Stross Says Give Discworld the 2016 Best Novel Hugo

Charles Stross didn’t invent this idea, but he is the first person with a large platform to advocate it.

263 thoughts on “Stross Says Give Discworld the 2016 Best Novel Hugo

  1. Kurt

    Actually, I’m perfectly prepared to accept that a warm bath is interchangeable with a cold shower when it comes to thinking about things, provided that the person in the bath isn’t reading a book.

    Stefan

    I think you will find that the protagonist in Making Money had a keen appreciation of the functions of the Assassins Guild; it was just that the hangman’s rope was a more immediate threat albeit distinctly less stylish…

  2. Stevie –

    There is a very big difference between arguing about the merits of a work and asserting that a work can’t, or shouldn’t, be nominated; to do so sets a very dangerous precedent

    How in the world is arguing the eligibility of a title, whether if it’s questioning the year of release, or if enough was added if it had been, if it counts as a singular narrative or not, what counts as dramatic presentation(like if video games count or not), etc setting a dangerous precedent?

    I mean one of the longest running argument you might find among different fans is if something is really SFF or not.

    Please elaborate, what’s so dangerous about arguing if all books that share the same setting are one narrative whole or are individual works? Because you appear to be jumping to some slipper slope conclusion that’s not supported by anything you’re saying.

  3. Stefan Mitev wrote: “How could Discworld be considered a single work? The only common thing among all the novels is the setting.”

    And even that’s debatable. Sir Pterry was not a stickler for consistency between works, especially in the early days, when he was known to quote Emerson’s “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” In later years, he did make more of an effort to maintain consistency in the series, but at that point, he was a better, more skilled author, and was presumably able to add that to his primary goal of make it funny with less effort. But overall, I think there are still enough documented differences in the details that Discworld might be considered to be a series of very similar settings. Each one, presumably, found down a different leg of the trousers of time. 🙂

  4. rcade on September 15, 2015 at 2:30 pm said:
    I don’t think much of the SF world would agree with you on that.

    Then it would lose, either at the nominating or voting stage.

    As much as I’m arguing this, I know I’d have trouble picking the entire Discworld over a fantastic novel. There’s something to be said for going out on a date with a great book instead of marrying an entire series.

    This, in fact, is why I think the proposal is a rotten idea.
    Nominating Discworld as a tribute seems inappropriate in the face of the man’s own stated preferences – and he did not reference only his health/anxiety to explain his reluctance.
    He also invoked the importance of celebrating new talents with a Hugo, you know, like the many excellent works at play this year.

    And further, and more fundamental, I just don’t think Discword as a whole is a novel.
    The amount of angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin discussion involved in qualifying it pretty much makes that point.
    The only reason to suggest it is to game the system, and bring in a stronger candidate than his actual final novel.
    And there is setting the precedent of supporting a weak finale with the popularity of its entire series, so that actual, you know, novels would be competing across decades of other works.
    Best novel is a concept, and it is a lovely thing to award.

    But, yeah, if I were stuck with this problem as a con administrator, I’d pass it along to the ballot if there were enough people nominating it, and let the voters decide.
    But that gets to the point that makes me seriously unhappy.
    If it wins there would be continuing controversy and bad feelings about the fancy footwork required to fit the work into the category to begin with, which rather takes away from the celebratory intentions of nominating it in the first place.

    And it could get even more sucky.
    If Discworld made it onto the ballot as a nominee for Best Novel, I would not vote for it, much as I love the works, and miss and wish to honor Pterry.
    I don’t think I’d necessarily be a small minority.
    It would be, for me, literally horrific for Discworld to make it onto the ballot as a result of special pleading, only to actually lose.
    There are better ways to celebrate Pterry’s works.

  5. Matt Y. and others — if you’re not doing the thing, then you don’t need to defend youselves. Do you?

  6. Stross is one of the authors on my lengthy “Favorite Authors” list, and I have a great deal of esteem for him as a person.

    But I’m really disgusted that he has chosen to use his platform and influence in an attempt to twist the Best Novel category in this way.

  7. Actually, I’m perfectly prepared to accept that a warm bath is interchangeable with a cold shower when it comes to thinking about things, provided that the person in the bath isn’t reading a book.

    The commissars will be around shortly to putsch you out the window, Comrade Wrongfan.

  8. @ULTRAGOTHA:

    *MY* No Award over WOT was absolutely because of a series being nominated for Best Novel.

    Whoops, that’s what I get for generalizing. I’m sorry to have put words in your mouth, and thank you for sharing your reason for voting as you did.

