Yeah, it’s all Rabid Puppies this year. As it was last year, actually.
Last year, the Sad Puppies put together a slate of works they thought deserved the award. Their complaint about the Hugos was that they had become a bastion for “political correctness.” Yet when asked to give examples, they could only point to one story that got a nomination and didn’t win (and couldn’t possibly have won). Any listing of Hugo winners showed there were plenty of stories that they would have loved, but they kept repeating that nonsense to all and sundry, even saying that they wanted space opera or dragons (seemingly ignorant of the fact that science fiction always has had a political element – often very liberal).
So they created the slate (they had tried before, but it had no effect). Due to the nature of the balloting, a slate has a major advantage.*
But even last year, the Sad Puppies had little effect on the process. It was the Rabid Puppies, a ugly a group as you’ve come across – the misogyny is only scratching the surface – who ran with the Sad Puppies slate (there were clear signs of coordination) plus added some things of their own. The Rabid Puppy slate was what took over the Hugos this year and last.
The same thing will happen this year: many of the categories will end up with “No Award.” Last year set a record for how many awards were not given (there were never more than one in any given year; there were five last year).
The Sad Puppies actually dropped out of the slate process this year, giving a recommended list (something that’s unobjectionable; recommended reading lists are common) but not a slate. Despite their bluster, I think they realize that they hurt the genre and made fools of themselves.
*There are hundreds of novels and stories to choose from. People making an honest assessment scatter their votes; a slate votes as a bloc. The Hugos are open to anyone buying a membership in Worldcon and if you get enough people to vote your work, you can get it on the ballot (it’s happened at least twice before, but for single works, not an entire slate).
I actually get to vote this year, so I’ve got a pile of reading to catch up on. Unfortunately, their little list happens to be on the bottom of my pile and I might not get to it before it’s time to cast my ballot.
Too bad, so sad.
Y’know, when this same thing came up before, somehow I got a vibe that reminded me of Gamergate. Is it just coincidence that both happened in roughly the same time period?
My impression, reading press accounts, is that it’s essentially the same cultural segment. Explicitly “anti-SJW”. Very much culturally conservative; pushing very hard against the perceived infringements on the “traditional order”. Reactionary, really, harking back to the not-so-golden Golden Age.
Also, as savvy as the Gamergate crowd on how to game the systems they function in to exaggerate their influence.
I appreciate hard SF, space opera, and high fantasy as much as any SF reader. However, I also love Ursula Le Guin’s work, which is exactly the kind of literature the Puppies movement is trying to de-emphasize.
From the article linked in the OP:
There is no separate page on the Rabid Puppies. However, the page on the Hugo Awards says:
Which seems a sufficiently neutral and Wikipedish account of the matter.
Man, I am getting thoroughly sick of these SIWs.
There’s a little bit of wheat among the chaff of the Hugo nominees this year. I wouldn’t be surprised if Seveneves gets it, or Ancillary Mercy, and for Novella, Penric’s Demon or Slow Bullets. Really, there’s not much objectionable in the Novel or Novella category. Best Related Work more than makes up for it.
Basically, what the puppies did this year with a bunch of categories was put up a slate of authors who were well known/going to get nominated anyway, so they could take credit for it.
Uprooted is pretty fun stuff. The Fifth Season is flippin fantasic and deserves to win (at least among the three that I’ve read on the novel list).
But The Aeronaut’s Windlass? I’m a Jim Butcher fan; I squee whenever I get my hands on a Dresden book. But The Aeronaut’s windlass was a giant pile of steaming cliche, as though he knew he had bills to pay and said, “What fads can I tap into? Steampunk, check; crystal magic, check; talking fucking cats, check check check.” So bad. Is this the Sad Puppy contribution?
Well, this year, the Sad Puppies basically paralleled the regular Hugo process. People were allowed to nominate whoever they wanted (even authors who were anathema to the Puppies last year) and then voted on who’d be their recommendations (they avoided the word “slate”). So it’s not surprising there were parallels.
This year, though, the issue isn’t the sad puppies – it’s the rabid puppies. There will be many “no awards” again.
