What an auspicious week to begin a new series! After writing about mysteries for over three and a half years, I have decided to expand my horizons and broaden the parameters of the weekly series once known as Monday Murder Mystery. From now on, I will be writing about other books as well as mysteries. And occasionally, about the industry itself. Like this week.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Hugo Awards and how it has metamorphosized over the past couple of years into a new front in our ongoing culture wars, my April post, Freeping the Hugo Awards written when the prestigious Hugo Award nominations were announced, covers the main outline.
Briefly, certain writers, of the generally white male persuasion, felt that the Hugo Awards had become too inclusive, and decided to do something about it. Specifically, to start a war. Over genre fiction. Which come to think of it, is not a bad reason to start a war and beats lies about weapons of mass destruction hands down.
More details below the fold.
Writers, including women and minorities, who were winning the Hugo Awards, were writing "what if" stories that expanded the genre to include women and minorities as leading characters. Science fiction was no longer restricted to space operas (fortunately, there are still writers producing those) but included new worlds of wonder. As I wrote this spring:
[T]he world of science fiction and fantasy is changing. It is becoming more inclusive. Women are no longer decorative objects with whom white male heroes can sexually celebrate the slaying of a dragon. People of color can now captain starships and people of the same sex can fall in love during an interstellar voyage.
Which is exactly why the head of this year's effort, Brad Torgersen, feels that there is a problem.
In the last decade we’ve seen Hugo voting skew more and more toward literary (as opposed to entertainment) works. Some of these literary pieces barely have any science fictional or fantastic content in them. Likewise, we’ve seen the Hugo voting skew ideological, as Worldcon and fandom alike have tended to use the Hugos as an affirmative action award: giving Hugos because a writer or artist is (insert underrepresented minority or victim group here) or because a given work features (insert underrepresented minority or victim group here) characters.
There was much talk of ballot rigging by the Social Justice Warriors, aka, the rational men and women who believed that the new century was, well, a new century. Of course, the little dogs could never prove that such a conspiracy existed, because such a conspiracy didn't exist in the real world, but was the invention of their wobbly white male egos when confronted with the fact that no one liked their work very much. At least not as much as they liked the work of the writers who were being nominated for, and winning, Hugo Awards.
In order to protect their tradition of white male entitlement, and to combat the preferences of the majority of fans, Brad Torgersen, with Larry Correia and Theodore Beale (aka Vox Day) decided to run closed slates of nominees for this year's Hugo Awards. They were closed slates since they were determined by Brad Torgersen and Theodore Beale. Word of the movement spread to right wing websites such as that notorious gathering place of right wing anger and hate, Breitbart.com.
Since not many people nominate, it was fairly easy for these small dogs to rig the nominating ballot, filling it for the most part, with their chosen candidates. This produced a ballot that stunned most of fandom, not only for who was on it (who??) but who had been left off of it.
Freeping of the system resulted in an initial list of nominees for Best Novel that looked like this:
Skin Game* by Jim Butcher
Monster Hunter Nemesis* by Larry Correia
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
Lines of Departure* by Marko Kloos
The Dark Between the Stars* by Kevin J. Anderson
* Slate nominees
First-time Hugo nominee, Marko Kloos, declined to accept the nomination for his work of military science fiction, Lines of Departure, due to its inclusion on the rabid puppy slate.
It has come to my attention that “Lines of Departure” was one of the nomination suggestions in Vox Day’s “Rabid Puppies” campaign. Therefore—and regardless of who else has recommended the novel for award consideration—the presence of “Lines of Departure” on the shortlist is almost certainly due to my inclusion on the “Rabid Puppies” slate. For that reason, I had no choice but to withdraw my acceptance of the nomination. I cannot in good conscience accept an award nomination that I feel I may not have earned solely with the quality of the nominated work.
I also wish to disassociate myself from the originator of the “Rabid Puppies” campaign. To put it bluntly: if this nomination gives even the appearance that Vox Day or anyone else had a hand in giving it to me because of my perceived political leanings, I don’t want it. I want to be nominated for awards because of the work, not because of the “right” or “wrong” politics.
Larry Correia also declined his nomination, but for different reasons. Those actions allowed the following two novels to join the shortlist and ballot for Best Novel:
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin
Which was very handy since the winner was Liu Cixin for The Three Body Problem.
The Hugo votes resulted in this ranking:
1. Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin
2. Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
3. Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
4. No Award
5. Skin Game by Jim Butcher
6. The Dark Between the Stars by Kevin J. Anderson
Under the Hugo Award voting rules, a voter is allowed to rank the nominees and "No Award" is allowed if the voter feels that no nominee is worthy of his/her vote. No Award beat out the two remaining puppy nominees in the Best Novel category.
After the awards are announced, the long list of nominations is released by the Hugo Awards Committee. Using the statistics provided in that pdf, and removing the slate nominees of the Sad/Mad Puppies, gives us the following long list for Best Novel:
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin
Lock In by John Scalzi
City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
The Martian by Andy Weir
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
My Real Children by Jo Walton
The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
Annihilation by Jeff Vandemeer
We will never know if the top five of these would have made the final ballot had the little puppies not tried to rig the selection; it is likely that a few of the names on their slate might have made the top five on their own merit. Sadly, we will never know.
