We’ll split the Scroll again today. Guess which part this is!
(1) NOMINEE STATEMENT. For those who are interested, Cora Buhlert sent a link to “What Price Humanity?” author David VanDyke’s statement regarding his nomination at Kboards.
Re: KBoarder David VanDyke is a Hugo Award Finalist
Thanks everyone.
I wrote this bit and posted in the other thread before I saw this one, so I’ll copy-paste it here:
As we poker players say, I’ve tried to put myself into a position to get lucky, and it seems I have. Or, as another quote goes, it takes years to become an overnight success. I submitted a story to a Jerry Pournelle anthology (There Will Be War X), got accepted, then suddenly got nominated for a Hugo in a relatively easier category (novelette – novels, novellas and short stories seem much more competitive), and boom, somebody notices me after 4 years and 25 books as an indie…
I’ll be going to WorldCon in KC, but I don’t think I have a snowball’s chance of winning…not with a Stephen King novelette in there. But the nom is nice, and the networking will be nice.
…and for those who might wonder, I’m apolitical about the whole Hugo process and on nobody’s side. I just submitted a story to one of the grand masters of military sci-fi and it got picked up for the anthology, and then nominated. That’s it. No investment in puppies, kitties, gerbils, tortoises or other animals. I’m not really a joiner of special interest groups or parties anyway. Hopefully my work stands on its own.
Thanks again for all the well-wishing.
(2) MORE VOTING ADVICE. WTF Pancakes makes a modest suggestion in “Hugo Awards 2016: Geez, not this shit again”.
I’ve read suggestions that this year’s troll-fest was a direct response to the Hugo voters’ failure to reward the Puppies to force the voters to give them trophies even if the voters didn’t actually believe they were deserved. No, really, that’s the argument (although it was phrased slightly differently.) The desire, then, is to receive an award, regardless of merit. The sort of thing that Puppy authors might call “affirmative action.”
Fortunately, I have a solution which I think every reasonable person will agree is wise and just: If what the Puppies really want is recognition, then simply reward every Puppy candidate with a “participant” award. You know, the kind they give to grade school children when you don’t want anyone to feel bad. This way, the Chuck Tingles and John C. Wrights of the world can have their recognition without having to try to abuse the nomination process. Then, simply discard any nominations which match the slate proposed by the Rabid Puppies. Problem solved…for a little while at least…maybe.
(3) IT’S DEAD JIM. Joe Follansbee conducts the autopsy in “The Hugo Awards are dead, and the xPuppies killed them”.
All this wouldn’t matter, except for the fact that science fiction readers worldwide depend on the Hugo Awards as a mark of quality. While some of the xPup-inees are worthy, such as Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, and sci-fi master Jerry Pournelle for his editing, the nomination ballot-stuffing by the xPuppies has permanently damaged the Hugos’ credibility. How can any discerning reader look at the phrase “Hugo Award-nominated” or “Hugo Award-winning,” not think of Butt Invasion, and not drop the potential purchase like a hot potato?
Likewise, how can any publisher associate itself with these kinds of brand-threatening shenanigans? They’re risk-averse enough as it is. Why take the chance with printing the Hugo rocket ship logo on its project without thinking of two years’ worth of Hugo train wrecks?
A second year of “No Award” winners will put the final nails into the Hugos’ coffin because it would demonstrate readers’ lack of faith in the award.
Hope is not completely lost, however. WorldCon, which manages the Hugos, has a chance to fix the problem with proposed nominations rules changes, though they won’t take effect until 2017, assuming they’re approved. If not, they might as well kill the awards program altogether. No one will believe in it anymore.
(4) TOO GRAPHIC. GamerGate Life responds to its nomination.
Some comic strip characters discover they’ve been nominated for the #HugoAwards https://t.co/flxpJD96i0
— Robot Archie???????????????????? (@RobotArchie) April 28, 2016
(5) AH SWEET. Russell Newquist boosts the Castalia House signal in “The Perversion of Science Fiction and Fantasy Fandom”.
The 2016 Hugo Awards are important, and not for any of that. There is a critical message this year that far exceeds anything else to do with the Hugos. It boils down to two specific works, both of which have been nominated in the “Best Related Work” category:
The first is “Safe Space as Rape Room: Science Fiction Culture and Childhood’s End.” Written by Daniel Eness for the Castalia House blog. The second is “The Story of Moira Greyland” by Moira Greyland.
These two works are not just the most important published works of the science fiction community of 2015. They are the most important works of this millennium….
(6) DEJA HUGO. Jim C. Hines presents his thoughts about the Hugos, and the difference between anger and abuse, in “A Few Hugo Requests”.
