I was skeptical when people said the internet would explode on Saturday when the Hugo shortlist was announced. I was wrong. It blew sky high.
Here are samples of the thunder and lightning, beginning with someone who declined his nomination.
Matthew David Surridge at Black Gate
“A Detailed Explanation” – April 4
This is going to come out at some point, so I might as well say it here and now: I declined a Hugo nomination for this year’s Best Fan Writer award. I think it’s only fair to the people who voted for me to say why…
Add that all up, and I think it’s clear how extensively I disagree with the Puppy campaigns, and why I don’t want an award nomination that primarily comes from being placed on their slates. I should have investigated the situation more thoroughly in February when I found out that I was on those slates, and I should have asked to be removed then. Again, I extend my apologies to everyone for not doing so at that time.
A few concluding points:
Firstly, I want to say that while I appreciate anyone finding value in my work, I would like to ask that people refrain from voting for me as ‘Best Fan Writer’ in future Hugos. More broadly, I would like to ask that people assembling future Hugo slates not include my name in any category. That goes for Sad Puppies 4 (and future iterations), and it goes for any anti-Puppy slate that also might be put forward.
I understand there’s a slippery slope involved in asking not to be put on a ‘slate.’ Is there a difference between somebody putting forward their personal Hugo ballot and putting forward a slate? Well, I think so. I think at least in this case the differences are, one, is the person putting the ballot forward requesting that others vote the same way, and two, is there a desire in putting the ballot forward to have a major effect on the speculative fiction field as a whole. If the answer to one or both questions is ‘yes,’ I would prefer not to be involved.
Secondly, on a personal level, this whole sequence of events is working directly against the Puppies’ stated intentions. Torgersen’s consistently written about wanting to bring more people into ‘fandom,’ however it’s defined. For me, the net result of the Puppy activities has been to alienate me from fandom and the speculative fiction world. It’s not an absolute alienation, of course; I’ll still be writing here at Black Gate. But involving me in a controversial campaign without asking is not something that I find particularly welcoming, to say the least.
Frankly, it’s lucky I found out about the Puppies putting me on their slate before I found out I’d been nominated. Imagine if I hadn’t. I’d have had no reason not to accept the nomination. And in the long run that would have been embarrassing for everyone.
Finally, I understand that when somebody outside a community takes a stance that can be perceived as repudiating one faction within that community, opposing factions are likely to celebrate. I think that’s unfortunate. I cannot stress enough how much I’ve done what I’ve done because I don’t want to take sides in a dispute that is not mine. I can only say that if what I have said and done has any effect on the discussion going forward, I hope that effect will be to make the discussion one of ideas and not of personalities — that this all may move the controversy, however slightly, away from insults and toward constructive talk. I don’t say I think that will happen; but it’d be nice if it did.
Simon Petrie
“Hugo Nominations: Fan, Incoming, 3…2…1” – April 5
So ASIM [Andomeda Space Inflight Magazine] is on the Hugo ballot. We at the magazine have known about this for about ten days’ time, and have long since sent through the acceptance. But because none of us are exactly active in US fandom, we only became aware of the Sad Puppies connection very late in the piece — in fact, a scant three days before the nominations were made public, and well after all the dust had settled on the nomination process itself. ASIM was never informed about our inclusion on the Sad Puppies 3 slate — if we had been, I very strongly suspect our response would have been a resounding ‘Hell, No’ — and there was no time, nor any point, in looking to remove ourselves once we did get there.
My own take on this is that a Sad Puppies vote for ASIM is a ‘pity-sex’ vote. This doesn’t benefit the magazine, doesn’t benefit fandom, not one bit. Fans who are eligible to vote should only endorse ASIM (which, btw, will be included in some form in the Hugo voters’ packet) if they’ve read and enjoyed the magazine, and judged it worthy of the award against the current competition. That’s what voting is supposed to be about. Sometimes we forget that.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden comment on “The 2015 Hugo Finalists” at Making Light
#134 ::: Teresa Nielsen Hayden ::: (view all by) ::: April 04, 2015, 08:35 PM:
Rochrist @20:
@13 Problem is, a lot of those catagories are entirely, or almost entirely SP nominations. That Vox Day gets 2(!) nominations is beyond disgusting. Not to mention the 27 nominations for that pervert John C Wright.
And all the works published by Castalia House, whose two most prominent authors are John C. Wright and Vox Day.
This is pretty discouraging. To dominate the ballots this way means they had huge numbers of people buy memberships, likely including a lot of #GGers.
