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[marrec]

I don't mind social commentary, but if you are going to call it sci-fi then the sci-fi part should be central and not secondary. Asimov was the master at taking a sci-fi premise, and then extrapolating it to weird boundary conditions that often involved social commentary. But at the heart of it was a sci-fi core: 3 laws of robotics, some mathematician who could predict the future, etc. That is why he was a true Master.

I'm not sure what you don't put LeGuin in this category as well then. Or most Social Sci-Fi for that matter.

The premise necessarily involves Science-Fiction because without the super advanced technology or radical alien race you wouldn't be able to ask and answer these social questions.

 

[Spaced Harrier]

Reminds me of when they got Jonathan Ross removed as a presenter of the awards.

 

[Hari Seldon]

I'm not sure what you don't put LeGuin in this category as well then. Or most Social Sci-Fi for that matter.

The premise necessarily involves Science-Fiction because without the super advanced technology or radical alien race you wouldn't be able to ask and answer these social questions.

Well LeGuin's Dispossessed was a book about an anarchist society, and she basically had to think of a setting that would allow for this society to contrast itself with a "regular" one. The story could have easily taken place on earth on some remote island without really changing much (IIRC, it has been a while).

Maybe that is the definition I am looking for. If you can take a sci-fi novel and with minor tweaking, have it occur in a non-sci-fi setting, then it is not very sci-fi.

Keep in mind here that I am not making a statement about quality. In terms of quality of writing LeGuin destroys damn near anyone writing these days.

 

[Delusibeta]

Reminds me of when they got Jonathan Ross removed as a presenter of the awards.

...oh yeah, I forgot about that. To be honest, I wouldn't be too surprised if that was the spark that caused Sad Puppies in the first place.

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

This whole situation is just a sad mess. I was really upset when I found out about this a few days ago. It's not like the Hugos were ever perfect, but they've generally been a pretty high honor for the genre, and so seeing a group of reactionary bigots using it as a platform to advance their bigotry is pretty sad.

Not to mention, The Dresden Files and Kevin J. Anderson? Come the fuck on. Voters should do the right thing and vote 'no award' in every category.

 

[Cyan]

Well LeGuin's Dispossessed was a book about an anarchist society, and she basically had to think of a setting that would allow for this society to contrast itself with a "regular" one. The story could have easily taken place on earth on some remote island without really changing much (IIRC, it has been a while).

Maybe that is the definition I am looking for. If you can take a sci-fi novel and with minor tweaking, have it occur in a non-sci-fi setting, then it is not very sci-fi.

It sort of sounds like you don't consider social scifi to be scifi. I haven't read Dispossessed, so correct me if I'm getting something wrong, but my understanding is that it's basically about a society built on the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis such that it's anarchical and has no personal possessions and disagreement is literally unthinkable. Which sounds pretty scifi to me, just as 1984 or Brave New World are scifi.

I mean, I guess you could use that science fictional premise and set it on Earth instead of on another planet, but that applies to a lot of scifi. You could have Asimov's three laws applied to slaves brought up from birth to be unable to break them, or as a magical geas or something.

 

[whatsinaname]

Well LeGuin's Dispossessed was a book about an anarchist society, and she basically had to think of a setting that would allow for this society to contrast itself with a "regular" one. The story could have easily taken place on earth on some remote island without really changing much (IIRC, it has been a while).

Maybe that is the definition I am looking for. If you can take a sci-fi novel and with minor tweaking, have it occur in a non-sci-fi setting, then it is not very sci-fi.

Keep in mind here that I am not making a statement about quality. In terms of quality of writing LeGuin destroys damn near anyone writing these days.

No, I understand what you are talking about. I personally feel BSG falls along those lines and have jokingly called it a space soap opera.

But it is a matter of personal preference. I don't think people should go on a crusade to keep it out of sf categories in any awards. Clearly it connects with a large section of the audience. I shouldn't sit in a corner and stew over the fact that it does.

 

[berzeli]

The two posts weren't intended to be connected (my apologies for that) - first one was just looking at the Hugo nominees - based on the discussion surrounding the nomination process, I was expecting far more overtly conservative political nominees, and was somewhat surprised at several of the categories just basically being "the stuff that's super popular".

Fair enough, but still it just seemed like an odd thing to take away from this mess.