But for those who, like me, enjoy the Hugo short list as a means to build up that towering TBR pile, this long list serves the purpose this year that the short list provided in years past.
The No Award option was selected a record breaking number of times this year, and it swept the five categories that only included puppy nominees: Best Novella, Best Short Story, Best Related Work, Best Editor, short form, and Best Editor, long form.
Here is the long list of the Best Novella nominees, excluding the rigged slate:
The Slow Regard of Silent Things by by Patrick Rothfuss
The Regular by by Ken Liu
Yesterday’s Kin by Nancy Kress
Grand Jete (The Great Leap) by Rachel Swirsky
The Mothers of Voorhisville by Mary Rickert
We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory
Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome by John Scalzi
Dream Houses by Genevieve Valentine
Where the Trains Turn by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
Legion: Skin Deep by Brandon Sanderson
In the Best Novelette category, there was one non-slate nominee who slipped in when a slate nominee was disqualified. That nominee, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, won the Hugo for his work, "The Day the World Turned Upside Down." No Award beat out the other slate nominees in that category. Here is the Best Novelette long list sans puppies:
"The Day the World Turned Upside Down" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
"Each to Each" by Seanan McGuire
"The Devil In America" by Kai Ashante Wilson
"The Litany of Earth" by Ruthana Emrys
"The Magician and Laplace’s Demon" by Tom Crosshill
"A Year and a Day in Old Therandane" by Scott Lynch
"The Bonedrake’s Penance" by Yoon Ha Lee
"Spring Festival: Happiness, Anger, Love, Sorrow, Joy" by Xia Jia
"We are the Cloud" by Sam J. Miller
"A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i" by Alaya Dawn Johnson
"The Husband Stitch" by Carmen Maria Machado
Best Short Story long list, again, sans slate nominees who were all defeated by No Award:
"Jackalope Wives" by Ursula Vernon
"The Breath of War" by Aliette de Bodard
"The Truth About Owls" by Amal El-Mohtar
"When it Ends, He Catches Her" by Eugie Foster
"A Kiss With Teeth" by Max Gladstone
"Covenant" by Elizabeth Bear
"Toad Words" by Ursula Vernon
"Makeisha in Time" by Rachael K. Jones
"The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family" by Usman T. Malik
"This Chance Planet" by Elizabeth Bear
In the Best Short Story category, as in the Best Novel category, a first time nominee, Annie Bellet, turned down her nomination.
Bellet said she was withdrawing “because this has become about something very different than great science fiction. I find my story, and by extension myself, stuck in a game of political dodgeball, where I’m both a conscripted player and also a ball … My fiction is my message, not someone else’s, and I refuse to participate in a war I didn’t start.”
The John W Campbell Award is given to the best new writer in the genre, and this year it went to Wesley Chu, the only non-puppy name to appear on the ballot. No Award took position #2. Here is the long list with the slate nominees not included:
Wesley Chu
Andy Weir
Alyssa Wong
Carmen Maria Marchado
Django Wexler
Usman T. Malik
Sam J. Miller
Isabel Yap
Brian McClellan
Helene Wecker
JY Yang
Rachael K. Jones
Other winners of note from Saturday's announcement include Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, which was won by Guardians of the Galaxy Screenplay by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman; Directed by James Gunn. The Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form was won by Orphan Black: By Means Which Have Never Been Tried Yet . I don't know how much impact the appearance of Guardians of the Galaxy on a puppy slate had, but in this category I doubt that it was much.
2015 Hugo Award Winners
Best Novel: The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu
Best Novella: No Award
Best Novelette: "The Day the World Turned Upside Down" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
Best Short Story: No Award
Best Related Work: No Award
Best Graphic Story: "Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal"
Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: "Guardians of the Galaxy"
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: "Orphan Black: By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried"
Best Editor, Short Form: No Award
Best Editor, Long Form: No Award
Best Professional Artist: Julie Dillon
Best Semiprozine: Lightspeed Magazine
Best Fanzine: Journey Planet
Best Fancast: Galactic Suburbia Podcast
Best Fan Writer: Laura J. Mixon
Best Fan Artist: Elizabeth Leggett
John W. Campbell Award: Wesley Chu
For more results, check out the Hugo pdf. It breaks down the nomination and final votes. An initial analysis of the impact of the puppy campaign on the Hugo voting can be found here.
This year, 5,950 ballots were cast, an increase of 65 percent over the previous high record. Which means that controversy is good for the Hugos. Even better for the Hugos however, was the stinging rebuke given to the slate composers by those 5,950 voters.
The right wing in this country has made tremendous strides in dictating our national agenda. They have been successful only because of the huge numbers of low information voters and the zealous fanatics that make up the Republican base (see Donald Trump). Clearly thinking that the same tactics applied at Worldcon, the puppies were able to rile up their angry base, but failed to realize that readers, by their very nature, can never, ever be considered low information voters.
Do not ever try to play a reader for a fool
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