  9. Mike Glyer: Hugo administrators are famous for laying in the weeds whenever faced by anything that has enough votes to make the final ballot.

    I think that this is a highly-desirable feature, not a bug.

    I very strongly support the notion that the nominators get to decided what is SFF or a Related Work. Wisdom From My Internet is the result of bad-faith slating, not the result of a fuzzy SFF-or-not line.

    If the majority of nominators put Discworld on the ballot in the Best Novel category, then it should stay. But I’ll vote it at the bottom of the list of nominees, because I don’t think it belongs there.

  10. Mike Glyer –

    Matt Y. and others — if you’re not doing the thing, then you don’t need to defend youselves. Do you?

    I’ve made arguments against Discworld being nominated as Best Novel, which Stevie has suggested is tantamount to telling people they can’t nominate it. I’m defending the suggestion that to do one is the same as doing the other, and as I haven’t seen anyone doing the latter I’m not sure whom he is speak to.

    So yeah, if he wants to keep suggesting that arguing that something may or may not be eligible is the same as telling people they’re wrong readers, I’ll keep asking how he jumped to that conclusion.

  11. @stevie But a nice long soak with a good book is one of life’s great pleasures. It’s why I have a German bath…

  12. So we were all upset this year because authors did not have a chance to be nominated and/or win a Hugo because the ballot got replaced by a slate and their works of last year stood no chance to make it in. And now someone wants to put on the ballot someone that had refused a nomination before, that is borderline eligible (the way I read the rules, Discworld is not eligible as a whole). Would this proposal have been made if Sir Terry had not died? The answer to this is “No”. And the best novel is not given for being one of the best writers in your time – it is for a best novel for a specific year. I can understand the sentiment but…

  13. @Kurt Busiek

    some of it has chapters and some doesn’t,

    You’ve reminded me that in one of my earlier Discworld hardbacks the quotes section begins with a review of The Colour of Magic from an English regional paper of some sort along the lines of “he doesn’t even know how to write in proper chapters for goodness sake”
    It was followed by a truly ridiculous number of glowing review quotes from the national and international press for the later books. Almost as if Sir Terry wanted to make a point.

  14. Matt Y

    What struck me most forcefully, reading the posts all in one go since I hadn’t seen it earlier, was the similarity with the early responses on Making Light to the discovery of the ballot stuffing, which was devoted to working out how to ensure that Puppidum never got a Hugo.

    And then people realised that this was just the sort of thing that a so called ‘SJW cabal’ would do, walked it back, and started on the long process which finally led to EPH, which got its first approval this year, and, I profoundly hope, will be confirmed at Worldcon next year.

    Puppidum got a lot of mileage out of those first responses on Making Light, which is why I was worried that the same thing would happen with this thread; precedent is a bummer. I suppose that, in reality, Puppidum doesn’t actually need any excuse to make things up about people who oppose slates, but nevertheless it still freaks me out…

  15. Matt Y: Look at this phrase — “has suggested is tantamount.”

    Whatever Stevie is arguing, I don’t think you have a convincing case that it’s about you, or needs to be addressed by hectoring comments.

  16. And then Stevie answered all doubts. Well, I’ll just take off my referee outfit and get busy writing my tribute to Jerry Pournelle. Right.

  17. Stevie –

    What struck me most forcefully, reading the posts all in one go since I hadn’t seen it earlier, was the similarity with the early responses on Making Light to the discovery of the ballot stuffing, which was devoted to working out how to ensure that Puppidum never got a Hugo

    I get that, but you thought the best response would be to imply things people hadn’t said using the kind of goofy Puppy terminology about wrongfans? I gotta say if that was meant to be a call to moderation that’s an interesting way to go about it.

    I don’t really see the similarities, you’ve got a bunch of people arguing both for the idea of nominating, others explaining their reasoning why they feel a nomination wouldn’t be appropriate, both using examples of the Hugo rules for eligibility and appealing to various emotions surrounding the idea of it being nominated or not.

    As was mentioned prior by another person, one thing that this discussion does appear to lend to those campaigning for Best Series and provides additional arguments for that proposal. Puppy spin is just going to spin whatever as OMG Marxism anyway so it’s not worth worrying about.

  18. Mike Glyer –

    Matt Y: Look at this phrase — “has suggested is tantamount.”

    Whatever Stevie is arguing, I don’t think you have a convincing case that it’s about you, or needs to be addressed by hectoring comments.

    I didn’t consider it hectoring to question the assumptions Stevie was making. If it was, I’m sorry. Neither was I trying to make it a case of just about me since it was directed towards anyone who was questioning the eligibility, I was asking as one who was questioning such.