Grabbing a random link that roughly talks about the topic:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/24/m...-gap-between-moviegoers-and-academy.html?_r=0

There's been a lot of words / analysis done on the idea of "popular vs artistry" - and while different awards definitely cater to different groups (see your Cannes vs MTV Movie Awards) - I guess I think of the Emmy / Oscars / Grammy as the three "mainstream" awards - the awards ceremonies that aren't tagged to just popular culture (ala MTV) or just a given festival (Cannes) or even just pure artistry; I've thought those three have been considered to take all of those into account. In those mainstream awards; I wouldn't want a movie to be inherently discounted because it was popular or because no one saw it.

Aside: The LotR one is a bit more personal because a roommate's (when I was in college) mother happened to be a voter at the time, and she had given us some inside scoops on the politics involved for LotR and Best Picture. (On top of it, one of the girls on our floor happened to be dating one of the main LotR actors at the time, so we got to listen to a hilariously drunk celebratory phone call / party when RotK got 11 awards. Small world.)

It sounds like the Hugos are the Sci-Fi literary equivalent of the Academy Awards / Emmy / Grammy; which is where I was going with it. If the Hugos truly were just becoming a self-serving echo chamber (which people have accused the Oscars of being, especially w/r/t Selma and American Sniper); then I can get the argument of "hey, we need to shake things up". But, as it is being confirmed by posts, that argument seems to be a shell for the true motivation to push what books "should" be.

TL;DR - I can see an argument for making sure what purportedly is the "mainstream" set of awards aren't becoming insular and self-serving - but it sounds like that is purely an excuse being used to cover real motivations in this scenario.

I think one of the more fascinating subplots of this is that we may have to re-evaluate the entire idea of representative subsets of data when it comes to fandom. I imagine in the past, a network might get, say, 50 letters for a given show, and they could generally assume it was at least somewhat representative of overall fan reaction (knowing that they're getting those who are passionate enough to write letters one way or the other). But with the power of modern communication & social media; I believe it's really easy to tilt something disproportionately - such that those representative samples aren't really indicative of overall sentiment. I feel like Gamergate more or less abused those older notions when they first started; sending a thousand emails to a company complaining about XYZ thing may have initially panicked the company into thinking there was a mass disenchantment towards XYZ thing, as opposed to just a thousand coordinated folks. I think they did some twitter analysis and found that there weren't actually that many people involved in Gamergate, it was just a lot of the same people talking over and over, or making shell accounts. Could be wrong though.

I'm not sure what you had before (Daily Mail?) but that NY Times article is shockingly awful and makes assertions without really backing them up. Also they seem to use that film studies librarian more than once to parrot their own views but by letting him say those words they prey on his "authority". It is odd that he is the only "expert" that they interview, especially since I can't see how he is an authority on the subjects discussed in those articles. But I know I shouldn't focus on the article itself.

The entire argument about popularity not being rewarded is to me just absurd, firstly popularity is a reward in and of itself, secondly it just isn't true. I'm going to focus here on the Academy Awards since film is the subject I know most about; I've looked at box office numbers for winners and nominees and there isn't any clear trend that can be drawn from those. Nor have there ever really been a correlation between box office success and Oscar nominations/wins. A film becoming "too popular" to win isn't something which usually happens and it isn't something worth worrying about, the opposite happens regularly though.

My point about the Hugos is that it isn't the Academy Awards/Emmys/Grammys, it is a "niche" award. It already is insular as in it caters to a specific audience and garners fairly little interest from everyone else. So using mainstream success as the qualifier for these niche works is a flawed way of looking at the situation.

So yeah, as you've noticed this specific instance isn't about popularity in the slightest. But I'm glad that you took the time to expand on your thoughts on the matter, we probably shouldn't continue to discuss other award shows and popularity's supposed influence on awards in this thread since it is a bit off topic. Feel free to PM me though.

 

[Kinyou]

The Hugo Award is voted on by a bunch of convention go-ers. It was only a matter of time before stupid shit like this started happening.

Whoever runs the convention is probably not too unhappy. I bet next year they'll have tons of liberals and conservatives storming in to vote.