Around 199 at most, and there may have been fewer. That’s the difference between the total nominating votes cast in 2014 and 2015.
I’m not sure how to fight this, and frankly, I don’t know if I have the energy. I may just check out of the Hugos and Worldcon altogether.
Don’t. I’ve been thinking about this, and I bring you a message of hope.
It’s too late to salvage the 2015 ballot, but not the 2015 Hugo Awards. Supporting memberships are still being sold, and they can vote.
Want to strike back against the Sad Puppies and everything they represent? Buy a supporting membership. Vote for the nominees you love or like or find worthy. Do it with no agenda beyond your love of SF. Next year, buy one early enough to nominate.
We’ve been worrying about bringing on a system of warring slates. It’s unnecessary. You don’t need a slate to beat a slate. What you need are a lot more votes, chosen according to the individual voters’ preferences. It doesn’t matter if their distribution is unfocused, as long as there are enough of them.
Even if block voting campaigns manage to wedge a few nominees onto a ballot, the combined votes of all those supporting memberships applied to the five nominees in each category is going to swamp any slate-based voting that doesn’t represent a sizeable fraction of actual fannish taste.
I know that many commenters have expressed hesitation about nominating when they haven’t read everything. I have three observations.
First, you aren’t voting for the eventual winners. You’re voting for your own preferences. If you pick a nominee that other voters think is minor, your vote for them will vanish into the background haze when the nominations are tabulated: no harm done.
Second, you can do the same thing that’s done by every experienced Hugo voter I know: vote where you have knowledge and preferences, and refrain where you don’t. I nominate and vote for Best Fanartist, but in a year where I haven’t been keeping up with TV, I skip Dramatic Presentation (Short Form).
Third, when the people doing a block voting attack on the Hugos claim to practically worship Heinlein, but aren’t aware that the second huge volume of his first major biography has come out, perhaps you ought not worry about your own lack of omniscience.
=====
I love the idea of beating the SP’s covert elitism with an answer that’s more democratic, draws more fans into voting for the Hugos, and finds its winners in the combined preferences of many more voters.
Brad R. Torgersen
“Stealing the Enterprise” – April 4
Now, obviously, no Hugo ballot ever arrives without controversy. With limited slots per category, the ballot cannot encompass everything that the field is. Each year the Hugo is a slit-lens peak at what the members of WSFS believe to be the best representative works and people, for the year prior. Many worthy works and people will have missed the cutoff. Not for lack of fan enthusiasm per se, but mainly because not everyone can vote for everything at the same time. But it’s precisely because not everyone can vote for everything at the same time, that SP3 decided to proactively and strongly suggest a roster which would — we hoped — give WSFS something different to pick from. A bit like adding a new table of steam trays at a buffet. To give people a new group of choices, from which to fill their respective “plates” during the nomination period.
Larry Correia on Monster Hunter Nation
“Sad Puppies Update: The Nominees Announced and Why I Refused My Nomination” – April 4
This is just one little battle in an ongoing culture war between artistic free expression and puritanical bullies who think they represent *real* fandom. In the long term I want writers to be free to write whatever they want without fear of social justice witch hunts, I want creators to not have to worry about silencing themselves to appease the perpetually outraged, and I want fans to enjoy themselves without having some entitled snob lecture them about how they are having fun wrong. I want our shrinking genre to grow. I think if we can get back to where “award nominated” isn’t a synonym for “preachy crap” to the most fans, we’ll do it.
Will Shetterly on It’s All One Thing
“Four essential points about the Hugos and Sad Puppies” – April 4
When awards go to the best work, it’s unintentional. There are two models for awards in the fantasy and science fiction genre, and they’re both flawed. The Hugos and Nebulas are popularity contests that tell you more about how well the stories were promoted than written. The World Fantasy Awards are chosen by a committee, which means the winner is not everyone’s favorite and often is no one’s favorite. Mind you, this isn’t to knock the winners—awards usually go to decent stories, and sometimes go to great stories, but occasionally, as a critical look at the history of any of the awards will tell you, go to stories whose virtues are impossible to see now and were dubious then. That said, four points: 1. People have gamed the Hugos and Nebulas for decades. As a young writer, I first noticed it when Scott Card attended many conventions, recommended a lot of work by his fellow writers in his book review column, and generally promoted the hell out of himself. I didn’t hold that against him. He had the financial resources to do it, and he was playing by the unwritten rules. (My disappointment with Card came later, when I learned of his opposition to gay rights.)
