S. T. Joshi Rails Against Ending Use of Lovecraft Bust on World Fantasy Award

Two-time World Fantasy Award winner S. T. Joshi, author of numerous books on H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, and the editor of many more critical works about them, publicly announced he is returning his awards in protest against the World Fantasy Con’s decision to stop using a bust of Lovecraft as the award trophy.

He wrote on his blog November 10:

It has come to my attention that the World Fantasy Convention has decided to replace the bust of H. P. Lovecraft that constitutes the World Fantasy Award with some other figure. Evidently this move was meant to placate the shrill whining of a handful of social justice warriors who believe that a “vicious racist” like Lovecraft has no business being honoured by such an award. (Let it pass that analogous accusations could be made about Bram Stoker and John W. Campbell, Jr., who also have awards named after them. These figures do not seem to elicit the outrage of the SJWs.) Accordingly, I have returned my two World Fantasy Awards to the co-chairman of the WFC board, David G. Hartwell. Here is my letter to him:

Mr. David G. Hartwell
Tor Books
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010Dear Mr. Hartwell:

I was deeply disappointed with the decision of the World Fantasy Convention to discard the bust of H. P. Lovecraft as the emblem of the World Fantasy Award. The decision seems to me a craven yielding to the worst sort of political correctness and an explicit acceptance of the crude, ignorant, and tendentious slanders against Lovecraft propagated by a small but noisy band of agitators.

I feel I have no alternative but to return my two World Fantasy Awards, as they now strike me as irremediably tainted. Please find them enclosed. You can dispose of them as you see fit.

Please make sure that I am not nominated for any future World Fantasy Award. I will not accept the award if it is bestowed upon me.

I will never attend another World Fantasy Convention as long as I live. And I will do everything in my power to urge a boycott of the World Fantasy Convention among my many friends and colleagues.

Yours,
S. T. Joshi

And that is all I will have to say on this ridiculous matter. If anyone feels that Lovecraft’s perennially ascending celebrity, reputation, and influence will suffer the slightest diminution as a result of this silly kerfuffle, they are very much mistaken.

 

303 thoughts on “S. T. Joshi Rails Against Ending Use of Lovecraft Bust on World Fantasy Award

  1. Ultragotha: The Trader Joes Truffle Brownie Mix is my go-to boxed mix, as well. Though it’s a bit hard to do the toothpick thing to test for doneness, as there’s gooey inclusions EVERYWHERE.

  2. Diced chilis are small pieces, cooked, and thus soft. They also tend to disappear quite nicely in the brownies. (They frequently get called ‘Ortegas’ for the best-known brand.) They’re actually mild chilis.

  3. JJ, You realize, of course, that this thread was taken over by brownie recipes just to thwart you. ?

    Hush! <looking around furtively> You’ll spoil my Cunning Plan to have brownies take over R’lyeh….

  4. Jack Lint said:

    Unaussprechlichen Kuchen was Howard. The Cookbook of Ebon was Clark Ashton Smith. Cultes des Ganache was Bloch.

    My SO urges everyone not to forget about The King In Yellow Sauce.

  5. Since I hate brownies, instead of giving you my recipe I’ll test JJ’s contention that no further comments were in order because Filers have already spent ages discussing the WFA winners to death.

    Out of the billions of File 770 comments in the year 2015 A.D.:

    Kyra mentioned in passing that future WFA winner for Best Novel The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell appeared on lists of her favorite books. Twice.

    JJ thought it was meh. Camestros advised it was a downer.

    Mad Professah ranked it in comparison with other books of 2014, said he loved it and noted it was more compelling than Cloud Atlas, thereby winning the File 770 Award for Excellence in Being Bothered to Make What is Apparently the Single Most Substantive Comment about One of the Most Widely Acclaimed SFF Books of the Year.

    I have to admit Brian Z didn’t read it either. (He did wonder briefly how it seemed to vanish without a trace.)

  6. See, the underbaking is also helpful in not getting dried out crunchy edges to your brownies. I think a deep circular pan would also help, but you’d want it smooth — Bundt cake pans have too many edges.

    I ate a lot of blondies in high school when plagued with pimples that leaped out whenever I so much as looked at chocolate.

