Odd. I’d have thought that this year’s Hugo shortlist was pretty much uncontroversial. I mean, we have a healthy representation of women and writers of colour, most of the nominations went to works and writers that are popular or at least talked about, there are very few “What the Fuck?” nominees compared with other years (e.g. last year’s nominees included a filk CD and a Hugo acceptance speech from the previous year). Sure, there still are issues, particularly with certain categories, but there always are issues.
Which is why I was surprised to find that this year’s Hugo slate is apparently considered highly controversial in certain corners of the SFF community.
Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there arecomment(s); comment here or there.
- Cora Buhlert's Hugo Nomination Reactions or Why the Fuck is this Controversial?
james_nicoll- April 4th, 2013
I have relatively little sympathy for the whining that the Hugo's are priced out of the range of most people, if you have a wide, internet based polling system - which seems to be the preferred option on Justin Landon's blog, I suspect that by the time you invoked rules to cull the nominations down to a voting list it would look pretty damn similar and secondly, as Cora notes, at this stage John Scalzi's shopping list would get on that list AND win. (Although I think John would be unhappy about that...)
I'm a relatively well off bundle of white, middle class, male privilege, and in nearly 20 years of convention going I've only been to 4 Worldcons (1 UK, 1 Canada, 2 US). I am fully aware of the expense. I'm not doing San Antonio so I can definitely do London. Would I like to go to more and vote in more? Sure. I can't.
Would a low cost 'Voting' membership be worth considering? Maybe something with geographical discounts to handle the First World privilege... hadn't thought much about it, but it might be an interesting experience.
My gut tells me that people wouldn't bother to pay for a voting only membership even if it was virtually free.
Edited at 2013-04-04 04:28 pm (UTC)
Silly me, I thought Scalzi was nominated because he consistently tells entertaining stories in a thoughtful manner. De gustibus...
That said, I didn't like Redshirts.
Sorry, his books are the Cheez Puffs of modern science fiction.
[i]Captain Vorpatril's Alliance[/i] is a fun, fluffy book but nowhere near Bujold's best. It doesn't deserve to be nominated for the Hugo unless there was really nothing at all interesting published last year.
Having [i]three[/i] separate Doctor Who episodes nominated is ridiculous. [i]The Angels Take Manhatten[/i] was awful. [i]The Snowmen[/i] was mediocre. [i]Asylum of the Daleks[/i] could make a case for being Hugo-worthy, in a lean year for TV SF. It's not as good as the Doctor Who episodes that have won in the past, but it's not actually competing against them.
You may already know this, I'm just clarifying for my own sake really, but it was Landon who made the claim about female LJers skewing the Doctor Who votes. And I don't think Buhlert was even discussing that theory's validity but was simply pointing out that it was yet another example of Landon's condescension.
Where?
I'm not sure I agree; as daveon notes, we've had similar runs of popularity, and in a few years it'll be some other show's turn to be The Big Thing.
Having said that...why those three? None of them are great (although Asylum of the Daleks had much going for it); Doctor Who can be much better.
Bruce
Steven Brust, China Mieville, Iain Banks, Ken MacLeod, Eric Flint?
Is all the problem with McGuire sexist? I'm sure some of it is. I tried one of her books and thought it was dull, so I'm a bit surprised to see her covering as much of the nomination slate as she does. But I wasn't all that surprised because the Hugo in general continues to be less and less relevant to my own tastes as a reader. And that's fine--it's a club award for a club I'm not in. But the conversation about the Hugo always cycles back to descriptors like "most prestigious" and "the fandom award" and so forth--as though even I as just-a-reader ought to be impressed by this--and those things aren't essential properties of any award, they're goals. In fact they're moving targets. Awards in other disciplines go to a lot of effort to remain relevant and prestigious, or to stay representative of the state of the field as a whole; if these are important things for the Hugo to be, it seems to me that sooner or later somebody's going to have to put some more thought into how to do them, as readership and conversations become global. If the most important thing is to represent the popular opinion of WorldCon members, then it's fine as it is.
Well, I think it's more that that is infact what they are and they do... that people have grandiose visions for the Hugo's is a separate thing.
On a more serious note, it's cyclical, I think, so that different Worldcon's in different places tend to result in slightly different awards - but as I've said elsewhere, I suspect that a wider poll of the entire interwebs would trend towards similar results.
Most of the blood letting, however, seems to be around the fan awards, and the fact is, the fan awards are awards for and by fans who attend the Worldcon - end of, that's it. If you aren't known to Worldcon fandom, or part of it, the probability of getting a nod or a rocketship is practically zero. Much of the complaining I'm seeing out there is less about the merits of 'Best Novel' (although it's out there) but more along the lines of "I'm a fan who writes fannish stuff.... why are they ignoring my brilliance."
Here are my numbers. Note that awards where I've only read a small number of winners or nominees will skew high, since it means I've not done a comprehensive evaluation of the award and instead have only read the books that I heard good things about from people I trust that happened to also win that award. But the numbers for Hugo and Nebula winners are complete and the numbers for the nominees are fairly comprehensive.
For me personally, the Nebulas destroy the Hugos as a predictor of things I'll like, with the Locus SF poll falling in-between. Note that the average rating for the whole nominee slates is almost exactly identical to the average rating for the winners, too, which I found fascinating and reinforces the belief that the winner is an almost arbitrary choice among the short list. (It's not uncommon for my least favorite book in the short list to win, as happened in 2011.)
Bulhert's asking why the Hugo is controversial this year, in spite of it being inclusive and representative. That's implying that the *only* issue possible with the award is representation of different population groups, and is making an assumption that the arguments fielded by Landon or Moher are recent, while in fact I remember seeing similar sentiment expressed in Cheap Truth back in the early 80's (to be fair, I read those online in the 90's - I was too young at the time).
At no point does she address the actual point Landon et al. were making - that there is a lack of diversity in the type of works nominated and a small pool of names that are sure to get nominated. Simply assuming that since a work of SF has been written by someone who is not a christian white male it is therefore new and challenging and unique and worthy of an award is just as biased as the opposite. I didn't like his Jab at Bojuld (her Challion nominations and wins are well deserved) but I have to agree that Vorkosigan novels are nominated almost automatically regardless of merit. My only point of disagreement with Landon is that I'm sure the same could have been said of Heinlein himself at some point.
She's also being a little bit dishonest. Consider the following paragraphs:
"Now it’s telling that Justin Landon only singles out the two female nominees in the best novel category for criticism, even though he doesn’t seem to like John Scalzi’s Redshirts either."
"To be fair to Justin Landon, it’s not just the women he singles out for criticism. No, he also complains about Larry Correia"
"In fact, I strongly suspect that Justin Landon has a serious problem with urban fantasy – the subgenre to which both Seanan McGuire’s and Larry Correia’s work belong"
So, we have four authors that Landon addresses: Bojuld, Correira, Scalzi, McGuire. Two are male. Two are female. Two belong in the Urban Fantasy genre. Two don't. But, by grouping them creatively in such a way she presents a case that Landon's criticism is aimed at women - or perhaps urban fantasy - when in fact this is not the case at all.