Kary English
“The Disavowal” – April 3
There’s a call in certain corners of the internet for disavowals from people on the Sad Puppies slate. Here’s mine:
I disavow racism wherever I find it.
Calling someone a half-savage because of race? I disavow it. Denying someone’s ethnicity and heritage because that makes it easier to stereotype them as white oppressors? I disavow it. Calling a whole slate racist because of someone who’s not even on it or because some of the people are white? I disavow it.
My characters come from multiple races and ethnicities because they’re drawn from the vast diversity of the world around me. I write them as faithfully and authentically as I can. If I should stumble, my hope is that the world will correct me when needed and accept an apology when offered.
Robert Reynolds comment on Kary English
As to the whole “Sad Puppies” thing-I just looked at the Hugo final ballot and noticed some troubling things. Apparently, one writer’s work is so exceptional that he comprises fully one-third of the short fiction nominees, with fully three-fifths of one category. Three of the pieces are from one book of short pieces and all of them are from the same publishing house. A publishing house edited by the source for one of the lists being circulated and urging people to nominate works from their “slate” of suggested works. That editor also received nominations in both editor categories.
Nothing made the ballot in any short fiction category from Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons or Lightspeed, even though the latter three were nominated for Best Semiprozine. Apparently, of the major print magazines, only Analog was worthy of notice, with four stories nominated. Asimov’s and F & SF were shut out.
Vox Day on Vox Populi
2015 Hugo Nominations – April 4
In less than an hour, the finalists for the 2015 Hugo Awards will be announced. You can watch the livestream here. Regardless of what happens, I encourage everyone to remain calm, cool, and collected. If we fail, so be it. Kate the Impaler is leading Sad Puppies 4 for 2016 and the long march continues. If we succeed, then that is one more strong point broken, but many still remain. The long march continues.
Whether we are beaten back this time or we break through the enemy lines and leave them reeling in disbelief and disarray, we will continue to methodically and patiently advance. We will defeat the SJWs in science fiction, we will break the stranglehold of the gatekeepers, we will reclaim the genre for freedom of speech, thought, and association, and we will continue to expose the pretenses and posturings and pernicious accusations of the SJWs for the lies that they are. And in doing so, we will show others, in other industries and areas of the culture, that not only is resistance possible, but that it is possible to reclaim long-lost ground. We will show them that even a small number of people who are willing to stand up and say “you shall not pass” can make a real and substantive difference.
Cedar Sanderson on Mad Genius Club
“2014 Hugo Nominations” – April 4
Pretty cool, isn’t it? I no longer feel like my vote has just vanished into a black hole.
Amal El-Mohtar
Hugo Puppies and the News – April 4
My heart goes out to those to whom the Hugo awards mean a great deal, who have worked hard making it into something with brand recognition and significance outside of genre, and who are seeing something they love twisted and perverted in bad faith to celebrate, not art, but a triumph against diversity in art.
But the reality is, for me, that I am used to bigots dominating the conversation and being galled by my existence. I am used to people vilifying my name, my language, my ethnicity, my gender, my sexual orientation. I am used to resistance as default, as the condition by which I exist. So this year’s Hugo ballot — on which are heavily represented men far better known for advocating white supremacy, violence against women, and hatred of queer people than they are for their fiction, to the point where it appears they were chosen for their advocacy over their fiction — feels like business as usual where I’m concerned.
Brian K. Lowe
“Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Puppies of War” – April 4
Most f/sf fans, however, will stand by and ignore/watch with horrified awe the train wreck that the Hugos will have become. Very soon, the awards will cease to have any marketing or promotional or even personal value, because it the award will no longer even pretend to honor literary excellence, but merely which side can buy the most votes by assembling the most voters.
This year it was the Sad Puppies who bought the most votes. Next year it may be the Soft Kitties. The year after that–the year after that it won’t matter because fandom will be divided into armed camps that don’t speak, don’t read the same books, and refuse to attend the same conventions.
Which will make the Puppies and the Kitties very sad.
Marie Brennan on Notes From The Teleidoplex
“My Hugo Nominations” – April 4
I don’t want to see a move toward counter-slates. I pretty much categorically refuse to follow a slate because my reading habits and preferences will never align with other people’s. I don’t have time to read comprehensively, and I won’t nominate something unless I’ve read it. The SP/RP contingent would say (and has said today) that this is why they won this year. They’re treating their gamification of the nomination process as a feature rather than a deeply divisive bug.
