so in the future, pulling out one book as proof that the awards are broken is as daft as asking people to prove a negative.
That’s what a campaign looks like. Anything else, any invisible campaign, is a conspiracy theory.
Wrong. Any invisible campaign is a conspiracy. Or did 2001-2005 magically happen in spite of the known and admitted collusion?
NelC- I agree with you about the win conditions. More will have to show up to actually win the Hugo. That leads to the currently unanswerable question, where are all the supporting memberships coming from to participate in Spokane? I believe its a mix between traditionalists, Puppies and Butcher fans (his nomination is posted on the front page of his forum and he has 40,000+ registered users there, with almost 44,000 twitter followers- though I don’t think he’s announced it on twitter) but this is guess work.
Vox Day will declare he’s won by virtue of the nomination (and per GRRM, he’d be right). He’ll also claim the win as the 2-3 Puppy novels doubtless played some role in keeping “Locked In” off the ballot for the Hugo. Whether one “wins” or not depends on one’s goals, and there are degrees of winning (I won the battle and captured Berlin, or I won the battle but failed to capture Berlin).
And what about next year? If there are 50-150 bloc voters out there who will listen to Day’s every command (as some claim) with an additional 210-310 who act sometimes, then that means Day will control a large part of the the ballot year in and year out. I doubt this as I think SP has a lot to do with things, but who knows. Maybe RP really are the kingpins. If the group that thinks that Day controls mindless robots are right (I don’t think they are), he’ll never be gone and you’ll never have your pre-2012 Hugos again.
“And is it your contention that the best of John Scalzi comes close to approaching the level of Mieville, Gaiman, Banks, or Stephenson? You might believe so, but I have a hard time accepting that anything he’s written is anywhere near that level. And I include Old Man’s War in that, which I liked.”
I see we’re back to the Puppy Whipping Boy again.
I haven’t read enough Scalzi to comment informedly on that. But what you appear to be doing is saying ‘This one guy is undeserving, therefore the Hugos are broken!” — which is simple nonsense. There will always be people you don’t like, or people you don’t think deserve nominations, no matter what.
For example, I find it risible that “Doc” Smith ever got nominated for a Hugo award — historically important, maybe, but a bad writer of books that deservedly now fit in the “things you read for history-of-SF” category.
But that doesn’t, to me, discredit the Hugos of the mid-60’s.
John Brunner wrote a lot of eminently forgettable SF — I should know, I’ve forgotten much of it 😉 — but he also wrote some brilliant stuff, and won a Hugo for one of them.
What I see a great deal from the pro-Puppy people is pointing with alarm at one or two things, pronouncing the Hugos corrupt, and therefore supporting “rescuing” them. If you look back at the Hugos of the 1960s, you’ll find a lot of names in the Best Novel nominees, say, who have sunk like a stone; thus it was, and thus it always shall be.
Things people don’t rate or like have been winning the Hugo Award since 1953… and they will do so in the future, pulling out one book as proof that the awards are broken is as daft as asking people to prove a negative.
Totally agree Daveon. So the problem with 2015 is…?
” believing it is rather like believing that Scalzi gets votes because he’s backed by the AISB.”
Well, I didn’t vote for him, and I have my membership card in my wallet, so I can tell you fnord the instructions didn’t go out.
Well, isn’t that exciting. *eyeroll*
I’m not going to bother defending my post, since, you know, I made the post and made my points. But I find it hilarious that I’m a “queen bee” according to Torgersen, and one of the “in crowd.” Presumably that makes me part of the Evil Cabal of Stealing Hugos.
You know, all those Hugos I won.
I’ve won two, both as part of the SF Squeecast, so really I’ve won 1/5 of a Hugo twice, and precisely none for my work as a Cruel Dark Queen Who Only Got Where She Is By Being An Icky Woman and Writing About Icky Woman Things.
Holy crap, my cabal mojo needs some work!
I came in dead last when I was up for Best Novel, and though I’ve crept up in the rankings, I’ve never really come close to winning. (Hilariously, when I was nominated for Novel, my first nomination, I laughed and thought: “I will NEVER win. Because Wind-up Girl and City and the City, but also because the Hugo folks are hardly going to get excited about a bisexual genderweird slipstream bizarro book.” China Mieville even said he was shocked it was ever nominated. So was I. This in 2010, right during that period when apparently the Hugos were being given out exclusively to bisexual genderweird slipstream bizarro books. And yet–sixth place out of six! VICTORY.)
My last three fiction nods have gotten the most nominations, but still lost in the final vote. (Note to the guy bemoaning Annie Bellet’s withdrawal because he suspected she might have gotten the most nominations and thus would probably win the award–dude, how many nominations you get means jack.) Because…that’s how the cookie crumbles? I’ve lost more Hugos than Correia, Torgersen, or Day (so far), in fact, I’ve lost as many as they have put together. And yet my reaction has always been: “Next time I’ll write a better book/story.” Not: “If I don’t get my stapler I’m gonna burn this place to the ground.” Because I am such a naughty, arrogant queen bee. Bzz. Bzz.