    We get English muffins, crumpets, old-size muffins, giant muffins, old-size cupcakes, and giant cupcakes all in the same stores here.

    Also chocolate bars with chili and fizzy bits in (the same technology as Pop Rocks, it’s just the CO2 gets compounded with jalapenos. It’s not very hot).

    You can buy Mountain Dew made with real sugar nowadays again in America, if you want the true eldritch stuff.

  7. Brian Z: I’ll test JJ’s contention that no further comments were in order because Filers have already spent ages discussing the WFA winners to death.

    You’re doing it again. I didn’t say that.

  8. I don’t think it’s too controversial to note that we do enjoy a vigorous discussion about tangential issues around these parts.

  9. OK. I was thinking of:

    The WFA novel finalists were all discussed at great length by many commenters across many posts on here in the last 6 months. And to a lesser extent, so were most of the short fiction finalists. You can Google it.

    In fact, I find that Googling before committing to a public post the sort of assertions you just made often keeps me from looking like a clueless idiot who doesn’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about.

    If you mean it is high time to finally have a rousing discussion of this year’s WFA winner, I happily stand corrected.

    As long as we’re fisking, regarding your claim about short fiction, for Best Short Story finalists:

    “I Can See Right Through You” – 0 comments
    Do You Like to Look at Monsters? – 0 comments
    “Death’s Door Café” – 0 comments
    “The Fisher Queen” – 0 comments
    Jackalope Wives – tons of people talked about how wonderful it is and how Puppies stole its rightful Hugo

  10. Brian Z on November 11, 2015 at 9:58 pm said:
    Camestros advised it was a downer.

    Bits of it are but I thought it was great. I just know some people like to know if books have a depressing vision of the future and parts of the Bone Clocks are a bit grim.

  11. and parts of the Bone Clocks are a bit grim.

    For what it’s worth, the Irish parts rang true – but then he lives in Cork. Even the Chinese Corridor, given our propensity for desperately seeking outside investment since the founding of the State. Grim, yeah, but undercut for me a bit because I was admiring the way he evoked the locality.

  12. @Brian Z–

    “I Can See Right Through You” – 0 comments
    Do You Like to Look at Monsters? – 0 comments
    “Death’s Door Café” – 0 comments
    “The Fisher Queen” – 0 comments
    Jackalope Wives – tons of people talked about how wonderful it is and how Puppies stole its rightful Hugo

    The Fisher Queen
    I Can See Right Through You
    Jackalope Wives
    The Mothers of Voorhisville
    The Devil in America
    Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)
    Where the Trains Turn

  13. Brian Z: OK. I was thinking of:

    Thank you for cutting and pasting what I actually said, so that people can see how you misquoted me.

    Brian Z.: As long as we’re fisking, regarding your claim about short fiction, for Best Short Story finalists

    Whoops. You left out:

    • Daryl Gregory, We Are All Completely Fine
    • Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen, “Where the Trains Turn”
    • Michael Libling, “Hollywood North”
    • Mary Rickert, “The Mothers of Voorhisville”
    • Rachel Swirsky, “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)”
    • Kai Ashante Wilson, “The Devil in America”

    But I’m sure that was purely <cough> inadvertent on your part.

  14. It’s worth pointing out, I think, that people discuss things in other places besides here… I mean, my thoughts on (for example) the “Southern Reach” trilogy have appeared on my LJ and in a Making Light comment thread, and I’m not quite enough of an egotist to make sure they’re splashed all over here, too. (Besides, they’re not particularly original or insightful thoughts. I thought “Southern Reach” was weird in a good way, like loads of other people.)

    I’m sure many other Filers discuss many other stories in many other places, too. (Actually, I’ve been scraping around the Net for “Best Fan Writer” potential recommendations this week, so I know for a fact they do.)

    Whereas this discussion thread seems to be, well, just here in this thread. (Oh, and it seems it’s reached the Guardian, too, with the Guardian’s typical level of insight and acumen into SFFnal things.)

  15. If you like sort-of-downer fiction, I just finished Europe at Midnight and it manages to be great and funny despite a couple of genocides, only one of which was allegedly accidental.