2. No asterisks, please.
I did make a crack about asterisks and the Hugo last year after the trophy was released. And I think a lot of people had a mental asterisk over the whole thing, because let’s be honest, last year was anything but normal for the Hugo awards. So yeah, I definitely get it.
But at last year’s Hugo award ceremony, they handed out wooden asterisk plaques, and later sold additional wooden asterisks.
I don’t believe this was done with malicious intent (though I obviously can’t read anyone’s minds). Maybe it was an attempt at humor, and/or to acknowledge the elephant in the room. I appreciate that the sale of the asterisks raised several thousand dollars for a good cause.
Whatever the intentions, it resulted in a lot of people feeling hurt and attacked. I know from experience how nerve-wracking a Hugo ceremony can be in a normal year. Last year, and this year, tensions and anxieties and fears are exponentially higher. And for many of the people in attendance, the asterisks felt like a big old slap in the face.
Like I said, I don’t think that was the intention. (Others will disagree, and have gleefully pointed to the asterisks as “proof” that “the other side” is evil and nasty.) In this case, I don’t think intention matters so much as the impact it had, including hurting some good, talented people.
(7) THE ESTIMATE. Rocket Stack Rank’s Gregory N. Hullender attempts an “Analysis of Slate Voting for the 2016 Hugos”.
Overview
I estimate there were about 205 “Rabid Puppies” this year, essentially identical to the estimated 204 Sad+Rabid puppies last year. The reason they did so well despite a doubling of the number of “organic” votes is that they managed much better slate discipline this year; last year, not everyone voted for all five candidates nor in every category, but this year it seems they did….
(8) THOUGHTS THUNK WHILE THINKING. How come nearly everybody titles their post “Thoughts on the Hugo Nominations”? Like Anthony M at the Hugo-nominated Superversive SF blog who is thoroughly okay with the reason that happened, so why should you have any problem?
Does this bother anybody? It shouldn’t. It doesn’t bother me. We’ve been growing a fanbase since we started, and the fact that the Sads AND the Rabids both had us on their lists does mean we’re leaving a mark. I don’t believe we were picked as a parody, for the simple reason that Castalia likes our work enough to give us a weekly column on their increasingly popular blog. An anthology unassociated with us recently opened up submissions for superversive stories. We’re doing very well, and this only gets us more exposure. This is great!
And yet, if we weren’t on the Rabid Puppies slate, we still probably wouldn’t be on the Hugo shortlist. So why doesn’t this bother me? My answer is simple: I agree with what Vox Day is doing.
(9) MY HUGO NOMINATED PONY. At anthropomorphic fiction blog Fayrah, Brendan Kachel reacts: “’My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic’ episodes nominated for 2016 Hugo Awards as part of ‘Rabid Puppies’ slate”.
However, furries and bronies perhaps shouldn’t celebrate so soon; last year’s Hugo Awards were pretty controversial, and this year is apparently the sequel.
Looks like the ponies are actually Trojan horses. For puppies.
The Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies are “slates” of nominees designed to abuse a loophole in the Hugo Awards rules by which a group of voters can assure nominations for a pre-approved set of nominees by agreeing to vote for them. These slates were begun in order to fight what they describe as “political correctness” (and opponents would describe as “progressive social stances”) in the works nominated and winning at the Hugos. The politics of those running the “puppies” slate are frequently described as “neo-conservative;” the founder of the Rabid Puppies, Vox Day, is described by Wikipedia as a “white supremacist.” And the My Little Pony episodes were on his list.
The obvious question is how a children’s television show like My Little Pony (one created by feminist Lauren Faust known for its progressive themes, no less) came to be associated with someone like Vox Day. Part of the answer may be that Day is looking to further embarrass the Hugo Awards, especially after none of his slate won an award last year (even in categories where his slate swept the nominees, “No Award Given” received the most votes, leaving many categories unrewarded), and perhaps figured a nomination for a cartoon about magical horses was an embarrassment. This year, one of his short story selections was “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” by Chuck Tingle, a story of what Wikipedia delicately calls “niche erotica” (and, yes, is exactly what it sounds like). Or perhaps Day is just a legitimate fan of both ponies and “niche erotica”, after all.
However, the two episodes in question were praised by conservative sources as “anti-Marxist”, which may be on point about the episodes in question (and, admittedly, the show, being based on a toy line, can hardly be called anti-capitalist), but hardly holds up as a valid interpretation of the show’s ethos overall.
(10) DEDUCTIONS. Barry Deutsch at Alas! A Blog has his thinking cap on, too: “Hugo Nominations Are Out, And The Rabid Puppies Dominated The List. A Few Thoughts”.
1) My guess is that we’ll see Noah Ward win on at least a couple of categories this year, but most categories will have a named winner.