Paul Weimer on Blog, Jvstin Style
“Advocati Diaboli: The Sad Puppies and the 2015 Hugo Award Nominations”
This Sad Puppies ballot voting and their political motivations makes the Hugo Award look like a parochial US only thing. What about fans in Britain? Germany? Australia? Pakistan? Their voices are only slowly being heard in SF awards, and with this slate, those voices are silenced completely this year.
Charlie Jane Anders on i09
“The Hugo Awards Were Always Political. But Now They’re Only Political” – April 4
Honestly, you’re never going to have a perfect system for identifying the best works of fiction published in a given year — even with a juried award, these decisions will inevitably wind up including factors that are external to the quality of the work. So the best you can hope for is that the quality of the work winds up getting considered first and foremost, over other factors. The only processes that really get you there are deliberative, involving a lot of public discussion and private rumination. That’s how you get surprising, out-of-nowhere choices. As someone who won a Hugo Award in 2012, I’m sad that there might be one less avenue out there for new writers to be plucked from obscurity and put on a stage with their idols.
Deidre Saoirse Moen
“The Puppy-Free Hugo Award Voter’s Guide” – April 4
Follow, or don’t, your choice. If you are voting the strict ix-nay uppy-pay slate, here’s the options in each category:
John Scalzi on Whatever
“A Note About the Hugo Nominations This Year” – April 4
- This year I’ll do what I always do when voting for the Hugos, which is to rank the nominees every category according to how I think they (and/or their particular works in question) deserve to ranked. Preferential balloting is a useful thing. I will be reading quite a lot.
- If, in the fullness of careful consideration, I come to believe certain nominees in a category do not merit being on the ballot at all, then I will do two things:
One, I will leave those nominees off my final ballot. If they’re not on my ballot, they can’t be ranked.
Two, after ranking the nominees I do believe deserve to be on the ballot, I will use the “No Award” option to signal that I would prefer that no Hugo be awarded, rather than to give it to any of the remaining nominees.
Allum Bokhari on Breitbart.com
“Hugo Awards Nominations Swept by Anti-SJW, Anti-Authoritarian Authors” – April 4
What a time to be alive! Liberals write for Breitbart, a carton girl in green and purple is a symbol of terror for the authoritarian Left, and now an online campaign with a manatee for a spokesperson is exposing political cliques in the world of science fiction and fantasy publishing.
In February, we reported on the “Sad Puppies” campaign, a tongue-in-cheek bid by science fiction & fantasy (SF&F) authors to draw attention to an atmosphere of political intolerance, driven by so-called “social justice warriors,” that is holding the medium back. Spearheaded by authors Larry Correia and Brad R. Torgersen, the campaign sought to break the stranglehold of old cliques by encouraging a more politically diverse group of fans to take part in the annual Hugo Awards.
A week of rumours about the campaign’s success were confirmed this Saturday with the announcement of the final Hugo Awards ballot. Authors and works endorsed by the Sad Puppies nominations slate swept the field, a reflection of just how many new fans the rebel authors have brought into the Hugo process
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The Sad Puppies were unaware of the Heinlein biography when they compiled their slate. Understandable–the SFF field is so big that you won’t necessarily know about everything you would love if you read it.
Ironically, their slate(s) locked every non-slate work out of the Best Related Work category. Including the Heinlein biography. Because slates don’t just harm works by those nasty poopyheads on the “other side” who deserve to be treated unfairly because secret slates are totally a thing that could happen, really. Slates harm every non-slate work including the ones you would have loved if you had only known about them.
And in so doing, they make it impossible for non-slate voters to suggest good things that are right up your alley.
Smooth move, Puppies.
“And in so doing, they make it impossible for non-slate voters to suggest good things that are right up your alley. Smooth move, Puppies.”
Wow, you make an amazingly convincing case. After such a humiliating public defeat, SP should probably all go home and give the awards back to its rightful owners, Scalzi, Stross, and the editors at Tor Books.
Cat, no matter what we do, you’re going to say it was the wrong thing and predict doom for SP. That’s what you do. But did you predict we were going to sweep multiple categories in the 2015 nominations after last year’s ceremony?
If not, then I’m sure you must understand that tends to call your analysis into question.
I’m sure Scalzi has been inoculated against VD….