    I’ll just ignore the comments from Stevie regarding this from here on out as apparently I can’t tell the difference between questioning someone saying a thing I find insulting, and hectoring them.

  19. I hope to God Puppydom gets a lot of mileage out of fellow fans discussing the nuances of what the rules say and how to interpret them as Hugo Nominators. Go, go, go.

  20. I still think that if someone is wanting to nominate Discworld, it ought to be restricted to the Tiffany Aching subseries instead of the entire series. They cross over to the rest of Discworld, but they can be read without reading everything else in the series. It still doesn’t get around the issue of whether nominating a series of books is ever appropriate (I had the impression that the “serial” rule was originally more intended for serial publication of a single novel), but it’s certainly more reasonable for voters to read five books than 41.

  21. Well, (1) there really ought to be a Hugo for best series. And (2) should we not be nominating the God Stalker Chronicles?

  22. I’d say Cherryh’s Foreigner universe is more of a series than Diskworld: it has a ongoing cast of characters and the plots connect.

  23. I am sending out troops to deal with all those who commit the calumny of spelling Discworld with a K.

    They have no weapons, my troops, but they are relentlessly and viciously pedantic.

    So beware, wrongspellers, your doom is…well, they march slowly. But it’ll eventually be nigh!

    If they don’t get distracted by grocers’ apostrophes along the way.

  24. Kurt Busiek on September 15, 2015 at 4:07 pm said:
    I am sending out troops to deal with all those who commit the calumny of spelling Discworld with a K.

    Well, thank gawd I caught it when autocorrect changed it to “discoworld.”
    Twice.
    Wtf, autocorrect, can we please stay in the current century, at least?

  25. You appear to me to be arguing we should nominate regardless of rules and see what sticks to the wall.

    I don’t know how you could possibly get that from this discussion, especially since we just had an exchange on the issue of nominators following the rules and we both agreed they should. If I didn’t care about the rules, why have I posted so many comments with my interpretation of them?

    There’s no comparison between this and Wisdom of My Internet being put on the ballot as an FU to Larry Correia’s imaginary enemies. Stross wants Discworld on the ballot because he thinks it’s great. He’s not trying to subvert the Hugos.

  26. Well, thank gawd I caught it when autocorrect changed it to “discoworld.”

    That’ll come in handy when, in 2024, we have to discuss nominating Discoworld for the retro Hugos.

  27. JJ on September 15, 2015 at 3:21 pm said:
    Stross is one of the authors on my lengthy “Favorite Authors” list, and I have a great deal of esteem for him as a person.

    But I’m really disgusted that he has chosen to use his platform and influence in an attempt to twist the Best Novel category in this way.

    It seems to be that he was expressing a personal opinion:“For the 2016 Hugos: the ENTIRE DISCWORLD SERIES is eligible, as a completed work, under Best Novel. … I think I’m going to nominate it.”

    He didn’t say y’all should nominate this, so I don’t think he is doing what you say he is.

  28. rcade: Stross wants Discworld on the ballot because he thinks it’s great. He’s not trying to subvert the Hugos.

    I don’t doubt that Stross’ intentions are only the best. But I think that, as it would be with Scalzi and GRRM, him making this sort of suggestion on Twitter gives him disproportionate influence over the Hugo ballot — and not in a good way.

  29. You appear to me to be arguing we should nominate regardless of rules and see what sticks to the wall.

    I don’t know how you could possibly get that from this discussion, especially since we just had an exchange on the issue of nominators following the rules and we both agreed they should.

    It’s maybe not precisely correct, but it captures near enough the spirit of your argument that it seems like fair comment.

    We know that the administrators will give what I’d call “extreme deference” to the voters. As Wheel of Time demonstrates, even if a work is quite plainly ineligible, they’ll yield to the nominators if there is any excuse at all to do so, short of flatly disregarding straightforward facts.

    You’re arguing that that deference should be exploited without reservations. If the administrators don’t reject it–if it sticks to the wall–then it’s fair play.

  30. Nominating Discworld as a tribute …

    Whoa, Nellie! I never said a word about nominating it as a tribute or a lifetime achievement award. I think it’s worth consideration because of the quality of the series and my belief it’s eligible.

    Obviously, it would be nice to see Pratchett posthumously win a Hugo and know that “Hugo winner” was added to his long list of accolades. But I’d never use my vote just to make an outcome like that happen.