2) Next year, assuming the voters at this year’s Worldcon agree to this, there will be a change in the Hugo vote-counting rules – E Pluribus Hugo – which might reduce the ability of a minority of slate voters to game the process and unfairly dominate Hugo nominations. Early data may indicate that EPH won’t make as large a difference as people are hoping. If further changes are necessary to prevent the Rabid Puppies from gaming the system to dominate nominations, I expect further changes will be made.
3) By a wide margin, more people voted to nominate works for the Hugos in 2016 than in any prior year. And the Rabid Puppies still dominated the outcome. If there are hundreds of possible nominees, and if most nominators vote honestly, then a small group of slate voters can overpower the large majority of honest voters. I hope that this result will persuade people who have been saying “all’s that’s needed is for more people to nominate” to change their minds.
(11) PATRICK NIELSEN HAYDEN.
https://twitter.com/pnh/status/725841445291216896
(12) ALTERNATE AWARDS. Adam-Troy Castro told his Facebook readers what else they can do for writers.
The Hugos are broken. These people broke them. I don’t see them going away and I don’t see it getting any better.
This is a sad thing, but you know what?
The Hugos were once fandom’s way of honoring that which touched them.
Today, the readership is more balkanized. Nobody reads everything published in fantastic fiction. Some of you only read novels about women in tight pants fighting vampires. Some of you only read novels about spaceships going pew-pew-pew in the asteroids. Some of you only read literary sf. Whatever gets honored in any particular year will leave the partisans of one kind of fiction feeling left out. The Puppies are nothing if not folks saddened by a couple of years of awards going to more diverse choices: people going boo-hoo-hoo because of not enough love for pew-pew-pew.
You want to honor your favorite authors with awards?
Telling others about their great books is an award.
Telling them you loved their books is an award.
Expressing your enthusiasm with online reviews is an award.
(13) THE OTHER HUGO. James H. Burns points out this ’70s toy that later was featured as “a guest” on both The Uncle Floyd Show, and Pee Wee Herman’s first stage show and HBO special!
(14) GALACTIC STARS. The Traveler at Galactic Journey decided over 50 years ago that the Hugos were not the answer, and started giving out his own Galactic Stars every year. The latest set were announced last December.
The chill of winter is finally here, heralding the end of a year. It’s time for eggnog, nutmeg, presents, pies, and family. But more importantly, it’s time for the second annual Galactic Stars awards.
Forget the Hugos–here’s what I liked best in 1960.
In a tradition I began last year, I look back at all fiction that debuted in magazines (at least, The Big Four) with a cover date of this year as well as all of the science fiction books published. Then I break down the fiction by length, choose the best by magazine, and finally the best overall. All using the most modern and sophisticated scientific techniques, of course.
Last year, my choices mirrored those chosen at the Labor Day Worldcon for the Hugo awards. We’ll see if my tastes continue to flow in the mainstream. I break my length categories a bit finer than the Hugos, so there are bound to be some differences from that aspect, alone.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Cora Buhlert, Jim C. Hines, and James H. Burns for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Will R.]
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IGreg
Your conviction of your own omniscience is obviously a source of joy to you, but as Oliver Cromwell once suggested, in a different context, it might be a good idea to consider whether you may be wrong.
Your beliefs about the motivations of people voting are not evidence. In fact, now I come to think of it, you have spent a year trying to shoehorn fandom in general, and the bit of it that hangs arounf File770 in particular, into your binary world view, and I, as well as a lot of the other posters here, have strongly objected to you doing so, time and time again. You do not speak for me, and I have repeatedly wasted my time having to point out that you do not speak for me.
You do not speak for other people and you have wasted their time since they too have had to frequently point out that you don’t speak for them. We could all have been doing much more interesting things than having to point out, yet again, that you do not speak for us.
There is a very simple fix for this problem: you stop doing it, and we get on with our lives as we choose.
ETA
I see others have responded also. I agree with them.
I’m not going to give a Hugo to someone who wants me dead. I can’t believe people would ask me to do that.
Unrelated: I was putting Torgerson below No Award before it was cool.
@Greg Hullender: Yes! (Again.) That’s why we should read all the works (in the fiction categories, anyway) and vote based on quality, ignoring whether a work came from a slate.
And yet, two days ago on Al Reynolds’ website you told him that Slow Bullets isn’t deserving of a Hugo (an assessment I completely disagree with) and he should withdraw.
ETA: I agree with what TYP said.
@Aaron
I need to get better at skipping over people who I believe add little useful commentary. It’s harder when others quote or make responses which show they’ve been hurt. I doubt I’ll ever find the perfect balance. Oh for those easier days of those who went before us. 😉
@PhilRM
Actually, I said that if he himself thought it was only on the ballot because of the slate, then he should withdraw it. I did give my own opinion that it wasn’t Hugo quality, but I said that before it was on the ballot.