At any rate. Shit hits fans…
The pixel war and debate begins…
I admit that I no longer nominate for the Hugo Awards, despite (*ahem*) having won several times. That said, I’ve begun following the Sick Puppies posts by Torgeson, who delights in setting up straw men and then burning them down, using kerosene and flame throwers. The question is, after a second year of getting their slate of candidates on the ballot, whether they can still claim to be outsiders, kept off the Hugo Nominations by the evial cadres of old time fans (whom they have several nasty names for, also invented by Torgeson and his fellow-travelers).
Charlie Jane Anders goes by her full name.
Thanks for the prompt.
I would like gently to draw the readers’ attention to the difference in tone between the pro and con camps whose debates are quoted here. The Sad Puppies (or whatever name one might use for them) call their honorable opposition “bullies” and “puritans” and complain about the insiders dominating the ballot, which we have openly and fairly taken steps to obviate the problem; whereas the Happy Kittens (or whatever name one might use for them) call their enemies “perverts” and “bigots”, and claiming we have no place in fandom at all.
Which of the two, just based on the sample quotes given above, is treating the field with more respect?
Well, I guess we now know why Teresa Nielsen-Hayden is a *former* Tor editor, given her propensity to slander Tor authors like Mr. Wright and Kevin Anderson.
“Pervert?” Snork. Unless she was talking about some *other* John C. Wright. Yeah, that’s it… *rolls eyes*
And the only way Cat’s point about the Heinlein biography would make sense is if the Sad/Rabid Puppies were the only people who would consider nominating it. Which…further validates the Puppies’ point.
Mike,
Thank you for providing a thorough and balanced accounting of the various opinions out there. It is important for neutral parties to present a fair accounting of what is going on between the SP/RP and the CHORF/Old Guard/Insider camps.
At first I thought you were solidly in the latter camp, but now I see you as much more moderate and simply reporting what is out there. Well done, sir. I hope you continue this kind of coverage without bias.
Well, I happened to read Torgersen’s blog a couple of days ago. In the comments, disagreeing people were told to fuck off and science fiction writers they don’t like were described as idiots.
Bad manners everywhere.
AV: Thanks for your comment. I don’t think your original observation was inaccurate, but it needs to be paired with the fact that I have a great curiosity about why human society really works as it does, particularly this small-scale model which is fandom and the sf community where I spend so much of my time. In order to pursue that knowledge I have to try and understand how things look from other people’s vantage points. My newzine, and now this blog, are tools for personal learning as much as they are a service to fandom, which is why the work has remained interesting over the years. Nobody is unbiased, certainly not me, I just try to keep the noise of my biases from overwhelming the signals I am trying to hear.
@John C. Wright
I find the tone of many of the “anti sad puppies,” off putting. I’m not saying I completely buy into the sad puppies’s stated intentions or necessarily think the final Hugo slate is truly reflective of the field ( I don’t), but I think there is a polite way to disagree with people.
I also think people are having trouble separating the art from the artist. I see people saying things like ” how can anyone like that homophobic … John C. Wright.” Whereas I tend to think, “Wright is a different religion than I am and has very different views on social issues than I do, but I’ll judge his art on its own merits.”
And that’s what I do. I liked your Chaos trilogy tremendously, even if I don’t think we’d ever be drinking buddies.
‘Which of the two, just based on the sample quotes given above, is treating the field with more respect?’
The ones who just gamed the Hugos? So respectful!
You are talking about John scalzi then nigel?
‘You are talking about John scalzi then nigel?’
VD does indeed seem to aspire to be John Scalzi. Maybe the rest of them do, too?
@ Wes. S.
If you read the actual text there you will note that the “pervert” comment was made by the 20th comment to Teresa Nielsen-Hayden’s blog by a commenter named Rochrist. Nielsen-Hayden simply pointed out the screenshots of tweets evidencing that people supporting the “Sad Puppy” slate had reached out to GamerGaters on twitter, looking for nomination support as a way to “humble SJWs” and promoting involvement in “Sad Puppy” as a way to eradicate the “infection” of people who don’t agree with them.
I have no knowledge of or opinion on Mr. Wright’s sexual preferences (nor do I care to), but if you’re concerned about “slander” or the civility of authors or editors who call people perverts, it’s worth noting that he himself has accused other artists of perversion, also comparing those who represent gay relationships to an infestation of termites and rhetorically advocating “termination”.
http://www.scifiwright.com/2014/12/the-perversion-of-a-legend/
Which . . . undermines his “civility” high horse just a smidge here.
@ Spacefaringkitten: I giggle lightheartedly when I hear MakingLight aficionados complain about harsh language on other blogs. What reception do you expect, dsmvwlng? Suspension? Banning?