  31. I love the Discworld. I deeply admired Pterry. But
    a) I don’t think The Shepherd’s Crown is of high enough quality to be worthy of a Hugo (even though it made me cry), and
    b) I don’t think that nominating all of Discworld as Best Novel is
      1) within the rules (because of previous nominations),
      2) what Pratchett himself would want (though I’m not a mindreader), or
      3) fair to the actual novels published in 2015.
    Honestly, it feels to me like “we’ve got to give him something, and since it’s not going to happen for Shepherd’s Crown, we’ll rules-lawyer a way to get him The Rocket He Deserves anyway.”
    And yes, emotionally, Pratchett Deserves All The Rockets Ever. But it’s not the We Love You Pterry award. It’s the award for Best Novel Published in 2015. And for all those reasons, I won’t be nominating “All of Discworld” for Best Novel. It would feel unethical to me.

  32. Soon Lee on September 15, 2015 at 4:22 pm said:
    …It seems to be that he was expressing a personal opinion:“For the 2016 Hugos: the ENTIRE DISCWORLD SERIES is eligible, as a completed work, under Best Novel. … I think I’m going to nominate it.”

    He didn’t say y’all should nominate this, so I don’t think he is doing what you say he is.

    Actually it mostly makes me think of the time ten-year-old me gave my best friend a surprise pet store kitten for her birthday.
    It came out of the warmest feelings, and it was an intrinsically lovely gift, but just no.
    Wrong thing, wrong time, and way too complicated for everyone involved.

    I am certain Stross means well, and we all want All The Things for Pterry, but no.

  33. He didn’t say y’all should nominate this, so I don’t think he is doing what you say he is.

    Maybe I don’t get Twitter? Isn’t the point of expressing an idea on twitter to spread and promote the idea?

  34. WS

    I think that the Tiffany Aching sub-series would be more clearly within the rules, whilst leaving the responsibility for determining that where it belongs ie the administrators, but it’s a darker part of Discworld; Pterry was grappling in his work with terminal illness long before he became terminally ill himself, and he didn’t subscribe to the belief that modern medicine can guarantee an easy exit from life’s stage.

    He was, of course, right about this; competent doctors don’t subscribe to that belief either. But they try to do what they can; unfortunately they are bound by rules, which make it harder to help their patients shortcut the inevitable, and reduce their suffering.

    My daughter, who is a hospital doctor 11 years into her training, leads, amongst other things, the crash team; crash is when someone’s heart or lungs has entirely stopped functioning, otherwise known as cardio and respiratory arrest, and her job as team leader is to try and haul them back from under the proverbial ten ton truck.

    She has 4 minutes to do this because, excluding the ultra rare Lazurus syndrome, the patients have four minutes before irretrievable damage is done to their brain. You will all, I am sure, be aware of the dangers of a doctor who doesn’t like the boss, and, even worse, thinks women shouldn’t give orders, and if they give orders should be disobeyed because she’s a woman.

    People end up dead, as a result of this, and my daughter has extremely strong views on people who could have lived if they had a competent doctor, or three. But she never, ever complains even if she’s working nonsensical hours, because she loves medicine, and she loves music; the music is her second passion..

    My apologies; that was lot longer than I had planned, but you’ve also obviously thought about this, so I wanted to bounce ideas off you…

  35. As Wheel of Time demonstrates, even if a work is quite plainly ineligible, they’ll yield to the nominators if there is any excuse at all to do so, short of flatly disregarding straightforward facts.

    So you think the Hugo administrators knew Wheel of Time was “plainly ineligible” and allowed it on the ballot anyway?

    I think they made a good faith attempt to interpret the rules.

    It’s maybe not precisely correct, but it captures near enough the spirit of your argument that it seems like fair comment. … You’re arguing that that deference should be exploited without reservations. If the administrators don’t reject it–if it sticks to the wall–then it’s fair play.

    I say one thing but the “spirit” of my argument reveals that I’m lying! I want people to intentionally break the rules because I think the Hugo administrators will let it happen!

    Man, I’m a dick. Thanks for letting me know.

  36. I miss pterry as much as the next fan, but I think this is a bad idea. I don’t think it’s eligible, between being not-really-a-series, the declined nomination, and “Science of” having made the ballot. Plus, I’d like to leave a slot open for someone who can still benefit from the career boost.

    Would like Rhianna P to come out with an official statement to settle it, but I’m sure she has much more important things to think about.

  37. Maybe I don’t get Twitter? Isn’t the point of expressing an idea on twitter to spread and promote the idea?

    People tweet for all kinds of reasons.

    If a pro saying he’s going to nominate something is underhanded, there are a lot of underhanded pros in the genre.

    GRRM has a bigger platform than Stross and he’s offered lots of actionable advice related to the Hugos.