 

[Alavard]

This whole situation is just a sad mess. I was really upset when I found out about this a few days ago. It's not like the Hugos were ever perfect, but they've generally been a pretty high honor for the genre, and so seeing a group of reactionary bigots using it as a platform to advance their bigotry is pretty sad.

Not to mention, The Dresden Files and Kevin J. Anderson? Come the fuck on. Voters should do the right thing and vote 'no award' in every category.

As a big Dresden Files fan, I'm just sad to see it and Jim Butcher being dragged through this mess. Skin Game was a fantastic book, but I don't think it was head and shoulders above all the rest of his books, and his others have never been nominated before.

 

[iiicon]

it's disheartening to think that a fantastic book like The Goblin Emperor might be overlooked because of a toxic campaign to hijack the already-flawed nomination process by the Sad and Rabid Puppies. I've long been a fan of Sarah Monette's work and was initially resistant to her new direction, but after reading her latest I feel it's the best thing she's written.

If there's any good to come of this, hopefully it will finally motivate the World Science Fiction Society to address some of their problems. If they aren't bothered by the idea that all it takes is 200-300 people with $40 to get a novel nominated for what is, essentially, the post prestigious spec fic award, maybe they will care that the Hugo's will be regarded as the Vox Day award.

 

[Valhelm]

What happened with this?

http://www.businessinsider.com/george-rr-martins-on-losing-award-to-jk-rowling-2014-7

He was pretty upset that a Harry Potter book beat out ASOS.

The problem is that "literary" doesn't just mean "ideological". So what the fuck are they going on about wanting literary elements out of these books? Thinking is too hard?

There's the (largely unfounded) worry that sci-fi and fantasy have been co-opted by writers of Literature with a capitol L, who care more about the prose and the themes of their works that any fantastic elements.

Like GRRM described in his recent post, the "sad puppies" feel like sci-fi isn't fun any more.

 

[call_kotaku]

Whoever runs the convention is probably not too unhappy. I bet next year they'll have tons of liberals and conservatives storming in to vote.

I actually don't think that they fancy having a bunch of people who only showed interest in their event to fulfill a political agenda, and generally view their niche of geekdom and the original participants of their convention with open disdain. If the system isn't reformed it's more likely to lead worldcon into faster decline as people who are actually interested in sci-fi lose interest in the event or begin to feel unwelcome, sort of like how gamergate forced a lot of people to either leave or stop engaging.

 

[Hari Seldon]

It sort of sounds like you don't consider social scifi to be scifi. I haven't read Dispossessed, so correct me if I'm getting something wrong, but my understanding is that it's basically about a society built on the strong Sapir-Whorf hypothesis such that it's anarchical and has no personal possessions and disagreement is literally unthinkable. Which sounds pretty scifi to me, just as 1984 or Brave New World are scifi.

I mean, I guess you could use that science fictional premise and set it on Earth instead of on another planet, but that applies to a lot of scifi. You could have Asimov's three laws applied to slaves brought up from birth to be unable to break them, or as a magical geas or something.

So I think in Dispossessed, the central idea is a social science hypothesis. You don't really need any hard science (e.g. spaceships) to explore this, although there are space ships in the novel. Maybe the better way to say it is that it could easily be a fantasy novel. All you need is some long lost island in the pacific or something.

Whereas in an Asimov novel the central idea is always some sort of hard science (e.g. 3 laws of robotics). This is not saying that one is better than the other, just that one is more sci-fi than the other in my opinion. And for my own personal preference I usually prefer a little more hard sci-fi, unless of course the social sci-fi is written by someone very good like LeGuin.

I think maybe all I am saying is that you need some sort of hard science premise in order for it to be sci-fi, otherwise it is Fantasy. I guess the Hugo is for Fantasy as well so this discussion is really meaningless for the OP haha.

 

[Valhelm]

So I think in Dispossessed, the central idea is a social science hypothesis. You don't really need any hard science (e.g. spaceships) to explore this, although there are space ships in the novel. Maybe the better way to say it is that it could easily be a fantasy novel. All you need is some long lost island in the pacific or something.

Whereas in an Asimov novel the central idea is always some sort of hard science (e.g. 3 laws of robotics). This is not saying that one is better than the other, just that one is more sci-fi than the other in my opinion. And for my own personal preference I usually prefer a little more hard sci-fi, unless of course the social sci-fi is written by someone very good like LeGuin.