@ Mike G.: thanks for the round up.
Surridge is overthinking. He was nominated because he is good. Odd that he would make it political. I must say it is hilarious to watch nominees decline or apologize because the wrong people appreciate them. not a great long term strategy to express public distance from your fans.
Nigel…”seem”…that is a very interesting choice of words.
I see people saying things like ” how can anyone like that homophobic … John C. Wright.”
Why would Wright want the kind of people he calls “termites” to like him?
I would think he would want as many people as possible to read (and pay for) his work. Liking someone doesn’t have anything to do it.
I like Roman Polanski’s movies even though he’s a scumbag. I cheer for the Jets, even though we have convicted dog killer, Vick. I have no problem liking someone’s fiction either, even if they don’t approve of my belief system.
Serious question — is there no chance of a cease-fire, wherein the two warring parties air their respective grievances in a controlled environment and negotiate a truce ?
What looms larger, hatred of “patriarchy” vs. hatred of “social justice” activism, or a mutual love for SFF ?
He was nominated because he is good.
You can’t tell that from this nomination, and he can’t tell; If Kevin J Anderson got a nomination because of the slate then the slate was biasing the result to get bad writers nominations regardless of quality.
@ Mike G.: thanks for the round up, indeed.
Kinda sad we’re having such battles, though. There is much dross on the Hugo ballot (& Nebulas too) and I fear this will just deflect interest from the Hugo’s central problem: it’s no longer a true standard of value. (As an example, the JWC for Best Novel this year makes up a long ballot of good novels; I believe none from that list will prove to be on the Hugo ballot. Or the Nebulas.
Can you get more pretentious? “Oh, I’m on the jury for this one award, and our choices are soooo superior to yours.”
I was rereading Damon Knight’s THE FUTURIANS. After seeing some of the things the Futurians said about Will Sykora and Sam Moskowitz, and contrawise, I don’t think John C. Wright or Brad Torgeson or Teresa Neilsen Hayden (no hyphen) has anything to say.
I suggest that they all read the book. It is available for eReader.
But what we are seeing here is the collision of cliques who normally stay in their own circle and are discommoded when disagreement appears.
Except one clique appears to be having one hell of a lot more fun than the other.
“I would like gently to draw the readers’ attention to the difference in tone between the pro and con camps whose debates are quoted here.”
Yes. One side describes their actions as being part of a “war” and wanting to “break through their enemy lines” leaving their foes “in disarray” while nominating the worst kind of turgid shit possible such as Pale Realms of Shade and The Plural of Helen of Troy, and the other is talking about getting good books and stories on the ballot.
I’ll join with Wright. VD, the ultimate Satan, calls for calm and dignity. The other side talks about “no award”, excuse me “Noah Ward”; ’cause that’s different. And supposedly witty.
And again, despite the claims about Sad Puppies not reading books, with the exception of Scalzi (who is the consummate politician) we see the other side claiming that they will not read. Though he hints heavily so as to not offend the Right People.
And we’re the bad guys. For realz.
And look, we have a cross post with, “turgid shit”. What would that “shit” be perhaps? Do name names, describe the plot, and explain why. I will be sure to take notes for my ballot.
Unless you haven’t read any of it. In that case…
You seem like a reasonable, unbiased commenter. I think I will value your opinion very highly. After all, how could any story by John Wright possibly top the magnificence of “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” and its gin-swelling rednecks.
We see the other side claiming that they will not read.
Actually excerpts of the various stories from the puppy slates are already doing the rounds on twitter and else where – the thing I don’t think people who nominated stuff on the slate are grasping is that they have given money to an organisation they say is a corrupt bastion of liberal fascist maoist authoritarians coward bullies, for the privilege of having these works they’ve put on the slate handed out for free to people who spend a lot of time pointing and laughing at bad books.
Similarly, it bears pointing out that North Correia has most likely withdrawn from the award for the financially sensible reason that A) he’s not the big name headliner of nominations with butcher on the best novel portion of the slate like last year so B) wasn’t likely to win even if Leckie, Addison or No Award don’t win instead, which means that C) the effect of running for that category is that he’d be handing a sizable chunk of his readership free copies of the book he wants to sell them, with no discernible financial pay off for him at the end of it.
Fred Davis, you seem to be confusing recent custom with requirement. Nothing in the Hugo rules requires that any work be provided free to anyone.
Fred:
a) Correia stated quite some time ago that he preferred Butcher’s story to his own.
b) Baen gave away the whole grimnoir trilogy last year, and Larry didn’t expect to win last year either. The only evidence money is his concern is in your imagination.