    I had liked Europe in Autumn a lot, but Europe at Midnight broke my heart. In part because it’s about really decent people trying to do decent things and going through a lot of heartbreak, only the lesser one of which is sentimental in nature; and partly because of bits like

    The English entry for the Eurovision Song Contest this year was “Reservoir Dogs”, by a band calling themselves Mr Songer’s Wee. Jim, for whom Eurovision was usually something that happened to other people, only knew about it because a distant cousin had produced the band’s album. “Utter shite”, she had confided to Jim.
    There were five hundred and thirty-two entries in this Eurovision – up from las year’s five hundred and twenty, but still a long way from the so-far-record of six hundred and eight. [ ]It was not almost fifty years since England – the United Kingdom, as then was – had won.”

    And part of it because of this MAGNIFICENT burn:

    “I still wasn’t sure whether England was in Europe or not; I had the impression that the English would have quite liked to be in Europe so long as they were running it, but weren’t particularly bothered otherwise.”

    And partly because it is a sad and affecting tale of the evils of dividing people the better to oppress them, and of the particular evil of keeping them in their enclave to deprive them of knowledge and power.

    GO OUT AND READ IT.

  16. It might be worth everyone bearing in mind that Rot13 will heavily obscure the ability to google for discussion. Things might not be easy to find.

    I think I saw a mini bit about Fisher Queen when I was looking through old threads yesterday, for example.

    Nigella seeds are a spice. Accidentally super appropriate name for a tv chef.

    @Anna Feruglio Dal Dan

    I have the first one on my TBR pile!

  17. Since I knew that I myself had talked about The Bone Clocks on this site alone more than that, I did a quick search.

    In addition to what has been linked:

    In the 6/8 thread, in a discussion of The Bone Clocks vs. Cloud Atlas, I said that “I liked [The Bone Clocks] a great deal. However, in many ways, while The Bone Clocks is a better *written* book than Cloud Atlas, Cloud Atlas is nonetheless a better book. Bolder, more innovative, reaching further.”

    In the 2015 Hugo Best Novel Longlist Discussion Thread, I listed The Bone Clocks as my seventh favorite novel (overall, of any type, not just SFF) from 2014.

    And of course, The Bone Clocks was included among the best fantasy novels of the 21st century in a bracket I ran here. And when it lost to Alif the Unseen (which in turn later lost to Ash: A Secret History), it caused me to once again note an apparent preference on this site for genre fantasy over lit fantasy.

    So, I think it’s safe to say some stuff got missed. And that’s for just me, and just what I could find in ten seconds, just on this site, for a book I read well before I ever started commenting on this site and therefore mostly discussed elsewhere.

    Incidentally, I’m always happy to talk about The Bone Clocks, but I’m not going to do so further on this thread, since I feel like I’m being ordered to comment on it more in order to pass some kind of weird arbitrary litmus test rather than being asked to chat about a book I liked.

  18. JJ: I didn’t quote you at all! Those were not finalists for Best Short Story!

    If you would like recognition for your hard work exhorting people to discuss novellas, sure, that’s fair enough. The WFA ballot posted here attracted a single novella plug (and a single comment in reply), plus dozens of comments focused on Lovecraft’s racism. But since several overlapped with Hugo “longlist” novellas, you were able to elicit some conversation a longlist thread, months later, albeit on the curious grounds that there was finally an opportunity to talk about them.

  19. There will always be trolls that demand that ithers discuss what they themselves will not. Best they are ignored as their only goal is to make the climate more toxic.

  20. My apologies if missing Kyra’s 6/8 comment while catching JJ’s caused offense. She is officially tied with Mad Professah.

  21. In my family we have a saying, “Pedantic AND wrong.”

    It can be useful at times.

  22. Peace, JJ said most WFA short fiction finalists were discussed at great length here by many commenters across many posts in the last 6 months. I’ve been following pretty closely, and that was a surprise to me.

  23. @Brian Z

    If you missed three separate occasions of just one person mentioning just one book, perhaps it might be time to consider whether you missed other comments, too, and stop going on about it.