I think maybe all I am saying is that you need some sort of hard science premise in order for it to be sci-fi, otherwise it is Fantasy. I guess the Hugo is for Fantasy as well so this discussion is really meaningless for the OP haha.

The thing is, science fiction has been dominated by science fantasy for decades. There's essentially no scientific material in Star Wars, Ender's Game, or almost any sci-fi videogame or film from the past thirty years.

Do you feel the same way about these works? The majority of sci-fi writers don't use fiction to explore scientific scenarios, but instead as a futuristic backdrop for a fantasy story.

 

[Cybit]

This whole situation is just a sad mess. I was really upset when I found out about this a few days ago. It's not like the Hugos were ever perfect, but they've generally been a pretty high honor for the genre, and so seeing a group of reactionary bigots using it as a platform to advance their bigotry is pretty sad.

Not to mention, The Dresden Files and Kevin J. Anderson? Come the fuck on. Voters should do the right thing and vote 'no award' in every category.

Hey, Dresden is awesome.

Fair enough, but still it just seemed like an odd thing to take away from this mess.



I'm not sure what you had before (Daily Mail?) but that NY Times article is shockingly awful and makes assertions without really backing them up. Also they seem to use that film studies librarian more than once to parrot their own views but by letting him say those words they prey on his "authority". It is odd that he is the only "expert" that they interview, especially since I can't see how he is an authority on the subjects discussed in those articles. But I know I shouldn't focus on the article itself.

The entire argument about popularity not being rewarded is to me just absurd, firstly popularity is a reward in and of itself, secondly it just isn't true. I'm going to focus here on the Academy Awards since film is the subject I know most about; I've looked at box office numbers for winners and nominees and there isn't any clear trend that can be drawn from those. Nor have there ever really been a correlation between box office success and Oscar nominations/wins. A film becoming "too popular" to win isn't something which usually happens and it isn't something worth worrying about, the opposite happens regularly though.

My point about the Hugos is that it isn't the Academy Awards/Emmys/Grammys, it is a "niche" award. It already is insular as in it caters to a specific audience and garners fairly little interest from everyone else. So using mainstream success as the qualifier for these niche works is a flawed way of looking at the situation.

So yeah, as you've noticed this specific instance isn't about popularity in the slightest. But I'm glad that you took the time to expand on your thoughts on the matter, we probably shouldn't continue to discuss other award shows and popularity's supposed influence on awards in this thread since it is a bit off topic. Feel free to PM me though.

Ah. That's the part I was not sure about. I thought the Hugos were the equivalent of the Academy Awards for Sci-Fi; that changes things.

 

[whatevermort]

I fucking hate these people. This award is a joke. It's a mess, and this shows exactly how much of a mess. This should never happen; these awful bigots - especially Vox Day - shouldn't be given any platform for a voice. This is me, firmly with my 'eligible for this' bias hat on, but I honestly hope this award dies a death. The Clarke Award, in the UK, shows how this can be done properly and well; really trying to elevate the genre. (Full disclosure: I was shortlisted for the award last year.) But the Hugo? It's a popularity contest, and a self-congratulatory one at that.

I think the worst thing is that so many people opposed to this don't see that a) organising a vote next year to get stuff that's apparently good to prove a point is just as bad, and b) those posts, where writers say "here's what I'm eligible for! Please vote for me!" are just a feeder for this level of bullshit.

In case you can't tell, I'm really fucking pissed. These sad puppy fucks are tweeting me, telling me that I'm wrong, and it's tiresome as fuck.

 

[Cyan]

I think maybe all I am saying is that you need some sort of hard science premise in order for it to be sci-fi, otherwise it is Fantasy. I guess the Hugo is for Fantasy as well so this discussion is really meaningless for the OP haha.

Heh, there is that.

Ah. That's the part I was not sure about. I thought the Hugos were the equivalent of the Academy Awards for Sci-Fi; that changes things.

I mean, they sort of are? In that they're generally viewed as the most prestigious of the SFF genre awards. They're voted on by a small fandom niche rather than a professional organization like the Academy (that'd be SFWA's Nebulas for SFF), but they're the same type of prestige on a much smaller level.

 

[Zakalwe]

I love how you can really hear his voice if you watch the rhythm as he mouths the words.