So, please, stop making things up just because you want to not have to admit people you disagree with can still have valid reasons for what they do. Too many people doing that already.
stop making things up
If pointing out a way in which it might be in North Correia’s financial best interest to withdraw from the award rather than actually see his choice to create a slate around himself through to its conclusion for the second year in a row is “making things up”, then I have no idea how you function in real life – it must be awfully hard to have conversations with people if any opinion you don’t already share is deemed to be “making things up” and should therefore not be stated aloud.
If he was always gonna remove himself from the award then it was silly for him to ask people to nominate him in the first place, so one can assume he is a very silly person or that he had some rational reason for behaving as he did, your choice.
Alas, his description of his own actions seem to be some variety of “I’M SILLY”, but I’ve always held to be politer to assume people are liars rather than complete imbeciles.
Feel free to disagree though ^_^
How to Lie Professionally (for the neutrals watching):
1.) Make Things Up Without Reference:
Actually excerpts of the various stories from the puppy slates are already doing the rounds on twitter and else where
Notice the vagueness here. There are “excerpts” of various “stories” on “twitter and elsewhere”. In a world where links are cheap we get complete vagueness. Not to mention I asked for plots, and twitters a 144 characters makes that hard. Real hard.
– the thing I don’t think people who nominated stuff on the slate are grasping is that they have given money to an organisation they say is a corrupt bastion of liberal fascist maoist authoritarians coward bullies
Notice how this will flip around. He does seem stuck on Maoists. It also ignores the whole SP message that we love the Hugos as they traditionally were and want good stories there. If by giving money we rebuild the system, all the better.
North Correia has most likely withdrawn from the award for the financially sensible reason that A) he’s not the big name headliner of nominations with butcher on the best novel portion of the slate like last year so
Notice the second lie, on financial sensibility. One wonders why he gave away more last year then.
B) wasn’t likely to win even if Leckie, Addison or No Award don’t win instead, which means that
Third lie. If he is not likely to win then the voters are likely people that would never read his book. Therefore, he had no financial disincentive to give it to the Hugo’s.
C) the effect of running for that category is that he’d be handing a sizable chunk of his readership free copies of the book he wants to sell them, with no discernible financial pay off for him at the end of it.
Not technically a lie, just a conclusion drawn from the previous ones.
Feel free to disagree though ^_^
This is “the Eddie Haskell Lie”. It says, hey, I just called you names and claimed you were a cheat motivated by pure greed, but we can still be friends right (because smiley emoticon)? In the end, again for the neutrals watching, this is the big difference between the two camps. If we don’t like you, we’ll say so. We also actually tend to forgive if you correct the error. These people lie and will eat you alive even if you apologize.
Chose your friends wisely.
Fred, he explicitly said when the slate was announced that he had wanted to be left off in the first place and was only on the list because people insisted. Getting *them* nominations was his publicly stated primary goal. The odds of him accepting the nomination unless the other suggested nominees were all on the ballot were pretty miniscule.
Craig,
I’d suggest not wasting your time convincing someone who is willing to lie like that. Convince those who are watching instead.
I have written up a summary of many of the proposed approaches to dealing with bloc/slate nomination.
http://ideas.4brad.com/hugo-awards-suborned-what-can-or-should-be-done
To avoid making it so political, I suggest an alternate history:
A group of around 200 Steampunk fans, upset at the way the awards have ignored steampunk, get together online and hold an internal poll on the best steampunk of the year. From that poll, they pick the best 4 or 5 called “SP3” and recommend that all their members nominate exactly that slate. They also suggest that other steampunk fans who are not regular members join the convention to express this view. As a result, the ballot comes out with many categories mostly or completely dominated by steampunk. This list includes some creators who have received nominations in the past without the slate, and some who did not ask to be on the slate.
@ Brad
I like your “alternate history” idea.
To answer your scenario honestly, if a faction of Steampunk enthusiasts hijacked the Hugo awards this year, I’d react as follows:
(1) Whoah! The Hugos are gonna SUCK this year…
(2) …but the slate voters had a great idea. Every fandom should do it!
Actual open elections, complete with voter slates, would be awesome for the Hugos. You know how fun actual political campaigns are to follow? Picture that, except that no amount of spin can cover up a bad candidate. And the voters can pick No Award if all the candidates suck
This is a perfect way to get people involved. Debate! Fandom collisions! Online drama!