  24. Meredith, I didn’t miss those, they were all iterations of the ideas of favored works of the year or the decade/millennium. The point of glancing through the search results was to see if there were had been substantive discussions of the book that I missed – and I haven’t found them. If you do, please point them out.

    Of course I missed this or that, but how does that change the point? Once it was pointed out, I could see how reactions to the WFA have been about the trophy with no thought to the work unless it appeared on the Hugo lists. I’ve ignored them along with the rest of you.

  25. Brian has a history of overlooking things that don’t contribute to whatever argument he’s making at the time. Personally I’m not interested in dancing to his tune since I’ve lost faith in his sincerity.

    It sounds like perfect brownies is really quite solvable. There’s no way I can think of to make a no-edge pan (with the possible exception of zero-G, where you could perhaps bake the brownies as a hollow sphere) but there’s still a solution, it just requires pairing edge-preferrers and middle-preferrers: We make a pan of brownies, those of us who like edges get the edges, those who like middles get the middles, repeat until everyone has had a reasonable amount of brownies. It’s really just a question of distribution.

    Regarding chocolate versus non-chocolate, blondies, with chocolate chips in half?

  26. @Matt Y

    I realize I shoud have answered yesterday to your points on the WFA, all apologies.

    I have mixed feelings on this award. I am shamefully ignorant on their novel prize (I am in the slow process of improving that: next on the list is “Bridge of Birds”, by Barry Hughart). But since a few years I am trying to get up to date to recent short works, by reading a selection of 50 stories for a given year, mostly through “best of” and awards longlists.

    On the positive side, WFA do reward niche stuffs, and I do appreciate that, as I read short fiction to access a diversity I don’t have time to cover through novel reading. I always find it heartwarming to know there is more to fantasy then secondary world medieval fantasy or vampire vs werewolves.

    On the negative side, it always irks me that in the end, there is no serious, consensual, middle of the road award for fantasy, the role the Hugo is supposed to play for F&SF but in practice mostly do for SF. I actually have the feeling we managed recently to have that in France (at our own petty scale 🙂 ) with the Imaginales. You can check their longlist for translated work if you are interested: lot of popular, standard fantasy but some place for more edgy stuff. Of course publication dates are going to be all wrong for you as they compete the year of their translation.

    http://www.imaginales.fr/pages/prix-imaginales

    As for the very small sample of fiction I managed to sample through my take on the WFA, it was as I said a mix bag. I am not surprised to see the awards come initially from the horror side of the spectrum, and it is not my cup of tea. Some stuff I found very plain and dull but maybe due to me being blind to the beauty of the prose, as I am not a native speaker. I won’t be sampling them systematically any more.

    Anyway, three exeptional bit of fiction I would have missed without them:
    “Sea-Hearts”, Margo Lanagan
    “A Journal of Certain Events of Scientific Interest from the First Survey Voyage of the Southern Waters by HMS Ocelot, As Observed by Professor Thaddeus Boswell, DPhil, MSc, or, A Lullaby”, Helen Keeble
    “Our Man in the Sudan”, Sarah Pinborough

  27. On the negative side, it always irks me that in the end, there is no serious, consensual, middle of the road award for fantasy, the role the Hugo is supposed to play for F&SF but in practice mostly do for SF.

    Generally when there is a need for an award, people get together and start one.

  28. Generally when there is a need for an award, people get together and start one.

    If only that were true then there would have been no puppy kerfuffle.

  29. Okay Gary Farber, one more time: My father was a racist. And he did his rants about negroes and them Jews and did it frequently enough. In between his fatherly concerns and duties, –like taking me to movies, and buying tropical fish and toys and drawing comics from the news papers, reading to me. and giving me shelter and food. He helped with my homework and cleaned me when I was sick and fussed over me with real concern.

    So what do I do? Deny my father, or show the empathy and humanity that I can muster up and allow myself to forget these short comings and acknowledge them? You want me to do what?

    When I say HPL’s racism was not as bad as everyone is making it out to be, this is what I mean. The focus is entirely on one undeniable point. It wasn’t pleasant to go through when I found this material in his letters and recollections others made, but it was not his main fixation. He was not burning crosses on people’s lawns or dressing up with a white hood. He was generous with his time and writing, and had many friends. He married a Jew.