-

Reading that quote from SP's headmaster gave me a stomach ache.

 

[aeolist]

Whoever runs the convention is probably not too unhappy. I bet next year they'll have tons of liberals and conservatives storming in to vote.

it seems more likely that this will just lead to the decline of whatever credibility the awards have and a long-term drop in participation.

 

[berzeli]

Ah. That's the part I was not sure about. I thought the Hugos were the equivalent of the Academy Awards for Sci-Fi; that changes things.

You might want to reread that paragraph.

It is one of the biggest, if not the biggest sci-fi award. My point is that sci-fi is a niche thus Hugo is niche, so mainstream popularity is a very flawed way at looking at the awards.

 

[jstripes]

I think in general when people say they want SF to be less "literary", they don't necessarily want easy-reading pulp stuff, but they want the required thought to be about hard science: astronomy, physics, engineering, etc. rather than soft science like sociology, psychology, etc., or too much focus on the emotional states of characters.

So basically: They don't understand emotions, so they don't want to read books containing emotions.

 

[Cybit]

You might want to reread that paragraph.

It is one of the biggest, if not the biggest sci-fi award. My point is that sci-fi is a niche thus Hugo is niche, so mainstream popularity is a very flawed way at looking at the awards.

Ah, k. Hrm. OK; that makes sense.

 

[Hrothgar]

Wow, I only now found out that the Hugos arent voted on by a jury. Shame on me.

That said, to prevent this mess, all awards should just go posthumously to Iain M. Banks, god of SciFi.

 

[Delusibeta]

The fundamental problem is that the Hugos are voted on by ~5000 people, so if someone brought in a couple hundred people to sing from the same hymn sheet, the vote can be manipulated to resemble said hymn. Here's some practical proposals to (try) to stop that (with varying degrees of effectiveness):

Proposal 1: Brew Your Own Bloc
Fairly self explanatory, this one. If a bloc that features People You Don't Like™, create a new bloc to vote for People You Do Like™. I'm genuinely surprised nobody else has tried this.

Downside: Hugos descend into bloc warfare.

Proposal 2: Open The Vote
Remove the $40 paywall to vote, hope the general population drowns out any blocs.

Downside: decent risk that this makes the bloc vote more powerful, since there's no financial disincentive to fill in the form. Also kills any chance of anything not commercially successful getting anything.

Proposal 3: Close The Vote
Remove the Hugo vote from the Worldcon package, and instead have a panel of judges (or whoever) to determine the winners.

Downside: determining who gets on said panel is going to be a massive headache and will inevitably piss several people off for various reasons.

Proposal 4: The Hookers And Blackjack Option
Organise your own awards, and give them to People You Do Like™.

Downside: effort.

 

[jstripes]

The gators sure are inspiring all these groups to come out of the woodwork and clump together in slimy masses.

 

[Ninja Of Chaos]

I think in general when people say they want SF to be less "literary", they don't necessarily want easy-reading pulp stuff, but they want the required thought to be about hard science: astronomy, physics, engineering, etc. rather than soft science like sociology, psychology, etc., or too much focus on the emotional states of characters.

But then you have...nothing. The interesting thing about sci-fi is that it gets to see what "truth" and reality are from a "what if" perspective. Just talking about make-believe things with a solid scientific background is useless. To co-opt a comment another gaffer had about ASOIAF: it's a scientific book that lacks the decency of teaching me actual science.

 

[HK-47]

I don't mind social commentary, but if you are going to call it sci-fi then the sci-fi part should be central and not secondary. Asimov was the master at taking a sci-fi premise, and then extrapolating it to weird boundary conditions that often involved social commentary. But at the heart of it was a sci-fi core: 3 laws of robotics, some mathematician who could predict the future, etc. That is why he was a true Master.

The best scifi is all about the social sciences, inevitably. IMO

 

[HK-47]

Wow, I only now found out that the Hugos arent voted on by a jury. Shame on me.

That said, to prevent this mess, all awards should just go posthumously to Iain M. Banks, god of SciFi.

I dont think Banks ever even got nominated for the big three.

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

GRRM has another post up, this one examining the claims of the sad puppies and pretty much conclusively proving that there was no real trend of any of the things they claimed happening in previous Hugo awards.

Obvious, of course, but it's good to see it all put out in the open, and it's nice to see Martin taking these guys to task.