The point is, if Torgersen’s “queen bee” with all her “sycophantic admirers” can’t get herself a Hugo for fiction, maybe, just maybe, there’s no cabal or conspiracy at all.
Also, hi Other Cat! I imagine people do assume you are one of the Many Cats of SFF. We should have a CatCon for the lot of us.
Think before you hit post. You’re asking me to prove a negative.
Don’t accuse me of posting in haste. I never do that. The fact that you can’t follow the fairly simple logic of my post, which is given in light of the fact that you have been squealing at SP to prove a negative for weeks now, is all I needed to demonstrate that your demands are unreasonable.
Where, exactly, have the SPs been asked to prove a negative?
xdpaul: “Totally agree Daveon. So the problem with 2015 is…?”
That a group of people got together and, especially in the short fiction categories, put a whole slate of really bad choices out there.
I ask the question I’ve asked before: Would you consider it acceptable if the non-existent “SJW conspiracy” got together and took over the Hugos, or would you consider that damaging to them as an award?
Nick handled your question well – you’re asking us to prove there wasn’t a secret conspiracy which is rather hard. We’re asking you to provide evidence of the conspiracy that didn’t exist.
As Steven says – my problem is with a small group exploiting a well known bug in the system to dump an entire slate of dreck onto the award – well, so far, what I have read, or tried to read, has made Redshirts look like A Fire Upon the Deep….
What happened in 2001-2005?
I ask the question I’ve asked before: Would you consider it acceptable if the non-existent “SJW conspiracy” got together and took over the Hugos, or would you consider that damaging to them as an award?
I would consider that 100% acceptable. Sensible, in fact. I would not consider that damaging in any way.
As a bit of evidence regarding the ebil SJW conspiracy, some research I did based on claims from a Puppy supporter:
Puppy Supported: “By the beginning of this century the SJWs had effectively taken over the awards. If you failed to write books that promoted goodthink then you could forget winning a Hugo Award. If you hoped to win an award then the only safe course of action was to stick to writing books about black lesbians. There was no need to write books that were actually good, or even readable. If you subscribed to the party line you were safe. if you questioned the party line you would become an unperson.”*
I compared the Prometheus Awards, which are given for Libertarian SF (which, I think we can all agree, is not what those who use SJWs as a pejorative would call SJW fiction) to the Hugos, going back to 1992 (date chosen by counting backwards from 2014 on my TextEdit table. ;))
Clearly, if the Puppy-supporter’s claim was true, we’d expect a change from before 2000 and after, right?
From 1992-1999 (8 years) there were a total of 3 novels on both nominees’ lists — never more than 1 per year.
From 2000-2005 (6 years) a total of 3 novels on both nominee’s lists — 2 one year, 1 another.
From 2006-2010 (5 years) a total of 5 novels — 2 years of 2 each, 1 in another year.
Since 2010 — 1 shared nominee.
However, looking at *why* this happened — and do please note, the data directly contradicts the timeline listed above — it becomes pretty clear; the Hugos stopped giving nominations to three notable right-wingers, tellers of good ripping yarns with no social messages:
Cory Doctorow
Charlie Stross
Ken McLeod
Anyone who’s ever met, or even *read*, those three, please do not laugh so hard it interrupts the breathing.
We’re asking you to provide evidence of the conspiracy that didn’t exist.
That’s called proving a negative, Daveon.
Daveon- I agree with you about The Goblet of Fire and Forever Peace.
I can’t help but think of the joke about two campers running away from a bear. One camper tells the other “I don’t have to be faster than the bear, I just have to be faster than you” as he trips him up.
Thinking tactically, to win a Hugo, you need to first control the nominations. In 2013, all it took was between 118-193 votes to get on the final ballot for Best Novel. I think John Scalzi has the fan base to muster that, which means he just had to be the least hated work on the ballot to collect the prize, in most years.
If I were hated, like the nefarious reaver Vox Day, and controlled between 50-360 nominating votes (allegedly), I don’t have to personally win to win. I can be a Hugo nominee year in and year out. I can break the record for nominations in a matter of a few of years. Heck, if there is a popular writer out there, I can add him or her to the list of nominees. And when that popular author doesn’t win, because I nominated him when others did not, it will add to the fans who are discontented with the Hugos, year in and year out. And if my numbers are toward the upper end of 360, then maybe I can get an award or two for those I appreciate at the smaller end of the Hugo spectrum (like Best Fan Writer), which further increases my reputation. If I ran a small publishing house, this would be a huge positive for my business, as precious few people seem to know how easy it is to get a Hugo nomination.
I don’t think the people who think Vox Day are stupid have correctly analyzed the situation.