I have no problem with you disagreeing with me. Different opinions make like interesting. Do you feel that people shouldn’t post things if they disagree with you?
@Camestros
N.K.Jemisin and the brilliant Fifth Season
Ancillary Mercy’s compassionate reason
Novik’s Uprooted all tied up with strings
They are three of my favorite things, too! We’ll have to disagree on the fourth. Even though you’re opinion is clearly invalid, as it contradicts mine (this is a joke, people, for the avoidance of doubt).
As Meatloaf* once sang, three out of four ain’t bad.
* this is the lesser know version, edited by VD.
* this is the lesser know version, edited by VD.
Everyone knows that the Beale-edited version is “i out of Five”.
@snowcrash
I don’t mean to imply that my way is the only way. Nor that my opinion on a work is the only right one. I’m sorry if it comes off that way.
I have the feeling that it can be difficult to express a contrary opinion in File770. Some people always seem to take offense merely because you don’t think as they do. But if we can’t engage each other rationally when we disagree, then I’m not sure we’re that much better than the puppies.
Anyway, I’m sorry if you got the impression I was trying to tell you what to do or how to vote. I’m really just trying to express my thoughts.
@JBWeld
What I’m suggesting is that for some categories at least, we can No Award everyone who wants all sorts of delightful people dead, and still be left with a few options to go above No Award, both in the “can write way out of paper bag” category and “not a violent clown” category.
Even if Best Related gets a well-justified nuking from orbit.
Gregs comments are usually good and while I do not always agree (and with regards to voting, not even usually), I do appreciate them. As to not knowing when to stop, well, that is a common filer problem. It is just that we notice it more from people we don’t agree with.
@ Greg:
In that case, you may wish to stop using “objectively” as a synonym for “according to your personal taste.”
Yes, there are objective criteria for judging writing, but only up to a point, and largely in matters of technical competence. Beyond that, de gustibus, and the difference between “What Price Humanity” and at least two of the other Novelette nominees (I say “at least” because I haven’t read “Obits”) is well into de gustibus territory.
BTW, for what it’s worth, I generally appreciate your literary criticism and commentary, and I’ve found RSR very valuable.
Greg Hullender on April 30, 2016 at 10:32 am said:
Your comments always came off to me as just your opinion.
I have noticed that as well but it isn’t a public site so the norms, culture and rules are subjective. That’s fine.
Hampus Eckerman on April 30, 2016 at 10:36 am said: “As to not knowing when to stop, well, that is a common filer problem. It is just that we notice it more from people we don’t agree with.”
Bingo. That’s a common people problem.
@Greg Hullender
You might try qualifiers when you comment instead of absolute statements.
Most of us on file770 have no problem disagreeing with each other. You frequently use words indicating you are an expert and you never you qualifiers.
In my opinion… Is a good way to start. Not thinking everyone shares your opinion on the quality of a story/book or looks to you as a good measure of the worth of something would be a good second step.
Rather than Yet objectively, I rate it higher than any other novelette on the list (I’ve read and reviewed them all). Anyone who really believes in voting for quality and ignoring the slaters has got to at least give it a fair chance.
1. You are not objective – all rating of fiction is subjective – this is ego talking get over yourself
2. I’m not sure what you mean any other novelette on the list – if you mean ballot well since it’s mostly drek no kidding but that doesn’t mean it deserves a Hugo so your not making a very good argument for reading and voting it. Yes you liked it so what. If you mean you read all the novelettes which were published last year your lying. You only read novelettes published by pro-sources. You did not read many of the novelettes published by semi-pro or self-published or totally free because you know without reading them they won’t stand up (paraphrasing from several statements made by you here and on your ranking blog).
3. You’ve told us what we should or should think/behave or what we do or don’t think in a condescending tone – reread your words.
Regarding reading erotica:
I read like 8 of this pieces the other day. Some are quite worth it from a SF parody perspective. They all have a structure where the first half is silliness, and the second is sex. I just skipped or skimmed the second bits because it’s not why I was there. This worked well for me, and let’s you see the humor involved without being meh about the sex.
@Hullender,
I don’t give a shit how good “What Price Humanity?” is, as it’s only there because Teddy decided to slate it. It’s bad enough that Teddy gets to put “Hugo FInalist” on his bullshit, letting him put “Hugo Award winner” isn’t something I’m going to be a part of.
@Andrew M,
Hey I’ve read Hell Bound Train! Huge fan. Enough that I recognized the story when I ran across the comic of it a few years ago. Didn’t realize that it won a Hugo.