 

[Carcetti]

GRRM has another post up, this one examining the claims of the sad puppies and pretty much conclusively proving that there was no real trend of any of the things they claimed happening in previous Hugo awards.

Obvious, of course, but it's good to see it all put out in the open, and it's nice to see Martin taking these guys to task.

Whoa. GRRM pretty much obliterated them.

 

[Cosmic Schwung]

I dont think Banks ever even got nominated for the big three.

The Algebraist was nominated for a Hugo.

 

[call_kotaku]

GRRM has another post up, this one examining the claims of the sad puppies and pretty much conclusively proving that there was no real trend of any of the things they claimed happening in previous Hugo awards.

Obvious, of course, but it's good to see it all put out in the open, and it's nice to see Martin taking these guys to task.

Hm, I didn't know Dan Wells was affiliated with them at one point. I listen to his writing podcast with Sanderson and while they seem pretty upfront about their religious beliefs they never struck me as right-wing politically.

 

[Cyan]

Hm, I didn't know Dan Wells was affiliated with them at one point. I listen to his writing podcast with Sanderson and while they seem pretty upfront about their religious beliefs they never struck me as right-wing politically.

He's not right-wing, he's just friends with Correia in real life, and didn't take the whole slate thing very seriously at first. The original Sad Puppies was mostly just Correia putting together a list of people he liked to try to get them on the ballot. Which included both people he considered on his political team and random people he liked.

Dan has a blog post about this year's edition: http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net/?p=2282

 

[Cybit]

He's not right-wing, he's just friends with Correia in real life, and didn't take the whole slate thing very seriously at first. The original Sad Puppies was mostly just Correia putting together a list of people he liked to try to get them on the ballot. Which included both people he considered on his political team and random people he liked.

Dan has a blog post about this year's edition: http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net/?p=2282

Damn, that's really well written. I approve of that post.

 

[call_kotaku]

He's not right-wing, he's just friends with Correia in real life, and didn't take the whole slate thing very seriously at first. The original Sad Puppies was mostly just Correia putting together a list of people he liked to try to get them on the ballot. Which included both people he considered on his political team and random people he liked.

Dan has a blog post about this year's edition: http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net/?p=2282

Ok, that makes more sense

Correia seems like a sincere guy, even though I really hated Monster Hunter International and couldn't make it halfway through the book, so it sort of surprised me that he was one of the core figures for this. I guess it was just some salty side project that attracted the attentions of legit assholes.

 

[JC Lately]

A few decades ago, if you saw a lovely spaceship on a book cover, with a gorgeous planet in the background, you could be pretty sure you were going to get a rousing space adventure featuring starships and distant, amazing worlds. If you saw a barbarian swinging an axe? You were going to get a rousing fantasy epic with broad-chested heroes who slay monsters, and run off with beautiful women.

[But now] The book has a spaceship on the cover, but is it really going to be a story about space exploration and pioneering derring-do? Or is the story merely about racial prejudice and exploitation…A planet, framed by a galactic backdrop. Could it be an actual bona fide space opera? Heroes and princesses and laser blasters? No, wait. It’s about sexism and the oppression of women.Finally, a book with a painting of a person wearing a mechanized suit of armor! Holding a rifle! War story ahoy! Nope, wait. It’s actually about gay and transgender issues.

Bro.

Do you even Asimov?

 

[FUME5]

Oh for fucks sake.

 

[Jak140]

He's not right-wing, he's just friends with Correia in real life, and didn't take the whole slate thing very seriously at first. The original Sad Puppies was mostly just Correia putting together a list of people he liked to try to get them on the ballot. Which included both people he considered on his political team and random people he liked.

Dan has a blog post about this year's edition: http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net/?p=2282

That's a great post, thank you for sharing the link. He brings up a lot of my issues with how many vocal members of the left are acting these days. The most annoying aspect of it is that I like books and games with progressive social commentary, but I'm deeply troubled by the knee-jerk accusations of bigotry and guilt by association tactics that many media outlets and twitter denizens are employing.