    My father managed to hold his tongue when I had a black housemate and kept it still when I married a Jew.

    When I deal with bigots in my life and on my job, I try to find spots of humanity. It is not fair to focus on the negative with people no matter who they are.

    Gee, and I haven’t brought up that Bob Hope used to preform in blackface.

  30. Brian, what you seem not to be getting is that nobody is obligated to prove to your satisfaction (an impossible task in itself, seemingly) that they are having the proper number and kind of conversations.

  31. @Robert Whitaker Sirignano:

    1. Nobody is demanding you deny your father.

    2. Some of what we know about Lovecraft’s Antisemitism comes in the form of reports from his Jewish ex-wife.

    “He married a Jew.” G*d, spare me.

  32. TMJ: Correct. You do have several options, ranging from commenting on fannish reaction to the WFA ballot qua WFA ballot – the topic I found interesting – to ignoring it.

  33. @Robert Whitaker Sirignano

    I’m not sure what your father has to do with anyone else, to be honest. Lots of us have family members with unpleasant views, but as far as I know none of them are being given, in the form of a bust, to complete strangers who are recipients of an award. Personal acceptance and forgiveness of a loved one is a different thing entirely.

    He married a Jew.

    Most misogynists have been married to women, historically. Marriage does not prevent prejudice. Marriage is not evidence against the existence of prejudice.

  34. I will see your Nekonomicons and Hello Cthulhus and raise you Nyaruko-san and its horrifyingly numerous siblings and sequels.

    Thanks, that goes on my “to watch” list. Kind of reminds me of a Japanese game (which I’ve seen mentioned, but never played) called Cambrian QTS, where you collect Cambrian invertebrates which (of course, this being Japan and all) transform into cute invertebrate/Japanese schoolgirl hybrids.

    On a different note, I’ve been mulling over finally creating a Gravitar, and this comment thread gave me an idea. Stunningly, a little googling seems to indicate that nobody has thought of “Peg + Cthulhu” yet, so I had to correct that problem.

    (For those of you unfamiliar with the reference.)

  35. I’ve been trying to find it, but there was an article I read a year or so ago about how Lovecraft’s racism contributed to his horror, e.g. “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” His racism wasn’t incidental to his writing, it wasn’t even incidental to the success of his writing, but somehow formed much of it. Trying to understand how Lovecraft’s racism is essential to his writings which are still frightening and effective to people who do not share his prejudices is, imo, key to understanding his fiction.

    Obviously not everyone will agree with me, but I’m surprised by people who can breezily dismiss his racism as unfortunate but mostly unrelated to his fiction.

  36. Lis Carey, thank you for linking to WFA finalists that you reviewed on your blog. Your comment just appeared from moderation. Clearly you sat down and did it immediately upon seeing the ballot. That’s great. Pity they weren’t discussed here, other than when some appeared on the Hugo long list.

  37. I had assumed “nigella” was some sort of obscure herbal ingredient.

    Well, actually…’black cumin’ (kalonji) is Nigella sativa.

  38. Just heard this on the latest SF Squeecast: The Howard head apparently also has a relatively high lead content, so if you put it in your aquarium, it will kill the fishes.

    Which seems strangely appropriate, somehow.

  39. Brian Z: You had exactly the same opportunity to discuss the works here as everyone else did. To my memory, you never once discussed any of the works, so the folks here talked about the works an approximately infinite multiple of the amount you did. Don’t blame us for your failings.

  40. I did pass up a great opportunity to explore and discuss the works on the WFA ballot. If you read my comments, you’ll see where I said exactly that.

  41. Nigel on November 12, 2015 at 2:50 am said:

    For what it’s worth, the Irish parts rang true – but then he lives in Cork. Even the Chinese Corridor, given our propensity for desperately seeking outside investment since the founding of the State. Grim, yeah, but undercut for me a bit because I was admiring the way he evoked the locality.

    …nor was it the worst dystopian future that I’ve read 🙂

  42. @Brian Z–

    And where did I see the ballot? Right here on File 770. l told people here I was doing it, and people came from here to my blog to read them. There was also some discussion here, though as has been noted, ROT13 does make such discussions harder to search for.

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