11) There are people on Twitter right now going nuts because they want to pretend they think he’s serious. “SO HE ADMITTED IT!”
…at least, I hope to god they’re trying to pretend they think he’s serious, because otherwise I don’t know how they put their shoes on in the morning.
When Greg Hullender says “I rate it” so-and-so, that’s his opinion. I suspect what people are reacting to is the confidence with which he says it. A lot of people here express their various opinions confidently and emphatically. Now, people may indeed find that grates on them whoever is doing it. That’s why I don’t think it’s realistic to expect preceding what he says with a gracious phrase is going to change the reaction to what follows the gracious phrase.
@Tasha Turner
With the exception of the obvious puppy stooges everyone here is merely expressing their opinion. I’m sure we could get Mike to add it into the comments automatically. But really it is redundant.
My personal problem with “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” on the shortlist is that it contributed to my almost completely forgetting the truly offensive story in that category, “If You Were an Award, My Love.” (I say “almost” because I didn’t forget the story existed; I’d just mentally moved it into a different, non-fiction category.) In this sense, I’d say SBRI is doing exactly what VD wanted it to: It’s getting all the attention and discussion, and it’s really just a relatively inoffensive (so far as I can tell, not having read it yet) piece of silly erotica with a funny title that doesn’t belong on the shortlist–distracting from the other works that don’t belong on the short list.
Well. At least it helped to distract me. Maybe no one else . . .
Cora Buhlert:
In the third segment of Die Trapp Familie, when the children are opening their presents, one of them opens a box with a large teddy bear in it, and turns it upside-down. You can’t hear over the music in the sound track, but *I know that bear*. I *had* that bear when I was a small child. And what that bear did when it was turned upside-down was go “Moooo”.
There was a little cylindrical cardboard box inside, about half the length of a Coke can, which, when turned upside down, made a moo-ing sound. I was so afraid of it as a very small child that my grandmother had to perform surgery and give my teddy bear a moo-ectomy.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Wow — I had forgotten til I read this that as a toddler I had a toy that was basically just that cylindrical moo-making box, with a scene of a dairy farm wrapped around it. I played with that til it finally quit working. Which my parents did not mourn at all…
I thought I posted this but I don’t see it —
I read like 8 pieces of Chuck Tingle’s work last week. Some of it is really funny and worth looking at from an SF parody perspective. But the important thing is that all the stories are basically two sections. One is witty siliness; the second is porn. I skipped the second bits — not why I was reading, and not my kind of porn anyway. But it’s really easy to read the first bit without reading the second.
I saw it. Perhaps the next page filled up while you were reading and you skipped it?
@Greg Hullender: I have no problem with you disagreeing with me. Different opinions make like interesting. Do you feel that people shouldn’t post things if they disagree with you?
Nowhere did I even hint at such an attitude, so I’m not sure where that rather condescending remark is coming from.
My point was simply the disjuncture between your opinion as expressed here and your statements to Al Reynolds.
Personally I don’t care if “What Price Humanity” turns out to really float my boat. It’s a Castalia House publication and “No, you can’t just slate yourself a Hugo” takes precedence, even if the author didn’t agree to the slate and doesn’t like it. Giving it a Hugo would still help Beale profit from slating. No.
Other people will take other approaches and we’ll see how it all shakes out at the Hugo Award Ceremony.
Hi Greg — I hesitate to say this, because it’s a “responding to reviewers” thing — but maybe it’s okay because I have not personally had any issues with you at all? I only offer it in the spirit of trying to be helpful, but feel free to trash the comment.
Anyway, the “you treat your ratings as objective” thing is something I’ve heard elsewhere, unrelated to either File 770 or this thread, so it may be something you’re inadvertently projecting. So if you’re coming across that way and don’t want to, maybe look at how your language is being misleading?
In this particular case, I think the word “some” might have done it — “Some readers are going to have to pick between rewarding quality and punishing slates” — which allows people to have a contrary reading of the work.
If you’d like to talk privately about this, I am willing. [ETA: I mean, privately because it concerns stuff not related to 770 or this thread.]
As noted elsewhere, I’m quite happy to vote even quality works on a slate below No Award, as a violation against sportsmanship.
(Incidentally, who says Gaiman was a shoo-in for Best Graphic Story? Likely, sure. But this year’s Eisner Awards don’t list Sandman:Overture at all, except for Best Colorist. Again, Teddy probably slated it because he’d heard of it.)
(4) TOO GRAPHIC
Speaking of too graphic, did you know that this very artist, Alejandro Ricondo aka kukuruyo, is taking commissions for virtual child pornography and putting it up on his site and DeviantArt? It’s true. Go to Google and search for “kukuruyo ms. marvel nude”. Ms. Marvel in this case is Kamala Khan, a 16 year old high school student.