Slate voting? Elections? Bring it on. This stuff’s more entertaining than some of the books.
“Chose your friends wisely.”
Oh, I did that.
The interesting time would be if you had paranormal romance fans wanting to be involved, because looking at the amazon sales ranks, paranormal romance is the dominant genre of new SF/F, and by a good margin (with space opera second, as a general genre, and a few individual authors rounding out the top 60).
It’s interesting that people are still upset about “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”. I can understand that they didn’t like it – I voted it below ‘no award’ too, after all – but that’s an issue for the Nebulas (which it won) rather than the Hugos (which it didn’t).
Why aren’t these people also upset about “Mantis Wives”, which was also nominated for a Hugo, and had even less of a story? What’s the crucial difference?
Both were about the tragic fate of the male partner in a relationship. Both were written by a woman. Both were heavily poetic – possibly at the expense of narrative. And yet, only one is consistently held up as an example of The Boring Trash That Literati Have Been Shitting Onto The Hugo Ballot.
er, correction. I *ranked* it below ‘No Award’; I did not vote for it at all.
Yes, in spite of the presumably satirical desire for exciting politics, the last thing we want is every subgrene, from Paranormal Romance to Magic Realism to Slipstream to Mundane SF to Steampunk to High Fantasy to Chagrined Dogs to be deciding and pushing their own slate. All that means is each year it’s a competition to see which genre has the most fans, and then the Hugo that year is among the works chosen by those fans. I think you can count most of us out.
A good award has nominators and voters who act independently. Few awards attain that perfectly, but it is the goal, and you want to move closer to it, not away from it.
Side note I have to write whenever somebody says they ranked something below No Award. DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS YOU ARE RANKING ALL CANDIDATES. Sorry for the all-caps. You can give a Hugo to something you hated if you do this without knowing what you are doing. Keep it simple and rank No Award last, and leave unworthy works off the ballot. There is no clear advice on what to do with works you didn’t read — you can randomly rank them after your choices and before No Award if you like, and the normal path is to just leave them off the ballot, but if you leave them off the ballot and put No Award and an unworthy work on your ballot below it, you’re not doing what you want to do.
After reading everything, I have decided that multiple votes for “no award” are in order in the categories that were chosen by a single group of fen. That’s the way I’m going to vote. (Since it’s my selections in multiple categories, does that make it a “slate”?)
Maybe a Gatling slate.
Why aren’t these people also upset about “Mantis Wives”, which was also nominated for a Hugo, and had even less of a story? What’s the crucial difference?
Both were about the tragic fate of the male partner in a relationship. Both were written by a woman. Both were heavily poetic – possibly at the expense of narrative. And yet, only one is consistently held up as an example of The Boring Trash That Literati Have Been Shitting Onto The Hugo Ballot.
Because being written by a woman has nothing to do with it? The SP did nominate women remember.
I had forgotten about Mantis Wives, which while terrible, was arguably Science Fiction and not pure revenge porn.
But yes, both are a good example of how _much_ better the slate was this year.
@Brad,
A group of around 200 Steampunk fans, upset at the way the awards have ignored steampunk, get together online and hold an internal poll on the best steampunk of the year. From that poll, they pick the best 4 or 5 called “SP3” and recommend that all their members nominate exactly that slate. They also suggest that other steampunk fans who are not regular members join the convention to express this view. As a result, the ballot comes out with many categories mostly or completely dominated by steampunk. This list includes some creators who have received nominations in the past without the slate, and some who did not ask to be on the slate.
Let me fix that for you:
At one time an award was given to Steam Punk fiction. Overtime the award was no longer given to Steam Punk fiction but Dinosaur Revenge Porn. The Steam Punk fans were upset and organized to vote for Steam Punk fiction instead of Dinosaur Revenge Porn. Through hard work after three years they succeeded. The Dinosaur Revenge Porn folks called them evil for “taking over the award”. The Steam Punk fans laughed. The end.
Since it’s my selections in multiple categories, does that make it a “slate”?
Yes. And the irony is sadly delicious. You’all can’t really help yourselves can you.
@ Brad:
You’re assuming that the factions can’t negotiate with each other. Paranormal romance couldn’t lock down a slate on its own because they’d need a majority of voters’ acceptance. Otherwise, it’s “No Award” time.
You’re also assuming high voter discipline. From what I’m hearing on Twitter and blogs, the Puppies aren’t even voting consistently, and that’s from a bunch of conservatives who’ve had three years to prepare AND recent encouragement from Gamergate.