Supposedly, they are taking steps to prevent this in the future (it takes two years to change Hugo rules, so it couldn’t go into effect this year). I haven’t been following what the proposal is, and I’m skeptical there can’t be a way to get around it.
Right, but even the Rabid Puppies list is pretty…conventional, for the most part. Here’s their best novel picks:
Seveneves is one of those novels everybody knew would get a nomination. Butcher’s book, maybe not, but he’s a popular enough author that it’s not a surprise. Golden Son was a best seller. Agent of the Imperium is maybe a surprise, and probably doesn’t fit my “major author or best seller” thing . Somewither is probably the only real “Puppies” book, written by John C Wright and published by Beale’s publishing house.
So, the Rabid Puppies’ Novellas:
Fear of the Unknown and Self-Loathing in Hollywood, Nick Cole, Tales of Tinfoil
Penric’s Demon, Lois McMaster Bujold, Spectrum
Perfect State, Brandon Sanderson, Dragonsteel Entertainment
The Builders, Daniel Polansky, Tor.com
Slow Bullets, Alastair Reynolds, Tachyon Publications
Bujold, Sanderson, and Reynolds are all popular authors and Bujold’s won the Hugo four times already. Sanderson is the person picked to finish up Robert Jordan’s series, and won the Hugo once. Alastair Reynolds is enormously popular. Polansky and Cole I’m not so sure about.
You’re right about Novel and Novella, but look at related work:
Between Light and Shadow: An Exploration of the Fiction of Gene Wolfe, 1951 to 1986 by Marc Aramini (Castalia House)
“The First Draft of My Appendix N Book” by Jeffro Johnson (castaliahouse.com)
“Safe Space as Rape Room” by Daniel Eness (castaliahouse.com)
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police by Vox Day (Castalia House)
“The Story of Moira Greyland” by Moira Greyland (askthebigot.com)
All but the last published by Vox Day. The first may be a respectable critical work; I don’t know. The last one, despite the website name, is an account of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s pedophilia and how it affected her daughter; raw stuff, but a worthwhile choice. The other three . . .
There are other poor choices (SciPhi Journal for semiprozine – I reviewed a couple of issues this year and none rose above mediocre). And, of course, Vox Day for editor.
In any case, there are choices in most categories that aren’t embarrassments to the genre. The one issue is that since the Sad Puppies are involved, some people may “no award” good works because of the association (one author has already withdrawn his story because it was associated with them).
It is in part. But it goes on…
It’s possible to be appalled at her abuse, and also to be appalled at how the real point of her essay is to equate all gay folks with pedophiles. There’s a reason it’s on the website “askthebigot.com.”
Oh, I agree with you that things like Related Work, Semiprozine, Fanzine, etc are just Rabid Puppies stuff. (Their editor picks, with the exception of Vox Day, obviously, aren’t bad ones, really, and I think Toni Weisskopf probably deserves it, for the stuff she did at Baen, and I sort of hope Mike Resnick gets it, just because I like Mike Resnick, even though I haven’t actually read Galaxy’s Edge, and if he gets any more Hugos, he’ll probably need to buy a new place to store them all. Edmund Schubert withdrew his name from nomination, and his letter explaining why is worth reading.)
The thing is, though, stuff like Best Semiprozine isn’t the stuff that most people pay attention to. They focus on the story categories. I think one of two things is probably going to happen, both of which are unfortunate. People are just going to No Award everything because of the connection, which means some quality stuff will get passed over. Or, people are going to pick the popular stuff, it’s going to win, and Rabid Puppies will declare victory.
Correction to my last post…Resnick was a best editor nominee for last year.
Nobody has mentioned this Chuck Tingle interview? Dopers, I am disappointed in y’all.
I read her her post, the Story of Moira Greyland, and I find myself in agreement. I am appalled that she suffered such horrific abuse, and also at how thoroughly twisted she appears to have become. She is “allowed” to be a victim, but " NOT ALLOWED" to blame homosexuality for the warped behavior of two fucked up individuals? Imagine that.
Were I on the Hugo committee, I would be arguing strongly for a cancellation of this year’s awards. All of them.
If the process has been contaminated, the results are not going to be meaningful.