1) Larry Correia is my friend. I’ve known him for years, and he is a good guy, a good husband, and a good father. I don’t agree with his politics in almost any category, and I don’t like the way he’s handled the Sad Puppies thing (which is why I asked to be removed from it after he nominated me last year), but I am adult enough to see two sides of a person at once. It makes me sad to see people calling him a racist, misogynist, homophobe, when in reality I know that he’s none of those things–he’s an a-hole online, I’ll totally grant you, but let’s cool it with the character assassination. I realize that a lot of people won’t bother reading past this paragraph, or will just straight up hate me regardless of what the rest of this post says, but there you go. If it comes down to disavowing a friend in order to impress my readership, I won’t do it.

2) The other side of the fight has plenty of its own a-holes. One of Larry’s first and biggest complaints about the Hugo crowd was the way they ostracized him right from the get-go: he was nominated for a Campbell, came to WorldCon in Reno, and was treated like a pariah because he’s very, very conservative. It’s only gotten worse since then, and a lot of that is his fault for hitting back so viciously, but a lot of it is just straight-up unwarranted, and I didn’t really understand how much until my own Sad Puppies nomination last year. I was on the slate, didn’t take it seriously, and then when I actually ended up on the finals list for novella I was attacked almost instantly. Bloggers who’d never met me or read my work were calling me out as a racist based solely on the fact that Larry like my story. I’ve been going to WorldCons for years, been nominated for multiple Hugos, and even won one the previous year, but all of a sudden I was an outsider, intruding onto sacred space, based not on who I was or what I did but simply on my association with an undesirable element. To be fair, a majority of people reacted more evenly, and I was delighted by how many reviewers described my novella as “much better than expected,” but the attacks were real and they were prevalent. I’m a big boy, so I can handle them, I’m just saying that we can’t assume either side in this is perfectly good and right.

This kind of shoot first, ask questions never behavior needs to stop. It's polarizing, counterproductive, and dilutes the public's willingness to address issues of prejudice.

 

[HK-47]

The Algebraist was nominated for a Hugo.

The Culture series should be swimming in big awards but alas.

 

[grandwizard]

Seems like nerd cultures all over are experiencing these harsh resistance 'movements' popping up because they feel their traditional experience and clique is being threatened. It's just the inevitable march of time opening up the scene to more people that were usually not welcomed, and the original group feeling like their share of the pie is getting smaller.

 

[Cyan]

The Culture series should be swimming in big awards but alas.

Not enough gravitas.

 

[Pau]

Seems like nerd cultures all over are experiencing these harsh resistance 'movements' popping up because they feel their traditional experience and clique is being threatened. It's just the inevitable march of time opening up the scene to more people that were usually not welcomed, and the original group feeling like their share of the pie is getting smaller.

It's weird though, this is the kind of award that Ursula K. Le Guin has won before so social themes in sci-fi do feel rather traditional.

Maybe it's because I never actually interacted with sci-fi fans in person and never quite got the unwelcoming feeling. D:

 

[Cyan]

It's weird though, this is the kind of award that Ursula K. Le Guin has won before so social themes in sci-fi do feel rather traditional.

Maybe it's because I never actually interacted with sci-fi fans in person and never quite got the unwelcoming feeling. D:

The Sad Puppies are trying to claim the opposite: that they were shunned and unwelcome at cons because of being conservative and religious.

It honestly seems like this whole thing stems from Larry Correia having a bad con experience, then deciding to ruin the Hugos.

 

[HK-47]

Not enough gravitas.

But plenty of rollicking good times as Mr. Banks would say.

 

[call_kotaku]

Seems like nerd cultures all over are experiencing these harsh resistance 'movements' popping up because they feel their traditional experience and clique is being threatened. It's just the inevitable march of time opening up the scene to more people that were usually not welcomed, and the original group feeling like their share of the pie is getting smaller.

I don't think the ideas these conservative movements present are new, nor are the methods they used to further them, it's just that these ideas tend to stick around for various reasons and people have a hard time addressing the root causes. This new group doesn't seem aware of how right-wing they are (they mostly wouldn't even call themselves conservative), and don't see the connections between gamergate and the birther movement, or ethics in videogame journalism and liberal bias in the media, or how anti-feminism has taken almost exactly the same form since the 1920s, etc.

I'm not sure I'd even attribute these things to geekdom or nerddom changing, but more to millennials discovering the joys (?) of right-leaning politics

The Sad Puppies are trying to claim the opposite: that they were shunned and unwelcome at cons because of being conservative and religious.