This is a violation of the PROTECT Act of 2003. And as has pointed out elsewhere, this makes the Rabid Puppies hyperventilation in their “child porn expose” seem kind of hypocritical, doesn’t it?
Since the artist is in Spain, I doubt he’ll be prosecuted. However, I can assure him that Disney/Marvel lawyers have no sense of humor about this sort of thing.
@Greg Hullender: Actually, I said that if he himself thought it was only on the ballot because of the slate, then he should withdraw it.
In the case of Slow Bullets, it is impossible to know at this point whether it got on the ballot because of the RP slate, which is the issue that Al Reynolds was agonizing over. For What Price Humanity? it is unequivocally true that it is only on the ballot because of Beale. And yet according to you, we should really all overlook this. Why? Because in your opinion the latter deserves a Hugo, but the former does not.
Do you really not see the problem with this?
It might also help to recognise the existence of our old friend, the excluded middle.
Demagogues are, of course, fond of the either/or formulation because it enables them to exclude all other possibilities, but, for those of us who are aware that life seldom fits into such neat little boxes, it may come across as a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the position.
ETA
PhilRM
+1
Whoops. Checkmark.
For reasons I don’t claim to understand, those moo cow cans usually were available at souvenir shops at roadside attractions. I can think of no poorer decision than the one that led to a family being trapped on a long drive with one or more moo cow cans and restless children.
They came in other animal noises such as pig grunts. (Not quite the expected oink.) I think the most popular one I remember seeing about ten to fifteen years ago made fart noises. Fart humor – always popular.
Greg’s comments don’t generally come off as condescending to me. I’ve been inferring an implied “in my opinion” to every comment on the interwebs for years. I do, however, find it strange to use the word “objectively” when referring to aesthetic judgment. I generally only do that when I want to get a rise out of people.
Hugo-wise, I am very torn about the Castalia House finalists this year that may actually have merit. I’m in the camp with those who think all works should be judged on their merits alone, EXCEPT… Castalia. Ugh. How can you vote to give an award to someone who explicitly says he wants to destroy that award? OTOH, I’m almost looking forward to No Awarding Superversive. It really sucks that group of nim-cow-poops are on the ballot instead of something more intellectually stimulating and more grounded in reality, like… I dunno, maybe a picture of a kitten wearing a tiny spacesuit?
Which reminds me of this wonderful scene in Delicatessen.
I had a moo cow can and my sister had some other farm animal in her can. She really wanted the cow, so she used to hide it.
I’ll read – and probably buy – SRBI. I really do appreciate the performance art, he makes me laugh (lots of intentional humor does not) and Tingle is demonstrating epic trolling skills and pointing them VDwards. The latter makes me happy, because VD clearly didn’t get the ongoing joke of the Tingleverse when he picked Space Raptor Butt Invasion and, oh hey look, joke’s on him.
@Greg Hullender, I find your ongoing lack of qualifiers and your apparent misunderstanding of what the word “objective” means off-putting. I don’t mind that we disagree about literary merit – after the possibility of having RSR influence my Hugo nominations had passed, I looked up some of my favorites and we rarely overlap – because tastes differ, so it’s probably that I’m objecting to your presentation.
Myself, I’m starting to feel a dangerous inclination to forgive Tingle everything if he writes an erotic masterpiece in which an obvious VD surrogate is Seduced By His Own Petard. Is this wrong?
We dreamed of having a moo cow can
One of the things that bugs me about the idea of “If you think your work is a Hugo finalist only because it was slated and not because of merit, then you should withdraw” is that–if followed–it penalizes people with a strong imposter syndrome and rewards those with an unrealistically high sense of their own talents. This time around we’ve seen several finalists express an opinion along the lines of “yeah, I was on the slate, but my work is good enough to have gotten there on merit” when relatively few outside observers would agree. And back before the rise of the slates, I can recall any number of finalists expressing self-doubts that they really belonged in such august company.
So any system that depends on people recognizing the some underlying validity in their nomination is likely to be random with respect to merit and highly-correlated with respect to self-confidence.
My impression is that some people are thinking “this is tolerable. If we need to go through several more years like this, that’ll be unfortunate but the Hugos will recover, especially with EPH.” But in fact, things can get much worse than this, and EPH can’t prevent that. We should be taking preventative measures, and we should start doing so as soon as possible.
I agree with Mary Francis. “If You Were an Award, My Love” is the most problematic of all Griefer choices, and it also indicates the way that they can most effectively vandalize the awards after EPH passes (if EPH passes).