  38. @lurkertype:

    I don’t think it’s eligible, between being not-really-a-series

    The case is even stronger than that. Once again, 3.2.4:

    3.2.4: Works appearing in a series are eligible as individual works, but the series as a whole is not eligible. However, a work appearing in a number of parts shall be eligible for the year of the final part.

    If the Discworld novels are a set of related novels, they’re not eligible as a whole. If the Discworld novels constitute a “series,” they’re not eligible as a whole. The only way they’re eligible is if the Hugo committee rules that they’re a serial. They’re not. And Wheel of Time is not.

    However obvious that may be, though, it’s not quite a simple black-and-white fact such as “work X was published during calendar year Y.” There is wiggle room there. And as Wheel of Time demonstrates, the Hugo committee will use that tiny bit of wiggle room if the Hugo voters force them to choose between doing that and ruling a popular submission ineligible.

    I argue that there’s a lot of space between the point at which a work is so obviously ineligible that it shouldn’t be nominated and the point at which a work is so obviously ineligible that the administrators should reject it. And in that space lies Wheel of Time, Discworld-as-a-whole, and any number of other things.

    rcade, who is absolutely not a dick but is awfully eager to assert that xe is being called one, argues that there is zero such distance–that anything the administrators won’t reject is kosher.

    @rcade; And that right there, it seems to me, is the nut of our dispute. I think Discworld is pretty obviously ineligible, but it’s not absolutely a slam-dunk because if we all want to pretend that it’s a single work published as a serial, we can. We shouldn’t, though, because that’s just silly. Silliness in a good cause, sure, but still silliness.

  39. rcade, who is absolutely not a dick but is awfully eager to assert that xe is being called one, argues that there is zero such distance–that anything the administrators won’t reject is kosher.

    I don’t know from distance. I still think it cool Han made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.

    Unless the administrators make a pre-emptive strike on the question of Discworld’s eligibility, which no one has said might happen, we’re all going to play rules lawyer for ourselves on any series we might nominate.

  40. From where I sit, the point of expressing an idea on Twitter is to shoot you mouth off before sober second thought (on topic for Tiffany Aching!) has a chance to kick in.

    I was grudgingly in favour of allowing the WOT nomination, having abandoned reading it during the succession of shapeless volumes in its middle which have no resemblance to the shape of a novel; the only thing they might pass as are tranches of a longer work. (This same consideration made me dubious as to whether it was a good nominee on other grounds.) Discworld, on the other hand, is indisputably a series of well-formed novels.

    If people really feel like giving a Hugo to Discworld above-board, the Hugo Administrators could use their power to add a single special Hugo to add an explicit Hugo for Best Discworld Novel.

  41. Charles Stross is disingenuous on this topic. He announced publicly that he was listing wheel of Time below no award right after the nominations came out. It was his only commenton the Hugo nominations. He is a phony for now advocating the same thing.

    That being said, in order for Discworld to be taken seriously, like the Wheel of Time, the entire series should be included in the Hugo packet. Ill pay $40 for that. This should be a pre requisite. Imagine the voter turn out for that ? The Wheel of Time fans already own the series, but discworld can be read out of order so few people will have all of them.

  42. James: the Hugo Administrators could use their power to add a single special Hugo to add an explicit Hugo for Best Discworld Novel

    Now that is something I’d be willing to support, where there is no pretense that the purpose is anything other than to give Pratchett a Hugo — as opposed to a Best Series Special Hugo where the other 4 entries would just be intended to serve as camouflage and roadkill.

  43. Guess on September 15, 2015 at 6:27 pm said:
    Charles Stross is disingenuous on this topic. He announced publicly that he was listing wheel of Time below no award right after the nominations came out. It was his only commenton the Hugo nominations. He is a phony for now advocating the same thing.

    Wait, he said that?! Got a link? (My Google-fu is weak)

  44. I don’t think this nomination is a good idea and I don’t think the series is eligible for all the reasons people have mentioned above. If it comes up in discussion, I’ll probably do my best to persuade whoever I’m conversing with that it isn’t eligible and because of that they shouldn’t nominate it.

    I think it’s extremely insulting to accuse the people talking about it in this thread, many of whom have been participating in discussion here in good faith for months, of some kind of Puppy-esque claim about “File770 is apparently knee deep in people utterly convinced that only the right works should be nominated by the right people, and the right works in question do not include Discworld, and the right people do not include anyone who thinks that nominating Discworld for the Hugos is a good idea.” Seriously?

    Yes, people are discussing whether this is one of the “right works” to be nominated next year. That’s what fans do. Nobody mentioned anything about the “right people” until you brought it up.

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