It honestly seems like this whole thing stems from Larry Correia having a bad con experience, then deciding to ruin the Hugos.

If people within the community formed that opinion after reading Monster Hunter International I can sort of see where they are coming from, since it seems like Correia wrote himself as the main character and the main character comes off as a huge asshole. Still, I'm interested in the context of these things and why he doesn't see that it isn't doing him any favors by being the exact sort of asshole people accused him of being.

 

[HK-47]

So apparently people who were on the sad puppies slate have been attacked on social media even if they arent apart of this movement themselves. Thats really disappointing to hear if true.

 

[Dresden]

Two of the rabid puppies nominees got disqualified:

Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, has made changes to the final Hugo ballot to reflect eligibility rulings by Hugo administrator John Lorentz.

“Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” by John C. Wright was previously published on a web site in 2013 prior to its inclusion in The Book of Feasts & Seasons in 2014, so it is not eligible for the 2015 Novelette Hugo.

Jon Eno did not publish any qualifying artwork in 2014, so he is not eligible for the 2015 Professional Artist Hugo

Replacing Wright’s novelette on the ballot is “The Day The World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Lightspeed Magazine, April 2014).

Kirk DouPonce has been elevated to take Eno’s place in the Best Professional Artist category.

Doesn't stop that particular slate from ruining the awards, but having less of it is good.

 

[Toxi]

Two of the rabid puppies nominees got disqualified:

Doesn't stop that particular slate from ruining the awards, but having less of it is good.

Honestly makes me wonder if the Sad Puppy folk knew some of their nominees were ineligible.

 

[whatsinaname]

GRRM has another post up, this one examining the claims of the sad puppies and pretty much conclusively proving that there was no real trend of any of the things they claimed happening in previous Hugo awards.

Obvious, of course, but it's good to see it all put out in the open, and it's nice to see Martin taking these guys to task.

More GRRM posts.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/418310.html

Each of my posts is focused on a specific aspect of the Hugo/ Sad Puppy controversy, and that's what the comments should address.

I do not want to have to deal with long (or short) posts about GamerGate, the Tea Party, affirmative action, the Constitution, rape on campus, or any of the other myriad issues that people are beginning to drag into this. All topics worthy of discussion, to be sure, and maybe we will discuss them at some point... but not now, please.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/418643.html

I hate what the Puppies did. It was based on false premises, and though it was not illegal, it was mean-spirited and unsportsmanlike. So how about we do NOT prove them right by rigging the rules against Sad Puppies 4? How about we try to be better than that? There is nothing wrong with the Hugo rules. If we want to defeat the Puppies, all we need to do is outvote them. Get in our own nominations. This year, the Puppies emptied the kennels and got out their vote, and we didn't. Fandom danced the usual, "oh, too busy to nominate, I will just vote on the final ballot," and for that complacency, we got blindsided. We lost. They kicked our fannish asses, and now we have the ballot they gave us. If we don't want that to happen again, we need to get out our OWN vote.

Oh, and there's another (lesser, admittedly) reason not to change the Hugo rules. The Nebulas. I have been a SFWA member since 1972, and I swear, the organization spends half its time arguing about the Nebula rules, year after year, decade after decade. I have seen a dozen "reforms" in my tenure, all in the interests of making the voting "more fair," but no matter what rules we adopt, a couple years later the bitching starts and members start demanding we change them again. It's endless. We do NOT want to open that Pandora's Box at worldcon. Change the rules to deal with the Sad Puppies, and a year or two from now we'll be changing again. Aside from adding the occasional category, or splitting one, the Hugo Awards have operated more or less the same way for decades, and that stability is part of their prestige. Let's not mess with that.

I have looked over the ballot, but I have not read all of it. Will I read all of it? Well, not every word.... but I will at least glance at every nomination. I know, from past experience, that there are some very talented writers on the list. There are also some very bad writers, and at least one whose picture probably appears next to MEDIOCRE in Websters. There are a lot of writers I have never read before, whose work I need to sample. Torgensen has claimed that the Sad Puppies slate is diverse, and a cursory glance at the names suggests he is not wrong.

He added some thought on GamerGate and Hatespeech on the internet in general too.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/419232.html

And a response to Correia.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/420090.html