“If You Were An Award,” for those of you who haven’t read it, is a blog post that ends with a “joke” about murdering Rachel Swirsky – given as a post-script, in Vox’s voice. That’s followed by about 60 comments, nearly all of which are misogynistic and fat-hating comments about Swirsky. (Before posting this, I asked Rachel if it was okay for me for me to bring this up on File770, and she consented.)
There’s nothing preventing VD from repeating this in next year’s Hugo nominations, harassing more people and doing so in not only misogynistic and fat-hating ways, but also in racist and antisemitic and transphobic and homophobic ways. He could do this for every Griefer nomination. For graphic story and fan art, he could nominate child porn drawings. And instead of burying the overt harassment at the end, he could make bigotry and harassment the main theme of every nominee, a story that mainstream media might pick up on.
With EPH in effect, the Griefer nominees would be between 2 and 4 of the nominees in each category, rather than sweeping entire categories – but in terms of putting a long-term stain on the prestige of the Hugo Awards, that would be enough. If half or more of Hugo nominees are expresses of overt bigoted harassment of minority and female members of the SF community, what will that do to the Hugo’s reputation? Will what that do to making minority and/or female authors feel like a welcome part of the SFF community?
This is an completely obvious thing for VD to do (or at least, obvious to a racist with a 12-year-old’s I’m-such-a-rebel sensibility). Maybe he won’t do it, but I don’t think it’s wise to assume that he won’t.
I believe Kevin’s three stage vote proposal is necessary, and contrary to those (including Kevin himself) who say that we should wait a few years to see how EPH does, I think it would be prudent to have a proposal for 3SV voted on at the next business meeting.
Finally, a way of putting into words what I have seen happening. Thank you!
Reynolds is obviously a conscientious man who understands the issues and made a difficult decision in good faith. I’m not going to second guess him.
I think Greg H. sometimes phrases his comments in a provocative way in order to get discussion going. Earlier today he wrote (as I recall) of having a binary choice between recognizing excellent work and “punishing the slates”. I found this irritating because I don’t think it accurately states the issue at all. In refusing to consider the products of Beale’s own business, or mediocre or obscene work placed on the ballot apparently in order to discredit the Hugos or for some other unworthy motive, I’m not trying to punish anyone. I’m just trying to act with some respect for the integrity of the awards. In the current circumstances it’s hard to be consistent because some of the credible works on the ballot may also owe their place to Beale. I don’t think this should disqualify them.
Added: haven’t read “if you were an award”, won’t read, 1st reaction to B. Deutsch comment is to agree.
With the caveat that I’m a newcomer:
Personally, I’d like WorldCon to do what’s suggested in (2): Chuck all ballots that show high fidelity to the poxy pup’s slate. Send voters both the original final ballot and the pox-free one with an explanation of what was done and why, and ask the voters to return whichever one they believe best reflects the opinions of WorldCon members. Likely, the pox-ridden ballot ends up discarded and nominees who would have landed on the ballot anyway are not punished.
Also: Spaceships and vampires? You want Blindsight by Peter Watts.
Barry Deutsch on April 30, 2016 at 1:38 pm said:
Maybe the start is getting rid of that rule that says it takes to years to do anything.
Heather Rose Jones:
If you have impostor syndrome, how does staying on the ballot when it is known that you’re on there because of a slate (even in part) help you?
@Barry Deutsch & Rachel Swirsky
This horrifies me. For Rachel to be going through this. My heart goes out to you.
Back on topic. This lines up with other works on the related works category which I read this year and decided never again was I reading such utter malicious crap. Unfortunately I agree with your assessment.
@Glenn Hauman If you have impostor syndrome, how does staying on the ballot when it is known that you’re on there because of a slate (even in part) help you?
In this case of gamed ballots where it’s not clear how people are going to vote staying on the ballot rather than withdrawing gives one a chance to show their imposter syndrome it’s wrong. If people do vote for quality works on the ballot ignoring whether it was put on by the RPs or not and their work is deserving of a Hugo they might end up above NA. If not they won’t or maybe they were voted below NA because of slate and they’ll keep imposter syndrome.
Emotions and how one reacts and behaves are not coldly logical even when one thinks they are.
My boys have two moo-cow cans; a metal one we tend to keep out of reach except when we’re watching them closely, because if they chew on it, the paint can scrape off, and we’re not confident the paint is safe, and a plastic one where the cow-picture was a paper wrap around the Elder Boy removed at something close to the age the younger is. It still works just fine, though (Despite something inside making an interesting snapping noise at one point and the inner moo-making thing sitting a bit aslant since) so it stays in range and is a not-bad go-to to grab when we need to distract them quickly. If you shake it fast, the moo turns into something not unlike a Mwa-ha-ha laugh.
In short; not just nostalgia, or whatever the anti-nostalgia is.
I can think of much worse noises to get stuck with on a long car trip.
Glen–it’s not that staying on helps someone with imposter syndrome to get better–it’s that pressuring people to withdraw “if you don’t feel that you deserve it” hurts people with imposter syndrome and only them.
It’s like force feeding every Hugo finalist peanut butter. Only people with a peanut allergy will be harmed. But people with a peanut allergy don’t deserve to be harmed. And frankly, the Dunning-Kruger effect means it’s probably the most talentless nominees who are most likely to think themselves deserving.
@Heather Rose Jones I agree. Thank you for stating this so eloquently. I knew, alas personally, one asshole last year who insisted that his fans had put him up for the Hugo when anyone with sense could see that he didn’t have any fans and he was just there because some griefer thought it would be funny.
@Oneiros I did not enjoy the the one with the Amish, but I’m sure there are those who did. For me, finishing it was more an act of will-power than anything else. IIRC, I placed it on my Goodreads shelf titled “Took One For The Team,” as some of us at work will read and report back on certain titles so that we are all aware of them. For example, I had the pleasure of not reading Fifty Shades of Gray, but I did read a couple of Rush Limbaugh’s children’s books.
Re Vampires and Spaceships
http://www.davidweber.net/books/63-out-of-the-dark.html
@ Glenn Hauman
I don’t see “how it helps you” as part of the equation in making such a decision. Keep in mind that objective evidence rarely has any impact on impostor syndrome–this isn’t about rationality. But withdrawing because one assumes that one couldn’t possibly be worthy removes the possibility of being given counter-evidence. Counter-evidence could include things like the voters deciding that they were willing to give you the benefit of the doubt regarding getting on the ballot and then deciding that your work is worthy of the prize. Or even simply worthy of finishing above No Award (which would reasonably be interpretable as an accolade at the moment).
Let’s consider a hypothetical set of five finalists: 3 that were on a dominant slate, 1 that was not on the dominant slate but was on a secondary slate, and 1 that was on no slates. Let’s focus on that person who was only on the secondary slate. Under the current tealeaf-reading, it is reasonable to think that that item had some (not yet measurable) level of organic support, but it’s also reasonable to think that other items might have had higher levels of organic support but been pushed down the list by slated items. And let’s consider only the case of the person with impostor syndrome (since self-confident people will be able to put a positive spin on whatever happens).
1. The author of this item in question concludes they don’t belong on the ballot and withdraw. They never know how the larger community would react to their work, and even any additional publicity they might gain is tainted with “well, it’s only pity, it isn’t about my work.”
2. The author of this item stays on the ballot, for whatever reason, despite thinking they don’t deserve to be.
2a. Individual voters either take a uniformly anti-slate position and vote accordingly, or evaluate the work and decide it’s sufficiently not-Hugo-worthy, and as a combined result place it below No Award. Result: the author is confirmed in their original impulse that their work wasn’t worthy, and now they also feel that fact has been paraded in front of the world.
2b. The voters give the work the benefit of the doubt and, after considering its merits, rank it above No Award. Result: the author–knowing that the voters have previously indicated their willingness to rank the work of established authors below No Award on principle, to say nothing of their willingness to place unworthy work there–concludes that maybe the voters genuinely thought their work had merit.
2c. The voters give the work the benefit of the doubt and, somewhat to everyone’s surprise, discover a hidden gem that they wouldn’t otherwise have encountered. They vote it about the non-slated work, which made the ballot through stronger general familiarity. Result: the author is gobsmacked to discover that they liked it, they really liked it, and need have no qualms about accepting this result as objective evidence of the worth of their writing.
It isn’t simple or pretty, and there’s no telling but that a particular individual might find ways to discount even a win in those circumstances as having little evaluative merit. But withdrawing removes the possibility of a better outcome, and furthermore it removes that person’s work from the (admittedly compromised) ranks of official Hugo finalists.
I think people who don’t have impostor syndrome (or haven’t been subject to the forces that produce it) have a hard time understanding the internal dynamics. I have a peculiar relationship with the syndrome myself: I’ve always simultaneously had a rather high impression of my own abilities while being convinced that no one else will value them. So if I were the hypothetical author in the position above? Hard to say. I have to confess that a hard-headed pragmatic approach would be to seize the public goodwill of bowing out after nomination while avoiding the probable humiliation of being placed under No Award (because I wouldn’t believe that people would actually evaluate my work on merits — because that’s my specific flavor of Impostor Syndrome). But it’s hard to know and really really unlikely to be anything I’ll ever have to worry about. (The slaters may be willing to list gay dinosaur pornography, but I doubt that fluffy lesbian historic fantasy would be transgressive enough to tempt them.)